"Simper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 money in. Good ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... seat, 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 broad beam, in shallow urns Heaven's twinkling sparks draw light, ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... unpleasant restraint. They, however, were remarkably free from shyness. They seemed bold, lively children, and I hoped I should soon be on friendly terms with them—the little boy especially, of whom I had heard such a favourable character from his mamma. In Mary Ann there was a certain affected simper, and a craving for notice, that I was sorry to observe. But her brother claimed all my attention to himself; he stood bolt upright between me and the fire, with his hands behind his back, talking away like an orator, occasionally interrupting ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... snigger; some simper; In the youth where we laughed, and sang. And they may end with a whimper But we will ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... 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, ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... into one of the leather chairs and looked up at him with a little simper, and there ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... does, he looks so delightfully wicked," added the eldest Miss Simper, shaking her ringlets in a fascinating manner, to evince her faith in the durability ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... fingermarks had deepened underneath her eyes, a languor came upon her; it made her the more sweet and youthful. Her shoulders seemed to bear on them the very image of our land—grave and aspiring, eager yet contained—before there came upon that land the grin of greed, the folds of wealth, the simper of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... 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, ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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
... you, and hear if you then will repeat Facts on currents of air, or simoom; Or simper, and smilingly speak of the heat Of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various
... Poyser, "I know what the men like—a poor soft, as 'ud simper at 'em like the picture o' the sun, whether they did right or wrong, an' say thank you for a kick, an' pretend she didna know which end she stood uppermost, till her husband told her. That's what ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... scarce the breadth of a hair divided them from the peasantry. The measure of their 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 word in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... Rhodes, this is such a surprise," she cried, fluttering up to him with a simper on her face, which of late years had done the duty of ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... Tony Graham, who were also in the Sixth—the two last below him in form 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, ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... unfortunate explanation, the simper of gratified vanity on Mrs. Carrington's features vanished as if by magic. She stiffened visibly, as she acridly ejaculated ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... about herself, and never troubled her head to think whether she was pretty or ugly. The younger, who was about seventeen, was not nearly so handsome; but she would have been pleasant enough to look at if it had not been for a silly simper and a look of intensely satisfied vanity, which quite spoiled any prettiness that she might have had. She had just fastened a pair of ear-rings into her ears, and she was turning her head from one side to the other before the mirror, as ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... came across with a simper upon her pretty, vulgar face, and sat on the side of the bed. "What's the matter, then?" she asked. "What is it that ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of 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 ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... 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 calls ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... really felt as if 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
... be so long; and that he was dearer to somebody than he thought: The Knight still repeated she was an idle baggage, and bid her go on. Ah, master, says the gipsy, that roguish leer of yours makes a pretty woman's heart ache; you have not that simper about the mouth for nothing—The uncouth gibberish with which all this was uttered, like the darkness of an oracle, made us the more attentive to it. To be short, the Knight left the money with her that he had crossed her hand with, and got up ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... 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 souls ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... 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 a moment distracted Rosa, had a great effect upon the spectators. ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... 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 sad ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... very heart stood still. And in an instant she opens her eyes and up she sits, and spins herself round, and down wi' her, wi' a clack on her two tall heels on the floor, facin' me, ogglin' in my face wi' her two great glassy eyes, and a wicked simper wi' her wrinkled lips, ...
— Madam Crowl's Ghost and The Dead Sexton • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... 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 ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... 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 ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... full of business and 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
... An Essay upon Old Maids. "Tom, Tom," said the complaisant Librarian, calling to a lad at the 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 be designated an alarmed tone of voice, for The Impertinent Wife; a female, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... 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. ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... sent that we were coming, and why. On arriving we were met at the gates by several naval officers, and were conducted to outside the door of the Minister's room where the presentation was to take place. One then assumed the simper of the diplomatist, Wigram (who always managed to turn pink on dramatic occasions, which had a particularly good effect) bore the cases containing the insignia, the door was flung open, and we marched solemnly in. I addressed the recipients in my ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... Mrs. Turner tell that interview—with variations—all over the garrison within twenty-four hours? She had incentive enough; the ladies flocked to hear it, and one absurd maiden saw fit the next evening to simper her congratulations to Miss Sanford on "her engagement"; but by that time Marion had recovered her self-control. She met Mrs. Turner as though nothing of an unusual nature had occurred. She laughingly, ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... allayed by the intelligence they had received from his first client. This lady approached the philosopher with that intrepidity of countenance so conspicuous in matrons of her dignified sphere, and, in a soft voice, asked with a simper, of what complexion her next child would be? The necromancer, who was perfectly well acquainted with her private history, forthwith delivered his response in the following question, written in the usual form: "How long has Pompey the black been ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... hardly been in 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 his meal ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... 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 ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... the unknown. D'Artagnan entered, with a simper on his lips, his plate under his arm, his hat in one hand, his candle in ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the girl was not only spared mortification, but in the word "advance" 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 draperies began—then I ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... 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, handed down to us for four centuries, in the pictures on ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to the play last night—fifth act of Richard the Third. Richmond by a stout lady, with a particularly well-developed bust, who finished all the speeches with the soubrette simper. Also, at the end of the tragedy she came forward (still being Richmond) and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, on Wednesday next the entertainments will be for My benefit, when I hope to meet your approbation and support." ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... unexpected shyness overcame him, and having set off vaingloriously he stuck on the stair and wanted to hide. Shovel, who had been having an argument with his old girl, came, all boastful bumps, to him, and Tommy just stood still with a self-conscious simper on his face. And Shovel, who could have damped him considerably, behaved in the most honorable manner, initiating him gravely into the higher life, much as you show the new ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... joyless smile. Newman 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
... in 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, ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... furniture, red; mantelpiece, 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 glass over the chimney is framed in ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... and gay. She laughed overmuch. Vivie was tall and sentimental,—a brunette. They came once to the West Laurence Avenue house for Sunday supper. Horatio did not like the sisters; he called them in his simple way "Giggle" and "Simper." The Nortons lived not far from the Lake on East Acacia Street, and that became for Milly the symbol of the all-desirable. She spoke firmly of the advantages of East Acacia Street as a residence—she had even picked out the house, the last but one in the same row of stone-front boxes ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... nature, and still less was coquetry. When Lewis after lunch begged to be allowed to show her his dwelling she did not blush and simper, she showed no pretty reluctance, no graceful displeasure. She thanked him, but coldly, and the two climbed the ridge above the lake, whence the whole glen may be seen winding beneath. It was still, hot July weather, and the far hills seemed to blink and shimmer in the haze; but at their ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... 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 ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... 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 of ice-water on ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... of it if you will, but I bid you to beware. You were a good-looking missie, and you have grown—yes, one can say it without making you simper—into a more than good-looking woman. But the days slip by, child, and your looks will slip away with them. You are wasting your life in worrying over other folk's children. Those eyes of yours were meant for children of your own. What's more, ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... 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, ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... my husband? He belongs to the Philadelphia Bettersons,—a very wealthy and influential family," said the woman with a simper. "Very wealthy and influential." ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... annual income as an illustrator for the magazines, and it was a surprise to Archie to find that he also went in for this kind of thing. For the picture, dashingly painted in oils, represented a comfortably plump young woman who, from her rather weak-minded simper and the fact that she wore absolutely nothing except a small dove on her left shoulder, was plainly intended to be the goddess Venus. Archie was not much of a lad around the picture-galleries, but he knew enough about Art to recognise Venus when he saw her; though once or twice, it is ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... end of his life, I fancy, he will have his circle of toadies and flatterers who will 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 ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various
... must stop, lest you both be tired. In my next paper I shall begin again, and teach you, 4. To talk to the person you are talking with, and not simper to her or him, while really you are looking all round the room, and thinking of ten other persons; 5. Never in any other way to underrate the person you talk with, but to talk your best, whatever that may be; and, 6. To be brief,—a point which I shall ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... for the woman 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 ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... 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 did do when some days later he again met ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... consisted, in about equal parts, of classical allusion, quotation from the stable, simper from the scullery, cant from the clubs, and the technical slang of heraldry. We boasted much of ancestry, and admired the whiteness of our hands whenever the skin was visible through a fault in the grease and tar. Next to love, the vegetable kingdom, murder, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... 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, ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... 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 to the Glass you can, or Pour it whilst 'tis yet Hot into a Filtre ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... short 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 look ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... much honour,' cried Dame Hobson, with a simper. 'I shall go down into the cellars and bring a flask ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... commanded Wilbur in anguished tones, whereupon the obedient Frank tumbled to lie upon his back, four limp legs in air, turning his head to simper up at Boodles, who stood inquiringly above him. Boodles then sniffed an amiable contempt and ran back to his hotel. Frank strained at his leash to follow. His proud owner thought there could be few dogs in all the world so ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... moment she turned and looked at her father. Her face had already put on the ballet-simper, but it now gave place to a quite different expression. The mouth remained fixed, but the eyes tried, for a second, to send him a beseeching smile. The mountebank shrugged his shoulders, and held out his hand with the coppers; the girl turned, ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... longer 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 protectingly ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... 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 ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... club suggested Thea Kronborg, others advocated Lily Fisher. Lily's 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
... 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
... 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 ...
— Nestlings - A Collection of Poems • Ella Fraser Weller
... ever-understanding mother, because the minutes I have to take for other things seem so snatched away and lost, snatched from the real thing, the one real thing, which is my lover. Oh, I expect I'm shameless, and I don't care. Ought I to simper, and pretend I don't feel particularly much? Be ladylike, and hide how I adore him? Telegraph to me—telegraph your blessing. I must be blessed by you. Till I have been, it's like not having had my crown put on, and standing waiting, all ready in my beautiful clothes of happiness except ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... trade 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 ...
— Peter Bell the Third • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... 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 ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... familiar appellation of 'Fitz,' or some such monosyllable. Near him is a stout man in a white neckerchief and buff waistcoat, with shining dark hair, cut very short in front, and a great, round, healthy-looking face, on which he studiously preserves a half sentimental simper. Next him, again, is a large-headed man, with black hair and bushy whiskers; and opposite them are two or three others, one of whom is a little round-faced person, in a dress-stock and blue under-waistcoat. There is something peculiar in their air and manner, though ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... the elan which takes 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 ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... day I 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
... whom young ladies want to 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 a ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... pound of Sugar, one pint of Rose water, or more, make your Syrupe first, and let it stand till it be cold, then take your Rose leaves, having first clipt off all the white, put them into the cold Syrupe, then cover them, and set them on a soft fire, that they may but simper for two or three hours, then while they are hot put them into pots or ...
— A Book of Fruits and Flowers • Anonymous
... not 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 ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... rule!" she went on laughing. "Just look at them yonder. See how they smile and simper, and press their hands to their hearts, and daintily arrange their drop curls! I would as soon be loved ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... flattered 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
... 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 God, that's over!" and ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... 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
... gave a single glance to 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 jailer, ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... close, and demand the kiss of love—most like she would recoil aghast—at first! Yet if he desisted—she would also recoil aghast.—What should he do, poor awkward youth? what she?—One thing onlookers will do: smile, and simper, and smile again; but in their inmost heart of hearts they will envy that awkward youth, that simple maid. For because, in this the first symptoms of unsolicited and reciprocal love, they will recognize something of the divine ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... 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; ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... chance of extricating myself by marriage; 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 soon ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... there is a business-man in your pious Quaker city even, who would dare acquaint his wife and daughters with all his little arrangements for amassing wealth. Ha! ha! ha! How the pretty things would stare at the tricks of the trade, and simper: "Is that right?" As though anybody thought business principles were gospel principles! As though they expected a man was going to love his neighbor as himself, when he was making a bargain with him! It provokes me to see you make yourself so ridiculous! ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... and graceful. Her lack of colour, by heightening the effect of black eyebrows and darkly lustrous eyes, gave her at present a more spiritual cast than her character justified; but a thoughtful firmness was native to her lips, and no possibility of smirk or simper lurked in the attractive features. The slim figure was well fitted in a costume of pale blue, cheap but becoming; a modest little hat rested on her black hair; her gloves and her sunshade completed ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... see how 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 ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... tops of her glasses: 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
... sometimes long, and are not easily got off. Her lips are your welcome, and your entertainment her company, which is put into the reckoning too, and is the dearest parcel in it. No citizen's wife is demurer than she at the first greeting, nor draws in her mouth with a chaster simper; but you may be more familiar without distaste, and she does not startle at bawdry. She is the confusion of a pottle of sack more than would have been spent elsewhere, and her little jugs are accepted to have her kiss excuse them. She may be an honest woman, ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... 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
... Mary, had never, as the New England saying is, "thought a word about it." Had Kelson suddenly presented himself to her with "Mary, shall we be published next Sunday?" she would have answered "Yes;" without the slightest hesitation; nor thought her assent worth the trouble of a blush or a simper; and such, I believe, will be found the case in most of our ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... not come here to simper cheap philosophies with you like a couple of schoolgirls. I have a real live errand. I want to speak to you ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to say at times what one really thinks! I can not resist it. When Lady Everton tells me, with that tiresome simper of hers, that she really wonders at herself, I long to tell her other people do the same thing. I should enjoy, for once, the luxury of telling Mrs. St. John that people flatter her, and then laugh at her affectation. It is ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... said Miss Phoebe, with a little simper and a knowing look, which sate oddly on her kindly innocent face. 'You see a great deal of Mr. ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... 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 ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... 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 ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... Let the Chattesworths alone for scheming, with all their grand airs. Much I mind them! Why, the old sinner was not an hour in the town when he was asked over the way to Belmont, and Miss dressed out there like a puppet, to simper and flatter the rich old land agent, and butter him up—my Lord Castlemallard's bailiff—if you please, ha, ha, ha! and the Duchess of Belmont, that ballyrags every one round her, like a tipsy old soldier, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... 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 before you've sailed with him a week, if you ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... years ago could not by any decent means have got their likenesses exhibited to the public except in shop-window photographs, now simper at us fifty-two times a year, or more, and are sometimes described as "the celebrated actress," though a few of them never get beyond the dignity of a single silly line in the book of a musical hodge-podge. Miss XXX smiles at us from her ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... that is why I made her larger than the miserable, pinched-up woman of our day. Strength and beauty must go together. Don't you think these broad shoulders can bear burdens without breaking down, these hands work well, these eyes see clearly, and these lips do something besides simper and gossip?" ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... their putting on airs; the make-believe gentleman and lady cannot look like the genuine article. Mediocrity shows itself for what it is worth, no matter what temporary name it may have acquired. Ill-temper cannot hide itself under the simper of assumed amiability. The querulousness of incompetent complaining natures confesses itself almost as much as in the tones of the voice. The anxiety which strives to smooth its forehead cannot get rid of the telltale furrow. The ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... was so full of his success, and so uplifted by the 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
... Leave the child alone now, you'll make her quite fractious," said Nurse, rescuing Cicely from a too-energetic embrace. Pennie looked round for something fresh to caress, and her eye fell on the Lady Dulcibella sitting in her arm-chair by the dolls' house. There was a satisfied simper on her pink face, as though she waited for admiration; she held her little nose high in the air, and one could almost hear her say, "How very vulgar!" Pennie turned from her with a shudder, and picked up Jemima, who was lying on the ...
— The Hawthorns - A Story about Children • Amy Walton
... see her, I could feel Blandina simper. But at that minute Josiah interrupted the dialogue by askin' where Samantha wuz, and I come forward and jined 'em. Blandina looked radiantly happy, and I motioned to Molly and Josiah to come on, I knowed they would rather have our room ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... practice at the bar is more owing to the scarcity of silk-gowns{3} than the profundity of his talents. The perpetual simper that plays upon his ruby countenance, when finessing with a jury, has, no doubt, its artful effect; although it is as foreign to the true feelings of the man, as the malicious grin of the malignant satirist would be to generosity and true genius. Of his oratory, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... what goes on in the Chapel, after the fight and scramble are over. The rustle and buzz, the music, the oratory and the poem, during which the men cheer and the girls simper; the professors yawn, and the poet's friends pronounce him a second Longfellow. Then the closing flourishes, the grand ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... top of the first lesson she drew a fairly clever cartoon of Johnny in an airplane, ascending to the star Venus. She made it appear that Johnny's hair stood straight on end and his eyes goggled with fear, and she made Venus a long-nosed, skinny, old-maid face with a wide, welcoming simper. Up in a corner she placed the moon, with one eye closed and a ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... ten, together with Mrs Wopples, were present, and were seated around a large table plentifully laden with cold beef and pickles, salads, bottles of beer, and other things too numerous to mention. Mr Wopples presented them first to his wife, a faded, washed-out looking lady, with a perpetual simper on her face, and clad in a lavender muslin gown with ribbons of the same description, she looked wonderfully light and airy. In fact she had a sketchy appearance as if she required to be touched up here ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... don't 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 ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... says the Goddess of Hearts, adjusting her crown with a simper. ''Tis I am supreme. 'Tis known a young rake will sell his last estate to win a smile from Miss Sally Salisbury and other worthy ladies. And hath not the Countess of H——t lately run off with her footman? I lead statesmen and kings by the nose. Many such ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... "What makes 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
... into the semi-detached wife, with a husband always conveniently in the distance, and a cicisbeo as conveniently in the corner. The British mother has died into the faded matrimonial schemer, contemptuous of younger sons. The innocent simper of the British maiden has developed into the loud laugh and the horsey slang of the girl of the season. But maiden and matron are still on one point faithful to the traditions of their grandmothers, and front all censorious comers with a shrug of their shoulder-straps and ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... on the C (sea)." Then there is the prima donna, in a pink gauze petticoat, over a 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
... fact. It was a most real and serious purpose they were built for! Yes, another world it was, when these black ruins, white in their new mortar and fresh chiselling, first saw the sun as walls, long ago. Gauge not, with thy dilettante compasses, with that placid dilettante simper, the Heaven's-Watchtower of our Fathers, the fallen God's-Houses, the ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... whose 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 'twixt ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... had no more experience in them than a child's, although they were reddened now 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 ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... must have waddled along; her elbows were drawn in to touch her long taper, waist, and the air of her whole body was an affectation of gentility. Death could not alter the rigid hang of her limbs, or efface the simper that had stretched her mouth; the lips were thin, as if nature intended she should mince her words; her nose was small, and sharp at the end; and the forehead, unmarked by eyebrows, was wrinkled by the discontent that had sunk her cheeks, on which Sagestus still discerned faint ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... 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 ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... 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 ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... freshly plucked lilacs, one blue and the other white, which emitted a fragrant odor. After Carl had sufficiently regarded these objects, he slowly jerked his chair towards the table, and at each pause his mouth widened into a simple simper. At length he arrived so near the table that by bending forward he could have easily touched the flowers with his nostrils. To accomplish this movement, which was his evident intention, he proceeded with as much gravity and carefulness as he had evinced in ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... 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 nearest ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... artificiality!" said Ella; "and what an apt commentary upon the subject we were talking about, Phyllis! We were discussing the merits of directness in speech and straightness in every way. We were ridiculing the timid maid—all sandals and simper—of forty years ago. Why should men and women have ever taken the trouble to be affected? Let us go in to lunch and eat with the appetites of men and women of the nineties, not with the nibblings of society of the fifties. Come along, ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... He murdered the morning air 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 ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... 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 ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... 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 ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... 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' looks ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... 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 ...
— The Beast in the Jungle • Henry James
... 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, and he dwelt much upon ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... upon him, the Seneschal, with another bow and a simper, placed a chair at his visitor's disposal. She looked at the chair, then looked at the man much as she had looked at the chair, and turning her back contemptuously on both, she sauntered towards the fireplace. She ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... pardon me,' rejoined Vassily Ivanovitch with a polite simper. 'Though I am laid on the shelf now, I have knocked about the world too—I can tell a bird by its flight. I am something of a psychologist too in my own way, and a physiognomist. If I had not, I will venture to say, been endowed with that gift, I should have come to grief long ago; I should have ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... men, the former acquire a fondness for humour and mischievous tricks; whilst the latter, mixing frequently with well-bred women, catch a sentimental cant. But mind is equally out of the question, whether they indulge the horse-laugh or polite simper. ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... emphatic hand, the tail of the letter M enjoying a career distinguished beyond any of its fellows by length and beauty. The envelope, moreover, was sealed by a brilliant red lion with jagged whiskers and a simper, who threatened the person daring to open a missive not addressed to him with the vengeance of a battle-axe which was balanced lightly but truculently on ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... attention. Able now to distinguish the faces that were gazing at him, Denzil perceived that he had begun with a lucky stroke; the people were in expectation of more merriment, and sat beaming with good-humour. He saw the Mayor spread himself and stroke his beard, and the Mayoress simper as she caught a friend's eye. Now he might venture to change his tone and ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... very 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 shorter than ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... was a young lady of thirty-two or three, with long corkscrew curls, a wiry figure—a smile, of the description called "simper," on her lips, and an elegant mincing carriage of the person as she moved. She carried a fan, which seemed to serve for a number of purposes: to raise artificial breezes, cover imaginary blushes, and flirt itself against the hands or other ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... 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
... to bow and simper in response to the polite bows and simpers of half a dozen ladies. Mrs. Weldon Dacre and three Miss Dacres, Rose, Grace, and Amy, tall and bony damsels, with pale reddish hair, and paler eyebrows and eyelashes, and altogether more "style" than beauty; Mrs. Wilmot, a handsome widow, whom Frederick ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... for 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 who collect golf balls and eat green gooseberries? ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... the paseo. After you're nearly gone to sleep, they come, and you talk of any uninteresting things they can think of; never interesting ones, because they're kept for intimate friends' gossip; and the girls simper and stare as if you were a curiosity, because you're allowed to walk in the street without a maid.' That's being 'sociable' in Seville, according to the American girl; and I'm afraid that she's right from ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Stanhope (Chesterfield's 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;' ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... sportsman. To a close observer of the human face divine, however, his features are wanting in energy of will and fixedness of purpose. The brow is weak, and the eyes flittering and restless; and the mouth is usually garnished with a cold simper, not very compatible with that heart-born enthusiasm which precludes all doubt ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... it is that they use in the Mater hospice. Demme, does not Doctor O'Gargle chuck the nuns there under the chin. As I look to be saved I had it from my Kitty who has been wardmaid there any time these seven months. Lawksamercy, doctor, cried the young blood in the primrose vest, feigning a womanish simper and with immodest squirmings of his body, how you do tease a body! Drat the man! Bless me, I'm all of a wibbly wobbly. Why, you're as bad as dear little Father Cantekissem, that you are! May this pot of four half choke me, cried Costello, if she aint in the family way. I knows ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... nonsense; so, everybody who conversed with her, talked nonsense, too, and paid her silly compliments, and made her believe that all she needed to make her quite an angel was a pair of wings; and then she would hold her pretty head on one side, and simper; and they would go away laughing in their sleeves, and saying, "What a ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... simper James, leave your fair Killie dames, There's a holier chase in your view: I'll lay on your head, that the pack you'll soon lead, For puppies like you there's but few, Simper James!^7 For puppies like you there's ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... she said, in her sweetest and most ingratiating manner, with a suggestion of the simper which used to be fashionable when she was a girl. "There has been an accident, I see. Are you very much hurt? Eleanor, pray do not stand like a thing of stock or stone; pray, do not be ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... insensible put it in the teapot and add enough hot water to drown it. Let it drown about twenty minutes, then lead the yolk of an egg over to the teapot and push it in. Season with a small pinch of paprika and let it simper. Serve hot, and always be sure to put a piece of lemon ...
— Skiddoo! • Hugh McHugh
... tone, (his eyes had mechanically followed these latter proceedings,) "Mollee! that is ponch!" —"La, sir! and why not?" replied the damsel, almost playfully. "Why not be comfortable and cheery? I am sure"—and here she meant to look encouraging, her usual simper spreading to a smile—"I am sure Betty and I would do our best ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... again, as I live, even if we cannot say yet truthfully 'clothed and in her right mind.'—Eh, Clayton?" with a sneering simper; "and what eyes, what teeth, to be sure! Then the dreadful redness is going away, though the skin will scale, of course; but no matter for that; all the fairer in the end. And what a special mercy that her hair is saved!—You ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... of this without 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
... protection, innocent 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, and washing down his edibles ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... Men! wiser Coxcombs. What, they wou'd have me train my Nephew up, a hopeful Youth, to keep a Merchant's Book, or send him to chop Logick in an University, and have him returned an arrant learned Ass, to simper, and look demure, and start at Oaths and Wenches, whilst I fell his Woods, and grant Leases: And lastly, to make good what I have cozen'd him of, force him to marry Mrs. Crump, the ill-favour'd Daughter of some Right Worshipful.—A Pox of all of ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... 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 words ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... arrival of 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
... 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 the mirror ere I enter the sacred ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... 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 ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... rest simpering and gushing and getting in his way: 'O Mr. Ellery, I did so enjoy that sermon of yours Sunday!' and 'O Mr. Ellery, it was SO good of you to come this afternoon!' Pooh! I'm glad I'm a Come-Outer. Not that I would simper over him if I wasn't. He couldn't patronize me—not more ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the inner life of all those millions of immortal souls who were struggling, with such good or bad success as was given them, to carry Christ's cross along their journey through life, they set it by, pass it over, dismiss it out of history, with some poor commonplace simper of sorrow or of scorn. It will not do. Mankind have not been so long on this planet altogether, that we can allow so large a chasm to be scooped out of ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... For the inner life of all those millions of immortal souls who were struggling, with such good or bad success as was given them, to carry Christ's cross along their journey in this earth of ours, they set it by, pass it over, dismiss it out of history, with some poor common-place simper of sorrow or of scorn. It will not do. Mankind have not been so long on this planet altogether, that we can allow so large a chasm to be scooped out ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... opportunity," replied Miss Sprig with a simper. Whereat Mr. Chance, sitting next her, suggested that, as a synonym of opportunity, possibly he ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... 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
... I know, to blush and simper; but I couldn't think of anything else to do, Potter was so alarming; and I wouldn't allow him to tell my fortune by my hand, for it was much too hot. Even if it hadn't been I shouldn't have wanted my hand held, for I do hate being touched by anyone I'm not fond ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Dotty began to 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," ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May
... tried to look self-satisfied as she invited her guest to eat. "This is ham," said she with a little simper, "broiled ham, Mr. Dockwrath; and there is chicken at the other end; ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... Keren Happuch's work and feel nothing added to her toil," was the sharp response. "Small use are her hands in any kitchen. We had better make up our minds to wed her to a fine gentleman, who wants naught of his wife but to dress up in grand gowns, and smirk and simper over her fan; for no useful work will he get out of her. If rushes are wanted, she had better go quickly ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... so wretched that at last I gave way," said Mrs. Bowman, with a simper. "Poor fellow, it was such a shock to him that he hasn't got back ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... wished to humiliate her. She 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
... Agnes. Good morning! "Bon jour!" Now, isn't that vision alarming? Silk with panier, and puffs, and lace Decking a figure of corsetted grace; Her words are minced, and her spoiled young face Wears a simper far from charming. ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr. |
