"Mirthless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were indescribable. Astonishment, incredulity, anger all battled for place, and the outcome of them all was a laugh at once mirthless and angry. He turned on the two men waiting with ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... Enoch gave a dry, mirthless laugh. For a long time they tramped in silence. Then Diana said, "We've been out half ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... utterly useless," he replied with quiet conviction. "He wouldn't pay. He said he wouldn't, last time. And he meant it.... You'd better have let me blow out my brains while I was about it, Ann"—with, a mirthless laugh. ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... leveled the revolver, grinning with the mirthless lust of battle, and fired over the top of the table. The guns dropped from the hands of huge Diaz. He caught at his throat and staggered back the full length of the room, crashing against the wall. ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... Stane laughed again his cold, mirthless laugh. "There is no need to mince matters, Ainley. All the world knows I went there, and you need not go to any trouble to spare my feelings. When a man has been through hell nothing else matters, ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... I say, Tom. I'm only a plain man, and my tongue will say what comes uppermost! But it ain't from the soul, Tom, it ain't from the soul," said Peter, punning feebly, and letting a mirthless smile play over his sallow features. "You know Mr. Cantercot, ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... men, not playing cards, but interrupted in a quiet talk. Standing on the far side of the table was a man who was as evil a thing to see as was his voice to hear; his face twisted, drawn to the left side, the left eye a mere slit of malevolence, the uneven teeth showing in an eternal, mirthless grin, a man whose hands, when his arms were lax as now, hung almost to his knees, a man ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... towards him, laughed a low, noiseless, mirthless laugh for a moment, and then said, in a hollow, far-away voice that had no lungs behind it: "I am done with feeling either ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... the widow next me bit her lip and clenched her fist, but she gave no other sign of emotion. Another film was thrown on the screen, humorous, I believe. Suddenly the woman began to laugh. She did not stop laughing. It was a long, mirthless, dry, uncanny sort of cackle. People stared. She laughed still louder. An usher came down the aisle, and stood there, uncertain what to do. Hysterics had given way to weeping: the tears were now streaming down the woman's face. She tried to control ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... was where he would have placed it himself. She had laughed!—and the novelty of being laughed at was refreshing. He and Thatcher had laughed in secret at the confusion of their common enemies in old times; but most men feared him, and he had the reputation of being a mirthless person. He had rarely discussed politics with women; he had an idea that a woman's politics, when she had any, partook of the nature of her religion, and that it was something quite emotional, tending toward hysteria. He experienced a sense of guilt at the ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... them, he had seen before, at the edge of the road. Another was very much older, taller, more sallow. The fourth was strangely fat, with a great red hanging mouth. The latter laughed uproariously, a jangling mirthless sound followed by a mumble of words without connective sense. David moved toward ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... for his drink, without a "Please" or a "Thank you," throws his hat at the back of his head, gulps down half his glass, and, while drawing breath for the other half, takes a hard, indifferent look at her, and in an off-hand voice throws her some fatuous, mirthless jest. ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... know I am not an aspirant myself?" he said. He had a mirthless sense of enjoyment in his own brazenness. Only he himself knew how brazen the ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... at her through his fishy eyes for a moment in silence, then there broke from his lips a peal of mirthless, uncanny laughter. ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... what was wrong with him. A deadly evenness. That's why I read him here. The noise of this place breaks the rhythm. He's tolerable here.' Soames took up the book and glanced through the pages. He laughed. Soames' laugh was a short, single and mirthless sound from the throat, unaccompanied by any movement of the face or brightening of the eyes. 'What a period!' he uttered, laying the book down. And 'What a country!' ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... her flit down the aisle, saw her jump up the little ladder onto the stage, watched her vanish into the swirl of the dance. He reached for a cigarette, opened his case, and found it empty. He uttered a mirthless, Byronic laugh. The thing seemed ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... the river side, where many thousands were congregated, the air was thick with the vermilion dust. From the water's edge up the steps to the palaces and temples and houses at the top, the terraces swarmed with thousands of people, and the talk and mirthless laughter rose and fell like the continuous clamour from ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... surprise, yes? You carry your meddling outside of your newspaper work, eh? I leave behind me an old wife in the morning and in the evening, presto! I find a young bride. Wonderful!—but wonderful!" He laughed an unmusical and mirthless laugh. ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... that he was obliged to sit down on the sofa, where Madeleine fanned him with a sheet of music. He had been seized by a kind of paroxysm, and laughed on and on, in a mirthless way, till Avery Hill said suddenly and angrily: "Stop laughing at once, Heinz! ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... she remained standing for some time as motionless as though she were a marble statue and not a living woman. Suddenly she seemed to take some desperate resolve: she threw back her head with a bitter, mirthless laugh, and going to the bell she rang it. Her maid ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... and dark and natty. His lips were drawn back in a peculiar mirthless grin as Smithers teetered stupidly back and forth ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... as mirthless as the cackle of a guinea hen. "But I 'm going to die hard, believe me! And if I go down, if they think they can throw me on that, I 'm going to take a few of my ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... with a mirthless attempt at laughter, and a quick breath. "Not that I've been a—a—mountebank, a variety actor—a clown, you know, for the amusement of the lowest, at twenty-five cents a ticket. That I'm 'Johnny Walker,' the song and dance ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... McKeith ceased from his mirthless laughing and his sarcastic bluff. He leaned forward, facing Harris with his hands on the paper which he had laid on the table before him. He picked up the other's ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... length, took the hapless Tapster aback, and frightened him a little. He had felt so sure that once he had made up his own mind she would eagerly say "Yes!" Often, during the last few days, he had told himself, with a kind of mirthless chuckle, that he was not going to be "caught"; but when, at last, he had made up his mind that Bubbles would make him, if not an ideal, then a very suitable, wife, it seemed strange indeed that she was not eager to "nail ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... slain with Love the slayer lies; Deep drown'd are both in the same sunless pool. Up from its depths that mirror thundering skies Bubbles the wan mirth of the mirthless Fool. ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... He laughed—a short, mirthless laugh—and pushed his hair from his brow. It was a strange thing that he should dream of confiding his story to this bit of a girl, yet never before had he known such an impulse ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... just what was wrong with him. A deadly evenness. That's why I read him here. The noise of this place breaks the rhythm. He's tolerable here." Soames took up the book and glanced through the pages. He laughed. Soames's laugh was a short, single, and mirthless sound from the throat, unaccompanied by any movement of the face or brightening of the eyes. "What a period!" he uttered, laying the book down. And, "What a country!" ...
— Enoch Soames - A Memory of the Eighteen-nineties • Max Beerbohm
... satisfy Rhes and his face cracked into a mirthless smile. "They would think that, those junkmen. Can't move a meter outside their own walls without an armor-plated machine as big as a barn. What did ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... significant that neither man made any move toward shaking hands, although it was obvious that they were acquainted, at least. The great detective's tone when he greeted his visitor was as distinctly ironical as the latter's was uneasy, although he replied with a mirthless chuckle, which was intended to be ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... fingers, and pinned on her hat. The voices still went on below, monotonous, endless; the rasping of Rudolph's throat, irritated by cheap cigarets, the sound of glasses on the table, once a laugh, guttural and mirthless. It was ten o'clock when she knew, by the pushing back of their chairs, that they were preparing to depart. ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... entirely vanished, and all the while that his gaze never wavered from the Judge's face his eyes narrowed and his lips grew thinner and thinner. The confused lack of understanding was gone, too, at last, from his eyes. He even smiled once, a fleeting, mirthless smile that tugged at the corners of his wide mouth. For the moment he had forgotten the circle of peering faces. The room was ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... fat face in the clock could only speak as well as goggle its eyes!" he said, with a mirthless smile. "We should learn something then. What's the idea of it all—the rolling eyes, the moon, the stars, and a verse as lugubrious as a Presbyterian sermon on infant damnation. The ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... room and closed the door. The heavy six-shooter in his hand was at his hip, the long barrel horizontal, the big muzzle gaping forebodingly into Maison's face. There was a cold, mirthless grin on Sanderson's face, but it seemed to Maison that the grin was the ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the older citizens looked doubtful, and spoke of the rigours of the winter; but John laughed, and Charles smiled his strange, mirthless smile, and all declared themselves fearless and ready to face whatever might be in store. Come what might, they would go to the help of the settlers, be the Assembly ever so dilatory ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... her malevolently. Again she shuddered. She tried to force her unwilling feet onward toward the cave, when from its depths issued an uncanny sound that was neither brute nor human, a weird sound that was akin to mirthless laughter. ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... in her seat and laughed aloud, a mirthless, half-hysterical laugh. "That popgun!" she exclaimed. "What earthly good would it do other than to infuriate any beast of prey you might happen to hit ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... ill in my life, so I have no idea how the role of invalid would suit me," she answered with a mirthless laugh, thinking how very pleasant a stroll in the woods would have been after her long, hard day of ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... in advance of her friend, and never turned her head nor spoke, until the door of her boudoir had shut them in; then she turned and faced her companion, uttering as she did so a low mirthless laugh. ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... dry, mirthless laugh, he greeted Dan with forced effusiveness, urging him to take a chair, declaring that he hardly knew him, that he thought he was at Gordon's Mills fishing. Then he entered at once into a glowing description of the splendid prayer meeting they had held that evening, in the ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... Varcek gave a small mirthless laugh. "Oh, Colonel Rand would be no more interested than I would be in his pistols," he objected, then turned to Rand. "It is a series of experiments having to do with the chemical nature of life," he said. Another perfunctory chuckle. "No, I am not trying ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... puzzlement, surprise, and understanding. At times a passion wrote itself on the face of the Indian, and a sympathy on the face of La Flitche. Again, by look and gesture, St. Vincent was referred to, and once a sober, mirthless laugh shaped ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... when the black mass had packed itself in solid phalanges about that ring, inside which, just a year ago, he had stood in very different circumstances, and was at length still, a wintry smile played for a moment about his lips. He laughed a mirthless laugh. ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... Catherine de Medicis' favourite son. Tavannes, waiting respectfully two paces behind the King, could catch little that was said; but Charles, something more, it seemed, for on a sudden he laughed, a violent, mirthless laugh. And he clapped Rambouillet ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... to be said, Baltimore," says she, after a slight pause. "This must never occur again. I like you, you know that. I——" she breaks off abruptly, and suddenly gives way to a sort of mirthless laughter. "It is a farce!" she says. "Consider my feeling anything. And so virtuous a thing, too, as remorse! Well, as one lives, one learns. If I had seen the light for the first time in the middle of the dark ages, I should probably have ended my days ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... completed and De Launay turned to her with a deep bow. The maire, puzzled at the utterly emotionless quality of this wedding, congratulated them formally, and Solange acknowledged it with stiff thanks and a smile as stiff and mirthless. But it was to De Launay that the official showed the deepest respect, and ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... and patted his tie reassuringly, while Aunt Kate nearly doubled herself, so heartily did she enjoy the joke. The smile soon faded from Aunt Julia's face and her mirthless eyes were directed towards her nephew's face. After a pause ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... you mean," answered George with a mirthless smile. "We have tried before—and failed, and now we are obliged to confess that we are beaten for good and all. However let us reason this thing out. The 'Red Rover' couldn't have disappeared, it could have gone only by being towed away. ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... retorted Louis with a hard, dry, mirthless laugh. "Know they—what for—you come?" He pointed to the Indians, who understood not a word of our talk; and we walked a ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... laugh it was, quite cold, quite mirthless, apparently quite meaningless. Carraby turned back to the letter, tore open the envelope and spread it out before them. He read it out aloud in ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... must seem long to you," she said with meaning. Now he laughed —a laugh sodden and mirthless. He was thinking of his boyhood. Everything, save one or two spots all fire or all darkness, was dim ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... diabolical!" a stout, elderly man said in slow, measured tones, as if he were reading his own funeral service. "It must be the devil! The devil! Ha!" and burying his face in his hands, he indulged in a loud fit of mirthless laughter. ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... mirthless laugh, "there's one thing: according to the Scriptures, it is as hard for the rich man to get into heaven as it is for the poor men to ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... yours, a prettier nose, my dear Kitty, but stupider and more inflexible. All the same, I was troubled until I saw her laugh,—and then I knew she was a counterfeit. I had never seen you laugh, but I knew that you would not laugh like that. It was not boisterous; indeed, it was consciously refined,—mirthless, meaningless. In short, it was not the laugh of one whom our friends in there"—pointing to the Simon painting—"would honour ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... thet's him, all right." The deputy gave vent to a short, mirthless laugh. "Oh, I rapped him with the butt; had ter do it. He'd got hold ov a club somwhar, an' wus goin' ter give yer another. It will be a while, I reckon, 'fore he takes much interest. What'll I ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... Hain't got 'nough o' fightin' yit, I reckon," and the speaker strode forward, with a rough, mirthless laugh. "Wal, damn 'em, they will yere 'fore I 'm done. We 're a goin' ter rush thet thar house 'fore long, an' hang 'bout a dozen Yanks, an' these yere lads will come in right handy ter go in first. If you uns like fightin' so durn well we'll give ye your bellies ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... "Brave?" Then a short laugh broke from her—a despairing, mocking, mirthless expression of anger. "By God, do you add effrontery to your other failings? Dare you bid me be calm and brave in such an hour? Have I been warning you fruitlessly these twelve months past, that, after disregarding me and deriding my warnings, you should bid me be calm now that ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... noisily,—then, receiving no answer, he flung himself down on the vacant couch of roses, and gathering up a handful of the crumpled flowers, kissed them passionately,—"The witch has flown!" he said, laughing again that mirthless, stupid laugh as he spoke—"She doth love to tantalize me thus! ... Tell me! what dost thou think of her? Is she not a peerless moon of womanhood? ... doth she not eclipse all known or imaginable beauty? ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... off the hollow, mirthless laugh dodge on me," I said, "because it won't do. You're a blackguard, ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... said nonchalantly. "Fact is, on my way out of the country, I thought I'd pay a farewell call on my good friend, Wade. I'm real sorry he ain't here—and then again I'm not. I'll—I'll leave my visiting card for him, anyhow." He chuckled, a nasty, throaty, mirthless chuckle that sent chills up and down the girl's spine. "Say, what's the matter with giving me that kiss now? There's nobody around to ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... he repeated with a mirthless laugh. "Don't you suppose I ought to know? I want to get out of bullet range every time I'm shot at. And—if anybody ever turns coward, I prefer that it should be trooper Ormond, not trooper Berkley. And that is the ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... from her pocket and flung them on the table. A couple would have rolled on to the floor, but Rofflash grabbed them in time. Sally burst into one of her hard, mirthless laughs. ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... that it had not been properly developed and that she needed to study. She thanked me for my counsel and said she would rewrite it. I wish it might be printed just as it was, however, for it is indeed a sodden and mirthless world in ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... were shooting you up, they knew my arsenal would get into action. They figured on killing me the first shot. But they didn't," added the captain with a mirthless grin. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers • Frank Gee Patchin
... has happened to me," he said with a hard, mirthless laugh, "for out of the most perfect beauty I have only succeeded in ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... hair and beard were tangled and unkempt. I passed the time of day and he answered me civilly enough, although vacantly; and I saw that his eye had the red film of the drunkard. When I asked him for Quirk, the schoolmaster, who used to live thereabout he gave a mirthless chuckle. ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... these possibilities, Conscience broke the silence. She even smiled in a mirthless fashion—and the man ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... meeting you the other day," said Dunlavey after he had become seated. He smiled with his lips, his eyes glittering again. "I'll say that we got acquainted then. There ain't no need for us to shake hands now." He showed his teeth in a mirthless grin. "I didn't know you then, but I know you now. You're ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... was but one equal to Harleston, and that one was lost to her. She shut her lips tightly and a far-away look came into her eyes. And now Harleston, too, was lost to her; and—she lifted her hands resignedly, and laughed a mirthless laugh. As she came back to reality, she met Marston's curiously courteous glance with a ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... mirthless, mocking laugh. It is astonishing, sometimes, how deeply a man may be hurt through his vanity. Rosemary had turned away, and he called ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... himself, but in a strangely mirthless fashion, and, afraid to trust himself, went up on deck and brooded savagely apart. Nor did he come down to breakfast until the skipper ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... shrewd young man, sir," said Mr. Sparling, with a mirthless smile. "However, these guilty men must be found and punished. You think their first efforts will be ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... a white cameo against a grey velvet pall, grinned like a mask of mirthless death, as slowly he raised one clenched fist and shook it weakly until it fell back with a dull thud, useless, against ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... in the high cracked voice rang from the bare walls and bare floors as he tossed the scalps from him, and sat down, laughing silently in painful, mirthless fashion, his toothless jaw quivering, and his shaking hands groping for the ...
— His "Day In Court" - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... come!" its mirthless accents rallied him. "Have you no welcome for me?—you, who have been permitted to live the quarter of a century without making my acquaintance? Surely, now, it's high time we were learning something of one another, you and I!" ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... clamoured in my breast, For mirthless laughter, and I laughed; In mine the phantom's cold hand pressed A cup, and in self's spite I quaffed. It clung like slime; 'twas black like ink: Death is less bitter ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... building chorus went on, strident and mirthless under the grey-white sky. But the thrushes, hunting amongst the fresh-turned earth for ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... again unheard. At this moment while I stood hesitating, he raised his voice, and his words, reaching my ears, riveted my attention, so strange and eerie were both they and his tone. 'They say there is ill-luck in thirteen,' he muttered. 'Thirteen Valois and last!' He paused to laugh a wicked, mirthless laugh. 'Ay,—Thirteenth! And it is thirteen years since I entered Paris, a crowned King! There were Quelus and Maugiron and St. Megrin and I—and he, I remember. Ah, those days, those nights! I ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... queried, and laughed the brief, mirthless laugh of the man who knows. "And he says he's from Belfast! Man, I could cut that Kerry brogue with a ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... a smile—mirthless enough, God knows—but he looked at me menacingly. "That's my business," he said. An air of indomitable resolution came and went upon his face like a vain and passing shadow. Next moment he looked a dear good boy in trouble, as ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... shocking statement Sir Norman looked helplessly round, as if for relief; and Miranda, after a moment's silence, broke into another mirthless laugh. ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... all well," said the doctor, facing Rainey, his face away from the girl. As he spoke he left his mouth open for a moment, his tongue showing between his white teeth, in a grin that was as mocking as that of a wolf, mirthless, ruthless, triumphant. And for a fleeting second ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... feet running rapidly around the roof, and an occasional soft thud. Each thud was accompanied by a grunt or two from Jim. Flannigan was grimly silent. Once there was a smart rap, an oath from the policeman, and a mirthless chuckle from Jim. The chuckle ended in a crash, however, and I turned. Jim was lying on his back on the roof, and Flannigan was wiping his ear with a towel. Jim sat up and ran ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of the chance visitor he had exclaimed, "Not Burkhardt after all!" With which he burst into a wild laugh, the shrill mirthless laugh of a man suddenly freed of a terrible fear. However, as he returned the gun-belt to its place, his hand shook so that he pawed all around the nail on which ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... was thumping fast and his attempt to laugh at his nervousness sounded hollow and mirthless. Something inside or outside the bubble had driven two men insane with its threat and now that he was irrevocably exiled in the bubble, himself, he could no longer dismiss their fear as products of their ...
— The Nothing Equation • Tom Godwin
... might watch, observant and unobserved, the much talked-of debut of Gorla Mustelford, and the writing of a new chapter in the history of the fait accompli. Around him he noticed an incessant undercurrent of jangling laughter, an unending give-and-take of meaningless mirthless jest and catchword. He had noticed the same thing in streets and public places since his arrival in London, a noisy, empty interchange of chaff and laughter that he had been at a loss to account for. The Londoner is not well adapted ...
— When William Came • Saki
... most dangerous man in Europe; a man who had done murder and worse; a man only in name, a demon in nature. His long black eyes half-closed, his perfectly chiselled ivory face expressionless, and his blood-red lips parted in a mirthless smile, Antony Ferrara watched Cairn—Cairn whom he had sought to murder ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... laughter somehow rang jarringly in Joan's ears. But she was used to violent men who expressed mirth over mirthless jokes. ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... he felt, was beginning to be a bit thick. He smiled a bitter, mirthless smile as he recalled the fact that less than half an hour had elapsed since he had expressed a regret that he did not belong to the ranks of those who do things. Fate since then had certainly supplied him with jobs ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... Then he tensed. Brent had meant it as a rather mirthless joke. But Joe was astonished at what his own brain made of it. He thought it over. Then he said, "Why not? It ought to ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... and Lynda bent across the dog at her knee and put her hand on the arm of the chair. She was frightened, aroused. Truedale saw this and laughed a dry, mirthless laugh. ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... said with a mirthless grin, "You're a prisoner. And you're goin' to stay here until the cops let Dimitri Mirov go. It's up to you ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... slightly, his body rigid, his chin thrusting, his face pale, his eyes burning with a sudden fierce fire. Once he opened his lips to speak, but instantly closed them again, and a smile wreathed them—a mirthless smile that had in it a certain cold caution and cunning. After a silence that lasted long his voice came again, drawling, well-controlled, revealing nothing of the emotion ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... mouse," retorted Sidcup, with a mirthless smile. "All right. I was afraid you wouldn't accept my offer; but there it is. You've played the ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... without feeling or resentment and speaking slowly, "yes, I'm an 'ign'rant, savage, stupid brute,'" deliberately accenting each word as he repeated the stinging phrase, "—but—what's the use?" he finished with a mirthless laugh. "Anyhow," he added, glancing again at the cat and Skinny's futile efforts to catch it, "I ain't interferin' this time, at least, ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... now, where formerly he had seen a blank wall, he saw an open door! Passing this, he discovered himself in the cave of the golden dragon. Ho-Pin, dressed in a perfectly fitting morning coat and its usual accompaniments, received him with a mirthless smile. ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... be dead then," says she, with a rather mirthless laugh this time. "Do you know that you and Aunt Jane are the only two people in all ...
— A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... flushed at the disagreeable ring of it. The sound was not loud but flat and mirthless, the syllables distinct and evenly spaced. His white even teeth remained tight-closed and showed in flashing contrast to his swarthy face and black mustache. Morrow's face wore none of the active malignancy that stamps the features ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... a mirthless laugh the doctor turned on his heel, removing, when unobserved, his spectacles and wiping the moisture from them and ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... staggered him. Her meek acceptance of her lot sickened him. Why didn't she fly—she and her man—away to green fields and fresh air, away from this plague-ridden, dismal city? The suggestion brought from her a peal of mirthless laughter. Later he arrived at the truth. These people suffered from the greatest disease of all—The Fear of Living. Their hearts were rotten. They lived and died, rooted to some few acres of mud and muck because they feared what lay beyond. Like children ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... He laughed his brief, mirthless laugh, the assent of his egoism. But his satisfaction had nothing personal in it. He was pleased because justice, abstract justice, had been done. But she suspected his sincerity. He did things for you, not because he liked you, but for some other reason; and ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... Judge, looking up, saw—what no one else in the court had seen—that the Colonel was sincere and in earnest; that what he had conceived to be the pleader's most perfect acting and most elaborate irony were the deep, serious, mirthless CONVICTIONS of a man without the least sense of humor. There was the respect of this conviction in the Judge's voice as he said to him gently, "You may ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... missed the key, not even tried the door. But this brief summary of her guilty folly angered him for the moment only. He was suddenly tired, and his foot did ache outrageously. He gave way to the pain of it, and limped heavily. As he neared the house, however, his face did relax into a mirthless smile. There were tracks under the kitchen window. She had hoped to get in that way and had found the window fastened. And all the time there was the door, ready for a confident hand. But the ill chance of it amused him for not much more than ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... have slow music," began Gertie. "It's pathetic. I came to Chicago from Beloit, Wisconsin, because I thought that little town was a lonesome hole for a vivacious creature like me. Lonesome! Listen while I laugh a low mirthless laugh. I didn't know anything about the three-ply, double-barreled, extra heavy brand of lonesomeness that a big town like this can deal out. Talk about your desert wastes! They're sociable and snug compared to this. I know three-fourths of the people in Beloit, Wisconsin, ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... sit I, As Philomela (on a thorn, Turned out of nature's livery), Mirthless, alone, and all forlorn: Only she sings not, while my sorrows can Breathe forth such notes as fit a ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... she meant it, I suppose, yet as I looked at her, where she sat beyond the bowl of jonquils, in one of her old Paris gowns, which she had told me she was wearing out, I broke into a short, mirthless laugh. She held her head high, with its wreath of plaits that made a charming frame for her arched black eyebrows and her full red mouth. On her bare throat, round and white as a marble column, there was an old-fashioned necklace of wrought gold, which had belonged to some ancestress, ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... mirthless laugh he followed his men, who were bearing away the Heir-to-Empire, still but ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... at him with something that was not a smile, rather the faint, mirthless echo of a smile, in the corners of ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... porch, while through the gaily-lighted dormer-window of the coffee-room sounds of laughter, of calls for "Sally" and for beer, of tapping of mugs, and clinking of dice, mingled with Sir Percy Blakeney's inane and mirthless laugh. Chauvelin stood beside her, his shrewd, pale, yellow eyes fixed on the pretty face, which looked so sweet and childlike in this ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... the children, not understanding, laughed in mirthless glee; the men, with loud curses, showed their appreciation of ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... of that almost festive temper, that glad relish of life, which, if we may believe the poets, used to characterize the English village of old times. Tested by that standard of happiness, it is a low-spirited, mirthless, and all but silent population that we have here now. Of public and exuberant enjoyment there is nothing whatever. And yet, subdued though they may be, the cottagers usually manage to keep in tolerable spirits. A woman made me smile the other day. I had seen her husband ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... going too fast and too far," answered the other with his mirthless laugh. "Now, there's Mr. ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... light, yet deliberate stride of an athlete without passion or bravado. Conscious power, inexorable will, and thorough self-command were stamped upon him from crown to foot, and his salutation to the small family party accompanied a smile as mirthless and cold as ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... achievements of George Eliot. Some romances of this school are vivid and highly finished pictures of human misery, unredeemed by hope, and hardly brightened by occasional gleams of humour, of the sardonic sort which may stir a mirthless smile, but never a laugh. Herein they are far inferior to their model, whose melancholy philosophy is half hidden from her readers by the delightful freshness and truth of her "Dutch painter's" portraying of ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... fixed, breathless gaze of those wonderful eyes from the other side of the table, and he, too, broke off in the middle of his sentence. He breathed heavily, as though he had been running. His large, coarse lips drew wider apart. Slowly a mirthless and very unpleasant smile dawned ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... laugh at us for being worried," suggested Bart, with an attempt at a laugh that was rather mirthless. "Maybe he's ...
— Frank Roscoe's Secret • Allen Chapman
... different than a golem. You see golems doing things like knitting their brows, starting back in alarm, looking askance, and standing arms akimbo. And they have things like pursed lips and knowing glances and mirthless laughter. You know: all the things you read about, that real people never do. But now that you're here, I've got somebody to talk to. I did get lonesome, I admit. I'll show you where I stay and we'll fix ...
— It Could Be Anything • John Keith Laumer
... been fighting the desert; and in the serene calm of his eyes was the identical indomitability that had been in them when he had set forth. As he peered westward the strong lines around his mouth relaxed, his lips opened a trifle, and a mirthless smile wreathed them. He patted the shoulder of the black horse, and the dead dust ballooned from the animal's coat and floated ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... asked some awfully clever questions," she said, and there was a mirthless laugh in her voice. "People are saying in the city, too, that you've got something up your sleeve, and that presently, when the right time comes, you will confound them all. But, oh, Paul, Paul, my poor boy, my dear boy! I've ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... masculine neophytes, he picked himself up and came back, savagely confident in his humiliation. She tried to guide his first toddling ski-steps, but he was mad all through and would have his own way. With a set and mirthless smile, again and again he gave himself to the slope and the mercy of his insurgent legs, and at length, bearing heavily on his trail-pole, managed to reach ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... Gourlay screamed with wild laughter, and, laughing, eyed with mirthless merriment the look of horror with which Janet was regarding her. "Ha, ha, ha!" she screamed, "it's to be a clean sweep o' the Gourlays! Ha, ha, ha! it's to be a clean sweep ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... like contagion. People flee from it," she added with a mirthless laugh, and opened ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... steps of the rostrum, and striking the frail captive a powerful blow across the face, which felled her to the floor, placed his foot upon her prostrate form and turning toward the assembled council broke into peals of horrid, mirthless laughter. ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... not from the stranger you met once. Ah, Yet a goodlier scene than that succeeds; People on a lawn—quite a crowd of them. Yes, And they chatter and ramble as fancy leads; And they say, "Hurrah!" To a blithe speech made; save one, mirthless, Who ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... laughed their silent, mirthless laugh. By this time Mr. Pike was beside himself with a rage that could find no ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... such a mission." Longorio again bent his brilliant eyes upon Alaire. "I see that you are concerned for his safety. You would not desire him to come to trouble, eh? He has done you favors; he is your friend, as I am. Well"—a mirthless smile exposed his splendid white teeth—"we must think of that. Now I ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... unfriendly, unresponsive, mirthless smile, as was his wont when he was in the presence of people ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... had written it, that they might at least strike one blow for freedom, took it with a virtuous shudder from the hands of their daughters. I was pronounced unwholesome and depraved; even my personal character was torn into shreds. How odd it all seems!" she added, with a light, mirthless laugh. "It was you who put into their hands the weapon with which to scourge me. Their trim, self-satisfied little sentences of condemnation are emasculated versions of your judgment. It is you whom I have to thank for ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the flickering logs. "I should think you would know," she answered wearily. Then, with a mirthless laugh, she spread both hands toward the blaze. "I'm looking ahead—I can see it all there in the fire." Her fingers convulsively clenched themselves until blue marks showed against ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... mysterious air-shaft kept a parrot. It woke Kedzie early in the morning with hysterical laughter that pierced the ears like steel saws. There was something uncannily real but hideously mirthless in its Ha-ha-ha! It would gurgle with thick-tongued idiocy: "Polly? Polly? Polly ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... man, and was Aurora's most devoted slave, and the girl played upon his big, affectionate heart, with no object but to awaken in Done a sparkle of the recent fire. One night Aurora danced with him through a lively reel, and at its conclusion, in a spirit of mirthless mischief, put up her red mouth to be kissed. Not for all the powers of good and evil would Tim have foregone that delight. He kissed her, but this time Done offered no objection. Indeed, he gave no indication of having seen what was passing, although in reality he had been watching ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... "Time?" A mirthless laugh responded to the caution. "It don't need time. Anyway time's not calculated to make it easier. It's all right before me now, set out as only the fiend-spawn of Bell River can set it out." His tone deepened and he spoke more rapidly. "We got that call in the evening. An ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... him in a slogan of triumph and as if in echoing mockery there came from the open door the chuckling, mirthless ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... suspected. When several of the guests of the evening soberly announced that Mohammed was a dangerous man and even an object of worry to the government she felt a strange catch in her throat and her now mirthless eyes turned instinctively to Brewster, who, it seemed, was the ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... crazy—I don't know what I want," said Helena petulantly. Her chin went into her hands, and she stared wide-eyed at the breaking surf. "I wonder what it all means?" she murmured, with a mirthless little laugh. ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... some more of these cayuses. I'd like to have them all tied up here for a while. I've got a few things to say to them. They'd have to listen whether they wanted to or not if they were all in the same fix that fellow is," he added with a short, mirthless laugh. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... from the other side. For fully a minute after the door had closed, Fitzpatrick continued to lean forward, the snarl on his lips, the evil light in his eyes. Then he fell back heavily, with a harsh, mirthless cackle. ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... after a moment's thought, "I'm glad, mighty glad, I came here when I did." He gave a short mirthless laugh. "I doubt if my satisfaction is inspired by any moral scruple," he added hastily, as the other nodded. "Say, can you understand how I feel when I say I believe all moral scruple has somehow decayed, rotted, died in me? I don't mean that ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... all end like a fairy story," she declares, trying to laugh, but it is such a poor, mirthless sound. ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... have you?" said the Frank, with a mirthless laugh. "Just as if you hadn't done enough already in the way of meddling with my affairs. Go! and may I never see your face again. You will make haste and begone if you're wise. My uncle will be back in ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... a slower stroke, and then, as they watch the great savage creatures which swim alongside, they laugh in the mirthless manner peculiar to most native-born Australians, for suddenly, with a last sharp spurt of vapour, the killers dive and disappear into the dark blue beneath; for they have heard the whales, and, as is their custom, have gone ahead of the boat, rushing swiftly on below fully fifty fathoms deep. ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... that, I'll keep my mouth shut," chuckled Hank in his mirthless way; "but if I don't get some money pretty quick, I'm going to make trouble fer ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... Raikes with a mirthless grin. "I am to accept the brief custody of this gem as a recognition of my personal integrity. I see, I see. Well, I would appreciate the courtesy more if I could indorse its incaution. However," he added abruptly, "why did you end that extraordinary tale so inconclusively? ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... pleasant drugs that keep you from thinking. I only remembered now and then, when I saw Lessie's photograph hanging on the wall of my quarters, and the portrait she had set in the back of my sovereign-case, that she and me were husband and wife." He gives a mirthless laugh. "It makes so little impression on a fellow's mind somehow, to mooch into a Registrar's office with a woman and answer a question or two put by a fat, middle-aged duffer who's smiling himself into creases, and give ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... if not knowing how to finish, and with a gesture of hopelessness turned away to stand silently looking back toward the town, while his face was dark with painful memories, and his lips curved in that mirthless, self-mocking smile. ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... quite possible that they intend to give us several bites later on," Pedro suggested, with a mirthless smile. ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... words fell from the judge's lips—words that branded De Ganache with unutterable infamy—the miserable man looked around him like an animal at bay; and then, a madness coming upon him, he broke out into peal after peal of harsh, mirthless laughter—laughter that seemed to come from the grave and beyond; and, laughing thus, they led him away. When he was gone De Mouchy pointed to Ferrieres as ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... A fleeting contortion, like mirthless ridicule, touched her lips as she saw him, with head lowered, cut more savagely into the piece of wood. She noticed, ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... the tone of her voice, for as she walked she sang a low, monotonous song, as if unconsciously. Lillian watched her keenly, marking the aimless motions of the little hands, the apathy of the lovely face, and the mirthless accent of the voice; but most of all the vacant fixture of the great dark eyes. Around and around she went, with an elastic step and a mechanical regularity wearisome ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... he said, simply. "When I first saw you to -night at the door I could not believe that the author who had provided me with so much merriment could be so pale and worn and seemingly mirthless. Pardon me, Mr. Thurlow, for my lack of consideration when I told you that you did not appear as I had expected to ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... harsh, mirthless laugh. "And for goodness' sake, what do they think of your set? You force me to say this, Dick. There is not a person in this city who has not heard of you ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... a low, chuckling laugh, mirthless and almost cruel, as she surveyed Editha's cloaked figure and then the ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... what you're talkin' about." Sarah paused to laugh in mirthless discordance. "Watch for the babies to come. They come faster ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... these three rooms you choose?" she asked, revealing her teeth in one of those rapid smiles which were mirthless as the eternal ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... had laughed—that same peculiar mirthless little laugh—when he drove past her and splashed her with mud on the road. "It never seems to occur to you that I may have some little wants of my own, Dan," she said; "you ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... Polka Saloon glared fiercely at the newcomers, who, needless to say, returned their hostile stares. The chances of war, judging from past performances, far outnumbered those of peace. But as often happens in affairs of this kind when neither side is unprepared, the desire for gun-play gave way to mirthless laughter, and, presently, the hilarious crowd from the rival camp, turning abruptly on their heels, betook themselves en ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... enthusiasm that cold cash in the pocket does. We'll pull through all right." He ate for a while in silence. Then: "This Mrs. Dumont must be an uncommon woman." A few more mouthfuls and with his small, icy, mirthless laugh, he added: "I've got one something like her at home. I ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... found any supper party so noisy, so mirthless, and so endless. Half the time he didn't know what he was saying to Winifred Stuart or to anybody else. Nor could he seem to see anybody very distinctly, for the mental phantoms of Athalie and Captain Dane floated persistently ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... situation was humiliating, Gunga Dass, indeed, when he had banked the embers of his fire with sand, was at some pains to throw half a cupful of fetid water over my head, an attention for which I could have fallen on my knees and thanked him, but he was laughing all the while in the same mirthless, wheezy key that greeted me on my first attempt to force the shoals. And so, in a semi-comatose condition, I lay till noon. Then, being only a man after all, I felt hungry, and intimated as much to Gunga Dass, whom I had begun to regard as my natural protector. Following the impulse of the outer ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling |
