"Rueful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... words which Clover heard as she escaped. She entered Car Forty-seven with such a rueful and disgusted countenance ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... submit," declared the shaggy man, in a rueful voice, as he got upon his feet again. He turned toward their foes ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum
... Regret; He beat his Breast, and tore his Hair, For Loss of his dear Crony Bear, That Eccho from the hollow Ground His Doleful Wailings did resound More wistfully, bu many times, Then in small Poets Splay-foot Rhymes, That make her, in her rueful Stories To answer to Introgatories, And most unconscionably depose Things of which She nothing knows: And when she has said all she can say, 'Tis wrested to the Lover's Fancy. Quoth he, O whither, wicked Bruin, Art thou fled to my——-Eccho, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... dilettante, frankly at odds with the Sinclair tradition—now standing, more or less, in that father's shoes; his heart centred on the old place and on the boy for whom he held it in trust; and the irony of it twisted his lips into a rueful smile. By his own over-concentration on Roy, and his secret dread of the Indian obsession, he could gauge what his own father must have suffered in an aggravated form, blind as he was to any point of view save his own. And there was Roy—like himself ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... Mr. Doolittle's rueful narrative treats mainly of miscellaneous murders and scalpings, interesting only to the sufferers and their friends; but he also chronicles briefly a formidable inroad that still holds a ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... condemned for havin' such hard thoughts o' William," openly confessed Mrs. Todd. She stood before us so large and serious that we both laughed and could not find it in our hearts to convict so rueful a culprit. "He shall have a good dinner to-morrow, if it can be got, and I shall be real glad to see William," the confession ended handsomely, while Mrs. Blackett smiled approval and made haste to praise the tea. Then I hurried ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... and walked out, forgetting to show the trick of the bow to the little housekeeper who stood with a rueful pout in the middle ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... admitting that if a man of that kind was to fall in love with me, I'd black his boots for him," she said. Then she added, with a whimsically rueful gesture, "Still, it's ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... husband's ascent; and in due time the gallant, having found his way cautiously enough over the roof, they got them to bed, and there had solace of one another and a good time; and at daybreak the gallant hied him back to his house. Meanwhile the husband, rueful and supperless, half dead with cold, kept his armed watch beside his door, momently expecting the priest, for the best part of the night; but towards daybreak, his powers failing him, he lay down and slept in the ground-floor room. 'Twas hard upon ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... privileged circle at Coppet after making an excursion returned from Chambery in two coaches. Those arriving in the first coach had a rueful experience to relate—a terrific thunder-storm, shocking roads, and danger and gloom to the whole company. The party in the second coach heard their story with surprise; of thunder-storm, of steeps, of mud, of danger, they knew nothing; no, they had forgotten earth, and breathed a ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... discomfort into the symptom of some dangerous disease. Let me quote the well-known case of Hans Andersen, whose imagination was morbidly strong. He found one morning when he awoke that he had a small pimple under his left eyebrow. He reflected with distress upon the circumstance, and soon came to the rueful conclusion that the pimple would probably increase in size, and deprive him of the sight of his left eye. A friend calling upon him in the course of the morning found him writing, in a mood of solemn resignation, with one hand over the eye in question, "practising," as he said, "how to ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... He threw a rueful thought to Jack Tosswill. Miss Pendarth had been right, after all. That sort of experience might well embitter the whole of the early life of such a priggish, self-centred youth; and while he was chewing the cud of these painful, troubling ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... large basket, lined with a white cloth, at the bottom of which lay nine bread-pills. Nine boys looked down at them in rueful disgust, and then across the school-room to where a larger group stood chuckling mischievously, their hands and mouths filled with tempting, crusty hunches, carved from ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe
... surprise at the invitation did not prevent his accepting it. It would have melted the heart of his worst enemy to have seen how long he toiled that afternoon trying to refurbish his threadbare coat so white in the seams, and the rueful face with which he contemplated the result. On presenting himself at the store soon after dusk, Edwards at once ushered him into the parlor, and withdrew, saying that he must ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... have to class you with the incorrigibles," he said with a rueful air. "I am sorry you take such a harsh attitude toward us. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... we can very well do differently," was David's rueful reply. "At least we shall have a chance to find out from Tom just what has happened ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... reflection came. They looked as ruefully as Don Quixote after his battle with the shepherds, and bore as many marks of the prowess of their opponents. But, unlike "the Knight of the Rueful Countenance," they seemed heartily ashamed of their exploits, and promised better ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... interval of awkward silence, Briscoe remained motionless in his easy chair, a rueful reflectiveness on his genial face incongruous with its habitual expression. When a sudden disconcerted intentness developed upon it, Bayne, every instinct on the alert, took instant heed of the change. The obvious accession of dismay ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... lot," she said, looking with a rueful countenance at the sum total. "Yes, I even fear the sealskin must go. I don't want to part with it. Dad gave it me just ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... a belly-full of it," observed Forsyth, with a rueful look "I hope nobody's goin' ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... land from horizon to horizon, while in the same moment the line of battle dropped anchor in mid-stream. With a swirling mist wetting her fair head she waved in dainty welcome Irby's letter and then pressed it to her lips; not for his sake—hah!—but for his rueful word, that once more his loathed cousin, Anna's Hilary! was riding at the ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... to be kept warm, for the weather is fine and hot," said Maikar, with a rueful expression. "Moreover, we need food, and we ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... she met Mr. Jerry's anxious eyes. "I—I don't want to," she said with rueful honesty and then the words came in a hurried rush, "But I'm—I'm afraid I do! It's all your fault, Mary Rose." And she hid her pink cheeks in ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... somehow misgave her about her friend. Rebecca's wit, spirits, and accomplishments troubled her with a rueful disquiet. They were only a week married, and here was George already suffering ennui, and eager for others' society! She trembled for the future. How shall I be a companion for him, she thought—so clever and so brilliant, and I such a humble foolish creature? ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was altogether rueful. Life had not been very kind to him and he very naturally longed for some opportunity to dodge continued hardship. He wished that he might, like the boy Edison, make opportunity, but that sounded more plausible ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... gate with a bevy of young girls, with whom he began to dance in the area, leading them round and round in a circle, while he jerked up from his chest a succession of monotonous sounds, to which they kept time in a rueful chant. Outside the gate boys and young men were idly frolicking; and close by, looking grimly upon them, stood a warrior in his robe, with his face painted jet-black, in token that he had lately taken a Pawnee scalp. Passing these, the tall dark lodges rose between us and the red western ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... found himself going wrong, why didn't he shout out?" asked young Carteret, with a rueful face. "I couldn't have ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... riding up to Crabshaw, with equal surprise and concern, asked what had brought him there? and Timothy, after some pause, during which he surveyed his master with a rueful aspect, answered, "The devil."—"One would imagine, indeed, you had some such conveyance," said Sir Launcelot. "I have followed your cries since last evening, I know not how nor whither, and never could come up with you till this moment. But, say, what damage have you sustained, that you lie ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... saving wife, I'm afraid," Mrs. Richie said, with rueful pride, "for that foolish boy of mine declines, if you please, to be helped out by an ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... in a white room; a white light hung over his head. Beside him, looking down with a rueful smile, stood a young man wearing space medical insignia. "Yes," he acknowledged the question in Alan's eyes, "you hit the switch. That was three days ago. When you're up again we'd ...
— Survival Tactics • Al Sevcik
... of a ducking last year in camp when I fell off the rock. Don't you remember?" said Evelyn, with a rueful smile. ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... the marshal answered, with a somewhat rueful laugh. "Twenty miles' ride to North Wilkesboro', and back. But I'll do it, of course. I wouldn't miss it for a good deal. I'll have my men waiting at Trap Hill. If things shape right, I'll make ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... answer. She had taken a pair of spectacles from her pocket, and with these perched on the bridge of her sharp nose she proceeded to count the notes, while her nephew alternately sipped at his toddy and stroked his chin, meanwhile eyeing his relative's proceedings with somewhat rueful looks. ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... loaf! With a rueful face I placed it on the breakfast table. "I hoped to have given you a treat, but I fear you will find it worse than the cakes in ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... gone far before they saw a cat sitting in the middle of the road and making a most rueful face. 'Pray, my good lady,' said the ass, 'what's the matter with you? You look quite out of spirits!' 'Ah, me!' said the cat, 'how can one be in good spirits when one's life is in danger? Because I am beginning to grow old, and had rather ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... The boy was a little nervous as he approached this ancient cemetery; and, under the bright moonlight, he saw a man whom he distinctly recognized as the Count, whom they designated by a sobriquet which means 'the man of smiles.' He was looking rueful enough now, and was seated on the side of a tombstone, on which he had laid a pistol, while he was ramming home ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Darby's tone was so rueful, his expression one of such patient forbearance towards base treachery, that his aunt laughed outright. Yet she kissed the wounded hand again and again, ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... along the School Road with a rueful face, he was alone, for Janet, who was cleverer than he, was always earlier at school. The absence of children in the sunny street lent to his depression. He felt forlorn; if there had been a ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... than to drop his rejected arms, remained where she had left him, and requited her indignant stare with a broken smile of understanding, a smile at once tender, tolerant, and sympathetic, with a little quirk of rueful humour for ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... sorrowful, pathetic, plaintive, doleful, piteous, lugubrious, rueful, mournful, dismal, funereal, gloomy, melancholy, disconsolate, dejected, touching; calamitous, deplorable, grievous, dire, afflictive, wretched, saturnine, grave, sober; dull, sombre, subdued; (Colloq.) bad, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... at this; but it was rather a rueful laugh. "I don't know what is coming over these girls—Ruth and my sister," he said, "They're beginning to put on airs like grown ladies. Cracky! they ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... debates Of Princes', Kings', and Nations' fates, With many rueful, bloody stories Of Tyrants, Jacobites, and Tories: From liberty how angels fell, That now are galley-slaves in hell; How Nimrod first the trade began Of binding Slavery's chains on Man; How fell Semiramis—God damn her! Did first, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... back to this childhood and early youth, he told the meeting what a graceless young dog he had been, that in his youth he had a good share of wit. Reader, if thou hadst seen the gentleman, thou wouldst have sworn that it must indeed have been many years ago, for his rueful physiognomy would have scared away the playful goddess from the meeting, where he presided, forever, A wit! a wit! what could he mean? Lloyd, it minded me of Falkland in the "Rivals," "Am I full of wit and humor? No, indeed, you are not. Am I ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... I care a great deal more for you,' said Gerald, again rather rueful under her probes. 'I only mean that I'm not likely to fall in love again, or anything of that sort. She can be quite secure about me. I'll be her devoted and ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... to want to go with us—yet," said Terry sagely. "Wait a bit, boys. We've got to take 'em on their own terms—if at all." This, in rueful ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... was with a pardonable feeling of agitation that I tugged at the wrought-iron bell-pull on the perron of the magnificent mansion in the Avenue du Jura. To begin with I felt somewhat rueful at having to appear before ladies at this hour in my travelling clothes, and then, you will admit, Sir, that it was a somewhat awkward predicament for a man of highly sensitive temperament to meet on terms of equality a refined if stout lady ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Saracens, did ruthlessly slaughter not a few of them; till, as the burning ship began to blaze more fiercely, he bade the seamen take thereout all that they might by way of guerdon, which done, he quitted her, having gained but a rueful victory over his adversaries. His next care was to recover from the sea the body of the fair lady, whom long and with many a tear he mourned: and so he returned to Sicily, and gave the body honourable sepulture in Ustica, an islet that faces, as it were, ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... the Governor's hand, broke off his "duty speech," and with rueful smile pleaded for tolerance from the ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... force to the language of every-day life. As is well known, certain classes in cookery have recently been established in a few northern villages. A Highland minister, in publicly commending these classes, remarked, with a rueful grimace: "I do wish such classes as these had been in existence when my wife was young; for, as it is, every dinner she serves up to me is either a burnt ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... be done? The Dolly would not sail perhaps for ten days, and how were we to sustain life during this period? I bitterly repented our improvidence in not providing ourselves, as we easily might have done, with a supply of biscuits. With a rueful visage I now bethought me of the scanty handful of bread I had stuffed into the bosom of my frock, and felt somewhat desirous to ascertain what part of it had weathered the rather rough usage it had experienced in ascending the mountain. ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... exchanged rueful grins. "The old sport!" quoth the latter admiringly. "Damme, but I ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... Ephraim had only let me move the chimney, we could have had a nice spare sleeping-room instead of this little tucked up hole," Mrs. Lennox said, coming in with her hands covered with flour, and casting a rueful look at the small room kept for company, and where Wilford was ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... saw their rueful case, Let fall adown his silver beard some tears. 'Certes,' quoth he, 'it is not e'en in grace, T' undo the past ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... debated whether I should mount and, if it were possible, get clear before they arrived; but the rueful faces of the two players as they appeared breathless in the doorway, and the liking I had taken for the rascals, decided me to stand my ground "What is it?" ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... tumbled into the bow of the boat, which began rapidly to fill. First he swore, then he laughed, for he was possessed of infinite good humor. The only thing left for him to do was to swim for the gate. With a rueful glance at his thin clothes, he dropped himself over the side of the wreck and struck out toward the gate. The water, having its source from the snowclad mountains, was icy. He was glad enough to grasp the lower bars of the gate and draw ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... but it has always in these cases appeared to us quite beautiful compared to the object finally turned out, on their improved lines, for the unspeakable market; so that we've only been able to be publicly rueful and depressed about it, and to plead practically, in extenuation of all the extra trouble we saddle them with, that such things are, alas, the worst ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... right, but I am sure that if you had never lived long enough in one country to become acclimated, you wouldn't feel very responsible, either," said Eleanor in such rueful tones that the girls laughed, although they secretly disapproved of Eleanor's ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... won't be long—if you will call the money lent. He says he'll work his fingers off but what he'll pay you every cent." And then he cast a rueful glance at the soiled jacket where it lay, "No, no, my boy! take back the coat. Your brother's badly hurt ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... a gossip, took up one of Meadows' books. "Australia! ah!" grunted Merton, and dropped it like a hot potato; he tried another, "Why, this is Australia, too; why, they are all Australia, as I am a living sinner." And he looked with a rueful curiosity into ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... the touch of her lips on his hand. Then she turned, with a white cheek and smiling mouth, to meet the greetings and rueful congratulations of the friends that were crowding ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and courtly glee And downcast eager glance that shuns the sky, Above, about, are signs thou canst not see, Portents in heaven and earth!—And one goes by With other than thy prosperous, laughing eye, Framing the rough web of his rueful lays, The sorrow and ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... ascertain whether the stomach or the nose held the upper hand, so to speak. With the wife one was always sure—she had a snub nose. On this occasion the major furiously boxed the Austrian prisoner coachman's ears, telling us that he was the best he had ever had. The unfortunate driver was a picture of rueful pleasure. The two plump dears stood waving four plump hands till we had rumbled round the corner of ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... a slip of paper and handed it to her, instantly turning his whole attention to something else in the way he had when a matter was concluded. It was exactly like shutting a door in one's face, she thought with rueful amusement. In another minute she had left the house and was on her ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... when she heard his exclamation, and laughed at his rueful face. "Oh, that isn't Fairy's expression. She thinks brilliant and clever people are just adorable. It is only I who think them horrible." Even Prudence could see that this did not help matters. "I—I do not mean that," she stammered. ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... 6. The rueful length of my face might possibly increase the mirth of my tormentors: at least their joy seemed to rise in exact proportion with my misery. At length, however, the time of my delivery approached. Dinner ended, the ladies made ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... the letter again with a rueful little laugh. "And have not I my own ways of thinking, too?" he said ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... still further & still confused Accounts from the Northward. Schuylers Letters are rueful indeed! even to a great Degree, and with such an awkward Mixture as would excite one to laugh in the Midst of Calamity. He seems to contemplate his own Happiness in not having had much or indeed any Hand in the unhappy Disaster. He throws Blame on St Clare ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... flush of this young beauty? Sir Tom, who thought he knew women (at least of the kind of La Forno-Populo), shook his head and felt it very doubtful whether the Contessa was sincere, or if she could indeed make up her mind to take a secondary place. He thought with a rueful anticipation of the sort of people who would flock to Park Lane to renew their acquaintance with La Forno-Populo. "By Jove! but shall they though? Not if I know it," said Sir Tom ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... of feeling, somewhat rueful, sat on M'Slime's features, until he caught Darby's eye fixed upon him, when, after rebuking him for the terms in which he proposed the, prayer, he knelt down, and with a most serene smile, commenced an earnest supplication, which became still more vehement—then louder—bewailed ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Prince I mentioned, full of high renown, In this array drew near the Athenian town; When, in his pomp and utmost of his pride Marching, he chanced to cast his eye aside, And saw a quire of mourning dames, who lay By two and two across the common way: At his approach they raised a rueful cry, And beat their breasts, and held their hands on high, Creeping and crying, till they seized at last His courser's bridle and his feet embraced. "Tell me," said Theseus, "what and whence you are, "And why this funeral pageant you ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... against him now, but that far more formidable enemy, Henstead's wounded vanity. The best judges refused to estimate how many votes that ride on the high horse was likely to cost him; but all agreed that the bill would be heavy; even Smiley, his own agent, shook a rueful head over the probable figure. And all this advantage had accrued to the Quisante faction without involving any reproach or any charge of unfair tactics; rather were they praised ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... hold to this, Don Quixote was a gentleman, and is the first gentleman whose portrait is given us in literature. We have laughed at Don Quixote, but we have learned to love him. The "knight of the rueful countenance," as we see him now, is not himself a jest, but one of literature's most noble figures; and we love him because we must. Was it mere chance that in drawing this don, Cervantes clothed him with all nobilities, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... that he is all right, and plays checkers with the captain with an air of assumed tranquillity which approaches heroism, but he is observed at irregular intervals to go suddenly and unexpectedly on deck, and to return every time with a more ghastly and rueful countenance. When asked the object of these periodical visits to the quarter-deck, he replies, with a transparent affectation of cheerfulness, that he only goes up "to look at the compass and see how she's heading." ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... second. Then with a shrug he turned. This was the windmill, indeed, and he a poor knight of rueful countenance. To attack it at closer quarters would mean being dashed to pieces. Yet on ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... abandoned in the ditch, and they had been very kindly brought home by a passing automobile. Cecily had been at the Dower House at the moment of the rueful arrival. She had seen how an American can carry injuries. She had made sympathy and helpfulness more delightful ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... Rosa looked rueful, and almost sullen. She said she had parted with her doctors for him, but she really could not go about without stays. "They are as loose as ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... You would have expected that in a long two-column interview, Mr. Ritchie would have devoted much of the space to himself, his record, his future plans. Not at all. It was all about Johnnie Dundee, for whom personally he seems to have an affectionate friendship and for whose work a rueful and decidedly humorous appreciation. He analyzed with great sapience the psychological effect on the audience of Mr. Dundee's ring-system of perpetual motion. He described with great delight a punch that ...
— The Native Son • Inez Haynes Irwin
... extend towards his eyebrow; his upper lip was covered with a grizzly and ill-trimmed mustache, which added much to the ferocity of his look, while a thin and pointed beard on his chin gave an apparent length to the whole face that completed its rueful character. His dress was a single-breasted, tightly buttoned frock, in one button-hole of which a yellow ribbon was fastened, the decoration of a foreign service, which conferred upon its wearer the title of count; and though Billy Considine, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... them in their own youth. Every generation has to educate another which it has brought upon the stage. People who readily accept the responsibility of parentship, having very different matters in their eye, are apt to feel rueful when that responsibility falls due. What are they to tell the child about life and conduct, subjects on which they have themselves so few and such confused opinions? Indeed, I do not know; the least said, perhaps, the soonest mended; and yet the child ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at his sandy thatch, she said, with a rueful droop at the corners of her mouth, a contradictory smile in her eyes: "I shall rejoice more if you do not ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... round he cast his rueful eyes, He saw the thatched-roof cottage rise: The prospect touched his heart with cheer, And promised kind deliverance near. A stable, erst his scorn and hate, Was now become his wished retreat; His passion cool, his pride ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... said, "at the top of every page almost. I don't wonder the author felt it necessary to remind you—or perhaps he was reminding himself? I can see him," said Father Payne, "saying to himself with a rueful expression, 'This is a Life, undoubtedly!' Why, the waxworks of Madame Tussaud are models of vivacity and agility compared to it. I never set eyes ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... I was fooled all along," said he, with a rueful sigh. "I had an idea that you'd be tickled to death to marry into the Wintermill family. Position, money, family jewels, and all that sort of thing. Everything desirable except Percy. And then, just when I thought ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... in a pretty unnatural state. I think she ought to get married, Baird—" To his friendly and disarming twinkle Baird replied with a rueful smile. ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... unwelcome; undesirable, undesired; obnoxious; unacceptable, 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; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... cried Jemimarann, bursting out crying (as little girls will about anything or nothing); and Orlando looking very rueful, and ready ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... it every morning, if you really feel inclined," I replied, smiling at his rueful countenance; "clothes can only be washed during the morning watch (four to eight), I understand, and, as the starboard men are on duty one day during that time and the port watch the next, each is supposed to 'scrub and wash clothes' in his ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... affords, I crave for mine in ripping up my woe. Sweet Rosalynde, my love (would God, my love) My life (would God, my life) aye, pity me! Thy lips are kind, and humble like the dove, And but with beauty, pity will not be. Look on mine eyes, made red with rueful tears, From whence the rain of true remorse descendeth, All pale in looks am I though young in years, And nought but love or death my days befriendeth. Oh let no stormy rigor knit thy brows, Which love appointed for his mercy seat: The tallest tree by Boreas' ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... since you and I have been working together I have found it out for myself. In fact I don't see how we ever got along—mother and I—before you came. And we didn't get on very well, that is a fact," she added, with a rueful smile. ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... being curious, Elice," sympathized Armstrong. "I felt a bit the same way myself." A rueful grin. "Merely among ourselves, however, and as a word of advice between friends, you'd better curb your impatience for about ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... occasion to call at a banker's in Fleet Street, the two friends entered at the moment when a countryman with a most rueful expression of countenance, stood transfixed to the floor, like the statue of Despair, incapable either of speech or motion. After an absorption of mental faculty of several minutes duration, he burst out into ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... At this crisis he writes, "The biographies of men of letters are the wretchedest chapters in our history, except perhaps the Newgate Calendar," a remark that recalls the similar cry of Burns, "There is not among the martyrologies so rueful a narrative as the lives of the poets." Carlyle, reverting to this crisis, refers with constant bitterness to the absence of a popularity which he yet professes to scorn.—I was entirely unknown in Edinburgh circles; solitary eating ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... streets assume a sombre hue; the scattered, leafless trees and wind-blown dust and paper but add to the general solemnity of color. There seems to be something in the chill breezes which scurry through the long, narrow thoroughfares productive of rueful thoughts. Not poets alone, nor artists, nor that superior order of mind which arrogates to itself all refinement, feel this, but ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... flimsy veil Let Them with Ogilvie spin out a tale Of rueful length,' Churchill's Poems, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... taken from him; and though he had captured but two prisoners, the one was the chief, and the other his principal adviser and second in command. The old knight, therefore, commanded that they should be bound with cords together, and in such rueful plight led to his castle at Elibank. It was noon before they reached it, and Lady Murray came forth to welcome her husband, and congratulate him upon his success. But when she beheld the heir of Harden a captive, and thought of how little mercy was to be expected from Sir Gideon when once ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... that. When real people are drowning they don't do it like that." Miss Prince is rather rueful about it. But Sally ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... denoted the locale of a goodly wound, while the blue, purple and yellow patches into which his face was partitioned out, left you in doubt whether he now resembled the knave of clubs or a new map of the Ordnance survey; one hand was wrapped up in a bandage, and altogether a more rueful and woe-begone looking figure I have rarely looked upon; and most certainly I am of opinion that the "glorious, pious and immortal memory" would have brought pleasanter recollections to Daniel O'Connell himself, than it would on that morning to the ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... besiege Quebec, had been attacked by General Murray, who got into a mistake and a morass, attacked two bodies that were joined, when he hoped to come up with one of them before the junction, was enclosed, embogged,'and defeated. By the list of officers killed and wounded, I believe there has been a rueful slaughter- -the place, too, I suppose will be retaken. The year 1760 is not the year 1759. Added to the war we have a kind of plague too, an epidemic fever and sore throat: Lady Anson is dead of it; Lord Bute and two of his ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... a rueful expression. He had probably been used to make easy work of it from town to town, and there was evidently a ludicrous struggle between the temptation of a profitable job and his disinclination for rugged roads and ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... against the grain," he said, with a rueful laugh. "I'd sworn to let no Jew off with an inch of hide left on him—and here three of them have been wheedled ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... slave-girl you make kiss me then; now I ugly, drunk, dirty old devil and free woman, I kiss you!' Frightful retributive justice! I struggled hard to keep my countenance, but the fat old fellow's good-humoured, rueful face was too much for me. His tormentor is dead, but he retains a painful impression ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... connoisseur he spared himself no pains, often trudging miles, when not wanted at the Admiralty Office, in search of his prey. If any mercantile-minded friend ever inquired what anything had cost, he would be answered with a rueful smile, 'Much shoe leather.' He began with old furniture, china, and bric-a-brac, which ere long somewhat inconveniently filled his small rooms. Prices rose, and means in those days were as small as the rooms. No more purchases of Louis ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... my ticket was drawn a twenty thousand pound prize! and I had the happiness (added the little man, with a rueful expression of countenance) of communicating to my friend his good luck, as the letter of advice on the subject came, in ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... Mr. Olmney," she whispered, with an intensely amused face, "I shall have a vision of you every day for a month to come, sitting down to dinner, with a rueful face, to a whortleberry pie; for there are so many of them, your conscience will not let you have anything else cooked, you cannot manage more ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Mr. Ashe gave a rueful nod. "Yes, what the other fellow has been through doesn't count for much. We all have to blister our fingers before we'll believe ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... hard in the subtle thing That's spirit: tho' cloistered fast, soar free; Account as wood, brick, stone, this ring Of the rueful ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... of Roncesvalles was a dismal day for you, Ye men of France, for there the lance of King Charles was broke in two. Ye well may curse that rueful field, for many a noble peer, In fray or fight, the dust did bite, beneath ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... John, with rather a rueful laugh, "if it has taken you all that time to get used to it the outlook for me is ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... intend to say that this is all for the best?" observed Vernon in rather a rueful tone, as, the ladies having ridden on, he was attempting to rub off the dirt from his face with his pocket handkerchief—the first wipe of which was sufficient to show him how much the effects of his tumble had changed the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... artist, as if in his eyes, that rested on her, more than one attraction was needed. It was very pleasant to see the good comradeship that existed between these two, and the frank expression of their delight in meeting again. Here was a friendship without any reserve, or any rueful misunderstandings, or necessity for explanations. Irene's eyes followed them with a wistful look as they went off together round the piazza and through the parlors, the girl playing the part of the hostess, and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... herself majestically on a sofa, put out her foot, called Fido, and relapsed into an icy silence. Frank had long since evacuated the premises, with a rueful look at his wife, but never daring to cast a glance at me. I saw the whole business at once: here was this lion of a fellow tamed down by a she Van Amburgh, and fetching and carrying at her orders a great deal more obediently than her little ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the half-rueful answer; "I'd a heap sooner be going into the Coast Guard right away. But ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... largest well stood a rueful spectacle,—a bewildering guide board, flecked with bits of white paper, showing that the notice or message which had recently been pasted and tacked thereon had since been ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... big man, admiringly, "faith, but that was a tidy bito' footwork ye done down at Sunkhaze." Good-humored grins and rueful scowls chased one another over his face, according as he patted Parker's back or rubbed the bump on his own head. "Sure, there's a big knob there, my boy. There's only one thing that's harder than your fist, an' ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... help some murmurs, both inwardly and to Berkeley, at the long separation in store for them; and the lover, although himself a little rueful, heartened her up with bright prophecies for their future. An immediate marriage for them was out of the question, for since Warner's death Mrs. Smith clung to her younger daughter with absolute dependence. The last of September was ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... the digging, now insisted on removing to the next bury, for we felt sure that the remaining rabbits in this one would not bolt. Little John had no choice but to comply, but he did so with much reluctance and many rueful glances back at the holes from which he took the nets. He was sure, he said, that there were at least half-a-dozen still in the bury: he only wished he might have all that he could get out of it. But ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... another curtsey, as George, with a rueful face, obeyed his mother and handed his cousin up the stone steps to the porch, his ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... breathless for reply. Nesbit's forehead bore an ugly cut, Rudolph's bandage was red and sopping. Chantel, more rueful than either, stared down at a bleeding hand, which held two shards of steel. He had fallen, and snapped his sword in the rubble of ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... Marmaduke, recognizing her with rueful astonishment. "You knew I was looking for you, ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... cast a rueful glance at his melancholy domain. But he had gained but little that day, and the offer was too tempting to be rejected. He heaved a sigh, shouldered his broom, and murmuring to himself that he would give her a last brush before he retired for the night, he put his long limbs ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... is coming over to see me one of these days, aunt," said Lucy, with a droll expression, half arch, half rueful. She added timidly, "There is no objection to ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... of war became stronger and stronger, every village wore a rueful aspect, and every individual told a tale more and more harrowing to the feelings. The Postmasters seem to have been the greatest sufferers, as their situation demanded a large supply of corn, horses ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... better,' was the rueful response. 'Unhappily, he and Gage think their mission is to reform me. Now, Michael, do be quick, or the dinner-bell will ring;' and Audrey waved her hand gaily, and turned into the house, while Michael and his faithful Booty ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... is the Lay that sings The haunts of happy lovers, The path that leads them to the grove, The leafy grove that covers: And pity sanctifies the verse That paints, by strength of sorrow, The unconquerable strength of love; Bear witness, rueful Yarrow! ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... chosen coadjutor, led the band. Approaching to the city's lofty wall Through the thick bushes and the reeds that gird The bulwarks, down we lay flat in the marsh, Under our arms, then Boreas blowing loud, 580 A rueful night came on, frosty and charged With snow that blanch'd us thick as morning rime, And ev'ry shield with ice was crystall'd o'er. The rest with cloaks and vests well cover'd, slept Beneath their bucklers; I alone my cloak, Improvident, had left behind, no thought Conceiving of a season ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... four of them. Joe's expression grew rueful. The Space Project was neither Army nor Navy nor Air Corps, but something that so far was its own individual self. But the man marching toward Joe was Lieutenant Commander Brown, strictly Navy, assigned to the Shed as an observer. And there were some times ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... with sorrow, sat upon the branches of a tree, in company with a Kite. "Why," said the Kite, "do I see you with such a rueful look?" "I seek," she replied, "for a mate suitable for me, and am not able to find one." "Take me," returned the Kite; "I am much stronger than you are." "Why, are you able to secure the means of living by your plunder?" "Well, ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop
... officers both Union and Confederate, he was often in liquor; liquor was always in him. This "knight of the rueful countenance," of the sad heart, the mourning voice, the disabled right arm, and the weakness for apple-jack!—his only hope was to have an exchange of prisoners; but Lincoln and Stanton and Grant would not consent to that. ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... rent in pieces, and scarcely secure; where then was a place of safety? Sleep affrighted flew, diversion was turned into horror; all was uproar in the elements; all was consternation among us, and nothing was seen but one wide picture of rueful devastation. ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to India; of a Shipwreck on board the Lady Castlereagh; and a Description of New South Wales • W. B. Cramp
... of waking from this delusion—the cruel and the rueful time—was not far off. After some quiet months of married life, as the summer was ending, and the year was getting on toward the month of his birthday, Isaac found his wife altering toward him. She grew sullen and contemptuous; ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... isn't a woman," said I, and went ahead and pushed open the door. There, sure enough, was Timothy, looking very uncertain and rueful. The little man's complaisance had given me the greatest wonder of my life—Margaret's silent watching over me as I lay asleep, and I gave him a guinea ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... little rueful. Twenty yards in any direction he could not see for the overpowering bush, except along the line of road darkened with endless forest. The waggon was being unpacked, for the driver sturdily declared that his agreement had been only to bring them as far as this post on ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... to be honest, a word to say. He was fairly defeated, his flank turned, his guns captured. He had counted so surely on a panic, on the man whom he knew to be a knave proving also a coward, that even his anger—and he was very angry—could not hide his discomfiture. He looked, indeed, so rueful, and at the same time so wrathful, ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... with a semi-rueful grimace. "Oh, my cricketing days are over. All I'm good for now is to teach other fellows ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... know for sure that he's alive and safe!" was Billy's rueful rejoinder. "I've heard all sorts of stories about what rough-necks like those smugglers do to any one that butts in on ...
— The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty • Robert Shaler
... Mrs. Deane and Alice, crowding around her, while with a rueful face she read that Dora would be delighted to meet Uncle Nat at Locust Grove, but could not come quite so soon as they wished ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... Kate sighed. She exchanged a rueful glance with Thorpe, "Jim, tell me, did you know the polka ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... vain attempt to avoid shaking water down on yourself; you will resent each failure to do so, and at the end your rage will personify the wilderness for the purpose of one sweeping anathema. The hundredth time will bring you wisdom. You will do the anathema—rueful rather than enraged—from the tent opening. Then you will plunge boldly in and get wet. It is not pleasant, but it has to be done, and you will save much temper, ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... the Hermite en Provence prudently does no more) on such instances of spiritual Quixotism as may possibly have occurred. The absurd[33] choice of hymn tunes, the petulant zeal of one or two ecclesiastics, and the rueful countenances of some of the penitents, though they prove nothing as to the main question, present a ludicrous picture to the imagination, and have been made the most of by the fictitious correspondent of the Hermite. It is also natural enough that the violent ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... staring in rueful indignation at this snub from her dog, Brice found time and thought to stare with still greater intentness up the tree, at a bunch of bristling fur which occupied the first crotch and which glared ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... Grange, as he said, to collect his artillery; primed Flora that she might prime the M. P.; made the willing Meta promise to entrap the uncle, who was noted for philanthropical speeches; and himself captured Sir Henry Walkinghame, who looked somewhat rueful at what he found incumbent on him as a country gentleman, though there might be some compensation in ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... not happy and deeply intimate. Philosophy did not seem to catch her mind; and fine phrases encountered a rueful assent, more flattering to their grandeur than ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... straight for a mile or two. The horse was already a small yellow patch in the distance. She was evidently on her way back to Rivermouth! Lynde watched her until she was nothing but a speck against the gray road, then he turned and cast a rueful glance on the saddle, which suddenly took to itself a satirical aspect, as it lay sprawling on the ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... but I felt him," answered Ned, with a rueful look at his fingers. "He stepped right on me. And when he came inside the tank to-night I knew him at once. I guess he was as surprised to see me as I was ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton
... on a personal interview," her brother agreed, dryly. He retired into the Transcript as a Trappist withdraws into his vows. A chastened client of Mr. Fowler's once observed that a half-hour's encounter with him resulted in a rueful of asphyxiated topics. ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... a shout of laughter at the spectacle of four men, one of whom was the dignified manager of the great White Pine Mining Company, calmly sitting on the prostrate bodies of four others, while a fifth, who had just struggled to his feet with a very rueful countenance, suddenly dropped to the deck again as ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... evil counsel; they took Vortiger anon, and delivered him all this kingdom; there was a well rueful thing, now was eft Vortiger king! Vortiger took his messengers, and sent to Saxland, and greeted well Hengest, fairest of all knights, and bade him in haste to come to this land, and with him should bring here a hundred riders. "For that know thou through all things, that dead is Vortimer the ...
— Brut • Layamon
... me at the bank," said Mr. Day, with rather a rueful smile. "This Mexican mine business is developing some troubles, and they want me to go down ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... cried John, turning his rueful eyes on Mr Haredale, who had dropped on one knee, and was hastily beginning to untie his bonds. 'Look'ee here, sir! The very Maypole—the old dumb Maypole—stares in at the winder, as if it said, "John Willet, John Willet, let's go and pitch ourselves in ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... Dick, with a rueful face, "you can wager that we're being roasted by everyone out ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... in the morning. It was abundantly clear that revels must be the exception at Artenberg. Victoria was earnestly of this opinion. In the first place, the physical condition of William Adolphus was deplorable; he leered rueful roguishness out of bilious eyes, and Victoria could not endure the sight of him; secondly, she was sure that I had said something—what she did not know, but something—to Elsa; for Elsa had been found crying over her coffee in ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... his feet and dusted the ashes from the sleeve of his jacket with a rueful air. "Did I leave the broom there? Oh, I suppose I forgot it! I remember I had it to sweep up the fireplace, because I ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... ill spectacle," quoth I; at this, beholding me thus rueful, she fell to kissing me, whereat I did but miscall myself the more, telling her 'twas great marvel she should love one so ill-matched with her; for, said I, "here are you beautiful beyond all women, and here stand I, of manners most uncouth, harsh-featured, ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... astonishing reply, and they all burst into laughter. More at the rueful countenance, however, than at the news, for it was ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... she said with a rueful laugh, "we're beginning a merry Christmas, as you see. Think of Christmas with no cook ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson
... My form, alas! has long forgot to please; The scene of beauty and delight is chang'd; No roses bloom upon my fading cheek, Nor laughing graces wanton in my eyes; But haggard grief, lean-looking, sallow, care, And pining discontent, a rueful train, Dwell on my brow, all hideous and forlorn. One only shadow of a hope is left me; The noble-minded Hastings, of his goodness, Has kindly underta'en to be my advocate, And move my ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... whose heart had been captivated by the beauties of the island, obeyed the order with a rueful countenance; and Gascoyne bit his lip and turned aside to conceal his anger. In two minutes more the boat rowed ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... less; and on our way we met several at the upper end of the streets who had made a move as of turning away from the temptations of the gates of Destruction, and making for the gate of life. But they either failed to find it or grew weary on the way; very few went through—one man of rueful countenance, ran in earnest while crowds on all sides derided him, some mocking, {28b} some threatening him, and his kindred clinging to him, begging him not to condemn himself to lose the whole world at one stroke. "I lose but a small portion of it, and were I to lose all, what loss, I pray you, ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... but her heart was more rueful than her voice, and she thought that some gentlemen were very nice, and that Sebastian Dundas especially made ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... of the Dark but not Rueful Countenance, thou art doubly welcome!" said Happy Tom, now thrice-happy Tom. "It is a stout and goodly horse from which thou hast dismounted, and I see that he yet carries on his back something besides the saddle. But let me first speak to my Lord Talbot, ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler |
