"Forlorn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... should have his Lord Treasurer, of standing and of honour sufficient to ensure sound administration and compel respect. Commissioners, as Clarendon discerned clearly, would be bad servants and dangerous masters. Clarendon might be fighting a forlorn hope against the growing forces of officialdom; but his dislike was honest, and his discernment ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... forlorn is the reader than the philologist when the latter arrives back at the dingle, after a visit to the tavern two miles away, to find that the tardily recognised treasure is lost to him for ever,—resolved ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... brief while she planned to take her life. She prayed to God with tears for one heart only that she might love, that she might actually care for. Since the care of her father is taken from her she feels herself at first truly and utterly forlorn, all the dear memories of childhood turn in anger from her and a curse seems to ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... said, "we're a most worshipful company of broken deadbeats, fed on credit, and out on a forlorn hope; but it seems to me that the storekeeper who supplied us with provisions is the craziest ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... Melancholy, ............Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born In Stygian cave forlorn ............'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy! Find out some uncouth cell, ............Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings, And the night-raven sings; ............There, under ebon shades and low-browed rocks, As ragged as thy ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... smile something more intimate than she had given the others, but when she turned precisely the same cheery expression upon Philip, Carl seemed to have lost something which he had trustingly treasured for years. He was the more forlorn as Olive Dunleavy joined them, and Ruth, Philip, and Olive discussed the engagement of one Mary Meldon. Olive recalled Miss Meldon as she had been in school days at the Convent of the Sacred Heart. Philip told of her flirtations at the old Long ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... Attic page, Yet does my mind with sweeter transport glow, As, at the root of mossy trunk reclined, In magic Spenser's wildly-warbled song I see deserted Una wander wide Through wasteful solitudes and lurid heaths, Weary, forlorn, than when the fated fair Upon the bosom bright of silver Thames Launches in all the lustre of brocade, Amid the splendours of the laughing sun: The gay description palls upon the sense, And coldly strikes the mind with ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... you," replied the mate; "but I did not wish to urge the lad to attempt so forlorn a hope without giving him a little time for plan ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... certain point on this trail a frontiersman named Barker built a forlorn ranch-house and corral, and offered what is conventionally called "entertainment for ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... unbroken still, Rested upon my spirit and my will. Unsouled, unhearted, hopeless and forlorn, I strove ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... We call it courage in a soldier merely to face death—say to lead a forlorn hope—although he has a chance of life and a certainty of "glory." But the suicide does more than face death; he incurs it, and with a certainty, not of glory, but of reproach. If that is not courage we must ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... contrived to collect 15,000 men together, whom he led to Venice; whence, not without much haggling and the surrender of all the Hungarian claims upon Zara, about two-thirds of them were conveyed to Acre. But the whole expedition was a forlorn hope. The Christian kingdom of Palestine was by this time reduced to a strip of coast about 440 sq. m. in extent, and after a drawn battle with the Turks on the Jordan (November 10), and fruitless assaults on the fortresses of the Lebanon and on Mount ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... left with Mr. Stapylton instructions that the men under his charge should move up to and occupy the round point of the hill, a position which I named Fort O'Hare in memory of a truly brave soldier, my commanding officer who fell at Badajoz in leading the forlorn hope of the Light Division ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... occasionally with feverish enjoyment, especially verse. But she did not and could not read enough. Of the shelf-ful of books which in thirty years had drifted by one accident or another into the Lessways household, she had read every volume, except Cruden's Concordance. A heterogeneous and forlorn assemblage! Lavater's Physiognomy, in a translation and in full calf! Thomson's Seasons, which had thrilled her by its romantic beauty! Mrs. Henry Wood's Danesbury House, and one or two novels by Charlotte M. Yonge and Dinah Maria Craik, which ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... to smile, but it was a rather forlorn little effort. She did not cry any more, but her spirits did not come back to her. Eric talked gaily, but she only listened in a pensive, absent way, as if she scarcely heard him. When he asked her to ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... her that at last her petition had been granted. From the depths of the earth, after more than twenty years, the obstinate mother had forgiven them, and sent them the child of pardon so ardently desired and longed for. Was this the recompense of their charity towards the poor forlorn little creature whom they had found one snowy day at the Cathedral entrance, and who to-day was to wed a prince with all the show and pomp of the greatest ceremony? They remained on their knees, without praying in formulated words, enraptured with gratitude, their whole souls overflowing ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... now become a wild debauch. Except for the few unfortunates who had been detailed by Hovey to guard the prisoners and see that the fugitives in the wireless house made no attempt to rush the main cabin as a forlorn hope, every man of the crew was gathered in the captain's cabins or on the deck nearby. The fireroom was deserted; the engines stopped; the Heron floated idly on the swell of the sea; but heedless of this the mutineers celebrated ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... consequent subjugation of woman, despite the fact that the Roman Church exalted the Virgin as a personality; but the postulate of the Church that Mary was so exalted by a miracle, which never could be repeated, killed any forlorn hope which might have lurked within the female breast regarding a possible emulation of her example. No other woman might do more than cringe and crawl and beg and whine; or cajole and wheedle and buy the ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... vanguard, while Gaston placed himself at the head of the main body. Montmorency was accompanied by the Comtes de Moret, de Rieux, and de la Feuillade, who, after some slight skirmishes, abandoning the comparatively safe position which they occupied, recklessly pushed forward to support a forlorn hope which had received orders to take possession of an advantageous post. M. de Moret, whose impetuosity always carried him into the heart of the melee, was the first to charge the royal cavalry, among whom ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... the boys but Franz and Emil knew what had happened, and when they came down next morning, great was their wonderment and discomfort, for the house seemed forlorn without its master and mistress. Breakfast was a dismal meal with no cheery Mrs. Jo behind the teapots; and when school-time came, Father Bhaer's place was empty. They wandered about in a disconsolate kind of way for an hour, waiting for news and hoping it would be all right ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... which art 'accommodates' man to nature, (for that is the word of this philosophy, where it is first proposed)—glad to divide with his meanest subject that shelter which the outcast seeks on such a night—ready to creep with him, under it, side by side—'fain to hovel with swine and rogues forlorn, in short and musty straw'—surely we have reached a point at last where the action of the piece itself—the mere 'dumb show' of it—becomes luminous, and hardly needs the player's eloquence to tell ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... quietly home. I bag the back seat and Adrien. It is hard on me, I know, but fifteen minutes more of Patsy and I shall be counting my tootsies and prattling nursery rhymes. Here they come," he breathed. "Now, 'a little forlorn hope, deadly breach act, if you love me, Hardy.' Play ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... his forlorn and scattered attitude, there hung about his rags an air of something noble and protective, something strangely inviting that welcomed without criticism all the day might bring. Homeless himself, and with no place to lay his extraordinary body, the birds might have ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... it very closely, Charlotte dear. It's a most forlorn little old place, and much run down. Two old ladies have lived there all their lives, and have died there within the year. They would never sell, although, as you see, the neighbourhood all about is built up with modern houses—all except our own. This house is quite ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... told you—it's worldly wisdom, and you have your fortune to make; so now recollect, never hold back at a forlorn hope; volunteer for everything; volunteer to be blown from a cannon's mouth, so that they will give you promotion for that same; volunteer to go all over the world, into the other world, and right through that again ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... road, in his mind's eye he saw her again as the victim of this man, his plaything, his pastime to takeup or leave—no better than any of the women about her, and where they were going she would go also. Some day he would find her where he had found others—outcast, deserted, forlorn, lost; down in the trough of life, a thing of ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... way under the sun of getting him to do any certain thing. He will dare willingly, but he will not permit himself to be driven. So this attempt of the boatmen to force Alf only aroused all the dogged stubbornness of his race. The same qualities were in him that are in men who lead forlorn hopes; and there, under the stars, on the lonely pier, encircled by the jostling and shouldering gang, he resolved that he would die rather than submit to the indignity of being robbed of a single stitch of clothing. Not value, ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... wave by the wild wind's blore Down from the clouds upon a ship doth light, And the whole hulk with scattering foam is white, And through the sails all tattered and forlorn Roars the fell blast: the seamen with affright Shake, and from death a hand-breadth they ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... home he had a forlorn hope that he should find Clemency there; that from a spirit of mischief she had taken some cross track over the fields to elude him. But when Aaron met him in the drive, and he saw the man's frightened stare, he knew that she had not come. It was unnecessary to ask, but ask ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... to himself, though but very seldom, and the following two letters are almost as though he were talking to himself. "I am far less forlorn when he is here," he says of himself and Uncle Hiram. With all his self-analysis he did not see that being forlorn was part of the price he must pay for the simple but intense joy he experienced from the beauty life ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... Were worn with endless pacing, up and down, And round and round the cruel thoughtless town. Her limbs were shrunk, and in her large round eyes The light of coming madness seemed to rise. No word she spoke, but sat, a prey to scorn, Forsaken, friendless, feeble and forlorn. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 6, 1892 • Various
... come to thee, While thou are sailing on the sea, With sorrow would our hearts be torn, And we would be here all forlorn. ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... withdrawn in terror, all but John, James, and Peter. For Peter had decided to acknowledge himself a follower of Jesus of Nazareth, should it cost him his life. But no one troubled any further about the strangers. The disciples had seen Judas slinking behind the rocky mounds; he looked abject and forlorn, the very image of despair, and although their rage against the traitor had known no bounds, they were softened by the sight of the miserable creature, regarding him only as an ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... It had a worn look, a trifle desperate, perhaps, in the lines of lip and the expression of the smoke-colored eyes. Jasper, sensitive to undercurrents, became aware that he stood in some fashion for a forlorn hope in the life of this Pierre. At the same time the manager remembered a confidence of Jane's. She had been "afraid of some one." She had been running away. There was one that mustn't find her, and to ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... his intention, and what his object? To draw back was to find out neither; and to say the truth, even if she had not been friendless and forlorn, Rachel would have been very sorry ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... the brans, and makes up the fire, and walks out. The pigs didn't try to come in agin, you may depend, when they see'd me; they didn't like the curlin' tongs, as much as some folks do, and pigs' tails kinder curl naterally. But there was lawyer a-standin' up by the grove, lookin' as peeked and as forlorn, as an ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... to the words, But, silent, turned her face away. With scorn And sorrow mingled were the swelling chords Of passionate lament, and then forlorn, Hopeless, she raised her tearful orbs ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... scarcely more intimate with his children. He was proud of them when they said anything clever, for, in spite of their babyhood, he felt at such moments that they were worthy of their father; but their forlorn infancy, their helpless ignorance, was no appeal to his heart. Some months before his wife's death he had begun to take his dinner alone, on account of his delicate digestion; and he continued the habit, seeing the ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... is nothing like economy of speech. But how my tawny hosts could contrive to realize such a fortune of talk out of their very meagre capital of subject-matter excited my never-ending wonder. They could provide forlorn pullets, certainly from the same farmyard with the lean kine of Egypt, and to these they could add, what was much better left unadded, a villainous species of unleavened bread, a sort of hoecake, not at all improved—precisely like the run of travelers—by leaving ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... of the scene, though appearing only on its outskirts. A canal ran along at the rear of the Dust-heap, and on the banks of its opposite side slowly wandered by—with hands clasped and hanging down in front of him, and eyes bent vacantly upon his hands—the forlorn figure of a man, in a very shabby great-coat, which had evidently once belonged to one in the position of a gentleman. And to a gentleman it still belonged—but in what a position! A scholar, a man of wit, of high sentiment, of refinement, and a good fortune withal—now by a sudden turn of ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... going about the deck, offering the passengers a basket of candies, lights, cigarettes, and cigars. Saving for Lida's words, I never should have recognized her; she was thin to the last degree, haggard, yellow, excessively shabby and forlorn-looking, and with a hollow cough; but as her eyes met mine (those eyes that you say are our water-mark) both of us made a sort of leap as if to go overboard, and I went up to her at once, and would have spoken, but she cried out, 'What have you done with ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... way through a marble courtyard, which wore a rather deserted and forlorn look, and which had huge low-lying halls and dwellings for the Palace servants ranged on either side. These appeared to be all deserted now, but at regular intervals were Russian sentries standing up on lookout platforms. They were peering over the walls in every direction, and ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... to swallow up the rest. Its approach was regarded by the Queen with ominous reluctance. At length, however, the moment for the meeting of the States General at Versailles arrived. Necker was once more in favour, and a sort of forlorn hope of better times dawned upon the perplexed monarch, in his anticipations ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... gruffly. Then, as she said nothing further, he turned slowly and looked at her. Her head was bent. She was striving for self-control. Something in her attitude went straight to the man's heart. She looked so small, so forlorn, so pathetic in her struggle ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... the upshot was that this party, which had marched out for a forlorn hope, took the gunboat and her crew as easily as a man gathers mushrooms. And the rest of the boats, dispirited belike, sheered off after another hour's banging and left the roadstead in peace. But, while this was happening, ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... towers, the huddled houses of the worn-out city of Tiberias. She is like an ancient beggar sitting on a rocky cape beside the lake and bathing her feet in the invisible water. The gathering dusk lends a sullen and forlorn aspect to the place. Behind us rise the shattered volcanic crags and cliffs of basalt; before us glimmer pallid and ghostly touches of light from the hidden waves; a few lamps twinkle here and there in ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... Usually the forlorn demesne was supervised by a mangy waiter brooding over mangy tables and by a mangier cat who kept a furtive eye on the placarded list of each day's plat du jour and wondered when her turn would come for Thursday's Saute de lapin. But tables, ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... not to leap at the first offer, and he left Tawm Kinch guessing at the gate of the big house. To Tawm it looked as lonely and forlorn as it looked majestic and desirable to Papa Pepperall, glancing back over his shoulder as he sauntered home with difficult deliberation. His heart was singing, "What a place to eat Sunday ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... You should be a centipede, Hal, instead of that forlorn biped, a bachelor. By the way, speaking of single-blessedness, how it must harrow you, my boy, to witness diurnally the bliss of the bride and bridegroom who sit opposite you here at table! Favor them with Lamb's 'Complaint ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... crowd of young fellows at the station, and there was a noisy interchange of greetings, as others stepped from the train. Everybody seemed to know everybody else, and the boys felt a little forlorn, as they looked over the gay throng and saw no face that ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... under no restrictions, Private Hal Overton, United States Army, sauntered forward to the bow. Private Noll Terry, feeling, if anything a bit more forlorn, followed him. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... forlorn little array on the west bank of the Delaware above Trenton. He had information that the British had stretched their line very far and thin to the east of the town. Separating his forces into three bodies, he commanded one of ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... mightie conquerours And poets sage; the firre that weepeth still; The willow, worne of forlorn paramours; The eugh, obedient to the benders will; The birch for shaftes; the sallow for the mill; The mirrhe sweete-bleeding in the bitter wound; The warlike beech; the ash for nothing ill; The fruitfull olive; and the platane round; ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... been removed from trespassing too nearly on their little occupation of ground. The flowers themselves shot up and grew as they had a mind. Prince's feather was conspicuous, and some ragged balsams. A few yellow marigolds made a forlorn attempt to look bright, and one tall sunflower raised its great head above all the rest; proclaiming the quality of the little kingdom ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... what were man, did not her hallowed ray Disperse, the clouds that thicken on his way! A weary pilgrim, left in cheerless gloom, To grope his midnight journey to the tomb; His life a tempest, death, a wreck forlorn, In sorrow ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... truculent impulse, Rushes on sheep in the fold, and engorges his banquet of murder; So has the Myrmidon kill'd compassion, nor breathes in his bosom Shame, which is potent for good among mortals, as well as for evil. Dear was Patroclus to him, but the mourner that buries a brother, Yea, and the father forlorn, that has stood by the grave of his offspring, These, even these, having wept and lamented, are sooth'd into calmness, For in the spirit of man have the Destinies planted submission. But because Hector in battle arrested the life of his comrade, Therefore encircling the tomb, at the ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... —Yes, forlorn, benighted wanderer, Thy poor, failing feet have brought thee Where the love of Jesus dwelleth. Gently in a bed they laid her, Chafed her stiffening limbs and temples, Pour'd the warm, life-giving cordial, But what seem'd the most ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... him, to let yourself be vexed by anything he said? Isn't it anything to you, that we who know you feel differently? Don't you care more about what we think of you than what he does who never saw you? Oh, Mr. West! you don't know, you can't think, how it makes me feel to see you so forlorn. I can't have it so. What can I say to you? How can I convince you how different our feeling for you is ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... that some passenger had thrown aside and endeavored to distract his mind from the forlorn sight. The sheets were gritty to the touch, and left a smutch upon the fingers. His clothes were sifted over with dust and fine particles of manure. The seat grated beneath his legs. The great headlines in the newspaper announced that the troops were ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... for its long and laborious washing;—these were the more definable points of a very somber picture. In the way of movement, and human life, there was the hasty rattle of a cab or coach, its driver protected by a water-proof cap over his head and shoulders; the forlorn figure of an old man, who seemed to have crept out of some subterranean sewer, and was stooping along the kennel, and poking the wet rubbish with a stick, in quest of rusty nails; a merchant or two, at the ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... last speech in the House was delivered in the debate on Uganda in June 1894, and was a painful failure. He was, in fact, dying of general paralysis. A journey round the world was undertaken as a forlorn hope. Lord Randolph started in the autumn of 1894, accompanied by his wife, but the malady made so much progress that he was brought back in haste from Cairo. He reached England shortly before Christmas and died in London on the 24th of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... spirit of beauty pathetically fumbling about in country brains; wool mats worked in the primary colours; and such wool wonders as a wool basket of flowers, in which real wool flowers grew out of a wool basket which you held by an over-arching wool handle, the whole worked with undeniable but how forlorn ingenuity,—a prehistoric relic of Mrs. Talbot's legendary school-days: survivals from a period which is best summed up in the one wonderful word "antimacassar," a period when for some unrecorded reason men ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... black, and windswept, and a car is a haven of refuge. From village to village the miners travel, for a change of cinema, of girl, of pub. The trams are desperately packed. Who is going to risk himself in the black gulf outside, to wait perhaps an hour for another tram, then to see the forlorn notice 'Depot Only', because there is something wrong! Or to greet a unit of three bright cars all so tight with people that they sail past with a howl of derision. Trams that ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... from the imminent destruction. The court had recognized his right to the farm upon the payment of five hundred dollars to its present nominal owner. The money had already been paid, and the farm lay now desolate and forlorn, shivering in the cold gusts from the glacier. The family had just boarded a large English brig which lay at anchor out in the fjord, and was about to set sail for the new world beyond the sea. In the prow of the vessel stood Tharald, gazing with sullen defiance toward the unknown west, while Elsie, ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... paid the porter, having received the money for that purpose from Mrs. Conway; and the latter setting down the box in the passage at once went off. Ralph felt a little forlorn, and wondered what he was to do next. But a minute later the landlady ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... acknowledge that I am such a poor forlorn fellow as one might fancy," he said, smiling, "while I have still such kind ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... to render my position more comfortable, ending in a forlorn hope that intense and continued sitting might, by some undefined process of evaporation, cure the evil. This suggested a speculation, half pleasing and half painful, as to what would be my mother's feelings could she be aware of the state of things; the pleasure being the ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... deserted room on the north side. And its forlorn door still bangs in the wind, like Despair beating ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... demonstration; but I am not without a certain psychological insight, and I think I understood Mr. Jaffrey's case. I could easily understand how a man with an unhealthy, sensitive nature, overwhelmed by sudden calamity, might take refuge in some forlorn place like this old tavern, and dream his life away. To such a man—brooding forever on what might have been and dwelling wholly in the realm of his fancies—the actual world might indeed become as a dream, and nothing seem real but his illusions. I dare say that thirteen ...
— Miss Mehetabel's Son • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... us,—nothing but inky blackness around and over us. We tried to make Nettle go first, intending to follow his lead, and trusting to his keeping the track; but Nettle's place was at my heels, and neither coaxing nor scolding would induce him to forego it. A forlorn hope was nothing to the dangers of each footstep. First one and then the other volunteered to lead the way, declaring they could find the track. All this time we were trying to strike the indistinct road among the tussocks, made by occasional ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... girls stepped out into the slippery street, and turned their faces homeward. "I am glad, Lizzie," continued Bertha, as they turned corner after corner, "that our paths run together so far; having company is so much better than being alone this forlorn afternoon. And remember, I desire to know the answer to my invitation as early as possible. To-morrow is my brother Isaac's confirmation day, and we must all be promptly at the synagogue ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... Thompson about my relative and my anticipations of a cordial welcome. His experience, however, had led him to entertain an unfavorable opinion of mankind in general, and he expressed a doubt whether a knowledge of my forlorn condition would not repel the advances and freeze the affectionate welcome which under other circumstances I might have expected. I was indignant at such an insinuation, and made known my intention to call upon my kinsman the next day, and ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... crazy little barks tossed about like cockle-shells in the raging waves, his anchors lost, his worm-eaten vessels as full of holes as a honey-comb, two caravels abandoned, and the two remaining run ashore at Jamaica, where Columbus built huts on their decks to shelter his forlorn crew. See him stranded here, pressed by hunger and want, visited by sickness and almost blindness, burning with fever under the wilting, fiery heat of the tropics, desolate, forsaken, infirm, and old. There he lay a whole year without relief, until ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... and pain? Cruel disdain. What aggravates my misery? Accursed jealousy. How has my soul its patience lost? By tedious absence crossed. Alas! no balsam can be found To heal the grief of such a wound. When absence, jealousy, and scorn Have left me hopeless and forlorn. ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... sitting on her bed, looking so forlorn that Genevieve slipped down beside her and drew the little blonde head to ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... sensation was sickening. It grew worse as the boat steamed away. She stood up on a limb to watch it. Smaller and smaller it seemed, leaving only a long plume of smoke in its wake as it disappeared around Long Point. Then even the smoke faded, and a forlorn little figure, strangely at variance with the fierce pirate suit, she crumpled up in the crotch of the willow, her face hidden in her elbow, and began to ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... avenue of trim-clipped trees whereunder time-defying lovers still sat whispering; past the long garden wall, startling as they crossed the road a troop of horses browsing for fallen figs; along the path that winds, water-lapped, under the hollowed rocks that shelter nightly forlorn outcasts of Sydney. She saw it all as they passed along and she did not see it. Afterwards she could recall every step they took, every figure they passed, every tree and seat and window and lamp-post on ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... Aristarchi's blow under the jaw had nearly killed him, whereas the other five men had only received stunning blows on different parts of their thick skulls. In half an hour they were all on their feet, though some of them were very unsteady, and in a forlorn train they made the best of their way back to the Governor's palace. Their discomfiture had been so sudden and complete that none of them had any idea as to the number of their assailants; but most ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... prostrate in dismay; Upon the earth ye've fallen! See ye not as ye may, How Bacchus Pentheus' palace In wrath hath shaken down? Rise up! rise up! take courage—Shake off that trembling swoon. Chor. O light that goodliest shinest Over our mystic rite, In state forlorn we saw thee—Saw with what deep affright! Dio. How to despair ye yielded As I boldly entered in To Pentheus, as if captured, into that fatal gin. Chor. How could I less? Who guards us If thou shouldst come to woe? But how wast thou delivered From thy ungodly foe? Dio. Myself myself delivered ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... it is not without feelings of compunction that one discards an old friend, that has gallantly stood by me through thick and thin throughout the eventful journey across the inter-mountain country; but the white helmet gives such a delightfully imposing air to my otherwise forlorn and woebegone figure that I ride out of Sidney feeling quite vain. The first thing done is to fill a poor yellow-spotted snake - whose head is boring in the sand - with lively surprise, by riding over ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... the lady was that she had not sufficient change, and had to go upstairs and waken some unwilling money-changer there! Then the change had to be counted as she reluctantly handed it to us and made a forlorn effort to recover some of the coins. "Won't you stay for breakfast?" she asked; but we were not to be persuaded, for although we were hungry enough, we were of an unforgiving spirit that morning, and, relying upon getting breakfast elsewhere, ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... laverock seeks the sky, And warbles, dimly seen; And summer views, wi' sunny joy, Her gowany robe o' green. But ah! the summer's blithe return, In flowery pride array'd, Nae mair can cheer this heart forlorn, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... strength is—Freedom. I hardly like the word, but I want to express by it immunity from certain responsibilities. Young men, up to a given period, are, as never again, free to sacrifice for what look like the forlorn hopes and apparently lost causes of humanity. "My six reasons for taking no risks," said a man in the American Civil War, "are a wife and five children." The reasons which in one man may resolve themselves ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... at the weather-beaten old house from which the paint was scaling, adding to the note of desertion sounded by its closed shutters and forlorn-looking yard. ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... Examination of the Morals, Political and Literary Characters of John Adams and Alexander Hamilton." One cartoon displayed the sinking ship Administration, with the Federal rats scuttling out of her, and Hamilton standing alone on the deck; another, "The Little Lion" sitting, dejected and forlorn, outside the barred gates of "Hamiltonopolis." The deep, silent laughter of ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... indeed, that Winnie began to think their fears were groundless, and Mrs. Blake's annoyance a mere myth; but Dick, more suspicious, decided it was only the lull before the storm, and on the Monday he found his suspicions verified. The hurricane burst, and resulted in a forlorn little maiden bathed in tears, and a boy whose heart burned within him at the remembrance of cruel ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... another depends on a mock-modest braggart who kills scores of people in a humorous way. The mould remains the same in each case, although there may be casual variations in the hue of the material poured out and moulded. All these forlorn folk are either verging toward the written-out condition or have reached the last level of flatness. Like the great painters who work for Manchester or New York millionaires, these novelists produce stuff which is only shoddy; they ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... had been the scene of the unlucky bard's examination on the morning after his captivity in the lodge. I fancied to myself the rural potentate, surrounded by his body-guard of butler, pages, and the blue-coated serving-men with their badges; while the luckless culprit was brought in, forlorn and chapfallen, in the custody of game-keepers, huntsmen, and whippers-in, and followed by a rabble rout of country clowns. I fancied bright faces of curious housemaids peeping from the half-opened doors; while from the gallery the fair daughters of the Knight leaned gracefully forward, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... his life, the young soldier, then only nineteen, had run a course of dissolute pleasure, and had obtained, from the frankness and gaiety of his disposition, the name of the happy rake. Being in the Forlorn hope, he was wounded, and left in a state hovering between life and death, on the field, and in state of partial insensibility, from which he was aroused ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... I was able to save from the wreck of my fortune, not affording me sufficient means of subsistence, I was, however reluctantly, at length compelled to adopt a plan of life, by which I saw other women, in my forlorn situation, support a decent appearance. I therefore hired suitable apartments, and twice in each decade, I receive company. On one of these two nights I give a ball and supper, and on the other, under the name of societe, I have ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... outskirts. A canal ran along at the rear of the dust-heap, and on the banks of its opposite side slowly wandered by—with hands clasped and hanging down in front of him, and eyes bent vacantly upon his hands—the forlorn figure of a man in a very shabby great-coat, which had evidently once belonged to one in the position of a gentleman. And to a gentleman it still belonged—but in what a position! A scholar, a man of wit, of high sentiment, of refinement, and a good fortune ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... compensating for the deficiencies of every other. In entering from Boulogne or Calais, nothing can be conceived more discouraging than the first appearance of Paris as you are borne through the Faubourg St. Denis; the street, it is true, is wide and the houses large, but they have a dirty gloomy forlorn aspect, which gives them an uninhabited appearance, or as if the inmates did not belong to them; as no care appears to have been taken to give them some degree of neatness and comfort; in fact, to bestow upon them an air of home; the stranger continues rattling over ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... had, on my side, no authority whatever to detain her. I could only inquire whether she had money enough to pay her traveling expenses. Her reply informed me that the chaplain of the hospital had mentioned her forlorn situation in the town, and that the English residents had subscribed a small sum of money to enable her to return to her own country. Satisfied on this head, I asked next if she had friends to go to in England. "I have ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... consumed by dozings. Thence to Purcell's: great devastation of pastry. Thence to Shoreditch, where Sons calmly said: "Never mind, Papa; it is no use minding it. I shall soon be back to you," and so administered comfort to his forlorn Dad.—My salute to the Conquered One, and I am your loving, hard-druv, ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... her to the city, to see her safe on board the vessel, leaving his wife and child behind. Elsie's tender heart was full of pity for Evelyn—robbed of both parents, and left lonely and forlorn. ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... the house and palace, and everything around. But for the relief of the people, thus destitute, and driven from their dwellings, he opened the fields of Mars and the monumental edifices erected by Agrippa,[121] and even his own gardens. He likewise reared temporary houses for the reception of the forlorn multitude: and from Ostia and the neighboring cities were brought, up the river, household necessaries; and the price of grain was reduced to three sesterces the measure. All which proceedings, tho of a popular character, were thrown away, because a rumor had ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... discontented, distressed, forlorn, uncomfortable, disagreeable, dissatisfied, dreary, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... plane taxied across the platform, swooped into space. But it was not till it had risen and steadied that I realized the complete idiocy of our forlorn hope of escape. What fools we were! And Brice—Brice must, in truth, be mad! How could we get away? How could we ever escape the terrific power of the magnetic ray? That ray that Fraser worked himself from his laboratory—the ray that had drawn us first across the desert to this floating ...
— The Floating Island of Madness • Jason Kirby
... (AF. II., 37, order of Lequinio, Saintes, Nivose 1, year II.) "Citizens generally in all communes, are requested to celebrate the day of the decade by a fraternal banquet which, served without luxury or display... will render the man bowed down with fatique insensible to his forlorn condition; which will fill the soul of the poor and unfortunate with the sentiment of social equality and raise man up to the full sense of his dignity; which will suppress with the rich man the slightest feeling ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... have plann'd,' Before he try if loam or sand Be still remaining in the place Delved for each polisht pillar's base. With skilful eye and fit device Thou raisest every edifice, Whether in sheltered vale it stand Or overlook the Dardan strand, Amid the cypresses that mourn Laodameia's love forlorn. ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... prattle, interrupted only by little ripples of laughter, half shy, half silly, and altogether horrible to hear. I hung back, divided between the impulse to tear myself away and the fearful fascination of listening—between the urgent need to find and warn my friends, and the forlorn hope to extract from her something that might save them. The toil of the climb had bathed me in sweat, ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... sacrifice, blind trust, burning faith, other follies, may be turned to account; suffering, death itself, may with a grin or a frown be explained away; but passion is the unpardonable and secret infamy of our hearts, a thing to curse, to hide and to deny; a shameless and forlorn thing that tramples upon the smiling promises, that tears off the placid mask, that strips the body of life. And it had come to him! It had laid its unclean hand upon the spotless draperies of his existence, and he had to face it alone with all ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... suspect, perhaps to despise, those whom he rules; to have thrown away all his labour upon knaves and fools; to have cast his pearls before swine, and find them turning again and rending him. That feeling, forced from Queen Elizabeth, in her old age, that tragic cry, 'I am a miserable forlorn woman. There is none about me whom I can trust.' She was a woman, always longing for some one to love; and her heart broke under it all. But do you not see that where the ruler is not an affectionate woman, but ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... to the Oirishman I was expinded an' forlorn in my inside. 'Tis a way I have, savin' your presince, Sorr, in action. "Let me out, bhoys," sez I, backin' in among thim. "I'm goin' to be onwell!" Faith they gave me room at the wurrd, though they would not ha' given room for all Hell wid the chill off. When I got clear, I was, savin' your presince, ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... word, full of a new idea. Her position was such that only a lawyer could help her; and she was resolved to have legal advice. It was a forlorn hope, but one not to be despised; and there was not a moment to lose. As if by an inspiration, she remembered the name of a lawyer who used to be her mother's adviser—a Mr. Jevons, who used to come to Asherton Hall before her mother died, ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... white: She made the pale buds blossom in delight, Set silver stars upon the jasmine's hair, And gave the stream white lily-buds to wear. She painted lilies white, and pearl-white phlox, White poppies, passion-flowers and gray-leaved stocks. Her pure kind touch redeemed the most forlorn, And even ...
— The Rainbow and the Rose • E. Nesbit
... The most forlorn hope of the Bourbons was now in a considerable army posted between Fontainebleau and Paris. Meanwhile the two armies approached each other at Melun; that of the King was commanded by Marshal Macdonald. On the 20th his troops were drawn up in three lines to receive ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... one began to sing. The Psalm was pensive and the tune solemn. All hearts were responsive; from 900 voices a wave of sacred music rolled up the mountain-side against the heavens. The very sentiment seemed to be the stirring of hearts, that were consciously entering into a forlorn battle: ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... came to my room; and there, in my own corner, sat poor Mr. Fairly, looking a little forlorn, and telling me he had been there near an hour. I made every apology that could mark in the strongest manner how little I thought his patience worth such exertion. . ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... she set it on the ledge That it might not be quite forlorn Of wind and sky, where o'er the edge, Some gaudy petal, slowly borne, Fluttered to earth in careless scorn, Caught, for a fallen piece of morn From kindling vapors loosely shorn, By urchins ragged and wayworn, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... lover's rose is dead, Or laid aside forlorn: Then willow-garlands 'bout the head Bedew'd ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... district. Very well, scion of the Febrers! For some time he had wandered about like a mad man, talking nothing but nonsense. All this for what reason? On account of the absurd love for a girl who might be his daughter; for an almost senile caprice, for he, despite his relative youth, felt old and forlorn in the presence of Margalida and the rustic girls who fluttered about her. Ah, this atmosphere! ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and accessories almost sordid. But in the face of all this, a triumph was secured. For a brief while Macready believed that the star of regeneration had arisen. Unfortunately 'twas, in the words of a contemporary dramatic poet, "a rising sorrow splendidly forlorn." The financial condition of Covent Garden Theatre was so ruinous that not even the most successful play could have ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... final summons came. His last days thus had in them a cast of the heroic, not less than if, as the commander of a torpedoed battleship, he had gone down with her, or than if he had fallen charging at the head of a forlorn hope. It is pleasant to think that such a man was laid to rest with military honors. The accident that he was a retired professor in the United States Navy may have been the immediate cause of this, but ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... for remorse for evil conduct like Hector. She had made no plans for the entrapping of any soul, and yet she felt forlorn and wicked. Oh yes, she was awake now and knew where she had been drifting. And so love had come at last, and indeed, indeed it meant life. This blast had struck her, and she had been blind in not recognizing ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... co-operate with the Crown Prince against McMahon. The Government at Paris knew but imperfectly what was passing around Metz from day to day; it knew, however, that if Metz should be given up for lost the hour of its own fall could not be averted. One forlorn hope remained, to throw the army which McMahon was gathering at Chalons north-eastward to Bazaine's relief, though the Crown Prince stood between Chalons and Metz, and could reach every point in the line of march more rapidly than McMahon himself. Napoleon ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... Barrios if you had cared for me. I would have carried one of those rifles, in which Don Jose believes, with the greatest satisfaction, in the ranks of poor peons and Indios, that know nothing either of reason or politics. The most forlorn hope in the most forlorn army on earth would have been safer than that for which you made me stay here. When you make war you may retreat, but not when you spend your time in inciting poor ignorant fools ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... we'll come," spoke up George promptly. "Now I want to know," he added, "what our reward is to be for our heroic rescue of two forlorn maidens who were sinking in the cold waters ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay
... to the chin in a black dress-coat, tall and slender, with a countenance quietly alive all over, and the gentlest and most naturally courteous manner. He ushered us into his little study, or parlor, or both,—a very forlorn room, with poor paper-hangings and carpet, few books, no pictures that I remember, and an awful lack of upholstery. I touch distinctly upon these external blemishes and this nudity of adornment, not that they would be worth mentioning in a sketch of other remarkable persons, but because Leigh ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... notice the swineherd entering the hall, and he made a sign for him to come and sit by him. Presently Odysseus, too, entered in the guise of a forlorn old beggar, and sat down near the door. Telemachos handed Eumaios a whole loaf of bread and as much meat as he could hold in his two hands, and bade him take it to the beggar. And he told him to tell the poor old man to ask a pittance ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... Committee named Massey for the command-in- chief, and Waller for the command of the Horse, the Houses gave their cordial assent. In short, the two Houses, as they met during this extraordinary week from July 30 to Aug. 5, consisted mainly of a forlorn residue of the most fanatical Presbyterians in each, regarding the riots of the 26th as a popular interposition for right principles, and anxiously considering whether, with such a zealous London round them, and with Massey, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... Went smoothly on for half a page; Her bloom was gone, she wanted art, As the scene changed, to change her part; She, whom no lover could resist, Before the second act was hiss'd. Such is the fate of female race With no endowments but a face; Before the thirtieth year of life, A maid forlorn, or hated wife. Stella to you, her tutor, owes That she has ne'er resembled those: Nor was a burden to mankind With half her course of years behind. You taught how I might youth prolong, By knowing what was right and wrong; How from my heart to bring supplies Of lustre ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... of his life. Not content with this mode of retaliation, they tore down the bar, demolished the glasses and decanters, spilled all the liquor, and in short caused the flourishing establishment of Mr. Pat Mulligan to assume a very forlorn appearance. ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... meaning, is at least musical. I am not a dangerous friend, like the ocean; no highway is absolutely safe, but my nature is harmless, and the storms that strew the beaches with wrecks cast no ruins upon my flowery borders. Abide with me, and you shall not die of thirst, like the forlorn wretches left to the mercies of the pitiless salt waves. Trust yourself to me, and I will carry you far on your journey, if we are travelling to the same point of the compass. If I sometimes run riot and overflow your meadows, I leave fertility behind me when I withdraw to my natural channel. Walk ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... father is perfectly safe. No doubt, he's home warm and comfortable in bed, while we, poor mortals, are out in the night, drenched and forlorn." ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... It was a forlorn hope—the suggestion of one who had not thought out the position; and, whatever its promise, ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... to go down to Shoreditch with Dick, first meeting him and the forlorn "G" at the Cheshire Cheese ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... and spicy, and the ground was carpeted with yellow and blue flowers. From time to time we passed a group of comfortable farm buildings, but much of the country had a desolate look and the villages were nothing more than forlorn hamlets, and once we stopped for the night in a solitary house far from any settlement. A week after leaving Yunnan-fu we entered the valley of the Tso-ling Ho, a tributary of the Great River, and a more fertile region. As I had been warned, ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... gang farther nor that. Efter what ye hae dune for me, gin I war a general, ye sud lead the Forlorn Hope." ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... neighborly offices unexpectedly uncovered ugly human traits. For six weeks after an operation we kept in one of our three bedrooms a forlorn little baby who, because he was born with a cleft palate, was most unwelcome even to his mother, and we were horrified when he died of neglect a week after he was returned to his home; a little Italian bride of fifteen sought ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... his learning and his Latin epigrams (though these last were a more marketable commodity then than now) would no doubt be forlorn enough, struggling to find himself standing-ground and a living, subsisting hardly on what chance employment might fall in his way, and reflecting, as most adventurers are apt to do, how easy it would be for his prosperous countryman to befriend him. Paris, always full of stir and commotion, ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... staggering rush toward the first line of wire entanglements, which they at once proceeded to attack with nippers, fully exposed all the while to the concentrated fire of the whole body of defenders. It was a forlorn hope of the most desperate description, and one after another the gallant fellows collapsed and died, pierced by innumerable bullets. The first assault had resulted in failure, and those who took part in ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood |
