"Simper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have any fellow-feeling, these cannot fail to produce a feeling of discomfort. The disorder is catching; and do what you will you cannot resist the general infection. You struggle against it; you make spasmodic efforts to be lively; but none of your sallies or your good stories do more than raise a simper or a forced laugh: intellect and feeling are alike asphyxiated. And when, at length, yielding to your disgust, you rush away, how great is the relief when you get into the fresh air, and see the stars! How you "Thank ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... its motion, I observed that she was contemplating me with a beaming simper of indescribable suavity, and though she was of an unornamental exterior and many years my superior, I constrained myself from motives of merest politeness to do some simperings in return, since only a churlish would grudge such an economical and ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... of my colleagues, and their worldliness, too, were almost incredible. There was one who was particularly silly. He was a blond youth with greyish eyes, a mouth not quite shut, and an eternal simper upon his face. He never had an idea in his head, and never read anything except the denominational newspapers and a few well-known aids to sermonising. He was a great man at all tea- meetings, anniversaries, and parties. He was facile in public speaking, ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... perpetual surprise impinged on his countenance, and a chin that seemed to have retired from competition with the rest of his features. The beam of recognition that he had given to his friend or acquaintance subsided into a subdued but lingering simper. ...
— When William Came • Saki
... a belle there," she observed. "I'd have a train o' beaux and macaronis at my heels, I warrant you! The foppier, the more it would please me. Think, cousin—ranks of them all a-simper, ogling me through a hundred quizzing-glasses! Heigho! There's doubtless some deviltry in me, as Sir ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... by the window turned her head with a vague simper. The old man, building a small heap of chips on the hearthstone, distended his cheeks and let out his breath slowly, as though coaxing a ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... yellow calico slip, with lots of jewels (sham), an immense colour in the very middle of the cheek, but terribly chalked just about the mouth, and shouting the "Soldier tired," with a most insinuating simper at the corporal of the Foot-guards in front, who returns the compliment by a most outrageous leer between each ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... a simper. "It was no his friend at all," she observed to the young lady from the buffet, who had emerged to wave farewell to a bold, bad Engine Room Artificer after a desperate flirtation of some forty seconds' duration. "It ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... that far out-shone Henley's gilt tub,[292] or Flecknoe's Irish throne,[293] Or that where on her Curlls the public pours,[294] All-bounteous, fragrant grains and golden showers, Great Cibber sate: the proud Parnassian sneer, The conscious simper, and the jealous leer, Mix on his look: all eyes direct their rays On him, and crowds turn coxcombs as they gaze. His peers shine round him with reflected grace, New edge their dulness, and new bronze their face. 10 So from the sun's ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... you be naughty? You've been naughty the whole day through; You spoiled your white dress in the gutter, And stuck up my pictures with glue; And when in a corner I put you, And plead with you so to be good, You stared in my face with a simper, And acted so saucy and rude. I have tried so hard to be patient— For I'm sorry to punish you so; And I love you, my poor naughty Dolly, Much more than you ever can know. I hope you will think the day over; I am going to bed now—good-night. Be a good little Dolly to-morrow, And try ...
— Nestlings - A Collection of Poems • Ella Fraser Weller
... begin to take liberties, and the hard work falls on the most willing, and they then suddenly haul up, and there is six times more flogging and desertion than in a strict ship, and she soon becomes a regular hell afloat. I hate your honey-mouthed, easy-going skippers, who simper out, 'Please, my good men, have the goodness to brace round the foreyard when the ship's taken aback.' No, no—give me a man who knows how to command men. Depend on it. Duff, you'll like Captain Fleetwood ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... abruptness, though with a considerable smirk of meaning in her face, if I "knew a Mr. Patrick Delaney." I frankly admitted that I had not this pleasure; and with a still more significant smirk, ending in a very affected simper, meant to be very pleasant, she informed me, as she took her leave, that Julia would make me wiser. I looked to Julia when she was gone, and, with some chagrin, and with few words, she unravelled the difficulty. ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... up from her novel here, and turned her face towards the stranger who was passing, and then blushing turned it down again. Schnabel looked at me with a scowl, Klingenspohr with a simper, the dog with a yelp, the fat lady in blue just gave one glance, and seemed, I thought, rather well pleased. "Silence, Lischen!" said she to the dog. "Go on, darling Dorothea," she added, to her daughter, who ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... have sat here repeating The commonplace things that we said. They sounded so oddly when uttered— They sound just as odd to me now; Was it we, or our two ghosts who muttered Last evening, with simper and bow? ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... laughter!" exclaimed the critic Carlyle. "It is the cipher-key wherewith we decipher the whole man. Some men wear an everlasting barren simper; in the smile of others lies the cold glitter, as of ice; the fewest are able to laugh what can be called laughing, but only sniff and titter and snicker from the throat outward, or at least produce some whiffing, husky ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... they were the only attainable reflection of the prettiness, as because they were the only sympathizing records of the humors, of English girls and boys. Of our oil portraits of them, in which their beauty is always conceived as consisting in a fixed simper—feet not more than two inches long, and accessory grounds, pony, and groom—our sentence need not be "guarda e passa," but "passa" only. Yet one oil picture has been painted, and so far as I know, one only, representing the deeper ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... few who can withstand you," answered the dark one; his words made Folly simper, she knew not how to blush. "And if," continued Pride, "you succeed, you will make Nelly mortally offend both Duty and Affection; and to break with friends such as they are, will make ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... with odors, his raiment outglowed the rainbow; one hand dandled his staff, the other caressed his mustaches. He strove to smile adoration on Brilliana, but mistrust marred his ogle, and a shiver of fear betrayed his simper of confidence. Brilliana watched him gravely with never a word or a sign, and her silence intensified his discomfiture by the square of the distance he had yet ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... parchment, and shod at the four ends with brass. The Christ is roughly hewn in reddish wood, coloured scarlet, where the blood streams from the five wounds. Over the head an oval medallion, nailed into the cross, serves as framework to a miniature of the Madonna, softly smiling with a Correggiesque simper. The whole Crucifix is not a work of art, but such as may be found in every convent. Its date cannot be earlier than the beginning of the eighteenth century. As I held it in my hand, I thought—perhaps this has been carried to the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... artist. The painter's job is to create significant form, and not to bother about whether it will please people or shock them. Ugliness is just as irrelevant as prettiness, and the painter who goes out of his way to be ugly is being as inartistic and silly as the man who makes his angels simper. That is what is the matter with Hamilton's portrait in the big room—to take an instance at random. Hamilton has plenty of talent, and this picture is well enough, pleasant in colour and tastefully planned; but his talent would be seen to greater ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... saw the exact bearing of the black sheep's argument, they all replied with that half idiotic simper with which Ignorance seeks to conceal herself, and which Politeness substitutes for the more emphatic "pooh," or the inelegant "bosh." Then, applying themselves with renewed zest to the muffins, they put about ship, nautically speaking, and went off ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... not glum; I resented that, till Dr. John begged my pardon. Martin did not smile as quickly as Dr. John, he was not forever ready with a simper, but when he did smile it had ten times more expression. I liked to watch for it, for the light that came into his eyes now and then, breaking through his gravity as the sun breaks through the clouds ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... likeness with the bloom of nature yet fresh upon it. All her likenesses are singularly individual, and we realize their character at a glance. Look, for example, at her portrait of a Parisian swell, in irreproachable evening dress and white kid gloves, sucking his silver-headed cane, with a simper that shows all his white teeth; and then at the head and bust of a Spanish convict, painted from life at the prison in Granada. Compare that embodiment of fashionable vacuity with this face, whose brute-like eyes haunt you with their sadly stunted look. What observation is ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... importance, having a thousand arrangements to make, the squire intending to keep open house on the occasion; and as to the housemaids, you cannot look one of them in the face, but the rogue begins to colour up and simper. ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... She imitated the affected simper of a girl in such a manner that the three sportsmen yelled with delight, and Roxholm himself gnawed his lip to check an ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Paley, Arthur Murphy, Tommy Durfey, Mrs. Trimmer's little Primer, Buckram binding, touch and try— Nothing bid—who'll buy, who'll buy? Here's Colley Cibber, Bruce the fibber, Plays of Cherry, ditto Merry, Tickle, Mickle, When I bow and when I wriggle, With a simper and a giggle, Ears regaling, bidders nailing, Ladies utter in a flutter— "Mister Smatter, how you chatter, Dear, how clever! well, I never Heard so eloquent ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... amazed burgher, blocking his way; the thrifty had taken alarm, but the rangers herded them back with persuasive playfulness, while the little Weasel made the rounds, talking cheerfully all the time, and Mount, great fists dangling, minced round and round, with a huge simper on his countenance, as though shyly aware of his ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... are ever present at their need of them, and those who class the prophet and the drunkard in the same category as the fools of their own fancies. But what this love is, he who thinks he knows least understands. Let foolish maidens and vulgar youths simper and jest over it as they please, it is one of the most potent mysteries of the living God. The man who can love a woman and remain a lover of his wretched self, is fit only to be cast out with the broken potsherds of the city, as one in whom the ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... desired to be thought absorbed, with more than common fidelity, in his task. Being addressed, he glanced up, but with what seemed a furtive, diffident air, which sat strangely enough on his weather-beaten visage, much as if a grizzly bear, instead of growling and biting, should simper and cast sheep's eyes. He was asked several questions concerning the voyage—questions purposely referring to several particulars in Don Benito's narrative, not previously corroborated by those impulsive cries greeting the visitor on first coming on board. The questions were briefly answered, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... husband? He belongs to the Philadelphia Bettersons,—a very wealthy and influential family," said the woman with a simper. "Very ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... delicate matter," he returned, with a simper, which made me desire to kick him. "It concerns a lady. You are Mr. James Murray; at least, that is the name you entered in the ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... than the round and rubicund little person I found in conversation with the Atherleys. Mrs. Mallet was a brunette who might once have considered herself a beauty, to judge by the self-conscious and self-satisfied simper which the ghastliest recollections were unable to banish. As I entered I caught only the last ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... tassels; carry attar of rose bottles in their gloved hands, and squirt rosewater on their handkerchiefs. They ogle the ladies through their quizzing glasses, wear high-heeled slippers, and diddle along on their toes like a French dancing-master teaching his pupils the minuet. The ladies simper and giggle and wink at the gentlemen from behind their fans, and leave you to imagine something ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... chapels, in Sutton Street and elsewhere. Deal in Virgins, and dress them like a burgomaster's wife by Cranach or Van Eyck. Give them all long twisted tails to their gowns, and proper angular draperies. Place all their heads on one side, with the eyes shut, and the proper solemn simper. At the back of the head, draw, and gild with gold-leaf, a halo or glory, of the exact shape of a cart-wheel: and you have the thing done. It is Catholic art tout crache, as Louis Philippe says. We have it still in England, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... know, Mr. Denton," replied the girl, with a simper. "She's a new packer that was taken on this morning. I haven't heard her name, and I don't know as I ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... be in a hurry to see us," said Grace, with a simper that sent the girls off into ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope
... of the word. He never essayed flattering or even admiring remarks. He said queer things at which one often could not help but laugh, but he somehow wore no air of saying them with the intention of offering them as witticisms which might be regarded as allurements. He did not ogle, he did not simper or shuffle about nervously and turn red or pale, as eager and awkward youths have a habit of doing under the stress of unrequited admiration. In the presence of a certain slightingness of treatment, which he at the ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... is, over ladies To lean, and flirt, and stare, and simper, Till all that is divine in woman Grows cruel, courteous, smooth, inhuman, 195 Crucified 'twixt ...
— Peter Bell the Third • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... married a Washington belle, and I had to be there a week, and take it all in. Ah well, this is a threadbare theme; but I could understand how men fifteen hundred years ago fled from Alexandrian ball-rooms to Nitrian deserts. The emptiness of it—the eternal simper, the godless and harrowing routine! If a man has brains or a soul about him, what can he do with them in such a crowd? Better leave them at home with his pocket-book, or he might lose them—less suddenly, ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... Almonds blanched, and beaten with Rosewater very fine, so strain them with this Water many times, till you think the virtue is out of them, and that it be a thick Almond Milk, then put it into a Skillet, and make it boiling hot, that it simper, then take a spoonful of the Juice of a Limon, and put into it, stirring of it in, and when you perceive it ready to turn, then take it from the fire, and take a large fine Cloth, and cast your Liquor all over the Cloth ...
— The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet • Hannah Wolley
... draw out of his shell; Bonnycastle, Dr. George Fordyce, Mr. George Anderson, Dr. Geddes, and a host of other prominent artists, scientists, and literary men. Their meetings were informal. They gathered together to talk about what interested them, and not to simper and smirk, and give utterance to platitudes and affectations, as was the case with the society to which Mary had lately been introduced. The people with whom she now became acquainted were too earnest to lay undue stress on what Herbert Spencer ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... the dull stupidity of the others that tears came to my eyes. How could that young woman, in the midst of a sublime chorus, deliberately pause, arrange the knot of her neck-tie, and then, after a smile and a side glance at the conductor, go on again with a more self-satisfied simper than ever upon her lips? What might not the thing be with a whole chorus of sympathetic singers? The very dullness which in face prevailed revealed to me great regions of possible splendor, almost too ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... the widow they all thought so shy, My eye! Ne'er thought of a simper or sigh, For why? But "Lucius," says she, "Since you've made now so free, You may marry your Mary Malone, Ohone! You may ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... impertinence in English, as bad as her French and as fluent, Charley listened with quiet interest. When she had finished her voluble statement she said, with a simper and a sneer-for, after all, a Notary's wife must keep her position—"And now, what is the truth about it? ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... was disappointed, and his fingers stole half shyly half irritably into his waistcoat-pocket. His informant noticed the movement. "Thank God I am not a Frenchwoman," she said. "If I were, I would tell you with a brazen simper, old as I am, that if you please, monsieur, my information is worth something. Let me tell you so in my own decent English way. It ...
— The American • Henry James
... wickeder and wickeder every day. You deserve to be treated like a negre; and your favourite Sunday, to which you are so partial that you treat the other poor six days of the week as if they had no souls to be saved, should, if I could have my will, "shine no Sabbath-day for you." Now, don't simper, and look as innocent as if virtue would not melt in your mouth. Can you deny the following charges?—I lent you "The Botanic Garden," and you returned it without writing a syllable, or saying, -where you were or whither you was going; I suppose for fear I should know how ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... compliments to the poor old gentleman," returned Mrs. Ochiltree, with a simper of senile vanity, though her back was weakening under the strain of the effort to sit erect that she might maintain this illusion of comparative youthfulness. "Bring him to see me some day when he is ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... mind is guarded against its own feelings, dress and public places are almost certain of failing, but here again love is sure to vanquish; as soon as it is named, attention becomes involuntary, and in a short time a struggling simper discomposes the arrangement of the features, and then the business is presently over, for the young lady is either supporting some system, or opposing some proposition, before she is well aware that she has been cheated out of her ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... happened from it? It would merely have given each of you some notion of a fever and ague; for first you would both have been hot, and then you would both have been cold, and then you would both have turned red, and then you would both have turned white, and then you would both have pretended to simper at the trick; and then there would have been an ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... by finding her attire a matter of acknowledged importance to her rival, and replied, with a simper,— ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... some simper; In the youth where we laughed, and sang. And they may end with a whimper But we ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... this is such a surprise," she cried, fluttering up to him with a simper on her face, which of late years had done the ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... Paradise would never sing for pleasure, only for fame and a slight check. The count begged to decline, and at the same time asked for a guitar. The signora sent for hers; and his Excellency, preluding with a beautiful simper, gave them some slight thing ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... be no colder if I was froze to death," answered the widow, with an amiable simper. "Don't ye let me delay you, nor put you out, Mr. Briley. I don't know's I'd set forth to-day if I'd known 't was so cold; but I had all my bundles done up, and I ain't one that puts my hand to the plough an' ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... better half took courage; SHE would have her picture taken. She came dressed beyond description, Dressed in jewels and in satin Far too gorgeous for an empress. Gracefully she sat down sideways, With a simper scarcely human, Holding in her hand a bouquet Rather larger than a cabbage. All the while that she was sitting, Still the lady chattered, chattered, Like a monkey in the forest. "Am I sitting still?" she asked ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... when she did this, and when her teeth came down on her lip, you would have liked to shrink to the size of a mouse. Godmother, it was true, was not afraid of her; but Cousin Grace was hushed at last and as for Laura herself, she consciously wore a fixed little simper, which was meant to put it beyond doubt that butter would ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... order—had already received their prefects' caps). Not being a prefect, it would have been officious in him to have stopped the game. So he was passing on with what Mr Hurry Bungsho Jabberjee, B.A., would have termed a beaming simper of indescribable suavity, when a member of one of the opposing teams, in effecting a G. O. Smithian dribble, cannoned into him. To preserve his balance—this will probably seem a very thin line of defence, but 'I state but the facts'—he ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... other end of the shop, "reach down the Old Maids for the gentleman. They won't appear to advantage, I'm afraid, a little dusty or damaged, with having laid so long upon the shelf," he added, with a simper, which was not lost upon any one present. A melancholy looking man, in whose countenance meekness and insipidity were alike plainly depicted, now came forward, inquiring, in an under, and what might almost ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... the features as frequently as did that ancient people, but we conventionalize them as often. Nine-tenths of the actors have faces as fixed as the masks of the Greek chorus: they have the hero-mask with the protruding chin, the villain-frown, the comedian-grin, the fixed innocent-girl simper. These formulas have their place in the broad effects of Crowd Pictures and in comedies. Then there are sudden abandonments of the mask. Griffith's pupils, Henry Walthall and Blanche Sweet, seem to me to be the greatest people in the photoplays: for one reason their faces are as sensitive ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... Hamal; he paused near him; I thought he had a pleasure in looking over his head; Dr. Bretton, too, gazed on the Cleopatra. I doubt if it were to his taste: he did not simper like the little Count; his mouth looked fastidious, his eye cool; without demonstration he stepped aside, leaving room for others to approach. I saw now that he was waiting, and, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... partisans urged that she was much prettier than Thea, and had a much "sweeter disposition." Nobody denied these facts. But there was nothing in the least boyish about Lily, and she sang all songs and played all parts alike. Lily's simper was popular, but it seemed not quite the right thing for the heroic ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... enough in their lives and intentions, but boldly exposing their faces to the rude gaze of any of the libertine diners-out who may happen to be at the tables opposite, and returning that gaze, when met, with a smile and a simper that merely means scorn and self-confidence but may be easily construed into a less creditable expression. And at this table, only two removed, discussing a pate de foix gras which may or may not have come from Strasburg of the Big Goose Livers, ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... fresco of Morone, my rapture of six years ago, and hated it with unreasoning hatred. The Madonna belied the wreath-supported inscription above her head, "Miseratrix virginum Regina nostri miserere," and greeted me with a pitiless simper. The unidentified martyr on the left stared straight in front of him with callous indifference, and St. Roch looked aggravatingly plump for all his ostentatious plague-spot. The picture was worse than meaningless. It was insulting. It drove me out of the Public Gallery. Outside ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... the unknown. D'Artagnan entered, with a simper on his lips, his plate under his arm, his hat in one hand, his ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... he was requested, adding an unnecessary compliment on the good looks of the portress, to which she responded by a simper of gratified vanity—thereby showing that neither belonged to the wisest class of mankind—and he was ushered upstairs, into a small but pleasant parlour, where three gentlemen sat conversing. A decanter stood on the table, half full of wine, and each ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... enormous blocks, but how these had been raised and put together is known to those alone who raised them. Each was terrible after a different kind. One was raging furiously, as in pain and great despair; another was lean and cadaverous with famine; another cruel and idiotic, but with the silliest simper that can be conceived—this one had fallen, and looked exquisitely ludicrous in his fall—the mouths of all were more or less open, and as I looked at them from behind, I saw that their heads ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... in London whose invitations he accepted and repaid—and the detachment that reigned beneath them and that made of all behaviour, all that could in the least be called behaviour, a long act of dissimulation. What it had come to was that he wore a mask painted with the social simper, out of the eye-holes of which there looked eyes of an expression not in the least matching the other features. This the stupid world, even after years, had never more than half discovered. It was only May Bartram who ...
— The Beast in the Jungle • Henry James
... similar entertainment and assert your delight at revamping the fatuous acquaintanceship. Her facetiousness is elephantine, but the relief of conversation is such that you laugh loudly at her witticisms and simper knowingly at her platitudes—both of which have now been current ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... other manner productive of no pleasure, and generally producing pain in the end. It is very becoming in all persons, and particularly in the young, to be civil, and even polite: but it becomes neither young nor old to have an everlasting simper on their faces, and their bodies sawing in an everlasting bow: and, how many youths have I seen who, if they had spent, in the learning of grammar, a tenth part of the time that they have consumed in earning merited contempt for their affected gentility, would have laid the foundation of sincere ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... the pedler, whose countenance singularly contrasted with the expression which, in the performance of such a duty, and at such a time, it might have been supposed proper for it to have worn. There was a look from his eyes of most vacant and elevated beatitude; a simper sat upon his lips, which parted ineffectually with the speech that he endeavored to make. A still lingering consciousness of something to be done, prompted him to rise, however, and stumble toward the landlord, who, while scuffling with the ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... very pleasant seasons he enjoyed with the young ladies at the various gatherings connected with it. He was rallied on his being so much of a recluse. Arch hints were conveyed that doubtless his home was specially agreeable. Was it Louisa or Charlotte? Both these young ladies would simper and look conscious when they were attacked on the subject; for both candidly believed they were liable to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of Albion's isle! She may simper; as well as she can she may smile; She may wear pantalettes and an air of repose— But my lord of the future will talk through ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... in the least help this young statesman in his designs upon Newcome and the Newcomites. After she came into Barnes's hands, a dreadful weight fell upon her. She would smile and simper, and talk kindly and gaily enough at first, during Sir Brian's life; and among women, when Barnes was not present. But as soon as he joined the company, it was remarked that his wife became silent, and looked eagerly towards him whenever he ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... I had got into a novel, and enjoyed it immensely. I believe a dim idea that Gus was sentimental hovered in my mind, but I would not encourage it, though I laughed in my sleeve when he was spouting Latin for my benefit, and was uncertain whether to box his ears or simper later in the day, when he languished over the gate, and said he thought chestnut hair the loveliest in ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... on the pale background of the world with the brilliancy of flowers. I could not call by the name of brother that half-witted lad, nor by the name of mother that immovable and lovely thing of flesh, whose silly eyes and perpetual simper now recurred to my mind like something hateful. And if I could not marry, what then? She was helplessly unprotected; her eyes, in that single and long glance, which had been all our intercourse, had confessed a weakness ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... eminent merchants, with their wives and daughters, wits of both sexes, women of the most exclusive ton, thronged the spacious salons. Each in their turn was greeted with a smirk of ecstatic glee. To Gripstone the courtesy seemed invested with a proprietary interest. A nod was receipted with a simper, a grasp of the hand with a scrape, the most distant recognition by the most obsequious acknowledgment. There appeared to be no doubt in his mind it was all bought and paid for, but it did no harm to be polite for once; and comically polite ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... nice young man down-stairs, miss," breaks in Sarah, at this juncture, with a simper that has the pleasing effect of making one side of her face quite an inch ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... market price of your marble scarecrow is the thing to look at. It took you six months to chisel it, and you can't sell it for a hundred dollars. No, sir! Show me fifty thousand dollars and you can have my daughter —otherwise she marries young Simper. You have just six months to raise the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... opinion, that a wife's having a separate allowance would prevent disputes. So Miss Hunter thought, of course, for she had been prepared to be precisely of Mr. Beaumont's opinion; but reasons she had none in its support. Indeed, she said with a pretty simper, she thought that women had nothing to do with reason or reasoning; that she thought a woman who really loved any body was always of that person's opinion; and especially in a wife she did not see of what use reasoning and all that could be, except to make a woman contradict, and be odd, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... giving me one more chance. I have often run very close to making a definite decision—to dare everything rather than await this fool's disaster. But then comes that everlasting feminine humility, sneaking up with its simper: 'Is not this presumptuous, selfish, mistaken, wrong? What business have you, one out of so many, to break roughly through the delicate web that has been spun for your kindly detention?' Of course my retort is: 'What business have they ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... did walk Leweezy to th' church, An fowk wink'd an dropt monny a hint, Aw knew tha'd nooan leav me i'th lurch, For a dowdy like her wi a squint. An Ellen at lives at th' yard end, May simper an innocent look, But aw think shoo'll ha' farther to fend, Befoor shoo's ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... will permit me,' he said, a malicious simper crossing his handsome face—I had often remarked his extreme dislike for Bruhl without understanding it—'I think I can furnish some evidence more to the point than that; to which M. de Bruhl has with so much fairness restricted himself.' He then went on to state that he ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... are!" exclaimed Sally, rising from the table with burning cheeks. "How can a boy of that age be a contaminating influence? How can he affect the innocence of all those other little wretches whom you simper over just because their mothers have it in their power to lift you in the society of this wretched ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... sincere," returned Elfreda, with an affected simper. "I hope those flowers haven't loitered along the way. I must call on my fair lady and see if she has received hers. I'm beginning to feel excited. I'm going to eat my dinner post haste. I want to get dressed and practice my bow before ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... Silas rose up, and dressed in a long white morning gown, slid over the end of the bed, and with two or three swift noiseless steps, stood behind me, with a death-like scowl and a simper. Preternaturally tall and thin, he stood for a moment almost touching me, with the white bandage pinned across his forehead, his bandaged arm stiffly by his side, and diving over my shoulder, with his long thin hand he snatched ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... he looks so delightfully wicked," added the eldest Miss Simper, shaking her ringlets in a fascinating manner, to evince her faith in ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... you bridle and simper so, Emily?" Then I told him all that was in my mind. Papa asked if I did not think him as pretty as I did mamma. I could not say much for his beauty, but I told him he was a much finer gentleman than my uncle, and that I liked him the first moment I saw him, because ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... And the lady must simper and smirk and tap Pierre Radisson with her fan, with a glimmer of ill-meaning through her winks and nods that might have brought the blush to a ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... his eyes on the wagging bull-terrier. In spite of his decorous gravity a smile of distinct pleasure slowly spread over his square, pink face until it became a subdued simper. ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... reaching the door. The passage lamp had died out and filled the corridor with its fragrance. Sponge, however, knew the way, and the darkness favored the adjustment of cravats and the fingering of hair. Having got up a sort of drunken simper, Sponge opened the drawing-room door, expecting to find smiling ladies in a blaze of light. All, however, was darkness, save the expiring embers in the grate. The tick, tick, tick, ticking of ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... Street, will you, dear? It doesn't look well, his going to Stumpy and Rowdy's." After which kind of speeches, in which fashion and the main chance were blended together, and after a kiss, which was like the contact of an oyster—Mrs. Frederick Bullock would gather her starched nurslings and simper back into her carriage. ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... larger relations, and insisted on them. Where they "bantered," cajoled, and sneered, arousing a very mild irritation, Swift's scornful invective, and biting satire silenced into fear the enemies of the Queen's chosen ministers. Where their jejune "answers" gained a simper, Swift's virility of mind, range of power, and dexterity of handling, compelled a homage. His Whig antagonists had good reason to dread him. He scoffed at them for an existence that was founded, not on a devotion to principles, but on a jealousy for the power others ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... I have studied the history of them to know pretty well. I should have been one of the poor, for my father when he was working was a mere tiller of the soil. Well, I could not have borne that; therefore my beauty and cleverness and brightness" (she spoke with no blush or simper of false shame) "would have been sold to rich men, and my life would have been wasted indeed; for I know enough of that to know that I should have had no choice, no power of will over my life; and that I should never have bought pleasure ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... always make women simper, at least. No need but of the most delicate hints to them. A man who is gross in a woman's company, ought to be knocked down with a club: for, like so many musical instruments, touch but a single wire, and the dear ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... look up to meet his gaze, feeling it by intuition. Oh, the demure, modest, shamefaced hypocrite! How silent she is! She can prate enough to me! I would give my promised garter if she would but talk to him. Talk, talk, laugh, prattle, only simper, in God's name, and I shall be happy. But that bashful, blushing silence,—it is insupportable. Thank Heaven, the dance is over! Thank Heaven, again! I have not felt such pains since the last nightmare I had ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Waldmann, how you talk!" returned the girl, with an affected simper and an unsuccessful attempt ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... in the Avenue de Paris, and were admitted first into a small garden ornamented by a grotto, a fountain, and several nymphs in plaster-of-Paris, then up a mouldy old steep stair into a hall, where a statue of Cupid and another of Venus welcomed us with their eternal simper; then through a salle-a-manger where covers were laid for six; and finally to a little saloon, where Fido the dog began to howl furiously according ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with scant interchange of courtesy, when both were members of the junior Bar together; but now Sir Gilbert's look moved even HIM to pity. "I think, my lord," the Q.C. suggested with a sympathetic simper, "your lordship's too ill to open the court to-day. Perhaps the proceedings had better be adjourned ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... a singularly fine & aristocratic disrespect for homely & unpretending English. Every time I use "go back" you get out your polisher & slick it up to "return." "Return" is suited only to the drawing-room—it is ducal, & says itself with a simper & ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... roof, the shopkeepers cater to us. For in many of the stores, is there not an upper tier of windows for our use? The commodities of this second story are quite as fine as those below. And the waxen beauties who display the frocks greet us in true democracy with as sweet a simper. ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... 'tis expecting too quick a reformation to demand ductility of voice and eye from him at a blow. However, give me but a little time and a little encouragement, and, with such a tutress, 'twill be hard if I do not, in a very few lessons, learn the right method of seasoning a simper, and the newest fashion of twisting ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... she saw a compliment and was happy accordingly. Then my turn came. My arms were placed about Aspasia, my head bent and turned and twisted—my upon my breast so that the forefinger touched my chin—I felt I was a personified simper; but I was silent and patient, until the arrangement of my ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... better plight to do credit to the trapper's cookery, than was the lover of nature, when the grateful invitation met his ears. Indulging in a small laugh, which his exertions to repress reduced nearly to a simper, he took the indicated seat by the old man's side, and made the customary dispositions to commence ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... consequence, told him, with a simper, that he knew them to be very good-natured ladies, who devoted themselves to the happiness of mankind. This explanation had no sooner escaped from his lips, than the captain's face began to glow with indignation, his eyes seemed bursting from their spheres, he swelled to twice his natural dimensions, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... with her long speeches of prudery and virtue, and the modest reserve of young ladies, and a hundred other such saint-like terms, when all the time she is doing all she can to catch husbands for her three great gawky daughters, who in mamma's presence are all simplicity and simper—sweet girls just introduced; when I am very much mistaken if the youngest is not nearer thirty than twenty. And as for Lady St. Aubyn, you know very well, mamma, papa declared I should never go out with her again; it is just the same as if I were alone. She has not a word ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... the portrait of his "dear grandfather," as represented in the elaborate gilt frame in the dining-room, in a court suit and a periwig, and with an abominable simper, most devoutly thanks his gods that he is not like unto him. He is, indeed (feeling goaded to the last degree), about to break into unseemly language, when, fortunately, the arrival of the ancient ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... a "good man going wrong" attracts people. They stand around and literally warm themselves at the calories of virtue he gives off. Sarah makes an unsophisticated remark and the faces simper in delight—"How innocent the poor child is!" They're warming themselves at her virtue. But Sarah sees the simper and never makes that remark again. Only she feels a little colder ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... the Midwife be sent for, because she hath a great deal better knowledge touching the infirmities of women then the Doctors: Then she is fetcht, and having done the first part of her office, she gives her good comfort; and orders her to take only some of the best white Wine, simper'd up with a little Orange-peel, well sweetned with sugar, and so warm drunk up; and then anoint your self here, and you know where, with this salve; and for medicines [that are most to be found in Confectionres or Pasterers shops] ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... a railway journey. It had a picture of a large gun to make its cover attractive. The next advertised its claims in another way. A girl's face was the decorative feature of its wrapper, and you could not imagine eyes and a simper more likely to make a man feel holier than Bernard of Cluny till your gaze wandered to the face of the girl smirking from the magazine beyond. Is it possible that nobody reads current English literature, as the magazines give it, except the sort of men ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... smile. No one must know her heart was broken, for fear the question might arise, "What broke it?" Of course her smile was a make-believe, nothing more nor less than a simper. The large boy across the table looked at her in surprise. "Handsome as a picture," thought ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May
... Mr Wentworth would, if I was to ask him; but then I thought perhaps as Mr Wentworth mightn't like to be the one as married me," said Rosa, with a momentary gleam of vanity through her tears. The little simper with which the girl spoke, the coquettish looks askance at the Perpetual Curate, who stood grave and unmoved at a distance, the movement of unconscious self-deception and girlish vanity which for ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... so deep as to be stationary. She was very certain that her eyes had not been darkened as to lids or waxed as to lashes. Her hair was beautifully dressed in sweeping waves with scarcely any artificial work upon it. Her dress was extremely tasteful and very expensive. There was no simper on her lips, nothing superficial. She was only a tired, homesick girl. As Linda looked at her she understood why Katy had cried over her. She felt tears beginning to rise in her own heart. She put both arms ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... red, veined yellow, candelabra and clock ditto mounted on bronze, common and heavy in design,—Roman standards with Greek foliage! Above the clock is that inevitable good-natured lion which looks at you with a simper, the lion of ornamentation, with a big ball under his feet, symbol of the decorative lion, who passes his life holding a black ball, —exactly like a deputy of the Left. Perhaps it is meant as a constitutional myth. The face of the clock is curious. ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... Soft Lady Whom Men Like toyed with a bit of bread on the tablecloth (she had a beautiful hand) and smiled gently. The other women would have called it a simper. To the men it stood for ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... archaeology with a rush, which sticks at no adventure, however nobly incredible? where is the pathos, the simplicity, the purple splendour of Ouida's manner, or manners? No, the spirit of the world, mirroring itself in the minds of individuals, simpered, and that simper was Lady Fanny Flummery. But it did many things more portentous than simpering, when it reflected itself ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... regal bearing of the thirteenth-century figures give way to a more naturalistic treatment. The Virgin's impassive features soften; they become more human; she turns to her child with a maternal smile (which later becomes conventionalised into a simper), or permits a caress. In Room X. are: 889, 890, two fifteenth-century statues, admirable and living portraitures of Charles V. and his queen, from the church of the Celestins, whose preservation is due to the excellent Lenoir—statues famous in their day, and mentioned by the contemporary ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... lifted Glass, and thus began, Mumbling as fast as he could speak:— "Sublime!—prodigious!—truly Greek! That 'Air of Head' is just divine; That contour GUIDO, every line; That Forearm, too, has quite the Gusto Of the third Manner of ROBUSTO...." Then, with a Simper and a Cough, He skipped a little farther off:— "The middle Distance, too, is placed Quite in the best Italian Taste; And Nothing could be more effective Than the Ordonnance and Perspective.... You've sold it?—No?—Then take my word, I shall ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... piece of white paper and a lead pencil and draw from memory the outlines of a hen. Then carefully remove the feathers. Pour one gallon of boiling water into a saucepan and sprinkle a pinch of salt on the hen's tail. Now let it simper. If the soup has a blonde appearance stir it with a lead pencil which will make it more of a brunette. Let it boil two hours. Then coax the hen away from the saucepan and serve the soup hot, with a glass ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... forewarning, Worse luck for him! the following morning, With simper sauntered in; Squinted at what the saint was doing, But never smoked the mischief brewing, Putting his foot in't; soon the shoeing ...
— The True Legend of St. Dunstan and the Devil • Edward G. Flight
... Crequy, his back to the light, stood in the embrasure of a window, deeply engaged in examining his features in a small hand-glass which he held daintily before him. The survey seemed to please monsieur, for he showed his teeth in a simper of satisfaction, and began to curl his black moustache between the forefinger and thumb of his disengaged hand. So engrossed was he that he never observed me coming up to him, and it was not until I was at his elbow that he suddenly realised ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... then a little Yellow Wax, scraped or thinly sliced, and putting it into a Bolts-head or some other Convenient Glass, pour to it a pretty deal of Spirit of Wine, and placing the Vessel in Warm Sand, Encrease the Heat by degrees, till the Spirit of Wine begin to Simper or to Boyl a little; and continuing that degree of Fire, if you have put Liquor enough, you will quickly have the Wax dissolv'd, then taking it off the fire, you may either suffer it to Cool as hastily as with Safety ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... Don't stop to quirk your little finger and simper over your plate, Amy," cried Jo, choking on her tea and dropping her bread, butter side down, on the carpet in her haste ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... Virtue. The Life of Thuanus is, with great Propriety, said by its Author to have been written, that it might lay open to Posterity the private and familiar Character of that Man, cujus Ingenium et Candorem ex ipsius Scriptis sunt olim simper miraturi, whose Candour and Genius his Writings will to the End of Time preserve ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... makes you simper, then, and sneer? From out your own eye pull the mote; A pretty thing for you to jeer! Haven't you, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various
... pretend to accept him as the evangelist of a glorious literary and artistic gospel. For unfortunately he is as rich as he is impudent and incompetent. And when he drives out in a Hansom he never ceases to simper at his reflected image in the little corner looking-glasses, by means of which modern cab-proprietors pander to the weakness of men. Such is your handiwork, my excellent VANITY. Are you proud ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various
... me!" cries she ecstatically, throwing up her pretty hands, her vanity so far overcoming her argument that she grows inconsistent. "You know," with a little simper, "I was a ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... make use Of others' wit, and use his own the more, That well may scorn base imitation. For Lodge[46] and Watson,[47] men of some desert, Yet subject to a critic's marginal; Lodge for his oar in ev'ry paper boat, He, that turns over Galen ev'ry day, To sit and simper Euphues' Legacy.[48] ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... Ye may simper, blush and smile, And perfume the air awhile; But, sweet things, ye must be gone, Fruit, ye know, is coming on; Then, ah! then, where is your grace, Whenas cherries ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... flatter myself that in my time I have had the happiness of not being unpleasing to the sex,' said Delaford, with a sigh and a simper. ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... parish church, with his curly beard and black mantle." Herr Elias set him down without more ado as a Polish Jew, notwithstanding his noble bearing and his extremely grave old-German face, and cried with a simper, "Silly fellow! sells his stock now; might make at least ten per cent, more in a week." Of course he knew nothing about the additional price which had been agreed upon, and which Traugott intended to pay out of his own pocket. And this he really ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... "Manuel is a good deal of a fool but his woman is smart. Give her a gun and she will know how to use it. She will do it for me because I make love to her now and then," he added, with something which in a civilized being would pass for a simper. ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... say, my love,—[looking in his face, and continuing to drawl and simper in the manner which we might imagine of Shakspeare's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... see, but they are not in great force on Show Sunday. They rather look on that festival as a day of national mourning and humiliation and woe. They do not care to have all Belgravia or South Kensington let loose in their places. They do not wish the public to gaze and simper at pieces which will probably be enskied or rejected, or hung at a dangerous corner next ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... trade is over ladies To lean and flirt and stare and simper, Till all that is divine in woman Grows cruel, courteous, smooth, inhuman, Crucified ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... presence of his many friends, that he had a mind to make the most of his triumph and even to flaunt it in his rival's face. "Ha, the Cardinal!" he cried; and before the Queen could speak, "I hope," with a bow and a simper, "that your Eminence has been as zealous in her Majesty's service as I ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... luggage," she said. The smile with which she forced herself to respond to the fixed simper of the Watchetts seemed to cause her horrible torment. She motioned nervously to George Cannon, who was ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... never further moved than to a smile or a simper, because nothing else shews her dimples to so much advantage; another who has a fine set of teeth, runs into a broad grin; while a third, who is admired for a well turned neck and graceful chest, calls up all her beauties ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... with the notorious foibles and selfishness of their lives and their education. Since the author of Tom Jones was buried, no writer of fiction among us has been permitted to depict to his utmost power a MAN. We must drape him, and give him a certain conventional simper. Society will not tolerate the Natural in our Art. Many ladies have remonstrated and subscribers left me, because, in the course of the story, I described a young man resisting and affected ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a scheme which, I flattered myself, nothing but my present distress would have made me think on with patience. I determined, therefore, to look out for a tender novice, with a large fortune, at her own disposal; and accordingly fixed my eyes upon Miss Biddy Simper. I had now paid her six or seven visits; and so fully convinced her of my being a gentleman and a rake, that I made no doubt that both her person and fortune would ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... watch the influence of the palm wine on their looks, language, and ideas. The flushed countenance is invisible in a black lady, but then she has the liquid and unsettled eye, the proneness to talk with irresistible garrulity, the gentle simper, or the bursting laugh at any trifle, or at nothing at all; and to wind up the list of symptoms, she has that complaisant idea of her own good points, and superior qualifications, which elicit her own approbation, without exciting the applauses of her associates, and which ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... pleasure.] Rejoicing. — N. rejoicing, exultation, triumph, jubilation, heyday, flush, revelling; merrymaking &c. (amusement) 840; jubilee &c. (celebration) 883; paean, Te Deum &c. (thanksgiving) 990[Lat]; congratulation &c. 896. smile, simper, smirk, grin; broad grin, sardonic grin. laughter (amusement) 840. risibility; derision &c. 856. Momus; Democritus the Abderite[obs3]; rollicker[obs3]. V. rejoice, thank one's stars, bless one's stars; congratulate oneself, hug oneself; rub one's ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... do you—" she began but this was no time to let a woman's tongue go babbling on; no time for ceremony; no season for making a leg and addressing her with a simper. I caught her viciously by the wrist, and with my face close up to hers "Folle!" I cried, and I'll swear no man had ever used the word to her before. She gasped and choked in her surprise and rage. Then lowering my voice lest it should reach the approaching soldiers: "Would you ruin the ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... five minutes of Mrs. Folliott, however, he felt his dry lips seal themselves to a makeshift simper. She could take nothing—no better, no broader perception of anything than fitted her own small faculty; so that though she must have recalled or imagined that he had still, up to lately, had interests at stake, ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... intervened with a simper. "Yes, she really is a naughty little thing, and I cannot say I shall be sorry when she is gone. My small son is at such ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... headlands—such exquisite gradations of distance and such capricious interruptions of perspective—that one could only say that the land was really trying to smile as hard as the sea. The smile of the sea was a positive simper. Such a glittering and twinkling, such a softness and blueness, such tiny little pin-points of foam, and such delicate little wrinkles of waves—all this made the ocean ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... bridled Afy, with a simper, "I don't know any good that can do you. You might have seen me go by an hour or two ago—if you had possessed eyes. I was on my way to Miss Carlyle's," she continued, with the air of one who proclaims the fact of a morning ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... quoth the Corporal, turning his head stiffly away, with a modest simper, "You makes me blush; though, indeed, bating that I have the military air, and am more in the prime of life, your honour is well nigh as awkward a gentleman ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the youngest Miss Talbot-Lowry, and half the twins, a slight change fell upon Mr. Coppinger's voluble guests. A stiffening faint, almost imperceptible, yet electric, enforced the circle round Larry. Even Mrs. Whelply's confluent simper, that suggested an incessant dripping from the tap of loving kindness, failed a little. A young Mr. Coppinger was a simple affair, but a Miss Talbot-Lowry, however young, might ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... with gentle tears. She had the look of a young girl who had been out like a flower in too strong a light, and faded out her pretty tints, but was a young girl still. Belinda always smiled an innocent girlish simper, which sometimes so irritated the austere New England village women that they scowled involuntarily back at her. Paulina Maria Judd and Ann Edwards both scowled without knowing it now as she spoke, her words never seeming to disturb that mildly ingratiating upward ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... she would take it. There was not the first twinkle of a simper about eye or lip. Surprised, but quite gravely, she looked up, and met his odd bluntness with as quaint an honesty of her own. "I was pretty sure of it a while ago," she said. "And perhaps I was, in a demoralized sort of ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... hadn't resented the outrage at the time, but had seemed obliging and amused, enjoying the comedy of asking Mrs. Monarch, who sat vague and silent, whether she would have cream and sugar, and putting an exaggerated simper into the question. She had tried intonations— as if she too wished to pass for the real thing—till I was afraid my ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... sense is this: that these symposia of rustic vanity were kept entirely within the family, like some secret ancestral practice. To the world their serious faces were never deformed by the suspicion of any simper of self-contentment. Yet it was known. "They hae a guid pride o' themsel's!" was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... beshrew me if I well know which the woman and whom the man? Is it not enough to give peace to broad England, root to her brother's stem? Is it not enough to wed the son of a king, the descendant of Charlemagne and Saint Louis? Must I go bonnet in hand and simper forth the sleek personals of the choice of her kith and House; swear the bridegroom's side-locks are as long as King Edward's, and that he bows with the grace of Master Anthony Woodville? Tell her ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Hodges called out as he shambled to a halt before her. His coarse features writhed in a simper that intensified their ugliness. His coveting of this woman was suddenly magnified by sight of her loveliness, flawless in the brilliant light. The blood-shot eyes darted luxuriously over the curving graces beneath ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... he said, with a simper; "I come bringing a precious balsam which cures all sorts of ills, and heals the troubles both of body and mind. For what is better than to have a pleasant companion to sing and tell merry ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... brother) and his lady, whom he calls 'a fond couple.' After their return from Paris, when they arrived at Lord Chesterfield's house at Blackheath, Sir William, who had, like his brother, a cutting, polite wit, that was probably expressed with the 'allowed simper' of Lord Chesterfield, got out of the chaise and said, with a low bow, 'Madame, I hope I shall never see your face again.' She replied, 'Sir, I will take care that you never shall;' and ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... up the whole in the sixth, he wants that inimitable Je ne scais quoi which I consider as a necessary ingredient in the matrimonial cup. I shall not, in addition to these defects, dwell upon his unmeaning stare, his formal bow, his little senseless simper, etc. etc. etc. All these enormities, and many more of the same stamp, I shall pass by, as I have no doubt they had their due effect upon you as well as me; but then I am not like you, under the torments of Lady Juliana's authority. Were that the ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... was one of those men who, once seen, are not easily forgotten. He was smiling, a cruel, cunning smile—at least, she thought he was; Mr. Peters himself was under the impression that his face was wreathed in a benevolent simper; and in his hand he bore the largest pistol ever seen outside ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse |
