"Mourner" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Prendergast fancied he had secured secrecy by eluding questions and giving orders at the latest possible moment. The concourse in the church and churchyard was no welcome sight to him, since he could not hope that the tall figure of the chief mourner could remain unrecognized. Worthy man, did he think that Wrapworth needed that sight to assure them of what each tongue had wagged ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... issue celestial notes, countersigned by himself and made redeemable in Heaven. From that day to this he has been following the lead of the renowned Simon Suggs, who, having in true camp meeting style acquired "the grace of God," turned loose as an exhorter shouting "Step up to the mourner's bench, my brethering, step up lively, and be saved! I come in on na 'er par, an' see what I draw'd! Religion's the only game whar you can't lose. Him that trusts ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... plain, rippled from underneath by the restless earthquake and whipped into flaming foam by the force of the storm. The Sun already was receding from them, already growing smaller. Soon the storm seemed but a cloud of light sweeping over the empty plain, like a murderous mourner rushing swiftly away from the ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... I think? I was suspended in astonishment. Every sentiment, at length, yielded to my sympathy. Every new accent of the mourner struck upon my heart with additional force, and tears found their way spontaneously to my eyes. I left the spot where I stood, and advanced within the verge of the shade. My caution had forsaken me, and, instead of one whom it was duty to persecute, ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... hours treading on each other's heels, where would he be, when they came round again! Eleven! Another struck, before the voice of the previous hour had ceased to vibrate. At eight, he would be the only mourner in his ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... dreams deny me not to see thee here! And Morn in secret shall renew the tear Of Consciousness awaking to her woes, And Fancy hover o'er thy bloodless bier, Till my frail frame return to whence it rose, And mourn'd and mourner lie ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... Mont was only a little distance from the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve. When the coffin had been deposited in a low, dark, little chapel, the law student looked around in vain for Goriot's two daughters or their husbands. Christophe was his only fellow mourner: Christophe, who appeared to think it was his duty to attend the funeral of the man who had put him in the way of such handsome tips. As they waited there in the chapel for the two priests, the chorister, and the beadle, Rastignac grasped Christophe's hand. He could not utter a ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... quickly wither on the freshly-turned clay on which we have left them—except where the place of natural ones is taken by those deliciously ironical representations in the shape of tin—waterproof imitations which save the mourner the trouble of renewal. ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... familiar there is trial enough of this kind. If my friend is sick or dying, I go to his bedside of course, but it is as a friend,—to say a word or many words as the case may be; to look what I cannot say; to do what I can. But to come there, or to come to the desolate mourner, in an official capacity,—there is something in this which is in painful conflict with my ideas of the simple relations of man with man. Now all this difficulty is greatly increased when one enters upon a new ministration in a congregation of strangers. Therefore on every account I must say, no ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... the government. The banner of the lordship of Chatham was borne by Colonel Barre, attended by the Duke of Richmond and Lord Rockingham. Burke, Savile, and Dunning upheld the pall. Lord Camden was conspicuous in the procession. The chief mourner was young William Pitt. After the lapse of more than twenty-seven years, in a season as dark and perilous, his own shattered frame and broken heart were laid, with the same pomp, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the fearful scandal which so sensational an affair must make would mar his career, his life, his young daughter's life! Larry's suicide with this girl would make sensation enough as it was; but nothing to that other. Such a death had its romance; involved him in no way save as a mourner, could perhaps even be hushed up! The other—nothing could hush that up, nothing prevent its ringing to the house-tops. He got up from his chair, and for many minutes roamed the room unable to get his mind to bear on the issue. Images kept starting up before ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... a mourner's mantle, with sad grace, Waves the dark ivy—hiding half the door And threshold, where the weary traveller's foot Shall never find a ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... allowed her enemy to walk into the snare. This idea was not quite as attractive as the former, for it is sweeter to think of oneself as innocently dead and mourned, than as guilty and performing the office of mourner for another; and it was of herself only, whether as pictured in Bates's sufferings or as left liberated by his death, that the girl was thinking. Still it afforded relaxation to imagine what she might do if she were thus left mistress of the situation; and she ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... But the mourner had written to her old friend and confessor, Francis; and, after some delay, involuntary on his part, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... they withdrew, and went out at the same door by which they entered, and he heard them descend the stairs. After this, he followed a funeral as chief mourner; he saw the whole procession, and heard the ceremonies performed. He was snatched away from this mournful scene to one of a contrary kind, a stately feast, at which he presided; and he heard himself congratulated as a husband, and a father; his friend William sat by his side; and his happiness ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve
... old clock down in the parlor Like a sleepless mourner grieves, And the seconds drip in the silence As the ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... some pensive stranger, hither led, His bosom glowing from majestic views, Temple and tower 'mid the bright landscape's hues, Should ask who sleeps beneath this lowly bed? A maid of sorrow. To the cloistered scene, Unknown and beautiful a mourner came, Seeking with unseen tears to quench the flame Of hapless love: yet was her look serene As the pale moonlight in the midnight aisle;— Her voice was gentle and a charm could lend, Like that which spoke of a departed friend; And a meek sadness sat upon her smile!— Now, far removed ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... highly applauded the widow's conduct to the officers; but, being himself rather of a social turn, and fond of a good dinner and a bottle, he represented to the lovely mourner that she should endeavor to divert her grief by a little respectable society, and recommended that she should from time to time entertain a few grave and sober persons whom he would present to her. As Dr. Sly had an unbounded influence over the fair mourner, ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... Cragiebuckle, Silva McQueen, and Sam'l Wilkie respectively, a dexterous tailor might perhaps have supplied each with a "fit." The talk was chiefly of Little Rathie, and sometimes threatened to become animated, when another mourner would fall in and ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... house of mourning, when the servants move about on tiptoe, wearing faces of funereal solemnity, and the afternoon tea-tray is carried in in state, like the corpse of a domestic usage on its way to the cemetery, with the silver spirit-kettle bubbling behind it as chief mourner. But, as the elder son, there was plenty to occupy Captain Saxham. There was business to be transacted with the Squire's solicitor, with his bailiff, with one or two of the principal tenants. There were the arrangements to be made for the Funeral, and for the extension of hospitality to ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... on ice! Whence come these European babblers of Tharsis—these nightingales of the market-place—these sugared confections of flowers? I cannot believe that people can love passionately, and prate of their love—even as a hired mourner laments over the dead. The spendthrift casts his treasure by handfuls to the wind; the lover hides it, nurses it, buries it in his heart like ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... fair mourner, and dispel thy fears. Thy grief, thy tender duty to thy father, Has touch'd me nearly. In his lone retreat, Respect, attendance, every lenient care To sooth affliction, and extend his life, ...
— The Grecian Daughter • Arthur Murphy
... the old man said, "the last time I seen you uns I remember well ez ye war a-settin' on the mourner's bench." For there had been a great religious revival the previous year and many had been pricked in conscience. "Ye ain't so tuk up now in contemplatin' the goodness o' God an' yer sins agin ...
— Una Of The Hill Country - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... solemn lesson to be ready when the summons comes. A hush lay over Plumfield for weeks, and the studious faces on the hill reflected the sadness of those in the valley. Sacred music sounded from Parnassus to comfort all who heard; the brown cottage was beseiged with gifts for the little mourner, and Emil's flag hung at half-mast on the roof where he last sat with ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... had given Mr. Dutton time to turn from a mourner to a consoler, and when Nuttie came towards him with her hand outstretched, and 'Oh, Mr. Dutton, Mr. Dutton!' he took it in both his, and with a calm broken voice said, 'God has been very good to us in letting us know one ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... lived to be the greatest comfort of her soul upon her death-bed, to be present at the expiration of her last breath, and to behold the closing of those eyes that had long looked upon him with reverence and affection. And let this also be added, that he was the Chief Mourner at her sad funeral; nor let this be forgotten, that, within a few hours after her death, he was the happy proclaimer, that King James—her peaceful successor—was ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... your kind sympathy in his recent bereavement," etc. It would save a world of letter-writing to a person who does not care to write letters, and it would be a very pleasant token to receive when all other such tokens are impossible. For people leave their cards on a mourner, and never know whether they have been received or not. Particularly is this true of apartment-houses; and when people live in hotels, who knows whether the card ever reaches its destination? We generally find that it has not done so, if we have ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... their rich coats of Her Majesty's Arms enbroider'd; the body, between 6 persons of the Arms of Christ's Hospital, St. Bartholomew's, Merchant Taylors Company, City of London, empaled coat and single coat; the chief mourner and his four assistants, followed by the relations of the defunct, &c."[B] In this aggregation of grandeur the mere bagatelle in the shape of a corpse seems almost completely overshadowed, and it is thus comforting to reflect that the latter finally had interment in ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... diet-roll. He seemed utterly bewildered with sorrow; and Miss S——, who had also occasion to speak to him, said she never saw grief so strongly marked in a human face. He insisted on following her remains to the grave as chief mourner, and wearied himself with carrying the coffin. No one interfered with him; for all seemed to think he had acquired the right, by his unmistakeable affection, to perform these sad offices; and the lady superintendent, moved by his sorrow, allowed him to retain a ring of some small value ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... the solitary mourner who watched his unconscious master while life was ebbing and sought to comfort him with mournful whinnies of almost ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... petitions and entreaties were ineffectual, and Ahasuerus insisted upon the execution of his order, Haman went to the royal treasure chambers, walking with his head bowed like a mourner's, his ears hanging down, his eyes dim, his mouth screwed up, his heart hardened, his bowels cut in pieces, his loins weakened, and his knees knocking against each other. (169) He gathered together the royal insignia, and took them to Mordecai, accompanied ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... and Frederic Neville was Earl of Scroope. The man brought a letter from Miss Mellerby, telling him the sad news and conjuring him in his aunt's name to come at once to the Manor. Of course he must start at once for the Manor. Of course he must attend as first mourner at his uncle's grave before he could assume his uncle's ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... unfortunate captain of the Active. Accordingly, snatching a hasty breakfast of dry bread and milk—for that was all the food the present low state of our finances would allow us to indulge in—we sallied forth, taking poor little Williams with us, whom we intended should act as chief mourner. When we arrived at the house, and went into the room where Delisle had last seen the body, it was no longer there. We searched about, but nowhere could we see it. In another room we found Captain Stott, late of the Minerva. ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... the wayside, being still and ever on the great high road that is to terminate in Mr. Snagsby's full exposure and a matrimonial separation. All this, Mrs. Snagsby, as an injured woman, and the friend of Mrs. Chadband, and the follower of Mr. Chadband, and the mourner of the late Mr. Tulkinghorn, is here to certify under the seal of confidence, with every possible confusion and involvement possible and impossible, having no pecuniary motive whatever, no scheme or project but the one mentioned, and bringing here, and taking everywhere, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... somebody unknown. But observing in the procession an empty wheelbarrow and a double-barrelled gun, he became meditative, and fixed the bearer of the gun with his eyes. A stone deftly thrown across him by the village blackguard (chief mourner) caused him to look round for an instant, and he then fell dead, shot through the heart. Two posthumous children are at this moment rolling on the lawn; one will evidently inherit his ferocity, and will probably inherit the gun. The pheasant was a little ailing towards ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... formed, and nothing remained now but for me to carry them out. Unobserved of any one I took my way again to the vault. I carried with me a small lantern, a hammer, and some strong nails. Arrived at the cemetery I looked carefully everywhere about me, lest some stray mourner or curious stranger might possibly be in the neighborhood. Not a soul was in sight. Making use of the secret passage, I soon found myself on the scene of my recent terrors and sufferings, all of which ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... Fogeyism is being lowered to his last resting place, Pettifoggism, being his chief mourner, will be so overwhelmed with grief that he will tumble into the same grave. How then to hasten the demise of this venerable Humbug is the question. Some are for letting him die a natural death, others for reducing him gradually by a system of ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... raised he that reluctant mourner up With comfortable words. From that dark grave He drew him, backward gazing oft with groans. To the ships they came, where Greeks and Trojan men Had bitter travail ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... loss of the infant more, if Lord Delacour's relations and my own had not made such lamentations upon the occasion that I was stunned. I couldn't or wouldn't shed a tear; and I left it to the old dowager to perform in public, as she wished, the part of chief mourner, and to comfort herself in private by lifting up her hands and eyes, and railing at me as the most insensible of mothers. All this time I suffered more than she did; but that is what she shall never have the satisfaction of knowing. I determined, that if ever I had another ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... have you told me? Stay me with an immediate account of the recovery and calmness of my adorable weeping Sylvia, or I shall enter Bellfont with my sword drawn, bearing down all before me, 'till I make my way to my charming mourner: O God! Sylvia in a rage! Sylvia in any passion but that of love? I cannot bear it, no, by heaven I cannot; I shall do some outrage either on myself or at Bellfont. Oh thou dear advocate of my tenderest wishes, thou confidante of my never dying flame, thou kind administering maid, send some ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... the sense, And hems in life with narrowing fence. Well, in this broad bed lie and sleep,— The punctual stars will vigil keep,— Embalmed by purifying cold; The winds shall sing their dead-march old, The snow is no ignoble shroud, The moon thy mourner, ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... world. Hark! on the winds The bell's deep tones are swelling; 'tis the knell Of the departed year. No funeral train Is sweeping past; yet, on the stream and wood, With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest Like a pale, spotless shroud; the air is stirred, As by a mourner's sigh; and, on yon cloud, That floats so still and placidly through heaven, The spirits of the Seasons seem to stand. Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form, And Winter with its aged locks—and breathe In mournful ...
— Songs from the Southland • Various
... the men seem to be wholly insensible of their loss, they also begin to perform their part. The nearest relations take it in turn to assume the dress, and perform the office which have already been particularly described in the account of Tubourai Tamaide's having acted as chief mourner to an old woman, his relation, who died while we were in the island. One part of the ceremony, however, which accounts for the running away of the people as soon as this procession is in sight, has not been mentioned. The chief mourner carries in his hand a long flat stick, the edge of which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... and inventive withal, had been locked up in the house alone, one day, while his mother went to a particularly attractive funeral with carriages enough for even the outside circle of the mourners. One such mourner failing, she had been bidden to the vacant seat in the rearmost carriage, and her absence had been prolonged unduly. She came home, expecting to find Scott wailing loudly for his missing mother. ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... no man raise, To her name, for after daies, Some kind woman, born as she, Reading this like Niobe, Shall turn marble, and become, Both her mourner ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 75, April 5, 1851 • Various
... of having been born a Dodson, rather than a Gibson or a Watson. Funerals were always conducted with peculiar propriety in the Dodson family: the hat-bands were never of a blue shade, the gloves never split at the thumb, everybody was a mourner who ought to be, and there were always scarfs for the bearers. When one of the family was in trouble or sickness, all the rest went to visit the unfortunate member, usually at the same time, and did not shrink from uttering ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... did see such a fellow for necktie parties as you are, Yorky. Not three weeks ago, you was invitin' me to be chief mourner at one of your little affairs, and your friend Johnson was to be master of ceremonies. Now you've got the parts reversed. No, I reckon we'll have ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... that are hushed it awakens no more; "Friends that are gone" it can never restore; Yet e'en to the mourner one hope it may bring, 'Tis the type of ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
... tasks to which sorrow is unequal. For all these reasons I never could join the crusade which some seem disposed to wage against it. Mourning, however, ought not to be continued for years. Its uses are more for the first few months of sorrow, when it serves the mourner as a safeguard from intrusion, insuring quiet and leisure in which to reunite the broken threads of life, and to gather strength for a return to its duties. But to wear mourning garments and forego society for two or three years after the loss of any friend, ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... which he puffed away with marvellous self-complacency. Beside me sat a modest and comely young woman in a widow's dress, and with an infant about nine months old in her arms. The appearance of this youthful mourner and her baby indicated that they belonged to the working class of society; and though the dandies occasionally cast a rude glance at the mother, the look of calm and settled sorrow which she invariably at such times cast ...
— Catharine's Peril, or The Little Russian Girl Lost in a Forest - And Other Stories • M. E. Bewsher
... life again,—hard, cold, inexorable life, knocking with business-like sound at the mourner's door, obtruding its common-place pertinacity on the dull ear of sorrow. The world cannot wait for us; the world knows no leisure for tears; it moves onward, and drags along with its motion the weary and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... fall Down the pale mother's cheek at close of day; For sorrow sitteth at the widow's gate: Dark are the shadows gathered on the wall, And where the mourner bendeth low to pray— No more to wait The ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... when Sophia lost her infant boy, And felt how dear-bought is a mother's joy, When with green turf the little grave she spread, "Not lost, but gone before," she meekly said. And now they sleep together 'neath the willow The same dew drops upon their silent pillow. Return, O mourner, from this double grave, And praise the God who all her graces gave. Follow her faith, and let her mantle be A cloak of holy zeal to ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... wings, for she had heard The mourner, as she pass'd the vales along; And, silencing her own indignant bird, She ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... curse upon his labour, seized and thrashed him, and told him to repeat, "Pray God, send plenty more!" So the young jolterhead at once "changed his tune," and was loudly singing out these words when he met a funeral. The chief mourner punished him for what he thought his fiendish wish, and bade him say, "Pray God, send the soul to heaven!" which he was bawling when he met a he and a she-dog going to be hanged. The good people who heard him were greatly shocked at his seeming profanity, and striking ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... Overplus of a great Fortune, by secret Methods to other Men. If he has not the Pomp of a numerous Train, and of Professors of Service to him, he has every Day he lives the Conscience that the Widow, the Fatherless, the Mourner, and the Stranger bless his unseen Hand in their Prayers. This Humourist gives up all the Compliments which People of his own Condition could make to him, for the Pleasures of helping the Afflicted, supplying the Needy, and befriending the Neglected. This Humourist keeps to himself ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... to dwell upon the grief everywhere felt and expressed for the irreparable loss. The magnificent closing lines of Shelley's "Alastor" must have occurred to many a mourner; for gone, indeed, was "a surpassing Spirit." The superb pomp of the Venetian funeral, the solemn grandeur of the interment in Westminster Abbey, do not seem worth recording: so insignificant are all these accidents of death made by the supreme fact itself. Yet it is fitting to know that ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... chance!" said Flora. "Which way can it come? tell me how I may embrace it, and such grateful feelings as a heart-stricken mourner can offer to him who has rescued her from her deep affliction, ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... October, 1852. On the day of the funeral my elder brother and I were taken back to the house where my father lay dead, and while my brother went as chief mourner, poor little boy swamped in crape and miserable exceedingly, I sat in an upstairs room with my mother and her sisters; and still comes back to me her figure, seated on a sofa, with fixed white face and dull vacant eyes, counting the minutes till the funeral procession would have reached Kensal ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... him would be as grotesque and monstrous as the situation, as of anything he had said. Even the flashing indignation of Julia Jeffcourt seemed to become suddenly as unnatural and incongruous as her brother's chief mourner himself, and although she shrank from his passing figure she uttered no word. Chester Brooks's youthful emotions, following the expression of Miss Sally's face, lost themselves in a vague hysteric smile, ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... set down on trestles placed outside the iron railing; and here that solemn service, beginning with those words so cheering to the souls of Christians, "I am the resurrection and the life," was solemnly read by Mr. Williams. The manly, soldier-like features of the chief mourner, on whom the eyes of sympathy were most naturally turned, betrayed at intervals the powerful efforts which he made to master his emotions, as well as the inefficiency of his exertions to do so. The other relatives who surrounded the bier were deeply ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... upon the "degree" of mourning to be worn, which must be modified according to the age of the deceased, and the relationship of the mourner. The undertaker will advise respecting the degree of mourning to be displayed upon ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... officer appointed to render the proper salutes, acted as chief mourner, surrounded by weeping mourners, who made the ruins of Janina echo with their lamentations. The guns were fired at long intervals. The portcullis was raised to admit the procession, and the whole garrison, drawn up to ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... retorted the mourner; he and the ghost both coughing with the colds which they had taken from standing still so long in such a damp place—"not under the present circumstances," he repeated, wildly, making a fierce pass at the spectre with the skeleton, and then dropping ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., Issue 31, October 29, 1870 • Various
... all-presuming Troy fell from its height, By fortune overwhelm'd, and the old king With his realm perish'd, then did Hecuba, A wretch forlorn and captive, when she saw Polyxena first slaughter'd, and her son, Her Polydorus, on the wild sea-beach Next met the mourner's view, then reft of sense Did she run barking even as a dog; Such mighty power had grief to wrench her soul. Bet ne'er the Furies or of Thebes or Troy With such fell cruelty were seen, their goads Infixing in the limbs of man or beast, As now two pale and naked ghost I saw ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... ancestors and to the spirits of their own homes. For three days before performing such sacrifices, a strict vigil with purification was maintained; and by the expiration of that time, from sheer concentration of thought, the mourner was able to see the spirits of the departed, and at the sacrifice next day seemed to hear their movements and even the murmur of their sighs. Ancestral worship in China has always been, and still is, worship in the strict sense of the term. It is not a memorial service ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... emotional outbursts are among the best portions of his writing; as when he speaks of a mother whose infant has been intentionally injured, "how she starts up with threatening aspect, how her eyes sparkle and her face reddens, how her bosom heaves, nostrils dilate, and heart beats." In describing a mourner when quiescent, he says: "The sufferer sits motionless, or gently rocks to and fro; the circulation becomes languid; respiration is almost forgotten, and deep sighs are drawn. All this reacts on the brain, and prostration soon follows with collapsed ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... glowing memory still) the loves, the jealousies, the delusions, the concealments, the faithlessness, the desertion, the parting! And now,—now the chief actress in this drama that had touched him so nearly lay buried in a New England grave, with his own Adele her solitary mourner! ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... had known everyone of Dick's old curves and tricks in former days, did not look like a promising task, for Dalzell, in addition to his special knowledge about this pitcher, was an expert with the bat. But there might be a chance to put Dan on the mourner's bench. If Dalzell succeeded in picking up even a single from Dick's starting delivery, then Dave could be all but depended upon to push his Navy chum a bag or two further ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... yon corse that, thus adorned wi' gourd-leaves, Forth ye bear with slow step?' A mourner answer'd, ''Tis the poor clay-cold body Lady Jane grew Tired to ...
— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... but sincere pencil employed by publishers to illustrate the turgid sorrow of Young's "Night Thoughts." The work was to have been issued in parts, but got no farther than the first. (It would have been no great calamity, if the poem itself had come to the same premature end!) The sonorous mourner could hardly have recognized himself in the impersonations in which he was presented, nor his progeny in the concrete objects to which they were reduced. The ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... services were over, Sophy sprang down from her perch, and, taking her flowers, followed the procession. She did not walk with the rest, but at a proper and respectful distance from the last mourner. No one noticed the little black girl with the bunch of yellow flowers, or thought of her as interested ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... sets. Last year the most beloved sovereign that has ever occupied the British throne was laid in the gorgeous mausoleum at Frogmore beside the husband of her youth and the sharer of twenty-two years of happy and holy wedlock. All Christendom was a mourner ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... sympathetic, and murmur "poor things," when we see some mourner weeping over a dead loved one, but we never comprehend the sorrow until we bury our ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... thirty yet—I took myself and my troubles very seriously. The old mate, who had acted as chief mourner at the captain's funeral, was not particularly pleased at my coming. But the fact is the fellow was not legally qualified for command, and the Consul was bound, if at all possible, to put a properly certificated man on board. As to the second mate, all I can say his name was Tottersen, or something ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... land of the heathen he died, meekly following the voice of his Master, One mourner alone by his side— Ta-te-psin's compassionate daughter. She wailed the dead father with tears, and his bones by her kindred she buried. Then winter followed winter. The years sprinkled frost on the head of her father; And three weary winters she dreamed of the fearless and ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... and in the interval Mr. Langhope's privacy was invaded by a stream of visiting teachers, who were always wanting to consult him about Cicely's lessons, and lay before him their tiresome complaints and perplexities. Poor Mr. Langhope found himself in the position of the mourner who, in the first fervour of bereavement, has undertaken the construction of an imposing monument without having counted the cost. He had meant that his devotion to Cicely should be a monument to his paternal grief; but the foundations were scarcely ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... quitting the palisades, Hist was seen in the remaining canoe, where the Delaware immediately joined her, and paddled away, leaving Judith standing alone on the platform. Owing to this prompt proceeding, Deerslayer found himself alone with the beautiful and still weeping mourner. Too simple to suspect anything, the young man swept the light boat round, and received its mistress in it, when he followed the course already taken by his friend. The direction to the point led diagonally past, and at no great distance from, the graves ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... and eloquent letters. I should be most impatient of the long interval between one and another, but that they savor always of Eternity, and promise me a friendship and friendly inspiration not reckoned or ended by days or years. Your last letter, dated in April, found me a mourner, as did your first. I have lost out of this world my brother Charles,* of whom I have spoken to you,—the friend and companion of many years, the inmate of my house, a man of a beautiful genius, born to speak well, and whose conversation for these last years has ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... nature, which partakes of good and evil, joy and sorrow, mingled with endless variety of proportion and innumerable modes of combination; and expressing the course of the world, in which the loss of one is the gain of another; in which, at the same time, the reveller is hasting to his wine, and the mourner burying his friend; in which the malignity of one is sometimes defeated by the frolick of another; and many mischiefs and many benefits are ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... His dwelling was a little way above the cave of Afrasiyab. One night he heard a voice of lamentation below, and anxious to ascertain from whom and whence it proceeded, he stole down to the spot and listened. The mourner spoke in the Turkish language, and said:—"O king of Turan and Chin, where is now thy pomp and power! How has Fortune cast away thy throne and thy treasure to the winds?" Hearing these words Hum conjectured that this must be Afrasiyab; and as he had suffered severely from the ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... this side life, By which the mourner came and stood, And laid down, ne'er to be renewed, All glittering robes ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... Democritus! arise on earth, With cheerful wisdom and instructive mirth; 50 See motley life in modern trappings dress'd, And feed with varied fools the eternal jest: Thou who could'st laugh where want enchain'd caprice, Toil crush'd conceit, and man was of a piece: Where wealth, unloved, without a mourner died; And scarce a sycophant was fed by pride; Where ne'er was known the form of mock debate, Or seen a new-made mayor's unwieldy state; Where change of favourites made no change of laws, And senates heard before they judged a cause; 60 How wouldst thou shake ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... other had his doubts. Why shouldn't he have? The coincidence of finding this mourner if not avenger of Edith Challoner, in his own direct radius again, at a spot so distant, so obscure and so disconnected with any apparent business reason, was certainly startling enough unless the tie could be found in his brother's name and ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... Romeo Augustus that Mephibosheth's life had become a burden; that common humanity demanded his departure. In vain Philemon offered three fish-hooks and a jackknife by way of solace. In vain Solomon was sure his father would present a calf to the mourner for ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... The mourner was sitting on a stone bench at the door, with the ass's pannel and its bridle on one side, which he took up from time to time—then laid them down—looked at them—and shook his head. He then took his crust of bread out of his wallet again, as if to eat it; held it some time in his hand—then ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... thy pure lamp to light the way to the virgin mourner, when she goes to seek the tomb where ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... leper was conducted to the hospital with exactly the same ceremony as was used for the interment of the dead, and was followed by all the members of the confrerie to which he belonged, and preceded by a mourner ringing a dirge. One of the statutes of a confrerie ordaining this procession has been preserved (Arch. de la Seine Inferieure, G. 5,238):—"Le seroient tenus convoier jusques a sa malladerie le maistre et varlets portans leurs sourplis et capperons vestus a toult ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... was a great mourner for Darby, for he was overtaken in drink that night, and brought shame upon himself, that had always been a dacent and a sober lad; and the next day Mary Nelligan wouldn't spake to him, and even our mother turned her face away from him; and so, with the hot shame at ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... and spirit into him, so that I hope he will do well. [Much surprised to hear this day at Deptford that Mrs. Batters is going already to be married to him, that is now the Captain of her husband's ship. She seemed the most passionate mourner in the world. But I believe it cannot be true.]—(The passage between brackets is written in the margin of the MS.)—Thence by water to Billingsgate; thence to the Old Swan, and there took boat, it being now night, to Westminster Hall, there to ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... But there is one tree blasted 'mid the green, Surrounding forest; and an eagle, there, Looks sadly o'er the gaily, glitt'ring scene, A mourner—with his bleeding bosom bare:— No more! no more! he'll reach his eyry now, Or sport in triumph o'er the mountain's brow; His wing may hide the death-bolt as he dies, No more shall it expand to ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas
... he's all to fitters, and lyes, taking the height of his fortune with a Syringe. He's chin'd, he's chin'd good man, he is a mourner. ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (1 of 10) - The Custom of the Country • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... a old fashioned place, but you forgot all 'bout dat when Brother Thomas got in de pulpit and preached dem old time sermons 'bout how de devil gwine to git you if you don't repent and be washed in de blood of de Lamb. De call to come up to de mourner's bench brought dem Negroes jus' rollin' over one another in de 'citement. Soon dey got happy and dere was shoutin' all over de place. Some of 'em jus' fell out. When de 'tracted meetin' closed and de baptizin' dey come, dat was de happiest time of all. Most of de time dere was a big crowd ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... her lips always slightly screwed, as if she felt herself in a sick-room with the doctor or the clergyman present. But she was never whimpering; no one had seen her shed tears; she was simply grave and inclined to shake her head and sigh, almost imperceptibly, like a funereal mourner who is not a relation. It seemed surprising that Ben Winthrop, who loved his quart-pot and his joke, got along so well with Dolly; but she took her husband's jokes and joviality as patiently as everything ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... wish, the rest of his widowed life below has been one melancholy strain of "In Memoriam." Many a faithful and noble mourner, whose garnered love and hope have been blighted for this world, would tell you that, without meeting his lost ones there, heaven itself would be no heaven to him. In such a state of soul we must expect to know again in an unfading clime ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... Theron's perceptions were keener. He knew that Gorringe was coming forward to kneel beside Alice; The knowledge left him curiously undisturbed. He saw the lawyer advance, gently insinuate himself past the form of some kneeling mourner who was in his way, and drop on his knees close beside the bowed figure of Alice. The two touched shoulders as they bent forward beneath Sister Soulsby's outstretched hands, held over them as in a blessing. Theron looked fixedly at them, ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... chief mourner," said the master of the ceremonies.—"Have you a black coat?" he continued, noticing ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... since,' says Mr. Sapsea, with his legs stretched out, and solemnly enjoying himself with the wine and the fire, 'what you behold me; I have been since a solitary mourner; I have been since, as I say, wasting my evening conversation on the desert air. I will not say that I have reproached myself; but there have been times when I have asked myself the question: What if her husband had been nearer on a level with her? If she had not had ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... But he was not a naturalist—all men cannot be everything. And I, a naturalist, hold that the wishes, thronging the restless little feathered breast are not altogether so incommunicable as the melodious mourner of "Poor Matthias" imagines. The days—ay, and years—which I have spent in the society of my feathered friends have not, I flatter myself, been so wasted that I cannot small my soul, just as the preacher smalled his voice, ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... was deficient, it was Susy who filled the popular idea of a mourner, and whose emotional attitude of a grief-stricken daughter left nothing to be desired. It was she who, when the house was filled with sympathizing friends from San Francisco and the few near neighbors who had hurried with condolences, ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... in time to go and shake hands with Harry before dinner; and, though scarcely a word passed between them, he saw with delight that he had evidently given pleasure to the mourner. Then he had a charming long evening with Katie, walking in the garden with her between dinner and tea, and after tea discoursing in low tones over her work-table, while Mr. Winter benevolently ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... on squalid hunger, gifts dispel the timid fear, Gold revives the poor and lowly, mercy wipes the mourner's tear, ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... that day in the long ago when the poor hatter foolishly tried to honour his sovereign. The traditions of centuries toppled when the body of the unknown soldier passed through those storied portals followed by the King of England as chief mourner. In the dim, historic chapel the king stood, in advance of princes, prime ministers, and the famous leaders of both army and navy. Like the humble hatter of old his royal head was reverently bared ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... east the sun slowly rising, Brightly gilded the top of the tall cabbage tree; And sweet was the scene such wild beauties comprising, As might have fill'd the sad mourner with rapture and glee. But my heart felt nae rapture, nae pleasant emotion, The saft springs o' pleasure had lang, lang been seal'd; I thought on my home 'cross a wide stormy ocean, And wept for my Mary of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... In 1882, Sansile (a woman) was hereditary wadji'panyin of the Kansa, having succeeded her father, Pezihi, the last male crier. At the time of an issue (about 1882) Sansile's son-in-law died, so she, being a mourner, could not act as crier; hence her office devolved on K'axe of the Taqtci subgens. In that year one of the Ta yatcaji subgens (of the Taqtci or Deer gens) was iekiye number 1. Iekiye number 2 belonged to the Tadje or ...
— Siouan Sociology • James Owen Dorsey
... at length aroused him; and calling Ben to our assistance, Halliday and I conveyed the body of his wife to a distance from the camp, where we dug a grave and buried her, he attending as the only mourner. He was then delivered over to his purchaser with the rest of the Spaniards, the young black alone remaining with us. We could not help pitying the poor people as we saw them carried away, though their fate might not be worse than ours; indeed, ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... long shone with unclouded splendor, and the air is so wonderfully clear that even the most distant mountain-peaks are distinctly visible, rain is not long delayed; and who can laugh heartily a long time without finally shedding tears like a mourner? ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... were surrounded with a slight wooden paling, to secure them from the passing footstep; there was hardly one so deserted as not to be marked with its little wooden cross, and decorated with a garland of flowers; and here and there I could perceive a solitary mourner, clothed in black, stooping to plant a shrub on the grave, or sitting in motionless sorrow ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... maidenly garments, then retiring secretly to her own room lay her down and her heart was heartened and trouble and turmoil and travail of mind fell from her. Now at that time her mother was lamenting like a funeral mourner and buffeting her face and her breast and kept crying out, "Oh the shame of us! Oh the dishonour of us! When they shall have informed the Sultan of this, he shall surely slay her sire." And the Kazi waxed distraught and full of thought and he also said in his mind, "How shall I remain Kazi al-Islam ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... Deschamps in the veins of a traitor! Wife, daughter and gallant sons had been riven from him by death and the Christian's hope lightened the; mourner's desolation. But disgrace! Neither earth nor heaven held consolation for such wrong as his. Deschamps brooded on his woe; alone he endured his agony, giving utterance to his despair in ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley
... wisdom and instructive mirth, See motley life in modern trappings dress'd, And feed with varied fools th' eternal jest: Thou who could'st laugh where want enchain'd caprice, Toil crush'd conceit, and man was of a piece; Where wealth, unlov'd, without a mourner dy'd; And scarce a sycophant was fed by pride; Where ne'er was known the form of mock debate, Or seen a new-made mayor's unwieldy state; Where change of fav'rites made no change of laws, And senates heard before they judg'd a cause; How would'st thou shake at Britain's modish ...
— English Satires • Various
... army to form a corps d'Afrique, and by that time he will be too old to delight in social pleasures. Meanwhile he will be doomed to a life of solitude and self-communings, and be subjected to many such snubs as the venerable Frederick Douglass has but recently received at the hands of that champion mourner for the poor African— ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... government. Conscious of being in the hands of a strong ruler, Egypt breathed freely after centuries of distress, and her sovereign might in all sincerity congratulate himself on having restored peace to his country. "I caused the mourner to mourn no longer, and his lamentation was no longer heard,—perpetual fighting was no longer witnessed,—while before my coming they fought together as bulls unmindful of yesterday,—and no man's welfare was assured, whether he was ignorant or learned."—"I tilled ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... also means, "Not likely!" or "Nothing doing!" By a further development it has come to mean "done for," "finished," and in extreme cases, "dead." "Poor Bill got na-poohed by a rifle-grenade yesterday," says one mourner ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... came roistering up the Trail loved this large and kind old lady, and she called them all her "boys," watching over the wild brood as a hen does over her chickens. She fed them and comforted them, nursed them and buried them, always new ones coming to take the places of those who were gone. Chief mourner at over threescore funerals, nevertheless was Mother Daly's voice always for peace and decorum; and what good she did may one day be discovered when the spurred and booted ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... is clear before us, and we are sinning if we turn out of it. Suppose we are afflicted, suppose our loved ones are taken from us; we may weep, for Jesus wept. But we must not throw down our appointed work, and sit with idle hands and gloomy regret, while the precious time slips by. The mourner who stays in her darkened room, and refuses to interest herself in anything but her sorrow, is far less a Christian mourner than she who goes forth to take up her tasks again, thinking of her lost ones as only ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... out, leadin' Waitstill, and when she come back to Jonesville she come with her, a patient mourner, good to everybody and goin' out to day's works for seventy-five cents a day, for she had no other way to live, for she wuzn't strong enough then to go on with her nursing and she hadn't a relation on earth, and the man our govermunt murdered in that Canteen represented all there wuz on ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... of the name of Pinkerton; and her son, Mr James Pinkerton, printer, Paisley, has frequently heard her refer to the fear she had entertained lest "Rob would write a song about her." His next sweetheart was Mary Allan, sister of the poet Robert Allan. This estimable woman was a sad mourner on the poet's death, and for many years wept aloud when her deceased lover was made the subject of conversation in her presence. She still survives, and a few years since, to join some relations, she emigrated to America. Some verses addressed to her by the poet she continues ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... same colour, though from so inferior an incitement, were the looks and attention of the Grattans, particularly of the father, to the black mourner whom Lady Crewe called amongst them. My garb, or the newspapers, or both, explained the dejection I attempted not to repress, though I carefully forbade it any vent - and the finely speaking face of Mr. Grattan ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... his way, and dashing on again. In King Street he came in sight of the cart once more, nearer this time. The man walking behind it with his hat in his hand had red curling hair, and walked with a curtsying gait, giving at the knees and turning out his toes. No doubt he made his living as mourner at funerals to which no other mourners came. As the cart turned into the churchyard Peer came up with it, and tried to follow at a walk, but stumbled and could hardly keep his feet. The man behind the cart looked at ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... deep agony with which he beheld his nearest, and almost his only, friend consigned to the tomb of his ancestry. A relative observed him turn deadly pale, when, all rites being now duly observed, it became the duty of the chief mourner to lower down into the charnel vault, where mouldering coffins showed their tattered velvet and decayed plating, the head of the corpse which was to be their partner in corruption. He stept to the youth and offered his assistance, which, by a mute motion, Edgar Ravenswood rejected. ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... of envy or prejudice, she told me with the most enchanting sweetness, while the tears bedewed her lovely cheeks, "Sure the world will no longer question your generosity when you take a poor forlorn beggar to your arms?" Affected with her sorrow, I pressed the fair mourner to my breast, and swore that she was more dear and welcome on that account, because she had sacrificed her friends and fortune to her love for me. My uncle, for whose character she had a great veneration, being by ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... believed implicitly in witchcraft, spoke with high respect of alchemy and astrology, and refused to believe that the earth went round the sun. He feels that his favourite creatures are doomed to extinction, and though dealing lovingly with them, speaks rather like an attached mourner at their funerals than a physician endeavouring to maintain their flickering vitality. He tries experiments and has a taste for dissection. He proves by the evidence of his senses, and believes them in spite of the general report, ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... trophies,—no banner more so that hangs beneath the cupola above the marble floor,—and she is the inheritor of his renown; for if "Providence made Washington childless that the country might call him father," Sumner is without offspring that the State may be his mourner. ...
— Senatorial Character - A Sermon in West Church, Boston, Sunday, 15th of March, - After the Decease of Charles Sumner. • C. A. Bartol
... all the state that undertakers could give to it in a little village, but with no other honours. Lord George was the chief mourner and almost the only one. One or two neighbours came,—Mr. De Baron, from Rudham Park, and such of the farmers as had been long on the land, among them being Mr. Price. But there was one person among the number ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... sister, Lady Ardagh, sometimes sobbing violently, and sometimes almost shrieking as if in terror, and calling upon her and Lady D——, with the most imploring earnestness of despair, for God's sake to lose no time in coming to her. All this was so horribly distinct, that it seemed as if the mourner was standing within a few yards of the spot where Miss F——d lay. She sprang from the bed, and leaving the candle in the room behind her, she made her way in the dark through the passage, the voice still following her, until as she arrived at the door of the sitting-room ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... somewise; and this to be that sweet and holy thing which I do name Love; and it to be my glory and Astonishment that Love hath come unto me. And with you that have love, I am as a Brother in holy delight; but with all that have not known Love, or to have missed Love, I am a Mourner, and my heart to pray that they to know this Wonder, ere they die; for else shall they die so green and bitter as they be born, and to have grown nowise unto Ripeness, which doth be Charity—the end of life ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... Joe, entangled in a little black cloak tied in a large bow under his chin, was seated apart at the upper end of the room; where, as chief mourner, he had evidently been stationed by Trabb. When I bent down and said to him, "Dear Joe, how are you?" he said, "Pip, old chap, you knowed her when she were a fine figure of a—" and clasped my hand and said ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... Abe said, "he needs it tchampanyer wine, Mawruss. Last month I seen it he gets stung two thousand by Cohen & Schondorf, and to-day he's chief mourner by the Ready Pay Store, Barnet Fischman proprietor. Barney stuck him for fifteen hundred, Mawruss, so I guess he needs it tchampanyer ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... conquest gain'd, he left his prize, He left her to complain; To talk of joy with weeping eyes, And measure time by pain. But heav'n will take the mourner's part, In pity to despair; And the last sigh that rends the heart, Shall ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... all remained looking wistfully down upon the body of our lost darling, in thought too deep for words or weeping. I then noticed that another humble mourner shared our watch—a mourner whose very existence I had nearly forgotten. It was the faithful Leo. He lay couchant on the stone floor at the foot of the bier, almost as silent as a dog of marble; the only sign of animation he gave being a deep ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... servant, and truly humble and forlorn he was that night, was placed at the coffin's head; it being part of that black night's sport to hold me as chief mourner; and, indeed, poor wretch, I had much to mourn for. The great plumed hat they had put upon me flapped and swaled over my eyes so as almost to blind me. My foot was for ever catching in my great mourning cloak, and I on the verge of tripping myself up; and there was a hot smoke sweltering from ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... reached by the power of the gospel. One man sixty-one years of age surrendered to the overtures of God's love and received Christ as his Saviour. Another of seventy-five years was pointed out to me as a hardened sinner. When approached he was full of self and reason, "I don't believe in mourner's benches and such like; do you think my going there will make me a Christian or do me any good?" "No, but it will show the people you are intending to make a start for Heaven, and it will enlist their sympathy and prayers," ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. XLII. April, 1888. No. 4. • Various
... will perform every rite that his professional ingenuity for expenditure can devise; he will employ every attendant he has; he will order vehicles numerous enough for the cortege of a president; he will even, if thrown in contact with a bewildered chief-mourner, secure a pledge for the ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... legend it would have been a fitting one; but even on the day of the funeral of the Prince the truth that peace is seldom to be found in the houses of the great was painfully illustrated. The chief mourner was Prince Napoleon, to whom had fallen the second place only at the burial of the Emperor. When the party came out of church the Prince took a ceremonious farewell of the members of our Royal Family, and then, disregarding ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... therefore be supposed to have been closely connected with him, were incapable of perceiving those merits; or at least during the act of composition had lost sight of them; for, the understanding having been so busy in its petty occupation, how could the heart of the mourner be other than cold? and in either of these cases, whether the fault be on the part of the buried person or the survivors, the memorial is ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... tacit claim to her royal rights; for that gemmed circlet was not only a badge of rank, but a pledge of affection—a token of honour and royal favour, which elevated her above the throng of beauties who filled the courts of the palace. Had she arrayed herself in sackcloth, had she appeared as a mourner, an afflicted suppliant, she would probably have found the royal voluptuary more anxious to banish one who disturbed his pleasures, than to redress the grievances that ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... to lift the general night, A certain few who stood aloof had said, "See you upon the horizon that small light - Swelling somewhat?" Each mourner shook ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... purchased a wide tract of land and made it into a cemetery. I owned also some very profitable marble works on one side of the gateway to the cemetery, and on the other an extensive flower garden. My Mourner's Emporium was patronized by the beauty, fashion and sorrow of the city. In short, I was in a very prosperous way of business, and within a year was able to send for my parents and establish my old father very comfortably ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... there" where the guns are incessantly booming, a nameless grave holds the "petit garcon," the cafe lady's son; next Sunday another mourner will join with the many in the village church and pray to the Virgin Mother for the soul of her ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... no consolation for me! What mourner can be consoled if the dead die forever? Nothing for him is left but a grave; that grave shall be in the land where the song of Ayesha first lulled him to sleep. Thou assist ME—thou, the wise man of Europe! ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... accorded freely," said the lady, mollified by his penitence. "She would be a poor mourner who quarrelled with the ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... long life of widowhood. To Burnet, the Bishop of Salisbury, she writes, in 1690: "When anything below is the object of our love, at one time or other it will be a matter of our sorrow. But a little time will put me again into my settled state of mourning; for a mourner I must be all my days on earth, and there is no need I should be other. My glass runs low: the world does not want me nor do I want it: my business is at home and within a narrow compass. I must not deny, as there was something so glorious in the ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... malign destiny accomplished only through the very chivalry and softness of the boy's nature. No hero, though; he would never have allowed his girls to build on that. And in all this rehabilitation of Jeff, as the girls saw it, there was one dark figure like the black-clad mourner at the grave who seems to deny the tenet of immortality: his wife, who had not stood by him and who was living here in Addington with her grandmother, had insisted on living with grandmother, in fact, ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... Dr. Hornblower, as he sympathetically wiped his eyes. "We were all grieving over the prospective demise of a young brother. And yet some consolation would have reached you, Miss Everett; love is the only pocket-handkerchief to wipe the mourner's eyes." ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... here! not here!" to every mourner's heart The wintry wind seemed whispering round her bier; And when the tomb-door opened, with a start We heard ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... you all think, you savage gentlemen, Until you feel my sting. Hang, hang away! It is an airy, wholesome sort of death, Much to my liking. When I hang, my friend, You'll be chief mourner, I can promise you. Hang me! I've quite a notion to be hung: I'll do my utmost ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... make friends. Make them by truth and justice, make them by generosity and usefulness. To ease every burden, and let the oppressed go free, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and what the very poorest can do—comfort the mourner; to nurse the sick, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and so keep ourselves unspotted from the selfishness of the world—This is that true Religion, acceptable in the sight of God ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... sympathy dictated at once the kindest course. Without attempting to control the torrent of grief in its full current, she gently sat her down beside the mourner.... She waited a more composed moment to offer her little stock of consolation in deep silence ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various
... long been supposed to convey certain impressions to the mind. The absence of all colour, which we call "black," symbolizes in dress, grief, pride, or dignity; according as it drapes the mourner, the Spanish grandee, or the priest.[289] Yellow being the colour of the sun and of corn and gold, represents riches, generosity, and light. Red stands between the dark and the lively colours, and represents warmth and animation, dignity, splendour, ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... looks; but perhaps he'll git over it, or I'll git used to it, or maybe when I git more used to things I'll talk to him and ask him if he can't be a little more human, instead of lookin' like the chief mourner at a funeral. It sometimes makes me feel that I'm dead and ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... the nearest relatives of the deceased victims issued from the church, seeking the carriages in waiting for them. Among those who came next was a handsome, spirited-looking girl of twenty-five, who, though not of the family group, was a sincere mourner. As she stepped forward with the elasticity of youth, glad of the fresh air on her tear-stained cheeks, it happened that she also observed the presence of the reporter, and she paused, plainly appalled. Her nostrils quivered with horrified distress, and she turned her head as though ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... Not a cloud drifts across his sky, when, without word of warning, a night of storm crushes along his world, destroys herds and servants, reduces his habitations to ruins, slays his children, leaves himself in poverty, a mourner at the funeral of all he loved. Then his world begins to wonder at him; then distrust him, as if he were evil; his glory is eclipsed, as it would seem, forever; and, as if not content at the havoc of the man's hopes and prosperity and ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... hush," said Sarah, beginning to pick up the shells, "we will soon build it up again." This they all declared impossible, and cried afresh, but Sarah persevered, and quietly went on piling up the shells, till at last one little mourner took up her coarse pinafore and wiping her eyes, said, "Sarah does it very nicely." The grotto rose beautifully, and at last they were all quiet and happy again; all but poor Susy, who, seeing herself excluded, kept up a terrible whine. ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... of poverty, with which pride had nothing to do. A coffin of the plainest materials, without pall or other covering, was borne by some of the villagers. The sexton walked before with an air of cold indifference. There were no mock mourners in the trappings of affected woe, but there was one real mourner who feebly tottered after the corpse. It was the aged mother of the deceased, the poor old woman whom I had seen seated on the steps of the altar. She was supported by a humble friend, who was endeavoring to comfort her. ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... eating beside a mourner the Master never ate his fill. On days when he had been wailing, he ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius
... boards patched together; I have seen them, on this day, in three or four instances, carrying those coffins under their arms or upon their shoulders, without a single individual in attendance upon them; without mourner or ceremony—without wailing or lamentation. The people in the street, the labourers congregated in town, regarded the spectacle without surprise; they looked on with indifference, because it was of ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... part of the premises. I fetched thence a slate and some mortar, put the slate on the hollow, secured it with cement, covered the hole with black mould, and, finally, replaced the ivy. This done, I rested, leaning against the tree; lingering, like any other mourner, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... Keeled on its rock amidst the roar Of thousand thunders, for it stood In circle of a fiery flood; And crumbling masses fiercely sent From its high frowning battlement, Smote by the shot and whistling shell, With groan and crash in ruin fell. Through desert streets the mourner passed, Midst-walls that spectral shadows east, Like some fair spirit wailing o'er The failed scenes it loved of yore; No human voice was heard to bless That place ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... "Thank you," such a mourner wrote me the other day, "for having understood the cruelty of our fate, and having pitied us. Thank you also for having exalted the pride that is mingled with our unutterable sorrow." Simply that, and no more; but she might have ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... song of sadness. But no other song comes to answer hers! One day—a day in spring-time—a turtle-dove settled on a tree hard by, and heard the maiden's song. 'Maiden,' it said, 'thou art not the only mourner! A cruel hawk has snatched my mate from me!' 'Turtle-dove, show me that cruel hawk; were it to soar higher than the clouds I would soon bring it down to earth! But who will restore to me, unhappy that I am, my brother, now in a far country?' 'Maiden, tell ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... "black job." The door of the room was quickly taken from its hinges, and the priest placed upon it at full length; a moment more sufficed to lift the door upon their shoulders, and, preceded by Tom, who lit a candle in honour of being, as he said, "chief mourner," they took their way through the camp towards Ridgeway's quarters. When they reached the hut where their victim lay, Tom ordered a halt, and proceeded stealthily into the house to reconnoitre. The old quarter-master he found stretched on his sheep-skin before a large fire, ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... garden essay was still neglected, and he wrote a pretty vague little song about an earthly mourner and a fresh presence that set him thinking of the story of Persephone and how she passed in the springtime up from the shadows again, blessing ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... that tears are vain, That Death nor heeds nor hears distress: Will this unteach us to complain? Or make one mourner weep the less? And thou—who tell'st me to forget, Thy looks are wan, ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... in haughtiness uncheck'd; Of Kriemhild's tears and sorrows her it nothing reck'd. She pitied not the mourner; she stoop'd not to the low. Soon Kriemhild took full vengeance, and woe repaid ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber |
