"Doleful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 'To reach down a well-bound semblance of a volume, and hope it is some kind-hearted play-book, then, opening what "seem its leaves," to come bolt upon a withering population essay'—'to expect a Steele or a Farquhar, and find—Adam Smith'—those, indeed, are doleful and dispiriting experiences, to which the unsuspecting student ought not in enlightened times to be subjected. If Mr. Gilbert's Mikado be right in the view that the punishment ought to 'fit the crime,' so assuredly ought a book's binding to fit the matter that is contained ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... astonished, by what I saw and heard: the unintelligible service—the irreverent gabble of the choristers and readers—the scanty congregation—the meagre portion of the vast building which seemed to be turned to any use: but never more than that evening, did I feel the desolateness, the doleful inutility, of that vast desert nave, with its aisles and transepts—built for some purpose or other now extinct. The whole place seemed to crush and sadden me; and I could not re-echo ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... pleasure). The wrath that kings desirous of subjugating the whole earth exhibit, is not without its uses. It serveth to restrain the wicked and to protect the honest. While lying unborn within my mother's thigh, I heard the doleful cries of my mother and other women of the Bhrigu race who were then being exterminated by the Kshatriyas. Ye Pitris, when those wretches of Kshatriyas began to exterminate the Bhrigus together with unborn children of their race, it was then that wrath filled my ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... the Stationers' books, "A doleful ballad of the General Conflagration of the famous Theatre called ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 540, Saturday, March 31, 1832 • Various
... beetle, dull as ditchwater[obs3]; depressing &c. v. "melancholy as a gib cat"; oppressed with melancholy, a prey to melancholy; downcast, downhearted; down in the mouth, down in one's luck; heavy-hearted; in the dumps, down in the dumps, in the suds, in the sulks, in the doldrums; in doleful dumps, in bad humor; sullen; mumpish[obs3], dumpish, mopish[obs3], moping; moody, glum; sulky &c. (discontented) 832; out of sorts, out of humor, out of heart, out of spirits; ill at ease, low spirited, in low spirits, a cup too low; weary &c. 841; discouraged, disheartened; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... old heathen times, when, Lord bless us! the earth was just as full of 'em as a bit of old cheese is of mites. Now a Christian body, if they take reasonable care, can walk quit of 'em; and if they have any haunts in lonesome and doleful places, if one puts up a cross or a shrine, they know they ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... doleful pass had these gentlemen come, who lately had so lorded it among us—these proud and testy autocrats of County Tryon, with their vast estates, their baronial halls, their servants, henchmen, tenantry, armed ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... shakes to its centre; when every moment gives birth to strange and momentous changes; when our peaceful quarter of the globe, exempt, as it happily has been, from any share in the slaughter of the human race, may yet be compelled to abandon her pacific policy, and to risk the doleful casualties of war—what limit is there to the extent of our loss? None within the reach of my words to express; none which ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... gnarled, blighted trunk! There's not a knave So spindle-shanked, so wry-faced, so infirm, Who looks at me, and smiles not on himself. And I have friends to pity me—great Heaven! One has a favourite leg that he bewails,— Another sees my hip with doleful plaints,— A third is sorry o'er my huge swart arms,— A fourth aspires to mount my very hump, And thence harangue his weeping brotherhood! Pah! it is nauseous! Must I further bear The sidelong shuddering glances of a wife? The ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... her face showed that the mists were beginning to clear from that doleful future which had haunted ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... he confided to the cook that a cow had been taken into the stable, that, at all events, the family might not be without milk at this doleful time. Old Barbette wrung her hands in anguish. "Alas! Mr. Wohlfart, what a frightful thing it is!" cried she; "the balls will be flying about in ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... if the gentleman had obtained from his securities a license for what he had done; but the anecdote illustrates the extreme laxity enjoyed by prisoners in the Rules, (which extended to several streets,) as compared with the doleful incarceration to which poor debtors were subjected, who in those days often had their miserable home in a jail for debts that might have been paid ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... is so drear and chill Whilst making leafless branch and tree, Whilst sweeping over vale and hill With all her doleful minstrelsy. November wails the summer's death In such a melancholy voice, She has a withering, blighting breath; She does not bid ...
— The Mountain Spring And Other Poems • Nannie R. Glass
... sadly in fear that my sweetest damsel does not like our Suffolk cheese?" said Levina in a most doleful tone. ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... times a day, till at length I was within an ace of setting up my hobby-horse in her stable for good and all. I might as well, considering how the enemies of the Lord have blasphemed thereupon. The last three weeks we were every hour upon the doleful ditty of parting—and thou mayest conceive, dear cousin, how it altered my gait and air—for I went and came like any louden'd carl, and did nothing but jouer des sentimens with her from sun-rising even to the setting of the same; and now she is gone to the south of France; and to finish ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Venta Cruz. A troop of picked marksmen was sent ahead to act as a scouting party; the rest of the company marched in hollow square, with the prisoners in the hollow. In this array they set forward towards Venta Cruz to the sound of drums and trumpets, amid "lamentations, cries, shrieks and doleful sighs" from the wretched women and children. Most of these poor creatures were fainting with thirst and hunger, for it had been Morgan's policy to starve them, in order "to excite them more earnestly to seek for money wherewith to ransom ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... Douglas, the Earls of Airlie and Crawfurd, with others, cut their way out and escaped; but many were made prisoners, and the places where the wretched Irish were shot down and buried in heaps, and the tracks of the luckier fugitives for miles from Philiphaugh, are now among the doleful memories of the Braes of Yarrow. [Footnote: Rushworth, VI. 231-2; Wishart, 189-207; Napier, 557-580. I have seen, in the possession of the Rev. Dr. David Aitken, Edinburgh, a square-shaped bottle of thick and pretty clear glass, which was one of several ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... every brace and stay on a pink or Chebacco boat before they reached words of two syllables in Webster's blue-backed spelling-book; the mysteries of trawls and handlines, of baits and hooks were unraveled to them while still in the nursery, and the songs that lulled them to sleep were often doleful ditties of castaways on George's Bank. Often they were shipped as early as their tenth year, going as a rule in schooners owned or commanded by relatives. It was no easy life that the youngster entered upon when first he attained the dignity of being a "cut-tail," but such as it was, ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... possession of the British Government. In the course of the evening, Scott related the story of a whimsical picture hanging in the room, which had been drawn for him by a lady of his acquaintance. It represented the doleful perplexity of a wealthy and handsome young English knight of the olden time, who, in the course of a border foray, had been captured and carried off to the castle of a hard-headed and high-handed old ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... on their return to Sicily. It was not till night-fall that Richard returned to his tent, where John of Dunster was sitting on the sand at the door, eagerly watching for him. "Well, Jack, my lad, how hast thou sped?" asked he, advancing. "Couldst see our doleful array?" ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... comforted the doleful Katherine and the others pressed around to express their sympathy and none of them heard the automobile stop in front of the house. They all started violently when Gladys burst into their midst, and regardless of the prostrating temperature, ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... reviews on particular works, and partly out of comparisons of the subsequent fortunes of works with their fortunes while submitted to this censorship." Both critics recognize the fact that such a volume would be entertaining and instructive; but, from another point of view, it would also be a somewhat doleful book. Even a reader of meagre imagination and rude sensibilities could not peruse such a volume without picturing in his mind the anguish and the heart-ache which those bitter and often vicious attacks inflicted upon the unfortunate ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... on your kind offices, Maria Nikolaevna and Piotr Vassilitch,' she said in a doleful sing-song to my mother and father. 'I've no help for it! There were days, but they are over. Here I am, an excellency, and a poor honour it is with nothing ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... hostilities, and that his unpreparedness would thus be huddled up. All of a sudden, at the beginning of June, De Ruyter led out his fleet, and with a fair wind behind him stood for the Thames. All is fair in war. England was caught napping. The doleful history reads like that of a sudden piratical onslaught, and reveals the fatal inefficiency of the administration. Sheerness was practically defenceless. "There were a Company or two of very good soldiers there under excellent officers, but the fortifications were so weak and unfinished, ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... Shelby, seconded by the fiery Presbyterian, William Campbell, flung themselves into the breach, pleading for delay and a fair trial for such as were blood guilty. And so the dismal night, made chill and comfortless by the cold wind and most doleful by the groans and cries of the wounded, wore away, and the dawn of the Sunday found us lying as we were in the bloody shambles of ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... the stream, and the others followed him, the monk watching with piteous eyes till they were out of sight, when he turned his doleful, wrinkled face to his young companion, to tell him what ...
— The King's Sons • George Manville Fenn
... certain great corporations. It is true that his attacks bared some of the most deeply rooted evils which have always been at the bottom of our panics—dishonesty in the administration of great aggregations of capital. Great were the lamentations and doleful the predictions of what would happen should the President not change his policy of enforcing the laws. The railway opponents of the President were sure the panic came from the Hepburn Bill, which was passed early in 1906. If this had been ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... carried it downstairs. I cannot to this day recall my farewell with my mother without tears. It is enough to say that I quitted the parental home determined as I never was before to do my duty and fight against my besetting sin, and occupied that doleful day's journey with picturing to myself the happiness which my altered habits would bring to the dear parents ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... why a well-dressed bird like the cuckoo should become a prophet of the rain is a mystery, unless the rain and the shadows are congenial to the gloomy mood in which he usually seems to be. He is the least sprightly and cheery of our birds, and the part of doleful prophet in our ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... the face from chin to forelock; and all the others whom thou seest here were, when living, sowers of scandal and of schism, and therefore are they so cleft. A devil is here behind, that adjusts us so cruelly, putting again to the edge of the sword each of this crew, when we have turned the doleful road, because the wounds are closed up ere one passes again before him. But thou, who art thou, that musest on the crag, perchance to delay going to the punishment that is adjudged on thine own accusations?" ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... had to go back. How sad Washington felt at thus having his hopes broken to pieces may be imagined but cannot be described. Great as was his danger, when the steamer returned to Norfolk, he was safely gotten off the boat and under the eye of officers walked away. Again he was secreted in his old doleful quarters, where he waited patiently for the Spring. It came. Again the opportunity for another trial was presented, and it was seized unhesitatingly. This time, his tried faith was rewarded with success. He came through safely to the Committee's satisfaction as well as his ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... queerer still. Though he tried to make them rollicking and merry, he succeeded only in giving a number of doleful whines. ...
— The Tale of Bobby Bobolink - Tuck-me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... ears from the distance, judged that it was high time for him to use his slice of onion. Then his doleful voice was heard as he came ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... Mr. Stevenson has banished doleful and pessimistic verse, and has dwelt on hope, courage, cheerfulness and helpfulness. The book should serve, too, as an introduction to the greater poems, informing taste for them and appreciation of them, against the time when the boy or girl, grown into youth ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... our hard way to the famed City of Fortuna, whose picture displayed a similar origin and imagination, and its reality was even more doleful. ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... took his leave, and left Charny with the doctor. Fever commenced, and before long he was delirious. Three hours after the doctor called a servant, and told him to take Charny in his arms, who uttered doleful cries. "Roll the sheet over his ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... of fifty, call me Granum; and when they are drunk, e'ne then, when Jone and my Lady are all one, not one will do me reason. My little Levite hath forsaken me, his silver sound of Cittern quite abolish[t], [h]is doleful hymns under my Chamber window, digested into tedious learning: well fool, you leapt a Haddock when you left him: he's a clean man, and a good edifier, and twenty nobles is his state de claro, besides his pigs in posse. To this good ...
— The Scornful Lady • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... was placed most awful with winter starin' him stark in the face 'n' no warm place to stay. He says nobody knows how it feels to feel like he was forced to feel,—'nless they've been expectin' to be married 'n' then been discharged themselves instead. He says he looked about most doleful 'n' wished he was dead or anythin' that's warm, 'n' then he got down from the stack 'n' set on a old wagon tongue 'n' jus' tried to figger on if there was n't no way as he could think up as would make Tilly have him. He says the bitter part was to reflect ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... child!" The bridal Berry gazed at the finger of doleful joy. "I'd forgot all about it! And that's what've made me feel so queer ever since, then! I've been seemin' as if I wasn't myself somehow, without my ring. Dear! dear! what a wilful young gentleman! We ain't a match for men in that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... GIVEN THEM INTO OUR HANDS!" 'Tis the ninth month and second day, A wild, wet night, historians say. Quit you like men, and bravely stand; Death's wrestle now is close at hand; Heed not the hoarse sea's doleful moan, As on the cliffs its waves are thrown. Think not of life nor kindred dear— Who goes to war should nothing fear But God, whose eye-lids never sleep— His Israel He will safely keep. Oh, pray! ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... which were crawling in and out of the cosmos blossoms in the garden. Interesting as the bees were, however, they could not keep her thoughts from turning to the Winnebagos afloat on the river, and it was a very doleful face that bent over the flowers. Her dismal reflections were interrupted by the sharp voice of Aunt Phoebe calling her to come in. "What is it?" she asked listlessly, as she ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... sick—and so did other men: by my will consented. Because it was Thy pleasure, I became poor: but my heart rejoiced. No power in the State was mine, because Thou wouldst not: such power I never desired! Hast Thou ever seen me of more doleful countenance on that account? Have I not ever drawn nigh unto Thee with cheerful look, waiting upon Thy commands, attentive to Thy signals? Wilt Thou that I now depart from the great Assembly of men? I go: I give Thee all thanks, that Thou hast deemed me worthy to take ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... 3d of September, a Frenchwoman, at the risk of being torn in pieces by the furious Muscovites, ventured to leave her hiding-place. She wandered a long time through extensive quarters, the solitude of which astonished her, when a distant and doleful sound thrilled her with terror. It was like the funeral dirge of this vast city; fixed in motionless suspense, she beheld an immense multitude of persons of both sexes in deep affliction, carrying their effects and their sacred images, and leading their children along with them. Their priests, ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... extract philosophy of life from any dramatist. Yet Webster so often returns to dark and doleful meditations, that we may fairly class him among constitutional pessimists. Men, according to the grimness ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... and fro in zigzag line, and emitting those peculiar doleful notes invented for them, automobiles were mixed up in apparently inextricable confusion with all this hurly-burly of vehicles, while the trams clanged their bells, and passengers stood waiting on the ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... console the victim of destiny who sat with bowed head before her. After a brief silence, Lashmar told of the will as it concerned Constance Bride, insisting on the fact that she was a mere trustee of the wealth bequeathed to her. With a humorously doleful smile, he spoke of Lady Ogram's promise to defray his election expenses, and added that Miss Bride, in virtue of her trusteeship, would carry out this wish. Another exclamation sounded from the listener, this time one ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... mess servants could turn out a meal at Brandewijnskuil for the staff. Two doleful candles but added to the depression bred of the hour and the disappointment which was uppermost in every mind. We had had our chance and failed. The brigadier alone was philosophic: his natural gaiety would not allow of depression: his manly spirit would not collapse against the ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... doubt that in his moment of delirium such had been his exclamations, as it had always been one of his favourite projects. When this was reported to George, he immediately came to us, and with a most doleful countenance told us we must take care of ourselves; for, if the report proved true, he was much too weak to protect us. This certainly caused us some alarm, but, fortunately for us, a good-sized whaler, the Marianne, was then lying at anchor in the port, having arrived ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... as might have been expected, Allan's friend thought him much altered, and, after his departure, sat down to compose a doleful sonnet about a "faithless friend."—I do not find that he ever finished it—indignation, or a dearth of rhymes, causing him to break ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... made now. A short period of slack water, and the ebb bears us seaward, past the Cowal shore, glinting in the wintry sunlight, the blue smoke in Dunoon valley curling upward to Kilbride Hill, past Skelmorlie Buoy (tolling a doleful benediction), past Rothesay Bay, with the misty Kyles beyond. The Garroch Head, with a cluster of Clyde Trust Hoppers, glides abaft the beam, and the blue Cock o' Arran shows up across the opening water. All is haste and bustle. Aloft, spider-like figures, ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... on these obscure abodes; Disbark the sheep, an offering to the gods; And, hellward bending, o'er the beach descry The doleful passage to the infernal sky. The victims, vow'd to each Tartarian power, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... be sure," said Aunt Lois, one day when our preparations were in full blast; "there comes Sam Lawson down the hill, limpsy as ever; now he'll have his doleful story to tell, and mother'll give ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... frightened and hid beneath the drooping branches of a cedar tree. He feared every moment that the owner of the voice would make his appearance. But it kept at a distance. Every few minutes from the depths of the forest would come the doleful cry, "Who, who are you?" Robinson did not dare to stir from his hiding place. He remained there over night. After the night came on he heard the strange voice ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe • Samuel B. Allison
... little carts which, when the wheels went round, performed most doleful music. Many small fiddles, drums, and other ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... account was made of James's negotiations abroad, there is a pleasantry mentioned by all historians, which, for that reason, shall have place here. In a farce, acted at Brussels, a courier was introduced carrying the doleful news, that the Palatinate would soon be wrested from the house of Austria; so powerful were the succors which, from all quarters, were hastening to the relief of the despoiled elector: the king of Denmark had agreed to contribute to his assistance a hundred ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... accepting the cigars with doleful gratitude, "and Missis McGillicuddy threatens to take me out in that buggy on Christmas day. Well, sir, I've made my will and settled up my account at the post trader's, and the aviation orficer has promised to tak' me on a fly Christmas Eve morning. It may be the last fly I'll ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... all head," a byword among philosophers, he takes revenge on Sun and Moon, the great Taletellers, by "gripping" them in his horrid jaws, and holding on, till he is tired, or can be persuaded to let go. Hence, in some parts of India, the doleful shout of the country people at eclipses: Chor do! chor do[1]! and hence, also, the primary and surface meaning of our title: A Digit of the Moon in the Demon's grip: in plain English, an eclipse of the moon. And yet, legend though it be, there is ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain
... could tell whether the sun had waked or not, at least he kept his bed-curtains of fog closely drawn; and, about twenty-five of the scholars gave a new reading to "thy daily course of duty run," as, immediately after they had paid their doleful orisons, they took the course of running their duty by running away. There were no classes that day. Mr Root did not make his appearance—and ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... little further, and they thought that they felt the ground begin to shake under them, as if some hollow place was there; they heard also a kind of a hissing, as of serpents, but nothing as yet appeared. Then said the boys, Are we not yet at the end of this doleful place? But the guide also bid them be of good courage, and look well to their feet, lest haply, said he, you be ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... team askance, refused to stir. Suddenly he raised his nose in the air and gave vent to a long, melancholy howl. He watched the wagon out of sight, and even followed for a hundred yards or so, raising his voice from time to time in the most doleful howlings. ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... mild this morning, a warm wind from the south. Snow melting. At noon there was a sudden change of the wind to the northwest, which rose to a tempest, overturning trees and making most doleful sounds as it swept through the woods, where it broke off branches by the thousand. Became piercingly cold. Such ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... be happy, in spite of Kate's doleful prophecies. Certainly they looked happy enough to-day," declared Cyril, patting a yawn as he rose to his feet. "I fancy Will and Aunt Hannah are lonesome, though, about ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... loaf over to the whitewashed barracks beside the main building. These were supposed to be chambers. Men lived in them, meeting the same faces night after night at dinner, and drawing out their office-work till the latest possible hour, that they might escape that doleful company. ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... doleful tale, For Twelfth-day now is come, And now I must no longer sing, And say no words but mum; For I perforce must take my leave Of all my dainty cheer, Plum-porridge, roast-beef, and minced-pies, My strong ale ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... his watch and a hundred pounds of his money, slipping away while he slept, leaving him a prisoner in his own room. Surely Thurston, instead of himself, had played the detective. While in this despondent mood one of his brother officers made his appearance and was greeted with a decidedly doleful "Good ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor
... out and slammed the door. I surveyed my surroundings. The hut seemed to me more doleful than before. The bitter odor of chilled smoke oppressed my breathing. The little girl did not stir from her place, and did not raise her eyes, from time to time she gave the cradle a gentle shove, or timidly hitched up on her shoulder her chemise which had slipped down; ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... Jefferson, lying in wait at the gate of the manor-house grounds, waylaid Doctor Williams coming out, and asked the question which had hitherto had its doleful answer without the necessity of asking. If the doctor had struck him with the buggy whip the shock would not have been more real than that consequent on the snapping of mental tension strings and the surging, strangling uprush of ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... which Washington witnessed for the first time a dramatic representation, a species of amusement of which he afterwards became fond. It was in the present instance the doleful tragedy of George Barnwell. "The character of Barnwell, and several others," notes he in his journal, "were said to be well performed. There was music adapted and regularly conducted." A safe ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... Panama: here Captain Morgan put all his forces into good order, so as that the prisoners were in the middle, surrounded on all sides with pirates, where nothing else was to be heard but lamentations, cries, shrieks, and doleful sighs of so many women and children, who feared Captain Morgan designed to transport them all into his own country for slaves. Besides, all those miserable prisoners endured extreme hunger and thirst at that ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin
... station, the first thing which struck me was the great number of tall chimneys which were smokeless, and the unusual clearness of the air. Compared with the appearance of the town when in full activity, there is now a look of doleful holiday, an unnatural fast-day quietness about everything. There were few carts astir, and not so many people in the streets as usual, although so many are out of work there. Several, in the garb of factory operatives, were leaning upon the bridge, and others were ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... which to sink the steel. There were no softer spots. And the pick helve grew so intensely cold! Jim dropped it to the ground, and with hands thrust into his armpits, for the warmth afforded, he hunched himself dismally and scanned the prospect with doleful eyes. Why couldn't the hill break open, anyhow, and show whether anything worth the having were contained in its bulk ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... old woman Larue! It was mournful enough to encounter you for the only time in this world in this plight, and to have this glimpse of your wretched life on lonesome Gilead Hill. What pleasure, I wonder, had she in her life, and what pleasure have any of these hard-favored women in this doleful region? It is pitiful to think of it. Doubtless, however, the region isn't doleful, and the sentimental traveler would not have felt it so if he had not encountered ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... was thinking made allowance for no such charming event as a wedding; rather for the same sort of doleful procession he had pictured before, only now Big Tom was in the carriage with ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... sea-wind. As I reached them I heard a shrill cry, "Remember the Dark Man!" Then I saw the blind beggarman sitting huddled in a ragged great-coat so much too big for him that till he stood up I did not see how tiny he was. He had a doleful peaked face, set in a shock of grey hair. By him sat a little brown dog—the queerest of mongrels—with a tin can tied ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... tears, he limped his chief to meet; But when he paused, and tottering stood, Around the circle of his little feet There spread a pool of bright, young blood. Shocked at his doleful case, Sherman cried, "Halt! front face! Who are you? Speak, my gallant ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... the nights are long, The north-wind sings a doleful song; Then hush again upon my breast; All merry things are now at rest, Save ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... a doleful countenance, daughter mine!" Elsie said laughingly, as she bent down and kissed the rosy cheek. "You must remember that my two little girls are not to carry the heavy end of this, and the sewing will be done in good season without overworking them. I could not permit that; I must see ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... stone, come Tityus With vulture, and with wheel Ixion come, And come the sisters of the ceaseless toil; And all into this breast transfer their pains, And (if such tribute to despair be due) Chant in their deepest tones a doleful dirge Over a corse unworthy of a shroud. Let the three-headed guardian of the gate, And all the monstrous progeny of hell, The doleful concert join: a lover dead Methinks can have ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... insisted that Betty learned more than she would from books in seeing the country and the people, and Betty herself liked it much better than if she had been kept steadily at her lessons. The most doleful time that she could remember was once when papa had gone to the south of Italy late in spring and had left her at a French convent school until his return. However, there were delightful things to remember, especially about some of the good sisters whom Betty learned to love dearly, and it may be ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... finger in its eye and weep. Ha! ha! ha! poor Risberg! how would he laugh to see these compassionate tears! It seem she has written in a very doleful strain to thee,—talked very pathetically about his debts to his laundress and his landlady. I have a good mind to leave thee in this amiable ignorance; but I'll prove for once a kind brother, by telling you that Risberg is a profligate and prodigal; that he neglects every study ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... gaiety, she set to work to make the best of things, to amuse her father and brothers as well as she could, and to try to persuade her sisters to join her in dancing and singing. But they would do nothing of the sort, and, because she was not as doleful as themselves, they declared that this miserable life was all she was fit for. But she was really far prettier and cleverer than they were; indeed, she was so lovely that she was always called Beauty. After two years, when they were all beginning to get used to their new life, ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... glory filled her heart, and the additional respect that was universally paid her, contributed not a little to increase them. The queen was given over by her physicians: the few Portuguese women that had not been sent back to their own country filled the court with doleful cries; and the good nature of the king was much affected with the situation in which he saw a princess, whom, though he did not love her, yet he greatly esteemed. She loved him tenderly, and thinking that ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... handsome young man sighing himself into a consumption for you. Listen to your poor compatriot and you'll find that virtue's none the less becoming for being good-natured. You'll see that it's not after all such a doleful world and that there's even an advantage in having the most impudent of husbands."' Madame Clairin paused; Longmore had turned very pale. "You may believe it," she amazingly pursued; "the speech took place in my presence; things were ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... I never knew of one who did not forgive her; I think had there been one it would have proved that there was a flaw in her. Perhaps, when good-bye came she was weeping because all the pretty things were said and done with, or she was making doleful confessions about herself, so impulsive and generous and confidential, and so devoid of humour, that they compelled even a tragic swain to laugh. She made a looking-glass of his face to seek wofully in it whether she was at all to blame, and when his arms ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... the gloomy desert of her past. I thought of that gay bird—like youth of hers of which the old man with the scythe had told me and wondered. As I was thinking of this there came a cry from the aged squire so loud and doleful that it startled me and I turned and looked toward the ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... delicate employ by right and nature the peculiar province of woman, "the weaker vessel"; for neglecting their shops, their fields, their counting-houses, and their interesting families, and wasting their precious time in writing love-tales, "doleful ditties," and "distressful strains," for the magazines; for flirting with the muse, while their wives are wanting shoes, or perpetrating puns, while their children cry for "buns"! Suppose that, pointing every line with ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the principle that each man should select his own subject and try to howl down the other two. This exercise soon palled on us, and one by one we sank to sleep. The clear light was pouring in when I woke, but the very sight of the straight beams made me doleful. When a man is in training, that gush of brightness makes him joyous; but a night with the fiend poisons the light, the air, the soul. Bob lay on the floor under the full glare of the window. What a fine fellow he was! His chest bulged strongly under his fleecy sweater; his neck was round and ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... was cut short by a sound of lamentation, which, as he went on, came to him in louder and louder bursts. He was attracted to the spot whence the sounds proceeded, and had some difficulty in discovering a doleful swain, who was ensconced in a mass of fern, taller than himself if he had been upright; and but that, by rolling over and over in the turbulence of his grief, he had flattened a large space down to the edge of the forest brook near which he reclined, he would have remained invisible in ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... spirits, by an assurance, that on passing its boundary, they will be set free and dressed in red, which they account the gayest of colours. Supplies, however, often fail in this dreary journey, a want first felt by the slaves, many of whom perish with hunger and fatigue. Clapperton heard the doleful tale of a mother, who had seen her child dashed to the ground, while she herself was compelled by the lash to drag on an exhausted frame. Yet, when at all tolerably treated, they are very gay, an observation generally made in regard to slaves, but this gaiety, arising only from the absence of ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... a wide fame as a religious woman, and a woman who could get more hell-fire into her belief and more melancholy pleasure out of it than any hard-shell preacher in the land. It was a doleful religion, with little promise or hope in it, and a great deal of blood and suffering between the world and its doubtful reward; but Sarah Newbolt lived according to its stern inflexibility, and sang its sorrowful hymns ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... to obey, but the awesome tune had carried its doleful message. The mournful notes had reached the ears of the wounded lad in the canoe. Its message was plain to him. Walter was a captive, or in great danger. And now began a contest between will-power and pain and weakness from which many a man would ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... heights can be seen, and at the point where the roads cross, where the tall trunks are listed with golden light, stands a large wooden gate and a small box-like lodge. A lonely place in a densely-populated county. The gatekeeper is blind, and his flute sounds doleful and strange, and the ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... yourself, for it shall be unto us as a great honour, and much more than if we died in any other places, for of death we be sure." "Ah, Launcelot," said the King, "the great love that I have had unto you all the days of my life maketh me to say such doleful words; for never Christian king had never so many worthy men at this table as I have had this day at the Round Table, and that is my great sorrow." When the queen, ladies, and gentlewomen wist these tidings, they had such sorrow and heaviness that ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... but two knights, that was Sir Lucan de Butlere, and his brother Sir Bedivere: and they were full sore wounded. Jesu mercy, said the king, where are all my noble knights becomen? Alas that ever I should see this doleful day. For now, said Arthur, I am come to mine end. But would to God that I wist where were that traitor Sir Mordred, that hath caused all this mischief. Then was King Arthur ware where Sir Mordred leaned upon his sword among ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... was this doleful news communicated, than we saw such prodigious numbers of praws and large boats coming out of the river, as were quite wonderful. The master gave immediate orders to the gunner to get the ordnance in readiness, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... overbearing, suspicious, and disdainful; and then we could hear its loud, insolent English asides; and though it was tall and straight and not outwardly deformed, it looked such a kill-joy skeleton at a feast, such a portentous carnival mask of solemn emptiness, such a dreary, doleful, unfunny figure of fun, that one felt Waterloo might some day be forgiven, even in ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... once they roamed by the thousands now rises the chimney and the spire, while across their once peaceful path now thunders the iron horse, awakening the echoes far and near with bell and whistle, where once could only be heard the sharp crack of the rifle or the long doleful yelp of the coyote. At the present time the only buffalo to be found are in the private parks of a few men who are preserving them for ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love
... predominant colours—resumes his love-plaint in bubbling bass. "Bub-loo, bub-loo maroo," he says over and over again in unbirdlike tone, without emphasis or lilt. "Bub-loo, bub-loo maroo," a grievance, a remonstrance and a threat in one doleful phrase; but to the flattered female it is all compliment and gallantry. That other, known as the allied—so like his cousin that his dissonant accents, "quok—quok—quoo," are more to be relied upon as ready means of identification than any striking difference in plumage; ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... song to sing, O! [SHE] Sing me your song, O! [HE] It is sung to the knell Of a churchyard bell, And a doleful dirge, ding dong, O! It's a song of a popinjay, bravely born, Who turned up his noble nose with scorn At the humble merrymaid, peerly proud, Who loved that lord, and who laughed aloud At the moan of the merryman, ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... dungeon horrible, on all sides round, As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames No light, but rather darkness visible Served only to discover sights of woe, Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace And rest can never dwell, hope never comes That comes to all; but torture without end Still urges, and a fiery deluge fed With ever-burning ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... sort of charm, sung by the lower ranks of Roman Catholics, in some parts of the north of England, while watching a dead body, previous to interment. The tune is doleful and monotonous, and, joined to the mysterious import of the words, has a solemn effect. The word sleet, in the chorus, seems to be corrupted from selt, or salt; a quantity of which, in compliance with a popular ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... of Clairville was undergoing drastic changes at the hands of Mme. Poussette. The patient, propped up in his ancient and tattered bed, was now strong enough to look at books; many hours he passed in this way while madame roamed over the doleful house, setting in order and cleaning as well as she could. Her strength, patience and endurance were remarkable; she could dust, sweep, scrub, hammer, all day long and never experience fatigue; walls were rubbed down, windows opened and washed, furniture drawn forth ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... Padre," said the man who had addressed Jose before, rousing him from his doleful meditations and pointing to the lights of the distant town, now shimmering through the ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Hawaiian steeds possessed. They were sorry, lean, undersized beasts, looking in general as if the emergencies of life left them little time for eating or sleeping. They stood calmly in the broiling sun, heavy-headed and heavy-hearted, with flabby ears and pendulous lower lips, limp and rawboned, a doleful type of the "creation which groaneth and travaileth in misery." All these belonged to the natives, who are passionately fond of riding. Every now and then a flower-wreathed Hawaiian woman, in her full radiant garment, sprang on one of these animals astride, and dashed along ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... of the hut was watching Poeri go away, thought she heard a faint sigh. She listened; some dogs were baying to the moon, an owl uttered its doleful hoot, and the crocodiles moaned between the reeds of the river, imitating the cry of a child in distress. The young Israelite was about to re-enter the hut when a more distinct moan, which could not be attributed to the vague sounds of night, and which certainly came ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... who went about pillaging the country of France that the king was sad and doleful at heart. He summoned his council, and said to them, 'What shall we do with this multitude of thieves who go about destroying our people? If I send against them my valiant baronage I lose my noble barons, and then I shall never more have any joy of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... to her during these days; he only looked, and his doleful gestures, his lugubrious grimaces, were comic. He stood to lose nothing, except possible profits for Helen. She was paying him full rental, but he claimed that his house was being ruined. "It will get the reputation of doing nothing but failures," ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... master has hurt himself against a stake; he has dislocated and twisted his ankle, broken his head by falling on a stone, while his Gorgon shot far away from his buckler. His mighty braggadocio plume rolled on the ground; at this sight he uttered these doleful words, "Radiant star, I gaze on thee for the last time; my eyes close to all light, I die." Having said this, he falls into the water, gets out again, meets some runaways and pursues the robbers with his spear at their backsides.[261] ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... overflow which the river formed below the waterfall came the uneasy croaking of frogs and the doleful piping of toads, and fireflies, resembling shooting stars, flew from bank to bank amid the clumps of bamboo ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... felt that they were not to be satisfied by his own, and after seeking to fill them with a doleful look, which was immediately succeeded by one ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... done almost too quickly for Parry to see, but the sharp spurs of the beautiful "bird" had been driven smartly into the nose of the big yellow dog, and the latter was pawing at it with a doleful whine. ...
— Harper's Young People, June 15, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... at a moment's notice, but filled sheets with sage advice and old wives' maxims; and the correspondence, which had languished, flared up anew. Now came an ill-scrawled, misspelt epistle from Tilly—doleful, too, for Purdy had once more quitted her without speaking the binding word—in which she told that Purdy's leg, though healed, was permanently shortened; the doctor in Geelong said he would never ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... roused from her pleasant reverie and plunged into another of a totally different description. The last was made up of garbled reality, but with what truth was in it tending to a false, doleful vision. It would represent St. Ebbe's as a gloomy, ghastly prison-house of suffering and death, and she in her tender youth and sweet beauty immured in it by an error of judgment, a fatal mistake incidental to rash enthusiasm and total inexperience. If Annie ever ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... Armenian interpreter a brief conversation followed, after which she made signs that dancing should begin. One of the ladies of honour then rose and performed a few steps, turning slowly upon herself; while another, who remained seated, drew forth from a balalaika (an Oriental guitar) certain doleful sounds, ill-adapted to the movements of a dancer. Nor were the attitudes and movements of her companion so much those of the dance as of the pantomime. There was evidently a meaning in them, though Madame de Hell could not unravel it. The young figurante ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... cannot be— Too many tears for lovers have been shed, 90 Too many sighs give we to them in fee, Too much of pity after they are dead, Too many doleful stories do we see, Whose matter in bright gold were best be read; Except in such a page where Theseus' spouse Over the pathless ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... noisy sweep of its boisterous rush takes gentle rest from my sleeping eye, nor doth the loud-chattering sea-mew suffer me to rest in the night, forcing its wearisome tale into my dainty ears; nor when I would lie down doth it suffer me to be refreshed, clamouring with doleful modulation of its ill-boding voice. Safer and sweeter do I deem the enjoyment of the woods. How are the fruits of rest plucked less by day or night than by tarrying ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... Coemgen came after three days, he received no full courtesy at first from the clerics, as they were in great sadness after their head. Said Coemgen to them, "Let a doleful countenance be upon you continually!" said he. Then fear took hold of the elders, and they did the will of Coemgen, and opened the Little Church to him. The spirit of Ciaran went at once to heaven,[36] and he returned again into his body to converse with Coemgen, and welcomed him. From one canonical ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... Record. There was an old-fashioned melodeon in the living-room of the ranch house, and it was very much out of tune. One of the punchers could play, and he played, and the others sang hymns, and sang them very badly, and when they had finished the hymns, they started on doleful songs like "The Cowboy's Lament," and "Bury Me ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... few minutes he came in again and sat down before the stove which was still warm, and as soon as Jeanne and Rosalie had gone to bed he began to howl. The whole night long he howled, in a pitiful, deplorable way, sometimes ceasing for an hour only to recommence in a still more doleful tone. A barrel was put outside the house and he was tied up to it, but he howled just the same out of doors as in, and as he was old and almost dying, he was brought back to ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... smell known to Tommy was when the water-carts passed the mouth of his little street. His street, which ended in a dead wall, was near the river, but on the doleful south side of it, opening off a longer street where the cabs of Waterloo station sometimes found themselves when they took the wrong turning; his home was at the top of a house of four floors, each ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... while the latter was as bare as a billiard-ball. Preparing himself for the effort with a wine-glass full of raw cognac, this gentleman leaned back in his chair, stuck his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat, fixed his eyes on the ceiling, and plunged at once into a doleful ballad about one Mademoiselle Rosine, and a certain village aupres de la mer, which seemed to be in an indefinite number of verses, and amused no one but himself. In the midst of this ditty, just as the audience had begun to testify ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... lot of the women who were round about him here and there, in chairs. Ah! those poor little black shawls, those miserable pleated caps, those wretched tippets, those doleful seed rosaries they fingered in ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... have had a magnificent shower!" said Henrik, shaking himself, and casting a side glance on Jacobi, who looked both downcast and doleful in his wet apparel. "Such weather as this is quite an affair of my own. In wind and rain one becomes so—I don't know rightly ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer |
