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Cheeriness   Listen
noun
Cheeriness  n.  The state of being cheery.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Cheeriness" Quotes from Famous Books



... around; and, not content with merely "telling," he was "doing" as much as, and very often more than, the rest. He showed wonderful capabilities of leadership and more than justified the absolute confidence that I placed in him. Hussey, with his cheeriness and his banjo, was another vital factor in chasing ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton

... was in uniform, having just come up from the orderly-room. He was a tall, soldierly figure, inclining to stoutness. His general expression was that of cheeriness and good temper; but he was looking, as he drove up, grave and serious. His brow cleared, however, as his eye fell upon the ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty

... companion the old lady thought she had never met. It was Jacky who led the talk, Jacky who saw to every one's wants, Jacky whose spirits cheered everybody, by her light badinage, into, even against their better judgment, a feeling of optimism. Even Horrocks felt the influence of her bright, winsome cheeriness. ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... leaning wearily back in his corner of the cab; a strange, stunned, lethargic feeling seems to have come over him. His eyes are fixed on vacancy, if anything, and the colonel's attempt at cheeriness meets no response. As the vehicle slowly rattles away he makes an effort, rouses himself as it were from a stupor-like ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King

... the miller's wife, as well as the miller himself, was delighted with him. His great strength, his willingness and cheeriness kept, as they said, the place alive, and the pallor of his face had so far worn off by the end of the week that the miller's wife was satisfied that he would, as he said, soon look like a human being, and not like a ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty

... or of a bitter cold morning, they had their own little blaze to sit or dress by; and it made the difference of a continual feeling of cheeriness and comfort to them, always possible when not immediately actual; and of a bushel or two of coal, perhaps, in the winter's ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... you say?" Mother Fisher glanced up, the lines of worry that had settled over her face at the terrible disappointment that had befallen the family, disappearing, now that the usual cheeriness ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney

... responsive to the influences of time and place. He sat there, his knees drawn up to his chin, and the ring of darkness came closer and closer; but out of it presently arose the tread of footsteps, and all the brightness and cheeriness returned at once to the ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... and he died half an hour later on the tumulus surrounded by the dead bodies of his comrades. They buried him up there, and that night his loss was mourned, not without tears, by many rough soldiers who had loved the man for his cheeriness, and honoured him for the simple faith, which seemed to put a glamour about the mud-stained uniform ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs

... evening wore away, the change in the captain's manner became more and more marked. All his cheeriness of the day had departed, leaving him glum and silent. He took no part in the lively conversation going on between the boys, but sat apart answering their questions in monosyllables. His manner, Walter decided, was that of a man who ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... that Marguerite was this, before, because, until brought into contrast with her mother, her extreme loveliness was too little positive to be felt; now it was the evanescent shimmer of pearl to the deep perpetual fire of the carbuncle. Softened, as she became, from her versatile cheeriness, she moved round like a moonbeam, and frequently had a bewildered grace, as if she knew not what to make of herself. Mr. Raleigh, from the moment in which he perceived that she no longer sought his company, retreated into his own apartments, and was less ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... brightened the quiet rooms. Everything appeared to feel the hopeful change. Beth's bird began to chirp again, and a half-blown rose was discovered on Amy's bush in the window. The fires seemed to burn with unusual cheeriness, and every time the girls met, their pale faces broke into smiles as they hugged one another, whispering encouragingly, "Mother's coming, dear! Mother's coming!" Every one rejoiced but Beth. She lay in that heavy stupor, ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... men throughout the day and night actions was entirely beyond praise. No words of mine could do them justice. On all sides it is reported to me that the glorious traditions of the past were worthily upheld. Officers and men were cool and determined, with a cheeriness that would have carried them through anything. The heroism of the wounded was the admiration of all. I cannot express the pride with which the spirit of ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood

... a bright clear frosty day, with a scarlet sun glowing through dun-coloured clouds, and a pale blue sky beyond the haze above their heads; the country landscape had suggestions of Christmas cheeriness, impossible enough to Londoners who cannot hope to share in country-house revels a la Mr. Caldecott, ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey

... own lamb," said mac an Da'v. "I was thinking about my own treasure, my cup of cheeriness, and the pulse of my heart." And with that he ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens

... happy hope. Under all, of course, was somewhat of fear that even in the moment of its success failure might come and dash the gallant plan. And because of such dismal doubt, Tobalito's face at times was bereft of its accustomed cheeriness, and for minutes together he would sit silent, the while mechanically polishing the brass number that, as a cargador, he wore upon his breast, as was his wont on the rare occasions when his mind was beset by troublous thoughts. But these fears, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various

... nodded to glanced round at him enviously. "Case of luck," growled somebody. That was true. Harvey was lucky; lucky first and foremost in that Ethel Harvey was his mother. He got his mental agility as well as his indomitable cheeriness from her. He was a healthy, sane young fellow who found it easy to work hard, who could loaf most enjoyably when loafing was in order, and who had the knack of seeing the humorous side of a trying situation. He had always had plenty ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster

... the 'F.A.N.N.I.E.S.,' the dear mud-besplashing F.A.N.Y.s. (to judge from the language of the sometime bespattered, the adjective was not always 'dear'), with them cheeriness is almost a cult; at 6 a.m. in the morning you may always be sure of a smile, even when their sleep for the week has only averaged ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp

... put his shoulder to the wheel; but he had not made fifty paces when his horse slipped and fell. I hastened up to help him extricate the animal; and before we had succeeded in setting the horse on his four feet again, the driver's cheeriness under difficulties had made me feel quite ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... like the memory of an ugly nightmare. The ghostly old man moving out and in of his little daughter's room in useless, dumb agony; Ponka's woe-stricken Indian face; Joe's extraordinary and unusual but loyal attempts at fun-making grotesquely sad, and The Duke's unvarying and invincible cheeriness; these furnish light and shade for the picture my memory brings me of ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor

... want crimson, don't you, Sir John?" said Edward Henry, and the easy cheeriness of his voice gradually tranquillized the alarm natural to two very earthly men who for the first time found themselves suspended insecurely ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett

... worked again for work's sake, loving it; and then she advanced. She saw little of Dan in those days, and thought less; but when they met, she was, as usual, gentle and tolerant, patiently enduring his "cheeriness," and entering into no quarrel unless he forced ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... said the boy, overwhelmed by his brother's cheeriness; and they squeezed into court again, Tom inserting Aubrey into his own former seat, and standing behind him on half a foot at the angle of the passage. They were in time for the opening of the defence, and to hear Leonard described as a youth of spirit and promise, of a disposition that ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... said the pastor, and looked inquiringly into the face of his best-beloved, as he generally did when he was in doubt or difficulty. It was a face that any one might have been pleased to look upon. It had in it the bright cheeriness of a child, and at the same time dignity and a wisdom in this world's matters, as well as "the wisdom that cometh from above." He received no answer, and so said himself: "She was in church yesterday when you were at little ...
— Little Tora, The Swedish Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Mrs. Woods Baker

... wonderment, there was another undoubted chuckle from Morgridge Klaus. Peter was astonished beyond measure. Could Mr. Morgridge be Santa Klaus? impossible! yet he began to believe it, for was it any harder of belief than that it was Mr. Morgridge who then spoke in a voice that had in it the cheeriness of Solomon Mit:— ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder

... advances. He is a salted traveller. He knows what is the best of everything, how to get it, and, moreover, how to get it cheaply. He never plagues you with "shop," or secondhand guide-book extracts, or sentiment about scenery and sunsets. Cheeriness and bons mots are part of his stock-in-trade; brazen ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... in a very cheery voice. The cheery voice was still pleasant to the old man, but the young wife had already come to distrust it. She had learned, though she was hardly conscious how the lesson had come to her, that a certain tone of cheeriness indicated, if not deceit, at any rate the concealment of something. It grated against her spirit; and when this tone reached her ears a frown or look of sorrow would cross her brow. And her husband also ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... sometimes honest faces, and the long tables and the spat, spat of the falling cards as they were dealt, and the chink of the glasses and the hot spirits burning your throat, and then the feeling of jollity, and then the warmth and life and cheeriness of it all. Her eyes brightened and her chest heaved a little as she leaned against the lintel. If she could have one night of it again! And here, what would it be when the men came back? Supper, and then Talbot and Stephen ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross

... to be able to discern Him when He arrives. He may appear as the village carpenter; or we may "suppose Him to be one of the gardeners," and we may mistake His appearing! He may meet us in some lowly duty, or in some seemingly unpleasant task. He may shine in the cheeriness of some triumph, or whisper to us in a message of good news. "I come again." And if our eyes are open we shall see Him coming continually. It is by this perception that the value of our life is ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett

... mark you, did he reveal his interest in the Street and its doings. By not a single quaver was the cheeriness of his snatchy, racy, merry voice affected. By not the fraction of an inch nor a second was his gay little trot altered. But when the ends of his mustache stood out straight, his friends, no matter how slight ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg

... Neither am I supported by the sight of some skeletons, the raw material of that grewsome artistry, deposited whole in their coffins in the niches next the ground, though their skulls smile so reassuringly from their cowls; their cheeriness cannot make me like them. But my companion seemed to be merely interested; and I fancied her deciding that it all quite came up to her expectations, while I translated for her from the monk that the dead used ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells

... years he contrived to serve voluntarily with the Division, nobody quite knows in what capacity or by what authority, and during that time he endeared himself to all by his unfailing good nature and cheeriness, his whole-hearted enthusiasm ...
— A Short History of the 6th Division - Aug. 1914-March 1919 • Thomas Owen Marden

... deeper seems his solitude than that of any other "lone fisher on the lonely sea"! Yet all such things are comparative; and while the others contrast that wave-tossed isolation with the cheeriness of home, his home is silent too. He has a wife and children; they all speak, but he hears not their prattle or their complaints. He summons them with his fingers, as he summons the fishes, and they are equally dumb to him. Has he a special sympathy with those submerged ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... a melancholy man, as his fellows met and knew him. Mr. Madden kept his griefs, racial and individual, for his own use. To the men about him in the offices and the shops he presented day after day, year after year, an imperturbable cheeriness of demeanor. He had been always fortunate in the selection of lieutenants and chief helpers. Two of these had grown now into partners, and were almost as much a part of the big enterprise as Jeremiah himself. They spoke often of their inability to remember any unjust or petulant word ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... City man, of the class who have been labeled cockneys, but who give us our crack volunteer regiments, and who turn out more fine athletes and sportsmen than any body of men in these islands. His round, ruddy face was naturally full of cheeriness, but the corners of his mouth seemed to me to be pulled down in a half-comical distress. It was not, however, until we were all in a first-class carriage and well started upon our journey to Birmingham that ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... touching his fingers, caressing him for his love while her words were rebuking him for his awkwardness. He remembered it all as the things lay strewed upon his bed. And he re-read every word of his own words. "What a fool a man makes of himself!" he said to himself at last, with something of the cheeriness of laughter about his heart. But as he said so he was quite ready to make himself a fool after the same fashion again, if only there were not in his way that difficulty of recommencing. Had it been possible for him to write again at once in the old strain, without any reference ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

... light, Dr. Jallup was a little sandy-bearded man with a round, simple face, oddly overlaid with that inscrutability carefully cultivated by country doctors. With professional cheeriness, he approached ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... skin of his cheeks. Of late she had been shut in with her own preoccupations, but never too close for the old love and the old habit to force a way through. She had seen a lessening of energy and spirit, asked about it, and received the accustomed answers that came with the quick, brisk cheeriness that now had to be whipped up. She had never seen his dauntless belief in life shaken. Faith and a debonair courage were his message. They were still there, but the effort of the unbroken spirit to maintain them against the body's weakness was suddenly revealed to her and the ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner

... departure dawned clear and bright. Claire was in extravagant spirits, while even Mrs. Ralston seemed to catch the infectious cheeriness of the day, and ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch

... as our Colorado wild-flowers, and through each one, whether grave or gay, runs a wholesome cheeriness and moral uplift which leaves the reader not only happier but better."—Colorado Springs ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller

... and gathering up its gold threw it forward over the gladness of the Shield. The farmhouse—such as the poet had sung of when he could not help singing of American home life—looked out from under its winter roof with the cheeriness of a human traveller who laughs at the snow on his hat and shoulders. Smoke poured out of its chimneys, bespeaking brisk fires for festive purposes. The oak tree beside it stood quieted of its moaning and tossing. Soon after sunrise a soul of passion on scarlet ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen

... nice," says the hostess. "Do sing one, Mr. Harris;" and Harris gets up, and makes for the piano, with the beaming cheeriness of a generous-minded man who is just about to give ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome

... pleasant, but such pieces are rare, and the infirmity of human nature has sometimes made us sigh over these pages at the recollection of the cordial cheeriness of Scott's letters, the high spirits of Macaulay, the graceful levity of Voltaire, the rattling dare-devilry of Byron. Epistolary stilts among men of letters went out of fashion with Pope, who, as was said, thought that ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 3 of 3) - The Life of George Eliot • John Morley

... nigger minstrels and gingerbread stalls and swarms of donkey-boys. All was still and bare and lifeless, and as the short day closed in there was an eeriness about the scene which made the travellers glad to draw the curtains over the windows, and which gave an added cheeriness to the prospect of tea. When Holyhead was reached, Mademoiselle lifted her bag and walked on board the steamer with the air of a martyr marching to the stake, and, to Pixie's dismay, laid herself down at once with an utter disregard ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... reading his notices (never believe the greatest men when they tell you that they don't do that!), when Muir Howard came cheerily, almost boisterously, into the room. He was an old school friend who had been devoted to Gillie long before his arrival, and of whose faults, virtues, cheeriness, and admiration Vaughan had made a ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson

... dangerous habit of characterizing people in her Day Book, had written when she met Agnes Trevor: "She radiates intelligence, good will, cheeriness, innate superiority and ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... The cheeriness and patience of the wounded men exceeds belief. Perhaps it is due to a realisation of the proximity in which they have stood to death; perhaps partly to that feeling of relief with which a man ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill

... monkey business, he is the fellow who is certain to find it; and not only that, but to trace whatever defalcations there are to the man responsible. Milburgh is not fool enough to imagine that he won't be found out once the accountants get busy, and his cheeriness in face of exposure is to ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace

... that it was only Nick's presence that gave her strength to endure that awful suspense. She had never admired him more than she did then, his shrewdness, his cheeriness, his strength. There was not the faintest suggestion of strain in his attitude. With absolute ease he talked or he was silent. Only in the deepening gloom she caught now and then the quick glitter of his eyes, and knew that like herself he ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... outfit would allow to handle their young stock. Did we know that? And she was going to stay with a Mrs. Pierce down there for a while, near where Nate would be working. All this she told us; but when he did not return to dine with her on this first day, I think she found it hard to sustain her wilful cheeriness. Lin offered to take her driving to see the military post and dress parade at retreat, and Cloud's Peak, and Buffalo's various sights; but she made excuses and retired to her room. Nate, however, was at tea, shaven clean, with good clothes, and well ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister

... clumsy, high-featured Priscilla wore a dress the facsimile of her pretty sister's, was either the mistaken vanity of the one, or the malicious contrivance of the other in order to set off her own rare beauty. But the good-natured self-forgetful cheeriness and common-sense of Priscilla would soon have dissipated the one suspicion; and the modest calm of Nancy's speech and manners told clearly of a mind free from all ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot

... searchingly into David's pale bright face. And Carol and David did not know that the extra joke and the extravagant cheeriness of his voice indicated that things looked badly. They took great satisfaction in his easy manner, and when, after a brief ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston

... fellow M'Gramm." And so Bertram descended into the salon to place their cards in the places at which they were to sit for dinner. "Two and two; opposite to each other," sang out Mrs. Cox, as he went. There was a sweetness in her voice, a low, mellow cheeriness in her tone, which, combined with her beauty, went far to atone for the nature of what she said; and Bertram not unwillingly obeyed ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... whose eyes are always smiling; who seems, wherever he is, to be glad that he is not in a worse place; who goes right on smiling at the mud in the trenches and bullets and shells and death. They are not emotional, the British, perhaps, but they are given to cheeriness, if not to laughter, and they have a way of smiling at times when smiles are much needed. The smile is more often found at the front than back at headquarters; or perhaps it is ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... was so like to choke; and his eyes swam in a blur of water, which overflowed when he winked, and ran down and trickled from the end of his nose. And such a luxury to him was this petting of his sorrows, that he could not bear to have any worldly cheeriness or any grating delight intrude upon it; it was too sacred for such contact; and so, presently, when his cousin Mary danced in, all alive with the joy of seeing home again after an age-long visit of one week to the country, he got ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... borne privation, hunger, cold, wet beds to sleep in, with the inveterate cheeriness that never left him. He worked on steadily until his old age in the service he now entered—that of Prince Anton Esterhazy. Until the year 1791, when he adventured far away for the first time to come to London, his outward life was as regular and uneventful ...
— Haydn • John F. Runciman

... characteristic of her. Watching and caring for souls seems part of her being. Hence visitation is a joy to her. The bright cheeriness of her manner, and her loving compassionate heart, ensure a welcome everywhere; and whilst she weeps over the wanderer, and spares no pains to win him back, she is inexorable where wrong is concerned. Sin must be confessed and forsaken. ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter

... because it apparently seemed lost. He now leaned back in his chair, slowly crossed his short legs, and thoughtfully regarded Blake's excited features. His own countenance had changed its aspect; it had shed its recent hardness, and had not resumed its original cheeriness. It ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott

... that day, much in the mood in which the naughty boy turns his back to receive his allotted caning. The bad half-hour was bound to come; it was best to have it over as soon as possible. Lorimer had gone to bed, the night before, in a state of maudlin cheeriness. He had wakened, that morning, feeling a heavy weight in his head and a heavier one on his conscience. He had an unnecessarily clear recollection of Beatrix's face as it had looked to him, the one sharply-outlined fact across a misty distance ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray

... until, three weeks after leaving Verdun, he was pronounced fit to take part in a review under the eyes of the Emperor himself. His readiness to oblige, even to undertaking sentry duty for a comrade who had grown footsore on the march, or was suffering from some temporary ailment, his cheeriness and good temper, had by this time rendered him a general favourite in the company, and when he was dismissed from drill the veterans were always ready to give him lessons with the sabre or rapier in addition to ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty

... [More genially.] But as to myself, I admit a great recovery in my spirits. I have given up fretting for Iris, who was certainly lost on our way here, and Pallas has been showing me a curious little jewel she brought with her, which has created in me a kind of wistful cheeriness. I do not remember to have experienced anything of the ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse

... to think over." She did as I bade her, seating herself in silence before the fire. I have never regarded Suzette as a servant—she has always been to me more like a child whom I was responsible for. What would my house abandoned by the marsh have been without her cheeriness, and her devotion, I thought, and what would it be when she was gone? No other Suzette would ever be like her—and her cooking would vanish with the rest. Diable! these little marriages play the devil with us at times. And yet, if any one deserved to be ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith

... order of the next day at Mosquito Bend, and all hands were agog, and an element of general cheeriness pervaded the bunkhouse whilst breakfast was in preparation. Marbolt had obtained a contract to supply the troops with a large band of remounts, and the terms demanded that each ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum

... isolated farm, as poor, forlorn a specimen as one could find. But in spite of its disrepair there was something of home in its atmosphere and the dooryard was carefully brushed. Turkey red curtains at the lower windows gave an air of cheeriness to the lonely place. As they drew near a hound came bounding out to greet them with a deep-throated bark, and a moment later a girl about Peggy's age appeared at the door. Peggy thought she had never seen a sweeter or ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... an exercise upon which the doctor daily insisted, but which was agony to him. Night after night, sleepless, he waited the coming of the day. His general health varied but little, but his weakness was telling upon him. His endurance still held, but it was wearing thin. His old cheeriness was gone, though he summoned it back now and again with piteous, spasmodic effort. Hope and despair were fighting together in his soul, and at that time despair was uppermost. He had set out with a brave ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell

... decided on a more moderate course. She had decided to forget the matter for the time being. But the sight of the boy, there in the hall, was disconcerting. Nevertheless, it was with a forced cheeriness that she spoke: ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... a single caller! Toward evening the mother of the family, a trifle cast down, hid her depression behind a mask of extra cheeriness. "Even if no one comes," said she, "that is no reason for allowing ourselves to be unhappy. We are going ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon

... on to the end, grumbling and fault-finding, indeed, but satisfied with the prospect that at some time in the future her son would inherit the adjoining farm and be lifted thereby out of the sorry position in which was his father, hampered on all sides, and without cheeriness. ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

... handiwork—lace or embroidery—enlivened the place: no books were set upon the table. A fire would not have been out of season, for the evenings were chilly, and it would have had a cheery look; but there was no attempt at cheeriness. The woman who sat in one of the high-backed chairs was pale and sad: her folded hands lay listlessly clasped together on her lap, and the sombre garb that she wore was as unrelieved by any gleam of brightness as the room itself. ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... could see glory within easy reach. Mention of a cold snack and a drop of beer, however, to be found in the kitchen, served to cast a gleam of brightness on their gloom, and they vanished in search of it with something approaching cheeriness, Johnson taking notes to ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse

... he had the parcel, let her hands go, and sat down somewhat limply. He had come suddenly out of the bitter frost into the little, brightly-lighted, stove-warmed room. The comfort and cheeriness of ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss

... and I find it difficult to record the strangely mixed feeling of reverential admiration and extreme personal attachment and affection with which I came to regard him. I have never known or heard of a man who combined with such exceptional intellectual power so much cheeriness and love of humor, and such ideal kindness, courtesy, and modesty. Owing to the fact that my father was a naturalist and man of letters, I as a boy knew Henslow and Lyell, Darwin's teachers, and have myself ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... lines of her face told their story. They had been hammered into a kind of hard efficiency. But over that exterior of tranquil self-possession was super-imposed something else—certain marks of recent trouble. Her eyes looked almost as if she had been weeping. She made a tremendous show of cheeriness, however, calling him Tommy ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... would have lightened and burned! Had you walked through the wards, as I walked, with a Sister as frank and unfeigned As sweet Charity's servant should be. There was nothing o'er piously strained In this unrigid Refuge for helplessness. Cheeriness, confidence, mirth Seemed to reign in these child-crowded rooms—in these wards where the aged, whose birth Dated well-nigh a century back, whether sewing, or smoking, or prone On the pallet of sickness, all smiled, and no soul seemed forlorn or ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 5, 1892 • Various

... but even as I plied the spoon my thoughts were elsewhere. I was perplexed. It may have been the fact that I had recently been hobnobbing with so many bowed-down hearts that made this cheeriness of hers seem so bizarre, but bizarre was certainly what ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... Though after having it taken out, he very largely rallied, and passed through grand Campaigns for some years, he was ever looking forward to the operation on the other eye, which was to restore him to partial sight. His cheeriness through those years and his marvellous energy ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton

... holding father's arm and trying to realize that it really is Sunday, and therefore very sinful to fling oneself about. The people taking their appetite stroll before midday dinner look all so sleek and complacent that one would like to borrow money from them. The 'buses rumble with a cheeriness that belongs not to weekdays; their handrails gleam with a new brightness, and the High Street, with shops shuttered and barred, bears not the faintest resemblance to the High Street you know so well, even as policemen, with helmets and tunics, look surprisingly unlike ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke

... in whom ill health had not destroyed the vividness of impression that belongs to the inexperienced, was delighted at the cheeriness of all around her. As she leaned lightly on Trevylyan's arm, he listened with a forgetful joy to her questions and exclamations at the stir and liveliness of a city from which was to commence their pilgrimage along the ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... cheerfulness of the early morning, after sleep, with the hot June sun shining in at the window, Aylmer used to think he was better. He would read his letters and papers, dress slowly, look out of the window at the crowds on the pavement—he had come back to Paris—feel the infectious cheeriness and sense of adventure of the city; then he would say to himself that his trip had been successful. He was better. When he went out his heart began to sink a little already, but he fought it off; there would be a glimpse of an English face flashing past in a carriage—he thought of Edith, ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson

... were painted in faint blue on the dreamy sky. Even the few grey houses of Yubets were spiritualised into harmony by a faint blue veil which was not a mist, and the loud croak of the loquacious and impertinent crows had a cheeriness about it, a hearty ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... naturally modest, and doubtless have no idea of their mission, further than to realize that "people are glad to have them around," as Bobbie would express it, and that it is "up to them" (in the same idiom) to be cheerful,—not a hard task, since cheeriness sits in their soul. It is awful to think how self-consciousness might ruin the flavor of their Penguinity if they ever were awakened to a realization of the fact that they were involved in anything so serious as the Law of ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton

... but she pretended not to see it, and in a short time she and Dudley were seated tte—tte, while the invalid remained on his couch. They were gay from spontaneity of pleasure, and Hal would have been surprised at the cheeriness of het grave brother, had she seen how he responded to Doris's ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... a golden morning in July when the doctor stood grasping George Mansion's slender hands, searching into his dusky, anxious eyes, and saying with ringing cheeriness, "Chief, I congratulate you. You've got the most beautiful son upstairs—the finest boy I ever saw. Hail to ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson

... eaves of the tower itself. The child Star sang with the birds, and danced with the dancing leaves, all unconscious of what was coming; but the old Captain's steps grew slower and heavier, day by day, and the cheery voice grew feeble, and lost its hearty ring, though never its cheeriness. "I'll set here in the porch, Jewel Bright," he would say, when the child begged him to come for a scramble on the rocks. "I think I'll jest set here, where I can see ye an' hear to ye. I'm gittin' lazy, Star Light; that's ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards

... darted in one arcade and out again with a musical whir of wings. The clink of glass and silver sounded from the house windows with a pleasant cheeriness and suggestion of ...
— The Flying Mercury • Eleanor M. Ingram

... it graciously, if not inquisitively. He flashed in at the wide parlor windows and the rooms overhead, as soon as he got his brow above the hill-top. Then he seemed to sidle round southward, not slanting wholly out his morning cheeriness until the noonday glory slanted in. At the same time he began with the sitting-room opposite, through the one window behind; and then through the long, glowing afternoon, the whole bright west let him in along the full length of the house, till he just turned the last corner, ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... crabbed, unlovable, unloved old man—though I'm not nearly sixty, yet, Pollyanna. Then, One day, like one of the prisms that you love so well, little girl, you danced into my life, and flecked my dreary old world with dashes of the purple and gold and scarlet of your own bright cheeriness. I found out, after a time, who you were, and—and I thought then I never wanted to see you again. I didn't want to be reminded of—your mother. But—you know how that came out. I just had to have you come. And ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter

... the cheeriness had gone out of his face, which had grown almost pale. He lifted his hand, and let it drop. Then she felt sorry. It was just as if he had ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... shall henceforth dwell on the blessed hours when, not long since, I saw that benignant face, the clear eyes, the silently smiling mouth, the form yet upright in its great age—to the very last, with so much spring and cheeriness, and such an absence of decrepitude, that even the term venerable ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... and others of the G.S. with me and went ashore. At the pier at "W" were several big lighters filled with wounded who were about to be towed out to Hospital ships. Spent the best part of an hour on the lighters. The cheeriness of the ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton

... morning—clear, bright, and beautiful, with a hint of summer in the warmth of its breath and the cheeriness of its smile. Pope's Creek, as it rippled along, made pleasant music, the partridges drummed in the under brush, and the redbirds whistled weirdly in the leafless chestnut grove near the swash. Now ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field

... Chevalier's face brightened. "Why, Monseigneur, the grey cloak . . ." He stopped. Victor de Saumaise, his friend, his comrade in arms, Victor the gay and careless, who was without any influence save that which his cheeriness and honesty and wit gave him! Victor the poet, the fashionable Villon, with his ballade, his rondeau, his triolet, his chant-royal!—Victor, who had put his own breast before his at Lens! The Chevalier regained his composure, ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... cheeriness should have been infectious. "Absolutely, Mr. Allison. A lot of people have come to look on your word as law in this country, you ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans



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