"Melancholy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Melancholy hole this, Major. Remind me of Westminster Abbey in London fog, where your uncle of blessed mem'ry often take me pray and look at fusty tomb of king. S'pose we go back Gold House and see what happen. Anything better than stand about under cursed ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... succession to his son or to any person he might appoint as his successor. The conspirators likewise put to death several persons who were particularly attached to the late marquis, and gave up their houses to be plundered by their own partizans. It was melancholy to behold the misery and desolation of the wives and children of those who were thus massacred, and whose houses were pillaged of every thing valuable, as they went about the streets bewailing their ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... scenes, and such placid beauty, the "melancholy Cowley," passed the later days of big anxious existence; here we may fancy him receiving Evelyn and Denham, the poets and men of letters of his troubled day, who found the disappointments of courtly life more than their philosophy could endure. Here his friendly biographer, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... like it," he emphasized, and a strange smile passed over his lips, the utter melancholy of which was all that was ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... deeply melancholy feature of Mr. Gladstone's death—by far the most melancholy—to which I think none of my noble friends have referred. I think that all our thoughts must be turned, now that Mr. Gladstone is gone, to that solitary and pathetic figure who, for sixty years, shared all the sorrows ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... this—perhaps it was the look of the island, with its gray, melancholy woods, and wild stone spires, and the surf that we could both see and hear foaming and thundering on the steep beach—at least, although the sun shone bright and hot, and the shore birds were fishing and crying all around us, and you ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... conduct in the fight were dead. He had hoped to obtain wealth, and to return and marry Mary Mead. He had not a groat remaining in the world. Never in his life before had he been so downhearted Gretchen observed his melancholy. ...
— A True Hero - A Story of the Days of William Penn • W.H.G. Kingston
... blabbing, and remorseful day Is crept into the bosom of the sea; And now loud-howling wolves arouse the jades That drag the tragic melancholy night, Who, with their drowsy, slow, and flagging wings, Clip dead men's graves and from their misty jaws Breathe foul contagious darkness in the air. Therefore bring forth the soldiers of our ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... "an Oriental potentate," modestly adding, "I do not look the part." He has, however, one characteristic of the Eastern ruler, namely, a delight in long stories. It took him two hours to tell the House in melancholy monotone all about the defects of our present system and his proposals for removing them. Unfortunately he has not the Oriental gift of transforming slums into palaces in a single night, but hopes to produce a similar effect by treating the local authorities ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 16, 1919 • Various
... mysterious filmy white stuff that floated about her form like a mist. The strangeness and brilliance of her surroundings had frightened her a little, and the misery at her heart had filled her wide, dark eyes with a plaintive melancholy. But she was entirely the fine lady through it all, and she accepted the prominence that was hers as the leading senorita of the Republic with simple dignity and unconcern. The women began to whisper her name, the ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... are scarcely less amenable to definition. But the case of the inhabitant of the puce dressing-gown was an exception to the rule. He knew, and he could have said, precisely what he was thinking about. In that sad hour and place, his melancholy thoughts were centred upon the resplendent, unique success in life of a gifted and glorious being known to nations and newspapers as ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... ascertain the real time of his return from omens, from the reports of the people, and from the positions of the planets, the moon and the stars. On occasions of amusement, and of auspicious dreams, she should say "Let me be soon united to him." If, moreover, she feels melancholy, or sees any inauspicious omen, she should perform some rite to appease ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... smothered to be so shut in, so I got my brother and Thomas to take axes and go to work there; and many a large tree they cut down for me, till you see they opened a way through the woods for the view of that beautiful stretch of country. I should grow melancholy if I had that wall of trees pressing on my vision all the time; it always comforts me to look off, far away, ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... he went on cultivating his garden, feeling the melancholy satisfaction that he was at least sheltered from all the wicked revolutionaries under the shadow of that colossus of stone, which inspired awe and respect from its majestic age. They might curtail the revenues of the temple, but they would be powerless against the Christian faith of those who ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... theory of it, however unphilosophic, which Zoroasterism supplied, carried with it a creed not of tears but of smiles, a religion of lofty tolerance, one in which the demonology barely alarmed, for redemption was assured, and so fully that on earth melancholy was accounted a folly. ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... he brilliant and virtuosic, and then, with what disarming naivete and joyousness! Oftentimes it is the gray and lonely air of the organ-loft at St. Clothilde, the church where he played so many melancholy years, that breathes through his work. Alone with his instrument and the clouded skies, he pours out his sadness, his bitterness, strives for resignation. Or, his music is a bridge from the turmoiled present ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... idolatry which became the main spring of his subsequent success, was thus nourished and strengthened as an honest and abiding sentiment. He was, moreover, of a contemplative—we may say, of a religious—turn of mind. His maladies gave him a tinge of melancholy, and, like the Buddha, he showed a characteristic thoughtfulness bordering upon the morbid. Becoming more and more a reformer, he followed the example of many other reformers by withdrawing at stated ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... twilight thoughts prevail. We seek no completeness here. What is beyond, what is inexpressible attracts us. Hence the greater spirituality of romantic literature, its deeper emotion, its more passionate tenderness. But hence likewise its sentimentality, its melancholy and, in particular, the morbid fascination which the thought of death has had for the Gothic mind. The classic nations concentrated their attention on life and light, and spent few thoughts upon darkness and the tomb. Death was to them neither sacred nor beautiful. Their decent rites of ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... of power did not last. As the novelty of her position in Pratt's household wore away she found her duties irksome. She resented the flocks of curious or melancholy visitors and began to perceive the bitter truth—that she was only a servant, after all, ministering to the pleasures of Pratt and his friends. She had very little time to herself, and could not escape her masters ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... night shortly after the first battle of Bull Run. The Army of the Potomac, shattered, stunned, and forlorn, was back in its old quarters behind the earth-works. The melancholy line of ambulances bearing our wounded to Washington was not done creeping over Long Bridge; the blue smocks and the gray still lay in windrows on the field of Manassas; and the gloom that weighed down our hearts was like the fog that stretched along the bosom of the Potomac, ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... that the Lord Cecil owed Mr. Spenser a grudge for some Reflections of his in Mother Hubbard's Tale, and therefore when the Queen had order'd him that Money, the Lord Treasurer said, What all this for a Song? And this he is said to have taken so much to heart, that he contracted a deep Melancholy, which soon after brought his life to a period: so apt is an ingenious spirit to resent a slighting even from the greatest persons. And thus much I must needs say of the Merit of so great a Poet, ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... suitors are pestering me beyond all endurance. How can I have any patience with the south wind, who is forever importuning me with his sentimental sighs and melancholy wheezing? And as for that old hoptoad, Mr. Roughbrown,—why, it is a husband I want, not ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... a time up and down the little cell, but soon he also sat down on the low form, propped his head on his hands and lapsed to a melancholy dream. ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... I had of seeing him thus overpowered, I shall mention one relative to his feelings of friendship. A few days before leaving Pisa, we were one evening seated in the garden of the Palazzo Lanfranchi. A soft melancholy was spread over his countenance;—he recalled to mind the events of his life; compared them with his present situation and with that which it might have been if his affection for me had not caused him to remain in Italy, saying things which would have made earth ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 - Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number • Various
... of his walks he went up to the window and stood looking out. The gulch always impressed him; it had a solemn melancholy majesty and desolate grandeur that is not easy to define in words: an icy splendour by moonlight, and a horrible gloomy beauty towards the fall of the day. It was at this time that Talbot stood looking out at its rugged edges and the snow-drifts ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... suffer from the melancholy of a cellar: my solitude is gay with light and verdure; I attend, whenever I please, the fields' high festival, the Thrushes' concert, the Crickets' symphony; and yet my friendly commerce with the Spider is marked by an even greater devotion than the young typesetter's. I ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... leaves no reserve of force and time for social pleasures and the pursuit of knowledge, diminishes even our power to conduct business with the sustained and intelligent energy requisite for a safe success. That is a melancholy passage in one of Theodore Parker's letters, written in the premature decline of his powers, in which he laments that he had not, like Franklin, joined a club, and taken an occasional ramble with young companions in the country, and played billiards with them in the ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... marry Guss Mildmay. She was not quite all that his wife should be; but he had said that he would do so in certain circumstances. Those circumstances had come round and it was right that he should keep his word. And yet it made her somewhat melancholy to think that he should ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... Pigeonswing's intention. It was to give warning of some immediate danger, and a danger that, in some way, was connected with the deportment of Peter. It was easy enough to comprehend the allusions to the mysterious chief's smiles and melancholy; and the bee-hunter understood that he was to watch that Indian's manner, and take the alarm or ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... sitting by the window of her own room, looking listlessly out on the soft summer evening, and listening to the melancholy cry of the whippoorwill, when she heard voices below. The farmer was sitting with his pipe in the vine-clad porch just under the window; and now his wife had joined him, after "redding up" the kitchen, and giving orders for the next morning to the ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... The most melancholy part of the narrative is still to be told. On coming up to our anchorage, we observed an unusual degree of curiosity and bustle in the fort; crowds of people were congregated on both sides, running to and fro, examining us through spyglasses; ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... trail bent like an elbow and shot sheer down for the plain and Sour Creek, Riley Sinclair pointed his horse's nose up to the taller mountains, but Jig sat his horse in melancholy silence and looked mournfully ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... of the younger Cato, that after the battle of Pharsalia, being entered into a melancholy disposition at the ill posture of the public affairs, he took his repasts always sitting, assuming a strict and austere course of life. It was also their custom to kiss the hands of great persons; the more to honour and caress them. And meeting with friends, they always kissed in salutation, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... she wears, Drawn full of circles and strange characters. Her face was changeable to every eye; One way look'd ill, another graciously; Which while men view'd, they cheerful were and holy, But looking off, vicious and melancholy. The snaky paths to each observed law Did Policy in her broad bosom draw. 130 One hand a mathematic crystal sways, Which, gathering in one line a thousand rays From her bright eyes, Confusion burns to death, And all estates of men distinguisheth: ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... had really been as dismal as, according to the announcement of his sycophants, it should have been amazing. He had accomplished nothing, and all that was left him was to die at the age of forty-two, over head and ears in debt, a disappointed, melancholy man. He was very indolent, enormously fat, very chaste, very expensive, fond of fine liveries and fine clothes, so solemn and stately as never to be known to laugh, but utterly without capacity either as a statesman or a soldier. He would ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... reached me, O auspicious King, that after the departure of the damsels, Hasan sat in the palace sad and solitary and his breast was straitened by severance. He used to ride forth a-hunting by himself in the wold and bring back the game and slaughter it and eat thereof alone: but melancholy and disquiet redoubled on him, by reason of his loneliness. So he arose and went round about the palace and explored its every part; he opened the Princesses' apartments and found therein riches and treasures fit to ravish ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... for many years. It is not a place where snow lies deep or long, and it will surely be found by any who seek it. We took our last looks up into the Grand Basin, still brilliant in the sunshine, our last looks at the summit, still cloudless and clear. There was a melancholy even in the midst of triumph in looking for the last time at these scenes where we had so greatly hoped and endeavored—and had been so amply rewarded. We recalled the eager expectation with which ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... dark purple vetch, with a sprinkling of the common poppy (Papaver Dubium), and the ordinary charlock of the corn fields at home, and another species of this same family. I found two mallows, two or three thistles, one with a head like our Melancholy thistle, but the commonest was one with white lines on the leaf. There were numerous other flowers, so numerous that I thought this explained why so much of the honey used in Britain came from Greece and these islands. At the top of the hill we met a few shepherds tending sheep and cattle, many ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... had been founded by Warren Hastings. It was an unhealthy station, especially for youngsters fresh from England. A burning sun by day; hot stifling nights; and no breath of wind sweeping across the parched ghats. Within a few weeks the dreaded cholera made its appearance; the melancholy roll of muffled drums was heard every evening at sunset; and Ensign Gilbert was one ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... them, had indeed seized me, but with such mild and favourable symptoms, that I was presently out of danger, and what then I did not know the value of, was entirely unmarked I skip over here an account of the natural grief and affliction which I felt on this melancholy occasion. A little time, and the giddiness of that age, dissipated too soon my reflections on that irreparable loss; but nothing contributed more to reconcile me to it, than the notions that were immediately put into my head, of going to London, and looking out for a service, ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... so. Where is the high-soul'd Stratford?—The same weakness That yielded there is obstinacy now, To the last drop of the pride-tainted blood That through the melancholy Stuart's veins Doth creep ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... pervaded by the feeling of grief or melancholy. Milton's Lycidas, Tennyson's In Memoriam, and Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... themselves with, and then I went with my boy Harry and sat on the edge of the great hole that we had dug in the hill-side, and which we had in bitter mockery named Eldorado. There we sat in the moonlight with our feet over the edge of the claim, and were melancholy enough for anything. Presently I pulled out my purse and emptied its contents into my hand. There was a half-sovereign, two florins, ninepence in silver, no coppers—for copper practically does not circulate in South Africa, which ...
— A Tale of Three Lions • H. Rider Haggard
... ourselves alone there, especially after the stirring time we had recently, with the discovery of the treasure, and getting the ship afloat, and all; so, when we crawled out of the cave and went down to the beach, we five forlorn fellows felt more melancholy than can be readily imagined at seeing this bare and desolate, and hearing no sound but that ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... streets of Warsaw against the Cossacks? How they tracked you through the snow-covered forest by the trail of blood you left behind you? Oh, I recollected it all, and I flatter myself that I related it with just that proud, sombre, subdued melancholy with which you used ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... spirits. The captain, who still remained perfectly blind, notwithstanding the assurances of Dr Cockle that he would recover, was so especially. He seemed like a heartbroken man; his countenance gloomy, as if troubled with melancholy thoughts, and his whole manner and appearance were changed. It was sad to see him come on deck and stand, sometimes for an hour together, turning his face round, as if he were picturing to himself the sparkling ocean, the blue sky overhead, and the busy scene which ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... speak to you; and in doing so, you are aware that I cannot hope to entertain you with a merely humourous or facetious story. Harlequin without his mask is known to present a very sober countenance, and was himself, the story goes, the melancholy patient whom the Doctor advised to go and see Harlequin—a man full of cares and perplexities like the rest of us, whose Self must always be serious to him, under whatever mask or disguise or uniform he presents it to the public. ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... of frenzy and madness interest us both as a picture of the change in manners, as an example of the methods of cure proposed, and as throwing light on many passages. Thus Chaucer, speaking of Arcite, describes his passion as compounded of melancholy which deprives him of reason, overflowing into the foremost cell of his brain, the cell fantastic, and causing him to act ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... canning factory started up again, and so once more Marija was heard to sing, and the love-music of Tamoszius took on a less melancholy tone. It was not for long, however; for a month or two later a dreadful calamity fell upon Marija. Just one year and three days after she had begun work as a can-painter, she lost ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... preparing him for college. The old lady had loved a college man in her youth, and she judged Harvard by the Harvard man she knew best. And the Harvard man she saw in her waking dreams, she created in her own image. Harvard requires perspective, and viewed over the years through a mist of melancholy it is very beautiful. At close range we often get a Jarrett Bumball flavor of cigarettes and a sight of the foam that made Milwaukee famous. To a great degree, Gran'ma Fiske created her Harvard out of the stuff that dreams are made of. When her little charge was six years old, she ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... it's a dreadful melancholy-looking place," said Dinny with a shudder. And then he listened attentively while the Boer expressed his belief that there were lions in the neighbourhood, though they were not ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... employing the time, which hung heavy on their hands. In all such situations the energy and hopefulness of the individual are the best guaranty for continued good health, whilst ennui, listlessness, and idleness are the pretty sure forerunners of melancholy and homesickness, which lead to serious maladies. It would be hard to find a more salubrious site for a camp than Johnson's Island. Naturally well drained, diversified with grove and meadow, open to the breeze from ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... captive princess," said Patty, in rather a melancholy tone. "I'm imprisoned in the dungeon ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... thought you Spanish gentlemen were very dark, and wore long mustaches and a cloak," said pretty little Miss Walker, gazing frankly into the smooth round face of the eldest Pacheco—"why, you are as fair as I am," "Eaf I tink that, I am for ever mizzarable," he replied, with grave melancholy. In the dead silence that followed he was enabled to make his decorous point. "Because I shall not ezcape ze fate of Narcissus." Mr. Buchanan, with the unrestrained and irresponsible enjoyment of a traveler, entered fully into the spirit of the scene. He even found words of praise for Aladdin, ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... a wee, James," and he took a step from me, and there came at my very ear the lone night-cry of a gull, so weird and melancholy a sound, that but for a low laugh beside me again I would have sworn the bird had passed in ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... "enemy"—with one of the "enemies" at least—had kept at a distance, which, the poop of the Ferndale being aver seventy feet long, he had no difficulty in doing. Mr. Powell saw him at the head of the ladder leaning on his elbow, melancholy and silent. "Oh! ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... be decided in his own conscience as to the formalities of religion; but he who prefers talking of forms and ceremonies to communion in the substance, is in a melancholy state.—Ed. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... in a letter to her husband, written in the spring of 1775, thus expresses the general anxiety and the apprehensive state of mind of the Edenton people: "The drum which is now beating while our soldiers exercise, drives every cheerful thought from my mind, and leaves it oppressed with melancholy reflections on the horrors ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... post in the north, to quarrel with the aristocratic Caepio, who was now serving as proconsul in those regions, and to share in the crushing disaster which this dissension drew upon their heads. The search for genius had to be renewed at the close of this melancholy year.[1224] Another "new man" was found in Caius Flavius Fimbria, a product of the forensic activity of the age, a clever lawyer, a bitter and vehement speaker, but with a power that secured his efforts a transitory circulation as types of literary oratory.[1225] He is not known to have shown ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... drop of rain. Every moment instructs and every object: for wisdom is infused into every form. It has been poured into us as blood; it convulsed us as pain; it slid into us as pleasure; it enveloped us in dull, melancholy days, or in days of cheerful labor; we did not guess its essence, until after a ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... confusion withdrew to his tent, not knowing what to do, nor what would be the end of the passionate love which he suddenly felt rise within him. He was seized with disgust for all these warlike habits and tastes, which had reduced him to the melancholy plight in which he found himself. His distaste for women was changed into love. He sent for his mother and related to her all that had occurred. "My son," she said, "all these circumstances should render Djaida still dearer ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... way as a young man to Rome at the time when Pinturicchio was painting the Papal apartments for Alexander VI, with the loggie and lower rooms in the Great Tower of the Castello di S. Angelo, and some of the upper apartments. He was a melancholy person, and was constantly studying the antiquities; and seeing among them sections of vaults and ranges of walls adorned with grotesques, he liked these so much that he never ceased from examining them. And so well did he grasp the methods of drawing foliage in the ancient manner, that ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... the effect which this melancholy spectacle produced throughout the army. By the courteousness and condescension of his manners, General Ross had secured the absolute love of all who served under him, from the highest to the lowest; and his success on a former ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... remained in its fireproof box at my office, through more years than I Like to reckon up. It was not till the summer of eighteen hundred and forty-eight that I found occasion to look at it again under very melancholy circumstances. ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... a second—only for a second. The man's honest, kindly face told her that he would not betray her, that he would rather give her assistance. So she handed him the Marquis de Valorsay's letter, saying, with melancholy dignity, "It is my happiness and my future that I place in your hands—and ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... It is a melancholy reflection that reason, in its highest exercise, falls into an antithetic; and that the supreme tribunal for the settlement of differences should not be at union with itself. It is true that we had to discuss the question ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... some of the unfortunate crew: They added, that they had more than once sent out vessels to look for them, but that there broke so dreadful a sea upon the coast, they were obliged to return without attempting to go on shore. When I heard this melancholy account, I could only regret that I had not known it before, for I would then certainly have made every effort in my power to have found these unhappy wretches, and taken them from a place where, in all ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... necessary to form a quarantine establishment in the North Harbour, in consequence of the diseases brought to the country by emigrant ships. A number of tombstones, whitening the side of a hill, mark the locality, and afford a melancholy evidence of the short sojourn in the land of promise which has ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... after the last curtain has been drawn, a strange bird with a harsh yet melancholy note, that reminds me of the night-jar of the fen lands in our own country. The hills make a semicircle round the camp, and the visitor seems to arrive at the corner nearest Spartel about one o'clock in the morning. It ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... our fellow-mummers began to arrive. A deep melancholy had settled upon me. I cursed the play, I cursed the players, I cursed my part, and most of all I cursed the day which had seen me cast for Buckingham. Whenever I picked up the book, I saw my queen, Alice, standing ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... manner with an exactitude that amazed me, 'you are once more my dear de Valmont of last night. I dreamed of you, I assure you I did, and now to find you in the morning, oh, so changed!' She clasped her little hands and inclined her head, while the sweet voice sank into a cadence of melancholy which seemed so genuine that the mocking ripple of a laugh immediately following was almost a shock to me. Where had this creature of the dull English countryside learnt all such ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... your Aunt Gwen's health failed, and she lost interest in everything; finally after the death of your uncle Harry, she went into a complete melancholy, and retired to the seclusion of the tower room, with an attendant. In all of these seven years since the tragedy, she has remained there; only at night sometimes, she wanders around the old gardens. Perhaps if Janey hadn't ...
— The Quest of Happy Hearts • Kathleen Hay
... was a clerk in the office of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in London, and as such had to do with things very solemn, grave, and almost melancholy. He had to deal with the rents of episcopal properties, to correspond with clerical claimants, and to be at home with the circumstances of underpaid vicars and perpetual curates with much less than L300 a-year; but yet he was as jolly and pleasant at his desk as though ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... is melancholy for me, and may even appear ridiculous. That is why I hesitate. Promise me, in the first place, never to reveal what I am about ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... manfully completed the book on which he was engaged. It was long before he rallied from the shock, and he felt as if he could never write again. He dreaded "the length of years which might yet lie ahead of him before he could have his discharge from service." He took a melancholy pride in noting that none of the reviewers discovered any special defects in those final pages of his book which had been written under such terrible conditions. Mrs. Froude had thoroughly understood all her husband's moods, and her quiet humour always ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... sites the passages connected with them. This time I fear our friends proved too congenial. We dwelt too much in the happy present to give ourselves up to the historical past; but I do not think one gets the sweetest juices out of Rome unless he gives way to the melancholy vein now and then, and ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... a lonely farm-house, its roofs moss-grown and sunken, the grass knee-high about it. There was hardly a sign of life about the place, though I could see an aged man smoking a pipe peacefully in the shade of an apple tree at the back. Everything wore an air of melancholy, desertion ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... gazed with a sad eye into the distance at the vast Norman landscape, undulating and melancholy, like an immense English park, where the farmyards, surrounded by two or four rows of trees and full of dwarfed apple trees which hid the houses, gave a vista as far as the eye could see of forest trees, copses and shrubbery ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... at Syracuse on October 7, 1842, looked like the ghost of its predecessor in 1840. The buoyancy which then stamped victory on every face had given place to fear and forebodings. Eighteen months had left nothing save melancholy recollections. Even the log cabins, still in place, seemed to add to Whig depression, being silent reminders of the days when melody and oratory, prophetic of success, filled hearts which could no longer be touched with hope and faith. This meant ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... breakfast delicacies more popular than a new-laid egg. There are few breakfast indelicacies more revolting than the doubtful egg which makes its appearance from time to time, and which may be classed under the general heading of "Shop 'uns." It is a sad and melancholy reflection that these more than doubtful "shop 'uns" were all once new-laid. It is impossible to draw any hard-and-fast line to say at what exact period an egg ceases to be fit for boiling. There is an old tradition, the truth of which we do not endorse, that eggs ...
— Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery - A Manual Of Cheap And Wholesome Diet • A. G. Payne
... alteration that then took place in her. She was always grave and melancholy. She used to fix on us her great earnest eyes as if she wanted to read what was at the bottom of our hearts. We did not know what to think of her, and we used to maintain that she was looking out for ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... Esmond passed a part of that first night at Castlewood, lying awake for many hours as the clock kept tolling (in tones so well remembered), looking back, as all men will, that revisit their home of childhood, over the great gulf of time, and surveying himself on the distant bank yonder, a sad little melancholy boy with his lord still alive—his dear mistress, a girl yet, her children sporting around her. Years ago, a boy on that very bed, when she had blessed him and called him her knight, he had made a vow to be faithful and never desert her dear service. Had he kept that fond boyish promise? ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... other aspects of the matter, but his determination was assured. He meditated elaborately before he took action, for the drug he had taken inclined him to a lethargic and dignified melancholy. In certain respects he modified details. If he left all his property to Elizabeth it would include the voluptuously appointed room he occupied, and for many reasons he did not care to leave that to her. On the other hand, it had to be left ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... with me, alas! to balance my innumerable talents, There's a fatal imperfection and a melancholy blot: All the forms of my creating stand continually waiting For a charitable person to provide them ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... with happiness, the frogs Sedition croaked through all their bogs; And thus to Jove the restless race, Made out their melancholy case. ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... shuffled determinedly in his great boots, heavy with red shale, standing guard over his fine vegetables. He nodded phlegmatically at Anderson. He never smiled. Occasionally his long facial muscles relaxed, but they never widened. He was indefinably serious by nature, yet not melancholy, and absolutely acquiescent in his life conditions. The farmer of New Jersey is not of the stuff which breeds anarchy. He is rooted fast to his red-clinging native soil, which has taken hold of his spirit. He ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... There were some of the Polish princes who were benignant and merciful, but the great majority of them, like the Merovingian and Carlovingian princes of the Dark Ages, were unfit to reign, were the slaves of superstition, and the tools of designing priests. There is a melancholy gloom hanging over the annals of the Middle Ages, especially in reference to kings. And yet their reigns, though stained by revolting crimes, generally were to be preferred to the anarchy of an interregnum, or ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... so fond a folly As nursing melancholy In this and that spot, Which, with most endeavour, Those can visit never, But for ever and ever Will now ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... built a castle of sand. An hour of understanding so complete that it made the heart melancholy. When he sighed, "Getting late; come on, blessed; we're dry now," it seemed that they could never again ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... the arrival of some member of the fair sex, it hardly seemed the place for a love-tryst, this melancholy Zoological Gardens, misty, with the leaves falling, gradually baring the trees at the ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... did not think to call him back and endeavor to comfort him until he was gone, and it was too late. The paper had already gone to press, but knowing that our friend would consider the publication of this item important, and cherishing the hope that to print it would afford a melancholy satisfaction to his sorrowing heart, we stopped the press at once and inserted it in ...
— Editorial Wild Oats • Mark Twain
... Vicar of Wakefield', 1766, ii. 78 (chap. v). It is there sung by Olivia Primrose, after her return home with her father. 'Do, my pretty Olivia,' says Mrs. Primrose, let us have that little melancholy air your pappa was so fond of, your sister Sophy has already obliged us. Do child, it will please your old father.' 'She complied in a manner so exquisitely pathetic,' continues Dr. Primrose, 'as moved me.' The charm of the words, and the graceful ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... and very melancholy. "It has been so good of you to remain here," he said to Sophie Mellerby. They had now become intimate and almost attached to each other as friends. If she had allowed a spark of hope to become bright within her heart in regard to the young Earl that had long since ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... when all at once, on a good road and without apparent cause, the carriage overturned. Though no one was hurt, the accident appeared so strange to the pleasure-seekers that it put an end to the jokes of even the boldest among them. Pere Lactance himself appeared melancholy and preoccupied, and that evening at supper refused to eat, repeating over and ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - URBAIN GRANDIER—1634 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... parish, as I have (with no small indignation) observed, at what time they usually put out their fires, on Saturday evening, and re-kindle on Sunday night, or Monday morning; perniciously infecting the ambient air, with a black melancholy canopy, to the detriment of the most valuable moveables and furniture of the inhabitants, and the whole countrey about it. A bar of iron shall be more exeded and consum'd with rust in one year in this city, than in thrice-seven in the countrey: Why might it not therefore ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... tribes. The drum, which is beat at their feasts, dances and games, the tambourin, and a kind of flageolet, made of cane or two pieces of soft wood hollowed out and fastened together with strips of leather. Their tunes are always on a flat key, have but few variations and are mostly of a melancholy character. According to Mr. Atwater, who visited those residing near Rock Island, in 1829, the Sacs and Foxes have "tunes evidently of French origin, and some songs of considerable length." "These Indians have ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... It was, however, a melancholy ride, and John felt more down-hearted than ever before in his life as he entered the market square of Capetown. Here all was in confusion, burghers were galloping hither and thither, and every one seemed too busy and excited to notice Colton ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... arid. He could attack his foes with berserker fury, and he could be as gentle with a child as only a woman can. His hymns soar to heaven and his coarse jests trail in the mire. He was touched with profound melancholy and yet he had a wholesome, ready laugh. His words are now brutal invectives and again blossom with the most exquisite flowers of the soul—poetry, music, idyllic humor, tenderness. He was subtle and simple; superstitious and wise; limited in his cultural sympathies, but very ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... reflection of the waves in the atmosphere, a sort of pearly halo, trembling on the edge of the sky. At present I am inclined to think that the window of the house at Ostia was very likely turned towards the vast melancholy horizon of the Agro Romano. "We passed through, one after another," says Augustin, "all the things of a material order, unto heaven itself." Is it not natural to suppose that these things of a material order—these shapes of the earth with its plantations, its rivers, towns, and mountains—were ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... old; he had been esteemed an excellent student. His appearance was manly, open and free. His eye indicated a nobleness of soul; although his aspect was tinged with melancholy, yet he was naturally cheerful. His disposition was of ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... of Madame Bridau's new abode, a glance could penetrate the depths of those melancholy barred cages. To the north, the view was shut in by the dome of the Institute; looking up the street, the only distraction to the eye was a file of hackney-coaches, which stood at the upper end of the rue Mazarin. After a while, the widow put boxes of earth in front of her windows, ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... It is melancholy to reflect, that Johnson and Savage were sometimes in such extreme indigence,* that they could not pay for a lodging; so that they have wandered together whole nights in the streets. Yet in these almost incredible ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... The sense of humor, however, need not be thrown aside or discarded, for as all investigators know many of the spirit visitors have a very highly developed sense of humor, and sometimes even go so far as to seemingly endeavor to shock some of the melancholy, over-serious, "prunes and prism" type of sitters. As a writer well says: "Spirits are human still, and a good, breezy laugh, a hearty, joyous, kindly sympathetic disposition, goes a long way to open the avenues by which they ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... King spared the magazines within the town, as long as it was possible to provision his army from without; and these forays produced constant skirmishes between the Croats and the Swedish cavalry, of which the surrounding country exhibited the most melancholy traces. The necessaries of life must be obtained sword in hand; and the foraging parties could not venture out without a numerous escort. And when this supply failed, the town opened its magazines to the King, but Wallenstein had to support his troops from ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... running order, and, under Miss Leaks's efficient instruction, was soon able slowly but accurately to hammer out the necessary letters on the typewriter. He was even able at times to help Mr. Chester, the melancholy bookkeeper whom the other ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... of their marriage Jesting spake the giddy world; Nobles, pillow'd in their carriage, Laugh'd aloud with proud lips curled, And fair ladies smiled their pity, With a sigh for mortal folly, Whilst rich merchants in the city Frown'd, and called it, "Melancholy." What they said, or what they ponder'd Little reck'd fair Annabel, As with joyous hearts they wander'd By green vale and shady dell; And she cried "O! life was never Made to be ambition's fool, Bound in fashion's chains, and ever ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... this in a low voice. Beware of M'Connachie. When I look in a mirror now it is his face I see. I speak with his voice. I once had a voice of my own, but nowadays I hear it from far away only, a melancholy, lonely, lost little pipe. I wanted to be an explorer, but he willed otherwise. You will all have your M'Connachies luring you off the high road. Unless you are constantly on the watch, you will find that he has slowly pushed you out of yourself and taken your place. He has rather done for ...
— Courage • J. M. Barrie
... Miss Melvyn, 'I am sensible is extremely melancholy. All inclination must now be laid aside, and duty must become my sole guide and director. Happiness is beyond my view; I cannot even hope for ease, since I must keep a constant restraint on my very thoughts. Indifference will become criminal; and if I cannot ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... She felt as though she could not go on like this for ever. She, who apparently had no ties, was never free; she had the duties without the joys, and for these few minutes, before a knock came at the door, she allowed herself the relief of melancholy. She was incapable of tears, but she wished she could cry bitterly and for ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... the unfortunate seamstress who died from pricking her finger with a needle while sewing on Sunday. You see that the work which she holds is stained with gore, which drips from her finger onto the floor. (Which is poetry!) This forms a sad and melancholy warning to all heads of families immediately to purchase the best sewing-machines, for this accident never could have happened had she not been without one of those excellent machines, such as no family should ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... to cherish that wholesome sense of the transiency of things here below, only those who live under its habitual power can fairly estimate. It is thought to be melancholy. We are told that it spoils joys and kills interest, and I know not what beside. It spoils no joys that ought to be joys. It kills no interests that are not on other grounds unworthy to be cherished. Contrariwise, the more fully we are penetrated with the persistent conviction ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... open air. Besides this, as he was a great sluggard and glutton, he was almost always ill; and, as he did good to nobody, he had no friends; and even his servants spoke ill of him behind his back, and all his neighbours, whom he oppressed, hated him. For these reasons he was sullen, melancholy, and unhappy, and became displeased with all who appeared more cheerful than himself. When he was carried out in his palanquin (a kind of bed, borne upon the shoulders of men) he frequently passed by the cottage of the poor basket-maker, ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... cold and pure, the melancholy ashen seas slowly, slowly turning to chill ethereal meads of violets, the violet more slowly yet giving place to Adonis gardens of rose and daffodil. The forests stood dew-drenched and shadowy, solemn enough, deep ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... Skinner's but was due to the Doctor himself, who declared that if his papers were once disturbed it would be the death of him. Near the window was a green cage containing a pair of turtle doves, whose plaintive cooing added to the melancholy of the place. The walls were covered with book shelves from floor to ceiling, and on every shelf the books stood in double rows. It was horrible. Prominent among the most prominent upon the most prominent shelf were a series of splendidly bound volumes ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... after him in that quiet, thoughtful way for which he was ever remarkable. The season was midsummer, and the morning wanted at least an hour of sunrise. Owen ascended a little knoll, above Frank's house, on which he stood and surveyed the surrounding country with a pleasing but melancholy interest. As his eye rested on Tubber Derg, he felt the difference strongly between the imperishable glories of nature's works, and those which are executed by man. His house he would not have known, except by its site. It was not, in fact, the same house, but another ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... lest I check the mounting fire, O friends, that in your revelry appears! With you I'll breathe the air which ye respire, And, smiling, hide my melancholy lyre When it is wet ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... the girl with a melancholy attempt at a smile. "But you must go and join the others. Do, please. I am now in disgrace, and you may compromise your social standing in Morovenia if you remain ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... antinomian mysticism, its garments offered to the gods, its statues worn with kissing, its exaggerated superstitions for the vulgar only, its worship of sorrow, its addolorata, its mournful mysteries. Scarcely a wild or melancholy note of the medieval church but was anticipated by Greek polytheism! What should we have thought of the vertiginous prophetess at the very centre of Greek religion? The supreme Hellenic culture is a sharp edge of light across this ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... Snow." There also is the pretty legend of "The White-footed Deer"; or if you bigger boys and girls wish something more weird and exciting, read his tragic story of "The Strange Lady." Then, on some lovely autumn day, when "the melancholy days are come," and the procession of flowers has nearly passed by, read his verses "To the Fringed Gentian." There are other poems in the collection quite as easy to understand as these. Some of the most admired indeed, that would ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... sit there at the end of the table as one who heard naught. If dear mother leaned affectionately on his shoulder, or Lorand kissed his face, or if I nestled to his breast and plied him, in child-guise, with queries on unanswerable topics, at such a time his beautiful, melancholy eyes would beam with such inexpressible love, such enchanting sweetness would well out from them! But a smile came there never at any time, nor did any one ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... At harvest homes, Hallowe'en christenings, weddings, and evenings spent in dancing, he was the hero for the occasion. The people took delight in the high-toned warlike notes to which they danced, and were charmed with the solemn and melancholy airs which filled up the pauses. Withal the piper was a humorous fellow ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... wandered in Derrinrush, I came suddenly upon some blood-red beech-trees, and the hollow was full of blood-red leaves. You have been to Derrinrush: you know how mystic and melancholy the wood is, full of hazels and Druid stones. After wandering a long while I turned into a path. It led me to a rough western shore, and in front of me stood a great Scotch fir. The trunk has divided, ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... Confederate cause the defeat of Stuart was most disheartening, but his death was even a greater calamity, as is evidenced by the words of a Confederate writer (Cooke), who says: "Stuart could be ill spared at this critical moment, and General Lee was plunged into the deepest melancholy at the intelligence of his death. When it reached him he retired from those around him, and remained for some time communing with his own heart and memory. When one of his staff entered and spoke of Stuart, General Lee said: 'I can scarcely think of ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... himself, the family of great famished lords in their feudal castle. With Chateaubriand I return in the twinkling of an eye to the Niagara that we have both seen. In the fall of the waters I find the deep and melancholy note that he himself found; and after that I think of that dark cathedral of Dol that evidently suggested to the author his Genie ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... thinking, or notions which we form from the comparison of things one with another. Thus one and the same thing can be at the same time good, bad, and indifferent. For instance, music is good for him that is melancholy, bad for him that mourns; for him that is deaf, it ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... The printed title-page reads: "Recreation for Ingenious Head-peeces. Or, A Pleasant Grove for their Wits to walke in. Of Epigrams, 630: Epitaphs, 180: Fancies, a number: Fantasticks, abundance, Good for melancholy Humors. Printed by R. Cotes for H. B. London, 1645. 8vo." Two poems of Herrick's occur in the additional "Fancies and Fantasticks," first printed in this edition, viz.: The Description of a ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... paper, and we all moved from Watertown to Brooklyn. I was grateful for it; I only wanted to disappear! Linda stood by me, her children saved my life. I was a nursery-maid for a year or two—I never saw anybody, or went anywhere! I think Linda's friends thought her sister was queer, melancholy, or weakminded—God knows I was, too! I look back," Harriet said, talking more to herself than to him, and walking swiftly along in the golden sunset light that streamed across the old back road, "and ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... dust, his back against a bank, with his rifle leaning slantwise across him, and his equipment hanging awkwardly. Beside him sat Smoky, and both were melancholy. The sun beat strong in upon them, and the dust clung thickly to their perspiring bodies. The shady side of the wide communication trench was exposed to shrapnel, which the Turks had kept up more or ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... literature, no other sort of book admits of such variety of topics, style, and treatment as the novel. As diverse in talent and quality as the story-teller himself,—now harlequin, now gossip, now threnodist,—with weird ghostliness, moping melancholy, uncouth laughter, or gentle serious smile,—now relating the story, with childlike interest in it, now with a good heart and now with a bad heart ridiculing mankind, now allegorical with rich meanings, now freighting the little ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various |
