"Laugh" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hand entering a hole that opened horizontally. It proved big enough to admit his body, as also the larger frame of his companion. Both were soon inside it. It was a sort of grotto they had discovered; and, crouching within it, they could laugh to scorn the storm that still came pouring from above; the stones, as they passed close to their faces, hissing and hurtling ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... conducted our little service as usual, and urged upon the people once more to forsake their customs and to accept the crucified Saviour. When I spoke of the Resurrection of Christ on the third day, there was a jeering laugh from some of the Indians which made me think of Acts xvii. 32. Blackstone, as I had expected, commenced his pow-pow or council directly we began our service, and so drew away ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... the woods." Again the blows became quicker, as the catastrophe drew nearer; again the final crash resounded; and again the mighty echoes travelled through the solitary forests, and were taken up by all the islands near and far, like Joanna's laugh amongst the Westmoreland hills, to the astonishment of the silent ocean. Yet, wherefore should the ocean be astonished?—he that had heard this nightly tumult, by all accounts, for more than a century. My brother, however, poor Pink, was astonished, in good earnest, being, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... deprecations of displeasure; but she was quite disconcerted by the dignified manner of her entrance;—tall, noble-looking, in all the simple majesty of age, and of a high though gentle spirit, Lady Conway was surprised into absolute respect, and had to rally her ideas before, with a slight laugh, she could say, 'I see you are come to condole with me on the folly of our ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... were spoken in the tone of a judge passing sentence of death on a criminal, and Miss Edgeworth was in doubt whether it would be becoming under the circumstances to laugh or to cry, so she made no speech in reply. She said afterwards to Mrs. Martin, "Mr. Philip must have been a most severe master; I can see sternness on his brow." Moreover, she was secretly aware that she did not deserve his compliments, and that ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... I do know: once this spirit of mine, that now by the workings of destiny for a little while occupies the body of a fourth-rate auctioneer, and of the editor of a trade journal, dwelt in that of a Pharaoh of Egypt—never mind which Pharoah. Yes, although you may laugh and think me mad to say it, for me the legions fought and thundered; to me the peoples bowed and the secret sanctuaries were opened that I and I alone might commune with the gods; I who in the flesh and after it myself was worshipped as ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... in Bengal (Resort to Simla was the exception, not the rule, in these days!) to the cheerfulness and unconstraint of Burma, with its fine landscapes and merry-hearted population. "It was such a relief to find natives who would laugh at a joke," he once remarked in the writer's presence to the lamented E. C. Baber, who replied that he had experienced exactly the same sense of relief in ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... The Lady, disgusted with this unceremonious way of asking such a favor, positively refused him. He said she could sing, or he would make her. "What, madam, I suppose you take me for one of your poor paltry English hedge-parsons; sing, when I bid you!" As the Earl did nothing but laugh at his freedom, the lady was so vexed that she burst into tears, and retired. His first compliment when he saw her a little time afterwards was, "Pray, madam, are you as proud and ill-natured now as when I saw you last?" To which she ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... by-gone sages Led our thoughts through Learning's ways, When the wit of sunnier ages, Called once more to Earth the days When rang through Athens' vine-hung lanes Thy wild, wild laugh, Aristophanes! ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... spoke of common things At first—of days when his good mother lived, If 't were to live, to pass long dolorous hours Before his father's effigy in church; Of one who then used often come to hall, Ever at Yule-tide, when the great log flamed In chimney-place, and laugh and jest went round, And maidens strayed beneath the mistletoe, Making believe not see it, so got kissed— Of one that joined not in the morrice-dance, But in her sea-green kirtle stood at gaze, A timid little creature that ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... We are to have rare sport to-day. Hunting in the morning, a banquet, and, as I have already intimated, a masque at night, in which Sir George Goring and Sir John Finett will play, and in which I have been solicited to take the drolling part of Jem Tospot—nay, laugh not, Dick, Sherborne says I shall play it to the life—as well as to find some mirthful dame to enact the companion part of Doll Wango. I have spoken with two or three on the subject, and fancy one of them will oblige me. There is another matter on which I am engaged. ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... boots waved in the air. A tall youth was practising on the flute in one corner, quite undisturbed by the racket all about him. Two or three others were jumping over the desks, pausing, now and then, to get their breath and laugh at the droll sketches of a little wag who was caricaturing the whole household on ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... the combined forces of the Allies." To which she replied, "If your army had been defeated, the Russians never would have acted against him." "That I cannot believe," I said, "as they were using every effort to join and support the Allies; and the assertion is ridiculous." "Ah," said she, "you may laugh at it, and so may other people, nor will it, perhaps, now be discovered; but remember what I say, and be assured that at some future period it will be proved, that it never was Alexander's intention to cross the frontiers of France, ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... It is one of the few, nay, the only one redeeming grace in that thunder-cased, profligate old scoundrel JUPITER, that he sometimes laughs: he is saved from the disgust of all respectable people by the amenity of a broad grin.' We ourselves hold with the pleasant LINCOLN RAMBLE: 'I love a hearty laugh; I love to hear a hearty laugh above all other sounds. It is the music of the heart; the thrills of those chords which vibrate from no bad touch; the language Heaven has given us to carry on the exchange of sincere and disinterested sympathies.' And to the end that 'laughter free and silvery ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... very whimsical," thought he, "if, this evening, my praetorians should make me king of France. How I should laugh!" ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... century to century. Sometimes the type becomes half-human when incarnate as a Mirabeau, sometimes it is an inarticulate force in a Bonaparte, sometimes it overwhelms the universe with irony as a Rabelais; or, yet again, it appears when a Marechal de Richelieu elects to laugh at human beings instead of scoffing at things, or when one of the most famous of our ambassadors goes a step further and scoffs at both men and things. But the profound genius of Juan Belvidero anticipated and resumed all these. ...
— The Elixir of Life • Honore de Balzac
... characteristically abrupt, dry little laugh, which struck Theron at once as bearing a sort of black-sheep relationship to the priest's habitual chuckle. "That must have been puzzling you no end," he said—"that notion that the pastorate kept a devil's advocate on the premises. No, Mr. Ware, I don't live here. I inhabit a house of my own—you ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... home, that he was not, as he had begun to fear, going mad. It was such a relief, that, with characteristic weakness, his former recklessness and extravagance returned. He began to chuckle, finally to laugh uproariously. ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... his descent, injured his testicles, which swelled up amazingly. Etowigezhig laughed at him, which so incensed the young fellow that he suddenly picked up a pot-hook and struck him on the skull. It fractured it, and killed him. So he died for a laugh. He was a good-natured man, about forty-five, and a good hunter. I gave the skull to Mr. Toulmin Smith, ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... she was out of temper, and it therefore made Walter and Lucy laugh the more; but in the midst of their merriment in came a girl of sixteen or seventeen, tall and graceful. Her head was bare, her hair fastened in a knot behind, and in little curls round her face; she had an open bodice of green silk, and a white dress under it, very plain ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... man gave a short little laugh that sounded not quite pleasant, as he lifted his head suddenly. "I begin to see. Mrs. Granger thinks if she had Lester, and Lester had the money, why she'd ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... dreadfully grieved when they saw the trouble they had made for their dear Father, who could not leave the house, or attend to his business for two whole days, as it took all that time to have another wig made for him. They even could not laugh when the kitten climbed up the back of his chair, and tried to play with the tassel of his night-cap; and ever after, when they were going to do a thoughtless thing, they would recollect their Father's wig ...
— Aunt Fanny's Story-Book for Little Boys and Girls • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... not answer to the signal: he drew down his black swarthy brows, looking eagerly and fiercely from behind their bushy curtains. Suddenly, and with a fearful yell, he sprang forward, snatching the ring which Gamel was then giving back to the stranger. With a wild and hideous laugh, which sent a shudder through the assembly, he drew it on his finger. At this moment the expression of his countenance began to change, and some of the bystanders, over whom fear had probably waved the wand of the enchanter, saw his form dilate, and his whole figure ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... in, the talk became freer and gayer; everybody was bent on laughing and making his neighbours laugh. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... want robust health so much as intellectual attainment. The mortal body, being the lower organ, must take its chance, and be even sacrificed, if need be, to the higher organ—the immortal mind:"—To such I reply, You cannot do it. The laws of nature, which are the express will of God, laugh such attempts to scorn. Every organ of the body is formed out of the blood; and if the blood be vitiated, every organ suffers in proportion to its delicacy; and the brain, being the most delicate and highly specialised ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... who are not and cannot be philosophers. That a valetudinarian who took great pleasure in being wheeled along his terrace, who relished his boiled chicken, and his weak wine and water, and who enjoyed a hearty laugh over the Queen of Navarre's tales, should be treated as a caput lupinum because he could not read the Timaeus without a headache, was a notion which the humane spirit of the English school of wisdom altogether rejected. Bacon would not have thought it beneath ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... I am grown so free from care Since my heart broke! I set my throat against the air, I laugh at simple folk! ...
— A Few Figs from Thistles • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me. And she said, Who would have said unto Abraham, that Sarah should have given children suck? for I have born him a son in his old age. And the child grew, and was weaned: and Abraham made a great feast the same day ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous
... (Still trying to laugh it off.) All comes out in the wash, old chap—all comes out in the wash, I assure you! (Slaps him ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... on the high dome, two hundred feet in air, and the wide-sweeping crescent under her shining feet, burst suddenly into flame, and shed a lustre that was welcomed for miles and miles over the plains of Indiana—then, I assure you, we were all so deeply touched that we knew not whether to laugh or to weep, and I shall not tell you which we did. The moon was very full that night, and ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... themselves of all of value in the house. Exultingly they told their tale of horror, their painted faces and blood-stained garments looking ghastly in the moonlight. One man threw an ornament, torn from the person of a white woman, to his squaw, who had brought his supper; and another, with a fiendish laugh, tossed a scalp to Millicent, calling out in coarse tones, "Here little white-skin, take that for a ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various
... years, had continued to "wax fat," and now it was about as much as she could do, with many grunts, to get up and down stairs. Since her double bereavement of her "Hebe" and her "Lapwing," her kind, motherly countenance had lost somewhat of its comfortable jollity, and her hearty mellow laugh was seldom heard. Still, good Henrietta was passably happy, as the world goes, for she had the lucky foundation of a happy temper and temperament—she enjoyed the world, her friends and her creature comforts—her sound, ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... the circle. The man would then pick them up and put them into the plate, and tell the people how many there lacked. There must be fifteen, he said, or he could not perform the experiment. He kept talking all the time to the people, and saying funny things to make them laugh. ...
— Rollo in Paris • Jacob Abbott
... excitement Barbara had forgotten that she still held her weapon pointed straight at him. She dropped the gun with a confused laugh. "I beg your pardon, A—Mr. Lee. I did not realize that I was holding up my"—she hesitated, then ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... smile, ladies; it is enough to make a horse laugh," he said. "Perhaps you would like to know how the prince was put through his paces from the time he opened his eyes in the morning till he was tucked in bed at night. Lord North at one time was governor to the prince; ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... "Well, of course they must be prudent, but I am sorry to have them wait. It will be some time before David's practice is enough for them to marry on. He is so funny in planning their housekeeping expenses," she said, with that mother-laugh of mockery and love. "You should hear the economies they propose!" And she told him some of them. "They make endless calculations as to how little they can possibly live on. You would never suppose they could be so ignorant as to the cost of things! Of course I enlighten them when ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... dear!" exclaimed Mrs Harrel, with a look of astonishment, "why Mr Harrel would no more do all this than fly! If I was only to make such a proposal, I dare say he would laugh in my face." ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... new interest on hearing this. He even bestirred himself, and limped over to see what Jack was doing at closer range. After watching for a short time, he gave a laugh as though he ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... thought as the feeling of exhaustion passed away, and was ready to laugh at the sense of dread caused by his loneliness. For, as he told himself, it was probably all imagination respecting his friends, and there was nothing to mind. He was only separated from the vessel by a comparatively short distance, and sooner or later an effort ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... word came a low laugh from the other side of the barricade. The Captain started, looked round, listened, smiled, frowned, pulled his moustache. Then, with extraordinary suddenness, resolution, and fierceness, he turned and walked quickly away. "Honour, honour!" he was saying to himself; and ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... like a ribbon carelessly unwound, the only bit of level to be seen, and prolonged for miles. The distant mountains that bound the prospect you may see elsewhere, but this ravine, with the traces of the 'Willey Slide' on one side of it, has no parallel. Don't laugh at me for the homeliness of the simile—it suggested a gigantic cradle. Here, as elsewhere, we were dazzled by the brilliancy of the October foliage, and having found a seat quite as convenient as a sofa, though being ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... "neither for surly Catos nor for those fond of vulgar jests and smutty books," but for those who will laugh. At the close of his preface he confesses the source of his inspiration: "In order to inspire myself with something of the spirit of a Sterne, Imade a decoction out of his writings and drank the same eagerly; indeed I have burned the finest passages ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... eighth, the ninth, and the tenth tier. I had finished a portion of the last and the eleventh; there remained but a single stone to be fitted and plastered in. I struggled with its weight; I placed it partially in its destined position. But now there came from out the niche a low laugh that erected the hairs upon my head. It was succeeded by a sad voice, which I had difficulty in recognizing as that of the noble Fortunato. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... candour. This was an expression she was somewhat apt to assume when her mood was a teasing one; and it generally had the effect of breaking down the Commendatore's gravity. "You are a witch," he would laugh, availing himself without shame of the way-worn reproach, "a ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... it continues. Our discoveries in Afghanistan confirmed our worst fears, and showed us the true scope of the task ahead. We have seen the depth of our enemies' hatred in videos, where they laugh about the loss of innocent life. And the depth of their hatred is equaled by the madness of the destruction they design. We have found diagrams of American nuclear power plants and public water facilities, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... loud laugh. "If I were troubled with such ocular demonstrations I would wear spectacles. By Jove! Bill Mathews, waking or sleeping, I never was haunted by an evil spirit worse than yourself. But here's Skinner at last! Fetch a bottle of brandy and ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... have many friends; for when the goods are examined for the customs in the great hall of the king, many of the Pegu gentlemen go in accompanied by their slaves, and these gentlemen are not ashamed when their slaves rob strangers, whether of cloth or any other thing, and only laugh at it when detected; and though the merchants assist each other to watch the safety of their goods, they cannot look so narrowly but some will steal more or less according to the nature or quality of the goods. Even if fortunate enough to escape being robbed by the slaves, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... a faint gleam of water sliding by below, he rose stiffly to his feet, and Lewson stretched out a hand for the rifle that lay among the stones. There was a sharp click as he jerked the lever, and then he laughed, a little jarring laugh, as the ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... as ladies-in-waiting. Benfey, in a note on Liebrecht's article, compares with the story of Merlin one by the Countess d'Aulnois, No. 36 of Basile's "Pentamerone," Straparola, iv. 1, and a story in the "Suka Saptati." In this some cooked fish laugh so that the whole town hears them; the reason being the same as in the above story and in that of Merlin. In a Kashmiri version, which has several other incidents and bears a close resemblance to No. 4 of M. Legrand's "Recueil de Contes Populaires Grecs," to the story of "The Clever Girl" ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... showed his transparent-looking white teeth in a merry laugh. 'Here are the galleons, you boy named in a lucky hour! How many times have you spent them ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... presence immediately produced an impression; even the native Africans moderating their manner, and lowering their yells, as it might be, the better to suit her more refined tastes. No one, in our set, was too dignified to laugh, but Jason. The pedagogue, it is true, often expressed his disgust at the amusements and antics of the negroes, declaring they were unbecoming human beings and otherwise manifesting that disposition to hypercriticism, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... the right to use analogous means at sea, the object for which we fight battles almost ceases to exist. Defeat the enemy's fleets as we may, he will be but little the worse. We shall have opened the way for invasion, but any of the great continental Powers can laugh at our attempts to invade single-handed. If we cannot reap the harvest of our success by deadening his national activities at sea, the only legitimate means of pressure within our strength will be denied us. Our fleet, if ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... for a moment as her daughter left her. Then she understood that her hour of superiority was gone with Marjorie's hour of weakness; and she emitted a short laugh as she took her place again behind the child ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... only because the old man cared to see her, but to make Grace feel the outsider that she was. She made desperate efforts to conquer the hated language, but her accent was atrocious. Anthony would correct her suavely, and Lily would laugh in childish, unthinking mirth. She ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... laugh from the attentive, wiry, red-faced woman on the oracle's left, and also a chuckle, at the expense of the American, from the thin Englishman on his right, who wore a large white waistcoat, a blue veil on his hat, and a face as red as a ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... have no doubt that they are honourable," said Miss Dunstable. "He does not want to deceive me in that way, I am quite sure." It was impossible to help laughing, and Mrs. Harold Smith did laugh. "Upon my word you would provoke ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... rapidly changing emotions which passed over the sick man's face, which made his breast heave, and his great heart quiver and tremble painfully. Displeasure and pity, sympathy and contempt, anger and grief, all were expressed in the short, sharp, bitter laugh, and the few words which escaped his lips when he saw his little daughter timidly following her mother into ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... everything his own way. Of course, it didn't last long—it wouldn't have been good for him if it had—but even in six minutes I managed to lose the results of six months' coldness. Yet I was glad it was gone; glad just to be alive; and we'd look at each other and laugh like children. You don't realize what a good old place the world is until you've taken a chance on leaving it and weighed against death itself; all our little jealousies and misunderstandings seemed too trivial to count. It seemed enough that ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... them, and continued to gaze at the busy little housewife, until she chanced to look in his direction, when he shut them again quickly, and very tight. This was done twice; but the third time Mary caught him in the act, and broke into a merry laugh. It was the first time she had laughed aloud since March met her; so he laughed too, out of ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... go down on the bank of the river, and see if he could find a place to fish a little while, until some little time should have elapsed, so as to give to the period of his absence a tolerably respectable duration. "Uncle George will laugh at me," said he to himself, "if he sees me come home ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott
... They despise and laugh at auguries, and the other vain and superstitious ways of divination, so much observed among other nations; but have great reverence for such miracles as cannot flow from any of the powers of Nature, and look on them as effects and indications ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... and even those who delight in Ivanhoe, can find the keenest relish in Rebecca and Rowena, which is simply the great romance of chivalry turned inside out. But Thackeray's immortal burlesque has something of the quality of Cervantes' Don Quixote—that we love the knight whilst we laugh, and feel the deep pathos of human nature and the beauty of goodness and love even in the midst of the wildest fun. And this fine quality runs through all the comic pieces, ballads, burlesques, pantomimes, and sketches. ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... north, next day we lay hove-to till evening, and two days afterwards the gale was repeated, but with still greater violence. The captain was all ready for it, and a ship, if she is a good sea-boat, may laugh at any winds or any waves provided she be prepared. The danger is when a ship has got all sail set and one of these bursts of wind is shot out at her; then her masts go overboard in no time. Sailors generally estimate a gale of wind by the amount of damage it ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... surroundings, of the work record and diet, but we shall not know the family until we know what gives them pleasure. One visitor says that she never feels acquainted with a poor family until she has had a good laugh with them. A defective sense of humor in the visitor is a great hindrance to successful work: poor people are no fonder of dismal folk than the rest of us. When we come to recreations, friendly visiting not only makes large demands upon what we know, but upon what we are. Our pleasures ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... of it," says he, with a laugh in his fine eyes. He leaned forward a little, and made as if to touch her, but withdrew his hand. "I did not know," says he, "that I was so clever. I have it all ready. I have every word in place. I'd like ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... himself on the bed, while I, in trembling bewilderment, prepared the breakfast. Presently he broke into a loud laugh. ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... manhood! A billion dollars would have bought every slave in the South in 1860, but fifty billions would not have adequately recompensed the slave for enforced labor and debased manhood. The debt grows in magnitude the closer it is inspected. And yet there are those who will laugh this claim to scorn; who will be unable to see any grounds upon which to base the justice of it; who will say that the black man was fully compensated for all the ills he had borne, the robbery to which he had been subjected, and the debasement—not to say enervation—of ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... custom suave as manna, seemed in his best spirits. He talked and laughed gleefully—now with Caroline, whom he had fixed by his side, now with Shirley, and again with Louis Moore. And Louis met him in congenial spirit. He did not laugh much, but he uttered in the quietest tone the wittiest things. Gravely spoken sentences, marked by unexpected turns and a quite fresh flavour and poignancy, fell easily from his lips. He proved himself to be—what Mr. Hall had said he was—excellent company. ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... sneer in his laugh. "I talk the way I talk," he answered roughly. "If people don't like the sound of it they don't have to listen! Lee, you round up those seventy-three horses and crowd them over the ridge to the lumber-camp. ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... as he stared at the unequally matched pair. A jeering laugh seemed the only fitting answer to such a surprise, but Miriam's grave face helped him to repress it and conceal the tumult of his soul ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... on a trip. They depopulated Sark in a single night, as they thought. But they were mistaken. One family escaped their attention,—the Le Mesuriers, who were the custodians of the silver mines—' At this point Conway broke in with an impatient laugh. Fielding turned a quiet eye upon him and repeated in an even voice, 'Who were the custodians of the silver mines, and lived under the shelter of a little cliff close by the main shaft. When Helier ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... blurred in my intellects. Then I recovers; an' as I'm bein' herded back into the dressin' room by the fosterin' hands of the ring master an' my pard, the clown, over in the audience I hears Jule's silvery laugh an' her old pap allowin' he'd give a hoss if I'd only broke my neck. Also, I catches a remark of old Hickey; "Which that Boggs boy allers was ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... looked over the morning paper, would sometimes leap to his feet with a perfect howl of suffering, and cry: "Everlasting Moses! the Liberals have carried East Elgin." Or else he would lean back from the breakfast table with the most good-humoured laugh you ever heard and say: "Ha! ha! the Conservatives ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... scared!" said Mother, smiling gallantly, but writhing under the bed covers. "Dr. Forsythe has been here, and it's nothing at all. Ah-h-h!" said Mother, whimsically, "the poor little babies! They go through this, and we laugh at them, and call it colic! Never-laugh-at-another- baby, Sue! I shan't. You'd better call Auntie, dear. This—this ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... room and met her eyes, which shone with a most touching kind of timidity and a most flattering joy, he had to realise the need of strict discipline where constancy is a rule of existence. Sara's laugh, movements, way of talking, played a good deal on the heart, but even more upon the senses. Brigit's lovely face gained intensity only under the influence of sorrow. Then it became human. At other times it was merely exquisite. Now Sara's ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... long secret laugh from Sam Meecham. At low speeds. The government considered anything above a 50 CT as high speed. And here he was with a secret that could enable him to travel at—who knows what speeds? He could give it to the government later, but right now he had ...
— The Odyssey of Sam Meecham • Charles E. Fritch
... my own, and now I am a comfortable man, and have my submarine villa to go to every evening". That "submarine villa" was an object of amusement when we passed it in our walks for many a long day. "There is Mr. ——'s submarine villa", some one would say, laughing: and I, too, used to laugh merrily, because my elders did, though my understanding of the difference between suburban and submarine was on a par with that of the ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... say that it rained blood upon him and his artificers as they stood by that accursed font. The man was mad. Nothing stayed him: for the first time since they who still loved him had had him back, they heard him laugh, when his daughter Gaillarda was brought forth. And, 'Spine of God,' he cried, 'this is a saucy child of mine, and saucily shall she do by the French power.' Then his face was wrenched by pain, ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... up—morals won't do for me; To make you laugh, I must play tragedy. One hope remains—hearing the maid was ill, A Doctor comes this night to show his skill. To cheer her heart, and give your muscles motion, He, in Five Draughts prepar'd, presents a potion: A kind of magic charm—for be assur'd, If you will swallow it, the maid is cur'd: But ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... Kirkwood, with a little laugh of pleasure because of the other's insistence. "I only wish ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... all strange questions about the new Religion and its laws. I remember one Chief particularly, who came often, saying to me, "I would be an Awfuaki man (i. e. a Christian) were it not that all the rest would laugh at me; that I ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... leave this large sum with the bookmaker," he objected. "He would like nothing better; he would laugh in his sleeve. I can't ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... She soon accustomed herself to that grim palazzo, and would sing, and play the harp, and copy the old pictures, and stroll with master under the green trees and vines all day. She was beautiful. He was happy. He would laugh and say to me, mounting his horse for his morning ride before ...
— To be Read at Dusk • Charles Dickens
... love as his particular province, interrupting our friend with a jaunty laugh; 'I thought, Knight,' says he, 'thou had'st lived long enough in the world, not to pin thy happiness upon one that is a woman and a widow. I think that without vanity, I may pretend to know as much of the female world as any man in Great Britain, though the chief of my ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... that? Love and Faith, free from all sectarianism and all earthly authority,—what is Buhaism or Mohammedanism or Christianity beside them? Moreover, I have a mission. And to love me you must believe in me, not in the Buha. You laugh at my dream. But one day it will be realised. A great Arab Empire in the border-land of the Orient and Occident, in this very heart of the world, this Arabia, this Egypt, this Field of the Cloth of Gold, so to speak, where ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... of the assassin was reared erect, and the bloated yellow face seemed to laugh silently, while the hand that held the steel pointed at the sleeping ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... must laugh in their sleeves at the fact that one man may sue another in a court of law ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... desire me to descend to particulars with regard to these English comedies, which I am so fond of applauding; nor to give you a single smart saying or humorous stroke from Wycherley or Congreve. We don't laugh in rending a translation. If you have a mind to understand the English comedy, the only way to do this will be for you to go to England, to spend three years in London, to make yourself master of the English tongue, and to frequent the playhouse every night. I receive but little pleasure ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... "Shut the door or the germs will be getting in." As to the Darwinian theory, it struck him as being the crowning joke of the century. "The children in the nursery and the ancestors in the stable," he would cry, and laugh the tears out ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Lavalette's narrative. When he saw Napoleon before his departure from Paris to the Belgian frontier, he found him suffering from depression and a pain in the chest; but he avers that, on the return from Waterloo, apart from one "frightful epileptic laugh," Napoleon speedily settled down to his ordinary behaviour: not a word is added as to his health. (Sir W. Scott, "Life of Napoleon," vol. viii., p. 496; Gourgaud, "Campagne de 1815," and "Journal de St. Helene," vol. ii., Appendix 32; "Narrative ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... is quaint and simple, but there is a freshness about it that makes one hear again the ringing laugh and the cheery shout of children at play which charmed his earlier ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... Gurth, "I fear discovery from none, saving my playfellow, Wamba the Jester, of whom I could never discover whether he were most knave or fool. Yet I could scarce choose but laugh, when my old master passed so near to me, dreaming all the while that Gurth was keeping his porkers many a mile off, in the thickets and swamps of ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... the Prince bent down to it to find an explanation. The crowd, knowing all about that chair and understanding his puzzlement, began to laugh. It laughed outright and with sympathetic humour when, abruptly handing his Guards' cap to one of his staff, he solemnly sat down in it for a second instead ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... as he crossed the living room—a man's voice, and then a girl's laugh. He flung open the door. It was a young man in dinner clothes and a tall blonde girl. Tom Franklin, and a vivid, theatrical-looking girl, whom Lee had never seen before. She was inches taller than her companion. She stood clinging to his arm; her beautiful face, with beaded lashes and ...
— The World Beyond • Raymond King Cummings
... their seats on the benches of the galley, one foot being chained to a ring in the deck, the other to that of a companion at the oar. The slaves were more cheerful now. As there was no work to do at present, they were allowed to talk, and an occasional laugh was heard, for the sun and brightness of the day cheered them. Many, after years of captivity, had grown altogether reckless, and it was among these that there was most talking; the younger men seemed, for the most ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... were disturbed. "Poor Lo" complained of the wanton and senseless killing of the principal means of his sustenance, and when the white man with a laugh ignored these complaints, the Indians got on the war-path, attacked settlements, killed cattle and stole provisions, thus giving rise to conflicts, which devoured not only enormous sums of money, but cost the lives of thousands of people. When the ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... tenderfoot certainly talks his head off," Quail said. "You know, I've a notion he was having a bit of a laugh on me when I ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... commission entrusted to him. The First Consul, upon finding he did not leave Brest after he had been ordered to the Mediterranean, repeatedly said to me, "What the devil is Gantheaume about?" With one of the daily reports sent to the First Consul he received the following quatrain, which made him laugh heartily: ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... think we shall have to elect a new cook if you cannot do better than that. However, we'll manage to get along very well with this meal. If we have to get others we will hold a consultation as to the latest and most approved methods of doing so," he added, amid a general laugh at ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... Partridge is represented as a very bad theatrical critic. But none of those who laugh at him possess the tithe of his sensibility to theatrical excellence. He admires in the wrong place; but he trembles in the right place. It is indeed because he is so much excited by the acting of Garrick, that he ranks him below the strutting, mouthing performer, who personates ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... child, perhaps he has," said Hepzibah, with a sad, hollow laugh; "but in old houses like this, you know, dead people are very apt to come back again. And, Cousin Phoebe, if your courage does not fail you, we will not part soon. You are welcome to such a home as I can ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... sometimes might slumber, Yet the Truth they might fancy beneath all my Lumber: But your stupid Jargon is seen through instanter, And your Works give the Wits new Subjects for Banter. Such cler-obscure Aid may I meet again never! For now Milles and I will be laugh'd at ...
— Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley (1782) • Edmond Malone
... says," said Reginald, hardly able to restrain a laugh; "if you like you can read it aloud; I'd like to hear it ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... party, who is going to speak for us—there is no one to speak for us——" "I realize that," interjected the President, "——unless we speak for ourselves?" "And you do that very admirably," rejoined Mr. Wilson. A general laugh broke up the somewhat solemn occasion and as the delegates went away Dr. Shaw said exultingly: "He is in favor of a House Woman Suffrage Committee and that was our chief object in coming to ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... discussed where not so very long ago none would have dared to speak it save with 'bated breath.' Yet we are all mystics by birth, and scarce one of us there is who as a child has not experienced the fear of darkness. We cannot explain it, and though the child may soon be taught to laugh at his fear, yet none the less was he endowed with this unaccountable dread of ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... couldn't, for all his rising dismay, but laugh out; his sense of the ridiculous so swallowed up, for that brief convulsion, his sense of the sinister. Of such conivence in pain, it seemed, was the fact of another's pain, and of so much worth again disinterested sympathy! "Your ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... at first had been cleared by the axe, and afterwards well beaten by the constant passage of men and horses with heavy loads of timber. Then he stopped and set Snorro on his legs, and, going down on his knees before him, laughed in his face. You may be sure that Snorro returned the laugh ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the ingredients of their hellish composition savour of the grotesque, yet is the effect upon us other than the most serious and appalling that can be imagined? Do we not feel spell-bound as Macbeth was? Can any mirth accompany a sense of their presence? We might as well laugh under a consciousness of the principle of Evil himself being truly and really present with us. But attempt to bring these beings on to a stage, and you turn them instantly into so many old women, that men and children are to laugh at. Contrary to the old saying, that ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... spasmodic and intermittent. It is impossible to keep it up, so it comes in fits and starts. When the morning comes men laugh at their terrors. It leads to wild endeavours to forget God—atheism—to insensibility. He who begins by fearing when there was no need, ends by not fearing when ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... would be right," replied Killian seriously. "In the eyes of God, I do not question but you would be right; but men, sir, look at these things differently, and they laugh." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of food; and the first man who overtook me would tell the people that a crazy boy from Portland was coming along the road dragging a baby-wagon, whereupon every woman would leave her kitchen, and every man his field, to see and laugh at me. But, above all, the thing would be known in our neighborhood, and the boys and girls would join in their abuse ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... more than a passing thought before; had never thought of her save as a frank, generous, sunny-hearted girl. Now he began to recall words that she had spoken of which he had never before taken heed. The rippling laugh, half like the notes of a silver bell, and half like the trilling of a bob-o-link's song, came back like music now into his desolate soul, making him all the more disconsolate that he was never again to hear it. But had she not looked wistfully into his eyes when ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... Laugh like a boy at splendors that have sped, To vanished joys be blind and deaf and dumb; My judgments seal the dead past with its dead, But never bind a ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... said Dalhousie, with a pleasant laugh, "what have you done to sink yourself so far in your own estimation? You and your father differed as to the propriety of our marriage; to you, as a true woman, your course was plain. This is the height and ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... can't tell you here the romance of my life. I couldn't do it in surroundings like these. We will go on to your rooms presently, and then I will make a clean breast of the whole thing to you. You may be disposed to laugh at me for a sentimentalist, but I should like to stay here a little longer, if it is only now and again to hear a word or two from her lips. If you will push those flowers across between me and the light I shall be quite secure from observation. ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... you so much, Mr Humphreys! Now I shall have the laugh of Miss Foster (that's our rector's daughter, you know; they're away on their holiday now—such nice people). We always had a joke between us which should be the first to ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... birse, and shows her muckle white teeth, and grins at me like a perfect cannibal; and the wee deevil he sets up his birse too, and snaps his bit teeth, and tries to grin like the mither o't, with a queer auld farrant look that amaist gart me laugh; although, to tell the blessed truth, Maister Charles, I thought it nae laughing sport. Well, there was naething else for it, so I lets drive at them wi' the grit-shot, thinking to ding them baith at ance. I killed the sma' ane dead enough; but the ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... burst into a laugh, straightened himself up to his full height, squeezed the keys back into his pocket, and said he must take a look into the state-rooms on the deck to see if they were all ready for ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... game in which no one is allowed to smile or laugh. All the players, except one, sit in a row or half circle; one goes out of the room and returns with a stick or poker in his hand, and a very grave and solemn face. He is supposed to have just returned from a visit to Buff. The first player asks him: ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... Meanwhile, you can laugh at it. At present, the Bisara is safe on an ekka- pony's neck, inside the blue bead-necklace that keeps off the Evil-eye. If the ekka-driver ever finds it, and wears it, or gives it to his wife, I am ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... rivers, an ordinary sandpiper that flits before you on the beach. Birds singing in the morning are always rare except in the localities of paddi fields. The one most likely to attract attention on a forenoon is the giant hornbill, and as we advanced up the Busang its laugh might still be heard. Much more unusual was the call of some lonely argus pheasant or a crow. A few of the beautiful white raja ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... me!" went on Jim—"blowing like an old broken-winded horse? Yes, you may laugh, but I mean it. Do you think I don't know you've never been out of doors ten minutes that you could help for six months? and that you have even given ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed |
