"Woebegone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Golden Horn in a caïque. As soon as we had landed, some woebegone looking fellows were got together and laden with our baggage. Then on we went, dripping, and sloshing, and looking very like men that had been turned back by the Royal Humane Society as being incurably drowned. Supporting our sick, we climbed up shelving steps and threaded many ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... mules had sunk in the mud, ... the wagons were already embedded as far as the axles. The women of the party, lightly clad in cotton, had walked for miles, knee-deep in water, through the brake, exposed to the pitiless pelting of the storm, and were now crouching forlorn and woebegone under the shelter of a tree.... The men were making feeble attempts to light a fire.... 'Colonel,' said one of them as I rode past, 'this is the gate of hell, ain't it?' ... The hardships the negroes go through who are attached to one of these emigrant parties baffle description.... They ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... them out to the aviary, where Methuselah, in effect, was sitting on his perch, most tremulous and woebegone. His feathers shuddered visibly; he could no longer preen himself. "Listen to what he says," the Frenchman exclaimed, in a very serious voice. "It is your last, last chance. If the secret is ever to be unravelled at ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... right in that prophecy. For this was not the Will Pinckney I saw last. So woebegone! so subdued, careworn, and sad! No trace of his once merry self. He is good-looking, which he never was before. But I would rather never have seen him than have found him so changed. I was talking to a ghost. His was a sad story. He had held one bank of the river until forced ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... Dr Thorpe, coming in from the barber. "Sir Tristram looketh as woebegone as may lightly be. I am afeard the Princess Isoude hath been ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... slight clothing at that name, turned their backs, and looked at Katharine above their shoulders. The Lady Rochford recoiled so far that her skirts were in danger from the fire in the great hearth; her woebegone, flaccid face was suddenly drawn at the mention of Cromwell, and she appeared about to kneel at Katharine's feet. She looked round at the figures ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... moody, doleful, downcast, dreary, woeful, somber, unhappy, woebegone, mournful, depressed, despondent, gloomy, melancholy, heavy-spirited, sorrowful, dismal, dejected, disconsolate, miserable, lugubrious. Satiate, sate, surfeit, cloy, glut, gorge. Scoff, jeer, gibe, fleer, sneer, mock, taunt. Secret, covert, surreptitious, furtive, clandestine, underhand, stealthy. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... nation the French undoubtedly lead the world, thinks a contributor to a British weekly. The other day a Paris dentist's servant opened the door to a woebegone patient. ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... the ghostly head and ears might be, or what spiritual connection they might be keeping up with the unhappy body in Darkness Lane; and, therefore, even Miss Pole felt that it was as well not to speak lightly on such subjects, for fear of vexing or insulting that woebegone trunk. At least, so I conjecture; for, instead of the busy clatter usual in the operation, we tied on our cloaks as sadly as mutes at a funeral. Miss Matty drew the curtains round the windows of the chair to shut out disagreeable sights, and the men (either because they were in spirits that ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... vogue at the Opera. He was going to his young wife, I believe, of whom he had had no news for five months. He introduced one of his friends, who was travelling with him, and whose name I do not remember; General Pelissier's son, and a very old man, so pale, and so sad-looking and woebegone, that I felt quite sorry for him. He was a M. Gerson, and was going to Belgium to take his grandson to his godmother's. His two sons had been killed during this pitiful war. One of the sons was married, and his wife had died of sorrow and despair. He was taking the ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... sufficient light on her part of the affair to aid you by advice," I answered. "In these slowly-developing love-affairs there is usually but one great hindering cause. Do you know," I said, laughing as much as I dared, looking into his woebegone face, "that you have not told me what has passed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... admit it frankly) we were to a great degree selfish. As you are aware, the essence of humor is surprise: we found a delicious humor in our campaign of surprising woebegone humanity in moments of crisis. For instance, we used to picket the railway terminals to console commuters who had just missed their trains. We found it uproariously funny to approach a perspiring suburbanite, who had missed the train (let us say) to Mandrake Park, and to press upon him, with ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... she was, but so woebegone did her face become that Albert leapt ashore again, and before she knew what he was doing, picked her up, and was back on the ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... good talk with him before I leave, and Herbert will never spare me another evening. Besides, Uncle John will be only too glad to see us in this suicidal weather, as he will call it." And she sprang upon the boat, laughing at my woebegone face. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... rapacious landlord is the widow's last mite but a Fast-Fish? What is yonder undetected villain's marble mansion with a door-plate for a waif; what is that but a Fast-Fish? What is the ruinous discount which Mordecai, the broker, gets from poor Woebegone, the bankrupt, on a loan to keep Woebegone's family from starvation; what is that ruinous discount but a Fast-Fish? What is the archbishop of Savesoul's income of 100,000 pounds seized from the scant bread and cheese of hundreds of thousands ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... and forces that one admission from her, and makes the great praying woebegone eyes meet his. Then, almost, he pushes ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... to laugh, but Meg looked so woebegone and desperately serious that he restrained the impulse and said very kindly: "I don't yet understand how, having embarked upon such an enterprise, you happen to be here ... alone. Did you quarrel at ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... answered; "it is only Hans with my horse. He escaped also; I will tell you how afterwards." And as I spoke he appeared, a woebegone ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... himself in the new country. Trying to pick and choose instead of manfully choosing a pick and shovel for a beginning, he got hard up. During one of Captain Gilroy's visits to the Bluff, he came across my ex-drayman, looking hungry and woebegone. Invited on board to have a feed, he begged to be allowed to remain; nor, although his assistance was not needed, was he refused. "An nar," he said, his face glowing with conscious pride, "y'ort ter see me in a bloomin' bowt. I ain't a-goain' ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... play does not draw, or that the evening threatens rain, and the Spaniard is devoted to his hat. He would keep out of a revolution if it rained. So that, at the pleasant hour when the orchestra are giving the last tweak to the key of their fiddles, you may see these woebegone wretches rushing distractedly from the Piamonte to the Alcala, offering their tickets at a price which falls rapidly from double to even, and tumbles headlong to half-price at the first note of the ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... having stated that she quitted forever, but that she would write and let them know as soon as she arrived in Ireland what her decision would be, as she was not aware what might be the property left her. The doctor, who had undertaken to conduct her affairs during her absence, looked very woebegone indeed, and I pitied him; he had become so used to her company that he felt miserable at the idea of her departure, although all hopes of ever marrying her had long been dismissed from his mind. Mrs. St. Felix told me that she would be ready that evening, and I returned home and found ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... hat, and set himself in such a ludicrously woebegone attitude, that Miss Arnold had great difficulty in restraining herself from laughing outright. She managed, however, to keep a ...
— Angel Agnes - The Heroine of the Yellow Fever Plague in Shreveport • Wesley Bradshaw
... the beasts out of the yard, and threw everything I could find at them—but you can't hurt a pig. And Dad was horrid—advised me to have them killed, so that at least we could have eggs and bacon!" Norah laughed, in spite of her woebegone tone. ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... with onbelievers, yet I did want to help you, and I brought a note from him wunst and put it under the head of your bed. I was afeard then I was doin' what Timothy forbids, when he says not to be pertakers in other folks's sins, but, you see, how could I help doin' it, when you was lookin' so woebegone like, and Jonas, he axed me to do it. It's awful hard to say you won't to Jonas, you know. So I put the letter there, and I don't doubt your ma mistrusted it, and ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... He arose and stepped into Leslie's boat, pinioned his own with a dextrous paddle, and gave attention to comforting the princess. It somehow needed no words for awhile, until at last Leslie lifted a woebegone face that already looked half-appeased and ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... in his big arm-chair, clad in a gorgeous dressing-gown. He was idle, stupefied, and woebegone. With his bushy, snow-white hair and beard, his puffy cheeks, his sagging mouth, and his clumsy bulk he produced an effect half spectral and half fleshly, but quite pathetically ludicrous. His hand trembled violently as he held ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... out-buildings, fat, sleek cattle and horses, and flocks of beautiful sheep, with feathered fowls of every description. But here, though there were not wanting good farmsteadings, all was desolation and threatened famine; hardly a green blade or leaf was left, and the woebegone looks of some of the people we met wandering aimlessly about, dazed and almost distracted, were pitiful to behold. I was not sorry when a shriek from the engine warned us that it was time ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... baronet's, when joyously setting forth upon the morning's chase, to distinguish Thorncliff, who was a favourite, while he summoned the rest more generally; and the loud jolly tone in which he used to hollo, "Call Thornie—call all of them," contrasted sadly with the woebegone and self-abandoning note in which he uttered the disconsolate words which I have above quoted. He mentioned the contents of his will, and supplied me with an authenticated copy;—the original he had deposited with my old acquaintance ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... in the air as to the future as I was in the russet days of Bethel. But one of these days, let us hope we may gather over a bottle of something sound and mellow, and laugh together over our adventure into the land of the woebegone. I do not take to it, tho' they say some people live in it by choice, for they find something to talk of there, and feel saintly because they suffer. Well, we will have more knowledge in that happy future and more of sympathy. What ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... hands of its inhabitants? Should I be taken and offered up as a burnt-offering to those hideous guardians of the pass? It might be so. I shuddered at the thought, yet the horrors of solitude had now fairly possessed me; and so dazed was I, and chilled, and woebegone, that I could lay hold of no idea firmly amid the crowd of fancies that kept wandering in ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... humming. Chrissie took up a book and sat down, utterly ignoring the woebegone figure which stood the regulation three yards from her, twisting ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... circular arm-chair for her somewhat nearer the fire. She declined it in a manner that argued something like incoherence, which occasioned O'Rorke to, glance at her most earnestly. He started, on observing the wild lustre of her eye, and the woebegone paleness of ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... man disappeared completely beneath the surface, for the mud hole was rather deep just where Tom had thrown him. Then there was another violent agitation of the surface, and a very woebegone and muddy face was raised from the slough, followed by the rest of the figure of the man. Slowly he got to his feet, mud and water dripping from him. He cleared his face by rubbing his hands over it, not that it made his countenance clean, but it removed masses of mud from his eyes, ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton
... this time, had regained his senses, and was sitting up in the middle of the trail rubbing his shoulder and wearing a most woebegone and dazed look upon his expressive countenance. Observing this, Chip walked toward him, and ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... proceeded, with a brisk exchange of pieces and incivilities and a fluctuation of fortunes, till the little banker lost his queen as the result of an incautious move, and, after several woebegone contortions of his shoulders and hands, declined further contest. A sleek-headed piccolo rushed forward to remove the board, and the erstwhile combatants resumed the courteous dignity that they discarded ...
— When William Came • Saki
... up, glaring first at Simpson, then at the little muddy creatures that were attempting to hide behind his waders, looking so forlorn and chastised and woebegone. "All right," Kielland said, after a pregnant pause. "That's all. You won't need to relay that order to the ship. Forget about Number Seven dredge. Just get your files in order and get a landing craft down here for me. The sooner ...
— The Native Soil • Alan Edward Nourse
... by her kindness to the poor forlorn woman for any lack of that cordiality which might have been shown to her from the Great House. Mrs Eames was a poor forlorn woman,—forlorn even during the time of her husband's life, but very woebegone now in her widowhood. In matters of importance the squire had been kind to her; arranging for her little money affairs, advising her about her house and income, also getting for her that appointment for her son. But he snubbed her when ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... attack from Indians. A strange wild looking company were seen approaching, but, as they came closer, they were discovered to be white men. They were a striking sight, numbering fourteen, in the most ragged and woebegone condition imaginable. They had been on a trapping expedition, but having met with nothing but disasters from the beginning, were now straggling back ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... shadows and voices, but this time the shadows came on heavy feet and weary, and the voices were forlorn. One feebly cried, "Hola!" And round the belt of trees straggled the rout that had left them an hour or so earlier. But now they were sodden and dejected, draggled and woebegone, as sorry a spectacle as so many ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... not been so woebegone she would have laughed at this string of disheartening reasons for her being so falsely encouraged to compete with gifted creatures like Rosamond Merton, but her gloom was too deep and too real to see the funny side of anything ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... in the narrow streets. The flight of the crown prince's army from Larissa had just been announced in Arta, but Coke was probably the most woebegone object ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... knows," said Esther, still in the same tragic, woebegone manner. "She may. I believe schoolmistresses are very strict. We shall know when we get there." Poppy's face grew longer and longer. "Mother says she is a dear old lady, but—but mother forgets, and she never had to live with her, as we've ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch |
