"Melancholy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Duerer's. This you will not be able to copy; but you must keep it beside you, and refer to it as a standard of precision in line. If you can get one with a wing in it, it will be best. The crest with the cock, that with the skull and satyr, and the "Melancholy," are the best you could have, but any will do. Perfection in chiaroscuro drawing lies between these two masters, Rembrandt and Duerer. Rembrandt is often too loose and vague; and Duerer has little or no effect of mist or uncertainty. If ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... out on horse-back now; thou lookest pale and emaciated, having lost all animation. I wish to know the disease thou sufferest from, so that I may endeavour to apply a remedy.' Thus addressed by his son, Santanu answered, 'Thou sayest truly, O son, that I have become melancholy. I will also tell thee why I am so. O thou of Bharata's line, thou art the only scion of this our large race. Thou art always engaged in sports of arms and achievements of prowess. But, O son, I am always thinking of the instability of human life. If any danger overtake thee, O child ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... his Royal Highness to Marguerite, as soon as he had caught sight of the rigid figure of the old lady; "Lud love me! she looks very virtuous and very melancholy." ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... a melancholy lay! For Youth, for Life we both regret: How fair they seem; how far away, ...
— Aucassin and Nicolete • Andrew Lang
... melancholy enough. Snow had fallen continually until it had piled a foot high on the level roads. The wind howled dismally around the gables, and the branches of a maple beat doleful music against the window of Zulma's room. She felt the ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... could she run for refuge, even from want, and misery, but to the very traitor that had undone her. She was acquainted with none that could or would espouse her cause, a helpless, useless load of grief and melancholy! with child! disgraced! her own relations either unable, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... abuse by taking too much. And therefore in the summer they feed on fruits, because they are moist and juicy and cool, and counteract the heat and dryness. In the winter they feed on dry articles, and in the autumn they eat grapes, since they are given by God to remove melancholy and sadness; and they also make use of scents to a great degree. In the morning, when they have all risen they comb their hair and wash their faces and hands with cold water. Then they chew thyme or rock parsley or fennel, or rub their hands with these plants. The old men make incense, ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... of it than was good for me—as much as 85 degrees, I should think,—and had an indigestion in consequence. While I was suffering from it, I wrote some sadly desponding poems, and a theological essay which took a very melancholy view of creation. When I got better I labelled them all "Pie-crust," and laid them by as scarecrows and solemn warnings. I have a number of books on my shelves that I should like to label with some ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Dane Rollo!' called out Mr. Kingsland as he went by. 'Coffee and pistols at four to-morrow morning!— And if my shot fails, there are ten more to follow. The strong probability is that Miss Kennedy beholds us both for the last time!' Which melancholy statement was honoured with a soft irrepressible laugh that it was a pity Mr. Kingsland would not ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... Sunday, and Thomas locked the church on the inner side, and read the service with Dorcas and Tabitha for sole congregation. It was a melancholy business, for some sense of evil seemed to hang over all three of them, also over everybody else, for the Christians went about with dejected looks and not one person spoke to them. Only Ivana came at night as usual to sleep with Tabitha, ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... the nature and origin of those agreeable emotions which are so generally produced by the sight of objects that suggest the ideas of decay and desolation. It is happy for us, that, by the alchemy of poetry, we are able to turn some of our misfortunes into sources of melancholy pleasure, after the poignancy of grief has been assuaged by time. Nature has beneficently provided, also, that many an object, which is capable of communicating no direct pleasure to our senses, shall affect us agreeably through the medium of sentiment. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... answered, recovering himself. "Rather a melancholy place to make acquaintance in, I should think, that Valley you spoke of. I should like ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... to his son-in-law about this distressing event: "July 15. My Brother and very dear Son-in-law,—It is with the greatest satisfaction that I have heard that Your Imperial Majesty, as well as the Empress, my beloved daughter, has escaped the melancholy accidents that occurred at the ball of my Ambassador, Prince Schwarzenberg. I cannot express to you, my brother, my gratitude for the tokens of your interest which you manifested on that occasion, and for your personal ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... returned upon the coroner's inquest, founded upon a friendly examination of all the facts surrounding the melancholy death of this soldier, made at the time of death and in the midst of his neighbors and friends, both by what it contains and by what is omitted, together with the other facts developed, leads me to the conclusion that if a pension is granted in this ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... this. She stood irresolute, gazing now to the right and now to the left, as the major retired in one direction and Dick with Crusoe in another. Suddenly Crusoe, who, although comfortable in body, was ill at ease in spirit, gave utterance to a melancholy howl. The mother's love instantly prevailed. For one moment she pricked up her ears at the sound, and then, lowering them, trotted quietly after her new master, and followed him to his cottage on the margin of ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... made the commencement of each new week as profitable as it was welcome. The recollection, too, of the land they had left was more tender on this quiet day, and past joys and trials were often recalled with a kind of melancholy pleasure, sometimes with an almost regretful feeling that the scenes in which they had laughed and toiled should know them no longer. The green fields—the hawthorn hedges—the cottages and the little gardens, ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick
... about the scene where once as a man the old minstrel fled for dear life, there hangs at the dead time of night a sense of mystery and awe. As the chilly wind comes wailing across the everlasting hills, blending its voice with the melancholy dirge of the river, one may almost believe that through the gloom there passes swiftly a bent, hurrying figure. Perhaps it is but the swaying of a branch near by, that so startlingly suggests the waving in the wind ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... meet my engagement at ten in the forenoon. On our way, we could not help noticing the unusual number of foot-sore, travel-soiled people, many of them evidently factory operatives, limping away from the town upon their melancholy wanderings. We could see, also, by the number of decrepid old women, creeping towards Wigan, and now and then stopping to rest by the wayside, that it was relief day at the Board of Guardians. At ten, I met the gentleman who had kindly ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... morning; and as he opened his writing-desk it was with the manner of one entirely satisfied with himself and his own exertions. Still, a generous regret mingled with his triumph. It was a great thing to have destroyed the most pernicious privateer that sailed out of France; and yet it was a melancholy fate to befall seventy or eighty human beings—to perish like so many curling caterpillars, destroyed by fire. Nevertheless, the thing was done; and it must be reported to the authorities above him. The following letter was consequently written to the commanding ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... could muster, cautiously entered my room, where I found everything quiet, there being neither cloud, nor devil, nor anything of the kind to be seen, and getting into bed I slept quietly till morning. The next day I was rather sad and melancholy, but kept all my troubles to myself, through fear of Brown. This happened before my father's sickness, and consequently between the four and six years ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... is that which immediately concerns those who are making proficiency, that which concerns the security of the other two, so that not even in sleep any appearance unexamined may surprise us, nor in intoxication, nor in melancholy. This, it may be said, is above our power. But the present philosophers neglecting the first topic and the second (the affects and duties), employ themselves on the third, using sophistical arguments ([Greek: metapiptontas]), making conclusions from questioning, employing hypotheses, lying. ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... no companions to join you?" "I shall have guides," he answered, and relapsed into meditative silence. Presently I ventured another question: "You go on business, perhaps— not on pleasure?" He turned his melancholy eyes on mine. "Do I look as if I were traveling for pleasure's sake?" he asked gently. I felt rebuked, and hastened to apologise. "Pardon me; I ought not to have said that. But you interest me greatly, and I wish, if possible, ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... mother, "very. There are things about her so singular; she isn't like me, now, a particle;" and Marie sighed, as if this was a truly melancholy consideration. ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... lonely and desolate when the door had closed behind her. Jack rose, and roughly shook himself, as if by that means he hoped to throw off the oppression and melancholy that was invading even his light heart. Hundreds of moths were dashing themselves to death against the high glass shade that covered the blowing candles from them. He stood and looked at their hopeless efforts to reach the flame. He had an unpleasant thought; one of those thoughts which have ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... convent where I once had sojourned for a few days with the fanatical monks, its pale, stern inmates in their robes of black, and the grated window from whence I could look out, a forbidden indulgence, upon the melancholy Coliseum and the crumbling ruins of the Eternal City. The mighty glaciers of the Splugen too rose before me, gleaming in the sun like polished silver, and those terrible solitudes, the birthplace of the Rhine, where bursting from the bowels of its native ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... the reader will find traces of a singular superstition, not yet altogether discredited in the wilder parts of Scotland. The lykewake, or watching a dead body, in itself a melancholy office, is rendered, in the idea of the assistants, more dismally awful, by the mysterious horrors of superstition. In the interval betwixt death and interment, the disembodied spirit is supposed to hover around its mortal habitation, and, if provoked by certain rites, retains the ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... The melancholy intelligence of your sister's death has grieved me more than I can express, and I beg to render you my heartfelt sympathy. Truly we live in a world where solemn shadows are continually falling upon our path—shadows that teach us the insecurity of all temporal blessings, and warn us that ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... that something had gone wrong, and, under pretence of syringing the orange-trees, he lingered near his master, and peered through the sunny leaves upon Riccabocca's melancholy brows. ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the sense of physical suffering, deep melancholy, and utter despair by the medium of the written word, it was Clive in this passage. He had, it will be remembered, attempted suicide before, as a young man. When the pistol refused to go off, he considered it an omen that he was reserved ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... walks he went up to the window and stood looking out. The gulch always impressed him; it had a solemn melancholy majesty and desolate grandeur that is not easy to define in words: an icy splendour by moonlight, and a horrible gloomy beauty towards the fall of the day. It was at this time that Talbot stood looking out at its rugged edges and ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... and idle kegs, turned to the almost dry bed of the creek. The signs of ante-prohibition days, blistered and faded, were still in place. Light showed in windows where fly-specked useless licenses were displayed. Back of the bars a melancholy array of soda-water advertised lack of interest in soft drinks. The front rooms held no loungers, but the click of chips and murmurs of talk came from ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... how melancholy must be the consideration that any single beau, especially if he have but half a yard of ribbon in his hat, shall weigh heavier in the scale of female affection than twenty Sir Isaac Newtons! How must our reader, who perhaps had wisely ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... the picture she did not like. She looked at it with a growing dissatisfaction. And then she saw what it was. The woman was sinking to melancholy. She bowed under the hand of fate. She did not know why, this night of all others, she should resent that. What did she ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... original is cast in the lira form would compel one to assign this composition to a date not earlier than 1542, when Garcilasso's poems were first published. Nothing, however, could be more remote from Garcilasso's nebulous half-pagan melancholy; we are no less distant from the pseudonymous nymphs of Cetina and Francisco de la Torre: the elegant Amaryllis of the one, the elusive Filis of the other, though destined to be re-incarnated by a tribe ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... continually in pious meditation on God, salvation, and eternal life; and must spend their life in prayers and in reading the Word and pious books. But those who renounce the world and live in the spirit in this manner acquire a melancholy life, unreceptive of heavenly joy. To receive the life of heaven a man must by all means live in the world and engage in its duties and affairs and by a moral and civil life ...
— The Gist of Swedenborg • Emanuel Swedenborg
... Commissioner Adam also came to see me, and the meeting, though pleasing, was melancholy. It is the first time we have met since the break up of his hopes in the death of his eldest son on his return from India, where he was Chief in Council and highly esteemed.[129] The Commissioner is not a very early friend of mine, for I scarce knew him till his settlement in Scotland with his ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... told that his niece Bell had accepted Dr Crofts, and he had signified a sort of acquiescence in the arrangement, saying that if it were to be so, he had nothing to say against Dr Crofts. He spoke this in a melancholy tone of voice, wearing on his face that look of subdued sorrow which was now habitual to him. It was to Mrs Dale that he spoke on the subject. "I could have wished that it might have been otherwise," he ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... glance for a moment dispelled the melancholy of her face, and then the old look returned with added ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... chattering, so loud as to attract for a while the most of our attention. There is not a sound in nature so cheering and animating as the song of the purple martin, and none so well calculated to drive away melancholy. Though not one of the earliest voices to be heard, the chorus is perceptibly more loud and effective when this bird ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... choosing to risk their lives in it. There was a very great reluctance felt to going even to remove the body and the wounded man, until several abolitionists and Friends had collected for that object, when others found courage to follow on. The excitement caused by this most melancholy affair is very great among all classes. The abolitionists, of course, mourn the occurrence, while they see in it a legitimate fruit of the Fugitive Slave Law, just such a harvest of blood as they had long feared that the law would produce, and which they had earnestly labored ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... letter to myself, the eminent novelist gives a brief sketch of his mode of life, so interesting that I have secured his permission to translate and print it here:—"Since my wife died," Senor Valdes writes, "my life has continued to be tranquil and melancholy, dedicated to work and to my son. During the winters, I live in Asturias, and during the summers, in Madrid. I like the company of men of the world better than that of literary folks, because the former teach me more. I am given up ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... together with his superlative beauty and his devotion to myself, bred in me as great an affection for him as a man's breast can hold. This passionate love led me oftentimes to delight the lad with music; for I observed that his marvellous features, which by complexion wore a tone of modest melancholy, brightened up, and when I took my cornet, broke into a smile so lovely and so sweet, that I do not marvel at the silly stories which the Greeks have written about the deities of heaven. Indeed, if my boy had lived in those times, he would probably ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... over his fine vegetables. He nodded phlegmatically at Anderson. He never smiled. Occasionally his long facial muscles relaxed, but they never widened. He was indefinably serious by nature, yet not melancholy, and absolutely acquiescent in his life conditions. The farmer of New Jersey is not of the stuff which breeds anarchy. He is rooted fast to his red-clinging native soil, which has taken hold of his spirit. He is tenacious, but not revolutionary. He was as adamant on the ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... suddenly face about to the westward, you see before you one vast forest, uninterrupted except by the cultivated openings which have been made by the axe on the summits of some of the loftiest hills, and which tend considerably to diminish those melancholy sensations its gloomy monotony would otherwise inspire. The innumerable undulations in this vast expanse of forest, forcibly remind you of the ocean when convulsed by tempests; save that the billows of the one slumber in a fixed and leaden ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... etc., are those of an ordinary intelligent Englishman of conscientious research, fed on the "Lives of the Poets" and Trafalgar memories. The morality, as in the Essay on Montaigne, is unexceptionable; the following would commend itself to any boarding school: "Melancholy experience has never ceased to show that great warlike talents, like great talents of any kind, may be united with ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... sigh'd to reflect upon his Misfortune in being the occasion of the French Officer's Death, which might have been honourably avoided; yet he laugh'd plentifully, when he heard the Part I had afterwards in that Melancholy Farce; and rally'd me home when I insisted upon Charges and desired to be reimburs'd with Sixty Louis d'Ors, which that Affair had cost me upon his Account; all the Satisfaction I could get was, that he thought I put a greater Value ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... time it is made to sing a song, which, readily awakening the sympathies of the soul, causes the listener to recognize and feel the effects of the intonations of pathos, of passion, of deepest melancholy, or those ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... leakage-now it was a nightmare. All he did cost an exhausting price in the effort of decision. Duty and fear had long made a battle-ground of his soul, and when he realized that he had broken down again from "overwork," as they all expressed it, the depression of melancholy was added to the weight he so quietly bore. Yet this man of many responsibilities and interests had never truly worked. Since he left college he had played at work. Effort had been expended never more conscientiously. He was ever ready to give added hours ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... was masculine; and believed in predestination and the final perseverance of the saints. He was rather unequal in his discourses, for he had a tendency to moodiness, and, at times, even to hypochondria. When this temper was upon him he was combative or melancholy; and sometimes, to the disgust of many who came from all parts of London to listen to him, he did not preach in the proper sense of the word, but read a chapter, made a comment or two upon it, caused a hymn to be sung, and then dismissed his congregation with the briefest of prayers. ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... these institutions into more complete and prosperous operation, than in plans for changing them, or substituting others in their stead. Were it not that such a course would be unjust to individuals, a long and melancholy catalogue might easily be made out of abortive plans which have sprung up in the minds of young men in the manner I have described, and which, after perhaps temporary success, have resulted in partial or total failure. These failures are of every kind. Some are school-books on ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... he was at the house of an Indian trader, in the vicinity of Burlington, when I became acquainted and frequently convened with him in broken English, and through the medium of gestures and pantomine. A deep seated melancholy was apparent in his countenance, and conversation. He endeavored to make me comprehend, on one occasion, his former greatness, and represented that he was once master of the country, east, north, and south ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... in a slow and melancholy voice, "when comes it? It must first enter into the human heart; and there, there live so many demons, so much disquiet and painful longing—but ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... most solemn book in the world, not excepting Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy," or even "Fearne on Contingent Remainders," is an English publication of a half-century or so ago, entitled "Jokes about ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... conversation. The young men—as is generally the case in religious sects of a rigid and clannish character—were by no means handsome. Their faces all bore the stamp of repression, in some form or other, and as they talked their eyes wandered with an expression of melancholy longing and timidity towards the sweet, maidenly faces, whose bloom, and pure, gentle beauty not even their ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... with a costly lace cap, from which wide ribbons of rose- colored satin flowed down on her shoulders. But the countenance of the empress did not correspond to this coquettish and youthful dress. She was young and beautiful, but an expression of profound melancholy overspread her features. Her cheeks were transparently white, and a sad, touching smile quivered round her finely- chiselled, narrow lips; her high, expansive forehead was shaded, as it were, by a cloud of sadness; and her large black eyes shot, from time to time, gloomy flashes which seemed ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... Alexey, tell me how?" she said in melancholy mockery at the hopelessness of her own position. "Is there any way out of such a position? Am I not the wife ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... begging his daily food from house to house, seemed to them a horrible thing. It could never be permitted that a prince should disgrace himself in this way. Every effort must be taken to eradicate such ideas; after all, it was but the melancholy of youth, and it would pass. So stringent orders were given to distract his mind in every way from solemn thoughts, to attempt by a continued round of pleasure and luxury to attract him to more ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... awakening from a long slumber. She had forgotten one that was watching her with sad, beautiful, stern eyes—the only one there was to approve or condemn what she did. Straight and slender and tall, with a look of sorrowful reproach on his handsome, melancholy face, General Kitchener fixed his wonderful eyes on her out of his gilt photograph frame on ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... brought her to the North Sand Head, and round and outside it to the melancholy spot where, in the waning autumnal light, they could just discern the wreck. They passed through the crowd of Deal boats, and close to the tug-boat; but no one spoke or hailed the other, as all knew what had to be done, and the ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... long days, the mental patients in the psychopathic ward came and peered through my barred door. At night, in the early morning, all through the day there were cries and shrieks and moans from the patients. It was terrifying. One particularly melancholy moan used to keep up hour after hour, with the regularity of a heart beat. I said to myself, "Now I have to endure this. I have got to live through this somehow. I'll pretend these moans are the noise of an elevated train, beginning faintly in the distance and getting ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... features, especially the mouth, now showed more plainly even than in earlier life the calm strength acquired by struggles and suffering. The pathos which later portraits have often given to his countenance is not apparent in the earlier ones, but rather an expression of melancholy. The deep glow and energy of his spirit, which even Cranach's pencil has failed wholly to represent, seems to have found chief expression in his dark eyes. These evidently struck the old rector of Wittenberg, Pollich, and the legate Caietan at ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... me of a circumstance that happened some fifteen years ago. I had a letter of introduction to a lady who wished to engage my children to read at a party she was about to give. She received me with an air of melancholy politeness, at the same time informing me that the gathering was postponed, as dear little Fanny was 'real sick.' I saw a wine-glass and teaspoon on the table by the side of the sofa, which had a small blanket on it bound with sky-blue ribbon, covering ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... haply, the origin of the crime be traced, the Superintendent embodies in his report a reccommendation looking to a change in the law, which shall tend to suppress and control the evil. If there be indication that a particular order of crime prevails, or that, unhappily, some new departure in its melancholy category is being practised, it will, again, be his place to represent the situation to the Government, to the end that a healthier state of things may be brought about. He is authorized, in certain cases, to make advances on an individual Indian's account, and, also, on the general ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... (afterwards the Emperor Frederick) was married, with brilliant ceremonial, to the Princess Royal, at the Chapel Royal, St James's, an event marked by general national rejoicings; another event in the private life of the Queen, but one of a melancholy character, was the death of the Duchess of Orleans at the age ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... appearances to the contrary, such as new buildings and the rise of rents, being to his certain knowledge fallacious; for they were, in fact, among the things that would soon ruin us. And he gave me such a detail of misfortunes now existing, or that were soon to exist, that he left me half melancholy. Had I known him before I engaged in this business, probably I never should have done it. This man continued to live in this decaying place, and to declaim in the same strain, refusing for many years to ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... life, would disappear at once. These human years would be happy; and the eternal ages would roll on in brightness and beauty; and the still, sad music of Humanity, that sounds through the world, now in the accents of grief, and now in pensive melancholy, would change to anthems, sounding to the March of Time, and bursting out from the heart ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... pleasantly. "I hope you had a good time in the holidays. I suppose Silver has told you the melancholy news—that you are to desert us this term? It is a great pity. We shall all be very sorry to lose you. I don't look forward to seeing you bowl us all out in the house-matches next summer," he added, with a smile, "though we shall expect a few full-pitches ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... This melancholy disaster sets in the strongest relief the (p. 447) gallant devotion of the crews of the two English life-boats, all the members of which risked their lives, while three of them died in the brave effort to save our countrymen. The sorrow ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... in the story of Thomas is after the resurrection. The first evening the apostles met in the upper room to talk over the strange things which had occurred that day. For some reason Thomas was not at this meeting. We may infer that his melancholy temperament led him to absent himself. He had loved Jesus deeply, and his sorrow was very great. There had been rumors all day of Christ's resurrection, but Thomas put no confidence in these. Perhaps his despondent disposition ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... way home from their walk, become any easier to tell him; but her secret decision to do so before he left gave her a kind of factitious calm and laid a melancholy ecstasy upon the hour. Still skirting the subject that fanned their very faces with its flame, they clung persistently to other topics, and it seemed to Anna that their minds had never been nearer together than in this hour when their hearts were so separate. In the ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... crack, as shown by the decrepit state of the buildings, many of which are broken-backed, twisted, and contorted—although the intermediate earth is about 200 feet in thickness. The place, therefore, has a sort of downcast look, and the streets have a melancholy appearance; whilst the sheds of the brine works, made to appear more murky by contrast with heaps of white salt refuse, suggest the thought that the town has gone into mourning. Exception must be taken to St. Peter's Church, which stands outside the town, ...
— Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway - Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from - Worcester to Shrewsbury • J. Randall
... Day was too sanguine to be made melancholy by these affairs. She was of a naturally cheerful nature—an attribute she inherited from her father. It took more than the faded-out lady to cause the girl ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... Bolingbroke, in the Tower of London, side by side with his gaolers, he lived and moved in the world of phantasy of the Romance of the Rose. Venus, Cupid, Hope, Fair-Welcome, Pleasure, Pity, Danger, Sadness, Care, Melancholy, Sweet-Looks were around the desk, on which, in the deep embrasure of a window, beneath the sun's rays, he wrote his ballads, as delicate and fresh as an illumination on the page of a manuscript. For him it was the world of allegory that really existed. He wandered in the forest of Long ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... Falls above, where a line of foamy cataracts ridged the river, and the rocks towered gloomily on either hand: and of the city below, with its buildings of pure marble, and the yellow earthworks that crested Arlington Heights. The clouds over the Potomac were gorgeous in hue, but forests of melancholy pine clothed the sides of the hills, and the roar of the river made such beautiful monotone that I almost thought it could be translated to words. Our passes were now demanded by a fat, bareheaded officer, and while he panted through their contents, ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... extolling the two last-named delicacies. We went to the Opera, and there, in a brilliant salle of white and gold, spoilt, however, by the incongruity of bonnets mingling everywhere with full evening toilettes, assisted at a massacre—unmusical and melancholy—of "Lucrezia." We drove out through the crude, unfinished Central Park to Harlem lane, whither the trotters are wont to resort, and saw several teams looking very much like work (though no celebrities), almost all ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... a story told of a certain officer who was going into action for the first time. His legs were shaking so that he could hardly sit his horse. He looked down at them, and with melancholy but decided voice said, 'Ah! you are shaking, are you? You would shake a great deal more if you knew where I was going to take you to-day; ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... feet above the pavement. The eleven steps of the flight before the door, made it still higher. Jehan mounted slowly, a good deal incommoded by his heavy armor, holding his crossbow in one hand, and clinging to a rung with the other. When he reached the middle of the ladder, he cast a melancholy glance at the poor dead outcasts, with which the steps were strewn. "Alas!" said he, "here is a heap of bodies worthy of the fifth book of the Iliad!" Then he continued his ascent. The vagabonds followed him. There was one on every rung. At the sight ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... went off into nonsense verses about gentlemen in the parlour drinking wine and cordial, and ladies in the drawing-room drinking tea and coffee, &c. I have heard that many of the masters and overseers on these plantations prohibit melancholy tunes or words, and encourage nothing but cheerful music and senseless words, deprecating the effect of sadder strains upon the slaves, whose peculiar musical sensibility might be expected to make them especially excitable ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... the Roman parents, rounds of beef, tyrannical uncles and cold hams in England. Tempt me no more, Jerry; Bo'sun, avaunt, and leave me to melancholy and emptiness." ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... looked down at her, at her glistening auburn hair, and slender, white, ringed hand clutching the cushions, at her lissom shaking form, at the shapely legs in the rolled-down silk stockings—and he felt a melancholy happiness in the proof that he had reached her shallow heart, and in the fact that this was ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... hasten to thee; Every month of every year will seek thee; Every week of every month will seek thee." So the maiden listened to her brothers, With the ban she crossed the distant waters: But, behold! O melancholy marvel! God sent down the plague, and all the brothers. All the nine, were swept away, and lonely Stood their miserable ...
— Serbia in Light and Darkness - With Preface by the Archbishop of Canterbury, (1916) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... imagine a staring succession of eyes, beginning with the dilated pupils of Whitney and passing on to the corpse-like expression of Mendoza, but always ending with the remarkable, piercing, black eyes of the Indian woman with the melancholy- visaged son, as they had impressed me the first time I saw them and, in fact, ever since. Was it a freak of my mind, or was there some reason ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... when the Damiens, in the name of the parliaments, as one party says, in the name of the Jesuits, as the other party says, and, what is more true, in the name—" The king suddenly paused; a deep shade of melancholy settled on his features, his noble head dropped on his bosom. Louis XV remained for some time motionless; at length, "Well," he exclaimed, attempting to force a smile, "well! I will write to the ladies de Grammont, to inform them that they need not give ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... an altar upon which blazed the undying fires, the putting out of which was supposed to portend so much woe to the nation. Here also was the huge drum, made of serpents' skins, struck only on extraordinary occasions, when it sent forth a melancholy sound that could be heard for miles—a sound of woe to the Spaniards in after times. Montezuma, attended by a high priest, came forward to receive Cortes. After conferring with the priests the emperor conducted the Spaniards into the building, ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... years, in the midst of the fairest pastoral valley of New England, he lived in the contemplation of the ideas that had passed across his mind in the quiet of European galleries, and now became more definite impressions. The secret of those years, with their deep, slow current of refined and melancholy thought, is now sealed with him in eternal sleep; but from the works that remain to us as the matured fruits of his life, we may gain some hint of his experiences. It is not to be questioned that he drew from the New-England soil that he ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... era. Mention has already been made of Ariwara no Narihira, a grandson of the Emperor Heijo and one of the most renowned among Japanese poets. He was a man of singular beauty, and his literary attainments, combined with the melancholy that marked his life of ignored rights, made him a specially interesting figure. He won the love of Taka, younger sister of Fujiwara Mototsune and niece of Yoshifusa. Their liaison was not hidden. But Yoshifusa, in default ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... be the best of the collection; from whence only the two first are taken. They are spoken of differently, either with exaggerated applause or contempt, as the reader's disposition is either turned to mirth or melancholy. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... happy; he hated the rough society of Scotch lawyers, and quarrelled with his father, the Laird of Auchinleck, who seems to have been a tiresome, disagreeable old man. The Laird died in 1782, and seven years later Boswell lost his "valuable wife." His story becomes melancholy: money troubles and family perplexities beset him (he was left with five children); and it may be that what once made him odd, aggravated by his breaking health, now made him gloomy. After his wife's death he came to London for good. Already he ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... away, and, although crowds of monkeys came to examine Zingle in his cage, the poor Prince grew very pale and thin for lack of proper food, while the continuance of his unhappy imprisonment made him sad and melancholy. ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum
... that he caught me once making too free with his throat on a club night, after every body else had retired. But, observe, he shuffles in his story according to his state of civilation. When not far gone, he contents himself with saying that he caught me ogling his throat; and that I was melancholy for some weeks after, and that my voice sounded in a way expressing, to the nice ear of a connoisseur, the sense of opportunities lost—but the club all know that he's a disappointed man himself, and that he speaks querulously ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... nothing was amiss, and disconcerting his preparations for a reconciliation. But the captain's ordinary manner was calculated to cover all such feelings; and as he shook hands, he felt much kindness for Amabel, as an unconscious victim, whose very smiles were melancholy, and plenty of them there were, for she rejoiced sincerely in the meeting, as Guy was pleased, and a home ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the mother of the late owner), a piece of unfinished tapestry, samplers, china vases, books, papers, two or three knots of faded ribbon, all tossed in a corner like a heap of rubbish. The things had evidently been forgotten in the big move, but it looked melancholy. ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... older and long gone, scarce conscious of the beggar at his elbow and hardly seeing the half dozen workmen who laboured at their trades almost in the middle of the public way—where all was once aged and silent and melancholy and full of the elder memories—there, at that very corner, he is hustled and jostled by an eager crowd, thrust to the wall by huge, grinding, creaking carts, threatened with the modern death by the wheel of the modern ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... whose top they receive the reward of their good or bad deeds, declare that women who have been guilty of infanticide never reach the top of this mountain at all. They are compelled instead to travel around the scenes of their crimes with branches of trees tied to their legs. The melancholy sounds which are heard in the still summer evenings, and which the ignorance of the white people looks upon as the screams of the goat-suckers, are really, according to my informant, the moanings of these unhappy beings"—Franklin's Journey to ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... if you could have ruled without the Gospel, it would have been doubtful whether the Gospel should be established or not; for now that you are established in your throne by the Gospel, you suffer it to reach no farther than the end of your sceptre limiteth unto it." Of a milder, and more melancholy cast, is the touching language, when the hope of life, but not the firmness of his cause had deserted him. "I look not to live this week to an end. I never took myself for a rebuker, much less for a reformer of states and kingdoms. I never did anything in this cause for contention, vainglory, ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... still suffer when I recall her perfidy, I still laugh at her expression of entire conviction and sweet satisfaction that I must die, or at any rate sink into perpetual melancholy," de Marsay went on. "Oh! do not laugh yet!" he said to his listeners; "there is better to come. I looked at her very tenderly after a pause, and said to her, 'Yes, that is what I have been wondering.'—'Well, what will you do?'—'I ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... sports, while they serve to keep up the spirits of the men, and make them forget the difficulties they have to go through, produce also the most beneficial influence upon their health; a cheerful man being much more capable of resisting a fit of sickness than a melancholy one. It is the duty of commanders to use every innocent means of maintaining this temper in their crews; for in long voyages, when they are several months together wandering on an element not destined by nature for the residence of man, without enjoying even occasionally the recreations ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... little share, led her to accept his attentions to a certain point, but the keen man of the world soon saw that his "little game," as in his own vernacular he styled it, would not be successful, and he was the last one to sigh in vain or mope an hour in lovelorn melancholy. While ceasing to press his suit, he continued to be a frequent and familiar visitor at the house, and thus his attention was drawn to Zell, who, though young, had developed early in the stimulating atmosphere in which she lived. At first he petted and played with ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... the mild rays of the moon would fall on good and bad alike—would gaze on the beautiful, bright colored path over the dark and fearful abyss they were so soon to follow to the Happy Hunting Ground. The breaking of the waves against the rocks on the shore, the melancholy cry of the night bird, like soft music, partially subdued their tortured spirits, and each recalled with fond longing the memory of a distant home now lying in ashes, and the sound of some voice now silent, whose tones would go with them to ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah
... there was no intention of sparing him at the time of his trial; in a few days, Renard wrote on the 17th of November, "the archbishop" will be executed; and Mary, triumphant, as she believed herself, on the question nearest to her heart, had told him that the melancholy which had weighed upon her from childhood was rolling away; she had never yet known the meaning of happiness, and she was about to be rewarded ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... his mind had something monstrous about it, applied thus to a young girl. What a suspicion and what a young girl! The preferred friend of his entire winter, she on whose account he had prolonged his stay in Rome, for she was the most graceful vision of delicacy and of melancholy in the framework of a tragical and solemn past. Any other than Dorsenne would not have admitted such an idea without being inspired with horror. But Dorsenne, on the contrary, suddenly began to dive into that sinister hypothesis, to help it forward, to justify it. No one more than he ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... on the happiness I enjoy—my Madeline probably guesses its nature. I regret to see that the blessing of your love must be purchased by the misery of another, and that other, the nephew of my kind friend. You have doubtless observed the melancholy of Walter Lester, and have ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and discontent. The only steadying influence was the thought of his wife and children, and the responsibility of a husband and a father. He grew despondent occasionally, and would gladly have been at rest, but a wife and children bound him to struggle with the stream. His melancholy blinded him even to the good qualities of his neighbours. The only things he saw in perfection were stupidity and canting. 'Prose they only know in graces, prayers, etc., and the value of these they ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... and before we can get a licence to do anything we shall have to go through an exasperating process of filling in forms innumerable, inconsistent, overlapping and incomprehensible. Finance is the latest victim of this melancholy tendency. Under the guise of an attempt to give greater freedom to it a system has been introduced which makes a Treasury licence necessary, with penalties under the Defence of the Realm Act, for doing many things which have hitherto been possible for those who were prepared ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... cannot but perceive that the Manner of placing Ingens has a wonderful Effect; it makes him hear the melancholy Voice groan ...
— Letters Concerning Poetical Translations - And Virgil's and Milton's Arts of Verse, &c. • William Benson
... in this series of attempts was not to be denied. And, now, behold her relations with the Fauvilles' murderers duly established by the little note found in the eighth volume of Shakespeare's plays, while two more deaths were added to the melancholy list: the deaths of Chief Inspector Ancenis and of the chauffeur. How to describe and how to explain the part played, in the midst of all these ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... packet. The loneliness of the scene embraced the trading-points, the river, and the little gasolene launch struggling against the muddy current. It permeated the passengers, and was a finishing touch to Peter Siner's melancholy. ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... last work of Michael Angelo (when eighty-one years of age), an unfinished Pieta, aheroic group, large but not colossal, composed of four figures, those of our Saviour, the Virgin Mary, Joseph, and an Angel. The interest of the piece lies in the melancholy but placid countenance of the Redeemer, and the inclination of the head lacerated by the crown of thorns. The Mask, Michael Angelo's first work, is in the sixth room of the National Museum, along with some other works of the great sculptor. His greatest productions ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... the more recent and fresh-looking coffins they did not examine, because they could not have anything to do with the object of that melancholy visit. ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... summits. Luckily I met no saunterer: the gay vagabonds, it seemed, were all at the assembly, as happy as billiards and chit-chat could make them. It was not an evening to tempt such folks abroad. The air was cool, and the sky lowering; a melancholy cloud shaded the wild hills and irregular woods at a distance. There was something so importunate in their appearance, that I could not help asking their name, and was told they were skirts of the forest ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... and bitter; an iron-gray frost below, a spectral melancholy moon above. I had to ascend the Abbey Hill by a steep, blind lane between high walls. I passed through stately gates, which stood wide open, into the garden ground that surrounded the old Abbots' House. At the end of a short ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... temperaments, is the near neighbour of tears,—served as a diversion to him from more painful vents of bitterness; and the same philosophical calculation which made the poet of melancholy, Young, declare that "he preferred laughing at the world to being angry with it," led Lord Byron also to settle upon the same conclusion; and to feel, in the misanthropic views he was inclined to take of mankind, that mirth often saved him the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... ship is becoming a floating hospital herself—not an hour passes but brings its fresh sensation, its new disaster, its melancholy tidings. When I think of poor "Shape" and the preacher, both so well when I saw them yesterday evening, I realize that I myself may ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the king for replacing such able clergy as had been silenced for want of conformity to the ceremonies.[*] They also enacted laws for the strict observance of Sunday, which the Puritans affected to call the Sabbath, and which they sanctified by the most melancholy indolence.[**] It is to be remarked, that the different appellations of this festival were at that time known symbols ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... melancholy appears, during these last days, to have filled the soul of Jesus, who was generally so joyous and serene. All the narratives agree in relating that, before his arrest, he underwent a short experience of doubt and trouble; a kind of anticipated agony. According to some, ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... an anxious elder sister grasping the back of his jersey meanwhile. A girl with a pigtail jumped about in a manner calculated to bring an abrupt and watery conclusion to the passage, till forcibly restrained by her melancholy-looking father. A young man announced that it was going to be, "Deuced hot on shore, what?" And a gushing young thing of some forty summers appealed to everyone at intervals to know the hour to the very second it would be necessary to return, since it really would ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... condition of these slaves was not always a melancholy one. Argensola says that they ate at the same table with their masters, and married into their families. The histories fail to record the assassination for motives of vengeance of any master or chief by the natives, as they do of encomenderos. After the conquest the evil ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... you bear a melancholy office; I know the purity which guides your zeal, The solid wisdom which informs your speech; And yet I hate this wisdom, when it calls For blood, I hate it in my inmost soul. Think of a milder counsel—Good my Lord Of Shrewsbury, we crave ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... in which the grey old buildings of London assume a more sombre aspect than during the sunny days of summer. The twilight had congealed into darkness after a somewhat foggy day, and mantling its shadows around the homes of the destitute and degraded, tinging the wretched inmates with melancholy, and even making their lives more miserable and less tenacious to the world. The dark streets have been lighted up. The great tide of human beings that have during the day thronged the thoroughfares, has partially subsided; but thousands of pedestrians are ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... distinct as distant evening bells Tolling, over the sea, a secret chime That breaks and breaks and breaks upon the heart In sorrow rather than in sound, a chime Strange as a streak of sunset to the moon, Strange as a rose upon a starlit grave, Strange as a smile upon a dead man's lips; A chime of melancholy, mute as death But strong as love, uttered in plangent tones Of honeysuckle, jasmine, gilly-flowers, Jonquils and aromatic musky leaves, Lilac and lilies to the ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... suddenly stopped. "Hist!" quoth he, for his ears were as sharp as those of a five-year-old fox. "Hark, lads! Methinks I hear a sound." At this all stopped and listened with bated breath, albeit for a time they could hear nothing, their ears being duller than Stutely's. At length they heard a faint and melancholy sound, ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle |
