"Hilarity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of this refection, and no other incentive to hilarity than lemonade, Johnson was in a short time after our assembling transformed into a new creature; his habitual melancholy and lassitude of spirit gave way; his countenance brightened.' Hawkins's Johnson, pp. 219, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... staircase arrested my attention. I presently recognised it as that of Usher. In an instant afterward he rapped, with a gentle touch, at my door, and entered, bearing a lamp. His countenance was, as usual, cadaverously wan—but, moreover, there was a species of mad hilarity in his eyes—an evidently restrained hysteria in his whole demeanour. His air appalled me—but anything was preferable to the solitude which I had so long endured, and I even welcomed his presence ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... and water-sheds of character. Those who differ on humor will differ on principles. The Gresleys and the Pratts belonged to that large class of our fellow-creatures who, conscious of a genius for adding to the hilarity of our sad planet, discover an irresistible piquancy in putting a woman's hat on a man's head, and in that "verbal romping" which playfully designates a whiskey-and-soda as a gargle, and says "au reservoir" ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... weary heart with a dull pain. She had no cultured phrase to characterize the sensation as a presentiment, but she was conscious of the prophetic process. To-night "all the mounting" would be riotous with that dubious hilarity known as "Chrismus in the bones," and there was no telling what might come from the combined orgy and an inflamed ...
— 'way Down In Lonesome Cove - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... not finish the sentence for a sob that almost choked her. The regular customers of the room had turned to stare at the sound of such unwonted hilarity. Dinner was far too serious a business for most of them that laughter should ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... Watson Gilder, editor of the "Century," being the manager.[62] His devices and quotations from the writings of the guest of the year, placed upon the cards of the guests, are so appropriate, as to cause much hilarity. Then the speeches of the novitiates give zest to the occasion. John Morley was the guest of honor when with us in 1895 and a quotation from his works was upon the ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... night, but it was not his intentional humourous efforts that excited their hilarity. It was the man himself. They began by jeering him quietly. Then the ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... that occurred to Moronval, but he was aroused from his silent hilarity by the noise of a discussion too animated to be altogether amiable. He heard the puffs and sighs of Labassandre and the solemn little voice of madame. Easily divining the bone of contention, he hastened to the assistance of his wife, whom he found heroically defending ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... and the Irishman regarded each other thoughtfully. "Pard," said Tex in a low, earnest tone, "do you reckon that there hilarity was in any ways directed toward this ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... humor among the green men of Mars are widely at variance with our conceptions of incitants to merriment. The death agonies of a fellow being are, to these strange creatures provocative of the wildest hilarity, while their chief form of commonest amusement is to inflict death on their prisoners of war in ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... I am!" protested Miss Bartlett, and followed her across the lawn. Lucy tripped ahead, simulating hilarity. When they were out of earshot Miss Bartlett stopped her wails and said quite briskly: "Have you told ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... in the direction of the town. As he approached the place the blaring of cornets and sounds of hilarity reminded him that Quelquepart was holding its annual foire. Merry-go-rounds and swing-boats were not in harmony with Chippo's mood, and the performance at the gaudily-painted Guignol struck him as particularly dreary, but the sight of Ferdinand Delauney's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 5, 1920 • Various
... The hilarity of the manner into which he had been betrayed, upon the instant surprised and rather confused him. He had not been altogether clear as to how he should receive Plowden, but certainly a warm joviality had not occurred to ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... of this refrain beating in his soul Frederick maintained an outer show of hilarity. He and the ship's doctor were drinking champagne. He had ordered the first bottle with the soup and ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... When the general hilarity which these recitals occasioned had a little subsided, Cyrus said he thought that they could not complain of the character of the soldiers whom they had to command, for they were certainly, according to these accounts, sufficiently ready to obey the ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... bottles of champagne, three of hermitage, and one bottle of malaga were placed upon the table. She herself was carrying, with almost respectful care, a smaller bottle, like a fairy Carabosse, which she placed before her. In the midst of the hilarity caused by this abundance of excellent things—a fruit of gratitude, which the poor spinster in the delirium of her joy poured out with a profusion which put to shame the sparing hospitality of her usual fortnightly dinners—numerous dessert dishes made ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... not want penetration to discover, that no charm was more generally irresistible than that of easy facetiousness and flowing hilarity. He saw that diversion was more frequently welcome than improvement; that authority and seriousness were rather feared than loved; and that the grave scholar was a kind of imperious ally, hastily dismissed when his assistance was no longer necessary. He ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... coming round our cages to look at us, as if we were so many wild animals, and roaring with laughter at our appearance; even the very babies crowing with merriment on our being pointed out to them by their fond parents, much to Ned's disgust, although I joined in with their hilarity, it was really so ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... acknowledgments which she made, and the period when they were first disclosed. "A death-bed," says the Poet, "is a detector of the heart." Now it is certain, that the appalling facts which she states, were not primarily made in a season of hilarity, or with any design to "make money" by them, or with any expectation that they would be known to any other person than Mr. Hilliker, Mr. Tappan, and a few others at Bellevue; but when there was no anticipation that her life would be prolonged, and when agonized with ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... leave her side, except for a dance with Martie and one with Sally. After a while he and Rose went out to sit on the stairs. Alvah grew noisy and familiar, and Martie did not know quite how to meet his hilarity, although she tried. She was afraid the echoes of his wild laugh would greet her father's ears, if he had come in and was upstairs, and that ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... despite its light-comedy atmosphere, had proved a nightmare of surface hilarity, broken rest, and growing distaste for the man whose name she had permitted to be coupled with her own:—all to no purpose, it seemed, save to inflate his self-satisfaction, and fortify his intention, now too clearly manifest, of hindering to the utmost ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... whose shadows were lengthening in the setting sun. The men, lighting matches on the seats of their trousers, began to smoke. The women chattered and laughed and threw themselves backward in paroxysms of inane hilarity and noisy outbursts of delight. Germinie alone did not speak or laugh. She did not listen or look. Her eyes, beneath their lowered lids, were fixed upon the toes of her boots. So engrossed in thought was she that you would have ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... the more fascinated he became with his peculiar surroundings. He had never known any real Christian people except the Douglas family, and the spectacle of the genuine self sacrifice, the bearing of daily discomfort and pain and wrong, with such cheerfulness and even hilarity, moved him ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... remaining wild hounds prick up their ears, and our friend rein in his horse, to hear what was 'up.' A bright fire in a room on the right of the door overpowered the clouds of tobacco-smoke with which the room was enveloped, and revealed sundry scarlet coats in the full glow of joyous hilarity. It was Sir Harry and friends recruiting at Fanner Peastraw's after their exertions; for, though they could not make much of hunting, they were always ready to drink. They were having a rare set-to—rashers ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... Hear ye!" shouted the doctor's son, in the midst of the hilarity that ensued. "Hugo Mallin solves the whole problem of eugenics by destroying the ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... The hilarity of the boy was catching, for at this point a vociferous "hee! hee!" burst from the sable Poopy; the clear laugh of Alice, too, came ringing through the passage, and Mr Mason himself finally joined ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... organised the crazy councils of those ambitious, imbecile grey-beards? What was he then? What had happened since? What was he now? He turned from the comparison with feelings of sickening disgust, and it was with difficulty that his countenance could assume the due degree of hilarity which befitted ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... the small stand which had been exclusively devoted to ices; three bottles of huge dimensions were brought from the cellar; pledge after pledge was received and given. Dumiger became a different man, save that at moments, in the midst of some burst of louder hilarity, the cloud of ambition would cross his brow and seem to furrow it, and then he would fold his arms across his breast, as if to repress the outbreak of his soul. It was during one of these moments of abstraction that Carl ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... odious qualities are substituted for amiable and useful characteristics. By a deplorable consequence of these pretended miracles of grace we frequently see sorrow succeed to enjoyment, a gloomy and unhappy state to one of innocent gayety, lassitude and chagrin to activity and hilarity, and slander, intolerance, and zeal to indulgence and gentleness; nay, what do I say? cruelty itself to humanity. In a word, superstition is a dangerous leaven, that is fitted to corrupt even the ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... gyrations in my home," had responded Harriet's mother, Mrs. Sproul, as she finished the hundredth round on the shawl she was knitting. Harriet's report of the conversation had been received with great hilarity that evening ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... below, three hundred youths assembled in Altavilla with torches in their hands, and they were accompanied by half the people of the place, who encouraged them with their laughter. The noise was horrible. When it ceased, a voice was heard to shout some indecent couplet, upon which the hilarity became outrageous. Lieutenant Rubio, always original, crept along the cornice of the chapel of San Fructuoso, situated almost in front of Estrada-Rosa's house, and rang a bell. Paco Gomez went swiftly from ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... at the barracks, I stated to the officer to whom I generally reported, that I was going to try and escape. He first seemed somewhat surprised, but soon broke into a laugh. Turning, he spoke laughingly to another officer, who joined in the hilarity. ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... by the window in a milk-pail. He poured some in a basin, washed his face and hands and found the water cold enough to hurt his face. Still his excitement kept him keyed to a pitch of singular and optimistic hilarity. Through the kitchen window came the pale glimmer of snow. He hoped Hughie wouldn't hear him harnessing Nellie, and shoot at the barn. The possibility sent him to the kitchen stairway. It wound upward in an old-fashioned twist ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... tale—the extraordinary way it was hindered. This was the fault of a series of accidents; but the accidents continued for years and became, for me and for others, a subject of hilarity with either party. They were droll enough at first; then they grew rather a bore. The odd thing was that both parties were amenable: it wasn't a case of their being indifferent, much less of their being indisposed. ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... cause of light literature. In the intervals, she and Billy discussed the invasion of their hearthstone from every possible point of view; but as a rule the ridiculous side of the situation prevailed and they had moments of wild hilarity over the coming demands on ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... foot-paces, and we were constantly brought to a complete stop for some minutes before the post-boy could force a passage through the unwilling crowd. This produced a feeling of irritation, and despair of ever reaching my destination; and the mirth and careless hilarity of the people round us chafed with bitter contrast on my depressed spirits. I inquired from the post-boy what was the origin of so great a commotion, and understood him to say in reply that it was a ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... pleasures like a circle, about the stomach as a centre. And the truth is, it is impossible for those men ever to participate of generous and princely joy, such as enkindles a height of spirit in us and sends forth to all mankind an unmade hilarity and calm serenity, that have taken up a sort of life that is confined, unsocial, inhuman, and uninspired towards the esteem of the world and the love of mankind. For the soul of man is not an abject, little, and ungenerous thing, nor ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... spot, and, seating ourselves on an old fallen tree trunk, I told of my success, even to the using of his horse. Never before or since did I see Uncle Lance give way to such a fit of hilarity as he indulged in over the perfect working out of our plans. With his hat he whipped me, the ground, the log on which we sat, while his peals of laughter rang out like the reports of a rifle. In his fit ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... the freedom of his fancy, which was, however, always controlled by a certain instinctive tact, began to affect Kate nearly as it had the others. She found herself laughing over the work she had undertaken in a pure sense of duty; she joined in the hilarity produced by Lee's affected terror of her surgical mania, and offered to undo the bandages in search of the thimble he declared she had left in the wound with a view ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... shake out of the saddle, not a man of them, old or young, could mount the rubber-shod steed of the city streets. All of them gave it up after a tumultuous hour of hilarity but the bow-legged cook, whom they called Taterleg. He said he never had laid much claim to being a horseman, but if he couldn't ride a long-horned Texas steer that went on wheels he'd ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... was a Capuchin, a native of Aragon, far advanced in years, but strong and healthy. His extreme corpulency, his hilarity, the interest he took in battles and sieges, ill accorded with the ideas we form in northern countries of the melancholy reveries and the contemplative life of missionaries. Though extremely busy about a cow which ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... (agent for transports), and myself, dined with the Governor at his regimental mess. There were also present, all the principal officers of the civil establishment. Could our friends in England have witnessed the hilarity that prevailed at that banquet, in such a country, and at that melancholy season of the year, they would have scarcely credited what they saw and heard. Many who were seated there on that day, are now no more! ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... remembered Matty's blushes and affected giggles and simpers. He conjured up the whole scene, and when he recalled poor Mrs. Bell's frantic efforts to get the white boat away from the green, his sense of hilarity doubled. Finally he thought of his walk home, of the meditations which had occupied his mind, and last of all of the girl in the gray dress who had put her arms round his neck, laid her head on his breast, and whose lips he had passionately ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... taking their ease at their inn. And our neighbours do not take their pleasure solemnly after the manner of the less impressionable English. Stay-at-home as they have hitherto been, home-loving as they essentially are, the atmosphere of an inn, the aroma of a holiday, fill the Frenchman's cup of hilarity to ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... political gossiping, when the meanest insects are worshipped with sort of Egyptian superstition if only the brainless head be atoned for by the sting of personal malignity in the tail," conveys a warning to writers that is not of an age but for all time. Coleridge may have exaggerated the "manly hilarity" and "evenness and sweetness of temper" of men of genius. But there is no denying that, the smaller the genius, the greater is the spite of wounded self-love. "Experience informs us," as Coleridge says, "that the first defence of weak minds is to recriminate." ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... supported with great ingenuity. We returned to our college on a Sunday afternoon: the peasants were dancing, and every one we met appeared gay and happy. My own spirits were high, and I bounded along with feelings of unbridled joy and hilarity. ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... a-head, the boatmen turned round, while Dobbs, casting up his eyes to the blue heavens, was singing, in the hilarity of his heart, "Hearts as warm as those above, lie under the waters cold," when the boat heeled, and his duck, who unfortunately could not swim, slipped gently over the gunwhale, and, unnoticed, sank ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... with revelling thousands; the bands were playing, the crowds were singing, and mobs were drinking and carousing in the lower end. The cold, drizzling rain that began to blow across the city at ten o'clock did little toward checking the hilarity of the revellers. Honest citizens went to bed early, leaving the streets to the strangers from the hills and the river-lands. Not one dreamed of the ugly tragedy that was drawing to a climax as he slept the sleep of the just, the secure, ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... intellectual graces. Given such a face as hers, such a figure, and all the rest was included. And when he thought of her eyes and the maddening way in which they looked into his; of the grave little smile, evanescent, delicate, subtle, the very aroma of a smile, so different from the coarse hilarity of your commonplace English girls; of the reticence and pride which gave such value to her smaller graces; of the enchanting look and accent which had accompanied her act of self-surrender just now—that acceptance of his word and renunciation ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... shrieked as they fell between the slippery seats. The men were making acquaintances; the communities from which they came were sufficiently interwoven to link up relationships with little difficulty, and already they were exchanging anecdotes in high hilarity or discussing plans and prospects with that mutual sympathy which so quickly arises among those who seek their fortunes together under ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... their most skillful efforts, the boys did not have good luck, and returned with but a small catch of fish. Hilarity due to the way the boys told how they had to fish made up for the lack and for everything else. When everything was packed neatly again, and all were ready to start, Jake gave a wild leap and landed too near the edge ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... There was a hilarity almost like some strange intoxication on the part of the two children. They danced, and chattered, and clapped their chubby brown hands, and ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... promise cases generally afford plenty of amusement to the public, both in the United States and Great Britain, but it is only in early American Courts that we hear of a judge adding to the hilarity by congratulating the successful party to the suit. A young American belle sued her faithless sweetheart, and claimed damages laid at one hundred dollars. The defendant pleaded that after an intimate acquaintance with the family, he found it was impossible to live comfortably ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... were jubilant and happy. Even Sing—whom, by the way, we have shamefully neglected during the past three months—joined in the general hilarity, and treated them to many Russian dishes that he had picked up in the kitchen of the castle, where he had spent his ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... said the marchioness, sharing the hilarity of her husband, and looking at Rose-Pompom through her glass; then she resumed, in about a minute, addressing herself to Adrienne: "I am quite certain of one thing. Notwithstanding her giddy airs, that girl is very fond of her Indian. I just saw a look that expresses ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... the lessons of freedom and individual rights they heard so much of into practice, and relieved their brains from the constant strain of argument on first principles, by the wildest hilarity in dancing, all kinds of games, and practical jokes carried beyond all bounds of propriety. These romps generally took place at Mr. Miller's. He used to say facetiously, that they talked a good deal about liberty over the way, but he kept the goddess ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... here our Harlequin and all his lifeless family are condemned to perpetual silence. They came to us from the genial hilarity of the Italian theatre, and were all the grotesque children of wit, and whim, and satire. Why is this burlesque race here privileged to cost so much, to do so little, and to repeat that little so often? Our own pantomime may, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... the Scotch Preacher for a long time, but I never saw him in quite such a mood of hilarity. He and Mr. Starkweather told stories of their boyhood—and we laughed, and laughed—Mrs. Starkweather the most of all. Seeing her so often in her carriage, or in the dignity of her home, I didn't think she had so much jollity in her. ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson
... mere byplay; a momentary swinging of their mood to pleasantry, because they were a temperamentally cheerful lot, and laughter came to them easily, as it always does to youth and perfect mental and physical health. Their brief hilarity over Slim's misfortune did not swerve them from their purpose, nor soften the mood of them toward their adversaries. They were unsmiling and unfriendly when they reached the man from Wyoming; and, if they ever ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... wolf-skin clothing, cap and moccasins. He held in his long arms a large rifle, a knife in his belt, and a powder horn slung over his side. He seemed the very patriarch of the woods, but good humored, and with his rough hilarity soon ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... so seldom in the habit of exhibiting any outward symptoms of hilarity, that Zack, who was dealing for the new game, stopped in astonishment, and inquired with great curiosity what it was his friend was "grunting about." At first, Mat declined altogether to say;—then, on being pressed, admitted that his mind was just then running on the "old woman" ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... problems of real and stupendous difficulty. The fines of a penny and of twopence, which were instituted at the first meeting, were found hopelessly incompetent to cope with the bursts of oblivious hilarity. Fordham in particular, whose constant breaches of order threatened to exhaust even the extensive treasury of that spoilt and opulent young gentleman, soon left calculation far behind, nor can the story be better or more brightly told than by himself. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... dressed as Fanny Ellsler, in a low-necked, short-sleeved, book-muslin dress and a tiny ruffled apron, making courtesies and pirouetting down the path. It was much out of character that I, a St. Francis squaw, in striped shirt, gold beads, and moccasins, should be guilty of such wild hilarity. Ora's movements were free and graceful in white Turkish trousers, a rich Oriental head-dress, and Charles Dana's best tunic, which reached just below her knee. She was ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... accompanied by a light suitcase and a lively brother. It must not be supposed, however, that the brother's cheerful tone consisted entirely of chaff. He supported the new candidate with hope as well as hilarity; and at the back of his boisterous partnership there was an increasing sympathy and encouragement. Harry Fisher had always had an affection for his more quiet and eccentric brother, and was now ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... night sat down to an ample feast, over which the impending Thanksgiving shed its hilarity. There was not only the inevitable great pewter platter, scoured to silver brightness, in the center of the table, and piled with solid masses of boiled beef, pork, cabbage and all sorts of vegetables, and the ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... mobbed, hustled, mussed and finally ejected from the door with a battered hat and torn coat collar. Every other broking office in the Street has a pictorial caricature hanging over its ticker of his hesitancy and timidity, his rash venture, his silly and short-lived hilarity, his speedy and inevitable ruin, and his final departure, with his face distorted by rage and grief, and ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... dance, generally executed at entertainments after the mead or boza has worked sufficiently on the brain to produce a moderate degree of hilarity. It commences with a measured clapping of hands; a few low notes succeed, which, as the audience joins in, swell into a lively air; when some wild-looking "ghilly" in a long, tattered coat springs into the centre of ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... Lisette, even Mrs. Wix had never, she felt, in spite of hugs and tears, been so intimate with her as so many persons at present were with Mrs. Beale and as so many others of old had been with Mrs. Farange. The note of hilarity brought people together still more than the note of melancholy, which was the one exclusively sounded, for instance, by poor Mrs. Wix. Maisie in these days preferred none the less that domestic revels should be wafted to her from a distance: she felt sadly unsupported for facing the inquisition ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... in the streets. The world claims its own again. I have been to a bull fight and am even now shivering with disgust of myself. Still, it was a magnificent spectacle—that grand amphitheatre of beautiful faces, the hilarity and gay confusion, the open homage, the child-like enjoyment. Until these wild, brave animals came bounding into the arena, there was nothing in the scene which any out-door amusement might not exhibit. Indeed, the gathering of an assembly ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... and out of the dance room with escorts or without, stood at the bar for drinks, entwined their arms with those of the men. In the dance room a band was playing. A man with a tambourine added to the hilarity of the music. It was a wild spectacle, unlike anything I had ever seen. No one accosted me. I could feel a different spirit in the crowd from that I had seen on the boats or in New York. There was no talk of politics, negroes, force ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... "Slawit" or "Sloyt," the hitherto suppressed amusement burst in a perfect roar of laughter, the company evidently thinking that the gentleman who had asked the question had got his answer! Taking advantage of the general hilarity, we quietly and quickly retreated to another and less noisy room upstairs, ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... gods, the Brahmins, and the kings, speak Sanskrit; women and the less important characters speak Prakrit, more or less refined according to their rank. Whatever may offend propriety, whatever may produce an unwholesome excitement, is excluded; for the hilarity of the audience, there is an occasional introduction on the stage of a parasite or a buffoon. The representation is usually opened by an apologue and always concluded ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... Ethiopian themes, but has sought the African spirit. The first of the dances is very nigresque; the second hardly at all, though it is a delicious piece of music; the third dance uses banjo figures and realizes darky hilarity in fine style; the fourth is a cake walk and hits off the droll humor ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... noisy table. Maria Angelina was astounded at the hilarity of that meal. Already she began censoring her report to Mamma. Certainly Mamma would never understand Ruth's elbows on the table, her shouts of laughter—or the pellets ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... Lavinia, who cannot distinguish a face three feet away without her lorgnette, thought she was speaking to father. Under cover of our mutual hilarity, I led her back to a seat in the study, so that Martin might recover his wits, coat, and slippers at the same time, for Miss Lavinia had stumbled over the latter and sent ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... the point of the intellect, or as truth. But all is sour, if seen as experience. Details are melancholy; the plan is seemly and noble. In the actual world—the painful kingdom of time and place—dwell care, and canker, and fear. With thought, with the ideal, is immortal hilarity, the rose of joy. Round it all the Muses sing. But grief cleaves to names, and persons, and the partial interests ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... 'Indeed,' replied the wife of the former member, 'that is curious. But I suppose my husband is much more economical than yours, for he brought home $1.500, that he'd saved out of his salary.' As the salary is only $456, and the gentleman in question did not play poker, much hilarity was indulged in, and there were conjectures that the economy referred to concerned his vote upon a certain bill before the last session, anent which the lobby pushing it were far from economical. Uncle ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... the same errand—to get rich by gambling. The gold gleaming over the table is reflected in their faces. Not in smiles, or cheerfully; but by an expression of hungry cupidity—fixed, as if stamped into their features. No sign of hilarity, or joyfulness; not a word of badinage passing about, or between; scarce a syllable spoken, save the call-words of the dealer, or an occasional remark by the croupier, explanatory of some disputed point about the placing, or payment, ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... When this hilarity had somewhat subsided, Princess Stephanie returned to the charge, saying, "It really is a pity that your Majesty does not know how to waltz, for the Germans are wild over waltzing, and the Empress will naturally share the taste of her ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Memoirs of Napoleon • David Widger
... at Singapore and Sarawak, and so responsible also from having consecrated you to the Lord, that I must write. I have taken the liberty with you which Mr. Cecil took with me in 1801, to caution you, now you are a chief pastor and a father in God, against excessive hilarity of spirits. There is a mild gravity, with occasional tokens of delight and pleasure, becoming your sacred ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... perverse; he didn't do things that passed your comprehension, and he let you be. For Ransome the world of men brought respite. Even at home, in that world of women, of one woman, when things (he meant the one woman) were too much for him, menacing his as yet invincible hilarity, he could turn his back on them, and work in the garden or play with the Baby. Or he could leave them for a while and mount his bicycle and ride out into the open country. For Ransome life still had interests ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... relatives gave themselves up to joy and merriment with happy hearts. Eat, feed, give, make merry, sing, drink—these were the sounds heard everyday in every house. And here and there arose loud uproars of hilarity mixed with clappings of hands which filled the whole city of the Daityas, who being capable of assuming any form at will, were engaged in every kind of amusement and sport and scarcely noticed the flight of time, even regarding a whole year as a ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... her exhaustion, could not help smiling at the ingenuousness of the "permanent's" point of view. Seeing Mavis smile, the woman laughed also, but her hilarity was inspired ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... apparently by accident, and he said, "Excuse me, mister!" There were other familiar faces. Kells's gang were all in Alder Creek and the dark machinations of the bandit leader had been put into operation. What struck Joan forcibly was that, though there were hilarity and comradeship, they were not manifested in any general way. These miners were strangers to one another; the groups were strangers; the gamblers were strangers; the newcomers were strangers; and over all hung an atmosphere ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... conduct of life, the advantages of external beauty can hardly be overrated. All thinkers have felt this. Emerson says "of that beauty which reaches its perfection in the human form," that "all men are its lovers; wherever it goes, it creates joy and hilarity, and everything is permitted to it." Now there is a beauty of parts, which is external; and another of the expression of the soul, which is the superior. But in its higher grades the former implies the latter. Socrates said that his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... scene of much excitement and noisy revelry that evening and all the next day while the gold lasted. Miners who had heard of the Chihuahua "streak" flocked up to Blue Bar to get the particulars, and naturally joined in the general feeling of exultation and hilarity that seemed to pervade that community. Old Platte got terribly drunk, and Thompson and Jones developed the strangest eccentricities of gait, manner and speech, and finally subsided into a deep slumber in the dust and sand of the main thoroughfare of the Bar. Gentleman Dick's absence from ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... Steenie, he looked the same loose lank lad as before, with a smile almost too sad to be a smile, and a laugh in which there was little hilarity. His pleasures were no doubt deep and high, but seldom, even to Kirsty, manifested themselves except in ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... was now at home; but his presence did not add much hilarity to the claret-cup. The young men, however, were very keen about the election, and Mr Nearthewinde, who was one of the party, was full of ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... blood-red shifts, who had thronged to stare at the strangers, burst into a scream of acclamation. A group of hooded widows thrust their fingers into their ears and joined in the clamour. The escort and camel-drivers placed no bounds to their hilarity. A fat ox, that had been promised, was turned loose among the spectators, pursued by fifty savages with their gleaming creeses, and hamstrung by a dexterous blow, which threw it bellowing to the earth in the height of its mad career, and tribes of lean ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... we woke the sleeping conductors and motor-men of the street-cars which the Street-Railway Workers' Union always kept waiting at Smolny to take the Soviet delegates to their homes. In the crowded car there was less happy hilarity than the night before, I thought. Many looked anxious; perhaps they were saying to themselves, "Now we are masters, how can ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... and gone. There were fourteen of them, to be exact, and they had climbed out of a couple of big touring cars with sounds of hilarity which made the elderly ladies jump in their chairs. They had swarmed over the place as if they owned it, had talked and laughed and joked and shouted, all in a perfectly agreeable way which woke up Boswell's as if it were in the centre of somewhere instead of off in the mountains. They ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... of hilarity, and explained that the house in which his brother-in-law lived was a large wooden structure, but that he manufactured and sold india-rubber ...
— The American • Henry James
... contradictory streak in her nature often made her assume an accomplishment she did not possess, and now, knowing she couldn't chat in their lively fashion, she took refuge in an attitude of bold hilarity, and talked ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... was a scramble meal to-day, served in the morning-room on three different tables, and in the midst of a medley of boxes and parcels; but that was part of the fun of the occasion, and added to the general hilarity. A formal meal in the dining-room could be had any day, but it needed a convulsion of Nature to induce Mrs Rendell to hold her plate in her lap, and actually—oh, horrors! to help herself to butter with her own individual knife! The girls chuckled with delight at the spectacle, and then ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... England. For a meagre, powdered figure, hung with tatters, a-la-mode de Paris, to affect the airs of a coxcomb, and the importance of a sovereign, is ridiculous enough; but if it makes a man happy, why should he be laughed at? It must blunt the edge of ridicule, to see natural hilarity defy depression; and a whole nation laugh, sing, and dance, under burthens that would nearly break the firm-knit sinews of a Briton. Such was the picture of France at that period, but it was a picture which our English satirist could not contemplate with common patience. The ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... sleepless night of intense anxiety on the part of the prisoners, and, as has been said, more than one unavailing effort to elude the vigilance of their guards, the morning dawned of the day which was to see those prisoners begin to die; and with the rising of the sun the excitement and hilarity of the village became still more pronounced. The crowds grew more dense, the laughter and conversation louder; the people had donned their holiday attire—such as it was—and the children chased each other with ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... many a ball in progress, but never had he seen dancing as he saw it here, where grace rubbed shoulders with absolute gaucherie, and wild hilarity mingled unashamed with a curious seriousness—one had almost said iciness—of demeanor. The women, who formed the definite interest of the picture, were for the most part young, with a youth that lent slimness and suppleness to the figure ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... afternoons had also somewhat changed in their nature by this time. The social element was still preserved, but instead of the riotous fun and hilarity of the opening meeting, a quieter mode now prevailed. After tea, there was usually a game, then all sat down, and the girls drew forth their sewing with which they proceeded while the boys sat quietly in their places, all listening ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden
... silver of our plated ones having feloniously made off under cover of the whitening-brush—and not to talk of his cook, ours being not yet hired ;-and not to start the subject of wine, ours, by some odd accident, still remaining at the wine-merchant's! With all these impediments, however, to convivial hilarity, if he will eat a quarter of a joint of meat (his share, I mean), tied up by a packthread, and roasted by a log of wood on the bricks,—and declare no potatoes so good as those dug by M. d'Arblay out of our garden,—and protest our small beer gives the spirits ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... had shot the boat up to the landing, where the hosts of the evening stood ready to receive them. Dick was in a wild state of boyish hilarity, profiting by the novelty of his exalted position as hero of the evening, boldly to take a kiss from every pretty girl in succession as he swung her to the shore. "It's my right, to-night, you know, or if it isn't, I'm major now and can make laws for myself," he ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... and the creaking of reels, the loud banter, the peals of laughter, the sweet Irish songs that filled up the pauses of the louder mirth, and the strains of the fiddle that ever and anon added to the enlivening spirit of the scene, all constituted such a full and general chorus of hilarity as could ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... silence which followed the reading of this document was broken by a loud jeering and defiant laugh from the man on the barrel. He laughed long, but no one joined him, and, as he noticed this, his hilarity died down, being in a measure forced and mechanical. The lawyer methodically folded up his papers. As some of the jury glanced down at the face of the dead man who had originated this financial scheme of post mortem vengeance, they almost fancied they saw a malicious leer about the ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... piety—or perhaps we should more properly designate it as mistaken piety—is another peculiar manifestation of the effects of this vicious practice. The victim is observed to become transformed, by degrees, from a romping, laughing child, full of hilarity and frolic, to a sober and very sedate little—Christian, the friends think, and they are highly gratified with the piety of the child. Little do they suspect the real cause of the solemn face; not the slightest suspicion have they of the foul orgies practiced ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... now, instead of once a week, and it may be shrewdly suspected that the collation of black bread and sausage formed the sole meal of the day for many of them. Nevertheless, their hilarity was undiminished, and the rafters rang with song and laugh, and echoed also maledictions upon a supine Government, and on the rapacious Rhine lords. But the bestowal of even black bread and the least expensive of wine could not continue indefinitely. They owed a bill to the ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... thickened around the hapless colonists, whose gloom was nevertheless lighted by a transient ray of hilarity. Among their leaders was the Sieur Barbier, a young man, who usually conducted the hunting-parties. Some of the women and girls often went out with them to aid in cutting up the meat. Barbier became enamoured of one of the girls; and, as his devotion ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... the joke, but the Rev. Doctor, though he wore the paternal smile of a man that has begotten hilarity, was not perfectly propitiated, and pursued: "Nor to my apprehension is 'the man's laugh the comment on his wit' unchallengeably new: instances of cousinship germane to the phrase will recur to you. But it has to be noted that it was a phrase of assault; it was ostentatiously battery; ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... lightly that sometimes the runners cut through slightly; but, all things considered, the sleighing was very good. Still, the driver kept the horses well in hand, for they were good ones and ready to respond to a word. Moreover, the hilarity behind them seemed to have proved infectious, for every now and again a leader or a wheeler would prance about as though joining in the fun, and presently another animal became infected and wanted to prance, too. Had she not, the next chapter ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... the Church and Society who make covert attacks upon the Bible in the name of Science." He warmed to his theme, and by a specious series of misstatements and various appeals to the prejudices of his audience worked the assemblage up to a high pitch of hilarity and enthusiasm. Toward the close of his speech he happened to spy Huxley seated near, and pointing a pudgy finger at him, "begged to be informed if the learned gentleman was really willing to be regarded as a descendant of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... has been full of eggs lately. [This remark excited a burst of hilarity which I did not allow to interrupt the course of my observations.] He has been reading the great book where he found the fact about the little snapping- turtles mentioned above. Some of the things he has told me have suggested ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... people from the moment they first enter the school-house until they are snatched from the scene of their over-wrought strugglings. At the school, the child is treated as a man. The fresh air, the blue sky, the bright and happy hilarity of boyhood are too often proscribed indulgences. And this is called, not murder, but education. Those who survive it, having been taught that an American youth should never be satisfied with the present, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... bent over the unclean bird, watched me curiously. Hindus seldom laugh, and his surroundings were not such as to move Gunga Dass to any undue excess of hilarity. He removed the crow solemnly from the wooden spit and as solemnly devoured it. Then he continued his story, which I give in ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... at a loss to account for their excess of hilarity to-night. Though fond of drink, and meeting often in a crowd, they were few of them of a class—using his own phrase—"to give so much tongue over their liquors." The old toper and vagabond is usually a silent drinker. His amusements, when in a circle, ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... prevent universal intercourse, familiarizes every class of the community with the peculiarities of each, and forms an outlet for the wit and humor of the whole. This was the stimulant to mirth and hilarity, for which no people are so much distinguished as the Georgians of the middle country. At the especial period of which I now write, her humorists were innumerable. Dooly, Clayton, Prince, Longstreet, Bacon (the Ned Brace of ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... also guests at Oakwood. The former declared he had seldom anchored in moorings so congenial to his taste. In Lilla the effects of happiness and judicious treatment were already distinctly visible. The young men spent the Christmas recess at home, and added much to the hilarity of their domestic circle; nor must we forget Arthur Myrvin, who spent as much of his time at Oakwood, as his duties permitted; the friendship of Herbert Hamilton doing much to remove the bitter feelings which often still possessed him. He would at first ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... admires the spirit and good-humour of our friend, Monsieur Odeluc, than myself: no one more enjoys being animated by the hilarity of his temper, and carried away by the hopeful enthusiasm which makes him the dispenser of happiness that he is. But I cannot always sympathise in his bright anticipations. I own I cannot to-day. He may be right. God grant he be so! But I cannot take Monsieur Odeluc's word for it, when words ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... that floated from earth and water around me triumphed over the jangling hilarity of the cabin, and I dozed away, aware that they were now all thumping furiously in chorus, while Gazza sang something that went, "Oh, she's my leetle preety poosee pet." When I roused, it was Kitty's voice ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... tears of laughter. The pouched turkey enjoyed being a pouched turkey. He strutted and gobbled, and ran at the girls; tried to pick up corn from the floor with his thick lips, tumbling down and rolling over in the effort; for a pouched turkey has no wings with which to balance himself. So much hilarity in the family room drew the Pawnee servants. I saw their small dark eyes in a mere line ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... give themselves to perpetual psalm-singing, and, being all absorbed in spiritual things, will become reckless as to dress and dwelling; and very rigid laws then governing the commercial world, all enterprise and speculation will cease, and all hilarity be stricken out of the social circle. There is no warrant for such an absurd anticipation. I suppose that when society is reconstructed, where there is now, in the course of a year, one fortune made, there will be a hundred fortunes made. Every ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... those whom this gaiety made heavy at heart, for I seemed to hear the sobs of the people above these bursts of hilarity. ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... has fled," said Tom Raymond. "The minute you dropped your eyes she was off. We might have stopped her, Will and I, but there wasn't much left of her. Oh, oh, oh! isn't she finished off beautifully, though?" and Tom gave way at last to the hilarity he had ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... was so relieved to see a friend who was prepared to take charge of her that she submitted quite peaceably to be escorted back to Greyfield. The clerk's hilarity at her application for a stewardess-ship, and his assurance that such posts were only given to middle-aged women, had upset her calculations, and remembering her forlorn condition of the previous night, she ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... the prosperity of Birralong, and of the visitors within its gates, speaking figuratively, for at least a twelvemonth actually depended. The men gathered round the Rest, the shaky indistinctness inevitable from the previous evening's hilarity adding to the expression of gravity which was upon every face. What conversation there was they carried on in subdued tones, and, except in the case of a few, the anxiety they felt even kept them away ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... one central idea, and that their mishaps are also quite coherent, thanks to the inexorable logic which reality applies to the correction of dreams, so that they kindle in those around them, by a series of cumulative effects, a hilarity ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... caller left us finishing our breakfast, and I recollect that for some time none of us spoke. Our recent unseemly hilarity had vanished. ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens |
