"Melancholy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tremulous lights and shadows; it asks us mysterious questions, and troubles us with the suggestions of our relations to some dim unknown. The sad, blue eyes that gazed into Mary's had that look of calm initiation, of melancholy comprehension, peculiar to eyes made clairvoyant by "great and critical" sorrow. They seemed to say to her, "Fulfil thy mission; life is made for sacrifice; the flower must fall before fruit can perfect itself." A vague shuddering of mystery gave intensity to her reverie. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... Biog. Brit. where a summary of Cook's Voyages is given, an observation is made on this melancholy part of the narrative, which the reader may not be displeased to see copied here. "It is probable that these calamitous events, which could not fail of making a powerful impression on the mind of Lieutenant Cook, might give occasion to his turning his ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... and the king caused himself now to be carried there, in order to seek repose. But instead of being cheered by the beautiful scenes that were around him at Chinon, or reinvigorated by the comforts and the attentions which he could there enjoy, he gradually sank into hopeless melancholy, and in a few days he began to feel that he was about to die. As he grew worse his mind became more and more excited, and his attendants from time to time heard him moaning, in his anguish, "Oh, shame! shame! I am a conquered ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... to Worcester as mystified as ever, and Maggie was left much alone with Arthur Carrollton, who strove in various ways to win her from the melancholy into which she had fallen. All day long she would sit by the open window, seemingly immovable, her large eyes, now intensely black, fixed upon vacancy, and her white face giving no sign of the fierce struggle within, save when Madam Conway, coming to her side, would lay ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... melancholy howl. Six hundred solid pages of small print, and nothing but words, words, words."—N. ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... shaking the few remaining leaves from the trees and blowing them about in rustling dreariness, the frosts had already touched the grass and ferns, and though the place on a bright day would still have been lovely, it looked bare and melancholy ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... which Egypt had at first but failed to maintain, as a gift conferred from above, which human powers proved unequal to conserve, then the opening of the history of this religion would be indeed most melancholy. But though monotheism appeared in Egypt so early, there is no necessity to think that it was not attained by human powers. For all we know, it was not an early but a mature product of thought, and was reached after a long development. It is not impossible for the human mind, starting from ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... painful contrast between the robust woman and the pale, dying man, who, with one foot already in the grave, summoned sufficient energy to earn not only enough for the daily bread, but money besides to purchase beautiful dresses. The melancholy jests, which obliging biographers constantly represent as flashes of wit from a husband too much in love not to be profuse, never deluded anybody who visited that home. It is absurd to transform Mme. Heine into an idyllic character, whilst the poet himself never dreamed of representing her ...
— Old Love Stories Retold • Richard Le Gallienne
... was able, so keep it as before. I cannot build my nest within the castle, but I will often come to you at evening and sing, on the bough outside the window, songs that will make you glad, and at the same time sweetly melancholy. I will sing of happiness and sorrow, of the goodness and wickedness that lie close around you. The singing bird loves the fisherman's hut, the peasant's cot, and all that is far removed from palace and court. But I love your soul more than your crown. I will fly to you and sing ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... in a Report which otherwise is melancholy reading is to be found in the consistency of the statesmen of Natal, which is admirable in comparison with the fast degenerating land policy of Cape Statesmen. Ten years ago the Native Affairs Commission reported on the question ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... making peace between its small potentates; in another, as the inhabitant of a certain street in Padua. The traditions of some remote spots about Italy still connect his name with a ruined tower, a mountain glen, a cell in a convent. In the recollections of the following generation, his solemn and melancholy form mingled reluctantly, and for a while, in the brilliant court of the Scaligers; and scared the women, as a visitant of the other world, as he passed by their doors in the streets of Verona. Rumor brings him to the West—with ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... under it, Leila. I became depressed and quite foolishly hopeless. Some day I will tell you what helped me out of a morass of melancholy." ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... has, for many years past, been in continual expectation of making a journey to England, which prevented her writing for information concerning this melancholy subject, by giving her hopes of making personal inquiries; but family occurrences have still detained her in France, which country she now sees no prospect of quitting. She has, therefore, lately used her utmost endeavors to obtain a faithful account of whatever related ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... place of another kind, and which has more the air of what it would be, than anything I have yet met with: it was the convent of the Chartreux. All the conveniences, or rather (if there was such a word) all the adaptments are assembled here, that melancholy, meditation, selfish devotion, and despair would require. But yet 'tis pleasing. Soften the terms, and mellow the uncouth horror that reigns here, but a little, and 'tis a charming solitude. It stands on a large space of ground, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... startled to hear him laugh. A slight melancholy little burst; and then a louder one, followed by a full-toned laughter that fell short and showed the heart was not ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... morning Rubineau was to depart. All the happy scenes of the coming week were to be delayed, and the thought that they might be delayed long-ay, forever-came like a shadow of evil to brood in melancholy above ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... to run any risks with, so he folded his arms and talked in a brave, indifferent, bearing-up tone about the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway, just to cheer the poor woman up a little. And even Mrs. Milton really felt that exalted melancholy to the very bottom of her heart, and tried to show it in a dozen little, ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... string that fastened the eyeglass round his head, and taking a coarse towel from a locker, he spunged poor Paul's face and neck with rum, and then fastened up his lower jaw with the lanyard. Having performed this melancholy office, the poor fellow's feelings could no longer be ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... stated, on her own authority, that she had made the acquaintance of the romanticist, whom she describes as having "something of an exalte in his air, in his open shirt collar, black head, and wild and melancholy look." The dialogue that ensues with the classicist after the disappearance of the other, is quite as ridiculous as the foregoing one, and quite as well calculated to give her Ladyship a fit of the "doubts," though it does not appear that she suffered by them a second time. ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... responded that it would be agreeable to him to qualify himself for the high office to which he had been so unexpectedly called, under such melancholy circumstances, at his rooms at the Kirkwood Hotel; and at 11 o'clock a.m. [15th] the oath of office was administered to him by Chief Justice Chase, of the Supreme Court of the United States, in the presence of nearly all the Cabinet officers; ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... that the Campanians might revolt from the Roman alliance; but in this hope he was disappointed. So, retracing his steps, he took the road to Apulia. During all this march of the Carthaginian army the dictator had followed along the heights, and had condemned his soldiers to the melancholy task of looking on with arms in their hands, while the Numidian cavalry plundered the faithful allies far and wide, and the villages over all the plain rose in flames. At length he opened up to the exasperated Roman army the eagerly-coveted opportunity of attacking the enemy. When Hannibal ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... sixteenth year; but to all appearances she was much younger. Unlike others of her years, her cheeks did not display the bloom of maidenhood, and her countenance lacked the vivacity natural to her age. Her features wore an expression of melancholy, which was perfectly in keeping with the pallor of her cheeks, the pearly whiteness of which vied in brilliancy with the ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... curtailed the burgess- rights of smaller men in the state, and beside whose marble pillars and Greek statues the decaying temples, with their images of the gods still in great part carved of wood, made a melancholy figure. A police-supervision of streets, of river-banks, of fires, or of building was almost unheard of; if the government troubled itself at all about the inundations, conflagrations, and falls of houses which were of yearly occurrence, it was only to ask from the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... dammed-up brain, of this child, than from the smooth-working machine of the motor one. But just for this reason, if the damming-up be liberated, not in the channels of healthy assimilation, and duly correlated growth, but in the forced discharges of violent emotion, followed by conditions of melancholy and by certain unsocial tendencies, then the promise of genius ripens into eccentricity, and the blame ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... bitterly convinced that his old acquaintance Carp had been the writer of that depreciatory recension which was kept locked in a small drawer of Mr. Casaubon's desk, and also in a dark closet of his verbal memory. These were heavy impressions to struggle against, and brought that melancholy embitterment which is the consequence of all excessive claim: even his religious faith wavered with his wavering trust in his own authorship, and the consolations of the Christian hope in immortality seemed to lean on the immortality of the still unwritten Key to all Mythologies. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... eminence, of gash, and peaks afloat upon swirling mists. It lay, a looming terror, forgotten of heaven and unfriendly to man (as one might readily imagine), haunted for ever with wailing airs and rumours, ghosts calling in the deeps of dusk and melancholy, legends of ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... as a boy reasons who thinks that the world has come to an end for him after his first check, and who has no knowledge as yet of the medicine of time. My mother had but a vexatious life of it with me, for I was silent and melancholy; and though I never, indeed, offended her by uncivil word or deed, yet the sight of my dreary visage must have been a sore trial to her, and the glum despondency with which I accepted all her efforts to cheer me from my humours ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... they were full of cricket and football, Bee did not find them very easy to understand. She was sitting at the nursery-table, thinking what she could say to show Colin she liked to hear about his games, even though the names puzzled her a little, when Fixie came and stood by her, looking rather melancholy. ...
— Rosy • Mrs. Molesworth
... no chance of asking his advice after the trial. The moment sentence had been pronounced, he allowed himself to be helped out of court in a melancholy state of prostration, and the next morning he left for London. I suspect he was afraid to face me, and nervously impatient, besides, to tell Annabella that he had saved the legacy again by another alarming sacrifice. My father and mother, to whom I had written on ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... following suddenly on so melancholy a war, endeared the Sabine women still more to their husbands and parents, and above all to Romulus himself. Accordingly, when dividing the people into thirty curiae, he called the curiae after their names. While the number of the women were undoubtedly ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... Zurich, for the same purpose, August 28th, after an interval of four years. The same objects were assembled, under precisely the same circumstances: the lake was covered with boats, whose tall sails drooped in pure laziness; the solemn bells startled the melancholy echoes, and the population was abroad, now as then, in holiday guise, or crowding the churches. The only perceptible changes in the scene were produced by the change in our own direction. Then we looked towards the foot of the lake, ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... gory, from the wheels Released—and no man, not his nearest friends, Could in that mangled corpse have traced Orestes. They laid the body on the funeral pyre, And, while we speak, the Phocian strangers bear, In a small, brazen, melancholy urn, That handful of cold ashes to which all The grandeur of the beautiful hath shrunk. Within they bore him—in his father's land To find that heritage, ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... thing breaking the stillness of the murky air was the melancholy "Chirp, churp! chirp, churp" uttered at intervals by some belated sparrow who had not gone to bed in good time like all sensible bird-folk, and whose plaintive chirp was all the more aggravating from its ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... a man of fortune, who lost his wealth, and chagrin and melancholy got the mastery of him, so that he became an idiot and lost his wit. There abode with him of his wealth about a score of dinars and he used to beg alms of the folk, and that which they gave him he would gather together and lay to the dinars ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... extended, weltering in his blood. He had three wounds in the abdomen and his throat was cut. A hawkbill knife was found near him. A jury of inquest was held and found a verdict that he had destroyed himself. It was a melancholy instance of the effects of intemperance. Mr. McConnell when a youth resided at Fayetteville in my congressional district. Shortly after he grew up to manhood he was at my instance appointed postmaster of that ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... historian asserts, a miracle from heaven changed the king's mind. They expected to be trampled to death in the hippodrome by furious elephants; but after some delay they were released unhurt. The history of their escape, however, is more melancholy than the history of their danger. No sooner did the persecution cease than they turned with Pharisaical cruelty against their weaker brethren who had yielded to the storm; and they put to death three hundred of their countrymen, who in the hour of ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... singing in the sunny hours, and crickets have not yet finished their song. Once in a while I see a caterpillar,—this afternoon, for instance, a red, hairy one, with black head and tail. They do not appear to be active, and it makes one rather melancholy to look at them. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... says her biographer of the moment, "was always absorbed by the present impression, whatever that might happen to be; she passed from joy to despair like a child, and I never knew any house that was either so melancholy or so gay." One evening, however, it would seem that the Hotel d'Abrantes was gayer than usual. Laughter rang loud through the rooms, the company was numerous, and the mistress of the house in unparalleled high spirits. If the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... arrogance be changed into a sentimental humility, O! then 'Liberality' is to call out for him in the best of her hacknied tones; the contest is to cease at the instant when his humour changes from mischief to melancholy; 'affetuoso' is to be the only word; and he is to be allowed his season of sacred torpidity, till the venom, new formed in the shade, make him glisten again in ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... meantime, Fin was very melancholy, and did not know what to do, or how to act at all. Cucullin was an ugly customer to meet with; and, the idea of the "cake" aforesaid flattened the very heart within him. What chance could he have, strong and brave though he was, with a man who could, when put in a passion, ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... incident 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 made him unsocial, and kept him from meeting ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... strange that, instead of the looked-for lightening of gloom, there was, if possible, in his bearing, his wife being safely dead and buried, an increase of melancholy. ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... some moments absorbed in melancholy thoughts; at last he lifted up his head, and calling one of his servants, said, "Go, to Ebn Thaher's house, and ask some of his domestics if he be gone to Bussorah: run, and come back quickly with the answer." While the servant was gone, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... melancholy cries of famine are more easily imagined than described; and from their representation I fear the Nabob's agents for that business are very inattentive. I therefore think it requisite to make you acquainted with the circumstance, that his Excellency, the Nabob, may cause his agents ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... title has been cropped away. The printed title-page reads: "Recreation for Ingenious Head-peeces. Or, A Pleasant Grove for their Wits to walke in. Of Epigrams, 630: Epitaphs, 180: Fancies, a number: Fantasticks, abundance, Good for melancholy Humors. Printed by R. Cotes for H. B. London, 1645. 8vo." Two poems of Herrick's occur in the additional "Fancies and Fantasticks," first printed in this edition, viz.: The Description of a Woman (not contained in Hesperides), ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... afternoon. She came gliding into the room like a ghost, trailing a black negligee that made the whiteness of her skin startling. Her eyelids were heavy and dark, but unreddened. She gazed at him with calm, clear melancholy, and his heart throbbed and ached for her. She seated herself, clasped her hands loosely in her lap, ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... Bourgogne, about twelve o'clock, heard her from the chamber where they were, next to hers, singing opera tunes. A little while after, the King, seeing the Duchesse de Bourgogne very sad in a corner of the room, asked Madame de Maintenon, with surprise, why the said Duchess was so melancholy; set himself to work to rouse her; then played with her and some ladies of the palace he had called in to join in the sport. This was not all. Before rising from the dinner table, at a little after two o'clock, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... kindness offered her by the lawyer and his wife, and though in his inmost better heart he did not doubt her, it pleased his harder mood to regard himself as being despised and trampled on; there was a certain luxury in the indulgence which afforded him a melancholy pain. By and by, however, better thoughts came, as they always will if we give them the chance they seek. Out of his fearful dejection arose a manlier, nobler spirit, which betrayed itself in his look and manner. He rose from the stool, walked twice across the narrow office floor out to ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... indentation in the mountain-side. The weird vistas across the gorge were visible how, craggy steeps, and deep woods filled with moonlight, with that peculiar untranslated intendment which differentiates its luminosity in the wilderness from the lunar glamour 'of cultivated Scenes—something weird, melancholy, eloquent of a meaning addressed to the soul, but which the senses ...
— Wolf's Head - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... topic 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 ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... grief and consternation with which the melancholy news of the capture and cruel fate of Saguntum was received at Rome.(719) Compassion for this unfortunate city, shame for having failed to succour such faithful allies, a just indignation against the Carthaginians, the authors of all these calamities; a strong alarm ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... the nor'-east, the sea runs high, we ship a deal of water, the night is dark and cold, and the shapeless passengers lie about in melancholy bundles, as if they were sorted out for the laundress; but, for my own uncommercial part, I cannot pretend that I am much inconvenienced by any of these things. A general howling, whistling, flopping, gurgling, and scooping, I am aware of, and a general knocking about of ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... board the Mentor we spent a considerable time in Relating to each other ye particular Circumstances of our first being Taken, and also ye various Treatment with which we met on yt occasion, nor was this a disagreeable Entertainment in our Melancholy Situation. * * * Many of the officers and men were almost Destitute of Clothes, several having neither Britches, Stockings or Shoes, many of them when first taken were stripped entirely naked. Corporal ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... hedge-fences even to interrupt the dull monotony of the scene below. A strong wind, and it was high too, whistled around that lofty tower, reminding me of our winter storms when they whistle over the chimney-tops—a music that often makes melancholy hearts home-sick. ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... if they were actually betrothed, was broken, and the lawyer-lover was plunged in deep melancholy. He wrote long, morbid letters to his friend Speed, who had returned to Kentucky, and had recently married there. Lincoln even went to Louisville to visit the Speeds, hoping that the change of scene and ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... would take her part, George; and I am sorry," answered Mrs. Hartrick in a melancholy tone; "but I am grieved to tell you that there is something else to follow. That little Irish girl is quite as cheeky, even more cheeky than Molly. I fear I must ask you to say a word to her; I shall require her to ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... the girl, in a voice of gentle melancholy. "I shall come and see it again, perhaps, when ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... Paschal Feast of the Passover had been quite over, the disciples believed they had a command to return into their own country, and to it accordingly they returned. Perhaps the visions began to abate at Jerusalem. A species of melancholy seized them. The brief appearances of Jesus were not sufficient to compensate for the enormous void left by his absence. In a melancholy mood they thought of the lake and of the beautiful mountains where ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... sat on a green bank, and thought on worldly things; and he said, "Yes, a fine appearance is everything—a fine appearance is what people care about." And then he began chirping his melancholy song from which we have taken this story; and which may or may not be true, although it ...
— Stories to Read or Tell from Fairy Tales and Folklore • Laure Claire Foucher
... her eyes with sorrowful skepticism, melancholy contempt. It was the old note of war, and she responded to it. "I know mamma," she said; "I know ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... village street, with its cottages, haystacks, and slumbering willows, a feeling of calm comes over the soul; in this peace, wrapped away from care, toil, and sorrow in the darkness of night, it is mild, melancholy, beautiful, and it seems as though the stars look down upon it kindly and with tenderness, and as though there were no evil on earth and all were well. On the left the open country began from the end of the village; it could ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... that we ordained Festiuall, Turne from their office to blacke Funerall: Our instruments to melancholy Bells, Our wedding cheare, to a sad buriall Feast: Our solemne Hymnes, to sullen Dyrges change: Our Bridall flowers serue for a buried Coarse: And all things change them ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Colonel Vavasour, no one who saw his convulsed features, as his brother fell heading a gallant charge of his company at Waterloo, could have doubted for a moment his deep-rooted affection. From that period, a gloomy melancholy hung about him, which, though shaken off in public, gave a shade to his brow, which ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... this mass of smiling verdure and blossom-loaded boughs, appeared the dark funereal cypress, the emblem of death, intruding itself in melancholy contrast with the smiling and cheerful tints by ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... He advocates the introduction of music adapted to the subject: "The music after an act should commence in the tone of the preceding passion, and be gradually varied till it accords with the tone of the passion that is to succeed in the next act," so that "cheerful, tender, melancholy, or animated impressions" may be inspired, as the occasion may need. At the conclusion of the second act of "Gammer Gurton's Needle," 1566, Diccon, addressing himself to the musicians, says simply: "In the meantime, fellows, pipe up your fiddles." But in a later play, the "Two ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... a deception, as her mother said. She was a little, round, soft thing, whom you would have expected to flash over with sunshine. She was not a melancholy girl—as you may have been able to judge—and it was not her blame that anything in her position had developed her into a thoughtful, earnest character. But then she was always fancied younger than she really was; people supposed her as easy as her mother, while she could be vehement, and was ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... landlord of the hotel, his curses against the English nation were violent for the rest of his natural life. He asked all travellers whether they knew a certain Colonel Lor Crawley—avec sa femme une petite dame, tres spirituelle. "Ah, Monsieur!" he would add—"ils m'ont affreusement vole." It was melancholy to hear his accents as he spoke of ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was worried? Hadn't she more cause to worry than any one else? For all that, she did not purpose to hide behind the barricaded door of her cabin. If there was a tragedy in the offing it would not fall less heavily because one approached it with melancholy countenance. ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... of news gave Dick further cause for agitation, and his mother's distress grew with his deepening melancholy. She was alarmed for his health, and had been trying ever since the return from Yarraman to induce him to drink copious draughts of her favorite specific, camomile tea, but without success; the boy knew of no ailment and could imagine none that would not be preferable ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... of the Sutlej hurried melancholy and portentous tidings from Aliwal to the Sikhs at Sobraon. The bodies of their slaughtered countrymen rolling down in hundreds, announced, in terms too dismally unequivocal, another tremendous blow of British might. In ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... Editor. 'These verses are in the old style; rather homely in expression; but I honestly profess to stick more to the simplicity of the old poets than the moderns, and to love the philosophical good humor of our old writers more than the sickly melancholy of the Byronian wits. If my verses be not good, they are good humored, and that is something.' With a few verbal changes they were sent to the Athenaeum, and appeared in that paper on July 9, 1831, accompanied by a note of the Editor's, from ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... her as a child, of always playing with the first thing that came to hand whenever any one was talking to her. On this occasion they wandered to the album, and toyed absently about the margin of the little water-colour drawing. The expression of melancholy deepened on her face. She did not look at the drawing, or look at me. Her eyes moved uneasily from object to object in the room, betraying plainly that she suspected what my purpose was in coming to speak to her. Seeing that, I thought it best to get ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... the last Mogul to come out and be led away. The air is thick, and sparkles with blinding dust and glare, and the wind whistles in your ears. Over the bones of dynasties, the hot wind wails and sobs and moans. Aye! if a man seeks for melancholy, I will tell him where to find it—at the top of the ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain
... hand, does not care. He is neither sad nor happy nor anxious. This contrast is revealed not only by the patients' utterances but by their expressions. The stuporous face is empty, that of the other lined with melancholy. The intellectual defect, too, is different. In retarded depression the patient is morbidly aware of difficulty and slowness, but on urging often performs tests surprisingly well. In the stupor, however, one ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... predetermined and willful gayety about Asheville however, that is apt to be present in a watering-place, and gave to it the melancholy tone that is always present in gay places. We fancied that the lively movement in the streets had an air of unreality. A band of musicians on the balcony of the Swannanoa were scraping and tooting and twanging with ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... subject was exhibited in his reply to the Electress, who, immediately after the marriage, entreated that he would not pervert her niece from the paths of the true religion. "She shall not be troubled," said the Prince, "with such melancholy things. Instead of holy writ she shall read 'Amadis de Gaule,' and such books of pastime which discourse de amore; and instead of knitting and sewing she shall learn to dance a galdiarde, and such courtoisies as are ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... written in 1888. They are a very complete expression of his poetic ideas, and contain among their number gems of purest poesy. The poet's lyre has not many strings, and the strains of sadness, of pensive melancholy, are almost absent. Mistral has once, and very successfully, tried the theme of Lainartine's Lac, of Musset's Souvenir, of Hugo's Tristesse d'Olympio; but his poem is not an elegy, it has not the intensity, the passion, the deep ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... is the naturalist. He has no time for melancholy dreams. The earth becomes to him transparent; everywhere he sees significancies, harmonies, laws, chains of cause and effect endlessly interlinked, which draw him out of the narrow sphere of self-interest and self-pleasing, ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... pages that repeated that oldest most melancholy cry of the lover, which rang among the deodars, from viking ships, from the moonlit courtyards of Provence, the cry which always sounded about Mr. Wrenn as he walked the deck: "I want you so much; I miss you so unendingly; I am so lonely for you, dear." For no ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... His wig was small, and with side rolls well powdered, the queue tied with a lace-bordered red ribbon. In front a full Mechlin lace jabot, with the white wig above, set his regular features and dark skin in a frame, as it were, his paleness and a look of melancholy in the eyes helping the natural beauty and distinction of a face high bred and haughty. The white silk flowered waistcoat, the bunch of gold seals below it, the claret-tinted velvet coat and breeches, the black silk clocked hose ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... No more. Why?" She had withdrawn into a corner of the tiny room—still not far from him—and he wondered remotely what his damned alter ego had been up to. With Jason, there was no telling. Jay raised his eyes with a melancholy smile. ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... it off till then. I can tell you, sir, that although I don't mind building this wall in the shallow water, I shall be very careful when the water is up to my knees, for you don't know how bold the sharks are in these latitudes. When I was at St. Helena, not very long ago, we had a melancholy proof of it." ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... the title of keeper of the seals, but the full powers of chancellor.[575] In quiet retirement, the venerable judge and legislator lingered more than four years, unhappy only in being spared to see the melancholy results of the rejection of his prudent counsels, the desolation of his native land, and the transformation of an amiable king into a murderer of his own subjects. Few days in this eventful reign were more lasting ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... 1837, 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, ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... them, if they would, Among their friends in town. He ended by A dozen further lines, explaining why His patient must have change of scene and air— New faces, and the simple friendships there With them, which might, in time, make her forget A grief that kept her ever brooding yet And wholly melancholy and depressed,— Nor yet could she find sleep by night nor rest By day, for thinking—thinking—thinking still Upon a grief beyond the doctor's skill,— The death of her ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... Badeley to Colman, dated 22d August, 1822, confirmed the melancholy intelligence, which he had at first hesitated to believe. It stated that "the decease of Mr. Lowth took place on Sunday evening," the very evening appointed by him for their anticipated happy reunion; and that his remains were to be interred in the family vault at Fulham on Monday ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... cake, baked some bread, mended my riding dress, cleaned up generally, wrote some letters with the hope that some day they might be posted and took a magnificent walk, reaching the cabin again in the melancholy glory which now ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... melancholy I do feel for my dear, She laid eggs till three days before her death, She laid the most eggs, this four years around, Than any hen ...
— A Complete Edition of the Works of Nancy Luce • Nancy Luce
... the truth," added the Baron, "the lives of literary men, with their hopes and disappointments, and quarrels and calamities, present a melancholy picture of man's strength and weakness. On that very account the scholar can ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... think they would, for they have no room to disagree in. They all four stared at us with awful, almost embarrassing solemnity, and each had a little yellow moustache. I had no idea they lived packed in so—no wonder they looked melancholy. The sight of them, especially of the one who had no room at all, ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... who wrote psychology when he failed to sustain the poetic mood. In the Engadine and at Sils-Maria, brooding in a rocky void wherein he touched the sharp edge of infinity, he sang a Dionysian hymn to life against the melancholy products of German learning and against those Nihilistic snares which he thought lurked in Christian doctrine. There he worked out the mystic idea of "Eternal Recurrence" and his song of Zarathustra with ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... a good appetite, except myself, who, feeling rather melancholy that day, had little desire to eat. I did not, like the others, partake of the pork, but got my dinner entirely off the body of a squirrel which had been shot the day before by a chal of the name of Piramus, who, besides being ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... Neb was wandering, disconsolate, burdened with the melancholy news of the defection of the miserable jockey, looking, everywhere, for Miss Alathea Layson, but without success. He stopped upon a corner, weary of the search and of the woe ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... stead. The half-wild, adventurous life of the soldier suited him better than the humdrum of the farm. From him, as I have said, I get the dash of Celtic blood in my veins—that almost feminine sensibility and tinge of melancholy that, I think, shows in all my books. That emotional Celt, ineffectual in some ways, full of longings and impossible dreams, of quick and noisy anger, temporizing, revolutionary, mystical, bold in words, timid in action—surely that man is in me, ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... Sophia's last advices; but gradually they became silent, and then a little mournful. "I wonder why it is, father?" asked Charlotte; "I'm not at all tired, and how can fresh air and sunshine make one melancholy?" ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... achievements seemed to be collected there to do honor to his final exit." Although his mind was actively occupied in plans of conquest, he was haunted by gloomy forebodings and superstitious fancies, and endeavored to dispel his melancholy by indulging freely in the pleasures of the table. Excessive drinking at last brought to a crisis a fever which he had probably contracted in the marshes of Assyria, and which suddenly terminated his life in the thirty-third year of his age, and the thirteenth of his reign ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... but not ungracefully fashioned, covered his head, from beneath which, dropping, in natural clusters over his neck and shoulders, a cloud of raven hair escaped. Subsequently, when his face was more fully revealed, it proved to be that of a young man, of dark aspect, and grave, melancholy expression of countenance, approaching even to the stern, when at rest; though sufficiently animated and earnest when engaged in conversation, or otherwise excited. His features were regular, delicately formed, and might be characterized as singularly handsome, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... I know why you think my bearing toward you now is melancholy, father,—because she's with you. And good heavens, father, to tell you the truth, I—it does make me miserable; not because I'm not eager to have your wishes gratified; but I love that girl. If it was some other one, I shouldn't mind at ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... one of those nights to produce melancholy reflections—a night on which a man would be apt to review his past life, and to look into the hidden recesses of his soul to see if conscience could make a coward of him in the loneliness and stillness ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... now choked with sand, and near it are the remains of edifices supposed to have been the magazines. On an adjoining hill are remnants of three temples and two towers, in almost undistinguishable ruin. We left Selinunte with a lasting but melancholy impression, and were reminded ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... there was a dark, handsome boy, with large, melancholy eyes, named George Marshall, who was not only exceedingly attractive in looks but had many other graces. He was a born artist, and could dance, and act, and sing like an angel; and, best of all, he was as good as he was charming. ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... subdued; at times sad; and the poem ends sadly; but all the figures that were positively hideous were shut out of the court, and painted on the outside walls:—Hatred; Felony; Covetousness; Envy; Poverty; Melancholy, and Old Age. Death did not appear. The passion for representing death in its horrors did not belong to the sunny atmosphere of the thirteenth century, and indeed jarred on French taste always, though ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... a melancholy reflection, at the close of a long life, that, after reciting the Psalms at proper seasons, through the greatest part of it, no more should be known of their true meaning and application, than when the Psalter was first taken in hand ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 327, August 16, 1828 • Various
... the singular sequel to this visit. On the succeeding day M. Daguerre paid me a visit to see the Telegraph and witness its operations. He seemed much gratified and remained with me perhaps two hours; two melancholy hours to him, as they afterwards proved; or while he was with me, his buildings, including his diorama, his studio, his laboratory, with all the beautiful pictures I had seen the day before, were consumed by fire. Fortunately for mankind, matter only ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling
... approaching man or beast on which it could fasten and gorge itself fat with blood. Certainly a small station on the face of the Himalayas is not a desirable place of residence during the rains, and to persons of melancholy temperament would be conducive to suicide or murder. Fortunately for themselves the two white men in Ranga Duar took life cheerily and ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... one. Yet this makes us not blame Mr Prior for joining his Alma and his Solomon in the same volume; though that admirable poet has succeeded perfectly well in the gaiety of the one, as well as in the melancholy of the other. Even supposing the reader should peruse these two compositions without any interval, he would feel little or no difficulty in the change of passions: Why, but because he considers these ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... began to become valetudinary; and the hypochondria which tormented him rendered his humor very melancholy. Monsieur Franke, the famous Pietist, founder of the Orphan-house at Halle University, contributed not a little to exaggerate that latter evil. This reverend gentleman entertained the King by raising scruples of conscience about the most innocent matters. He condemned ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... dear goose. Can't you guess, or must I tell you? Sidney and I did the very same, and had just such a melancholy parting last night as I suspect you and Ned ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... contest in favor of the candidate for whom it should pronounce, Marie Antoinette declared for Petion. She knew him to be a Jacobin,[5] but he was so devoid of any reputation for ability that she did not fear him. Nor, except that he had behaved with boorish disrespect and ill-manners during their melancholy return from Varennes, had she any reason for suspecting him of any ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... everything that I have touched has turned to gold, and everyone I have loved,"—he paused, lingering on the word, and again Mollie shivered in sympathetic understanding—"everyone whom I have loved has died!" The wind seemed to take up the word, and repeat it in melancholy echo. "Died! died! died!" wailed the trees, tossing drearily to and fro. "Died!" shivered the ripple over the cold grey lake. The clouds gathered in ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... purpose, and a mere heap of ruins, there was a plan and method in it. It is a history which offers much cause for sorrow and much for joy. Though, as has been before remarked, a period of harrowing doubt in the life of an individual or a nation is a melancholy subject for consideration, yet when it is not induced by immorality, but produced, as in this instance, by the operation of regular causes, and is the result of the attractiveness of new modes of inquiry which invited application to the criticism of old truths, to be accepted or rejected after being ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... this usage is told of Shakespeare. The latter "stood godfather" to the child of a friend; and after the ceremonies of the christening, as the poet seemed much absorbed and serious, the father questioned him as to the cause of his melancholy. The sponsor replied, that he was considering what would be the most suitable gift for him to present to his god-child, and that he had finally decided. "I'll give him," said he, "a dozen good latten spoons, and thou shalt translate them." This was a play upon the word ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... mortals, atrabilious men, beings nourished in melancholy, unceasingly see either nature or its author exasperated against the human race; they suppose that man is the constant object of heaven's wrath; that he irritates it even by his desires: that he renders himself criminal by seeking a felicity which is not made for him: struck ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach |
