"Gaiety" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... little mutinies, sad little gaieties, even a morning gleam of beauty that was not to be fulfilled. She withered in the growing, and (whether it was the sins of her sires or the sorrows of her mothers) came to her maturity depressed, and, as it were, defaced; no blood of life in her, no grasp or gaiety; pious, ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... been undiscover'd; for I find them both resolved to die, rather than change. And for my part, Sir, I was not so much in Love with Rinaldo, as I was out of love with the Nunnery; and took any Opportunity to quit a Life absolutely contrary to my Humour.' She spoke this with a Gaiety so brisk, and an Air so agreeable, that Vernole found it touch'd his Heart; and the rather because he found Atlante would never be his; or if she were, he should be still in Danger from the Resentment of Rinaldo: he therefore bowing to Charlot, and taking her by the ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... day, a waking rest of travel, change of scene, new society, is permitted, and when it is a privilege assumed by faithful men, to recruit them for their works of duty they have it by God's sanction, and even as a part of the sound economy of life. Going after a turn of gaiety, or dissipation, not after Christian rest, or going after rest only because you are wearied and worried by selfish overdoings, troubled and spent by toils that serve an idol, is a very different matter. The true blessing of rest is on you, only when you carry a good mind with you, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... myself that of course they believed Saratoga was still that centre of American fashion which it once was, and that they came and went every summer, probably in the belief that they saw a great deal of social gaiety there. This made me think, by a natural series of transitions, of the persons of my American idyl, and I looked about the pavilion everywhere for them without discovering, till the last, that they were just ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... than so many uncaged beasts of prey. Here they enjoy liberty from all social restraint ... and become rejoicing monsters, who perhaps go on their way, after a hideous sequence of murder, conflagration, violation, torture, with as much gaiety and equanimity as if they had merely taken part in some student gambols.... Deep in the nature of all these noble races there lurks unmistakably the beast of prey, the blond beast, lustfully roving in search of booty and ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... places, where the ice was not sound; but these were intimated by placards, warning people not to approach too near; and close to them were ropes and poles for succour, if required. We amused ourselves for some time with the gaiety of the scene, for the sun shone out brightly, and the sky was clear. The wind was fresh from the northward, and piercing cold in the shade, the thermometer being then, it was said, twenty-eight degrees below the freezing point. We had been on the ice about three hours, amusing ourselves, ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... passing through Kent we enjoyed the scenery exceedingly, as the weather was altogether in our favour; and the drapery which nature hung on the trees, in the part through which we passed, was in all its gaiety. On our arrival at Folkstone, we found three steamers in readiness to convey the party to Boulogne. As soon as the train stopped, a general rush was made for the steamers; and in a very short time the one in which I had embarked was passing out of the harbour. The ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... though his reserve troubled her; but Anna was rather absent and distrait the rest of the day. She had watched Malcolm narrowly and had come to the conclusion that he had something on his mind. All his attempts at gaiety, his little jokes, his badinage, did not deceive her for a moment. Trouble had come to him. In some ways he was a changed man: he looked older, graver, and in repose his features had a care-worn expression, as of one who has worked hard in turmoil of soul. And ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... pages. We think with Mr. Hood, that "In the Christmas Holidays, or rather, Holly Days, according to one of the emblems of the season, we naturally look for mirth. Christmas is strictly a Comic Annual, and its specific gaiety is even implied in the specific gravity of its oxen." So much for the design, which is far more congenial to our feelings than the thousand and one sonnets, pointless epigrams, laments, and monodies, which are usually showered from crimson and gold envelopes ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 402, Supplementary Number (1829) • Various
... monosyllables, and when I deprived her of the pen or pencil, fearing it would be all cut away, and when I interdicted even the monosyllabic defence, for the purpose of working up the subdued excitement a little higher, she would at last raise her eyes and give me a certain glance, sweetened with gaiety, and pointed with defiance, which, to speak truth, thrilled me as nothing had ever done, and made me, in a fashion (though happily she did not know it), her subject, if not her slave. After such little scenes her spirits would maintain their flow, often for some hours, and, ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... Purcell's choruses, however, are not of Handelian mould, for he wrote many that are sheer loveliness from beginning to end, many that are the very voice of the deepest sadness, many, again, showing a gaiety, an "unbuttoned" festivity of feeling, such as never came into music again until Beethoven introduced it as a new thing. The opening of one of the complimentary odes, "Celebrate this festival," fairly carries one off one's feet with the excess of jubilation ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... eyes—were those of Seville. A straight sword by his side and a painted long-bow at his shoulder proclaimed him a bowman. A white surcoat with the red lion of St. George upon it covered his broad chest, while a sprig of new-plucked furze at the side of his steel cap gave a touch of gaiety to his ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... stood conversing at a short distance, "Marshal de Saxe has few the equals of these in his camp, my Lord Count!" And well was the compliment deserved: they were gallant men, intelligent in looks, polished in manners, and brave to a fault, and all full of that natural gaiety that sits so gracefully on ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... was, the acknowledgment brought a sudden vague resentment, and for an instant he bit his lip and hung irresolute, as if more than half-inclined to retrace his steps. A slight thing decided him—the gaiety of a boy's laugh that floated from one of the lower rooms and swinging his stick briskly to add weight to his determination, he ascended the broad steps and lifted the old brass knocker. A moment later the door was ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... those equivocal references in which the undisciplined animalism of youth often has a stealthy satisfaction, always called the blood to his cheeks and covered him with embarrassment. For all that, his spirit was full of a frank gaiety, and he would indulge in long bursts of laughter at a pleasantry or frolic that struck him. We may be glad to know this, because without express testimony to the contrary, there would have been some reason for suspecting that Turgot was defective in that most wholesome ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley
... the deepest sorrow that we record the death of F. H. Townsend, which occurred, without any warning, on December 11th. Their personal loss is keenly felt by his colleagues of the Punch Table, to whom the fresh candour of his nature and his brave gaiety of spirit, not less than his technical skill and resourcefulness, were a constant delight and will remain an inspiration. As Art Editor he will be greatly missed by the many contributors who have been helped by his kindly counsel and encouragement. Of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 22, 1920 • Various
... shining now from a turquoise sky. A gentle breeze blew from the south. Jimmy made his way into Piccadilly, and found that thoroughfare a-roar with happy automobilists and cheery pedestrians. Their gaiety irritated him. He resented their apparent enjoyment ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... reaction from his black depression of the preceding days. Athelney Jones proved to be a sociable soul in his hours of relaxation, and faced his dinner with the air of a bon vivant. For myself, I felt elated at the thought that we were nearing the end of our task, and I caught something of Holmes's gaiety. None of us alluded during dinner to the cause ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... matters by premature anger. Luckily for all things, his faith in Brace's good sense was strong enough to deter him from so rash and headlong a course; therefore, at home and abroad, he assumed a gaiety he did not feel. So here in the episcopalian palace of Beorminster were three people, each one masking his real feelings in intercourse with the others. The bishop, his son and his scheming chaplain were actors in a comedy of life which—in the opinion ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... European as singular to see so many birds' nests, situated close to a village, remain unmolested within reach of so many boisterous children, with their little proprietors and families fluttering and chirping among them with as great a feeling of security and gaiety of heart as ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... mounted is infinitely improved by the absence of it. The saddle should have what is called a third pummel, or leaping-horn. In case of any unusual motion of the horse, such as leaping, an ebullition of gaiety, or violence from any other cause, by pressing upwards with the front part above the left knee, and downwards with the back part above the right knee, a wonderfully strong grasp is obtained, much stronger than the grasp obtained by the mode in which men ride. This will be quite ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... of her riches, that sir Wilton and lady Ann were both ready to welcome her as a daughter-in-law. Sir Wilton was delighted with her gaiety and the sharp readiness of her clever retort. All he regretted in her lack of an English education was that her speech was not quite that of a lady—on which point sir Wilton had not always been so fastidious. For the ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... new idea, and it frightened him. He liked the music, and the party's gaiety, the nearness of youth and good times—but it hadn't occurred to him that it wouldn't stop so he ...
— Death of a Spaceman • Walter M. Miller
... ring in the New Year. All was hush and silence after the laughter and merriment! Suddenly the peal of bells sounded, and turning he said: "A happy New Year to us all! God bless us." Kisses, good wishes and shaking of hands brought us again back to the fun and gaiety of a few moments earlier. Supper was served, the hot mulled wine drunk in toasts, and the maddest and wildest of "Sir Roger de Coverlys" ended our evening and began ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... her neither gaiety nor gentleness; under the pressure of this insoluble mystery she became ill-tempered as a wife ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... gaiety came to an end in the face of reality, and in the carriage on the way to church poor Dilly wept unrestrainedly on my shoulder. I mopped her up to the best of my ability, but she was still sobbing when we reached the church door, to find the six ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... soft fingers on a cat's back held no letters patent on charm or cultivation and yet his own mind had catalogued women of the stage, off-stage, under a general heading, in some way associated with cabaret places and false gaiety. Here was one who called upon him to discard preconceived ideas and begin anew. On every topic he broached he encountered intelligent discussion and untrammeled originality of thought. In the back of his brain ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... the great lounge, later on, leaning back by his side, she chatted shrewdly and with merriment. She described dresses and laughed at his ignorance. She acclaimed certain pieces, and showed a real knowledge of music. She told him of life in Paris when the Hun had all but knocked at the gates, of the gaiety of relief, of things big and little, of the flowers in the Bois in the spring. He said little, but enjoyed himself. Much later she went with him to the station, and they ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... young girl who appeared thoroughly good and pious, who devoted herself to works of charity, and (with even an over-scrupulous spirit) eschewed vain company: and who by and bye learned to laugh at all serious things, and ran into the utmost extremes of giddiness and extravagant gaiety. And not merely should all of us be thankful if we feel that in regard to the gravest sentiments and beliefs our mind and heart remain year after year at the same fixed point: I think we should be thankful if we find that as regards ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... Miss Elliston, and, in any event, of small consequence." He shrugged a dismissal of the subject, and his voice assumed a light gaiety of tone. ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... as I was, I fell under the spell, of your elegance, your cleanness, your well-designed streets, your nonchalant gaiety. I drank coffee at Tortoni's. I visited the studio of Meissonier. I stood in the crowd that collected round Rosa Bonheur's "Horse Fair," which was in the Salon that year. I grew dead sick of the endless galleries of the Louvre. I went to ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... stood on the hearthrug with my husband, receiving their rather crude compliments, a vague gaiety came over me, and I smiled and laughed, although my heart was growing sick, for the effect of the wedding-service was ebbing away into a cold darkness like that of a night tide when the moonlight has ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... magnificent creature most excelled in, and somehow you could never see her but through them. They surrounded her. When she folded them over her bosom in resignation; when she dropped them in mute agony, or raised them in superb command; when in sportive gaiety her hands fluttered and waved before her, like what shall we say?—like the snowy doves before the chariot of Venus—it was with these arms and hands that she beckoned, repelled, entreated, embraced, her admirers—no single one, for she was armed with her ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... if he steps in the footprints of one who can walk nimbly." The very nature of this author's dependence on Sterne excludes here any extended analysis of the connection. The style is abrupt, full of affected gaiety and raillery, conversational and journalistic. The stories, observations and reflections, in prose and verse, represent one and all the ribaldry of Sterne at its lowest ebb, as illustrated, for example, by the story of the abbess of Andouillets, but without the charm and grace with which that ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... near them. Poor Mr Harding stammered out his excuse as best he could, and Eleanor with an effort controlled her tears, and returned her handkerchief to her pocket. She did not find it difficult to forgive her father, nor could she altogether refuse to join him in the returning gaiety of spirit to which her present avowal gave rise. It was such a load off his heart to think that he should not be called on to welcome Mr Slope as his son-in-law; it was such a relief to him to find that ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... common parlance call dull. She had too many duties, and thought too much of them, to allow of her suffering from tedium and ennui. But nevertheless the house was more joyous to her when he was there. There was a reason for some little gaiety, which would never have been attracted thither by herself, but which, nevertheless, she did enjoy when it was brought about by his presence. She was younger and brighter when he was there, thinking more of the future and less of the ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... her satisfaction visibly. The frown returned between Elsa's eyes and remained there until she went down-stairs to join the consul-general and his wife. She found some very agreeable men and women, and some of her natural gaiety returned. At a far table on the veranda she saw Craig ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... him sadly as if trying to read his innermost thoughts. They seemed to have realised for the first time that his gaiety was forced. His spirits this afternoon were unusually high; and it made the reality stand out in greater contrast. Pinac felt that he might resent any reference to his financial condition, so he did ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... to see the Lanes this afternoon, and Mrs Lane invited her to go to the Gaiety to-night; she said a friend whom she had invited couldn't come, and the ticket would be wasted. Maud went back to dine with them. She'll come home ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... no nearer access to Sir Thomas or my lady than through the waiting-gentlewoman; for Sir Thomas was too apt to estimate men merely by their dress or fortune; and my lady was a woman of gaiety, who had been blest with a town education, and never spoke of any of her country neighbours by any other appellation than that of the brutes. They both regarded the curate as a kind of domestic only, belonging to the parson of the parish, who was at this time at variance ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... Paracelsus once again "aspires"; but it is from a lower level, with energy less certain, and with a more turbid passion. Upon such soiled and draggled wings can he ever soar again? His strength is the strength of fever; his gaiety is wild and bitter; he urges his brain with artificial stimulants. And he, whose need was love, has learnt hatred and scorn. In his earlier quest for truth he had parted with youth and joy; he had grown grey-haired and lean-handed before the time. Now, in his ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... limpidezza of the air. Here in every respect the climate is altered. Here another kind of sensuality, another kind of sensitiveness and another kind of cheerfulness make their appeal. This music is gay, but not in a French or German way. Its gaiety is African; fate hangs over it, its happiness is short, sudden, without reprieve. I envy Bizet for having had the courage of this sensitiveness, which hitherto in the cultured music of Europe has found no means of expression,—of this southern, ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... once more and stride off, jaunty as a young man. He was tired and, although the late sun was still shining, curiously cold, with a numbed feeling all over. Quite suddenly he hadn't the energy, he hadn't the heart to stand this gaiety and bright movement any longer; it confused him. He wanted to stand still, to wave it away with his stick, to say, "Be off with you!" Suddenly it was a terrible effort to greet as usual—tipping his wide-awake ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... remembrance of that strain of music lingered with him, strangely penetrating and significant. He played it often on the violin. It came to be the symbol of that summer, not as it had ended in disappointment and deception, but as it had flowed for so many perfect weeks in pure joy and gaiety of heart. He thought of the unseen player very kindly. He tried unconsciously to make a picture of her in his mind—the colour of her hair, her eyes, the shape of her face. He saw her running through the woods, or sitting between the knees of the old hemlock beside the river. And always her hair ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... of Burke must have kept up a storm of conflicting passions in his breast. But I turn from Mackintosh and Burke to all that is vilest and foolishest on earth, and among such I now pass my unprofitable hours. There seems to me less gaiety and bustle here than formerly, but as much villany as ever. From want of money or of enterprise, or from greater distrust and a paucity of spectators, there is very little betting, and what there is, spiritless and dull. There are vast crowds of people to see the Princess Victoria, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... from a cheerful humour that was always alike, never over merry but always pleased, I was grown heavy and sullen, froward and discomposed; and that country which usually gives people a jolliness and gaiety that is natural to the climate, had wrought in me so contrary effects that I was as new a thing to them as my clothes. If you find all this to be sad truth hereafter, remember that ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... his fine bow, 'I have. Behold, you come to make the fete for me. I find also here my friends Joseph and Napoleon. Poor as mouses of the church, as you say, but brave boys, and we work together with much gaiety.' ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... wait a little while, and I'll tell you all the news," he said with an assumption of gaiety. "There have been ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... was the result of an unthinking or uncalculating mind, or that it was in her case, as it frequently is in others, associated with qualities which exclude the finer and better feelings of female nature. It was by no means so. With all her gaiety and sportiveness, she had a heart filled with all the tenderest sensibilities of a woman. Her attachments were warm and ardent. In character, simple and sincere, Rosy could have died for those she loved; and so finely strung were the sympathies of her nature, that they were wrought ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... if she was pretty, whether she was going to be one of the women that men desire. Without the least vanity she studied herself, appraised the soft brown cheeks framed with ebon hair, the steady, dark eyes so quick to passion and to gaiety, the bronzed throat full and rounded, the supple, flowing grace of the ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... pointed out his affinity to Blake, but with Burns also he may be said to have a spiritual kinship, and in the songs of the Northumbrian miner we meet with something of the Ayrshire peasant's wild gaiety and mad humour. He gives himself up freely to his impressions, and there is a fine, careless rapture in his laughter. The whole book deserves to be read, and much of it deserves to be loved. Mr. Skipsey can find music for every mood, whether ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... the animal Spirits. I scarce remember, in my own Observation, to have met with many old Men, or with such, who (to use our English Phrase) wear well, that had not at least a certain Indolence in their Humour, if not a more than ordinary Gaiety and Chearfulness of Heart. The truth of it is, Health and Chearfulness mutually beget each other; with this difference, that we seldom meet with a great degree of Health which is not attended with a certain Chearfulness, but very ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... accumulate on his canvas whatever is startling in aspect or emotion, and to drain, even to exhaustion, the vulgar sources of the pathetic. Modern sentiment, at once feverish and feeble, remains unawakened except by the violences of gaiety or gloom; and the eye refuses to pause, except when it is tempted by the luxury of beauty, or fascinated by the excitement of terror. It ought not, therefore, to be without a respectful admiration that we find the masters of the fourteenth ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... "and never mention this again while you live, or I'll take you to prison myself." Ranulph watched his father disappear down the Rue d'Egypte, then he retraced his steps to the Vier Marchi. With a new-formed determination he quickened his walk, ruling his face to a sort of forced gaiety, lest any one should think his moodiness strange. One person after another accosted him. He listened eagerly, to see if anything were said which might show suspicion of his father. But the gossip was all ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... secretive bloom of youth hid away from him any sign of expectation. He did not dream that every day for a week she had expected and wanted him. She couldn't herself have explained what she wanted. Only her gaiety had lost its unconsciousness; she was showing that she didn't mind, she was not, now minding. It seemed so strange that just when she had felt as if they were real friends he had mysteriously kept away from her. Perhaps he hadn't meant all the nice things he had said or all the ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... German Fatherland," says a leaflet advertising a society that organises walking tours for girls; Saturday afternoon walks, Sunday walks, and holiday walks extending over six or eight days. "Simplicity, cheerful friendly intercourse, gaiety in fresh air, these are the companions of our pilgrimage.... We wish to provide the German nation with mothers who are at home in woods and meadows, who have learned to observe the beauties of nature, who have strengthened their health and their perceptions of everything that is great ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... an apple marshmallow sundae, I recollect. I dug my spoon into it with an assumption of gaiety which I was far from feeling. The first mouthful almost nauseated me. It was like cold hair-oil. But I stuck to it. I could not break down now. I could not bear to forfeit the newly-won esteem of my comrades. They were gulping ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... harmless enough—ebullitions of animal spirit, sometimes perhaps of gaiety unguarded—though each shade, treading the Celestian way, as most of them do, and recurring to those Noctes Ambrosianae, might e'en repeat to the other the words on a memorable occasion addressed by Curran to ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... instinct and involves no question of good or evil apart from the circumstances in which it is either gratified or denied; but, in view of the freedom with which Lord Dawson discussed this topic, it is only right to note that it was left to the Rev. R.J. Campbell to add to the gaiety of nations by his subsequent protest that the Marriage Service "contains expressions which are offensive to modern ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland
... suffered a moment's abatement of spirits; insomuch that were I to name the period of my life which I should most choose to pass over again, I might be tempted to point to this later period. I possess the same ardour as ever in study and the same gaiety in company; I consider, besides, that a man of sixty-five, by dying, cuts off only a few years of infirmities; and though I see many symptoms of my literary reputation's breaking out at last with additional lustre, I know that I could have but few years to enjoy it. It is difficult ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... flaxen hair, blue eyes, and a rosy face, somewhat inclined to be plump. The Shiptons lay completely outside Michael's circle. They were mere formalists in religion, fond of pleasure; and Susan especially was much given to gaiety. She went to picnics and dances; rowed herself about the bay with her friends; and sauntered round the town with her father and mother on Sunday afternoons. She was fond of bathing, too, and was a good ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... life has been passed in all the vicissitudes of war and peace. The camp and the bivouac—the reckless gaiety of the mess-table —the comfortless solitude of a French prison—the exciting turmoils of active service—the wearisome monotony of garrison duty, I have alike partaken of, and experienced. A career of this kind, with a temperament ever ready to go with the humour ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... mummings that were once universal. The special survival here is of the Hobby Horse, that once played so prominent a part in these boisterous masquerades, but such life as it still enjoys at Padstow is somewhat a galvanised existence, just as children still occasionally dress in poor tinsel and gaiety in order to collect a few coppers. Such exhibitions are ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... the girl. "The gaiety of our cottage life, previous to the departure of our elder brothers for Conway, and the constant field-sports in which she indulged with John, proved too much for a frame ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... all gaiety and graciousness; the cachet de faveur was for all, but its finest impression was for Helen. He tried flattery, and wit, each playing on the other with reflected and reflecting lustre, for a woman naturally says to herself, ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... see? There is a red line round the panels of the doors and the edges of the shutters. It might be the devil's own dwelling; perhaps he took it over when the monks went out. Now, then, let us give chase to the black and white lady; come along!" cried Philip, with forced gaiety. ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... his spirits, it was really delicious, and he had got so hot and tired, pacing round the pond. Decidedly Winifred was a practical person and he was a dreamer. The pastry he dared not touch—being a genius—but he was charmed at the gaiety with which Winifred crammed cake after cake into her rosebud of a mouth. What an enchanting creature! How bravely she ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... it being early. You are willing to wait. At a barber shop it may be different but at a dentist's you are always willing to wait, like a gentleman. But the sinewy young man who is sitting in the front parlor reading the Hammer Thrower's Gazette, welcomes you with a false air of gaiety entirely out of keeping with the circumstances and invites you to step right in. He tells you that you are next. This is wrong—if you were next you would turn and flee like a deer. Not being next, you enter. Right from the start you seem to take a dislike ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... nature had no influence upon his central sanity. It gave him the tragic pathos and mortal beauty of his wit, its dangerous nearness to the heart, its quick sense of tears, its at times desperate gaiety; and, also, a hard, indifferent levity, which, to brother and sister alike, was a rampart against obsession, or a stealthy way of temporising with the enemy. That tinge is what gives its strange glitter to his fooling; madness playing safely and lambently around the stoutest common sense. ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... haven't come here to see the pictures, but to see me. Have a good look at me. Why study copies of nature when you can look at such a remarkable original as I?" But there were to be no more days of mirth and gaiety for the jesting grocer. His appeal was rejected, and he was ordered for execution ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... gaiety of temper instantly sympathised with the multitude, and perhaps alarmed at this new shape which puritanism was assuming, published what is called "The Book of Sports," and which soon obtained the contemptuous term of "The ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... The music and gaiety begin again, and in an hour the young man is shot."—And so in most of the other pachalics; if any head mentally condemned by the pacha escapes or does not fall soon enough, the latter is indignant at the delays and forms of justice, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... societies celebrated their distinctive nights with torch and float and tableau; the city was transformed by day with bunting and flags, by night it was garlanded with fire; merrymakers thronged the streets, their carnival spirit entered into every breast. It was a glad, mad week of gaiety, of dancing, of laughter, of flirting and love-making under the glamour of balmy skies and velvet torch-lit nights; and to the pleasure of the women was added the delicious torture of curiosity regarding those mysterious men in masks who came through a blaze of ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... suitable answer, and Louis gave unrestrained way to the satirical gaiety of disposition which sometimes enlivened the darker shades of his character. Leading, of course, the conversation, his remarks, always shrewd and caustic, and often actually witty, were seldom good natured, and the anecdotes with which he illustrated them ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... They remained some time in this miserable habitation, which might be looked upon more as a tomb for the living, or rather for such as were dead to the world; and they bore it for the love of God, with more fraternal charity and gaiety than can be described. The life they led there was so laborious, and so poor, that frequently, not having a morsel of bread, necessity compelled them to search the country for herbs and roots, which they ate with satisfaction; preferring ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... happened—or the opposite of what was feared: for, as months passed, the Boodah, planted there in the ocean, rapidly became the recognized gathering-point of the fashion and gaiety of Europe, thither flocking the socially ambitious and the "arrived" together, and to have been invited to those revels of taste and elegance became a superiority. Gradually, as the names "Beech", "Ecuador", ceased to be associated with the islands, the name of Hogarth took their place; ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... generally been said that the Arabs before Islam were irreligious. They themselves contrasted the sternness of the new period with the gaiety of the old one. The truth is, as Wellhausen has admirably shown,[1] that the working religion of the country had become before the period of Islam entirely effete. Arab religion was based on the ideas ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... characteristic is that it is gloomy. This may be so, but it is not fairly chargeable to the artists but to the tyranny of the Spanish Inquisidor, who laid the embargo on the illuminator that he should not follow the wicked gaiety of the Italians, nor the sometimes too realistic veracity of the Flemings. This accounts usually for backgrounds of black where the Fleming would have had rich colour or gold for the prevalence of black in the ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... ended after four years in an odd fashion. I was then about twelve, and had become a vigorous, daring boy, with, as it now seems to me, something of the fortunate gaiety of my mother. Other lads thought it singular that in peril I became strangely vivacious; but underneath I had a share of the relentless firmness of my father, and of his vast dislike of failure, and of his love ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... gaiety, Beautrelet concealed a real anguish of mind. He did not sleep until the morning, but lay pondering over the most impracticable schemes, ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... is to be a ball of unusual grandeur. The last of the season of gaiety, and the closing of the dancing-school term. Our friend will surely be present. Let us attend. What a scene of beauty, gayety and splendor. It must have been of just such ...
— From the Ball-Room to Hell • T. A. Faulkner
... their art, it must remain in abeyance. Society has no right to force their mentioning it. This leads us, then, to the conclusion that the aim of conversation is to distract, to interest, to amuse; not to teach nor to be taught, unless incidentally. In good conversation people give their charm, their gaiety, their humor, certainly—and their wisdom, if they will. But conversation which essentially entertains is not essentially nonsense. Some one has drawn this subtle distinction: "I enter a room full of pleasant people as I go to see a picture, or listen ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... been made, as Desiree had prepared her trousseau, with a zest and gaiety which all were invited to enjoy. It is said that love is an egoist. Charles and Desiree had no desire to keep their happiness to themselves, but wore it, as it ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... always full of gaiety that, unlike the occasional joking of those about her, was illogical and incalculable and yet always kindly and tolerant. I had called one evening to find her absent, but expected every moment. She had been ...
— Four Years • William Butler Yeats
... itself. A very large proportion of these are employed in the numerous factories which flourish here, and many more in the various industries connected with the incessantly growing commerce in those sparkling wines which have made the name of this ancient province synonymous with luxury and gaiety in the remotest corners of the world. Though Epernay is the real headquarters of this commerce, two or three of the most important houses connected with it are, and long have been, established at Reims, and some of the most remarkable of the vast ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... All of this gaiety and amusement was just a prelude to the ride home in the moonlight, which the Violet took with good Dennis Farraday and during which she discovered that there is such a thing as honor among men about poaching on other men's preserves, and during which, also, the fate ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... most nonchalant manner imaginable, "we've got a jolly, strolling, German band up at the hotel; and we're going to have an evening's gaiety. Get into a pretty dress, and ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... his home-circle Wagner's personality must have been singularly attractive, from the intelligent sympathy which he showed with everything human, and from the irrepressible gaiety which never forsook him for long. In times of stress it helped those around him to tide through the most ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... own. The dark grey houses stand as a perpetual witness of those people that have found life too hard for them and have been compelled to give in. The streets of those melancholy squares seen beneath flickering lamp light and a wan moon protest against all gaiety of spirit and urge resignation and a mournful acquiescence. Bloomsbury is Life on Thirty Shillings a week without the drama of starvation or the tragedy of the Embankment, but with all the ignominy of making ends meet under the stern and relentless ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... head. He would not think of the means; he dipped into his money-bags as if they could be refilled indefinitely; he deliberately shut his eyes to the inevitable results of the system. In that dissipated set, in the continual whirl of gaiety, people take the actors in their brilliant costumes as they find them, no one inquires whether a man can afford to make the figure he does, there is nothing in worse taste than inquiries as to ways and means. A man ought to renew his wealth perpetually, and as Nature does—below the ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... He might as well act the fool to the end of the chapter, he thought. It was eleven by the parlor clock, but the mother seemed greatly relieved when she saw Dorian with her daughter. Carlia threw off her wraps. She appeared ill at ease. Her gaiety was forced. She seemed to be acting a part, but she was doing it poorly. Dorian was not only ill at ease himself, but he was bewildered. He seated himself on the sofa. Carlia took a chair on the other side of the room and gazed out of ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... the social life of the settlement is afforded in a letter to Mrs. Flinders, concerning the King's birthday celebrations.* (* Flinders' Papers.) Very little is known about the amusements and festivities of Sydney in those early days, but that gaiety and ceremony were not absent from the convict colony is apparent from this epistle, which was dated June 4th, 1802: "This is a great day in all distant British settlements, and we are preparing to celebrate it with due magnificence. ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... of graces like to these; And sadly well she did her beauty know. Forth from the ranks of town and city came A host of pert admirers, to gaze Upon her sweet and all-bewitching charms, And cull a little frolic from her hand. And she was free and open unto all, And held to each full gaiety and wit, And on her manner kept no check at all, And strove to seem more pleasing every hour, And loved the admiration which they gave. Time stood, and from his hand the hours, and days, Anon, and years dealt listlessly away; And one by one her charms were seen to go; For every year, as it ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... you have some particular powers of dolorous declamation, and warble out your groans with uncommon elegance or energy; it is certain, that whatever be your subject, melancholy for the most part bursts in upon your speculation, your gaiety is quickly overcast, and though your readers may be flattered with hopes of pleasantry, they are seldom dismissed but with ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... by these cares that she loses her colour and grows wan, and it becomes plain to all that her loss of colour betokens an unfulfilled desire. She plays less now than she used to do, and laughs less and loses her gaiety. But she conceals her trouble and passes it off, if any one asks what her ailment is. Her old nurse's name was Thessala, [229] who was skilled in necromancy, having been born in Thessaly, where devilish charms are taught and wrought; for the women of that country perform ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... gentleman, polished, refined, and cultivated—one, in short, who was au fait with all that fashionable society required; and here she succeeded better. Frank was perfectly at home on the dancing floor or in the saloons of gaiety, or the establishment of a fashionable tailor, so that when Ethelyn, at twelve, went down to Boston, she found her tall, slender, light-haired cousin of sixteen a perfect dandy, with a capability and a disposition to criticise and laugh at whatever there was ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... more gaiety than malice; not the least like Mephistopheles. He is the companion of Cle'ofas, whom he carries through the air, and shows him the inside of houses, where they see what is being done in private or secrecy without being seen. Although Asmodeus is ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... his practice, on any outburst of gaiety in the class-room, to chase us to our seats with a bamboo cane and to shout at ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... private societies; and public amusements, as I observed in a former letter, are little frequented; so that, on the whole, time passes heavily with a people who, generally speaking, have few resources in themselves. Before the revolution, France was at this season a scene of much gaiety. Every village had alternately a sort of Fete, which nearly answers to our Wake—but with this difference, that it was numerously attended by all ranks, and the amusement was dancing, instead of wrestling and drinking. Several ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... spent several weeks at the Pool; and both mother and daughters conceiving a great affection for Fleda, kept her in their company as much as possible. For those weeks Fleda had enough of gaiety. She was constantly spending the day with them at the Pool, or going on some party of pleasure, or taking quiet sensible walks and rides with them alone, or with only one or two more of the most rational and agreeable ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... so he gave orders that only two candles should be left in the room. Strange half-shadows quivered on the walls, thrown by the fanciful play of the fire in the hearth and the flame of the punch... a soft, exceedingly agreeable sense of soothing comfort replaced in our hearts the somewhat boisterous gaiety that had ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... you say, approaching with the best show of gaiety that you can muster, "here you are, eh? I thought I'd come and see if ...
— Ship-Bored • Julian Street
... point whatever." Pepys, we have seen, wondered if periwigs would survive after the terrible plague. He thought not, but he was mistaken. Wigs still remained popular. The plague passed away, and its terrors were forgotten. The world of folly went on much as of yore, perhaps with greater gaiety, as a reaction to the lengthened time ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... Fitzherbert, the popular actress, but she rather ignored the sister. Lesbia was less cordial, and was not enchanted at finding that Miss Fitzherbert shone and sparkled at the breakfast table by the gaiety of her spirits and the brightness of her conversation. There was something frank and joyous, almost to childishness, in the actress's manner, which was full of fascination; and Lesbia felt herself at a disadvantage ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... said) until there was no chance whatever of my love appearing, I hastened homeward very sadly; and the wind of early autumn moaned across the moorland. All the beauty of the harvest, all the gaiety was gone, and the early fall of dusk was like a weight upon me. Nevertheless, I went every evening thenceforward for a fortnight; hoping, every time in vain to find my hope and comfort. And meanwhile, what perplexed me most was that ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... front of me: there were Diana and her accepted lover riding towards us; and so natural is dissimulation, even to the sweetest and best women, that no one would have suspected from her radiant face that her gaiety ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... these, the most mutilated (one arm and his trunk being all that remained to him) appeared so animated, so full of hope, and even of gaiety, that an attempt was made to save him. In bearing him along, it was remarked that he complained of suffering in the limbs, which he no longer possessed; this is a common case with mutilated persons, and seems to afford additional evidence that the soul remains entire, and that feeling ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... the attendance of the curate where she sat a few yards off on the other side of Leopold. She was a little ashamed of having condescended to lose her temper, and when the curate went up to her, said, with an attempt at gaiety: ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... PUNCH,—We are coming to a really awful state of things in the Strand! A friend of mine (who does not wish his name mentioned) assures me that he was proceeding from the Gaiety Restaurant, where he had been lunching, towards Charing Cross, when he was "attacked by VERTIGO" in broad day-light! Comment is needless. If dangerous foreign bandits like this VERTIGO—who from his name must be an Italian—are permitted to plunder innocent pedestrians with impunity, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... Sometimes I could not sleep, and have groaned and cried till midnight, while in the daytime I tried to appear cheerful, and succeeded so well that papa reproved me for laughing so much." Life was too serious to permit even an affectation of gaiety. "The atmosphere of that period," says Mrs. Field, "and the terrible arguments of her father and of her sister Catharine were sometimes more than she could endure." Her brother Edward was helpful and comforting. She thanks him for helping her solve some of her problems, but the situation ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... plight of the capital, Oxford was gaiety itself. The king was accompanied by his consort, who then was hopeful of an heir, and also by Lady Castlemaine and Miss Stewart. Lady Castlemaine did not escape the shaft of University wit, for a stinging couplet was set up during the night on her door, for the discovery ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... a man before the great sin which brought a trouble and a sorrow into his life that he was never again able wholly to surmount. And it may have been the sight of his own lost gaiety and lightness of spirit in the aged Gileadite that first drew out his ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... bois had his uses, at least from an artistic point of view; and his strange figure, sometimes brutally savage, but oftener marked with the lines of a daredevil courage, and a reckless, thoughtless gaiety, will always be joined to the memories of that grand world of woods which the nineteenth century is fast civilizing out of existence. At least, he is picturesque, and with his redskin companion serves to animate forest scenery. Perhaps he could sometimes feel, without knowing that ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... interpretation springing from the conviction that Mark Twain was a great American who comprehensively incorporated and realized his own country and his own age as no American has so completely done before him; a supreme humorist who ever wore the panache of youth, gaiety, and bonhomie; a brilliant wit who never dipped his darts in the poison of cynicism, misanthropy, or despair; constitutionally a reformer who, heedless of self, boldly struck for the right as he saw it; a philosopher and sociologist ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... the police reports, which The Sunrise had been developing into a feature. It was not that offensive matters were introduced; the worst cases were in fact rather blinked, but Sewell insisted that the tone of flippant gaiety with which many facts, so serious, so tragic for their perpetrators and victims, were treated was odious. He objected to the court being called a Mill, and prisoners Grists, and the procedure Grinding; he objected to the familiar name of Uncle for the worthy ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... planter's family and their visitors addressed one another were historic in the annals of two nations. Their manners and conversation had that most difficult kind of ease—the kind that still preserves punctilio. The planter himself seemed to be the dynamo that generated the larger portion of the gaiety and wit. The younger ones at the board found it more than difficult to turn back on him his guns of raillery and banter. It is true, the young men attempted to storm his works repeatedly, incited by the hope of gaining the approbation of their fair companions; but even when ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... foolish frivolity, Still at all seasons of innocent jollity, Where was the play-boy could claim an equality At comicality, Father, wid you? Once the Bishop looked grave at your jest, Till this remark set him off wid the rest: "Is it lave gaiety All to the laity? Cannot the clargy he ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... Strether almost gaily, "I guess I don't know anything!" His gaiety might have been a tribute to the fact that the state he had been reduced to did for him again what had been done by his talk of the matter with Miss Gostrey at the London theatre. It was somehow enlarging; and the air ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... authority which distinguished the descendants of the valiant Northmen who accompanied Rollo when he left Norway, sailed up the Seine, and seized on Neustria. But in one rather important respect there was a remarkable difference. One had a countenance which expressed gaiety of heart; the other had a countenance which expressed sadness of spirit. One bore the name of Guy Muschamp; the other the still greater ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... characteristic may always been seen, in the performance of the most charitable acts; nothing that she can do to promote the happiness of him who she claims to be her protector will be omitted; all is invigorated by the animating sunbeams which awaken the heart to songs of gaiety. Leaving this point, to notice another prominent consideration, which is generally one of great moment and of vital importance. Invariably she is firm and steady in all her pursuits and aims. There is required a combination of forces and extreme opposition to drive her from ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and the missionaries had come among them—as given in the pages of Captain Cook, of Herman Melville, or even as adumbrated in their past life in the writings of R.L. Stevenson—what a picture of health and gaiety and beauty! Surely never was there a more charming and happy folk—even if long-pig did occasionally in their ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... the Bois, and round the Halles. Often they have tramped Paris till daybreak, meditating the great chance for Paulette. And at last the poet has discovered it: for each verse a different phase of life, but through it all, the pursuit of gaiety, the fever of the dance—the gaiety of youth, the gaiety of dotage, the gaiety of despair! It should be the song of the pleasure-seekers—the voices of Paris when the ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... woman is the only infallible thing in this world, except Government Paper of the '70 issue, bearing interest at four and a half per cent. Yet, we have to remember that six consecutive days of rehearsing the leading part of The Fallen Age, at the New Gaiety Theatre where the plaster is not yet properly dry, might have brought about an unhingement of spirits which, again, might have ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... with large blue eyes and a slack mouth. Under a hot July sky and with a flush of color she would have indeed been pretty; but the cold of winter and the neglect of Giles Ware shrivelled her up. In spite of the warmth of the room, the gaiety of the scene, she looked pinched and older than her years. But there was some sort of character in her face, for Mrs. McKail caught her directing a glance full of hatred at the governess. In spite of her ethereal prettiness, Daisy Kent was a good ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... of gaiety and composure which he was far from feeling, and he was too indifferent an actor to succeed in ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... vigorous, self-reliant and independent, and very happy. I became quite a favourite and the recognised leader in the mischievous frolics of the young people. Hardly an evening passed that did not bring a scene of gaiety. It seemed to me that I had never lived before and that I was making up for all the pleasures I had not known. There was, indeed, something heartless and cruel in my happiness, for I never once ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... supped in much company, still sitting as his fashion had been since the battle, for he never reclined except when he was sleeping; and there were at supper with him all his friends and the magistrates of Utica. After supper the drinking went on with much gaiety and enjoyment, one philosophical subject after another taking its turn, till at last the enquiry came round to the so-called paradoxes of the Stoics, that the good man alone is free, and that all the bad are slaves. Hereupon the Peripatetic ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... wore the inevitable white wrapper, while the third was fully dressed in a simple gray walking-suit. The lovely creature at the sewing-machine was Miss Ethel Lynn of the 'Lyceum;' the swarthy girl was Miss Lottie Taylor of the 'Gaiety,' and the third was another Miss Lynn, pseudo-sister of Ethel, with whom she 'worked,' but in reality a no-relation named Ellis. The three girls smiled prettily enough on learning their visitor's object, and the recumbent beauty regretted that it was impossible, under the circumstances, ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... would think she had been born in what is called a 'four warnt way,' with nothing but cross roads about her. Nothing is ever right. She is always either exhausted with the heat of the sun, or frozen with cold, or the evening is so tedious, she wants it to be bedtime, or if there is any unusual gaiety going on, she quarrels with the same length of evening, because it is so intolerably short; and, in short, she is never truly happy but when she is surrounded by admirers, whether men or women. And this seems to me to ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty
... I am well and active, in better health than I have long known, and till to-day, in uninterrupted gaiety at heart. I am finishing the eleventh book of 'Thalaba' and shall certainly have written the last before this reaches you. My Bristol friends have neglected me. Danvers has not written, and Edith is without a line from either of ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... a late, informal affair, filled with hilarious gaiety. There was no mention of any church service, and Margaret found it was quite too late to suggest such a thing when breakfast was over, even if she had been sure there ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... indeed I soon lost sight of them so completely that I have wondered since how I could have been so disagreeably affected by them at first sight. There was an extraordinary physical vivacity and geniality in the man, an extraordinary charm in his gaiety, and lightning-quick intelligence. His enthusiasms, too, were infectious. Every mental question interested him, especially if it had anything to do with art or literature. His whole face lit up as he spoke and one saw nothing but his soulful eyes, heard nothing but his musical tenor voice; ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... the most genial, witty guest at social dinner tables. Strapped to his horse, he hunted foxes in Yorkshire, or tigers in India, and with his brothers made long journeys in other parts of the world. Everywhere his cheerfulness and gaiety gave new life ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... Even then it was unruly, abhorring the restraints of civilization, and often in the heat of a dispute getting into the eyes of Madame de Lastaola, the possessor of coveted art treasures, the heiress of Henry Allegre. She proceeded in a reminiscent mood, with a faint flash of gaiety all over her face, except her dark blue eyes that moved so seldom out of their fixed scrutiny of things invisible to ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... contrasts. The philosophy of Voltaire, for instance, is declared to be that of the happy, while Rousseau is the philosopher of the unhappy. Voltaire steals away their faith from those who doubt, while Rousseau strikes doubt into the mind of the unbeliever. The gaiety of the one saddens, while the sadness of the other consoles. If we pass from the marked divergence in tendencies, which is imperfectly hinted at in such sayings as these, to the divergence between them in all the fundamental conditions of intellectual and moral life, then ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... for lo these four years I have energetically preyed, and been preyed upon. When I was your age, I was impatient to break away from my governess, and soar into the flowery pastures of fashionable gaiety, with the crowd of other butterflies that seemed so happy, so lovely; but now that I have bruised my pretty wings, and tarnished the gilding, and rubbed off the fresh enamelling, I would if I could crawl back into a safe brown cocoon, or hide in some quiet and forgotten chrysalis. ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... of distraction. This girl's spontaneous gaiety, which I found at first displeasing, was what I wanted to help me to shake off the gloomy incubus of thought oppressing me. It was hardly within the proprieties to call upon her at such an hour, but it could not matter very much, when the girl's ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... its vast wine-cellars, and in the old inn where we stayed with its Gargantuan bill of fare, and its abonnes from the town, ruddy, full-fleshed citizens, whose achievements in the way of eating and drinking we watched with amazement. Even the cathedral seemed to me to breathe the richness and gaiety of this central France; the sculptures of the facade with its famous "laughing angel" expressed rather the joy of living, of fair womanhood, of smiling maternity, and childhood, of the prime of youth and ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... time scatters and one gathers; One builds, one breaks; one weeps, one laughs; One time to sadness, one to gaiety inclines; One labours and one rests; one stands, one sits; One proffers and one takes away; One stays and one removes; one animates, one kills. In all the years, the months, the days, the hours, Love ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... road there was a livelier house, one which had a balconied window, which was almost invariably open, and here servants and children were often to be seen. 'That,' said M. Zola, 'is the one little corner of life and gaiety, amidst all the other silence and lack of life. Whenever I feel dull or worried ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... strong, dark face looked very determined—"I want no grumbling and no fretfulness. If you think you've any real, genuine pioneer spirit in you, come. If you're in doubt about it, stay behind, and go to Norway and have your gaiety." ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... she was free to take her own course as to society, for Janet cared for the Cambridge examination far more than for gaiety, and thus she had no call, and no heart for "going out," even if she had as yet been more known. Some morning calls were exchanged, but she sent refusals on mourning cards to invitations to evening parties, though she took her young ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... could among the cans, from which dripped bloody bandages, ashes, and bits of decaying food, and the truck rumbled off towards the incinerator, through the streets of Paris that sparkled with the gaiety of early morning. ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... two new inmates soon spread a little more life and gaiety through the house. Furthermore; greatly to the astonishment of the marquise, her husband, who had so long been indifferent to her beauty, seemed to remark afresh that she was too charming to be despised; his words accordingly began little by little to express an affection that ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... and pathos of Steele, it passes far beyond the work of both in the brilliancy of its wit, in the lightness and buoyancy of its tone, in its atmosphere of fancy, its glancing colour, its exquisite verse, its irresistible gaiety. The poem remains Pope's masterpiece; it is impossible to read it without feeling that his mastery lay in social and fanciful verse, and that he missed his poetic path when he laid down the humourist for the philosopher ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... for the first time, saw French soldiers with the white cockade in their caps. They belonged to Augereau's corps. At Orange the air resounded with tines of "Vive le Roi!" Here the gaiety, real or feigned, which Napoleon had hitherto evinced, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Frederick, afterwards Duke of Gloucester, was then quartered with his regiment there, and there was an incessant round of pleasures—balls, concerts, and oratorios. Elizabeth Gurney entered into all the gaiety, but she was ill at ease. She says, "I see the folly of the world. My mind is very flat after this storm of pleasure." "I do believe if I had a little true religion, I should have a greater ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... English boy during his last moments out in No Man's Land. The thing is well and delicately done, with a reserve that may encourage the judicious to hope for good work in the future from a pen that is (I fancy) as yet somewhat new. On the other hand, I must confess that the Gaiety left me (though this, of course, may be an isolated experience) with sides unshaken. "Callisthenes at Cambridge," for example, is but little removed from the article that, to my certain knowledge, has padded school ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 5, 1917 • Various
... in vain for partners or companions. The little triumph, the consciousness of being admired and sought after, would quicken Lynette's pulses, and heighten the radiance of her eyes, and lend animation to her girlish chatter and gaiety to her laughter—at first. Then some over-bold advance, some hot look or whispered word, would bring quick recollection leaping into the lovely eyes, and drive the vivid colour from the virginal transparent ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... was Sally havin' me by the shoulder, and wantun' to know about gittun' that corn groun' for breakfas'. My! I don't know what she'll say, when I do git back." Reverdy laughed a fearful pleasure, but his gaiety was clouded by a shadow projected from the ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... connected with remembrances of heroic prowess. These memorials, in after times of trouble or perplexity, when the burthen of royalty, its cares, or its feverish temptations, pointed his thoughts backwards, for a moment's relief, to scenes of pastoral gaiety and peace, the heart-wearied prince would sometimes draw from their repository, and in solitude would apostrophise them separately, or commune with the bitter-sweet remembrances which they recalled. In something of the same spirit—but with a hatred to the German philosopher such ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... suffering was devastating; it was physical. And now, giving rein to herself, her sex side tugged at her pitilessly. Jealousy tore through her like a hot wind. She had a dozen grey hairs, a thin throat, a tired face, rough hands, two spoiled teeth in the front upper row. That was not the worst; the gaiety of her wit had been sapped. She could not have kept two men amused at a dinner table as that raven woman in the Royal Red did had her life depended upon it. Six years ago she could. She could have had them in her white, pretty ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... whirl and tangle of court life and gaiety Rallywood lived and moved with a growing enjoyment that half surprised himself, and for which he accounted on the score of change from the dull drudgery of the frontier. His acceptance by the Guard had been thorough; even the colonel-in-chief, Count Sagan, whose strongest point was not courtesy, ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... in with Mrs. Matilda in all the bravery of a most striking, becoming and expensive second mourning costume, and she was keenly alive to every situation that might be made to compass even the smallest amount of gaiety. Her lavender embroideries were the only reminders of the existence of the departed Cherry, and their lavishness was a direct defiance of his years of effort in the curtailing of the tastes of ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... were now too clearly the sounds of wheels. Who and what could it be? Was it industry in a taxed cart? Was it youthful gaiety in a gig? Was it sorrow that loitered, or joy that raced? For as yet the snatches of sound were too intermitting, from distance, to decipher the character of the motion. Whoever were the travellers, something must be done to warn them. Upon the ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... for certain it is that Mrs G. was never a favourite. Where she judged well to flatter, she flattered too openly; where she disliked and saw no gain, she insulted; and many gentlemen would have retired from her acquaintance, but for Maria's frolicsome gaiety and the sweetness of Elizabeth. It gained ground about the city that there was much scheming in Mount Street with a view to rich husbands, and it smirched the girls as well as their mama, and put thorns in their way. It made the men bolder ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... prevented her from seeing anything at all, she would appear to be struggling to suppress, to eradicate a laugh which, were she to give way to it, must inevitably leave her inanimate. So, stupefied with the gaiety of the 'faithful,' drunken with comradeship, scandal and asseveration, Mme. Verdurin, perched on her high seat like a cage-bird whose biscuit has been steeped in mulled wine, would sit aloft and ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... though he maintained a cheerful air, and the knowledge that he had been so instrumental in saving the party lightened his heart of a load, and disposed him even to gaiety, was not without some lingering remains of uneasiness. He remembered the boats of the Dane, and, as he thought it more than probable Captain Truck had fallen into the hands of the barbarians, he feared that the latter might yet find the means to lay hands on themselves. While he was at work ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... the only ornament wanting to this sweet cottage? Why is she still invisible? Remedy that unhappy oversight, sir. You are here in a suburban Paradise. I consult my long experience; and I implore you to invite Eve.—Ha! you smile; your lost gaiety returns, and you feel it as I do. Might I propose another glass of claret, and the reappearance on the table of the Tourne-dos ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... beyond the gratification of the moment's desire. The sinking fire of youth blazed up afresh. He would get the utmost out of this last night of revelry. Wherever he went, a spirit of wild daring, of fevered gaiety, surrounded him. He was no longer alone, whichever way he turned. Once in his mad progress he met Sheila Melrose face to face, and she drew back from him in open disgust. He laughed at her maliciously, mockingly, as his royal forefather might have laughed long ago, and passed ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... conversation might appear to achieve something like gaiety at the expense of Mr. Rawson's troubles, I took the liberty of asking him, with all consideration, how he made ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... only too apparent and too painful a subject to those that looked upon this show of outward gaiety and inward misery. ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... so, however you look at it, war means for women sacrifice, disillusion, heartbreak, agony, doom. I feel that so powerfully that I am overcome; I am sick at the gaiety and playing; I am full of fear, wonder, admiration, ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... to me at once, instead of my lingering on in this slow torture? Nothing to look forward to, nothing to be done to make one ray of hope possible! There is the horror, there is the cruelty! I would plunge with gaiety into dangers, and endure without a murmur the tortures of the Red Indian, if only there were hope at the end. But here I am—I, who looked forward greedily to a career of honour and distinction—caught like a rat in a trap, and not even dead! Oh, cursed was the day ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown |
