"Mirthful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be remembered with gratitude long after the name of the Sweet Singer of Michigan shall have rotted in oblivion. He recognized and stuck to his proper spear. (This is a little mirthful ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... and of Mrs. Ramirez were heard in the courtyard. Clementina made a warning yet girlishly mirthful gesture, again caught his hand, drew him quickly to the French window, and slipped through it with him into the garden, where they were quickly lost in the ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... fallen when they took the saddle. The merchants were very loud and mirthful; each had a face like a nor'-west moon; and they played pranks with each other's horses, and mingled songs and choruses, and alternately remembered and forgot the companion of their ride. Otto thus combined society and solitude, hearkening ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lit up her countenance with a sweetness, a loveliness, which was strange, and sometimes startling, from the brilliancy of its expression. A ruddy glow, like the blush of a summer sunset, dwelt in either cheek, and a slight contraction at both corners of the mouth gave her face a half-mirthful look; but her forehead, full in the upper and lateral portions, seemed almost too severely intellectual for the other features. She possessed a wealth of luxuriant black hair, which she had a quaint method of coiling around her head in a single massive braid, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... guests, His Royal Highness at her side! life in free, joyous happy England—how infinitely remote it now seemed. Her ears were filled with the sound of a voice, drawly and quaint and gentle, a voice and a laugh half shy, wholly mirthful, and oh! ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... limb; with a countenance extremely winning, not only from the comeliness of its features, but its frankness, manliness, and good nature. His was the bronzed, rich complexion, the inclination towards embonpoint, the athletic girth of chest, which denote redundant health, and mirthful temper, and sanguine blood. Robert, who had lived the life of cities, was a year younger than his brother; nearly as tall, but pale, meagre, stooping, and with a careworn, anxious, hungry look, which made the smile that hung upon his lips seem hollow and artificial. His dress, ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in his maddest mirthful mood, Strange pangs would flash along Childe Harold's brow, As if the memory of some deadly feud Or disappointed passion lurked below: But this none knew, nor haply cared to know; For his was not that open, artless soul That feels relief by bidding sorrow flow; Nor sought he friend to counsel or ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... my knight again," she said, her face suddenly lighting up. "But come; let us join the others, for they seem to have hit upon a very mirthful ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... Ha, ha, ha! ho, ho, ho! haw, haw, haw!" shouted a mirthful voice, while an indescribably comic face, half cat and half baby, appeared for a single glimpse above the burdock leaf behind which the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... the deep-mouthed pack of fox hounds opened loud and wild, far in the ringing woods, and it was like the music of a hundred chiming bells. There was a tremor of the bow, and I heard a flute play, and a harp, and a golden-mouthed cornet; I heard the mirthful babble of happy voices, and peals of laughter ringing in the swelling tide of pleasure. Then I saw a vision of snowy arms, voluptuous forms, and light fantastic slippered feet, all whirling and floating in the mazes of the misty dance. The flying fingers now tripped ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... dames of ancient days Have led their children through the mirthful maze, And the gray grandsire, skilled in gestic lore, Has frisked beneath ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... too, which, after trying it unsatisfactorily upon Marcia, he plied almost exclusively for Olive. He made puns; he asked conundrums; he had all the accomplishments which keep people going in a lively, mirthful, colonial society; and he had the idea that he must pay attentions and promote repartee. His wife and he played into each other's hands in their jeux d'esprit; and kept Olive's inquiring Boston mind at work in the vain endeavor to account for and to place ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... are new, and you aren't pestered with wimmin and children, p'r'aps you'll go," said Tryan, with a nervous twitching, intended for a smile, about a mouth not remarkably mirthful. ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... themselves absolutely within the precincts of Whitehall, passing along corridors where fine-feathered gallants and royal lackeys and pages walked hither and thither, and where their appearance excited some mirthful curiosity, although nobody spoke openly ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... lo! the sacred sheiling In that old wynd of St. Marie— The window where with mirthful feeling He tap't the sign to Marjorie. He sought the lobby dark and narrow, Groped gently for the well-known door, Where he might hear of his winsome marrow, Who died there many ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... mock both her and himself. She was weary and dreary, but probably only because she wanted her bed. It was a mistake, as a rule, to attribute to her other than the simplest desires. The moment we were outside, Wetter turned on me with a savagely mirthful expression of ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... beard and mirthful eyes, who stood in the driveway, had just dismounted from a shining buggy. Doubt and astonishment were apparently holding ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... one of the first names on the lengthening list of those who were to be admitted at all sorts of hours. Reed Opdyke accepted him in mirthful gratitude to the Providence which had arranged so equable a quid pro quo. Prather was manifestly out for copy, despite his constant disavowals of what he termed an envious slander hatched by Philistine minds. Reed Opdyke's sense of humour was still sufficiently acute ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... evening of Richard's stay was not sad. Dr. Harlowe and Mr. Somerville were with us; and though the events with which he had been associated had somewhat sobered the doctor's mirthful propensities, the geniality of his character ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... prayer; he had almost closed the gate, when the duke, whom hunger and fatigue made desperate, rushed by him, and passed into the court. It was his intention to present himself to the Superior, and he had not proceeded far when the sound of laughter, and of many voices in loud and mirthful jollity, attracted his steps. It led him through several passages to a door, through the crevices of which light appeared. He paused a moment, and heard within a wild uproar of merriment and song. He was struck with astonishment, and ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... then seemed, with a chearful grace. Young prattling Maiden, on the Thames' fair side, Enlivening pleasant Sunbury with your smiles, Time may have changed you: coy reserve, or pride, To sullen looks reduced those mirthful wiles. I will not 'bate one smile on that clear brow, But take of Time a rigorous account, When next I see you; and Maria now Must be the Thing she was. To what amount These verses else?—all hollow ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... himself go and enjoy himself over Gilbert Gurney's river adventure. If the revival of the Whartons' book were to serve no other purpose than to send some laughter loving souls to the heady well-spring of Theodore Hook's merriment, it would have done the mirthful a good turn and ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... is cumulatively irresistible; in description and narration realistically picturesque and fascinating; and he has the natural instinct for narration which gives vigorous movement and climax. Indignation and contempt often make his style burn with passion, and humor, fierce or bitterly mirthful, often enlivens it ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... Ambrose's dressing room at Hall's, and chuckled, as he came within sight of the river, to see the freshmen's boat in which he generally performed, go plunging away past the University barge, keeping three different times with four oars, and otherwise demeaning itself so as to become an object of mirthful admiration to all beholders. ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... change everything. Theresa provided her with what was necessary, and I prevailed upon her to forget her dignity and partake of a rustic collation, with which she seemed highly satisfied. It was late, and her stay was short; but the interview was so mirthful that it pleased her, and she seemed disposed to return. She did not however put this project into execution until the next year: but, alas! the delay was not favorable ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... between character and money, and involves a matter of taste. Some people like character; I prefer money. If I am hated and despised, I chuckle over the "per contra." I find it pleasant for members of a proud aristocracy to condescend from their high estate to fawn, feign, flatter; to affect even mirthful familiarity in order to gain my good-will. I am no Shylock. No client can accuse me of desiring either his flesh or his blood. Sentimental vengeance is no item in my stock in trade. Gold and bank-notes satisfy my "rage;" or, if need be, a good mortgage. Far ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... of ancient days Have led their children through the mirthful maze And the gay grandsire skilled in gestic lore Has frisked beneath the ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... mistress, and to five or six marquises; for at Milan no noble who is not a marquis is thought anything of, just as in the same way they are all counts at Vicenza. The dinner was magnificent and the conversation highly intellectual. In a mirthful moment Canano said he had known me for seventeen years, his acquaintance dating from the time I had juggled a professional gamester, calling himself Count Celi, out of a pretty ballet-girl whom I had taken to Mantua. I confessed ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... a handsome, talented man, whose joyous disposition, and mirthful humour, could scarcely be trammelled down by the severe conventional rules of the Society to which he belonged. Adam's exquisite taste for music, and his great admiration for horses and dogs, savoured rather of ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... legends, biography, travels, history, political philosophy, poetry, and treatises upon morals, were all read and meditated upon by this young child. She had no taste for any childish amusements; and in the hours of recreation, when the mirthful girls around her were forgetting study and care in those games appropriate to their years, she would walk alone in the garden, admiring the flowers, and gazing upon the fleecy clouds in the sky. In all the beauties of ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... home Beth's disposition softened. Some of her school-friends had seen her smile—a wonderful and charming phenomenon, during which her expression grew sweet and bewitchingly animated and her brown eyes radiant with mirthful light. It was not the same Beth ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... kind to him, and had encouraged his staying. Therefore he stayed on. She pressed his hand when he first greeted her; and whispered to him little nothings. And then her eye, brilliant and bright, now mirthful, now melancholy, and invincible in either way! What man with warm feelings, blood unchilled, and a heat not guarded by a triple steel of experience could have withstood those eyes! The lady, it is true, intended to do ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... that move not, if they can, And useless arms, a trunk of man, He sits, and with a vacant eye; A sight to make a stranger sigh! 20 Deaf, drooping, that is now his doom: His world is in this single room: Is this a place for mirthful cheer? [3] Can merry-making enter ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... considered himself insulted, and challenged M. Asselin; he, moreover, insisted upon choosing the sword as a weapon—the most dangerous of all in a serious duel—and on the morning which should have been festive and mirthful, he fell dead in the wood near his home, killed by a ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... success to the infinite prudence of love; and they have their reward—that success in life which is failure. Like the tedious brief scene of young Pyramus and Thisbe, this is a poem of "very tragical mirth." And no less tragically mirthful is Dis Aliter Visum, a variation on the same or a kindred theme, where our young Bohemian sculptor is replaced by the elderly poet, bent, wigged, and lamed, but sure of the fortieth chair in the Academy, and the lone she-sparrow of the house-top by a young beauty, who adds to her other attractions ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... language must be choice, for aptness of expression and for melodious sound. Its form will embody the recurrence of rhythmic measures, which, however elaborated and varied in later times, originated in the dim past, when singing and dancing moved hand in hand for the vivid utterance of feeling—in mirthful joy and in woe, love and hate, worshipful devotion and mortal defiance, the fierceness of battle and the serenity of peace. While through all and over all must breathe the informing spirit of Beauty—whether of the delicate or the sublime, whether of sweetness or of power—harmonizing both the ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... the storm was so wild that nobody could go, so they gave up the attempt in despair. Anne, despite her love of and loyalty to Green Gables, could not help thinking longingly of Patty's Place, its cosy open fire, Aunt Jamesina's mirthful eyes, the three cats, the merry chatter of the girls, the pleasantness of Friday evenings when college friends dropped in to talk of ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Ethel laughed a queer, little, odd, supercilious note, summed up in a single word: "Ha!" There was nothing mirthful in it. There was no reproach in it. It was just an expression of her honest feeling at the bare suggestion ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... power of spring, It made him whistle, it made him sing; His heart was mirthful to excess, But the ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... Ted!" he said as his eyes filled, and he saw before him the great, bearded face with the kindly, mirthful eyes, and heard the deep, gruff voice. "How can I tell Jim—the boy ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... her soul in wild interest and new curiosity. Yet this childish friendship was so new and incomprehensible a thing to her that she did not know how to express it. At first she pounced upon him in mirthful, almost impish glee, teasing and mocking and half scaring him, despite his fifteen ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... hair. Baas Cogez, in the fulness of his heart, smiled on her through moistened eyes, and spoke of the way in which he would befriend her favourite companion; the house-mother sat with calm, contented face at the spinning-wheel; the cuckoo in the clock chirped mirthful hours. Amidst it all Patrasche was bidden with a thousand words of welcome to tarry there a cherished guest. But neither peace nor plenty could allure him where ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... Yet she this rashness suddenly repented And turned aside, and to herself lamented As if her name and honour had been wronged By being possessed of him for whom she longed. Ay, and she wished, albeit not from her heart That he would leave her turret and depart. The mirthful god of amorous pleasure smiled To see how he this captive nymph beguiled. For hitherto he did but fan the fire, And kept it down that it might mount the higher. Now waxed she jealous lest his love abated, Fearing her own thoughts made ...
— Hero and Leander • Christopher Marlowe
... the generous there is nothing like a walk down Bongent Street, where will be found many ingenious novelties designed especially for the mirthful anniversary which will so soon be on us with all its associations of peace and goodwill ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 23, 1914 • Various
... dancing with mirthful amusement, Lynette looked from one to the other of the unexpected visitors, and, tactfully changing the subject of the conversation, hoped that they were enjoying their trip?—a query which so obviously failed to evoke an expression of pleased assent in ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... the troopers of the escort that the carriage had the greatest success. They chuckled over it as if it had some hidden, mirthful significance. They addressed strange allusions to the lounging driver, and when they had ridden by they turned in their saddles and watched it out of sight at the risk of breaking their necks. They rode the sprucer for it; they were in better spirits for it. They laughed, they ...
— The Surrender of Santiago - An Account of the Historic Surrender of Santiago to General - Shafter, July 17, 1898 • Frank Norris
... Miss Bell's souvenir of her shattered ideal? That's the best thing in the letter —that's really supreme!" and Kendal, still broadly mirthful, stretched out his hand to take it again; but Janet drew ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... thinking it incumbent upon him to pay her a compliment. His daughter glanced inquiringly at Rowland, as if wondering what he could say to so dubious a speech. He appeared equally at a loss, and, as he turned from Mr Gwynne for a moment, caught Miss Gwynne's mirthful eye. He could not help smiling, ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... the fair hall-board, Carved to his uncle and that lord, And reverently took up the word. "Kind uncle, woe were we each one, If harm should hap to brother John. He is a man of mirthful speech, Can many a game and gambol teach; Full well at tables can he play, And sweep at bowls the stake away. None can a lustier carol bawl; The needfullest among us all, When time hangs heavy in the hall, And snow comes ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... quartets are ascribed to him. Needless to say, they differ considerably as regards their style and treatment, for the first was written so early as 1755, while the last belongs to his later years. But they are all characterized by the same combination of manly earnestness, rich invention and mirthful spirit. The form is concise and symmetrical, the part-writing is clear and well-balanced, and a "sunny sweetness" is the prevailing mood. As a discerning critic has remarked, there is nothing in the shape of instrumental music much pleasanter and easier to listen to than one ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... would he say, 'Ralph Dibble, thou art old; That doublet fit, 'twill keep thee from the cold: How does my sexton?- What! the times are hard; Drive that stout pig, and pen him in thy yard.' But most, his rev'rence loved a mirthful jest:- 'Thy coat is thin; why, man, thou'rt BARELY dress'd It's worn to th' thread: but I have nappy beer; Clap that within, and see how they will wear!' "Gay days were these; but they were quickly past: When first he came, ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... her humour, in turn mystical or mirthful, talkative, taciturn, passionate, careless, she awakened in him a thousand desires, called up instincts or memories. She was the mistress of all the novels, the heroine of all the dramas, the vague "she" ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... to the full, happy at heart, and proud of their eldest boy; his two young brothers looking up to him with such eager hope and love; the little sisters with their arms twined round his neck, and their fair hair falling over his shoulders; the noble, mirthful, fearless, thrice happy boy himself—a family circle unseparated by distance, unshadowed by sorrow, unbroken by death, seated in this exquisite scene on the lawn of their own happy ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... bedroom relatively clean, and, knowing that too much must not be expected at once, she made no comment. That night, as she sat reading at eleven o'clock, a strange sound arose in the back part of the house; it was a man's voice, hilariously mirthful and breaking into rude song. After listening for a few minutes, Miss Rodney rang her bell, and ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... Col. and Mrs. Donaldson were preparing gifts for their servants, not one of whom was forgotten, and Annie and I, and, by his own special request, Mr. Arlington, were arranging in proper order the gifts of that most considerate, mirthful and generous of spirits, Santa Claus. This morning the sun rose as clear and bright as though it, too, rejoiced in the joy of humanity; but long before the sun had showed himself, little feet were pattering from room to room, and childish voices ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... How brilliant and mirthful the light of her eye, Like a star glancing out from the blue of the sky! And lightly and freely her dark tresses play O'er a brow and a ...
— The Liberty Minstrel • George W. Clark
... unaffected lamentations when he lifts up his voice on high, or, more beautiful, the sobbing child,—the face all liquid grief, as he tries to swallow his vexation,—soften all hearts to pity, and to mirthful and clamorous compassion. The small despot asks so little that all reason and all nature are on his side. His ignorance is more charming than all knowledge, and his little sins more bewitching than any virtue. His flesh is ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... exclaimed Diana, with a laugh that had no mirthful music, "I will not be the exceptional idiot. If M. Lenoble does me the honour to repeat his offer—and I think from his manner he means to do so—I will ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... temptations to bid her waver now. Even Mrs. Hamilton's anxious bosom trembled not as she parted from the son of her affections, the preserver of her husband; and though Oakwood felt dull and gloomy on the first departure of the mischief-loving, mirthful sailor, it was not the gloom of sorrow. February passed, and Mrs. Hamilton's solicitude with regard to Emmeline still continued. There were times when, deceived by her daughter's manner, lively and playful apparently as usual, she permitted herself to feel less ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... decline, The fadeless blooms of youth are thine. Melodious insect, child of earth, In wisdom mirthful, wise in mirth; Exempt from every weak decay, That withers vulgar frames away; With not a drop of blood to stain, The current of thy purer vein; So blest an age is past by thee, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... ears; the face, however, retains a suggestion of the traditional satyr-type. "The whole statue, unlike anything else that ever was wrought in that severe material of marble, conveys the idea of an amiable and sensual creature— easy, mirthful, apt for jollity, yet not incapable of being touched by pathos." [Footnote: Hawthorne, "The Marble ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... annoyance to him, for he is uncommonly vain regarding his personal appearance. Knowing this, some of the boys delight in playing off jokes upon him. One day last week, Mr. Lawrence was leaning over a desk, working out a difficult example in Arithmetic, directly behind him was Ned Stanton, the most mirthful and fun-loving boy in the whole school. Ned took a match from his pocket and, first giving me a sly nudge to look, held it close to Mr. Lawrence's head, making believe to light it by his red curling locks. The act was so sudden and withal so comic that I burst out laughing before ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... lances at some wide-spread prejudice, or toy with the tangles of some mighty Naerea's hair. Undines and satyrs, cupids and merry fauns, may spring laughing from under the artist's hand, but it is from the unyielding marble that these slender children of his mirthful hours are carved. It was not in her infancy that Rome produced her Juvenal. Martial and Plautus caricatured the passions of humanity after Carthage had been destroyed and Julius Caesar had made of his tomb a city of palaces. Aristophanes wrote when Greece had her Parthenon ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Mrs. Richling's mirthful mood prompted her by and by to begin letting into her inquiries and comments covert double meanings, intended for her husband's private understanding. Thus they ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... No mirthful response lit either face. She read condemnation in both pairs of eyes. For the first time in her life she felt daunted, humiliated. She knew nothing more beyond the fact that in deliberate coquetry she had pitted brother against brother, and that ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... of you, To condescend to come this way, A highly learned man like you, To join our mirthful throng to-day. Our fairest cup I offer you, Which we with sparkling drink have crown'd, And pledging you, I pray aloud, That every drop ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... were joyful. And of all they had seen of food laid before them, and of all they had heard said, they remembered nothing; neither of that, nor of any sorrow whatsoever. There they remained fourscore years, unconscious of having ever spent a time more joyous and mirthful. And they were not more weary than when first they came, neither did they, any of them, know the time they had been there. It was not more irksome for them to have the head with them, than if Bran the Blessed had ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... to the Woman," exclaimed Rastignac. "She no longer has the quality of a spoken feuilleton—delightful calumnies graced by elegant language. We read feuilletons written in a dialect which changes every three years, society papers about as mirthful as an undertaker's mute, and as light as the lead of their type. French conversation is carried on from one end of the country to the other in a revolutionary jargon, through long columns of type printed in old mansions where ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... as I sat beside the sea, A little rippling wave stole up to me, And whispered softly, yet impressively, The word Eternity: I smiled, that anything so small should utter, A word the ocean in its wrath might mutter; And with a mirthful fancy, vainly strove, To suit its cadence to some word of love— But all the little wave would say to me, Was, ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... saw her lashes sweep up to unveil eyes at once mirthful and admonitory; her hungry mouth murmured incongruously an edged warning. "Play up, Paul—play up to me! We dance too well together not to be watched; and if I'm not mistaken, someone you're interested in has just come in. No: don't look yet, just remember we're madly enamoured, you ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... and after some mirthful chat, we resolved upon leaving the valley as soon as we could do so with a proper ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... by the warmth of the frieze coat, and his spirits, now that the dreadful scene into which he had been so unexpectedly cast had passed away without danger, began to rise so exuberantly that his conversation became quite loquacious and mirthful, if not actually, to a ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... forgotten. Stories crisp as snow-crust and edged with aptness, happy memories and reminiscences of frolic and fun, sly hits and keen retorts, jokes and laughter, rollicked around the table and shook it with mirthful explosions. The merriment was at its height when a loud summons sounded upon the door. It was so imperious as well as so unexpected that every noise was instantly hushed, and every face at the table was turned in surprise ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... there two or three minutes quite silent, then by a glance invited Bessie to come. "Life is so sweet," he said, "that I dare not risk marring it by what seems like cowardice; but I will be prudent, if only for the sake of the women who love me." There was the old mirthful light in Harry's eyes as he said the last ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... "Joe"—of the mirthful eye, and agile hand, and ready repartee—long may you flourish, mitigating the fierce summer thirst of many a parched palate; stimulating withered appetites till they hunger anew for the flesh-pots; warming the heart-cockles of departing voyagers till they laugh the keen breezes of the bay ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... the murky night, But a being of music, and joy, and light; If the fair moon sleep in her bower o'er long, I break on her rest with my mirthful song; And when she is shining o'er hill and heath, I dance in the revels of Gwyn ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... the shortest intervals between its seasons of enjoyment: and every time the sufferer has resolution to go forth to meet it, it penetrates to the very heart in glad surprise. The fields are better still; for there is the lark to fill up the hours with mirthful music; or, at worst, the robin and flocks of fieldfares, to show that the hardest day has its life and hilarity. But the calmest region is the upland, where human life is spread out beneath the bodily ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... and other wild songsters. At last they evoked the spirit of music in her. She took an oar with Burt, and they pulled, sang, and laughed together like careless, happy children. Yet more than once she shyly glanced at him, and queried, Could his flushed and mirthful face be that of the passionate lover and blighted youth of scarce a month since? Burt said something droll, and her laugh raised a musical echo against the steep rocks near. His wit was not its cause, but her own thought: "My plea was that I was ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... delight of a painter. Some of them were agape with surprise and amazement; others were agonized with sympathy for the poor minister; and others still were full of mirth, and would have laughed outright if they had not been in a religious meeting. As to myself, the whole matter took a mirthful turn. I had been in church before, when by some queer or grotesque conjunction of affairs, the whole audience lost self control. I had witnessed mistakes, blunders and accidents that would make even solemnity herself laugh, and remained serenely grave. But to see myself in the presence ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... is a point on which I am completely bewildered. I find that if for a month or two I steadily set myself to the unwearied pursuit of spirituality of mind and entire weanedness from the world, a sad reaction will follow. My efforts slightly relax, I indulge in mirthful or worldly (in the sense of not religious) conversation, delight in it, and find my health and spirits better for it. But then my spiritual appetites at once become less keen, and from conversation I ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... an Irishman who had served in the French army and had come over early in the war to the Colonies to make his way as a soldier of fortune. He seems to have been one of the typical Irishmen who had no sense of truth, who was talkative and boastful, and a mirthful companion. It happened that Washington received a letter from one of his friends which drew from him the ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... from the highest honours of Cambridge to preach and die in the fever-stricken solitude of Tokat; and "steel" in an earlier and even more memorable decision when Francis Xavier consecrated rank, learning, eloquence, wit, fascinating manners, and a mirthful heart, to ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... man of moderate stature, light, sinewy, and strong; a face browned with continual exposure; small, mirthful, yet commanding blue eyes, glittering from beneath an arching brow, and prominent cheekbones; a long hawk's nose, almost resting upon a salient chin, a pendent moustache, and a thick, brown, curly beard, prematurely grizzled; we see the mien of frank authority and magnificent good humour, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... this eccentric Milesian settling himself for the night is invariably a mirthful spectacle, and, it may be added, that, no one of us is more volubly humorous and laughter-loving than O'Gaygun himself. Reclining on the sacks which he has spread out upon the table, he proceeds to draw his tattered blankets carefully over his lengthy limbs. Piece by piece he spreads the ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... the nature of laughter to communicate itself that when it no longer communicates itself it ceases to exist. One might say that outbursts of merriment need to be encouraged, that they are not self-sufficient. Not to share them is to blow upon them and extinguish them. When, in an animated and mirthful group, some one remains cold or gloomy, the laughter immediately stops or is checked. Yet those whom the common people call, in their picturesque language, wet blankets, spoil-sports, or kill-joys, are not necessarily hostile to the gaiety ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... about at once," said Tom Long, speaking as if his weight in the scale would completely make Sultan Hamet kick the beam; but upon seeing the mirthful look in Bob Roberts' eye, he changed the subject, and began talking about how he longed to be out and ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... His mirthful face provoked her to laughter despite her real vexation and fortunately, at that moment, Mrs. Hungerford entered the room and advanced to Mrs. Stark with extended hand ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... which were never still except when she held them pressed with her sharp white teeth to make them look redder and riper than ever. Her brown fluffy hair was worn short like a boy's, and she looked not unlike a handsome high-spirited boy, with brown eyes, mirthful and daring. She was extremely vivacious in disposition, and active—too active, in fact, for she got through her housemaid's work so quickly that it left her many hours of each day in which to listen to the promptings of the demon of mischief. ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... mainly on books to relieve the tedium, for we have no piano; none of us like cards; we are very poor chess-players, and the chess-set is incomplete. When we gather round the one lamp—we dare not light any more—each one exchanges the gems of thought or mirthful ideas he finds. Frequently the gnats and the mosquitos are so bad we cannot read at all. This evening, till a strong breeze blew them away, they were intolerable. Aunt Judy goes about in a dignified silence, too full for words, only asking two or three times, "W'at I done tole you ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... earth. Men petted but did not propose to her; affected to confide in her, but carefully withheld the heart of their confessions. Tall, thin, gently hurried and bird-like, she yet bore a quaint, almost mirthful, resemblance to her brother, Sir Charles Verity. Such was the lady who responded, in a spirit of liveliest charity, to Theresa's wildly waved flag ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... a joy I must eschew And to the tempter's voice "No! No!" say; With taxes laid on all delights Must miss, with other mirthful sights, On Monday next my annual view Of England's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CL, April 26, 1916 • Various
... vaulted roof. There was, however, nothing else beyond the growl of a rapid somewhere up the valley, and stretching out his arms wearily, he stooped with a little smile that was grim rather than mirthful and caught ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... course of the afternoon, but, as night approached, the hum of action gradually ceased, and gloomy silence reigned throughout. No groups of merry soldiers gathered round the camp-fires with laugh, or jest, or mirthful song. Some slept from exhaustion and discouragement, others sat mournfully gazing toward the east, which, unlike the dark horizon around, was lit up with a fiery glow, that marked the advance of ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... a mirthful "Yah!" and looked very well contented with himself. "I've always managed to get along," he admitted. "And a good thing for you I have, Dav. Where'ud you be to-day if you hadn't had me for your good angel ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Taylor, the brisk, the mirthful Taylor is pressed and sent to sea. I cannot help observing here the art of the poet in letting us into the condition of Taylor: we may guess from his being pressed that he was not free of the city, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... was not here, as it happened. So she wrote out from memory the sentence about Urquhart: the polligamous pirate, with wives &c. "Aren't you flattered?" she asked him, radiant with mirthful malice. He frowned approval. He was pleased, but, like all those who make laughter, he had none of his own. "That shot told. I got him with the first barrel. Trust a boy to love a law-breaker. He'll never forget me that. He's my friend ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... looked about her and saw all the children, how they were never alone, that their eye's danced, and their voices were mirthful, she would ask herself why she, too, was not happy. Then courage would come to her, and she would strike a gay air, and call the children to her side; but, when she had finished, she was glad to creep away by herself, and lean her head upon her tambourine to weep. ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins
... come upon latticed barns that waft you the fragrance of drying tobacco-leaves, suspended longitudinally for the wind to play through. On the morning of our leaving Watkins, we had been roused a little earlier than usual by mirthful sounds in the street beneath our hotel windows. Light-hearted voices joking each other floated up to us, and some one out of the gladness of his heart was executing a spirited shake-down on the sidewalk—at six o'clock of ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... creeping over him, and that made him dread to be alone. Only Fay was very disappointed that he did not seem to hear anything she read; or remember a word of it. It was the shooting pain in his head, he told her; and then he laughed in a way that was hardly mirthful, and said ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... scene of ridicule in things To lead the tenor of my devious lay; Through every swift occasion, which the hand Of Laughter points at, when the mirthful sting Distends her sallying nerves and chokes her tongue; What were it but to count each crystal drop Which Morning's dewy fingers on the blooms Of May distil? Suffice it to have said, [Endnote FF] Where'er the power of ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... breath of song, Where flowers ill-flavored shed their sweets around, And bitterest roots invade the ungenial ground, Whose gems are crystals from the Epsom mine, Whose vineyards flow with antimonial wine, Whose gates admit no mirthful feature in, Save one gaunt mocker, the Sardonic grin, Whose pangs are real, not the woes of rhyme That blue-eyed misses warble out of time;— Truant, not recreant to thy sacred claim, Older by reckoning, but in heart the same, Freed for a moment from the chains of ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the wave the Zephyr flew; And haply, though my harsh touch falt'ring still, But mock'd all tune, and marr'd the dancer's skill; Yet would the village praise my wondrous power, And dance, forgetful of the noon-tide hour. 250 Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days Have led their children through the mirthful maze, And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore, Has frisk'd ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... into her cheeks, and her eyes fall before his for a moment. Then she laughs,—a gay, mirthful laugh, that somehow puts ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... wave; and here and there in its neighbourhood, groves of walnut-trees stud the meadows, serving as a rendezvous of amusement for innumerable nightingales, which at the first dawn of summer assemble on the branches, and, as if in mockery of the poets, fill the evening air with their mirthful music. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 480, Saturday, March 12, 1831 • Various
... but rather as figures in the popular imagination. As such, Davis was credited with all the qualities of a powerful statesman; while Lincoln showed as a not ill-meaning, but grotesquely inadequate and misplaced oddity, a sort of mere accident of mob-favor, and made abundant mirth for the mirthful: how justly the event has perhaps demonstrated. Among the Northern generals, I think that the only one who became to some extent generally popular, though bitterly denounced in adverse quarters, was Sherman,—not only for the splendor and originality of his practical ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... harp will be a mingled one, for so is our theme; having a sympathy alike for our mirthful and sorrowful moments, which it alike spiritualizes; striking the light, gleesome chord to the one, and attuning the soul to more ethereal joy; while by its soft influence it tones down the harshness of bitter, unavailing sorrow, and woos ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... me put into my work a thing that it is mirthful to record. A youth named Wigg, scanning with attentive eye the bodily size of Rolf, and smitten with great wonder thereat, proceeded to inquire in jest who was that "Krage" whom Nature in her beauty had endowed with ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... 'excuse me' when you left the table," said Mitchell, whom the law of gravitation had suddenly raised to a pinnacle from which he viewed his friends with mirthful scorn; "and if you've hurt yourself it must be a judgment on you for leaving the table without saying 'excuse me.' Here's to Clover, who has a judgment and a dish of peas served on him at the same time for leaving the table without ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... satisfaction. Then her eyes met their own reflexion, and she grew suddenly grave again, and something in them told her that they were not laughing with her lips, and might not often look upon things mirthful. ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... power of spring, It made him whistle, it made him sing; His heart was mirthful to excess; But the Rover's mirth ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... the nature of the case, they condoled the family on their misfortune, and would have retired, on the supposition that it would defeat the mirthful intent of their meeting; but the jeweller, mustering up his whole temper and hospitality, entreated them to excuse his disorder, and favour him with their company, which, he observed, was now more than ever wanted, to dispel the melancholy ideas inspired by his loss. ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... to," the old gentleman murmured. "I try to keep remembering that I won't be remembering anything very long." And, somehow convinced that this thought was a mirthful one, he laughed loudly, and slapped his knee. "Not so very long now, my boy!" he chuckled, continuing to echo his own amusement. "Not so very ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... herself the details of this fete: "Envious Fortune, unable to suffer the glory of this fair dance, hurled upon us a strange rain and tempest; and the confusion of the sudden evening retreat by boat across the river brought out next day as many mirthful anecdotes as the lavish festival itself ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... soft and silky as a child's—time and sorrow had traced him but a gentle path, 'twould seem by the light which yet beamed in his calm blue eye and placid smile, the expression was far different from mirthful happiness, but breathed of holy peace and spirit pure, tempered with love and kindness for all—living in the past dreams of youth, he loved the present, when it recalled their sweet memories in brighter beauty from the tomb of faded years, and then it ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... explaining carefully how hard worked they were and how often they went under shell-fire. The fighting officers, English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, jeered at them, laughed hugely at the latest story of mirthful horror, arranged rendezvous at the Godebert restaurant, where they would see the beautiful Marguerite (until she transferred to la cathedrale in the same street) and our checks which Charlie cashed at a discount, with a noble ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... life rather brilliantly with a pair of colours, a fine person and legs, and one of the most beautiful voices in the world. To his latest day he sang with admirable pathos and humour those wonderful Irish ballads which are so mirthful and so melancholy: and was always the first himself to cry at their pathos. Poor Cos! he was at once brave and maudlin, humorous and an idiot; always good-natured, and sometimes almost trustworthy. Up to the last day of his life he would drink with any man, and back any man's ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "No; it is in the other pocket." He placed his hand in another, only to find it also empty. Then he went through the remaining pockets, one by one, turning them each out for inspection—his face assuming an air of mirthful hopelessness as he proceeded. He had changed his garb for a merry lark, but had neglected to change his purse. "Devil on't, I—have—forgotten—Odsfish, where is my treasurer?" he ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... as an uncomfortable one; and discomfort earns little sympathy, and absolutely no admiration, for its sufferers. He somehow reminds us of one of those Irish heroes—good-natured, peppery, debt-loaded, light-hearted, shiftless—whose fortunes we follow with mirthful and half-contemptuous sympathy in the pages of Thackeray. He was obviously a typical specimen of that class of men who are destitute alike of the virtues and failings of the "respectable" and successful; whom ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... Young Doctor was laughing. It was not an unkind laugh—it gave Bennie heart to listen to it—but it was exceedingly mirthful. Bennie could not know that the idea of himself, as a husband and father, was sending this tall man into such spasms of merriment—he could not know that it was rather incongruous to picture his small grubby form in the shining ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... for which the years did sigh" should thus be broken in upon by vulgar revelry; but while we may sympathise with his view, and admit to the full the sacredness, not to say the solemnity, of the marriage ceremony, yet it is to be hoped that it still retains a naturally mirthful side, of which such public merriment is but the ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... those towns. The name of Cathelineau was not then so well known as it was some six months afterwards, but even then Cathelineau, the postillion, was the most popular man in St. Florent. He was the merriest among the mirthful, the friend of every child, the playmate of every lass in the town; but he was the comforter of those poorer than himself, and the solace of the aged and afflicted. He was the friend of the banished priest, and the trusted ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... had been staring at the face of the Healer, stood for an instant like one with all his senses arrested. Then he gasped and exclaimed, "Well, I'm eternally—!" and broke off with a low laugh, which was at first mirthful, and then ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... known him within the space of a few minutes to be transformed from the saddest face I have ever looked upon to one of the brightest and most mirthful. It was well known that he had his great fountain of humor as a safety valve; as an escape and entire relief from the fearful exactions his endless duties put upon him. In the gravest consultations of the cabinet where he was usually ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... upwards of sixty, but still in the full vigour of life, with features which, though not ill-looking, bore no particular resemblance to those of his daughter. He had a good-humoured, jovial countenance, the mirthful expression of which even his sightless orbs could not destroy. Long white locks descended upon his shoulders, and a patriarchal beard adorned his chin. He was wrapped in a loose grey gown, patched with different coloured cloths, and ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... playful smile, her buoyance wild, Bespeak the gentle, mirthful child; But in her forehead's broad expanse, Her chastened tones, her thoughtful glance, Is mingled, with the child's light glee, The modest ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his nose and left eye told the story of his death. Opposite him was a terrible spectacle,—the bruised, mangled, and distorted shape of a bright-eyed lad belonging to the Kentucky company. I had often remarked his arch, mirthful, Irish-like face; and the evening the Guard left camp he brought me a letter to send to his mother, and talked of the fun he was going to have at Springfield. His body was found seven miles from the battle-field, stripped naked. There was neither bullet—nor sabre-wound upon him, but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... to the care of good Aunt Isabel. Her eyes, like her mother's, were large, black, and shaded by long lashes; sparkling and mirthful when she laughed; when she did not, thoughtful and profound, even sad. Her curly hair was almost blond, her nose perfect; and her mouth, small and sweet like her mother's, was flanked by charming dimples. The little ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... that I first saw them; so, in a house set about with sentries—for there was still a haunting fear of Germany,—that I heard them relate their various experience in the past; heard Laupepa tell with touching candour of the sorrows of his exile, and Mataafa with mirthful simplicity of his resources and anxieties in the war. The relation was perhaps too beautiful to last; it was perhaps impossible but the titular king should grow at last uneasily conscious of the maire de palais at his side, or the king-maker be at last offended by some shadow ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... between his chuckles, addressing himself to the contents of the pewter with every mark of appreciation. Three gleaming golden teeth on the lower row, and one glittering canine, made a dazzling show every time that he smiled; he was a very greasy and a very mirthful Hebrew. ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... lumpishly into his chair, and Mr. Culpepper, despite his utmost efforts, failed to move him. The two ladies exchanged a glance, and then, with their heads in the air, sailed out of the room, the younger pausing at the door to bestow a mirthful glance upon Mr. ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... of mirthful monethis queen, Betwixt April and June, her sisters sheen, Within the garden ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... voice was answered by a woman's—low, mirthful. The girl in the room could not distinguish the words. But the man spoke again—in a whisper which carried through the thin board partition ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... clergyman the fact that he had arrived in time, and he again gave the girl in the doorway a mirthful glance, then turned on his heel to ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe |
