"Laugh at" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... down a bottle or two of the red-seal wine; that of 1812. It'll wake up old Dick Holmes, and make him ten years younger. There's no fear of giving him the gout. Ha, ha! Dick Holmes with the gout! I'd like to see that!' exclaimed he, bursting out into a broad laugh at the bare idea of such a catastrophe. 'Well, well,' added he, after a minute's consideration, 'you may go, Martha. Upon the whole, I think I'll get the things myself, and go to market too. There, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... in itself) was Quoz. This odd word took the fancy of the multitude in an extraordinary degree, and very soon acquired an almost boundless meaning. When vulgar wit wished to mark its incredulity and raise a laugh at the same time, there was no resource so sure as this popular piece of slang. When a man was asked a favour which he did not choose to grant, he marked his sense of the suitor's unparalleled presumption ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... consumption which ma says has opium in it. For when I took it for a cold, things kind of swum around me like a circular looking-glass, that you could see through somehow, and everything seemed kind of way off and funny and somethin' to laugh at and not ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters
... it a sense of the eerie over Fran. She was distinctly relieved to hear Max laugh at ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... treasure; what will she do with thee, once safely away? Will she carry thee always with her, to be marked because of thy great stature? No, Milo, thy life will pay for her desertion of her people, and she will laugh at thy passing. And why should it be? Here, thou and I can rule these cattle as she never could. With Sancho's deserters, and Rufe's followers, I can give thee a band that will force the treasure from her greedy grasp, and make ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... before his death, confessed to her that he and a man named Cole were the murderers of Dr. Clenche. The ghost of her husband persecuted her, she said, till Cole was arrested. Mr. Justice Dolben asked her in court for the story, but feared that the jury would laugh at her. She asserted the truth of her story, but, if she gave any details, they are not reported. Cole was acquitted, and the motives ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... malignity is so keen, that, whenever he catches a gleam of their treacherous lustre on the carpet, he instantly draws his two and a quarter yards of length into the smallest possible compass, and shrieks until the domestic police come to the rescue, and apprehend the sharp little villains. Do not laugh at this. Years ago he lost his choicest friend by the stab of just such a little dastard lying ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... am safe in my sylvan home, I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome; And when I am stretched beneath the pines, Where the evening star so holy shines, I laugh at the lore and the pride of man, At the sophist schools, and the learned clan; For what are they all in their high conceit, When man in the bush with ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... to the World 600 Teachers Now, 600,000 Good Americans in the Future Education—The First Duty of Government Poverty Is the Father of Vice, Crime and Failure The Importance of Education Proved in Lincoln's Case Knowledge Is Growth A Whiskey Bottle Those Who Laugh at a Drunken Man Law Cannot Stop Drunkenness—Education Can The Drunkard's Side of It Drink a Slow Poison To Those Who Drink Hard—You Have Slipped the Belt Try Whiskey on Your Friend's Eyeball What Are the ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... fish it out the girl on lawyer Royall's doorstep noticed that he was a stranger, that he wore city clothes, and that he was laughing with all his teeth, as the young and careless laugh at ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... somewhat perilous adventure in which Pope was embarking) sounds very virtuous in a controversial pamphlet; but all men of the world who know what life is, or at least what it was to them in their youth, must laugh at such a ludicrous foundation of the charge of "a libertine sort of love;" while the more serious will look upon those who bring forward such charges upon an insulated fact as fanatics or hypocrites, perhaps both. The two are sometimes ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... general laugh at Sam, who replied: "I did not suppose he could, chief. I just fired where I saw the snow fall, without thinking about it one way or the other. I was an all-fired fool, but I shall know better ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... man uses a woman's sex to discredit her arguments, the thoughtful reader knows that he is unable to answer the arguments themselves. But really these silly sneers at woman's ability have lost their force, and are best met with a laugh at the stupendous 'male self-conceit' of the writer. I may add that such shafts are specially pointless against myself. A woman who thought her way out of Christianity and Whiggism into Freethought and Radicalism absolutely alone; who gave up every old friend, ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... Fanny, still confused and uncertain whether to be happy or not, was irresistibly drawn to her. She thought for a fleeting instant she would like to take Lydia Orr away to some dim secluded spot and there pour out her heart. The next minute she was ready to laugh at herself for entertaining so absurd an idea. She glanced down at Lydia's ungloved hands, which Ellen Dix had just described, and reflected soberly that Wesley Elliot sat at table with those dainty pink-tipped fingers three times each day. She had not answered ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... and now to be popt i'th' mouth with Quality! Well, if ever you catch me lying with any but honest well-meaning Damsels hereafter, hang me:—farewel, old Secret, farewel. [Ex. Philippa. —Now am I asham'd of being cozen'd so damnably, Fillamour, that virtuous Rascal, will so laugh at me; s'heart, cou'd I but have debaucht him, we had been on equal terms.—but I must help my self with lying, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... oh, Carrie, if you could have seen his expression when it dawned on him that he was in the wrong house! It's too bad to laugh at him, but ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... tortures me, she locks me up. She tells everyone and tells my husband: "don't trust her, she's sly and deceitful." They all follow me about all day long and laugh at me before my face. At every word they reproach ...
— The Storm • Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky
... thing is this,—I think if you'd see them, and thry to get them to go to Lisnagola, or some safe place, takin' their lives and money along wid them, you'd save them from murdher; they'd be apt to listen to you; but as for me, or the likes o' me, they'd laugh at me; indeed, they're rather wishin' for an attack, in hopes they might get revenge upon the people, for, to tell you the truth, they've been foolish enough to say so; an' as their words has gone abroad, the people's determined, ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... of riddles and jests, and remembering all of them he heard. He used often to point his arguments with an anecdote, always a fresh one. Believing with Lamb that a man should enjoy his own stories, he would laugh at his in a most infectious way, till he was red in the face. Indeed, he was the larger half of his stories. His face was thoughtful and stern. Though he seldom found fault, he never did more than once; but he was by no means violent. His mildness was more forcible ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... or entrap her. Fleda however steadily presented a grave front to the enemy, and would every now and then surprise him with an unexpected turn or clever doubling, and sometimes, when he thought he had her in a corner, jump over the fence and laugh at him from the other side. Mr. Rossitur's respect for his little adversary gradually increased, and finding that she had rather the best of the game he at last gave it up, just as Mr. Ringgan was asking Mr. Carleton if he was a judge of stock? Mr. Carleton saying with a smile "No, ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... laugh at me: well, well!—I give you warning That you do nothing rashly, nor pretend You was not advertis'd of ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... be your legal wife—assuming, that is, that you had married her." Then he smiled. "You see, sir, the very thing you were so insistent upon, now works to your disadvantage. If it were not for that Decree you could laugh at this woman. I could simply pronounce her morganatic, and you would be quite free to marry ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... his life, Mr. Pen owns that he would not have hesitated, at twenty-four hours' notice, to pass his opinion upon the greatest scholars, or to give a judgment upon the Encyclopaedia. Luckily he had Warrington to laugh at him and to keep down his impertinence by a constant and wholesome ridicule, or he might have become conceited beyond all sufferance; for Shandon liked the dash and flippancy of his young aide-de-camp, and was, indeed, better pleased with Pen's light and brilliant flashes, than with the ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the British would laugh at this: "They would say, Ay, ay! pretty fellows you, to think of getting out of the war as well as you got into it." This was not consoling for the representatives of that side which had declared war for the purpose of curing grievances ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... "I shall be able to step through my own part, I think." He paused, and I was wondering secretly, "Does that include the wedding?" when he continued: "What's there to laugh at?" ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... of our burning roof-thatch I saw all that were dear to me in this world (save an elder brother, your ancestor, left behind with the court) butchered while they begged for mercy, and heard the butchers laugh at their prayers and mimic their pleadings. I was overlooked, and escaped without hurt. When the savages were gone I crept out and cried the night away watching the burning houses; and I was all alone, except for the company ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... retiring, but always alone and in the room of one of their number. But this was a night of innovations; Violet was not only included, but the meeting was held in her room. Her way with girls was even more fruitful of result than her way with men. They might laugh at her, criticize her or even call her names significant of disdain, but they never left her long to herself or missed an opportunity to make the most of her ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... hedging has passed. Shall it be against Caesar? What then becomes of our pledges to one another? Or shall I change my political opinions? I could not face Pompey, nor men and women—you yourself would be the first to reproach me. You may laugh at what I am going to say. How I wish I were even now back in my province! Though nothing could be more disagreeable. By the way, I ought to tell you that all those virtues which adorned the early days of my government, which your letters praised ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... you pay me?" demanded the creditor. "I have an execution against you. What is there in that box? Valuables which you cart away secretly, in order to laugh at my just claims, as you did two ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... de Bourbonne, sitting down in the nearest chair; "since when is it the fashion to laugh at uncles who have twenty-six thousand francs a year from solid acres to which we are the sole heir? Let me tell you that in the olden time we stood in awe of such uncles as that. Come, speak up, what fault have you to find with me? Haven't I played my part as uncle properly? ...
— Madame Firmiani • Honore de Balzac
... is your nature. I know it only too well. But, my dear Effi, we must be circumspect in life, and we women especially. Now when you go to Kessin, a small place, where hardly a streetlamp is lit at night, the people will laugh at such things. And if they would only stop with laughing! Those who are ill-disposed toward you—and there are always some—will speak of your bad bringing-up, and many will doubtless ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... I mean not in this case. Nobody hypnotized McClellan to kill Gilbert. I'm sure of that, and I wish you wouldn't repeat it, Mac. People will only laugh at you." ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... weakest deterrent influence among us is, 'It is wrong.' A stronger deterrent influence is, 'Heaven will punish you.' The strongest deterrent influence of all is, 'Everybody will laugh at you.'" ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... since that city seemed but scant of spoil, Fired it and sailed. Ofttimes old Harald laughed That tale recounting,' Many a Kentish chief Re-echoed Harald's laugh;—not Ethelbert: The war-scar reddening on his brow he rose And spake: 'My Thanes, ye laugh at deeds accurst! An old King I, and make my prophecy One day that northern race which smites and laughs, Our kith and kin albeit, shall smite our coasts: That day ye will not laugh!' Earconwald, Not rising, likewise answer made, heart-grieved: 'Six sons had I: all these are slain in war; Yet ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... but looking rather guilty. "Why, it is only great Patience's trunk," said he. "Bertie thinks it is a lion." Papa told Fred he did very wrong to frighten the boy so; but they all had a good laugh at poor Bertie's mistake. Bertie was soon induced to take a nearer look at his frightful little lion; and, when Aunt Patience took out from it two or three quarts of chestnuts, it lost all its terrors. The boys were allowed to play in the room as much as they pleased; ...
— The Nursery, No. 107, November, 1875, Vol. XVIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... It served both of them as dressing-room, and on the coldest nights Babbitt luxuriously gave up the duty of being manly and retreated to the bed inside, to curl his toes in the warmth and laugh at ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... put on his plug hat and go to church, and he kissed me, and got flour on his nose, and I came near laughing right out, to see the white flour on his red nose, when I thought how the people in church would laugh at Pa. But he went out feeling mighty bad, and then I got up and pulled the bladder out of my pants, and Ma and the doc. laughed awful. When Pa got back from church and asked for me, Ma said that I had gone down town. She said the doctor found my spine was only ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... my dear," said her guide, springing down and helping her to alight. "This is Grandma Armstrong's place. Remember that she's grandmother to nearly all Algonquin, and don't laugh at her peculiarities when there's any one round. You'll have to when you're alone, just as a safety-valve. You'll like the daughters. The elder one is a bit stiff, but they're fine ladies." He had ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... Wellington has pronounced rags to be the livery only of wilful idleness—has stamped on the withering brow of destitution the brand of the drunkard. Therefore, clap your hands to your pulpy sides, oh well-dressed, well-to-do London, and disdaining the pettiness of a simper, laugh an ogre's laugh at the rags of Manchester—grin like a tickled Polyphemus at ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... used to Doc and me being around, but they never got what you'd call intimate. Joey would laugh at some of the droll things Doc said, but his eyes always went back to the palmetto flats and the highway, looking for Charlie. And he never let ...
— To Remember Charlie By • Roger Dee
... the lazy strength of a good-tempered carnivore, of Una's lion, and his face, which was almost round, was set off by a mane of the real lion colour. He wore his moustache rather longer than was the fashion. It was a face which seemed ready to laugh at any moment—or else to yawn. For there was about the man's character and appearance something indolent and half-awakened and much of the schoolboy. Yet he was over thirty. But there is always a tendency for Army life to be merely a continuation of public-school existence. Eton ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... occasionally visited the barrister on business, was peculiar. He regarded them with suspicion, tempered by wholesome awe, and he now made known the arrival of the detective in such a manner as caused his master to laugh at him. ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... offended prince George; and the Danish minister presented a memorial against it. The principles of its author did not please Dr. King; and, therefore, he undertook to confute part, and laugh at the rest. The controversy is now forgotten; and books of this kind seldom live long, when interest and resentment ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... Ben would laugh at meeting her; and so he did. He threw up both hands and cried, "Bless me! what's all this?" for it is not every day one sees a little girl of just that color; but he looked sober ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... Justinian's mistress, and yet he thought me pretty well inclin'd to't then. Lord! what would I give that I had a Latin letter of his for you, that he writ to a great friend at Oxford, where he gives him a long and learned character of me; 'twould serve you to laugh at this seven years. If I remember what was told me on't, the worst of my faults was a height (he would not call it pride) that was, as he had heard, the humour of my family; and the best of my commendations was, that I was capable of being company and ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... the 'Queen's' the other day with him. He came in, dressed in frock coat, tall hat, and carrying a thick, curly stick as big as himself. Of course every one smiled, and he took it badly—couldn't see what there was to laugh at; and when old Charteris, the Commissioner, asked him how much he would 'take for the hat,' he put his monocle up and said freezingly, 'Sir, I do not know you.' That made us simply howl, and then, when we had subsided ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke
... Brown apologetically, "not to put too fine a point on it, I think he is laughing at you. And indeed, I'm a little inclined to laugh at myself, now I ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... he heard the rustle of leaves, and went on quickly. When he reached the place where the sound came from there was nothing there, and he gathered his wits together. With a little laugh at his carelessness, he began to retrace his steps, but there was a problem to be dealt with at every step, for he could see nothing familiar. In that multitude of trees, planted so close together, each ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... Impressionists, spouting it aloud as he went along; so that the passers-by caught a word or two, through the traffic, now and then, and turned to look, astonished, at the handsome, gesticulating fellow in the hansom. Till he stopped abruptly, first to laugh at himself, and then to chuckle over the thought of Phoebe, and the ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... rival's suit? Among the Dakotas to accuse is to condemn, and the girl who is accused at the Virgins' Feast is disgraced forever. She has shown for Red Cloud nothing but contempt. If he shows no anger at it the girls will laugh at him." ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... pain or soreness anywhere in their limbs, and I ask them what ails them they say that the Devil sits in their body, or in the sore places, and bites them there; so that they attribute to the Devil at once the accidents which befall them; they have otherwise no religion. When we pray they laugh at us. Some of them despise it entirely; and some, when we tell them what we do when we pray, stand astonished. When we deliver a sermon, sometimes ten or twelve of them, more or less, will attend, each having a long tobacco pipe, made by himself, in his mouth, and will stand awhile and ...
— Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664 • Various
... feeling of respect and confidence. Her voice was clear and musical, with an undertone of sympathetic humor. One felt when she spoke that while she lacked nothing of intelligent understanding and sympathetic interest, she was quite ready to laugh at you just the same. ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... opportunity to laugh at a class of young men, last year, who, upon entering the gymnasium, organized an insurrection against the wooden dumb-bells, and through a committee asked me to procure iron ones; I ordered a quantity, weighing three pounds each; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... of Godwin were growing up rude, high-spirited young men, who presumed on their connection with the King to hold him cheap, and laugh at him to his face. Sweyn, the eldest, was the worst, and at last caused himself to be banished from the realm by the crime of carrying off the Abbess from the Convent of Leominster. He then spent the life of a pirate, in the course of which he visited the coast, and, ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... them is the corporeal chastity of the females; we say corporeal chastity, for no other do they hold in the slightest esteem; it is lawful among them, nay praiseworthy, to be obscene in look, gesture and discourse, to be accessories to vice, and to stand by and laugh at the worst abominations of the Busne (gorgios, or gentiles) provided their Lacha ye trupos, or corporeal chastity, remains unblemished. The gypsy child, from her earliest years, is told by her strange ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... them, the longer you live among them, the less you laugh at "Verboten." The trouble is not that there are too many of these warnings, but that there are not enough! When you see in flaring letters in the street-cars, "In alighting the left hand on the left-hand rail," when you read on the bill of fare in the dining-car ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... me throw all my money into the coffers of the king!" cried Mazarin, ironically; and from whom, at the same time, the gout forced painful moans. "Surely the king would reproach me with nothing, but he would laugh at me, while squandering my millions, and ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... if I could say nothing else about these grand churches, I could at least tell men how much I loved them; so that though they might laugh at me for my foolish and confused words, they might yet be moved to see what there was that made me speak my love, though I could give ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris
... advertisement of the sale of second-hand furniture. Whether he killed Von Koren next day or left him alive, it would be just the same, equally useless and uninteresting. Better to shoot him in the leg or hand, wound him, then laugh at him, and let him, like an insect with a broken leg lost in the grass—let him be lost with his obscure sufferings in the crowd of ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... lose the sense of proportion; we cannot tell whether our secret is important or not. Were Lucy and her cousin closeted with a great thing which would destroy Cecil's life if he discovered it, or with a little thing which he would laugh at? Miss Bartlett suggested the former. Perhaps she was right. It had become a great thing now. Left to herself, Lucy would have told her mother and her lover ingenuously, and it would have remained ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... of my disdain shall be To laugh at him, to blush for thee; To love thee still, but go no more A-begging at ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... it is intended to celebrate on that day. How happy everybody was both upstairs and downstairs; what long yarns Frank spun of his adventures in many lands, and his hair-breadth escapes; how he made them laugh at some of his stories, and cry, if their hair did not stand on end, at others, so exciting or so full of horror did they appear. I should like to repeat some of them, but I have not time to do so now. Of course everybody was wishing for a frost, that ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... and childish air; his assiduities about every woman of beauty or fashion; his confidence in his own merit, and his presumption in his own power, wear such a curious contrast with his trembling hands, running eyes, and enervated person, that I have frequently been ready to laugh at him in his face, had not indignation silenced all other feeling. A light-coloured wig covers a bald head; his cheeks and eyelids are painted, and his teeth false; and I have seen a woman faint away from the effect of his breath, notwithstanding ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... light, my lot is blest without you, Our early sorrows are not what they seem, Now in my slumber, if I dream about you I wake to laugh at such an ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the Baron with a sidelong smile, and something in her heart, which she did not understand, made her laugh at him. ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... know that this old Royalist was as crazy as a man can be. His political misfortunes, his total downfall and ruin, had disordered his mind. To show his contempt for what we patriots could do, he affected to laugh at his imprisonment, at the confiscation of his lands, the burning of his houses, and at the misery to which he and his womenfolk were reduced. This habit of laughing had grown upon him, so that he would begin to laugh and shout ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... every one who gives me food, Or shares his home with me, I owe a debt of gratitude, And I must loyal be. I may not laugh at him, or say Of him a word unkind; His friendliness I must repay, And to ...
— More Goops and How Not to Be Them • Gelett Burgess
... the carriage, remarked to Chia Jung: "Don't you yet pack off this insolent fellow! Why, if you keep him in your house, won't he be a source of mischief? Besides, were relatives and friends to hear about these things, won't they have a laugh at our expense, that a household like ours should be ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... am mad; and yet I must laugh at Fauconbridge: Brother, look how Sir Richard acts ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... form even the subjects of art; he began to have doubts of his impression of the trotting-match, its value, its possibility of importance. The senseless ugliness of the things really hurt him: his worship of beauty was a sort of religion, and their badness was a sort of blasphemy. He could not laugh at them; he wished he could; and his first impulse was to turn and escape from the Fine Arts Department, and keep what little faith in the artistic future of the country he had been able to get together during his long sojourn out of it. Since his return he had made sure of the feeling for color ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... Starr felt that Elfigo had the right to laugh at him and the whole Secret Service. Elfigo was in jail, yes. Only that day he had been given his preliminary hearing on the charge of murdering Estan Medina, and he had been remanded without ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... in the air, that it might not become soiled. Reddy was feeling as fine as he looked. He would have liked to sing, but every time he tried his voice cracked, and he was afraid that some one would hear him and laugh at him. If there is one thing that Reddy Fox dislikes more than another, it ...
— The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum • Thornton W. Burgess
... many of the field people saw old Spot as he dashed off with the butterfly net over his head. And they enjoyed a hearty laugh at the strange sight. ...
— The Tale of Betsy Butterfly - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... caused by study, requires separation from books. Low diet and a few gentle doses of purging physic; if pulse tense, ten or twelve ounces of blood [not to be given but to be taken!]. In the high grade, catch the patient's eye and look him out of countenance. Be always dignified. Never laugh at or with them. Be truthful. Meet them with respect. Act kindly toward them in their presence. If these measures fail, coercion if necessary. Tranquillizing chair. Strait waistcoat. Pour cold water down their sleeves. The shower bath for fifteen ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... who laugh at the horse that would not dare to laugh at the master," cried the young emulator of the ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... lengthen his life for twenty years.' King always calls him Fritzchen. But Fritzchen," thinks Seckendorf Junior, "knows nothing about business. The King is aware of it; and said in the face of him one day: 'If thou begin at the wrong end with things, and all go topsy-turvy after I am gone, I will laugh at thee out of my grave!'" [Seckendorf (BARON), Journal Secret; cited in ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... shouldn't have seen what was going on; at least I shouldn't; maybe her mother would. So it's just as well it happened as it did happen, I guess. We shouldn't have been any the wiser if we'd known all about it." I joined him in his laugh at his paradox, and he began again. "What's that about being the unexpected that happens? I guess what happens is what ought to have been expected. We might have known when we let her go to a coeducational college that we were taking a risk of losing her; but we lost ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... Israelites, was appointed by God as a commutation of the punishment of death denounced against them for their sins." If the absurdity of a sentence consigning persons to death, and at the same time to perpetual slavery, did not sufficiently laugh at itself, it would be small self-denial, in a case so tempting, to make up the deficiency by a general contribution. For, be it remembered, only one statute was ever given respecting the disposition to be made of the inhabitants of Canaan. If the sentence of death was ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... of satire the calmness and self-possession of the philosopher who said: "If evil be said of thee, and it be true, correct thyself; if it be a lie, laugh at it." It would have been well for those who indulged in this style of writing, if all the victims of their pens had been of the same mind as Frederick the Great, who said that time and experience had taught him to be a good post-horse, going through his appointed daily ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... are nothing but a pack of nonsense. You would laugh at me. It is only about monsieur's father, and the wonderful coach they say ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... some Christians his descriptions have seemed scandalous. Certain critics have ridiculed the celestial substance of his temples, his golden palaces, his splendid cities where angels disport themselves; they laugh at his groves of miraculous trees, his gardens where the flowers speak and the air is white, and the mystical stones, the sard, carbuncle, chrysolite, chrysoprase, jacinth, chalcedony, beryl, the Urim and Thummim, are endowed with motion, express ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... thy choice. Thy choice of his good fortune boast; I 'll neither grieve nor yet rejoice, To see him gain what I have lost; The height of my disdain shall be, To laugh at him, to blush for thee; To love thee still, but go no more A begging to a ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... said again, saluting in the direction of the exploded shell. "But nothing! But something to snap one's fingers at! To laugh at! To chortle over! Something to avoid, though, my Henri and my Jules! Not that a man is so careful of his body in these days. Though he is anxious to retain his life, yet not for himself only, not that he shall live on to see the end of this warfare ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... Prussians; they are saints compared with the French. They have every sort of excellence: they are honest, sober, hard-working, well-instructed, brave, good sons, husbands, and fathers; and yet all this is spoilt by one single fault—they are insupportable. Laugh at the French, abuse them as one may, it is impossible to help liking them. Admire, respect the Prussians as one may, it is impossible to help disliking them. I will venture to say that it would be impossible to find 100 Germans born south of the Main ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... up folly or wickedness to ridicule. He meant to show the High Churchmen how absurd and wicked was their desire to punish the Dissenters for worshiping God in their own way. He meant to make the world laugh at them. But at first the High Churchmen did not see that it was meant to ridicule them. They greeted the author of this pamphlet as a friend and ally. The Dissenters did not see the satire either, and found in the writer a new and ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... ungrateful in you to say that, Norman, after your papa brought it down expressly for you," said Mrs Vallery. "Stay and play on, and try if you cannot do better; and, Fanny, let me ask you not to laugh at the little fellow if he does not manage to hit the ball as often ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... little maid was! 'But if one has not done anything wrong,' she thought, 'nothing evil can harm one. I wonder if I have done anything wrong?' And she considered. 'Oh, yes! I laughed at the poor duck with the red rag on her leg; she limped along so funnily, I could not help laughing; but it's a sin to laugh at animals.' And she looked up at the doll. 'Did you laugh at the duck too?' she asked; and it seemed as if the doll ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... abscesses, of ulcers, &c.? Did these attestations, although many emanated from persons of distinction, from the Chevalier Folard, for example, prevent the convulsionists from becoming the laughingstock of Europe? Did they not see the Duchess of Maine herself laugh at their prowess in the following ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... disproportioned even to the multitude of tongues that make it. So many words are not spoken in a New England village in a whole year as here in this single day. People talk about nothing as if they were terribly in earnest, and laugh at nothing as if ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... been times in which he had thought that he would make her his wife! He could not but smile as he stood looking at her, contemplating all the confusion which she had caused, and thinking how very little the disclosure of her iniquity seemed to confound herself. "Oh, Frank, do not laugh at me," she said. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... true in the sun And false in the shadows; He has found new delights in the land where he's gone, Greener woodlands and meadows. Let him go! what care we? let the snow shroud the lea, Let it drift on the heather; We can sing through it all: I have you, you have me. And we'll laugh at ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... impossible for them to make a way, so wedged in were they by the people on all sides. The crowd, neither knowing nor caring who were those who thus wished to take precedence of the first comers, began to jeer and laugh at the angry nobles, and when these threatened to use force threatened ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... abuse, cursing and hearty good wishes, as, for instance, that one's eyes should burst, or that one might be carried off by cholera, but, all the same, among ourselves we were very friendly. The men suspected me of being a religious crank and used to laugh at me good-naturedly, saying that even my own father denounced me, and they used to say that they very seldom went to church and that many of them had not been to confession for ten years, and they justified their laxness by saying that a decorator ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... powerful black-robed priest and this gallant sailor-soldier, richly dressed in fine skins and furs, with long waving hair, more like a Viking than a man of fashion, and carrying a courtly and yet sportive look, as though he could laugh at the miseries of the sinful world. Three strange comrades were these, who knew each other so far as one man can know another, yet each knowing from a different stand-point. Perrot knew certain traits of Iberville of which De Casson was ignorant, and the abbe knew ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Then:] Well, mother, think as charitably of me as you can. Try to forgive me as much as possible. I know with the utmost certainty that that matter doesn't concern me in the least any longer! I simply laugh at it! I snap my fingers ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... subject," Karl answered coldly. "You don't seem to understand my position. Why, it is absurd; I have seen this woman every day for years; met her and her husband; we have been good friends. That's all, absolutely, and had I thought of anything else I should laugh at myself. In wealth, position, everything, ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... flood-gates are opened and the inundation begins. It's not the first time that this thing has happened. I haven't a doubt that the flood of Noah, that everybody pretends to laugh at now, was caused by the earth passing through a watery nebula. But this will be worse than that; there weren't two thousand million people ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... immortalized, and which are repeated from one century to another, whether the type come to parley with mankind by incarnating itself in Mirabeau, or be content to work in silence, like Bonaparte; or to goad on the universe by sarcasm, like the divine Rabelais; or again, to laugh at men instead of insulting things, like Marechal de Richelieu; or, still better, perhaps, if it mock both men and things, like ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... Twemlow, raging, "every scoundrel and bumpkin in the shire is mad after her, but she knows none who are not as bad as she—and they tell me she laughs her wild, scornful laugh at each of them and looks at him—standing with her hands in her breeches pockets and her legs astride, and mocks as if she were some goddess instead of a mere strapping, handsome vixen. 'There is not one of ye,' she says, 'not one among ye who is man and big enough!' ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... order to remedy evils. She was very careful not to offend the prejudices or traditions of her subjects. Secondly, Maria Theresa was a devout Roman Catholic. Love of her subjects was not a theory with her,—it was a religious duty. A cynical Frederick the Great might laugh at conscience, and to a Catherine morality might mean nothing; but Maria Theresa remained an ardent Christian in an age of unbelief and a pure woman ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... we laugh at Saratoga, its dancing, dressing and flirtation, it is yet not without its lessons for an ...
— Saratoga and How to See It • R. F. Dearborn
... such familiar sights and, in a more jovial mood, heartily laugh at the jokes of that former mill slave, Plautus (who could not pay his bills) and when we wonder why his wise cracks sound so familiar we remember that we have heard their modern versions only yesterday at the ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... it—for a keepsake. Oh, Athelstane, don't laugh at me, I have it on the ribbon round ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... How I laugh at those jests of my brain when at rest, The gladdest and merriest, sweetest and best! And how, when I wake in the morning and try To call them to mind, oh how bashful, how shy They seem, how they scatter and hide ...
— Cobwebs from a Library Corner • John Kendrick Bangs
... what distemper of mind you think me afflicted. Hear, then: in the first place you build; that is, though from top to bottom you are but of the two-foot size you imitate the tall: and you, the same person, laugh at the spirit and strut of Turbo in armor, too great for his [little] body: how are you less ridiculous than him? What—is it fitting that, in every thing Maecenas does, you, who are so very much unlike him and so much his inferior, should vie with him? The young ones of a ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... refused one dish after another with a resolution which implied the rarest of all modern martyrdoms—gastric martyrdom. "I have conceived the part of Lucy," she observed, with the demurest gravity. "The next difficulty is to make Frank conceive the part of Falkland. I see nothing to laugh at—you would all be serious enough if you had my responsibilities. No, papa—no wine to-day, thank you. I must keep my intelligence clear. Water, Thomas—and a little more jelly, I think, before ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... law. He demanded instant conviction for this trickster, this Fagin among men, this hoary-headed old scoundrel who had insulted the intelligence of twelve of the most upright men he had ever seen in a jury-box, insulted them with a tale that even a child would laugh at. When at last he folded his wings, hunched up his shoulders and sat down, and the echoes of his harsh voice had died away, it seemed to me that I could hear vibrating through the room, as one hears the murmur of a brook ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... to the marauding of the Comanche Indians in the Doubtful Pass. 'Bah!' you will say to me, 'but Europe is certainly better than Asia?' I admit that Asia is a farce; but I do not precisely see what you find to laugh at in the Grand Lama, you peoples of the west, who have mingled with your fashions and your elegances all the complicated filth of majesty, from the dirty chemise of Queen Isabella to the chamber-chair of the Dauphin. Gentlemen of the human race, I tell you, not a bit of it! It is at Brussels ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Kit's hand, and, with a merry laugh at his look of disgust, disappeared through the scuttle, and a few minutes later he saw her riding like mad across the prairie ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... that troubles can be so easily borne on a morning like this. I could almost laugh at them. And still I fear that matters will be worse than ever for me in the fall. If I should do what I'm now thinking of doing, neither the parson nor the judge will shake hands with me when we meet at the church ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... see how I contrived to hold on to the rope, but I remember thinking that if I let go Addison and Halstead would laugh at me, and that Gramp would ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... a fellow, that he could laugh at an Irish bull, and withal, so staunch a Protestant, that a papal bull only excited a feeling of pity and contempt; but a bull of the breed which was careering towards him in such lively bounds, alarmed him beyond all bounds; and he forthwith scampered over the meadow ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... nothing but laugh at the mischief he had caused. That may be the way at Oxford; but we used to flatter ourselves at Cambridge ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... along the Rue de Rivoli, his clothes streaming on the causeway. Some spectators laughed, and others smiled, but M. Ouvrard remained perfectly grave, saying that he could not understand how people could be so unfeeling as to laugh at a misfortune, for the man would probably take cold. Perhaps the reader thinks he had no sense of humor. Yes, he had; he was very facetious and a hearty laugher, but his delicacy of feeling was so refined that he could not laugh at ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... laughing at?" cried Stella, almost angry. "I seem to be more humorous to-night than I ever thought possible. I can hardly say a word but you all start to laugh at me." ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... was fain to laugh at the irony of this surprising turn of things of which she brought him news; for he had neither knowledge nor suspicion of the machinations of his friend Trenchard, to which these events were due. But noting and respecting ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... not how Jove,—because he cannot lie Nor vaunt nor laugh at impious drollery, And pleasure's charms are things to ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... saw the men and firemen at work in a sort of purgatory of heat and dust. When it is remembered that one of these ocean steamers consumes about one hundred tons of coal per day, it is easy to imagine what a burden the coal for a voyage alone must be, and one is not at all disposed to laugh at Dr. Lardner, who proved so convincingly that no steamship could ever cross the ocean, because it could not carry coal enough to enable it to make ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... about to do for the Duke. The circumstances of the case are just the same; since 1825 the same game has been going on in Ireland, and in the same manner, and the Clare election was only what had happened at Waterford before. All this has given a blow to the aristocracy, which men only laugh at now, but of which the effects will be felt some day or other. Who will have any dependence hereafter on the steadiness and consistency of public men, and what credit will be given to professions and declarations? I am glad to see them dragged ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... get loose an' run away, An' de nex' t'ing he was goin' on de corn— So I run an' fetch de stick, an' after heem so quick Jus' to mak' heem feelin' sorry he was born; An' dat pig he laugh at me, an' he fill hees belly full 'Fore he 's makin' up his min' for come along— I 'm sure I see heem wink—should n't wonder if he t'ink, "Very easy see dere 's somet'ing goin' wrong— De ole man 's ...
— The Voyageur and Other Poems • William Henry Drummond
... you can imagine, I was quite in an agony about him. And then the poor horses too! To see them straining away! You know how I always feel for the horses. And when we got to the bottom of Sandcroft Hill, what do you think I did? You will laugh at me; but I got out and walked up. I did indeed. It might not be saving them much, but it was something, and I could not bear to sit at my ease and be dragged up at the expense of those noble animals. I caught a dreadful cold, but that I did not regard. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... their scant costume and the manto y saya—the dress favored at night—serve only to expose and display the charming contour of their youthful form, as the years roll on and rob them of these alluring attractions, the simple array becomes ugly and ridiculous. Often did we laugh at the absurd figure presented by some stout, middle-aged half-caste, or a good many more caste, lady, clad in her manto y saya. Especially ludicrous did these staid females ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... "You mustn't laugh at him," said Joe; "no dog 'ud do anythink ef he wor laughed at. There now, that's better. I'll soon teach him a trick ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... spice of envy or malice in his heart. He would, at any time, have toiled half the night to assist or serve those who were wont oftenest to laugh at him, or abuse him loudest for his stupidity. True, he had not the qualities of social humor or wit, but he was an example of indefatigable industry. He came to his studies every morning at daybreak, and remained at work until sunset. Then he retired into his lonely chamber, and ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... exclaimed, stopping short, and then bursting into a loud laugh at the comical appearance which Dora presented; for Eugenia had cut close to the head, leaving the hair so uneven that shingling seemed the only alternative, and to this poor Dora finally submitted. When at last the performance was ended, and she glanced at herself in the mirror, she burst into ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... well-told stories, to handsome faces, so rigidly cold, and stately, and uninterested now. She shrugged her dimpled shoulders when the table was in a roar; she opened her rather small hazel eyes and stared, as if she wondered, what they could see to laugh at. She did not even deign to glance at him, the hero of the feast; and, in fact, so greatly overdid her part as to excite the suspicions of that astute young man, Doctor Danton. There is no effect without a cause. What was the cause of Rose's icy indifference? He looked at her, then at Stanford, then ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... with Bennie—a very long distance! She told herself that she had proved her ability to cope with circumstance—had proved her worth, almost. Why, now, should the Superintendent keep her always in the shadow of the Settlement House—why should the Young Doctor laugh at her desire to help people? She had something to show them—she could flaunt Bennie before their eyes, she could quote the case of Ella; she could produce Mrs. Volsky, broken of spirit but ready to do anything that she could. And—last but not least—she would show Lily ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... joining in the general laugh at Gosse's expense; "and you knew so well once! Ask Bull; he knows; he's in the Sixth, and very clever. Why, Bull (I ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... do, then?" said poor little Jenny. "I can't wait here till school's out, and I don't want to go up to the school-house, for all the boys to laugh at me." ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... house there is a special zashiki, or guest-room for foxes; and that there, once in each month, a great banquet is given to hundreds of Hito-kitsune. But Chinomiya-no-Wakuri, as they call him, canaffordto laugh at all these tales. He is a refined man, highly respected in cultivated ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... will you renounce that vile habit of punning?" said De Courcy with an earnestness of adjuration that excited a general laugh at his end of the table— "Come, Villiers, never mind his nonsense, for your premises, although a little long, are not without deep interest—but what has all this to do with our ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... "Yes, you all laugh at me, but indeed the darkness is very real. Sometimes I wonder why I have been sent into the world, if I am not to be happy myself, nor to make other people happy. You are like a sunbeam yourself, Bessie, and so you hardly understand what ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... to laugh at Azzie. There was such a droll dryness to her humor, a peculiar touch to her way of saying things which made her most ordinary expressions masquerade as wit. At times she lacked tact which caused her companions no little embarrassment. This trait was made ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... they trip it! how happy are they Who pass all their moments in frolic and play, Who rove where they list, without sorrows or cares, And laugh at ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... give himself up to debauchery without seeming to perceive it, then my esteem for this artful priest was changed into disgust. I know, from my son himself, that the Abbe, having one day met him in the street, just as he was about to enter a house of ill-fame, did nothing but laugh at him, instead of taking him by the arm and leading him home again. By this culpable indulgence, and by the part he took in my son's marriage, he has proved that there is neither faith nor honesty in him. I know that I do him no wrong in suspecting him to have contributed to my son's marriage; ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... and gives sleep an oblivion of daily evils: nor is there any other medicine for troubles. He who is a God is poured out in libations to the Gods, that by his means men may have good things—and you laugh at him, as to how he was sewn up in the thigh of Jove; I will teach you that this is well—when Jove snatched him out of the lightning flame, and bore him, a young infant, up to Olympus, Juno wished to cast him down from heaven; but Jove had a counter contrivance, as being ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... is proving a good deal in a world which is fall of uncertainties," Elsie cried. "Don't laugh at me, Miss Saxon; I hear a voice calling me to go on! You cannot hear it, I know, but you must ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
... common man; and to learning, wit, and tale-telling power, added skill and energy in the conduct of public affairs. And last, (for Parnell, though beloved by this circle, could hardly be said to belong to it,) there was Gay, whom the others agreed to love and laugh at, who stood in much the same relation to the wits of Anne as Goldsmith did to those of George III., being at once their fool and their fondling; who, like ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... Lizzie. "Wouldn't the girls laugh at you, though, if they could hear you talk? Why, of course God was there. He's everywhere, you know," with superior knowledge; "but I didn't see Him. ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... out of such rubbish," she said to herself. "Vivian Holmes always makes an absurd fuss of her—quite spoils her, in fact. I think the best way to cure people is to laugh at them." ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... convinced that it could not have been Dr. May's wish that she should be exposed to the indignity of a practical joke, and that a young lady of the highest family should have been insulted, no one had spirits to laugh at the terms; and when Dr. May said, "What is to be done?" Harry turned crimson, and was evidently trying to ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... rapidly wearing out. They are not many-sided persons at best, and their characteristics have become associated in the American mind with so much that is uncomfortable and repulsive in domestic and political life, that it becomes increasingly difficult to get a native to laugh at them. It must be confessed, too, that the Irish in America have signally belied the poet's assertion, "Coelum non animam mutant qui trans mare currunt." There is nothing more striking in their condition than the almost complete disappearance ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... shooting grizzly bears with the bow and arrow strikes most people 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, ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... girl beside her. But presently, the smile still lingering round the corners of her mouth, Eleanor came out of her dreams, and turning to Margaret with one of the rapid transitions of mood that Margaret found so bewildering, she began to laugh at herself. ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... near her in the gallery round the court-yard of the palace, Kantaka, having some business or other, passed through below us. Picking up a flower which the princess had dropped, I let it fall on his head; and when he looked up to see from whose hand it came, I managed to make the princess laugh at something which I said; and the conceited fool, thinking that it was she who had dropped it to attract his attention, went away ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... over, and the upshot of the fighting has shown that we could quite well have afforded to laugh at the doomed Inca, I am in another difficulty. I may be supposed to be hitting Caesar when he is down. That is why I preface the play with this reminder that when it was written he was not down. To make quite sure, I have gone through the proof sheets very carefully, and deleted ...
— The Inca of Perusalem • George Bernard Shaw
... practice their hands upon the knife. John Bull used to laugh at Brother Jonathan for whittling, and Mr. Punch always drew the Yankee with a blade in his fingers; but they found out long ago in Great Britain that whittling in this land led to something, a Boston notion, a wooden clock, a yacht America, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... the prevalent style of heavy mediocrity; the melodrama was not bad enough to laugh at nor good enough to excite. But the master, turning wearily to the child, was astonished and felt something like self-accusation in noticing the peculiar effect upon her excitable nature. The red blood flushed in her cheeks at each stroke of her panting little heart. Her ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... time he come down the Stewart, and we're goin' to sample 'em while the river's froze. You listen, Daylight, an' mark my words, the time's comin' when winter diggin's'll be all the go. There'll be men in them days that'll laugh at our ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... earthquake of which the famous jester Charles Selwyn said that it was quite a young one, so tame that you might have stroked it; like that which I myself once felt in the Pyrenees, which gave me very solemn thoughts after a while, though at first I did nothing but laugh at it; and ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley
... or myself. He was always cool and collected in his plans, and not a little inclined to stoicism as regarded personal danger. These philosophical persons are apt to be so. What the most of folks feel badly about they laugh at: it is better so, perhaps. Yet pity and sympathy are good things in their way. They help hold society together; and are, I think it likely, about its strongest bonds of union. As for Weymouth and Donovan, they bore ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... clever. He thinks that he's bound to live up to his cleverness, and that it's smarter to thrash out some new way of getting to heaven than to go by the old track the common, ignorant folks is travelling. But he'll get there sometime all right, and then he'll laugh at himself." ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... all my life, I touch a fairy thing that fades and fades. —Even to my babe! I thought, when he was born, Something began for once that would not end, Nor change into a laugh at me, but stay For evermore, eternally ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... favouring this brilliant festival, a sudden storm of rain came on, and all were glad to get off in the boats and make for town as fast as they could. The confusion in consequence of this precipitate retreat afforded as much matter to laugh at the next day as the splendour of the entertainment had excited admiration. In short, the festivity of this day was not forgotten, on one account or the other, amidst the variety of the like nature which succeeded it in ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... me, and I remarked rather sharply that I didn't see what there was to laugh at in what I had told them. Then the lady with ready tact interposed to say she had been deeply interested in my experiences, and went on to tell what she had done to save the birds in her own place; and her companion, taking it perhaps as a snub to himself from her, picked ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... that point, yet St. Giles's and not St. James's, was the rendezvous for those who possessed that brutal and invincible habit. These were not amongst the least miseries and curses which the war produced; and they have left such mischievous traces behind them, that the mature race in France laugh at the old court, and at all old civil and religious principles, whilst our demoralized youth play the same game at home. And if a Bolingbroke or a Chesterfield was now to appear, he would be quizzed by all the smokers, jokers, hoaxers, glass-cockers, blacklegs, and fancy-fellows of the town, amongst ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... 'Don't laugh at me, Maryanka! By the Heaven! Well, what if I have a sweetheart? May the devil take her! Only say the word and now I'll love you—I'll do anything you wish. Here they are!' and he jingled the money in his pocket. 'Now we can live splendidly. Others have pleasures, and I? I get no pleasure ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... to him it was really like a sudden peep into another world, for the instrument was exceptionally powerful, and the view of the sunlight on the peaks and the shadows in the valleys must have been extraordinary to him. There was nothing to laugh at; the incident shows what a great and wonderful thing it is that rocks and mountains should be whirled along over our heads. The idea has become familiarised to us by reading, but the fact is none the less marvellous. ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... cannot abide a gaping pig, and some that are mad if they behold a cat." I went well-nigh out of my wits when I beheld this rat; for, laugh at me as you may, it fixed upon me, I thought, a perfectly human expression of malice; and, as it shuffled about and looked up into my face almost from between my feet, I saw, I could swear it—I felt it ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... simply, "but it ain't. The water supply ain't reg'lar enough. It's just a little place up in the mountains. Heaven, ma'am, I reckon is just now located something like a hundred miles south of Heart's Desire!" And he laughed so sudden and hearty a man's laugh at this that it jostled Alicia Donatelli out of all her artificiality, and set the two at once upon a footing. It seemed to her that, after all, men were pretty much alike, no matter where one ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... indulge in personalities; make mouths, make faces; bite the thumb; take by the beard; pluck by the beard; toss in a blanket, tar and feather. have in derision; hold in derision; deride, scoff, barrack, sneer, laugh at, snigger, ridicule, gibe, mock, jeer, hiss, hoot, taunt, twit, niggle[obs3], gleek|!, gird, flout, fleer[obs3]; roast, turn into ridicule; burlesque &c. 856; laugh to scorn &c. (contempt) 930; smoke; fool; make game of, make a fool of, make an April ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... I swerved myself. Most of us in these days are pleased to laugh at superstitions, provided we are in good company round a roaring fire. I was here alone in a lonely field, at nine of the clock on a winter night, and there, flittering and gliding through the spinney was a something in white. Virgil believed in ghosts, and so did Joe Braggs, ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... And Margaret, two of them have been ill friends for four years, and came to the manse each to get on my blind side. But give the glory to God I got on their bright side, and made them friends, and laugh at ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... Temptations to evil storm upon us, but if we are enclosed within Him they never touch us. The fears of our own hearts swirl like a river in flood against the walls of our fortress home, and we can laugh at them, for it is founded upon a rock! The day of judgment rises before us solemn and certain, and we can await it without fear, and approach it with calm joy. I call upon no mountains and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... the persons who wrought that Civilisation. It was not so in barbaric days to anything like the same degree. Then a man's house was his castle. He could shut himself up with his family and his retainers and be independent of society, even laugh at its impotent rage. No man's house is his castle now. He is at the mercy of every imbecile and every fanatic. His whole life is regulated by delicate mechanisms which can be put out of gear by a touch. There is nothing so fragile as civilisation, ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... just a very little, grumpily, but Jeanne, rather to his surprise, did not laugh at him this time. Instead, she looked up in his face earnestly, with a strange deep ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... individual alive. Now she not only tolerates Patiomkin long after she has got over her first romantic attachment to him, but esteems him highly as a counsellor and a good friend. His love letters are among the best on record. He has a wild sense of humor, which enables him to laugh at himself as well as at everybody else. In the eyes of the English visitor now about to be admitted to his presence he may be an outrageous ruffian. In fact he actually is an outrageous ruffian, in no matter whose eyes; but the visitor ...
— Great Catherine • George Bernard Shaw
... to be expected that an extremely English intonation should ever be agreeable to Americans, or an extremely American intonation to Englishmen. We ourselves laugh at a "haw-haw" intonation in English; why, then, should we forbid Americans to do so? If "an accent like a banjo" is recognised as undesirable in America (and assuredly it is), there is no reason why we in England ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer |
