"Maudlin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be as sentimental as any one a few years ago," said Ann, returning to the dropped subject. "Just after I left college, I was quite maudlin. I dreamed of moons and Junes and loves and doves all the time. Then something happened which made me see what a little fool I was. It wasn't pleasant at the time, but it had a very bracing effect. I have been quite different ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... his head dejectedly, his lips working in a sort of spasmodic silence. Dodge eyed him with a curious, new-born commiseration. The boy's self-abasement, his misery, his flouting of his own weakness were not altogether the result of maudlin reaction. He presented a combination of manliness and effectiveness that perplexed and irritated Simeon Dodge. He did not want to feel sorry for him and yet he could not help doing so. George's broad shoulders and splendid chest were heaving under the strain of a genuine, real emotion. ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... Deutsch?" he asked, and Medill answered, "Seemlich!" When it was apparent that two of us understood German he opened up. He had to talk slowly, but he was willing to make any sacrifice to get conversation going. He rambled along in a maudlin way, and finally picked up an illustrated paper containing an account of the Turin riots, which angered him, and then and there being, that Italian soldier told us in German the story of what he ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... "Notre Dame" can deny the presence of a certain savage delight in scenes of grotesque and exaggerated terror. No one who has read "Les Miserables" can deny the existence in him of a vein of lovely tenderness that, with a little tiny push over the edge, would degenerate into maudlin sentiment ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... solemnly even, "and I counsel you, Miriam, in turn, to seek your draughts of soul from our pure 'wells of English undefiled,' rather than such high-flown fancies and maudlin streams as flow from the pen of this accomplished Hebrew. There is a little too much of the Jeremiah and Isaiah style about such extracts as I have ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... I found that in most essentials the two stories were identical, although Gedge had been maudlin drunk when he ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... as poems for children to recite; yet in the one case it is beyond any teacher's power to show children the unearthly flaming beauty which alone gives the poem its peculiar quality and undefinable power; and in the other the maudlin sentimentalism and almost priggish piety of the verses are positively dangerous to the child's health of mind. Both types of recitation work out in the end to this—that when the child attains adolescence, and ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... the intrinsically "true, good, and beautiful" was part of the homage that his nature rendered to its Creator, and instead of flowering into a morbid and maudlin sentimentality which craves low-browed, long straight-nosed, undraped statuettes in every nook and corner,—or dwarfs the soul and pins it to the surplice of some theologic dogmata claiming infallibility—or coffins the intellect in cramped, shallow, psychological categories,—it bore fruit in ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... They're not. They're just as good as women, if not better. I've no betrayed virgin's grouch against men. But I've made myself too busy to worry about sex. It's no use talking tosh. Sex is the root of the whole sentimental, maudlin——" ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... themselves with an annual exposition of the grievances of Ireland, over the short leg of a turkey, a "bumper of Burgundy," and that roar of lip artillery, against the usurper, which dies away in a few maudlin hiccups, about two o'clock in the morning, to be revived only at the expiration of another twelve months. Under the burden of any commonplace name, such, we say, might have been the fate of the organization ere this; ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... VAUGHAN [with maudlin solemnity] Only be true to yourself, Miss O'Dowda. Keep serious. Give up making silly jokes. Sustain the note of passion. And ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... Conway has given a sentence or two) by his sense of the great materials which America could offer for a really American poetry, and by his contempt for the current work of his compatriots—"either the poetry of an elegantly weak sentimentalism, at bottom nothing but maudlin puerilities or more or less musical verbiage, arising out of a life of depression and enervation as their result; or else that class of poetry, plays, &c., of which the foundation is feudalism, with its ideas of lords and ladies, its imported standard ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... only, instead of admiration; that men pause to regard him as a miracle of conceit and assurance rather than as a prophet; and that his commonplaces about "olive leaves," "calumets," "universal brotherhood," "fatherland," etc., have no more influence than the maudlin rigmarole of the madman whose preternatural force is lost in senility. It is time for Elihu Burritt to go back to his shop: the world wants a ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... rhapsodize endlessly over the charms of the London Gaiety when The Geisha, The Country Girl, and The Circus Girl were in favour; a sixth, it seems, finds his pleasure in Americana, Robin Hood, Wang, The Babes in Toyland, and El Capitan; a seventh becomes maudlin to the most utter degree when you mention Les Cloches de Corneville, or La Mascotte, products of a decadent stage in the history of French opera-bouffe. Not long ago I heard a man speak of the cadet operas in Boston (did a man named Barnet write them?) as the last of the great musical ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... no respect leading to repose or lofty contemplation, or to submission to the evils of life, which it catalogues with amazing detail; a book not even conducive to innocent entertainment. It is the revelation of the inner life of a sensualist, an egotist, and a hypocrite, with a maudlin although genuine admiration for Nature and virtue and friendship and love. And the book reveals one of the most miserable and dissatisfied men that ever walked the earth, seeking peace in solitude and virtue, while yielding to ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... if there is a man on board with enough sense left to run the engine, and the captain—look there!" pointing to a maudlin and dishevelled Canadian wearing a captain's cap, and just then trying to preserve his equilibrium on a wooden settle near the railing. "It would be a blessing if the brute tumbled overboard, and we were well rid of him," said the gentleman savagely in a low tone. Then, seeing my consternation, ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... consciously or unconsciously inculcated by the Gaelic League, is likely to make more apparent, for it is killing that conception of the Irishman as typically a boisterous buffoon with intervals of maudlin sentimentality which the stage and the popular song have so long been content to depict without protest from us, and which left Englishmen with feelings not more exalted than those of their sixteenth and seventeenth ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... at the opening of the third volume. It is the story of three little children, barely out of infancy, awaking, playing, eating, wondering, slumbering, in solitude through a summer day in an old tower. As a rule the attempt to make infancy interesting in literature ends in maudlin failure. But at length the painters have found an equal, or more than an equal, in an artist whose medium lends itself less easily than colour and form to the reproduction of the beauty and life of ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... out of the doorway, down the couple of steps to the floor of the saloon, and he staggered a little, simulating drunkenness. He fell over the pool tables, jostled Mexicans at the bar, laughed like a maudlin fool, and, with his hat slouched down, crowded here and there. Presently his eye caught sight of the group of cowboys whom he had before noticed with ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... the evening because she now felt a reluctance to appear in the role of protector and preserver of the family. She would have preferred, if possible, to give the stove anonymously. Not that the expression of Hannah's gratitude was maudlin; she glared at Janet when she entered the dining-room and exclaimed: "You hadn't ought to have gone ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... it. Mr. Pryor came back at him in the Intelligencer, declaring that he was not the eulogist of the Russian Empire, but setting forth at great length the good-will of Russia toward the United States, and especially announcing that "in Russia the maudlin, mock philanthropy of Uncle Tom's Cabin is an unknown disease." It was the general belief in Washington that Mr. Pryor had been inspired by some one connected with the ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... upon his cheeks, lurched out of a doorway ahead of them and stood snarling malevolently at O'Mara, the girl shrank against her companion and clutched his arm. The red-shirted one fell to singing after they had passed. A maudlin rendition of "Harrigan, That's Me," followed them long after they had rounded a corner. Steve looked down and smiled casually into Barbara's wide and ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... qualities best worth a good man's cultivation, so it is the first part of intelligence to recognise our precarious estate in life, and the first part of courage to be not at all abashed before the fact. A frank and somewhat headlong carriage, not looking too anxiously before, not dallying in maudlin regret over the past, stamps the man who is ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... things. We have done very well without sacrificing any of our dependents; in fact, it would seem like murder to slaughter the animals about us. And it's such a little world it seems a pity to kill off any of its inhabitants. To tell the truth, I hope the bear got away all right. This is maudlin, I know, but I don't want my hand first to bring death on all there is left of earth. ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... into other channels, and flowed in a maudlin, sluggish manner far into the night. Every member of the bibulous party was as happy as he knew how to be. The landlord's till was full of money, the loafers were full of liquor, and the doctor's heart was full of vanity and ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... know, what only I can ever know, many grim and many maudlin passages out of my past life to feel how great a change has been made for me by this past summer. Let me be ever so poor and thread-paper a soul, I am going to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... impossible surmises. But veracity, unfortunately, is not highly infectious, and it is a little difficult not to believe that the high and serene virtues of the great man gone were promptly exploited for the small men left. One miracle there seems no reason to doubt. John, in an almost maudlin fit of emotional repentance, made peace at the funeral with his Cistercian enemies and founded them a home at Beaulieu in the New Forest. Indeed, these were the true miracles which recommended Hugh to the English people, so that they regarded him as a saint indeed, and clamoured ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... intoxicating liquors; that he was even inordinately drunk at the time referred to; that he had voluntarily complicated himself in the concealment of the arms by John H. Surratt and his friends; that he was in a state of maudlin terror when arrested and when forced to confess; that for two days he maintained denial of all knowledge that Booth and Herold had been at his house; and that at last, and in the condition referred to, he ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... home 'til morning!" hummed Monte, catching Birdie by the arm and skipping down the passage. Nance stood for a moment looking down at the maudlin old figure muttering to himself on the door-step; then she, too, turned and followed the others out into the ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... money is laid upon the plutocracy. It will win because it will be able, in the long run, to enlist the finer intelligences. The mob and its maudlin causes attract only sentimentalists and scoundrels, chiefly the latter. Politics, under a democracy, reduces itself to a mere struggle for office by flatterers of the proletariat; even when a superior man prevails at that disgusting game ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... prayer is the mood of finding God. Who seeks Him must seek with thought aflame with love. Caliban's reasoning ambles like a drunkard staggering home from late debauch. His grossness shames us. And yet were he only Caliban, and if he were all alone, we could forget his maudlin speech—but he is more. He is a voice of our own era. His babblings are not more crude and irreverential than much that passes for profound thinking. Nay, Caliban is our contemporaneous shame. He asserts (he does not think—he asserts, settles questions ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... the guise of sociability, false pride, or moral cowardice, tempted Horace B—, and he yielded. Like tinder touched by flame, he blazed into drunkenness, and again and again the proud-spirited, manly, and cultured young lawyer and jurist was seen staggering along the streets, maudlin or mad with alcohol. When he had slept off his madness, his humiliation was intense, and he walked the streets with pallid face and downcast eyes. The coarser-grained men with whom he was thrown in contact had no conception ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... seldom worth meeting halfway! And these moral reflections of mine are quite unnecessary and somewhat obvious, but they harm nobody, and are very soothing to make and utter at my time of life. Pity the sorrows of a poor old man and forgive him his maudlin garrulity.... ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... list!" commanded Madden brusquely, with ill-concealed disgust that Smith should be maudlin ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... table; probably beginning his career as a frizeur or a footman, and making rapid progress towards the galleys. If she has none, she returns to England, to grumble, for the next fifty years, at the climate, the country, and the people; to drawl out her maudlin regrets for olive groves, and pout for the Bay of Naples; to talk of her loves; exhibit a cameo or a crucifix, (the parting pledge of some inamorato, probably since hanged), prate papistry, and profess liberalism; pronounce the Roman holidays "charming things," and long to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... the stage); and, as I think that love is not the principal passion for tragedy (and yet most of ours turn upon it), you will not find me a popular writer. Unless it is love, furious, criminal, and hapless, it ought not to make a tragic subject. When it is melting and maudlin, it does, but it ought not to do; it is then for ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... dead. There was one little drunken hunchback who told those in the car who listened to him that years ago he had quarrelled with his parents in Johnstown and had not seen them since. He was on the way now to see if anything was left of them. One moment he was in maudlin tears and the next he was cracking some miserable joke about the disaster. He went about the car shaking dice with other inebriated passengers, and in the course of half an hour had won $6. Over this he exhibited almost the glee of a maniac, and the fate of his people was lost sight of. Then ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... himself, they thereupon grew very intimate together, and being a couple of fellows of very odd tempers, after having got half drunk at the Hampshire Hog, they took it into their heads that there was not in the world two fellows so unhappy as themselves. The subject began when they were maudlin, and as they grew quite drunk, they came to a resolution to go out and beat everybody they met, for being ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... original. I would especially insist on its manliness, because our present literature abounds in so-called passion which is but half-sincere or wholly insincere sentimentalism, if it be not thinly disguised prurient lust, and in so-called pathos which is maudlin to nauseousness. The great unappreciated poet last cited {George Meredith} has defined passion as 'noble strength on fire'; and this is the true passion of great natures and great poets; while sentimentalism is ignoble weakness dallying with fire; . . . ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... and fierce desires! Why languish thus the wonted fires That arm'd thine heart and nerved thine hand To do whate'er thy firmness planned? Has maudlin love subdued thy soul, Once so impatient of control? Has amorous play enslaved the mind Where erst no common chains confined? Has tender dalliance power to kill The wild, indomitable will? No more must love thus paralyze And crush thine iron energies; No more must maudlin passion stay ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... knows not which is the more repugnant—the degradation of the poor child Salome to the level of a dancing-girl, the fell malignity of the mother who would shame her daughter for such an end, the maudlin generosity of Herod, flushed with wine and excited passion, the hideous request from lips so young, the ineffectual sorrow of Herod, his fantastic sense of obligation, which scrupled to break a wicked promise and did not ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... the cards a few minutes later, when the long-haired man emerged from the gambling hell, and imitating the maudlin, sauntered up to the bar and asked for a drink. After being served, he walked about halfway to the door, then whirling suddenly, stepped to the end of the bar, placed his hands upon it, sprang up and stood upright on it. He whipped out two six-shooters, let loose a yell which caused a commotion ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... sort of action in Kenn all the more," said Stephen, "because his manners in general are rather cold and severe. There's nothing sugary and maudlin about him." ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... high jump. Or suppose that in the course of his intellectual rambles the philosopher of Success dropped upon our other case, that of playing cards, his bracing advice would run—"In playing cards it is very necessary to avoid the mistake (commonly made by maudlin humanitarians and Free Traders) of permitting your opponent to win the game. You must have grit and snap and go in to win. The days of idealism and superstition are over. We live in a time of science and hard common sense, and it has now been definitely proved that in any game ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... my hand on literary fellows who will lick his style into shape—it will be an awful exposure!" Benjulia still held out his hand. With over-acted reluctance, Lemuel unbuttoned his coat. The distant dog barked again as he gave the letter back. "Please excuse my dear old dog," he said with maudlin tenderness; "the poor dumb animal seems to know that I'm taking his side in the controversy. Bow-wow means, in his language, Fie upon the cruel hands that bore holes in our head and use saws on our backs. Ah, Nathan, if you ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... son, who should cut the princess out of Burgundy, will she not be queen of France? What more would the perverse girl have? By God, Hymbercourt, it makes my blood boil to hear you, a man of sound reason, talk like a fool. I hear the same maudlin protest from the duchess. She, too, is under the spell of this girl, and mourns over her trumped-up grief like a parish ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... baked in the true "camp-meeting" style, the whisky was drunk, and—so was the company. Bill Day's rather red eyes grew redder, and his nose shone with delight as he shuffled the greasy pack of "kyerds." The maudlin smile crossed the habitually melancholy lines of his face in a way that split and splintered his visage into a ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... was Pearl, sure enough, and Danny had the pleasure of giving the alarm, beating on the window, maudlin with happiness, while Pearl said good-bye to Tom Motherwell, who had brought her home. Tommy and Bugsey and Patsey waited giggling just inside the door, while Mary and Mrs. Watson went ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... demand a fair trial by law for those accused of crime, and punishment by law after honest conviction. No maudlin sympathy for criminals is solicited, but we do ask that the law shall punish all alike. We earnestly desire those that control the forces which make public sentiment to join with us in the demand. Surely the humanitarian spirit of this country which reaches ...
— The Red Record - Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... said I, "and don't get maudlin just because you can't chin yourself ten times. Remember, it's because you're ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... pessimism here, for Thomas ['a] Kempis gives the remedies, the only remedies offered to the world since light was created before the sun. He offers no maudlin consolation; to him the sins of the intellect are worse than the sins of the flesh. He believed in hell, which he never defined, as devoutly as Dante, who did describe it. They both knew their hearts and the world; and ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... the Arno; reached the little square before the cathedral, and rested awhile in the massive, dusky church; then climbed higher, to the Franciscan convent which is poised on the very apex of the mountain. He rang at the little gateway; a shabby, senile, red-faced brother admitted him with almost maudlin friendliness. There was a dreary chill in the chapel and the corridors, and he passed rapidly through them into the delightfully steep and tangled old garden which runs wild over the forehead of the great hill. He had been in it before, and he was very fond of it. The garden ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... "What I am about to say," he explained as he suddenly heaved a sigh, "is not the maudlin talk of a man under the effects of wine. As far as the subjects at present set in the examinations go, I could, perchance, also have well been able to enter the list, and to send in my name as a candidate; but I have, just now, no means whatever to make provision for luggage and for travelling ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... joking was carried to the extreme, both by citizens and cowmen. One night a tipsy foreman, who had just arrived over the trail, insisted on going the rounds with a party of us, and in order to shake him we entered a variety theatre, where my maudlin friend soon fell asleep in his seat. The rest of us left the theatre, and after seeing the sights I wandered back to the vaudeville, finding the performance over and my friend still sound asleep. I awoke him, never letting him know that I had been absent for hours, and after rubbing his ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... liked wine. The servants bustled around. The wine was heated—again and again. A feast of fish—with more wine—followed. It was late when Iemon left the house, the only sober member of the party. Of his hosts, one was maudlin, the other asleep. The ample resources of Tamiya, if not of benefit to his person, in these past two years had given him the chance to harden his head; ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... punch particularly. That when Miss Murdstone took her into custody and led her away, she smiled and gave me her delicious hand. That I caught a view of myself in a mirror, looking perfectly imbecile and idiotic. That I retired to bed in a most maudlin state of mind, and got up in ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... that few of them were pleased with the first stage of their expedition, but they were forced to take it out in swearing. They swore at the dark, at the cold sea air, at the sand, at their luck, and, below their breath, at Stubbs, who had got them here. Two of them were drunk and sang maudlin songs in each other's arms. But out of the grumbling babel of voices one ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... debauch is continued till a late hour, Quantrell paying shot for the whole party. Maudlin as most of them have become, they still wonder that a man so shabbily dressed can command so much cash and coin. Some of them are not ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... they knew not his distress, nor the extent of his weakness, or some would have tarried and aided: for there is, after all, as much kindness as cruelty in our nature; perhaps they thought it was only some intoxicated and maudlin idler; or, perhaps, in the heat of their pursuit, they thought ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Rider's; and could guess the curious questions and large answers which had followed. He sprang to the ground with a painful suppressed indignation, intensified by many mingled feelings, and waited the arrival of the maudlin wanderer. Ah me! one might have had some consolation in the burden freely undertaken for love's sake, and by love's self shared and lightened: but this load of disgrace and ruin which nobody could take part of—which it was misery ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... man, the character is intelligible enough; tragic, but noble and triumphant: judged as men have been judged in history for the last hundred years, by hardly any canon save those of the private judgment, which philosophic cant, maudlin sentimentality, or fear of public opinion, may happen to have forged, the man is a phenomenon, only less confused, abnormal, suspicious than his biographers' notions about him.' Again I say, I have not solved the problem: but it will be enough if I make some think it both ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... out of the pub and fell in the gutter, the ambulance did its duty, and trundled Joe to his abiding place, but the real fun occurred when Joe was gathered in during the third stage of his debauch. He passed through the oratorical stage, then the maudlin or sentimental stage, from which he emerged into the fighting stage, when he was usually ejected into the street, where he forthwith began to make Rome howl, and paint the town red. At this point the policeman's whistle sounded, and the force knew Joe was on the warpath, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... silence settled over the crowd, and Kay thought that she had never seen a more perfect tribute of respect paid anyone. He spoke to them briefly, with a depth of sentiment only possible in a descendant of two of the most sentimental races on earth; but he was not maudlin. When he had concluded his remarks, he repeated them in Spanish for the benefit of those who had never learned English very ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... pleasing glimpses of country life. He is more happy in this direction than in his humour, which generally drifted away into maudlin and indelicate love-making between pseudo-Roman Corydons and Phyllises. The following effusion is very characteristic of ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... imbecile Peter, he had enough sense to appreciate the abilities of Catharine; and a sort of maudlin idea of justice, if it were not, perhaps, utter stupidity, dissuaded him from resenting her freedom in the choice of favorites. Upon commencing his reign, he yielded himself to the guidance of her imperial mind, hoping to obtain some dignity by the renown which her ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... themselves with too many supplies for their journey. A part, therefore, they had thrown away or sold at great loss to the traders, but had determined to get rid of their copious stock of Missouri whisky, by drinking it on the spot. Here were maudlin squaws stretched on piles of buffalo robes; squalid Mexicans, armed with bows and arrows; Indians sedately drunk; long-haired Canadians and trappers, and American backwoodsmen in brown homespun, the well-beloved pistol and bowie knife displayed openly at their sides. In the middle of ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... ([Greek: monae embasia]—a single entrance), the neo-Greek name for the Minoa promontory or island connected by a bridge with the Laconian Coast. Hence the French Malvoisie and our Malmsey. Prof. Azevedo (loc. cit.) opines that the date of the wine's introduction disproves the legend of that 'maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey butt.'] whose black grape was almost a raisin, and a harsh produce like that of the modern Gual, with great volume and alcoholic strength, but requiring time to make ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... a feeble intellect! Poetry! Is it his own, do you think? Oh, that I ever built my hopes on such a maudlin idiot!" ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... Yes, I sent Newson and Cooper home to the Shipwreck Dinner at Woodbridge, and supposing they would be maudlin on Saturday, gave them Sunday to repent on, and so have lost the only fine Days we have yet had for sailing. To-day is a dead Calm. 'These are my Trials!' as a fine Gentleman said to Wesley, when his Servant put rather too many Coals ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... on Canterbury, and is come roundly back to St. James's for the deanery of St. Paul's.(186) I could not help being diverted the other day with the life of another Bishop of Oxford, one Parker, who, like Secker, set out a Presbyterian, and died King James the Second's arbitrary master of Maudlin College.(187) ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... the preacher said "hell." He gave a maudlin cry, and almost whimpered, "No, sir, no, preacher, I am a-goin' to reform." John had known what note to touch in this debased nature. Not love, nor hope, nor shame, would move Tom Davis, but fear stung him into a semblance of sobriety. "I'll come along wi' you," he went on, swaying back and forth, ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... people and whose fathers before him loved the people (great cheering). Three cheers for Mr Trafford I say;" and they were given; "and three cheers for Mrs Trafford too, the friend of the poor!" Here the mob became not only enthusiastic but maudlin; all vowing to each other that Trafford was a true-born Englishman and his wife a very angel upon earth. This popular feeling is so contagious that even the Hell-cats shared it—cheering, shaking hands with each other, and almost shedding tears—though it must be confessed ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... bit maudlin about that farm, Mr. Headman, and it will do you good to get away for a few days. There are some other things in life, though I admit they are few, and we are not to forget them. I am up to my ears in ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... that I could cry like a baby? It cuts me to the heart, it is all so true; it is too much for me, when I think of my wretched, wasted years—paying all that money for my own labour, too! I am sober again after a debauch, I see what the object of my maudlin affection is like, and what it has brought ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... went down into it and found that, apart from a litter of empty ration-tins, it was unaltered. Then suddenly I bethought me of the caricature which still lay in my pocket-book. I had never told Joshua that I had kept it. It seemed a maudlin thing to have done and moreover might have given him an exaggerated idea of my opinion of his art. I took out the picture and looked at it. It had weathered two years of warfare fairly well. Then with an indelible ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 15, 1919 • Various
... been messed and meddled in usum vulgi. But their worst enemy recently has been, it may be feared, the irreconcilable opposition of their spirit to what is called the modern spirit—though this latter sometimes takes them up and plays with them in a fashion of maudlin mysticism. ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... how now, Billy Bowles? Sure the priest is maudlin! (To the public) How can you, d—n your souls! Listen to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... he broke down and wept maudlin tears, disgusting to witness. He said he was an old man who had always lived honestly, and it would break his heart if his grey hairs were to be disgraced. As he sat rocking himself with his hands over his face, I saw his ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... much bemused in beer, A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer, A clerk, foredoomed his father's sou to cross, Who pens a ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... on smooth petals he would slip, Or over tangled stamens trip, And headlong in the pollen roll'd, Crawl out quite dusted o'er with gold; Or else his heavy feet would stumble Against some bud, and down he'd tumble Amongst the grass; there lie and grumble In low, soft bass—poor maudlin bumble! ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... deprived Japan of the fruits of her victories, the action of those Powers was applauded, and the undoubted sympathy of the English people in England with Japan in the matter was derided by English editors in Japan as mere maudlin sentimentality. Language of this kind occasioned deep resentment among the people of the country. The foreign press is now, I am glad to say, saner, inasmuch as it to some extent recognises facts and the trend of events, but ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... capriciously permit their favourite slaves occasionally to carry their familiarity. They seem to consider it as an undeniable proof of the general kindness with which their dependents are treated. It is as good a proof of it as the maudlin tenderness of a fine lady to her lap-dog is of her humane treatment of animals in general. Servants whose claims to respect are properly understood by themselves and their employers, are not made pets, playthings, ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... forfeit twelve-pence that shall swear; He that shall any quarrel here begin, Shall give each man a dish t' atone the sin; And so shall he, whose compliments extend So far to drink in coffee to his friend; Let noise of loud disputes be quite forborne, No maudlin lovers here in corners mourn, But all be brisk and talk, but not too much, On sacred things, let none presume to touch. Nor profane Scripture, nor sawcily wrong Affairs of state with an irreverent tongue: Let mirth be innocent, and each man see That ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... around a hive, the maids of La belle France Went mad about our LIONEL and thirsted for his glance; In short they were reduced unto a state of used-up coffee lees By this mild, melancholic, maudlin, mournful Mephistopheles. He rallied them in French, in which he had the gift of rep- artee, and sunnily they smiled, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 6, 1890 • Various
... bitter curse of rage Cummings stepped forward, and, with rough hands, separated the boon companions, thrusting the tramp without ceremony under the table, Moriarity in the meantime shaking Cook in vain attempts to rouse him from his maudlin stupor. Cook, however, was too far "under the influence" to be aroused, and to the vigorous shakings and punchings would respond only with a hiccough and part of ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... cant about public life and office Mr. Gladstone was always accustomed to make short work. The repudiation of desire for official power, he at this time and always roundly denounced as 'sentimental and maudlin.' One of the not too many things that he admired in Lord Palmerston was 'the manly frankness of his habitual declarations that office is the natural and proper sphere of a public man's ambition, as that in which he can most freely use his powers for the common advantage of his country.' 'The ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... argument he undoubtedly did one great service to the causes for which he stood. Every vulgar anti-humanitarian, every snob who wants monkeys vivisected or beggars flogged has always fallen back upon stereotyped phrases like "maudlin" and "sentimental," which indicated the humanitarian as a man in a weak condition of tears. The mere personality of Shaw has shattered those foolish phrases for ever. Shaw the humanitarian was like Voltaire the humanitarian, a man whose satire was like steel, the hardest ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... furnished with liquor, which in this emergency stood them in place of food, fuel, rest, and prescience. In spite of his remonstrances, it was not long before they were more or less under its influence. Uncle Billy passed rapidly from a bellicose state into one of stupor, the Duchess became maudlin, and Mother Shipton snored. Mr. Oakhurst alone remained erect, leaning against a rock, ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... passed, to put out all Papists in office And a deal of do of which I am weary But do it with mighty vanity and talking Feared she hath from some [one] or other of a present Fell a-crying for joy, being all maudlin and kissing one another Found to be with child, do never stir out of their beds Had his hand cut off, and was hanged presently! Hates to have any body mention what he had done the day before House of Lords is the last appeal that a man can make I find her painted, which makes ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Diary of Samuel Pepys • David Widger
... what will hasten this development most of all? The proper rearing of children. Don't feed children on maudlin sentimentalism or dogmatic religion; give them nature. Let their souls drink in all that is pure and sweet. Rear them, if possible, amid pleasant surroundings. If they come into the world with souls groping in darkness, ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... true reversion to type. Only, whereas among the French he is a thing of the savage past, among the Germans he is a product of the kultured present. And to turn from the field note-book of the German soldier with its swaggering tale of loot, lust, and maudlin cups, its memoranda of stolen toys for Felix and of ravished lingerie for Bertha, all viewed in the rosy light of the writer's egotism as a laudable enterprise, to the plain depositions of the Justice de Paix, and ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... abruptly for his hat. He knew that if he looked an instant longer he should kiss her! What was the matter with him anyhow? he asked himself for the second time. Was he getting maudlin? Not content with talking a strange girl to death he would put on the finishing touch by kissing her. It was high time he was getting ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... States consul at Buenas Tierras, was not yet drunk. It was only eleven o'clock; and he never arrived at his desired state of beatitude—a state wherein he sang ancient maudlin vaudeville songs and pelted his screaming parrot with banana peels—until the middle of the afternoon. So, when he looked up from his hammock at the sound of a slight cough, and saw the Kid standing in the door of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... MAUDLIN. The Leaves and Flowers.—This has a light agreeable smell; and a roughish, somewhat warm and bitterish taste. These qualities point out its use as a mild corroborant; but it has long been a stranger in practice, and is now omitted both by the ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... is there that the subject of the sexual functions should be treated with such maudlin secrecy? Why should the function of generation be regarded as something low and beastly, unfit to be spoken of by decent people on decent occasions? We can conceive of no answer except the worse than beastly use to which the function has been so generally ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... more cool-headed than his friends, drawn-faced and tense about him, cooler far than his maudlin words implied, and still fighting for a forlorn chance, "why didn't Harry Van Horn tell me to turn in with a friend—why didn't he tell me to turn in with you, Tom Stone—with a man I rode and bunked with? Why did they make you their scapegoat, Tom? ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... went back to Doctor Jones. I was prepared to find him uplifted, but I hadn't counted on his being maudlin. The fellow was drunk, positively drunk—with happiness. His tongue ran on like a mill-stream. I had to sit down and have the whole Pullman-car episode inflicted on me a second time. I was shown ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... postmaster, will sell their souls for party, and betray their country to its enemies through lust of power, or something else, God knows what; when I see drunkenness holding high carnival in the nation's capitol, reeling in the seat of the President, and retailing its maudlin declamation before a sickened country from Washington to Chicago, I can only turn to God and the future. Our only hope is in the work of the Christian church through all its agencies, social, ecclesiastical and ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.
... assisted to his home that night in a state of maudlin intoxication, to awaken next morning with an aching head and remorse gnawing at his heart, for he had, to his other sorrows, added the thought that he had disgraced his ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... two-thirds of the band became intoxicated. Some rolled over dead drunk, and lay a-stretch along the sand. Others tottered about, uttering maudlin speeches. Still others of stronger stomach and steader brain kept their feet, as also their senses; only that these became excited, increasing their cupidity. They wanted more than they had got, and would gamble to get it. One had a piece of ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... what bitter retorts he provoked, how at one place he was troubled with evil presentiments which came to nothing, how at another place, on waking from a drunken doze, he read the prayerbook and took a hair of the dog that had bitten him, how he went to see men hanged and came away maudlin, how he added five hundred pounds to the fortune of one of his babies because she was not scared at Johnson's ugly face, how he was frightened out of his wits at sea, and how the sailors quieted him as they would have quieted a child, how tipsy he was at Lady Cork's one evening ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... death such offenders with deliberate fury, yet this vengeance but more surely would crush Esther's hopes. For her sake he must be patient. Time, property, and every available means will find employment in her vindication. There shall be permitted no maudlin sentiment of pity in this undertaking. Certain retribution shall ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... companionship of a prince. John Leech's Master Slender," she continues, "was picturesquely true to the gawky, flabby, booty squire.... His mode of sitting on a stile, with his long ungainly legs dangling down ... ever and anon ejaculating his maudlin cuckoo cry of 'Oh sweet Ann Page,' was a delectable treat." Without disrespect to Leech's memory, it may be said that others of his friends did not form a similarly favourable opinion of his ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... Sir George, sullenly. "Supposing and thinking have hanged many a man. I didn't wish to consult you. I simply wanted to tell you of the projected marriage." Then after a moment of half-maudlin, sullen silence he continued, "Go to bed, Malcolm, go to bed, or we'll be ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... you about Tom Pinch. He is a despicable kind of character; just the kind of character Dickens liked, because he had himself a thick streak of maudlin sentimentality of the kind that, as somebody phrased it, "made him wallow naked in the pathetic." It always interests me about Dickens to think how much first-class work he did and how almost all of ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... bother. Such stuff as that always makes me sick. If I 'ate anything, it's maudlin. Your former visit down there did very well, and now you must make another, or else, by the holy poker! I'll make ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... 1740, are overshadowed by the works of the great Englishmen, by Richardson and Sterne and Goldsmith, for these are not artists of England alone, but of all Europe, known and loved and imitated in every country in Europe. The sorrows of Clarissa, the pathetic or maudlin humour of Sterne, the idyllic grace and gentle laughter of Goldsmith, these, as they moved every heart, influenced even the greatest of European artists. The influence of Clarissa on Rousseau, of Goldsmith on Goethe and Jean Paul Richter ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... to give of his meeting with Dick Hardman down at Yellow Mine. The young scion of the would-be dictator of Marco fortunes had been drunk enough to rave about what he would do to Panhandle Smith. Some of his maudlin threats, as related by Brown, caused a good deal of merriment in camp, except to Blinky, ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... clothed in robes of royal purple, exhibit greater pride than did Patsey in his buckskin suit. But, alas! pride must have a fall; and, within a very few hours, I saw him sitting on the ground, clothed in his new suit, and protesting with maudlin earnestness that he was the "veritable ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... mirthful memory To think, when thou wert early in the field, How doughtily small Jeffrey ran at thee A-tilt, and broke a bulrush on thy shield. And now, a veteran in the lists of fame, I ween, old Friend! thou art not worse bested When with a maudlin eye and drunken aim, Dulness hath thrown a jerdan at ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... lonely—his fire's not bright when he comes from hunt—" Here and there in his talk a few words were distinguishable as he stood lurching before them. He reached out in a maudlin effort to touch the maid's white face. She drew in her breath quickly and stepped back; then Menard had sprung forward, and she covered her eyes with ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... choking sensation at my throat. I remember the effrontery of Flint's laughing at me, in a maudlin sort of way, and then—a blank. The next I recall was just now—Eva gazing at me with a worried expression in her dear eyes. I called to her and kissed her, tried to comfort her. Then I saw ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... everything, Lilly. You've fought for a principle and, with it won, turned maudlin. What is the idea? To drag me back there to join the sewing circle and the local society for the prevention ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... had provided the means of a carouse for those two wretched women. They both came in reeling from one sick bed to another; the older muttering taunts upon the wretched inmates; the other shedding maudlin tears more horrible and disgusting still. After wandering about the ward for a time, the two wretched creatures seated themselves upon the floor, and throwing their arms around each other, sunk into a brutal slumber which lasted ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... genius; in proportion as it has meaning of an intelligible sort it begins to fade and lower; so far as "Lenore" and "Annie" and "Annabel Lee" are human, they are feeble ghosts of that sentimentality which was so rife in Poe's time and so maudlin in his own personal relations; and except for a half- dozen pieces, in which his quality of rhythmical fascination is supreme, his verse as a whole is inferior to the point of being commonplace. Small as the quantity of his true verse is, it more sustains his peculiar genius in American ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... quit laying it on the line and start sifting out your language...." Garlock paused. For one of the very few times in his life, he was at a loss for words. He thrust his hands into his pockets and shrugged his shoulders. "Hell, I don't want to get maudlin, either ... so ... well, how many men, do you think, could have gone the route with me on this hellish job without killing ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... affects a tragedian, a crossing-sweeper, or an ambassador to the Court of St. James. And once a bottle of Cte Rtie or Scharlachberger is in her, even the least emotional woman shows the same complex of sentimentalities that a man shows, and is as maudlin ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... individual on the raft, and ending by one or other of the delirious disputants getting "chucked" into the sea, and having a swim before recovering foothold on the frail embarkation. This the ducked individual would be certain to do. Drunk as he might have been, and maudlin as he might be, his instincts were never so benumbed as to render him regardless of self-preservation. Even from out his haggard eyes still gleamed enough of intelligence to tell that those dark triangular objects, ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... stepped quickly to the other side of Blake, who clasped each about the neck in a maudlin but vice-like embrace. As they moved toward the bedroom, Griffith exclaimed with strategic enthusiasm: "That's it, boys, come right on in. It's so confounded dusty here, ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... doing it. He said you told him to carry them up, and that up they must go, if he had to break down the front door to do it. I think he must have been drinking, Tom, he used such awful language, and at last he got quite maudlin about it and sat down on one of the trunks and cried, actually cried! He said that for years and years he had refused to carry trunks upstairs, and that now, just when he had joined the Salvation Army, and was trying to lead a better life, and be kind and helpful and earn an extra dollar for ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler
... the common stock, and were unable to extract any part thereof from the custody of Adams, who not only did not account for the funds, but by this time had taken to drink, and was generally to be seen (when to be seen at all) in a state either of maudlin piety or of morose defiance of all questions and demands. Of course, under these circumstances the business-affairs of the colony went to rack and ruin. The small number of his disciples who remained were suffering from want of comforts and from malaria, home-sickness ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... rough-and-tumble wrestle as he and another lumber jack grappled. The Clown had thrown his antagonist fairly, the lumberjack's shoulders striking the rough floor with a whack that made things jingle. The next moment the two had treated one another at the bar, and with a mutual, though maudlin appreciation of each other had gone back to their respective chairs among the line ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... sceptics smiled sardonically. I suspected the lady in nankeen colour next me, and the dwarf and people immediately round both mediums. A female voice tremulously suggested that singing might 'improve the conditions;' on which Mr. C. struck up 'Power of Love Enchanting' in maudlin spiritualistic words. Things looked dull. All at once we were hailed by one of the most tremendous gruff bass voices that ever hailed a man-of-war. John King, the favourite spirit of Mr. A., had appeared with a grumbling announcement of his presence. 'Who ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... her alone. It's the giggles! She's just being normal," said John, laughing softly in sympathy as the shrieks grew weak and maudlin. ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... romances by describing a second Don Quixote's adventures on the prairies. We are pleased to notice, that in the new series of Frontier Tales, by Lee & Shepard, there is an agreeable absence of sensational writing, of that maudlin sentimentality which make the generality of such ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... some gents can't see more in their girls than I can.' This yere wisdom don't apply none to the Mockin' Bird. Them wooers of hers, to say nothin' of Turkey Track, possesses jestification for becomin' so plumb maudlin'. Lovely? She's as pretty as a cactus flower, or a ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... though thwarted in her ambition by her own child, and cheated of her triumph at the very moment of her success, had dared rather to face an ignominious death than see all her efforts frustrated by the maudlin fancy of a girl. Yes! She would face it all. Let them do what they would with her. She hardly knew what might be the mode of death adjudged to a Countess who had murdered. Let them kill her as they would, they would kill a Countess;—and the whole world ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... return thanks," replied his friend, grasping Sammy's hand, and looking at him with that fixed and glassy gaze which indicates the happy state of inebriety, termed maudlin; "I know you're a sincere friend, and there ain't nobody as I value more: man and boy have I knowed you; you're unchanged! you're the same!! there ain't no difference!!! and I hope you may live many years to go a-fishing, and I may live to see it, ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... preparatory to his own departure to the duties of the day. Stretching himself, however, and shaking off slumber, as the remembrance of the enterprise he had undertaken glanced pleasantly across him, Grabman sat up in his bed and said, in a voice that, if not maudlin, was affectionate, and if not ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Joslyn Gage, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucy Stone, as refined and remarkable an assembly of men and women as could be found in any European court. Yet these were the people so hated and ridiculed by the press and the pulpit, whose grand utterances and spicy debates were stigmatized as "the maudlin sentimentalisms of unsexed men ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... vividly as though she were still standing before him. That was odd, too. He was not ordinarily so impressionable. It occurred to him that he would not like her to know what he was about to do. Bah, he was getting maudlin! ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... hadn't quite made up its mind yet, to be good company. Now it was, that after two or three such vain attempts to stifle its convivial sentiments, it threw off all moroseness, all reserve, and burst into a stream of song so cosy and hilarious, as never maudlin nightingale yet formed the ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens |
