"Smirk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... paid a monstrous high price for them. Still, to a practised eye, they betrayed an inmate who can get through his money, and make very little show for it. The walls were covered with coloured prints of racers and steeple-chases, interspersed with the portraits of opera-dancers, all smirk and caper. Then there was a semi-circular recess covered with red cloth, and fitted up for smoking, as you might perceive by sundry stands full of Turkish pipes in cherry-stick and jessamine, with ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... who was devouring the withered lady with his eyes. He wagged his head in assent. Just then the dancer paused before us, and thrusting forward her greasy forehead, enveloped us with a sphinx-like smirk. As I hastily pressed a two-franc piece above her eyebrows Safti addressed her animatedly in Arabic. I caught the word "Smain." The lady smiled, and made a guttural reply; then, with a somnolent wink at me, she waddled onward, flapping the blood-red ...
— Smain; and Safti's Summer Day - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... Pao-y suggested with a smirk, "that we should simply go, and find sister Hua, and see what she's up ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... apprehend the mood: There was the blameless shrug, permissible smirk, The pen's pretence at play with the pursed mouth, The titter stifled in the hollow palm Which rubbed the eye-brow and caressed the nose, When I first told my tale; they meant, you know— 'The sly one, all this we are bound believe! Well, he can say no other than what ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... the little. The low hills are a-smirk with flowers and greenery; the dominating peaks, austere and desolate, holding ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... you, and not the defense!" observed the judge of the sickly face angrily and loudly. By Andrey's expression the mother perceived that he wanted to tease them. His mustache quivered. A cunning, feline smirk familiar to her lighted up his eyes. He stroked his head with his long hands, and fetched ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... turned to Molly and asked in one breath who had left it. When the clamor slackened, she replied, "Why, young Cuffy from the baker's, and all he said was, 'David Dubbs,—to be sent—card inside,' and then kissing his hand, and crying 'Love to her,' meaning I don't know who," with a smirk at Polly, "he jumped aboard his wagon and ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... springs from what Diogenes calls the spooney view of women, and only applicable to the young and handsome,—a very small minority. It is sad to see the graceless, the "gone-off," and the downright elderly smirk complacently at a few phrases which are only aimed at them in derision. The others, too, one would think, ought to care little for adulation that fades away with their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... conviction of what best suits myself. I'm one of those men who are born to be free, who've got to fill their lungs with air, who must get out into the wilds if they're to live—God! I'd sooner be snowed up on a battlefield than smirk at a damned afternoon tea-party any day in the week! If I want a woman, I like to take her by her hair and swing her up behind me on the saddle and ride away ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... thing I did was to fall aff the flower-pot; but syne I came to, and says I, wi' a polite smirk, 'I'm thinking your leddyship,' says I, 'as you're the ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... The more shame for you to take them. Better throw them away than wear them as a badge of degradation. Yes, throw them away, or send them back whence they came. Wash that paint off your face. Get rid of that made-up smirk around your mouth. Remember that you are ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... physiognomy, features; front, exterior; obverse; facet; effrontery, confidence, assurance, audacity, impudence. Associated Words: facial, domino, complexion, multifaced, rouge, cosmetic, grimace, Janus-faced, lineament, profile, silhouette, maskoid, smirk, physiognomist. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... The Pathan's smirk grew to a grin. He liked grandly to have the notion fathered on himself; and his complacency of course was suggestive of the hakim's trustworthiness. But the ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... told him? No, I expect she sent him.' A smirk upon the invalid's face showed he shared ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... gray, set smirk, and his eyes took on a steely glint. He knew when the naked, unadorned truth was spoken to him. Words came slowly to his lips, but he said: "You'll be glad to come to me for help ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... take us long to find the house where the sick woman was, for as we turned into the strate, a dirty ould hag, smoking a short pipe, came up to us with a smirk ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... and even then he lingered, fiddling about in carefully folding and arranging his garment. In the course of this, and in moving about the narrow cabin, he took apparently casual glances at Baxter and the Frenchman, and I saw from his satisfied, quiet smirk that each was sound and fast asleep. And then he thrust his feet into a pair of bedroom slippers, as loud in their colouring as his pyjamas, and suddenly turning down the lamp with a twist of his wicked-looking fingers, he glided ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... was not unimpressive in her new dignity of wifehood; but the dignity bore traces of diligent rehearsal, and left singularly little to the imagination. By her side, Scott, looking down upon his fellow townsmen, wore the self-conscious smirk of a sheepish schoolboy; and the best of his fellow townsmen respected him the more on that account. Catia was the more impressive of the two, they told themselves; but there was no especial sense in a pair of young things like these, trying to act as if their getting married were ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... to the store and see what you can do to bring her to her senses," the money-lender proposed, with a smirk which twisted his sallow visage into a grimace. "If you can bring her to reason, we'll ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... confidante to La ——. I have seen the tragedy of Bajazet so well represented, that I think our best actors can be only said to speak, but these to feel; and 'tis certainly infinitely more moving to see a man appear unhappy, than to hear him say that he is so, with a jolly face, and a stupid smirk in his countenance.—A propos of countenances, I must tell you something of the French ladies; I have seen all the beauties, and such—(I can't help making use of the coarse word) nauseous creatures! so fantastically absurd in their dress! so monstrously unnatural in their paints! their ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... he would have to tell more fibs, and brand new ones, too, since not even a blind man would believe him ill now! It was something of a coincidence that Don should run across Walton in the corridor a few minutes later. Don was for passing by with no recognition of the other, but Walton, with a smirk, placed himself ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... relief, Brimbecomb drew a long breath. She had not recognized him! The dim light of the candle showed him that the same dazed expression still remained in her faded eyes. The smirk on her face, the crouch of her emaciated figure, about which the rags swirled in the wind, the dismal hut, and the loneliness of her surroundings, made such a picture of woe that Everett shuddered and hastened to get the information, that he might hurry away ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... first?" the priest suggested with a fat smirk. None guessed better than he how low debauch had brought ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... his deserted home. The door opened and a figure appeared. It was Mr. Wurley's agent, the lawyer who had been employed by Farmer Tester in his contest with Harry and his mates about the pound. The man of law saluted him with a smirk of scarcely concealed triumph, and then turned into the house again and shut the door, as if he did not consider further communication necessary or safe. Tom turned with a muttered imprecation on him and his master, and hurried away along the lane which ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... noticed it," says the shopman, with a smirk. "You were so taken up with that fine student that . . . it's queer you ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... well," said Humphreys with his ghastly smirk. "You think that I care too much for appearances. I do. It is a weakness of mine which comes from a ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... my comrades pass away To bow and smirk and gloze, Come others, for as short a stay; And ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... interested minds of the Dearborn County Medical Society was as towering as ever, but somehow it was all different. There was a note of unreality nowadays in Mrs. Donnelly's professions of wonder at her bearing up under her multiplied maladies; there was almost a leer of mockery in the sympathetic smirk with which the Misses Mangan listened to her symptoms. Even the doctors, though they kept their faces turned toward her, obviously did not pay much attention; the people in the street seemed no longer to look at her and her equipage at all. Worst of all, ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... a smirk of well-assumed satisfaction—"that, indeed! Well, I think I may say, Daddy, that all's right ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... her away from the door and down the stairs. "He must be trying to teach himself to dance. I suppose he wants to learn how, so he'll be able to dance at the party," she added, with smirk. Then Mother Stina began to shake with laughter. "He came near frightening the life out of me," she confessed. "Thank God he can be young for once!" When she had got over her fit of laughing, she said: ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... had forgotten them, and how well I know them, these little details out of the past! the darkish sponge-like holes in the travertine, the reversed capital on the Trinita dei Monti steps, the caryatides of the Stanza dell' Incendio, the scowl or smirk of the Emperors and philosophers at the Capitol: a hundred details. I seem to have been looking at nothing else these fifteen years, during which they have all been ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee
... a brisk young man, with a bright eye, peculiar smirk, spotted neckcloth, and gray gaiters with pearl buttons. "Cars ready for Boston and way stations. All aboard. Now's your time—quick, or you'll ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... confound and overcome a lawyer. When customers did not die, it was pastime to be dallying with the living. In adding up a bill with haste, how many times will four and four make nine? They generally did with Jehu. The best are liable to errors. It cost a smirk or smile; Jehu had hundreds at command, and the accident was amended. How easy is it sometimes to give no bill at all! How very easy to apply, a few months afterwards, for second payment; how much more easy still to pocket it without a word; or, if discovered and convicted, to apologize ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... eyes from the exquisite features that were slightly flushed with champagne and excitement. But, as before, this impression passed quickly, and the face again became as exasperating to the artist as the visage of the Venus of Milo would be should some vandal hand pencil upon it a leer or a smirk. A heavy frown was gathering upon his brow when the young lady, happening to turn suddenly, caught and fully recognized his lowering expression. It accorded only too well with her cousin's words in regard to Van Berg's estimate of herself, and greatly increased her resentment towards ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... work No burning faith I find; The deeper thinkers sneer and smirk, And give my toil no mind; From nod and wink I read they think That ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... make the motion of striking, and brilliantly make it. Thus, as a mechanical toy, was the only way to treat this minute critic, for like the Duke at Ferrara, this Duke (and his mother) did not choose to stoop. He would merely wear his "cursed smirk" as he nodded applause, but he had some trouble in keeping off the ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... last exclaimed Frank Digby; "you are quite embarrassing to her ladyship. Will the lady Louisa take my arm? Allow me, madam, to interpose my powerful authority." And he offered his arm to Louis with a smirk and low bow, which set all the spectators off laughing; for Frank was one of those privileged persons, who, having attained a celebrity for being very funny, can excite a laugh with very ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... one of the women. She was dressed as a Spanish dancer and in one hand held a tambourine and castanets. "They fight," she gave a little smirk of vanity, "about me." ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... not go near her so long as that odious actor is hanging about. His smirk at me the other ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... like an old fool, as the saying is! Just watch her smirk! I'm mighty glad Ellen Robinson's there to relieve me of the responsibility. She'll be over after a while, and then we'll know who he is. There goes Julia in. She watched him out o' sight! Well, I wonder ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... folly still to twirl, And smirk and promenade and querl About the town? I'll put this down: A man becomes downright blast Before he knows that he is either That, or what I am—call ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... to see you." Then, maliciously: "You will suffer this time. I assure you she is not used to such treatment. It was glorious, though, to see you resent such an affront. Men usually smirk and smile foolishly and thank her when she ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... husband and son were sentenced to six months' imprisonment. A curious old drawing is still extant, representing Mrs. Brownrigge in the condemned cell. She wears a large, broad-brimmed gipsy hat, tied under her chin, and a cape; and her long, hard face wears a horrible smirk of resigned hypocrisy. Canning, in one of his bitter banters ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... understand that Mr. Hoopdriver was not one of your fast young men. If he had been King Lemuel, he could not have profited more by his mother's instructions. He regarded the feminine sex as something to bow to and smirk at from a safe distance. Years of the intimate remoteness of a counter leave their mark upon a man. It was an adventure for him to take one of the Young Ladies of the establishment to church on a Sunday. Few modern young ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... elapsed since Sam had seen him last, an extraordinary transformation had taken place in this young man. His wan look had disappeared. His eyes were bright. His face wore that beastly self-satisfied smirk which you see in pictures advertising certain makes of fine-mesh underwear. If Eustace Hignett had been a full-page drawing in a magazine with "My dear fellow, I always wear Sigsbee's Super-fine Featherweight!" printed underneath ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Emilienne saw that we were talking of the boy, her interest in the conversation vanished, even more quickly than her appetite. She had to go, she said suddenly; she was so sorry, and the discontented curiosity of her look gave place again to the smirk of ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... smirk of satisfaction, the overseer presented his arm to a pretty young lady, whose dark eyes had somewhat smitten him, and led the way to the further end of the shop, followed by ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... Pettengill, with poorly suppressed emotion. The thing excited no emotion in me that I could not easily suppress. It was the most banal of all snapshots—a young woman bending Madonna-wise above something carefully swathed, flanked by a youngish man who revealed a self-conscious smirk through his carefully pointed beard. The light did harshly by the bent faces of the couple and the disclosed fragment of the swathed thing was a weakish ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... a singularly fine & aristocratic disrespect for homely & unpretending English. Every time I use "go back" you get out your polisher & slick it up to "return." "Return" is suited only to the drawing-room—it is ducal, & says itself with a simper & a smirk. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... approaching a human smile distorted the wrinkled face of AEsop and made it appear more than usually repulsive. "You mean me," he said, and the smirk deepened, only to dissipate quickly ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... weddingcake standing up miles off my head he said suited me or the dishcover one coming down on my backside on pins and needles about the shopgirl in that place in Grafton street I had the misfortune to bring him into and she as insolent as ever she could be with her smirk saying Im afraid were giving you too much trouble what shes there for but I stared it out of her yes he was awfully stiff and no wonder but he changed the second time he looked Poldy pigheaded as usual like the soup but I could see him looking ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... cried, slapping me on my back. "Introduce me to your charming friends," and with this he gave a horrible low -born smirk at Miss Travis, to whom, to my infinite sorrow, by some accursed miracle, he appeared as plainly visible as he ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... life rather than lose them. The truth and courage of this organist, who risks his job, to fight the prejudice of the congregation, offset the repose and large salary of a more celebrated choirmaster, who holds his job by lowering his ideals, who is willing to let the organ smirk under an insipid, easy-sounding barcarolle for the offertory, who is willing to please the sentimental ears of the music committee (and its wives)—who is more willing to observe these forms of politeness than to stand up for a stronger and deeper ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... soft, Grew plump and able-bodied; Until the grave churchwarden doff'd, The parson smirk'd ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... round, laid his head a little on one side and drew in his chin, with Mr. May's smirk exactly, and wagging his tail slightly, he commenced to play the false Kishwegin. He sidled and bridled and ejaculated with raised hands, and in the dumb show the tall Frenchman made such a ludicrous ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... editors, and so less chance of a cure. I do not want to believe it is the readers. It is more comforting to suppose those poor people must put up with what they can get in a hurry ten minutes before the train starts, only to find, as they might have guessed, that vacuity is behind the smirk of a girl with a face like that. They are forced to stuff their literature behind them, so that ownership of it shall not openly shame them before ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... knowing smirk, which is the nearest approach to a laugh in which he ever indulged. Then he takes out his snuffbox and taps it, which is a sign that he is going to say something worth while. "Yes, one must go everywhere, and do everything, just to find ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... middle class not to smoke and common to show any natural sentiment or emotion. He soon found it was quite the thing to display the temperament of an oyster when any vital issue was discussed or any play, for example, had a scene of deep and inspiring words. A queer little smirk or titter was the proper applause, but one must wax enthusiastic and superlative over a clever burglary, a new-style dance, a chafing-dish concoction, or, a risque story retold ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... And I have seen a pert little whipper-snapper ask a venerable clergyman what he thought of a certain outrageous lay-preacher, and receive the clergyman's reply, that he thought most unfavorably of many of the lay-preacher's doings, with a self-conceited smirk that seemed to say to the venerable clergyman, "I have been reckoning you ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... swimming," Henrietta Hen remarked with a silly smirk. "If it weren't for getting my feet wet I'd be tempted to learn myself. No doubt ...
— The Tale of Henrietta Hen • Arthur Scott Bailey
... her distress she put on a complacent smirk, straightened her emaciated form, and sat there, looking like the very ghost of pride, wrapped in ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... it's closer than I want to come. Besides, it's not just your laughter that I love. It's all of you: heart, mind, body: the whole lovely trinity of yourself. I mean to wage unabated war against all these forces that are trying to stifle your laughter into the pious smirk of the pharisee. There's more of what God wants the world to feel in one peal of your laughter than in all the psalms that this whole people ever whined through their noses. You're one of the rare few who can go through life being ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... the novice's smirk," she remarked. "A moment ago I heard him tell his neighbour that he preferred not to discuss the war. He probably thinks that there is a spy under ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... between twice ascertaining their position, to wait for a period that felt like an eternity, walking about miserably, and smoking flavourless cigarettes;—then he would stand amazed, incredulous, when, with a smirk (as it almost struck him) of ironical complacence, they would attest that his eternity had lasted something near ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... he was damn glad to know it, but, if Colloden would recognize him the next time they met, he would be more apt to believe it. The remaining member of the party was Montecute Mattison. He was a small man, with peevishly pinched features, that wore an incipient smirk when in repose, and a hyena snarl when in action. He had no friends and no intimates. He was the sort who played dirty golf in a match: deliberately moving on the green, casting his shadow across the hole, talking when ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... murmured Captain Ducie to himself as he refolded the letter and put it away. "I can fancy the smirk on his face as he penned that precious effusion, and how, when he had finished it, he would trot off to his clothes-prop of a wife and ask her whether she did not think it at once amusing and severe. That letter shall cost your lordship fifty ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... round," said Meagle with a smirk. "By the time I have done with him he will be a confirmed believer. Well, who will go and get ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... grew dim with rapture, alarm, and ineffable delight. I was ashamed in presence of the old woman, who began to smirk and wink odiously, and I flew like an arrow to the loneliest nook of the garden. There I threw myself on the grass beneath the hazel-bushes and read the note again, repeating the words by heart, and then re-reading ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... the young lady!—dear me, no!" he said, with a smirk. "Loyalty, you know. What do you think ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... recognized me at once. It was the "Doctor" who had lightened the journey down the Chesapeake, by a discourse upon embalming. He pointed toward the field with a long bony finger, and called aloud, with a smirk ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... a man of about thirty; tall, slender, lithe, swarthy, with thin, expressive lips that were twisted upward at one corner in an insincere smirk. This taller man came close to the wagon and paused in ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the Miscellany![10]—to Southwell town Per coach for Mrs. Pigot frank it down, So may'st them prosper in the paths of Sale,[11] And Longman smirk and critics cease ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... direction her companion had indicated, to see a large, overdressed man staring at them. There was a smirk on his face, and as Harriet caught his eye she saw him rise and, to her horror, realized that he was ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... O'Hagan rose to his feet, made a bow to the company, and made an apology to the drover. He stood there, a blackguard on the face of him, but a gentleman in spite of that undefinable and vaguely repulsive smirk which played about his straight and refined mouth. He ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... became evident that faults of training or, perhaps, of temperament, were to be set off against the actress' unquestionable merits. The elegant artificiality of the American school, a tendency to pose and be self-conscious, to smirk even, if the word may be permitted, especially when advancing to the footlights to receive a full measure of applause, were fatal to such sentiment as even so stilted a play could be made to yield. It was but too evident that Parthenia was at all times more concerned with the fall of her ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... Dizzily plunging with tumultuous glee! Whirling the stairdust, hazarding oblique, The moon safe in her pocket! See she treads Cool citric crystals, fierce pyropus stone; While crushing sunbeams in a triple line Smirk at the insane roses in her hair, And Strojavacca, frowning, looks asquint To see that trick of toe,—that dizened heel,— As she, the somewhat, hangs 'twixt naught and naught. A perfect Then,—a sub-potential Now— A facile and ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells
... bruised and wounded joint. The man, Bideabout, did not concern himself with the wrath or the anguish of the man. He rubbed his hands together, and clapped a palm on each knee, and looked into the fire with a smirk on his face, but with an eye on the alert lest his adversary should attempt to steal ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... should be. In London, it is a sort of time-killer, or exchange of looks and smiles. It is frequented by persons of all degrees and qualities whatsoever. Here Lords come to laugh and be laughed at—Knights to learn the amorous smirk and a-la-mode grin, the newest fashion in the cut of his garments, the twist of his body, and ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... in the honest working world, With posture and hint and smirk, These sons of the devil are standing by While Man ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... deceased weaver's loom, or the arrival in Thrums of a cart-load of fine "kebec" cheeses, he treated as the merest trifles. I see still the bent legs of the snuffy old man straightening to the tinkle of his bell, and the smirk with which he let the curious populace gather round him. In one hand he ostentatiously displayed the paper on which what he had to cry was written, but, like the minister, he scorned to "read." With the bell carefully tucked under his ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... who stepped up was no match for Kosti. He was a slender, almost wand-slim young man, whose pleased smirk said that he, too, was about to put something over on the notorious Free Traders. Jellico studied him for a couple of long seconds during which the hum of Salariki voices was the threatening buzz of a disturbed wasps' nest. There was no way out of this—to refuse conflict ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... this was an illusion created by the proportion and thickness of his body. He was, in fact, half a head taller than she, and Stella stood five feet five. His gray eyes met hers squarely, with a cool, impersonal quality of gaze. There was neither smirk nor embarrassment in his straightforward glance. He was, in effect, "sizing her up" just as he would have looked casually over a logger asking him for a job. Stella sensed that, and resenting it momentarily, failed to match his manner. She flushed. Fyfe smiled, a broad, friendly grin, ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... secret,' he thought, when bowing himself out of the drawing-room. 'Whatever the matter may be, Dr Pendle is evidently most anxious to keep his wife from knowing of it. All the better.' He rubbed his hands together with a satisfied smirk. 'Such anxiety shows that the secret is worth learning. Sooner or later I shall find it out, and then I can insist upon being the rector of Heathcroft. I have no time to lose, so I shall go to The Derby Winner to-night and see if I can induce this mysterious Jentham to speak out. He looks ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... those fellows, to-day. They seem to feel such a smirk satisfaction at having got ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... man, had not his mistress's keen intuition of the deportment necessitated by the case, or was incapable of putting the screw upon weak excited nature, for he continued to smirk, and was remarking how glad he was, he was sure, and something he had dared to think and almost to fear, when the old gentleman called to him, as if he were at the other end of the room, 'Will you order Thursday, or not, sir?' Whereat Jonathan flew, and two or three cosy diners glanced ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Larkspur, Larry Larkspur, Wears a cap of purple gay; Trim and handy little dandy, Straight and smirk ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... exterior seriousness in looks and motions gives dignity, without excluding wit and decent cheerfulness, which are always serious themselves. A constant smirk upon the face, and a whifing activity of the body, are strong indications of futility. Whoever is in a hurry, shows that the thing he is about is too big for him. Haste and hurry ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... man goes skipping and bounding along a street in the capital. His movements are gay and alert; there is a sparkle in his eyes, a smirk on his lips, a pleasing flush on his beaming face.... He is all ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... and piety were quite affecting. Tears gushed into Pendlam's eyes. The deacon turned away with a smirk and an ominous shake ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... was a young man of Dunbar, Who playfully poisoned his Ma; When he'd finished his work, He remarked with a smirk, "This will ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... I hope," one plump cowbird remarked with a smirk as he settled himself near the Muley Cow's forelegs, when ...
— The Tale of the The Muley Cow - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... smirk which fatigue had clawed into her plastic young mouth-lines there was certainly nothing special the matter ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... e'en that tricksy imp Preposterous Puck hath too much native grit To take the taste of OSRICK turned a wit. Humour baccilophil, microbic merriment, Might suit him better. He will try the experiment. His mirth's a smirk and not a paroxysm; "Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism" Do not disturb the "plie" of his prim lips, Neither do cynic quirks and querulous quips. Mirth would guffaw—when hearts and mouths were bigger, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, February 4, 1893 • Various
... the hotel is but a few hours, but eleven domestics range themselves in a row to wait upon our departure and to smirk and extend their palms for tips as we prepare to go. No country under the sun save the Caucasus could thus muster eleven expectant menials on the strength of one meal served and but three hours actual occupation of ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... been helped by him—helped and frightened and made to see. And then there rose before him the leering face of a keeper of a second-hand book store in Cleveland who some weeks before had pushed across the counter to him a paper-covered copy of "Nana's Brother," saying with a smirk, "That's some sporty stuff." And he wondered what he should have thought had he bought the book to feed the imagination the bookseller's comment ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... music quite the thing. "And now," said they, "we will draw near," For much they wished to see and hear What was this fuss and noise about, So joined the party to find out. The Frogs received them with a smirk, And gave their hands with nervous jerk. Bowing and smiling in return, The Ducks prepared ...
— The Ducks and Frogs, - A Tale of the Bogs. • Fanny Fire-Fly
... not accuse a man like Captain Riley of smirking, but his smile might have been mistaken for a smirk when he turned from the telephone. He straightened it out at once, however, so that he spoke with a ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... plays. Thought you was some stuff, didn't you?" The man paused for breath, and Connie scrutinized his face, but could not remember to have seen him before. He shifted his glance to the other, who had returned to the edge of the bunk, and was regarding him with a sneering smirk. ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... and Abigail in Fletcher's Scornful Lady, Bull and the Nurse in Vanbrugh's Relapse, Smirk and Susan in Shadwell's Lancashire Witches, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Toad used to smirk and stare about the room; and whenever they didn't laugh or jest enough with her, she would plant herself right in the middle of the floor, and turn herself about in all her finery to attract notice, and ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... were worth while, I could develop her into a real woman. But I haven't, and it wouldn't be worth while when there are so many real women, ready made, out where I come from. This girl would be exactly the wife for you, though. Just as she is, she'd help you mince about from parlor to parlor, and smirk and jabber and waste time. She's been educating for the job ever since she was born." He laid his hand in gracious, kindly fashion on his friend's shoulder. "Think it over. And if you want my help it's ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... picked. Think of a man's having vouchsafed to him one of those awful glimpses into the mysteries of creation which should be received with a shudder of prayerful joy, and taking the gracious boon with a smirk of all-satisfied conceit! One page in what Shakspeare calls "Nature's infinite book of secrecy" flies a moment open to his eager gaze, and he hears the rustling of the myriad leaves as they close and clasp, only to make his spirit more abject, his vanity more ravenous, his hatred ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... Nathan and Jotham and Solomon, lurk Around the corner to see him work— Sitting cross-legged, like a Turk, Drawing the waxed end through with a jerk, And boring the holes with a comical quirk Of his wise old head, and a knowing smirk. But vainly they mounted each other's backs, And poked through knot-holes and pried through cracks; With wood from the pile and straw from the stacks He plugged the knot-holes and calked the cracks; And a bucket of water, which one would think; He had brought up into the loft to drink When ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... up his lugs at this appeal, and, looking as wise as if he had been Solomon's nephew, gave a knowing smirk, and said— ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... with stolid, hard face, rose and steadied himself against a beam. His full bass tones were sad, and he showed no sign of that self-satisfied smirk which sometimes makes the mind revolt against ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... difference of sm in smooth, smug, smile, smirk, smite; which signifies the same as to strike, but is a softer word; small, smell, smack, smother, smart, a smart blow properly signifies such a kind of stroke as with an originally silent motion, implied in sm, proceeds ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... smirk or bow that makes the gentleman, But constant care to please the fair in every way he can; And this good father never miss'd whene'er my shrine he pass'd, To kneel or bow, extremely low, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... lines, sharpness in the tones; while an unfeeling spirit, pervading all, would have filled a physiognomist with disgust. These characteristics, fully visible at this moment, were usually modified in public by a sort of commercial smile,—a bourgeois smirk which mimicked good-humor; so that persons meeting with this old maid might very well take her for a kindly woman. She owned the house on shares with her brother. The brother, by-the-bye, was sleeping ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... in his father's arms; what is more, Gavinia was looking on smiling and saying, "You bonny litlin, you're windy to have him dandling you; and no wonder, for he's a father to be proud o'." Corp was accepting it all with a complacent smirk. Oh, agreeable change since last we were in this house! oh, happy picture of domestic bliss! oh—but no, these are not the words; what we meant to say was, "Gavinia, you limmer, so you have got the better of that man ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... Nothing was left of him but Mamma's silence and Dan's, and Nannie's flush as she slunk by and her obscene smirk ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... Don Bob? Is there a smirk, a villanous, unfeeling, disagreeable, cynical sneer, lurking under your confounded moustache? I know you of old, you miserable, mocking Mephistopheles!—you sneerer, you scoffer, you misbeliever! No more of that, or I will travel three hundred miles ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... children, and was strictly proper. But his way of talking to women and about them was more odious than the way of a debauchee. He invariably called them "the ladies," or more exactly, "the leedies"; and he hardly ever spoke to a "leedy" without a smirk and some ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... house for him, and she secured the services of a female from a neighboring village. Miss Trumbull is forty-odd and unmarried. She has a large bony face, the nondescript colouring of the average American, and a colossal vanity. We amuse ourselves watching her smirk as she passes a looking-glass. But she is an excellent housekeeper, and her vanity would be of no consequence if she would keep her place. The day we arrived she hinted broadly that she wanted to sit ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... though an artificer, after contriving 200 A wheel-work image as if it were living, Should find with delight it could motion to strike him! So found the Duke, and his mother like him: The lady hardly got a rebuff— That had not been contemptuous enough, 205 With his cursed smirk, as he nodded applause, And kept ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... "And did you notice that slimpsy thing she wore last night? Indecent, if you ask me, with not a petticoat under it, I'll be bound!... Always wears shoes twice too small for her ... What men can see in her ... How they can endure that perpetual smirk!..." They were at last discussing the Klondike woman, and whatever had befallen our guest of honour I knew that those present would never regain their first awe of the occasion. It was now ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... adjacent rooms all manner of cloaking and shawling was going on, and the Barchester folk were getting themselves gone. Mrs Proudie did her best to smirk at each and every one, as they made their adieux, but she was hardly successful. Her temper had been tried fearfully. By slow ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... as if a stream of icy-cold water were running down her. But then, when her husband had appeared, had placed himself near the bed in which she lay so feeble, so weak, so at his mercy, and had said with such a satisfied smirk, "Psia krew, we've done that well!" then she could not restrain herself any longer. She had uttered a cry, a feeble, plaintive, yet piercing cry, and had [Pg 26] reared herself up with her last strength, so that the little ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... German, and suggested to Lisa that they should attack Beethoven's sonata. Then Marya Dmitrievna heaved a sigh, and in her turn suggested to Gedeonovsky a walk in the garden. "I should like," she said, "to have a little more talk, and to consult you about our poor Fedya." Gedeonovsky bowed with a smirk, and with two fingers picked up his hat, on the brim of which his gloves had been tidily laid, and went away with Marya Dmitrievna. Panshin and Lisa remained alone in the room; she fetched the sonata, and opened it; both seated themselves at the piano in silence. Overhead were ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... audience, or nodded to acquaintances. Others gathered round the bar, and a few looked at the drop-curtain as if they thought their ascetic glances would cause it to roll up and disappear. The overture at length ended. The stage was disclosed, and a man came forward with a smirk, and a wriggle of gigantic feet, ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Rejoicing. — N. rejoicing, exultation, triumph, jubilation, heyday, flush, revelling; merrymaking &c. (amusement) 840; jubilee &c. (celebration) 883; paean, Te Deum &c. (thanksgiving) 990[Lat]; congratulation &c. 896. smile, simper, smirk, grin; broad grin, sardonic grin. laughter (amusement) 840. risibility; derision &c. 856. Momus; Democritus the Abderite[obs3]; rollicker[obs3]. V. rejoice, thank one's stars, bless one's stars; congratulate oneself, hug oneself; rub one's hands, clap one's ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... amazing advent was all fire, Stoop to the leaden level of cold water? A spectacle indeed to tame and tire The zeal of his most confident supporter. What will DUNRAVEN say? Quidnuncs will quiz, And Balfour-worshippers will smirk and chuckle, And ask if he considers it "good biz" To the Teetotal interest to truckle. They may be right—or wrong, these babblers busy. They were not always right about ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various
... most becomingly dressed. He wore a white cravat, and no collar. He had light hair closely cut, and his face was as smooth as a woman's. His shirt was whiter than any shirt I have ever seen before or since, and it was made of very fine material. He carried an agreeable smirk upon his countenance, and he disinterred, now and then, some very long and extraordinary word from the dictionary, when he was particularly desirous either to make himself understood or conceal his meaning. I had almost omitted to add, that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... encouraging smile became a little fixed. Yet there came nothing of a smirk into it, nothing the least bit superior.... Was this the explanation of the little girl's odd yearning toward pens and desks? How came she to revere the Bard, where even to hear his name? Was it possible that Mrs. Garland's changeling ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... conversation was addressed to me, though that little was evidently meant to be particularly civil. But, a little before she took her departure, which was soon after dinner, she asked me with some abruptness, though with a considerable smirk of meaning in her face, if I "knew a Mr. Patrick Delaney." I frankly admitted that I had not this pleasure; and with a still more significant smirk, ending in a very affected simper, meant to be very pleasant, she informed me, as she took her leave, that Julia ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... going back toward the church. The jealous, infuriated woman continued, in a half-audible voice, to hurl her insulting tirade over those broad, exuberant shoulders in front of her—a splendid pedestal for a beautiful head with luxuriant hair. Dolores turned around with a smirk of biting ridicule on her face. Beg pardon! Had all that been for her? When would that dirty scullion stop annoying a lady? Couldn't a person look at a parade without being insulted? And a glitter of gold sparkled with ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... hatred of inequalities which, repulsive though it is in theory, is yet the true nerver of the strong right arm of progress. It is as characteristic of the homely, human countenance of Democracy as the supercilious smirk is of the homely, inhuman countenance of caste. Arthur did not want to get up where Ross was seated in such elegant state; he wanted to tear Ross, all the Rosses down. "The damn fool!" he fumed. "He goes lounging about, ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... New York knows them, and Chicago—I trust I will not be contradicted when I say that Chicago understands her business! And so we find these folks who cultivate a pellucid passivity, a phthisicky whisper, a supercilious smirk, and who win our smothered admiration and give us gooseflesh by imparting a taupe tinge of mystery to all their acts and words, thus proving to the assembled guests that they are the Quality and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... passed like the stings of scorpions through Waverley's sensorium, the worthy divine was startled in a long disquisition on the battle of Falkirk by the ghastliness which they communicated to his looks, and asked him if he was ill. Fortunately the bride, all smirk and blush, had just entered the room. Mrs. Williams was none of the brightest of women, but she was good-natured, and readily concluding that Edward had been shocked by disagreeable news in the papers, interfered so judiciously, that, without exciting suspicion, ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... fellow with a sly, twisted smirk which gives him the appearance of perpetually winking his eye, detaches himself from a group on the right. All join in with urging exclamations: "Go on, Peters! Go to it! Pedal up, Pete! Give us a rag! That's the boy, ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... during my last visit I found that Alexyei Sergyeitch had aged very greatly; even the pupils of his eyes had acquired a milky hue—like that in infants—and on his lips there appeared not the discerning smile of former days, but that strainedly-sweet, unconscious smirk which never leaves the faces of very old ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... for all those objects. And why? Because every bald head in this Republican Government gets pink at the top whenever her dress rustles outside the door. They bow with immense deference when the door opens, but the bow conceals a smirk because of those Venetian days. That confounded Versoy shoved his nose into that business; he says accidentally. He saw them together on the Lido and (those writing fellows are horrible) he wrote what he calls a vignette (I suppose accidentally, too) under that very title. ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... to the officer-in-charge, showing his bleeding hand, but he was received with a mocking smirk and a curt command to "Move on!" The weaker burdened prisoners lagged, but the bayonet revived them. One or two gave out completely, but others, such as myself, who were not encumbered, extended a helping hand, ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... into a satisfied smirk. He called upon his Maker with many blasphemies while he assured the Swede he was the very "proper blushin' bloke" for the berth. The crowd straightway lost all interest in the runnership; they had another sensation to occupy them. At the Swede's words, a low growl ran around ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... For still a smirk or a favor Can hide the face of the false; And the old-time Faith seeks braver Upholders, ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... Herrn Tourniquet and Tuci," said the Frau Kupferkram one morning, with a duck and a smirk, "do us the honour of supping with us this evening? There will be a few friends, for this is the 'nahmenstag' of our ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... was different, but except for a smirk or two he had never bothered her. Nor did anybody else connected with the firm. They all were ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... expedition were mustered for inspection prior to being dispatched on what was likely enough to prove a dangerous errand. But little recked any of us of possible danger; on the contrary, if an onlooker had judged only by the satisfied smirk which our countenances wore, it might have been supposed that we were all bound ashore for a ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... Dalton. Then, catching the trace of a smirk in Hank's eyes, the rascal shook his fist at the steward of ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... a traitor to your mind. Who, knowing innocence in danger, dares Not turn his eye, for fear of smirk, or stares, By other courts, is Justice's statue blind, That to the wall, not Bench, should be assigned. Oft, Precedent is Folly with gray hairs; So you, recalling Junius, heard the prayers Of friendless Stilow; then, ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... unnatural composition, with one or two interesting scenes. The best actor was he who represented the blind man. The chief actress is an overgrown dame, all fat and dimples, who kept up a constant sobbing and heaving of her chest, yet never getting rid of an eternal smirk upon her face. A bolero, danced afterwards by two Spanish damsels in black ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... hours, Tells that our globe, this quivering crystal world, Is slowly dying. What if, seconds hence, When I am very old, yon shimmering dome Come drawing down and down, till all things end?" Then with a weazen smirk he proudly felt No other mote of God had ever gained Such giant grasp of ...
— Practice Book • Leland Powers
... the smirk on her face, all I can learn of her now is that she was one of [Pg viii] a small family who lived in the country, invented their own games, dodged the governess and let the rest of the world go ...
— The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan • Daisy Ashford
... began. "They've driven his Lordship away. I hope his Majesty will hang every mother's son of 'em. All pleasure of life is gone, and they've folly enough to think they can resist the fleet. And the worst of it is," cried he, "the worst of it is, I'm forced to smirk to them, and give good gold to their government." Seeing that my father did not answer, he asked: "Have you joined the Highlanders? You ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... sensible. I want you to like me." Pope tried to appear amiable, but the effort resulted in a painful smirk. ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... to have that proof with you?" called out Frank. Upon hearing this, the other hastened up, though there was a satisfied smirk on his face, as though he ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... that if I had the power I'd do this to all of you! I'd do this to all of you! I'd do this to all of you! You just wait, you young scamp! I'll catch you. My heart boils, it boils, it boils over! And now I must smirk before the mistress as if I were a fool. What a life! What a life! The sinners in hell do not suffer as I suffer in ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... about the colour in the cheek," he answered, with a smirk at what he took to be the quickness of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... you're making game, I guess. That's what you're up to, captain," and Mrs. Huzzard attempted a chaste blush and smile, and succeeded in a smirk. "I'm sure, now, that to hem a few neckties an' sich like for you is no good reason for thinking I'm doing the same for every one that comes around. No, indeed; my heart ain't ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... at the two girls and wanted to say something; but he was speechless. When much worried he would always smirk. It was a disagreeable habit. In Eleanore it always aroused a feeling of intense compassion. "There is nothing wrong, father," she stammered, and made an awkward gesture which indicated to him that it would be most agreeable to her if he would go away. "Gertrude has ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... his vanity leads him to imagine the thing done, and he admits by winks and blushes that he is a bad one. But at the bottom of all that tawdry pretence there is usually nothing more material than an oafish smirk at some disgusted shop-girl, or a scraping of shins under the table. Let any woman who is disquieted by reports of her husband's derelictions figure to herself how long it would have taken him to propose to her if left to his own ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... wish to speak to him, but, forced upon him as it was by the first lieutenant, he could do no less. So Mr. Templemore touched his hat, and stood before the captain, we regret to say, with such a good-humoured, sly, confiding smirk on his countenance, as at once established the proof of the accusation, and the enormity ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat |
