"Tragical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... give me no examples of God's wrath upon men that have acted this tragical wicked deed of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... only a shameful banishment. My bodily and mental condition was not improved by this: my distress now only augmented; and I had time enough to torment myself by picturing the strangest romance of sad events, and an inevitably tragical catastrophe. ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... article I will offer for your inspection is the homa jona, radical, tragical, incomprehensible compound extract of ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... manner: "Brother, you may suppose from the manner you have been dealt with to-night, that we have been fooling with you, or that we have treated you different from others, but I assure you that is not the case. You have, this night, represented one of the greatest men that ever lived, in the tragical catastrophe of his death, burial, and resurrection; I mean Hiram Abiff, the widow's son, who was slain by three ruffians at the building of King Solomon's Temple, and who, in his inflexibility, integrity, and fortitude, never was surpassed by man. ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... not look with awe upon the effects produced by the talents of her Elizabeth? Who but admires that undaunted firmness in time of peace and that profound depth of policy which she displayed in the cabinet? Yet behold the tragical end of this learned, this politic princess! Behold the triumphs of age and sickness over her once powerful talents, and say not that the faculties of man are always ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... the full cheek should be, Incipient lines of lank flaccidity, Lymphatic pallor where the pink should glow, And where the throb of transport, pulses low? - Most tragical of shapes from Pole to Line, O wondering child, unwitting Time's design, Why should Art add to Nature's quandary, And worsen ill by thus immuring thee? - That races do despite unto their own, That Might supernal do indeed condone Wrongs individual ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... 'Never mind love. After all, what is it? The dream of a few weeks. That is all its joy. The disappointment of a life is its Nemesis. Who was ever successful in true love? Success in love argues that the love is false. True love is always despondent or tragical. Juliet loved. Haidee loved. Dido loved, and what came of it? Troilus loved and ceased to be ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... that my interest in her own interminable story was becoming exhausted she sought for other subjects, chiefly the strange events in the lives of men and women who had lived in the village and who had long been turned to dust. They were all more or less tragical in character, and it astonished me to think that I had stayed in a dozen or twenty, perhaps forty, villages in Wiltshire, and had heard stories equally strange and moving in pretty well every one ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... over Adolphus Morsfield's tragical end disturbed Lord Ormont much less than the cessation of letters from his Aminta; and that likewise, considering his present business on her behalf, he patiently shrugged at and pardoned, foreseeing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... very highly of her son; her disappointment, therefore, over his failure at college had not been keen. Besides, tragical suffering is the sublime privilege of deep natures: she escaped by smallness. Nothing would have made her very miserable but hunger and bodily pains. Against hunger she exercised ceaseless precautions; bodily pains she had none. The one ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... to have had no basis except in the waste brains of courtier men and women; but their existence there can become tragical enough. Add to which, the Great Elector, like all the Hohenzollerns, was a choleric man; capable of blazing into volcanic explosions, when affronted by idle masses of cobwebs in the midst of his serious businesses! It is certain, the young Prince Friedrich had ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle
... forgot the hour of dinner, was sought for with anxiety, and was found still entranced in my intellectual banquet. To read and to remember was in this instance the same thing, and henceforth I overwhelmed my schoolfellows, and all who would hearken to me, with tragical recitations from the ballads of Bishop Percy. The first time, too, I could scrape a few shillings together, which were not common occurrences with me, I bought unto myself a copy of these beloved volumes; ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... a tragical little romance which draws the reader along with it by every line in every page, yet its power is derived from the resources of caricature: it is rather the hollow side of a comic mask than a true expression ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... in this county, in discharging without trial a man named Parker, who was, as we still think, seriously implicated in the mysterious death of an old man named Summerfield, who, our readers will probably remember, met so tragical an end on the line of the Central Pacific Railroad, in the month of October last. We have now to record another bold outrage on public justice, in connection with the same affair. The grand jury of Placer County has just adjourned, without ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... rather tragical, when a sovereign first humiliates us and then suddenly heaps amiabilities upon us. What is the matter ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... he can prophesy With a wink of his eye, Peep with security Into futurity, Sum up your history, Clear up a mystery, Humour proclivity For a nativity—for a nativity; With mirrors so magical, Tetrapods tragical, Bogies spectacular, Answers oracular, Facts astronomical, Solemn or comical, And, if you want it, he Makes a reduction on taking ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... embassies, tilts and tournaments, trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, plays: then again, as in a new shifted scene, treasons, cheating tricks, robberies, enormous villanies in all kinds, funerals, burials, deaths of princes, new discoveries, expeditions, now comical, then tragical matters.' He appears to have purchased indiscriminately almost ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... Combabus, on which Mr. David Hume told Lord Macartney, that a friend of his had written a tragedy. It is, however, possible that I may have been inaccurate in my perception of what Dr. Johnson related, and that he may have been talking of the same ludicrous tragical subject that Mr. Hume had mentioned. BOSWELL. The story of Combabus, which was originally told by Lucian, may be found ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... years. Penelope Russell printed The Censor in Boston, Mass., in 1771. She set her own type, and was such a ready compositor as to set up her editorials without written copy, while working at her case. The most tragical and interesting events were thus recorded by her. The first paper published in America, living to a second issue, was the Massachusetts Gazette and North Boston News Letter. It was continued by Mrs. Margaret Draper, two years after the death ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... enough for Queen Victoria; indeed, I am glad to say that her sleeping-room at St. Cloud was not half so spacious. One feels either like a count, or very lonesome, to sit down in a lofty chamber, say thirty-five feet square, with little furniture, and historical and tragical life-size figures staring at one from the wall-paper. One fears that they may come down in the deep night, and stand at the bedside,—those narrow, canopied beds there in the distance, like the marble couches in the cathedral. It must be ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Frenchman with white hair and the mustaches of a Viking, displaying a leonine countenance out of which gazed a pair of eyes that seemed to have been made tragical by some profound chagrin. In his youth, a student in Paris, he had written some scores of songs, half a dozen sonatas, and a symphony. These efforts, though technically brilliant, had soon passed into oblivion. After ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... necessary that some one should go to look after her grandmamma, and keep all those vulgar people at bay, and show to the admiring world what a Dissenting minister's daughter could be, and what a dutiful daughter was, then who so fit as herself to be the example? This gave her even a certain tragical sense of heroism, which was exhilarating, though serious. She thought of what she would have to "put up with," as of something much more solemn than the reality; more solemn, but alas! not so troublesome. Phoebe felt herself something like a Joan of Arc as she packed her clothes ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... a mild one, for when they tried to tell the adventures which to them seemed so exciting, not to say tragical, the effect astonished them immensely, as their audience went into gales of laughter, especially at the wheelbarrow episode, which Bab insisted on telling, with grateful minuteness, to Ben's confusion. Thorny shouted, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... returned Cottrell, in mock-tragical tones, "that we are thirteen to dinner? Do you not know that Lionel Beauchamp is the thirteenth? and do you not know what Fate has invariably in store for the thirteenth at a ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... will laugh too, then," said Madame Dubarry. "I will not dishonor the assembly by my cowardice; but, alas! I am only a woman, I cannot rank among you and be worthy of a tragical end; a woman dies in her bed. My death, a sorrowful old woman abandoned by every one, will be the worst of all. Will it not, M. ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... most shocking instances of this method of warfare was that of the destruction of the French cross-Channel steamer Sussex. It must stand forth, as the sinking of the steamer Lusitania did, as so singularly tragical and unjustifiable as to constitute a truly terrible example of the inhumanity of submarine warfare as the commanders of German vessels have for the past twelvemonth been conducting it. If this instance stood alone, some explanation, some disavowal by the ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... uneasily on their seats; their master looked anxious, as though something personal was coming; and when the drama reached its height we timid ones in front were fain to pinch each other in a stress of nervous excitement. The tragical conclusion was marked by a simultaneous, low, long, agricultural whistle, which did duty as a sigh, and the audience first stared into each other's faces and then gave a roar of applause, amidst which the vicar announced that ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... scenes and tragical events characterizing the early days of California one can well understand that there came of necessity many brave and adventurous argonauts and many women of superior mental force, from among whom in after years the woman suffrage cause might receive most devoted adherents. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Providence in the World, going backwards fell down over some loose Stones that lay in his Way, just in that Instant of Time when the Villain fired his Pistol, who seeing him fall, concluded he had Shot him. The Crys of the afflicted Person were redoubled at the Tragical Sight, which made the Murderer, drawing a Poniard, to threaten him, that the next Murmur should be his last. Aurelian, who was scarce assured that he was unhurt, got softly up; and coming near enough to perceive the Violence that was used to stop the Injured Man's Mouth; ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve
... to time were heard from the group of men and hobbledehoys about the horse-fiddles on the green, were evidence that the projected entertainment was not without comical features as they looked at it, the aspect of the affair as viewed by other eyes was decidedly tragical. Mrs. Woodbridge had long been sinking with consumption, and the uproar and excitement of the preceding night had left her in so prostrate a condition that Dr. Partridge had been called in. During the latter part of her aunt's sickness Desire Edwards had made a practice of running into her Uncle ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... was the object of it? What manner of vengeance did he mean to deal out to her? Lovell's words of premonition returned to him just then with curious insistence—he was so certain that Wingrave's reappearance would lead to tragical happenings. Aynesworth himself never doubted it. His brief interview with the man into whose service he had almost forced himself had impressed him wonderfully. Yet, what weapon was there, save the crude one of physical force, with which Wingrave ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of tragical adventures it is with some satisfaction that I mention the life of a person who was of the number of those few which take warning in time, and having once felt the rod of affliction, fear it ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... Personal prowess and force of character were the natural result of trouble and disaster. La Barre, however, proved a dire exception to the rule. His hands shook in the hour of trial; he weakly grasped occasion. The magnificent but tragical career of La Salle had annexed a vast domain to the French possessions in North America, while Du Lhut, La Durantaye, Nicolas Perrot, and the rest of the coureurs de bois had, by their adventurous trading, given even the remote Sioux and Assiniboins an interest ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... victims lying on the marble slabs at the Morgue. Still, if the catastrophe itself was a patent fact, its motive, its surroundings, could only be conjectured. Who could tell what circumstances had preceded and paved the way for this tragical denouement? ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... middle-class leisure is spent, and I would not care to repeat the experience for any money. Any given town will suit a competent observer, for I found scarcely any vital differences in passing from place to place. It is tragical and disheartening to see scores of fine lads and men, full of excellent faculties and latent goodness—and all under the spell of the dreary Circe of the Turf. I have been for a year, on and off, among a large circle of fellows ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... silence,—broke it with a question which led to a remarkable conversation, and a tragical result. And the ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... front of his house, the figure of a man who seemed to be the stranger moving from the door towards the closet. He was dressed somewhat differently now, but the face was quite that of his late guest in its tragical pensiveness, as was also the tallness of his figure. He neared the closet; and, feeling his visitor to be within his rights, Christopher refrained from stirring. The personage turned his large haggard eyes upon the bed ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... of India come down to the date of the 22nd of January (three days previous to the tragical death of Sir William Macnaghten). Lord Auckland was then uninformed of the actual state of the force in Cabul, though not ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... twenty-four hours, he would write himself up to the chin in verse. His muse was singularly prolific and her progeny various. He roamed recklessly through the realm of poesy. Every style seemed his—blank verse and rhyme, ode and epic, lyrical and tragical, satiric and elegiac, sacred and profane, sublime and ridiculous, he was equally good at all. His poetry might not perhaps have stood a very strict classification, but he produced a fair, marketable sample, which deserved ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... apologized carelessly for her tragical exit. "That is a young lady who detests business; but she does not object to its fruits—dresses, lace, footmen, diamonds, and a carriage to drive about in. On the contrary, she would ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... of young Goldoni? His boyhood was as thoroughly plebeian, various, and comic as Alfieri's had been patrician, monotonous, and tragical. Instead of one place of residence, we read of twenty. Scrape succeeds to scrape, adventure to adventure. Knowledge of the world, and some book learning also, flow in upon the boy, and are eagerly caught up by him and heterogeneously amalgamated in his mind. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... greatness are but pleasing dreams, And shadows soon decaying. On the stage Of my mortality, my youth has acted Some scenes of vanity, drawn out at length By varied pleasures—sweetened in the mixture, But tragical in issue. Beauty, pomp, With every sensuality our giddiness Doth frame an idol—are inconstant friends When any troubled passion makes us halt On the ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... death by violence; and it required only this present picture to convince her that she would never be able to gaze upon it callously, without pity and terror. Newspaper life—at least the reportorial side of it—has an odd effect upon men and women; it sharpens their tragical instincts and perceptions and dulls eternally the edge of tenderness and sentimentality. It was natural for Kitty to possess the keenest perceptions of tragedy; but she had been taken out of the reportorial field in time to preserve all her tenderness ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... the glories of Hellenic literary art, and no Muse now stood forth to be their defender and patron. Calliope declared that they were not epical, Euterpe and Erato that they were not lyrical, Melpomene and Thalia that they were neither tragical nor comical, Clio that they were not historical, Urania that they were not sublime in conception, Polymnia that they had no stately or simple charm in execution, and Terpsichore, who had joined with Melpomene in admiring the opera, found nothing in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... to have done, and so the poor guileless creature fell into the snare of some of the ne'er-do-weel gentlemen that used to play cards at night with Mrs Dalrymple. The truths of the story were never well known, nor who was the father, for the tragical issue barred all enquiry; but it came out that poor Jeanie was left to herself, and, being instigated by the Enemy, after she had been delivered, did, while the midwife's back was turned, strangle the baby with a napkin. She was discovered in the ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... the tragical consequences of all this folly, one is tempted to wish that the legislature would interfere in these matters, and prevent the desperate injury which is thus done to the race. The climate, which is the general cause assigned for the want of health ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... A paper in the Edinburgh Magazine, in which it was suggested that the general conception of Manfred, and much of what is excellent in the manner of its execution, had been borrowed from "The Tragical History of Dr. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... to health, is the most criminal, and, in the mind of every honest man, must excite feelings of regret and disgust. Numerous facts are on record, of human food, contaminated with poisonous ingredients, having been vended to the public; and the annals of medicine record tragical events ensuing from the ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... and crew could not contrive some sort of tackle to catch fish, with which the sea every where abounds, and which, no doubt, might be caught with the help of a little ingenuity. If implements of this kind were provided in every ship, they would probably prevent all those tragical events at sea that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... to improve. On the left the view is bounded by a range of high hills, with a ruined castle, suggestive of tragical tales of centuries gone by. Fir and pine forests skirt the road, and lie scattered in picturesque groups ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... Edward, his tragical death so aroused the sympathy of the people that they named him the Martyr, and believed that miracles were wrought at his tomb. It cannot be said that his murder was in any sense a martyrdom, but the men of that day did not draw fine lines of distinction, and Edward ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... and then they hatch out broods of palatial villas equipped with men and maid servants, horses, carriages, motors, yachts; and if the original settlers remain it is in a helpless inferiority, a broken spirit, and an overridden ideal. This tragical history is the same at Magnolia, and at York Harbor, and at Dublin, and at Bar Harbor; even at Newport itself; the co-operative housing of New York is making a like history. It is true that the Philistines do not come in and dispossess the autochthonic groups; these ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... capable of feeling the lighter, as well as the more violent or more deep, affections of the mind. The shades of comic humour in Hamlet, in Hotspur, and in Falconbridge, are so far from injuring, that they greatly aid the effect of the tragic scenes, in which these same persons take a deep and tragical share. We grieve with them, when grieved, still more because we have rejoiced with them when they rejoiced; and, on the whole, we acknowledge a deeper frater feeling, as Burns has termed it, in men who are actuated by ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... Departure because of Weariness of Life and Despair of the System, than because of any Love-philtre. I wrote also my yearly Letter to Carlyle, begging my compliments to his Wife: who, he replies, died, in a very tragical way, last April. I have since heard that the Papers reported all the Circumstances. So, if one lives so much out of the World as I do, it seems better to give up that Ghost altogether. Old Spedding has written a Pamphlet ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... a long and weary night to many within and without the abbey. Every thing betokened a dismal day. The atmosphere was damp, and oppressive to the spirits, while the raw cold sensibly affected the frame. All astir were filled with gloom and despondency, and secretly breathed a wish that, the tragical business of the day were ended. The vast range of Pendle was obscured by clouds, and ere long the vapours descended into the valleys, and rain began to fall; at first slightly, but afterwards in heavy continuous showers. Melancholy was the aspect of the abbey, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... so conscious of a genius for command, should have strongly felt that jealousy which, during a few hours of royalty, put dissension between Guildford Dudley and the Lady Jane, and which produced a rupture still more tragical between Darnley and the Queen of Scots. The Princess of Orange had not the faintest suspicion of her husband's feelings. Her preceptor, Bishop Compton, had instructed her carefully in religion, and had especially guarded her mind against the arts of Roman Catholic divines, but had left her ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... productions of other authors, but of whom, is uncertain. These several pieces are written in a neat style; the plots and characters are conducted with an attention to probability and nature: but none of them is so forcible, in point of tragical distress, as to excite in the reader ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... which could only be described as a hoarse rattle,—in short, go through an incomprehensible farce, while his face was transfigured with rapturous expression like that of a martyr, as painted by Zurbaran or Murillo, Titian or Raphael. The general shout of laughter changed to almost tragical gravity when they saw that Genovese was in utter earnest. La Tinti understood that her companion was in love with her, and had spoken the truth on the ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... people comedy and mockingly presents Christ to them, saying, "Behold the man!" the people mutinies and shouts "Crucify him! Crucify him!" The people does not want comedy but tragedy. And that which Dante, the great Catholic, called the Divine Comedy, is the most tragical tragedy that has ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... described therein, though in years past loosely and variously referred to by such terms as "Ovidian poetry" or "mythological love poetry," and often lumped together indiscriminately with other kinds such as the complaint, the tragical history, and the verse romance, actually constitutes a distinct genre recognized in practice by Renaissance poets. Whether or not there is classical authority for use of the term "epyllion," though a significant point of scholarship, is not the main issue here. ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... in time to swallow a hurried meal and set off to the theatre with the Creams. Mrs. Cream, recovered from the devastating effects of a tragical temperament, was very vivacious as they sat in the brougham; and she rallied him on his authorship. She told him that when he was a celebrated writer, she would be able to say that she ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... once so ornate and so enviable, the feelings of Mrs. Rittenhouse Smith may be imagined upon finding herself confronted. with the tragical probability that one of her most important dinner-parties would be ...
— A Border Ruffian - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... that miraculous world of stupendous passions and aspirations, of bards and heroes and great adventure—the world of Cuchullin the Unconquerable, and Laeg, and Queen Meave; of Naesi, and Deirdre the Beautiful, and Fergus, and Connla the Harper, and those kindred figures, lovely or greatly tragical, that are like no other figures in ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... family by family. The lot of those who were spared was almost more pitiable than of those who died. The slave-markets of Egypt and Tunis were glutted with Chian captives. The gentleness, the culture, the moral worth of the Chian community made its fate the more tragical. No district in Europe had exhibited a civilisation more free from the vices of its type: on no community had there fallen in modern times so terrible a catastrophe. The estimates of the destruction of life at Chios are loosely framed; among the lowest is that which sets the number of the slain ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... the factory; the inhabitants of which, perceiving that boats had landed, when there was no vessel in the Bay, naturally concluded that some disaster had happened, and were walking down to meet them.—Their tragical history was soon told. The thirty-six men that stood before them were all that were left of nearly three hundred souls embarked, and they had been more than two days without food. At this intimation ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... from Sallust has been dropped, and that while the title of 'tragedy' (Trauerspiel) is retained, the adjective 'republican' is omitted. Furthermore, without any radical revision of the preceding portraiture taken as a whole, a non-tragical conclusion has been substituted for the final catastrophe. Fiesco, hard pressed by the strenuous Verrina, declares that his heart has been right all along; only he was resolved that Genoa's freedom ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... his family, some years before the birth of himself, which had terminated fatally, the cause of which could not be traced, and felt disposed, therefore, with the natural tendency to self-exculpation of the happy, to find the reason for the tragical end of his brother in hereditary infirmity, rather than attach any serious blame to himself for securing the affections of a lady, whom he was assured had never loved another. But when after a few years of unclouded bliss, first his wife, and then his ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... me? If not above, at least I am beyond All common dangers. No, you shall not come. I have some questions I would ask myself; And in the sullen, melancholy flow O' the unromantic Thames, that has been witness Of many tragical realities, Bare of adornment as its cold stone stairs, I may find ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... with what moved Speed. "I looked up at him," said he, long after, "and I thought then, as I think now, that I never saw so gloomy and melancholy a face in my life." The struggle of ambition and poverty may well have been telling on Lincoln; but besides that a tragical love story (shortly to be told) had left a deep and permanent mark; but these influences worked, we may suppose, upon a disposition quite as prone to sadness as to mirth. His exceedingly gregarious habit, drawing him to almost any assembly of his own ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... music. The interruptions of the dialogue, however, impose a constraint upon the writer, and break the illusion of the reader. The finest passages are those which are lyric in form as well as in spirit. "I should much commend," says the excellent Sir Henry Wotton in a letter to Milton, "the tragical part if the lyrical did not ravish me with a certain Dorique delicacy in your songs and odes, whereunto, I must plainly confess to, you, I have seen yet nothing parallel in our language." The criticism was just. It is when Milton escapes from the shackles of the dialogue, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... revealing a tear-stained face and trembling lips. "YOU would cry, too, if you were an orphan and had come to a place you thought was going to be home and found that they didn't want you because you weren't a boy. Oh, this is the most TRAGICAL thing that ever happened ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... and conquering nations have been the subject of those ancient histories which have been preserved and yet remain among us; and withal of so many tragical poets, as in the persons of powerful princes and other mighty men have complained against {13} infidelity, time, destiny, and most of all against the variable success of worldly things and instability of fortune. To these undertakings these great lords of the world have been stirred ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... loathful^; fulsome; vile &c (bad) 649; hideous &c 846. sharp, acute, sore, severe, grave, hard, harsh, cruel, biting, caustic; cutting, corroding, consuming, racking, excruciating, searching, grinding, grating, agonizing; envenomed; catheretic^, pyrotic [Med.]. ruinous, disastrous, calamitous, tragical; desolating, withering; burdensome, onerous, oppressive; cumbrous, cumbersome. Adv. painfully &c adj.; with pain &c 828; deuced. Int. hinc illae lachrymae! [Lat.], Phr. surgit amari aliquid [Lat.]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... it is refreshing to escape from self-analysis, even when the process is conducted in the pleasantest possible manner—and the hours which Miss Liston gave to work were devoted by Chillington to maintaining his cordial relations with the lady whose comfortable and not over-tragical disposal was taxing Miss Liston's skill. For she had definitely decided all her plot—she told me ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope
... even Frank, now. It was a tragical accident, and very nearly wrecked my happiness. You may say I ought to have left him in Buenos Ayres. I thought so at one time; but I believe now it would have made no difference. We were bound to meet ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... sympathising with the misfortunes I suffer on his account, fiercely demands—'Roque! where have you been loitering, Sir?' Calls me a most negligent rascal, and other names equally gratifying, and upon the recital of my tragical adventure, very coolly, and as he thinks very justly, observes—'It serves you right—'tis all your fault—why did you ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... religious dramas and operas, founded on some Biblical subject, are creditably performed by the pupils in a private theatre connected with the establishment. I was never present but at one of these representations, when the tragical story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Ahednego was performed. Honor to Cardinal Tosti for his successful ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... ignoble and fatal a defeat. Not long afterwards, Sweno was murdered in his bed by two of his chief nobles, who had long cherished disloyal feelings towards their king; and, at last, entered into a treasonable correspondence with Swercus. The end of the latter proved eventually not less tragical. In the mean time, Nicholas Breakspere had quitted the country, and returned to Rome. On his arrival he found Pope Eugenius dead, and succeeded by Anastasius IV., an old man of ninety. Anastasius, who reigned little more than a year, among other acts, confirmed, ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby
... blame, thanks to Clinchain's and Ludovic's evidence—for they had mutually agreed that the tragical occurrence should be represented to have been the result of an accident—the conscience of M. de Mussidan left him but little peace. The girl whom Montlouis had loved had been driven from her home in disgrace, owing ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... and science were invulnerable, his enemies attacked his odd moods and his temper, whereas, in fact, he was simply characterized by what the English call eccentricity. Sometimes very handsomely dressed, like Crebillon the tragical, he would suddenly affect extreme indifference as to what he wore; he was sometimes seen in a carriage, and sometimes on foot. By turns rough and kind, harsh and covetous on the surface, but capable of offering his whole fortune to his exiled masters—who did him the honor of accepting it for ...
— The Atheist's Mass • Honore de Balzac
... in the last article was prodigious." The Smolletts were not "kinless loons"; they had connections: but who, in Scotland, had money? Tobias had passed his medical examinations, but he rather trusted in his MS. tragedy, "The Regicide." Tragical were its results for the author. Inspired by George Buchanan's Latin history of Scotland, Smollett had produced a play, in blank verse, on the murder of James I. That a boy, even a Scottish boy, should have an overweening passion for this unlucky piece, that ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... the Representative of a divided double Tongue, and Heart, an Emblem of the most exquisite Hypocrisy, the most fawning and fatally deceiving Flattery; and here they give us very diverting Histories, tho' tragical in themselves, of the manner which some of the Devil's inspired Agents have manag'd themselves under the especial Influence of the Cloven-Foot; how they have made War under the Pretence of Peace, murther'd Garrisons under the most sacred Capitulations, ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... of four-stringed lute, is chiefly used in musical recitative. Formerly the professional minstrels who recited the Heike-Monogatari, and other tragical histories, were called biwa-hoshi, or "lute-priests." The origin of this appellation is not clear; but it is possible that it may have been suggested by the fact that "lute-priests" as well as blind shampooers, had their heads shaven, like Buddhist priests. The biwa is ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... of the Contention betwixt the two famous houses of Yorke and Lancaster, with the death of the good Duke Humphrey: And the banishment and death of the Duke of Suffolke, and the Tragical end of the prowd Cardinall of Winchester, with the notable Rebellion of Jacke Cade: And the Duke of Yorkes first clayme to the Crowne. London Printed by Valentine Simmes for Thomas Millington, and are to be sold at his shop under S. ...
— Catalogue of the Books Presented by Edward Capell to the Library of Trinity College in Cambridge • W. W. Greg
... everlasting shame Was that she suffered him, whom not at all She loved. Poor Boy! Yes, they must still be friends. She owed him that to keep the balance straight. It was such poor amends Which she could make for rousing hopes to gall Him with their unfulfilment. Tragical It was, and she must ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... speculation, and recognise the fine elevation of his sentiments, his noble solicitude for human wellbeing, his eager and resolute belief in its indefinite expansion, and the devotion which sealed his faith by a destiny that was as tragical as any in those bloody and ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... in spasm, determined to draw sword, and plunge in; twice he is crushed down again, with sword half drawn; and only the third time (in 1743) does he get sword out, and brandish it in a surprising though useless manner. After which he feels better. But up to that crisis, his case is really tragical,—had idle readers any bowels for him; which they have not! One or two Fractions, snatched from the circumambient Paper Vortex, must suffice us for the indispensable ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... men but the moment was supreme. The key to the mystery of these tragical weeks was there in their hands! Their eyes almost devoured those few hastily scrawled words buried with so ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... confounds the first dauphin, who died before the calamities of his family commenced, with the second. As to this second, who is of course the prince concerned in the references of the text, a new and most extraordinary interest has begun to invest his tragical story in this very month of April, 1853; at least, it is now first brought before universal Christendom. In the monthly journal of Putnam, (published in New York,) the No. for April contains a most interesting memoir upon ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... as fine as hands could make her, in hopes to see Prudentia pine away with envy. Instead of that, she sat a full hour alone, and at last was entertained with this whole relation from Statira, who wiped her eyes with her tragical-cut handkerchief, and lamented the ignorance of the quality. Florimel was stung with this affront, and the next day bespoke the puppet-show. Prudentia, insolent with power, bespoke 'Alexander.' The whole company came then to 'Alexander.' Madam Petulant ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... eminent both for attainments and character—Robert Boyle. Inspired by the discoveries in other fields, which had swept away so much of theological thought, he could no longer resist the conviction that some epidemics are due—in his own words—"to a tragical concourse of natural causes"; but he argued that some of these may be the result of Divine interpositions provoked by human sins. As time went on, great difficulties showed themselves in the way of this compromise—difficulties theological not less than difficulties ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... knuckles were bruised and bleeding, but I felt no pain. I was so light of foot, I imagined I could jump over the counter. I ached to fight some one. Then all at once came the thought of Berna. It came with tragical suddenness, with poignant force. Intensely it smote me as never before. I could have burst ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... point they rowed along under the shore to a low promontory, upon which stood another monument, commemorating a more tragical event. ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the best, but she had involved herself in difficulties. A hundred times she had been upon the point of telling her daughter Elizabeth-Jane the true story of her life, the tragical crisis of which had been the transaction at Weydon Fair, when she was not much older than the girl now beside her. But she had refrained. An innocent maiden had thus grown up in the belief that the relations between the genial ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... have sworn that M. Fortunat was about to burst into tears. "Poor Lucy!" said he, in a tragical tone; "it was for me, madame, that she was waiting. But it was only this morning that I received her letter appointing a meeting here. She must have been in despair. The post ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... blood and tears, is full also of instruction for the people. Never, perhaps, were so many tragical events crowded into so short a space of time, never was the mysterious connexion which exists between deeds and their consequences developed with greater rapidity. Never did weaknesses more quickly engender faults,—faults crimes,—crimes punishment. ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... the severest laws against them, and employed the hand of executioners to ruin them. The seditious multitudes, by murders and massacres, have committed outrages against them, if possible, still more violent and tragical. Besides their common share in the sufferings of society, they have undergone a series of horrid and unutterable calamities, which no other description of men has ever experienced in any age, or in any country. Princes and people, Pagans, Mahometans, and Christians, ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... Lannion. She took my mother, then quite a child, with her, and they walked the five miles under a scorching sun. The thought of meeting again one whom she had seen keeping the night watch at her house under such tragical circumstances made her heart beat fast. The priest, whether from sacerdotal pride or from a feeling of duty, behaved in a very strange manner. He scarcely seemed to recognise her, never asked her to be seated, and dismissed her with a few short remarks. Not a ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... We lighted a candle, took our revolvers, and seated ourselves on the bed, keeping our weapons, so formidable in practised male hands, steadily pointed towards the door, and uttering dire threats against the intruders,—presumed to be Rebels, of course. Having maintained this tragical position for some time, and hearing no further noise; we began to grow sleepy, and extinguished our candle, returned to bed, and slept soundly till morning. But that mystery remained unexplained. I was sure that the door had been tried,—there could be no mistaking it. There ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... laugh, but interrupted herself, half-way, with a sob. She was seized by a fantasy that if Sophie died an old maid her sister would have been the cause of it—would be a murderess! The sudden jarring of this idea—tragical enough, even without the ghastly spice of reality that there was about it—against the ludicrous element with which tradition flavors the name of old maid—caught the young woman at unawares, and threw her rudely out of her nervous control. It was a result which could scarcely have happened, ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... good while after spake pure iambics, and raved still on Perseus' speech, "O Cupid, Prince of Gods and men." As carmen, boys and apprentices, when a new song is published with us, go singing that new tune still in the streets, they continually acted that tragical part of Perseus, and in every man's mouth was "O Cupid," in every street, "O Cupid," in every house almost, "O Cupid, Prince of Gods and men," pronouncing still like stage-players, "O Cupid;" they were so possessed all with that rapture, and thought of ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... divine, ceases to be observed; yea, withers and perishes in contact with it. It was this paramount law of this nation and of this House that forced me, under the penalty of dishonour, to subject myself to the code, which impelled me unwillingly into this tragical affair. Upon the heads of this nation, and at the doors of this House, rests the blood with which my ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... having, by a tedious siege and through exceeding great difficulties, taken the city of Reggio, and in it the governor Phyton, a very gallant man, who had made so obstinate a defence, was resolved to make him a tragical example of his revenge: in order whereunto he first told him, "That he had the day before caused his son and all his kindred to be drowned." To which Phyton returned no other answer but this: "That they were then by one day happier than he." After which, causing him to be stripped, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... discovered an animal in the moon. Unluckily, however, after having made his "discovery" known, it was found that the ground of it was simply the accidental presence of a mouse in the object-glass of his telescope. Samuel Butler, the author of "Hudibras," has also made fun of this otherwise rather tragical episode in the early history of the Royal Society of London, vide his "Elephant in the Moon." [27] One philosopher.—Democritus, the so-called "laughing (or scoffing) philosopher." He lived B.C. about 400 years. Fable ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... the events which, in these latter times, have afflicted the department of the Ain, there is none which has caused a more profound and lively sensation than the tragical death of the lady, Felicite Alcazar, wife of Sebastian Benedict Peytel, notary, at Belley. At the end of October, 1838, Madame Peytel quitted that town, with her husband, and their servant Louis Rey, in order to pass a few days at Macon: at midnight, the inhabitants of ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... art, this is obvious to ordinary apprehension, yet in poetry likewise, and in the tragical kind, which is our immediate subject, the same doctrine holds good. Whatever fascinates the senses alone is mere matter, and the rude element of a work of art:— if it takes the lead it will inevitably destroy the poetical—which lies at the exact medium between the ideal and the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the time, enable me now to separate the fact from the fiction, and to supply to the story of the author's childhood those passages, omitted from the book, which, apart from their illustration of the growth of his character, present to us a picture of tragical suffering, and of tender as well as humorous fancy, unsurpassed in even the ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... so many of our friends, and especially Murrey's friends, have taken the thing in a tragical fashion, and cleared off to the Colonies, or shut themselves up in their country houses, as though there was a sort of moral ...
— When William Came • Saki
... between Cyrus and Astyages, agreeing with Xenophon in little more than the fact that it makes Cyrus son of Cambyses and Mandane and grandson of Astyages, goes even beyond the story of Romulus and Remus in respect to tragical incident and contrast. Astyages, alarmed by a dream, condemns the newborn infant of his daughter Mandane to be exposed: Harpagus, to whom the order is given, delivers the child to one of the royal herdsmen, who exposes it in the mountains, where it is miraculously suckled by a bitch. Thus preserved, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... for you,' he whispered softly, for her tragical aspect impressed him with a sense of grandeur. She was not good: by her own account she had been an unloving wife; but in her way she had been strong—only her strength ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Siebenpfeiffer took refuge in Switzerland; Wirth might have effected his escape, but refused. Some provocations in Neustadt, on the anniversary of the Hambach festival in 1833, were brought by the military to a tragical close. Some newspaper editors, printers, etc., were also arrested at Munich, Wurzburg, Augsburg, etc. The most celebrated among the accused was Professor Behr, court-councillor of Wurzburg, the burgomaster and former deputy of that city, ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... carpenter, who undertakes the management of the play called "Pyramus and Thisb[^e]," in Midsummer Night's Dream. He speaks of "laughable tragedy," "lamentable comedy," "tragical mirth," and so on.—Shakespeare, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... the attentions bestowed upon them by strangers. Often serious difficulties arose, in the course of which the poor wife received a severe whipping with the knot of a lariat, or no very light lodge-poling at the hands of her imperious sovereign. Sometimes the affair ended in a more tragical way than a mere beating, not infrequently the gallant paying the penalty of his interference ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... his sapient and facetious noddle over his shoulder to where Brother Peter sat huddled into a hump and in gloomy silence. "Mercy me, Peter!" he cried, in an affrighted whisper, and with a mighty tragical start, "and is that thee? Dusta know I thowt it were ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... What, you may in honour betray her as far as she betrays herself. No tragical design ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... scholar into Westminster. His mind was almost preternaturally precocious, and received early a strong and peculiar stimulus. A copy of Spenser lay in the window of his mother's apartment, and in it he delighted to read, and became the devoted slave of poetry ever after. When only ten he wrote 'The Tragical History of Pyramus and Thisbe,' and at twelve 'Constantia and Philetus.' Pope wrote a lampoon about the same age as Cowley these romantic narratives; and we have seen a pretty good copy of verses on Napoleon, written at the age of seven, by ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... tragical. Of course beautiful Lisa was now out of the question, but for this they found ample consolation in prophesying that Florent would bring about some frightful catastrophe. It was quite clear, they said, that he had got some base design in his head. When people like him escaped from gaol it was only ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... said you were pleased with the services of your little Rebecca. When I think of what you have just offered me, my heart fills with gratitude indeed it does. I can't be your wife, sir; let me—let me be your daughter." Saying which, Rebecca went down on HER knees in a most tragical way, and, taking Sir Pitt's horny black hand between her own two (which were very pretty and white, and as soft as satin), looked up in his face with an expression of exquisite pathos and confidence, when—when the door opened, and Miss Crawley ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... this tragical episode is most impressive, and, while it endears you the more to those who love you, will wring even from your foes a tribute of respect ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... also gone to her rest; so also had most of those who have been mentioned in the previous history. Mistress Pearson did not live long after her return to England, and she was saved the misery of hearing the tragical death of her husband, who, with all his faults, had at all events loved her. In a desperate action with a Queen's ship, he with all his crew had been blown up, shortly after Deane had encountered him at the ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... which towered like a giant above all the other trees of the neighbourhood, and formed a kind of landmark. Its limbs were gnarled and fantastic, large enough to form trunks for ordinary trees, twisting down almost to the earth, and rising again into the air. It was connected with the tragical story of the unfortunate Andre, who had been taken prisoner hard by, and was universally known by the name of Major Andre's tree. The common people regarded it with a mixture of respect and superstition, partly out of sympathy for the fate of its ill-starred namesake, ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... and this poor soul—a rich pork-butcher, angling for the favours of a moribund political party, I dare say—lavishes heaven knows how many pounds over an arrangement by which young men are to be taught how to kill each other with neatness and despatch at a distance of half a mile! It is more tragical than farcical. It is enough to make one despair of one's fellow countrymen, with their silly bombast about 'Empire,' and their childish waving of flags. 'Empire,' indeed; God save the mark! And our own little country groaning, women ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... which the emperor feared. Creeping stealthily into the room where the emperor lay asleep he stabbed him and then fled, taking refuge in the house of the Grandee Tsubura. The emperor was fifty-six years of age at the time of his death. This tragical event produced a great excitement. The younger brother of the emperor, Ohatsuse, amazed and angry because his two older brothers were not, as he thought, sufficiently enraged by the murder of the emperor, killed them ...
— Japan • David Murray
... raves rhapsodically over it; for Karasowski it was the "pain and grief of an entire nation," while Ehlert thinks "it owes its renown to the wonderful effect of two triads, which in their combination possess a highly tragical element. The middle movement is not at all characteristic. Why could it not at least have worn second mourning? After so much black crepe drapery one should not at least at once display white ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker |
