"Laugh" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... strategy yet, I can see, my scout!" said the officer, with a laugh. "But I'll try to explain. You see, the Germans want to reach France—to conquer the French army and capture Paris, as they did in 1870. Then they went right through Alsace and Lorraine—beat the French around Metz, locked up the beaten army in that fortress, beat the ...
— The Belgians to the Front • Colonel James Fiske
... understand a joke, and did not like one, so he turned on his heel, and, leaving his friends to laugh at their comrade's ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... {209} in whom he delighted, is good: to those who have never dipped, it may give such a notion as they would not easily get elsewhere. The point of the satire is not so good. But in truth it is not easy to make pungent scoffs upon what is common sense to all mankind. Who can laugh with effect at six times nothing is nothing, as false or unintelligible? In an article intended for that undistinguishing know-0 the "general reader," there would have been no force of satire, if division by 0 had been separated from ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... wouldn't hire him to lift his hand. He thinks it's play. Not one out of ten but what prides himself that he can't be browbeat into doing a tap of work. Ask him to cut a stick of firewood and he'll arch his back and laugh at you scornful like. Don't that ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... little flour and a few potatoes, had during the last few months provided him with sustenance. It was of course a trifle, but it tipped the beam, as trifles often do, and the man who was tired of all it symbolized straightened himself with a little mirthless laugh. ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... sympathy, no writing for the sake of seeming fine, does she ever indulge in. She coins words at will, for she writes from her heart and is no purist; but we feel them to be appropriate, and requisite to express the shade of thought in question: we may laugh at them at first, but so natural and naive are they that we soon find them stealing ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... "Meteors will be convenient postmen and will not cost anything! And how we shall laugh at the postal ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... the Steyne, we had one more good laugh at our companion's credulity, who expressed great anxiety to know what the huge wheel was intended for, which is at the corner by the barrier, and throws up water for the use of the town; but which, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... startled by a sudden laugh from cousin Percy, who had for some moments been walking behind ...
— Little Prudy's Sister Susy • Sophie May
... passes on the scene changes—rosy-cheeked children cling about Aphiz's knees, and a dear, black-eyed representative of her mother clasps her tiny arms about his neck. And so, too, are Selim and Zillah blessed, and their children play and laugh together, causing an ever constant flow of ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... noted for their worship of the golden god," she replied, with a low musical laugh; "but Ralph Mainwaring's love of money is almost a monomania. He has planned and schemed to get that old piece of English property into his hands for years and years, in fact, ever since it was willed to Hugh Mainwaring ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... married life with a man devoid of all delicacy of feeling, and with a disposition as evil as his tongue was ready, had learned to endure many things which were hard to bear; yet when, after a remark from Iras evidently concerning her, she heard Alexas laugh, she was compelled to exert the utmost self-restraint to avoid telling her enemy how utterly she despised the cowardly cruelty of her conduct. But she succeeded in keeping silent. Still, the painful constraint she imposed on herself must find vent in some way, and, as the tortured anguish ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... hole, it would be more appreciated. And what thousands she has to carry it off well, or I ought to say, to carry it on well. That good-for-nothing," he added, "does not even understand his luck." There was an undertone in his voice which gave the bitter laugh with which he tried to hide it an intensity that made Bulchester look at ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... a blessed state of affairs. We have given privileges to giant corporations, which they have improved so profitably, that they now can defeat, in our Legislatures, any attempt to revoke them, and can laugh at ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... Drishna, with a short laugh and a gleaming eye. "Shoot myself and hush it up to suit your purpose. Withhold my message to save the exposures of a trial, and keep the flame from the ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... anything else. But prod a peg in this. I'm gonna make that li'l' girl plumb happy. She thinks she won't be, that she's lost the right to be. She's 'way off, I can see her perkin' up already. I got a real honest-to-God laugh ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... killed, but when so, what bewailings over the "late lamented!" what anathemas upon the villain's head who is suspected of "vulpicide"! If it were not so serious a matter, one would be inclined to laugh over Anthony Trollope's description, in the "American Senator," of the old hunting farmer who moved himself and his dinner to the other side of the table, in speechless indignation, lest he should be contaminated by the presence of a sympathiser with a man who wantonly killed ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... beat us after all, and have the laugh on your side now," said Jacob. "'Where there's a will, there's a way,' that's certain; and I assure you, that when you were making so much hay, and gathering so much litter, and building a cow-house, I had no more idea that we should have a cow ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... a place it is!' exclaimed Hilda with an uneasy laugh. She had visions of her husband discovering the utter desolation of the old castle, but at the same time she felt a sudden wild desire to see it all restored and furnished and kept up as it ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... defeat or victory! And yet, was he right? It would be pitiful if for pride's sake, if for fear of the sneers of men, he were to kill her joy and defile his own soul with her heart's blood. People would laugh at the converted celibate—was it that he feared? Had he fallen so low as that? or was the shrinking he felt not rather the dread that his fall would be a stone of stumbling to others? for in his infatuation he had assumed to be an example. Was there ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... the animals on the ship began to laugh and dance about in the rushing air, for when they looked back at the pirates' ship, they could see that it was growing smaller now, instead of bigger. The red sails were being left far, ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... was there; but I mean"—her voice ran into a little laugh with a beatific quaver in it—"I mean Colonel Flitcroft and Mr. Bradbury and Mr. Buckalew, too—we were hemmed in together when Mr. Ladew found us—and, oh, Joe, when that cowardly rush started toward you, those ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... a laugh, and though it was whimsically made it illuminated the matter under discussion very well, I thought. In fact, the whole conversation made clear to me one of the fundamental missions ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat
... on the sunny slope of Escondito. All the week Father Shannon has shriven his people, who bring clean conscience to the betterment of appetite, and the Father sets them an example. Father Shannon is rather big about the middle to accommodate the large laugh that lives in him, but a most shrewd searcher of hearts. It is reported that one derives comfort from his confessional, and I for my ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... a shrill laugh. "I should say not," said he. "I eat spiders and worms and all sorts of insects big enough to give a fellow a decent bite. But for real good eating give me a fat Meadow Mouse. I don't object to a Sparrow or some other small bird now and then, especially when I have ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... as though she reined up before the Cafe door of the As de Pique, she arrested her horse before the great Marshal who was the impersonation of authority, and put her hand up in salute, with her saucy, wayward laugh. He was the impersonation of that vast, silent, awful, irresponsible power which, under the name of the Second Empire, stretched its hand of iron across the sea, and forced the soldiers of France down into ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... what we get ever costs us more and benefits us less. But when we cease to demand more, and begin to demand better, commodities, more delicate, highly finished and harmonious, we can increase the enjoyment without adding to the cost or exhausting the store. What artist would not laugh at the suggestion that the materials of his art, his colours, clay, marble, or what else he wrought in, might fail and his art come to an end? When we are dealing with qualitative, i.e. artistic, goods, we see at once how an infinite expenditure ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... he, "I do not know where to commence. At the head? No. People will laugh, and say—'He ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... Marjorie was forced to laugh at Jerry's uncomplimentary comparison. They had no further opportunity for conversation in the busy hour that followed. Professor Harmon drilled them rigidly, his short hair positively standing erect with energy, and they ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... time! We refused absolutely, positively, to go back to our tents until we knew all about those darting shadows. We saw that those two disagreeable men had an understanding with each other and were much inclined to laugh. It was cold and our wrappers not very warm, but Mrs. Stokes and I finally sat down upon some camp stools to await events. Then Faye, who can never resist an opportunity to tease, said to me, "You had better take ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... Cordelia had been looking for any more lost people. She had asked the question merely as an absurdity. To have it taken now in this literal fashion, and evidently with good reason—Genevieve could scarcely believe the evidence of her senses. Another laugh was almost on her lips, but the real distress in Cordelia's face ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... set to work discussing Foote's wit, and Johnson confessed that, though resolved not to be pleased, he had once at a dinner-party been obliged to lay down his knife and fork, throw himself back in his chair, and fairly laugh it out—"The dog was so comical, sir: he was irresistible." Wilkes and Johnson then fell to bantering the Scotch; Burke complimented Boswell on his successful stroke of diplomacy in bringing ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... at length vanquished, and joined in the loud laugh which seemed to convulse her sister. Whereupon our hero unpinned his work, and folding it up, looked up at her with all the assurance of impudence triumphant, ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... flash Hannah's head came up, and she laughed a delicious laugh. "Poor Frieda," she said in German, "does it hurt you awfully to hear English all the time? There! There! I know how you feel. Did you talk German to ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... "'Laugh away, mates,' ses Bob; 'I know you don't mean it. The on'y thing I'm sorry for is you can't all 'ave the gold watch, and I'm sure you've worked 'ard enough for it; keeping Henery Walker's kittens for 'im, and ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... fellow gave a short laugh. He rather believed he knew where the trouble lay. And he said to himself—under his breath—that Benny Badger was even more stupid ...
— The Tale of Benny Badger • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Gervaise had nothing to laugh about. She had nothing to complain of as regards her health, thank goodness! She was growing too fat. But two men to coddle was often more than she could manage. Ah! Mon Dieu! one husband is already too much for a woman! The worst was that ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... as she went out I got up and told Clairmont to put my linen on a table. I had scarcely finished dressing when she came back with her tailor. It was a striking contrast, for he was a little shrivelled-up man, whose appearance made one laugh. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... made,—and, at last, the tremendous shock with which we were brought suddenly up against nothing at all! The Southerners show little sense of humor nowadays, but I think they must have meant to provoke a laugh at our expense, when they planted those Quaker guns. At all events, no other Rebel artillery has played upon ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Bordighera, till Bullen told me of your arrival ten minutes ago," said Lightmark, with a frank laugh. ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... had held them emotionally taut was ended. With outstretched hands Diane ran toward him, and her broken laugh betrayed the hysteria she ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... that quick, fluttering laugh of happiness, much more eloquent than words. "Jack," she said, "that night I stood with you on the bridge of the D'Estang—then I knew ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... and he had a pleasant laugh. "Oh," he said, "I'm used to it. Isn't there a village with a hotel in it, a mile ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... astronomy; to him it was really like a sudden peep into another world, for the instrument was exceptionally powerful, and the view of the sunlight on the peaks and the shadows in the valleys must have been extraordinary to him. There was nothing to laugh at; the incident shows what a great and wonderful thing it is that rocks and mountains should be whirled along over our heads. The idea has become familiarised to us by reading, but the fact is none the less marvellous. This man saw the fact first, before he had the idea, and he ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... not a bad man. He was not inherently vicious and brutal. He had normal mentality, and a more than average physique. His eyes were blue and round, shaded by long lashes, and wide apart. And there was a laugh in them, and a fund of humour behind. The brow and general features were good, the mouth and lips sweet, though already developing a harsh twist. The chin was weak, but not too weak; I have seen men sitting in ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... somebody, to defy everybody, to break laws, dishes, heads,—anything in fact that would break with a crash! And then at last, over the hills and far away, with all the outraged world at her heels, to run! And run! And run! And run! And run! And laugh! Till her feet raveled out! And her lungs burst! And there was nothing more left ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... they turned toward the lighted building. It was a short, nervous laugh, and with it he gave a curious sidewise glance at ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... very hard for three days. The thing that made me laugh most was the unexpected experience of enduring the discomfiture of fame. Chautauqua is a constricted community; and any one who lectures there becomes, by that very fact, a famous person in this little ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... swarm up and down the promenade. They chat and laugh in all manner of voices, greet each other, smile, nod, turn around, shout. Cigar smoke and ladies' veils flutter in the air; a kaleidoscopic confusion of light gloves and handkerchiefs, of bobbing hats and swinging canes, glides down the street along which ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... Men laugh at bards who live in clouds— The clouds beneath me gather now, Or gliding slow in solemn crowds, Or singly, touched with sunny glow, Like mystic shapes in snowy shrouds, Or lucid ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... whom he was best acquainted, his reflections on their old age, in all their harrowing pathos, shall remain in the original for me. Horace has disgraced himself to something the same tune; but what Horace throws out with an ill-favoured laugh, Villon dwells on with an ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... because Esther's expressive face could never hide a great secret. Paul was on the point of asking what it was when his eye was attracted by a commotion going on behind the door of a cedar linen closet at the end of the hall. There was a sudden wrenching and tearing of cloth, then a great Jovian sized laugh, the door burst open and a huge figure stepped out into the hall where ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... of the trail, and so, reluctantly, she parted from her new and wonderful friend. But before she left him she darted to the side of a trusty warrior and gave a passionate command, then started swiftly back on the long wood path leading to Werewocomoco. The next night no one could make her laugh or join in the dances around the big fire, nor did she show any likeness to the light-hearted, romping, singing little tomboy, ringleader among her playmates. Pocahontas had lost a comrade, and ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... satisfaction to you to have conferred such a blessing on mankind," said Harry, inclined to laugh at ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... turned to go back to her painting, she caught a glance of her reflection in the glass. After looking at it a moment with a quizzical expression, she suddenly burst into a merry laugh, saying: "I did not know you had turned Bible teacher. Well, well, it was funny, but I could not help it, that she went away with the wrong impression of me, for she would not listen to ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... for, mind you, I am a child of the Covenanters - whom I do not love, but they are mine after all, my father's and my mother's - and they had their merits too, and their ugly beauties, and grotesque heroisms, that I love them for, the while I laugh at them; but in their name and mine do what you think right, and let the world fall. That is the privilege and the duty of private persons; and I shall think the more of you at the greater distance, because you keep a promise to your fellow-man, your helper and creditor in life, by just so much ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... me tell you I made up my mind about your father in five. La, how Merriman will laugh when he hears 'twas Mr. Burke gave ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... heard your voice I said, 'That is good music to the ear of a woman.' When I saw your eye I said, 'There is danger to the heart of a woman.' When I saw your beard I said, 'There is a great growth from the strength of a man.' When you spoke to me and gave me your laugh I said, 'Ah, what a place that would be for a woman to be seated, driving the roads of the country on a cart laden with provisions beside one so much to the female liking.' But my sick brother waits, and now I go to do that which may make away with the goodness of ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... gave a caw which he intended to be a sympathetic one, but there was a little falter in it, which, had he been a human being instead of a bird, might have been mistaken for a smothered laugh. The birds now rose on the wing, and together flew homewards. While passing the lake a boat and the sound of oars arrested their attention. To watch it as it went by, they settled on the lowest branch of an old beech-tree, which grew at the edge of the lake, and spread ...
— What the Blackbird said - A story in four chirps • Mrs. Frederick Locker
... surely he must be Chinese; he was never certain himself until Czecho-Slovak was invented, and he plumped for that. He has the degree of Master of Arts; what arts I don't know; probably the black ones. His inner knowledge of the human species seems to give him plenty to laugh at. He notices everything, forgets nothing, and there is never a weakness in a man but he is on to it. He made up his mind that those secret instructions were passing and set about to find how they passed and what they were. He was too lazy to begin at the beginning, so he began at the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... all very well," said the Monkey, "to laugh at my offspring, but you go into any gallery of antique sculpture and look at the statues and busts of the fellows ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... for the island to which we are now going. We might consult Ephraim. It would be hardly fair to impose any sort of name on his country," suggested George, with a good humored laugh. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... the home of one of their number to read the Lesson-Sermon. Meeting one of them one day, I asked if unbelievers could come to their meetings. She said that they could if they wanted to. I went, expecting them to do something that I could laugh at when telling my friends about it. How surprised I was to find out that they didn't do anything but read the Bible and another book which they called Science and Health. I still thought it all foolishness, but resolved to go to their meetings until I found out all they believed. ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... laugh. It seemed a little uncanny to me, and I listened to her breathlessly. I did not quite like it, and thought it better not to keep her mind on the subject, so we drifted on to another subject, and Lucy was like her old self ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... had been accepted, "that your reverence will think me the oddest person in the world, at a moment like the present, to think of writing to a friend; but I can't help sending you a line or two to say that I have been made a 'happy man'.... Never laugh again at the union of 2 soles (i.e., two flats); at any rate, don't expect me to join in the guffaw." And so Miss Annie Eaton became Mrs. John Leech, the object of her husband's devotion and of his inspired pencil. It is true that his young ladies and his servants are all much of the same type; ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... that passage, 'The poor ye have always with you, but Me ye have not always.' Now, Mr. Montague you have always with you, but me you have not always." So we resumed our conversation together, and kept up a brief interchange of persiflage which made us both laugh very much, and in which he showed a very ready use of English language for ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... escaping from her uncle's house, from Venice, to join her lot with a wandering singer's? That was still greater nonsense, he thought. Then what could come of it all but a cruel parting and a heartache, since this was real love and could not end in a laugh, like the lighter sort he had known so well? She was a mere child yet, she would forget in a few weeks; and he was a grown man, who had seen the world, and could doubtless forget if he chose, provided there were never anything to be forgotten ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... I, I have had plenty of despatches, and have expended enough sympathy, for one night. I have been very mysteriously affected,—how, I can't exactly tell. But who will ever believe my evening's adventure? Who will not laugh at my pretended discovery? Even my cousin Moses will be incredulous. I shall be at least looked upon as a medium, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... but a poor compliment to say so. One would think the young people were afraid to laugh and talk before their fathers and mothers. I really felt the other night as if we were a party of children turned into the nursery to play, and eat sugar-plums together, and make as much noise as we pleased, without disturbing our elders. It is a custom that appears ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... continued, "that people aren't nearly as good now as they were in the old times, when Mr. McAlpine used to come here. He says we young folks have too good a time." She gave a little half-apologetic laugh. ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... him: they laughed at the German navy, at Zeppelins, at subs and at poison gas, and they paid no attention to Sir William Ramsay for kicking against American cotton going into Germany to make explosives to be used against us. Now they are having a great laugh at Pemberton Billings because he says the air service is rotten and advocates the building of thousands of aeroplanes wherewith to swamp the Germans with bombs. When he talks in Parliament, they get up and walk out of the house. That is typical of the English people as a race; they ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... dishes the like of these. Also do thou make of his guts strings for bows and of his gullet a conduit for the terrace-roof and of his skin a tray-cloth and of his plumage cushions and pillows." Now when the Fowl-let heard these words (and he was still in the Fowler's hand), he laughed a laugh of sorrow and cried, "Woe to thee, O Birder, whither be wended thy wits and thine understanding? Art Jinn-mad or wine-drunken? Art age-foolish or asleep? Art heavy-minded or remiss in thought? Indeed ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... easy Motion, the Volubility of your Discourse, the Suddenness of your Laugh, the Management of your Snuff-Box, with the Whiteness of your Hands and Teeth (which have justly gained You the Envy of the most polite part of the Male World, and the Love of the greatest Beauties in the Female) are intirely to be ascribed to your own personal ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... an itch is an awful feeling; why do you want him to have that?" Patricia replied, sinking into obscurity at the laugh which her definition evoked. ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... closely hand and heart, And only the Master who knoweth all, Could tell the two apart. Then the Church sat down at her ease and said, 'I am rich, and in goods increased; I have need of nothing, and naught to do But to laugh and dance and feast.' The sly World heard her, and laughed in his sleeve, And mockingly said aside, 'The Church is fallen—the beautiful Church— And her shame is her ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... a human soul through its commonplace nervous perturbations, still more through its spiritual humiliations, there is danger that we shall feel a certain contempt for the subject of such weakness. It is easy to laugh at the erring impulses of a young girl; but you who remember when , only fifteen years old, untouched by passion, unsullied in name, was found in the shallow brook where she had sternly and surely ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the old house thou runnest everywhere, Bringing a breath of folly and fresh air. Ready to make a treasure of each toy, Or break them all in discontented mood; Fearless of Fate, Yet strangely fearful of a comrade's laugh; Reckless and timid, hard and sensitive; In talk a rebel, full of mocking chaff, At heart devout conservative; In love with love, yet hating to be kissed; Inveterate optimist, And judge severe, In reason cloudy but in feeling clear; Keen critic, ardent hero-worshipper, Impatient ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... and everyone on the stage was visibly concerned except Miss Anthony herself, who calmly observed, by way of apology for a trifling difficulty with her voice, that she was not accustomed to speak in public, at which a laugh went round.... Her silvery hair was parted in the middle and brushed down over her ears. Her eyes have the deep-set appearance which is characteristic of elderly people who have been hard mental laborers, but on the whole she did not look all her years, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... of ineffable scorn spread over Mrs. Jerrold's handsome face, while a low, contemptuous laugh from her ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... both with myself and with Karl Ivanitch, I wanted to laugh and to cry at the same time, for my ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... Everybody joined in the laugh with a feeling of indescribable relief. Facetious old Hyams had gone near scoring one. Hannah smilingly plucked off the glittering bauble from her finger and slid it on to Leah's. Hyams alone remained grave. "Laugh away!" he said. "You will soon ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... success; for serious men, the Epicurean Lucretius preached with the full accents of heartfelt conviction and of holy zeal against the Stoical faith in the gods and providence and the Stoical doctrine of the immortality of the soul; for the great public ready to laugh, the Cynic Varro hit the mark still more sharply with the flying darts of his extensively- read satires. While thus the ablest men of the older generation made war on the Stoa, the younger generation again, such as Catullus, stood in no inward relation to it at all, and ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... was!" she said, with a low musical laugh; "and how you surprised me the next morning by your knowledge of my fears, and then set them all at rest, like the dear, kind father that you were and ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... one of his well-known roars of laughter—a laugh famous throughout the county, a laugh described by his admirers as "Homeric," by his enemies as "ear-splitting." There was, however, enemies or no enemies, something sympathetic in that laugh, something boyish ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... pile of second-rate goods and made some light, frivolous remark about their beautiful home. She was ready to laugh off in such a manner all her serious thoughts. Nell said nothing. She was a girl of fourteen, with all of a girl's love of beautiful things. She wanted a pretty home, with dainty furnishings and bright colors. Ever since she had promised to be Austin's housekeeper ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... long to wait. The man called Rhamda had asked for fifteen minutes. At the stroke of the second the front door re-opened. Someone was laughing; a melodious enchanting laugh and feminine. A woman was speaking. And then there were two forms in the doorway. A man and a woman. The man was Rhamda Avec, tall, immaculate, black clad and distinguished. The woman, Jerome was not certain that she was the same who opened the ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... boyish thoughtlessness which caused Ham to laugh at his father, as boys will do when surrounding a drunken rustic in the street and making sport of him. He was truly offended by his father's sin and thought himself to be more righteous, holy and religious than his father. Noah's deed was an offense not only in appearance, but in very truth, since ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... joking; I am as serious as possible," said the Rector, with a provoking little inward laugh. "You are as bad as Elinor. She has been wanting me to go and lecture Brooke; and I have reminded her that her friends had a very poor opinion of the match she made when ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... points of the question. They content themselves with exposing some of the crimes and follies to which public commotions necessarily give birth. They bewail the unmerited fate of Strafford. They execrate the lawless violence of the army. They laugh at the Scriptural names of the preachers. Major-generals fleecing their districts; soldiers revelling on the spoils of a ruined peasantry; upstarts, enriched by the public plunder, taking possession of the hospitable firesides and hereditary trees of the old gentry; boys ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... his little flock towards the exit his voice came floating back. "Talking wanton nonsense.... Any professional archaeologist would laugh, ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... other rustics would do at home. Our hats removed, the results of Old Colonial's tonsorial operations are made fully apparent. Our hostess surveys us with a puzzled air. I think she is struggling with a desire to laugh at the quaint simplicity of the communal wardrobe of our shanty, as it is now displayed on ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... is told in a subsequent letter: "Sister Catharine returned last night. She saw Victoria and, attacking her on the marriage question, got such a black eye as filled her with horror and amazement. I had to laugh inwardly at her relation of the interview and am now waiting for her to ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... man, as perhaps you have by this time perceived, and you will not, therefore, be surprised to know that I read my last article on the carpet to my wife and the girls before I sent it to the "Atlantic," and we had a hearty laugh over it together. My wife and the girls, in fact, felt that they could afford to laugh, for they had carried their point, their reproach among women was taken away, they had become like other folks. Like other folks they had a parlor, an undeniable best ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... darn sight cuter fellow than I am to direct you to him at present," the man said with a laugh. "Straight Harry went away from here three months ago, and he might be just anywhere now. He may be grubbing away in a mine, he may be hunting and trapping, or he may have been wiped out by the Indians. I ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... the answer of a good conscience. The wicked fears and flees from her; he delights to escape from himself; his anxious eyes look around him for some object of diversion; without bitter satire and rude mockery he would always be sorrowful; the scornful laugh is his one pleasure. Not so the just man, who finds his peace within himself; there is joy not malice in his laughter, a joy which springs from his own heart; he is as cheerful alone as in company, his satisfaction does not depend ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... which, of all people in the world, I must tell you. Mrs. Fanning has a sister, and the dear little sister and I managed to fall in love with one another in the most absurd manner after seeing one another—I will not tell you how few times, lest you should laugh. Do you remember how you used to talk to me about choosing a wife? Well, I think that my choice would justify even your fastidiousness...I think you will understand how happy her love ought to and does make me. I fear ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... 27th, the sound of guns announced the arrival of Grant, and Speke hurried off to meet his friend, who was now able to limp about a little, and to laugh over the accounts he ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... laugh. Still, it won't matter much if you do laugh; they'd think it was in your sleep. Only take care you don't really fall asleep when they put out ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... Sebastian Early is far too intricate a person to be dismissed, as Mrs. Lenox disposed of him, with a phrase and a laugh. In early life, it is true, he had seemed a commonplace and insignificant young man. His first appearance before the public was as the inventor of a hook-and-eye, but his hook-and-eye had such unusual merits that it seemed, ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... go father than I do, Caleb," said the Master, drowning a certain degree of consciousness in a forced laugh; "you are for marrying me into a family that you will nto allow me to visit, how this? and you look as pale as ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... into a brief laugh. They had reached the stile and he faced round with extended hand. "After that—good-bye!" he said. "With your permission we'll keep this encounter to ourselves. But you certainly are a rousing evangelist. When you mount the padre's pulpit I'll ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... that she was never seen at her toilette. I was in advance of the hour fixed for the most important visitors, and we talked with the same liberty as of yore. I learnt from her many details, and the opinion of the King and of Madame de Maintenon upon many people. We often used to laugh in concert at the truckling to her of persons the most considerable, and of the disdain they drew upon themselves, although she did not testify it to them. We laughed too at the falsehood of others, who ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... after him sorrowfully. She had entreated him, over and over again—not as earnestly as she might, perhaps—to give up his dangerous and lawless occupation, and with a laugh he had told her that each trip should be his last. Did it never occur to him how his promise might be fulfilled? It did to Susan; and often and often she had trembled at the thought. She had been brought ...
— The Ferryman of Brill - and other stories • William H. G. Kingston
... in solitude, she despises the society she cannot do without. "Men and women appear to me puppets who go, come, talk, laugh, without thinking, without reflecting, without feeling," she writes. She confesses that she has a thousand troubles in assembling a choice company of people who bore her to death. "One sees only masks, one ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... experimentalize with one, he would have been nearer the truth of his own case. He had experimented on humanity in the person of the son he loved as his life, and at once, when the experiment appeared to have failed, all humanity's failings fell on the shoulders of his son. Richard's parting laugh in the train—it was explicable now: it sounded in his ears like the mockery of this base nature of ours at every endeavour to exalt and chasten it. The young man had plotted this. From step to step Sir Austin traced the plot. The curious mask he had worn since his illness; the selection ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... over his heart carefully, and avoid giving any cause of complaint in future. "Watch that you may pray, and pray that you may be safe," were words that floated in his mind all the morning as he sat hammering shoe soles; and he would not laugh at any joke of Jem Taylor's against his master, although for some time past he had enjoyed hearing ...
— Watch—Work—Wait - Or, The Orphan's Victory • Sarah A. Myers
... reservations with regard to Dickens. He could not easily forgive any one who made him laugh immoderately. The first reading of "Dr. Marigold" in Boston was an exciting occasion, and Emerson was invited to "assist." After the reading he sat talking until a very late hour, for he was taken by surprise ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields |
