"Laugh" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of Furness," said the merry taunter, with many interruptions from laughter and want of breath; "thy heels are as glib as thy tongue: for which—oh, oh! I am breathed—blown—dispossessed of my birthright, free quaffing o' the air. Ha, ha! I cannot laugh. Oh! what a mouth didst thou make at old blacksleeves. Gaping so, I wonder he mistook not thy muzzle for one of the vents into his old quarters. A pretty gull thee be'st, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... But, oh, Carrie, if you could have seen his expression when it dawned on him that he was in the wrong house! It's too bad to laugh at him, but ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... children and their cows to die. And then, Mere Jeanne she tell how she run to Jeannot's house,—she fear nossing, Mere Jeanne! the good God protect her always. She cry, 'Where is Marie? where is my child?' And Jeannot's Manon, she laugh, she say, 'Cross the sea after her, old witch! Who keeps thee?' Then—see, p'tit Jacques! see, Petie! I have not seen this wiz my eyes, no! but in my heart I have seen, I know! Then Mere Jeanne run at that woman, that devil; and she pull off her cap ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... stand in their cities, where their trick-men, the surgeons, will slice them right open when ill; and thousands of zealous young pharmacists will mix little drugs, which thousands of wise-looking simians will firmly prescribe. Each generation will change its mind as to these drugs, and laugh at all former opinions; but each will use some of them, and each will feel assured that in this respect ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day
... a second shot presently from the other side, and then the hunter began to laugh softly to himself. His faint amusement was turning into actual and intense enjoyment. The Indian hunters were obviously on every side of them but did not dream that the finest game of all was at hand. They would continue to waste their time on deer and bear while ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... for Jim to laugh, but he was horribly hurt. He stood around for a few minutes, talking to Anne, but as soon as he could he slid away and went to bed. He looked very badly the next morning, as though he had not slept, and his clothes quite hung on him. He was actually thinner. But that is ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... my slowness in eating, and went so far as to make the stupid bet with me, that he would demolish three dozen oysters while I ate one dozen, and he was quite right. On perceiving, however, that he was on the point of winning, I took to making faces, made him laugh so heartily that he couldn't go on eating; thus I won my bet." We find the following notice on the 20th of March: "I spent the evening at Ciceri's, son-in-law of Isabey, the famous painter, where I was introduced to one of the most interesting ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... and in the North and South? Are all the labor and expense of these examinations undertaken solely in order that the results may be laid before the President of the Senate for his supreme judgment in the premises? It is safe to say that there is not a single member of either House who would not laugh you in the face for asking ...
— The Electoral Votes of 1876 - Who Should Count Them, What Should Be Counted, and the Remedy for a Wrong Count • David Dudley Field
... Epicurus, indeed, says such things that it should seem that his design was only to make people laugh; for he affirms somewhere that if a wise man were to be burned or put to the torture—you expect, perhaps, that he is going to say he would bear it, he would support himself under it with resolution, ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... and age, but carefully invested in the funds, whilst the young miser relied upon the generosity of his mother to find him in clothes and pocket-money. When Mrs. Hurdlestone remonstrated with him on his meanness, his father would laugh and bid ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... be right," replied Killian seriously. "In the eyes of God, I do not question but you would be right; but men, sir, look at these things differently, and they laugh." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... She was always as ready to laugh at her own mistakes as at those of others; and in the year that Sylvia had known her she had never ...
— Yankee Girl at Fort Sumter • Alice Turner Curtis
... mother, quiet was instantly suffused through my whole being, for didn't I possess everything for which I had longed for years! Oh, mother, I shall never cease thanking you for bearing this friend; where else could I have found him? Now don't laugh at me, but remember that I loved him before I knew the least thing about him, and if you had not borne him what would have become of him? That is a question you ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... left for her to do was to die on the pavement, and it would not take long if, on getting into her room, she could only screw up enough courage to fling herself out of the window. What increased her ugly laugh was the remembrance of her grand hope of retiring into the country after twenty years spent in ironing. Well! she was on her way to the country. She was about to have her green corner in the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Senate's face, cross'd Rubicon, And the State's pillars, with their laws thereon, And made the dull grey beards and furr'd gowns fly Into Brundusium to consult, and lie. This, to brave Sylla! why should it be said We drink more to the living than the dead? Flatt'rers and fools do use it: let us laugh At our own honest mirth; for they that quaff To honour others, do like those that sent Their gold and plate to strangers to be spent. Drink deep; this cup be pregnant, and the wine Spirit of wit, to make us all divine, That big with sack and mirth we may retire Possessors ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... submarine has remained during the interval I do not know, but I do know that, submerged only deep enough for concealment, she has been towed to these waters recently by relays of fishing boats manned by Maltese traitors to Britain. Ah, those rascally Maltese! They know no country and they laugh at patriotism. They worship only the dollar, and are ever ready to sell themselves! And the submarine will endeavor to sink the ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... numbers. Balls were, therefore, never much to her taste; at the dinner-table she was freer, but it was on the racecourse that she reigned supreme. From the box-seat of a drag the white hands were waved, the cajoling laugh was set going; and fashionably-dressed men, with race-glasses about their shoulders, came crowding and climbing about her like bees about their queen. Mrs. Barton had passed from flirtation to flirtation without a violent word. With a wave of her hands she had called the man she wanted; with ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... after this prolonged visit, Balzac wrote to General de Pommereul, expressing his deep appreciation of their hospitality, and in speaking of the book which he had just written, hoped that Madame de Pommereul would laugh at some details about the butter, the weddings, the stiles, and the difficulties of going to the ball, etc., which he had inserted in his work,—if she could read it ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... laughed so loudly that all the wood-elves began to laugh also; so did the birds and the frogs, and even the flowers. And ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... face, at which he had evidently been shooting. This bully greeted the newcomer as "Four Eyes," in reference to his spectacles, and announced, "Four Eyes is going to treat." Roosevelt joined in the laugh that followed and sat down behind the stove, thinking to escape notice. But the "bad man" followed him, and in spite of Roosevelt's attempt to pass the matter over as a joke, stood over him, with a gun in each hand and using the foulest language. "He was foolish," said Roosevelt, in ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... instant the ready grin that marked Chet's irresistible good nature lighted up his face with a silent echo of some laugh-provoking thought ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... little fingers, she had never yet acquired the perfect use of her legs. Setting buoyantly forth therefore, as if no rival less swift than Atalanta could compete with her, she ran falteringly, and often tumbled on the grass. Such an incident—though it seems too slight to think of—was a thing to laugh at, but which brought the water into one's eyes, and lingered in the memory after far greater joys and sorrows were wept out of it, as antiquated trash. Priscilla's life, as I beheld it, was full of trifles that affected me in just this way." That seems ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... man glanced quickly at her from under his overhanging eyebrows, and met her bright upward look with an involuntary shake of the head and a slight sigh. Comfort was not for him, and he must not delude himself. But with a little laugh she put her hand on his arm, and as if administering reproof to a little child, she said some ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... Lund may smile through their tears, The Danish girls may have their jeers; They may laugh or smile, But outside their isle Old Harek still on to ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... laugh was in Aubrey's voice. "Why, Aunt!" said he, "is this the first time you did ever see a ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... By the laugh that greeted this reply, and by the looks the older servants exchanged, the new-comer must have realized that he had discovered the secret skeleton hidden in every house. "What! what!" he exclaimed, on fire with curiosity; "is there really anything in that? ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... copies from century to century. Sometimes the type becomes half-human when incarnate as a Mirabeau, sometimes it is an inarticulate force in a Bonaparte, sometimes it overwhelms the universe with irony as a Rabelais; or, yet again, it appears when a Marechal de Richelieu elects to laugh at human beings instead of scoffing at things, or when one of the most famous of our ambassadors goes a step further and scoffs at both men and things. But the profound genius of Juan Belvidero anticipated and resumed all these. All things were ...
— The Elixir of Life • Honore de Balzac
... him to go; so he wound up his string, picked up his kite and lantern, and went home. His mother had been wondering what had become of him. 13. When she heard what he had been doing, she hardly knew whether to laugh or scold; but I think she laughed, and told him that it was time for him to ...
— McGuffey's Third Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... indignities," said he, "is done me, does religion enforce me to sue for pardon? Doth God require it? Is it impiety not to do it? Why? Cannot princes err? Cannot subjects receive wrong? Is an earthly power infinite? Pardon me, my lord; I can never subscribe to these principles. Let Solomon's fool laugh when he is stricken; let those that mean to make their profit of princes, show no sense of princes' injuries: let them acknowledge an infinite absoluteness on earth, that do not believe an absolute infiniteness in heaven:" (alluding, probably, to the character ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... mealy-mouthed little snip Lois could be, sometimes. You'd think to hear her that she was better than any of them, and luckier too, with her Joe and the kids. What a laugh! Joe was probably the only guy who'd ever looked at her, and she'd hooked him right out of school, and now with three kids in five years and her ...
— The Very Secret Agent • Mari Wolf
... dirt, fling dirt; drag through the mud, point at, indulge in personalities; make mouths, make faces; bite the thumb; take by the beard; pluck by the beard; toss in a blanket, tar and feather. have in derision; hold in derision; deride, scoff, barrack, sneer, laugh at, snigger, ridicule, gibe, mock, jeer, hiss, hoot, taunt, twit, niggle[obs3], gleek|!, gird, flout, fleer[obs3]; roast, turn into ridicule; burlesque &c. 856; laugh to scorn &c. (contempt) 930; smoke; fool; make game of, make a fool of, make an April ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... wooden box that my wife had just had made would cost thousands of pounds in the way of payment for extra luggage before we reached home. I do not know which hypochondriacal possession was the most depressing. I can laugh at it now, but I really was extraordinarily ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... Laugh and mock if you will at the worship of stone idols; but mark ye this, ye breakers of images, that in one regard the stone idol bears awful semblance of Deity—unchangefulness in the midst of changes—the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... him really to stand in need of my assistance, took him upon my back, and having carried him over, bade him get down, and for that end stooped, that he might get off with ease; but instead of doing so (which I laugh at every time I think of it) the old man, who to me appeared quite decrepit, clasped his legs nimbly about my neck, when I perceived his skin to resemble that of a cow. He sat astride upon my shoulders, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... the stage name of Miss Bland, daughter of an actress, born at Waterford; played first in Dublin, then in Yorkshire, and appeared at Drury Lane in "The Country Girl" in 1785; her popularity was immense, and she maintained it for thirty years in the roles of boys and romping girls, her wonderful laugh winning lasting fame; she attained considerable wealth, and was from 1790 to 1811 the mistress of the Duke of Clarence, who, when William IV., ennobled her eldest son; she died, however, in humble circumstances in St. Cloud, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... laugh. "Ah! she's so stubborn!" he exclaimed. "You can have no idea, Pierre, of what goes on in that little head of hers when anybody says or does anything contrary to her ideas of justice. Such absolute and ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... was ignorant of the fact, and laughed to herself within the tent on hearing this amazing prediction; for she said, "After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?" The child was born, however, and was called Isaac, "the laugher," in remembrance of Sarah's mocking laugh.* There is a remarkable resemblance between his life and that of his father.** Like Abraham he dwelt near Hebron,*** and departing thence wandered with his household round the wells of Beersheba. Like him he was threatened with ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... how we miss!—his face,— With trembling accents speak his name. Earth cannot fill his shadowed place From all her rolls of pride and fame. Our song has lost the silvery thread That carolled through his jocund lips; Our laugh is mute, our smile is fled, And all ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... Erse language in the isle of Bute; and as soon as the operation of the bill is over, you will be at liberty to return, or go whither you please. You may then call upon your accusers, to prove their charges of treason in America, or of piracy on the high-seas; but they will laugh in your face, and tell you they never charged, they only suspected; and the act of parliament will serve as a complete plea in bar. It will answer a double end—it will be at once your redress and our justification." ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... still for a moment or two, and then laughed—a little bitter laugh; she was overstrained and could not repress it. A flood of hot color surged into her face, but in another moment she had recovered some ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... from a play on the word catgut that so many of these ditties represent pussy in relation with the fiddle. True fiddler's magic belonged to the cat whose fiddling made the cow jump over the moon, the little dog laugh and the dish run away with the spoon. Rarely accomplished too was the cat that came fiddling out of the barn with a pair of bagpipes under her arm, singing "Fiddle cum fee, the mouse has ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... through, From sky to sky, from blue to blue; And, at its nether mouth, each sees A brace of their antipodes, With earnest faces peering up, As if themselves might seek the cup. 'Ha!' said the elder, with a laugh, 'We need not share it by the half. The mystery is clear to me; That richer gift to all is free. Be only as that water true, And then ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... red showed on Pink's forehead above the tan-mark, and crowded into his pale-blue eyes, destitute of lashes. The two men looked steadily at each other. Then, as Melissa drew near, Pink broke into an ugly laugh. ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... Sometimes, when I think of this man and his like, when I think of my puny attempts to creep into their skins, I must need laugh, lest, like Beaumarchais, I should weep. What, after all, do I know of him? What is there in my armoury to pierce this impenetrable outer-man? Once, when I was Browning-mad, I began an epic. Yes, I, an epic! I pictured the hordes of civilisation sweeping over an immense and beautiful mountain, ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... his vision to a dullness of the brain resulting from too much sleep. "If I should speak of it," quoth he, "people would laugh at me." Still, the glory that was to be his son's dazzled him, albeit the meaning of the prophecy was not clear to him, and he even doubted that he ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... out with grief that the child should be ill, the poor Queen replied with that good-humoured laugh with which she met all the inconveniences that concerned herself alone: 'Oh, no, Madame, not ill, only cold! We cannot get any firewood, and so bed is the safest place for my little maid, who cares not if she ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... reg'lar enough. It's just a little place up in the mountains. Heaven, ma'am, I reckon is just now located something like a hundred miles south of Heart's Desire!" And he laughed so sudden and hearty a man's laugh at this that it jostled Alicia Donatelli out of all her artificiality, and set the two at once upon a footing. It seemed to her that, after all, men were pretty much alike, no matter where ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... your skin is like the velvet!" He roughly drew the girl up on his knees. "To be sure He will protect you, my mariposa. And He is using me as the channel, you see—just as you said a few moments ago, eh?" His rude laugh again echoed ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... and died here by the banks of the Nile—of Rameses race we have seen ten, and only know of them that they descend from strangers, from the caste of Amu! He is like all the Semitic race; they love to wander, they call us ploughmen,—[The word Fellah (pl. Fellahin) means ploughman]—and laugh to scorn the sober regularity with which we, tilling the dark soil, live through our lives to a tardy death, in honest labor both of mind and body. They sweep round on foraying excursions, ride the salt ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... To pluck a titled poet's borrow'd wing; A statesman's logick unconvinc'd can hear. And dare to slumber o'er the [E]Gazetteer; Despise a fool in half his pension dress'd, And strive, in vain, to laugh at Clodio's jest[F]. [i]Others, with softer smiles, and subtler art, Can sap the principles, or taint the heart; With more address a lover's note convey, Or bribe a virgin's innocence away. Well may they rise, while I, ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... book made up from beginning to end of laughter, and yet not a comic book, or a "merry" book, or a book of jokes, or a book of pictures, or a jest book, or a tomfool book, but a perfectly sober and serious book in the reading of which a sober man may laugh without shame from beginning to end, it is a book called "Vice Versa; or a Lesson to Fathers."... We close the book, recommending it very earnestly to all fathers in the first instance, and their sons, nephews, uncles, and ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... again after I've just powdered my nose," cried Grace in alarm, and the foolishness of it made them all laugh. ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... and galleries hung with glittering crystals, its underground river and dark lake, was so like a fairy tale, that Johnnie felt as if she must go right back and tell the family at home about it. She relieved her feelings by a long letter to Elsie, which made them all laugh very much. In it she said, "Ellen Montgomery didn't have any thing half so nice as the Cave, and Mamma Marion never taps my lips." Miss Inches, it seemed, wished to be called "Mamma Marion." Every mile of the journey was an enjoyment to Johnnie. Miss Inches bought pretty presents for ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... those locks which now the light wind stirs! What eyes she has, and what a perfect arm! And yet methinks that little laugh of hers— That little laugh—is still her crowning charm. Where'er she passes, countryside or town, The streets make festa and the fields rejoice. Should sorrow come, as 'twill, to cast me down, Or Death, as come he ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... "Let Benito laugh on, Minha," said Manoel. "He hides it very well, but he is a poet himself when his time comes, and he admires as much as we do all these beauties of nature. Only when his gun is on his arm, ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... child, perhaps he has," said Hepzibah, with a sad, hollow laugh; "but in old houses like this, you know, dead people are very apt to come back again. And, Cousin Phoebe, if your courage does not fail you, we will not part soon. You are welcome to such a home as I can ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... a rich warm laugh in which there was no sting of revenge, only humour for human faults. This was such a good world, and ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... effect of her laugh is an extravagance; though the effect of the reverberation of voices in some parts of these mountains is very striking. There is, in 'The Excursion,' an allusion to the bleat of a lamb thus re-echoed and described, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... Sam not such a fool as dat, nohow. When dat cussed mule—I tell you fair, Massa Tom, dis chile conclude dat riding not such a berry easy ting after all—when dat cussed mule ran into French camp, de soldiers dey catch him, and dey take Sam off, and den dey jabber and laugh for all de world like great lots of monkeys. Well, for some time Sam he didn't say nothing, all de wind shook out of his body. Besides which he couldn't understand what dey say. Den all of a sudden, to Sam's ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... thy friends are in distress, Thou'lt laugh and chuckle ne'er the less; Nor e'en with sympathy be smitten, Tho' all are sad but thee and kitten; Yet little varlet that thou art, Thou twitchest ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... a funeral it was; for the sweetest girl in England buried her hopes, her laugh, her May of youth, in that church ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... sure as——! worth eighty dollars! The villain!" then pressing his head between his hands, sat down again, but, as if thinking better of it, ejaculated, "Well, if that ain't a cool joke!" and burst into a loud laugh, which ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... as they are, such my present tale is, A non-descript and ever-varying rhyme, A versified Aurora Borealis, Which flashes o'er a waste and icy clime. When we know what all are, we must bewail us, But ne'ertheless I hope it is no crime To laugh at all things—for I wish to know What, after all, are ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... weep and sigh when e'er she wills To frown—and when she deigns to smile It will be cure for all my ills, And, foolish still, I'll laugh the while; But till that comes, I'll bless the rules Experience taught, and deem it wise To hold thee as the game of fools, And all thy ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... laugh, and returning the pressure, replied, "My dear fellow, I'd do anything to oblige a friend in ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... was unusual. He knew that old Uncle Jeb would laugh at him if he went back and said that some small creature had crawled over that nutmeg grater and left no sign of its crossing. He knew that no animal could graze a tree in its flight but old Uncle Jeb would find there some tell-tale souvenir ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... relations and friends slain with the sword in the crowded fight. His son too he left on the field of battle, mangled with wounds, young at the fight. The fair-hair'd youth had no reason to boast of the slaughtering strife. Nor old Inwood and Anlaf the more with the wrecks of their army could laugh and say, that they on the field of stern command better workmen were, in the conflict of banners, the clash of spears, the meeting of heroes, and the rustling of weapons, which they on the field of slaughter played with the sons of Edward. The northmen sail'd in their nailed ships, ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... existing war; and also an enthusiastic admirer of Pox, Sheridan, Grey, &c., &c., but his opposition to the reigning politics discovered little asperity; it chiefly appeared by wit and sarcasm, and commonly ended in that which was the speaker's chief object, a laugh. ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... buying all sorts of things to please him; it was out of all reason the way they indulged him, and so folks told them. The little Cambremer, seeing that he was never thwarted, grew as vicious as a red ass. When they told pere Cambremer, 'Your son has nearly killed little such a one,' he would laugh and say: 'Bah! he'll be a bold sailor; he'll command the king's fleets.'—Another time, 'Pierre Cambremer, did you know your lad very nearly put out the eye of the little Pougard girl?'—'Ha! he'll like the girls,' said Pierre. Nothing ...
— A Drama on the Seashore • Honore de Balzac
... some cowards would be made brave if it did. It is perhaps easier to face the gibbet and the fire, and screw oneself up for once to a brief endurance, than to resist the more specious blandishments of the world, especially when it has been christened, and calls itself religious. The light laugh of scorn, the silent pressure of the low average of Christian character, the close associations in trade, literature, public and domestic life which Christians have with non-Christians, make many a man's tongue lie silent, to the sore detriment ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... the angels laugh to mark A bright soul driven, Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark, From ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... he broke into a laugh; and it was some time before he could proceed with his business. I was not aware that I had said anything that was funny: if I had, I should have been highly complimented by the manner in which ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... he held her in his arms, it was as if he had a boy to deal with. He experienced no thrill, and at these moments the idea had never occurred to him of planting a warm kiss on her lips as she struggled with a nervous laugh to free herself. ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... Sommers came across the hall to the drawing-room, she left the group about the door to welcome him. "Weren't you surprised," she asked him with an ironical laugh, "at the people, I mean—all ages and kinds? You see Parker had to be appeased. He didn't want to stay, and I don't know why he should. So we gave him Laura Lindsay." She nodded good-naturedly in the direction ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... his seriousness to overweigh his liveliness; if he detects a tendency to bombast, he relieves it with a brilliant jest. Count de Moltke and the lampoons offer us a case to our hand; "he was just the old fool who would make a cream cheese," says Contarini, and the startled laugh which greets him is exactly of the same order as those which were wont to reward the ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... to Pitt his scorn of him and his desire for a Portland Ministry. Rose also refused to serve under a man whom he accused (unjustly, as we now know) of worming his way to office; and the high-spirited Canning declined to give to Pitt any pledge except that he would not laugh at the new Prime Minister. It is clear that Canning, like his chief, disliked resignation. As the gifted young Irishman wrote, it was not at all good fun to move out of the best house in London (Downing Street) and hunt about for a little dwelling.[604] ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... thought this that his old companion of the Military Academy had suggested to him. Here was another proof of how everything in the army was worked up simply to present a smooth outward appearance. How he would laugh now if any one spoke to him of a similarity between the conditions of real warfare and those of the man[oe]uvres! It was a thoroughly planned-out game, in which no ill-timed mischance was allowed to disturb the preordained ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... with a laugh. "Of course, that too, into the bargain; You will not let me off any part of it! If it had been your eyes now, you would not have been able to see, and no countryman can do with a blind wife, so I should leave you where you are. But you, little one, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... evidence laden with rich garments of fur, various peltry, blankets, valuable gear of every sort to be staked on the result of the game, and soon the men were betting heavily. All the various tones of the gamut were on the air,—the deep bass guttural laugh of the braves; the shrill callow yelping of boys; the absent-minded bawl of spoiled pappooses interested in the stir, but with an ever-recurrent recollection of the business of vocally disciplining their patient ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... brought by the Portuguese, and with such quantities of each kind as might be requisite to satisfy the demands of that port. He appeared to approve of this, and concluded by saying, as our present stock of commodities were so small, the Portuguese would only laugh at him and us if we were now admitted to trade, wherefore he wished us to defer all trade till our next coming; but that he was ready to give us a writing under his hand and seal to assure us of good entertainment at our next coming, provided we came fully prepared as we said, and on condition ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... he went; and Lordy massy! didn't Huldy hev a time on't when the minister began to come out of his study and wanted to ten' 'round an' see to things? Huldy, you see, thought all the world of the minister, and she was 'most afraid to laugh; but she told me she couldn't, for the life of her, help it when his back was turned, for he wuzzled things up in the most singular way. But Huldy, she'd just say, 'Yes, sir,' and get him off into his study, and go on her ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... becomes quite different in the presence of a third person; when a woman is present, his tone changes; when he pours out wine, he first puts a little in his own glass and then helps the company; when he walks with a lady he takes her arm; in general he tries to show refinement. He does not laugh at other people's jokes: "You repeat yourself." "There is nothing new in that." Every one is sick of him; he sermonizes. The old ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
... breathed sweet dreams in you!"... And the fair one clasps my hand and, holding it, leads me through long corridors where great crowds of people cry, "Hurrah!" through bright gardens where three hundred tender maidens laugh and play; and through another hall where all is of emerald; and here ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... anybody had a good time, unless it was Cousin Lispenard. And he wasn't a bit nice. He had some joke to himself, and kept making remarks that nobody could understand, and chuckling over them. I told him once that he was rude, but he said that 'when people went to a play they should laugh at the right points.' That's the nice thing about Mr. Stirling. You know that what he says is ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... avoided Antoine, repelled by a feeling of chill, as if from the neighbourhood of a reptile, and shunning him unless to profit in some way by their superior strength. Never would he join their games without compulsion; his thin, colourless lips seldom parted for a laugh, and even at that tender age his smile ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... "You needn't laugh. It wasn't my desire to adopt a child. I simply yielded to Mr. Bland, as I do in everything. The only stipulation I made was that she should call us uncle and aunt. I couldn't bear to be called mother by a child who wasn't my own; ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... his arm gently about her shoulders, and patted her with soft encouragement and praise for her bravery. Nor did the girl resent his action. Rather it seemed to steady her, and after a few minutes she looked up with an unsteady laugh. ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... came in with his gold-headed stick, a laugh like a series of little warning coughs and the air of embarrassment that our young man always perceived in him at first. He was almost eighty but was still shy—he laughed a great deal, faintly and vaguely, at nothing, as if to make up for the seriousness with which he took some jokes. ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... faded from my sight, Nor all the music round thee from mine ear; Still grace flows from thee to the brightening year, And all the birds laugh out in wealthier light. Still am I free to close my happy eyes, And paint upon the gloom thy mimic form, That soft white neck, that cheek in beauty warm, And brow half hidden where yon ringlet lies: With, oh! the blissful knowledge all the while That I ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... his hand, and he pointed in wrath; And the fever-fiend rose with a horrible laugh. But the man felt him not as he poisoned his blood, And the woman saw nought as still smiling ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats
... sisters, who was writing at a table near me, was highly amused at this unexpected announcement. She fell back in her chair and indulged in a long and hearty laugh. I am certain that most of my readers would have joined in her laugh had they known the object which provoked her mirth. "Poor Tom is such a dreamer," said my sister, "it would be an act of charity in Moodie to persuade him from undertaking such a wild-goose ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... near the northern limit of the neutral territory below Stony Point. Smith had prospered by selling supplies to the patriot army. I had heard that he was a Tory and so I wished to know him. I found him a rugged, jovial, long-haired man of middle age, with a ready ringing laugh. His jokes were spoken in a low tone and followed by quick, stertorous breathing and roars and gestures of appreciation. His cheerful spirit had no doubt been a help to him in ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... to break into the C. and R. directors' meeting," suggested Weston, himself a director in a dozen companies, and a bank president besides. A general laugh followed the remark. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... the discussion had gone far enough for his purposes, and he said with a good-natured laugh, "I'm neither a prophet nor his son, but I think it is a very hopeful sign that we could have this frank interchange of views and belief. I see how perfectly sincere you are, and if I had been brought up ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... stamped with melancholy. This is a cheap and elementary effect belonging to the level of a circus clown. The image of "laughter shaking both his sides" is the truer picture of comedy. Therefore, I say, I always try to appear cheerful at my lectures and even to laugh at my own jokes. Oddly enough this arouses a kind of resentment in some of the audience. "Well, I will say," said a stern-looking woman who spoke to me after one of my lectures, "you certainly do seem to enjoy your own fun." "Madam," I answered, "if I didn't, who would?" But in reality the whole ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... laughed heartily, yet there was a slight ring of bitterness methought in his laugh. "No," he said, "I have not spared you in the hope that you will join us; we have managed thus far to do fairly well without your assistance, and I am sanguine enough to believe that, even should you decline to throw in your lot with us, we ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... gets in his hoofs make no impression on the firm turf of the Parramatta grass, and you get quite a hearty laugh by dropping a chair on him from the ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... said Celia. "You will not have much trouble, at any rate, with my things," she added, with a laugh. "For I have ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... was interrupted by a perfect shout of laughter upon the part of all at table, Captain Manley joining heartily in the laugh against himself. When they had a little recovered again, Sam went on as gravely as ever. "Dis struck Sam berry serious, not to have nothing for dinner after being away seben months; presently idea occur to dis chile, and he stroll permiscuous up to big farm-house ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... Skarphedinn; "but true it is that the smoke makes one's eyes smart, but is it as it seems to me, dost thou laugh?" ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... wanted, sank the trawler, smashed up her boats, and put the fishermen on the submarine's deck. Then they slammed-to the hatch of the conning tower and sank very slowly, washing the fishermen off. Then they rose again to laugh at them drowning. An avenging destroyer came racing along and picked up the sole survivor. But the German jokers, seeing it coming, had gone. No wonder the seafaring British sometimes "saw red" to such a degree that they would do anything to get in a blow! ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... her broad features look out of the canvas with intelligent honesty. For honesty, truth-telling fairness, was Mary's reigning virtue: she neither tried to create illusions, nor indulged in them for her own behoof, and when she was in a good mood she had humor enough in her to laugh at herself. When she and Rosamond happened both to be reflected in the glass, she ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... the wider open, and in an instant the less stern. He dropped his revolver, with a laugh, into its old ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... girls said something about the Bohemians of the Latin Quarter, probably aiming to show this New York chatterbox that Red Gap wasn't so far west as it looked. But Dulcie gave 'em the laugh. She said oh, dear, New York society had simply quit taking up Bohemians, it not being considered smart any longer, and did we really take them up here? The girls backed up at this. And Dulcie went on being superior. She said of course society people now and then made up a party ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... There were no ladies present except Speranski's little daughter (long-faced like her father) and her governess. The other guests were Gervais, Magnitski, and Stolypin. While still in the anteroom Prince Andrew heard loud voices and a ringing staccato laugh—a laugh such as one hears on the stage. Someone—it sounded like Speranski—was distinctly ejaculating ha-ha-ha. Prince Andrew had never before heard Speranski's famous laugh, and this ringing, high pitched laughter from a statesman made ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... you do," said Helga, "and I am afraid you will laugh at me. The name with us is spelt 'Jon,' pronounced 'Yon.' We have also 'Johan,' ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... could insurance companies, in which the American people have invested so much, and which depend on interest, exist under Socialism? Socialism having ruined the insurance companies, would the millions of policyholders just sit down and have a good, hearty laugh over their losses? ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... poor box in the Redemptorist Church, the night when he killed policeman Smith. The policeman surprised him at his work. In the room he had occupied I came upon a brazen-looking woman with a black eye, who answered the question of the officer, "Where did you get that shiner?" with a laugh. "I ran up against the fist of me man," she said. Her "man," a big, sullen lout, sat by, dumb. The woman answered for him that he ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... saw Azazel rubbing himself comfortably against his master's colossal legs, and looking slily, and I thought ironically, at me; and then I saw Elias standing behind me, and making the greatest efforts not to laugh. ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... heel," she retorted with a little flutter of a laugh. "My French heel caught on the stair; it was torn away. ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... grounds, and could not leave him. Poor Sir John, ma'am; I tell him we must get him a crook; he is quite turned despairing shepherd. Never saw a man so changed. Upon my soul, he is—seriously now, Mrs. Beaumont, you need not laugh—I always told Sir John that his time of falling in love would come; and come it has, at last, with ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... finding he had been allowed to travel alone that he vowed the lad should never go back to Taunton, and therefore sent him to the Wesleyan Connexional School in Dublin instead. Here his quaint, merry little face, his ready laugh, and above all his willingness to perform any trickery that they suggested, made him a favourite among the boys at once. To the masters he must have been something of a trial, I imagine, with his habit of asking the why and wherefore of rules and regulations and his ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... are right," said the old woman, with a ghastly laugh; "carles and carlines agree weel with funeral vaults and charnel-houses, and when an auld bedral dwells near the dead, he is living, ye ken, among his customers—Halloo! Powheid! Lazarus Powheid! ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... creepy, with tantalizing glimpses of them now and then in about every other chapter, and mysterious hints here and there, and characters coming down to breakfast with white, drawn faces and haggard eyes. And the wicked one would look over his shoulder and then utter a sardonic laugh. Sardonic is such an effective word; I don't believe Indians would give him any excuse ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... "I certainly would laugh," exclaimed George, "if some one did find out what those figures mean and then we discovered that it didn't apply to ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... own, pronounced to be a "monstrous nice carriage." On their turning off the rough pavement on to the quiet smooth Macadamised road leading to Waterloo Bridge, his dissertation was interrupted by a loud horse-laugh raised by two or three toll-takers and boys ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... Castle, the boys let off squibs and crackers in all the streets. As the lady in question was walking up the High Street, some lads in a wynd, or narrow street, fired a small cannon, and one of the slugs with which it was loaded hit her mouth and wounded her tongue. This raised a universal laugh; and no one enjoyed it more than my uncle William, who ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... ancients, that it was a difficult thing to write satires. I consent that you put some point into your remarks, but not to the drawing of blood. You may hit lightly, but not wound or kill; for sarcasm, though it make many laugh, is not good if it mortally wounds one; and if you can please without it, I shall ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... moment that they were near at hand—they were waiting. Susan looked flushed and strange; she had a queer smile; she kissed her as if she didn't know she was doing it. She laughed as she greeted her, but her laugh was extravagant; it was a different demonstration every way from any Francie had hitherto had to reckon with. By the time our young lady had noted these things she was sitting beside her on a sofa and Mme. de Brecourt had her hand, which she held so tight that it almost hurt her. ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... it rude," said Mrs. Lloyd with a little laugh. "I want to know what notion such a child as you has got in her head. Do you think it ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
... had its effect; for it appealed to that dread of the sleep world which is common to all savages: but the conjuror was ready to outbid the prophetess, and had begun a fresh oration, when Amyas turned the tide of war. Bursting into a huge laugh at the whole matter, he took the conjuror by his shoulders, sent him with one crafty kick half-a-dozen yards off upon his nose; and then, walking out of the ranks, shook hands round with all ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... a sob that was tinged with a small laugh. "It's my heart, darling," she added, the sob getting the best of the situation. ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... spirits which the practice of the joyous science especially required. She lacked also, even in her gayest sallies, the decided boldness and effrontery of her sisterhood, who were seldom at a loss to retort a saucy jest, or turn the laugh against any who ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... the Taoist Chang aloud, as he followed Chia Chen in. Chia Chen approached dowager lady Chia. Bending his body he strained a laugh. "Grandfather Chang," he said, "has come ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... of Napoleon, in contrast with the good-natured face of Alexander, and listened to their jests, I felt as though I ought to interrupt them by an expression of anger, and say to them, 'It is a shame for you to laugh when misfortune is in your company, and seated by your side.' But I suppressed my feelings. Oh, Louisa, I was all alone in my agony. Now you are here, I am no longer alone!" He threw his arms around the queen's neck, and pressed her against his heart, ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... voice, speaking very low, and another voice answered it. At that Georgie's heart sank, for this proved that there must be at least two burglars, and the odds against him were desperate. After that came a low, cruel laugh, the unmistakable sound of the rattle of knives and forks, and the explosive uncorking of a bottle. At that his heart sank even lower yet, for he had read that cool habitual burglars always had supper before they got to work, and therefore ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... began, in the words of Comus, "the wonted roar amid the woods." Again the blows became quicker, as the catastrophe drew nearer; again the final crash resounded; and again the mighty echoes travelled through the solitary forests, and were taken up by all the islands near and far, like Joanna's laugh amongst the Westmoreland hills, to the astonishment of the silent ocean. Yet, wherefore should the ocean be astonished?—he that had heard this nightly tumult, by all accounts, for more than a century. My brother, however, poor Pink, was astonished, in ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... back there trying to do a little something for you in Congress, I heard a lot of swell bands; but I didn't hear any such music as this little old band of ours has made to-night!" The unintentional humor somehow didn't make you want to laugh at all. ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... really astonished. It was well known that Captain Kearney had nothing but his pay, and that it was the hopes of prize-money to support his family, which had induced him to stay out so long in the West Indies. It was laughable; yet I could not laugh: there was a melancholy feeling at such a specimen of ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... watering boats had not got over the shallow below, so that we spent the night together; and a merry party we made. We talked over all we had seen, and the hills that rose around echoed back for the first time the laugh and the song of civilized man, and our strange language was repeated as glibly by the rocks of Australia as if they were those of our own native land. So true is it that nature is ever ready to commune familiarly with us, whereas by our very brethren ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... A general laugh followed this sally, and the Reverend Superior went off merrily, as he hastened to catch up with the Governor, who had moved on to another point in the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... never knew; perhaps the giant mountains recognized some kin in him and fed and strengthened him after their own fashion. Even his gentleness was confounded with cowardice. "Dot vos de hardtest," he said simply; "it is not goot to be opligit to half crush your brudder, ven he would make a laugh of you to your sweetheart." The end came sooner than he expected, and, oddly enough, through this sweetheart. "Gottlieb," she said to him one day, "the English Fremde who stayed here last night met me when I was carrying some of those ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... with a fierce laugh of derision, but when in his astonishment he involuntarily lifted his gaze to hers, she struck at him, her harsh laugh broken ...
— The Little Hunchback Zia • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the street a group of a half dozen boys who wore the round caps of the Hanoverian Club. Something about the boy with the dog struck them as comical, and they began to laugh, and nudge each other, and when they came up to the boy they stopped and stared at him in undisguised amusement. Quick color sprang to his cheeks, he hesitated, and then came to a full stop. It was not pleasant to be singled out as a laughing-stock ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... hypocritical and dangerous woman," said d'Artagnan, likewise to himself, "after having abused me with such effrontery, and afterward I will laugh at you with him whom you ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Mary, "how changed you are!" and tears came into her eyes; "you used to be so cheerful, so happy. You took such pleasure in every one, in everything. We used to laugh and say, 'All Charlie's geese are swans.' What has come over you?" She paused, and then continued: "Don't you recollect those lines in the 'Christian Year'? I can't repeat them; we used to apply them to ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... impudent young scamp!" Mr. Purfleet said, in a rage. "You will laugh with the other side of your mouth, presently. You and Sankey are nice-looking figures, ain't you, with your ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... grass-grown volcano used so badly? Here into the very pit of Tophet had the audacious Captain that very morning sent on a spring-cart of all eatables and drinkables, and then had followed himself with a dozen of his friends, to eat and drink, and talk and laugh, just in the very spot where of old roared and seethed the ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley |
