"Tears" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... says very gently, "Will you please wait a little and weep later," and they stop at once and smile and begin again just at the polite moment. I am convinced this is the case, though it seems to us almost a physical impossibility, that a man grown-up can turn on tears without heroics in a book or a novel or play to start them; "the gentle Hindoo" seems even a more fitting term than I'd have thought it was!... The people grew more noisy as we got south, the racket they make along this line at night ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... tolerated the profession, consented to share the infamous salary, of public prostitutes. [188a] As this general tax upon industry was collected every fourth year, it was styled the Lustral Contribution: and the historian Zosimus [189] laments that the approach of the fatal period was announced by the tears and terrors of the citizens, who were often compelled by the impending scourge to embrace the most abhorred and unnatural methods of procuring the sum at which their property had been assessed. The testimony of Zosimus cannot indeed be justified from the charge of passion and prejudice; but, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... filled with tears as she pressed my hand and looked at the home of her childhood, and even Niabon showed some trace of excitement as she bent her glance upon ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... grow there. Our newspapers are prolific, our meeting-places are vociferous; and in them we wear to shreds the things we have borrowed from our English teachers. We make the air dismal and damp with the tears of our grievances. But where are our arts, which, like the outbreak of spring flowers, are the spontaneous overflow of our ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... and ghastly, in the dim interior of the tent. His eyes were wide and fixed. Overland came in. Collie recognized him and tried to smile. Overland backed out of the tent and strode away growling. The tears were running down his unshaven cheeks. He did not return until later in the day. Then he asked ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... in my attachment to my mother, I showed none of the volatility of childhood. While she lived, I was never at ease but when seated at her knee, or with my arms round her neck. When dead, I cherished her remembrance for years, and have paid, hundreds of times, the tribute of my tears at ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... gave any description of the fight Alvin had "put up" in the Forest of Argonne, and Mr. Wright hurried to Mrs. York with it. With the family gathered around her in that hut in the mountains, and with tears running down her expectant face, she learned for the first time what her boy had done. She made Mr. Wright read the story—not once, but ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... government from th' easy owner; 740 Until the wretch is glad to wave His lawful right, and turn her slave; Find all his having, and his holding, Reduc'd t' eternal noise and scolding; The conjugal petard, that tears 745 Down all portcullises of ears, And make the volley of one tongue For all their leathern shields too strong When only arm'd with noise and nails, The female silk-worms ride the males, 750 Transform 'em into rams and goats, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... resolved to outdo every other in kindness. In a shop where we endeavored to explain that we wanted to get a flat cap which should be both Basque and red, a lady who was buying herself a hat asked in English if she could help us. When we gladly answered that she could, she was silent, almost to tears, and it appeared that in this generous offer of aid she had exhausted her whole stock of English. Her mortification, her painful surprise, at the strange catastrophe, was really pitiable, and we hastened to escape ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... her mouth: she always succeeded in twisting her face away, and not liking to be beaten he put forth all his strength. She staggered backwards and placed one hand on his throat, and with the other strove to catch at his moustache; she had given it a wrench that had brought tears into his eyes, but now he was pinioning her; she could see his big face approaching, and summoning up all her strength she strove to get away, but that moment, happening to tread on her skirt, her feet ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... as pale now as she had been rosy before, her lip trembled, and her whole face seemed to be suffused with tears. ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... thin, all night, all day, she drived, Withouten comfort, company, or guide, Her plaints and tears with every thought revived, She heard and saw her griefs, but naught beside: But when the sun his burning chariot dived In Thetis' wave, and weary team untied, On Jordan's sandy banks her course she stayed At last, there down she light, and ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... The tears ran down her cheeks and she whimpered like a child. The sight of the silk dress had brought back to her mind her lost bit of paradise as nothing else would have done—her own small store of finery, the gayety and novelty of ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... looked at him again, through sudden tears, as though divining his reference to Mr. Bentley's grief, when a step make them turn. Eldon Parr had entered the room. Never, not even in that last interview, had his hardness seemed so concretely apparent as now. Again, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... with a pleasing but careworn face, and she had four small, bright, healthy, happy-faced children. They were all grouped round her as she stood in the doorway to speak to us, and they too were poorly dressed and poorly shod. When we told our tale she appeared ready to burst into tears. Oh, how unfortunate it was that she could not take us in! It would have made her so happy, and the few shillings would have been such a blessing! But what could she do now—the landlord's agent had put in a distress and carried off and sold all her best things. Every stick out of her ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... was silence; and in that Jeannie openly dried the tears that were on her face. She had been crying: there was ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... the girl, stroking his cheek tenderly, while in her eyes showed the light of unshed tears. "Don't worry. Stay here with ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... I too have mourned. Your husband was my close friend, and now he is dead, and no relations are left to avenge him. So now I say to you, I will take the load from your hearts; I will go to war and kill enemies and take scalps, and when I return they shall be yours. I will wipe away your tears, and we shall be glad that Fox Eye ...
— Blackfeet Indian Stories • George Bird Grinnell
... has such sensitive feelings. If I find fault, or even mildly suggest an improvement, she collapses into tears, and the children have a poor time of it for the rest of the day. Sometimes I think I must send her away, but I might get some one worse; and I am busy in the city, and have no ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... March, "A poor girl who had come from Wapping to see the new entertainment at Covent Garden Theatre had her pocket cut off in the crowd before the doors were opened. Tho' she knew not the Pickpocket she came immediately to lay her complaint before the Justice and with many tears lamented not the loss of her Money, but of her Entertainment. At last, having obtained a sufficient Passport to the Gallery she departed with great satisfaction, and contented with the loss of fourteen shillings, ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... that when Hannibal heard the message of the ambassadors he gnashed with his teeth, groaned, and scarcely refrained from shedding tears. After they had delivered the commands with which they were charged, he said: "Those who have for a long time been endeavouring to drag me home, by forbidding the sending of supplies and money to me, now recall me, not indirectly, but openly. Hannibal, therefore, hath been conquered, not ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... for false imprisonment, even though he spent every shilling of his savings in doing so. And when his wife, in the presence of Phineas, begged that bygones might be bygones, reminding him that spilt milk could not be recovered, he called her a mean-spirited woman. Then Mrs. Bunce wept a flood of tears, and told her favourite lodger that for her all comfort in this world was over. "Drat the reformers, I say. And I wish there was no Parliament; so I do. What's the use of all the voting, when it means nothing but dry ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... the servant to ascertain whether the lady would put a price upon it, but she was promptly answered, that her mistress had instructed her to say, that no price should purchase it. After having caressed and shed tears over it, Madame Lucien returned it to the servant, begging the lady to accept her grateful thanks for having allowed her to see it. I shall have hereafter to relate what passed at an interview which I had with the General, who ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... allowance of storm and dust and dislocation and the least possible amount of collar-work, and come somehow with a laugh through a series of catastrophes that has reduced everyone else concerned to tears or Cassandra-like forebodings. Sometimes they sober down in after-life and become uninteresting, forgetting that they were ever lords of anything; sometimes Fate plays royally into their hands, and they do ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... to Shere Ali. Therefore she anticipated it with a great reluctance. Violet Oliver did not live among illusions. She was no sentimentalist. She never made up and rehearsed in imagination little scenes of a melting pathos where eternal adieux were spoken amid tears. She had no appreciation of the woeful luxury of last interviews. On the contrary, she hated to confront distress or pain. It was in her character always to take the easier way when trouble threatened. She would have avoided altogether this ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... Roger, old friend," he said, noticing the tears running down his chum's face; "they have done their utmost on me, and I shall not last out long enough to surfer at their hands again. Nay, Roger, dear lad, it is of no use. You cannot save me, and indeed I do not desire to live; for of what use would life be to one in my condition? They have ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... would be able to think of such a catastrophe without horror and remorse." All of the contending nations say that they are fighting for existence, which means that if they do not win in the end they will be wiped out. With such an alternative staring us in the face very few tears would be shed by Americans, of any color, if both the Hohenzollerns and the Hapsburgs, with all their belongings, should be wiped off ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... unconsciously did his pupil an injury by saying to her father: "That daughter of yours is wonderfully gifted, and if she were a man I would make a great artist of her." Hearing this, the young artist burst into tears, and her whole career was clouded by the thought that her sex prevented her being a really great artist, and induced in her an abnormal modesty. This occurred about forty-five years ago; since then we ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... the preacher, and paralyzes the hand of the charitable. Here the arguments of a Paul end—here the silver tongue of an Apollos is speechless—here the hands of a Dorcas cease to manufacture for the poor, whose unavailing tears cannot recall ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... He leaned a little and took her hand, which for an instant she let him keep. "That means that I have not waited for nothing," he said. She looked at him for a moment, and he saw her eyes fill with tears. "With me," he went on, "you will be as safe—as safe"—and even in his ardor he hesitated a moment for a comparison—"as safe," he said, with a kind of simple solemnity, "as in your ...
— The American • Henry James
... Charlie had meant to give a glorious war-whoop and shout, but their voices would not come, and when they looked at each other the tears came welling up ...
— Harper's Young People, December 9, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... company an extra testimonial for the official jabber and collect when we hit Terra. All right—Weeks," he spoke to the little man, "you listen in on the com—it's tuned to our helmet units. We'll climb into these pipe suits and see how many tears we can wring out of the Eysies with ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... son, that all the suffering of this war is not mine! Every shell from those guns finds my heart. The tears of widows and orphans—all, the blue and the gray—are mine! For we are equally responsible for this war! When I came here from the West, I found a panic-stricken North, strangling with the poison of Secession. Our fathers had only dreamed ...
— A Man of the People - A Drama of Abraham Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... Gate of Tears"), the strait between Arabia and Africa which connects the Red Sea (q.v.) with the Indian Ocean. It derives its name from the dangers attending its navigation, or, according to an Arabic legend, from the numbers who were drowned by the earthquake ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... her heart and mind thirsted. Hence, after a few weeks with the classic masters, the whole Negro race was applauded for the advent of one among us, and sufficiently black to claim our identity, that was destined to move the world to tears. Year after year our subject has won new conquests, and now she is termed the "Black Patti." Is this an instance of acquired greatness, thrust greatness, or inborn greatness? We are loath to say inborn or thrust. For every achievement made ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... Ares: fiercely he stared, like a lion who has come upon a body and full eagerly rips the hide with his strong claws and takes away the sweet life with all speed: his dark heart is filled with rage and his eyes glare fiercely, while he tears up the earth with his paws and lashes his flanks and shoulders with his tail so that no one dares to face him and go near to give battle. Even so, the son of Amphitryon, unsated of battle, stood eagerly face to face with Ares, ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... concern and kindness they all asked him what was the matter. So he told them all this story, and they pitied him very much; yea, one gray old man,—and this was the Chief,—with two beautiful daughters, shed tears and comforted him, and advised him to stay with them. So they took him to a large hall, where there was a great fire burning in the middle thereof. And over it hung two pots with soup and meat, and two Indians stood by and gave food to ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... single day since I came here without shedding tears. When I first saw my parents I wished to throw myself at their feet; but my father prevented me, and, treating me as if I were a stranger, made me a profound bow. Whenever I enter the saloon, he rises and will not sit near me; the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... cradles should not be rocked, in order that her hands may be left free. She is now a queen of the earth, and inwardly a fearsome tyrant. She keeps pity and tenderness emblazoned on her banners. But God help the man whom she pities. Ultimately she tears him ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... of Presidents and Kings usually evokes tributes of praise, but in William McKinley's life there was an element that made him more than ruler, and which, in the hour of his death, is above the tribute of speech and tears. ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... afternoon, about an hour before dinner-time, Gervase, strolling on the terrace of the hotel alone, saw Helen Murray seated at a little distance under some trees, with a book in her hand which she was not reading. There were tears in her eyes, but as he approached her she furtively dashed them away and greeted him with a poor ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... brother," whispered a sympathetic boy, almost in tears. "Let him get over by the boat," and so the crowd made room for Freddie, as the life-saver pulled ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope
... exquisite dinner frock, of white chiffon, embroidered with tiny sprays of blossoms—a soft sash and shoulder-knots—one of the loveliest dresses she had ever had, and with a sob she threw herself on to the couch and indulged in a few foolish but comforting tears. ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... bile is a secretion of the liver, I assert as a biological fact that the moral law is as real and as external to man as the starry vault. It has no secure seat in any single man or in any single nation. It is the work of the blood and tears of long generations of men. It is not in man, inborn or innate, but is enshrined in his traditions, in his customs, in his literature and his religion. Its creation and sustenance are the crowning glory of man, and his consciousness ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... Den never played sock-ball," whimpered the boy, covering each eye with a chubby fist as he rubbed away the traces of his tears. ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... and came to the desk. She hardly saw the papers through a blur of miserable tears while she wrote her name here and there. She was shut out in the mist and dark; he wasn't thinking of her at all; he was chill, preoccupied; something was displeasing him; decisively, almost sharply, he told her where to write. "You mustn't be worried, you know," he observed as he ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... reach the fount of blood. Unnumbered wounds By arrow dealt, or lance, thus fail to slay This single warrior. But lo! from far A Cretan archer's shaft, more sure of aim Than vows could hope for, strikes on Scaeva's brow To light within his eye: the hero tugs Intrepid, bursts the nerves, and tears the shaft Forth with the eyeball, and with dauntless heel Treads them to dust. Not otherwise a bear Pannonian, fiercer for the wound received, Maddened by dart from Libyan thong propelled, Turns circling on her wound, and still pursues The weapon fleeing as she ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... affecting her noble speech and behaviour were to me, at the time when the bare recollecting and transcribing them obliged me to drop my pen. The women had tears in their eyes. I was silent for a few moments.—At last, Matchless excellence! Inimitable goodness! I called her, with a voice so accented, that I was half-ashamed of myself, as it was before the women—but ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... mighty Kaisar heard amazed; His heart was in the days of old: Into the minstrel's eyes he gazed— That tale the Kaisar's own had told. Yes, in the bard, the priest he knew, And in the purple veil'd from view The gush of holy tears. A thrill through that vast audience ran, And every heart the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... happened, at first attempted to pursue the informer, but finding that pursuit was vain, he went himself to Jugurtha to try to appease him; saying that the disclosure which he intended to make, had been anticipated by the perfidy of his servant; and beseeching him with tears, by his friendship, and by his own former proofs of fidelity, not to think that he could ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... law-defying regiment of grave diggers; and then blush that you have characterized as a heavy crime a manfully confessed act of self-defense on the part of the Germans, the temporary occupation of Belgium! Blush that you have forgotten the Russian Moloch now loosed upon us, drunk with the blood and tears of alien peoples as well as of its own children! That you have forgotten all that, in order to lament over buildings which we have been forced in self-defense—again in self-defense—to sacrifice! And blush ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... steadily. They were both too profoundly stirred for tears or emotions. A quiet despair gleamed in the eyes of each. Cyril could never marry her till he had cleared up this mystery. Elma could never marry him, even if it were all cleared up, with that terrible taint of madness, as she thought it, hanging threateningly for ever over ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... Mrs. Ericson. Her hand went out from her suddenly and rested on his head. Her fingers twined themselves in his soft, pale hair. His tears splashed down on the boards; happiness filled ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... gathered in the corner of a huge fire-place. A woman, with a begrimed cotton handkerchief tied over her head, sat on the hearth endeavoring to blow them into a blaze, while the smoke, that poured down the foul and blackened chimney, caused the tears to roll from her eyes, and baffled ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... like the rainbow," said Hope, "because glad as my nature is, I am partly made of tears as ...
— The Paradise of Children - (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... humor, and to their amazement commanded her roughly to take the things off. His voice and manner were harsh and at utter variance with any mood he had ever displayed before; nor would he explain his unreasoning fury, but strode out again, leaving her in tears and the Frenchman staring. ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... asked the Dominie, "that Miss Hamilton shed real tears at Holyrood, the other night, when the band played 'Bonnie ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... contradiction and ungrateful irritation. Those who have themselves experienced the helplessness caused by disease well know how bitterly the trial is shared by the invalid herself. How deeply she often mourns over the unreasonableness and irritation she is without power to control, and what tears of anguish she sheds in secret over those acts of neglect and words of unkindness her own ill-humour and apparent ingratitude ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... tears, but concealed his weakness by performing a grotesque dance, dancing grotesquely by the side of the car, much to Shaver's joy—a joy enhanced just as the car reached the gate, where, as a farewell attention, Humpy fell down and rolled over and over ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson
... Haman had satisfied himself that the cross intended for his enemy was properly constructed, he repaired to the Bet ha-Midrash, where he found Mordecai and all the Jewish school children, twenty-two thousand in number, in tears and sorrow. He ordered them to be put in chains, saying: "First I shall kill off these, and then I shall hang Mordecai." The mothers hastened thither with bread and water, and coaxed their children to take something before they had to encounter death. The children, ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... would ask me, and I always gave the same answer, 'Archbishop of Toledo.' And the good sacristan would laugh again at the certainty with which I spoke of my hopes. Believe me, Tomasa, I thought much of him when I was consecrated bishop, regretting his death. I should have been delighted with his tears of joy seeing me with the mitre on my head. I have always loved you, you are an excellent family, and ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... of horror, and fell back on her seat pale and breathless, almost senseless. Mademoiselle von Haak took her gently in her arms, and, amid her tears, whispered words of consolation, of sympathy, and of hope. But Amelia scarcely heeded her; she looked down vacantly upon the pallid, weeping woman who still ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... I was on the point of saying, for I would have given anything by this time to be back in our homes again, witch or no witch. But I thought better of it. It wouldn't have been kind, with Margaret looking up at me, with tears in her big dark ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... hasn't accused me— that is, openly; but I know what she thinks, and I know what she will make others think," returned Nellie. And now she showed signs of bursting into tears again. "Oh, I feel as if I must ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield
... warrior, and the tears glistened in his eyes now. He professed to be unendingly devoted to the Tsar. His regiment would have made a mountain of its dead rather than let them take the Tsar. If the Tsar had even been in the Crimea ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... to destroy him had actually been formed, and was on the eve of being executed, that the princesses could no longer doubt that Sophia was really guilty. They were overwhelmed with grief in coming to this conviction, and they declared, with tears in their eyes, that they would not return to Moscow, but would remain at the monastery and share the fortunes of ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... crowds were larger, but the remarks less audible; at times, two or three individuals were seen passing along, in grave conversation, while the women stood in groups at their own or their neighbour's doors, many of them with tears in their eyes, and giving utterance occasionally to sounds of lamentation. It was evident, to the most casual observer, that something unusual had occurred—something that had stricken a feeling approaching ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... had done in the town more towards effecting an equality of goods among different ranks than all the Reformers, from Cornwall to Carlisle. Yet so keen was his appetite for the sport that the veteran appropriator absolutely burst into tears at not having ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that sad and dismal look, And why those falling tears? No voice is heard, no word is spoke, Yet nought but ...
— The Liberty Minstrel • George W. Clark
... and South Carolina coming into the convention on the first day of its meeting hand in hand, amid the rapturous applause of the whole body, awakened by heartfelt gratification at the event, filling the eyes of thousands with tears of joy, which they neither could nor desired to repress, you would have felt, as every person present felt, that the time had arrived when all sectional or other perilous dissensions had ceased, and that nothing should be heard in the future but the voice ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... that she was profoundly moved, and suddenly he was sorry for her. Sorry for the years behind them both, for the burden she had carried, for the tears in her eyes. ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Eugene, do, for Heaven's sake," said Madeline, with tears in her eyes, as they, now turning from Dealtry, directed their steps towards the quiet valley, at the end of which the Student's house was situated, and which was now more than ever Madeline's favourite walk, "do, dearest Eugene, come up to the Manor-house till ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the blow. Hastily crossing the court, she arrived at her hackney-coach. A very pretty dog, which had lost its master, followed her. "Is the poor little creature yours?" inquired the coachman. The tones of kindness with which he spoke called up the first tears which had moistened the eyes of Madame Roland ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... the lilt alone. One thing only about it is sure, and that is that the diction must be conversational. There will be tears in the voice, but the voice must be that of the homely earth, never of the stage, never of the pulpit If you agree with that, you will have to cut out practically all the poets from Dryden to Cowper, Gray and Collins among them; for Gray ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... on slowly until some distance from the town, and then threw himself down on a bank by the road and lay for a time silent and despairing. At last tears came to his relief, and his broad shoulders shook with a passion of sobbing to think that just at the moment when a chance of escape was opened—just when all the dangers seemed nearly past—the girls should have fallen into the hands of the enemy, ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... kind of madness. The physicians ordered Farinelli at first to sing in an outer room; and for the first day or two this was done, without any effect, on the royal patient. At length, it was observed, that the king, awakening from his stupor, seemed to listen; on the next day tears were seen starting in his eyes; the day after he ordered the door of his chamber to be left open—and at length the perturbed spirit entirely left our modern Saul, and the medicinal voice of Farinelli effected what no ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... fondly the young thing seducingly held up to him. But he did not yield to the temptation, or swerve from his purpose, though Flora kissed him, with eyes brimful of tears. ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... evening; her heart was hurt now, and she held her hand close to it, while tears started from her eyes and glistened in the light of the moon, which was rising over ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... Flambart— "The glowing coal"—ex-sergeant grenadier. Mamma from Picardy; Papa a Breton. Joined at fourteen, two Germinal, year Three. Baptised, Marengo; got my corporal's stripes The fifteenth Fructidor, year Twelve. Silk hose And sergeant's cane, steeped in my tears of joy. July fourteenth, year Eighteen hundred and nine, At Schoenbrunn, for the Guards were here to serve The sacred person of your Majesty. Sixteen years' service, seen sixteen campaigns, Fought Austerlitz, ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... heavily upon some loose board and cause it to rattle beneath him, he reached the door. It was not wholly closed, and with utmost gentleness he essayed to pull it open. With all his care he could not prevent it from creaking sharply. His nerves were again shaken, and a new tremor assailed him. Tears filled his eyes. His heart was like ice, only ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... set. Darkness was wrapping the basin of the little stream; heavy dew was falling. Mother Nature was weeping tears of sympathy for one so short-sighted and ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... insisted upon joining the excursion down to the mill that morning; she developed a sudden and unshakable resolve to be one of the party, and after his remonstrances had finally brought stormy tears to her eyes, Allison surrendered in perplexity to ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... from broken partitions, remains of dried Mollusc at the bottom of a shell: these and much other insanitary refuse must first of all disappear. Violently the Osmia tugs at the offending object and tears it out; and then off she goes in a desperate hurry, to dispose of it far away from the study. They are all alike, these ardent sweepers: in their excessive zeal, they fear lest they should block up the speck ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... do! She dried her tears and lay toying with her book and sadly putting into thought a thing she had never more than felt before: that whatever she might wisely or unwisely do with it, she held in her nature a sacred gift of passion; that life, her life, could never bloom ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... ancient custom of not strangling females in that situation, they were first deflowered by the executioner, and afterwards strangled, as if an atrocious addition to cruelty could sanction the exercise of it. Fathers were constrained by violence to witness the death of their own children; and even the tears of a mother, at the execution of her child, were punished as a capital offence. Some extraordinary calamities, occasioned by accident, added to the horrors of the reign. A great number of houses on Mount Caelius were destroyed ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... extremity to send a bullet through the heart of the woman he worshipped, rather than let her fall into the hands of brutes who would only grant her a death of torture and dishonor. Even his steady soul failed for a moment, and tears of desperation gathered in his eyes. For the first time in years he looked up ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... moved to tears on reading the tender and pious letter addressed to him by the dying hand of Catherine; and he marked by several small but expressive acts, the respect, or rather the compunction, with which the recollection of her could not fail ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... has cost you a great deal, I can see it in the wanness of your face, in your eyes which in spite of yourself, are filled with sudden tears, I know from the intonations of your voice that you are ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... of the crowd was centred in the condition of Alice Ayres, and as she was being removed to Guy's Hospital there was scarcely a man or a woman present whose eyes were not filled with tears. Many followed on to the hospital, in the hope of hearing the medical opinion of her condition, and before long it became known that she had fractured and dislocated her spine, and that there was no hope ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore
... woman by speaking severely to her of one of her friends. She was much troubled, but out of respect, dared not complain. Delsarte saw tears in her eyes. He instantly confessed his fault, and acknowledged, with the utmost frankness, that he spoke from hearsay, and very lightly. He added that this mistake should be a lesson to him, and that he would think twice before becoming ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... a woman was lying on a mat; her head was covered with a muslin veil, but I could see her eyes through it full of tears and flashing with the brightness of stars; she held a handkerchief in her mouth, biting it so hard that her teeth were set in it: I never saw finer limbs, but her body was writhing with pain like a harp-string thrown on the fire. The poor creature had made a sort of struts of her legs by setting ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... until the tears poured down her cheeks, but her eyes protested, looking piteously and in dismay from the studied glass. She knew that she was laughing with shrill high cries, and behind her horror at her collapse there was a desperate ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... I honor you," said Squills, emphatically, jumping up, and spilling half a tumblerful of scalding punch over my father's legs. "You have a heart, sir; and I understand why your wife loves you. You seem a cold man, but you have tears in your eyes ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... it, he could have done nothing better for the success of his plan; under the pressure of conscience Daisy could bear trouble in doing right, but the argument of affection went near to trouble her conscience. Daisy was obliged to compound for a good many tears, before she could get away and begin her drive. And when she did, her mind was in a flutter. A hundred dollars! how much good could be done with a hundred dollars. Why, would it not be right to do something, even sing such a song on Sunday, ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... secure any response to her repeated calls for the maid, my wife was nearly reduced to tears. However, in those days I was not unskillful in hooking up a dress, and we managed to get downstairs, with ready apologies on our lips, by twenty minutes of nine. We were ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... in thy girlhood's opening flower, Scarce weaned from the love of childish play! The tears on whose cheeks are but the shower That freshens the early ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... chicken-coops, pig-pens, and potato-lockers. These are generally placed amidships, on the gun-deck of a frigate, between the fore and main hatches; and comprise so extensive an area, that it much resembles the market place of a small town. The melodious sounds thence issuing, continually draw tears from the eyes of the Waisters; reminding them of their old paternal pig-pens and potato-patches. They are the tag-rag and bob-tail of the crew; and he who is good for nothing else is good ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... made all right in her room and washed all traces of tears from her face, had come to note ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... god's idol, he takes its place. So hidden, he is present when Draupadi, abandoned by the King's guards, is seized upon by Kichaka. In vain Draupadi appeals to the latter for mercy. He laughs alike at tears and menaces, and is about to carry her off in triumph when the god Bairoba is seen to rise from his pedestal. It is Bhima. He seizes the terrified Kichaka, hurls him to the floor, and strangles him at ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... squall, and the gondola put in peril, hats blown away, boat filling, oar lost, tumbling sea, thunder, rain in torrents, and wind unceasing. On our return, after a tight struggle, I found her on the open stops of the Mocenigo Palace on the Grand Canal, with her great black eyes flashing through her tears, and the long dark hair which was streaming, drenched with rain, over her brows. She was perfectly exposed to the storm; and the wind blowing her dress about her thin figure, and the lightning flashing round her, ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... to be too much for Skeeter, who stretched out his neck till his muzzle was in a line therewith, literally shed tears, opened his mouth, distended his nostrils, and with ears quivering, emitted the most startling sound ever heard. It was not a neigh like his mother would have given, nor a bray such as his father would have uttered, but a hoarse yell made up of the ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... The tears sprang up in June's eyes; running into the little study, where Bosinney was sitting at the table drawing birds on the back of an envelope, she sank down by his ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... so please leave me alone!" And now Dora turned still further away, while something like tears began to spring into ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer |
