"Melancholy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... night shortly after the first battle of Bull Run. The Army of the Potomac, shattered, stunned, and forlorn, was back in its old quarters behind the earth-works. The melancholy line of ambulances bearing our wounded to Washington was not done creeping over Long Bridge; the blue smocks and the gray still lay in windrows on the field of Manassas; and the gloom that weighed down our hearts was like the fog that stretched along the bosom of the Potomac, and infolded ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... From these melancholy events we may learn that the principles on which the moral world is governed are analogous to those which obtain in the physical. It is not by incessant divine interpositions, which produce breaches in the continuity of historic action; it is not by miracles and prodigies that the course ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... when the sun sheds its rays into their soul, when the flowers express their thoughts, when the throbbings of the heart send upward to the brain their fertilizing warmth and melt all thoughts into a vague desire,—day of innocent melancholy and of dulcet joys! When babes begin to see, they smile; when a young girl first perceives the sentiment of nature, she smiles as she smiled when an infant. If light is the first love of life, is not love a light to the heart? The moment to see within the ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... at the vastness of this degradation. If I had been speaking of the population of a city, or town, or even a village, the tale would be a sad and melancholy one. But I have brought before you the condition of millions of women. And when you think that the masses of these women live in the rural districts; that they grow up in rudeness and ignorance; that their former masters are using few means to break ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. XLII. April, 1888. No. 4. • Various
... melancholy and disillusioned, at his fine house in Piccadilly until, impeached by Parliament, he remembered Strafford's fate, and set out to tread once more and for the remainder of his days ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... small potentates; in another, as the inhabitant of a certain street in Padua. The traditions of some remote spots about Italy still connect his name with a ruined tower, a mountain glen, a cell in a convent. In the recollections of the following generation, his solemn and melancholy form mingled reluctantly, and for a while, in the brilliant court of the Scaligers; and scared the women, as a visitant of the other world, as he passed by their doors in the streets of Verona. Rumor brings him to the West—with probability to Paris, more doubtfully ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... and during the month that followed drew a curly-headed boy, then the head of Fingal. His fancy was caught by a woman's head which hung in the master's room; it leaned a little towards one shoulder, and looked away into the distance with melancholy, meditative eyes. "Allow me to make a copy," he begged with a gentle, tremulous voice, and with a nervous ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... be broke through; or, that there may be a successor, without being the heir, of the king. And this is so extremely reasonable, that without such a power, lodged somewhere, our polity would be very defective. For, let us barely suppose so melancholy a case, as that the heir apparent should be a lunatic, an ideot, or otherwise incapable of reigning: how miserable would the condition of the nation be, if he were also incapable of being set aside!—It is therefore necessary that this ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... happy days, and little boded the premature and melancholy fate which awaited them in foreign climes. We believe," says the editor of the 'Literary Gazette,' "that it was the example of the literary pursuits of Miss Landon which stimulated Miss Roberts to try her powers as an author, ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... crags the Castle of Sagan looked out that night with many luminous eyes over the crowding black pine woods and away across the frost-bound, melancholy marshes of the frontier. The renewed violence of the storm had not abated, and the wind ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... head. 'We never can be too cautious at a certain age, and especially after influenza,' he said. 'It undermines the whole system, and in particular the nervous system; leaving the mind the prey of the most melancholy fancies. I should astound you, Mr Lawford, with the devil influenza plays.... A slight nervous shock and a chill; quite slight, I hope. A few days' rest and plenty of nourishment. There's nothing; temperature inconsiderable. All perfectly ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... gives an account of the melancholy catastrophe of three men being poisoned, after excruciating sufferings, in consequence of eating food cooked in an unclean copper vessel, on board the Cyclops frigate; and, besides these, thirty-three men became ill ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... him to defer his accustomed visit, until the next morning, when I hoped to have an hour's private conversation with him in the library, a room most dear to me, once as the chosen haunt of my father, but shunned of late as vault-like and melancholy, now that his ever-welcome and dear presence was removed ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... long-cloth, on which Napoleon reclined, dressed in his white morning-gown, white loose trousers and stockings all in one, a chequered red handkerchief upon his head, and his shirt-collar open without a cravat. His sir was melancholy and troubled. Before him stood a little round table, with some books, at the foot of which lay in confusion upon the carpet a heap of those which he had already perused, and at the opposite side of the sofa was ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... gathered and thickened. The frogs were peeping down by the old willows, and for the first time in her life the melancholy of early spring lay cold upon her heart. It was perhaps eight o'clock when she heard ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... make them melancholy in their exile. The war at home was going badly, where it was going at all. The letters now never spoke of any term to it; they expressed rather the dogged patience of the time when it seemed as if there could be no end, ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... a slight concussion of the brain and a flesh wound. Other sufferers were in the same ward, Mr. Shea himself occupying a bed, so that Hyacinth had the satisfaction of seeing him stretched out, a melancholy figure, with a bandage concealing most of his red hair. After the surgeon had finished his rounds for the morning a police official visited the sufferers, and made a careful note of their names and addresses. ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... stared out at the low, pale landscape beyond the window. It was late November, and the sombre colours of the fields and of the leafless trees showed through a fine autumnal mist, which lent an atmosphere of melancholy to the stretches of fallow land, to the harvested corn-fields, in which the stubble stood in rows, like a headless army, and to the long red-clay road winding, deep in mud, ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... the camp, to be presently broken by the agonised scream of a woman, shrill and startling, followed by wailings and melancholy moans. The Spirit of Death had ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... one illusion to another," said Trove. "It's a lesson; every one should go softly. Tom, will you now describe the melancholy feat ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... clear rivulet behind, the road lay through a wild and desolate region. Great dark mountains rolled away in every direction, and were piled up above the travellers to the very sky. The scene was most melancholy in its grandeur, and Beth, gazing at it fascinated, with big eyes dilated to their full extent, became exceedingly depressed. At one turn of the way, in a field below, they saw a gentleman carrying a gun, and attended by ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... heard his retreating footsteps; then she opened it and went out again. She went over to the sexton's house. Blasi stood in the doorway, in a despondent attitude, with his hands in his pockets. He was brooding over the melancholy reflection that he had paid away the last penny of the coin that Judith had given him, for last evening's glass at the Rehbock, and that he had no credit. He saw no glimmer of hope in the prospect before him, and looked disconsolately at the ground. Suddenly Veronica ...
— Veronica And Other Friends - Two Stories For Children • Johanna (Heusser) Spyri
... was only just come from Merton; but the broad felt he wore was looped up in front, and displayed all the power of his countenance, or rather the vigor; for power is heavy, and his face was light and quickness. Softness also, and a melancholy gift of dreaminess and reflection, enlarged and impressed the effect of a gaze and a smile which have ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... the sailing of the Lydia the weather broke. The morning mist lay heavy on the islands, and the lofty Ward Hill of Hoy hid his crown in the lowering clouds; the Bay of Stromness was glassy calm. High above the rain goose shrieked its melancholy cry, and the sea mews and sheldrakes, even the shear waters and bonxies, flew landward to the shelter of the cliffs. On the upland meadows the cows sniffed the moist air and refused to eat, and the young lambs sought the protection of their ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... gentleman's name was Cockburn;—he met his end a few years afterwards in a very melancholy manner, while on his way to Montreal (having retired from the service). He rolled over the canoe on a dark night, and disappeared ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... every body else had retired. But, observe, he shuffles in his story according to his state of civilation. When not far gone, he contents himself with saying that he caught me ogling his throat; and that I was melancholy for some weeks after, and that my voice sounded in a way expressing, to the nice ear of a connoisseur, the sense of opportunities lost—but the club all know that he's a disappointed man himself, and that he speaks querulously at times ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... it, you'll give me your blessing, eh, Barry?" Owen's smile was a little melancholy. "Well, I'll take advantage of your permission and put it to the little girl herself. She may refuse me, of course—Miss Rees didn't find me irresistible, did she?" A hint of the deadly wound she had dealt him coloured his tone. ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... minutes I watched the great, clumsy, shaggy beasts, as they grazed in the open glade. Mixed with the eager excitement of the hunter was a certain half-melancholy feeling as I gazed on these bison, themselves part of the last remnant of a nearly vanished race. Few, indeed, are the men who now have, or evermore shall have, the chance of seeing the mightiest of American beasts ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... Hence! loathed melancholy! Where brooding darkness spreads her jealous wings, And the night raven sings; There, under ebon shades and low-browed rocks, As ragged as thy locks, In deep Cimmerian ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... huckleberries, quartered in a field of potatoes, indicated that its possessor was, at least, of the rank of marquis. A coachman and two grooms rode in front, while two footmen, seated in the boot, or box at the rear, contrived, by the immobility of their attitude and the melancholy of their faces, to inspire the scene with an exclusive and ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... the natural pallor returned to the high forehead and sharp features. They were delicate features and there was an air of refinement, of thought, about Lieders's whole person, as different as possible from the robust comeliness of his wife. With its keen sensitive-ness and its undefined melancholy it was a dreamer's face. One meets such faces, sometimes, in incongruous places and wonders what they mean. In fact, Kurt Lieders, head cabinet maker in the furniture factory of Lossing & Co., was an artist. He was, also, an incomparable artisan and the most exacting foreman in the shops. Thirty ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... and then, my wife being come back, I took her and set her at her brother's, who is very sicke, and I to White Hall, and there all alone a pretty while with Sir W. Coventry at his chamber. I find him very melancholy under the same considerations of the King's service that I am. He confesses with me he expects all will be undone, and all ruined; he complains and sees perfectly what I with grief do, and said it first himself to me that all discipline is lost in the fleete, no order nor ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... morrow: but, before she can answer, gives her the alternative of other days. Yet, wanting to reward himself, as if he had obliged her, she repulses him on a liberty he would have taken. He is enraged. Her melancholy reflections on her future prospects with such a man. The moral she deduces from her story. [A note, defending her conduct from the censure which passed upon ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... of the force of this argument, and after bestowing sundry anathemas on the cheating friar and the inn, in which he was zealously joined by Peregil, he said in a melancholy tone, "Well, as there is no remedy, we must put up with this misfortune as ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... remarked the friend, "I would learn something certain about this stranger; if for no other reason, on account of the singular association of her, in your involuntary thought, with Miss Ballantine. She may be a relative; and, if so, it would afford a melancholy pleasure to relieve her from her present unhappy condition, for the sake of the one ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... on the history of genius without being impressed with a melancholy feeling at the obscurity in which the lives of the poets of our country are, with few exceptions, involved. That they lived, and wrote, and died, comprises nearly all that is known of many, and, of others, the few facts which are preserved are often records of privations, or sufferings, or ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... devolved, left the ship with one hundred and five survivors to try and reach Back's Fish River. They struggled along the west coast of King William Land, but failed to reach their destination; disease, and even starvation, gradually lessened their numbers. An old Eskimo woman, who had watched the melancholy procession, afterwards told M'Clintock they fell down and died as ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... adverse. I quote these lines from William Morris, who, a Celt himself by mere blood and race, lived in and interpreted the old Teutonic spirit as no other English writer has attempted to do, mush less succeeded in doing: he is the one Teuton of English literature. He speaks of the "haunting melancholy" of the northern races—the ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... seeing that he must live whether he wou'd or no, thought of nothing but passing his days in melancholy and discontent: As soon as he was in a condition to walk, he sought out the most solitary Places, and gain'd so much upon his own Weakness, to go every where, where Agnes was not; but her Idea followed him always, and his Memory, faithful to represent ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... from the first productions of AEschylus to the present time, been exclusively appropriated to actions of a serious nature and melancholy catastrophe, there is reason to believe that it originally included also exhibitions of a pleasant, or comic kind. The rude satires, and gross mummery which occupied the stage, or rather the cart, of Thespis, were ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... day-time, in a darkened room. Her face was utterly devoid of expression. One might have fancied that its muscles had become relaxed after terrible efforts to feign or to conceal some violent emotions; and there was something melancholy, almost terrifying in the eternal, and perhaps involuntary smile, which curved her lips. She wore a dress of black velvet, with slashed sleeves and bodice, a new design of the famous ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... The melancholy death of young Mr. Leggett, a student at the Cornell University, has undoubtedly occasioned a great deal of thought in every college in the country upon secret societies. Professor Wilder, of Cornell, has written a very careful and serious letter, in which he strongly ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... true perspective. The other night I was Forward Observation officer on one of our recent battlefields. I had to watch the front all night for signals, etc. There was a full white moon sailing serenely overhead, and when I looked at it I could almost fancy myself back in the old melancholy pomp of autumn woodlands where the leaves were red, not with the colour of men's blood. My mind went back to so many by-gone days-especially to three years ago. I seemed so vastly young then, upon reflection. For a little while I was full of regrets for many things wasted, and then I looked ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson
... and wonderful for sadness; Sharpening, by degrees, his appetite To dive into the deepest. Dark, nor light, The region; nor bright, nor sombre wholly, But mingled up; a gleaming melancholy; A dusky empire and its diadems; One faint eternal eventide of gems. Aye, millions sparkled on a vein of gold, Along whose track the prince quick footsteps told, With all its lines abrupt and angular. KEATS, ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... Villon, loved the open road and the life of it, Tig, who was not a well-domesticated animal, wandered away. The humane society never heard of him, the neighbors did not miss him, and the law took no cognizance of this detached citizen—this lost pleiad. Tig would have sunk into that melancholy which is attendant upon hunger,—the only form of despair which babyhood knows,—if he had not wandered across the path of Nora Finnegan. Now Nora shone with steady brightness in her orbit, and no sooner had Tig entered her atmosphere, than he was ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... Princess Clementina Sobieska, whom Charles Wogan, in an enterprise truly romantic, had rescued from prison at Innspruck and conveyed across the Alps. From this wedding, made wretched by the disappointment of the bride with her melancholy lord,—always busied with political secrets from which she was excluded,—was born, on December 31, 1720, Charles Edward Stuart: from his infancy the hope of the Jacobite party; from his cradle surrounded by the intrigues, ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... symptoms, and at once summoned aid. Fortunately the men came at a run, and were just in time, for at the stroke of noon he became so violent that it took all their strength to hold him. In about five minutes, however, he began to get more quiet, and finally sank into a sort of melancholy, in which state he has remained up to now. The attendant tells me that his screams whilst in the paroxysm were really appalling. I found my hands full when I got in, attending to some of the other patients who were frightened by him. Indeed, I can quite understand the effect, ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... with shining tufts of mistletoe, the branches of the neglected fruit-trees gave no sign of fruit. Grass grew in the paths. Such ruin and desolation cast a weird poesy on the scene, filling the souls of the spectators with dreamy thoughts. A poet would have stood there long, plunged in a melancholy reverie, admiring this disorder so full of harmony, this destruction which was not without its grace. Suddenly, the brown tiles shone, the mosses glittered, fantastic shadows danced upon the meadows and beneath the trees; fading colors ...
— Adieu • Honore de Balzac
... fore-rigging, and having reached the masthead Harry secured his bucket, and showed David how to secure his. The operation, besides being a very dirty one, was tedious, as each rope had to be gone carefully round with the tar. Often they made melancholy faces at each other as they gradually descended, but neither the captain nor officers showed the slightest commiseration, only watching apparently to see that the work was effectually performed. While the captain remained on deck the crew took no notice of them. This was, however, evidently ...
— Adrift in a Boat • W.H.G. Kingston
... forth the long, melancholy hoot of the owl, and he did it so well that he was surprised at his own skill. The note, full of desolation and menace, seemed to come back in many echoes. He saw the swart leader and the men with him start and look fearfully toward the ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... given you might be applied to advance the welfare of your fellow-men. It is your duty—your highest honor—thus to apply them. And on the bed of death, in near prospect of the judgment, it will surely be a melancholy reflection that, as regards the happiness of mankind, your life has been ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... proceed round a curvature in the rock, which conducts you into the open air, and gives you a view of the opposite fells, to the dungeon,—a melancholy place, bearing to this hour numberless records of the sufferings and the patience, and even the ingenuity, of those by whom, in old times, it was tenanted. The late Count Kinsky, the proprietor of the castle, caused a breach to be made in the side of the dungeon, which ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... not to be troubled by these doubts and fears, as she was absent more than a month, till the merchants pestered me for their money and were so hard upon me that I put up my property for sale and stood on the very brink of ruin. However, as I was sitting in my shop one day, drowned in melancholy musings, she suddenly rode up and, dismounting at the bazaar gate, came straight towards me. When I saw her all my cares fell from me and I forgot every trouble. She came close up to me and greeted me with her sweet voice and pleasant speech ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... moves not a limb is persuaded, perhaps, he is wise; but was this the purpose wherefor mankind was created? Ours is the choice—whether wisdom shall be the honoured wife of our passions and feelings, our thoughts and desires, or the melancholy bride of death. Let the tomb have its stagnant wisdom, but let there be wisdom also for the hearth where the ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... with a shocking bad hat, encircled by a melancholy piece of rusty crape, and arrayed in garments that had once shone with renovated splendour in that mart of second-hand habiliments 'ycleped Monmouth-street, was affrighting the echoes of a fashionable street by blowing upon an old clarionet, and ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... the hall. In the cool shadows made by the palms on the window ledge, her face wore the expression of thoughtful melancholy expected on the faces of the devotees who pace in cloistered gloom. She halted before a door at the end of the hall and laid her hand on the knob. She stood hesitating, her head bowed. It was evident that this mission was to require ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... *bile Which causeth folk to dreaden in their dreams Of arrows, and of fire with redde beams, Of redde beastes, that they will them bite, Of conteke,* and of whelpes great and lite;** *contention **little Right as the humour of melancholy Causeth full many a man in sleep to cry, For fear of bulles, or of beares blake, Or elles that black devils will them take, Of other humours could I tell also, That worke many a man in sleep much woe; That I will pass ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... and seated themselves along the front of the area. During all the time that this numerous band were coming in, and depositing their poles, three men who sat under the shed with the prince, continued pronouncing separate sentences in a melancholy tone. After this, a profound silence ensued for a little time, and then a man, who sat in the front of the area, began an oration (or prayer), during which, at several different times, he went and broke one of the poles, which had been brought in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... not dreaming, for he saw the woman at the bowl, saw her apartment. But the interior of his brain was as melancholy as a lighted cathedral. A mortal sadness encompassed him, and his nerves were like taut violin strings. It was within the walls of his skull, that he saw—his mundane surroundings did not disturb his visions. And ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... since these Ears heard her call For pity to young Perigot; whilest he, Directed by his fury bloodily Lanc't up her brest, which bloodless fell and cold; And if belief may credit what was told, After all this, the Melancholy Swain Took her into his arms being almost slain, And to the bottom of the holy well Flung her, for ever with the waves to dwell. 'Tis she, the very same, 'tis Amoret, And living yet, the great powers will not let Their vertuous love be crost. Maid, ...
— The Faithful Shepherdess - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10). • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... heard of this melancholy event, for, in a letter to Mr. Shaffner of February 22, he says: "Poor Vail! alas, he is gone. I only heard of the event on Saturday last. This death, and the death of many friends besides, has made me feel sad. Vail ought to have a proper notice. ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... kind, my Son," said the Hermit, resuming his first melancholy and dignified composure of mien and bearing; "and there is something in your voice which seems to me like a tone that I have heard in youth. Do you ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... which time, seeing his loue thus cross'd, Which I tooke to be idle, and but sport, He straitway grew into a melancholy,] ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... little known. It has no movie theatre, no news-stand, no cigar store, no village atheist. The railroad station, where one hundred and fifty trains a day do not stop, might well be mistaken for a Buddhist shrine, so steeped in discreet melancholy is it. The Fire Department consists of an old hose wagon first used to extinguish fires kindled by the Republicans when Rutherford B. Hayes was elected. In the weather-beaten Kings Lyceum "East Lynne" is still performed once a year. People who find Quoguc and Cohasset ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... which looms larger as time goes on arises out of the gradual—in some cases the rapid—filling up of the village churchyards. It is melancholy to think that so solemn a subject should threaten to become a ground for bitter controversy; but that much animosity of feeling has already appeared is well known. Already many village graveyards are overcrowded, and it ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... The melancholy river bears us on. When the moon comes through the trailing willow boughs, I see your face, I hear your voice and the bird singing as we pass the osier bed. What are you whispering? Sorrow, sorrow. Joy, joy. Woven together, like reeds in moonlight. Woven together, ...
— Monday or Tuesday • Virginia Woolf
... her whence it fell, The thick red rain upon the marble floor: She knew that in her bower she might not dwell, Alone with her own heart for ever more; No sacrifice, no spell, no priestly lore Could banish quite the melancholy ghost Of Corythus; a herald sent before Them that should die for her, ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... a few melancholy dabs at his thighs, just as though they still ached from the long service in the tree; while Bluff managed to emit a series of ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... kitchen and flung his news at Caesar with a sort of wild melancholy, as who would say, "There, is that enough for you? Are you ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... Admiral Don Andres de Azcueta and Captain Don Pedro Diaz de Mendoza were appointed managers. The halls of the Audiencia and royal assembly were made ready with the funereal adornments and other preparations significant of so melancholy an occasion. At two in the afternoon the bells of all the churches began to ring, in so sad and doleful tones that they filled the air with sorrow, and the hearts of those who heard their plaints ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... looked, as he lay there asleep, as if they had been carved from old ivory; the lines were sharpened, there were hollows in the cheeks and under the black lines of the lashes. Even in sleep the dark brows were drawn together in a slight frown, and the clean-cut lips drooped in unutterable melancholy. The figure, lying on its back and extended along the grass, appeared very tall, and lay so still that it might have been the form of ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... rather than annoyed, when I confess that I found their city a discouragement, a widespread desolation of houses and shops. If there is a pleasant country road leading out of it in any direction, I was unlucky enough to miss it. My melancholy condition was hit off before my eyes in a parable, as it were, by a crowd of young fellows, black and white, whom I found one afternoon in a sand-lot just outside the city, engaged in what was intended for a game of baseball. They were doing ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... would never have done it, had he been in his right mind. The Millers were not a melancholy stock, hardly the sort of people you expect to read about in the morning paper who have taken their lives the night before. But Dave Miller was drunk—abominably, roaringly so—and the barrel of the big revolver, as he stood against the sink, made a ring of coldness ...
— The Day Time Stopped Moving • Bradner Buckner
... troubles of an agent in England, they were trifling as compared with those which confronted him at home when he failed, as he almost invariably did fail, to obtain all that the colony expected. Cotton Mather tells us that Norton died in 1663 of melancholy and chagrin, and that for forty years there was not one agent but met "with some very froward entertainment among his countrymen." No wonder it was always difficult to find men who were willing ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... you; I have seen my wife pass twice by me through this room with her hair hanging about her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms. To which Sir Robert replied, sure Sir, you have slept since you saw me, and this is the result of some melancholy dream, which I desire you to forget, for you are now awake. To which Mr. Donne's reply was, I cannot be surer that I now live, than that I have not slept since I saw you; and am as sure that at her second appearing she stopt and ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... the eighth century, liberated themselves from methods demanding such close study and exact definition of forms. The style of the Northern School is strong, vehement and bold; the style of the Southern School is melancholy and dreamy. The ideal of Northern China, impregnated with barbarian elements, is brought into contrast with that of Southern China, heir to an already ancient civilization, and under the spell of Taoist legends and the ...
— Chinese Painters - A Critical Study • Raphael Petrucci
... delicate value of the greys and blacks revealed the future master of harmony. One almost might have wished to find a fault in this aggravating perfection. But Degas was not to remain there, and already, about that time, certain portraits of his are elevated by an expression of ardent melancholy, by warm, ivory-like, grave colouring which attracts one's eye. Before this series one feels the firm will of a very logical, serious, classic spirit who wants to know thoroughly the intimate resources of design, before risking to choose from among them the elements which respond ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... bank of the small river Saee, in a fine, open plain of light soil, and must be dry at all seasons, as the drainage is good; and there are no jheels or jungles near. It would be an excellent cantonment for a large force, and position for large civil establishments. The town is a melancholy ruin, and the people tell me that whatever landholder in the district quarrels with the local authorities is sure, as his first enterprise, to sack Rae Bareilly, as there is no danger in doing it. ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... made use of the same instruments in the work. He revived the spirit of rebellion in the princes, Henry's sons. These young princes were never in harmony with each other but in a confederacy against their father, and the father had no recourse but in the melancholy safety derived from the disunion of his children. This he thought it expedient to increase; but such policy, when discovered, has always a dangerous effect. The sons, having just quarrelled enough ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... moreover laid himself open in a special way to the bourgeois eyes that were watching him. For two or three days he had shown signs of impatience; he had given way to depression, to states of melancholy without apparent reason, to those capricious changes of temper which are the natural results of the nervous temperament of poets. These originalities (we use the provincial word) came from the uneasiness that his conduct ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... mind passes to a lesser perfection." Further, the emotion of pleasure in reference to the body and mind together I shall call "stimulation" (titillatio) or "merriment" (hilaritas), the emotion of pain in the same relation I shall call "suffering" or "melancholy." But we must bear in mind, that stimulation and suffering are attributed to man, when one part of his nature is more affected than the rest, merriment and melancholy, when all parts are alike affected. What I mean by desire I have explained in the note ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... of select auditors, whose real desire to hear him was beyond doubt, could alone determine him to approach the piano. What emotions he would then call forth! In what ardent and melancholy reveries he loved to pour out his soul! It was usually towards midnight that he gave himself up with the greatest ABANDON, when the big butterflies of the salon had left, when the political questions of the day had been discussed at length, when all the scandal-mongers ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... engrossing to do than read novels and pay visits. The result is that one type of woman cultivates nerves and becomes a neurasthenic semi-invalid; another cultivates the opposite sex and fills her leisure hours with undesirable philandering; another develops temper or melancholy or jealous fancies; and so on—all of them spoilt as companions merely for want of ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... never durst declare on account of the inferiority of his family and station. He was now destined to bear the remains of her, dead, for whom he had long been dying, and was now as near dying for her loss as he had before been for her love. The melancholy procession was marching slowly, along, when it was met by the Marquis de Varenbon, who had been the sole occasion of it. We had not left Namur long when the Marquis reflected upon his cruel behaviour towards this unhappy ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... sudden or tumultuous passions; but not that sinking, that melting, that languor, which is the characteristical effect of the beautiful as it regards every sense. (I ne'er am merry when I hear sweet music.—Shakspeare.) The passion excited by beauty is in fact nearer to a species of melancholy, than to jollity and mirth. I do not here mean to confine music to any one species of notes, or tones, neither is it an art in which I can say I have any great skill. My sole design in this remark is, to settle a consistent idea of beauty. The infinite variety ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... The melancholy result, though unfortunately too easily explained, excited reports as ingenious as malevolent, to account for its suddenness, but like the injustice to his memory he has received from rivals or successors, who sought ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... had given him, had gained a general idea of where the fight had taken place—two hundred yards from the edge of the swamp where Nichols and the Cameron girl had been found, and nearly in a line with the biggest of the swamp-maples, the trunk of which still stood, a melancholy skeleton of its ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... comic—whether serene like a cloudless autumn evening or sparkling with puns like a frosty January midnight with stars—was ever pregnant with materials for the thought. Like every author distinguished for true comic humor, there was a deep vein of melancholy pathos running through his mirth, and even when his sun shone brightly its light seemed often reflected as if only over ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... would be rung out in a few hours, in company with our Utopian expectations. All our hopes of a rare New Year were, like our Christmas phantasies, dashed to the ground. The morrow promised to be rare enough in a melancholy sense, but it would not be New Year's Day. There was but one ray of comfort to sustain us, namely, the approach of the hero of Candahar; for although a certain period of waiting had yet to be endured—ere another famous march could be accomplished—the coming ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... returning traders. Much of the region they traversed may be aptly described in the language which Irving applies to Spain. "It is a stern melancholy country, with rugged mountains and long sweeping plains, indescribably lonesome, solitary, savage." After travelling nearly five hundred miles, about half the distance back to Missouri, they reached a ford of the Arkansas river. Here they met another party ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... awakened Heine, inspired Schumann, and been saluted as an equal by the poet of Faust himself; in Spain he had had a share in moulding the noisy and unequal talent of Espronceda; in Italy he had helped to develop and to shape the melancholy and daring genius of Leopardi; and in France he had been one of the presiding forces of a great aesthetic revolution. To the men of 1830 he was a special and peculiar hero. Hugo turned in his wake to Spain ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... I am much pleased with Samuel Butler, I have observed him mightily of late; Methinks that in his melancholy walk And air subdued whene'er he meeteth me Lurks something more than in most ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... rows of colored lamps twinkled in the gloom. A band played behind the pillars, the rattle of castanets breaking in on the tinkle of the guitars when the beat was sharply marked. The music was seductive, unlike any Kit had heard in England, and he thought it tinged by the melancholy the Moors had brought, long since, from the East ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... was struck by the fact that nearly all the songs were of an extremely melancholy nature—the chief objects celebrated by the Muse being withered flowers, little coffins, the corpses of sweethearts, last farewells, and hopeless partings on the lonely shore. Tears flow; ladies sigh; voices choke; hearts break; children die; lovers prove untrue. It was tragic, and I ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... displayed by the dandies of the National Guard or the Lovelaces of the counting-house. A black ribbon, to which an eye-glass was attached, hung over a waistcoat of the most fashionable cut. Never had the fastidious Emilie seen a man's eyes shaded by such long, curled lashes. Melancholy and passion were expressed in this face, and the complexion was of a manly olive hue. His mouth seemed ready to smile, unbending the corners of eloquent lips; but this, far from hinting at gaiety, revealed on the contrary a sort of pathetic grace. ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... take place the next morning, and Philip, who, since his meeting with the daughter of Mynheer Poots, appeared even to himself not so anxious for immediate examination of the room, resolved that he would not open it until after the melancholy ceremony. With this resolution he fell asleep; and exhausted with bodily and mental excitement, he did not wake until the next morning, when he was summoned by the priest to assist at the funeral rites. In an hour all was over; the crowd dispersed, and Philip, returning to ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... ruin, bless thee evermore! Grateful we bow thy gloomy tow'rs before; For the old King of France[1] hath found in thee That melancholy hospitality Which in their royal fortune's evil day, Stuarts and ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... air of relief. After all, he could not see Leone until summer: why return to England and melancholy? He might just as well enjoy himself in Rome. He knew what select and brilliant circles his mother drew around her. Better for him to be the center of one of those than ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... for some time. I was at work; and work, though it cannot cure love, is yet a narcotic to it; so that Sapt, who grew feverish, marvelled to see me sprawling in an armchair in the sunshine, listening to one of my friends who sang me amorous songs in a mellow voice and induced in me a pleasing melancholy. Thus was I engaged when young Rupert Hentzau, who feared neither man nor devil, and rode through the demesne—where every tree might hide a marksman, for all he knew—as though it had been the park at Strelsau, cantered up ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... future becomes blackly, blankly overcast; the res augusta domi descend like a curtain between the sublimity of Keats and the calm commonsense of Fanny. They turn homewards in silence, the poet revolving melancholy musings. ...
— A Day with Keats • May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron
... out of the Room in spite of her Endeavours to hinder him, and going hastily through a Gallery which had a large Window that look'd into the Garden, he perceiv'd Melliora lying on a green Bank, in a melancholy but a charming Posture, directly opposite to the place where he was; her Beauties appear'd, if possible more to advantage than ever he had seen them, or at least he had more opportunity thus unseen by her, to gaze upon them: he in a moment ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... first time in many years color showed in the drab cheeks of the melancholy Mr. Gammon. Two vivid red spots showed that, after all, it was blood, not water, that flowed in ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... of causes sometimes affects the most serious events of history. This, at any rate, was the opinion of the town of Genoa, where, to some women, the extreme reserve, the melancholy of the French Consul could be explained only by the word passion. It may be remarked, in passing, that women never complain of being the victims of a preference; they are very ready to immolate themselves for the common weal. Onorina Pedrotti, who might have hated the Consul if she had ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... over her. Mea, whose thoughts had been completely absorbed for days in her new friend, brought her all the warmth of a heart which craved friendship passionately. Kurt had made it his duty to cheer up the rather melancholy child as much as was in his power. Lippo, still filled a little with his post of sentinel, always came close to her as if he still needed to watch over her. Maezli was of the firm opinion that she had to entertain the guest, ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri
... water-brook,' to see once more the shores of our beloved New England. Never will this excruciating sail be forgotten. All day—all night, for long, long, weary hours, the wretched little steamer groaned and screamed its melancholy way over the yellow, ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... this is the fifth or sixth time I have read 'Les Quarante Cinq,' and the others. When I am ill, anxious, melancholy, tired, discouraged, nothing helps me against moral or physical troubles like a book of Dumas." Again, M. About says that M. Sarcey was in the same class at school with a little Spanish boy. The child was homesick; he could not eat, ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... when but a few years previously ninety-four had been slaughtered on a similar occasion. Perhaps you will permit me to state in your columns that this year the festival, in this particular, has afforded as melancholy and unquestionable proof of distress as the last, while it bore other evidence, which though trivial in itself, is not unworthy of notice. Last year two theatrical shows visited us, displaying their "Red Barn" tragedies, and illuminated ghosts, at threepence per head, at which they did well; ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... Inches did, she thought, or discovered such fine things in her character. Ten long years and a half had she lived with Papa and the children, and not one of them had found out that her eyes were full of soul, and an expression "of mingled mirth and melancholy unusual in a childish face, and more like that of Goethe's Mignon than any thing else in the world of fiction!" Johnnie had never heard of "Mignon," but it was delightful to be told that she resembled her, and ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... a king and queen; the former was old but the latter young. Although they loved one another dearly they were very unhappy, for God had not given them any children. They fretted and grieved about this so deeply that the queen became ill with melancholy. The doctors advised her to travel. The king was obliged to remain at home, so she went without him, accompanied by twelve maids of honour, all beautiful and fresh as flowers in May. When they had travelled for some days, they reached a vast uninhabited plain which stretched ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... Melancholy was the prevailing characteristic of the great Italian's mind. It was so profound that it penetrated all his thoughts; so intense that it pervaded all his conceptions. Occasionally bright and beautiful ideas flitted across his imagination; visions of bliss, experienced for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... in the voice something of melancholy, and an earnestness that the occasion scarcely warranted. It produced a curious effect on Westray, and led him to look closely at the organist; but it was too dark to read any emotion in his companion's face, and at this moment ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... I'm a joke," he said, with a melancholy grin; "they always expect me to say something asinine, and get ready to laugh before I speak. What shall ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... mind had been filled with thoughts of his family and of the friends he had left in Paris. He remembered the studio that he had adorned with fantastic engravings, strange paintings, curious statuettes; the German songs that his sister had sung, the melancholy verses that he had repeated in the subdued light of the evening lamps, and the long talks in which every one confessed his inmost feelings, in which all the mysteries of thought were discussed and translated into impassioned or graceful words! Why had he abandoned these choice pleasures to bury ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... round, and just behind me was a female. She had raised her veil also in prayer: and when our eyes met, methought a celestial ray shot from those dark and smiling orbs at once into my soul. Never, my Clodius, have I seen mortal face more exquisitely molded: a certain melancholy softened and yet elevated its expression: that unutterable something, which springs from the soul, and which our sculptors have imparted to the aspect of Psyche, gave her beauty I know not what of divine and noble; tears were rolling down her eyes. I guessed at once that ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... daughter. The only thorn in Tom's bed of roses was Nan's placid interest in his affairs, and evident relief at his disloyalty. He did not want her to suffer, but a decent amount of regret at the loss of such a lover would have gratified him; a slight melancholy, a word of reproach, a glance of envy as he passed with adoring Dora on his arm, seemed but the fitting tribute to such years of faithful service and sincere affection. But Nan regarded him with a maternal sort of air that nettled him very much, and patted ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... manner, which assured me, even plainer than the coy sweetness displayed in our last interview, that her heart had been touched by her lover's attentions. Indeed, she hinted as much before she left, saying in a melancholy tone, when I had ended my story in the usual happy way, with kisses and marriage, "I shall never marry!" finishing the exclamation with a long-drawn sigh, that somehow emboldened me to say, perhaps because I ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... and shepherdesses, used to lie on the grass, singing songs, arranging tableaux, and listening to the songs which the band played behind the thicket. All now is silent. No joyous tone now breaks the melancholy stillness which fills the shady pathways of the grove where Marie Antoinette, the mistress of Trianon, now walks with bended head and heart-broken spirit; only the recollection of the past resounds as ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... day and the day after, she maintained a reserved and melancholy attitude. Her thoughts were busy; she was learning to spy out, to guess at conclusions, to reason. A light, still vague, seemed to illumine men and things around her in a new manner; she began to entertain suspicions against ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... a few moments, having discarded his broom and provided himself, from some mysterious source, with an exquisite bouquet of flowers. "Buy a posy, buy a posy! Only a 'ap'ny!" he chanted, with the melancholy drawl of a ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... care not! thy foul sayings fought for me: And seeing now thy words are fair, methinks There rides no knight, not Lancelot, his great self, Hath force to quell me.' Nigh upon that hour When the lone hern forgets his melancholy, Lets down his other leg, and stretching, dreams Of goodly supper in the distant pool, Then turned the noble damsel smiling at him, And told him of a cavern hard at hand, Where bread and baken meats ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson |
