"Rueful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... one of the three who has accomplished nothing," was Winter's rueful comment. Nor could any critic have gainsaid him, for he seemed to have been wasting precious hours while his subordinates were making history ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... said Marmaduke, recognizing her with rueful astonishment. "You knew I was looking ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... some murmurs, both inwardly and to Berkeley, at the long separation in store for them; and the lover, although himself a little rueful, heartened her up with bright prophecies for their future. An immediate marriage for them was out of the question, for since Warner's death Mrs. Smith clung to her younger daughter with absolute dependence. The last of September was decided on for sailing, as that ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... confounded. What was become of all her passion and her tears? Still kneeling, he kissed her hand with rueful timidity, and said, in most pathetic accents, 'Do you ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... Accordingly, he stopped the coach, dismounted, and hastened towards the assemblage, which, he was glad to find, consisted chiefly of a posse of watchmen and other guardians of the night. Quilt, who was an ardent lover of mischief, could not help laughing most heartily at the rueful appearance of these personages. Not one of them but bore the marks of having been engaged in a recent and severe conflict. Quarter-staves, bludgeons, brown-bills, lanterns, swords, and sconces were alike shivered; and, to judge from the sullied state of their habiliments, the claret ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... double-quick over the fence. Polly had learnt not to summon her husband on these occasions; for Richard held to the maxim: "Live and let live." If at night a tarantula appeared on the bedroom-wall, he caught it in a covered glass and carried it outside: "Just to come in again," was her rueful reflection. But indeed Polly was surrounded by willing helpers. And small wonder, thought Mahony. Her young nerves were so sound that Hempel's dry cough never grated them: she doctored him and fussed over him, and was worried that she could not cure ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... romance and courtly glee And downcast eager glance that shuns the sky, Above, about, are signs thou canst not see, Portents in heaven and earth!—And one goes by With other than thy prosperous, laughing eye, Framing the rough web of his rueful lays, The sorrow and the ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... mind admitting that if a man of that kind was to fall in love with me, I'd black his boots for him," she said. Then she added, with a whimsically rueful gesture, "Still, ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... around, Then said: 'Alas! what earth remains, what sea Is open to receive unhappy me? What fate a wretched fugitive attends, Scorn'd by my foes, abandon'd by my friends?' He said, and sigh'd, and cast a rueful eye: Our pity kindles, and our passions die. We cheer youth to make his own defense, And freely tell us what he was, and whence: What news he could impart, we long to know, And what to credit ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... much, on horseback, Mr. Moseley?" abruptly asked Miss Sarah, turning her back on the young divine, and facing the gentleman she addressed. John, who was now hemmed in between the sisters, replied with a rueful expression that brought a smile into the face of Emily, who was placed ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... rueful sob. "But I wish you didn't have anything to do with her. I know she'll ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... curtsey, as George, with a rueful face, obeyed his mother and handed his cousin up the stone steps to the porch, ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... up my woe. Sweet Rosalynde, my love (would God, my love) My life (would God, my life) aye, pity me! Thy lips are kind, and humble like the dove, And but with beauty, pity will not be. Look on mine eyes, made red with rueful tears, From whence the rain of true remorse descendeth, All pale in looks am I though young in years, And nought but love or death my days befriendeth. Oh let no stormy rigor knit thy brows, Which love appointed for his mercy seat: The ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... right, but I am sure that if you had never lived long enough in one country to become acclimated, you wouldn't feel very responsible, either," said Eleanor in such rueful tones that the girls laughed, although they secretly disapproved of ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... the pea-soup before he was quite dead, quite senseless. Of all drowned rats, he looked the worst, as he stood there with his white, rueful face, his shivery limbs, and his dilapidated garments, shaking the wet off him. The laborers, their duty done, walked coolly away; the tagrag withdrew to a safe distance, waiting for what might come next; and Miss Carlyle ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... up to Crabshaw, with equal surprise and concern, asked what had brought him there? and Timothy, after some pause, during which he surveyed his master with a rueful aspect, answered, "The devil."—"One would imagine, indeed, you had some such conveyance," said Sir Launcelot. "I have followed your cries since last evening, I know not how nor whither, and never could come up with you till this moment. But, say, what damage have you sustained, that you ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... face twisted it into a rueful smile. The three words she dragged out were so faint that perhaps none but Dart's ...
— The Dawn of a To-morrow • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... something in the rueful appearance he assumed, which forced her to laugh in spite of her efforts at dignity and restraint, and thus he was reinstated in her ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... And he did for several strokes, looking at her with rueful eagerness. "Of course, you know," he ejaculated, pausing, "that I came to see you, not your ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... we do seems like desecration to somebody. Here am I making history very rapidly for this colony of ants." She looked down with a rueful smile as she spoke. ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... not. I care a great deal more for you,' said Gerald, again rather rueful under her probes. 'I only mean that I'm not likely to fall in love again, or anything of that sort. She can be quite secure about me. I'll be ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... with a rueful air, in which it was impossible not to see a touch of the comic, notwithstanding his despair. "This is precisely why he wants your opinion, that is, some one's opinion—for of course he has not the honour ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... be good," said Clayton with a rueful smile. "About all we can do is to sit tight and wait ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... The rueful, injured look on the doctor's face cleared to flattered complacency. "Well," he said, "I'd like wery well to do what you ast off of me fur little Tillie Getz. But, Teacher, what can a body do against ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... and remote cell. Here he cast his burden on the ground. In the fall, the face of Watson chanced to be disengaged from its covering. Its closed eyes and sunken muscles were rendered in a tenfold degree ghastly and rueful by the feeble light which the candle shed ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... grey hairs, Hope had mourning on, Trenched with tears, carved with cares, Hope was twelve hours gone; And frightful a nightfall folded rueful a day Nor rescue, only rocket and lightship, shone, And lives at last were washing away: To the shrouds they took,—they shook in the hurling and ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... said with a rueful glance at her check-book. "I guess I'll go down and see how soon I can get that loan back. I'm not used to—putting off tradesmen's bills, Theodore. I wasn't brought ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... rueful glance at his melancholy domain. But he had gained but little that day, and the offer was too tempting to be rejected. He heaved a sigh, shouldered his broom, and murmuring to himself that he would give her a last brush before he retired for the night, he put ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... long before he saw him, as a clattering of hoofs, stumbling footsteps, and a reassuring voice. Then the little man appeared, a rueful figure, still with a tail of white cobweb trailing behind him. They approached each other without speaking, without a salutation. The little man was fatigued and shamed to the pitch of hopeless bitterness, and came to a stop at last, face to face with his ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... friend," said she, "I am glad to see you, and in this brave company. Have you taken service under our Knight of the Rueful Countenance, or does he ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... Hands by a neighbouring Justice of Peace, in order to reclaim him from that profligate kind of Life. Poor Pickle-herring had not taken above one Turn in it, when he came out of the Cave, like a Hermit from his Cell, with a penitential Look, and a most rueful Countenance. I then put in a young laughing Fop, and, watching for his Return, asked him, with a Smile, how he liked the Place? He replied, Pr'ythee Friend be not impertinent; and stalked by me as grave as ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... two bodies that were joined, when he hoped to come up with one of them before the junction, was enclosed, embogged,'and defeated. By the list of officers killed and wounded, I believe there has been a rueful slaughter- -the place, too, I suppose will be retaken. The year 1760 is not the year 1759. Added to the war we have a kind of plague too, an epidemic fever and sore throat: Lady Anson is dead of it; Lord Bute and two of his daughters were in great danger; my Lady Waldegrave has had it, and ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... daughter-in-law, who was very pretty, said her brother had given him too much reason; hinting, at the same time, that he was addicted to some terrible vices; upon which several individuals repeated the interjection, ah! ah! "Yes (said Mons. L—y, with a rueful aspect) the boy has a pernicious turn for gaming: in one afternoon he lost, at billiards, such a sum as gives me horror to think of it." "Fifty sols in one afternoon," (cried the sister). "Fifty sols! ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... Jimmie's rueful face. He was about to remonstrate, but Bee switched him off diplomatically by saying, in ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... campaigners partook of his hospitality. On the day after the battle of Corunna, when these gentlemen came on board, he ordered a cock to be driven into a hogshead of prime old sherry; and his satisfaction was perfect, when his steward, with a rueful countenance, communicated to him, on arriving at Spithead, that "his very best cask of wine had been drunk dry on the passage by ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... no doubt of the poor dog's death. The expression of Ardan's countenance, as he looked at his friends, was of a very rueful order. ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... bit, and lame," was the rueful reply, "but I guess nothing is busted unless it's one of ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... connoisseur he spared himself no pains, often trudging miles, when not wanted at the Admiralty Office, in search of his prey. If any mercantile-minded friend ever inquired what anything had cost, he would be answered with a rueful smile, 'Much shoe leather.' He began with old furniture, china, and bric-a-brac, which ere long somewhat inconveniently filled his small rooms. Prices rose, and means in those days were as small as the rooms. No more purchases of Louis Seize and blue majolica and Palissy ware could ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... Reynard daily heard debates Of Princes', Kings', and Nations' fates, With many rueful, bloody stories Of Tyrants, Jacobites, and Tories: From liberty how angels fell, That now are galley-slaves in hell; How Nimrod first the trade began Of binding Slavery's chains on Man; How fell Semiramis—God damn her! Did first, with sacrilegious hammer, (All ills till ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... bellowed a little over their losses after Prince Rupert's rueful visit, but there was one among them who knew how to "raise the wind," for we find Onions, the bellows-maker, hard at work in 1650; and his descendants keep at the ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... under one of the gates of this city, I was struck with horrour by a rueful cry, which summoned me to remember ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... turned quickly to see John Wesley struggling in the water, grasping a tree root, and Mary Emmeline—nowhere! In another minute he saw the strings of her pinafore appear on the surface a few yards beyond, and in yet another minute, with a swift rueful glance at his white flannels, he had plunged after her. A disagreeable shock of finding himself out of his depths was, however, followed by contact with the child's clothing, and clutching her firmly, a stroke or two brought him panting ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... a slip of paper and handed it to her, instantly turning his whole attention to something else in the way he had when a matter was concluded. It was exactly like shutting a door in one's face, she thought with rueful amusement. In another minute she had left the house and was on her ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... leafless trees and wind-blown dust and paper but add to the general solemnity of color. There seems to be something in the chill breezes which scurry through the long, narrow thoroughfares productive of rueful thoughts. Not poets alone, nor artists, nor that superior order of mind which arrogates to itself all refinement, feel this, ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... isn't too busy with politics. He says that he will give them up, if I insist; but my doing so might prevent his being chosen to Congress." There was again rueful ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... she heard his exclamation, and laughed at his rueful face. "Oh, that isn't Fairy's expression. She thinks brilliant and clever people are just adorable. It is only I who think them horrible." Even Prudence could see that this did not help matters. "I—I do not mean that," she stammered. "I am sure you are very ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... sleeps, dines," quoted Tom, with a somewhat rueful grin. "I hope there's more in that old saying than there is in most ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... a glance of rueful inquiry at him—"Now what have you come fussing around for?" would be perhaps a fair interpretation of it—and asked him what time it was, in the evident hope that the boudoir clock on her dressing-table had deceived her. It had, ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... man, a member of the First Church—would he have any reply to make to this irreverent application of solemn truth? No, he had only a laugh for reply; it might have been at Miss Banks' rueful face that he laughed; but Marion would have liked him better if he had looked grave. Miss Banks at that moment caught a glimpse of Marion's ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... this appeared to be really one of the best things in the world, and led to endless banter. They were well dressed, and it could be imagined that the ancient bridegroom had come in for the support of the whole good-looking, healthy, light-hearted family. In some degree he looked it, and wore but a rueful countenance for a bridegroom; so that a very young newly married couple, who sat next the jolly sister-and-loverhood could not keep their pitying eyes off his downcast face. "What if he, too, were young at heart!" the kind little ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... parties, and toad-eaters in general, or might bring into the house favourites of her own. I am sure any kind-hearted man of the world must feel for the position of these faithful, doubtful, disconsolate vassals, and have a sympathy for their rueful looks and demeanour as they eye the splendid preparations for the ensuing marriage, the grand furniture sent to my lord's castles and houses, the magnificent plate provided for his tables—tables at which they may never have a knife and fork; castles and houses of which ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... could be heard muttering rueful exclamations as he caressed his bruises. Jack who was next in line was trying to help him to his feet. His foot, too, struck an obstruction which caused him to lose balance. To avoid falling on Tom, he put out his arms ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... at its expense, and at the growing danger that this adventurer, lashed on by debts and unrestrained by reputation, might venture upon some desperate act. The strained relations between the party of Order and the President had taken on a threatening aspect, when an unforeseen event threw him back, rueful into its arms. We mean the supplementary elections of March, 1850. These elections took place to fill the vacancies created in the National Assembly, after June 13, by imprisonment and exile. Paris elected only Social-Democratic ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... a rueful smile. "My knees. It's so long since I paddled that they're not limbered ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... some time in the morning, she supposed. With an expression half rueful, half amused, she fell to imagining his interview with Catherine, with her mother. Poor Catherine! Rose feels herself happy enough to allow herself a good honest pang of remorse for much of her behaviour to Catherine this ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... round Ossian's tomb; Let them forge lies and histories for Hume; Let them with Home, the very prince of verse, Make something like a tragedy in Erse; Under dark Allegory's flimsy veil, Let them, with Ogilvie,[335] spin out a tale Of rueful length; let them plain things obscure, Debase what's truly rich, and what is poor Make poorer still by jargon most uncouth; With every pert, prim prettiness of youth, 130 Born of false taste, with Fancy (like a child Not knowing what it cries for) ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... the familiar objects that I had so often buoyantly beheld,—deserted encampments, cross-roads, rills, farm-houses, fields, and at last came to Daker's. I called out to them, and explained my woful circumstances with rueful conciseness. ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... a little rueful gesture. "I don't know. Chop trees again for some rancher, most probably—in fact, I was wondering whether you would have me back ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... With a rueful grimace and a laugh of amusement at his own failure, the boy was just turning to retrace his steps, when suddenly the bush rustled at his side, and a brown body leapt into the air as if it had ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... two-column interview, Mr. Ritchie would have devoted much of the space to himself, his record, his future plans. Not at all. It was all about Johnnie Dundee, for whom personally he seems to have an affectionate friendship and for whose work a rueful and decidedly humorous appreciation. He analyzed with great sapience the psychological effect on the audience of Mr. Dundee's ring-system of perpetual motion. He described with great delight a punch that Mr. Dundee had landed on the very top of his head. In fact Mr. Dundee's publicity ...
— The Native Son • Inez Haynes Irwin
... were useless. He glanced with rueful dismay over his shoulder as he thought, "If she falls out, I don't see how on earth I'll ever get her ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... with the perfectly apparent expectation that she would follow him; and Mrs. Gay, who was regarding her with a certain melancholy conviction that Jean's time as leading woman was short indeed. She pursed her lips with a rueful resignation, and followed Gil to ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... a flash, I understood, and as I looked at the rueful faces of the men gathered about me, I ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson
... moment, unhurt, except for a knock on the eye against his gun, which he was carrying before him; and after a minute's rueful look, he joined heartily in the shouts of laughter of his father and brother at his expense. 'Ah, Charley, brag is a good dog, but holdfast is a better. I never saw a more literal proof of the saying. There, jump up again, and I need not ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... kin to you. Let us go meet her." Then, as they approached, she said, "Here, Agnes, I have brought you a young cousin of yours, whom the Prince has just conducted into my mother's chamber, where he bore so rueful a countenance that I grew pitiful enough to come forth on a bootless errand after his fellow Damoiseaux, who, it seems, are all out riding. So I shall even leave him to you, for there is a troubadour in the hall, whose lay ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... him with a semi-rueful grimace. "Oh, my cricketing days are over. All I'm good for now is to teach other fellows the rules ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... went ashore. I sent my two Provincials foraging with their guns, and we who remained set about to fix our camp for the day and prepare breakfast. A few minutes only passed, and the two hunters came running back with rueful faces to say they had seen two Indians near, armed with muskets and knives. My plans were made at once. We needed their muskets, and the Indians must pay the price of their presence here, for our safety should ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... watch with much amusement the efforts of several negroes to drag a one-horse hack out of the mud into which it had sunk up to its hubs. Suddenly the occupant of the carriage opened the door and beckoned to him. Recognizing Mrs. Bennett, Goddard, with a rueful glance at his immaculate boots, floundered through the mud to the side of ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... sir. My fellow is of no more use to me at sea than an automaton would be, and I shall be glad to get rid of his rueful countenance. He is a capital servant on terra firma, but a perfect Niobe ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... like that. When real people are drowning they don't do it like that." Miss Prince is rather rueful about ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... in measured, harmonious cadence like the waves of the sea exhausted by the storm. Some one cried out, a loud, agitated, woeful cry of rebellion, questioned and appealed in impotent anguish, and, losing hope, grew silent; and then again sang his rueful plaints, now resonant and clear, now subdued and dejected. In response to this song came the thick waves of dark sound, broad and resonant, indifferent and hopeless. They drowned by their depth and force the swarm of ringing wails; questions, appeals, groans blended in the alarming song. At times ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... himself going wrong, why didn't he shout out?" asked young Carteret, with a rueful face. "I couldn't have ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... back his sweat-bedewed hair with fingers which left a fearsome streak above his left eyebrow. The girl laughed. But the doctor's decorated face was rueful. ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... down, took the small, reluctant hand, and kissed it as devoutly as ever good Alonzo Quixada did that of the Duchess while he said, merrily quoting from the immortal story: "'High and Sovereign Lady, thine till death, the Knight of the Rueful Countenance.'" ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... considerate, and most courteous of all managers, on one occasion, complaining bitterly to my sister of the unreasonable objection I had to all laudatory advertisements of my readings, said to her, with a voice and countenance of the most rueful melancholy, and with the most appealing pathos, "Why, you know, ma'am, it's really dreadful; you know, Mrs. Kemble won't even allow us to say in the bills, these celebrated readings; and you know, ma'am, it's really impossible to do with less; indeed it is! Why, ma'am, you ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... now, and a thrill of the purest admiration for George's heroism swept over her. So rather than compromise her, he had done Leonard's leap! How splendid of him! If George, now sitting on Reggie Byng's bed taking a rueful census of the bits of skin remaining on his hands and knees after his climb, could have read her thoughts, he would have felt ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... times since, how much better things turned out for me than if I had had my own way. Too bad he had to go so young! We need such men. I wish we had a few like him on the Home Board." He turned toward his companion with a rueful smile. "I am rather glad that happened down at the Home to-day. It has given me a little personal experience with the Dragon that may be convenient to have." He smiled again at her, that kindly, whimsical little smile ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... the blue-eyed Lombard, Fioravanti, while he, pricked with a rueful sense of duty, devoted himself for a time to the wife of the English Admiral who had been Lady Mary's neighbour at luncheon. The Ambassador examined her through his half-closed eyes, as he meekly offered to escort her indoors to see his pictures. She was an elegant ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... after I had fired forty-eight times—I had once or twice made a respectable show upon the target, but I finished off with four misses, and as my head was now aching badly from the concussion and the noise, I turned with a very rueful ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... the madman, and the curse of Heaven! And woe for us, the lamentable line Of Oedipus, and woe that in this house Our father's curse must find accomplishment! But now, a truce to tears and loud lament, Lest they should breed a still more rueful wail! As for this Polynices, named too well, Soon shall we know how his device shall end— Whether the gold-wrought symbols on his shield, In their mad vaunting and bewildered pride, Shall guide ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... admitted Tom, with a rueful look on his face. "Those recoil checks didn't work as well in practice as they ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... a white room; a white light hung over his head. Beside him, looking down with a rueful smile, stood a young man wearing space medical insignia. "Yes," he acknowledged the question in Alan's eyes, "you hit the switch. That was three days ago. When you're up again we'd all like to ...
— Survival Tactics • Al Sevcik
... step for all is to learn to the dregs our own ignoble fallibility. When we have fallen through storey after storey of our vanity and aspiration, and sit rueful among the ruins, then it is that we begin to measure the stature of our friends: how they stand between us and our own contempt, believing in our best; how, linking us with others, and still spreading wide ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... came down the stairs into the little parlor we have mentioned, where he found Father M'Mahon sitting, his benevolent features lit up with a good deal of mirth at the confusion of Corbet, and the rueful aspect he exhibited on being caught in the trap so ingeniously laid ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... with a rueful countenance; "you speak de trooth; but though hims be dangereux an' ver' bad for drink oftin, yet ven it be cold vedder, it doo varm de cokils of ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... cried John, turning his rueful eyes on Mr Haredale, who had dropped on one knee, and was hastily beginning to untie his bonds. 'Look'ee here, sir! The very Maypole—the old dumb Maypole—stares in at the winder, as if it said, "John Willet, John Willet, let's go and pitch ourselves in the ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... morning our Irish girl came in with a most rueful face. "And is it milking that baste you'd have me be after?" she said; "sure, and she won't ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... rueful comment. "And what about the inquest? It's for Tuesday, isn't it? Miss Trevert will have to ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... toward her with a smile. "Not at all. Sometimes I used to try when no one heard, and once when I was in the hammock with my brother's little girl, I joined her in the song she was singing. She looked at me in a minute with a rueful countenance, and said, 'Aunt Helen, I can't sing when you are making such a noise!'" Bernice laughed. "I haven't tried much ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... thrill to the Sandist, that the present Hotel Danieli had been the scene of its first remarkable stages. I am not sure indeed that the curiosity I speak of has not at last, in my breast, yielded to another form of wonderment—truly to the rather rueful question of why we have so continued to concern ourselves, and why the fond observer of the footprints of genius is likely so to continue, with a body of discussion, neither in itself and in its day, nor ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... through pine forest, or over treeless prairie, until the winter's day draws to its close and the darkening landscape bids us seek some resting-place for the night. Then the hauling-dog is taken out of the harness, and his day's work is at an end; his whip-marked face begins to look less rueful, he stretches and rolls in the dry powdery snow, and finally twists himself a bed and goes fast asleep. But the real moment of pleasure is still in store for him When our supper is over the chopping of the axe, on the block of pemmican, or the unloading of the ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... gone far before they saw a cat sitting in the middle of the road and making a most rueful face. 'Pray, my good lady,' said the ass, 'what's the matter with you? You look quite out of spirits!' 'Ah, me!' said the cat, 'how can one be in good spirits when one's life is in danger? Because I am beginning to grow ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... scored off dons and proctors, and broke every rule, and defied God and man, and spent money which I had not got, and lived a generally rake-hell life. There are very few of my friends who did these things, and they have mostly fallen in the race long ago, leaving a poor and rueful memory behind. Nor do I see why it is so glorious to pretend to have done such things, especially if one has not done them! I was a sober citizen enough, with plenty of faults and failings; and this is not a tract to convert the wicked, who indeed are providing ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... his rueful eyes, He saw the thatched-roof cottage rise: The prospect touched his heart with cheer, And promised kind deliverance near. A stable, erst his scorn and hate, Was now become his wished retreat; His passion cool, his pride forgot, A Farmer's welcome ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... said, looking with a rueful countenance at the sum total. "Yes, I even fear the sealskin must go. I don't want to part with it. Dad gave it me just ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... young and pretty slave-girl you make kiss me then; now I ugly, drunk, dirty old devil and free woman, I kiss you!' Frightful retributive justice! I struggled hard to keep my countenance, but the fat old fellow's good-humoured, rueful face was too much for me. His tormentor is dead, but he retains a painful impression of ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... I left Will to tell Fred his story as best suited him, Fred roaring with laughter as he watched Will's rueful face, yet turning suddenly on Brown to curse him like a criminal ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... him, with a full knowledge of his vainglorious errand. The post-office was closed, and the clerk at the wicket demanded one penny as a fee for taking in the late letter. John Clare fumbled in his pockets, and found that he had not so much as a farthing in his possession. In a rueful voice he asked the man at the wicket to take the letter without the penny. The clerk glanced at the singular piece of paper handed to him, the pencilled, ill-spelt address, the coarse pitch, instead of sealing-wax, at the back, and with a contemptuous smile, threw the letter into a box at his side. ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... nails, while Talleyrand looked at him with a slight raising of his bushy eyebrows. De Meneval with a rueful face was turning over the great bundle of papers which had to be copied by morning. Constant, with a noiseless tread, was lighting the candles upon the sconces round ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... suspense for the returning sail. Days passed, weeks passed, and still they strained their eyes in vain across the waste of ocean. La Roche had left them to their fate. Rueful and desperate, they wandered among the sand-hills, through the stunted whortleberry bushes, the rank sand-grass, and the tangled cranberry vines which filled the hollows. Not a tree was to be seen; but they built huts of the fragments of ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... "Yes," but her heart was more rueful than her voice, and she thought that some gentlemen were very nice, and that Sebastian Dundas especially made ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... not etiquette to refuse to dance, and the fact that he was "the Boss's" guest, if only a boy, carried weight. Sarah rose, with a rueful glance at her disappointed swain. The two disconsolate faces ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... always sustained "sir Andrew Ague-cheek" with infinite drollery, assisted by that expression of "rueful dismay," which gave so peculiar a zest to his Marplot.—Boaden, Life of Siddons Charles Lamb says that "Jem White saw James Dodd one evening in Ague-cheek, and recognizing him next day in Fleet Street, took off his hat, and saluted him with 'Save you, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... all along," said he, with a rueful sigh. "I had an idea that you'd be tickled to death to marry into the Wintermill family. Position, money, family jewels, and all that sort of thing. Everything desirable except Percy. And then, just when I thought something ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... aspirants for Cairns' admiration had ranged themselves in his mind against the paragon, Beth Truba (with whom he had long comported himself with a rueful might-have-been manner, both pretty and pleasant). Beth had easily transcended. Whatever was great and desirable in woman was likely to wear a Beth Truba hall-mark for his observation. Now, that was changed, not that Beth suffered eclipse, nor that his admiration abated; indeed, his gratefulness ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... staring in rueful indignation at this snub from her dog, Brice found time and thought to stare with still greater intentness up the tree, at a bunch of bristling fur which occupied the first crotch and which glared wrathfully ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... rueful glance at his boots, but bowing and smiling all the way. I learnt much of the neighbourhood from Mrs Collins, but with the warm colouring she judged amiable. I must except, however, the poor of the parish. ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... the unexpected brilliancy of his evil success, the Captain yet kept a rueful and furtive eye on the ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... melancholy laugh that Newman Noggs concluded this soliloquy; and it was with a very melancholy shake of the head, and a very rueful countenance, that he turned about, and went plodding on ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... when it is my own home," she returned with a rueful smile. "It will look very different then, ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... seldom failed, when I saw him in company with his Liddesdale companion, to mimic with infinite humor the sudden outburst of his old host, on hearing the clatter of horses' feet, which he knew to indicate the arrival of the keg—the consternation of the dame—and the rueful despair with which the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... ever remembered being. But the cool rain dripping from the hazel and sweet chestnut leaves fell pleasantly on his uncovered head and flushed face. Before he was through the wood he was able to laugh, and the laugh was a real laugh, if rather a rueful one. Vernon could never keep ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... spread his hands. "Therefore," he said with a rueful smile, "it can fairly be said that we have no foreign policy, effectively speaking. We pursue the expedient, ud Klavan, and hope for the best. The case which Mr. Mead and I are currently considering ...
— Citadel • Algirdas Jonas Budrys
... She would sleep all the evening in her room, and the landlord would place her in charge of the conductor. Surely Mrs. Plodder had come from Omaha alone. That was different, said Mrs. Plodder, in rueful recognition of the fact that a plain woman is exempted from annoyances which a beauty has to suffer, yet would suffer indefinitely rather than be plain. "But, dear Mrs. Davies, is it not very expensive?" said Mrs. Darling. "Not when I have passes all the way ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... extraordinary fashion of the army of those days, the regiment was hurried from place to place—as was that of the father of the infant Borrow a century later—and with it hastened the unhappy Mrs. Sterne, for ever bearing and for ever losing children, "most rueful journeys," marked by a long succession of little tombstones left behind. Finally, at Gibraltar, the weary father, pugnacious to the last, picked a quarrel about a goose and was pinked through the body, surviving in a thoroughly damaged condition, ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... looking rueful enough. At this rate, he would probably die of old age before his boat got to St. Louis. Next day he appeared on deck and again found Stephen faithfully standing up the middle of the river, fighting the whole vast force of the Mississippi, and whistling the same placid tune. This thing was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... kind Richardson had no answer. He could only acknowledge it with a rueful smile that did not lift the shadow from his eyes. There were no sunbeams caught in Quita's 'bits of sea water' just then; and for a while silence and tobacco-smoke reigned in the room. Richardson, who appeared to be reading the closely written sheet of foolscap at his elbow, was ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... characteristic of them to recognize the bright as well as the solemn virtues, and to keep each other reminded of the duty of cheerfulness. A smile, starting from the quiet elder sister, went around the group, directed against the abstracted and somewhat rueful countenance of Joseph, whereat he turned with a better face and said that what the Creator had pronounced very good they could hardly feel free to condemn. The old father was still more ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... smile, the sunny, affectionate smile that won him friends wherever he went and had given him a champion even in the tutor he ducked, broke momentarily through the rueful expression of his face, as he said: "Oh, there's no sort of doubt about ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... I can never feel at home out-of-doors," Mary announced, with such a rueful expression ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... who were eating sandwiches and pie at the counter. With complete and rueful knowledge as to the extent of his resources, he ordered a bowl of bread and milk—"the best you can do for a hungry kiddie for ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... camp jester, one of the sort that sings, shouts, or jokes while on the march. He is probably not much as a porter, but he is worth his wages nevertheless. He may or may not aspire to his giddy eminence. We had one droll-faced little Kavirondo whose very expression made one laugh, and whose rueful remarks on the harshness of his lot finally ended by being funny. His name got to be a catchword ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... that a woman in Mrs. Hilbrough's position should refuse to entertain a baron. She saw many incidental advantages in the plan, not the least of which was that Mr. Millard would be a familiar in the house during the Baron's stay. Hilbrough acquiesced with a rueful sense that he should be clumsy enough at entertaining a foreigner and a man of title. Mrs. Hilbrough thanked Millard heartily for his obliging kindness, but what he cared most for was that Miss Callender's serious face ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... Buckingham, His cloak of black all piled,[1] and quite forlorn, Wringing his hands, and Fortune oft doth blame, Which of a duke had made him now her scorn; With ghastly looks, as one in manner lorn, Oft spread his arms, stretch'd hands he joins as fast With rueful cheer, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... this array drew near the Athenian town; When in his pomp and utmost of his pride, Marching he chanced to cast his eye aside, 40 And saw a choir of mourning dames, who lay By two and two across the common way: At his approach they raised a rueful cry, And beat their breasts, and held their hands on high, Creeping and crying, till they seized at last His courser's bridle, and his feet embraced. Tell me, said Theseus, what and whence you are, And why this funeral pageant you prepare? Is this the welcome of my worthy ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... him, although upon our driver it seemed to bring another fit as much beyond the proportion of my joke as his first had been. "She tires a man's spirit," said black curly, and with this rueful utterance he abandoned the subject; so that when we reached Thomas in the dim night my curiosity was strong, and I paid little heed to this new place where I had come or to my supper. Black curly had taken himself off, and the driver sat at ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... down for a moment; but then gazed up in his face with a somewhat rueful expression of countenance, and a shake of the head, answering, "She was ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... the neck and left cheek, and a bit stiff of shoulder, was rueful but very eager. Frank's gutted gear was out of the blastoff drum, and spread around the shop. Most of it was already fixed. ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... you clear your name?" asked Jack, rather rueful that the fine theory he had built up was thus easily passed ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman |
