"Languishing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the common man scarcely experiences without a sense of shame. The poet came to be essentially the man who felt acutely, and anything that was a "feeling" came to have a sort of value of its own as denoting poetic sensitiveness. Hence the excessive softness, the indefiniteness, the languishing and the effeminacy which since the beginning of the nineteenth century have been tolerated in poetry because poetry was supposed to be the proper vehicle for such weakness. It is significant that the most admired ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... apart from this accident of priority of issue, is, as far as we are aware, nowhere asserted. A simpler solution is probably that, of the three novels she had written or sketched by 1811, Pride and Prejudice was languishing under the stigma of having been refused by one bookseller without the formality of inspection, while Northanger Abbey was lying perdu in another bookseller's drawer at Bath. In these circumstances it is intelligible that she should ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... hung with tiny yellow ones. Some sunny nooks gleamed like green silken stuff embroidered with bright patterns; other shadier corners offered the seclusion of alcoves and an aroma of love, the balmy warmth, as it were, of a posy languishing on a woman's bosom. The rose bushes had whispering voices too. And the rose bushes were full of ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... 1870, when, at his family tea-table as he stood to say grace;—it was his wont to say grace before meat and to stand in doing so,—he was stricken, had to sit, then be helped to his bed. He never rose, though languishing a number of days. He died at nine in the morning, Oct. 12, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... intention of working them out more elaborately later on. In the last act I introduced an episode, which, however, I did not develop eventually, namely, the visit to Tristan's deathbed by Parsifal during his search for the Holy Grail. The picture of Tristan languishing, yet unable to die of his wound, identified itself in my mind with Amfortas in the Romance of ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... he had a certain number of galleys languishing at Dunkirk for want of exercise, and suggested that Captain Salt had better go and see for himself what they were ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... own it is very dull here, and I certainly should not have come had not a little bird told me at Mrs. Cameron's dance who was coming here," said the Captain, with a languishing air. ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... a half-breed girl, in an obscure village, should resent his advances; he for whom, if his own understanding was to be trusted, so many bright eyes were languishing. At the evening meal he received courteous, kindly attention from Annette; but this was all. He related with much eloquence all that he had seen in the big world in the East, during his school days, and took good care that his hosts should know how important a person he was ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... among the champions of the cross, and having secretly gained the Count of Tripoli, who commanded their armies, he invaded the frontiers with a mighty power; and, aided by the treachery of that count, gained over them at Tiberiade a complete victory, which utterly annihilated the force of the already languishing kingdom of Jerusalem. The holy city itself fell into his hands, after a feeble resistance; the kingdom of Antioch was almost entirely subdued; and except some maritime towns, nothing considerable remained of those boasted conquests, which, near a century before, it had cost the efforts ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... if it were at the peril of my life. I was not an over-brave boy, but the thought of my father languishing in prison because of these men's misdeeds, nerved me ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer
... enjoy did not make me lose the remembrance of my brethren whom I had left languishing among the rocks of Abyssinia, or groaning in the prisons of Suaquem, whom since I could not set at liberty without the viceroy's assistance, I went to implore it, and did not fail to make use of every motive ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... so airily. It was very nice and not too naughty to be cuddled and kissed by a handsome gentleman, with a big moustache, fine eyes, and baritone voice! but she was not prepared to go further than that—just yet; only pretending that by-and-by—perhaps; firing his heart with languishing sighs, the soft unspoken "Ask me no more, for at a touch I yield"; and then she would slip from his arms, and run away to put by the little present of sham jewellery, and think it all very fine fun. They were amusing themselves. His serious love-making ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... "in the Nominative Case," and "in the feminine Gender," he affects to sing in a particularly languishing air, as if confident that it was irresistible. This Edwin, in all his comic characters, still preserves something so inexpressibly good-tempered in his countenance, that notwithstanding all his burlesques and even grotesque ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... mere scratch. This strengthened an opinion which was then gradually gaining ground, that Caspar was an impostor; for it was firmly believed by some that he had inflicted this wound upon himself, as well as the one received in 1829, in order to quicken the somewhat languishing interest taken in him. Nor did they give up this opinion when the wound was found to be fatal. They then boldly asserted that he had wounded himself more severely than he had intended. And not ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... mother had been ailing since winter, but I had not spoken to you about it from fear of making you uneasy while so far from home. As for myself, I had not been very well; and there was yet a third person (guess the name if you can!) who was languishing from not seeing you. But content yourself, my dear Leon: we have been recuperating more and more since the time of your return is almost fixed. We begin to believe that the mines of the Ural will not swallow up that which is dearer to us than all the world. Thank God! ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... alas! too often is there a falling off in devotion, in singleness of heart, in perseverance, in watchfulness against besetting sins, when the prayers are fewer and colder, the praises fainter, and the Christian, after languishing for a time in this divided state, hardly making an effort to return, becomes conscious, to his alarm, how far he has wandered, and feels with our sweet poet, in the ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... have assisted at this little scene. Your highness does himself discredit in referring to the performance as trifling, for, by the Blood, I never saw so accomplished an actor. The Signorina's talent likewise astonished me, though it was confined to mere pantomime, one might have thought it the languishing of a love-sick girl. By your favour, Signorina, there are indeed certain letters in my saddle-bags which my groom has in charge, but the varlet has gone to his supper in the servants' hall. I, too, am hungry and will seek the steward. The letters, with your ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... years after, when several inhabitants of the same village perished miserably. In the space of three months, seventeen persons of different sexes and different ages died of vampirism; some without being ill, and others after languishing two or three days. It is reported, amongst other things, that a girl named Stanoska, daughter of the Heyducq Jotiuetzo, who went to bed in perfect health, awoke in the middle of the night all in a tremble, ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... glorifying haze. For high in heaven hovered a gleaming host of faces, veiled with wings, around the pillows of the dying children. And such beings sympathize equally with sorrow that grovels and with sorrow that soars. Such beings pity alike the children that are languishing in death, and the children that live only ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... in my course I pass on the torch to you, as our Axius here is doubtless languishing while he has listened to all this natural history, for I have said ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... he kept away from the villa, pretending pressing business, and left the poor isolated princess to her languishing love-dreams. ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... the camp broke up, Saladin and many of the soldiers entering Jerusalem; but still the pair were left languishing in their dismal cells, which were fashioned from old tombs. One evening, while Rosamund was kneeling; at prayer before she sought her bed, the door of the place was opened, and there appeared a glittering captain and a ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... greatly discouraged the friends of the Union, who felt that a vigorous prosecution of the war was the only hope of the nation. Slavery and the Union had joined in a terrible struggle for the supremacy. Both could not exist. Our treasury was empty; our bonds depreciated; our credit poor; our industries languishing; and the channels of commerce were choked. European governments were growing impatient at the dilatory policy of our nation; and every day we were losing sympathy and friends. Our armies were being repulsed and routed; and Columbia's war eagles were wearily flapping their pinions in the blood-dampened ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... tears at the sight of that faint, cold smile. She thought of Clinton, as he had first appeared among them, splendid in youthful beauty, and then of Clinton, languishing in chains, and doomed to long imprisonment in a lonely dungeon. She thought of her sister's wasted affections, betrayed confidence, and blasted hopes, and contrasting her lot with her own blissful destiny, she turned aside her head ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... Belsize was in or whether she wasn't. She might be in the garden, or she might be on the river. Would I step inside and wait a minute? I would and did, but it was more minutes than one that I was kept languishing in an interior as dingy as the outside of the house. I had time to take the whole thing in. There were massive remnants of deservedly unfashionable furniture. The sofa I can still see in my mind's eye, and the ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... slovenly or commonplace in his bearing, nor, on the other hand, did he affect gentility; but there was that quiet self-confidence about him which belongs to the man whose mind and body are equally developed. The girl was a slender, ideal creature, with languishing black eyes and a rosy, chubby face so full of colour that even round her eyes one could not detect a spot of pallor—just such a beauty, in fact, as the world is apt to make much of. They contrasted prettily enough—blonde and brunette, blue eyes and black; he so bold, vigorous, and sedate, she ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... meat. Being hungry, I have become sinful. One solicitous of food has no shame. It is hunger that is urging me to this misdeed. It is for this that I desire to take away that haunch of dog's meat. My life-breaths are languishing. Hunger has destroyed my Vedic lore. I am weak and have lost my senses. I have no scruple about clean or unclean food. Although I know that it is sinful, still I wish to take away that haunch of dog's meat. After I had failed to obtain ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... could not escape, and where suffocation and hunger were gradually killing them, but they heard the songs of love from the two swallows, who thus so cruelly made them wipe out the crime of their theft. During the fight the female remained alone, languishing and motionless, on an angle of the roof. It was with difficulty, and with a heavy flight, that she left this spot to take up her abode in her new house; and, doubtless, while the agony of the sparrows was being filled up, she laid her eggs, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... so disheartening, so hopeless seemed the task, that Mother wavered in her mission; a choking, suffocating sensation blocked all her channels of delivery. The very flowers on the window- sill, she noted, drooped in a languishing decline; they had a lifeless air as of flowers that struggle for existence in deep shadow and have never known the kiss of sunshine. Through the inch of opened window stole a soft breath of the night air, but it turned black and sluggish the moment it came in. And just then, as Mother hovered there ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... years," said Betty. "The lamentable affair took place just before Sir Jovian's death, and the shock may have hastened it, for he had long been in a languishing state. It was the more unfortunate, since he had made Mr. Belamour sole personal guardian to his only surviving son, and appointed him, together with my father and another gentleman, trustee for the Belamour property; and there has been much difficulty in consequence of ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wonderful fluency, but he abstained from making the tiresome compliments which so many Frenchmen reel off even at first acquaintance. He had really beautiful almond-shaped eyes, but he never once turned them to her with that languishing look which young men with almond eyes seem to think quite irresistible. Surely, all this ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... that week. Anticipating her arrival, the young man's ardent imagination had again fanned what he delighted to think of as his love for her into flame. During the last months of the winter he had not played the languishing swain as conscientiously as during the autumn. Like the sailor in the song "is 'eart was true to Poll" always, but he had broken away from his self-imposed hermitage in his room at the Snow place several times to attend sociables, entertainments ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... "That youth with languishing brown eyes, who parted his 'hyacinthine tresses' in the middle of his head; whose moustache required Ehrenberg's strongest glasses—and who absolutely believed that Ristori singled him out of her vast audiences as the most appreciative of her listeners; who was eternally humming 'Ernani' and raving ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... giddy end. Men and women, boys and girls, old folks with white hair and young folks in knee breeches and short skirts, laughing and talking crisscrossed the floor this way and that seeking seats. The girls and women sinking affectedly or plumping in matter-of-fact style down into their places, with languishing upward looks if they be young and in tune with the moon outside, with red faced jollity and much frankness of chatter if they were married and perhaps had a husband and children likewise disporting themselves, made long rows about the walls of the schoolhouse, looking for the world like orderly ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... to me, and save yourself from persecution and disgrace. Save the woman whom you wish to benefit, from the blackest imputations; from hazard to her life and her fame; from languishing in dungeons; ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... harvest. Through him they had been exiled all these years from the home that was their birthright. The husband of her early womanhood might have been spared if only they could have nursed him back to health under the cool shade of those grand old trees instead of languishing in the hot city. Help this man? This incarnation of cruel selfishness? Not she;—his boy should suffer the extreme penalty of the law. How could she lift a voice to save him! "His boy?" Ah, through her tender mother's heart there darted ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... time when they are to choose an occupation, instead of crowding the other classes, would return to the farms of their fathers, their own, or those of others, and replenish and invigorate a calling, now languishing under contempt and oppression. The charitable schools, instead of storing their pupils with a lore which the present state of society does not call for, converted into schools of agriculture, might restore them to that ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... whose favorite joke it had always been, from the day of their first acquaintance at Valentine's house, to pretend to be violently in love with her. He was now standing with his arms wide open, the toasting-fork in one hand and the muffin he had burnt in the other, trying to look languishing, and entreating Mrs. Peckover to give ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... spell, and speak French, and play upon the harpsichord; then she dances finely, has a good figure, and is very well inclined; but, she's deficient in spirit, and so susceptible — and so tender forsooth! — truly, she has got a languishing eye, and reads romances. — Then there's her brother, 'squire Jery, a pert jackanapes, full of college-petulance and self-conceit; proud as a German count, and as hot and hasty as a Welch mountaineer. As for that fantastical animal, my sister Tabby, you are no stranger to her ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... Gusher, that Bowling Green was half inclined to look on him with favor. Mr. Gusher was a stock beau as well as a stock boarder at the City Hotel, where he was an object of admiration with all the languishing young ladies of the house. Indeed, the landlord of the City Hotel regarded Mr. Gusher as a valuable parlor ornament for the entertainment of his female guests of an evening, for he was an exquisite dancer, could sing, and make such gracious bows. Now and then a sensible ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... happiness now. He is free from all sin and sorrow, done with the weary marchings and fightings, the hunger and thirst, cold and heat and fatigue of war; no longer in danger from shot or bursting shell, or of lying wounded and suffering on the battle-field, or languishing in hospital or prison." ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... After languishing in this disgusting den for half an hour, the lady of the house brought in my dinner, which she had prepared herself. She was very polite and amiable; but looked at me closely, and sighed continually. I asked the reason of her sorrow. She answered, "that she became ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... not take her broken engagement much to heart was the general opinion in Rutherford. Would a girl play tennis, dance, or organise picnics, they said, if she were languishing in heart-sickness?—and there was certainly no appearance of effort in the readiness with which Audrey responded to any plan that her young friends proposed. As they remarked, 'Audrey Ross was always up to fun.' But Michael Burnett could have told them ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... that I should see his country in a good light, helped me considerably on this journey, and I caught the train. I had the doubtful pleasure of reflecting that at least half of my fellow-passengers were still languishing at the first Szeged station, victims of the division of labour and the verification of passports. "I do hope you get a hotel after all this," said the diplomat. "For my part, I wired to an actress," he added, with a knowing ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... Hungarians, Danes, and Swedes—with unkempt hair and fierce flashing eyes, performed upon every variety of native instrument, or sang wild national songs in some strange language—concerts to which Lady Laura brought herds of more or less fashionable people, all of whom were languishing to know "that sweet Mrs. Granger." My lady had taken pains to advertise her share in the manufacturer's marriage. Every one belonging to her set knew that the match was her contriving, and that Clarissa had to thank ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... system of cultivation and manufacture of cacao, must be beneficial to the island, as well as to individuals; for it cannot be denied that the cultivation of cacoa will still prove advantageous in proportion to the care bestowed on it. Indeed its cultivation is at present languishing, not so much from inadequate prices, as from a want of proper attention to ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... efforts, however, the dinner was a languishing affair. Archer noticed that his wife's way of showing herself at her ease with foreigners was to become more uncompromisingly local in her references, so that, though her loveliness was an encouragement to admiration, her conversation was a chill to repartee. ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... after all, were in himself. His plan was originally bad; and, had it been better, he was quite unequal to the execution of it. The results were unfortunate to all concerned in it. Ypsilanti himself was arrested by Austria, and thrown into the unwholesome prison of Mongatz, where, after languishing for six years, he perished miserably. Some of the subordinate officers prolonged the struggle in a guerilla style for some little time; but all were finally suppressed. Many were put to death; many escaped into neutral ground; and it is gratifying to add, that of ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... a soft, dreamy waltz. It was full of bewitching invitation. No one could resist it. It passed into a wild, stirring polka, into a maddening galop, back again to a dreamy waltz. Now it was dizzying, whirling; now it was languishing, full of repose. Now it was the burst and clangor of a full orchestra; now it was the bewitching appeal of a single voice that invited to dance. Up and down the long room, across the broad room, the dancers moved. The room, that had been so full of quiet, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... associated with the magistrates of each city in the command of the forces it was bound to contribute towards the national defence. Thus while the inhabitants of the great towns in other parts of Europe were languishing in feudal servitude, the members of the Castilian corporations, living under the protection of their own laws and magistrates in time of peace, and commanded by their own officers in war, were in full enjoyment of all ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... a regard for you and your interests that I will knock any man on the head that I observe to be of my mind, and to like you. Mr. Truman, the other day, looked at you in so languishing a manner that I am resolved to run him through to-morrow morning. This, I think, he deserves for his guilt in adoring you, than which I cannot have a greater reason for murdering him, except it be that, you also approve him. Whoever says he dies ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... mother survived the loss of her husband but a few days, and died of a broken heart, leaving Margery and her little brother to the wide world; but, poor woman, it would have melted your heart to have seen how frequently she heaved her head, while she lay speechless, to survey with languishing looks her little orphans, as much as to say, "Do, Tommy, do, Margery, come with me." They cried, poor things, and she sighed away her soul; and I hope ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... was very fond of a waltz," answered Burleigh, whose best efforts in that line could result in nothing better than a waddle. "But of late years I—I—since my bereavement—have practically withdrawn from society." Then, with a languishing smile, he added, "I shall be tempted to re-enter the list now," and the major drew his chair nearer by full an inch, and prepared to be ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... tried to mutter Of the fan that she held to her face; She said it was "utterly utter," And waved it with languishing grace. ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... length of which depends on the strength of Caroline's principles, she appears to be languishing; and when Adolphe, anxious for decorum's sake, as he sees her stretched out upon the sofa like a snake in the sun, asks her, "What is the matter, love? What ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... says nothing, but I can see that she does not think the less; her languishing attitudes, her hand that at each moment gently touches mine, confirm the suspicions that her look of dismay a few moments ago awoke within me: evidently my physical charms speak to her imagination, which in spite of years has remained full of romance! I shall leave with the ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... whose face lay deep and invisible in his healthful visage before: for as from our beginning we run through variety of looks, before we come to consistent and settled faces; so before our end, by sick and languishing alterations, we put on new visages: and in our retreat to earth, may fall upon such looks which from community of seminal originals were before ...
— Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' - an Appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... evening. No breeze was stirring in the garden; no cool dews refreshed the parched and heated earth; yet from the languishing flowers rich sweets exhaled. The plash of a fountain fell pleasantly upon the ear, conveying in its sound a sense of freshness to the fervid air; while deep and drowsy murmurs hummed heavily beneath the trees, making the twilight slumberously musical. The westering sun, which ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... lump of sugar. That was my only recreation—to repeat my master's words and eat sugar. I was gradually losing all sense of honor and truth, and to be praised and get a lump of sugar I would rest my beak in my claw and say, with a languishing air, "My head aches; let me alone." My head did ache, too, sometimes, remembering the days when I knew only the language of my fathers, when the sweet voice of my mother waked me in the morning to pass a happy day playing ...
— Harper's Young People, November 18, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... extraordinary Being in whose hands the fate of millions is deposited reverse the gloomy picture, and restore to a country long wasted by revolutions, and warfare, and languishing in the midst of the monuments of her glory, the benign blessings of enduring tranquillity. But if this hope prove fruitless, if all the countries of continental Europe are destined to be compressed into one empire, if their devoted princes are doomed to adorn the triumphs ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... you, Nancy?" asks Barbara, who, enervated by the first hot day, is languishing in the rocking-chair, slowly see-sawing. "What could it have been that she might not as well have said ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... evacuating the fort. In a few weeks, he managed to effect his escape from Howe's winter quarters at Philadelphia, and immediately joined the American army at Valley Forge. The privations of that encampment, dreadfully aggravated the sufferings of poor Kemp; but, after languishing during the season in one of the military hospitals, he resumed active service in the spring, and served in May under Lafayette at the affair of Barren Hill. At the battle of Monmouth, he fought with his usual ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... strongly. And when I think about it now, here in my little provincial town in Holland, where I shine my own boots, then after all I feel compassion for the two - for my cool, well-bred father, as well as for my pale, languishing, distinguished mother. For they considered their high position just and righteous, and complete, and did not see in how much it was wanting. My mother did not see how tasteless the fashion was, - her draped and be-ruffled gown in which she thought herself so elegant and stately, ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... It came languishing down a square funnel that blinded a window in the staircase wall, through which the sky was ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... is neither alms nor a favor that I ask of you, it is justice. I have for two months been languishing at 120 leagues from my household. Do not, by further delay, force the father of a family, for want of means, to leave a state for which he has sacrificed everything. ... Have regard for our position, citizen. It is oppressive, and my demand is just. There is more than one ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... do? Will he take this advantage to destroy the sinner? No. Will he let him alone in his apostasy? No. Will he leave him to recover himself by the strength of his now languishing grace? No. What then? Why, he will seek this man out till he finds him, and bring him home to himself again: "For thus saith the Lord God, Behold I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out, as a shepherd seeketh ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... happy time. The days were peaceful and serene; the nights brought with them neither fear nor care; no languishing in a wretched prison, or associating with wretched men; nothing but pleasant and happy thoughts. Every morning he went to a white-headed old gentleman, who lived near the little church: who taught him ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... that proud, unyielding spirit of his father, yet he was like him, inasmuch as he possessed the same dignified, reserved manner, the which, having called forth the startling declaration from manoeuvering mothers, and languishing daughters, that "Mr. Clarence Delwood would look farther than Boston for a bride." So they had folded their gossamer wings with resignation, receiving his polite attentions with pleasure, yet never being able to penetrate the reserve which hung around him. To say that our hero was ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... this life, Mr Henry Cozens, midshipman, after languishing fourteen days with the wound he had received in his cheek: We bury'd him in as decent a manner as time, place, and circumstances would allow. There have died sundry ways since the ship first struck, forty-five men; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... Billy sat up and looked at Lydia. Neither spoke for a few moments. The sun was sinking and all the world was enveloped in a crimson dust. There had been a drought now for six weeks. Even Amos' garden was languishing. ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... the corn harvest! It's all over with them, I fear;" and the gardener went his way. Alas! what he said was true; and before many days had passed, the shattered Carnations were rotted with lying in the wet and dirt on the ground. The white Lily was languishing discoloured on its broken stalk; the Convolvulus flowers could no longer be recognized, they were so coated over with mud stains; the Honeysuckle was trailing along among battered Sweet Peas, who never could succeed in shaking the soil from their fragrant ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... half-forgotten, abode within the City, under constraint disguised as honour, the conqueror's hostages. One among them, of noblest name, Flavius Anicius Maximus, broken in health by the troubles of the time and by private sorrow, languishing all but unto death in the heavy air of the Tiber, was permitted to seek relief in a visit to which he would of his domains in Italy. His birth, his repute, gave warrant of loyalty to the empire, and his coffers furnished the price put upon such a favour by Byzantine greed. Maximus chose ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... ten thousand of the King's soldiers would be running round the walls of Mansoul at midnight, shouting and lifting up the voice for the battle. Sometimes, again, some of them in the town would be wounded, and their cry and lamentable voice would be heard, to the great molestation of the now languishing town of Mansoul. Yea, so distressed with those that laid siege against them were they, that, I dare say, Diabolus, their king, had in these days his rest ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... grudge against Rockland. In fact, if what I hear about Wat Snell's attempt to drug me is true, I have every reason to be grateful toward Manager French, for he caused Snell's arrest, and it is likely that Wat is languishing in the Rockland ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... enlisted the Londoners, the yeomanry, and those country-gentlemen whom Mrs. Hutchinson styled the "worsted-stocking members." The Puritans gradually found themselves excluded from the manorial halls, and the Cavaliers (a more inconvenient privation) from the blacksmiths' shops. Languishing at first under aristocratic leadership, the cause of the Parliament first became strong when the Self-denying Ordinance abolished all that weakness. Thus the very sincerity of the civil conflict drew the lines deeper; had the battles been fought ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... additions and improvements in the title of new editions of books, has been too generally, though sometimes justly, understood as little else than a contrivance of the bookseller, to animate a languishing sale; but this is far from being the case in respect to the works of our author, whose maturer sentiments on many of the subjects, he had before treated of, cannot be well comprehended, unless by a careful ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead
... obscene literature. The mass of stories published in the great weeklies and the cheap novels are mischievous. When the devil determines to take charge of a young soul, be often employs a very ingenious method. He slyly hands a little novel filled with "voluptuous forms," "reclining on bosoms," "languishing eyes," etc. ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... as if she was bitten by that Neapolitan spider which, according to the legend, is such a wonderful dance-incentor. She would have the music quicker and quicker. She sank on Kew's arm, and clung on his support. She poured out all the light of her languishing eyes into his face. Their glances rather confused than charmed him. But the bystanders were pleased; they thought it so good-hearted of the Duchesse, after the little quarrel, to make a public ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... without a cloud, and a soft breeze, fragrant with orange blossom, blew gently over the trees, I felt as if we might have rode on for ever, without fatigue, and in a state of the most perfect enjoyment. It were hard to say whether the first soft breath of morning, or the languishing and yet more fragrant airs of evening were most enchanting. Sometimes we passed through a village of scattered Indian huts, with little fires of sticks lighted in their courts, glowing on the bronze faces of the women and children; and at the sound of our horses' hoofs, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... was in want: languishing away, in dire and pining want. With the baby in her arms, she wandered here and there, in quest of occupation; and with its thin face lying in her lap, and looking up in hers, did any work for any wretched ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... note? Does the same kind of singing suit all voices alike? Is the same method adapted to every mind? You will never persuade me that the same attitudes, the same steps, the same movements, the same gestures, the same dances will suit a lively little brunette and a tall fair maiden with languishing eyes. So when I find a master giving the same lessons to all his pupils I say, "He has his own routine, but he knows nothing ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... "relapsed." Great preparations had been made to strike terror into the hearts of heretics by a series of horrible exhibitions, in the course of which the numerous victims, many of them persons of high rank, distinguished learning, and exemplary lives, who had long been languishing in the dungeons of the holy office, were to be consigned to the flames. The first auto-da fe had been consummated at Valladolid on the 21st May (1559), in the absence of the King, of course, but in the presence ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Arethusa's knapsack. At last, with mysterious roguishness, he inquired what it contained, and on being answered, shook his head with kindly incredulity. "Non," said he, "non, vous avez des portraits." And then with a languishing appeal, "Voyons, show me the portraits!" It was some little time before the Arethusa, with a shout of laughter, recognized his drift. By portraits he meant indecent photographs; and in the Arethusa, an austere and rising author, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... made issues without having sufficient security to answer all demands. The consequence was, that his notes advanced rapidly in public estimation, and were received at one per cent more than specie. It was not long before the trade of the country felt the benefit. Languishing commerce began to lift up her head; the taxes were paid with greater regularity and less murmuring; and a degree of confidence was established that could not fail, if it continued, to become still more advantageous. In the course of a year, Law's notes rose to fifteen per ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... like a minx of a girl to think a man cannot see through her spite," he said. "Bet is dying to be a woman and have the fellows ogling her. She is a pretty chit and will be the languishing kind, like the die-away Maddon who is so 'modist.' She is thin enough to be made 'modist' by it. No breeches for her, but farthingales and 'modesty pieces' high enough to graze her chin. 'Some of their words we did not understand'"—reading from the ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... pity. Some he stifles in their cradles, others he frights into convulsions, whereof they suddenly die, some he flays alive, others he tears limb from limb, great numbers are offered to Moloch, and the rest, tainted by his breath, die of a languishing consumption. ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... had recited from their star parts, Morleena had the soles of her shoes chalked and danced her fancy dance, and Henrietta Petowker took down her back hair and repeated "The Blooddrinker's Burial." The old man looked over the wall, too, and threw garden vegetables and languishing glances at Mrs. Nickleby who encouraged his advances. There was no time for the girls to learn the parts in the busy, crowded, late-open holiday evenings of department stores, but they all entered into the pantomime and interpreted the reading ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... the prospect or other view, But all the country that about it lyes Presents it selfe vnto our mortall eyes; Save that vpon each hill, by leavie trees, The Sun at highest his scorching heat may leese: There, languishing, my selfe I will betake As heaven shal please and only for ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... and lovable, who would make a delightful mother of children and of a home a haven of refuge, languishing alone for want of a suitable offer ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... and Goethe unfurled the banner of a new time in 'Goetz von Berlichingen.' The artificial and sentimental trivialities of the pigtail age were superseded almost at a stroke, and the petty formalism under which the literature of Germany was languishing fell about the powdered wigs of its professional representatives. The new impulse came from England. As in France, Rousseau, preaching the gospel of a return to nature, found his texts in English writers, so in Germany the poets ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... was only a girl of seventeen," said Harry, as a languishing brunette, with large, liquid black eyes, and a voluptuous figure, glided by them in the waltz. "How soon these Southerners develope into women! They beat the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... of the galaxy will give the reader a faint idea of their charms, unless the reader accord with Juliet's somewhat peevish "What's in a name." Thus, we find Julia, the queen of sentimentality; Belinda, gay and sparkling; Madeline, the early prey of despair; Lolah, languishing amid Eastern magnificence; the Orphan, pencilled in the very simplicity of nature, and finely contrasted with the coquetry of art; Theresa, the very type of romance; Geraldine, Meditation, the Bride, and Lucy Ashton. But we must not omit the heroine of our ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various
... of Gloucester and Marblehead, nurtured in the school of protection, declared made their last state worse than the first. So the tinkering of statutes and treaties went on, even to the present day, the fisheries languishing meanwhile, not in our country alone, but in all engaged in the effort to get special privileges on the fishing grounds. Whenever man tries thus to monopolize, by sharp practise or exclusive laws, the bounty which God has provided in abundance for all, the end is confusion, ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... she gave him a languishing glance—with one eye, the other trying to see what it was ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... triumphale of the poetess is a worthy accompaniment. Among the other engravings the frontispiece and opposite page of this work are extremely rich and beautiful: Psyche borne by the Zephyrs to the Island of Pleasure, is full of languishing beauty; Medora, painted by Pickersgill and engraved by Rolls, is a delightfully placid moonlight scene; the Declaration, easy and graceful: there are, however, in our opinion, two decided failures in the volume, which, for the credit of the artists, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... they played at boston, the only game the queen understood. When the fat old Guerbet had mimicked Madame Isaure, Gaubertin's wife, laughed at her languishing airs, imitated her thin voice, her pinched mouth, and her juvenile ways; when the Abbe Taupin had related one of the tales of his repertory; when Lupin had told of some event at Ville-aux-Fayes, and Madame Soudry had been deluged with compliments ad nauseum, the company would say: "We ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... the field, we should meet like tigers; but when he sees me here disarmed and helpless, he forgets his animosity." (At which, as I had ventured to expect, this beardless champion coloured to the ears for pleasure.) "Ah, my dear young lady," I continued, "there are many of your countrymen languishing in my country, even as I do here. I can but hope there is found some French lady to convey to each of them the priceless consolation of her sympathy. You have given me alms; and more than alms—hope; and while you were absent I was not ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of a lass, spare and bright-eyed, with a changing, hectic colour, hysterical, and full of fancies, fickle as the winds, now flighty and full of praise and laughter, now peevish and languishing. For the rest, the very idol of her husband's heart. A word from her, a passing phrase of dislike for Heathcliff, was enough to revive all young Earnshaw's former hatred of the boy. Heathcliff was turned out of their ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... deserved. The Professor enjoyed a good laugh at my expense, and assured me that I had ruined for ever all hopes of retaining the Councillor's friendship. Antonia was too dear to me, I might say too holy, for me to go and play the part of the languishing lover and stand gazing up at her window, or to fill the role of the lovesick adventurer. Completely upset, I went away from H—-; but, as is usual in such cases, the brilliant colors of the picture ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... Stopping a day at Annapolis, he visited the shop of a well-known optician and ordered seven powerful telescopes, one for every day in the week. In recognition of this munificent patronage of the State's languishing industries, the Governor commissioned him ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... sort of languishing verse of the mystical type an effect of quaintness and dreaminess is produced by emphasizing the last syllables of words whose accent by right falls on a previous syllable. This is done by pairing them with pronounced rhymes. For instance, "tears" rhymes ...
— Rhymes and Meters - A Practical Manual for Versifiers • Horatio Winslow
... permitted her to go out only at intervals. La Rochefoucauld had the gout, and they consoled each other. Mme. de Sevigne thought it better not to have the genius of a Pascal, than to have so many ailments. "Mme. De La Fayette is always languishing, M. de La Rochefoucauld always lame," she writes; "we have conversations so sad that it seems as if there were nothing more to do but to bury us; the garden of Mme. de La Fayette is the prettiest spot in the world, everything blooming, everything perfumed; ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... conspicuous disease—a broken rib, cholera, or toothache; but if you are a fine, delicately-made man, pregnant with poetry as the egg of the nightingale is pregnant with music, and throbbing with an exquisite nervous sensibility, perhaps languishing under some vague and occult disease, of which you are only conscious in moments of intense introspection, this mode of approaching the diagnosis is apt to ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... what sort of pictures he had painted; but circumstances gave his imagination a turn toward the exquisite in colourand composition. Doubtless when he first looked down from the palace windows of the Luxembourg and saw gorgeous women and handsome men languishing and coquetting and revelling in a life of ease and beauty, he was transported. He must have thought himself in fairyland, and the impulse to paint, to idealise the loveliness that he saw, must have been greater in him than ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... the kiss of meeting should be that of parting also?" said Charlotte, sadly, as she raised her blue eyes with a languishing look to the handsome, ardent face of the man who stood before her. "Do you wish to separate forever? I must recall to you our last conversation: 'Only when you are resolved to moderate this impetuous ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... sorry to see that you are not looking very well," he said at last, with supreme stiffness, and with that peculiarly unconciliating air which an Englishman is apt to put on, when he is languishing to hold ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... The spoil of the captured city, amounting, as was said, to half a million of gold ducats, the fruit of long successful trade and piracy, was placed at his disposal for distribution. But that which gave most joy to his heart was the liberation of three hundred Christian captives, languishing in the dungeons of Oran. A few hours after the surrender, the mezuar of Tremecen arrived with a powerful reinforcement to its relief; but instantly retreated on learning the tidings. Fortunate, indeed, was it, that the battle had not been deferred to ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... establish a free representative system. It is therefore incumbent on me, now that I have demonstrated the beneficial influence which free governments have in promoting the prosperity of communities in general, and have proved that this colony has for many years been languishing in a state of impeded growth, and tottering imbecillity, from the inefficiency of its administration to adopt those measures which are necessary to its revigoration; I say it is incumbent on me to shew ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... Guiccioli was at this time about twenty, but she appeared younger; her complexion was fair, with large, dark, languishing eyes; and her auburn hair fell in great profusion of natural ringlets over her shapely shoulders. Her features were not so regular as in their expression pleasing, and there was an amiable gentleness in her voice which was peculiarly interesting. ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... figures of angels or of giraffes; Parisian women, daintily attired, sprightly, and coquettish; American women, free in their bearing, and eccentric in their dress, and their men as stiff as the smoke-pipes of steamboats; German women, with languishing voices, drooping and pale like willow branches, fair-haired and blue-eyed, talking in the same breath of Goethe and the price of sausages, of the moon and their glass of beer, of stars and black radishes. And here and there are a few little Swiss girls, fresh and rosy as wood strawberries, smiling ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... dreamy splendor of noon-tide, Venice seemed to swelter in the midst of the waters, exhaling, like some great lily, mysterious influences, which make the brain swim and the heart faint—a moral malaria, distilled, as I thought, from those languishing melodies, those cooing vocalizations which I had found in the musty music-books of a century ago. I see that moonlight evening as if it were present. I see my fellow-lodgers of that little artists' boarding-house. The table on which they lean after supper is strewn with bits of bread, ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... the opposition of Parliament, entered upon his policy of ruling without one. March 10, 1629, Parliament was dissolved, and no other was called for a space of eleven years. Several of the most eminent members were languishing in the Tower of London, and the king's proclamation of March 27 announced that he would "account it as a presumption for any to prescribe any time unto us for Parliaments, the calling, continuing, and dissolving of which is always ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler
... evenly and thoroughly. A small plot thus treated will yield as much as one three or four times as large. One of the chief advantages of thus deepening the soil is that the plants are insured against their worst enemy—drought. How often I have seen beds in early June languishing for moisture, the fruit trusses lying on the ground, fainting under their burden, and the berries ripening prematurely into little more than diminutive collections of seeds! When ground has been deepened as I have said, ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... viceroyalty of Canada on the Marechal de Montmorenci, his brother-in-law, who in turn bestowed it on the Duke de Ventadour, his nephew. Until this period the affairs of the colony had been entirely in the hands of Protestants, who sought nothing but material wealth. Everything was languishing, and there were not more than fifty persons at Quebec. Some Jesuit Fathers arrived this year, having been sent over to assist the Recollets, and it was proposed to exclude Protestants from the colony, as ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... smuts that lend continual interest and excitement to the atmosphere of Bursley. It was a white muslin, spotted with spots of opaque white, and founded on something pink. Denry imagined that he had seen parts of it before—at the ball; and he had; but it was now a tea-gown, with long, languishing sleeves; the waves of it broke at her shoulders, sending lacy surf high up the precipices of Ruth's neck. Denry did not know it was a tea-gown. But he knew that it had a most peculiar and agreeable ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... in the castle of Cleves lay Elsa of Brabant, languishing in captivity. Her father, the Duke of Brabant, had ere he died appointed his most powerful vassal, one Frederick of Telramund, to be her guardian; but he, seeking only the advancement of his own ends, shamefully abused the confidence of his lord. Using his authority as Elsa's guardian, he ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... afraid, remembering that to-morrow was the sailing day for Iceland, and that this occasion stood alone. If she let it slip by, she would have to wait through months upon months of solitude and despair, languishing for his return—losing another whole ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti |
