"Good-humored" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... movement of Master Raymond's, was that he had a couple of very pleasant and good-humored officials to attend him all the way to Salem jail, where they arrived in the course of the evening. Proving that thus by the aid of a little metaphorical oil and sugar, even official machinery could be made ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... statesmen and warriors can be to the human race, and how absurd distinguished men can be to their acquaintance, it will be instructive to observe the instances multiply of pacific, acquiescing manners; and to find how compatible it is to be great and domestic, enviable and yet good-humored. ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... gay, rotund, and good-humored, a sayer of "quodlibets," a maker of anagrams, always busy, represented the capable and bantering bourgeois, with faculty without success, obstinate toil without result; he was also the embodiment of jovial resignation, mind without object, art with usefulness, for, excellent musician ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... the meantime, was spirited and general. The ladies, as usual, talked a great deal. I soon found that nearly all the company were well educated; and my host was a world of good-humored anecdote in himself. He seemed quite willing to speak of his position as superintendent of a Maison de Sante; and, indeed, the topic of lunacy was, much to my surprise, a favorite one with all present. A great ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... him quarrelling with his wife! It was worth paying for to see them together. They had wrangled all the thirty years they had been married; but Toine was good-humored, while his better-half grew angry. She was a tall peasant woman, who walked with long steps like a stork, and had a head resembling that of an angry screech-owl. She spent her time rearing chickens in a little poultry-yard behind the inn, and she was noted for ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... the old noble's good-humored rhapsody, but, much as she loved her native land, she could not pervert the truth by pretending that the sight was one to be ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... declared they had never heard anything so wonderful. But her father and mother scolded her also, and told her it was all her own fault, which Wishie felt was too true; and, from that day forwards, she never mewed for anything, but became as satisfied and good-humored as Contenta herself; and even the housekeeper at last ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin
... tendency more decidedly and exclusively. Menander (342-293 B.C.) was one of the first of these poets, and he is also the most perfect of them. The Athens of his day differed from that of the time of Pericles, in the same way that an old man, weak in body but fond of life, good-humored and self-indulgent, differs from the vigorous, middle-aged man at the summit of his mental strength and bodily energy. Since there was so little in politics to interest or to employ the mind, the Athenians found an object in the occurrences ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... am not to cut off the ears of the freebooters in Annandale?" cried Kirkpatrick, with a good-humored smile. "Have it as you will, my general, only you must new christen me to wash the war-stain from my hand. The rite of my infancy was performed as became a soldier's son; my fount was my father's helmet and the first pap I sucked lay on the point of ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... still perfectly good-humored, Rand shook the stranger's right hand warmly, and received on his broad shoulders a welcoming thwack from the left, without question. "She don't mind her friends making free with ME evidently," said Rand to himself, as he tried to suggest that fact to the young ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... sense, are of the greatest effect. They are distinguished from intrigue, inasmuch as they are momentary, and that their aim, whenever they are to have one, must not be remote. Beaumarchais has seized their full value, and the effects of his "Figaro" spring pre-eminently from this. Whereas such good-humored roguish and half-knavish pranks are practised with personal risk for noble ends, the situations which arise from them are aesthetically and morally considered of the greatest value for the theatre; as, for instance, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... tower, through the thick plate glass, the three people in the shore boat made out the carroty-topped head and freckled, good-humored, honest, homely face of Eph Somers. The boat lay on the water, under no headway, drifting slightly with the wind-driven ripples. Then Eph raised the man-hole cover of the top of the conning tower, thrusting out ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... which, it is well known, he several times performed on foot, was travelling through Church Stretton, Shropshire, when he put up at the sign of the Crown, and finding the host to be a communicative good-humored man, inquired if there was any agreeable person in town, with whom he might partake of a dinner (as he had desired him to provide one), and that such a person should have nothing to pay. The landlord immediately replied, that the curate, Mr. ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... Paris, which, it seemed, had always been his home, with a wit to which his slight accent and formal utterance gave new point; he displayed a kindly interest in my plans which was very pleasing; he was always tactful, courteous, good-humored. He was plainly a boulevardier, a man of the world, with an outlook upon life a little startling in its materiality, but interesting in its freshness, and often amusing in its frankness. And he seemed to return my liking—certainly it was he who sought me, not I who sought him. He was being delayed, ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson
... was a choir-practice at St. Sylvester's. Mr. Clifton was peculiarly tiresome, and the young organist replied with an air of easy scorn, the more irritating that it was so good-humored. Had the worthy incumbent been a shade less musical there would have been a quarrel then and there. But how could he part with a man who played so splendidly? Bertie received his instructions as to their next meeting with an ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... frightened, friend," said the wretch: "I am good-humored when pleased; and something does please me in your well-proportioned body and handsome face, though you look a little woe-begone. You have suffered a land—I, a sea wreck. Perhaps I can allay the tempest of your fortunes ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... would have seemed a loss. It was a kitchen spotlessly clean, with an old-fashioned polished dresser and shelves above it filled with pewter plates and dishes, upon which every gleam of firelight twinkled. A tall mahogany clock, with its head against the ceiling, and the round, good-humored face of a full moon beaming above its dial-plate, stood in one corner; while in the opposite one there was a corner cupboard with glass doors, filled with antique china cups and tea-pots, and a Chinese ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... makes abominable puns; these amuse nobody except, perhaps, himself. Teak, a good fellow, is known to us as Bill Sykes. He has a very pale complexion, and has the most delightful nose in all the world; it is like a little white potato. Bill is a good-humored Cockney, and is eternally involved in argument. He carries a Jew's harp and a mouth-organ, and when not fingering one he is blowing music-hall tunes out ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... lay aside this anger of yours, and show yourself as you ought at your son's wedding, cheerful and good-humored. I'll just step over to them, {and} return ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... told, many popular writers are doing their best, especially in France, and perhaps a little in England, to set class against class, and pick up every stone in the kennel to shy at a gentleman with a good coat on his back, something useful might be done by a few good-humored sketches of those innocent criminals a little better off than their neighbors, whom, however we dislike them, I take it for granted we shall have to endure, in one shape or another, as long as civilization ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... colder, more despondent than ever. He told himself that Lawrence had evidently pleaded with Claire for her love and been denied. At least, this blind man had not been successful, and Philip could afford to be good-humored. The more agreeable he was, the more Claire would turn to him from that dark, ungracious form yonder. His would be the victory of pleasant manners. Therefore he talked, gladly, smilingly, while Claire ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... had crept into the voice of the taxi-cab driver when he stopped his vehicle in Madison Avenue and sought Curtis's further commands. No longer did he address his patron with a species of good-humored tolerance, almost of sarcasm; his mental attitude had now become one of respect, even of hero-worship. A little later, while smoking a thoughtful pipe in his own cozy flat somewhere near Second Avenue, he tried to explain this ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... detect a trace of hostile feeling in the countenance, words, or manner of any prisoner there. Almost to a man, they were simple, bumpkin-like fellows, dressed in homespun clothes, with faces singularly vacant of meaning, but sufficiently good-humored: a breed of men, in short, such as I did not suppose to exist in this country, although I have seen their like in some other parts of the world. They were peasants, and of a very low order: a class of people with whom our Northern rural population has not a single trait in common. They were exceedingly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... centuries—and find them jesting at one another in the gayest and least sacerdotal manner imaginable. "Who could tell a story with more wit, who could joke so pleasantly?" sighs St. Gregory of Nazienzen of his friend St. Basil, remembering doubtless with a heavy heart the shafts of good-humored raillery that had brightened their lifelong intercourse. With what kindly and loving zest does Gregory, himself the most austere of men, mock at Basil's asceticism—at those "sad and hungry banquets" of which he was invited to partake, those "ungarden-like gardens, void of pot-herbs," in which he ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... it's a beautiful moonlight night; we will walk up and down arm in arm under the trees, while you tell me your pitiful tale." He drew the doleful governor into the courtyard, took him by the arm as he had said, and, in his rough, good-humored way, cried: "Out with it, rattle away, Baisemeaux; what ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... he had reached the door, it opened, and the Emperor Alexander appeared. "Ah, I succeeded in surprising both of you," he said, with a good-humored smile. Bowing respectfully to the queen, he added: "I trust your majesty will forgive my entering without announcement, but I longed to see my noble friend Frederick William. God and His saints be praised that the sun has at length risen on us, and ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... over in her memory all her relations with the family. She remembered the simple delight expressed on the round, good-humored face of Anna Pavlovna at their meetings; she remembered their secret confabulations about the invalid, their plots to draw him away from the work which was forbidden him, and to get him out-of-doors; the devotion of the youngest boy, ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... barometer. Trade was brisk with Snelling, and a brass band was playing national airs on a staging erected on the green in front of the post-office. Nightly meetings took place at Grimsey's Hall, and the audiences were good-humored and orderly. Torrini advanced some Utopian theories touching a universal distribution of wealth, which were listened to attentively, but ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... beg!" said Harry, and gave him, after long waiting, the expected morsel. Frisk was satisfied, but Harry was not. The little boy, though a good-humored fellow in the main, had turns of naughtiness, which were apt to last him all day, and this promised to prove one of his worst. It was a holidays, and in the afternoon his cousins, Jane and William, were to come and see him and Annie; and the pears were ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... glass are beautifully bright, your bell quickly answered, and Thomas ready, neat, and good-humored, you are not to expect absolute truth from him. The very obsequiousness and perfection of his service prevents truth. He may be ever so unwell in mind or body, and he must go through his service—hand the shining plate, replenish the spotless glass, lay the ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... ould croaker," says Mrs. Daly, giving her a good-humored shake, "An' now sit down, Miss Monica an' Miss Kit, do, till I get ye the sup o' tay. Mrs. Moloney, me dear, jist give the fire a poke, an' make the kittle sing us a song. 'Tis the music we want ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... outskirts of the town, he observed a chariot drawn by six milk-white horses approaching from a county road which debouched, like the highway, into Gloucester street; and when this chariot arrived opposite, a head was thrust through the window, and a good-humored voice uttered ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... contradictory suggestions, and though it was by no means the glowing orb of a hero of romance, you could find in it almost anything you looked for. Frigid and yet friendly, frank yet cautious, shrewd yet credulous, positive yet skeptical, confident yet shy, extremely intelligent and extremely good-humored, there was something vaguely defiant in its concessions, and something profoundly reassuring in its reserve. The cut of this gentleman's mustache, with the two premature wrinkles in the cheek above it, and the fashion of his garments, in which an exposed shirt-front ...
— The American • Henry James
... was a red-faced and not a very good-humored woman. She was, however, an excellent cook and a careful, prudent servant. Mrs. Maybright had found her, notwithstanding her very irascible temper, a great comfort, for she was thoroughly honest and conscientious, but even from her late mistress Mrs. Power would ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... simple Western attorney, who, according to one party was a vulgar joker, and whom the doctrinaires among his own supporters accused of wanting every element of statesmanship, was the most absolute ruler in Christendom, and this solely by the hold his good-humored sagacity had laid on the hearts and understandings of his countrymen. Nor was this all, for it appeared that he had drawn the great majority not only of his fellow-citizens, but of mankind also, to his side. So strong and so ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... this that Lincoln could defend himself. He became doubly respected as an opponent, for his reputation for good-humored raillery had been established in his campaigns. In a speech made in January he gave another evidence of his skill in the use of ridicule. A resolution had been offered by Mr. Linder to institute an inquiry into the management of the ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... gentlemanlike &c. (fashion) 852[obs3]; gallant; on one's good behavior. fine spoken, fair spoken, soft-spoken; honey-mouthed, honey-tongued; oily, bland; obliging, conciliatory, complaisant, complacent; obsequious &c. 886. ingratiating, winning; gentle, mild; good-humored, cordial, gracious, affable, familiar; neighborly. diplomatic, tactful, politic; artful &c. 702. Adv. courteously &c. adj.; with a good grace; with open arms, with outstretched arms; a bras ouverts[Fr]; suaviter ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... of conventional cut and neither his hands nor his feet seemed to bother him a bit. And yet among the men of the company he stood out in sharp contrast. Miss Howland marked this particularly when Oddington presented himself with an air of good-humored camaraderie,—he, the successful young lawyer, with a growing reputation as a man about town and the glamour which surrounds the most popular all-around man at his university still about him; a man who did well everything he tried to do, and able to give the impression that the ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... passed out into the roadway, and took their place among the slowly moving people there, the Inspector make a way for himself and his companion through the excited, talkative, good-humored Cockney crowd. "There it is! Can't you see it? Up there just like a little yellow worm." "There's naught at all! You've got the cobble-wobbles!" and then ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... sat in the Cosmic Club discussing the question: "What's the matter with Jones?" Waldemar, the oldest of the conferees, was the owner, and at times the operator, of an important and decent newspaper. His heavy face wore the expression of good-humored power, characteristic of the experienced and successful journalist. Beside him sat Robert Bertram, the club idler, slender and languidly elegant. The third member of the ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... with a good-humored smile, "you must all be indulged in your notions, I suppose, at such a glorious hour as this. But you may now be moving on with your prisoners to the field, and thence by the road to Bennington. Business calls me there by ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... her eyes to the royal box, where sat a stout, middle-aged man, with a dull, good-humored face, a star and ribbon on his breast, and by his side a woman, ample and motherly, with an ugly tuft of feathers on her head, and a diamond tiara, which lit up her heavy Dutch features like a torch. The ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... place, gracefully shifting from one foot to the other like a good racehorse, looks from side to side, salutes everyone that passes by, smiles and screws up his eyes.... He is red-cheeked, sturdy, and good-humored; his face is full of eagerness, and is as fresh as though he had just fallen from the sky with the feathery snow. Seeing Malahin, the guard sighs guiltily and throws ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... struggled to his feet. He was a powerful man, with a good-humored face, and, in spite of his unfelicitous nickname of "The Bone-Breaker," had a kindly, simple, but somewhat emotional nature. Nevertheless, it appeared as if he were laboring under some ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... journeys of the night before, was left as it had fallen—there would be time enough to sort all that, a hundred times. At present, he would venture forth with the sole object of examining his surroundings. "This suits me exactly," he muttered, with a good-humored chuckle; "just doing one thing at a time, and being everlasting ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... something of geniality and warmth, the landscape lost some of its repulsiveness, the dreary palmettos had less of that hideousness which made us regard them as very fitting emblems of treason. We even began to feel a little good-humored contempt for our hateful little Brats of guards, and to reflect how much vicious education and surroundings were to be ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... peep of dawn, punctual to his promise, Dasher thrust his black, good-humored face into ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... Susan," remarked Mrs. Cliff, with a good-humored smile, "if you want me to do anything, there's no need of being so wonderfully formal about it! If any one of you, or all of you together, for that matter, have anything to say to me, all you had to do was to ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... Bartemy had ceased counting their coins. The passers-by came up in still increasing numbers, until the street, from the barrier of the Basse Ville to the Cathedral, was filled with a noisy, good-humored crowd, without an object except to stare at the Golden Dog and a desire to catch a glimpse of the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... reaching the public with the idea that this is a land that is lovable, prosperous, good-humored, great, and noble-spirited. To carry it out will cost a great deal of money, I should say that not less than five million a year should be available. ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... fine, stalwart Indian, with an open, good-humored, one might almost say roguish countenance, came forward ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... of between fifty and sixty was standing before a wash-tub. Her arms were bare to the elbows, and covered with suds. Her blue winsey petticoat was tucked up above her ankles; her large feet were destitute of shoes and stockings. She had a broad face, a snub nose, and two twinkling good-humored eyes. Notwithstanding her dirt-and she was very dirty-the first glance into her face gave one a certain feeling of comfort and confidence. This was curious; for Mother Bunch had the loudest tongue and the most ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... schoolmasters always able to teach their pupils. The schoolhouse where the boys of this settlement went was a log cabin, built in the midst of the woods. The schoolmaster was a strange man: sometimes good-humored, and then indulging the lads; sometimes surly and ill-natured, and then beating them severely. It was his usual custom, after hearing the first lessons of the morning, to allow the children to be out for a half hour at play, during ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip
... York, or Cousin Abbie, or somebody, will have a soothing and improving effect upon you," Sadie had said, with a sort of good-humored impatience, only the night before her departure. "Now that you have reached the summit of your hopes, you seem more uncomfortable about it than you were even to stay at home. Do let us see you look pleasant ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... surrounded, captured, and taken possession of, seemed more amused than annoyed by these inquisitorial proceedings, and, with a clear voice and a good-humored smile, replied, while the tumult was hushed and every ear expanded to catch the interesting intelligence, "I know of no battles that have been fought on the land or sea; but just before I left New York, intelligence was ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... fair fight," protested Gage, now fairly sobbing in his pain and terror, for good-humored Reade seemed to him now to be ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock
... like all other beasts had learned to ignore the presence of the innocuous creature that made it. But just now he did not stop to consider that what he saw was a porcupine and that at his first snarl the good-humored little creature would waddle away as fast as it could, still chattering baby talk to itself. His first reasoning was that it was a live thing invading the home to which Gray Wolf and he had just returned. A day later, or perhaps an hour later, he would ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... sat at his ease, his broad, merry, half-Oriental face good-humored, his features given a ruddy tinge by the light of rising Jupiter, the edge of whose sphere was beginning to dominate the horizon. Sliss, the intelligent amphibian, squatted across from him in the portable tub of water which he carried with him whenever absent from the swamps ...
— The Indulgence of Negu Mah • Robert Andrew Arthur
... of battle too. The male yellowbirds flit about from point to point, apparently assuring each other of the highest sentiments of esteem and consideration, at the same time that one intimates to the other that he is carrying his joke a little too far. It has the effect of saying with mild and good-humored surprise, "Why, my dear sir, this is my territory; you surely do not mean to trespass; permit me to salute you, and to escort you over the line." Yet the intruder does not always take the hint. Occasionally the couple have a brief ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... good-humored that day. Apprised by a herald that the duke and his followers were nearing the castle, he had sent the messenger back announcing a trysting-place, and now rode forth to meet his guest and escort him with ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... people in voluminous broadcloth were already gathered about the lich-gate when Fuller appeared, carrying his portly waistcoat with a waddle of good-humored dignity, and mopping at his forehead. He was followed by a small boy, who with some difficulty carried the 'cello in a big green baize bag. One or two of the loungers at the gate carried smaller green bags, and while they ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... ready to take up socialism. He talked of his heroes; he said they all owed it to the men who had made and preserved the Union to give the existing government a chance. These discussions were entirely good-humored and Harwood enjoyed them. Sometimes they met in the evening at a saloon in the neighborhood of the shop where Allen, the son of Edward Thatcher, whom everybody knew, was an object of special interest. He would sit on a table and lecture ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... possessing the advantage of a clerkly hand, who arranged for Elizabeth's admission to the free ward of the hospital, and wrote to his niece Mary, living by good fortune in the city, to have a care over her while there. He told that Mary had a kind, good-humored face, and was ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... other, are opened for Drinking Coffee. A hanging sign of either ivy or laurel invites the passers-by. Hither in crowds from the entire city they assemble, and While away the time in pleasant drinking. And when once the feelings have grown warm, acted upon by The gentle heat, then good-humored laughter, and pleasant Arguments increase. General gaiety ensues, the places about resound with joyous applause. But never does the liquid imbibed overpower weary minds, but Rather, if ever slumber presses their heavy eyes and dulls The brain; and their strength, blunted, grows ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... and in due time the dinner was announced, which was in the substantial excellent style that Clarke knew well how to order for such a festivity. The host was talkative and charming; as the dinner proceeded the guests became increasingly good-humored, exceedingly well satisfied with him and with themselves. "In due time the ladies and clergy retired," says Levi Beardsley,[95] who was present at the feast, "and then the guests were effectually ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... Ernest and Jack were always given and taken in good part, and had only the effect of raising a good-humored laugh. ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... are exposed by a good-humored smile of assurance and confidence. He does not extend a fist but he waves off the fool Bolshevik orator with a good-natured but nevertheless final answer. And here it is: "Go on—Take That Stuff Back to Where You Got it—I Wouldn't Trade a Log Hut on a ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... the Villain is very fine. In Doctor Harrison we hail a new development of that indispensable character. Of course, the gentlemanly, good-humored Doctor is not to be considered a villain in the ordinary acceptation of the word; he is only a technical villain,—a villain of eminent respectability. It is almost unnecessary to add, that he is immeasurably more attractive than the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... Nell scraping acquaintance with the bold, good-humored officers and archers, and bland municipal magnates whom Hals has made to live on canvas. She looked the big, stalwart fellows in the eye, but half shyly, as a girl regards a man to whom she thinks, yet is not quite sure, she ought ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... manhood as "with a complexion clear and even light, a forehead broad and high, as if built of ivory, with large projecting eyebrows, and his eyes rolling beneath them like a sea with darkened lustre. His mouth was rather open, his chin good-humored and round, and his nose small. His hair, black and glossy as the raven's wing, fell in smooth masses over his forehead,—long, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... Terry was good-humored about it. "I don't care what you do or don't do so long as we have that wedding pretty soon," he said, reaching a strong brown hand after Alima's, quite as brown and nearly ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... Rosenstein cast a perfectly good-humored but rather melancholy look at Amidon. "No; I never was," he replied, soberly. "Can't remember when I wouldn't have preferred to meet some other fellow in the looking-glass. It's such an awful thing, the intimacy with himself that's forced on ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... ventilation. His hair was cropped close, his linen always of immaculate whiteness; a suit of thin gray flannel, worn threadbare but scrupulously brushed, floated about his burly limbs, adding to his bulk by the looseness of its cut. The years had mellowed the good-humored, imperturbable audacity of his prime into a temper carelessly serene; and the leisurely tapping of his iron-shod stick accompanied his footfalls with a self-confident sound on the flagstones. It was impossible to connect such a fine presence and this ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... comfortable figure, a clean-shaven, round face, and blue eyes much exaggerated for the spectator by the strong lenses of a pair of great spectacles. These, with his gray hair, gave him a benevolence of aspect which somewhat misrepresented him. As a matter of fact, although good-humored and not without a still surviving capacity for generous impulse, he was only less "near" than his wife. Childishly vain, he bore himself with an air of self-satisfaction not without its charm for ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... what he said was in short, trenchant sentences, interjected from time to time. Garfield treated the outburst as a sort of extravaganza, and in his position as host did not seriously debate, but rallied his friend with good-humored persiflage, met his outbursts with jovial laughter and prodded him to fresh explosions by shafts of wit. It was a strange and not altogether exhilarating experience for me; but I had afterward to learn that the belittling view of Lincoln was the ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... arrum, an' his wrist as big as yer leg, an' so he wint, bigger an' bigger. Whin he walked he carried an oak-tree for a shtick, ye cud crawl into wan av his shoes, an' his caubeen 'ud cover a boat. But he was a good-humored young felly wid a laugh that 'ud deefen ye, an' a plazin' word for all he met, so as if ye run acrass him in the road, he'd give ye 'good morrow kindly,' so as ye'd feel the betther av it all day. He'd work an' he'd play an' do aither wid all the might ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... good-humored face had assumed an anxious look. He knew something about the people of these ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... myriads of kinsmen across the seas were strangers to us, and the amazing friendship which has sprung up between the subjects of Victoria and the citizens of the vast republic was represented fifty years ago by a kind of sheepish, good-humored ignorance, tempered by jealousy. The smart packets left London and Liverpool to thrash their way across the Atlantic swell, and they were lucky if they managed to complete the voyage in a month—Charles Dickens sailed in a vessel which took twenty-two ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... of his personal appearance. He "was of medium height, of a strong, athletic figure, and in the time of the Revolutionary War weighed about two hundred pounds. His hair was dark, his eyes light blue, and his broad, good-humored face was marked with deep scars received in his encounters with ...
— Once Upon A Time In Connecticut • Caroline Clifford Newton
... Tresler retorted, with a good-humored laugh; "but your enterprise has carried you so far ahead of time that you've overlapped. I tell you, man, you're back in the savage times. You're groping in the prehistoric periods—Jurassic, Eocene, or ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... She smiled at him. The smile seemed to say to the Cap'n: "You ridiculous old dear, you! You KNOW that's what you were going to advise, so why deny it? I've found you out, but we both might just as well be good-humored ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... too busily engaged in looking after her "properties" to perceive the viscount until he spoke, now strode forward, extended her hand, and shook his with good-humored familiarity. ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... the generator of more hearty, healthful, purely good-humored laughs than any other half-dozen men of ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... to lose it by a single spot upon the die, but such is the fate of him who plays, and a philosopher will swallow his ill luck and take to fighting for more. The Brandons could have done this easily enough, especially Charles, who was an offhand philosopher, rather fond of a good-humored fight, had it not been that in the course of play one evening the secret of Judson's winning had been disclosed by a discovery that he cheated. The Brandons waited until they were sure, and then trouble began, which resulted in a duel ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... course, but in delivering us from error it tends to paralyze life. Maturity of mind consists in taking part in the prescribed game as seriously as though one believed in it. Good-humored compliance, tempered by a smile, is, on the whole, the best line to take; one lends one's self to an optical illusion, and the voluntary concession has an air of liberty. Once imprisoned in existence, we must submit ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was apparently a young Dutchman. His figure was well set up and stocky, his features regular, his mouth firm with a good square chin, and his clear dark eyes under bushy brows gazed on the world with a frank, good-humored expression. ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... to see you get caught in the trap," said the girl, standing up because the big creature pulled upon her arm. She wasn't much frightened, strange to say, because this woodchuck had a good-humored way about him that gave ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
... young men made a quick and not altogether successful dive for her ladyship's handkerchief, colliding vigorously with one another in their endeavor to perform this act of gallantry single-handed, Lady Sue gazed down on them, with good-humored contempt, laughter and mischief dancing in her eyes. She knew that she was good to look at, that she was rich, and that she had the pick of the county, aye, of the South of England, did she desire ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... genial, congenial, affable, amiable, enjoyable, good-humored, pleasurable. Antonyms: unpleasant, disagreeable, uncongenial, repellent, repelling, austere, unamiable, inaffable, dreary, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... she went into Napoleon's cabinet, and found him at breakfast, and unusually cheerful and good-humored. She had entered without having been announced, and crept up on tiptoe to her husband, who sat with his back turned toward her, and had not yet noticed her. Lightly throwing her arm around his neck, and letting herself sink upon his breast, and then ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... still a moment after this impulsive entrance, and the governess turned toward Mrs. Foss a face that, benign and enlightened though it was, called up the memory of faces seen in good-humored German comic papers. The expression of her smile said to the company that she was guiltless in the matter of this invasion. Could one use severity toward a little girl who suffered from asthma ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... known than our worthy President, James K. Polk. That man was the famous Captain Riley, whose "Narrative" of suffering and adventures is pretty generally known all over the civilized world. Captain Riley was a fine, fat, good-humored joker, who at the period of my story was the representative of the Dayton district, and lived near that little city when at home. Well, Captain Riley had amused the company with many of his far-famed and singular adventures, which, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... settin' here. I see his face that first time by the light o' the street-lamp, an' just now by the gaslight in the hall. An' both times him and me turned round to look at each other. I noticed then what a good-humored face he had, an' how he walked with his shoulders back. Oh, that's the same man all right enough. What ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... compliment, Herr General," said Hillars, with a good-humored smile. "But, may I ask, what the devil have you been ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... up until the morning of the resurrection; and bringing up the rear, attenuated but vivacious little Jonathan Homer of Newton, who was, to look upon, a kind of expurgated, reduced and Americanized copy of Voltaire, but very unlike him in wickedness or wit. The good-humored junior member of our family always loved to make him happy by setting him chirruping about Miles Coverdale's Version, and the Bishop's Bible, and how he wrote to his friend Sir Isaac (Coffin) about something or other, and how Sir Isaac wrote back that he was very much ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... was from Campbell. I opened it first of all. Jim wrote a rambling, good-humored letter, a mixture of business, news, advice and nonsense. "The Black Brig" had gone into another edition. Considering my opinion of such "slush" I should be ashamed to accept the royalties, but he would continue to give my account credit for them until I cabled ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Scotchman to account for being intoxicated one hundred years ago. He also speaks of him as a toady; but he was a friend of Johnson, whose detestation of sycophancy was a positive principle. Hume speaks of him as a "friend of mine, very good-humored, very agreeable, and very mad." Macaulay's and Carlyle's essays may be considered as mutually corrective. The truth is that Boswell was absolutely frank, and if a man is frank about himself on paper he must write himself down ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... differences. The husband may like to play games, the wife may want to read. One may like to go out to parties and theaters, the other may want to stay at home. Before marriage these differences appear to merest trifles and are the subjects of good-humored bantering; after marriage they cause constant dissension, constant friction. A trifle is the usual beginning, a divorce may be the end. A little lack of tact, an unwillingness to sacrifice self in a small measure "at the right moment" ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... the concerts that have been going on this season, yes, I do," said the Professor, in a bland, good-humored way. ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... fiercely on Helm, but a glimpse of the Captain's broad good-humored face heartily smiling, dispelled his anger. There was no ground upon which to maintain a quarrel with a person so persistently genial and so absurdly frank. And in fact Hamilton was not half so bad as his choleric manifestations seemed to make him out. ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... soldiers about the door, with a shabby carriage in the court, were the only tokens of its character. We were ushered at once into the presence of the Pasha, who is a man of about seventy years, with a good-humored, though shrewd face. He was quite cordial in his manners, complimenting us on our Turkish costume, and vaunting his skill in physiognomy, which at once revealed to him that we belonged to the highest class of American ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... eat, a night's lodging, and a chance of work afterward," the stranger repeated with good-humored deliberation. ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... had by this time taken his seat in silence—a good-humored nod, and a glance, half-smiling, half-inquisitive, being the extent of his salutation. Smitten as he was, and in the immediate presence of her who had made so large a hole in his heart, his manner was evidently distrait, which the fair Caroline in her secret soul ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... him, says the story. And there he lived, doubtless happily enough, fighting Highlanders and hunting deer, so that as yet the pains and penalties of exile did not press very hardly upon him. The handsome, petulant, good-humored lad had become in a few weeks the darling of Gilbert's ladies, and the envy of all his knights and gentlemen. Hereward the singer, harp-player, dancer, Hereward the rider and hunter, was in all mouths; but he himself was discontented at having as yet fallen in with no adventure ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... After this cruel punishment the mutilated beauty sank into a state of melancholy madness, and although the exorcists of the Church and other thaumaturgists had vainly endeavored to expel the demon of madness, she remained as before: a gentle, good-humored creature, quiet and diligent at her work, under the women who had charge of her, and now in the common work-shop. It was only when she was idle that her craziness became evident, and of this the other girls took ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... hard to kill. The Dutch gave him the name for that reason. It often seems as if bullets have no effect on him. He will absorb lead without losing a trace of his good-humored look, and after he has been shot several times he will go bounding earnestly away, as if nothing was the matter. If he succeeds in joining a herd there is little way of distinguishing which one has been shot, unless he ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... found himself once more addressed by the good-humored Captain Forsythe. "Behold in me a Mercury, committed to an imperative mission. You are commanded to appear—not in the royal box—but in ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... arms glittering in the sun; lost now in some hollow, then emerging, winding out with long-drawn glitter again; till at length their blue uniforms and actual faces come home to you. Near upon 30,000 of all arms; trim exact, of stout and silently good-humored aspect; well rested, by this time;—likely fellows for their work, who will do it with a will. The King seemed to be affected by so glorious a spectacle; and, what I admired, his Majesty, though ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the main camp of Ottawas, and there I idled for an hour. The braves were good-humored with me, for I was a trader, not an officer, and their noses were keen for the brandy that I might have for barter. So that I was free to watch them at their gambling, or dip my ladle in their kettles if I willed. All this was good, but it went no further. With all my artifices, ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... the purpose of Binet to cast a slur upon the good sense and judgment of teachers. The teachers who took part in the little experiment described above were Binet's personal friends. The errors he points out in his entertaining and good-humored account of the experiment are inherent in the situation. They are the kind of errors which any person, however discriminating and observant, is likely to make in estimating the intelligence of a subject without ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... at Queed, smiling, very good-humored and gay, and Queed looked back at him, not very good-humored and anything but gay. Doubtless it would have surprised the young Doctor very much to know that West was feeling sorry for him just then, for at that moment he ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... post-chaise drove up to the door. A young gentleman stept out, and by the light of the lamps I caught a glimpse of a countenance which I thought I knew. I moved forward to get a nearer view, when his eye caught mine. I was not mistaken; it was Frank Bracebridge, a sprightly, good-humored young fellow with whom I had once travelled on the Continent. Our meeting was extremely cordial, for the countenance of an old fellow-traveller always brings up the recollection of a thousand pleasant scenes, odd adventures, and excellent jokes. To discuss all these in a transient interview ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... very religious," said one of the old ladies, with a red, wrinkled, good-humored face, "by your ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... after they left the mayor's. Aside from the fatigues of the evening, they wished to reflect, and to resume their self-command. Mme. Petit found it useless to question their faces —they told her nothing. But she did not agree with Baptiste about M. Lecoq: she thought him good-humored, and rather silly. Though the party was less silent at the dinner-table, all avoided, as if by tacit consent, any allusion to the events of the day. No one would ever have thought that they had just been witnesses of, ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... man looked up quickly, as if he did not quite understand the brusque ways of his new acquaintance, who put his questions so directly. But the new acquaintance seemed good-humored and quite at his ease, and evidently had not the least idea of being rude or over-inquisitive. He had only the way of one apparently ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... The round-faced, good-humored looking mother, whose name was Mrs. Williams, had been washing and putting away the breakfast things when her daughter entered. She now wiped her hands hastily and came to the ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... called me to his room. He had been drinking during the evening and was poised between good-humored hilarity and ill-tempered ferocity. The latter condition was usually the result of his libations. When I entered the room it was evident he ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... gravity was all in his bearing, which was quiet and confident: the manner of a capable man, the sort of man the great of this earth find invaluable and are inclined to trust. His full-shaven face had a good-natured, almost a good-humored expression, which I have come to think must have depended on the cast of his features, on the setting of his eyes—on some peculiarity not under his control, or else he could not have preserved it so well. On certain occasions, as ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... said Mary, in her blunt voice. She could never act a part to save her life. "That is just what I should like best to do," she added, smiling and dimpling. She had a jolly little face, somewhat tanned with the sun, two round good-humored brown eyes, and a wide mouth. Her teeth were white, however, and ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... been doin', Jimmy darlint?" said Mrs. Donovan, turning her broad, good-humored face toward the ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... he took the world as he found it, and did not trouble himself about reforms or isms. He had only good-humored banter for the Abolitionists, just as he had for non-resistants and spirit-rappers. When progressive people were in a ferment with the new transcendental philosophy (deduced from the preaching of Channing and the essays of Emerson), and were fascinated by the monologues ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... legs; then, pulling their caps over their eyes, these energetic little boys stole out of the back gate and fairly flew down an alley to the station. No one noticed them in that hot, perspiring, black crowd. A lively band was playing and the mob of good-humored, happy negroes, dressed in their Sunday best, laughing and joking, pushing and elbowing, made their way to the excursion train standing ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... prose rather than his poetical works. Certain it is that the appetite for all kinds of fun, verbal and other was a part of Hood's nature. We see it in the practical jokes he was continually playing on his good-humored wife—such as altering into grotesque absurdity many of the words contained in her letters to friends: we see it—the mere animal love of jocularity, as it might be termed—in such a small point as his frequently addressing his friend Philip de Franck, in letters, by the words, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... your arms so?" placing his arms akimbo, in imitation of ours. Seeing we made no answer, he repeated the question, still standing in the same posture. We took no notice of him, seeing that his supposed insolence was at most good-humored and innocent. Our hostess, a colored lady, happened to step out at the moment, and told us that the man had mistaken us for her son, with whom he was well acquainted, at the same time calling to the man, and telling him of his mistake. The negro instantly dropped ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... of them laughing as they went away. The paper was the trench paper of the Bois-le-Pretre, named the "Mouchoir" (the handkerchief) from a famous position thus called in the Bois. The jokes in it were like the jokes in a local minstrel show, puns on local names, jests about the Boches, and good-humored satire. The spirit of the "Mouchoir" was whole-heartedly amateur. Thus the issue which followed a heavy snowfall contained ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan |
