"Doleful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... woman! do not touch it I say.... Slip that goatskin off thy loins, man ... By Jupiter 'tis the best of thee thou hidest.... Hold thy chin up girl, we'll have no doleful faces to-day." ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Danton; "take hold of my arm; no one shall molest you. We will look for your brother, and try to recover your things;" and on we went together: I, weeping, I may truly say, for my life, stopped at every step, while he related my doleful story to all whose curiosity ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... doleful strains headed the procession, followed by hired mourners who united lamentations with songs in praise of the virtue of the departed. Players, buffoons, and liberated slaves followed, and of the actors one represented the deceased, imitating his words and actions. ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... amusement in observing the various personages that daily passed and repassed beneath my window. The character which most of all arrested my attention was a poor blind fiddler, whom I first saw chanting a doleful ballad at the door of a small tavern near the gate of the village. He wore a brown coat, out at elbows, the fragment of a velvet waistcoat, and a pair of tight nankeens, so short as hardly to reach below his calves. A little foraging cap, that had long since seen its best days, set off an open, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... his fate in doleful terms; the more so as Sunday was approaching, when he feared he should be absent from his congregation; and he also regretted that he had it not in his power, according to his promise to the widow O'Clery, to visit her next day, and provide for her poor orphans among the ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... Mercer's tavern by the water-side, a melancholy place grown up with weeds, with a yard of dark trees at the back of it. Old Mercer was an elder in the little wooden Presbyterian kirk, which I had taken to attending since my quarrels with the gentry. He knew me and greeted me with his doleful smile, ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... seemed to enjoy the game, but once when Antinous had drawn the cloak more tightly round its head and it strove in vain to be free from the cloth that impeded its breathing, it set up a loud howl, and this doleful cry made the Emperor change his attitude and cast a glance of displeasure at the boy lying on the bear-skin, but only a glance, not a word of blame. And soon the expression, even of his eyes, changed, and he fixed ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... rise of ground, and there cry and lament, calling the name of the deceased over and over again. This may be called a chant or song, for there is a certain tune to it. It is in a minor key and very doleful. Any one hearing it for the first time, even though wholly unacquainted with Indian customs, would at once know that it was a mourning song, or at least was the utterance of one in deep distress. There is no fixed period for the length of time one must mourn. Some keep up this daily lament ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... McBean, that makes Nanny speak so doleful," Sanders told me. "There was to be a prayer-meeting last nicht, but Mr. Dishart never came to 't, though they rang till they wraxed their arms; and now Effie says it'll ring on by itsel' till he's brocht hame a corp. The hellicat ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... dropped them like so much lead on his knees, casting up his eyes and giving a doleful shake of his head for ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... file, slowly the searchers were carrying the bodies of the murdered men, wrapped in canvas and strapped to poles cut from the forest trees. As they advanced, a crowd, bare-headed and at every step increasing, accompanied the doleful procession. They passed the spot where stood the two girls, the one supporting the other, and ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... marched with speed, together were they regaled That year over mead, and mighty was their design; How sad to mention them, {130b} how doleful their commemoration! {130c} Poison is the home to which they have returned, they are not as sons by mothers nursed; {130d} How long our vexation, how long our regret, For the brave warriors, whose native place was the feast of wine! {130e} Gwlyget {131a} of Gododin, having ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... like bishops' croziers, the square-headed moschatel, the odd cuckoo-pint,—like an apoplectic saint in a niche of malachite,—snow-white ladies'-smocks, the toothwort, approximating to human flesh, the enchanter's night-shade, and the black-petaled doleful-bells, were among the quainter objects of the vegetable world in and about Weatherbury at this teeming time; and of the animal, the metamorphosed figures of Mr. Jan Coggan, the master-shearer; the second and third shearers, who travelled in the exercise of their calling, and do not require ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... I was walking to and fro in a good man's shop, bemoaning of myself in my sad and doleful state, afflicting myself with self- abhorrence for this wicked and ungodly thought; lamenting also this hard hap of mine, for that I should commit so great a sin, greatly fearing I should not be pardoned; praying ...
— Life of Bunyan • Rev. James Hamilton
... ticked loud and warningly. There was a sighing of the wind about the windows, as if it sought admittance to reason and remonstrate with her. A cricket sang his monotonous song on the hearth. In the wainscot of the room a deathwatch ticked its doleful omen. The dog in the courtyard howled plaintively as the hour of midnight sounded upon the Convent bell, close by. The bell had scarcely ceased ere she was startled by a slight creaking like the opening ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... please! I tell you honestly, dear, that I am better in health than I was two months ago! Rest and care, and freedom from suspense, have done good work already, so don't begin to lament too soon, for I may cheat the doctors yet. Now smile and look like yourself, for we can allow no doleful faces to-day. It is a happy day for me, for once more I have two sons to love and be proud of. There goes the bell, and we must go in to tea and to entertain the lovers. Don't be too severe, darling, for they are very new and most amusingly self-conscious. I am sure ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... listening to you so quietly that I don't interrupt you—even when you talk absurd nonsense. How can one look doleful and disagreeable if honest, highly constituted men indulge in conversation with each other for a few hours after hard work? I delight in this harmless enjoyment, in which people forget all the cares of the day. Here people shake off the burdens of their vocation and the ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... to utter the most wild and discordant cries, and McKinley, at the same time, lifting up his voice in concert, the two together sent forth notes so doleful as to alarm the whole town. Women, who are generally the first to hear and spread news, were now the first to come to McKinley's assistance. But so strange and unearthly was the harmony within the schoolhouse, that they ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... was called Sir Carados; and Sir Lancelot, when about betaking himself to these and similar recreations, did hear doleful tidings out of Lancashire, how that Sir Tarquin was playing the eagle in the hawk's eyrie, amongst his brethren and companions. From Winchester he rode in great haste, succouring not a few distressed damsels and performing many other notable exploits by the way, "until ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... were inclined to ask themselves with wonder whether Colonel D'Hubert was aware of any disasters. Not only his manners but even his glances remained untroubled. The steady amenity of his blue eyes disconcerted all grumblers, silenced doleful remarks, and ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... Greeks. The formidable Holagou threatened to march to Constantinople at the head of four hundred thousand men; and the groundless panic of the citizens of Nice will present an image of the terror which he had inspired. The accident of a procession, and the sound of a doleful litany, "From the fury of the Tartars, good Lord, deliver us," had scattered the hasty report of an assault and massacre. In the blind credulity of fear, the streets of Nice were crowded with thousands of both sexes, who knew not from what or to whom they fled; and some hours elapsed ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... rapidly proceeding to ruin in consequence of free-trade, and their vaticinations of frightful calamities to the nation were singular displays of extraordinary hypocrisy, or delusions. Amongst the most doleful prophets and lugubrious friends of agriculture was Benjamin Disraeli. He was also the most acrimonious of advocates, while defending claims ignored by the nation as unjust, denounced by political economists ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... hooded clouds, like friars, Tell their beads in drops of rain, And patter their doleful prayers; But their prayers are all in ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... doleful. "It's like a curse," he said. "Two boys wounded and one of them dead, right there on the sand. The shipment gone, and Mike Sand on his way to the East with it. A curse." He sucked some more at ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... by General Madeira's proclamation were no doubt faithfully chronicled in the Bahia newspapers, one of these declaring "in the last few days we have witnessed in this city a most doleful spectacle that must touch the heart even of the most insensible. A panic terror has seized on all men's minds—the city will be left without protectors—and families, whose fathers are obliged to fly, will be left orphans—a prey ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... The doleful sound. The Alma Perdita. "Cry of the Lost Soul." John, Uraso and Muro listening to the signals of the enemies. The night watch. Stalking. The answering cry. The Konotos. Sacrificial feasts. The dark of the moon. Its significance. The language of birds and animals. Their meaning. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... with reformers, and carried with him their atmosphere. To hear him talk, you would have thought universal reorganization at hand. I said I avoided the house; but one day Horatio came to me with a doleful face, backing a petition that I would go and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... impressive if Mrs. Ashburn had not been so much addicted to indulging in such doleful predictions on less adequate occasions that she had discounted much of the effect that properly belonged to them; even as it was, however, they cut Mark for the moment; he half offered to embrace his mother, but she made no response, and after waiting ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... fool, O'Dwyer!" Danvers heard the doctor remark, as they proceeded toward the fort. The humbled trooper, hitching his arm in the improvised sling which Philip had made, groaned doleful assent. Too late he remembered the barrack-room decision that Miss Thornhill was after every scalp in the Whoop ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... of the new year, 1761, was ushered in by the solemn tolling of the church bells in the town, and the firing of minute guns on Castle Island. These mournful sounds were heard all day, even to the setting of the sun. However doleful the day may have seemed, there was more appropriateness in these signs of mourning than any man of that generation could have known; for with George II. died the indolent but salutary let-them-alone policy under which the colonies enjoyed prosperity and peace. With the accession of the new king ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... ware of all his host and of all his good knights were left no more on live but two knights, that was Sir Lucan de Butlere, and his brother Sir Bedivere: and they were full sore wounded. Jesu mercy, said the king, where are all my noble knights becomen? Alas that ever I should see this doleful day. For now, said Arthur, I am come to mine end. But would to God that I wist where were that traitor Sir Mordred, that hath caused all this mischief. Then was King Arthur ware where Sir Mordred leaned upon his sword among a great heap of dead men. Now give me my spear, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... ankle. In leaping a ditch, the master has hurt himself against a stake; he has dislocated and twisted his ankle, broken his head by falling on a stone, while his Gorgon shot far away from his buckler. His mighty braggadocio plume rolled on the ground; at this sight he uttered these doleful words, "Radiant star, I gaze on thee for the last time; my eyes close to all light, I die." Having said this, he falls into the water, gets out again, meets some runaways and pursues the robbers with his spear ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... of justice takes place. He will have the very best advice, your father and I will see to that; and you may depend upon it that some fresh evidence will turn up before then, which will show matters in an altogether different light. In the meanwhile you must not go about looking doleful, as though you had made up your minds already that Neil would not be able to show ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... Jefferson, lying in wait at the gate of the manor-house grounds, waylaid Doctor Williams coming out, and asked the question which had hitherto had its doleful answer without the necessity of asking. If the doctor had struck him with the buggy whip the shock would not have been more real than that consequent on the snapping of mental tension strings and the surging, strangling uprush of ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... see her, by the dim night-light burning in a cornet to enable the surgeon or the nurse to find their way to her. She was alone in her favorite little wicker-work chair, with the doleful white bandage over her eyes—to all appearance ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... without a door; But, for his ease, well litter'd was the floor. His fellow, who the narrow bed had kept, Was weary, and without a rocker slept: Supine he snored; but in the dead of night He dream'd his friend appear'd before his sight, 230 Who, with a ghastly look and doleful cry, Said, Help me, brother, or this night I die: Arise, and help, before all help be vain, Or in an ox's stall I shall be slain. Roused from his rest, he waken'd in a start, Shivering with horror, and with aching heart; At length to cure himself by reason tries; 'Tis but a dream, and what are ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... and I laughed till our sides ached, and Odda joined us when he could not help it, so doleful was his face and solemn were his words when he told his tale. But I knew that he and Thord were the best of friends after those few days in the ship together, and that the rough old viking had given every man of the crew confidence. Nevertheless ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... formed itself anew. Zaidee and Helen bore the shingle-bier in front, Eunice and Cricket came behind, tearing their hair, and chanting in doleful tones how ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... roof, and jars his bolted doors: The slow-wing'd storm along the troubled skies Spreads its dark course; the wind begins to rise; And full-leaf'd elms, his dwelling's shade by day, With mimic thunder give its fury way: Sounds in his chimney top a doleful peal, Midst pouring rain, or gusts of rattling hail; With tenfold danger low the tempest bends, And quick and strong the sulph'urous flame descends: The fright'ned mastiff from his kennel flies, And cringes at the door with ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... mystic East have done so; even the Greek Menander recognised, although he sneered at, the phenomenon. "The desert, they say, is the place for discoveries." For the mediaeval mind it had peculiar attractions. The wilderness these comrades chose was Accona, a doleful place, hemmed in with earthen precipices, some fifteen miles to the south of Siena. Of his vast ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... very doleful. And well he might; for if his lady-love went away in this fashion, there was good reason to suppose that he might never see her again. But Kate said no word to comfort him—for how could she in this company?—and began to talk ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... forty thriving towns and villages in the valley of the Tagus, under the shadow of her wing. These communities and their homes have all disappeared, pastures and fields of grain covering their dust from the eyes of the curious traveller. The narrow, silent, doleful streets of the old city, with its overhanging roofs and yawning arches, leave a sad memory on the brain as we turn thoughtfully away from its crumbling walls and picturesque, ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... gave him. Her melancholy anecdotes of similar cases, and her oft-repeated fears that "he would never see the month of June," vexed and troubled Lilias greatly. At first they troubled Archie too; but he soon came not to heed them; and one day, when she was in a more than usually doleful mood, wondering what Lilias would do without him, and whether it would save his life if his leg were cut off, he quite offended her by laughing in ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... and her children, Mrs. Buffington and her children, and many others; and made prisoners, Mrs. Roney and her son, and Daniel Dougherty. Jonathan Buffington and Benjamin Hornbeck succeeded in making their escape and carried the doleful tidings to Friend's and Wilson's forts. Col. Wilson immediately raised a company of men and proceeding to Leading creek, found the settlement without inhabitants, and the houses nearly all burned. He then ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... New-house: when he came near the house, he pulled off his shirt, and gave it to an old man he met, as though he had been amazed: then marched up to the house, and just at the stable met Mrs. Oxenham and another lady, whom he immediately accosted with a doleful complaint of being a poor shipwrecked mariner. Mrs. Oxenham told him, she should have taken him for Bampfylde Moore Carew, but she knew him to be transported. He was not disconcerted at this, but readily told her, with great composure, that his name was Thomas ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... snorts. Dot started to her feet in fright, and would have run away, only she was afraid of being lost worse than ever, so she stood still and looked round for the terrible monster that could make such extraordinary sounds. The grunts and clattering stopped, and the noise died away in a long doleful bray, but she could not see where it came from. Having peered into the dark shadows, Dot went more into the open, and sat with her back to a fallen tree, keeping an anxious watch ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... our hard way to the famed City of Fortuna, whose picture displayed a similar origin and imagination, and its reality was even more doleful. ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... knee the boy did stand, within the dais so fair, The golden shears were in her hand, to clip his curled hair; And ever as she clipped the curls, such doleful words she spake, That tears ran from Gayferos' eyes, ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... Docile obea. Docility obeemo. Dock sxipejo. Docket karteto, bileto. Doctor Doktoro. Doctor (med.) kuracisto. Doctrine dogmaro. Document dokumento. Doff demeti. Dog hundo. Dogged obstina. Doghouse hundodometo. Dog kennel hundejo. Dogma dogmo. Dole disdoni. Doleful funebra. Doll pupo. Dollar dolaro. Dolphin delfeno. Dolt malsagxulo. Domain bieno. Dome kupolo. Domestic hejma. Domestic servisto—ino. Domicile logxejo. Dominant potenca. Domination potenco. Dominion regeco. Dominion regno. Domino domeno. Donation donaco, ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... meted out to the religious for their insubordination has had, we are told, a doleful effect on the temporal power of the Pope, an interesting patch of which has been broken up by the new French law. It is a mystery to us how this law can affect the temporal power of the Pope any more than the political status of Timbuctoo. It is passably difficult ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... with their consciences. They stifle them, sear them, forcibly silence them, somehow or other; and then, when there is a dead stillness in the heart, broken by no voice of either approbation or blame, but doleful like the unnatural quiet of a deserted city, then they call that peace, and the man's uncontrolled passions and unbridled desires dwell solitary in the fortress of his own spirit! You may almost ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... ever the name of Anne Boleyn hath been pleasing in your ears, then let me obtain this request; and I will so leave to trouble your grace any further, with mine earnest prayers to the Trinity to have your grace in his good keeping, and to direct you In all your actions. From my doleful prison in the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... ever at rest about the hilltop on which my house stands. Even in summer the wind sighs, a long, gentle little sigh, sometimes not unpleasant to hear. You used to speak of an AEolian harp, and say that I should place one on my window-sill. A doleful instrument it must be—loud wailing sound in winter-time, and in the summer a little sigh. But in these autumn days an AEolian harp would be mute. There is not wind enough to-day on the hillside to cause the faintest ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... shook. It was good to laugh. Nancy Olden isn't accustomed to a long dose of the doleful, and it doesn't agree with her. I strolled over to where ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... peace, life in Hapsburg Castle was dull; in times of war it was doleful. War is always grievous, but my good mistress, the Duchess of Styria, was ever in such painful dread lest evil should befall her only child, Maximilian, that the pains of war-time were rendered doubly keen to those ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... family came home, Miss Polly had a most doleful story to tell about Katie's experiment in the watering-trough, the child's illness, the explosion of the beer, and her own fright ...
— Dotty Dimple at Her Grandmother's • Sophie May
... stopped for supper at Albany, and there he met CYRUS W. FIELD and Commodore VANDERBILT. One of these gentlemen was looking very happy and the other very doleful. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various
... is known of dancing is confined to the people of Laos. The women are meek eyed, spiritless creatures, crushed under the heavy domination of the stronger sex. Naturally, their music and dancing are of a plaintive, almost doleful character, not without a certain cloying sweetness, however. The dancing is as graceful as the pudgy little bodies of the women are capable of achieving—a little more pleasing than the capering of a butcher's block, but not quite so much so as that of a wash tub. Its greatest merit is the ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... ordered the body to be pulled out of the mud. So some of the Indians "took hold of him by his stockings, and some by his small breeches (being otherwise naked) and drew him through the mud to the upland; and a doleful, great, naked, dirty beast he looked like," according to ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... look so doleful? One would think you had lost your best horse, or broken the sword of your ancestors on the head ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... What! And what is more,' exclaimed Young John, surveying him in a doleful maze, 'he appears to mean it! Do you ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... hope they'll be happy, in spite of Kate's doleful prophecies. Certainly they looked happy enough to-day," declared Cyril, patting a yawn as he rose to his feet. "I fancy Will and Aunt Hannah are lonesome, though, ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... means a doleful day, and 'A watery Sabbath it is,' he replied with feeling. A silence followed, broken only by the click of the wires. Now and again he would mutter, 'Ay, well, I'll be going to vote - little did I think the day would come,' and ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... the tombs a doleful sound, Mine y'ears attend the cry. Ye livin' men come view the ground ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... other, the more low-spirited and doleful Ned became, the more hopeful and cheery Chris seemed. Perhaps it was what he called make-believe, and put on by a great effort, but he was the brightest of the party and brought a smile to the lip of every one in turn with his light, trivial remarks, all of which, however, ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... are you trying to say? I remember, in the spring You pretended you could sing; But your voice is now still queerer, And as yet you've come no nearer To a song. In fact, to sum the matter, I never heard a flatter Failure than your doleful clatter. Don't you think it's wrong? It was sweet to hear your note, I'll not deny, When April set pale clouds afloat O'er the blue tides of sky, And 'mid the wind's triumphant drums You, in your white and azure coat, A herald proud, came forth to ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... in the outskirts of Paris are so terribly crowded and stuffy on those Sunday evenings in summer! Such artificial enjoyment, such idiotic laughter, such doleful ballads, sung in whispers by voices that no longer have the strength to roar! That was the time when M. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... inarticulate sounds; and it being at length understood that a favourable answer had been given, Okotook was carried out and placed on the sledge, Ewerat still mumbling his thumbs and muttering his incantations as before. When the party took their leave, there were a great many doleful faces among those that remained behind; and Mr. Bushnan said that the whole scene more resembled the preparations for a funeral than the mere removal of a sick man. When the sledge moved on, Ewerat ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... present doleful subject here concluded; but the horrors of the day are sufficient to fill a volume. As soon as it grew dark, another scene presented itself, little less shocking than those already described. The whole city appeared ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... however, Fox was walking up and down in his cell, when he heard a doleful noise. He stopped his walk to listen. Through the wall he could hear the voice of the Gaoler speaking to his wife—'Wife,' he said, 'I have had a dream. I saw the Day of Judgment, and I saw George there!' How the listener ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... finally stopped altogether. Johnny received word that his creditor in St. Paul was coming to investigate him. He became frantic and confided the awful news to every one he met. Hogue, Bill Williams, Jake Maunders, and a group of their satellites, hearing the doleful recital in Bill Williams's saloon, told Johnny that the sheriff would unquestionably close up his store and take everything ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... said, and in obedience to my advice he fastened the rope round his waist, and tried to climb as we hauled, with the result that after a few minutes' scuffling and rasping on the rock poor Bigley was sitting down rubbing himself softly, and looking up at us with a very doleful expression of countenance. ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... moral, hard-working being as her mother. Each morning, soon after seven, when I have swept the cabin, the family come in for "worship." Chalmers "wales" a psalm, in every sense of the word wail, to the most doleful of dismal tunes; they read a chapter round, and he prays. If his prayer has something of the tone of the imprecatory psalms, he has high authority in his favor; and if there be a tinge of the Pharisaic thanksgiving, it is hardly surprising that he is grateful that he is not ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... upon the visage of my sons. I wept not: so all stone I felt within. They wept: and one, my little Anslem, cried: "Thou lookest so! Father what ails thee?" Yet I shed no tear, nor answer'd all that day Nor the next night, until another sun Came out upon the world. When a faint beam Had to our doleful prison made its way, And in four countenances I descry'd The image of my own, on either hand Through agony I bit, and they who thought I did it through desire of feeding, rose O' th' sudden, and cried, 'Father, ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... other stories out of Plutarch,[535] which they never tire of; a shelf full of English history, from the chronicles of Brut[536] and Arthur,[537] down to the royal Henries,[538] which men hear eagerly; and a string of doleful tragedies, merry Italian tales,[539] and Spanish voyages,[540] which all the London prentices know. All the mass has been treated, with more or less skill, by every playwright, and the prompter has the soiled ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... millionaires but what most of us want are models of the art of enjoying life thoroughly and nobly without ostentation and at a moderate cost. It is by people of the class of which I am speaking that the servant difficulty that doleful but ever recurring theme is most severely felt. Nor would I venture to hold out much hope that the difficulty will become less. It is not merely industrial out social. There is a growing repugnance to anything like servitude which makes the female democracy prefer the independence ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... sang 'Darby and Joan,' in a sweet contralto, but with a doleful slowness which hung heavily upon the spirits of the company, and a duly dismal effect having been produced, the young ladies were ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... sake, be lively drunk, not deadly doleful.—Cheer up, Percy!' I clapped him on the shoulder, —almost knocking him off his seat on to the floor. 'I am now going to show you that little experiment of which I was ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... thy shaft accursed, In th' holy Vedas deeply read—thy skull in seven wide rents had burst. But since, unwitting, thou hast wrought—that deed of death, thou livest still, Oh son of Raghu, from thy thought—dismiss all dread of instant ill. Oh lead me to that doleful spot—where my poor boy expiring lay, Beneath the shaft thy fell hand shot—of my blind age, the staff, the stay. On the cold earth 'twere yet a joy—to touch my perished child again, (So long if I may live) my boy—in one last fond embrace ...
— Nala and Damayanti and Other Poems • Henry Hart Milman
... from the tombs a doleful sound! Mine ears attend the cry: "Ye living men come view the ground Where you ...
— Masonic Monitor of the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason • George Thornburgh
... fired. "THE LORD," said he, as rapt he stands, "HATH GIVEN THEM INTO OUR HANDS!" 'Tis the ninth month and second day, A wild, wet night, historians say. Quit you like men, and bravely stand; Death's wrestle now is close at hand; Heed not the hoarse sea's doleful moan, As on the cliffs its waves are thrown. Think not of life nor kindred dear— Who goes to war should nothing fear But God, whose eye-lids never sleep— His Israel He will safely keep. Oh, pray! but keep your ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... himself longer, and Bob, who had been for some time stuffing his white cambric handkerchief into his mouth, could no longer resist the laugh he had been trying to avoid. They look'd alternately at each other, and then at the doleful complainant, who with unaltered features sat for a moment between his laughing companions, till perceiving the ridiculous situation he was in, he rose from his seat and hastily ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... that shocked you, it was my bad art. It is very strange that X. should be so good a chapter and IX. and XI. so uncompromisingly bad. It looks as if XI. also would have to be re-formed. If X. had not cheered me up, I should be in doleful dumps, but X. is alive anyway, and life is ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... child!" The bridal Berry gazed at the finger of doleful joy. "I'd forgot all about it! And that's what've made me feel so queer ever since, then! I've been seemin' as if I wasn't myself somehow, without my ring. Dear! dear! what a wilful young gentleman! We ain't a match for men in that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... own—quite melodious and in good tune with the accompaniment of dingling bells hanging from the camels' necks. There was a musician in our party—Ali Murat's young brother—who carried a flute in his girdle during the day, but played upon the instrument the whole night—some doleful tunes of his own composition, which were not bad. True, when one had listened to the same tune, not only scores but hundreds of times during one night, one rather felt the need of a change, but still even the sound ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... nothing here on earth deserves Half of the thought we waste about it, And thinking but destroys the nerves, When we could do so well without it: If folks would let the world go round, And pay their tithes, and eat their dinners, Such doleful looks would not be found, To frighten us poor laughing sinners. Never sigh when you can sing, But laugh, ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... Ah! now the bride!—that's something—she is tooth-some. Look you, my lord—now, while the progress halts— Cousin Paolo, has he got the dumps? Mercy! to see him, one might almost think 'T was his own marriage. What a doleful face! The boy is ill. He caught a fever, uncle, Travelling across the marshes. Physic! physic! If he be really dying, get a doctor, And cut the ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... on these obscure abodes; Disbark the sheep, an offering to the gods; And, hellward bending, o'er the beach descry The doleful passage to the infernal sky. The victims, vow'd to each Tartarian power, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... on either side. Mary gave up all hope as soon as she saw it. There was not room even for one pansy. The windows looked out on chimneys and roofs and other backyards, with lines of wet clothes flapping in the sun. Not a tree was to be seen. Any one might be excused for thinking it doleful; and Mary, having made up her mind beforehand to dislike it, found it easy to ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... prosper long from being broke, The Luck of Edenhall; A doleful drinking bout I ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... exhibiting a bone or splinter asserted that they drew it from the body, and that it had been the cause of the malady, they manufactured a little image to represent the spirit of sickness, and spitefully knocked it to pieces, thus vicariously destroying its prototype; they sang doleful and monotonous chants at the top of their voices, screwed their countenances into hideous grimaces, twisted their bodies into unheard of contortions, and by all accounts did their utmost to merit the honorarium they demanded for their services. A double motive spurred them to spare no pains. For ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... Lewis. But doleful nights, and self-inflicted tortures— Are these the love of God? Is He well pleased With this stern holocaust of health ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... all the others whom thou seest here were, when living, sowers of scandal and of schism, and therefore are they so cleft. A devil is here behind, that adjusts us so cruelly, putting again to the edge of the sword each of this crew, when we have turned the doleful road, because the wounds are closed up ere one passes again before him. But thou, who art thou, that musest on the crag, perchance to delay going to the punishment that is adjudged on thine own accusations?" [2] "Nor death hath reached him yet," replied my Master, "nor ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... Building, the firemen belonging in the barracks on the right had been summoned. Their helmets, which the torch lighted up in the rain, went and came along the roofs. At the same time, Thenardier perceived in the direction of the Bastille a wan whiteness lighting up the edge of the sky in doleful wise. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... its theatre, at which Washington witnessed for the first time a dramatic representation, a species of amusement of which he afterwards became fond. It was in the present instance the doleful tragedy of George Barnwell. "The character of Barnwell, and several others," notes he in his journal, "were said to be well performed. There was music adapted and regularly conducted." A ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... casting on him my sight * And parts fro' me bearing my life and sprite: He repels me but kens what my heart endures * As though Allah himself had inspired the wight: I portrayed his portrait in palm of hand * And cried to mine eyes, 'Weep your doleful plight.' For neither shall eyes of me spy his like * Nor my heart have patience to bear its blight: Wherefore, will I tear thee from breast, O Heart * As one who regards him with jealous spite. And when say I, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... king was there or not He never knew, he never colde For never since that doleful day Was British ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... to insist upon his right to alight on their tree, as he had always done, was harder to convince; in fact, he never was driven away. Every day, and many times a day, arose the doleful cry of distress. I always looked over from my seat on the other side of the little open spot in the wood, and invariably saw a robin on the lower part of the wild-cherry where the trunk divided, flirting his tail, jerking his wings, and looking very wicked indeed. Down upon him ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... melancholy enough. Snow had fallen continually until it had piled a foot high on the level roads. The wind howled dismally around the gables, and the branches of a maple beat doleful music against the window of Zulma's room. She felt the influence of the inhospitable weather. A feeling of weariness weighed upon her from the early hours of the morning. Nothing that she attempted to do could distract her mind ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... lead, extracting a doleful tune from his concertina. Next came the bride and groom. The cook wore the gorgeous Navajo blanket tied around his waist and carried in one band the waxen-white Spanish dagger blossom as large as a peck-measure and weighing fifteen ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... was something direful and most to be dreaded that threatened to invade and mar the heavenly peacefulness. She felt it coming, and fearfully awaited its approach. And she had not long to wait. For presently there appeared, flying between the calm moonlight and the figure, and casting a doleful shadow over his form, a scaly and dreadful dragon, like those we read of that devastated whole countries in the old, old times. This hideous beast breathed fire and smoke from its horrid nostrils as it flew, and it flapped ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... brothers-in-law in due time returned from their mission with the doleful intelligence that the late Captain St. Leger had died insolvent, so far as his foreign wealth was concerned. They swore in open court, for Mr. Temple summoned them to appear and obliged them to take oath, that they received not sufficient from the assets to defray the expenses ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... downstairs us could eat Grandmamma's treat. I could—I could snap it up in a minute, and the tea too, and yet I can't eat any more bread and milk!" and she gazed at the bowl with a puzzled as well as doleful expression. "I'm afraid—yes, I'm afraid, Duke, that us is dainty like Master Frederick and Miss Lucy in 'Amusing Tales.' And Nurse says it is so very naughty to be dainty when so many poor children would fink our bread and milk ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... heaven is an abode for girls and babes,—Valhalla is the place for men! I tell you, my creed is as divine in its origin as any that ever existed on the earth! The Rainbow Bridge is a fairer pathway from death to life than the doleful Cross,—and better far the dark summoning eyes of a beauteous Valkyrie, than the grinning skull and cross-bones, the Christian emblem of mortality. Thelma thinks,—and her mother before her thought also,—that different as my way of belief is to the accepted ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... shorten up that doleful countenance. The mischief that has been done must be undone. Aunt Betty must come home to a loving, forgiving child; old Ephraim must be reinstated in his own and everybody's respect; and to do this—that money must be found! Now, for ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... the Field, steals softly back, Anxious to know the fate of some lov'd friend. Mutual fears appal the mingled group, Starting alternate at the unknown tongue: They fear a foe in each uncertain form That through the gloom imperfectly appears. The mournful horrors of the doleful night Melt every heart: ... and when the morning's beam Shews the sad scene, and gives an interview, Resentment, that worst torment of the mind, Resentment ceases, satiate wrath subsides. Woman is present: and so strong the charm Of weeping Woman's ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... then there came a doleful, despairing yelp from some hungry animal prowling about in search of prey, and mostly from the direction of the Boer laager, where food could be scented. Twice, too, from far off to their left, where the wide veldt extended, there came the distant, awe-inspiring, thunderous roar of a lion; but ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... but to obey, but the awesome tune had carried its doleful message. The mournful notes had reached the ears of the wounded lad in the canoe. Its message was plain to him. Walter was a captive, or in great danger. And now began a contest between will-power and pain and weakness from which many ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... relieved only by the witty indecency of Eunuch Bukhayt and the admirable humour of Eunuch Kafur, whose "half lie" is known throughout the East. Here also the lover's agonies are piled upon him for the purpose of unpiling at last: the Oriental tale-teller knows by experience that, as a rule, doleful endings "don't pay." ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... many years ago he turned up at the place with a doleful story. Said that he had been trading among the Zulus; he was what we call a 'smouse' out here, and got into a row with them, I don't know how. The end of it was that they burned his waggon, looted his trade-goods and oxen, and killed his servants. They would ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... his leave, and left Charny with the doctor. Fever commenced, and before long he was delirious. Three hours after the doctor called a servant, and told him to take Charny in his arms, who uttered doleful cries. "Roll the sheet over his head," ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... observances in honor of the chief had not yet ceased. Throughout the day, and all that night, the sound of instruments, mingled with doleful lamentations, and with the discordant whoops and yells of those in a partial state of intoxication, filled the air, and disturbed our repose. To these were added occasionally the plaintive sounds of the Indian flute, upon ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... poet guess that, away in a little fairy principality of Deutschland, there was a beautiful young fairy prince, being reared by benevolent fairy godmother-grandmothers, especially to disprove all such doleful prophecies, and reverse the usual fate of pretty young Princesses in the case of ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... employ by right and nature the peculiar province of woman, "the weaker vessel"; for neglecting their shops, their fields, their counting-houses, and their interesting families, and wasting their precious time in writing love-tales, "doleful ditties," and "distressful strains," for the magazines; for flirting with the muse, while their wives are wanting shoes, or perpetrating puns, while their children cry for "buns"! Suppose that, pointing every line with wit, I should hold them up to contempt as ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... perplexed Ernest, they seemed actually to believe that here was the likeness which they spoke of. By the roadside there chanced to be an old beggar-woman and two little beggar-children, stragglers from some far-off region, who, as the carriage rolled onward, held out their hands and lifted up their doleful voices, most piteously beseeching charity. A yellow claw—the very same that had clawed together so much wealth—poked itself out of the coach-window, and dropt some copper coins upon the ground; so that, though the great ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... history this seemed extremely probable, and yet Mona was not half as concerned about it as I was. I thought she ought to have shown more anxiety about her future for my sake if not for her own, and I ventured to say, although in a rather doleful tone: ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... four-year-old lisped "Six Little Rabbits," with many promptings and encouraging nods from the teacher. The Dutchman's youngest got up to recite "The Burial of Sir John Moore," and, though shaking from head to foot, attacked the doleful stanzas in a high key and with sprightly gesticulations. "Frenchy's" brother spoke in his own tongue a piece that was suitable to the occasion; much to his amazement, it elicited peals of laughter. When he sat down, the program wound on its tedious, recitative way until the tree ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... man, such a doleful 'heigh-ho,' Dost think I possess not the will to say, 'No'? And shake not thy head, I could pitiless be Should supplicants ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... where a less judicious poet would have raised a long scene of whining love, he, who understood the passions better, and that so violent an affection as this must be too big for utterance, chuses rather to send his characters off in this sullen and doleful manner, in which admirable conduct he is imitated by the author of the justly celebrated Eurydice. Dr Young seems to point at this violence ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... nail yesterday—what's that got to do with to-day!" Peggy answered teasingly, "Well, we were going to hike to-day," Billy explained, too doleful to indulge in retort. "And all the other fellows ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... dolent airs! Confound these funeral pomps and poses! Is Life Dyspepsia's and Despair's, And Love's complexion all chlorosis? A lie! There's Health, and Mirth, and Song, The World still laughs, and goes a-Maying— The dismal, droning, doleful Throng Are only ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... digging him out!" laughed Felix. "Don't make Edmond more doleful; he is half afraid now of meeting with a second Jarnac. De Pilles"—the commander of our artillery—"will soon batter down those walls, and a sharp rush will carry ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... still preserved in the North of England. 399 Frende[gh], fellen in fere, famed to-geder. Friends, fallen in company, embraced (fathomed) together. The verb fame in Early English also signifies to grope. 400 dry[gh], suffer; delful, doleful. 404 freten, devoured; wa[gh]e[gh], waves. 406 hurkled, rested. This word is still preserved in the local dialects of the North of England, with the sense of "to cower," "squat." 407 mourkne, rotten. 409 here, company. 411 a[gh]t-sum, in care, sorrowful. ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... doors of Cicero's stately mansion were thrown open, and a long train came sweeping out in dark garments, with blazing torches, and music doleful and piercing. And women chanting the shrill funereal strain. And then, upon a bier covered with black, the rude wooden coffin, peculiar to the slave, of the murdered Medon! Behind him followed the whole household of the Consul; and last, to the extreme ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... act o' business. She were an' old lady in a pair-'oss phaeton wi' plenty o' sparklers an' nice white hair: a rosy old creetur, comfortably plump and round—'specially in front. 'O Mr. 'ighwayman!' says she, weepin' doleful as she tipped me 'er purse an' the shiners, ''ow could ye do it?' 'Ma'm,' I says, wipin' my eyes wi' my pistol—and—'ma'm, I don't know—but do it I must!' An' I rode away quite down-'earted." Here he turned to regard me with ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... Melville Island, in 1829, the live animals, stores, plants, etc., were transferred to Raffles Bay, but although such doleful accounts of the island had been sent down, Captain Lawes, who visited it only a few months before the removal, gives a favourable report of its healthiness, and of the success attending the growth of vegetables and tropical fruits. ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... sighs, Throned in far splendor on the heavenly hill, Though mad sounds from this wretched planet rise— Moans wild enough to fill Heaven's air, and drown its harps in doleful cries. ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... grip seemed to clutch her heart; still, eagerly as she listened to Medea's words, her sharp ears heard the doleful gasping and whimpering behind the hanging; and this distressed and dismayed her; her breath came short, and a deep, torturing sense of misfortune possessed her wholly. The wailing child-spirit within, a portion of whose joys ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... dated from some of the doleful castles in the principality of your forlorn friend, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... the revised list six months later. To add to the perfection of the story, Mrs. Turchin had acted on her own responsibility, and the colonel did not know of the result till he had gone home, and in an assembly of personal friends who called upon him ostensibly to cheer him in his doleful despondency, his wife brought the little drama to its denouement by presenting him with the appointment ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... came the guards led him away to the labyrinth. And he went down into that doleful gulf, and he turned on the left hand and on the right hand, and went up and down till his head was dizzy, but all the while he held the clue. For when he went in he fastened it to a stone and left it to unroll out of his hand as he went on, and it lasted till he met the Minotaur in a ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... was sorry that God had made me man, for I feared I was a reprobate; I counted man as unconverted, the most doleful of all the creatures. Thus being afflicted and tossed about my sad condition, I counted myself alone, and above the most of ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... disputing Bruce gained ground rapidly. In 1313 Stirling was the only fortress of importance in Scotland still garrisoned by the English, and the English garrison bound itself to surrender on June 24, 1314, if it had not been previously relieved. Even Edward II. was stirred by this doleful news, and in 1314 he put himself at the head of an army to relieve Stirling. Lancaster, however, and all whom he could influence refused to follow him, on the ground that the king had not, in accordance with the ordinances, ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... arm, press'd Round a maiden's waist On the doleful morrow is seen, And her oozy hair Laves his forehead bare With the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... service included the usual news weekly, as usual leading one to marvel why the stupid subjects shown were selected from all the fascinating events of the time. Then followed a doleful imitation of Mr. Charles Chaplin, which proved by its very fiasco ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... He might be forty years old; he was plain-looking, dark-complexioned, and already rather gray-haired. He stooped a little in walking. His countenance, as he came on, wore an abstracted and somewhat doleful air; but in approaching Farren he looked up, and then a hearty expression illuminated the ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... sat together in familiar conversation, while cheerfulness and good humour reigned among us. It was near midnight, when suddenly a hollow, doleful sound was heard, like the groaning of a human being; gradually it grew weaker, and at last died away entirely. A momentary trembling seized us all; we stared at each other, and then around us, unable ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various
... this Request, and I will so leave to trouble your Grace any further, with mine earnest Prayers to the Trinity to have your Grace in his good Keeping, and to direct you in all your Actions. From my doleful Prison in the Tower, this ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... upon him. They insult him, they threaten him, they raise malicious lying charges against him, and finally they clap him in irons and leave him—Imagination being the ringleader throughout. Left alone once more Pity sings a lament over the wickedness of the times, whereof the doleful refrain is 'Worse was it never'. A ray of light in his affliction comes with the return of Contemplation and Perseverance, who, releasing him, send him off to fetch his persecutors back. Fortune is on their side, for scarcely ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... piety would scorn to present so doleful a figure; Mrs. B. had shaved her glossy ringlets; and, in her coarse cloth gown and an- cient bonnet, she was anything but an enticing object. But Aunt Abby looked within. She saw a soul to save, an immortality of happi- ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson
... so, she flung herself down on the rushes [note 1], and bent her head forward on her knees. The longer she thought over her prospects, the more dreary and doleful they appeared. Her state of mind was one that has been touchingly described by a writer who lived three hundred years later—"Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother"—who, of all who have attempted and failed in the impossible task of rendering ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt |
