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More "Merriment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... translator, "'The Power of Darkness' and 'The Fruits of Culture,' the contrast is very striking. The first is intensely moral, terrible in its earnestness and force.... Very different is 'Fruits of Culture,' a play brimful of laughter and merriment." ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... violin gave forth their notes from time to time, their harshness softened by the mingling of the waves' lap on the vessel's sides. Now and then the first-class passengers looked down with amused curiosity upon rude dances, the dancers' merriment enhanced by stumbling lurches born of the vessel's slow, long rollings on the sea's ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... bridges commonly connect rather than separate, the metaphor was received with roars of laughter. If the honourable members who joined in the hilarious applause had travelled much in Russia, they would have been more moderate in their merriment; for in that country, despite the laudable activity of the modern system of local administration created in the sixties, bridges often act still as a barrier rather than a connecting link, and to cross a river by a bridge ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... merriment in the palace. But I will pass over the rest, and you shall hear of the joy and pleasure in the bridal chamber. Bishops and archbishops were there on the night when the bride and groom retired. At this their first meeting, Iseut ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... were dirty and ragged, several of them barefooted, nearly all bare-headed, but they danced with noisy merriment. One there was, a little girl, on crutches; incapable of taking a partner, she stumped round and round, circling upon the pavement, till giddiness came upon her and she had to fall back and lean against the wall, laughing aloud at her weakness. Gilbert stepped up to her, ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... young people saw each other for the first time in their stage costumes there was a good deal of merriment and some honest admiration. Geoff looked very odd without his eyeglasses and with the yellow wig that was the one property belonging to this ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... fortnight in England, however, and was very much impressed by the mighty sea of social life. Then he hastened back to his eager study of the rich art treasures of Paris; but he could not possess his soul in the confusion and noisy merriment, in the ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... it was no uncommon occurrence, when his services were needed, to find him so stupefied with liquor that nothing but a liberal sousing in cold water would fit him for duty, and I imagine that "soaking the doctor" became a source of merriment which may have diverted ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve
... engravings and French prints and decorated with tawdry curtains, and in the larger of the two dancing was going on. Here the crowd was denser and of the same heterogeneous kind. It was a festival of high jinks—a sway of riotous, unbridled merriment. A performer at the piano, with a bottle of beer within easy reach, rapped out the inspiriting chords of a popular melody. Couples glided over the polished floor, some lightly, some galloping, and all reckless ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... replied; "he seems feverish. Now, my dears, I hope you will be very good and gentle all day. You, Margaret, must take good care of your sister, and Maud," she added, as she bent forward to tie in a smoother knot the strings of the little girl's hat, "you must not run quite wild with merriment. Robert, don't put yourself on your dignity with young Montford, on account of his shyness. Remember, almost everything is strange to him here, and he is sad. I am sure he does not mean ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... manner,—none at all; no wit, no fun, no frolic humour had Mr. Dimond:—no grace, no dignity, no real unaffected elegance of mien or behaviour had his predecessor, David,—whose partiality to my fastidious husband was for that reason never returned. Merriment, difficult for him to comprehend, made no amends for the want of that which no one understood better;—so he hated ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... and with great interest to a story she was telling them, while a sweet-faced young girl, sitting near with a bit of tatting in her hands, seemed an equally interested hearer, ready to join in the outburst of merriment that now and again ...
— Elsie at Home • Martha Finley
... Europe, and perhaps in the whole world, but Paris is, all the same, the city for impostors and quacks to make a fortune. When their knavery is found out people turn it into a joke and laugh, but in the midst of the merriment another mountebank makes his appearance, who does something more wonderful than those who preceded him, and he makes his fortune, whilst the scoffing of the people is in abeyance. It is the unquestionable effects of the power which ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... kept down by frequent sprinkling. If the waltz and the polka and schottische sent her blood racing under such adverse conditions, what must it be like on a real floor with real music, she asked herself ecstatically. These dancing lessons were provocative of much merriment and teasing from the Toomeys. While Hugh did not resent it or defend Kate, he did not join in their ridicule of her. She was "green," he could not deny that, yet not in the sense the Toomeys meant. Naive, ingenuous, he felt were better words. She knew nothing of social usages, ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... Who else was there to raise her four good feet off the ground, and kiss her on both cheeks, and call her his darling little sister! Who else was there who could have changed their tears into laughter so quick that their merriment was wafted up to the Vicar's room, and made him ring his bell, and tell them to send Tom up to him! And who but Tom could have lit the old man's face up with a smile, with the history of a new colt, that my lord's mare Thetis had dropped ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... so much laughter that for some time nothing further was said; but every audience knows better than to check the source of merriment by a continued uproar; so it waited for ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... and without any merriment. She checked herself with an effort lest she should go on laughing, and her laughter turn uncontrollably into hysteria and tears. Here was Mrs. Croyle, a grown woman, standing in front of her like a mutinous obstinate child, looking like one too, talking ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... will get over it, Tim," she rejoined. "They've swallowed a lot in their time. Heaven's gate will have to be pretty wide to let in a real Pioneer," she added. "He takes up so much room—ah, Timothy Denton!" she added, with an outburst of whimsical merriment. ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... varied tints of the rainbow, rich productions of Oriental looms, robes from Tyre, shawls from Cashmere, blended with instruments of warfare, swords, spears, and bucklers, the battle-axe and the helmet. The sentry, pacing his rounds, paused to listen to wild bursts of merriment, the loud oath and light song from some gay pavilion, where young Syrian nobles were exchanging jests, and indulging in deep carousals. Yonder, in the glaring torch-light, sat a group of officers, engaged in some game of chance, and their stakes were the captives whom they were to drag at their ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... the cowpunchers had joined in the shouting. Tad could see, however, that they were shouting with merriment, though for the life of him he could not understand what there ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... one of her chapters, "I always bone my meat" (bone being the slang word of the day for steal), occasioned much merriment among her friends, and such a look of ludicrous surprise and reprobation from Liston, when he read it, as I ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... example wretched, for I have lost an empire whilst I am still living." He, nevertheless, abated nothing of his luxury and inattention to business. Nay, on the arrival of good news from the provinces, he, at a sumptuous entertainment, sung with an air of merriment, some jovial verses upon the leaders of the revolt, which were made public; and accompanied them with suitable gestures. Being carried privately to the theatre, he sent word to an actor who was applauded by the spectators, "that he ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... melancholy, sometimes hard and almost ferocious. If we looked back at her she seemed to be very much put out. We could not understand all this, but it had the effect of checking our conversation and any inclination to merriment. We were not exactly afraid of her, for though she was supposed to be out of her mind, the insane were not treated with the cruelty which has since been imported into the conduct of asylums. So far from being ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... of merriment along the passage. His face changed, the whole man changed, became rigid. The other two turned swiftly at his exclamation and stood motionless. Their faces assumed an expression of consternation, an ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... alone was untainted with the sin around him. Silent, moody, and preoccupied, he was yet the king of the room. His opinion was always asked, and listened to. His eye always cowed the ribald and the blasphemer; his songs, when he rarely broke out into merriment, were always rapturously applauded. Men hated, and yet respected him. I shrank from him at first, when I heard him called a Chartist; for my dim notions of that class were, that they were a very wicked set of people, who wanted to kill all the soldiers and ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... hall. Before Milligan's place a bonfire burned from the beginning of dusk to the coming of day; and until the time when that fire was quenched with buckets of water, it was a sign to all that the merriment was under way in the dance hall. If Lebrun's was the sun of the amusement world in The Corner, Milligan's was the moon. Everybody who had money to lose went to Lebrun's. Every one who was out for gayety went to Milligan's. Milligan was a ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... Garden of Eden was located right here. It was when your locusts were in full bloom and I asked him if he had run down Eve anywhere. Are you sure you don't know when he'll come back to see us all?" Aunt Mary's blue eyes danced with merriment. ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... student's life could have possessed no attraction for one of his temperament. Unlike Marlowe and Greene, he had harvested all his wild oats before he left Oxford; but the process had refined rather than sobered him, for his laugh lost none of its merriment, and his wit improved with experience, so that we may well believe that in the Court he was more Philautus than Euphues. In his writings also his aim was to be graceful rather than erudite; and, ponderous as his Euphues seems to us now, it appealed to its Elizabethan public ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... all, it is so much the nature of laughter to communicate itself that when it no longer communicates itself it ceases to exist. One might say that outbursts of merriment need to be encouraged, that they are not self-sufficient. Not to share them is to blow upon them and extinguish them. When, in an animated and mirthful group, some one remains cold or gloomy, the laughter immediately stops or is checked. Yet those whom ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... wild life has brought him into contact with the strangest people, 'The Scotch, Mrs. Twymley, express their emotions differently from us. With them tears signify a rollicking mood, while merriment denotes that they are plunged in gloom. When I had finished he said at once, "Let us go and see ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... strong character, there was nothing of the frivolous about her. In the frequent informal social gatherings she was always the life of the occasion, but never did her merriment get down to the level of silliness. Without a suspicion of prudishness there was always with her the natural dignity ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... ship should his disease unfortunately take a fatal turn. I found him one morning rolling about in his bunk with laughter. "It is really the most comical idea I ever heard of in my life," he spluttered, shaking with merriment. "Fancy carrying me home in the meat-safe! Just imagine father's face when you told him that you had got me down in the refrigerator! I never heard anything so d——d funny," and as fresh humorous possibilities of this novel form of home-coming ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... concluded, he leaned back in his chair, bubbling with suppressed merriment, until the sight of our round-eyed wonder was too much for him and he burst into uproarious laughter, which was so infectious that we could not help joining in, though the cause of it was a perfect mystery ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... before, the quiet gray lane, with its fern-covered banks and hedges of roses and honeysuckle all asleep and drenched with dew, was all in keeping with my spirits, which were gray also, partly with the weariness of such unaccustomed merriment, and still more at thought ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... a delightful travelling companion, and he liked to journey with his children about him. His cheerfulness and merriment on these occasions is a happy memory. Dr. Anderson, of Richmond, who has been for many years on intimate terms at Pembroke Lodge, and was much abroad with Lord John in the capacity of physician and friend, states that all who came in contact personally with ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... soldiers, who marched, on each side of us, with their muskets and bayonets fixed, about three yards from each other. In another hour we were clear of the town, and threading our way through a lane bounded on each side by prickly pears and other shrubs. There was no want of merriment among the party; they talked and laughed with one another, and the soldiers who guarded them, and appeared to care little for their fate. As for me, I was broken-hearted with the disgrace and the villainous ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... and beaten and neat. And there is plenty of sound, too—the fairy music of little bells upon the pagoda-tops when the breeze moves, the cooing of the pigeons in the eaves, the voices of the schoolboys. Monastery land is sacred. No life may be taken there, no loud sounds, no noisy merriment, no abuse is permitted anywhere within the fence. Monasteries are ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... explained that to go straight they would have "mouro pia" much scrub, and therefore led the way along the beach, carefully shewing the horsmen the hardest places on the sands. In rounding one of the rocky headlands, Eulah's horse fell with him, causing the greatest amusement and merriment to the body-guard. To be laughed at by Myalls was nearly too much for Eulah's equanimity, and could he have had his own way he would probably have resented the insult. As it was, his ire could only find vent in deeply muttered objurgations and abuse. At ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... assembled in company, it would seem as if they were practising a cotillon upon the wing, each one singing to his own movements, as he sallies forth and returns,—and nothing can exceed their apparent merriment. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... was a fellow of infinite jest in his day; he was sober enough now, and in no way disposed to indulge in those flashes of merriment "that were wont to set the table on a roar." But I did not regret his evaporated hilarity; I liked his more befitting genial silence, and had learned to look upon his rather open countenance with the same friendliness as that with which I regarded the ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... re-embarked his men and artillery, went forth to meet the viceroy. After a long and bloody fight, the Dutch had to draw off to stop the leaks of their admiral; on which the Portuguese let slip the opportunity, and fell to rioting and merriment, with great boasts of their victory, not looking any more for the Hollanders. But they, having stopped their leaks and refitted at Johor, came unexpectedly on the Portuguese, most of whom were feasting ashore, and sunk and burnt all ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... the pearl-shell on his sleeve, and thinking over the strange events of the last few days, there came to him from below the sound of voices. The doctor was there, evidently; perhaps Mr. Bill Hen, too; and little as he felt inclined to merriment, John fell into a helpless laughter, as he recalled the look of that worthy man when he was discovered flattened against the door. How much older one grew sometimes in a short time! Mr. Bill Hen used to look so old, so wise, and now he seemed no more than another ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... himself to the truth, and however general opinion was shut out from him for a time by those profligate persons with whom he lived, yet he could not help now and then seeing and feeling that he had lost respectability; and in the midst of noisy merriment he was often to himself an object of secret and sad contempt. Soon after he was separated for a time from Colonel Hauton and his companions, by going to take possession of his living, he made an effort to regain his self-complacency—he ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... enemy the sun for a moment, was probable enough. His companions, sitting on the combings of the main-hatch, or crouched in careless fashion on the shady side of the barricade, were laughing and talking, with blasphemous and obscene merriment hideous to contemplate; but he, with cap pulled over his brows, and hands thrust into the pockets of his coarse grey garments, held aloof from ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... to create laughter. Every new comer into an alehouse tap-room was asked unceremoniously, "Who are you?" and if he looked foolish, scratched his head, and did not know what to reply, shouts of boisterous merriment resounded on every side. An authoritative disputant was not unfrequently put down, and presumption of every kind checked by the same query. When its popularity was at its height, a gentleman, feeling the hand of a thief in his pocket, turned ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... more mischief than ill-will in his composition; and with all his overbearing roughness, there was a strong dash of waggish good humor at bottom. He had three or four boon companions, who regarded him as their model, and at the head of whom he scoured the country, attending every scene of feud or merriment for miles round. In cold weather he was distinguished by a fur cap, surmounted with a flaunting fox's tail; and when the folks at a country gathering descried this well-known crest at a distance, whisking about among a squad of hard riders, they always stood by for a squall. Sometimes his ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... the great hall, found an empty chair, and longed for someone to speak to. At the first glance, everybody seemed to know everybody else. That was not really the case, of course. There were others present as neglected and solitary as Helen; but the noise and merriment of the greater number dominated the place. It resembled a social club rather than ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... drove The living spray along the sunny air Into our faces; the blue heavens were bare, Stripped to their depths by the awakening north; And, from the waves, sound like delight broke forth Harmonizing with solitude, and sent Into our hearts aerial merriment. ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... do with this one—and of what he had done! Those last moments in his music-room rose to his memory and they carried a penalty which slugged his heart into an intensity of shame and misery. Paul Burton, sitting there with this thin semblance of merriment around him, saw himself once again very ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... laughed, and most of the others joined in her merriment. But Mr. Cole looked so troubled and stern that Nan, who was gazing at him from the corners of her eyes, saw no reason to laugh at his wife's sally, but felt a much greater inclination to cry for pity of ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... he passed, women ceased their gossiping, men slunk away from a friendly talk as though ashamed. If ever at harvest or Christmas time the spirit of good fellowship warmed the hearts of these country folk and loosened their tongues the grim presence of Gideon Strong was sufficient to check their merriment and send them silently apart. He had been known to pray that sinners might meet with the punishment they deserved, both in this world and hereafter. Such ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... armful of papers, he knelt down on the brick hearth, but suddenly drew back. His deep eyes gleamed hatefully at her. Holding out several stiff papers, he motioned to her to burn them. Usually she would have obeyed docilely enough, but this deviltry of merriment she resented. While she delayed, standing erect before the smouldering sticks, she noticed that a look of terror crept across the sick face. A spasm shook him, and he fainted. After that his weakness kept him in bed. She wondered what he had been so ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... a shout of merriment in which all the guardians joined. Miss Elting knowing Tommy as she did, merely smiled, but Margery blushed painfully. She felt humiliated for her friend. Tommy, however, had fully established her reputation ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... prefer, each by touching a spring nearest the hand selected, and at the same time announcing his name. The chosen one is immediately led out from behind the screen and presented by the master of ceremonies to the gentleman, in the midst of the applause or merriment of the company before the screen, and of the rest of the ladies behind it. Ladies are very particular about their hands and nails, and, as may easily be conceived, give them a little extra attention before ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... sublime I shall achieve in time To make the punishment fit the crime. The punishment fit the crime. And make the prisoner pent Unwillingly represent A source of innocent merriment. ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... "Nowadays good wine rides in a carriage and pair," passed it to the servant and got up. All rose and continuing to talk loudly went into the drawing room. Two letters brought by a courier were handed to Speranski and he took them to his study. As soon as he had left the room the general merriment stopped and the guests began to converse sensibly and quietly ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... gently murmured "We are so glad to have you with us"; of Dr. Theophilus's "You grow younger every day, ladies. Will you dance to-night?"; of General Bolingbroke's "I never missed an opportunity of coming to you in my life, ma'am"; of a confused chorus of girlish murmurs, of youthful merriment. ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... laugh to see another go out into the dark; ha! ha! they laugh to see the evil that is done under the stars. All they love is life, the warm, warm sun, and the sweet, sweet air. They are afraid of the cold, afraid of the cold and the dark, ha! ha! ha!" and the old hag writhed in ghastly merriment on the ground. ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... them laughing gleefully together as they were doing up the breakfast work. Calling out to learn the cause of their merriment, I found the elder John had forgotten to eat his egg—he had just found it in his coat-pocket, having put it in there to carry from the kitchen ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... keeping a lookout for donkeys; when one is seen, a hideous imitative bray is set up by the man of music, and his quadrupedal brother, attracted by the congenial sound, rushes to the roadside—mutual recognition, with much merriment, is the result. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... P.C. McGovern's Fourth Ward Association's excursion and picnic, at which he was one of the twenty-five vice-presidents. On this occasion Hefty had jumped overboard after one of the Rag Gang whom the members of the Half-Hose Social Club had, in a spirit of merriment, dropped over the side of the boat. This action and the subsequent rescue and ensuing intoxication of the half-drowned member of the Rag Gang had filled Miss Casey's heart with admiration, and she told Hefty he was a good one and ought to be ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... it." Craning his neck to its fullest extending. Jimmy peered down at the bleeding foot, then looked up at me. "I'm awful sorry it got on the rug. I'll wipe it up in a minute." Imperishable merriment struggled with abashed regret, and, holding out the offending foot, he laughed wistfully. "It ain't got no feeling in it, though it's coming. I guess it's kinder froze. They're regular ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... protruding, and never even partially covered, in any instance, by the lips. To pass this man with a casual glance, one might imagine him to be convulsed with laughter, but a second look would induce a shuddering acknowledgment, that if such an expression were indicative of merriment, the merriment must be that of a demon. Of this singular being many anecdotes were prevalent among the seafaring men of Nantucket. These anecdotes went to prove his prodigious strength when under excitement, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Hicks—bubbled out of the boy as well as accounts of various escapades among the men he worked with—especially the younger engineers and one of the foremen who had rooms next his own—all told with a gusto and ring that kept the table in shouts of merriment—Morris laughing loudest and longest, Peter whispering behind ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... remarked that Arthur Burton's laughter, as he leaned against the fence a square away in convulsions of merriment, was noiseless, but it was perfectly audible to Maud, as she sat in the darkness of her chamber. Nay, more: although his thoughts were not uttered at all, she overheard them, and among them some which the young man, to do him justice, had the ...
— A Love Story Reversed - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... take a crack as it is, and I'll grease the next!" Colonel Burr bowed courteously, but made no reply, and discharged his pistol in the state it had been given to him. The anecdote for some time after was the subject of merriment among ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... rejoice. Night comes and as the sun sets the sentries cast a look around. Nothing is in sight. There is nothing to fear. They join the merry-makers, and care and their suits of mail are laid aside, and merriment prevails. The Indians' hour has come. Over the walls swarm a red horde, creeping towards the unsuspecting feasters. One long war-whoop, a shower of arrows, cries of ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... as so absurd that they laugh at the mention of it. The mental picture of the puny little archery implements of their childhood opposed to that of the largest and most fearsome beast of the Western world, produces merriment ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... the meaning of this business, Inez? Really, you are getting to be insufferable. I cannot allow you to come out with me if you carry on in this way." Benito had run to pick up his hat, and offered it to him, his eyes dancing with merriment, and the corners of his mouth twitching. The Father took it, and noting the gleam in his eyes, smiled himself. "These cats of mine will be the death of me some day, I expect," he said, laughing. "Go along, Inez, and remember to show ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... the stir Of jewelled bridle and of golden spur. And lo! among the menials, in mock state, Upon a piebald steed, with shambling gait, His cloak of fox-tails flapping in the wind, The solemn ape demurely perched behind, King Robert rode, making huge merriment In all the country ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... had been dressed last night, but with a small cloak thrown over his shoulders; he gesticulated freely and easily, pointing out this and that; now and again his eyes met hers, and there was nothing but a grave merriment in them.... Only once or twice his voice softened, as he spoke of those great ones that had shown Catholics how both to die ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... glory! On this occasion the joke of the evening was an English traveller. The ideal Englishman on the Continent is a never-failing source of merriment. The presence of five Americans gave additional piquancy to the show. The corpulent, double-chinned, red-nosed Englishman, with knee-breeches, shoe-buckles, and absurd coat, stamped, swore, frowned, doubled up his fists, knocked ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... the time goes on, and he is often the companion of the girl. At times, she fairly scintillates with merriment, but she is so dignified, and so womanly—so very careful to keep him at his proper distance—that, ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... voices with merriment ring, Two children with nought, as gayly they sing Of burdensome care, their hearts as the bird To mountains oft' soar in freedom, unstirred By future, and what it furtively brings Of pleasures, or grief, or life's bitter ...
— Poems - A Message of Hope • Mary Alice Walton
... scarlet when he rose to his feet and saluted the strangers; but he was also atwinkle with laughter, the whole lithe, graceful body of him seeming to radiate fun. One glance at Bell, another at Hildegarde, and the whole party broke into peal on peal of merriment. ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... are," said Mr. Halloway, bubbling over with suppressed merriment at the intense fun of it all. "There isn't one of you here who will refuse. I never knew any thing so delightful and novel in my whole life. This condensed combination, in one afternoon party of charity, ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... this, however, than she saw, from a little smile devoid of merriment and quickly extinguished, that Mrs. Hughs did not believe she would do anything of the kind; from which she concluded that the seamstress was convinced of Hilary's interest in the little model. She ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the Ambrones, the Romans retreated and night came on; yet this great success was not followed, as is usual on such occasions, by paeans of victory, and drinking in the tents, and merriment over supper, and what is sweetest of all to men who have won a victory, gentle sleep, but the Romans spent that night of all others in fear and alarm. For their camp had neither palisade nor rampart, and there were still ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... draped figures, with absurd wings and depressing smiles, that encumbered pictures and churches, with whom no human communication would be possible, and whose grave and discomfiting glance would be fatal to all ease or merriment. I recognised in Amroth a mirthful soul, full of humour and laughter, who could not be shocked by any truth, or hold anything uncomfortably sacred—though indeed he held all things sacred with a kind of eagerness ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... their rendezvous in the "great woods," and the fort was never occupied afterwards. The young soldier, who had approached near enough to witness the stampede, bivouacked his small drum-corps there that night very comfortably, and marched home in triumph next morning. The affair created much merriment and many jokes; and the moral would seem to be, that a fellow who will sneak off when his country calls for his services, is never a person to be feared as ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... with his countenance still distorted by inward merriment; "It will do him good to see how we punish offenders here, and teach him what he is to expect himself. ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... steam siren effect. And, as it's right on the corner of Forty-second and Broadway, he comes near collectin' a crowd. Four or five people turn around to see what the merriment is all about, and a couple of 'em stops short in their tracks. One guy I spotted for a vaudeville artist lookin' for stuff that might fat ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... court from 1606 to 1611, and his "Ambassades," in 5 vols., are interesting in English history. The most satirical accounts of the domestic life of James, especially in his unguarded hours of boisterous merriment, are found in the correspondence of the French ambassadors. They studied to flavour their dish, made of spy and gossip, to the taste of their master. Henry IV. never forgave James for his adherence to Spain and peace, instead ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... less in his humble clerical attire and modest retinue, to impress the vulgar spectator with feelings of awe or reverence. Indeed, the poverty-stricken aspect, as it seemed, of himself and his followers, so different from the usual state affected by the Indian viceroys, excited some merriment among the rude soldiery, who did not scruple to break their coarse jests on his appearance, in hearing of the president himself. *17 "If this is the sort of governor his Majesty sends over to us," they exclaimed, "Pizarro need not trouble ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... later my father walked in at the door as sedately as though quite innocent of the prank, and shook hands with everyone; but the sight of their amazed faces proving too much for his attempted sobriety, his hearty laugh was the signal for the rest of the party to join in his merriment. But judging from his slight ability in later years, I fancy that he must have taken many lessons to secure ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... sir.' Harland took his friend aside for a moment. There was a look of mingled disgust and merriment in ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... I was poorly dressed; so my appearance, as I was told afterward, occasioned considerable merriment, and the night operators conspired to "put up a job on the jay from the wild and woolly West." I was given a pen and told to take the New York No. 1 wire. After an hour's wait I was asked to take my place at a certain table and receive a special report ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... my honor, the most fortunate idea that in our situation could ever enter mortal brain? Let us change this wearisome duet into sport and merriment, and by the aid of certain gallantries, revenge ourselves on the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... to be free." Then suddenly and gallantly strengthening his defense; "but, look here, Mister, if you think it so nice down there, my place is still open." The questioner good naturedly joined in the general merriment. ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... that of the usher of a school; we need not wonder, therefore, that he did not keep his academy above a year and a half. From Mr. Garrick's account he did not appear to have been profoundly reverenced by his pupils. His oddities of manner, and uncouth gesticulations, could not but be the subject of merriment to them; and, in particular, the young rogues used to listen at the door of his bed-chamber, and peep through the key-hole, that they might turn into ridicule his tumultuous and awkward fondness for Mrs. Johnson, whom he ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... has greater power To reform the world than sour. Horses thus, let jockeys judge else, Switches better guide than cudgels. Bastings heavy, dry, obtuse, Only dulness can produce; While a little gentle jerking Sets the spirits all a-working. Thus, I find it by experiment, Scolding moves you less than merriment. I may storm and rage in vain; It but stupifies your brain. But with raillery to nettle, Sets your thoughts upon their mettle; Gives imagination scope; Never lets your mind elope; Drives out brangling and contention. Brings in reason and ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... yelled, delightedly, then leaned against a lamp-post and laughed until he was weak. In the midst of his merriment appeared the company he had just seen making up. They had found their uniforms at last, it seemed, down to the final belt and shoelace, and now came charging gallantly along in the tracks of the more speedy motor. They were drawing their ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... introduced a bill in Congress covering his ideas on the subject. This radical proposition created merriment in certain legal circles. Was it not written in the statutes of nearly every state that the birds and game belong to the people of the state? Therefore what had the Government to do with the subject? Furthermore, were there not ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... that merriment twitched the corners of her lips, and he grew thoughtful. "Alexia. Is that ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... thralls, Funfeng and Elder, brewed great store of ale in the kettle which Thor had brought; and, when the guests were seated at the table, the foaming liquor passed itself around to each, and there was much merriment and glad good cheer. And old AEgir was so happy in the pleasant company of the Asa-folk, that men say that he forgot to blow and bluster for ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... speakest." Accordingly the mother made sure that her daughter had seen visions and dreams. The marriage-feasts lasted throughout that day with Almahs[FN148] and singers and the smiting of all manner instruments of mirth and merriment, while the Queen and the Wazir and his son strave right strenuously to enhance the festivities that the Princess might enjoy herself; and that day they left nothing of what exciteth to pleasure unrepresented in her presence, to the end that she might forget what was in ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... schoolfellow in the way described. Several of the spectators now tried to seize the goat, but he being of extraordinary strength, butted and pushed so vigorously that several measured their length upon the earth, to the no small merriment of the clownish persons who had collected together to ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... out of the huts to stare and laugh, the men to look and wonder. I happened once to remark, "Lo, we come forth to look at them and they look at us; we gaze at their complexion and they gaze at ours!" A Bedouin who understood Arabic translated this speech to the others, and it excited great merriment. In the mining counties of civilised England, where the "genial brickbat" is thrown at the passing stranger, or in enlightened Scotland, where hair a few inches too long or a pair of mustachios justifies "mobbing," it would have been impossible for me to have mingled as I did with these ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... of much mirth and glee to Mr and Mrs Stanhope; the latter actually cried with delight, and I took care to join heartily in the merriment. As soon as it ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... accident? Fortunately I was alone on that side of the deck, so none of the ladies saw my mishap and, slipping along the seat to a distant corner, I hid my face behind a convenient newspaper, as I watched the little flurry of fishing up the hat by a man in a boat near by, and the merriment of the gentlemen over this assault of William Wordsworth upon Samuel Warburton. The poor book passed from hand to hand, and many jokes were made upon the 'fair Helen' whose name was written on the paper ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... straight. His body is round like a pumpkin, and his legs are short. He seems to be always tired. In spite of all these physical peculiarities, however, he is invited to every bayluhan and katapusan, [96] because he is sure to bring with him laughter and merriment. ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... their presumptuous levity. They forgot that they were the guests of a queen. Louder and more extravagant was their gayety, more boisterous, more indiscreet their unrestrained laughter. In their frantic merriment they dared to sing aloud some of the little ambiguous, equivocal chansons, which belonged to the gamins of Paris, and at which the Marquise de Pompadour laughed till she shed tears when sung sometimes by the ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... Henry's lap, she told how it had belonged to her great-great-grandfather, who at the time of the Revolution went home to England. The young men exchanged a meaning look, and then burst into a laugh, but the cause of their merriment they did not explain, lest the prejudices of the ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... strokes on the large drums. In this manner they proceeded amidst the acclamations of the populace, till they reached the house of Tiggity Sego, where the loads were deposited; and in the evening they all assembled under the Bentang tree, and spent the night in dancing and merriment. Many of these strangers remained at Teesee for three days, during which time I was constantly attended by as many of them as could conveniently see me; one party giving way to another, as ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... he asked His eyes were alight with subdued merriment, as he displayed an open letter. The mailman from ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... to frown, and then burst into surprisingly musical laughter. It came in bursts and ripples, and seemed that it would never end. His merriment ended slowly, for he saw the eyes of Pierre stare into blank distance, and knew that the man with the red hair was thinking of the woman whom the landslide had buried. Something that was partially sympathy and partially curiosity altered ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... no longer the humble vassal with serious face and melancholy mien; he is the young ruler, the hero of the future. His eyes glisten, his lips smile, witticisms drop from his mouth, his countenance beams with merriment and youthful joy. Not merely are the ladies delighted with him, but the men also, and the royal pair are glad of heart, for well pleased are they to present such a husband ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... and leads to an intensified excitability, particularly to those emotional expressions which are characterized by the more rapid flow; This is due to the familiar psychological law according to which one emotional condition leads into another as it is more like that other in tone. Anger and merriment, hence, show themselves more and more among uneducated people who are not habituated to the limitation of their emotional expression by reference to the forms of the world of fashion. Without this control, ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... boat was only a sorrowful blank to Ellen's recollection. She did not see the frowns that passed between her companions on her account. She did not know that her white bonnet was such a matter of merriment to Margaret Dunscombe and the maid, that they could hardly contain themselves. She did not find out that Miss Margaret's fingers were busy with her paper of sweets, which only a good string and a sound knot kept her from rifling. ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... the LITTLE MAN jigs it with a sort of gentle desperation, looking apologetically from face to face. His wistful glance renews the fore of merriment wherever it alights. The AMERICAN alone preserves a gravity which ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... consisted of a tedious deduction of facts and cases, which concluded with a recommendation to the house to consider whether it might not yet be expedient that Millar should be taken into custody by the sergeant-at-arms. Roars of laughter followed this impotent conclusion, and Burke increased the merriment of the house, by observing that the secret committee might be compared to an assembly of mice, who came to a resolution that their old enemy the cat should be tied up, to prevent her doing any further mischief, but forgot to say how this was to be effected. Nothing, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Mrs Clayton were accompanied by a young lady, a distant relative, left without any other friends to protect and support her. She was a laughing, blue-eyed girl, and was now seated with several other young ladies of about the same age on a circle of cushions on the deck, shouts of merriment rising every now and then from the happy group. There were several other people who had been in India before—military and civil officers of the Company, merchants, lawyers, and clergymen; but I need not more ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... him, who look upon him dead, That joy and jest and merriment are fled; You weep for him, what time my eyes are dry, Knowing what peace a weary soul may win Stifled by too much masking — even I — I, who have known ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... worthies indulged in a smothered merriment of their own at the expense of their commander; for though a dignified man in general, Mr. Saunders could laugh on occasion, and according to his own opinion of ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... Monsieur de Merosailles in the middle of the bridge, and heard from him how the trick had prospered. At this he was much tickled; and, alas! he was even more diverted when the penitence of the marquis was revealed to him, and was most of all moved to merriment when it appeared that the marquis, having gone too near the candle, had been caught by its flame, and was so terribly singed and scorched that he could not bear to live. And while they talked on the bridge, the princess looked out on them from a lofty narrow window, ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... cutlasses, in order to take up their pipes, and make themselves merry with their new acquaintance over a can of Flip, but Captain Barnet's Sloop was in sight, which soon put a damp to all their merriment: Finding she stood directly towards them, they immediately weighed their anchor and stood off. Barnet gave them chase, and having the advantage of the wind, soon came up with her, gave her a broadside or two, and, after a very small dispute, took her and ...
— Pirates • Anonymous
... "till that moment arrives what we must do is to entertain each other with conversation. You can take no step of any sort for a full half-hour, possibly more, so let us give ourselves up to the merriment of the passing instant. Are you good at riddles, Comrade Parker? How much wood would a wood-chuck chuck, assuming for purposes of argument that it was in the power of ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... out laughing; there was as much hysteria in the laugh as a man gives way to. His nerves were shattered by struggle, love and fear, and sought relief in ghastly merriment. Somehow the whole scene reminded him of one in a comic opera. There was a ludicrous side to it. Supposing that the political opponents, who already hated him so bitterly, could have seen him slinking from ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... expect to live long—most of them die at about thirty-five—but, for all that, he is happy and contented. 'A short life and a merry one is what I goes in for,' he often says to me, and he seems to think that his life is a merry one, though I can't myself see where the merriment comes in. So with all the rest of my people. They all seem to enjoy themselves except the Dwarf. My own belief is that the organ of happiness has got to be pretty big to get its work in, and that there ain't room in a Dwarfs head for it ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... this enchantment. He remembered that it had lasted for nearly twenty years, and it was as potent as ever. In what did it consist, he asked himself. He sometimes thought her laughter too abundant, sometimes it verged on merriment. He did not like to think of Anna as a merry woman; he preferred to think that wherever she went she brought happiness with her. He had known her sad, but never melancholy, for she was never without a smile ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... regarded as a man of strength. A portrait of him painted when still a youth shows in a marked degree the traits by which he was distinguished later. The face is full and round, with large, warm eyes twinkling with merriment, and a high, clear forehead, from which is thrown back a heavy mass of waving hair. The mouth is firm as adamant, and the sharp-cut lips and chin are eloquent of strength. Altogether, it is the picture of just the man that Petri afterward became,—a brilliant orator, daring, good-natured, ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... squire were having the time of their lives. They were, certainly, wonderfully matched. If Jill was a picture, so was the boy. His gravity was gone. The fine, frank face was fairly alight with happiness, the brown eyes dancing, the strong white teeth flashing merriment. From being good-looking, he had become most handsome. If he was to find the trick of Jill's heart, she had laid a pink finger upon the catch ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... amusement, as it was the custom in Unyoro for the men to enjoy themselves in laziness, while the women performed all the labour of the fields. Thus they were fatigued, and glad to rest, while the men passed the night in uproarious merriment. The usual style of singing was a rapid chant delivered as a solo, while at intervals the crowd burst out in a deafening chorus together with the drums and horns; the latter were formed of immense gourds which, growing in a peculiar shape, with long bottle necks, ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... chuckled his dry little laugh, though what food for merriment he could find in the hopeless prospect was more ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... was given a seat in a curious little vehicle belonging to Lieutenant Martino, a Spaniard, in the Confederate army. This vehicle caused considerable merriment amongst the soldiers, ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... more pleased when the young miss comes to take the day and she has the proud privilege of starting John's or Tom's future wife on her very first quilt. It is an occasion of merriment when the quilt is finally finished and taken out of the frames after many a pleasant quilting bee. Then, at the urging of one of the older women, two girls shake a cat on the new quilt. The one toward whom the cat jumps will be married first, they ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... they advanced into the room, paused as they met, coming from the head of the apartment, the imposing figure of their host. Philippe of Orleans, his powdered wig drawn closely into a half-bag at the nape of the neck, his full eye shining with merriment and good nature, his soft, yet not unmanly figure appearing to good advantage in his well-chosen garments, advances with a certain dignity to meet his guests. He is garbed in a coat made of watered silk, its straight collar faced with dark-green material edged ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... should have loosened their tongues and warmed their hearts. In the meanwhile both Amyas and Frank, ignoring the silence of their guests with the most provoking good-humor, chatted, and joked, and told stories, and made themselves such good company, that Will Cary, who always found merriment infectious, melted into a jest, and then into another, and finding good-humor far more pleasant than bad, tried to make Mr. Coffin laugh, and only made him bow, and to make Mr. Fortescue laugh, and only made him frown; and unabashed nevertheless, began playing his light ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... dame of some humour, with whom Sir Walter always had a friendly colloquy in passing. I believe the charm was, that she had passed her childhood among the Gipsies of the Border. But her fiery Radicalism latterly was another source of high merriment.—J.G.L. ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... trope, Content with our New World and timely bold To challenge the o'ermastery of the Old; Listening with eyes averse I see him sit Pricked with the cider of the Judge's wit (Ripe-hearted homebrew, fresh and fresh again), While the wise nose's firm-built aquiline 250 Curves sharper to restrain The merriment whose most unruly moods Pass not the dumb laugh learned in listening woods Of silence-shedding pine: Hard by is he whose art's consoling spell Hath given both worlds a whiff of asphodel, His look still vernal 'mid the wintry ring Of petals that remember, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... the day preceding the grand event of the century. Mary Trigillgus and her mother were lingering at the breakfast-table. The girl seemed wild and hawk-like, startling her mother with her unnatural merriment, commenting with weird brilliancy and grotesqueness and sparkle on the various items as Mrs. Trigillgus read them. At length she read a paragraph about the eclipse. "'And we would advise every reader,'" ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... an emperor at a foreign court ignoring one of his hostesses absolutely, even refusing to acknowledge her salute by a nod. We hear of expectant royal heirs who engage in wild fandangoes of merriment while their father, ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... fashioned of wood and iron an engine of torment which bore the likeness of a beautiful woman, but which opened when a spring was pressed, and showed within a hideous array of knives; and these pierced the miserable wight about whom the Image closed her arms. In blasphemous merriment the King called this woman of his making Our Lady of Sorrow, and in mockery of holy things he kept a silver lamp burning constantly before her, and crowned her ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... more earnest and respectful attention than they had hitherto shown, for the pole-axe, in such stalwart hands, was no child's toy. "Hum," quoth Master Stokton, "there may be some merriment now,—not like those silly poles! Your axe lops off a limb mighty cleanly." The knights themselves seemed aware of the greater gravity of the present encounter. Each looked well to the bracing of his vizor; and poising their weapons with method and care, they stood apart some moments, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to hide herself. But in spirit she can see the merriment going on at the castle. The lord however, somewhat dazed, said that he was sorry for it. But the chaplain says, in his meek way, "If this woman is bedevilled, as they say, my lord, you owe it to your good vassals, ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... the figure, 'is the music of a sick and dying soul. It is a rebel's insult against the majesty of Heaven; ay, laugh on! That is what the devils do; it is the merriment of hell. What time they burn not, they laugh. But enough. Hold now thy scoffing, Prefect Varus, for, high as thou art, I fear thee not: no! not wert thou twice Aurelian, instead of Varus. I have somewhat for thee. ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... and sounds of merriment. She raised her head dully, but remembered in a moment what Faquita had left her to await. The dawn lay rosily on the town. The shimmering light in the pine woods was crossed and recrossed by the glare of rockets. Down the street came the sound of singing voices, the ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... most pleasant travelling companions and at times are the cause of many amusing incidents which beguile the tedium of the journey. Also they often lead to your picking up chance acquaintances. I have known one stone placed in a dimly lighted corridor of a train productive of much merriment and harmless banter. Being of considerable weight they do not readily respond to a playful kick, but having no sharp corners they are seldom responsible for serious ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... Attired in costly robes and ornaments, they looked exceedingly handsome. They caused the moon to rise over their city every night even out of his season. And friends and relatives gave themselves up to joy and merriment with happy hearts. Eat, feed, give, make merry, sing, drink—these were the sounds heard everyday in every house. And here and there arose loud uproars of hilarity mixed with clappings of hands which filled the whole city of the Daityas, who being capable of assuming ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... visitation of the gods. Alcibiades laughed aloud when he heard of this proposition; and said his uncle would never think of making it to any but a maiden who sees the zephyrs run and hears the stars sing. He spoke truth in his profane merriment. Pericles knows that she who obediently listens to the inward voice will be most likely to seek the happiness of others, forgetful of ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... day of the wedding she waited miserably for twelve o'clock to strike; it seemed as though she were really present—and looking on. She could see in her mind's eye the handsome residence, the carriages, the guests, the feast, the merriment, the ceremony—all. Telepathically and psychologically she received impressions of the private car and of the joyous journey they were going to take. The papers had stated that they would spend their honeymoon in Japan. Their honeymoon! Her Lester! And Mrs. Gerald was so attractive. ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... sally was received with laughter you will readily believe. Even the ladies could not refrain from merriment, and for them he added other diverting sayings. Then finding the time was nearly up, and wishing the ladies to be well pleased with him when they departed, he said to them—"Now, fair ladies, when you are chatting presently with your gossips, you will ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... mood, and thirsty for laughter-making liquid. He had two whiskies before the dinner began to wet his whistle. His fellow-officers were out for an evening's joy, but nervous of the colonel, an austere soul who sat at the head of the mess with the look of a man afraid that merriment might reach outrageous heights beyond his control. A courteous man he was, and rather sad. His presence for a time acted as a restraint upon the company, until all restraint was broken by the Falstaff with me, who told soul-crashing ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... Sir Guy, the spurious Earl, and a lot of journeymen tinkers. Immediately they began a gay chorus, telling how they were men of such metal that no can or kettle can withstand their attack, and as they hammered upon their tin pans, one believed them. Of all the merriment and nonsense that ever was, the most infectious took place there in the forest, while the tinkers sang and hammered, and Friar Tuck made jokes, and the other outlaws drank their brown October ale: but soon ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... intent was she on watching Graham go down the room, although she did know that Bert Wainwright had not been unobservant of her gaze and its direction. On the other hand, neither she nor Bert, nor any other at the table, knew that Dick's quick-glancing eyes, sparkling with merriment while his lips chaffed absurdities that made them all laugh, had missed no ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... I never could remember how they ended, and I puzzled myself vainly over crotchets and quavers that never would consent to arrange themselves in any sort of finale. So the days went on; for Colonel Everard and his wife, those days were full of merriment, sight-seeing, and enjoyment. For me, though outwardly I appeared to share in the universal gaiety, they were laden with increasing despair and wretchedness; for I began to lose hope of ever recovering my once buoyant ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... and a duck of the head, and crossing the room noiselessly went out, closing the door behind him softly. Craven came slowly to her. She moved to give him place before the easel. Craven looked at the small alert brown face, the odd black eyes dancing with almost unearthly merriment, the red lips curving upward to an enigmatical smile, and his ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... manner won him friends during his stay in New York, and his indefatigable propensity for asking questions—some of them rather embarrassing to those questioned, as when he politely inquired the ages of the ladies whom he met and the salaries of the officials who entertained him—aroused much merriment." ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... our party spoke French and others German, but I purposely abstained from availing myself of their acquirements, in order not to disturb the hilarity of the conversation. I sat silently among them, and was perfectly contented in listening to their merriment. But my behaviour was set down as proceeding from stupidity, and I soon gathered from their discourse that they were comparing me to the "stone guest" in Mozart's Don Giovanni. If these kind people had only surmised the true reason of my keeping silence, they would ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... Their merriment only made me feel the pain the more bitterly, and I was glad when I heard a familiar cough at the end of the passage, and the tapping of a stick ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... to tickle him while he continued in this mood, I began making any number of feeble jokes—feeble, but quite as good as the one which had provoked such outrageous merriment—for it amused me to see him acting in this unusual way. But they all failed of their effect—there was no hitting the bull's-eye a second time; he would only stare vacantly at me, then grunt like a peccary—not appreciatively—and ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... a burlesque production of the nature of the Pyramus and Thisbe interlude in the Midsummer Night's Dream, and flavoured with something of the comic rusticity of Greene's Carmela eclogue in Menaphon. It is needless here to summarize the plot of the 'merriment' which the ingenious author, no doubt a student of St. John's, evolved from Ovid's account in the third book of the Metamorphoses, and which runs to the respectable length of some eight hundred lines.[342] I may be allowed, however, to note that echo verses, ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... amusement in it. "He seems a sort of Prince Charming that everybody takes a liking to." Wayne and Valdez were already returning, with Runyon between them. They pretended to lead him captive and his face radiated merriment and good nature. He walked with the elasticity of a feline creature; he carried his body as if it were the depository of precious jewels. Never was there a man to whom nature had been kinder—nor any man who was more graciously proud of what ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... of the trees,—to remarks made in the shape of confidential communications, and observations, mysteriously exchanged, succeeded the noisiest bursts of laughter;—from the very outriders to royalty itself, merriment seemed to spread. Every one began to laugh and to cry out. The magpies and the jays fluttered away uttering their guttural cries, beneath the waving avenues of oaks; the cuckoo staid his monotonous cry in the recesses of the forest; the ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... infectious hilarity that, notwithstanding my ignorance of the nature of the fun, I joined in with hearty sympathy. As soon as he partially recovered his composure he gasped out, "The natives took you for the Emperor!"—and then he went off in another spasm of merriment which threatened to terminate either in suffocation or apoplexy. Lost in bewilderment I could only smile feebly until he recovered sufficiently to give me a more intelligible explanation of his mirth. It appeared that the courier who had been sent from Petropavlovsk to apprise the ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... blame, excused him for his error, named the case a mistake on both sides. That long sleep of ours, we said, was really something laughable; we laughed at the recollection of it, a lamentable piece of merriment. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Boolooroo, wiping the tears of merriment from his eyes. "We will proceed with the Ceremony of ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum
... the coming doom, The feast, the song, the revel here abounds; Strange modes of merriment the hours consume, Nor bleed these patriots with their country's wounds; Nor here War's clarion, but Love's rebeck sounds; Here Folly still his votaries enthralls, And young-eyed Lewdness walks her midnight rounds: Girt with the silent crimes of capitals, Still ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... was heard, long, loud, and irresistible. Then another voice joined in—the merriment seemed uncontrollable. The Sutherland family looked at each other in angry astonishment. Could it be the new footman indulging ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... along, youngster, for I don't wish to be hard on you; I'm only laughing at the ridiculous figure you cut," he said, giving way to a burst of rough merriment. By the time it was over we reached the door of the berth, where the midshipmen were ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... repeated the soldiers. Don Filipo turned his back and they went away. In order not to disturb the merriment he told no ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... this attitude of despair. However, in spite of all our efforts, we could not, at the finish, help bursting out laughing in the faces of MM. Debienne and Poligny, who, seeing us pass straight from the gloomiest state of mind to one of the most insolent merriment, acted as though they thought that we had ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... course my polite and pugilistic instructor would take. To my utter amazement, he bowed to me as civilly as usual when we met in the yard; he never denied my version of the story; and when my friends laughed at him as a thrashed man, he took not the slightest notice of their agreeable merriment. Antiquity, I think, furnishes us with few more remarkable characters than ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... neither to pity nor to the ties that bound us together. Never shall I forget her last hours. Love had been won back, her mind was at rest about her child, and happiness triumphed over suffering. The comfort and luxury about her, the merriment of her child, who looked prettier still in the dainty garb that had replaced his baby-clothes, were pledges of a happy future for the little one, in whom she saw ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... a difficult thing, even for a master, to fully render with an ordinary steel pen and a drop of common ink (and of a size no bigger than your little finger nail) the full face of a beautiful woman, let us say; or a child, in sadness or merriment or thoughtful contemplation; and make it as easily and unmistakably recognizable as a good photograph, but with all the subtle human charm and individuality of expression delicately emphasized in a way that no photograph ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... patrol the porch. "I'm in a rather rebellious state of mind just now, I reckon," he admitted. "Seems to me that a lot of folks, including myself, are getting kicked. I'm smarting! I have a fellow-feeling for the oppressed." He laughed, but there was no merriment in his tones. "It's the little children who will suffer most in this, Miss Candage," he went on. "They are not to ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... the booty? 'Behold, they were spread abroad upon all the earth, eating and drinking, and dancing, because of all the great spoil that they had taken out of the land of the Philistines (from Ziklag) and out of the land of Judah' (1 Sam 30:16). Here again you find a joy and merriment like these that we have under consideration, and that upon such like accounts. Nothing pleases the wicked more, than to see the godly go down the wind; for their words, and lives, and actions are a plague and a torment to them: As 'tis said of these two prophets, 'They tormented ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... margins were flecked with sunshine, and beautiful with columbines, violets, arbutus, and houstonias. Fragments of rock and large pebbles interrupted its flow and deepened its mellow song; above it brooded the twilight of the tall pines and walnuts, responding to its merriment with solemn murmurings. What playfellow is more inexhaustible than such a brook, so full of life, of motion, of sound and color, of variety and constancy. A child welcomes it as an answer to its own soul, with its mystery and transparency, its bounded lawlessness, its love ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... for the moment little part in the chatter and merriment, for she had received a considerable shock, stood talking with Copley. Ruth had given him her hand again and Chess clung to it rather more warmly—so the watchful Tom thought—than was needful. ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... was no longer doubtful. A melancholy winter it had been to them all, but the joy of once more seeing Emma resume her duties, and Alfred, supported on cushions, able to be moved into the sitting-room, had a very exhilarating effect upon their spirits. True, there was no longer the mirth and merriment that once reigned, but there was a subdued gratitude to Heaven, which, if it did not make them at once cheerful, at least prevented anything like repining or complaint. Grateful for the mercies vouchsafed to them in having Alfred and Emma spared to them, Mr and Mrs Campbell consoled themselves ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... tied in its place by string. A young, wild, woodland squirrel gambolled near, though there were no woods for it anywhere within sight: it leaped and played as though rejoicing in youth, with such merriment as though youth had but come to it newly or been lost ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... bowery walk. But nothing of this kind gladdened our eyes as we toiled along the hot streets. Every house of public resort was crowded from the top to the bottom with emigrants of all ages, English, Irish, and Scotch. The sounds of riotous merriment that burst from them seemed but ill-assorted with the haggard, careworn faces of many of ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... the scene; it took her back to happy days, before black care had taken his seat behind her. She sat in a kind of dream, only half hearing the merriment of the young people, and only half tasting her ice. How she loved this old town, with its streets deep in black spring mud, its mud-plastered "buck-boards" and saddle horses hitched at every telegraph pole! Its banks and stores and law offices seemed shabbier after one had ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... instruments of music. The show-booths were the first on entering the fair, being situated on the north side of the high road. Here were three companies of players, viz. the Norwich company, a very large booth; Mrs. Baker's, whose clown, Lewy Owen, was "a fellow of infinite jest and merriment;" and Bailey's. The latter had formerly been a merchant, and was the compiler of a Directory which bore his name, and was a work of some celebrity and great utility. Fronting these were the fruit and gingerbread stands. On the opposite side of the road stood the cheese ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... something. Just as she is entering, the station-man rings the bell. The woman, evidently unaccustomed to railway travel, rushes hastily back to the train. Everybody greets her performance with good-natured merriment. Finding the train not pulling out, and encouraged by some of the passengers, the woman ventures to try it again. As she reaches the waiting-room door, the station-man blows a shrill blast on his whistle. The woman rushes back, as before. Again the people laugh, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... Alfrida, The height and pride of all this bounding ill; To post amain, plead love in his behalf, To court for him, and woo, and wed the maid. But have you never heard that theme? Deceit in love is but a merriment To such as seek a rival to prevent. Whither, distraught, roams my unruly thoughts? It is the king I cosen of his choice, And he nill brook Earl Ethenwald should prove False to his prince, especially in love. Then thus it shall ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... said Mr. Halloway, bubbling over with suppressed merriment at the intense fun of it all. "There isn't one of you here who will refuse. I never knew any thing so delightful and novel in my whole life. This condensed combination, in one afternoon party of charity, literature, and indigestion is masterly. Miss ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... intimate knowledge of the hidden life of London, can understand Dickens's first newspaper success perfectly. His best known work, Pickwick, was published serially in 1836-1837, and Dickens's fame and fortune were made. Never before had a novel appeared so full of vitality and merriment. Though crude in design, a mere jumble of exaggerated characters and incidents, it fairly bubbled over with the kind of humor in which the British public delights, and it still remains, after three quarters of a century, one of our ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... fond of merriment, was highly diverted with these sallies of Abou Hassan, and artfully promoted drinking, often asking for wine, thinking that when it began to operate, he might from his talkativeness satisfy his curiosity. He asked him his name, his business, and how he spent his life. "My name, sir," replied he, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... the morning pass away in the most agreeable and auspicious manner; but after dinner an unexpected incident occurred, which clouded all the merriment of the unfortunate ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... reached home in his car and entered the hall with rather a weary step, the somewhat noisy merriment which greeted him brought ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... the Shield indoor merriment and outdoor noises would begin. Wherever in the lowlands any many-chimneyed city, proud of its size, rose by the sweep of watercourses, or any little inland town was proud of its smallness and of streets that terminated in the fields; ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... at other times by a governess. It shocked him a little to see a girl in a tousled blue cotton frock, with a green stain on the front of it, with a tangle of damp fair hair hanging round her head in shining strings, with unabashed fearless eyes which looked at him with a certain shrewd merriment. ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... after him and shook it (it only looks gruesome in the dark, you know) he never stopped, and he stumbled on the first step, and then he rolled—My! how he did bump"—and naughty Peter sat down on the stalls and held his sides for very merriment. ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... the profession of your poor cousin, Captain," and the look of disquiet upon Leadbury's face was quickly relieved and he joined heartily and almost boisterously in the merriment. A moment later, Clarissa was alarmed to find him bending upon herself a look in which suspicion, distrust, fear, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... watchword. One day the distinguishing mark might be blackened cheeks; the next, two strokes on the breast; the next, a white shell suspended from a strip of white cloth round the neck, and so on. Before any formal fight, they had a day of feasting, reviewing, and merriment. In action they never stood up in orderly ranks to rush at each other. According to their notions that would be the height of folly. Their favourite tactics were rather of the surprise and bush-skirmishing order. In some of their ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... her the man stopped without touching her. For a moment his horrid white-rimmed eyes glared searchingly into her face, immediately following which he burst into maniacal laughter. For two or three minutes the creature gave himself over to merriment and then, stopping as suddenly as he had commenced to laugh, he fell to examining the prisoner. He felt of her hair, her skin, the texture of the garment she wore and by means of signs made her understand ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the Follow Me were secretly delighted to observe that the smaller craft made much easier going. The Adventurer seemed to be having a thoroughly good time, for she kicked up her heels and waved her nose and fairly rolled in merriment as the seas came sliding under her quarter. The bridge deck was a damp place until both side curtains were lowered and laced to the rails and stanchions. Poor Joe stood it as long as he could, getting paler and paler and sitting, hands in pockets, gazing fixedly at the brass kickplate at ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... took this mistimed merriment in very good part, generally answering with a ghastly contortion which he meant for a smile, or, if he did trouble himself to find words, with, "Well, that's funny! What makes you laugh? At me, I suppose? I don't wonder at it; ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... or would not touch the abominable brown bread, and, while waiting for the girls to serve the eggs or chops or whatever there was for supper, passed the time in trying to make out the meaning of the chatter and laughter that filled the room with merriment. There seemed to be a gleam of sense discoverable now and then, but, on the whole, it was impossible to catch the significance of the rapid-fire talk volleying from table to table. Indeed, it was always difficult for a stranger to swing into the ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... the country that I had met with: A little bantering took place between the young lady, her husband, and myself, which ended in my reading off, as well as I could into Spanish, the description I had just written down. It occasioned a world of merriment, and was taken in excellent part. The lady's cheek, for once, mantled with the rose. She laughed, shook her head, and said I was a very fanciful portrait painter; and the husband declared that, if I would stop at St. Filian, all the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... redoubled vigor. May-poles, wrestling-matches, bear-baitings, puppet-shows, bowls, horse-racing, betting, rope-dancing, romping under the mistletoe on Christmas, eating boars' heads, attending the theatres, health-drinking,—all these old-fashioned ways, in which the English sought merriment, were restored. The evil was chiefly in the excess to which these pleasures were carried; and every thing, which bore any resemblance to the Puritans, was ridiculed and despised. The nation, as a nation, did not love Puritanism, or any thing pertaining to ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... usurers. And the rotund Bishop's words were as the crackling of dry thorns Under a pot, bubbling without use in the desert of dreary platitudes. The story he told was spiced and garnished with profane words, Whereat the Leaders laughed in their cups, making great show of merriment, So that the banquet-hall rang, and wine was spilt on the linen. Wine as red as blood—the blood of the shattered miner, Blood of the boy in the rifle-pits, blood of the coughing child-slave, Blood of the mangled trainman, blood that ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... only a woman—a woman all by herself, if she likes, and without any man to help her—who can turn a house into a home." See how her heart sinks, how her voice, full of mirth and glee and music before his coming, dies in her throat, how the little ones, full of merriment all day long, tremblingly hide in the corner, or withdraw from the room; see how the intrusion of this grim spectre of malcontent shuts the door upon domestic peace and happiness, and withers every pious resolve to make home the dearest, ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... church. That is a record and no mistake," laughed Ned. Wilbur and his father joined him in the merriment, but Mr. Hill felt a twinge of conscience. "I might have let him have a horse if he was so determined ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... pupil to hop around the large table on one foot. The hilarity of the festivity was not lessened when the Reverendo himself joined in the frolic, his robes flapping around him, as they all contributed to the merriment. The Marchesa has many a dainty note written to her by Penini's mother. Once it is as Pen's amanuensis that she serves, praying the loan of a "'Family Robinson,' by Mayne Reid," to solace the boy in some indisposition. "I doubt the connection between Mayne Reid ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... indeed, sir. She is all gentleness and sweetness, yet is full of mirth, too, and graceful merriment." ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... OF THE GREAT REBELLION. Fearful adventures of soldiers, scouts, spies, and refugees; daring exploits of smugglers, guerillas, desperadoes, and others; tales of loyal and disloyal women; stories of the negro, and incidents of fun and merriment in camp and field. By Lieut. CHARLES S. GREENE, late of the U. S. Army. With Illustrations in Oil. Cloth. ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... fell silent. They sat staring at each other, and then suddenly she leaned back in her chair and began to laugh. Once she had started, burst after burst of merriment swept over her. "I try to stay angry, Allan!" she gasped. "It seems as if I ought to. But, ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... other side of it in your letter,' cried Mrs. Frost, giving way to her merriment. 'The Arabian Nights themselves, the two viziers laying their heads together, and sending home orders to us to make up ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to see so large a gathering. (Cheers.) They quite reminded him of the clients who thronged his passage on the first day of Term, waiting for his chamber doors to open. (Laughter.) There was nothing in the remark he had just made to provoke merriment. He wished it to be clearly understood that he appealed to their reason. (Cheers.) It had been objected that some of the entertainments given at what had been called political pic-nics had nothing to do with the reasoning faculties of the spectators. This he emphatically denied. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... his merry visits, and with his ludicrous presence delights the drawing-room, cheers the study, and causes side-shakings in the kitchen,—entitles him to be called a missionary of good. Grant this,—then allow, on the average, five minutes of merriment to each reader of each issue of Punch,—then multiply these 5 minutes by—say 50,000, and this again by 52 weeks, and this, finally, by 17 years, and thus cipher out, if you have a tolerably capacious imagination, the amount of happiness which has flowed and spread, like a river of gladness, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... the blue eyes, and laughter on the red lips, and merry lilt in the soft voice. But the pink had faded from the girl's cheek; the shadow had chased the sunshine from her eyes; her lips had taken a downward turn, and a note of sadness had stolen the merriment from her voice. ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... travelling. Sumichrast told us that we had scarcely three hundred feet more to ascend, and shouldered the basket himself. Now that I was a mere spectator, I could readily forgive him his fit of merriment. Nothing, in fact, could be more grotesque than the contortions he went through trying to keep his balance. L'Encuerado was the only one who retained his countenance. As for Lucien, he seemed to feel the efforts of Sumichrast as much as if they ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... overclouded and his evil passions stimulated by the fumes of intoxication. His evenings were ordinarily given to revelry. People who saw him only over his bottle would have supposed him to be a man gross indeed, sottish, and addicted to low company and low merriment, but social and goodhumoured. He was constantly surrounded on such occasions by buffoons selected, for the most part, from among the vilest pettifoggers who practiced before him. These men bantered and abused each other for his entertainment. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... consumed at this eventful wedding, with which we wind up our eventful history; nor even to pity the breathless, flushed, and over-heated Babette, who was so ill the next day, as to be unable to quit her bed; nor can we detail the jokes, the merriment, and the songs which went round, the peals of laughter, the loud choruses, the antic feats performed by the company; still more impossible would it be to give an idea of the three tremendous cheers, which shook the Lust Haus to its foundations, when ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... all these little disagreeables seemed immensely jolly; so, whenever the captain or Mr Marline or Harry happened to get capsized in this way down in the cabin during the day, it sent me at once into fits of merriment, the fact of my being washed off my feet as well only adding to the enjoyment of the joke, for I could grin quite as much with my own head in the scuppers and my mouth full of water as I would when the ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... of its gushing water, Glad as the tones of merriment and glee That joyous burst from children in their laughter, Swift dashes onward to the ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... door, his treasure carefully tied up in a handkerchief. He will deliver it to no one but the manager, and in spite of his other duties that functionary is compelled to receive it in person. This done, the old man, to the merriment of certain wags who delight to speculate on his childlike credulity, takes a seat in the parquette, wipes clean his venerable spectacles, and placing them methodically over his eyes, forms a unique picture in the ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... be a very fashionable and leisurely throng—so long had he been absent from people either modish or easeful. He felt himself to be hopelessly outside all this youth and brilliancy and merriment, and he looked upon it all with ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... with roses, To that a carved hook or well-wrought scrip, Gracing another with her cherry lip; To one her garter, to another then A handkerchief cast o'er and o'er again; And none returneth empty that hath spent His pains to fill their rural merriment. ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... Peabody did not hear the merriment that followed, or he would have given up the editorial staff of the Centreville "Gazette" as maliciously disposed to underrate his ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... answered by two streams of laughter,—one from Mary, sitting up in bed, and the other from Miss Prissy, holding her sides, as she sat dissolved in merriment ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... state of mental doubt—it might equally have been a condition of obscure hope—he had been rudely shoved toward pessimism; the converse of the announced purpose of the picture. The audience, for one thing, was so depressingly wrong in the placing of its merriment: it laughed delightedly at a gaunt feminine vindictiveness hurrying through the snow on an errand of destruction. The fact that the girl's maternity was transcendent in a generous and confident heart, made lovely by spiritual passion, escaped everyone. The phrase, spiritual ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... endure. As to any attempt to make herself heard, she knew from the first that was of doubtful result, and now must certainly be of no avail when all but the warders were asleep. But to spend the night thus was a far less evil than to be discovered by the staring domestics, and exposed to the open merriment of her friends, and the hidden mockery of her enemies. As to Caspar, she was certain of his silence. So she sat on, like the lady in Comus, 'in stony fetters fixed and motionless;' only, as she said to herself, there was no attendant spirit to summon Caspar, ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... all the Ghettos, Jewries, and Mellahs. The more part received the divine message in uproarious jubilation. The Messiah was come, indeed! Those terrible twenty-four hours of absolute fasting and passionate prayer—henceforward to be hours of feasting and merriment! O just and joyous edict! The Jewish Kingdom was on the eve of restoration—how then longer ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... reach the third plank on the angles, and about fifteen feet from the ground, my barrow rolled off, and down came sand, barrow, and myself to the ground below. I could have cried with shame and mortification, for my misfortune created much merriment for the good natured workers. But it mortified me to death to think I was not man enough to fill a soldier's place. My good coworker and brother soldier exchanged the shovel for the barrow with me, and then began the first day's work I had ever done of that kind. Hour after ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... I replied, tossing him a half-dollar piece, and throwing a handful of smaller coin among the women. A general scramble followed, in which the old fellow nimbly joined, shouting out between his boisterous explosions of merriment: ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Married to Kusanabha, bare A hundred daughters lovely faced, With every charm and beauty graced. It chanced the maidens, bright and gay As lightning-flashes on a day Of rain-time, to the garden went With song and play and merriment— And there in gay attire they strayed, And danced, and laughed, and sang, and played. The God of Wind who roves at will All places, as he lists, to fill, Saw the young maidens dancing there, Of faultless shape and mien ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... Miss Cooper came in from a walk, radiant with tidings. Her face, as I have observed, wore a continual smile, being dimpled and punctured all over with merriment,—so that, when an unusual cheerfulness was super-diffused, it resembled a tempestuous little pool into which a great stone has ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... WAS hard luck!" said Elizabeth, as they sobered down after the gale of merriment caused by Marion's mishaps, and her ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... banquet into a temple of initiation, representing there the sacred procession and mysteries of Ceres; now such things as these, in my opinion, ought not to be suffered by a steward, but he must permit such discourse only, such shows, such merriment, as promote the particular end and design of such entertainments; and that is, by pleasant conversation either to beget or maintain friendship and good-will among the guests; for an entertainment is only a pastime table with a glass of wine, ending ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... persons in the window nodded to one another significantly, and began smiling in a constrained manner, as if there were something quite preposterous in the inquiry. The man, a corpulent, red-faced person, seemed on the point of suffocating with merriment. ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... job was over. "The Pioneers will get over it, Tim," she rejoined. "They've swallowed a lot in their time. Heaven's gate will have to be pretty wide to let in a real Pioneer," she added. "He takes up so much room— ah, Timothy Denton!" she added, with an outburst of whimsical merriment. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... One of her midshipmen sang popular songs in French, German, and Spanish, and one (so he said) in Russian. If the audience did not know the lingo of one song from another, it was no drawback to the merriment. ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... wealth. Men are reduced by men to a state of servitude, and are repeatedly afflicted (at the hands of their own species) with death, imprisonment, and other tortures. Although such is their condition, yet even they (without yielding to grief) laugh and sport and indulge in merriment. Others again, though endued with might of arms, and possessed of knowledge and great energy of mind, follow censurable, sinful, and miserable professions. They seek to change such professions for other pursuits (that are more dignified) but then they are bound ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... could only press her hand and depart, muttering something indistinguishable. She watched him vanish, after which she sat down again on the log and really did laugh. Still, it was a queer kind of merriment, for by degrees it turned ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... rest of the fast fellows keeping a lookout for donkeys; when one is seen, a hideous imitative bray is set up by the man of music, and his quadrupedal brother, attracted by the congenial sound, rushes to the roadside—mutual recognition, with much merriment, is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... more, shaking with merriment like a jolly old fellow amused by a funny story, he took his departure, not forgetting, however, to set his great hob-nail boots on each of the compromising footprints which his ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... but, instead of kissing each other, they smacked their mouths over each other's shoulders and uttered expressions of joy in imitation of them. The girls were greatly amused, and the storekeeper almost went into convulsions of merriment. ...
— Fred Fearnot's New Ranch - and How He and Terry Managed It • Hal Standish
... country-house party he was usually the life and soul. No man could invent so many practical jokes or carry them on with such refinement of humour as he. Therefore, if the hostess wished to impart merriment among her guests, she sought out and sent a pressing invitation to "Jimmy" Flockart. A first-class shot, an excellent tennis-player, a good golfer, and quite a good hand at putting a stone in curling, he was an all-round sportsman who was sure to be highly popular with his fellow-guests. Hence up ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... their level, and called for names. He mentioned Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, and Wendell Phillips as men who worked against the fundamental principles of the government, and excited the boisterous merriment of the audience by calling John W. Forney, the Secretary of the Senate and a prominent journalist, "a dead duck" upon whom "he would not waste his ammunition." Again he spoke of his rise from humble origin,—a tailor who "always ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... and choosing a fable that would specially lend itself, she started the class off translating it into an English fabrication that convulsed both pupils and mistress. Hal, of course, followed suit, and the merriment grew fast and furious after ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... kinsman Wilfred's glove better than my whole person. There she stands to avouch it—nay, blush not, kinswoman, there is no shame in loving a courtly knight better than a country thane,—and do not laugh neither, Rowena, for grave-clothes and a thin visage are, God knows, no matter of merriment. Nay, as thou wilt needs laugh, I will find thee a better jest—Give me thy hand, or, rather, lend it me, for I but ask it in the way of friendship. Here, cousin Wilfred of Ivanhoe, in thy favour I renounce and abjure—Hey! our ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... could see the marks of horror, which the dismal work they had been about had left behind it, viz. the blood, the bones, and part of the flesh, of human bodies, eaten and devoured by those wretches with merriment and sport. I was so filled with indignation at the sight, that I now began to premeditate the destruction of the next that I saw there, let them be whom or how many soever. It seemed evident to me ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... give in marriage with such dowry as his circumstances will admit of: and should anything befall either of the legatees, then let his portion pass to the survivor. The reading of this will caused some merriment among the hearers, who knew of Eudamidas's poverty, but did not know anything of the friendship existing between him and his heirs. They went off much tickled at the handsome legacy that Aretaeus and Charixenus (lucky dogs!) ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... over his forehead, and shut his eyes. When he again opened them, he saw that the man had turned to laugh and that the friar had caught his sides as though to save himself from bursting with merriment, then he saw them point toward his house and ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... they laughed at M. de la Tourelle, and told him that he would be hearing such woman's drivelling some day. Up to that moment, I think, I had only feared him, but his unnatural, half-ferocious reply made me hate even more than I dreaded him. But now they grew weary of their savage merriment; the jewels and watch had been apprised, the money and papers examined; and apparently there was some necessity for the body being interred quietly and before daybreak. They had not dared to leave him where he was slain for fear lest people ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... the window. I saw the people outside running and jumping about on the ice; I saw the beautiful flags waving in the wind; I heard the boys shouting, 'Hurrah!' and the lads and lasses singing, and everything full of merriment and joy. But there was the white cloud with the black spot hanging over them. I cried out as loudly as I could, but no one heard me; I was too far off from the people. Soon would the storm burst, the ice break, and all who were ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... frankness which must have almost made their author shake in his grave, the secret note-books of this famous wit; and are thus enabled to trace the jokes, in embryo, with which he had so often made the walls of St. Stephen's shake, in a merriment excited by the happy appearance of sudden unpremeditated ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... into great merriment. After they had enjoyed their laughter awhile, my Northern lady-friend said, 'Did ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... it is so much the nature of laughter to communicate itself that when it no longer communicates itself it ceases to exist. One might say that outbursts of merriment need to be encouraged, that they are not self-sufficient. Not to share them is to blow upon them and extinguish them. When, in an animated and mirthful group, some one remains cold or gloomy, the laughter immediately ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... have you with us"; of Dr. Theophilus's "You grow younger every day, ladies. Will you dance to-night?"; of General Bolingbroke's "I never missed an opportunity of coming to you in my life, ma'am"; of a confused chorus of girlish murmurs, of youthful merriment. ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... To slow and sere consumption he shall change, And with invisible mutation strange, Withered and wasted send them to the earth; Whilst hushed, and by the mace of ruin rent, Sinks the forsaken hall of merriment! Bright bursts the sun upon the shaggy scene! The aged rocks their glittering summits gray 160 Hang beautiful amid the beams of day; And all the woods, with slowly-fading green, Yet smiling wave:—severer thoughts, away! The night is distant, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... that slips In lazy laughter from the lips That marvel much if any kiss Is sweeter than the apple's is. Blow back the twitter of the birds— The lisp, the titter, and the words Of merriment that found the shine Of summer-time a glorious wine That drenched the leaves that loved it so, In orchard lands ...
— Riley Farm-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... merchandise. I know it is the general lot of women, Each miserably mated to some man Wrecks her own life upon his selfishness: That it is general makes it not less bitter. I think I never heard a woman laugh, Laugh for pure merriment, except one woman, That was at night time, in the public streets. Poor soul, she walked with painted lips, and wore The mask of pleasure: I would not laugh like her; No, death were better. [Enter GUIDO behind unobserved; the DUCHESS flings herself down before a picture of the ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde
... and pushed him violently over the edge into the icy water of the harbour. His lusty shouts caused searchlights to be turned on and he was rescued promptly, but the episode, small and unimportant as it was, caused considerable merriment—except to the principal actor—for many ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... well lighted with gas, but most of the bordering houses were dark. Now and then a single foot-farer passed with loud, hollow-sounding boots along the pavement; or two girls would come laughing along, their merriment echoing rude in the wide stillness. A cold wind, a small, forsaken, solitary wind, moist with a thin fog, seemed, as well as wee Gibbie, to be roaming the night, for it met him at various corners, and from all directions. But it had nothing to do, ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... young lady. She was now tall and slender and quite grown up, her head was finely poised on a graceful neck; her skin was soft and fair, shading into a fresh pink about the cheeks; her eyes were deep and thoughtful, and her mouth, around which mischief and merriment had once played, now expressed seriousness and ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... the bereaved landlady, and the result was as usual. And when, long years after, Johnson would solemnly explain that it was a pure love-match on both sides, the statement never failed to excite much needless and ill-suppressed merriment on the part of the listeners. In mimicking the endearments of Johnson and his "pretty creature"—so the admiring husband called her—Garrick many years later ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... to the quay, through the dark by-ways, in a cart, the only vehicle which at that day could navigate the muddy, unpaved streets of Detroit, was a theme for much merriment, and not less so, our descent of the narrow, perpendicular stair-way by which we reached the little apartment called the Ladies' Cabin. We were highly delighted with the accommodations, which, by comparison, seemed the very ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... asking for all sorts of favors, bedding, silver spoons, a silk umbrella, or begging her to invest some money in the manufacture of an article, warranted "to take the kink out of the hair of the negro," she would always check the merriment of her family by saying, "Don't laugh too much; ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... like yourn that was afraid, and a face, nuther. Oh, when it comes to looks, you are there all right. Well, sir," he added, "the town's stirred up. Old Ebenezer is all of a titter. Afraid to laugh out loud, but she's tickled all the same." The old man leaned back with a chuckle, and in his merriment he slowly clawed at the rim of gray whiskers that ran around under his chin. "I like to see ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... is a man with a past. He is now a cavalry subaltern and he was once a sailor. As a soldier at sea is never anything but an object of derision to sailors, correspondingly the mere idea of a sailor on horseback causes the utmost merriment among soldiers. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various
... but Kitty and Billy did not seem to mind the dampness or the chill for the moon was beautiful, and they seated themselves in the hammock. Bobberts had been put to bed, and his parents had become almost merry with their old-time merriment as they contemplated the speedy over-throw of the Fenelby Domestic Tariff. The joy that comes from a tax repealed is greater than the peace that comes from paying a tax honestly. There is no fun in paying taxes. ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler
... secured in the ground, that their united strength could not pull it down. All the time they were shouting and crying to each other, every now and then giving way to hoarse laughter, which occasionally broke into shrieks of merriment. "Bery good fun for dem, but bad for us," observed Macco, as the violent shocks made us expect every instant to be hurled to the ground. At length they stopped, and there was an ominous silence. We felt as people do during the lull of a hurricane, when they know it will come back with tenfold ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... again, on his side, is described as so thoroughly degraded, that he makes the disfiguration of his own person by the knout, the cancellation of his back by stripes and scars—a subject of continual merriment. Between two parties thus incapacitated by law and usage for manly intercourse, the result was exactly such by consummation as on many parts of the Continent it still is by tendency. The master welcomed from his slave that spirit of familiar impertinence which stirred the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... plunge suddenly into an atmosphere of merriment within a few yards of the men posted at the periscopes along the sandbagged parapet. The electric lights were burning, and a blue haze of tobacco smoke obscured the air from a semicircle of listeners, sitting on packing-cases and forms round the piano on the platform, ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... of a flirt, no doubt. She had many partners, walked in the garden with them impartially, divided her dances, sat on the stairs. Wherever her yellow draperies moved, nonsense, merriment, and ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... as they rode toward the house. Their gay voices came to him lifted into soft laughter; their light merriment, so in tune with the springtime, fell jarringly ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... not laugh any more; she only looked at me with her large eyes, which were bright with merriment. "He would not have stooped." "Why?" I persisted. "Just suppose that he had let his hat fall, he would have been sure to pick it up, and then... I was well prepared to defend myself, in this costume!" She put her two strong, round ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... enjoy an unrivalled reputation for gaiety and merriment. Bread is considered a love charm, and the two who eat from the same loaf will fall in love with each other. The suitor often sends an ambassador to a girl he has never seen, and if his proposal is accepted he calls the ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... reply, Saya Chone and U Saw burst into a great shout of mocking laughter. They rolled to and fro in their mirth, and the room rang again with their hideous merriment. Mr. Haydon looked from one to the other, his brow knitted in ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... brutal soldiers stood upon the borders of the morass with shouts of merriment, as they witnessed the sudden discomfiture of their leader; a discomfiture the more ludicrous, in contrast with his gorgeous attire, and his invariably proud and lofty bearing. At length Porcallo extricated ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... the child was big enough to dance about in farm-yard and garden, looking like a flower with long golden stamina. She was simply brimming over with merriment and delight in being alive; and now Captain Rauchfuss condescended to take notice of his daughter. He brought her home all sorts of toys and trifles, and took great pleasure in seeing how quick and clever the little creature was, in watching her scramble about and in listening to ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... that these are the only women who never deceive a man, and whose affection remains constant through all trials. Think of the hours that the kind soul must have passed, lonely in the street, listening to the din and merriment within my apartments, the clinking of the glasses, the laughing, the ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... have various ways of serving their country. Some go to the firing line to be shot and others stay at home to be a source of innocent merriment to ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... she had been sitting broodingly for a long while, the cloud slowly dissipated from her face. In her eyes a twinkle of merriment battled with the fire of righteous indignation, and at last she even laughed with a low pealing note like ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... otherwise he would not let us depart from hence, neither give us our wives to take with us, and he would take from us the swords Colada and Tizona which he gave us.... We will therefore turn this thing into merriment before him and his people, to the end that they may not suspect what we have at heart. While they were thus devising their uncle Suero Gonzalez came in, and they told him of their intent. And he counselled them to keep their wrath secret, ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... old world is comin' to an end, don't it? What times we've 'ad—if you don't mind me puttin' it like that! I remember when I had to be awful careful always to say 'Sir' to you, and 'Mr. David' or 'Mr. Williams'"—and a roguish look, a gleam of merriment came into Bertie's eyes, and he laughed a laugh that was half sob. "If you was to write your life, no one 'ud believe it, miss. It licks any novel I ever read—and I've read a tidy few, looking after the ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... night, a hundred years ago, there was great merriment in the house of a farmer who had fixed his abode within the arctic circle, in Nordland, not far from the foot of Sulitelma, the highest mountain in Norway. This dwelling, with its few fields about it, was in a recess between the rocks, ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... be right in the swim, eh, Droom?" he said. The irony of it all appealed strongly to his sense of humour. "I don't suppose you know those swells?" he added, patronisingly. Droom was listening intently to the bursts of merriment which were enlivening the restaurant. Like a small boy at a circus who fears that something will happen that he will not see, he was continually turning his head and letting his eyes travel critically over the company at ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... worth going miles to hear. There are all shades of temperament and character in laughter, which is the one thing of which we are least self-conscious; hers revealed not only a sense of humor, rare in her sex, but a blithe, happy nature, which made allies at once of those upon whose ears her merriment fell. Trowbridge's eyes sparkled with ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... animal to set up a loud yell, and retreat to his master much faster than he came, passing first one fore-paw and then the other over his nose, to wipe away the pain, in such a ridiculous manner as to excite loud merriment, not only from our party on the bench, but also from others who had ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... his glory! On this occasion the joke of the evening was an English traveller. The ideal Englishman on the Continent is a never-failing source of merriment. The presence of five Americans gave additional piquancy to the show. The corpulent, double-chinned, red-nosed Englishman, with knee-breeches, shoe-buckles, and absurd coat, stamped, swore, frowned, ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... those lips that I have kissed, I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now, your gambols, your songs, your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... been characterized by feasting and merriment and some undesirable mummery. Puttenham, in his "Arte of Poesie" (1589), observes: "On St. Nicholas' night, commonly, the scholars of the country make them a Bishop, who, like a foolish boy, goeth about blessing and preaching with such childish terms as make the people laugh at his foolish ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... about that alarming conversation? Well,"—(here Mr. Glover was so overcome with merriment, that, after a proper time, the interposition of official authority became necessary,)—"well, I am an engraver. My business is mainly to cut heads. Sometimes I use steel, sometimes copper. My brother, who is also an engraver, and I were discussing a new commission. I told him ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... was detailed, a night or two afterwards, by Thomas Shepard, one of the boys, at a drinking conclave in the village, where bon vivants, and some persons inimical to Mr. F. were present, and created high merriment. From that den it was spread. It appeared that Miss S. had, for some time, had doubts on the subject of her conversion, and sought a conversation with her ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... spite of her disapproval, even to her there was something very attractive in the pretty girlish merriment and interest of ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... Hush-a-byes" in cradle or mother's lap will now give place to the quiet cribside talks called "The Palace Bed Time" and "The Queen Mother's Counsel"; and in the story hour "The Palace Jest-Book" will furnish merriment for the youngsters who laughed the year before over the simpler ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... card dealers that I stood near began to give a part of their attention to the group that sat in the corner. There was in me a desire to leave this room. So far my hours at Medicine Bow had seemed to glide beneath a sunshine of merriment, of easy-going jocularity. This was suddenly gone, like the wind changing to north in the middle of a warm day. But I ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... present, sharing heartily in the merriment of his flock. Voices greeted him on all sides with intonations of tender respect. The rudest man there was loyal to the kind-hearted priest, and would as soon have thought of shooting him as of giving him any but the most reverent attention. It is to be noted, however, that their understanding ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... week, and the female officers were doing their best to excite merriment over the decorations. Snow was falling, but the flakes, after hesitating for a moment, thawed into sludge on the surface of the asphalte yard. Seeing Alfred shivering about under the shed, the superintendent sent him to the office for a plan of ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... beguiled into thinking Olivia loves him, and into appearing before her cross-gartered and wreathed in the smiles {171} which accord so ill with his sour visage. All the more affecting in contrast to this boisterous merriment is the frail figure of Viola, who knows so well "what love women to men may owe." Amid the perfume of flowers and the sob of violins the Duke learns to love this seeming boy better than he knows, and easily forgets the romantic melancholy ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... we approached. Here and there a coif, or cotton cap, nodded, and the slit of a smile would gape between the nose and the meeting chin. A high good humor appeared to reign among the groups; a carnival of merriment laughed itself out in coarse, cracked laughter; loud was the play of the jests, hoarse and guttural the gibes that were abroad on the still air, from old mouths that uttered strong, ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... Her husband sometimes called her the Laughing Goddess. She had two aspects to her beauty—one when she was soft and motherly, the other when she rallied those she loved and sparkled with merriment. Her still beautiful copper-coloured hair had hardly a white thread in it. She was very charming to look ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... the party, however, was apparently engrossed by other thoughts than those of the mirth and merriment around; for in the midst of all he would turn suddenly from the others, and devote himself to a number of scattered sheets of paper, upon which he had written some lines, but whose crossed and blotted ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... help him on with a good kick. It is so absurd to advance into the presence of savage royalty after the fashion of an Irishman driving a pig to market, for that is what we looked like, and the idea nearly made me burst out laughing then and there. I had to work off my dangerous tendency to unseemly merriment by blowing my nose, a proceeding which filled old Billali with horror, for he looked over his shoulder and made a ghastly face at me, and I heard him murmur, "Oh, ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... us all off, as the locust-cry of some full-throated soprano drags a multitudinous chorus after it. It was plain that some dam or other had broken in the soul of this young girl, and she was squaring up old scores of laughter, out of which she had been cheated, with a grand flood of merriment that swept all before it. So we had a great laugh all round, in which the Model—who, if she had as many virtues as there are spokes to a wheel, all compacted with a personality as round and complete as its tire, yet wanted that one little addition of grace, which seems ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... The merriment went on until somebody called for Veronica to play on her violin and she came downstairs with her violin in her hands. Then a hush fell on the crowd, and the merrymakers listened, spellbound and dreamy-eyed, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... spat; they chewed; they nudged each other. Here and there a ripple rose to a roar. One man turned his back, and hands deep in his pockets, laughed silently in the face of heaven. Another was stuffing his pig-tail into his mouth to stifle his merriment. ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... at once. Keineth, looking down the length of the room, decked with the holly the children had fastened over doors and windows, thought that nowhere could Christmas be merrier than right there at the Lees! And what helped make the merriment was the comforting thought that Tim and his family were eating a ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... off her hat, rolled up her sleeves, and began on vigorous ablutions. She had laughed, yes, and heartily, but in her complicated many-roomed heart a lively pique rubbed shoulders with her mirth, and her merriment was tinctured with a liberal amount of the traditional feminine horrified disgust at having been uncomely, at having unconsciously been subjected to an indignity. She was determined that no slightest stain should remain on her smooth, fine-textured skin. She felt, as ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... honk up the road startled him. Then an auto with blazing lights leaped out of the night. The old man was standing right in its way, unconscious of his danger. Almost instinctively two strong hands clutched him and hurled him into the ditch as the car swept past. Shouts of merriment sounded forth upon the night air from the occupants of the car. The fright they had given the two by the side of the road evidently gave them much amusement. Their laughter caused the rescuer to straighten ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... topic—they all decided to enter the suitcase race and provide some merriment for the School by the costumes they would produce. The party broke up reluctantly to dress for dinner. But Catherine managed to detain Judith for a moment and ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... lightness of heart which had dressed them in masquerade habits, had decorated their tents, and assembled them in fantastic groups, appeared a sin against, and a provocative to, the awful destiny that had laid its palsying hand upon hope and life. The merriment of the hour was an unholy mockery of the sorrows of man. The foreigners whom we had among us, who had fled from the plague in their own country, now saw their last asylum invaded; and, fear making them garrulous, they described to eager listeners ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... you spoke rashly, when you said you should be glad of it," said Louis, who was full of merriment at his brother's misfortune. ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... suggested putting back the clocks, but he advanced a step or two on that proposal, and while dancing was going on vigorously, stepped away and hung all the ladies' cloaks on a large tree not far from the front door. Imagine the confusion and merriment! I have often heard him tell ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... noonday meal arrived, Isy appeared with her mother- in-law and old Eppie, carrying their food for the labourers, and leading little Peter in her hand. For a while the whole company was enlivened by the child's merriment; after which he was laid with his bottle in the shadow of an overarching stook, and went to sleep, his mother watching him, while she took her first lesson in gathering and binding the sheaves. When he woke, his grandfather sent the whole family home ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... they went at it. Never have I beheld such a jolly scene of labor. Tugging these wet and heavy boards over a bridge of boats ashore, then across the slimy beach at low tide, then up a steep bank, and all in one great uproar of merriment for two hours. Running most of the time, chattering all the time, snatching the boards from each other's backs as if they were some coveted treasure, getting up eager rivalries between different companies, pouring great choruses of ridicule on the heads of all shirkers, they made the whole scene ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... all of them, and flew Straightway indoors to talk the matter o'er, They all were anxious Ma should know it too, And met that worthy matron at the door Who liked the thought of merriment in store, And reveled in it just as much as they, For things a very pleasant aspect bore While all were thinking of the happy day, Talking of all their wants ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... a contrary effect to that the Ranger had intended. It pictured a fancied scene—one to which both Walter and the Buccaneer had long been strangers; and a lengthened and painful pause succeeded to the brief moment of forced merriment. It was broken by the ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... the faces from which all merriment has fled, forgetting the precentor's discomfiture, and looking only to their own deliverance from the guns now turned against themselves. But Archie did not forget—into a secret Scottish place he had retreated, his hot, burning ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... look of enlightened surprise. When Mrs. Banks laughed there were three dimples plainly showing, which did not entirely discourage her merriment. ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... to get some first," she retorted, impishly; and the girls, who were in a mood when everything strikes them funny, began to laugh. The more they laughed, the more they tried to stop, the more impossible it became, until the whole house rang with merriment. Lucile was the first ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... rushed off towards the harbour, shrieking out, "Ship! ship! ship!" as if their only hope of escaping was to get on board the vessels in the harbour. The Highlanders, who were still lying down, watched them with contemptuous looks, and not a little merriment, as they observed the frightened expression of their countenances. Within sight, behind them, was the Highlanders' camp. As the terror-stricken Osmanlis were scampering away past it, some even attempting to find shelter within, there issued forth a tall figure with ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... mighty voice. After that he became restless and increasingly snappish; his face darkened at "Fallen Leaves," and he began to look positively dangerous when a young man who was a railway porter in town, now home for a holiday, made a ghastly attempt at merriment by singing a low-class music-hall catch. What he would have done or said I do not know, for at that moment the announcement was made which the reader has been expecting—that Mrs. Abel ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
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