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Mournful   /mˈɔrnfəl/   Listen
Mournful

adjective
1.
Expressing sorrow.  Synonym: plaintive.
2.
Filled with or evoking sadness.  Synonym: doleful.  "Stared with mournful eyes" , "Mournful news"



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"Mournful" Quotes from Famous Books



... The Poet cried; "but, O unhappy star! None praise and few will bear in memory The name she went by. O, from far, from far Comes down, methinks, her mournful voice to me, Full of regrets that men so thankless are." So said, he told that old Astronomer All that the gazing ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow

... herself, and how great had been the confidence of her mother in her beauty. All not yet being told, the waves roared, and a monster approaching,[82] appeared with its head raised out of the boundless ocean, and covered the wide expanse with its breast. The virgin shrieks aloud; her mournful father, and her distracted mother, are there, both wretched, but the latter more justly so. Nor do they bring her any help with them, but tears suitable to the occasion, and lamentations, and they cling round her body, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... broken comb, with a large piece burned out of it; and have thought it, I own, more pathetic than the bones of the eleven thousand virgins at Cologne, or the time-blackened Holy Face of Lucca. Sad, chance confession of human weakness; mournful counterpart of that chainless soul which to the end maintained its fortitude and rebellion. The flesh is weak. Since I saw that relic, the strenuous verse of Emily Bronte's last poem has seemed to me far more heroic, far more moving; remembering in what clinging and prisoning ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson

... bearing a ship from the Athenian land to the fair haven of Gnossos, and the waters played merrily round the ship as it sped along the paths of the sea. But on board there were mournful hearts and weeping eyes, for the youths and maidens which that ship was bearing to Crete were to be the prey of the savage Minotauros. As they came near the harbor gates, they saw the people of King Minos crowded on the shore, and they wept ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... knew that at the time, but I thought it was worth it. It was a beautiful thing, and there was a mint of money in it if it had gone straight—a mint of money;" and he shook his head regretfully. "But the luck is bound to change in the end," he went on, after a moment of mournful retrospection. "You'll see, I shall make my pile yet, Danvers. One can't go on turning up tails ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... in vain. Not every one returns who takes the elbow of the brae bravely, or waves his handkerchief to those who watch from the window with wet eyes, and some return too late. To Jess, at her window always when she was not in bed, things happy and mournful and terrible came into view. At this window she sat for twenty years or more looking at the world as through a telescope; and here an awful ordeal was gone through after her sweet untarnished soul had been given back ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie

... East Room of the White House by the special order of the President, who mourned him as a son. Many brave and able officers were to perish in the four years that followed that mournful day; but there was not one whose death was more sincerely lamented than that of this young soldier who had never seen a battle; and it is the belief of his friends that he had not his superior in ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various

... related, interesting enough in itself, and by no means repugnant to the character of Julian, who ingeniously contrived both the plot and the catastrophe of the tragedy. When the Chamavians sued for peace, he required the son of their king, as the only hostage on whom he could rely. A mournful silence, interrupted by tears and groans, declared the sad perplexity of the Barbarians; and their aged chief lamented in pathetic language, that his private loss was now imbittered by a sense of public calamity. While the Chamavians lay prostrate at the foot of his ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... the various evils in the establishment of a Republic and prays that we ascend the throne to again control the Empire with a view that the people may thereby be saved. As to himself he awaits punishment by the properly instituted authorities, etc. As his words are so mournful and full of remorse they must have been uttered from a sincere heart. Since it was not his free choice to follow the rebellion, the fact that he has returned the great power of administration to us shows that he knows the great principle of righteousness. At this time of national danger and uncertainty, ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale

... gloomy as he grew older, M. Violette became mournful. He was more than forty years old now. What a decline! Does grief make the years count double? The widower was a mere wreck. His rebellious lock of hair had become a dirty gray, and always hung over ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee

... than twelve sent in answer to the requisitions of the consuls, that they had not a man or a penny more to send, and that Rome must depend on its own resources. Never, not even when the disasters of Thrasymene and Cannae were first heard, was such consternation apparent in Rome, as when that mournful resolution was communicated ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... people gazed after it, till the closing of the great gates at the end of the avenue excluded it from their view. They returned into the hall, preserving for some time a mournful silence, when Adrian, who thought tears would be disgraceful to his manhood, rushed into an adjoining apartment, and resting his folded arms upon a table, hid his face in them. Amaranthe began to sob audibly, ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown

... say a thing like that and make it sound funnier than anybody else could. It was partly the way he looked—tall and mournful and sly, with wispy hair that had once been blond, drooping like a tired willow ...
— This is Klon Calling • Walt Sheldon

... returning families whom every heart in Paris went out to meet. The daughter of Louis XVI., who had shared the captivity of her parents and of her brother, the sole survivor of her deeply-wronged house, now returned as Duchess of Angouleme. The uniquely mournful history of her girlhood, and her subsequent marriage with her cousin, the son of the Count of Artois, made her the natural object of a warmer sympathy than could attach to either of the brothers of Louis XVI. But adversity had imprinted its lines too deeply upon the features and ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... accord with a journey toward love and pleasure. Evelyn and Owen did not dare to contrast their lives with those of the Picardy peasants, and that they should see not roses and sunshine, but a broken and abandoned boat amid the sedge, and mournful hills faintly outlined against the heavy, lowering sky seemed to them significant. They watched the filmy, diffused, opal light of the dawn, and they were filled with nervous expectation. The man who appeared at the end of the plain in his primitive guise of ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... of ten. Rosalie, thou sawest many proofs of the evil which lay in my blood; it bordered upon insolence. I remembered well the strong, merry Heinrich, who always sang at his loom; he showed me and the others his tattooed breast, upon which he had his whole mournful history imprinted. Upon his arm were his own and his bride's names. That pleased me; I wished to have my name also on my arm. 'It is painful!' said he; 'then thou wilt pipe, my lad!' That was spur enough to make me desire it. I allowed him to puncture ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen

... heard the mournful tale he comforted the King with brave and kindly words, and quickly he set forth to the dreadful mere, the dwelling of the water-witch, Grendel's mother. And here he plunged in ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... mother's wishes by entering the Hussars, she assumed a nervous air, and immediately her sisters, sitting there in silence, also assumed a nervous air. When, again, she spoke of my grandmother's death, she assumed a MOURNFUL air, and immediately the others all did the same. Finally, when she recalled how I had once struck St. Jerome and been expelled from the room, she laughed and showed her bad teeth, and immediately all the other princesses laughed and ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy

... along the wilderness of life For faint echoes of lost melody. The moonlight gather'd itself back from me And slanted its pale pinions to the dust. The drowsy gust, bedded in luscious blooms, Startled, as 'twere at the death-throes of peace, Down through the darkness moaningly fled off. O mournful Past! how thou dost cling and cling— Like a forsaken maiden to false hope— To the tired bosom of the living hour, Which, from thy weak embrace, the future time Jocundly beckons with a roseate hand. And, round about me honeyed ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various

... moving an inch!" announced the mournful voice from above. "Can't you take hold of it nearer the back, and exert ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice

... around in silence; his lip quivered, his eyebrows contracted, and large drops of cold perspiration stood on his forehead. Gneisenau was by his side, gloomy and taciturn, like his chieftain. Behind them halted the staff-officers, mournful as their leaders, for now every one recognized the danger, and knew that, if they remained at the "Thermopylae of Prussia," they would have to defend themselves to the last man, or lay down their arms, because, as soon as the enemy closed up the fourth side, ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... saw you on the stepping-stones just when I was meetin' Blackie, but I thought you had been away home before now; it surely must be far on in the gloamin'. Eh, Elsie, but I'll no be able to keep the tryst for the bramble gatherin' wi' you," he said, in a mournful tone, turning towards her, and referring to a long-planned holiday, when they were to go together to search for brambles for Mistress Gowrie and the forester's wife's joint jam making. "But, Elsie, speak ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae

... very much to be commiserated is the task of the feeling historian who writes the history of his native land. If it fell to his lot to be the recorder of calamity or crime, the mournful page is watered with his tears—nor can he recall the most prosperous and blissful era without a melancholy sigh at the reflection that it has passed away for ever! I know not whether it be owing to an immoderate love for the simplicity of former times, or to ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... then." As they walked toward the tennis court he seemed to be plunged into mournful thought. In his eyes was a singular expression, which perhaps denoted the woe of the optimist pushed suddenly from its height. He sighed. "Oh, well, I suppose all women, even the best of ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane

... power, unquenched in heart and mind. Comrade and comforter, sublime in shame, A poor man bound in prison whence he came Poor, and took up the burden of his life Smiling, and strong to strive with sorrow and strife, He spake in England's ear the poor man's word, Manful and mournful, deathless and unheard. His kind great heart was fire, and love's own fire, Compassion, strong as flesh may feel desire, To enkindle pity and mercy toward a soul Sunk down in shame too deep for shame's ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... we have seen. There is scarcely any meat but horse-meat, and the government is now rationing. It carries out its work with impartiality. The omnibus-horse, the cab-horse, the work-horse, and the fancy-horse, all go alike in the mournful procession to the butchery shops—the magnificent blooded steed of the Rothschilds by the side of the old plug of the cabman. Fresh beef, mutton, pork are now out of the question. A little poultry yet remains at fabulous prices. In walking ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... ceremony until lights and stole were brought. During the time in which Joan of Arc was receiving the Sacrament, those persons who had been admitted within the castle recited the litany for the departing soul, and never had the mournful invocation for the dying, the supplication of the solemn chant, 'Kyrie eleison! Christe eleison!' been raised from a more tragic place, or on a more heart-stirring occasion. Outside, in the street, and all around the prison gates, knelt the weeping people, ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower

... mater," etc. "By the cross, sad vigil keeping, Stood the mournful mother weeping, While on it the Saviour ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... to for an explanation of the mournful wind-voices, he knew what was expected of him, and ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood

... a parcel of people, meaning my poor father and his friends, who fled from the murderous swords of the English after the massacre at Culloden. Well, they came to America, with hardly anything but their poverty and mournful looks. But among this friendly people that was enough. Every eye that saw us, had pity; and every hand was reached out to assist. They received us in their houses as though we had been their own unfortunate ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... site of the village, presented a forlorn and pitiful appearance. Deserted by their owners, occupied as stables and storehouses some of them falling in ruins, and all dirty and dilapidated, they were a mournful commentary on the ruthless destruction which follows in the footsteps of war. Still further on, our route led us along the Manassas Gap railroad. Here were more sad pictures of the havoc of war. The track was torn up, the ties burnt. Every now and then, numbers of car wheels and axles, ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens

... bitter thought"—which testifies for premature troubles and still gnawing anxieties of soul. His thoughts were seemingly in full unison with the almost grave-like stillness and solemn hush of everything around him. His spirit appeared to yield itself up entirely to the mournful barrenness and uninviting associations, from which all but himself, birds and beasts, and the very insects, seemed utterly to have departed. The faint hum of a single wood-chuck, which, from its confused motions, appeared to have wandered into an unknown territory, ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... promising to be good, to do always what she wanted; loosening her garments; proclaiming the fact that he was a brute, she an angel—while the wings, loose down his back, flapped after him in long, mournful gestures. And when finally, from the couch upon which he had drawn her, Dolly opened upon him her blue eyes, humid as twin stars at dawn, he placed her little scissors in her hand, and with head bowed low, in an ecstatic agony of self-renunciation ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper

... this feeble body fail, And let it faint or die; My soul shall quit this mournful vale, And soar to ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz

... have been surpassed in ancient or modern times. I speak of Kossuth and Webster. Our history has no parallel for the first. Most men, young or old, gay or severe, radical or conservative, were touched by his mournful strains, and influenced by his magic words. He came from a land of which we knew little, and so laid open the history of its wrongs that he enlisted multitudes in its behalf. I speak not now of the views he presented, nor of the demands he made upon the American people. If he ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell

... with the fortunes, both here and hereafter of his fellow-men; they delineate domestic manners, man's stern as well as social hours, and mingle the serious with the joyous, the sarcastic with the solemn, the mournful with the pathetic, the amiable with the gay, and all with an ease and unaffected force and freedom known only to the genius of Shakspeare. In "The Twa Dogs" he seeks to reconcile the labourer to his lot, and intimates, by examples ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... before the light grating where the antelopes were inclosed. The birds, too, awakened his compassion. The ostriches and cassowaries looked mournful enough in the shade of their solitary exotic; but the parrots and smaller birds in a long cage, without even a green leaf or twig, were absolutely pitiful, and Madou thought of the Academy Moronval and of ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... the death of Owen Lovejoy may have had on the subsequent proceedings touching Emancipation interrupted as we have seen by his demise—cannot be known; but among all the eloquent tributes to his memory called forth by the mournful incident, perhaps none, could he have heard it, would have better pleased him than those two opening sentences of Charles Summer's oration in the Senate—where he said of Owen Lovejoy: "Could his wishes prevail, he would prefer much that Senators should continue in their seats and help ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... coal-dust being our equivalent for sackcloth and ashes, the steamer looks mournful indeed as she drives southward towards the Cape. But with lower latitudes comes warmer weather, and a sea so unutterably smooth that one loses faith in the agony of the Bay or the Gulf of Lyons, while the hellish frenzy ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee

... subsisted between them, and lastly of the curious betrayal of his confidence, so unlike Dino's usual conduct, which Brian charitably set down to ignorance of English customs and absence of English reserve. He guessed no finer motive, and his mouth curled with an irrepressible, if somewhat mournful, smile, as he turned away, murmuring ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... ten steps before him; and as past scenes rushed to his memory, his heart beat tremulously in his bosom; the monk recognized a barcarole which he had often sung in his younger days: but although the air was lively, the voice which sung it was mournful and sad. Stepping noiselessly, he stood at the entrance of the bower. The stranger started and arose! Their separation had been a long one, but neither the furrowed cheeks and sallow complexion of the one, nor the turbaned ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... agitated face of Musard, and then travelled to the drooping attitude of the figure at the table. She went quickly past the two men, and bent over her nephew. As she did so, she sobbed aloud. All the pity and pathos of a woman, all the misery and mystery of a broken heart, welled forth in her faint mournful cry. ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... the beautiful pavement, or caressed the old fading pillars, leading me up the broken steps into the greater darkness of the nave, where he showed me one of the most ancient pictures in Pisa, a great, mournful, and grievous crucifix, a colossal Christ, His feet nailed separately to the cross, His body tortured and emaciated, a hideous mask of death;—here in the temple of Apollo. "It is here," said he, smiling, "that Paganism and Christianity were married; and in the temple lie the dead, and in the ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton

... delicate white cloth. In its depths, framed in a mat of odorous double violets, stood the photograph of the face of a handsome man of forty—a face crowned with clustering black locks, from beneath which a pair of large, mournful eyes looked out with something like religious fervor in their rapt gaze. It was the ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... Darrow was gone, once she was safe from the danger of seeing and hearing him, this high devotion would sustain her. She had believed it would be possible to separate the image of the man she had thought him from that of the man he was. She had even foreseen the hour when she might raise a mournful shrine to the memory of the Darrow she had loved, without fear that his double's shadow would desecrate it. But now she had begun to understand that the two men were really one. The Darrow she worshipped was inseparable from ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton

... enough, a mournful sameness in the news from every part of the country: starvation, famine, fever, death; such are the commonest headings in the newspapers of the time. Seven deaths from starvation near Cootehill was the announcement from a locality supposed not to be at all severely ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... eyes with such a reality of re-presentment, that I became in doubt which of them stood there before me, or whose that bright hair was; and while I stood gazing, both the children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding, and still receding till nothing at last but two mournful features were seen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangely impressed upon me the effects of speech: "We are not of Alice, nor of thee, nor are we children at all. The children of Alice call ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold

... intense each day, almost froze the noses and ears of the pedestrians, their feet began to pain them so that each step was a penance, and when they reached the open country it looked so mournful and depressing in its limitless mantle of white that they all hastily retraced their steps, with bodies benumbed and ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... "Boys, that's the most mournful sight a woodsman can see," said Doc, looking away over the wrecked region, touched with golden lights from an October sunset. "It makes one who loves the woods feel as if he had ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook

... him, nor did she hear him when—the herder having ceased speaking—he begged for alms, for the love of God. She asked the gardener where this Benedetto was to be found. The man scratched his head, doubtful how to answer. Then the beggar groaned out in a mournful voice: ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro

... but mournful. How he wished that her answer had been fuller of rebuke! He could hope to overcome her anger far more easily ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various

... told that she so much as heard, as she rose to greet the visitor. Garbed from head to foot in the deep, violet-coloured stuff which is the mourning of Turkish women, her little pointed slippers showing beneath the hem of her frock, and only her dark, mournful eyes visible between the top of the shrouding yashmak and the edge of her sequined snood, she made a pathetic picture as she stood there waiting to greet ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... night, the rushing rain, While my heart with ceaseless pain Hears the mournful past subsiding ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... do it, bless their hearts, the poets, which leads me back again to the mournful reflection that it cannot be ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc

... the emperor and queen, whose mournful humiliating dress was changed for magnificent robes, went with all their court to the house built by the intendant of the gardens, where the emperor presented the Princes Bahman and Perviz and the Princess Perie-zadeh to their ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous

... there rose the mournful howl of a jackal, almost instantly replied to by a similar ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville

... Sultan heard the mournful voice he sprang to his feet, and following the sound found a curtain let down over the chamber door. He raised it and saw behind it a young man sitting upon a couch about a cubic above the ground: he fair to the sight, a well- shaped wight, with eloquence dight, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... let me oft, retired by day, In dreams of passion melt away, Allow'd with thee to dwell: There waste the mournful lamp of night, 40 Till, Virgin, thou again delight To hear a ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins

... Guy Darrell, and what then passed between the two men none witnessed. In these hours Waife insisted upon Sophy's going forth for air and exercise. She is glad to steal out alone-steal down by the banks of the calm lake, or into the gloom of the mournful woods. Here she not unfrequently encounters Fairthorn, who, having taken more than ever to the flute, is driven more than ever to outdoor rambles, for he has been cautioned not to indulge in his melodious resource within doors lest he disturb ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the tremors running through the scaly twists of his body, Lysia looked up, and at once, compelled as it were by involuntary attraction, "Nagaya the Divine" looked down. The strange, subtle, mesmeric, sleepy eyes of the woman met the glittering green, mournful eyes of the snake,—and thus the two beautiful creatures regarded each other steadfastly and with an apparent vague sympathy, till the "deity," evidently overcome by a stronger will than his own, and resigning ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... empires and republics, the inscrutable Dispenser of life, death, happiness, victory. "O brothers," I said to those who heard me first in America—"O brothers! speaking the same dear mother tongue—O comrades! enemies no more, let us take a mournful hand together as we stand by this royal corpse, and call a truce to battle! Low he lies to whom the proudest used to kneel once, and who was cast lower than the poorest: dead, whom millions prayed for in vain. Driven off his throne; buffeted by rude hands; with his children in revolt; ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... echoed under the old cart-horse's hoofs; many a black and desolate tract of forest lay across their twenty miles' ride; more than once the tremulous shriek of a screech-owl smote ominously on Sally's wakeful sense, and quavered away like a dying groan; more than once a mournful whippoorwill cried out in pain and expostulation, and in the young leaves a shivering wind foreboded evil;—but they rode on. Presently Sally's drooping head rose erect; she listened; she laid her hand ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... Italy, who, in the second half of the sixteenth century had to bear the brunt of papal fanaticism, on the increase since the Reformation, were kept in a state of constant excitement by this Messianic doctrine, with its obscure stirrings of hope. A mournful national feeling pervades the Jewish literature of the time. Recollections of torments endured enflamed all hearts. A series of chronicles were thus produced that record the centuries of Jewish martyrdom—Jocha-sin, Shebet Jehuda, Emek ha-Bacha, etc. The art of printing, ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow

... wind-swept hill, whose wavering grass Sways to the summer breezes blowing free, While the great cedars, rustling as they pass, Murmur a cadence of the mournful sea; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... brooks that howling through black gorges go, Groans sullen, hollow, and eternally, One wailing Woe! Sharp Anguish shrinks the shadows there; And blasphemous Despair Yells its wild curse from jaws that never close; And ghastly eyes for ever Stare on the bridge of the relentless River, Or watch the mournful wave as year on year it flows, And ask each other, with parch'd lips that writhe Into a whisper, "When the end shall be!" The end?—Lo, broken in Time's hand the scythe, And round and round ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various

... rejoicing, and he wakes out of the agonies of dream-drowning to find himself nearly suffocated by sinking into the feathery depths of Mrs. O'Grady's pet bed. After a night passed in such troubled visions the unfortunate Furlong awoke unrefreshed, and, with bitter recollections of the past and mournful anticipations of the future, arose and prepared to descend to the parlour, where a servant ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... despondency—is made by an ingenious Californian custom to yield a pleasurable excitement. This luxury of leave-taking, in which most Californians indulge, is often protracted to the hauling in of the gang-plank. Those last words, injunctions, promises, and embraces, which are mournful and depressing perhaps in that privacy demanded on other occasions, are here, by reason of their very publicity, of an edifying and exhilarating character. A parting kiss, blown from the deck of a steamer into a miscellaneous crowd, of course loses much of that sacred solemnity ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte

... themselves and their new mates. But the gray and white, old yoke fellows at the plough, who knew nothing of the dignity of carriage drawing, and cared less, who had rubbed noses and shared feed-boxes ever since they were colts, both lifted up their voices in mournful whinneys and refused comfort and correction. The white turned his head back over his shoulder and would have halted anywhere until his mate came up; while the gray strained forward, shaking his head, and neighing as if his throat were full of tears every time a tree or a turn ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... of this, however, you would have a false idea of the military hospital if you thought of it as a place of mournful desolation. Doubtless our earlier patients regained their spirits more quickly, having no years of suffering behind them. But the quiet and serious resignation which reigns in the hospital of to-day does not exclude a certain sweetness; the wounded man appreciates ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various

... courage to speak with such frank compassion, in mixed circles, of the most degraded and outcast portion of the sex. The contemplation of their treatment, especially by the guilty authors of their ruin, moved her to a calm and mournful indignation, which she did not attempt to suppress nor control. Others were willing to pity and deplore; Margaret was more inclined to vindicate and to redeem. She did not hesitate to avow that on meeting some of these abused, unhappy sisters, she had been ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... mournful music you was giving us, Moe," Abe went on. "Sounds like business was poor already. ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass

... Grizel saw how mournful he had become as he gazed upon her. In his face she had been seeing all the glories that can be given to mortals. Thoughts had come to her that drew her nearer to her God. Her trust in him stretched to eternity. All that was given to her at that moment she thought was also ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie

... tide of gayety was rising to its height. It may be a very trivial matter, yet it is certain that fancy dress gives a peculiar charm, freedom, and brightness to festivities of the kind; and men who in the ordinary mournful black evening-suit would be taciturn of speech and conventional in bearing, throw off their customary reserve when they find themselves in the brilliant and becoming attire of some picturesque period when dress was an art as well as a fashion; and not only do they look their best, but they ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli

... blessing. So shall North and South, at length comprehending and appreciating each other, walk hand in hand along their common pathway to an exalted and benignant destiny, admonished to mutual forbearance and deference by mournful yet proud recollections of their great struggle, and realizing in their newly established and truly fraternal concord the opening of a long, bright vista of reciprocal kindness and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... him no filial spirit weeps; No crowds throng round, no anthem-notes ascend, To bless his coming and embalm his end; Even that he lived, is for his conqueror's tongue, By foes alone his death-song must be sung; No chronicles but theirs shall tell His mournful doom to future times; May these upon his virtues dwell, And in his ...
— An Ode Pronounced Before the Inhabitants of Boston, September the Seventeenth, 1830, • Charles Sprague

... sounds. People moved out of the rooms below and on either side, because they could get no sleep; and till the arrival of Nurse Swift, there was no rest for poor Mrs. Ashe, who could not keep away from her darling for a moment while that mournful ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge

... out of the Lake of Shadows, and, following his mournful, lonely way, had reached the sea-shore. It was a dark, stormy evening. The sun had set. The wind was blowing from the sea. The waves had surrounded the rock within which lay the old man's house. A deep water rolled ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald

... and the Eternal Painter mocking him, when the singing of Spanish verses that go click with the beat of horse-hoofs in the sand sounded hollow as the refrain of vain memories, and from the steps of a Pullman he had a final glimpse of Firio's mournful face, with its dark eyes shining in the light of the station lamp. Firio had in his hand a paper, a sort of will and testament given him at the last minute, which made him master in fee simple of the ranch where he had been servant, with the provision ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... What is this that I hear? Is there then any foundation for that vile report? that hideous tale that turned the brain of that silly wretch? (The Admiral shakes his head in mournful silence.) Edward, will ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat

... that peak, with all the world shut out by that vast plain of clouds, a feeling of loneliness comes over a man which suggests to his mind the last man at the flood, perched high upon the last rock, with nothing visible on any side but a mournful waste of waters, and the ark departing dimly through the distant mists and leaving him to storm and ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... from the dripping wet landscape. Phantasmal clouds of grey mist brooded here and there in the hollows. The distant hills were wreathed in vapour, so that even the green of the pastures was invisible. Every now and then a snipe started up from one of the weedy places with his shrill, mournful cry, and more than once a solitary hawk hovered for a few minutes above his head. The only other sign of life was a black speck in the distance, a speck which came nearer and nearer until he paused to watch it, standing upon ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... covered the little islands that so gracefully rose to render the terrific ocean beautiful. The fishermen were calmly casting their nets, whilst the sea-gulls hovered over the unruffled deep. Everything seemed to harmonise into tranquillity; even the mournful call of the bittern was in cadence with the tinkling bells on the necks of the cows, that, pacing slowly one after the other, along an inviting path in the vale below, were repairing to the cottages ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft

... for whom my heart is now bleeding—for she too has left us and gone away, to return no more to cheer, to sympathize with, and to comfort us in our sorrows—was at my brother's, six miles from the city, and was late in meeting with us at this mournful scene. When she arrived, in broken accents she asked, "Is there no hope? Is there no hope?" "No hope here," replied my husband, "but a ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless

... sorrowing man whom he had so fatally wronged. At length, after an interval, he recovered self-possession enough to address to Numerian some further expressions of consolation and hope; but he spoke to ears that listened not. The father had relapsed into his mournful abstraction; and when the senator paused, he merely muttered to himself—'She is lost! Alas, she is lost ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... at Ascher for approval. Stutz bowed, with an impassive face. On Ascher's lips there was the ghost of a mournful little smile. I somehow gathered that he had come across frankness like Gorman's before and had not altogether liked it. Gorman went on. He explained, as he had explained to me, the plan he had made for forcing the owners of existing cash registers to buy his company out. At last he got ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham

... his country for half a century past. But all this can effect nothing. Old Wartensleben thinks of the Daughter he lost; for happily Katte's Mother is dead long since. Old Wartensleben writes to Friedrich Wilhelm; his mournful Letter, and Friedrich Wilhelm's mournful but inexorable answer, can be read in the Histories; but show only what we ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... never be tried,' said Mr. Kendal, with a mournful smile, as if he did not choose to confess that she had divined too rightly the probable effect of ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... ye, my maids, this mournful garb away; Bring all my glowing gems and garments fair; A nation's fate impending hangs to-day, But on my beauty and your ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various

... and instructed Hercules in the art of music; who, in a fit of anger at the ridicule of Linus, on his awkwardness in holding the lyre, struck him on the head with his instrument, and killed him. The scholars of Linus lamented the death of their master, in a mournful kind of poem, called from him Aelinum. These poems were afterwards designated Epitaphia, from the two words [Greek: epi], upon, and [Greek: taphios], sepulchre, being engraved on tombs, in honour or memory of the deceased, and generally containing some eloge of his virtues ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various

... the dead of both squadrons was begun. It was about sundown that the sad ceremonies were held; and, as the deep tones of the chaplains reading the burial service arose upon the evening air, the dull, mournful splashing of heavy bodies in the water told that the last scene in the great victory was ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... of royal caprice—the countenances of courtiers who even yet had not learnt justly to weigh the influence of that imperial favourite, or to understand that she ruled their King with a power which no transient fancy for newer faces could undermine. A day or two in the sulks, frowns and mournful looks for gossip Pepys to jot down in his diary, and the next day the sun would be shining again, and the King would be at supper ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... glow With shadows soft as beds of fallen roses, And he hath spoken in clear tones until He built up all again, and glory's home Grew glorious as ever. Then his voice Would sudden deepen into holy thought And mournful sweet philosophy, 'till all The air grew musical and my soul good. How well do I remember it. Yes! Milton was My honour'd ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards

... shall have laid Patroklos on the fire, and heaped a barrow, and shaved my hair, since never again shall second grief thus reach my heart, while I remain among the living. Yet now for the present let us yield us to our mournful meal: but with the morning, O king of men Agamemnon, rouse the folk to bring wood and furnish all that it beseemeth a dead man to have when he goeth beneath the misty gloom, to the end that untiring fire may burn him quickly ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... France. He was reminded that other monarchs before Charles had broken their pledges. Huss had been burned at Constance notwithstanding the emperor's safe conduct, and the maxim that no faith need be kept with heretics had obtained a mournful currency.[893] To these warnings Admiral Coligny replied at one moment with some annoyance, indignant that his young sovereign should be so suspected; at another, with more calmness, magnanimously dismissing all solicitude for himself in comparison with the ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... mirror on his bureau, carefully arranged the yellow aureole, carefully adjusted the soft light hat. Then with feeble step he descended the stairs. As he moved down the street his face was mournful and his shoulders were drooped—a stage invalid. When Hilda saw him coming she started up and gave a little cry of delight; but as she noted his woebegone appearance, a very real paleness came to her cheeks and very real tears to ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips

... to lie upon, which I did, and W. Howe and I staid by him, in so great pain as I never saw, poor wretch, and with that patience, crying only: Terrible, terrible pain, God help me, God help me, with the mournful voice, that made my heart ake. He desired to rest a little alone to see whether it would abate, and W. Howe and I went down and walked in the gardens, which are very fine, and a pretty fountayne, with which I was finely wetted, and up to ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... upon these mournful comparisons, especially when I want to write about Aniela. I am quite certain my feelings towards her have not changed, but I seem to see her a long distance off, shrouded in a blue haze and less real than at Ploszow. I do not feel her through my senses. When I compare my present ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... uncertain age, modest fortune and unimpeachable refinement, once like Theresa herself, members of the scholastic profession; but now, thanks to the timely death of a relative—with consequent annuities and life interest in a ten-roomed, stone-built house of rather mournful aspect in Deadham village—able to rest from their ineffectual labours, support the Church, patronize their poorer and adulate their richer neighbours to ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... again, and the dark crowd became motionless as statues. Then Washington in a mournful monotone repeated what I supposed to be prayers for the dead. At the end of each prayer the little bell was rung and responses came out of the depths of the surrounding darkness. Then the squaws chanted ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... proviso could not subsist in the presence of these absolute pretensions. The liberty of slavery (pardon me this mournful and involuntary conjunction) finds an application on the spot. At this juncture, Texas, a province detached from Mexico, is admitted in the quality of ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin

... born and bred in joy and love, Nancy hopped out of Mother Carey's warm nest one day, and fixing her bright eyes and sunny, hopeful glance on the lonely, frowning little neighbor, stretched out her hand in friendship. Olive's mournful black eyes met Nancy's sparkling brown ones. Her hand, so marvellously full of skill, had never held another's, and she was desperately self-conscious; but magnetism flowed from Nancy as electric currents ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... large number of people of the great emigrant procession had arrived. They united in giving to the dead the best interment that the circumstances permitted. Then the broken and scattered effects of the Holloway company were gathered up, and the now mournful trains took position in the line of pilgrimage and again ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell

... After such a mournful and ineffectual attempt at married life all the negotiations had to be begun over again, and James was at last married, to the general satisfaction, to Mary of Guise, a woman, as it turned out, of many fine and noble qualities, to which ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... not sleep myself," he answered, with a mournful smile. "Some things should be forgotten, but as I have told you this much I may as well finish, and ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... prospectors had left the spot and were not coming back; once more he had arrived too late. It was a cruel disappointment and he sat down in black dejection, looking heavily about. The high summits were wrapped in leaden cloud, the lower rocks towered above him, rugged and forbidding, and a mournful wind wailed ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss

... the world draws no distinction between their grave affliction and that other remediable misery of youth, it will sanction no other treatment than banter or mockery, which does but infuse yet more deeply the mournful dye. When this fails, it leaves its victims to the desolation which according to its judgment they have wilfully chosen; for the most part ignoring their existence, but often chastising them with scorpion-stings of disdain. Yet the subjects of this scorn, sufferers ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... into being obliging by her coming holiday; or perhaps the mournful, longing words touched something in her ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... stay with us," he said, turning to the two mournful figures. "We have any amount of room in this house, and we shall be only ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher

... crowd began to eddy and to whirl toward the next corner. There rose the clang of gongs, the shrilling of a Chinese pipe playing a mournful air in that five-toned scale Whose combinations suggest always the mystery of the East. About that corner swept the procession of the Good Lady, priests before, women worshippers behind. The priests set up a falsetto ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin

... that she might the better look life in the face and see what could be done with the wretched remnant of her existence. She had given up all idea of making her residence in England, and there was no other country in which she had any deep interest, save for the mournful interest that ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder

... windin' rocky road To where the coroner had dug A grave beside the brook— In sight uv Marthy's winder, where The same could set and look And wonder if his cradle in That green patch long 'nd wide Wuz ez soothin' ez the cradle that Wuz empty at her side; And wonder of the mournful songs The pines wuz singin' then Wuz ez tender ez the lullabies She'd never sing again; And if the bosom uv the earth In which he lay at rest Wuz half ez lovin' 'nd ez warm ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field

... our ancestors, to escape from the pressure of reality, so much as to confirm our experience of it; to make assurance double, and take a bond of fate. We must live our toilsome lives twice over, as it was the mournful privilege of Ulysses to descend twice to the shades. All that neutral ground of character, which stood between vice and virtue; or which in fact was indifferent to neither, where neither properly was called in question; that happy breathing-place from the burthen of a perpetual moral questioning—the ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... your last embrace. The mournful sound of the carriage wheels that bore you away had at length died upon my ear. In happier moments I had just succeeded in raising a tumulus over the joys of the past, but now again you stand up before me, as your departed spirit, in these regions, and you accompany me to each favorite haunt ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... These hidden dramas, which recurred every month, this old woman as rigid as a corpse, this child bent over her, silently watching for the return of consciousness, made up amidst the darkness of the hovel a strange picture of mournful horror ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... and striking reflections upon the fate and character of women. He gives no signs of feeling after social reorganisation; he only speaks as one brooding in uneasy meditation over a very mournful perplexity. There is no sentimentalising, after the fashion of Jean Jacques. He does not neglect the plain physical facts, about which it is so difficult in an age of morbid reserve to speak with ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley

... doubt, "smelt" our cheese, and while we were gazing at the magnificent clouds, contrived to abstract our treasure! Cruel tramp! An ill return for our pence! We both wished the rind might not choke him! The mournful fact was ascertained a little before we drove into the courtyard of the house. Mr. Coleridge bore the loss with great fortitude, observing, that we should never starve with a loaf of bread and a bottle ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... straggled a growth of mixed larch and cedar; in the centre was a dismal bog, through which slowly rolled a black, foul stream. As they passed along the shoulder of solid ground, troops of birds rose out of the wide sea of bog, and the noise of their wings made a low, mournful whirring as they passed in dark troops ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins

... mournful tale, To all is plain and clear,— That drinking habits bring a man Too often to ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... brutality. Liberty leads to licence, restraint to tyranny. The pride of race is distended to blustering arrogance. The fear of God produces bigotry and superstition. There appears no exception to the mournful rule, and the best efforts of men, however glorious their early results, have dismal endings, like plants which shoot and bud and put forth beautiful flowers, and then grow rank and coarse and are ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill

... upon this perilous voyage, let no mournful note swell out upon the breeze, to frighten beasts and men—and fish—into believing that Dave Thomas is once ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart

... cottage, and mounted Oliver. To pass the time and indulge a mournful memory, he rode round by Wyfern. When he reached home, he found that his father had gone to pay a visit some miles off. He went to his own room, cast himself on his bed, and tried to think. But his birds would not come at his call, or coming would but perch for a moment, ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... were not destined, however, to be quite undisturbed. I was awakened, at the first slight peep of dawn, by a sound from an apartment beneath our own—a plaintive, monotonous chant, rising and then falling in a sort of mournful cadence. It seemed to me a wail of something unearthly—so wild—so strange—so unaccountable. In terror I awoke my husband, who reassured me by telling me it was the morning salutation of the Indians ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie

... Mournful arose The sorrowful response. "Oh that my grief Were in the balance laid by faithful hands And feeling hearts. To the afflicted soul Friends should be comforters. But mine have dealt Deceitfully, as fails the shallow brook When ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney

... the night been long and mournful? Have thy friends unfaithful proved? Have thy foes been proud and scornful, By thy sighs and tears unmoved? Cease thy mourning; Zion still ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth

... the region, this the soil, the clime, Said then the lost archangel, this the seat That we must change for Heaven; this mournful gloom For that celestial light? Be it so, since he Who now is sov'rain can dispose and bid What shall be right: farthest from him is best, Whom reason hath equal'd, force hath made supreme Above his equals. Farewell happy fields, Where joy for ever dwells: Hail horrors, hail Infernal ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... youth, Why the cold urn of her, whom long he loved, So often fills his arms; so often draws His lonely footsteps at the silent hour To pay the mournful tribute of his tears? Oh! he will tell thee, that the wealth of worlds Should ne'er seduce his bosom to forego That sacred hour; when, stealing from the noise Of care and envy, sweet remembrance soothes With Virtue's kindest looks his aching breast, ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... ears of both the hammock sentinels came the mournful sounds of living things unseen. From the depths beyond drifted the weird plaint of the sloth, crying in the night, "Oh me, poor sloth, oh-oh-oh-oh!" Goat suckers repeated by the hour their monotonous refrains, "Quao quao," or "Cho-co-co-cao," while a third earnestly ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... dimpled, childish face. The face was marble now; the sweet lips were pallid and half-open and quivering; the dimples were all gone—all but one, that never went; and the eyes—O, the worst of all was the likeness they had to Hetty's. They were Hetty's eyes looking at him with that mournful gaze, as if she had come back to him from the dead to tell ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... time in sack-cloth, before they ascend up to heaven in a cloud. All which is as much as to say, that these Prophecies of Daniel and John should not be understood till the time of the end: but then some should prophesy out of them in an afflicted and mournful state for a long time, and that but darkly, so as to convert but few. But in the very end, the Prophecy should be so far interpreted as to convince many. Then, saith Daniel, many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be encreased. For the Gospel must be preached in ...
— Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John • Isaac Newton

... aspirations, claims on the future. It was only an historic tradition, a sad souvenir, a geographical expression, a land of the dead, where everything was lacking except the sun, which still shone as a lamp which cast a mournful light on the tomb of a departed glory. This land has to-day become quite young again. There are towns now, where formerly the shepherd led his flock silently among the ruins of a past which he did not know. Athens, formerly an insignificant ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various

... of self-trust. We must hold hard to this poverty, however scandalous, and by more vigorous self-recoveries, after the sallies of action, possess our axis more firmly. The life of truth is cold and so far mournful; but it is not the slave of tears, contritions and perturbations. It does not attempt another's work, nor adopt another's facts. It is a main lesson of wisdom to know your own from another's. I have learned that ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... ducal garden, admiring the quaintly-shaped basin in its centre, its numerous statues, and fresh grass. The town was dull and methodical enough, but would have been rejoicing, if it had not been respectfully mournful. ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... her a mournful look. "I suppose you think I haven't tried. The girls are all willing to help, but they insist upon having the idea to start with. I know you hate committees, Madeline, and I'm not asking you to ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde

... in? Suddenly the bound lad was seized by an ingenious idea. Assuring himself by their deep breathing, that his captors were fast asleep, he began to whistle, softly at first, then gradually louder and louder till the weird, mournful strains of the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... favourite of misfortune. As Brantome has said of her, "Whoever desires to write about this illustrious queen of Scotland has, in her, two very, large subjects, the one her life, the other her death," Brantome had known her on one of the most mournful occasions of her life—at the moment when she was quitting France ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... timbered house in London, which had passed to his possession. As she abruptly entered the room in which he sate, he sprang forward to welcome and embrace her; but she waved him back with a grave and mournful gesture, and sinking on one knee, ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... or others like her. It was clearly represented to me that dependence is bearable if we have another place which we can call home; but to be a dependent and to have no other spot for the heart to anchor upon—O, it is mournful and harassing!... But that without which all persuasion would have been as air, was added by my miserable conviction that you were false; that did it, that turned me! You were to be considered as nobody to me, and Mr. Manston was invariably kind. Well, the deed is done—I ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... the streams and roads impassable. The perusal of your letter afforded me particular pleasure. It breathes the genuine sentiments of a Republican and of a philanthropist; and produced an emotion which was "pleasing though mournful to the soul." Pleasing that an adopted citizen should possess principles so entirely accordant with our free institutions; and as it held out encouragement that the people would not sanction the late conduct and measures of their Representatives—mournful, that if the slave faction should succeed, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... whence we extract the above, develops the Platonic idea (shall we call Platonic that which has been entertained by the wise and the feeling of all times?) of a shadowy recollection of past and eternal existence in the profundities of the Divine Heart. 'It sounds forth here a mournful remembrance of a faded world of gods and heroes—as the echoing plaint for the loss of man's original, celestial state, and paradisiacal innocence.' And then we have those transcendent lines that come to us like aromatic breezes ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... against the honesty of mankind than all the roguery and imposture itself. Putting aside mere swindling for the sake of gain, and looking at speculation and paradox, I find very little reason to suspect wilful deceit.[224] My opinion of mankind is founded upon the {116} mournful fact that, so far as I can see, they find within themselves the means of believing in a thousand times as much as there is to believe in, judging by experience. I do not say anything against Isaac D'Israeli for talking his time. We are all in the team, and ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... his voice in a long, mournful howl which made mothers put out their hands to their babes. In answer a coyote in the grass raised a high, quavering cry, wild and desolate, the ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough

... gossip might be written about this collaboration; a melancholy chapter, since it brings with it the memory of a charming man, who first brought Messieurs Cerfberr and Christophe together, and who has since died under mournful circumstances. His name was Albert Allenet, and he was chief editor of a courageous little review, La Jeune France, which he maintained for some years with a perseverance worthy of the Man of Business in the Comedie ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... Let us proceed. Mournful and angry, I left the college, and went to my lodging-house, where I found a Prussian recruiting-officer waiting for me, who used all his arts to engage me to enlist; offering me five hundred dollars, and to make me a corporal, if I ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck

... of the town-hall opened, and between a double file of soldiers advanced seventeen non-commissioned officers, each one assisted by two monks of the order of Misericordia. Mournful silence prevailed, interrupted every now and then by the doleful beating of the drums, and the prayers of the agonising, chanted by the monks. The procession moved slowly on, and after some time reached ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere

... my heart, thou art mournful in the rain, (Are thy redolent lips a-quiver?) My soul seeks thine, doth it seek in vain? My love goes surging like a river, Shall its ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... attention to the organ. Instead of looking in Helen's direction, Mrs. Stucky fixed her eyes on the face of the young man and held them there; but he continued to stare at the organist. It was a gaze at once mournful and appealing—not different in that respect from the gaze of any of the queer people around him, but it affected Miss Eustis strangely. To her quick imagination, it suggested loneliness, despair, that was the more tragic because of its isolation. It seemed to embody the mute, pent-up distress ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris

... hunter's moon had come and gone; the first frost, the family dinners and reunions at Thanksgiving, the first snowfall; and now, as Christmas approached, the same holiday spirit was abroad in the air, slightly modified as it passed by Mrs. Popham's mournful visage. ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... that a son was born unto him, he, as he had given up the ghost, made no reply. She seized him by the hand and found that he was dead. Then she began to weep. Meantime a thief carried off the oxen. After weeping for a long time, and becoming very mournful, she looked around on every side, pressed the new-born babe to her bosom, took the elder child by the hand, and set out on her way. As a heavy rain had unexpectedly fallen, all the lakes, ponds, and springs were full ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... had set forth for their relief, but knowing full well the thousand obstacles which it, had to surmount. They had guessed its progress by the illumination from, the blazing villages; they had heard its salvos of artillery, on its arrival at North Aa; but since then, all had been dark and mournful again, hope and fear, in sickening alternation, distracting every breast. They knew that the wind was unfavorable, and at the dawn of each day every eye was turned wistfully to the vanes of the, steeples. So long as the easterly breeze prevailed, they felt, as they anxiously stood on towers ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... he, after a pause, "it is a rugged and a mournful lot this renunciation of earth and all its fair destinies and soft affections, to one not wholly prepared and armed for the sacrifice. Confide in me, my child; I am no dire inquisitor, seeking to distort thy words to thine own peril. I am no ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... which opened to the Minster Green (now called the College Green); the west side was bounded by the cathedral, and the back was supported by the ancient cloisters of St. Augustine's monastery. A spot more calculated to inspire the soul with mournful meditation can scarcely be found amidst the monuments ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson

... "Don't touch me. I won't bear it. Never again. I belong to somebody else, don't you know? You have no business to be here." Basil was not near her, indeed she would not have recognised him if he had been; he was sitting by the fire at a distance; but he knew whom she was addressing in her mournful ravings, and his heart and courage almost gave way. It was very bitter; and many an hour of those nights the minister spent on his knees at the bed's foot, seeking for strength and wisdom, seeking to keep his heart from ...
— Diana • Susan Warner

... and decorously disposed in death, were brought to the graves hollowed out in this far-away wilderness by the hands of old comrades. It was a very sad spectacle indeed. The death of brave soldiers is always mournful to contemplate; but war is the trade of regulars, and they expect death, and burials in distant sod. But war is not the trade of our volunteer soldiers. They are mere young fellows, of various pursuits of life, and death and burial away ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins

... impatient of all. He paced up and down the hall, arm-in-arm, with his betrothed, when at last a carriage was heard approaching, and every eye was turned to the window, but Matzke Bork sits in it alone. He enters disturbed and mournful, and when the knight of Saatzig asks him where he has left his Highness ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... the Marquis de Villarel to give me a few words for him, because my uncle has a great influence in his district; and the Marquis penned with his own hand some compliments and an inquiry about the spirit of the population. My uncle read the letter, looked up at me with an air of mournful awe, and begged me to tell his excellency that the people were all for God, their lawful King and their old privileges. I said to him then, after he had asked me about the health of His Majesty in an awfully gloomy tone—I said then: 'There is only one ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... the country. Over the pine-hills beyond the station a last rosy streak lingered across a green sky. Richard eyed it while they flew along. It caught him forward: it seemed full of the spirit of his love, and brought tears of mournful longing to his eyelids. The sad beauty of that one spot in the heavens seemed to call out to his soul to swear to his Lucy's truth to him: was like the sorrowful visage of his fleur-de-luce as he called her, appealing to him for faith. That tremulous tender way she ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... figure carrying a lantern crossed the field .... A raft of twig stayed upon a stone, suddenly detached itself, and floated towards the culvert .... A load of snow slipped and fell from a fir branch .... Later there was a mournful cry .... A motor car came along the road shoving the dark before it .... The ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... walls are also carved. The magnificent series of pictures give character and dignity to the room. Occupying almost two-thirds of the north end is an oil-painting of King Charles I. and his family, by Vandyck, in 1632. There is a mournful expression on all the faces, even those of the two small children in the front. On the east wall, on one side of the fireplace, are large oil-paintings of George III. and his consort, Caroline, by Allan Ramsay; and on the other a copy of ...
— Chelsea - The Fascination of London • G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton

... think to lead Psyche to Hymen's shrine; But all with earnest speed, In pompous mournful line, High to the mountain crest Must take her; there to await, Forlorn, in deep unrest, A monster who envenoms all, Decreed by fate her husband; A serpent whose dark poisonous breath And rage e'er hold the world in thrall, Shaking the heavens high ...
— Psyche • Moliere



Words linked to "Mournful" :   mournfulness, plaintive, sorrowful, mournful widow, sad



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