"Plaintive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... notice, and I felt uncertain how it was intended to apply. Neither for the moment could I understand why in the world any sane person should ring a bell unless desirous of eliciting a response of some kind. Finally, I decided that it must be a plaintive and exceedingly trustful appeal to the good nature of urchins who might be tempted to ring ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... this should mean, And why that lovely Lady plained so; Perplex'd in thought at that mysterious scene, And doubting if 'twere best to stay or go, I cast mine eyes in wistful gaze around, When from the shades came slow a small and plaintive sound ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... to explain. His narrative was often broken by lapses of concentration during which he reverted to his plaintive mumbling for food and recurrence to the statement that there was a way out; but by firmness and patience the Englishman drew out piece-meal a more or less lucid exposition of the remarkable scheme of evolution that rules ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... those melodies strange, Soft, plaintive, and melting, for ever will sigh; Nor e'er will the notes from their tenderness change; Nor e'er will the music of ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... That, from out the blue waves taken, looks a pebble dull alone. 'For within my heart forever Was a never-dying river, Was a spring of deathless music welling from my deepest soul! And all Nature's deep intonings, Merry songs, and plaintive meanings, Floated softly through my spirit, swelling where those bright waves stole, Till the prisoning walls seemed powerless 'gainst that billowy ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... whiskers come, but who yet gets back from contact with the world, in his shambling way, some fragments of the sense pumped out of him by the forcing Blimbers; breathless Susan Nipper, beaming Polly Toodle, the plaintive Wickham, and the awful Pipchin, each with her duty in the starched Dombey household so nicely appointed as to seem born for only that; simple thoughtful old Gills and his hearty young lad of a nephew; Mr. Toodle and his children, with the charitable grinder's decline and ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... on the very edge of Pevensey Level, the only considerable structure between Pevensey and the main land proper. In the intervening miles there are fields and fields, through which the Old Haven runs, plaintive plovers above them bemoaning their lot, and brown cows tugging at the rich grass. On the first hillock to the right of the castle as one fronts the south, rising like an island from this sea of pasturage, ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... appreciated it as far as goats are capable of appreciation. If she was a little late coming home (she had a tiny shack on one corner of the place) they would be waiting at the gate calling plaintively. There is a plaintive tone about everything a goat has to say. In his cot on the porch J—— composed some verses one morning early—I forget them ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... slackening his pace a little he paused, looking through a tangle of shrubs and bracken at the pale suggestion of a glimmer of blue which he realised was the shining of the sunlit ocean. While he thus stood, he fancied he heard a little plaintive whine as of an animal in pain. He listened attentively. The sound was repeated, and, descending the shelving bank a few steps he sought to discover the whereabouts of this piteous cry for help. All at once he spied two bright sparkling eyes and a small silvery ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... shade, Above, no plaintive rustling made; That moon, that ne'er its orb has fill'd, No pitying, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... the Egyptian corn-reapers to beat their breasts and lament over the first sheaf cut, while at the same time they called upon Isis. The invocation seems to have taken the form of a melancholy chant, to which the Greeks gave the name of Maneros. Similar plaintive strains were chanted by corn-reapers in Phoenicia and other parts of Western Asia. Probably all these doleful ditties were lamentations for the corn-god killed by the sickles of the reapers. In Egypt the slain deity was Osiris, and the name Maneros, ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... consulted could explain them, which may be because the words have become altered in the song, as frequently happens. D[^u]nu[']wa appears to be an old verb, meaning "it has penetrated," probably referring to the tooth of the reptile. These medicine songs are always sung in a low plaintive tone, somewhat resembling a lullaby. Usu[']'g[)i] also is without explanation, but is probably the name of ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... the crocodile, no foundation of fact exists for the belief in such sympathetic exhibitions. But a highly probable explanation may be given of the manner in which such a belief originated. These reptiles unquestionably emit very loud and singularly plaintive cries, compared by some travellers to the mournful howling of dogs. The earlier and credulous travellers would very naturally associate tears with these cries, and, once begun, the supposition would ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... listening, Jude." And so she was. She was listening to the moan in the tree-tops. It sounded like the last plaintive cry her child had made, and ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... he had often heard the busy hum Of industry, and childhood's merry laugh, There came the angry, stern command of one Clothed in a little brief authority, Mingled with earnest pleadings, and the wail Of women's voices, and above them all The plaintive treble of a little child. Thither he turned, and when he reached the spot, The cause of all this sorrow was revealed: One from the king had seized their little all, Their goats and sheep, and e'en the child's pet lamb. But when they saw him they had often watched With reverent awe, as if ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... their notes. The people began to gather about the club. Aunt Stanshy was there on the watch, eager to see if Will Somers might be coming down the street. Tony's voice warbled away. Now it was an exultant note that he touched, and then his voice sank to a plaintive appeal: ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... Lyle, who, having finished their usual reading, were silent for a few moments, looking into the fire and listening to Mike as he sat in his corner, his eyes closed, his head bent lovingly over his violin, while he evoked some of the wild, plaintive airs of ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... the kitchen came a sound of hammering and Tufik's voice lifted in a low, plaintive chant. "He says that song is about the valleys of Lebanon," said Tish miserably. "Lizzie, if you'll eat half of it, I'll eat ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... replenished with the favorite food and her chin rising and falling in gentle motions, little prophecies of the slight distensions which passed down her slender throat with slow, rhythmic regularity. Upon this calm scene came William, plunging round a corner of the house, furious yet plaintive. ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... 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, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... 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
... helpless to the ground Like wreaths of wind-caught snow, Uttering a plaintive, chirping sound, And rise and fall, and know not where ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... Stronger and stronger the plaintive melody fell from his lips, until finally the orchestra itself joined. Women strained forward, and half-dazed men sat back and listened with bated breath. Even Monte forgot for a moment the boldness that inspired Hamilton, and became conscious only ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... There was a hideous edged intonation in the word, like the whine of some plaintive ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... 'round and 'round With heavy sighs of mournful sound, While dismal cries and weary moans Unite with sad and tearful groans, And weeping waves of water throw Afar the echoes of their sadness, And cadences of plaintive woe Dispel each little ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller
... a very particular woman," she said, with plaintive impressiveness to her husband. "If she is willing to send her Gwendolen to Miss Whyte, I am disposed to let Margery, Gladys, and Dorothy go. Only you must have a very clear understanding with Miss Whyte, at the outset, as to hours and ventilation and Gladys's hot milk. We cannot move ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... 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 ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... but if so, it was long ago, and the gentle woman had never been given to matrimonial speculations, and was as fresh and inexperienced as any girl. The black frame in which she was set made her soft colour look fresher and less faded. Her plaintive voice, the general softness of her demeanour, looked harmonious and suitable to her circumstances. Mr Proctor, who had by no means fallen in love with her on account of any remnants of beauty she might possess, had never admired her so much as he did now; he felt confused, good man, ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... there came the strains of "The Blue Danube," fitful, alluring, plaintive—that waltz to which countless lovers have danced and wooed and whispered through the years. Muriel longed intensely to shut it out, to stop her ears, to make some noise to drown it. Her nerves were all on edge, and she felt as if its persistent ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... itself on the floor, shut its eyes, and appeared in ecstasy; I ceased playing, and it instantly disappeared again. This experiment I repeated frequently with the same success, observing that it was always differently affected, as the music varied from the slow and plaintive, to the brisk or lively. It finally went off, and all my art could not entice ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... of her own son Simon, and her grandson George Foster, and little James Eddy, gave us a share of her motherly attention, and tried to feed and comfort us. Affliction and famine, however, had well nigh sapped her strength and by the time those plaintive voices ceased to cry for bread and meat, her willing hands were too weakened ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... walked beside him in profound silence. The moon shone brilliantly; groups of girls danced on the shore with their lovers, to the sound of a flute and mandoline—far off across the bay the sound of sweet and plaintive singing floated from some boat in the distance, to our ears—the evening breathed of beauty, peace and love. But I—my fingers quivered with restrained longing to be at the throat of the graceful liar who sauntered so easily and confidently beside me. Ah! Heaven, if he only knew! If he could ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... rebellious; and, on the other hand, he never knew the wonderfully delicate and furtive and elusive nature that we know; but he knew the sylvan, the pastoral, the rustic-human, as we cannot know them. British birds have nothing plaintive in their songs; and British woods and fells but little that is disorderly and cruel in their expression, or violent in ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... entertainment of his guests. Look at Sarah, that princess as her name signifies, baking cakes upon the hearth. If the servants they had were like Southern slaves, would they have performed such comparatively menial offices for themselves? Hear too the plaintive lamentation of Abraham when he feared he should have no son to bear his name down to posterity. "Behold thou hast given me no seed, &c, one born in my house is mine heir." From this it appears that one of his servants was to inherit his immense estate. Is this like ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke
... though there was no minister or priest at the altar, the service was going on. He could hear a female voice, which appeared to issue from some place in a gallery behind him, out of view, reading what seemed to be verses from the Bible, in a very sweet and plaintive tone, and at the close of each verse all the people in the congregation below would say something ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott
... more fit for story-telling than the more modern tongue. You must try to picture to yourselves Mrs. Schwartz when she was younger and paler, and wore a round white cap and great silver ear-rings, and was in fact a slender, rather pale pretty girl with a plaintive look in her great blue eyes, and a voice soft and low. The story arose from our talking about the fashion of Christmas-trees having been adopted in England, and the recollection of the last Christmas-tree that she had seen at her old home with her former ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... When a complaint is heard from valley near: All now stand listening, to the noise attent; And to that plaintive voice incline their ear, A woman's (as 'twould seem) that makes lament. But I this strain would gladly finish here, And, that I finish it, be ye content: For better things I promise to report, If ye to hear ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... a plaintive negro voice spoke close at hand. "Gawd sakes, Miss Kate, whar you gwine at wif my prize? Huccom you took'n ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... would have added a deal more; but at this point the Lord Chief Justice interposed in a gentle, rather plaintive voice. ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... Those basalt ruins. High on sable towers Some silky patriarchal goat appears And ponders silent streets, or suddenly Some nanny, her huge bag swollen with milk, Trots out on galleries that unfenced run Round vacant courts, there, stopped by plaintive kids, Lets them complete their meal. While always, always, Throughout, those mazed, sullen and sun-soaked walls, The steady, healthy wind, Which often blows for weeks without a lull Across that upland plain, Flutes staidly. ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... his own pleasure, he was playing Chopin! Yes, it made quite a difference in Sam Turner. She was glad that she had decided to wear his roses, glad even that he recognized them. At her solicitation Sam played again the plaintive little air of his own composition—and played it much better than ever he had played it before. Then they walked out on the porch and strolled down toward the bowling shed. Half way there was a little side path, leading off through an arbor into ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... wail of an old Irish peasant in Kerry, Robert Blatchford asked him what he wanted. "The old man leaned upon his spade and looked out across the black peat fields at the lowering skies. 'What is it that I'm wantun?' he said; then in a deep plaintive tone he continued, more to himself than to me, 'All our brave bhoys and dear gurrls is away an' over the says, an' the agent has taken the pig off me, an' the wet has spiled the praties, an' I'm an owld man, an' I ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... 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 ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... his teeth, in Old Testament fashion declaiming, 'I will neither wash nor shave till Tekrit has fallen.' It is unnecessary to say that the vow was kept, and overkept; and not by Fowke alone. At other times he was plaintive and reproachful. We were shelling Tekrit—Tekrit, the Turkish base, where the Turkish hospitals were, and 'the pretty little Turkish nurses.' 'You chaps don't think about these things. You're selfish, and ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... fell on their knees. The music gave out sharp plaintive notes which were answered by the voices of men and women in short, wailing, as it were inquiring, rhythm; this continued till the sun was on the point of disappearance, when music and voices together burst into a sad chant, seemingly of farewell; the ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... castle, with a pavement of soft moonbeams leading up to its doors. The trill of a distant nightingale rippled the scented air; and from the llanos were borne on the warm land breeze low feral sounds, broken now and then by the plaintive piping of a lonely toucan. The cocoa palms throughout the city stirred dreamily in the tempered moonlight; and the banana trees, bending with their luscious burden, cast great, mysterious shadows, wherein insect life rustled and ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... playfully shies at a half-hidden ant-heap; with cat-like agility avoids the dangerous bear-earth; when all seems strong, and young, and full of life; when war is forgotten, until the rocket-bird falls slanting across your path, and its plaintive note calls back to your memory the whine of the Mauser bullet! Yes, it is good to be a soldier. The chances are heavy; but, all ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... like the last breath of evening sighing, Sweep thy cold hand the silent strings along, Flash like the lamp beside the hero dying, Then hushed for ever be thy plaintive song.' ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... in the Wood, And carols loud and strong. A thousand lambs are on the rocks, All newly born! both earth and sky Keep jubilee, and more than all, Those Boys with their green Coronal, They never hear the cry, That plaintive cry! which up the hill Comes from the ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... into his eyes, and on her lips hovered a weak, plaintive, wistful smile, as though she were wishing he could accept the inevitable and take her regard, her gratitude, her good opinion of him and not wed himself to a chimera which would bring only weariness of spirit in return for ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... tone," that has come to be associated with some preachers. It takes various forms, such as an unduly elevated key, a drawling monotone, a sudden transition from one extreme of pitch to another, or a tone of condescension. It is also heard in a plaintive minor inflection, imparting a quality of extreme sadness to a speaker's style. These are all departures from the natural, earnest, sincere, and direct delivery that belongs to the ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... 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, you would now ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... was the plaintive answer. "I don't see why you care, anyway. I think I said it was because he stayed with us and took us ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... children learned to consider it as a pearl beyond all price in the trials that awaited them in their eventful career. To her knowledge of religious truths young Catharine added an intimate acquaintance with the songs and legends of her father's romantic country; often would her plaintive ballads and old tales, related in the hut or the wigwam to her attentive auditors, wile away ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... the only trees are living ones, unless, perchance, an artificial nest entices the resplendent and dashing Flicker to tarry. Many a Bluebird, with its azure coat gleaming in the sunlight, visits the cemetery in early spring. From perch to perch he flies, and in his plaintive note can be detected the {233} question that every bird asks of his mate: "Where shall we find a place for our nest?" In the end he flies away. Therefore when the roses and lilies bloom the visitor is deprived of the Bluebird's cheery ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... Mysticism was so little human, soared at such heights far from our mire, that no sovereign aid could be expected from it. He ended by falling back on the "Imitation," in which Mysticism, placed within the reach of the crowd, was like a trembling and plaintive friend who stanched your wounds within the cells of its chapters, prayed and wept with you, and in any case compassionated ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... of a boy, was shoving his boat into the water. The furled sail trembled aloft on the mast. Jaime did not accept the invitation. "Many thanks, Tio Ventolera!" The old fisherman insisted in his puny voice, which, wafted in on the wind, sounded like the plaintive crying of a child. The afternoon was fine; the wind had changed; they would catch fish in abundance near the Vedra. Febrer shrugged his shoulders. No, no, many thanks; he ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... had risen at nightfall, and it came softly across the snow, and tried the doors and windows as with a furtive hand. She could hear it coming as from an immense distance, passing with a sigh, returning plaintive, homeless, forlorn, to whisper round ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... denying to a man that which he did not or could not desire? In the sixth book of his AEneid (426-429) the gentle Virgil makes us hear the plaintive voices and sobbing of the babes who weep ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... was lost. For a few minutes the progenitor emptied his ancient lungs of some further moribund intimations of tone. Later came another protest, truly plaintive: ...
— A Cathedral Singer • James Lane Allen
... ruffled the bushy hair that grew on his almost browless head. "Once," he agreed dolefully. "Now I—many thing I don't remember." His face, flat-nosed and blubber-lipped, grew bleak and plaintive as he gazed upon ...
— The Devil's Asteroid • Manly Wade Wellman
... also, could see her head silhouetted against the stars, for he called up to her in a plaintive voice that he was bleeding to death and ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... mournfully, at her friend, and then stooping down she folded her in her arms, and pressed a kiss upon her lips. For a short time, no sound was audible save the sobbing of the maidens. At last the Indian spoke, in a plaintive tone. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... shot!" he burst out suddenly, with a plaintive twang. Then he grinned. The boy still in him had prompted the absurdity. And the rough warrior had laughed at it. Boy and warrior faced each other, either surprised that the other existed. The boy flushed resentfully at the veteran's ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... of the laughing jackass, (or settler's clock, as he is called,) as he takes up his roost on the withered bough of one of our tallest trees, acquaints us that the sun has just dipped behind the hills, and that it is time to trudge homewards; while the plaintive notes of the curlew, and the wild and dismal screechings of the flying squirrel, skimming from branch to branch, whisper us to retire to our bedchambers. In the morning, again, the dull monotonous double ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 271, Saturday, September 1, 1827. • Various
... summer day in 1818, Thomas Hughes was riding horseback through Trumbull county. The dust on the highway deadened the sound of his horse's feet. While passing a log cabin, half hidden from the road by intervening trees and shrubs, he heard the plaintive voice of a woman who was in the garden, out of sight. The clergyman stopped his horse and listened. He heard the woman earnestly praying that some way might be opened for her children to obtain such education as should fit them for the duties of life. Riding on, the clergyman inquired ...
— A History of the McGuffey Readers • Henry H. Vail
... against the mantelpiece, looked frowningly before him, as if he were unconscious of the fact that she had taken her handkerchief out of her muff, and was pressing it to her cheeks and eyes. But in reality he was painfully alive to every one of her movements, and expected a plaintive rejoinder to his accusations. But none came. The silence irritated him, as it had formerly irritated him with Lesley. He was obliged at last to ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... a cry; there was nothing plaintive in it. It was only the old man calling his son: David calling upon Absalom. Then there was a ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... mastered her anger, and answered in a melancholy, plaintive tone, "Ah, good sister Anna! I had a miserable toothache, so that I could not sleep, and I just crept down here into the fresh air, thinking it might do me good. But what are you all doing here by night ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... men. It proved to be the party, for they heard a low growling imprecation from Green as he stumbled over some object. Garry nudged Fernald, and immediately felt two sharp taps on his shoulder. At once he imitated the plaintive hoo-o-o- hoo-o-o- ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... still faithful to their old costume, wrapped in kaftans, and charming young ladies, with Tacticos on their heads, and their beautiful figures, which no stays had ever tortured, draped in half-oriental costumes. Native music, soft and plaintive, sounded, as we would watch Mademoiselles Peiser, Athanaso, Fonton, Tricon, &c., dance the Romaika. Nothing exists, nowadays, of what was so seductive then. The Orient has kept its sunshine and its colouring, but that horrible cosmopolitanism has invaded everything. Everywhere ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... lecture of his upon Burns full of favorite quotations and sound criticisms." His musical tastes, says Mr. Brooks, who knew him well, "were simple and uncultivated, his choice being old airs, songs, and ballads, among which the plaintive Scotch songs were best liked. 'Annie Laurie,' 'Mary of Argyle,' and especially 'Auld Robin Gray,' never lost their charm for him; and all songs which had for their theme the rapid flight of time, decay, the ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... a little grave. He was no anarchist. A few plaintive cries against Mrs. Elliot were all ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... love of horses. As a wonderful pendant to this riding exploit, Borrow tells the tale of the Irish smith who, by a magical word, which thrilled the boy, absolutely maddened the cob, until the wizard soothed it by uttering another word "in a voice singularly modified, but sweet and almost plaintive." ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... it 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 as if they would never stop, as if there ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... in, and still she sat and waited. At last a traveller approached. The thick snow muffled every sound, and she was not aware of his coming until his burly figure loomed before her. Her plaintive voice made him turn with ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... rose, and tears came to her eyes. 'Oh, then you are glad when I'm gone!' She pouted. 'You don't care for me a bit, Vincy,' she said, in a plaintive voice. ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... 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 desolated mate, Dear Cherry, will our haw-bush seek, Joyful, and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... 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 answered each ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... sang, the harpers harped, but something was wanting; they brought tears to the eyes of the fair queen by their plaintive songs of hapless lovers, which had superseded alike the war songs of Athelstane and ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... a difference between the soft, insinuating tones of persuasion; the full, strong voice of command and decision; the harsh, irregular, and sometimes grating explosion of the sounds of passion; the plaintive notes of sorrow and pity; and the equable and unimpassioned flow of ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... it was only for form's sake, and that he himself no longer meant what he said. Madame Desvarennes received this plaintive remonstrance with a calm smile, and answered, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... ferry we had a walk of half a mile, more or less, to a cottage, where we found another young girl, whose business it is to show the Abbey. She was of another mould than the ferry-maiden,—a queer, shy, plaintive sort of a body,—and answered all our questions in a low, wailing tone. Passing through an apple-orchard, we were not long in reaching the Abbey, the ruins of which are much more extensive and more picturesque than those of Melrose, being ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... And I began to be embarrassed in my turn, which embarrassment was only increased by her breaking out in a plaintive tone— ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... burn through all the nights. Unknown Egyptians, graving hieroglyphs; Hindus, with hymn and apothegm and endless epic; Hebrew prophet, with spirituality, as in flames of lightning, conscience like red- hot iron, plaintive songs and screams of vengeance for tyrannies and enslavement; Christ, with bent head, brooding love and peace, like a dove; Greek, creating eternal shapes of physical and aesthetic proportion; Roman, lord of satire, the sword, and the codex,—of the ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... vigorously using a long plane on some red deal boards, his feet buried in beautifully curled shavings, and the whole place redolent of the delicious scent of turpentine. Every time his plane travelled along the edge, to my childish fancy, the board said in plaintive tones of remonstrance, in crescendo, his name, "Snewin, Snewin," and again, "SNEWIN," and even now the scent and action of planing a deal board always brings back the ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... filled my hat with her choicest treasures. A litter of pigs scampered away, wedging themselves into a hole in the wall, and hung there kicking and squealing, while their indignant mother chased me up a ladder where she hurled at me the vilest imprecations; a solitary Phoebe bird wailed out her plaintive "pee wee, pee wee, pee whi itt," and a newly-married pair of sandpipers chanted their song of the sea on the edge of a mud puddle in ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... a dash of piquancy, is aggravated by smallpox marks, which seam his face. His forehead is very prominent, and the shaggy eyebrows meet, giving a repellent air of harshness. There is a frowning, plaintive look on his face, reminding one of a sickly child, which owes its life to superhuman care, as Sister Marthe did. As my father observed, his features are a shrunken reproduction of those of Cardinal Ximenes. The natural dignity of our tutor's ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... "Come away, Death," in the Shakespearian Illyria. 