"Smirk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... him—helped and frightened and made to see. And then there rose before him the leering face of a keeper of a second-hand book store in Cleveland who some weeks before had pushed across the counter to him a paper-covered copy of "Nana's Brother," saying with a smirk, "That's some sporty stuff." And he wondered what he should have thought had he bought the book to feed the imagination the bookseller's ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... it," says the shopman, with a smirk. "You were so taken up with that fine student that . . . it's queer ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... admiring stare. At the same time he was wondering why the girl should have taken such a vivid interest in Reginald Henson and his doings. For some years past it had been Littimer's whim to hold up Henson before everybody as his successor, so far as the castle went. He liked to see Henson's modest smirk and beautiful self-abasement, for in sooth his lordship had a pretty contempt for the man who hoped to succeed him. But the will made some time ago by Littimer would have come as a ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... and erasures that would confound and overcome a lawyer. When customers did not die, it was pastime to be dallying with the living. In adding up a bill with haste, how many times will four and four make nine? They generally did with Jehu. The best are liable to errors. It cost a smirk or smile; Jehu had hundreds at command, and the accident was amended. How easy is it sometimes to give no bill at all! How very easy to apply, a few months afterwards, for second payment; how much more easy still to pocket it without a word; or, if discovered and convicted, to apologize without ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... was rampant in every shop and field; And, "What if you ARE trying, MY scythe you may not wield!" Men told the thief, who answered—"Indeed, I will not shirk!" And carpenters and builders turned from him with a smirk, And farmers hurried by him to house the harvest's yield. And so he took his dagger, all rusted, and his shield, And sought again the highway ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... Southwell town Per coach for Mrs. Pigot frank it down, So may'st them prosper in the paths of Sale,[11] And Longman smirk and critics cease ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... somewhat disheartening matters in his mind, he passed easily and leisurely along the whole length of Oxford Street. No one could have judged from his dressy appearance, the constant smirk on his face, and his confident air, how very miserable that poor little dandy was; but three-fourths of his misery were really occasioned by the impossibility he felt of his ever being able to indulge in his propensities for finery and display. Nothing better had he to occupy his ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... of inequalities which, repulsive though it is in theory, is yet the true nerver of the strong right arm of progress. It is as characteristic of the homely, human countenance of Democracy as the supercilious smirk is of the homely, inhuman countenance of caste. Arthur did not want to get up where Ross was seated in such elegant state; he wanted to tear Ross, all the Rosses down. "The damn fool!" he fumed. "He goes lounging about, wasting the money ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... wasn't he? But he was very good, I thought. Dress your ladies in cheerful dresses, not quite so vulgar as Chalon's. . . . I heard from my sister that you had finished Wilkinson to the perfect content of all: I had charged her particularly not to allow Mrs. W. to intercede for any smirk or alteration whatever. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... 'em!) 'at wander throo th' streets, An cut sich a dash an a swell,— Who simper an smirk at each chap 'at they meet, Flingin baits to drag victims to Hell. They may laff, they may shaat, they may join in a dance, They may spooart ther fine clooas an seem gay; But ther's sorrow within,—yo ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... of her distress she put on a complacent smirk, straightened her emaciated form, and sat there, looking like the very ghost of pride, wrapped in an ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... theme!" and so on,—stuff that springs from what Diogenes calls the spooney view of women, and only applicable to the young and handsome,—a very small minority. It is sad to see the graceless, the "gone-off," and the downright elderly smirk complacently at a few phrases which are only aimed at them in derision. The others, too, one would think, ought to care little for adulation that fades away with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... a smirk at her hostess, who was supremely uncomfortable, "and I do so want to know your dear wife, bishop. So does Major Joicy. He's tremendously interested in the Something Society, which looks after the poor black ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... was all fire, Stoop to the leaden level of cold water? A spectacle indeed to tame and tire The zeal of his most confident supporter. What will DUNRAVEN say? Quidnuncs will quiz, And Balfour-worshippers will smirk and chuckle, And ask if he considers it "good biz" To the Teetotal interest to truckle. They may be right—or wrong, these babblers busy. They were not always right about ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various
... received their place and look with an ineffable and satisfied smirk on the despair of the sinners, all turning at last to gaze upon the battalion of "reprobate infants," described in the same ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... upstairs, I peeped timidly into the dining-room and found to my delight that Charles had been as good as his word. All the vases had burst as though by a miracle into radiant blossom. Taking courage I went up to the drawing-room, found Araminta and saluted her, and then looked round with a smirk of conscious self-satisfaction. Charles had chosen pink carnations for the drawing-room, and the place was as starry as the final chapter of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 5th, 1914 • Various
... wheel-work image as if it were living, Should find with delight it could motion to strike him! So found the Duke, and his mother like him: The lady hardly got a rebuff— That had not been contemptuous enough, 205 With his cursed smirk, as he nodded applause, And kept off the old ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... mother, drawing her away from the door and down the stairs. "He must be trying to teach himself to dance. I suppose he wants to learn how, so he'll be able to dance at the party," she added, with smirk. Then Mother Stina began to shake with laughter. "He came near frightening the life out of me," she confessed. "Thank God he can be young for once!" When she had got over her fit of laughing, she ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... direction her companion had indicated, to see a large, overdressed man staring at them. There was a smirk on his face, and as Harriet caught his eye she saw him rise and, to her horror, realized that he was ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... climbing the Matterhorn. Often, indeed, his vanity leads him to imagine the thing done, and he admits by winks and blushes that he is a bad one. But at the bottom of all that tawdry pretence there is usually nothing more material than an oafish smirk at some disgusted shop-girl, or a scraping of shins under the table. Let any woman who is disquieted by reports of her husband's derelictions figure to herself how long it would have taken him to propose to her if left to his own enterprise, and then let her ask herself if so pusillanimous ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... wife at home, the baby in his father's arms; what is more, Gavinia was looking on smiling and saying, "You bonny litlin, you're windy to have him dandling you; and no wonder, for he's a father to be proud o'." Corp was accepting it all with a complacent smirk. Oh, agreeable change since last we were in this house! oh, happy picture of domestic bliss! oh—but no, these are not the words; what we meant to say was, "Gavinia, you limmer, so you have got the better of that man of yours ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... apartment was an arched alcove closed in by deep red curtains, and containing a lofty four-post bedstead with a kind of grand baldacchino covering it in. The sight of this reminded me that I had been six hours on horseback, and undressing with a self-satisfied smirk on my ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... of my old school. The lout with the sheepish smirk, holding the ball, is myself as I was before the cares ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... matter much to me, Brier, what you do like and what you don't," said his lady, with a toss of her head, "I'm boss of my own house, and no man shall dictate to me, not if I know it. You needn't sneak, like any miserable cur, nor put on that smirk to cover up your own acts, though I ain't afraid but what I can come out ahead, and fight my own battles, if you do show the white feather. Where would you be to-day, I'd like to know, if I'd let you gone on with ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... 