"Mournful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... London newspapers and such of the provincial papers as were exhibited, and had searched their columns eagerly for references to his book; but the references were few and slight. Mr. Claude Jannissary, when John visited him, wagged his head dolefully and uttered some mournful remarks on the sad state of idealism in England. He regretted to say that the book was not selling so well as he had hoped it would sell. The appalling conditions of the publishing trade were accentuated by the extraordinary reluctance of the booksellers to take risks or to show any enthusiasm ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... scream of passing brant, the wrangling of quarrelsome teal, the sharp querulous protest of the startled crane, and syllabled complaint of the "killdeer" plover were beyond the power of written expression. Nor was the aspect of these mournful fowls at all cheerful and inspiring. Certainly not the blue heron, standing midleg deep in the water, obviously catching cold in a reckless disregard of wet feet and consequences; nor the mournful curlew, ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... took her place by Harold's side. He was sleeping; though it was not the death-like sleep in which she had beheld him, that mournful night; but a quiet, healthful slumber. His whole face seemed softened and spiritualised, as is often the case with strong men, whom a long illness has brought low. With childlike helplessness there seems to come a childlike peace. Olive knew now why Mrs. ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... the dark visions of their soul, And bade their mournful musings fly, Like mist before ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various
... Divine love—these were the great words pronounced by Paul and by Christ. Cleon is the despairing cry of Pagan culture for the life beyond the grave which would attune to harmony the dissonances of earth, and render intelligible its mournful obscurities. Saul, in the completed form of 1855, and An Epistle of Karshish are, the one a prophecy, the other a divination, of the mystery of the love of God in the life and death of his Son. The culminating ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... been deeply affected by the death of Daniel Webster, filling at his decease the office of Secretary of State. His associates in the executive government have sincerely sympathized with his family and the public generally on this mournful occasion. His commanding talents, his great political and professional eminence, his well-tried patriotism, and his long and faithful services in the most important public trusts have caused his death to be lamented ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will; The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, 15 From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells! But I, with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... been killed for food. The sufferings of the besieged inhabitants became greater daily, and numbers died from sheer starvation. The little inhabitants of John Whitefoot's castle were mere skeletons. Most of their parents were dead, and a mournful silence pervaded the town, save when the bells of the chapels called to prayer, or the yells of the mob announced that the lower orders were breaking into houses in search ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... fowls, with sharp kitchen knives—a procedure, the necessity of which I have never understood—they sang all sorts of folk-songs, the text of which formed a strange contrast, as well to the murderous act as to the mournful melody. At least one had to suppose this to be the case, for the maids, who sat on the edge of the bed with their guest from the straw-loft between them, followed the folksongs with never-ending merriment, and at the passages that sounded specially mournful they ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... wreath of cypress and wormwood. From this union sprung a virgin, in whom might be traced a strong resemblance to both her parents; but the sullen and unamiable features of her mother were so blended with the sweetness of the father, that her countenance, though mournful, was highly pleasing. The maids and shepherds gathered round and called her Pity. A red-breast was observed to build in the cabin where she was born; and while she was yet an infant, a dove, pursued ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... mournful humour. Why should Dick desert you? And even if he did, I don't see that it would be ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... the anxieties he could own to. The count put up with the stupidity of Mme Maloir, playing bezique with her in spite of her musty smell. He put up with Mme Lerat and her encumbrances, with Louiset and the mournful complaints peculiar to a child who is being eaten up with the rottenness inherited from some unknown father. But he spent hours worse than these. One evening he had heard Nana angrily telling her maid that a man pretending to be rich had just swindled her—a handsome ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... the hand by a really grieving company, I moved towards the narrow, steep descent to the Chongur bridge, cut into the slope of the high cliffs of clay. On the way I called at Kachi's house, but he had gone ahead. A more mournful procession could not be imagined. The faint rays of a new moon gave an added melancholy to the scene, and that peculiarly impressive sound of sad steps, if I may thus express the pathetic cadence of people's gait when afflicted, made me feel as if I were attending my own ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... and it was driven so slowly and carefully that it suggested to the poor girl the deliberate and mournful pace of a funeral procession, when all need for haste is past forever, and she sprang down the steps in her intense anxiety, and took some swift steps before she controlled herself. Then pressing her hand on her side, she ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... softened into being obliging by her coming holiday; or perhaps the mournful, longing words touched something in her that ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... the face; he looked at him like one whose feelings had overcome him, and who relied upon a display of feeling to work upon the feelings of others. But Henri remained unmoved at this exhibition of emotion on his brother's part, and replied in no other way but by the same mournful smile. ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... under any allusion to it; and though her diary contains many references to it, they are chiefly in the form of prayers for submission to her trial, and strength to bear it. But it was the key-note to the dirge which sounded ever after in her heart, mingling its mournful numbers with every joy, even after she had risen beyond ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... hand, and hanging over him looked with an agonized intensity at his motionless features. The next moment she felt her mother's hand on her shoulder, and was forced to turn round and look into her face: the sweet mournful meekness of which came for a moment like a soft cooling breeze upon the dry burning desert ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the cup of happiness was scarcely at her lips before it was dashed away. Dujarrier was challenged to a duel by Beauvallon, a political enemy; and when Lola was on her way to stop the meeting she met a mournful procession bringing back her dead lover's body, on which she flung herself in an agony of grief and covered it with kisses. At the subsequent trial of Beauvallon she electrified the Court by declaring with streaming eyes, "If Beauvallon wanted satisfaction I would have ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... earnestness and in a tone so mournful that Desmond felt himself profoundly moved. "If only she is not acting!" he thought, and sought to shake himself free from the spell which this girl seemed able to ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... beam, lost Liberty![ft] And many dream withal the hour is nigh That gives them back their fathers' heritage: For foreign arms and aid they fondly sigh, Nor solely dare encounter hostile rage, Or tear their name defiled from Slavery's mournful page. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... little gasp at the loveliness spread before her. She rested her elbows on the low window sill and leaned forward, drinking in the scent of new hay and roses and dewy grass. The shrill, insistent chorus of insects was music, and when the mournful cry of a distant hoot owl came out of the woods that rose shadowy and dark across the white ribbon of road, why that was music, too. Country nights are no more absolutely silent than nights in the town or city, but some enchantment weaves the noises of the countryside into graceful harmony. ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... at my uncle's, that night, I showed him my new rig-out, and explained to him how I came into possession of it. But he did not accept my explanation. Instead, he shook his head in mournful dubiousness ... indicating that he doubted my story, and insinuating that I had not come by my suit honestly; as well as by the new dress suitcase Saunders had presented me with, and ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... however, thinks to snatch power to himself from this opportunity. Scene 2.—Report is made of the suppression of the rebellion, but this news is immediately followed by a report of Albany's attempted usurpation of the throne. Coalition for his defeat is agreed upon, and the play ends with the mournful soliloquy of that aged counsellor who first opposed the division of the throne and now sees, as the consequence of that fatal act, his country, torn to pieces by civil strife, left an easy prize for ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... and just as unsubstantial, yet forming a brilliant argument to justify the ways of girls to men. The pervading characteristic of the mass was the means of forcing into notice, by strangeness of contrast, the single mournful poem that the book contained. It was placed at the very end, and under the title of 'Cancelled Words,' formed a whimsical and rather affecting love-lament, somewhat in the tone of many of Sir Thomas Wyatt's poems. This was the piece which had arrested Christopher's attention, and ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... offence thus given to Janet. Something swelled in her throat as if to suffocate her, but there could be no reply, and to burst out crying would only make him think her younger still; so as he turned to his mournful task, she ensconced herself in a high-backed chair, and watched him from under ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Montfort brought together those two fair young natures. And yet they were not uppermost in her thoughts as she now gazed on them; nor was it wholly for them that her eyes were filled with tears at once sweet, yet profoundly mournful—holy, and ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... while the others have rifles and long range guns? Under these circumstances the Jews are perfectly justified in refusing to stir when people try to make peasants of them. A cross-bow is a beautiful weapon, which inspires me with mournful feelings when I have time to devote to them. But it belongs by rights to ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... what sorrow filled the hearts of the inhabitants, exceeding anything that I am able to describe. Being reinforced, we returned to bury the dead, and found their bodies strewed everywhere, cut and mangled in a dreadful manner. This mournful scene exhibited a horror almost unparalleled: some torn and eaten by wild beasts; those in the river eaten by fishes; all in such a putrefied condition, that no one could be distinguished ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip
... and hands conjoined thus the sad Duryodhan spoke, And his mournful bitter accents oft by heaving sighs ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... veins on her brow swelled like cords. Often gray dawn looked in upon her, still sitting before her desk, with a sickly, waning lamplight gleaming over her pallid face. And to-day, as she looked out on the flying clouds, and listened to the mournful wail of the rushing gale, she seemed to stand upon the verge of a yawning chaos. What did she believe? She knew not. Old faiths had crumbled away; she stood in a dreary waste, strewn with the wreck of creeds ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... funeral, and several days followed amidst the same uniform, heavy grief. With tearful eyes and melancholy looks her afflicted family gazed at her. She did not care for what comforted them. What could they say to change the current of her mournful thoughts? ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... well as the posts and rafters. In England it is constantly used for umbrella-sticks. The most interesting birds were the pigeons, with feathers of the richest metallic hues. The plaintive cooings of their notes as they issued from the solitude of the sombre woods, were mournful but soothing to my ear. Their air is full of softness, and their eyes of gentleness; the very turn of the neck and the carriage of the head are full of grace; every motion is elegant, and their forms of the most beautiful proportions. A kingfisher of considerable size, and ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... as a national loss; the man who killed it was condemned to expiate the crime with his own life; and nothing less than a public funeral could, as it was thought, do justice to its memory. The remains of the bird were laid on a bier, which was borne by two slaves; musicians went before it, playing mournful airs; and an infinite number of persons, of all ages and conditions, brought up the rear of the ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... caprice—the countenances of courtiers who even yet had not learnt justly to weigh the influence of that imperial favourite, or to understand that she ruled their King with a power which no transient fancy for newer faces could undermine. A day or two in the sulks, frowns and mournful looks for gossip Pepys to jot down in his diary, and the next day the sun would be shining again, and the King would be at supper with ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... her head, and with her hand She gave a mournful wave; "Oh, do not jest, dear sir—it is Turf from my ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... felt a kind of bitter pleasure in writing the memorial of this mournful event, the rather in this place, which so often meets my eyes, to the end that I may consider there is nothing left which ought to delight me in this world; and that I may be reminded by the frequent sight of these words, and the due appreciation ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... banner! and if e'er Thou should'st press the soldier's bier And the muffled drum shall beat To the tread of mournful feet, Then the crimson flag shall be Martial cloak and shroud for thee." The warrior took that banner proud, And it was his martial cloak ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... my bedside, High-born Helen's portrait's hung; Deaf to my praise, my mournful lays Are nightly to ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... am in a thoughtful mood, I often succeed in diverting the current of some mournful reflections, by conjuring up a number of fanciful associations with the objects that surround me, and dwelling upon the scenes and characters ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... whose saints' days must inevitably be skipped for the first year in the process of rectification will inevitably feel that they are being robbed of their guardian angels, that they are "orphans"—a mournful word greatly beloved of the Russian masses under multiform circumstances, both material and spiritual—and orphaned in a peculiarly distressing and irrevocable way. They might even feel when their saints' days came around quite correctly the next year that some spurious ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... would face outward and crane her neck over the fathomless void of that bottomless pit, and for a space of moments would gaze steadily downward, with a despondent droop of her fiddle-shaped head and a suicidal gleam in her mournful eyes. It worried me no little; and if I had known, at the time, that she had a German name it would have worried me even more, I guess. But either the time was not ripe for the rash act or else ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... third Canto of Childe Harold and the Prisoner of Chillon, he produced also his two poems, "Darkness" and "The Dream," the latter of which cost him many a tear in writing,—being, indeed, the most mournful, as well as picturesque, "story of a wandering life" that ever came from the pen and heart of man. Those verses, too, entitled "The Incantation," which he introduced afterwards, without any connection with the subject, into Manfred, were also (at least, the less bitter portion of them) the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... watching the words from his lips with a mournful regard, as though their passage were visible; but as he went on she dropped her glance. "Yes," she said, "I have thought that, too. And, because I have thought it, I by no means meant, in speaking of the proprieties, to be reserved and cold to ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... the memories of his youth And his lost dominions green, Smite the soul of Atta Troll, Mournful sobs ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... holding long flambeaux in their hands. Next came a double file of priests in their surplices, with a missal in one hand and a lighted wax taper in the other, chanting the funeral dirge at intervals—now pausing, and then again taking up the mournful burden of their lamentation, accompanied by others, who played upon a rude kind of bassoon, with a dismal and wailing sound. Then followed various symbols of the church, and the bier borne on the shoulders ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... seated in front of him, sadly nodded his head. Dona Luisa was looking at the mournful plain while her lips trembled slightly in constant prayer. Chichi turned her great eyes in astonishment from one side to the other. She appeared larger, more capable in spite of the pallor which ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... of spring, and laid bare the arid sternness of the South again. The nightingale still warbles fitfully in the green bushes, but the raven, perched up yonder upon the stark rock, croaks like a misanthrope at the quick passing away of youth and loveliness. What sad undertones, mournful murmurs of the deep that receives the drifted leaves, mingle with the spring's soft flutings and all the voices that proclaim ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... let my counsel sway you in this case. Your daughter here the princes left for dead; Let her awhile be secretly kept in, And publish it that she is dead indeed: Maintain a mourning ostentation; nd on your family's old monument Hang mournful epitaphs and do all rites That appertain unto ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... is hoped, as a penitent sinner, he obtained the more needful mercy of God, through the abounding grace of Christ. After this scene Mr. Crabb could not remain in court. As he returned he found the mournful intelligence had been communicated to some Gipsies who had been waiting without, anxious to learn the fate of ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... alluded to by Mr. Irving did not produce the effect on us, that it appears to have produced on him. Without making a long story about a trifle, we can call to mind no appearance of hostility or ill-will manifested on that occasion; and on the contrary, recollect, in our immediate neighborhood, a mournful sense of distress at the scene exhibited, and sufficiently hinted in the few unpleasant words we have italicized. A muster of Englishmen preferred coughing down their favorite bard, to allowing him to mouth out maudlin twaddle, before the Prince, then first formally introduced to the public, ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... him as he skims along, Uttering his sweet and mournful cry; He starts not at my fitful song, Nor flash of fluttering drapery. He has no thought of any wrong, He scans me with a fearless eye; Stanch friends are we, well-tried and strong, ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... the room in disgrace to report to his father, and the last I saw of Miss Patricia that day, she was looking up at the portrait, and saying, with a mournful shake of her gray curls: "How can they do such things? I must confess that I ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... hymns of feeling, believing that the holy enthusiasm will go with us through life to the grave, or rather knowing not, or feeling not, that the grave is any thing more for us than a mere word with a somewhat mournful sound, and that life is changeless, cloudless, unfading as the heaven of heavens, that lies to the uplifted fancy in blue immortal calm, round the throne of the eternal ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 348, December 27, 1828 • Various
... related, interesting enough in itself, and by no means repugnant to the character of Julian, who ingeniously contrived both the plot and the catastrophe of the tragedy. When the Chamavians sued for peace, he required the son of their king, as the only hostage on whom he could rely. A mournful silence, interrupted by tears and groans, declared the sad perplexity of the Barbarians; and their aged chief lamented in pathetic language, that his private loss was now imbittered by a sense of public calamity. While the Chamavians lay prostrate at the foot of his ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... tree. I am inclined to believe that a movement merely accidental has been mistaken for one premeditated. The Indians have a dislike and a predilection for certain races of monkeys; they love the viuditas, the titis, and generally all the little sagoins; while the araguatos, on account of their mournful aspect, and their uniform howling, are at once detested and abused. In reflecting on the causes that may facilitate the propagation of sound in the air during the night, I thought it important to determine with precision the distance at which, especially ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... up as the cow came clumsily cantering up, followed by all the rest of the cattle, who added their lowing to the Jersey's mournful bellow. "Tail! Here, quick, Jack— boys, the guns; the poor creature ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... his soul he sitteth joyless, Mournful in mood. He many times thinks 30 That no end will e'er come to the cares he endures. Then must he think how throughout the world The gracious God often gives his help And manifold honors to many an earl And sends wide his fame; but to some he gives woes. 35 Of ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various
... as if the king could not survive this mournful news. He tore his hair, wept bitterly, and lamented his loss with all manner of sorrowful cries and sobs and sighs. For several days he would see nobody, and hid himself from view. Later, he returned ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... Moult sxangxi plumojn. Moult (birds) sxangxi plumojn. Mound remparo, digo. Mount supreniri. Mount monteto. Mountain monto. Mountaineer montano. Mountainous monta. Mountain-range montaro. Mountebank jxonglisto. Mourn malgxoji, ploregi. Mournful funebra. Mourning (dress) funebra vesto. Mouse muso. Mouse, shrew soriko. Mouse-trap muskaptilo. Moustache lipharoj. Mouth busxo. Mouth (of river) enfluo. Movable movebla. Move movi. Move (furniture) ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... much as she could remember of the prayers for the dying which she had heard at the deathbed of her aunt. The dying man smiled an indulgent smile into the young woman's beautiful and mournful face and allowed her to go on. As she prayed faster and faster, saying the same words over and over again, she felt his breathing grow more faint and irregular. At length it seemed to stop, and thinking it was gone altogether, she made the sign ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... iris that are over-shadowed by masses of tall graceful reeds. These arundini, which are to be found near every water-course or pool throughout Italy, are characteristic of the country with their broad grey leaves, their heads of pink feathery bloom, and their mournful whispering answers to the question of every passing breeze; elegant in their growth, they are also beloved by the practical peasant who utilizes their long slender stems for a variety of purposes in his domestic economy. For the reeds, ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... conquer Holland. If she declared against us, the whole force would be in jeopardy. Such were the tidings which Castlereagh bore with him to Pitt at the end of the year.[769] Not a line survives respecting that mournful interview; but we can picture the deathly look coming over Pitt's emaciated features as he now for the first time faced the prospect of the dissolution of the mighty league which he had toiled to construct. Probably it was this shock to the system which ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... had been sick and sad many times since they landed from the Mayflower; they had worked very hard, often had not had enough to eat, and were mournful indeed when their friends died and left them. But now they tried to forget all this, and think only of how good God had been to them; and so they all were happy together ...
— The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin
... unpopular, thankless. unsatisfactory, untoward, unlucky, uncomfortable. distressing; afflicting, afflictive; joyless, cheerless, comfortless; dismal, disheartening; depressing, depressive; dreary, melancholy, grievous, piteous; woeful, rueful, mournful, deplorable, pitiable, lamentable; sad, affecting, touching, pathetic. irritating, provoking, stinging, annoying, aggravating, mortifying, galling; unaccommodating, invidious, vexatious; troublesome, tiresome, irksome, wearisome; plaguing, plaguy^; awkward. importunate; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... In the first she appears alone, a seated or standing figure, often the head or half length only; the hands clasped, the head bowed in sorrow, tears streaming from the heavy eyes, and the whole expression intensely mournful. The features are properly those of a woman in middle age; but in later times the sentiment of beauty predominated over that of the mother's agony; and I have seen the sublime Mater Dolorosa transformed into a merely beautiful and youthful maiden, ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... ear of the Reverend Horace Mohun—griefs which she kept from the world. Before Lucy she spoke freely—being accustomed to regard the timid girl as a child still, whose mind could not gather the threads of her narrative. Lucy sate—not listening, but hearing snatches of the mournful circumstances with which Mrs. Rowe troubled Mr. Mohun. The reverend gentleman was a patient and an attentive listener; and drank his tea and ate his toast (it was only at Mrs. Rowe's he said he could ever get a good English round of toast), shaking his ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... with joy, and are become conquerors." This, I am informed, is observed in some of the northern counties, particularly in Northumberland, and it has a pleasing, though melancholy effect to hear of a still evening in some lonely country scene the mournful melody of a funeral dirge swelling from a distance, and to see the train slowly ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... in this golden glory, Die, O my heart, in thy rapture-swoon, For the Autumn must come with its mournful story, And Love's midsummer will ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... of a talker; but the women rather liked him, and kind o' liked to have him round. Women will like some fellows, when men can't see no sort o' reason why they should; and they liked this 'ere Lommedieu, though he was kind o' mournful and thin and shad-bellied, and hadn't nothin' to say for himself. But it got to be so, that the women would count and calculate so many weeks afore 'twas time for Lommedieu to be along; and they'd make up ginger-snaps and preserves and ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the natives, situated in a hollow near the water; when within about a hundred yards we saw from the rise all the natives seated below us in the valley. Tenberry now halted, and having taken a hasty survey of the group hung down his head upon his breast and raised a low mournful lamentation; after a time it ceased, and the wail was at once replied to and continued by women's voices in the camp: he now hastily went down to the camp still uttering his lamentations, and the whole body rose at his approach, and formed a large open circle around ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... on the oilcloth table cover, and everyone became deeply interested in their hands. Henceforth nothing could be heard but the jingle of dominoes. At the end of each game, the players quarrelled for two or three minutes, then mournful silence was resumed, broken by the sharp clanks of ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... dared hope, with the pony saddled and bridled. Husband and wife bade a mournful adieu. Mr. Leland mounted with his son's assistance, and silently they threaded their way ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... disposed of all his worldly property, and assembling his friends, bade them the farewell of a dying man. Arrayed as for the grave, he was laid in his coffin, and thus carried from his stately dwelling by the brethren of the Misericordia, who, in their ghostly costume, with mournful chants and lighted candles, bore him to the tomb of his ancestors, where the coffin was deposited in the vault, and its occupant passed the awful hours of the night in darkness and solitude. Thence he was carried, the next day, almost in a state of insensibility, to a neighboring ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... little bare places afford no more than a spiritual heritage. Yet spiritual it is, and for two men who in the moment of their extremity will think on meadow, woodland, or placid village, a score will figure the windy hill, the grey lochan, and the mournful sea. ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... priest Martin, and he indignantly refused to proceed with the ceremony until lights and stole were brought. During the time in which Joan of Arc was receiving the Sacrament, those persons who had been admitted within the castle recited the litany for the departing soul, and never had the mournful invocation for the dying, the supplication of the solemn chant, 'Kyrie eleison! Christe eleison!' been raised from a more tragic place, or on a more heart-stirring occasion. Outside, in the street, and all around the prison ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... reflections. He bent his head listening. A soft wind fanned the paling embers, blew sparks and white ashes and thin smoke away into the enshrouding circle of blackness. His burro did not appear to be moving about. The quiet split to the cry of a coyote. It rose strange, wild, mournful—not the howl of a prowling upland beast baying the campfire or barking at a lonely prospector, but the wail of a wolf, full-voiced, crying out the meaning of the desert and the night. Hunger throbbed in it—hunger for a mate, for offspring, for life. When it ceased, the terrible desert silence ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... who, in a fit of anger at the ridicule of Linus, on his awkwardness in holding the lyre, struck him on the head with his instrument, and killed him. The scholars of Linus lamented the death of their master, in a mournful kind of poem, called from him Aelinum. These poems were afterwards designated Epitaphia, from the two words [Greek: epi], upon, and [Greek: taphios], sepulchre, being engraved on tombs, in honour or memory of the deceased, and generally containing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various
... Then, muttering, "Poor gentleman, he had the toothache last night; and p'r'aps he's only just got a wink o' sleep. Pity to disturb him for the sake of them grizzling conductors. I'll let him sleep his usual time," she bore the tea-pot downstairs with a mournful, almost poetic, consciousness, that soft-boiled eggs (like ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... nothing more than a series of thudding accents, broken by periods of silence of increasing length. The effect is one of horses galloping further and further away into the distance. After this the whole atmosphere changes, and a mournful, lonely cry ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... 'Werterism,' among other strange prolusions, must have its place. The emotions and the imaginations will assert their just right to be fed—by foul means if not by fair; and even self-torture will have charms after the utter dryness and life-in-death of mere ecclesiastical pedantry. It is good, mournful though it be, that a few, even by gorging themselves with poison, should indicate the rise of a spiritual hunger—if we do but take their fate as a warning to provide wholesome food before the new craving has extended itself to the many. It is good that religion should have its Werterism, ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... but stared past her. Another figure was standing, erect and mournful, not far behind her. It was Joiwind. Her face was wan, and there was an accusing look in her eyes. Maskull knew that it was a phantasm, and that the real Joiwind was miles ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... awhile to the mournful whinny of the mules; to the sound of artillery rolling up the resonant pike; to the crashing of newly-arrived regiments through the cedars as they made their camps in line-of-battle; to little spurts of firing between the nervous pickets, ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... adventures more and more thrilling and unbelievable until, at last, the recital began to take on the character of an Arabian Nights' tale that threatened to involve the entire animal kingdom, and only ceased when, with a wealth of mournful detail, Donald described the tragic death and funeral of the gallant young Johnny Rabbit, his fatherless audience suddenly burst into tears and howled lugubriously; whereupon Donald was hard put to it to bring Johnny Rabbit back to life mysteriously but satisfactorily, ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... people who came by water, the boats resounding with the clatter of castanets, the clapping of hands, and the soft tones of thousands of flutes. Again he tells us of music played during banquets, and speaks of a mournful song called Maneros. This, the oldest song of the Egyptians (dating back to the first dynasty), was symbolical of the passing away of life, and was sung in connection with that gruesome custom of bringing in, towards the end of a banquet, an effigy of a corpse to remind the ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... fell on her ears a low strain of melancholy music rising and falling like the wailing of mournful spirits. She sprang to her feet and stood listening with dilated eyes; then, as a louder note reached her, in terror uncontrollable, she caught up her candle, rushed down the stairs like a wild bird, and stood panting before Mrs. Aylward, who had a big ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the minster enter'd, how many a bell was rung! How many a priest on all sides the mournful requiem sung! Then thither with his meiny came Dancrat's haughty son, And thither too grim Hagan; it had been better ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... down to the piano. It was a mournful instrument, reduced to discordant wheeziness by five-finger exercises, but the touch of the Swiss could still evoke from it some kind of harmony. He sang a Volkslied, and in a way which showed that there was poetry in the man's nature, though his outward ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... this difference was soon apparent. Before the trumpeter had got two hundred yards higher, the female of the eagles was seen wheeling around him on the same level. The swan was now observed to double, fly downward, and then upward again, while his mournful note echoed back to the earth. But his efforts were in vain. After a series of contortions and manoeuvres, the eagle darted forward, with a quick toss threw herself back-downward, and, striking upward, planted her talons in the under part of the ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... room; and, raising my eyes, I gave the excellent people to understand that my conduct was dictated by prudence. They comprehended me, for I heard, "That lady is right;" and afterwards, "Farewell, Madame!" from several of them; and all this in accents of feeling so true and so mournful, that I am affected at the recollection of them even after a ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... John Baptist pointing to the Saviour; St. Mark kneeling shows his gospel; St. Laurence clasps his hands on his breast; and St. Cosmo wrings his hands as he contemplates the Cross; while St. Damian turns, covering his eyes, and weeping the mournful ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino
... packing; and as each child saw and knew something that had belonged to its own parents it cried, and sang a little song, saying: “Mother, here is your bone needle; why did you leave your children?” “Father, here is your arrow; why did you leave your children?” It was very mournful, ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... A.M., in the glory of the tropic sunrise, Mr. Maxwell and I landed in Province Wellesley, under the magnificent casuarina trees which droop in mournful grace over the sandy shore. The somberness of the interminable groves of cocoa-palms on the one side of the Strait, the brightness of the sun-kissed peaks on the other, and the deep shadows on the amber water, were ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... Drinks. Dinner ... he had had dinner, hadn't he? Yes, he had. He recalled a broiled sea bass looking up at him with mournful eyes. He couldn't have dreamed anything ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... cadence now they fall, And now, along the white and level tide They fling their melancholy music wide! Bidding me many a tender thought recall Of happy hours departed, and those years When, from an antique tower, ere life's fair prime, The mournful mazes of their mingling chime First wak'd my wondering childhood ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... Not a bit of sky could I discover,—that welcome beacon to the wood-ranger, denoting the proximity of the clearings. Even the heaven above was curtained from my view; and when I appealed to it in prayer, my eyes rested only upon the thick black foliage of the cypress-trees, with their mournful drapery of tillandsia. ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... apostasy of Solomon is the most mournful fall recorded in history, thereby showing that no intellectual power can rescue a man from the indulgence of his passions and the sins of pride and vainglory. How immeasurably superior to him in self-control was Marcus Aurelius, who had the whole world ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... multitudes, the emperor, who accomplished all the duties of a general and a soldier, was long seen and finally lost. His mournful exclamation was heard, "Cannot there be found a Christian to cut off my head?" and his last fear was that of falling alive into the hands of the infidels. The prudent despair of Constantine cast away the purple. Amidst the tumult ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... with me, won't you, Mary?' she said to me as we sat by the fire in mournful silence that afternoon. 'You are my only comfort now, dear. I suppose I shall remain here—for some time, at any rate. Augusta spoke to me very graciously, and begged that I would make this my home, according ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... the leaves above our heads The winds were softly dying; Down in the river at our feet The lilies pale were lying. The winds their mournful murmur sent: You will forget me ever? The lilies raised their drooping heads: We will forget ...
— Love or Fame; and Other Poems • Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
... that they were very well for a gentleman to hand about among his friends. He said the imitation of Ne sit ancillae tibi amor[424], &c. was too solemn; he read part of it at the beginning. He read the beautiful pathetick song, Ah the poor shepherd's mournful fate, and did not seem to give attention to what I had been used to think tender elegant strains, but laughed at the rhyme, in Scotch pronunciation, wishes and blushes[425], reading wushes—and there he stopped. He owned that the epitaph on Lord Newhall was pretty well done. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... that Isaaco had journeyed for nine months to hear. And as he was a "good, honest, and upright man" and had sworn truth upon the Koran, there was nothing to do but believe and carry back the mournful tidings. To make "assurance double sure," Isaaco sent to Yaour a native who bribed a slave girl to steal the sword belt from the king's charger. Then, passing homeward through Sego, he told the news to Dacha, who was so furious that he despatched his army to wipe the country of Haoussa off ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... the Church of England; besides a strange, morbid speculation on the innocence of suicide. He used his lawyer's training for dubious enough purposes, advising the Earl of Somerset in the dark business of his divorce and re-marriage. And, in a mournful pause in the midst of many harrowing concerns, he writes to a friend: 'When I must shipwreck, I would fain do it in a sea where mine own impotency might have some excuse; not in a sullen, weedy ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... the cymbal! Bang the drum! Votaries of Bacchus! Let the popping corks resound, Pass the flowing goblet round! May no mournful voice be found, Though wowzers do ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... of a life ever mournful, Out of a land very lornful, Where in bleak exile we roam,[13] Into a joy-land above us, Where there's a Father to love us— ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... me with shining eyes. At this moment we started, all three, as borne to our ears came the distant rumble of thunder, followed by a fierce wind-gust that rattled crazy door and lattice and, dying in a dismal wail, left behind the mournful sound of ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... distress, painfully apparent throughout the land; when, instead of meeting the calamity with measures of relief, he sought to stifle every important inquiry; when he called that a partial and temporary evil which was both long-lived and universal, he could not look on such a mournful crisis, in which public misfortune was insulted by ministerial apathy, without hailing any prospect of change in the system that produced such a state of feeling. What, he asked, could be said of the ignorance which could attribute ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... grazed the side of a floating log; it immediately turned upon them, emitting blood-curdling bellows through gaping jaws. Piang's spear silenced the menacing crocodile, and the party hurried on. A taloetook (owl) wailed his melancholy koekh-koekh, and the mournful sound seemed to draw the handful of men closer together. Through the jungle the river wound its serpentine way; dense growths crowded the bank and leaned far out over the stream. Trailing vines and hanging ferns brushed the occupants ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... sitting hour after hour by his son, dying from the poison of his wound. The old father, hale and hearty; the young son, past all help, though one could scarcely believe it; for the subtle fever, burning his strength away, flushed his cheeks with color, filled his eyes with lustre, and lent a mournful mockery of health to face and figure, making the poor lad comelier in death than in life. His bed was not in my ward; but I was often in and out, and for a day or two, the pair were much together, saying little, but looking much. The old man tried to busy himself with book or pen, ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... he said leisurely, regarding the small fury before him with mournful interest. "Eh, but thee do be ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... ardent, susceptible, naturally disposed to admiration of all that is great and beautiful, was fascinated by the genius and the accomplishments of Bacon. A close friendship was soon formed between them, a friendship destined to have a dark, a mournful, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... wood they found a deer still alive and with a broken leg, tripped in its panic-stricken flight or struck by a fallen tree. Henry approached cautiously and slew him with his clasp knife. He felt strong pity as the fallen animal looked at him with great mournful eyes, but they were two hungry boys, and they must have a food supply if they would live in ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... was asleep, but not so as to be altogether unconscious of his words, for, in spite of illness and fatigue, a sweet and serene smile stole gently over her pale face, rested on it for a little, and again, gradually, and with a mournful placidity died away. Her father sighed deeply, and ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... and a cushion. Then they brought him a great lantern and a candle, for the place was dark, even by day, and posting an eunuch at the door, left him to himself. Kemerezzeman threw himself on the couch, broken-spirited and mournful-hearted, blaming himself and repenting of his unseemly behaviour to his father, when repentance availed him nothing, and saying, 'May God curse marriage and girls and women, the traitresses! Would I had hearkened to my father and married! ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... MARABOUT the Mugwump sniffs and sneers; Gregarious 'votes of thanks' and sheepish 'cheers' Stir him to satire scornful. But when sleek Culture apes, irate and loud, The follies of the Caucus and the Crowd, The spectacle is mournful." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various
... mournful good night, and left the room. When the door closed upon her, Josephine glanced at her mother with ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... itself at the cost of life. All the past was gone, and there was no future, whatever happened; no road which did not seem to lead to moral annihilation. I remember one of those men addressing me after a period of mournful silence compounded of mental exhaustion ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... whose bright blossoms hid defects and infirmities. He also loved music passionately; he whistled so sweetly that it was a delight to hear him. Yet there was something in his notes that always went to your heart and made you sad, they were so mournful. ...
— Two Festivals • Eliza Lee Follen
... coming, Marcella," he said, looking at her with mournful brown eyes that recalled Hoodie's. "Jock's wife's made ye a seed cake to eat the day, and anither tae pack in yer grip. She says if ye'll pit it intill a bit tin an' fasten it doon tight it'll maybe keep till ye're at Australia. But I'm thenkin' she doesna rightly ken ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... leafless, thin, thread-like, articulated branches, have been compared to the arborescent horse-tails (Equisetaceae), but have a much greater resemblance to the Larch-firs; they have the colonial name of Oaks, which might be changed more appropriately to that of Australian firs. The dark, mournful appearance of this tree caused it to be planted in cemeteries. The flowers are unisexual; the fruit consists of hardened bracts with winged seeds. The wood of this tree is named Beef-wood by ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... A mournful song, in stately measure, praising the dead for his virtues, full of the grief that remains with the living, believing in the happiness of the departed and hoping for a blessed reunion in the hereafter: ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... all Ireland, McCalphrain, McFotaide, McDeisse, the withholder of testimony to falsehood, McCormac Mor, McLeibriuth, McOta, McOrric the Good, McMaurice, McLeo of the church, McMaximus the Mournful, McEncret, the Noble, the Illustrious, McPhilist the Best of All, McFeren the Blameless, McBritain the Famous by Sea, whence the Britons strong by sea, Cochnias his mother the Noble, Nemthor his city, the Warlike; ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... son, and brother—in the silent "narrow house." For the demon-vice has done its worst, and loosed the silver chord, and his youthful spirit has gone before the drunkard's offended God. Alas! what painful memories throng the minds of beholders at the sight of the long, mournful procession on its way to the tomb! Never did a hearse convey more blasted hopes or wasted powers, more abused and withered ties, or dishonored members, to the house of the dead. Within that coffin is the bright promise of youth, the strength ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... childern, she was; tell 'em all sorts o'little stories, you know, and sing far 'em; said 'at she could sing so sweet-like,'at time and time agin she'd break clean down in some song o'nuther, and her voice would trimble so mournful-like 'at you'd find yourse'f a-cryin' afore you knowed it. And she used to coax Ezry's woman to let her take the childern home with her; and they used to allus want to go, 'tel Bills come onc't while they was there, and they said he got to jawin' her far a-makin' some to-do over the baby, and swore ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley |
