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Forlorn   Listen
adjective
Forlorn  adj.  
1.
Deserted; abandoned; lost. "Of fortune and of hope at once forlorn." "Some say that ravens foster forlorn children."
2.
Destitute; helpless; in pitiful plight; wretched; miserable; almost hopeless; desperate. "For here forlorn and lost I tread." "The condition of the besieged in the mean time was forlorn in the extreme." "She cherished the forlorn hope that he was still living."
A forlorn hope (Mil.), a body of men (called in F. enfants perdus, in G. verlornen posten) selected, usually from volunteers, to attempt a breach, scale the wall of a fortress, or perform other extraordinarily perilous service; also, a desperate case or enterprise.
Synonyms: Destitute, lost; abandoned; forsaken; solitary; helpless; friendless; hopeless; abject; wretched; miserable; pitiable.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Forlorn" Quotes from Famous Books



... done good work in Egypt, but he is a generation too soon, it may be two or three too soon. We can but regard this fresh enterprise as a temptation to Fate to take from our race one of the most promising spirits and vital personalities which this generation has produced. It is a forlorn hope. Most Englishmen familiar with Claridge Pasha's life and aims ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Bennett's transitions make us imagine forlorn, almost intolerable passages of years in which the human soul trudges stupidly and wearily towards death, discussing muffins and tea whilst the Cosmos is plotting upheavals for the sole benefit of stupidity in the mass—and Edwin, suffering at his father's hands, triumphing ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James

... friend that Spennie brought," said Jimmy in a rapid undertone. "This is the maiden all forlorn who crossed the seas, and lived in the house that sheltered the friend that ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse

... back? What bolting, tramping, and rushing would they not have made through the ranks of the astonished professors and students? The Anniversary set, for example, who sweep the pews of men, or, coming upon one forlorn, crush him as a boa does a sheep. Our silly little flock only laughed, colored, and retreated to the volantes, where they held a council of war, and decided to go visit some establishment where possibly better manners ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... and had held it in our march through that beautiful, cultivated garden spot of Middle Tennessee, as far as Columbia, a distance of nearly fifty miles. Here the turnpike and the railroad bridges over Duck river had both been destroyed by the rebels in their forlorn retreat from the northward. To replace the former even with a tottering wooden structure, was a work of time and labor. Meanwhile the army waited wearily, General Nelson chafed at the delay, and the rebel leaders Beauregard and Sidney Johnston were concentrating their forces at Corinth ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... day the doctors were back; Tom had relapsed. The three weeks he spent on his back this time seemed an entire age. When he got abroad at last he was hardly grateful that he had been spared, remembering how lonely was his estate, how companionless and forlorn he was. He drifted listlessly down the street and found Jim Hollis acting as judge in a juvenile court that was trying a cat for murder, in the presence of her victim, a bird. He found Joe Harper and Huck Finn up an alley eating a stolen melon. Poor lads! they—like Tom—had suffered ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the world. No matter: we were not dupes, but perhaps the full sweetness and sadness of the story never came home to us with such enfolding charm as on the gray autumn afternoon when we stood beside the pseudo relic in the forlorn little garden of the orphan asylum on the bank of the turbid Adige. The house which is pointed out as Juliet's is less palatial than we expected, though it is a lofty old brick edifice with rounded windows, a stone balcony and a large courtyard: on the keystone ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various

... chases, all the while, and wanted to have "a healthy dash" of some kind. A class of Irish exquisites, they appeared to be,—good for a fight, a card-party, or a hurdle jumping,—but entirely too Quixotic for the sober requirements of Yankee warfare. When anything absurd, forlorn, or desperate was to be attempted, the Irish brigade was called upon. But, ordinarily, they were regarded, as a party of mad fellows, more ornamental than useful, and entirely too clannish and factious to be entrusted with power. ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... red-curtained and Turkey carpeted, where the fire burnt bright and a fine hot breakfast was set forth on a table covered with a clean cloth. . . . I could not enough admire the change Steerforth had wrought in the 'Golden Cross'; or compose the dull, forlorn state I had held yesterday with this morning's comfort ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz

... about six o'clock. The house is one of those straggling, half new, half old, half comfortable, and half forlorn mansions, that are begun in one generation and finished in another. It is very pleasantly situated, and commands, from some points of view, all the towers ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... you see a glimpse of the road rising and falling, with its pathways raised on each side, with all sorts of faded tints—mellow, subdued reds, sombre greys, a patch of green here and there, and all more or less dingy, and "quite out of fashion." There is a rather forlorn tone over it all, especially when we have a glimpse of Ordnance Terrace, at Chatham, that abandoned, dilapidated row where the boy Dickens was brought up dismally enough. At that moment the images of the Pickwickians ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald

... before,— Faint murmurs of the surge, The deep, surrounding, everlasting roar Of a life-ocean without port or shore,— Ere I depart, compelled to urge My fragile bark with trembling from the verge Of this Earth-island, into that Unknown, Where worlds, like souls forlorn, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various

... to be thrown down now, and I might whisk it about as I would. Formerly I had often wished for free entrance to those rooms; now I should have welcomed a friendly hand that shut me out of them. In passing before a large mirror, I marvelled at my own forlorn and neglected appearance. Once, I was worth looking at in a glass; now, what a difference! Sorrow had so changed my whole aspect, that I stared with dismay at the gaunt spectre which stared at me in return, and we howled at ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland

... military discipline into a pacific oligarchy, and that into a mere plutocracy at last. And there are similar historic riddles to be unpicked in the similar forms of social address. There is something singularly forlorn about the modern word "Mister." Even in sound it has a simpering feebleness which marks the shrivelling of the strong word from which it came. Nor, indeed, is the symbol of the mere sound inaccurate. I remember seeing a German story of Samson in which ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton

... sat down, looking very forlorn and disconsolate. Her voice was English and she had obviously traveled a long distance in an open car on the supply train. Kermode felt sorry for her. He took off ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss

... "Brown" declined pleading to "Smith" and Smith declared off Brown's declaration. In inquiries after "solvent acceptors," Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk was still more abroad. In the mystification of his brains, all answers seemed to be delivered "per contra." Forlorn hopes on three-and sixpenny stamps were converted into the circulating medium; "good actors" were considered "good men" in the very reverse of Shylock's acceptation of the term; and astonished ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various

... "you know all about such things, Nolla," or Eleanor might say "she will be on top of the heap, if I know it, Mrs. Brewster," so it was evident that she, Polly, was the subject of their conversation. But Polly herself, felt little concern about it all, as she saw the forlorn expression on her father's face as he went about his ranch-duties. Finally she decided ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... "Look at a boat that is hove up when her work's done and going to be broke up. Why, anyone can tell her with half an eye. She looks that forlorn and melancholy that one's inclined to blubber at the sight of her. She don't look like that at any other time. When she is hove up she is going to die, and she ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty

... Polly, that just having things does not necessarily make one happy; I often think it must be nicer to be poor and to have to help like you and Mollie do. This afternoon I was feeling quite forlorn myself, as I had a kind of headache and no one came to see me, and then just like magic from out our haunted chamber there appeared well, I can hardly call her a good fairy, she was too homely, but at least a girl who told me of something so delightful ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook

... was empty, the room looked less forlorn, though still pretty bare, for in Peggy's home little thought was given to anything not of practical use. The door was open, and happening to look up she caught a glimpse of the opposite room, on the other side of the narrow corridor. Here, too, the door ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards

... the ruins of old castles and temples, see their neglected and forlorn state, and reflect on the uses to which they are now put, so different from the intentions of those who raised them, my mind always reverts to the events of our own days, when so many of the beautiful edifices erected by our pious and zealous ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich

... with a feeling in his throat that was new in his experience of emotions, staring in dismay at this forlorn habitation abandoned to wind and weather, to the rats ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... proved a better ally of Russia in the end than any service which Augustus paid. The Tsar wisely drew the Swedish army into the desert-lands, where many thousands died of cold and hunger. He met the forlorn remnants of a glorious band at Poltava in 1709, and routed them with ease. Narva was avenged, for the Swedish King had to be led from the battlefield by devoted comrades and placed in retreat in Turkey, where he was the Sultan's guest. Charles' lucky star had ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead

... effort to efface its signs and evidences. She was left with no outlook in life but to get through twenty, thirty, forty years somehow, and come to a little peace at last, when everything would be forgotten; and her one forlorn hope was that Guthrie would not discover her crime—would keep up the neglect with which he had treated his old friends, and ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge

... shine in the midst of darkness for a long time. The urban populations, driven into contact with science by trade and manufacture, will more and more receive it, while the pagani will lag behind. Let us hope that no Julian may arise among them to head a forlorn hope against the inevitable. Whatever happens, science may bide her time in patience ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... bend in Leverett Street, leading to the bridge, there is a dark and half-hidden aperture among the ill-assorted houses. Into this, as a forlorn hope, the fugitive endeavors to fling himself. But the game is up. Here, at last, he is overhauled by Mr. Smithers, who, dropping a heavy hand upon his shoulder, whirls him violently to the ground. Having accomplished this exploit with rare dexterity, he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... I feared, like sunbeams of the morn Which spoil the frost-work they awhile adorn, That rays of light might render more forlorn The expanding bosoms they were ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney

... the western world, but it was almost invented. Time and muscle, knack and touch, a trained eye and brain and an unlimited array of patterns hanging on fancy's walls, aided by a box of dry sand, were competent to give the charming results. No more striking contrast can be found between forlorn conditions and refined art products. Art in clay was far from universal in the two Americas. The Eskimo on Bering Sea had learned to model shallow bowls for lamps. No pottery existed in Athapascan boundaries. Algonquin-Iroquois tribes made creditable ware ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... There was something forlorn in the man's attitude, and Cavanagh's heart softened. "Turn your horse into the corral and come to supper," he commanded, with Western bluntness; "we'll talk about ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland

... impression she made upon those who saw her for the first time was one of lank flatness—to convey a vivid idea rather clumsily. But she was neither lank nor flat. The total absence of all attempts at artificial ornamentation gave the future Mrs. Poteet an appearance of forlorn shiftlessness that was not even slightly justified by the facts. She was a woman past the heyday of youth, but of considerable energy, and possessed of keen powers of observation. Whatever was feminine about her was ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris

... houses like it up and down the coast. Some had remained unused for years, desolate and forlorn, no unhappy ship having foundered or struck the breakers within their reach; others had been in constant use. The crews were gathered from the immediate neighborhood by the custodian, who was the only man to receive pay from the Government. ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith

... have given much to see the least signs of repentance in you—that the greatest delight would have been for me to say to myself 'At least I have conquered the evil in that man's nature by showing him a good return for his vicious acts, and turned a bitter enemy into a friend,' but that was a forlorn hope. May you live to ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng

... containing his sentence, and which had been published in all the camps. He now became aware of the full extent of the danger which encompassed him, the utter impossibility of retracing his steps, his fearfully forlorn condition, and the absolute necessity of at once trusting himself to the faith and honour of the Emperor's enemies. To Leslie he poured forth all the anguish of his wounded spirit, and the vehemence of his agitation extracted from ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... with his mournful look, Dreary and gaunt, hanging his pallid face Twixt his dark flowing locks, he almost seemed Too feeble, or to melancholy eyes One that has parted from his soul for pride, And in the sable secret lived forlorn. ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris

... masts and rigging, with every sail and every rope distinct and black in the centre of a fiery outburst, like a charred ship enclosed in a globe of fire. And, again, for long hours she remained lost in a vast universe of night and silence where gentle sighs wandering here and there like forlorn souls, made the still sails flutter as in sudden fear, and the ripple of a beshrouded ocean whisper its compassion afar—in a ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad

... says nothing. He is staring at her. He is beginning to feel a little forlorn. He has forgotten youth for many days, has youth ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford

... within his rosy fingers lay, A chilling weight. She would not turn or hear; But with averted face went on her way. But when pale Death, all featureless and grim, Lifted his bony hand, and beckoning Held out his cypress-wreath, she followed him, And Love was left forlorn and wondering, That she who for his bidding would not stay, At Death's first whisper rose ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... off Olympus fades the gold Of the simple passionate sun; And the Gods wither one by one: Proud-eyed Apollo's bow is broken, And throned Zeus nods nor may be woken But by the song of spirits seven Quiring in the midnight heaven Of a new world no more forlorn, Sith unto it a Babe is born, That in a propped, thatched stable lies, While with darkling, reverent eyes Dusky Emperors, coifed in gold, Kneel mid the rushy mire, and hold Caskets of rubies, urns of myrrh, Whose fumes enwrap the thurifer And coil toward the high dim rafters Where, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various

... the rain falls scantily; while on a fourth, who has turned away to crop the grass, scarcely a drop descends. Into this parable in painting the irreverence of a succeeding century cut its now rifled and forlorn graves. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... armies were laid up in their winter quarters, or were, for any cause, drawn off from one another, some of the other captains might be more in evidence. But in every exploit to be called an exploit; in every single enterprise of danger; when any new position was to be taken up, or any forlorn hope was to be led, there, in the very van of labour and of danger, was sure to be seen Captain Credence with his blood-red colours in his own hand. You understand your Bunyan by this time, my brethren? Captain Credence, your little boy at school will tell you, is just the soldier-like ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... saw only one more expedient to defeat it, now that they had failed to intimidate Washington or cause him to withhold his signature. They started the idea, as a forlorn hope, that although the president might ratify, it still rested with the house of representatives to refuse, if they chose, the pecuniary means to carry the treaty into effect, and thus to nullify it. They, therefore, resolved ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... home and all its pleasures, Afric's coast I left forlorn, To increase a stranger's treasures, O'er the raging billows borne; Men from England bought and sold me, Paid my price in paltry gold; But, though theirs they have inroll'd me, Minds are never ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson

... would; she would not dare. Phinny is not bold, in that way. Could you do anything with him, do you think?' The accent of forlorn anxiety was touching from the usually so imperturbable sister. She watched Wych Hazel's face and ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... among the number of hunting men who don't like it. Many a man who sticks constantly to the roads and lines of gates, who, from principle, never looks at a fence, is much attached to hunting. Some of those who have borne great names as Nimrods in our hunting annals would as life have led a forlorn-hope as put a horse at a flight of hurdles. But they, too, are known; and though the nature of their delight is a mystery to straight-going men, it is manifest enough, that they do like it. Their theory of hunting is at any rate plain. They have an acknowledged ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope

... old story," went on Mr. Maynard, "and the point of it is that if the mountain wouldn't come to Mahomet, Mahomet must needs go to the mountain. But to-day I propose to reverse the story, and since you four sad, forlorn-looking Mahomets can't go to the picnic, why then, the picnic must come to you. And ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells

... Forlorn and desolate as she might appear she still knows herself as the object of His affections, and claims Him as her own. This expression, "I am my Beloved's, and my Beloved is mine," is similar to that found in the second chapter, "My Beloved is mine, and I am His"; and yet ...
— Union And Communion - or Thoughts on the Song of Solomon • J. Hudson Taylor

... applying to me, "M. Marston, you have been later on the spot than any of us. What can you tell of this M. Dumourier, who, I see from my letters, is appointed to the forlorn hope of France—the command of the broken armies ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... be my sister! Forlorn one—whom even Nature has fooled and betrayed! Sister!—we, both orphans! Sister!" exclaimed that dark, stern man, passionately, and with a broken voice; and he opened his arms, and Fanny, without a blush or a thought of shame, threw herself on his breast. He ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... hold him aloft very carefully, oh, my brother warriors! He needs much "keeping up." He has no bones and sinews of his own, the poor old flimsy fellow! If we take our hands from him, he will fall a heap of worn-out rags, and the angry wind will whirl him away, and leave us forlorn. Oh, let us spend our lives keeping him up, and serving him, and making him great—that is, evermore puffed out with air and nothingness—until he burst, ...
— Clocks - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome

... sure it would be, and preferred to take its contents on faith; but I was so miserable that I had to keep my eyes staring wide open to prevent the tears dropping down. I was tired, and forlorn, and homesick—for Vic and Stan, and the dear dogs and everything except Mother—and I felt such a horrible weakness creeping over me that I could even imagine myself by and by doing what they meant me to do. I thought the best thing was to gain a respite, ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... as His first coming was terminated by His Ascension, so will there be a second Ascension at His second Advent, with this important difference, however, that, as in the former, He left His Church behind Him, orphaned and forlorn, to battle in a world of sorrow and sin; in the other, not one unit among the rejoicing myriads, bought with His blood, will He debar from sharing in the splendour of His final entrance within the celestial gates. "The Lord Himself shall descend from ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff

... earth was not confined to the Jews, but has been almost universal, and undoubtedly arose from the fact that our bodies after death return to the earth and resolve into the elements. The Lord God placed this forlorn first man in the Garden of Eden with the command to till it, and permission to eat of the fruit of all its trees except "the tree of knowledge of good and evil." How Adam trespassed and fell, and brought a curse upon himself and all his innocent posterity, we shall consider ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote

... far predominated. But they wore unanimously that dare-devil air, not swaggering because there is no need, that has been the key to most of the sublime surprises of all war. The commander, whose men sit that way in the saddle and toss those jokes shoulder over shoulder down the line, dare tackle forlorn hopes that would seem sheer leap-year lunacy to the martinet with twenty ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... morn with a head forlorn And a taste like a last-year swallow's nest, He would kneel and pray, then rise and flay His ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor

... March thy sallow buds from vermeil shells Break satin-tinted, downy as the feather Of moss-chat, that among the purplish bells Breasts into fresh new life her three unborn. The plover hovers o'er thee, uttering clear And mournful-strange his human cry forlorn. While wearily, alone, and void of cheer, Thou guid'st thy nameless waters from the fen, To sleep unsunned in an untrampled glen. DAVID GRAY, To ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum

... and delivered several addresses founded on it with great success. He died shortly after his last inevitable defeat. He was an amiable and worthy man; and the devotion with which he fought so many forlorn hopes for his party should have earned him a safe seat. But that debt was never paid or even acknowledged; and he felt the ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease

... Sarrion, after a pause, "nay, I feel sure that Francisco left his fortune to Juanita at the last moment, as a forlorn hope—leaving it to you and me to get her out of the hobble in which he placed her. You know it was always his hope that you and ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... we have said before, lived Miss Jack in a large forlorn ghost-like house in which her father and all her family had lived before her. And as a matter of course Maurice Cumming when he came up to attend to his duties as a member of the legislature took up ...
— Miss Sarah Jack, of Spanish Town, Jamaica • Anthony Trollope

... explain that this respectful distance did not prevent my eyes and ears from feasting upon her luxurious complexion, her clear, honest voice, and all else that made me feel both happy and forlorn in her company. Nor would she, aware as she undoubtedly was of the meaning of my look or smile, hesitate to respond to them by some legitimate bit of coquetry. In short, we often held converse in that language of smiles, glances, blushes, pauses, ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... hundred yards. The eyes of all were fixed upon the favoured few, who, with upraised hands, were repeating the Kalima[2] before they set forth upon their perilous ride, but Charteris managed to convey a brief warning to the Darwani chiefs and officers near him. The forlorn hope burst forth from the low jungle that had served as cover all day—starting on the left of the advanced party, so as not to mask its fire, and as their progress was marked with shouts by their fellows, his ear caught the sound he had expected, ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... is the maiden all forlorn, That milk'd the cow with the crumpled horn, That tossed the dog, That worried the cat, That kill'd the rat, That ate the malt, That lay in the house that ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown

... Blessed Body that thou hast born, To save mankind that was forlorn, His body, Lady, the Jews have torn, And hurt His ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry

... itemizing his deeds, Willie sure made good as a hero. He simply spent most of his time on his knees begging our captain to send him on forlorn hopes and dangerous scouting expeditions. In every fight he was the first man to mix it at close quarters with the Don Alfonsos. He got three or four bullets planted in various parts of his autonomy. Once he went off with a detail of eight men and captured a whole company of Spanish. He kept Captain ...
— Options • O. Henry

... travellers they had on that trail was not of the highest type and could not always be relied upon for payment. The people in charge of the tambos were poor devils, half abrutis, to use a most appropriate French expression, by the life they had to lead in that forlorn country. ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... still seated, and drawing his gown instinctively over Sibyll's face, which nestled on his bosom, in slumber so deep and heavy, that the gruff voice had not broken it, "valiant sir! we are forlorn and houseless, an old man and a simple girl. Some evil-minded persons invaded our home; we fled in the ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Poor, ragged, forlorn, jeered at, pitied as a madman, discouraged by the great, refused by the rich, he kept on till, in 1790, he had the first vessel on the Delaware that ever answered the purpose of a steamboat. It ran six miles an hour against the tide, and ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... crossing here; and so, finding a toe-rest in certain familiar crannies of the masonry, clambered easily to the top of the wall, and paused there a moment, astride of the coping, to put aside the branches and take a distant view of the forlorn pile of ruins I called home. It was a dreary place; its roofs sagged, its chimneys leaned at perilous slants. Yet my heart warmed to the sight of it. I took hold of the stoutest bough to swing ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... when Borget was on one of his frequent journeys, these rooms were occupied by Jules Sandeau, after his parting with George Sand. In despair at her desertion, he tried to commit suicide; and Balzac, touched with pity at his forlorn condition, proposed that he should come to Borget's rooms, and took complete and kindly charge of him—a generosity which Sandeau, after having lived at Balzac's expense for two years, repaid in 1836, by deserting his benefactor when he ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars

... head, and put the rosy lips to his, and folded her in his arms. If one forlorn wanderer then pacing the dark streets, could have heard her innocent disclosure, and could have seen the drops of pity kissed away by her husband from the soft blue eyes so loving of that husband, he might have cried to the night—and the words would ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... care about talking any more now," he said, suddenly, and he went to his easel and worked silently at his picture; and Helen Stanley glanced at him, and thought she had never seen her old companion look so forlorn and desolate as he did to-day. He looked as if no gentle hand had ever been placed on him in kindliness and affection, and that seemed to her a terrible thing; for she was one of those prehistorically minded persons who persist in believing that affection ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various

... from Brita's cheeks. And still she was strangely self possessed. She even wondered at her own calmness. Alas, she did not know that it was a calmness that is more terrible than pain, the corpse of a forlorn ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... window, he follows, and they are silent. He looks far away over the gray loneliness stretching beyond. At length he murmurs: "A brief madness makes my long misery. Louise, if the earth were dazzled aside from her constant pole-star to worship some bewildering comet, would she be more forlorn than I?" ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... picketed, while all eyes were directed to a wild-looking band approaching in the distance. As they drew near they proved to be a party of fourteen white men, returning on foot to the States. Their baggage was strapped to their backs. It was indeed a forlorn and way-worn band. They had, on a trapping excursion, encountered but a constant scene of disasters and were now returning ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott

... time followed before the appearance of Mr. Fern and his daughter. When at last they came in together, leaning on each other, they were two as forlorn objects as one can imagine. The sight of his sweetheart's woe-begone face smote Roseleaf like a blow. He regretted to the bottom of his heart the cruel things he had thought and said ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter

... Australians pushed on to Gapaard and La Potterie in the direction of Warneton, and the Germans withdrew from all their positions in the salient. The danger to Ypres which had threatened for over two years and a half and had cost so much in British blood, had at last been exorcised, and from being an almost forlorn hope of defence the Ypres salient became the base of a promising advance (see Map, ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... alighting from his coach, surrounded by peasants on their knees, and behind him fountains and obelisk and the towering facade of St. Peter's. At the moment, thanks to a last glow of light coming in through a west window at the farther end, it was a place beautiful though forlorn. But the rooms into which she looked on either side were wreck and desolation itself, crowded with broken furniture, many of them ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... confront a near-by wall, but not a window in that wall. Yet that was what she saw directly facing her from across the old-fashioned alley separating this house from its neighbour; twelve unshuttered and uncurtained panes through which she caught a darkened view of a room almost as forlorn and devoid of furniture as the one in which ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green

... off in my stables here, When rents are low and provender is dear? Let him go feed upon the public ways: I want him only for the holidays." So the old steed was turned into the heat Of the long, lonely, silent, shadeless street; And wandered in suburban lanes forlorn, Barked at by dogs, and ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... a prayer,—he invokes the God of heaven to look down upon them, to bestow his mercy upon master, to incline his ways in the paths of good; and to protect these, his unfortunate children, and guide them through their separate wayfaring. The ardour, grotesqueness, and devotion of this poor forlorn group, are painfully touching. How it presents the portrait of an oppressed race! how sunk is the nature that has thus degraded it! Under the painful burden of their sorrow they yet manifest the purity of simple goodness. "Oh! Father in heaven, hast thou thus ordained it to be so?" ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... overlooked the deserted room on the north side. And its forlorn door still bangs in the wind, like Despair ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore

... slave with cruel chain, And keep him hope-forlorn in bondage pent, Use tames his temper to imprisonment, And hardly would he fain be free again. Use curbs the snake and tiger, and doth train Fierce woodland lions to bear chastisement; And the young artist, all with toil forspent, By constant use a giant's strength doth gain But with the ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella

... feeling restless and anxious about her mother, and thinking it hard that Agnes should have all the nursing and responsibility, tore herself from her man and her baby, and went north to Whindale for a fortnight, leaving Robert forlorn. ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... sound well, and cried out, that yonder was the King, he knew by his manner of blowing. So he and his companions hastened to meet King Robert. They could not help weeping when they considered their own forlorn condition, but they were stout-hearted men, and yet looked ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... worse as the boat steamed away. She stood up on a limb to watch it. Smaller and smaller it seemed, leaving only a long plume of smoke in its wake as it disappeared around Long Point. Then even the smoke faded, and a forlorn little figure, strangely at variance with the fierce pirate suit, she crumpled up in the crotch of the willow, her face hidden in her elbow, and began to sob piteously: ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston

... into the forest, following the tracks of the hoofs of Monsieur de Merosailles's horse. It was then late afternoon, and the slanting rays of the sun, striking through the tree-trunks, reddened her face as she rode along, spurring her horse and following hard on the track of the forlorn gentleman. But what she intended to do if she came up with him, ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various

... is not one of them, and relying on the metal of my outfit, I at once put them in possession of the facts. At first their simple minds could hardly grasp the enormity of the injustice to our employer, but once the land lay clear, they would gladly have led a forlorn hope in Don Lovell's interests. Agitation over the matter was maintained at white heat for several days, as we again angled back towards the Cimarron. Around the camp-fires at night, the chicanery of The Western Supply Company gave place to the best stories at our command. "There ought ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams

... anguish of her heart, she stretched out her hands, as if she were groping her way; then spread them, in a manner most forlorn and ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... as though we had entered a church. We were, perhaps unconsciously, abashed by the intensity of the absorption of these neat young women. After a while one of the guides, one of the inscrutable beings who had helped to invent and construct the astounding organism, began in a low voice on the forlorn hope of making me comprehend the mechanism of a telephone-call and its response. And I began on the forlorn hope of persuading him by intelligent acting that I did comprehend. We each made a little progress. I could not tell him ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett

... distance. We rushed after them at increased speed. Poor Grace could scarcely support herself, but I helped her along. At length we overtook our friends. "On, on!" cried Mr Sedgwick, every now and then turning back and pointing towards the beach, much as an officer might encourage a forlorn hope, only we were flying from danger instead of running into it. The fire seemed scarcely a hundred yards from us, and already we felt the heat of the advancing conflagration. At length the bay opened out before us, but the fire was by this time close on ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... own, what his preparations are in all his parts, and what he can do; for, be confident, he beareth up a reputation, by seeming to embrace more than he can gripe; but, the next year, be assured, he will cast over to you some forlorn troops, which, how they may be reinforced beyond his present ability, and his first intention, I cannot, as yet, make any certain judgment; but I believe, out of my intelligence, that you may expect the landing in Munster, and, the more to distract you, ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton

... back. Pursuit was decided upon, and Captain Drake resolved to lead it himself. The whole of the gentlemen adventurers volunteered to accompany him, and Dan Pengelly and Paignton Rob completed the available force. It was small enough to be called a "forlorn hope;" it was brave enough to do desperate deeds ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... as well as we ever did; and we can laugh at a good charade quite as loud as any of you can. So you need not take it on yourselves to suppose that because you are among "old people,"—by which you mean married people,—all is lost, and that the hours are to be stupid and forlorn. The best series of parties, lasting year in and out, that I have ever known, were in Worcester, Massachusetts, where old and young people associated together more commonly and frequently than in any other town I ever happened ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale

... did go home, and Patty chattered gaily all the way in order, as she said, to drive away the musty recollections of that forlorn old place. ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells

... Demetrius when he ran away so rudely from her; but she could not continue this unequal race long, men being always better runners in a long race than ladies. Helena soon lost sight of Demetrius; and as she was wandering about, dejected and forlorn, she arrived at the place where Lysander was sleeping. "Ah!" said she, "this is Lysander lying on the ground: is he dead or asleep?" Then, gently touching him, she said, "Good sir, if you are alive, awake." Upon this Lysander opened his eyes, and (the love-charm beginning ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

... little empty homes forlorn, The ruined synagogues that mourn In Frankfort and Berlin; We knew them when the peace was torn— We of a nobler lineage born— And now by all the gods of scorn We mean ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell

... dear forlorn lover!" he cried, grasping his visitor's hand, "I thought you were that rascally proctor, and was really preparing for a hand-to-hand conflict, ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous

... kindly gentleness is but a fancy vain! Thy charms that they can match the olea or orchid, but thoughts inane! While an actor will, envious lot! with fortune's smiles be born, A youth of noble birth will, strange to say, be luckless and forlorn. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... actually appeared at one of his imperial mamma's drawing-rooms in a Newmarket cutaway,—how, it is asked, can we expect that beings of this bent may properly heed those ghastly and incessant wants which are forever making of humanity the forlorn tragi-comedy it is? The yawp of socialism is excusably despised by plutocracy. Socialism is not merely a cry of pain; if it were only that its plaints might have proved more effectual. It is a cry of avarice, of jealousy, and very often of extreme laziness ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various

... forlorn battle that has been going on behind the door of your room and the doors of your heart during these last few days, is more than I can well endure. Open both doors to me; leagued ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... lived in B——, some twenty miles away, announcing that she and a party of friends were about to drive over to Hillton to see the old house. She felt sure that her dear aunt would be enchanted to see them, as it must be "quite too forlorn for her, all alone in that great barn;" so she might expect them the next evening (that is, the evening of this very day), in time for supper, and no doubt as hungry as hunters. There would be about a dozen of them, probably, but she knew there was plenty of room ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards

... pitiably helpless and forlorn as he sat there in his accustomed chair waiting her return. The bees and birds were busy among the vines, and all the well-oiled machinery of his splendid home was going forward to the end that his sweet girl-wife should ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... closed the door behind him with a bang, and, excited with the controversy, returned with a short and suspicious nod the greeting of a small man of shrunken and forlorn aspect who was sitting at the other ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs

... forlorn inside as it is out," said Stephen. "Some of the rooms are quite pleasant. The south rooms in your part of ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson

... It was a forlorn hope. All the troops, either attacking or in support, were compelled to lie in the open. They were swept by bullets from every side and plastered with shells from guns of all calibres. The Turkish action ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett

... believe my faith the higher, the better for mankind—Am I to slink away? Since I began this campaign I've found hundreds who've thanked me for taking this stand. They look on me now as their leader. Am I to desert them? When you led your forlorn hope— did you ask yourself what good you were doing, or, whether you'd come through alive? It's my forlorn hope not to betray those who are following me; and not to help let die a fire—a fire that's sacred— ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... clothes-lines, ash-barrels, and ill-fed cats. There were no sleek country tabbies, with the memory in their eyes of tasted cream, nothing but city-born, city-bred, thin, despairing cats of the pavement, cats no more forlorn than Rose herself. ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... night, Waking she heard the night-fowl crow: The cock sung out an hour ere light: From the dark fen the oxen's low Came to her: without hope of change, In sleep she seemed to walk forlorn, Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn About the lonely moated grange. She only said, "The day is dreary, He cometh not," she said; She said, "I am aweary, aweary, I would that ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... night comes. Violet kisses him and then takes Cecil to her own little room, where they fall asleep in each other's arms. The child is so sweet. She can never be quite forlorn with her. So much of her life has been passed apart from her father that it seems now as if he was going on a journey and would come ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... a forlorn smile took the great chair, and then gazed absently out of the window upon the charming landscape, brilliant with the glow of the setting sun. Elmer meanwhile went on with his work, and for a little space neither spoke. Then ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... are going out in the Casino. It is the hour when, in the old days, life would be becoming most feverish about the gaming tables. In little forlorn groups the repatries are being conducted to their temporary quarters in the town. To-morrow morning before it is light, another train-load will arrive, the band will again play the Marseillaise, the American Red Cross workers will again be in attendance, the gentleman in the top-hat ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson

... made an excellent phantasmagoria. His nephew had one of his legs very much injured. Here we were in a most pitiable condition, not knowing what to do, as we could not move our travelling machine without assistance. As we were scratching our wise heads, and looking at each other with forlorn faces, a party of French soldiers approached, and for a five-franc piece they assisted us in righting the carriage and catching the horses, which had been stopped at the bottom of the hill. On an examination of ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... consolation. You remember what Victor Hugo says of the sublime Pauline Roland. The spirit of Flourens much resembled hers. The patriot could act the part of a sister of charity. At other times, an enthusiast in search of a social Eldorado, he would put himself at the service of the most forlorn cause; never was anyone so imprudent. He was of a most active and critical disposition: it was impossible for him to remain quiet. When he was not seemingly employed, he was agitating something in the shade. His friendship for Rochefort was great. These ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton

... wanted to consult you and Jenny upon the subject. You, who are an officer's wife, and I, who am both an officer's wife and daughter, ought to devise some plan of rescuing this poor, unfortunate lady and her family from her present forlorn situation." ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... on the steps one day! What a forlorn-looking creature she is! I think she must be very poor. Still, it seems to me there should be no poverty in this rich, happy-appearing village. I fancy it will be a love of a place in summer, Sylva, when all the maples and lindens are in leaf, and the numerous gardens in flower. O, when ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... she to go with the little ones? Where could she hope to find a refuge at once? What was to become of them when all they now possessed was spent. The gods be thanked! she was not forlorn; she still had friends. She could find protection and love with Pollux and look to dame ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... with literally dozens of Anglo-Indian relatives. I was therefore glad to pass via Brindisi on the road to Athens. Patras also had its interest to me as a distributing centre for our Labrador fish. We actually saw three forlorn-looking schooners, with cargoes from ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... it?' Mrs. Crawford asked a little angry and a good deal astonished; but Jerry only answered at first with her tears, as Harold jeered at her forlorn appearance and ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... not got over yet the stunned effect of the past days and nights. She sat feeling coldly miserable and forlorn and solitary; conscious that one interest was living at her heart yet, but also conscious that it was to live and die by its own strength as it might; and that in all the world she had nothing else; no, nor never should have anything else. She could not have a father ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner

... "but any one could lose a hat, simply by looking over the edge of the shaft." Then, as if in proof of the forlorn hope which he himself did not believe; "Harry 's a strong man. Certainly he would know how to swim. And in any event he should have been able to have kept afloat for at least a few minutes. Rodaine says that he heard a shout and ran right in here; but all that he could ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... herself provisionally on the little bench by the door, and dug the point of her umbrella into the ground. Her mind was busy. He still held the letter. She had had a forlorn hope that he would throw down the sheet; but he did not. Was there any strategy, she wondered. But none suggested itself; and indeed, as if divining her thought, he put the crumpled sheet in his pocket. Her eyes followed despairingly the "Dear Christopher," ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors

... of his father brought a forlorn longing to his small heart He saw his grandmother go off for her daily drive, and crept silently into the big hall. Sitting down at the foot of the stairs he heaved ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre

... you retain in your dear meddlesome head any idea that Nan, as you say, 'loves' me, you're to remember also that Nan is not in any sense an Ariadne on a French clock, her arm over her head, deserted and forlorn. You are to remember I adore her and, if I thought we could both in a dozen years or so perish by shipwreck or Tenney's axe (poor Tenney!) I should get down on my knees to her and beg her (can't you hear our Nan laugh?) to let me marry her. (Probably she wouldn't, old man—marry me, I mean. ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... goaded Balder past bearing. As she turned away, his face looked grim and forlorn. He balanced with half-raised arms on the cliff's brink. The river slumbered bluely on below, peace was aloft in the sky, and joy in the trees and grass. But in the man were darkness and despair and loathing of his ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... hand the question of providing due supervision and police regulation for the Gipsies, with compulsory education for their children, we readily dedicate these local illustrations to the furtherance of his good work. The ugliest place we know in the neighbourhood of London, the most dismal and forlorn, is not Hackney Marshes, or those of the Lea, beyond Old Ford, at the East-end; but it is the tract of land, half torn up for brick-field clay, half consisting of fields laid waste in expectation of the house-builder, which lies just outside of Shepherd's Bush and Notting Hill. There ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... sailors and clam-diggers were gathered, lounging on the counter and kegs, while one read a newspaper aloud slowly. They stopped to look at Miss Defourchet, when she came in, and waited by the door for the Doctor. The gloomy air and forlorn-looking shop contrasted and threw into bright relief her pretty, delicate little figure, and the dainty carriage-dress she wore. All the daylight that was in the store seemed at once to cling to and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... Disgrac'd, undone, forlorn, made Fortune's Sport, Banish'd your Kingdom first, and then your Court; Out of my Places turn'd, and out of Doors, And made the meanest of your Sons of Whores; The scene of Laughter, and the common chats Of your salt Bitches, ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid

... a vague desire to render my position more comfortable, ending in a forlorn hope that intense and continued sitting might, by some undefined process of evaporation, cure the evil. This suggested a speculation, half pleasing and half painful, as to what would be my mother's feelings could she be aware of the state of things; the pleasure being the result ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... beginning of September, troops of forlorn and desperate exiles began to return to the city. They came, to be sure, with shouts of Vive le Roi! but, as a matter of fact, they seemed willing to make any accommodation for the sake of being permitted to remain. "Better ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... if my heart was old and tired she would refresh it, and you said truly. I do not know how I got along without her, before. I was a forlorn old tree, but now that this blossoming vine has wound itself about me and become the life of my life, it is very different. As a furnisher of business for me and for Mammy Dorcas she is exhaustlessly competent, but I like ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain

... and many other friends that you made here, enquire continually after you. The Spanish lady is gone, and now poor Robinson is left quite forlorn. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... rather than pride. According to the ethics of that place no woman should be known beyond her own church and parlour, much less celebrated. Judge Regis was a distinguished jurist, of course, and Marshall Adams had been a famous leader of forlorn hopes in the Confederate Army. But it is one thing to be distinguished at the bar or famous in battle fifty years ago, and quite another thing to be celebrated in the present. Susan was that thing. It was said of her that she had kept her husband, an elegant soft ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris

... of his brother, in this disturbed condition, George threw himself into a chair, and with his face concealed between his hands, sat brooding over his forlorn situation. ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper

... approved Brennan. "I've been in a few forlorn hope fights before and have seen the impossible happen, in fact, helped ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson

... Forlorn, indeed, were their prospects now. They had made no attempt to conciliate the natives through whose provinces they had passed, and they could expect to encounter only hostility upon every step of their return. The country also, devastated in their advance, ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott

... controversy concerning the Fulton-Livingston monopoly, note W. A. Duer's "A Course of Lectures on Constitutional Jurisprudence" and his pamphlets addressed to Cadwallader D. Colden. The life of that stranger to success, the forlorn John Fitch, was written sympathetically and after assiduous research by Thompson Westcott in his "Life of John Fitch the Inventor of the Steamboat" (1858). For the pamphlet war between Fitch and Rumsey see ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert

... herself by frequent payments. The one is like a ward-holding and pays its reddendo in hard blows. The other a blanch-tenure, and is discharged for payment of a red rose or a peppercorn. He that takes the forlorn hope in an attack, is often deserted by those that should support him, and who generally throw the blame of their own cowardice upon his rashness. We shall see this will end in the same way. But I foresaw it from the beginning. ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... warring with Pisa, still to fix his eyes on darkness and the degradation of humanity; for he was visiting a country,—as England was in the fifteenth century,—buried in the gloom of barbarism, and forlorn in its literary condition, with writers, unworthy the name of scholars, Walsingham and Whethamstede, Otterbourne and Elmham, inditing bald chronicles; students applying their minds to scholastic philosophy; ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross

... but one forlorn hope left. He had written personal letters to several millionaires he knew in town. ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon

... porcupine, however, the feeling is returned with exorbitant interest. The alleged failings of auto-comradeship have always drawn grins, jokes, fleers, and nudges, from the auto-comradeless. It is time the latter should know that the joke is really on him; for he is the most forlorn of mankind. The other is never at a loss. He is invulnerable, being one whom "destiny may not surprise nor death dismay." But the porcupine is liable at any moment to be deserted by associates who are bored by his sharp, hollow quills. ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler

... as he spoke. With the disappearance of excitement, and the cessation of exertion, he realised again the great sorrow that faced him and admitted of no evasion. He sighed deeply and sought his cigarette-case. Vain hope of comfort! His cigarettes were no more than a distasteful pulp. He felt forlorn, very cold, very hungry, also; for it was now between nine and ten o'clock. His heart was heavy as he prepared to mount the hill and finish his evening's work. He must see Guillaume; he must see ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope

... vain; for the clamor of the Hindoo widow, however bitterly aggrieved, is but a nuisance, and her accusation insolence. So in her pitiful outcasting, in all the forlorn loathsomeness of leprosy, and the shunned squalor of a cripple, she sat down at the Baboo's gate, to wait for justice till the gods should bestow it,— till Siva, the Avenger, should behold her, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... us have at one time or another been forced to learn that hard truth for ourselves. This forlorn woman had probably never read the passage, but her experience brought abundant confirmation of it home to her at this time. She was driven to assume the internal management of the household, and found grateful ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent

... several hundred small pieces, put up in a dozen little bottles. I got a horrid little stain in the middle of my dress that one of the young men—the young savants—was so good as to drop there. Did you see the young savants who work under Gordon's orders? I thought they were too forlorn; there is n't one of them you would look at. If you can believe it, there was n't one of them that looked at me; they took no more notice of me than if I had been the charwoman. They might have shown me some attention, at least, as the wife of the proprietor. ...
— Confidence • Henry James

... stay. "Climb up to me," she cries to the lad, walking with soiled feet in muddy ways; "be a true man that you may be worthy to walk by my side; be brave to protect me, kind and tender, and true; but climb no higher, stay here by my side." The martyr, the prophet, the leader of the world's forlorn hopes, she would wake from his dream. Her arms she would fling about his ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... seemly and wholly open for her to say and to do. Her widowhood is a sacred shield to her. Her sorrow is a crown of honour and a sceptre of authority to her. She is consulted by the young and the inexperienced, by the forsaken and by the forlorn, as no other human being ever is. She has come through this life, and by a long experience she knows this world and the hearts that fill it and make it what it is. A widow indeed can show a sympathy, and give a counsel, and ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte

... saved Burnside's extraordinary campaign. Had he been assigned to lead a forlorn hope, regardless of consequences, his plan, if it can be called a plan, might have been justified, but under the existing circumstances it was reckless to the point of madness. His first moves, however, were characterized by an ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill

... magnificent panorama spread before the eyes of our castaways, who, despite their forlorn lot, cannot help regarding it with wonder and admiration. Nor is their wonder diminished by what they see and hear close at hand. Little did they expect to find parrots and humming-birds in that high southern latitude; yet a flock of the former chatter above their heads, ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid

... effectiveness, and in 1894 he was listened to not so much with interest as with pity. His last speech in the House was delivered in the debate on Uganda in June 1894, and was a painful failure. He was, in fact, dying of general paralysis. A journey round the world was undertaken as a forlorn hope. Lord Randolph started in the autumn of 1894, accompanied by his wife, but the malady made so much progress that he was brought back in haste from Cairo. He reached England shortly before Christmas and died in London on the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... his search for Anne again. Luckily he had obtained from Mrs. Morley the number of the Institute, which was in South Kensington, and the day after his arrival walked there to make inquiries. It was a very forlorn hope, but Ware saw no other chance of ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume

... alight and witness the issue of the adventure; so in due time these forlorn damsels were seen advancing over the bridge ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... help it. You looked so pretty, dear, and so forlorn. It seemed brutal, somehow, to abandon you on ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair

... felt a wild impulse to catch the little shrinking creature in his arms and bear her away to his own home, to warm and cheer and comfort her. Was there ever before anything in the world so sweet, so helpless, so forlorn? He looked around. The children were all gone; he stood alone in the street with the foreign woman, and night was falling. It was at this moment that Abby Rock, who had been watching from her window for the past few minutes, ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards

... nothing could avert the inevitable dawn. They took the Sacrament from each other's hands, and "committing their souls to God made ready to devote their bodies in the cause of His Blessed Son." It was a forlorn and sickly remnant of the proudest chivalry the world has ever known, that met the conquering Turks that June morning: worn and haggard faces, pale with long vigils and open wounds; tottering frames that scarce could stand; some even for very weakness ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... and are sent north, west, or extreme south-west if they wish. Several of them told me that the desertions in their army, of men going home, leave or no leave, are far more numerous than their desertions to our side. I saw a very forlorn looking squad of about a hundred, late this afternoon, on their way to ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman



Words linked to "Forlorn" :   forlorn hope



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