"Mirthless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at 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 a ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... 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
... 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 ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... as she 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
... and laughed again her caustic, mirthless laugh. "No! My acquaintance with Brennerstadt is of a less amusing nature. When I go there, I merely go to be ill, and as soon as I am partially recovered, I come back—to this." There was inexpressible bitterness in her voice. "Some day," she said, '"I ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... a strange, mirthless tone, while there is a smile on her dry lips. "You must care for him so much that he cannot help loving you. Oh, my darling, the only joy of all this dreary world ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... 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 Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... impressed me—or rather made me pause. But sanity asserting its sway at once I left the verandah after giving him a mirthless smile. In a few strides I found myself in the dining room, now cleared and empty. But during that short time various thoughts occurred to me, such as: that Giles had been making fun of me, expecting ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... you 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
... went to Dartmoor," 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
... everything. Told her, without swearing once, how, when at school in the old country, he fought the schoolmaster and leathered him well. A pure lie, but an old favourite of Dad's, and one that never failed to make Joe laugh. He laughed now. And such a laugh!—a loud, mirthless, merciless noise. No one else joined in, though Miss Ribbone smiled a little. When Joe recovered ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... with her at Bellegarde, telling of Perion's captivity.... Melicent," the Jew said, "I make no songs, no protestations, no phrases. My deeds must speak for me. Concede that I have laboured tirelessly." He paused, his gaze lifted, and his lips smiled. His eyes stayed mirthless. "This mad Callistion's hate of you, and of the Demetrios who had abandoned her, was my first stepping-stone. By my advice a tiny wire was fastened very tightly around the fetlock of a certain horse, between the foot and ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... boy 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 of those uncontrolled desperadoes ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... cannot afford to leave the house, for my work is my sole means of support, and—well, you see, since this change I cannot even write. They are horrible, these mirthless tales I now write, with their mockery of laughter, their diabolical suggestion. Horrible? I shall go ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... 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 ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... 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, I suppose? ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... Ah, that was it. She remembered now. She had broken down his prejudice; she had partially won him over; she had been the "hit" of the evening; further conquests were in sight and within easy reach if she played her cards right. And Essie Tisdale—her long upper lip stretched in its mirthless smile—she would not have her feelings this morning for ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... their silent, mirthless laugh. By this time Mr. Pike was beside himself with a rage that could ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... 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 London ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... little 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
... 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 ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... with a laugh of ribald coquetry, turned to answer him. "You yourself never loved. You never love!" On this the other women joined, and such a mirthless, hard, soulless laughter rang through the room that it almost made me faint to hear. It seemed like ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... instant sense and nerve returned, and he stood. He turned even, and made as if he would re-ascend the staircase. But he had no sooner thrust his head into it, and paused an instant to listen ere he ventured, than a faint echo of the same mirthless laughter reached him, and he turned shuddering, and fled—fled out of the room, out of the house, out of the light, to the same spot under the trees whence he had started with so bold a heart a ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... 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
... been supporting his head slowly clenched, he raised himself 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 which had previously ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Florence. Her answer came out quietly. She looked full into Franks's cold grey eyes, and burst into a mirthless laugh. ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... laughed. It was a dry, mirthless sort of laugh. "Looks like the Negroes are getting all the latest notions of progress, too. I must have put the ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... 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 ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a new phase 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
... rope 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
... 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
... time broke in, wilful and impetuous, was the voice of Monsieur, the King's brother, 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
... I am concerned,"—she said, with a little mirthless laugh—"Only I think you behaved very oddly this afternoon. Do you really mean that you object to Bridge on Sundays, or was ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... 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
... to what he says and then we kill him," Gebk said with a mirthless grin. The remark wasn't meant to be humorous, but was made in all seriousness. Brion recognized this and knew that there was no danger for the present moment. He slid the gun away, and for the first time ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... he called. "I fired five shots, but I saved one for myself. Ha, ha, ha!" And his mirthless ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... 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. ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... from one to the other. And suddenly he smiled once more. It was queer, that smile. It was not quite mirthless. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... he replied, gazing steadily at her 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, with ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... us for being worried," suggested Bart, with an attempt at a laugh that was rather mirthless. "Maybe he's night-fishing, ...
— Frank Roscoe's Secret • Allen Chapman
... 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 they tell ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... the hollow, mirthless laugh dodge on me," I said, "because it won't do. You're a blackguard, and ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... Almayer, looking round with a mirthless smile. "Sorry can do no better. And you can't hang him, either. As you observe, gentlemen," he added gravely, "there is no ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... 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 ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... be 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 ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... Was it consciousness of this being the second time during the evening that she had employed the too common vaunt of the woman of that particular world? Did some ironic echo reach her of that same boast (often as mirthless and as pitiful as the painted smile on the cruder face), the 'I'm afraid I'm rather frivolous' of the well-to-do woman, whose frivolity—invaluable ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... on 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
... puzzling timidity in Archie's make-up. The thing that held his shoulders stiff, that made him resort to a mirthless little laugh when he was talking to dull people, that made him sometimes stumble over rugs and carpets, had its counterpart in his mind. He had not the courage to be an honest thinker. He could comfort himself by evasions ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... bent closer over his work, with a gathering frown upon his forehead. A mirthless laugh is never ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... laugh was 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 friends along ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... mirthless smile. His eyes glowed with the fire that always blazed up in them when he thought too intensely of Horace Gower and the past, or of Gower's various shifts to defeat him in what he undertook. He had anticipated this move. He was angrily determined that Gower should not get one ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Betty's eyes in the flickering glare of the candle light, were steady and unwavering as she vainly searched for any sign of emotion in the mask-like features of the man seated before her. She saw the mask break presently, and a cold, mirthless smile wreathe his lips. ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer |