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^; rollicker^. V. rejoice, thank one's stars, bless one's stars; congratulate oneself, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... exciting. Some few business men may smirk at their stenographers; some few painters may behave in the same way to their models. I fancy it's the exception to the rule in any kind of business—isn't ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... With a self-congratulatory smirk up at the ceiling that separated them from Executive Level, the bland face of the Commissioner smoothed out. "All right, Captain, as long as we understand ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... and unnatural composition, with one or two interesting scenes. The best actor was he who represented the blind man. The chief actress is an overgrown dame, all fat and dimples, who kept up a constant sobbing and heaving of her chest, yet never getting rid of an eternal smirk upon her face. A bolero, danced afterwards by two Spanish damsels in black and ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... executioners observing their victim that every eye went back to the clock as well. Even Carl was guilty of that imitation. Consequently he saw the editor, standing at the back, make notes on his copy-paper and smirk like an ill-bred hound stealing a bone. And the Greek professor stared at Frazer's gauche movements with a grim smugness that indicated, "Quite the sort of thing I expected." The Greek's elbows were on the arm of the seat, and he held up before his breast a small red-leather-covered note-book ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... brisk young man, with a bright eye, peculiar smirk, spotted neckcloth, and gray gaiters with pearl buttons. "Cars ready for Boston and way stations. All aboard. Now's your time—quick, or you'll ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... not heed the hinted requests of the visiting officials for a moon-light exhibition, nor go to the inn-door to bow them respectfully out. We were glad to take them at their word when they said, with the usual hypocritical smirk, "Now, don't come out any farther." This indiscretion on our part caused them, as well as ourselves, to suffer in the respect of the assembled rabble. With official connivance, the latter were now free, they thought, to take unusual liberties. So far, ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... of fifteen, with hair the color of fresh sawdust, white eyebrows, and an uncommonly wide-awake look. Ringdove, his father's successor, could never teach Perry the smirk, the grace, and the seductiveness of the counter, so the boy had found his place in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... received the sentence with the same impertinent smirk on his face as he had received ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... was beside Thurid, and ere the devilish smirk had faded from his handsome face I had caught him full upon the mouth with my clenched fist; and as the good, old American blow landed, the black dator shot back a dozen feet, to crumple in a heap at the foot of Kulan Tith's throne, spitting ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... announcements, such as the approach of a flying stationer, the roup of a deceased weaver's loom, or the arrival in Thrums of a cart-load of fine "kebec" cheeses, he treated as the merest trifles. I see still the bent legs of the snuffy old man straightening to the tinkle of his bell, and the smirk with which he let the curious populace gather round him. In one hand he ostentatiously displayed the paper on which what he had to cry was written, but, like the minister, he scorned to "read." With the bell carefully tucked under his oxter he gave forth his news in a rasping voice that broke now ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... physiognomies. There was one, a solemn lean fellow in black, with his collars extremely turned over, and holding before him a long ivory-tipped ebony cane, who tripped along the little place with a solemn smirk, which gave one an indescribable feeling of the truth of "Gil Blas," and of those delightful bachelors and licentiates who have appeared to us all ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and Burke 10 And Nathan and Jotham and Solomon, lurk Around the corner to see him work— Sitting cross-legged, like a Turk, Drawing the waxed end through with a jerk, And boring the holes with a comical quirk 15 Of his wise old head, and a knowing smirk. But vainly they mounted each other's backs, And poked through knot holes and pried through cracks; With wood from the pile and straw from the stacks He plugged the knot holes and calked the cracks; 20 And a bucket of water, which one would think He had brought ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... a half embarrassed smirk. Patricia thought of a small boy who had been caught in a mischief but was still somewhat proud of himself. He said, "Well, I gotta admit that there's been a few things. Come on over to my place and I'll show you." He looked ...
— The Common Man • Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)
... else in the world laughed so, except his road, when the snow had melted away and the first trip began. Then the little puddles in the road, formed by the melting snow and rippled by the wind, looked at the sky out of a thousand bright blue eyes, and there was a wink and a smirk in them all the way from Drauburg ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... quite affecting. Tears gushed into Pendlam's eyes. The deacon turned away with a smirk and an ominous shake ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... coquetting with himself; and that was the funniest thing of all, for he turned his head up, down, from side to side, and drew in his chin with prinky little jerks and tilts. He would stretch his neck, throw up his head, turn it to one side and smirk—actually smirk, the most complacent and self-satisfied smirk that anyone ever saw on the face of a bird. It was so comical that Freckles and the Angel told the Bird ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... "The Peter Norton Programmer's Guide to the IBM PC". The original cover featured a picture of Peter Norton with a silly smirk on his face, wearing a pink shirt. Perhaps in recognition of this usage, the current edition has a different picture of Norton wearing a pink shirt. See ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... turned to Molly and asked in one breath who had left it. When the clamor slackened, she replied, "Why, young Cuffy from the baker's, and all he said was, 'David Dubbs,—to be sent—card inside,' and then kissing his hand, and crying 'Love to her,' meaning I don't know who," with a smirk at Polly, "he jumped aboard his wagon and flew away ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... stupid-looking young fellow with a sly, twisted smirk which gives him the appearance of perpetually winking his eye, detaches himself from a group on the right. All join in with urging exclamations: "Go on, Peters! Go to it! Pedal up, Pete! Give us a rag! That's ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... as Emilienne saw that we were talking of the boy, her interest in the conversation vanished, even more quickly than her appetite. She had to go, she said suddenly; she was so sorry, and the discontented curiosity of her look gave place again to the smirk of affected politeness. ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... to find the house where the sick woman was, for as we turned into the strate, a dirty ould hag, smoking a short pipe, came up to us with a smirk on her ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... unfeeling spirit, pervading all, would have filled a physiognomist with disgust. These characteristics, fully visible at this moment, were usually modified in public by a sort of commercial smile,—a bourgeois smirk which mimicked good-humor; so that persons meeting with this old maid might very well take her for a kindly woman. She owned the house on shares with her brother. The brother, by-the-bye, was sleeping so tranquilly in his own chamber that the orchestra ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... addressed to me, though that little was evidently meant to be particularly civil. But, a little before she took her departure, which was soon after dinner, she asked me with some abruptness, though with a considerable smirk of meaning in her face, if I "knew a Mr. Patrick Delaney." I frankly admitted that I had not this pleasure; and with a still more significant smirk, ending in a very affected simper, meant to be very pleasant, she informed me, as she took her leave, ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... him with a hideous smirk. He had directed the Emperor's attention to the mosaic pavement in the steward's room, and had shamelessly accused Keraunus of having offered to sell him a work that belonged to the palace, contrasting his conduct with his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... will be worth while When force and fraud no more Confederate with smirk and smile To grab the people's store; Get in the game! The laws will cease To help the robbers steal, And all the land will live in peace When Teddy squares ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... about me, for a time at least, laid down their burdens and found rest and comfort in their Father's house. It did me more good than the preaching of all the bishops in London, or the finest pageant at St. Paul's; and I am truly glad I went, though the saucy conductor did smirk at ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... surprise, as he entered the store, not a soul was visible, but at the sound of his footsteps on the hard floor his guardian suddenly appeared from his private office, his shrewd face suffused by the ingratiating smirk he always put on when going to meet a prospective customer. At the sight of his ward standing in the middle of the floor, however, he started, and then his face assumed a look of ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... the young lady!—dear me, no!" he said, with a smirk. "Loyalty, you know. What do you think ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... for a moment we are both silent. We have sat down side by side on the sofa. Vick is standing on her hinder legs, with her forepaws rested on Roger's knee. Her tail is wagging with the strong and untiring regularity of a pendulum, and a smirk of welcome and recognition is on her face. Roger's arm is round me, and we are holding each other's hands, but we are no longer in heaven. I could not tell you why, but we are not. Some stupid constraint—quite of earth—has fallen ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... Dr. Delmour, while we stood in a respectful semi-circle before her, modestly conscious of our worth, our toes turned out, and each man's features wreathed with that politely unnatural smirk which masculine features assume when confronted by feminine beauty. "Gentlemen, on the eve of your proposed departure for Baffin Land in quest of living specimens of the five-spotted Philohela quinquemaculata, I have been instructed by Professor ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... of us smirk in a chiffon shop, and some of us teach in a school; Some of us help with the seat of our pants to polish an office stool; The merits of somebody's soap or jam some of us seek to explain; But all of us wonder what we'll do when we have to go back ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... with stolid, hard face, rose and steadied himself against a beam. His full bass tones were sad, and he showed no sign of that self-satisfied smirk which sometimes makes the ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... at the man as it tugs at the woman; the smirk of the well-fitted prince is no different from the smirk of the Sunday-clad peasant; and the veins of the elders tingle with the same thrill that sets their fresh-frocked grandchildren skipping. Never trust ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... and the dunce, when paradox is discoloured by personality and merriment is distorted by malevolence.(!) No man who really knows the qualities of Mr. Whistler's best work will imagine that he really believes the highest expression of his art to be realized in reproduction of the grin and glare, the smirk and leer, of Japanese womanhood as represented in its professional types of beauty; but to all appearance he would fain ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... and Bugs Butler, with a final smirk, left Sally and dived under the ropes. There was a stir of interest in the audience, though the newspaper men, blase through familiarity, exhibited no emotion. Presently Mr. Burrowes reappeared, shepherding a young man whose face was hidden by ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... you! The more shame for you to take them. Better throw them away than wear them as a badge of degradation. Yes, throw them away, or send them back whence they came. Wash that paint off your face. Get rid of that made-up smirk around your mouth. Remember that you are going on ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... 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 ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... "I reckon he'd smirk, and bow, and try to be clever and witty, and all the time he'd be either patting himself on the back for his luck, or envying or hating me," thought Jimmy. "When I let the people out in Yimville think I was him, it was a joke; but this is a serious matter and—it's ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... smile. It should not be just an affected smirk, but a smile of genuine friendliness for all the world. Please by wearing inconspicuous clothes that are faultless in taste, fit, and cleanliness; and of a quality suited to your vocation. Show also that you take good care of what ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... was a young man of Dunbar, Who playfully poisoned his Ma; When he'd finished his work, He remarked with a smirk, "This will cause quite ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... attended New York's public schools; and under the protection of the Stars and Stripes, which he would drag down, has made himself so emphatically one of the "capitalists," whom he hates, that he resides on New York's famous "Riverside Drive," and was able to testify with a smirk, "I flatter myself that I am not a failure." (See printed "Testimony" of the trial of the five Assemblymen ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... only secondary honors, it matters not, they remain indelibly impressed on our minds. After one has seen Steen's pictures it is impossible to see a drunkard, a buffoon, a cripple, a dwarf, a deformed face, a ridiculous smirk, a grotesque attitude, without remembering one of his figures. All the degrees of stupidity and of drunkenness, all the grossness and mawkishness of orgies, the frenzy of the lowest pleasures, the cynicism of the vulgarest vice, the buffoonery of ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... elbow, and for a moment the drover thought he would get it thrown at his head. However, O'Hagan rose to his feet, made a bow to the company, and made an apology to the drover. He stood there, a blackguard on the face of him, but a gentleman in spite of that undefinable and vaguely repulsive smirk which played about his straight and refined mouth. He ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... take yer ter Minehead and get the piousest parson in the town. Would yer like Darlin' fer a bridesmaid—and grog and angel-cake? Me jest settin' ready ter kiss yer every time yer passes it. I 'm blowed! You are wickeder than ol' Flint's lantern. It must be Red Joe. Him with the smirk! There 's a young feller 'round here, Betsy, as wants ter look ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... roadside and street toddling images meet, And smirk and kotow in a way that is sweet; Their obis are tied with particular pride, Their silken kimonos hang ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... theory, or rather in the conviction of what best suits myself. I'm one of those men who are born to be free, who've got to fill their lungs with air, who must get out into the wilds if they're to live—God! I'd sooner be snowed up on a battlefield than smirk at a damned afternoon tea-party any day in the week! If I want a woman, I like to take her by her hair and swing her up behind me on the saddle and ride ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... as ever, but somehow it was all different. There was a note of unreality nowadays in Mrs. Donnelly's professions of wonder at her bearing up under her multiplied maladies; there was almost a leer of mockery in the sympathetic smirk with which the Misses Mangan listened to her symptoms. Even the doctors, though they kept their faces turned toward her, obviously did not pay much attention; the people in the street seemed no longer to look at her and her equipage at all. Worst of all, something of the meaning of this managed ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... dress too well," said Humphreys with his ghastly smirk. "You think that I care too much for appearances. I do. It is a weakness of mine which ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... my hair. There was but one opinion about that. I have often heard even grown-up people remark, 'How ingeniously that doll's wig is put on, and how nicely it is arranged!' while at the same time my rising vanity was crushed by the insinuation that I had an absurd smirk or a ridiculous stare. ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... what I've dreamed about for the last ten years. It's the wide open spaces filled with all the variations in old Nature's book of scenery. And best of all, there's no mob of nit-wits to titter and smirk. It's my Heaven. ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... said with a smirk and bow, taking off his broad brimmed hat, and running his fingers through his hair, making it fluff out more than ever, "I have lost a bolt out of part of my wagon, and I'm afraid to go on lest I break down. It dropped somewhere in the dust, but I ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... and looked around with a little smirk. So she was the prize draughtsman, and she remained with a perfectly good grace. However, it was a very different looking Clara who was led into the room the next morning by Mr. Horner. Her eyes were swollen ...
— A Dear Little Girl at School • Amy E. Blanchard
... confidential opinions of her sobriety entertained by Mrs. Harris, Mr. Mould, the undertaker, opportunely presented to the audience his well-remembered countenance—"a face in which a queer attempt at melancholy was at odds with a smirk of satisfaction." The impersonation, here, was conveyed in something better than the unsatisfactory hint by which that attempted in regard to Mr. Pecksniff was alone to be expressed. Speaking of Old Chuzzlewit's funeral, as ordered by his bereaved son, Mr. Jonas, with ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... English coin changed in the town," he observed with a smirk, as in sheer bewilderment I gazed ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... And tho' your Liberals, nimble as fleas, Could clear such gulfs with perfect ease, 'Twas a jump that naught on earth could make Your proper, heavy-built Christian take. No, no,—if a Dance of Sects must be, He would set to the Baptist willingly,[3] At the Independent deign to smirk, And rigadoon with old Mother Kirk; Nay even, for once, if needs must be, He'd take hands round with all the three; But as to a jig with Popery, no,— To the Harlot ne'er ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... table bearing a bronze box with a miniature of Beatrice Cenci in the lid. Lily felt for these objects the same distaste which the prisoner may entertain for the fittings of the court-room. It was here that her aunt received her rare confidences, and the pink-eyed smirk of the turbaned Beatrice was associated in her mind with the gradual fading of the smile from Mrs. Peniston's lips. That lady's dread of a scene gave her an inexorableness which the greatest strength of character could not have produced, since it was independent of ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... eloquent hands. "Does he ever come? He's a man, soon going to college, and you are only 'kids.' I'm older than he is really; a woman is always older than a man, but he doesn't like me. We are not en rapport." Clemence tried hard to suppress a smirk of self- consciousness at the use of the French term, while the two younger sisters jeered and booed with the ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... and she secured the services of a female from a neighboring village. Miss Trumbull is forty-odd and unmarried. She has a large bony face, the nondescript colouring of the average American, and a colossal vanity. We amuse ourselves watching her smirk as she passes a looking-glass. But she is an excellent housekeeper, and her vanity would be of no consequence if she would keep her place. The day we arrived she hinted broadly that she wanted to sit ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... features; front, exterior; obverse; facet; effrontery, confidence, assurance, audacity, impudence. Associated Words: facial, domino, complexion, multifaced, rouge, cosmetic, grimace, Janus-faced, lineament, profile, silhouette, maskoid, smirk, physiognomist. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... he would have seen that all faces were at present sober, and most of them serious—it was the regular and respectable thing for those excellent farm-labourers to do, as much as for elegant ladies and gentlemen to smirk and bow over their wine-glasses. Bartle Massey, whose ears were rather sensitive, had gone out to see what sort of evening it was at an early stage in the ceremony, and had not finished his contemplation until a silence of five minutes declared that "Drink, boys, drink!" was not likely to begin ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... audience, or nodded to acquaintances. Others gathered round the bar, and a few looked at the drop-curtain as if they thought their ascetic glances would cause it to roll up and disappear. The overture at length ended. The stage was disclosed, and a man came forward with a smirk, and a wriggle of gigantic feet, ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... the door, and was answered by a red-haired young woman, with a silly grin on her face, the smirk flanked on each side with cork-screw curls which hung down over her bright blue dress; which, as I could see, was pulled out at the seams under her round and shapely arms. She put out a soft and plump hand to me, but I did not take it. She looked ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... hope," one plump cowbird remarked with a smirk as he settled himself near the Muley Cow's forelegs, when ...
— The Tale of the The Muley Cow - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... at the hotel is but a few hours, but eleven domestics range themselves in a row to wait upon our departure and to smirk and extend their palms for tips as we prepare to go. No country under the sun save the Caucasus could thus muster eleven expectant menials on the strength of one meal served and but three hours actual occupation ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... prophecy!" exclaimed the Professor with a knowing smirk, "don't it tell you to choose between the two? And how can you tell if you don't even look—whether the golt or ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... you and I," said Phaon, with a sly smirk, "gain out of this little business, if all goes well? Of course one should ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... & unpretending English. Every time I use "go back" you get out your polisher & slick it up to "return." "Return" is suited only to the drawing-room—it is ducal, & says itself with a simper & a smirk. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... kind of enjoyed my little part, which consists in hurryin' out to the gate with my right forefinger up and a confidential smirk wreathin' my more or ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... good gentlemanly fight with a rapier is quite another thing," he went on. He smirked and made a face at the parakeet who did its best to smirk back. "That is a graceful and fine art. Refined, and not at ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... said Meagle with a smirk. "By the time I have done with him he will be a confirmed believer. Well, who will go and get some ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... bothered by a toad—a toad-person with a prominent thick watch chain and a loose smirk. She had been bothered by him ever since dinner—dinner at night at the Cactus House, which was inclined to be Eastern and effete in its apings—but his persecutions there had been confined to lurking, ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... to Harry Gray's, The ennui of my heart to lighten; His landlady, with, smirk and smile, Said, "he had just run down to Brighton." When home I turned my steps, at last, A tailor—whom to kick were treason— Pressed for his bill;—I hurried past, Politely ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... laughed Charles, tauntingly, with a wink at his companions; "a pretty piece of heraldry, a bold escutcheon, a dainty poniard—pale as a lily, and how he did sigh and drop his lids and smirk and smirk and dance your latest galliard to surpass De Grammont. Ask brother James how ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... from all that is brutal and idolatrous to all that is gentle and Christian, there follows the triumphant "Before and After" inscription. All the fitness has gone, all the individuality, all the clever adaptation of indigenous material, all the artistic and human interest; and a self-conscious smirk of superiority radiates over made-by-the-million factory garments instead. Whenever I see such contrasting photographs there comes over me a shamed, perverse recollection of a pair of engravings by Hogarth, usually suppressed, ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... his faithful follower. The nightmare horror of the situation had affected him much as a sudden blow in the parts about the waistcoat might have done. But, now, as Spike would have said, he caught up with his breath. The smirk faded slowly from the other's face as he listened. Not even in the Bowery, full as it was of candid friends, had he listened to such a trenchant summing-up of his mental and ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... Tourniquet and Tuci," said the Frau Kupferkram one morning, with a duck and a smirk, "do us the honour of supping with us this evening? There will be a few friends, for this is the 'nahmenstag' of our dear Gottlob, ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... to have that proof with you?" called out Frank. Upon hearing this, the other hastened up, though there was a satisfied smirk on his face, as though ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen |
