"Good-humored" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Scarcely was he gone when the sound of shuffling footsteps in the hall announced an arrival, and a moment after, a boy, apparently fifteen years of age, appeared in the door. He was richly though carelessly dressed, and notwithstanding the good-humored expression of his rather handsome face, there was in his whole appearance an indescribable something which at once pronounced him to be a "fast" boy. A rowdy hat was set on one side of his head, after the most approved fashion, while in his hand he held a lighted cigar, which ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... beauties in the royal palace he showed her indifferently two or three of his aunts and grandmothers, and in the historical picture of the anointing of the great Charlemagne, one of his ancestors, stout and good-humored as Hugo himself, ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis
... him enter upon his tasks," says Dr. Glennie, "with alacrity and success. He was playful, good-humored, and beloved by his companions. His reading in history and poetry was far beyond the usual standard of his age, and in my study he found, among other works, a set of our poets—from Chaucer to Churchill—which, I am almost tempted to say, ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... of geniality and warmth, the landscape lost some of its repulsiveness, the dreary palmettos had less of that hideousness which made us regard them as very fitting emblems of treason. We even began to feel a little good-humored contempt for our hateful little Brats of guards, and to reflect how much vicious education and surroundings were to be ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... were not very religious," said one of the old ladies, with a red, wrinkled, good-humored face, "by your behavior yesterday ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... the fronts of the houses, for the sake of the pretty faces that glanced out of the casements. He was a young man, and it was spring, and this was Venice. He made himself joyfully part of the city and the season; he was glad of the narrowness of the streets, of the good-humored jostling and pushing; he crouched into an arched doorway to let a water-carrier pass with her copper buckets dripping at the end of the yoke balanced on her shoulder, and he returned her smiles and excuses with others as broad and gay; he brushed by ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... be given to Joseph and Louis, and their wives, but not to the Emperor's sisters, or to their husbands. This fatal news prostrated Elisa, Caroline, and Pauline. When they sat down at table, Napoleon was good-humored and merry, possibly at heart enjoying the slight constraint that this novel formality enforced upon his guests. Madame Murat, when she heard the Emperor saying frequently Princess Louis, could not hide ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... and beautiful; her hair a bright gold, and her eyes blue; her mouth is somewhat large, the teeth dazzlingly white; her neck white and slender, but at the same time well rounded. She is always cheerful and good-humored."[164] ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... to his own desk, with a nod here and there, dropped his bag, took off coat and hat, selected a cigarette, tapped it smartly, lighted it, and was off down the big room to the little cubby-hole at the other end. But Sam Hupp's plump, keen, good-humored face did not greet him as he entered. The little room was deserted. Frowning, Jock sank into the empty desk chair. He cradled his head in his hands, tilted the chair, pursed his mouth over the slender white cylinder and squinted his eyes up toward the lazy blue spirals of smoke—the ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... been disfigured by being scalded during her infancy, which accident had also deprived her of sight. But when he requested her to raise her veil, and allow him to look at her face, she refused with so much good-humored animation, that he began to suspect the young lady of having playfully ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... "Come, come," was the good-humored reply; "fortune has given us a few rubs already: we have had our clouds, only this little hand has always conjured them away. Why, have you not had plague enough with the servants, the pranks of the children, and sometimes with your tyrant too, that you should be wishing ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... from the stream that was moving toward the door, and with a good-humored look of inquiry about her very expressive eyebrows, came toward him. And then he wished he hadn't called her. She had spoiled his lecture—a perfectly good lecture—and his impulse had been to remonstrate with her. But the moment he saw her coming, he knew he wasn't going to be able to ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... demanded the Celt, a bit of good-humored malice in his voice. "Vibrations are all very well in their way, sir, but when it comes to a ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... her dress, which was made for a smaller child, and the too brief skirt disclosed a bare, freckled, and sandy desert of shapely limb, for which the darned stockings were equally too scant. Lance let his grasp slip from her thin wrist to her hand, and then with a good-humored gesture tossed it lightly back ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... had missed Little Dorrit greatly. He was very friendly with a couple named Meagles—a comely, healthy, good-humored and kind-hearted pair, and he was so lonely he almost thought himself in love with their daughter "Pet" for a while. But Pet soon married a portrait-painter and went ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... credulous, always putting out its neck to see how the wind is blowing, was beginning to be seriously influenced. We must do Mora the justice to say that he was no follower of the crowd. When he saw the Nabob's face, always good-humored, but wearing a piteous, discomfited look, in a corner of the gallery, it had occurred to him that it was cowardly to receive him there, and he had told him to go up ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... Tresler retorted, with a good-humored laugh; "but your enterprise has carried you so far ahead of time that you've overlapped. I tell you, man, you're back in the savage times. You're groping in the prehistoric periods—Jurassic, Eocene, or ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... contriving a place to put the things they had brought from the town, and looked at him inquiringly. His face was grave, but a twinkle in his eye betrayed him. She blushed charmingly to the roots of her hair, but her laugh was perfectly frank and good-humored. "I beg your pardon. I was so occupied with arranging my pantry that I forgot my ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... some trouble; grumbling might have led to action in a raid on somebody's stores, but for the Y. M. C. A. hut. They served out hot tea and in a few moments grumbling gave place to "chiaching"; criticism that a few moments ago had been edged was now good-humored. Give an Australian soldier hot tea and it will pick him up quicker than any other drink ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... cruel punishment the mutilated beauty sank into a state of melancholy madness, and although the exorcists of the Church and other thaumaturgists had vainly endeavored to expel the demon of madness, she remained as before: a gentle, good-humored creature, quiet and diligent at her work, under the women who had charge of her, and now in the common work-shop. It was only when she was idle that her craziness became evident, and of this the other girls took advantage for ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... themselves. Every passion acts upon them with strange intensity, their anger is sudden and furious, their mirth clamorous and excessive, their curiosity audacious, and their love the sheer demand for gratification of an ardent animal desire. Yet by their nature they are good-humored in the highest degree, and I know nothing more delightful than to be met by a group of negro girls and to be saluted with their kind 'How d'ye ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... of the Villain is very fine. In Doctor Harrison we hail a new development of that indispensable character. Of course, the gentlemanly, good-humored Doctor is not to be considered a villain in the ordinary acceptation of the word; he is only a technical villain,—a villain of eminent respectability. It is almost unnecessary to add, that he is immeasurably more attractive than the real ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... the whole the most unlovely of the sex, but I was struck with the pretty, plump, nude figures, the merry musical voices and good-humored countenances of the Garos girls. Their sole garment is a piece of cloth less than a foot in breadth that just meets round the loins, and in order that it may not restrain the limbs it is only fastened where it meets under the hip at ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... the greatest effect. They are distinguished from intrigue, inasmuch as they are momentary, and that their aim, whenever they are to have one, must not be remote. Beaumarchais has seized their full value, and the effects of his "Figaro" spring pre-eminently from this. Whereas such good-humored roguish and half-knavish pranks are practised with personal risk for noble ends, the situations which arise from them are aesthetically and morally considered of the greatest value for the theatre; as, for instance, the opera of "The Water-Carrier" treats perhaps the ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... all held up their paws, and declared they had never heard anything so wonderful. But her father and mother scolded her also, and told her it was all her own fault, which Wishie felt was too true; and, from that day forwards, she never mewed for anything, but became as satisfied and good-humored as Contenta herself; and even the housekeeper at last grew quite ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin
... with good-humored lightness, "Why, sir, do you complain of not being flattered? I thought such complaints were made only by women, and only to their ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Idea, the Great Experiment; but if democracy should fail he was ready to take up socialism. He talked of his heroes; he said they all owed it to the men who had made and preserved the Union to give the existing government a chance. These discussions were entirely good-humored and Harwood enjoyed them. Sometimes they met in the evening at a saloon in the neighborhood of the shop where Allen, the son of Edward Thatcher, whom everybody knew, was an object of special interest. He ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... fewer points of contact she exposes the more likely she is to slip into victory; the more she assumes, and the less she argues, the slighter the hold she gives her opponents. She is either perfectly good-humored or blankly innocent; she either smiles you into indulgence or wearies you into compliance by the sheer hopelessness of making any impression on her. She may, indeed, if of the very vociferous and ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... with me, it's a beautiful moonlight night; we will walk up and down arm in arm under the trees, while you tell me your pitiful tale." He drew the doleful governor into the courtyard, took him by the arm as he had said, and, in his rough, good-humored way, cried: "Out with it, rattle away, Baisemeaux; what have ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... admiration of even his political enemies. "His speech was four hours in length" wrote one of these, "and was conceived and expressed in a most happy and pleasant style, and was received with abundant applause. At times he made statements which brought Senator Douglas to his feet, and then good-humored passages of wit created much interest and enthusiasm." All reports plainly indicate that Douglas was astonished and disconcerted at this unexpected strength of argument, and that he struggled vainly through a two hours' rejoinder to break ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... likewise thought that "you-all" was one word. However I refrained from suggesting that, lest it be taken for an attempt at retaliation. And really there was no occasion to retaliate, for the story was always told with good-humored appreciation not only of the dig at "Yankees"—collectively all Northerners are "Yankees" in the South—but also of the sweet absurdity of the "unreconstructed" point ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... She was a very good-humored girl, and did not appear to be displeased, though it certainly was not quite proper for Marco to speak in that manner to a stranger. She did not, however, reply to his question, but ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott
... When we see how cruel statesmen and warriors can be to the human race, and how absurd distinguished men can be to their acquaintance, it will be instructive to observe the instances multiply of pacific, acquiescing manners; and to find how compatible it is to be great and domestic, enviable and yet good-humored. ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... until the morning of the resurrection; and bringing up the rear, attenuated but vivacious little Jonathan Homer of Newton, who was, to look upon, a kind of expurgated, reduced and Americanized copy of Voltaire, but very unlike him in wickedness or wit. The good-humored junior member of our family always loved to make him happy by setting him chirruping about Miles Coverdale's Version, and the Bishop's Bible, and how he wrote to his friend Sir Isaac (Coffin) about something or other, and how Sir Isaac ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... ballad at the door of a small tavern near the gate of the village. He wore a brown coat, out at elbows, the fragment of a velvet waistcoat, and a pair of tight nankeens, so short as hardly to reach below his calves. A little foraging cap, that had long since seen its best days, set off an open, good-humored countenance, bronzed by sun and wind. He was led about by a brisk, middle-aged woman, in straw hat and wooden shoes; and a little barefooted boy, with clear, blue eyes and flaxen hair, held a tattered hat in his hand, in which he collected eleemosynary sous. The ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... Ha! ha! ha! ha! Ouh! ouh!" came peals of such healthy and good-humored laughter from the soldiers that it infected the French involuntarily, so much so that the only thing left to do seemed to be to unload the muskets, explode the ammunition, and all return home ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Nile. A little farther on I come to the boarding-house built at the railroad side for the French Canadians who have by this time succeeded the Hebrews in the toil of the brick-yards, and who, as they loiter in windy-voiced, good-humored groups about the doors of their lodgings, insist upon bringing before me the town of St. Michel at the mouth of the great Mont Cenis tunnel, where so many peasant folk like them are always amiably quarreling before the cabarets when the ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... them. Each of them had a legal claim to the throne, Stephen's the better, he being the nearest male heir. No woman had as yet ruled in England. Maud's mother had been of ancient English descent, which gave her popularity among the Saxon inhabitants of the land. Stephen was personally popular, a good-humored, generous prodigal, his very faults tending to make him a favorite. Yet he was born to be a swordsman, not a king, and his only idea of royalty was to let the land rule—or misrule it if preferred—itself, while he enjoyed the pleasures ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... light of the lamps I caught a glimpse of a countenance which I thought I knew. I moved forward to get a nearer view, when his eye caught mine. I was not mistaken; it was Frank Bracebridge, a sprightly, good-humored young fellow with whom I had once travelled on the Continent. Our meeting was extremely cordial, for the countenance of an old fellow-traveller always brings up the recollection of a thousand pleasant scenes, odd adventures, and excellent jokes. To discuss all these in a transient ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... Vandeford, as he rose and, with all the ceremony he would have used for a grand duchess—or Miss Patricia Adair—offered a chair to the pert little person with her funny, good-humored, rather pretty face and her very ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... craven nor valiant; taking perils as they came with an indifferent air; and while engaged in the most imminent crisis of the chase, toiling away, calm and collected as a journeyman joiner engaged for the year. Good-humored, easy, and careless, he presided over his whale-boat as if the most deadly encounter were but a dinner, and his crew all invited guests. He was as particular about the comfortable arrangement of his part of the boat, as an old stage-driver ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... kindly at his real, good-humored face. "And you would rather die than tell me an untruth also, is it not ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... doubt in the mind of any one who had heard both sermons that of the two mine was the tolerant, the reverent, and the Christian one. The attack made many friends for us, first because of its injustice, and next because of the good-humored tolerance with which the ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... the subject, Maxwell had hardly to do more than to copy the words of a certain character in his play: one of those cynical personages, well-known to the drama, whose function is to observe the course of the action, and to make good-humored sarcasms upon the conduct and motives of the other characters. It was here that Ricker employed his blue pencil the most freely, and struck out passages of almost diabolical persiflage, and touched the colors of the black pessimism ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... the house of Coventry Patmore, where we dined together. I was contented with him at once. He is tall and scholastic looking, no dandy, but a great deal of plain strength about him, and though cultivated, quite unaffected. Quiet, sluggish sense and thought; refined, as all English are, and good-humored. There is in him an air of great superiority that is very satisfactory. He lives with his college set, ... and has the air of one who is accustomed to be petted and indulged by those he lives with. Take away Hawthorne's bashfulness, and let him talk easily ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... a long, well-supplied table, set in a large and pleasant dining-hall. Young Harmar, his wife, and the four children, were also accommodated at the same table, and a scene of conviviality and pleasure was presented such as is not often witnessed. The old men were very communicative and good-humored; and young Harmar and his family were free of questions concerning the great scenes through which they had passed. But we will let the company ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... perfectly good-humored tone, "what do you lock a fellow out for? It looks as if you're up to some mischief. I just came to tell you there's company in the parlor, and they've asked for you, both ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... projecting forehead and his resolute black eyes under it gave him a look of great energy and force. The other was short and thick-set, with a big round head stockily upheld on a thick neck, and with a good-humored face, which, being clean-shaven, was chiefly notable for the breadth and the squareness of the jaws. He had merry blue eyes, and his crown—he was holding his battered Derby hat in his hand—was as bare as a billiard ball. Below timber-line, as he himself ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... and in due time the dinner was announced, which was in the substantial excellent style that Clarke knew well how to order for such a festivity. The host was talkative and charming; as the dinner proceeded the guests became increasingly good-humored, exceedingly well satisfied with him and with themselves. "In due time the ladies and clergy retired," says Levi Beardsley,[95] who was present at the feast, "and then the guests were effectually plied with ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... have you been doin', Jimmy darlint?" said Mrs. Donovan, turning her broad, good-humored face ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... be-daughtered house. It was at dinner-time that he always seemed to realize the extent of his disaster. As he took his place at the head, his wrathful eye swept from Frances in her high chair, up along the line, past the twins, through Cecilia, Irene, and Kate, till it lighted upon Miss Madigan's good-humored, placid face. His sister's placidity was an ever-present offense to the father of the Madigans,—the most irascible of unsuccessful men,—and the snort with which he finished the inspection and took up the carving-knife had become a classic ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... passion?—Take things coolly. As the poet has observed, "Those only is gentlemen who behave as sich;" with such, then, consort, be they cobblers or dukes. Don't give us, cries the patriotic reader, any abuse of our fellow-countrymen (anybody else can do that), but rather continue in that good-humored, facetious, descriptive style with which your letter has commenced.—Your remark, sir, is perfectly just, and does honor to your head and ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... most of his innumerable pictures, with a swarthy face from which his blue eyes glanced pleasantly; he looked good-humored if not good-natured; the Empress smiled amiably beneath her deeply fringed white parasol, and they both bowed right and left in acknowledgment of those hollow groans; but again it seemed, to March that sovereignty, gave the popular curiosity, not to call it devotion, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... character as Bronson Alcott for a next-door neighbor could not long escape Hawthorne's penetrating glance. Alcott was an interesting personality, perfectly genuine, frank, kindly and imperturbably good-humored. He had a benevolent aspect, and in general appearance so much resembled the portraits of Benjamin Franklin that his ingenious daughters made use of him in charades and theatricals for that purpose. Hawthorne had known him many years earlier, and had spoken very pleasantly of him in his first ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... they wished to reflect, and to resume their self-command. Mme. Petit found it useless to question their faces —they told her nothing. But she did not agree with Baptiste about M. Lecoq: she thought him good-humored, and rather silly. Though the party was less silent at the dinner-table, all avoided, as if by tacit consent, any allusion to the events of the day. No one would ever have thought that they had just been witnesses of, almost actors in, ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... point of the compass, their clear arms glittering in the sun; lost now in some hollow, then emerging, winding out with long-drawn glitter again; till at length their blue uniforms and actual faces come home to you. Near upon 30,000 of all arms; trim exact, of stout and silently good-humored aspect; well rested, by this time;—likely fellows for their work, who will do it with a will. The King seemed to be affected by so glorious a spectacle; and, what I admired, his Majesty, though fatigued, would not rest satisfied with reports or distant view, but ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... a stop at the platform of Colorado Springs, I caught sight of the red, good-humored face of Gustave, coachman for Louis Ehrich, one of my Colorado friends. Gustave was standing beside the road wagon in which I had so often ridden, and when he saw me alight he motioned to me. "You are to come ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... before a wash-tub. Her arms were bare to the elbows, and covered with suds. Her blue winsey petticoat was tucked up above her ankles; her large feet were destitute of shoes and stockings. She had a broad face, a snub nose, and two twinkling good-humored eyes. Notwithstanding her dirt-and she was very dirty-the first glance into her face gave one a certain feeling of comfort and confidence. This was curious; for Mother Bunch had the loudest tongue and the most stalwart arm in ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... be an introduction giving the history of New York from the foundation of the world, and the main body of the book was to consist of "notices of the customs, manners, and institutions of the city; written in a serio-comic vein, and treating local errors, follies, and abuses with good-humored satire." ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... mean that a debater should calmly submit to unfairness and vilification. On the contrary, he should defend himself spiritedly; but he should not meet abuse with abuse. To do so would be to throw away an invaluable opportunity. He should remain dignified, self-controlled, and good-humored; then by treating his opponent as one who has inadvertently fallen into error, and by pointing out the mistakes, the unfairness, and the way in which the real question has been ignored, he can ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... out into the roadway, and took their place among the slowly moving people there, the Inspector make a way for himself and his companion through the excited, talkative, good-humored Cockney crowd. "There it is! Can't you see it? Up there just like a little yellow worm." "There's naught at all! You've got the cobble-wobbles!" and ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... to amuse himself—something he never took seriously. This, and a curious control over animals, had, as the pleasant years flowed by, become an astonishing skill which was much more than sleight of hand; and he, always as good-humored as well-bred, had never refused to amuse the frivolous, of which he was also one, by picking silver dollars out of space and causing the proper card to fall fluttering from ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... Pond were speedily and gayly accomplished, and there we took boat to cross the lake, Uncle David rowing us, and the good-humored, broad-shouldered 'novice,' the scow to be used for our return, in case we were not back at the time then supposed probable. 'Bill's' rowing was the source of much merriment, the strokes proving powerful, but the course amusingly devious. So little does it ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... "Sketches by Boz," "very sentimental and romantic"; the tempery young Nickleby, who, at nineteen, thrashed Squeers; Barnaby Rudge, idiotic and very muscular; Joe Willet, persistently treated as a boy till he ran away to join the army and married Dolly Varden, perhaps the most exuberant, good-humored, and beautiful girl in all the Dickens gallery; Martin Chuzzlewit, who also ran away, as did David Copperfield, perhaps the most true to adolescence because largely reminiscent of the author's own life; Steerforth, a ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... But the grave Councillors of the Canadian Reservation, who recite his history as they have heard it from their fathers at every installation of a high chief, do not repeat these inventions of marvel-loving gossips, and only smile with good-humored derision ...
— Hiawatha and the Iroquois Confederation • Horatio Hale
... that is, alas! strongest in the unknown and ardent young writer. He walked feebly, and his brilliant eyes were haggard and circled, as though by long illness. I saw him drive by nearly every afternoon, accompanied by his nurse, a good-humored young fellow, who helped him tenderly into the carriage, and drove, while he lay back with the irritated expression that the sense of enforced idleness and invalidism gives a man in the heyday of youth. Mrs. ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... knocked to him and David from the dining-room window, but he was not cross now. He was only thirteen, and up to the present no pretty girl had ever taken the slightest notice of him. He was a plain, sandy-haired boy, with a freckled face, a wide mouth, and good-humored ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... to be frightened at. The tiny man had brushed the dust and trash from his clothes, and then turned to the children with a good-humored smile. He was not above four inches high. He had on a dress-coat. Drusilla afterward described it as a claw-hammer coat, velveteen knickerbockers, and silver buckles on his shoes. His hat was shaped like ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... upon this fellow McCorquodale's homely, good-humored face when Kendrick revealed his identity had been sufficiently quizzical. He had grinned widely as he waved the indignant young man to a seat at the table and even then the situation would have adjusted itself had it ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... boy of fifteen, was sitting on a bench in City-Hall Park. He was apparently about fifteen years old, with a face not handsome, but frank and good-humored, and an expression indicating an energetic and hopeful temperament. A small bundle, rolled up in a handkerchief, contained his surplus wardrobe. He had that day arrived in New York by a boat from Hartford, and meant to stay in the city if he could ...
— The Telegraph Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... thus suddenly surrounded, captured, and taken possession of, seemed more amused than annoyed by these inquisitorial proceedings, and, with a clear voice and a good-humored smile, replied, while the tumult was hushed and every ear expanded to catch the interesting intelligence, "I know of no battles that have been fought on the land or sea; but just before I left New York, intelligence ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... with his Mother to visit a friend. This lady had a little daughter about two years old, a very pretty and good-humored child. She was sitting on the carpet when Harry came in, playing with a little woolly dog and making it bark. She knew Harry, for he had been there before with his Mother. So she held the dog out to him and said, "Tum here, Henny." She ...
— Aunt Fanny's Story-Book for Little Boys and Girls • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... I visibly perceived the alteration in the Simple, I was utterly unable to make any guess at the occasion. I had not the least suspicion of Adelaide; for, besides her being a very good-humored woman, I had often made severe jests on her reputation, which I had all the reason imaginable to believe had given her no offense. But I soon perceived that a woman will bear the most bitter censures on her morals easier than ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... always very amiable after that. The beautiful little gazelles would cluster around me, thrusting up their noses into my hand, and saying "Wow! wow!" as plainly as I write it. But none of these animals attracted me as much as the big lioness. She was always good-humored, though occasionally so lazy that she would not even open her eyes when I sat down on her shoulder. She would sometimes catch my foot in her paws as a kitten catches a ball, and try to make a plaything of it,—yet always without thrusting out ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... when he read this letter were divided. He enjoyed hearing from Helen. The letter was just like herself, sensible and good-humored and friendly. There were no hysterics in it and no heroics but he knew that no one except his grandparents and Rachel and Laban—and, of course, his own Madeline—would think of him oftener or be more anxious for his safety ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... of kinsmen across the seas were strangers to us, and the amazing friendship which has sprung up between the subjects of Victoria and the citizens of the vast republic was represented fifty years ago by a kind of sheepish, good-humored ignorance, tempered by jealousy. The smart packets left London and Liverpool to thrash their way across the Atlantic swell, and they were lucky if they managed to complete the voyage in a month—Charles Dickens sailed in a vessel which took twenty-two days for the trip, and she was a steamer, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... pleased with Otto's appointment; he is good-humored, affectionate to America, will see things in a friendly light when they admit of it, in a rational one always, and will not pique himself on writing every trifling circumstance of irritation to his court. I wish you to be ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... When he returned home after work he did nothing but sing, make faces, and gambol like a child. He made me dance, and jump upon his knees; he played with me as if he were my own age, and his wife entirely spoilt me. Both required of me but one thing—to be good-humored; and in that, thank God! I never disappointed them; so they baptized me, Dimpleton (not Simpleton, neighbor!) and the cap fitted. As to gayety, they set me the example: never did I see them sad. If they uttered ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... in the fust part of their acquaintance, master used to laff at De l'Orge's bad Inglish, and funny ways. The little creature had a thowsnd of these; and being small, and a Frenchman, master, in cors, looked on him with that good-humored kind of contemp which a good Brittn ot always to show. He rayther treated him like an intelligent munky than a man, and ordered him about as if he'd bean ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... touched the end of the slip and one man after another climbed upon the swaying piles and groped his perilous way toward the shore, the cheers that arose and followed them on their way, with everybody offering advice and encouragement, and accepting it in the same good-humored way! ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... a child, his village, his mother, a red-cheeked plump woman, with kindly gray eyes, his father, a red-bearded giant with a stern face. He saw himself betrothed, and saw his wife, black-eyed Anfisa, with her long hair, plump, mild, and good-humored; again himself a handsome soldier in the Guards; again his father, gray now and bent with toil, and his mother wrinkled and bowed to the ground; he saw, too, the picture of his welcome in the village when he returned from the service; ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... Langley's good-humored laugh had a touch of conscious power in it. If it depended upon "th' missus" he was safe enough. His bright good looks and gay grace of manner never failed with the women. The most practical and uncompromising melted, however ...
— "Seth" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... should never meet any one quite like him again. He was true to his promise to help her; (he never made a promise that he did not honestly try to keep;) and he applied himself to the by no means thankless task with the good-humored directness and energy that characterized all his actions. There was quite a number of young girls in his parish, more proportionately than in the others. Bell Masters and Amy Duckworth had long been hovering on its borders, and the advent of so young and prepossessing ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... in congratulation and good-humored banter. Everybody was glad of the boy's success, he was an all round favorite, and some of the men who had won his money felt ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... was low and modulated with the faintest suggestion of a drawl, which was especially irritating to Frank, who secretly despised the Oxford product, though he admitted—since he was a very well-balanced and on the whole good-humored young ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... real peevish over Mr. Bayne's suspicions, and told him to go chase himself; but I'm feelin' sort of good-humored that day. Besides, thinks I, it won't do any harm to show him just how peaceful and respectable a physical culture studio can be. You know the ideas some people get. And as a rule our floor here is the quietest in the buildin'. I knew it would be that day specially; for all we had on the slate was ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... half-naked urchin of six, tremblingly pronounced his name before the principal's desk in the summer free Claybank school to the memorable occasion of his registration as an Afro-American voter, the announcement had never failed to evoke a smile, accompanied many times by good-humored pleasantry. ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... first peep of dawn, punctual to his promise, Dasher thrust his black, good-humored face into ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... o'clock, there was seen making a desperate attempt to penetrate through this teeming, densely-packed, and noisy multitude, a stout figure, with a face ugly, irregular, good-humored. He was dressed in a long and dull-colored and almost shabby ulster. His hat was as rough as if it had been brushed the wrong way, and he wore a suit of tweed that was now very old, but that even in its earliest days would have ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... be good-humored this night, having found a way of escape from difficulties which have threatened to ruin his new career at its very beginning. For a line of the P. D. building into this territory has been held up by ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... margin of dishonesty; unrelenting as the rock-fronted fastnesses of her native hills; good-humored at times and even possessed of swift moods of tenderness that disarmed and appealed—such she was. She stood straight as a spruce despite the burden of her years, and a suggestion of girlhood's bloom still colored her cheek; but ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... due to his mortification as a baffled visionary, whose favorite conceit had suddenly exploded like a rocket into smoke and stench, is more than we know. But, at all events, the sole memorial of his hypothesis which now reminds the English reader that it ever existed is one solitary notice of good-humored satire pointed at it by Cowper. [Footnote: "The Inestimable Estimate of Brown."] And the possibility of such exceeding folly in a man otherwise of good sense and judgment, not depraved by any brain-fever or enthusiastic infatuation, is to be found in the vicious process of reasoning applied ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... a tone of good-humored expostulation; "no; it is my beetle and wedge. I let you have it to split one stick off; but now you ought to let me have it ...
— Rollo's Experiments • Jacob Abbott
... the chevalier sat in his easy-chair with the newspaper and his cigar. He was a man who made his tent comfortable wherever he pitched it, and long before Altamont's arrival, had done justice to a copious breakfast of fried eggs and broiled rashers, which Mr. Grady had prepared secundum artem. Good-humored and talkative, he preferred any company rather than none; and though he had not the least liking for his fellow-lodger, and would not have grieved to hear that the accident had befallen him which Sir Francis Clavering desired so fervently, yet kept on fair terms ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... woods beyond. But Fisher knew that it had started and stopped on the pale lips of Jefferson Jenkins, of Montreal, and no one at that moment catching sight of Jefferson Jenkins's face would have complained that it was commonplace. The next moment a torrent of guttural but good-humored oaths came from Major Burke as he and the two other men saw what was in front of them. The target stood up in the dim grass like a dark goblin grinning at them, and it was literally grinning. It had two eyes like stars, and in ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... upstairs window. It was a perfectly circular face, framed in thin, fair hair, which was parted in the middle, and brushed down so smooth and shiny that it looked like a coat of dull yellow paint. The face had the same good-humored, benevolent expression as the man's, mingled with the same strained air of desperate resolve. "'Most ready, Jake!" she mumbled through a mouthful of pins, "'most ready! Arabella! Arabella! Did you put in the ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... com-tech was scowling. He had grasped the significance of that arrangement as quickly as Raf. "How long do I wait for you, sir?" he asked in a voice which had lost its usual good-humored drawl. ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... man, tall, well-made, with a shrewd, good-humored countenance, and a ready, confident air about him. I had no trouble in picking him out as the amused Dicky. The other was a black-bearded giant, who followed stolidly in the wake of the ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... where an error in statement or a hasty word might mean a cut in wages or an increase in hours for two years to come. They have met with their fellow-workers in union meetings, where, if a girl aspires to lead her sisters or brothers, she has to show both readiness of wit and good-humored patience ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... the workshop of the Golden Key there issued forth a tinkling sound, so merry and good-humored that it suggested the idea of some one working blithely, and made quite pleasant music. Tink, tink, tink—clear as a silver bell, and audible at every pause of the streets' harsher noises, as though it said, "I don't care; nothing ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... (fashion) 852 [Obs.]; gallant; on one's good behavior. fine spoken, fair spoken, soft-spoken; honey-mouthed, honey- tongued; oily, bland; obliging, conciliatory, complaisant, complacent; obsequious &c 886. ingratiating, winning; gentle, mild; good-humored, cordial, gracious, affable, familiar; neighborly. diplomatic, tactful, politic; artful &c 702. Adv. courteously &c adj.; with a good grace; with open arms, with outstretched arms; a bras ouverts [Fr.]; suaviter in modo [Fr.], in good humor. Int. hail!, welcome!, well met!, ave!, all hail!, good ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Idle Hour had been, they were of a different type. They were cattlemen, some old, some young. All looked up, startled. One of them got to his feet. He was a huge man and very fat. His face was round and good-humored, although his puckered blue eyes told ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... at the convent till dusk. During the afternoon somebody noticed, indeed, that Eugenia's dress, though of mull like the rest, was more fanciful, and her satin sash twice as wide as that of any one else. But the discovery only caused a smile of good-humored amusement; for it was hardly to be expected that Eugenia would conform absolutely to the rule they had laid down ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... conception of any necessity of controlling her feelings, or the expression of them. If she were pleased, if all things went precisely as she liked, if all persons ministered to her pleasure, well and good,—she would be graciously pleased to smile, and be good-humored. If she were displeased, if her preferences were not consulted, if her plans were interfered with, woe betide the first person who entered her presence; and still more woe betide the person who was responsible ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... estates there, and witnesses the good-humored indulgence of some masters and mistresses, and the affectionate loyalty of some slaves, might be tempted to dream the oft-fabled poetic legend of a patriarchal institution, and all that; but over and above the scene there broods a portentous shadow—the ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Pathfinder walked leisurely on the ground without his beloved rifle, for him a measure so unusual, as to be understood by all present as a proof that he did not consider himself a competitor for the honors of the day. All made way for Major Duncan, who, as he approached the stand in a good-humored way, took his station, levelled his rifle carelessly, and fired. The bullet missed the required mark by ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... he again smoked in his cabin with his brother. Opposite them sat an Indian with long, black hair. The latter held in his hand a whiskey glass, now almost drained, the contents of which had no doubt called up the good-humored expression at the corners of the ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... Fyles cut him short. The man's irrepressible love of fooling, half good-humored, half malicious, ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum |
