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More "Plaintive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... while his heart was honest, and profaning her in his fits of temper and revolt. But he made a bad show. Born in him was a spirit which could not worship woman: no, and would not. Could not and would not. It was not in him. In early days, he tried to pretend it was in him. But through his plaintive and homage-rendering love of a young husband was always, for the woman, discernible the arrogance of self-unyielding male. He never yielded himself: never. All his mad loving was only an effort. Afterwards, he ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... domesticated is remarkable; their first act when they meet one they know is to leap upon your breast and embrace you with their arms, just like a child will its mother, and they will remain, if permitted, in this position for hours, and complain if removed. Their cry is very plaintive, and, heard at night in the jungle, sounds like that of a female in distress. I was given to understand that in the presents made by chiefs, a scarce variety of monkey is often the principal gift, and ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... devotion of his friend. La Source composed a beautiful hymn, adapted to a sweet and solemn air, which they called their evening service. Night after night this mournful dirge was heard gently issuing from the darkness of their cell, in tones so melodious and plaintive that they never died away from the memory of those who heard them. It is difficult to conceive of any thing more affecting than this knell, so softly uttered at midnight in those dark ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... over the glorious amphitheatre of palaces and mountains, with the same orange glow—the same purple and crimson flush, deepening into twilight—as before. An old blind man in a skiff, floated around under the bows of the boat on the glassy water, singing to the violin a plaintive air that appeared to be an evening hymn to the virgin. There was something very touching in his venerable countenance, with the sightless eyes turned upward to the sunset heaven whose glory ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... silent the moonlight, the more violently his heart beat, till it was painful. And still the same hush. Suddenly he heard a momentary sharp crack like the snapping of a splinter and all was still again. A fly flew up suddenly and struck the window pane with a plaintive buzz. At that moment he noticed in the corner between the window and the little cupboard something like a cloak hanging on the wall. "Why is that cloak here?" he thought, "it wasn't there before...." He went up to it quietly and felt that there was someone hiding behind ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... turned wearily away toward a great circle of immense rocks—relics of a religion scarcely more cruel than that which had neither pity nor forgiveness at the mouth of the grave. Within their shadow she could die unseen; and there next morning a wagoner, attracted by the plaintive howling of a dog, found her ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... resumed his usual almshouse tone, civil and a little plaintive. His wife behind him smiled gently at being spoken of. She had a long fair face, and white hair surmounted by a battered black bonnet, a mouth set rather on one side, and a more observant and refined air than most of her neighbours. She sighed ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the three were in the roomy cockpit and Tom had made the empty rowboat fast to the stern. He was about to start up when from another boat, containing two little girls and two slightly larger boys, came a plaintive cry: ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... cities Lift from the jealous many-fingered tide. Flanked by the multi-colored sweeping marshes, Among the little hummocks choked with thorn, I saw the first, small, dauntless row of buildings Give back the rose and orange of the dawn. Above them swayed the shining green palmettoes Vocal and plaintive at the winds' caress; While, at the edge of sight, the fluent silver Of sea and bay framed ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... pleasant murmur Of its subsiding, As the pulse of the storm beats firmer, And the steady rain Drops into a cadenced chiding. Deep-breathing rain, The sad and ghostly noise Wherewith thou dost complain,— Thy plaintive, spiritual voice, Heard thus at close of day Through vaults of twilight-gray,— Doth vex me with sweet pain! And still my soul is fain To know the secret of that yearning Which in ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... tolling of bells—to solemn music—to plaintive hymn chanted by monks—to roll of muffled drum at intervals—the sad cortege set forth. Loud cries from the bystanders marked its departure, and some of them followed it, but many turned away, unable to endure the sight of horror about to ensue. Amongst ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... saying these words he uttered a little plaintive grunt like that of a sucking calf: ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... air with a vast creasing of their dusty leather. A procession of men were wheeling and dumping slag into a dreary area beyond. There was a stir of constant life about the Furnace, voices calling, the ringing of metal on metal, the creak of barrows, dogs barking. The plaintive melody of a German song ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... heard the sound of a dog's insistent barking, and was annoyed by the plaintive howls. She stopped her ears but could not shut out the sound, and in desperation she sat up and looked out of the window, ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... voice was plaintive. "I think you might give a fellow a chance to get out good. Give me time to have a guy in Montreal send me a telegram telling me to go up there right away. Otherwise you might just as well put the cops on me at once. The old lady knows I've got business in Canada. You don't need to be rough ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... playing on the green, mingled occasionally with a clink, as the steel quoits fell upon each other, telling of some enthusiastic players, who were practicing for the local games. Loud cries of encouragement broke from the supporters, and Geordie and Nellie heard all these—even the plaintive wail of a child crying in a house a few doors farther up the "row," and the mother's attempts to soothe it into forgetfulness of its ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... had caught scent of the strangers. Again the bull roared; there is no animal on earth with so emphatically warlike a note as the wild bull when advancing to meet a strange mob. The quiet cattle answered with plaintive, long-drawn lowings, and the din became general as the two ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... receive the food bestowed on them by the rough Sea Beggars, many of whom dashed aside their tears as they beheld the emaciated forms of the citizens, the corpse-like look of the women and children, and heard their plaintive cries for food. The first act of the brave admiral and his crew was to repair to the great church, accompanied by the commandant, the chief magistrate, and other citizens, to return thanks for their success, ...
— The Lily of Leyden • W.H.G. Kingston
... undressing herself for nearly an hour. She was touched; she felt that Coupeau was very honorable; for at one moment she had really thought it was all over, and that he would forget her. The drunkard below, under the window, was now hoarsely uttering the plaintive cry of some lost animal. The violin in the distance had left off its saucy tune and was ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... Poor plaintive waif of a predestined race, Their ruin gapes for thee. Why linger here? Go hence in silence. Veil thine orphaned face, Lest I should look on it ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... defined in clear grey. A fine summer ripens its grapes into a valuable wine; but in spite of that it seems always longing for a larger and more continuous allowance of the sunshine which is so much to its taste. You might fancy something querulous or plaintive in that rustling movement of the vine-leaves, as blue-frocked Jacques Bonhomme finishes his day's ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... canine accidente in his own way at the horses now close at hand, his voice assumes an elegiac whine as he turns to supplicate, in a tone that none accustomed to Italian beggars can mistake; "non abbandonatemi," being plainly the purport of its most dolorous and plaintive accents. We hesitate, the carriage draws up, down go the steps, and lo! in a twinkling, our new friend has darted in before us, taken possession, and there he sits ready to kiss our hand. Such audacity was sure to succeed, so, letting him ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... afraid of what I, a poor erring woman, rebellious to the King, traitress to mine own honor, late the plaything of a pirate ship, may say or do. Truth, my lord, should be more courageous." Her voice was gentle, even plaintive, but it had in it the quality that lurks in the ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... resisting they were much more likely to lose the Indies than to preserve Guipuscoa. As to Italy, they could no more make war there than in the moon. Thus the crisis which had seemed likely to produce an European war of ten years would have produced nothing worse than a few angry notes and plaintive manifestoes. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... I not a voice from thee Which 'tis reproach to hear? Anon I rose As if on wings, and saw beneath me stretched 380 Vast prospect of the world which I had been And was; and hence this Song, which like a lark I have protracted, in the unwearied heavens Singing, and often with more plaintive voice To earth attempered and her deep-drawn sighs, 385 Yet centring all in love, and in the end All gratulant, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... pleaded Charlie's weak voice from the shelter of his mother's arms, and Miss Patch in her thin, sweet voice sang to a plaintive chanting air of her own the beautiful hymn written ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... in a soft and musical tenor, died away and changed to a plaintive whistle, leaving the scene more lonely than ever. For a few moments nothing was to be seen except the endless expanse of wilderness, and nothing was to be heard save the mournful warble of the singer. Then a horse and rider were suddenly framed where the ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... goat followed with docility at his heels, uttering now and again a plaintive bleat of protest at ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... mild and plaintive as the ballads sung amid the mists of Scotland. They are pallid as young girls carried to their bier by the dance or by love; they are eminently elegiac and they breathe all the melancholy ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... soil for the feeding of cattle, furnished the tables of the Egyptians with the most exquisite fish of every kind, and the most succulent flesh. This it was which made the Israelites so deeply regret the loss of Egypt, when they found themselves in the wilderness: "Who," say they, in a plaintive, and at the same time, seditious tone, "shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the flesh which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers and melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick.(393) We sat by the flesh-pots, and we did ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... his case, and seeing yet another house which had once furnished him with an asylum, he made bold to advance to the door. Luckily he this time met the man himself, just emerging from bed. At first the farmer did not recognize the fugitive, but upon another look, seconded by Israel's plaintive appeal, beckoned him into the barn, where directly our adventurer told him all he thought prudent to disclose of his story, ending by once more offering to negotiate for breeches and coat. Having ere this emptied and thrown away the purse which ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... other songs and the Guards, who filled two coaches of a train, joined in a great swinging chorus which thundered above the rattle of the engine and the cars, so noisy in those days. Often they sang negro melodies with a plaintive lilt. The slave had given his music to his master. Harry joined with all the zest of an enthusiastic nature. The effect of Shepard's words and of the still, solemn face of Jefferson Davis, framed in the open ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... was welcome to whatever comfort or happiness her prophetic soul foresaw as a recompense to all this endless worry and trouble. Even my father grew unsympathetic, and actually arose one night when baby's plaintive minor key was resounding through the house, and closed his bed-room door most emphatically, to keep out the disturbing echoes that had broken in upon his ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... think of her, Miles?" the dear girl asked, uttering the words in a tone so low and plaintive as to say all ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... corridors, inexpansive, with Fort McHenry on his shoulders, and Baltimore in his breeches-pocket, and his courteous aid again pressed upon me his kind offices. About the doors of the hotel the news-boys cried the papers in plaintive, wailing tones, as different from the sharp accents of their Boston counterparts as a sigh from the southwest is from a northeastern breeze. To understand what they said was, of course, impossible to any but an educated ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... earliest period down to that time, not omitting to make mention of his miraculous fall out of a back-parlour window when an infant of tender years, or his uncommon sufferings in a state of measles, which were illustrated by correct imitations of the plaintive manner in which he called for toast and water, day and night, and said, 'don't cry, mother, I shall soon be better;' for proof of which statements reference was made to Mrs Green, lodger, at the cheesemonger's round the corner, and divers other ladies and gentlemen in various parts ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... size perhaps, but in flavor, colors, and gaminess. You didn't expect me to carry 'em on a string over my shoulder, did you? And I would have brought some venison, but you don't care for it. You told me once that their eyes were so pretty and plaintive, it was a shame to kill them. I always try to please you, so I thought I would let them live.—Yes, thank you, I have brought back more health than I took away: I may be able now to stand the fatigues of business till Thanksgiving.—O, Hartman? I couldn't bring him ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... you do, how do you do, my dear cousin?" she cried in a plaintive and almost tearful voice, "how glad I ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... a Scotch poet, born near Loch Leven, in poor circumstances, in the parish of Portmoak; studied for the Church; died of consumption; his poems singularly plaintive and pathetic; his title to the authorship of the "Ode to the Cuckoo" has been ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... somehow," said Bull in his big, soft, plaintive voice. Then he waited for the laughter. There was always laughter, no matter what he did or said, but he never grew calloused against it. It was the one pain which ever pierced the mist of his brain and cut him to the quick. And he was right. There was laughter again. He stood suffering ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... of both sexes amused themselves with dances, the older people kept their seats in order to enjoy their pulque and gossip, or listen to the discourse of some guest of importance. The music which accompanied the dances was frequently soft and rather plaintive. ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... "I hear some one calling for help. I must go out and see what I can do, but I will be back presently. Remain quiet till my return!" Seizing my rifle, and feeling the lock to ascertain that it was all right, I hurried out in the direction from whence the sounds came. Again that plaintive cry reached my ear. I thought I heard the very words,—"Come, come! Help, help!" I dashed forward, for I knew the ground thoroughly. It could not be a person drowning, for there was no lagoon in that direction. As I advanced the wails became lower and lower, and ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... remote wilderness, that our subdued voices mingled in those grand old chorals which belong to the church universal, and in which, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Unitarian as we were, we could all heartily join: 'Old Hundred,' so full of worship; 'Dundee,' with its plaintive melody; and 'America,' breathing the soul of loyalty, whether sung to 'God save the Queen,' or ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... day—and the flies—But I must go and find Angelo—the food here—of course, with an invalid, one wants things particularly nice." And she hurried past them in search of the head waiter. The worry of nursing her husband had fixed a plaintive frown upon her forehead; she was pale and looked unhappy and more than usually inefficient, and her eyes wandered more vaguely than ever from ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... and yielding substance against which they were directed; and the ready obedience of the Pagans protected them from the pains and penalties of the Theodosian Code. [57] Instead of asserting, that the authority of the gods was superior to that of the emperor, they desisted, with a plaintive murmur, from the use of those sacred rites which their sovereign had condemned. If they were sometimes tempted by a sally of passion, or by the hopes of concealment, to indulge their favorite superstition, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... deshabille, amid a kneeling group of myrmidons, who, with mouths filled with pins and brows seamed with anxiety, were remorselessly building her into some edifice of shimmering silk and filmy lace, oblivious of their victim's plaintive intimations that she ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... of Thackeray's books. Like Dickens, Thackeray was exposed to all the danger of the Twenty Parts method of publication. He began his stories without seeing the end; in one of them he is humorously plaintive over the trouble of making this manner of fiction. While "Vanity Fair" is, of course, written in the impersonal third person, at least one passage is put into the mouth of a character in the book: an extraordinary ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... too strong for her. For at the close the King put up his hand to command silence, and so waited, with his hand up, till every sound was dead and it was as if one could almost the stillness, so profound it was. Then out of some remote corner of that vast place there rose a plaintive voice, and in tones most tender and sweet and rich came floating through that enchanted hush our poor old simple song "L'Arbre Fee Bourlemont!" and then Joan broke down and put her face in her hands and cried. Yes, you see, all in a moment the pomps and grandeurs dissolved ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... he said, with a plaintive laugh,—"I know. Sometimes I think that all my reward has been in the few minutes I've had just after finishing them. During those few minutes I seem to see in them all that I wanted to put in them; I see it because what I've been trying to express is still so warm in my own ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... together with the universe in general, fell away and disappeared. Somewhere out of chaos was sounding a plaintive voice: "What is she like? Can't you tell me? Is she ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... light quivering aspen made; When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou! Scarce were the piteous accents said, When, with the baron's casque, the maid To the nigh streamlet ran: Forgot were hatred, wrongs, and fears; The plaintive voice alone she hears, Sees but the ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... hear the men and women singing on their homeward way some plaintive Cornish songs, which to me blended sweetly with the ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... scarlet and white trappings reflected in the dark waters in broken masses of colour, streaked with long lines of shining ripples, as if they floated on a lake of liquid rainbows. And it was a glorious thing to hear the wild, plaintive song, led by one clear, sonorous voice, that rang out full and strong in the still air, while at the close of every two lines the whole brigade burst into a loud, enthusiastic chorus, that rolled far and wide over the ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... different that one hushed one's breath to hear. It might be fancied to be the voice of one of those kingly archangels that one sees drawn by the old Florentine religious artists,—a voice grave and unearthly, and with a plaintive ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... the rifles of her husband or sons have procured. Voracious appetites render the repast far more palatable than the choicest viands which were ever spread in the banqueting halls of Versailles or Windsor. Water-fowl of gorgeous plumage sport in the stream, unintimidated by the approach of man. The plaintive songs of forest-birds float in the evening air. On the opposite side of the stream, herds of deer and buffalo crop the rich herbage of the prairie, which extends far away, till it is lost in the horizon of the south. Daniel retires from the converse of the cabin to an adjoining eminence, where ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... what she sings? Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago: Or is it some more humble lay, Familiar matter of to-day? Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, That has been, and ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... thou in these mountains seek, O stranger from the city? Is it perhaps some foolish freak Of thine, to put the words I speak Into a plaintive ditty? ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... impatient with the slowness of the waiters, who had seemed to hurry unnecessarily the night before. But at last his meal ended, and he went out under the trees. The sky was so full of stars it hardly seemed dark. The air was soft, and in the distance a band played a plaintive valse tune. ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... in pity from the sky; The night-bird marks their fate with plaintive cry; The dew-drop wets their ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... industriously getting rid of the subject as they returned;—but it burst out again when she thought she had succeeded, and after speaking some time of what the poor must suffer in winter, and receiving no other answer than a very plaintive—"Mr. Elton is so good to the poor!" she found ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... in haste collects his scanty train, And, with the sun, flies o'er the western plain; The fading orb with plaintive voice he plies, To guide his steps and light him down the skies. So when the moon and all the host of even Hang pale and trembling on the verge of heaven, While storms ascending threat their nightly reign, They seek their absent sire, and sink below ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... and suddenly the plaintive sound ceased. Joan bent over it. She had been holding the tiny hand as she always did, and at this moment the soft fingers closed upon one of her own quietly. She was quite alone, and for an instant there was a deep silence. ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the time, apparently waiting the arrival of his mate. He called and warbled every day, as if he felt sure she was within ear-shot, and could be hurried up. Now he warbled half-angrily or upbraidingly, then coaxingly, then cheerily and confidently, the next moment in a plaintive, far-away manner. He would half open his wings, and twinkle them caressingly, as if beckoning his mate to his heart. One morning she had come, but was shy and reserved. The fond male flew to a knot-hole in an old apple-tree, and coaxed her to his ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... so plaintive, so full of tears, that Hester could not but yearn towards the speaker. She bent over and kissed her cheek, and then clambered unaided down by the wheel on the dark side of the cart. Wistfully she longed for one word of thanks or recognition from Philip, ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... along the narrow lane that faced it, my presence troubled him and his mate only too much. They would flit round my head, emitting the two strongly contrasted sounds with which they express solicitude—the clear, thin, plaintive, or wailing note, and the low, jarring sound—an alternate lamenting and girding. One day when I approached the nest, they displayed more anxiety than usual, fluttering close to me, wailing and croaking more vehemently than ever, when all at once the male, at the height of his excitement, ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... Laing met his, death in 1846, and crossed the road of the caravans from Morocco to the Sudan, and that part of the desert swept by the Tuaregs, where could be heard what is called "the song of the sand," a soft and plaintive murmur that seems to escape from ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... passion of anxiety, and grief, and love, and remorse for not having been on the look out, Finn poured out his very soul in a succession of long-drawn whines, plaintive and insistent as a 'cello's wailings, while his powerful fore-paws tugged and scratched ineffectually at the solid iron bars of his cage. The woman whose voice he heard was the Mistress of the Kennels, and the man to whom she spoke, ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... flattened at their summits, tessellated with fragments of silex and mica, on which the sun is just pouring his rays; a company of goats, which the mist had condemned to a momentary repose, are bounding here and there, startling flocks of clamorous black-birds and plaintive sea-gulls; the fearless and yellow-crested woodpeckers alone do not stir, but continue to hammer with their sharp beaks at some old ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... St. Sergius during the Coptic mass of Easter morning. And when, after the first surprise, we examine these phantoms, we find that, for the most part, they are young mothers, with the refined and gentle faces of Madonnas, who hold the plaintive little ones beneath their black veils and seek to comfort them. And the sorcerer, who plays the cymbals, is a kind old priest, or sacristan, who smiles paternally. If he makes all this noise, in ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... could know about him—thanks to the activities of a shamefully discriminating (or undiscriminating) press—and he was by no means prepared to give her his countenance. Face to face with her opulence and splendour he set the figure of his own mother—that sweet, patient, plaintive little presence, now docilely habituated, at the closing in of a long pinched life, to unremitting daily toil still unrewarded by ease and comfort or by any hope or promise or prospect of it. There was his father too—that good ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... closed gates of the Chateau Lontana. The chauffeur got out and tried to open them, but they were locked. He turned to the Prince for instructions. "What are we to do, sir? There is no bell." His tone was plaintive, for he ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... nay,"[A] she said curtly. But then, becoming more approachable—perhaps she hoped for a second gift of money—she began in a whining, plaintive voice: "Ne n'ava nay de pan et ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... wherewith to bless ourselves, of course we fell in love with each other. Poor little thing, how pretty she used to look in those days, standing on Jack's movable platform, with her hair falling loose about her face, and a heap of primroses held up in her petticoat!—such a patient plaintive look in the sweet little mouth, as much as to say, 'I'm very tired of standing here; but I'm only a model, to be hired for eighteenpence an hour; go on smoking your cigars, and talking your slangy talk about the turf and the theatres, ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... present symptoms of blindness continue, Salemina," I said, searching for a small lump so as to gain time, "I shall write you a plaintive ballad, buy you a dog, and stand you on a street corner! If you had ever permitted yourself to 'get on' with any man as Francesca is getting on with Mr. Macdonald, you would now ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the calliage and I saw it was the corner of the big square where the little houses are at one end, and then I only meant to go for one minute. I thought it was nearly as quick that way, and I ran fast. I never meant to flighten you, mamma,' he repeated again, his voice growing plaintive. 'I wasn't planning it a bit all these days. I only kept thinking ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... without a Name"—and the flawless poetical gem that closes his "Last of Earth," will be remembered as long as the sacrifices of their noble author. The pent walls of other military prisons sent forth plaintive records of misery, as well as stirring strains of hope unconquered; but the two here named are easily first of the ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... spirits, haunts and conjuration. Many believe in them yet. I can never forget the fright of the time my young master, William was going off to the war. The evening before he went, a whippoorwill lighted on the window sill and uttered the plaintive 'whip-poor-will.' All the slaves on the place were frightened and awed and predicted bad luck to Master Will. He took sick in war and died, just wasted away. He was brought back in rags toward the end ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... features and brightened her eyes as she drew towards the conclusion, they would have wondered what joyful information could have so entranced and delighted the girl who entered the carriage, although with a serene and peaceful countenance, yet with a certain plaintive wistfulness in the shadows of her blue eyes, which betokened no exemption from the ordinary fate of mankind. But now! what unspeakable joy, what ecstatic delight seemed to infuse fresh life and vigour ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... are than Christopher Columbus, when he was discovering America, knew where he was going. When Francisco does not know what the language (English) hurled at him means he has a far-away look, and may be listening to the angels sing, for he is plaintive and inexpressive. He looks so sorry that Americans cannot speak their own language as he speaks English! But there are phrases delivered by Americans that he understands, such as, "Blankety, blank, blank—you all come here." Francisco does not go there, but with humble step elsewhere, ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... might be put the "letter of calamity," the letter of gloomy apprehension, the letter filled with petty annoyances. Less disturbing to receive but far from enjoyable are such letters as "the blank," the "meandering," the "letter of the capital I," the "plaintive," the "apologetic." There is scarcely any one who has not one or more relatives or friends whose letters belong ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... seated in the wooden armchair with a cushion on it, near the fire of driftwood, advantages that were accorded to her in honour of her still being an invalid. Even to a stranger she would have looked extraordinarily sweet with her large and rather plaintive violet eyes over which the long black lashes curved, her waving chestnut hair parted in the middle and growing somewhat low upon her forehead, her tall figure, very thin just now, and her lovely shell-like complexion heightened ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... the time we reached the moorlands at the foot of the hills the sun and the licht were clean gone awa', and the darkness was closing down fast aboot us. We could hear the cry of the whaup, a mournful, plaintive note; our own voices were the only other sounds that broke the stillness. Then, suddenly, our host bent low and loosed his dogs, after whispering to them, and they were off as silently and as swiftly as ghosts ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... rushed in torrents and burst upon the astonished ear, was sung out in slow and measured syllables, with a monotonous and funeral cadence, painful in its motion, and such as reminded me of the Sloth and his horrid cry: plaintive indeed, but exciting ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... that friendly and well-known voice, the poor animal, almost at its last gasp, strove to turn its head in the direction whence came the accents of his master, answered him with a plaintive neigh, and, sinking beneath the efforts of the panther, fell prostrate, first on its knees, then upon its flank, so that its backbone lay right across the door, and still prevented its being opened. And now all was ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... in his fingers while he studied the face of Jose. The tone of him had jarred, but his features were wiped clean of any expression save faint boredom; and his fingers, plucking a plaintive fragment of a fandango from the strings, belied the sarcasm Jack had suspected. Don Andres himself, at that moment coming eagerly across from the hut at the end of the row, ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... a cheeping noise between her lips and teeth, low and plaintive. At once the volume of bird-sounds about increased; the half-seen flashes became more frequent. A second later the twigs were alive with tiny warblers and creepers, flirting from branch to branch, with larger, more circumspect chewinks, catbirds, and finches ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... sort of despairing languor over the smooth purple sea, which scarcely heaved round us, while the flapping sails drooped useless round the masts, and the rowers indolently leaning on their oars, sung in a low and plaintive chorus. I sat hour after hour, still and silent, sickening in the sunshine, dazzled by its reflection on the water, and overcome with deadly nausea: I believe nothing on earth could have roused me at that moment. But evening so impatiently invoked, came at last: the sun set, ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... quiet garden there came the strains of "The Blue Danube," fitful, alluring, plaintive—that waltz to which countless lovers have danced and wooed and whispered through the years. Muriel longed intensely to shut it out, to stop her ears, to make some noise to drown it. Her nerves were all on edge, ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... desired end, I, by some accident, learned that the proprietor of the shanty was a doctor. At this discovery my hopes went up several degrees, and I determined to test his medicine chest. Putting on a look of utter exhaustion, with both my hands on my abdomen, and assuming the most plaintive voice I could muster, I said: "Doctor, I have made a long march to-day, and feel utterly broken up; have you not some spirits in your medicine chest that you could prescribe for me? I am sure it would be a great relief." He looked me over with suspicion, ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... a spirit car," said Violet, adding, with a plaintive little sigh that made the girls laugh: "In spite of all my perfectly good training, I'm ...
— Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance - The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners • Janet D. Wheeler
... lay a primeval wilderness of wood and water which it is beyond the power of mortal pen adequately to describe; and while all was suffused with the golden light of an early summer sun, and steeped in the repose of an absolutely calm day, the soft and plaintive cries of innumerable wild-fowl enlivened, without disturbing, the profound tranquillity of ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... long as the middle one; bill, brown, lighter at the base, dark towards the point; feet and legs, light brown; throat, breast, and edge of wing, bright yellow; breast with a large black crescent; nests on the ground in the open field; clumsy in flight and in walking; song, a plaintive whistle; arrives ...
— Bird Day; How to prepare for it • Charles Almanzo Babcock
... with the external world. Instead of this, we have sucked in with the milk of our Puritan mothers a forlorn and sorrowful spirit. We celebrate our festivals with a sad countenance. We attempt to make merry by singing dismal psalms. We weave our woes into poetry, and expand our wretchedness in plaintive declamations. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... us—to travel to Paris in an aeroplane. I do not know whether it was this latter event, or the expression of a philosophy so entirely at variance with my own, or perhaps the sound of the high-pitched plaintive voice, that gave me the sense of incongruity, ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... with him the image of Doris's plaintive prettiness and pathetic solitariness, and thinking gladly of the pleasure it would be to take her to Marlow on Sunday, Ethel slipped on her knees beside Basil's couch, overcome for a moment by the burden of his suffering, and the difficulties ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... reason he walked half-a-mile out of his homeward way, through Belgrave Square, to haunt the street in which she lived, looking wistfully into those gardens whence he had seen her emerge that very day with her mysterious companion—gazing with plaintive interest on the bell-handle and door-scraper of his mother's house—vaguely pondering how he could ever bear to enter that house again—and going through the whole series of those imaginary throes, which ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... myself and then managed to pull together and beat it to the lake 126 The landlady intears waylaid me 132 I had to carry Diogenes most of the way 168 Now and then above his howls, I heard Silvia's plaintive protests outside the door 192 I held out my hand, which he shook solemnly, but with an injured air 224 "He went to the front window and dropped a young kitten down on the old gent's head." 242 "We ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... letting the corn slowly drop in a stream from one palm to the other, blowing gently with her mouth the while. The grain remained on account of its weight, the chaff floating away, and the wheat, still soft though fully formed, could thus be pleasantly tasted. The plaintive notes of the yellowhammer fell from the scanty trees of the wheat-field hedge, and the ploughboy who was put there to frighten away the rooks told her the bird said, repeating the song over and over again, 'A little bit of bread and no cheese.' And indeed these ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... The plaintive voice of the Highland pipe at this moment broke upon his ear. It was the farewell of the patriarch Lindsay, as he and his departing company descended the winding paths of Craignacoheilg. Wallace started ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... our poet was not an "Iris en air." Shenstone was early in life captivated by a young lady, whom Graves describes with all those mild and serene graces of pensive melancholy, touched by plaintive love-songs and elegies of woe, adapted not only to be the muse but the mistress of a poet. The sensibility of this passion took entire possession of his heart for some years, and it was in parting from her that he first ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Then, with the morning's early light, To all the hermits bade adieu And sought his onward way anew. He pierced the mighty forest where Roamed many a deer and pard and bear: Its ruined pools he scarce could see. For creeper rent and prostrate tree, Where shrill cicada's cries were heard, And plaintive notes of many a bird. Deep in the thickets of the wood With Lakshman and his spouse he stood, There in the horrid shade he saw A giant passing nature's law: Vast as some mountain-peak in size, With mighty voice and sunken eyes, Huge, hideous, tall, with monstrous ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... eye; her mother gave her both her own share of love, and that of the dead child who had died in infancy. I have heard cousin Holman murmur, after a long dreamy look at Phillis, and tell herself how like she was growing to Johnnie, and soothe herself with plaintive inarticulate sounds, and many gentle shakes of the head, for the aching sense of loss she would never get over in this world. The old servants about the place had the dumb loyal attachment to the child of ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... ridge, where the path dropped away into a dark narrow valley with dense underbrush on either side, I heard the fawn answering her, below me among the big trees, and knew instantly that something had happened. He called continuously, a plaintive cry of distress, in the black darkness of the spruces. The mother ran around him in a great circle, calling him to come; while he lay helpless in the same spot, telling her he could not, and that she must come to him. So the cries went back ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... sang his plaintive and aimless ditty; at night, when his poor mother gathered up her little wares to return home, so deplorable did his defects appear, that while she carried her table on her head, her stock of little merchandize in her lap, and her stool in one hand, she was obliged ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various
... fires dimmed in the black orbs of lovely matrons whom I had held often in my arms to the measure and tuneful melody of the fantastic wild fandango; musical Andalusian strains which words cannot describe—soul-stirring, enchanting, promising and denying, plaintive or jubilant, songs from Heaven or wails from the depths of Hades. Here I lived the happiest hours of my life, but being young, I did not ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... Striking a plaintive string, Like some poor harper at a palace portal, I wait without and sing, While those I love ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... wont to carry under the covering of a ragged coat, and to place upon inn-tables, or up-turned barrels.—Here it appeared among mahogany furniture, to serve as accompaniment to a young lady's voice, while she herself with her delicate fingers beat the melody out of the plaintive instrument for all the world as if she were seated beside a piano. Incongruous enough, for we have always thought of the "czimbalom-artist" as a gawky bushy-bearded fellow with the indispensable short-stemmed clay-pipe—all burned out ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... at his gilt watch-chain with its pendant "charms," could lower his chin a quarter of an inch till bed-time. But more was yet to come. There were cuffs to put on, which left one to guess what had become of Mr Booms's knuckles, and a light jaunty necktie to embellish the "dicky." Then, with a plaintive sigh, he produced a blue figured waistcoat, and after it a coat shaped like the coat of a robin to cover all. Finally there appeared a hat, broad-brimmed, low-crowned, and dazzling in its glossiness, a pair of gay dogskin gloves, ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... motion on the floor, she gave a shriek, concluding him dead. Her fright brought Frederic to himself. Rising suddenly, his face bedewed with tears, he would have rushed from her presence; but Hippolita stopping him, conjured him in the most plaintive accents to explain the cause of his disorder, and by what strange chance she had found him there in ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... recalling the fact that slippers are not designed for kicking purposes, I raised my foot, removed the slipper and laid it upon a taut section of his trousers with all of the melancholy force that I usually exert in slicing my drive off the tee. I shall never forget the exquisite spasm of pleasure his plaintive ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... among the ruins of Marney rose on his outraged sense, and he was then about hastily to retire from the scene he had so long purposed to visit, when suddenly the organ burst forth, a celestial symphony floated in the lofty roof, and voices of plaintive melody blended with the swelling sounds. He was fixed ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... fail to answer? Could any man die otherwise than gladly if he died with such an appeal ringing in his ears? Macleod did not know there was scarcely any more volume in this girl's voice now than when she was singing the plaintive wail that preceded it: it seemed to him that there was the strength of the tread of armies in it, and a challenge that could rouse ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... the valley, the Generalife in which are mingled perhaps more admirably than anywhere else in Andalusia all the charm of Arabic architecture, of running water, and of cypress trees, of purple flags and dark red roses. It is a spot, indeed, fit for the plaintive creatures of poets to sing their loves, for Paolo and Francesca, for Juliet and Romeo; and I am glad that there I enjoyed such an ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... "what I was afterwards told by Monsieur de Perousse" (so he mis-spells the name) "that the natives of California, as throughout all the isles of the Pacific Ocean, and in short wherever he had been, seemed equally touched and delighted with this little plaintive air." It is gratifying to be able to record Captain Tench's high opinion of the efficacy of the tune, which is popularly known nowadays as "We won't go home till morning." One has often heard of telling things "to the Marines." This gallant officer, doubtless, ...
— Laperouse • Ernest Scott
... neglect their personal appearance, especially on a Sabbath; but it was all too evident that the heavy hand of poverty rested upon them, and that its evils were now deepened by oppression. It might be a mere trick of association; but when their plaintive Gaelic singing, so melancholy in its tones at all times, arose from the bare hill-side, it sounded in our ears like a deep wail of complaint and sorrow. Poor people! 'We were ruined and reduced to beggary before,' they say, 'and now the gospel is ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... lost its charm, rapt in the exquisite air she was playing, it seemed to soothe her agitated feelings, and bid her forget her usual timidity. All were silent, for the air was so sweet, so plaintive, not a voice could have disturbed it; it changed to a quicker, more animated strain, and at that instant Emmeline beheld Edward and Ellen hastily rise to greet a young man, who noiselessly yet eagerly came ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... safe traveling as an ordinary mountain-path. The parson's armor of meek obstinacy was proof alike to reason and ridicule; he waxed not wroth, and was thankful for any suggestion; but, when asked to act accordingly, ever fell back on one plaintive formula—"I am no gymnast,"—after the fashion of that exasperating child who met all the Poet's questions and objections with ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... come the double-bass pigs, who have free access to the balcony and parlour. A chorus of hens, chickens, and guinea-fowls, varies the entertainment; while the majestic 'perjuil,' or peacock, perched on his regal box, the guano roof, applauds the performance below in plaintive and heart-rending tones. Before I am up and stirring, a dark domestic brings me a tiny cup of boiling coffee and a paper cigarette, and waits for further orders. Don Severiano proposes a stroll (he tells me) through his grounds. Our horses are soon led out, and ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... owl, still his nightly vigil keeps, While the river, below him, peacefully sleeps, The whip-poor-will utters his plaintive cry, The trees still ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... thousand human beings among whom she lived as did the glow of personal joy that suffused her thoughts. From the dusk below she heard the tapping of a blind beggar's stick on the pavement, and the sound made, while it lasted, a plaintive accompaniment to the lullaby she was singing. "Two whole weeks," she thought, while her longing reached out to that unknown room in which she pictured Oliver sitting alone. "Two whole weeks. How hard it will be for him." In her guarded ignorance of the world she could not imagine that Oliver ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... This was the fourth time. It was strangely miserable and plaintive. One felt that after that last effort, more mechanical than voluntary, the cry would probably be extinguished. It was an expiring exclamation, instinctively appealing to the amount of aid held in ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... over again the plaintive words pierced the air of the room where Grace Draper lay, while Dr. Pettit and the nurse battled for ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... I could hear the men and women singing on their homeward way some plaintive Cornish songs, which to me blended sweetly with the low sighing ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... was Marie, petite, And she looked full fair and passing sweet— And, oh! she owned—but cannot you guess What pet can a maiden so love and caress As a tiny lamb with a plaintive bleat ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... waited; the band—the whole band—struck up a plaintive little melody. He knew it, and clasped his hands for joy. And O, how she sang it! It was so simple, so mournful. Many a bright eye dimmed with tears, and naught could be heard but the touching words of ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... genius, and possessed of all the learning which could be obtained at the period, this chivalric sovereign was especially distinguished for his skill in music and poetry. By Tassoni, the Italian writer, he has been designated a composer of sacred music, and the inventor of a new kind of music of a plaintive character. His poetical works which are extant—"The King's Quair," and "Peblis to the Play"—abound not only in traits of lively humour, but in singular gracefulness. To his pen "Christ's Kirk on the Green" may also be ascribed. The native minstrelsy was fostered and promoted ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... packing-boxes—and knew that they were parting to face death. Carl felt Forrest Haviland's hand on one shoulder, then an awkward pat from tough Jack Ryan's paw, as Tony Bean's violin turned the plaintive half-light into music, and broke its ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... and the kangarooster and other strange beasts which Catherine and Alice concocted during the afternoon. Others labored over historical combinations and the deeds of Bathrobespierre were sung in limpid strains, and the plaintive history of Old Black Joan of Archaeology set every one off into a gale of mirth. The Three R's had done so many foolish things together in the many years since their beginning as a club, that they were ready to laugh before a joke was thought of, ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... their evening meal, commenced their Indian ceremonies of drumming and shaking the rattle, accompanied with war songs. San-ge-man was asked by the chief of the party, if he could che-qwon-dum, at the same time giving him the rattle. He took it and commenced singing in a low, plaintive tone, which made the warriors exclaim, "He is weak-hearted, a coward, an old woman". Feigning great weakness and cowardice, he stepped up to the Indian to whom he had surrendered his war club; and taking it, he commenced ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... hope, will forgive you for this bill,' was Lord Sidmouth's plaintive lament to Earl Grey, 'but I do not think I ever can!' There lives no record of reply. The last protest of the Duke of Wellington, delivered just before the measure became law, was characteristic in many respects, and not least in its blunt honesty. 'Reform, ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... mournfully, at her friend, and then stooping down she folded her in her arms, and pressed a kiss upon her lips. For a short time, no sound was audible save the sobbing of the maidens. At last the Indian spoke, in a plaintive tone. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... approached pretty near, they began to chant a song in a very solemn manner, the subject of which, from their often mentioning the word Orono, and pointing to the village where Captain Cook was killed, we concluded to be the late calamitous disaster. Having sung in a plaintive strain for about twelve or fifteen minutes, during the whole of which time they remained in the water, they went on board the Discovery and delivered their spears, and after making a short stay, returned on shore. Who sent them, or what was the object of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... his manner of holding his hand to his forehead as if seeking inspiration, the almost spasmodic movements of his mouth, the sort of plaintive groan that started the prayer, and the steadily accumulating earnestness with which ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... speaking of the French, uttered the basest and most cowardly sentiments. His helper, a youth fresh from the Isle of Skye, was innocent of this fault, and though but a bad rower, was a far better companion; he could not speak a word of English, and sang a plaintive Gaelic air in a low tone while ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... violently his heart beat, till it was painful. And still the same hush. Suddenly he heard a momentary sharp crack like the snapping of a splinter and all was still again. A fly flew up suddenly and struck the window pane with a plaintive buzz. At that moment he noticed in the corner between the window and the little cupboard something like a cloak hanging on the wall. "Why is that cloak here?" he thought, "it wasn't there before...." ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... suddenly became aware that while these thoughts were passing through his brain he had unconsciously allowed her hands to slip from his hold, and she now stood apart at some little distance, her eyes fixed full upon him with an expression of most plaintive piteousness. He made a hasty step or two toward her,— and as he did so, his pulses began to throb with an extraordinary sensation of pleasure,—pleasure so keen ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... among us—to travel to Paris in an aeroplane. I do not know whether it was this latter event, or the expression of a philosophy so entirely at variance with my own, or perhaps the sound of the high-pitched plaintive voice, that gave me the sense of incongruity, ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... tone, he commenced a soft plaintive love-song, and then, after striking the chords for some time in a wild but masterly manner, retired. I confess I felt much interested in this poor fellow's performance, he seemed so deeply to feel every note he uttered, particularly at one time, when he touched upon his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... from the sky above you, or the first mellow drum of the grouse come up from the woods below or from the ridge opposite. The bee is abroad in the air, finding her first honey in the flower by your side and her first pollen in the pussy-willows by the watercourses below you. The tender, plaintive love-note of the chickadee is heard here and there in the woods. He utters it while busy on the catkins of the poplars, from which he seems to be extracting some kind of food. Hawks are screaming high in the ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... was, sure enough; and as Jack ended his story, she chimed in with a plaintive little "Me-ow," which said, as plainly as ever any cat spoke yet, "I'm very cold and hungry, and I do wish somebody would take me below and give me ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... first time in his life that he had ever encountered outside of the Bible a mind of the highest order, or listened to it, as it delivered over to mankind the astounding treasures of its knowledge and wisdom in accents of appealing, almost plaintive modesty. ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... a plaintive song; Saveliitch, fast asleep, oscillated from one side to the other. Our "kibitka" was passing quickly over the wintry road. All at once I saw a little village I knew well, with a palisade and a belfry, on the rugged bank of the Yaik. A quarter of an hour afterwards ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... wrath impatient, and a fiercer air? Awake to all that injured worth can feel, On his own Rome he turns the avenging steel; Yet shall not war's insatiate fury fall 125 (So heaven ordains it) on the destined wall. See the fond mother, 'midst the plaintive train, Hung on his knees, and prostrate on the plain! Touch'd to the soul, in vain he strives to hide The son's affection, in the Roman's pride: 130 O'er all the man conflicting passions rise; Rage grasps the sword, while ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... For long his fate dragged at her heart; it drained Her strength; it left her vague and desolate: Her life became as chill uneasy dreams Wherefrom we cannot break. Yet be it said, Lowly and truly gentle were her ways; She was a tender and obedient wife, And in a sweet and plaintive graciousness Her every act performed. I trust her mind, Subdued by constant sadness unavowed, Grew clear of shadows, and at last could dwell Upon the future, that in one straight path Reached Justice throned in everlasting light, ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... pass the barrier of the chain-pier, and bend our steps towards the projecting extremity of that ingenious structure. An old Welsh harper was touching his instrument with more than usual skill for an itinerant professor, while the plaintive notes of the air he tuned accorded with the solemnity of the surrounding scene. "I could pass an evening here," said the countess, in a somewhat contemplative mood, "in the society of kindred spirits, with more delightful gratification than among the giddy throng who meet ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... to be the very thing," answered Miss Greyson. She was a thin, faded woman with a soft, plaintive voice. "It will enable him to judge your style. He's particular about that. Though I'm confident he'll like it," she hastened to add. "Address it to me, will you. I assist him as ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... the plaintive cry of one of the goat-suckers which hawked for moths and beetles round the great trees; then, after a silence so profound that it was painful, came the deep croak of the bullfrog rising and falling ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... handsome house, having beside the door a small gilt sign bearing the name of Dr. ——. A spruce black servant admitted them, and presently the doctor entered the room. Satisfactory arrangements were made, the gentleman not objecting to Ned, whose plaintive little face strangely attracted him. And with a heart full of joy and gratitude Mrs. Clarke rose to take her leave, until she could return and enter upon her duties. But a boy came whistling through the hall, and ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... tell me what she sings? Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago! Or is it some more humble lay, Familiar matter of to-day? Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, That has been, and may ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... of the men hunting in a bank opposite, covered with undergrowth and small shrubs. They told me that for the past three days a kitten had been heard mewing, but in spite of all their efforts to find it, they had failed to do so. I listened, and sure enough heard a plaintive mew. The place was a network of clinging roots, but presently I crawled in and found it was just possible to get along on hands and knees. It was most mysterious—the kitten could be heard quite loud one minute, and when we got to the exact spot it would be some distance away again. (It reminded ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... Bum! Bum! Those are the only two tones. Always bum! Bum! Hark to the plaintive song of the old woman, to the call of the priests! The Hindoo woman in her long robe stands upon the funeral pile; the flames rise around her and her dead husband, but the Hindoo woman thinks on the living one in the surrounding circle; on him whose eyes burn hotter than the ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... room with its clamor, there was nothing for it but to answer. With grim lips and a murderous eye on his opponent, Mayer dropped her arm, and going to the phone, took down the receiver. From the other end, plaintive and apologetic, ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... compelled attention. The letters of Biglow and Stevens, relative to the little child, prove this fact, and additional testimony found in the appended letter from Rev. J.W. Loguen conclusively confirms the same. Indeed, who could close his eyes and ears to the plaintive cries of such a mother? Who could refrain from aiding on to freedom children honored ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... she began in a plaintive voice, when she had asked him what colour he thought her eyes, and whether he considered her fur becoming. "Settlers say that I am in the habit of dropping from trees on to the backs of Deer, and tearing their throats. They must mistake the Puma for me,—isn't ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... effective but the French valet and one very stupid kitchen-maid. Lena helped the St. Faith's nurse in her charge of the French maid, but almost all her time in the morning was spent in domestic cares for the sick and for her father; and when he was once up, he was half plaintive, half passionate, if she did not at once respond to his calls. She read the papers to him, walked up and down the terrace with him while he smoked, and played bezique with him late into the night, to distract his thoughts. ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... over the bride's bouquet of white roses. If only she had told her then that she understood! If only she had ever really understood until to-night! If only it was not too late to turn back now and gather that plaintive figure, waiting with the white roses, ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... mystery approached its consummation, still upward arose the voice of the church in plaintive chants, interceding for the departed, who, in the "suffering church" rejoiced with a mournful rapture amidst its patient agony which would ere long be exchanged from dreary Calvary to an eternal Thabor. But now the awful moment arrived; the Lord Jesus had come; and although they saw him veiled ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... the little outbursts of anger emphasized by clenched fists, without any of the shrieks that show the even red gums, whereby the child makes trial of his strength and of his lungs; only an occasional plaintive groan, as if the soul were tossing and turning restlessly in a little diseased body, unable to find a ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... seriously than the British, and however they felt the Spanish officers did not allow themselves to look bored. The marching and countermarching was of a refined stateliness, as if the pace were not a goose step but a peacock step; and the music was of an exquisitely plaintive and tender note, which seemed to grieve rather than exult; I believe it was the royal march which they were playing, but I am not versed in such matters. Nothing could have been fitter than the quiet beauty of the spectacle, ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... reasonable nature was easily guided; her passionate love for Hatty had blinded her to her own selfishness, but now her eyes were open. The mother's heart was often touched by the cheerful alacrity with which Bessie would yield her place to Christine. Even Hatty's plaintive, "Oh, must you go, Bessie?" seemed to make no impression; but how long ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... American humour. They sound, wherever we hear them, familiar to our ears. It is hard to believe that an English barrister, and not a Texas ranch-man, described Boston as a town where respectability stalked unchecked. Mazarin's plaintive reflection, "Nothing is so disagreeable as to be obscurely hanged," carries with it an echo of Wyoming or Arizona. Mr. Gilbert's ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... wounded and overthrown from their vehicles and divested of armour and deprived of weapons and their beasts slain, with plaintive voices and burning with grief and vanquished by their foes, the vain Kauravas, entering their tents once more took counsel of one another. They then looked like snakes deprived of fangs and poison trod upon by others. Unto them, Karna, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... the Pines make sweet music; sad, plaintive, for must there not be a tone of "infinite sadness" in all the places of Earth's finite gladness? From a spray of jessamine I hear the chirp of a little bird—a young beginner; it tries over and over again "its ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... lackey, and the groom. The craftsman there Takes a Lethean leave of all his toil; Smith, cobbler, joiner, he that plies the shears, And he that kneads the dough: all loud alike, All learned, and all drunk. The fiddle screams Plaintive and piteous, as it wept and wailed Its wasted tones and harmony unheard; Fierce the dispute, whate'er the theme; while she, Fell Discord, arbitress of such debate, Perched on the sign-post, holds with even hand Her undecisive scales. In this ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... critics may try to narrow its scope, as varied in its excellence as humanity itself reflecting on the facts of its latest experience—an instrument of many stops, meditative, observant, descriptive, eloquent, analytic, plaintive, fervid. Its beauties will be not exclusively "pedestrian": it will exert, in due measure, all the varied charms of poetry, down to the rhythm which, as in Cicero, [12] or Michelet, or Newman, at their best, gives its musical value ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... clumps of scrubby oak completely covered with scarlet honeysuckle and trumpet-flower. While seeking to investigate one of these I startled a hen-quail, which, after whirring rapidly out of sight, returned and manifested much anxiety by plaintive calls. This is a queer place for quail: in the neighborhood of old fields, where they can easily run out and glean a hasty meal from weeds and broken ground, is their chosen place for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... by the plaintive grief of the Rev. Mr. Muirson, who has come from the established church of England to make proselytes from the established churches of Connecticut. He writes to the "S. P. G.," without a thought of ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... in discipline and in idea; and in its aspect of a moral truth it obtained a more explicit expression than did some other of his finer personal attributes. His practice of cherishing and repeating the plaintive little verses which inquire monotonously whether the spirit of mortal has any right to be proud indicates the depth and the highly conscious character of this fundamental moral conviction. He is not only humble himself, but he feels and declares that men have no right to be anything but humble; and ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... father kept his treasure long, 'Mid seasons grave or gay, Till to death's plaintive curfew-song, Calmly he ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... but spent the afternoon with Uncle Larimy and Jud in the woods, where they received good instruction in rifle practice. After supper he settled comfortably down with a book, from which he was recalled by a plaintive ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... came to her eyes. 'Oh, then you are glad when I'm gone!' She pouted. 'You don't care for me a bit, Vincy,' she said, in a plaintive voice. ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... suffering. Off to the left, between them and the negro quarters, were two or three fires, around which the Union soldiers were reclining, some already asleep after the fatigues of the day, others playing cards or spinning yarns, while one, musically inclined, was evoking from a flute an air plaintive and sweet in the distance. Further away under the trees, shadows in shadow, the horses were dimly seen eating their provender. The Confederate prisoners, smoking about a fire, appeared to be taking the "horrors of captivity" ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... the boy and girl slid into her own as she arose. A curiously startled look lay in her eyes, and an inquiring, plaintive ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... 'Qur'an,' wherewith I adorned them, And choice metaphors, and Arab proverbs that I interspersed, And literary elegancies, and grammatical riddles, And decisions upon ambiguous legal questions, And original improvisations, and highly wrought orations, And plaintive discourses, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... It consists of a transfer through partial resemblance. This operation rests on two fundamental bases—depending at one time on vague resemblances (a cloud becomes a mountain, or a mountain a fantastic animal; the sound of the wind a plaintive cry, etc.), or again, on a resemblance with a predominating emotional element: A perception provokes a feeling, and becomes the mark, sign, or plastic form thereof (the lion represents courage; the cat, artifice; the cypress, sorrow; and so on). All this, doubtless, ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... down many wounded from her; yea, many strong men have been slain by her.'" And in a softer, lower, plaintive tone came the words: "'I applied my heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom and the reason of things; and to know the wickedness of folly, ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... we see their light at this moment—the same soft, burning light, that set body and soul on fire. She was but a poor shepherd's daughter; but what was that to us, when we heard her voice singing one of her old plaintive ballads among the braes?—When we sat down beside her—when the same plaid was drawn over our shoulders in the rain-storm—when we asked her for a kiss, and was not refused—for what had she to fear in ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... restadejo. Placid kvieta. Plagiarist verkosxtelisto. Plague pesto—ego. Plague-stricken (person) pestulo. Plain malbela. Plain senornama. Plainly simple, klare. Plainness simpleco. Plaint plendo. Plaintive plenda. Plait (with straw) pajloplekti. Plait plekti. Plait plektajxo. Plait (hair) harligo. Plan plano. Plan (geometrical) plato. Plane raboti. Plane (tool) rabotilo. Planet ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... primrose light lay over hill and valley; already the delicate purple net of night had snared forest and marsh; and the wild ducks were stringing across the lakes, and the herons had gone to the forest, and plover answered plover from swamp to swamp, plaintive, querulous, in endless reiteration—"Lost! lost! ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... changes, past and to come, our reflections are not all pleasant. Often do we regret with Washington living the passing away of the Arcadian simplicity which once prevailed upon this island. Often do we recall his plaintive words, applied to this very community: "Let no man congratulate himself when he beholds the child of his bosom or the city of his birth increasing in magnitude and importance." Yet mournful reflections over the ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... register protests against it; and if it be thought desirable to do so, it would be far more reasonable to protest against human beings—women and children—being exposed to its effects, than to indite plaintive elegies about the possibility of the Venus de Milo being damaged, or the orchids in the hot-houses being killed. I know that, for my part, I would rather that every statue and every plant in the world were smashed to atoms by shells, than that I were. This, in an aesthetical ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... road there are dead and dying, Russians and Austrians together. The Forest is both above and below the road and from out of it there comes a continual screaming. There is every note in this babel of voices, mad notes, plaintive notes, angry notes, whimpering notes. One wounded man is very slowly trying to drag himself across the road, and his foot which is nearly severed from his leg waggles behind him. One path that leads from the road to the Forest is piled with bodies and is a stream of blood. Some of ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... the fireplace on the guests' settee, beside Madonna Gemma. The torches, dripping fire in the wall-rings, cast their light over the faces of the wondering servants. The harp twanged its plaintive interlude; then the song continued, quavering, soaring, athrob with this new pathos and reverence, that had crept like the counterfeit of a celestial dawn upon a world long obscured by ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... task of making me ridiculous in the eyes of the other boys. One night I was wandering in the playground and heard him playing the violin in his study. My taste in music was barbarian; I liked comic songs, which I used to sing to myself in a lugubrious voice, and in London the plaintive clamour of the street-organs had helped to make my sorrows rhythmical. But now, perhaps for the first time, I became aware of the illimitable melancholy that lies at the heart of all great music. It seemed to me that ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... very hard to earn money, Mr. Gilsum," said the musical and plaintive voice, but have been disappointed. Next week I am sure I will have ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... the doors; it wishes to come in, for it bears a message to this poor mother, and it sounds like an appeal or a warning. The ticking of the clock, the distant noise of a locomotive, all take the same plaintive tone and beseeching accent. Charlotte knows only too well what the wind wishes to tell her. It is a story of a ship rolling on the broad ocean, without sails or rudder—of a maddened crowd on the deck, of cries and shrieks, curses and prayers. Her hallucination is so strong that she ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... the monologue was an incoherent discursive medley, now plaintive, now passionate, at times prayerful, then exultant. As he proceeded, he seemed to lose sight of his present aim at doing good in the hope of release from termless life, and become ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... with a shading hard to define, but which we perceived plainly; and we remarked that, leaving their kennel in the avenue that led up to the lodge, they had come to close quarters with one another at the gate, with alternating howlings and plaintive cries. Inquiring in the morning for the cause of these singular cries, the peasants told me that a wolf had passed, and predicted that it would return. They said, too, that a neighbor's hunting bitch had disappeared, and its bones had been found in the fields ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... the native melodies are plaintive, and the words simple and affecting; but whether their rude strains of nature can be classed with poetry, as the songs of the bards, the Skalds of Europe, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... force was in full chase over the fields, storming in the forest and on the church roof, battering spitefully with its fists upon the windows, raging and tearing, while something vanquished was howling and wailing.... A plaintive lament sobbed at the window, on the roof, or in the stove. It sounded not like a call for help, but like a cry of misery, a consciousness that it was too late, that there was no salvation. The snowdrifts were covered with a thin coating ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... voice, which struck Louise as young-old in its timbre, were soft and kind with a refined and even plaintive quality albeit not cultured. Here was a good soul and a friend, she sensed at once. But could she suddenly have won her sight, Louise would have been astonished ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... her hat and cape, and her lovely hand rapidly swinging her parasol, and stood beside him, it was with a feeling of relief that Vronsky broke away from the plaintive eyes of Golenishtchev which fastened persistently upon him, and with a fresh rush of love looked at his charming companion, full of life and happiness. Golenishtchev recovered himself with an effort, ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... peep of dawn. The seasons for him were marked by the variation of these sounds—the thunderous roar when the spring freshets or the autumn rain-falls came, the gentle purling when the summer droughts parched the stream to a narrow thread, and the plaintive moan, as of electric wires, when the ice-bound cascade was touched upon by certain ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... am seeking my husband alone in these woods. Do thou, O king of beasts, comfort me (with news of Nala) if thou hast seen him. Or, O lord of the forest, if thou cannot speak of Nala, do thou, then, O best of beasts, devour me, and free me from this misery. Alas! hearing my plaintive appeal in the wilderness, this king of mountains, this high and sacred hill, crested with innumerable [...?-JBH] rolleth towards the sea. Let me, then, for tidings of the king, ask this king of mountains, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... expired, and then, after a little pause, was revived; then silence, and two chords, defining and clarifying the vagueness of the appeal and the invocation. And then, almost before I was aware of it, there stole forth from under the fingers of Diaz the song of the soul of man, timid, questioning, plaintive, neither sad nor joyous, but simply human, seeking what it might find on earth. The song changed subtly from mood to mood, expressing that which nothing but itself could express; and presently there was a low and gentle menace, thrice repeated under the melody of the ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... felt it was only for form's sake, and that he himself no longer meant what he said. Madame Desvarennes received this plaintive remonstrance with a calm smile, and answered, maternally, ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... insect! that, with thread-like legs spread out, And blood-extracting bill, and filmy wing, Dost murmur, as thou slowly sail'st about, In pitiless ears, fall many a plaintive thing, And tell how little our large veins should bleed Would we but yield them to thy ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... while a group of men were singing the same simple air, some of them were occasionally singing one part of it, whilst the others seemed to be singing another part, thus producing a very simple catch or canon. I am not, however, quite certain as to this. Their songs are both cheerful and plaintive; but the latter predominate, and are mainly in the minor key. The subjects of their songs are generally sentimental love, and include ditties by young men about their sweethearts; and I believe that some of ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... open, and for an instant they remained one on either side of the threshold. Outside as well as within the house, all was as silent as themselves: and in this silence she held her right hand towards him. A sudden thrill shook him. He stretched out his arms, and, with a wailing, plaintive sound, as of a stringed instrument struck unawares, rushed into her wide-open arms. Then, taking her by both hands, he led her to the sofa, took her on his knee, buried his face in her bosom, and, pressing her ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... though," says Ferdy plaintive. "I wish Marjorie wouldn't get such things for me. I—I've always been rather particular about my hats and ties. I like ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... came the deep mellow sound of the city clock striking two. Down among the willows fringing the river bank, some lonely water-fowl uttered its plaintive cry, whereat the bloodhounds bayed hoarsely; then velvet-sandalled silence laid her soothing touch upon the world, and softly took all nature into her ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... it? Yesterday I went to the usual spot at the end of the glen, and waited nearly two hours; but you did not come, although you promised me, you know. Why are you so indifferent, dearest?" he asked in a plaintive tone. "I can't really ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... beneath the moonlight, till I smelt The fragrance of the stables. As I slid The wide doors open, with a sudden bound Uprose the startled horses; but they stood Still as the man who in a foreign land Hears his strange language, when my Desert call, As low and plaintive as the nested dove's, Fell on their listening ears. From stall to stall, Feeling the horses with my groping hands, I crept in darkness; and at length I came Upon two sister mares, whose rounded sides, Fine muzzles, and small heads, and pointed ears, And foreheads ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... leap upon your breast and embrace you with their arms, just like a child will its mother, and they will remain, if permitted, in this position for hours, and complain if removed. Their cry is very plaintive, and, heard at night in the jungle, sounds like that of a female in distress. I was given to understand that in the presents made by chiefs, a scarce variety of monkey is often the principal gift, ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... the "Northern Cross" had appeared among the constellations above the horizon. Or maybe I heard George W. Curtis, who had come to visit his old teachers, singing the "Erl King" or "Good-night to Julia" or plaintive "Kathleen Mavourneen" in his inimitable way. Perhaps I was deep in social science or restudyiug some of Fourier's pleasant fancies, such as the rivalries of groups of nice children with his little hordes ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... uncertain how it was intended to apply. Neither for the moment could I understand why in the world any sane person should ring a bell unless desirous of eliciting a response of some kind. Finally, I decided that it must be a plaintive and exceedingly trustful appeal to the good nature of urchins who might be tempted to ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... to the plaintive strains of a young man mourning over the grave of his deceased sweetheart, and to the touching love-ditties of a moonstruck lover," answered the man. "Where are ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... sun can shine, from out of a blue-vaulted canopy, flecked with fleecy clouds. Swinging from the tops of the sagebrush, or an occasional cottonwood, yellow-breasted meadowlarks were singing sweetly. At intervals a flock of curlews circled above the rider, uttering their sharp, plaintive cries; then they would drop to the ground and run rapidly to and fro on their frail, stilt-like legs, their long ungainly bills darting from side to side ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... and the wilderness fell into a silence so deep and heavy that it preyed upon the nerves of the Spaniard. Then, out of the stillness came a long, plaintive note, wailing, but musical, full of a quality that made it seem to Alvarez ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... return to Spithead with the fleet, the result of which was that she lost her poop and topgallant-forecastle; hence 'Ugly' and I had now to fight under the eye of the circling seagulls, always on the wing, screeching round the old training-ship in their plaintive fashion, and diving ever and anon into the tideway to pick up scraps that were chucked overboard by our comrades, more sensible than us, down below ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... ardently desired approaches. Imagination begins to work, phantoms of every description come across his brain, and glide before his eyes, he hears, and fancies he sees the sylvan spirits dancing before him; his ears are full of mysterious and unearthly sounds, plaintive and melancholy, celestial harmonies, fairy melodies of another world, interrupted conversations between the winds, the trees, the herbage and the earth, as if they were offering homage to the great ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... musings of a still subdued, though more cheerful character. How many glad hearts in the olden time have rejoiced in these songs of praise—how many sorrowful ones sighed out their complaints in those plaintive notes, that steal sadly, yet sweetly, on the ear—hearts that, now cold in death, are laid to rest around that sacred fane, within whose walls they had so often swelled with emotion! Tell us not of neatly trimmed "cemeteries," redolent of staring sunflowers, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... their artless notes in simple guise; They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim: Perhaps 'Dundee's' wild-warbling measures rise, Or plaintive 'Martyrs,' worthy of the name; Or noble 'Elgin' beets the heavenward flame, The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays. Compared with these, Italian trills are tame; The tickled ears no heart-felt raptures raise; Nae unison hae they with our ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... through the tall weeds growing beyond the fence; it was only a rabbit who was more frightened at Edna than she at it. Next, the bushes parted and a small white figure crept stealthily forth. The child's heart stood still and she stopped short. Then came a plaintive meow and she discovered one of the three kittens out on an adventuring tour. She picked up the little creature which purred contentedly as she snuggled it to her, continuing ...
— A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays • Amy E. Blanchard
... voice, and all of a sudden they all looked at me. I do not know who the two old men were or what any of them were doing, but there are moments when it is clearly time to go, and I left them there and then. And just as I got up on to my bicycle I heard the plaintive voice of the one with the hammer apologizing for the liberty he had taken in ...
— Fifty-One Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... few moments, the ripple changed to a plaintive minor accompaniment, that had in it an undertone as of far-off winds and waves. Then the full, clear voice of the girl rang out in that most beautiful of songs, which alone should make famous the genius of Jean ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... voice took up the plaintive strain. It was so high and sweet and clear that the listener caught ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... mysteriously alluring in the long, gabled building standing almost, as it were, on an island, among the high trees which formed a screen to the house on the north and east sides. It was something solemn, something appealing—like a melodious, plaintive voice from the long-distant past, out of that Old Country which was the England of six ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... at least in sacred music, in the voice that sings seconds, and the impression was confirmed as he listened to the blind girl's accompaniment to the other voices; low when they were loud, sad when they were triumphant, following painfully their quicker steps with that ever plaintive protest and soft wail—fit image of life, where our highest joys are dogged by ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... Axminster when we moved in," would be the plaintive response. The ladies would stand together for a moment wrapped in ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... can pay for it!" said Doris, with plaintive emphasis, as she ruefully turned over the costly volumes which ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... counted its myriad transfigured citizens in heaven, and had its destinies, like its foundations, in eternity. To this City of God belonged, in the first place, the patriarchs and the prophets who, throughout their plaintive and ardent lives, were faithful to what echoes still remained of a primeval revelation, and waited patiently for the greater revelation to come. To the same city belonged the magi who followed a star till it halted over the stable in Bethlehem; Simeon, who divined the present salvation of Israel; ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... still in the same spot and pricked up her ears inquiringly. Moni placed himself beside her and looked up and down. Now he heard a faint, pitiful bleating; it was Maggerli's voice, and it came from below so plaintive and beseeching. Moni lay down on the ground and leaned over. There below something was moving; now he saw quite plainly, far down Maggerli was hanging to the bough of a tree which grew out of the rock, and was moaning pitifully; ...
— Moni the Goat-Boy • Johanna Spyri et al
... a few plaintive words of this sort; and had the offending lady of the clock appeared next moment, and given some Arabian Nights' explanation, there is little doubt that Aunt Tipping would have forgiven her on the spot. A tendency to do so was already active in her ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... MS. volumes, which have been kindly submitted to our inspection by a descendant, and from which we have made some extracts, contain numerous poetical compositions worthy of being presented to the public. A vein of humour pervades the majority of his verses; in the elegiac strain he is eminently plaintive. He is remembered as a man of excellent dispositions and eminent social qualities: he sung with grace the songs of his country, and delighted in humorous conversation. His elder brother was proprietor of Garnkirk, and his son, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... those old voyageur songs you sang the other night." He handed his tobacco pouch to the guide and then filled his own pipe, while the Canadian, nothing loth, sent his light voice across the lake in one of those plaintive, almost melancholy chanties with which lumbermen and trappers lessen the burden of their labor. There was an appealing and romantic flavor about it, something that recalled the atmosphere of the old pioneer days when Indians and wilderness ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... ground. A Yokaia mother who has lost her babe goes every day for a year to some place where her little one played while alive, or to the spot where its body was burned, and milks her breasts into the air. This is accompanied by plaintive mourning and weeping and piteous calling upon her little one to return, and sometimes she sings a hoarse and melancholy chant, and dances with a wild, ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... whimsically plaintive, but secretly he was delighted with her confession of loneliness. It was almost worth the loss of the mare to get that out of her. At any rate, he meant something to her. He ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... Elegiack, or Satyrick, to the tune of Derry Down. In our language, the measures are more various, and more happily conceived. Our Elegy adopts not only unequal couplets, but alternate rhymes, which give a plaintive tone to the heroick measure, and are most happily used in Gray's beautiful Elegy in a ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... moan'd, and plaintive sigh'd, O'er mountain, sea and vale, And whistled round a lowly cot, Where sat ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... of sombre trees hard by, stole the plaintive notes of a blackbird singing, as it were, ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... Brennan, his face red with the chill wind sweeping in from the Nore, his voice plaintive and Irish, discoursing, at slow length, of revolutions per minute, of "precession," and the like. The journalists from London, who had come down at his invitation, fidgeted and shivered in the bitter morning air; ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... before them. They play upon a sort of flute; but instead of blowing into a hole in the side, they blow obliquely over the end, which is half shut by a thin piece of wood: they govern the holes on the side with their fingers, and play some simple and very plaintive airs. They continued to dance and sing until midnight; during which time I was surrounded by so great a crowd, as made it necessary for me to satisfy ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... on the porch in the soft misty twilight, he found many things to ask, and many questions to answer. Roderick sat on the step facing the lake, filled with a great content. The sunset gleam of the water through the darkening trees, the soft plaintive call of the phoebes from the woods, the sleepy drone of Bossy's bell from the pasture, and the scents of the garden made ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... disgracefully tight! Well, well, just to show you how hurt I am, I won't have any beer now! What a selfish brute I am! (Relenting.) You may bring me just a little drop. (He bursts into tears.) I will play you a plaintive Bohemian dance on my flute. (He does.) No beer at such a sacred moment as this! (He drinks.) Ha, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various
... Gaspilton considered herself as distinctly an interesting personality, and from a limited standpoint she was doubtless right. She had indolent dark eyes and a comfortable chin, which belied the slightly plaintive inflection which she threw into her voice at suitable intervals. She was tolerably well satisfied with the smaller advantages of life, but she regretted that Fate had not seen its way to reserve for her some of the ampler successes for which she felt herself well qualified. ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... friendship; whatever is trite he views with ecstasy. Nature appears charming; in the dead woods and monotonous forest his mind becomes overwhelmed with delight. I speak for myself, as a careful analysation of the attack, in all its severe, plaintive, and silly phases, appeared to me. I used to amuse myself with taking notes of the humorous and the terrible, the fantastic and exaggerated pictures that were presented to me—even while suffering the paroxysms induced ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... up. "I was almost asleep," he explained, more to protect her than himself. "I—I wish that fool Nelson kid would break his mandolin—or his neck," he said irritably. He kissed her and went upstairs. From across the quiet street there came thin, plaintive, occasionally inaccurate, the strains ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... a long soliloquy upon the fence, a plaintive monologue without words: the boy's thoughts were adjectives, but they were expressed by a running film of pictures in his mind's eye, morbidly prophetic of the hideosities before him. Finally he spoke aloud, with such spleen that Duke rose from ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:—do I wake or sleep? Ode ...
— A Day with Keats • May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron
... It consists of four movements: an Allegro in G major; a Minuetto and Trio, G major and minor; an Adagio in G minor; and an Allegro molto in G major. It is the only sonata of Haydn's which contains four movements. The plaintive Trio and the ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
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