"Regrets" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Christians are allowed on all hands to be of great importance, and to be invested with a peculiar interest; and regrets have often been expressed that it should be so difficult to know their contents. Many of them are mere fragments; and where complete works exist, the text is often so corrupt, and the style is so involved, that even a good classical scholar is repelled ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... have one. There has been no period of flood in his tide which might lead him on to fortune. While he has been waiting patiently for high water the ebb has come upon him. Mr. Prendergast himself had been a successful man, and his regrets, therefore, were philosophical rather than practical. As for Herbert, he did not look upon the question at all in the same light as his elderly friend, and on the whole was rather exhilarated by the tone of Mr. Prendergast's sarcasm. Perhaps ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... The silvery vapour hung serenely on the far horizon, and the frosty stars blinked brightly. Everyone knows the effect of such a scene on a mind already saddened. Fancies and regrets float mistily in the dream, and the scene affects us with a strange mixture of memory and anticipation, like some sweet old air heard in the distance. As my eyes rested on those, to me, funereal but glorious woods, which ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... of such regrets,' she continued with a little embarrassment 'He insists on the good that will be done ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... rebel vizir had hated me from my boy-hood, because once, when shooting at a bird with a bow, I had shot out his eye by accident. Of course I not only sent a servant at once to offer him my regrets and apologies, but I made them in person. It was all of no use. He cherished an undying hatred towards me, and lost no occasion of showing it. Having once got me in his power I felt he could show no mercy, and I was right. Mad with triumph and fury he came to me in my prison and tore out my right ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... belonged. It had not occurred to him until that morning, either, that his mother might be hurt that he had not chosen her church. But when he spoke to her about it she shook her head and smiled. She was only glad of what he was doing. There were no regrets. She was too broad minded to stop about creeds. She was sitting there meekly over by the wall now, her hands folded quietly in her lap, tears of joy in her eyes. She, too, had seen Ruth Macdonald and was glad, ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... would both of us avoid if we could only have another chance!" said Lady Laura. "If I could only be as I was before I persuaded myself to marry a man whom I never loved, what a paradise the earth would be to me! With me all regrets ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... I've had a letter from Count Mario at Paris saying that he will require this apartment for his own use. He regrets to be compelled to disturb you, but having frequently apprised you of his ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... me ... somehow: till ... your news came. And—look! The Bracelet! I hesitated a long time. If you hadn't been engaged, I'm not sure if I would have ventured. But I did—and you're here. It's all been her doing, Roy, first and last. Don't let's spoil any of it with regrets." ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... the recent memorandum from Ambassador von Bernstorff on American neutrality; the American answer regrets use of language that seems to impugn our good faith, and it restates our position; it declares that we have at no time yielded any of our rights as a neutral, and that we cannot prohibit exportation of arms to belligerents, because ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... clothing of the labourer, and the clothing of the labourer than the food which he consumes." (Principles of Political Economy, 1817, p. 22.) The last sentence is conclusive in its inclusion under capital of goods in the possession of labourers. McCulloch again regrets Smith's exclusion of "revenue" from capital, insisting that "it is enough to entitle an article to be considered capital that it can directly contribute to the support of man or assist him in appropriating or producing commodities," and he would even go ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... "Miss STANLEY regrets that she cannot explain to General Clarendon the circumstances which have so much displeased him. She assures him that no want of confidence has been, on her part, the cause; but she cannot expect that, without further explanation, he should give her credit for ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... Marosfalva and joined in the bustle and the singing. They had got over the pang of departure from home half an hour or an hour ago; they had already left the weeping mothers and sweethearts behind, so now they set to with a will in true Hungarian fashion to drown regrets and stifle unmanly tears by singing their favourite songs at the top of their rough voices, and ogling those girls of Marosfalva who ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... again had not entered his calculations, had found no place in his dreams. They were, he conceived, irrevocably and for ever parted. Yet, in spite of this, in spite even of the persuasion that to her this reflection that was his torment could bring no regrets, he had kept the thought of her ever before him in all those wild years of filibustering. He had used it as a curb not only upon himself, but also upon those who followed him. Never had buccaneers been so rigidly ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... early spring came the close of school term, and teacher, pupils and parents parted with mutual regrets. My pecuniary reward was small; but I shall always remember with pleasure the kind assurances received that I left the intellectual status of that town much higher than I found it. I have visited the place only once since, but my old friends had all passed on to the higher life, ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... been in an agony of vain regrets; I rather expected from moment to moment to be drowned in an inundation of such sensations, I was more than a little surprised at my actual feelings. Here I was, hitherto a wealthy Roman nobleman in excellent standing with my fellows, my superiors ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... prepared an alibi; he should not have used a knife; he should have been more cautious, and only bound and gagged the dealer, and not killed him; he should have been more bold, and killed the servant also; he should have done all things otherwise: poignant regrets, weary, incessant toiling of the mind to change what was unchangeable, to plan what was now useless, to be the architect of the irrevocable past. Meanwhile, and behind all this activity, brute terrors, like the scurrying of rats in a deserted attic, filled the more remote chambers ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in love with a woman, you know how it cuts short the days, and with what loving listlessness one drifts into the morrow. You know that forgetfulness of everything which comes of a violent confident, reciprocated love. Every being who is not the beloved one seems a useless being in creation. One regrets having cast scraps of one's heart to other women, and one can not believe in the possibility of ever pressing another hand than that which one holds between one's hands. The mind admits neither work ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... President, I am so happy to be in your beautiful country," then the marshal to me: "Madame Waddington je vous en prie, dites a Madame Grant que je ne puis pas repondre; je ne comprends pas l'anglais; je ne puis pas parler avec elle." "Mrs. Grant, the marshal begs me to say to you that he regrets not being able to talk with you, but unfortunately he does not understand English." Then there was a pause and Mrs. Grant began again: "What a beautiful palace, Mr. President. It must be delightful with that charming garden." Again the marshal to me: "Mais je vous en prie Madame, dites ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... spring came, and Rupert said that he must be going, the regrets of the miller and his wife were deep, and by offer of higher pay they tried to get him to stay. Rupert however was, of course, unable to accede to their request, and was glad when they received a letter from a son in the army, saying that he had been laid up with ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... equally regrets that, the majority of the Governments represented at the Hague Conference, had not taken any steps to assure the respect of resolutions which were to them ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot
... little time, however, for regrets. Our combined weight had raised the bow a trifle, yet not enough to prevent the sea from coming in; and, as the skipper, who was laboring with the steering-oar, said, the small whaler was "hoopin' along, takin' everything as it came, and askin' no questions." Now by the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... and her heart was full of wistful longings. Yes, she felt she was a foolish girl, but she was always intending to grow into a sensible and useful wife; and, with this virtuous intention in her mind, she tried to banish all vain regrets, and a serious, composed little ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... long range. So we returned to our island camp in no very good mood, but a successful troll for lake-trout, and a good supper off two fine fellows baked under the coals in birch jackets, sent us to bed in good spirits and with no regrets save ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... a quality that a new caprice had taken its place so soon, she was well rid of it. That this had been so the letter which Lord Hurdly had shown her sufficiently attested, and she must guard herself against the folly of sentimental regrets. ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... the Professor, "what an opportunity! Why, I would give worlds to see it," he added with a laugh. "It has been one of the regrets of my life that I did not ask the Nawab's permission to inspect those clasps. To my thinking, the inscriptions must have been of that so-called talismanic kind in which these weak heathen believe. Now, do you think it possible that you could prevail ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... French were taken up with unavailing protests and regrets the British were rejoicing with their whole heart. Their loss had been small. Only a twentieth of their naval and military total had been killed or wounded, or had died from sickness, during the seven weeks' siege. Their gain had been great. The ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... tongues, were invented in a certain order by persons, not speaking a language learned chiefly from their fathers, but uttering a new one as necessity prompted. But when or where, since the building of Babel, has this ever happened? That no dates are given, or places mentioned, the reader regrets, but he ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... after a conversation on his beloved Marion, a few natural regrets would pass his lips, and my tears tell how deep was my sympathy, then he would turn to comfort me; then he would show me the world beyond this-that world which is the aim of all his deeds, the end of all his travails-and, lost in the rapturous idea of meeting ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... undertakes, for his later-born children at Srignan, the duties which he formerly performed for the elder family at Orange: he teaches them himself; he has much to do with them, for their sake and for his own as well, for he is jealous of possessing them, and he regrets parting with them. They too have their ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... bows to the shrine of beauty when beckoned by this mysterious agent seldom regrets it. Devenant reproached himself for not having made inquiries concerning the girl before he left the market in the morning. His stay in the city was to be short, and the yellow fever was raging, which caused him to feel like making a still earlier departure. The disease appeared ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... and graciousness of manner; they never changed; and it was on her genuine goodness of disposition and righteousness of intention that her German friends relied for producing an amendment as she grew older, far more than on any regrets for the past, or intentions of improvement for the future, which might be wrung from her by ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... How pleasant is it to be in company with those who are conciliating and unassuming! But how much is every one disgusted with the presence of those who assume airs of importance, and are continually saying, by their conduct, that they think themselves deserving particular attention! No one regrets to see such self-conceit humbled. When such persons meet with misfortune, no one appears to regret it, no ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott
... regrets that he cannot escort you further but he is called suddenly to the front." There was a pause, then, with an impudent grin, he continued, "Of course you know that in time of war, all alien property is confiscate? You will give me what ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... Lopp had visited the mission at Cape Prince of Wales this spring and discovered that the buildings, furniture and supplies were in good condition. Mr. Lopp, in response to our request, has consented to return to the Cape and re-open the mission. He greatly regrets that an ordained minister was not sent, and expresses the earnest hope that another season this necessary addition will be made, but he consents to return and do the best he can. He has little fear of violence ...
— The American Missionary — Vol. 48, No. 10, October, 1894 • Various
... and then I said as much as one man can say to another, for you know a woman can say much more to a man in the way of reproof than he would bear from his own sex; but he silenced me very quickly by regrets and good resolutions. It was after that our little niece, Selina, made an ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... which was bestowed on him about Oxford: and Mrs. Edmonstone was convinced that no one could have more anxiety to do right and avoid temptation. She had many talks with him in her dressing-room, promising to write to him, as did also Charles; and he left Hollywell with universal regrets, most loudly expressed by Charlotte, who would not be comforted without a lock of Bustle's hair, which she would have worn round her neck if she had not been afraid that Laura would ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was due. If they have failed to do so in any particular case, it has been an oversight, for which the Publishers are not responsible, as their instructions on this point were definite, and for which the Editors express their regrets. Future editions will offer an opportunity for the correction, which will be ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... Alain at the hour fixed. "In the first place," said Raoul, "I must beg you to accept my mother's regrets that she cannot receive you to-day. She and the Contessa belong to a society of ladies formed for visiting the poor, and this is their day; but to-morrow you must dine with us en famille. Now to business. Allow me to light my cigar ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in regrets for the apparent neglect which the sylvan deities must naturally feel by his temporary absence from their select ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... to see and learn that Don found it impossible to be moody; and, for the most part, his homesickness and regrets were felt merely when he went to his hammock at nights; while the time spent unhappily there was very short, for fatigue ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... there's not a minute of time to spend in vain regrets. You must help the police. You know nearly all the byways and blind alleys of this part of London. You can give valuable ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... be forgotten that this fog is often the result of misapprehension and mistake, giving rise to all kinds of indignations, resentments, and regrets. Scarce anything about us is just as it seems, but at the core there is truth enough to dispel all falsehood and reveal life as unspeakably divine. O brother, sister, across this weary fog, dim-lighted by the faint torches of our truth-seeking, I call to the divine in ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... is a recollection of the dead to which we turn ever from the charms of the living Oh, the grave! the grave! It buries every error, covers every defect, extinguishes every resentment. From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections. * * * The grave of those we loved—what a place for meditation. There it is that we call up in long review the whole history of virtue and gentleness, and the thousand endearments lavished upon us almost unheeded in the daily intercourse of intimacy; there it ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... better return than my abrupt and rather churlish departure from "Wake Robin," and, if it isn't already too late to restore myself to your graces, I hope you will accept my regrets and apologies, and the sketch from Thimble Island, which goes to you by express. I hope you will like it. I do. That's why I've giving it to you. But it's hardly complete without the wrecked monoplane and the ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... my luncheon," he said. "You all heard that stupid outburst of Millicent's last night; so there is no harm in telling you that she regrets it. She ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... on the 23rd of July, 1581, repentant and submissive. His heart, after his decease, was found "shrivelled to the dimensions of a walnut," a circumstance attributed to poison by some, to remorse by others. His regrets; his early death, and his many attractive qualities, combined to: save his character from universal denunciation, and his name, although indelibly stained by treason, was ever mentioned with pity rather than ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... overthrown. Wolsey, who since the beginning of the year had remained at York, though busy in appearance with the duties of his see, was hoping more and more as the months passed by for his recall. But the jealousy of his political enemies was roused by the King's regrets, and the pitiless hand of Norfolk was seen in the quick and deadly blow which he dealt at his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... poison the sea, and snaps your head off savagely whenever you happen to blunder within earshot. And these vagaries are the harder to bear patiently, as becomes a man and an officer, because no sailor is really good-tempered during the first few days of a voyage. There are regrets, memories, the instinctive longing for the departed idleness, the instinctive hate of all work. Besides, things have a knack of going wrong at the start, especially in the matter of irritating trifles. And there is the abiding thought of ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... well enough to see me for a second time. The servant took every fresh batch of drawings that I mounted and restored back to his master with my "respects," and returned empty-handed with Mr. Fairlie's "kind compliments," "best thanks," and "sincere regrets" that the state of his health still obliged him to remain a solitary prisoner in his own room. A more satisfactory arrangement to both sides could not possibly have been adopted. It would be hard to say which of us, under the circumstances, felt the most grateful sense of obligation to Mr. ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... than you have asked that question, and wiser men than I have refused to answer. As for me, I've never had the courage to take the plunge. However, the worst you can get is a heartbreak and a lifetime of regrets. But, of course, the woman takes some chances, ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... was called by some Iskander Kala, in honor of Alexander the Macedonian, and by others Ghiaour Kala, attributing its foundation to Zoroaster, the founder of the Magian religion, a thousand years before Christ. So I should advise you to put your regrets in the ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... silver fox skin been Eli's own, and perhaps had his father and mother not built so many hopes and laid so many plans upon the little fortune it was to have brought them, Eli would never have ventured to the verge of murder to recover it. Even now, with all his regrets, he thanked God from the bottom of his heart that he had not killed Indian Jake and stained his hands ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... States war-ships at the Brazilian station enabled American smugglers to run in cargoes, in spite of the prohibitory law. One cargo of five hundred slaves was landed in 1852, and the Correio Mercantil regrets "that it was the flag of the United States which covered this act of piracy, sustained by citizens of that great nation."[45] When the Brazil trade declined, the illicit Cuban trade greatly increased, and the British consul reported: "Almost all the slave expeditions ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... somewhat nervously: "I suppose that, like most young men, I have regrets concerning my earlier life. There are some things that I am sorry for having done, and other duties that I have neglected, for which delinquencies ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor
... there is almost an entire dependence of man to man. Every one can not fill the highest positions, but they should make the best possible use of the faculties that are given them. If this is done there will be no regrets in the future in regard to what might have been done in the past. Life will then be thought worth living and much more happiness will cluster around it than ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... know whether later, when he found himself checked by recurrent illness, he regretted having chosen to encounter that ordeal in Brazil. He was a man who wasted no time over regrets. The past for him was done. The material out of which he wove his life was the present or the future. Days gone were as water that has flowed under the mill. Acting always from what he regarded as the best motives of the present, he faced with equal heart whatever result they brought. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... seems to have practised all the mischief he invented; and the festival days, when "a standing table was kept," were accompanied by dicing, and much gaming, oaths, execrations, and quarrels: being of a serious turn of mind, he regrets this, for he adds, "the sport, of itself, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... at last in the warm moist earth, but to the gods shall no ceasing ever come from being the Things that were the gods. When Time and worlds and death are gone away nought shall then remain but worn regrets and Things that were ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... aime une fois en sa vie, non pour le moment ou l'on aime, car on n'eprouve alors que des tourmens, des regrets, de la jalousie: mais peu a peu ces tourmens-la deviennent des souvenirs, qui charment notre arriere saison:... et quand vous verrez la vieillesse douce, facile et tolerante, vous pourrez dire comme Fontenelle: L'amour a passe par-la. —Scribe: ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... and expressed her regrets in a few prettily turned sentences. "It was nothing," said the Baron. "The greatest ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... boat had been lowered, and, with Mr. Walters as steersman, was being pulled toward the land. Now Neal and Teddy were sorry they had not accompanied the sailing master; but it was too late for regrets, and the odor did not seem to be nearly as disagreeable since they knew from ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... in the attempt to lynch Jack were sincerely sorry. Their regrets would not have availed much, however, if they had succeeded in their purpose. They gave each of the children ten acres of land; they gave Ted sixty-five, and me, whom they pleased to consider very plucky, one hundred and fifty acres. ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... regrets was that she had missed seeing the meeting between Mr. Morton and her aunt, and that she was perhaps keeping the latter from enjoying as much of his company as she might otherwise have done. There were many things she wanted to do with Miss Britton when allowed ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... ... which would prove that I had not wasted the advantage I had enjoyed, and would give me occupation and amusement for many years to come! And now ... I had not one specimen to illustrate the unknown lands I had trod, or to call back the recollection of the wild scenes I had beheld! But such regrets were vain ... and I tried to occupy myself with the state of things ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... received my thanks and regrets with smiling acquiescence; and just then a very stout little old priest (who has baptized nearly all the babies in Pisa for fifty years) came in, and the baptism proceeded without my intervention. But I remained, somehow, ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... opinions of persons who have acted an important part on the political scene, and how those opinions developed themselves. By a fatality much to be regretted, the elements of these investigations are rarely numerous or faithful. We shall not have to express these regrets relative to Bailly. Each composition shows us the serene, candid, and virtuous mind of the illustrious writer, in a new and true point of view. The eloge of Charles V. was the starting point, followed by a long ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... anguish and poignant regrets passed over poor Mademoiselle's head—ten years employed in imploring and bargaining for the restoration of her dearly beloved captive. "Consider what you have it in your power to do to please the King, in order that he may grant you that which you have so much at heart," was ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... understanding that the case required, whatever portion of indignation or malice he might conceal in his heart. Neither was Elizabeth a novice in the arts of feigning; and even without the promptings of those tender regrets which accompany a sacrifice extorted by reason from inclination, she would have been careful, by every manifestation of friendship and esteem, to smooth over the affront which her change of purpose had compelled ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... Sinclair in the well-lighted room above, I perceived that I had better drop all selfish regrets and give my full attention to what he had to say. For his eye, which had flashed with an unusual light at dinner, was clouded now; and his manner, when he strove to speak, betrayed a nervousness ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... of July we received an invitation to a dinner at St. Cloud, but unfortunately we had promised Baroness Rothschild to spend some days at Ferrieres, and when the invitation came we were obliged to send a telegram to St. Cloud expressing our regrets. There is such a talk of war, and so many rumors afloat, that every one is more than excited. Alphonse Rothschild says that, if there should be a war, it will be a tremendous one, and that Germany is better prepared than France. "But," said he, "you ought to know about that, as your ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... adapted for serial use, and its publication would follow. He set the completion of this work as the period when he must enlist; working on with difficult self-restraint toward the appointed hour. If he had regrets for a career broken at the very point where it had reached success and was assured of more than competence, he never expressed them. His one regret was the effect of his enlistment on those most closely bound to him by affections which had been deepened and made more tender by the sense ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson
... conservative of all that was ancient. In the time of Horace Naevius was as well known as if he had been a modern; if, therefore, he was merely one, though, the most illustrious, of a long series of bards, it is inconceivable that his predecessors should have been absolutely unknown. Cicero, indeed, regrets the loss of these rude lays; but it is in the character of an antiquarian and a patriot that he speaks, and not of an appraiser of literary merit. The really imaginative and poetical halo which invests the early legends of ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... and a cake; but just as the lawyer sits down to it, Crop, with Margaretta, knocks at the door. Endless is concealed in a sack, and the supper is carried away. Presently Robin, the sweetheart of Margaretta, arrives, and Crop regrets there is nothing but bread and cheese to offer him. Margaretta now volunteers a song, the first verse of which tells Crop there is roast lamb in the house, which is accordingly produced; the second ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... Katchiba is a knowing old diplomatist, and he tunes his demands with great judgment. Thus, should there be a lack of rain, or too much, at the season for sowing the crops, he takes the opportunity of calling his subjects together and explaining to them how much he regrets that their conduct has compelled him to afflict them with unfavourable weather, but that it is their own fault. If they are so greedy and so stingy that they will not supply him properly, how can they expect him to think of their interests? He must have ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... expected visit from Robert Acton. To his own consciousness, evidently he was "keeping away;" and as the Baroness, on her side, was keeping away from her uncle's, whither, for several days, Felix had been the unembarrassed bearer of apologies and regrets for absence, chance had not taken the cards from the hands of design. Mr. Wentworth and his daughters had respected Eugenia's seclusion; certain intervals of mysterious retirement appeared to them, vaguely, a natural ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... in the distance, at the Theatre Francais one Tuesday, and when he noticed how pretty, how fair, how desirable she was,—looking so melancholy, with all the appearance of an unhappy soul that regrets something,—his determination grew weaker, and he delayed his departure from week to week, and waited, without knowing why, until, at last, worn out with the struggle, watching her wherever she went, more in love with her than he had ever been before, he wrote her long, mad, ardent ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... checks from his wife which had brought him occasional questionings. This love had not been quite all he had dreamed, this woman not so ardent. He had glimpsed couples here and there that set him to imagining more consuming passions. Here again he had not explored very deep. But he had dismissed regrets like these with only a slight reluctance. For if they had settled down a bit with the coming of their children, their love had grown rich in sympathies and silent understandings, in humorous enjoyment of their funny little daughters' chattering like magpies in the genial old house. And ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... light, that is blind to the infinite. Our self is loud with its own discordant clamour—it is not the tuned harp whose chords vibrate with the music of the eternal. Sighs of discontent and weariness of failure, idle regrets for the past and anxieties for the future are troubling our shallow hearts because we have not found our souls, and the self-revealing spirit has not been manifest within us. Hence our cry, O thou awful one, save me with thy smile of grace ever and evermore. [Footnote: ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... REGRETS An excuse for non-attendance at a social function. Occasionally, an expression of sorrow; usually, a paean of praise at deliverance ...
— The Foolish Dictionary • Gideon Wurdz
... moved, on the 11th of March, "That this House, while willing to support her Majesty's Government in all necessary measures for defending the possessions of her Majesty in South Africa, regrets that the ultimatum, which was calculated to produce immediate war, should have been presented to the Zulu king without authority from the responsible advisers of the Crown, and that an offensive war should have been commenced without imperative and pressing necessity or ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... turbulence, and energy: they are true children of the wilderness; their mother watches them from time to time with mingled melancholy and joy: to look at their strength and her languor, one might imagine that the life she has given them has exhausted her own, and still she regrets not what they have cost her. The house inhabited by these emigrants has no internal partition or loft. In the one chamber of which it consists, the whole family is gathered for the night. The dwelling is itself a little world—an ark of civilization amidst an ocean of foliage: ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... Regrets are idle; yet history is one long regret. Everything might have turned out so differently! If Ravaillac had not been imprisoned for debt, he would not have stabbed Henry of Navarre. If William of Orange had escaped assassination by Philip's emissaries; if France had followed the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... which, indeed, I had none, but all the more to his daughter. He would press, and indeed beseech us to entertain him with our talk—a thing very difficult in the state of our relations; and again break forth in pitiable regrets for his own land and friends, or into ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and begun with servitude and forswearing." Thus was he, he says, "church-outed by the Prelates."* Milton could not, with a free conscience, become a clergyman, so having taken his degree he went home to his father, who now lived in the country at Horton. He left Cambridge without regrets. No thrill of pleasure seemed to have warmed his heart in after days when he looked back upon the young years spent ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... of my home and the hateful attentions of the man who was always being left alone with me, I did not really care for him, and but for Mrs. Morriston's attitude I should have told him it was no use his thinking of me. Considering the sequel, I wish I had done so; but it is too late now for regrets. His love-making gave me a chance of defying my stepmother, and I rather enjoyed baulking her plans to keep Archie and me apart. If I did not encourage him—indeed, I refused him every time he proposed—I ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... perhaps for all that had been said—or remained unsaid—or maybe for all that could never be said between herself and this man in whose arms she was trembling. No need now for any further understanding, for excuses, for regrets, for any tardy wish expressed that ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... He regrets the reduction of the bodyguard which conducted itself nobly in Ava. I like a guard, and I would have an infantry as well as a cavalry guard, to be formed ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... He regrets that this part of a true learning has not been collected hitherto into writing, to the great derogation of learning, and the professors of learning; for from this proceeds the popular opinion which has passed into an adage, that there is no great concurrence ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... is a petty world within itself—a wheel within a wheel—in so far as it is entirely occupied with its own concerns, affords its peculiar catalogue of virtues and vices, its own cares, pleasures, regrets, anticipations, and disappointments—in fact, a Lilliputian fac- simile of the great one. By grown men, nothing is more common than the assertion that childhood is a perfect Elysium; but it is a false supposition that school-days are those of unalloyed carelessness and enjoyment. ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... elegant and complimentary harangue. Queen Mary of Hungary, the "Christian widow" of Erasmus, and Regent of the Netherlands during the past twenty-five years, then rose to resign her office, making a brief address expressive of her affection for the people, her regrets at leaving them, and her hopes that all errors which she might have committed during her long administration would be forgiven her. Again the redundant Maas responded, asserting in terms of fresh compliment and elegance the uniform satisfaction ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... would have expected Armine, always regarded as the most religious of the family, to be the most dismayed, and neither he nor Barbara could detect how much of the spoilt child lay at the bottom of his regrets; but his little sister's sympathy enabled him to keep from troubling his mother ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... aversion to every thing noble, these ragamuffins directed their outrages particularly against the statue of the founder of the church, whose grim black trunk stands in the vestibule, deprived of its head. One almost regrets that the figure did not possess the miraculous power of revenge which the corpse of Campeador[19] exerted when the Jew plucked his beard, and fall headlong of its own accord into the thick of its assailants. The remains of Mad. de Sevigne, ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... been faithful, and now at the end he was oppressed with no doubts and harassed with no bitter regrets, but looked forward with eager joy to meeting his Lord and beholding the blessed face of Him he ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... at her, I did not see the old maid whom we all pitied for a secret sorrow, but a woman whose nature was a tropic, in which the sun shone, and birds sang, and flowers bloomed forever. There were no regrets, no doubts and half wishes, but a calm sweetness, a transparent peace. I saw her blush when that old lover passed by, or paused to speak to her, but it was only the sign of delicate feminine consciousness. She knew his love, and honored it, although she could not understand ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... flirtatious Rita Simons, Dr. and Mrs. Harvey Dillon and Myrtle Cass, an uncomely but intense girl of nineteen. Of these fifteen only seven came to the first meeting. The rest telephoned their unparalleled regrets and engagements and illnesses, and announced that they would be present at all ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... deeply to talk about it. They went about their daily rounds silently, each busy with regrets and self investigations. They watched each other carefully, were kinder than they ever had been to everyone they came in contact with; the baby they frankly adored. Kate had reared her own children with small misgivings, quite casually, in fact; but her heart ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... he forgets himself in his winter visit, and sings as other birds do, just because his world is bright; and then, once in a lifetime, a New England bird lover hears him, and remembers; and regrets for the rest of his life that the grosbeak's northern country life has made him so ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... thought that here she had first met Kinraid, at Darley's burying, and she tried to recall the very look of all the sad, earnest faces round the open grave—the whole scene, in fact; and let herself give way to the miserable regrets she had so often tried to control. Then she walked on, crying bitterly, almost unawares to herself; on through the high, bleak fields at the summit of the cliffs; fields bounded by loose stone fences, and far from all sight of the habitation of man. ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... originally, they grow quickly intemperate and idle; and Hebronius, who does not appear among his flock until he has freed himself of the Catholic religion, as he has of the Jewish and the Protestant, sees, with dismay, the evil condition of his disciples, and regrets, too late, the precipitancy by which he renounced, then and for ever, Christianity. "But, as he had no new religion to adopt in its place, and as, grown more prudent and calm, he did not wish to accuse himself unnecessarily, once more, of inconstancy ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... impossible pleasures passes away. And in this case the deprivation was not sudden; the child had been born thus crippled, and had never been accustomed to any other sort of existence than this. What thoughts, speculations, or regrets might have passed through his mind, or whether he had as yet reflected upon his own condition at all, those about him could not judge. He was always a silent child, and latterly had grown more silent than ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... Congress, with a recommendation of such ultimate measures as the interest and honor of the United States might seem to require. But with the news of the refusal of the Chambers to make the appropriation were conveyed the regrets of the King and a declaration that a national vessel should be forthwith sent out with instructions to the French minister to give the most ample explanations of the past and the strongest assurances for the future. After a long passage the promised ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... hundred pages of closely written manuscript, though not begun until 1821, gives many reminiscences of her youth, and describes with painful conscientiousness her religious experiences. She also repeatedly regrets the fact that her education, though what was considered at that time a good one, was entirely superficial, embracing only that kind of knowledge which is acquired for display. What useful information she received she owed to the conversations of her father ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... in his own way, his regrets and recollections, the two orphans—by a spontaneous movement, glided gently from the horse, and holding each other by the hand, went together to kneel at the foot of the old oak. And there, closely pressed in each other's ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... the best of him in his later years, but that was after the period with which this narrative has to deal; and when he drank, it was not because of any brooding. The past held no regrets for him; thus far he had managed to handle every situation to his ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... addressing him by name, said; "Thy heart is full of sorrow; but if you will listen to, and profit by my words, your sorrow shall be turned into joy. You have been grieving over the hours which have been run to waste, without pausing to reflect, that while you have been occupied with these unavailing regrets, another hour has glided away past your recall forever; and will be added to your already lengthened list of opportunities misimproved. You grieve that your name is not placed on the lists of fame. Cease from thy fruitless longings. Discharge faithfully your present duties, and if you merit ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... still, this fond bosom regrets whilst adoring, That love like the leaf, must fall into the sear, That age will come on, when remembrance deploring, Contemplates the scenes of ...
— Fugitive Pieces • George Gordon Noel Byron
... great lessons of life is to learn to bear disappointments philosophically, not sit down with folded hands and watch the clouds approaching until our vision becomes obscured. There is sunshine in the lives of each and every one if they will but see it, and banish vain regrets and useless repinings. Inertia causes ...
— Bohemian Society • Lydia Leavitt
... that this second imprisonment took place in consequence of Volpone. We base this view on several incidents. In a letter Jonson addressed in 1605, from his place of confinement, to Lord Salisbury (Ben Jonson, edited by Cunningham, vol. i. xlix.), he says that he regrets having once more to apply to his kindness on account of a play, after having scarcely repented 'his first error' (most probably Eastward Hoe).' Before I can shew myself grateful in the least for former benefits, I am enforced to provoke ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... a chance at a future less than one man in a billion ever had the power to even dream about. Why, if Vye Lansor had known what was going to happen to him, he would have been so willing to volunteer, that he would have dragged Hume here. There was no reason to have any regrets over the boy, he had never had it so good—never! There was only one small period of risk for Vye to face. Those days he would have to spend alone on Jumala between the time Wass' organization would plant him ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... in the usual Mexican way—killed by accident while trying to escape, or else ambushed by Federals on the desert while coming home, according to the story that will be dished up to the papers. He will be full of regrets and apologies to our Government, but that won't help Threewit ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... Apolinaria left the mission, and returning to the town, made preparations for her absence, which bade fair to be a prolonged one. Bitter regrets were felt and expressed by the people, some going so far as to mutter against the priest for sending her, for "does not Apolinaria belong to us, and why should we, how can we, spare her to go so far away for a ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... balanced from the outset. Their impulses are consistent with one another, their will follows without trouble the guidance of their intellect, their passions are not excessive, and their lives are little haunted by regrets. Others are oppositely constituted; and are so in degrees which may vary from something so slight as to result in a merely odd or whimsical inconsistency, to a discordancy of which the consequences may be inconvenient in the extreme. Of the more innocent kinds of heterogeneity ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... "Second Lieutenant M—— regrets that his duties as a Second Lieutenant prevent him from replying personally to the many kind inquiries he has received, and begs to take this opportunity of announcing that he still retains a star on each shoulder. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 5, 1917 • Various
... was as follows: Mr. Brooks received 13,816 votes, Mr. Cannon 8,210, and Mrs. Stanton 24. It will be seen that the number of sensible people in the district was limited! The excellent lady, in looking back upon her successful defeat, regrets only that she did not, before it became too late, procure the photographs of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... was intended to be "Jim Sherry, the trader,"—and I should ask "Niabon, of Danger Island," to be "Jim Sherry's" wife. Why not. I had never cared for any woman before except in a fleeting, and yet degrading manner—in a way which had left no memories with me that I could look back upon with tender regrets. She and I together might do great things in the South Seas, and found a colony of our own. She had white blood in her veins—of that I felt certain—and where Ben Boyd, of the old colonial days, failed ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... Abbe Aubert. When they spoke to me about him in a serious tone, I no longer understood them, and I imagined they took this subject as a sort of text whereon to build a parable proving to me the advantages of education, the necessity of devoting myself to study early in life, and the futility of regrets in after years. ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... stock companies in those days was to remain the whole season, sometimes two or more, so Mammy had the opportunity to "assist" at the entire repertoire. It is one of the regrets of my life that I am not able to recall verbatim Mammy's arguments of the play, her descriptions of some of the ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... he should have prepared an alibi; he should not have used a knife; he should have been more cautious, and only bound and gagged the dealer, and not killed him; he should have been more bold, and killed the servant also; he should have done all things otherwise. Poignant regrets, weary, incessant toiling of the mind to change what was unchangeable, to plan what was now useless, to be the architect of the irrevocable past. Meanwhile, and behind all this activity, brute terrors, like the scurrying ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... prize to either of these works, because they do not appear to be sufficiently elaborated. The committee, which finds in No. 4 some ingenious analyses, particularly in regard to the mechanism of the Hebrew language, regrets that the author has resorted to hazardous conjectures, and has sometimes forgotten the special recommendation of the committee to pursue the ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... one, regarding the stout and comfortable Flemming, suspect what regrets and what philosophies were disputing possession of his interior. For my external arrangements, I flatter myself that I have shaped ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... demanded. "The garden cries out for you, my love, and I wish to hear your footstep in my house. It hath been a dreary house, filled with shadows, haunted by keen longings and vain regrets. Now the windows shall be flung wide and the sunshine shall pour in. Oh, your voice singing through the rooms, your foot upon the stairs!" He took her hands and put them to his lips. "I love as men loved of old," he said. "I am far from myself and my times. ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... complexion of your part of the country, and its dearly beloved snuffle, which seemed actually dearly beloved when I heard it down here. She gave me some violets and narcissus, already blossoming profusely—in January—and expressed, like her husband, a thousand regrets at ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... the Deity to give affection to any one but to Him. If, by mischance, you meet with some one of sensitive temperament, with a bright intellect that matches your own, you lay yourself open to be the mournful sharer of her griefs, doubts, and regrets, and her depression reacts upon you; her sorrow makes your melancholy return. Privation conjures up countless illusions and every chimera imaginable, so that the peaceful retreat of virgins of the Lord becomes a veritable hell, peopled by ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... him; he had looked at the casket without caring to inquire what it contained, and that omission often brings the greatest unhappiness into married life. The casket may be injured, the gilding may fall off, and then the purchaser regrets his bargain. ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... of the preceding poem we have here a direct answer. No matter how a man may have failed in the past, the door of opportunity is always open to him. He should not give way to useless regrets; he should know that the future is within his control, that it will be what he ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... Macmillan begged to be excused for a short time, as she wished to see that Mr. Freeman (who was on a visit, but not well enough to come down) had been made comfortable. On hearing of Mr. Freeman's presence at Knapdale, my husband expressed his regrets at not being able to see him, and these regrets were kindly conveyed to the invalid by Mrs. Macmillan, who brought back his request to Mr. Hamerton for a ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... our regrets, we have to pass over some things, but our duty will not have been performed if we omit the history ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various |
