"Tragedy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... comers, Lidgerwood acknowledged a growing liking for the chief clerk. Under the crabbed and gloomy crust of the man the superintendent fancied he could discover a certain savage loyalty. But under the loyalty there was a deeper depth—of misery, or tragedy, or both; and to this abysmal part of him there was no ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... his unhappy words expressed a moment of eternal human pain, and that tragedy had illustrated many similar griefs, she felt all the sadness and irony of the situation, which a curl of her lips betrayed. He thought she ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... had married the old man who was her husband—the broken-down and worn-out dandy of sixty, whose career was so well known, and whose doings had been as scandalous as his ancient name was famous in the history of his country. Her marriage was in itself almost a tragedy. It matters little to know how it came about; she accepted Astrardente with his dukedom, his great wealth, and his evil past, on the day when she left the convent where she had been educated; she did it to save her father from ruin, almost from starvation; ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... perhaps recollect that Peter had a son by his first wife, an account of whose birth was given in the first part of this volume. The name of this son was Alexis, and he was destined to become the hero of a most dreadful tragedy. The narrative of it forms a very dark and melancholy chapter in the history ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... a new book from Germany. It was a tragedy, and the first attempt of a Saxon poet, of whom my brother had been taught to entertain the highest expectations. The exploits of Zisca, the Bohemian hero, were woven into a dramatic series and connection. According ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... and perspiring through the long sentences, turned back whenever I made a mistake, to begin the page over again, till the end of the chapter seemed to get farther and farther away; the other boys, too, came in for part of the tragedy, for the Henniker, being now free of her book, had no occupation for her eyes but to glare at them, and no occupation for her tongue but to level bad marks and rebukes and punishments at the ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... Anne. "No, children, you haven't wept enough to permanently disfigure your charming faces. If the boys had not appeared we might now be weeping in a melancholy row. I had no idea that Jessica's secret was to be a positive tragedy." ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... and, to make sure of it, she sometimes liked to use it. Using such power means, with women of her class, abusing it. The Rabouilleuse, no doubt, made her master play some of those scenes buried in the mysteries of private life, of which Otway gives a specimen in the tragedy of "Venice Preserved," where the scene between the senator and Aquilina is the realization of the magnificently horrible. Flore felt so secure of her power that, unfortunately for her, and for the bachelor himself, it did not occur to her ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... Italian princes came likewise into play at the Curia: the papacy became an Italian princedom. Innocent VIII., Alexander VI., Julius II. were in many respects remarkable men, but they were scarcely affected by the convictions of the Christian faith. The terrible tragedy which was consummated on the 23rd of May 1498 before the Palazzo Vecchio, in Florence, casts a lurid light upon the irreconcilable opposition in which the wearers of the papal dignity stood to medieval piety; for Girolamo Savonarola was in every fibre a loyal ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... in it; and after salutations, which would be more tedious to recount than they were to perform, and after further straggling conversation, she gave me briefly the following narrative of the events in X——, which I may well entitle the 'Princess's Tragedy.' ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... advanced intellectualism, little understanding of the existence of true tragedy in human existence has survived. As a result, the word 'tragedy' itself has deteriorated in its meaning and is nowadays used mostly as a synonym for 'sad event', 'calamity' 'serious event', even 'crime' (Oxford Diet.). In its original meaning, however, ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... generally received axiom that all mortal affairs must sooner or later come to an end; at all events, the dinner I have been describing did not form an exception to the rule. In due time Mrs. Mildman disappeared, after which Dr. Mildman addressed a remark or two about Greek tragedy to the tall pupil, which led to a 8dissertation on the merits of a gentleman named Prometheus, who, it seemed, was bound in some peculiar way, but whether this referred to his apprenticeship to any trade, or to the cover of the book containing his history, ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... how opportunely Cousin Philippe had died. The violation of her childhood by such a marriage rose up that instant a wordless tragedy. ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... selling out his mine for one-tenth its value; the poor woman sacrificing her respectability and sheltered nook in society to flee with him in an open boat down the Yukon; and Colonel Walthstone, breathing murder and destruction, taking out after them in another open boat. The whole impending tragedy had moved on down the muddy Yukon, passing Forty Mile and Circle and losing itself in the wilderness beyond. But there it was, love, disorganizing men's and women's lives, driving toward destruction and ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... but Dora was not listening; she had become obsessed by the idea which seemed to be carrying her to the border of tragedy. When the crowd poured forth from the building she went with it mechanically, and paused in the dark outside. She spoke to a girl whom ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... those who acted with him, enjoyed the confidence of the people, they did not intend to resign their functions into the hands of the minority. He begged them, in conclusion, to reflect upon the unwisdom of their course, 'lest what has begun as a farce may end in a tragedy.' ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... in Tauris. A Tragedy written originally in German by J. W. von Goethe. Printed at Norwich; sold by Johnson, London. [Extracts from the metrical trans. given. By Wm. ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... was not. This gentle girl, who would not willingly have killed a worm, and to whom the sight of suffering brought excruciating pain, had not experienced a pang of regret because of the part she had been called upon to play in the tragedy of the step-off. When Doug was lying between life and death, she hoped he would recover; but no small part of her interest in the result was because of its effect upon Dic and herself. Billy Little had once expressed surprise at this ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... thinking that they had seldom seen anything so beautiful or so effective. Ste. Marie sat forward on the edge of his chair. His eyes sparkled, and he gave a little quick sigh of pleasurable excitement. This was drama, and very good drama, too, and he suspected that it might at any moment turn into a tragedy. ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... wholly mad, you understand, but touched, in one corner of the brain, by a wild hallucination. His daughter, naturally, believes in him. She is a most attractive girl. Polish women are always attractive, at least when they are young. There is, in their faces, in their eyes, an appearance of tragedy, of mystery, which piques the imagination. And they are all great patriots—it is born in the blood—oh, far greater patriots than the men. I have travelled in Poland," he added, seeing Dan's glance; "my ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... Amurath," considering that a much fiercer name, more bewhiskered and beturbaned. It was no part of his intention that we should sit lolling on chairs like ladies and gentleman that had paid opera prices for private boxes. He expected every one of us, he said, to pull an oar. We were to act the tragedy. But, in fact, we had many oars to pull. There were so many characters, that each of us took four at the least, and the future middy had six. He, this wicked little middy, [4] caused the greatest affliction ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... he said. "If you saw the lawyer who is acting in the matter, Mr Toogood, who is also my uncle, he would tell you the same." Sir Raffle had already heard something of the story of Mr Crawley, and was now willing to accept the sad tragedy of that case as an excuse for his private secretary's somewhat insubordinate conduct. "Under the circumstances, Eames, I suppose you must go; but I think you should have told ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... a quiet place even in the summer, and the Wilton tragedy was naturally the subject of much talk. It is a sobering thing to get a glimpse of the underlying sadness of life like that, and there was a disposition at first on the part of the community to behave in ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... damages immediately ordered is in progress, we take the liberty of transporting the reader elsewhere, that he may see the effect of this amazing warfare on other parties of interest in the tragedy. ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... all," said Lucille, firmly. "There are two more acts in this tragedy to which you must listen; the first is a weird scene in a church-yard by night, and the clear starlight only half reveals the actors; there are three men engaged in digging at this woman's grave; yes, even in death, her body cannot rest in peace. Near by lies the corpse of another woman, whose ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... Parthia, 1765, a closet drama, by Thomas Godfrey, of Philadelphia. The first play by an American writer, acted by professionals in a public theater, was Royall Tyler's Contrast, performed in New York, in 1786. The former of these was very high tragedy, and the latter very low comedy; and neither of them is otherwise remarkable than as being the first of a long line of indifferent dramas. There is, in fact, no American dramatic literature worth speaking of; not a single American play of even the second rank, unless we ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... head. I was sorry for the girl, and intensely, forebodingly sorry for her husband. If one could help to avert the threatened tragedy. ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... anecdotes which were generally unknown. Amongst other things he assured me that the Siamese ambassadors were cheats paid by Madame de Maintenon. He told us likewise that he had never finished his tragedy of Cromwell, because the king had told him one day not to wear out his ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... he thought of going inside and putting on his coat and boots and getting his arms and starting out toward it on his pony. But this was too much trouble, and he stood watching the tragedy of the plain, hoping for the plucky animal that was doing its best to outrun and outwit the wolves, for they were close enough now for him to see that there were four of the ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... weird women in Shakespeare's Tragedy of Macbeth represent a later conception of the three Norns, now degraded to ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... closer tie between their more selfish fathers, and princely favor gave him a prominent position among those who arranged that brilliant melodrama of Glenfinnan and Edinburgh and Preston Pans, which was to be so swiftly succeeded by the tragedy of Culloden. The two friends were together through it all—in its triumph, its disaster, its rout—but they became separated afterward in the Highlands, when they were hiding for their lives. Cross, it seems, was able to lie secure until his wife's relatives, through some Whig ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... transfiguration, the purpose of which was to tie up these future leaders of His, against the events now hurrying on with such swift pace. From this time begins the preparation of this inner circle for the coming tragedy ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... the rose on cheek and lip, the dimming of the light in the eyes, for the frost on the brow—the beauty of patience, of tenderness, of faith unquenchable by fire or flood of adversity. A history was written on the face—a history in which there was plainly much of tragedy. Yet not one ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... highest presumed orders. Hughes has written a tragedy, and a very successful one; Fenton another; and Pope none. Did any man, however,—will even Mr. Bowles himself,—rank Hughes and Fenton as poets above Pope? Was even Addison (the author of Cato), or Rowe (one of the higher order of dramatists as far as success goes), or Young, or even Otway and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... became emotional at once: her face cried tragedy, and her voice misfortune. "There MIGHT have been something else to do! Oh, Alice, you gave your father bad advice when you upheld him in taking a miserable little ninety-three hundred and fifty from that old wretch! If your father'd just had the gumption to hold out, they'd ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... French actor, was born in Bordeaux on the 18th of June 1761, the elder son of Joseph Francois Anselme, a popular actor. His mother played leading parts in tragedy, and both his parents enjoyed the protection of Voltaire and the friendship of Lekain. It was probably under the auspices of the latter that Nicolas Anselme made his first appearance as de Belloy in Gaston et Bayard; and shortly afterwards, under the name of Baptiste, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... me some years ago, that the picture of Richard the Third, as drawn by historians, was a character formed by prejudice and invention. I did not take Shakespeare's tragedy for a genuine representation, but I did take the story of that reign for a tragedy of imagination. Many of the crimes imputed to Richard seemed improbable; and, what was stronger, contrary to his interest. A few incidental circumstances ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... gone about, the words she meant to speak to him, of encouragement, of comradeship, upon her lips; the chance to use them had never come. Now she would not use them, but would speak to him as if there had been no hiatus in their communion, as if no tragedy ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... had a notion of the unlawfulnesse of confederacies with wicked men. For as Victorinus Strigelius on 2 Chron. 25, noteth out of AEschylus his tragedy, intituled Seven to Thebe, Amphiaraus a wise vertuous man was therefore swallowed up in the earth, with seven men, and seven horses, because he had associat himself with Tydeus, Capaneus and other impious ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... hard self-satisfaction, when we might so easily develop the freedom, fluidity, and delicacy of fine response to these tenuous intimations of our own spirituality and high destiny. Here we live, as some writer has aptly said, on top of a gold mine, and the tragedy is that we are ignorant of the gold. We live, and move, and have our being in an ocean of spiritual and inspiring thought: surely our problem is to find the conditions that will avail to put us in touch with this lively world of inspiration in which we are accustomed to pass so dead ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... was an idealist. I do not for a moment imagine that just at this moment he was deeply in love. The stronger feeling had not yet risen up in him; it came later when tragedy encompassed him and brought passion to sudden maturity. Just now he was merely yielding himself up to the intoxicating moment, with all the abandonment, all the enthusiasm of the Latin race. There was no reason why he should not bend the knee before ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... literature, it is with some diffidence that we bring the criticism of dilettanti to bear upon the labors of five years of serious investigation. We fortify ourselves, however, with Dr. Johnson's dictum on the subject of Criticism:—"Why, no, Sir; this is not just reasoning. You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot make one. You may scold a carpenter who has made a bad table, though you cannot make a table; it is not your trade to make tables." Not that we intend to abuse Mr. White's edition of Shakspeare, but we shall speak of what seem to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... Badshah, the ponies of his followers keeping at a respectful distance from the elephant. When nearing the scene of the fight the tracks of the avenging herd were plain to see, and soon the party came upon ghastly evidences of the tragedy. The buzzing of innumerable flies guided the searchers to spots in the undergrowth where the scattered corpses lay. As each was reached a black cloud of blood-drunk winged insects rose in the air ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... content to forget their ennui in vodka and card-playing; only the more idealistic gasped for air in the stifling atmosphere, crying out in despair against life as they saw it, and looking forward with a pathetic hope to happiness for humanity in "two or three hundred years." It is the inevitable tragedy of their existence, and the pitiful humour of their surroundings, that are portrayed with such insight and sympathy by Anton Tchekoff who is, perhaps, of modern writers, the ...
— Swan Song • Anton Checkov
... that this was a repetition of that dreadful day, when with Modeste, just as now, she went to meet an irreparable loss. She seemed to see before her her dead father— he looked like Fred, and now, as before, Marien had his part in the tragedy. Could he not have prevented the duel? Could he not have done something to prevent Fred from exposing himself? The wound might be no worse than it was said to be in the newspaper—but then a second ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... avoid the gross faults of taste which disfigured the old Gothic barbarism of his forefathers. That for him is the very meaning of reason and nature. He will write tragedies which must get rid of the brutalities, the extravagance, the audacious mixture of farce and tragedy which was still attractive to the vulgar. He has, indeed, a kind of lurking regard for the rough vigour of the Shakespearian epoch; his patriotic prejudices pluck at him at intervals, and suggest that Marlborough's countrymen ought not quite to accept the yoke of the French ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... has eyes to see it rightly, is the newspaper. To me, for example, sitting on the critical front bench of the pit, in my study here in Jaalam, the advent of my weekly journal is as that of a strolling theater, or rather of a puppet-show, on whose stage, narrow as it is, the tragedy, comedy, and farce of life are played in little. Behold the huge earth sent to me hebdomidally in a ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... DE COVERLEY, when we last met together at the Club, told me, that he had a great mind to see the new Tragedy [1] with me, assuring me at the same time, that he had not been at a Play these twenty Years. The last I saw, said Sir ROGER, was the Committee, which I should not have gone to neither, had not I been told before-hand that it was a good Church-of-England ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... house—bones to be cleaned, etc., etc., etc. In fine, he puts himself to an infinitude of trouble, more than I meant: he did it cheerfully, and I feel myself really under obligations to him. That the tragedy might not want a proper catastrophe, the box, bones, and all, are lost; so that this chapter of Natural History will still remain a blank. But I have written to him not to send me another. I will leave it for my successor ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... mention, as famous instances, the Neri and Bianchi factions introduced into Pistoja in 1296 by a quarrel of the Cancellieri family, the dismemberment of Florence in 1215 by a feud between the Buondelmonti and Amidei, the tragedy of Imelda Lambertazzi, which upset Bologna in 1273, the student riot which nearly delivered Bologna into the hands of Romeo de' Pepoli in 1321, the whole action of the Strozzi family at the period of the extinction of Florentine liberty, the petty jealousies of the Cerchi and ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... women with trembling lips and arms filled with linen; ambulances passing the corner at a walk, surrounded by men who had staggered after them because there was no room left inside; and following always the same curious, pallid throng, fresh upon the scent of some new tragedy. Presently the ambulances gave out, and yet the wounded came—some walking, and moaning as they walked, some borne on litters by devoted servants, some drawn in market wagons pressed into use. The great warehouses and the churches were thrown ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... the railing, eagerly looking through the bars upon the tragedy which was transpiring. The royal party alighted at a small bridge, carpeted with blue cloth. The dauphine, who had passed through so many scenes of woe, nearly fainted as with trembling steps she entered the ship which was to bear her again to exile, and an exile ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... home soon," says Eleanor, glancing nervously at the time, and fearing every moment lest Elizabeth should sweep in like a tragedy queen, and snatch her offspring from ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... custom, it fell to him to avenge the deed. Calmly, without uttering a word, he faced old Bear Bull and his son, who attempted to defend his father, and shot them both. He did what he believed to be his duty, and the whole band sustained him. Indeed, the tragedy gave the young man at once a certain standing, as one who not only defended his people against enemies from without, but against injustice and aggression within the tribe. From this time on he ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... would choose for her heroine a woman of the people. How full of drama, of tragedy must be their stories: their problems the grim realities of life, not only its mere sentimental embroideries. The daily struggle for bare existence, the ever-shadowing menace of unemployment, of illness, leaving them helpless amid the grinding forces ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... driven his bull out of Buckolts' Gate, and the Buckolts wanted to know what business Abel Albury had to drive Ryan's bull out of their paddock, if the bull had really ever been there. And so it went on till Rocky Rises was ripe for a tragedy. ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... less, I have been able to enjoy the landscape—alas! a scene of smoke and tragedy yesterday. Be sure, beloved mother, that I do not wish to commit a single imprudence, but certainly this war is the triumph of ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... while. Come, you must really make haste to tell your tale, for I am dying to disclose mine. Or shall I begin? No—that would be inverting the order of nature or custom, which is the same thing—beginning with the farce, and ending with the tragedy—so commencez ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... Men and women fell ill, children died. The refugees had to cross the Belgian boundary, walking a distance of six or seven kilometers in the middle of the night, dead tired, their luggage stolen—sometimes, it is said, by officials. In Belgium the same tragedy occurred as in France. And then came the salvation. The cordial, hospitable reception by the Germans in Holland and Switzerland ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... commemorating Christ's miracles and other incidents of Bible history. I know of one small specimen of ancient English art, covering a space of five by seven inches, where the whole Garden of Eden with its weighty tragedy is represented by inch-long figures of Adam and Eve, and a man-headed snake, discussing amicably the advantages of eating or not eating ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... knowing now the tragedy of his youth, she did not speak much on this subject. The time went with startling rapidity. The two were borne on the tide of Colin's wild elation and Bridget's more impersonal enthusiasms. They were like travellers steaming through strange seas, not knowing ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... it, consists of seven complete days of ten novels each, and of an eighth containing two novels only. The fictitious scheme of the setting is somewhat less lugubrious than that of the Decameron, but still not without an element of tragedy. On the first of September, "when the hot springs of the Pyrenees begin to enter upon their virtue," a company of persons of quality assembled at Cauterets, we are told, and abode there three weeks with much profit. But when they tried to ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... to write directly after supper, and we mustn't disturb her. She hopes to finish her tragedy to-night. She said she ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and deep in her soul the queen saw that this was only the prelude to the fearful tragedy, in which her family would soon ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... the dimmed soup tureen are forgotten as these last words ring out in the quiet parlour. "Surely," thinks Eleanor, "there is hidden pathos in the Jolly Miller of Dee's reckless assertion! To care for nobody! What a horrible thought—a whole life's tragedy lies in the closing verse. If ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... steward came flying over the water with meritorious speed. With him he was bringing the papers that might settle the Cypriani's mission, but Varney, for the moment, hardly gave him a thought. His own affairs were blotted from his mind just then by the tragedy of the little waif before him, luckless victim of another's sin, small flotsam which barely weathered the winters when odd-jobbing was scarce, ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... mysterious tree, with its wonderful fruit,—the beautiful, but inquisitive woman,—the thoughtful, but too compliant man,—and the insinuating reptile. One speaks, the other rejoins, and the third fills up the chasm of interest. The plot thickens, the passions are displayed, and the tragedy hastens to its end. Then is heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the cool (the wind) of the garden, the impersonal presence of Jehovah is, as it were, felt in the passing breeze, and a shadow falls upon the earth,—but such a shadow as their own patient ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... a story, or rather a tragedy, which is somewhat peculiar. It is not at all like those which one hears of usually, and I have never told it, thinking that it ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... of this performance spread amongst the neighbours (very likely the mother boasted of it, as mothers will), and all wished to hear it; so they came together in one of the larger cottages, and Hans read his wonderful tragedy to the company, and felt bitterly hurt when the greater part of them ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... one-half of the total effort of one-third of the race is expended in combating conditions against which no successful effort is possible. Think what this means. The struggle of life is a real struggle, even with success as an incentive and as a possible reward. It becomes a tragedy when we think of the wasted years, the hopeless prayers and the anguish of those who fight the battle which is predestined to end in [5] apparent failure. We are disposed to doubt the justice of the Omnipotent ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... might actually result from that assembly. He saw his enemies busy with their secret schemes of mischief, and feared lest many of his comrades in the faith, such as the Landgrave Philip, might treat too lightly the matter, which was no mere comedy among men, but a tragedy in which God and Satan were the actors. He rejoiced again, however, that the falsehood and cunning of his enemies must be brought to nought by their own folly, and that God Himself would consummate the ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... very important position at one time. It probably belongs to the Byzantine period, and if the number of old graves scattered among the hills indicate anything, it has in its day been the theatre of stirring tragedy. An hour after leaving the frowning battlements of the grim old relic behind, I arrive at a cluster of four rock houses, which are apparently occupied by a sort of a patriarchal family consisting of a turbaned old Turk and his two generations of descendants. The old ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... Without raising his eyes, the unfortunate victim burst into tears and replied, "She was my mother!" The smile vanished from the magistrate's face and, with tears in his eyes, he said, "Young man, go and try to be a good man, for your mother's sake." How little we realize what tragedy may be going on in the hearts of those ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... "it runs in my head, I've seen you somewhere before! And now I think on't, pray a'n't you the person I saw at the play one night, and who didn't know, all the time, whether it was a tragedy or a comedy, ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... manuscript, that was to have made the fortunes of her little world, was returned to her from the publishers. It was more than a disappointment to the three who had counted so confidently upon its success. It was almost a tragedy in the shattering of such high hopes. An intangible sense of loss had weighed on their spirits ever since, almost as if some one lay dead in the great empty ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... suggestion of my own judgment. When I was told that the old woman had seen the killing and that, of course, her deposition would be introduced in court, I then knew that it was worse than useless to protest my innocence. Besides, as she saw it, the tragedy was a murder, but, as I ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... defeats, Lincoln, almost fortuitously, was at the center of the political maelstrom. The clue to what follows is in the way he had developed during that long discouraging apprenticeship to greatness. Mentally, he had always been in isolation. Socially, he had lived in a near horizon. The real tragedy of his failure at Washington was in the closing against him of the opportunity to know his country as a whole. Had it been Lincoln instead of Douglas to whom destiny had given a residence at Washington during the 'fifties, it is conceivable that things might have been different in the ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... sermon had reference to the two-fold tragedy of the week, Nutter's supposed death by drowning, and the murder of Sturk. In his discourses he sometimes came out with a queer bit of erudition. Such as, while it edified one portion of his congregation, filled the other ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... father's, a city physician. Unfortunately, this ambitious surgeon had been but a convivial friend. His professional development had reached only the "operation" stage. Surgery to him was a panacea, and the operation, which he promised to be her saving, was to be her tragedy. She did not know till two years later that she had been robbed of her birthright. Her headaches, far from being helped, were even worse, now blinding and exhausting. She at last went East to a world-renowned ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... believe it's the tragedy of her life that she can't live altogether in the open air. ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... amongst autumn leaves. Others lie very stiff and straight, and all look very thin and haggard. I was struck by the contrast between the pillared concert-hall where they lie, with its platform of white paint and decorations, and the tragedy of suffering ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... raised herself on one elbow, and disclosed a face distorted with wrath and woe, like a mask of tragedy. ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... filled with mist that from the great height looked like smoke, and through this veil he could just distinguish the black and moving mass of the vast assembly, who had sat the long night through waiting to witness the consummation of the tragedy, while the sound of their voices as they spoke together in hushed tones reached him like that of the murmuring of distant waters. Behind him stood the four priests or executioners in a solemn, silent line, their eyes fixed upon the grey mist, while above them, around them, and beneath them ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... the room. She stood almost in the center, unsupported by any chair, her hands clasped in front of her, her eyes fixed on Margaret Grant's face. Just for a minute there was a dead silence, for the girl's face expressed tragedy; and it was impossible for any one to think of "telegrams," or frivolous games, or of anything in the world but Betty Vivian at the ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... which Jack Sandys had said that morning came back to him; "real things" the boy had said, so lightly and yet so decisively. He wondered; had he himself ever had any touch with realities at all? He had been touched by no adversity or tragedy, he had been devastated by no disappointed ambitions, shattered by no emotions. His whole life had been perfectly under his control, and he had grown into a sort of contempt for all unbalanced people, ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... almost to black, but the features, together with the man's big, muscular figure were unmistakable. For some moments the three men stood looking at the body in something like bewilderment, scarcely realizing that so terrible a tragedy had been enacted in ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... time to scamper out into the night when the master of Widewood came trotting around the corner of the house and thence off to the stable, never to know of the farce which made Mr. Pettigrew thereafter the tool of Leggett, and which might even more easily have been a tragedy with the mountain people for actors and ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... the taciturn mate at the wheel. The low, wooded shores swept past in changing panorama, yet I could not divorce my mind from this perplexing problem. Totally unknown to me as these two mysterious girls were, their strange story fascinated my imagination. What possible tragedy lay before them in the years? what horrible revelation to wrench them asunder? to change in a single instant the quiet current of their lives? About them, unseen as yet, lurked a grim specter, waiting only the opportunity to grip them both ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... ignorant of the steadily increasing vehemence of the demand for true home rule, and of the possibility that French nationalism, Irish nationalism, and American aggression, might unite in a great upheaval, and the political tragedy find its consummation in another Declaration ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... felt that way—thank goodness! It's vulgar to feel too deeply, Mamma used to say, and as I have grown older, I can see that she was right. The best people never show any excess of emotion. That is for tragedy queens, operatic stars, and—the women we do not talk about! ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... and hasten their destruction. One by one the provinces fall away from this distempered centre. At length we shall find the throne literally without an occupant, and the curtain will seem to descend while preparations are being made for the last act of this Imperial tragedy. ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... and Ygerne Bellaire standing silent, head bowed over the still form upon the bear skin, knew in their hearts that there had been no tragedy wrought here. The lips turned up to them were smiling. The man had died full of years, honoured in their hearts, loved deeply. He had grown weary at the end of a long trail and his rest had come to him as ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... invested familiar and commonplace facts with something of the fascination of romance. "Human life," he would say, "is the same everywhere. If we could but get at the truth, we should find that all the tragedy and comedy of Shakespeare have been reproduced in this little village. God has made all of one blood; what is true of one man is in some sort true of another; manifestations may differ, but the essential elements and spring ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... arrived at Paris, when I readily discovered the black designs entertained against both Father La Combe and me. Father La Mothe who conducted the whole tragedy, artfully dissembled, according to his custom; flattering me to my face, while he was aiming the keenest wounds behind my back. He and his confederates wanted, for their own interest, to persuade me to go to Montargis (my native place), hoping, thereby, to get ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... has departed. The mere possibility that, by a knot of conspirators, our arch of empire could be dismembered, that by a bare shout of treason it could be thrown down for ever like the battlements of Jericho at the blast of trumpets, would proclaim, as in that Judean tragedy, that we stood under a curse of wrath divine. The dismemberment itself would be less fatal than the ignominy of its mode. Better to court the hostility of foreign nations, better to lay open our realms to a free movement of that wrath against us which is so deeply founded in their envy, than to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... seemed tolerably active amid its "ruins." The clumsy falsehoods of the German official reports and the German newspapers affect me strangely! It is not so much their lack of truth as their lack of the ironic, the satiric sense, which is a certain protection, after all, even amid the tragedy of war. We have a tolerable British conceit of ourselves, no doubt, and in war we make foolish or boasting statements about the future, because, in spite of all our grumbling, we are at bottom a nation of ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... unconscious, sympathy with the temper of science. Poetry, brought to the limit of expressive power, is used to express, with the utmost veracity, precision, and impersonal self-suppression, the beauty and the tragedy of the world. It sought Hellenic lucidity and Hellenic calm—in the example most familiar to us, the Stoic calm and 'sad lucidity' of ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... only after the tragedy of Henry Hudson, another Arctic explorer appears upon the scene. William Baffin was already an experienced seaman in the prime of life; he had made four voyages to the icy north, when he was called on by the new Company of Merchants of London—"discoverers of the North-West ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... the subordinate and farcical portions. It is a very unequal performance, but not destitute of those fine touches, which Heywood is never without, in the characters of English country gentlemen and the pathos of domestic tragedy. The following scene, which I am tempted to extract, though very inferior to the noble ones in his Woman Killed by Kindness, between Mr. and Mrs. Frankford, which it somewhat resembles in character, is not unworthy of this great and truly ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... saw no discrepancy between her first and second account of the tragedy. But then she never did see discrepancies. Her mind had shifted a little towards the subject, that was all. This mysterious unconscious shifting of the mind had been hidden from Magdalen, who had felt with anguish that ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... expectation, it became absolutely necessary that I should attend to my own safety, as a further resistance on my part might possibly be considered by men in their frightful condition a sufficient excuse for refusing me fair play in the tragedy that I knew would speedily ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... red-handed assassin who goes through peaceful country places leaving behind him dead men looking sightlessly up to the sky. The hero will be the man or woman who knows and loves and serves. In the new histories we will be shown the tragedy, the heartbreaking tragedy of war, which like some dreadful curse has followed the human family, beaten down their plans, their hopes, wasted their savings, destroyed their homes, and in every way turned back the clock ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... amateur. He knew the naked terrors of war, the agony, the travail, the icy chills, the sirocco heats, the grinding routine, the pitiless chastisements of its reality; to those who do, it can no longer be a spectacle dressed in the splendid array of romance. It is a fearful tragedy and farce woven close one in another; and its sole joy is in that blood-thirst which men so lustfully share with the tiger, and yet shudder from ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... While this tragedy was being enacted, the cruisers scattered in all directions and headed for the open at their highest speed. It was a bitter necessity, and it was bitterly felt by every man and boy on board them; but the captains knew that to stop and attempt the rescue ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... short space of thirty-six hours had put lines into his face. Instead, he scanned the officer's countenance with fearful eyes to see if by any chance he had guessed the truth. Blake had found himself looking thus at every one since the tragedy, and it was a source of constant wonder to him that his secret had remained his own. It seemed that they must know and loathe him as he loathed himself. But on the contrary he was treated with sympathy on all sides, and it was taken merely ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... shall be permitted to express my surprise at the sentiments of the last speaker, surprise not only at such sentiments from such a man, but at the applause they have received within these walls. A comparison has been drawn between the events of the Revolution and the tragedy at Alton. We have heard it asserted here, in Faneuil Hall, that Great Britain had a right to tax the colonies, and we have heard the mob at Alton, the drunken murderers of Lovejoy, compared to those ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... authoress' gallantries is entirely lacking. But however damaging to herself her frankness may have been, there was little in the production to arouse the ire of Pope. The only instance in which the maligned novelist may have intended to show her resentment was in the Preface to her tragedy "Frederick, Duke of Brunswick-Lunenburgh" (1729) where with veiled sarcasm she confessed herself "below the Censure of the Gyant-Criticks of ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... in the last chapter had taken place during the first week in March. By the end of that month old Mr. Wharton had probably reconciled himself to the tragedy, although in fact it had affected him very deeply. In the first days after the news had reached him he seemed to be bowed to the ground. Stone Buildings were neglected, and the Eldon saw nothing of him. Indeed, he barely left the house from which he had been ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... comical view of the subject, then she felt a little repugnance at hearing that stern old tragedy so lightly treated. As she walked her horse along the road which might have been, and probably was, the very same Saxon highway as in those times, she thought of the wounded horseman dashing out from between those green hills ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... Don Garzia before the eyes of the boy's mother. Anything is imaginable of an early Medicean grand-duke, but in a manner the father's murderous fury was provoked by the fact, if it was a fact, that Don Garzia had just mortally wounded his brother Giovanni. I should like to pretend that the tragedy had wrought in my unconsciousness to the effect of the pensive gloom which the old fortress cast over me, but perhaps I had better not. There are some gray Sunday afternoons of a depressing effect on the spirit which requires ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... The ages have woven about the broken columns of Pompeii a light film of romance and a bit of tender beauty springs up with the tiny, flowering weeds which push their way to the sun between many colored tiles. Here, the tragedy is too new; too ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... across the table, her profile turned to me. I had noticed casually her earnest manner, her somber clothes, and the great mass of odd, bronze-colored hair on her neck. But suddenly she glanced toward me and the utter hopelessness—almost tragedy—of her expression struck me with a shock. She half closed her eyes and drew a long breath, then she turned again to the man across ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... dwell upon the minute circumstances of the catastrophe of this bloody tragedy: Suffice it to say, that ten Englishmen, one Portuguese, and eleven Japanese, were publicly executed; of whom the following ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... mind and heart of Europe in the great centuries of the catholic age,—making heaven the home of the human soul, presenting the natural purposes of mankind in their universality of good and evil, exalted and mean, piteous and hateful, tragedy and farce, all commingled as a living whole,—was exactly fitted to the quality of a genius so rich and powerful as Mr. Gladstone's in the range of its spiritual intuitions and in its masculine grasp of all the complex truths of mortal nature. So true and real a book is it, he once said,—such ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... saw a strange woman in the bed and his wife—in good health—standing before him. He let out an oath in his surprise and my patient, who had raised up in bed to stare at him, uttered a low moan and fell back on her pillow, dead. I saw the tragedy and involuntarily screamed, and Jason Jones saw she was dead and cried out in fear. I had just time to recover my wits and whisper to him to keep his mouth shut and I would make him rich when Doctor Anstruther ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... Mademoiselle came down, they had eyes neither for the flowers nor the room. They had heard that the Captain was out beating the village and the woods for the fugitive, and where I had looked for a comedy I found a tragedy. Madame's face was so red with weeping that all her beauty was gone. She started and shook at the slightest sound, and, unable to find any words to answer my greeting, could only sink into a chair ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... be who left their bones here, it is certain the story of their lying there is a tragedy, of bloody sacrifice or more bloody massacre, like all the histories of wild animals and of ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... the War has modified our estimate of the value of life; but it is a bad thing for the legitimate drama. And in the case of Fedora the bloody regime of LENIN has so paled our memory of the terrors of Nihilism that SARDOU'S play seems almost further away from us than the tragedy of Agamemnon. In our callous incapacity to be thrilled by the ancient horrors of forty years ago we fall back on the satisfaction to be got out of the author's dexterity in the mechanics ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various
... be found to contain, in a concentrated form, all the constituent parts of Greek Tragedy. It has an Anagnorisis, because its subject is the Recognition of Women. It also contains at least one Peripeteia: and the action has been strictly confined, chiefly by the Editor of the Magazine, within one revolution ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... me—a life hardly more kind than the murder you contemplated. Before you opened the portals that you had meant for my tomb you made me swear never to reveal where I had passed those hours. Never, no matter what the provocation, was I to utter one word to implicate you in the tragedy that had ruined two households. You were the one to be protected—I the one to suffer! Had it not been for the sacrifice to my reputation in being found there with you dead—no explanation being possible from my closed lips—I would have accepted the alternative ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... was one of those people whose temperament and surroundings are at war with each other. Such people are not few in this world, though they themselves are frequently quite unaware of the fact; nevertheless, there is always an element of tragedy in their lot. By nature he was romantic and passionate and chivalrous, endowed with an enthusiastic admiration for beauty and an ardent longing for all forms of joyousness; and he had been trained ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... birth the frightful colonial tragedy in Florida was nearing its end. By the year 1603 he had, in Spanish employ, made a voyage of two years in the West Indies, the unique illustrated journal [Footnote: "Brief Discours des Choses plus remarquables que Sammuel Champlain de Brouage, reconnues aux Indies Occidentalles au ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... length to a dead halt, completely exhausted by the toils of war. Never did two valiant train-band captains, or two buskined theatric heroes, in the renowned tragedies of Pizarro, Tom Thumb, or any other heroical and fighting tragedy, marshal their gallows-looking, duck-legged, heavy-heeled myrmidons ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... 1775-1834— To Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Temporary frenzy. To the same. A friend in need. To the same. The tragedy. To William Wordsworth. The delights of London. To Thomas Manning. At the Lakes. To the same. Dissuasion from Tartary. To Mrs. Wordsworth. Friends' importunities. To Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The famous pigling. ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... do not feel at liberty to picture Oriskany from the pens of abler men, I must be content to describe only what I myself witnessed of that sad and unnecessary tragedy. ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... his way to the side of the fallen man,—it was the cattle-driver who had taken part in the previous conversation among the customers at the inn before the occurrence of the tragedy. He knelt down, sobbing ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... cadence! Why, consider the Epistle to the Hebrews—where is there in the classics any composition more carefully, more artificially written? Consider the book of Job—is it not a sacred drama, as artistic, as perfect, as any Greek tragedy of Sophocles or Euripides? Consider the Psalter—are there no ornaments, no rhythm, no studied cadences, no responsive members, in that divinely beautiful book? And is it not hard to understand? are not the Prophets hard to ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... saw well, the peril of their situation did nothing to separate this pair or to lessen their love. Indeed, rather did it seem to bind them closer together, and to make them more completely one. In short, the tragedy took its appointed course, whilst we stood by and watched ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... say, that such are the effects of this sober life, that at my present age of eighty-three, I have been able to write a very entertaining comedy, abounding with innocent mirth and pleasant jests. This species of composition is generally the child and offspring of youth, as tragedy is that of old age; the former being by its facetious and sprightly turn suited to the bloom of life, and the latter by its gravity adapted to riper years. Now, if that good old man [Sophocles], a Grecian by birth, and a ...
— Discourses on a Sober and Temperate Life • Lewis Cornaro
... or quarrel with the roughest or plainest man who will stand by his side and share his lot, either of life or death. So Jock was reinstated without pardon asked or given, and with no reference to the tragedy of Glenogilvie, and Dundee knew that he had beside him a faithful and fearless watchdog of the tough old Scottish breed. As Grimond busied himself with preparations for the evening meal—among other dark suspicions he had taken into his head that Dundee might be poisoned—his master's eye fell ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... for the boys; for them it was a time o' skylarkin' and irresponsibility. It was weel enough for me, and others like me, who'd been able to put by a bit siller, and could afford to do wi'oot our wages for a space. But it was black tragedy for Jamie and his wife ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... appointment of carpenter on Lord Windsor's estate. He then removed with his family to live in the little village of St. Fagan's a few miles out of Cardiff. He had hardly settled down there when the tragedy took place. It happened on a Saturday night. He had given up work early, and had come home to cut the grass in the little green in front of his cottage, and to tidy up his new home. Early in the afternoon he seems to have grown tired of the work and went indoors. His wife asked him to take ...
— How to Read the Crystal - or, Crystal and Seer • Sepharial
... Cape Victory was that the tragedy had been due to the treacherous conduct of three evil-hearted Hurons who coveted the goods the priest had with him. On the advice of the traders, who feared that the Hurons were in no spirit to receive the missionaries, Brebeuf and Daillon concluded not to ...
— The Jesuit Missions: - A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... her hands away, and stepped back from him. There were men, she knew, who loved women but did not marry them. She had learned this thing through the tragedy of her schoolmate, her friend, whose life had been swallowed up in mystery and darkness because men could be vile and treacherous, taking everything and giving nothing. No one save himself could have made her believe that this deep-eyed ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... wrong thing when left to his own devices, and he did it without any apparent recollection of his former misdeeds and their consequences. There was a good deal of comedy in it all, and some tragedy. ...
— Widger's Quotations from the Works of William Dean Howells • David Widger |
