"Tragical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gives an animal comedy to some of the scenes. She is a tragical figure. She is the person to whom Juliet has to turn for help at dangerous moments. There are few things sadder than the sight of the fine soul turning to the vulgar soul in moments of need. One of the few ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... about the veteran's air. Mr. Chapman had looked so thoroughly English: that tragical and meagre personage ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Spaniards, but left off to discover when we approached the Spanish limits; even so God hath not hitherto permitted them to establish a possession permanent upon another's right, notwithstanding their manifold attempts, in which the issue hath been no less tragical than that of the Spaniards, as by ...
— Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage to Newfoundland • Edward Hayes
... the effort or heard the agony? Why torture himself? Why torture others? If the world were good, why was he not to have his part? If it were bad, might he not find a quiet nook under the wall, out of the storm? Why must he try to breast it? If Ayre was right, what a tragical farce his struggle was, what a perverse delusion, what an aimless flinging away of the little joy his little life could offer! If this were so, then was he indeed alone in the world—except for Claudia. Was his choice in truth ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... the Young Electrician, "what would you call one?" The way his lips mouthed the question gave an almost tragical ...
— The Indiscreet Letter • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... do that for?" inquired Mr. Pickwick abruptly; for he was considerably startled by this tragical ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... house party at The Manor had broken up immediately after the inquest. It would have disintegrated before only that Inspector Darby insisted that every one should remain for examination in connection with the late tragical occurrence. But in spite of questioning and cross-questioning, nothing had been learned likely to show who had murdered the millionaire. There was a great deal of talk after the body had been placed in the Lambert vault, and there was more ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser's friend, says: "Do they not know that a tragedy is tied to the laws of Poesie and not of History, not bound to follow the story, but, having liberty, either to fain a quite new matter, or to frame the history to the most tragical convenience?"* ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... death by violence; and it required only this present picture to convince her that she would never be able to gaze upon it callously, without pity and terror. Newspaper life—at least the reportorial side of it—has an odd effect upon men and women; it sharpens their tragical instincts and perceptions and dulls eternally the edge of tenderness and sentimentality. It was natural for Kitty to possess the keenest perceptions of tragedy; but she had been taken out of the reportorial field in time to preserve all her tenderness and romanticism. Otherwise ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... the inference thus deduced, the Duke of Hamilton continued to enjoy, in no ordinary degree, popular applause and the favour of Queen Anne, until his tragical death in 1712 occurring just before the Rebellion of 1715, spared him the perplexity of deciding on which side he should embark in ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... on his way to St. Petersburg to receive the congratulations of his subjects, having left Plevna behind him, 'full of horrors.' He is dead now, but his son and all princes who live by the sword would do well to peruse and reperuse the accounts of the tragical scenes that the victors left upon the battle-field when they departed to receive the ovations of the fickle populace. The Roumanians feted their victorious allies, to whom it must be admitted that we have here done ample justice in all their proceedings. But they were ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... taste of the Germans turned to sombre, tragical and almost sinister plays. Only a death on the stage seemed to bring a ray of animation to the stolid bovine faces of the audience. In my last winter in Berlin the hit of the season was "Erdgeist," a play by Wedekind, whose "Spring's Awakening," given in New York in the spring of 1917, ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... between these two tragical events: the trial of Robert Gourlay and the death of the Duke of Richmond? Mr. Gourlay evidently leaned to the belief that there was.[21] The Duke and his son-in-law had passed through Niagara during the hot weather of July, while the victim of Family Compact villainy was gradually having his ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... events which, in these latter times, have afflicted the department of the Ain, there is none which has caused a more profound and lively sensation than the tragical death of the lady, Felicite Alcazar, wife of Sebastian Benedict Peytel, notary, at Belley. At the end of October, 1838, Madame Peytel quitted that town, with her husband, and their servant Louis ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sorrow that defied any efforts I might have made at consolation. I made none; but in silence and with eager attention awaited to hear the denouement of a drama, whose prologue promised such a tragical ending. ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... never could have attained. Mystery and romance took them under their especial protection; and Eastern imaginations joined themselves to those of the West, in inventing tales of horror, dark, deep, and tragical, connected with the dungeons and caverns beneath these dreaded walls. That gloomy aperture which yawns beneath your footsteps is called the Well of Blood; even the Turkish guide acknowledges that it has often overflowed with human gore! Within this low arched ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... tilts and tournaments, trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, plays: then again, as in a new shifted scene, treasons, cheating tricks, robberies, enormous villainies in all kinds, funerals, burials, deaths of princes, new discoveries, expeditions, now comical, then tragical matters. Today we hear of new lords and officers created, tomorrow of some great men deposed, and then again of fresh honours conferred; one is let loose, another imprisoned; one purchaseth, another breaketh: he thrives, his neighbour turns bankrupt; now plenty, then again dearth and ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... What, you may in honour betray her as far as she betrays herself. No tragical design upon my ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... disgusting and tragical scenes which took place in Italy, in the course of the period I am describing, those which passed at Venice are perhaps the most striking and the most characteristic: in May, 1796, the French army, under Buonaparte, in the full tide of its success against the Austrians, first approached the territories ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... her companion and which, for Hugh, suddenly shed a ludicrous light on every one: on himself and Basile; on the pallid Lucian as he peevishly, vainly, ordered Ramsey off the scene; on Julian as he posed in a tragical disdain more theatrical than the actor's—who also saw the game; on the captain's dumfounded young folk; on the senator, the general, and the Californian, standing agaze, and on the two men with them, whose ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... deleterious to health, is the most criminal, and, in the mind of every honest man, must excite feelings of regret and disgust. Numerous facts are on record, of human food, contaminated with poisonous ingredients, having been vended to the public; and the annals of medicine record tragical events ensuing from the use ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... was lost, some boats were lowered, and capsized as a result. The immediate listing of the steamship added to the difficulties of rescue and increased the tragical toll of dead. ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... parts, kinds, or species, as you list to term them, it is to be noted that some poesies have coupled together two or three kinds; as the tragical and comical, whereupon is risen the tragi-comical; some, in the manner, have mingled prose and verse, as Sannazaro and Boetius; some have mingled matters heroical and pastoral; but that cometh all to one in this question; for, if severed they be ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... opportunity of hearing from a chief of a small tribe of Chipewyans, surrounded by a party of his young men, a most pathetic account, and a powerful declaration of revenge against the Sioux Indians, who had tomahawked and scalped his son. Laying his hand upon his heart as he related the tragical circumstance, he emphatically exclaimed, 'It is here I am affected, and feel my loss;' then raising his hand above his head, he said, 'the spirit of my son cries for vengeance. It must be appeased. His bones lie on the ground uncovered. We want ammunition: give ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... time were heard from the group of men and hobbledehoys about the horse-fiddles on the green, were evidence that the projected entertainment was not without comical features as they looked at it, the aspect of the affair as viewed by other eyes was decidedly tragical. Mrs. Woodbridge had long been sinking with consumption, and the uproar and excitement of the preceding night had left her in so prostrate a condition that Dr. Partridge had been called in. During the latter part of her aunt's sickness Desire ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... pointed out a head in marble brought from Mexico by Cortez, which was for centuries in the possession of the Duke of Alba's family, and was given to the present proprietor by the Duchess. "Her fate was very tragical," he observed. In a small cupboard with glass in front is a little ivory reliquior, four or five hundred years old. It was given to Mr. Beckford by the late Mr. Hope. It is in the shape of a small chapel; on opening the doors, the ...
— Recollections of the late William Beckford - of Fonthill, Wilts and Lansdown, Bath • Henry Venn Lansdown
... paper in the Edinburgh Magazine, in which it was suggested that the general conception of Manfred, and much of what is excellent in the manner of its execution, had been borrowed from "The Tragical History ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... went to the Elector of Hesse as we go to the butcher to buy meat. The Elector had food for powder in stock, and hung up his subjects in his shop. Come buy; it is for sale. In England, under Jeffreys, after the tragical episode of Monmouth, there were many lords and gentlemen beheaded and quartered. Those who were executed left wives and daughters, widows and orphans, whom James II. gave to the queen, his wife. ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... her pleasure. It is not strange that a man so fond of authority as William, and so conscious of a genius for command, should have strongly felt that jealousy which, during a few hours of royalty, put dissension between Guildford Dudley and the Lady Jane, and which produced a rupture still more tragical between Darnley and the Queen of Scots. The Princess of Orange had not the faintest suspicion of her husband's feelings. Her preceptor, Bishop Compton, had instructed her carefully in religion, and had especially guarded her mind against the arts of Roman Catholic divines, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... consequence of a fall from a horse when she was thirteen, a critical moment in a girl's life; and her despairing mother, perplexed by the contradictory advice of medical men, was taking her each year to a different watering-place. Then he learnt the startling news of the sudden tragical death of that mother, who was so severe and yet so useful to her kin. She had been carried off in five days by inflammation of the lungs, which she had contracted one evening whilst she was out walking at La Bourboule, through having ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... seeing—that the inscrutable workings of a supreme power led our country in the fulness of time to internal peace and security after these storms, and in a great degree in consequence of them, can we refuse our belief that the tragical events of those days were ordered for our good? Acknowledging that the overthrow of a rotten throne was necessary for the building up of a throne that should have its sole stable foundation in the welfare of the people, can we affirm that ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... not violent or tragical, but of the most pleasing and amiable kind. A certain tender gloom overspreads the whole. Posthumus is the ostensible hero of the piece, but its greatest charm is the character of Imogen. Posthumus is only interesting ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... day she broke her fast with the Sisters, and went about the business of the day calmly, collectedly, capably as ever. Only her face was white and drawn, and great violet circles were about her great tragical grey eyes. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... designs to be the apostles of truth on earth, make use for that purpose of the most efficacious means at their disposal. The universal genius of Byron allowed of his making use of every means to arrive at his end. He was able to be at once pathetic, comic, tragical, satirical, vehement, scoffing, bitter, and pleasant. This universality of talents, directed against Englishmen, was injurious to his ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... heard that those city chaps have an eye on any fellow that makes a record like I'm making here. They don't want to see him get ahead. They must guess that I'm in line for a big promotion, and that might worry them into playing some tragical trick ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... area had swept across the seas, and now rested on us. The clouds were charged with the thunder and lightning of disaster. Almost any accidental disturbance might precipitate a crash. Had we known all this, as we now know it, the consciousness of the tragical race we were running to reach the harbor of a consummated sale to Pendleton might have paralyzed our efforts. Sometimes one may cross in the dark, on narrow footing, a chasm the abyss of which, if seen, would dizzily ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... the royal breast were during the perusal of this extraordinary dialogue of birds, which has come to him through St. Mary Axe—? Manifold probably: manifold, questionable; but not tragical, or not immediately so. Certainly it is definable as the paltriest babble; no treason visible in it, nor constructive treason; but it painfully indicates, were his Majesty candid, That his Majesty is subject to spies in ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... one, little and great, Is taught in that vagabond's tragical fate: Of him who is scheming your friend to ensnare, Unless you've a passion ...
— The Diving Bell - Or, Pearls to be Sought for • Francis C. Woodworth
... begins a story, any nonsense you like, and tells as long as he pleases, only taking care to stop short at some exciting point, when the next takes it up and does the same. It's very funny when well done, and makes a perfect jumble of tragical comical stuff to laugh over. Please start it, Mr. Brooke," said Kate, with a commanding air, which surprised Meg, who treated the tutor with as much respect ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... sometimes extend to even four in number, with remarkably good effect, as, for instance, in the infernal proclamation from the Cross. Altogether the metrical scheme is of a graver cast than that of the Lay, and suits the more serious and tragical colour ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... repulsive," and Liszt raves rhapsodically over it; for Karasowski it was the "pain and grief of an entire nation," while Ehlert thinks "it owes its renown to the wonderful effect of two triads, which in their combination possess a highly tragical element. The middle movement is not at all characteristic. Why could it not at least have worn second mourning? After so much black crepe drapery one should not at least at once display white lingerie!" This ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... truth and is trying a while the experiment of living with closed eyes. In the dark she tries to see again the gilding on her idol. Illusion of course is illusion, and one must always pay for it; but there's something truly tragical in seeing an earthly penalty levied on such divine folly as this. As for M. de Mauves he's a shallow Frenchman to his fingers' ends, and I confess I should dislike him for this if he were a much ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... would bake, men must eat! "To make universal labor fold its arms is a chimera!" said Jules Favre, "a dream! The People fight for three days, for four days, for a week; society will not wait indefinitely." As to the situation, it was doubtless terrible, it was doubtless tragical, and blood flowed, but who had brought about this situation? Louis Bonaparte. For ourselves we would accept it, such as it was, and ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... picturesqueness, elegance, and dramatic propriety. Contrary to the usual practice, in old as well as modern pieces, "The Disobedient Child" concludes unhappily, though without any attempt at a highly wrought tragical catastrophe; the Rich man persists in his unrelenting conduct, and we are left to imagine that his son returns to live and die in ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... surpassed by no man of his age in artistic and poetic genius. His literary works are—The Sylphs of the Seasons and other Poems (1813). where he displays true sympathy with nature and deep knowledge of the human heart; Monaldi (1841), a tragical romance, the scene of which is laid in Italy; and Lectures on Art, edited by his brother-in-law, R. H. Dana the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the Emperor dejects him again. All he can say of the war (just before Waterloo) is that he is 'mortally afraid of it,' and that he hates Bonaparte 'because he makes me more afraid than anybody else.' In 1829 he anticipates 'tragical scenes' and a sanguinary revolution; in 1821 he thinks as ill as ever 'of the state and prospects of the country,' though with less alarm of speedy mischief; and in 1822 he looks forward to revolutionary wars all over the Continent, from which we may possibly escape by reason of our ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... to his swollen and inflamed ankle, declared himself unable to walk. Some half a dozen of his comrades were standing around him, with feelings painfully wrought up, waiting the denouement of an affair which, from the angry appearance of Salazar, they now feared would be tragical. Once more the bloodthirsty savage, pointing to the main body of prisoners, ordered the cripple to hurry forward and overtake them—he could not! 'Forward!' said Salazar, now wrought up to a pitch of phrenzy. 'Forward, or I'll shoot you on the spot!' 'Then shoot!' replied McAllister, throwing ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... maiden name was Jane M'Crea, is the daughter of an American loyalist and a gallant field officer, now deceased, and the niece and namesake of the unfortunate Jane M'Crea, whose tragical fate in the American revolutionary war excited so much commiseration, and gave rise to a correspondence between the American general. Gates, and General Burgoyne. The former wrote: "Miss M'Crea, a young lady, lovely to the sight, of virtuous ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... Lovers whom tragical sin hath made equal, One in transgression and one in remorse. Bonds may be severed, but what were the sequel? Hardly shall amity come of divorce. Let the dead Past have a royal entombing, O'er it the Future built white for a fane! I ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... have charg'd me with new Obligations, both for a very kinde Letter from you dated the sixth of this Month, and for a dainty peece of entertainment which came therwith. Wherin I should much commend the Tragical part, if the Lyrical did not ravish me with a certain Dorique delicacy in your Songs and Odes, wherunto I must plainly confess to have seen yet nothing parallel in our Language: Ipsa mollities. But I must not omit ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... nothing in the Bible more tragical and more infamous than the story of this woman Jezebel, and the part which she took in shaping the destiny of the Jewish nation. She was a Syro-Phenician princess, whose father ruled over the powerful and wealthy ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... a feminine tenderness, which,—to do him justice,—he did not mistake for sincerity, that rendered him unfit for the task before him. The farther he journeyed from Scroope and the nearer that he found himself to the cliffs the stronger did the feeling grow within him, till it had become almost tragical in its dominion over him. But still he went on. It was incumbent on him to pay one more visit to the cliffs and he ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... suffering he had inflicted on Pilar for my sake, and revel in it. Still, when he went I must go too; and I felt vaguely that I ought to be near Pilar—my loyal sister Pilar—during the act which would be tragical for her. ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... archaeology, the author enters upon his subject. Going back to the beginnings of the world, he depicts the amazement and the grief of man when for the first time he saw his fellow-man die. The entrance on earth of that unknown and terrible power which has since been called death is solemn and tragical. The body is lying there motionless and cold amid its brethren, who are amazed at the sleep which they cannot break, at the livid pallor and the stiffness of the limbs. Horror succeeds surprise when the signs of ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... but pleasing dreams, And shadows soon decaying. On the stage Of my mortality, my youth has acted Some scenes of vanity, drawn out at length By varied pleasures—sweetened in the mixture, But tragical in issue. Beauty, pomp, With every sensuality our giddiness Doth frame an idol—are inconstant friends When any troubled passion makes us halt On the ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... at first sight, antagonistic tone of the two. There are purely comic and even farcical passages in Marguerite's book, but the general colour, as has been said, is religious-sentimental or courtly-amatory, with by no means infrequent excursions into the purely tragical. The Contes et Joyeux Devis, on the other hand, in the main continue the wholly jocular tone of the old fabliaux. But Desperiers must have been, not only not the great man of letters which the somewhat exaggerated zeal of ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... had no sooner obtained a glimpse of the letter of the starving poet, embalmed within the precious leaves of one of the most noted albums of Europe, than I immediately enlisted under Lady Holberton's colors as a faithful Otwaysian. With that excellent lady I take a tragical view of the Lumley Letter, conceiving that a man must be blind as a bat, not to see that it was written by the author of Venice Preserved, and this in spite of other celebrated collectors, who find in the same sheet so much that is comical and ...
— The Lumley Autograph • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... Macartney, that a friend of his had written a tragedy. It is, however, possible that I may have been inaccurate in my perception of what Dr. Johnson related, and that he may have been talking of the same ludicrous tragical subject that Mr. Hume had mentioned. BOSWELL. The story of Combabus, which was originally told by Lucian, may be found ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... fame suffered an imputation. Moreover was not any fame fair enough that was so sure of duration and was associated with works immortal through their beauty? It was a part of my idea that the young lady had had a foreign lover (and an unedifying tragical rupture) before her meeting with Jeffrey Aspern. She had lived with her father and sister in a queer old-fashioned, expatriated, artistic Bohemia, in the days when the aesthetic was only the academic and the painters who ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... away, tremble under it. I listen and wait, every nerve on edge. A mile and a half the other side of our station the engine will first snort, then begin a series of shrieks—shrieks suggestive of warning, imminent danger, supreme peril, the climax of a tragical catastrophe. For at least five minutes shall I be compelled to listen while the engineer—if it be a real living engine-man who impels this chorus of fiends—runs the full scale of his shrill tooting, perhaps deeming it essential to the safety of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... in which he lived. There was probably not a conspicuous member of that society who was of military antecedents who would not have challenged any man who had said of him what Hamilton had said of Burr. Hamilton disdained explanation or recantation, and the result was accepted as tragical, but in a ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... affair is a worse failure than my first, for I did pity poor Joe, but this man is detestable, and I never will forgive him that last insult. I dare say I was absurdly tragical, I'm apt to be when very angry, but what a temper he has got! The white, cold kind, that smoulders and stabs, instead of blazing up and being over in a minute. Thank Heaven, I'm not his wife! Well, I've made an enemy and lost ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... the Contention betwixt the two famous houses of Yorke and Lancaster, with the death of the good Duke Humphrey: And the banishment and death of the Duke of Suffolke, and the Tragical end of the prowd Cardinall of Winchester, with the notable Rebellion of Jacke Cade: And the Duke of Yorkes first clayme to the Crowne. London Printed by Valentine Simmes for Thomas Millington, and are to be sold at his shop under S. ...
— Catalogue of the Books Presented by Edward Capell to the Library of Trinity College in Cambridge • W. W. Greg
... godless spirit bears the Cain-curse of restlessness and weariness ever upon it. So the contrast between the unfailing strengths that ever shine down upon us from the heavens, and the weariness of body and of mind afflicting the sleeping millions on whom they shine, is tragical indeed. But far more tragical is the contrast, of which the other is but an indication because it is a consequence, the contrast between the punctual obedience with which these hosts, summoned by the great Commander, appear and take ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... science and social speculation, and recognise the fine elevation of his sentiments, his noble solicitude for human wellbeing, his eager and resolute belief in its indefinite expansion, and the devotion which sealed his faith by a destiny that was as tragical as any in those bloody and ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... the great event of Thursday with just excitement enough to make it amusing. It might be that she should fail. Few succeed at the very first effort without difficulty, she said to herself; but if she failed there would be nothing tragical in the failure, and the season was all before her. It could scarcely be hoped that she would bring down her antagonist the first time ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... in the campaigns of Alexander, and his tragical death at the height of his power, threw a rare romantic interest around his figure. It is ever the fate of a great name to be enshrined in fable, and Alexander soon became the hero of romantic story, scarcely more wonderful than the actual, but growing ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... calm, but within, he was now boiling with anger, now chilled with apprehension. He no longer felt convinced that he was dealing with a madman. And if the old gentleman was sane, what, in God's name, had he to look for? What absurd or tragical adventure had befallen him? What countenance ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... Burgoyne's Narrative and Collection of Documents, pp. 65, 66, second edition.) But in spite of all restraints, the cruel temper and lawless habits of these savages would sometimes burst forth—sometimes not more fatally to their enemies than to their friends. The tragical fate of Miss MacRea raised one loud cry of indignation on both sides of the Atlantic. This lady, in the bloom of youth and beauty, the daughter of an American Loyalist, was betrothed to an officer in the British provincial troops. Anxious for her security, the officer engaged some Indians to ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... a tragical life we live, then I know not what to call it. Such a story as that of Jesus Christ,—the history of Jerusalem, say, being a part of the Universal History. The naked, the embalmed, unburied death of Jerusalem amid its desolate hills,—think of it. In Tasso's poem I trust ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... or effused so much novelty upon his age or country. The form, the characters, the language, and the shows of the English drama are his. "He seems," says Dennis, "to have been the very original of our English tragical harmony, that is, the harmony of blank verse, diversified often by dissyllable and trisyllable terminations. For the diversity distinguishes it from heroick harmony, and by bringing it nearer to common use makes it more proper ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... is troubling you," Strathmore remarked, "it seems to me that your position, though it may not be pleasant, is not very tragical. Our bishops are generally willing to absolve from ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... month that followed the acquittal of Marcus Wilkeson, three real murders, a railway collision killing thirty persons, and a steamboat explosion almost as tragical in its results, occurred. The Minford affair was already getting old. Public curiosity, except in the immediate neighborhood of the house, no longer exercised itself upon the problem which all of Coroner Bullfast's powers of analysis ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... Henry Carey, poet and musician (d. 1743), a natural son of George Savile, Marquis of Halifax, was the author of Chrononhotonthologos, "the most tragical tragedy ever yet tragedised by any company of tragedians," which was first played at the Haymarket, February 22, 1734. The well-known lines, "Go, call a coach, and let a coach be called," etc., which Scott prefixed to the first chapter ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... other chosen second, Formed a member of the party, Met at dawn in mortal combat. Cilley fell at Graves's first fire, The old rifle did its duty; And a fellow-man lay rendering Up the penalty of rashness. George D. Prentice of the "Journal," Louisville editor and punster, Called the tragical encounter Very Grave, un Wise, and Cilley. All the city on the hillside Was in sympathy united, And extended cordial welcome To her wand'ring son and hero, When he came among his people, Eighteen hundred nine and thirty. At the Mason House a dinner Was prepared to do ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... touched; that he was not lost to all trace of human or decent feeling,—was shown by the trouble, and, his grandparents thought, remorse, which he testified on hearing of Matty's tragical death; and he would even have tried to make some amends to Tony, had not the lame boy absolutely refused to let him come near him; while the florist, seeing him from within the shop, rushed out upon him, and threatened him with some more of the same "veesic" as he had ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... were indeed the apparition of his adored friend or a distempered dream, Lothair not less recognized the warning as divine, and the only conviction he had arrived at throughout his Sicilian travels was a determination that, however tragical the cost, his promise to Theodora should ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... barometer wagged to and fro like pendulums; and overhead, seamen were singing out at their work, and coils of rope clattering and thumping on the deck. Yet it was long before I had divined that I was at sea; long before I had recalled, one after another, the tragical, mysterious, and inexplicable events that had ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... the matter handled, and not the place, that maketh pure; so that when you and the elders hear that I have been at the theatre of Drury Lane, in London, you must not think that I was there to see a carnal stage play, whether tragical or comical, or that I would so far demean myself and my cloth, as to be a witness to the chambering and wantonness of ne'er-du-weel play-actors. No, Mr. Micklewham, what I went to see was an Oratorio, a most edifying exercise of psalmody and prayer, under the management ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... was too good a fortune-teller not to be able to foresee that his own destiny would be tragical if he waited the arrival of the man with the silver greyhound upon his sleeve. He made, as we say, a moonlight flitting, and was nowhere to be seen or heard of. Some noise there was about papers or letters found in the house, but it died away, and Doctor Baptisti Damiotti was ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... on the other that each man for himself should supersede and trample upon the institutions of the country in which he lives? A thousand things might be found excellent and salutary, if brought into general practice, which would in some cases appear ridiculous, and in others be attended with tragical consequences, if prematurely acted upon by a solitary individual. The author of "Political Justice," as appears again and again in the pages of that work, is the last man in the world to recommend a pitiful attempt, by scattered examples, to renovate the face of ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... clever young artist and satirist was both singular and tragical. It appears that on the 21st of February, 1828, Theodore Lane, who then resided in Judd Street, Brunswick Square, called upon his brother-in-law, Mr. Wakefield, a surgeon of Battle Bridge, intending to proceed in the ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... from a more complete and accurate manuscript, was published in 1604 as 'The Tragical History of Hamlet Prince of Denmark, by William Shakespeare, newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much again as it was, according to the true and perfect copy.' This was printed by I[ames] R[oberts] for the publisher N[icholas] L[ing]. The concluding words—'according to the true and perfect ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... heights of Blackhouse, are shown as marking the spot where the seven brethren were slain; and the Douglas Burn is avowed to have been the stream at which the lovers stopped to drink; so minute is tradition in ascertaining, the scene of a tragical tale, which, considering, the rude state of former times, had probably ...
— Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850 • Various
... tragical," replied Velletri, shrugging his shoulders; "instead of pursuing the little one with platonic declarations, you ought to ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... seventeen sail, protecting a large convoy of merchantmen and ships with military supplies. The fleet was pursued by twelve English ships under Admiral Kempenfeldt, an officer whose high professional abilities have not earned the immortality with which poetry has graced his tragical death. Falling in with the French one hundred and fifty miles west of Ushant, he cut off a part of the convoy, despite his inferior numbers.[163] A few days later a tempest dispersed the French fleet. Only two ships-of-the-line and five merchantmen ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... temptation, was becoming as adhesive as sticking-plaster. If she smiled, he smiled and ogled far too much in return. If she chatted with one and another of the young men who found Mrs. Arnot's parlor the most attractive place open to them in the town, he would assume a manner designed to be darkly tragical, but which to the young girl had ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... child raised her head quickly, revealing a tear-stained face and trembling lips. "YOU would cry, too, if you were an orphan and had come to a place you thought was going to be home and found that they didn't want you because you weren't a boy. Oh, this is the most TRAGICAL thing that ever happened ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... respectable landlord, Mr. James George Bogsby. Now do they show (in as many words as possible) how during some hours of yesterday evening a very peculiar smell was observed by the inhabitants of the court, in which the tragical occurrence which forms the subject of that present account transpired; and which odour was at one time so powerful that Mr. Swills, a comic vocalist professionally engaged by Mr. J. G. Bogsby, has himself stated to ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... of this extraordinary situation that Miss Ludington found herself at disadvantage even in expressing the formal condolence she proffered. With Ida before her eyes it was impossible that she should honestly profess to deplore the event, however tragical, which had brought her back to earth. As for Paul ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... shall rest perfectly satisfied if my readers hair does not follow the example of the Indians dogs and blankets and proceed generally after the manner of the "frightful porcupine." The other tale told by the pere was of a more tragical nature. During a storm in the prairies near the South Branch of the Saskatchewan a rain of fire suddenly descended upon a camp of Cree Indians and burned everything around. Thirty-two Crees perished in the flames; the ground was burned deeply for a considerable distance, and only one or two ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... I certainly would not come without him. Why do you look so tragical? And why are you sitting here in the gloom, sewing white things? There has not been a death in the ...
— Pillars of Society • Henrik Ibsen
... to be certain of his facts, his setting, and his atmosphere, and somewhat pedantically noting his authorities in the margin when he came to print. "Sejanus" is a tragedy of genuine dramatic power in which is told with discriminating taste the story of the haughty favourite of Tiberius with his tragical overthrow. Our drama presents no truer nor more painstaking representation of ancient Roman life than may be found in Jonson's "Sejanus" and "Catiline his Conspiracy," which followed in 1611. A passage in the address of the former play ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... early Christian writings in the Church which were not definitely admitted into the New Testament is instructive on this point. The fate of some of these may be described as tragical. Even when they were not branded as downright forgeries, the writings of the Fathers from the fourth century downwards ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... of you, and from what Diana has told me about you, I could wish her no better husband. Poor girl! After the tragical death of her father, and her wretched life with that American woman, she deserves ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... innumerable were the charges. An honourable member, Mr. Smith, had done well to introduce those tragical stories, which had made such an impression upon the House. No one of these had been yet controverted. It had indeed been said, that the cruelty of the African captain to the child was too bad to be true; ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... 1589, while the fourth tract, "Pasquil's Apology," appeared so late as July, 1590. The smart and active pen which skirmishes in these pamphlets adds nothing serious to the consideration of the tragical controversy in which it so lightly took part. It amused and trained Nash to write these satires, but they left Udall none the worse and the Bishops none the better. The author repeatedly promises to rehearse the arguments on both sides and sum up the entire controversy in ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... genuine, must be pronounced under any circumstances a folly; and if really sent at this time, it may have had tragical consequences. It is remarkable that Tiberius, on learning the death of Phraates, instead of relaxing, intensified his efforts. Not only did he at once send out to Syria another pretender, Tiridates, a nephew ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... the cathedral first, but the prime treasure of Milan at the present hour is the beautiful, tragical Leonardo. The cathedral is good for another thousand years, but we ask whether our children will find in the most majestic and most luckless of frescoes much more than the shadow of a shadow. Its fame has been for a century or two that, as one may say, of an illustrious invalid ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... on their seats; their master looked anxious, as though something personal was coming; and when the drama reached its height we timid ones in front were fain to pinch each other in a stress of nervous excitement. The tragical conclusion was marked by a simultaneous, low, long, agricultural whistle, which did duty as a sigh, and the audience first stared into each other's faces and then gave a roar of applause, amidst which the vicar announced that the penny readings were established from that ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... to work—and hard too—to supply the torrent of munitions demanded. Sir PHILIP admits all that, but in a kind of agony calls on God and man to realise the meaningless horror of it all and forbid, at any price, the possibility of its recurrence. If sometimes unjust and nearly always tragical, the book none the less is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 5, 1920 • Various
... led away our hero, who was much shocked at this unfortunate and tragical end of his poor father, while Dr Middleton ordered the body to be taken up into a bed-room, and immediately despatched a messenger to the coroner of the county. Poor Mr Easy had told his son but the day before, that he felt convinced ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... should remain undiscovered; death would otherwise be his reward. In that country, where the passions are excited by the climate, and the difficulty of gratifying them is great, love often produces tragical events. ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... Edward, his tragical death so aroused the sympathy of the people that they named him the Martyr, and believed that miracles were wrought at his tomb. It cannot be said that his murder was in any sense a martyrdom, but the men ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... endowment never begot itself a body of work really symbolic of itself. For if your music, as a whole, has any grandeur, it is the hollow grandeur of inflation, of ostentation, of externality. Your music is almost entirely a monstrous decor de theatre. It is forever seeking to establish tragical and satanic and passional atmospheres, to suggest immense and regal and terrific things, to gain tremendous effects. It is full of loud, grandiloquent pronouncements, of whirlwinds, thunderstorms, coronations on the Capitoline, ideals, lamentations, cavalcades across half ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... questions which stand out in my recollection are the war between Denmark and the Austro-Prussian allies, in which this country was so nearly involved, and the concluding struggles in the American Civil War, which may be said to have had their culmination in the tragical assassination of Lincoln. It may seem a strange thing to say, and yet I believe that Lincoln's cruel death did more to hasten the return of peace and goodwill, not only in the United States, but all over the world, after the close of the war, than anything else could have ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... attention, and to frequently worry his mind? Is it worth his while to dress and spend an evening watching a performance which, however skilfully played, will make him no happier than before? It is a characteristic of those who are fond of sensational plays that they do not mind watching the tragical ending of a hero or a heroine, and all for the sake of amusement. Young people and children are not likely to get good impressions from this sort of thing. It has even been said that murders have been committed by youngsters who ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... latest and most shocking instances of this method of warfare was that of the destruction of the French cross-Channel steamer Sussex. It must stand forth, as the sinking of the steamer Lusitania did, as so singularly tragical and unjustifiable as to constitute a truly terrible example of the inhumanity of submarine warfare as the commanders of German vessels have for the past twelvemonth been conducting it. If this instance stood alone, some explanation, ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... Egyptians worshipped the Sun, under the name of Osiris. The misfortunes and tragical death of this God were an allegory relating to the Sun. Typhon, like Ahriman, represented Darkness. The sufferings and death of Osiris in the Mysteries of the Night were a mystic image of the phenomena of Nature, and the conflict of the two great Principles which share ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... no moral obliquity in him, or he had touched a subtler verity at last in pondering the affair. It seemed now no longer a farce, but had a pathos which, though very different from that of its first aspect, was hardly less tragical. Knowing with what coldness, or at the best, uncandor, he (representing Society in its attitude toward convicted Error) would have met the fact had it been owned to him at first, he had not virtue enough to condemn the illusory stranger, who must have been helpless to ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... replied to the communication in a tone of earnest, dignified remonstrance; but apparently the King was now too thoroughly committed to his scheme to be deterred by any reasoning or reproaches, and the tragical farce was played out. It had no good results for France; England was chilled and alienated, but the Spanish crown never devolved on the Duchess of Montpensier. Within two little years from her marriage that princess and all ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... history of England, does not look with awe upon the effects produced by the talents of her Elizabeth? Who but admires that undaunted firmness in time of peace and that profound depth of policy which she displayed in the cabinet? Yet behold the tragical end of this learned, this politic princess! Behold the triumphs of age and sickness over her once powerful talents, and say not that the faculties of man are ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... little comedy, and by no means tragical, we pass over the next scene, and simply state, that Bertha, before all those neighbors, forgot everybody but her husband,—if he may be called so, —and the church had said so; that Daniel felt great remorse at what he had done; that he told Doome again that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... aided by us as a fighting force, and it could not as a matter of policy be aided by us in its tragical plight after the debacle. It had to depend ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... her. Eighty pounds a year would be paid by his lawyers to a Florentine lawyer, whom he named, for his daughter's maintenance, so long as Netta left him unmolested. But he desired to hear and see no more of persons who reminded him of the most tragical event of his history as a collector, as well as of the utter failure of his married life. Henceforth they were strangers to each other, and she might arrange her future as ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of the ceremony, as if he were anxious to have done with it, and to pass the crisis in his life which he feared. The coronation was proclaimed on the 12th of May, 1610. It took place on the 13th, at St. Denys. The tragical event which he had dreaded did not ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... gentle, and generous a boy should become so selfish, and unfeeling, and overbearing as a man. But such are the natural and inevitable effects of ambition and an inordinate love of power. The history of a conqueror is always a tragical and melancholy tale. He begins life with an exhibition of great and noble qualities, which awaken in us, who read his history, the same admiration that was felt for him, personally, by his friends ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... be insane, and was treated as a mad man. Lieutenant Randolph, a Virginian, assaulted President Jackson, but not with the view to assassinate him. Brooks's assault on Senator Sumner was an assassin's act, and a far more cowardly deed than that which Booth perpetrated, though it had a less tragical termination. The assassinating spirit has been increasing fast in the South, which is one proof of the growth of the aristocratical sentiment there,—assassination being much more in vogue among aristocrats than among monarchists ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... drawing lurid, pictures of hideous and apparent wrongs, and a hundred or so well-dressed legislators whisper behind the palms of their hands, make their plans for the evening and trot into their appointed lobbies like sheep when the division bell rings. It is the most tragical epitome of inadequacy ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... husband on the right. Both men and women were kneeling in prayer, and almost all of them were in tears. Tall candles stood about the bed. The cure of the parish and his assistants had taken their places in the middle of the room, beside the bier. There was something tragical about the scene, with the head of the family lying before the coffin, which was waiting to be closed down ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... soil. They had no knowledge of the danger that they were then in, but they were persevering, and still determined to make their way North, and thus, at last, success attended their efforts. Their struggles and exertions having been attended with more of the romantic and tragical elements than had characterized the undertakings of any of the other late passengers, the Committee felt inclined to make a fuller notice of them on the book, yet failed to do them ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... till at last the magistrates had no resource but to call out the troops, who, on one occasion, after they had been pelted with large stones, and in many instances severely injured, fired, killing or wounding several of the foremost rioters. So tragical an event seemed to Wilkes to furnish him with exactly such an opportunity as he desired to push himself into farther notoriety. He at once printed Lord Weymouth's letter, and circulated it, with an inflammatory comment, in which he described it as a composition having for its fruit "a horrid massacre, ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... the pagan religions—"how the gods of the older world, at the time of the definite triumph of Christianity, that is, in the third century, fell into painful embarrassments, which greatly resembled certain tragical situations of their earlier life. They now found themselves beset by the same troublesome necessities to which they had once before been exposed during the primitive ages, in that revolutionary epoch when the Titans broke out of the custody of Orcus, and, piling Pelion on Ossa, scaled Olympus. ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... of this tragical Relation of the Soldier thus saved, his Lordship gave immediate Orders for the Firing of the Villa, which was executed with due Severity: After which his Lordship march'd back to his Quarters at Campilio; from whence, two Days after, we arriv'd at Valencia, ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... Badajos was stormed by Wellington; and the story forms one of the most tragical and splendid incidents in the military history of the world. Of "the night of horrors at Badajos," Napier says, "posterity can scarcely be expected to credit the tale." No tale, however, is better authenticated, or, as an example of what disciplined human valour is capable of achieving, better deserves ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... increased; Gabriele began to weep, and Louise bore her company; she seemed to look upon Eva as on one lost. Leonore was calmer; she spoke not one word which could wound her sister, but sighed deeply, and looked with quiet grief upon the beloved but misguided sister; and then seeing what a tragical turn the conversation was taking, said, with all that expression of calm ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... figures, not excepting Henry's own, Wolsey stands out as the most grand and tragical; and Mr. Froude has done good service to history, if only in making us understand at last the wondrous 'butcher's son.' Shakspeare seems to have felt (though he could explain the reason neither to his auditors nor, perhaps, to himself) that Wolsey was, on the whole, an ...
— Froude's History of England • Charles Kingsley
... sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the recent ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... after this tragical episode, where they were oddities among the humdrum tradesmen's sons. Victor, thoughtful and taciturn, rhymed profusely in tragedies, "printing" in his books, "Chateaubriand or nothing!" and engaging his more animated brother to flourish the Cid's ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... "El Dorado" is soon over. Occurrences of like kind, but often of more tragical termination, are too common in California to cause any long-sustained interest. Within the hour will arise some new event, equally stirring, leaving the old to live only in the recollection of those who have been active ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... by the Ulstermen, and the SPEAKER had hard work to maintain order. The contest was renewed on a motion for the adjournment. As a means of bringing peace to Ireland the debate was absolutely futile. But it enabled Mr. DEVLIN to fire off one of his tragical-comical orations, and Sir H. GREENWOOD to disclaim the accusation that he had treated the Irish problem with levity. "There is nothing light and airy about me," he declared; and no one who has heard his pronunciation of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... interrupted herself, half-way, with a sob. She was seized by a fantasy that if Sophie died an old maid her sister would have been the cause of it—would be a murderess! The sudden jarring of this idea—tragical enough, even without the ghastly spice of reality that there was about it—against the ludicrous element with which tradition flavors the name of old maid—caught the young woman at unawares, and threw her rudely ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... scarcely remembered; and the successful champion died a natural death within about three years afterwards. Mons. Licquet slenderly doubts portions of this tragical tale: but I have good reason to believe that it is not an exaggerated one. As to what occurred after the death of one of the combatants, I am unwilling to revive unpleasant ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... overthrown now. Thomas Tusher wrote to Esmond, as he lay in prison, announcing that his patroness had conferred upon him the living his reverend father had held for many years; that she never, after the tragical events which had occurred (whereof Tom spoke with a very edifying horror), could see in the revered Tusher's pulpit, or at her son's table, the man who was answerable for the father's life; that her ladyship bade him to say that she ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... there were but a few days to come ere he was to be slain, and implored of Antiochus that, out of the reverence he bore to the Grecian gods, he would disappoint the snares the Jews laid for his blood, and would deliver him from the miseries with which he was encompassed." Now this is such a most tragical fable as is full of nothing but cruelty and impudence; yet does it not excuse Antiochus of his sacrilegious attempt, as those who write it in his vindication are willing to suppose; for he could not presume beforehand ...
— Against Apion • Flavius Josephus
... the full cheek should be, Incipient lines of lank flaccidity, Lymphatic pallor where the pink should glow, And where the throb of transport, pulses low? - Most tragical of shapes from Pole to Line, O wondering child, unwitting Time's design, Why should Art add to Nature's quandary, And worsen ill by thus immuring thee? - That races do despite unto their own, That Might supernal do indeed condone ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... clenched fist against the bar. My knuckles were bruised and bleeding, but I felt no pain. I was so light of foot, I imagined I could jump over the counter. I ached to fight some one. Then all at once came the thought of Berna. It came with tragical suddenness, with poignant force. Intensely it smote me as never before. I could have ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... faith is all the more touching, because the collector cannot expect to live until the whole stock is disposed of, and because, in the order of nature, much must at last fall to rein unbought, unless the reporter's Devouring Element appears and gives a sudden tragical turn ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... moment Natt twisted his sapient and facetious noddle over his shoulder to where Brother Peter sat huddled into a hump and in gloomy silence. "Mercy me, Peter!" he cried, in an affrighted whisper, and with a mighty tragical start, "and is that thee? Dusta know I thowt ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... disinterested love of learning. In any case, but for Ellwood, we should never have known the softer side of Milton's character, never have known of what gentleness, patience, and courtesy he was capable. And, indeed, when we remember Milton's position at this time, as tragical as that of Demosthenes after Chaeronea, and of Dante at the Court of Verona, there is something inexpressibly touching in the picture here given with so much simplicity and with such evident unconsciousness on the part of the painter of the effect produced. There is one passage which is ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... crowd; it seemed to be a mere footfall, perhaps that of some pedestrian on the quay. Yet no; it came from the works, and now it was quite distinct; it ascended steps and then sped along a passage. And the steps became quicker, and a panting could be heard, so tragical that she at last divined that the horror was at hand. All at once the door was violently flung open. Morange entered. He was alone, beside himself, with livid face and scarce ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... become of young Goldoni? His boyhood was as thoroughly plebeian, various, and comic as Alfieri's had been patrician, monotonous, and tragical. Instead of one place of residence, we read of twenty. Scrape succeeds to scrape, adventure to adventure. Knowledge of the world, and some book learning also, flow in upon the boy, and are eagerly caught up by him and heterogeneously amalgamated in his mind. Alfieri learned nothing, wrote ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... went on, "every fact of this sort is preceded by the slow and long decay of a moral nature, and that is of the most eternal and tragical interest; and"—here Corey broke down in an old man's queer, whimpering laugh, as the notion struck him—"if it's very common with us, I don't know but we ought to be proud of it, as showing that we excel all the rest of ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... damp their Fire, and keep their Spirit from soaring in almost all their Pieces; and all this is owing to the false Notions of Decency, and a Refinement of Taste among our Neighbours, which is getting now to such a Height, that so far from being able to bear the Representation of Tragical Actions, they are hardly able to bear any Subjects which turn upon the weightier Passions; such as Ambition, Revenge, Jealousy, &c. The Form of their Government, indeed, is of such a Nature, that many Subjects cannot be treated as they ought, nor work'd up to that Height ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... poetical Muses standing about my bed, and suggesting words to my tears, being moved for a little space, and inflamed with angry looks: "Who," saith she, "hath permitted these tragical harlots to have access to this sick man, which will not only not comfort his grief with wholesome remedies, but also nourish them with sugared poison? For these be they which with the fruitless thorns of affections do kill the fruitful crop of reason, and do accustom ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... the ladies and the assembled multitude, that no bulls, decretals, or anathemas of the church were able to restrain them. The use of gunpowder, and the consequent inutility of armour to defend the person in battle, gradually put an end to these animating shows. The tragical death of Henry II. of France, in 1559, who was accidentally killed in a tournament, caused laws to be passed prohibiting their being held in that kingdom. They were continued in England till the beginning ...
— The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth Edition • Anonymous
... enter'd the dingle, and came on the sad sight therein. I set down the ham as a thing to be asham'd of, and bar'd my head. The girl lifted her face, and turning, all white and tragical, saw me. ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... very early Renaissance—such, for instance, as most of that in the prose "Pleasant Historie of Thomas of Reading,"[135] which the late Mr Thoms was pleased to call a romance. Yet the actual stuff of "Thomas of Reading" is very much of the nature of the fabliaux (except of course the tragical part, which happens to be the only good part), and so the difference of the handling is noteworthy. So it is also in English verse-work of the kind—the "Hunting of the Hare"[136] and the like—to take examples necessarily a ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... and his descendants obtained permission, in 1475, to erect a mausoleum to his memory. But the king, at the same time that he acceded to their petition, added the express condition[32], that no allusion should be made to Marigni's tragical end. The monument was destroyed in the revolution; but the murder of the treasurer is one of those "damned spots," which will never be washed out of the history of France.—Charles de Valois soon felt the sting of remorse; and within a year from the wreaking ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... and exports. The subject is really one for knowledge, not for politicians. With great ceremony at intervals, they go through the highly superfluous performance of calling each other liars, as who should say that Queen Anne is dead: and while this tragical farce continues the question of vital imports and exports is ignored. Within it there lies the key to the Irish question, for instance, since no nation can be saved which persistently exports the best of its life. And in ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... impossible to be a Believer, a Hero; he lay buried, unconscious, under these baleful influences. To the strongest man, only with infinite struggle and confusion was it possible to work himself half-loose; and lead as it were, in an enchanted, most tragical way, a spiritual death-in-life, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... now understood to have had no basis except in the waste brains of courtier men and women; but their existence there can become tragical enough. Add to which, the Great Elector, like all the Hohenzollerns, was a choleric man; capable of blazing into volcanic explosions, when affronted by idle masses of cobwebs in the midst of his serious businesses! It is certain, the young Prince Friedrich ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle
... of a ready means of lowering boats from vessels in distressed circumstances, has been exemplified with the most tragical results in such cases as those of the Orion, Birkenhead, and Amazon. Mr W. S. Lacon, late of the H.E.I.C.'s service, has invented a plan for making them quickly available, which seems likely to be successful. It was tried ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various
... even of beauty, by ceasing. She has done nothing but live and been nothing but alive, both to such passive purpose that the ceasing is pitiful; and it is by pushing on to this end, instead of shirking it, and by marking the last tragical fact which puts a dignity upon even the meanest being, that Miss Mayor raises her story above the plane of social criticism, and keeps it sincere. A lesser writer would have been content with less, and having imagined her central figure ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... science eminent both for attainments and character—Robert Boyle. Inspired by the discoveries in other fields, which had swept away so much of theological thought, he could no longer resist the conviction that some epidemics are due—in his own words—"to a tragical concourse of natural causes"; but he argued that some of these may be the result of Divine interpositions provoked by human sins. As time went on, great difficulties showed themselves in the way of this compromise—difficulties theological ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... the incidents and events of this tragical story. Conscience whispered him, are not Malcomb's miseries superior to thine? Candour and correct reason must have answered yes. "Melissa perished, said Alonzo, but not by the hand of her lover: she expired, but not through the mistaken ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... Don Lorenzo! Now the Man is all in a blaze. God grant that Antonia may soften that fiery temper, or we shall certainly cut each other's throat before the Month is over! However, to prevent such a tragical Catastrophe for the present, I shall make a retreat, and leave you Master of the field. Farewell, my Knight of Mount Aetna! Moderate that inflammable disposition, and remember that whenever it is necessary to make love to yonder Harridan, you may ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... curator of the museum feels that he has a clever joke on the dead man, when with a grin he points to a label bearing these words from the 'Hydriotaphia':—"To be knaved out of our graves, to have our skulls made drinking-bowls, and our bones turned into pipes to delight and sport our enemies, are tragical abominations escaped in ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... then," said Madame Dubarry. "I will not dishonor the assembly by my cowardice; but, alas! I am only a woman, I cannot rank among you and be worthy of a tragical end; a woman dies in her bed. My death, a sorrowful old woman abandoned by every one, will be the worst of all. Will it not, ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... position at once so ornate and so enviable, the feelings of Mrs. Rittenhouse Smith may be imagined upon finding herself confronted. with the tragical probability that one of her most important dinner-parties would ...
— A Border Ruffian - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... it was the greater that few knew the extent of it. His letters came down franked from town, and he showed the invitations to Helen with a sigh. It was beautiful and tragical to see him refuse one party after another—at least to those who could understand, as Helen didn't, the melancholy grandeur of his self-denial. Helen did not, or only smiled at the awful pathos with which the Major spoke ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the murmuring rapids, Joe now proceeded to skin the moose with a pocket-knife, while I looked on; and a tragical business it was,—to see that still warm and palpitating body pierced with a knife, to see the warm milk stream from the rent udder, and the ghastly naked red carcass appearing from within its seemly robe, which was made to hide it. The ball had passed through the shoulder-blade ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... have spared us one starting sinew of brave La Mole on the rack) you turned, as Scott would have turned, without a thought of their profitable literary uses. You had other metal to work on: you gave us that superstitious and tragical true love of La Mole's, that devotion—how tender and how pure!—of Bussy for the Dame de Montsoreau. You gave us the valour of D'Artagnan, the strength of Porthos, the melancholy nobility of Athos: Honour, Chivalry, ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang |
