"Plaintive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with them. To begin with little things, our climate, our birds, our trees, our daily contact with nature, are all different. Your mellow fluting blackbird, your wise thrush that sings each song twice over, your high-fluttering larks we do not know. Our blackbird creaks discordantly, our plaintive lark sings from the meadow tussock, our thrush chimes his heavenly bell from forest dimness. And this accounts, may I suggest in passing, for the insistence upon nature in American writing, from Thoreau ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... the pensive temper of his mind, he bade Emily fetch the lute she knew how to touch with such sweet pathos. As she drew near the fishing-house, she was surprised to hear the tones of the instrument, which were awakened by the hand of taste, and uttered a plaintive air, whose exquisite melody engaged all her attention. She listened in profound silence, afraid to move from the spot, lest the sound of her steps should occasion her to lose a note of the music, or should disturb the musician. ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... the crocodile, no foundation of fact exists for the belief in such sympathetic exhibitions. But a highly probable explanation may be given of the manner in which such a belief originated. These reptiles unquestionably emit very loud and singularly plaintive cries, compared by some travellers to the mournful howling of dogs. The earlier and credulous travellers would very naturally associate tears with these cries, and, once begun, the supposition would be readily propagated, for error and myth ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... two days?—she had been so happy. What did she see? What did she hear? As her only reply to the kiss to which she had so unfortunately been a witness, she broke her crook in an excess of indignation. But it was too much to bear. She fell upon the bank, and uttered a plaintive cry. At that cry—at sight of his poor Daphne fainting upon the grass, he rushed like a madman across the stream, buoyant with love and despair. He ran to his insensate shepherdess, regardless of the exclamations of the fair Clotilde, and raised her in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... notice. One of the squaws fell in love with a gay chintz dressing-gown belonging to my husband, and though I resolutely refused to part with it, all the squaws in the wigwam by turns came to look at "gown," which they pronounced with their peculiarly plaintive tone of voice; and when I said "no gown to sell," they uttered a melancholy exclamation of regret, and ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... because his dusty-gray clothes do not fit, and he walks with a slight stoop. When he wants clothes he telephones for them. His necktie is worn by the right oblique, his iron-gray hair is combed by the wind. On his cherubic face usually sits a half-quizzical, pleased smile, that fades into a look plaintive and very gentle. The face is that of a man who has borne burdens and known sorrow, of one who has overcome only after mighty effort. I was going to say that Edison looks like a Roman Emperor, but I recall that no Roman Emperor deserves to rank with him—not ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... fears he may never get away, that no help will come; that he must abandon his machine and walk miles for assistance. The old chauffeur knows better. It matters not to him how lonely the road, how remote the spot, one or two plaintive blasts of the horn and, like mushrooms, human beings begin to spring up; whence they come is a mystery to you; why they come equally a mystery to them, but come they will, and to help they are willing, to the harnessing of horses and the dragging of the heavy machine ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... of immense rocks—relics of a religion scarcely more cruel than that which had neither pity nor forgiveness at the mouth of the grave. Within their shadow she could die unseen; and there next morning a wagoner, attracted by the plaintive howling of a dog, found her on the ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... round him stretched wide expanses of heather and gorse, broken up by great masses of rock: from a rise in the road he looked about him and saw no sign of a human habitation and heard nothing but the rush of the wind across the moors and the plaintive cry of the sea-birds flapping their way to the cultivated land beyond the barrier of hills. And from that point he saw no sign of any fall or depression in the landscape to suggest the place which he sought. But at the next turn he found ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... converts, a priest who had destroyed his idol, was one night, sleeping on his mat, when his wife, who sat watching beside him, was terribly alarmed by the sight of two small fires gleaming in the doorway, and by the sound of a plaintive and mysterious voice. Her blood curdling with fear, she awoke her husband, with wifely reproaches on his folly in having burned his god, who was now come to be ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... at once." He turned and began quickly retracing his steps. And now he remembered the moving shadow on the wall, as he stood, nearly three hours before, in front of his house, debating with himself whether to enter or no. He heard too, in imagination, the plaintive cries of his sick child, and the soothing melody of its mother's voice as she sought to hush into ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur
... his letter, walked about with the plaintive airs of old melodies running and running through his head, and sang snatches and verses of sad old ballads, going over and over with some touching line, or complaining strain, till he was saturated with its tender melancholy, and so he ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... thirty feet wide. All this time the shrieks of the birds sounded in our ears. Occasionally, those near us were silent; and sometimes the noise around us ceased for a few minutes, when we heard at a distance the plaintive cries of the birds roosting in other ramifications of the cavern. It seemed as if different ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... spinning cotton, and lightened their labor with songs, one of which must have been composed extempore, for I was myself the subject of it. It was sung by one of the young women, the rest joining in a kind of chorus. The air was sweet and plaintive, and the ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... later we were riding in the great courtyard. The place seemed strangely lifeless and silent; indeed, the plaintive mewing of a cat was the only sound to be heard. Presently, however, a dog appeared out of an open doorway. It was a large animal of the mastiff breed, such as might have been expected to bark and become aggressive to strangers. ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... line between the pagan and Christian world, and St Augustine is the great landmark. In literature he discovered that man had a soul, and that man had grown interested in its story, had grown tired of the exquisite externality of the nymph-haunted forest and the waves where the Triton blows his plaintive blast. ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... she said, "that I have gained absolution for my many deceptions until that very forward Miss King has been talked over into marrying Wei; and I insist, therefore," she added, with an amount of hesitancy which reduced the demand to the level of a plaintive appeal, "that we start to-morrow for Ch'engtu to ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... wild Florida forest, and all was still save for the hooting of a distant owl and the occasional plaintive call of a whip-poor-will. In a little clearing by the side of a faint bridle-path a huge fire of fat pine knots roared and crackled, lighting up the small cleared space and throwing its flickering rays in amongst the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the Kingfisher is a sad and solitary bird, caring not to venture far from the water where she finds her food. Up and down the river banks she goes, uttering a peculiar plaintive cry. What is she saying, and why is she so restless? The American Kingfisher is gray, but her cousin of Europe is a bird of brilliant azure with a breast of rusty red. Therefore it must have been the foreign Kingfisher who was ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... intensely Asiatic, with all that the word can mean. Being a city of extremes, the visitor may be brought to his front windows by the warning cries of the footmen of a sojourning maharajah driving in state to a function, while through the rear windows float the plaintive notes of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayers from the minaret of ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... reaching higher than the accompanying of a song so as to set off a tolerable voice, or aid a weak one, and the attracting a circle of beaus round a young lady, while she exhibits the nimbleness of her fingers in the execution of a darling waltz, or touches the hearts of the fond youths with a plaintive melody accompanied with false notes. Thus far, or but little further, does music extend, save in a few scattered instances. Like a plover-call, it is used to allure the fluttering tribe into the meshes; but when it has done its office in that kind, is laid aside for ever. POPE SEXTUS QUINTUS, when ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... class of book. But would he draw the line at stealing a book which deals with thieves? The late Charles Reade appears to have thought that he would not, for he has inscribed not only his name, but the following somewhat plaintive request, 'Please not to steal this book; I value it,' in a volume which Mr. Menken once possessed. The book in question is entitled 'Inventaire general de L'Histoire des Larrons,' Rouen, 1657. This singular ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... hands still warmly held in his, she told him all. In a sad voice, with lowered eyes and quivering lips, she related her plaintive little history, disclosing her unbaptised shame,— her unowned parentage,—her desperately forlorn and lonely condition. ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... his footsteps on the flagstones of the hall. Anne Mie's plaintive singing had died away in the distance. She started, and jumped to her feet, hastily drying her eyes. The momentary dream was dispelled, and she was ashamed ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... calf ten feet from him; on seeing us, he attempted to rise, but, utterly helpless, he bent his body so as to form a circle, concealing his head upon his breast under his huge paws, and uttered a low growl, half menacing, half plaintive. Had we had powder to waste, we would certainly have rid the gramnivorous from many of their carnivorous neighbours, but we were now entering a tract of country celebrated for the depredations of the Texans and Buggles free bands, and every charge of powder thrown away ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... my mind what this should mean, And why that lovely Lady plained so; Perplex'd in thought at that mysterious scene, And doubting if 'twere best to stay or go, I cast mine eyes in wistful gaze around, When from the shades came slow a small and plaintive sound ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... Stronger and stronger the plaintive melody fell from his lips, until finally the orchestra itself joined. Women strained forward, and half-dazed men sat back and listened with bated breath. Even Monte forgot for a moment the boldness that inspired Hamilton, and became conscious only of Marjory's warm fingers within his. So, had the ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... not," said Aunt Clara, with a plaintive and very positive emphasis on the negative particle,—"no, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... said. "I shall never want to put them on again. Oh, Hannah, you are so good to me," she went on in the plaintive voice of an unhappy child, as Hannah brought a warm dressing-gown and made her put it on, and little soft-lined slippers for her feet. "I am so cold," she said, shivering. "Some day you will know, perhaps, how unhappy I am. You don't know half of it now, and I cannot tell you. Oh, you have made ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... meeting was rapturous but tragically short. A dark shape glided upon the scene, and drove a fatal dirk in the young soldier's back. The lady shrieked aloud and swooned away. For the rest of her life she was an imbecile: she never left the castle, and spent her time crooning a plaintive song and rocking a cradle. Her ghost still haunts the place, and those who have ears to hear can, at nightfall, make out, above the sough of the wind, the mournful notes of a weird lullaby, and mysterious cradle-rockings within the ruined walls. Close by ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... eagerly did I drink in these notes! I heard the words, too; yes—I could not be mistaken—they were English. Oh, what sensations did they create! I had an indistinct notion that I had heard them before in the days of my infancy. It was a gentle, plaintive air. Now I should never forget it. I longed to see who was the singer; but she was concealed inside the cottage, and I feared to enter; I dared not even delay longer to listen, for the lash of my master ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... summer day in 1818, Thomas Hughes was riding horseback through Trumbull county. The dust on the highway deadened the sound of his horse's feet. While passing a log cabin, half hidden from the road by intervening trees and shrubs, he heard the plaintive voice of a woman who was in the garden, out of sight. The clergyman stopped his horse and listened. He heard the woman earnestly praying that some way might be opened for her children to obtain such education as should fit them for the duties of life. Riding on, the clergyman inquired ...
— A History of the McGuffey Readers • Henry H. Vail
... song!" exclaimed the highwaymen, clapping their hands and stamping their heels upon the floor. And then, amid the pause which followed, Sophie Tarne began a plaintive little ballad in a sweet, tremulous voice, which ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... her plaintive song. It was not long before a small bird of beautiful plumage flew upon the tree, beneath which she usually sat, and, with its sweet and artless notes, seemed to respond to her voice. It was a bird of strange character, such as she had never seen before. It came every day and sang to her, remaining ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... hours I had so recently called up before him? Or was it the recollection of a still brighter and more recently extinguished "star," which thus troubled his wandering fancy?—There was another pause, and again the fitful breeze of association awakened the sad and plaintive melody of the AEolian lyre; but I could ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... softly in the branches of the 'Tavau' trees, from out the green recesses of the 'Toi' came the plaintive coo of the wood-pigeon. In and out of the branches of the magnificent 'Fau' tree, which overhangs the grave, a king-fisher, sea-blue, iridescent, flitted to and fro, whilst a scarlet hibiscus, in full flower, showed up royally against the gray lichened cement. All around was light and life ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... reading of Menander for no better reason than that a Greek asked that he might carve a statue after me, for what am I to blame, since yourself said my answer was commendable? And in these words there was so plaintive an accent that Azariah's heart was touched, for he guessed that the diverting scene in which the slave arranges for a meeting between the lovers was in the ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:—do ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... music portrayed the rising of the wind, the falling of rain, the roar of thunder. This was succeeded by low, plaintive strains, as of people weeping, and a party of elves in the garb of monks headed a procession bearing lighted tapers and carrying biers, upon which they placed the inanimate forms of the warriors. Slowly they paced about, chanting in low tones, and ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... darkness had now overtaken them. All at once they heard a plaintive little wail behind them. A small figure came flying ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... all the insignia pertaining to the rank of the little princess were disposed in formal order below it, as though at her feet. Then the musicians struck up a passionate passage, ending in a plaintive and truly solemn dirge; after which his Majesty and all the princely company retired, leaving the poor clod to await, in its pagan gauds and mockery, the last offices of friendship. But not always ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... later, wedding plans were in the air, and they were all taking it for granted that Cherry and Martin were to be married almost immediately; in October, in fact. The doctor at first persisted that the event must wait until April, but Martin's reasonable impatience, and Cherry's plaintive "But why, Daddy?" were too much for him. Why, indeed? Cherry's mother had been married at eighteen, when that mother's husband was more than ten years older than Martin ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... she inquired, shuddering, as she glanced at the white screens, behind which an occasional plaintive groan could ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... sand-caverns are of frequent occurrence. There are clumps of scrubby oak completely covered with scarlet honeysuckle and trumpet-flower. While seeking to investigate one of these I startled a hen-quail, which, after whirring rapidly out of sight, returned and manifested much anxiety by plaintive calls. This is a queer place for quail: in the neighborhood of old fields, where they can easily run out and glean a hasty meal from weeds and broken ground, is their chosen ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... was heard a strain of plaintive music. The organ-grinder, for some reason or other, was trying his instrument in his own room; although, remembering the sick child above, he played as softly and slowly as he could. It was the first time he had done so since Cherry had been ill; and ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... took up the plaintive strain. It was so high and sweet and clear that the listener caught her ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... The plaintive song and the dance ceased together, and before Jimbo could find any words to clothe even one of the thoughts that crowded through his mind, he saw them moving towards a door he had not hitherto noticed on the other side of the room. A ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... that Sir Godfrey would not permit any message to be sent, and that if he did, King Edward would not allow the Duke, who was his vassal, to obey it. To the least hint that the Duke might or could himself decline, she refused to listen so decidedly that no one had the heart to repeat it. More plaintive, day by day, grew the dying mother's yearning moans for her best-loved child. In vain Perrote tried to assure her that human love was inadequate to satisfy the cravings of her immortal soul; that God had made her for Himself, ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... return to land, and to its owner. They tell me that it is a creature of considerable sagacity. The young seal mentioned above made his escape over the gangway, and got to sea. I am glad of it; for its plaintive lowing was painful to me. We saw it afterwards making ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... realized, for when he found that his appeal would not be successful, he got into quite a frantic condition. He threw himself on his knees, and held up his hands, wringing them in plaintive supplication, and poured forth a torrent of entreaty, with the tears rolling down his cheeks, and his whole face and form expressive of ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... the very edge of Pevensey Level, the only considerable structure between Pevensey and the main land proper. In the intervening miles there are fields and fields, through which the Old Haven runs, plaintive plovers above them bemoaning their lot, and brown cows tugging at the rich grass. On the first hillock to the right of the castle as one fronts the south, rising like an island from this sea of pasturage, is Hurstmonceux church, whose shingled spire shoots into the sky, a beacon to ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... this time was a low long-drawn moan, so exceeding plaintive and full of pain that it made Fleda shake like an aspen. But after a moment she spoke again, bearing more heavily with her hand to ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... have you heard, Up on the lonely rath's green mound? Only the plaintive yellow-bird Singing in sultry fields around? Chary, chary, chary, chee-e! Only the grasshopper and the bee? "Tip-tap, rip-rap, Tick-a-tack-too! Scarlet leather sewn together, This will make a shoe. Left, right, pull it tight, Summer days are warm; Underground ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... hear the men and women singing on their homeward way some plaintive Cornish songs, which to me blended sweetly with the low sighing of ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... streets with their noise of children and possibly vulgar contact, strolled through "Lovers' Lane." The old trees met overhead; there were dooryards full of sweet, old-fashioned flowers, and now and then the sound of a weak piano or a plaintive voice. ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... sparkling stone That, from out the blue waves taken, looks a pebble dull alone. 'For within my heart forever Was a never-dying river, Was a spring of deathless music welling from my deepest soul! And all Nature's deep intonings, Merry songs, and plaintive meanings, Floated softly through my spirit, swelling where those bright waves stole, Till the prisoning walls seemed powerless 'gainst that billowy ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... and custom was in the bare arms and the two hands crossed on the chest and throat, with fingers spread in vain attempt to cover the whole; and in the plaintive simplicity of ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... plaintive look that did it, or the consciousness that I was a superior being, and had his little life (to a certain extent) at my command, just as our Father above has mine; but anyway, in his wounded state I knew that death was his best friend. Looking round I at once realized what ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... again, the babe, Like to the castaway of the raging surf, Lies naked on the ground, speechless, in want Of every help for life, when nature first Hath poured him forth upon the shores of light With birth-pangs from within the mother's womb, And with a plaintive wail he fills the place,— As well befitting one for whom remains In life a journey through so many ills. But all the flocks and herds and all wild beasts Come forth and grow, nor need the little rattles, Nor must be treated to the humouring nurse's Dear, broken chatter; nor seek ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... external world. Instead of this, we have sucked in with the milk of our Puritan mothers a forlorn and sorrowful spirit. We celebrate our festivals with a sad countenance. We attempt to make merry by singing dismal psalms. We weave our woes into poetry, and expand our wretchedness in plaintive declamations. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... shades of night fall, when torches are brought, amid much salaaming, and the cavalcade defiles, through the city, back to the palace. Lights are twinkling from the higher casements and reflected on the lake below; the gola[G] slave-girls are singing plaintive songs, drum and conch answer from the open courtyards. The palace is awake. The Raja, we will romantically presume, bounds lightly from his horse and dances gaily to the harem to fling himself voluptuously into the luxurious arms of one of the five-and-twenty ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... to look up for the first time in a long space and saw that the sky above their heads had grown a dull, leaden color. They were no longer sitting in the midst of sunlight; the lady's-slippers had lost their golden radiance; the brook sounded plaintive and melancholy, and from the woods fringing the open came ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... melancholy than even the wailing of the night wind among the leafless trees of the forest. This was followed by—an ode shall I call it?—or a hymn?—for it was not what we mean by a song. Nor was the music like any other music I had ever heard, but much more full of passion; broken, wild, plaintive, triumphant by turns, it stirred all the deepest feelings of the heart. It seemed to be the language of one in captivity, who, refusing to sing one of the songs of his country for the gratification of his conquerors, broke out into passionate strains of patriotism, in which he exalted his ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... the boy struck another chord, all laughter was hushed, and he began to sing; it was a simple, plaintive little song, but there was a magic in his voice which held the listeners spellbound. The last rays of the setting sun played about his golden curls, and lit up his sweet, childish face, as ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... submitted to our inspection by a descendant, and from which we have made some extracts, contain numerous poetical compositions worthy of being presented to the public. A vein of humour pervades the majority of his verses; in the elegiac strain he is eminently plaintive. He is remembered as a man of excellent dispositions and eminent social qualities: he sung with grace the songs of his country, and delighted in humorous conversation. His elder brother was proprietor of Garnkirk, and his son, who bore the same ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... rested on the valley now. Only from the trees came the plaintive twittering of birds which had come in from frozen weeds and fence-rows and at the thresholds of the boughs were calling to one another. It was not their song, but their speech; there was no love in it, but there was what for them perhaps corresponds to our sense of ties. It ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... the head, and a little, low, plaintive whistle, is the only reply, but they speak in thunder of boa-constrictors, anacondas, and ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... texture; after thirty, there is an effect of premature senility: the skin is yellowish, leathery, and wrinkled as the faces of old women are wrinkled: the upper lip is traversed by vertical wrinkles, and wrinkles come around corners of the mouth. The expression is juvenile, effeminate or plaintive. ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... as naive and as unsophisticated as a schoolgirl, and it made the little man's heart ache to hear the plaintive monotony of tone ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... We heard the far bells of the cows Come slowly jangling towards the house; And still, and still, Beyond the light that would not die Out of the scarlet-haunted sky; Beyond the evening-star's white eye Of glittering chalcedony, Drained out of dusk the plaintive cry Of ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... a few moments for the little party to reach the third floor. Then from above came a plaintive voice. ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... castle is so dilapidated inside that a tarrying in the upper chambers is scarcely advisable. The lower rooms of the castle have been repaired, and are used as prisons; and as we passed, arms were stretched forth from some of the barred windows, and plaintive voices entreated the passers-by to bestow some trifle upon the poor inmates. Upwards of 140 prisoners are said ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... him with plaintive appeal. "I know all that. I know it. Don't you realize that the longer the flight into the open blue of the skies, the harder the return to a gilt cage? But, dearest—there is such a thing as keeping one's parole. I must go back, unless I am held by a force stronger than I. I must go back. ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... by the door, but she went on tiptoe toward the couch, fearing her light footsteps might disturb the emperor. Yet before she had reached the divan she stopped still, and then she heard the plaintive rattle in the sufferer's throat, and from the background of the room the easy breathing of the burly physician and of old Adventus, both of whom had fallen asleep; and then a peculiar tapping. The lion beat the floor with his tail with pleasure ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... in the New-York Tribune. Mr. GREELEY conceives some of his most brilliant editorial articles while churning the mercurial milk of the Chappaqua farm into butter; or vexing the gracious grain with the flying flail; or listening to the pensive murmurings of the plaintive pigs, and the whispered cadences of the kindly cattle. RICHARD GRANT WHITE can't write, it is said, until a towel moistened with Cologne water is applied to his nostrils. Sometimes, however, he varies the monotony ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... lass was Marie, petite, And she looked full fair and passing sweet— And, oh! she owned—but cannot you guess What pet can a maiden so love and caress As a tiny lamb with a plaintive bleat ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... under whose care she rallied after a short period. Emmy, when she went away from Brompton, endowed Mary with every article of furniture that the house contained, only taking away her pictures (the two pictures over the bed) and her piano—that little old piano which had now passed into a plaintive jingling old age, but which she loved for reasons of her own. She was a child when first she played on it, and her parents gave it her. It had been given to her again since, as the reader may remember, when her father's house ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sensibilities are strangely exaggerated. It was not perhaps to be wondered at that Octavia fainted when Virgil in reading from his great poem came to the line beginning Tu Marcellus eris: It is not hard to believe the story told of one of the two Davidson sisters, that the singing of some of Moore's plaintive melodies would so impress her as almost to take away the faculties of sense and motion. But there must have been some special cause for the singular nervous state into which this reading threw the young girl, our Scheherezade. She was doubtless tired ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... With a nameless burden upon her heart, And the light of youth forever fled. And she sits a swaying to and fro, Like the billowy pine with plume and cone, While a minor strain subdued and slow, She sings in a plaintive monotone: ...
— The American Missionary, October, 1890, Vol. XLIV., No. 10 • Various
... drawing-room, and again the soft melody of half-suppressed music, scarcely audible, yet every note distinct, floated to his chamber, and the guest scarcely breathed that he might hear. There was something so plaintive, so melting in the tones that they saddened as well as delighted. How the heart can melt out at the finger-points when touching the keys of a sweetly-toned instrument! It is thrown to the air, and in its plaint makes sweet music of its melancholy. Like harmonious spirits chanting in their ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... the stairs and returned in a moment with the mandolin. Softly touching a note, she seated herself and began to sing, accompanying her song with the little half-doubtful touch on the plaintive strings. ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... have gone two hours ago," he said, with a plaintive smile, in reply to our invitation; "but, really, I am feeling the need of a cup of tea" (and no wonder!) "and I think I ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... her. For at the close the King put up his hand to command silence, and so waited, with his hand up, till every sound was dead and it was as if one could almost the stillness, so profound it was. Then out of some remote corner of that vast place there rose a plaintive voice, and in tones most tender and sweet and rich came floating through that enchanted hush our poor old simple song "L'Arbre Fee Bourlemont!" and then Joan broke down and put her face in her hands and cried. Yes, you see, ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... heifer to be minced in it under adze and axe, and he to be brought into the bath." All that thing was done as he said. His trumpeters then before him to the dun. They play then until thirty of the special friends of Ailill die at the long-drawn (or plaintive) music. He goes then into the dun, and he goes into the bath. The female company rise around him at the vat for rubbing, and for washing his head. He was brought out of it then, and a bed was made. They heard something, the lament-cry on Cruachan. There were seen the three ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... at first faint, now grew louder. It began with a series of mellow, plaintive clucks that followed thickly one upon another, like smooth pearls of sound that rolled through the throat in a continuous current; then came a few sharp notes as of a large bird that snaps his bill; then a long, half-melodious rumbling, intermingled ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... a manly step upon the pathway silenced her plaintive melody. The next moment the vines, that formed a verdant curtain about the otherwise unprotected casement, were gently drawn back, and a face appeared at ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... plaintive lute! And pour thy soft consoling tone, While I, a list'ning mourner mute, Will call each tender grief ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... 'to bring the man to his senses': but an ultra-Irishman did not compromise her battle-front, as the busybody supplications of a personal friend like Mr. Redworth did; and that the latter, without consulting her, should be 'one of the plaintive crew whining about the heels of the Plaintiff for a mercy she disdained and rejected' was bitter ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... it was only for form's sake, and that he himself no longer meant what he said. Madame Desvarennes received this plaintive remonstrance with a calm smile, and answered, maternally, as ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... rein slacken on Cambaceres. As to him, he would rather keep quiet and drag the cart no longer; but there are two things necessary which he must provide for on pain of death.—"It will not do," says he in plaintive tones, "to keep on printing the assignats at night which we want for the next day. If that lasts, ma foi, we run the risk of being strung up at a lantern...Go and find Hourier-Eloi, as he has charge of the finances, and tell him that we entreat him to keep us a-going for a fortnight ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... something first, I suppose," she answered vaguely. "I should have been queen if you hadn't been born, Augustin." Her tone now became rather plaintive. ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... few moments, the ripple changed to a plaintive minor accompaniment, that had in it an undertone as of far-off winds and waves. Then the full, clear voice of the girl rang out in that most beautiful of songs, which alone should make famous the genius of Jean Ingelow and ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... Bangs a very particular woman," she said, with plaintive impressiveness to her husband. "If she is willing to send her Gwendolen to Miss Whyte, I am disposed to let Margery, Gladys, and Dorothy go. Only you must have a very clear understanding with Miss Whyte, at the outset, as to hours ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... beginning I thought she was acting with more effort and less effect than in the original performance; but as the play went on she abandoned herself more and more simply to the part she was acting, and in the death scene had a kind of quiet, poignant, reticent perfection. A plaintive figure out of tapestry, a child out of a nursery tale, she made one feel at once the remoteness and the humanity of this waif of dreams, the little princess who does know that it is wrong to love. In the great scene by the fountain in the park, Mrs. Campbell expressed the supreme unconsciousness ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... ceased. The Fates suppress'd his laboring breath, And his eyes stiffen'd at the hand of death; To the dark realm the spirit wings its way (The manly body left a load of clay), And plaintive glides along the dreary coast, A naked, wandering, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... excepting Mr. Jarvis, who was tickling one of the cats and whistling a plaintive melody) there was a tendency toward awkward silence. To start assailing a seeming nonentity and then to discover he is the proprietor of the paper to which you wish to contribute is like kicking an apparently empty hat and finding your rich uncle inside ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... chants a joyous song; The thrush is busy in the wood, 25 And carols loud and strong. A thousand lambs are on the rocks, All newly born! both earth and sky Keep jubilee, [B] and more than all, Those boys with their green coronal; 30 They never hear the cry, That plaintive cry! which up the hill Comes from the ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... an epithet in very common misuse. It is often brought into play, especially in its plaintive sense, in situations, where, poor thing, it scarcely knows itself, and where there is not the slightest provocation to account for the use of it. It is degraded to the condition of a mere expletive; and, where there is a real good call for it, how often is it thrust upon the wrong person, the one ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... henroost or bagged an unsuspecting pig. Our soldiers have rendered animal life almost extinct in this part of the Old Dominion. Indeed, wherever the army goes, there can be heard on every side the piercing wail of expiring pork, the plaintive lowing of a stricken bovine, or suppressed ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... at Rosebury," said little Daisy, in a very sad and plaintive voice. "I don't think London is at all a cheerful place. We made a great mistake about it, didn't we, Jasmine? Oh, Jasmine, darling, you are not going to leave me by myself, for I really don't ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... When it came to my turn to watch, I walked round the ramparts to keep myself awake, for I was well aware of the cunning of the Cashibos, and that they always make their attacks at night. As I stopped for a moment, a long, shrill plaintive cry came through the night air, followed by three others of the same length, gradually deepening in tone, and which had a peculiarly melancholy expression. At first I thought the cry must have arisen ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... was slow, tender, and plaintive, and borne by the deep voice over all the breadth of the moon-lit river. Winnie's breath was fuller drawn; the skipper held his, and forgot his helm; and in every pause of the song, the sweet interlude was played by the water under the ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... time in his life that he had ever encountered outside of the Bible a mind of the highest order, or listened to it, as it delivered over to mankind the astounding treasures of its knowledge and wisdom in accents of appealing, almost plaintive modesty. ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... Shakespearian Illyria. There is so often a threatening note, something blatant and metallic, in the voice of bells, that I believe we have fully more pain than pleasure from hearing them; but these, as they sounded abroad, now high, now low, now with a plaintive cadence that caught the ear like the burthen of a popular song, were always moderate and tunable, and seemed to fall in with the spirit of still, rustic places, like the noise of a waterfall or the babble of a rookery in spring. I could have asked the bell-ringer for his blessing, good, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... finally, he rapidly recounted the manner in which each of their friends had fallen, never failing to touch upon their courage, and their most acknowledged virtues. When this recital of events was ended, his voice once more changed, and became plaintive and even musical, in its low guttural sounds. He now spoke of the wives and children of the slain; their destitution; their misery, both physical and moral; their distance; and, at last, of their unavenged wrongs. Then suddenly lifting his voice to a pitch of ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... for some sound; for without raising his looks from the rude pavement, he turned to every corner of it with an intent and anxious expression of countenance. He held in one hand a staff, in the other a long slender cord, the end of which trailed on the ground; every now and then he called, with a plaintive voice, "Fido, Fido, come back! Why hast thou deserted me?" Fido returned not; the dog, wearied of confinement, had slipped from the string, and was at play with his kind in a distant quarter of the town, leaving the blind man to seek his way as he might ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... their parts in the London world and ended them. But not a few were foreign—vivacious Northerners from New York, with the sublimated wealth of all Paris in their petticoats; Southerners whose eyes were still plaintive with memories of the Civil War; Austrians such as the von Hugels; Germans such as Countess Marie and Countess Helen Bismarck; and Russians whose figures and faces I remember much ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... had merely fainted, and one or two simple remedies brought her round very quickly. She opened her golden-brown eyes and looked up into mine. The unaccustomed horror of what she had just gone through had not yet died out of them; they held a plaintive, pleading look that somehow went straight ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... sha'n't wear them one moment more." Bertie eluded her attack, and stood laughing on the other side of the table. "Oh, Bertie!" suddenly growing very plaintive, "why did you let me smell ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... banjo striking soft staccato chords. He mustered the men, he raced the horses with excited calls of "Git up thar," and gave clever imitation of fleeing hoofs, "to-bucket, to-bucket, to-bucket," in a rapid, low, chanting song. Then the leading hound opened with a plaintive bay "how!-oo-oo-oo, how!-oo-oo-oo," and one by one the others joined in with varying notes till it swelled to a weird chorus of baying hounds which the banjo and the musician's voice made most realistic. Next the fox was spied and there were cries ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... in Rome, Agnes was awakened from sleep by a solemn dropping of bell-tones which seemed to fill the whole air, intermingled dimly at intervals with long-drawn plaintive sounds of chanting. She had slept profoundly, overwearied with her pilgrimage, and soothed by that deep lulling sense of quiet which comes over one, when, after long and weary toils, some auspicious ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... low grounds were covered with wild oats and rich grasses; affording excellent pasturage to the deer, which could be seen roving about in herds. Lakes of various sizes were alive with waterfowl, whose shrill and plaintive cries filled the air with wild melody. A noble river coursed throughout the entire length of the valley, and its banks were clothed with oaks, cypresses, and chestnuts, while, up on the mountain sides, firs of truly gigantic size reared their straight stems above the surrounding trees ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne
... visitors who were wont to flock into the city during the season had gone elsewhere to recruit their health on the sands and lose their money at the gaming-tables. They had been frightened to the coasts of France by the apparition of Carlism, and San Sebastian was plaintive. Her streets and her coffers were empty. The campamento of bathing-huts was ranged as usual on the velvet rim of the ear-like bay, but no bathers were there. There were more domestics than guests in the hotels; and ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... delicious gloamings. Bats whirl and squeak in the odorous dusk. Night hawks whiz and boom, and over the dark forest wall a prodigious moon miraculously rolls. Fire-flies dart through the grass, and in a lone tree just outside the fence, a whippoorwill sounds his plaintive note. Sweet, very sweet, and ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... in the hall, watching them as they walked out together. There was joy in her heart—ay, and envy. The two brought tears to her eyes and struggled which should make the better claim to them. "But they do like me!" she said in a plaintive yet glad little cry, as she was left alone ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... as the Good Samaritan menaced the priest and Levite. In the sense that virtue ever menaces vice, and right constantly menaces wrong, Sardinia was a menace to Austria;—and as we often find the wrongdoer denouncing the good as subverters of social order, we ought not to be astonished at the plaintive whine of the master of thrice forty legions at the conduct of the decorous, humane, and enlightened ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... neighbours in the steerage had now come to our assistance, expressing loud sorrow that such 'a fine cheery body' should be sick; and these, claiming a sort of possession, took him entirely under their own care. The drug had probably relieved him, for he struggled no more, and was led along plaintive and patient, but protesting. His heart recoiled at the thought of the steerage. 'O let me lie down upon the bieldy side,' he cried; 'O dinna take me down!' And again: 'O why did ever I come upon this miserable voyage?' And yet once more, with ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... poet was not an "Iris en air." Shenstone was early in life captivated by a young lady, whom Graves describes with all those mild and serene graces of pensive melancholy, touched by plaintive love-songs and elegies of woe, adapted not only to be the muse but the mistress of a poet. The sensibility of this passion took entire possession of his heart for some years, and it was in parting from her that he first sketched his exquisite ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... serenity of the evening induced us to pass the barrier of the chain-pier, and bend our steps towards the projecting extremity of that ingenious structure. An old Welsh harper was touching his instrument with more than usual skill for an itinerant professor, while the plaintive notes of the air he tuned accorded with the solemnity of the surrounding scene. "I could pass an evening here," said the countess, in a somewhat contemplative mood, "in the society of kindred spirits, with more delightful gratification ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... of course we fell in love with each other. Poor little thing, how pretty she used to look in those days, standing on Jack's movable platform, with her hair falling loose about her face, and a heap of primroses held up in her petticoat!—such a patient plaintive look in the sweet little mouth, as much as to say, 'I'm very tired of standing here; but I'm only a model, to be hired for eighteenpence an hour; go on smoking your cigars, and talking your slangy talk about the turf and the theatres, ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... produced by our different and changeful moods. We make and unmake a world more than once in the space of a single day. In trifling moods all seems trivial. In serious moods all seems solemn. Is the song of the nightingale merry or plaintive? Is it the voice of joy or the harbinger of gloom? Sometimes one, and sometimes the other, according to our different moods. We hear the ocean furious or exulting. The thunder-claps are grand, or angry, according to the different states of our mind. Nay, the very church bells ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... you think of her, Miles?" the dear girl asked, uttering the words in a tone so low and plaintive as to say ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... precedes him, and knowing this the fox comes out of his little hole and calls through the jungle that the tiger is out. Hence, here in the night when the moonlight falls on the thickest gloom, following the plaintive cry, the cunning fox, the servant of our mother, threads its way through the jungle giving the warning to ...
— Kari the Elephant • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... Scotch poet, born near Loch Leven, in poor circumstances, in the parish of Portmoak; studied for the Church; died of consumption; his poems singularly plaintive and pathetic; his title to the authorship of the "Ode to the Cuckoo" has been matter ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... went about the preparation of their evening meal with a plaintive quietness. Juno, too, seemed oppressed, for after a tentative wriggle of her stump of a tail she settled back on her haunches, eyes fixed on ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... suffering. Off to the left, between them and the negro quarters, were two or three fires, around which the Union soldiers were reclining, some already asleep after the fatigues of the day, others playing cards or spinning yarns, while one, musically inclined, was evoking from a flute an air plaintive and sweet in the distance. Further away under the trees, shadows in shadow, the horses were dimly seen eating their provender. The Confederate prisoners, smoking about a fire, appeared to be taking the "horrors of captivity" very quietly and comfortably. At the quarters they heard the sound of ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... to-night at the Russians' villa. Tea was made out of a samovar, which is something like a small steam engine, and whose principal advantage is that it burns the fingers of all who lay their profane touch upon it. After tea Madame Z. played Russian airs, very plaintive and pretty; so the evening was Muscovite from beginning to end. Madame G.'s daughter danced a tarantella, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the washboard that sloped down into the water. As they washed they held the linen in one hand, and rubbed it with the other; then heaped it into a mass upon the board and beat it with great two-handed blows of a stick. They sang, meanwhile, one of those plaintive airs of which the Italian peasants are fond, and which rose in indescribable pathos, pulsing with their blows, and rhythmic with the graceful movement of their forms. Many of the women were young,—though they were of all ages,—and the prettiest among them was third from where we stood upon ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... over all the songs and stories was the trail of tragedy, under all the heart-ache of a hunted race. There are few more plaintive chants in the world than the recitation of the Psalms by the "Sons of the Covenant" on Sabbath afternoons amid the gathering shadows of twilight. Esther often stood in the passage to hear it, morbidly fascinated, tears of pensive pleasure ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... note of sorrow in it now. It was no longer the loud, defiant howl, but a long, plaintive wail; "Blanca! Blanca!" he seemed to call. And as night came down, I noticed that he was not far from the place where we had overtaken her. At length he seemed to find the trail, and when he came to the spot where we had killed ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... still, For England's sake, must keep great foreign kings Her suitors, wedding no man till she died. Nor did she know how, in her happiest hour Remembered now most sorrowfully, the moon, Vicegerent of the sky, through summer dews, As that sweet ballad tells in plaintive rhyme, Silvering the grey old Cumnor towers and all The hollow haunted oaks that grew thereby, Gleamed on a casement whence the pure white face Of Amy Robsart, wife of Leicester, wife Unknown of the Queen's lover, a frail bar To that proud Earl's ambition, quietly gazed And heard ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... lifeblood, so freely shed, had wiped away all stains upon his memory, and enshrined him in the hearts of Snowdon's people as a martyr. He was the first dead soldier returned to them, his the first soldier's grave in their churchyard; and so a goodly throng were there, with plaintive fife and muffled drum, to do him honor. His major was coming with him, it was said—Major Stanley, who had himself been found, in a half-fainting condition watching by the dead—Major Stanley, who had seen that ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... advance, and I followed behind, driving the rest after him, according to the system of march I had adopted in the morning. As soon as the two natives saw us moving on, and found Wylie did not join them, they set up a wild and plaintive cry, still following along the brush parallel to our line of route, and never ceasing in their importunities to Wylie, until the denseness of the scrub, and the closing in of night, ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... to the balcony and parlour. A chorus of hens, chickens, and guinea-fowls, varies the entertainment; while the majestic 'perjuil,' or peacock, perched on his regal box, the guano roof, applauds the performance below in plaintive and heart-rending tones. Before I am up and stirring, a dark domestic brings me a tiny cup of boiling coffee and a paper cigarette, and waits for further orders. Don Severiano proposes a stroll (he tells me) through ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... Sung in a plaintive minor key, and in a wild, irregular rhythm, the dirge was far more impressive than the words ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... to hobble downstairs with his crutch, I used to fly back to Jack, and put a few finishing touches to her toilet, for I knew by experience that she would make her appearance downstairs with a crooked parting and a collar awry, and be grievously plaintive when Carrie found fault with her. Talking never mended matters; Jack was at the hoiden age, and had to grow into tidiness and ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... on their knees. The music gave out sharp plaintive notes which were answered by the voices of men and women in short, wailing, as it were inquiring, rhythm; this continued till the sun was on the point of disappearance, when music and voices together burst ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... legs spread out, And blood-extracting bill, and filmy wing, Dost murmur, as thou slowly sail'st about, In pitiless ears full many a plaintive thing, And tell how little our large veins should bleed, Would we but yield them ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... stopped. The music dropped with a shock from its fiery enthusiasm. Was it only an echo, or an army of ghosts crossing a dim field, long since fought over—the steady tramp, tramp, the pendulum of time? Unutterably wailing, pitiful, it sent plaintive, piercing cries up to the calm, dead heavens. All the fearful sights he had seen rose before him. Upturned lay faces calm in death as in a child's sleep, with all camp roughnesses swept away in that still ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... left suffering at Frederick. General Wool still walked the corridors, inexpansive, with Fort McHenry on his shoulders, and Baltimore in his breeches-pocket, and his courteous aid again pressed upon me his kind offices. About the doors of the hotel the news-boys cried the papers in plaintive, wailing tones, as different from the sharp accents of their Boston counterparts as a sigh from the southwest is from a northeastern breeze. To understand what they said was, of course, impossible to any but an educated ear, and if I made out "Stoarr" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... is 'Smith' with a final 'e,' if you please," corrected the reverend gentleman in a plaintive tone. "My name is not 'Smith,' ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... was a doctor. At this discovery my hopes went up several degrees, and I determined to test his medicine chest. Putting on a look of utter exhaustion, with both my hands on my abdomen, and assuming the most plaintive voice I could muster, I said: "Doctor, I have made a long march to-day, and feel utterly broken up; have you not some spirits in your medicine chest that you could prescribe for me? I am sure it would be a great relief." He looked ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... for some hours. For the few last miles the road was intricate, and it passed through a desert waste of marshes and lagoons. The scene by the dimmed light of the moon was most desolate. A few fireflies flitted by us; and the solitary snipe, as it rose, uttered its plaintive cry. The distant and sullen roar of the sea scarcely broke the stillness ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... three of the men hunting in a bank opposite, covered with undergrowth and small shrubs. They told me that for the past three days a kitten had been heard mewing, but in spite of all their efforts to find it, they had failed to do so. I listened, and sure enough heard a plaintive mew. The place was a network of clinging roots, but presently I crawled in and found it was just possible to get along on hands and knees. It was most mysterious—the kitten could be heard quite loud one minute, and when we got to the exact spot it would be some distance ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... came on, and return for the tramp magician, or the comic musician, who played upon joints of stovepipe and the legs of reception-chairs and the like, and scratched matches on his two days' beard, and smoked a plaintive air on a cigarette. But when the 'playlets' began following one another in unbroken succession, I did not know what to do. Almost before I was aware of their purpose three of the leading vaudeville houses threw off the mask, ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... comrades who made fun of one another and were prosaic and pounded their heels on the packing-boxes—and knew that they were parting to face death. Carl felt Forrest Haviland's hand on one shoulder, then an awkward pat from tough Jack Ryan's paw, as Tony Bean's violin turned the plaintive half-light into music, and broke its heart in ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... from farther up. The feeling of speed increased. After long minutes the plane was only a few thousand feet up. The pilot took over manual control from the automatic pilot. He seemed to wait. There was a plaintive, mechanical beep-beep ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... was more plaintive than the words. The confidence of that young girl was all the world to her; for, independent of everything else, it was the one human link that bound her to the man she loved with such passionate idolatry. ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... uttered long, plaintive, mournful groans, to which the young man replied by similar groans, and thus days and nights passed, without their ceasing to howl at each other. The one was continually walking round the house, and scraped the walls with his nails so vigorously that it seemed as if he wished ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... increased from the first to the last. Across the ravine, one of the loom fixers found the evening warm enough to sit on the porch playing his guitar. The sound of the twanging strings, and the appealing vibration of his young voice in a plaintive minor air, came over to her. She gathered the sheets together and pressed them to her face as though they were flowers, or ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... in Amalia's music. Certain melodies that she said her father had made he loved especially, and sometimes she would accompany them with a plaintive chant, half singing and half recitation, of the sonnet which had inspired them, and which had been woven through them. It was at these times that Larry listened with his elbows on his knees and his eyes fixed on the fire, and Harry ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... is NICE!" Sam said, in a tone of plaintive sarcasm. "This is a PERTY way to do!" (He was alluding to the personal spitefulness of the elements.) "I'd like to know what's the sense of it—ole sun pourin' down every day in the week when nobody needs it, then cloud up and rain all Saturday! My father said ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... rushed into the crowd now, as if to break through it. The audience ceased to howl, so as to look with greater attention. Amidst the howling and whining were heard yet plaintive voices of men and women: "Pro Christo! Pro Christo!" but on the arena were formed quivering masses of the bodies of dogs and people. Blood flowed in streams from the torn bodies. Dogs dragged from each other the bloody limbs of people. The odor of blood and torn entrails ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... and mix, while evermore, Now and again, A plaintive, puzzled cadence comes, A low refrain, Caught from some shadowy memory Of ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... insect! that, with thread-like legs spread out, And blood-extracting bill, and filmy wing, Dost murmur, as thou slowly sail'st about, In pitiless ears, fall many a plaintive thing, And tell how little our large veins should bleed Would we but yield them to ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... it!" The tears coursed fast upon his pale cheeks, and his voice grew almost inaudible, as rocking to and fro, for some time he seemed in a very stupor of grief; when at last, in a faint, subdued tone, he broke into one of those sad and plaintive airs of his country, which only need the moment of depression to make them wring the very heart ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever |
