"Laugh at" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... obscure. If the successful adventurer, Lesable, and the handsome Maze are the objects of his veiled irony, he maintains, or feels a sorrowful, though somewhat disdainful tenderness, for poor old Savon, the old copying clerk of the Ministry of Marine, who is the drudge of the office and whose colleagues laugh at him because his wife ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... remember concerning these discoveries, and yet what assurance have I that I have got even half of them correct? That I have not remembered what was of least importance, and confused this place with that, and garbled it all so that the next man who comes after me shall call me a liar and laugh at my pretensions? And even though I relate every fact as truly as the Holy Book itself, what will there be left of it by the time it has passed through a hundred sottish brains in Greenland yonder? I ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... question. They content themselves with exposing some of the crimes and follies to which public commotions necessarily give birth. They bewail the unmerited fate of Strafford. They execrate the lawless violence of the army. They laugh at the Scriptural names of the preachers. Major-generals fleecing their districts; soldiers revelling on the spoils of a ruined peasantry; upstarts, enriched by the public plunder, taking possession of the hospitable firesides and hereditary trees of the old gentry; boys smashing the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... said, "nobody knows how hard it is to be a little man. Nobody respects you. Your folks always apologize and try to explain your size or tell you not to mind. And strangers and friends poke fun at you. After a while, of course, you learn to laugh at yourself on the outside and folks get to think that it's all a joke for you too and that you don't mind. But you never laugh on the inside or when you're by yourself. And you get awful tired of looking up to other ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... allow Father to handle the stuff. Better let it all go forever. Probably Pa was right about our being foolish to come here. We could go home again as many people were doing. There lay the steamers making preparations to sail; but how our friends at home would laugh at us! ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... make an Estimate of our selves, is to consider seriously what it is we value or despise in others. A Man who boasts of the Goods of Fortune, a gay Dress or a new Title, is generally the Mark of Ridicule. We ought therefore not to admire in our selves, what we are so ready to laugh at in other Men. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... you too! It seizes all: Knights, maidens, wives and widows; not one is spared. Never ending sorrow! Farewell, Georg! We can laugh at or pity each other, just as we choose. A heart pierced with seven swords: what an exquisite picture! Let us wear blood-red knots of ribbon, instead of green and blue ones. Give me your hand ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... made three of little Raymond. Martin, at short-stop, was of slim, muscular build. Keene and Starke, in centre and left, were big men. Salisbury looked all of six feet, and every inch a pitcher. He also played end on the football varsity. Ken had to indulge in a laugh at the contrast in height and weight of Wayne when compared to Place. The laugh was good for him, because it seemed to loosen something hard and tight within his breast. Besides, Worry saw him laugh and looked pleased, and ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... the soul had left no perceptible trace behind them. People who saw nothing of the godly but their uncouth visages, and who heard nothing from them but their groans and their whining hymns, might laugh at them. But those had little reason to laugh who encountered them in the hall of debate or in the field ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... but looking rather guilty. "Why, it is only great Patience's trunk," said he. "Bertie thinks it is a lion." Papa told Fred he did very wrong to frighten the boy so; but they all had a good laugh at poor Bertie's mistake. Bertie was soon induced to take a nearer look at his frightful little lion; and, when Aunt Patience took out from it two or three quarts of chestnuts, it lost all its terrors. The boys were allowed to play in the room as much as they pleased; and the ...
— The Nursery, No. 107, November, 1875, Vol. XVIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... Uncle Dick, "but you are not to laugh at William Clark, who was a great man. He did all that writing after a hard day's work, in a wild and strange country. I suppose it was hard for him to write, but he did it, ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... first time he has had audience, and already he is at sea. We can wait, and laugh at this ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... Neuhauserstrasse, whatever the name on the street sign, and if you move westward toward the Karlsthor you will come inevitably to the Pschorrbraeu, and within you will find Fraeulein Tilde (to whom my regards), who will laugh at your German with a fine show of pearly teeth and the extreme vibration of her 195 pounds. Tilde, in these godless states, would be called fat. But observe her in the Pschorrbraeu, mellowed by that superb malt, glorified by that consummate kraut, and you will blush to think ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... were forbidden to use more than so many shot in practice, and that Capt. Broke utterly disregarded this command.] and accustomed by 20 years' almost uninterrupted success to regard the British arms as invincible, was apt to laugh at all manoeuvring, [Footnote: Lord Howard Douglass, "Naval Gunnery," states this in various places.—"Accustomed to contemn all manoeuvring."] and scorned to prepare too carefully for a fight, trusting to the old British "pluck and luck" to carry him through. So, gradually ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... as air," said the dowager, joyously. "You and Maude shall get ahead of Miss Ashton and her colonel, and have the laugh at them. The marriage shall be on Saturday, and you can go away together for months if you like, and get up your spirits again; I'm sure you have ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... and thought together ardently. They explored new creeds and cults and sometimes found themselves talking nonsense and sometimes discovering untrodden paths of wisdom. They were youthful enough to be solemn about things at times, and clever enough to laugh at their solemnity when they awakened to it. Helen Muir left the reverent gloom of the life at the Manse far behind despite her respect for ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... going to say, well enough, yet there are times when mob law is justified. If these men are not destroyed quickly they will live to laugh at our laws and our scheme of justice. We must strike terror into the heart of every foreign-born criminal; we must clean the city with fire, unless we wish to see our institutions become a mockery and our community overridden ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... stood looking at the crowd, Nabbes, a reporter for one of the New-York papers, who was lounging in the pulpit, began to laugh at him. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... could have helped laughing, Cecilia." "I didn't laugh at Louisa; and I surely may laugh, for it does nobody any harm." "I am sure, however," replied Leonora, "I should not have laughed if I had——" "No, to be sure you wouldn't, because Louisa is your favourite. I can buy her another mandarin the next time that old pedlar comes ...
— The Bracelets • Maria Edgeworth
... comprehend had drawn him into the beginning of a strange adventure; they had purged his thoughts of himself; they had forced upon him other things, other people, and a glimpse or two of another sort of life; he had seen tragedy, and happiness—a bit of something to laugh at; and he had felt the thrill of it all. A few hours had made him the bewildered and yet passive object of the unexpected. And now, as he sat alone on the edge of his bed, had come ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... humourist, and literary historian—belonged to a later generation than that of Petrus Borel and Philothee O'Neddy; but he could remember the production of les Burgraves, and was able of his own personal knowledge to laugh at the melancholy speech of poor Celestin Nanteuil—the famous 'Il n'y a plus de jeunesse' of a man grown old and incredulous and apathetic before his time: the lament over a yesterday already a hundred years behind. He ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... ever, he was distinguishable from other men, even to his dress—which had something of the Quaker about it still, in its sober colour, its rarely-changed fashion, and its exceeding neatness. Mrs. Halifax used now and then to laugh at him for being so particular over his daintiest of cambric and finest of lawn—but secretly she took the greatest pride in ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... forth no ships without men, nor will men go without money, every day bringing us news of new mutinies among the seamen; so that our condition is like to be very miserable. Thence to Westminster Hall, and there met all the Houblons, who do laugh at this discourse of the French, and say they are verily of opinion it is nothing but to send to their plantation in the West Indys, and that we at Court do blow up a design of invading us, only to make the Parliament make ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... disdain shall be To laugh at him, to blush for thee; To love thee still, but go no more ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... my story to-night, under the guise of a past experience. Oh, the devils must laugh at us men! They have reason to. Sometimes I wonder if my father in the clearness of his new vision does not ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... we sneer and laugh at all these dreams, as mere follies of the heathen? If we do so, we shall not show the spirit of God, or the mind of Christ. Nor shall we show our knowledge of the Bible. In it, the spirit of God, who inspired the Bible, does not laugh at these dreams. It rebukes them sternly ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... the butter fly," said Kingdon, and then they all laughed again. Indeed, they were quite ready to laugh at anything. For a Hallowe'en party is provocative of much merriment, and the most nonsensical ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... that it was not so. But they inquire, they search, they dispute; they wag their heads from side to side as does an architect who adjusts a column, and thus strive to find what they desire to find. Given proof of evil, they laugh at it; doubtful of evil, they swear that it exists; the good they refuse to recognize. "Who knows?" Behold the grand formula, the first words that Satan spoke when he saw heaven closing against him. Alas! for how many evils are those words responsible? How many ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... were in the carriage she held herself erect and attacked him with asperity. "You might at least not laugh at me," she said. ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... ritualistic altar; she bent humbly before the Paulist fathers. When she went to a ball she always had the best partner in the room, and took it as a matter of course; but then, she always prayed for one; somehow it strengthened her faith. Her sister took care never to laugh at her on this score, or to shock her religious opinions. "Time enough," said she, "for her to forget religion when religion fails her." As for regular attendance at church, Madeleine was able to reconcile their habits without trouble. She herself had not entered ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... and I am now the man whose muse In happier times was wont to laugh at love, And those who suffer'd that blind boy abuse The noble gifts were given them from above. What metamorphose strange is this I prove I Myself now scarce I find myself to be, And think no fable Circe's tyranny, And all ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... bois-bois laverette,—a manikin that was to represent the plague. But this bois-bois does not make its appearance. La Verette is too terrible a visitor to be made fun of, my friends;— you will not laugh at her, because ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... to well-told stories, to handsome faces, so rigidly cold, and stately, and uninterested now. She shrugged her dimpled shoulders when the table was in a roar; she opened her rather small hazel eyes and stared, as if she wondered, what they could see to laugh at. She did not even deign to glance at him, the hero of the feast; and, in fact, so greatly overdid her part as to excite the suspicions of that astute young man, Doctor Danton. There is no effect without a cause. What was the cause of Rose's icy indifference? He looked at her, then at Stanford, ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... two lips lengthen as if you were pouting; so that, if you wish to make a grimace at anybody, and to laugh at him, you have only ...
— The Shopkeeper Turned Gentleman - (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) • Moliere (Poquelin)
... fellow in the school will have the laugh at me, if I am to be made a block of, like this!" ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... yard. My nickname was "Speck". I didn't like to eat bread and milk when I went up there and I'd just sit there. Finally they'd let me go in de house and my mother would feed me. She was the house woman and my Auntie was cook. I don't know why they had us up there unless it was so they could laugh at us. ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... dear," said her guide, springing down and helping her to alight. "This is Grandma Armstrong's place. Remember that she's grandmother to nearly all Algonquin, and don't laugh at her peculiarities when there's any one round. You'll have to when you're alone, just as a safety-valve. You'll like the daughters. The elder one is a bit stiff, but they're fine ladies." He had ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... laugh at this ingenuous picture of his state. He was ashamed of trying to better his case by an appeal to her pity, and annoyed with himself for alluding to a subject he would rather have kept out of his thoughts. But her look of sympathy ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... this," and he tapped the iron box. "You are the man, Holly; for, like a rugged tree, you are hard and sound at core. Listen; the boy will be the only representative of one of the most ancient families in the world, that is, so far as families can be traced. You will laugh at me when I say it, but one day it will be proved to you beyond a doubt, that my sixty-fifth or sixty-sixth lineal ancestor was an Egyptian priest of Isis, though he was himself of Grecian extraction, and ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... post is really a sinecure. They talk about ending or mending of the House of Lords; but as long as we are blessed with this remarkable combination of legislative and administrative capacity we can laugh at the idle threats." ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 12, 1892 • Various
... on his way home up the mountain, she half turned in her saddle and looked across at him. This happened again, and then she waved her bonnet at him. It was bad enough, any Stetson seeking any Lewallen for a wife, and for him to court young Jasper's sweetheart-it was a thought to laugh at. But the mischief was done. The gesture thrilled him, whether it meant defiance or good-will, and the mere deviltry of such a courtship made him long for it at every sight of her with the river between them. ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... her mild joke, but Anne remained pensive. She saw nothing to laugh at in the situation, which to her eyes appeared very serious. When she left Mrs. Lynde's she took her way across the crusted fields to Orchard Slope. Diana met her at ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... But Neddy's laugh at the spider was soon cut short. The most difficult part of his work was done when he got rid of the piece of bark. As soon as that was out of his way he began moving backward and forward over the hole he had cut in the web, just as if he were a ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... Wilson, "would be hardly necessary. Such is the fashionable laxity of morals, that I doubt not many of his associates would laugh at his misconduct, and that he would still continue to pass with the world as an ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... heard the rustle of leaves, and went on quickly. When he reached the place where the sound came from there was nothing there, and he gathered his wits together. With a little laugh at his carelessness, he began to retrace his steps, but there was a problem to be dealt with at every step, for he could see nothing familiar. In that multitude of trees, planted so close together, each tree seemed alike. He put his hand to his mouth ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... American joke an' an English joke is th' place to laugh. In an American joke ye laugh just afther th' point if at all, but in an English joke ye laugh ayether befure th' point or afther th' decease iv th' joker. Th' ambassadure hopes to inthrajooce a cross iv th' two that ye don't laugh at at all that will be suited to th' English market. His expeeriments so ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... like it," replied Hull. "And if you resented it, he'd laugh at you and walk away. I suspect him of being a good deal of a poseur and a fakir. All those revolutionary chaps are. But I honestly think that he really doesn't care a rap for classes—or for money—or for any ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... Venner said. "You may laugh at me, but I quite expected something of this kind, which was one of the reasons why I obtained the keys ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... we intended talking that matter over with the mothers to-night. We are all so inexperienced in this undertaking that I suppose a business man would laugh at our way of putting 'the cart before the horse,' as the saying is," ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... a time, the little meadow people crept out from their hiding places and formed a great circle around the old dead stump. With old Mother Nature there they felt sure that no harm could come to them. Then they began to laugh at the funny sight of fierce old Mr. Owl hopping from one foot to the other on top of the old dead stump. It was the first laugh on the Green Meadows for a ...
— Mother West Wind's Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... year 1869, when I was sixteen years old, I came across Cuthbert Bede's book, entitled 'Photographic Pleasures.' It is an amusing book, giving an account of the rise and progress of photography, and at the same time having a good-natured laugh at it. I read the book carefully, and took up photography as an amusement, using some apparatus which belonged to my father, who had at one time dabbled in the art. I was soon able to take fair photographs. I then decided to try photography as a business. I was apprenticed to ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... strong uprising which shall sweep them from the earth? And we would smile did it happen.[20] As the heavenly wisdom saith: 'Ye have hated my chastisement and despised my doctrine; behold, I will also laugh at ye in your distress, and will mock ye when misfortune shall fall upon your heads.'" In the same document he denounces the bishops as an accursed race, as "thieves, robbers, and usurers." Swine, horses, stones, ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... happened to me," continued Anton, "whose caution you so often laugh at, to speak unguardedly to strangers about the circumstances of this family. The first time that I asked help for the Rothsattels it was refused me, and this, more than any thing else, led me out of the counting-house hither; and now that my second indiscretion has procured ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... for the winter, the doctors deciding she was run down and needed the change. And with an unhappy laugh at her own expense she agreed in their diagnosis. She was indifferent as to where they sent her, for she knew wherever she went she must still force herself to go on putting one hour on top of another, until she had built up ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... school like Wrykyn, but with a small place like this you simply can't get the best teams to give you a match till you've done something to show that you aren't absolute rotters at the game. As for the schools, they're worse. They'd simply laugh at you. You were cricket secretary at Wrykyn last year. What would you have done if you'd had a challenge from Sedleigh? You'd either have laughed till you were sick, or else had a fit at the mere ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... was worse than anything you can imagine, I was quite in an agony about him. And then the poor horses too! To see them straining away! You know how I always feel for the horses. And when we got to the bottom of Sandcroft Hill, what do you think I did? You will laugh at me; but I got out and walked up. I did indeed. It might not be saving them much, but it was something, and I could not bear to sit at my ease and be dragged up at the expense of those noble animals. I caught a dreadful cold, but that I did ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... affirmed that he had not taken the jest in earnest, that he had been no wise hurt by it; that he himself when he put on his uniform had to laugh at the nickname of "puss in boots" which dear ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... with her eyes raised to the countenance of Mr Quilp as he read the letter, plainly showing by her looks that while she entertained some fear and distrust of the little man, she was much inclined to laugh at his uncouth appearance and grotesque attitude. And yet there was visible on the part of the child a painful anxiety for his reply, and consciousness of his power to render it disagreeable or distressing, which was strongly at variance with this impulse and restrained it more effectually than she ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... head with their praises," gasped the sick woman. "They have been paying you with words. Your folly shall betray you into poverty, misery, starvation. The very leperos shall laugh at you—the great Capataz." ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... of feeling was so great that he began to laugh at his own absurdity, and then he laughed ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... head low, and turned up my toes; what then, eh, little girls?" turning to the group of young creatures standing with their eyes very wide open at the recital of the misdeeds of the turbulent wind, and now as suddenly off into a laugh at the image of the Doctor's decease so represented. "Ah! you giggling set! Happy you that have no branches to be broken, and no olive-pickers to pay! Per Bacco! you are well off, if ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... well that they could not see her face, turned into the shadow, nestled against the pillow, moved now and then as by the zephyr breath of a smile. At times she wanted to laugh at their pretense and humbug. To prevent it breaking out in unseemly sound she was obliged to bite the coverlet and let the spasms of mirth waste themselves in ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... The timid jumped more than if a lion had roared beside them. All were startled, and stared in mute amazement at the harsh-voiced one, till the last broken note was uttered; then, on being assured that nothing in particular was meant, they looked at each other, and burst into a loud laugh at their common surprise. When one donkey stimulated the other to try his vocal powers, the interest felt by the startled visitors, must have equalled that of the Londoners, when they first crowded to ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... a good deal; then when the belated audience presently caught the joke he would look up with innocent surprise, as if wondering what they had found to laugh at. Dan Setchell used it before him, Nye and Riley and others ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... motives of this writer may have been for (as you magnificently translate his quizzing you) 'stating, with the particularity which belongs to fact, the forgery of a groundless fiction,' (do, pray, my dear R., talk a little less 'in King Cambyses' vein,') I cannot pretend to say; perhaps to laugh at you, but that is no reason for your benevolently making all the world laugh also. I approve of your being angry, I tell you I am angry too, but you should not have shown it so outrageously. Your solemn 'if somebody personating ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... only let me sing once more here in church to you, and I will think of no one but you; not of the boys who laugh at me, nor the people who praise me, nor the Cistercians, nor the archduchess, nor even the dear choir-master, but only of you, of you, and perhaps of mother and Lenichen. I could not help that, and you would not mind it. You and they love me so much more than any one, and I love you really so ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... glad to hear you say that," said Mrs. Thayer, "for I was afraid that you would laugh at me. Now I have a real desire to see this woman, just to test her powers. The moment I read her advertisement in this morning's paper, I had a strong presentiment that she could help me out of my troubles, and I determined to visit her. See, here we are, right at the door, No. 50 Clark ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... fight a battle here to-morrow, but yo'-all's quickest way out of it'll be to stay right hyuh. There'll be no place like home to-morrow, not even this place,' says 'e, with a sort o' twinkle that made us laugh without seein' anything to laugh at!" ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... Berkins is a man of tact, however you may laugh at him for having shot your partridge. He spoke to your Aunt Mary, or rather she spoke to him. Ah, clever woman, your Aunt Mary, wonderful manner, wonderful will, when she wants a thing done it must be done. Your poor mother—I mean no disparagement—but I must say she couldn't compare with her ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... Violet Seymour was set for June 10. The Big Church in the Middle of the Block was banked high with flowers. The populous tribe of Rubberers the world over is rampant over weddings. They are the pessimists of the pews. They are the guyers of the groom and the banterers of the bride. They come to laugh at your marriage, and should you escape from Hymen's tower on the back of death's pale steed they will come to the funeral and sit in the same pew and cry over your luck. ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... isn't what she is, it is what she wants to be. You must not laugh at her; she is doing the best she can. You'll admit one thing readily enough when you see her. She is probably the handsomest woman of her age in Chicago, and she isn't more than forty. Where the Senator found her, I can't say, but she was his wife ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... will be one more to laugh at us, for I 've asked the Free Kirk minister to make a fourth for our table. He is a nice young fellow, with more humanity than most of his kind; but did not I hear that he called at the Lodge to pay ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... effects on our purses and our habits, is one of the worst kinds of extravagance; I mean the rage for travelling, and for public amusements. The good old home habits of our ancestors are breaking up—it will be well if our virtue and our freedom do not follow them! It is easy to laugh at such prognostics,—and we are well aware that the virtue we preach is considered almost obsolete,—but let any reflecting mind inquire how decay has begun in all republics, and then let them calmly ask themselves ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... to me, Mr. Bedient," the Senor said delicately. "An old man may express his fondness.... I am glad The Pleiad pleases you. I have built it out of the clods that the world has hurled at me, and have preserved enough vitality to laugh at it all. I find it best to keep ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... whole sex. In both animals and men there is an instinctive disposition to take a great deal off the female. The male animal takes the assaults of the female complacently and shamefacedly, "just like folks." Peasants laugh at the hysterical outbreaks of their women, and the "bold, bad man" is as likely to be henpecked as any other. Woman is a disturbing element in business and in school to a degree not usually apprehended. ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... all; it is only that I want to make Thanksgiving a little more of a reality, and I thought—now, Charlie, don't laugh at me—that if we could do something for somebody, which would make him ...
— Harper's Young People, December 9, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... out the best I knew how in matters that touched the poor and their life, once he sat in Cleveland's chair in Albany. I do not think he felt that as an added dignity, but I did and I told him so, whereat he used to laugh a little. But there was nothing to laugh at. They are men of the same stamp, not saints any more than the rest of us, but men with minds and honest wills, if they have different ways of doing things. I wish some Cleveland would come along again soon and give me another chance to vote the ticket which Tammany obstructs with its impudent claim ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... the odd man, as he dropped the ugly-looking toad on the floor, and got behind the show case, while the boy laughed fit to kill. "Now tell your story and vamoose, by ginger, or I will ring for the patrol wagon. You would murder a man in his own house, and laugh at his spasms." ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck
... You will laugh at my distresses, and in truth they are little serious yet they almost put me out of humour. If your cousin realizes his fair words to you, I shall be very good-humoured again. I am not so morose as to dislike my friends ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... the human constitution and by the proportions of their admixture determined human temperament; next a man's outstanding temperamental quality (the thing itself rather than the cause of it); then oddity which people may laugh at; then the spirit of laughter and good nature in general. Normally we do not connect the idea of moisture with the word. We may even speak of "a dry humor." But we should not say "now and then a dry humor crops out," for then too many buried meanings lie in the same grave ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... there was no venom in the wounds which he inflicted at any time, unless they were irritated by some malignant infusion by other hands. We were instantly as cordial again as ever, and joined in hearty laugh at some ludicrous but innocent peculiarities of one of our friends[1006]. BOSWELL. 'Do you think, Sir, it is always culpable to laugh at a man to his face?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, that depends upon the man and the thing. If it ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... found, covered lightly over with withered ferns, many bottles of wine and—a box. The two men of law, Le Roi's solicitor and M'Crimman's, had a little laugh all to themselves over the wine. Legal men will laugh at anything. ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... by the buyers at this news about Polly, was instantly followed by a general laugh at the auctioneer's final remark to them. Baxter laughed at the interruption, but Polly felt very uncomfortable with so many eyes turned her way. Mr. Van Styne, never dreaming of having made personal remarks, ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... laugh at?' said Mr. Dusautoy, putting on a look between merriment and simplicity. 'What else could I have done? I should have done the ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... inherit! Oh, the alchemy which doth change Dross of body and dregs of spirit Into sanctities rare and strange! My flesh is feeble, and dry, and old, My darling's beautiful hair is gray; But our elixir and precious gold Laugh at ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... thinking of a person who had not written to me for so long I thought he had forgotten me?" she asked, and then as he broke out into a delighted laugh at her expense she grew as, pink as her flowers and seemed to welcome the return of Sam bearing a trayful of Sue's good ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... myself a fool (let me yield to the truth) and a madman likewise: only declare this, with what distemper of mind you think me afflicted. Hear, then: in the first place you build; that is, though from top to bottom you are but of the two-foot size you imitate the tall: and you, the same person, laugh at the spirit and strut of Turbo in armor, too great for his [little] body: how are you less ridiculous than him? What—is it fitting that, in every thing Maecenas does, you, who are so very much unlike him and so much his inferior, should vie with him? The young ones ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... as he did not see it—. But they were all burnt up, poor things. No one thought of saving them. Oh, it is so miserable to think of. You mustn't laugh at ...
— The Master Builder • Henrik Ibsen
... Walter, by sheer will, regained his mental balance. "I am tired and nervous, or I would never imagine such foolish things," he said. "Of course it is as you say, produced by natural causes, and I will likely laugh at my fears as soon as we stumble on the key to the mystery. And now I am going to insist upon your going back inside, Charley. It won't do for us to have you down with the fever again. For our sakes, as well as your own, you must ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the tools and toadies of Sir Mulberry Hawk. They laugh at all his jokes, snub all who attempt to rival their patron, and are ready to swear to anything Sir Mulberry wishes to have confirmed.—C. Dickens, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... extended the dominion of the mind, or even learned to think with the energy necessary to concatenate that abstract train of thought which produces principles. And that women, from their education and the present state of civilized life, are in the same condition, cannot, I think, be controverted. To laugh at them then, or satirize the follies of a being who is never to be allowed to act freely from the light of her own reason, is as absurd as cruel; for that they who are taught blindly to obey ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... restraining a desire to laugh at that something mysteriously earnest in delivering the conclusions of his wisdom as though it were the product of prohibited operations. "But that fellow looks as if he were ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... she wondered at herself. She had trusted her precious elephant to a perfect stranger. He might be anything, a spy, a thief, with his "Gotts in Himmel" and his "Fraeuleins"—how Jean would laugh at her ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... before. It could not be eaten, but it looked well sitting in the middle of the table. At the close of the banquet all the party sang a song. Lady Green's voice was not very good, but Lota explained to the children afterward that it isn't polite to laugh at company even when they do make funny squeaks with their high notes. Pocahontas had to sit in the corner awhile for having done so. She was sorry, and promised never to offend again; as a reward for which, her Mamma gave her a small blank book made of writing-paper and a pin, which she told her was ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... facts, and felt the joy of contact with eloquence and learning. Possibly he realised, as he had not realised before—Tours being, as he says, a most unliterary town—that there were people in the world who looked on things as he did, and who would understand, and not laugh at him or snub him. He always returned from these lectures, his sister says, glowing with interest, and would try as far as he could to repeat them to his family. Then he would rush out to study in the public libraries, so that he might be able to profit by the ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... butler followed him into a private room, and going down on his stiff knees, said, with tears in his old eyes, he was rejoiced to see his majesty in safety. The king affected to laugh at him, and asked him what he meant; but Pope told him he knew him well, for before he was a trooper in his father's service he had been falconer to Sir Thomas Jermyn, groom of the bedchamber to the king when he ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... that the story was a pious fraud in order to stigmatize Mohammedanism. "This story" Gibbon says, "was accordingly left out of the Arabic version of Grotius' Book, intended to circulate among the-Musselmen, for fear that they should laugh at such a piece of ignorance or effrontery: but it still maintains an edifying place in those copies printed for the perusal of Christians."! I ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... twenty-five hours constituted a day, while the year was 379 days and a fraction in length. Man, gradually adjusting himself to the new conditions and environment, had triumphed even in the face of a losing fight. For he had learned to smile into the hollow sockets of death, to laugh at the ...
— Omega, the Man • Lowell Howard Morrow
... no need for you to laugh at me, Captain Niel," she said quickly, and then, with an abrupt "Good-night," she ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... "Yes. Don't laugh at me, please. When you came into my life, or rather when you went out of it—yes, I am Irish—I saw that money and station are the mere veneer of ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... "I can't go. You'll laugh at me!" she defended. "Don't you tell!" she warned. And finally she ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... Mirth's merry laugh at that moment fled, And Pleasure's fair cheek grew pale: The living sat like the stony dead, The rough torrent froze in its craggy bed, And Heaven's dew ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... George never talked to me so much as that, and I trusted him every word. It was all so different. I thought I loved him, too. He talked about how he should take me to Providence, and I said I hadn't much manners or education, and they'd laugh at me. He said there wasn't another such a face there, and if he was suited, they might laugh. And he used to talk about how I'd look all dressed up in his house, down there—and I don't see! I don't see! I trusted ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... heed to Aunt Sally's forecasts of evil, save to laugh at them. Only Mrs. Trent again felt that nervous shiver seize her, and but for shame's sake would have begged her daughter to defer her ride ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... he tried to picture to himself Jenny Wren with a pair of long ears like his. "What are you laughing at?" demanded Jenny crossly. "Don't you dare laugh at me! If there is any one thing I can't stand ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... office; it's silly going on denying it. You'd never have told Mr. Arthur so soon. You'd have hung it on and hung it on for heaven knows how long. No, something's happened, happened to-day. Do you think I can't see? You're bubbling over with it, longing to tell me, and afraid I'll laugh at you." She rose to her feet and stuck her needle into the pincushion, then she put her arm round Sally's waist, and hugged her gently. "Poor, ridiculous, little Sally," she said, the first soft note that had entered her voice. "I wouldn't ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... Might as well not go at all as to go with not enough to work the engine. The bucket brigade would only laugh at us then." ...
— The Young Firemen of Lakeville - or, Herbert Dare's Pluck • Frank V. Webster
... lost your place!" cried he, "I am come to offer you one for life—will you marry me?" "I, Sir? you are joking." "No, indeed, I want a wife, and I am sure I can't find a better." "But everybody will laugh at you for marrying a poor girl like me," "Oh! if that is your only objection we shall soon get over it; come, come along; my mother is prepared to receive you." Suzette hesitated no longer; but she wished to ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... her meal, however, her heart was full with the greatness of the sacrifice before her. Do not laugh at the word great sacrifice. It was very great to Edith; she loved with all her heart; and to part with what we love, be it a dog, a cat, a bird, or any inanimate possession, is a great pang. After breakfast she went into the little room where Muff usually eat, and taking hold of the favourite, ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... best who doesn't laugh at all when he's dealing with the public. It has been my experience that, even when a man has a sense of humor, it only really carries him to the point where he will join in a laugh at the expense of the other fellow. There's nothing in the world sicker-looking than ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... shoulders above the water, Frank was compelled to laugh at the sleepy-eyed, wondering expression on the blue-jowled face of his friend. "Thought you were dead to the world," he returned, "you old sleepy-head. And I don't know where we are, excepting that it is somewhere under the silver dome. What's more, I don't ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... flamed into passion to burn the facts into golden emblems of truth. And that was Clara's world: the world in which for two days he had been privileged to dwell, a world in which soul could speak to soul and laugh at all the confusion of fact and detail in which they must otherwise be ensnared.... Mann, Verschoyle, a swift success in the theatre—the facts were of the kind that had induced the horror in which until he met her he had lived. His meeting with her had dispelled his horror, but the facts ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... astonishment, James and I; but stop, if you can, when Mr. Desgranges drives you. At the end of three days, here we are with the cask, he harnessed and drawing it, I behind, pushing; we were ashamed at crossing the village, as if we were doing something wrong; it seemed as if everybody would laugh at us. But Mr. Desgranges was there in ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... and laugh at auguries, and the other vain and superstitious ways of divination, so much observed among other nations; but have great reverence for such miracles as cannot flow from any of the powers of Nature, and look on them as effects and indications of the presence of the ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... are our great guide, with more good and humble men and women than the world will ever know of; and this, under God's mercy, saved the nation from falling into the unbelieving state of France, where people thought it fine to laugh at all religion. There, in the end of the eighteenth century, a terrible outbreak took place against all authority, human or Divine; the King and Queen perished by the hands of their subjects; quantities ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... may be the more perfect upon that score; since we know, the most celebrated pieces have been thus treated with greatest success. It is in any man's power to suppose a fool's cap on the wisest head, and then laugh at his own supposition. I think there are not many things cheaper than supposing and laughing; and if the uniting these two talents can bring a thing into contempt, it is hard to know where ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... do anything but laugh at him. The salesman certainly must understand that a poor little creature like him couldn't buy such things. He stood still and held out his two empty hands, so they would understand that he had nothing and let him go ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... as the laugh at their expense had subsided, Isaac again sang out: "Squar your hosses' heads thar—get ready, boys—now clippet, and don't keep us long waiting the bottle! for I reckon as how some on us is gitting dry. Yehep! yahoa!" and ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... boy's reply, "I don't think much about that. But Amos does, I know; and though I laugh at him sometimes, yet I respect him for all that, and I believe he will turn out the true ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... appearance of a shipwrecked man. A score of voices greeted me; some welcoming, some chaffing. "Glad to see you again, old fellow!" "What news from Sark?" "Been in quod for a week?" "His hair is not cut short!" "No; he has tarried in Sark till his beard be grown!" There was a circling laugh at this last jest at my appearance, which had been uttered by a good-tempered, jovial clergyman, who was passing by on his way to the town church. I did my best to laugh and banter in return, but it was like a bear dancing with a sore head. I felt gloomy and uncomfortable. A change had come over ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... 'Though you laugh at me,' said Blake, 'sometimes you are kind! I am upset—I hardly know myself. What is yonder shape skirting the lawn? ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... "You may laugh at me if you like," she said. "If I am unhappy—it is not as a result of my own sorrows. It sometimes seems to me that I suffer for the miserable, poor and oppressed in the whole of Russia... No, it's not ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... didn't know any better. Don't the primitive man cling to his home, no matter what kind o' hole it is? He's afraid to leave it. And these first men up here, why, it's plain as day—they just hung on, things gettin' worse and worse, and colder and colder, and some said, as the old men we laugh at say at home, 'The climate ain't what it was when I was a boy,' and nobody believed 'em, but everybody began to dress ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... we are apt to think him. No one should neglect by-play of this description; if I live to be strong enough to carry it through, I mean to play "cambre," and I shall spell it "camber." I wonder Mr. Darwin never abused this word. Laugh at him, however, as we may for having said "sag," if he had not been the kind of man to know the value of these little hits, neither would he have been the kind of man to persuade us into first tolerating, and then cordially accepting, ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... broad, hearty banter, as if the whole piece had been written off at a heat. The mob did not lynch the audacious humourist. In the very height of their fury against foreigners, they stopped short to laugh at themselves. They were tickled by the hard blows as we may suppose a rhinoceros to be tickled by the strokes of an oaken cudgel. Defoe suddenly woke to find himself the hero of the hour, at least with the London populace. The ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... of her educated and well-born rulers, she plotted the details of a campaign of murder, rape, arson, and pillage, which demanded the breaking of her oath as its preliminary. Well might her Chancellor laugh at "the scrap of paper," which stood between Germany and Belgium, when he reflected on the long list of sacred assurances his perjured country had ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... hours of that afternoon and evening Kitty was disturbed and troubled. At times she wanted to laugh at the professor's ridiculous proposal; and again, her cheeks burned with anger; and she could have cried in her shame and humiliation. And with it all her mind was distraught by the persistent question: Was not the professor's ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... gave orders to the cooks that they should prepare him such a feast as they were used to do for their lord. On seeing the splendid banquet, he ordered that a Spartan supper should be prepared. With a hearty laugh at the contrast he said to the Greek leaders, for whom he had sent, "Behold, O Greeks, the folly of this Median captain, who, when he enjoyed such fare as this, must needs come here to rob us ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... considerably, were in fits of laughter at Benedicto, who did not laugh at all, but pawed himself all over, saying he must have broken some bones. When I proceeded to examine him I found upon his body over a hundred sauba ants clinging to his skin ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... over strong—it makes it hard. We hain't had anything but corn meal in the house all this week, and the second-hand woman says our things ain't worth the carting. The children have got so shabby they hate to go to school, and the boys laugh at Willie 'cause his hat's his pa's old one and ain't got no brim, though I bound it with the best of the old braid, for I thought maybe they'd think it was a cap. And the worst was this morning, when there was nothin' but just mush: we hadn't even 'lasses, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... Brewster! Do you believe that fairy-tale?" quizzed Sary, looking keenly at her mistress to see if she was trying to laugh at her ignorance of city-life. ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... Treasurer's office, which did trouble me then and all day since, considering how many more seamen will come to towne every day, and no money for them. A Parliament sitting, and the Exchange close by, and an enemy to hear of, and laugh at it. ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... There is certainly a general similarity, just as, in some households, there is a striking family likeness. But just as, after spending a few days with that household, you no longer mistake Jack for Charlie, or Jessie for Jean, and even laugh at yourself for ever having been so stupid, so, when you get to know the poplars better, you no longer suppose that they are all alike. You soon detect the marks of individuality among them; and, if one were felled and brought you, you could describe with perfect ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... She had the bright eyes of a country woman, an honest gaze, a cheerful tone, and chestnut hair held in place by a bonnet cap under a green bonnet decked with a shabby bunch of auriculas. Her stupendous bust was a thing to laugh at, for it made one fear some grotesque explosion every time she coughed. Her enormous legs were of the shape which make the Paris street boy describe such a woman as being built on piles. The widow wore ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... truth. No; although bred to a peaceable occupation, I am the subject of a free king and constitution; and, if I have written as I speak, I have just spoken as I thought. The man of learning, that kens no language saving Greek, and Gaelic, and Hebrew, will doubtless laugh at the curiosity of my dialect; but I would just recommend him, as he is a philosopher, to consider for a wee, that there are other things, in mortal life and in human nature, worth a moment's consideration besides old Pagan heathens-pot-hooks and hangers—the asses' bridge and the weary walls ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... a general laugh at this consolatory remark; even Bertha smiled faintly as she patted Snorro's head, while Astrid and Thora—not to mention Gudrid—agreed between themselves that he was the dearest, sweetest, and in every way the most delightful Vinlander ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... us 'all'—!" Strether could but laugh at that. It brought him back, however, to the point he had really wished to make. "They've accepted their situation—hard as it is. They're not free—at least she's not; but they take what's left to them. It's a friendship, of a beautiful ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... said Millard, rising at hearing the door-bell ring. "I will see Miss Callender, and if she refuses me for escort you will be able to laugh at me. I'm sure I'm greatly ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... Sammy. But his scornful tone failed to ring true. There really might be rats in this old hulk of a barge. Were not rats supposed to infest the holds of all ships? Afloat with a cargo of rats in the hold of a ship on the tossing canal was nothing to laugh at. ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... went up by fives and I went up by tens.... Well, it came to an end. I bid ninety more than the mortgage; and it stayed with me. The cherry orchard is mine now, mine! [Roars with laughter] My God, my God, the cherry orchard's mine! Tell me I'm drunk, or mad, or dreaming.... [Stamps his feet] Don't laugh at me! If my father and grandfather rose from their graves and looked at the whole affair, and saw how their Ermolai, their beaten and uneducated Ermolai, who used to run barefoot in the winter, how that very Ermolai has bought an estate, which is ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... And weren't they glad to give him the slip on the ground of morality. Home Rule was comparatively a safe thing while Parnell lived. Now I would not advise it for some years. We must have better men to the fore. We in Limerick are loyal, although Catholics and Home Rulers. Don't laugh at that. It is a fact, though I admit it is hard to believe. Put it down, if you like, to the influence of the Bishop. The young priests I say nothing about. Their loyalty is a negligeable quantity. They do not object to ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... those days) who won for us our liberties; the men who gave their lives to science and art, when science and art brought, not as now, fame and fortune, but shame and penury—they sprang from the loins of the rugged men who had learned, on many a grim battlefield, to laugh at pain and death, who had had it hammered into them, with many a hard blow, that the whole duty of a man in this world is to be true to his ...
— Evergreens - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... length, drawing a long breath; "if you, my friends, only knew how much of what is happiest in life you carry in your own breasts! I used—forgive me—to laugh at such pleasures as I am enjoying at this moment, I see that nothing but gaiety and a simple heart can bring a man peace at the last—and now it ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... idea of informing the police, because the facts I had before me were so absurd and inconsistent. They would laugh at me. However, as I was then a reporter on the staff of the 'Gil Blas,' I wrote a lengthy account of my adventure and it was published in the paper on the second day thereafter. The article attracted some attention, but no one took it seriously. They regarded it as a work of fiction rather ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... dreadful than the matutinal apparition of an ugly old maid at her window? Of all the grotesque sights which amuse the eyes of travellers in country towns, that is the most unpleasant. It is too repulsive to laugh at. This particular old maid, whose ear was so keen, was denuded of all the adventitious aids, of whatever kind, which she employed as embellishments; her false front and her collarette were lacking; she wore that horrible little bag of black silk on which old women insist on covering ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... briefs, "Given in Saint Peter's, in Rome, under the Ring of the Fisherman, on the 10th of December, 1605," darkly threatened excommunication unless these dearly beloved sons of Venice withdrew from the stand they had taken, yet with a Doge who "would laugh at an excommunication," and a learned Counsellor who assured them that the cause of the Republic was indubitable, well might the shadows lessen in the Senate Chamber; while in calm assurance the Savii[7] ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... Finch was a Miss Batchford. The members of her family (limited at the time of the marriage to her brother and her sister) strongly disapproved of her choice of a husband. The rank of a Finch (I laugh at these contemptible distinctions!) was decided, in this case, to be not equal to the rank of a Batchford. Nevertheless, Miss married. Her brother and sister declined to be present ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... that anyone can face A crisis or a crushing tragedy With calm, exalted courage, but the place That needs the greatest strength and energy Is daily grind: to manage just to laugh At all the petty hazards of each day— To smile, whilst sifting life's wheat from its chaff And strive to see just good along ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... say so, like stout common-sense Britons, who have a wholesome dread of being taken in with fine words and wild speculations, I assure you I shall not laugh at you even in private. On the contrary, I shall say—what I am sure every scientific man will say— So much the better. That is the sort of audience which we want, if we are teaching natural science. We do not want haste, enthusiasm, gobe-moucherie, ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley
... in his own house before breakfast this morning. I had reports of three other men occupying responsible positions in the city, Thomson, against whom there was really tangible and serious evidence. Our friend had the effrontery almost to laugh at me." ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... There was a rippling laugh at the further end of the building where Varnhagen's private office, partitioned off with glass and boards from the rest of the store, opened on the street. It was a laugh the old man knew well, for he hopped behind a big pile of bales like a boy ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... children to embarrass his movements. He could give all his strength of body and mind to it. He loved the country life. It was to be the fulfilling of what he had preached so long and what is, alas, still preached to-day with not much attempt to realize it—the Christian life. People would laugh at him! I doubt if that gave him one disturbing thought. It was right; as it was right he would do it. But maybe in his secret heart he thought that more of those who seemed to have been awakened, as he had been, to the divine call, would follow and join with ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... twenty-two—yet the sayings of his, altogether too free at times, perturb and mortify me. But what is to be done? Although I can not reprove him for making use of them, I do not, on the other hand, applaud or laugh at them. The strangest part of it is that my father is altogether another person when he is in the house of Pepita. Not even by chance does a single phrase, a single jest of the kind he is so prodigal of at other times escape from him then. At Pepita's ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... with a knitting-needle, he catches up the stitches, if he has chanced now and then to let fall a row. For the higher kinds of poetry he has no sense, and his talk on that subject is delightfully and gorgeously absurd. He sometimes stops a minute to laugh at it himself, then begins anew with fresh vigor; for all the spirits he is driving before him as Fata Morgana,[18] ugly masks, in fact, if he can but make them turn about; but he laughs that they seem to others such dainty Ariels. His talk, like his books, is full of pictures; his critical ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... the barges and the music, I declare sometimes I think that heaven itself can be no better, God forgive me! Ah! but I wish her Grace 'd take a husband; there are many that want her; and then we could laugh at them all. There's so many against her Grace now who'd be for her if she had a son of her own. There's Duke Charles whose picture hangs in her bedroom, they say; and Lord Robert Dudley—there's a handsome spark, my dear, in his gay coat and his feathers and his ruff, and ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... was inclined to laugh at such bombastic assertion. Little, indeed, did I dream that within twelve months his prophecy would be fulfilled, and that the ex-horse-stealer, whose secretary I had become, would actually rule Russia through the lethargic weakling who sat upon the ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... lurking between a couple of pebbles, she thrust down her bare arm, made a wild grasp, and brought her hand up again with nothing in it but sand and gravel. Serge then broke out into noisy laughter which brought her back to the bank, indignant. She told him that he had no business to laugh at her. ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... the drum, will come from all the pints of the compass to flock about you, whatever you are. They'll drill holes in your 'art, Magsman, like a Cullender. And when you've no more left to give, they'll laugh at you to your face, and leave you to have your bones picked dry by Wulturs, like the dead Wild Ass of the Prairies that you deserve to be!" Here he giv himself the most tremendious one of all, ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... I shan't have to work for very long. By the time it's finished, The Enchanted Lover may have earned a lot of money for us ... and the play, too ... and then we can just laugh at our troubles now!..." ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... laugh at this remark relieved the tension of the bravos' nerves. AEsop took advantage of the more cheerful atmosphere again to address Lagardere. "Matchless cavalier," he asked, with a wry assumption of politeness, "would you show me that ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy |
