"Forlorn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... arrowroot for the sick out of Plymouth, to be called to a sharp account when all was over. Again the rations were reduced. Four weeks' allowance was stretched to serve for six, and still the Spaniards did not come. So England's forlorn hope was treated at the crisis of her destiny. The preparations on land were scarcely better. The militia had been called out. A hundred thousand men had given their names, and the stations had been arranged where they were to assemble if the enemy attempted ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... his joy—as though that alone could save him from some abyss of despair into which he was falling. His lips moved. In vain. No audible sound broke that intense stillness in which the beating and throbbing of those two forlorn hearts could be heard. His lips moved, but all sound died ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... trips and the time consumed in dining at a restaurant in the rue de l'Odeon brought Godefroid to the hour when he said he would return and take possession of his lodging on the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse. Nothing could be more forlorn than the manner in which Madame Vauthier had furnished the two rooms. It seemed as though the woman let rooms with the express purpose that no one should stay in them. Evidently the bed, chairs, tables, bureau, secretary, curtains, came from forced ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... one dead, The other powerless to be born, With nowhere yet to rest my head, Like these on earth I wait forlorn. Their faith, my tears, the world deride— I come to ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh
... and talked in tones that accorded well with the wind and waters and growling torrents about us, telling sad old stories of crushed canoes, drowned Indians, and hunters frozen in snowstorms. Even brave old Toyatte, dreading the treeless, forlorn appearance of the region, said that his heart was not strong, and that he feared his canoe, on the safety of which our lives depended, might be entering a skookum-house (jail) of ice, from which there might be no escape; while the ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... late! too late! As Roland scans both plain and height, And sees how many Frenchmen lie Stretched in their mortal agony, He mourns them like a noble knight: 'Comrades, God give ye grace to-day, And grant ye Paradise, I pray! No lieges ever fought as they. What a fair land, O France, art thou! But ah! forlorn and widowed now! O Oliver, at least to thee, My brother, I must faithful be Back, comrade mine, back let us go, And charge once ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... become an irretrievable one. Through a seemingly accidental circumstance, a light one day broke on his beclouded and half-maddened brain, that led to a self-redemption as happy for himself and family as it was unexpected by all. A former friend, one morning, moved perhaps by his forlorn appearance, in passing him with a light carriage, invited him to ride a few miles into the country; where, being unexpectedly called off in another direction, he left Elwood to return on foot by a nearer route across the fields to his home. After travelling some distance, he reached an ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... the most peculiar and original literary characters he ever met. After a long and searching analysis he adds: "However free in speech, she never shocked decorum—never had to be appealed or apologized for as a forlorn woman of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... the sun of getting him to do any certain thing. He will dare willingly, but he will not permit himself to be driven. So this attempt of the boatmen to force Alf only aroused all the dogged stubbornness of his race. The same qualities were in him that are in men who lead forlorn hopes; and there, under the stars, on the lonely pier, encircled by the jostling and shouldering gang, he resolved that he would die rather than submit to the indignity of being robbed of a single stitch of clothing. Not value, but ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... which he had grazed against the rocks, he turned to speak to a little girl who was sitting on a tuft of heather, looking somewhat forlorn. A handsome collie dog, yellow-brown with a white ruffle round his neck, was lying impatiently at her feet, every now and again glancing up at his mistress ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... and creaked and swayed with the rhythm of it. "My word!" said Miss Bruce-Drummond. She listened fascinatedly to their deafening repertoire. Greenmount's supporters, a rather forlorn little group of substitutes, with the coach and trainer and a teacher or two, and a pert fox terrier wearing their colors on his collar, elicitated a brief, passing pity from Honor. They looked strange and friendless, these smart Northern prep-schoolers. The L. A. ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... Within this half hour we shall be called up to our devotions. Now, good Ascanio—Alas, he's gone too! we are left miserable and forlorn. ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... and low-spirited from the frights he had had, and, in place of finding his destination some handsome mansion where there would be a warm welcome, it seemed to him that he had come to a savage dungeon-like place, on the very extreme of the earth, where all looked desolate and forlorn among the ruins, and the sea was beating at the foot of the rocks on which ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... be discouraged at his apparent little influence, even though every sally of every young life may seem like a forlorn hope. No man can see ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Charles Dudley Warner • Charles Dudley Warner
... pleasant life for loss of friends is troubled aye. By Allah, I knew not their worth nor yet how dear A good it is to have one's loved ones ever near, Until they left my heart on fire without allay. Ne'er shall I them forget, nay, nor the day they went And left me all forlorn, to pine for languishment, My severance to bewail in torment and dismay. I make a vow to God, if ever day or night The herald of good news my hearing shall delight, Announcing the return o' th' absent ones, I'll lay Upon their threshold's dust my cheeks and to my soul, "Take comfort, for ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... from the forlorn pea and was maintained. They moved about the garden from flower bed to flower bed. In half an hour the shallow basket was beautified with fragrant blooms and Mabel thought ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... to help Dora bear her sorrow. It prostrated her. But for the forlorn hope that the escaped trooper might have made a mistake, and that, after all, Dick might have been saved, she would have broken ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... There is more life in one "self-approving hour,"-one act of benevolence,—one work of self-discipline,—than in threescore years and ten of mere sensual existence. Go out among the homes of the poor, lift up the disconsolate, administer comfort to the forlorn; in some way, as it may come across your path, or lie in the sphere of your duty, do a deed of kindness; and in that one act you shall live more than in a year of selfish indulgence and indolent ease,—yea, more than in a lifetime ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... cursed effects of drink, the heads of many families are frequently sent to the "Island" for from ten days to six months, and when the sheltering arms of some beneficent society, or the kindly offices of some good Samaritan, are not directed to the forlorn and destitute condition of the children, the unfortunate young creatures are forced upon the streets to beg, steal, sell papers, flowers, etc., and also visit the offices of bankers and brokers, doing anything, in short, to get the means to live. They live in ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... but cold and forlorn; And the Gnat slowly winded his shrill little horn; And the Moth, who was griev'd for the loss of a sister, Bent over the body, and ...
— The Butterfly's Funeral - A Sequel to the Butterfly's Ball and Grasshopper's Feast • J. L. B.
... touched the shore, The shore of the Bristol Channel, A sea-green Porpoise carried away His wrapper of scarlet flannel. And when he came to observe his feet, Formerly garnished with toes so neat, His face at once became forlorn On perceiving that all his ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... as before. Marguerite had not seen her father in the long interval, and George had seen only the factotum of Lucas & Enwright. But he now saw Marguerite's father again—a quite different person from the factotum.... Strange, how the house seemed forlorn! 'Something about a baby,' Agg had said vaguely. And it was as though something that Mr. Haim and his wife had concealed had burst from its concealment and horrified and put a curse on the whole Grove. Something not at all nice! What in the name of decent propriety was that slippered ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... the black plague, scarcely a third part of the population remained alive; and the Venetians engaged ships at a high rate to retreat to the islands; so that, after the plague had carried off three-fourths of her inhabitants, their proud city was left forlorn and desolate. In Florence it was prohibited to publish the numbers of the dead and to toll the bells at their funerals, in order that the living might not abandon themselves ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... am sure I was not, because I can distinctly remember luxuriating in my sadness. I can remember translating it into unspoken words, the while my head was cushioned in the flank of a cow at milking time, describing myself and my forlorn estate as an orphan and an 'inmate' to myself. And, without doubt, I derived satisfaction from that. I can recall picturesquely vivid contrasts drawn in my mind between Master Nicholas Freydon, as the playmate of Nelly Fane ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... we came up over Plevlie. To one corner we could see the town creeping in a crescent about the foot of a grey hill, far away on the other side was a little monastery, forlorn and white, like a shivering saint, and between a great valley with four purplish humps in the midst of the corn and maize fields, like great whales ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... hope, been averted, and we shall simply have done now something we meant to do a few days hence. But that does not affect the point we have been discussing," and he looked at Rendel as though with a forlorn hope that at the last moment he might speak. But Rendel was silent still. "You understand, then," Stamfordham said, looking him straight in the face, an embodiment of inexorable justice, "what this means to a ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... rough rocks, and the treacherous, rugged ice, was he not upborne by an inward power, stronger than brute's, holier than fiend's, higher than man's? When Arnold flung himself against this fortress, when he led his forlorn hope up to these sullen, deadly walls, when, after repulse and loss and bodily suffering and weakness, he could still stand stanch against the foe and exclaim, "I am in the way of my duty, and I know no fear!" was ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... Ried's eyes around from the dough, and fixed them upon Julia; and she said, as soon as she caught a glimpse of the forlorn little maiden: ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... and had been seeking him some time, opening doors and stumbling into endless passages, but always making her way back somehow to the focus of light—the big hall; and feeling drearily as though she were some forlorn princess shut up in an enchanted castle, who could not find ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... beautiful hair with an ivory or a wooden brush, and leaves paint and powder to ladies who are presumably not ordentlich. At one time narrow brass or iron bedsteads were introduced from England, and were used a great deal in Germany. I remember seeing one all forlorn in a vast magnificent palace bedroom where a fourposter hung with brocade or tapestry would have looked more at home. But the real old-fashioned bedstead, still much liked and formerly seen everywhere was always of wood, ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... knew whether to believe Ted or not. Paul saw them put their heads close together, as though exchanging confidences. Then the tall fellow once more whirled on Ted, who had been standing on one leg, with a most forlorn look upon ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... off herself as she spoke, and Mark had nothing for it but to obey, as she so evidently expected to be obeyed. He went round the field, calling out the child's name now and then, feeling rather forlorn and ridiculous as his voice went out unanswered on the raw air. Presently a burly figure, grotesquely magnified by the mist, came towards him, and resolved ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... for a fact, Professor, that never until this blessed minute, when we've really struck it, has th' notion come into my fool head that when we did ketch up with it the folks it rightly b'longed to might want t' keep it for theirselves! Yes, just kick me, please. Just kick me for a forlorn, ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... newspaper that some passenger had thrown aside and endeavored to distract his mind from the forlorn sight. The sheets were gritty to the touch, and left a smutch upon the fingers. His clothes were sifted over with dust and fine particles of manure. The seat grated beneath his legs. The great headlines in the newspaper announced that the troops ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... mind it at all,' answered Gladys in a still, quiet voice. Her heart cried out against her unhappy destiny; but one so desolate, so helpless and forlorn, may not choose. 'Yes, I ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... provender is dear? Let him go feed upon the public ways; I want him only for the holidays." So the old steed was turned into the heat Of the long, lonely, silent, shadeless street; And wandered in suburban lanes forlorn, Barked at by dogs, and torn by ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... on all social occasions, to draw Mr Sparkler out, and make him conspicuous before the company; and, although the considerate action always resulted in that young gentleman's making a dreary and forlorn mental spectacle of himself, the friendly intention was ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... Helen, putting her arms about the other girl's neck. "You were kind to me when I was lost in this city. You were kind to me just for nothing—when I appeared poor and forlorn and—and a greenie! Now, I am sorry that it seemed best for me to let your mistake stand. I did not tell my uncle and cousins either, that I was not as poor and ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... feeling of its own over luxuriance, at the expense of other creatures utterly destroyed and rooted out for its good alone, but in its right doing of its hard duty; and forward climbing into those spots of forlorn hope where it alone can bear witness to the kindness and presence of the Spirit that cutteth out rivers among the rocks, as it covers the valleys with corn: and there, in its vanward place, and only there, where nothing is withdrawn for it, nor hurt by it, and where nothing can take part ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... down to my new life in the course of a few days, but I need hardly remark I did not propose staying in that forlorn spot longer than I could help. This was my plan. I would, first of all, make myself acquainted with the habits and customs of the blacks, and pick up as much bushmanship and knowledge of the country as it was possible to acquire, in case I should have ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... that of the hapless girl of Verona. When she swallowed the sleeping-draught, he shrank and shuddered at the horrible pictures conjured up by her frenzied fancy; and in the last woful scene, he forgot himself, the play, the audience, everything but her, the forlorn gypsy child, the shy and lonely little girl whom long years ago he had taken on his knee, and smoothed down her tangled black hair, as he might have smoothed the plumage of an eaglet, struggling and palpitating under his hand, and glancing up sideways, with fierce and frightened eyes,—and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... seven penitential psalms, the poet, raising his head from his miserable pallet, and pointing to his faithful slave, exclaimed: "Alas! when I was a poet, I was young, and happy, and blest with the love of ladies; but now, I am a forlorn deserted wretch! See—there stands my poor Antonio, vainly supplicating FOURPENCE to purchase a little coals. I have not them to give him!" The cavalier, Sousa quaintly relates, in his 'Life of Camoens,' closed his heart and his purse, and quitted the room. Such ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... Sands—at that part named the Shingles— off Margate, the Demerara soon began to break up, and the helpless crew did as those of the Fusilier had done and were still doing—they signalled for aid. But it seemed a forlorn resource. Through the thick, driving, murky atmosphere nothing but utter blackness could be seen, though the blazing of their own tar-barrels revealed, with awful power, the seething breakers around, which, as if maddened by the obstruction of the sands, leaped and hissed ...
— Battles with the Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... changed into uniform with the others and gone down to the gate, though not really expecting any one as they were from out back and had no city friends, but still feeling lonesome, and, perhaps, having a forlorn hope that there might be some one, had helped rather bewildered girls, carrying their baskets and finding the man they wanted—these boys now looked longingly around at these groups, hoping some one would invite them to join in; and how their faces brightened when one of their tentmates, looking ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... Sir Richard Glyn's.... Poor Dickey! he was more forlorn than ever. I never did see such a little wooden puppet. He speechified just in the way you used to say he did at Christ Church to all the ladies in rotation. His chief business is getting chairs for the company. I think the old description ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... none but thou Could rival beauties such as mine Nor make him violate his vow; Yet, Princess! in thy bosom cold The heart to mine left thus forlorn, The love I feel cannot be told, For passion, Princess, was I born. Yield me Giray then; with these tresses Oft have his wandering fingers played, My lips still glow with his caresses, Snatched as he sighed, and swore, and prayed, Oaths broken now so often plighted! Hearts mingled ...
— The Bakchesarian Fountain and Other Poems • Alexander Pushkin and other authors
... bade the other woman good-night, but clasping her babe hurried from the room. Swiftly down the stairs she ran, heedless of the cries of the woman she had left behind, and out into the wind and rain of the dreary street—fit emblem, in its forlorn wretchedness, of the future which ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... her like a forlorn child; she felt sorry for him and wanted to say something nice, caressing and consolatory. She remembered how in the spring he had meant to buy himself some harriers, and she, thinking it a cruel and dangerous sport, had prevented him ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... hard, embittering thing to have one's kind feelings and good intentions cast back in one's teeth. I was beginning to relent towards my wretched partner; to pity his forlorn, comfortless condition, unalleviated as it is by the consolations of intellectual resources and the answer of a good conscience towards God; and to think I ought to sacrifice my pride, and renew my efforts once again to make his home agreeable and lead ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... hankering for the forlorn chance business? Maybe so. That's not a bad name for the second, is it? The Forlorn Chances! I guess you've got him dead to rights, though. Boots is for the under dog every time. I guess coaching the first ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... myself utterly without any such motive. I hate poor people, and ragged children, and sick women, the forlorn wives of drunken brutes. I shut my eyes to all such odious sights. They say, in a hotel you must never go into the kitchen, if you would keep your appetite; and I am sure one must avoid these wretches in the cellar, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... by the table, forlorn and shivering, it suddenly occurred to him that there was no reason why he should not have a fire. There was plenty of dry wood. How stupid he had been not to think of it before! Acting upon this idea, he quickly had a cheerful blaze snapping and crackling in the ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... the bitterest pangs of shame and remorse, and disappointed love. He had laid rude hands on the tender flower in its opening bloom, and prematurely sipped the sweetness from the blossom, and then unpitying he had cast it by, neglected and forlorn. ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... Pill factory stands abandoned and forlorn—its decline and demise brought on by an age of more precise medical diagnoses and the more stringent enforcement of various food and drug acts. After abandonment, the factory was ransacked by vandals; and records, documents, wrappers, advertising circulars, pills ...
— History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills • Robert B. Shaw
... forlorn and distressed, he wandered through the wild without knowing whither he was going or whether he was every moment drawing nearer to safety or to destruction. At length, not fear but labor began to overcome him; his breath grew ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... old men were aweary after the ball. Miss Ann spent a sleepless night and could not drag herself from her bed in time for breakfast. When old Billy came to her room with a can of hot water for her morning ablutions, he found his mistress limp and forlorn. ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... world, but it was almost invented. Time and muscle, knack and touch, a trained eye and brain and an unlimited array of patterns hanging on fancy's walls, aided by a box of dry sand, were competent to give the charming results. No more striking contrast can be found between forlorn conditions and refined art products. Art in clay was far from universal in the two Americas. The Eskimo on Bering Sea had learned to model shallow bowls for lamps. No pottery existed in Athapascan boundaries. Algonquin-Iroquois tribes made ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... skirting a wood, and the trailers of a great scarlet-flowered bean and a climbing cucumber smothered the ground, canopied the trees, and swarmed over the rocks. He could not distinguish these hindrances in the darkness, but he soon found that he must walk warily. As for the effort entailed by his forlorn burden he did not give a thought to it until Marcel indicated that he must stand fast. The Brazilian went on, leaving Hozier breathless. Evidently he went to warn the inhabitants of a wretched hut, suddenly visible in the midst of ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... twenty-three men only—of the 22nd Regiment, under Lieutenant Manser—who formed the forlorn hope, crossed the ditch, breast high in water, and mounted the breach. In the confusion that reigned among the troops, some of the officers had lost their way, and there was no one to assume the command or ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... ranchhouse, but made a wide circuit through the wood, for he wanted to come upon his father in his own way and in his own time; wanted to surprise him. There was no use of turning his pony into the corral, for the animal had more life in him than the two forlorn beasts that were already there and would not stay in the corral when a breach in the fence offered freedom. Therefore, when Calumet reached the edge of the wood near the front of the house he dismounted and tied his pony ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... "the rest were left to the conquerors, of which many were killed in the swamp, like sullen dogs who would rather, in their self-willedness and madness, sit still and be shot through or cut to pieces," than implore for mercy. When the day broke upon this handful of forlorn but dauntless spirits, the soldiers, we are told, entering the swamp, "saw several heaps of them sitting close together, upon whom they discharged their pieces laden with ten or twelve pistol bullets at a time, putting ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... Yusuf from his Father's House was torn, His Father's Heart was utterly forlorn; And, like a Pipe with but one note, his Tongue Still nothing but the name of Yusuf rung. Then down from Heaven's Branches came the Bird Of Heaven, and said 'God wearies of that Word. Hast thou not else to do, and else to say?' So Yacub's Lips were sealed from that Day. But one Night in ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... over the golden head, and put the rosy lips to his, and folded her in his arms. If one forlorn wanderer then pacing the dark streets, could have heard her innocent disclosure, and could have seen the drops of pity kissed away by her husband from the soft blue eyes so loving of that husband, he might have cried to the ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... the number of hunting men who don't like it. Many a man who sticks constantly to the roads and lines of gates, who, from principle, never looks at a fence, is much attached to hunting. Some of those who have borne great names as Nimrods in our hunting annals would as life have led a forlorn-hope as put a horse at a flight of hurdles. But they, too, are known; and though the nature of their delight is a mystery to straight-going men, it is manifest enough, that they do like it. Their theory of hunting is at any rate plain. They have an acknowledged system, and know ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... encountered early that morning when, feeling lonelier than she ever had felt in all her life, she dressed early and ran out to the stable to visit Apache. He seemed as lonely and forlorn as his little mistress and thinking to cheer him as well as herself, she had led him forth by his halter and together they had enjoyed one grand prance down the driveway. Unluckily, Miss Baylis had seen this harmless little ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... tents evidently thought the outlook a forlorn one. I shared his opinion, and was, in fancy, already the possessor ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... than it removes, and there is much doubt and discussion, which Papaverius at once clears up as effectually as he had ever dispersed a cloud of logical sophisms; and this time the feat is performed by a stroke of the thoroughly practical, which looks like inspiration—he will accompany the forlorn traveller, and lead him through the difficulties of the way—for have not midnight wanderings and musings made him familiar with all its intricacies? Roofed by a huge wideawake, which makes his tiny figure look like the stalk of some great fungus, with a lantern of more than ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... "the forlorn hope of the world;" they are fellows that bid defiance to terror, and maintain a constant war with the elements; who, by the magic of their art, trade in the very confines of death, and are always posted within shot, as I may say, of the grave. It is true, their familiarity ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... lift the brass knocker this time. The forlorn details of his last visit, his lack of right to cross that threshold uninvited—what mattered such considerations now? They were, indeed, forgotten. Everything was forgotten—everything save that the man who had stood in the position of father to him was dying—dying ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... want to go—and I jumped out of the window." The unfortunate woman was given to the landlord as a compensation for having her taken care of at his house; her children were sold in Carolina; and thus was this poor forlorn being left alone in her misery. In all this wide land of benevolence and freedom, there was no one who could protect her: for in such cases, the laws come in, with iron grasp, to check the stirrings ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... mind's eye he saw her again as the victim of this man, his plaything, his pastime to takeup or leave—no better than any of the women about her, and where they were going she would go also. Some day he would find her where he had found others—outcast, deserted, forlorn, lost; down in the trough of life, a thing ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... had grown less and their plight more desperate. In 1668 they had received some assistance from French volunteers under the Duc de la Feuillade. This was followed by an application to Turenne for a general who would command their own troops in conjunction with Morosini. It was a forlorn hope if ever there was one; and Turenne selected Frontenac. {28} Co-operating with him were six thousand French troops under the Duc de Navailles, who nominally served the Pope, for Louis XIV wished to avoid direct war against the Sultan. All that can be said of Frontenac's ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... room look a little less forlorn. They haven't wanted to meddle with my things, I suppose." And Molly stooped once again among the chattels destined for Vermont. Out they came; again the bearskin was spread on the floor, various possessions and ornaments went back ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... amidst anarchy and intrigue, each in turn took up the reins of government, as they fell or were snatched from the hands of his predecessor[1], till at length, on the retirement of all other candidates, the forlorn crown was assumed by the minister Lokaiswara, who held his court at Kattragam, and died ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... anxiety. "The consternation everywhere was great," says St. Simon; "I had the privileges of entry, and so I went into the king's chamber. I found it very empty; the Duke of Orleans seated at the chimney-corner, very forlorn and very sad. I went up to him for a moment, then I approached the king's bed. At that moment, Boulduc, one of his apothecaries, was giving him something to take. The Duchess of la Ferte was at Boulduc's elbow, and, having turned round to see who was coming, she saw me, and all at once said ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... habit. It was not faith—it was a sort of desperation; and yet the Republicans as regularly had their joke about it, regardless of the pathos presented in the action of a body of men thus fighting a forlorn and hopeless battle. Each year some old-fashioned Democrat dropped away into the grave, and yet the remnant met and nominated a complete ticket, and voted for ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... with him!" shouts some feller; Though you know it's hope forlorn, Yet you'll show that you ain't yeller An' you choke the saddle horn. Then you feel one rein a-droppin' An' you know he's got his head; An' your shirt tail's out an' floppin'; An' the saddle ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... related how he had fallen in with the forlorn Lady of Ribaumont, and all that she had dared, done, and left undone for the sake of her little daughter, good Noemi Laurent wept, and agreed with him that a special providence must have directed them to his care, and that some good work must await one who ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cheer him. Besides, though Cassy had laughed, there had been a tugging at her heartstrings. Shabby, unkempt, in a frayed dressing-gown, his arm in a dismal sling, he looked so out of it, so forlorn, so old. ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... these by reason, we are insensibly drawn into uncouth paradoxes, difficulties, and inconsistencies, which multiply and grow upon us as we advance in speculation, till at length, having wandered through many intricate mazes, we find ourselves just where we were, or, which is worse, sit down in a forlorn Scepticism. ...
