"Simpering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... His man, when he came to the house of Michael Angelo and saw the picture, said: "Why! this is but a small matter." Michael Angelo asked him what his business was? Realising that every one thinks they know other people's business best, he replied simpering, "I am a merchant;" perhaps disgusted by such a question, and not being taken for a gentleman, while at the same time despising the industry of the Florentine citizens, who for the most part are merchants, ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... all; generals who fought a campaign as deliberately and ceremoniously as they danced a minuet; statesmen whose diplomacy was more of the seraglio than the council; painters who improved on nature, applying the same tricks of art to the landscape as with powders to their curls; and simpering lips of the Marquise, and poets whose highest flights were a sonnet to Pompadour, or a pastoral to a sheep-tending Phillis. Our casual observations of all these people, however, have been vague and slight, for few have probably had patience to follow ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... comparing them with the instruments which the despots of other countries are compelled to employ, with the mutes who throng their ante-chambers, and the Janissaries who mount guard at their gates. Our royalist countrymen were not heartless dangling courtiers, bowing at every step, and simpering at every word. They were not mere machines for destruction dressed up in uniforms, caned into skill, intoxicated into valour, defending without love, destroying without hatred. There was a freedom in their subserviency, a nobleness in their very ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... him, Mrs. Mangan!" said the priest simpering conventionally. "Wasn't it ministering to the afflicted that delayed him! Doctors mustn't be subjected to the rules that ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... "Sunlight," "Queen," "Heavenly Joy," "Pearl of the Desert," and other things in bad English, worse French, and perfect Arabic. He was making promises that could not be redeemed if he lived a thousand years. In conclusion the gallant sheik drew a long breath, screwed his face into a simpering grin and played his trump card in unmistakable English. It sounded pathetically like ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... course of trade; its cheapness, coming, as it did, next in price to the potato, which the Irish had lost. Beyond doubt, there never was such a wonderful hit as that cargo of Indian meal. Sir Robert Peel flaunted it, with simpering modesty, to be sure, as his wont was, but flaunt it he did, in the face of every member who ventured to ask him what provision he had made against starvation in Ireland; and here again his successor seems to think that even he, who had nothing ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... dark curtain o'er the brilliant scene; You form with chemic hands the airy surge, 30 Mix with broad vans, with shadowy tridents urge. SYLPHS! from each sun-bright leaf, that twinkling shakes O'er Earth's green lap, or shoots amid her lakes, Your playful bands with simpering lips invite, And wed the enamour'd OXYGENE to LIGHT.— 35 Round their white necks with fingers interwove, Cling the fond Pair with unabating love; Hand link'd in hand on buoyant step they rise, And soar and glisten in unclouded skies. ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... element was very strong in the Egyptians; no laughter lurks in the wondering eyes and the broad calm lips of their statues. Still less can the Assyrians have had any genius for the comic: the round eyes and simpering satisfaction of their ideal faces belong to a type which is not witty, but the cause of wit in others. The fun of these early races was, we fancy, of the after-dinner kind—loud-throated laughter over the wine-cup, taken too little account of in sober moments to enter as an ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... better to knock out foul exhalations sucked in these nine years from musty walls. 'Twill be sweet to have the wind rap from us the various fungi that comes from sunless chambers. Ah, a stiff breeze will rejuvenate thy fifteen years one month to a lusty, crowing infant and my forty all-seasons to a simpering wench." ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... complaining of the ventilation. As often as Maurice saw Louise, she was with Herries. At first, she had at least made a feint of dancing with other people; now she openly showed her preference. Always this dapper little man, with the violets and the simpering smile. ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... me at noonday, —Reckless imp, To leave his shaded nights And brave the glare,— And I saw him then plainly For a bungler, A stupid, simpering, eyeless bungler, Breaking the hearts of brave people As the snivelling idiot-boy cracks his bowl, And I cursed him, Cursed him to and fro, back and forth, Into all the silly mazes of his mind, But in the end He laughed and pointed to my breast, Where a heart still beat for ...
— War is Kind • Stephen Crane
... "That's not all you're thinking, Miss Pat. You're simpering at some hidden invention of your own, and you know it. Out with it or we'll ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... prided herself on her delicacy, "I never could eat more than would satisfy a mouse, and since my engagement," simpering, "I cannot swallow enough ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... retires, taking his stand in the expectant circle. The girl, in her turn, throws a favorable regard on some fortunate young man, offers her hand to lead him forth, makes him happy with a maidenly kiss, and withdraws to hide her blushes, if any there be, among the simpering faces in the ring; while the favored swain loses no time in transferring her salute to the prettiest and plumpest among the many mouths that are primming themselves in anticipation. And thus the thing goes on, till all the festive throng are inwreathed and ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... mistaking his attention for a compliment, and simpering a little, with a quick fluttering of her lids; "took all her stuff.—Hm!" Now she let her eyes play side-wise, toward ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... deftly and pilfered a little cockled cherry from between the very fingertips of her whose heart was doubtless like its—quite hard. And the bright lips never said a word. I sat down, rather clownishly I felt, beside an aged and simpering chancellor that once had seemed wise, but now seemed innocent, nibbling a biscuit crisp as scandal. For after all the horn would sound. Childhood had been quite sure of that—needed not even the author's testimony. They were ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... lying at the root of it the worm that made it. For some smiles are like the ruddiness of certain apples, which is owing to a centipede, or other creeping thing, coiled up at the heart of them. Only her worm had a face and shape the very image of her own; and she looked so simpering, and mawkish, and self-conscious, and silly, that she made the wise woman ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... a clean cloth, and let it lye all night covered with White-Wine, let it be put into a pot with the same Liquor, and no more, let it be close stopped, then hang it over a very soft and gentle fire, there to continue six houres in a simpering boyle, when it is cold, take it out of the cloth, not before, put it in a Pye-plate, and stick it full of Rosemary and Bayes, so serve it up with Mustard and Sugar, they are wont to lay it on a napkin folded square, and ...
— The Compleat Cook • Anonymous, given as "W. M."
... rendered vain and frivolous, and are taught to consider dress "as the one thing needful" And if they live to be women—which the present fashion is likely frequently to prevent—what are they? Silly, simpering, delicate, lack-a-daisical nonentities; dress being their amusement, their occupation, their conversation, their everything, their thoughts by day and their dreams by night! Truly they are melancholy objects to behold! Let children be dressed as children, not as men and women. Let them be taught ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... I don't know what you may be guilty of. But you sat on the stairs with your simpering inamorata—and your courtship quarrels and your tender reconciliations were plain enough ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... her, a little uneasy and decidedly annoyed. Her mouth was simpering, but her eyes had that sharp, predatory look he had ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... saw the figurehead; it seemed to be simpering at him with an irritating smile. There was something of bland triumph in that grin. In the upset of his feelings there was personal and provoking aggravation in the expression of the figurehead. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... The two nicest shops were Mannings' the hairdressers and Ponting's the book-shop, but Rose the grocer's, and Coulter's the confectioner's were very good. Mr. Manning was an artist. He did not simply put a simpering bust with an elaborate head of hair in his window and leave it at that—he did, indeed, place there a smiling lady with a wonderful jewelled comb and a radiant row of teeth, but around this he built up a magnificent world of silver brushes, tortoise-shell combs, essences ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... big portly man something of the shape of Mr. Morgan; he has not merely a double but a treble and quadruple chin; he has a very large mouth with oily lips, and looks as if he would relish a good dinner with a bottle of wine after it. He came swimming into the room smiling, simpering, and bowing like a fat old lady, and sat down very demure in his chair and looked the picture of a sleek hypocrite. He was dressed in black like a bishop or dean in plain clothes, but wore scarlet gloves and a brilliant scarlet waistcoat. A bevy of inferior priests ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... a hand, indicating the grave-mounds. Her voice, at these dreadful words, ran up to an almost more dreadful airiness; and still she continued nodding, but now with a sort of simpering pride. "All these," she repeated, waving her ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... simpering and blushing and saying pretty nothings between Rowland Prothero and a certain Sir Hugh Pryse, who, on their respective parts, think her a goose, being attracted elsewhere. Sir Hugh is exerting his ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... 'a pale, washed-out rag of a creature—but what can you expect from such a mother? No brains, no style, no conversation; always a simpering, weak-eyed rag baby. Oh, my dear, what ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... hands, faces hung to nails about; prints, sketches in oil and water-color stuck here and there lower down; a rickety table, with paint and palettes and bottles of varnish and siccative tossed comfortlessly on it; an easel, with a strip of some faded mediaeval silk trailing from it; a lay figure simpering in incomplete nakedness, with its head on one side, and a stocking on one leg, and a Japanese dress dropped before it; dusty rugs and skins kicking over the varnished floor; canvases faced to the mop-board; an open ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... study of every trait of her lover's character, determined to weigh him by the truest standards of manhood. Certainly he was no weakling. The one abomination of her soul was the type of the city degenerate she saw simpering along Broadway and Fifth Avenue at times. Jim was brave to the point of rashness. No man with an ounce of cowardice in his being could handle a car in every crisis with such cool daring and perfect control. ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... serious consideration of her who should rightfully claim his attention had been completely blotted out. He had become a willing victim to a will infinitely stronger than his own, his conscience deadened by the poison of beauty; so, while my blood rioted in protest to his simpering French vanity, I could perceive no means by which I might arouse him to more manly action. To cross such a man only invites to the surface the worst elements of his nature; besides, were I to stir him by strong protest, it might be doubtful if he comprehended the nature of my scruples ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... talk about fight! Say, that's all he is—just a fighter! He eats 'em alive, that's all he does—eats 'em!" This was for some of them not easy at once to believe, for the dog's expression was one of simpering amiability. The owner seemed to perceive this discrepancy. "He looks peaceful, but you git him mad once, that's all! He's that kind—you got to git him mad first." This sounded reasonable, at least to the dog's ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... struggles at her toilet. If her soul would prosper better without them, was it really worth while to put on the rouge and the braids? But when she lifted up the hand-mirror and saw a sallow face with baggy cheeks, and crows'-feet that were not to be dissimulated by any simpering of the lips—when she parted her grey hair, and let it lie in simple Piagnone fashion round her face, her courage failed. Monna Berta would certainly burst out laughing at her, and call her an old hag, and as Monna Berta was really only fifty-two, she had a superiority which would make the ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... basket of refreshments, and we ate a good deal, and slept a good deal, and finally arrived in Yarmouth, where at the public-house we found Ham waiting for us. He was a huge, strong fellow of six feet, with a simpering boy's face and curly light hair, and he insisted on carrying me on his back, as well as a small box of ours under his arm. We turned down lanes, and went past gas-works, boat-builders' yards, and riggers' lofts, and presently ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... fellow want?" that gentleman was saying inwardly. "What does he come simpering and turning pink here for? Why doesn't he go and see some of his old women, and read tracts to them? That's his business." Octavia's manner toward her visitor formed a fresh grievance for Barold. She treated the curate very well indeed. She seemed glad to ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... himself to see how easily others could purchase happiness. But the second would weep bitter tears to think what a rayless and barren life that must be which could extract enjoyment from the miserable flimsy wand that has such magic attraction for sauntering youths and simpering maidens. What a dynamometer of happiness are these paltry toys, and what a rudimentary vertebrate must be the freckled adolescent whose yearning for the infinite can be stayed even for a single hour by so trifling a boon from the venal hands of ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... said Markham hurriedly, "I told him to draw on me for a thousand dollars last time I saw him. No, sir; it ain't that. What gets me is this darned nagging and simpering around, and opening old sores, and putting on sentimental style, and doing the bereaved business generally. I reckon he'd be even horrified to see you and me here—though it was just a chance ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... honoured Saint's procession, Now sat, equally united, Drinking the good wine before them, Or the golden foaming beer. Corks were popping, glasses ringing; Many huge and mighty goblets By the guests were emptied quickly, In St Fridolinus' honour. Simpering with delight, the landlord Counted all the empty barrels, And, with a devout expression, Chalked them all upon the blackboard. From the inn outside the gate, which By the peasants was frequented, Came gay music; for, with legs crossed, There sat, playing ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... us walk to the window, Signor Salomon. And now, instead of the silly, simpering compliments repeated at introductions, let me assure you that you are the only man in Florence with whom I would ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... the seedlings of poetry in his composition no one can deny, after the perusal of many of our extracts; that he employs them worthily, is more than can be advanced. His style, though disgraced by occasional puerilities, and simpering affectations, is in general bold, vigorous, and manly; but the disgraceful fault to which we object in his writings, is the scorn he every where evinces for all that is moral or religious. If he must be skeptical—if he must be lax in his human codes ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... on the left is simpering; and, oh! here is a tiger rug," stumbling over a head on the ground. "I caught my heel on his nose," as Philip prevents her falling by seizing ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... said Lenora, "I should suppose you might contrive up something to bring matters to a focus. I think it's perfectly ridiculous to see two old crones, who ought to be trotting their grandchildren, cooing and simpering away at each other, and all for ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... Medbourne was involved in a calculation of dollars and cents with which was strangely intermingled a project for supplying the East Indies with ice by harnessing a team of whales to the polar icebergs. As for the widow Wycherly, she stood before the mirror courtesying and simpering to her own image and greeting it as the friend whom she loved better than all the world besides. She thrust her face close to the glass to see whether some long-remembered wrinkle or crow's-foot had indeed vanished; she examined ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to you, sir!" he said to the M.L.O., wiping his eyeglass furiously. "Be damned to you—what! I see nothing funny in being sent to the wrong front by a simpering, defective idiot on the Aragon. Kindly give me a chit to proceed to Helles to-morrow by ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... snatch away the porter's hand-step and put his heart there in its place. But he could not do these things unintroduced. He hung back and watched her hug her mother and father in a brief wrestling-match while Arthur stood by in simpering homage. ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... place as you walk from room to room. It was still early in the day and in the season, and I flattered myself that I was the only visitor. This complacency, however, dropped at sight of a person standing motionless before a simpering countess of Sir Peter Lely's creation. On hearing my footstep this victim of an evaporated spell turned his head and I recognised my fellow lodger of the Red Lion. I was apparently recognised as well; he looked as if he could scarce wait for me to be kind to ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... glistens o'er all that's there, The trees, the flowers have a jaunty air; The well-bred wind in a whisper blows, The snow, if it snows, is couleur de rose, The falling founts in a titter fall, And the sun looks simpering down on all. ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... pig-tailed simpering rakes Who kiss their hands (three miles away) To dainty beauties of Cathay Beside those ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 16, 1914 • Various
... heads out of the coach window. There was one old woman with false teeth, in an unpleasant state of decay, and a voice like a parrot. 'One eye!' she shrieked, as she gazed on me with an eye as stony as the coachman. A pale, simpering miss smirked in my face, and cried, 'One eye!' and a military gentleman, with a ghastly frown, hissed forth the same words. I should have scrutinized the queer coach and the queer people closer, had not my horse—my ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... transcending in importance (in their own eyes) the clerk, the curate, the rector, and even the squire from the great hall, majestic and stern though he be, with his awful wig and gold-headed cane! There are the fubsy boys—copied apparently from cherubim—who, with glowing, distended cheeks, are simpering on the ceiling, doing the tenor, with wide open mouths that would shame e'er a barn-door in the village; their red, stumpy fingers sprawling over the music which they are (not) reading. The pale, lantern-jawed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... soldier, I suppose, to suit the public too, much on the same lines. He is the most simpering, mild-mannered, and perfect gentleman. If you asked him to loot a farm, he would stare at you in shocked amazement. He is, of course, "as brave as a lion," his courage being always at that dead level of perfect heroism which makes the term quite meaningless. Except, however, ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... his infantine prettiness, his substitution of thaumaturgical effects for conscientious labour, admitted only too easy imitation, and were but too congenial with the spirit of the late Renaissance. Cupolas through the length and breadth of Italy began to be covered with clouds and simpering cherubs in the convulsions of artificial ecstasy. The attenuated elegance of Parmigiano, the attitudinising of Anselmi's saints and angels, and a general sacrifice of what is solid and enduring to sentimental gewgaws on the part of all painters who had submitted to the magic of Correggio, proved ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... got all the money," said the simpering admirer who answered to the name of Tempest. "He and you, Miss Qian, ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... and weighty duties. I would not that she engage in a single pursuit, that shall disqualify her for this function. If she degrade herself to the rank of a painted image, decked in apparel to charm simpletons, or if she flutter in the breeze of silly speeches and simpering airs, she is a traitress to her nature. She goes out, deplorably ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... Guise—or against him—had for his example not only the handsomest but the most courtly man of all times; and has nothing to learn from a set of pert fellows who, unable to acquire the stately courtesy that becomes a gentleman, are fain to air themselves in a dandified-simpering trim of their own, with nought gallant about them but their ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... and read it. That's to say, it'll be read to him; you see, he's no scholar.' (The clerk on duty was silent again for a while.) 'But what do you say?' he added, simpering; 'is it ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... "It's enough to tear a body's heart to hear her, poor dear. And that good-for-nothing Spanish piece racing and shrieking round the tennis court like a she tom-cat, the heartless hussy. Her and that simpering silly that's trotting round after her had ought to be put in a bag and shaken up, that they ought. It's downright scandalous to be carrying on like ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... constantly moving procession bound for the park. White-faced stenographers and anaemic clerks came from the dingy boarding-house districts to the north. Stockily built mechanics swaggered along with their simpering, gaudily dressed lady loves. Here and there were entire families of substantial Germans and Swedes, and occasionally, swarthy Italians and beady-eyed, voluble Jews. Sooner or later, they all lost themselves ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... to be: ye cannot be justified by the works of the law; for by the deeds of the law no man living can be rid of his burden: therefore, Mr. Worldly-wiseman is an alien, and Mr. Legality is a cheat; and for his son Civility, notwithstanding his simpering looks, he is but a hypocrite, and cannot help thee. Believe me, there is nothing in all this noise, that thou hast heard of these sottish men, but a design to beguile thee of thy salvation, by turning thee from the way in which I had ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... he had been less self-possessed, her faith in him caused her, upon reflection, even to admire this which she conceived to be restraint. Yet, when at parting he did no more than courteously bend before her, and kiss her hand as any simpering gallant might have done, she was all but vexed, and not to be outdone in coldness, she grew frigid. But it was lost upon him. He had not a lover's discernment, quickened by anxious eyes that watch for each flitting ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... thinking of doing. When you talk of making an example of me as a warning to others,' said the pox-marked lad, as he reached over, taking the reins of the foreman's horse firmly in his hand, 'you're a simpering idiot for entertaining the idea, and a cowardly bluffer for mentioning it. When you talk of unhorsing and leaving me here afoot in a country a thousand miles from nowhere, you don't know what that means, ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... lord,' said Mistress Pauncefort, blushing and simpering. 'Well to be sure, how your lordship has surprised us all! I thought we were never going to ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... Arcadia's countess, here, in ermined pride, Is, there, Pastora by a fountain side. Here Fannia, leering on her own good man, And there, a naked Leda with a swan. Let then the fair one beautifully cry, In Magdalen's loose hair, and lifted eye, Or dressed in smiles of sweet Cecilia shine, With simpering angels, palms, and harps divine; Whether the charmer sinner it, or saint it, If folly grow romantic, ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... average human capacity for swallowing flattery. Instead of dismissing his fulsome nonsense with a contemptuous smile, Lady Georgina perked herself up with a conscious air of coquetry, and asked for more. 'Yes, they were delightful days in Vienna,' she said, simpering; 'I was young then, Count; I ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... sorrows. To be left alone was frightful; yet she never complained. She was living in a paradise, but something told her that behind all that sun, all that splendour of blue sea and sky, behind the flowers and the leaves, behind all that specious and simpering appearance of happiness in nature, lurked a frown, and the ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... fellow was simpering, and tottered drowsily to and fro. He was evidently very sleepy. Mr. Dumany took him up on his lap, unbuttoned his little boots, and pulled off the tiny socks. The mother stood there, looking on unconcerned, ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... sa!' 'Polly's Sue!' 'Big Sam!' 'Pinckney!' 'Cal!' 'Peter!' 'Jule!' and a variety of names were shouted out, not by the owners of them. With a great deal of shyness and simpering and half-suppressed grinning, and real or affected modesty on the part of the women, and equal mirth and awkward self-consciousness on that of the aspirant bridegrooms, the candidates for matrimony—or at least such of them as were present, one couple and a 'boy' being ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... dine at—at Fairoaks," said Mr. Smirke, blushing faintly and whisking the scented pocket-handkerchief, and his pony being in waiting, he mounted and rode away simpering down the street. No accident befell him that day, and he arrived with his tie in the very best order at ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the newest stranger—the lion of the day, the gorgeous journeyman tailor from Quincy. He was a simpering coxcomb of the first water, and the "loudest" dressed man in the State. He was an inveterate woman-killer. Every week he wrote lushy "poetry" for the Journal, about his newest conquest. His rhymes for my week were headed, "TO MARY IN H—L," meaning to Mary in Hannibal, ...
— Editorial Wild Oats • Mark Twain
... like a dozen years. They met once more. . . . Oh, at last! At last! They rushed together, they stopped aghast. They looked at each other with blank dismay, They simply hadn't a word to say. He thought with a shiver: "Can this be she?" She thought with a shudder: "This can't be he?" This simpering dandy, so sleek and spruce; This languorous lily in garments loose; They sought to brace from the awful shock: Taking a seat, they tried to talk. She spoke of Bergson and Pater's prose, He prattled of dances and ragtime shows; She purred of pictures, Matisse, Cezanne, His tastes to the ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... and remade before its final production. The ghastly but effective color of the resuscitation scene in the graveyard of the ruined convent was a change wrought by a stage manager, who was disgusted with the chorus of simpering women in the original. This led Meyerbeer to compose the weird ballet music which is such a characteristic feature of "Robert le Diable." So, too, we are told on the same authority, the fourth act of "Les Huguenots," ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... perfectly finished till the sun's car-horses stand prancing on the very top of highest noon: so that then (and not till then) is the most healthful hour to be stirring. Do you require examples to persuade you? At what time do Lords and Ladies use to rise but then? Your simpering merchants' wives are the fairest lyers in the world: and is not eleven o'clock their common hour? they find (no doubt) unspeakable sweetness in such lying, else they would not day by day put it so in practice. In a word, mid-day slumbers are golden; ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... people being asked to your party: it was an insult, too deep for my powers of description. Those women treat your father as though he were a halfway idiot—a fool to be thrust around when it pleases them, and to be the object of simpering tears when they want to play the pathetic in speaking of your mother to people. They are detestable, contemptible. And Jack Holton's turning up at Amzi's ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... think," this young lady said to Melissa, in a simpering rapture, "you'd be just too proud for anything, to know Mr. Stanton. It must be too lovely to know a ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... suffered less than any of us, being much less reduced in frame, and retaining my powers of mind in a surprising degree, while the rest were completely prostrated in intellect, and seemed to be brought to a species of second childhood, generally simpering in their expressions, with idiotic smiles, and uttering the most absurd platitudes. At intervals, however, they would appear to revive suddenly, as if inspired all at once with a consciousness of their condition, when they would spring upon their feet in ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... love. At first he had been content just to ride with Dede and to be on comradely terms with her; but the desire and the need for her increased. The more he knew of her, the higher was his appraisal. Had she been reserved and haughty with him, or been merely a giggling, simpering creature of a woman, it would have been different. Instead, she amazed him with her simplicity and wholesomeness, with her great store of comradeliness. This latter was the unexpected. He had never looked upon woman in ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... what is in your mind. Am I to make myself an outlaw? Am I, who have been Lord Seneschal of Dauphiny these fifteen years, to end my days in degradation in the cause of a woman's matrimonial projects for a simpering school-girl? Seigneur du Ciel!" he roared, "I think you are gone mad—mad, mad! over this affair. You would not think it too much to set the whole province in flames so that you could have your way with this wretched child. ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... Upon my word, if she doesn't come, it would be the last straw. When I go every Wednesday to be bored to death in her salon with a crowd of affected, simpering women!" ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Miss Chetwynd, simpering momentarily, came forward with that self- conscious, slightly histrionic air, which is one of the penalties of pedagogy. She lived under the eyes of her pupils. Her life was one ceaseless effort to avoid ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... grinned appreciation. "Yes, the signorina is very civetta. I, also, have seen her simpering when the avvocato has been here, but she soon gets tired of him, and then her face is as ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... the library, and returned in a few moments with a small bunch of keys in her hand. She went to the safe, unlocked it, and returned to the table bearing an oblong silver box of quaint design, with the portrait of a stout simpering lady in enamel on the cover. Miss Heredith directed Colwyn's attention to the portrait, remarking that it was a likeness of a princess of the reigning house, who had given it and the box to her great-uncle, Captain ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... the art in vogue—this was the burden of his reiterated rabid attacks; art watered down to suit the public's insipid palate, and he quoted Chamfort furiously: "Combien de sots faut-il pour faire un public?"—the art of simpering prettiness, without root or fruit in life, the art of absolute convention. He ran over a list of successful names with an ever-growing rancour—artistic hacks, the crew of them, the journalists of painting—with a side glance at Lightmark, who sat pulling his flaxen moustache, ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... suddenly in her wild and angry speech. Her face changed as if by magic. The flush died in it and the expression of her sparkling eyes became subdued. A simpering look overspread Ida May Bostwick's countenance that warned the other girl, at least, that another person had entered ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... mere exhibition of an accomplished artist, who could call up expression at will, as easily as a painter could heighten colour? Kate Kearney evidently believed the former, as her heaving chest and her tremulous lip betrayed, while the cold, simpering smile on Walpole's face, and the 'brava, bravissima' in which he broke the silence, vouched how he had interpreted that show ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... That was Cromwell Biron," she simpered. Although Lucy Ellen was forty and, in most respects, sensible, she could not help simpering upon occasion. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... snubbings and humiliations to which she had been subjected until then—were construed into frivolity and deep-dyed coquetry, altogether unworthy of a royal princess. She was taxed, too, with an absence of that simpering modesty, more or less affected, which is de mise with so many young girls in Germany and in France, when they make their debut in society, and even her most harmless flirtations were condemned by her mother ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... as I—" Barrington began, and then stopped. "Mademoiselle, forgive me, but such deceit makes a man suspicious. I was told to seek Mademoiselle St. Clair in a fat, ugly, simpering woman, and I find her in—in you. How can I be certain that you are ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... Valdepenas—addressing the landlord's tawny daughter with a flattering air, and smacking his lips approvingly, after each mouthful, whether solid or fluid, while he abused both food and wine in emphatic English, throwing in many back-handed compliments to the lady's beauty, and she stood simpering by, construing his ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... pleased than I expected, which is saying a good deal. It is a pet idea of mine that one gets more real truth out of one avowed partisan than out of a dozen of your sham impartialists—wolves in sheep's clothing—simpering honesty as they suppress documents. After all, what one wants to know is not what people did, but why they did it—or rather, why they thought they did it; and to learn that, you should go to the men themselves. Their very falsehood is often more than ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... thought of a girl who had been her schoolmate at Brighton, one of the boldest little hussies that ever flashed eyes to the light of day, yet who could assume the dainty simpering air of maiden—modest perfection at the moment's notice. She wished she could do the same, but she had not studied the trick carefully enough, and she was afraid to try more of it than just a little ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... be neither boorish nor blunt, but even these are preferable to simpering and crawling. I wish every English youth could see those of the United States of America; always civil, never servile. Be obedient, where obedience is due; for, it is no act of meanness, and no indication of want of spirit, to yield implicit and ready obedience to those who have a right to ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... replied threateningly. "Do not mistake my temper, or imagine me blind. I know what has so suddenly changed you—it is that gay, simpering fool yonder. But be careful how far you go. I am your husband, and ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... more than one or two knew me, even after I had talked with the very next sentinel, especially as they had never seen me in India-rubber clothing, and I can always disguise my voice. It was easy to distinguish those who did make the discovery; they were always conscious and simpering when their turn came; while the others were stout and irreverent till I revealed myself, and then rather cowed and ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... his chest, with a mixture of awkwardness, fatuity and stiffness the most curious and the most exhilarating.... In his general aspect," adds this merciless critic, "he recalls the circus-rider, minus the latter's flexibility: skin-tight garments, simpering mouth, smile of a dancing-girl, attempt to be impertinent and irresistible which culminates only in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... meet you, Mr. Day," said the faded-out lady, simpering. "I've been considerin' acceptin' a position such as you have. Of course, I ain't used ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... of vari-coloured perfumes—now flashes on a case of razors, and now lightens up a crystal vase, containing a hundred thousand of his patent tooth-brushes—the effect of the sight may be imagined. You don't suppose that he is a creature who has those odious, simpering wax figures in his window, that are called by the vulgar dummies? He is above such a wretched artifice; and it is my belief that he would as soon have his own head chopped off, and placed as a trunkless decoration ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with rosy face and simpering features, received me politely, nay kindly; listened with complacency to my remonstrances, though he scarcely heeded Mary's tears. I did not then suspect, that my eloquence was in my complexion, the blush of seventeen, ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... treachery. What, indeed, could woman's love give him that might compare with this? Was it not more glorious far to make himself the admired, the revered, the very idol of those stern men, than the beloved of a simpering girl? The latter any coxcomb with a well-cut coat might encompass, but the former ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... should like to listen to them; it does me so much good to laugh," cried Josie, her eyes beaming with fond satisfaction. "Kingsnook" (for such we will name this happy professional's abode) is of all others the place for a good hearty laugh. No simpering, silly affectation is allowed much reception within the neat and tastefully arranged parlors, or tempted to display itself on the shady verandah, cool, leafy ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... what I think myself, my lord," he continued, simpering; "but then," he added, with a condoling and patronizing air, "how should they know any better? England is but an island, after all; and the whole world cannot be born and educated on ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... will come and fetch thee." So saying she kissed my hand and went her ways. I set about stringing my pearls and donning my brocades and making my toilette, Little recking what Fortune had in womb for me, when suddenly the old woman stood before me, simpering and smiling till she showed every tooth stump, and quoth she, "O my mistress, the city madams have arrived and when I apprized them that thou promisedst to be present, they were glad and they are now awaiting thee and looking eagerly for ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... stranger, a dry simpering lady, caught the Countess's benevolent passing gaze, and leaning forward, said: 'I hope her ladyship bears her affliction as well as ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... alighting I gave him another dab; but it was but a little one. Yet the manner, and the air, made up (as I intended they should) for that defect. My mother's hand was kindly put into his, with a simpering altogether bridal; and with another How do you now, Sir?—All his plump muscles were in motion, and a double charge of care and obsequiousness fidgeted up his whole form, when he offered to me his officious palm. My mother, when I was a girl, always bid me hold up my head. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... have a look of sorrow in them—as if they had been washed clear in tears—she is not laughing anywhere. I like that! If she were gay and jocund in that picture how vulgar it would be.—If her splendid hair were unbound, and her fine throat and neck without kerchief, and if she were simpering with a finger on a dimple in her cheek, I know that I should detest her. It is her serenity, her air of seriousness, which is so enthralling—I wonder what her name is—it should be something grand, and sweet, and solemn—I should think Theodora would suit her—What nonsense! ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... tows small craft, your honour," returned Galleygo, simpering. "Howsever, I never comes without an errand, as every body knows. You see, Sir Jarvy,—you see, Admiral Blue, that our signal-officer is ashore, with a report for us; and meeting me in the hall, he made it to me first like, ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... carry them through anything, perhaps. I am not prepared to say it is a bad thing in the conditions of feminine life prevailing at present. Mabel, however, is not like that. She is as unlike that as she is unlike the simpering misses that used to surround me as a child. She has plenty of brains; she is full of character; her mind and her tastes are cultivated; but it is all mixed up"—Mr. Cupples waved his hands in a vague gesture—"with ideals of refinement and reservation and ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... distant thoughts of marriage; the finger-circling ring, the purity figuring glove, the envy-pining bridemaids, the wishing parson, and the simpering clerk. Farewell the ambiguous blush-raising joke, the titter-provoking pun, the morning-stirring drum.—No son of mine shall exist, to bear my ill-fated name. No nurse come chuckling, to tell me it is a boy. No midwife, leering at me from under the lids of professional gravity. I dreamed ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... and pigs; and, depend upon it, fowls and sheep and pigs were discussed long before the Balkan question was dreamed of, and fowls and sheep and pigs will be discussed long after the Balkan question is forgotten. And so the old couple make you feel ashamed of your simpering superficiality; you are amazed that you can have grown so excited about the things of a moment; and you blush for your own ignorance of the things that were and are and shall be. Yes, John and Mary can discuss ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... for I threaten'd oft the siege to raise, Not simpering all mine age; Thou often didst with academic praise Melt and dissolve my rage: I took the sweeten'd pill, till I came where I could not go ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... them a fountain played in the midst of blue, pink, and white lotus lilies, and in a flower-decked house the Seasons dispensed pot-flowers, bouquets, and button-holes; the Miss Simmondses and their friends with simpering graces, that made Geraldine glad to escape and leave them to the young men who were strolling up. At Carrara was the stall in which she was chiefly interested, and which had been arranged with a certain likeness to Italian gardens, the statues and other devices disposed among ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with which I am more pleased than I expected, which is saying a good deal. It is a pet idea of mine that one gets more real truth out of one avowed partisan than out of a dozen of your sham impartialists - wolves in sheep's clothing - simpering honesty as they suppress documents. After all, what one wants to know is not what people did, but why they did it - or rather, why they THOUGHT they did it; and to learn that, you should go ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and if it were not at Botany Bay, it ought to be! The laughter that hailed his defence of its nose as 'well, nothing particular,' precipitated the drawing up of the curtain and his apparition in the glass: and then Nora Nugent being called, the inseparable Mary accompanied her, arm-in-arm, simpering an announcement that they liked nothing so well as a ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his own garden parterre. M. Peyron, however, was fully aware of the defects of his costume, and profoundly apologetic. "It is with ten thousand regrets, mademoiselle," he said, many times over, bowing low and simpering, "that I venture to appear in a lady's salon—for, after all, wherever a European lady goes, there her salon follows her—in such a tenue as that in which I am now compelled to present myself. Mais que voulez-vous? Nous ne sommes ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... the herd that throng around, Thy simpering or thy sighing train, Come tell me who to thee is bound By Love's or ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... dress, made almost as simply as a nun's, contrasted oddly with the profusion of expensive bad taste displayed in her hostess's attire, as her serious white face and quiet noble eyes were strangely unlike Frau von Greifenstein's simpering, nervous countenance. The latter lady would certainly have been taken at first sight for the younger of the two, though she was in reality considerably older, but a closer examination showed an infinite number of minute lines, about the eyes, about the mouth, ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... recollect that well, for Captain Alphonse had just taken the altitude of the sun to ascertain our position, when, as he came up from his cabin where he had gone to consult his chronometers and work out 'the reckoning,' as you sailors call it, that that black devil the 'marquis' mounted the poop with a simpering and fawning air. ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... You will be happier—far happier than if you attempt to use her for your own ends, as a contributor to your comfort and an auxiliary to your career. I was afraid—I confess it—that you had married an aspiring, simpering and empty-headed provincial like that Mrs. George Hutchins' whom I met once, and who would sell her soul to be at my table. Well, you escaped that, and you may thank God for it. You've got ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... portrait of the mother of Lady Mulberry Hawk, with lines by the father of Sir Dingleby Dabber. More unlikely things had come to pass. Less interesting portraits had appeared. As this thought occurred to the good lady, her countenance unconsciously assumed that compound expression of simpering and sleepiness which, being common to all such portraits, is perhaps one reason why they are always so charming ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... coming into the dining-room. As it happened, it was Mason himself. Miss Josephine immediately lost interest in the arrival and took to tracing with her finger the outline of a Japanese lady with a startling coiffure and an immense bow upon her spine, who was simpering at a lotus bed on Josephine's kimono. She did not look up until some one stepped upon the ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... in the taste of tea which makes it irresistible and capable of idealisation. Western humourists were not slow to mingle the fragrance of their thought with its aroma. It has not the arrogance of wine, the self-consciousness of coffee, nor the simpering innocence of cocoa. Already in 1711, says the Spectator: "I would therefore in a particular manner recommend these my speculations to all well-regulated families that set apart an hour every morning for tea, bread and butter; and would ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... their crooks and waistcoats and bodices, dance their loves to a minuet-tune played on a bird-organ, approach the charmer, or rush from the false one daintily on their red-heeled tiptoes, and die of despair or rapture, with the most pathetic little grins and ogles; or repose, simpering at each other, under an arbour of pea-green crockery; or piping to pretty flocks that have just been washed with the best Naples in a stream of Bergamot. Gay's gay plan seems to me far pleasanter than ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in truth, for Frank's suggestion. The old schooner whose name they now discerned in faded gilt as "Molly M," seemed like a ghost of other days. Her outthrust bow, her up-cocked stern and the figurehead of a simpering woman that might have been mermaid originally but was now so worn as to make it almost impossible to tell the original intent, was, indeed, suggestive of galleons of ancient days. This figurehead jutted out beneath ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... to heaven again, and left the round world to its general curse. So it is even in pretty old villages, embowered in orchards, with hollyhocks and jessamine in front of the houses, and primeval cocks and hens pecking and scraping in the street, and the modest river dimpling and simpering among osiers and apple trees, and old ivied walls close by—you sometimes hear other things than lowing herds, and small birds singing, and purling streams; and shrill accents and voluble rhetoric will now ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... handkerchief; and becomes, as far as in her lies, a private ordinary person. All public men and women of good sense, I should think, have this modesty. When, for instance, in my small way, poor Mrs. Brown comes simpering up to me, with her album in one hand, a pen in the other, and says, "Ho, ho, dear Mr. Roundabout, write us one of your amusing," &c .&c., my beard drops behind my handkerchief instantly. Why am I to wag my chin and grin for ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... just as they are ruled down for you in the drawing-books, as if the latter were the revelations of beauty, issued by supreme authority, from which there was no appeal? Why is the classical reign to endure? Why is yonder simpering Venus de' Medicis to be our standard of beauty, or the Greek tragedies to bound our notions of the sublime? There was no reason why Agamemnon should set the fashions, and remain [Greek text omitted] to eternity: and there is a classical ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... This party was no simpering schoolgirl. She was thirty-five or so and square-jawed, and did her hair plain, and had a managing voice that would go good at club meetings. She read library books and was a good conversationalist. And what did she do the first evening, when Homer was mending one of his shirts by the kitchen lamp, ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... the peculiar shade of her hair, the low forehead and delicate line of the dark eyebrows, the outline of the mask, sometimes admired, sometimes criticised, made her portrait always recognized, whether simpering as a chocolate-box classicality, smiling sadly from the flowery circle of the Purgatorio, or breaking out of some rough mass of paint with the provocative leer of a cocotte of the ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... many, and they were highly diverted to see one man in particular walking at large, and strutting about with "concentrated gravy," stuck on his head in no less than four places. He appeared quite proud of these ornaments, and was simpering ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... tide; And NEWBURY's desart streets lament in vain, Their servile inmates gone to swell your train. Stout FERDINANDO, your obsequious slave, Once a rude ruffian, now a pliant knave, With Stentor's voice shall swell your pageant pride, And boldly thunder nonsense on your side: The gentle Colonel, simpering SELLWOOD too, His face with port and patriot-ardor blue, With vacant eye shall view your great intent, Shall scratch his empty head, and smile assent. There too my muse, with rough, tho' honest song, Shall chant your virtues to the admiring throng, Display your various worth ...
— An Heroic Epistle to the Right Honourable the Lord Craven (3rd Ed.) • William Combe
... what he had said about it. He got on the good side of Ursula. He praised her to Marget, confidentially, but speaking just loud enough for Ursula to hear. He said she was a fine woman, and he hoped some day to bring her and his uncle together. Very soon Ursula was mincing and simpering around in a ridiculous girly way, and smoothing out her gown and prinking at herself like a foolish old hen, and all the time pretending she was not hearing what Satan was saying. I was ashamed, for it ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... being wholly responsible for the present whist combination, of course could say nothing except to myself and the moon. What a hoard of personal reminiscences and heart to heart confessions the simpering old thing must have stored away behind her placid countenance. It is a wonder that no enterprising journal has syndicated her memoirs by wireless telegraphy for the exclusive ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... social heresies, and rapidly beginning to take rank as a religious heresy as well, I have no hesitation in placing modern Spiritualism. Those who associate this latest mystery only with gyrating articles of furniture, rapping tables, or simpering planchettes, are simply in the abyss of ignorance, and dangerously underrate the gravity of the subject. The later development of Spirit Faces and Spirit Forms, each of which I have examined thoroughly, and made the results of my observations public, fail to afford any adequate idea of the pitch ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... patched attire. All were greeted by a cordial handshake and a pleasant word as they filed past Lincoln. The doctor smiled sardonically as he saw the circle of admirers about pretty Mrs. Bennett. Was it possible that her blue eyes, childlike in their candor, her simpering smile, and affected manner were masks assumed to cover her machinations? She a Union spy? It seemed incredible. If so, was she clever enough to injure Nancy? Moving with the crowd, she gradually worked her way to ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... Tom Hewlet came on, and no other word was spoken until he stopped three feet away. Swaying slightly, and looking into Brent's face with a simpering leer, ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... liars, thieves, drunkards, murderers, and prostitutes of our day are less responsible for their crimes against themselves, against society, and against Heaven, than those who were instrumental in bringing them into the world? Almost every village has its boy "who was born drunk," a staggering, simpering, idiotic representative of a drunken father, beastly intoxicated at the very moment when he should have ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... Mabel will marry some diplomatic swell, and be entertaining ambassadors by-and-by. And when some modern Greek envoy comes simpering up to her with a remark about the weather, it will be an advantage for her to know Plato. I understand. ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... of the village dwelt a maiden whose bloom had been wasted, and whose matchless hopes were always frustrated ere their accomplishment. Many a simpering look had she cast towards the goodly raiment of Master Anthony, and some incipient notion was entertained that the indweller at the big house was not averse to a peep, now and then, more tender than usual, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... a candle. There were yellow dips and white dips, burning, smoking, and flaring. There was laughing, and talking, and giggling, and simpering, and ogling, and flirting, and courting. What a full-dress party is to Fifth Avenue, a spelling-school is to Hoopole County. It is an occasion which is metaphorically inscribed with this legend: "Choose your partners." Spelling is only a blind in Hoopole County, as is dancing on Fifth ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... my father's house. He changed his raiment once a day and bathed every Sunday. I used to comb his yellow hair when I took in his ale, of a morning." Long after her voice had passed into a rattle, she stood in a simpering revery, her palsied hands resting heavily upon her stick, her blinking eyes fixed on the picturesque young foreigner musing ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... eyes was sickening. But was Pat nauseated? Not he! The big goon was lapping it up like a famished feline. His simpering smirk stretched from ear to there as he murmured, ...
— Lighter Than You Think • Nelson Bond
... the Dop Doctor merry again, this scorching night in Gueldersdorp, five years later. But it was ugly mirth, especially when he recalled his agony of sympathy upon hearing, through her mother, that Mildred was ill in bed. Ah! how he hated the simpering, whispering, sneering, giggling women in Court when he pictured her, his innocent darling, his sweet girl, suffering for love of him and sorrow for him. David, detained by onerous duties at Regimental Headquarters throughout the whole of the Case, wrote chilly but fraternally ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... a beggar; therefore to beg will not become me: my way is to conjure you; and I'll begin with the women. I charge you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of this play as please you: and I charge you, O men, for the love you bear to women;—as I perceive by your simpering, none of you hates them,—that between you and the women the play may please. If I were a woman, I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me, and breaths that I defied not; ...
— As You Like It • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... the house are brought into action now, many of them after a long blank. They reflect handsome faces, simpering faces, youthful faces, faces of threescore and ten that will not submit to be old; the entire collection of faces that have come to pass a January week or two at Chesney Wold, and which the fashionable intelligence, a mighty hunter before the Lord, hunts with a keen scent, from their breaking ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... like no other woman he had ever seen; she was as far removed above common young-ladyhood as Raphael's Madonnas are beyond and above Greuze's simpering maidens; there could be no other like her—she was a queen, ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... disgusted with vanity wherever it appears. Go into a school-room, and look around upon the appearance of the various pupils assembled there. You will perhaps see one girl, with head tossed upon one shoulder, and with a simpering countenance, trying to look pretty. You speak to her. Instead of receiving a plain, kind, honest answer, she replies with voice and language and attitude full of affectation. She thinks she is exciting your admiration. But, on the contrary, she is ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott
... Books of Beauty one could make a choice. There was always one lady supremely longer-necked, more wistful or more simpering than the others. But in this new Book of Beauty one turns the pages only to be more perplexed. The embarrassment of riches is too embarrassing. I have been through the work a score of times and am still wondering ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... about the girl except her beauty, and a more unscrupulous resolve to make the most of it and its effect upon men than other young women had the nerve to adhere to. "But look there!" he cried: "see old Applegate" (one of our professors) "simpering over her bouquet and smiling into her eyes. Wretched old mummy! what does he want to go to parties for?" For we all held the ingenuous opinion that anybody, man or woman, ten years or more older than ourselves, ought to stay at home, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... administer an anaesthetic. But what I admire in this subject even more than the activity of the Graces is the serene dignity of the Adonis. I have seen my old friend in many trying positions, but I never realised till now all the simpering absurdity, the flattered silliness, the senile coquettishness, of which his ...
— The Garotters • William D. Howells
... simpering girl who comes forward gorgeously arrayed in light blue satin. She chooses a song, all trills and little scales, running up and down, shaking at last upon a high note for nearly two minutes, and then coming down with a rush. This brings down the house. We applaud lustily; we begin ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... was fifteen, Sylvie Rogron, trained to the simpering of a saleswoman, had two faces,—the amiable face of the seller, the natural face of a sour spinster. Her acquired countenance was a marvellous bit of mimicry. She was all smiles. Her voice, soft and wheedling, gave a commercial charm to business. Her real face was ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... left the piano, Arthur said, 'Thank you; I have never heard the piece better rendered.' And Lady Hilda felt that that was a triumph which far outweighed any number of inane compliments from a whole regiment of simpering Algies, Monties, ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... so,—an expression of slight shock, followed by forgetfulness. Air-men, recklessly braving the spaces of the sky, fall headlong, and are smashed to mutilated atoms every month or so, without rousing us to more than a passing comment, and a chorus of "How dreadful!" from simpering women,— and the greatest and best man alive cannot hope for long remembrance by the world at large when he dies. Shakespeare recognised this tendency in callous human nature when ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... pendulum. But the new ideas led inevitably to antiquarianism, and antiquarians found something extraordinarily congenial in what was worst in Gothic art. Obedient limners follow the wiseacres. What else is there for them to follow? Stragglers from the age of reason are set down to trick out simpering angels. No longer permitted to stand on the laws of propriety or their personal dignity, they are ordered to sweeten their cold meats with as much amorous and religious sentiment as they can exude. Meanwhile ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... banquet of a native merchant, which began at four o'clock on melon-seeds, tea, black yearling eggs, and a hot towel, and ended at three in the morning on rice-brandy and betel served by unreal women with chalked faces and vermilion-spotted lips, simpering and melancholy. By day, there was work, or now and then a lesson with Dr. Earle's teacher, a little aged Chinaman of intricate, refined, and plaintive courtesy. Under his guidance Rudolph learned rapidly, taking to ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... speaking to a policeman, but not one would come. I was this man's slave. I followed him like his dog. I COULD not get away from him. So, you see, I went on meanly conversing with him, and affecting a simpering confidence. I remember, when I was a little boy at school, going up fawning and smiling in this way to some great hulking bully of a sixth-form boy. So I said in a word, "Your ordinarily handsome face wore a ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... in his eyes, a frown upon his forehead, lips compressed, and quivering nostrils; also one of his mother, the pastille of a handsome woman, with Napoleonic eyes and brows and nose, but with a vacant simpering mouth. Perhaps the provincial artist knew not how to seize the expression of this feature, the most difficult to draw. For we cannot fancy that Letizia had lips without the firmness or the fulness of a ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... world!—but principles must be carried out, though through blood and famine: for truly, man was made for theories, not theories for man. A doctrine is these men's God—touch but that shrine, and lo! your simpering philanthropist becomes as ruthless as ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... you who have driven me to seek the seclusion of my own apartments, to be out of sight and hearing of the household of simpering idiots you insist upon keeping about you," he cried, angrily. "I came back to Whitestone Hall for peace and rest. Do I ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... Prefecture, to Comte Popinot's, and the like, he held his hat in his hand in an airy manner taught him by Valerie, and he inserted the thumb of the other hand in the armhole of his waistcoat with a knowing air, and a simpering face and expression. This new grace of attitude was due to the satirical inventiveness of Valerie, who, under pretence of rejuvenating her mayor, had given him an added touch of ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac |
