"Sobbing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was relieving myself of this little declamation the young Indian was standing at my side sobbing as if he ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... and made musical by innumerable birds. But all colour was lost in the soft and odorous darkness of the late September night, and all sounds were hushed in the deep charm of its silence, save the plashing of the water, like a voice half-sobbing and half-laughing under the shadows. High above the trees a dim glow of light shone through the curtained arches of the upper chamber, where the master of the house was holding council with ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... home, Ella hastened upstairs to her own room, where, if the truth must be told, she employed the half-hour before dinner in unintermittent sobbing, into which temper largely entered. 'He has spoilt it all for me! How could he—oh, how could he?' ran the burden of her moan. At the dinner-table, though pale and silent, she ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... reference to her own healing, or the burden under which she was being crushed to death, she burst into such a prayer for a poor orphan boy, of whom she had just heard that day, as we have never heard surpassed for sympathy and love, imploring God to help him and save him, and sobbing in spasmodic agony of love many times during her prayer, and then she ceased without even referring to her own need. We were deeply touched by the spectacle of love, and we thought how the Father's heart must be ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... cried loudly. Then, with a sudden fit of sobbing, she flung open the gate and ran at the top of her ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... to come forward, and to console dowager lady Chia and the rest. But when the Chia consort resumed her seat, and one by one came again, in turn, to exchange salutations, they could not once more help weeping and sobbing for a time. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... another shot, echoed by a sobbing cry, and the fellow pitched headlong across Barry, dead, his pistol exploding harmlessly, his throat pouring out his life. And Bill Blunt, following up that shot, came upon Natalie Sheldon, fainting on the edge ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... sitting at the table, and who was remarkable for her Quaker dress, her frills and spotless folds, her calm and striking appearance, started up suddenly, burst into a passion of tears, and had to be led sobbing out of the room. She did not return, and the lady who remembers the incident, herself a young bride at the time, told me it made all the more impression upon her at the time because she was told that the Quaker lady was Mrs. Opie. ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... the old Craig carriage creaked slowly away down the lane with Hannah and Hetty waving from the farm-porch, the spirit of adventure flickered forlornly out and left her sobbing. ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... bath was ready; that she must hurry, that there was breakfast to make, and the dining-room to sweep, and ... and ... what a string of tragic drabnesses! Obeying this instinct of duty in her, she got, still sobbing, into the bath, and her tears fell like rain into the hot water. A man would have cried, "Damn the bath! Damn the breakfast! Damn the brooms and dusters! Scrap 'em all!" And for the while he would straightway ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... to see; but the shining soldier rode grandly away on his big gray horse, caring only for the few pennies the young songbirds would bring and the beer they would buy, while we all, sisters and brothers, were crying and sobbing. I remember, as if it happened this day, how my heart fairly ached and choked me. Mother put us to bed and tried to comfort us, telling us that the little birds would be well fed and grow big, and soon learn to sing in pretty cages; but again and again we rehearsed the sad story ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... plainly now! She had a full bright face with some colour in it—eyes gently smiling-beautiful dark-brown hair—dainty hands; she could hardly be thirty years old, and you—you, an old woman of ninety!" "O all ye saints of Heaven!" interrupted the old dame, sobbing, "all ye blessed ones, what shall I do to make my Tonino believe in me, his faithful Margaret?" "Margaret!" murmured Antonio, "Margaret! That name falls upon my ears like music heard a long long time ago, ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... came Arthur home, and while he climbed, All in a death-dumb autumn-dripping gloom, The stairway to the hall, and looked and saw The great Queen's bower was dark,—about his feet A voice clung sobbing till he questioned it, 'What art thou?' and the voice about his feet Sent up an answer, sobbing, 'I am thy fool, And I shall ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... and broken stairs, which led upwards to the sick man's room. As we mounted flight after flight towards the garret floor, I heard more and more distinctly the hurried talking of many voices. I could also distinguish the low sobbing of a female. On arriving upon the uppermost lobby, these ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... knees before Mammy, whispered to her to pray for me. There must have been a very different expression on my countenance from its usual one; for I afterwards heard the old nurse tell Jane that I reminded her of an angel. I felt utterly miserable; and sobbing convulsively, I begged Mammy to pray, not that I might have a new heart, but that I might live a great while. I had begun to fear speedy punishment for my misdemeanors. The old nurse, (although a really pious woman), seemed quite at a loss how to proceed; and Jane, coming forward, ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... was over. The steam had thinned out and drifted away. The pupils slowly went back to their seats at the command of the teacher and sat there, sobbing and moaning and weak from excitement. But the ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... tears spring fast, and through the rainbow mist He sees a world that wavers like the flame Of a blown candle. Tears of pain and shame, And lips that once had laughed and sung and kissed Trembling in the passion of his sobbing breath! The world a candle shuddering to its death, And life a darkness, blind and utterly void Of any love or goodness: all deceit, This friendship and this God: all shams destroyed, And truth seen now. Earth fails beneath ...
— The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems • Aldous Huxley
... in spite of her will her thoughts would recur to the beautiful dream which had been shattered in that distant city. Not a word had she heard from Arnold since leaving it, and her heart so misgave her concerning the future that she threw herself on the sod, sobbing bitterly, and almost wishing that she were beneath it and at rest. In the deep abstraction of her grief she had scarcely noted the lapse of time, nor where she was, and the moon had risen when she again glided by Roger, her step and ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... had seen many death-beds in his career, but never one so affecting as this. Kneeling by the bedside were the two old people, and a hale and hearty youth, sobbing as if their hearts were broken. He was about to leave the sombre chamber, when he was startled by a voice saying in loud, ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... his bosom like an infant. The stern soldier's heart was melted, and the tears of the two mingled; but Sergeant Dunham soon started, as if ashamed of himself, and, gently forcing his daughter from him, he bade her good-night, and sought his pallet. Mabel went sobbing to the rude corner that had been prepared for her reception; and in a few minutes the hut was undisturbed by any sound, save the ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... wind-harp's wilding tones Sobbing a requiem o'er their bones; "The golden-globed skies shall perish," The harper harps as ...
— Song-waves • Theodore H. Rand
... trembling—almost gasping, and he would have aided her with his supporting arm, but she sank away from him sobbing "It can never, ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... the great chamber in the Cave of Terrible Things when the doors had closed on his prisoners, and presented himself to Dolores. He found Pascherette prostrate on the floor before the queen, whimpering and sobbing with terror. Over her Dolores stood like Wrath in person, her beautiful face distorted with passion, fire blazing in her eyes, her breast heaving tumultuously. In her hand she held a cat-o'-nine-tails—a dainty, vicious, splendid instrument of terror—formed of plaited human ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... of the young ladies in going up stairs to the drawing-room, unfortunately met a boy of fourteen coming down, and her feelings were so violently agitated, that she stopped panting and sobbing, nor would pass on till the boy had swung himself up on the upper banisters, ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... Gertie stopped sobbing, and her heart stopped beating. She lay tense and still, listening. Everyone knows that spooks rap three times at the head of one's bed. It's a regular ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... sobbing outright and at every blast of thunder a high-pitched, uncontrollable shriek broke from her lips. The horses ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... known nothing but indulgence, and whose dreams had all been of new indulgence, more exactly to her taste. But he did wish to spare her as much as he could, and her tears cut him to the heart. He could not speak again immediately; but Rosamond did not go on sobbing: she tried to conquer her agitation and wiped away her tears, continuing to look before her ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... the large recess from behind the curtains of which there came, at intervals, a long sobbing breath like the sleeping wail of a beaten child who has ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... movement. She had fought down the tears a little; but I could hear her breath still sobbing. I reached up and took the ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... the throat with his powerful hands. But the contact of his fingers with that delicate flesh that he had never dared to touch before brought him to his senses. A violent shudder shook him like ague, his fingers relaxed, and with a sobbing cry, dreadful to hear, he dragged the fainting woman to her feet and pushed her towards the door, crying ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... remembered that once, when she was not more than four or five years old, she accidentally witnessed the terrible whipping of a servant woman. As soon as she could escape from the house, she rushed out sobbing, and half an hour afterwards her nurse found her on the wharf, begging a sea captain to take her away to some place where ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... to see Euphrosyne McNulty. She found the household in a state of suppressed tumult. The servant who opened the door was all at sea; obscure sounds of sobbing came from somewhere above; and when Euphrosyne finally washed in she was like the ocean half-subsided after a storm. She had just learned that Preciosa ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... next little hill she would be able to see her way quite distinctly, so she jumped across the brook and climbed through the undergrowth. Before she had gone twenty yards she stopped. She was almost certain that someone was sobbing bitterly up there among the trees. It had an uncanny sound, this plaint of grief in such a quiet, sunlit spot. Still, sorrow was not an affrighting thing to Helen. It might stir her sympathies, but it assuredly could not ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... others possess. You have never looked down, with confusion of face and heartfelt bitterness, on the dirty rags that scarcely suffice to conceal the emaciation of your wasted limbs. You have never felt hunger gnawing at your vitals, or shuddered at the cries of famishing children, sobbing around your knees for bread. You have dainties to satiety every day, and know nothing of the agonies of sacrificing your virtue for the sake of a meal. If you are cold, you have a good fire to warm you, a comfortable mansion to protect ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... in desert places and amid deadly perils, it is always an unusually terrible shock to lose one from among so few, and to be forced to lay him in unconsecrated ground remote from home and friends. So it was a sobbing, saddened trio that stood by while a grave was dug to receive all that was mortal of their gallant comrade. And within it they laid him, wrapped in the ample folds of an Abyssinian tope; stones were heaped above the grave—at least the four-footed beasts should not have ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... Sousi went off to get some water, but at once came running back, shouting excitedly, "My rifle, my rifle!" Jarvis handed it to him; he rushed off to the woods. I followed in time to see him shoot an old Bear and two cubs out of a tree. She fell, sobbing like a human being, "Oh! Oh! Oh-h-h-h!" It was too late to stop him, and he finished her as she lay helpless. The little ones were too small to live alone, so shared ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... her hands her face would hood, Were they not fastened to the rugged stone: But with her tears (for this at least she could) Bedewed it, and essayed to hold it down. Sobbing some while the lovely damsel stood; Then loosed her tongue and spake in feeble tone; But ended not; arrested in mid-word, By a loud noise which in the ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... count of time; his wrist watch was smashed on his wrist. He ran through a reeling eternity, sobbing for breath, stumbling, tripping, fighting a leaden weariness; and ever the same unreasoning terror urged him on. The moon and ragged skyline swam about him; the blood drummed deafeningly in his ears, and his eyeballs felt ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... he lay down to rest. He was awakened by the sound of weeping. Rising hastily to his feet he peered through the trees, and there, fifty yards away from him, by the side of a stream sat the most beautiful damsel he had ever seen, wringing her hands and sobbing bitterly. Prince Charming, grieving at the sight of beauty in such distress, ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... She was still sobbing and crushing the letter in her hand when the servant came up to tell her that Mr. Maule had called. He was below, waiting to know whether she would see him. She remembered at once that Mr. Maule ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... unadulterated truth have been practicable for her, she would have declared her indifference in terms that would truly have astonished him. As it was, she found it easier to say nothing. She bit her lips to keep herself from sobbing. She struggled hard, but in vain, to prevent her hands and feet from trembling. She seemed to swing upon her donkey as though like to fall, and would have given much to be upon her ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... separation of a few days. When one of them goes aboard a steamship for America or Australasia, the family and friends enact harrowing scenes at the quay. They are sincerely moved at the thought of their loved ones putting a long distance between them, and I saw a score of young and old sobbing bitterly when the Noa-Noa left for San Francisco though they stormed the stokers lustily when aroused. Their life is so simple in these beloved islands that the dangers of the mainland are exaggerated in their minds, and to the old the civilization ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... Pinocchio. Although scared to death by the horror of what had been done, he ran to the sea and soaked his handkerchief in the cool water and with it bathed the head of his poor little schoolmate. Sobbing bitterly, he called to ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... made a long pause. Don Luis knew not what to say, and was silent. Tears bathed the cheeks of Pepita, who continued, sobbing: ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... cars a muffled voice answered, "Here I am." Then Gladys, sobbing and shaking, emerged ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock
... unable to move. Her thumbs were blackened and swollen, and the cords had cut into the flesh, while blood trickled down from the puncture in her breast. Fixing a look of inexpressible gratitude upon her preserver, she made an effort to speak, but the exertion was too great; violent hysterical sobbing came on, and her senses soon after forsook her. Richard called loudly for assistance, and the sentiments of the most humane part of the crowd having undergone a change since the failure of the ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Mrs. Cliff, as she held out her arms. In a moment the two women were clasped in a tight embrace, kissing and sobbing. ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... the sloping darkness far ahead She saw a little figure slight and small, With yearning arms and shadowy curls outspread, Running at frightened speed; and it would fall And rise, sobbing; and through the ghostly sleet The cry came: 'Mother! Mother!' and she wist The tender eyes were blinded by the mist, And the rough stones were bruising the small feet. And when she lifted a keen cry and clave Forthright ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman
... She was still sobbing, but more quietly, for the force of her passion had exhausted her, when a very light touch on her shoulder caused her to raise herself and look up wildly. ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... me stonily in the face for some seconds, pale and wide-eyed, but silent; then, with a sudden catch in her breath, she turned away, and, grasping the edge of the mantel-shelf, laid her head upon her arm and burst into a passion of sobbing. ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... whirlwind; but when she got to her own room, she sat down on the floor and burst into tears, and when Dorcas came up, nearly half an hour later, she was still in the same place, crouched up in a little heap, sobbing bitterly. ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... herself for a moment against a field gate. Her breath came fast in little sobbing pants. Her dainty shoes were soiled with dust and there was a great tear in her skirt. Very slowly, very fearfully, she turned her head. Her cheeks were the colour of chalk, her eyes were filled with terror. If a cart were coming, or those ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... second cock-crow, and it was not far from three in the morning when Cap'n Ira awoke. Like most mariners, he was wide awake when he opened his eyes. He lay quietly for several moments in the broad bed he occupied alone. The half-sobbing breathing of the old woman sounded from her room, through ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... His face composed itself. He was about to roar when, lying among the black sticks and straw under the cliff, he saw a whole skull—perhaps a cow's skull, a skull, perhaps, with the teeth in it. Sobbing, but absent-mindedly, he ran farther and farther away until he held ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... bathed in sunshine; a dripping, sobbing fountain; great masses of glaring flowers that mix their reds and yellows in hideous contrast and sicken the beholder with a desire for change; emerald lawns that grow and widen as the eye endeavors vainly to grasp them, thrown into bold ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... little parcels of tea and coffee and flour. Suddenly something happened. Out of a little sack of buckwheat, accidentally upset, rolled a ten-cent piece. The old man threw up his arms, fell forward over the table, and in a moment was sobbing aloud. ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... lay deeper than that. It wrought and wrought, whatever it was — the colour flushed and the lips moved tremulously, — her brow knit, — till at last the hands came to her eyes and her face sunk down, and passionate tears, passionate sobbing, told what Elizabeth could tell in no other way. Tears proud and humble — ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... threshold, Prostrate there beside the threshold, But a woman, to whose bosom Clung a young and sobbing infant? ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... the Hermit, the hallucinated dwarf whose sobbing eloquence had led an innumerable motley host of unnamed peasants to certain disaster in the deserts of the East, went the hundred Gruyerian soldiers led by Guillaume, but with the knights and priests of Romand Switzerland, the Burgundian French and Lombard ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... said, half sobbing as she spoke. "Those are relics of my poor husband. He was an artist like yourself, signore. He was—he was—ill, very ill—and in mind as well as body, signore. May the Blessed Virgin rest his soul! He hated the crucifix, he hated the scapular, he hated ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... in the world have doubted their sincerity. Unfortunately—or fortunately—she knew nothing whatever of the mental processes of the wicked girls of the world, which was why she lay broken to pieces, sobbing—sobbing, not at the moment because she was a trapped thing, but because Lady Etynge had a face in whose gentleness her ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... arms, sobbing and crying, and yet laughing. She clutched at him, drew down his face and covered ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... The sobbing recommenced tempestuously. "I mean I don't know. I just went out." Her voice rose; it was noisy, but scarcely articulate. "What if I ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... time, and it seems to be rather a ceremonial performance than an act of spontaneous grief. The duty, of course, belongs to the woman, and the early morning is usually chosen for the purpose. They go out alone to some place a little distant from the lodge or camp and in a loud, sobbing voice repeat a sort of stereotyped formula; as, for instance, a mother, on the loss of her child, "A seahb shed-da bud-dah ah ta bud! ad-de-dah," "Ah chief!" "My child dead, alas!" When in dreams they see any of their deceased ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... again! Who knew? Perhaps a Tatar would cut off their heads in the very first skirmish, and she would never know where their deserted bodies might lie, torn by birds of prey; and yet for each single drop of their blood she would have given all hers. Sobbing, she gazed into their eyes, and thought, "Perhaps Bulba, when he wakes, will put off their departure for a day or two; perhaps it occurred to him to go so soon because ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... faintly glimpse at, but must utterly fail to grasp, what that little girlie suffered mentally. We picture her sleeping, sobbing, waiting in that snow-hut in the silences, surrounded by the still bodies of every one she loved on earth. The sequel of the story is as sad as its first chapter. The band of Eskimo to which the rescuer belonged went in their turn and ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... between Apoplexy and Hysteria.—Hysterics mostly happen in young, nervous, unmarried women; and are attended with convulsions, sobbing, laughter, throwing about of ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... their feet. The young woman ran here and there among the groups of soldiers like one distracted. At last, near the larger house at the roadside she fell on her knees and rocked backwards and forwards sobbing. Josiah at a distance saw only that a soldier had been caught trying to escape notice as a young woman followed him out of the house. It was too well understood by the angry men who crowded around ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... and sadly opened the door, and showed herself with her apron at her eyes, still sobbing as if her ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... then covering her face with her apron, she ran from the room. John Ellery heard her descending the stairs, sobbing as she went. ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... love-sick youth had begun the lines above quoted, Katie and her cousin walked home by a road which conducted them close past the edge of those extensive sandy plains called the Denes of Yarmouth. Here, at the corner of a quiet street, they were arrested by the sobbing of a little boy who sat on a railing by the roadside, swaying himself to and fro ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... again thrown open, and my hag, sobbing loudly, was forced into the court in her socks, and backwards. [Footnote: Because the judges on witch-trials feared the evil influence of the ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... and drew Kate into her arms, but the sobbing did not cease at once. Grace was naturally kind-hearted, and respected people's feelings. To-night she was very gentle, ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... penetrating Diarist. What was the skeleton? Not gambling debts, although the duchess followed the fashion of the day, and Sheridan declared that he had handed her into her carriage when she was literally sobbing at her losses. Fanny gives us a hint, slight but unmistakeable. At their first meeting the duchess was accompanied by another lady—a beautiful, alluring woman, with keen dark eyes, who smiled, some one said, "like Circe." Lady Spencer ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... Prophet is stripped and scourged at the pillar until he drops from exhaustion. He is dragged anew before Pilate and examined, but his only word is, "Thou hast said." The scene lasts nearly an hour. The theatre was full of sobbing women and children. At every fresh brutality I could hear the weeping spectators say, "Pobre Jesus!" "How wicked they are!" The bulk of the audience was of people who do not often go to theatres. They looked upon the revolting scene as a real and living fact. One hard-featured ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... which was as big as a hen's egg. For three quarters of an hour the storm raged unabated and no one who underwent it ever forgot it. Marilla, for once in her life shaken out of her composure by sheer terror, knelt by her rocking chair in a corner of the kitchen, gasping and sobbing between the deafening thunder peals. Anne, white as paper, had dragged the sofa away from the window and sat on it with a twin on either side. Davy at the first crash had howled, "Anne, Anne, is it the Judgment Day? Anne, Anne, I never meant to be naughty," and then had ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... folk on crutches, And women great with child, And mothers sobbing over babes That clung to them and smiled; And sick men borne in litters High on the necks of slaves, And troops of sunburnt husbandmen With ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... knowledge of melody with which the parts are sung, like a glee of catch, the time being kept by a conductor, who rushes from rank to rank beating time with a wand. Yet it is hardly like chanting, rather like a weird, sobbing melody, with tones in it which range from the deepest bass to the shrillest treble. It ends in a long sigh, and then follows a scene, a tumult, a melee, which hardly admits of a description in words. The warriors ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... from its persecutors. But Isaiah had gone up to the store on an errand. David, however, was crouching, a trembling heap, under the kitchen stove. The girl pulled him out, fled with him to the garret, and there, with the door locked, sat shivering and sobbing until Captain Shad came ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... dozen tense minutes the five listened; but there was no repetition of any sound from below. Suddenly the girl breathed a deep sigh, and the spell of terror was broken. Bridge felt rather than heard the youth sobbing softly against his breast, while across the room The General gave a quick, nervous laugh which he as immediately suppressed as though fearful unnecessarily of calling attention to their presence. The other vagabond fumbled with his hypodermic needle and the narcotic ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... not require the boy's sobbing appeal, "Oh, Jeff, Jeff!" to enable him to take in the situation at a glance. Nor did it need a second glance at the face of the intruder to ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... doctor heard the sobbing of George, whose head was buried in his arms. "Madame," he said, "your love for that baby has just caused you to utter something ferocious! It is not for you to choose. It is not for you to choose. I forbid the nursing. The health of that woman does ...
— Damaged Goods - A novelization of the play "Les Avaries" • Upton Sinclair
... on his countenance which bids defiance to tears. She had been a gentle and devoted wife, and her quiet, home-born virtues, not always fully appreciated, rose before his remembrance, like the angels in Jacob's dream, climbing up to Heaven. Louis stood behind him, his head bowed upon his shoulder, sobbing as if his heart would break. Helen was nestled in her father's arms, with the most profound and unutterable expression of grief and awe and dread, on her young face. She was told that her mother was dying, going away from her, never to return, and the anguish this conviction ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... brief. But this evening her abandonment to her grief convinced him that something more than ordinary was amiss, that some danger more serious than ordinary threatened. He felt no surprise therefore when, a little later, she arrested her sobbing, raised her head, and with suspended breath and tear-stained face listened with that scared intentness which ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... of her lips began to yield: there was an ominous trembling about them, and at the same moment her younger sister caught her to her bosom, and hid her face there and hushed her wild sobbing. She would hear no confession. She knew enough. Nothing would convince her that Wenna had done anything wrong, so there was no ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... said he, sobbing, "I dread to appear before you without my brother! I have lost him. Can you ever forgive ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... lying on her back with flushed cheeks, her eyes staring glassily. The doctor asked a question, but she did not answer. She began to cry, sobbing from utter weakness in a silent, unrestrained way. On a table near her, hidden by a ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... from him, sobbing wildly for the first time that long, horrible evening. Dundee, watching from the doorway of the lighted hall, saw the chauffeur open the rear door of the Dunlap limousine, saw Penny catapult herself into Lois ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... call of woman, and worshipped at the shrine of humankind. And now the woman had run quickly to the stove, and was back again with a dish of warm water and a soft cloth, and was bathing his head, talking to him all the time in that gentle, half-sobbing voice of pity and of love. He closed his eyes—no longer afraid. A great sigh heaved out of his body. He wanted to put out his tongue and lick the slim white hands that were bringing him peace and comfort. And then the strangest ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... liquor or strong excitement, called their attention in abusive language to the construction of the walls, at the same time rapping heavily with a cane upon the bricks of the foundation of a chimney. His blows were answered by a sound from within the chimney. It seemed at first like the sobbing of a child and then swelled into an indescribable scream, howl, or shriek. The wall was broken down, revealing the bloody corpse of Mrs. Edwards. It stood erect. On its head sat ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... of actual blackness on the gloomy face of the cliff. He heard the water drop from the roof into the sea with heavy splashes. At his feet the long swell writhed between the walls of rock, reached up black lips and drew them down again with hollow, sobbing sound. From the extreme darkness of the cave came the dull moaning of the ocean, as of some inarticulate monster bowed with everlasting woe. A swim through this cold, lonely water, between the smooth walls which rose ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... weeping and sobbing from unhappiness and terror. Bristow and Greenleaf would have given much to have known her suspicions, suspicions which amounted ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... his arm-chair sobbing. He knew his daughter's nature well enough to be assured that what she said, that ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... not relent at the sound of the sobbing, but left the room, closing the door firmly after her. And a few minutes afterward Martha was let in by the chambermaid without knocking and sat down grimly by the window ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn
... did not stay, but left them together, the younger woman sobbing on the breast of the older, who bent over and ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... selfish. He went to God about himself; about his own sorrows and troubles. That is natural and harmless. The child in pain and terror cries to its mother selfishly to be helped out of its own little woes. But when it is helped, and comforted, and safe in its mother's bosom, and its sobbing is over, then it forgets itself, and looks up into its mother's face, and thinks of ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... "walking lord of gipsy lore" must have kept as he sat alone in that little book-lined summer-house, hearing strange voices in the sighing of the wind through the fir-trees and the distant sobbing of the sea. Out of the shadow of the past there would come to him, not only the swarthy Romanies, but Francis Ardrey, the friend of his youth; the Armenian merchant, with whom Lavengro discussed Haik; the ...
— George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt
... he mounted—and turned Keno's head toward Hartley. The distance was not great—little more than half a mile—but when he swung from the saddle in the square blotch of shade east by the little, red station house upon the parched sand and cinders, Keno's flanks were heaving like the silent sobbing of a woman with the pace his master's spurred heels ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... raised, the mother of Angria told him, in a piteous tone, "the people had no king, she no son, her daughter no husband, their children no father." The admiral replying, "they must look upon him as their father and their friend," the youngest boy, about six years of age, seized him by the hand, and sobbing exclaimed, "Then you shall be my father." Mr. Watson was so affected with this pathetic address, that the tears trickled down his cheeks, while he assured them they might depend upon his ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... and I lay where I fell, sobbing with weakness, looking out through the side window of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... give back," her mother said, To a poor sobbing little maid, "All the young man has given you, Hard as it now may seem to do." "'Tis done already, mother dear!" Said the sweet girl, "So never fear." Mother. Are you quite certain? Come, recount (There was not much) the whole amount. Girl. ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... about, and of a vision of "Swabs" standing like a man shooting rabbits in a cover, with his rifle at his shoulder, waiting for a chance of a clear shot. Turning again to his front, he noticed the fellow on his right working frantically at his lever, and sobbing with rage and excitement over a jammed cartridge-case. "Knock it out with your cleaning-rod!" he yelled, and thrust another round into the breach of his own weapon, determined, if this were the end, to make a hard fight of ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... promised he will care for Cossette as if the babe were his; Fantine, dead, with her face turned toward the door, looking in death for the coming of her child,—Fantine affects us like tears and sobbing set to music. Look at her; for a heroine is dead. And Eponine, with the gray dawn of death whitening her cheeks and gasping, "If—when—if when," now silent, for she is choked by the rush of blood and stayed from speech by fierce stabs of pain, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... like a child asleep, The deep heart of the Heaven is calm and still, Must thou alone a restless vigil keep, And with thy sobbing ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... that such threats were not made in vain, endeavored to plead his innocence, but the bellowing of the hungry calf outweighed the sobbing of the boy, and with an angry oath Jacob was struck to the ground, and a ferocious bull-dog, but little more brutal than his master, was set ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... the first paralysis of fear had passed, when her stricken senses resumed their sway and her limbs lost their palsy, flinched from this new danger, and sank sobbing to her knees behind the canvas shield of the bridge. Somehow, this flimsy shelter, which sailors call the "dodger," gave some sense of safety. Her throbbing brain was incapable of lucid thought, but it was borne in on her mistily that the world and its occupants had suddenly gone ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... it, my dear?' said Mr. Underwood. 'You can explain it, I see. Tell Lady Price what you mean, Geraldine,' he added gravely, to compose the child, who was sobbing with excitement ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... into a paroxysm of tears and sobbing, through which she hardly could contrive to make her interrupted and faultering ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... for several minutes. For several minutes the two were conversing with each other, till at last Miss Cook's tears prevented her speaking. Following "Katie's" instructions, I then came forward to support Miss Cook, who was falling onto the floor, sobbing hysterically. I looked round, but the white-robed "Katie" had gone, never to return ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... over, over, I think it is over at last, Voices of foeman and lover, The sweet and the bitter have passed— Life, like a tempest of ocean Hath outblown its ultimate blast. There's but a faint sobbing seaward While the calm of the tide deepens leeward, And behold! like the welcoming quiver Of heart-pulses throbbed thro' the river, Those lights in the harbor at last, The heavenly ...
— Songs from the Southland • Various
... the rattling of the hail, and the crackling and creaking of the dry trees in the forest, and the rush of waters, and all the din of the tempest, Marian's ear caught the sound of a child wailing and sobbing. A pang shot through her heart. She listened breathlessly—and then in the pauses of the storm she heard a child crying, "Marian, Marian! Oh! where ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... swinging back and forth by chains linked to them; and there, standing right in front of the altar, was a man all draped out in black robes, and a white overdress, praying. Sisters, it was awful solemn; I couldn't but just keep from sobbing right out. ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... now her path, but not her peace, she gains, Safe from her task, but shivering with her pains; Her home she reaches, open leaves the door, And placing first her infant on the floor, She bares her bosom to the wind, and sits, And sobbing struggles with the rising fits: In vain they come, she feels the inflating grief, That shuts the swelling bosom from relief; That speaks in feeble cries a soul distress'd, Or the sad laugh that cannot be repress'd. The neighbour-matron leaves her wheel and flies With all the ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... not see her kindling eyes, her parted lips, the color which was suffusing forehead and cheeks, and he rather expected to hear subdued sobbing. ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy |
