"Tragedy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who took an hour of the detective's time, and then he prepared to return to Sidham, to learn if possible more concerning Tom Ostrello, and if anybody besides Cephas Carboy had seen him around that vicinity on the morning of the tragedy. ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... interesting among the spots of note, there was the ledge, now named the "Last Hope", on which Mr. Stevenson and his men had stood on the day when the boat had been carried away, and they had expected, but were mercifully preserved from, a terrible tragedy. ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... intense that the ear, straining for sound, ached from the effort. And just then a bewitched hen in White's shed gave a weird cry and Truedale started. He smiled grimly and thought of the little no-count and the tragedy of the white bantam. In the shining light around him he seemed to see her pitiful face as White had described it—the eyes full of tears but never overflowing, the misery and hate, the loneliness ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... firearms while marching from one depot to the other; and in the running fight which ensued, four of its soldiers were killed and about thirty wounded, while the mob probably lost two or three times as many. This tragedy instantly threw the whole city into a wild frenzy of insurrection. That same afternoon an immense secession meeting in Monument Square listened to a torrent of treasonable protest and denunciation, in which Governor Hicks himself was made momentarily ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... pushing down-stream, ultimately made their way to the Illinois towns. [Footnote: State Dept. MSS., No. 150, vol. iii. Lt. Spear to Harmar, June 2, 1788; Hamtranck to Harmar, Aug. 12, 1788.] This last tragedy was avenged by a band of thirty mounted riflemen from Kentucky, led by the noted backwoods fighter Hardin. They had crossed the Ohio on a retaliatory foray, many of their horses having been stolen by the Indians. When near Vincennes they happened to stumble on the war party that had attacked ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... rise to a most laughable error about Charles IX., in connection with the Louvre. During the Revolution hostile opinions as to this king, whose real character was masked, made a monster of him. Joseph Cheniers tragedy was written under the influence of certain words scratched on the window of the projecting wing of the Louvre, looking toward the quay. The words were as follows: "It was from this window that Charles IX., of execrable memory, fired upon French citizens." It is well to inform future historians ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... moment, a partial and secret collapse was the price she had afterwards to pay. Father Arlworth, who had a subtle understanding of human nature, noticed that Domini was changed and slightly hardened by the tragedy she had known, and was not surprised or shocked. Nor did he attempt to force her character back into its former way of beauty. He knew that to do so would be dangerous, that Domini's nature required peace in which to become absolutely normal once again ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... that all of these depend for their interest upon a human association. Not one of them professes any concern with the sea or ships for their own sake. The sea is a sad, solemn reality, the theatre upon which the seaman acts his life's tragedy. It has no more of enchantment to him than the "magic fairy palace" of the ballet has ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... was the cause of so much sorrow could never be found, and the Indians believe that it was taken away by the spirits of Kos-su'-kah and Tee-hee'-nay. In memory of them, and of this tragedy, the slender spire of rock [sometimes called "The Devil's Thumb"] that rises heavenward near the top of the cliff at this point is known among the Indians as Hum-mo', or ...
— Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity - Their History, Customs and Traditions • Galen Clark
... the storm, the howling of the wind, the straining of the timber, there rose an awful shriek; and though the tragedy was hidden from my sight, I knew it to be the cry of an unhappy sailor in his death-agony. A huge wave, leaping like some ravenous animal to the deck, had caught him and was gone; while the spirit of the wind laughed in demoniacal glee as he was tossed from crest to crest, ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... brooding over the emptiness of his great triumph. His son the Black Prince had died, cursing the falsity of Frenchmen. England also had gone through the great tragedy of the Black Death and her people, like those of France, had been driven to the point of rebellion—though with them this meant no more than that they felt ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Kitty, to take her to Leywood to lunch.... They were going to have some tennis in the afternoon. He too was expected there. They must be told what had occurred. It would be terrible if they came calling for Kitty under her window, and she lying dead! This slight incident in the tragedy wrung his heart, and the effort of putting the facts upon paper brought the truth home to him, and lured and led him to see down the lifelong range of consequences. The doctor too, he thought, must be warned of what ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... dress was a sort of parody on the prevailing fashion. But on her face, as she trudged along, hugging the pole of the great pennant that flapped in the breeze, was stamped a look.—well, you see that same look in some pictures of Joan of Arc. It wasn't merely a look. It was a story. It was tragedy. It was the history of a people. You saw in it that which told of centuries of oppression in Russia. You saw eager groups of student Intellectuals, gathered in secret places for low-voiced, fiery talk. There was in it the unspeakable misery of Siberia. It spoke eloquently of pogroms, of massacres, ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... days, or even in Scott's, it might have been possible to bring Henry III. and his mignons to due punishment within the limits of a tale beginning with the Massacre of St. Bartholomew; but in 1868 the broad outlines of tragedy must be given up to keep within the bounds of ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... killed—in the wilderness—a road to cut twenty miles—to be drawn by hand from the frontiers to his house—bones to be cleaned, &c. &c. &c. In fine, he put himself to an infinitude of trouble, more than I meant: he did it cheerfully, and I feel myself really under obligations to him. That the tragedy might not want a proper catastrophe, the box, bones, and all are lost: so that this chapter of Natural History will still remain a blank. But I have written to him not to send me another. I will leave it for my successor to fill up, whenever I shall make my bow here. The purchase for Mrs. Adams ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... a woman uttering in wailing; chant the most piercing agony of despairing love. It ceased as the sun arose and was heard no more. It was difficult to imagine such anguish in the bustle of the bright morning. It seemed as though it must have been an illusion—a dream of tragedy. ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... the league be defensive and offensive". As we are at the era of religious wars, the latter section of the clause goes far to neutralize the former. Scotland was at last at the disposal of the sovereign of England. Even the tragedy of Fotheringay scarcely produced a passing coldness. On the 8th February, 1587, Elizabeth's warrant was carried out, and Mary's head fell on the block. She was accused of plotting for her own escape and against Elizabeth's life. It is probable that she had so plotted, and it ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... sottish man, as one that fondly wasted his own substance, and seemed to need a governor to see unto him; to the intent he might clear himself of the fault, he came into the place of judgment; and when he had rehearsed before them his tragedy called OEdipus Coloneus, which he had written at the very time of his accusation, marvellous exactly and cunningly, did of himself ask the judges whether they thought any sottish or doting man could do ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... the wind, when down she came driving toward us, yawing so broadly to port and starboard that it was easy to see she had nobody at her helm, which seemed to point pretty clearly toward the presumption of tragedy. A quarter of an hour later the catspaws were ruffling the surface of the water here and there all round us, and stirring our canvas at rapidly decreasing intervals, with the true breeze coming fast and ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... The pair of widows were elderly women, as merry as girls, and quite at their ease. Of the other five three were sisters—that is, we conclude, half-sisters; children of different mothers in the same harem. It is evident, at a glance, what a tragedy lies under this; what the horrors of jealousy must be among sisters thus connected for life; three of them between two husbands in the same house! And we were told that the jealousy had begun, young as they were, ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... Dierecke at Meissen, 4th December, capture of Dierecke and 1,500; stroke not of an overwhelming nature, but let us be thankful for our mercies], which has opened the road from the Lausitz to Berlin [alas, not in the least], some Haddick could pay Berlin a visit again! You see, in Tragedy I wish always to ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... of his life in Chalmers' and Rose's Biographical Dictionaries, as well as to Mr. Nichols, when he wrote his account of Dr. Madden in his Literary Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 32. A volume containing the Reflections and Resolutions, together with the author's tragedy, Themistocles, 1729, and his tract, A Proposal for the General Encouragement of Learning in Dublin College, 1732, is in the Grenville Collection in the British Museum. This volume was presented by Dr. Madden to Philip, Earl of Chesterfield, as appears from the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various
... often happens, was very irritable in his disposition, and very unfortunate in his productions. His tragedy and comedy had both been rejected by the managers of both theatres. "I cannot account for this," said the unfortunate bard to his friend; "for no one can say that my tragedy was a sad performance, or that my comedy was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... The thrill of successful achievement was mine, and with the exultation of a soldier in having surmounted obstacles and peril, I nearly forgot for the moment the heart tragedy left behind. The swift impetus of the ride, the keen night air sweeping past me, the fresh sense of freedom and power engendered by that reckless dash through the darkness, all conspired to render me neglectful of everything save the joy of present victory. The spirit of wild ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... almost ashamed to insert this worthless and infamously trickish book. It is said to include the tragedy of King Lear, and a fragment of Hamlet. Ireland told a lie when he imputed to me the words which Joseph Warton used, the very morning I called on Ireland, and was inclined to admit the possibility of genuineness in his papers. In my subsequent conversation, I told him my change ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... mild deity behind her. Compare, in this, Corneille's "Polyeucte," with the "Hamlet." In the first an equal calamity befalls the good, but in their calamity they are blessed. The death of the martyr is the triumph of his creed. But when we have put down the English tragedy,—when Hamlet and Ophelia are confounded in death with Polonius and the fratricidal king, we see not what good end for humanity is achieved. The passages that fasten on our memory do not make us happier and holier: they suggest but terrible problems, ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ingestion of the material by which alone such things could be. And yet such is the tendency of the average human mind to be deceived, that it would be perfectly possible to re-enact in the city of New York the whole tragedy of Sarah Jacob, should ever a hysterical girl take it into head to do so; and there would not be wanting, even from among those who might read this history, individuals who would credit any monstrous declarations she might make. Even now in a little town in ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond
... religious festivals were enlivened by trials of men's strength and skill in games, and the historian and poet offered to the gods the products of human genius. In the religion of the Greeks, however, the moral element, although not passed over and in the Greek epic and tragedy not seldom expressed in grand characters, stood nevertheless too little in the foreground, so that the worship of the divine, as in the older nature-worship, especially in the feasts in honor of Dionysus and Aphrodite, was marked by immoral practices. The conception of a future life, which ...
— A Comparative View of Religions • Johannes Henricus Scholten
... speculative madness. Its history resembles the history of other Western towns of the sort so strongly, that I should not take the trouble to write about it, nor ask you to take the trouble to read about it, if the history of the town did not involve also the history of certain human lives—of a tragedy that touched deeply more than one soul. And what is history worth but for its human interest? The history of Athens is not of value on account of its temples and statues, but on account of its men and ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... And there unhors'd the Duke of Cleremont. Light. O, speak no more, my lord! this breaks my heart. Lie on this bed, and rest yourself a while. K. Edw. These looks of thine can harbour naught but death; I see my tragedy written in thy brows. Yet stay a while; forbear thy bloody hand, And let me see the stroke before it comes, That even then when I shall lose my life, My mind may be more steadfast on my God. Light. ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... it, I can pity them. They're frustrated—scored off by fate, as it were; and even if it's good for them, I'm sorry. But when they have got what they wanted, and then find fault and are not satisfied, I can't give them any sympathy at all. Who was it said there is no tragedy like not getting your wish—except getting it? You wanted Cecil Reeve. You've got him. How would you have felt if the other ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... upon the white settlements. Nothing is spared: neither age nor sex respected—the helplessness of women and children pleads in vain for mercy.... The case of Nat. Turner warns us. No black-man ought to be permitted to turn a Preacher through the country. The law must be enforced—or the tragedy of Southampton appeals to us ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... The tragedy of Burns's life is known to all of you. Surely we may say, if discrepancy between place held and place merited constitute perverseness of lot for a man, no lot could be more perverse than Burns's. Among those secondhand acting-figures, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... than of green. In "The Satyr, or the Naked Song," taken from the volume of Town and Wilderness we may detect the very spirit which, springing from the same soil thousands of years ago, created the song which gradually rose from primitive sensuousness to the heights of the Greek Tragedy: ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... print, and few to speak, though we know generally that atrocious acts of tyranny are perpetrated everyday, it is difficult to ascertain precise facts, so I will give you one. A young man named Hypolite Magin, a gentleman by birth and education, the author of a tragedy eminently successful called "Spartacus," was arrested on the 2nd of December. His friends were told not to be alarmed, that no harm was intended to him, but rather a kindness; that as his liberal opinions were known, he ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... that outlined itself in the light of the candle, against the blackness of the passageway without was of such a singular and foreign aspect as to fit extremely well into the extraordinary tragedy of which Jonathan was at once the victim and ...
— The Ruby of Kishmoor • Howard Pyle
... briefer space the whole materials of tragedy are given to us, as in that widely-known and multiform legend of the Twa Sisters which Tennyson took as the basis of his We were two daughters of ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... "He's been so kind to Nell and me. But I'm afraid nothing can be done. An unfortunate marriage for a young man of—of an affectionate nature is such a tragedy, ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... only novel that deals with precisely contemporary life, and "St. Ronan's Well" is a kind of backwater; the story of a remote contemporary watering-place, of local squireens, and of a tragedy, mangled in deference to James Ballantyne. Scott did not often care to trust himself out of the last echoes of "the pipes that played for Charlie," and though his knowledge of contemporary life was infinitely wider than Stevenson's, we see many good reasons for his abstention ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... liked this girl. She was keen and could be depended upon, as witness last night's work. Her real danger lay in being conspicuously pretty, in looking upon this affair as merely a kind of exciting game, when it was tragedy. ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... rear of his den. He would avoid the cat, whenever she approached him, by moving about the cage. Finally, he became very angry, and seizing poor puss, he broke her back and then pulled her head from her body! This was done so quickly that the tragedy was over before we could make a move ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... so solemnly exculpated, his memory is still loaded with the suspicion of having concerted, countenanced, and enforced this barbarous execution, especially as the master of Stair escaped with impunity, and the other actors of the tragedy, far from being punished, were preferred in the service. While the commissioners were employed in the inquiry, they made such discoveries concerning the conduct of the earl of Breadalbane, as amounted to a charge of high treason; and he was committed prisoner ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... thought of this. He had not fully realised the fact that he was to be deprived of his liberty so soon. In the merited indignity which was now to be put upon him, he recognised the opening act of the tragedy which was ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... have held a respectable rank as a writer, if he would have confined himself to some department of literature in which nothing more than sense, taste, and reading was required. Unhappily he set his heart on being a great poet, wrote a tragedy in five acts on the death of Virginia, and offered it to Garrick, who was his personal friend. Garrick read, shook his head, and expressed a doubt whether it would be wise in Mr. Crisp to stake a reputation, which stood high, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... be a tragedy if Jack got an inkling of this, she well knew. She had deceived him, poor fellow; but was it not for the ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... of her husband's hair in playful dalliance—"even we are mortal. We have had our peccadilloes and our repentances, and have now our little concealments of affairs that would interest nobody but ourselves. Do you hear what I am saying, Herbert! Leave off your high tragedy airs and attend to reason, as expressed in your sister's advice. While your wife is my invalid guest, I will not have her subjected to any inquisitorial process. There is a time for everything under the sun, saith the ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... in their kind, but could give it a taunt: Since flesh might not endure, but rest must wrath succeed, And force the fight to fall to play in pasture where they feed, So noble nature can well end the work she hath begun, And bridle well that will not cease her tragedy in some: Thus in song she oft rehearsed, as did her well behove, The falling out of faithful friends ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... reached the dignity of the mitre, and who at prayers in his house uttered this supplication on behalf of a lady visitor who was kneeling beside him: "Bless our friend, Mrs. ——: give her a little more common sense; and teach her to dress a little less like a tragedy queen than she ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... of the lobbyists and find that not all of them are men. You will see how avarice causes a daughter to conspire against her father. You will hear the note of a gripping national tragedy in the words of Peabody, the "boss of the Senate." But cause for laughter as well will not be found lacking ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... a tragedy was consummated by the river Hudson, which, in the character of its victim and the circumstances of his story, goes far to yield another example to the list of names immortalized by calamity. On the 2d of October, 1780, a young British officer of undistinguished birth and inconsiderable ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... only to recall the names of the acts of the play. Here The Shampooer who Gambled and The Hole in the Wall are shortly followed by The Storm; and The Swapping of the Bullock-carts is closely succeeded by The Strangling of Vasantasena. From farce to tragedy, from satire to pathos, runs the story, with a breadth truly ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... cannon they planted, mouth upwards, by the roadside on the site of the tragedy—a ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... father, delighted with the clever boy's talent, used to set him topics, force him to correct his verses over and over, and finally, when satisfied, dismiss him with the praise, "These are good rhymes." He wrote a comedy, a tragedy, an epic poem, all of which he afterward destroyed and, as he laughingly confessed in later years, he thought himself "the greatest genius ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... at Buffalo has just closed. Both from the industrial and the artistic standpoint this Exposition has been in a high degree creditable and useful, not merely to Buffalo but to the United States. The terrible tragedy of the President's assassination interfered materially with its being a financial success. The Exposition was peculiarly in harmony with the trend of our public policy, because it represented an effort to bring into closer touch all the peoples of the Western Hemisphere, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the judges were Huss's bitter personal enemies, for as he had assailed the measureless corruptions of their order, that was an unpardonable sin. Besides, history is careful to tell that bribery was largely employed to make sure of his destruction—and now the last act of the dark tragedy has arrived. No further defence was permitted to Huss, yet he uttered one solemn appeal. Once and again he prayed for his enemies. Being clothed in his priestly robes, he was stripped of them by seven bishops, while he still persisted in holding fast his convictions, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... in New York City for two weeks at the time of the Titanic disaster. On Saturday evening before the ocean tragedy I stood on the elevated at the corner of Thirty-third and Broadway. The "Great White Way" was thronged with pleasure-seekers, crowding their way to theatres and picture shows. It seemed to me I ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... a general massacre. Catharine decided to accomplish by the dagger of the assassin that which she had in vain attempted to accomplish on the field of battle. This peace was but the first act in the awful tragedy of ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... brown eyes curtained behind some absorbing anxiety and fear. But in these eyes into which she was looking now there was no fear, only a longing that her answer should be what he wished. She shivered as a half-sensed intuition of impending tragedy ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... fact this work is a history rather than a biography. It is an interlude, a pause between the acts which were to fill out the complete plan of the "Eighty Years' Tragedy," and of which the last act, the Thirty Years' War, remains unwritten. The "Life of Barneveld" was received as a fitting and worthy continuation of the series of intellectual labor in which he was engaged. I will quote but two general expressions of approval from the two ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... for all her acquaintance, even for Miss Partington, in preferring the comic to the tragic scenes.—And I believe they are right; for the devil's in it, if a confided-in rake does not give a girl enough of tragedy in his comedy. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... went to see him, he was still living in his little flat in the Rue de Rivoli, opposite the Tuileries. He was very ill, and it required all my ardor as an historian pledged to the truth to persuade him to live the incredible tragedy over again for my benefit. His faithful old servant Darius showed me in to him. The daroga received me at a window overlooking the garden of the Tuileries. He still had his magnificent eyes, but his poor face looked very worn. He ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... and connects Pittsburg with Cairo, running through such important towns as Louisville and Cincinnati. On this river some of the most interesting events in river history have been enacted in the past. Many a tragedy and many a comedy are included in its annals, and even to-day, although paralleled, crossed and recrossed by railroads, it is a most important ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... bit sad about it, but he told himself to buck up and learn to live with his tragedy. He drank some more of his bourbon and soda, and ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... tragedy this all is! If you had universal peace and reasonable hours of work, as we have, there would be no need for this striving to effect an unnecessary and useless increase in the population; and, by doing so, you are, in fact, only ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... and committees of Americans to care for their fellow countrymen had been organized. All that was asked of the stranded Americans was to keep cool and, like true sports, suffer inconvenience. Around them were the French and English, facing the greatest tragedy of centuries, and meeting it calmly and with noble self-sacrifice. The men were marching to meet death, and in the streets, shops, and fields the women were taking up the burden the men had dropped. And in the ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... of the editorial column, and well describes an example of collapsed activity which the United should avoid. "A Runaway Horse," by Mrs. Ida C. Haughton, is a brief and vivid sketch of a fatal accident. "Tragedy," an exquisite poem by Emilie C. Holladay, deserves very favourable notice for the delicate pathos of its sentiment, and perfect adaptation of the measure to the subject. We may discern a few traces of immaturity in the handling ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... woe succeeds a woe as wave a wave. Horace, Ep. II. ii. 176: Velut unda supervenit unda. {Kymata kakon} and {kakon trikymia} are common phrases in Greek tragedy. ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... mind was even more preoccupied by the survivor in the hideous events of the evening than by the tragedy itself and the dead woman, Barton, too, found his thoughts straying to his new patient—not that he was a flirt or a sentimentalist. Even in the spring Barton's fancy did not lightly turn to thoughts of love. He was not one of those "amatorious" ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... white snows,' and passed from that to a song well known at that period: 'I await thee, when the wanton zephyr,' then I began reading aloud Yermak's address to the stars from Homyakov's tragedy. I made an attempt to compose something myself in a sentimental vein, and invented the line which was to conclude each verse: 'O Zinaida, Zinaida!' but could get no further with it. Meanwhile it was getting ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... sit on the front porch summer evenings and watch the couples stroll by, and weep in her heart. A fat girl with a fat girl's soul is a comedy. But a fat girl with a thin girl's soul is a tragedy. Pearlie, in spite of her two hundred pounds, had the soul ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... his breast, where she had buried her head in the convulsions of her trembling at the moment when her modesty went down in the fierce battle with a higher pain. But the plea which seemed to give her the right to cling the closer made the man to draw apart. It was the old deep tragedy of human love—the ancient inequality in the bond of man and woman. What she had thought her conquest had been her vanquishment. He could not help, it—her last ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... time them did diliver justice to the players which generaly have play very well. At the exception by a one's self, who had land very much hir's part. It want to have not any indulgence towards the bat buffoons. Have you seen already the new tragedy? They praise her very much. It is multitude already. Never I had seen the parlour so full. This actor he make very well her part. That piece is full of interest. It have wondered the spectadors. The curtains let down. Go ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca
... but the ponies of the Light Horse and Mounted Infantry were often swept off their feet, and the ridiculous spectacle of officers and men floundering in the torrent or rising indignantly from the shallows provided a large crowd of spectators—who had crossed by the bridge—with a comedy. Tragedy was not, however, altogether excluded, for a trooper of the 13th Hussars was drowned, and Captain Tremayne, of the same regiment, who made a gallant attempt to rescue him, was ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... writings brought me acquainted with much of their emptiest enthusiasm; and the chances of later life gave me opportunities of watching women in states of degradation and vindictiveness which opened to me the gloomiest secrets of Greek and Syrian tragedy. I have seen them betray their household charities to lust, their pledged love to devotion; I have seen mothers dutiful to their children, as Medea; and children dutiful to their parents, as the daughter of Herodias: but my trust is still unmoved ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... accorded, for there was no one present who was not suffering from the prolongation of this horrible tragedy, and anxious to see it finished. Perceiving their assent, he placed one of his pistols between his teeth, and drawing a dagger from his belt, plunged it in his breast up to the hilt. He still remained standing and seemed greatly ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... occasion on which reference is found to the habits and character of Henry, occurs in the tragedy of Richard II, act v. scene 3, in which his father is represented as making inquiries, of "Percy and other lords," in ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... and commodious, your sill lie solid and square, your essay be judicious and sound. But if on the canvas you have a Christ's head by Leonardo, out of the pile of stones a Strasburg Cathedral, from the block of marble a Venus of Milo, with the vocabulary a tragedy of Hamlet, you have works which are so creative that they tell on the mind with the vivid, impressive, instructive, never-wearying delight of the works of nature. The men who wrought them were strong to do so through the vigor of their sympathy with what Plato calls the formative ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... nothing to do with the story of the treasure; it simply recorded the daily happenings aboard the brigantine and her position every noon, from the date of her departure from London; and the only interest it had for me was that it enabled me to approximate the position of the ship at the moment of the tragedy. It had been written up to four o'clock in the afternoon of the day on which the tragedy had occurred, while the log slate carried on the story up to midnight. A few minutes sufficed to make me fully acquainted with all that I required to learn from the log-book, and I then ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... great Grecian writers of tragedy, was born at Eleusis, in 525 B.C. He was the son of Euphorion, who was probably a wealthy owner of rich vineyards. The poet's early employment was to watch the grapes and protect them from the ravages of men and other animals, and it is said that this occupation ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... THE DOUGLAS TRAGEDY. After Scott. This ballad is likewise known under titles of Earl Brand, Lady Margaret and The Child of Ell. Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic ballads relate a kindred story, and the incident of the intertwining plants that spring from the graves of hapless lovers, occurs in the ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)
... poet is referring here to the actual facts of the pilgrimage to Zion, No doubt, on some one of the roads, there lay a gloomy gorge, the name of which was the Valley of Weeping; either because it dimly commemorated some half-forgotten tragedy long ago, or, more probably, because it was arid and frowning and full of difficulty for the travellers on the march. The Psalmist uses that name with a lofty imaginative freedom, which itself confirms the view that I have taken, that there is something deeper in the psalm than the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... gods, as also of the heroines and goddesses, being formed into a resemblance of his own face, and that of any woman he was in love with. Amongst the rest, he sung "Canace in Labour," [586] "Orestes the Murderer of his Mother," "Oedipus (352) Blinded," and "Hercules Mad." In the last tragedy, it is said that a young sentinel, posted at the entrance of the stage, seeing him in a prison dress and bound with fetters, as the fable of the play ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... simply wanted to rehabilitate the memory of my wife. Her relations with the musician, whatever they may have been, are now of no importance to me or to her. The important part is what I have told you. The whole tragedy was due to the fact that this man came into our house at a time when an immense abyss had already been dug between us, that frightful tension of mutual hatred, in which the slightest motive sufficed ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... and murderers are more admired, and draw more crowded audiences, than any other species of representation. There the footpad, the burglar, and the highwayman are portrayed in unnatural colours, and give pleasant lessons in crime to their delighted listeners. There the deepest tragedy and the broadest farce are represented in the career of the murderer and the thief, and are applauded in proportion to their depth and their breadth. There, whenever a crime of unusual atrocity is committed, it is brought out afresh, with all its disgusting incidents copied from the life, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... emerged dragging a woman with them. Von Horn and Number Thirteen recognized the girl simultaneously, but the doctor, though he ground his teeth in futile rage, knew that he was helpless to avert the tragedy. Number Thirteen neither ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... have remarked that very little snow fell in the Bad Lands mainly because the wind would not let it. The Cowboy editor's exultant optimism has an aspect of terrible irony in the light of the tragedy that was even then building itself out of the ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... attempt made to present Macbeth during the intermissions in the performance of the orchestra. Had an actor been engaged who was capable of playing Macbeth, and had a company been engaged to support him, the tragedy would doubtless have been well played. There was really little else wanting to make it a ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... book most full of information is the interesting Christian Advocate's Publication, of the late archdeacon Hardwick, Christ and other Masters; a work full of learning and piety, unfortunately left unfinished by the tragedy of his premature death in August 1859. In the parts published he has compared Christianity with the Egyptian and Persian religions (part iv.), with the Hindoo (part ii.), and the Chinese (part iii.); and he was preparing materials ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... Varl once and had delighted in its almost human intelligence. But the Varl weren't human and there lay their tragedy. Two thousand years of human domination had left them completely dependent on their conquerors. They were merely intelligent animals—and that was all they would ever be until the human race changed its cultural pattern or was overthrown. ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... interests my women friends, and need not sit as I do now wondering what I shall say next and wishing they would go." He replied that all around me lay misery, sin, and suffering, and that every person not absolutely blinded by selfishness must be aware of it and must realise the seriousness and tragedy of existence. I asked him whether my being miserable and discontented would help any one or make him less wretched; and he said that we all had to take up our burdens. I assured him I would not shrink from mine, though I felt secretly ashamed of it when I remembered that it was only moles, ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... and Mrs. Holymead had been almost inseparable since the tragedy had been discovered. Immediately on the arrival of Miss Fewbanks from Dellmere, Mrs. Holymead had gone out to Riversbrook to condole with her, and to support her in her great sorrow. But the murdered man's daughter, who, on account of having lived apart from her father, had developed a self-reliant ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... of Indiana; and it was attached to the East District of Texas for the purposes of jurisdiction. Congressman Springer held up this bill for a time, using it as a club for the passage of a measure of his own upon which he was intent. Thus, it may be seen that the tawdry little tragedy in that land which indeed was 'No Man's Land' in time attained a ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... his nephew, commonly known as the younger Pliny, then a student of eighteen years, but afterward himself an author. These facts are stated in some detail, for they are all involved in the great tragedy which we ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... poet died. After a year the body was claimed by his grandmother, who lived at this time in the Pensa district, and his remains were removed to be fitly honored in the family village of Tarchany. In connection with the tragedy, it is pitiful to remember that his grandmother wept herself blind over ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi
... 203. "And Leah also, with her children, came near and bowed themselves."—Gen., xxxiii, 7. "The First or Second will, either of them, by themselves coalesce with the Third, but not with each other."—Harris's Hermes, p. 74. "The whole must centre in the query, whether Tragedy or Comedy are hurtful and dangerous representations?"—Formey's Belles-Lettres, p. 215. "Grief as well as joy are infectious: the emotions they raise in the spectator resemble them perfectly."—Kames, El. of Crit., i, 157. "But in all other words the Qu are both sounded."—Ensell's ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... the inevitable tragedy, the idea of which I shrank from afterward more than at the time. We each threw a lasso over the neck of the doomed wolf, and strained our horses in opposite directions until the blood burst from her mouth, ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... sanctuary near the ark of the Lord; but Benaiah slew him there, and soon after, Shimei, the last survivor of the race of Saul, was put to death on some transparent pretext. This was the last act of the tragedy: henceforward Solomon, freed from all those who bore him malice, was able to devote his whole attention ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... that he was a liar from the beginning, and the blood of Jesus would cleanse her from all iniquity: whereupon he disappeared, and she perfectly recovered upon the Sabbath thereafter; was a happy end put to this fearful tragedy of witchcraft, and confirms to conviction ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... her first collection of short stories, Children of the Eifel (1897). In the Eifel is situated the Women's Village (1900), all the men of which seek their livelihood overseas, so that all the women swarm about the only man left at home, a cripple. The novel John Miller (1903) treats the tragedy of a rich man of the Eifel who goes to ruin in pride and blind presumption; The Cross in the Venn (1908) deals with the religious life of this district. The scene of the novel The Watch on the Rhine ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... government of Ireland the Imperial Parliament will, as long as the new constitution stands, have no practical concern. No honest Home Ruler supposes that, if the Home Rule Bill passes into law, the Imperial Parliament will, even should the tragedy of the Phoenix Park be repeated in some more terrible form, pass a Crimes Act for Ireland; to the Irish Government will belong the punishment of Irish crime. No interest will therefore restrain the Irish delegation from swaying backwards and forwards between the two English parties, in order to ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... the only victim standing there struggling and perspiring through the long sentences, turned back whenever I made a mistake, to begin the page over again, till the end of the chapter seemed to get farther and farther away; the other boys, too, came in for part of the tragedy, for the Henniker, being now free of her book, had no occupation for her eyes but to glare at them, and no occupation for her tongue but to level bad marks and rebukes and punishments at the ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... thousand marks. But what was this in comparison with the great noise? What comparison was there between living in ease and the gorgeous sight of falling stars? What attraction could the world offer him after this hopeful affair, which had begun as a tragedy, and had increased in interest and suspense until one was justified in believing that all the contradictory forces in human nature were going to collide with one mighty bang, when, in reality, the whole incident flattened out into an ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... their own way, but he had no especial liking for their tricks. Perhaps a few remarkable captures of remarkable horses had spoiled Slone. He was always trying what the brothers claimed to be impossible. He was a fearless rider, but he had the fault of saving his mount, and to kill a wild horse was a tragedy for him. He would much rather have hunted alone, and he had been alone on the trail of the stallion Wildfire when the Stewarts had ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... a valuable officer, who richly deserved, as he has received, the plaudits of his countrymen for the part he played in the great tragedy of 1861-5. ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... his own petty suffering was overshadowed by the visible tragedy of her life—the sordid tragedy where unconsciousness was pathos. He reached out quickly and took a corner of her apron in his hand. It was the strongest demonstration of affection he ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... though torn with regrets, took his hands from his face and gazed steadily at the tragedy nearing ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... rulers was even greater. With all their knowledge of the moral law, they who professed to be special representatives of God put to death his Son, and chose a murderer instead of the Saviour. To the tragedy of such a choice Luke refers with horror in the only personal comment he makes upon the scene. V. 25. Are not thousands, however, making that same choice to-day? There can be no neutral ground; indecision is impossible: one must ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... was afterward hanged by vigilantes in Virginia City, Montana. The authentic story of his life surpasses in romance and tragedy most of the pirate ...
— The Story of the Pony Express • Glenn D. Bradley
... were mailed on Monday. As that fatal letter slipped from their fingers into the mail-box the last act of the deadly tragedy began. When it ended the curtain fell upon us descending from the dock into the chill dungeons of Newgate, never, so far as the sentence ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... to her with an inexplicable shock. She had become so accustomed to seeing the bright, cheerful blaze at the cavern mouth that its absence was like a little tragedy in itself. Always it had been the last vista of her closing eyes as she dropped off to sleep—the soft, warm glow of the coals—and the sight always comforted her. She could scarcely remember the morning that it wasn't crackling cheerily ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... felt that there was 'less sunshine in the sky for him.' In the troublous times which succeeded this, he had to retire for a season from the Court, having become obnoxious to the rigid Papists on account of his writings. After the death of Cardinal Beatoun he wrote the tragedy of 'The Cardinal,' a poem in which the spectre of the Cardinal is the spokesman, and which teems with good advice to all and sundry. The execution, however, is not so felicitous as the plan. In 1548 Lyndsay went to Denmark ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... said nine; meeting began at ten. Five minutes were all she needed for preparation. Here was time for a few lines at least of that Greek tragedy. She had read one line, when the door opened, ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... butterflies of albums, but that the spirit of England has suffered itself to be fettered by the red tape of a peddling parsimony? Should we have had a Shakspeare without the smiles of an Elizabeth, and the generosity of a Southampton? No. He would have split his pen after his first tragedy; have thrown his ink-stand into the Thames; have taken the carrier's cart to Stratford, and there finished his days in writing epitaphs in the churchyard, laughing at Sir Thomas Lucy, and bequeathing deathless scoffs, to the beggary ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... The chief tragedy in the trend of later literature may be expressed by saying that the smaller Macaulay conquered the larger. Later men had less and less of that hot love of history he had inherited from Scott. They had more ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... flattery, or, as Mr. Champfort called it, the voice of love. He found it his interest to court, and she her pleasure to be courted. On these "coquettes of the second table," on these underplots in the drama, much of the comedy, and some of the tragedy, of life depend. Under the unsuspected mask of stupidity this worthy mistress of our intriguing valet-de-chambre concealed the quick ears of a listener, and the demure eyes of a spy. Long, however, did ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... Michaelmas, 1619. "I have been fortunate enough," says Mr. Lee, "to meet with passages in the State Papers that give us positive information on this point. In two letters from Thomas Locke to Carleton, the English ambassador at the Hague, I have found accounts of the circumstances under which the tragedy was first performed in London. The earlier passage runs as follows:—'The Players heere', writes Locke in London on August 14th, 1619, 'were bringing of Barnevelt vpon the stage, and had bestowed a great deale of mony to prepare all things for the purpose, but at th'instant ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... pertinent. For my part, I rank Mr. Irving the comedian above Mr. Irving the tragedian, just as I rank Nature above Art: each may be highest in its own way, yet the one may have a charm which the other cannot boast. Mr. Irving's tragedy sometimes requires working up, but his comedy is spontaneous and immediate. The needful working up of tragedy is no fault of the actor. Tragedy should hardly ever begin at once. The murder may come too soon. ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... tragic and comic, the high and the low, should be in juxtaposition, if not in combination. The dramatists of whom we are about to speak represented them in juxtaposition, and rarely succeeded in vitally combining them so as to produce symmetrical works. Their comedy and tragedy, their humor and passion, move in parallel rather than in converging lines. They have diversity; but as their diversity neither springs from, nor tends to, a central principle of organization or of order, the result is often a splendid anarchy of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... that I was dead. None knew that the troubadour whose love had cost the lady her life, who had slain the guest of her father, and had then disappeared, was the unhappy son of that guest. My friends in Paris when they heard of the tragedy of course associated it with me, but they all kept silent. The monks, to whom I confessed the whole story, were shocked indeed, but consoled me in my grief and despair by the assurance that however ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... beyond measure by the tragedy of that summer dawn, slowly subsided. Hesitation, timidity, and a very human waiting on success had held many diggers back from joining in the final coup; but the sympathy of the community was with the rebels, and at the funerals of the fallen, hundreds of mourners, in such black ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... beaux have minced on their way beneath the thick green branches,—branches that have also quivered to the sound of artillery fire saluting a mighty nation newborn. Nothing that a city can feel or suffer or delight in has escaped Washington Square. Everything of valour and tragedy and gallantry and high hope—that go to making a great town as much and more than its bricks and mortar—are in that nine and three-quarters acres that make up the very heart and soul of ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... understand, but I had to have the money. Oh, mother, mother, it is the last thing you would have me do, but I did it for you and the children," she sobbed. This was the hard, indifferent girl who didn't care for anything. The matron and officer looking at the sobbing girl recorded one more tragedy upon the annals of their experience and set about helping one more girl ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... war days of '98, flows past my hotel, and beautiful Manila Bay, glittering in the fierce December sunlight, recalls memories of Dewey and our navy. But the moss-green walls about the old Spanish city remind us of days of romance and tragedy more fascinating than any of the events of our own generation. In the days when Spain made conquest of the world these streets were laid out, and the statues of her sovereigns, imperious and imperial, ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... direction of one person, who is both manager and principal performer. They divide these troupes according to the various kinds of acting; thus, there are companies of tragic, melodramatic and comic actors, but it is very rare to find a combination of tragedy and comedy in the same entertainment. There are at present about eighty different troupes of actors in Italy, including those devoted to the marionnette and dialect performances. The principal are the "Salvini," ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various |
