"Mirth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by the Booksellers, from whom he derived his chief support. It was the misfortune of our author to appear on the stage of the world, when fears, and jealousies had soured the tempers of men, and politics, and polemics, had almost driven mirth and good nature out of the nation: so that the careless gay humour, and negligent chearful wit, which in former days of tranquility, would have recommended him to the conversation of princes, was, in a gloomy period, lost upon a people ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... the end of the term for which he had contracted with the devil. For two or three years before it expired his character gradually altered. He became subject to fits of despondency, was no longer susceptible of mirth and amusement, and reflected with bitter agony on the close in which the whole must terminate. He assembled his friends together at a grand entertainment, and when it was over, addressed them, telling them that this ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... duetifull thoughts (euen from their infancie) haue been retayners to your glorie. Now at last I haue enforst an opportunitie to plead my deuoted minde. All that in this phantasticall Treatise I can promise, is some reasonable conueyance of historie, & varietie of mirth. By diuers of my good frends haue I been dealt with to employ my dul pen in this kinde, it being a cleane different vaine from other my former courses of writing. How wel or ill I haue done in it, ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... move freely and the invisible manifest itself on the perpetual rocks, the towering trees, the still green fields, and the vast acres of the sea, one could hear the dreaming prophet proclaim the burden of the Lord; and the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the mill-stones and the light of the candle mattered not. But the kingdom of all the worlds—the worlds and habitations not made with hands—rose up as the real theatre ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... his uncomfortable situation, paid not the slightest attention to our mirth; but stooping down, drew out his long rifle—from where he had secured it under the hanging skin—and after having examined the piece, to see that no harm had come to it, he laid it gently across the horns of the bull. Then taking the bowie from his belt, he quietly proceeded with the skinning ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... morning's; Cain, self-sacrificed On crime's first altar: legends wise as truth, And truth in legends deep embalmed and spiced; The stars that saw the starlike eyes of Ruth, The grave that heard the clarion call of Christ. And higher than sorrow and mirth The heavenly song of earth Sprang, in such notes as might have well sufficed To still the storms of time And sin's contentious clime With peace renewed of life reparadised: Earth, scarred not yet with temporal scars; Goddess of gods, our ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... and costliness. The rarest dishes and the costliest wines in every variety were put before us. I need not say that in such a party everything was conducted with the highest decorum. No noise, no boisterous mirth, no loud talking, but a quiet cheerfulness and perfect ease characterized the ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... does not often happen, except a short time during incubation; they either appear in pairs or in families; but even this last appearance is as alarming to our grandmothers. The following distich shows what each forbodes:—'One sorrow, two mirth, three a wedding, four death.' This bird, indeed, appears to have taken the same place with us, as an omen of evil, that the owl had amongst the ancients. The nurse is often heard to declare that she has lost all ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... evening mass in the church of St. Peter at Tabaria. The Greek priests of Nazareth visit their chapel of Mount Tabor on the festival of the Virgin, on which occasion several thousand pilgrims repair to the mountain, where they pass the night under tents with their families, in mirth and feasting. ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... time they entered Tiverton Street, the vestry was full of chattering groups. Heman was the last to arrive. He made a long job of covering the horse, inside the shed, resolved that nothing should tempt him to face the general mirth at the Widder's entrance. For he could not deceive himself as to the world's amused estimate of her guardianship and his submission. He had even withdrawn from the School Board, where he had once been proud to figure, because, entering the schoolroom one day at recess, he ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... At this instant an irate bumble-bee darted in, and Ella, in a spasmodic effort of self-defence, threw the spoon at it, and both went flying out of the window. The girl sat down half-crying, half-laughing in her vexation, while Aun' Sheba shook with mirth in all ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... and humor. Often misunderstood, misrepresented, and misinterpreted, they are nevertheless universally admitted to be racial traits, and for an excellent reason. Other nations exhibit these qualities in their literature, and Ireland herself is rich in writers who have furnished food for mirth. But her special pre-eminence resides in the possession of what, to adapt a famous phrase, may be called an anima naturaliter jocosa. Irish wit and Irish humor are a national inheritance. They are inherent in the race as a whole, ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... explosive in his manifestations of mirth, but his laughter, in reply to this statement, was almost uproarious. And the State Department was as good as its word. It immediately forgot all the elaborate "notes" and "protests" which it had been addressing to Great Britain. It ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... when sitting in their apartment, Gudrun said: "Be cheerful, Brynhild! What is it that prevents thy mirth?" Brynhild answered: "Malice drives thee to this; for thou hast a cruel heart." "Judge not so," said Gudrun. Brynhild continued: "Ask about that only which is better for thee to know; that is more befitting women of high degree. It is good, ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... occurred twenty-four hours later. The Pope's remains were removed to the Chapel of Santa Maria delle Febbre by six bearers who laughed and jested at the expense of the poor corpse, which was in case to provoke the coarse mirth of the lower classes of an age which, setting no value upon human life, knew no respect for death. By virtue of the malady that had killed him, of his plethoric habit of body, and of the sweltering August heat, the corpse was decomposing ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... my hopes I will: in the mean time, with a feigned mirth 'tis fit we gild our faces; the truth is, that we may smile in earnest, when we look upon the Englishman, and think how we ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... de Penthievre Indiaman, off the part of Corunna, and carried her into Cadiz. The prize was estimated worth two hundred thousand pounds, and immediate application was made by France to the court of Spain for restitution, while the proprietors of the Anti-gallican were squandering in mirth, festivity, and riot, the imaginary wealth so easily and unexpectedly acquired. Such were the remonstrances made to his catholic majesty with respect to the illegality of the prize, which the French East India company asserted was taken within shot of a neutral port, that the Penthievre was ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Virgin Mary sitting above the rose, in the centre of an intense redness of light, like another dawn. Thousands of angels were hanging buoyant around her, each having its own distinct splendour and adornment, and all were singing, and expressing heavenly mirth; and she smiled on them with such loveliness, that joy was in the eyes ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... his lips to Mother Earth, and died. The cranes screamed again, circling the wood, then in a long line sailed southward through the blue air until they might neither be heard nor seen. The robbers stared after them. They laughed, but without mirth. Then, stooping to the body of Ibycus, they would have rifled it when, hearing a sudden sound of men's voices entering the wood, they ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... I stayed two days. There was a stone floor and bare, whitewashed walls; but there was a rosebush climbing over the door, and within health and sunny temper that made mirth with a meal of herbs, and a tenderness that touched to poetry ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... works which he had undertaken at Dunkirk: and he carried the queen and the whole court along with him. While he remained on the opposite shore, the duchess of Orleans went over to England; and Charles met her at Dover, where they passed ten days together in great mirth and festivity. By her artifices and caresses, she prevailed on Charles to relinquish the most settled maxims of honor and policy, and to finish his engagements with Lewis for the destruction of Holland, as well as for the subsequent ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... Balaam is silent!" cried the bee-hunter, catching his breath after a repeated burst of noisy mirth, that might possibly have added to the panic of the buffaloes by its vociferation. "The man is as completely dumb-founded, as if a swarm of young bees had settled on the end of his tongue, and he not willing to speak, for fear of ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... plod amid serious things that you feel it shame to give yourself up even for a few short moments to mirth and joyousness in the land of Fancy; you who think that life hath nought to do with innocent laughter that can harm no one; these pages are not for you. Clap to the leaves and go no farther than this, for I tell ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... aback. In the case of the pig, for instance, whose last outcry had now passed into stillness, he had considered the chapter as finally closed. Whatever innocent mirth the holidays might hold in store for Edward, that particular pig, at least, would not be a contributor. And now he was given to understand that the situation had not materially changed! He would have to revise his ideas, it seemed. Sitting ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... Watkins, when the explosion of mirth, consequent on this practical jest, had subsided, 'we'll be off ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... law and a lasting peace in Asia, did not altogether forget pleasure and mirth, but, during his residence at Ephesus, gratified the cities with sports, festival triumphs, wrestling games and single combats of gladiators. And they, in requital, instituted others, called Lucullean games, in honor to him, thus manifesting their love to him, which was ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... Naylor, "the carpet!" Fresh moans of mirth shook the table; for having tasted the wine of laughter, all wanted as much more as they could get. When Scruff and his traces were effaced, Herr Paul took a ladle in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... and seauen, so perfectly and sweetely counterfeited with liuelie motions, their vestures whisking vp and flying abroad, that the workman could not be accused of any imperfection, but that one had not a liuely voyce to expresse their mirth, and the other brinish teares to manifest their sorrow: the said daunce was in fashion of two Semicircles, with a ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... passenger comes edgin' into the Red Light. Bein' it's four o'clock in the mornin', the tenderfoot seems amazed at sech activities as faro-bank, an' high-ball, said devices bein' in full career; to say nothin' of the Dance Hall, which 'Temple of Mirth,' as Hamilton who is proprietor tharof names it, is whoopin' ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... not singular to find an harlequin at the court of Attila? Yet such is the origin of these buffoons. The colour of the black slaves, the strangeness of their face and manners, caused them to be sought after as excellent ministers of mirth; to complete the singularity, Zercho asks his wife at the hands of Attila, closely paralleling Harlequin ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 70, March 1, 1851 • Various
... taken by surprise at the novelty and artistic perfection of the performance. His usual calm had quite broken down under it; he had laughed as if he might crumble to pieces, his face wearing an expression of absolute pain; indeed, the scene was so strange that it was mirth-provoking to those who were near. But when we returned home he questioned and pondered much upon Dickens himself. Finally he said: "I am afraid he has too much talent for his genius; it is a fearful locomotive to which he is bound, and he can never be freed from it nor set ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... in the parlour, gave vent to his feelings in a wild but silent hornpipe. He cannoned against the table at last, and, subsiding into an easy-chair, crammed his handkerchief to his mouth and gave way to suppressed mirth. ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... silences into a croon; Soon Up from the marshes a fall of the plover! Out from the cover A flurry of quail! Down from the height where the slow hawks hover, The thin far ghost of a hail! And near, and near, Throbbing and tingling,— With a human cheer In the earth-song mingling,— Mirth and carousal, Wooing, espousal, Clinking of glasses And laughter of lasses— And the wind in the garden stoops down as it passes To play with the hair Of the loveliest there, And the wander-lust catches the will ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... and selfishness, in which woman herself acts a conspicuous part. Look at society—the rich eating up the poor; the poor stabbing at the rich; fashion playing in the halls of gilded sensualism; folly dancing to the tune of ignorant mirth; intemperance gloating over its roast beef, or whisky-jug, brandy punch, champagne bottle, bearing thousands upon thousands down to the grave of ignominy, sensualism, and drunkenness. Is there not a need of more vigorous virtue in woman? Is there not a call for a more active ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... "and, if you will allow me to say so, handsomer, every day. Your trip to the Eastern Shore last spring did you no end of good," and the young attorney crooked his long neck and elevated his eyebrows and the corners of his mouth in the effort to give to his sinuous body a semblance of mirth. ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... there were alert girls to make this final quiet appeal for justice. They were serious, dignified. There was no jeering, no mirth on the part of the men at the novelty of this campaign—nothing to make ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... the mirth, and so joyful were all, that the followers of the prince and the maids of the princess danced together, ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... Full of humour, boisterous, but delicate,—of wit withering and scorching, yet combined with a pathos cool as morning dew,—of satire ponderous as the mace of Richard, yet keen as the scymitar of Saladin.... A work full of "mountain-mirth," mischievous as Puck and lightsome as Ariel.... We know not whether to admire most the genial, fresh, and discursive concinnity of the author, or his playful fancy, weird imagination, and compass of style, at once both objective and subjective.... We might indulge in some criticisms, ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... the Admiral. 'And even then I was fit for any drawing-room. I should like you to tell me how many fathers, lay and clerical, go upstairs every day with a face like a lobster and cod's eyes - and are dull, upon the back of it - not even mirth for the money! No, if that's what she runs for, all I say is, let ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in Spain, and was now four and twenty; but few would have imagined him that age, so frank and free and full of thoughtless mirth and hasty impulse was his character. These last fifteen months, however, a shadow seemed to have fallen over him, not deep enough to create remark, but felt by himself. His feelings, always ardent, had been all excited, and were all concentrated, on a subject so wrapt in mystery, ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... with his quick mirth and then laughed outright—the throaty, infectious laugh of his race. The coronel's eyes twinkled. And when Tim fished a damp cigarette from his shirt, nonchalantly scraped a match on his host's table, blew a cloud of smoke, and sprawled ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... Labour's Lost, is the praise or apology of love spoken by Biron in blank verse. This is worthy of Marlowe for dignity and sweetness, but has also the grace of a light and radiant fancy enamoured of itself, begotten between thought and mirth, a child-god with grave lips and laughing eyes, whose inspiration is nothing akin to Marlowe's. In this as in the overture of the play and in its closing scene, but especially in the noble passage which winds up for a year the courtship of Biron and Rosaline, the spirit which informs the speech ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... shall divine the thoughts, hopes, passions and desires animating its many various and component entities? Moreover, though composed of many different souls, it may yet possess but one in common, to be swayed to mirth and anger, lifted to a reverent ecstasy or fired to bloody vengeance and merciless destruction. What is there can give any just conception ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... speaking from one side of his mouth, "you and me wouldn't jibe." He giggled with a feeble attempt at mirth. "But your sister, she's a nice little gal. And ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... hours the wine party in Blake's large ground-floor rooms was kept up with a wild, reckless mirth, in keeping with the host's temper. Blake was on his mettle. He had asked every man with whom he had a speaking acquaintance, as if he wished to face out his disaster at once to the whole world. Many of the men came feeling uncomfortable, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... clean-fingered, and beautiful style of the trade, a thousand times more provoking than the clumsy, old-fashioned, honest kind of roguery that used to be in fashion, when folk were not too large for innocent mirth, and not too wise for enjoying what was liked by their ancestors. The people cry improvement—so do we; but we cherish a theory that has no charm, in these days of absolute faith in politics and parliament for the regeneration of man, that the true good of society—that is, the improvement of ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... for many days round Ragnor's Towers, Life flowed in mirth away. "Let feast and song," Sir Harold said, "have free unbounded sway; For grief and gloom have lorded here too long. Let joy now rule the day and strew her path ...
— Rowena & Harold - A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst • Wm. Stephen Pryer
... paper impressed us as something supernatural, by reason of its mighty size and by the broad seal of the State affixed thereto; and when the minister read therefrom, "By his Excellency, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a Proclamation," our mirth was with difficulty repressed by admonitory glances from our sympathetic elders. Then, after a solemn enumeration of the benefits which the Commonwealth had that year received at the hands of Divine Providence, came at last the naming of the eventful day, and, at the end of all, the ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... lived, would Graham Thornton's conscience be at rest. Amid all the pomp of his bridal day—at the hour when, resplendent with beauty, Helen stood by his side at the holy altar, and breathed the vows which made her his forever—amid the gay festivities which followed, and the noisy mirth which for days pervaded his home, there was ever a still, small voice which whispered to him of the great wrong he had done to Maggie Lee, who never again was ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... the water. Shubin, Insarov, and Bersenyev raced each other over the grass. They succeeded in finding a large painted boat and two boatmen, and beckoned to the ladies. The ladies stepped into the boat; Uvar Ivanovitch cautiously lowered himself into it after them. Great was the mirth while he got in and took his seat. 'Look out, master, don't drown us,' observed one of the boatmen, a snubnosed young fellow in a gay print shirt. 'Get along, you swell!' said Uvar Ivanovitch. The boat pushed off. The young men took up the oars, but Insarov was the oniy one of ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... meadows in the shade of ancient elms, the College Gate, its pillars so artfully, invitingly rounded by William of Wykeham, drew us in again. We were stirred by William Byrd's "Praise our Lord, all ye Gentiles," and taken to Oxford by Gibbons's "What is our life? A play of passion. Our mirth? The music of division." Purcell recalled our gracious English landscape, and English life, "When Myra sings we seek the enchanting sound"; and Thomas Morley with "Now is the month of maying." Then there was rollicking Tom Bateson, of Dublin, with his alluring "Come follow me, fair ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... of the candle we surveyed each other, and we were objects for mirth. Hotchkiss was taking off his sodden shoes and preparing to make himself comfortable, while I hung my muddy raincoat over the ghost in the corner. Thus habited, he presented a rakish but ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... mirth indecent, his manner out of keeping with the occasion, and the whole situation atrocious. But I saw he was about to leave, and said nothing; but I did not drink his toast. When he was gone, I broke his glass by flinging it at my own reflection, in a glass I had bought to mirror ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... mirth again overran Polixena's face. "Oh, sir, you must pardon my poor girl's mistake. She heard you speaking English, and—and—I had told her to hand the letter to the handsomest foreigner in the church." Tony bowed again, more profoundly. "The English Ambassador," ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... hap to see. This silly swain (and silly swains Are men of meanest grace): Had yet the grace (O gracious gift!) To hap on such a face. He pity cried, and pity came And pitied so his pain, As dying would not let him die But gave him life again. For joy whereof he made such mirth As all the woods did ring; And Pan with all his swains came forth To hear the shepherd sing; But such a song sung never was, Nor shall be sung again, Of Phyllida the shepherds' queen, And Corydon the swain. Fair Phyllis is the shepherds' queen, (Was never such a queen as she,) And Corydon her only ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... ——'s match is a subject of mirth, She considered the matter full well, And wisely preferred leading one ape on earth To perhaps a whole dozen ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... And mirth grew higher, "Give me rest and shelter Beside your fire, And I will give you Your ...
— Legends and Lyrics: Second Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... who can make us laugh. Who can make us forget for a time, In the sparkling mirth of a paragraph, Or a bit of ridiculous rime, The burden of care that is carried each day, The thoughts that awaken a sigh, The sorrows that threaten to darken our way, God bless ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara
... is in carriage, but not in gig. My second is in false, but not in wig. My third is in laughter, but not in mirth. My fourth is in girdle, but not in girth. My fifth is in sad, but not in merry. My sixth is in pear, and also in ...
— Harper's Young People, March 2, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... neighbour and said something in her ear, at which both laughed. Evidently I was the cause of their mirth, and my embarrassment increased. At that time I had as mistress a very affectionate and sentimental little person, whose sentiment and whose melancholy letters amused me greatly. I realized the pain I must have given her by what I now experienced, and for five minutes ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... disposition. But Sulla at first used his fortune with moderation and like a citizen of a free state, and he got the reputation of being a leader who, though attached to the aristocratical party, still regarded the interests of the people; besides this, he was from his youth fond of mirth, and so soft to pity as to be easily moved to tears. It was not without reason, then, that his subsequent conduct fixed on the possession of great power the imputation that it does not let men's tempers abide by their original habits, but makes them violent, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... her pencil, or stealing away to develop some happy fancy or fresh thought on which her mind had been working for days. And how pleasant her talk. How she would dart off sometimes from the line of the gravest theme into some quaint, mirth-provoking conceit. How many odd things she had seen; of how many strange adventures she had partaken, and how graphically and charmingly she told them. With what relish she would bring forth some good thing ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... portions of life. Re-creation is making over, that is, replacing the waste of tissue, brain-power, and physical and mental energy occasioned by hard work. Temperance permits the most generous indulgence of sport, mirth, and gayety that can be claimed as needful or conducive to this essential use, but ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... drove in the winter evenings up from the town and back again. Tables were spread and decked with glass and flowers, the rooms were brightly lit, and the wine was good. And sometimes in the long moonlit nights respectable citizens would be awakened by noisy mirth in the streets of the little town, and, going to the window in their night-shirts, would see sleighs come galloping down, with a jangle of bells, full of laughing, singing young people, returning from some excursion far up in the hills, where there had been feasting and dancing. ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... think it is a most ridiculous practice," he said, and his heart lost none of its courage. Beverly looked at him almost pathetically. She knew that behind the curtain two young women were enjoying her discomfiture. Something told her that they were stifling their mirth with dainty ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... Aillinn, who was King Lugaid's heir. Their love was never drowned in care Of this or that thing, nor grew cold Because their bodies had grown old; Being forbid to marry on earth They blossomed to immortal mirth. ...
— In The Seven Woods - Being Poems Chiefly of the Irish Heroic Age • William Butler (W.B.) Yeats
... weep. So that Lanyard, who refused to weep in public, could merely gape in speechless and transfixed rapture. And perhaps this was fortunate; otherwise Monk must have seen that his idiotic secret was out, the sport of ribald mirth, and the situation must have been precipitated with a vengeance and an outcome impossible to predict. As it was, absorbed in his inner torment, Monk was insensible to the peril that threatened his stilted but precious dignity, which he proceeded to parade, as it were underlining ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... late to overtake a liberating idea once it gets free. Tolstoi tells of Batenkoff, the Russian nihilist, that after he was seized and confined in his cell he was heard to laugh loudly; and, when they asked him the cause of his mirth, he said that he could not fail to be amused at the absurdity of the situation. "They have caught me," he said, "and shut me up here; but my ideas are out yonder in the streets and in the fields, absolutely free. They cannot overtake them." It was already too late, twenty ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... views were no doubt serious enough; but they were overwhelmed and overpowered by a temperament which found cause for laughter in almost every person and passing event, and was the cause of innocent mirth ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... "Now Johial took unto himself a wife," etc. (Leaf turned.) "She was eighteen cubits in height and ten cubits in breadth, and was pitched within and without—" (Painful pause and sounds of subdued mirth.) "Prexy" turns ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... smiled as he spoke, an odd, slow smile which somehow held no mirth or welcome. 'I noted the family resemblance at once. A relative of yours was at one time associated ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... return there will be mirth And music in the air, And fairy rings upon the earth, And mischief everywhere. The maids, to keep the elves aloof, Will bar the doors in vain; No key-hole will be fairy-proof, When ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... There where the deep blue into sand doth fade And the long wave rolls in, a bar of jade, Sent him a portent in that sea-blue bird Swifter than light, the halcyon; and men heard The trumpet of his praise: "Shaker of Earth, Hail to thee! Now I fare to death in mirth, As to a banquet!" So when day was come Lightly arose the prince to meet his doom, And kissed Briseis where she lay abed And never more by hers might rest his head: "Farewell, my dear, farewell, my joy," said he; "Farewell to all delights ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... enormous jorum of tea, which she served out to all the guests in tin pannikins, giving to every man a fixed and ample allowance of brown sugar, without at all consulting his taste. Milk there was none. In the midst of this Jack Brien came in, and with a clamour of mirth the empty pickle jars were shown him. Jack, who was a silent man, and somewhat melancholy, merely shook his head and ate his beef. It may be presumed that he was fond of pickles, having taken so much trouble ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... us when she was three years old. She bubbled over with mirth and laughter and soothed the ache in our hearts. She filled the little niches and comers of our lives with her sweetness, and became not only ours in name, but ours also ...
— Making the House a Home • Edgar A. Guest
... third boys are in Christ's School, and are distinguished in their classes; they climb to the head, and keep their places. The other three are at their mother's knee at home, and have a strong capacity for mirth and mischief. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... the mother heard a confused rush in the hall, and then, piercing through the dreamlike unreality of the moment, came the sweet, high note of a girl's voice, laughing, but with the liquid uncertainty of tears quivering through the mirth. "Oh, Marietta! Where's Mother? Aren't you all slow-pokes—not a soul to meet us at the train—where's Mother? Where's Mother? Where's—" The room swam around Mrs. Emery as she stood up looking toward the door, and the girl who came running in, her dark eyes shining ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... that moment Mr. Miller's high, cackling laugh was heard in an explosion of mirth. Mr. Carlyon had made some delightfully obvious joke for his delectation and amidst a smiling company Miss La Sarthe rose with dignity to leave the ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... be more righteous, holy and religious than his father. Noah's deed was an offense not only in appearance, but in very truth, since Ham was so far tempted by the knowledge of it that he passed judgment upon Noah, and found in such sin an occasion for mirth. ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... room, without awaiting her reply, and returned to the cedar chamber, where such of the chevaliers as had not before seen Emily, began to rally him, on the discovery they had made; but Montoni did not appear disposed to bear this mirth, and ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... accomplished she was unable to repress a nervous laughter. Really, her mother looked too queer for words: the long rigid projections stood out all over her head like—like a huge pincushion; no, it was a porcupine. Mrs. Condon smiled in uncertain recognition of her daughter's mirth. ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... chestnut, cracked it, and, regarding the halves, said: "This reminds me of the night Prexy lost his head"—and brought down the house with the merriest tale of all. It was so irresistibly absurd that Jeannette, helpless with her mirth, buried her face in her cobweb handkerchief, Stuart rocked upon his knees and made the welkin ring, and Mr. Jefferson laughed in a growling bass that gathered volume as the preposterousness of the situation grew upon him with ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... and almost simultaneously caught sight of the lady who had at first attracted him and then had disappeared. Their eyes met, far off as they were from each other. Pierston laughed inwardly: it was only in ticklish excitement as to whether this was to prove a true trouvaille, and with no instinct to mirth; for when under the eyes of his Jill-o'-the-Wisp he was more inclined to palpitate like a sheep ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... Ye rogue—he! he!" and he shook his fist waggishly at the unconscious gray dog. "I owe ye anither grudge for this—ye've anteecipated me"—and he leant back and shook this way and that in convulsive mirth. ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... irony of it rose in a wave of black mirth to his twisted lips; he, Gordon Makimmon, was exposed as an avaricious schemer with the prospects of Greenstream, with men's hopes, with their chances. While Simmons, it was plainly intimated, had labored faithfully and in vain for ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... hill-top now, where the bubbling fountains are, They have taken the bucket and filled it up—yea, filled it up to the brim; But Jack he sneered at his sister Jill, and Jill she jeered at him: "What, blown already!" Jack cried out (and his was a biting mirth!) "You boast indeed of your wonderful speed—but what is the boasting worth? Now, if you can run as the antelope runs, and if you can turn like a hare, Come, race me, Jill, to the foot of the hill—and prove your ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... with Griffin beating time, stretched their mouths to the utmost and gave the Academy Howl with a vim that was deafening, drawing out the final deep growling notes to a weirdly wailing finish that sent Patricia and Elinor into gales of mirth. ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... pleasure. "Mr. Lincoln told this story" (of his youth), says Leonard Swett, "as the story of a happy childhood. There was nothing sad or pinched, and nothing of want, and no allusion to want in any part of it. His own description of his youth was that of a joyous, happy boyhood. It was told with mirth and glee, and illustrated by pointed anecdote, often interrupted by ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... beside The river that he loved and glorified. Here in the Autumn of his days he came, But the dry leaves of life were all aflame With tints that brightened and were multiplied. How sweet a life was his, how sweet a death; Living to wing with mirth the weary hours, Or with romantic tales the heart to cheer; Dying to leave a memory like the breath Of Summers full of sunshine and of showers, A grief and ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... country parlour, and evoked them for us. One seems to see the picture of the unknown friend who has charmed us so long—charmed away dull hours, created neighbours and companions for us in lonely places, conferring happiness and harmless mirth upon generations to come. One can picture her as she sits erect, with her long and graceful figure, her full round face, her bright eyes cast down,—Jane Austen, 'the woman of whom England is justly proud'—whose method generous Macaulay ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... off, even like a shadow. He was cursed With none of the mad thoughts that were at first The poison of his quiet; but he grew To love the world and its wild laughter too, As he had known before; and wish'd again To join the very mirth he hated then! ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart
... bright with pleasure, her cheeks flushed with health, her lips smiling in mirth, her step was so light that she seemed to dance along the sands, and her voice was so fresh and cheerful that it was impossible to believe that she cherished any other feeling on the subject of her broken marriage than one ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... ring the Christmas bells! Second child: How joyfully their jingling tells Third child: All peace and kindness on the earth, Fourth child: Ringing out, singing out, laughing with mirth! Fifth child: In every home is joy profound, Sixth child: The echo of this merry sound. Seventh child: Yet Charity must remembered be, And that is why ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg
... alluded to that story, by no means in the jesting way with which he formerly mentioned the vexatious incident that redounded to the honour of no one more than that of his own shrewdness, which at that time—seven years ago—was so often blended with mirth." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... has for object the exciting mirth; whereas, on the contrary, the serious stile aims more at soothing and captivating by the harmony and justness of its movements; by the grace and dignity of its steps; by the pathos ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... throne, while all the heavenly hosts, divided in ten classes, having approached, stood on the ten steps according to their rank, and made obeisance to the Lord. And so they proceeded to their places in joy and mirth and boundless light, singing songs with low and gentle voices, and gloriously serving Him. They leave not nor depart day or night, standing before the face of the Lord, working His will, cherubim and ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... water-weeds twined in their locks of gold The strange cold forest-fairies dance in glee; Sylphs over-timorous and over-bold Haunt the dark hollows where the dwarf may be, The wild red dwarf, the nixies' enemy: Then, 'mid their mirth and laughter and affright, The sudden goddess enters, tall and white, With one long sigh for summers passed away; The swift feet tear the ivy nets outright, And through the dim wood Dian ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... be enacted further still That all our people strict observe our will; Five days and a half shall men, and women, too, Attend their bus'ness and their mirth pursue, But after that no man without a fine Shall walk the streets or at a tavern dine. One day and half 'tis requisite to rest From toilsome labor and a tempting feast. Henceforth let none on peril of their lives Attempt ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... part being bearded, which is, I understand, characteristic of young America, particularly when it travels; some specimens of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Canada, and the Rocky Mountains, not to mention English and Scotch. Every now and then, at the most serious moments, sounds of uproarious mirth proceed from a party of Irish, who are playing antics in some corner of the ship. Considering that we are all hemmed in within the space of a few feet, and that it is the amusement of the great restless ocean to pitch us constantly into each other's arms, it is ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... eyes to recall that flashing vision of youth and loveliness. He saw again the deliciously modeled face tinted to warmest pink, a figure blent of curves and gracious contours, a mouth of delicate mirth, and eyes, wide, eager, soft, and slanted quaintly at an angle to madden the heart ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... occasional hymn, rising in the silence of the air, or the distant flashing of a hundred lights, alone gave notice that the funeral procession of the Saviour had not yet halted for the night; but there was no noise, not even mirth. Everything was conducted with a sobriety befitting the event that was celebrated. That some of the curate's horses were stolen that night, is only a proof that bad men were out, and took the opportunity of ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... so laughing, so merry, all these little Niponese dolls! Rather a forced mirth, it is true, studied and at times with a false ring in it; nevertheless one is ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... time his family were unanimously scarlet—his father and mother with mortification, and Margaret with the effort to control the almost irresistible mirth that the struggles and vociferations of Penrod had inspired within her. And yet her heart misgave her, for his bloodshot and tearful eyes were fixed upon her from the first and remained upon her, even when half-blinded with his agony; and their expression—as ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... exclaimed Mr. Ferret with an explosive shout, and turning to me, whilst his sharp gray eyes danced with irrepressible mirth—"Did I not tell ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... solitary and inactive, while her companions sported on the grass, without fear of incommoding themselves. The pleasure she had lately taken in viewing her fine slip and shoes was, at this moment, but a poor compensation for the mirth and merriment she ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... Kingston Bridge to Richmond; the royal coaches, each with six horses, had gone from the stables at Charing Cross to Kensington. The chief murderers assembled in high glee at Porter's lodgings. Pendergrass, who, by the King's command, appeared among them, was greeted with ferocious mirth. "Pendergrass," said Porter, "you are named one of the eight who are to do his business. I have a musquetoon for you that will carry eight balls." "Mr. Pendergrass," said King, "pray do not be afraid of smashing the glass ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... revived after his collapse of mirth, and he addressed me from his gravestone. "Yes, I ought ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... that we couldn't have stood his being there but for our certainty that somewhere above us and yet with us, from his high seat among the Undying, Ford Lankester was looking on and enjoying more than we could enjoy—with a divine, immortal mirth—the rich, amazing comedy of him. ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... letters which he was then constantly receiving from the Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro—letters in which not only matters of science but of contemporary history were discussed. Bayard Taylor also delighted us all. Nothing could exceed, as a provocative to mirth, his recitations of sundry poems whose inspiration was inferior to their ambition. One especially brought down the house— "The Eonx of Ruby,'' by a poet who had read Poe and Browning until he ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... his head with a roar, appearing a trifle chagrined the next instant by my faint-hearted pretence of mirth. ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... men laugh,' it would be the surest passport to a welcome entrance. We have here to-night one who has made millions laugh—not the loud laughter that bespeaks the vacant mind, but the laugh of intelligent mirth that helps the human heart and the human mind. I refer, of course, to Doctor Clemens. I was going to say Mark Twain, his literary title, which is a household phrase in more homes than that of any other man, and you know him best by that dear ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... exact counterpart of the exterior, in the artistic arrangement and splendor of every thing. To the eye of an observer, on an ordinary occasion, every thing appeared gorgeous in the extreme; but on the occasion we describe, when preparation was making for a grand reception, all was joy, mirth, luxury, and happiness. Servants of every color and hue were seen moving through the labyrinths of the saloons and chambers of this great palace, uncovering the long-concealed splendors of valuable articles, and arranging every thing for the ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... laughing voices, Fondly loved in other years, Mournfully are whispering to me That their mirth ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... tedious existence. Considered, again, merely as an orator, Mr. Whistler seems to me to stand almost alone. Indeed, among all our public speakers I know but few who can combine so felicitously as he does the mirth and malice of Puck with the style of the ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... here all was joy and affability and mirth. In the mornings the ladies played and sang for us; and the evenings were generally enlivened with the merry dance. Here I bade farewell to the charming family in whose company I had passed so many happy ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... are always singularly adapted to the lecturer's purpose. Each story is mirth-provoking. The audience chuckled, shook, swayed, and roared with convulsions of laughter," says the "London Times." "He has been in the lecture field but a few years, yet he has already made a place beside such men as ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... have a passion in them in whose birth The heart receives again its beau ideal— Its Platonized embodiment of worth. Call ye them dreams! then what a mortal dearth Throws its gaunt shadow o'er our little life! Our very joy is mockery of mirth, And our quiescence agony of strife: If dreams are naught but dreams, what is our ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... friends. This could not be done at Lady D- —'s; but by his command, which I was now entitled to consider as my law, I contrived twice to visit him at his own hotel, accompanied only by Monna Paula. There was a very small party, of two ladies and two gentlemen. There was music, mirth, and dancing. I had heard of the frankness of the English nation, but I could not help thinking it bordered on license during these entertainments, and in the course of the collation which followed; but I imputed my scruples to my inexperience, and would not doubt the propriety ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott |
