"Simper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you joy, messire," he said, with a simper; "I come bringing a precious balsam which cures all sorts of ills, and heals the troubles both of body and mind. For what is better than to have a pleasant companion to sing and tell merry tales, ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... was flattered by finding her attire a matter of acknowledged importance to her rival, and replied, with a simper,— ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... that dishonest men often grow rich and famous, becoming powerful in their parish or in parliament. Their portraits simper from shop windows; and they live and die respected. This success is theirs; yet it is not the success which a noble soul will envy. Apart from the risk of discovery and infamy, there is the certainty of a conscience ill at ease, or if at ease, so blunted ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... red; mantelpiece, red, veined yellow, candelabra and clock ditto mounted on bronze, common and heavy in design,—Roman standards with Greek foliage! Above the clock is that inevitable good-natured lion which looks at you with a simper, the lion of ornamentation, with a big ball under his feet, symbol of the decorative lion, who passes his life holding a black ball,—exactly like a deputy of the Left. Perhaps it is meant as a constitutional myth. The face of the clock is curious. The glass over the chimney is framed in that ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... Dr. George Fordyce, Mr. George Anderson, Dr. Geddes, and a host of other prominent artists, scientists, and literary men. Their meetings were informal. They gathered together to talk about what interested them, and not to simper and smirk, and give utterance to platitudes and affectations, as was the case with the society to which Mary had lately been introduced. The people with whom she now became acquainted were too earnest to lay undue stress on what Herbert Spencer calls the ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... advocated Lily Fisher. Lily's partisans urged that she was much prettier than Thea, and had a much "sweeter disposition." Nobody denied these facts. But there was nothing in the least boyish about Lily, and she sang all songs and played all parts alike. Lily's simper was popular, but it seemed not quite the right thing for ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... took courage; SHE would have her picture taken. She came dressed beyond description, Dressed in jewels and in satin Far too gorgeous for an empress. Gracefully she sat down sideways, With a simper scarcely human, Holding in her hand a bouquet Rather larger than a cabbage. All the while that she was sitting, Still the lady chattered, chattered, Like a monkey in the forest. "Am I sitting still?" she asked him. "Is my face enough in profile? Shall I hold the bouquet higher? Will it came into ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... love for her which filled his soul. A year ago would have sealed his doom, but that night witnessed another scene. Death had claimed it for his own. The hand which he held was not withdrawn, neither did a simper mark her reply. With eyes meekly turned upward, she answered in a calm, low voice,—"My dear father is in heaven; if he is looking down, I feel that he will smile upon me, when, with my mother's consent, ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... to him! We couldn't be married then, but now if anybody would take a little trouble! I told him Mr Wentworth would, if I was to ask him; but then I thought perhaps as Mr Wentworth mightn't like to be the one as married me," said Rosa, with a momentary gleam of vanity through her tears. The little simper with which the girl spoke, the coquettish looks askance at the Perpetual Curate, who stood grave and unmoved at a distance, the movement of unconscious self-deception and girlish vanity which for a moment distracted Rosa, ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... to make up the man, a body and a soul, and the soul besides hath the perogative of governing—that the body should have its peculiar, natural, and proper good, and the soul none at all, but must sit gazing at the body and simper at its passions, as if she were pleased and affected with them, though indeed she be all the while wholly untouched and unconcerned, as having nothing of her own to choose, desire, or take delight in? For they should either pull off the vizor quite, and say plainly that man is ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... can you be naughty? You've been naughty the whole day through; You spoiled your white dress in the gutter, And stuck up my pictures with glue; And when in a corner I put you, And plead with you so to be good, You stared in my face with a simper, And acted so saucy and rude. I have tried so hard to be patient— For I'm sorry to punish you so; And I love you, my poor naughty Dolly, Much more than you ever can know. I hope you will think the day over; I am going to bed now—good-night. Be a good little Dolly ...
— Nestlings - A Collection of Poems • Ella Fraser Weller
... it upon themselves at all to meet our train. We have a clear idea now of why it was. Tonight, at the celebration, I'll hold forth on the subject. Let us not mar the sweet joy of meeting by gossiping," she ended with an irresistibly funny simper. ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... Librarian, calling to a lad at the other end of the shop, "reach down the Old Maids for the gentleman. They won't appear to advantage, I'm afraid, a little dusty or damaged, with having laid so long upon the shelf," he added, with a simper, which was not lost upon any one present. A melancholy looking man, in whose countenance meekness and insipidity were alike plainly depicted, now came forward, inquiring, in an under, and what might almost ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... what particular combination of facial muscles are brought into play when that politely receptive expression transforms the normal and masculine features into a fixed simper. ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... tell that interview—with variations—all over the garrison within twenty-four hours? She had incentive enough; the ladies flocked to hear it, and one absurd maiden saw fit the next evening to simper her congratulations to Miss Sanford on "her engagement"; but by that time Marion had recovered her self-control. She met Mrs. Turner as though nothing of an unusual nature had occurred. She laughingly, even sweetly ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... he does, he looks so delightfully wicked," added the eldest Miss Simper, shaking her ringlets in a fascinating manner, to evince her faith in ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... and enjoyed it immensely. I believe a dim idea that Gus was sentimental hovered in my mind, but I would not encourage it, though I laughed in my sleeve when he was spouting Latin for my benefit, and was uncertain whether to box his ears or simper later in the day, when he languished over the gate, and said he thought chestnut hair the loveliest in ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... bridle and simper so, Emily?" Then I told him all that was in my mind. Papa asked if I did not think him as pretty as I did mamma. I could not say much for his beauty, but I told him he was a much finer gentleman than my uncle, and that I liked him the first moment ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... guarded against its own feelings, dress and public places are almost certain of failing, but here again love is sure to vanquish; as soon as it is named, attention becomes involuntary, and in a short time a struggling simper discomposes the arrangement of the features, and then the business is presently over, for the young lady is either supporting some system, or opposing some proposition, before she is well aware that she has been cheated out of her ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... in laughter!" exclaimed the critic Carlyle. "It is the cipher-key wherewith we decipher the whole man. Some men wear an everlasting barren simper; in the smile of others lies the cold glitter, as of ice; the fewest are able to laugh what can be called laughing, but only sniff and titter and snicker from the throat outward, or at least produce some whiffing, husky cachinnation, as ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... turned away with a simper. "It was no his friend at all," she observed to the young lady from the buffet, who had emerged to wave farewell to a bold, bad Engine Room Artificer after a desperate flirtation of some forty seconds' ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... it into a Bolts-head or some other Convenient Glass, pour to it a pretty deal of Spirit of Wine, and placing the Vessel in Warm Sand, Encrease the Heat by degrees, till the Spirit of Wine begin to Simper or to Boyl a little; and continuing that degree of Fire, if you have put Liquor enough, you will quickly have the Wax dissolv'd, then taking it off the fire, you may either suffer it to Cool as hastily as with Safety to the Glass you can, or Pour it whilst 'tis yet Hot into a Filtre of Paper, ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... with the expression which, in the performance of such a duty, and at such a time, it might have been supposed proper for it to have worn. There was a look from his eyes of most vacant and elevated beatitude; a simper sat upon his lips, which parted ineffectually with the speech that he endeavored to make. A still lingering consciousness of something to be done, prompted him to rise, however, and stumble toward the landlord, who, while scuffling with ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... unemotional and regal bearing of the thirteenth-century figures give way to a more naturalistic treatment. The Virgin's impassive features soften; they become more human; she turns to her child with a maternal smile (which later becomes conventionalised into a simper), or permits a caress. In Room X. are: 889, 890, two fifteenth-century statues, admirable and living portraitures of Charles V. and his queen, from the church of the Celestins, whose preservation is due to the excellent Lenoir—statues famous in their day, and ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... from her novel here, and turned her face towards the stranger who was passing, and then blushing turned it down again. Schnabel looked at me with a scowl, Klingenspohr with a simper, the dog with a yelp, the fat lady in blue just gave one glance, and seemed, I thought, rather well pleased. "Silence, Lischen!" said she to the dog. "Go on, darling Dorothea," she added, to her ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to-day before the mutilated fresco of Morone, my rapture of six years ago, and hated it with unreasoning hatred. The Madonna belied the wreath-supported inscription above her head, "Miseratrix virginum Regina nostri miserere," and greeted me with a pitiless simper. The unidentified martyr on the left stared straight in front of him with callous indifference, and St. Roch looked aggravatingly plump for all his ostentatious plague-spot. The picture was worse than meaningless. It was insulting. ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... in Virgins, and dress them like a burgomaster's wife by Cranach or Van Eyck. Give them all long twisted tails to their gowns, and proper angular draperies. Place all their heads on one side, with the eyes shut, and the proper solemn simper. At the back of the head, draw, and gild with gold-leaf, a halo or glory, of the exact shape of a cart-wheel: and you have the thing done. It is Catholic art tout crache, as Louis Philippe says. We have it still in England, handed down to us for four centuries, in the ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... did not come here to simper cheap philosophies with you like a couple of schoolgirls. I have a real live errand. I want to speak to you ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... signs in a favorable sense, but still prudently refrained from committing himself, until directly challenged by the blush and simper with ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... whose trade is, over ladies To lean, and flirt, and stare, and simper, Till all that is divine in woman Grows cruel, courteous, smooth, inhuman, 195 Crucified 'twixt ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... their wives and daughters, wits of both sexes, women of the most exclusive ton, thronged the spacious salons. Each in their turn was greeted with a smirk of ecstatic glee. To Gripstone the courtesy seemed invested with a proprietary interest. A nod was receipted with a simper, a grasp of the hand with a scrape, the most distant recognition by the most obsequious acknowledgment. There appeared to be no doubt in his mind it was all bought and paid for, but it did no harm to be polite for once; and ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... had closed upon him, the Seneschal, with another bow and a simper, placed a chair at his visitor's disposal. She looked at the chair, then looked at the man much as she had looked at the chair, and turning her back contemptuously on both, she sauntered towards the fireplace. She stood before the blaze, with her whip tucked ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... been talking to my feller outside," said Celestine with a coy simper. "Say, he's a ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... clearly saw the exact bearing of the black sheep's argument, they all replied with that half idiotic simper with which Ignorance seeks to conceal herself, and which Politeness substitutes for the more emphatic "pooh," or the inelegant "bosh." Then, applying themselves with renewed zest to the muffins, ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... man of repellent aspect whom she recognised instantly, for Jno. Peters was one of those men who, once seen, are not easily forgotten. He was smiling a cruel, cunning smile—at least, she thought he was; Mr. Peters himself was under the impression that his face was wreathed in a benevolent simper; and in his hand he bore the largest pistol ever ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... gloved hands, and squirt rosewater on their handkerchiefs. They ogle the ladies through their quizzing glasses, wear high-heeled slippers, and diddle along on their toes like a French dancing-master teaching his pupils the minuet. The ladies simper and giggle and wink at the gentlemen from behind their fans, and leave you to imagine something ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... unknown. D'Artagnan entered, with a simper on his lips, his plate under his arm, his hat in one hand, ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... treated like a negre; and your favourite Sunday, to which you are so partial that you treat the other poor six days of the week as if they had no souls to be saved, should, if I could have my will, "shine no Sabbath-day for you." Now, don't simper, and look as innocent as if virtue would not melt in your mouth. Can you deny the following charges?—I lent you "The Botanic Garden," and you returned it without writing a syllable, or saying, -where ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... O'Gargle chuck the nuns there under the chin. As I look to be saved I had it from my Kitty who has been wardmaid there any time these seven months. Lawksamercy, doctor, cried the young blood in the primrose vest, feigning a womanish simper and with immodest squirmings of his body, how you do tease a body! Drat the man! Bless me, I'm all of a wibbly wobbly. Why, you're as bad as dear little Father Cantekissem, that you are! May this pot of four half choke me, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... face to a simper, which every separate feature in it belies. She spoils, perhaps, a blooming complexion with a profusion of artificial coloring, she distorts the most exquisite shape by loads or volumes of useless drapery. She has her ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... ever present at their need of them, and those who class the prophet and the drunkard in the same category as the fools of their own fancies. But what this love is, he who thinks he knows least understands. Let foolish maidens and vulgar youths simper and jest over it as they please, it is one of the most potent mysteries of the living God. The man who can love a woman and remain a lover of his wretched self, is fit only to be cast out with the broken potsherds of ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... not allowed any time to take back the promise given to her father, had she been inclined to do so. Mr. Whitelaw made his appearance at the Grange early in the evening of the 2nd of January, with a triumphant simper upon his insipid countenance, which was inexpressibly provoking to the unhappy girl. It was clear to her, at first sight of him, that her father had been at Wyncomb that afternoon, and her hateful suitor came ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... embrace opportunity," replied Miss Sprig with a simper. Whereat Mr. Chance, sitting next her, suggested that, as a synonym of opportunity, possibly he might stand ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... simper of a girl in such a manner that the three sportsmen yelled with delight, and Roxholm himself gnawed his lip to check an involuntary ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of the dull stupidity of the others that tears came to my eyes. How could that young woman, in the midst of a sublime chorus, deliberately pause, arrange the knot of her neck-tie, and then, after a smile and a side glance at the conductor, go on again with a more self-satisfied simper than ever upon her lips? What might not the thing be with a whole chorus of sympathetic singers? The very dullness which in face prevailed revealed to me great regions of possible splendor, almost ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... the contrary, was of opinion, that a wife's having a separate allowance would prevent disputes. So Miss Hunter thought, of course, for she had been prepared to be precisely of Mr. Beaumont's opinion; but reasons she had none in its support. Indeed, she said with a pretty simper, she thought that women had nothing to do with reason or reasoning; that she thought a woman who really loved any body was always of that person's opinion; and especially in a wife she did not see of what use reasoning and all that could be, except to make a woman contradict, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... permit me,' he said, a malicious simper crossing his handsome face—I had often remarked his extreme dislike for Bruhl without understanding it—'I think I can furnish some evidence more to the point than that; to which M. de Bruhl has with so ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... nice young man down-stairs, miss," breaks in Sarah, at this juncture, with a simper that has the pleasing effect of making one side of her face quite an ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... written it. The envelope was long and narrow, it was addressed in a swift emphatic hand, the tail of the letter M enjoying a career distinguished beyond any of its fellows by length and beauty. The envelope, moreover, was sealed by a brilliant red lion with jagged whiskers and a simper, who threatened the person daring to open a missive not addressed to him with the vengeance of a battle-axe which was balanced lightly but ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... my husband? He belongs to the Philadelphia Bettersons,—a very wealthy and influential family," said the woman with a simper. "Very ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... He is intelligent, unaffected, and agreeable. He is not all simper and softness. He can talk with one without being lost in his own self-conceit, fancying you deep in admiration of his own charming self. Yes, I ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... cf. Tooley St. for St. Olave St. and tawdry from St. Audrey. When the saint's name begins with a consonant, we get, instead of aphesis, a telescoped pronunciation, e.g. Selinger, St. Leger, Seymour, St. Maur, Sinclair, St. Clair, Semark, St. Mark, Semple, St. Paul, Simper, St. Pierre, Sidney, probably for St. Denis, with which we may compare the educated pronunciation of St. John. These names are all of local origin, from ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... well. I should have been one of the poor, for my father when he was working was a mere tiller of the soil. Well, I could not have borne that; therefore my beauty and cleverness and brightness" (she spoke with no blush or simper of false shame) "would have been sold to rich men, and my life would have been wasted indeed; for I know enough of that to know that I should have had no choice, no power of will over my life; and that I should never have bought pleasure from the rich men, or even opportunity ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... the Goddess of Hearts, adjusting her crown with a simper. ''Tis I am supreme. 'Tis known a young rake will sell his last estate to win a smile from Miss Sally Salisbury and other worthy ladies. And hath not the Countess of H——t lately run off with her footman? I lead statesmen and ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... began to smile. No one must know her heart was broken, for fear the question might arise, "What broke it?" Of course her smile was a make-believe, nothing more nor less than a simper. The large boy across the table looked at her in surprise. "Handsome as a picture," thought ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May
... immense practice at the bar is more owing to the scarcity of silk-gowns{3} than the profundity of his talents. The perpetual simper that plays upon his ruby countenance, when finessing with a jury, has, no doubt, its artful effect; although it is as foreign to the true feelings of the man, as the malicious grin of the malignant satirist would be to generosity and true genius. Of his ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... which kind of speeches, in which fashion and the main chance were blended together, and after a kiss, which was like the contact of an oyster—Mrs. Frederick Bullock would gather her starched nurslings and simper back ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... All day I have sat here repeating The commonplace things that we said. They sounded so oddly when uttered— They sound just as odd to me now; Was it we, or our two ghosts who muttered Last evening, with simper and bow? ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Some very pleasant seasons he enjoyed with the young ladies at the various gatherings connected with it. He was rallied on his being so much of a recluse. Arch hints were conveyed that doubtless his home was specially agreeable. Was it Louisa or Charlotte? Both these young ladies would simper and look conscious when they were attacked on the subject; for both candidly believed they ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... have his circle of toadies and flatterers who will pretend to accept him as the evangelist of a glorious literary and artistic gospel. For unfortunately he is as rich as he is impudent and incompetent. And when he drives out in a Hansom he never ceases to simper at his reflected image in the little corner looking-glasses, by means of which modern cab-proprietors pander to the weakness of men. Such is your handiwork, my excellent VANITY. Are you proud ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various
... lounged away; or spent in some other manner productive of no pleasure, and generally producing pain in the end. It is very becoming in all persons, and particularly in the young, to be civil, and even polite: but it becomes neither young nor old to have an everlasting simper on their faces, and their bodies sawing in an everlasting bow: and, how many youths have I seen who, if they had spent, in the learning of grammar, a tenth part of the time that they have consumed in earning merited ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... I must stop, lest you both be tired. In my next paper I shall begin again, and teach you, 4. To talk to the person you are talking with, and not simper to her or him, while really you are looking all round the room, and thinking of ten other persons; 5. Never in any other way to underrate the person you talk with, but to talk your best, whatever that may be; and, ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... to the poor old gentleman," returned Mrs. Ochiltree, with a simper of senile vanity, though her back was weakening under the strain of the effort to sit erect that she might maintain this illusion of comparative youthfulness. "Bring him to see me some day when he is ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... rule! the rule!" she went on laughing. "Just look at them yonder. See how they smile and simper, and press their hands to their hearts, and daintily arrange their drop curls! I would as soon be loved ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... came across with a simper upon her pretty, vulgar face, and sat on the side of the bed. "What's the matter, then?" she asked. "What is it ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... melancholy tone, (his eyes had mechanically followed these latter proceedings,) "Mollee! that is ponch!" —"La, sir! and why not?" replied the damsel, almost playfully. "Why not be comfortable and cheery? I am sure"—and here she meant to look encouraging, her usual simper spreading to a smile—"I am sure Betty and I would do our best to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... child alone now, you'll make her quite fractious," said Nurse, rescuing Cicely from a too-energetic embrace. Pennie looked round for something fresh to caress, and her eye fell on the Lady Dulcibella sitting in her arm-chair by the dolls' house. There was a satisfied simper on her pink face, as though she waited for admiration; she held her little nose high in the air, and one could almost hear her say, "How very vulgar!" Pennie turned from her with a shudder, and picked up Jemima, who was lying on the ...
— The Hawthorns - A Story about Children • Amy Walton
... presence of his many friends, that he had a mind to make the most of his triumph and even to flaunt it in his rival's face. "Ha, the Cardinal!" he cried; and before the Queen could speak, "I hope," with a bow and a simper, "that your Eminence has been as zealous in her Majesty's service ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... to us. For in many of the stores, is there not an upper tier of windows for our use? The commodities of this second story are quite as fine as those below. And the waxen beauties who display the frocks greet us in true democracy with as sweet a simper. ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... as the New England saying is, "thought a word about it." Had Kelson suddenly presented himself to her with "Mary, shall we be published next Sunday?" she would have answered "Yes;" without the slightest hesitation; nor thought her assent worth the trouble of a blush or a simper; and such, I believe, will be found the case in most of ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... soft white gleams on its short headlands—such exquisite gradations of distance and such capricious interruptions of perspective—that one could only say that the land was really trying to smile as hard as the sea. The smile of the sea was a positive simper. Such a glittering and twinkling, such a softness and blueness, such tiny little pin-points of foam, and such delicate little wrinkles of waves—all this made the ocean look ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... back to the light, stood in the embrasure of a window, deeply engaged in examining his features in a small hand-glass which he held daintily before him. The survey seemed to please monsieur, for he showed his teeth in a simper of satisfaction, and began to curl his black moustache between the forefinger and thumb of his disengaged hand. So engrossed was he that he never observed me coming up to him, and it was not until I was at his elbow that he suddenly realised ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... she'd send Sim on an errant down to Bean's. I rec'lect I was there one day when he come,—I guess I was some taken with Ivy myself, for she was a pretty piece. When she see him she begun to roll her eyes and simper up the way gals do—I ask your pardon, Miss Hands! I don't mean all gals, nor I shouldn't want you to ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... come, Here Pomp is out of place, And fawning Flattery finds no home With Simper and Grimace, But Nature, in her artless dress, (A greenwood nymph is she,) With eyes so wild and flowing ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... told him that he was a bachelor, but would not be so long; and that he was dearer to somebody than he thought: The Knight still repeated she was an idle baggage, and bid her go on. Ah, master, says the gipsy, that roguish leer of yours makes a pretty woman's heart ache; you have not that simper about the mouth for nothing—The uncouth gibberish with which all this was uttered, like the darkness of an oracle, made us the more attentive to it. To be short, the Knight left the money with her that he had crossed her hand with, and got up ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... nobly incredible? where is the pathos, the simplicity, the purple splendour of Ouida's manner, or manners? No, the spirit of the world, mirroring itself in the minds of individuals, simpered, and that simper was Lady Fanny Flummery. But it did many things more portentous than simpering, when it reflected ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... commentary upon the subject we were talking about, Phyllis! We were discussing the merits of directness in speech and straightness in every way. We were ridiculing the timid maid—all sandals and simper—of forty years ago. Why should men and women have ever taken the trouble to be affected? Let us go in to lunch and eat with the appetites of men and women of the nineties, not with the nibblings of society of the fifties. Come along, Phyllis. ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... the woman of Albion's isle! She may simper; as well as she can she may smile; She may wear pantalettes and an air of repose— But my lord of the future ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... accused me of having wished to humiliate her. She hadn't resented the outrage at the time, but had seemed obliging and amused, enjoying the comedy of asking Mrs. Monarch, who sat vague and silent, whether she would have cream and sugar, and putting an exaggerated simper into the question. She had tried intonations— as if she too wished to pass for the real thing—till I was afraid my ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... in the Avenue de Paris, and were admitted first into a small garden ornamented by a grotto, a fountain, and several nymphs in plaster-of-Paris, then up a mouldy old steep stair into a hall, where a statue of Cupid and another of Venus welcomed us with their eternal simper; then through a salle-a-manger where covers were laid for six; and finally to a little saloon, where Fido the dog began to howl furiously according to ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to see how she would take it. There was not the first twinkle of a simper about eye or lip. Surprised, but quite gravely, she looked up, and met his odd bluntness with as quaint an honesty of her own. "I was pretty sure of it a while ago," she said. "And perhaps I was, ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... fresh upon it. All her likenesses are singularly individual, and we realize their character at a glance. Look, for example, at her portrait of a Parisian swell, in irreproachable evening dress and white kid gloves, sucking his silver-headed cane, with a simper that shows all his white teeth; and then at the head and bust of a Spanish convict, painted from life at the prison in Granada. Compare that embodiment of fashionable vacuity with this face, whose brute-like eyes haunt you with their sadly stunted look. ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... going with the old lady to Tunbridge Wells?" was all she said to Cousin Warrington, wearing at the same time a perfectly well-bred simper on her face. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... honey?" Hodges called out as he shambled to a halt before her. His coarse features writhed in a simper that intensified their ugliness. His coveting of this woman was suddenly magnified by sight of her loveliness, flawless in the brilliant light. The blood-shot eyes darted luxuriously over the curving graces beneath the ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... reformation to demand ductility of voice and eye from him at a blow. However, give me but a little time and a little encouragement, and, with such a tutress, 'twill be hard if I do not, in a very few lessons, learn the right method of seasoning a simper, and the newest fashion of twisting words ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... used to be a very gallant young gentleman, once upon a time," said Mrs. Shaw, with a simper. ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... pardon me,' rejoined Vassily Ivanovitch with a polite simper. 'Though I am laid on the shelf now, I have knocked about the world too—I can tell a bird by its flight. I am something of a psychologist too in my own way, and a physiognomist. If I had not, I will venture to say, been endowed with ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... into the semi-detached wife, with a husband always conveniently in the distance, and a cicisbeo as conveniently in the corner. The British mother has died into the faded matrimonial schemer, contemptuous of younger sons. The innocent simper of the British maiden has developed into the loud laugh and the horsey slang of the girl of the season. But maiden and matron are still on one point faithful to the traditions of their grandmothers, and front all censorious comers with a shrug of their shoulder-straps and a flutter of ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... Sugar, one pint of Rose water, or more, make your Syrupe first, and let it stand till it be cold, then take your Rose leaves, having first clipt off all the white, put them into the cold Syrupe, then cover them, and set them on a soft fire, that they may but simper for two or three hours, then while they are hot put them into pots ...
— A Book of Fruits and Flowers • Anonymous
... ague; for first you would both have been hot, and then you would both have been cold, and then you would both have turned red, and then you would both have turned white, and then you would both have pretended to simper at the trick; and then there would have been an end ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... lives and intentions, but boldly exposing their faces to the rude gaze of any of the libertine diners-out who may happen to be at the tables opposite, and returning that gaze, when met, with a smile and a simper that merely means scorn and self-confidence but may be easily construed into a less creditable expression. And at this table, only two removed, discussing a pate de foix gras which may or may not have come from Strasburg of the Big Goose Livers, and washing ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... here comes Miss Agnes. Good morning! "Bon jour!" Now, isn't that vision alarming? Silk with panier, and puffs, and lace Decking a figure of corsetted grace; Her words are minced, and her spoiled young face Wears a simper far ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... hospitable, her tongue was sheathed with a most agreeable and infantine lisp, her address was perfectly obliging, and though conscious of the extraordinary capacity of her month, she would not venture to hazard a laugh, she modelled her lips into an enchanting simper, which played on her countenance all day long; nay, she even profited by that defect in her vision we have already observed, and securely contemplated those features which were most to her liking, while the rest of the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... previously encountered at a similar entertainment and assert your delight at revamping the fatuous acquaintanceship. Her facetiousness is elephantine, but the relief of conversation is such that you laugh loudly at her witticisms and simper knowingly at her platitudes—both of which have now been current ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... been darkened as to lids or waxed as to lashes. Her hair was beautifully dressed in sweeping waves with scarcely any artificial work upon it. Her dress was extremely tasteful and very expensive. There was no simper on her lips, nothing superficial. She was only a tired, homesick girl. As Linda looked at her she understood why Katy had cried over her. She felt tears beginning to rise in her own heart. She put both arms protectingly ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... likely,' said Miss Phoebe, with a little simper and a knowing look, which sate oddly on her kindly innocent face. 'You see a great deal of Mr. Preston, ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... they cleave sometimes long, and are not easily got off. Her lips are your welcome, and your entertainment her company, which is put into the reckoning too, and is the dearest parcel in it. No citizen's wife is demurer than she at the first greeting, nor draws in her mouth with a chaster simper; but you may be more familiar without distaste, and she does not startle at anything. She is the confusion of a pottle of sack more than would have been spent elsewhere, and her little jugs are accepted to have her kiss excuse them. She may be an honest woman, but is not believed ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... like the wrinkles in the parchment skin of extreme old age. She carried a wooden figurehead under her bowsprit, the face and bust of a woman on whom an ancient woodcarver had bestowed his notion of a beatific smile; the result was an idiotic simper. The glorious gilding had been worn off, the wood was gray and cracked. The Polly's galley was entirely hidden under a deckload of shingles and laths in bunches; the after-house was broad and loomed high above the rail in contrast to the ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... of this without forewarning, Worse luck for him! the following morning, With simper sauntered in; Squinted at what the saint was doing, But never smoked the mischief brewing, Putting his foot in't; soon the shoeing Did ...
— The True Legend of St. Dunstan and the Devil • Edward G. Flight
... put a mask upon your mind, and preserve that unstained in an atmosphere of corruption? Indeed, your ladyship does not know what you are asking for. To sit and simper through a comedy in which the filthiest subjects are discussed in the vilest language; to see all that is foolish or lascivious in your own sex exaggerated with a malignant licence, which makes a young and beautiful woman an epitome of all the vices, uniting the extreme of ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... she observed. "I'd have a train o' beaux and macaronis at my heels, I warrant you! The foppier, the more it would please me. Think, cousin—ranks of them all a-simper, ogling me through a hundred quizzing-glasses! Heigho! There's doubtless some deviltry in me, as Sir ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... mind the portrait of his "dear grandfather," as represented in the elaborate gilt frame in the dining-room, in a court suit and a periwig, and with an abominable simper, most devoutly thanks his gods that he is not like unto him. He is, indeed (feeling goaded to the last degree), about to break into unseemly language, when, fortunately, the arrival of the ancient equipage that has done duty at Moyne as state ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... the typical ghost-seer, was surely never produced than the round and rubicund little person I found in conversation with the Atherleys. Mrs. Mallet was a brunette who might once have considered herself a beauty, to judge by the self-conscious and self-satisfied simper which the ghastliest recollections were unable to banish. As I entered I caught only the last words ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... didn't look like an old picture of the year 1400 in St. John's parish church, with his curly beard and black mantle." Herr Elias set him down without more ado as a Polish Jew, notwithstanding his noble bearing and his extremely grave old-German face, and cried with a simper, "Silly fellow! sells his stock now; might make at least ten per cent, more in a week." Of course he knew nothing about the additional price which had been agreed upon, and which Traugott intended to pay out of his own pocket. And this he really did do when some days later he again met the old man ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... anything, Rosalie could talk nothing but nonsense; so, everybody who conversed with her, talked nonsense, too, and paid her silly compliments, and made her believe that all she needed to make her quite an angel was a pair of wings; and then she would hold her pretty head on one side, and simper; and they would go away laughing in their sleeves, and saying, "What a vain ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... added to her toil," was the sharp response. "Small use are her hands in any kitchen. We had better make up our minds to wed her to a fine gentleman, who wants naught of his wife but to dress up in grand gowns, and smirk and simper over her fan; for no useful work will he get out of her. If rushes are wanted, she had better go quickly ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... is a good deal of a fool but his woman is smart. Give her a gun and she will know how to use it. She will do it for me because I make love to her now and then," he added, with something which in a civilized being would pass for a simper. ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... spared mortification, but in the word "advance" she saw a compliment and was happy accordingly. Then my turn came. My arms were placed about Aspasia, my head bent and turned and twisted—my upon my breast so that the forefinger touched my chin—I felt I was a personified simper; but I was silent and patient, until the arrangement of my draperies ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... be in a hurry to see us," said Grace, with a simper that sent the girls off into gales ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope
... vaquero boss do but pick a splinter out of his thumb with a pin and get blood poison enough to lay him off? Too much trouble for cussing. I tried that out scientifically. So I had to get out and make a hand. If I heard someone say I did as much as any three of these mollycoddles up here I'd just simper in silence and look down. Only I wish I'd known it was a fashionable winter sport. ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... sneer; some snigger; some simper; In the youth where we laughed, and sang. And they may end with a whimper But we will end ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... you will, but I bid you to beware. You were a good-looking missie, and you have grown—yes, one can say it without making you simper—into a more than good-looking woman. But the days slip by, child, and your looks will slip away with them. You are wasting your life in worrying over other folk's children. Those eyes of yours were meant for children of your own. What's ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... whose trade is over ladies To lean and flirt and stare and simper, Till all that is divine in woman Grows cruel, courteous, smooth, inhuman, Crucified 'twixt ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... a sort of melancholy mingled in her smile. It was not the thoughtless levity of a girl—it was not the restrained simper of premature womanhood—it was something which the poet Young might have remembered, when he composed ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... whether it will please people or shock them. Ugliness is just as irrelevant as prettiness, and the painter who goes out of his way to be ugly is being as inartistic and silly as the man who makes his angels simper. That is what is the matter with Hamilton's portrait in the big room—to take an instance at random. Hamilton has plenty of talent, and this picture is well enough, pleasant in colour and tastefully planned; but his talent would be seen to greater advantage ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... human nature, I see, my dear cousin;" said the hag, with a grin that tried to be a simper. "Such trifles as a little murder and witchcraft, poisoning and stealing, run in the blood even of the innocentest. Bawding was a thing in which I could never hit the mark. And what shall one say when one has to endure thanklessness ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... he was requested, adding an unnecessary compliment on the good looks of the portress, to which she responded by a simper of gratified vanity—thereby showing that neither belonged to the wisest class of mankind—and he was ushered upstairs, into a small but pleasant parlour, where three gentlemen sat conversing. A decanter stood on the ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... about it? Fame's nothing—the market price of your marble scarecrow is the thing to look at. It took you six months to chisel it, and you can't sell it for a hundred dollars. No, sir! Show me fifty thousand dollars and you can have my daughter —otherwise she marries young Simper. You have just six months to raise the money in. Good ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... all these fascinations, Barbara's thoughts seemed to have been still running on what Kit had said at tea-time; for, when they were coming out of the play, she asked him, with an hysterical simper, if Miss Nell was as handsome as the lady who jumped ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... seat, that far out-shone Henley's gilt tub,[292] or Flecknoe's Irish throne,[293] Or that where on her Curlls the public pours,[294] All-bounteous, fragrant grains and golden showers, Great Cibber sate: the proud Parnassian sneer, The conscious simper, and the jealous leer, Mix on his look: all eyes direct their rays On him, and crowds turn coxcombs as they gaze. His peers shine round him with reflected grace, New edge their dulness, and new bronze their face. 10 So from the sun's broad beam, in shallow urns Heaven's twinkling ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... more than common fidelity, in his task. Being addressed, he glanced up, but with what seemed a furtive, diffident air, which sat strangely enough on his weather-beaten visage, much as if a grizzly bear, instead of growling and biting, should simper and cast sheep's eyes. He was asked several questions concerning the voyage—questions purposely referring to several particulars in Don Benito's narrative, not previously corroborated by those impulsive cries greeting the ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... shone on the pale background of the world with the brilliancy of flowers. I could not call by the name of brother that half-witted lad, nor by the name of mother that immovable and lovely thing of flesh, whose silly eyes and perpetual simper now recurred to my mind like something hateful. And if I could not marry, what then? She was helplessly unprotected; her eyes, in that single and long glance, which had been all our intercourse, had confessed a weakness equal to my own; but in my heart I knew her for the student of the cold ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... laughed overmuch. Vivie was tall and sentimental,—a brunette. They came once to the West Laurence Avenue house for Sunday supper. Horatio did not like the sisters; he called them in his simple way "Giggle" and "Simper." The Nortons lived not far from the Lake on East Acacia Street, and that became for Milly the symbol of the all-desirable. She spoke firmly of the advantages of East Acacia Street as a residence—she had even picked ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... petticoat, over a yellow calico slip, with lots of jewels (sham), an immense colour in the very middle of the cheek, but terribly chalked just about the mouth, and shouting the "Soldier tired," with a most insinuating simper at the corporal of the Foot-guards in front, who returns the compliment by a most outrageous leer between each whiff of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... now!' exclaimed the hag, in a cracked tone, at the same time vainly endeavoring to contort her toothless jaws into an engaging simper, while the Doctor nearly burst with laughter—'have done now, or I'll slap ye for your impudence. But, faith, ye are such a pleasant gentleman, that I don't mind bestowing a ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn |
