"Gaiety" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... This great gaiety seemed most weird in that region where silence reigned supreme always. The voices seemed to travel immense distances, echoed from one side to the other of the river. Words were reproduced with great clearness by the echo two or three times over. Especially when we had ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... delightful talk. For the people whom the Whartons have been good enough to group together are people of the most fascinating variety. They have wit in common and goodfellowship, they were famous entertainers in their time; they add to the gaiety of nations still. The Whartons have given what would in America be called a "Stag Party". If we join it we ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... would have been glad to have found his neighbor quite dead—anything to still that terrible accordion, which had been pumping out tunes for over a week at all hours of the day and night! The music did not have the virtue of an attempt at gaiety; instead it droned out prolonged ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... through the undergrowth. For a moment she stopped to admire him as the moonlight gleamed on a white star in the centre of his forehead. Then away she jumped, dodging round the bushes and hither and thither among the grassy tangles, while her admirer followed, frisking and leaping in sportive gaiety. Another jack-hare now came along the hedgerow. In utter mischief, Puss called "leek, leek, leek," as if pretending to be in distress and in need of help. "Leek, leek," came the low response, as, quickening his pace, the second hare sprang into the fern. ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... of the latter would be quite superfluous, few, if any, are unacquainted with the wildness and surpassing beauty of the most admired spot in North Wales. Its contiguity to the little romantic village, giving the opportunity either to indulge in the gaiety of this place, or recreate in retirement, (as shall seem best suited to varied inclination), there are fortunately both auxiliaries to this scene (it had almost been said of enchantment). The verdant Lawns, dotted with rare plants, the scenic beauties, ...
— The "Ladies of Llangollen" • John Hicklin
... revelations of the hopes and fears, the struggles and triumphs through which each soul had passed, these sacred memories seemed to bind us anew together in a friendship that we hope may never end. A sumptuous lunch followed, and amid much gaiety and laughter the guests dispersed, giving the hospitable host and hostess a warm farewell—a day to be remembered by ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... lie naked, bitten by vermin, and not to disturb them, is religion. Like a true Puritan, the Jain regards pleasure in itself as sinful. "What is discontent, and what is pleasure? One should live subject to neither. Giving up all gaiety, circumspect, restrained, one should lead a religious life. Man! Thou art thine own friend; why longest thou for a friend beyond thyself?... First troubles, then pleasures; first pleasures, then troubles. These are the ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... Can Gaiety the vanish'd years restore, Or on the withering limbs fresh beauty shed, Or soothe the sad inevitable hour, Or cheer the dark, ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... proceeded. "My mother, finding that my father preferred his closet and his books to gaiety and dissipation, soon left him to himself, and amused herself after her own fashion, but not until I was born, which was ten months after their marriage. My father was confiding, and, pleased that my mother should be amused, he indulged her in everything. ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... boarding the 4:56 for a house-party in the suburbs. The gentleman at the right, having been educated abroad, has never learned to play the ukelele, the banjo, the jew's harp or the saxophone, and is, with the best intentions in the world, attempting to contribute his share to the gaiety of the coming evenings by bringing along his player-piano. Would you—be honest!—have recognized his action as a serious social blunder without having referred ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... very smart young gentleman of twenty-nine or thereabouts, correct in dress to the last thread of his collar, but too much preoccupied with his ideas to be embarrassed by any concern as to his appearance. He talks about himself with energetic gaiety. He talks to other people with a sweet forbearance (implying a kindly consideration for their stupidity) which infuriates those whom he does not succeed in amusing. They either lose their tempers with him or try in ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... there is an emotional gaiety in this which is foreign to Keats is but to state a personal preference. It is, indeed, a preference which is common and founded upon very general experience. Most of us have, from the tradition and ...
— The Lyric - An Essay • John Drinkwater
... throughout the centuries to the men of insight, who possess the rare mental endowment of sustained pleasure. Call it perpetual youth, or joyousness, or what you like, the fact remains that the power of sustained enthusiasm, lightness of heart and gaiety, with the faculty of communicating to others that state of mind, is not one of the commonest endowments of the human brain. It is one that confers great happiness to others, and one to whose possessor we are under great obligation. Compare the career of Thoreau, lonely, sad, ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... beneficial influence—though, like all strong and good things, it might be perverted—on fiction generally. In this all sorts of nice things, as in the original prescription for what girls are made of, were included—variety, gaiety, colour, surprise, a complete contempt of the contemptible, or of that large part of it which contains priggishness, propriety, "prunes, and prism" generally. Moreover (and here I fear that the above promised abstinence from the ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... gloom over private societies; and public amusements, as I observed in a former letter, are little frequented; so that, on the whole, time passes heavily with a people who, generally speaking, have few resources in themselves. Before the revolution, France was at this season a scene of much gaiety. Every village had alternately a sort of Fete, which nearly answers to our Wake—but with this difference, that it was numerously attended by all ranks, and the amusement was dancing, instead of wrestling and drinking. Several small fields, or ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... tired of the sea, the party disembarked, and proceeded by chaise from Sarzano to Cercio in Modenese territory, and so into Tuscany, then under the suzerainty of Austria. His description of Pisa is of an almost sunny gaiety and good humour. Italy, through this portal, was capable of casting a spell even upon a traveller so case-hardened as Smollett. The very churches at Pisa are "tolerably ornamented." The Campo Santo and Tower fall in no way short of their ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... dead or deadened, my love gathered fresh life. To my sorrow I told the story of it to Don Fernando, for I thought that in virtue of the great friendship he bore me I was bound to conceal nothing from him. I extolled her beauty, her gaiety, her wit, so warmly, that my praises excited in him a desire to see a damsel adorned by such attractions. To my misfortune I yielded to it, showing her to him one night by the light of a taper at ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... dear old rooms on the Walk; of our cosy evenings alone; of our rambles in search of the Perfect Pub (where, he told me, they sold hot rum up to 3 a.m.); of the Chelsea Freaks, who add so unconsciously to the gaiety of the nations—how I have laughed incontinently, and how some fireman's face would brighten when I laughed, though ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... are many at Court but little older than yourself, for the king, being as yet scarcely fifteen, naturally likes to surround himself with those who are not greatly older, and who have the same love for pleasure and gaiety, but such associates will do you no good, though I say not that a little of it might not be of advantage, seeing that you are somewhat more grave than is natural at your age, owing to the life that you have led here with me. Young De Courcy—although ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... to have been the squire, with remainder to my son Miles, of course. Harry's letters were full of gaiety and good spirits. His estate prospered: his negroes multiplied; his crops were large; he was a member of our House of Burgesses; he adored his wife; could he but have a child his happiness would be complete. Had Hal been master of Warrington Manor-house, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Diogo prepared, with many misgivings, to go forth and appeal to the people. He looked round with a sad countenance on those he had lately seen so full of life and gaiety. ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... both father and mother upon these strong-minded children was vital and enduring. The father possessed that happy combination of gaiety and goodness that commends religion. As he was deeply and naturally spiritual himself, the expression of religion in his home and parish was unusually beautiful and appealing. The last twenty-five years of his life were ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... of their national poet, and permit no jokes upon the subject. You see, in letting off your witticism at a Scotchman, you would have to explain that it was a joke. You might also hint that it was "hard lines" for the Railway Companies concerned; but this will provoke gloom rather than gaiety amongst those who have invested in Caledonians and North British. If you talk about the riots in connection with the movement, you might say that the pugnacious rioters remind you of safety matches, "for they not only strike, but ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various
... walls, talked in whispers to one another about the lovely scene. The Lorrimers were popular in the county, and although rumours of coming trouble were rife about them, yet their friends and well-wishers augured happy results from this present gaiety. ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... troubles inseparable from a constant financial struggle, ending with bankruptcy, and a retreat from a tastefully furnished villa at Surbiton to a dreary lodging in Oxford Terrace. Poor Edith had lost much of her beauty and light-hearted gaiety as a result of anxiety and the constant care of two delicate children; but never in the blackest moment of her trouble had she wished herself unwed, or been willing to change places with any woman who had not the felicity ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... and drawn him into this distant country. As he had lost a leg on the Rhine, they said, "He, for his part, laughs at this: he has one foot in France." At last, after severe hardships, endured at first with impatience, and afterwards with gaiety and fortitude, they reached the Nile on the 10th of July, after a march of four days. At the sight of the Nile and of the water so much longed for, the soldiers flung themselves into it, and, bathing ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... a lively breakfast of it till Yeager had to leave. You may think it strange that we could laugh and jest on that death ship, but one gets accustomed to the strain and on the reflex from anxiety arrives at a temporary gaiety. ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... struck exactly in the middle—but what outlandish tone colours, what strange, unearthly sounds! It is not Bach, however, who first comes to mind when Huneker is at his tricks, but Papa Haydn—the Haydn of the Surprise symphony and the Farewell. There is the same gargantuan gaiety, the same magnificent irreverence. Haydn did more for the symphony than any other man, but he also got more fun out of it ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... of the police reports, which The Sunrise had been developing into a feature. It was not that offensive matters were introduced; the worst cases were in fact rather blinked, but Sewell insisted that the tone of flippant gaiety with which many facts, so serious, so tragic for their perpetrators and victims, were treated was odious. He objected to the court being called a Mill, and prisoners Grists, and the procedure Grinding; ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... all his worldly store at the disposal of Mr. Oakhurst, but seemed to enjoy the prospect of their enforced seclusion. "We'll have a good camp for a week, and then the snow'll melt, and we'll all go back together." The cheerful gaiety of the young man and Mr. Oakhurst's calm infected the others. The Innocent, with the aid of pine boughs, extemporized a thatch for the roofless cabin, and the Duchess directed Piney in the rearrangement of the interior with a taste ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... orgies of blood-boltered France; Thine is consistent, manly, rational, Nor needing the false glow of sentiment 500 To melt it into sympathy, but mild, And looking with a gentle eye on all; Thy manners open, social, yet refined, Are tempered with reflection; gaiety, In her long-lighted halls, may lead the dance, Or wake the sprightly chord; yet nature, truth, Still warm the ingenuous heart: there is a blush With those most gay, and lovely; and a tear With those most manly! Temperate Liberty 510 Hath yet the fairest altar on ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... playful ridicule: the later Roman satirists, rather than the comic authors, were his models. Nature had denied him that light and easy raillery which plays harmlessly round every thing, and which seems to be the mere effusion of gaiety, but which is so much the more philosophic, as it is not the vehicle of any definite doctrine, but merely the expression of a general irony. There is more of a spirit of observation than of fancy in the comic inventions of Jonson. From this cause ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... calmly contemplating from a distance the valley of Death. About them are various animals and birds. The idea evidently intended to be conveyed is that deliverance from the fear of death is to be found not in gaiety and dissipation, but in contemplation and communion ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... increased Prada's gaiety. "You are really extraordinary, Abbe," he said. "So you think that popes are solely created by the grace of the Divinity! The pope of to-morrow is chosen up in heaven, eh, and simply waits? Well, I fancied that men had something to do with the matter. But perhaps you already ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... quarrelsome; the gipsy-spirit returns—and he is off again, blithe as ever, on his travels. "London very naice," he says, as you buy that infernal Pestarena; "Porebier, very naise; 'Ampton Court, very naise; I know dem, hein? But, is no sunshine, no air, no gaiety." And ADOLF cannot exist without sunshine, air, and gaiety. Also he prefers being his own master, which, as Head-Waiter, he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 3, 1892 • Various
... sedulously renounced. The old self must be changed for the new. A basis for social life must be found in truthfulness, uprightness, and kindliness (iv. 25-32). Purity must specially be preserved, impurity being contrasted with love. Light and darkness are then contrasted, and the sober gaiety of the Christian with heathen folly and ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... sense of virtue, all respect for things human and divine. To Beric the only bearable portions of his existence were the mornings he spent in reading, and in the study of Greek with Chiton, and in the house of Norbanus. Of Lesbia he saw little. She spent her life in a whirl of dissipation and gaiety, accompanying members of her family to all the fetes in defiance of the wishes of Norbanus, whose authority in this matter she ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... let the youth make haste to Fontainebleau, and once there let him address himself to the spirit of the place; he will learn more from exercise than from studies, although both are necessary; and if he can get into his heart the gaiety and inspiration of the woods he will have gone far to undo the evil of his sketches. A spirit once well strung up to the concert-pitch of the primeval out-of-doors will hardly dare to finish a study and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the palace closed; the busy crowd of merchants, clothiers, perruquiers, dressmakers, which had flocked to the new centre of gaiety, had vanished. The Graevenitz had heard that Ludwigsburg was like a city of the dead, with grass-grown streets and deserted houses. Surely she, who belonged to that forgotten past, was forgotten also? She longed to return and once more to view the scenes of her dead glory. ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... creature most excelled in, and somehow you could never see her but through them. They surrounded her. When she folded them over her bosom in resignation; when she dropped them in mute agony, or raised them in superb command; when in sportive gaiety her hands fluttered and waved before her, like what shall we say?—like the snowy doves before the chariot of Venus—it was with these arms and hands that she beckoned, repelled, entreated, embraced, her admirers—no single ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... again. It was growing dusk when I turned back to the noise of battle. There was a white moon in a milky sky. Motor-bikes fled by me, great lorries driven by Jehus from London buses, and automobiles which too poignantly had been Strand taxis and had taken lovers home from the Gaiety. I jogged along thinking very little, but supremely happy. Now I'm back at the wagon-line; to-morrow I go back to the guns. Meanwhile I write to you by a ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson
... herself, her sex side tugged at her pitilessly. Jealousy tore through her like a hot wind. She had a dozen grey hairs, a thin throat, a tired face, rough hands, two spoiled teeth in the front upper row. That was not the worst; the gaiety of her wit had been sapped. She could not have kept two men amused at a dinner table as that raven woman in the Royal Red did had her life depended upon it. Six years ago she could. She could have had ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... how real, how vivid, how vital a part of my life Lucy became to me. She was in the very deepest truth my better self, for years. And then this summer, a miracle occurred! Lucy walked into my office! Beauty, serenity, intelligence, sweetness, gaiety, and gallantry—these were Lucy's in the flesh as I could not even dream for Lucy of the spirit. Only in one particular though had I made an actual error. Her name was not Lucy, it was Diana! Diana! the little girl of Bright Angel who had entered my turbulent boyish heart, ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... gesticulations, some of them graceful, others only energetic, the squaws, who stand a little apart and mingle their discordant voices with the music of the instruments, rarely participating in the dance. Occasionally, however, when excited by the general gaiety, a few of them will form a circle outside and perform a sort of ungraceful, up-and-down movement, which has no merit, save the perfect time which is kept, and for which the Indians seem, without exception, ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... little jet of the spring which ceaselessly piles up diamonds in the moonlight. The flies sleeping in the corners of my room, awaken at the warmth of my fire. They had installed themselves there to die, they come near the lamp, they are seized with a mad gaiety, they buzz, they jump, they laugh, they even have faint inclinations towards love, but it is the hour of death and paf! in the midst of the dance, they fall stiff. It ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... by what I have seen of him, that he must be somewhat wearisome," Phelim O'Sullivan said, with a laugh. "Fortunately, wit and gaiety are not essential qualities on the part of a monarch; but I must own that, treasonable as it may sound, I fear His Majesty is lacking in other qualities, far more essential in a monarch. I should say that ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... conversation might appear to achieve something like gaiety at the expense of Mr. Rawson's troubles, I took the liberty of asking him, with all consideration, ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... intensity. All Purcell's choruses, however, are not of Handelian mould, for he wrote many that are sheer loveliness from beginning to end, many that are the very voice of the deepest sadness, many, again, showing a gaiety, an "unbuttoned" festivity of feeling, such as never came into music again until Beethoven introduced it as a new thing. The opening of one of the complimentary odes, "Celebrate this festival," fairly carries one off one's ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... clouds sometimes arise which cast a gloom over the best regulated tempers, whenever melancholy took possession of any member of this little society, the rest endeavoured to banish painful thoughts rather by sentiment than by arguments. Margaret exerted her gaiety; Madame de la Tour employed her mild theology; Virginia, her tender caresses; Paul, his cordial and engaging frankness. Even Mary and Domingo hastened to offer their succour, and to weep with those that wept. Thus weak plants are interwoven, in ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... Saint-Amand as one in which women were Christian in certain aspects of their character and pagan in others, taking an active part in every event, ruling by wit and beauty, wisdom and courage; an age of thoughtless gaiety and morbid fanaticism, and of laughter and tears, still rough and savage, yet with an undercurrent of subtle grace and exquisite politeness; an age in which the extremes of elegance and cruelty were blended, ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... been highly ridiculous. I therefore immediately complied with their request. I gave them one or two Italian airs, and then some of our beautiful old Scots tunes, Gilderoy, the Lass of Patie's Mill, Corn riggs are Bonny. The pathetick simplicity and pastoral gaiety of the Scots musick, will always please those who have the genuine feelings of nature. The Corsicans were charmed with the specimens I gave them, though I may now say that they ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... one vast evil consequent upon it. And who is to reckon up how much these words mean? How many spoiled lives, how many broken hearts, how many wasted bodies, how many ruined minds, how much misery pretending to be gay, how much gaiety feeling itself to be miserable, how much after mental pain, how much eating and transmitted disease. And in the moral part of the world, how many minds are racked by incessant anxiety, how many thoughtful imaginations which might have left something to mankind are debased to mean cares, how much ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... slightly raised, and there was always a second of something like suspense, before it finally sank upon the expectant note. But suddenly, without warning, just as the last, lingering tones were dying to the close they sought, the ADAGIO slipped over into the limpid gaiety of the RONDO, and then, there was no time more for premeditation: then his hands twinkled up and down, joining, crossing, flying asunder, alert with little sprightly quirks and turns, going ever more nimbly, until the brook was ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... typical of the weary, empty hours of his life, and for the first time a wholesome distaste of it all swept over him. Day in, day out, an everlasting whirl—wherein he and his companions turned night into day and spent their lives in a hollow round of gaiety, in which scandal, cards, women and wine were chief features. And, at the end! What would ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... dawning of the day! He goes on till the twinkling sun-beams begin to tell him that his notes no longer accord with the rising scene. Up starts the lark, and with him a variety of sprightly songsters, whose lively notes are in perfect correspondence with the gaiety of the morning. The general warbling continues, with now and then an interruption by the transient croak of the raven, the scream of the jay, or the pert chattering of the daw. The nightingale, unwearied by the vocal ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... from the roof and the seaweed burned in the chimney. Then the gathering of the vraic was a fete, and the lads and lasses footed it on the green or on the hard sand, to the chance flageolets of sportive seamen home from the war. This simple gaiety was heartiest at Christmastide, when the yearly reunion of families took place; and because nearly everybody in Jersey was "couzain" to his neighbour these gatherings were as patriarchal as they ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... far away down the long table, seated beside Daisy Musgrave, obviously to their mutual satisfaction. A bubbling oasis of gaiety surrounded them. Evidently the general atmosphere of state and ceremony was less ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... regretted unceasingly the luxuries and amusements of their former life; only the youngest tried to be brave and cheerful. She had been as sad as anyone when misfortune overtook her father, but, soon recovering her natural gaiety, she set to work to make the best of things, to amuse her father and brothers as well as she could, and to try to persuade her sisters to join her in dancing and singing. But they would do nothing of the sort, ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... Can gaiety the vanished years restore, Or on the withering limbs fresh beauty shed, Or soothe the sad INEVITABLE HOUR, Or cheer the dark, ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... Time passed; M. Bergson appeared 'and for his hour was lord of the ascendant;' I tardily tackled William James. I bore in mind, as I approached him, the testimonials that had been lavished on him by all my friends. Alas, I was insensible to his thrillingness. His gaiety did not make me gay. His crystal clarity confused me dreadfully. I could make nothing of William James. And now, in the fullness of time, I have ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... Guards. The stalwart men step together, and, as the red ranks sway on, it seems as though no earthly power could stand against them. The gloomy bearskins are like a brooding dark cloud, and the glitter of the rifle-barrels carries with it certain sinister terrible suggestions. The gaiety and splendour of Cavalry and Infantry all gain increased power over the imagination since we know that each of those gaily clad fellows would march to his doom without a tremor or a murmur if he received the word. Poor Tommy Atkins is surrounded by a sort of halo in the popular imagination, ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... going to tell a story," she said, with a gaiety thrown out for rousing him, "a very fine story;—every one must listen." He looked over at her and smiled at that, listening for ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... of Caesar to take his departure without having accomplished his work. He accordingly ordered up at once reinforcements from Asia, and meanwhile, till these arrived, made a show of the utmost self-possession. Never was there greater gaiety in his camp than during this rest at Alexandria; and while the beautiful and clever Cleopatra was not sparing of her charms in general and least of all towards her judge, Caesar also appeared among all his victories to value most those ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... photography has done for the last few weeks to familiarize Dublin with Miss Anderson's counterfeit presentment, the original took the Gaiety audience last night by surprise. Her beauty outran expectation. It was, moreover, generally different from what the camera had suggested. It required an effort to recall in the brilliant, mobile, speaking countenance before us the classic regularity and harmony of the features which we had admired ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... tokens to be trusted by an observer who might go astray in taking any chance guest as a standard of the average conviviality. Mr. and Mrs. Jim Lewarne, for example, were accustomed on such occasions to represent the van and rear-guard respectively in the march of gaiety; and in this instance Jim had already imbibed too much hot "shenachrum," while his wife, still in the stage of artificial ease, and wearing a lace cap, which was none the less dignified for having been smuggled, was perpending what ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... son is fourteen, and we are fully prepared for active life. I have no knowledge of any mechanical trade, but am fond of it as well as agriculture and gardening; I possess a fair share of health; am fond of writing and bookkeeping; only occasionally disposed to gaiety, but rather for scientific relaxation; not fanatical in religion, but a regarder of the great commandments and charitable for the feelings ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... out a pie and making a hot cup of coffee. Alfred was highly complimented that he had kept his promise to return. Alfred accepted the praises with a conscience stricken feeling that kept him miserable under his assumed gaiety. ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... visit her uncle Albert Dickinson and his family, her journey was rugged, and when she reached Leavenworth she reveled in the comfort of Daniel's "neat, little, snow-white cottage with green blinds." She liked Daniel's wife, Annie, at once, admired her gaiety and the way she fearlessly drove her beautiful black horse across the prairie. "They have a real 'Aunt Chloe' in the kitchen," she wrote Mrs. Stanton, "and a little Darkie boy for errands and table waiter. I never saw a ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... and slippery pathway. I was in high spirits, and though squirting the black puddle to my knees at every step, and seeing no more of the road I was to travel on than another one in advance, yet faced onward with great gaiety and good humour. After some time, however, Aleck began snuffing the air, and, with evident concern, announced the approach of a mist, which soon thickened into perceptibility to me also. Our path, which hitherto had swept across sheep-grazing uplands and grassy knolls, now began to thread ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... after day in a journey of two and three hundred miles. I have seen some of the English half-breeds greatly excel in this respect. Many of the Canadians however are very expert drivers, as they are excellent voyageurs in the canoe. There is a native gaiety, and vivacity of character, which impel them forward, and particularly so, under the individual and encouraging appellation of 'bon homme.' When tripping, they are commonly all life, using the whip, or more commonly a thick stick, barbarously upon their ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... they that witnessed them, and hearkened while mother and son compared their past adventures. Then Currado, who had already announced his new alliance to his friends, and received their felicitations proceeded to give order for the celebration of the event with all becoming gaiety and splendour. As he did so, Giusfredi said to him:—"Currado, you have long given my mother honourable entertainment, and on me you have conferred many boons; wherefore, that you may fill up the measure of your kindness, 'tis now my prayer that you be pleased to gladden my mother and ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Carroll had been examining his own blood early that morning, not finding any malarial parasites; he told me he thought he had "caught cold" at the beach: his suffused face, blood-shot eyes and general appearance, in spite of his efforts at gaiety and unconcern, shocked me beyond words. The possibility of his having yellow fever did not occur to him just then; when it did, two days later, he declared he must have caught it at my autopsy room in the Military Hospital, or at "Las ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... to the cuddy, in quest of a blanket to shelter me from the increasing cold; and the scene of desolation that there presented itself was melancholy in the extreme. The place which, only a few short hours before, had been the seat of kindly intercourse and of social gaiety, was now entirely deserted, save by a few miserable wretches, who were either stretched in irrecoverable intoxication on the floor, or prowling about, like beasts of prey, in search of plunder. The sofas, drawers, and other ...
— The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay - Narrated in a Letter to a Friend • Duncan McGregor
... I am walking on the Boulevards, it occurs to me, that they alone understand the full import of the term leisure; and they trifle their time away with such an air of contentment, I know not how to wish them wiser at the expence of their gaiety. They play before me like motes in a sunbeam, enjoying the passing ray; whilst an English head, searching for more solid happiness, loses, in the analysis of pleasure, the volatile sweets of the moment. Their chief enjoyment, it is true, rises from vanity: but it is not ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... how Henry stands his evenings here; the Polynesian loves gaiety - I feed him with decimals, the mariner's compass, derivations, grammar, and the like; delecting myself, after the manner of my race, MOULT TRISTEMENT. I suck my paws; I live for my dexterities and by my accomplishments; even my clumsinesses ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and instead of being married in the country, insisted on the nuptial knot being tied in Dublin. Thither the widow repaired with her swain to complete the stipulated time of residence within some metropolitan parish before the wedding could take place. In the meanwhile they enjoyed all the gaiety the capital presented, the time glided swiftly by, and Tom was within a day of being made a happy man, when, as he was hastening to the lodgings of the fair widow, who was waiting with her bonnet and shawl on to be escorted to the botanical ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... the gaiety of the dance, the Jew calmly took an inkpot, pen, and paper out of his bag, wrote a dozen lines, and sat down, waiting for ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... She becomes so affected by these cares that she loses her colour and grows wan, and it becomes plain to all that her loss of colour betokens an unfulfilled desire. She plays less now than she used to do, and laughs less and loses her gaiety. But she conceals her trouble and passes it off, if any one asks what her ailment is. Her old nurse's name was Thessala, [229] who was skilled in necromancy, having been born in Thessaly, where devilish charms are taught and wrought; ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... BENTHAM, his hollow voice quivering, "let no man boast himself upon the gaiety of his youth, and fondly dream—poor self-deceiver!—that his maturity may be one of revelry. You know what I once was. Now I am conducting a ...
— Punchinello Vol. 2, No. 28, October 8, 1870 • Various
... gaiety of the wedding-breakfast, but the relief from the prodigious doubts and anxieties that had at first overwhelmed those whom he had intended to ruin was of so great a nature that they thought nothing ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... forward, fascinated by the cold directness of his speech, by the suggestion of strange things to come. The mask of their late gaiety had fallen away. Lady Caroom, grave and sad-eyed, was listening with an anxiety wholly unconcealed. Under the shaded lamplight their faces, dominated by that cold masterly figure at the head of the ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and 'catch me again,' and 'divil bellows it;' and forthwith out came one of the fireworker's long shanks, and O'Flaherty insisted on dressing, shaving, and otherwise preparing as a gentleman and an officer, with great gaiety of heart, to meet his ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... flowers; you will see the good housewife taking pride in her pretty table-cloth, and her glittering shelves, no less than in her well-dressed dish, and her full storeroom; the care in her countenance will alternate with gaiety, and though you will reverence her in her seriousness, you will know her best by ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... met them at the club for a dinner at which David was host. It was a nicely appointed dinner, the best the chef could contrive. Also it was distinctly an extravagance. But David did not care. His spirits ran high, in a gaiety that was infectious. It was a very ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... no doubt nor mistake about Beranger and Eustacie de Ribaumont being man and wife. Every ceremony, religious or domestic, that could render a marriage valid, was gone through with real earnestness, although with infinite gaiety, on the part of the court. Much depended on their union, and the reconcilement of the two branches of the family had long been a favourite ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a fine festival for the good cuckold, for the resemblance to the father was distinctly engraved upon the face of this sweet fruit of love. Blanche consoled herself greatly, and picked up again a little of her old gaiety and flower of innocence, which rejoiced the aged hours of the seneschal. From constantly seeing the little one run about, watching its laughs answer those of the countess, he finished by loving it, and would have been in a great rage ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... decidedly. "I'm all tired out, and poor Myrtle is worn to a frazzle. There's no chance of seeing the canyon to-night, and as for the dancing, card playing and promiscuous gaiety, it doesn't appeal much to a ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... mummings that were once universal. The special survival here is of the Hobby Horse, that once played so prominent a part in these boisterous masquerades, but such life as it still enjoys at Padstow is somewhat a galvanised existence, just as children still occasionally dress in poor tinsel and gaiety in order to collect a few coppers. Such exhibitions are melancholy rather ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... even a casual observer. Pale women and children emerged from their laager, put on their finery, sunned themselves, and did their shopping. The black ladies went in a body to the veldt to collect firewood with all their natural gaiety and light-heartedness, which not even shell-fire and numerous casualties amongst themselves seemed seriously to disturb. Those of us who had horses and carriages at our disposal rode and drove anywhere ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... she did her best to join in them. The sensitive soul often reproached itself afterwards for having juggled in the matter. Was it not her duty to manage a little society and gaiety for her sisters sometimes? Her mother could not undertake it, and was always plaintively protesting that Catherine would not be young. So for a short week or two Catherine did her best to be young, and climbed the mountain grass, or forded the mountain streams with the energy and the ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... heard of far less seen), snapping his fingers in the air and footing it right cleverly. For all that, he was blue with the cold; and there was something in his face, a look between tears and laughter, that was highly pathetic and consisted ill with this gaiety of manner. ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lately been discovered. I consented, without hesitation, little concerned whither I went, or what happened to me, provided the scene was often shifted. The lanes and enclosures we passed on our road to the hills, appeared in all the gaiety that verdure, flowers, and sunshine could give them. But my pleasures were overcast, and I beheld every object, however cheerful, through a dusky medium. Deeply engaged in conversation, distance made no ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... this outpour of revelation by confiding to the two ladies his design for the work with which he had been haunted; they smiled and promised him their assistance. The youngest, with an air of gaiety suggested one of the first chapters of the undertaking, by saying that she would take upon herself to prove mathematically that women who are entirely virtuous were ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... in the most nonchalant manner imaginable, "we've got a jolly, strolling, German band up at the hotel; and we're going to have an evening's gaiety. Get into a pretty dress, ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... advanc'd, every thing here wears the face of spring.—The afternoon being remarkably fine Lady Powis, Lord Darcey, and myself, strolled out amongst the sweets.—We walk'd a considerable time; his Lordship was all gaiety, talk'd with raptures of the improvements; declar'd every thing he had seen abroad fell short of this delightful spot; and now, my dear Lady Powis, added he, with an air of gallantry, I can ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning
... another of the audience came around to the platform to speak to her. There were dark hollows under her eyes, and her mouth was drawn and weary, but they laid that to the excitement. Two bright-red spots glowed on her cheeks; but she smiled and talked with her usual gaiety. People looked at her and said how beautiful she was, and how bright and untiring; and how wonderful it was that Ashland School had drawn such a prize of a teacher. The seats filled, the noise and the clatter went ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... times the latter was a pandemonium of caged poultry, clucking and quacking and cackling and screaming. Fowls and geese and ducks were bought alive, and taken to have their throats cut for a fee by the official slaughterer. At Purim a gaiety, as of the Roman carnival, enlivened the swampy Wentworth Street, and brought a smile into the unwashed face of the pavement. The confectioners' shops, crammed with "stuffed monkeys" and "bolas," were besieged by hilarious ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... full of feeling and reverence were more impressive falling from lips usually sparkling with gaiety and wit. We walked in silence up the gradual ascent, till we came to a fine old elm, branching out by the way-side, and we paused to rest under its boughs. As we did so, we turned towards the valley we were leaving behind, and beheld ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... himself eagerly into the gaiety of the dance. Never had he seen the ball-room so brilliant with color. Among all those there his was the one somber dress. The white cambric stock and the frill in his shirt were the only gay touches. It was not his fault: the rules of the service ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... to Wagner's other conceptions, much the same as the 'Winter's Tale' is to Shakespeare's other works. Its phantasy is found in gaiety and drollery, and it has called up the Nuremberg of the Middle Ages, with its guilds, its poet- artisans, its pedants, its cavaliers, to draw forth the most fresh laughter in the midst of the highest, the most ideal, poetry. Exclusive of its sense and the destination of the work, one might ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... cheerful; the gardens fresh and green. Anthony the Martyr, at the end of the sixth century, drew an enchanting picture of the fertility of the environs, which he compared to paradise.[3] Some valleys on the western side fully justify his description. The fountain, where formerly the life and gaiety of the little town were concentrated, is destroyed; its broken channels contain now only a muddy stream. But the beauty of the women who meet there in the evening—that beauty which was remarked even in the sixth century, and which was looked upon as a gift of the Virgin Mary[4]—is still most ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... did not fail to interpret the slight flush of embarrassment that suffused Nan's face. "I object to that question, your honor," she replied with cleverly simulated gaiety, "on the ground that to do so would necessitate the violation ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... way in silence and left him alone. Nothing was said of the matter at the dinner-table, where to John's relief Mr. Rivers was a guest. John observed, however, that Mrs. Ann had less of her usual gaiety, and he was not much surprised when his uncle leaving the table said, "Come into the library, John." The Captain lighted his ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... appear in the Petrucci collection, showing that he was acquainted with this Italian form, and that his productions in it were known and admired in Italy. His frottole are distinguished by uncommon grace and gaiety, for the frottola was generally rather passionate and melancholy, and full of what Castiglione ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... fair hair and pretty eyes, made for affection and to take a spoiling prettily. At present she had no misgiving about her lover's good intentions, and this gave her the confidence which naturally she lacked. Besides, she had never thought Anne Hilton important. Anne, seeing the handsome room, the gaiety of Jane, and affection of Burton, found herself wishing that there were no reason why it should not continue so, to all appearance a happy home of newly-married people. She saw none of the signs of shame in Jane which ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... most perfect beauty themselves, but also conferred this gift upon others. All the enjoyments of life were enhanced by their presence, and were deemed incomplete without them; and wherever joy or pleasure, grace and gaiety reigned, there they were supposed ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... she cried with a nervous gaiety. "Give your dear daughter a kiss!" She had not meant to say ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... self-complacency, the art with which they are made to depend upon the serious business. This has not, however, the merit of novelty; being not unlike the connection between the tragic and comic scenes of the "Spanish Friar." The persons introduced have also some resemblance; though the gaiety of Antonio is far more gross than that of Lorenzo, and Morayma is a very poor copy of Elvira. It is rather surprising, that when a gay libertine was to be introduced, Dryden did not avail himself of a real character, the English Stukely; a wild gallant, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... our eyes to the fact that a married man devotes his energy, his power, and all his possession to his wife. Is it not she who reaps the benefit of all his care? For whom, if not for her, are the luxury and wealth, the position and distinction, the comfort and the gaiety of the home? ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... and gain their hollow cheeks and shrunken chests and wrinkled foreheads by squinting at the sun.... Even the women are tiny things with a perpetual smile that pushes up their high cheek bones into a horn-like prominence and apparently belies their apparent gaiety.... The belts of these men are perfect arsenals of curious-looking things.... With their cloth caps with ear flaps hanging down, their knee breeches and their linen shirts hung with a dozen prayer wheels, they characterize this ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... as the war against America broke out, his gaiety all forsook him. The idea of a ruffian soldiery overrunning his native land, preyed incessantly on his spirits, and threw him into those brown studies which cost his lady full many a tear. Unable to bear his disquietude, he fled at ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems |
