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Languishing   Listen
adjective
Languishing  adj.  
1.
Becoming languid and weak; pining; losing health and strength.
2.
Amorously pensive; indicating melancholy; as, languishing eyes, or look.
3.
Suffering neglect; neglected.
4.
Continuing in a weak or deteriorating state; lingering.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Languishing" Quotes from Famous Books



... on to greet a decrepit old lord with a languishing smile, and I stood staring after her with, I fear, a somewhat stupid expression, until some young fool came up grinning, to ask me whether I had seen a ghost or backed ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome

... did play a part in the selection of sites for settlement is borne out by the re-location of the seat of government from the languishing village of Jamestown to Middle Plantation or Williamsburg. After an accidental fire destroyed a large part of Jamestown at the end of the century, the people indicated a desire to move away from an environment, recognized as unhealthful, to Middle Plantation, known for its temperate, ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes

... all the purposes for which a gown is intended. How completely it clothes the entire figure, and with what ease and comfort to the wearer! There is not a line about it which indicates compression, or one expressive of that looseness and languishing abandonment that we remarked just now in the costume of La belle Hamilton. The entire person is concealed, except the tip of one foot, the hands, the head and throat, and just enough of the bust to confess the existence ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... displeased him because they were not Tahoser. He now thought ugly those beauties who had seemed to him formerly so fair; their young, slender, graceful bodies, their voluptuous attitudes, their long eyes brightened by antimony and flashing with desire, their purple lips, white teeth, and languishing smiles,—everything in them, even the perfume of their cool skin, as delicate as a bouquet of flowers or a box of scent, had become odious to him. He seemed to be angry with them for having loved them, and to be unable ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier

... weepest thou? Are these drawn lines of sorrow alone thy garlands? Why this dreary awe, this languishing on all around you? But hush, these are the foot-prints of Death; he has indeed been with you in his uncertain rounds. The deep, reposing influences indicate his path. I will not dare to question a mother's love, so strange and inexplicable in ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna

... Apollo, Horace Eglantine, with his soul-enlivening conversational talents, his scraps of poetry, and puns, and fashionable anecdote; his chivalrous form and noble carriage, joined to a mirth-inspiring countenance and soft languishing blue eye, which sets half the delicate bosoms that surround him palpitating between hope and fear; then a glance at his well-shaped leg, or the fascination of an elegant compliment, smilingly overleaping a pearly fence of more than usual whiteness ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... manner rather puzzled him. Her heightened color and quickened breathing were alarming, while the contraction of her brow and the firmness of her lips, together with an intent look on the chestnut in the centre of the burr, rather than a languishing look at him or at nothing, were more assuring. She perplexed him still more when, as her only response to all this sentiment, she asked, "Mr. Gregory, will you ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe

... it smiles upon me; the flesh is fair, and it rots; the water is bitter, and I would drink; I am languishing, I want to die and yet ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer

... Charles took Mark to see his library, which reminded him of a Rossetti interior and lacked only a beautiful long-necked creature, full-lipped and auburn-haired, to sit by the casement languishing over a cithern or gazing out through bottle-glass lights at a forlorn and foreshortened landscape ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... by a refusal. But Wilhelm had no cause for jealousy, as her sparkling eyes continually sought his, and as often as she danced near him she gave him an electrifying glance and a sweet smile, telling him that he might now hold his head high like a conqueror, or humble himself with languishing sentiment, that for her there was only one man in the room, one man in all the mirrors, the handsome youth in the window recess between the red silk curtains. In the short pauses she came over to him and spoke a word or ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... to experience the beneficent power of peace. Languishing industries revived. Commerce had been crippled by the war, but the inhabitants of New England had learned the value of their own ingenuity and industry to supply needs, and now they were roused to the fact there was an outside world ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas

... better-educated classes which had begun to hope for liberty. The system of espionage and persecution with which the sister of Marie Antoinette avenged upon her own subjects the sufferings of her kindred had grown more oppressive with every new victory of the Revolution. In the summer of 1798 there were men languishing for the fifth year in prison, whose offences had never been investigated, and whose relatives were not allowed to know whether they were dead or alive. A mode of expression, a fashion of dress, the word of an informer, consigned innocent ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... may also be set at liberty, return to England, and serve to man a frigate against us, while our brave seamen, with a number of our friends of this nation, whom we are anxious to set free, continue useless and languishing ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various

... his whole self—all that he had and all that he was. The countenance of our Lord bore so touching an expression whilst he was speaking, that his whole soul seemed to breathe forth from his lips, and he appeared to be languishing with love and desire for the moment when he should give himself to man. His disciples did not understand him, but thought that he was speaking of the Paschal Lamb. No words can give an adequate idea of the love and ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich

... Mitchin's ballet of hobohemians been tough newspapermen they wouldn't have been drawing-cards for a tea-room. But these literary ewe-lambs were a spectacle to charm the languishing eyes of the spinsters who filled the Old Harbor Inn and the club-women from the yellow water regions who were viewing the marvels of nature as displayed on and adjacent to the ocean. Practically without exception these ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis

... long to effect her own desires, She makes the Wit, as vassal to the will, To do what she, howe'er unright, requires, Which wit doth, though repiningly, fulfil. Yet, as well pleased (O languishing wit!) He seems to effect her pleasure willingly, And all his reasons to her reach doth fit; So like the world, gets love by flattery. That this is true a thousand witnesses, Impartial conscience, will directly prove; Then if we would not willingly transgress, Our will should swayed be by ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... of flowers," said Miss Fotheringay, with a languishing ogle at Sir Derby Oaks—but ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... last underwent the fate of Tyre and Carthage, being surprised by the Saracens, who overran the northern parts of Africa; and though it continued, for a while, to enjoy a considerable portion of the commerce of the Christian merchants, it afterwards remained in a languishing condition: but still, even at this day, it is a place of ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers

... little affection for their parents, neglected them in old age, and did not even consider it a violation of filial duty to kill them when they became burdensome. They also murdered their defective or weakly children, to spare them the misery of a languishing existence. They did not bury their dead, but dragged the corpse into the open air, by a thong tied about the neck, and left it a prey to dogs; under the belief, that those devoured by these animals, would in another world be drawn by the ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue

... of 1899 G.K. began to write for the Speaker. The weekly of this title had long been in a languishing condition when it was taken over by a group of young Liberals of very marked views. Hammond became editor and Philip Comyns Carr sub-editor. Sir John Simon was among the group for a short while, but he soon told one of them that he feared ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... the uncommon services he had rendered might boldly make him claim; avoiding them most certainly because of the mean condition to which he was reduced; faithful in his affection; for such his behaviour spoke him; but unfortunate, depressed, despised; sinking under poverty; languishing away his youth; or crushed by accumulating disasters!—Did no such fears, no such tender recollections, assail her bosom?—I have described her ill indeed if that could be supposed. I must pursue my narrative: for how can I picture what most indubitably must have passed ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... rolled in Nickie's direction once in a way, and Nickie responded with the beams of a tender, grey orb. He had a way of languishing a little when only Madame Marve was near, and he ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson

... Geoffry the Marshal, day by day, that he came to Troyes in Champagne, and found his lord the Count Thibaut sick and languishing, and right glad was the count of his coming. And when he had told the count how he had fared, the count was so rejoiced that he said he would mount horse, a thing he had not done of a long time. So he rose from his bed and rode forth. But ...
— Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople • Geoffrey de Villehardouin

... within a few miles of one of these hill fortresses, Dick looked at it with anxious eyes; for there, for aught he knew, his father might be languishing. ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty

... straw slippers with blue silk rosettes over his naked feet, lounged cross-legged at the door of a kind of guardroom. He held a big cigar tilted up between his teeth, and ogled me, like a woman, out of the corners of his languishing eyes. He said not ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... the languishing cooing of doves, the braying of donkeys, the chatter of irresponsible sparrows—these were in my mind's ear as I read. "Suffering Sappho!" I exclaimed to myself. "Is this the divine fire that is supposed to ignite genius and make it ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry

... mother he thus accounts for his effect upon the wounded soldiers: "I fancy the reason I am able to do some good in the hospitals among the poor, languishing, and wounded boys, is that I am so large and well,—indeed, like a great wild buffalo with much hair. Many of the soldiers are from the West and far North, and they like a man that has not the bleached, shiny, and shaved cut of ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs

... is very dull here, and I certainly should not have come had not a little bird told me at Mrs. Cameron's dance who was coming here," said the Captain, with a languishing air. ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith

... water had been pumped into the hold, that it was now doing the work steadily by soaking in all directions, and making packing-case and bale so saturated that the fire was languishing for want of food. ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn

... in spite of a tiny moustache, which he's very fond of caressing, he looks a great deal more like a girl than a boy. His hair is as yellow as Maedel's; it's wavy like a girl's, and he wears it long and parted in the middle; and his eyes are large and very blue,—Phil says they are "languishing," and he and Felix have given him another nick-name of "Lydia Languish." He wore evening clothes, with a white flower in his buttonhole, and there were diamond studs in the bosom of his shirt, and a diamond ring on one of his fingers. When papa introduced him, ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus

... week has gone, And I once more am left alone Within my silent room; My mind is worn by fervent care, And, languishing, it needs repair ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite

... [224] And here it may be observed, that the sanguinary acts of Ovando towards the natives, in particular the massacre at Xaragua, and the execution of the unfortunate Anacaona, awakened equal horror and indignation in Isabella; she was languishing on her death-bed when she received the intelligence, and with her dying breath she exacted a promise from King Ferdinand that Ovando should immediately be recalled from his government. The promise was tardily and reluctantly fulfilled, after an interval of about four years, and not until induced ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... to play a soft, dreamy waltz. It was full of bewitching invitation. No one could resist it. It passed into a wild, stirring polka, into a maddening galop, back again to a dreamy waltz. Now it was dizzying, whirling; now it was languishing, full of repose. Now it was the burst and clangor of a full orchestra; now it was the bewitching appeal of a single voice that invited to dance. Up and down the long room, across the broad room, the dancers moved. The ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... was languishing in a dark shed attached to the Inn on the other side of the Glacier. His bleats had failed to attract any attention. In fact the only person who had heard him at all, had been an old Goat-slave, who while browsing on the hillside with a bell round his neck, had been attracted by the ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry

... for books is not necessarily a bibliomaniac. There is as much difference between the inclinations and taste of a bibliophile and a bibliomaniac as between a slight cold and the advanced stages of consumption. Some one has said that "to call a bibliophile a bibliomaniac is to conduct a lover, languishing for his maiden's smile, to an asylum for the demented, and to shut him up in the ward for the incurables." Biblio relates to books, and mania is synonymous with madness, insanity, violent derangement, ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper

... their court to the worthy and influential widow as punctiliously, if not so heartily, as did their gentle friends. Not that the task was disagreeable. At fifty years of age, Mrs. Button was plump and comely; her fair curls unfaded, and still full and glossy; her blue eyes capable of languishing into moist appreciation of a woful heart-history, or sparkling rapturously at the news of a triumphant wooing; her little fat hands were swift and graceful, and her complexion so infantine in its clear white and pink as to lead many ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... of heaven and earth, coy Spring, With sudden passion languishing, Teaching barren moors to smile, Painting pictures mile on mile, Holds a cup of cowslip wreaths Whence a smokeless incense ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various

... their possible significance has been long since forgotten. The apparently deliberate luring of the man by the woman exists solely in the mind of some such alien spectator as myself. I was philosophical enough to say these things to myself; but Johnny was not. He saw Mercedes languishing into the eyes of his rival; half fleeing provocatively, her glances sparkling; bending and swaying her body in allurement; finally in the finale of the dance, melting into her partner's arms as though ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... pernicious societies. But it was only for a moment. The agency ascribed to them by the opinion of the public, as well as of the President, in producing an insurrection which was generally execrated, had essentially affected them; and while languishing under this wound, they received a deadly blow from a quarter whence hostility was ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall

... state of mind, to have few things to desire, and many things to fear; and yet that commonly is the case of kings; who, being at the highest, want matter of desire, which makes their minds more languishing; and have many representations of perils and shadows, which makes their minds the less clear. And this is one reason also, of that effect which the Scripture speaketh of, That the king's heart is inscrutable. For multitude ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon

... Spagyrically and exactly drawn from, the Mineral Kingdom; but I pray, to what end so many Medicaments? I believe, that God in the things of Nature, naturally gives such Medicines, with a very few of which, we may much sooner, and more safely re-integrate the decayed, and languishing Health of Man, unless the Disease be Mortal, from a deficiency of Nature, or from the putrefaction of some noble internal part hurt, or by reason of a total absumption of the radical humidity in which desperate Cases, no Galenick Cure, ...
— The Golden Calf, Which the World Adores, and Desires • John Frederick Helvetius

... rosary and missal in her hand, and having her brow and neck entirely concealed by the wimple, in which her head and shoulders were enveloped. Such of her features as could be seen were of extraordinary loveliness, though of a voluptuous character, the eyes being dark and languishing, and shaded by long lashes, and the lips carnation-hued and full. This was the fair votaress, Isole de Heton, who brought such scandal on the Abbey in the reign of Henry VI. The other portrait was that of an abbot, in the white ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... is languishing, dying, among the other guests; they smell the fight afar, and pause in hungry expectation ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... dusk as India and as warm; Katinka was a Georgian, white and red, With great blue eyes, a lovely hand and arm, And feet so small they scarce seem'd made to tread, But rather skim the earth; while Dudu's form Look'd more adapted to be put to bed, Being somewhat large, and languishing, and lazy, Yet of a beauty that would ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... her brothers entered, but on catching sight of them she rose and left the frame at which she was working. Taking the king's hand, she said: 'Good-morrow, Sire; you are king to-day, and I am your humble servant. I implore you to release me from the tower in which I have been languishing so long.' And with these words ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault

... the subject, compared his longings to flowers languishing for rain, or to lost travellers waiting for the day. He told her, further, that she was more beautiful than the moon, better than the wind of morning or than the face of a guest. He would bring for her from the ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... us, Mr. Butler," she said, in her high, mincing tones. "Were it not for the fear of ministering to your vanity, I might confess we two have been languishing for an hour for your company. Mistress Daisy and I venerate these cavaliers of ours vastly—we hold their grave wisdom in high regard—but our frivolous palates need lighter things than East India Companies and political quarrels in Boston. I command you to ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... carmen triumphale of the poetess is a worthy accompaniment. Among the other engravings the frontispiece and opposite page of this work are extremely rich and beautiful: Psyche borne by the Zephyrs to the Island of Pleasure, is full of languishing beauty; Medora, painted by Pickersgill and engraved by Rolls, is a delightfully placid moonlight scene; the Declaration, easy and graceful: there are, however, in our opinion, two decided failures in the volume, which, for the credit of the artists, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various

... pleading for the salute, she continued to express her surprise that he should prefer such a request upon no acquaintance at all, that he should even faintly expect her to grant it, and so on, all the while leaning languishing upon his breast with all her weight. Whereupon Mr. Middleton lost patience and ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... was in want: languishing away, in dire and pining want. With the baby in her arms, she wandered here and there, in quest of occupation; and with its thin face lying in her lap, and looking up in hers, did any work for any wretched sum; a day and night of labour ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens

... the honor of being the native State of Mrs. McCalla, whose affectionate and devoted efforts to liberate her invalid husband, languishing in a British dungeon, have justly given her a high rank among the patriot women ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... charitable fathers of a Bernardine convent, offered him what assistance their house afforded. The duke accepted their kind proposal, upon which they removed him to their convent, and administered all the relief in their power. Under this hospitable roof, after languishing a week, died the duke of Wharton, without one friend, or acquaintance to close his eyes. His funeral was performed in the same manner in which the fathers inter those ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber

... to whose fate I had almost been inseparably joined! Her deplorable situation filled my breast with compassion. She knew me immediately; and, straining me gently in her arms, shed a torrent of tears, which I could not help increasing. At length, casting a languishing look at me, she pronounced with a feeble voice, "Dear Mr. Random, I do not deserve this concern at your hands: I am a vile creature, who had a base design upon your person—suffer me, to expiate that, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... this representation of them by these French appreciators of their attractions, a mode of speech in which the most ludicrous French, in the most barbarous accent, was uttered in alternate bursts of loud abruptness and languishing drawl. Sudden, grotesque playfulness was succeeded by equally sudden and grotesque bashfulness; now an eager intrepidity of wild enthusiasm, defying all decorum, and then a sour, severe reserve, full of angry and terrified suspicion of imaginary improprieties. Tittering ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... watch-dog bolted into his kennel with a great rattle. Luis, a cinnamon-coloured mulatto with a sprouting moustache and thick, dark lips, would stop sweeping the cafe with a broom of palm-leaves to let a gentle shudder run down his spine. His languishing almond eyes would remain closed ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... damp Miss Riley's hopes of winning him. She changed her plan; and seeing he did not bow to what she considered the supremacy of her very elegant manners, she set about feigning at once admiration and dread of him. She would sometimes lift her eyes to Murtough with a languishing expression, and declare she never knew any one she was so afraid of; but even this double attack on his vanity could not turn Murphy's flank, and so a very laughable flirtation went on between them, he ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... success in vindication of an entertainment which in an instant gives confidence to the timorous and kindles ardour in the cold, an entertainment where the vigilance of jealousy has so often been clouded, and the virgin is set free from the necessity of languishing in silence; where all the outworks of chastity are at once demolished; where the heart is laid open without a blush; where bashfulness may survive virtue, and no wish is crushed ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen

... let me tell you—who has already treated you like a dog, and is burdened with a couple of children, and who, if she marries again, will bring you very little except her luxurious tastes. But I expected this. I thought she would try to catch you with those languishing black eyes of hers. You are not the first; I know ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard

... cease. I now saw that they came from the mouths of some cheerful coopers, who were heading barrels a little farther down the street. The Majorcans still have their troubadours, who are hired by languishing lovers to improvise strains of longing or reproach under the windows of the fair, and perhaps the latter may listen with delight; but I know of no place where the Enraged Musician would so soon become insane. The isle is full of noises, and a Caliban might say that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various

... and declared to their advocates, that he would always give judgment against the freedmen, in any suit at law which the masters might happen to have with them. Some persons having exposed their sick slaves, in a languishing condition, on the island of Aesculapius [524], because of the tediousness of their cure; he declared all who were so exposed perfectly free, never more to return, if they should recover, to their former servitude; and that if any one chose to kill at once, rather than ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... were voiced by the great singer Nicolini? We have mentioned but two of the airs which have ever remained popular, but the opera abounded in graceful melodies that could not fail to captivate the ear of a people who had been languishing for ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham

... Lares; in globe of purest crystal the Glenlivet shone; unasked the bright brass kettle began to whisper its sweet 'under song;' and a centenary of the fairest oysters native to our isle turned towards us their languishing eyes, unseen the Nereid that had on the instant wafted them from the procreant cradle beds of Prestonpans. Grace said, we drew in to supper, and hobnobbing, from elegant long-shank, down each naturalist's gullet graciously ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... Boston, to be forwarded to us wherever we might be in Europe; but that letter had escaped. That letter was from a queer kind of sour, unsuccessful woman called Iona Allen, who boarded once at the same house with me on Springfield Street,—the languishing kind of critter that I never could stand, who hadn't the gumption of a half-drowned chicken, who'd never stuck to anything or put any elbow-grease into the work on hand, and whined all the time, and was looking out for some one to support her. I guessed she'd heard of my money and was writing ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... verdure-crowned hill, The whispering grove, or the tapestried mead, With the bright troop of blessings that follow her lead, Comes seldom to gladden the wearisome hours, And raise to new vigor the languishing powers, But when I arrived at the age of discretion (I find I must hasten my rambling digression), With the popular error my mind was deluded That life is not life from the city excluded; So I followed ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... young, and, in her style, very pretty; her eyes are languishing and blue as gentian, her hair a soft nut-brown; her lips perhaps are not altogether faultless, being too fine and too closely drawn, but then her mouth is small. She looks considerably younger than she really ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"

... cast an expressive look at the young man, which seemed to say, "Have patience! You see it is not my fault." And Maximilian was patient, and employed himself in mentally contrasting the two girls,—one fair, with soft languishing eyes, a figure gracefully bending like a weeping willow; the other a brunette, with a fierce and haughty expression, and as straight as a poplar. It is unnecessary to state that, in the eyes of the young man, Valentine did not suffer by the contrast. In about half an ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... said, and as they separated, he threw his hat on the ground, and, assuming an extravagantly languishing attitude, burst forth in a most poignant burlesque of a lovelorn tenor's part, rolling his eyes, clasping his hands, striking his breast, and gyrating about Miss Dwyer-in the most approved operatic style. He had a fine voice and knew a good deal of music; so that, ...
— Deserted - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... sing, declines with a bashful and tantalizing hesitation. Prominent among these may be mentioned an erotic effusion entitled "I'm talking in my Sleep," which, when sung by a young person vivaciously and with appropriate glances, can be made to drive languishing swains to the verge of madness. Ballads of this quality afford splendid opportunities for bold young men, who, by ejaculating "Oh!" and "Ah!" at the affecting passages, frequently gain a fascinating reputation for ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte

... merry, for Lucy had been transformed into quite a daring Bush-rider, and Mrs. Macdougal, accustomed to the use of many horses since her babyhood, could sit anything in reason with the ease with which she reclined in her invalid chair when her languishing mood was upon her; while Ryder, to repeat Monkey Mack's compliment, rode ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson

... reasons were, the young men seemed to share his preference. They were watching the languishing young woman, who in turn kept glancing at them. Ernestine, having finished what she was saying, made her way to where Miss Levering sat, not, it would appear, for any purpose so frivolous as saying good evening, but to deposit what were left of the handbills and the precious portfolio in the ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... one day when I was not around, one of these people came along—it was a she one, this time—and told a tale of the usual pattern. Her mistress was a captive in a vast and gloomy castle, along with forty-four other young and beautiful girls, pretty much all of them princesses; they had been languishing in that cruel captivity for twenty-six years; the masters of the castle were three stupendous brothers, each with four arms and one eye—the eye in the center of the forehead, and as big as a fruit. Sort of fruit not mentioned; their usual ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Sir Robert Peel's bold and comprehensive policy, was to devise some method of recruiting forthwith its languishing vital energies—to rescue its financial concerns from the desperate condition in which he found them. With an immediate and perspective increase of expenditure that was perfectly frightful—in the meditation and actual prosecution of vast but useless enterprises—of foreign interference ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... mortal, Francis Spira. Every sentence in that book, every groan of that man, with all the rest of his actions in his dolors, as his tears, his prayers, his gnashing of teeth, his wringing of hands, his twisting, and languishing, and pining away, under the mighty hand of God that was upon him, was as knives and daggers to my soul; especially that sentence of his was frightful to me, 'Man knows the beginning of sin, but ...
— Life of Bunyan • Rev. James Hamilton

... going on well when the Revolution broke over France. Then it was doomed. While Lafayette was languishing in the dungeon at Olmuetz, one of his great anxieties was for his Cayenne charge. He would have been even more unhappy if he had known that when the revolutionists took possession of his property, they caused that estate to be sold, together with all ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow

... public that a power has been allowed to grow up which has assumed the right to counteract the dispensations of Providence, to enrich the slothful, to impoverish the industrious, to curtail the profits of remunerative industries and revive by bounties those languishing for want of vitality, to humble proud and self-reliant marts of trade and to build up cities in the desert. It will scarcely be claimed even by railroad managers that their policy of thus arbitrarily regulating commerce originated in philanthropic motives. They are forced ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee

... lay in this languishing state beneath the shade of a tree, there came to her a Being, who was not of this world. He said to her, in a gentle and soothing voice, "Shenanska! thou art wounded and hungry, shall I heal thee and feed thee? Wilt thou return to the lands of thy tribe, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... castle of Cleves lay Elsa of Brabant, languishing in captivity. Her father, the Duke of Brabant, had ere he died appointed his most powerful vassal, one Frederick of Telramund, to be her guardian; but he, seeking only the advancement of his own ends, shamefully abused the confidence of his lord. Using his authority as Elsa's ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... said I, "as that mock literary air which it is so much the fashion to assume. 'Tis but a wearisome relief to conversation to have interludes of songs about Strephon and Sylvia, recited with a lisp by a gentleman with fringed gloves and a languishing look." ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... escape from Howe's winter quarters at Philadelphia, and immediately joined the American army at Valley Forge. The privations of that encampment, dreadfully aggravated the sufferings of poor Kemp; but, after languishing during the season in one of the military hospitals, he resumed active service in the spring, and served in May under Lafayette at the affair of Barren Hill. At the battle of Monmouth, he fought with his usual intrepidity, but the fatigues of the engagement renewed the affection ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various

... apostle actually told me, without circumlocution, that in the monastery of Tor di Specchi there dwelt a young lady who was in love with me? I, who of course desired no better, took the hint instantly, and had her pointed out to me. Then began an interchange of silly messages, of languishing looks, and a hundred absurdities of the same kind; all cut short by the pair of post-horses which carried us out of the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... I went to St. James's Church last Sunday, and there opposite me sat my beauty of the Wells. Her behaviour during the whole service was so pert, languishing and absurd; she flirted her fan, and ogled and eyed me in a manner so indecent, that I was obliged to shut my eyes, so as actually not to see her, and whenever I opened them beheld hers (and very bright they are) still staring at me. ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury

... from the pure air of Donnaz, where the faith of his kinsfolk expressed itself in charity, self-denial and a noble decency of life, there was something stifling in the atmosphere of languishing pietism in which his mother's friends veiled the emptiness of their days. Under the instruction of the Countess's director the boy's conscience was enervated by the casuistries of Liguorianism and his devotion ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... him. One day, I went out to Al-Mirbad,[FN153] by way of Al-Muhaliyah;[FN154] and, being oppressed by the excessive heat, went up to a great door, to ask for drink, when I was suddenly aware of a damsel, as she were a branch swaying, with eyes languishing, eye brows arched and finely pencilled and smooth cheeks rounded clad in a shift the colour of a pomegranate flower, and a mantilla of Sana'a[FN155] work; but the perfect whiteness of her body overcame the redness of her shift, through which glittered two breasts like twin granadoes ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... these walls as if a spy from hell were gliding at my heels. Methinks I should know him! There is something so lofty, so familiar, in his wild, sunburnt features, which makes me tremble. Amelia, too, is not indifferent towards him! Does she not dart eager, languishing looks at the fellow looks of which she is so chary to all the world beside? Did I not see her drop those stealthy tears into the wine, which, behind my back, he quaffed so eagerly that he seemed to swallow the very glass? Yes, I saw it—I saw ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... bad management may not be worse than slavery? And whether any part of Christendom be in a more languishing condition ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley

... selected another arm of the service. Her hair was fair; her eyes blue, laughing, languishing,—mischief-loving blue, with long lashes, and a look in them that was wont to leave its impression rather longer than you exactly knew of; then, her figure was petite, but perfect; her feet Canova might have copied; and her hand was a study for Titian; her voice, too, was soft ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... is not forty years ago, I believe about the year 1829, when the guest whom we honor this morning was spending his solitary days in a prison in the slave-owning city of Baltimore. I will not say that he was languishing in prison, for that I do not believe; he was sustained by a hope that did not yield to the persecution of those who thus maltreated him; and to show that the effect of that imprisonment was of no ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... He was glad of any definite duties, however trivial, he felt more independent as the Hickses' secretary than as their pampered guest, and the large cheque which Mr. Hicks handed over to him on the first of each month refreshed his languishing ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton

... Kinqship is both in itself and in reference to these nations farre the most Excellent Government, and the returning to our former Loyalty or Obedience thereto is the only way under God to restore and settle these three once flourishing, now languishing, broken, and almost ruined nations. By G. S., a Lover of Loyalty. Humbly Dedicated and Presented to his most Excellent Majesty Charles the Second, of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, true Hereditary King. London, Printed by E.C. for H. Seile, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... only a girl of seventeen," said Harry, as a languishing brunette, with large, liquid black eyes, and a voluptuous figure, glided by them in the waltz. "How soon these Southerners develope into women! They beat ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... countenance to the stage. Her hair, of a bright and fair auburn, hung in profuse ringlets about her neck, shedding a softer shade upon a complexion in which the roses seemed just budding as it were into blush. Her eyes, large, blue, and rather languishing than brilliant, were curtained by the darkest lashes; her mouth seemed literally girt with smiles, so numberless were the dimples that every time the full, ripe, dewy lips were parted rose into sight; and the enchantment of the dimples was aided by two rows of teeth more dazzling ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Paul supposes[2], and as I explain elsewhere. Still more then may one suffer them with little charity. Now, I say, Theotimus, that it may come to pass that a very small virtue may be of greater value in a soul where divine love fervently reigns, than martyrdom itself in a soul where love is languishing, feeble, and dull. Thus, the least virtues of our Blessed Lady of St. John, and of other great Saints, were of more worth before God than the most exalted perfections of the rest ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus

... fair girl with blue eyes, at once shy and languishing. The elder brother took a fancy to him; he was the fourth clerk in the office, but strongly attracted by the snares of literary fame, though destined to succeed his father. The younger sister was twelve years old. Lousteau, assuming a little Jesuitical air, played the Monarchist and Churchman ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... alone;—a thousand bosoms round Inhale thee in the fulness of delight; 10 And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound Livelier at coming of the wind of night; And, languishing to hear thy grateful sound, Lies the vast inland stretched beyond the sight. Go forth into the gathering shade; go forth, 15 God's blessing breathed upon the ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty

... &c. v.. broken, lame, withered, shattered, shaken, crazy, shaky; palsied &c. 158; decrepit. languid, poor, infirm; faint, faintish[obs3]; sickly &c. (disease) 655; dull, slack, evanid|, spent, short-winded, effete; weather-beaten; decayed, rotten, worn, seedy, languishing, wasted, washy, laid low, pulled down, the worse for wear. unstrengthened &c. 159[obs3], unsupported, unaided, unassisted; aidless[obs3], defenseless &c. 158; cantilevered (support) 215. on its last legs; weak as a child, weak as a baby, weak as a chicken, weak as a cat, weak as a rat; weak ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... field, we should meet like tigers; but when he sees me here disarmed and helpless, he forgets his animosity." (At which, as I had ventured to expect, this beardless champion coloured to the ears for pleasure.) "Ah, my dear young lady," I continued, "there are many of your countrymen languishing in my country, even as I do here. I can but hope there is found some French lady to convey to each of them the priceless consolation of her sympathy. You have given me alms; and more than alms—hope; and while you were absent ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... I am comparatively at leisure again, and so happy in meditating on the character of my Saviour, and in the sense of His nearness, that I ache, and have had to beg Him to give me no more, but to carry this joy to you and to Miss K. and to two friends, who, languishing on dying beds, need it so much. [2] If I could shed tears I should not have to tell you this, and indeed it is nothing new; but one must have vent in some way. And this reminds me to explain to you why to three dear Christian friends I now and then send verses; they are my tears of joy or ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... offended at our Savior for presuming to forgive sins. He replies, in substance: If you do not believe My words, believe My acts; and He at once heals the man of his disease. After he had cured the man that had been languishing for thirty-eight years He whispered to him this gentle admonition, "Sin no more, lest some worst thing may ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons

... afflictions, my verie soule was vexed within me, striuing to be set at libertie from my vnfortunate and feeble bodie, passing vp and downe I knew not where. My legges weake, feeble, and fowltering vnder mee, my spirites languishing, and my sences in a maner gone from mee. Sauing that I called deuoutly vppon the omnipotent God to haue pittie vppon mee, and that some good Angell might bee appointed to conduct mee out. And with that beholde I discouered a little light. To the which, how gladly I hasted, let euerie one ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna

... took it down, and standing aloof from the company, which he seemed clean and clear to forget, he began very composedly to read to himself, and as intently as if he had been alone in his own study. We were all excessively provoked, for we were languishing, fretting, expiring to hear him talk.' Dr. Burney, taking up something that Mrs. Thrale had said, ventured to ask him about Bach's concert. 'The Doctor, comprehending his drift, good-naturedly ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... you false prophet! Do you suppose that I do not know why you are going? Do you suppose old Madariaga has not seen your languishing looks and those of my dead fly of a daughter, clasping each others' hands in the presence of poor China who is blinded in her judgment? . . . It's not such a bad stroke, Frenchy. By it, you would be able to get possession of half of the old Spaniard's dollars, ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... particular, the place of friendship in the Live; of women is a subject which, if soundly discussed, and set forth with mastery and sympathy, may give precious guidance, comfort, and inspiration to thousands of embittered and languishing souls? Will not the large number, who are denied the satisfactions of impassioned love, be grateful for a book which shows them what rich and noble resources they may find in his widely different, though closely kindred, sentiment? Is not such a book especially needed ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... the only survivor of the "three brethren which were tyrants,"[340] was governing the kingdom as well as he could. The nobles were angry and despondent, each one seeking to be free; and the Portuguese on the coast were languishing, with their trade ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... instinct at the age of fifteen, than, under proper training, he should be entitled to at the time of his marriage; and the boy of eleven or twelve boastfully announces to his companions the evidences of his approaching virility. Nourished by languishing glances during the hours passed in the school-room, fanned by more intimate association on the journey to and from school, fed by stolen interviews and openly-arranged festivities—picnics, excursions, parties and the like—stimulated by the prurient gossip ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... sacrifices the victory was bought; the gain of the first battle against the Romans was of inestimable value for Pyrrhus. His talents as a general had been brilliantly displayed on this new field of battle, and if anything could breathe unity and energy into the languishing league of the Italians, the victory of Heraclea could not fail to do so. But even the immediate results of the victory were considerable and lasting. Lucania was lost to the Romans: Laevinus collected the troops stationed there and marched ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... catch Simon Varr in his office. Her natural sullenness of expression was intensified as she walked slowly along her way, for certain friends of hers had pointed out to her that she was wasting her time. Simon could do nothing if he would, and would do less than that if he could, for the lover languishing in jail. ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... very good business that has been fairly established, and is now languishing for want of a little capital. The man who has made it will take a partner if he can bring in three thousand dollars, which would make the whole concern easy, perfectly safe, and sure ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur

... may have been instruments of providence to-day," he reminded her. "Without them, we might now be languishing in jail and our spotless names posted in the Place de l'Opera. Bedelia Guile and Rex Schmidt, malefactors. What would your ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... other arrangements of Providence, however mysterious, are full of goodness and mercy:—"Somehow or other, amid their crowding and confinement, the human mind finds its fullest, freest expansion. Unlike the dwarfed and dusty plants which stand around our suburban villas, languishing like exiles for the purer air and freer sunshine that kiss their fellows far away in flowery field and green woodland, on sunny banks and breezy hills, man reaches his highest condition amid the social influences of the crowded city. His intellect receives its brightest ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... but let no man despise little words, despite of the little man of Twickenham. He himself knew better, but there was no resisting the temptation of such a line as that. Small words he says, in plain prosaic criticism, are generally "stiff and languishing, but they may be beautiful ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 50. Saturday, October 12, 1850 • Various

... France were tokens of the Divine displeasure. Had Francis spared no exertions to destroy the first germs of the heresy so insidiously introduced into his kingdom, he would not now, said the churchman, be languishing in the dungeons of Milan or Madrid. Nor could hopes be entertained of his deliverance, and of a return of Heaven's favor, unless the queen mother bestirred herself to retrieve his mistake by the introduction of new measures to crush heresy. Thus is the chancellor said to have argued, ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... grieuously sicke that he was like to die, and as he lay languishing, doubting of any helpe by his owne priestes, and thinking hee was in such danger for offending vs and thereby our God, sent for some of vs to pray and bee a meanes to our God that it would please him either that he might liue, or after ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt

... the kiss of meeting should be that of parting also?" said Charlotte, sadly, as she raised her blue eyes with a languishing look to the handsome, ardent face of the man who stood before her. "Do you wish to separate forever? I must recall to you our last conversation: 'Only when you are resolved to moderate this impetuous ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... (August 11, 1809), Byron compares "the Spanish style" of beauty to the disadvantage of the English: "Long black hair, dark languishing eyes, clear olive complexions, and forms more graceful in motion than can be conceived by an Englishman ... render a Spanish beauty irresistible" (Letters, 1898, i. 239). Compare, too, the opening lines of The Girl of Cadiz, which gave place to the stanzas To Inez, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... dissatisfaction and complaint, and to allow them, at length, the enjoyment of those rights and privileges, of which they ought never to have been debarred, would, at best, be but a poor compensation for an impeded agriculture and languishing commerce; but it is the only one that can now be offered; and, although it cannot repair the wide ravages which so many years of unmerited and absurd restrictions have occasioned, it may arrest the progress of desolation, and prevent any further increase to the numbers ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... Languishing under the lash of chastisement inflicted upon those infamous enough to aid and abet the cause of dismemberment, mutual hate and slaughter, National extinction and death, they swore in this Order an eternal and most dreadful oath of vengeance upon their offenders, and pledged themselves, ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer

... nearly knit that the patient might leave the ward on crutches to sit each morning in Barker's room as a privilege, the disobedient child of twenty-one had slipped out of the hospital and hobbled hastily to the hog ranch, where whiskey and variety waited for a languishing convalescent. Here he grew gay, and was soon carried back with the leg refractured. Yet Barker's surgical rage was disarmed, the patient was so forlorn over his ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister

... had the soles of her shoes chalked and danced her fancy dance, and Henrietta Petowker took down her back hair and repeated "The Blooddrinker's Burial." The old man looked over the wall, too, and threw garden vegetables and languishing glances at Mrs. Nickleby who encouraged his advances. There was no time for the girls to learn the parts in the busy, crowded, late-open holiday evenings of department stores, but they all entered into the pantomime ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... Buxton, "either Fuji or something even more potent." Here he cast a languishing and eloquent glance toward Miss Campbell who flicked the grass with the end of her parasol and pretended not ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes

... secretary, being accustomed to petty manoeuvres of this kind, went to the Bishop and contrived to bring him to the fore. At the Bishop's entreaty, Nais had no choice but to ask Lucien to recite his own verses for them, and the Baron received a languishing smile from Amelie as the reward of ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... by want of money, a yet greater distress was now fast closing on Fielding in the prolonged illness of his wife. "To see her daily languishing and wearing away before his eyes," says Murphy, "was too much for a man of his strong sensations; the fortitude with which he met all other calamities of life [now] deserted him." In the autumn of 1744 Mrs Fielding was at Bath, doubtless in ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... interchanged looks, and as we were going out in any case, accepted the offer. When we hastily returned from putting on our bonnets, we found the young family languishing in a corner and Mrs. Pardiggle sweeping about the room, knocking down nearly all the light objects it contained. Mrs. Pardiggle took possession of Ada, and ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... up, Saladin and many of the soldiers entering Jerusalem; but still the pair were left languishing in their dismal cells, which were fashioned from old tombs. One evening, while Rosamund was kneeling; at prayer before she sought her bed, the door of the place was opened, and there appeared a glittering captain ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard

... on the staircase; or, the tables turned, young fledglings pining madly for their respective enslavers, and picturing to themselves how she may be even now whirling round to that pealing waltz in the arms of some former adorer or delightfully new acquaintance, little heeding him who is languishing in his white neckcloth, actually within speaking distance, but separated as effectually as if he were in another country. By-the-bye, it's fatal when people begin to think of each other as hes and shes; the softest proper name ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

... ashore; but now I know that you are no better than the rest. Phorenice offers you a high place, and you marry her blithely to get it. And why, indeed, should you not marry her? People say she is pretty, and I know she can be warm. I have seen her warm and languishing to scores of men. She is clever, too, with her eyes, is our great Empress; I grant her that. And as for you, it tickles you to ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... smuts that lend continual interest and excitement to the atmosphere of Bursley. It was a white muslin, spotted with spots of opaque white, and founded on something pink. Denry imagined that he had seen parts of it before—at the ball; and he had; but it was now a tea-gown, with long, languishing sleeves; the waves of it broke at her shoulders, sending lacy surf high up the precipices of Ruth's neck. Denry did not know it was a tea-gown. But he knew that it had a most peculiar and agreeable effect on himself, and that she had promised him ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... and especially an instrument. It has been evolved by a man whose passion it is to communicate his reflections, to make himself understood. He has learnt the practice of good writing through this desire and not by any sick languishing to construct beautiful mosaics ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell

... breeze, fragrant with orange blossom, blew gently over the trees, I felt as if we might have rode on for ever, without fatigue, and in a state of the most perfect enjoyment. It were hard to say whether the first soft breath of morning, or the languishing and yet more fragrant airs of evening were most enchanting. Sometimes we passed through a village of scattered Indian huts, with little fires of sticks lighted in their courts, glowing on the bronze faces of the women and children; and at the sound of our horses' ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... wi' his sang, An' wafts the saft notes till they die on the ear; But Mary, whase presence sic transport conveys, Whase beauties my moments o' pleasure control, On the strings o' my heart ever wantonly plays, An' each languishing note is a sigh ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... was a brilliant army of actors and actresses in varied and fanciful costume, many coming to the house dressed for their parts. There were gods and goddesses, shepherds and shepherdesses, angels, crusaders, who would take leave of languishing ladies, living statuary, and tableaux of all sorts. Dennis was much shocked at the manner in which ladies exposed themselves in the name of art and for the sake of effect. Christine seemed perfectly Greek and pagan in this respect, yet there was that in her manner that forbade ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... father's and mother's characteristics—an interesting variability of soul. She was tall, dark, sallow, lithe, with a strange moodiness of heart and a recessive, fulgurous gleam in her chestnut-brown, almost brownish-black eyes. She had a full, sensuous, Cupid's mouth, a dreamy and even languishing expression, a graceful neck, and a heavy, dark, and yet pleasingly modeled face. From both her father and mother she had inherited a penchant for art, literature, philosophy, and music. Already at eighteen she was dreaming of painting, singing, ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... has lost all that he ever had, and lies languishing, and even gasping under the utmost extremities of poverty and distress, dost thou think to lick him whole again only ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... of Antiquity, the great work of the Middle Ages had been stored up, and had been increased threefold, and sorted and classified by the Renaissance; and now that the national edifice had been dismantled and dilapidated, and the national activity was languishing, it all lay in confusion, awaiting only the hand of those who would carry it away and use it once more. To Italy therefore Englishmen of thought and fancy were dragged by an impulse of adventure and greed as irresistible as that which dragged to Antwerp and the Hanse ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee

... and Tancred. Jerusalem had been held by the Franks for a short space; but their crimes and their indolence had led to their ruin, and the Holy City itself was lost, while only a few fortresses, detached and isolated, remained to bear the name of the Kingdom of Palestine. The languishing Royal Line was even lost, becoming extinct in Conradine, the grandson of Friedrich II. and of Yolande of Jerusalem, that last member of the house of Hohenstaufen on whom the Pope and Charles of Anjou wreaked their vengeance for the crimes of his fore-fathers. Charles of Anjou, brother ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge



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