"Maudlin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it would be beneath criticism, were it not that the high character of the author and her excellent literary work in other directions have given it a fictitious value and made it much quoted by the large class of amiable but maudlin fanatics concerning whom it may be said that the excellence of their intentions but indifferently atones for the invariable folly and ill effect of their actions. It is not too much to say that the book is thoroughly untrustworthy from cover to cover, and ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... nothing but my duty. I do not mince words. I do not pretend to. I say that Comrade Gregory is unfit to be Thursday for all his amiable qualities. He is unfit to be Thursday because of his amiable qualities. We do not want the Supreme Council of Anarchy infected with a maudlin mercy (hear, hear). This is no time for ceremonial politeness, neither is it a time for ceremonial modesty. I set myself against Comrade Gregory as I would set myself against all the Governments of Europe, because the anarchist who has given himself to anarchy has forgotten ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... Westcott in a maudlin tone. "How'd 'e get out? How'd 'e like it fur's he went? Always liked ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... that she had never seen a more perfect tribute of respect paid anyone. He spoke to them briefly, with a depth of sentiment only possible in a descendant of two of the most sentimental races on earth; but he was not maudlin. When he had concluded his remarks, he repeated them in Spanish for the benefit of those who had never learned English very well or ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... know much more than I do," was Andy's mental comment, when to his question, "What shall we do next?" Richard replied, in a maudlin kind of way, "Yes, that is a very proper course. I leave ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... Russia, represented the generous, democratic ideals and principles vital to every Jew in that they must be securely established before the emancipation of the Jew could be realized. Their hatred of Czarism was not engulfed by any maudlin sentiment; they knew that they had no "fatherland" to defend. They were not swept on a tide of jingoism to forget their tragic history and proclaim their loyalty to the infamous oppressor. No. Their ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... away in disgust. Such language was to him simply disgusting. It fell upon his ears as false maudlin sentiment falls on the ears of the ordinary honest man of the world. Barrington Erle was a man ordinarily honest. He would not have been untrue to his mother's brother, William Mildmay, the great Whig Minister of the day, for any earthly consideration. He was ready to work with ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... Stanton," said Sibley in tones of maudlin sentiment, "you are cruel to deprive me of your cousin's society even for a moment. I'll forgive you this once, but never again." And then he availed himself of the opportunity to pay another ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... angry with himself for entertaining it. It was maudlin. After all Chabrillane and La Motte-Royau were quite exceptional swordsmen, but neither of them really approached his own formidable calibre. Reaction began to flow, as he drove out through country lanes flooded with pleasant September sunshine. His spirits rose. A premonition of victory ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... like David in his wrath, saying that all men are liars. They're not. They're just as good as women, if not better. I've no betrayed virgin's grouch against men. But I've made myself too busy to worry about sex. It's no use talking tosh. Sex is the root of the whole sentimental, maudlin——" ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... and in agony she asked herself if she had given as much as she had demanded. Had she not thought too much of her own rights and wrongs and too little of his hopes and burdens? And perhaps because of this he was to be crushed at a blow, and his enemies laugh at his calamity and give to her their maudlin pity. ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... disreputable-looking animals as one could picture, for Betsy Brindle and her daughter, a pretty little year-old heifer, were unquestionably, undeniably, hopelessly intoxicated. Betsy was swaying and staggering from side to side, wagging her head foolishly and mooing in the most maudlin manner, while Sally, whose potations affected her quite differently, was cavorting madly thither and yonder, one moment almost standing upon her head, with hind legs and tail waving wildly in mid- air, the next ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... and ending by one or other of the delirious disputants getting "chucked" into the sea, and having a swim before recovering foothold on the frail embarkation. This the ducked individual would be certain to do. Drunk as he might have been, and maudlin as he might be, his instincts were never so benumbed as to render him regardless of self-preservation. Even from out his haggard eyes still gleamed enough of intelligence to tell that those dark triangular objects, moving in scores around the raft, and cutting the water, ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... no such honeymoon as yours. A few brief days of happiness, and then The dream was over. I had married one Who was the sport of vagrant impulses. We had not been a fortnight wed, when he Came home to me with brandy in his brain— A maudlin fool—for love like mine to hide As if he were an unclean beast. O Grace! I cannot paint the horrors of that night. My heart, till then serene, and safely kept In Trust's strong citadel, quaked all night long, As tower and bastion fell before ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... one place he was troubled with evil presentiments which came to nothing, how at another place, on waking from a drunken doze, he read the prayer-book and took a hair of the dog that had bitten him, how he went to see men hanged and came away maudlin, how he added five hundred pounds to the fortune of one of his babies because she was not scared at Johnson's ugly face, how he was frightened out of his wits at sea, and how the sailors quieted him as they would have quieted a child, how tipsy he was at ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... on the preponderating role played by American capitalism in the war. In an article which adopts as title that of Norman Angell's book The Great Illusion, Reed declares that the pretence of fighting kings is maudlin, and that Money is the true king. Putting his finger on the sore spot, he adduces figures showing the colossal profits made by the great American companies. Under the bizarre title The Myth of American Fatness,[27] he shows that it is not, as Europe fancies, the American nation ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... which it checked in the bud, as if it hadn't quite made up its mind yet to be good company. Now it was that after two or three such vain attempts to stifle its convivial sentiments, it threw off all moroseness, all reserve, and burst into a stream of song so cosy and hilarious as never maudlin nightingale yet formed the ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... dealing the cards a few minutes later, when the long-haired man emerged from the gambling hell, and imitating the maudlin, sauntered up to the bar and asked for a drink. After being served, he walked about halfway to the door, then whirling suddenly, stepped to the end of the bar, placed his hands upon it, sprang up and stood ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... the House met his defiance by a concurrent resolution emphatically condemning his reconstruction policy, and thus opening the way for the coming struggle between Executive usurpation and the power of Congress. His maudlin speech on the 22d of February to the political mob which called on him, branding as traitors the leaders of the party which had elected him, completely dishonored him in the opinion of all Republicans, and awakened general alarm. Everybody could now see the mistake of his nomination at Baltimore, ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... not care how much or how little you love me. That depends upon you, as well as myself. I believe the time will come, when you will love me as you ought, and I say this in perfect calm conviction, in all my weakness, and with all my maudlin habits clinging to me. Strangely enough your doubt of me has made me rise up in arms to champion my cause, or else I should lie down forever in the dust, ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... of exhibiting, the degree of licence to which they capriciously permit their favourite slaves occasionally to carry their familiarity. They seem to consider it as an undeniable proof of the general kindness with which their dependents are treated. It is as good a proof of it as the maudlin tenderness of a fine lady to her lap-dog is of her humane treatment of animals in general. Servants whose claims to respect are properly understood by themselves and their employers, are not made pets, playthings, jesters, or companions of, and it is only the degradation ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... passed, to put out all Papists in office And a deal of do of which I am weary But do it with mighty vanity and talking Feared she hath from some [one] or other of a present Fell a-crying for joy, being all maudlin and kissing one another Found to be with child, do never stir out of their beds Had his hand cut off, and was hanged presently! Hates to have any body mention what he had done the day before House of ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Diary of Samuel Pepys • David Widger
... Bounderby said, 'Your health, ma'am!' she answered with great feeling, 'Thank you, sir. The same to you, and happiness also.' Finally, she wished him good night, with great pathos; and Mr. Bounderby went to bed, with a maudlin persuasion that he had been crossed in something tender, though he could not, for his life, ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... had on earlier days, half-maudlin from "his drop at the 'Bull and Bush,'" exclaimed to Maggie, "I can't call myself a success! I'm a rotten failure if you want to know, and I had most things in my favour to start with, went to Cambridge, had a good opening as a barrister. But it wasn't quick enough for me. ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... regular efficiency expert in sport. Take fall and spring, when the wild geese come through, he'll soak grain in alcohol and put it out for 'em over on the big marsh. First thing you know he'll have a drunken old goose by the legs, all maudlin and helpless. Puts him in a coop till he sobers up, ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... maudlin solemnity] Only be true to yourself, Miss O'Dowda. Keep serious. Give up making silly jokes. Sustain the note of passion. ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... did despise Anarchists and Nihilists," sighed Ray, "since I was trapped into reading some of those maudlin Russian novels, with their eighth-century ideas grafted on nineteenth-century conditions. Baby ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... small legacy of annoyance for me; for while I was still searching the horizon for some sign of her continued existence I became aware of certain raucous sounds issuing from the forecastle, which I was quickly able to identify as the maudlin singing which seamen are so prone to indulge in when they are the worse for liquor. Presently Polson, who had gone forward to turn-to the watch after dinner, came aft with an expression of vexation upon his weather-beaten countenance, ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... an interesting account to give of his meeting with Dick Hardman down at Yellow Mine. The young scion of the would-be dictator of Marco fortunes had been drunk enough to rave about what he would do to Panhandle Smith. Some of his maudlin threats, as related by Brown, caused a good deal of merriment in camp, except to Blinky, who grew ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... Bickerstaff, commenting on the letter in No. 59, printed above, says: "I have looked over our pedigree upon the receipt of this epistle, and find the Greenhats are a-kin to the Staffs. They descend from Maudlin, the left-handed wife of Nehemiah Bickerstaff, in the reign ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... Government for aid" in the way of labor legislation. Without a quiver, a member of the capitalist group will run tens of thousands of pitiful child-laborers through his life-destroying cotton factories, and weep maudlin and constitutional tears over one scab hit in the back with a brick. He will drive a "compulsory" free contract with an unorganized laborer on the basis of a starvation wage, saying, "Take it or leave it," knowing that to leave it means to die of ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... pull him down into her arms, mother him and tell him not to mind—there was something so intolerably pathetic about his effort to sit soberly straight—but she resisted this impulse savagely. The alcohol in her own veins was responsible for this. She could not quite trust herself not to go maudlin. So she froze herself tight and huddled away from him into ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... curse of rage Cummings stepped forward, and, with rough hands, separated the boon companions, thrusting the tramp without ceremony under the table, Moriarity in the meantime shaking Cook in vain attempts to rouse him from his maudlin stupor. Cook, however, was too far "under the influence" to be aroused, and to the vigorous shakings and punchings would respond only with a hiccough and part ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... he muttered, with a maudlin laugh, and springing from his seat with unsteady steps, he crossed the room and stood by the couch, looking down eagerly into the beautiful white face upon the pillow. As if impelled by that steady, serpentine, fiery ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... abandon that bespoke the age when the world was young. Their voluptuous forms entwined with clustering grapes and leaves, they poured tipsy libations of red wine from golden chalices; while old Silenus, god of drink, astride a donkey, applauded with maudlin joy. ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... elaborately arranged it behind her. About her forehead she bound a narrow fillet of fine, furry hares' skin. She donned new garments; her ahttee was made of the delicate skins of birds, her hood of white fox hides. To all this Olafaksoah seemed blind; at times, with coarse, half-maudlin tenderness, he caressed her, called her his "little girl" and promised to "come back next spring." But Annadoah ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... not lost Professor Casimir Wieniawski from sight a moment since the hour of ten, and that "distinguished noble refugee" was now in a maudlin way, murmuring perfunctory endearments in the ear of the ex-prima donna, who tenderly gazed upon him in a proprietary manner. Alan Hawke had judged it well to ply the champagne, and, at the witching hour of midnight, he critically inspected Casimir's condition. "He is probably ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... even this condescension—to his unbounded astonishment—she declined with thanks. And then the silly little fool grew more desperate than ever, and battered up his poor brains with strong drink, and wept in maudlin fashion to his acquaintances. At last one of these—a fellow of the same kidney, but with more enterprise than himself—said to him: 'Why don't you carry her off?' Nathan opened his eyes very wide, stopped his ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... did not seem much likelihood of it. Two or three apple and gingerbread stalls, from which draggled children were turning slowly and wistfully away to go home; a booth full of trumpery fairings, in front of which tawdry girls were coaxing maudlin youths, with faded southernwood in their button-holes; another long low booth, from every crevice of which reeked odours of stale beer and smoke, by courtesy denominated tobacco, to the treble accompaniment ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... churning, sprawling, desperate efflux from east to west began; once more the Golden Horde was on the march. They did not come, as had their ancestors, on wildly charging horses, threatening with lances and deadly scimitars, but on foot, wretched and begging. Even had I been as maudlin as Stuart Thario desired I could not have fed these people, for there were no longer railroads with rollingstock adequate to carry the freight, no fleets of trucks in good repair, nor was the fuel available had they existed. The world receded ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... make as good a picture as Vandyke or Rubens could. I was silent—"Why now," said he, "you think this very vain, but why should not one speak truth?" This truth was uttered in the face of his own Sigismonda, which is exactly a maudlin street-walker, tearing off the trinkets that her keeper had given her, to fling at his head. She has her father's picture in a bracelet on her arm, and her fingers are bloody with the heart, as if she had just bought a sheep's pluck in St. James's Market. As I was going, Hogarth put ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... necessary. They had started toward Martin's on the way home, when Warrington discovered that he was out of cigars. He ran back three or four doors while John proceeded slowly. Just as he was about to cross the alley-way a man suddenly lurched out into the light. He was drunk, but not the maudlin, helpless intoxication that seeks and invites sociability. He was murderously drunk, strong, nervous, excited. He barred ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... at Buenas Tierras, was not yet drunk. It was only eleven o'clock; and he never arrived at his desired state of beatitude—a state wherein he sang ancient maudlin vaudeville songs and pelted his screaming parrot with banana peels—until the middle of the afternoon. So, when he looked up from his hammock at the sound of a slight cough, and saw the Kid standing in the door of the consulate, he was still in a condition to extend the hospitality ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... to himself he could only have been interesting, as the figure of a man surviving, in an alien but not unfriendly present, the past which held so vast a part of all that had constituted him. If he had thought of himself in this way, it would have been without one emotion of self-pity, such as more maudlin souls indulge, but with a love of knowledge and wisdom as keenly ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... His maudlin speech and woe-begone manner roused Jack's sympathy. He knelt down beside him, and ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... after midnight, and Stiffner lay dead-drunk on the broad of his back on the long moonlit verandah, with all his patrons asleep around him in various grotesque positions. Stiffner's ragged grey head was on a cushion, and a broad maudlin smile on his red, drink-sodden face, the lower half of which was bordered by a dirty grey beard, like that of a frilled lizard. The red handkerchief twisted round his neck had a ghastly effect in ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... of a prince. John Leech's Master Slender," she continues, "was picturesquely true to the gawky, flabby, booty squire.... His mode of sitting on a stile, with his long ungainly legs dangling down ... ever and anon ejaculating his maudlin cuckoo cry of 'Oh sweet Ann Page,' was a delectable treat." Without disrespect to Leech's memory, it may be said that others of his friends did not form a similarly favourable opinion of his ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... and with maudlin shoutings, to a small tree that stood by itself, and bound him to it with so many lashings that only his head was free to move. Then they heaped dry wood about him, piling it up until it was ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... stamens trip, And headlong in the pollen roll'd, Crawl out quite dusted o'er with gold; Or else his heavy feet would stumble Against some bud, and down he'd tumble Amongst the grass; there lie and grumble In low, soft bass—poor maudlin bumble! ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... a jack-knife beside her, was drunk with ecstasy. His expression when he looked at her resembled that of a particularly maudlin Airedale. Having her all to himself, with nobody to interfere, was an almost overwhelming joy. He longed to pour out his soul in gratitude for all that she had done for him at the hospital; he burned to tell her that she was the most beautiful and holy thing that had ever come into his life; but ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... she left the room and locked the door behind her on the maudlin, babbling creature inside. Then she flung a shawl over her head and ran from the house. It was not far to the Morgan homestead. She ran all the way, hardly knowing what she was doing. Mrs. Morgan answered her knock. She gazed in ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... flushed. "You introduced her to the fastest people in New York, then left her entirely to her own resources while you went away and made an ass of yourself. Well, something must have happened to alarm her, and, since you were too maudlin to be of any assistance, she evidently took the bit in her teeth. I can't blame her. For Heaven's sake, why did you set her in with THAT crowd? If you wanted to take her slumming, why didn't you hire a guide and go into the ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... snowdrift With a loud and startling neigh; Tried to tell his half-dazed master Where his mate, old Simon, lay. Pressing on, he reached the border Of Nebraska's whitened plain, Where his mind in maudlin fancies Yielded to the bitter strain, As he saw far in the distance, Like a battered mast at sea, Once again the twisted branches Of the ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker
... with his simple straightforward notions of right and wrong worth, much maudlin unmerciful indulgence which we hear in these days: and yet not going to the bottom of the matter either, as we shall see in the next war. But, rambling on, he told me how he had come home, war-worn and crippled, ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... into line with those convivial associations, which content themselves with an annual exposition of the grievances of Ireland, over the short leg of a turkey, a "bumper of Burgundy," and that roar of lip artillery, against the usurper, which dies away in a few maudlin hiccups, about two o'clock in the morning, to be revived only at the expiration of another twelve months. Under the burden of any commonplace name, such, we say, might have been the fate of the organization ere this; and so we regard the knowledge and genius which ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... might be difficult to prove his innocence. To our surprise, however, for we had some faith in the fellow, instead of taking this matter with the indifference of a brave man, he has chosen to behave like a child. In his present half maudlin state he would, I am afraid, if in serious danger of conviction, make statements likely to cause a good deal of inconvenience to myself, ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... looked round his company—at some with the maudlin tear of sentiment still on their cheeks, at others eager to escape this soft moment and make ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... he sprang toward me and threw his arms about my neck, and for a brief moment as I held my boy close to me the tears welled to my eyes and I was like to have choked after the manner of some maudlin fool—but I do not regret it, nor am I ashamed. A long life has taught me that a man may seem weak where women and children are concerned and yet be anything but a weakling in the ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... said, with a bow and air of maudlin humility, "I have to apologise for requiring you to start out on a journey at such a late hour. Duty is often an ungracious master. Luckily, your drive is not to be a very extended one—only to the city; ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... may advance—whereas men, for the most part, are content with abstract reasoning and supply their own incidents if they feel inclined. Also that a finely bred fragile type of woman such as Beatrice inspires both fear and a maudlin sort of sympathy, and that man is prevented from crossing such a one to any great extent since men are as easily conquered by maudlin sympathy ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... face was as white as chalk. For the first time he had looked Truth in the eyes. Others had lied to him; he had dissembled with himself. He was a drunkard, and had not known it. What he had fondly imagined was a pleasant exhilaration had been maudlin intoxication. His fancied wit had been drivel; his gay humors nothing but the noisy vagaries of a sot. But, ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... doorway, down the couple of steps to the floor of the saloon, and he staggered a little, simulating drunkenness. He fell over the pool tables, jostled Mexicans at the bar, laughed like a maudlin fool, and, with his hat slouched down, crowded here and there. Presently his eye caught sight of the group of cowboys whom he had ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... there were a few who had been overcome by the heat of the bibulatory conflict, and who had relapsed into partial helplessness in chairs around the walls; and there were others who began to stagger and talk thickly at the counter, growing obscure and maudlin in their oaths, and shaking hands altogether too often, indicating the sleepy stage ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... broke in the maudlin Secretary. "Doth he not bear testimony that good sherris maketh the brain apprehensive and quick; filleth it with nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes, which being delivered by the tongue become excellent wit? Wherefore let us drink, gentlemen, ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... not yet retired to their bunks was soon evident to him from the fact that snatches of maudlin song came floating down to him occasionally upon the pinions of the dew-laden night breeze; but these dwindled steadily as he drew nearer to the vessel, and about a quarter of an hour before he arrived alongside ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... the red hair-bow and cast it upon the floor. Seeders she despised utterly; she had but taken his kiss as that of a pioneer and prophetic prince who might have set the clocks going and the pages to running in fairyland. But the kiss had been maudlin and unmeant; the court had not stirred at the false alarm; she must forevermore remain ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... the hunchback having failed to drink Peppers maudlin, was now deliberately provoking a fight. The bloated face ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... his heels. It was with the utmost difficulty they could be extricated from the clutches of the publicans and the embraces of their pot companions, who followed them to the water's edge with many a hug, a kiss on each cheek, and a maudlin ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... unsusceptible, insusceptible; unimpressionable[obs3], unimpressible[obs3]; passionless, spiritless, heartless, soulless; unfeeling, unmoral. apathetic; leuco-|, phlegmatic; dull, frigid; cold blooded, cold hearted; cold as charity; flat, maudlin, obtuse, inert, supine, sluggish, torpid, torpedinous[obs3], torporific[obs3]; sleepy &c. (inactive) 683; languid, half-hearted, tame; numbed; comatose; anaesthetic &c. 376; stupefied, chloroformed, drugged, stoned; palsy-stricken. indifferent, lukewarm; careless, mindless, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... finish. Very suddenly the surrounding group had scattered, and he peered up through maudlin tears to learn the cause. One man alone stood above him. The room had grown still as ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... they condescend in tragedy to wheedle away the applause of the spectators, by representing before them fac-similes of their own mean selves in all their existing meanness, or to work on their sluggish sympathies by a pathos not a whit more respectable than the maudlin tears of drunkenness. Their tragic scenes were meant to affect us indeed, but within the bounds of pleasure, and in union with the activity both of our understanding and imagination. They wished to transport the mind to a sense of its ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... chang'd from him Whose gen'rous Belcour touch'd all hearts with rapture, Whose honest Major charm'd with native humour, Whose Charlotte, pleasant, frank and open hearted, Call'd forth our tears of pleasure—April showers! His pages now, stuff'd with false maudlin sentiment, Scarce please our whimpering-girls ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... there a parson much bemused in beer, A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer, A clerk foredoom'd his father's soul to cross, Who pens a stanza ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... well—her mother had been drinking. Judge Sharp's benevolence had provided the means of a carouse for those two wretched women. They both came in reeling from one sick bed to another; the older muttering taunts upon the wretched inmates; the other shedding maudlin tears more horrible and disgusting still. After wandering about the ward for a time, the two wretched creatures seated themselves upon the floor, and throwing their arms around each other, sunk into a brutal slumber which lasted ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... that stood here and there. Perhaps there was a servants' table-d'hote just then. I was rather pleased to find solitude; and undisturbed I found out my lady-love's carriage, in the moonlight. I mused, I walked round it; I was as utterly foolish and maudlin as very young men, in my situation, usually are. The blinds were down, the doors, I suppose, locked. The brilliant moonlight revealed everything, and cast sharp, black shadows of wheel, and bar, and spring, on the pavement. I stood before the escutcheon ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... lay several chapeaus said to have belonged to distinguished Britishers. Mr. Soloman suddenly makes his appearance in the little shop, much to Mr. McArthur's surprise. "Say-old man! centurion!" he exclaims, in a maudlin laugh, "Keepum's in the straps-is, I do declare; Gadsden and he bought a lot of niggers-a monster drove of 'em, on shares. He wants that trifle of borrowed money-must have it. Can have it back in a ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... man, can't you see how it happened? I saw the poor woman's pride and happiness hung on her faith in that picture. I tried to make her understand that it was worthless—but she wouldn't; I tried to tell her so—but I couldn't. I behaved like a maudlin ass, but you shan't pay for my infernal bungling—you mustn't ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... beloved Paris. In Italy she shows herself scarcely more than affectionate to her doting spouse. Marlborough's letters to his peevish duchess during the Blenheim campaign are not more crowded with maudlin curiosities than those of the fierce scourge of the Austrians to his heartless fair. He writes to her agonizingly, begging her to be less lovely, less gracious, less good—apparently in order that he may love her less madly: but she is never to be jealous, and, above all, never to weep: for her ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... Mullan felt a maudlin impulse to cheer at Feeny's enthusiastic answer. Even poor old Plummer gave a half-stifled cry. Possibly he dreamed that rescue was at hand; but there was little time for rejoicing. Springing back whence he came, the unseen emissary was heard shouting some order to his fellows. The next instant ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... skimmed palely along the street like blown bits of paper on a gray lake. They were agreed on all things, from the absurdity of the bouncer in Childs' to the absurdity of the business of life. They were dizzy with the extreme maudlin happiness that the morning had awakened in their glowing souls. Indeed, so fresh and vigorous was their pleasure in living that they felt it should be expressed ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... his brother Faco were not in the sheep business for any maudlin sentiment. They did not march ahead of their beloveds waving a crook as wand of office or appealing to the esthetic sides of their ideal followers with a tabret and pipe. Far from leading the flock with a symbol, they drove them with an armful of ever-ready rocks and clubs. ...
— Monarch, The Big Bear of Tallac • Ernest Thompson Seton
... as if my casement enshrined that form like the snowdrift and that throat like the swan's. But, although he vanishes finally, the street has become alive. Two men pass in deeply-interesting conversation, one of them assuring the other that he has not done "a stroke's work" in two years. He is maudlin, of course. "A stroke's work"? And as if any man could expect to find work and to do it after keeping such ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... misdemeanants had been cast loose again. Culpepper had been kept by the guards from entering the palace, where he had no place. But he had fallen in with the Magister Udal in the courtyard. Being maudlin and friendly at the time, he had cast his arms round the magister's neck claiming him for a loved acquaintance. They had drunk together and had started, towards midnight, to find the chamber of Katharine Howard, Culpepper seeking his ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... for a bookish fool! Learn that lovely ladies yield themselves but to those who are masterful in their wooing, who have wooed often, and triumphed as often. O Innocent of the innocent! Forget the maudlin sentiment of thy books and old romances—thy pure Sir Galahads, thy "vary parfait gentil knightes," thy meek and lowly lovers serving their ladies on bended knee; open thine eyes, learn that women to-day love only the strong ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... after a speechless moment, "I'll be dinged if it isn't! I am going to vote for you, anyhow." Which he proceeded to do, although in somewhat maudlin fashion. ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... to-night, remind me to be more than usually particular in praying for Mr. Anthony Chuzzlewit, who has done me an injustice." No amount of self-indulgence weakens or lowers his pious and reflective tone. "Those are her daughters," he remarks, making maudlin overtures to Mrs. Todgers in memory of his deceased wife. "Mercy and Charity, Charity and Mercy, not unholy names I hope. She was beautiful. She had a small property." When his condition has fallen into something so much worse than ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... truth were told, he is a warm-hearted, generous, plucky fellow, with boundless vanity and a romantic vein of maudlin sentiment that seduces him from time to time into the gin-and-water corner of an Indian newspaper. Under the heading of "The Forest Ranger's Lament," or "The Old Shikarry's Tale of Woe," he hiccoughs his column of sickly lines (with St. Vitus's dance in their feet), and then ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... of earning a living greatest. There was an outward starch and acerbity produced by toil and danger. But when people felt they could unbend, they were not icebergs but volcanoes, because the fires which burned unseen were those of the soul. The mirth of wine is maudlin and short-lived. It prompts to no labor, and kindles no sacrifices. It is satanic; it blazes and dies, a horrid mockery, exultant and evanescent. But the joy of homes, the beaming face of forgiveness, the charity which covers a multitude of faults, the assistance ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... his heart thumping heavily at sound of the voice, thick though it was and maudlin. Dade drunk and full of coarse foolery was a sight he had never before looked upon; but Dade's presence, drunk or sober, made his own plight seem a shade less hopeless. He did not dare a second ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... emotion, acting together, were making the man almost maudlin. Nicholas knew well what climax ten minutes would bring. So, with a word or two of friendly thanks and farewell, he left the house, and sought a familiar hotel, where he was too well known to be refused even ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... wholesome feeling can be pushed so far that it becomes a weakness and a sign of disease. Pity for the sufferings of our brute neighbors may be a manly feeling; and then again it may be so fostered and cosseted that it becomes maudlin and unworthy. When hospitals are founded for sick or homeless cats and dogs, when all forms of vivisection are cried down, when the animals are humanized and books are written to show that the wild creatures have schools and kindergartens, and ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... for a glass; but the camaraderie is apt to end in blows, and is a poor caricature of the bond knitting all who are filled with the Spirit to one another, and making them willing to serve one another. The roystering or maudlin geniality cemented by drink generally ends in quarrels, as everybody knows that the truculent stage of intoxication succeeds the effusively affectionate one. But they who have the Spirit in them, and not only 'live in the Spirit,' ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... "will do. Miss Childe and I came here to lunch, not to listen to maudlin memories of the Great War. Did I ever tell you that a Spaniard once compared me to that elusive bloom to be found ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... marriage, I used to see a brother-in-law of mine, now dead, mad with drink—beating his wife in his frenzy, and then sobbing and howling in maudlin repentance, vowing never to touch liquor again, and yet, the very same evening, sitting down to drink and drink—it would fill me with disgust. But my intoxication today is still more fearful. The stuff has not to be procured or poured out: it springs within ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... presently, when he grew a trifle maudlin over his own sorrows, began to call him "Frankie," and "my boy," and somehow it mattered, from a man with the Major's obvious record. Frank pulled himself up only just in time to prevent a retort when it first happened, ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... curious non sequitur which the restraint, consciously or unconsciously inculcated by the Gaelic League, is likely to make more apparent, for it is killing that conception of the Irishman as typically a boisterous buffoon with intervals of maudlin sentimentality which the stage and the popular song have so long been content to depict without protest from us, and which left Englishmen with feelings not more exalted than those of their sixteenth and seventeenth century ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... tale-bearers, and the like, who came between them—meaning Molly Doyle—whom, as he waxed eloquent over his liquor, he came at last to curse and rail at by name, with more than his accustomed freedom. And he described his own natural character and amiability in such moving terms, that he wept maudlin tears of sensibility over his theme; and when Dobbs was gone, drank some more grog, and took to railing and cursing again by himself; and then mounted the stairs unsteadily, to see "what the devil Doyle and the other —— old witches were ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... address, the manner is no more or otherwise rememberable than the light motions, steps, and gestures of youth and health. But this is almost every thing:—no wonder, therefore, if that which can be put down by rule in the memory should appear to us as mere poring, maudlin, cunning,—slyness blinking through the watery eye of superannuation. So in this admirable scene, Polonius, who is throughout the skeleton of his own former skill and statecraft, hunts the trail of ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... footsteps were heard approaching, and Phil scarcely had time to don his priest's habit, draw the hood well over his head, and conceal his bar and pruning knife in the ample folds of the garment when a belated frequenter of one of the numerous posadas of the city staggered past, humming in maudlin tones the refrain of a bacchanalian song which he cut short when he realised that the two dark figures which he jostled were, as he supposed, connected with the dread institution which lay back ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... he and another lumber jack grappled. The Clown had thrown his antagonist fairly, the lumberjack's shoulders striking the rough floor with a whack that made things jingle. The next moment the two had treated one another at the bar, and with a mutual, though maudlin appreciation of each other had gone back to their respective chairs among the line tilted ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... usum vulgi. But their worst enemy recently has been, it may be feared, the irreconcilable opposition of their spirit to what is called the modern spirit—though this latter sometimes takes them up and plays with them in a fashion of maudlin mysticism. ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... "Don't be maudlin, Joe!" Her tone was very cold. "If you must know, we need the money and——Well, I guess I learned enough about tea and tea rooms in the past ten or eleven months to know whether one will pay or not—if it's properly run. Got awfully hardboiled while you ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... were baked in the true "camp-meeting" style, the whisky was drunk, and—so was the company. Bill Day's rather red eyes grew redder, and his nose shone with delight as he shuffled the greasy pack of "kyerds." The maudlin smile crossed the habitually melancholy lines of his face in a way that split and splintered his visage into a curious ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... moral cowardice, tempted Horace B—, and he yielded. Like tinder touched by flame, he blazed into drunkenness, and again and again the proud-spirited, manly, and cultured young lawyer and jurist was seen staggering along the streets, maudlin or mad with alcohol. When he had slept off his madness, his humiliation was intense, and he walked the streets with pallid face and downcast eyes. The coarser-grained men with whom he was thrown in contact ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... the grim narrative of the murder. We all know it. One knows not which is the more repugnant—the degradation of the poor child Salome to the level of a dancing-girl, the fell malignity of the mother who would shame her daughter for such an end, the maudlin generosity of Herod, flushed with wine and excited passion, the hideous request from lips so young, the ineffectual sorrow of Herod, his fantastic sense of obligation, which scrupled to break a wicked promise and did not scruple to murder a prophet, or the ghastly picture ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... that except upon a basis of even such rigor, sorrowful, silent, inexorable as that of Destiny and Doom, there is no true pity possible. The pity that proves so possible and plentiful without that basis, is mere ignavia and cowardly effeminacy; maudlin laxity of heart, grounded on blinkard dimness of head—contemptible as ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... In maudlin spite let Thracians fight Above their bowls of liquor; But such as we, when on a spree, ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... think, when thou wert early in the field, How doughtily small Jeffrey ran at thee A-tilt, and broke a bulrush on thy shield. And now, a veteran in the lists of fame, I ween, old Friend! thou art not worse bested When with a maudlin eye and drunken aim, Dulness hath thrown ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the toasters and speakers lose more and more their control over speech and actions. What was at first mischievous abandon and merry jest, gradually degenerates into loquaciousness, coarseness and querulous brawls. Here and there one of the maudlin crowd drops off in the ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... veracity, unfortunately, is not highly infectious, and it is a little difficult not to believe that the high and serene virtues of the great man gone were promptly exploited for the small men left. One miracle there seems no reason to doubt. John, in an almost maudlin fit of emotional repentance, made peace at the funeral with his Cistercian enemies and founded them a home at Beaulieu in the New Forest. Indeed, these were the true miracles which recommended Hugh to the English people, so that they regarded him as a saint indeed, ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... Scotland, where Winton had carried her off. But she had not weakened in her resolution a second time, and suddenly he had given up pursuit, and gone abroad. Since then—nothing had come from him, save a few wild or maudlin letters, written evidently during drinking-bouts. Even they had ceased, and for four months she had heard no word. He had "got over" her, it seemed, wherever he was—Russia, Sweden—who ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... "What I am about to say," he explained as he suddenly heaved a sigh, "is not the maudlin talk of a man under the effects of wine. As far as the subjects at present set in the examinations go, I could, perchance, also have well been able to enter the list, and to send in my name as a candidate; but I have, just now, no means whatever to make provision for luggage and for travelling ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... little bit maudlin about that farm, Mr. Headman, and it will do you good to get away for a few days. There are some other things in life, though I admit they are few, and we are not to forget them. I am up to my ears in plans ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... feet hustling in winter—or die. It is not a land for people who think; the world owes them a living. They have to earn the living and earn it hard, and if they don't earn it, there are neither free soup kitchens nor maudlin charities to fill idle stomachs with ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... though God should hereafter give me a son, who should cut the princess out of Burgundy, will she not be queen of France? What more would the perverse girl have? By God, Hymbercourt, it makes my blood boil to hear you, a man of sound reason, talk like a fool. I hear the same maudlin protest from the duchess. She, too, is under the spell of this girl, and mourns over her trumped-up grief like a parish priest at a ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... maudlin voice, "I've got nineteen cars of cattle out here that are going up there to-morrow and I want to ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... who flagrantly pretend to anything are the reverse of that which they pretend to. A man who sets up for a saint is sure to be a sinner, and a man who boasts that he is a sinner is sure to have some feeble, maudlin, sniveling bit of saintship about him which is enough ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... was his good-humored yet firm determination, perhaps it was his resigned philosophy, but something in the speaker's manner affected Mr. Byers's alcoholic susceptibility, and hastened his descent from the passionate heights of intoxication to the maudlin stage whither he was drifting. The fire of his red eyes became filmed and dim, an equal moisture gathered in his throat as he pressed Abner's hand with drunken fervor. "Thash so! your thinking o' me an' Mish ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte |
