"Mirthless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... more custom for the merry-go-round, and its noisy organ ceased to play. He could hear the band within the circus now, the dull thud of hoofs on sawdusted earth, and the crack of a whip. A mirthless voice, with an intention of mirth in it, said, 'Look out! Catch her! She'll tumble!' A laugh spouted up from the spectators within, and was half smothered by the canvas of the show. Not far from him was a slit in the canvas ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... come!" its mirthless accents rallied him. "Have you no welcome for me?—you, who have been permitted to live the quarter of a century without making my acquaintance? Surely, now, it's high time we were learning something of one another, you and I!" "But I don't understand," ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... dry, mirthless laugh, he greeted Dan with forced effusiveness, urging him to take a chair, declaring that he hardly knew him, that he thought he was at Gordon's Mills fishing. Then he entered at once into a glowing description of the splendid prayer meeting they had held that evening, ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... a moment's thought, "I'm glad, mighty glad, I came here when I did." He gave a short mirthless laugh. "I doubt if my satisfaction is inspired by any moral scruple," he added hastily, as the other nodded. "Say, can you understand how I feel when I say I believe all moral scruple has somehow decayed, rotted, died in me? I don't mean that I don't want to be decent. I do; but that's because ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... had cause to wonder how Venning had borne the horrors of the underground as well as he had, for towards the morning it seemed as if those ghouls of darkness vied with each other in producing the most appalling shrieks, howls, and bursts of mirthless laughter. They played ventriloquial tricks in the passages and caverns, making the sounds come from different points after varying intervals of silence; and all the time, as could be gathered from occasional words in the incoherent gabble, uttering ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... capital. At Oxford there was a world of skull-breaking; and at Ipswich the festival was celebrated by some loss of life. Canterbury especially distinguished itself by its violent opposition to the municipal order to be mirthless. There was a combat there, which was most rudely maintained, and in which the mayor got pummelled until he was as senseless as a pocket of hops. The mob mauled him terribly, broke all his windows, as well ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... the aisle, saw her jump up the little ladder onto the stage, watched her vanish into the swirl of the dance. He reached for a cigarette, opened his case, and found it empty. He uttered a mirthless, Byronic laugh. The ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... remained erect—white and rigid. And then the Judge, looking up, saw—what no one else in the court had seen—that the Colonel was sincere and in earnest; that what he had conceived to be the pleader's most perfect acting and most elaborate irony were the deep, serious, mirthless CONVICTIONS of a man without the least sense of humor. There was the respect of this conviction in the Judge's voice as he said to him gently, "You ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... love story, but that it had not been properly developed and that she needed to study. She thanked me for my counsel and said she would rewrite it. I wish it might be printed just as it was, however, for it is indeed a sodden and mirthless world in which we ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... utterly useless," he replied with quiet conviction. "He wouldn't pay. He said he wouldn't, last time. And he meant it.... You'd better have let me blow out my brains while I was about it, Ann"—with, a mirthless laugh. ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... stealing over him. The touch of Fenella's fingers upon his arm left him, for a moment, cold. Sabatini turned his head slowly towards the speaker, and his face had become like the face of an inquisitor, stern and merciless, with the flavor of death in the cold, mirthless ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Mr. Musard!" began one of the ladies, with a mirthless little laugh. "Did you never discover anything more about the two dead men ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... flushed at the disagreeable ring of it. The sound was not loud but flat and mirthless, the syllables distinct and evenly spaced. His white even teeth remained tight-closed and showed in flashing contrast to his swarthy face and black mustache. Morrow's face wore none of the active malignancy that stamps the features of those uncontrolled desperadoes who ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... returned Raikes with a mirthless grin. "I am to accept the brief custody of this gem as a recognition of my personal integrity. I see, I see. Well, I would appreciate the courtesy more if I could indorse its incaution. However," he added abruptly, "why ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... you can do that, I'll keep my mouth shut," chuckled Hank in his mirthless way; "but if I don't get some money pretty quick, I'm going to make trouble fer somebody, I ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... and closed the door. The heavy six-shooter in his hand was at his hip, the long barrel horizontal, the big muzzle gaping forebodingly into Maison's face. There was a cold, mirthless grin on Sanderson's face, but it seemed to Maison that the grin was the ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... he picked himself up and came back, savagely confident in his humiliation. She tried to guide his first toddling ski-steps, but he was mad all through and would have his own way. With a set and mirthless smile, again and again he gave himself to the slope and the mercy of his insurgent legs, and at length, bearing heavily on his trail-pole, managed to reach ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... the hollow, mirthless laugh dodge on me," I said, "because it won't do. You're a blackguard, and ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... kind has happened to me," he said with a hard, mirthless laugh, "for out of the most perfect beauty I have only succeeded ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... material condition. The possibility of amusement only begins when we have reached the level of the well fed. Great Gaster will let no one enjoy play who is hungry. Would it be possible, one asks in curiosity, to stop the noisy and mirthless laughter of these girls with a hot supper of chops fresh from the grill? Would they, if they were first well fed, incline their hearts to rest, reflection, instruction, and a little music? The cheap excursions, the school feasts, the concerts given for the people, ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... smile on Purvis's face—the usual watery, mirthless smile, and the pale, wide-open blue eyes; and, looking back, Peter saw that the boat behind them was overturned in the stream, and that the men who had been in it were struggling to the bank, while the boat itself was being carried rapidly ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... passion clamoured in my breast, For mirthless laughter, and I laughed; In mine the phantom's cold hand pressed A cup, and in self's spite I quaffed. It clung like slime; 'twas black like ink: Death is less bitter than ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... back in a ghastly, mirthless grin, and the tusks were revealed from point to insertion, Langley questioned Ghamba, but he would not speak. After several attempts to force him to answer had been vainly ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... I am not an aspirant myself?" he said. He had a mirthless sense of enjoyment in his own brazenness. Only he himself knew ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... she remained standing for some time as motionless as though she were a marble statue and not a living woman. Suddenly she seemed to take some desperate resolve: she threw back her head with a bitter, mirthless laugh, and going to the bell she rang it. ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... telling of Perion's captivity.... Melicent," the Jew said, "I make no songs, no protestations, no phrases. My deeds must speak for me. Concede that I have laboured tirelessly." He paused, his gaze lifted, and his lips smiled. His eyes stayed mirthless. "This mad Callistion's hate of you, and of the Demetrios who had abandoned her, was my first stepping-stone. By my advice a tiny wire was fastened very tightly around the fetlock of a certain horse, between the foot and the heel, and the hair was smoothed ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... now sit I, As Philomela (on a thorn, Turned out of nature's livery), Mirthless, alone, and all forlorn: Only she sings not, while my sorrows can Breathe forth such notes as fit ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... miss my train, the midnight," he began. "I really tried to catch it. But, when I found it was gone, I couldn't sleep. I was worried and frightened. This bank business was on my mind. I wanted to think." He forced a mirthless smile at that. "I couldn't think very straight, but I tried to. I couldn't do anything but see myself in jail, in the penitentiary, because of ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... the attention of some herdsmen. Tracing this, they found the decaying corpse of the old Spaniard hanging from the branch of a balete tree. [51] In life he had inspired fear by his deep, hollow voice, his sunken eyes, and his mirthless laugh, but now, dead by his own act, he disturbed the sleep of the women. Some threw the jewels into the river and burned the clothes, and from the time that the corpse was buried at the foot of the balete itself, no one willingly ventured near the spot. A belated ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal |
