"Languish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it hap," quoth ESHER, M.R., "That Solicitors languish for lack of bread? That want of cases, as felt by the Bar, To cases of want has recently led? Oh, how does it come, and why, and whence, That men shun the Law ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 21, 1891 • Various
... the North-West Company {67} met at Fort William in the month of July 1814. Their fond hope had been that Lord Selkirk's colony would languish and die. Instead, it was flourishing and waxing aggressive. The governor of Assiniboia had published an edict which he seemed determined to enforce, to the ruin of the business of the North-West Company. The grizzled partners, as they rubbed elbows in secret conclave, decided that something ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood
... garlic growing, delved radishes, culled chervil and all herbs, bought parched barley, and (for not yet had the meadows reached the redolency that tempts the ten toes)-so to mule-back again; whence this tenderness behind. And now I walk with pain, and the sweat runs down; my bones languish, and yearn for the longest of water-swims; 'tis ever my joy to ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... residents of Hull-House place increasing emphasis upon the great inspirations and solaces of literature and are unwilling that it should ever languish as a subject for class instruction or for reading parties. The Shakespeare club has lived a continuous existence at Hull-House for sixteen years during which time its members have heard the leading ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... trouble of writing, where the Mistres and Servant are learned in this amorous blazon. Yesterday I wore Folimort, Grisdelin and Isabella: Folimort is withered, Grisdelin is absent, and Isabella is beauty, which put together express I did wither or languish ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... "I never languish for husband or dower; I never sigh to see 'gyps' at my feet; I make the butter fly, all in an hour, Taking it home for ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... these data could not be remembered or introduced at all into a growing and cumulative experience. Sensations would leave no memorial; while logical thoughts would play idly, like so many parasites in the mind, and ultimately languish and die of inanition. To be nourished and employed, intelligence must have developed such structure and habits as will enable it to assimilate what food comes in its way; so that the persistence of any intellectual habit is a proof that it has some applicability, however partial, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... gates of the Hellespont and Bosporus were shut, the capital still enjoyed within their spacious enclosure every production which could supply the wants or gratify the luxury of its numerous inhabitants. The sea-coasts of Thrace and Bithynia, which languish under the weight of Turkish oppression, still exhibit a rich prospect of vineyards, of gardens, and of plentiful harvests; and the Propontis has ever been renowned for an inexhaustible store of the most exquisite fish, that are taken in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... of men and of nations for whom he has not the smallest regard? Such men do not choose pain as preferable to pleasure, but they are incited by a restless disposition to make continued exertions of capacity and resolution; they triumph in the midst of their struggles; they droop, and they languish, when the occasion ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... behind the thin silk curtain of a small alcove at one end of the hall, and Hippy emerged, the picture of offended dignity. "Missed at last," was his sweeping rebuke. "I had begun to think I was doomed to languish behind that green silk curtain for life. It's all Nora's fault. If I had been immured there forever and always, it would be her fault just the same. She proposed that I should hide. 'Make them think I came ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... thou lovely, my Marion, Thy heart bounds in kindness to me; And here, oh, here is my bosom, That languish'd, my ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... practical purposes, Johnson's involvement in civil rights in the armed forces ended with his battle with the Fahy Committee. Certainly in the months after the committee was disbanded he did nothing to push for integration and allowed the subject of civil rights to languish. ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... master, But touch the strings with a religious softness! Teach sounds to languish through the night's dull ear Till Melancholy starts from off her couch, And Carelessness grows concert ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... water: she calls you again. Rescue your neck from this vile yoke; come, say, I am free, I am free. You are not able: for an implacable master oppresses your mind, and claps the sharp spurs to your jaded appetite, and forces you on though reluctant. When you, mad one, quite languish at a picture by Pausias; how are you less to blame than I, when I admire the combats of Fulvius and Rutuba and Placideianus, with their bended knees, painted in crayons or charcoal, as if the men were actually engaged, and push and parry, moving their weapons? Davus ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... shine less in thy theological capacity, when thou gavest ghostly counsels to dying felons, and didst record the guilty pangs of Sabbath breakers. How will the noble arts of John Overton's** painting and sculpture now languish? where rich invention, proper expression, correct design, divine attitudes, and artful contrast, heightened with the beauties of Clar. Obscur., embellished thy celebrated pieces, to the delight and astonishment of the judicious multitude! Adieu, persuasive eloquence! the quaint metaphor, ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... Brahmana who is possessed of fortitude, who is always heedful, who is self-restrained, who is conversant with righteousness, whose soul is under control, and who has transcended joy, pride, and wrath, has never to languish in grief. This is the course of conduct that was ordained of old for a Brahmana. He should strive for the acquisition of Knowledge, and do all the scriptural acts. By living thus, he is sure to obtain success. One who is not possessed of clear vision does wrong ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... eighteenth-century buck, and made love with a fervour that was all the more enhanced by the sight of Miss Gibbs in the front row, sitting with pursed-up lips and straightened back. Meta, as Lydia Languish, sighed, wept, made eyes, and indulged in a perfect orgy of sentiment, while Lois acted the cheeky maidservant with enthusiasm. The best of all, however, was Mrs. Malaprop; Linda had seen the play on the real stage, and reproduced a famous actress to the utmost of her ability. ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... fall out that we must lose any or all of these, it may be no new thing to be without them. We have a mind pliable in itself, that will be company; that has wherewithal to attack and to defend, to receive and to give: let us not then fear in this solitude to languish under an uncomfortable vacuity. ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... so lonely without you all," sighed Bess. "All the other college folk will be off by Tuesday at the latest, and here we shall languish!" ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... social condition of a given age and people, so that the one will never be of a higher order than the other; while it is, also, equally true, that the best and most advanced political theories may be suffered to languish in operation, or become wholly dormant, from the influence of social causes. Thus it was that the demoralising effect of human slavery did, up to the time of the great shock which the nation received in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... long time he stood motionless; then, crumpling the card up and placing it in his pocket, he took the bowl in his arms and bore it to his bedroom. Wrapped again in its coverings, it was left to languish on the top of the cupboard behind a carefully constructed rampart of old ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... late into the next day, I was left brooding and chafing at my misfortune, self-inflicted I will confess, but not the less irksome to bear. I had almost persuaded myself that I should be left to languish here quite friendless and forgotten, when the luck turned suddenly, and daylight broke in to disperse my gloomy forebodings. Several visitors came, claiming to see me, and were presently admitted in turn. First came the Consul, and with him an intelligent Swiss advocate, who declared he would soon ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... its conversation was much the same as the management of a state; she believed that the hostess must never join in the conversation as long as it goes on by itself, but, ever watchful, must never permit disturbances, disagreements, improprieties, or obstacles; she must animate it if it languish; she must see that conversation never takes a dangerous, disagreeable, or tiresome turn, and that it never brings into undue prominence one man especially, as this makes others jealous and displeases the entire society; it must always interest ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... craft being plied behind backs; the books multiplying daily on shelves and in windows, and the ragged boys with their pennies waiting to see if there was a new piece by Allan Ramsay; while perhaps in the corner, where lay the lists of the new circulating library—the first in Scotland—Miss Lydia Languish with her maid, or my lady's gentlewoman from some fine house in the Canongate, had come in to ask for the last new novel from London, the Scotch capital having not yet begun to produce that article ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... My adorable Matilda! my betrothed bride! Write to me ere the evening closes, for I shall never be able to shut my eyes in slumber upon my prison couch, until they have been first blessed by the sight of a few words from thee! Write to me, love! write to me! I languish for the reply which is to make or mar me ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sheepish. "You girls do like to tease me. All right, I'll do the forgiving act and order the refreshments. I'll pay for them, too. I've a whole dollar. I am supposed to buy some stationery with it, but I'll just let my correspondence languish and treat instead. Name your eat and you can have it. Fifteen cents apiece is your limit. I need the other ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... unmeetly set, with a lewd fool called Disdain" (canto 6). Timias and Serena, after quitting the hermit's cell, meet her. Though so sorely clad and mounted, the maiden was "a lady of great dignity and honor, but scornful and proud." Many a wretch did languish for her through a long life. Being summoned to Cupid's judgment hall, the sentence passed on her was that she should "ride on a mangy jade, accompanied by a fool, till she had saved as many lovers as she had ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... seem that love wounds the lover. For languor denotes a hurt in the one that languishes. But love causes languor: for it is written (Cant 2:5): "Stay me up with flowers, compass me about with apples; because I languish with love." Therefore ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... silver laughter. A notable reason this; for, mark me, ye lovers, an thy lady flout thee one hour, grieve not—she shall be kind the next; an she scorn thee to-day, despair nothing—she shall love thee to-morrow; but, an she laugh and laugh—ah, then poor lover, Venus pity thee! Then languish hope, and tender heart be rent, for love and laughter can ne'er be kin. Wherefore a woeful wight am I, foredone and all distraught for love. Behold here, the blazon on my shield—lo! a riven heart proper (direfully ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... wittily summed up a general objection to criticism of the kind we advocate as 'always asking people to do what they can't.' But to point out, as the philosophical critic would, that poetry itself must inevitably languish if the more comprehensive kinds are neglected, or if a non-poetic age is allowed complacently to call itself lyrical, is not to urge the real masters in the less comprehensive kinds to desert their work. Who but a fool would ask Mr De la Mare to write an epic or Miss Mansfield ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... been to his people and they've come to see mine. So I needn't play any more piano, nor sing any more sentimental songs; I needn't be clever any more, nor flirt any more, nor languish at young men any more. And how do you suppose it was settled? Just what one wouldn't have ever expected. You know my people were doing all they could to dress me up, and show me off, and seem to be richer than they are, so as ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... to the girl in the meantime. You have been there, of late, much oftener than you should. She does not languish for you, and it might have been dangerous. Restrain your youthful ardour for eight-and-forty hours, and leave her to the father. You only undo what he does, and ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... substituted, the piece was at once successful, and acted with overflowing houses all over the country. How could it be otherwise? It may have been exaggerated, far-fetched, unnatural, but such characters as Sir Anthony Absolute, Sir Lucius, Bob Acres, Lydia Languish, and most of all Mrs. Malaprop, so admirably conceived, and so carefully and ingeniously worked out, could not but be admired. They have become household words; they are even now our standards of ridicule, and be they natural or not, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... languish'd for some sunny isle, Where summer years, and summer women smile, Men without country, who, too long estranged, Had found no native home, or found it changed, And, half uncivilized, preferr'd the cave Of some soft savage ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... insisted on. Light and warmth are powerful agents in the economy of our being. The former especially is an operative agent on which health, vigor, and even beauty itself, depend. Withdraw the light of the sun from the organic world, and all its various beings and objects would languish and gradually lose those charms which are now their characteristics. In its absence, the carnation tint leaves the cheek of beauty, the cherry hue of the lips changes to a leaden-purple, the eyes become glassy and expressionless, and the ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... of your vassal, and I deceived you in suffering you to believe it had taken effect. I did you wrong, Lady of Lochleven, for I perceive your purpose to aid me was sincere. We tasted not of the liquid, nor are we now sick, save that we languish for our freedom." ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... form, and smart your dress, Your air, your language, ev'ry warmth express Yet, if a banker, or a financier, With handsome presents happen to appear, At once is blessed the wealthy paramour, While you a year may languish at the door. ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... appointed by Heaven. Therefore misjudge not the maiden who now of thy dearly beloved, Good and intelligent son has been first to touch the affections: Happy to whom at once his first love's hand shall be given, And in whose heart no tenderest wish must secretly languish. Yes: his whole bearing assures me that now his fate is decided. Genuine love matures in a moment the youth into manhood; He is not easily moved; and I fear that if this be refused him, Sadly his years will go by, those years that should ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... thou who sighest for a broader field Wherein to sow the seeds of truth and right— Who fain a fuller, nobler power would wield O'er human souls that languish ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... on the Igotz Mendi, but there were taken into Germany from the Matunga three military officers and three elderly married civilians over military age. They were going but a week's voyage from their homes (July 1917); but, torn from their homes and families, they were to languish for months in a German internment camp. Neither must be forgotten the old captains and mates and young boys—some of the latter making their first sea voyage—taken into captivity in Germany, where they have probably been exhibited as illustrating the straits to which the ...
— Five Months on a German Raider - Being the Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the 'Wolf' • Frederic George Trayes
... resentment can I bear to her, Who ne'er did any thing I'd wish undone, But has so often deserv'd well of me? I love her, own her worth, and languish for her; For I have known her tenderness of soul: And Heaven grant that with some other husband She find that happiness she miss'd in me; From whom the strong hand of necessity ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... especially calculated to cause devotion. But from dwelling on it there follows a certain affliction of soul: Remember my poverty ... the wormwood and the gall[93]—that is, the Sacred Passion; and then follows: I will be mindful, and remember, and my soul shall languish within me. ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... my sick-bed I languish, Full of sorrow, full of anguish, Fainting, gasping, trembling, crying, Panting, groaning, speechless, dying; Methinks I hear some gentle spirit say, "Be not fearful, ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... wickedness," commented Busy sententiously, "in spite of my Lord Protector, who of a truth doth turn his back on the Saints and hath even allowed the great George Fox and some of the Friends to languish in prison, whilst profligacy holds undisputed sway. Master Courage, meseems those mugs need washing a second time," he added, with sudden irrelevance. "Take them to the kitchen, and do not let me set eyes on thee until they shine like ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... foot, uncovered, this young woman for whom I had never cared save in the most superficial manner when her name happened to recur to my mind. And all of a sudden I discovered in her a heap of qualities which I had never before observed, a sweet charm, a fascination that made me languish; she awakened in me that sort of amorous uneasiness which sends me in pursuit of a woman. But I did not remain thinking of her long. I went to bed and was soon ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... where they leave him and proceed against others, whom they serve in the same manner. Sometimes there is a second party attending the hunters, on purpose to skin the cattle as they fall; but it is said that the hunters sometimes prefer to leave them to languish in torment till next day, from an opinion that the lengthened anguish bursts the lymphatics, and thereby facilitates the separation of the skin from the carcass. Their priests have loudly condemned this most barbarous practice, and have even gone so far, if my memory do not deceive ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... drop off, fall off, tail off; fall away, waste, wear; wane, ebb, decline; descend &c. 306; subside; melt away, die away; retire into the shade, hide its diminished head, fall to a low ebb, run low, languish, decay, crumble. bate, abate, dequantitate|; discount; depreciate; extenuate, lower, weaken, attenuate, fritter away; mitigate &c. (moderate) 174; dwarf, throw into the shade; reduce &c. 195; shorten &c. 201; subtract &c. 38. Adj. unincreased &c. (see increase &c.35)[obs3]; decreased &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... not Brest and the Shipping Interest languish? Poor Brest languishes, sorrowing, not without spleen; denounces an Aristocrat Bertrand-Moleville traitorous Aristocrat Marine-Minister. Do not her Ships and King's Ships lie rotting piecemeal in harbour; Naval Officers mostly fled, and on furlough too, with pay? Little ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... deformed, strength to the weak, or health to the infirm? Surely if they could we should not see so many ill-favoured faces haunting the assemblies of the great, nor would such numbers of feeble wretches languish in their coaches and palaces. No, not the wealth of a kingdom can purchase any paint to dress pale Ugliness in the bloom of that young maiden, nor any drugs to equip Disease with the vigour of that young man. Do not ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... were the station o' loftiest grandeur, Amidst its profusion I'd languish in pain, And reckon as naething the height o' its splendor, If wanting sweet Jessie, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... was very evident the gale was making the ice break; and, thought I to myself, if we do not mind our eye we shall be crushed and buried. But what was to be done? To quit the ship for that piercing flying gale, charged with sleet and hail and foam, was merely to languish for a little and then miserably expire of frost. No, thought I, if the end is to come let it find me here; and with that I snugged me down amid the coats and cloaks in my cot, and, obstinately holding my eyes ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... into the conspiracy. It will be remembered what he had formerly suffered from his father; since that time he had married, and the close-fisted old man had left him, with his wife and children, to languish in poverty. Guerra's house was selected to ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Oftentimes he opened his heart to me without rashness, and without passing the strict limits of his virtue; but the poniard was in his heart, and neither time nor reflection could dull its edge. He did nothing but languish afterwards, yet without being confined to his bed or to his chamber, but did not live more than two years. Villars, on the contrary, was in greater favour than ever. He arrived at Court triumphant. The King made him occupy an apartment at Versailles, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... hand did make, Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate', To me that languish'd for her sake: But when she saw my woeful state, Straight in her heart did mercy come, Chiding that tongue that ever sweet Was us'd in giving gentle doom; And taught it thus anew to greet; 'I hate' she alter'd with an end, That followed it as gentle day, ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... in the midst of stress of difficult travel when there is opportunity for no more than a fleeting recognition of their pictorial interest. "Tight places" often make attractive pictures, but most commonly do not get made into pictures at all. The study of the aspects of nature is likely to languish amidst the severe weather of the Northern winter, and the bright, clear, mild day gets photographed into undue prominence. Snow is more or less white and spruce-trees in the mass are more or less ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... great desire was to go to Paris, and when the war came he had his wish; but found sterner work to do than to dress and dance and languish at the feet of ladies. I hope it made a man of him, and fancy it did; for the French fight well and suffer bravely for the country they love in ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... "Sabine raid" was made upon the young damsels, who were actually carried away to the De Meuron homesteads. The Swiss families which had the misfortune to have no daughters in them were left to languish in their comfortless tents. The afflictions of the earlier Selkirk settlers were increased by the arrival of these settlers. With the Selkirk settlers in their first decade the first consideration was always food. Till that question is settled no Colony can advance. Probably ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... those nominally above you. I am not without the power to make you an offer. The Spanish cause is lost; in a few months your armies will be crushed; Peru will be independent. Until that time you will languish miserably in prison. Afterwards I cannot pretend to prophesy your fate; but I offer you an opportunity to escape from the wreck. Join the Patriot army, and I pledge my word that San Martin shall give you the rank of colonel at once. In a year it will be your ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... ever impressed her thus. And she returned on her thought, when first seeing him upon the terrace that morning, that she might lose her head. Helen laughed a little bitterly. She, of all women, to lose her head, to long and languish, to entreat affection, and to be faithful—heaven help us, faithful!—could it ever come to that?—like any sentimental schoolgirl, like—and the thought turned her not a little wicked—like Katherine Calmady herself! And ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... performed any at all. For example, it is claimed that God had the kindness to send an angel to console and to assist a simple maid, while He left, and still leaves every day, a countless number of innocents to languish and starve to death; it is claimed that He miraculously preserved during forty years the clothes and the shoes of a few people, while He will not watch over the natural preservation of the vast quantities ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... under damask canopies or on straw pallets or in the wards of hospitals, they are to form one class. Thirdly, all who are guilty of the same sins, whether the world knows them or not; whether they languish in prison, looking forward to the gallows, or walk honored among men, they also form a class. Then proceed to generalize and classify the whole world together, as none can claim utter exemption from either sorrow, sin, or disease; and if they could, yet Death, like a great ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... foure escaped, but he that was sent with me att first to make a discovery was horribly wounded with 2 arrowes and a blow of a club on the head. If he had stuck to it as we, he might proceed better. We burned him with all speed, that he might not languish long, to putt ourselves in safty. We killed 2 of them, & 5 prisoners wee tooke, and came away to where we left our boats, where we arrived within 2 days without resting, or eating or drinking all the time, saveing a litle stagge's meate. We tooke all their ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... Saladin, and for aught they knew thrown into prison, or shipped back to Europe. True, they might try to find their way to Damascus alone, but if the Sultan was warned of their coming, would he not cause them to be killed upon the road, or cast into some dungeon where they would languish out their lives? The more they spoke of these matters the more they were perplexed, till at ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... / to castle court he went, E'en as do now the people / whene'er on pleasure bent, There stood 'fore all so graceful / Siegelind's noble son, For whom in love did languish / the hearts ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... when thou dost wake, Do it for thy true love take; Love and languish for his sake; Be it ounce, or cat, or bear, Pard, or boar with bristled hair, In thy eye what shall appear, When thou wak'st, it is thy dear; Wake when some vile thing is ...
— A Fairy Tale in Two Acts Taken from Shakespeare (1763) • William Shakespeare
... Hast thou descended upon my gray head, Thou hand of God! How comes my son to me! My son, my only glory, here I languish, And tremble to behold thee! Shall I see Thy deadly wounded body, I that should Be wept by thee? I, miserable, alone, Dragged thee to this; blind dotard I, that fain Had made earth fair to thee, I digged thy ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... the hope of making his fortune equal to hers, resolves to cast his lot with the Swedish monarch. In the Saxon campaign he wins a commission as colonel of horse and a comfortable share of the spoils, but later is taken prisoner by the Russians and condemned to languish in a dungeon at St. Petersburg. After many hardships he makes his way to Paris to be welcomed as a son by Dorilaus and as a husband ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... by any means, make the inhabitants happy. It occurred to me, that laborers in harsher climates are much better off than these people, who necessarily languish in idleness and luxury. ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... that which is consolatory while we are here, and of that which in plain reason ought to render us contented to stay no longer. You, Leontion, would make others better; and better they certainly will be, when their hostilities languish in an empty field, and their rancour is tired with treading upon dust. The generous affections stir about us at the dreary hour of death, as the blossoms of the Median apple swell and diffuse their ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... when it is closed up and deprived of healthy action; this man lives for himself alone, and only the baser passions spring up in his breast. His soul is too narrow for Christian benevolence; sympathy and emotion are disabled and all his nobler faculties languish. Action, from intelligent and benevolent principles, is a great fountain of happiness. Few streams of bliss equal those which flow from charitable exertions. Benevolence and well-doing are great inducements to future exertions, because of the fact that they are their ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 7, July, 1880 • Various
... Here never languish honest men and true, Except by placemen's fraud, misgovernment, ' ' Jealousies, anger, ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... scorn of a girl. Let us not think of these Markhams. The Judge is ambitious, and proud of his wealth and self, and his daughter is ambitious too. The world wants me; it has work for me. I can hear its voices calling me now, and I am not ready. Don't think I am to sit and languish and pine for any girl;" and his mouth was firm with will and purpose, and a great swell of pride and pain agitated the bosom of his mother, who recognized the high elements of a ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... the sky's one blue, The one long languish of the rose, But these, beyond prevision new, Shall charm ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... of Humane Life, than in what is the Practice of some wealthy Men whom I could name, that make no step to the Improvement of their own Fortunes, wherein they do not also advance those of other Men, who would languish in Poverty without that Munificence. In a Nation where there are so many publick Funds to be supported, I know not whether he can be called a good Subject, who does not imbark some part of his Fortune with the State, to whose Vigilance he owes the Security of the whole. ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... was—"Children taught to read and work here," and their furniture the cap and bells, the rod in pickle, and a corner for dunces. The finishing stroke was seen in the parlour of the inn, or the farm-house, in the shape of needlework as a samplar;—"Lydia Languish, her work, done at —— school, in the year of our Lord, 1809." Such were the schools in country places then in existence, the little ones doing nothing. In after-life, I thought a remedy was required and might be found, and therefore set about working it out. How ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... familiar surname of Pogonatus, to the Grecian world. But his reign, like that of his predecessor, was stained with fraternal discord. On his two brothers, Heraclius and Tiberius, he had bestowed the title of Augustus; an empty title, for they continued to languish, without trust or power, in the solitude of the palace. At their secret instigation, the troops of the Anatolian theme or province approached the city on the Asiatic side, demanded for the royal brothers the partition or exercise of sovereignty, and supported ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... hill N.W. from the church, commonly called Therdy Hill, or Hill of Therdie, as some term it; on the top of which there is a well, which I had the curiosity to view, because of the several reports concerning it. When children happen to be sick, and languish long in their malady, so that they almost turned skeletons, the common people imagine they are taken away (at least the substance) by spirits, called Fairies, and the shadow left with them; so, at a particular ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... fail, to languish. Ancient Swedish, wik-a, cedere. To drudge; to labor to weariness; to ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... soon became hardened. Denver at that time was a hotbed of gambling, with murder and lynch law a secondary pastime. Not being deterred by our experience, we continued our sightseeing, ending up at the only theatre in the city, afterwards called the "Old Languish." ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... both against us, Pauline, and hinder us not only from marriage but even from having sight and speech of one another. And by laying on us this cruel command, our master and mistress may well boast of having with one word broken two hearts, whose bodies, perforce, must henceforth languish; and by this they show that they have never known love or pity, and although I know that they desire to marry each of us honourably and to worldly advantage,—ignorant as they are that contentment is the only ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... down in a lover's knot of pale-blue ribbon. But I made myself so agreeable and altogether lovely that dear Robert F. did not go near her the entire evening; only gave her, from across the room, by my side, the bow of compensation. He left that rose, thanks to me and my successful efforts, to languish unnoticed in its lover's knot of pale blue. Ah, Kate Meadows, that time your lover's ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... deepest anguish, Look ye here, Joy is near, Grieve no more, nor languish. Cleave to Him and He will bring you To the place, By His grace, Where no ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... innocence. The Company had given Mr. Hastings severe orders, and very severely had he executed them. The Company gave him no orders not to institute a present inquiry; but he, under pretence of business, neglected that inquiry, and suffered this man to languish in prison to the utter ruin of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... way of his own; he cannot have the portion of the brute. He must either be the happiest or the most miserable creature on earth. He must either dwell in a paradise, or writhe in a purgatory. He must either live in happy fellowship with God, or languish and die beneath his frown. And in the nature of things, the possibility of one implies liability to the other. This is man's greatness, and bliss, and glory, that he is capable of righteousness; capable of fellowship, unity, with God; and capable of progress, ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... message was to preclude any further attempt at intervention by Congress. Indeed the assurance that General Stone should be tried "without unnecessary delay" was all that could be asked. But the promise made to the ear was broken to the hope, and General Stone was left to languish without a word of intelligence as to his alleged offense, and without the slightest opportunity to meet the accusers who in the dark had convicted him without trial, subjected him to cruel punishment, and exposed him to the judgment of the world ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... On Lowland plains, the ripen'd ear. 135 Now one shrill voice the notes prolong, Now a wild chorus swells the song: Oft have I listen'd, and stood still, As it came soften'd up the hill, And deem'd it the lament of men 140 Who languish'd for their native glen; And thought how sad would be such sound, On Susquehanna's swampy ground, Kentucky's wood-encumber'd brake, Or wild Ontario's boundless lake, 145 Where heart-sick exiles, in the strain, Recall'd fair ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... budding blooms they'll ne'er have dew more, Go, doom the summer trees to languish leafless— A like effect this ultra-fiendish rumour Works in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, March 4, 1893 • Various
... but that which is freely given should not be taken in licentiousness. From off the hill where my flock is wont to graze, it is easy, through many an opening of the forest, to see these roofs; and it would have been better that the body should languish, than that a grievous sin should be placed on that immortal spirit which is already too deeply laden, unless thou art far more happy than others of the ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... with my darling when From the deep tangles of the glen Float carols of each bird elate With rapture singing to his mate? In vain my weary glances rove From lake to hill, from stream to grove: I find no rapture in the scene, And languish for my fawn-eyed queen. Ah, does strong love with wild unrest, Born of the autumn, stir her breast? And does the gentle lady pine Till her bright eyes shall look ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... know I'm weak and sinful, But Jesus will forgive, For many little children, Have gone to heaven to live. Dear Saviour, when I languish, And lay me down to die, Oh send a shining angel To bear me ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... spoke man. Name Orealgrailbliqu. Capitate nod sparking merry can languish. I only earning ...
— High Dragon Bump • Don Thompson
... teeth rattle and my hands tremble and I am all in a shake whenever I think of it; if I can but keep from being mute as a stock-fish, and gawkish, for I am all alive with fear that I shall be both, and shame us all! Peggy has taught me the minuet glide and curtsey and languish, and I am to step it at the first Assembly with Captain Andre,— such a pretty, engaging fellow, Tibbie, who will never swing for want of tongue; and Lord Rawdon has bespoke my hand for the quadrille,—a stern, frowning man, who frights me greatly, but 't is a monstrous distinction ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... another man was a heroine, braving the hypocritical judgments of society to assert the claims of the individual soul. The woman who refused to abandon all for love's sake, was not only a coward but a criminal, guilty of the deadly sin of sacrificing her soul, committing it to a prison where it would languish and never blossom to its full perfection. The man who was bound to uncongenial drudgery by the chains of an early marriage or aged parents dependent on him, was the victim of a tragedy which drew tears from our eyes. The ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... not doubt it; his very air proclaims it. You think of him as presently—(say four or five years hence)—astounding the United States Senate with his eloquence. And when once you have heard him in debate, with that ineffable gesture of his, you absolutely languish in your admiration for him, and you describe his speaking to your country friends as very little inferior, if at all, to Mr. Burke's. Beside this one are some half dozen others, among whom the question of superiority is, you understand, strongly mooted. It puzzles you to think, what an avalanche ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... Bronze, and Aegean art, as a living thing, ceased on the Greek mainland and in the Aegean isles including Crete, together with Aegean writing. In Cyprus, and perhaps on the south-west Anatolian coasts, there is some reason to think that the cataclysm was less complete, and Aegean art continued to languish, cut off from its fountain-head. Such artistic faculty as survived elsewhere issued in the lifeless geometric style which is reminiscent of the later Aegean, but wholly unworthy of it. Cremation took the place of burial of the dead. This great disaster, which ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... which love had set before him, namely, the hopes of seeing Sophia at the masquerade; on which, however ill-founded his imagination might be, he had voluptuously feasted during the whole day, the evening no sooner came than Mr Jones began to languish for some food of a grosser kind. Partridge discovered this by intuition, and took the occasion to give some oblique hints concerning the bank-bill; and, when these were rejected with disdain, he collected courage enough once more to mention a ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... tiara of Christ was in fact God. He knew of the future. He knew what crimes and horrors would be committed in His name. He knew the fires of persecution would climb around the limbs of countless martyrs; that brave men and women would languish in dungeons and darkness; that the church would use instruments of torture; that in His name His followers would trade in human flesh; that cradles would be robbed and women's breasts unbabed for gold, ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... there—I don't speak of fortune, that is not involved—but is there any other honourable sacrifice you would shrink from to dispel the disgrace under which our most ancient and honourable name must otherwise continue to languish?' ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... effort on the part of France. With such an exertion as that of sending a superior fleet to America, we see nothing in the course of human affairs, that can possibly prevent France from obtaining such a naval superiority without delay. Without it the war may languish for years, to the infinite distress of our country, to the exhausting both of France and England, and the question left to be decided ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... lady's house, a league from Machecoul, where Mademoiselle de Retz, looking in the glass at an assembly of ladies, displayed all those tender, lively, moving airs which the Italians call 'morbidezza', or the lover's languish. But unfortunately she was not aware that Palluau, since Marechal de Clerambaut, was behind her, who observed her airs, and being very much attached to Madame de Retz, with whom he had in her tender years been very familiar, ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... even its just Resentments languish and die away when their Object becomes the unresisting prey of Death. Such is my Experience with regard to Betty Fisher, whose ill Life hath now terminated, and from whom, confronted at the Bar of their great Judge, Father ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... Conversation had begun to languish between the two men. Vine had answered all his host's inquiries about old friends and acquaintances on the other side, inquiries at first eager, then more spasmodic, until at last they were interspersed ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... ecclesiastical dignities? Evidently the spite of this priest was inordinate and his pride unlimited. He seemed not displeased to be an object of terror and loathing, for thus he was somebody. Then, for a thorough-paced scoundrel, as this man seemed to be, what delight to make his enemies languish in slow torment by casting spells ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... who dost dwell alone— Thou, who dost know thine own— Thou, to whom all are known From the cradle to the grave— Save, oh! save. From the world's temptations, From tribulations, From that fierce anguish Wherein we languish, From that torpor deep Wherein we lie asleep, Heavy as death, cold as the grave, Save, ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... so," Sir Mortimer replied. "At home I was forever naught; on these seas I might yet serve my Queen, though with a shrunken arm. And Robert Baldry with many another whom I had betrayed might yet languish in miserable life. God knows! perhaps I thought that God might work a miracle.... ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... that wave o'er Delphi's steep, Isles, that crown th' Aegean deep, Fields, that cool Ilissus laves, Or where Maeander's amber waves In lingering labyrinths creep, 70 How do your tuneful echoes languish, Mute, but to the voice of anguish! Where each old poetic mountain Inspiration breath'd around; Every shade and hallow'd fountain 75 Murmur'd deep a solemn sound: Till the sad Nine, in Greece's evil hour, Left their Parnassus ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... are honest Arts when their Purpose is such, but infamous when misapplied. It is certain that many a young Woman in this Town has had her Heart irrecoverably won, by Men who have not made one Advance which ties their Admirers, tho' the Females languish with the utmost Anxiety. I have often, by way of Admonition to my female Readers, give them Warning against agreeable Company of the other Sex, except they are well acquainted with their Characters. Women ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele |
