"Mournful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Not Vincent! Why, he's a model youth. You've always said so yourself—polite, respectful, washes behind the ears, takes home his pay envelope uncracked to mother, all that sort of thing. Why the mournful headshake over ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... aid to public speaking I was taught to "elocute," and I remember in every mournful detail the occasion on which I gave my first recitation. We were having our monthly "public exhibition night," and the audience included not only my classmates, but their parents and friends as well. The selection I intended to recite was a poem entitled "No Sects in Heaven," but when ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... feet, bending upon Desmond a look of mournful interest and compassion. Desmond had stood all but transfixed with horror. But as Diggle now prepared to leave him, the boy flushed hot; his fists clenched; ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... whole designing of them to her dress-maker, served her at Duddon, in her own phrase, mainly "for my maid to show the housekeeper." They lay in scented drawers, daintily folded in tissue paper, and a maid no less ambitious than her fellows for a well-dressed mistress kept mournful watch over them. This carelessness of dress had grown upon Victoria Tatham with years. In her youth the indulgence of a taste for beautiful and artistic clothes had taken up a great deal of her time. Then suddenly it had all become indifferent to her. Devotion ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the eyes that met his were remarkable for other reasons than the sheer loveliness of them, in that, even in the one flash of them he caught, they meant so many things at one time. They were sparkling, yet mournful; and they were wistful, although undeniably lively with the gayest comprehension of the recipient of their glance, seeming to say, "Oh, it's you, young man, is it!" And they were shy and mysterious with youth, ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... home!—The winds and waves are singing The mournful music of their parting song, To soul and sense the sad forboding bringing, Some ill detains thee in the town so long: Oh, that the morn may dissipate the fear, And bring good tidings ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... "carefully and all together. Lift!" and all together they were lifted and placed in their stretchers. More play with straps and buckles, more rising and stooping, and then the pale and gasping burdens were at last raised and carried in a mournful procession round the ground. But when they arrived at the place where the ambulance was supposed to be, they had all been dead, three-quarters of an hour. "Dear me," said the Sergeant, "how vexing. ROBINSON, your chin-strap's gone wrong. Now, all together. Drop 'em!" And ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various
... or to get very angry; and so he did neither, whilst Frank went on—"I'm sure you needn't despair either, as far as looks go. There's pretty, smiling, little Bessie—in my opinion the prettiest girl of the two"—Vernon shook his head with mournful impatience—"Well, you think yours prettiest, and I'll think mine," continued Frank; "that's just as it should be; and as I was about to say, if the lovely Bessie can smile upon your humble servant when he talked of love, I don't see why her sister might not be induced to smile upon his ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... while the child slept peacefully in the bed near him, Jose lay thinking of her and of the sharp turn which she had given to the direction of his life. Through the warm night air the hoarse croaking of distant frogs and the mournful note of the toucan floated to his ears. In the street without he heard at intervals the pattering of bare feet in the hot, thick dust, as tardy fishermen returned from their labors. The hum of insects about his toldo lulled him with its low monotone. The call of a lonely ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... hiding-place. How could he warn him of the danger he was in? Suddenly the bound lad was seized by an ingenious idea. Assuring himself by their deep breathing, that his captors were fast asleep, he began to whistle, softly at first, then gradually louder and louder till the weird, mournful strains of the "Funeral ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... to answer for himself. He stood folding his arms and looking in. It was said he had African blood in his veins—barely enough to stain the red of his skin, pinch up his children's hair and give them those mournful, passionate black eyes through which the tragedy of the race always looks. But so vague, so mere a hearsay, was this negro stain, if it existed at all, that he had married a white wife, and moved in society unchallenged by these ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... moved by it, and though familiar with the scene himself, seemed to give way, for the moment, to the same strain of feeling; and, as we exchanged a few remarks suggested by that wreck of human glory before us, his voice, habitually so cheerful, sunk into a tone of mournful sweetness, such as I had rarely before heard from him, and shall not easily forget. This mood, however, was but of the moment; some quick turn of ridicule soon carried him off into a totally different vein, and at about three o'clock ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... as it were in a Vision at shut of the day— When their cavalry smote through the ancient Esdraelon Plain, And they crossed where the Tishbite stood forth in his enemy's way— His gaunt mournful Shade as he bade the King haste ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... this time added a band of music to his train, and to the mournful music which they made on their reed instruments the King and his chiefs marched in front of the Council House, and in the presence of the soldiers whom the Resident had ordered to assemble, publicly tendered his submission to the ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 44, September 9, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... illustration was too abominably just. It was just that. There were even now all these people—these Legitimists—sneering ineffectually; shutting themselves away from the light in their mournful houses and suffering horribly because everything that they ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... buried from the East Room of the White House by the special order of the President, who mourned him as a son. Many brave and able officers were to perish in the four years that followed that mournful day; but there was not one whose death was more sincerely lamented than that of this young soldier who had never seen a battle; and it is the belief of his friends that he had not his superior in natural capacity among all the most eminent heroes of the war. But who ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... led; by dimmer light they are very sullen spectres, and their doom still seems to brood upon them. I know that even Pompeii could not have been joyous that sunless afternoon, for what there was to see of mournful Herculaneum was as brilliant with colors as any thing in the former city. Nay, I believe that the tints of the frescos and painted columns were even brighter, and that the walls of the houses were far less ruinous ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... she watched, a line of silent, blanketed figures from somewhere behind, began to slip down past her hiding place. Looming weird and tall in the dusk they halted at the water's edge. Softly, almost imperceptibly these waiting ones took up the mournful plaint, sending it floating out thin and high in answer to the approaching bearers ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... melancholy Train:— In plaintive notes the breathing flutes complain. And lo! the sorrowing D—— then succeeds, In all the mournful pomp of Widows' weeds. I heard her loud lament and bitter moan, Not for a Husband, but a Title gone. Close by her side I saw the illustrious Dame Whom Wits the Modern Messalina name; Who whisper'd comfort to the mourning Fair, And told of joys ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe
... Terms, That he knows not what he has done; that all which was desirable in this Life is so suddenly vanished from him, that the Charmer of his Soul should withdraw the vital Heat from the Heart which pants for her. He continues a mournful Absence for some time, pining in Secret, and out of Humour with all things which he meets with. At length he takes a Resolution to try his Fate, and explain with her resolutely upon her unaccountable Carriage. He walks up to her Apartment, with a thousand ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... bother to do that, Bill," said a mild, mournful voice, as a dusky figure came round the corner of the house. "I'm all right. I'm purty well straightened out now, and I guess I'll go back home and kinder quiet mother's narves. You see she was rather excited ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... this gallant affair had spread through the camp, and especially after it was known that Logan was mortally wounded, it created a deep and mournful sensation. No one, it is believed, more deeply regretted the fatal catastrophe, than the author of the charge upon Logan's integrity, which had led to ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... dieting treatment, and come back in due time to try and atone for her unfortunate past, did she weep and beg to be allowed to remain at her own dear home? No; she listened in apparently meek and rather mournful submission, and, after her father went away, she ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... Ampthill's towers were seen; The mournful refuge of an injured queen. Here flowed her pure, but unavailing tears; Here blinded zeal sustain'd her sinking years. Yet Freedom hence-her radiant banners waved, And love avenged a realm by priests enslaved. From Catherine's wrongs a nation's bliss was spread, And Luther's ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... my counsel sway you in this case. Your daughter here the princes left for dead; Let her awhile be secretly kept in, And publish it that she is dead indeed: Maintain a mourning ostentation; nd on your family's old monument Hang mournful epitaphs and do all rites That ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... heavily laden at first with a cloud like that on Olympus when the gods are wrathful, by degrees passed from vision, withdrew its form into recesses of dun mists. The angry blue of Capri faded upon a troubled blending of sea and sky; everywhere the horizon contracted and grew mournful; ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... mighty arms renowned above mankind, But, in soft pity to the opprest, a god; This message sends the mournful Cleopatra ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... to sit staring at the man in whose place he should have been; to wonder when those small bright-grey bloodshot eyes would spy him out, and how he would meet that glance. Like a baited raccoon the little man stood, screwed back into a corner, mournful, cynical, fierce, with his ridged, obtuse yellow face, and his stubbly grey beard and hair, and his eyes wandering now and again amongst the crowd. But with all his might Laurence kept his face unmoved. Then came the word "Remanded"; ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... fields, separated them; and how many projects of insurrection did her heated brain plan against hated Heaven. In the warm, starlit nights of summer, from the room of the monk below, rang forth the mournful psalms with which he stormed Heaven. At the same time, the lady sat in her balcony and struck her harp and sang enticing songs, telling all the secrets of a passion-torn soul. The song was intended for a confession of love. ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... the Honourable John Ruffin in the most mournful tone and with the most mournful air. "I can not save you. I've got to go to Buda-Pesth." He walked half-way to the door, turned sharply on his heel, clapped his hand to his head with the most dramatic gesture, and cried: ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... often saw in fancy, when alone, spectral thousands in gray, marching as he once had seen them in actual life. That all had been in vain, was to him one of those mysterious providences to which he could only bow his head in mournful resignation, in patient endurance. He had no hate for the North, for he was broad enough in mind to recognize that it saw the question from its own point of view, and, as a soldier, he knew that its men had fought gallantly. But the North's ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... the carriage appeared, and it was driven so slowly and carefully that it suggested to the poor girl the deliberate and mournful pace of a funeral procession, when all need for haste is past forever, and she sprang down the steps in her intense anxiety, and took some swift steps before she controlled herself. Then pressing her hand on her side, she sank into the seat which Miss ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... moving an inch!" announced the mournful voice from above. "Can't you take hold of it nearer the back, and ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... bosom; it is one great pulse of existence that throbs there. One stream of life flows there, with ten thousand intermingled branches and channels, through all the homes of human love. One sound as of many waters, a rapturous jubilee or a mournful sighing, comes up from, the congregated dwellings ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... after he had closed the door of his room he sighed deeply and looked out of his window into the street at the blinking lamplights. Once more that mournful far-away expression came into his face and he asked himself: "Why? Why is it my fate to lose everything I love? Have I not yet drunk the dregs of my cup ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... Supreme over empires and republics, the inscrutable Dispenser of life, death, happiness, victory. "O brothers," I said to those who heard me first in America—"O brothers! speaking the same dear mother tongue—O comrades! enemies no more, let us take a mournful hand together as we stand by this royal corpse, and call a truce to battle! Low he lies to whom the proudest used to kneel once, and who was cast lower than the poorest: dead, whom millions prayed for in vain. Driven off his throne; buffeted by rude hands; with ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... grievously sick. The Countess, who had great misgivings as to the affection which Amadour bore to her daughter, though she suffered it and concealed it for the sake of the merits she perceived in him, took Florida apart and told her the mournful tidings. Florida, who was well able to dissemble, replied that it was a great loss to the entire household, and that above all she pitied his poor wife, who was herself so ill. Nevertheless, seeing that her mother wept exceedingly, she shed a few tears to bear her company; ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... opinion one that does not exist without first a noble nature, and then a philosophic education, where the eager and active powers are allayed with the gentler and humaner sentiments), may claim in confirmation of his doctrines sundry mournful instances elsewhere, and, in particular, the events that followed among the Romans upon the death of Nero, in which plain proofs were given that nothing is more terrible than a military force moving about in an empire upon uninstructed and unreasoning ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... genuine sentiment possessed Lord Chesterfield, and that was his love for his son. Yet in this affection the worldly man might be seen in mournful colours. He did not seek to render his son good; his sole desire was to see him successful: every lesson that he taught him, in those matchless Letters which have carried down Chesterfield's fame to us when his other productions have virtually expired, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... of all arms fume about as if transacting some important business between the barracks and their officers' quarters. Subalterns hang about the Mess, whacking their legs with small pieces of cane and drinking pegs with mournful indifference. The Colonel sends for everyone who has not the privilege of sending for him, and says nothing to each one, sternly and decisively. The Majors and the officers doing general duty go to the Club and swear before the civilians that they are worked ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... fallen into his hands, and told him that he might expect to be treated in like manner; adding, that if he had any spirit, he would prove it by singing. He immediately chanted forth his death-song, and then his war-song, and all the songs he knew, 'but in a very mournful strain,' says Champlain, who was not then aware that all savage music has a melancholy character. The tortures which succeeded, accompanied by all the horrors which we shall mention hereafter, terrified the French, who made every effort to put a stop to them, but in vain. The following night one ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... romantic landscape of Van Everdingen. This landscape bears a resemblance to the Norwegian country, abounding, as it does, in mountains, heavy dark woods, and rushing torrents. There is considerable poetry in its composition, its gloomy skies, and darkened lights. It is mournful, suggestive, wild, usually unpeopled. There was much of the methodical in its putting together, and in color it was cold, and limited to a few tones. Many of Ruisdael's works have darkened through time. Little is known about the painter's life except that he ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... sunrise I purposed to resume my way to the mountain. Could this interval be appropriated to a better purpose than in counting over my friend's letters, setting them apart from my own, and preparing them for that transcription from which I expected so high and yet so mournful a gratification? ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... stern and severe-looking. She was busy hiving a swarm of bees, alone and unassisted. I do not think my companion would have chosen to speak to her, but seeing her out in her hill-side garden, she made some inquiry in Welsh, which was answered in the most mournful tone I ever heard in my life; a voice of which the freshness and "timbre" had been choked up by tears long years ago. I asked who she was. I dare say the story is common enough, but the sight of the woman, and her few words had impressed me. She ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... with. The fair light of the morning (Tuesday, July 4th) was scarcely sufficient to raise my spirits, and I had left Bois le Duc a good way in arrears before I was thoroughly convinced of my existence; when I looked through the blinds of the carriage, and saw nothing but barren plains and mournful willows, banks clad with rushes, and heifers so black and dismal that Proserpine herself would have given them up to Hecate. I was near believing myself in the neighbourhood of a certain evil place, where I should be ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... their hands deep down among the rubbish; it was long before they appeared able to convince themselves of the reality; over and over again they went through the same action. At last one of them, the most sane of the two, drew himself up, and, pointing to the chest, said in a deep, mournful voice— ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... thy pensiveness serene, Some of thy never-dying green, Put in this scrip of mine, That griefs may fall like snowflakes light, And deck me in a robe of white, Ready to be an angel bright, O sweetly mournful pine. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... remained, as we have already said, in the hands of Glafira Petrovna. He was not yet eight years old when his mother died. It was not every day that he had been allowed to see her, but he had become passionately attached to her. His recollections of her, especially of her pale and gentle face, her mournful eyes, and her timid caresses, were indelibly impressed upon his heart. It was but vaguely that he understood her position in the house, but he felt that between him and her there existed a barrier which she dared ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... and was silent, and, to outward seeming, resigned. She often remarked to her father, that she could, and did, say daily upon her knees, "Thy will be done,"—but that tears always followed that sincere, but mournful, exercise. However her frame at last gave way—she sunk into great weakness of body, and her mind ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 582, Saturday, December 22, 1832 • Various
... limited to a father and an uncle—(to Raoul) You have not even the mournful satisfaction of remembering your mother. (To the Duchess) She died in Mexico, shortly after ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... effort he succeeded in attaching the wreath, and, standing back, surveyed it with mournful pride. ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... finds expression in a variety of sweet elegiac melodies. A German writer says of them, "they are the sorrows of whole centuries blended in one everlasting sigh." The spirit of the past indeed breathes through their mournful strains. The cradle of the Kozak was rocked to the music of clashing swords, and for centuries the country, on both banks of the Dnieper to the northwestern branch of the Carpathian Mountains, the seat ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... in his country for half a century past. But all this can effect nothing. Old Wartensleben thinks of the Daughter he lost; for happily Katte's Mother is dead long since. Old Wartensleben writes to Friedrich Wilhelm; his mournful Letter, and Friedrich Wilhelm's mournful but inexorable answer, can be read in the Histories; but show only what we ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... rolled their angry surges over them; but now the strife is at an end; and the calm that has succeeded is deep as that of the grave. These hills, all unconscious of the past, form a scene of silent and mournful beauty, with fragments of temples protruding through their soil, and humble plants and lowly weeds ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... then have I my head crowned with entwined leaves, who am the unhappy inquirer of the oracle? Servants, undo the bars of the gates; unloose the bolts, that I may behold the mournful spectacle of my wife, who by her death hath ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... isolation from the Western world, pride of race and empire, veneration for their own colossal literature, arrested civilisation and profound contempt for all things foreign, create a picture rich in detail, very mournful in ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... among the little knobby hills to the north of my farm. We were as usual sketching, and Auber had been going on all the afternoon about the mournful scenery, talking of nothing but browns, and grays, and "mountain melancholy." He had a way of stringing out a ceaseless jargon while he worked,—an irritating trick caught in the Paris studios. At the end of the afternoon, he held up a remarkable sketch, suggesting ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... and leered awhile upon the speaker with a sort of mournful triumph, than he lifted up his voice in a very fair imitation of Hardy's ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... with the same gorgeous colouring which it had worn on the evening of the funeral. The sight reminded me of the sad incident, and I wondered whether we were to have a sadder one yet. I sat for some time lost in mournful thought, when there was a slight stir in the cot, and I heard ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... me alone with him?" she said presently. "There is a bell in the room—I could ring if anything—happened," she added with mournful hesitation. ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... out of the tunnel at the other end he caught a glimpse of the distant castle-keep, and the well-remembered walls beneath it. The experience so far transcended the intensity of what is called mournful pleasure as to make him wonder how he could have miscalculated himself to the extent of supposing that he might pass the spot ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... lifelike within it, knocked away the environing stone, that others also might see the mighty figure. And so Beethoven, an artist of the same colossal order, wrote out for us those mysterious harmonies which his ear had for the first time heard; and which, in his mournful old age, it heard none the less plainly because of its complete physical deafness. And in this way Shakespeare wrote his "Othello"; spinning out no abstract thoughts about jealousy and its fearful effects upon a proud and ardent ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... their haunches in a semi-circle immediately in front of the tortured beast, and every time that the fear-stricken buffalo would give vent to his hoarsely modulated groan, the wolves howled in concert in most mournful cadence. ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... "O'er mournful lands and bare, without a sound, Gently, in broadening flakes, descends the snow In velvet layers. Beneath its pallid glow, Silent, ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... to a hamlet, hidden in a hollow; and beneath weeping willows saw many mournful maidens seated on a bank; beside each, a wheel that was broken. "Lo, we starve," they cried, "our distaffs are snapped; no more ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... wrinkling under their blows. It was a damp, gray day—a very dreary day. The snow still lay on the roofs, while on the ground, here and there, were dark spots of mud. And the snow on the roofs, too, was covered with a brownish, muddy coating. The rain trickled slowly, producing a mournful sound. We felt cold ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... on, and, ere we cleared the last lamps of the town, the whole party were once more sunk in sleep, save myself. Hour after hour rolled by, the rain pattering upon the roof, and the heavy plash of the horses' feet contributing their mournful sounds to the melancholy that was stealing over me. At length we drew up at the door of a little auberge; and, by the noise and bustle without, I perceived there was a change of horses. Anxious to ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... very tones in which we spake Had something strange, I could but mark; The leaves of memory seemed to make A mournful ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... centuries the people have sung her praise, and they sing it yet. Of the many folk-songs that have come down from the middle ages, those that tell of Queen Dagmar are the sweetest, as they are the most mournful, for her happiness was as brief as ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... down the river; the oars keeping us in midstream. The endless marshes no longer looked so mournful as we glided rapidly past, and descended the current against which we had so arduously laboured on our ascent to Gondokoro. As we thus proceeded on our voyage through the monotonous marshes and vast herds ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... remained at his post until old age and sickness called him away. His funeral was large, attended by a great number of the members of the church. When his body was carried down the aisle Mr. and Mrs. Beecher, arm in arm, headed the mournful procession. If some great artist could have transferred the scene to canvas and called it the funeral of the old sexton, it could have taken its place among the other great paintings ...
— Sixty years with Plymouth Church • Stephen M. Griswold
... will never be tried,' said Mr. Kendal, with a mournful smile, as if he did not choose to confess that she had divined too rightly the probable effect of trouble ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Stuart was the favourite of misfortune. As Brantome has said of her, "Whoever desires to write about this illustrious queen of Scotland has, in her, two very, large subjects, the one her life, the other her death," Brantome had known her on one of the most mournful occasions of her life—at the moment when she ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... lonely; the hard road echoed under the old cart-horse's hoofs; many a black and desolate tract of forest lay across their twenty miles' ride; more than once the tremulous shriek of a screech-owl smote ominously on Sally's wakeful sense, and quavered away like a dying groan; more than once a mournful whippoorwill cried out in pain and expostulation, and in the young leaves a shivering wind foreboded evil;—but they rode on. Presently Sally's drooping head rose erect; she listened; she laid her hand on the bridle. "Stop, Long!" said she. "I hear ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... leisurely proceeding on its way, when nearing a small town they met a funeral procession coming in their direction. Preceded by the band of women chanting the mournful dirges according to the Galileean custom, the cortege slowly wended its way. The etiquette of the land required strangers to join in the mourning when they came in contact with a funeral procession, and the company ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... of breath. They were cold and wet, and chilled me to a shiver when I touched them. I peered toward the house but could see nothing. I listened, but could hear nothing except the beating of my own heart and the mournful sound of the pines whose loftier branches were stirring in the still air. Grasping the heavy bars I tried to climb the gate, but, as there were no projections on which it was possible to get a foothold, I found this an exhausting and difficult task. I climbed repeatedly several ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller
... throughout the land; when, instead of meeting the calamity with measures of relief, he sought to stifle every important inquiry; when he called that a partial and temporary evil which was both long-lived and universal, he could not look on such a mournful crisis, in which public misfortune was insulted by ministerial apathy, without hailing any prospect of change in the system that produced such a state of feeling. What, he asked, could be said of the ignorance which could attribute the distress to the introduction of machinery, and the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... given out that he is going to Cuba—he makes no secret of one half the story, you see—and Mr. Walraven gives a farewell dinner in honor of the mournful occasion, on Thursday—to-morrow evening. The party is select—very—on your account, you know—only Sir Roger Trajenna, Walraven's lawyer, Sardonyx, and myself. Now, when we're all assembled, discussing your absence, as I'll take care we shall be, and Oleander is telling lies by the yard, do ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... distinguished advocate of that place; a man of some three score years, and of a commanding yet wild and singular aspect. His companion was a well-dressed female of middle age, and comely, though mournful countenance. Some disagreeable topic seemed to have just ruffled both of their tempers, for her face was moist with tears, and darkened with an expression of disappointment. His own was slightly marked with annoyance, and, suddenly ceasing to arrange some folded law papers ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... "Just look at that mournful creature." Patricia motioned with her eyebrows to the opposite side of the room, where a large, stout young woman in somber cloak and wide-plumed hat was eating her way through a chocolate eclair with just such an air of tragic and settled melancholy ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... monarchies of Spain. Alas! at the moment when Ferdinand and Isabella, blessed in the affections of their people, and surrounded by all the trophies of a glorious reign, seemed to have reached the very zenith of human felicity, they were doomed to receive one of those mournful lessons, which admonish us that all earthly prosperity is ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... fear Had driven from the Field, steals softly back, Anxious to know the fate of some lov'd friend. Mutual fears appal the mingled group, Starting alternate at the unknown tongue: They fear a foe in each uncertain form That through the gloom imperfectly appears. The mournful horrors of the doleful night Melt every heart: ... and when the morning's beam Shews the sad scene, and gives an interview, Resentment, that worst torment of the mind, Resentment ceases, satiate wrath subsides. ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... Crich as if her husband were some subtle funeral bird, feeding on the miseries of the people. It seemed to her he was never satisfied unless there was some sordid tale being poured out to him, which he drank in with a sort of mournful, sympathetic satisfaction. He would have no RAISON D'ETRE if there were no lugubrious miseries in the world, as an undertaker would have no meaning if ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... should have been the greatest popular success of which Scotland can boast! And yet there is something almost as pathetic and tragical in the career of the man who worked himself to death, as in that of the man who drank himself to death. The most supremely fortunate writer of his day came to a mournful end, notwithstanding his unparalleled honors and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... And the demolisher of dreams and dwellings was the ticker, that instead of golden jokes was now clicking financial death. They could not take their eyes from the board before them. Their own ruin, told in mournful numbers by the little machine, fascinated them. To be sure, poor Gilmartin said: "I've changed my mind about Newport. I guess I'll spend the summer on my own Hotel de Roof!" And he grinned; but he grinned alone. Wilson, the dry ...
— The Tipster - 1901, From "Wall Street Stories" • Edwin Lefevre
... northward, looking for Macdonald's own galley. As they neared the Cailleach, a low rock midway between both Kyles, it was observed in the distance covered with snow. The night also favoured them, the sea, calm, appearing black and mournful to the enemy. Here they met Macdonald's first galley, and drawing up near it, they soon discovered it to be no other than his own great birlinn, some distance ahead of the rest of the fleet. Macdonald, as soon as he noticed them, called ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... like to know it," returned she. "I fancy he is some relation of that pale Dilly Danforth's, for he has just such mournful eyes." ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... note, and with the fresh, light, frosty air a feeling stirred in the soul akin to the white, youthful, feathery snow. "Against my will an unknown force," hummed the medical student in his agreeable tenor, "has led me to these mournful shores." ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Lucy, missing Quarterly Meeting, and eke bethinking herself of some of those aches and pains of body and forebodings of mind with which the negro is never unprovided, became mournful in her melody, and went to bed sighing and disconsolate. Mary Ellen heard her voice uplifted long and urgently, and suspecting the cause, at length went to ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... looked at him compassionately, and then went out on tiptoe, to return after an interval to thrust in his head, which he gave a mournful shake, and ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... showed the irregular outline of Bosekop, and now and then one or two fishing-boats with sable sails and small colored lamps at mast and prow would flit across the inky water like dark messengers from another world bound on some mournful errand. Human figures, more shadowy than real, were to be seen occasionally moving on the pier, and to the left of the little town, as the eye grew accustomed to the moveless gloom, a group of persons, like ghosts in a dream, could be dimly perceived, ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... and spirits, when nourishing her child. And medical men teach us, that this, in most cases, results from a debility of constitution, consequent on the mismanagement of early life. And so frequent and so mournful are these, and the other distresses that result from the delicacy of the female constitution, that the writer has repeatedly heard mothers say, that they had wept tears of bitterness over their infant daughters, at the thought of the sufferings ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... sound, the Sourd prolongs his mournful cry!' (I. 618.) An insect so called, which emits a short melancholy cry, heard at the close of the Summer evenings, on the banks ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... clock, chiming the hour, vibrated above his head. This time it was midnight. Roland counted the twelve strokes, one after the other. The last hung, quivering upon the air, like a bird with iron wings, then slowly expired, sad and mournful. Just then the young man, thought he heard a moan. He listened in the direction whence it came. Again he heard it, this ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... the same place where, 1000 years before, Samuel had collected the Israelites, and, after prayer and fasting, had sent them forth to free their country from the Philistines. Shiloh, the sanctuary, was then lying desolate, just as Jerusalem now lay in ruins; and yet better times had come. But very mournful was that fast day at Mizpeh, as the Jews looked along the hillside to their own holy mountain crowned by no white marble and gold Temple flashing back the sunbeams, but only with the tall castle of their enemies towering over the precipice. They could not sacrifice, because ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... things, we approach you with confidence, well assured that you will justly appreciate our motive for undertaking the mournful duty we have been deputed to perform, and that the same kind feeling which has marked your course through life will prompt you on this occasion to afford us your countenance, and, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... post. There was scarcely a sound, though now and then a bird twittered somewhere in the foliage and once he beard the mournful hoot of an owl ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... always ginteel," says Mrs. Moloney, openly consoled. Still she sighs, and sips her tea with a mournful air. Mrs. Daly is drinking hers with much appreciation out of her saucer, it being considered discourteous to offer anything to a guest without partaking of the same ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... were the best friends, had I listened with delight, while he compelled it into discourse of music wild and somewhat incoherent still: his present performance had now attained more continuousness and character. It was still mournful, but its sorrows rose and fell naturally, in compliance with the laws of art. I listened till I could listen no longer. Human patience must have its limits. My wife still slept. I descended the stairs, opened the door with as much cautiousness as possible, and prepared to grapple ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... "glad to get rid of them;" the friends present vainly tried to obtain, by solicitations, made, as it would seem, to empty air, some demonstration that this beneficent and wonderful visitation had not indeed wholly ceased. All was useless. A mournful silence filled the apartment which had but a few minutes before been tenanted with angels, sounding out their messages of undying affection, tender counsel, wise instruction, and prescient warning. The spirits indeed were gone; and as one by ...
— Hydesville - The Story of the Rochester Knockings, Which Proclaimed the Advent of Modern Spiritualism • Thomas Olman Todd
... were ranges of stables and kennels, and on the grass-plat in front of the windows was a row of beehives. A tame doe lay on the little green sward, not far from a large rough deer- hound, both close friends who could be trusted at large. There was a mournful dispirited look about the hound, evidently an aged animal, for the once black muzzle was touched with grey, and there was a film over one of the keen beautiful eyes, which opened eagerly as he pricked his ears and lifted his head at the rattle of the door latch. Then, as ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that the remains of her brother should be entombed with his ancestors, preparations were made for the mournful cavalcade to set forth toward Braemar Castle. The countess, hoping that Wallace might be induced to accompany them, did not long object to this proposal, which Lady Ruthven had enforced with tears. Had any one seen the tow, and been called ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... mournful procession commenced, the condemned men were dressed from head to foot in white habiliments trimmed with black; their arms were bound with cords. This is not usual in military executions, but was deemed necessary on the present occasion. An attempt to escape on the part ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... timid conies scour the plains below; Or in the pendent rocks elude the scenting foe. He bade the silver majesty of night, Revolve her circle, and increase her light. But if one moment thou thy face should'st hide, Thy glory clouded, or thy smiles denied, Then widow'd nature veils her mournful eyes, And vents her grief, in universal cries! Then gloomy death, with all his meagre train; Wide o'er the nations spreads his iron reign! Sea, earth, and air, the bounteous ravage mourn, And all their hosts to ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... opened with a restless picturesque morning of gusty sunshine and rolling clouds. There was something rich and stormy and ominous in the air, and a soft rainy sense of solemn impending change, at once brilliant and mournful; a curious sense of intermingled death and birth, as of withered leaves and dreaming seeds being blown about together on their errands of decay and resurrection by the same breath of the unseen creative spirit. Incidentally it meant a rain-storm by ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... Comrade and comforter, sublime in shame, A poor man bound in prison whence he came Poor, and took up the burden of his life Smiling, and strong to strive with sorrow and strife, He spake in England's ear the poor man's word, Manful and mournful, deathless and unheard. His kind great heart was fire, and love's own fire, Compassion, strong as flesh may feel desire, To enkindle pity and mercy toward a soul Sunk down in shame too deep for shame's ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... like a mournful chant. Throughout there is a peculiar wailing which leaves a strange, haunting impression. The music admirably suits the hour when it is used. It would be decidedly incongruous given in broad daylight. These untutored savages could hardly have conjured ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole |