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • George Berkeley
... hair-splittings, harrowing self-examinations, and humiliating public confessions—this is what they gather on the narrow wooden benches to listen to hour after hour, searching their souls for sin with an almost frenzied eagerness. And yet, forlorn and tedious as the bleak service appears to us, there is no doubt that these stern-faced men and women wrenched an almost mystical inspiration from it; that a weird fascination emanated from this morbid dwelling on sin and punishment, ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... an earthquake rent The hearth-stones of a continent, And made forlorn The households born Of peace on ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... afternoon. Her elbow rested on the faded and not very clean table-cover, and her fingers were running unconsciously through that scanty hair. The prospect before her looked, to her mind, as hopelessly forlorn as she looked. ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... a sympathetic cluck. "Was she a wicked princess?" The query was gently put, but it deeply affected the man. He tried to smile, failed, then like a forlorn little boy he came and bowed his ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... finding all hope fail, and as from the heat and flies she had now become loathsome, they gave her her choice, either to be put to death by the youths of the place, or go to the woods to die or be farther devoured as might happen. The little girl chose the woods. In this forlorn condition she determined to cast herself on the mercy of the missionaries; and although she had never been at the station, she believed from what she had heard, that could she reach the place, she should receive that protection and help which ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... relinquish," certainly suggests that, although in the present state of human knowledge we have no reason to believe in the perpetuity of consciousness, some larger future knowledge might help us to a less forlorn prospect. From the prospect as it now appears even this ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... later Tom Osborne, rather forlorn and miserable from his night's imprisonment in a tumble-down shack, walked out, his bonds ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... in a papyrus now at St Petersburg, describes a mysterious island whereon there dwelt a monster most lovable and most forlorn: a creature so tenderly drawn, indeed, that the reader will not fail to enthrone him in the little company of the nobility of the kingdom of the fairy tale. Translations of the story by two or three savants have appeared; ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... forlorn gaiety there is about the place!—the sky itself seems as if it did not know whether to laugh or cry, so full is it of clouds and sunshine. Little fat, ragged, smiling children are clambering about ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... capable of all—to do according to his will. The boats, dismantled and forlorn, are lowered upon the planking. One cries "Aid me!" flourishing at the same time the weapons of his business. A dozen launch themselves upon him in the orgasm of zeal misdirected. He beats them off with the ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... so much assurance. "We must wait. From now till Christmas we have more than two months. In two months much may befall. As a last resource we may consider communication with the Lord Giovanni. But it is a forlorn hope, Madonna, and so we will leave it until all else ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... along the Adriatic, and Florence warring with Pisa, still to fix his eyes on darkness and the degradation of humanity; for he was visiting a country,—as England was in the fifteenth century,—buried in the gloom of barbarism, and forlorn in its literary condition, with writers, unworthy the name of scholars, Walsingham and Whethamstede, Otterbourne and Elmham, inditing bald chronicles; students applying their minds to scholastic philosophy; divines confounding their wits with theological mysteries; and men with inclinations to science, ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... Dev," was his first contribution to the conversation, "d' you remember it was at a dock that you and I first met? It was night, blacker than Tophet, and raining, and you came ashore wet as a rag. You were the lonesomest, chilliest, most forlorn little tike I ever saw; but, by the eternal, you were trying ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... considerations. To be alone, while the crowds surged hurriedly by her, was one thing; to be obliged to press in among them and make room for herself was another. As she walked aimlessly about the streets during the few days following her arrival she had the forlorn conviction that in these serried ranks there could be no place for one so insignificant as she. The knowledge that she must make such a place, or go without food and shelter, only served to paralyze her energies and reduce her to a state ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... money,—and they could not raise voice or hand to prevent it. There was no law to which they could appeal, no refuge they could seek from the very worst with which their brother might threaten them. Was ever any creature—brute or human—in the wide world so defenceless as the plantation slave! The forlorn case of these Grimke boys was that of thousands of others born as they were, and inheriting the intelligence and spirit of independence of ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... to think at each part of the service, and as each hymn was sung, of the poor forlorn figure seen on the Goodwins, and now in the most dire need of help. Nor do I think that service will ever fade from the memories of those present ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... the English. He had four hundred excellent rifles with flint locks and screwed barrels made at Monghyr (Munger) on the Ganges, so as to fit into small boxes. These boxes were sent up on the backs of four hundred brave volunteers for this forlorn hope. Gregory had got a passport for the boxes as rare merchandise for the palace of the prince at Kathmandu, in whose presence alone they were to be opened. On reaching the palace at night, these volunteers ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... characteristic) was yet absent. The conviction that I was on the Tertiary strata was so strong by this time in my mind, that on the third day in the midst of lavas and [? masses] of granite I began my apparently forlorn hunt. How do you think I succeeded? In an escarpement of compact greenish sandstone, I found a small wood of petrified trees in a vertical position, or rather the strata were inclined about 20-30 deg to one point and the trees 70 deg to the opposite one. ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... Lord, by all forlorn, The subject of contempt and scorn: Defend us from their pride Who live in fluency and ease, Who with our woes their ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... can be little doubt that a compromise would have been willingly accepted twelve months earlier. But the report had made all compromise impossible. William, however, was bent on trying the experiment; and Vernon consented to go on what he considered as a forlorn hope. He made his speech and his motion; but the reception which he met with was such that he did not venture to demand a division. This feeble attempt at obstruction only made the impetuous current chafe the more. Howe immediately moved ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... redoubt of drift-wood, and the fragments of a wreck; a few tents, and a few wooden hovels; bales, boxes, casks, spars, dismounted cannon, Indian canoes, a pen for fowls and swine, groups of dejected men and desponding, homesick women,—this was the forlorn reality to which the air-blown fabric of an audacious enterprise had sunk. Here were the conquerors of New Biscay; they who were to hold for France a region as large as the half of Europe. Here was ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... any number of titled people by now, she approached this one with strange apprehensions. She was horribly disappointed. Cicely turned out to be a poor shred of a woman in black, worn out, meager, forlorn, broken in heart and soul with ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... The minstrel replies. "Must Avalon, with hope forlorn, Her back against the wall, Have lived her brilliant life in vain While ruder tribes take all? Must Arthur stand with Asian Celts, A ghost with spear and crown, Behind the great Pendragon flag And ...
— The Congo and Other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... later she stood at the foot of the convent steps and watched the carriage drive away with a weeping, forlorn little figure huddled in one corner, while the good lay-sister who accompanied her vainly essayed words of cheer and consolation. She watched with tear-dimmed eyes as the carriage rolled rapidly down the avenue and out through the gate, then entered the house and repaired at once to her refuge in ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... shall not return there. Your love—the most tender and devoted love which ever ennobled the heart of man—cannot draw me back. Alas! my beloved, I have no money with which to go to you, to give and receive a last kiss from which I might derive some strength for my forlorn enterprise. ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... dramatic power. He had not an idea of "that stern joy that warriors feel," so necessary to one who would raise a martial strain. The passages we remember best are the very ones that are least heroic. The funeral games in honour of Anchises, the forlorn queen, the death of Nisus and Euryalus, owe all their charm to the sacrifice of the heroic to the sentimental. Had Virgil been able to keep rigidly to the lofty purpose with which he entered on his work, we should perhaps ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... For some time this forlorn creature continued to hover on the edge of the lighted space. The sleet had become snow, and already a thin white film covered the pavement, promising "a white Christmas," and the cold increased from ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... seen fluttering near the laager between the kopjes. There is no reason to believe that it was treacherously raised, but it compelled Hamilton to order the Cease Fire. Yet at once half a hundred Boers started up and rushed as a forlorn hope upon the crest: a remnant of stalwarts, who even succeeded in firing a round or two from the guns which had just been taken from them. There was a moment or two of doubt and bewilderment, but Hamilton with the help ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... it happened, she did nothing of the sort. At four o'clock that afternoon there was a timid ring at the doorbell and I answered it. Outside was Tufik, forlorn and drooping, and held up by main force by a tall, dark-skinned ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... forlorn wanderers in the Parks, there appeared latterly a trim little figure in black (with the face protected from notice behind a crape veil), which was beginning to be familiar, day after day, to nursemaids and children, ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... he will protest, Will protest, and of bull-beef boast; And, for the citizen, he is so hot, Is so hot, he will burn the roast. The courtier, sure good deeds will not scorn, Nor will he see poor Christmas forlorn? Well a day! Since none of these good deeds will do, Christmas had best turn courtier too, Well a ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... year. Soon as the vine her lingering leaves hath shed, And the chill north wind from the forests shook Their coronal, even then the careful swain Looks keenly forward to the coming year, With Saturn's curved fang pursues and prunes The vine forlorn, and lops it into shape. Be first to dig the ground up, first to clear And burn the refuse-branches, first to house Again your vine-poles, last to gather fruit. Twice doth the thickening shade beset the vine, Twice weeds with stifling briers o'ergrow the crop; And each a toilsome labour. Do thou ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... to Dora's broken words of sympathy, and the grub-liners' awkward condolences—they seemed not to reach her heart at all. She heard them without hearing, for her mind was chaos as she moved silently from room to room, or huddled, a forlorn figure, on the bench where ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... indeed, I am astonished myself when I think of it. Liszt, Franz Liszt, greatest of pianists—after Thalberg—greatest of modern composers—after no one—Liszt lies out here in the cemetery on the Erlangerstrasse, and to visit that forlorn pagoda designed by his grandson Siegfried Wagner, I left my comfortable lodgings in Munich and traveled an ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker |
