"Good-humoured" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Neale is evidently quite familiar with the East, and writes in a lively, shrewd, and good-humoured manner. A great deal of information is to be found in ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... Doctor drove back to Golden Friars, with a high opinion of Sir Bale, and higher still of his port, and highest of all of himself: in the best possible humour with the world, not minding the storm that blew in his face, and which he defied in good-humoured mock-heroics spoken in somewhat thick accents, and regarding the thunder and lightning as a lively gala of fireworks; and if there had been a chance of finding his cronies still in the George and ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... failure in art," he said, "excess of creative emotion, excess of psychological hair-splitting. The one produces the normal and lovable failures which, decorate our art exhibitions; the other results in those curious products which amuse the public to good-humoured contempt—I mean those pictures full of violent colour laid on in streaks, in great sweeps, in patches, in dots. The painter has turned half theorist, half scientist; the theories of the juxtaposition of colour, and ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... the farthest edge of the lawn going towards the park, she saw two figures walking—Lady Dunstable and Arthur! "Deep in talk of course—having the best of times—while I am shut up here—half-past six!—on a glorious evening!" The reflection, however, was, on the whole, good-humoured. She did not feel, as yet, either jealous or tragic. Some day, she supposed, if it was to be her lot to visit country houses, she would get used to their ways. For Arthur, of course, it was useful—perhaps necessary—to be put through his paces by a woman ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... "Good-humoured, but not universally honest. They stole cattle, and would not give evidence against each other. If brought into Court, they held a pebble in their mouth, being under the impression that when they were so provided, perjury did not count. Their education ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... passed so many years ago, at the beginning of your lives, two days to recollect and digest your story; by which time if you do not produce something pretty and entertaining, we will never again admit you to dance or play among us.' All this she spoke with so good-humoured a smile, that every one was delighted with her, and promised to do their best to acquit themselves to her satisfaction; whilst some (the length of whose lives had not rendered them forgetful of the transactions ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... own time, which he sometimes used with less regular attendance upon the Temple of the Muses, than the goddess of the place thought herself entitled to, or than the Empress Irene was disposed to exact on the part of her daughter. The good-humoured Alexius observed a sort of neutrality in this matter, and kept it as much as possible from becoming visible to the public, conscious that it required the whole united strength of his family to maintain his place in so ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... blinked his pale lashes and regarded her thoughtfully, in peaceful and good-humoured contrast with ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... ordered so; Peter was quick to answer the door; and P. Sybarite, pulling himself together (now that he had audience critical of his demeanour) walked in with a very tolerable swagger—with a careless, good-humoured nod for his host and a quick look round the room to make ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... of Wales's marriage, where like other people he found "the crowd very good-humoured," are noted; and the beginning of Thyrsis where and while the fritillaries blow. But from the literary point of view few letters are more interesting than a short one to Sir Mountstuart (then Mr) Grant Duff, dated May 14, 1863, in which ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... fearing him somewhat; liking to have her own way in certain small matters, but willing to be led in other things so long as those were surrendered to her; careful with her children, the care of whom seemed to deprive her of the power of caring for the business of the inn; kind to her niece, good-humoured in her house, and satisfied with the world at large as long as she might always be allowed to entertain M. le Cure at dinner on Sundays. Michel Voss, Protestant though he was, had not the slightest objection to giving M. le Cure his Sunday dinner, on condition that M. le Cure on these ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... splendid crowd, good-humoured and ardent. It had cheered every moment, though, perhaps, it had cheered more strongly at one moment. This was when an old Indian woman ran up to the Prince, crying: "I met your father and your grandfather, and I'm British too." ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... I begin to despair of getting away. I am sure the whole of next week will not finish our business at the present rate. To make it more tedious and disagreeable, some of us are less good-humoured than at first. Not a line from you since that I have mentioned. I can find no opportunity for this. I am too ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... even Hamish had much ado to keep his patience and the thread of his argument at the same time; but Allister never lost his temper, and if the old man grew bitter and disagreeable, as he sometimes did, the best cure for it was Allister's good-humoured determination not to see it, and so they always got on ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... nicknamed, his real name being Harry March, had a dashing, reckless, off-hand manner, and a restlessness that kept him constantly moving about from place to place. He was six feet four in height, well proportioned, with a good-humoured, handsome face. Deerslayer was a very different man from Hurry Harry, both, in appearance and character. He, too, was tall, being six feet high, but with a comparatively light and slender frame. His face was not handsome, but his expression invited confidence, ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... not hurt 'em much," said Emmet, with an amused glance at the round, rosy, good-humoured face of the mother of the six ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... to accumulated "documents," to microscopic porings over human baseness, to minute and disgustful records of what in humanity is least human—may readily bring these unregarded and railing accusations. Like one of the great and good-humoured Giants of Rabelais, you may hear the murmurs from afar, and smile with disdain. To you, who can amuse the world—to you who offer it the fresh air of the highway, the battlefield, and the sea—the world must always return: escaping gladly from the boudoirs and the bouges, from ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... cried the Chaplain, with a smile of disdain on his good-humoured countenance, "and help this worthy and courageous gentleman to his legs. Don't be afraid, Squire Barty. He ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... third night the Queen was with the Lady Mary, once more in her chamber, having come down as before, from the chapel in the roof, to pray her submit to her father's will. Mary had withstood her with a more good-humoured irony; and, whilst she was in the midst of her pleadings, a letter marked most pressing was brought to her. The Queen opened it, and raised her eyebrows; she looked down at the subscription and frowned. Then she ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... pictures, few of them, however, of much merit. His remains are deposited with those of Madame Letizia, his sister, in a chapel of the cathedral of Ajaccio, having been brought from Rome; where I recollect seeing him in 1819,—short and portly in person, with a mild and good-humoured expression of countenance. He had been a kind guardian of the young Bonapartes, and carefully administered the small property ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... dense. There were oyster-stands, stalls of oranges, and booths with gilt gingerbread and toys for the children. The mob were quiet, civil, and remarkably good-humoured, making allowance for the national gruffness; there was no riot. What immensely perplexed me was a sharp, angry sort of rattle sounding in all quarters, until I discovered that the noise was produced ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... of infinite Calamities to the Sex, as it frequently joins them to Men, who in their own Thoughts are as fine Creatures as themselves; or if they chance to be good-humoured, serve only to dissipate their Fortunes, inflame their Follies, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... names! We had now arrived at the stage when it was time to shut up, the officers became interested in an aurora display and gradually rolled off to bed. It was left to me to see the seamen turned in; they were good-humoured but obstreperous, and not until 2 a.m. did silence and order once ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... something so splendid with it that nobody would dare to be satirical!" and she glanced defiantly at her companion, whose good-humoured countenance ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... Sanders, with good-humoured patience, which brought, for some curious reason, a warm sense of intimacy to the girl, "you've got to go up and try your eye ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... mind the details of one of his great battles, or busy with some abstruse point of Puritan theology. If accompanied by one of his brothers, or by some other intimate friend, he was still for the most part silent. Always good-humoured, and enjoying sarcasm when of a grave, high class, he yet never talked from the loquacious instinct, or encouraged others so to employ their time and talents in his presence. Even his lively and rattling brother Humphrey, his almost constant companion when on ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... ma petite; you nearly knocked me down!" cried a good-humoured voice, belonging to a large gentleman with a ruddy face, and black hair and beard. "Ah! good morning, Monsieur," he continued as he approached Horace; "I rejoice to see that you have not yet quitted Chaudfontaine, as you spoke of doing ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... the hard metallic stamping and slipping, on the bricked pavement under the window, of a team of cart-horses that were being turned in a space too small for their grand, free movements, and the good-humoured cracking of a whip. Again Hilda was impressed, mystically, by the strangeness of the secret relation between herself and this splendid effective man. There they were, safe within the room, almost on a footing of familiar friendship! The atmosphere was different from that of the first interview. ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... occasion at Carlton-house, it is said that, after the bottle had for some time circulated, his good-humoured volubility suddenly ceased, and he seemed for a time to be wholly lost in thought. While he "chewed the cud" in this ruminating state, his illustrious host remarked his very unusual quiescency, and interrupted it by inquiring the subject of his meditation. "I have been reflecting, ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 276 - Volume 10, No. 276, October 6, 1827 • Various
... ain't afraid, your Honour," observed the good-humoured cockswain, who was the other sailor, beside King, with me, and had been coquetting already with the four lasses. We beckoned to them to come down, and one immediately withdrew her head, and the next moment peeped over the old woman's shoulder. She seemed inclined to speak with us, but the old ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... misery hide itself in silence, otherwise it becomes treason. And those men who had dragged Gwynplaine on the hurdle of sarcasm, were they wicked? No; but they, too, had their fatality—they were happy. They were executioners, ignorant of the fact. They were good-humoured; they saw no use in Gwynplaine. He opened himself to them. He tore out his heart to show them, and they cried, "Go on with your play!" But, sharpest sting! he had laughed himself. The frightful chain which tied down his soul hindered his thoughts from rising to his face. His ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... five and still dark, when those nude, shaggy men with heads ablaze with smoky, flickering lamps, began to move around. They looked grotesque—unearthly—denizens of some underground pit. They were good-humoured and ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... Carlyle, writhing a little under this good-humoured satire, although it was easy enough to see in it Carrados's affectionate intention—"at all events, I dare say I can give as good a description of Parkinson as he can give ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... to move naturally. Mrs. Candy pleased her nieces. A fine-looking and also a kind-looking woman, with a good figure, well clothed in a handsome travelling dress; a gold watch and chain; and an easy, good-humoured, and at the same time, sensible air and way of talking. It was not difficult to get acquainted with her; she met all advances more than half way; and her talk even that first evening was full of amusement ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... one is told that he called his son Paul and his daughter Virginie, it is cheerful to remember, with a pleasant sense of contrast, Scott's good-humoured contempt for the tourists who wanted to know whether Abbotsford was to be called Tullyveolan ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... at this answer. Amongst his oddities you may have observed that he could stand a great deal of real impertinence; he was so good-humoured. But would fire up now and then where not even the shadow of ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... the Journal remarks very severe winter. "Marmaduke and Edwin with me at the Pear-tree[6]; a delightful tour in South Wales with the Sheppards and other friends most agreeable and good-humoured,—botany, sketching, talk, and fun. Life has few things to offer more enjoyable than such tours. I have found in them the happiest hours in my life." And then follows the wail for so "many of them departed; so many dear good friends; ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... somewhat younger than the night before, more cheerful and pleasant too, but not a whit less stately. He saluted Agatha first, and then his daughters, with a gracious solemnity, patting their cheeks all round, something after the fashion of a good-humoured Eastern bashaw. The old gentleman evidently took a secret pride in his womenkind. Then he shook hands with "my son Nathanael," and threw abroad generally a few ordinary remarks, to which his two daughters listened with great reverence. But in ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... wanting; and a young girl, with light plaited hair, light-yellow leather jacket, black thickly-plaited petticoat, and a red kerchief tied round her neck, with a face as pretty and innocent as ever an idyl bestowed upon its shepherdess, waited upon the guests, and entertained them with her simple, good-humoured talk. ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... to be true," observed Ebony, who was a privileged individual on board, owing very much to his good-humoured eccentricity. "But surely you not spec's de niggers to tumbil down at yous feet all ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... at the door, Austin flew to open it, and admitted Mr. Pitt, the governor, a tall pompous personage, who, in his turn, ushered in four other individuals. The first of these, whom he addressed as Mr. Gay, was a stout, good-looking, good-humoured man, about thirty-six, with a dark complexion, an oval face, fine black eyes, full of fire and sensibility, and twinkling with roguish humour—an expression fully borne out by the mouth, which had a very shrewd and sarcastic ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... justice to these Spaniards, observe that, let the accounts of Spanish cruelty in Mexico and Peru be what they will, I never met with seventeen men of any nation whatsoever, in any foreign country, who were so universally modest, temperate, virtuous, so very good-humoured, and so courteous, as these Spaniards: and as to cruelty, they had nothing of it in their very nature; no inhumanity, no barbarity, no outrageous passions; and yet all of them men of great courage and spirit. Their temper and calmness had appeared in their bearing the insufferable usage of the ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... positive. You see I had supped at the 'Rose' along with Tom Trippet and half-a-dozen pretty fellows; and I had eased a great fat-headed Warwickshire landjunker—what d'ye call him?—squire, of forty pieces; and I'm dev'lish good-humoured when I've won, and so Cat and I made it up: but I've taught her never to bring me stale ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the old blue shirt, which hung open at the neck, and torn duck trousers, which clung about him still wet with river-water, accentuated the wiry suppleness of his frame; but it was in his face that Gordon noticed the greatest change. The good-humoured, tolerant indifference he remembered had melted out of it, the lips seemed set more firmly, and the eyes were resolute and keen. Nasmyth, so Gordon noticed, had grown since he first took up his duties as Waynefleet's hired hand. Still, though ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... the colonel learned of this criticism. The colonel showed no surprise, and no annoyance, but in his usual good-humoured way replied: ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... said. "There never is anything very much. Only it goes on all the time." She told him the story of her day, and managed to make herself laugh now and then over it. But Bob did not laugh. His good-humoured young ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... his hand suddenly upon mine as he said this. For a second I thought that he imagined my whiskers were false, and that this was only a plant to lock me up! It was evident my nerves were becoming unstrung, and as soon as we were in the street my good-humoured and excellent guide told me that in another five minutes we would begin our voyage of discovery. We passed through the Chinese quarter, down Mott Street, and I could not but feel a pang of sympathy for these aliens, looked upon by the Americans as vermin. ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... with a broad chest, took this punishment with great equanimity. He arranged his belongings complacently in his locker and looked calmly round the bare room. His little eyes had a bleary look of perpetual drunkenness, which obscured the hearty, good-humoured ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... at Steventon—that good-humoured lady in 'Sense and Sensibility,' who thinks it so ridiculous that her husband never hears her when she speaks to him. We are told that Marianne and Ellinor have been supposed to represent Cassandra and Jane Austen; but Mr. Austen Legh says that he can trace no resemblance. Jane Austen ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... contented for the time being with the ready access to ministers and noblemen that the occasion afforded him, and his Journal is filled with expressions of his satisfaction. We hear of Lord Palmerston's good-humoured elegance, Lord Lansdowne's amiability, Lord Jeffrey's brilliant conversation, and, most delightful of all, Lord Melbourne's frank, unaffected cordiality. Melbourne, it appears, enjoyed his sittings, for he asked many ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... repeat here any other of the anecdotes commonly related of Giotto, as, separately taken, they are quite valueless. Yet much may be gathered from their general tone. It is remarkable that they are, almost without exception, records of good-humoured jests, involving or illustrating some point of practical good sense; and by comparing this general colour of the reputation of Giotto with the actual character of his designs, there cannot remain the smallest doubt that his mind was one of the most ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... constant pharaoh and supper every night, where one is quite at one's ease. I am going into the country with her and the prince for a little while, to a villa of the Great Duke's. The people are good-humoured here and easy; and what makes me pleased with them, they are pleased with me. One loves to find people care for one, when they can have no view ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... effect of his shot, was carried back in the ambulance to the laager. On Sunday a truce was usually observed, and the snipers who had exchanged rifle-shots all the week met occasionally on that day with good-humoured chaff. Snyman, the Boer General, showed none of that chivalry at Mafeking which distinguished the gallant old Joubert at Ladysmith. Not only was there no neutral camp for women or sick, but it is beyond all doubt or question ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... always a bill coming due, which James's remittances arrived just in time to meet. Indeed, this was the normal condition of his life. He had always a bill coming due—a bill which some good-humoured banker had to be coaxed into renewing, or which was paid at the last moment by some skilful legerdemain in the way of pouring out of one vessel into another, transferring the debt from one quarter to another, so that there may have been said to be always a certain amount of ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... already developed a capacity for expenditure much in excess of his income, want with a wife who brought little or no grist to the mill? The world was wrong—as the world very frequently is on such points. It was about the first sensible thing that the "Rip," in the course of his good-humoured, blundering, plunging career, had done. It saved him. Without the check that his clever little wife almost imperceptibly imposed upon him, "Rip" Wriothesley would probably, ere this, have joined the "broken brigade," and vanished from society's ken. As it was, the pretty little ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... felt, when I observed him, that he understood the Russian character far better than any of us. He had none of the self-assertion of the average Englishman and, at the same time, he had his opinions and his preferences. He took every kind of chaff with good-humoured indifference, but I think it was above everything else his tolerance that pleased the Russians. Nothing shocked him, which did not at all mean that he had no code of honour or morals. His code was severe and stern, but his sense of human fallibility, ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... the lasso, who had good-naturedly lent it to us, roused himself on hearing this. He was a very big, rough-looking man, his face covered with an immense shaggy black beard. I had taken him for a good-humoured specimen of the giant kind before, but I now changed my opinion of him when his angry passions began to rise. Blas, or Barbudo, as we called the giant, was seated on a log ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... spoke or laughed, or became serious or sat thoughtless, or pored over her novel, the tint of her cheek and neck would change as this or that emotion, be it ever so slight, played upon the current of her blood. She was tall, and well made,—perhaps almost robust. She was good-humoured, somewhat given to frank coquetry, and certainly fond of young men. She had sense enough not to despise her father, and was good enough to endeavour to make life bearable to her mother. She was clever, too, in her way, and could say sprightly things. She read novels, ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... of the red jackets he had been thinking of. Soldiers were seldom seen in this outer part of the isle: their beat from the forts, when on pleasure, was in the opposite direction, and this man must have had a special reason for coming hither. Pierston surveyed him. He was a round-faced, good-humoured fellow to look at, having two little pieces of moustache on his upper lip, like a pair of minnows rampant, and small black eyes, over which the Glengarry cap straddled flat. It was a hateful idea that ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... go, but he could not obtain leave from the King to absent himself. Bloomfield does not put himself forward; 'meme il se retire,' he said, and it is understood that he has made up his mind to resign his situation and leave the Court. The King is still perfectly civil and good-humoured to him, but has withdrawn his confidence from him, and Bloomfield is ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... this time was very closely scrutinising the whole set of ornaments I thought I might do so also, and going up close to our friend, I too began to handle the buttons and tags on the other side. Nothing could have been more good-humoured than he was—so much so that I was emboldened to hold up his arm that I might see the cut of his coat, to take off his cap and examine the make, to stuff my finger in beneath his sash, and at last ...
— John Bull on the Guadalquivir from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... all over before replying. He was a short, stout, stubble-haired chap, evidently a year or two older than himself, with a broad, good-humoured face, and the inspection being, upon the whole, ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... in the middle of the day, and was thunderstruck at the new and terrible disaster. He was a large, tall man, with a good-humoured, weather-beaten face, and an unwieldy, gouty figure; and he stood, with his eyes brimming over with tears, looking at his brother, and at first unable to read the one word Joe traced for him-for writing had ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not meant to be seen. But Mr. Carleton's, to the credit of his politeness and his understanding both, was frank as the old gentleman's own, as he answered with a good-humoured shake of his head, ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... a merry old man, and a perfect politician in his way, very fond of women and jimbuck (sheep), and exceedingly good-humoured with all. He here brought Davenport a large quantity of the fruit of the Fusanus, of which he made an excellent jam, too good indeed to keep; but if we could have anticipated the disease by which we ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... presented the pledge to some three or four of its half-intoxicated inmates. The last man whom he addressed, after having urged the others to no effect, was apparently about thirty years of age, and had a sparkling eye, and a good-humoured countenance, that attracted rather than repelled. The marks of the destroyer were, however, upon him, ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... good-humoured," said Julian; "consider, was not all this intimacy of ours of your own making? Did you not make yourself known to me the very first time I strolled up this glen with my fishing-rod, and tell me that you were my former keeper, and ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... crowded. He returned to his compartment to find already installed there one of the most complete and absolute types of Germanism he had ever seen. A man in a light grey suit, the waistcoat of which had apparently abandoned its efforts to compass his girth, with a broad, pink, good-humoured face, beardless and bland, flaxen hair streaked here and there with grey, was seated in the vacant place. He had with him a portmanteau covered with a linen case, his boots were a bright shade of yellow, his tie was of white satin with a design of lavender flowers. ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in a noisy, good-humoured voice, "you belong to me. I am going to make you a captain of cavalry directly we get within sight of ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... in a tone of good-humoured banter, which gave me courage. He offered to walk homewards with me; and, as I shambled along by his side, I told him all my story and ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... folly that they scarcely bestow the serious consideration of contempt and scorn upon his sensuality and insolence. No creature was ever set in a more ludicrous light or made more contemptible,—in a kindly, good-humoured way. The hysterical note of offended virtue is never sounded, nor is anywhere seen the averted face of shocked propriety. The two wives are bent on a frolic, and they will merrily punish this presumptuous sensualist—this silly, conceited, ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... at Dr. Lushington's last Thursday—the dinner was very merry and good-humoured. Mr. Richardson was there, and delighted I was to see him, and he talked so affectionately of Sir Walter and auld lang syne times; and Mr. Bentham, the botanist, too, was there, Pakenham's friend, a very agreeable ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... last interruption. He listened in good-humoured silence to the remainder of his uncle's lecture, which speedily branched to political reform, thence to the theory of the weather-glass, with an illustrative account of a bora in the Adriatic; thence again to the best manner of teaching arithmetic ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... church, were gilded by the rays of the setting sun, while opposite us, on the rock overlooking the port, rose the great cross before which the fishermen's wives go and pray in stormy weather. We went ashore to the firing of cannon and the rattle of thousands of sabots on the shingle, among a good-humoured crowd of sailors, short-petticoated fishwives, and white- capped Normandy peasant women, all making their comments aloud, while here and there appeared a gendarme's cocked hat, or the broad-brimmed headgear of some country ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... young man," he said, with his broad good-humoured grin, "that theer 'summat' you knocked against must have been moving round you pretty smart! Bless me, if it ain't fetched you one on your booby hatch and another on the conk, and bottled up your peepers as well! What's your ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... are surprised to see that Mrs. Salter is of this country," said her husband, as he sank into a chair; "but it is by no means an uncommon match here. Burmese women are very good-humoured and capable; they make capital wives, and there is no denying the fascination of the Burmese girl—always so piquant and smiling and dainty. They have also a wonderful capacity for business and ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... Mrs. Thrale and Dr. Johnson, who was very comic and good-humoured.... Mrs. Thrale, who was to have gone with me to Mrs. Orde's, gave up her visit in order to stay with Dr. Johnson. Miss Thrale, therefore, ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... comfort. Moya Lavelle shut herself up in the cabin her husband Patrick had built, and dreed her weird alone. Of all the boys who had gone down with the hooker none was finer than Patrick Lavelle. He was brown and handsome, broad-shouldered and clever, and he had the good-humoured smile and the kindly word where the people are normally taciturn and unsmiling. The Island girls were disappointed when Patrick brought a wife from the mainland, and Moya never tried to make friends with them. She ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... became talkative, if not good-humoured, under the effects of the brandy and water, and the Captain then communicated Mrs Greenow's invitation to Mr Cheesacre. He had had his doubts as to the propriety of doing so,—thinking that perhaps it might be to his advantage to forget the ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... kissed his hand. I told him their name or county, or both, and he had a civil word to say to everybody, inviting some to dinner, promising to visit others, reminding them of former visits, or something good-humoured; he asked Lord Egremont's permission to go and live in ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... good-humoured relief. It would have touched his vanity had his niece been discovered to ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... dis day; mais, p'r'aps, git more cliver de morrow," replied the good-humoured Canadian with a grin. "Fat ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... Spectator owed the most natural and elegant, if not the most original, of its humorous sketches of human character and social eccentricities, its good-humoured satires on ridiculous features in manners and on corrupt symptoms in public taste; these topics, however, making up a department in which Steele was fairly on a level with his more famous co-adjutor. But Steele had neither learning, nor taste, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... who are made to fall in love with each other, by being each severally assured of possessing the love of the other, Beatrice and Benedick, are shown beforehand to have a strong inclination towards each other, manifested in their continual squabbling after a good-humoured fashion; but not all this is sufficient to make them heartily in love, until they find out the nobility of each other's character in their behaviour about the calumniated Hero; and the author takes care they shall not be married without a previous acquaintance ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... yet too young by much, to know wherefore he found in himself this complaisance, or how it came to pass, that he so much preferred a beautiful and good-humoured girl, to a boy possessed of the same qualifications; but he was not ignorant that he did so, and has often wondered (as he afterwards confessed) what it was that made him feel so much pleasure, whenever, in innocently romping together, ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... good-humoured, and at his ease, and particularly well-dressed, without appearing in the least conscious of it. She wished immensely that he had been plain, or awkward, or even out at elbows, or absurdly dandified, or looked ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... not know of the loves of Orberosia and Marcel, for he was a hero, and heroes never discover the secrets of their wives. But though he did not know of these loves, he reaped the benefit of them. Every night he found his companion more good-humoured and more beautiful, exhaling pleasure and perfuming the nuptial bed with a delicious odour of fennel and vervain. She loved Kraken with a love that never became importunate or anxious, because she did not rest its whole weight on ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... days. I was so dazzled by Lesbia's beauty, so charmed by her accomplishments and girlish graces, that I forgot to take notice of anything else in the world. If I thought of you at all it was as another Maulevrier—a younger Maulevrier in petticoats, very gay, and good-humoured, and nice.' ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... illustrate these vagaries otherwise than so many slips and trippings of the tongue and pen, to which all men are liable in their unguarded moments—from Homer to Anacreon Moore, or Demosthenes to Mr. Brougham. Our course is rather that of a good-humoured expose, the worst effect of which will be to raise a laugh at the expense of poor humanity, or a merited smile at our own dulness and mistaken sense of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various
... can afford it puts forth its carefully tended box of flowers. It is as though the old city suddenly awoke from her winter slumber and preened herself like a bird making its toilet; there is an atmosphere of renewal abroad—the very carters and cabmen seem conscious of it, and acknowledge it with good-humoured smiles and a flower worn ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... her ears, and vision and hearing were indistinguishably blurred. A plank, like a diving-board, had been run out on trestles in front of the caravan, and along this the assistant darted forwards and backwards on a level with the shoulders of the good-humoured crowd, his arms full of clocks, saucepans, china ornaments, mirrors, feather brushes, teapots, sham jewellery. Sometimes he made pretence to slip, recovered himself with a grin on the very point of scattering his precious ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... peaceable animal, a true nag for a fat abbot, having a horror of anything like trotting or galloping; and as he was not to be persuaded out of his slow walk, he and his master remained at a respectable distance from the scene of action. What an excellent caricature might have been made of that good-humoured savant, as he sat on his Rosinante, armed with an enormous doubled-barrelled gun, loaded but not primed, some time, to no purpose, spurring the self-willed animal, and then spying through an opera-glass at the majestic animals which ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... and the grant of the Royal pardon. It may be, however, that Annie took the same view of my love for Lorna, and could not augur well of it; but if so, she held her peace, though I was not so sparing. For many things contributed to make me less good-humoured now than my real nature was; and the very least of all these things would have been enough to make some people cross, and rude, and fractious. I mean the red and painful chapping of my face and hands, from working in the snow all day, and lying in the ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... good-humoured," said Julian. "Consider, was not all this intimacy of ours of your own making? Did you not make yourself known to me the very first time I strolled up this glen with my fishing-rod, and tell me that you were my former keeper, and that Alice had ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... things; we were sending all these boys into hardship and pitiless danger; we were sending them ill-equipped, insufficiently supported, we were sending our children through the fires to Moloch, because essentially we English were a world of indolent, pampered, sham good-humoured, old and middle-aged men. (So he distributed the intolerable load of self-accusation.) Why was he doing nothing to change things, to get them better? What was the good of an assumed modesty, an effort ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... lineaments of the face partly reveal the character of men, their vices and temperaments; but in the face: (a) the features which separate the cheeks from the lips, and the nostrils and cavities of the eyes, are strongly marked if they belong to cheerful and good-humoured men, and if they are slightly marked it denotes that the men to whom they belong are given to meditation, (b) Those whose features stand out in great relief and depth are brutal and bad-tempered, and reason little, ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... traiteur, is cooling; and the bucket of the draw-well hangs suspended while a history is finished, of which the relator knows as little as the hearer, and which, after all, proves to have originated in some ambiguous phrase of our keeper, uttered in a good-humoured paroxysm while receiving ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... they walked with so complete an absorption in each other that they were unaware of their surroundings. At the bottom of the steps a stout woman of fifty-five over-jewelled, and over-dressed and raddled with paint, watched their approach with a smile of good-humoured amusement. When they came near enough to hear ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... did not last long, for Mysie bad more attractions for her than any one else, and she was a good-humoured creature. There was a joyous Twelfth-Night, with home-made cake and home-characters, prepared by mamma and Gillian, and followed up by games, in which Dolores had a share, promoted by her aunt, who was very anxious to keep her from feeling set apart from every one; ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of some of the inscriptions, the strangeness of the illustrative images, the grotesque spelling, with the equivocal meaning often struck out by it, and the quaint jingle of the rhymes. These have often excited regret in serious minds, and provoked the unwilling to good-humoured laughter. Yet, for my own part, without affecting any superior sanctity, I must say that I have been better satisfied with myself, when in these evidences I have seen a proof how deeply the piety of the rude forefathers of the hamlet, is seated in their natures; I mean how habitual ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... pent-house of his eye, that sly epicurean twinkle which indicates the cautious voluptuary. In other respects, his profession and situation had taught him a ready command over his countenance, which he could contract at pleasure into solemnity, although its natural expression was that of good-humoured social indulgence. In defiance of conventual rules, and the edicts of popes and councils, the sleeves of this dignitary were lined and turned up with rich furs, his mantle secured at the throat with a golden clasp, and the whole dress proper to his order as much refined upon and ornamented, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... to see you here among the trees? Come with me, I'll set you strutting like a peacock before I've done with you," said Maulfry, in her mocking, good-humoured way. ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... was assembled at the Grange. Among them were some of the young ladies who were to form the chorus; one elderly spinster, Miss Ilex, who passed more than half her life in visits, and was everywhere welcome, being always good-humoured, agreeable in conversation, having much knowledge of society, good sense in matters of conduct, good taste and knowledge in music; sound judgment in dress, which alone sufficed to make her valuable to young ladies; a fair amount of reading, old and new; and on most ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... her countenance looked hard, dark, and inquisitive; her eyes were bent upon me with an expression of almost hungry curiosity. I had scarcely caught this phase of physiognomy ere it had vanished; a bland smile played on her features; my harsh apology was received with good-humoured facility. ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... by the baronet, and his quick eyes noted a half-empty decanter on the table. Fairfield was palpably nervous and ill at ease. He was plainly distrustful of his visitor's purpose. The detective was apologetic and good-humoured. ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... qualities by natural selection. We are goaded into activity by the conditions and struggles of life. They afford stimuli that oppress and worry the weakly, who complain and bewail, and it may be succumb to them, but which the energetic man welcomes with a good-humoured shrug, and is the better for ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... ingredient of romance in the affair, for the young lady was decidedly plain, though good-humoured looking, with that style of features which is termed potato; and in figure she was a little too plump, and rather short. But she was impressible; and the handsome young English Lieutenant was too much for her ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... as to stop up every chink or aperture by which the cold air of the winter's night might creep into the room. I remonstrated with him on the careless manner he treated his body, and he laughed in his good-humoured, gentle way, and promised to obey me in all things. And he did. That Mrs. Drabdump, failing to rouse him, would cry 'Murder!' I took for certain. She is built that way. As even Sir Charles Brown-Harland remarked, she habitually takes her prepossessions for facts, her ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... officiated, and few young mothers thought themselves entirely safe if the black good-humoured face of Aunt Comfort was not to be seen at their bedside. She had a hand in the compounding of almost every bridecake, and had been known to often leave houses of feasting, to prepare weary earth-worn travellers for their final place of rest. Every one knew, and all liked ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... a thoughtless but good-humoured princess of the House of Navarre; "but what is the great offence, after all? A young knight has been wiled hither—has stolen, or has been stolen, from his post, which no one will disturb in his absence—for the sake of a fair lady; for, ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... suggested. It was vain to speculate. No solution we could devise made the slightest approach to probability; and our only prospect of speedy relief was in pushing rapidly forward. A very short sentence from the good-humoured looking young fellow who received our first breathless and perplexed inquiry, solved the mystery,—"did you never hear of the Ordnance Survey?" Yes, indeed, we had heard of it; but our impression of it was as of something like a mathematical ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... appeared in her black silk dress, with her gold watch hanging in front, and saluted the minister's wife with the usual good-humoured, slightly democratic freedom ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... was mate, and sat forward in the bow. The stroke oar was usually taken by Tom Hercus, a man of singular daring. Willie Slater was an old whaler, who could stand any hardships with perfect indifference. Then there was Jock Eunson, a good-humoured Orphir man, who, on many a dark night, had kept his mates merry as they beat about in the outer sea in search of ships; and Ringan Storlsen, of Finstown, who had been at school with my father, and with whom he had had ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... from their richer kinsfolk hides to make tents and clothes. The Chukchi were formerly warlike and vigorously resisted the Russians, but to-day they are the most peaceable of folks, amiable in their manners, affectionate in family life and good-humoured. But this gentleness does not prevent them from killing off the old and infirm. They believe in a future life, but only for those who die a violent death. Thus it is regarded as an act of filial piety for a son to kill his parent or a nephew his uncle. This tribal custom is known as kamitok; ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... in this collection, the most popular are "Tullochgorum," "John o' Badenyon," and "The Ewie wi' the Crookit Horn." The whole are pervaded by sprightliness and good-humoured pleasantry. Though possessing the fault of being somewhat too lengthy, no song-compositions of any modern writer in Scottish verse have, with the exception of those of Burns, maintained a stronger hold of the Scottish heart, or been more commonly ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... good-humoured ease, and inquired conversationally if we wanted anything. We suggested wood and milk, whereupon still smiling, he uttered a few casual words in his own language to no one in particular. There was no earthly doubt that he was chief. Three of the most gorgeous ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... spoke: this well-dressed, foppish apostle of the greatest love that man has ever known. And as he spoke the whole story of his own great, true love for the woman who once had so deeply wronged him seemed to stand clearly written in the strong, lazy, good-humoured, kindly face glowing with ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Lydia is seated. She does not rise to greet her visitors, nor does it occur to her to offer a seat. What shall she offer? A box? As with the rest of those visited, her welcome takes the form of a good-humoured laugh. One or two objects in her room testify to a refinement unusual for this station. A guitar hangs on the wall near a cage with a bird in it, and against the partition stands a piano. Fancy such an instrument in a low turf hut, even though it be but an old square piano! ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe
... seen him! He's famous! He stood out in the road and met me, and asked for his letters, and he's to be at the Parsonage, and he asked my name, and then he laughed and said, "Oh! I perceive it is the royal mail!" I didn't know what he was at, but he looked as good-humoured as anything. Halloo! give me my old hat, Nell—that's it! Hurrah! for the hay-waggon! I ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Mrs. Malaprop, we must forget and forgive;—odds life! matters have taken so clever a turn all of a sudden, that I could find in my heart to be so good-humoured! and so ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... developed very quickly when he spoke to her mother. As he leaned forward she could not help seeing his face, and she looked at him closely, for the first time, and with some curiosity. He was handsome, and had a wonderfully frank and good-humoured expression. He was not in the least a "beauty" man—she thought he might be a soldier or a sailor, and a very good specimen of either. Furthermore, he was undoubtedly a gentleman, so far as a man is to be judged by his outward manner and appearance. In ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... are, Rina," he said indifferently. His voice was oddly cracked. His manner toward her expressed a good-humoured tolerance. His eyes approved her casually; inner tenderness there ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... burst out, for I could contain myself no longer. The comparison to the "lil yam" was too much for me, and as I faced round, good-humoured once more, and ready to go and bathe or do anything with the boy who was my only companion, he showed his teeth at me fiercely, made a run, jumped over the fence into the garden, and I saw him dash down the middle path toward the forest as hard as ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... us used to take long walks, often on a Sunday, to various places in the country. There was generally a volume of Burke or Emerson in his pocket, whose sonorous periods filled the interval when we lunched frugally or rested. I have never known him anything but good-humoured under any conditions. His enthusiasm for our most commonplace jests was unfailing—perhaps one of the surest ways of getting to a man's heart and staying there—and he had a wide tolerance for the minor offences of undergraduate thought and deed. Yet, as for the tone of ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson
... and adopts other pursuits chiefly because times are bad. When there is a question of fighting, if only in a riot, the stolid peasant wakes up and shows surprising power of finding organisation and expedients, and alas! a surprising ferocity. The ordinary Turk is an honest and good-humoured soul, kind to children and animals, and very patient; but when the fighting spirit comes on him, he becomes like the terrible warriors of the Huns or Henghis Khan, and slays, burns and ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... every one in the community. A few men of the rougher sort had made fun of him at first, and there had been one or two attempts at rude handling. But Jacques was determined to take no offence; and he was so good-humoured, so obliging, so pleasant in his way of whistling and singing about his work, that all unfriendliness ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... Cambridge man goes by. Or, as the lightweight hurries past, "Don't look as if 'e could do it," remarks a bystander, "looks to want a day out at grass for them calves." Or, "'Ere, I say, 'e's eat a bit of beef in his day, I know," as the heavy man comes in sight. It is a good-humoured crowd, and if the strong tobacco is a bit offensive when one's not allowed to smoke oneself, things can't be always as we should like them ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... good-humoured face, which had once been as delicate as a flower, but was now growing puffed and mottled under a plentiful layer of rice powder, became almost violently animated, while she adjusted her belt with a ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow |
