"Rueful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Marmaduke, recognizing her with rueful astonishment. "You knew I was looking for ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... boards, as if struck with a sledge-hammer, and crash went glass and crockery behind. Tom jumped to his feet, in doubt whether an assault on him would not follow, but the fit was over, and Hardy looked round at him with a rueful and deprecating face. For a moment Tom tried to look solemn and heroic, as befitted the occasion; but somehow, the sudden contrast flashed upon him, and sent him off, before he could think about it, into a roar of laughter, ending in a violent fit of coughing; for in his excitement he had ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... and bound; He star'd, and roll'd his haggard eyes around, Then said: 'Alas! what earth remains, what sea Is open to receive unhappy me? What fate a wretched fugitive attends, Scorn'd by my foes, abandon'd by my friends?' He said, and sigh'd, and cast a rueful eye: Our pity kindles, and our passions die. We cheer youth to make his own defense, And freely tell us what he was, and whence: What news he could impart, we long to know, And what to ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... 'tis a passionate Work!—yet wise and well; Well chosen is the spirit that is here; That Hulk which labours in the deadly swell, This rueful ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... right, and plays checkers with the captain with an air of assumed tranquillity which approaches heroism, but he is observed at irregular intervals to go suddenly and unexpectedly on deck, and to return every time with a more ghastly and rueful countenance. When asked the object of these periodical visits to the quarter-deck, he replies, with a transparent affectation of cheerfulness, that he only goes up "to look at the compass and see how she's heading." I ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... not. I care a great deal more for you,' said Gerald, again rather rueful under her probes. 'I only mean that I'm not likely to fall in love again, or anything of that sort. She can be quite secure about me. I'll be her ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... Freshett looked awful disappointed, and he came up to father, with his back toward mother, and asked: "That's your say too, Mr. Stanton?" Father grinned sort of rueful-like, but he said to give Even So his money and let him go. He told all about getting ours back, and having had him at the house once before. He brought the money Leon took from him, but the men said no doubt he had stolen that, and Leon had earned it bringing him back, ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... his expression subdued to one of rueful pride. "When I am beaten by a better man, I have courage enough to get out of his way and take ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... from her pocket, and with these perched on the bridge of her sharp nose she proceeded to count the notes, while her nephew alternately sipped at his toddy and stroked his chin, meanwhile eyeing his relative's proceedings with somewhat rueful looks. ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... happy and deeply intimate. Philosophy did not seem to catch her mind; and fine phrases encountered a rueful assent, more flattering to their ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the corridors with her boots in her hands," said Mamie with a rueful face, "and get dosed. She'd stamp right along into Miss ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... not etiquette to refuse to dance, and the fact that he was "the Boss's" guest, if only a boy, carried weight. Sarah rose, with a rueful glance at her disappointed swain. The two disconsolate faces ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... Then with a shrug he turned. This was the windmill, indeed, and he a poor knight of rueful countenance. To attack it at closer quarters would mean being dashed to pieces. Yet on the threshold he ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... while Talleyrand looked at him with a slight raising of his bushy eyebrows. De Meneval with a rueful face was turning over the great bundle of papers which had to be copied by morning. Constant, with a noiseless tread, was lighting the candles upon the ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a little rueful silence. It was no laughing matter, this situation. T. A. Buck shrugged his shoulders, and began a restless pacing up and down. "Yep. There you ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... been exceedingly gay and satirical—(in his calm way; he quotes Horace, my favorite bits as an author, to myself, and has a quiet snigger, and, so to speak, amontillado flavor, exceedingly pleasant)—Lankin, with a rueful and livid countenance, descended into his berth, in the which that six foot of serjeant packed ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hour at which it left and the load were all correct so far as his observations had enabled him to check them. It was clear that here also he had drawn blank, and for the fiftieth time he wondered with a sort of rueful admiration how the fraud ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... old, when I was ever for book and thou for bow," said Ambrose; "but I'll make thee rueful for old Michael yet. Hast heard tell of ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... pardon," said the investigator in a rueful tone; then he began to rub his shins. "That was rather hard, ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... several of the others, being roped and tied on ponies, and then his attention was attracted to Dick, who came limping up with a rueful face. ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... Let me conjure thee then, most injur'd excellence! By all the happy hours we liv'd together, Ere one infernal passion seiz'd my heart! Have pity on the harmless, dear-lov'd innocents, Whom I must leave amidst a cruel world! And when you shall my rueful story tell, Be thus far kind, and say, as is the truth, Oh! say, ...
— The Female Gamester • Gorges Edmond Howard
... said, "I leave that to Jasper—I call him my walking account-book. I'm sorry you fellows were let in though; I can't understand it; although"—with a rueful laugh—"I suppose it was my fault with that tenner. Yet, I must say, I noticed the man as he galloped past, and saw ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... the officers, who had dragged off the stunned and insensible gladiator, returned with rueful countenances. They feared for his life; he was utterly incapacitated from ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... the ears in the lees of war, I win a rueful reminder from a stray volume of Hours in a Library. Was the world regenerated between 1848 and 1855? Were English labourers all properly fed, housed and taught? Had the sanctity of domestic life acquired a new charm in the interval, ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... be'nt dyin', after all," was Sam's rueful comment, as he suggested: "Ef massah only clamber ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... and went ashore. I sent my two Provincials foraging with their guns, and we who remained set about to fix our camp for the day and prepare breakfast. A few minutes only passed, and the two hunters came running back with rueful faces to say they had seen two Indians near, armed with muskets and knives. My plans were made at once. We needed their muskets, and the Indians must pay the price of their presence here, for our safety should be had at ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... happen to detain them if Miss Bethia were to stay. And besides it came into his mind that if she doubted about the time of their return, she would go and visit somewhere else in the village, and come back another time. That would be a much better plan, he thought, with a rueful glance at the book he had intended to enjoy all the afternoon. But Miss Bethia had ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... of my family basely fled from the encounter. I must receive our injured friend alone; and the interview must have lasted hard upon an hour, for he was loath to tear himself away. "You go 'way. I see you no more—no, sir!" he lamented; and then, looking about him with rueful admiration, "This goodee ship—no, sir!—goodee ship!" he would exclaim; the "no, sir," thrown out sharply through the nose upon a rising inflection, an echo from New Bedford and the fallacious whaler. From these expressions ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the earl, with rueful emphasis, "I fully understand the proposition, and I tell you, Brett, I don't like it. There has been enough blood spilt in this beastly business already, and I feel a sort of personal responsibility for you, you know, because I ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... untrained lads. There is a quick scuffle, heaving, swaying, rocking, and struggling, and the two victors, leaping into the air, and slapping their chests, bound back into the gratified circle of their comrades, while the two discomfited athletes, forcing a rueful smile, retire and 'take a back seat.' Two couple of more experienced hands now face each other. There is pretty play this time, as the varying changes of the contest bring forth ever varying displays of skill and science. The crowd shout as an advantage is gained, or ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... behind this spectre exhibited also some symptoms of extenuation; but being a brave jolly dame naturally, famine had not been able to render her a spectacle so rueful as the anatomy behind which she rode. Dame Gillian's cheek (for it was the reader's old acquaintance) had indeed lost the rosy hue of good cheer, and the smoothness of complexion which art and easy living had formerly substituted for the more delicate ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... me at the bank," said Mr. Day, with rather a rueful smile. "This Mexican mine business is developing some troubles, and they want me to go down ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... woe-smitten land from horizon to horizon, while in the same moment the line of battle dropped anchor in mid-stream. With a swirling mist wetting her fair head she waved in dainty welcome Irby's letter and then pressed it to her lips; not for his sake—hah!—but for his rueful word, that once more his loathed cousin, Anna's Hilary! was riding at ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... you see that chauffeur's rueful smile when he reached the address she gave him and saw a nurse bringing the palefaced Painter Boy out the hospital door? Felice ran ahead of them, ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... privileged circle at Coppet after making an excursion returned from Chambery in two coaches. Those arriving in the first coach had a rueful experience to relate—a terrific thunder-storm, shocking roads, and danger and gloom to the whole company. The party in the second coach heard their story with surprise; of thunder-storm, of steeps, of ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... and most courteous of all managers, on one occasion, complaining bitterly to my sister of the unreasonable objection I had to all laudatory advertisements of my readings, said to her, with a voice and countenance of the most rueful melancholy, and with the most appealing pathos, "Why, you know, ma'am, it's really dreadful; you know, Mrs. Kemble won't even allow us to say in the bills, these celebrated readings; and you know, ma'am, it's really impossible to do with less; indeed it is! Why, ma'am, you know even Morrison's ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... Murray, therefore, recovered all that had been taken from him; and though he had captured but two prisoners, the one was the chief, and the other his principal adviser and second in command. The old knight, therefore, commanded that they should be bound with cords together, and in such rueful plight led to his castle at Elibank. It was noon before they reached it, and Lady Murray came forth to welcome her husband, and congratulate him upon his success. But when she beheld the heir of Harden a captive, and thought ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... was the Signora's will, take the money offered and depart, leaving such a mass of flowers behind him that Katy would begin to think that they had paid an unfair price for them and to feel a little rueful, till she observed that the old man was absolutely dancing downstairs with rapture over the good bargain he had made, and that Maria was black with indignation over the extravagance of ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... of good Samaritan, my dear Felicia," he begged her with a certain rueful humour, "and take the poor foolish woman off my hands. Plant her where you like, so long as it is well out of my neighbourhood. She has made an egregious fiasco of her position here. As you love me, just remove her from my sight—let this land have rest and enjoy its Sabbaths ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... last you yelped and wept. Then, justice being done, you rearranged your costume. The situation was a little difficult until you, still sobbing and buttoning—you are really a shocking bad hand at buttons—and looking a very small, tender, ruffled, rueful thing indeed, strolled towards my study window. "The pear tree is out next door," you remarked, without a trace of animosity, and sobbing ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... hungry campaigners partook of his hospitality. On the day after the battle of Corunna, when these gentlemen came on board, he ordered a cock to be driven into a hogshead of prime old sherry; and his satisfaction was perfect, when his steward, with a rueful countenance, communicated to him, on arriving at Spithead, that "his very best cask of wine had been drunk dry on the passage ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... own psalm, of which I will give out the first line, and you will proceed and repeat the next as usual." When the time for psalmody arrived Wesley gave out, "Like to an owl in ivy bush," and the clerk immediately responded, "That rueful thing am I." The members of the congregation looked up and saw his small head half-buried in his large wig, and could not restrain their smiles. The clerk was mortified and the rector gratified that he should have been taught a lesson and learned to ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... her. At length to Music's house[2] she came, And begg'd like one both blind and lame; "My only friend, my dear," said she, "You see 'tis mere necessity Hath sent me to your house to whelp: I die if you refuse your help." With fawning whine, and rueful tone, With artful sigh, and feigned groan, With couchant cringe, and flattering tale, Smooth Bawty[3] did so far prevail, That Music gave her leave to litter; (But mark what follow'd—faith! she bit her;) Whole baskets full of bits and scraps, And broth enough to fill her paps; For ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... first to appear neatly apparelled, and smoothing his wet hair with both hands. He was followed soon afterwards by Jack, looking like an overgrown schoolboy in flannels. They hung about the gate since she could not be induced to enter, and pulled rueful faces on receiving instructions as to ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... the flood of deadly hate, Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep, Cocytus, named of lamentation loud Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon, Whose waves of torrent fire ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... cornland wending many a mile, And through the meadowland, he came erewhile To where the highways parted, and no man Was nigh to tell him whitherward they ran; But while he halted all in doubtful mood, An eagle, as if mourning for her brood Stolen, above him sped with rueful cry; And when that he perceived the fowl to fly Plaining aloud, unto himself he said, "Now shall yon mournful mother overhead Instruct the wandering of my feet, and they Shall follow where she leadeth:" and away The bird went winging ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... companions, he heard a scream, and turned quickly to see John Wesley struggling in the water, grasping a tree root, and Mary Emmeline—nowhere! In another minute he saw the strings of her pinafore appear on the surface a few yards beyond, and in yet another minute, with a swift rueful glance at his white flannels, he had plunged after her. A disagreeable shock of finding himself out of his depths was, however, followed by contact with the child's clothing, and clutching her firmly, ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... her about her friend. Rebecca's wit, spirits, and accomplishments troubled her with a rueful disquiet. They were only a week married, and here was George already suffering ennui, and eager for others' society! She trembled for the future. How shall I be a companion for him, she thought—so clever and so brilliant, and I such a humble ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... when he's a nasty next-door neighbour?" asked Fred, in such rueful tones that Cousin Peregrine burst out laughing and said, "Who is your nasty next-door neighbour, Fred, and ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... up my woe. Sweet Rosalynde, my love (would God, my love) My life (would God, my life) aye, pity me! Thy lips are kind, and humble like the dove, And but with beauty, pity will not be. Look on mine eyes, made red with rueful tears, From whence the rain of true remorse descendeth, All pale in looks am I though young in years, And nought but love or death my days befriendeth. Oh let no stormy rigor knit thy brows, Which ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... the three who has accomplished nothing," was Winter's rueful comment. Nor could any critic have gainsaid him, for he seemed to have been wasting precious hours while his subordinates were making ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... stepped on in minuet fashion. We went through apartments rich with gilded oak and pine panellings: in one was a rough pattern of a wooden horse opposite a mirror; by no means a figure of a horse, but apparently a number of pieces contributed by a carpenter's workshop, having a rueful seat in the middle. My father had practised the attitude of Prince Albrecht Wohlgemuth on it. 'She timed me five and twenty minutes there only yesterday,' he said; and he now supposed he had sat the bronze horse as a statue ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... his rueful face the Major burst into fresh laughter. "His fast day!" he chuckled. "These Moros are sure literal-minded—they follow your words exactly. I've had some queer examples in the ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... and among others, the man to whom the dog belonged, and who lived at the cottage opposite to where the dog had lain down. He observed Vanslyperken, looking very much like a vessel whose sails have been split in a gale, and very rueful at the same time, standing at a certain distance, quite undecided how to act, and he called out to him, "What is it you may want with ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... all along," said he, with a rueful sigh. "I had an idea that you'd be tickled to death to marry into the Wintermill family. Position, money, family jewels, and all that sort of thing. Everything desirable except Percy. And then, just when I thought something might come of it, you up and get engaged to Brady Thorpe, ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... Jim Bowles and Julius Steinberger murmured to each other in rueful confidence, as they tilted their chairs against the wall of their hall bedroom and smoked. Each of the shabby and poverty-stricken young men had of course fallen hopelessly in love with her at once. This was merely human and inevitable, but realizing ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... reflection came. They looked as ruefully as Don Quixote after his battle with the shepherds, and bore as many marks of the prowess of their opponents. But, unlike "the Knight of the Rueful Countenance," they seemed heartily ashamed of their exploits, and ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... always mind, mother," said the old gentleman, putting on a rueful look. "I do it, thee knows, to set the children an example. Good-by now; mother will make thee as hearty as I am if ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... the last words which Clover heard as she escaped. She entered Car Forty-seven with such a rueful and disgusted countenance that everybody ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... a height and with only a short season the hotel proprietors must do what they can, and prices do not rule low. A departing American was eyeing his bill with a rueful glance as we were leaving. "Milton had it wrong," he said to me (with the freemasonry of the plucked, for I knew him not), "what he ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... Judge Knowles would not have selected you to take charge here. But since you and I have been working together I have found it out for myself. In fact I don't see how we ever got along—mother and I—before you came. And we didn't get on very well, that is a fact," she added, with a rueful smile. ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... door. Freddie was alone. He stood rubbing his legs for some minutes, a rueful expression on his usually cheerful face. Freddie hated rows. He liked everything to jog along smoothly. What a rotten place the world was these days! Just one thing after another. First, poor old Jill takes the knock and disappears. He would miss her badly. What a good sort! What a pal! ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... am entirely satisfied" said Sir Robert, in a comically rueful tone, as soon as he could say anything for the uproar. "I never imagined anything like it, never. Where did you get it? Who invented it? Is it an adaptation of some war-cry of the North American Indians? It sounds like what one ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... loaf! With a rueful face I placed it on the breakfast table. "I hoped to have given you a treat, but I fear you will find it worse than ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... was being bowled down the drive behind a fleet horse. A little later still, as the train pulled out of the station, Egan and Grady stood there watching it with rueful faces. Venner was with them, and smiled to himself, despite the ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... less; and on our way we met several at the upper end of the streets who had made a move as of turning away from the temptations of the gates of Destruction, and making for the gate of life. But they either failed to find it or grew weary on the way; very few went through—one man of rueful countenance, ran in earnest while crowds on all sides derided him, some mocking, {28b} some threatening him, and his kindred clinging to him, begging him not to condemn himself to lose the whole world at one stroke. "I lose but a small portion of it, and were I to lose all, what ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... a poser, and my companion and I looked at one another with rueful countenances; At length ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... was already a small yellow patch in the distance. She was evidently on her way back to Rivermouth! Lynde watched her until she was nothing but a speck against the gray road, then he turned and cast a rueful glance on the saddle, which suddenly took to itself a satirical aspect, as it lay sprawling on ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... with a rueful air, "not much more than would buy gold thread to sew my head on again, were your highness pleased to honour ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... cabin-floor, with one hand holding on by the leg of the table, and a bottle of brandy in the other. His prayer-book he had abandoned during a fright, and it was washing about in the lee-scuppers. Jerry was delighted, but put on a rueful face. ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... one of its great charms, for little or no expense is incurred, and those who are not rich can still welcome their friends as often as they like without any of the terrific preparations for the entertainment which make it a burden and a bore, and without a rueful glance at the weekly bill afterwards. Occasionally, chocolate is handed round, and any amount of tumblers of cold water. The chocolate is served in small coffee-cups, and is of the consistency of oatmeal ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... upon the walls of Klosterheim palpitated with emotion, as the two parties neared each other. Many almost feared to draw their breath, many writhed their persons in the anguish of rueful expectation, as they saw the moment approach when the two parties would shock together. At length it came; and, to the astonishment of the spectators, not more, perhaps, than of the travellers themselves, the whole cavalcade of strangers swept by, without halting for so much as ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... from the post office, adjusted his octagon-shaped, steel-rimmed spectacles exactly half way down his long nose, held a certain large envelope at arm's length and contemplating it with an air of rueful perplexity said, ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... in her, and on taking a look with his glass, he exclaimed, "Good God! there is the captain coming off in a shore boat." The side was manned, and when Maitland stepped on board, he turned to Mott with a most rueful countenance, remarking, "they have seized the wine." This was petty work, and to make the thing more provoking, they had poor Maitland stuck up next day in the Plymothian journals as having been detected in the act of conveying wine and other presents on shore, received from Napoleon. ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... off his hat and remove a gray wig with his left hand while his right fist collided with the "pirate's" eye. When consciousness returned he was lying on the deck with no living thing in sight but a seagull aeroplaning on slanted wings over his head. His return to the party was more rueful than Owen's. ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... While thus engaged, I heard the sound of a blow behind me, and looking around, I saw Ginter tumbling on the ground, his heels in the air. He quickly gathered himself up to a sitting posture with a very rueful countenance, giving vent to his feelings in sundry expletives, as soon as he could get breath enough to deliver them properly. With many a doleful grunt he examined the extent of his injuries. A bullet had struck the belt of his cartridge-box, nearly over the heart. ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... and significant gestures, which the boatswain's mate would by no means understand; so that he began to repent of the part he acted in this performance, which was like to end so tragically; and stood fastened to the stake, in a very disagreeable state of suspense; casting many a rueful look over his left shoulder, while Pipes was absent in quest of a cat-o'-nine-tails, in expectation of being relieved by the interposition of the lieutenant, who did not, however, appear. Tom, returning with the instrument of correction, undressed the delinquent in a trice, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... succeeded by a conviction of the truth. The whole story of the past night sprang into his mind with every detail, as by an exercise of the direct and speedy sense of sight, and he arose from the ditch and, with rueful courage, went to meet ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sat in the hall, scarce moving, till she heard one entering from the screen, and lo it was Leonard the chaplain. He came her way, and showed her rueful countenance; and pity of him smote her, and she remembered therewith how they first went out of gates together; and at the thought thereof her tears brake forth again, but she made him a sign with ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... by Pallas), where the slippery shore Was clogg'd with slimy dung and mingled gore. (The self-same place beside Patroclus' pyre, Where late the slaughter'd victims fed the fire.) Besmear'd with filth, and blotted o'er with clay, Obscene to sight, the rueful racer lay; The well-fed bull (the second prize) he shared, And left the urn Ulysses' rich reward. Then, grasping by the horn the mighty beast, The baffled hero thus ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... it that way, Joy," Emerson retorted with a rueful smile. "Fact is, we ain't goin' to have any more oil wells than a jackrabbit pretty soon. I'm at the end of my rope right now. The First National promised me another loan on the Arizona ranch, but Brad has got a-holt of it and he's called in my last ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... his father, with a rueful shake of the head that signifies his resignation of the argument; "it is indeed a pity that I am ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... I did no work, and scored off dons and proctors, and broke every rule, and defied God and man, and spent money which I had not got, and lived a generally rake-hell life. There are very few of my friends who did these things, and they have mostly fallen in the race long ago, leaving a poor and rueful memory behind. Nor do I see why it is so glorious to pretend to have done such things, especially if one has not done them! I was a sober citizen enough, with plenty of faults and failings; and this is not a tract to convert ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Union and Confederate, he was often in liquor; liquor was always in him. This "knight of the rueful countenance," of the sad heart, the mourning voice, the disabled right arm, and the weakness for apple-jack!—his only hope was to have an exchange of prisoners; but Lincoln and Stanton and Grant would not consent to that. The last I heard of him was when a letter of his was ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... his grasing steed, And valiant knight become a caytive thrall, 160 When all was past, tooke up his forlorne weed,[*] His mightie armour, missing most at need; His silver shield, now idle maisterlesse; His poynant speare, that many made to bleed, The rueful moniments[*] of heavinesse, 165 And with them all departes, to tell his ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... ill spectacle," quoth I; at this, beholding me thus rueful, she fell to kissing me, whereat I did but miscall myself the more, telling her 'twas great marvel she should love one so ill-matched with her; for, said I, "here are you beautiful beyond all women, and here stand I, of manners most uncouth, harsh-featured, slow of tongue, dull-witted, ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... face, and staring eye-balls, were approached close to the writhing features of his redoubted principal—as I think I have seen honest Sancho Panza's, in one of Tony Johannot's sketches, to that of the prostrate Knight of the Rueful Countenance. ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... which have been already retailed to them in their own youth. Every generation has to educate another which it has brought upon the stage. People who readily accept the responsibility of parentship, having very different matters in their eye, are apt to feel rueful when their responsibility falls due. What are they to tell the child about life and conduct, subjects on which they have themselves so few and such confused opinions? Indeed, I do not know; the least said, perhaps, the soonest mended; and yet the child keeps asking, and the parent ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... we've found by experience," he replied, with a rueful smile. "I've done pretty badly, Phil; but things are brighter. I'm able now to begin putting some money away for you myself, and I shall do it, of course, just the same. But as to your mother's offer, you must accept it; it's a large sum, far more than I could ever command. It makes you independent; ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... hunting, smoking, jolly parties, and toad-eaters in general, or might bring into the house favourites of her own. I am sure any kind-hearted man of the world must feel for the position of these faithful, doubtful, disconsolate vassals, and have a sympathy for their rueful looks and demeanour as they eye the splendid preparations for the ensuing marriage, the grand furniture sent to my lord's castles and houses, the magnificent plate provided for his tables—tables at which ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... harmonious cadence like the waves of the sea exhausted by the storm. Some one cried out, a loud, agitated, woeful cry of rebellion, questioned and appealed in impotent anguish, and, losing hope, grew silent; and then again sang his rueful plaints, now resonant and clear, now subdued and dejected. In response to this song came the thick waves of dark sound, broad and resonant, indifferent and hopeless. They drowned by their depth and force the swarm of ringing wails; questions, appeals, groans blended in the alarming ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... laughing as he read the poem: and Mr. Hack laughed too but with rather a rueful face.—"It won't do," he said, "the public won't stand it. Bungay's people are going to bring out a very good book, and have set up Miss Bunyan against Lady Violet. We have most titles to be sure—but the verses are too bad. Lady Violet herself owns it; she's busy with her own poem; what's to be ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a straight, blank, ugly street, where the small, cheap, grey-faced houses had no expression save that of a rueful, unconsoled acknowledgment of the universal want of identity. They would have constituted a "terrace" if they could, but they had dolefully given it up. Even a hansom that loitered across the end of the vista turned a sceptical back upon it, so that Sherringham had ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... he disappeared from view. Suddenly aware of a pain in his hand, he held it out before him and was astonished to find that the knuckles were already beginning to puff. He winced when he tried to clench his fist. A rueful smile twitched at the corners of ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... I answered, summoning up a rueful smile. And on that, plunging desperately into the story which I have here set down, I narrated the difficulties under which I had raised my escort, the manner in which I came to be robbed of the gold token, how mademoiselle was trepanned, the lucky chance by which I found ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... thankful yer neck's whole," said Joe, grinning, as Henri rubbed his shoulder with a rueful look. "An' we'll have to send that Injun and his family a knife and some beads to make up for ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... quoth Mother Rigby, with a rueful glance at the relics of her ill-fated contrivance. "My poor, dear, pretty Feathertop! There are thousands upon thousands of coxcombs and charlatans in the world made up of just such a jumble of worn-out, forgotten and good-for-nothing trash as ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... nor this within the time,' Robert admitted, with a rueful look at the lather on Cleopatra's dark brown neck and shoulder; 'and this is further nor ever I come with Sir Vernon. We must ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... lover, a tutor, a recruiting officer, a reviewer, and, at length, a clergyman; but a poet eternally! His mind was so curved, that nothing could stand steadily upon it. The accidents of such a life he describes with such a face of rueful simplicity, and mixes up so much grave drollery and merry pathos with all he says or does, and his ubiquity is so wonderful, that he gives an idea of a character, of whose existence we had previously no conception, that of a ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... that poor Jim wanted to marry her—and she wouldn't look at him. It's a pity, I think. She'd be a great deal happier in marrying a man with the same kind of ways as herself than she'd be with some one—I can only put it," she added, with a rueful smile, "in a way you don't like, Thor—than she'd be with some one of another ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... grey, its sky and its streets assume a sombre hue; the scattered, leafless trees and wind-blown dust and paper but add to the general solemnity of color. There seems to be something in the chill breezes which scurry through the long, narrow thoroughfares productive of rueful thoughts. Not poets alone, nor artists, nor that superior order of mind which arrogates to itself all refinement, feel this, but dogs and ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... was abundantly clear that revels must be the exception at Artenberg. Victoria was earnestly of this opinion. In the first place, the physical condition of William Adolphus was deplorable; he leered rueful roguishness out of bilious eyes, and Victoria could not endure the sight of him; secondly, she was sure that I had said something—what she did not know, but something—to Elsa; for Elsa had been found crying over her coffee in bed ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... with a rueful smile, his thoughts of a sudden as far away from me as if I had never set foot in the Rue Coupejarrets. He shook his head, sighing, and said, with a hand on Gervais's shoulder: ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... minutes Pollyanna sat in silence, her rueful eyes fixed on the forlorn heap of garments on the bed. Then, slowly, she rose and began to put away ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter
... to his heart, and he now revolves in his mind the folly and sinfulness of his past life;—considers within himself how idly he has wasted the substance he is at present in the utmost need of;—looks back with shame on the iniquity of his actions, and forward with horror on the rueful scene of misery that awaits him; until his brain, torn with excruciating thought, loses at once its power of thinking, and falls a ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... considered himself as accomplished and as cultivated as a white man, was assisting his master in the building of a dinghy. Contemplating the work of his unaccustomed hands in a rueful frame of mind, the boss recited, "Thou fatal and perfidious barque, built in eclipse and rigged with curses dark!" "Ah," said he, "you bin hear that before, George?" "No," replied the boy; "I no bin hear 'em. ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... wearied with the digging, now insisted on removing to the next bury, for we felt sure that the remaining rabbits in this one would not bolt. Little John had no choice but to comply, but he did so with much reluctance and many rueful glances back at the holes from which he took the nets. He was sure, he said, that there were at least half-a-dozen still in the bury: he only wished he might have all that he could get out of it. But we imperiously ordered ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... found himself going wrong, why didn't he shout out?" asked young Carteret, with a rueful face. "I couldn't ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... don't his back ache? Mine does, horrid, every day, without banging about like that;" and as if he felt his trouble then Jack Penny turned his rueful-looking boy's face to me and began softly rubbing his long man's ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... a rueful glance at his melancholy domain. But he had gained but little that day, and the offer was too tempting to be rejected. He heaved a sigh, shouldered his broom, and murmuring to himself that he would give her a last brush before he retired for the night, he put his long limbs into that swinging, ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... aspirants for Cairns' admiration had ranged themselves in his mind against the paragon, Beth Truba (with whom he had long comported himself with a rueful might-have-been manner, both pretty and pleasant). Beth had easily transcended. Whatever was great and desirable in woman was likely to wear a Beth Truba hall-mark for his observation. Now, that was changed, not that Beth suffered eclipse, ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... spot Brands at the Preacher, but they touch'd him not: Stakes brought to smite him, threaten'd in his cause, And tongues, attuned to curses, roar'd applause; Louder and louder grew his awful tones, Sobbing and sighs were heard, and rueful groans; Soft women fainted, prouder man express'd Wonder and woe, and butchers smote the breast; Eyes wept, ears tingled; stiff'ning on each head, The hair drew back, and Satan howl'd and fled. "In that soft season ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... surprised her. Blair, as he told her about it, was in great spirits. He had been entirely sincere in his reluctance to take any step which might indicate contempt for his mother's late (if adequate) repentance; so now, though a little rueful about the money, he was distinctly relieved that his taste was not going to be sentimentally offended. He meant to live on what his mother had given him until he made a fortune for himself. For he was going ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... romance and courtly glee And downcast eager glance that shuns the sky, Above, about, are signs thou canst not see, Portents in heaven and earth!—And one goes by With other than thy prosperous, laughing eye, Framing the rough web of his rueful lays, The sorrow and ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... him that as he had finished pasting extracts into his commonplace book he might employ the next two hours in making our room a little more habitable. He could not deny the justice of my request, so with a rather rueful face he went off to his bedroom, from which he returned presently pulling a large tin box behind him. This he placed in the middle of the floor, and squatting down upon a stool in front of it he threw back the lid. I could see ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... for meddling with other peoples' affairs," chided Phil, laughing immoderately as he observed the rueful countenance of ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... dowered with rather more than just enough of clotted nonsense about "attacks upon the dignity of the Bench," "bringing the judiciary into disrepute" and the rueful rest of it. I crave leave to remind the solicitudinarians sounding these loud alarums on their several larynges that by persons of understanding men are respected, not for what they do, but for what they are, and that one public functionary will stand as high in their ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... if it had the determination, wanted the cheerfulness of duty. Our condition savoured too much of a grinding constraint—too much of the vassalage of necessity;—it had too much of fear, and therefore of selfishness, not to be contemplated in the main with rueful emotion. We desponded though we did not despair. In fact a deliberate and preparatory fortitude—a sedate and stern melancholy, which had no sunshine and was exhilarated only by the lightnings of indignation—this was the highest and best state of moral feeling ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... Anthony scribbled a check, said brief and unfriendly good-nights; Isabelle merely raised passionate dark eyes to his. She was languidly gathering in her spoils when the lights of his car flashed yellow on the drive and he was gone. Harriet, who had lost more than twenty dollars, gave a rueful laugh. The old lady watched ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... rueful laugh. She more than half-liked to have Ruth leave her no alternative. It somehow made her seem less responsible to herself. If the decision were taken out of her hands she could not be held accountable and—the enjoyment would be ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... familiar!" cried Hyacinth. "Can you conceive any creature gay and familiar with Fareham? One could as soon be gay with Don Quixote; indeed, there is much in common between the knight of the rueful countenance and my husband. Gay and familiar! And pray, mistress, why should I not take life pleasantly with a man who understands me, and in whose friendship I have grown up almost as if we were brother and sister? ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... shaking water down on yourself; you will resent each failure to do so, and at the end your rage will personify the wilderness for the purpose of one sweeping anathema. The hundredth time will bring you wisdom. You will do the anathema—rueful rather than enraged—from the tent opening. Then you will plunge boldly in and get wet. It is not pleasant, but it has to be done, and you will save much temper, not ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... pathetic, plaintive, doleful, piteous, lugubrious, rueful, mournful, dismal, funereal, gloomy, melancholy, disconsolate, dejected, touching; calamitous, deplorable, grievous, dire, afflictive, wretched, saturnine, grave, sober; dull, sombre, subdued; (Colloq.) bad, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... the soul, When nature's self, and all the strength of art, Opposes every effort in our power? These sons of slavery dare not advance, And meet in equal fight our hostile arms. For yet they well remember LEXINGTON, And what they suffer'd on that rueful day, When wantoning in savage rage, they march'd Onward to CONCORD, in a firm array, Mock music playing, and the ample flag Of tyranny display'd; but with dire loss And infamy drove back, they gain'd the town, ...
— The Battle of Bunkers-Hill • Hugh Henry Brackenridge
... advocacy of it he had laid himself liable to the suspicion of being himself of the revenue force,—his mission here to spy out moonshiners; that his companion's mind was even now dwelling anew, and with a rueful difference, on that masterly drawing of himself ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... lad, and then with a rueful face he added: "But it doesn't seem to be doing me much good. I can't ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... was so rueful, his expression one of such patient forbearance towards base treachery, that his aunt laughed outright. Yet she kissed the wounded hand again and ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... mind admitting that if a man of that kind was to fall in love with me, I'd black his boots for him," she said. Then she added, with a whimsically rueful gesture, ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... one of such startled contrition, and so tragic, that Tom Swift, rueful as he felt over the failure of his experiment and the danger they had all been ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton
... alongside her. As I stood watching the maneuver and wondering what was to become of us, I felt something touch my elbow and turned to see the girl standing at my side. She looked up into my face with a rueful expression. "They seem bent on our destruction," she said, "and it looks like the same boat ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... was in a wholly different mood; angry with himself, and full of rueful thought about his wife. Daphne and he had been getting on anything but well for some time past. He knew that he had several times behaved badly; why, indeed, that very afternoon, had he held Chloe Fairmile's hand in the ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... little sorry for her, and also a bit rueful at his own plight. Things had gone wrong for him from the commencement of the evening. And this—well, the gage of battle had been flung in his face and he was no man to refuse the challenge. But ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... he replied, with a rueful smile. "I've been on the 'phone to my silly doctor chap, and he shouted with laughter at me. Still, I shall have a jolly good shot at it as soon ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... also; at which time this powerful Key Into my hand was giv'n, with charge to keep These Gates for ever shut, which none can pass Without my op'ning. Pensive here I sat Alone, but long I sat not, till my womb Pregnant by thee, and now excessive grown Prodigious motion felt and rueful throes. 780 At last this odious offspring whom thou seest Thine own begotten, breaking violent way Tore through my entrails, that with fear and pain Distorted, all my nether shape thus grew Transform'd: but he my inbred enemie ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... music had finished, the King sent for Monseigneur and Monsieur, who were already playing at 'lansquenet'; Madame, who scarcely looked at a, party of 'hombre' at which she had seated herself; the Duc de Chartres, who, with a rueful visage, was playing at chess; and Mademoiselle de Blois, who had scarcely begun to appear in society, but who this evening was extraordinarily decked out, and who, as yet, knew nothing and suspected nothing; and therefore, being naturally ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... think I can fancy Iris wearing earrings," she said; and Bruce, who had a respect for his sister's opinion which she herself did not suspect, looked rueful. ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... saw him but I felt him," answered Ned, with a rueful look at his fingers. "He stepped right on me. And when he came inside the tank to-night I knew him at once. I guess he was as surprised to see me as I was to ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton
... the light in the valley had quite faded, and the twitter of the birds had been superseded by the monotonous, mournful plaint of a whip-poor-will in a distant tree. Then he stirred and looked up at Eleanor with a rueful smile. ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... Shafton looked like a man stricken by a thunderbolt, while, notwithstanding the seriousness of the scene hitherto, no one of those present, not even the Abbot himself, could refrain from laughing at the rueful and mortified ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... she is coming over to see me one of these days, aunt," said Lucy, with a droll expression, half arch, half rueful. She added timidly, "There is no objection ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... loud, & here before thee With rueful cry, yet what it was we hear not, No Preface needs, thou seest ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... Ernest felt rueful, but he had resisted so valiantly already that the devil might have saved himself the trouble of trying to get at him through Ellen in the matter of his father and mother. He changed the subject, and the pair warmed ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... terribly against the grain," he said, with a rueful laugh. "I'd sworn to let no Jew off with an inch of hide left on him—and here three of them have been wheedled out ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... go, like the 'Knight of the Rueful Countenance,' in quest of melancholy adventures, need not to make deliberately 'Sentimental Journeys' through France, or Italy, or by forest or mountain, picturesque hamlet, or romantic stream. The purlieus of great cities amongst the poverty-stricken members of what it is usual to call the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 10, 1892 • Various
... who falls dejectedly on the settee, followed by Mrs. Perkins, who gives a rueful ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... in a moment, unhurt, except for a knock on the eye against his gun, which he was carrying before him; and after a minute's rueful look he joined heartily in the shouts of laughter of his father and brother at his expense, "Ah, Charley, brag is a good dog, but holdfast is a better. I never saw a more literal proof of the saying. There, jump up again, and I need not say look out ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... Drant translated the Satires of Horace. That Drant could be faithful even to excess is evident from his preface to The Wailings of Jeremiah included in the same volume with his version of Horace. "That thou mightest have this rueful parcel of Scripture pure and sincere, not swerved or altered, I laid it to the touchstone, the native tongue. I weighed it with the Chaldee Targum and the Septuaginta. I desired to jump so nigh with the Hebrew, that it doth erewhile ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... hold to this, Don Quixote was a gentleman, and is the first gentleman whose portrait is given us in literature. We have laughed at Don Quixote, but we have learned to love him. The "knight of the rueful countenance," as we see him now, is not himself a jest, but one of literature's most noble figures; and we love him because we must. Was it mere chance that in drawing this don, Cervantes clothed ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... it has always in these cases appeared to us quite beautiful compared to the object finally turned out, on their improved lines, for the unspeakable market; so that we've only been able to be publicly rueful and depressed about it, and to plead practically, in extenuation of all the extra trouble we saddle them with, that such things are, alas, the worst ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... in Mrs. Hilbrough's position should refuse to entertain a baron. She saw many incidental advantages in the plan, not the least of which was that Mr. Millard would be a familiar in the house during the Baron's stay. Hilbrough acquiesced with a rueful sense that he should be clumsy enough at entertaining a foreigner and a man of title. Mrs. Hilbrough thanked Millard heartily for his obliging kindness, but what he cared most for was that Miss Callender's serious face shone ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... awaited Holloway. He got home some time before Mr. Supine, and found his friend, the stage-coachman, waiting for him with a rueful face. ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... with you, Harry," she says, when she is engaged to another suitor, "and say that if you had not been down on your knees and so humble, you might have fared better with me? A woman of my spirit, cousin, is to be won by gallantry, and not by sighs and rueful faces. All the time you are worshipping and singing hymns to me, I know very well I am no goddess." And again: "As for you, you want a woman to bring your slippers and cap, and to sit at your feet and cry, O caro, caro! O bravo! whilst you read your Shakespeares and Miltons ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... 'the decrepit person or figure of a man are no reflections upon his genius; an honest mind will love and esteem a man of worth, though he be deformed or poor. Yet the author of the Dunciad hath libelled a person for his rueful length of face!'—Mist's Journal, June 8. This genius and man of worth, whom an honest mind should love, is Mr Curll. True it is he stood in the pillory, an incident which would lengthen the face of any man though it were ever so comely, therefore ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... doubt of the poor dog's death. The expression of Ardan's countenance, as he looked at his friends, was of a very rueful order. ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... vaguely see her shake of head. "Ordinarily it should be about six miles beyond Rodway's, where I board. But I haven't the haziest idea of where Rodway's place is, you see; so that won't help you much. I'm all at sea in this snow." Her voice was rueful. ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower
... on the couch with rueful humour). Well, you shall not experiment on me any more. Go to your Grace if you want a victim. She'll be a ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw |
