"Smirk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nor to the left as she swung her leaders around the corner, yet no sign of the town's retrogression since her last visit escaped her—any more than did the mean small-town smirk upon the faces of a group of doorway loafers, who commented humorously ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... caste. And there came to him for the first time that hatred of inequalities which, repulsive though it is in theory, is yet the true nerver of the strong right arm of progress. It is as characteristic of the homely, human countenance of Democracy as the supercilious smirk is of the homely, inhuman countenance of caste. Arthur did not want to get up where Ross was seated in such elegant state; he wanted to tear Ross, all the Rosses down. "The damn fool!" he fumed. "He goes lounging about, ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... ever, but somehow it was all different. There was a note of unreality nowadays in Mrs. Donnelly's professions of wonder at her bearing up under her multiplied maladies; there was almost a leer of mockery in the sympathetic smirk with which the Misses Mangan listened to her symptoms. Even the doctors, though they kept their faces turned toward her, obviously did not pay much attention; the people in the street seemed no longer to look at her and her equipage at all. Worst of all, something of the meaning ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... (I will someday devote an entire dedication to critics); to the proud ones who urinate against the wind (they have never wetted me and I have nothing against them); to the cheerful ones who tirade viciously against all who do not wear their protective smirk; to the cheerful ones who spend their evenings bewailing my existence (the Devil pity them, not I); to the noble ones who advertise their secrets, who crucify themselves on bill-boards in the quest for the Nietzschean solitude; to the noble ones ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... before they had been tried and found wanting, he flattered himself he was a fellow of unusual quickness and penetration. They knew nothing of Sherlock Holmes in those days, but there was a good deal said of Talleyrand. And if you could have caught Frank off his guard, he would have confessed with a smirk that, if he resembled any one, it was the Marquis de Talleyrand-Perigord. It was on the occasion of Archie's first absence that this interest took root. It was vastly deepened when Kirstie resented his curiosity at breakfast, and that same ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dressed. He wore a white cravat, and no collar. He had light hair closely cut, and his face was as smooth as a woman's. His shirt was whiter than any shirt I have ever seen before or since, and it was made of very fine material. He carried an agreeable smirk upon his countenance, and he disinterred, now and then, some very long and extraordinary word from the dictionary, when he was particularly desirous either to make himself understood or conceal his meaning. I had almost omitted to add, that he was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... not wish to speak to him, but, forced upon him as it was by the first lieutenant, he could do no less. So Mr. Templemore touched his hat, and stood before the captain, we regret to say, with such a good-humoured, sly, confiding smirk on his countenance, as at once established the proof of the accusation, and the ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... "Do you suppose a man, with the best pages of his life rooted out, is likely to look out upon his fellows from the point of view of a philanthropist? Do you suppose that the man, into whose soul the irons of bitterness have gnawed and eaten their way, is likely to come out with a smirk and look around him for the opportunity of doing good? Rubbish! My aim is to encourage suffering wherever I see it, to create it where I can, to make sinners and ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... he looked at the two girls and wanted to say something; but he was speechless. When much worried he would always smirk. It was a disagreeable habit. In Eleanore it always aroused a feeling of intense compassion. "There is nothing wrong, father," she stammered, and made an awkward gesture which indicated to him that it would be most agreeable to her if he would go away. "Gertrude ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... De Maurier but better than Boticelli. In feeling, he resembles both; also in grouping and in his preferences in the matter of subjects. His "corrobboree" of the Australian wilds reappears in De Maurier's Belgravian ballrooms, with clothes and the smirk of civilization added; Botticelli's "Spring" is the "corrobboree" further idealized, but with fewer clothes and more smirk. And well enough as to intention, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... labour, whence our souls are fed With largesse yet of living wine and bread. Come, let us praise him: here is nought to hide. Make bare the poor dead secrets of his heart, Strip the stark-naked soul, that all may peer, Spy, smirk, sniff, snap, snort, snivel, snarl, and sneer: Let none so sad, let none so sacred part Lie still for pity, rest unstirred for shame, But all be scanned of all men. This ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... burdens and found rest and comfort in their Father's house. It did me more good than the preaching of all the bishops in London, or the finest pageant at St. Paul's; and I am truly glad I went, though the saucy conductor did smirk ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... eyes grew dim with rapture, alarm, and ineffable delight. I was ashamed in presence of the old woman, who began to smirk and wink odiously, and I flew like an arrow to the loneliest nook of the garden. There I threw myself on the grass beneath the hazel-bushes and read the note again, repeating the words by heart, and then re-reading them over and over, while the sunlight ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... wrong he had done him as he looked at his deserted home. The door opened and a figure appeared. It was Mr. Wurley's agent, the lawyer who had been employed by Farmer Tester in his contest with Harry and his mates about the pound. The man of law saluted him with a smirk of scarcely concealed triumph, and then turned into the house again and shut the door, as if he did not consider further communication necessary or safe. Tom turned with a muttered imprecation on ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... protection of the Stars and Stripes, which he would drag down, has made himself so emphatically one of the "capitalists," whom he hates, that he resides on New York's famous "Riverside Drive," and was able to testify with a smirk, "I flatter myself that I am not a failure." (See printed "Testimony" of the trial of the five Assemblymen for ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... up was no match for Kosti. He was a slender, almost wand-slim young man, whose pleased smirk said that he, too, was about to put something over on the notorious Free Traders. Jellico studied him for a couple of long seconds during which the hum of Salariki voices was the threatening buzz of a disturbed wasps' nest. There ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... Chaldea. Mrs. Simms herself was of a nondescript type, not a real personage, clever, good-looking, tasteful, a social climber. The two Simms children (little girls) had been taught all the social graces of the day—to pose, smirk, genuflect, and the like, to the immense delight of their elders. The nurse in charge was in uniform, the governess was a much put-upon person. Mrs. Simms had a high manner, eyes for those above her only, a serene contempt ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... best actor was he who represented the blind man. The chief actress is an overgrown dame, all fat and dimples, who kept up a constant sobbing and heaving of her chest, yet never getting rid of an eternal smirk upon her face. A bolero, danced afterwards by two Spanish damsels in black and silver, was ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... deceased weaver's loom, or the arrival in Thrums of a cart-load of fine "kebec" cheeses, he treated as the merest trifles. I see still the bent legs of the snuffy old man straightening to the tinkle of his bell, and the smirk with which he let the curious populace gather round him. In one hand he ostentatiously displayed the paper on which what he had to cry was written, but, like the minister, he scorned to "read." With the bell carefully tucked under his oxter he gave forth his news in a rasping ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... direction her companion had indicated, to see a large, overdressed man staring at them. There was a smirk on his face, and as Harriet caught his eye she saw him rise and, to her horror, realized that he was ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... thought. Dress your ladies in cheerful dresses, not quite so vulgar as Chalon's. . . . I heard from my sister that you had finished Wilkinson to the perfect content of all: I had charged her particularly not to allow Mrs. W. to intercede for any smirk or alteration whatever. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... for breath, and Connie scrutinized his face, but could not remember to have seen him before. He shifted his glance to the other, who had returned to the edge of the bunk, and was regarding him with a sneering smirk. ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... and Solomon, lurk Around the corner to see him work,— Sitting cross-legged, like a Turk, Drawing the wax-end through with a jerk, And boring the holes with a comical quirk Of his wise old head, and a knowing smirk. But vainly they mounted each other's backs, And poked through knot-holes and pried through cracks; With wood from the pile and straw from the stacks He plugged the knot-holes and calked the cracks; And a bucket of water, which one would think He had brought ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... conviction of what best suits myself. I'm one of those men who are born to be free, who've got to fill their lungs with air, who must get out into the wilds if they're to live—God! I'd sooner be snowed up on a battlefield than smirk at a damned afternoon tea-party any day in the week! If I want a woman, I like to take her by her hair and swing her up behind me on the saddle and ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... and so less chance of a cure. I do not want to believe it is the readers. It is more comforting to suppose those poor people must put up with what they can get in a hurry ten minutes before the train starts, only to find, as they might have guessed, that vacuity is behind the smirk of a girl with a face like that. They are forced to stuff their literature behind them, so that ownership of it shall not openly ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... self-congratulatory smirk up at the ceiling that separated them from Executive Level, the bland face of the Commissioner smoothed out. "All right, Captain, as long as ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... at a glance from Stoddard he drew back and concealed his smirk. Then for half an hour with his most telling arguments and the hypnotic spell of his eyes Whitney Stoddard outdid himself to win her over while Rimrock sat by and smiled. He had tried that himself ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... feeling, and almost throttled the most pitiful courtesy, in his nervous dread of its doing him some bodily harm. There was a low cunning in his very acceptance of any little kindness. The sly way in which he insinuated his withered face into my morning papers, and the smirk of satisfaction with which he gloated on the triumph of having gratuitously gleaned their entire contents, was in keeping with every other ludicrous phase of his distorted nature. He looked upon me as a paragon of stupidity; and I fear I considered ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... can do Keren Happuch's work and feel nothing added to her toil," was the sharp response. "Small use are her hands in any kitchen. We had better make up our minds to wed her to a fine gentleman, who wants naught of his wife but to dress up in grand gowns, and smirk and simper over her fan; for no useful work will he get out of her. If rushes are wanted, she had better ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... sculptor would run up against disaster. What could be seen in the streets, while it offered plenty of subjects, offered none that could stimulate his talent. His patrons asked only for illustration and applied ornament; his models offered only the smirk and sad humour of a stunted life. Here and there his statues might attain a certain sweetness and grace, such as painting might perfectly well have rendered; but on the whole ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... played with the children, nor complimented her, nor added, in short, anything to the sociability of the house. Mr. Plimmins, who had at first sought to condescend, next sought to bully; but the gaunt frame and savage eye of Philip awed the smirk youth, in spite of himself; and he confessed to Mrs. Plaskwith that he should not like to meet "the gipsy," alone, on a dark night; to which Mrs. Plaskwith replied, as usual, "that Mr. Plimmins always did say the best ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to smirk and stare about the room; and whenever they didn't laugh or jest enough with her, she would plant herself right in the middle of the floor, and turn herself about in all her finery to attract notice, ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... problem with which nearly every city is unhappily familiar. In Buck's terminology, it was identified as "The Centre Street mashers": those pimply, weak-faced, bad-eyed young men who congregate at prominent corners every afternoon, especially Saturdays, to smirk at the working-girls, and to pass, wherever they could, from their murmured, "Hello, Kiddo," and "Where you goin', baby?" to ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... his lips with his tongue, and at sight of Jimmie Dale's mask, perhaps because it suggested a community of interest, tried to force a smirk. ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... laughed Charles, tauntingly, with a wink at his companions; "a pretty piece of heraldry, a bold escutcheon, a dainty poniard—pale as a lily, and how he did sigh and drop his lids and smirk and smirk and dance your latest galliard to surpass De Grammont. Ask brother ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... Some few business men may smirk at their stenographers; some few painters may behave in the same way to their models. I fancy it's the exception to the rule in any kind of ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... she had thought. Only a few tables were occupied, but he had evidently reserved one, for immediately on his appearance the waiter with a smirk led him to one of the alcoves and pulled back a chair for the girl. She looked round as she stripped her gloves. The place was not unfamiliar to her. It was here she came at rare intervals, when her finances admitted of such an hilarious recreation, to find comfort for jangled ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... have no apprehensions of gentlemen of your appearance," said the divine, with a smirk. "It is the natives that ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... the mood: There was the blameless shrug, permissible smirk, The pen's pretence at play with the pursed mouth, The titter stifled in the hollow palm Which rubbed the eye-brow and caressed the nose, When I first told my tale; they meant, you know— 'The sly one, all this we are bound believe! Well, he can say no ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... hard face, rose and steadied himself against a beam. His full bass tones were sad, and he showed no sign of that self-satisfied smirk which sometimes makes the ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... skull, Toothless, eyeless, hollow, dull, Why your smirk and empty smile As the hours away you wile? Has the earth become such bore That it pleases nevermore? Whence your joy through sun and rain? Is 't because of loss of pain? Have you learned what men learn not That earth's substance turns to rot? ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... a little less well-bred, I think she would have bridled. As it was, she really did smirk a little, ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... with a forced smirk, "Yes, Miss Marilyn. Excuse me fer not recognizing you. You've grown a lot. Why no, Cherry ain't at home this morning. She'll be awful sorry not to see you. She thought a lot of you, she did. She got on ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... colour in the cheek," he answered, with a smirk at what he took to be the quickness ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... niece a peasant girl?" he asked. "Would you have her smirk and squirm at every piece of flattery you utter? So that she weds your Highness what shall ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... of the seated audience, or nodded to acquaintances. Others gathered round the bar, and a few looked at the drop-curtain as if they thought their ascetic glances would cause it to roll up and disappear. The overture at length ended. The stage was disclosed, and a man came forward with a smirk, and a wriggle of gigantic ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... smile became a little fixed. Yet there came nothing of a smirk into it, nothing the least bit superior.... Was this the explanation of the little girl's odd yearning toward pens and desks? How came she to revere the Bard, where even to hear his name? Was it possible that Mrs. ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... more obstinate, untractable thing than he had even suspected it could be. The right side of his face was in a condition of semi-paralysis due to the muscular exactions required; he had a sickening fear that the scowl that marked his brow was destined to form a perpetual alliance with the smirk at the corner of his nose, forever destroying the symmetry of his face. If one who has not the proper facial construction will but attempt the feat of holding a monocle in place for unbroken hours, he may come to appreciate at least ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... Delmour, while we stood in a respectful semi-circle before her, modestly conscious of our worth, our toes turned out, and each man's features wreathed with that politely unnatural smirk which masculine features assume when confronted by feminine beauty. "Gentlemen, on the eve of your proposed departure for Baffin Land in quest of living specimens of the five-spotted Philohela quinquemaculata, I ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... army of assistants, had entered the ring. One of the army carried a bright green bucket, on which were painted in white letters the words "Cyclone Al. Wolmann." A moment later there was another, though a far lesser, uproar, as Kid Brady, his pleasant face wearing a self-conscious smirk, ducked under the ropes and sat down in ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... is but a few hours, but eleven domestics range themselves in a row to wait upon our departure and to smirk and extend their palms for tips as we prepare to go. No country under the sun save the Caucasus could thus muster eleven expectant menials on the strength of one meal served and but three hours actual occupation ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... The Pathan's smirk grew to a grin. He liked grandly to have the notion fathered on himself; and his complacency of course was suggestive of the hakim's trustworthiness. But the East is ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... you! The more shame for you to take them. Better throw them away than wear them as a badge of degradation. Yes, throw them away, or send them back whence they came. Wash that paint off your face. Get rid of that made-up smirk around your mouth. Remember that you ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... As all visitors to the mansion are aware, these paintings represent women of middle age, of a date some two hundred years ago, whose lineaments once seen can never be forgotten. The long pointed features, narrow eye, and smirk of the one, so suggestive of merciless treachery; the bill-hook nose, large teeth, and bold eye of the other suggesting arrogance to the point of ferocity, haunt the beholder afterwards in ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... I did was to fall aff the flower-pot; but syne I came to, and says I, wi' a polite smirk, 'I'm thinking your leddyship,' says I, 'as you're the ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... one of the women. She was dressed as a Spanish dancer and in one hand held a tambourine and castanets. "They fight," she gave a little smirk of vanity, ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... parties coming in and others leaving court, bailiffs shouting, and ushers responding, gradually subsided into a whisper of, "That's Jorrocks! That's Cheatum!" as the belligerent parties took their places by their respective counsel. Silence having been called and procured, Mr. Smirk, a goodish-looking man for a lawyer, having deliberately unfolded his brief, which his clerk had scored plentifully in the margin, to make the attorney believe he had read it very attentively, rose to address the court—a ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... contriving {200} A wheel-work image as if it were living, Should find with delight it could motion to strike him! So found the Duke, and his mother like him: The lady hardly got a rebuff— That had not been contemptuous enough, With his cursed smirk, as he nodded applause, And kept off the old ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... was a young man of Dunbar, Who playfully poisoned his Ma; When he'd finished his work, He remarked with a smirk, "This will ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... had a queer attempt at melancholy, sadly at variance with a smirk of satisfaction which might be read between the lines. Though his calling was not a lively one, it did not depress his spirits, as in the bosom of his family he was the most cheery of men, and to him the "tap, tap" of coffin-making was as sweet and exhilarating as the ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... to have that proof with you?" called out Frank. Upon hearing this, the other hastened up, though there was a satisfied smirk on his face, as though ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... is before you, and not the defense!" observed the judge of the sickly face angrily and loudly. By Andrey's expression the mother perceived that he wanted to tease them. His mustache quivered. A cunning, feline smirk familiar to her lighted up his eyes. He stroked his head with his long ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... head a little on one side and drew in his chin, with Mr. May's smirk exactly, and wagging his tail slightly, he commenced to play the false Kishwegin. He sidled and bridled and ejaculated with raised hands, and in the dumb show the tall Frenchman made such a ludicrous caricature of Mr. Houghton's manager that Madame wept again with laughter, whilst ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... of talking to women and about them was more odious than the way of a debauchee. He invariably called them "the ladies," or more exactly, "the leedies"; and he hardly ever spoke to a "leedy" without a smirk and some faint ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... to get the fur anyway," said Strange with a seeming deprecatory air—but the suspicion of a smirk wreathed ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... we thought that till the nurse went to America we would request the governess to dine with us. On Anne's departure, I signified to the head waiter that from that time Miss Hall would take her dinner with the children; whereupon, with a smirk and sniff of the most insolent disdain, and an air of dignity that had been hurt, but was now comforted, the bloated superior servant replied, "Well, ma'am, to be sure, it always was so in them famullies where I have lived; the governess never ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... services of a female from a neighboring village. Miss Trumbull is forty-odd and unmarried. She has a large bony face, the nondescript colouring of the average American, and a colossal vanity. We amuse ourselves watching her smirk as she passes a looking-glass. But she is an excellent housekeeper, and her vanity would be of no consequence if she would keep her place. The day we arrived she hinted broadly that she wanted to sit at table with us, and one night when John was ill and she had to help wait, she joined in ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... exclaimed Frank Digby; "you are quite embarrassing to her ladyship. Will the lady Louisa take my arm? Allow me, madam, to interpose my powerful authority." And he offered his arm to Louis with a smirk and low bow, which set all the spectators off laughing; for Frank was one of those privileged persons, who, having attained a celebrity for being very funny, can excite a ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... one drop of hot blood in you, you'd be just as thrilled as we are. Just because you've been around and around the world until you got dizzy or something, you needn't stand there with that 'See-the-little-children-play' smirk on your face. You don't really care whether we lose Pirate's Haven or not, ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... saw that we were talking of the boy, her interest in the conversation vanished, even more quickly than her appetite. She had to go, she said suddenly; she was so sorry, and the discontented curiosity of her look gave place again to the smirk of ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... that the Appetites are sooner moved than the Passions: A sly Expression which alludes to Bawdry, puts a whole Row into a pleasing Smirk; when a good Sentence that describes an inward Sentiment of the Soul, is received with the greatest Coldness and Indifference. A Correspondent of mine, upon this Subject, has divided the Female Part of the Audience, and accounts for their Prepossession against this reasonable Delight in the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... Matterhorn. Often, indeed, his vanity leads him to imagine the thing done, and he admits by winks and blushes that he is a bad one. But at the bottom of all that tawdry pretence there is usually nothing more material than an oafish smirk at some disgusted shop-girl, or a scraping of shins under the table. Let any woman who is disquieted by reports of her husband's derelictions figure to herself how long it would have taken him to propose to her if left to his own enterprise, and then ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... groaned Dalton. Then, catching the trace of a smirk in Hank's eyes, the rascal shook his fist at the steward of ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... the idea of all this brandy drunk at the expense of another. He was smiling the contented smirk ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... wheel-work image as if it were living, Should find with delight it could motion to strike him! So found the Duke, and his mother like him: The lady hardly got a rebuff— That had not been contemptuous enough, 205 With his cursed smirk, as he nodded applause, And kept off ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... have sat down side by side on the sofa. Vick is standing on her hinder legs, with her forepaws rested on Roger's knee. Her tail is wagging with the strong and untiring regularity of a pendulum, and a smirk of welcome and recognition is on her face. Roger's arm is round me, and we are holding each other's hands, but we are no longer in heaven. I could not tell you why, but we are not. Some stupid constraint—quite of earth—has fallen upon me. Where ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... stream of icy-cold water were running down her. But then, when her husband had appeared, had placed himself near the bed in which she lay so feeble, so weak, so at his mercy, and had said with such a satisfied smirk, "Psia krew, we've done that well!" then she could not restrain herself any longer. She had uttered a cry, a feeble, plaintive, yet piercing cry, and had [Pg 26] reared herself up with her last strength, so that the ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... mouth down at the corners; deceit had given it a foolish smirk; spite had plowed an ugly frown in her brow; while she had tried so many arts to make her rich brown skin as delicately white as Hilda's, that it was changed to the tint ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... the little. The low hills are a-smirk with flowers and greenery; the dominating peaks, austere and desolate, holding a prophecy ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... with a smirk at her hostess, who was supremely uncomfortable, "and I do so want to know your dear wife, bishop. So does Major Joicy. He's tremendously interested in the Something Society, which looks after the poor black things out ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... into their visitor's soft, impersonal voice as he gibed the boatswain. Martin, staring upward at the lantern-lighted face, half expected to see the smirk flee the lips that threatened torture, and the hateful passions that inspired Ichi's gloating to reveal themselves in his features. But no hint of emotion disturbed the surface of that bland, yellow mask the one-time sea ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... the story, with shrug and smirk, That the artist ne'er does a stroke of work; And so let him suffer, the imbecile! Be you silent! 'Tis you, I think, When the Cigale pierces the vine to drink, Drive her away, her drink to steal; And when she is dead—you ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... social successes in London, they had been reluctant to meet her. Now, they put on their best clothes, and precipitated themselves into the Manor grounds like a flock of sheep seeking land on which to graze,—all wearing their sweetest propitiatory smirk—all gushing forth their admiration of "that darling Lady Errington"—all behaving themselves in the exceptionally funny manner that county people affect,—people who are considered somebodies in the small villages their big houses ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... not go near her so long as that odious actor is hanging about. His smirk at me the ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... malevolence.(!) No man who really knows the qualities of Mr. Whistler's best work will imagine that he really believes the highest expression of his art to be realized in reproduction of the grin and glare, the smirk and leer, of Japanese womanhood as represented in its professional types of beauty; but to all appearance he would fain persuade us that ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... bulletin with the names of the dead and the wounded; but Hansel's name was never among them. And many a night she lay awake, yearning for Hansel, praying for him, and blessing him. She seemed to hear his gay and careless laugh ringing from Alp to Alp—how different from the polite smirk of the junior, the fat grin of the senior Hahn! She saw his tall, agile figure standing upon a rock leaning upon his gun, outlined against the blue horizon,—and she heard his strong clear voice yodling and calling to her from afar. It is not to be wondered at that Ilka did not thrive in Berlin ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... money from him first?" the priest suggested with a fat smirk. None guessed better than he how low debauch had brought the ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... you are entirely wrong, sir—entirely wrong, and scarcely more polite, either." Brown well paused a minute and added: "Business is entirely satisfactory, sir—entirely so. It is another matter." He hesitated a moment and added, with the ghost of a smirk, "A ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... day, trying to make and secure the money that gives her and her family everything they want, and which wearies me body and soul, to expect her to let me stay at home, and be quiet. I know I ought to dress and go into Gnu's house, and smirk at his wife, and stand up in a black suit before him attired in the same way, and talk about the same stocks that we discussed down town in the morning in colored trowsers. That's a social duty, I suppose. And I ought to see various slight young gentlemen whirl my wife around the room, ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... great events turn! But for the brown paper in my bag, there would have been a catastrophe. As it was, when his eye lighted on that rough, globular paper parcel he handed me my bag with an apologetic smirk and received his own in exchange. But after that, I kept my property in my hand until I was safe within the precincts ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... Barker was waiting for them—an oily smirk on a face smooth save where a thin fringe of white whiskers dangled from his jaw-bone, ear to ear; fat, damp hands rubbing in anticipation of the large fee that was to repay him for celebrating the marriage and for keeping quiet about it afterward. At the proper place ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... call it luck to be a disgrace to your folks, And git locked up in jail!" "Oh, come now, Alice, 'Disgrace' is a mite strong. Why, the jail was a joke. Art's all right." "All right! All right to dance, and smirk, and lie For a livin', And then in the end Lead a silly girl to give you What warn't hers to give By pretendin' you'd marry her— And she a pupil." "He'd ha' married her right enough, Her folks was millionaires." "Yes, he'd ha' married her! Thank God, they saved her ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... amid the tumult, his action was hardly noticed. His voice was drowned in the universal roar which broke out afresh at each bow and smirk from the fatuous musician. But gradually the folk round Policles ceased clapping, and stared at him in astonishment. The silence grew in ever widening circles, until the whole great assembly sat mute, staring at this wild and magnificent creature who was ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... arrival, he found that everything appeared to be in great confusion; indeed an event was occurring which had astonished the whole household; the butler made a profound bow to the captain; the footmen forgot their usual smirk when he alighted. Captain Delmar was ushered in solemn silence into the drawing-room, and his aunt, who had notice of his arrival received him with a stiff, prim air of unwonted frigidity, with her arms crossed before her on her ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... hardness in the lines, sharpness in the tones; while an unfeeling spirit, pervading all, would have filled a physiognomist with disgust. These characteristics, fully visible at this moment, were usually modified in public by a sort of commercial smile,—a bourgeois smirk which mimicked good-humor; so that persons meeting with this old maid might very well take her for a kindly woman. She owned the house on shares with her brother. The brother, by-the-bye, was sleeping so tranquilly in his own chamber that the orchestra of the Opera-house could not have ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... young fellow with a sly, twisted smirk which gives him the appearance of perpetually winking his eye, detaches himself from a group on the right. All join in with urging exclamations: "Go on, Peters! Go to it! Pedal up, Pete! Give us a rag! That's the boy, ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... over to the store and see what you can do to bring her to her senses," the money-lender proposed, with a smirk which twisted his sallow visage into a grimace. "If you can bring her to reason, we'll both get—get what's ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... Old Plays were new! They bring A host of phantoms rare: Old jests that float, old jibes that sting, Old faces peaked with care: Menage's smirk, de Vise's stare, The thefts of Jean Ribou,—{4} Ah, publishers were hard to bear When these Old Plays ...
— Ballads in Blue China and Verses and Translations • Andrew Lang
... amazed his faithful follower. The nightmare horror of the situation had affected him much as a sudden blow in the parts about the waistcoat might have done. But, now, as Spike would have said, he caught up with his breath. The smirk faded slowly from the other's face as he listened. Not even in the Bowery, full as it was of candid friends, had he listened to such a trenchant summing-up of ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... anywhere off the muster roll, informed Don Anastasio that he would continue with him on into the interior. And as seen already, Murguia humbly excused delay, though his guest was not invited, not wanted, and cordially hated besides. That meek smirk of Don Anastasio's was the absurdest thing ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... Catia was not unimpressive in her new dignity of wifehood; but the dignity bore traces of diligent rehearsal, and left singularly little to the imagination. By her side, Scott, looking down upon his fellow townsmen, wore the self-conscious smirk of a sheepish schoolboy; and the best of his fellow townsmen respected him the more on that account. Catia was the more impressive of the two, they told themselves; but there was no especial sense in a pair of young things like these, trying to act ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... prophecy!" exclaimed the Professor with a knowing smirk, "don't it tell you to choose between the two? And how can you tell if you don't even look—whether the golt or ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... thing she wore last night? Indecent, if you ask me, with not a petticoat under it, I'll be bound!... Always wears shoes twice too small for her ... What men can see in her ... How they can endure that perpetual smirk!..." They were at last discussing the Klondike woman, and whatever had befallen our guest of honour I knew that those present would never regain their first awe of the occasion. It was now ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... children—it's the same rule in art, only varying the objects—are smirking. In fact,' said Miss La Creevy, sinking her voice to a confidential whisper, 'there are only two styles of portrait painting; the serious and the smirk; and we always use the serious for professional people (except actors sometimes), and the smirk for private ladies and gentlemen who don't care so ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... the completion of Mrs. Gamp's affecting narrative of the confidential opinions of her sobriety entertained by Mrs. Harris, Mr. Mould, the undertaker, opportunely presented to the audience his well-remembered countenance—"a face in which a queer attempt at melancholy was at odds with a smirk of satisfaction." The impersonation, here, was conveyed in something better than the unsatisfactory hint by which that attempted in regard to Mr. Pecksniff was alone to be expressed. Speaking of Old Chuzzlewit's funeral, as ordered by his bereaved ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... scarcely glanced at the horse, when drawing in his cheeks, he thrust out his lips very much after the manner of a baboon, when he sees a piece of sugar held out towards him. "Is this horse yours?" said he, suddenly turning towards me, with a kind of smirk. "It's my horse," said I; "are you the person who wishes to make an honest penny by it?" "How!" said he, drawing up his head with a very consequential look, and speaking with a very haughty tone, "what do you mean?" We looked at each other full in the face; after a few moments, ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... if a little mechanical toy should be contrived to make the motion of striking, and brilliantly make it. Thus, as a mechanical toy, was the only way to treat this minute critic, for like the Duke at Ferrara, this Duke (and his mother) did not choose to stoop. He would merely wear his "cursed smirk" as he nodded applause, but he had some trouble in keeping ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... the stings of scorpions through Waverley's sensorium, the worthy divine was startled in a long disquisition on the battle of Falkirk by the ghastliness which they communicated to his looks, and asked him if he was ill? Fortunately the bride, all smirk and blush, had just entered the room. Mrs. Williams was none of the brightest of women, but she was good-natured, and readily concluding that Edward had been shocked by disagreeable news in the papers, interfered so judiciously, that, without ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... a folly still to twirl, And smirk and promenade and querl About the town? I'll put this down: A man becomes downright blast Before he knows that he is either That, or what I ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop |
