"Plaintive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... they could hear a plaintive cry, not unlike the wail of an infant. All stopped in surprise. The Professor was the first to speak: "That is a young orang. See if you can ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... shirt-sleeves, with the casements wide open on the now solitary piazza, while I wrote and my companion was drawing. So employed, a strain of distant music stole on the ear in the stillness of the night, one of those plaintive melodies common among the Sardes, a sort of recitative by a tenor voice, with others joining ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... did not get excited with talking, she looked depressed—more so every time, Nikolai thought. Her face seemed to him to wear such a plaintive expression. ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... white copies of bold, clever pictures he had painted; there was martial music composed by him, and plaintive folk-songs adapted by him, which Virginia had tried softly to herself on her little piano, when nobody was near. There were reports of speeches made by him since his accession to the Throne; accounts of improvements ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... conspicuous my name By absence shall appear; When I have lost all hopes of fame, Which once I held so dear; When 'plucked' I seek a vain relief In plaintive dirge or sonnet; Thou wilt have caused that bitter grief, ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... domesticated is remarkable; their first act when they meet one they know is to leap upon your breast and embrace you with their arms, just like a child will its mother, and they will remain, if permitted, in this position for hours, and complain if removed. Their cry is very plaintive, and, heard at night in the jungle, sounds like that of a female in distress. I was given to understand that in the presents made by chiefs, a scarce variety of monkey is often the ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... the picturesque groupings of the encampment round about, and to hear on all sides the stirrings of animal life. And later in the night, when the fire is low, and servants and cattle are asleep, and there is no sound but of the wind and an occasional plaintive cry of wild animals, the traveller finds himself in that close communion with nature which is the true charm of wild travel. Now all this pleasure is lost by sleeping in a tent. Tent life is semi-civilization, and perpetuates its habits. This may be illustrated by a simple trait; a man who has lived ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... The plaintive voice of the Highland pipe at this moment broke upon his ear. It was the farewell of the patriarch Lindsay, as he and his departing company descended the winding paths of Craignacoheilg. Wallace started on his feet. The separation had then taken ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... which they were directed was a large, handsome house, having beside the door a small gilt sign bearing the name of Dr. ——. A spruce black servant admitted them, and presently the doctor entered the room. Satisfactory arrangements were made, the gentleman not objecting to Ned, whose plaintive little face strangely attracted him. And with a heart full of joy and gratitude Mrs. Clarke rose to take her leave, until she could return and enter upon her duties. But a boy came whistling through the hall, and ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... more above the ground. This was one of the very many things on the trip which made me wish I were a man. I could have had a closer look at the nest; I think I could have taken a photograph of it too. Now and then came the sweet, plaintive song of the ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... learning which could be obtained at the period, this chivalric sovereign was especially distinguished for his skill in music and poetry. By Tassoni, the Italian writer, he has been designated a composer of sacred music, and the inventor of a new kind of music of a plaintive character. His poetical works which are extant—"The King's Quair," and "Peblis to the Play"—abound not only in traits of lively humour, but in singular gracefulness. To his pen "Christ's Kirk on the Green" may also be ascribed. The ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... furnished him with an asylum, he made bold to advance to the door. Luckily he this time met the man himself, just emerging from bed. At first the farmer did not recognize the fugitive, but upon another look, seconded by Israel's plaintive appeal, beckoned him into the barn, where directly our adventurer told him all he thought prudent to disclose of his story, ending by once more offering to negotiate for breeches and coat. Having ere this emptied and thrown away the purse which ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... Master Betty's acting was a singular phenomenon, but it was also as beautiful as it was singular. I saw him in the part of Douglas, and he seemed almost like 'some gay creature of the element,' moving about gracefully, with all the flexibility of youth, and murmuring AEolian sounds with plaintive tenderness. I shall never forget the way in which he repeated the line in which young Norval says, speaking of the ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... rice left by the careless quadruped. Acting upon this theory, she hastily essayed to seize the morsel. The impact of her bill upon his nose woke Bob in terrible indignation. A short scuffle and a plaintive quack, and that duck's career was ended. But that was not all. So serious did the bulldog consider this insult to his dignity that, in spite of repeated castigations, he never rested until he had killed the whole of the ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... with intensity. When you put your nose to the blackened mouth of the hot cob its odor is quite different from that fragrance of the crusted wooden bowl. There is a faint bitterness in it, a sour, plaintive aroma. It is a pipe that seems to call aloud for the accompaniment of beer and earnest argument on factional political matters. It is also the pipe for solitary vigils of hard and concentrated work. It is the pipe that a man keeps in the ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... my fire-lit room; But, no! the fire is dying, And the weary-voiced winds, in the outer gloom, Are sad, and I hear them sighing. The wind hath a voice to pine — Plaintive, and pensive and low; Hath it a heart like mine or thine? Knoweth it weal or woe? How it wails in a ghost-like strain, Just against that window pane! As if it were tired of its long, cold flight, And wanted to rest with me to-night. Cease! night-winds, ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:—do ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... her money in; it 'ud be very awkward for you to have to raise five hundred pounds now," said Mrs. Tulliver to her husband that evening, as she took a plaintive ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... never called, if it puts you out so terrible," was the wanderer's plaintive remark after two minutes ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in white summer dress, with head leaning on the hand, very melancholy, and very dangerous. Perhaps her very card is stuck proudly into a corner of the mirror in the college-chamber. After this may come moonlight meetings at the gate, or long listenings to the plaintive lyrics that steal out of the parlor-windows, and that blur wofully the text of the ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... his plaintive look that did it, or the consciousness that I was a superior being, and had his little life (to a certain extent) at my command, just as our Father above has mine; but anyway, in his wounded state I knew that death was his best ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... like some forgotten strain of music!" he blundered on, feeling how hopeless, how distinctly absurd was all his speech. "I surely must always have known you, somewhere!" His voice took on a plaintive assertiveness which in another he would have derided and have recognised as an admission ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... feathers on the sea—a mile of wings and glancing foam of life, with many a strange wild cry, giving the high notes to the deep bass of the waves. How often from the marsh, or somewhere, dreamland or ghostland, came the plaintive wail of the curlews; then the dotterels would run and flit about the sands; and, not least, the herons, measuring out their dominions with their lordly arch of wings in leisurely pride of sovereignty, passed grandly on their way; or, ever and anon, a thousand ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... and was soothed and comforted by the devotion of his friend. La Source composed a beautiful hymn, adapted to a sweet and solemn air, which they called their evening service. Night after night this mournful dirge was heard gently issuing from the darkness of their cell, in tones so melodious and plaintive that they never died away from the memory of those who heard them. It is difficult to conceive of any thing more affecting than this knell, so softly uttered at midnight in those dark ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... from the house a long plaintive howl came from the Canadian forest. A sort of shiver, as if he were looking into the future, ran through Henry's veins. All ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... breath, the young man burst into peal after peal of the sweetest, clearest, highest, swiftest whistling that you can possibly imagine. I don't know how he did it—he didn't even purse or move his lips—they were barely parted, in a kind of plaintive, sad little smile—and the notes came out; that was all. Of course I can't tell you what the thing meant word for word or sound for sound; but, in general, it said youth, youth and spring: and I tell you it had those compositions of Mendelssohn, and Grieg, and Sinding lashed ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... their work, and made the water gurgle at the bows— their bright blue and scarlet and white trappings reflected in the dark waters in broken masses of colour, streaked with long lines of shining ripples, as if they floated on a lake of liquid rainbows. And it was a glorious thing to hear the wild, plaintive song, led by one clear, sonorous voice, that rang out full and strong in the still air, while at the close of every two lines the whole brigade burst into a loud, enthusiastic chorus, that rolled far and wide over the smooth waters—telling of their approach to settlers beyond the reach of vision ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... sounding, "you are invited to come to Jesus and be saved; you are invited to come now." There had been nothing to dissipate that impression, everything to deepen it, and the thought that clung and repeated itself to her heart was that plaintive wail: ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... with such instability his moral nature should continue uncorrupted; but this I believe he owed chiefly to his love and admiration of his brother. For my part, I could not help liking him much. There was a half-plaintive playfulness about him, alternated with gloom, and occasionally with wild merriment, which made him interesting even when one felt most inclined to quarrel with him. The worst of him was that he considered himself a generally misunderstood, if not ill-used man, who could not only distinguish ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... in liturgical monosyllables—irritates and annoys one. At such times the delicate unction of his naivete strikes one, in despite of its gravity, as something a little comic; as though some very sophisticated and experienced person suddenly joined in a children's game and began singing in a plaintive tenderly pitched voice— ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... sweet and voluptuous harmony from a piano, signals success and health. If discordant music is being played, you will have many exasperating matters to consider. Sad and plaintive music, foretells ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... a moment. The plaintive voice on a high fierce key, "Scat, you devils"—and a racket ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... female laid her eggs, and was about to brood them: some days elapsed, and the people saw the female still sitting on the eggs, but the male, flying about the nest, and sometimes settling on a nail, was herd to utter a very plaintive note, which betrayed his uneasiness. On a nearer examination the female was found dead on the nest, and, on her being removed, the male took his seat upon the eggs; but after remaining upon them about two hours, he went out, and returned in the afternoon, ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... her. I was nobly moved; but even then at the back of my mind some being that was not I was taking notes as to this girl, so young and desirable, and now so like a plaintive child who has been punished and does not ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... a plaintive voice from the speaker. "This is Ab Gullorian, at the Twin Spires. Looks like I'm the only one left ...
— It Could Be Anything • John Keith Laumer
... on a variety of matters suggested by Anson's words. The crickets were singing from out the weeds near by; a lost little wild chicken was whistling in plaintive sweetness down in the barley-field; the flaming light from the half-sunk sun swept along the green and yellow grain, glorifying as with a bath of ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... drawing-room, and again the soft melody of half-suppressed music, scarcely audible, yet every note distinct, floated to his chamber, and the guest scarcely breathed that he might hear. There was something so plaintive, so melting in the tones that they saddened as well as delighted. How the heart can melt out at the finger-points when touching the keys of a sweetly-toned instrument! It is thrown to the air, and in its plaint makes sweet music of its ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... you couldn't! How on earth could you tell her a thing like that?" wailed George's mother, and she went on with a plaintive sigh as Gabriella opened the door: "George was always so mad about beauty, and though Gabriella has a ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... air; another enviously took up the strain. Hilda thought the earth had never seemed so much like heaven, and she imagined the tuneful birds sang their vesper song in union with the monks, whose solemn and plaintive chant awoke the echoes of the priory church. Her heart was full of solemn yet not sad thoughts; peace, sweet peace, was the subject of her meditations, and she thought with gratitude of Him who had hitherto preserved Mercia from the foe, who had ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... the most plaintive and yearning of soldiers' songs. Jack-Johnsons and coal-boxes are two greatly dreaded types of high explosive shells which Tommy would much rather sing about ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... mysterious elves, that were wont to lead travellers astray to their destruction. But he must pass through that forest or else go round many miles across the hills; so he braced his girdle tighter about him and boldly plunged into the darkness. As he went forth the plaintive cry of the curlew high up above the treetops startled him more than once, and the sudden movement of every wild beast and bird that his own footsteps had frightened ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... on Mrs. Frederick Langford and Uncle Geoffrey, for the patient, who had now recovered a considerable degree of consciousness, would endure no one else. If his mother's voice did not answer him the first moment, he instantly grew restless and uneasy, and the plaintive inquiry, "Is Uncle Geoffrey here?" was many times repeated. He would recognise Henrietta, but his usual answer to her was "You speak so loud;" though in reality, her tone was almost exactly the same as her mother's; and above all ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... exchanged with one another, it was clear that I was regarded with some degree of suspicion, for they evidently considered I must have some secret ulterior object in visiting them. The Lapponic language is as liquid as the purest Italian, but it always struck me as being pervaded with a plaintive, melancholy, wailing tone. Anxious to conciliate my Lappish friends, I addressed a few words of Norwegian to one after another, but a shake of the head and a dull, glowering stare was the only answer I got. At length, finding one ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... a strange fantasia that poured itself through his obedient fingers; it held the wistful chants of ancient ritual, the festival roulades and plaintive yearnings of melodious cantors, the sing-song augmentation of Talmud-students oscillating in airless study-houses, the long, melancholy drone of Psalm-singers in darkening Sabbath twilights, the rustle ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... moment Jinnie was brooding over her violin. Her fiddle was her only comfort in the lonely hours. The plaintive tones she drew from it were the only sounds she heard, save the rushing water in the gorge and the thrashing of the trees when the wind blew. The minutes hung long on her hands, and the hours seemed to mock her as they ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... his nightly vigil keeps, While the river, below him, peacefully sleeps, The whip-poor-will utters his plaintive cry, The trees still ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... head dreamily. "No; what makes you ask? They haven't paid very much attention to me. They've always liked Lucille and Gilbert and Ormond best." Her voice had a plaintive, neglected ring. It was the voice she used in her best scenes on ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... was time for the twelve o'clock dinner hour, or lunch hour, again the well-filled plate was refused, the appetite having been satisfied at ten o'clock. Having taken very little nourishment at noon, by half past two the plaintive plea again came to the mother ears: "May I have a piece?" and again the well-meaning mother gave him the desire of his heart. So the day passed, the dinner making the fifth time food was taken into the stomach, and in all probability there was eaten ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... amusing little Jean Ulrick, Mr. Fabian's sole heir, he was able to read aloud to his aunt from her favorite volume, and to repeat with almost sublime patience, all those tender passages to which she in a plaintive tone would sigh de capo. More than all this. He could sing—the model nephew—and accompany his voice with the guitar not only to the tune of "my love and I," but also to his aunt's favorite ballad, "In the ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... few moments over her head, and Letty held her breath, in fear that it was going to fly away, when, as suddenly as it had left her, it fluttered back again, and perching on her knees, looked at her with its soft plaintive eyes. ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth
... appearance, she was eighteen. And she would never be older. A peculiar droop at the outer corners of two large and very dark eyes, and a mouth—too small for the face—with a slight and rather infantile projection of the upper lip gave a plaintive, half-melancholy expression to an otherwise ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell
... ineffable days and nights, languid with joy, sad with longing, attuned to the plaintive babbling of the river along the cool shade of its wooded banks. This Bengal sky-full of light, this south breeze, this flow of the river, this right royal laziness, this broad leisure stretching from horizon to horizon and from green earth to blue sky, ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... sahib!" said a plaintive voice. "Should I walk through Delhi naked? You, who wear pants, you laugh at me, but ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... was Marie, petite, And she looked full fair and passing sweet— And, oh! she owned—but cannot you guess What pet can a maiden so love and caress As a tiny lamb with a plaintive bleat ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... Fate a nobler doom had planned; Song was his favourite and first pursuit. The wild harp rang to his adventurous hand, And languished to his breath the plaintive flute. His infant muse, though artless, was not mute: Of elegance, as yet, he took no care; For this of time and culture is the fruit; And Edwin gained, at last, this fruit so rare: As in some future ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... plaintive, beautiful song of the voyageur which had floated to them on the morning air, softened by distance to a mere echo of sweet sound. After listening intently for a few moments, ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... dear,' said Mrs. Woodbourne in her plaintive voice, 'I shall be glad for him to go, if you can undertake to keep him in order, but you must take care you do not tire yourself. You will have almost too much to do afterwards, and you must not let yourself be harassed ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... say that Signora Dessalle was waiting for them in her apartment. There was much movement in the hotel. The rustling of long skirts, the muffled beat of footsteps mingled on the carpets of the corridors; subdued foreign voices, gay, plaintive, flattering or indifferent, came and went; the lifts were being taken by storm. Each member of the little silent group experienced the same bitter sense of all this indifferent worldliness. Jeanne was in her salon next to ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... slender, but they are sufficient. There is little Georgette, the sick child that Lucy nurses in the Pensionnat: "Little Georgette still piped her plaintive wail, appealing to me by her familiar term, 'Minnie, Minnie, me very poorly!' till my heart ached." ... "I affected Georgette; she was a sensitive and loving child; to hold her in my lap, or carry her in my arms, was to me a treat. To-night she would have me lay my head on the pillow of her crib; ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... others, lifted itself up in the silence: the voice of Quebec—now the song of a woman, now the exhortation of a priest. It came to her with the sound of a church bell, with the majesty of an organ's tones, like a plaintive love-song, like the long high call of woodsmen in the forest. For verily there was in it all that makes the soul of the Province: the loved solemnities of the ancestral faith; the lilt of that old speech guarded with jealous care; the grandeur and the barbaric strength of this new land ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... readiness. I cannot help remarking here, what I was afterwards told by Monsieur De Perrouse, that the natives of California, and throughout all the islands of the Pacific Ocean, and in short wherever he had been, seemed equally touched and delighted with this little plaintive air. ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay • Watkin Tench
... a moment's silence; then in plaintive tones, and with frequent pauses in between, she began to speak of the necessity of her departure, the necessity of their rupture. The wind wrenched the words from her lips, but she continued in spite of it, till Andrea interrupted her ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... century's rising tide of devotion brought forth the most influential of the products of all the mystics, the Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis. [Sidenote: Thomas a Kempis, c. 1380-1471] Written in a plaintive minor key of {33} resignation and pessimism, it sets forth with much artless eloquence the ideal of making one's personal life approach that of Christ. Humility, self-restraint, asceticism, patience, solitude, love of Jesus, ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... a shot through the tall weeds growing beyond the fence; it was only a rabbit who was more frightened at Edna than she at it. Next, the bushes parted and a small white figure crept stealthily forth. The child's heart stood still and she stopped short. Then came a plaintive meow and she discovered one of the three kittens out on an adventuring tour. She picked up the little creature which purred contentedly as she snuggled it ...
— A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays • Amy E. Blanchard
... played several Hawaiian musical selections on her phonograph. If any of her friends had owned or played a ukelele, doubtless the plaintive music would have ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt
... part. Arthur had brought his flute, and with an effort to throw off the feeling of gloom, he essayed a lively air; but it seemed like discord by association with their thoughts. He ceased abruptly, and, at Oriana's request, chose a more mournful theme. When the last notes of the plaintive melody had been lost in the stillness of the night, there was an oppressive pause, only broken by the rustle of the little sail and the faint rippling of ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... Vestris used to bring down the house with "Cherry Ripe," and where are happier efforts of the favourite home Artists than "London Cries" by A. Morland, Wheatley, Stodhard, and others, which are so eagerly sought after by connoiseurs? The pretty plaintive Cries too, would we had the 'music' to them, so familiar in the streets in those ...
— Banbury Chap Books - And Nursery Toy Book Literature • Edwin Pearson
... played their parts in the London world and ended them. But not a few were foreign—vivacious Northerners from New York, with the sublimated wealth of all Paris in their petticoats; Southerners whose eyes were still plaintive with memories of the Civil War; Austrians such as the von Hugels; Germans such as Countess Marie and Countess Helen Bismarck; and Russians whose figures and faces I remember much more accurately ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... somewhat of a curiosity. It consists of four movements: an Allegro in G major; a Minuetto and Trio, G major and minor; an Adagio in G minor; and an Allegro molto in G major. It is the only sonata of Haydn's which contains four movements. The plaintive Trio and the Scarlatti-like ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... rose on his outraged sense, and he was then about hastily to retire from the scene he had so long purposed to visit, when suddenly the organ burst forth, a celestial symphony floated in the lofty roof, and voices of plaintive melody blended with the swelling sounds. He ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... entices the resplendent and dashing Flicker to tarry. Many a Bluebird, with its azure coat gleaming in the sunlight, visits the cemetery in early spring. From perch to perch he flies, and in his plaintive note can be detected the {233} question that every bird asks of his mate: "Where shall we find a place for our nest?" In the end he flies away. Therefore when the roses and lilies bloom the visitor is ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... scarcely an hour before, With plaintive and feeble wail, A spirit had entered the gates of time, A being helpless and frail; That cradled beside me the stranger lay, Though I had not dared o'er her ...
— Indian Legends and Other Poems • Mary Gardiner Horsford
... between the soft, insinuating tones of persuasion; the full, strong voice of command and decision; the harsh, irregular, and sometimes grating explosion of the sounds of passion; the plaintive notes of sorrow and pity; and the equable and unimpassioned flow of words in argumentative style. This difference consists in a variation in the quality of the voice by which it is adapted to the character of the thought or sentiment read or spoken. In our attempts to imitate nature, however, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... not put himself in the way of meeting Miss Ludlow, though she did send him two rather plaintive notes. Early in June, the marriage took place; and the bride's trousseau was quite magnificent, if it was not made in Paris. Mrs. Nicoll was delighted with what she termed her grandniece's good sense, and gave her a handsome set of ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... antipathy to the light, and in the open day is quite moped and inanimate. When kept in a darkened place it seems at its ease, and sometimes makes use of the note or call from which it takes its name, and which is rather plaintive than harsh. The flesh, of which I have eaten, perfectly resembles that of the common pheasant (tugang), also found in the woods, but the body is of much larger size. I have reason to believe that it is not, as supposed, a native of ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... background must have been at least as high again. Large tracts of the low grounds were covered with wild oats and rich grasses; affording excellent pasturage to the deer, which could be seen roving about in herds. Lakes of various sizes were alive with waterfowl, whose shrill and plaintive cries filled the air with wild melody. A noble river coursed throughout the entire length of the valley, and its banks were clothed with oaks, cypresses, and chestnuts, while, up on the mountain sides, firs of truly gigantic size reared their straight stems above the surrounding ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne
... a minute. But I couldn't help just popping in—so very long since I've seen you—and all this happening at once," said Mrs. Hewel. She was a large, stout woman, with breathless manner and plaintive voice. "And I wanted to show you Sarah in her first grown-up clothes, and tell you about her too," ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... and began to sing. The audience ceased its snickering after the first few words to listen intently. To many it was a beloved song; they could forget the incongruous surroundings in the sweet memories it recalled, and to others it appealed, as many old-world songs do, by its plaintive sweetness. William was making a hit, and he knew it. Boy though he was, he felt to the full the bond of sympathy between himself and the audience. There was a queer sensation in his heart as he began the last verse, and he wondered if he could finish it. He had reached the second line when the ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... rushed into the crowd now, as if to break through it. The audience ceased to howl, so as to look with greater attention. Amidst the howling and whining were heard yet plaintive voices of men and women: "Pro Christo! Pro Christo!" but on the arena were formed quivering masses of the bodies of dogs and people. Blood flowed in streams from the torn bodies. Dogs dragged from each ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... children took no notice of it. Up, and on, through the elastic carpet of heather and bilberry, and across bogs which showed like veins of vivid green on the dark surface of the moor; under circling peewits, who fled before them, crying with plaintive shrillness to each other, as though in protest; and past grouse-nests, whence the startled mothers soared precipitately with angry duckings, each leaving behind her a loose gathering of eggs lying ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... into that little bit of a clearing under the cedar trees, perhaps a hundred feet by thirty. Such wild excitement as prevailed among the horses when the distribution of oats began, such plaintive whinnying and restless stirring! But I think they behaved much better than human beings would have under the same circumstances. And at last each was being fed—such a pathetically small amount, too, hardly more than a ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... your punch, Father Bernard," said Mrs. O'Dwyer, with a plaintive melancholy voice, "and the wather getting cowld and all! Faix then, Father Bernard, I'll mix it for ye, so I will." And so she did, and well she knew how. And then she made another for herself and her niece, urging that "a thimbleful would do Fanny all the good in life afther her ride acrass ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... recollection of a still brighter and more recently extinguished "star," which thus troubled his wandering fancy?—There was another pause, and again the fitful breeze of association awakened the sad and plaintive melody of the AEolian lyre; but I could not distinguish ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... and inconspicuous it might seem on earth, counted its myriad transfigured citizens in heaven, and had its destinies, like its foundations, in eternity. To this City of God belonged, in the first place, the patriarchs and the prophets who, throughout their plaintive and ardent lives, were faithful to what echoes still remained of a primeval revelation, and waited patiently for the greater revelation to come. To the same city belonged the magi who followed a star till it halted over the stable in Bethlehem; ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... reason he walked half-a-mile out of his homeward way, through Belgrave Square, to haunt the street in which she lived, looking wistfully into those gardens whence he had seen her emerge that very day with her mysterious companion—gazing with plaintive interest on the bell-handle and door-scraper of his mother's house—vaguely pondering how he could ever bear to enter that house again—and going through the whole series of those imaginary throes, ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... them. Let me see;" picking one up and looking it over. "Well now, this is pretty; plaintive, ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... handmaiden of the Virgin Mary, and stole her mistress's scissors, for which she was transformed into a bird, and condemned to wear a forked tail resembling scissors. Moreover, the lapwing was doomed forever and ever to fly from tussock to tussock, uttering over and over again the plaintive cry of "Tyvit! tyvit!" ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... soldiers sat side by side, motionless as always, silent and quiet, their calm faces in no way betraying the trouble in their hearts. The sun shone down on them. From time to time they could hear the plaintive lowing of the cow. At the usual time they arose ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... They could not keep their classes in order, and it was by no means unusual for many of the boys simply to stay away from their lessons. The old mathematical master, before beginning his lesson, used to rub his spectacles, and after looking round the half empty classroom, mutter in a plaintive voice: "I see again many boys who are not here to-day." When the same old master began to lecture on physical science, he told the boys to bring a frog to be placed under a glass from which the air had been ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... the miaowing went on. Down became quite plaintive, then ill-used; finally she leaped onto Roy's shoulder, licked his ear with her rough red tongue as if to coax him, and was back again at the door ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... scene of a murder. A brutal husband had dragged his wife by the hair up and down the stairs, and then killed her. On the anniversary of the murder,—and what day that was no one knew,—there were sights and sounds,—flitting garments daggled in blood, plaintive screams,—stridor ferri tractaeque catenae,—enough to appall the stoutest Sophomore. But for myself, I can truly say, that I got through my Freshman year without having seen the ghost of Mr. Wiswal or his lamented lady. I was not, however, sorry when the twelvemonth was up, and I was ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... less solicitude, than the preparatory splendour of a first introduction.—When the great man arrives, he finds the court by which he enters crowded by these formidable prisoners, and each with a petition in her hand endeavours, with the insidious coquetry of plaintive smiles and judicious tears, that brighten the eye without deranging the features, to attract his notice and conciliate his favour. Happy those who obtain a promise, a look of complacence, or even of curiosity!—But the attention of this ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... Bangs a very particular woman," she said, with plaintive impressiveness to her husband. "If she is willing to send her Gwendolen to Miss Whyte, I am disposed to let Margery, Gladys, and Dorothy go. Only you must have a very clear understanding with Miss Whyte, at the outset, as to hours and ventilation and Gladys's hot ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... deepened in the weeks in the sunshine and fresh air, her cheeks were more rose colored, her wide eyes with their half mature, half childish expression were slightly plaintive ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... little better than Cibber's, and a little worse than Hayley's. Here and there a manly sentiment which deserves to be in prose makes its appearance in company with Prometheus and Orpheus, Elysium and Acheron, the plaintive Philomel, the poppies of Morpheus, and all the other frippery which, like a robe tossed by a proud beauty to her waiting-woman, has long been contemptuously abandoned by genius to mediocrity. We hardly know any instance ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the distressing picture, and the plaintive tone of his voice pierced her armour. "What's the matter with ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... faithful girl sang on, night after night, month after month, and patiently waited; her reward must come at last. Five years dragged by, and still, every night at midnight, the plaintive tones floated out over the silent land, while the distant boatmen and peasants thrust their fingers into their ears and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... holding his hand to his forehead as if seeking inspiration, the almost spasmodic movements of his mouth, the sort of plaintive groan that started the prayer, and the steadily accumulating earnestness ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... the word's womb the deed And life bring one thing forth ere all pass by, Even one thing which is ours yet cannot die— Death. Hast thou seen him ever anywhere, Time's twin-born brother, imperishable as he Is perishable and plaintive, clothed with care And mutable as sand, But death is strong and full of blood and fair And perdurable and like a lord of land? Nay, time thou seest not, death thou wilt not see Till life's right hand be loosened from thine hand And thy life-days ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... first year (901) of the Engi era, a decree went out stripping him of all his high offices, and banishing him to Dazai-fu in Kyushu as vice-governor. Many other officials were degraded as his partisans. The ex-Emperor, to whose pity he pleaded in a plaintive couplet, made a resolute attempt to aid him. His Majesty repaired to the palace for the purpose of remonstrating with his son, Daigo. Had a meeting taken place, Michizane's innocence would doubtless have been established. But the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... one of those old songs which Rachel had called weird and wild, and now, as she listened to the plaintive tones, they thrilled on every nerve with a strange power as if it were a requiem sung by the dead over their own buried hopes. Nearer and nearer Bedouin pressed to the slowly moving vehicle, until at last she was nearly even ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... given or taken up with lustier shouts on board a homeward-bound merchant ship than the command, "Man the windlass!" The rush of expectant men out of the forecastle, the snatching of hand-spikes, the tramp of feet, the clink of the pawls, make a stirring accompaniment to a plaintive up-anchor song with a roaring chorus; and this burst of noisy activity from a whole ship's crew seems like a voiceful awakening of the ship herself, till then, in the picturesque phrase of Dutch seamen, "lying ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... with cat-like agility avoids the dangerous bear-earth; when all seems strong, and young, and full of life; when war is forgotten, until the rocket-bird falls slanting across your path, and its plaintive note calls back to your memory the whine of the Mauser bullet! Yes, it is good to be a soldier. The chances are heavy; but, all ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... rescue, when she was only nine or ten years old, and her schoolboy cousins were teasing her, and at every Twelfth-day party since she and he had come together as by right. There was something irresistible in her great soft plaintive brown eyes, though she was scarcely pretty otherwise, and we used to call her the White Doe of Rylstone. Torwood was six or seven years older, and no one supposed that he seriously cared for her, till she was sixteen. Then, when my father spoke point ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... stopped and with extravagant motions of her body sang the opening lines of the Bedouin's Love Song, Wally joining in at last with his plaintive, passionate tenor. ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... was playing the number that usually ended its programs, a medley of plantation melodies. They were never such a strain on the resources of a hard-working but only five-piece orchestra as the ambitious, martial selections, and here, heard across the dark, they were beautiful: plaintive and thrillingly sweet. "Old Kentucky Home," was the sweetest of all, lonely and sad as youth, and insistent as youth, claiming its own ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... phoebe-bird, the pioneer of the flycatchers. In the inland farming districts, I used to notice her, on some bright morning about Easter Day, proclaiming her arrival, with much variety of motion and attitude, from the peak of the barn or hay-shed. As yet, you may have heard only the plaintive, homesick note of the bluebird, or the faint trill of the song sparrow; and Phoebe's clear, vivacious assurance of her veritable bodily presence among us again is welcomed by all ears. At agreeable intervals in her lay she describes ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... could ketch glimpses through the willow- sprays of them shinin' bars a layin' down on the gray twilight field. And fur away over the green hills and woods of the east, the moon was a risin', big and calm and silvery. And we could hear the plaintive evenin' song of the thrush, and the crickets' happy chirp, till we got nearer the schoolhouse, when they sort o' blended in with 'There is a fountain filled with blood,' and ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... and gazed out into the sunlight of the corral; but, as before, the inclosure was empty and silent, and now, somehow, forbidding. She called again—called to the horse, called to the Mexican. But again came only the echo of her voice, sounding hollow and solemn and plaintive through the stable. ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... feet in length, he found that the musical tones issued from it, and were caused by the breeze passing through perforations in the stem; the instrument thus formed is called by the natives the bulu perindu, or plaintive bamboo." Those which Mr. Logan saw had a slit in each joint, so that each stem ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... through a gavotte with a spindle-legged ancient chair; a very droll porcelain figure of Littenhausen was bowing to a very stiff soldier in terre cuite of Ulm; an old violin of Cremona was playing itself, and a queer little shrill plaintive music that thought itself merry came from a painted spinet covered with faded roses; some gilt Spanish leather had got up on the wall and laughed; a Dresden mirror was tripping about, crowned with flowers, ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)
... night's dew brought out strongly. The pink light changing rapidly to crimson was seeking out the draws and coulees where the purple shadows of night still lay. The only sound was the cry of the mourning doves, answering each other's plaintive calls. And across the panorama of yellow sand, green sage-brush, burning cactus flowers, distant peaks of purple, all bathed alike in the gorgeous crimson light of morning, two dark figures crept ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... land, particularly in North Wales, at Bedd Gelert, Caernarvon, and other places, but I confess I never was so much struck as by this Oxford harper. He often played at the Angel, where the university men used to group round him, for he excited general admiration. His music was not of so plaintive a character as that in his own land, or else the scenery of the latter had some effect in saddening the music there through association—perhaps this difference was, after all, ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... for a moment, then dipping down swiftly in pursuit of some passing insect. The war is over. Courage has had its turn. Now tenderness comes into play. The young birds, all ignorant of the passing danger, but always conscious of an insatiable hunger, are uttering loud remonstrances and plaintive demands for food. Domestic life begins again, and they that sow not, neither gather ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... advance, and I followed behind, driving the rest after him, according to the system of march I had adopted in the morning. As soon as the two natives saw us moving on, and found Wylie did not join them, they set up a wild and plaintive cry, still following along the brush parallel to our line of route, and never ceasing in their importunities to Wylie, until the denseness of the scrub, and the closing in of night, concealed ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... Aniela, we both recovered our spirits. During evening I helped her in the cutting out of lampshades, which gave me the opportunity to touch her hands and dress. I hindered her with the work and she became as gay as a child, and in a child's quick, plaintive voice called out, "Aunty, Leon ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... that princess as her name signifies, baking cakes upon the hearth. If the servants they had were like Southern slaves, would they have performed such comparatively menial offices for themselves? Hear too the plaintive lamentation of Abraham when he feared he should have no son to bear his name down to posterity. "Behold thou hast given me no seed, &c., one born in my house is mine heir." From this it appears that one of his servants was to inherit his immense estate. Is this like Southern ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... women range themselves in two semicircles, standing opposite each other. The tallest of both lines at the one end, diminishing away at the other extremity to the children and little ones who can scarcely toddle. They have a wild, plaintive song, with swelling cadences and abrupt stops. They go through an extraordinary variety of evolutions, stamping with one foot and keeping perfect time. They sway their bodies, revolve, march, and countermarch, the men sometimes opening their ranks, and the women going ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... melancholy little instrument; in range of expression it is to the harp what the winchat is to the thrush; or to the violin, what that bird is to the nightingale; yet few instruments are so exciting: here and there along these mountain valleys you may hear a Tyrolese maid set her voice to its plaintive thin tones; but when the strings are swept madly there is mad dancing; it catches at the nerves. "Andreas! Andreas!" the dancers shouted to encourage the player. Some danced with vine-poles; partners broke and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... there had again fallen one of those long silences they dreaded, but seemed powerless to prevent. As the voice of the turtledove was lifted in the plaintive notes of nesting time, Adam harrowed three acres of the plowed land and planted it in wheat and corn. The perennial garden was flourishing, and there was nothing to do. Adam said so one day, with an air of ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... was stopped, Morisine was recalled, and Ascham's pension and hopes were at an end. He, therefore, retired to his fellowship in a state of disappointment and despair, which his biographer has endeavoured to express in the deepest strain of plaintive declamation. "He was deprived of all his support," says Graunt, "stripped of his pension, and cut off from the assistance of his friends, who had now lost their influence: so that he had nec praemia nec praedia, neither ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... just been able to secure permission to visit that part of the Duke's residence open on certain occasions to the curious public. Edith had declined to accompany them. In the first place, she was expecting the all-important message from her husband—she was "on nettles," to quote her plaintive eagerness; in the second place, she realised that as the crisis was at hand in the affairs of Brock and Constance, her presence was not a necessary adjunct. Not only was she expecting a message from Roxbury, but eagerly anticipating an outburst of joyous news ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... entered the conservatory; and crossed the small drawing-room. As I laid my hand on the door opposite, I heard a few plaintive chords struck on the piano in the room within. She had often idled over the instrument in this way, when I was staying at her mother's house. I was obliged to wait a little, to steady myself. The past and present rose side by side, at that ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... touch of melody, which he sang to a sweet and plaintive air, seemed to produce a feeling of mournfulness and sorrow in his spirit, for although the draught he had taken was progressing fast in its operations upon his intellect, still it only assumed a new and more affecting shape, and occasioned that singular form and ease ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... abounded, or where some colored bush, heavy with bloom, bent to meet its reflected image. It was so fair that Audrey began to sing as she went down the stream; and without knowing why she chose it, she sang a love song learned out of one of Darden's ungodly books, a plaintive and passionate lay addressed by some cavalier to his mistress of an hour. She sang not loudly, but very sweetly; carelessly, too, and as if to herself; now and then repeating a line twice or maybe thrice; pleased with the sweet melancholy ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... and plaintive cry escaped my lips. On earth during the most profound and comparatively complete darkness, light never allows a complete destruction and extinction of its power. Light is so diffuse, so subtle, that ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... that there was plenty of light for him to say his prayers. Even the parson himself, in company with his wife, went to listen at the door of where their prisoner was confined, and for a moment their hard hearts even were softened by the sweet, plaintive chant ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... gently, "touches the lute with an exquisite and fairy hand, and that plaintive air seems to my ear as of the ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... and sighed, and in a low and plaintive voice, significant of hidden woe and much "soul suffering," to quote from another effusion, he read to her fragments of the "Light of Asia," which she could not in the least comprehend, but which she bluntly criticised ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... Godfrey would not permit any message to be sent, and that if he did, King Edward would not allow the Duke, who was his vassal, to obey it. To the least hint that the Duke might or could himself decline, she refused to listen so decidedly that no one had the heart to repeat it. More plaintive, day by day, grew the dying mother's yearning moans for her best-loved child. In vain Perrote tried to assure her that human love was inadequate to satisfy the cravings of her immortal soul; that God had made her for Himself, and that only when it reached and touched Him could ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... like the sparkling stone That, from out the blue waves taken, looks a pebble dull alone. 'For within my heart forever Was a never-dying river, Was a spring of deathless music welling from my deepest soul! And all Nature's deep intonings, Merry songs, and plaintive meanings, Floated softly through my spirit, swelling where those bright waves stole, Till the prisoning walls seemed powerless 'gainst ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... line of gold, and from their throats came crimson anthers but no pistils. A fragrance, blended of roses and of orange blossoms, yet ethereal and fugitive, gave something as it were celestial to that mysterious flower, which Seraphitus sadly contemplated, as though it uttered plaintive thoughts which he alone could understand. But to Minna this mysterious phenomenon seemed a mere caprice of nature giving to stone the freshness, ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... funny pug nose, his curiously flat and twisted face, and his querulous, plaintive chimpanzee eyes, had been moved by some unlucky whim to venture an insolent remark under the cover of darkness on the main deck. But Mr. Pike, from above, at the break of the poop, had picked the offender unerringly. This was when the explosion occurred. Then the unfortunate Larry, truly half-devil ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... flute-player sustaining one long note and then dropping to the octave below, from which he started upon a series of runs, paused, and commenced a solo full of florid passages introductory to a delicious melody—one of those plaintive airs which, once heard, cling evermore to ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... such action by you," said the leader of the invaders with plaintive whine. "We ain't done nothin' out o' the way. We did drive those kids off o' the island, but we didn't hurt 'em. They're all right, and we c'n take you to 'em any time ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield
... thing of all, and one that brought convincing confirmation to what had at first been mere suspicion, at night there could be heard heartbreaking cries and sobs coming from the house of Baji Lal. The voice was not his, nor that of his wife; it was, in all truth, the wail of a spirit, plaintive at times, then angry as if shrieking aloud for vengeance. For I myself have heard these sounds with mine own ears; twice in the darkness of the night I mustered courage to steal forth as far as the hedge that hides the house from the roadway, and, although the monsoon winds were still boisterous, ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... the country road to meet her brother. She listened for his whistle. In childhood he had begun the habit of whistling a strain from the old song, "Soldier's Farewell" and, like many habits of early years, it had clung to him. So when Amanda heard the plaintive melody, "How can I leave thee, how can I from thee part," she knew that her brother was either ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... the shame and sin Of taking vainly, in a plaintive mood, The holy name of GRIEF!—holy herein, That, by the grief of ONE, came all our good. 848 ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... she repeated the following Latin prayer, composed by herself, {173} and which has been set to a beautiful plaintive air, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 70, March 1, 1851 • Various
... A plaintive air, sung by some shrill girlish voices in the West End, was wafted over by the light evening breeze. It was so still that ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... original ballad, let us turn to something more genial. The three following poems are exquisite specimens of the varied genius of our author; and we hardly know whether to prefer the plaintive beauty of the first, or the light and sportive ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... growth. The early air was fresh, but soft; fragrant with the breath of opening buds. Faint mists streamed up into the sunlight along the mossy line of the trail, and the only sounds breaking the silence of the wilderness were the sweetly plaintive calls of two rain-birds, answering each other slowly over the treetops. Everything in the scene—the tenderness of the colour and the air, the responses of the mating birds, the hope and the expectancy of all the waking world—seemed piteously ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... she had heard. It became still worse when she reached the threshold of the vestibule and saw the great crowd waiting in the court. Then her face worked convulsively, and crouching down, as though she would bury her feet in the earth, she addressed the doctor in words both plaintive and wild: "Is it possible that, after what is now happening, M. de Brinvilliers can endure to ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... impossible, and that the ridge, once gained, was nearly as safe traveling as an ordinary mountain-path. The parson's armor of meek obstinacy was proof alike to reason and ridicule; he waxed not wroth, and was thankful for any suggestion; but, when asked to act accordingly, ever fell back on one plaintive formula—"I am no gymnast,"—after the fashion of that exasperating child who met all the Poet's questions and objections ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... and whistles under the doors; it wishes to come in, for it bears a message to this poor mother, and it sounds like an appeal or a warning. The ticking of the clock, the distant noise of a locomotive, all take the same plaintive tone and beseeching accent. Charlotte knows only too well what the wind wishes to tell her. It is a story of a ship rolling on the broad ocean, without sails or rudder—of a maddened crowd on the deck, of cries and ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... them! Into what a glorious crimson they decline! My eyes travel from one tree-group to another, and idly consider the many-colored majesty of their decay. Over all the landscape there is a look of plaintive uncontent. The distant town, with its two church-spires, is choked and effaced in mist: the very sun is sickly and irresolute. All Nature seems to say, "Have pity ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... a low long-drawn moan, so exceeding plaintive and full of pain that it made Fleda shake like an aspen. But after a moment she spoke again, bearing more heavily with her hand to mark ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... thing in other words some where in Kirke White's poems. It is the burden of the plaintive songs of all these sweet albino-poets. "I shall die and be forgotten, and the world will go on just as if I had never been;—and yet how I have loved! how I have longed! how I have aspired!" And so singing, their eyes grow brighter and brighter, and their ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... summer, Cuckoo, as usual, joined the flight of the bats with a tired wing. The heat tried her. Her cheeks were white as ivory under their cloud of rouge. Her mouth was more plaintive even than usual, and her heart felt dull and heavy. As she got out of the omnibus at the Circus one of her ankles turned, and she gave an awkward jump that set all the feathers on her hat in commotion, and made the newspaper boys laugh at her scornfully. ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... For long his fate dragged at her heart; it drained Her strength; it left her vague and desolate: Her life became as chill uneasy dreams Wherefrom we cannot break. Yet be it said, Lowly and truly gentle were her ways; She was a tender and obedient wife, And in a sweet and plaintive graciousness Her every act performed. I trust her mind, Subdued by constant sadness unavowed, Grew clear of shadows, and at last could dwell Upon the future, that in one straight path Reached Justice throned in everlasting light, And learned to feel that chastisement ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... there came—the Captain was really not surprised, he had been almost expecting it—a mew, a peevish, plaintive mew. "I won't open that door," said the Captain. The complaint was repeated. "Poor beast!" murmured the Captain. "Shut up in that—in that—deuce take it, in that what?" His hand shot up to the top bolt and pressed it softly back. "No, no," said he. Another ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope |
