"Plaintive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his horse. It was ready saddled, and waited his orders; but even the short time that was necessary to bring it to the door of the stable was exasperating to Mowbray's impatience. Not less exasperating was the constant interceding voice of Touchwood, who, in tones alternately plaintive and snappish, kept on a string ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... arm from his she continued to gaze up at the house-front, which seemed, in the plaintive decline of light, to send her back the mute ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... despondent even in her pose, as she sat with her shoulders drooping slightly forward and her dark eyes fixed absently on the swans, watching them through the bending reeds. Now one uttered its note, and she listened, seeming to vibrate to the deep, plaintive cry; then she raised to her lips a flute that she held in her hands, and answered it with a perfect intonation,—an intonation that breathed the very spirit of the swan. So successful was the mimicry that the swans replied, thinking ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... owned it the most used to go to the house of the people who took it, and who had a high board fence round their yard, and try to catch sight of it through the cracks. When he called "Nanny!" it answered him instantly with a plaintive "Baa!" and then, after a vain interchange of lamentations, he had to come away, and console himself as he could with the pets that were ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... plaintive, beautiful song of the voyageur which had floated to them on the morning air, softened by distance to a mere echo of sweet sound. After listening intently for a few moments, ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... The sweet plaintive note of a little partridge, called inamboo, would sometimes tremble through the air and compel me to forget the spell of unholy sounds arising from the beasts of the jungle and river. Throughout the evening this amorous bird would call to its mate, and somewhere there ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... crept on apace, and, as they drew near Christmas, dwellers in the streets leading off the Strand grew accustomed of nights to hear the plaintive voice of a woman, singing in a peculiarly thrilling and pathetic manner some of the old songs and ballads familiar and dear to the heart of every Englishman—"The Banks of Allan Water," "The Bailiff's Daughter," "Sally in our Alley," "The Last ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... She pronounced a plaintive "Mon Dieu!" and appealing to Heaven for compassion declared: "He means again to wrestle spiritually with me about the proper ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... passage just at morn. Soon, soon they lose the truly precious sight Of English shores, bathed in the morning light! A few more hours, and land has disappeared; They see no more Old Albion's cliffs upreared. Let us suppose that then this poor young man, In plaintive strains his ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... shadows cast by the firelight on the wall, the gleam of yellow moonlight shimmering through the curtains; listening to the faint sighing of the night wind, the ticking of the little fanciful clock, to the pretty plaintive tunes it played before it struck the hours. Nine, ten, eleven—she heard them all, as she lay there, broad awake, ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... at Brighton. The serenity of the evening induced us to pass the barrier of the chain-pier, and bend our steps towards the projecting extremity of that ingenious structure. An old Welsh harper was touching his instrument with more than usual skill for an itinerant professor, while the plaintive notes of the air he tuned accorded with the solemnity of the surrounding scene. "I could pass an evening here," said the countess, in a somewhat contemplative mood, "in the society of kindred spirits, with more delightful gratification than among the giddy throng who meet at ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... are now civilized, as well as in prehistoric times. The Sanscrit word for a stringed instrument, tata or vitata, is derived from the root tan, to stretch. Pictet observes that one name for a lute is rudri, from rud, to lament, that is, a plaintive instrument; in Persian we have rod for song, music, or a stringed instrument. The etymology of arcus is the same; the root arc not only means to hurl, but to sing or resound. Homer and Rannjana often allude to the sonorousness of the bow and its ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... could not understand it. He tried to see where the wailing noise came from and pressed closer and closer to George as he played. When George played another tune in quick time he became animated, and slow, plaintive music seemed to ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... would ye?" Darius asked, in a tone that expected a negative answer; but also with a rather plaintive appeal, as though he were depending on Edwin for moral support against the formidable forces ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... From her to the guardian sky Bore her melancholy cry— Bore her tender tears. She spake As if her fond heart would break. One while in a sad, sweet note, Gurgled from her straining throat, She enforced her piteous tale, Mournful prayer and plaintive wail; One while with the shrill dispute, Quite o'er-wearied, she was mute; Then afresh, for her dear brood, Her harmonious shrieks renewed; Now she winged it round and round, Now she skimmed along the ground; Now from bough to bough in haste The delighted robber ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... and hoarse, are in great use, and we hear in the streets their plaintive and sonorous denunciations of men and manners. The donkey here seems to take the place of the dog, which in Holland and Scandinavia is taught the ways of constant and praiseworthy usefulness. There, with a voluble old woman for yoke-fellow, he draws the small market-carts about ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... natural taste is equal the player must always be best off, for she is gratified in more ways than one. Now, Mr. Bertram, if you write to your brother, I entreat you to tell him that my harp is come: he heard so much of my misery about it. And you may say, if you please, that I shall prepare my most plaintive airs against his return, in compassion to his feelings, as I know his ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... house sank to rest. Dixon creeping past the door of the sick-room, on his stockinged feet, could hear the moaning, the hoarse indeterminate sounds, now loud, now plaintive, made by the sufferer. The day nurse came out with an anxious face, on her way to bed. Mr. Faversham she said was very ill—what could be done if it did become necessary to summon the doctor? Dixon assured ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... bird—it was the male, Oh cruel deed and base! The female gave a plaintive wail And ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... I was roused by the plaintive three-syllable call of an evening bird—a nightjar common in these woods; and was surprised to find that the sun had set, and the woods already shadowed with the twilight. I started up and began hurriedly walking ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... resting upon pillows, the Prince was languidly touching the chords of his guitar; he ceased this when he saw the grand ecuyer enter, and, raising his large eyes to him with an air of reproach, swayed his head to and fro for a long time without speaking. Then in a plaintive ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... dreadful prices!" sighed a plaintive feminine voice from the other side of the table. "Have ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... his knuckles, and the glasses, waking up, jingled a thin, plaintive finale to his speech. Carter stood leaning against the sideboard. He was amazed by the unexpected turn of the conversation; his jaw dropped slightly and his eyes never swerved for a moment from Lingard's face. The silence in the cabin lasted only a few seconds, but to Carter, who waited breathlessly, ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... picked itself up, and stood revealed, a woman, not a child, as he had at first thought. And then a feeling of sick, shrinking fear came over Sherston, for there fell on his ears the once horribly familiar accents—plaintive, wheedling, falsely timorous—of his ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... silent bosom of the billow, Borne on the breeze and modulated sweetly, Plaintive as music, rose the mother's tones of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... explained, more to protect her than himself. "I—I wish that fool Nelson kid would break his mandolin—or his neck," he said irritably. He kissed her and went upstairs. From across the quiet street there came thin, plaintive, occasionally inaccurate, the strains ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... could almost have sworn that she must be lying dead in Monkshaven churchyard. Or was it little Bella, that blooming, lovely babe, whom he was never to see again? There was the tolling of mournful bells in the distant air to his disturbed fancy, and the cry of the happy birds, the plaintive bleating of the new-dropped lambs, were all omens of evil import ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... seeing the landlord about to set on his big dog, took to his heels, muttering in a low and plaintive tone, and threatening to report his grievances to Parson Bangshanter, and Squire Clapp, two leading members of the temperance league, and who, in respect to good morals, had taken the sale of liquor into their own hands, and were making a good thing of it. The major now ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... out in the tranquil depths above me, white and pure as a thought of God; some dun-colored boats were drifting in an azure sea out in the west, and a whippoorwill's plaintive wail sounded through the dusk from adown the fence-row. Up from the still earth there floated to my nostrils the incense of a dew-drenched landscape,—fresh, odorous, wonderfully sweet,—and a fire-fly's ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... employed far into the night. "They lightened their labour with songs," says the traveller, "one of which was composed extempore, for I was myself the subject of it; it was sung by one of the young women, the rest joining in a chorus. The air was sweet and plaintive, and the words, literally translated, were these: 'The winds roared, and the rains fell. The poor white man, faint and weary, came and sat under our tree. He has no mother to bring him milk, no wife to grind his corn.' Chorus—'Let us pity the white man, no mother has he!' Trifling as this recital ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... more about Lord Mallow; but Violet had to listen to much plaintive bemoaning from her mother, who could not understand how any well-brought-up young woman could refuse an Irish peer with a fine estate, and the delights of a trousseau made by the renowned Theodore. Upon this latter detail Mrs. Winstanley ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... slowly by, and towards the end a few plaintive-voiced sparrows added their songs to the vigorous, self-confident notes of the robin. Soon the whole island one morning burst into song, and spring was indeed with them. The snow had vanished, save in the hollows and in the shaded spots, and the grass here and there began ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... bleat answered, but as he neared the flock it scattered swiftly, the errant leaders darting shyly behind the looming outlines of sassafras bushes. Again he called, and again the plaintive cry responded, growing fainter as several fleeter ewes sped past him to the beech trees beside the ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... in her midnight reign, Dark muffled, viewed the dreary plain; Still crowding thoughts, a pensive train, Rose in my soul, When on my ear this plaintive strain Slow, solemn, stole:— ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... recently called up before him? Or was it the recollection of a still brighter and more recently extinguished "star," which thus troubled his wandering fancy?—There was another pause, and again the fitful breeze of association awakened the sad and plaintive melody of the AEolian lyre; but I could not distinguish ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... towards the middle of August, Sandoz devised a real excursion which would take up a whole day. He had met Dubuche—Dubuche, careworn and mournful, who had shown himself plaintive and affectionate, raking up the past and inviting his two old chums to lunch at La Richaudiere, where he should be alone with his two children for another fortnight. Why shouldn't they go and surprise him there, ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... country's life to save! And you, forever glorious, Thessalian straits, Where Persia, Fate itself, could not withstand The fiery zeal of that devoted band! Do not the trees, the rocks, the waves, The mountains, to each passer-by, With low and plaintive voice tell The wondrous tale of those who fell, Heroes invincible who gave Their lives, their Greece to save? Then cowardly as fierce, Xerxes across the Hellespont retired, A laughing-stock to all succeeding time; And up Anthela's hill, where, e'en in death ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... thought, he commenced singing a very beautiful and plaintive one, and certainly much better than he had sung the night before; for he now was sober. The consequence was, that I was still more delighted; and, at my request, he sang several others; but at last his speech became rapid and thick, and he would not sing any more, using some very coarse expressions ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... a turn of the girl's body had revealed Geeka of the ivory head and the rat skin torso—Geeka of the splinter limbs and the disreputable appearance. The little girl raised the marred face to hers and rocking herself backward and forward crooned a plaintive Arab lullaby to the doll. A softer light entered the eyes of The Killer. For a long hour that passed very quickly to him Korak lay with gaze riveted upon the playing child. Not once had he had a view of the girl's full face. For ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... gone but a short distance when they heard, faintly, through the closed door behind them, a plaintive "Haw, he-haw, ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... had come into his ears through the half-opened window, the sensation of remoteness, of utter solitude, which it had conveyed to him. An Arab had passed under the window, singing in a withdrawn and drowsy voice a plaintive song of the East which had mingled with the call to prayer. And then, he, Artois being quite alone, had given way in his great pain and weakness. He remembered feeling the tears slipping over his cheeks, one following another, quickly, quickly. It had seemed ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... such instability his moral nature should continue uncorrupted; but this I believe he owed chiefly to his love and admiration of his brother. For my part, I could not help liking him much. There was a half-plaintive playfulness about him, alternated with gloom, and occasionally with wild merriment, which made him interesting even when one felt most inclined to quarrel with him. The worst of him was that he considered himself a generally misunderstood, ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... head shorn of its long silken tresses. I heard her murmur the irrevocable vow. I saw her extended on a bier; the death-pall spread over her; the funeral service performed that proclaimed her dead to the world; her sighs were drowned in the deep tones of the organ, and the plaintive requiem of the nuns; the father looked on, unmoved, without a tear; the lover—no my imagination refused to portray the anguish of the lover—there the picture remained ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... kind o' dassent give it to yer, so long afterwards. It's locked,"—as Polly pulled at the cover,—"and there ain't no key," he mourned. "I do' know what Jane's done with it. Yer'll have to git another,—there wa'n't no other way." His voice was plaintive. ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... book. But would he draw the line at stealing a book which deals with thieves? The late Charles Reade appears to have thought that he would not, for he has inscribed not only his name, but the following somewhat plaintive request, 'Please not to steal this book; I value it,' in a volume which Mr. Menken once possessed. The book in question is entitled 'Inventaire general de L'Histoire des Larrons,' Rouen, 1657. This singular work gives at length the stratagems, tricks, ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... of blindness continue, Salemina," I said, searching for a small lump so as to gain time, "I shall write you a plaintive ballad, buy you a dog, and stand you on a street corner! If you had ever permitted yourself to 'get on' with any man as Francesca is getting on with Mr. Macdonald, ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... a sweet little ballad which she had learned soon after her mother's death. It was plaintive, and told the story of a lonely little heart longing for mother-love, and she had not reached the end of the second verse when she saw the tears streaming over Bertha's little face, and knew that her wedge had entered the obstinate ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... afflicted mother, was welcome to whatever comfort or happiness her prophetic soul foresaw as a recompense to all this endless worry and trouble. Even my father grew unsympathetic, and actually arose one night when baby's plaintive minor key was resounding through the house, and closed his bed-room door most emphatically, to keep out the disturbing echoes that had broken ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... souls, bodies, and minds, appear to have been absorbed in the contemplation of African slavery. They appeared to be wholly engrossed with this one idea, to be engulphed! swallowed up! lost! confounded and bewildered in visionary abstractions, and ever and anon, their plaintive notes were heard throughout the hills and dales, liberty and oppression, the burden of their songs. They seemed to consider all crime, all oppression, all injustice, all wrong, as merged in African slavery and its concomitant evils, ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... wandered all over Paris, in company of other children like herself, stopping on the boulevards, before the brilliant shops or performing jugglers, trying to learn how to steal from open stalls, and at night asking in a plaintive voice for alms in behalf of her poor sick father. When twelve years old she was as thin as a plank, and as green as a June apple, with sharp elbows and long red hands. But she had beautiful light hair, teeth like a young dog's, and large, impudent eyes. Merely upon seeing her go along, her head ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... reached, and that lie was not going to 'suffer them' much longer. Some commentators speak of them as expressing 'holy indignation,' and I quite believe that there is such a thing, and that on other occasions it was plainly spoken in Christ's words. But I fail to catch the tone of it here. To me this plaintive question has the very opposite of indignation in its ring. It sounds rather like a pledge that as long as they need forbearance they will get it; but, at the same time, a question of 'how long' that is to be. It implies the inexhaustible riches and resources of His patient mercy. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... simple pathos, some of his lyrics are unequalled among the compositions of any of the national bards. Than "The Mitherless Bairn," it may be questioned whether there is to be found in the language any lyrical composition more delicately plaintive. It is lamentable to think that one who could write so tenderly should, by a dissolute life, have been the author of many of his own misfortunes, and a constant barrier to every attempt for his permanent elevation in the social circle. In person, he was rather below the middle stature; his countenance ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... shiftlessness that was not even slightly justified by the facts. She was a woman past the heyday of youth, but of considerable energy, and possessed of keen powers of observation. Whatever was feminine about her was of that plaintive variety which may be depended upon to tell the story of whole generations of narrow, ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... notes! I heard the words, too; yes—I could not be mistaken—they were English. Oh, what sensations did they create! I had an indistinct notion that I had heard them before in the days of my infancy. It was a gentle, plaintive air. Now I should never forget it. I longed to see who was the singer; but she was concealed inside the cottage, and I feared to enter; I dared not even delay longer to listen, for the lash of my master was about to descend on my shoulders. ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... her eyes wide open, full of brightness and gladness and ecstacy, face to face with Our Lord. The incense smelt so good and the whole little church was filled with the trailing chords of the organ and with soft, plaintive Latin chant. Her lips muttered automatically and the beads glided through her fingers: numbered Hail Marys like so many roses that were to adorn her heart against the coming of the great God. Her thoughts wafted her up to Heaven in that wide temple full of glittering ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... farewell song to Northland, To the people of Wainola; Sang himself a boat of copper, Beautiful his bark of magic; At the helm sat the magician, Sat the ancient wisdom-singer. Westward, westward, sailed the hero O'er the blue-back of the waters, Singing as he left Wainola, This his plaintive song and echo: "Suns may rise and set in Suomi, Rise and set for generations, When the North will learn my teachings, Will recall my wisdom-sayings, Hungry for the true religion. Then will Suomi need my ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... generous. Flemming gave him a piece of gold; and after a short conversation he seated himself, at alittle distance on the grass, and began to play and sing. Wonderful and many were the sweet accords and plaintive sounds that came from that little instrument, touched by the student's hand. Every feeling of the human heart seemed to find an expression there, and awaken a kindred feeling in the hearts of those who ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... becomes a poet of the tender kind, passed out from among us—to travel to Paris in an aeroplane. I do not know whether it was this latter event, or the expression of a philosophy so entirely at variance with my own, or perhaps the sound of the high-pitched plaintive voice, that gave me the sense of incongruity, but there it ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... was Brennan, his face red with the chill wind sweeping in from the Nore, his voice plaintive and Irish, discoursing, at slow length, of revolutions per minute, of "precession," and the like. The journalists from London, who had come down at his invitation, fidgeted and shivered in the bitter morning air; the affair did not look in the least like an epoch in the ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... Scotch poet, born near Loch Leven, in poor circumstances, in the parish of Portmoak; studied for the Church; died of consumption; his poems singularly plaintive and pathetic; his title to the authorship of the "Ode to the Cuckoo" has been matter of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... After saying these words he uttered a little plaintive grunt like that of a sucking calf: ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... the procession—singing a peculiarly sweet and plaintive air—fairly inside the body of the temple than Escombe aroused himself with a violent start, for walking in the midst of the priests, attired in a simple white robe, from the hem of which her little bare feet peeped as she walked with downcast ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... goats. And that was what made the dormitory lugubrious and silent, without any of the little outbursts of anger emphasized by clenched fists, without any of the shrieks that show the even red gums, whereby the child makes trial of his strength and of his lungs; only an occasional plaintive groan, as if the soul were tossing and turning restlessly in a little diseased body, unable to find ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... invisible flies. These attracted a number of birds that resembled gulls of a light build. They had coal-black heads, white backs, greyish wings, and slightly webbed feet, pink as coral, with which they seized the small fish, uttering as they did so, a peculiar and plaintive cry that ended in a long-drawn e-e-e. The father of the flock, whose head seemed to be white like his back, perhaps from age, hung above them, not troubling to fish himself, but from time to time forcing one of ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... Heine's sweetest note be unheard,—his plaintive note, his note of melancholy. Here is a strain which came from him as he lay, in the winter night, on his "mattress-grave" at Paris, and let his thoughts wander home to Germany, "the great child, entertaining herself with her Christmas-tree." ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... sight. The radiance faded, rose and amethyst deepened to purple; the mountains grew sombre and dun, their rugged outlines standing in bold relief against the evening sky. A nighthawk, circling above their heads, broke the silence with his shrill, plaintive cry, and with a sigh of deep content Darrell turned ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... round, The silence mellows every sound, The gentle wind, through foliage nigh, Begins to breathe its plaintive sigh; While o'er the hill creeps silver light, Where calm and chaste the queen of night, Awaking from her daily trance, Doth charm all nature with her glance. Her virgin train sweeps down the glade, Kissing the cavern's mouth of shade; She smiles upon the singing brook, With ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... smooth up the bed, while she composed her features and her ideas to receive her visitor. Both, from long habit rather than from any cause or reason, were of a querulous cast, and her ordinary tone was a snuffle expressive of deep-seated affliction. She was at once plaintive and voluable, and in moments of excitement her need of freeing her mind was so great that she took herself into her own confidence, and found a more sympathetic listener than when she talked to her husband. As she now whisked about her room in her bed-gown with an activity ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... they become quite common in South Carolina and Georgia, frequenting the plains, commons and dry ground, keeping constantly upon the ground, and roving about in families under the guidance of the old birds, whose patriarchal care extends over all, to warn them by a plaintive call of the approach of danger, and instruct them by example how to avoid it. They roost somewhat in the same manner as partridges, in a close ring or circle, keeping each other warm, and abiding with indifference the frost and the storm. They migrate only when driven by want ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... hymn, and the crew followed, bawling at the top pitch of their lungs, with now and then some suggestion of a tune. The little stuffy cabin rang with the noise. It burst upwards through the companion-way, loud and earnest and plaintive, and the winds caught it and carried it over the water, a thin and appealing cry. After the hymn Weeks prayed aloud, and extempore and most seriously. He prayed for each member of the crew by name, one by one, taking the opportunity ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... of boats pushed off from various points of the near and more distant shore, many displaying sable banners, and others having their several pipers in the bow, who from time to time poured forth a few notes of a shrill, plaintive, and wailing character, and intimated to the glover that the ceremony was about to take place. These sounds of lamentation were but the tuning as it were of the instruments, compared with the general wail which was ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... that the worst sight on earth, next to the field of defeat, was the field of victory. It was Lee who wrote from Mexico to his son: "You have no idea what a horrible sight a battle-field is." And he said that the strongest memory left from his first battle was the plaintive tone of a little Mexican girl whom he found leaning over a ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... Love is a plaintive song, Sung by a suff'ring maid, Telling a tale of wrong, Telling of hope betrayed; Tuned to each changing note, Sorry when he is sad, Blind to his ev'ry mote, Merry when he is glad! Merry when he is glad! Love that no wrong can cure, Love ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... that he ought to have calculated the results of his actions more reasonably. Ever thwarted, and never nearer the happiness he desired for himself and others, he did not, like ordinary men attain a juster notion of the relation between good and ill in himself and in the world; he lapsed into a plaintive bewildered melancholy, translating the inexplicable conflict of right and wrong ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... several favorite melodies which we had often sung in camp, when, as on a pleasant Sunday evening, we were met together in little knots, to mingle our emotions in plaintive song, thinking of dear friends at home. One of these was a simple ballad describing the following incident—one of the most touching of the war. A youthful soldier from the state of Maine died in New ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... rumbling cry, now soft and almost plaintive, again louder and like a shriek of a damned soul in the fires of the nether world. Then it died down, only to spring up ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... that's the sort of voice that wins a man's heart out of his breast!" exclaimed Uncle Mac, wiping his eyes after one of the plaintive ballads that ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... hear a flutter now Beneath yon flowering alder bough. I hear a little plaintive voice That did at early morn rejoice, Make a most sad yet sweet complaint, Saying, "my heart is very faint With its unutterable wo. What shall I do, where can I go, My cruel anguish to abate. Oh! my poor ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... dead, a lamentable train! The golden wand, that causes sleep to fly, Or in soft slumber seals the wakeful eye, That drives the ghosts to realms of night or day, Points out the long uncomfortable way. Trembling the spectres glide, and plaintive vent Thin, hollow screams, along the deep descent. As in the cavern of some rifted den, Where flock nocturnal bats, and birds obscene; Cluster'd they hang, till at some sudden shock They move, and ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... people their tongues, their feet, and their leisure, and they are happy. At every twilight the air is full of singing, talking, and clapping of hands in unison. One of their favorite songs is full of plaintive cadences; it is not, I think, a Methodist tune, and I wonder where they obtained a ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... There was a plaintive appeal in the boy's tone which found an echo in the woman's heart. She sighed, but her voice ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... himself." She raised her eyes and looked at May. Kind as the glance was, May felt in it a wonder, almost a reproach. "How comes it that you, his wife, haven't seen it too?" the eyes seemed to say in plaintive surprise. "Are you sure there's nothing wrong with ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... person outside now uttered long, plaintive, mournful groans, to which the young man replied by similar groans, and thus days and nights passed, without their ceasing to howl at each other. The one was continually walking round the house, and scraped the walls ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... up, and there dancing, and performing all kinds of antics. Prominent parts were always played by human representatives of a goat and a bear. Some of the party would be disguised as "Lazaruses," that is, as the blind beggars who bear that name, and whose plaintive strains have resounded all over Russia from the earliest times to the present day. The rest disguised themselves as they best could, a certain number of them being generally supposed to play the part of ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... full recognition of the fact that woman's hour has come. Touching deeper and tenderer chords in the human soul than words could reach, the inspiring strains of the celebrated organist, Mr. Ryder, rose ever and anon, now soft and plaintive, now full and commanding, mingled in stirring harmony with prayer and speech. And as loving friends had covered the platform with rare and fragrant flowers, the aesthetic taste of the most fastidious artist might have found abundant gratification in the grouping and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... and her nerves steadied, and presently a stirring night breeze rustled the lank grass. It came over the plain toward her. It reached her window and fanned her cheeks with its chill breath. Then it passed, sighing round an angle of the house. Then, in its wake, came the plaintive dole of a scavenging coyote. The combination, to her fancy, was an echo of her feelings. It was the sigh of despair, and the cry ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... at Sarah Gailey's bowed head, but little greyed, beneath the ray of the lamp, and at her shrivelled, neurotic, plaintive face in shadow, and at her knotty hands loosely clasped, she contrasted her companion and the scene with the youthfulness and the spaciousness and the sturdy gay vigour of existence in the household of the Orgreaves. She thought, with a renewed sense ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... the ruins of Carthage; but his was the sorrow of disappointed, selfish ambition. Jeremiah lamented the fall and desolation of Jerusalem: and his plaintive accents were inspired by genuine patriotism and religion. Observe his venerable figure in the Sixtine chapel; there he sits pensive and disconsolate, with his legs crossed, his wearied head resting upon his hand, and his eyes rivetted on the ground, ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs
... leave the shame and sin Of taking vainly, in a plaintive mood, The holy name of GRIEF!—holy herein, That, by the grief of ONE, came all our good. ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... went down and a tombstone fell over him, his plaintive cry of 'Oh, I am killed!' was ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... eyes and tune thy lute and sing to us upon the days of separation." She answered him with "Hearkening and obedience" and taking the lute, tuned its strings and cried out from her head,[FN107] in a plaintive voice, and ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... a little grave. He was no anarchist. A few plaintive cries against Mrs. Elliot were all that ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... in plaintive satire. "What affairs is it of mine? That's just the trouble! It's got to be my affairs because you're my first-cousin. My goodness I didn't have anything to do with you ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... of delivery in his great public speeches, Mr. Brace says: "His opening words, they say, were like Hungarian national airs, always low and plaintive in the utterance.... But gradually his face lighted up, his voice deepened and swelled with his feeling," and there came forth tones which thrilled his hearers with a ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... There is so often a threatening note, something blatant and metallic, in the voice of bells, that I believe we have fully more pain than pleasure from hearing them; but these, as they sounded abroad, now high, now low, now with a plaintive cadence that caught the ear like the burthen of a popular song, were always moderate and tunable, and seemed to fall in with the spirit of still, rustic places, like the noise of a waterfall or the babble of a rookery in spring. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... words were well uttered there was a sound of an altercation in the hall—one of the tall footmen pathetically protesting, and a shrill female voice refusing to listen to those plaintive protests. ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... them from their burden of large white drops. About the yard the red-rose bushes fall away from the fences, the lilacs stand with their purple clusters hanging down as heavily as clusters of purple grapes. I hear the young orioles calling drearily from wet nests under dripping boughs. A plaintive piping of lost little chickens comes ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... eyes, and the sudden and expressive dilation of his nostrils. For a moment, his lips were compressed with more than the usual force of Indian gravity, and then they slightly severed. A low, soft, and as even the startled matron was obliged to confess, a plaintive sound issued from ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... sweet tones, these melting voices, With seductive power are fraught! They dissolve, in gentle longing, Every feeling, every thought, Waking tears of plaintive sadness. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... but the wind was slight, and the sea less agitated. We took some moment's repose: a repose which was still more terrible than our situation the preceding day; cruel dreams added to the horrors of our situation. Tormented by hunger and thirst, our plaintive cries sometimes awakened from his sleep, the wretch who was reposing close to us. We were even now up to our knees in the water, so that we could only repose standing, pressed against each other to form a solid mass. The fourth morning's sun, after our departure, at length rose ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... Piercing the grey skies above, Music on the languid breeze Draws the dreaming world to love. Song and dance and hands that sway The passion of a thousand lyres Ever through the live-long day, And the monarch never tires. Sudden comes the answer curt, Loud the fish-skin war-drums roar; Cease the plaintive "rainbow skirt": Death ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... young Jesus, and said, 'Behold the Lamb of God which beareth'—and beareth away—'the sin of the world.' How heavy the load, how real its pressure, let Gethsemane witness, when He clung to human companionship with the unutterably solemn and plaintive words, 'My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death. Tarry ye here and watch with Me.' He bore the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... his peculiar condition should reflect itself in his habits and manners. The slaves laughed loudly day by day, but Free Joe rarely laughed. The slaves sang at their work and danced at their frolics, but no one ever heard Free Joe sing or saw him dance. There was something painfully plaintive and appealing in his attitude, something touching in his anxiety to please. He was of the friendliest nature, and seemed to be delighted when he could amuse the little children who had made a playground of the public ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... Slovaks—sturdy, solid, blond people with legs the same size all the way down. Many of them still reaped with scythes and thrashed on the barn floor with old-fashioned flails, and one afternoon there was a curious plaintive singing under my window—a party of harvesters, oldish men and brown, barefooted peasant girls, who had finished their work on a neighboring farm, and were crossing our village on their way to ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... be supposed that at some time or other the health of Mistress Oldfield was drunk by the Kit-Cats, whose custom of honouring womankind in this bibulous way may have given rise to Pope's plaintive query: ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... was the fourth time. It was strangely miserable and plaintive. One felt that after that last effort, more mechanical than voluntary, the cry would probably be extinguished. It was an expiring exclamation, instinctively appealing to the amount of aid held in suspense in space. It ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... utterance to still more remarkable sounds, which gradually increased until the singers burst out into that terrific yell, or war-whoop, for which American savages have long been famous. Its effect would have been appalling to unaccustomed ears. Then they allowed their voices to die away in soft, plaintive tones, while their action corresponded thereto. Suddenly the furious style was revived, and the men wrought themselves into a condition little short of madness, while their yells rang wildly through the camp. This was too much for ordinary canine ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... then began again, and this alternation was repeated several times, till the young songstress whose motions had been growing more and more vehement, suddenly fell down as dead. Langediu's song then became lower and more plaintive: he bent over the body, and seemed to express the deepest sorrow; the whole circle joined in his ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... sonatas,[73] No. 1 (33), is somewhat of a curiosity. It consists of four movements: an Allegro in G major; a Minuetto and Trio, G major and minor; an Adagio in G minor; and an Allegro molto in G major. It is the only sonata of Haydn's which contains four movements. The plaintive Trio and the ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... Halfway up the unwooded part of the hill, it stopped and made plaintive, high-pitched noises. Other creatures came. Many had come while the man and girl were too absorbed to notice. Now two more of the large animals came out into the open and climbed ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... Her voice was more plaintive than the words. The confidence of that young girl was all the world to her; for, independent of everything else, it was the one human link that bound her to the man she loved with such passionate idolatry. Her kindness to his child ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... your hall, and songs are sung there at all hours. But the simple carol of this novice struck at your love. One plaintive little strain mingled with the great music of the world, and with a flower for a prize you came down and stopped at my ...
— Gitanjali • Rabindranath Tagore
... ate in dignified silence, all but my favourite, who carried his share to his sick mate, and by every gentle means in his power tried to make her eat. She was too ill, however, and turned away with a plaintive moan which seemed to grieve him sadly. He wouldn't touch his dinner, but lay down near her, with the lump between his paws, as if guarding it for her; and there I left him patiently waiting, in spite of his hunger, till his mate could ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... from the house a long plaintive howl came from the Canadian forest. A sort of shiver, as if he were looking into the future, ran through Henry's veins. All ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... reddens in the heavens; For anger most it seemed, while now her breast, Beaten with some great passion at her heart, Palpitated, her hand shook, and we heard In the dead hush the papers that she held Rustle: at once the lost lamb at her feet Sent out a bitter bleating for its dam; The plaintive cry jarred on her ire; she crushed The scrolls together, made a sudden turn As if to speak, but, utterance failing her, She whirled them on to me, as who should say 'Read,' and I read—two letters—one ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... impetus the little muddy party hurried forward. Tiger's yelps could be heard plainer and plainer, mingled now with a muffled, plaintive little wail. ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... couldn't! How on earth could you tell her a thing like that?" wailed George's mother, and she went on with a plaintive sigh as Gabriella opened the door: "George was always so mad about beauty, and though Gabriella has a fine face, ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... in the last chapter, as he was being rowed gently over the fair bosom of the China sea. The boat—a large one with a little one towing astern—was so far from the coast that no land could be seen. A few sea-gulls sported round them, dipping their wings in the wave, or putting a plaintive question now and then to the rowers. Nothing else was visible except a rocky isle not far off that rose abruptly from ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... me an affectionate farewell, with a plaintive reminder that a girl not likely to be proposed to every day might do worse than Tony Dalziel. I, in turn, reminded her that any knavish juggling with Captain March's faith would be dealt with severely by me; and so we parted, ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... victims will be able to take shelter. For this reason wherever the tiger goes his stench precedes him, and knowing this the fox comes out of his little hole and calls through the jungle that the tiger is out. Hence, here in the night when the moonlight falls on the thickest gloom, following the plaintive cry, the cunning fox, the servant of our mother, threads its way through the jungle giving the warning to ...
— Kari the Elephant • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... plaintive string, Like some poor harper at a palace portal, I wait without and sing, While those I love ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... coloured beads in the chair from which, by no effort of its own, could it ever move; the great grave blue eyes, full of serious, not uncheerful, expression, giving to the small delicate face a look beyond its years; the soft plaintive voice dropping out but few words, so unlike the continual prattle of a child—caught Mr. Openshaw's attention in spite of himself. One day—he half scorned himself for doing so—he cut short his dinner-hour to go in search of some toy which should take the place of ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... twenty to thirty feet wide. All this time the shrieks of the birds sounded in our ears. Occasionally, those near us were silent; and sometimes the noise around us ceased for a few minutes, when we heard at a distance the plaintive cries of the birds roosting in other ramifications of the cavern. It seemed as if different groups ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... a ring-dove say in her plaintive note, "Despite of my woes, O Eternal, I praise Thee still!" And God, of His grace, reunion of our loves, in this my travel, may yet to us fulfil. She visits me oft,[FN80] with her dusk-red honeyed lips, And lends ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... among other effects, have opened new scenes for a poetical fancy to range in, and presented new images to the selection of genius and taste. The morals, in particular, of the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands, afford a fine subject for the exercise of a plaintive Muse. Such a Muse hath seized upon the subject; and, at the same time, has added another wreath to the memory of our navigator. I refer to a lady, who hath already, in many passages of her 'Peru,' in her 'Ode on the Peace.' and, above all, in ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... Pao-yue. After he had heard these ballads, so diffuse and vague, he failed to see any point of beauty in them; but the plaintive melody of the sound was nevertheless sufficient to drive away his spirit and exhilarate his soul. Hence it was that he did not make any inquiries about the arguments, and that he did not ask about the matter treated, but simply making these ballads ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... was very sleepy when Rachel called. I think I must have run straight to the land of Nod again," laughingly. "And when I came down the table was cleared. There was someone in the kitchen, but I was afraid. I do not know why it is," and her plaintive voice touched him, "only now I am afraid of everybody—oh, no! not afraid of you, for I like you so much. And then I wanted to run away, but I did not know how to go. I climbed the crooked apple tree and swung to and fro until I was sleepy and afraid I might fall out. Then I came down ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... bright and beautiful as a child of the morning, and heard the sentence of this long night passed upon her; but instead of looking plaintive, a curiously hard look of necessary acquiescence came about the lines of her cherry lips. Ann was startled by it; she had expected Christa to bemoan herself, and in this look she recognised that the younger ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... the night—a work lasting twenty years or so, but with a feeble star of hope always glimmering at the end of the passage. But from the salon, and mamma, and the poodle, and the good, unctuous, lazy old director, and papa's apoplectic snoring, and the plaintive little songs and monotonous embroideries of one's wife, there would be ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... long, sweet calls I hear a plaintive whistle, one long note first, then two short ones in another key. It is the whistle of the amma, the poor blind woman who earns her living by shampooing the sick or the weary, and whose whistle warns pedestrians and drivers of vehicles to take heed for her ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... the walls, and I was like one in a great drum. When the rain was doing its utmost, I heard no other sound; but when the lull came, there was the wash of a heavy river, or a crack as of artillery that told of landslips, or the plaintive cry of the peesweep as it rose in the air, trying to entice the waters away ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... observed to build in the cabin where she was born; and while she was yet an infant, a dove, pursued by a hawk, flew for refuge into her bosom. She had a dejected appearance, but so soft and gentle a mien, that she was beloved to enthusiasm. Her voice was low and plaintive, but inexpressibly sweet; and she loved to lie for hours on the banks of some wild and melancholy stream singing to her lute. She taught men to weep, for she took a strange delight in tears; and often when the virgins of the hamlet were ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... little bunch." The words sounded close to Nettie's ear, and she turned to encounter a pair of pleading blue eyes gazing into hers, while the plaintive voice repeated, "Please buy a little bunch of flowers; I haven't sold one to-day, and Minna ...
— Harper's Young People, February 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... A heavy plaintive groan from Alfred interrupted. "There is my beauty dreaming, he is going to wake up; you will allow me, my prince ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... the skies and waters around her. Then from a neighboring thicket the mocking-bird, wildest of singers, Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the water, Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious music, That the whole air and the woods and the waves seemed silent to listen. Plaintive at first were the tones and sad; then soaring to madness Seemed they to follow or guide the revel of frenzied Bacchantes. Single notes were then heard, in sorrowful, low lamentation; Till, having gathered them all, he flung them abroad in derision, As when, after a storm, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... her own. She thought incessantly of Jim Dyckman. Remembering the song she had played for him, and his bitter comment on the verse, "Tell her that wastes her time and me," she hunted it out, and the plaintive chimes of Carpenter's music made a knell ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... me! oh, me!" She set up a succession of weak, plaintive, hysterical cries before the nurse could pacify her, by declaring that Michael had been at the house not three hours before to ask after her, and looked as well and as hearty as ever ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell
... he can pay for it!" said Doris, with plaintive emphasis, as she ruefully turned over the costly ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... humming a plaintive air; Saveliitch, sound asleep, swayed from side to side; our kibitka was gliding rapidly over the winter road. I saw in the distance a village well known to my eyes, with its palisade and church spire on the steep bank of the river Iaik. A quarter of an hour after ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... do you mean? What did you say?" cried Aunt Ninette in her most plaintive tone, running down the ...
— Uncle Titus and His Visit to the Country • Johanna Spyri
... thinks how many thousands of brave men have been roused by it to go to death, it is not free from these. Number one only got about three notes start, when a second began, and presently the whole air was full of plaintive sound. ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... disturbed by Miss Sprotts, the dog resigned his comfortable place with a plaintive growl, but the cat, of a more irritable temperament, set up and made a sudden scratch at her hand, drawing ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... lark, that most companionable bird of the plains? Wherever one may wander ... his lovely, plaintive, almost human song may be heard nearly everywhere, at frequent intervals the livelong day. He is one of the blessings of this land, one which every lover of beautiful song welcomes as heartily as the ordinary mortal the warm, bright days of ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... hot towel, and ended at three in the morning on rice-brandy and betel served by unreal women with chalked faces and vermilion-spotted lips, simpering and melancholy. By day, there was work, or now and then a lesson with Dr. Earle's teacher, a little aged Chinaman of intricate, refined, and plaintive courtesy. Under his guidance Rudolph learned rapidly, taking to study as a prodigal might take to drink. And with increasing knowledge came increasing tranquillity; as when he found that the hideous cry, startling ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... it quite impossible to answer; the words stuck in my throat. His voice was thin, plaintive, almost ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... and had gone on with her reading in a girlish, plaintive voice that was quite different from ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... never observe (while rocking winds are piping loud) that pause, as the gust is re-collecting itself, and rising upon the ear in a shrill and plaintive note, like the soul of an Aeolian harp? I do assure you, there is nothing in the world so like the voice of a spirit. Thomson had an ear sometimes; he was not deaf to this, and has described it gloriously, but given it another, different turn, and of more horror. I cannot repeat the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... deep silence like so many kisses; the murmur of the river became the distant echo of passionate love-making, hushed voices whispering close to the loved one's ears words tremulous with adoration. From the canebrake a nightingale was singing softly, as if the beauty of the night had subdued its plaintive song. ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... voices and accents, but perhaps they were not as certainly so as the poor little mother was English who came down the place at high noon with her large baby in her arms, swaying it from side to side as she sang a plaintive ballad to the skies, and scanned the windows for some relenting to ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... pallid whiteness. "Dear, dear Blanche!" her husband murmured, Stretching out his hand towards her; But she started wildly forward, Crouched down in the furthest corner, And, with face tear-dabbled over, And her hair in long, lank tresses, With a voice so low and plaintive 'Twould have won a brute to lameness, Faintly sobbed she: "Do not take it! Do not take it!—do not take it!" And she hugged her infant closer, Sobbing sadly, "Do not take it!" "Blanche! dear Blanche!" her husband faltered, With ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... the fog, light as it was, definitely impeded their wings. It gave to their movements a little languor that had a plaintive appealing quality. Perhaps they realized this themselves. In the midst of their aerial evolutions suddenly—and apparently without cause—they developed panic, turned seawards. Their audience, taken by surprise, burst into shouts of remonstrance, ran after them. The clamor ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... vain, and that night was closing in, hope, she knew not why, began to return, and with it some degree of anxiety on her own account. Wherefore she left the shore and returned to the cavern where she had been wont to indulge her plaintive mood. She passed the night in no small fear and indescribable anguish; the new day came, and, as she had not supped, she was fain after tierce to appease her hunger, as best she could, by a breakfast of herbs: this done, she wept and ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... head upward, and responded to the words of his master by a long and plaintive whine, which he even continued after he had again buried his head in the grass, as if he held an intelligent communication with one who so well knew how ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... affection for his suavity, gentleness, and good breeding; and Shelley's accidental death was a great shock to him. Among his other intimate acquaintances in Italy were Lord and Lady Blessington, with whom he kept up a pleasant correspondence. The most plaintive, sad, and generous of all his letters was the one he wrote to Lady Byron from Pisa, in 1821, in acknowledgment of the receipt of a tress of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... meadows, showed me that in my absence she had come to many an understanding with those misty horizons and their vaporous outline. Nature was a mantle which sheltered her thoughts. She now knew what the nightingale was sighing the livelong night, what the songster of the sedges hymned with his plaintive note. ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... hour he rose and got out of the room quickly. I could hear him go to his own room and shut the door. When Irma and Mary Lyon had reduced our small bundle of earthquake to a sulky and plaintive reason, she came back to talk to her brother. Finding him gone, she asked where Louis was, and immediately followed him to his chamber, doubtless ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... and they could hear her plaintive cry. But more distinct came the shrill voice of Tinker Bell. The jealous fairy had now cast off all disguise of friendship, and was darting at her victim from every direction, pinching savagely each time ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie |
