"Laughter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... utterly out of the question to ponder gloomily upon the bitter past while these two chaps were whipping jokes back and forth, and insidiously drawing him into the conversation, until greatly to his astonishment he even burst out into a hearty peal of laughter, the first expression of merriment that had sprung from his ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... began his plea for the miners with the admission that they had only dropped the demand for the reduction of fourteen shillings and twopence in the price of domestic coal when they discovered that "the money was not there." Anyhow the laughter that ensued served to put Members into a good temper and to cause them to lend a friendly ear to his suggestion that the two shillings advance, though in his view only "dust in the balance," should be "temporarily" conceded, pending the establishment of a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... fascinating grace in a big chair. He looked at her—not the look of a man at a woman, but the look of a busy person at one who is about to show cause for having asked for a portion of his valuable time. She laughed—and laughter was her best gesture. "I can never talk to you if you pose like that," said she. "Honestly now, is your time so ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... the conclusion of this speech; Alfred observed his surprise, and burst into a fit of laughter. He then said, "The English of all that is, Malachi, that my brother John has my father's leave to go with you, and you're to make a ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... goodman mends his armour, And trims his helmet's plume; When the good wife's shuttle merrily Goes flashing through the loom; With weeping and with laughter Still is the story told, How well Horatius kept the bridge In the ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... hair; bright, laughing, hazel eyes; massive aquiline face, most massive, yet most delicate; of sallow brown complexion, almost Indian-looking, clothes cynically loose, free and easy, smokes infinite tobacco. His voice is musical, metallic, fit for loud laughter and piercing wail, and all that may lie between; speech and speculation free and plenteous; I do not meet in these late decades such company over a pipe! We shall see ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... house. It was here he had rested and hidden,—here he had tasted the first sweets of isolation and oblivion in the dreamy garden,—here he had looked forward to peace with the passing of the ship,—and now? The sound of voices and laughter suddenly grated upon his ear. He had heard those voices before. Their distinctness startled him until he became aware that he was standing before a broken, half-rotting door that permitted a glimpse of the courtyard of the neighboring house. He glided quickly past it without ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... of my own knowledge. I only argue that if the horse had been worth its keep, you wouldn't have lent it to Strapper, and Strapper wouldn't have lent it to this eloquent and venerable ram. [Suppressed laughter]. And now I ask him this. [To the Elder] Did we or did we not have a quarrel last evening about a certain article that was left by my mother, and that I considered I had a right to more than you? And did you say one word to me about the horse ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... much from him, they retired. But on the morrow the populace of Antioch (for they are not seriously disposed, but are always engaged in jesting and disorderly performance) heaped insults upon Chosroes from the battlements and taunted him with unseemly laughter; and when Paulus came near the fortifications and exhorted them to purchase freedom for themselves and the city for a small sum of money, they very nearly killed him with shots from their bows, and would have ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... silent ... the trampling now stopped ... we were all waiting for some command. Oh! was it given! I was trying to hear it ... there was some one dragging, dragging me away from that ... I am sure there was a command given ... and there was a great burst of laughter. What was it? What was the command? Everything seemed to tremble ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... though the Major is much the merrier. The Major, in a fit of curiosity, has charged the Native to watch the house sometimes, and find out what becomes of Dombey. The Native has reported Miss Tox's fidelity, and the Major has nearly choked himself dead with laughter. He is permanently bluer from that hour, and constantly wheezes to himself, his lobster eyes starting out of his head, 'Damme, Sir, the ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... who was simple almost to stupidity, even though he lived with no thought above his loyalty. One day almost unconquerable thirst came upon Bud. It attacked him suddenly as he passed the house and saw Halloway sitting on the porch talking with Alexander, and heard the peal of her responsive laughter. ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... fatal field with unsteady step, because of his obesity, a savage roar cut the tragic silence. The unarmed soldiers, who had hastened to witness the execution, greeted the venerable old man with shouts of laughter. "Death to the priest!" . . . The fanaticism of the religious wars vibrated through their mockery. Almost all of them were devout Catholics or fervent Protestants, but they believed only in the priests of their own country. Outside of Germany, everything ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... thus employed, leaving her bare head exposed, her companions reached the spot, trying in vain to stifle their laughter. ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the packing-boxes which had held their belongings, nailing one piece upon another, the grain of contiguous layers running transversely, until he had a solid body some three inches thick and of such great strength that they were both moved to laughter as they ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... on board, the steamer was crowded with natives, and they refused to leave. We had to drive them away energetically, and as their canoes were soon overcrowded, many of them jumped into the water with shouts and laughter, and swam several miles to the shore, floating happily in the blue sea, with their long hair waving after them like liquid gold. Thus I saw the last of the dream-island, bathed in the rays of the setting sun. My regret was shared by the ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... mimic—at once threw back his head, crossed his hands over his chest, and bowed in such an exact imitation of Mrs. Trappeme that a burst of laughter followed. ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke
... the maniac, with a burst of bitter, mocking laughter that pierced Maximilian through and through like a sharp-pointed, keen-edged stiletto and made Valentine shudder as if she had come in contact with polar ice. "A friend!—a friend! Come to save me—me! ha! ha! ha! ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... at us some time, one of them suddenly jumped out of his proa, swam to the ship, and ran up the side like a cat: As soon as he had stepped over the gunwale, he sat down upon it, and burst into a violent fit of laughter, then started up, and ran all over the ship, attempting to steal whatever he could lay his hands upon, but without success, for, being stark naked, it was impossible to conceal his booty for a moment. Our seamen put on him a jacket and trowsers, which produced great merriment, for he had all the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... sleeps, one wanders in his stead, A fainter glory round her head; She follows happy waters after, Leaving behind low, rippling laughter. ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various
... They have since proved invaluable to me, and I can scarcely review our long companionship without emotion. Yet when I glance up at them, and remember the whimsical way in which we met for the first time, I can scarce restrain my laughter. ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... myself—and this although I had already done considerably more than my fair share of that back- breaking labour. Therewith they abandoned the pumps and betook themselves forward to the forecastle, from which there shortly afterward came floating to my horrified ears loud peals of maudlin laughter, mingled with snatches of ribald songs and coarse jests, whereby I came to know, all too late, that, while getting up the provisions from below, some of them must have broken into the spirit-room and possessed themselves of a very considerable ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... turned upon the window surveying the bright sunlight outside. The children playing somewhere beyond the door were ignored. She was even trying to forget them. She heard their voices, and they set her nerves jangling with each fresh peal of laughter, or ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... beneath his care. Mr. Tyson ascended the door-sill, and, for a moment, listened, if perchance he might hear the sounds of wo. Suddenly a loud laugh broke upon his ears, which was soon lost in a chorus of laughter. Indignant at the sound, he reached forth his hand and rapped with his whole might. No answer was received. He rapped again—all was silence. He then applied himself to the fastening of the door, and finding it unlocked, ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... man of parts, and his travels have made him very conversible. Our servants find his Indian attendant, Tippoo, an endless source of surprise. He cannot speak a word of English, and to see him roll his black eyes and gesticulate causes laughter which penetrates even to ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... marry. However, in my case, there need be no such scruples. I found the house and asked for Miss Montague. As I mounted the stairs to the drawing-room floor, I heard a sound of voices—the murmur of laughter; idiotic guffaws, suppressed giggles, the masculine and feminine varieties ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... time, "take care of pickpockets"—occasionally amusing themselves also by playfully smashing the beaver of some of the justices of the peace over their face, to the tune of "all round my hat," sung in chorus, on the Mainzerian system, amidst peals of laughter. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... fire, the figures which surrounded it appearing still more wild, fantastical, and supernatural, the more near he approached to the assembly. He was received with a loud shout of discordant and unnatural laughter, which, to his stunned ears, seemed more alarming than a combination of the most dismal and melancholy sounds that could be imagined. "Who art thou?" said the giant, compressing his savage and exaggerated features into ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... for a large wicker cage of hideous "laughing Jackasses," which he was taking as a great treasure to Canterbury. Why they should be called "Jackasses" I never could discover; but the creatures certainly do utter by fits and starts a sound which may fairly be described as laughter. These paroxysms arise from no cause that one can perceive; one bird begins, and all the others join in, and a more doleful and depressing chorus I never heard: early in the morning seemed the favourite time for this discordant ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... a Christian woman? True, she had an aristocratic bearing, and perhaps Els was right in saying that her strongly marked features revealed a certain degree of kindliness, but she wholly lacked the spell of feminine modesty. Her pleasant grey eyes and full red lips seemed created only for laughter, and the plump outlines of her figure were better suited to a matron than a maiden in her early girlhood. Not the slightest defect escaped Eva during this inspection. Meanwhile she remembered her own image in the mirror, and a smile of satisfaction ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to those who were coming to join us, and made a short speech, in which I could remark that the word arekee, that is, king, was generally mentioned. One man said something that produced bursts of hearty laughter from all the crowd; others of the speakers met with public applause. I was several times desired to leave the place, and, at last, when they found that I would not stir, after some seeming consultation, they applied to me to uncover my shoulders as theirs were. With this request ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... the dust of our heroic ancestors we too sit ballot-boxing, saying to one another, It is well, it is well! By inheritance of their noble struggles, we have been permitted to sit slothful so long. By noble toil, not by shallow laughter and vain talk, they made this English Existence from a savage forest into an arable inhabitable field for us; and we, idly dreaming it would grow spontaneous crops forever,—find it now in a too questionable state; peremptorily ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... came to the faintly throbbing ears of the pedestrian a murmur of voices from lawns where citizens sat cooling after the day's labour, or a tinkle of laughter from where maidens dull (not being Julia) sat on verandas vacant of beauty and glamour. For these poor things, Noble felt a wondering and disdainful pity; he pitied everything in the world that was not on the way to ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... suffer the Gospel and Christian faith everywhere to go to rack and ruin, and do not intend to lose a hair for it. Yea, all the evil examples of spiritual and temporal infamy flow from Rome, as out of a great sea of universal wickedness, into all the world. All these things cause laughter in Rome, and if any one grieves over them, he is called a Bon Christian, i. e., a fool. If they really took the commands of God seriously, they would find many thousand things more necessary to be done, especially those at ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... then that I submit. Oh, I submit!" And it was perhaps a sign of submission that a few minutes after she had left him alone he burst into a loud fit of laughter. It seemed to him so inconsequent, such a conclusive proof of his having abdicated all functions and renounced all exercise, that he should start on a journey across Europe under the supervision of Miss Stackpole. And the great oddity was that the prospect pleased him; he ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... the strong and heavy locks of the chest and into the hands of the Boy gave the Moon for plaything. Of Dis-s, the Moon, made he plaything for the Boy. And for that day were the Boy's cries hushed as he spun and tumbled the White World on the lodge floor. And his laughter was music to the ...
— In the Time That Was • James Frederic Thorne
... foolish creature; and the more we look into him, the more we must despise him—Lords of the creation!—Who can forbear indignant laughter! When we see not one of the individuals of that creation (his perpetually-eccentric self excepted) but acts within its own natural and original appointment: is of fancied and self-dependent excellence, he is obliged not only for ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... Boers were gathered. They are not a particularly humorous people, but this spectacle of the advance of Pereira seated on the pack-ox, a steed that is becoming to few riders, with the furious and portly Vrouw Prinsloo striding at his side and shrieking abuse at him, caused them to burst into laughter. Then Pereira's temper gave out, and he became even more ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... GRAFT ON THE FAMILY TREE. This story moves you alternately to laughter and tears, while it is so brimful of the sweetness of evangelical religion that its influence cannot fail to be ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... economic waste, Merker!" he could not forbear shouting; and then rocked in his saddle with laughter over the man's look of slow surprise. "It's his catchword," he explained to Orde. "He's a slow, queer old duck, but a mighty good sort for the place. There's Post, in from the woods. He's woods foreman. ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... Trivial details Nolan had asked for—and he got them with the full Casey Ryan flavor. Even the old woman who rocked, Casey pictured—from his particular angle. Mack Nolan sat up and listened, his eyes steady and his mouth, that had curved to laughter many times during the recital, once more firm and somewhat ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... captain comically, and dived below, attended by the well-disciplined laughter of Lieutenant Fitzroy, who was too good an officer not to be amused at his captain's jokes. Having acquitted himself of that duty—and it is a very difficult one sometimes—he took Lord Tadcaster to the main-deck, and showed him two comfortable sleeping-berths that had been screened ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... evening with the Castlemans we got on famously together. True, Max and I felt that we were making great concessions, and I do not doubt that we showed it in many unconscious words and acts. This certainly was true of Max; but Yolanda's unfailing laughter, though at times it was provoking, soon brought him to see that too great a sense of dignity was at times ridiculous. He could not, however, always forget that he was a Hapsburg while she was a burgher girl, and his good memory got him many a keen little thrust from ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... by their death they brought the new France to birth. The Revolution rises superior to the crimes and follies of its authors; it has atoned to posterity for all the sorrow that it caused, for all the wrong that was done in its name. If it killed laughter, it also dried many tears. By it privilege was slain in France, tyranny rendered more improbable, almost impossible. The canker of a debased feudalism was swept away. Men were made equal before the law. Those barriers by which the flow of economic ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... aid could not just then be given. The Bushman, amused by the ludicrous incident that had befallen his rival, was determined to enjoy the fun for a little longer. Uttering a wild shout of laughter that was a tolerable imitation of an enraged hyena, Swartboy seemed transported into a heaven of unadulterated joy. Earth appeared hardly able to hold him as he leaped and danced around the ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... at its lowest curve. One morning, his friends inquired how he had slept, and he complained that "the frogs and small animals had made so much noise under the hammock that he could not sleep." One of the Indian servants roared with laughter, as he said, "Uh, 'tiger' sleep with old man last night. He watch him!"—tiger being the Indian term for the puma. Careful searching revealed the footprints of an immense puma, and that he had ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... and his eyes wandered once more around the room as the waiter counted out the change. The band were playing the "Valse Amoureuse"; the air was grown heavy with the odor of tobacco and the mingled perfumes of flowers and scents. A refrain of soft laughter followed the music. An after-dinner air pervaded ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... shook hands, and he gave me a cigar, around which was wrapped the check. He winked. Then he laughed, and I joined him, though my laughter resembled mirth less than it did the cackle of a hen which was disturbed over ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... large, well-ordered establishment, with her one daughter, Katya Sergyevna. Bazaroff was contemptuously amused at the luxury and peace that pervaded the house. The excellent arrangements of the establishment he made a subject for laughter, but, none the less, he gladly prolonged his stay for a fortnight. The reason was not far to seek. In spite of his avowed disbelief in love and romance, the gracious charm, the refined intelligence and the beauty of Madame Odintsov ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... absence of young ladies renders the taking of female parts by the opposite sex a necessity. A splendid "singing chambermaid" of this kind, dressed and looking the part to perfection, but with a deep bass voice, caused peals of laughter every time he spoke. During the evening there was a song cleverly introduced and sung by a brawny Scot—a parody upon "May I ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... adorning The hair of a maiden it shines, as the balm that is shed On the brain of a wandering minstrel; it comes without warning, Transmuting to gold an existence that once was as lead. It glads, it rejoices the soul; recollecting it after One well-nigh explodes; but I say there are seasons for laughter, And, like other great men, I am not at my best in the morning When ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... him. If she noted the lights of laughter lying soberly subdued in his eyes, she also discerned something more, that affected her oddly. Despite the horseman's treatment of her escort—a treatment she confessed he had partially deserved—and despite the lightness of his ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... mocking, laughter-loving, mischievous Godfrey, who delighted to lay all his naughty tricks and devilries upon his quiet cousin; while he considered himself as his patron and protector, and often gave himself great airs of superiority. For the sake of peace, ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... this glorious, blue-eyed, curly-headed boy, who bursts into the house like a whirlwind, making it ring again with merry laughter? This is Jim Brentwood, of whom we shall see ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... said to Millicent, who was a favorite of hers; and her voice carried farther than she was aware of as she continued: "I heard the laughter and it brought me down, though I want to tell Clarence something. I like to see bright faces; but the times have changed since I was young. We were a little more reserved and ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... want? And honest Frank Lupton, a quiet and industrious trader, thought of his store of pearl-shell and felt still more doubtful. And he knew Peese so well, the dapper, handsome little Englishman with the pleasant voice that had in it always a ripple of laughter—the voice and laugh that concealed his tigerish heart and savage vindictiveness. Lupton had children too—sons and daughters—and Peese, who looked upon women as mere articles of merchandise, would have thought no more of carrying off the trader's two pretty daughters ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... were Phil's sisters, the pretty twins, Charley and Clare, still astonishingly alike at twenty, as they had been at twelve, and still full of the high spirits and ready laughter and wit that had made them the life of the Hill in the old days. Neither looked a day over sixteen, but Clare had already been teaching two years in a Dunbury public school and Charley was to go into nurse's training ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... well as the drawbacks of a nervous organisation. She smiled constantly at her guest, but from the beginning to the end of dinner, though he made several remarks that he thought might prove amusing, she never once laughed. Later, he saw that she was a woman without laughter; exhilaration, if it ever visited her, was dumb. Once only, in the course of his subsequent acquaintance with her, did it find a voice; and then the sound remained in Ransom's ear as one of the ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... to hear Scraggs jesting with death. Mr. Gibney forgot his own mental agony and roared with laughter in Tabu-Tabu's face. The cannibal stood off a few feet and looked searchingly in the commodore's eyes. He was not used to the brand of white man who could laugh under such circumstances, and he suspected treachery of some kind. He hurried over ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... I made was as follows:—one evening, when there was a large party, and Mr. Cobbett had been keeping us in a roar of laughter by his wit and vivacity, the very life and soul of the company, which he always was when he chose, all at once, in the midst of our mirth, he exclaimed, addressing himself to me, "Hunt, I have a particular favour ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... avoid conceit or affectation, and laughter which is not natural and spontaneous, Her language will be easy and unstudied, marked by a graceful carelessness, which, at the same time, never oversteps the limits of propriety. Her lips will readily yield to a ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... share, but restrained by the memory of past rebuffs—when little Blackie, standing on Tilly's knee, and having eaten a large share of what was going, raised itself to its full height, flapped its wings, and gave utterance to a cackle of triumph! A burst of laughter followed—and Tilly gave a shriek of delighted surprise that at once dissolved the spell, and induced the horrified fowl to seek ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... tasted very good, the Zulu put his head into the mouth of the shelter and asked if we were ready. I nodded, and, supporting each other, Scowl and I limped from the place. Outside were about fifty soldiers, who greeted us with a shout that, although it was mixed with laughter at our pitiable appearance, struck me as not altogether unfriendly. Amongst these men was my horse, which stood with its head hanging down, looking very depressed. I was helped on to its back, and, Scowl clinging to the ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... with all this marrying going on, I suppose the next thing will be you and friend Ferguson." Even as she said it, she saw in a flash an inevitable meaning in the words, and she gave a great guffaw of laughter. "Bless you! I didn't mean that! I meant you'd be picking up a wife somewhere, Mr. Ferguson, and Mrs. Richie, here, would be finding a husband. But the other way would be easier, and a ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... ravishment of mine, and laughed aloud. The Rock, like something starting from a sleep, Took up the Lady's voice, and laughed again; 55 That ancient Woman seated on Helm-crag Was ready with her cavern; Hammar-scar, And the tall Steep of Silver-how, sent forth A noise of laughter; southern Loughrigg heard, And Fairfield answered with a mountain tone; 60 Helvellyn far into the clear blue sky Carried the Lady's voice,—old Skiddaw blew His speaking-trumpet;—back out of the clouds Of Glaramara ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... dance,' said the fire-tongs; and then how they danced and stuck up one leg in the air. The chair-cushion in the corner burst with laughter ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... people are bored when they are alone; they cannot laugh when they are alone, for such a thing seems foolish to them. Is laughter, then, to be regarded as merely a signal for others, a mere sign, like a word? It is a want of imagination and dulness of mind generally ([Greek: anaisthaesia kai bradytaes psychaes]), as Theophrastus puts it, ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... but one night at Berkhamsted, though, to the Earl, Berkhamsted was home. It was the scene of his birth, and of that blessed unapprehensive childhood, when brothers and sisters had played with him on the Castle green, and light, happy laughter had rung through the noble halls; when the hand of his fair Provencal mother had fallen softly in caresses on his head, and his generous, if extravagant, father had been only too ready to shower gold ducats in anticipation of his slightest wish. ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... John Barty's frown vanished suddenly and, expanding his great chest, he threw back his head and roared with laughter. Barnabas clenched his fists, and his mouth lost something of its sweetness, and his eyes glinted through their curving lashes, while his father laughed and laughed till the place rang again, which of itself stung Barnabas sharper than any blow ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... it had ceased to fall from the clouds. This hush of the storm was oppressive more to Harrington than the lady. She was languid and dreamy lying upon her couch of dry leaves, very feeble and weeping quietly without a sob, like a helpless child who has no language but tears and laughter. In this entire prostration of the nervous system, she forgot—if she had ever been conscious of the words that filled him with ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... April arrived, the experiment of German education had reached this point. Nothing was left of it except the ghost of the Civil Law shut up in the darkest of closets, never to gibber again before any one who could repeat the story. The derisive Jew laughter of Heine ran through the university and everything else in Berlin. Of course, when one is twenty years old, life is bound to be full, if only of Berlin beer, although German student life was on the whole the thinnest of beer, as an ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... performed such ablutions as circumstances would allow, and generally made ready to start. I am bound to say that when there was sufficient light to enable us to see each other's faces I, for one, burst out into a roar of laughter. Job's fat and comfortable countenance was swollen out to nearly twice its natural size from mosquito bites, and Leo's condition was not much better. Indeed, of the three I had come off much the best, probably owing to the toughness ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... and silent, And looked upon the foes, And a great shout of laughter From all the vanguard rose: And forth three chiefs came spurring Before that deep array; To earth they sprang, their swords they drew, And lifted high their shields, and flew ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... kind of absurd confidence that there must be some kindred depths even in the meaner nature with which he had to deal, which would have been to Jack Wentworth, had he seen it, a source of inextinguishable laughter. Even Wodehouse was taken by surprise. He did not understand Mr Wentworth, but a certain vague idea that the Curate was addressing him as if he still were "a gentleman as he used to be"—though it did not alter his resolution in any ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... A roar of laughter, led by Mocket, arose from the younger and lower sort of Republicans. "But you do serve, Mr. Pincornet! You teach all the ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... weakly, between gasps of laughter, forgetting her grammar altogether. "I learned that trick last summer. They call it ventriloquism. It just means throwing your voice out so that it doesn't seem to come from you at all, and changing it, so ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart
... mere est morte," as if the fact of his mother being dead entitled him to demand it. We explain that it is not polite to ask for money. "Cigarette," he then says promptly. We tell him that in England the law forbids boys under sixteen to smoke, whereat they all shriek with laughter. So we add that Englishmen want to grow up tall strong men, and if they smoke as boys they won't, whereupon they grow grave again and nod their little ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... costly wines; But in the amazed sight of all The dread hand writes upon the wall. —Lastly the pictures represent How Sarah listens in the tent While God Almighty, come to earth, Foretells to Abraham the birth Of Isaac and his seed thereafter. Sarah cannot restrain her laughter, Since both are well advanced in years. God asks when he the laughter hears: "Doth Sarah laugh then at God's will, And doubt if this he may fulfil?" Her indiscretion to recall She says, "I did not laugh at all." Which commonly would ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... Laughter in these dark days is so wholesome a corrective that we mustn't be too exacting with Mr. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM, that fertile spinner of yarns, when in The Double Life of Mr. Alfred Burton (METHUEN) he presents us with the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 28, 1914 • Various
... stead. His proxy stalked sullenly forward, and pausing before the king, who was on horseback, seized his foot and raised it to his lips. By this manoeuvre, the king came to make a somersault, at which there followed a great and disrespectful burst of laughter ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... don't mind if you do take her just a bite," she said presently; and amid much laughter and sympathetic joking a tray was fitted out with various delicacies and entrusted to the ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... broke into uproarious laughter while he stood in the aisle, to all appearances, a submissive, conscience-stricken little mortal. Inwardly he seethed with anger. What right had Miss Brown to trick a fellow that way? It was mean, it was cowardly, worse ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... for the pleasure of criticizing Archie's work. When Archie suggested that there would be an economy of time in loading the gravel into a wagon and effecting the distribution by that means the foreman stared at him open-mouthed for a moment, then burst into ironical laughter. ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... Turk over a chemist's shop, or to laugh at a house with window-blinds painted in red and white diamonds, a crowd of flaxen heads collected round us, little hands fluttered over the dog's wrinkled head as butterflies flit about a clover blossom, baby laughter tinkled, and tiny shrieks cut the stillness of the sleepy, ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... Cecil was in St James's Street when he remembered that there was an exhibition at Carfax's. He strolled in, and was for the moment quite taken by surprise at the evident gaiety of the crowd. It seemed so incongruous to hear laughter at a private view, where it is now usual to behave with the embarrassed and respectful gloom appropriate to a visit of condolence (with the corpse in the ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... Laughter rippled all through her life. She talked of her griefs in a plucky, riant way, making eternal fun of herself as a giddy fool. She carried a delightful jocundity wherever she went. She was aristocratic, too, in the postgraduate ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... upon each other, and burst into a simultaneous shout of laughter. Their clothes were torn literally into rags, by the bushes through which they had forced their way; while their faces were scratched, and stained with ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... above the turmoil of the present on the wings of Imagination. Her eyes are sombre with the memory of the wisdom driven from her scattered sanctuaries; and at her lips wonderful things strive for utterance. In her are gathered together the longings and the laughter, the fears and failures, the sins and splendours and achievements of innumerable generations of men; and by her we are shown all the elemental and terrible passions of the unchanging soul of man, to which ...
— The Instruction of Ptah-Hotep and the Instruction of Ke'Gemni - The Oldest Books in the World • Battiscombe G. Gunn
... when shaken by the fangs of the fell demon, sea-sickness? Did not a chance of going to the bottom seem a trivial calamity? Answer, ye who have ever been in like pitiful case. We draw a curtain over the abject miseries of three days; over the Dutch-built captain's unseasonable joking and huge laughter—he, that could eat junk and biscuit if the ship was in Maelstrom! Robert could have thrown his boots at him with pleasure, while the short, broad figure stood in the doorway during his diurnal visit, chewing tobacco, and talking of all the times he ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... Further examination showed that many of the signatures were spurious, having been put down in jest, or copied from gravestones and old London directories. With that discovery the whole movement collapsed, and the House of Commons rang with "inextinguishable laughter" over ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... pulpit orators, said, "The triumph of America was England's triumph. Their object was the same, and they were engaged in the same work. There were more Englishmen who would go to America, than Americans who would come to England (laughter), and while they in England had the wealth, the power, and the elements of usefulness, they were bound to use it in the ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... little low-pitched sound of amusement. "There's safety in numbers, and—are you familiar with the physiological effect of high altitudes on men acclimated to low ones?" Suddenly she threw back her head and the hidden sound became free and merry laughter. "Jason, I'm a free Amazon, and that means—no, I'm not neutered, though some of us are. But you have my word, I won't create any trouble of any recognizably female variety." She stood up. "Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to check the ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... from the fire without carrying a fire-stick in their hands; the bush is now dotted about with these little moving points of fire, all making for a common centre, at which are congregated old and young; jest follows jest, one peal of laughter rings close upon the heels of another, the elderly gentleman is loudly applauded by the bystanders, and, having fairly sung the wrath out of himself, he assists in getting up the dances and songs with which ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... one of those old-fashioned letters which one finds in old family desk drawers, those epistles which smell of another century. The first one started: "My dear," another one: "My beautiful little girl," others: "My dear child," or: "My dear (laughter)." And suddenly the nun began to read aloud, to read over to the dead woman her whole history, all her tender memories. The judge, resting his elbow on the bed, was listening with his eyes fastened on his mother. The ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... kingdom. As the farmers were at work in the fields, gendarmes raided and ransacked their cottages for such portraits; butchers and fishmongers were haled before courts-martial for like indications of ill-will; and—matter for laughter and matter for tears are inseparable in modern Greek history (perhaps in all history)—one met a cabman beaten again and again for calling his horse "Cotso" (diminutive of "Constantine"), or a woman dragged to the police-station ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... out of the window at the glorious sunshine; he turned back into the room, and saw the group of pretty women at the piano, bathed in the red glow struck out of the velvet cover by a strong golden ray. With this red glow the smoke of the cigarette mingled lightly as the talking and laughter mingled with the chords Barbarella Viti struck haphazard on the keys. Ludovico whispered a word or two in his cousin's ear, which the Princess forthwith communicated to her friends, for there was ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... like a fairy romance, Below us the laughter and mu- Sic, while now and again, such a glance As is given on earth but to few From the depths of your eyes, fond and true, Set me dreaming of all their contents, Till I woke,—something hid them, from view,— The ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... had guided his toddling steps; the home to which he had brought his bride in the bloom of a beautiful maidenhood; where Ruth had come to them as the blessing of God to make the house resound with prattle and laughter, and fill it with the sunlight of her presence; make it attractive by her grace and beauty,—the soul beauty that looked out from loving eyes and became, as it were, a benediction. He was to go, she to stay. God ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... squatted on the stern sheets, much to the surprise of the officers and men, who thought him mad. He stated in a few words that somebody had stolen his trousers during the night; and as it was already late, the boat shoved off the men as well as officers convulsed with laughter. ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... background,—the dim distance which their eyes cannot penetrate. But, from the fraction which you do project, they construct another you, call it by your name, and pass it around for the real, the actual you. You bristle with jest and laughter and wild whims, to keep them at a distance; and they fancy this to be your every-day equipment. They think your life holds constant carnival. It is astonishing what ideas spring up in the heads of sensible people. There are those who assume that a person can never ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... hundred yards away from them—for the tide was high—the tall masts of a galley creeping out to sea beneath her banks of oars. As they stared the wind caught her, and on the main-mast rose her bellying sail, while a shout of laughter told them that they themselves were seen. They shook their swords in the madness of their rage, knowing well who was aboard that galley; while to the fore peak ran up the yellow flag of Saladin, streaming there like ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... Count Orsini. It is well you came so late, for I have this moment come in from making Cabinet calls. They were so queer! I have been crying with laughter for an hour past." "Do you find these calls amusing?" asked Popoff, gravely and diplomatically. "Indeed I do! I went with Julia Schneidekoupon, you know, Madeleine; the Schneidekoupons are descended from all the Kings of Israel, and are prouder than Solomon ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... his fingers around that delicate white throat until the music of her death cry should set him free for ever. But when his thoughts led him hitherwards a cold fear gave him strength to break away—for with them came the singing in his ears, the lights before his eyes, the airiness of heart and laughter which go before madness. He sprang to his feet, steadied himself for a moment, and walked rapidly onwards. The momentary exhilaration died slowly away—the old depression settled down upon his spirits. Yet when he reached the club he was breathless, and the hand which lighted ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... didn't know." Sally was quite unguarded. "Thought you might have...." She checked herself. Her body was shaken with a little thrill of laughter—laughter of silly joy. She hugged him closer. "Been away a long time this time," she said. "Quite a sailor, ain't you?... Did you have rough weather? Ship all sloppy with the waves? And you dancing about to keep ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton |
