"Tragical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sincerity, that rendered him unfit for the task before him. The farther he journeyed from Scroope and the nearer that he found himself to the cliffs the stronger did the feeling grow within him, till it had become almost tragical in its dominion over him. But still he went on. It was incumbent on him to pay one more visit to the ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... an amnesty, perished family by family. The lot of those who were spared was almost more pitiable than of those who died. The slave-markets of Egypt and Tunis were glutted with Chian captives. The gentleness, the culture, the moral worth of the Chian community made its fate the more tragical. No district in Europe had exhibited a civilisation more free from the vices of its type: on no community had there fallen in modern times so terrible a catastrophe. The estimates of the destruction of life ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... fanaticism. Accordingly, I had no sooner obtained a glimpse of the letter of the starving poet, embalmed within the precious leaves of one of the most noted albums of Europe, than I immediately enlisted under Lady Holberton's colors as a faithful Otwaysian. With that excellent lady I take a tragical view of the Lumley Letter, conceiving that a man must be blind as a bat, not to see that it was written by the author of Venice Preserved, and this in spite of other celebrated collectors, who find in the same sheet so much that is comical and Hudibrastic. Strange that any man in his senses ...
— The Lumley Autograph • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... the matter handled, and not the place, that maketh pure; so that when you and the elders hear that I have been at the theatre of Drury Lane, in London, you must not think that I was there to see a carnal stage play, whether tragical or comical, or that I would so far demean myself and my cloth, as to be a witness to the chambering and wantonness of ne'er-du-weel play-actors. No, Mr. Micklewham, what I went to see was an Oratorio, a most edifying exercise ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... "Mlle. D'Arvers" deserves high commendation. It deals with the ungovernable passion of two brothers for one placid and beautiful girl, a passion which leads to fratricide and madness. That it is a very melancholy and tragical story is obvious from this brief sketch of its contents, but it is remarkable for coherence and self-restraint no less than for vigor of treatment. Toru Dutt never sinks to melodrama in the course of her extraordinary tale, and ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... farewell to the fresh morning. Every minute the heat becomes more oppressive. The pathway that is marked only by a row of stones turns at last and leads into the depths of the mountain by a tragical passage. We enter now into that "Valley of the Kings" which was the place of the last rendezvous of the most august mummies. The breaths of air that reach us between these rocks are become suddenly burning, and the site seems to belong no longer to earth but to some calcined planet which ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... their tragical side, and said to myself: 'If love draws with it so many misfortunes, a woman who cherishes her peace of mind and reputation, should never love.' However, everything tells me that we have a heart, that this ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... had passed through the town, and one night a number of Moors came secretly to a lane at the back of the Kasbah, where a narrow window opened into her cell. They told her in whispers that what she held as tragical was a very simple matter. "Turn Muslima," they pleaded, "and save yourself. You are too young to die. Resign yourself, for God's sake." But no answer came back to them where they were gathered in the darkness, save low sobs from inside ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... something foreign, too, about the veteran's air. Mr. Chapman had looked so thoroughly English: that tragical and meagre personage ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in the composition of these border romances. He was generally the villain in the plot of the story, and too often a successful villain whose wiles or open attacks were the means of separating two lovers. These tales have often a tragical catastrophe, but sometimes the denouement is a happy one, thanks to the courage and constancy of ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... am recollecting, many, I question not, are experiencing the same tragical vicissitude. The eyes of the Sublime Being, who sits upon the circle of the earth, and views all its inhabitants with one incomprehensive glance, even now behold as many tents in affliction as overwhelmed the Egyptians in that fatal night when the ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to India; of a Shipwreck on board the Lady Castlereagh; and a Description of New South Wales • W. B. Cramp
... more inexpiable, and terminate at once my present state of uncertainty. I had now opened my case to Mr. Forester, and he had given me positive assurances of his protection. I determined immediately to address the following letter to Mr. Falkland. The consideration that, if he meditated any thing tragical, such a letter would only tend to confirm him, did not enter into the present feelings ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... told us, sixteen feet from the snout to the tail, and seventeen feet from the tail to the snout; but there must have been some mistake there. There was a young elephant and three lions, and several other animals, which I forget now, so I shall go on to describe the tragical scene which occurred. The keeper had poked up all the animals, and had commenced feeding them. The great lion was growling and snarling over the shin bone of an ox, cracking it like a nut, when by some mismanagement, one end ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 563, August 25, 1832 • Various
... pp. 65, 66, second edition.) But in spite of all restraints, the cruel temper and lawless habits of these savages would sometimes burst forth—sometimes not more fatally to their enemies than to their friends. The tragical fate of Miss MacRea raised one loud cry of indignation on both sides of the Atlantic. This lady, in the bloom of youth and beauty, the daughter of an American Loyalist, was betrothed to an officer in the British provincial troops. Anxious for her security, the officer engaged some Indians ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... several generations the men and women were remarkable for the curious contrasts of a violent character and the pursuits of the arts of peace which they displayed. Poisonings, assassinations, adulteries, imprisonments for life, conspiracies, were by no means uncommon incidents in their tragical history. And yet under their government Ferrara became the first really modern city in Europe, with well-built streets, a large population, and flourishing trade, attracting wealthy settlers from all parts of Italy. Nearly all the members ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... could hardly be marked by any incidents of exciting interest. It was not so with steamboating and railroading, which has each its long tale of disasters such as give times of peace almost as dark a record as those of war. The most tragical of these events took place at the opposite extremities of the state, in Cincinnati and in Ashtabula, and they occurred at the beginning and the end of an interval of ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... officer-of-the-deck, throwing himself into a tragical posture, set forth the entire mystery; much to the captain's astonishment, who at once indignantly turned ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... of the mutineers, named Thompson and Churchill, came to a tragical end. The former insulted a member of the family with whom he resided, and was knocked down. He left them in high dudgeon, and went to that part of the island where the vessel above referred to was being built. One day ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... fine philosophy to others, had not a grain of that article left to physic my own malady. But one course seemed plain before me, and that was, to go quietly and drown myself in the Seine, which I had seen flowing so swift and dark under the bridges, an hour ago, when I stood and mused upon the tragical corpses its solemn flood ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... Barnaby True's, nor could he have done anything to prevent it, seeing that he was not even born into the world at the time that his grandfather turned pirate, and was only one year old when he so met his tragical end. Nevertheless, the boys with whom he went to school never tired of calling him "Pirate," and would sometimes sing for his benefit that famous ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... render help was a lightkeeper of the Griz-nez lighthouse, who gave the information that on the other side of the hills, a few hundred yards from the spot where they had landed, was the tomb of Pilatre de Rozier, whose tragical death has been recorded in an early chapter. A visit to the actual locality the next day revealed the fact that a humble stone still ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... walking noiselessly over the loose hay and keeping themselves hidden in the shadow of the barges and behind the piles of bales. At the very end of the pier he stopped. Jaune and Brown, hidden by a bale of hay, were within five feet of him. Their hearts were beating tremendously. There had been no tragical purpose in their minds when they started, but it certainly did look now as though they were in the thick of a tragedy. In the crisp October moonlight the Count's face shone deathly pale; they could see the fingers of his right hand working convulsively; they could hear his labored breathing. ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... the green crescent and blue door on the shoulders; and as a gust from the stairway blew open the garment, I beheld a great yellow heart on his breast. That picture remained impressed upon my vision. In the street, I recalled the room, the drawings, the inscriptions,—all so tragical and saddening! I had not proceeded far, when, moved by greater compassion, I turned and retraced my steps. At the door of the house, I saw the servant girl who had admitted me coming out with a bottle, and thought it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... all, man! What, you may in honour betray her as far as she betrays herself. No tragical design upon my ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... said Joseph Boutourle, the High Treasurer of Alca, "believe me, there are innocent girls, perfectly innocent girls, and it is a great pity. I have known three. They married, and the result was tragical." ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... like Percy could hardly be considered real at all. But even that, as I say, I could not clearly find out. His jealousy seemed rather the jealousy of what was his, or ought to be his, than any more profound or tragical feeling. But he evidently disliked the doctor—and the curate, too, whether for his own sake or for the doctor's, is ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald
... fault! Hers! Her everlasting shame Was that she suffered him, whom not at all She loved. Poor Boy! Yes, they must still be friends. She owed him that to keep the balance straight. It was such poor amends Which she could make for rousing hopes to gall Him with their unfulfilment. Tragical It was, and she must leave ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the congress declare the recent course of the imperial German government ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... go to look after her grandmamma, and keep all those vulgar people at bay, and show to the admiring world what a Dissenting minister's daughter could be, and what a dutiful daughter was, then who so fit as herself to be the example? This gave her even a certain tragical sense of heroism, which was exhilarating, though serious. She thought of what she would have to "put up with," as of something much more solemn than the reality; more solemn, but alas! not so troublesome. Phoebe felt herself ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... not a single extract from that noble tragedy: it was reserved for Leigh Hunt, when speaking of its author, to remark that "there is one character of his (De Flores in 'The Changeling') which, for effect at once tragical, probable, and poetical, surpasses anything I know of in the drama of domestic life." The praise is not a whit too high; the truth could ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... inference thus deduced, the Duke of Hamilton continued to enjoy, in no ordinary degree, popular applause and the favour of Queen Anne, until his tragical death in 1712 occurring just before the Rebellion of 1715, spared him the perplexity of deciding on which side he should embark in that perilous ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... love still lingered. He could at least always talk to her about Brigit: that common memory would be a constant link between them. She had earned his esteem, and perhaps with his esteem an affection deeper than he himself realised. Under the pressure of a sudden and tragical necessity, he would turn to her with the certainty that she would not fail him. She was modest enough about her own powers. A remark she had once heard Reckage pass, to the effect that religious women of devoted lives were ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... rhapsodically over it; for Karasowski it was the "pain and grief of an entire nation," while Ehlert thinks "it owes its renown to the wonderful effect of two triads, which in their combination possess a highly tragical element. The middle movement is not at all characteristic. Why could it not at least have worn second mourning? After so much black crepe drapery one should not at least at once display white lingerie!" This ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... I suppose it is. But one can get beyond tragedy—beyond the state of feeling tragical, I mean. Father himself is tragical. One feels he is mistaken—and yet he wouldn't be any different, and be himself, I suppose. He's sort of crucified on an idea of the working people. It's rather horrible when he's one's father.—However, ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence
... has something tragical in it. There are men who maintain that the love for peace and the inevitability of war form a hideous contradiction, and that such is the fate of man. These are mostly gifted and sensitive men, who see and ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... Such things defile the mind. They are injurious both to him that hears and to him that speaks, in that they tend to engender a mental atmosphere in which the suggestions of actual vice are likely to meet with an enfeebled power of resistance. Of course it is possible to be too tragical on the subject of "language," and to exaggerate the harm done by "smoking-room" stories. But whatever is definitely unclean is definitely evil, and should be both avoided and discouraged. To assume, however, a ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... before breakfast, but saw that the day was still sacred to men, and amused herself by watching their contretemps. In the first place the key of the bathing-shed could not be found. Charles stood by the riverside with folded hands, tragical, while the servant shouted, and was misunderstood by another servant in the garden. Then came a difficulty about a spring-board, and soon three people were running backwards and forwards over the meadow, with orders and counter orders and recriminations and apologies. If Margaret ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... completely from this suspicious neighborhood. He then observed, that it reminded him of a similar blind alley in Malta, infamous on account of the many assassinations that had taken place there; concerning one of which, he related a long and tragical story, that lasted until we reached Catania. It involved various circumstances of a wild and supernatural character, but which he assured me were handed down in tradition, and generally credited by ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... they saw the end of his relations with the only friend who, at that time, recognised his genius and his purposes, certainly the only friend who ever pushed his claims; they saw the growth of a friendship which was to have so tragical a close, and they saw the beginnings and causes of a bitter personal rivalry which was to last through life, and which was to be a potent element hereafter in Bacon's ruin. The friend was the Earl ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... on horseback at the Porte St. Antoine. At the first pass Francois de Guise was wounded, but at the third his sword pierced the body of his antagonist, who fell from his saddle and expired a few minutes afterwards. Notwithstanding this tragical result, however, the murderer alike of the father and the son boldly returned to Paris, where he was visited and congratulated by numbers of the nobles, who, instead of shrinking from all contact with a man who had desolated the hearth and home of a sorrowing and now childless widow, ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... and of most other countries, abound in relating the miserable, and sometimes the most tragical effects, from the abuses of coin; by debasing the metal, by lessening, or enhancing the value upon occasions, to the public loss; of which we have an example, within our own memory in England, and another ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... adventure of Bemoy, was extremely tragical. A quarrel having arisen between him and the commander of the expedition, the latter stabbed the African prince on board his own vessel. Whether this violent deed was prompted by the heat of passion, or by well-grounded suspicions ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... [202] This tragical catastrophe so deeply affected Augustus, that, as Seutonius informs us, "he was said to have let his beard and hair grow for several months; during which he at times struck his head against the doors, crying out, 'Varus, ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... Antony Hammond, Esq., of Somersham-Place, prefacing that pathetic tragedy, The Fatal Marriage; or, The Innocent Adultery[1] (4to, 1694), Southerne writes: 'I took the Hint of the Tragical part of this Play from a Novel of Mrs. Behn's, call'd The Fair Vow-Breaker; you will forgive me for calling it a Hint, when you find I have little more than borrow'd the Question, how far such a Distress was to be carry'd, upon the Misfortune of a Woman's having innocently ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... necessary he should remain undiscovered; death would otherwise be his reward. In that country, where the passions are excited by the climate, and the difficulty of gratifying them is great, love often produces tragical events. ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... great heritage, not only her literature but her life. As Saadia said later,[365] "This nation is only a nation by reason of its Torah." It is because Philo starts from this conviction that his mission is so striking, and its results so tragical. The Judaism which he preached to the pagan world was no food for the soul with the strength taken out to render it more easily assimilated. He emphasizes its spiritual import, he shows its harmony, as the age demanded, with the philosophical and ethical conceptions ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... the side of moderation and conciliation, but that Canning himself, on succeeding him, dissociated Great Britain from the holy alliance by taking his stand upon an admirable despatch of Castlereagh and adopting it as his own. When he met with his tragical end, the brutal shouts of exultation raised by a portion of the crowd at his funeral were the expression of sheer ignorance and not of intelligent public opinion. He was a tory, in days when most patriots were tories, but he was a tory of the ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... benevolence and humanity require this sacrifice of me. No; it would only be a sacrifice to your mad and misguided love of fame,—to that passion which has been the source of all your miseries, of the most tragical calamities to others, and of every misfortune that has happened to me. I have no forbearance to exercise towards that passion. If you be not yet cured of this tremendous and sanguinary folly, at least I will do nothing to cherish it. I know not whether from ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... a variety of characters by a person of irritable and delicate nerves, has often a tragical effect on the mental faculties. We might draw up a list of ACTORS, who have fallen martyrs to their tragic characters. Several have died on the stage, and, like Palmer, usually in the midst of some agitated ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... for many years is thus described: 'The disasters of the first Afghan war, and the tragical episode of Khelat, were fresh in men's recollections, and created a strong feeling against political interference with tribes beyond our border'.... 'Accordingly, from the very first, the system of border defence maintained by the Punjaub Government was not purely military, but ...
— Indian Frontier Policy • General Sir John Ayde
... Edward, his tragical death so aroused the sympathy of the people that they named him the Martyr, and believed that miracles were wrought at his tomb. It cannot be said that his murder was in any sense a martyrdom, but the men of that day did not draw fine lines of distinction, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... which, in these latter times, have afflicted the department of the Ain, there is none which has caused a more profound and lively sensation than the tragical death of the lady, Felicite Alcazar, wife of Sebastian Benedict Peytel, notary, at Belley. At the end of October, 1838, Madame Peytel quitted that town, with her husband, and their servant Louis Rey, in order to pass a few days at Macon: at midnight, the inhabitants of Belley were suddenly ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... wonder, perhaps, madam, how I can remember such stuff, which, indeed, was a long time only matter of amusement to both Amelia and myself; but we at last experienced the mischievous nature of envy, and that it tends rather to produce tragical than comical events. My neighbours now began to conspire against me. They nicknamed me in derision, the Squire Farmer. Whatever I bought, I was sure to buy dearer, and when I sold I was obliged to sell cheaper, than any other. In ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... eloping with him when Thady had killed him; now, it was necessary for her to state whether she was there of her own good will, going away with him; or if not, what she was doing at the moment of the tragical occurrence. ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... inspiration. The conspiracy music then begins, and leads to the ball scene, which is most brilliantly worked up with orchestra, military band, and stringed quartet behind the scenes supplying the dance-music, and the accompaniment to the tragical conspiracy, in the midst of which, like a bright sunbeam, comes the page's bewitching song, "Saper vorreste." The opera closes with the death of Richard, set to a very dramatic accompaniment. "The Masked Ball" was the last work Verdi wrote for the Italian stage, ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... that the account of the play Elvira, given in Chapter VII. of the present story, is based upon an existing play, the work of a little known writer of the Romantic time, whose short, brilliant life came to a tragical ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... off the situation lightly. With a great sense of humour, she had also an infinite capacity for taking things seriously—with an almost sensational gravity. Yet she had always responded to his cheerful raillery when he had declined to be tragical. He essayed ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... with it the red nose. The latter met his fate with stolid fortitude. All were perfectly still, but the twitching cheeks of most of the spectators betrayed a laugh retained with difficulty. The cloak then advanced, like a less beautiful Norma, to a bell in the portico, and struck three tragical strokes. A strong, pealing bass voice came from the interior: "Who dares ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... this extraordinary feeling is due to the tragical character of the event and the horror with which the crime is regarded is doubtless true, nor need we dissemble the the fact that the loss which the Americans have sustained is also thought our own loss in so far as one valuable ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... short, go through an incomprehensible farce, while his face was transfigured with rapturous expression like that of a martyr, as painted by Zurbaran or Murillo, Titian or Raphael. The general shout of laughter changed to almost tragical gravity when they saw that Genovese was in utter earnest. La Tinti understood that her companion was in love with her, and had spoken the truth on the stage, the land ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... Anderson's kindness and generosity, almost at the very moment of his death, deeply affected me; and, at the same time, I could not help feeling disgusted with the heartlessness displayed by Sargent, who regarded the tragical death of his partner merely as an event calculated ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... and silent attention which becometh an audience at a deep tragedy. Notwithstanding all this, there have not been wanting some who have represented these scenes in a ludicrous light; and Mr D—— hath been heard to say, with some concern, that he wondered a tragical and Christian nation would permit a representation on its theatre so visibly designed to ridicule and extirpate everything that is great and solemn ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... bridegroom eminently qualified him as a tenant for one of those receptacles in which defunct mortals progress to "that bourne from whence no traveller returns." Fancy the bereaved Molly, or, as she is in grief, and grief is tragical, Mary Brown, denuded of her scarf and black gloves, turning faintly from the untouched cake and tasteless wine, and retiring to the virtuous couch, whereon, with aching heart, the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 25, 1841 • Various
... fro like pendulums; and overhead, seamen were singing out at their work, and coils of rope clattering and thumping on the deck. Yet it was long before I had divined that I was at sea; long before I had recalled, one after another, the tragical, mysterious, and inexplicable events that ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... moans and cries that I have just heard.... There is a God! Ah! yes, yes, there is a God, and He has made a better world for us, or this world of ours would be a nightmare. I could have cried like a child; but this is too tragical, and I ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... in the campaigns of Alexander, and his tragical death at the height of his power, threw a rare romantic interest around his figure. It is ever the fate of a great name to be enshrined in fable, and Alexander soon became the hero of romantic story, scarcely more wonderful ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... not see," returned Cottrell, in mock-tragical tones, "that we are thirteen to dinner? Do you not know that Lionel Beauchamp is the thirteenth? and do you not know what Fate has invariably in store for the thirteenth ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... the tragical poet, when in his old days he was by his own sons accused before the judges for a doting and sottish man, as one that fondly wasted his own substance, and seemed to need a governor to see unto him; to ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... is assuming a tragical character," said Mrs. Hardyng, to whom Clemence went at once for advice. "'The plot thickens,' as the story-books say. Why, child, take courage; you will be a heroine yet, and I shall be thrown completely in the ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... it was the greater that few knew the extent of it. His letters came down franked from town, and he showed the invitations to Helen with a sigh. It was beautiful and tragical to see him refuse one party after another—at least to those who could understand, as Helen didn't, the melancholy grandeur of his self-denial. Helen did not, or only smiled at the awful pathos with which the ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... clenched fist against the bar. My knuckles were bruised and bleeding, but I felt no pain. I was so light of foot, I imagined I could jump over the counter. I ached to fight some one. Then all at once came the thought of Berna. It came with tragical suddenness, with poignant force. Intensely it smote me as never before. I could have burst ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... recommendation on the other that each man for himself should supersede and trample upon the institutions of the country in which he lives? A thousand things might be found excellent and salutary, if brought into general practice, which would in some cases appear ridiculous, and in others be attended with tragical consequences, if prematurely acted upon by a solitary individual. The author of "Political Justice," as appears again and again in the pages of that work, is the last man in the world to recommend a pitiful ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... and determined action of the murderer bestriding the body of the fallen saint, completes a group of figures which have not a rival in art. The majestic trees, as well as the sable and rugged furze, form an awful back-ground to this tragical scene, every way appropriate to the subject. The heavenly messengers seen in the glory above, bearing the palm branches as the emblem of reward for martyrdom, form the second light; the first being the sky and cloud, which gives relief to the black drapery of the wounded companion; while ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... feel that he feels old, and it's perfectly tragical. Sometimes when he turns that slow, dull, melancholy look on you, he seems ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... love of learning. In any case, but for Ellwood, we should never have known the softer side of Milton's character, never have known of what gentleness, patience, and courtesy he was capable. And, indeed, when we remember Milton's position at this time, as tragical as that of Demosthenes after Chaeronea, and of Dante at the Court of Verona, there is something inexpressibly touching in the picture here given with so much simplicity and with such evident unconsciousness on the part ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... my description of Labrador by narrating a rather tragical event that occurred a few years ago. An old fisherman, formerly a sailor, and his only son by an Esquimaux squaw, lived together in the greatest amity and concord. The son, after the death of his mother, ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... Fouquet, Countess de Vertus, his daughter, Madame de Montbazon's mother, was beautiful, witty, somewhat giddy, and very gallant. Impatient of all hindrance, she had authorised one of her lovers to assassinate her husband; but it was the husband who assassinated the lover. The tragical termination of this rencontre does not seem to have cast a gloom over the life of the Countess de Vertus, for at seventy she began to learn to dance, and when seventy-three, married a young man over head ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... formerly been placed. His interview with the mysterious stranger, the message to Jeanie, his agitating conversation with her on the subject of breaking off their mutual engagements, and the interesting scene with old Deans, had so entirely occupied his mind as to drown even recollection of the tragical event which he had witnessed the preceding evening. His attention was not recalled to it by the groups who stood scattered on the street in conversation, which they hushed when strangers approached, or by the bustling search of the agents of the ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... and walked up to the houses of the factory; the inhabitants of which, perceiving that boats had landed, when there was no vessel in the Bay, naturally concluded that some disaster had happened, and were walking down to meet them.—Their tragical history was soon told. The thirty-six men that stood before them were all that were left of nearly three hundred souls embarked, and they had been more than two days without food. At this intimation no further ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... atmosphere, and somewhat pedantically noting his authorities in the margin when he came to print. "Sejanus" is a tragedy of genuine dramatic power in which is told with discriminating taste the story of the haughty favourite of Tiberius with his tragical overthrow. Our drama presents no truer nor more painstaking representation of ancient Roman life than may be found in Jonson's "Sejanus" and "Catiline his Conspiracy," which followed in 1611. A passage in the address of the former ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... heaven, and of whom each was the sole proper complement of the other to be found within the four seas. He was so far generous in that he did not allude to that fascinating second whom Mr. Dundas had taken to his bosom nearly five years ago now, and whose tragical death had cut him to the heart almost as much as it had wounded Sebastian. At one time natural masculine malice had made him compose a stinging little allusion that should carry poison, as some flowers do, sheathed and sugared; but ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... publican look forth upon the blue-misty heavens, and address his adorations to the Sun-god, inspirer of thirst. Throw wide the doors of the temple of Alcohol! Behold, we come in our thousands, jingling the coins that shall purchase us this one day of tragical mirth. Before us is the dark and dreary autumn; it is a far cry to the foggy joys of ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... about to relate will testify. Not far from this very gipsy settlement, in a wild romantic glen, is a steep overhanging rock, which is known throughout the country as the "Gipsy's Rock," and came to be so called from the following tragical occurrence. It seems that many years ago—about the middle of the last century, I believe—there was a famine in the land, and the poor gipsies, poorer than all the rest, were reduced to great straits. Some of them came to the neighbouring ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... of the Contention betwixt the two famous houses of Yorke and Lancaster, with the death of the good Duke Humphrey: And the banishment and death of the Duke of Suffolke, and the Tragical end of the prowd Cardinall of Winchester, with the notable Rebellion of Jacke Cade: And the Duke of Yorkes first clayme to the Crowne. London Printed by Valentine Simmes for Thomas Millington, and are to be sold at his shop under S. Peters church ...
— Catalogue of the Books Presented by Edward Capell to the Library of Trinity College in Cambridge • W. W. Greg
... affected by this sad occurrence?' asked Audrey scornfully. 'My dear Gage, your tone is truly tragical. Was it my clothes or me—poor little me!—that Mrs. Charrington invited and wanted to see? Do you know, Michael,' for that young man was present, 'I have such a grand idea for the future; a fashion to come in with Wagner's music, ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the most remarkable instances of the kind, is that of Sarah Jacob, known as the "Welsh Fasting Girl," and whose history and tragical death excited a great deal of comment in the medical and lay press in Great Britain a few years ago. The following account of the case is mainly derived from ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond
... comedy to some of the scenes. She is a tragical figure. She is the person to whom Juliet has to turn for help at dangerous moments. There are few things sadder than the sight of the fine soul turning to the vulgar soul in moments of need. One of the few things sadder is the sight of wisdom ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... scientiam inflativam debere esse occasionem ruinae." He foresaw the time not far off when puffed-up science would be the ruin of his "domina paupertas." His struggle with this form of human pride was desperate and tragical in its instant failure. He could not make even his novices understand what he meant. The most impossible task of the mind is to reject in practice the reflex action of itself, as Bacon pointed out, and only the highest training has sometimes partially succeeded ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... soldiery. The riots grew more and more formidable, till at last the magistrates had no resource but to call out the troops, who, on one occasion, after they had been pelted with large stones, and in many instances severely injured, fired, killing or wounding several of the foremost rioters. So tragical an event seemed to Wilkes to furnish him with exactly such an opportunity as he desired to push himself into farther notoriety. He at once printed Lord Weymouth's letter, and circulated it, with an inflammatory comment, in which ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... my arm, the voices of my companions and the tenor, engaged in an animated conversation, fell upon my ear. My name was mentioned; I pricked up my ears; I listened. I now understood Italian so well that not a word escaped me. Lauretta was describing the tragical occurrence of the concert when I cut short her trill by prematurely striking down the concluding notes of the bar. 'A German ass!' exclaimed the tenor. I felt as if I must rush in and hurl the flighty hero of the boards out of the window, but I ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... "Never mind love. After all, what is it? The dream of a few weeks. That is all its joy. The disappointment of a life is its Nemesis. Who was ever successful in true love? Success in love argues that the love is false. True love is always despondent or tragical. Juliet loved, Haidee loved, Dido loved, and what came of it? Troilus loved and ceased to be ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... increased; Gabriele began to weep, and Louise bore her company; she seemed to look upon Eva as on one lost. Leonore was calmer; she spoke not one word which could wound her sister, but sighed deeply, and looked with quiet grief upon the beloved but misguided sister; and then seeing what a tragical turn the conversation was taking, said, with all that expression of calm ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... a Jerusalem artichoke, and that we, who stood lamenting over our regretted Phoebus, had actually eaten it, dished up with white sauce. John turned pale at the thought. The beautiful story of the Falcon, in Boccaccio, which the young knight killed to regale his mistress, or the still more tragical history of Couci, who minced his rival's heart, and served it up to his wife, could not have affected him more deeply. We grieved over our lost dahlia, as if it had ...
— The Lost Dahlia • Mary Russell Mitford
... the history of England, does not look with awe upon the effects produced by the talents of her Elizabeth? Who but admires that undaunted firmness in time of peace and that profound depth of policy which she displayed in the cabinet? Yet behold the tragical end of this learned, this politic princess! Behold the triumphs of age and sickness over her once powerful talents, and say not that the faculties of man are always ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... Young Electrician, "what would you call one?" The way his lips mouthed the question gave an almost tragical purport ...
— The Indiscreet Letter • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... had been in a highly tragical state of mind all day, and who was meditating on nothing less sublime than an eternal separation from her lover, which she had imagined, with all the affecting attendants and consequents, was entirely revolutionized by the unexpected ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... separately. Taking to flight, he was followed by his three opponents at unequal distances. Suddenly turning round, he slew, first one, then the second, and finally the third. The Romans were declared the conquerors, and the Albans their subjects. But a tragical event followed. As Horatius was entering Rome, bearing his threefold spoils, his sister met him, and recognized on his shoulders the cloak of one of the Curiatii, her betrothed lover. She burst into ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... the magnanimity of the party interested in the wrong. Indeed, by the unanimous consent of all who took notice of the affair, the seconds, or one of them at least, in this case, must be regarded as deeply responsible for the tragical issue; nor did I hear of one person who held them blameless, except that one who, of all others, might the most excusably have held them wrong in any result. But now, from such a case brought under the review ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... they visited Boussa, the scene of Park's tragical end. The natives were extremely reserved upon the subject, but what they told, bore out in every particular Amadi Fatouma's account. They said that the attack was caused by the English having been mistaken for an advanced guard of Fellatahs, ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... adjoining room. We lighted a candle, took our revolvers, and seated ourselves on the bed, keeping our weapons, so formidable in practised male hands, steadily pointed towards the door, and uttering dire threats against the intruders,—presumed to be Rebels, of course. Having maintained this tragical position for some time, and hearing no further noise; we began to grow sleepy, and extinguished our candle, returned to bed, and slept soundly till morning. But that mystery remained unexplained. I was sure that the door had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... of a less tragical kind might be given. Thus in cases of child-birth the physician is sometimes placed in the alternative of sacrificing the life of the mother or of the unborn child. In such cases a Protestant or freethinking physician would not hesitate to save the ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... of early Christian writings in the Church which were not definitely admitted into the New Testament is instructive on this point. The fate of some of these may be described as tragical. Even when they were not branded as downright forgeries, the writings of the Fathers from the fourth century downwards were far ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... possible to push the tragical side of the verities of life beyond this, and there was soon an instinctive reaction towards realities. The sensations with their conditions of pleasure no less than of pain; the intelligence with its energetic aptitudes for the discovery of protective and fruitful knowledge; ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 2 of 3) - Essay 1: Vauvenargues • John Morley
... raised her head quickly, revealing a tear-stained face and trembling lips. "YOU would cry, too, if you were an orphan and had come to a place you thought was going to be home and found that they didn't want you because you weren't a boy. Oh, this is the most TRAGICAL thing that ever happened ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... fights against you—the cur's bitter hatred for the mastering hand it dares not bite. I dare now. You made me your pander, you slew my manhood; in return, body and soul, I demolish you. Even my hatred for that woman fights against you; she robbed me of my honor—is it not a tragical revenge to save her honor, to hold it in my hand, mine, to dispose of as I elect,—and then fling it to her as a thing contemptible? Between you, you have ruined me; but it is Simon's hour to-night. I shame ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... the charges. An honourable member, Mr. Smith, had done well to introduce those tragical stories, which had made such an impression upon the House. No one of these had been yet controverted. It had indeed been said, that the cruelty of the African captain to the child was too bad to be true; and we had been desired to look at the cross-examination ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... and to complete the account of this tragical transaction, it may not be unnecessary to mention, that the people in the cutter were Mr Rowe, Mr Woodhouse, Francis Murphy, quarter-master; William Facey, Thomas Hill, Michael Bell, and Edward Jones, fore-castle men; ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... when his irons were taken off, does he not discover an equal serenity and joy in his soul for being freed from past inconveniences, and at the same time to enter into the knowledge of the things to come? Cato shall pardon me, if he please; his death indeed is more tragical and more lingering; but yet this is, I know not how, methinks, finer. Aristippus, to one that was lamenting this death: "The gods grant me such an one," said he. A man discerns in the soul of these two great men and their imitators (for I very ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... authority, it cannot be surprising to hear that he has abused it. He had not been his brother's military viceroy for twenty-four hours before one set of our Parisians were amused, while others were shocked and scandalized, at a tragical intrigue enterprised by His ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... ingredients deleterious to health, is the most criminal, and, in the mind of every honest man, must excite feelings of regret and disgust. Numerous facts are on record, of human food, contaminated with poisonous ingredients, having been vended to the public; and the annals of medicine record tragical events ensuing from the use of ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... conspicuous member of that society who was of military antecedents who would not have challenged any man who had said of him what Hamilton had said of Burr. Hamilton disdained explanation or recantation, and the result was accepted as tragical, but in a ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... which were so easy to his active brain and his mighty muscles, all behind him, and the titanic labors of his manhood yet to come. We shall now try to sketch the beginnings of that tremendous controversy which he was in a few years to take up, to guide and direct to its wonderful and tragical close. ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... of young Goldoni? His boyhood was as thoroughly plebeian, various, and comic as Alfieri's had been patrician, monotonous, and tragical. Instead of one place of residence, we read of twenty. Scrape succeeds to scrape, adventure to adventure. Knowledge of the world, and some book learning also, flow in upon the boy, and are eagerly caught up by him and heterogeneously amalgamated ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... however, and proof-sheets of the novel interlined at the time, enable me now to separate the fact from the fiction, and to supply to the story of the author's childhood those passages, omitted from the book, which, apart from their illustration of the growth of his character, present to us a picture of tragical suffering, and of tender as well as humorous fancy, unsurpassed in even the ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... delirium of it all reached a culminating point in 1652 when the aristocratic bolshevists of Conde's army routed the victorious king and cardinal at the Faubourg St. Antoine. This was the consummation of tragical absurdity; what might pass muster for political reason had turned inside out; and when Mazarin fled to Sedan he left behind him a France which was morally, ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... The tragical sufferings of the protestants are too numerous to detail; but the treatment of Philip de Deux will give an idea of the rest. After the miscreants had slain this martyr in his bed, they went to his wife, who was then attended by ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... and wages bitter war against the holy knights, with a view of corrupting them, and ultimately, it may be, of acquiring for himself the "Sangrail," in which all power is believed to reside. Many knights have already succumbed to the "insidious arts" of Klingsor; but the tragical turning-point of the Parsifal is that Amfortas, himself the son of Titurel, the official guardian of the Grail, in making war upon the magician, took with him the sacred spear, and lost it ...
— Parsifal - Story and Analysis of Wagner's Great Opera • H. R. Haweis
... that once gesture is organized, it requires but a handful of people to represent multitude; and this lonely handful of redmen in the pueblo of Tesuque, numbering at most but seventy-five or eighty individuals, lessened, as is the case with all the pueblos of the country to a tragical degree by the recent invasions of the influenza epidemic, showed the interested observer, in groups of five or a dozen dancers and soloists including drummers, through the incomparable pageantry of ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... been properly sealed, Lombard said, with a countenance curiously divided between a tragical expression and a smile of fatuous complacency, "There was a clear case of poetical justice in your being left behind in the desert to-night. To see the lights of the train disappearing, leaving you alone in the midst of desolation, gave you a touch ...
— Deserted - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... greatness are but pleasing dreams, And shadows soon decaying. On the stage Of my mortality, my youth has acted Some scenes of vanity, drawn out at length By varied pleasures—sweetened in the mixture, But tragical in issue. Beauty, pomp, With every sensuality our giddiness Doth frame an idol—are inconstant friends When any troubled passion makes us halt On the unguarded castle of ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... whosoever: I have here published in print, for your sakes, the two tragical discourses of the Scythian shepherd Tamburlaine, that became so great a conqueror and so mighty a monarch. My hope is, that they will be now no less acceptable unto you to read after your serious affairs ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... sealed, Tragical man, who has but breath For few brief years as he goes to death, Tragical man by strange winds blown To live in crowds ere he die alone, Came in his jovial thousands massing, To see ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... Pastor Fido, and other trifles of the same kind, easily imitated, and unworthy of imitation. What the Italians call comedies, from a happy conclusion, Gay calls a tragedy, from a mournful event; but the style of the Italians and of Gay is equally tragical. There is something in the poetical Arcadia so remote from known reality and speculative possibility, that we can never support its representation through a long work. A pastoral of a hundred lines may be endured; but who will hear of sheep and goats, and myrtle ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... was one evening when C. P. Cranch, always of a most pensive presence and aspect, sang the most killingly comic songs; and there was another evening when, after we all went into the library, something tragical happened. Edwin Booth was of our number, a gentle, rather silent person in company, or with at least little social initiative, who, as his fate would, went up to the cast of a huge hand that lay upon one of the shelves. "Whose hand is this, Lorry?" he asked our host, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... poet said who brought together a tragical collection of precedents in the mirror of magistrates. This is what ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... to "Avenia; or, A Tragical Poem on the Oppression of the Human Species," an antislavery work printed in Philadelphia in 1805.—Note in ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... laws and government; what conduct must he embrace in that melancholy situation? He sees such a desperate rapaciousness prevail; such a disregard to equity, such contempt of order, such stupid blindness to future consequences, as must immediately have the most tragical conclusion, and must terminate in destruction to the greater number, and in a total dissolution of society to the rest. He, meanwhile, can have no other expedient than to arm himself, to whomever the sword he seizes, or ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... characters are so real as to be treated as existences, their creator himself cannot help them having their own wills and ways. Fern the farm-labourer is not here, nor yet his niece the little Lilian (at first called Jessie) who is to give to the tale its most tragical scene; and there are intimations of poetic fancy at the close of my sketch which the published story fell short of. Altogether the comparison is ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Blackhouse, are shown as marking the spot where the seven brethren were slain; and the Douglas Burn is avowed to have been the stream at which the lovers stopped to drink; so minute is tradition in ascertaining, the scene of a tragical tale, which, considering, the rude state of former times, had probably ...
— Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850 • Various
... she walked nearly the whole day. Nothing could be more truly tragical than the utterly purposeless tenour of her day,—and of her whole life. She had no plan,—nothing before her; no object even for the evening and night of that very day in which she was wasting her strength on the Devizes road. It is the ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... of John Dillaway is at once so tragical, so interesting, and so instructive, that it will be well for us to be transported for awhile, and give this rogue the benefit ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... all led eventful lives, and all died tragical deaths; so out of the long list of cats whom I have loved and lost, these seven are the most ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... Miss Silence answered only by sighing and moaning, For two whole days she had been kept in constant fear and worry, afraid every minute of some tragical message, perplexed by the conflicting advice of all manner of officious friends, sleepless of course through the two nights, and now ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... lady of royalist partialities, whose mother had actually known the heroine, and had lived through the terrible days of the Terror. Her tradition was that the portrait of Charlotte was imaginary, and, as to her beauty, delusive, and that the tragical young lady's moving passion was a passion for notoriety. Bessie wondered and doubted, and began to think history a most ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... The tragical affair at Dollis Hill, it need scarcely be said, was a dreadful blow to the family. Mr. Wood bore up with great fortitude against the shock, attended the inquest, delivered his evidence with composure, and gave directions afterwards ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... necati, per quos Palatium et ipse constabat. Eusebius (l. viii. c. 6) mentions the cruel executions of the eunuchs, Gorgonius and Dorotheus, and of Anthimius, bishop of Nicomedia; and both those writers describe, in a vague but tragical manner, the horrid scenes which were acted even ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon |
