"Languish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... clad in mourning weeds, upon a mangy jade unmeetly set, with a lewd fool called Disdain" (canto 6). Timias and Serena, after quitting the hermit's cell, meet her. Though so sorely clad and mounted, the maiden was "a lady of great dignity and honor, but scornful and proud." Many a wretch did languish for her through a long life. Being summoned to Cupid's judgment hall, the sentence passed on her was that she should "ride on a mangy jade, accompanied by a fool, till she had saved as many lovers as she had slain" (canto 7). Mirabella was also doomed to carry a leaky bottle, which she was to ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... you merit, have; And share, at least, the miseries you gave. Your days I will alarm, I'll haunt your nights. And, worse than age, disable your delights. May your sick fame still languish till it die, All offices of power neglected lie, And you grow cheap in every subject's eye! Then, as the greatest curse that I can give, Unpitied be deposed, and, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... abandoned the moderation of his past life and surrounded himself with an atmosphere of opium smoke and existed continually in the mind-dimming effects of rice-spirit. From this cause his custom began to languish; his hand no longer swept in the graceful and unhesitating curves which had once been the admiration of all beholders, but displayed on the contrary a very disconcerting irregularity of movement, and on the day ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... again. Rescue your neck from this vile yoke; come, say, I am free, I am free. You are not able: for an implacable master oppresses your mind, and claps the sharp spurs to your jaded appetite, and forces you on though reluctant. When you, mad one, quite languish at a picture by Pausias; how are you less to blame than I, when I admire the combats of Fulvius and Rutuba and Placideianus, with their bended knees, painted in crayons or charcoal, as if the men were actually engaged, and push and parry, moving their weapons? Davus is a scoundrel ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... and panted for opportunities of bringing them to the proof. His present sphere of action, confined to a comparatively small spot, for the Triumph never once went out to sea while he remained on board, made him languish for some new situation, better suited to his enterprising spirit; and it was not long before an occurrence took place, which seemed to promise the gratification of his most ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... which love had set before him, namely, the hopes of seeing Sophia at the masquerade; on which, however ill-founded his imagination might be, he had voluptuously feasted during the whole day, the evening no sooner came than Mr Jones began to languish for some food of a grosser kind. Partridge discovered this by intuition, and took the occasion to give some oblique hints concerning the bank-bill; and, when these were rejected with disdain, he collected courage enough once more to mention a return ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... that when it shall so fall out that we must lose any or all of these, it may be no new thing to be without them. We have a mind pliable in itself, that will be company; that has wherewithal to attack and to defend, to receive and to give: let us not then fear in this solitude to languish under an uncomfortable vacuity. ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... at all to Oak Creek Canyon it warmed into summer before Carley had time to languish with the fever characteristic of early June in ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... and engineers; in a word, let China try to keep afloat without corks, and what will be the consequence? Corruption would inevitably fatten on and extinguish foreign trade; foreign representatives would find Pekin too hot to hold them; arsenals would gradually languish and cease to work; native-owned steamers would leave off plying the waters; and the whole country would eventually fall back into a condition of even more rapid decadence than that in which it was found when England first interfered ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... go on foot as pilgrims, and leave all their pomp and state behind them, with their faces towards the east, and their eyes lifted to Heaven. While they were journeying on, the young Queen began to languish, and grow pale and wan. At last she sunk down at his feet, and told him that she was going to die, and leave him alone in his pilgrimage. The young King smote his breast, and throwing himself down by her side, prayed to God that ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... "At first you will languish as light as a vapour hovering upon the waves; and after more lengthened ordeals and agonies, you will pass into the forces of the sun, ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... yielded up her Charms, The blest Cadenus languish'd in her Arms; High, on a Peg, his unbrush'd Beaver hung, His Vest unbutton'd, and his God unsung; Raptur'd he lies; Deans, Authors are forgot, Wood's Copper Pence, and Atterbury's Plot; For her he quits the Tythes ...
— Two Poems Against Pope - One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope and the Blatant Beast • Leonard Welsted
... persons and criminals, without any foreboding. How is it that so often in the case of judicial errors, the voice of the innocent did not resound in our ears, although his trial was a public one, and we allowed him to languish in prison for years? How is it that goodness should be so obscure a thing that we confound it with prosperity? How is it that those rich men of whom the gospel says "Woe unto you, rich men, for ye have your reward," can think of "improving the morals" of the poor, without any examination of ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... aspiring, and hoping, and growing. The world assumes a different aspect. Its youth and vigor seem spent; and the children of a new generation begin to be wiser and sadder than their fathers. The Crusades languish. Their object, like the object of many a youthful hope, has proved unattainable. The Knights no longer take the Cross "because God wills it;" but because the Pope commands a Crusade, bargains for subsidies, and the Emperor cannot decline his commands. ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... acted with overflowing houses all over the country. How could it be otherwise? It may have been exaggerated, far-fetched, unnatural, but such characters as Sir Anthony Absolute, Sir Lucius, Bob Acres, Lydia Languish, and most of all Mrs. Malaprop, so admirably conceived, and so carefully and ingeniously worked out, could not but be admired. They have become household words; they are even now our standards of ridicule, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... rise, I say; let them drown the beams of that all-scorching sun we suffer under, that drinks all vegetation up, and makes us languish with a dull exhaustion!' ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... country is most in need of the services he would cheerfully render. In the last attack of the Hessians, Williams received a severe and dangerous shot wound in the groin, though he entirely recovered from its effects in due time. His career was suddenly checked, and he was doomed to languish fifteen months, before he again saw the sun shine on his freedom. The first half of his captivity, though painful enough to an ardent patriot, was not ...
— A sketch of the life and services of Otho Holland Williams • Osmond Tiffany
... others"—and here, I observed, his face grew ashy pale, and the muscles about his mouth twitched nervously—"still others had their liberty sworn away by purchased perjury, and were consigned to prisons, where they still languish, dressed in the hideous garb of ignominy, and performing the vile tasks of felons." After a pause, for I saw he was strangely ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... such evidence is inaccessible we must frame no hypotheses whatever. Of course this is a safe enough position in abstracto. If a thinker had no stake in the unknown, no vital needs, to live or languish according to what the unseen world contained, a philosophic neutrality and refusal to believe either one way or the other would be his wisest cue. But, unfortunately, neutrality is not only inwardly difficult, it is also outwardly unrealizable, where our relations ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... a salary of 1,800 francs. Through a peculiar trait of his character he was unpopular with all his superiors, who let him languish in the eternal and hopeless expectation of the clerk's ideal, an increase of salary. Nevertheless he worked; but he did not know how to make himself appreciated. He had too much self-respect, he claimed. His self-respect consisted in never bowing to his superiors ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... Saturday, and as I would be the last person to allow a commendable enterprise to languish for want of proper encouragement, and in order to put the Hotel proprietors out of suspense, I thought I would let you know without further delay that I ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... island of anguish, Destined to crush thy proud spirit at last, Doomed amid pigmy tormentors to languish, Facing forever its ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... laughed quietly, lifted his neglected newspaper to obtain the light at the right angle, and then allowed it to languish upon his lap again. Frowning, he began to tap ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... fight against the disease. Few were found brave enough to undertake the duty of nursing the sick, and those who did generally paid for their devotion with their lives. In most cases the patient was left to languish alone, and perished by neglect, while his nearest and dearest avoided his presence, and had grown so callous that they had not a sigh or a tear left for the death of husband, or child, or friend. The few who recovered, now free from ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... civilisation, and will soon be extinct. To the next generation, in all probability, the word bum will be but an empty name. I doubt whether it would be a feasible plan for Dr. Hornaday to undertake to preserve a small number of this species in the Bronx Park. The bum nature, I fear, would languish in captivity. The creature would likely lose its health, and, worse, its spirits. It is a nomad, a child of nature. It takes no thought for the morrow, as our modern prophets teach us to do. I remember well an excellent bum (I mean excellently conforming to type), one Bain, who, growing restive under ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... He would have performed rather than any other, if it is true that He performed any at all. For example, it is claimed that God had the kindness to send an angel to console and to assist a simple maid, while He left, and still leaves every day, a countless number of innocents to languish and starve to death; it is claimed that He miraculously preserved during forty years the clothes and the shoes of a few people, while He will not watch over the natural preservation of the vast quantities of goods which are useful and necessary ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... suffer the meal to languish; for upon the doctor's throwing himself back, with an air of much satisfaction, they sprang to their feet, and pelted him with oranges and guavas. This, at last, put an end ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... or in a dream?"—"I believe I was more asleep than awake. For if any one had come upon me then I should have felt it very painfully. I have incidentally noted the words: 'Oh moon with thy white face, thou knowest I am in love only with thee. Come down to me. I languish in torture, let me only comfort myself upon thy face. Thou enticing, beautiful, lovely spirit, thou torturest me to death, my suffering rends me, thou beautiful Moon, thou sweet one, mine, I implore ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... punished by the taking of his life; but if they spared his life he would none the less be punished, for they would throw him into the dark prison that he had once seen under the king's castle, and there they would leave him to languish in chains for many years, so that his strength would go from him, and he would be no longer fit to be ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... the Abbey House his future home; and Violet had the happiness of knowing that the good old house in which her childhood had been spent would be her habitation always, till she too was carried to the family vault under the old yew-tree. There are people who languish for change, for whom the newest is ever the best; but it was not thus with Violet Tempest. The people she had known all her life, the scenes amidst which she had played when a child, were to her the dearest people and the ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... dine with Lord Halifax and shall be at home half hour after six. For thee I die, for thee I languish. ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... which the gloomy and torpent north is so many months depriv'd of; the too long seclusion whereof is injurious to our exotics, kept in the conservatories, since however temper'd with heat, and duly refresh'd; they grow sickly, and languish without the admission of light as well as air, as I have ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... others were dispatched without speaking, or stirring out of the place they were in. St. Perpetua fell into the hands of a very timorous and unskilful apprentice of the gladiators, who, with a trembling hand, gave her many slight wounds, which made her languish a long time. Thus, says St. Austin, did two women, amidst fierce beasts and the swords of gladiators, vanquish the devil and all his fury. The day of their martyrdom was the 7th of March, as it is marked in the most ancient martyrologies, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... traitors who had conspired to do this dastardly deed were sent to cool their misguided ardour in the Tower, from which Northumberland, Jane and her husband were led to the headsman's block; while Robert Dudley was among those who were left to languish in durance, and to while away the tedious hours of captivity by carving their emblems and names on the walls of their cells, where they may be seen to this day, or to stroll disconsolately on the Tower leads by way ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... to her home but to languish and die. When the news of her mortal illness reached the Sabbath school, in which she had now been a faithful and beloved teacher for about a year, it produced the most intense interest and solicitude. All felt that a dearly beloved ...
— Our Gift • Teachers of the School Street Universalist Sunday School, Boston
... many for life—torn by the relentless hand of jealous tyranny from the bosom of domestic comfort, from wives, children, friends, and hurried, for crimes unknown to themselves, most probably for virtues, to languish in this detested abode, and die of despair. ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... I doe but languish, I doe but sorrow: and even those pleasures, all things present me with, in stead of yeelding me comfort, doe but redouble the griefe of his losse. We were copartners in all things. All things were with us at halfe; me thinkes I have stolne his part ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... had taken care to search him," replied Morestal. "Besides, they watched him more closely than they did me ... so he could not do as I did...." And he added. "And a good job too! For I should have been left to languish in their prisons until the end of an interminable trial; whereas he, in forty-eight hours ... But this is all talk. The authorities can't be far away. I want to have my report ready. There are certain things which I suspect ... the business was a ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... at last. "He would have been obliged to languish all his life in that frightful prison! At all events, he is not suffering now! Now he is better off! Evidently, ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... attained her seventeenth year. Long since had her sampler exhibited hearts in couples desperately transfixed with arrows, and true lovers' knots worked in deep blue silk; and it was evident she began to languish for some more interesting occupation than the rearing of sunflowers or ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... yes for Theseus I languish and I long, not as the Shades Have seen him, of a thousand different forms The fickle lover, and of Pluto's bride The would-be ravisher, but faithful, proud E'en to a slight disdain, with youthful charms Attracting every heart, as gods are painted, Or ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... most of his persons with whims and absurdities, for which the circumstances they are engaged in afford but a very disproportionate vent. Accordingly, for our insight into their characters, we are indebted rather to their confessions than their actions. Lydia Languish, in proclaiming the extravagance of her own romantic notions, prepares us for events much more ludicrous and eccentric, than those in which the plot allows her to be concerned; and the young lady herself is scarcely more disappointed than we are, at the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... one doesn't ask permission to go too often, and if one has no conditions to work off. Now, you see why Mistress Beatrice is obliged to languish at home while the man who invited her will no doubt have to invite some other girl, who is lucky enough ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... beastliest district in Europe. Of an evening the Carlton and the Piccadilly, the Bing Boys and the Bing Girls, all the delights of London were ready to their hands, while poor devils like himself, shorn of leave, were condemned to languish in a moth-eaten Mess in the society of such people as the Adjutant. Where was the sense in it, where the justice, and when the deuce were they, any of them, going to get a chance ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 2, 1917 • Various
... of decaying ships were moored in the Wallabout. These prison ships were intended for sailors and seaman taken on the ocean, mostly the crews of privateersmen, but some soldiers were also sent to languish in their holds. ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... Moore were talking, Frances and Miss Sherwin were making friends over their favorite story-books, and before the call was over they all had the pleasant feeling of being old acquaintances; and the acquaintance was not allowed to languish. ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... put me to death, you ought at least to have sought for more plausible pretexts to attain that end; for you will never persuade the world that you deem me guilty of what you now declare me to be convicted. However, since my lot is decided, I demand that you will not let me languish here until to-morrow, but order that I be led to execution instantly." His request was not granted; but he was conducted back to the cells of the Conciergerie, to be executed the next day. The next morning he was placed in the death-cart at the Conciergerie, with four others of the condemned, ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... it, my dear lady. But before we proceed to conclude this little deal I want to ask you a question or two. Surely you will not let me languish of curiosity. I want to know—tell me—how did you ever hit upon ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... fearing every step that approached, trembling at every shadow. They remembered many stories, such as rush to the minds of persons in trouble, of similar cases, of the machinations of the bad father whose only object was to overcome and break down his wife, and who stole his child away to let it languish and die. There are some circumstances in which people forget all the shades of character, and take it for granted that a man who can go wrong in one matter will act like a very demon in all. This was doubly strong ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... it was declared, "the people conclude these severities are inflicted rather as a terrour to others than for any personall crimes of their owne, and is of such ruinous consequence that either the public or particular interests must fall, for if none oppose, the country must languish under the severity of the government, or fly into a mutiny to save themselves from starving. If any do appear more zealous in prosecuting the countries complaints they know what to expect. It being observable that none has been thus punisht but those ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... tomb, From the prison's direr gloom, From Distemper's midnight anguish; 15 And thence, where Poverty doth waste and languish; Or where, his two bright torches blending, Love illumines Manhood's maze; Or where o'er cradled infants bending, Hope has fix'd her wishful gaze; 20 Hither, in perplexd dance, Ye Woes! ye young-eyed Joys! advance! ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... elegant your form, and smart your dress, Your air, your language, ev'ry warmth express Yet, if a banker, or a financier, With handsome presents happen to appear, At once is blessed the wealthy paramour, While you a year may languish at the door. ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... me, dear, will I be thine? How can you such a question ask When, 'neath the robber's fearful mask, I languish for ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... paths of ignorance? how long will you mistake the true principles of morality and religion? Come and learn its lessons from nations truly pious and learned, in civilized countries. They will inform you how, to gratify God, you must in certain months of the year, languish the whole day with hunger and thirst; how you may shed your neighbor's blood, and purify yourself from it by professions of faith and methodical ablutions; how you may steal his property and be absolved on sharing it with certain persons, ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... way; When geese and pullen are seduc'd, And sows of sucking-pigs are chows'd; When cattle feel indisposition, 115 And need th' opinion of physician; When murrain reigns in hogs or sheep. And chickens languish of the pip; When yeast and outward means do fail, And have no pow'r to work on ale: 120 When butter does refuse to come, And love proves cross and humoursome: To him with questions, and with urine, They for discov'ry ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... present misconceptions of love and society. The first move, obviously, in stopping war was the suppression of such ameliorating forces as the Red Cross; and, conversely, with complete unions, infidelity would languish ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... the midst of a great nation, assimilation of the residue does not follow. Black and white, in the United States, are now tending to more strict segregation. The remnants of our Indians partly retain Indian mores, partly adopt white mores. They languish in moral isolation and homelessness. They have no adjustment to any social environment. Gypsies have never adopted the mores of civilized life. They are morally and physically afloat in the world. There ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... "expressing the thick fogs at the approach of winter," introduces the closing part. In recitative Simon describes the on-coming of the dreary season, and Jane reiterates the sentiment in the cavatina, "Light and Life dejected languish." In Lucas's recitative we see the snow covering the fields, and in his following aria, "The Traveller stands perplexed," a graphic tone-picture of the wanderer lost in the snow is presented. At last he espies ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... said: "Does not the agriculture of the country languish, and the laborer stand still, because, beyond the supply of food for his own family, his produce perishes on his hands, or his fields lie waste and fallow; and this because his accustomed market is closed against him? It does, sir. ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... his aim. The real enjoyment existed, altho it was unperceived by him, in the mere strife for superiority. When he has outstript all his rivals the contest is at an end: and his spirits, which were invigorated only by contending, languish for want of ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... trying to tell deaf John Kollander about the Venezuelan dispute. "Kyle," said George, "pronounces Venezuela like an atomizer!" Captain Morton rested from his loved employ, let the egg-beater of the hour languish, and permitted stock in his new Company to slump in a weary market while he camped on the Nesbit veranda during the day to greet and disperse such visitors as Mrs. Nesbit deemed of sufficiently small social consequence ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... "do you remember how, some six years ago at Hydrabad, when yet beardless and whiskerless, the only hair upon my face being eyebrows and eyelashes, at your instigation and 'suadente diabolo,' I attempted to perform Lydia Languish in 'The Rivals?' and hast thou yet forgotten, O son of an unsainted father, how my grenadier stride, the fixed tea-pot position of my arms, to say nothing of the numerous other solecisms in the code of female manners which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 18, 1841 • Various
... the maid; and tho' legions advanced, All drill'd by Ovidean art, And languish'd, and ogled, protested and danced, Like shadows they came, and like shadows they glanced From the hard ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... pierce; Alone I waste and languish, And make my cry to God on high To ease me of mine anguish. If heroic was my youth, In truth its powers are over; With brain dead and force sped, Love sets at naught the lover! The Muse from off my lips is thrust, 'Tis long since song has cheered ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... desire to be always doing something more and something new to promote their perfection, and, in their seasons of barrenness, an anxiety to rid themselves of it. They are subject to great variation: sometimes they do wonders, at other times they languish and decline. They have no evenness of conduct, because, as the greater part of their religion is in these natural sensibilities, whenever it happens that their sensibilities are dry, either from want of work on their part, ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... heard of it. It has been praised by the poets, and its service is that it makes one forget! The theatre, its comedies and farces and cunning amusements all designed to help me to forget! Art with its seductions is to obsess the soul with foreign thoughts! Women who languish upon one's eyes and tempt with their beauties, they also would steal away our memories. I will ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... class of offender does Prince Nicolas exercise his autocratic powers, i.e. the political offender, with whom he is relentless. Such men are thrown into prison, interred in dark cells without trial, and can languish till death sets them free. In this respect the Prince is harsh, and according to Western ideas barbaric, though local circumstances fully excuse his seeming cruelty. The smallness of the prison at Podgorica shows more forcibly ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... between forms of the thing. Socialism, communism, collectivism, parliamentarism,—all these have one and the same end: to put men on an equality; and in proportion as that end is approached, so will art in every shape languish. Art, gentlemen, is nourished upon inequalities and injustices!" ("Ach!"—"Wie kann man so etwas sagen!"—"Hoch! verissime!") "I am not representing this as either good or bad. It may be well that justice should be established, even though art perish. I simply state a fact!" ("Doch!"—"Erlauben ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... are—very grand seigneur, iron-handed and absolute, haughty and arrogant, but the most charming person in the world, with ends to gain, even from such humble folk as a handful of stranded Californians. But to sigh! to languish with the eye! to sing at the grating! I fear that the lightest headed of the caballeros you despise could transcend ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... and to insist, that the same might be done by the States; and that both powers should join in pressing the Emperor, and other allies, to make greater efforts than they had hitherto done; without which the war must languish, and the terms of peace become every ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... my Masters; But touch the Strings with a religious softness: Teach sound to languish thro' the Night's dull Ear, Till Melancholy start from her lazy Couch, And Carelessness ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... Canal, or of anchylosis in the St. Gothard Tunnel, and the Americans mowed down by shot and shell while fighting for the abolition of slavery, have helped to develop the cotton industry of France and England, as well as the work-girls who languish in the factories of Manchester and Rouen, and the inventor who (following the suggestion of some worker) succeeds ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... that heart stay, and it will stay, To honour thy decree: Or bid it languish quite away, And 't shall ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... had promised her to win that and no end of other honors, when he went away so buoyant and hopeful; but almost on his first day of real battle he had been hurt and tossed aside like a derelict, to languish in a hospital, with no more hope of winning anything. And now he had come home with one ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... allows me to arrange anything. I cannot even have a handkerchief without asking her for it; and as she is deaf, crippled, and, what is worse, beginning to lose her memory, I languish in perpetual destitution. But she exercises her domestic authority with such quiet pride that I do not feel the courage to attempt a coup d'etat ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... what, indeed, truly desirable, can they bestow on us? Can they give beauty to the deformed, strength to the weak, or health to the infirm? Surely if they could we should not see so many ill-favoured faces haunting the assemblies of the great, nor would such numbers of feeble wretches languish in their coaches and palaces. No, not the wealth of a kingdom can purchase any paint to dress pale Ugliness in the bloom of that young maiden, nor any drugs to equip Disease with the vigour of that young man. Do not riches bring us to solicitude instead of rest, envy instead ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... residents of Hull-House place increasing emphasis upon the great inspirations and solaces of literature and are unwilling that it should ever languish as a subject for class instruction or for reading parties. The Shakespeare club has lived a continuous existence at Hull-House for sixteen years during which time its members have heard the leading interpreters of Shakespeare, both among scholars and players. ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... truly they deserved to be, but the gallery, 'a la Drury-lane, cried out, , Off! off!" The boxes were empty, for so is the town, to a degree. The person,(701) who ordered me to write to you for Dobeval, was reduced to languish in the Duchess of Hamilton's box. My Duchess(702) ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... and futility of our system of competitive capitalism superimposed on feudalism. Or you may take it as a book of adventure, and find our hero and his erratic uncle plunging into orgies of hazardous exploits and achievements. Or you may take it as a novel of love, and languish with the hero in a misdirected amour, and burn with him in a glorious, futile, and tragic affection. Or you may take it as a novel of England, of the many currents of English life joining in one vast stream on which the barque of the narrator floats. ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... of masonry. In this critical juncture the young prince sent a message to his uncle requesting he might be permitted to join the army and expose himself in the ranks, declaring himself more willing to die in battle against the Kafers (so they always affected to call the Portuguese) than to languish like a slave in chains. The fears which operated upon the king's mind induced him to consent to his release. The prince showed so much bravery on this occasion, and conducted two or three attacks with such success that Alfonso was obliged to order a retreat, after wasting two days and losing ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... the sad story Of my hard fate and your own glory: In the white you may discover The paleness of a fainting lover; In the red, the flames still feeding On my heart with fresh wounds bleeding. The white will tell you how I languish, And the red express my anguish: The white my innocence displaying The red my martyrdom betraying. The frowns that on your brow resided Have those roses thus divided; Oh! let your smiles but clear the weather And then ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... grateful, slow approach the sacred feast, And, with penitential gladness, take, by faith, this Eucharist. Hark! how sweetly, o'er it stealing, come the sounds of pardoning love! Winning back to paths of virtue all who now in error rove. Here is food for all who languish, and for those who, fainting, thirst— Free, from Christ, the Living Fountain, crystal waters ceaseless burst! Come, ye sad and weary-hearted, bending 'neath a weight of woe— Here the Comforter ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... a youth o'er the form of a statue inclin'd; And the sculptor he seem'd of the stone; Yet he languish'd, as though for its beauty he pin'd, And gaz'd, as the eyes of the statue so blind Reflected ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... as a palm the maiden stood; Men say the palm of palms in tropic Isles Doth languish in her deep primeval wood, And want the voice of man, his home, his smiles, Nor flourish but in his dear neighborhood; She too shall want a voice that reconciles, A smile that charms—how sweet would heaven so please— To plant her at my door ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... languish in endless anguish, Thy life is a little spell, So take thy fill, ere the Pow'rs of Ill Shall drag ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... replied: It is a great pity that the anniversaries are dead. They once lived a robust life, but began some fifteen years ago to languish, and have finally expired. To the appropriate question, What killed them? I answer, Peregrination was one of the causes. There never has been any such place for the anniversaries as the Broadway Tabernacle. It was large and ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... may be translated—to be aware of that. While the eyes of the men are for the most part languid, only occasionally flashing forth, those of the women are rarely quiet for a moment; they sparkle, they languish, they flame—a whole gamut of expression in one moment of time; and it must be confessed that they look upon man ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... then, with labour infinite, produce a book of verse To languish on the "All for Twopence" shelf? The ballad bold and breezy comes particularly easy— I mean to take ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... wanting into wealth, And those that languish into health, Th' afflicted into joy, th' opprest Into security ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... trouble of writing, where the Mistres and Servant are learned in this amorous blazon. Yesterday I wore Folimort, Grisdelin and Isabella: Folimort is withered, Grisdelin is absent, and Isabella is beauty, which put together express I did wither or languish for ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... at this moment (as Lydia Languish says), there will be no elopement after all. I wish that I had known as much last night—or, rather, this morning—I should have gone to bed two hours earlier. And yet I ought not to complain; for, though ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... our horizon and paralyzes our effort: "If there really be a God, if eternal justice really rule the world," we say, "why should life be as it is? Why do some men starve while others feast; why does virtue often languish in the shadow while vice triumphs in the sunshine; why does failure so often dog the footsteps of honest effort, while the success that comes from trickery and dishonor is greeted with the world's applause? How is it that the loving ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... countries where we see heaven showering down abundance, the people are poor and famished, while the priests and monks are opulent and bloated. Their kings are without power and without glory; their subjects languish in indigence ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... that was sent with me att first to make a discovery was horribly wounded with 2 arrowes and a blow of a club on the head. If he had stuck to it as we, he might proceed better. We burned him with all speed, that he might not languish long, to putt ourselves in safty. We killed 2 of them, & 5 prisoners wee tooke, and came away to where we left our boats, where we arrived within 2 days without resting, or eating or drinking all the time, saveing a litle ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... for genuine American wit and humour? Take notice of this in your answer; say, for instance, "Even although the letter had been unsigned, I could have had no difficulty in guessing who was my dear, lively, witty correspondent. Yours, Letitia Languish." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... repaid, with its interest. With such credit, and such ready means, it is not to be wondered that the Goldsmids commanded the wealth of the world; nor that their services were courted by an administration which never suffered its projects to languish while these brokers could raise money on exchequer-bills! A paper circulation is, however, a vortex, out of which neither individuals nor governments ever escaped without calamity, and from whose fatal effects the ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... Colonel, is of a different opinion," said he, when he had recovered. "He regards them as vermin to be left to languish and ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... to assist at a banquet. Sometimes he would seat himself on the breast of a little one, and with a knife sever the head from the body at a single blow; sometimes he cut the throat half through very gently, that the child might languish, and he would wash his hands and his beard in its blood. Sometimes he had all the limbs chopped off at once from the trunk; at other times he ordered us to hang the infants till they were nearly dead, and then take them down and cut their throats. ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... dropped the subject, and went in search of a vacant seat. They found one in the little room where the architects' drawings languish. They were silent for ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... Disciples. Has the grave's lowly one Risen victorious? Sits he, God's Holy One, High-throned and glorious? He, in this blest new birth, Rapture creative knows;[9] Ah! on the breast of earth Taste we still nature's woes. Left here to languish Lone in a world like this, Fills us with anguish ...
— Faust • Goethe
... sentiments by which this conquering monarch were agitated; but Horatio, tho' no less fond of glory, had a softness in his nature, which made him languish for the sight of his dear Charlotta, whom he had been absent from near two years; and being now blessed with a fortune from the plunder of Saxony, which might countenance his pretensions to her, passionately longed ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... future life; but I prefer ignorance to a belief that the most heinous baby that ever died in sin is to languish in a state of damnation—even 'in a wide sense' as our ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... I sit and languish in this pain? No, strike the drums, and, in revenge of this, Come, let us charge our spears, and pierce his breast Whose shoulders bear the axis of the world, That, if I perish, heaven and earth may fade. Theridamas, haste to the court of Jove; Will him to send Apollo hither straight, To cure me, ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe
... starved him to death, and would have driven away, with threats and curses, any that offered to succor his distress. If he escaped, they would have hunted him with bloodhounds, and so brought him back; and if he sickened under his torture, they would have left him, naked and unsheltered, to languish with wasting disease and devouring vermin,—to die, or to rot and drop away piecemeal ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... I received a letter from a friend with whom I had been interned. He secured his release some months before I shook the dust—and mud—of Ruhleben from my feet. On the day we parted he sympathised deeply with me at the prospect of being condemned to languish in the hands of the enemy until the clash of arms had died down. I did not seek to disillusion him, although, even at that time, I had made up my mind to get away by ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... a league from Machecoul, where Mademoiselle de Retz, looking in the glass at an assembly of ladies, displayed all those tender, lively, moving airs which the Italians call 'morbidezza', or the lover's languish. But unfortunately she was not aware that Palluau, since Marechal de Clerambaut, was behind her, who observed her airs, and being very much attached to Madame de Retz, with whom he had in her tender years been very familiar, told her ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... station o' loftiest grandeur, Amidst its profusion I'd languish in pain, And reckon as naething the height o' its splendor, If wanting sweet Jessie, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... tell your anguish, Why you sigh, and why you languish; When the nymph whom you adore, Grants the blessing Of possessing, What can ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... and the theories embodying it are the reflection of the social condition of a given age and people, so that the one will never be of a higher order than the other; while it is, also, equally true, that the best and most advanced political theories may be suffered to languish in operation, or become wholly dormant, from the influence of social causes. Thus it was that the demoralising effect of human slavery did, up to the time of the great shock which the nation received in the spring of 1861—a shock which galvanized it into ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Dissension, like a vapor sinks; And e'en the all-dazzling crown Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks. Such was this heaven-loved isle, Than Lesbos fairer and the Cretan shore! No more shall freedom smile? Shall Britons languish, and be men no more? Since all must life resign, Those sweet rewards which decorate the brave 'Tis folly to decline, And steal ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... flocked to his standard, and Perkin, elated with this appearance of success, took on him, for the first time, the appellation of Richard IV., king of England. Not to suffer the expectations of his followers to languish, he presented himself before Exeter; and by many fair promises invited that city to join him. Finding that the inhabitants shut their gates against him, he laid siege to the place; but being unprovided with artillery, ammunition, and every thing requisite for ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... invited families having young women in them to the wifeless cabins is ludicrous. A modern "Sabine raid" was made upon the young damsels, who were actually carried away to the De Meuron homesteads. The Swiss families which had the misfortune to have no daughters in them were left to languish in their comfortless tents. The afflictions of the earlier Selkirk settlers were increased by the arrival of these settlers. With the Selkirk settlers in their first decade the first consideration was always food. Till that question is settled no Colony can advance. Probably ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... alas! how swift you flew, Her neat post-wagon trotting in! Ye bore Matilda from my view; Forlorn I languish'd at the U niversity ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... the eagle, on account of its structure and large size, is a prisoner indeed, and must languish with all its splendid faculties and importunate impulses unexercised. You may gorge it with gobbets of flesh until its stomach cries, "Enough"; but what of all the other organs fed by the stomach, and their correlated faculties? Every bone and muscle and fibre, every ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... For "gorgeous" I languish in vain, And I pine for a "love"—and a "dear." Oh! why did I vow to be plain— In my speech? It sounds awfully queer! Stop! "Awfully" is not allowed. Though it will slip out sometimes, I own. Oh, I might as well sit in my shroud, As use ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various
... short time all their great expectations of him in the ministry were frustrated. For by his extreme abstinence, drinking of water, and indefatigable pains, he contracted that sickness, of which he died soon after. His body began to languish, his stomach to refuse all meat, and his constitution to alter. Mr. Dickson laid his condition much to heart (Mr. Bailie being at London) and kept him fifteen days with him; thereafter he went to Houston, and stayed as long there, where the lady ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... war successfully with our strong and defiant enemy, we must look to it that the literature of temperance does not languish. We are not making it half as efficient as it might be. Here we have a thoroughly organized publication house, with capable and active agents, which, if the means were placed at its disposal, could flood the country with books, pamphlets and tracts by millions ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... dropped down to the sea that the whole hemisphere overflowed with glory and the gilded pageant concerted for his funeral gathered in slow procession round his grave; reminding one of those tardy honours paid to some great prince of song, who—left during life to languish in a garret—is buried by nobles in Westminster Abbey. A few minutes more the last fiery segment had disappeared beneath the purple horizon, and ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... on the unhappiness which men who have led a busy life experience, when they retire in expectation of enjoying themselves at ease, and that they generally languish for want of their habitual occupation, and wish to return to it. He mentioned as strong an instance of this as can well be imagined. 'An eminent tallow-chandler in London, who had acquired a considerable fortune, gave up the trade in favour of his foreman, ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... farewel, when I shal fare but ill, flourish & ioy, wh[e] I shal droope and languish, All plentious good awaite vpon thy will, wh[e] extreame want shal bring my soule deaths anguish. Forced by thee (thou mercy-wanting mayd) must I abandon this my natiue soyle, Hoping my sorrowes heate will be allayd by absence, tyme, necessity or toyle. So, nowe adiew; the winds call ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... and arches, produced a wonderful effect. Turini, aware of this circumstance, adapts his compositions with great intelligence to the place, and makes his slave, the organ, send forth the most affecting, long-protracted sounds, which languish in the air, and are some time a-dying. Nothing can be more original than his style. Deprived of sight by an unhappy accident, in the flower of his days, he gave up his entire soul to music, and scarcely exists but through ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... however, is published, to authorise us in saying that it is not in point of narrative that the present author will obtain any advantage over his predecessors. It is in disquisition that he rejoices, and succeeds; it is the argumentative matter which excites and sustains him. His style seems to languish when the effort of ratiocination gives place to the task of the narrator. We fancy we see him resume the pen with listlessness, when nothing remains for the historian but to tell ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... courtier good-naturedly. "What, do my eyes deceive me? No, it is the festive and luxurious Perigord. Perigord, listen. I famish. I languish. I would dine." ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... my master, But touch the strings with a religious softness! Teach sounds to languish through the night's dull ear Till Melancholy starts from off her couch, And ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... pain as preferable to pleasure, but they are incited by a restless disposition to make continued exertions of capacity and resolution; they triumph in the midst of their struggles; they droop, and they languish, when the occasion ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... developed,—when nature, in her most regal and opposing state, bends to the energy of man,—when countless sums are lavished to gratify and satiate every sense, how mortifying and discreditable that a great moral cause should languish! Even if the contribution which would be required for this purpose could in any way be felt by the poorest citizen, it could not be felt as a burden; for he might regard it as an investment the most profitable and secure,—the income of ...
— Reflections on the Operation of the Present System of Education, 1853 • Christopher C. Andrews
... For me, I could not close my eyes: the text that dwelt in my mind was, "My soul is among lions." I thought of Madame Laccassagne and the other poor women wandering in the fields, and pictured a thousand distressing circumstances. Our solitary oil-lamp was beginning to languish for want of trimming, and I thought, "What if it should leave us in darkness altogether, and we should never know when it is day?" and dwelt on the Egyptians in the plague of darkness, when none of them rose from his place for three days. I was so feverish that it seemed ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... export, and if you attended seances at Swifty Bob's you left your gold watch and your little savings at home. But a wave of anti-pugilistic feeling swept over the New York authorities. Promoters of boxing contests found themselves, to their acute disgust, raided by the police. The industry began to languish. Persons avoided places where at any moment the festivities might be marred by an inrush of large men in blue uniforms, armed ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... week of work—a "human warious" week, with something piquant lurking at every turn. A week so busy, so kaleidoscopic in its quick succession of events that my own troubles and grievances were pushed into a neglected corner of my mind and made to languish there, ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... military as a body, (Heaven forbid that they should be so!) yet, as always furnishing a disproportionate number from their order to the martial service of the country, they diffuse a standard of high honour through our army and navy, which would languish in a degree not suspected whenever a democratic influence should thoroughly pervade either. It is less for what they do in this way, than for what they prevent, that our gratitude is due to the nobility. However, even the positive services of the nobility are greater in this field than a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... must not, if she placed value upon success, fall into the class of parasite wives who suffer their own independence of thought to languish. ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... innocent accord, we kiss: About her neck my pleasure weeps; Against my lip the silk vein leaps; Then says an Angel, 'Day or night, If yours you seek, not her delight, Although by some strange witchery It seems you kiss her, 'tis not she; But, whilst you languish at the side Of a fair-foul phantasmal bride, Surely a dragon and strong tower Guard the true lady in her bower.' And I say, 'Dear my Lord. Amen!' And the true lady kiss again. Or else some wasteful malady Devours ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... the idea of their country, but has associated with it a thousand nameless ideas, numberless touches of private affection, of early hope, romantic adventure and national pride, all which rush in (with mingled currents) to swell the tide of fond remembrance, and make them languish or die for home. What a fine instrument the human heart is! Who shall touch it? Who shall fathom it? Who shall 'sound it from Its lowest note to the top of its compass?' Who shall put his hand among the strings, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... droop, what time Each living thing, e'en to the little worm, All fell, so full of malice was the air (And afterward, as bards of yore have told, The ancient people were restor'd anew From seed of emmets) than was here to see The spirits, that languish'd through the murky vale Up-pil'd on many a stack. Confus'd they lay, One o'er the belly, o'er the shoulders one Roll'd of another; sideling crawl'd a third Along the dismal pathway. Step by step We journey'd on, in silence looking round And list'ning those diseas'd, who strove in vain To lift ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... even that past dark dream seems tolerable—for amid its lurid smoke were flashes of brightness. A slave? Well; I ask myself at times, and what were women meant for but to be slaves? Free them, and they enslave themselves again, or languish unsatisfied; for they must love. And what blame to them if they love a white man, tyrant though he be, rather than a fellow-slave? If the men of our own race will claim us, let them prove themselves worthy of us! Let them rise, exterminate their ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley |