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. I could have asked the bell-ringer for his blessing, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... birth, had grown pale. His mother was the first to rise, but heedless of her entreaties he lay still, bewildered by the increasing light. Animals, however, have their own ways of teaching their little ones, and on the dam's first pretense of deserting him he found his voice, and uttering a plaintive cry, struggled to his feet, which caused his mother ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... too, of romance. It might be a garden of Allah, with a plaintive Arab flute singing, among the orange trees, of the wars and the hot passions of the desert. It might be a court in Seville or Granada, with guitars tinkling and lace gleaming among the cool arcades. It is a place ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... astonishment to the exquisite sounds that he drew from the instrument. There was a plaintive, insistent appeal in his music that was like the pleading of a human voice. It was a pathetic cry ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... prices!" sighed a plaintive feminine voice from the other side of the table. "Have ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... somewhere, which had kept him for weeks on salt meat and biscuit, until it gave him the "scurvy," for he is very anxious that I should take over plenty of vegetables, of every sort. "And, oh! mother!"—and it is strange to hear his almost plaintive tone as he urges this—"take them plenty of eggs, mother; we never saw eggs ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... stables. The acrobats were dismissed. The guests went rapidly to an inspection of the carriages and horses. They were glad to escape. Jeneka, crushed in spirit and shamed at the brazen performance of her sister, began a plaintive conjecture as to "what people would say," when Kalora turned upon her such a tigerish glance that she fairly ran for her apartment, although she was too corpulent for actual sprinting. Mrs. Plumston remained behind as ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... While the bearded surf, tossed by the breeze, Vaunts on the hills as the sun-bow, Looks on the crystal stream Makaweli, And in the wildwood makes her abode With Hinahina of silvern wreaths. 15 Koaea's a speck to the eye, Under the low-hanging rain-cloud, Woodland home of the plaintive o-o. ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... that gay, cheery openness of heart which we love so well to meet,—she was yet the Winnie Santon of days which had known no lowering skies, the singing bird of a June morning,—save that an occasional plaintive note, breathed out upon youth's freshness of ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... friendly robin redbreast—not the American thrush that is called a robin, but the smaller Old World warbler. It had its nest of grass and moss and feathers, and many a silver hair shed by Bobby, low in a near-by thorn bush. In sweet and plaintive talking notes it told its little dog companion all about the babies that had left the nest and the new brood that would soon be there. On the morning of that wonderful day of the Grand Leddy's first coming, Bobby and the redbreast had a pleasant ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... first I thought that the noise I heard was the reverberation of the echo of the blows of the wooden shoes against the edges of the crevasse, but suddenly a frightful din filled my ears: successive firings of cannons, strident ringings, crackings of a whip, plaintive howls, and repeated monotonous cries as of a hundred fishermen drawing up a net filled with fish, sea-weed, and pebbles. All the noises mingled under the mad violence of the wind. I became furious with myself, for ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... have not joined these mutinous scoundrels, sir?" cried the captain, and his voice sounded quite plaintive. ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... the regular footfall of thousands of men walking together to defend the frontiers over the resounding soil of their country, the plaintive notes of women, the wailing of children, the neighing of horses, the hissing of flames as they devoured palaces and huts; then gloomy strokes of vengeance, striking again and again with the hatchet, and immolating the enemies of the people, and the ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... Japanese are an interesting class. They are trained at government cost to give massage treatment, and no others are allowed to practice. These blind nurses, male and female, go about the streets in care of an attendant, playing a plaintive tune on a little reed whistle in offer of their services. The treatment is delightful, the sensation is wholly new, and is most restful and invigorating ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... not put himself in the way of meeting Miss Ludlow, though she did send him two rather plaintive notes. Early in June, the marriage took place; and the bride's trousseau was quite magnificent, if it was not made in Paris. Mrs. Nicoll was delighted with what she termed her grandniece's good sense, and gave her a handsome ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... intellect, and possessed of a correct literary taste, Goldie afforded excellent promise of eminence as a journalist. As a poet and song-writer, a rich vein of humour pervades certain of his compositions, while others are marked by a plaintive tenderness. Of sociable and generous dispositions, he was much esteemed by a circle of admiring friends. His personal appearance was pleasing, and his countenance wore ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... were beneath his arm, from which, as he walked, he blew those deep and plaintive sounds which have done much to imprint upon the characters of those who hear them a melancholy and ...
— Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... that part of the Duke's residence open on certain occasions to the curious public. Edith had declined to accompany them. In the first place, she was expecting the all-important message from her husband—she was "on nettles," to quote her plaintive eagerness; in the second place, she realised that as the crisis was at hand in the affairs of Brock and Constance, her presence was not a necessary adjunct. Not only was she expecting a message from Roxbury, but eagerly anticipating an outburst of joyous news from the two ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... discharged a rush of air with a vast creasing of their dusty leather. A procession of men were wheeling and dumping slag into a dreary area beyond. There was a stir of constant life about the Furnace, voices calling, the ringing of metal on metal, the creak of barrows, dogs barking. The plaintive melody of a German song rose on ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... plaintive, seldom consisting of more than one strain. He commences slowly, as if repeating the syllable, de de de de de de d' d' d' d' d' d' d' r' r' r',—increasing in rapidity, and at the same time rising as it were by semi-tones, or chromatically, to about a major fourth on the scale. In midsummer, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... a monotonous fashion or else recited outright. Chappell, in his admirable work on old English music ('Music of the Olden Time,' ii. 790), names a third class of "characteristic airs of England,"—the "historical and very long ballads, ... invariably of simple construction, usually plaintive.... They were rarely if ever used for dancing." Most of the longer ballads, however, were doubtless given by one person in a sort of recitative; this is the case with modern ballads of Russia and Servia, where the bystanders now and then join in a chorus. Precisely ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... and simple, a little plaintive also; and Charlotte sang it with a low, sweet monotony that recalled, one knew not how or why, the cool fragrance of the hillside, and the scent of wild flowers ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... in a voice unlike her usual tones, so plaintive was it, and so soft, 'I was not the thing that I am now. I loved, ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... name was Hafizeh) and said to her, "O Hafizeh, close thine 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 sang ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... Vesey, laughing; but, continuing my search for you, came suddenly upon a queer bit of architecture, a many-sided sort of landing wherefrom there were three staircases and three landings; which was I to choose? I was meditating, when from the wall close beside me proceeded a most plaintive wail, rather, on my honour, like an infantine donkey. I listened going close to the wall, when I discovered the mellifluous accents proceeded from the throat of the missing giant, Sir Tilton. I put my ear to the wall and told the poor boy ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... long I remained in a sort of painful drowsiness. My heart suffered as much as my flesh. Warm tears ran slowly down my cheeks. Amidst the nightmare that accompanied the fever, I heard a moan similar to the continuous plaintive cry of a child in suffering. At times, I awoke and stared at the ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... 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 coming, Watch for me at dawn of ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... from which we have made some extracts, contain numerous poetical compositions worthy of being presented to the public. A vein of humour pervades the majority of his verses; in the elegiac strain he is eminently plaintive. He is remembered as a man of excellent dispositions and eminent social qualities: he sung with grace the songs of his country, and delighted in humorous conversation. His elder brother was proprietor of Garnkirk, and his son, who bore the same Christian ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... of men, with emaciated forms and faces, and coarse, squalid attire, who looked like the most abject paupers, and seemed the lowest in the land. As the Kohen reached the summit there arose a strange sound—a mournful, plaintive chant, which seemed to be sung chiefly by the paupers at the base of the pyramid. The words of this chant I could not make out, but the melancholy strain affected me in spite of myself. There was no particular tune, and nothing like harmony; but the effect of so many voices uniting in ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... move through the secret channels and breathe balm into the forest. Snow lay heavily upon the lower boughs and they broke, instead of bending. When Spring danced through the world again, piping her plaintive music upon the farthest hills, ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... properly introduced. The strong declamatory, and, as it were, shrieking sound, met the ear from far, and called forth the attention; the quickly succeeding transitions, which necessarily required to be sung in a lower tone, seemed like plaintive strains succeeding the vociferations of emotion or of pain. The other, who listened attentively, immediately began where the former left off, answering him in milder or more vehement notes, according as the purport of the strophe required. The sleepy canals, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... in imagination a certain graceful Chilean maiden, wrapped in her great black veil like the ladies of the Calderonian theater, showing only one of her dark and liquid eyes, pale and slender, speaking in a plaintive voice. ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... bunch of blossoms that was in her hand as she came on board still shedding its pungent odors round her as the blossoms died—strange wild songs that she had learned in the two years of her tropic life; ancient and plaintive Spanish airs; Moorish songs whose savage tunes were sweet as the honey of the rocks; wild and mournful Indian airs that the Spaniards might have heard in those Caribbean islands when first they burst upon ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... chant their artless notes in simple guise; They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim: Perhaps Dundee's wild warbling measures rise Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name, Or noble Elgin beats the heav'nward flame, The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays. Compared with these, Italian trills are tame; The tickl'd ears no heart-felt raptures raise; Nae unison hae ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... superstition, which exercise a constant influence on human affairs. The poems are often recited, but most frequently sung to the music of a rude kind of guitar. The bard chants two lines, then he pauses and gives a few plaintive strokes on his instrument; then he chants again, and so on. While in Slavic poetry generally the musical element is prominent, in the Servian it is completely subordinate. Even the lyric poetry is in a high degree monotonous, and is chanted rather ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... has been using the dagger and the shield given him by the friendly magician, now makes use of an instrument—a lyre—which he has brought with him, and the meaning of which he had not yet understood. To the sounds of this instrument he now expresses his plaintive moans, his remorse, and his overpowering longing for his enchanted queen. The stone is moved by the magic of his love: the beloved one is released. Fairyland with all its marvels opens its portals, and the mortal learns that, owing to his former ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... endless night, to be lying at anchor close under that black coast! The agitated water made snarling sounds all round the ship. At times a wild gust of wind out of a gully high up on the cliffs struck on our rigging a harsh and plaintive note like the wail of a ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... reconcile one's self to the idea of the cool and sedate Washington, the great champion of American liberty, a woe-worn lover in his youthful days, 'sighing like a furnace,' and inditing plaintive verses about the groves of Mount Vernon. We are glad of an opportunity, however, of penetrating to his native feelings, and finding that under his studied decorum and reserve he had a heart of flesh throbbing with the warm impulses of ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... when from the Generalife I looked over the valley, the Generalife in which are mingled perhaps more admirably than anywhere else in Andalusia all the charm of Arabic architecture, of running water, and of cypress trees, of purple flags and dark red roses. It is a spot, indeed, fit for the plaintive creatures of poets to sing their loves, for Paolo and Francesca, for Juliet and Romeo; and I am glad that there I enjoyed such ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... a general disaffection excessive. On the other hand, it remains true that after four general actions, with superior numbers on the part of the French, under a chief of the skill and ardor of Suffren, the English squadron, to use his own plaintive expression, "still existed;" not only so, but had not lost a single ship. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that of a French naval writer: "Quantity disappeared before quality."[175] It is immaterial whether the defect was due ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... their age had roamed. He remembered all the brooks and ponds and the groves that produced the best hickory nuts. When should he see them again and would his father be there, and Dick, and all the other boys of their age! Not all! Certainly not all, because some were gone already. And yet this plaintive note of the homes they had left behind, while it brought a tear to many an eye, made no decrease in martial determination. It merely hardened their resolution to win the victory all the sooner, and bring the homecoming ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... tide of devotion brought forth the most influential of the products of all the mystics, the Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis. [Sidenote: Thomas a Kempis, c. 1380-1471] Written in a plaintive minor key of {33} resignation and pessimism, it sets forth with much artless eloquence the ideal of making one's personal life approach that of Christ. Humility, self-restraint, asceticism, patience, solitude, love of Jesus, prayer, and a diligent use of the sacramental ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... arrangement for clavier) into parts of the church cantata, Wir muessen durch viel Truebsal in das Reich Gottes eingehen. In both movements the violin is replaced by the organ an octave lower, the orchestral accompaniment remaining where it was. This treatment, with the addition of new and plaintive parts for wind instruments, turns the already very long and sombre first movement into an impressive idealization of the "much tribulation" that lies between us and the kingdom of heaven. The slow movement ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... end of a week the patient was able to leave his bed for the first time. He was lying, comfortably pillowed, on a sofa, listening to the plaintive Miserere of the bleak March winds and the muffled sound of tramping feet in the street below for it was about six in the evening, and New York was going home from work. He had a bright fire and the added cheer of a couple ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... upon those familiar features, and reads in them a mother's love and kindness, what scenes of home-life rise upon the troubled thought, and what echoes of love come through the lapse of years from the old homestead, touching all the fires of her soul, and causing them to thrill with plaintive sadness and with painful joy. What mementoes of a sad, yet pleasing memory are found in the chamber of bereavement, where death has done his work; the empty chair; the garments laid by; playthings idly scattered there;—these are pictures upon which the eye of memory ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... poetic faults in which he does not indulge, to their very highest power—in spite of his "interfluous" and "innumerous," and the rest of his bad English—in spite of bombast, horrors, maundering, sheer stuff and nonsense of all kinds, there is a plaintive natural melody about this man, such as no other English poet has ever uttered, except Shakespeare in some few immortal songs. Who that has read Shelley does not recollect scraps worthy to stand ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... impetuosity beneath the narrow arches to meet the sea, close at hand, as the boom of the billows breaking distinctly upon a beach declared. There were songs upon the river from the fisher-barks; and occasionally a chorus, plaintive and wild, such as I had never heard before, the words of which I did not understand, but which, at the present time, down the long avenue of years, seem in memory's ear to sound like 'Horam, coram, dago.' Several robust fellows were near me, some knee-deep in water, employed in ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... practised some plaintive, invalid glances into the mirror. But on a sudden there came a little sharp inquisitive frown as she looked over the frame of the glass, upon the terrace beneath. It was only a glance, and she sat down languidly in her arm-chair ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... said in his plaintive voice, and imperfect English, "that I have the honor to introduce myself to ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... civilization. Their ears were no less disagreeably occupied than their eyes. The pensive travellers might indeed hear the screams of the raven, as if lamenting the decay of the carnage on which he had been gorged; and now and then the plaintive howl of some dog, deprived of his home and master; but no sounds which argued either labour or ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... o'clock the next morning Philip Harris's big touring car drew up in front of the striped awning; it gave a little plaintive honk—and stood still. Achilles came to the door with swift look. He turned back to the shop. "I go," he said to Alcibiades, and stepped across the ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee
... drawn blinds, having a quiet cry, and going into all her grievances. To see such a serene creature all clouded over and full of tears, gave the Curate a distinct shock of alarm and anxiety. He led her back to her sofa, seeing clearer and clearer, as he watched her face, the plaintive lines of complaint, the heavy burden of trouble which she was about to cast on his shoulders. He grew more and more afraid as he looked at her. "Is Gerald ill?" he said, with a thrill of terror; but even this could scarcely account for the woeful look of ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... show an occasional reminiscence of youthful fire. The eyebrows are habitually lifted,—a result, possibly, of the growing infirmity of Mr. MacGentle's vision; but it produces an expression of half-plaintive resignation, which is rendered pathetic by the wrinkles across his forehead and the dejected lines about his ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... guest rolled over, 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 ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... practice of his art. Travellers taking their road by night, and in calm weather, from Bertsdorf to Hoernitz or over the Breitenberg to Gross-schoenau were arrested by the exquisite strains, now touchingly plaintive, now joyously merry, that poured from Klaus's magical instrument; and many a happy soul, allured by the enchanting melody, lingered within sound of it, until wholly subdued and rendered powerless by awe and superstitious ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... this, I shall endeavour, in that which is before us, to spare you the spectacles that degrade, and the plaintive severity that agitates and wearies. The judgment I call for is in the conscience, not upon the lips, for ourselves, and not for display. "Man," says Taine, "is a wild beast, carnivorous by nature, and delighting in blood." That cruel speech is ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... so plaintive, so full of tears, that Hester could not but yearn towards the speaker. She bent over and kissed her cheek, and then clambered unaided down by the wheel on the dark side of the cart. Wistfully she longed for one word of thanks or recognition from Philip, ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... upon the door as a child might do with his finger nails. Suddenly a face appeared behind the glass of the peep-window, a white face with eyes shining like those of the cat tribe. A sound was heard, an indistinct plaintive murmur. ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... air had grown heavy and still, and a strange, sad hush brooded over everything; while the bare branches upon the trees appeared to droop, and the one or two birds that had perched upon them uttered low, plaintive little sounds that ...
— Dreamland • Julie M. Lippmann
... or of his surroundings was lost. With eyes half closed and dreamy he began to play, without effort, almost mechanically, but with the deft touch of a master hand, while liquid harmonies filled the room, quivering, rising, falling; at times low, plaintive, despairing; then swelling exultantly, only to die away in tremulous, minor undertones. The man's pent-up feelings had at last found expression,—his alternate hope and despair, his unutterable loneliness and ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... rusty, worn-out cabin sat a broken-hearted leaser, His singlejack was resting on his knee. His old "buggy" in the corner told the same old plaintive tale, His ore had left in all his poverty. He lifted his old singlejack, gazed on its battered face, And said: "Old boy, I know we're not to blame; Our gold has us forsaken, some other path it's taken, But I still believe we'll ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... Alessandro. The woman I loved yesterday was a big splendid wench with cheeks like apples. It is not desirable that women should be so large. All women should be little creatures that fear you. They should have thin, plaintive voices, and in shrinking from you be as slight to the touch as a cobweb. It is not possible to love a woman ardently unless you comprehend how easy it would be to ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... A plaintive growl and a pathetic wag was all the answer he could make to these tender inquiries; for never would the story of his wrongs be known, and never could the glory of his doggish beauty be restored. Betty was trying to comfort him with pats and praises, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... My goddess-mother pointing out the way, As Fate commanded. Now scarce seven remain, Wave-worn and shattered by the tempest's strain. Myself, a stranger, friendless and unknown, From Europe driven and Asia, roam in vain The wilds of Libya"—Then his plaintive tone No more could Venus ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... was made by the researches of Mr. Malone. Dr. Burney describes Clarke as excelling in the tender and plaintive, to which he was prompted by a temperament of natural melancholy. In the agonies which arose from an unfortunate attachment, he committed suicide in July 1707. See a full account of the catastrophe in Malone's "Life ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... back to the old days, and the ride through the woods along the Sycamore that Sunday night in July came to him, with all its fragrance and stillness and sweetness. He recalled that they came into the prairie just as the meadow-lark was crying its last plaintive twilight trill, and the western sky was glowing with a rim of gold upon the tips of the clouds. The beauty of the prairie and the sky and the calm of the evening entered into their hearts, and they were silent. Then they left the prairie and went into the woods again, on the river road. And ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... of life I was witnessing. Everything seemed pitched in a minor key, save now and then there swelled forth splendid notes of manly heroism and womanly courage, as boldly contrasting with the dead level of life as do the full rich notes of Wagner's grandest strains with the plaintive melody of a simple ballad sung by a shepherd lad. I was accompanied in this instance by the Rev. Walter Swaffield, of the Bethel Mission, and his assistant, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... pleasant succession; Mary Sylvester's name gradually ceased to be heard on all sides from her mourning cronies, who at first accompanied every camp activity with a plaintive chorus of, "Remember the way Mary used to do this," or "Oh, I wish Mary were here to enjoy this," or "Mary had planned to do this the first chance she got," and so on. Life in camp was so packed full of enjoyment for those who remained behind that it was impossible to go on missing ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... mite there was as pretty as any of Raphael's angels. The tiny head was bandaged for water on the brain; and it was suffering with acute bronchitis too, and made from time to time a plaintive, though not impatient or complaining, little sound. The smooth curve of the cheeks and of the chin was faultless in its condensation of infantine beauty, and the large bright eyes were most lovely. It happened ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... the plaintive grief of the Rev. Mr. Muirson, who has come from the established church of England to make proselytes from the established churches of Connecticut. He writes to the "S. P. G.," without a thought of casting any ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... and the air was full of their soft, quivering light, for the moon was late and had not risen as yet. As I stepped from the inn door, somebody in the tap-room struck up "Tom Bowling" in a rough but not unmusical voice; and the plaintive melody seemed somehow to become part of ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... offences as told b his contemporaries does not assign to him so innocuous a diversion as staring across the meeting-house, but the account is quite as amusing as his own plaintive and deeply ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... sing at night. He sang, not like a singer who knows he has listeners, but as the birds sing to God, the Father of all, feeling it as necessary as walking or stretching himself. His singing was tender, sweet, plaintive, almost feminine, in keeping with his serious countenance. When, after some weeks of captivity his beard had grown again, he seemed to have got rid of all that was not his true self, the borrowed face which his soldiering life had given him, and to have become, as ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... of 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 ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... children looked at one another in a shamefaced way, and then, without a word of objection or explanation, they began to sing as with one voice, the most plaintive song that ever was heard. It ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... She was just nineteen when she was married—she was not twenty when you were born—she was just twenty when they buried her. Oh! I did not think of myself only, but of her, when I heard the saintly youth breathe that plaintive prayer, 'Draw them to thee, for they wearily labor: they are heavily laden, gracious Father! oh, give ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... for its million pulses, the beat of its great heart, and the terrific symphony of its soul, have you ever picked out from its orchestra the plaintive rune of the ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... one occasion, Nance's undiscriminating projectile elicited from the darkness a plaintive "Moo!" which came, she knew, from her favourite calf Jeanetton, who had broken her tether in the field and sought companionship in the road, and had followed her doubtfully, stopping whenever she stopped, and so received the punishment intended ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... the hoarse, plaintive cry. He looked unwillingly up. Monty was standing over him with white, twitching ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim |
