"Mournful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on the ruins of the past. Many centuries, with their burden of human hopes and fears, have sped away into the past, since "Hundred-gated Thebes" sheltered her teeming population, where now are but a mournful group of ruins. Yet to-day, far below the remorseless sands of her desert, we find the rude flint-flakes that require us to carry back the time of man's first appearance in Egypt to a past so remote that her stately ruins become a thing of yesterday ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... indiarubber dog which emitted a mournful whistling noise through a hole in its tummy. It was really intended for the use of the very young in their baths—to enable them to squirt a jet of water into the nurse's eye; but it worried Binks badly. The harder he bit, the harder it whistled. It seemed impossible to kill the ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... another besides, and greedily swallowed the luxurious morsels which the tempter, one after another, held up to his mouth. She then led him out, and bursting into tears, entreated his pardon for having been forced to outrage his holy eyes. She then looked mournful and inconsolable, pressed his hand warmly, and at last fell down on her knees before him. At this instant the silvery moon beamed upon her bosom, over which the gentle night-wind moved her dark, dishevelled locks. The hermit ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... out in mournful measure, but changed to a livelier strain when Don threw down a piece of money, which hit the ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... kennels, and on the grass-plat in front of the windows was a row of beehives. A tame doe lay on the little green sward, not far from a large rough deer- hound, both close friends who could be trusted at large. There was a mournful dispirited look about the hound, evidently an aged animal, for the once black muzzle was touched with grey, and there was a film over one of the keen beautiful eyes, which opened eagerly as he pricked his ears and lifted his head at the rattle of the door latch. Then, as two boys came ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in packing; and as each child saw and knew something that had belonged to its own parents, it cried and sang a little song, saying: "Mother, here is your bone needle; why did you leave your children?" "Father, here is your arrow; why did you leave your children?" It was very mournful, and ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... the axes. I was going to try to pacify them once more, when the sleeping dog awakened suddenly and, raising his head and stretching his neck, looked at the fire with his dim eyes and uttered one of those mournful howls which make travelers shudder in the darkness and solitude of the country. All eyes were focused upon him now as he rose on his front feet, as though haunted by a vision, and began to howl at something invisible, ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... 2—are there any more in C-sharp minor? If there are I cannot recall them. But this is a good showing for one key, and a minor one. Little wonder Chopin was pronounced elegiac in his tendencies—C-sharp minor is a mournful key and one that soon develops a cloying, morbid quality ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... quivered under any allusion to it; and though her diary contains many references to it, they are chiefly in the form of prayers for submission to her trial, and strength to bear it. But it was the key-note to the dirge which sounded ever after in her heart, mingling its mournful numbers with every joy, even after she had risen beyond ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... Strona's vale! We wonder not thy night's repose Is mournful, when with Donegal In distant years thou first arose: O lonely bird! we wonder not, For time the strongest heart can bow, That thou should'st heave a mournful note, Or that thy ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... members of the Methodist and Baptist churches in that State. Of this number five or six could read. Then had been torn away from the care and discipline of their respective churches, and from the means of instruction, but they retained their love for the exercises of religion; and felt a mournful pleasure in speaking of the privileges and spiritual blessings which they enjoyed in Old Virginia. Three of them had been preachers, or exhorters, viz. Solomon, usually called Uncle Solomon, Richard and David. Uncle Solomon was a grave, elderly ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... "Perdidi diem!"—'Tis a mournful story, Thus in the ear of pensive eve to tell, Of morning's firm resolves, the vanish'd glory, Hope's honey left within the withering bell And plants of mercy dead, that ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various
... man still reveals His ancient fear, a mournful knell; Like one who dreams of home, but feels The bonds of an ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... to the mirror on his bureau, carefully arranged the yellow aureole, carefully adjusted the soft light hat. Then with feeble step he descended the stairs. As he moved down the street his face was mournful and his shoulders were drooped—a stage invalid. When Hilda saw him coming she started up and gave a little cry of delight; but as she noted his woebegone appearance, a very real paleness came to her cheeks and very real tears to her ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... of woodlands, feeling our way, for the darkness was so great that I could scarcely see the length of a yard before my horse's head. The animal seemed uneasy, and would frequently stop short, prick up his ears, and utter a low mournful whine. Flashes of sheet-lightning frequently illumed the black sky and flung a momentary glare over our path. No sound interrupted the stillness of the night save the slow tramp of the horses' hoofs, and occasionally the croaking of frogs from some pool or morass. I now bethought me that ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... fancy that ever since day-break, amidst the blustering wind and roaring waters, he can detect the peculiar signal tones which the speaking-trumpet sends for many miles, and which are not drowned even by the voice of the thunder; the haunting, mournful blasts which issue from the long ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... example of their prince, and the confinement of a siege, had armed these warriors with the courage of despair, and the pathetic scene is described by the feelings of the historian Phranza, who was himself present at this mournful assembly. They wept, they embraced; regardless of their families and fortunes, they devoted their lives; and each commander, departing to his station, maintained all night a vigilant and anxious watch on the rampart. The emperor, and some faithful companions, entered the dome of St. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... engines and their trains glide away home. The shadowy figures stand round in crowds. To the reflecting mind there is something bewildering and even mournful in the survey of this huge agglomeration and of its owners, the muffled, shadowy figures, some three hundred in number, grouped together, and who will be dispersed again ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... [Starting, and gazing full in the face of the COUNTESS.] For mirth, too much—for earnest, too mournful! ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... gleam of evanescent glory, Had passed away, and all was dark once more, One golden page had lit the mournful story, Which ruthless hands with ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... the body of a sick man is apt to be agitated by even trifling grievances, so his narrow and sensitive mind, thinking every sound that stirred something either done or planned to the injury of his safety, made his victory[6] mournful by the slaughter ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... life was nothing but one continued scene of troubles and fatigues; and I am of opinion that if all the days of his life were computed in which his joys and pleasures outweighed his pain and trouble, they would be found so few that there would be twenty mournful ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... thundered and beat upon the drooping vegetation with a sound so monotonous that Suma grew accustomed to it and did not notice its existence. But the chamber in the giant tree trunk remained dry and comfortable, a little world apart from its mournful surroundings. And scarcely had she entered upon her voluntary retirement when a swarm of craneflies took up its station at the entrance. These latter were slender, almost wasplike insects with lacy wings and long, thread-like legs, that whirled and danced with ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... time after the departure of the queens, news reached Naukratis that Oroetes, the satrap of Lydia, had, by a stratagem, allured his old enemy, Polykrates, to Sardis and crucified him there, thus fulfilling what Amasis had prophecied of the tyrant's mournful end. This act the satrap had committed on his own responsibility, events having taken place in the Median kingdom which threatened the fall ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... thanks to Mr. Harry's constant care, the horse and cow were able to walk. It was a mournful procession that came into the yard at Dingley Farm. The hollow-eyed horse, and lean cow, and funny, little thin pig, staggering along in such a shaky fashion. Their hoofs were diseased, and had partly rotted away, so that they could not walk ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... it quaintly came to him as a human, living thing. It was no longer merely a picture of a few throes in the breast of a poet, meanwhile drinking tea and warming his feet at the grate; it was an actuality—stern, mournful, ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... human being, and also respectfully declined. A third made a like objection, and at last a female friend of the family was with much difficulty persuaded, in company with another, to undertake the mournful task. And yet, we repeat, there are in society, individuals who delight in contributing to the misery of others—who are eager to circulate a slander, to chronicle a ruin, to revive a forgotten error, to wound, sting, and annoy, whenever they may do so with impunity. ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... for grief," answered the Caliph, "and I comprehend that the uncertainty of your son's fate must be as terrible to bear as would be the mournful certainty of his death. You did wrong in not applying to me before: my power extends not only over believers, but also in foreign lands. Other kings and rulers I have as my servants, whose eyes see ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... base, miserable, pathetic, touching, contemptible, mournful, piteous, woful, despicable, moving, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... Markgraves, Marquises, and such like, of modern times: titles now become chimerical, and more or less mendacious, as most of our titles are,—like so many BURGS changed into "Boroughs," and even into "Rotten Boroughs," with Defensive BURGhers of the known sort: very mournful to discover. Once Norroy was not all pasteboard! At the heart of that huge whirlwind of his, with its dusty heraldries, and phantasmal nomenclatures now become mendacious, there lay, at first, always an earnest human fact. Henry the Fowler was so happy as to have the fact without any mixture ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... Holland. If she declared against us, the whole force would be in jeopardy. Such were the tidings which Castlereagh bore with him to Pitt at the end of the year.[769] Not a line survives respecting that mournful interview; but we can picture the deathly look coming over Pitt's emaciated features as he now for the first time faced the prospect of the dissolution of the mighty league which he had toiled to construct. Probably it was this shock to the system which ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... certain place, with his face away from his own house, a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back. I looked, and saw him open the book, and read therein, and as he read, he wept and trembled. His fear was so great that he brake out with a mournful cry, saying, ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... olfactories all alive, no doubt, "smelt" our cheese, and while we were gazing at the magnificent clouds, contrived to abstract our treasure! Cruel tramp! An ill return for our pence! We both wished the rind might not choke him! The mournful fact was ascertained a little before we drove into the courtyard of the house. Mr. Coleridge bore the loss with great fortitude, observing, that we should never starve with a loaf of bread and a bottle of brandy. He now, with the dexterity of an adept, admired ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... we face to face; now, sister, speak: Name but my crime, I'll fully satisfy you,— Alas! had you vouchsafed to hear me then, When I so earnest sought to meet your eye, It never would have come to this, nor would, Here in this mournful place, have happened now This so distressful, this so ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... whate'er of soft expression Thou hast taught to lovers' eyes, Faint denial, slow confession, Glowing cheeks and stifled sighs; By the pleasure and the pain, By the follies and the wiles, Pouting fondness, sweet disdain, Happy tears and mournful smiles; ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... up and down, listening to the mournful lapping of the waves on the beach, and the sigh of the dripping rain. The stimulus of excited action had passed and they felt heavy and depressed. They could see only a few yards over the lake, and must depend there upon ear to warn them of a new attack that ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... admire the beautiful landscape that unfolded itself to our gaze. Alas! it was of no moment to her whether she strolled on the poetical banks of the Teche, or rambled in the picturesque sites of Maryland. She lived in the past, and her soul was absorbed in the mournful regret of that past. For her, the universe had lost the prestige of its beauties, of its freshness, of its splendors. The radiance of her dreams was dimmed, and she breathed in an atmosphere of darkness and ...
— Acadian Reminiscences - The True Story of Evangeline • Felix Voorhies
... audience enters the portals with subdued and mournful mien. The ushers, who, in imitation of Mr. BOOTH, do a little of the classic brow and curl business themselves, chew tobacco with an air of resigned melancholy, and spit upon the carpet, as though renouncing the pleasures of the world and the ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... absolutely still, gradually letting go his hold upon the pipal twigs. Presently everything was as it had been before, except for the little dark motionless figure on the wall; and the south wind was bringing across the long, shrill, mournful howls of the jackals that plundered the refuse of the British camp ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... hear anything? Yes, he did, it seemed. He gave forth suddenly a loud shrill whinny, turning his head towards a rough lane they were approaching, and immediately from the vicinity of a deserted-looking cottage behind a hedge came a sharp but mournful-sounding neigh in answer. ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... chance to see you when we come here again," called Mayo from the wharf, looking down into the mournful countenance of the skipper. "Perhaps I'll have time to run down to Maquoit while we are discharging. At any rate, explain it all for ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... imprisoned in his dungeon, and when, his punishment being remitted, he was again allowed to wander, and seek his subsistence where he would, in all his tedious walks and solitary resting- places, during all his lonely days and mournful nights, had this resource to ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... leaders heard these words of Moses, they broke out into mournful weeping, and in the Tabernacle with bitter tears they entreated God to answer Moses' prayer, so that their cries rose even to the Throne of Glory. But then one hundred and eighty four myriads of angels under the leadership of the great angels Zakun and Lahash ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... mournful little bird, That in the twilight dim Complains how hardly he's been used, Till all must pity him. But not one word of what he did Reveals the doleful wight,— His mother's story could we hear, We might say, ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... been aroused and in a few minutes, expired. Black Hawk remained by his body during the night, and next day buried it upon the peak of the bluff. Shocked at the cruel fate of his adopted son, and deeply touched by the mournful death of his old comrade, he was roused to vengeance against the Americans, and after remaining a few days at the village, and raising a band of braves, prepared for offensive operations ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... in so humble and mournful a voice as almost to disarm Jenny's resentment; and before she had recovered enough for a reply, she was called to take leave ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Pao-y discerned the mournful expression, which still beclouded her countenance and he readily jumped at the conclusion that it must be entirely occasioned by the fate which had befallen Chin Ch'uan-erh, but when fain to put on a meek and unassuming manner, and endeavour to cheer her, he saw ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... behold George's funereal visage, I long to repeat the Dauphin's undignified offense. I would like to see this royal parcel of melancholy jump and dance; change that ever-frowning and mournful aspect of his. Indeed, I would like to treat him to one of the anecdotes that made the Duchess de Berri ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... only spot I ever wept at leaving. I loved it then, and I love it now, as I love no other place on earth and Carl felt the same way. We were mournful, indeed, ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... Most Frankfurters are, at heart, Anti-French: but Soubise's affability was perfect; and he gave evening parties of a sublime character; the Magistrates all appearing there, in their square perukes and long gowns, with a mournful joy." [Tempelhof, iii. 7-8; Stenzel, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... to-morrow, for the anniversary of the funeral of King Vittorio. And even Nelli gazed at him in wonder and affection, as he rubbed the folds of his apron of black cloth, and smiled with his clear and mournful eyes. This visit gave me a great deal of pleasure; it left something like sparks in my mind and my heart. And it pleased me, too, when they went away, to see poor Nelli between the other two tall, strong fellows, who carried him home on their arms, ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... and woe to the young man who does not hear with a quickened pulse, and brightening eye, words that promise independence, and flatter with the hope of distinction. Still, it was with all the reaction of chill and mournful disappointment that Leonard, a few hours after this dialogue with his uncle, found himself alone in the fields, and pondering over the prospects before him. He had set his heart upon completing his intellectual education, upon developing those powers within him which yearned for an arena of literature, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... their nation who had fallen into his hands, and told him that he might expect to be treated in like manner; adding, that if he had any spirit, he would prove it by singing. He immediately chanted forth his death-song, and then his war-song, and all the songs he knew, 'but in a very mournful strain,' says Champlain, who was not then aware that all savage music has a melancholy character. The tortures which succeeded, accompanied by all the horrors which we shall mention hereafter, terrified the French, who made every effort to put a stop to them, but in vain. ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... were it mine with the sacred Maro's art To wake to sympathy the feeling heart, Like him the smooth and mournful verse to dress In all the pomp of exquisite distress ... ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... of torpor. In their movement, undulating and caressing like that of water, there is always a threat of unforeseen frost. The high latitude, the difficulty of life, the inflexibility of their autocratic regime, the heavy and mournful sky, the inexorable climate, all these harsh fatalities have left their mark upon the Muscovite race. A certain somber obstinacy, a kind of primitive ferocity, a foundation of savage harshness which, under ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... been ordered by the administration of the country, which was desirous of doing honour to the virtues of Virginia. But when the mournful procession arrived at the foot of this mountain, within sight of those cottages of which she had been so long an inmate and an ornament, diffusing happiness all around them, and which her loss had now filled ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... eating dust, then salt and bitter as after a drink of sea-water. He wiped his damp forehead, passed his tongue over parched lips, felt a shiver run down his back. The big assessor had dropped his eyelids, and drummed on without a sound, careless and mournful; the eyes of the other above the sunburnt, clasped fingers seemed to glow with kindliness; the magistrate had swayed forward; his pale face hovered near the flowers, and then dropping sideways over the arm of his chair, he rested ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... the Puritans had ruthlessly destroyed them. But they were nearly all there, nearly twenty generations of the bearers of an ancient name, for even those of them who perished on the scaffold had been borne here for burial. The place was eloquent of the dead and of the mournful lesson of mortality. From century to century the bearers of that name had walked in these fields, and lived in yonder Castle, and looked upon the familiar swell of yonder ground and the silver flash of yonder river, and now their ashes were gathered here ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... the Marquis de Villarel to give me a few words for him, because my uncle has a great influence in his district; and the Marquis penned with his own hand some compliments and an inquiry about the spirit of the population. My uncle read the letter, looked up at me with an air of mournful awe, and begged me to tell his excellency that the people were all for God, their lawful King and their old privileges. I said to him then, after he had asked me about the health of His Majesty in an ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... removed her hands and gazed at him with wet, mournful eyes. Michael put his arm round her and ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... steals softly back, Anxious to know the fate of some lov'd friend. Mutual fears appal the mingled group, Starting alternate at the unknown tongue: They fear a foe in each uncertain form That through the gloom imperfectly appears. The mournful horrors of the doleful night Melt every heart: ... and when the morning's beam Shews the sad scene, and gives an interview, Resentment, that worst torment of the mind, Resentment ceases, satiate wrath subsides. Woman is present: and so strong the charm Of weeping Woman's fascinating tears, That though ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... course it was nothing. The wind, which had shaken the house with several strong gusts before dinner, had now grown stronger and blew with steadily increasing violence; perhaps the sad old man had been attracted by the mournful chorus and imagined some sound he ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... through the streets of Ching-fow, which were in a great measure deserted owing to the command of Tung Fel, he was aware of many mournful and foreboding sounds which accompanied him on all sides, while shadowy faces, bearing signs of intolerable anguish and despair, continually formed themselves out of the wind. By the time he reached the Yamen a tempest of exceptional violence was in progress, nor were ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... liked the idea of company, and besides I was none too well fixed; yet I dreaded a mournful widow that wasn't all there anyway, according to what they said, but I thought I'd try. Well, sir, she come, and that first week I thought I'd never stand it, she talked and wrung her hands so continual. But one day what do you think happened? ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... Ventidius, by Antony's command, sent a thousand horsemen, and two legions, as auxiliaries to Herod, against Antigonus. Now Antigonus besought Macheras, who was their general, by letter, to come to his assistance, and made a great many mournful complaints about Herod's violence, and about the injuries he did to the kingdom; and promised to give him money for such his assistance; but he complied not with his invitation to betray his trust, ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... plains below; Or in the pendent rocks elude the scenting foe. He bade the silver majesty of night, Revolve her circle, and increase her light. But if one moment thou thy face should'st hide, Thy glory clouded, or thy smiles denied, Then widow'd nature veils her mournful eyes, And vents her grief, in universal cries! Then gloomy death, with all his meagre train; Wide o'er the nations spreads his iron reign! Sea, earth, and air, the bounteous ravage mourn, And all their hosts to native dust return! ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... now, as was the welcome he would have given. There was no fire in the chimney, and even all the signs of the fire of the other day had been carefully cleared away; the clean empty fireplace looked a mournful assurance that its cheerfulness would not soon come back again. It was a raw disagreeable day; the paper window-shades fluttered uncomfortably in the wind, which had its way now; and the very chairs ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... to be the foundation stone of society and indeed the very purpose of its existence. His Pessimism resembles far more the optimism which the so-called Books of Moses borrowed from the Ancient Copt than the mournful and melancholy creed of the true Pessimist, as Solomon the Hebrew, the Indian Buddhist and the esoteric European imitators of Buddhism. He cannot but sigh when contemplating the sin and sorrow, the pathos and bathos of the world; and feel the pity ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... shivers lightly in the rain, The laurels drip, the fading roses fall, The marble satyr plays a mournful strain That ...
— Rivers to the Sea • Sara Teasdale
... observed by Churchill, (New Gram., p. 387,) that, "Shakspeare has used the dactyl, as appropriate to mournful occasions." The chief example which ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... care, though unnamed and invisible, being nevertheless present alway, in the minds of at least three persons there. My lord was exceeding gentle and kind. Whenever he quitted the room, his wife's eyes followed him. He behaved to her with a kind of mournful courtesy and kindness remarkable in one of his blunt ways and ordinary rough manner. He called her by her Christian name often and fondly, was very soft and gentle with the children, especially with the boy, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 'We remember the onions!' cried the children of Israel, looking wistfully back at Egypt, 'but now we have nothing but this manna!' The onions actually destroyed their appetite for angels' food! That, I repeat, is the most mournful aspect of our modern and insatiable passion for piquancy. If I let my soul absorb itself in the sensational novel, the hair-raising drama, and the blood-curdling film, I find myself losing appreciation for the finer and gentler things in life. I no longer glory, as I used to do, in the ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... to find out the cause of her sorrow; but in vain. She went to bed with the same heart-broken appearance, and in less than an hour, I was summoned. In her delirium she has been calling upon her dear Ruth, beseeching you with the most mournful earnestness to pity and ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... it the sprout of an idea had shoved through the graveyard ground of Honey Tone's dejection. In mournful tones, hardly hoping that success would attend his latest scheme, he announced it to his guardian deppities. "Brethren, yo' leadeh's efforts has been rewarded like de oil in de widow's croose. F'm now on us pays back de original 'scription wid a hund'ed per cent ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... distrust. Vehement indignation at "the solemn plausibilities" of the world pervades the "Robbers." In "Don Carlos," (commenced in this period, though published much later,) the passion is no longer vehement indignation, but mournful sorrow—not indignation that hypocrisy reigns, but sorrow that honesty cannot triumph—not indignation that formal vice usurps the high places of the world, but sorrow that, in the world, warm and generous virtue glows, and feels, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... "Don't touch me. I won't bear it. Never again. I belong to somebody else, don't you know? You have no business to be here." Basil was not near her, indeed she would not have recognised him if he had been; he was sitting by the fire at a distance; but he knew whom she was addressing in her mournful ravings, and his heart and courage almost gave way. It was very bitter; and many an hour of those nights the minister spent on his knees at the bed's foot, seeking for strength and wisdom, seeking to keep his heart from being quite broken, striving to know what to do. Should he do as ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... barely covered with a filthy cloth and a ragged pair of trousers, a child of nine years old was lying motionless, his back bent, his face wan and wasted with misery, and his features exhibiting an expression of mournful apathy and rigid unintelligence. His head and neck were fretted by purulent sores, his legs and arms were lengthened disproportionately, his knees and wrists were covered with blue and yellow swellings, his feet and hands unlike in appearance to human flesh, and ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... through the glazed roof, re-gilded the tarnished gas-stars, and suffused the dusty atmosphere with palest gold. But somehow the utter absence of excitement in the crowd, the calm, methodical tone of the auctioneer, and the occasional mournful cry of "Lot here, gentlemen!" from the porter when any article was too large to move, all served to depress Ventimore's usually ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... and wan, He looked so great and high, So noble was his manly front, So calm his steadfast eye;— The rabble rout forbore to shout, And each man held his breath, For well they knew the hero's soul Was face to face with death. And then a mournful shudder Through all the people crept, And some that came to scoff at him Now ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... night has descended and the valley below is blotted out by the darkness. Then from the copse beyond the orchard there sounds the mournful threnody of the owl. The day is over, he says, and all is lost. "Tu-whit, tu-whoo." I only am left to tell the end of all things. "Tu-whit, tu-whoo." I've told it all before a thousand times, but you wouldn't believe ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... maturity, or to run through the same delusive but fatal career as that of the parents from whom they derived their existence."[FN5] There is scarcely an individual who reads these facts, to whom memory will not furnish some sad and mournful example of their truth; though they perhaps may have hitherto been in ignorance of ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... who had often administered consolation to his unhappy mistress over her brother's tomb, and who knelt by the side of her dying couch, assured many a sorrowful vassal, and many a sympathising pilgrim who loved to listen to the mournful tale, that her death was indeed a beatitude; for he did not doubt, from the distracted expressions that occasionally caught his ear, that the Holy Spirit, in that material form he most loves to honour, to wit, the semblance of a pure white dove, often solaced ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... heads have been bared by time or blasted by the thunderstorm strike the eye, as a mournful sound does the ear in music, and seem to beckon to the sentimental traveller to stop a moment or two and see that the forests which surround him, like men and kingdoms, have their ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... and sad as she spoke, and the truth that was in her mournful words was not to be denied by Dante. But all the ardors of his being were spurred by his consciousness that he had made known his love for her, and that she, surely, had scarcely done less than confess her love for him, and while such ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... to be commiserated is the task of the feeling historian who writes the history of his native land. If it fell to his lot to be the recorder of calamity or crime, the mournful page is watered with his tears—nor can he recall the most prosperous and blissful era without a melancholy sigh at the reflection that it has passed away for ever! I know not whether it be owing to an immoderate love for the simplicity ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... the sea—the faint stir of life in the beautiful anemones had lost its interest. I could not smile at the King Crabs; the reading tables and the music had no interest for me; outwardly I was walking through the magnificent halls of the Aquarium—inwardly my heart was beating to the mournful rhythms of the sea. The clock had not struck seven when I came out, and there lying before me ...
— The Tragedy of the Chain Pier - Everyday Life Library No. 3 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... Helen, laughing. "What will you do after the knot is really tied? You speak in the mournful tone of one who reads 'Lasciate ogni speranza' ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... dark, and the voice of the ocean was infinitely mournful and sublime. No wonder, I thought, that life had seemed very short and uncertain to Lovell as he stood in the ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... sadden the glorious speech of Demosthenes; such as breathes grand and gloomy from visions of the prophets of the last days of Israel and Judah; such as gave a spell to the expression of Grattan and of Kossuth—the sweetest, most mournful, most awful of the words which man may utter, or which man may hear—the eloquence ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... mothers and fathers had been sick and sad many times since they landed from the Mayflower; they had worked very hard, often had not had enough to eat, and were mournful indeed when their friends died and left them. But now they tried to forget all this, and think only of how good God had been to them; and so they all were happy together at the first ...
— The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin
... pause, "it is a rugged and a mournful lot this renunciation of earth and all its fair destinies and soft affections, to one not wholly prepared and armed for the sacrifice. Confide in me, my child; I am no dire inquisitor, seeking to distort thy words to thine own peril. I am no bitter and morose ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book V. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... stream. I had been a little ailing for a day or two, and my sleep was not as sound as it usually was even in close contact with the hostile lines. In the wakeful hours the loss of my friend and able staff officer, Captain Saunders, filled me with mournful thoughts; for though the daily work under fire had exposed all the little circle at headquarters to casualties, our good fortune hitherto had bred a sort of confidence in immunity, and the sudden fall of him who had been the centre of the staff group and ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... Early the next morning we prepared for our return, and soon quitted these lovely and fertile plains, where many thousand families might live in plenty and comfort, but which now, from their utter loneliness, leave a mournful impression on the mind, increased by the reflection that the native Indians have been nearly exterminated. During our return voyage, we were very diligent in taking soundings, and found the water in the middle of the river ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... and flowerless window High from thy roof moss-covered with neglect, O humble hut of the first bloom of time! It is the tune the lone-owl always plays Blowing upon the cursed flute of night Its lingering shrill notes of mournful measure, Herald of woe and prophet ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... would like to know it," returned she. "I fancy he is some relation of that pale Dilly Danforth's, for he has just such mournful eyes." ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... when culverin And gun and bomb were sleeping, Before the camp with mournful mien, The loveliest embassy were seen, All kneeling low and weeping. So sweetly, plaintively they prayed, But no reply save ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... selected my place in the graveyard," he said, with a mournful shake of the head. "Put me close to the fence behind the raspberry thicket, where I shall be secure. Tell ...
— "George Washington's" Last Duel - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... to the caravan. They found on this the first day's journey that some other precautions were necessary to enable the bearers of the mournful burden to keep to their task. Sending to Chitambo's village, they brought thence the cask of tar which they had deposited with the chief, and gave a thick coating to the canvas outside. This answered all purposes; they left the remainder at the next village, ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... tree not far away began and maintained for a long time its monotonous "hoot-a-hoot a-hoo," while away in the distant forest gloom, rising at times shrill and distinct above the fitful wind, he heard the wail of the catamount or panther, the saddest and most mournful sound that ever broke the solitude of forest gloom. A sound at times so like the shrieking wail of a child in mortal agony, that heard close at hand it has caused the face of many a brave wife of the backwoods settler, ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... asked Rodd, directly after, as a low, deep, mournful sound came from amongst the trees upon the shore, sounding like a piteous cry for help from ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... maidens cease to sing, And the young men are very sad; Therefore the sowing is not glad, And mournful is the harvesting. 70 Of high and low, of great and small, Vanity ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... some, alas! watch in vain. Not every one returns who takes the elbow of the brae bravely, or waves his handkerchief to those who watch from the window with wet eyes, and some return too late. To Jess, at her window always when she was not in bed, things happy and mournful and terrible came into view. At this window she sat for twenty years or more looking at the world as through a telescope; and here an awful ordeal was gone through after her sweet untarnished soul had been ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... to his guiding principles, a practitioner of the detective arts in some of their least savory phases; had haunted doorsteps, lurked upon corners, been rained upon, snowed upon, possibly spat upon, even arrested; all of which he accepted, mournful but uncomplaining. One cannot whole-heartedly serve an ideal and come off scatheless. He was adroit, well-spoken, smooth of surface, easy of purse, untiring, supple, and of an inexhaustible good-humor. It was from the ex-medical student that Marrineal ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... too much practised in our present mournful times: as Pride, Drunkenness, Blasphemous Swearing, together with the Profanation of the Sabbath; concluding with the sin of wantonness and disobedience; that upon our hearty sorrow and forsaking the same the Lord may save us for ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... not the harsh, bitter voice whose mocking echoes had haunted her ears during his absence, but a tone so low and deep and mournful, so inexplicably sweet, and she could not recognize it as his, and, unable to utter a word, she put her hand in his outstretched palm. His fingers closed over it with a pressure that was painful, ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... life? Had it been so, wherefore did I not spring to those heavenly lips with tears and never-ending kisses? But so it was not. I stood checked for a moment; awe, not fear, fell upon me; and whilst I stood, a solemn wind began to blow,—the most mournful that ear ever heard. Mournful! that is saying nothing. It was a wind that had swept the fields of mortality for a hundred centuries. Many times since, upon a summer day, when the sun is about the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... been decided by Miss Murray that, under the circumstances, it will be wiser for her to postpone the celebration of her marriage to some time and place less fraught with mournful suggestions. A telegram has just been sent to the Bishop to that effect, and while we all suffer from this disappointment, I am sure there is no one here who will not see the ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... let me oft, retired by day, In dreams of passion melt away, Allow'd with thee to dwell: There waste the mournful lamp of night, 40 Till, Virgin, thou again delight ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... solitary "resurgam" meets the enquiring eye; its white-robed priest reverently committing "earth to earth," in sure and certain hope "of a joyful resurrection" to the slumbering clay, that was wont to worship within the grey and time-stained walls, whence the mournful train have now borne him to his last rest; while on the ivy-clad tower fall the slanting golden beams of an autumnal sun, that, in its declining glory, seems to whisper of hope and consolation to the sorrowful ones, reminding them that the night of the tomb shall ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... that the Bard looks upon the dark hue of his accoutrements as ominous of a mournful and ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... kings of heroic song have left us exemplars of Games. The occasions are similar and mournful, although the contests are inspired by, and inspire a jocund mood. At the funeral of Patroclus, Achilles appoints eight games. He gives prizes for a chariot-race, a cestus-fight, a wrestling-match, a foot-race, a lance-fight, a disk-hurling, a strife of archery and of darters. AEneas, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... 'In short, 'tis out of the question that a human being can be so mournful as black edges half-an-inch wide. I'm sure people don't feel more than a very narrow border when they feels most ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy |
