"Hilarity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Lavinia, who cannot distinguish a face three feet away without her lorgnette, thought she was speaking to father. Under cover of our mutual hilarity, I led her back to a seat in the study, so that Martin might recover his wits, coat, and slippers at the same time, for Miss Lavinia had stumbled over the latter and sent them coasting in ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... whole, Gipsy was so relieved to see a friend who was prepared to take charge of her that she submitted quite peaceably to be escorted back to Greyfield. The clerk's hilarity at her application for a stewardess-ship, and his assurance that such posts were only given to middle-aged women, had upset her calculations, and remembering her forlorn condition of the previous night, she was glad not to risk a repetition of such a painful experience. ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... no way interrupted the hilarity of the evening, and he added much to it by several amusing anecdotes, at which no one laughed more heartily than he did. The next day he accompanied Jack to Northamptonshire. No one was ever more cordially ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... began to caper with a sort of decorous hilarity before their teacher. " Look at the sausage, professor. Did you ever see such sausage " Isn't it salubrious " And see these other things, sir. Aren't they curious " I shouldn't wonder if they were alive. Turnips, sir? No, sir. I think they are Pharisees. ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... commentaries in the Kamchadal language, which did not tend materially to elucidate the subject. An evident and increasing disposition to smile gradually softened the stern lines of the Major's face, until at last he burst into a laugh of such infectious hilarity that, notwithstanding my ignorance of the nature of the fun, I joined in with hearty sympathy. As soon as he partially recovered his composure he gasped out, "The natives took you for the Emperor!"—and then he went off in another spasm of merriment which threatened to terminate either ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... book-muslin dress and a tiny ruffled apron, making courtesies and pirouetting down the path. It was much out of character that I, a St. Francis squaw, in striped shirt, gold beads, and moccasins, should be guilty of such wild hilarity. Ora's movements were free and graceful in white Turkish trousers, a rich Oriental head-dress, and Charles Dana's best tunic, which reached just below her knee. She was the observed ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... days of old, when writers bold Betrayed the least disparity Between their genius and an age When frankness was a rarity, An odious word was often heard From critics void of charity, Simplicity or clarity, Or vision or hilarity, Who used to slate or deprecate ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 8, 1920 • Various
... Durrance had aged during these eight weeks. There were furrows about his mouth where only faint lines had been visible when he had started out from Halfa; and it was not merely desert dust which had discoloured his hair. His hilarity, too, had an artificial air. He had sat at the table constraining himself to the semblance of high spirits. Calder lit his pipe, and sat for a long while ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... exertion on such a night made us very hot. After the third dance the two old squatters, the horse-buyer, the clergyman, and Mr Benson disappeared. Judging from the hilarity of their demeanour and the killing odour of their breaths when they returned an hour or so later, during their absence they must have conscientiously sampled the contents of every whisky decanter on ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... change a woman's fancy, of course!" Sir Joseph ejaculated, and laughed very violently indeed. "'Ave you caught my meaning?" he added, as his hilarity subsided. ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... seemed, at one moment, forcing themselves into strained merriment, and, at another, cowering before the cold eyes that watched their efforts with scarcely veiled indifference. With fear on the one side and distrust upon the other, the chances for hilarity and good fellowship looked scanty enough, and yet Stenius Ninius was too much a man of the world to yield ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... the people will forsake their industries, and give themselves to perpetual psalm-singing, and, being all absorbed in spiritual things, will become reckless as to dress and dwelling; and very rigid laws then governing the commercial world, all enterprise and speculation will cease, and all hilarity be stricken out of the social circle. There is no warrant for such an absurd anticipation. I suppose that when society is reconstructed, where there is now, in the course of a year, one fortune made, there will be a hundred fortunes made. Every one knows that the commercial ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... moment we all sat, scandalized, then shouted in spite of ourselves. In the midst of our confused hilarity, the table began to oscillate; it rose slowly several inches, then moved off, rattling, toward the sitting-room door! Our jolly visitor had it on his back and was crawling ponderously but carefully away with it on his hands and knees;—and the rest of us were getting ourselves and our chairs out ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... clumsy-fingered haste to get to a train, I summarily dropped my bonnet into the wash-bowl. This was not a very dry joke, but having mopped up the article as well as possible, I put it on and departed with usual hilarity,—still remembering what it was to have the kindest fortune in the world, and that one should not expect so rare a life as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... his eye on me longer than I cared to return the stare, for fear I might be tempted either to box his ears or render my hilarity audible. I began to feel unmistakably out of place in that pleasant family circle. The dismal spiritual atmosphere overcame, and more than neutralised, the glowing physical comforts round me; and I resolved to be cautious how I ventured under ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... their pleasure solemnly after the manner of the less impressionable English. Stay-at-home as they have hitherto been, home-loving as they essentially are, the atmosphere of an inn, the aroma of a holiday, fill the Frenchman's cup of hilarity to overflowing, ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... the incident was that occasioned this change; all I know is that suddenly, for several weeks, his geniality of manner and speech, his hilarity, his cheerfulness, entirely disappeared; a curious look of haunting sadness, not defined, but vague, came over his face; and though he gradually returned to his old ways, yet I am conscious myself, and others would support me in this, that he was never quite ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... convinced by the suppressed murmur of merriment he heard among the sail-sewers that they knew of the joke, he quickly disappeared down the hatchway. The sailors drove sail needles into each other in their hilarity. As he captain made no remark, ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... look of rebuke was entirely lost upon him, and he rattled on with an air of assumed hilarity ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... ascribed to Luke, and said to have been brought hither by a hermit from Constantinople in the twelfth century. Be this as it may, the black image serves the Bolognese for an occasion of an annual festival, kept with fully as much hilarity ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... a juvenile style of dress is not suitable for an old lady. In conduct much the same rules apply. The dignity and gravity of a patriarch would not be becoming to a child; at a funeral lively, cheery sociability would not be decorous, while noisy hilarity would not be decent; sumptuous display would not be suitable for a poor person. Fit is a compendious term for whatever fits the person, time, place, occasion, etc.; as, a fit person; a fit abode; a fit place. Fitting, or befitting, is somewhat more elegant, implying ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... them. Once or twice, indeed, I hazarded, through their fathers, some little complimentary observations in Latin; but I cannot say that I found that language lend itself readily to the gallantries of the ball-room. After supper dancing recommenced, and the hilarity of the evening reached its highest pitch when half a dozen sailors, dressed in turbans made of flags (one of them a lady with the face of the tragic muse), came forward and danced the cancan, with a gravity and decorum that would have greatly edified ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... that walk. Never in her life had she enjoyed such fun. Archie, with his grave face and prim ways, would have spoiled the hilarity. ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... struck by the spirit of lively, boisterous hilarity that took sudden possession of them. It was incomprehensible to her. It usually happened on the evenings when they read in the papers about the working people in other countries. Then their eyes sparkled with bold, animated joy; they became strangely, childishly ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... execute these modern gyrations in my home," had responded Harriet's mother, Mrs. Sproul, as she finished the hundredth round on the shawl she was knitting. Harriet's report of the conversation had been received with great hilarity that evening at dinner ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... regions she now frequented recklessness was the keynote. There was the hilarity of the doomed; there was the cynical or stolid indifference to heat or cold, to rain or shine, to rags, to filth, to jail, to ejection for nonpayment of rent, to insult of word or blow. The fire engines—the ambulance—the patrol wagon—the city dead wagon—these were all ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... after you,' said Sister Angela. 'We all thought you were going to run away.' And they went into the details as to how they had felt on their arrival, and various little incidents were recalled, illustrating the experience of previous postulants, and these were productive of much hilarity. ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... enter into the hilarity of the guests, but she was filled with awe and prostrate as if ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... they were hardly able to recover themselves. The army, seeing Hannibal's attendants come back from viewing the enemy in such a laughing condition, concluded that it must be profound contempt of the enemy, that made their general at this moment indulge in such hilarity. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... verbosity in your style (God forbid!), still less pomposity, animosity, curiosity, or ferocity; you would have it neat, exact, and scholarly, and, above all, chiselled to the nail. A fig (say you), the pip of a fig, for the rambling style. You would be led into no hilarity, charity, vulgarity, or barbarity. Eh! my jolly Lector? You would simply say what you had ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... cent. interest, and having acquired this habit, it became a principle, and such principles as these are clung to in Boston with the zeal of a miser for his hoard or of a martyr to his faith. Looking back over the years, I still recall with chagrin the quiescent hilarity of the scion of a Back Bay family whose good father had been one of the most successful and most brutal of all the "East India traders," when I suggested to him that he was fortunate in obtaining twenty per cent. on some copper ventures about which he was grumbling. (My ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... make out what there was to laugh at in a spectacle that for two mortal hours—ever since daybreak—had been causing him the extreme of fear; but, without saying a word, he waited for the explanation of this ill-timed hilarity. ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... attendant. When the ices came in, the elder Roseton was carried out; and the heir of Pont-Noir, having seen the remains properly bestowed in a place of safety, and a special inquest held, finished the night with the counsellors in the enjoyment of a tempered hilarity, and rose next morning the possessor of wealth so boundless, so unspeakable, that my brain reels as I endeavor to grasp at even its ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... meanest insects are worshipped with sort of Egyptian superstition if only the brainless head be atoned for by the sting of personal malignity in the tail," conveys a warning to writers that is not of an age but for all time. Coleridge may have exaggerated the "manly hilarity" and "evenness and sweetness of temper" of men of genius. But there is no denying that, the smaller the genius, the greater is the spite of wounded self-love. "Experience informs us," as Coleridge says, "that the first defence ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... his share of it, and he accepted it with great good nature. They were such a happy company with almost a whole week of unknown enjoyment before them, and the gravity of Mr. Seth's face did not affect their own hilarity. Dorothy had confided to Alfaretta that she had written to Mrs. Calvert for "another hundred dollars" and the matter was a "secret" ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... birds were, and with an arm of each around the waist of the other, they went hopping and skipping up and down the walks, stopping now and then to waltz, to swing round and round, and then darting away again with their hop and skip, too full of hilarity, too instinct with vitality, to be for a moment still. The flush of health was on their cheeks, and the warm light of affection in their eyes. They were confiding, affectionate, loving little children, and my heart warmed towards them, as I saw them waltzing and ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... a momentary swinging of their mood to pleasantry, because they were a temperamentally cheerful lot, and laughter came to them easily, as it always does to youth and perfect mental and physical health. Their brief hilarity over Slim's misfortune did not swerve them from their purpose, nor soften the mood of them toward their adversaries. They were unsmiling and unfriendly when they reached the man from Wyoming; and, if they ever behaved ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... movement to the Kleine Redouten Saal, where the Armen Ball had attracted so crowded an assemblage, that more than one archduchess had her share of elbowing. Strauss was in all his glory; the long-drawn impassioned breathings of Lanner having ceased for ever, the dulcet hilarity of his rival now reigns supreme; and his music, when directed by himself, still abounds in those exquisite little touches, that inspire hope like the breath of a May morning. Strange to say, the intoxicating waltz is ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... his parents were friendly made great merrymakings over his return. Dancing was forbidden, but games in which maidens might be caught and kissed were not. Caius was not diverted; he had not the good-nature to be in sympathy with the sort of hilarity which was exacted ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... quiet one. There was no bell-ringing, and there were no bridesmaids. The bride drove up quietly with her father, and there was a subdued note even in the murmur of recognition which ran along the villagers as they stood in groups near the church porch. There was an absence of the usual hilarity which struck me. One might almost have said that there was a quite ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... feeling of hilarity at this idea, shaking his sides so long and heartily that Bigot caught the infection, and joined in with a ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... market-dinner times. We were very jolly afterwards, and amazingly triumphant over the frost-bitten, snow-buried soldier-banditti that had so long lorded it over continental Europe. Dutton did not partake of the general hilarity. There was a sneer upon his lip during the whole time, which, however, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... previous year. At precisely midday the Columbia boomed out thirteen guns. The sloop set the echoes rocketing with another thirteen. Douglas's ship roared out a salute of seven cannon shots, the fort on land six more, and the day was given up to hilarity, all hands dining on board the Columbia with such wild fowl as the best game woods in the world afforded, and copious supply of Spanish wines. Toasts were drunk to the first United States ship on the Pacific coast of America. On October 26 {226} Douglas's ship and the fur trader, Northwest-America, ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... inaudibly for the most part. A phrase here and there came out, and the rest lost. So much hilarity in the crowd attracted to it a bibulous gentleman, who kept calling out, 'Oh, the pretty dear!' to the rapture of the bystanders. He became so elevated that the police were obliged to remove him. When the excitement attending this passage had calmed down, ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... ERSKINE, of Cardross, "that equals the hilarity of the opening of a New Session, and that is the joy with which the boys go off on the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, February 4, 1893 • Various
... Capital City. 'Indeed,' replied the wife of the former member, 'that is curious. But I suppose my husband is much more economical than yours, for he brought home $1.500, that he'd saved out of his salary.' As the salary is only $456, and the gentleman in question did not play poker, much hilarity was indulged in, and there were conjectures that the economy referred to concerned his vote upon a certain bill before the last session, anent which the lobby pushing it were far from economical. Uncle Billy Rollinson, the Gentleman ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... and ready wit never failed him; and he kept the bar and listening by-standers in constant hilarity. He made an excellent hit during the trial of Sir George Bingham, for assault, during the tithe agitation. The General's Aide-de-Camp, Captain Berners, of the Royal Artillery, was under examination. A junior counsel asked the witness, "What ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... joke that a woman can't keep a secret still appears in many variations to illuminate the mind of the waiting man, driven to lithographed hilarity in the barber-shop comics. In real life, when not under the spell of this brilliant six-colored wit, we find ourselves at a disadvantage frequently, because women keep their secrets too well. Hygeia was loyal to Gabrielle, and together they ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... their curiosity in staring at me and through me. One said to the Ghadamsee people, "Tell the Christian to repeat, 'There's one God,'" &c. I was determined to risk an abrupt answer. I said, "This saying is prohibited to Christians." At this stop-mouth answer they burst out into a fit of hilarity. But one fellow, who wished to show some zeal, growled out, "Be off, be off." My good-natured young Touarghee quickly got up from the circle, where he had taken his seat, and smiling, took me by the ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... noisy and showily dressed—laughing loudly, gesticulating violently, and bragging tremendously. Near to them were collected a number of sterner spirits—men of middle age, with all the energy, and muscle, and bone of youth, but without its swaggering hilarity; men whose powers and nerves had been tried over and over again amid the stirring scenes of a voyageur's life; men whose heads were cool, and eyes sharp, and hands ready and powerful, in the mad whirl of boiling rapids, in the sudden attack of wild beast and hostile man, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... I am!" protested Miss Bartlett, and followed her across the lawn. Lucy tripped ahead, simulating hilarity. When they were out of earshot Miss Bartlett stopped her wails and said quite briskly: "Have you told him ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... was at a loss to account for their excess of hilarity to-night. Though fond of drink, and meeting often in a crowd, they were few of them of a class—using his own phrase—"to give so much tongue over their liquors." The old toper and vagabond is usually a silent drinker. His amusements, when in a circle, and with a bottle ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... point of view of sentence structure and grammar, whereupon my father, when driven into a corner, would reply with imperturbable repose: "My French feeling tells me that it must be thus, thus and not otherwise," a declaration which naturally served but to increase the hilarity. ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... sentinel disappeared, and as Clara continued to indulge in his hilarity, it was evident he had obtained the permission asked for. At all events, Don Cornelio and Costal regarded his behaviour as ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... fulsome mutual adulation, uncriticised by the stolid coachman; and as we roll down the long descent back to Eaux Chaudes, our disappointment wears gradually away; at Hell Bridge, we have become quite angelic; and we respond to Madame Baudot's condoling welcome almost with hilarity. ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... 'shamed o' yo' country voice, honey, an' tryin' ter ketch a French crow? No, he ain't," she added, putting him down at last, but watching him fondly. "Blink know he's a Bruce. An' he know he's folks is in tribulatiom, an' hilarity ain't become 'im—dat's huccome Blink 'ain't crowed ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... the platform, and conversed in low tones, as they furtively regarded with sentiments almost approaching a respectful awe, the unwonted presence of the detectives and their charge. There was an utter absence of the boisterous hilarity which had been manifested on the preceding morning, and one might have thought that they had assembled for the purpose of officiating at a funeral, so thoroughly subdued and ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... breathing undying love, and takes steps to be introduced at her home. Once having obtained a calling acquaintance, he calls at intervals, accompanied by seven or eight other young men, and, in the general hilarity of a large gathering, endeavors to snatch a moment in which to gaze into the star-like eyes of his innamorata, or to gloat over her "hairs ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... Kurakin and Labanoff for Russia, Kalkreuth and Goltz for Prussia; at the latter were sometimes all three of the monarchs, frequently only the two principals, for they found Frederick William a damper on their hilarity. The generals, the staff, and the men of the two great armies which had fought so bravely at Friedland harmonized in mutual respect; but the unwarlike King and his suite, both military and civil, were outsiders. Immediately after the formal and brilliant entry of Alexander into Tilsit, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... experience of the children in the listening group. Seeing both at once will result in a knowledge of what the children need most to make the story go home. If your children are good enough, and you and they sufficiently good friends to bear the fun of pantomime and the gaiety of hilarity, asking several boys, as they walk across the room before the children, to imitate some animals they had seen at a circus, and getting the children to guess the animal represented until they hit upon the elephant, would put certain children in a spirit of fun ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... was pick'd up on the rare occasions (about twice a year) that I din'd at his table. He had early married and lost an aged shrew, whose money had been the making of him: and had more respect for law and authority than any three men in Oxford. So that I reflected, with a kind of desperate hilarity, on the greeting he ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... excite the alarm of the timid Nero. And that alarm was increased by a recent circumstance, which showed that all the ancestral spirit was not dead in the breast of Britannicus. During the festivities of the Saturnalia, which were kept by the ancients with all the hilarity of the modern Christmas, Nero had been elected by lot as "governor of the feast," and, in that capacity, was entitled to issue his orders to the guests. To the others he issued trivial mandates ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... wife's admonitions, gave way freely to his feelings, and knew no bounds to his hilarity. He laughed and joked, and sang snatches of old songs picked up in the course of his service at home and abroad. At length Judy, who looked on him as a "raal janius," begged him to "sing the gintlemens the song he made when he first came to the counthry." Of course we ardently seconded the motion, ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... was the scene of much excitement and noisy revelry that evening and all the next day while the gold lasted. Miners who had heard of the Chihuahua "streak" flocked up to Blue Bar to get the particulars, and naturally joined in the general feeling of exultation and hilarity that seemed to pervade that community. Old Platte got terribly drunk, and Thompson and Jones developed the strangest eccentricities of gait, manner and speech, and finally subsided into a deep slumber in the dust and sand of the main thoroughfare of the Bar. Gentleman Dick's absence from ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... It is to be published at the rate of two volumes a month until completed, and in respect both to cheapness and elegance is worthy of the most extensive circulation. Such an enterprise very properly commences with "The Pickwick Papers," the work in which the hilarity, humor, and tenderness of the author's humane and beautiful genius first attracted general regard; and it is to be followed by equally fine editions of the romances which succeeded, and, as some think, eclipsed it in merit and popularity. We most cordially wish success ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... Belcour, Charles Surface, and characters of that cast, he stands conspicuous for ease, elegant hilarity, gayety of manners, and vivacity of action. In tragic characters, not only in the fiery, the impassioned, and the grand, but in those of pomp and solemnity, he is said to be original, great, and striking. On his Hamlet and Macbeth the critics seem to have dwelt ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... sesquipedalian language a long tale of an alleged adventure of his with my father, which, inasmuch as there was no point to it, need not be rehearsed here; but I noticed that Bennoch was for some reason hugely diverted by it, and found difficulty in keeping his hilarity within due bounds of decorum, Hall's tone being all the while of the most earnest gravity. Later I took occasion to ask Bennoch the secret of his mirth; was the tale a fiction? "Not a bit of it," Bennoch replied; ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... late venerable and distinguished senator from Rhode Island, Mr. Robbins, and was occasioned by the following circumstances. During the session of 1837-8, Mr. Webster entertained a large party of friends at dinner, among them the venerable senator we have named. The evening passed off with much hilarity, enlivened with wit and sentiment, but, during the greater part of the time, Mr. Robbins maintained that grave but placid silence which was his habit. While thus apparently abstracted, someone suddenly called on him for a toast, which call ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... air of the place with a dampness and a depression that could be felt. And then out of the downward windows of the gate, the watcher's eye always fell on the City of Destruction in the distance, and on her sister cities sitting like her daughters round about her. And that also made mirth and hilarity impossible at that gate. And then the kind of characters who came knocking all hours of the day and the night at that gate. Goodwill never saw a happy face or heard a cheerful voice from one year's ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... creaking of reels, the loud banter, the peals of laughter, the sweet Irish songs that filled up the pauses of the louder mirth, and the strains of the fiddle that ever and anon added to the enlivening spirit of the scene, all constituted such a full and general chorus of hilarity as could seldom ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... and great strength of purpose. The girl was at most only eighteen or nineteen years old, but oddly enough, she possessed none of that indescribable attractiveness which seems the natural accompaniment of girlhood, nothing of the hilarity and naivete of youth. The great blue eyes gazed at you earnestly but coldly, and you felt instinctively that the soul which looked out through them never lost itself in girlish dreams of brave heroes and suppliant lovers. The bearing ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... yesterday, was composed of many delicacies of the season, including bread-and-cheese and onions. The hilarity of the evening was highly increased by the admirable style in which Signor Jonesi sang "Nix my ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... nodded, and burst out laughing. Marmaduke, who had set him down as a cool, undemonstrative man, was surprised at his hilarity for a moment, but presently joined in it. Whilst they were both laughing a hansom appeared, and Conolly, recovering himself, hailed ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... a pronounced success, marked by much suppressed hilarity among the younger members of the party. Uncle James ate very heartily and seemed to enjoy everything, especially ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... oblong stone house, with not a tree to screen it from the cutting wind; but how were we to get at it from the churchyard we could not see! There was an old man in the churchyard, brooding like a Ghoul over the graves, with a sort of grim hilarity on his face. I thought he looked hardly human; however, he was human enough to tell us the way; and presently we found ourselves in the little bare parlour. Presently the door opened, and in came a superannuated mastiff, followed by an old gentleman very like Miss Bronte, who ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... fellow. Backbone of our country," Hodges whispered to the Colonel, who was sore from the strain of repressed hilarity. "A little coarse now and then—but that comes of ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... with intoxicating substances, the use of which is forbidden by the Koran, but a synod of learned Mussulmans decreed that, as it did not impair the health or impede the observance of religious duties, but only increased hilarity and good humor, it was lawful to ...
— Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture • William Saunders
... Courage thought it wise to repress both his hilarity and his pertinent remarks, and to follow the pompous, if begrimed, butler to ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... watched proceedings in the dining room through the cracks in the wall. It was a sight such as I had never before seen. It was six o'clock and dinner was being served by the flushed and flustered waiters. Probably a hundred persons sat at the tables in all stages of intoxication. Hilarity ran high. Most of them were wildly jolly and gushingly full of good will; but all seemed hungry, and the odors from the ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... The hilarity of the Harmony rooters increased when Oldsmith, right halfback, crashed through left tackle for a gain of 8 yards, dragging a couple of Chester tacklers with him. Hutchings plunged straight ahead for 6 yards more, and the ball was then on ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... could not but admire the courage of the Teton beauty, the cheerfulness, and even hilarity that she manifested while in their camp. When ready to start off, she leaped from the ground, unassisted, into her Indian saddle, reined up her horse, and was instantly beside him with whom she was now ready to share ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... Cadurcis, Venetia sang to them; and while she sang, the expression of her countenance and voice harmonising with the arch hilarity of the subject, Plantagenet for a moment believed that he beheld the little Venetia of his youth, that sunny child so full of mirth and grace, the very recollection of whose lively and bright existence might enliven the gloomiest hour ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... afraid I should frighten the servants overhead with my explosions. When the gas was lit I found the room empty, of course, and the door locked as usual. Then I half dressed and went out on to the landing, my hilarity better under control, and proceeded to go downstairs. I wished to record my sensations. I stuffed a handkerchief into my mouth so as not to scream aloud and communicate my hysterics to ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... least, so to dominate the State that to all intents and purposes, other than their own, it did not exist. When Bakounin wrote his startling and now famous decree abolishing the State, he created no end of hilarity among the Marxists, but had Bakounin been Napoleon with his mighty army, or Morgan and Rockefeller with their great wealth, he could no doubt in some measure have carried out his wish. Without, however, either wealth or numbers behind him, Bakounin preached a polity that, ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... proportion to his height; his complexion swarthy; the muscles of his face, being relaxed, give him the appearance of a man of fifty years of age, nor can he be much younger; his countenance has a faithful expression of great good humour and hilarity; while his black eyes that unerring index—possess an irradiating spirit, which proclaims the imperial powers of the mind that sits ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... his duty to the joke, but the Rev. Doctor, though he wore the paternal smile of a man that has begotten hilarity, was not perfectly propitiated, and pursued: "Nor to my apprehension is 'the man's laugh the comment on his wit' unchallengeably new: instances of cousinship germane to the phrase will recur to you. But it ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... bottle of champagne, and arrayed in a costume which Mr Bunker had assured him was the very latest extreme of fashion, and which included a scarlet watered silk waistcoat, a pair of white silk socks, and a lavender tie, was in a condition of cheerfulness verging closely on hilarity. Mr Bunker, that, as he said, he might better serve as a foil to his friend's splendour, went more inconspicuously dressed, but was likewise well charged with champagne. He too was in his happiest vein, and the vision of the Baron's finery appeared ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... France was walking on the terrace of Versailles; the fairest, not only of Queens, but of women, hung fondly on the Royal arm; while the children of France were indulging in their infantile hilarity in the alleys of the magnificent garden of Le Notre (from which Niblo's garden has been copied in our own Empire city of New York), and playing at leap-frog with their uncle, the Count of Provence; gaudy courtiers, emlazoned with orders, glittered in the groves, and murmured frivolous talk ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... never under his own controul, perpetually led him into difficulties from which his ingenuity alone could extricate him; and the accumulating pile of debts of honour and of trade, which would have bent to earth any other, was supported by him with a light spirit and tameless hilarity; while his company was so necessary at the tables and assemblies of the rich, that his derelictions were considered venial, and he ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... at what he considered wit. But a frowning glance from the Tzigana cut short his hilarity; and, with a mechanical movement, he drew himself up in a military manner, as if the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... produced some presents for the Queen, her family, and their immediate attendants, which, though in themselves extremely trifling, were received with great pleasure, and produced a degree of hilarity little consistent with the symbols of mourning worn by the Royal party, or the feelings they had ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... the hilarity remained unabated: "gangway!" He elbowed his way through the suddenly silent throng and confronted the special runner. "Now, my man, tell me—what is all ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... crying, stared wildly, and then, to my utter bewilderment, broke into hysterical laughter. For the moment I thought they had gone mad. It was only when in my perplexity I put up my hand to rub my head, that I came upon the cause of the strange hilarity. For years afterward the thought of it had the same effect upon me that the cabbage-leaf produced so unexpectedly in that ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... merits of the different Yankee prisons at New Orleans or Chicago. One of them, seeing me, called out, "I reckon, Kernel, if the Yankees catch you with us, they'll say you're in d——d bad company;" which sally caused universal hilarity. ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... cheeks, and received her presents. Then they followed in a line, old and young, pretty and ugly, each giving me a hearty kiss, which, in some cases, I returned with interest. The ceremony continued with great hilarity and much frolicksome tittering and fun, until forty-eight squaws had kissed and been kissed by me. They all carried off their presents and seemed very happy. Whether it was all caused by the presents or not, I am unable to say, but I was not the grizzled old fellow then that I have since ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... origin of comedy, and buoys up and sweeps along on the current of fancy and improvisation the chaff and dross of vulgar jests, puns, scurrilous personalities, and cheap "gags," allowing no time for chilling reflections or criticism. Jests which are singly feeble combine to induce a mood of extravagant hilarity when huddled upon us with such "impossible conveyance." This vivida vis animi can hardly be reproduced in a translation, and disappears altogether in an attempt at an abstract enumeration of the poet's inexhaustible devices for comic effect. He himself repeatedly boasts of the fertility of his ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the dead of night, they secured two of the horses, upon which they fled at top speed. In turn they were immediately pursued by a detachment of the Indians, mounted upon their fleetest horses; and suffered the humiliation of recapture two days later. Indulging in wild hilarity over the capture of the crestfallen whites, the Indians took a bell from one of the horses and, fastening it about Boone's neck, compelled him under the threat of brandished tomahawks to caper about and jingle ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... Descending, we wandered through the enclosed garden, and came to a little building in a corner, on entering which, we found the two statues of Tam and Sutor Wat,—ponderous stone-work enough, yet permeated in a remarkable degree with living warmth and jovial hilarity. From this part of the garden, too, we again beheld the old Brigg of Doon, over which Tam galloped in such imminent and awful peril. It is a beautiful object in the landscape, with one high, graceful arch, ivy-grown, and shadowed all over ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... slight drizzle set in. Old Jupiter Pluvius had lost patience and refused to hold off until the game was over. But the general hilarity abated not a particle. It would take more than rain to drive that crowd to cover. The field had been strewn with straw to keep the ground beneath as dry as possible. Now, however, it was time for practice, and a crowd of assistants appeared and raked the ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... forgotten. Thus you see of what various, strange, and striking objects the city of Rouen is composed. Bustle, noise, life and activity, in the midst of an atmosphere unsullied by the fumes of sea coal:—hilarity and apparent contentment:—the spruce bourgeoise and the slattern fille de chambre:—attired in vestments of deep crimson and dark blue—every thing flits before you as if touched by magic, and as if sorrow and misfortune were unknown ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... direction of the town. As he approached the place the blaring of cornets and sounds of hilarity reminded him that Quelquepart was holding its annual foire. Merry-go-rounds and swing-boats were not in harmony with Chippo's mood, and the performance at the gaudily-painted Guignol struck him as particularly dreary, but the sight of Ferdinand Delauney's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 5, 1920 • Various
... themselves, beneath whose wand these graces arose? Lady Eleanor was of middle height, and somewhat over- plump, her face round and fair, with the glow of luxuriant health. She had not fine features, but they were agreeable, enthusiasm in her eye, hilarity and benevolence in her smile. She had uncommon strength and fidelity of memory, an exhaustless fund of knowledge, and her taste for works of imagination, particularly for poetry, was very awakened; and she expressed all she felt with an ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... for a long time, but I never saw him in quite such a mood of hilarity. He and Mr. Starkweather told stories of their boyhood—and we laughed, and laughed—Mrs. Starkweather the most of all. Seeing her so often in her carriage, or in the dignity of her home, I didn't think she had so much jollity in her. Finally she discovered Harriet's cabinet organ, ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson
... among them. Why could he not leave the Upton Arms and the numerous smaller taverns alone, so long as the landladies and their daughters attended church, as they had been need to do? His presence at the dinner-parties of his friends was a check upon all hilarity; and by and by they ceased to invite him, and then, half ashamed to see his face, ceased to go to his church, where his sermons had not the smooth and ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... beginning well at Singapore and Sarawak, and so responsible also from having consecrated you to the Lord, that I must write. I have taken the liberty with you which Mr. Cecil took with me in 1801, to caution you, now you are a chief pastor and a father in God, against excessive hilarity of spirits. There is a mild gravity, with occasional tokens of delight and pleasure, becoming your sacred character, not ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... and his mental distress, he still glared at the young savage who had so basely betrayed his kindness, and at length Arsenic seemed to be uneasily aware of the steady gaze. He changed his position several times, and his noisy hilarity was gradually succeeded by a sullen silence. Suddenly he lifted his head and listened apprehensively. His quick ear had caught an ominous note in the distant, long-drawn howl of a wolf. He spoke of it to his comrades, and several of them joined him in listening. It came again, a blood-curdling ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... in particular of him, save that he seems to be a man of leisure and means, rather melancholy, given to fits of despondency, followed by spells of wild hilarity." ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... that he knew what happiness was for twenty years," says Mr. Herndon. "'Terrible' is the word which all his friends used to describe him in the black mood. 'It was terrible! It was terrible!' said one to another." Judge Davis believes that Lincoln's hilarity was mainly simulated, and that "his stories and jokes were intended to whistle off sadness." "The groundwork of his social nature was sad," says Judge Scott. "But for the fact that he studiously cultivated the humorous, it would have been very sad indeed. His mirth always seemed to me to be put ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne |
