"Maudeline" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the women with whom he was best acquainted, his reflections on their old age, in all their harrowing pathos, shall remain in the original for me. Horace has disgraced himself to something the same tune; but what Horace throws out with an ill-favoured laugh, Villon dwells on with an almost maudlin whimper. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... thought in all ages. John Bunyan was so profane that the most vicious would cross the street to avoid him. The gospel made him one of the holiest of men. His Pilgrim's Progress has been translated into hundreds of languages, and read by millions. John G. Woolley was a maudlin drunkard, intent on taking his own life,—friends, money, character, and reputation lost,—but was converted and preached, with burning eloquence, the gospel of temperance and prohibition around ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... now quite yearned towards him. He talked about love and sentiment in a manner which made me recollect that I was in love myself; and you know that when a man is in that condition, his taste is not very refined, any maudlin trash of prose or verse appearing sublime to him, provided it correspond, in some degree, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a little bit maudlin about that farm, Mr. Headman, and it will do you good to get away for a few days. There are some other things in life, though I admit they are few, and we are not to forget them. I am up to my ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... of the flood of dreary stuff from London and Paris, and all the talk of German militarism, and what is to become of it at the hands of such immaculately unmilitary apostles of peace and international righteousness and treaty observances as Russia, France, and England, and all the maudlin denunciations of the German Nietzsche and Bernhardi, and the terrible Kaiser, could anything be more refreshing than Shaw's advent in the field of current ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... every occasion. Nothing could be said or done without eliciting a spark from him; and I solemnly declare I have heard much worse wit even from noblemen. His jokes, it must be confessed, were rather wet, but they suited the circle in which he presided. The company were in that maudlin mood when a little wit goes a great way. Every time he opened his lips there was sure to be a roar, and sometimes before he ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... the arms of her husband. "As for the cruel scandal that seems to have hurt you both so much, those who said it did not know you as a couple. In all our intercourse with you, we never had a doubt as to your being comfortable together. I know there are some maudlin ladies who insinuate, when a man leaves his family frequently, no matter how noble is his object, that he is not comfortable at home. But we can afford to smile at this, and say, ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... I had taken to walk to and from the basin appeared to have sufficed the carousers to drink themselves well on toward a condition of oblivion; for when I again reached the beach opposite the ship, the singing had subsided into an occasional maudlin howl that, in its turn, soon afterwards yielded to the stupefying effects of the liquor, and a dead silence fell upon ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... driveling; blatant, babbling; vacant; sottish; bewildered &c.475. blockish[obs3], unteachable Boeotian, Boeotic; bovine; ungifted, undiscerning[obs3], unenlightened, unwise, unphilosophical[obs3]; apish; simious[obs3]. foolish, silly, senseless, irrational, insensate, nonsensical, inept; maudlin. narrow-minded &c. 481; bigoted &c. (obstinate) 606; giddy &c. (thoughtless) 458; rash &c. 863; eccentric &c. (crazed) 503. [Applied to actions] foolish, unwise, injudicious, improper, unreasonable, without reason, ridiculous, absurd, idiotic, silly, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... servitor in the coffee-house, and had gotten locked up in the room and could not escape. He had taken refuge in a corner at a deserted table, and, sitting unnoticed, was solacing himself with what was left of a bowl of punch. A sense of not altogether maudlin pity came upon me, and I went over and sat down beside him. No one took any heed of us. The air was heavy with pipe-smoke, oaths, mad catches of song, clink of glasses, and rattle of dice noisily cast, with here and there a toast cried; so that it was hard to see for the smoke, or to hear ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... o'er thy dust let there be spent The gush of maudlin sentiment; Such drift as that is not for thee, Whose life and deeds and songs agree, Sublime ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... booming through the Golden Gate, and my pulses leaped for joy. I hurried back to that door and glanced in. Alas, there was small room for hope—Backus's eyes were heavy and bloodshot, his sweaty face was crimson, his speech maudlin and thick, his body sawed drunkenly about with the weaving motion of the ship. He drained another glass to the dregs, whilst the cards were ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... thanks," replied his friend, grasping Sammy's hand, and looking at him with that fixed and glassy gaze which indicates the happy state of inebriety, termed maudlin; "I know you're a sincere friend, and there ain't nobody as I value more: man and boy have I knowed you; you're unchanged! you're the same!! there ain't no difference!!! and I hope you may live many years to go a-fishing, ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... hunchback having failed to drink Peppers maudlin, was now deliberately provoking a fight. The bloated face of ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... your superior in force of mind and force of body. Don't you like to hear that? Doesn't it do you good—when you think of the maudlin humbug generally talked by men to women? We can't afford to disguise that truth. All the same, we are friends, because each has the other's interest at heart, and each would be ashamed to ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... States consul at Buenas Tierras, was not yet drunk. It was only eleven o'clock; and he never arrived at his desired state of beatitude—a state wherein he sang ancient maudlin vaudeville songs and pelted his screaming parrot with banana peels—until the middle of the afternoon. So, when he looked up from his hammock at the sound of a slight cough, and saw the Kid standing in the door of the consulate, he was still in a condition to extend the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... as false as it is mawkish. Did the sentimentalists, at first so horrified at her action, really suppose that the service which in the end they were compelled to admire could ever have been accomplished by a soft and maudlin being such as their imagination created, all brimming eyes and heartfelt sighs, angelic draperies and white-winged shadows that hairy soldiers turned ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... to see this great humorist's works put forward in a popular form, and at a price exceedingly low. A man may be very much injured by perusing maudlin sentimental tales, but cannot be hurt, though he may be shocked every now and then, by reading works of sound sterling humor, like the greater part of these, full of benevolence, practical wisdom, and generous ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... was his good-humored yet firm determination, perhaps it was his resigned philosophy, but something in the speaker's manner affected Mr. Byers's alcoholic susceptibility, and hastened his descent from the passionate heights of intoxication to the maudlin stage whither he was drifting. The fire of his red eyes became filmed and dim, an equal moisture gathered in his throat as he pressed Abner's hand with drunken fervor. "Thash so! your thinking o' me an' Mish Byersh is like troo ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... please, as you please," said the mate, turning away. "I will give you another hour to indulge your fancy, but I have no maudlin feelings of that sort." ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... any dairy-maid. Tusser frequently speaks of the "dairy-maid Cisley," and in April Husbandry tells Ciss she must carefully keep these ten guests from her cheeses: Gehazi, Lot's wife, Argus, Tom Piper, Crispin, Lazarus, Esau, Mary Maudlin, Gentiles and bishops. (1)Gehazi, because a cheese should never be a dead white, like Gehazi the leper. (2) Lot's wife, because a cheese should not be too salt, like Lot's wife. (3) Argus, because a cheese should not be full of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... into her room before breakfast with his "Mornin' Mums." She felt that if she allowed herself any softness or yielding at this moment she would spoil her spotless record of self-control and weep in maudlin fashion in ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... the cup. "What I am about to say," he explained as he suddenly heaved a sigh, "is not the maudlin talk of a man under the effects of wine. As far as the subjects at present set in the examinations go, I could, perchance, also have well been able to enter the list, and to send in my name as a candidate; but I have, just now, no means whatever to make provision for luggage ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... she were still standing before him. That was odd, too. He was not ordinarily so impressionable. It occurred to him that he would not like her to know what he was about to do. Bah, he was getting maudlin! ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... he spoke, accompanied by a jutting and hissing and spraying, by outburst of yells, jeers, maudlin laughter, there came sudden vomiting forth of drenched and dripping forms. Over the heads of the throng within, into the hot faces of the throng without the double door, hurling them back from the battered entrance in sudden panic, a powerful stream of cold water, shooting ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... the giggles! She's just being normal," said John, laughing softly in sympathy as the shrieks grew weak and maudlin. ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... considered great and enlightened. If he could lie and cheat more consummately than any contemporary monarch, not excepting his rival, Francis, he could still be grandly magnanimous, while the generosity of Francis flowed only from the shallow surface of a maudlin good-nature. He spoke many languages and had the tastes of a scholar, while his son had only the inclinations of an unfeeling pedagogue. He had an inkling of urbanity, and could in a measure become all things to all men, while Philip could never show ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... written by Nero in his seventeenth year that show a good Class B sophomoric touch. He danced, played in the theatricals, raced horses, fought dogs, twanged the harp, and exploited various other musical instruments. He wasn't nearly so bad as Alcibiades, but his mother lavished on him her maudlin love, and allowed the fallacy to grow in his mind concerning the divinity that doth hedge a king. In fact, when he asked his mother about his real father, she hid the truth that his father was a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... over which was the favored suitor. She rode with his grace in the morning, played at billiards with Danvers in the afternoon, perhaps to be off in the evening with McMurtree of Ainswere, who was maudlin in his infatuation for her and whom she pronounced the best ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... hysterical indifference to facts.) As a history it would be beneath criticism, were it not that the high character of the author and her excellent literary work in other directions have given it a fictitious value and made it much quoted by the large class of amiable but maudlin fanatics concerning whom it may be said that the excellence of their intentions but indifferently atones for the invariable folly and ill effect of their actions. It is not too much to say that the book is thoroughly untrustworthy from cover to cover, and that not a single statement it ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... capriciously permit their favourite slaves occasionally to carry their familiarity. They seem to consider it as an undeniable proof of the general kindness with which their dependents are treated. It is as good a proof of it as the maudlin tenderness of a fine lady to her lap-dog is of her humane treatment of animals in general. Servants whose claims to respect are properly understood by themselves and their employers, are not made pets, playthings, jesters, or companions of, and ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... just about to take the high jump. Or suppose that in the course of his intellectual rambles the philosopher of Success dropped upon our other case, that of playing cards, his bracing advice would run—"In playing cards it is very necessary to avoid the mistake (commonly made by maudlin humanitarians and Free Traders) of permitting your opponent to win the game. You must have grit and snap and go in to win. The days of idealism and superstition are over. We live in a time of ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... the cask, Don Quixote-like. In place of the dauntless lance, he was armed with a sturdy mug of good old ale. He sang gaily to a tune of his own, turning ever and anon for approbation to Buzzard, another spirit of like guild, who sat in a semi-maudlin condition by the table, and also to the moon-faced landlord of the inn, who encouraged the joviality of his guests—not forgetting to count the ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... with Moses and Zoroaster, with Socrates and Jesus." (Discourses, p. 83) The charity which hopes that men may be forgiven the crime of "religions" which, if there be a God at all, must be "abominations," one can understand; but these maudlin apologies for the religions themselves, —as if they were not themselves crimes, and involved crimes in their very practice,—I do not understand. According to this, all that man has to do is to be ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... worth a good man's cultivation, so it is the first part of intelligence to recognise our precarious estate in life, and the first part of courage to be not at all abashed before the fact. A frank and somewhat headlong carriage, not looking too anxiously before, not dallying in maudlin regret over the past, stamps the man who is well armoured for ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... maudlin refuges, featherless ostriches plunge their heads! It is such unspeakable moral compensation to Wegg, to be overcome by the consideration that Mr Rokesmith has ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... should have been first in his mind—to lift the main struggle into importance in the last Act, but he fails. That which ought to be tragic is merely sentimental. Indeed, sentimentality is the curse of the play. Strafford's love of the king is almost maudlin. The scenes between Strafford and Pym in which their ancient friendship is introduced are over-sentimentalised, not only for their characters, but for the great destinies at stake. Even at the last, when Pym and Strafford forgive each other and speak of meeting hereafter, good ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... fell on his knees and drank it; and having done, the king began to drink it. 'Nay, sir,' says Armorer; 'by God, you must do it on your knees!' So he did, and then all the company; and having done it, all fell acrying for joy, being all maudlin and kissing one another, the king the Duke of York, the Duke of York the king; and in such a maudlin pickle as never ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... associations, which content themselves with an annual exposition of the grievances of Ireland, over the short leg of a turkey, a "bumper of Burgundy," and that roar of lip artillery, against the usurper, which dies away in a few maudlin hiccups, about two o'clock in the morning, to be revived only at the expiration of another twelve months. Under the burden of any commonplace name, such, we say, might have been the fate of the organization ere ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... seven, had taken it up with embarrassing effusion. This was the late James Collinson, whose principal picture, "St. Elizabeth of Hungary," finished in 1851, produced a sort of crisis in Rossetti's career. This painting out-mystified the mystic himself; it was simply maudlin and hysterical, though drawn with some feeling for grace, and in a very earnest spirit. Rossetti, with his strong good sense, recognized that it would be impossible ever to reach the public with art of this unmanly character, and from this time ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... Hilarius knelt through the long hours at the great Rood, and then at St Mary Maudlin's altar he did penance for his ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless
... head dejectedly, his lips working in a sort of spasmodic silence. Dodge eyed him with a curious, new-born commiseration. The boy's self-abasement, his misery, his flouting of his own weakness were not altogether the result of maudlin reaction. He presented a combination of manliness and effectiveness that perplexed and irritated Simeon Dodge. He did not want to feel sorry for him and yet he could not help doing so. George's broad shoulders and splendid chest were heaving ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... lavished her smiles and courtesies on every one, and brought to her feet particularly the misogynist Starbuck and the sarcastic Cooledge, oblivious of his previous speech; how she sat at the piano and sang like an angel, hushing the most hilarious and excited into sentimental and even maudlin silence; how, graceful as a nymph, she led with "Uncle Dick" a Virginia reel until the whole assembly joined, eager for a passing touch of her dainty hand in its changes; how, when two hours had passed,—all too swiftly for the guests,—they ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... meadow-lands they tripped, Where the dandelions dipped In crimson foam of clover bloom And dripped and dripped and dripped! And they clinched the bumble-stings, Gauming honey on their wings, And bundling them in lily-bells, With maudlin murmurings. ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... and dock-workers, pugilistic and criminal celebrities of the quarter, and their sycophants. Its revels rendered the nights cacophonous, its portals sucked in streams of sweethearts and more impersonal lovers of life and laughter, and spewed out sots close-locked in embraces of maudlin affection or brutal combat. Bobbies kept an eye on the Red Moon, a respectful one: interference with the time-hallowed customs and prerogatives of its clientele was something to be ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... own dolt incapacity. Matter it is of mirthful memory To think, when thou wert early in the field, How doughtily small Jeffrey ran at thee A-tilt, and broke a bulrush on thy shield. And now, a veteran in the lists of fame, I ween, old Friend! thou art not worse bested When with a maudlin eye and drunken aim, Dulness hath thrown a jerdan ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... himself, "is where Hugo Werner takes to the tall timbers. I don't hypnotise worth a cent. All Koppy's eagle eye does to me is warn me I'm not bullet-proof. Me for the safe spots; they can get as maudlin as they like. I got a hunch this is ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... of flame, warned the skipper that he must retreat. It was not, however, until heat and smoke and the certain prospect of collapse compelled him, that he joined the crew. He was not a spectacular hero; when common sense dictated return, he obeyed without delay, and without maudlin complaint. Without a word he took the wheel from Billy Topsail's hands, and without a word he kept the schooner on her course. There was no need of command or advice; men and boys knew ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... as good as women, if not better. I've no betrayed virgin's grouch against men. But I've made myself too busy to worry about sex. It's no use talking tosh. Sex is the root of the whole sentimental, maudlin——" ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... to me chiefly about a wife he was returning to at Bohn. He became almost maudlin in his sentiment, and at intervals he raised his voice sufficiently to allow our traveling ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... had thrown his antagonist fairly, the lumberjack's shoulders striking the rough floor with a whack that made things jingle. The next moment the two had treated one another at the bar, and with a mutual, though maudlin appreciation of each other had gone back to their respective chairs among the line tilted ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... him to exile within a great city, and persuaded him to the enjoyment of roguish company. Those there were who deemed his career unfortunate; but a sense of fitness might have checked their pity, and it was only in his hours of maudlin confidence that the Reverend Thomas confessed to disappointment. Born of respectable parents in the County of Cambridgeshire, he nurtured his youth upon the exploits of James Hind and the Golden Farmer. ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... military man, you know. Yesterday we were sitting together in the tavern, and the lining of my coat was—quite accidentally, of course—sticking out right in front. The general squinted at it, and flew into a rage. He never looks me quite in the face now, unless he is very drunk or maudlin; but yesterday he looked at me in such a way that a shiver went all down my back. I intend to find the purse tomorrow; but till then I am going to have another night of it ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... sank heavily on a chair. He did not take off his hat, but began to stare around him, with the maudlin, stupid grin of drunkards and coarse people who know that they are insolent. Felicite was so ashamed that she stood in front of the shop door in order that people outside might not see what strange company she was ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... manner. Do you remember, how many years ago—I would be afraid to hazard a guess—one night when I communicated to you certain intimations of early death and aspiration after fame? I was particularly maudlin; and my remorse the next morning on a review of my folly has written the matter very deeply in my mind; from yours it may easily have fled. If any one at that moment could have shown me the Edinburgh ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in place of food, fuel, rest, and prescience. In spite of his remonstrances, it was not long before they were more or less under its influence. Uncle Billy passed rapidly from a bellicose state into one of stupor, the Duchess became maudlin, and Mother Shipton snored. Mr. Oakhurst alone remained erect, leaning against a ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... ladies had succeeded at length in collecting and carrying off such among the hiccupping husbands, and maudlin sons, who were able to move, Sir Thomas re-entering the hall, after speeding the last departing chariot, and prudently leaning upon his tall son—for though he had a seasoned head the night's potations had been deep and fiery—was startled well-nigh ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... the story of the day's events, including the interview with Bond Saxon. He did not repeat Bond's words regarding Vic, but only hinted at the suspicion that there was something questionable in the situation in which Vic was placed. Nor did he refer to the old man's maudlin demand that he should take care of Dennie if she were left fatherless, and of his sworn promise ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... it affects a tragedian, a crossing-sweeper, or an ambassador to the Court of St. James. And once a bottle of Cte Rtie or Scharlachberger is in her, even the least emotional woman shows the same complex of sentimentalities that a man shows, and is as maudlin and idiotic as ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... and drunkenness everywhere around, it was a simple matter for us to go and come as we pleased, save by chance we might stumble upon those who yet remained sober, for all the men I had thus far seen, except the leaders themselves, were in such a maudlin condition as to be unable to ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... drive back to Chicago in the night than he was assailed with yearning to see the girl again. Each occupied himself with his own thoughts. Dusk descended on the village. They had reached the corner of the street that led to their hotel when they were arrested by a maudlin voice. ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... has become the successor of Jefferson Davis. In holding him up to judgment I do not dwell on his beastly intoxication the day he took the oath as Vice-president, nor do I dwell on his maudlin speeches by which he has degraded the country, nor hearken to the reports of pardons sold, or of personal corruption. These things are bad. But he has ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... voyages and LeVaillant's descriptions did stir me very slightly with their strong reality, and make me for a few hours forget myself and my captivity; but all the rest prated at me like parrots, from stately, pragmatical Johnson down to sentimental, maudlin Sterne. ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... and Reid's entire resigns For odorous fricassees and costly wines; And you, great pair, through Windsor's shades who rove, The Faun and Dryad of the conscious grove; All, all inspire me, for of all I sing, Doctor and Jew, and M—s and K—g. Thou, to the maudlin muse of Rydal dear; Thou more than Neptune, Lowther, lend thine ear. At Neptune's voice the horse, with flowing mane And pawing hoof, sprung from the obedient plain; But at thy word the yawning earth, in fright, Engulf'd the victor steed from mortal sight. Haste from thy woods, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... with drink. He threw his hands up in the air with a gesture of maudlin despair, and shouted something which no one understood. The crowd gathered like magic in the wide street before the house—the one wide street in Manitou—from the roof and upper windows of which flames were bursting. Far up the street was heard the noisy approach of the fire-engine, which ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of mounted Indians, brave in new finery, decked with eagle bonnets and gaudy in beaded shirts and leggings, rode out into the slopes, chanting maudlin songs. They were led by the most beautiful young woman of the tribe, carrying a wand topped by a gilded ball, and ornamented with bells, feathers, natural flowers. As the wild pageant passed the proud savages paid no ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... presentiments which came to nothing, how at another place, on waking from a drunken doze, he read the prayer-book and took a hair of the dog that had bitten him, how he went to see men hanged and came away maudlin, how he added five hundred pounds to the fortune of one of his babies because she was not scared at Johnson's ugly face, how he was frightened out of his wits at sea, and how the sailors quieted him as they would have quieted a child, how ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... his horse. A man pressed close to the side of the halted buggy, to avoid a huge telegraph pole that came by quivering between two timber wheels. He offered John a freckled, yellow hand, and a smile of maudlin fondness. ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... Pete exclaimed in maudlin gratitude. He swung widely toward the door, and by a miracle found it. "G'night, Mish'r Duncan. I feel s' good 'bout thish I'm goin' try goin' home ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... riverman with a week's red stubble upon his cheeks, lurched out of a doorway ahead of them and stood snarling malevolently at O'Mara, the girl shrank against her companion and clutched his arm. The red-shirted one fell to singing after they had passed. A maudlin rendition of "Harrigan, That's Me," followed them long after they had rounded a corner. Steve looked down and smiled casually into Barbara's wide ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... of Hinduism for absorbing the faiths that come into contact with it, and the maudlin tendency of the people of India to yield to pressure and to sacrifice all in behalf of peace, has been the grave of many a noble endeavour and many an impassioned attempt for new ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... Joseph's brethren had their pilgrimage chanced to lead them in this direction. The floor was of cement, and great patches of damp displayed themselves on the walls. Over the bed hung a peaceful picture of a chubby boy clasping a crook to his breast, and exchanging glances of maudlin sentimentality with a sheep that skipped at his side. The damp had eaten up one of the legs of mutton, and the sheep went on three legs. But nothing could exceed the more than human tenderness with which it regarded the ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... were maudlin, they were in the worst possible taste. So far as the reciter was concerned, they were absolutely insincere clap-trap. But the crowded audience received them with rapture; and the very fact that an astute caterer should serve up this particular form of clap-trap showed how the sympathy with Mr. ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... revealed to them that he was drunk. They gave him prompt notice that next time this happened he must go. He got out a maudlin and most gentle "Wair ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the 'Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq.' will not be written in vain. Not that my Lady was a scold or a shrew, as some wives are; I could have managed to have cured her of that; but she was of a cowardly, crying, melancholy, maudlin temper, which is to me still more odious: do what one would to please her, she would never be happy or in good-humour. I left her alone after a while; and because, as was natural in my case, where a disagreeable home obliged me to seek amusement and companions abroad, she added a mean detestable ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... antediluvian health. Thus, for instance, opium, like wine, gives an expansion to the heart and the benevolent affections; but then with this remarkable difference, that in the sudden development of kind-heartedness which accompanies inebriation there is always more or less of a maudlin character which exposes it to the contempt of the by-stander. Men shake hands, swear eternal friendship, and shed tears—no mortal knows why—and the sensual creature is clearly uppermost. But the expansion of the benigner feelings, incident to opium, is no febrile access, but ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... to Milan, after a passionate outburst of weeping—at leaving her beloved Paris. In Italy she shows herself scarcely more than affectionate to her doting spouse. Marlborough's letters to his peevish duchess during the Blenheim campaign are not more crowded with maudlin curiosities than those of the fierce scourge of the Austrians to his heartless fair. He writes to her agonizingly, begging her to be less lovely, less gracious, less good—apparently in order that he may love her less madly: but she is never to be jealous, ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... French he is a thing of the savage past, among the Germans he is a product of the kultured present. And to turn from the field note-book of the German soldier with its swaggering tale of loot, lust, and maudlin cups, its memoranda of stolen toys for Felix and of ravished lingerie for Bertha, all viewed in the rosy light of the writer's egotism as a laudable enterprise, to the plain depositions of the Justice de Paix, and see the reverse side of the picture with ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... mind yet to be good company. Now it was that after two or three such vain attempts to stifle its convivial sentiments, it threw off all moroseness, all reserve, and burst into a stream of song so cosy and hilarious as never maudlin nightingale yet ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... down the gutter towards the Delaware, caused them to halt, a man, plashing through the flood, staggered towards them. Without an umbrella, with dripping, disordered clothes, yet with a hot, flushed face, around which the long black hair hung wildly, he approached, singing to himself, with maudlin voice, a song which would have been sweet and tender in a lover's mouth. Friend Mitchenor drew to one side, lest his spotless drab should be brushed by the unclean reveller; but the latter, looking up, stopped suddenly, face to face ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... lady in nankeen colour next me, and the dwarf and people immediately round both mediums. A female voice tremulously suggested that singing might 'improve the conditions;' on which Mr. C. struck up 'Power of Love Enchanting' in maudlin spiritualistic words. Things looked dull. All at once we were hailed by one of the most tremendous gruff bass voices that ever hailed a man-of-war. John King, the favourite spirit of Mr. A., had appeared with a grumbling announcement of his presence. ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... promptly answered the rude Mr. Hamilt. "You've all but ruined the play with your everlasting managing. It's a peach up to the last act. Until you chuck that maudlin bunch of slush and scenery at us. Where did you get that ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... held down. And he was wondering why a girl who had so many of the attributes of a boy should be so much more fascinating than any mere girl. "There are two kinds of girl," he had heard an older officer once say. "There are girls, and then there is Katie Jones." He had condemned that as distinctly maudlin at the time, but recalled it to-night with ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... forth in this form a world-thought, as a harbinger of sympathy—a foreword which may set in motion the thought-waves of pity. For of all living creatures born into this world of pompous ignorance and maudlin solicitude to struggle for precarious existence from the cradle to the grave, by reason of the unnatural conditions of our vaunted hygienic and educational systems—generously termed "civilization"—there is surely nothing quite so "poor," so woefully devoid of practical ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... dont care to save her from herself; that I was the last restraint on her; and that if I dont come she will make an end of the business by changing her tipple to prussic acid. The whole thing is a string of maudlin rot from beginning to end; and I believe she primed herself with about four bottles of champagne to write it. Still, I dont want to leave her in the lurch. You are a man who stand pretty closely on your honor. Do you think I ought to go back? I may tell you that as regards ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... 'appened. 'No time for 'osspitles,' ses I. She's not twenty breaths to dror; let 'er die in 'er own bed, pore thing!" And both she and her baby breaking into wails at one and the same time, other women, some hysteric, some maudlin with gin, joined them in ...
— The Dawn of a To-morrow • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... overwhelming in its nature, and the piety with which she supported it, struck them, half tipsy as they were, so forcibly, that they became sobered down—some of them into a full perception of her firmness and high religious feelings; and those who were more affected by drink into a maudlin gravity of deportment still more honorable to the admirable principles of the woman ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... maudlin piffle in my life!" was his frank comment when she had finished. "If you can't do better than that, you'd better shut the ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... roared Dak Kova. "By the dead hands at my throat but he shall die, Bar Comas. No maudlin weakness on your part shall save him. O, would that Warhoon were ruled by a real jeddak rather than by a water-hearted weakling from whom even old Dak Kova could tear the metal with ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... croak with maudlin accent. "Pink Angel, begorrah! What doin' 'ere, eh? Whoop! Go back to sky, Angel!" and lifting a brutal foot he kicked the image into the street. Then with a shriek of laughter he ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... so sure of that," Borrowdean answered, seriously. "Mannering is au fond a man of sentiment. There is no clearer thinker or speaker when his judgment is unbiassed, but on the other hand, the man's nature is sensitive and complex. He has a sort of maudlin self-consciousness which is as dangerous a thing as the nonconformist conscience. Heaven knows into whose hands he may ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... upon a basis of even such rigor, sorrowful, silent, inexorable as that of Destiny and Doom, there is no true pity possible. The pity that proves so possible and plentiful without that basis, is mere ignavia and cowardly effeminacy; maudlin laxity of heart, grounded on blinkard dimness of head—contemptible as ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... George, sullenly. "Supposing and thinking have hanged many a man. I didn't wish to consult you. I simply wanted to tell you of the projected marriage." Then after a moment of half-maudlin, sullen silence he continued, "Go to bed, Malcolm, go to bed, or we'll be ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... VAUGHAN [with maudlin solemnity] Only be true to yourself, Miss O'Dowda. Keep serious. Give up making silly jokes. Sustain the note of passion. And youll do ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... about Merv, and were actually fighting the Mahdists behind Suakim. The "weary Titan"—to use Matthew Arnold's picturesque phrase—was then overburdened. The motto, "Live and let live," was for the time the most reasonable, provided that it was not interpreted in a weak and maudlin ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... novel's newly printed page We find a maudlin eulogy of sin, And read of ways that harlots wander in, And of sick souls that writhe in helpless rage; Or when Romance, bespectacled and sage, Taps on her desk and bids the class begin To con the problems that have always been ...
— Trees and Other Poems • Joyce Kilmer
... weeping, miserably maudlin, almost incoherent, and when she closed and locked the door upon him she dropped into a chair, and for the first time since her husband's death gave way to tears ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... no maudlin nonsense as to the affections. There are no counts in disguise nor castles in Spain. It is pure and wholesome literature of a high order ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... was more than two hundred dollars in the till. But now, in the quiet of the early morning, as he sat alone, the reaction had come. He remembered how Rob MacFlynn had had too much, and gone home maudlin to the wife who had toiled all day at the wash-tub. He thought of the fight Joe Frier and Tom Stacey had had. And—he did not drink much himself; he despised a drunkard—and these things disgusted him. There was little Phil, too,—"the saloon-keeper's boy,"—and that ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... awaking," he muttered, with a maudlin laugh, and springing from his seat with unsteady steps, he crossed the room and stood by the couch, looking down eagerly into the beautiful white face upon the pillow. As if impelled by that steady, serpentine, fiery glance, the girl ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... all know it. One knows not which is the more repugnant—the degradation of the poor child Salome to the level of a dancing-girl, the fell malignity of the mother who would shame her daughter for such an end, the maudlin generosity of Herod, flushed with wine and excited passion, the hideous request from lips so young, the ineffectual sorrow of Herod, his fantastic sense of obligation, which scrupled to break a ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... until we know their grave: Oft our displeasures, to ourselves unjust, Destroy our friends, and after weep their dust: Our own love waking cries to see what's done, While shameful hate sleeps out the afternoon. Be this sweet Helen's knell, and now forget her. Send forth your amorous token for fair Maudlin: The main consents are had; and here we'll stay To see our ...
— All's Well That Ends Well • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... present. Perhaps they will be left to go on sucking things dry, constantly missing the loveliness of them, until they come at last to loathe the lovely husks, turned to ugliness in their false imaginations. Loving but the body of Truth, even here they come to call it a lie, and break out in maudlin moaning over the illusions of life. The soul of Truth they have lost, because they never loved her. What may they not have to pass through, what purifying fires, before they ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... who says, 'They do say love is blind, but I'll be ding-danged if some gents can't see more in their girls than I can.' This yere wisdom don't apply none to the Mockin' Bird. Them wooers of hers, to say nothin' of Turkey Track, possesses jestification for becomin' so plumb maudlin'. Lovely? She's as pretty as a cactus flower, or a sunrise ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... The Crew was induced to add to the harmony of the evening. His voice was strong, but, like many strong things, under imperfect control; his tune was nowhere, and his intended pathetic unction was simply maudlin. Coristine could recall but little of the long ballad to which he listened, the story of a niggardly and irate father, who followed and fought with the young knight that had carried off his daughter. Two verses, however, could not escape his memory, on account ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... gambling table; probably beginning his career as a frizeur or a footman, and making rapid progress towards the galleys. If she has none, she returns to England, to grumble, for the next fifty years, at the climate, the country, and the people; to drawl out her maudlin regrets for olive groves, and pout for the Bay of Naples; to talk of her loves; exhibit a cameo or a crucifix, (the parting pledge of some inamorato, probably since hanged), prate papistry, and profess liberalism; pronounce the Roman holidays "charming things," ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... the Administration in the spirit in which it was made, the probability was decidedly in favor of their restoration to their old places without condition, without promise, without sacrifice. Observing men in the loyal States regarded such a policy not only as weak and maudlin, but as utterly insufficient and assuredly dangerous to the future safety of the Government. But they realized at the same time that the most important demands of far-seeing statesmanship and of true patriotism might be ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... gladdest of sounds to him; his old ambitions wake from their trance and come to gaze on him reproachfully; he sees that fortune (and mayhap fame) have passed him by, and all through his own fault; he may whine about imaginary wrongs during the day when he is maudlin, but the night fairly throttles him if he attempts to turn away from the stark truth, and he remains pinned face to face with his beautiful, dead self. Then, with a start, he remembers that he has no friends. When he crawls out in the morning to steady his hand he will be greeted ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... commenting on the letter in No. 59, printed above, says: "I have looked over our pedigree upon the receipt of this epistle, and find the Greenhats are a-kin to the Staffs. They descend from Maudlin, the left-handed wife of Nehemiah Bickerstaff, in the reign of Harry ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... compared notes. I found that in most essentials the two stories were identical, although Gedge had been maudlin drunk when he ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... Seeders she despised utterly; she had but taken his kiss as that of a pioneer and prophetic prince who might have set the clocks going and the pages to running in fairyland. But the kiss had been maudlin and unmeant; the court had not stirred at the false alarm; she must forevermore remain the ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... as if a man spending his life to show the folly of Methodism should burst into maudlin tears at sight of John Wesley, and say, 'Oh, if all men, my ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... from the one to-night, that he had received from her. It was a year ago now—and the letter had been hardly more than a note. The police had worked themselves into a frenzy over the Gray Seal, the papers had grown absolutely maudlin—and she had written, in her ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... the five in the rear seats absorbed in their own maudlin comicalities. The fellow beside Jack did not seem to take any interest in his surroundings, and the five gave the front seat no further attention. Jack drove circumspectly, leaning a little forward, ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... in a maudlin voice, "I've got nineteen cars of cattle out here that are going up there to-morrow and I want to notify ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... upon the table offered the toast, Cedric sprung as if shot to the table, where he staggered and would have fallen, had it not been for the youth who bore him up. Holtcolm, in his drunken anxiety for his neighbour's steadiness, stood near him and with tender, maudlin solicitude began to flick the grains of bergamot scented snuff from the lace of Lord Cedric's steenkirk. At the same time from the glass he held there spilled on his Lordship's brocaded coat of blue and silver a good ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... into the seat, undertaking no reply to his maudlin boastings. She was passing away from the only place in all the world that meant shelter for her now, and already it felt like home, this place that ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... did not immediately relax his grasp. It was evidently not safe to let him go. His fit of anger bordered upon hysterics. Presently he grew calmer but more maudlin. Trent at last released him, and, thrusting the bottle of brandy into his coat-pocket, returned to his game of Patience. Monty lay on the ground watching him ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... therefore, that in the absence, even, of a reasonable alibi it might be difficult to prove his innocence. To our surprise, however, for we had some faith in the fellow, instead of taking this matter with the indifference of a brave man, he has chosen to behave like a child. In his present half maudlin state he would, I am afraid, if in serious danger of conviction, make statements likely to cause a good deal of inconvenience to myself, my sister's friends, ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... camaraderie is apt to end in blows, and is a poor caricature of the bond knitting all who are filled with the Spirit to one another, and making them willing to serve one another. The roystering or maudlin geniality cemented by drink generally ends in quarrels, as everybody knows that the truculent stage of intoxication succeeds the effusively affectionate one. But they who have the Spirit in them, and not only 'live in the Spirit,' but 'walk in the Spirit,' esteem ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... return. He protested with maudlin earnestness that I was entirely mistaken,—that I was intoxicated; then asked me to swear eternal secrecy, and promised to disclose the mystery to me. I pledged myself, of course, to all. With an uneasy look in his eyes, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... sentimental methods of argument he undoubtedly did one great service to the causes for which he stood. Every vulgar anti-humanitarian, every snob who wants monkeys vivisected or beggars flogged has always fallen back upon stereotyped phrases like "maudlin" and "sentimental," which indicated the humanitarian as a man in a weak condition of tears. The mere personality of Shaw has shattered those foolish phrases for ever. Shaw the humanitarian was like Voltaire the ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... of reconciliation which characterizes the 'maudlin' stage of alcoholic drunkenness,—a stage which seems silly to lookers-on, but the subjective rapture of which probably constitutes a chief part of the temptation to the vice,—is well known. The centre and ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... fact, Creed aged materially during his journey to the door, but to the onlookers his exit seemed a miracle of frantic haste as he clawed and scrambled the length of the room on hands and knees in a maudlin ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... this point, and the maudlin tears were not altogether insincere. His own wife and children he heartily loved, and remembered them now with honest tenderness. At home he was not a drinker and a rough; only amid the hardships ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... more at ease in their minds, they proceeded, and now less noisily, continuing on their way with only occasional bursts of abuse, and the firing off of fag ends of French songs, accompanied with a fitful fusilade of low, horselaughter; and thus, mollified and maudlin, unsteadily continued their straggling march, until they halted at a gate on the roadside, and some distance behind which, loomed a large, dingy and deserted-looking dwelling, half concealed by tall trees. No light was to be seen, but, after a brief consultation, the party swung open ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... that Nature had not given me flashing eyes and raven hair—without which, as everyone knows, no bad fairy can hold up her head and respect herself. But at the time I felt distinctly rebuffed, and only the extreme beauty of my dress as the maudlin "good fairy" Goldenstar consoled me. Milly Smith (afterwards Mrs. Thorn) was Dragonetta, and one of her speeches ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... with too many supplies for their journey. A part, therefore, they had thrown away or sold at great loss to the traders, but had determined to get rid of their copious stock of Missouri whisky, by drinking it on the spot. Here were maudlin squaws stretched on piles of buffalo robes; squalid Mexicans, armed with bows and arrows; Indians sedately drunk; long-haired Canadians and trappers, and American backwoodsmen in brown homespun, the well-beloved pistol and bowie knife displayed openly at their sides. In the middle ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... week in the kitchen, she set about collecting the cups in the wash-up dish, and presently some maudlin expression of sentiment on the part of the Rooney-Molyneux reopened the ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... analysis," panted Fitzgerald, reknotting his silk tie. "As for me, I go to the Arctic; cold, but safe. I have never fallen in love. I have enjoyed the society of many women, and to some I've been silly enough to write, but I have never been maudlin. I'm no fool. This is the place where it would be most likely to happen. Let us beat an orderly retreat. What the devil ails my fingers to-night? M'h! There; will you stay tied as I want you? She ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... and sighed heavily. "God! How happy might we not have been but for that evil chance...." He checked abruptly. His hands fell from her shoulders to his sides, he half-turned away, brusque now in tone and manner. "I grow maudlin. Your sweet pity has so softened me that I had almost spoke of love; and what have I to do with that? Love belongs to life; love is life; whilst ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... potency upon the feelings, and followed the words, and signified the feelings of the singer with barbaric fitness. He took it first in the time and manner of a rant; presently this ill-favoured gleefulness abated, he began to dwell upon the notes more feelingly, and sank at last into a degree of maudlin pathos that was to me scarce bearable. By equal steps, the original briskness of his acts declined; and when he was stripped to his breeches, he sat on the bedside and fell to whimpering. I know nothing less respectable than the tears of drunkenness, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... will hasten this development most of all? The proper rearing of children. Don't feed children on maudlin sentimentalism or dogmatic religion; give them nature. Let their souls drink in all that is pure and sweet. Rear them, if possible, amid pleasant surroundings. If they come into the world with souls groping in darkness, ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... housekeeper. In order to be useful in some way, he has learned, through self-instruction, to play the fiddle, and now at night plays dance tunes, as well as a funeral march for shopmen far gone on a spree and craving some maudlin tears. ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... our tale displays all that careless jollity, which copious draughts of maddening wine are calculated to inspire; he laughs the world away, and bids it pass. The poor dupe, without his periwig, in the back-ground, forms a good contrast of character: he is maudlin drunk, and sadly sick. To keep up the spirit of unity throughout the society, and not leave the poor African girl entirely neglected, she is making signs to her friend the porter, who perceives, and slightly returns, her love-inspiring glance. ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... Criminal? No, a thousand times, no! She was claiming her own, her dearest own. The devil must have been in the people who set themselves up as judges to condemn her for fighting so bravely for that which God had given her. Curse them all! ... I fear that my thoughts became more and more maudlin as the interminable ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... Juan Gonzalvo whose wonder was that the priest had patience with their maudlin tales of village officers, or brats born of magic and ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... of the intrinsically "true, good, and beautiful" was part of the homage that his nature rendered to its Creator, and instead of flowering into a morbid and maudlin sentimentality which craves low-browed, long straight-nosed, undraped statuettes in every nook and corner,—or dwarfs the soul and pins it to the surplice of some theologic dogmata claiming infallibility—or ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... faces and dirty fingers, still clutching their rosaries; tawdry girls, field-workers, with flushed faces, dancing with country lads, most of whom are more than half tipsy; ribald jokes and laughter and leering eyes; reeling, drunken men; maudlin affection in one corner, and jealous disputing in another; crying babies; beer and gin spilt on the tables; and all sorts of indecency and hideous details which Swift might have ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond
... more of life to Widow Hogarth—still, as ever, true to her husband's memory and herself. Horace Walpole sought to buy forgiveness for his attack on the 'Sigismunda,'—he had called it a 'maudlin fallen virago'—by sending to the widow a copy of his 'Anecdotes;' but she took no heed of him or his gift. Four years more, and then another interment in the Chiswick sepulchre. The widow's earthly sorrows are at an end; ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... curse of rage Cummings stepped forward, and, with rough hands, separated the boon companions, thrusting the tramp without ceremony under the table, Moriarity in the meantime shaking Cook in vain attempts to rouse him from his maudlin stupor. Cook, however, was too far "under the influence" to be aroused, and to the vigorous shakings and punchings would respond only with a hiccough and part of the ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... roof, but the western sky was clear and flushed with vivid crimson, toward which the prairie rolled away in varying tones of blue. Lights shone in the windows behind the veranda, and from one which stood open a hoarse voice drifted out, singing in a maudlin fashion snatches of an old ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... difference noted everywhere. Your bourgeois goes and rams his bull's head against everything he meets; he's in wonderment and ecstacy almost before he lands; he stares with astonishment at a fisherwoman on Calais pier and weeps maudlin tears over the masonry of the Sainte Chapelle. Then Lady Adela's style—marvellous, marvellous. I give you my word as an expert! Full of distinction; choice; fastidious; penetrated everywhere by a ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... dealing the cards a few minutes later, when the long-haired man emerged from the gambling hell, and imitating the maudlin, sauntered up to the bar and asked for a drink. After being served, he walked about halfway to the door, then whirling suddenly, stepped to the end of the bar, placed his hands upon it, sprang up and stood upright on it. He ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... to fade on St. Mary Magdalene's Day (July 20), to whom we find numerous flowers dedicated, such as the maudlin, a nickname of the costmary, either in allusion to her love of scented ointment, or to its use in uterine affections, over which she presided as the patroness of unchaste women, and maudlin-wort, another name for the moon-daisy. ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... no halting, no quiver of maudlin pity, when he slowly rose from his grass-covered lair in the darkness and called his men ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... safety to procure; Put off the man, from men to live secure; 510 Go forth a woman to the public view, And with their garb assume their manners too. Had the light-footed Greek[303] of Chiron's school Been wise enough to keep this single rule, The maudlin hero, like a puling boy Robb'd of his plaything, on the plains of Troy Had never blubber'd at Patroclus' tomb, And placed his minion in his mistress' room. Be not in this than catamites more nice, Do that for virtue, which they do for vice. 520 Thus shalt thou pass untainted ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... while the House met his defiance by a concurrent resolution emphatically condemning his reconstruction policy, and thus opening the way for the coming struggle between Executive usurpation and the power of Congress. His maudlin speech on the 22d of February to the political mob which called on him, branding as traitors the leaders of the party which had elected him, completely dishonored him in the opinion of all Republicans, and awakened ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... the imbecile Peter, he had enough sense to appreciate the abilities of Catharine; and a sort of maudlin idea of justice, if it were not, perhaps, utter stupidity, dissuaded him from resenting her freedom in the choice of favorites. Upon commencing his reign, he yielded himself to the guidance of her imperial mind, hoping to obtain some dignity by the renown which ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... gone far enough. He took up the heavy bird, which made some maudlin objections, and carried it gingerly to the fence. 'Here's the victim, Mr. Humpage,' he said lightly. 'I think it will be itself again in a couple of hours or so. And now, perhaps, we can let the matter drop for ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... occurred," he said, slowly folding the advertisement sheet of the Times, "is only what has been foreseen for a long time. The world has been degenerating into a maudlin state of sentiment for some years. The East End began it; a thousand sentimental charities have fostered the movement. Now, I am a plain man—a City man, Tony, to the tips of my toes." And he stuck out a large square-toed foot and looked contemplatively at it. "Half of your ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... with a trace of impatience, for Grenfell's half-maudlin observations occasionally jarred on him; but the latter still looked at him ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... least in the rising generation. Current literature is penetrated with the spirit of licentiousness, from the pretentious quarterly to the arrogant and flippant daily newspaper, and the weekly and monthly publications are mostly heathen or maudlin. They express and inculcate, on the one hand, stoical, cold, and polished pride of mere intellect, or on the other, empty and wretched sentimentality. Some employ the skill of the engraver to caricature the institutions and offices of ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... his arm to steady him. "Let's have one more," he said, drawing him into a saloon, gently pushing him to a seat at a table and ordering whisky. After the third large drink, Dippel became helpless and maudlin and began to overflow with generous sentiments. "I love you, Finkelstern, ol' man," he declared tearfully. "They say you're a dead beat, but wha' ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... demand a fair trial by law for those accused of crime, and punishment by law after honest conviction. No maudlin sympathy for criminals is solicited, but we do ask that the law shall punish all alike. We earnestly desire those that control the forces which make public sentiment to join with us in the demand. Surely the ...
— The Red Record - Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... Oft our displeasures to our selues vniust, Destroy our friends, and after weepe their dust: Our owne loue waking, cries to see what's done, While shamefull hate sleepes out the afternoone. Be this sweet Helens knell, and now forget her. Send forth your amorous token for faire Maudlin, The maine consents are had, and heere wee'l stay To see our widdowers second marriage day: Which better then the first, O deere heauen blesse, Or, ere they meete in ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... ambition, unreservedly bind up their destinies with those of the Cotton dynasty,—the Issachars of the North, whose strong backs are bowed to receive any burden,—the men who in the present conflict will see nought but the result of the maudlin sentimentality of fanatics and the empty cries of ambitious demagogues,—are not mistaken in their calculations. While Cotton is King, as it now is, nothing but time or its own insanity can permanently ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... him forfeit twelve-pence that shall swear; He that shall any quarrel here begin, Shall give each man a dish t' atone the sin; And so shall he, whose compliments extend So far to drink in coffee to his friend; Let noise of loud disputes be quite forborne, No maudlin lovers here in corners mourn, But all be brisk and talk, but not too much, On sacred things, let none presume to touch. Nor profane Scripture, nor sawcily wrong Affairs of state with an irreverent tongue: Let ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... I thank you, I'l give you another dish of fish one of these dayes, and then beg another Song of you. Come Scholer, let Maudlin alone, do not you offer to spoil her voice. Look, yonder comes my Hostis to cal us to supper. How now? is my ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton
... take every opportunity of overwhelming them with execration and invective. Not the least odious of his many odious peculiarities was the pleasure which he took in publicly browbeating and mortifying those whom, in his fits of maudlin tenderness, he had encouraged to presume ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay |
