"Plaintiveness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of plaintiveness and malice, he scolded me. At last I stood silent, waiting till he should be pleased to dismiss me. At any rate I was thankful that he entertained no suspicion as to my errand. Had I spoken a word of Mr. Rassendyll he would not have let me go. He had fallen foul of me before on learning ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... became frightened, and as the sun was now setting, I determined to get back to the cabin. I did so, and went down much faster than I had gone up, for as it grew dark I became the more alarmed. The only thing that re-assured me was the softness and plaintiveness of the voice—not like Jackson's, but as of someone who would not think ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... 200 to 500 trained voices, and the music is glorious beyond description. Much of it is in minor keys, and a strain of plaintiveness mingles with all its majesty and power. All the seats are free, and tourists from all parts of the world are to be found among the vast multitudes that assemble at every service. Think of seeing the Holy Communion broken bread, and water from the Jordan River, instead of ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... is her voice," said the other inconsequently. "How is it that French actresses have such beautiful voices? Freedom from fogs can't be the only cause. And it's got all that delicious plaintiveness——" ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... passionate feeling, the speech is likely to be much varied in pitch, broken by frequent abrupt stops, and decisive inflections. In the case of the expression of tenderness or pathos, there is a lingering tone, with the quality and inflection of plaintiveness, qualified, in public speech, by such dignity and strength as is fitting. In all cases the quality of voice is of course the main thing, and this, not being technical or mechanical, must depend on the speaker's entering ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... an accident at sea, but by cramp, unrescued, while bathing, too late in the autumn, in a wretched little river during a holiday visit to the home of a shipmate. Then Marian's unnatural marriage, in itself a kind of spiritless turning of the other cheek to fortune: her actual wretchedness and plaintiveness, her greasy children, her impossible claims, her odious visitors—these things completed the proof of the heaviness, for them all, of the hand of fate. Kate confessedly described them with an excess of impatience; it was much of her charm for Densher that she gave in general that turn to her ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... did not prevent her from opening her dark eyes with a remote effect of pathos entirely disconnected with its reception. "And you climbed all these flights to give it to me!" she said, with gravely smiling plaintiveness. "Thank you. Why should you have been so good? ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes) |
