"Rueful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... came into his mind that if she doubted about the time of their return, she would go and visit somewhere else in the village, and come back another time. That would be a much better plan, he thought, with a rueful glance at the book he had intended to enjoy all the afternoon. But Miss Bethia had ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... him long before he saw him, as a clattering of hoofs, stumbling footsteps, and a reassuring voice. Then the little man appeared, a rueful figure, still with a tail of white cobweb trailing behind him. They approached each other without speaking, without a salutation. The little man was fatigued and shamed to the pitch of hopeless bitterness, and came to a stop at last, face to face with his seated ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... the mournful bier With woful pomp, whereon his corpse they laid, And when they saw the Bulloigne prince draw near, All felt new grief, and each new sorrow made; But he, withouten show or change of cheer, His springing tears within their fountains stayed, His rueful looks upon the corpse he cast Awhile, and thus bespake ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... this feeling gradually died away, and was then suddenly and stunningly succeeded by a conviction of the truth. The whole story of the past night sprang into his mind with every detail, as by an exercise of the direct and speedy sense of sight, and he arose from the ditch and, with rueful courage, ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... foolish man!" sighed the Duchessa, with a rueful shake of the head. "His foolish British self-consciousness! His British inability to put himself in another person's place, to see things from another's point of view! Could n't he see, from her point of ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... was then on his way to their towns. They were not deceived by the artifice; for although he assumed an air of pleasantness and gaity, calculated to win upon their confidence, yet the woful countenance and rueful expression of poor Petro, convinced them that White's conduct was feigned, that he might lull them into inattention, and they be enabled to effect an escape. They were both tied for the night; and in the morning White being painted red, and Petro black, they were forced to proceed ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... eyen, And yet now lives my little child, parfay:* *by my faith Now, lady bright, to whom the woeful cryen, Thou glory of womanhood, thou faire may,* *maid Thou haven of refuge, bright star of day, Rue* on my child, that of thy gentleness *take pity Ruest on every rueful* in distress. *sorrowful person ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... sir!' cried John, turning his rueful eyes on Mr Haredale, who had dropped on one knee, and was hastily beginning to untie his bonds. 'Look'ee here, sir! The very Maypole—the old dumb Maypole—stares in at the winder, as if it said, "John Willet, John Willet, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... did not reply, but after examining the letter he rose with a rueful countenance, and departed unceremoniously, a badly ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger
... steed, And valiant knight become a caytive thrall, 160 When all was past, tooke up his forlorne weed,[*] His mightie armour, missing most at need; His silver shield, now idle maisterlesse; His poynant speare, that many made to bleed, The rueful moniments[*] of heavinesse, 165 And with them all departes, to ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... you, Mackenzie; it's a strong hand, at any rate. Two burglaries and the Melrose necklace, Bunny!" And he turned to me with a rueful smile. ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... witness that when my bubble of fame was at the highest, I stood unintoxicated with the inebriating cup in my hand, looking forward with rueful resolve to the hastening time when the blow of calamity should dash it to the ground with all the eagerness ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... carried no books, nor did he look like one who had ever been associated with them. Carefully dressed in the very worst of taste from his scarfpin to his boots, he had evidently just been too carefully shaved, for there were scratches on his wide, ludicrous face, and his smile was as rueful ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... in a moment, unhurt, except for a knock on the eye against his gun, which he was carrying before him; and after a minute's rueful look he joined heartily in the shouts of laughter of his father and brother at his expense, "Ah, Charley, brag is a good dog, but holdfast is a better. I never saw a more literal proof of the saying. There, jump up again, and I need not say ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... said, looking with a rueful countenance at the sum total. "Yes, I even fear the sealskin must go. I don't want to part with it. Dad gave it me just before I ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... on religious subjects, should indulge in desultory sarcasms (and the Hermite en Provence prudently does no more) on such instances of spiritual Quixotism as may possibly have occurred. The absurd[33] choice of hymn tunes, the petulant zeal of one or two ecclesiastics, and the rueful countenances of some of the penitents, though they prove nothing as to the main question, present a ludicrous picture to the imagination, and have been made the most of by the fictitious correspondent of the Hermite. It is also natural enough that ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... is engaged to another suitor, "and say that if you had not been down on your knees and so humble, you might have fared better with me? A woman of my spirit, cousin, is to be won by gallantry, and not by sighs and rueful faces. All the time you are worshipping and singing hymns to me, I know very well I am no goddess." And again: "As for you, you want a woman to bring your slippers and cap, and to sit at your feet and cry, O caro, caro! O bravo! whilst you read your Shakespeares ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... something along that line," assented Larry, with a rueful laugh. "But what is a poor ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... cleft, Even of half mere daylight reft, Rueful he peered to right and left, Muttering in his altered mood: 160 'The fate is hard that weaves my weft, ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... Athenian town; When in his pomp and utmost of his pride, Marching he chanced to cast his eye aside, 40 And saw a choir of mourning dames, who lay By two and two across the common way: At his approach they raised a rueful cry, And beat their breasts, and held their hands on high, Creeping and crying, till they seized at last His courser's bridle, and his feet embraced. Tell me, said Theseus, what and whence you are, And why this funeral pageant you prepare? Is this the welcome ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... darkness he felt the touch of her lips on his hand. Then she turned, with a white cheek and smiling mouth, to meet the greetings and rueful congratulations of the friends that ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was getting much too frightened now to enjoy the fun any longer: she stood, gazing with rueful looks at the broken mirror—O if the cross old housekeeper should find it out! She thought the best plan would be to steal out of the room, but on turning round, she perceived that the door had become most unaccountably shut—there ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin
... to him with a semi-rueful grimace. "Oh, my cricketing days are over. All I'm good for now is to teach other fellows the rules of ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... a short silence; short or long, it seemed brief to me, who was now asleep at last, and I was rueful enough when a sound aroused me, and I found the Maid herself standing by my bedside, with one in the shadow behind her. The chamber was all darkling, lit only by a thread of light that came through the closed ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... yield them easier habitation, bend Four ways their flying march, along the banks Of four infernal rivers, that disgorge Into the burning lake their baleful streams— Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate; Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep; Cocytus, named of lamentation loud Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegeton, Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage. Far off from these, a slow and silent stream, Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls Her watery labyrinth, whereof who drinks Forthwith his former state ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... own way!" said Sam, with rueful submission, at the same time winking most Portentously to Andy, whose delight was now very near the ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... was to look as nice as I could," say I, casting a rueful glance at the tea-board, at the large plum loaf, at the preparations for temperate conviviality. I have sat down on the threadbare blue-and-red hearth-rug, and am shading my face with a pair of cold pink hands, from the clear, quick blaze. "What am I to wear?" I ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... old, when I was ever for book and thou for bow," said Ambrose; "but I'll make thee rueful for old Michael yet. Hast heard tell of the ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... sad regret. He beat his breast, and tore his hair, For loss of his dear Crony Bear; That Eccho, from the hollow ground, His doleful wailings did resound 190 More wistfully, by many times, Than in small poets splay-foot rhimes That make her, in their rueful stories To answer to int'rogatories, And most unconscionably depose 195 To things of which she nothing knows; And when she has said all she can say, 'Tis wrested to the lover's fancy. Quoth he, O whither, wicked Bruin Art thou fled to my — Eccho, Ruin? 200 I thought th' hadst scorn'd ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... never wanting a friend or a bottle to give him, and also gasped forth his favourite allusion to the wing of friendship and its never moulting a feather; but his faculties appeared to be absorbed in the contemplation of Miss Sally Brass, at whom he stared with blank and rueful looks, which delighted the watchful dwarf beyond measure. As to the divine Miss Sally herself, she rubbed her hands as men of business do, and took a few turns up and down the office with her pen ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... hard in the subtle thing That's spirit: tho' cloistered fast, soar free; Account as wood, brick, stone, this ring Of the rueful neighbours, ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... me?" he asked, with a rueful face,—"questions my word, which is incontrovertible?" Here he clapped his hand upon a couteau-de-chasse lying near, but, appearing to think better of it, drew himself up, and, with a shower of nods flung at me, added, "I deny your accusation!" I ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... got much to do with it," said another, half laughing, half rueful. "There's some ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... "I shall have to class you with the incorrigibles," he said with a rueful air. "I am sorry you take such a harsh attitude toward us. We are really ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... the flowing current's silver streams, Which, in memorial of our victory, Shall be agnominated by our name, And talked of by our posterity: For sure I hope before the golden sun Posteth his horses to fair Thetis' plains, To see the water turned into blood, And change his bluish hue to rueful red, By reason of the fatal massacre Which shall be ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... have to," and Bob looked rueful, "We can't put in a whole afternoon on empty stomachs. What do you say, shall we cook the fish, or light right out ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... rueful, and almost sullen. She said she had parted with her doctors for him, but she really could not go about without stays. "They are as loose as they ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... down again on the couch with rueful humour). Well, you shall not experiment on me any more. Go to your Grace if you want a victim. She'll be ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw
... I am!" she declared out loud. "I don't believe I ever heard anyone, or saw anything. It was just my imagination that led me on. Now, I hope," Mollie gave a rueful smile and sat down to pull the brambles out of her dress, "I hope my imagination will kindly show me ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... Honourable John for once exhibited a rueful face. "You saw where the cap. placed me; and how I tilted my stool and leaned against the binnacle. Well, look here!" and he folded back the lappets of his coat, and showed us a narrow band of flat spring steel that passed under his collar and down either side to keep it from ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... laugh ended in a little rueful silence. It was no laughing matter, this situation. T. A. Buck shrugged his shoulders, and began a restless pacing up and down. "Yep. There ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... if a man of that kind was to fall in love with me, I'd black his boots for him," she said. Then she added, with a whimsically rueful ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... could not ride far. Being painstaking and conscientious in his work, he had made not more than four miles by the beginning of the afternoon. Then he found a break that would occupy him for two hours at least. With rueful eyes he surveyed the long stretch of dilapidated fence. It was time, he reflected, that the Dean sent someone to look after his property, and dismounting, he went to work, forgetting, in his interest in the fencing problem, to insure his horse's near-by attendance. Now, the best of cow-horses ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... morning. Rosa was like freshly-poured champagne, in sweet and sparkle. Alfred, rueful and limp, as if the dripping clouds that verified Mabel's prediction had soaked him all night. He was dry and comfortable—to carry out the figure—within twenty minutes after his beloved fluttered, like a tame canary, into the chair next his own—in five more, was more truly her slave, ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... Mary Anne, with a rueful face, "I know how it will be. You'll have to go home for good, and you won't ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... which of course was a delicate way of calling everybody's attention to my rueful countenance, served to put all the rest of the company except myself at their ease, and Mr Barnacle's entrance a minute afterwards put an end for the time ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... on Conniston, lightly, "that he would not send me a dollar. You see, he wants me to do something for myself. And," with a rueful grin, "I am in debt to you for a dollar to pay for my ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... Sir Piercie Shafton looked like a man stricken by a thunderbolt, while, notwithstanding the seriousness of the scene hitherto, no one of those present, not even the Abbot himself, could refrain from laughing at the rueful and mortified ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... too long at it to miss it now," said the rueful member with a forced smile. "I must win now, or my ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... etiquette to refuse to dance, and the fact that he was "the Boss's" guest, if only a boy, carried weight. Sarah rose, with a rueful glance at her disappointed swain. The two disconsolate faces moved Wally ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... busy with politics. He says that he will give them up, if I insist; but my doing so might prevent his being chosen to Congress." There was again rueful pride in ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... in both his own, and gripped it hard. He tried to speak, but only shook his head with a rueful smile. ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... notes sang in measured, harmonious cadence like the waves of the sea exhausted by the storm. Some one cried out, a loud, agitated, woeful cry of rebellion, questioned and appealed in impotent anguish, and, losing hope, grew silent; and then again sang his rueful plaints, now resonant and clear, now subdued and dejected. In response to this song came the thick waves of dark sound, broad and resonant, indifferent and hopeless. They drowned by their depth and force the swarm ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... been so very kind that I dislike to ask another favor; but I hoped you would send a telegram for me. My father and mother will be very much alarmed and I must wire them at once. You will have to send it 'collect,' for," with a rueful smile, "I haven't my purse ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... although upon our driver it seemed to bring another fit as much beyond the proportion of my joke as his first had been. "She tires a man's spirit," said black curly, and with this rueful utterance he abandoned the subject; so that when we reached Thomas in the dim night my curiosity was strong, and I paid little heed to this new place where I had come or to my supper. Black curly had taken himself off, and the driver ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... scrubs; And there were flying all around the spot Brands at the Preacher, but they touch'd him not: Stakes brought to smite him, threaten'd in his cause, And tongues, attuned to curses, roar'd applause; Louder and louder grew his awful tones, Sobbing and sighs were heard, and rueful groans; Soft women fainted, prouder man express'd Wonder and woe, and butchers smote the breast; Eyes wept, ears tingled; stiff'ning on each head, The hair drew back, and Satan howl'd and fled. "In ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... choice design. Each had his prize, and glorying forth they go, With purple ribbons on their brows, when lo! Scarce torn with effort from the rock's embrace, Oarless, and short of oarsmen by a row, Home comes Sergestus, and in rueful case Drives his dishonoured bark, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... sat in silence, her rueful eyes fixed on the forlorn heap of garments on the bed. Then, slowly, she rose and began to ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter
... denied, that the effort, if it had the determination, wanted the cheerfulness of duty. Our condition savoured too much of a grinding constraint—too much of the vassalage of necessity;—it had too much of fear, and therefore of selfishness, not to be contemplated in the main with rueful emotion. We desponded though we did not despair. In fact a deliberate and preparatory fortitude—a sedate and stern melancholy, which had no sunshine and was exhilarated only by the lightnings of indignation—this was the highest and best state of moral ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... He threw a rueful thought to Jack Tosswill. Miss Pendarth had been right, after all. That sort of experience might well embitter the whole of the early life of such a priggish, self-centred youth; and while he was chewing the cud of these painful, troubling ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... not. The haughty young lady turned me down as a dancer very early in our acquaintance. I don't blame her," he added, with a rueful laugh, "but her extreme candour still rankles. She told me quite plainly that she had no use for an American who could neither ride nor dance. I did intimate to her, very gently, that there were a few little openings in the States for ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... ago relapsed, and was very low-spirited, stepped forward with a rueful face to take the letter Sir Joseph held ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... rueful moans along the forest swell Protracted, and the twilight storm foretel, And, headlong from the cliffs, a deafening load Tumbles,—and wildering thunder slips abroad; When on the summits Darkness comes and goes, Hiding their fiery clouds, their rocks, and snows; And the fierce torrent, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... Allegory's flimsy veil Let Them with Ogilvie spin out a tale Of rueful length,' Churchill's ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... extend towards his eyebrow; his upper lip was covered with a grizzly and ill-trimmed mustache, which added much to the ferocity of his look, while a thin and pointed beard on his chin gave an apparent length to the whole face that completed its rueful character. His dress was a single-breasted, tightly buttoned frock, in one button-hole of which a yellow ribbon was fastened, the decoration of a foreign service, which conferred upon its wearer the title of count; and though Billy Considine, as he ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... said she, "I am glad to see you, and in this brave company. Have you taken service under our Knight of the Rueful Countenance, or ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... stove had been cleaned, and everything the stove excepted, was wet, and shining with soft soap and sand: the smell of which dry-saltery impregnated the air. In the midst of the dreary scene, the Captain, cast away upon his island, looked round on the waste of waters with a rueful countenance, and seemed waiting for some friendly bark to come that ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... whilst Harold was from home, there was knocking at the door of their house, and forthwith the door opened and there stood in the midst of them one clad all in black and of rueful countenance. Then, as if she foresaw evil, Persis called unto her little ones and stood between them and that one all in black, and she demanded of him his name and will. "I am the Death-Angel," quoth he, "and I come for the best-beloved of ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... face twisted it into a rueful smile. The three words she dragged out were so faint that perhaps none but Dart's strained ears ...
— The Dawn of a To-morrow • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Chellalu. We never made any mistake about her. We never thought her good. Not that she is impossibly bad. She was created for play and for laughter, and very happy babies are not often very wicked; but she is so irrepressible, so hopelessly given up to fun, that her kindergarten teacher, Rukma, smiles a rueful smile at the mention of her name. For to Chellalu the most unreasonable thing you can ask is implicit obedience, which unfortunately is preferred by us to any amount of fun. She will learn to obey, ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... was alone. He stood rubbing his legs for some minutes, a rueful expression on his usually cheerful face. Freddie hated rows. He liked everything to jog along smoothly. What a rotten place the world was these days! Just one thing after another. First, poor old Jill takes the knock and disappears. He would ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... friend, throwing down his hat with a most rueful aspect; for, winter having departed, and spring come, we had all laid aside our fur-caps—"Corny, I have just been refused again! That word, 'no,' has got to be so common with Mary Wallace, that I am afraid her tongue will never know how to utter a 'yes!' Do you know, Corny, I have a great ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... for Cairns' admiration had ranged themselves in his mind against the paragon, Beth Truba (with whom he had long comported himself with a rueful might-have-been manner, both pretty and pleasant). Beth had easily transcended. Whatever was great and desirable in woman was likely to wear a Beth Truba hall-mark for his observation. Now, that was changed, not that Beth ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... It was abundantly clear that revels must be the exception at Artenberg. Victoria was earnestly of this opinion. In the first place, the physical condition of William Adolphus was deplorable; he leered rueful roguishness out of bilious eyes, and Victoria could not endure the sight of him; secondly, she was sure that I had said something—what she did not know, but something—to Elsa; for Elsa had been found crying over her coffee in ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... in a pretty unnatural state. I think she ought to get married, Baird—" To his friendly and disarming twinkle Baird replied with a rueful smile. ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... my writing, we were between the immediate butchery of Culloden, a red and rueful business, and the insecurity of tenure in life and home, which was to follow. It was a rough marking of time, when national elements were in the mill, as well as those which go to the chronicle of the Black Colonel, Marget Forbes, ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... and in due time the gallant, having found his way cautiously enough over the roof, they got them to bed, and there had solace of one another and a good time; and at daybreak the gallant hied him back to his house. Meanwhile the husband, rueful and supperless, half dead with cold, kept his armed watch beside his door, momently expecting the priest, for the best part of the night; but towards daybreak, his powers failing him, he lay down and slept in the ground-floor room. 'Twas hard upon tierce ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... gentle knight, who saw their rueful case, Let fall adown his silver beard some tears. 'Certes,' quoth he, 'it is not e'en in grace, T' undo the past and eke ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... of his rueful face the Major burst into fresh laughter. "His fast day!" he chuckled. "These Moros are sure literal-minded—they follow your words exactly. I've had some queer examples ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... library, half parlor, and used in the winter months as a breakfast room, beside a table still covered with the remnants of the morning meal, sat Mrs. Gartney and her young daughter, Faith; the latter with a somewhat disconcerted, not to say rueful, expression ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... Professor. The detective was attracted by the quaint little man, and he called again to inquire for Peggy. A friendship thus inaugurated ripened into a deeper feeling, and within nine months Jennings proposed for the hand of the humble girl. She consented and so did Le Beau, although he was rather rueful at the thought of losing his mainstay. But Peggy promised him that she would still look after him until he retired, and with this promise Le Beau was content. He was now close on seventy, and could not hope to teach ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... own youth. Every generation has to educate another which it has brought upon the stage. People who readily accept the responsibility of parentship, having very different matters in their eye, are apt to feel rueful when their responsibility falls due. What are they to tell the child about life and conduct, subjects on which they have themselves so few and such confused opinions? Indeed, I do not know; the least said, perhaps, the soonest mended; and yet ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a rueful smile, and wonders. He sees nothing in any one of these religions to justify its claim to infallibility or pre-eminence. It seems to him unreasonable to assert that any theology or any saviour is indispensable. He realises ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... roll'd his haggard eyes around, Then said: 'Alas! what earth remains, what sea Is open to receive unhappy me? What fate a wretched fugitive attends, Scorn'd by my foes, abandon'd by my friends?' He said, and sigh'd, and cast a rueful eye: Our pity kindles, and our passions die. We cheer youth to make his own defense, And freely tell us what he was, and whence: What news he could impart, we long to know, And what to credit from a ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... to go down on these old sticks, they'll have to break open the door and pick me up," he said to himself with a rueful smile." I'll try it baby fashion." Sitting down, he let his crutches slide along beside him, and holding the injured leg straight out before him hitched along from stair to stair until he reached the bottom. Then with even greater caution than ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... on his companions, he heard a scream, and turned quickly to see John Wesley struggling in the water, grasping a tree root, and Mary Emmeline—nowhere! In another minute he saw the strings of her pinafore appear on the surface a few yards beyond, and in yet another minute, with a swift rueful glance at his white flannels, he had plunged after her. A disagreeable shock of finding himself out of his depths was, however, followed by contact with the child's clothing, and clutching her firmly, a stroke or two brought him panting to the bank. Here a gasp, a gurgle, and then a roar ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... of good Samaritan, my dear Felicia," he begged her with a certain rueful humour, "and take the poor foolish woman off my hands. Plant her where you like, so long as it is well out of my neighbourhood. She has made an egregious fiasco of her position here. As you love me, just remove her from my sight—let ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... took the small, reluctant hand, and kissed it as devoutly as ever good Alonzo Quixada did that of the Duchess while he said, merrily quoting from the immortal story: "'High and Sovereign Lady, thine till death, the Knight of the Rueful Countenance.'" ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... rubbing my cheek, and grinning a rueful smile, as the captain told me. We remained long in talk; never had my old friend been wiser or more kindly. He listened to me with patience as I told him—quietly, for he had fairly knocked my rage out of me—how desperately sick I was of my occupation, and how I ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... misgave her about her friend. Rebecca's wit, spirits, and accomplishments troubled her with a rueful disquiet. They were only a week married, and here was George already suffering ennui, and eager for others' society! She trembled for the future. How shall I be a companion for him, she thought—so clever and so brilliant, and I such a humble foolish ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the room came an elderly, half-bald man with tangled gray brows and a rueful smile. A pencil was balanced over his ear, and a note-book was ...
— The Day Time Stopped Moving • Bradner Buckner
... It would represent St. Ebbe's as a gloomy, ghastly prison-house of suffering and death, and she in her tender youth and sweet beauty immured in it by an error of judgment, a fatal mistake incidental to rash enthusiasm and total inexperience. If Annie ever arrived at that rueful conclusion, how could she bear the penalty ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... hunter of those wolves, upon the shore Of the fierce stream, and cows them all with dread: Their flesh yet living sets he up to sale, Then like an aged beast to slaughter dooms. Many of life he reaves, himself of worth And goodly estimation. Smear'd with gore Mark how he issues from the rueful wood, Leaving such havoc, that in thousand years It spreads ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... death had been substituted for the gibbet. Poor old Heinrich Dirckzoon, ex-burgomaster, pathetically rejected a couple of clean shirts which his careful wife had sent him by the hands of the housemaid. "Take them away; take them home again," said the rueful burgomaster; "I shall never need clean shirts again in this world." He entertained no doubt that it was the intention of his captors to scuttle the vessel as soon as they had put a little out to sea, and so to leave them to their fate. No such tragic end was contemplated, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... nerves were knocked to smithereens, and a man can overlook a lot, under the circumstances. She was a mere jelly when the bombardment began——" goes on rueful Captain Bingo. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... to mar with sorrow's tale The day of blissful news. The gods demand Thanksgiving sundered from solicitude. If one as herald came with rueful face To say, The curse has fallen, and the host Gone down to death; and one wide wound has reached The city's heart, and out of many homes Many are cast and consecrate to death, Beneath the double scourge, ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... dreary vale, In pensive mood rehearsed her piteous tale; Her piteous tale the winds in sighs bemoan, And pining Echo answers groan for groan. I rue the day, a rueful day I trow, The woeful day, a day indeed of woe! When Lubberkin to town his cattle drove, A maiden fine bedight he kept in love; The maiden fine bedight his love retains, And for the village he forsakes ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... awkward silence, Briscoe remained motionless in his easy chair, a rueful reflectiveness on his genial face incongruous with its habitual expression. When a sudden disconcerted intentness developed upon it, Bayne, every instinct on the alert, took instant heed of the change. The obvious accession ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... proud little nod of her head, Marjorie climbed the steps of the car which had now stopped at their corner, without giving her friend an opportunity for reply. Mary looked after the moving car with a rueful smile that changed to one of glee. Her eyes danced. "She hasn't the least idea of what's going to happen," thought the little fluffy-haired girl. "Won't she be surprised? Now that she's gone, Clark and Ethel and ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... the sort—[xcviii] [73] All but one poor dependent priest withdrawn, (Ah! too regardless of his Chaplain's yawn!) Condemn the unlucky Curate to recite Their last dramatic work by candle-light, How would the preacher turn each rueful leaf, Dull as his sermons, but not half so brief! Yet, since 'tis promised at the Rector's death, He'll risk no living for a little breath. 770 Then spouts and foams, and cries at every line, (The Lord forgive him!) ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... the bedraggled paper with a rueful face. "Everything seems to be wrong to-day," he remarked. "What is this sudden enthusiasm ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... tale, thou idle page, And rueful thy alarms: Death tears the brother of her love ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... the familiar objects that I had so often buoyantly beheld,—deserted encampments, cross-roads, rills, farm-houses, fields, and at last came to Daker's. I called out to them, and explained my woful circumstances with rueful conciseness. ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend |
