"Touchingly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... It is a very fortunate thing for us that we are of Vagabondian antecedents, Griffith,—just see how we might trouble ourselves, and wear our patience out over Miss MacDowlas, if we troubled ourselves about anything. This being utterly free from the care of worldly possessions makes one touchingly disinterested. Since we have nothing to expect, we are perfectly willing to wait ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... ourselves were young, we once on a time walked on a hot summer-day from Oxford to Newington—a dull road, as any one who has gone it knows; yet it was new to us; and we protest to you, reader, believe it or not, laugh or not, as you will, to us it seemed on that occasion quite touchingly beautiful; and a soft melancholy came over us, of which the shadows fall even now, when we look back on that dusty, weary journey. And why? because every object which met us was unknown and full of mystery. A ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... depicting things human without having any share in them ... Is an artist a man, anyhow? Let some one ask 'woman' that question. It seems to me that we artists all share a little the fate of those eunuchs that used to sing for the Pope ... Our singing is touchingly beautiful. And yet—" ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... the night follows; and the deep and stertorous breathing of the encampment is well given by the bassoon, while the sufferings and trials of an unhappy father with an unpleasant infant are touchingly set forth by the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... roses of popular approval. No! no! it is not man's judgment that is meant here. It matters very little what men call us. It matters everything what God calls us. It is He who will call them 'sons of God.' So the Apostle John thought that Christ meant, for he very beautifully and touchingly quotes this passage when he says, 'Beloved! behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... have already suggested, shows us very touchingly and beautifully, how entirely He bore our human nature, and had entered into our conditions, in that He, too, felt that common human emotion, and was spurred to unhasting and yet unresting diligence by the thought ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... talk about the mysterious "wild man" out there in the West for some time, that I finally felt it was my duty to go out and interview him. There was something peculiarly and touchingly romantic about the creature and his strange actions, according to the newspaper reports. He was represented as being hairy, long-armed, and of great strength and stature; ugly and cumbrous; avoiding men, but appearing suddenly ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and brought up a large family in habits and sentiments of piety; a fact which his reverend biographer connects very touchingly with the stated solemnities of the "Saturday night," when the lighter chants of the week were exchanged at the worthy drover's fireside for the purer and holier melodies of another inspiration.[87] As a pendant to this creditable account of the bard's principles, we are ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the author I have above quoted, of "coarse sensuality." Pulci, "by his sceptical insinuations, seems clearly to display an intention of exposing religion to contempt." Boccaccio, the first of Italian prose-writers, had in his old age touchingly to lament the corrupting tendency of his popular compositions; and Bellarmine has to vindicate him, Dante, and Petrarch, from the charge of virulent abuse of the Holy See. Dante certainly does not scruple ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... his friends, in language touchingly significant, that "he would go up to Jerusalem;" and began to preach in the fields. The journey which he had undertaken was not to be a long one. He was heard to say In a sermon, that of his personal ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... sympathized with others' sorrows had had to suffer patiently his own. From the Manse gate as from that of the Castle, the mother and mistress had been carried, never to return. A new Helen— only fifteen years old—was trying vainly to replace to father and brothers her who was—as Mr. Cardross still touchingly put it— "away." But, though his grief was more than a year old, the minister mourned still. His was one of those quiet natures which make no show, and trouble no one, yet in which sorrow goes deep down, and grows into the heart, as ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... repentance, she had knelt down and invoked God, the Virgin, St. Michael, and St. Catharine, pardoning all and asking pardon, saying to the bystanders, "Pray for me!" In particular, she besought the priests to say each a mass for her soul. And all this so devoutly, humbly, and touchingly that, sympathy becoming contagious, no one could any longer contain himself; the Bishop of Beauvais melted into tears, the Bishop of Boulogne sobbed, and the very English cried and wept as well, Winchester with ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... near. She raised Larry to her lap, and looked up touchingly into their faces. "Can't I ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger
... singularly like each other, these little chefs-d'oeuvre of Barty's, and singularly handsome—an ideal type of his own; and the old grandfather was allowed his choice, and touchingly grateful at ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... stern warrior, his dark countenance lighted up as he gazed down upon her as if the long obscured sun had once more struggled from behind the clouds—these two silent figures in the green wood of their island home formed a picture touchingly beautiful and sublime. ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... sneer; "perhaps your authority comes from some one else. Her daughter, maybe? You and she are—or shall we say were—quite touchingly confidential ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... she went on, with a simple humility that became her very touchingly, "we're poor people up here, us 'natives,' and we don't get much time for books, or when we do, we're too tired to read 'em much. I don't doubt you've been to college, yourself, and you've prob'ly learnt a lot about the mistakes that's been ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... face has haunted me. Not so long as that other but more touchingly because I am no longer sixteen and this is a woman. Yes, I did think of her, I myself was once that age and I, too, had a face of my own to show to the world, though not so superb. And I, too, didn't know why I had come into the world any more than ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... their stead her own Virtue, erect, with a helmet on her head, a spear in her hand, and a fallen crown at her feet, and that ever dear and ever living sentiment, "SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS," and especially and touchingly, with unutterable and inextinguishable affection, as the beneficent parent who had rocked his cradle, who had held out to him in youth the helping hand, who had honored his meridian and his setting years with her greenest bays, and who as he humbly and ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... more appealing in the yearning efforts the immigrants sometimes make to formulate their situation in America. I recall a play written by an Italian playwright of our neighborhood, which depicted the insolent break between Americanized sons and old country parents, so touchingly that it moved to tears all the older Italians in the audience. Did the tears of each express relief in finding that others had had the same experience as himself, and did the knowledge free each one from a sense of isolation ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... against helpless old age; whether one whose recreations were natural science and manly exercise, showed tokens of vicious tendencies; above all, whether a youth, whose friendship they had seen so touchingly claimed by a son of one of the most highly respected gentlemen in the county, were evincing the propensities that lead to the perpetration of ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is not necessary to waste time in discussing what the common experience confutes Neither is it necessary to fly to the other extreme, and indulge in preposterous sentimentalities about the magic of fatherhood and a mother's love. These are not magic and unlimited things, but touchingly qualified and human things. The temperate truth of the matter is that in most parents there are great stores of pride, interest, natural sympathy, passionate love and devotion which can be tapped in the interests of the children and the social future, and that ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... The man of culture and refinement, while always considerate to those beneath him in station, never, under any circumstances, loses control of his emotions for an instant. Though the gentleman-rider in the picture may be touchingly fond of his steeplechase horse, it is unpardonably bad form for him to make an exhibition of his affection while going over the brush in plain view of numbers of total strangers. In doing so he simply is making a "guy" of himself, and it is no more than ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... Gammon—the same thing now—thoroughly at heart. You will hear from his lordship, Miss Sparkes—no, hang it, Miss Polly. You will very soon have a line from his lordship, who, I may venture to say, is really attached to you. He speaks of you all most touchingly. Good evening, Miss Polly, not good-bye; we are to meet again very soon. And who knows all the happy changes that are before you. Ta-ta, Gammon. Rely upon me; I never failed a ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... sudden, rare smile of extraordinary sweetness. Her intention was so unmistakable—so touchingly ingenious, as are all youth's attempts to heal a bitterness that lies ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... had done so, she flung herself down on the rushes [note 1], and bent her head forward on her knees. The longer she thought over her prospects, the more dreary and doleful they appeared. Her state of mind was one that has been touchingly described by a writer who lived three hundred years later—"Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother"—who, of all who have attempted and failed in the impossible task of rendering the Psalms into verse, perhaps approached as ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt
... family mansion, standing apart in some little rural domain, but looking down with a protecting air on the surrounding scene; all these common features of English landscape evince a calm and settled security, a hereditary transmission of homebred virtues and local attachments, that speak deeply and touchingly for the moral character ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... "Wenceslas, after giving me his word of honor that he would not go near Madame Marneffe, dined with her last night, and did not come in till a quarter-past one in the morning.—If you only knew! The day before we had had a discussion, not a quarrel, and I had appealed to him so touchingly. I told him I was jealous, that I should die if he were unfaithful; that I was easily suspicious, but that he ought to have some consideration for my weaknesses, as they came of my love for him; that I had my father's blood ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... not impressed him. That he was an impressionable man I could not doubt. The presence of the girl there on the pavement before me proved this up to the hilt—and, well, yes, touchingly enough. ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... again by Tiny and Miss Judy, she hid her face on Miss Judy's shoulder and blushed at Dr. Grayson's long speech of praise, in which he spoke touchingly of the beauty of a nature which loved the wild dumb creatures of the woods and sought to protect them from harm; of the cool courage and splendid will power that had sent her out on the shaking branch when her ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... One has only to read "Ole Mistis," the first story in this collection, to feel the power of Mr. Moore's genius. It is at once the finest story of a horse race ever written, a powerful love story and most touchingly pathetic narrative of the faith and devotion ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... can think with ease of Jenny ten years hence or of Emmy as a baby. The fickle Alf is one of the most perfect Cockneys—a type so easy to caricature and so hard to get true—in fiction. If there exists a better writing of vulgar lovemaking, so base, so honest, so touchingly mean and so touchingly full of the craving for happiness than this, I do not know of it. Only a novelist who has had his troubles can understand fully what a dance among china cups, what a skating over thin ice, what a tight-rope performance is achieved in ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... our deep sorrow over the loss of our faithful member, Past President and Secretary, Mr. Willard G. Bixby whose passing was so touchingly referred ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... delightful hour in handling my tools. It is curious how the mere sight of such objects brings back to the memory bygone incidents and recollections. Friends long dead seem to start up while looking at them. You almost feel as if you could converse with the departed. I do not know of anything so touchingly powerful in vividly bringing back the treasured incidents and memories of one's life as the sight of such humble objects. Every one has, no doubt, a treasured store of such material records of a well-remembered portion of his past life. These strike, as it were, the keynote ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... bystanders gathered to see him pass; how the London roughs, asserting an Englishman's best and most blissful right of doing what he likes, robbed and beat the bystanders; and how the blameless warrior-magistrate refused to let his troops interfere. 'The crowd,' he touchingly said afterwards, 'was mostly composed of fine, healthy, strong men, bent on mischief; if he had allowed his soldiers to interfere, they might have been overpowered, their rifles taken from them and used against them by ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... and fell to bowing till their bills touched the ground, but, oh horror—the magic word was quite forgotten, and however often the Caliph bowed and however touchingly his Vizier cried 'Mu...mu...' they could not recall it, and the unhappy Chasid and Mansor remained ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... by the same firm in 1887, and is most touchingly dedicated to all the many doctors of whose skill and kindness Mr Stevenson had had such frequent need. The verses in it were written at different times and in different places, and while many of them are full of the early freshness of youth some of them give ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... reminded him of that dreadful retreat. The Emperor covered his face with his hand. No one was there. He could afford to give away. There rose before him in the darkness the face of the wife of his youth, only to be displaced by the nearer woman, the Austrian wife and the little son whom he had so touchingly confided to the National Guard a month ago when he left Paris for the last try with fortune for his empire and his life. Would the allies at last and finally beat him; would Francis Joseph, weak monarch whom he hated, take back his daughter, ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... at the same time to foster Eastern immigration by an exhibit of the Californian literary product; but, looking back upon his venture, I am inclined to think that the little volume never contained anything more poetically pathetic or touchingly imaginative than that gentle conception. Equally simple and trustful was his selection of myself as compiler. It was based somewhat, I think, upon the fact that "the artless Helicon" I boasted "was Youth," but I imagine it was chiefly ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... and Socrates was actually executed for his godless teachings. The Greek thinkers furnish the first instance of intellectual freedom, of the "self-detachment and self-abnegating vigor of criticism" which is most touchingly illustrated in the honest "know-nothingism" of Socrates. They discovered skepticism in the higher and proper significance of the word, and this was their supreme contribution to ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... cannot first make him weak. Ah, love, how weak I could be for your sake,—and how strong!... but be strong for mine, be strong for Jenny's sake. I love that best." Then for a moment they stood lost once more, locked in an embrace so touchingly kind, so sheltering, so calm, that their very attitude was home; and, had they had ears or eyes for a world outside that home, they might have seen, at that dark half-opened staircase door, a little face look in happy and draw back dead; for Jenny had followed them more quickly than ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... nights made it difficult to sleep—he had actually forgotten that it was light all night long. And this was a capital city—yet so touchingly small, it seemed but a few steps wherever he went. These were his countrymen, but he knew no one among them; there was no one to greet him. Still, he thought again, some day all this might be ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... fraud of usury always take to cover behind the widow and the fatherless. They plausibly pretend to be zealous for their protection while endeavoring to hide their own greed. Their pleas are often touchingly pathetic. "A thrifty loving father was taken away by death from a dear wife and sweet little ones. They had always leaned on his strong arms. He was their joy, their protector and their support. This widow and her fatherless children are left with nothing to ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott
... partially successful, and was made at the expense of his own high standing among his people. They were not easily reconciled, and were so much displeased with his conduct on this, and one or two subsequent occasions, that they even threatened his life. A circumstance he touchingly refers to in a speech addressed to ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... rapid traveling in a Vienna carriage, and the solitude of the road, all had a gladdening effect on Pierre. The estates he had not before visited were each more picturesque than the other; the serfs everywhere seemed thriving and touchingly grateful for the benefits conferred on them. Everywhere were receptions, which though they embarrassed Pierre awakened a joyful feeling in the depth of his heart. In one place the peasants presented him ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... O, touchingly solemn and tender the hour, So full of deep meaning the vow You have uttered. And sorely you need Divine power To guide you and guard you in sunshine and shower, For trouble will come and love's delicate flower Be crushed, you can scarcely ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... is supposed that God must invent some scheme by which to make it possible for him to save these lost and fallen men. If you read the parable of the Prodigal Son as Jesus has so tenderly, touchingly, beautifully outlined it for us, you will see that there is no thought or plan or necessity for either in that. The son left his home, followed the impulses and passions of youth, had gone among those that were degraded, had soiled his character, done despite to his father's love, injured his own ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... which she had been smitten. In truth, no small portion of the hull seemed a mine of stolen goods, stolen out of its own bowels. I found a jaunty shore-cap of the captain's, hidden away in the hollow heart of a coil of rigging; covered over in a manner most touchingly natural, with a heap of old ropes; and near by, in a breaker, discovered several entire pieces of calico, heroically tied together with cords almost strong enough to sustain ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... course introduced the reader to the more especial inmates of the hospital. Here were discovered eight old men; and it was given to be understood that four vacancies remained unfilled, through the perverse ill-nature of the clerical gentleman with the double chin. The state of these eight paupers was touchingly dreadful: sixpence-farthing a day had been sufficient for their diet when the almshouse was founded; and on sixpence-farthing a day were they still doomed to starve, though food was four times as dear, and money four times as plentiful. It was shocking to find how the conversation of these eight ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... literary judgment was touchingly warped by his personal admirations. He would offer some impossible MS. as the work of dawning genius; it would be politely received, and filed in the rejected pigeon-holes. Who knows what the great man thought when his friend's poem failed to see ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... is so touchingly frank and simple that whoever reads it must feel that the portrait Mozart draws of his Constance is absolutely true to life. He makes no attempt to paint her as a paragon of beauty and intellect. It is a picture of the neglected member ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... in my pocket a letter from your sister Cecilia, received this morning—received three months after her marriage, poor child!—in which she tells me that her husband must unexpectedly shelter under their roof his reduced aunt. "But I will be true to him, mamma," she touchingly writes, "I will not leave him, I must not forget that he is my husband. Let his aunt come!" If this is not pathetic, if this is not woman's devotion—!' The good lady waved her gloves in a sense of the impossibility of saying more, and tied the ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... is touchingly resigned," said Madame de Villegry, with a deep sigh; "and heaven knows how many other cares she has besides the loss of money! I don't mean only the death of her husband—and you know how much they were attached to each other—I am speaking of that ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... here for so little, cast among so many hardships, filled with desires so incommensurate and so inconsistent; savagely surrounded, savagely descended, irremediably condemned to prey upon his fellow-lives. Infinitely childish, often admirably valiant, often touchingly kind; sitting down to debate of right or wrong and the attributes of the deity; rising up to battle for an egg or ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... gold? What else was the fabled garden of the Hesperides, where the trees, guarded by a fierce and formidable serpent, bore apples of gold? What else was the tragic story of a father and his sons dying by the bites and crushed within the scaly folds of a coil of serpents; and on which, as touchingly represented in the sculptured marble, we have never looked without recalling the fate of Adam and his unhappy offspring? And what else is the old legend of him who with rash hand sowed serpent's teeth, and saw spring from the soil, not clustering vines, ...
— The Angels' Song • Thomas Guthrie
... alone. They have had their day and gone out of vogue. The best part of this book, and indeed the best work Miss DELL has yet done, is her treatment of the romantic friendship between Christine and Bertrand de Montville. It is handled so touchingly and so surely that I resent with all the more peevishness the banality ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... innocent little daughter comes in with the simple, commonplace question which he answers so touchingly. Can you not see him with his arm around the child, telling her of the care of the Father who loves little children so dearly? Yet his mind cannot free itself wholly from his first great sorrow, though he remembers that calmness, resignation, and gentle patience fell over his heart as the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... it wasn't a time to suggest. One had to make up one's mind, as quietly as possible, by what one could judge. And I judge, as I say, that Charlotte felt she could face it. For which she struck me at the time as—for so proud a creature—almost touchingly grateful. The thing I should never forgive her for would be her forgetting to whom it is her thanks have remained ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... same mild censure, together with still warmer exhortations. It was easy to see that he preferred Edmee's tranquility to my happiness, and that he was full of genuine joy at my departure. Nevertheless he had a liking for me, and his friendship showed itself touchingly through the cruel satisfaction that was mingled with it. He expressed envy of my lot; proclaimed his enthusiasm for the cause of independence; and declared that he himself had more than once felt tempted to throw off the cassock and take up the musket. All this, ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... McCOMAS (touchingly). It is by proving that, Mrs. Clandon, that I have lost all my young disciples. Be careful what you do: let her go her own way. (With some bitterness.) We're old-fashioned: the world thinks it has left us behind. There is only one place in all England ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw
... among them. It is plainly unfair to take an abnormal case to cast blame upon the Precepts, any more than to judge of the true teaching of Christ from the fruits of religious fanaticism and extravagance—inquisitions and hypocrisy. But, as in religious monomania there is something touchingly noble, as compared with the delirium tremens of a drunkard, so in that extreme sensitiveness of the samurai about their honor do we not recognize the substratum of a ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... a ship's cabin, and the door always stood open for the sake of air. But if all these things spoke of great poverty, the atmosphere was sedate and studious; and for those who knew the mother and children, there was something touchingly ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... Newburyport and Amesbury. None were more welcome than Whittier and his sister, and two nieces, one of whom, Lizzie, as we called her, had the beautiful eyes—the grand features in both the poet and his sister. Those eyes of his sister Elizabeth are most touchingly alluded to by Whittier when he refers to his sister's childhood ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... young girls were satisfied, for Constance contrived the appearance of several stalwart youths of the neighborhood to help her son leaven the group of older men. Mrs. Thayer flirted pleasantly and wittily with whoever chanced to be at hand, Mr. Elliot hobnobbed with Farraday and made touchingly laborious efforts to be frivolous, and McEwan kept the household laughing at his gambols, heavy as those of a St. ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... Mary, Queen of Scots," touchingly expresses the weary feelings that must have existed in the breast of the ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... How this reminds me of a sweet little poem of Heine's; it is just as though he described this fortress and this soldier, but in the warmth of summer: one sees the picture livingly before one, as here; the weapon glances in the sun, and the part ends so touchingly,—'Ich wollt', er schoesse mich todt!' It is here so romantically beautiful! on the right the animated promenade, and the view over the Sund; on the left, the desolate square, where the military criminals are shot, and close upon it the ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... I don't know how to thank you, indeed ... for such kindness, but ... If only you knew how precious time is to me.... That sum of money, for which I shall be indebted to your generosity.... Oh, madam, since you are so kind, so touchingly generous to me," Mitya exclaimed impulsively, "then let me reveal to you ... though, of course, you've known it a long time ... that I love somebody here.... I have been false to Katya ... Katerina Ivanovna I should say.... Oh, I've behaved inhumanly, dishonorably to ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... sitting by the table with a sheet of music and a pen at his elbow, for he thought aloud in soft sounds that often ceased at first and then began again, but little by little linked themselves together in a melody that has not perished to this day; and with the music the words came, touchingly simple, but ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... to bring out, for in the freshness of their recovered fellowship she would have lent herself gleefully to his suggesting, or even to his pretending, that their relations were easy and graceful. There was something in him that seemed, and quite touchingly, to ask her to help him to pretend—pretend he knew enough about her life and her education, her means of subsistence and her view of himself, to give the questions he couldn't put her a natural domestic tone. She would have pretended with ecstasy if he could only have given ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... in his sixtieth year. M. Littre, his most famous pupil, touchingly looked after his wants to the last, ministered to his necessities, advancing money on royalties that were never due. M. Littre occasionally apologized for the meagerness of the returns, and was closely questioned and even doubted ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... seemed that it would be better in the meantime to reach the lake by the Zambesi and the Shire, so the party returned. It was not till the beginning of 1863 that they were able to renew the ascent of these rivers. Livingstone writes touchingly to Sir Roderick, in reference to his returning to the Zambesi: "It may seem to some persons weak to feel a chord vibrating to the dust of her who rests on the banks of the Zambesi, and think that the path by that river ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... these and a hundred other fascinating trivialities, he had a painful sense of treachery to Mr. Beagle senior. The old gentleman was so touchingly certain that he had found in him the ideal shoulders on which to unload his honourable and crushing burden. With more than paternal pride old Beagle saw Gissing, evidently urbane and competent, cheerfully circulating ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... conceivable that only twelve hours earlier she had been ecstatically happy? In twelve hours—in six hours—she had aged twenty years, and she now saw the Rachel of the reception and of the bicycle lesson as a young girl, touchingly ingenuous, with no more notion ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... and loneliness fell upon him, the boy had no youthful ameliorations, even though he was so touchingly young. Occasionally some old friend of his grandfather's encountered him somewhere and gave him rather florid good advice; some kindly matron, perhaps, asked him to come and see her; but there was no one in the place who could do anything practical. ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... conjecture—except to those who can perceive and appreciate the intense and sensitive love of children which may haply have made the task distasteful if not intolerable: but it is certain that even he could hardly have made the last words of the little fellows more touchingly ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... banditti, that they at length promise to stab Stradella during his next singing performance. While they lie-in-wait for him, Stradella sings the {12} hymn of the Holy Virgin's clemency towards sinners so touchingly, that his pursuers cast their swords away and sink on their knees, joining in the refrain. Full of astonishment Stradella learns of the danger in which he had been, but in the end he willingly pardons not only the banditti but also his wife's uncle, who, won over like the ruffians by the power of ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... heart. Sung now in their exile, they brought back to each heart some recollection of the happiest scenes and fondest ties of its existence. No power of poetry, nor even of the pencil, could have brought the past so deeply, so touchingly, with such living sensibility, before them. There at least, was no acting, no display, no feigned feeling—their country, their friends, the perils of husband and brother in the field, the anguish, almost ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... the writer; the mother's touchingly pathetic in describing the "valley of the shadow" through which they had passed, and glowing with love and gratitude to God in view of the present hopeful and peaceful conditions; closing with an earnest, even piteous, appeal for her husband's ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... struggle for American Independence put upon the generation who encountered it, was touchingly illustrated in the lives of these two men, a generation, or two generations after the struggle had been successfully closed. Amid the quiet hills of Vermont, the minds of both were affected for a time, with at least partial derangement. Dea. Boardman labored temporarily ...
— Log-book of Timothy Boardman • Samuel W Boardman
... supervision of the baby's own physician. He is much better off, much more contented, and we are all aware of the fact that contentment and familiarity of sights and people promote good appetite, good digestion, and happiness—the very essentials of success in baby feeding. We speak touchingly and sympathetically to the mother who must leave her babe; and likewise we wish to cheer her as we remind her that by wireless messages and night letters it is possible to keep in touch with loved ones though a ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... almost religious, duty,—in vain he exerted himself to repel such sophisms and put the matter in its true light. It was easy for him to move Sir Miles's heart,—that was ever gentle; that was moved already: but the crotchet in his head was impregnable. The more touchingly he painted poor Susan's unfriended youth, her sweet character, and promising virtues, the more Sir Miles St. John considered himself a martyr to his principles, and the more obstinate in the martyrdom he became. "Poor thing! poor child!" he said often, and brushed ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... afternoon it was directly in the line of circumstances that I should remain for tea; and after tea Phyllis played and sang for me in the little parlor, for Phyllis was a musician of no small merit. When in reply to my inquiry she sang a simple Scotch ballad her mother had sung so touchingly many years before, a great lump rose in my throat, and I sat far over in the shadow that she and Mary might not see how blurred were my eyes, and how unmanageable my emotion. At what age does it come to a man and a philosopher that he is no longer ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... indeed fallen soundly asleep, one arm under his head, the other flung wide, half buried in the grass. For a long time she looked down gravely at the powerful body, at the large, sinewy hand, relaxed like a sleeping child's, at the eagle-like face, touchingly softened ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... be voluntary, her concurrence in His designs of mercy had to be asked. Neither, however, to visible or invisible guardian angel would He intrust the invitation, which, to crown His infinite condescension, was to come from Himself in person. She has left us a touchingly simple description of the extraordinary favour referred to, which she always looked on as the first link in the chain of her vocation to the mystic life, ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... deep and abiding faith, new at the time, in the power of education as a means of regenerating society. He had begun his work by trying to "teach beggars to live like men," and his belief in the potency of education in working this transformation, so touchingly expressed in his Leonard and Gertrude, never left him. He believed that each human being could be raised through the influence of education to the level of an intellectually free and morally independent life, and that every human being ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... build an asylum for the Colored orphans of New Orleans. But just then the yellow fever overtook her in her work of mercy, and she fell a victim to its deadly touch on the 10th of October, 1867, saying so touchingly, "I belong to God, our Father," ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... neat welcome by the host, uprose the erudite dignitary of the State Department, and he read, in deep, full tones, an obituary sketch of the supposed deceased, which he had prepared upon the receipt of the sad news. Pike's remarks, in reply, were touchingly beautiful, especially when he expressed his delight at having read kind notices of himself from those whom he had feared were his enemies, and his hopes that all enmity between him and his fellow- men might remain buried ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... toward her, when he sang in his bewitching voice phrases so full of charm and when the pretty blonde Marguerite replied so touchingly the whole house was moved with ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... object under every change of dress, and under all effects of novelty. Partly it was the interest I took in that exhibition of sweet timidity, and almost childish apprehensiveness, half disguised or imperfectly acknowledged by herself, which (in the way I have just explained) so touchingly contrasted with (and for that very reason so touchingly drew forth) her matronly character. But I hear some objector say at this point, ought not this very timidity, founded (as in part at least it was) upon inexperience ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... appointed guardian, and Jean urged his wishes so eagerly and touchingly that the lawyer consented to deduct from the income a sum of 2,400 francs, which, every year till Jean came of age, was divided between old Clemence and ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy
... to them. They listened with respect for the student who had gone to his mother's dying bed. They had all been long enough away from their own mothers to have come to feel the worth of a mother quite touchingly. Moreover, they perceived that Courtland had seen more in Wittemore than they had ever seen. He had a side, it appeared, that was wholly unselfish, almost heroic in a way. They had never suspected him of it before. His long, ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... every morning at the same hour, dined at the same slap-bang every day, and revelled in each other's company very night. They were knit together by the closest ties of intimacy and friendship, or, as Mr. Thomas Potter touchingly observed, they were 'thick-and-thin pals, and nothing but it.' There was a spice of romance in Mr. Smithers's disposition, a ray of poetry, a gleam of misery, a sort of consciousness of he didn't exactly know what, coming across him he didn't precisely know why—which stood ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... were really beautiful: they were chiefly from an episode, of Palemon and Anna, excessively delicate, yet tender in the extreme, and most touchingly ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... tell thee that I have scruple about this intrigue. Dost thou remember, when we went in a frolic to hear Father Clement preach, or rather to see this fair heretic, that he spoke as touchingly as a minstrel about the rich man taking away the ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... most charming surprise. William mastered his timidity and began to sing. His voice was a little faint and frail, like the family daguerreotypes, but it was a tenor voice, and perfectly true and sweet. I have never heard Home, Sweet Home sung as touchingly and seriously as he sang it; he seemed to make it quite new; and when he paused for a moment at the end of the first line and began the next, the old mother joined him and they sang together, she missing only the higher notes, where he seemed to lend his voice to ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... poor girl to a more amiable behavior. Parisse worshipped her mistress, and had the joy one day of being represented behind her in the likeness engraved by a celebrated artist. They became really attached friends. Is it not touchingly instructive thus to trace the religious ascent of the soul of this noble woman in her friendships, as they successively stoop from the Czarina Marie to the deaf mute Parisse? In his funeral sermon on Madame Swetchine, Lacordaire thus alludes to ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... very simply and touchingly, she told him the story of all that had happened, of Magda's final intention of becoming a working member of the sisterhood, and of Lady Arabella's letter summoning ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... and burst the little breast in which it had unconsciously smothered. Witness Campbell's little poem, "The Parrot," the incident of which he learned in the Island of Mull, from the family to whom the bird belonged,—an incident which inspired the poet to a strain so touchingly sweet that I cannot resist the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... her face was touchingly humble that night; and all the evening she kept fast by either Alice or John, without budging an inch. And as little Ellen Chauncey and her cousin George Walsh chose to be where she was, the young party was quite divided; and not the least merry portion of it was that mixed with the older people. ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... fair girl, beginning with the loss of her young brothers, related all that had occurred during the two years following, up to the time of her mother's death, while she spoke most touchingly of the patience and fortitude with which the gentle invalid had borne their ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon |
