"Merry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... arm-chair). Give us a song! Brackenburg sings so good a second. You used to be merry once, and I had always ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... set of sun My humble taskwork will be done; And through the twilight street Come back to view my jewels, when Pattering through the throng of men Go merry schoolboys' feet." ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... the day, the Sun thou welcom'st then, Sport'st in the gilt plaits of his beams, And all these merry days mak'st merry ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... merry men had ample reason for being a mite nervous just then. Their country was in the midst of its spring revolution. The Madero family had just been thinned out pretty extensively, and it was not certain yet whether the Diaz faction or the Huerta faction, ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... Simon, pushing the door open with his foot—" come, we will go up on the platform. You can take your ball along and play, and I advise you to be right merry to-day, for it is a holiday for the republic, and I am going to teach you to be a good republican. So if you want to keep your back free from my straps, be jolly to-day, and play with ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... merry-minded man, and he laughed. "It is pretty hard for me to answer that question," said he; "suppose you go in and find ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... were to proceed to the West Indies without delay. This was an unexpected shock to many of the officers as well as himself, as they had left some of their clothes behind; however, there was no remedy for this mishap. As for myself, I anticipated a merry meeting with the many copper-coloured dignity ladies I formerly knew, provided the land-crabs had not feasted on ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... of the afternoon I made the next discovery. I heard first the choking cough of a big motor-car in the country road, and a moment later it stopped at our gate. I thought I saw the Vedders exchanging significant glances. A number of merry young people tumbled out, and an especially pretty girl of about twenty ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... you think I'm going to take another crack at this merry-go-round and pile a fourth hangover on the three I'm already nursing, all at once, you can ...
— Unborn Tomorrow • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... "Nancy" were making merry in the kitchen, the parlour bell rang violently, and Laker disappeared ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... Government cannot fail to reward with a bit of red ribbon so disinterested, so philanthropic a devotion. "The Cross, on the 15th of August." With these magic words Jenkins will obtain everything he desires. In his merry, guttural voice, which seems always as though it were hailing a boat in a fog, ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... king of the island; which was a doubt with me. Paowang took little or no notice of him. I made him a present, after which he immediately went away, as if he got all he came for. His name was Geogy, and they gave him the title of Areeke. He was very old, but had a merry open countenance. He wore round his waist a broad red-and-white chequered belt, the materials and manufacture of which seemed the same as that of Otaheite cloth; but this was hardly a mark of distinction. He had with him a son, not less than forty-five ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... extinguishing the little boy. Through the general recriminations that ensued, the culprit cried with shrill rapture, 'Lady Gladys never pillow-fought! Lady Gladys was a little lady and never did anything!' The merry eyes shamelessly invited Miss Levering to mock at Dampney's former charges. But the visitor detached herself from Miss Sara, and wishing apparently to ingratiate herself with the offended majesty of the nurse, Miss Levering said gravely over her shoulder, 'Now, lie down, Sara, and be a good ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... the way you want to go, sonny," pointing down one of the streets, as he spoke, and then whistling a merry tune as he trudged ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... tell about his wedding, a merry twinkle shone in his eyes: "Lawdy, Missie, dis ole Nigger nebber married 'til long atter de War. Us sho' did cut up jack. Us wuz too old to have any chillun, but us wuz so gay, us went to evvy dance 'til 'bout six years ago. She died den, an' lef' ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... promised to wait upon her, and allow your daughter Maggie to sleep on a pallet by her bed, while I am gone. I cannot tell you how grateful I shall be for any kindness you may show her, and I wish you would send the baby often to her room, as he is so sweet and cunning, and his merry ways amuse her." ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... and a gorgeous procession entered. First, appeared a dozen pages; then, in walked the Sea King's second daughter, hand in hand with a merry young man, in whom the sailor recognized ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... and gables and old wooden houses in Gloucester came a thousand merry voices singing the old Christmas rhymes—all the old songs that ever I heard of, and some that I don't know, like ...
— The Tailor of Gloucester • Beatrix Potter
... unhappy owner! It disdained to bleed in a cubicle, or any such convenient place, but delighted in taking advantage of the most awkward and humiliating opportunities. It bled regularly at Frolics, when she wore her best clothes, and wished to be merry; it bled in the ante-room of the Examination Hall, so that she went in to tackle the mathematical paper with three pennies and two separate keys poked down her back; it bled at the critical part of a game or when she went out to tea, or ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... steps he observed that awnings covered the adjacent carriage-block, and that some young people, all in party dress, were entering—a merry, chattering group—whereas the Pratt mansion towered gloomily, unlighted, unalluring ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... me laugh; it's naughty, I know. But they used to go out a good deal. I have seen them in those clothes so often. One of them wanted to marry me. He used to go out a great deal"—this with another merry peal ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the above-mentioned signs of enjoyment, talkings and haw-haws, runnings upstairs and runnings down, a slamming of doors and a clinking of cups and glasses; till the proudest adjoining tenant without friends on his own side of the partition might have been tempted to wish for entrance to that merry dwelling, if only to know the cause of these fluctuations of hilarity, and to see if the guests were really so numerous, and the observations so ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... one very merry fellow here, a Quaker, whose name was William Walters, whom we took out of a sloop bound from Pennsylvania to Barbados. He was a surgeon, and they called him doctor; but he was not employed in the sloop as a surgeon, but ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... people from church were coming away; And Andrew with horror heard this song. As the smiling sinners flockt along;— "Long life to the Bishops, hurrah! hurrah! "For a week of work and a Sunday of play "Make the poor man's life run merry away." ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... lips and the dimpling chin. The contours are delicate yet firm; a face of haunting appeal—a face in which tears can be seldom but the sprightly rain of April, and the smile, when it melts the sensitive lips, will yet warn that hearts are made to ache and here is one not all too merry in its gladness. It is the face of one of our famous screen beauties, and we know, even from this tinted half-tone, that the fame has ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... surrounded by a pack of malignant and greedy nobles, who begrudged him his fame, his authority, his independence; without a home, and almost without a friend, the Most Christian King in these latter days led hardly as merry a life as when fighting years long for his crown, at the head of his Gascon chivalry, the beloved ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... or tone to another, are contrary to the genius of the beautiful in music. Such transitions often excite mirth, or other sudden or tumultuous passions; but not that sinking, that melting, that languor, which is the characteristical effect of the beautiful as it regards every sense. (I ne'er am merry when I hear sweet music.—Shakspeare.) The passion excited by beauty is in fact nearer to a species of melancholy, than to jollity and mirth. I do not here mean to confine music to any one species of notes, or ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... himself with his usual dignity, "he skreeked" (says the quaint chronicler), "he cried, he sprang, and would be carried no further; wherefore they bore him into the inn, and there he abode the Sunday all day. But on the Monday he was borne to his mother's car, he being then merry and full of cheer, and so they came to Kingston, and rested that night. On Tuesday, Queen Katherine brought him to Kennington, on Wednesday to London, and with glad semblance and merry cheer, on his mother's barm [lap] in the car, ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... and in the late summer after cultivation of the crops was complete it was the custom for a number of them to give a large barbecue for their combined groups of slaves, at which huge quantities of beef and pork were served and the care-free hours given over to dancing and general merry-making. "Uncle Dock" recalls that his master, Dan Wilborn, who was a good-natured man of large stature, derived much pleasure in playing his "fiddle" and that often in the early summer evenings he would walk down to the slave quarters with his violin remarking that he would supply the music ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... had sunk from sight in the sea of silver splendor rolling from the round, full orb. Again the roadway down the hill lay like a web of fine linen, bleaching upon an emerald meadow. Again the clear waters of the Miami rippled in softly merry music over the white limestone of their shallow bed. Again the river, winding through the pleasant valley, framed in gently rising hill-sides, appeared as great silver ribbon, decorating a mass of heavily-embroidered green velvet. Again ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... we slept inside our tents, as close together as we could pack, the only warmth we could obtain being from the spirit lamps we carried, which served also to warm up our cocoa and cook our food. I was not sorry when the journey was over, though we were merry enough during it. At length we got out of harbour, but we had still not a few dangers to encounter. Sometimes we were nearly driven on shore by the floes of ice pressing on us; at others we ran a great risk of being nipped by getting between two floes ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... only by the blazing logs upon the hearth, the glow of which glanced along the walls and drew brilliant reflections from the brightly-scoured dishes and other utensils of metal, which stood ranged upon the shelves. We were quite a party, and had made merry, according to our fashion, during the day. Uncle Richard was himself the most conspicuous of the group. I have said that he was well-to-do, and he was certainly a gentleman in spirit and bearing. The black dress ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... the iron stairway and told me to mount: he following me to the summit, where there was a platform and an iron door. The door opened as we arrived before it, and there standing by it I found the young doctor, who greeted me very heartily and appeared to be altogether in a merry mood. ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... Sleepyhead, we know them all. "The young woman whose name was Dull" taxes our patience every day. Where is the town which does not contain Mrs. Timorous and her coterie of gossips, Mrs. Bats-eyes, Mrs. Inconsiderate, Mrs. Lightmind, and Mrs. Knownothing, "all as merry as the maids," with that pretty fellow Mr. Lechery at the house of Madam Wanton, that "admirably well-bred gentlewoman"? Where shall we find more lifelike portraits than those of Madam Bubble, a "tall, ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... busy ship for the rest of that day. The anchor down, sails furled and decks swept, the rest of the time was our own, and high jinks were the result. The islanders were amiability personified, merry as children, nor did I see or hear one quarrelsome individual among them. While we were greedily devouring the delicious fruit, which was piled on deck in mountainous quantities, they encouraged us, telling us that the trees ashore were breaking down under their ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... infelicity," he declared, "had befallen young Master Bligh, once the hopeful heir of his parents and of the lands of Botathen. Whereas he had been from childhood a blithe and merry boy, 'the gladness,' like Isaac of old, of his father's age, he had suddenly of late become morose and silent—nay, even austere and stern—dwelling apart, always solemn, often in tears. The lad had at first ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... on the occasion of these visits to make merry in a temperate way. Victor was never averse to such doings for there was French blood in his veins. He could sing a song, and most of his ditties were either of the old days of the Red River Valley, or dealt with the early settlers round the Citadel of Quebec. Amongst the accomplishments which he ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... to hers. Then leaning over, he began to measure his face upon her face, starting with the forehead, and being very particular when he got to the long eyelashes, then coming down past the nose. They were very silly and merry about the measuring of the noses. The noses would not fit the one upon the other, not being flat enough. He began to indulge ...
— A Cathedral Singer • James Lane Allen
... been allowed for, there remain certain books of Stevenson's of an extraordinary and peculiar merit, books which can hardly be classed as imitations or arabesques,—Kidnapped, Weir of Hermiston, The Merry Men. These books seem at first blush to have every element of greatness, except spontaneity. The only trouble is, ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... laugh—the sound of a voice he knew—that seemed to have pierced him as with a rifle-ball; and at the same moment from the green shimmer of foliage in the balcony there stepped into the glare of the hall a young girl with life, and laughter, and a merry carelessness in her face and eyes. She threw her arms around her mother's neck and kissed her. She bowed to the legal person. She flung her garden hat on to a couch, and got up on a chair to get fresh seed put in for her canary. It was all done so simply, and naturally, and gracefully ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... to one of the much exhorted maids that she owed this glimpse of what was then a rallying ground for the jesters and merry Andrews, and possibly even a troop of strolling players, frowned upon by the Puritan as children of Satan, but still secretly enjoyed by the lighter minded among them. But the burden of the time pressed more ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... how did I know that Juliana's merry childishness would not ripen into sweet, cheerful womanliness? Her father, for all I knew to the contrary, might be the model of what a retired sea-captain should be; with possibly a snug little sum safely invested somewhere. And Juliana was his only child. What ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... Through glistening green Gleams a merry, festive scene; Trees, with candles burning bright, Wake in children's hearts delight. Where such peace and comfort reign, None observes the window-pane, Where your wan face sadly peers Through a mist of falling tears At a joy you never know, ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... going off to Bohemia. Suppose he were to join her? He did not trouble himself about desertion: he had got his papers all right, and desertion was not a crime for which one could be extradited. Austria was a big place and a merry; so the countess asserted. And there was ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... dunoir a noircir to blacke mens shooes then to carie the braine of him that can not walke, can not ryde except the Tabacco Pype be in his mouth." He goes on to say that he was once in company with an English merchant in Normandy—"betweene Rowen and New-haven"—who was a merry fellow, but was constantly wanting a coal to kindle his tobacco. "The Frenchman wondered and ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... no one she dared confess her ignorance to and ask information from. Jeremiah Foster had spoken as if her child, sweet little merry Bella, with a loving word and a kiss for every one, was to suffer heavily for the just and true words her wronged and indignant mother had spoken. Alice always spoke as if there were no hope for her; and blamed her, nevertheless, for not using the means of ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... would receive the visits of the Marchese Ludovico; evidently by reason of the unavoidable intimacy of his uncle in the house. And Ludovico reported to them all at the Circolo that she was a most charming woman indeed—full of talent, merry as a young girl, companionable, and fond of society, but wholly devoted to her art, and quite inaccessible in the way of love-making. He assured the jeunesse doree of Ravenna that they lost nothing in any such point of view by their exclusion from her intimacy, for that all their enterprises in ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... merry Sphinx, And crouched no more in stone; She melted, into purple cloud, She silvered in the moon; She spired into a yellow flame; She flowered in blossoms red; She flowed into a foaming wave; She stood ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... apparently, been a very merry meeting, young gentlemen," he at length said; "but I fear my presence has cast a damp ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... who he may, tremble and lose heart. He made use, also, of this device: Monna Lisa being very beautiful, he always employed, while he was painting her portrait, persons to play or sing, and jesters, who might make her remain merry, in order to take away that melancholy which painters are often wont to give to the portraits that they paint. And in this work of Leonardo's there was a smile so pleasing, that it was a thing more divine than human to behold; and it ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... a crust, and bid one bow down to the ikons while she would sing: 'In conception Thou dost abide a Virgin . . . !' On holidays she will give one a bite, and on working days she will reproach one for it. But nowadays I will make merry over her! I will make as merry as I please, ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... hair, sparse and unkempt of growth, was as indeterminate and colorless as his complexion. It would seem that all the color of his frame had gone into his eyes, for they were startlingly blue. Also, they were laughing and merry eyes, within them much of the naivete and wonder of the child; and yet, in an unassertive way, they contained much of calm self-reliance and strength of purpose founded upon self-experience and experience of ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... enough food to sustain Lilama, and the women servants, for from six to eight days. Within twenty minutes of the time Peters had suggested to Pym the danger of freezing to be apprehended, Lilama and her maids were safely placed in the cellar, and were making merry over their strange surroundings and attire. Then Pym and Peters hastened from the house, to see what could ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... in the windows, pictures on the walls, and toys and fine carpets on the tables, for all the world like the house I was in this day—only a storey higher, and with balconies all about like the King’s palace; and to live there without care and make merry with ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... are merry brides. 2. Washington is styled the "Father of his Country." 3. He was a stark mosstrooping Scot. 4. The man seemed an incarnate demon. 5. Henry ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... that men in masses like to be handled roughly; for this lesson was greeted with merry applause, after which silence appeared ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... while. "Fate! a damnable fate which did it all. Great God! to think of Blakeney in the hands of those brutes seems so horrible that at times I feel as if the whole thing were a nightmare, and that the next moment we shall both wake hearing his merry voice echoing through ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... word unto the wise," Morgante said, "Is wont to be enough, and you shall see How much I grieve about my brethren dead; And if the will of God seem good to me, Just, as you tell me, 'tis in Heaven obeyed— Ashes to ashes,—merry let us be! I will cut off the hands from both their trunks, And carry ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... last, the principal actors in the shameful ceremony, Kurt, surrounded by his retainers, and the Lord of Rheinstein with the luckless Gerda. The mellow tones of the bell of St. Clement mingled sweetly with the sound of the flute and the pipe and the merry voices of the wedding throng. Gerda, mounted upon her spirited Limousin steed, the gift of Kuno, shuddered as she felt Kurt's eyes resting upon her, and she cast a despairing glance at the tower of Kuno's castle, where, disconsolate and heavy of heart, he watched the bridal procession ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... him publicly as a liar. Upon this, the superior had a fresh attack of convulsions, and as all present knew that these attacks usually indicated that the performance was about to end, they withdrew, making very merry over a devil who knew neither Hebrew nor Gaelic, and whose smattering of Latin was ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - URBAIN GRANDIER—1634 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... very little stuffing, and without great change of character. Early in the war he belonged to an Eastern regiment, but on that occasion he had no commission, though this fact was not generally known. Nearly as large as Hackett's Falstaff, he was as much a gascon as the hero of the Merry Wives of Windsor. He differed from Falstaff in possessing a goodly amount of bravery, but this bravery was accompanied with an entire absence ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... to admit that it contains sufficient "ghosts" to satisfy the most greedy ghost-hunter. A couple of months ago the present writer paid a visit to this castle, and was shown all over it one morning by the mistress of the house, who, under the nom de plume of "Andrew Merry" has published novels dealing with Irish life, and has also contributed articles on the ghostly phenomena of her house to the Occult Review ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... looking up at the tinselled dancers and poor old rouged tumblers, while the light-fingered folk are operating upon their pockets behind. Yes, this is VANITY FAIR; not a moral place certainly; nor a merry one, though very noisy. Look at the faces of the actors and buffoons when they come off from their business; and Tom Fool washing the paint off his cheeks before he sits down to dinner with his wife and the little Jack Puddings behind the canvas. The curtain will be up presently, and ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... London, then—rushing from concert to concert, and opera to opera—from severe classicism to the most miscellaneous omnium gatherum—from solemn ecclesiastical harmonic assemblages to the chanting of merry glees, and the warbling of sentimental ballads. Let us, then, contemplate a little closer the different kinds of concerts—their features and their character—their performers and their auditories. Our sketch must be very hurried and very vague, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... vineyards and their olives. Yes, and every morning when they come out, they can look up and see the thin wreath of smoke going up in the dazzling blue, and they know that some time or other there will be a roar and a rush, and down will come the lava. But 'a short life and a merry one' is the creed of a good many of us, though we do not like to confess it. Some of you will remember the strange way in which ordinary habits survived in prisons in the dreadful times of the French Revolution, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... for following this precept himself and, with one eye significantly cast upon the jury, is likely to lead his witness a merry dance until the latter is finally "bogged" in a quagmire of absurdities. Not long ago, shortly after the publication of his book, the lawyer had occasion to cross-examine a modest-looking young woman as to ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... so much altered by the depressing influence of his long imprisonment that, had I not known it was he who spoke, I should scarcely have recognised it, so sad was it, and so unlike to the merry, cheerful voice we had been accustomed to hear. I pondered this much, and thought of the terrible decline of happiness that may come on human beings in so short a time; how bright the sunshine in the sky at one time, and in a ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... visit her without scruple, and did not forget to make use of every opportunity of serving themselves. Madame de Lu——- had set them the example. The Doctor laughed at this change in affairs, and was very merry at the expense of the saints. "You must allow, however, that they are consistent," said I, "and may be sincere." "Yes," said he; "but then they should ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... at Jamestown held a merry garrison, the Governor having impressed upon royalty across the sea the importance of troops in a land where unexpected rebellions against authority might succeed the partially triumphant uprising against Sir William in 1676. Bacon's death in the October of that year ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... Shallow tells Anne Page that his cousin Slender will maintain her as a gentlewoman: "He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure."—The Merry Wives ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... bold Turpin." Another class of highwaymen had long before them been also attracted by the fine manoeuvring facilities of the heath, beginning with the army of the Caesars and ending with that of James II. Jonathan Wild and his merry men were saints to Kirke ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... advances are repulsed and his generosity is eyed with suspicion. He is a stranger—the Stranger.[161] Evening falls, and the angelus rings. Some work-girls come trooping out of their workshop, singing a merry folk-song.[162] One of the young girls, Vita, goes up to the Stranger and speaks to him, for she alone, of all the village, is his friend. The two feel themselves drawn together by a secret sympathy. Vita confides artlessly in the unknown ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... the villagers most was a May-pole, with long ribbons, about which ballet girls, undisguised as Highlanders, danced, and wound and unwound the party-colored streamers, to the merry fiddle, and then danced reels upon a platform, then returned to their little tent: but out again and danced hornpipes undisguised as ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... as they chose, your order has been observed hitherto. Experience has shown that the carrying of this measure farther means the ruin of the country; for since the Indian sees that he can pay his tribute with ten reals, which he makes in one day's gain, all the rest of the year he makes merry and spends his time in idleness and leisure, drunkenness and magabalijas, which are his sources of income. Therefore they do not sow their fields, raise animals, or weave their cloth, or cultivate the fruits of the earth. On this account ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair
... I know the greatness of my rewards—so far beyond what I deserve. The constant sympathy, encouragement, and approbation of John can make everything easy to me; and these I trust I shall always have; these will keep me young and merry, so do not distress yourself about me, my own dear Mama, and believe me ever ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... you to like him," Nikitin said. "He's a splendid man ... I have known him many years. He is merry and simple and it is easy to laugh at him, but it is always easy to laugh at the best people. You must like him, 'Mr.'... He likes ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... lad am I, On sky-lark wings my moments fly; There's not a Fowler more renown'd In all the world—for ten miles round! Ah! who like me can spread the net? Or tune the merry flageolet? ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... glistening cottonwoods among the tall, rank swale-grass and rough-leaved yellow-weed, the picnic party came to a halt and the merry children swarmed down over the wagon wheels, eager to begin their day's frolic beside ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... her heart deemed a great many of the definitions quite superfluous; but she had strong faith in her teacher, and when the technical was laid aside for the real, then, indeed, "her foot was on her native heath, and her name was MacGregor." A wild and merry chase she led her grave instructor. Morning, noon, or night, she was always ready. Under the blue sky, breathing the pure air, treading the green turf familiar from her infancy, she could not be otherwise than happy; but when was superadded to this the companionship of a mind ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... that they age quicker. A trouble which would pass lightly over a man, leaves an indelible mark on a woman, both physically and mentally, and the terrible episode of Whyte's murder had changed Madge from a bright and merry girl into a grave and beautiful woman. Sorrow is a potent enchantress. Once she touches the heart, life can never be quite the same again. We never more surrender ourselves entirely to pleasure; and often we find so many of the things we have longed ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... She lies. France has been the centre of European mind for centuries. France was the first of the large states to sweep away the feudal despotism. France has a small debt and an immense army; while England has a vast debt and scanty forces. France has five millions of kindly, merry, well-fed yeomen. England swarms with dark and withered artisans. Every seventh person you meet in France is a landowner in fee, subject to moderate taxation. Taxes and tenancies-at-will have cleared out the yeomanry of England. France has a literature surpassing England's modern literature. ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... merry, much more so were their Squires. Joyfully they discovered each other, and agreed to meet together in the tent of the faithful De Fistycuff. Right jovial was the meeting, and huge the amount of the viands they ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... impression than Lewis intended. Lord Howard, who accompanied him back to Amiens, told him in confidence that, if he were so disposed it would not be impossible to persuade Edward to take a journey with him to Paris, where they might make merry together. Lewis pretended at first not to hear the offer; but on Howard's repeating it, he expressed his concern that his wars with the duke of Burgundy would not permit him to attend his royal guest, and do him ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... the following morning, the firing of cannon, which announced Christmas-day, awoke Madelaine from her agitated sleep. At the same time all the church-bells rang a merry peal. Madelaine alone was awake; but as she looked around upon her wretched companions, she felt all the misery of her situation—she thought again of her mother and brother—of their anguish on her account—and falling upon her knees, she poured out all her grief to her Father in heaven, and felt ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick
... of wild and woodland country. Indeed, he has both described it and named it. 'Where will the old Duke live?' says Oliver in As You Like It. 'They say he is already in the forest of Arden,' says Charles the wrestler, 'and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England. They say many young gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world.' That is Shakespeare's Arcadia; and who that has read As You ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... ended by making merry with the Tarasconese songs, and when they rested a moment on a solid block to let their monsieur get his breath, they yodelled in the Swiss way, though not too loudly, for fear of avalanches, nor very long, for time was getting on. They knew the coming ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... tea time, as she sat with a group of merry idlers on the piazza. She read it—frowned. With an exclamation of annoyance she summoned a boy, and wrote ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... always suspected, however, that there should be a semicolon after "Ver," and that "Merry springtime's harbinger, with her bells dim," refers to a totally different flower—the snowdrop, to wit. And I have lately learnt from Dr. Grosart, who has carefully examined the 1634 edition (the only early one), that the text actually gives ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... sword-cut. The Egyptians, in spite of their fatalistic creed, manifested profound depression. The English soldiers were moody and ill-tempered. Even the light-hearted Soudanese lost their spirits; their merry grins were seen no longer; their laughter and their drums were stilled. Only the British officers preserved a stony cheerfulness, and ceaselessly endeavoured by energy and example to sustain the courage of their men. Yet they suffered most of all. Their education had developed their imaginations; ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... Benedicite! Our bird makes merry his dull bars with song, Yet would not penitential psalms accord More fitly with ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... naked, and 'repeat the following verses' to a ring of laughing girls and amid all such comfits and delicates as a hungry audience may rejoice to hear enumerated. And the intrigue begins, and therewith the presentment of character, the portraiture of manners. Merry ladies make love to their gallants with flowers, or scorn them with the huckle-bones of shame; the Mother Coles of Araby pursue the unwary stranger for their mistress' pleasure; damsels resembling the full moon carouse with genial merchants or inquiring calenders. The beast of burden, ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... Come to breakfast! Little ones and all,— How their merry footsteps Patter at the call! Break the bread; pour freely Milk that cream-like flows; A blessing on their appetites And on their ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... enquired Scott. You know turkeys do not settle down like immigrants in one spot, and wait till we inhabitants of the plains come out and shoot them. Was it last week, or only the day before yesterday that you saw them?" There was a very merry twinkle in his eye as he went on with this banter. Marie affected ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... Mouse was having a most merry time. Mrs. Mouse made a great fuss over him. And that was ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... diary of July 14 of that year he writes, "To Epsom, by eight o'clock, to the well; where much company. And to the towne to the King's Head; and hear that my Lord Buckhurst and Nelly (Gwynne) are lodged at the next house, and Sir Charles Sedley with them: and keep a merry house." This house, next to the "King's Head," is still standing. A little further along the street is the large red-brick building known to-day as Waterloo House. It was built about the year 1680, and was then known as the New Inn. The old banqueting-hall ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... to avenge your shame." "It is evident that we have dined," says Kay, with his ever-ready speech; "there are more words in a pot full of wine than in a whole barrel of beer. [38] They say that a cat is merry when full. After dinner no one stirs, but each one is ready to slay Noradin, [39] and you will take vengeance on Forre! Are your saddle-cloths ready stuffed, and your iron greaves polished, and your banners unfurled? Come now, in God's name, my lord Yvain, is it to-night ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... happy, merry person if ever there was one in this world. She wants all the happiness you ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... eyes and glossy dark hair shrouded by lace mantillas; the dashing equestrians exhibiting all the gay paraphernalia of a Mexican horseman; stately vehicles drawn by two snow-white mules; tally-ho coaches conveying merry parties of American or English people; youthful aristocrats bestriding Lilliputian horses, followed by liveried servants; while here and there a mounted policeman in fancy uniform moves slowly by. In the line of pedestrians ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... merry just then, but she had some experience of Rose's powers of soothing, and signed assent. So in another second Colonel Keith was met in the hasty, agonized walk by which he was endeavouring to work off his agitation, and the slender child looked wistfully up at ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... No. 2 were to stay in the trench for over-head fire purposes, and, if necessary, to help repel a probably counter-attack by the enemy. Dalton was very merry, and hadn't the least fear or misgiving as to his safety, because Jim would be with him through ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... so to speak, well matched. She, of course, was the better looking of the two, a really pretty and attractive young woman indeed, but the vivacity of Anscombe's face, the twinkle of his merry blue eyes and its general refinement made up for what he lacked—regularity of feature. I think he had just told her one of his good stories which he always managed to make so humorous by a trick of pleasing and harmless exaggeration, ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... them; but there was a quality in the sighing and rustling about her that seemed to give voices to the ghostly fingers that touched her, and to support her courage as well as to warn Sancho of her coming, she thrilled forth a merry little ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... around her, and, with all gentleness, some of them lifted her up and carried her down towards the brook, while the others danced about her, and jumped over her, and hung on to long fern leaves, and scrambled among the bushes, and were as merry as ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... they looked exceedingly handsome. They caused the moon to rise over their city every night even out of his season. And friends and relatives gave themselves up to joy and merriment with happy hearts. Eat, feed, give, make merry, sing, drink—these were the sounds heard everyday in every house. And here and there arose loud uproars of hilarity mixed with clappings of hands which filled the whole city of the Daityas, who being capable of assuming any form ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... real ecclesiastical Saturnalia of a most innocent and joyous description. All Amalfi spent the remaining hours of day-light in feasting, dancing and singing, and when at last darkness fell upon the merry scene, rockets and Roman candles were seen to spring into the night air from many points in the landscape, illumining the sea with quickly dying trails of coloured light. Watching the bonfires and the fireworks, and listening to the sounds of revelry and song arising from the town below, we ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... were the kind of thing that Germans wear on their summer walking tours—long shooting capes made of a green stuff they call loden. I bought one, and a green felt hat and an alpenstock to keep it company. Then wishing the old woman and her belongings a merry Christmas, I departed and took the shortest cut out of the village. There were one or two people about now, but they did not ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... His great delight was in solid conversation; he would leave his work to talk with the schoolmaster Murdoch; and Robert, when he came home late at night, not only turned aside rebuke but kept his father two hours beside the fire by the charm of his merry and vigorous talk. Nothing is more characteristic of the class in general, and William Burnes in particular, than the pains he took to get proper schooling for his boys, and, when that was no longer possible, the sense and resolution with which he set himself to supply the deficiency ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... perpetual reminder of the daughter she had lost. To the doctor, on the contrary, it seemed that the little girl had taken her mother's place, and sometimes, when he was with her alone, he would give way to a loud and merry laugh, which would be quickly silenced on meeting his wife's sad eyes, full of ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... the upmost boughs of the wood, and made a fire over my head in the autumnal foliage. A little faint vapour lay among the slim tree-stems in the bottom of the hollow; and from farther up I heard from time to time an outburst of gross laughter, as though clowns were making merry in the bush. There was something about the atmosphere that brought all sights and sounds home to one with a singular purity, so that I felt as if my senses had been washed with water. After I had crossed the little zone of mist, the path began to remount the hill; and just as I, mounting ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sarira (physical body) and found my Master identical with the form I had seen in the earlier days of my Chelaship. Thus, I saw my beloved Guru not only as a living man, but actually as a young one in comparison with some other Sadhus of the blessed company, only far kinder, and not above a merry remark and conversation at times. Thus on the second day of my arrival, after the meal hour, I was permitted to hold an intercourse for over an hour with my Master. Asked by him smilingly what it was that made me look at him so perplexed, I asked ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... the Cornish Poet, or the Rymer, was born in Cornwall, and bred in Oxford and Paris, where he attained to a good proficiency in Learning, being of great fame and estimation in his time, out of whose Rymes for merry England as Cambden calls them, he quotes several passages in that most excellent Book of his Remains. It hapned one Henry of Normandy, chief Poet to our Henry the Third, had traduced Cornwall, as an inconsiderable Country, cast out by Nature in contempt ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... The tragedy of the scene was gone, Lestrange's eyes laughed at her out of a mist. The sky was blue, the sunshine golden; the merry crowds commencing to pour in woke carnival in ...
— The Flying Mercury • Eleanor M. Ingram
... family crossed the well-known bridge at the end of the village, those bells, which had sounded so mournfully, which had been muffled when they quitted their home, now rang out a merry triumphant peal—and it was rung by the hands of the very same persons who had formerly given that proof of attachment to him in his adversity.—Emotion as strong now seized Mr. Percy's heart. At the same spot he jumped out of the carriage, and by the same path along which he had hastened to stop ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... speak more physiologically, in the average TEMPO of the assimilation of its nutriment. There are honestly meant translations, which, as involuntary vulgarizations, are almost falsifications of the original, merely because its lively and merry TEMPO (which overleaps and obviates all dangers in word and expression) could not also be rendered. A German is almost incapacitated for PRESTO in his language; consequently also, as may be reasonably inferred, for many of ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... created knight bachelor. To her, Lady Hilda Tregellis and Lady Le Breton were both 'ladies of title'; and the difference between their positions, which seemed so immense to Ernest, seemed nothing at all to the merry little country girl who sat sketching beside him. After all, how could she ever have even vaguely fancied that such a young man as Ernest, in spite of all his socialistic whims, would ever dream of caring for a girl ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... than I can say, and they are perfect dears, most of the people who entertain us;—so gay and merry and kind;—and we are growing quite accustomed to the voices and the odd grammar and phrasing. At first you get a singing in your head from the noise of a room full of people speaking. They simply scream, and it makes a peculiar echo, as ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... know. I know men, dear old thing, and father is going to raise a merry little hell about us. He's the sort who wants to choose his son's wife for him. He'd like to play Providence." She watched him, smiling, but with slightly narrowed eyes. "I rather think he has somebody in mind for ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... least alluring in reality. Humanly tolerant of those masculine weaknesses he shared, he had erected mentally a pinnacle of virtue upon which he exacted that a frailer being should maintain an equilibrium. A pretty woman, it was true, might go at a merry pace provided she was not related to him, but he required that both his mother and his aunt should be above suspicion. In earlier days he had had several affairs of sentiment with ladies to whom he declined to bow if he ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... did the same. I think I have never seen a more handsome lad in all my life (for he looked no more, though he was near thirty years old). His face was as smooth as a girl's, though not at all effeminate; he had a high and merry look with him, and bore himself, with his two friends, like a prince; he had violet eyes and arched brows over them. It is piteous to me now to think of his end, and that it was against his uncle by blood (whom I was to see presently) that he rebelled later, and by his uncle that he was ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... have never read over this Life since it was written, so that I know not exactly what it may repeat or contain. Moore and I passed some merry ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... more doubtfully, and the boy who had been studying Nature seated himself sidewise on a seat below, drawing his feet up and clasping his hands about his knees. He was a good-looking, merry-faced chap of seventeen, with dark-brown eyes, a short nose liberally freckled under the tan and a rather prominent chin with a deep dimple in it. His position revealed a full ten inches of the startling ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... himself occupying the place of Zeus, holding in his hand the lightnings of heaven, flitted through the minister's mind. He smiled faintly. Elizabeth evidently caught what was in the young man's mind, for she met his glance with a merry twinkle. ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... gave way to merry laughter, and again did her lady of the bedchamber administer a reproof by expressing the hope that she might take the matter ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... those bright mornings in spring, that bring joy and life to the heart, and diffuse gladness and animation through all the tribes of living creatures. Our feelings were in perfect harmony with the universal gladness of nature. Even now I seem to hear the merry laugh of my little sister, as she followed me through the winding alleys of the garden, her cheek suffused with the glow of health and animation, and her waving hair floating in ...
— Anecdotes for Boys • Harvey Newcomb
... parting shot was a merry laugh. Both girls skipped blithely along the path and were soon out of sight where the roadway ran behind the ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... the hill are more real to me than things that happened yesterday, but I do not know that I can make them live to others. A ghost-show used to come yearly to Thrums on the merry Muckle Friday, in which the illusion was contrived by hanging a glass between the onlookers and the stage. I cannot deny that the comings and goings of the ghost were highly diverting, yet the farmer of T'nowhead only laughed because he had paid his money at the hole in the door ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... summer, when the shawes be shene, And leaves be large and long, It is full merry in fair forest To hear the fowles' song. The wood-wele sang, and wolde not cease, Sitting upon the spray; So loud, it wakened Robin Hood In the ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... Half-an-hour of merry-making, light chatter, enlivened by the popping of corks, and clinking of glasses; then ten minutes of converse more serious; after which hurried graspings of the hand and a general scattering towards the shore-boat, which soon after moves off amid exclamations of "Adios!" and "Bueno ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... villages,"—O Sanjaya, O thou of great wisdom, let there be peace between us and our cousins. Tell him also,—"Let brothers follow brothers, let sires unite with sons. Let the Panchalas mingle with the Kurus in merry laughter. That I may see the Kurus and the Panchalas whole and sound, is what I desire. O bull of the Bharata race, with cheerful hearts let us make peace." O Sanjaya, I am equally capable of war and peace. I am prepared to acquire wealth as well as to earn ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... quickly Hath it come to this? Lo, where flowed the golden river, Yawns the black abyss! Where, oh where is my beloved, Where the wreath of flowers? Where, oh where the merry fiddler, Where those happy hours? Shall I never hear the echoes Of those songs again? Oh, on what hills are they ringing, O'er what sunny plain? May not I from out the distance Cast one backward glance On that fair and lost existence, Youth's ...
— Songs of Labor and Other Poems • Morris Rosenfeld
... of their own had risen, and they felt a sudden charm diffused over their daily life. By an inexplicable law, humour and pathos are dependent on the same constitution of mind; and in his Poems they found the very soul of mirth, the very soul of sadness, as they thought it good with him to be merry, or to remember with him, "that man was made to mourn." But besides what I have said of them, the people of Scotland hold in the world's repute—signally so—the name of a religious people. Many of them, the descendants ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... 595 Their foes at training overcome, And not enlarging territory, (As some mistaken write in Story,) Being mounted, in their best array, Upon a carr, and who but they! 600 And follow'd with a world of tall-lads, That merry ditties troll'd, and ballads, Did ride with many a good-morrow, Crying, Hey for our Town! through the Borough So when this triumph drew so nigh 605 They might particulars descry, They never saw two things ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... head now in surges of warm cheerfulness, was filling him with abandonment, courage, and a desire for merriment. He pushed himself up from the table, joined the merry throng, threw his arm about the Persian dancer, drew ...
— A Bottle of Old Wine • Richard O. Lewis
... Gambogia? I thought you would want to know that. It is because in the making of munitions at the factory from which these girls all come there are certain chemicals which have the effect of turning the skin yellow. And among these merry revellers were some thus—but, I hope and believe, only temporarily—disfigured. The cheerfulness with which they are prepared to run these risks, not to mention others more perilous but less menacing to personal vanity, is not the least of the finenesses of character which the ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... bones, for ten guineas. Thus, the men of the senses revenge themselves on the professors, and repay scorn for scorn. The first had leaped to conclusions not yet ripe, and say more than is true; the others make themselves merry with the philosopher, and weigh man by the pound.—They believe that mustard bites the tongue, that pepper is hot, friction-matches are incendiary, revolvers to be avoided, and suspenders hold up pantaloons; that there is much sentiment ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... think you are already familiar. Andy Blair was a tall, good-looking lad, with light hair and snapping blue eyes that seemed to look right through you. Yet, withal, they were merry ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes
... world, with no light but my lamp, and no sound but my own hammer within hearing, and the terrible tall spirit of the mountain came to me; I'd wager you would twist your face into some other look, and would not laugh as you do here where the merry morning sun is shining on you. Everybody can grin; but seeing is the lot of few; and still fewer can behave like men, when their eyes ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... evening was resting on the shores of Malaga, awakening the guitar of many a merry singer among the ships in the harbor, and in the city houses, and in many an ornamental garden villa. Emulating the voices of the birds, the melodious tones greeted the refreshing coolness, and ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque
... life of the old bards. After Cromwell's time, as the houses they went to grew poorer, they had added music to their verse-making; and Raftery's little fiddle helped to make him welcome in the Ireland which was, in spite of many sorrows, as merry and light-hearted up to the time of the great famine as England had been up to the time of the Puritans. 'He had no place of his own,' I am told, 'but to be walking the country. He did well to ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... in the old English ballads of the outlaw Robin Hood. According to some accounts he flourished in the second half of the twelfth century, when Henry II and Richard the Lion-hearted reigned over England. Robin Hood, with his merry men, leads an adventurous life in Sherwood Forest, engaging in feats of strength and hunting the king's tall deer. Bishops, sheriffs, and gamekeepers are his only enemies. For the common people he ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... at home; they had absconded to make merry in honour of the time. I had told them that I should not return until the morning, and had given them explicit orders not to stir from the house. These orders were sufficient, I well knew, to insure their immediate disappearance, one and all, as soon as my back ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... the door on the last word and went away whistling. Not that he was merry; as his horse started he set his teeth, smote in the spurs, and cleared the paling ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... well said by a profound critic of Shakespeare, and it occurs to me as very appropriate in this connection, that the spirit which held the woe of Lear and the tragedy of "Hamlet" would have broken had it not also had the humor of the "Merry Wives of Windsor" and the merriment ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... frivolous scene is described by Wood, when the notorious Republican, Marten, had access to the treasure stored in Westminster. Some of the wits of the period assembled in the treasury, and took out of the iron chest several of its jewels, a crown, sceptre, and robes; these they put upon the merry poet, George Withers, "who, being thus crowned and royally arrayed, first marched about the room with a stately gait, and afterwards, with a thousand ridiculous and apish actions, exposed the sacred ornaments to contempt and laughter." No doubt the "olde comb" played a suitable part in these pranks,—perhaps ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... flowers, and ears of corn. It is called the Cat of the ball-skin (le chat de peau de balle). If a reaper is wounded at his work, they make the cat lick the wound. At the close of the reaping the cat is again decked out with ribbons and ears of corn; then they dance and make merry. When the dance is over the girls solemnly strip the cat of its finery. At Grneberg, in Silesia, the reaper who cuts the last corn goes by the name of the Tom-cat. He is enveloped in rye-stalks and green withes, and is furnished with a long plaited tail. Sometimes as a companion he has a man similarly ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... "my merry men all, make up your minds what mannered men you be minded to be before you take your bounties. I want none of your rascally lurching longshore vermin, who get five pounds out of this captain, and ten out of that, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... came up the path from the village. I was sitting on a stump of pine listening to the merry peal of the bells of the little village church below. He carried a milk-can, and felt his way with a long staff, with which he tapped the stones in front of him. He hesitated for a moment as he passed me, as if vaguely conscious of a disturbing presence. We have been good friends, the blind ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... another, he found out it was Bruin the bear, and Greylegs the wolf, and Slyboots the fox, and Longears the hare who had come to keep St. John's eve under the tree. So they began to eat and drink, and be merry; and when they had done eating, they fell to gossipping together. ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... and well, thanks to the Giver of all good and the grand Institution at Buffalo. I have since married a noble-hearted young woman, and when I am playing with our sweet, healthy, baby girl, I give way to the thought that at last the long, sad chapter of my life is ended; at such times her merry laugh sounds like a song of triumph of life ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... to the dishes. Feeling now, therefore, exceedingly the worse for his praiseworthy exertions, he remained leaning disconsolately with his back against the wall long after the church-bells had struck up a merry clang, vigorously calling the Hofbauer, his men-servants and maid-servants and the strangers who were within his gates, to church. Good Kathi, however, whilst clearing away the empty glasses, looked compassionately ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... to the big waves and thought playing in the sand great fun. And she visited a merry-go-round, and took ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... wine. Then when all was set, there came trooping to the board the whole company of Earl Limours' retainers; last of all came the Earl himself and took his place on the raised dais. Suddenly, as he feasted and made merry, he espied Enid, who, mistrusting him utterly, would fain have escaped his eye. And when he saw her, he cried: "Lady, cease wasting sorrow on a dead man and come hither. Thou shalt have a seat by my side; ay, and myself, too, and my Earldom to boot." ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... subside. Soon a strange, weary expression crept over his face—the same look that comes into the face of a clown who has been hurt in a tumble and who, while wrestling with the pain, still keeps his face a-grin. Suddenly, from out of his merry, smooth-shaven face, there came a flash from his eyes so searching, so keen, so suspicious, so entirely unlike the man we knew, so foreign to his mood at the moment, that I instantly thought of the burglar peering through the painted ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... long existed between the girl and the man beside her, and at one time they had cherished a degree of affection for each other; but when the merry, high-spirited girl returned from London changed into a calculating woman, Geoffrey was bound up, mind and body, in his mine, and Millicent began to wonder whether, with her advantages, she might not do better than to marry a dalesman burdened by heavy debts. They formed a curious contrast, ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... that we could be pretty comfortable in life if it wasn't for our pleasures? Well I could get along rather well in Japan were it not for the Merry Christmases. Such a terrible longing seizes me for my loved ones and for God's country that I feel like a needle near a magnet. But next Christmas! I just go right up in the air ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... the Confederation and its woes hardly occupied the thoughts of the people at all, except as a subject for jest and ridicule. The newspapers made merry over the peregrinations of Congress. Frightened away from Philadelphia by the riotous conduct of some troops of the Pennsylvania line, who had imbibed too freely, the delegates had withdrawn first ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... names to little bills, merely for form's and friendship's sake. The Vavasour Verdant Green, with the slashed velvet doublet and point-lace fall, who (having a well-stocked purse) was among the favoured courtiers of the Merry Monarch, and who allowed that monarch in his merriness to borrow his purse, with the simple I.O.U. of "Odd's fish! you shall take mine to-morrow!" and who never (of course) saw the sun rise on the day of repayment, was but the prototype of the Verdant Greens ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... comic poet, and a minute observer of manners and circumstances, that Chaucer excels. In serious and moral poetry he is frequently languid and diffuse, but he springs like Antaeus from the earth when his subject changes to coarse satire or merry narrative' (Hallam, Mid. Ages: ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... bustle that fills the shore. They have gathered round from every quarter; already their canvas woos the breezes, and the merry sailors have garlanded the sterns. This great pain, my sister, I shall have strength to bear, as I have had strength to foresee. Yet this one thing, Anna, for love and pity's sake—for of thee alone was the traitor fain, to thee even his secret thoughts were confided, alone thou knewest his moods ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil |
