"Sobbing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tasteless affair, and we spent little time at table, having the pipes and wine brought into the library. As we sat there the sound of Jamie's violin came sobbing up from the Burnside as he played for his stricken sister in the old low house where three hearts were praying for Nancy Stair. Sitting there with a silence, save for the music, between us, we heard a door open on the floor above and the sound of light footsteps ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... to Paris she found the door of Napoleon's room barred against her. "After repeated knocking in vain," says M. Masson, "she sank on her knees sobbing aloud. Still the door remained closed. For a whole day the scene was prolonged, without any sign from within. Worn out at last, Josephine was about to retire in despair, when her maid fetched her children. Eugene ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... slew him!" So the Bergen farmers said as they crowded round to view him; For the wretch that lay there slain had with wickedness unbending To their roofs brought fiery rain, to their kinsfolk woeful ending. Not a mother but had prest, in a sudden pang of fearing, Sobbing darlings to her breast when his name had smote her hearing; Not a wife that did not feel terror when the words were uttered; Not a man but chilled to steel when the hated sounds ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... terror from the court, while Bertalda with her maids still gazed from her window at the pale shadowy figure. As it passed beneath her window it looked upward, sobbing pitifully, and the bride saw under the veil the sweet sad face of the mistress ...
— Undine • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... pathetic as she lay there, listed over on her beam ends. She had served him well, but she had finished her last voyage, and with some vague idea of saving her old bones from vandal hands, Captain Scraggs, sobbing audibly, scattered the contents of half a dozen cans of kerosene over her decks and in the cabin, lighted fires in three different sections of the wreck, and left her to the consuming flames. Half an hour later he stood on the battered decks of ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... leaders, Labienus, Lentulus, Afranius, Petreius, and Metellus Scipio (Cicero and Cato had been left at Durazzo), contrived to escape in the night. The rest, twenty-four thousand of them, surrendered at daylight. They came down praying for mercy, which they had never shown, sobbing out their entreaties on their knees that the measure which they had dealt to others might not be meted out to them. Then and always Caesar hated unnecessary cruelty, and never, if he could help ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... half sobbing as she spoke. "Those are relics of my poor husband. He was an artist like yourself, signore. He was—he was—ill, very ill—and in mind as well as body, signore. May the Blessed Virgin rest his soul! He hated ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... quiet, with white, vacant face and lifeless arms that hung down on either side. Water was oozing out of the clothes and dripping from the unbound hair; it had gathered already into little pools on the floor. In the darkest corner of the room a crouched-up form sat sobbing hopelessly, and by the figure on the table Aunt Janet stood, her face in shadow, since she was above the shade of the lamp, but her hands singularly white and gentle-looking as they moved about drying the dead ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... left quite disengaged a bare arm, that now seemed as powerful as it was beautiful: it rose and fell like the piston of a modern steam-engine, and heavy slaps resounded one after another on Floretta's shoulders; the last one drove her sobbing and screaming through the curtain, and there she was heard crying ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... her own room, was sobbing bitterly, and thinking hard thoughts of herself. The examination had tried her, but not half as much as the loss of self-respect she had felt since she gave up her papers that morning with the translation which was certainly not the result of her ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley
... and his servants received him in their arms, where he remained weak and motionless. Erard embraced him, sobbing. ...
— Theobald, The Iron-Hearted - Love to Enemies • Anonymous
... the 'noisy creature!' Katie's troubles all vanished at a stroke; and before Clare and Janet could ask what was the matter, she was sobbing out all about the silly ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... little Elsie told me afterwards; for fortunately the poor child was not feeling well and I had desired her to remain below during the hot noontide heat of the sun; and, she also said, she could hear him crying and sobbing and calling down imprecations on everybody, including 'my wife' and himself for both being in such a position, Madame Boisson hammering at the door all the time, and, after finding he would not reopen to her appeal for help, apostrophising him as ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... haire disordred hangs: Hir charming eies whence murthring looks did flie, Now riuers grown', whose wellspring anguish is, Do trickling wash the marble of hir face. Hir faire discouer'd brest with sobbing swolne Selfe cruell she still martireth with blowes, Alas! It's our ill happ, for if hir teares She would conuert into hir louing charmes, To make a conquest of the conqueror, (As well shee might, would she hir force imploie) She should vs saftie from these ills procure, Hir crowne ...
— A Discourse of Life and Death, by Mornay; and Antonius by Garnier • Philippe de Mornay
... into his pocket, but Elisabeth was before him, and hastily emptied the entire contents of her purse into the beggar's open palm. Then she turned quickly away, and Reinhard heard her go sobbing up the stairs. ...
— Immensee • Theodore W. Storm
... were crawling at the sight of them, peering out at then and looking round for a second glimpse of a Selenite. They lay against their food like stupendous slugs, huge, greasy hulls, eating greedily and noisily, with a sort of sobbing avidity. They seemed monsters of mere fatness, clumsy and overwhelmed to a degree that would make a Smithfield ox seem a model of agility. Their busy, writhing, chewing mouths, and eyes closed, together with the appetising ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... slight, which was to confirm finally, or finally end my doubts. I heard no more; but did more seem to be necessary? What jealous heart had not found this sufficiently conclusive? And that deep-drawn sigh, sobbing, as of a heart breaking with the deferred hope, and the dream of youth baffled ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... head quickly, and showed her cheeks wet with streaming tears. She rose from her seat, took the staff from the old man's hands, and threw herself sobbing ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... sound of sobbing is suddenly whelmed by the resonant booming of the great fish's-head, as the high-pitched voices of the leaders of the chant begin the grand Nehan-gyo, the Sutra of Nirvana, the song of passage triumphant over the Sea of Death and Birth; and ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... minutes, they stood at the foot of the craig. Oswald shook the rope violently, to let those above know that they were down. Then he untied the cord that bound him to his cousin, who at once sat down, sobbing hysterically. Oswald put ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... difficulty he called out for splints, and when some pieces of thin wood were brought him he had them shaped to his needs, adjusted about them his bandage and made all fast. His patient made no sound of suffering. She only panted, like a frightened bird held in the hand, although the sobbing of Jeanne filled the room. The forehead of Dunwody was beaded. He said nothing, not even when they had finished all they now could do ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... the boat-house more than a minute when it struck me that the sound of my own quick breathing was very strangely echoed by something beneath me. I listened intently for a moment, and heard a low, thick, sobbing breath that seemed to come from the ground under the seat which I was occupying. My nerves are not easily shaken by trifles, but on this occasion I started to my feet in a fright—called out—received no answer—summoned back my recreant courage, ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... these little creatures ceased to be, and for not much less a period the tears have been dried. And to this day, looking in these stitched sheaves of letters, we hear the sound of many soft-hearted women sobbing for the lost. Never was such a massacre of the innocents; teething and chincough and scarlet fever and small-pox ran the round; and little Lillies, and Smiths, and Stevensons fell like moths about a candle; and nearly all the sympathetic correspondents deplore and recall the little losses ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Pee-wee was visibly sobbing now; he knew what "being taken care of" meant. He was afraid, yes, and bewildered at being caught in this cruel web of circumstance. But most of all he was incensed and shamed by this indignity. He ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... her emotion, but the cause of her tears was evidently too recent, or the effort at self-control too much for her, for she gave way to another outburst, sobbing this time on the shoulder of Betty Nelson, who patted her sympathetically, and murmured soothingly to ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... shoot him down!" Hank yelled, between sobbing, chest-racking inhalations through the mask. "I should kill him this instant for the contaminated pariah ...
— The Moon is Green • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... come down again," cried brother Louis, and the two suddenly burst out sobbing in each other's arms, not for their own griefs, but for the miseries which they might bring upon those who had ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Hindu, lay prone on his face on the hillside sobbing, the dry leaves drinking in his tears, cursing himself for a sin that ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... us, that, in his later years, the neighbors saw him on one occasion, at his home of Beaconsfield, leaning upon the shoulder of a favorite old horse, (which had the privilege of the lawn,) and sobbing. Whereupon the gossiping villagers reported the great man crazed. Ay, crazed,—broken by the memory of his only and lost son Richard, with whom this aged saddle-horse had been a special favorite,—crazed, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... in a renewed outburst, but even as he sobbed he felt something shake his foot very slightly. He stopped sobbing so hard. There was no further shaking of his foot and he again gave himself up to ...
— The Circus Comes to Town • Lebbeus Mitchell
... could see through the window the darkness that lay without; and her eyes grew tender at an unbidden thought, which made her try to force herself to see through the darkness, as though she were sending a speechless message to the unknown. Then, feeling Emmy still sobbing in her arms, she looked down, laying her face against her sister's face. A little contemptuous smile appeared in her eyes, and her brow furrowed. Well, Emmy could cry. She couldn't. She didn't want to cry. ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... looked at the little boy and saw his eyes. They were the eyes that children have for all strange and sudden cruelties. They held her so that she did not stoop and pick him up. He picked himself up and ran to his mother, sobbing out his tale, telling her that he was a steam-engine, and ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... stopped suddenly, and turned with a puzzled look toward where his wife sat, for she had dropped her head on the table in front of her, and he had heard her sobbing. ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... it, Van!" said the girl in a sudden outburst of sobbing, and she tried to rise upon her pillow. Agony, which she had fought down wildly, seized her in a spasm. She ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... heard his clatter upon, the floor, his bound at the old latch, and, fancying what it may mean, has come up in time to soothe him and bear him off with her. The parson, forging some sermon for the next Sabbath, in the room at the foot of the stairs, hears, may-be, the stifled sobbing of the boy, as the good Esther half leads and half drags him down, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... shall lose thee all the same. O God of Israel, Thy vengeance hath found me at last!" And she fell upon the couch, sobbing, overwrought. He stood by, helpless, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... that, even in my excitement at that first sight of blood drawn in feud, my boyish thought was half divided between the drunken quarrel and the poor old fiddler, all hunched together on the ground and sobbing dry-eyed in a kind of ecstasy of fear and horror. I heard afterwards that he had a son knifed to his death in a seaman's brawl, and never got over it. As for the Finn, they took him home and kept it ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... sometimes wished that how we had one. But not now. "We might both of us die," says Mrs Boffin, "and other eyes might see that lonely look in our child." So of a night, when it was very cold, or when the wind roared, or the rain dripped heavy, she would wake sobbing, and call out in a fluster, "Don't you see the poor child's face? O shelter the poor child!"—till in course of years it gently wore out, as ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... I heard him make an extraordinary sound chewing; at the same time he was sobbing and cursing stealthily. He had found something to eat, then! I could not believe my ears, but I began to creep towards the sound, and suddenly there was a short, mad scuffle in the darkness, during which I nearly spitted ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... table and took his son aside, close by where I was standing. "Listen, listen," he said, bearing on the boy's shoulder, "and remember this, my son." A little after he went out into the garden suddenly, and I could hear him sobbing ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of tears and hysterical sobbing were in the highest art of expert mendicancy. She advanced towards him, threw herself upon her knees at his feet, embraced his ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... ballads to her in his own glorious way, the two getting wild with excitement over 'Gil Morrice' or the 'Baron of Smailholm'; and he would take her on his knee, and make her repeat Constance's speech in 'King John,' till he swayed to and fro, sobbing his fill.... ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... that foolish word which escaped thy lips. And knowest thou this wretchedness? Knowest thou this curse? Knowest who thy lover—what he? Seest thou not that I convulsively shrink together, and have a secret from thee?" She fell sobbing to my feet, and repeated with oaths ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... that it would not be with the airs of Lucia and Traviata that she would become famous. As if in answer, the child began to hum the celebrated waltz, a moment after a beautiful Ave Maria, composed by a Fleming at the end of the fifteenth century, a quick, sobbing rhythm, expressive of naive petulance at delay in the Virgin's intercession. Mr. Innes called it natural music—music which the modern Church abhorred and shamefully ostracised; and the conversation turned on the incurably bad taste and the musical misdeeds of a certain priest, Father Gordon, whom ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... back to her in the master's presence. She went to him again, clinging to him, sobbing in hysteric fear, as if ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... weaving his way to the street. He didn't hear Ann's voice as she called after him to stop, didn't see her stop at the booth door, watch in a confusion of fear and tenderness, and collapse into the booth, sobbing as if her heart would break. Because a crazy, twisted, impossible idea was in his mind, an idea that had plagued him since he had started reading that morning, an idea with an answer, an acid test, folded in the briefcase under his arm. ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse
... out to her a little group of four people hurrying towards them, of whom the foremost, hurrying the fastest of all, was a fair-haired little girl with a cream-coloured felt hat and feathers, who, sobbing, threw herself into Sylvia's arms, and hugged and hugged as if she never would ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... as that. It was a very different one—a horrible letter. Oh, Ramon! if it were true; if you had been true! If you could have gone on loving me!" She broke into sobbing, and hid her face between ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... was drown'd No heart by Love receiv'd a wound, But on a rock himself sat by, There weeping sup'rabundantly. Sighs numberless he cast about, And, all his tapers thus put out, His head upon his hand he laid, And sobbing deeply, thus he said: "Ah, cruel sea," and, looking on't, Wept as he'd drown the Hellespont. And sure his tongue had more express'd But that his ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... lips and pleading dog's eyes, his stout Irish wife sobbing beside him. He got "six months," and his ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... dear brother was making the aged Father understand; Meta threw herself sobbing with delight into the arms of the long-mourning Mother, trying to tell her of the joy that yet remained to be told; Florence, with sweet touching voice, was preparing the dear enthusiastic aunt. Everybody was beginning to feel and know that there was something still to tell, some event yet to ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... her right arm before her weeping eyes and wiping her face with the left, she returns, sobbing ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... She was still sobbing and crushing the letter in her hand when the servant came up to tell her that Mr. Maule had called. He was below, waiting to know whether she would see him. She remembered at once that Mr. Maule had met Phineas at ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... penetrating Diarist. What was the skeleton? Not gambling debts, although the duchess followed the fashion of the day, and Sheridan declared that he had handed her into her carriage when she was literally sobbing at her losses. Fanny gives us a hint, slight but unmistakeable. At their first meeting the duchess was accompanied by another lady—a beautiful, alluring woman, with keen dark eyes, who smiled, some one said, "like Circe." Lady Spencer introduced her daughter ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... family a cup of cold water? go to! They could have found water in the road, for there was a pellucid spring only a few yards distant from the house, as they were well aware—but they wanted not water; what should I have given them? meat and bread? go to! They were not hungry; there was stifled sobbing in their bosoms, and the first mouthful of strong meat would have choked them. What should I have given them? Money! what right had I to insult them by offering them money? Advice! words, words, words; friends, there is a time for everything; there is a time for a cup of cold water; there ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... think. She would be too tame and spiritless for me after that. How sweetly pretty to see the two lovely friends, when humbled and tame, both sitting in the darkest corner of a room, arm in arm, weeping and sobbing for each other!—and I their emperor, their then acknowledged emperor, reclined at my ease in the same room, uncertain to which I should first, grand signor like, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... Margaret uttered a cry of despair, and the young creatures, who were so happy a moment ago, fell to sobbing in one another's arms so piteously, that the instruments of oppression drew back a step and were ashamed; but one of them that was good-natured stepped up under pretence of separating them, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... of the open water, she naturally began to talk. If you lay your ear to the side of the cabin, the next time you are in a steamer, you will hear hundreds of little voices in every direction, thrilling and buzzing, and whispering and popping, and gurgling and sobbing and squeaking exactly like a telephone in a thunder-storm. Wooden ships shriek and growl and grunt, but iron vessels throb and quiver through all their hundreds of ribs and thousands of rivets. The Dimbula ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... old man, "but it seems that heaven sends you to close his eyes, and witness his departure from this world.—Oh!" he added, sobbing violently, "sorrow hath bowed down his venerable head: since his daughter fled from him, this has been the home of grief ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... poised Isabel, was on the floor at her cousin's knees, burying her face in Flavia's pale-yellow dress and sobbing ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... different. It is she who imagined the girl in heaven who broke her heart with weeping for earth, till the angels cast her out in anger, and flung her into the middle of the heath, to wake there sobbing for joy. She did not care to know fresh people; she hates strangers; to walk with her bulldog, Keeper, over the moors is her best adventure. To learn new things is very well, but she prizes above everything ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... than that. It wrought and wrought, whatever it was — the colour flushed and the lips moved tremulously, — her brow knit, — till at last the hands came to her eyes and her face sunk down, and passionate tears, passionate sobbing, told what Elizabeth could tell in no other way. Tears proud and ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... oak forest, and the flowery plain, and the river, as if she was trying to print these scenes on her memory so that they would abide there always and not fade, for she knew she would not see them any more in this life; then she turned, and went from us, sobbing bitterly. It was her birthday and mine. She ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... tintless space, and delicate vapors of grayish green and vague violet rose from the crested waves that broke far out at sea, and trooped across like airy spirits; they listened to the slow, regular rhythm that came marching from some weird country, with a grand crash at last, a sobbing crescendo, and an interval of silence that still pulsated on the dusky, odorous air, when the moaning ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... fairly sobbing, vowed she would be a mother to the child, and that she would endeavour to rear him honestly; though a public-house was not, she confessed, the best place for ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the place, slipped out through the garden-gate into the green field behind the manoir and wandered unseeingly along the hedge, and at length flung herself down on the ground, sobbing. She was alone, so utterly alone. The one in whose hands she had put her whole life had betrayed her and deserted her. It was worse than death. They were there in that dim, silent room, in the utmost intimacy, and she lay here outside, robbed and abandoned.... She rose to get farther away from ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... said gently, dropping his own knife and going over to the rocking, sobbing figure. "You look a-here, I tell you! What you cryin' for, with eight barrels o' fish 'most packed an' a good fifty dollars 'most in your pocket? You better laugh! Come on, get up, and let's give a rouser! Three cheers for the ...
— Judith Lynn - A Story of the Sea • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... sobbing girl, "you are about to risk your life in battle; remember that there is one heart whose happiness is built on your safety; brave I know you ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... is worse than the sobbing of love, when love is estranged: For this is a cry Out of the desolate ages. It never has changed. ...
— The Lord of Misrule - And Other Poems • Alfred Noyes
... of this light work for some reason exhausted me, so that I could not sit bending over the table nor write. From below I heard from time to time a smothered moan; it was my wife sobbing. Alexey, invariably meek, sleepy, and sanctimonious, kept coming up to the table to see to the candles, and looked at me ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the risks when it isn't your own country, especially?" asked Dick, almost sobbing. "I've got a right to go! And, besides, you may ...
— The Boy Scout Aviators • George Durston
... The weight of her father's words had stilled and solemnised her, removing every trace of coquetry. Her head was bowed as at the benediction; she was sobbing. Mitri patted her head ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... and Benny Ellison rushed in, at the sound of her voice, she was sitting there, sobbing over the thing; and they thought her taken suddenly ill. But she started up, at the sight of Benny Ellison, and asked, in a broken voice, how he had come by it. And when he had told her, she seemed amazed and ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... Christmas hymns to-night in the bright little parlor of the corner store, instead of the dingy old garret; and here are the deeds made out in Katie Lawson's own name, and nobody can take it away from her. But come, little woman," he added,—for Sweetie was sobbing for joy, and could not thank him,—"go and wash your face, for the horses are tired of standing in the cold, and we must go and fetch the boys, or I shall never get my ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... utterly miserable and helpless she had never seen before; and beside him stood his mother, silent and motionless, with the tears running down her face and her eyes fixed on Randi's. Then Randi raised herself on her elbow and looked straight in front of her for a little, still sobbing after the fit of crying. "No, no,!" she said, "I'm going to church." Once more she lay back and cried for a little, and then she got up. She said that she would have no more music, so the fiddlers were dismissed—and the story did not lose in their telling when they ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... last the stars were again there to look down upon me, we arrived behind the barn of that Bud Bell to find all in the little house at rest. I thought of that small child in sleep in the arms of that woman, and a great sobbing came from my heart as I threw myself into my Cherry, after giving a supper to good Lightfoot, and fled down the long road to the distant city of Hayesville that lay away in the valley like a great nest of glowworms in a glade of the leaves of darkness. And ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the dead, then out sorrowfully to the waiting sea, before he spoke the words, "We therefore commit their bodies to the deep." But, the moment they were uttered, the bier was lifted, there was a swift plunge, and only the flag and the empty boards were left. The sobbing of women now seemed almost unnatural; for around us was the bright sunlight, the gay dresses of the lascars, the sound of the bell striking the hours, and children playing on the deck. The ship ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... But, even above the bunched roar of the explosions, there pierced out a howl of agony that died quickly to a sobbing moan. Chris saw the automatic drop to the floor, felt the invisible body he had crashed into jerk away. He jumped to his feet, clutched at that body, and caught thin air. He swung around, listening, the service repeater in ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall
... over him. He did not know whether to laugh at her or to swear, for she began fumbling at the ropes, half sobbing. "Yes, I knowed they was hurting you, papa; I'm going to loose one arm. Then I put it back again and loose the ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... is she hurt?" whispered Nan after a moment. She was trembling all over and cold and hot by turns, and she could not command her voice. It was almost more than she could do to keep from bursting into a violent fit of sobbing from her sense of injury and shame and indignation. But she simply would not permit herself to break down. No one should be allowed to think they intimidated her. But she could not hide her ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... or you will break my heart," cried Katherine, sobbing aloud, in the violence of her remorse at having ever pained so true a friend. "Oh! talk of yourself, think of yourself; we are unworthy—at least I ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the evening, little Kate rushed into Annie's cottage, silently threw her arms about the widow's neck, and almost strangled her with a tight hug. Adam followed, and struggled to do the same. When he wanted to speak, he began to cry; and grievously he cried, sobbing out, "What will you do without me? You can't see the boats at sea well now; and soon, perhaps, you will hardly be able to see them at all. And I was to have helped you: and now ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... upon past endurance, with a sobbing cry, sank to the deck—and lay still. I managed to writhe into a half-sitting posture, and Smith rolled aside as the detective and the Chinaman crashed ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... sobbing. "I have had a little drink," said she, "I told him so. He makes me so unhappy, I must; but I spend scarce a trifle and it's what I earns myself. Ain't I clean? don't I bring him good meals?" "You do, you do," said they. "It's a shame," she went on, "he is not a man, not in bed, not anywhere, not ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... but gently, and she crept into her bed and pulled the clothes over her head, that the twins might not hear her strangled sobbing. ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... you," said the woman, covering her face and sobbing, while poor little Harry, seeing her crying, tried ...
— Pictures and Stories from Uncle Tom's Cabin • Unknown
... Flora, dear?" she asked soothingly of a little curly-headed girl, who was sobbing, and wiping her eyes with the ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... and bowed himself towards the door while she stood with her back towards him, sobbing. As he was about to pass it she wheeled round, wiping the tears from her eyes with her ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... to the front door to meet him, and fell into his arms, trying so hard to seem congratulatory and affectionate that she broke out into sobbing. ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... a rush and a flutter of the heart, he knew that it was close beside him in the tent; and, when he turned over for a better hearing, it focused itself unmistakably not two feet away. It was a sound of weeping; Defago upon his bed of branches was sobbing in the darkness as though his heart would break, the blankets evidently stuffed against his mouth ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... W. Croesus. 'What! tears?' says he, arranging his pearl pin. 'You have driven my lover away,' says little Alice, sobbing: 'I hate the sight of you.' 'Marry me, then,' says John W., lighting a Henry Clay. 'What!' she cries indignantly, 'marry you! Never,' she says, 'until this blows over, and I can do some shopping, and you see about the licence. There's a telephone ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... deafening but harmonious description of the multitude who went out with swords and staves in the midnight, to take the unoffending Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. And one could almost hear in the music the sobbing of Peter when, after his denial of the Lord, "he went out and wept bitterly." Another most touching passage was that representing the love of the woman who anointed the feet of Jesus. When the shout of the multitude arose in the words "Crucify Him!" ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... conceal the damage which the want of the accessories of the toilet did her. She entered, or rather rushed, into the room, crying, "The Duke d'Enghien is dead! Ah, my friend! what have you done?" Then she fell sobbing into the arms of the First Consul, who became pale as death, and said with extraordinary emotion, "The miserable wretches have been too quick!" He then left the room, supporting Madame Bonaparte, who could hardly walk, and was still weeping. The news of the prince's death spread ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... honeymoon in Rome, and on page 211 of Vol. I. we find poor Dorothea "alone in her apartments, sobbing bitterly, with such an abandonment to this relief of an oppressed heart as a woman habitually controlled by pride will sometimes allow herself when she feels securely alone." What was she crying about? "She thought her feeling of desolation was the fault of ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... begun the lines above quoted, Katie and her cousin walked home by a road which conducted them close past the edge of those extensive sandy plains called the Denes of Yarmouth. Here, at the corner of a quiet street, they were arrested by the sobbing of a little boy who sat on a railing by the roadside, swaying himself to and fro in an agony ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... for the tiny sufferer it was Prince William's own military coat, none too new, and even, to say the truth, much worn, that remained as an additional coverlet upon the roughly-hewn wooden cot, over which the sobbing mother was bending. ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... Sobbing, she fled to the emperor. He wept bitterly and endeavored to protect her; but the soldiers grew more and more violent. Finally she was hung from ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... a happy party that flung itself down in the sand beside the sobbing Robert. For Robert was sobbing - mostly with rage. Though of course I know that a really heroic boy is always dry-eyed after a fight. But then he always wins, which had not ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... back of a trembling hand across his moist eyes. He inhaled a long sobbing breath and broke into apology for his weakness. "Haven't slept for a week except from trional. The back of my head pricks day and night. Can't think of anything ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... "I'm so sorry, Mr. Drew. You don't understand—" But the old man cut him off. "There's no use you and me tryin' to talk, young man." So they rode the rest of the way without a sound—except that once Jimmie imagined he heard Lizzie sobbing ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... grow deathly faint and close her eyes. Turning, she fled blindly into the cabin. A few moments later Emerson found her stretched unconscious at the head of the main stairs, with a hysterical French maid sobbing over her. ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... go a step farther to what they felt was certain destruction. Stanley alone was determined to proceed. He bought thirty-three native canoes and, leading with the Lady Alice, he set his face towards the unknown country. His men were all sobbing. They leant forward, bowed with grief and heavy hearts at the prospect before them. Dense woods covered both banks and islands. Savages with gaily feathered heads and painted faces dashed out of the woods armed with shields and spears, shouting, "Meat! meat! ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... fight in judge "Oily" Ackroyd. He slunk to the stairs and limped heavily down to his frightened and sobbing wife. Miss Graham leaned against the wall, white and spent. Average Jones, his heart in his eyes, took ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... of women about Helen had been silenced at first by the tumult and glare, but now broke into wild lamentations, and entreaties that Heaven would send the engine soon, wringing their hands, and sobbing, and frightening the children that clung about their skirts even more than the ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... woefully, and finally went all to pieces on Abednego. Smarting under the blows which, in accordance with the old-time custom, promptly followed his delinquency, the little fellow sobbed aloud. The reading, however, went round, each boy in the class reading his verse in turn. The sobbing at length ceased, and the tow-headed boy gazed ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... begged to kiss her hand. She gave it, and asked him to pray to God for her. "Ah yes," he cried, sobbing, "with all my heart." She then fastened her dress as best she could with her hands tied, and when the gaoler had gone and she was alone with the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... he had been again separated from his parents; with a sobbing bosom and wet cheeks he bid them farewell, and mounting one of the carts was soon beyond sight and hearing of the ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... and groaning, The sighing and sobbing, Are quieted now, With that horrible throbbing At heart,—ah, ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... over and over again, but she always shakes her head, and falls to sobbing and moaning worse than ever. Poor child, I feel ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... love of the sea, the mariner's true goal was home port and a cozy corner in the familiar inn. There, with a cup of gin or mulled wine at his elbow and the bowl of a Holland clay propped in a horny fist, he might listen tranquilly to the sobbing of the tempest in the gaping chimney. What if the night voiced its pains shrewdly, walls encompassed him; what if its frozen tears melted on the panes or smoked on the trampled threshold, glowing logs sent forth a permeating heat, expanding ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... he heard the sound of claws and the dragging of a heavy body away from him over the observatory floor. Then there was silence, broken only by his own sobbing breathing, and a sound like licking. Everything was black except the parallelogram of the blue skylight with the luminous dust of stars, against which the end of the telescope now appeared in silhouette. He waited, as it seemed, an interminable time. Was ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... kisses—divine mingling of agony and joy! And some are talking with wives, and endeavoring with brave words, spoken in the old tones, to drive from their hearts the awful fear. We see them part. We see the wife standing in the door with the babe in her arms—standing in the sunlight, sobbing. At the turn in the road a hand waves—she answers by holding high in her loving arms the child. He is ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... had been drawn much nearer together by a common interest. The door between their rooms having some imperfection in the latch swung open as they were preparing for bed, and Anne was aware of a sound of sobbing, and saw one of the white- capped, short-petticoated femmes de chambre kneeling at Naomi's feet, ejaculating, "Oh, take me! take me, mademoiselle! Madame is an angel of goodness, but I cannot go on living a lie. I ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dear?' said Mr. Underwood. 'You can explain it, I see. Tell Lady Price what you mean, Geraldine,' he added gravely, to compose the child, who was sobbing with excitement and indignation. ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... calculated to familiarize its first principles to their understanding—cherishing them in sickness, admonishing them in health—instructing, reproving, exhorting, consoling—sanctifying the whole with fervent prayer. Many a sobbing heart and streaming eye is this evening embalming her memory in the ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... incense, the holy song were beautiful. They touched the deep chord of melancholy in her, and made it vibrate through the depths of her being. She was as a house filled with mournful melody and the presence of death. She cried and cried. She could see, curiously, that Mrs. Kane was sobbing ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... would not answer me, only sobbing out in a way that broke my heart that 'I must go away, and never, never see ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... father from the metropolis. Her gait was now slow, her step languid; and they could perceive that, as she approached them, she wiped away the tears. Indeed her whole appearance was indicative of the state of her mother; when they met her, her bitter sobbing and the sorrowful earnestness of manner with which she embraced the sisters, wore melancholy assurances that the condition of the sufferer was not improved. Hanna joined her tears with hers; but Kathleen, whose sweet voice in attempting to give the affectionate ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... That was bad. She dropped into a chair and sobbed uncontrollably, and he stood before her, and waited, and was uncomfortable. The sobbing stopped, and he had hopes, but the hat with roses was still plunged into the two bare hands—it was too hot for gloves. The thunder was nearer, muttering instant threatenings; the room was black; the air was heavy and cool like a wet cloth; the man in his black clothes stood ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray
... Gilchrist, with upraised hand, tried to control his writhing features. The next he had thrown himself on his knees beside the table and, burying his face in his hands, he had burst into a storm of passionate sobbing. ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... thinking to get healing by putting them, like relics of the Saints, on the places where they were afflicted. Guillaumette Dyonis followed the good Father as easily as if she saw him with her bodily eyes. Simone la Bardine trailed behind her, sobbing. She had pulled off her horned wimple and tied a ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... annum to the Allied people to see a performance such as the German people continuing to weep in sympathy with Ebert and Scheidemann, y'understand, they will be advising them two boys to go and take for ten cents apiece some mathematic spirits of ammonia and quit their sobbing." ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... with them the traveling cloak. He sat down on the floor, looking at the empty shelves, then burst out sobbing as if his ...
— The Little Lame Prince - Rewritten for Young Readers by Margaret Waters • Dinah Maria Mulock
... knows best what is for his creatures, and to whom we should—and must submit. I was just in time to see the last row of his glazing een, that then stood still for ever, as he lay, with his face as pale as clay, on the pillow, his mother holding his hand, and sob- sobbing with her face leant on the bed, as if her hope was departed, and her heart would break. I went round about, and took hold of the other one for a moment; but it was clammy, and growing cold with the coldness of grim death. I could hear my heart beating; but Mungo's heart stood still, like a watch ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... my post that day," he explains to his sobbing mother, "I should have been blown up, but the Providence that watches over good men had ordained that I should be laying blind drunk in Blogg's saloon at the time the explosion took place, and so the other engineer, who had been doing my work when it was his turn to be off, was killed along ...
— Stage-Land • Jerome K. Jerome
... away, and as soon as night drew on the journey was resumed. But this night was chill with the breath of a sobbing east wind, and the dim stars foreboded rain. Hitty shivered with bitter cold, and the boy began to cry. With a fierce curse Abner bade her stop his disturbance, and again the poor mother had hands and heart full to silence the still ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... effort he sped his shaft out of the open window, straight and true, as in the days of old, till it struck the largest oak of them all and dropped in the shadow of the trees. Then he fell back upon the sobbing ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... rolled on up the gully and in a minute it had covered it all up. I thought it was all up with Norah, too, and old Burrows behind me was sobbing for all he was worth. We raced ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... back of the crowd cried to make way. The half circle before Laramie parted. He sprang to his feet, held out his right arm, and Kate with an inarticulate cry, threw herself sobbing on ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... time it is,' replied Dixon, in an aggrieved tone of voice. 'Since your mamma told me this terrible news, when I dressed her for tea, I've lost all count of time. I'm sure I don't know what is to become of us all. When Charlotte told me just now you were sobbing, Miss Hale, I thought, no wonder, poor thing! And master thinking of turning Dissenter at his time of life, when, if it is not to be said he's done well in the Church, he's not done badly after ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... sobbing and the knook stole away, feeling a little ashamed to realized that in his love for the birds he had unconsciously wronged one of the earth ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... herself to her porridge for one minute, but the next her feelings overcame her, and, with a little wail, she rushed round the table to Judy, and hung on her arm sobbing. This destroyed the balance of the whole company. Nell got the other arm and swayed to and fro in an excess of misery. Meg's tears rained down into her teacup; Pip dug his heel in the hearthrug, and wondered what was the matter ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... drink-worshipper. Do you wish to see little children hide the terror of their eyes in your lap and tremble at the name of father? Then marry a drink-worshipper. Stay, stay, I'm an old fool to break out in this way, and scare you out of your wits;" for Mary and her mother were both sobbing bitterly: "forgive me, but don't forget me; there, let us change ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... Church's brow and breast; And by them we find rest in our unrest, And heart-deep in salt tears, do yet entreat God's fellowship, as if on heavenly seat. The first is Jesus wept, whereon is prest Full many a sobbing face that drops its best And sweetest waters on the record sweet: And one is, where the Christ denied and scorned Looked upon Peter. Oh, to render plain, By help of having loved a little and mourned, That look of sovran love and sovran pain Which ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... rooms within, whose smoke, uniting higher up, ascended through one stem. Into this cavity Phoebus dodged, in time to avoid the beaten party to the fight, the grown man, who staggered blindly by towards a well, his face dripping blood, and he was sobbing babyishly; but the concealed sailor heard him ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... A fresh fit of sobbing here impeded her utterance; and Mrs. Douglas, compassionating her distress, while she despised her folly, seated herself by the bedside, and taking her hand, in the sweetest tone of complacency attempted to soothe ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... back against the partition, panting and sobbing beneath her breath. The man rebounded from his fall with astonishing agility, and flew back at Lanyard. An object in his right hand gave off the dull gleam of ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... person who observed this. The other occupants of the room were exchanging looks of distress. Some of the women had fallen upon their knees, and were sobbing and praying in the same breath. But Madame Leon's sobs could be heard above the rest. They were at first inarticulate moans, but suddenly she sprang toward Mademoiselle Marguerite, and clasping her in her arms, she cried: "What a misfortune! My dearest child, what a loss!" Utterly incapable ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... fellow toward him, he passed his arm around Rondeau's neck, holding the latter's head as in a vise with the crook of his elbow. And then the battering started. When it was finished, Bryce let his man go, and Rondeau, bloody, sobbing, and semi-conscious, ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... warm grass of a cliff-face watching the foam patterns form and dissolve again beneath a diamond scatter of spray. When the sea-mist rolled up steadily over Cloom like blown smoke, here opaque, there gossamer-thin, they would sally forth and tramp the spongy moors, the ground sobbing beneath their feet and the mournful calling of the gulls sounding in their heedless ears. And all the while her turns of head and throat, the inflections of her low, rich voice, were being registered on a mind free till now of all such impressions and tenacious as a child's. Small ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... did not know him in his uniform. He made himself known. The old lady gazed at him searchingly. Her lips worked. She threw her arms about his neck, laughing and sobbing in the ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... he was about all in, hanging on and panting and sobbing for breath in the clinches, and I knew I could put him out any time. I drew back my right for the short-arm jab that would do the business. He knew it was coming, and he was powerless ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... son's done come home! Praise de Lawd! Bless His holy name!" Here her laudation broke into sobbing and choking and laughing, and she ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... He might indeed be such, but that, so representing God, he should expect men to love Him. It was not often that her sea, however troubled in its depths, rose into such visible storm. She threw herself upon the floor with a loud cry, and lay sobbing and weeping. Her father was terribly startled, and stood for a moment as if stunned; then a faint slow light began to break in upon him, and he stood silent, sad, and thoughtful. He knew that he loved God, yet in what ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... She was still sobbing, but more quietly, for the force of her passion had exhausted her, when a very light touch on her shoulder caused her to raise herself and look up wildly. ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... Livingstone came in from supper, with a cup of hot tea and a slice of toast for Mabel, she was surprised to find her sobbing like a child. It did not take long for her to learn the cause, and then, as well as she could, she soothed her, telling her not to mind John's freaks—it was his way, and he always had a particular aversion to sick people, never liking to hear them ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... the light, her hands were pressed against her heart, the corners of her mouth quivered as with a bitter smile, and young and vigorous though she was, she sank down upon the floor, sobbing. ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... passing by, suddenly forced his way through the crowd, and, in a lamentable and pathetic voice, called out: "'Tis my father! What a miserable wretch am I!" Then, exhibiting every mark of the most poignant grief, he got into the coach, and, crying and sobbing, kissed the dead man's face. The bystanders were affected, and dispersed, saying, one to another, "What an affectionate son!" The sharper drove on in the coach, where he found the bags of money, which were an unexpected booty, and, stopping it at a door, told the coachman that he wished ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... tempestuous Split could, then was Sissy's attitude a marvel of disapproving rectitude. She had a great deal of dignity, had Sissy, and the picture of holiness that she presented as, with her books on her arm, she walked past the desk where the sobbing sinner's head lay with tumbled curls and bloated face, came as near as anything could to quench the passion of tears in which Split's tempers culminated. On such occasions the infuriated Split was wont, for just a moment, to conquer the half-hysterical sobs ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... of whose sincerity she was assured by the subtle and quick instinct that unites the innocent and young, caused a quick and extreme change in her sensibilities. The grief which had been struggling and condensed, now flowed more freely from her eyes, and she threw herself, sobbing and weeping, in a paroxysm of gentle, but overwhelming, feeling, on the bosom of this new found friend. The experienced Marguerite smiled at this manifestation of kindness on the part of Adelheid, though ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... came in she was huddled onto a goods box, shaking and sobbing like any woman, while the boys sat around and champed ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... speak she found that she was dumb. She could not get her voice to give her the assistance of a single word. She did not cry, but there was a motion as of sobbing in her throat which impeded all utterance. She was as happy as earth,—as heaven could make her; but she did not know how to tell him that she was happy. And yet she longed to tell it, that he might know how thankful she was to him for his goodness. He still sat looking at her, and now ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope |
