"Regretful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... probably under interdict during the reigns of the Augustan dynasty; men did not dare to copy it, or to have it known that they possessed it; and when it might have safely reappeared, the republic had faded even from regretful memory, and there was no desire to perpetuate a work devoted to its service and honor. Thus the world had lost the very one of all Cicero's writings for which he most craved immortality. The portions of it which Mai has brought to light fully confirm ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... Ida and those German days. The notion occurred to him that he would hunt up her picture, which he hadn't thought of in five years. With misty eyes and crowding memories he pored over it, and a wave of regretful, yearning ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... jogged off to Bournemouth, in the T-cart, with one portmanteau and one servant, leaving Bessie mistress of all things. It was a grief to Mrs. Wendover to be separated from home and children at any time, and she was especially regretful at being absent on her eldest daughter's birthday; but the Colonel was paramount. If his cough could be cured by sea air, to the sea he must go, with his faithful wife in attendance ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... regretful tribute to genius—which may perhaps some day be heard before the portraits of Henner, of Bonnat or of Madrazzo—will ever be inspired by those of M. Carolus Duran. This artist is the painter of elegant trifles ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... now. She saw it in the sudden paleness that fell on him, heard it in the rapid beating of his heart, felt it in the strong grasp that fastened on her hand, and knew that the first step was won. A regretful pang smote her, but the dark mood which had taken possession of her stifled the generous warnings of her better ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... turns his face homewards? And why should not we rejoice at the thought that we, strangers and foreigners here, shall soon depart to the true metropolis, the mother-country of our souls? I do not know why a man should be either regretful or afraid, as he watches the hungry sea eating away this 'bank and shoal of time' upon which he stands—even though the tide has all but reached his feet—if he knows that God's strong hand will be stretched forth to him at the moment when the sand dissolves from ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... consented to forego the idea of sending Peters to the Castle, with a regretful sigh; and then the two ladies went out shopping—Clarissa in high spirits; her aunt depressed by a conviction, that she would not make her first entrance into society with the surroundings that befitted a Lovel ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... shook her head doubtfully, but she said no more. Perhaps she regretted a little that she had caused Mr. Baxter's evening clothes to be so expansively enlarged—for she looked rather regretful. She also looked rather incomprehensible, not to say cryptic, during the long silence which followed, and Mr. Baxter resumed his rocking, unaware of the fixity of gaze which his wife maintained upon him—a thing the most loyal will ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... what he might have been, what he might have done, would sometimes give utterance to their disappointment, and even peevishly blame him. But here again his coldness of temperament assisted him. He submitted to such criticisms and censures with a regretful air, as though he were half convinced of their truth. But the severer and sterner spirit within was never touched or affected. Ambitious and fond of display as he had been, the loss of dignity and influence weighed nothing with him; he was even surprised to find how little it touched him ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... after a time, as did the others, assuming an air of nonchalance. Robert, Amy, Louise and Imogene all felt shocked, but not exactly, not unqualifiedly regretful. Certainly Lester had acted very badly. He had given his ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... was long in passage, but it elicited the desired result the following April. The President entirely approved this measure and affixed his name to the paper, regretful at the same time that public subscriptions of all sorts limited the size of ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... cast regretful glances of memory back to my garden at Boulge, which I want to see dug up and replanted. I have bought anemone roots which in the Spring shall blow Tyrian dyes, and Irises of a newer and more brilliant prism than Noah saw in the clouds. I have bought ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... what remained of the little group sought safety in flight. The British marched on, leaving on that peaceful common, under the very shadow of the church, eight figures stark and motionless in death. From this baptism of blood they moved on, regretful, perhaps, at the stern necessity of their action, but rejoicing that all opposition had been so ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... Ugly in Malone's mind—fluttered around him, deciding what disguises were possible, and which of those was indicated for the particular job on hand. Malone waved to the agent, whom he knew very slightly, and went on. He felt vaguely regretful that the FBI couldn't hire prettier girls for Cosmetic Surgery, but the trouble was that pretty girls fell for the Agents, and vice versa, and this led to an unfortunate tendency toward only handsome and virile-looking disguises. ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... of Falloden's sudden departure from Oxford, after his own proposal of two more rides. His note, "crying off" till after the schools, had seemed to her not quite as regretful as it might have been; his epistolary style lacked charm. And it was impertinent of him to suggest Lord Meyrick as a substitute. She had given the Lathom Woods a wide berth ever since her first adventure there; and she hoped that Lord Meyrick had ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... myself the honor of waiting upon his lordship within the hour," said the new Lord Ostermore. "As for the letter which it is alleged I brought from France—from the Pretender,"—he was smiling now, a regretful, deprecatory smile, "it is a fortunate circumstance that, being suspected by that very man Green, who stands yonder, I was subjected, upon my arrival in England, to a thorough search at Maidstone—a search, it goes without saying, ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... timed their oar-strokes to the cadence of Neapolitan barcaroles and folk-songs, full of rhythmic movement, which seemed caught from the pulsing tides. And when at last the bow grated on the sands of the Sorrento landing-place, Katy drew a long, regretful breath, and declared that this was her best birthday-gift of all, better than Amy's flowers, or the pretty tortoise-shell locket that Mrs. Ashe had given her, better even than the letter from home, which, timed by happy accident, had arrived by the morning's post ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... the point better than he realized. Poet Tate's face grew paler. After his first batch of letters had brought those returns from the regretful great he had been recklessly scattering invitations from the Atlantic to the Pacific—appealing invitations done in his best style, and sanctioned by the aegis of a committee headed by "Captain Sproul, Chairman." Such unbroken array of declinations heartened ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... generous promptings. Like all large-hearted men he was fond of contributing to the pleasures of others. Generosity was thus a part of his nature, and, even when the recipient of his bounties proved unworthy, he was more anxious to reform him than regretful of his liberality. For civil administration he had a natural inclination, much preferring the planning of a system which might render the edifice his arms were erecting suitable to the yearnings of the people to the planning of a {83} campaign. On all the questions which have ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... by the shoulders, swinging her around so that she faced him,—as he had forced her to face him that day on the river trail—and there was a regretful, ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the setting sun, or was it some inner light from the depths of that great spirit, which shone out in all his countenance, and filled his eyes with awful inspiration, as he spoke, in a voice calm and sweet, sad and regretful, and yet terrible from the slow distinctness of every ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... against the wall. The girl turned swiftly upon Hal, and as he seized her he felt the cold steel against his neck. The touch seemed to paralyze him. Strangely enough, the thought of death was summed up in a vast, regretful curiosity to know why all this was happening. ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... only two of the pack that hadn't been horribly abused by some unknown varmint; so a halt had to be called for three days while Red Cross work was done. Brother and sister tried to look regretful and complained about this break in the ripping sport; but their manner was artificial. They spent the time riding peacefully round up in the canon, pretending to look for the wild creature that had chewed their little pets. They come back one day and cheered ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... lie, and the nurse knew that the shrewd doctor recognized it as a lie. But he made no comment and with a last regretful look toward the bed ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... say is, I wish he was alive now," he said, in a regretful tone, "'cause my mother has been sick longer than thirty-eight years; she has been sick about all her life, and she is real bad now, so she can't walk at all. I s'pose he could cure her if he ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... anxious for you and Maud to meet under the conditions that obtained last night," went on Mr. Blithers, with a regretful look at the log they were passing. ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... He spoke in a regretful tone so new to me that I inwardly repeated, as if that would help me to his meaning, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... would be too close to the door for her comfort; not invited to join them, Emily would feel obliged to drift on across the floor to greet some gracious older woman, and sink into a chair, smiling at compliments, and covering a defeat with a regretful: ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... replied to Buckingham's remonstrances on the folly of a struggle which could only mean ruin to the Commonwealth, that he would fight while there was a ditch left for him to die in. His courage spread. The Dutch flew to arms: without a regretful voice they summoned to their aid their last irresistible ally: the dykes were cut, and soon the waters, destroying to save, spread over all that trim and fertile land. The tide of invasion was checked, and with the next spring it began to ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... epoch forward to the final extinction of liberty, four great parties: the Piagnoni, passionate for political freedom and austerity of life; the Palleschi, favourable to the Medicean cause, and regretful of Lorenzo's pleasant rule; the Compagnacci, intolerant of the reformed republic, neither hostile nor loyal to the Medici, but desirous of personal licence; the Ottimati, astute and selfish, watching their own advantage, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... and Dolly looked regretful. "I'll change with you, if you like. I think as you're the oldest you ought to have ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... Other regretful good-bys were said to a number of young Filipinos whom he had gathered around him and formed into a club for the study of the history of their country and the ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... regretful reminiscence, the sergeant glanced at his men. Apparently all was well: the only visible menace lolled within easy arm's reach, swinging his short legs and sucking noisily on his candy. Nevertheless the non-com shifted to a ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... of my life more choice to me (Though brief, yet in itself so round and whole)[16] 275 Than all the imperfect residue can be;— The Artist saw his statue of the soul Was perfect; so, with one regretful stroke, The earthen model into fragments broke, 279 And without her the ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... day, and had to listen to the Captain's praises of him pretty frequently during his absence. And Captain Sedgewick's talk about Gilbert Fenton generally closed with a regretful sigh, the meaning of which had grown very ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... of the famous last things over," said Madeline with a regretful little sigh. "I'm glad we had it before the alums, and the families begin to arrive ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... believe she weigh'd 230 pounds.) I never have had such coffee since. About nice drinks, anyhow, my recollection of the "cobblers" (with strawberries and snow on top of the large tumblers,) and also the exquisite wines, and the perfect and mild French brandy, help the regretful reminiscence of my New Orleans experiences of those days. And what splendid and roomy and leisurely bar-rooms! particularly the grand ones of the St. Charles and St. Louis. Bargains, auctions, appointments, business conferences, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... a few paces higher up the barranca. He made me no answer, but looked at me with a calm, cold, and yet somewhat regretful smile upon his countenance. Then all at once he ceased the efforts he was making to resist the stream and gain the bank, folded his arms on his breast and gave a look up and around him as though to bid farewell to the world he was about ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... else, liked to read. There was no comfort for me in my magnificent library. We were all rich and in splendor, and our uncle had come from India. I wished, saving his soul, that the ship that brought him over had foundered off Barnegat Light. It would always have been a tender and regretful memory to both of us. And how sacred is the memory of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... formed out in the drift-ice. It looked as if it was formed of four huge lumps of ice raised on end against each other. We knew what it contained without examination — a yawning chasm. Hanssen cast a last regretful glance upon it, ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... Story Girl with a regretful sigh. "It's very expressive, but it isn't nice. That is the way with so many words. They're expressive, but they're not nice, and so a ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... What a pity, sure! It war a plumb mistake, Copenny," plained an elder man, whose rifle had not been fired. There was a regretful cadence in his voice akin to tears, and he held his long, ragged red beard in one hand as he peered down into the ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... when you ring me up and I answer, all you do is to ask, "Number, please," as though I had rung you. (It is then that I feel most that I should like to wring you.) When I reply, "But you rang me," you revert to your prevailing regretful melancholy and say, "Sorry you were troubled," and before I can go deeply into the question and discover how these things occur you ring off. Can't you make an effort during 1921 not to do this? Let it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 29, 1920 • Various
... threshold, and his shadow once more darkened his father's hall, those feelings which had been deadened by his long intercourse with the world resumed their old sway, and he paused, and looked around the dilipidated mansion with eyes dimmed with regretful tears. ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... a whole night under the limes at the bottom of the garden, and not a shadow of suspicion crossed his soul. Next day he loved me better, but the feeling was as reverent, as humble, as regretful as ever; he had not presumed an iota. Oh! he is a very Spaniard, a very Abencerrage. He scaled my wall to come and kiss the hand which in the darkness I reached down to him from my balcony. He might have broken his neck; how many of our ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... was met with smaller expenditure. It may be, too, that family cares were then less pressing, or that a prolonged period of general prosperity had been the privilege of rich and poor alike in this green river-valley around my home. In those days, to which I often look back with regretful yearning, everybody seemed to have leisure; the ties of friendship were not severed by malicious gossip; old and young seemed to realise how good it was to have pleasant acquaintanceships and to be in the sunshine and the open air. Fathers played with their children in the street: one winter ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... ago such an invitation would have been bliss to Stephen. Now he was bound in all honour and duty to his master, and could only thank the knight of the Badger, and cast a regretful eye at him, as he drank a cup of wine, and flung a bag of gold and silver, supplemented by a heavy chain, to Master Headley, who prudently declined working for Free Companions, unless he were paid beforehand; and, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... shook a regretful head. "I'm shore sorry you and Swing are busted, Racey, I'd do anything for you I could in reason. You know damwell I would, but money's tight with me just now. I ain't really got a cent I can lend. Got a mortgage comin' due ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... clothed in tweed Be seen, O Buns, without the meed Of some regretful sigh, Fresh from the triumphs of the trench Upon the Opposition Bench Begging ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 5, 1919 • Various
... morning and found my trunk packed and waiting; it was then only the work of a little time to make ready to leave. To my good missionary friends I had already said good-bye, and the captain and Mollie were kindly regretful. With tears in my eyes, but with real pain in my heart I bade Jennie good-bye, and stepped into the little boat which was to carry ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... her; that she may be happy even if it be with Linton. "I would never have banished him from her society, while she desired his," asserts Heathcliff, and now she is mad with grief and dying. The consciousness of their strained and thwarted natures, moreover, makes us the more regretful they must sever. Had he survived, Romeo would have been happy with Rosalind, after all; probably Juliet would have married Paris. But where will Heathcliff love again, the perverted, morose, brutalised Heathcliff, whose only human tenderness has been his love for the capricious, ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... at last, counting out the ten with a half-regretful sigh. "Make them go as far as you can, and, Ad, remember, don't get ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... Wept, not for me, but for herself, poor child! The chill, the gloom of an unhappy future Crept on her lot already, like a mist Foreshadowing the storm; she saw, not distant, All the despair of a regretful marriage Menacing her and driving forth her children. It did not long delay. Her spendthrift lord, After a squander of his own estate, And after swindling my confiding father Of a large sum, deserted wife and children, To play the chevalier of industry At ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... the screen of tapestry which veiled the open doorway. There, crouching out of sight, she had remained concealed for the last hour—watching the revellers through a crevice in the needlework, and vainly hoping, either in the words or face of Sergius, to detect some tone or expression indicative of regretful thought or recollection of herself. When at last her name had been mentioned, for a moment she had eagerly held her breath, lest she might lose one syllable from which an augury of her fate could be drawn. Then, repressing, with a violent effort, the cry of despair which rose to her lips, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of Mr. Allen's rather eager and rose-colored statements, he replied in politest and most regretful tones that he "was very sorry he could not avail himself of so promising an opening, but in fact, he was 'in deep' himself—carrying all he could stand up under very well, and was rather in the borrowing than in ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... cottage was renewed. Did I roam in the depths of sweet pastoral solitudes in the West, with the tinkling of sheep-bells in my ears, a rounded hillock, seen vaguely, would shape itself into a cottage; and at the door my monitory, regretful Hebe would appear. Did I wander by the seashore, one gently-swelling wave in the vast heaving plain of waters would suddenly transform itself into a cottage, and I, by some involuntary inward impulse, would ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... quartered in the tin huts, but the Liverpools, Devons, Gordons, and Volunteers have pitched their own tents, and a terrible time they are having of it. Dust is the curse of the place. We remember the Long Valley as an Arcadian dell. Veterans of the Soudan recall the black sand-storms with regretful sighs. The thin, red dust comes everywhere, and never stops. It blinds your eyes, it stops your nose, it scorches your throat till the invariable shilling for a little glass of any liquid seems cheap as dirt. It turns the whitest shirt brown in half an hour, it creeps ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... claim to distinction was that they had become rich. Again and again I have seen "success" which seemed to me to be the brand of ignominy rather than the stamp of worth,—the epitaph of culture, if not of character. I look on with a profound and regretful pity. You successful,—YOU! with half your powers lying dormant,—you, with your imagination stifled, your conscience unfaithful, your chivalry deadened into shrewdness, your religion a thing of tithes and forms;—you successful, ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... the same language, having an essential resemblance in our institutions and usages, and worshipping in the temples of the same God. [HERODOTUS, viii. 144.] All this may and should be borne in mind. And yet an Englishman can hardly watch the progress of America, without the regretful thought that America once was English, and that, but for the folly of our rulers, she might be English still. It is true that the commerce between the two countries has largely and beneficially increased; but this is no proof that the increase would not have been still greater, had ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... regretful, but not cast down. He changed the subject, commented on the building that was going on, the prospects of a good harvest, and finally took refuge in that stale old subject, the weather. Then he said in a casual way—as if it had ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... stenographers, both men, sat before machines and made a pretense of business at such times as the door opened, or when an occasional client, seeing the name, came in to inquire for rates. At such times the clerks were politely regretful. The firm's contracts were all they ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... no excuse for my conduct. Indeed, I was weary to the last extent; but I had no right to treat a man with rudeness who had offered his life for his country, much more a man who came to me in great affliction. I have had a regretful night, and come now to beg your forgiveness." He added that he had just seen Secretary Stanton, and all the details were arranged for sending the Colonel down the Potomac and recovering the body; then, taking him in his carriage, he drove to the steamer's wharf, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... When Sydney said this, he rose from the chair in which he had been sitting and stood on the hearth-rug before the grate, with his hands behind him and his handsome brows knitted in a very unmistakable frown. It was in a lower and more regretful voice that he continued, after a few minutes' silence: "I must say that the independent line you have been taking for some time past is not very pleasing to me. You seem to have a perfect indifference to our name ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... give him a chance to speak. But he only gazed at her with a thoughtful, regretful ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... regretful reply, "you see it was awfully poky, having to sit so still. I must have grown desperate at last and ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... than many others society had already rejoiced over. The picture raised in the minds of the hearers of her Grace foiled in the purchase of stockings marked down to 1s. 11-1/2d. would be a source of rapture for some time to come. And Emily's face! The regretful kindness of it, the retrospective sympathy and candid feeling! ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... relapsed into her regretful discontented mood. If only—if only that wretched accident had never occurred, how different would her feelings have been at this moment, was one of her reflections as she sat alone on the terrace outside the great deserted reception rooms. She ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... spending his last hours at the University in the dust and ashes of self-condemnation and regretful retrospection No farewell orgie celebrated his leave-taking. Only one of his friends was invited to his room that night and he no denizen of "Rowdy Row," but the quiet, irreproachable librarian. To this ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... shirt-waist. "I can't go to see Ethel in these," she decided, "but if I hurry home now I can dress and go right up there after dinner, before she gets off anywhere." The putting must wait. With one regretful glance out over the green, breezy course Betty started resolutely off toward the dusty highway and the ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... So intently was the group above watching the charades, that no one saw her when she scrambled down the steep path leading into the ravine, and began untying Lad. Climbing into the saddle, she gave one regretful look at the party she was leaving behind her, and resolutely turned his head ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... me bankrupt on life's 'change; And daily I bestow Regretful tears upon the blank account, And with myself ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... ART" is a humorous, but regretful reminiscence of "Bohemian" days, addressed by a great singer to a sculptor, also famous, who once worked in a garret opposite to her own. They were young then, as well as poor and obscure; and they watched and coquetted with each other, though they neither spoke nor met; and perhaps played with ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... neither bitterness nor reproach in these broken words, only a patient sorrow, a regretful pain, as if he saw the two lost loves before him and uttered over them an irrepressible lament. It was too much for Dolly and with sudden resolution she ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... to offend you," said the girl in a low voice—such a gently regretful voice that Gatewood swung ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... Friends and champions, the press, the public "turned up their thumbs." Gifford shook his head; Hobhouse "launched out into a most violent invective" (letter to Murray, November 24, 1821); Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh, was regretful and hortatory; Heber, in the Quarterly, was fault-finding and contemptuous. The "parsons preached at it from Kentish Town to Pisa" (letter to Moore, February 20, 1822). Even "the very highest authority in the land," his Majesty King George IV., "expressed his disapprobation ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... understand the tender, regretful glance of her mother's eyes. She was not as yet very well acquainted with the English language, and did not know what "tolerably" meant; she supposed ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May
... of the inmates, and any events that have happened. One inmate, an ancient labourer, died that morning in the infirmary, not many hours before the meeting of the Board. The announcement is received with regretful exclamations, and there is a cessation of business for a few minutes. Some of the old farmers who knew the deceased recount their connection with him, how he worked for them, and how his family has lived in the parish as cottagers from time immemorial. A reminiscence ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... regretful that your visit is a few days too late for you to see five men beheaded in as many minutes. Employing a chair-coolie as a lay figure, John manages to give a satisfactory description of the modus operandi of a decapitation, and you let it go at that. A stalwart native is then introduced ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... have done much," he answered, with a tender, regretful look. "No—do not start! I am sorry that you did not understand. It is because you do so much, because you give your whole life for my wretched existence, because I know what my hours of happiness cost you now and will cost you hereafter. That is why I say these things. It would have ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... reached the edge of the swollen forest-stream, and the knight was astonished to see it rippling along in gentle waves, without a trace of its former wildness and swell. "By the morning, it will be quite dry," said the beautiful wife, in a regretful tone, "and you can then travel away wherever you will, without ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... the song died softly away. Only the instruments went on playing. The distant tomtom was surely the beating of that heart into whose mysteries no other human heart could look. Its reiterated and dim throbbing affected Domini almost terribly. She was relieved, yet regretful, when at length ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... looking through the white-curtained valley, saw the outcasts divide their slowly decreasing store of provisions for the morning meal. It was one of the peculiarities of that mountain climate that its rays diffused a kindly warmth over the wintry landscape, as if in regretful commiseration of the past. But it revealed drift on drift of snow piled high around the hut—a hopeless, uncharted, trackless sea of white lying below the rocky shores to which the castaways still clung. Through ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... other questions to settle. Mr. Wrenn slowly folded up his paper, pursued his check under three plates and the menu-card to its hiding-place beyond the catsup-bottle, and left the table with a regretful "Good night." ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... happy," Perpetua is going on, her tone regretful. "We could have gone everywhere together, you and I. I should have taken you to the theatre, to balls, to concerts, to afternoons. You would have been so happy, and so should ...
— A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... fragrant clover is a propitious dream. It brings all objects desired into the reach of the dreamer. Fine crops is portended for the farmer and wealth for the young. Blasted fields of clover brings harrowing and regretful sighs. ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... wide as the continent. He was far more quoted, however, for what he said and did than for anything he wrote. Had his career ended in 1883, before he came to Chicago, there would have been little or nothing left of literary value to keep his memory alive, beyond the regretful mention in the obituary columns ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... all that I knew and guessed and felt; and all of a long while the hunger grew for that one I had lost in the early days—she who had sung to me in those faery days of light, that had been in verity. And the especial thoughts of that age looked back with a keen, regretful wonder ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... to find the separate prominent singers, for there the whole nation, whatever hath articulate voice in it, takes to singing with its troubadours and minnesingers. In its earliest stages then the soul sings, not in plaintive regretful strain, but birdlike from an overflowing breast, with rejoicings and ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... rather than his strength; so far as it expresses a shrinking from reality and a refuge in sentimentalism; so far as it is aristocratic as in Tennyson, or mocking and rebellious as in Byron, or erotic and mephitic as in Swinburne, or regretful and reminiscent as in Arnold, or a melodious baying of the moon as in Shelley, or the outcome of mere scholarly and technical acquirements as in so many of our younger poets,—so far as literature or poetry, I say, stand for these things, there is little of either in Whitman. Whitman stands ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... cast a regretful look at his house, which he was thus leaving to destruction. Tim, who observed it, cried out,—"Faith, masther dear, better to let the house burn than to lose all our lives, which would have happened, maybe, into ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... brief days, but ah, of deathless fame! While on these awful leaves my fond eyes rest, On which thine late have dwelt, thy hand late press'd, I pause; and gaze regretful on thy name. By neither chance nor envy, time nor flame, Be it from this its mansion dispossessed! But thee, Eternity, clasps to her breast, And in celestial ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... presence. Whatever the mother of the Brahmans has sent word of, is all true; inasmuch as it is the great idol's decision; how can it be false?' When the king heard the very same story from all, he was much ashamed and regretful of what he had said. He instantly gave me a rich khil'at; and having written an order with his own hand, and sealed [335] with his sign manual, he consigned it to me; he also wrote a note to the mother ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... wearing black for months and years for the dead; let us calmly consider the philosophy of the thing, its use and abuse. Does it confer any benefit on the dead? Does it afford any consolation to the living? Morally or physically, does it produce the least good? Does it soften one regretful pang, or dry one bitter tear, or make the wearers wiser or better? If it does not produce any ultimate benefit, it should be at once discarded as a superstitious relic of more barbarous times, when men could not gaze ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... Albinik pronounced these words, when the Roman general shot some orders at several of his officers. They rushed from the tent in haste, while he, relapsing into his habitual dissimulation, and no doubt regretful of having betrayed his fears in the presence of the Gallic fugitives, affected to smile, and stretched himself again on his lion skin. He held out his cup to one of his cup-bearers, and emptied it after saying to the interpreter some words which he ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... late for any hope of catching the west-bound train, and he dropped it back in his pocket, and sat motionless. Suddenly some one rapped upon the outside door. It would be Craig, probably, and he called out a regretful "Come in." A bell-boy stood there, his buttoned-up figure silhouetted against ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... flushed softly, as she felt the proud, admiring glance of her husband bent upon her. But underneath all her pleasure was a dull sense of pain and a consciousness of wrong-doing, which was a very serpent trail among her fragrant flowers. When she reached her home again a flood of regretful sorrow overwhelmed her heart, and she wept bitterly. Her husband sought most tenderly to soothe her grief, and secretly resolved to undermine the "superstition which caused the dear girl ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... a little sigh, and a regretful look back into the crowded, steamy kitchen, Mrs. Mitchell answered her husband's hurried call and ran. So Eurie was left mistress of ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... dying kangaroo-hound of which they had heard. As for the huge spectral wolf, it was evident that he had no real connection with the camp. Indeed, the bigger of the three dingoes told himself, with a regretful sigh, that this great grey wolf had in all probability dispatched the kangaroo-hound at an early stage of the night, and had been sleeping off the first effects of his orgy, when they first saw him lying near the camp-fire. At all events, the wolf ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... knee-deep wheat rippling in the evening breeze. The wheat ran down to a marsh, and to a wide, slow creek that, save in the shadow of its reedy banks, was blue as the sky above. Haward, riding slowly beside his green fields and still waters, noted with quiet, half-regretful pleasure this or that remembered feature of the landscape. There had been little change. Here, where he remembered deep woods, tobacco was planted; there, where the tobacco had been, were now fields of wheat or corn, ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... the pent-up longing of Kingsley's tenderly regretful words and Nevin's wistful setting, while the violin sang ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... been elbowed into the background, rose quietly and crossed to the other end of the room. Brooks followed her for a moment with regretful eyes. Her simple gown, with the little piece of ribbon around her graceful neck, seemed almost distinguished by comparison with the loud-patterned and dressier blouses of the two girls who had now hemmed him in. For a moment he ignored the ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the inevitable, if regretful, duty of the recorder of the past to have to inscribe “Obiit” over the mention of many an individual who comes under his notice, and this applies to the four-footed animals, as well as to the birds and the wild flowers, of Woodhall. Of some of ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... on my arm in a friendly trustful fashion, and I found her eyes fixed on mine with a puzzled regretful look. We walked most of the way along the terrace ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... before. She went back to the beginning and painstakingly dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's, a detail she had omitted in the first writing. She deliberated for some time over the spelling. The lines, too, ran up and down hill in an undignified manner. But Chicken Little with a regretful sigh over these deficiencies, folded the sheets and put them into the tiny envelope, copying carefully the address Dick Harding had written out for her. Then she consigned the precious missive to the depths of her Geography so she wouldn't ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... olive-trees, between the flashes of the Mediterranean and the sky; the country through the which there sounds the twanging Genoese language, a thin Italian mingled with a little Arabic, more Portuguese, and much French. I was regretful at leaving the elastic Tuscan speech, canorous in its vowels set in emphatic l's and m's and the vigorous soft spring of the double consonants. But as the train arrived its noises were drowned by a voice declaiming in the tongue I was not to hear again for months—good Italian. ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... without a smile of gentle amusement that the stranger observed the concentration of the light within, just at the level of Caroline's head. The very small fire and the frosty red of the two women's faces betrayed the poverty of their home; but if ever his own countenance expressed regretful compassion, the girl proudly met it ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... To judge by the regretful excitement in the Midlands, Carew might have been a good friend to every body. The news was at once telegraphed to town, and appeared in the evening papers. The public interest in his mad freaks had of late years grown somewhat faint—his extravagances were, ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... bosom with a regretful stare, plucking at the gaping tear with his graphite-dusted fingers and shaking his head mournfully. Yet as he stepped out into the street, bound for his lodgings, he jarred his heels down upon the sidewalk with the brisk, snapping gait of a man who has ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... her weariness of Middlemarch; but at first she had the alternative dream of pleasures in store from her intercourse with the family at Quallingham. Since then the troubles of her married life had deepened, and the absence of other relief encouraged her regretful rumination over that thin romance which she had once fed on. Men and women make sad mistakes about their own symptoms, taking their vague uneasy longings, sometimes for genius, sometimes for religion, and oftener still for a mighty love. Will Ladislaw had written chatty letters, half ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... the good people who had pinned their faith to the statue—those who had vested interests in it, and those who had rashly given solemn opinions in favor of it—struggled for a time desperately. A writer in the "Syracuse Journal" expressed a sort of regretful wonder and shame that "the public are asked to overthrow the sworn testimony of sustained witnesses corroborated by the highest scientific authority"—the only sworn witness being Farmer Newell, whose testimony was not at all ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... and regretful indignation, declined the disgrace proposed to him in a suggestion "to shed blood without law or warrant"; and on February 7th the Earls of Shrewsbury and Kent arrived at Fotheringay with the commission of the council for execution of the sentence given against his prisoner. Mary ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... the proprietors, as to some little story. The story was sent back to me by Thackeray—rejected. Virginibus puerisque! That was the gist of his objection. There was a project in a gentleman's mind,—as told in my story,—to run away with a married woman! Thackeray's letter was very kind, very regretful,—full of apology for such treatment to such a contributor. But—Virginibus puerisque! I was quite sure that Thackeray had not taken the trouble to read the story himself. Some moral deputy had read it, and disapproving, no doubt properly, of the little project to which I have ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... came Doctor Crimmins, very regretful and full of arguments in favor of postponing action. When twilight passed they went out onto the porch with their pipes and glasses. They talked as friends talk on the eve of parting, often of trivial things, with long pauses between. The moon came up over the tree tops, round and full, ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... I want to pass it over to your care, Bat," he said, permitting one swift regretful glance in the direction of the grey waters below them. Then he spoke almost feverishly. "Here's the proposition. I'm going to hand you full powers—through Charles Nisson. You'll run this thing on the lines laid down. If you fancy carrying ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... like to go upstairs now, ma'am?" the landlord said. She looked around for Francis, but he was nowhere to be seen. She picked up the handkerchief which had slipped from her lap, cast a regretful look at the yard ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... affected to sadness by certain forms of placid beauty is twofold: movement is stimulating and joy-producing, while quietude leads to reflection, and reflection in turn often brings out the tone of regretful longing for that which is past; secondly, quiet beauty produces a vague aspiration for the relatively unattainable, yet does not stimulate to the tremendous effort necessary to make the dimly desired state or ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... more than sufficient to blight any girl's career from a social standpoint. I often think that the rules of our modern etiquette are very rigid, though I know well that we cannot afford to disregard them." Again came that soft, regretful sigh; and then in an apologetic tone, "You will say, I know, that for the good of the community this must be so, but you are great enough to make allowances for a woman's weakness. And I must confess that I cannot but feel the pity of it in ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... pleasant vanity though, on which the wise smile with regretful indulgence; and therein lay the ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... a regretful smile. But then he would come. Oh, how proud he looked on his handsome horse! She felt as if something had gone out of the day, but ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Selene, in a regretful tone, and she broke off a few violets and roses from the crowded mass. When she was alone again, she laid the flowers down and once more tenderly contemplated the figures on the handsome gem. It had no doubt been engraved by Teuker, the brother of Pollux. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a gray-beard, On the hearth-stone lay a beggar, And the old man spake as follows:— "Never, never, hero-husband, Follow thou thy young wife's wishes, Follow not her inclinations, As, alas! I did, regretful; Bought my bride the bread of barley, Veal, and beer, and best of butter, Fish and fowl of all descriptions, Beer I bought, home-brewed and sparkling, Wheat from all the distant nations, All the dainties of the ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... daughter. But so conscious was he of moral weakness, so self- distrustful in view of many broken resolutions, that he dared resolve on nothing. He at last fell into a troubled sleep with the vain, regretful thought, "Oh that I had not lost my vantage-ground! Oh that I could live ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... sat alone in his quarters. Somewhat shaken, he was ashamed and regretful at thought of his unseemly curiosity of the afternoon. The priests of Denzuin had regarded him with covert amusement and repulsion. He had noted one passing the sleeve of his robe over his lips. Myo[u]zen explained the incident by more than usual weariness. ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville |
