"Wail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and at this moment there broke from Lysbeth's lips a low wail of such bitter anguish that it chilled even his mad ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... beneath its shadow. There is a stain of blood upon the stones, and Philip of Spain rides by, and the duke of Alva comes through yonder doorway, and the air is full of thronging phantoms and of cries—the wail of the Netherlands beneath ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... luck, old boy," said the Harvester. "I had such hopes and I worked so hard. I suffered in the flesh for every hour of it, and I failed. Oh but I hate the word! If I knew where she is right now, Bel, I'd give anything I've got. But there's no use to wail and get sorry for myself. That's against the law of common decency. I'll take a swim, sleep it off, straighten up the herbs a little, and go at it again, old fellow; that's a man's way. She's somewhere, and she's got to be found, ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... rush of wind and water without; blended with it, mingled with the hundred little voices of the ship. The Celestine slipped on up the coast, singing softly to herself, and Kirk fell asleep with the undulating wail of the violin and the whisper of water filling ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... rush of the rapid, the thunder of the waterfall and the murmuring of the wind in the spruce tops; where drama exists not in the epic lines of literature, but in the hunt cry of the wolf, the death dirges of the storms that wail down from the Barrens, and in the strange cries that rise up out of the silent forests, where for a half of each year life is that endless strife that leaves behind only those whom we term the ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... and, meeting, mingle in wavering clamors of lamentation and shrieks of anguish. One might fancy lost souls from out the infinite and dreary abysses of utter separation from God might thus wearily and aimlessly moan and wail, breaking into agonized tumults of desire, and trembling back into exhaustions of despair. Such music brings only throbbings and yearnings, but no peace; and yonder, on the glassy floor, at the foot of a crucifix, a poor mortal lies sobbing and quivering under its pitiless power, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... wingless wind that walk'st the sea, Weak wind, wing-broken, wearier wind than we, Who are yet not spirit-broken, maimed like thee, Who wail not in our inward night as thou In the outer darkness now, What word has the old sea given thee for mine ear From thy faint lips to hear? For some word would she send me, knowing ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... spot near which Poopy was concealed, the child sank with a low wail to the ground, unable to advance another step. Keona seized her in his arms, and, uttering a growl of anger as he threw her rudely over his ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... four and a half." With such scraps tossing and rolling upward from the depths of his mind, the prisoner walked faster and faster, obstinately counting and counting; and the roar of the city changed to this extent—that it still rolled in like muffled drums, but with the wail of voices that he knew, in the swell that ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... my horror, That the fair Flora's case is by no means surprising, But that there exists the greatest distress In our female community, solely arising From this unsupplied destitution of dress, Whose unfortunate victims are filling the air With the pitiful wail of "Nothing to wear." ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... souls. And then, in the last place, I have taken upon me to do this, that I may deliver, if not you, yet myself, and that I may be clear of your blood, and stand quit, as to you, before God, when you shall, for neglect, be damned, and wail to consider that you have lost your souls. 'When I say,' saith God, 'unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou,' the prophet or preacher, 'givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... smallpox stalks through the land, and day and night the corpses float down the river past him, and he finds them jammed among his canoes that are tied to the beach, and choking up his fish traps; and then when at last the death-wail over its victims goes up night and day from his own village, he will rise up and call upon this great god in a terror maddened by despair, that he may hear and restrain the evil workings of these lesser devils; but he evidently finds, as Peer Gynt says, "Nein, ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... the high-pitched voice of a woman, breaking the stillness of the summer evening. She had just come to the door of the little cabin, where she was now standing, anxiously scanning the space before her, while a baby's plaintive wail rose and fell within with wearying monotony. The log cabin, set in a gall in the middle of an old field all grown up in sassafras, was not a very inviting-looking place; a few hens loitering about the new hen-house, a brood of half-grown chickens picking in ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... rude to each other when you differ," she declared. "You must take it in turns to have your own way. It is not fair that the eldest should always arrange everything, but on the other hand Joan and Alwyn will get nothing at all if they begin to wail and complain in that most grumbling and unpleasant tone of voice. I think it is a disgrace if you're all so selfish that you can't agree. You must each be prepared to give up a certain amount, ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... bone-headed, feeble-minded sons-uh-guns it's ever been my duty and pleasure to reconstruct," announced Pink melodiously, "you sure take the sour-dough biscuit. You're a song that's been tried on the cattle and failed t' connect. You're the last wail of a coyote dying in the dim distance. For a man that's been lynched and cut down and waiting for another yank, you certainly—are—mild! You're the tamest thing that ever happened. A lady could handle yuh with safety and ease. You're a children's playmate. For ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... In and out of woody glen, Under cliffs that tear the blue, Over torrent, over fen, She and forest, where she skims Feathery, darken and relume: Those are her white-lightning limbs Cleaving loads of leafy gloom. Mountains hear her and call back, Shrewd with night: a frosty wail Distant: her the emerald vale Folds, and wonders in her track. Now her retinue is lean, Many rearward; streams the chase Eager forth of covert; seen One hot tide the rapturous race. Quiver-charged and crescent-crowned, Up on a flash the lighted mound Leaps she, bow to shoulder, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... them. Cut away till your arms ache and your head swims with the strain of measuring angles and inches and pyramids and obelisks; Nature is working at the root while you are warring on the branches. True, the birds will not build where your shears have passed; and the winds will wail where they would have piped it merrily, if the young boughs had been there to dance to their breathings. But the roots are tough and the trunks are strong, and the sap wells surely up from those mysterious sources where, in darkness and silence, Nature works her wondrous transformations,—proving, ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... and No, She sees the Best that glimmers through the Worst, She feels the sun is hid but for a night, She spies the summer thro' the winter bud, She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls, She hears the lark within the songless egg, She finds the fountain where they wail'd 'Mirage!'" ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... piteous, dismal wail, was too much for Vince's feelings; and, pushing his companion aside, he was about to hurry to the lad's help, but Mike seized him by the arm, and at the same moment they heard Carnach junior jump up and ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... came almost in a wail from the lips of Phoebe's father. He covered his face with his hands. Mr. Buckley, ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... shook, the table trembled, her wail rose to a perfect little whistle of woe. Charles-Norton sat down by her and took her in his arms. "Well, we won't have to, Dolly," he said gently; "us won't have to. ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... before their partners had time to wonder at their consent. Mrs. Macallister could sing some of the Canadian songs; her voice, clear and fresh, rang through those of the men, while in at the window, thrown open for air, came the wild cries of the forest,—the wail of a catamount, and the solemn ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... side, while muttering rapidly to herself, thrilled the audience with the conviction of her affliction more subtly than words could have done. One night, when that act was on, I had just begun to sway from side to side, when from the auditorium there arose one long, long, agonizing wail, and that wail was followed by the heavy falling of a woman's body from her chair into ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... defend, and those assail, And their lances broken and bloody fail. Ensign and pennon are rent and cleft, And the Franks of their fairest youth bereft, Who will look on mother or spouse no more, Or the host that waiteth the gorge before. Karl the Mighty may weep and wail; What skilleth sorrow, if succour fail? An evil service was Gan's that day, When to Saragossa he bent his way, His faith and kindred to betray. But a doom thereafter awaited him— Amerced in Aix, of life and limb, With thirty ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... fair seashell— Bend down thine ear And thou shalt hear The river on the golden strand And sound of harps in that fair land— Or wail of souls in hell! ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones
... half expecting that he would, after all, come walking in upon them. Doctor Joe was grave and preoccupied. Several times, now he, now David, went out into the night to stand and listen in the storm, but all they heard was the wail of ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... writes, 'the burnt and slaughtered bodies, together with those wounded by bullets and axes. The last agonies and the moans and lamentations were dreadful to hear.... The houses were converted into heaps of stones, so that I might say with Micah, "We are made desolate;" and with Jeremiah, "A piteous wail may go forth in his distress." With Paul I say, "Brothers, pray for us." I have every evening, during a whole month, offered up prayers with the congregation, on the four points of our fort, under the blue sky.... Many ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... him for some years as a stranger; but lately he was lost, nor doth any know of him whether he be dead or alive. The Princess Firuzah his mother hath sent allwheres in search of him, yet hath she found nor trace nor tidings of him. His parents and indeed all the folk, rich and poor, weep and wail for him and albeit the Sultan hath other forty and nine sons, none of them can compare with him for doughty deeds and skilful craft, nor from any one of them deriveth he aught of comfort or consolation. Full quest and search have ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... child! my child! Will no one dare For her sweet sake the flaming stair?" Look, one steps forth with muffled face, Leaps through the flames with fleetest feet, on trembling ladder runs a race With life and death—the window gains. Deep silence falls on all around, Till bursts aloud a sobbing wail. The ladder falls with crashing sound— A flaming, treacherous mass. O God! she was so young and he so brave! Look once again. See! see! on highest roof he stands—the fiery wave Fierce rolling round—his arms ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... girl in a coarse, enveloping pinafore opened the door. Her hands and arms were red and dripping and from a dim region at the rear came the smell of dishwater. Down the narrow, precipitate stairway floated an infant's thin, protesting wail and Jane felt a ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... O Hymen[19] red, O Torch that makest one! Weepest thou, Mother mine own? Surely thy cheek is pale With tears, tears that wail For a land and a father dead. But I go garlanded: I am the Bride of Desire: Therefore my torch is borne— Lo, the lifting of morn, Lo, ...
— The Trojan women of Euripides • Euripides
... Life, my Breath! Return, my Comforter! Hear my bitter wail of woe, lead me back to my home. Have pity on my loneliness! Restore Thy love to me, bring me once again to the cleft of my rock, and let me hide myself in ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... family had not been less averse to this union than the aristocratic house of Monfort, and, had she not been the mistress of her own acts and fortune, would, no doubt, have absolutely prevented it. As it was, a wild wail went up from the synagogue at the loss of one of its brightest ornaments, and the name of "Miriam Harz" was ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... came a terrible wail from the table-drawer where Hjalmar's school books lay. 'Whatever can that be?' said the Sandman. And he went to the table and opened the drawer. It was the slate which was in convulsions because a wrong number ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... same. So like an outcast, dowerless and pale, Thy daughter went; and in a foreign gale Spread her young banner, till its sway became A wonder to the nations. Days of shame Are close upon thee; prophets raise their wail. When the rude Cossack with an outstretched hand Points his long spear across the narrow sea,— "Lo! there is England!" when thy destiny Storms on thy straw-crowned head, and thou dost stand Weak, helpless, mad, a ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... their sons and daughters. Pitiful little boxes and carpet bags were piled on the platform. Friends clung to hands outstretched through the carriage-windows while the train moved slowly out. Then came the long mournful wail from those left behind, and the last wavings of farewell. At the Robeen station the crowd was no less than elsewhere. The carriages set apart for the emigrants were full, and at the last minute two girls were hustled ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... years ago a kind of wild Irish wake had been celebrated in honor of his memory; the news made him resolve, when he presented himself among them, to declare himself an inhabitant from another world! One poor fellow's wail of anguish for his wife was most distressing ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... became slower and slower, until only a low, moaning wail reached their ears. It was of a remarkably somniferous character,—the cunning Le Duc had evidently some object in playing thus. Presently the music ceased altogether. Not a sound was heard, except the soughing of the wind round ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... wert doomed to undergo that sore trial of thy faith. Of Holly also I desired to learn whether his wisdom could pierce through my disguise, and how near he stood to truth. It was for this reason that I suffered him to see me draw the lock from the satchel on thy breast and to hear me wail over thee yonder in the Rest-house. Well he did not guess so ill, but thou, thou knewest me—in thy sleep—knewest me as I am, and not as I seemed to be, yes," she added softly, "and didst say certain sweet words ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... maddening noises of the Via Babbuino: The rattle and clatter of cab wheels; the clack-clack of thousands of iron-shod hoofs; the shrill, high cry of the street venders; the blasts of motor horns that seemed to rend the narrow street; the roar and rumble of the electric trams; the wail of fretful babies; the chatter of gossiping women; and above and through and below it all the cracking of the cabman's whip—that sceptre of the Roman cabby, that wand which is one part whip and nine parts crack. Sometimes it seemed to Mary Gowd that her brain was seared ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... stairs again they heard the curious wail, and T. B. experienced a tremulous jar which ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... I fell, Thou might hae plung'd me deep in Hell, To gnash my gooms, to weep and wail In burnin' lakes, Whare damned devils roar and yell, Chain'd to ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... Santa Virgen! Do not tell me—Dios mio!" The mother's voice rose to a wail, as she snatched her ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... she exclaimed, clasping her hands, "I tell you my father is there! I can declare that I heard his voice come out of the waves like a wail, as if it ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... public had been so skilfully manipulated by the Byron propaganda, that the sympathy of the whole world was with him. A tide of emotion was now aroused in England by his early death—dying in the cause of Greece and liberty. There arose a general wail for him, as for a lost pleiad, not only in England, but over the whole world; a great rush of enthusiasm for his memory, to which the greatest literary men of England freely gave voice. By general consent, Lady Byron seems to have been looked upon as the only cold-hearted unsympathetic ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... an eminent example of that Jewish language, which Dr. Wail truly observes, we several times find used in the sacred writings; I mean, where the words "all" or "whole multitude," etc. are used for much the greatest part only; but not so as to include every person, without exception; for when Josephus had said that "the ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... bursting in upon them without warning. The members of the cabinet looked puzzled or disgusted, as though they failed to see that several startling raps could be any better than having Tad break in with a whoop or a wail, as ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... a rough-handed, silver-voiced, sturdy old fellow, harping unconsciously the notes of my lament, and the tones of his sorrow wail through the green boughs today, though he has been lying now these two hundred years in England's Sleeping Palace, among silent kings and queens. Fair and fresh and always young is my lost maiden, and "beautiful exceedingly." Her habit was to wreathe ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... the lighted door, then stumbled over a small form on the ground and there rose another wail, now of terror if not ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... about introducing new diseases, the offspring of vice, into the South Sea Islands, decimating and all but destroying the population? Is it not true that, as the prophet wailed of old about a degenerate Israel, we may wail about the beach-combers and other loafers that go amongst savage lands from England—'Through you the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles.' A Hindoo once said to a missionary, 'Your Book is very good. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... bleating of the young lambs. She is now ready to die, and knows that the time of her departure is at hand, for she has had a 'warning from heaven.' The reader should have sat by the bed-side of one slowly fading away by consumption, and have heard the wild March wind wail amidst the boughs of leafless trees without, rightly to appreciate the ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... in fwont, with an iwon wail, for the dwiver,' added his Lordship. 'I dwove it over to Bwistol the other morning, in a cwimson coat, with two servants widing a quarter of a mile behind; and confound me if the people didn't wush out of their cottages, and awest my pwogwess, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... finish, and a general wail went up for the departed tassel that would never wave proudly ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... brave Locrine in his love. Go, boy, to Devrolitum, down the Lee, Unto the arch where lovely Estrild lies. Bring her and Sabren straight unto the court; She shall be queen in Gwendoline's room. Let others wail for Corineius' death; I mean not so to macerate my mind For him that barred ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... half dozen great leaps he made from the lashing tentacles of his pursuer sufficed to give him a few seconds' respite, and then the weird, howling sound of the tortured world swelled to a piercing wail. His lungs were laboring from the violence of his exertions; again and again he barely escaped from the curling whips of metal tentacles. And now the monster was hardly a foot high; the huge condensers and tubes and colossal machinery were ...
— Raiders of the Universes • Donald Wandrei
... loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests to God even his father: to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye will see him, and those, who pierced him: and all the tribes of the earth will wail because of him. Yea, so be it! I am the Alpha and the Omega, saith the Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... of all his days, not one Has passed and left its unlaid ghost To seek a light for ever lost, Or wail a deed ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... went out through all nations. The chronicles of Wales, of Scotland, and of Man; the annals of Ademar and Marianus; the Sagas of Denmark and the Isles all record the event. In "the Orcades" of Thormodus Torfaeus, a wail over the defeat of the Islesmen is ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... smote Dennis's heart with the deepest commiseration was the continuous wail of helpless little children, many of them utterly separated from parents and friends, and in the very ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... never more should be. His voice was low—was lower; but as clear as a bell in its distinctness; as wise in its directions as collected thought could make it. Some of the steerage passengers were helping; but more were dumb and motionless with affright. In that dead silence was heard a low wail of sorrow, as of numbers whose power was crushed out of them by that awful terror. Edward still held ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... But even above the strident shrill of the scolding and the abrupt command of the man's voice and the frightened wail of the littlest girl, rose the cry of Felicia's own anger. Did I say her employer was the angriest woman in the world? I was mistaken. The angriest woman in the ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... a piercing cry, raised by hundreds of voices, a cry which resounds through the streets of the city, and which is echoed by the surrounding hills. What can be the matter? What can be the cause of this mournful wail? ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... after this performance had lasted an hour, more mats were brought and spread upon the area, and four or five elderly women, amongst whom I was told was the dead chief's wife, advanced slowly out of the house, and seating themselves in the front of the first company, began to cry and wail most bitterly; the women in the three rows behind joining them, whilst the two men inclined their heads over them in a very melancholy and pensive attitude. At this period of the rites, I was obliged to leave them to attend ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... a description of Napoleon, as Beethoven at that time understood his character,—we are inclined to this opinion,—or it may be a more general picture of a hero, to which the career of Napoleon had furnished but the original conception. The second movement is to us the wail of a nation ground to the dust by the iron heel of despotism,—France under the old rgime,—France in the Reign of Terror,—France needing, as few nations have needed, the advent of a hero. The scherzo, with its trio, is not a form for minute painting of how the hero comes ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... peril had been there! It was but the other day she had striven so hard to give the lie to her love and to become Larry's wife. She shuddered beneath the bedclothes as she thought of the danger she had run. One word would have changed all her Paradise into a perpetual wail of tears and waste of desolation. When she woke in the morning from her long sleep an effort was wanting to tell her that it was all true. Oh, if it had slipped from her then;—if she had waked after such a dream to find herself loving in ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... chattering like parrots. Honestly, I was scared. I was afraid that Mrs. Bill would come down and jump into hysterics. I snaked the boy off the lion's back and rapped on him for order. The matron got busy with the others. In a jiffy it seemed as if they had all begun to wail an' roar. I trembled when a maid opened the door an' I saw Mrs. Bill comin' down the staircase. I wouldn't have been surprised to have seen the bronze lion get ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller
... through the corridor. With a low wail of genuine grief, Mignon dropped into a chair. She heard Harriet Delaney begin her first song. Unable to bear the chagrin that was hers, she sprang up. Readjusting the gown she had partly thrown off, she seized her cloak and wrapped it about her. Then she fled up the stairway, and into the calm, ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... danger," Strether paternally said, "because when I hear you wail to go back I seem to see you open up such possibilities ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... who has found instead the bitterness of darkness, the sarcasm and the sensationalism of an age that the gods have left. He is too honest to shout pour encourager les autres when his own heart has no hope in it; and his greater books express the wail and despair of ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... seemed no longer able to hold together; the spasms of pain gripped me like death itself. I screamed aloud, and found fresh strength against this fresh torture. Suddenly this concert of hideous cries was overborne by a joyful sound—the shrill wail of the newborn infant. No words can describe that moment. It was as though the universe took part in my cries, when all at once the chorus of pain fell hushed before the ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... long, croaking wail, and went down on his knees beside the master he had served so long—the master who would never more need servant in ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... which, hardly was the rain done, when, on our part, a rocket flew aloft; and there began on the City, from all sides, a deluge of bombs and red hot balls. So that the still-dripping City was set fire to, in various parts: and we could hear [what this Editor never can forget] the WEH-KLAGEN (wail) of the Townsfolk as they tried to quench it, and it always burst out again. The fire-deluge lasted for six hours."—Human WEH-KLAGEN, through the hollow of Night, audible to the Prussians and us: "Woe's me! water-deluges, then fire-deluges; death on every hand!" According to the Austrian accounts, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... bald circus talk in the presence of them. But Harold, who was built in quite another way, so soon as he discerned the drift of their conversation and heard the knell of all his hopes, filled the room with wail and clamour of bereavement. The grinning welkin rang with "Circus!" "Circus!" shook the window-panes; the mocking walls re-echoed "Circus!" Circus he would have, and the whole circus, and nothing but the circus. No compromise ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... that: 'twas like a musical wail of gladness; and Madame Giche sank into her high-backed chair—like a snowflake was her face ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... low wail of a new-born infant was heard issuing from a bundle of ragged clothing which some poor creature had laid down on the doorstep of a house in a small by-street not many squares from our own. The house was occupied in part by a man named Varick, who had a wife and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... and chariots and drifting mail The drowned lords of Egypt found a grave With all their swart retainers 'neath the wave; And in their haughty courts the mourners wail. ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... with a wry smile and ironically quotes from the wisdom of Paragot: "What does it matter where the body finds itself, so long as the soul has its serene habitations?" This wail is too typical of most of our hotel experiences. As a rule we found the humble, cheaper hotels best, and, whenever we had a choice of two, ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... nothing, brushing his way through the clamorous mass and directing his staggering steps toward Tyee. The old squaw raised the wail, and one by one the women joined her as they swung in behind. The men crawled out of their trenches and ran back to gather about Tyee, and it was noticed that the Sunlanders climbed upon their barricade ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... true that "There is no greater sorrow than recalling happy times when in misery," doubtless from France would rise but one long forlorn wail. The stoic Parisian poilu, however, has completely reversed such philosophy, and unmindful of the change his absence has created, delights in the remembrance of every instant, dreams but of the moment when he shall again be part of the light-hearted ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... bide the Norseman's strife. The hunger battle-birds were filled In Skye with blood of foemen killed, And wolves on Tyree's lonely shore Dyed red their hairy jaws in gore. The men of Mull were tired of flight; The Scottish foemen would not fight, And many an island-girl's wail Was heard as through the isles ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... Senate in this day, When all the smothering by-streets weep and wail; When wisdom breaks the hearts of her best sons; When kingly men, voting ...
— General William Booth enters into Heaven and other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... came about. Rameses compelled her to give her daughter to the charioteer. I do not know what he said of thee, but it was not complimentary. My poor mistress! she let herself be caught by the dandy, the ladies' man-and now she may weep and wail. When I pass the great gates of thy house with Katuti, she often sighs and complains bitterly. And with good reason, for it soon will be all over with our noble estate, and we must seek an asylum far away among the Amu in the low ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... pang, the bitter wail; after her lost life—and we have here but one life to lose!—her lost happiness, for she knew now that though she might be very peaceful, very content, no real happiness ever had come, ever could come to her in this world, except Robert Roy's ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... camped, built a small bush-fire at night, and slept. He almost failed to rouse himself on the morning that followed, and when he staggered to his feet and felt the cutting sting of the storm still in his face and heard the swishing wail of it over the Barren he knew that at last the hour had come when he was standing face to ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... people who were dispossessed? The answer to that is the reply, too, to the wail that goes up from the speculative builder every time we put the screws on the tenement house law. It does not pay him to build any more, he says. But when the multitudes of Mulberry Bend, of Hester Street, and of the Bone ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... nothing to say, to any purpose, and my mouth was very dry. The wind and the wires took up the story with a long lamenting wail. ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... son had looked their last look into each other's eyes—had clasped the last clasp of each other's hands. An hour had passed, and still the old man lay upon the ground, where he had flung himself in his heart's bitter anguish; and still the wail rung out from time to time: "My God! he's gone! ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... his voice rising to a wail. Then as he let the folds of canvas fall, a voice inside ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... limpid springs dripping from among the rocks; flowers hanging from hedges emitting their fragrance, as they were flapped by the winds; red leaves on the tree tops swaying to and fro; groves picture-like, half stripped of foliage; the western breeze coming with sudden gusts, and the wail of the oriole still audible; the warm sun shining with genial rays, and the cicada also adding its chirp: structures, visible to the gaze at a distance in the South-east, soaring high on various sites and resting against ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... With loud wail the people followed after. None was joyful, neither woman nor man. They sang and read or they buried him. Ah, what good priests ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... by Dirk Sharp's door, Noll suddenly fancied he heard a faint wail within. He was not at all sure, the sea thundered so, and the wind screamed so shrilly about the miserable dwelling; but presently, in a slight lull of the tempest, he heard the wail—if wail it was—again. It sounded like the voice of a child,—a ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... strange, remote past—a past that never existed. No archaic chords or progressions occur, but by a series of miraculous touches the atmosphere of a far-away past is kept before us. To save coming back to this again, I will mention such instances as the Rhine-maidens' wail, heard far down in the valley as the gods march triumphantly to Valhalla; the passage in which Siegmund recounts how on coming home one day he found the house in ashes, his sister and father gone, ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... it was, of course, rather quieter, but in the dark doorways strange figures were huddled, and sometimes the feeble wail of a child, or a smothered oath, reminded one that more was hidden behind the scenes. Gladys was now in a state of extreme mental excitement. She had never been in a town larger than Boston, and there only on ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... street, only to be again menaced by galloping military ambulances arriving, accompanied by hussars. The confusion grew into a tumult; men struggled and elbowed for a passage to the platforms, women sobbed and cried; through the uproar the treble wail ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... in the same corner of the library long enough to mark the hours of the births and marriages, the meetings and partings, and death, of several generations of the Vyvyans, now chimed in slow, subdued tones, through which ran the echo of a wail, like the voice of a human being, who has ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul
... seen each other, and you would have gone your separate ways to the end of time without even knowing that the other existed. No doubt you both contend that you cannot live without each other. It is the usual wail of lovers. But are you quite as certain in your minds that you would have perished if you had never ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... day, while the perpetrators thereof escaped the punishment due to their crimes. Yet no lament was raised by the political guides of Ireland over murdered landholders and clergymen; it appeared to be, in their sight, a just revenge. At the same time a long wail of woe was heard throughout the country, if it happened that any of the resisting peasantry were killed by the military in the performance of their duties in securing the tithe. Four were thus killed in the county of Cork, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... "We may not wail aloud for thee, my son, nor rend our garments, nor put on sackcloth, nor pour dust upon our heads. He who hath bereaved thee of life, would bereave thee even of our tears; but thou art resting on Abraham's bosom, where the tyrant can reach thee ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... were progressing 'fairly well'; the morning, probably, would enable him to speak with yet more confidence. Widdowson had another brief conversation with the sisters, then bade them good-night, and went to the room that had been prepared for him. As he closed the door he heard a thin, faint wail, and stood listening until it ceased; it came from a room on ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... but it faded as Neale looked. He walked a goodly distance from camp, so as to be out of earshot. The cool night air was pleasant after the hot day. It fanned his face. And the silence, the darkness, the stars calmed him. A lonely wolf mourned from the heights, and the long wail brought to mind Slingerland's cabin. Then it was only a quick step to memory of Allie Lee; and Neale drifted from the perplexities and problems of his new responsibility to haunting memories, ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... There came an answering hail which assured me that yon varlet, Davidson, had heard. I was conscious of the sound of a scuffle somewhere forward. Below, at my side, Aunt Lucinda gave voice to a long shrill wail of terror. John, my Chinaman, his cue still held fast in the jammed edges of the door, chimed in dismally. Midships I heard a muffled knocking at Williams', the ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... follow them, but once more the door slowly opened, and the poor creature looked out to ascertain if her tormentors had gone off. Not seeing them she came out, and Jenny heard her in a plaintive voice thanking God for having delivered her from her enemies; then she broke into a low wail, the words she uttered being disconnected and incoherent. She was on her knees, with her hands clasped and her countenance upturned towards heaven. Jenny's heart was more touched than she had expected. Going up to the old woman, she said, 'These bad boys have been teasing you ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston
... country's songs, guitars, and gramophones, The noise of boot on stone, The noise of women bargaining their flesh, The noise of singers in the ships, Sounds of threat and sounds of fear, Blasts of hammer and steel and iron, The scream of syren, the wail of hooter, The clangour of angry bells, The boom of guns, the clatter of factories, The panic ...
— Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse • Thomas Burke
... my mother," repudiated Lady Caroline angrily; and her anger sounded like the regretful wail of ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... one fearful scream of agony and fright, fell forward on his face in the path. Old Charlie stood transfixed with horror. Belles Demoiselles, the realm of maiden beauty, the home of merriment, the house of dancing, all in the tremor and glow of pleasure, suddenly sunk, with one short, wild wail of terror—sunk, sunk, down, down, down, into the merciless, unfathomable ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... found that there was no necessity for her to continue her speech, and indeed no possibility of her doing so even if she were so minded. The children began to wail and cry, and the mothers also mixed loud sobbings with their loud prayers; and Emmeline and Mary, dissolved in tears, sat themselves down, drawing to them the youngest bairns and those whom they had loved the best, kissing their sallow, famine-stricken, unwholesome ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... I rise up lustily, When sluggish sleep is past, So hope I to rise joyfully, To judgment at the last. Thus will I wake, thus will I sleep, Thus will I hope to rise, Thus will I neither wail nor weep, But sing ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... scorned the Democrat's wail, And flirting its false fantastic tail, It spread its wings and it soared away, And left the ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... into a loud wail. Tommy and Hazel stood in blank, rigid silence. They could not believe that Harriet was gone. Miss Elting sank down on a pack, while Jane stood gazing moodily off over the ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... rush into the surf. Some women caught hold of the ropes, were dragged out of their depth, clung till their fingers were cut through, and perished in the waves. The ships began to move. A wild and terrible wail rose from the shore, and excited unwonted compassion in hearts steeled by hatred of the Irish race and of the Romish faith. Even the stern Cromwellian, now at length, after a desperate struggle of three years, left the undisputed ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... During another vacation, skin diving in the Virgin Islands, he and Scotty had proved that octopuses don't wail. But if stingarees don't fly, he asked himself, what looks like ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin
... grace, offices, and simple greeting by the host of the White House that she was kept out in the hall. But one day, the master passing through the corridor "to hold the show," heard a baby's pitiful wail. He halted, listened again to make sure, and on entering his reception-parlor asked his favorite usher if he had not heard that odd thing—there—an ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... lobes of the cactus hedge before him were like great hands shorn of fingers thrust against the sky. Through a gap he beheld the lights of the Mission—fierce hostile eyes intent upon his thoughts. The wail and bark of a jackal came from ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... Montmirail nor Champaubert; it is something quite different. The question is no longer one of sacred territory,—but of a holy idea. The country wails, that may be, but humanity applauds. But is it true that the country does wail? France bleeds, but liberty smiles; and in the presence of liberty's smile, France forgets her wound. And then if we look at things from a still more lofty point of view, why do we speak of ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Arthur, 'if he means to be a comfort I wish he would stop that dismal little wail—have one good squall and have done with it. He will worry his mother and ruin all now she takes more notice. So here's Mrs. Moss's letter. I could not open it this morning, and I have been inventing messages to Violet from ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... window, doorway, and roof. The wind, blowing from the south, carried sparks and cinders to the adjoining houses, glowing in the summer heat. A wail of horror from the people ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... Trusan came over and informed our hosts of the fate of their chief. On the receipt of this intelligence, all the men of our house left it and repaired to one adjoining, where a great "drink" was held, while the women indulged in a loud, low, monotonous, heart-breaking wail, which they kept up for several hours. Mr. COOK and myself agreed that things looked almost as bad for us as they well could, and when, towards morning, the men returned to our house, my Chinese boy clung to me in terror and—nothing happened! But certainly I do not think I have ever passed ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste: Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe, And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight: Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... a mere child," he cried, in a wail to Heaven; "a mere"—he paused, groping for an adequate definition—"a mere irresponsible female orphan! And nobody with ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... there is not far from where I used to live a famous cascade called the Swallow Falls, where the water drops down a chasm of great depth. If you listen to the noise of the cataract, you may hear mingled with it a peculiar kind of wail as from a man in great agony. It is said to be the wail of a Sir John Wynn, of Gwydir, whose spirit is under a curse, and is imprisoned at the bottom of the falls on account of his cruelty and misdeeds on earth. On those rare nights ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... peculiar little wailing cry. She listened. The cry was repeated. She listened again, but could not locate the sound. Then, thinking she might be mistaken, she continued with her dressing; but again that piercing wail was borne to her ears. She opened her window and then she heard it distinctly—a baby's cry. She listened in amazement. There was no baby on the place except the gardener's, and his cottage was too far from the big house ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... heads he proceeds to cut off. He is justly dismayed, however, to see they have the power of springing up again as soon as hewn, until remembering at last his magic bow, he makes such good use of it that he annihilates the demon, whose numerous wives wail as he falls. ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber |
