"Regretful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... frank with Withers. Naturally, that at first made him regretful, and later it made him jealous. You know his type. I'm not sure that I have the whole story, but that's the foundation of it, and it led to ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... glance instinctively recognising an attractive woman, the second ranking her as a lady; while the third, had there been time and opportunity, would have been the long, lingering look of respectful or regretful admiration. ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... Robert Peel declined to form a Government in 1839, "twenty gentlemen who had not been appointed Under Secretaries for State moaned over the martyrdom of young ambition," so during the first fortnight of 1897 at least that number of middle-aged self-seekers came to the regretful conclusion that Lord Salisbury was not sufficiently a man of the world for his present position, and inwardly asked why a judge or a surgeon should be preferred before a company-promoter or a party hack. And, while feeling is thus fermenting at the base of the social ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... known as Gli Ottimati. Florence held within itself, from this epoch forward to the final extinction of liberty, four great parties: the Piagnoni, passionate for political freedom and austerity of life; the Palleschi, favourable to the Medicean cause, and regretful of Lorenzo's pleasant rule; the Compagnacci, intolerant of the reformed republic, neither hostile nor loyal to the Medici, but desirous of personal licence; the Ottimati, astute and selfish, watching their own advantage, ever-mindful to form a narrow government of privileged families, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... say that Bessie and the other servants had seen nothing of Uncle Meshach, and that they were all three getting up, and then she disappeared into the kitchen. Ethel and Milly departed, a little scared, a little regretful, but inspirited by the dreadful charm and fascination of the ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... a regretful voice. "He's really a good cragsman and knows exactly how far he can go. When he starts an awkward climb he reckons up all the obstacles and is ready to get round them when they come. The plan's good. People like Mortimer don't ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... get off under those circumstances? I'll tell you. You get a decoration or two, temporary rank, mention in the Gazette—and regretful demotion to your previous rank when ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... half who never stood By the grave of one held dear, And out of the deep, dark loneliness Of a heart bereaved and comfortless, From sorrow's crystal plentitude, Feeling his loss severe, Dropped a regretful tear. ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... houses. They are all ready, and Mrs. Gardner has half a dozen poor souls waiting to go in as soon as you give the word," answered the doctor promptly, glad to get his girl back again, though not surprised that she still looked with regretful eyes at the Vanity Fair, always so ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... rarely did that, even when she was amused, and now Margaret's quick ear detected here and there in the sweet ripple a note that did not ring quite like the rest. The intonation was not false or artificial, but only sad and regretful, as genuine laughter should not be. Margaret looked at her, still profoundly mystified, and still drawn to her by natural sympathy, though horrified almost to disgust at what seemed her ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... he said gravely. "Otherwise, I should say that it would be simpler to give you a list of the people who didn't." He spared a regretful glance for Bolt's hurt little exclamation. "I know it jars on you just now, but truth is truth. I've seen enough in the last three days to know that Varr must have had a ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... up a low chair and sat down, so that his head was more nearly on a level with hers, and still his eyes looked at her with that regretful, protecting expression. ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... the ice cake slowly up toward the captain until within a few feet of the shore ice, when, using a sled for a bridge, they and the dogs crossed safely over, without so much as wetting their feet. To all, this was a matter for great rejoicing, and no regretful farewells were given to the ice floe which had been their prison house so long. They were not yet out of danger, however, for the shore ice upon which they stood might, in the gale, at any moment be loosened and carry them, like the other, out into the ocean. ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... returned with some sewing and without evincing undue curiosity led Marilla to talk of her past, though the child really knew very little about her mother and seemed to have no tender or regretful regard for this Mrs. Jaques. But her whole heart went out to Miss Armitage in ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... in with the regretful announcement that Mr. Fayliss had another appointment, and called for a note of thanks to him for coming. More applause—this time unrestrained. Fayliss smiled again and swept his eyes around us, as if filled ...
— The Troubadour • Robert Augustine Ward Lowndes
... till I go out," he said, with a tone slightly regretful in his voice, "I only wish Dolly could have seen me in it, and her aunt Charlotte. My own things were too ragged for me to wear 'em ...
— Alone In London • Hesba Stretton
... think there's any poison in them," said little Janie West in a regretful tone, as she gobbled down a particularly luscious chocolate cream; "they are all big, and fat, and bursty, ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... less pressing, or that a prolonged period of general prosperity had been the privilege of rich and poor alike in this green river-valley around my home. In those days, to which I often look back with regretful yearning, everybody seemed to have leisure; the ties of friendship were not severed by malicious gossip; old and young seemed to realise how good it was to have pleasant acquaintanceships and to be in the sunshine and the open air. Fathers played with their children ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... no other questions to settle. Mr. Wrenn slowly folded up his paper, pursued his check under three plates and the menu-card to its hiding-place beyond the catsup-bottle, and left the table with a regretful "Good night." ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... passage, but it elicited the desired result the following April. The President entirely approved this measure and affixed his name to the paper, regretful at the same time that public subscriptions of all sorts limited the size ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... which it is known to Europe. Suera or Mogador is built on a little tongue of land, and threatens sea and sandhills with imposing fortifications that are quite worthless from a soldier's point of view. Though the sight of a town brought regretful recollection that the time of journeying was over, Mogador, it must be confessed, did much to atone for the inevitable. It looked like a mirage city that the sand and sun had combined to call into brief ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... shell, I shall never ride or shoot again. I have to content myself with writing books to occupy my time, a very poor form of amusement compared to tramping the fields after partridge. I suppose it is inevitable that a man in my position should indulge in regretful memories. My mind goes back now and then to certain days in my boyhood and I find myself picturing scenes through which ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... through the white-curtained valley, saw the outcasts divide their slowly decreasing store of provisions for the morning meal. It was one of the peculiarities of that mountain climate that its rays diffused a kindly warmth over the wintry landscape, as if in regretful commiseration of the past. But it revealed drift on drift of snow piled high around the hut—a hopeless, uncharted, trackless sea of white lying below the rocky shores to which the castaways still clung. Through the marvellously clear air the smoke of ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... was a pressure-mass that, as far as appearance went, might just as well have been formed out in the drift-ice. It looked as if it was formed of four huge lumps of ice raised on end against each other. We knew what it contained without examination — a yawning chasm. Hanssen cast a last regretful glance upon it, and ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... Although regretful at first of having warned him, I feel now that it is as well. I am one who likes to fight in the open, not as a serpent coiled in the grass and pretending, like the one in the Bible, to ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... incident as a happy omen. As she watched the picture turn to cinder, she buried fathoms deep below the tide of her present life all the restless, profitless, half-regretful memories it represented. A word or two said by the preacher the day he visited her school had clung to her consciousness as a burr clings to wool. They were speaking of the education necessary for the ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... in ascending the gallows. As he stood there, the centre of all eyes, he seemed a different man from the passionate murderer of Abraham Spafard. Weak and sick, he looked down upon the multitude assembled to see him die. His look was one of regretful sympathy because of the unexpected accident rather than of fear of his own impending fate. "Who are killed; and how many are injured?" ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... his last hours at the University in the dust and ashes of self-condemnation and regretful retrospection No farewell orgie celebrated his leave-taking. Only one of his friends was invited to his room that night and he no denizen of "Rowdy Row," but the quiet, irreproachable librarian. To this gentle guest The Dreamer confided his past sins ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... you ring me up and I answer, all you do is to ask, "Number, please," as though I had rung you. (It is then that I feel most that I should like to wring you.) When I reply, "But you rang me," you revert to your prevailing regretful melancholy and say, "Sorry you were troubled," and before I can go deeply into the question and discover how these things occur you ring off. Can't you make an effort during 1921 not to do this? Let it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 29, 1920 • Various
... frequent. The omens were pointing towards that region at his next place of abode. Accordingly, in few weeks hence, in the June of this Summer, 1841, his dubitations and inquirings are again ended for a time; he has fixed upon a house in Falmouth, and removed thither; bidding Clifton, and the regretful Clifton friends, a kind farewell. This was the fifth change of place for his family since Bayswater; the fifth, and to one chief member of it the last. Mrs. Sterling had brought him a new child in October last; and went hopefully to Falmouth, ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... had a three-course meal (all out of the same pot, but no matter), and onwards to our destination we fed royally. In parting with the men after our safe arrival at Chung-king, we left with them about seven-eighths of the picul—and were not at all regretful. ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... crow, but more like a sigh, and as we stops on a crossing to let a lady plutess roll by in her brougham, Mr. Daggett he sizes up the costume she wore and shakes his head kind of regretful. ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... of the working class. Pasinkov was extremely courteous and gentle to everybody, though he never sought the society of any one. If he were rudely treated, he was neither humiliated nor sullen; he simply withdrew and held himself aloof, with a sort of regretful look, as it were biding his time. This was just how he behaved with me. About two months passed. One bright summer day I happened to go out of the playground after a noisy game of leap-frog, and walking into the garden I saw Pasinkov sitting on a bench under a high ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... new sign painted, too! 'Tom and Bob Parker. Real Estate and Insurance. Oil Prop'ties and Leases.' Gosh! It's a great idea, son!" His smile lingered, but a moment later there came into his eyes a half-regretful light. ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... it. He had never been in Italy, and naturally proposed to join me in Naples. During the whole ten months which had gone between my farewell to England and my receipt of this letter from Arthur, I had striven, and not unsuccessfully, to banish from my mind all painful and regretful thoughts of Cecilia. Love is a great passion, but, like everything else but fate, it is capable of subjection by a resolute will. That soul, believe me, is of a barren soil indeed, wherein the flower of love has once been planted, if the flower wither or can be rooted up. But a man ...
— The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... himself creditably as is the son or daughter of the household. And may it not be asserted truthfully that there is no more thrilling commencement scene than that which sees the noble young man or young woman, having passed successfully through all the grades of the parental school, bid a regretful adieu to the dear childhood home, to enter upon a career of usefulness elsewhere, to spend and be spent in saving humanity? But how few such commencement scenes do we witness! How few pupils ever pass the test satisfactorily in the important branch of ethics! When parents practice ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... hardly anything to leave. His directions were very simple and few, and there was a little desk locked up in a cabinet that nobody thought about, and that the one person who could have opened it supposed to concern exclusively himself. So when he came, six months after, and looked about him with regretful affection; when he had put the old man's portrait up in a place of honour, and looked to the paying of all the debts, for everything, even to the furniture, was now his own; when he had read the will, ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... Falloden's sudden departure from Oxford, after his own proposal of two more rides. His note, "crying off" till after the schools, had seemed to her not quite as regretful as it might have been; his epistolary style lacked charm. And it was impertinent of him to suggest Lord Meyrick as a substitute. She had given the Lathom Woods a wide berth ever since her first adventure there; and she hoped that Lord Meyrick had spent some disappointed ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Surrounded by Zephyruses—exactly three times three— "Olus, dear, a new piano is the thing of things we want." I regret to say Aeolus raised his eyes and said "We dont!" So unlike his mournful manner, when his sweet sad harp he plays; And he heav'd a sigh regretful as he thought of other days— As he thought of early moments, ere Aurora's heart was won— Ere beefsteak was fifteen pence a-pound, and coals five crowns a-ton; Ere nine little West-winds murmured round his table every meal, And the tones of a piano nought but ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... charge his duty and his life. They dropped, under incontrollable impulses, into shops that they agreed were too big, to look at things that they agreed were too small, and it was during these hours that Mrs. Wix, alone at home, but a subject of regretful reference as they pulled off their gloves for refreshment, subsequently described herself as least sheltered from the blows her ladyship had achieved such ingenuity in dealing. She again and again repeated ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... told what a good husband he was. He felt so pleased over it that he went on, sincerely regretful: "She's visiting friends in Pennsylvania or I'd ask you to dine with us." And they went to ...
— The Tipster - 1901, From "Wall Street Stories" • Edwin Lefevre
... There was no comfort for me in my magnificent library. We were all rich and in splendor, and our uncle had come from India. I wished, saving his soul, that the ship that brought him over had foundered off Barnegat Light. It would always have been a tender and regretful memory to both of us. And how sacred is the memory ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... nor reproach in these broken words, only a patient sorrow, a regretful pain, as if he saw the two lost loves before him and uttered over them an irrepressible lament. It was too much for Dolly and with sudden resolution she spoke ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... higher up the barranca. He made me no answer, but looked at me with a calm, cold, and yet somewhat regretful smile upon his countenance. Then all at once he ceased the efforts he was making to resist the stream and gain the bank, folded his arms on his breast and gave a look up and around him as though to bid farewell to the world he was about to leave. The current was sweeping him rapidly down towards ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... whose judgment he felt he could rely, told him, in effect, the same thing. They were all regretful, in some cases ashamed of their sex, universally apologetic; but one and all declared that such is "the feminine nature," and Bok would only have his trouble ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... than sufficient to blight any girl's career from a social standpoint. I often think that the rules of our modern etiquette are very rigid, though I know well that we cannot afford to disregard them." Again came that soft, regretful sigh; and then in an apologetic tone, "You will say, I know, that for the good of the community this must be so, but you are great enough to make allowances for a woman's weakness. And I must ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... and drove away, with a farewell nod, abrupt although not altogether unkindly. Yet as she looked behind, a few seconds later, her face was very much softer—her eyes were almost regretful. ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... With one regretful backward glance, Cabot left the little schooner on which he had come to feel so much at home, and sprinted towards the station, where was gathered half the population of the village—men, women, children, and dogs. The train was already at the platform as he made his way through this crowd, ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... run its course, The night had cooled my hasty madness; I suffered a regretful sadness Which deepened ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... identified among some rough hillocks, over the sandy turf of which swept a wild northwester, "shrill, chill, with flakes of foam," and now and then a driving hailstorm across the shelterless plain. So little hospitable was our welcome to a home from which we were sometime to part not without regretful memories. ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... I gits fer fergittin'," was his regretful comment. "I reckon, if so be I'd ever got onto thet-thar schooner with this-hyar damn' bag, she'd 'a' sunk, too. Or, leastways, they'd have chucked me overboard like Jonah, fer causin' the hull cussed trouble with this pesky black bag ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... far back he was turning his regretful gaze; whether to the early years of the fifteenth century when Nicholas of Cues was a scholar at Deventer, or to the more recent times of Erasmus, who was about three school-generations ahead of him. But of the books used there in the last quarter ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... been so happy," Perpetua is going on, her tone regretful. "We could have gone everywhere together, you and I. I should have taken you to the theatre, to balls, to concerts, to afternoons. You would have been so happy, and so should I. ...
— A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... obedience. That she would obey he knew; and he let her take her time. So he did not see the big tears that filled her eyes, nor the quiet way in which she got rid of them; while the hurt, sorrowful, regretful look on her face would have certainly moved Pitt to indignation if he had been where he could see it. I am afraid, if the colonel had seen it, he would have been moved quite in a different way. Not to anger, indeed; Colonel Gainsborough was never angry with his child, as truly she ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... did was to crumble away with a regretful kind of superiority the arguments of two Conservative speakers, to the sudden amusement of the Opposition, who presently cheered him. He looked up as though a little surprised, waited patiently, and went on. The iconoclasm proceeded. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the spirit of this little outing with a zest which gave me deep content. Her face indicated no regretful thoughts turning toward the Egypt of the city; her mother love was so strong that she was happy with the children. The robins, of which there seemed no end about the house, gave us a tuneful and hilarious send- off; the grown people and children whom we met smiled and cheered, following ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... testify. The first land they used was on the cliffs, for it had already been improved by Indian planting; then the salt marshes, covered with a natural crop of grass, and then the mellow intervales near the river. When the sea was forced to the regretful realization that she could not monopolize the entire attention of her fellows, she was persuaded to yield up some very excellent fertilizer in the way of seaweed. But she still nags away at the cliffs and shore, and proclaims with every flaunting wave and ripple that ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... speak, Fraeulein," he replied, with a deep, regretful sigh. "What I said to you on the road from Basel will be true as long as I live, but we agreed that it should not again be spoken between us. For your sake more than for mine it is better ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... which never finds peace but unceasingly flits through all the lands of foreboding and through all the heavens of hope; this love that is dying to satisfy itself in the powerful, fervent glow of a single great emotion! Of this they spoke; the younger one in bitter complaint, the elder one with regretful tenderness. Now the latter said—the yellow one to the blue—that he should not so impatiently demand the love of a woman to capture him ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen
... back, and met the eyes of both, fixed upon me with that peculiar half-tender, half-regretful expression, with which so many old men look upon women as young as I. A smile came across my face, and I held out my hand ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... stout stick that would serve as a cane, looked carefully to the security of his precious sun glass, and bidding his little den, which already had begun to wear some of the aspects of a home, a regretful farewell, started ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... left the wood and walked slowly shipwards. I felt tired and overstrained, exceedingly regretful, full of longing after that lovely vision that had come to me and that I ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... hill. Harry had noticed that Shepard led the way as if he were the ruling spirit, but he did not consider it necessary to say anything to the others about him. The trumpet blew and Sherburne's force, mounting, rode away from the cove. Harry cast one regretful glance back at the splendid fire which still glowed there, and then resigned himself to the cold ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... landlord bowed; he expressed his deep regret, as M. le Colonel—so we heard him call him—was a most amiable person, much liked by the household; but justice, of course, must have its way; and, with a regretful sigh, he ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... from the country to prevent regretful second thoughts in the mind of his thrifty uncle, and the impression was made that the young fellow might steady down into a useful clerk; but when as much was hinted Roger frankly told him that he ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... The place was peopled after all, though we had left it, and I think the tenants who come after us will be haunted by our spectres, crowding them on the pleasant little balcony, and sitting down with them at table. G. stood there, the genius of the place, and wept six regretful tears, each one of which drew a florin from the purse of the Paron. She had hoped to remain with us always while we lived in Venice; but now that she could no longer look to us for support, the Lord must take care of her. The gush of grief was transient: it relieved ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... She sighed over the perversity of things in general, and croaked a little over her trials in particular, but on the whole got over her loss better than she expected, for soon she had other sorrows beside her own to comfort, and such work does a body more good than floods of regretful tears, ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... To judge by the regretful excitement in the Midlands, Carew might have been a good friend to every body. The news was at once telegraphed to town, and appeared in the evening papers. The public interest in his mad freaks had of late years grown somewhat ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... listen to his rival. The thought that he had been the king of the place, had ruled the whole party with despotic power before Florent's appearance there, gnawed at his heart, and he felt all the regretful pangs of a dethroned monarch. If he still came to the meetings, it was only because he could not resist the attraction of the little room where he had spent so many happy hours in tyrannising over Gavard and Robine. ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... from her room—maybe in the library or recitation or out on the campus or down town or anywhere—you tell me or else run yourself and take her manuscript and poke it under her door. I'll write a nice polite little regretful admiring note to go with each story, and that ought to take the edge off the blow. But be sure she is not at home. It would be simply awful to hand anybody a rejected article right to her real face and see how disappointed she is. I think it is more courteous ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... that feller's mendin'," Jake said. "Say, he's a man, that feller." He turned his eyes away and avoided her smiling gaze, and continued in a tone he tried to make regretful. "Guess I was gettin' to feel mean about him. We haven't hit it exac'ly. I allow it's mostly temper between us. Howsum, I guess it can't ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... her husband strode into the breakfast-room and took his usual place, sober enough, but scarcely regretful of the over-night development, did any word of reproach or allusion pass the wife's white lips. A stranger would have thought her careless and cold. Abner Dimock knew that she was heartbroken; but what was that to him? Women live for years without that organ; and while she lived, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... lay outside. When I thought of it again, the blood began once more to course in my veins. Lecamus went on by my side with his head down, the eyelids drooping over his eyes, not saying a word. He followed me when I called him: but cast a regretful look at the postern by which we had gone out, through which I had dragged him back in a panic (I confess it) unworthy of me. Only when we had left at some distance behind us that door into the unseen, did my senses come ...
— A Beleaguered City • Mrs. Oliphant
... Poseidonia late in the afternoon, casting back many regretful glances at the three giant sentinels of the plain, looming preternaturally large in the rapidly fading light of a starless evening. At that hour we felt we could understand and sympathise with the ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... an impulse of regretful tenderness, showed all due respect to the memory of the faithful woman who had nursed with such devotion her husband and her child. For a whole long week Olive wandered about the shut-up house, the formal ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... there with an expression of regretful sadness upon his face. "I fear it will be of little use to name the price!" said he, "the fish ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... anyone could discover, literally at a glance, the condition of his eyes. Had I not made up my mind to disburse nothing further than the bare shilling I had already expended, I should certainly have ascertained if the time had arrived for my regretful assumption of a pinch-nose ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Dec. 20, 1890 • Various
... rank tendrils were everywhere reaching out and choking all the better life about it. Its seeds were scattered broadcast and had germinated as only such seeds can. It only remained for the husbandman to gaze regretful and impotent upon his handiwork. His hand had planted the seedling, and now—already the wilderness was beyond ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... which led to the bedrooms upstairs, and the Comtesse was in the act of beating a hasty retreat before that enemy who owned such a sweet musical voice; Suzanne reluctantly was preparing to follow her mother, while casting regretful glances towards the door, where she hoped still to see her dearly-beloved, ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... indicated the election of Tilden; Democrats went to bed jubilant and Republicans regretful. Then, just before the night-editor of the New York Times put his paper to press at 3 A.M., he noticed that the returns from South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida were hardly more than conjectural, and, on the chance of making his tables more complete, he sent a neighborly inquiry ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... is opened there is a noise like the sound of far-off thunder. What can it mean? To what mysterious doings am I to become an eye-witness to-night? I became a little anxious, perhaps a little nervous, and regretful. An eye appeared at the hole in the door; there is a whispered conference and I find myself between two men marching up the centre of the hall to the desk of ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... the more careful not to lose the shelter of his fatherly indulgence, because since the trouble with Rex both Mrs. Gascoigne and Anna had been unable to hide what she felt to be a very unreasonable alienation from her. Toward Anna she took some pains to behave with a regretful affectionateness; but neither of them dared to mention Rex's name, and Anna, to whom the thought of him was part of the air she breathed, was ill at ease with the lively cousin who had ruined his happiness. She tried ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... naked, poor, nameless, and homeless, without the sheltering and protecting care of that master who had ever before been to them the incarnation of a kindly Providence —at that moment when, by all the rules which govern Caucasian human nature, their eyes should have been red with regretful tears, and their hearts overburdened with sorrow, these addled-pated children of Africa, moved and instigated by the perverse devil of inherent contrariness, were grinning from ear to ear with exasperating exultation, or bowed in still more ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... some sudden thought the girl looked up at him quickly. "Did that sound regretful?" she asked. "Did what I say sound—disloyal to my father? I didn't mean it to. I don't want you to think that I regret it. I don't. It has meant being with my father. Wherever he has gone I have gone with him, and if anything ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... the tender, regretful glance of her mother's eyes. She was not as yet very well acquainted with the English language, and did not know what "tolerably" meant; she ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May
... by her lovely eyes, the man did not complete the exposition of the joke to the newcomer, but took refuge in an attitude of most regretful, but impregnable officialism. "I ain't got a word to say about it, Miss," he hurried to assure the eyes. "Law's law, and law says that the likes of her has got to be sent back. The only way that you could keep her here would be to put up bonds to guarantee th' gover'ment ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... distinction was that they had become rich. Again and again I have seen "success" which seemed to me to be the brand of ignominy rather than the stamp of worth,—the epitaph of culture, if not of character. I look on with a profound and regretful pity. You successful,—YOU! with half your powers lying dormant,—you, with your imagination stifled, your conscience unfaithful, your chivalry deadened into shrewdness, your religion a thing of tithes and forms;—you successful, ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... did she lighten when I said to her mother, in open mockery of that reserve, "Well, she cost you a lot of furniture that was really most companionable about the house," and paused with a sigh betokening a regretful comparison of values. That lance shattered against her Lansdale shield like ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... is to frighten the police!" remarked the Chairman, following them with a regretful eye. "I suppose, afther all, we'd betther put a price on the sheep and have done with it. In my opinion, when there's a difficulty like this—what I might call an accident—between decent men like these (for they're both decent men, and I've known them these years), I'd say both parties ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... down the bottle, gave a sigh of pure, animal satisfaction, and pushed the cork in with an unconsciously regretful movement. ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... her. She looked at the drooping, half-lit head, and she knew that she had him without fear of escape. Knew too, that the moment was brief. Their recent, undeclared silence brooded as though still with them, half regretful and departing angel. "You will have other beauties," she said to her heart, "but ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... were two or three pretty girls whose sly fun at his expense he was too dense to appreciate, thought it would be a cunning thing to fling after them the handkerchief he had pretended to drench with regretful tears; but being very close to the edge of the wharf he miscalculated his balance, and would have toppled into the water, but that a burly tar, standing close by, caught him by his waistband and dragged him back to safety, swearing a round oath ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... carried him through. Three of the five goals made by the second team fell to his mallet, and he left the field heartily cursed on all sides for his recalcitrancy in throwing himself away on work when the sport of sports called him. Regretful, yet well pleased with himself, he had his bath, his one, lone drink, and leisurely got into his evening clothes. Cressey met him at the entry to the guest's lounge ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... intellect and quick passions of youth have wrecked many a noble soul, by the sin of an hour or a day, beyond the redemption of a toiling and regretful after-life. The man who does redeem himself must have a powerful nature, which will force its strength to be recognized, and make its regeneration felt. But to the sins of youth much should be forgiven, which, in the mature man, justice might ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... that he came through all right and is now working in Toronto earning his living by writing with his left hand, which he has learned to manipulate with practically the same agility the lost member possessed. We were deeply regretful at the loss of Hope from the crowd—fearless Hope, as he was known, and, sometimes, hopeless Hope—because never in all my experience have I seen a man who was so utterly regardless of danger; he would ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... the empty Board Room to read it through. He answered 'Down-by-the-starn' Hemmings so tartly when the latter, seeing his Chairman seated there, entered with the new Superintendent's first report, that the Secretary withdrew with regretful dignity; and sending for the transfer clerk, blew him up till the poor youth knew ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... had spoken for many minutes after the elevator door slammed behind the excited, shrill-voiced children. Mr. Bingle always sighed exactly at this moment in his reflections, and Mrs. Bingle always squeezed his hand fiercely and turned a pair of darkly regretful ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... her—She couldn't talk of anything except this Tyson, and what his wife did to him. She talked of it sort of sad, kind of regretful, as if she was sorry, but felt that it had to be. I could see she had been thinking ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... had not yet grown entirely accustomed to what is called "Government straight," i.e., salt meat and hard-tack, the bumboat did a thriving business. Young Potter's bill was tremendous, and Mrs. Bumboat bade him a regretful farewell when she visited us ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... criterion in himself whereby to test the emotions now besetting him. In a man of his age this was an unusual state of things, for when the ardour which will bear analysis has at length declared itself, it is wont to be moderated by the regretful memory of that fugacious essence which gave to the first frenzy of youth its irrecoverable delight. He could not say in reply to his impulses: If that was love which overmastered me, this must be something either more or less exalted. What he did say was something ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... regretful tone, and she broke off a few violets and roses from the crowded mass. When she was alone again, she laid the flowers down and once more tenderly contemplated the figures on the handsome gem. It had no doubt been engraved by Teuker, the brother of Pollux. How fine the carving was, how significant ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... guerdons sometimes are won at an age which the young suppose to be past all feeling-guerdons the more precious and pure because unconnected with personal hopes or schemes. He still knew Caroline to be as entirely Joseph Brownlow's own as when he had first perceived it, ten years ago, but all that was regretful jealousy was gone. His idealisation of her had raised and moulded his life, and now that she had grown into the reality of that ideal, he was content with the sunshine she had brought, and the joy of having done her a real service, little as she guessed ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... died softly away. Only the instruments went on playing. The distant tomtom was surely the beating of that heart into whose mysteries no other human heart could look. Its reiterated and dim throbbing affected Domini almost terribly. She was relieved, yet regretful, when ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... not free," muttered Gloy. "I wanted to go to Noostigard," and he exchanged regretful looks with his cousins; but Fred lifted the cloud from ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... What will you think next summer when Mrs. Wentworth is there to see her son, and all the other men and women I know who have sons who graduate there, and your mother—?" The father's voice broke completely, and he looked away. Even Ferdy for a moment seemed grave and regretful. Then after a glance at his father ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... a moment. She was very alluring with her pale face set in its clouds of golden hair, her faintly wrinkled forehead, her bewitchingly regretful smile—regretful, yet in ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Young Wife began to descend the steps of her back porch. Snooky, regretful eyes on the toothsome dainties, turned away aggrieved. The Very Young Wife, her lips set, her eyes flashing, advanced and seized the shrieking Snooky by one arm and dragged her away toward home ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... love, those tears regretful, While through my heart the life-blood streams; But sweetly sleep,—of grief forgetful May love and Fridthjof fill thy dreams. Oh! when thine arms thou foldest round me, When thy dear eyes but look on me, How quickly breaks the spell ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... flashes you see, apparently coming from below the other lights, are our guns," he was saying. "They seem to be below the others because they are nearer to us. Personally I don't think these evening volleys do very much damage," he went on as though vaguely regretful that the dole of death by night should be so scanty, "because it is impossible for the men in the outermost observation pits to see the effect of the shots; but we answer, as you notice, just to show the French and English we ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... I in daytime. I had enough by moonlight. Nell is some on looks, but I'm regretful passin' the ribbon to the lady from Mex. Jim, ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... essential resemblance in our institutions and usages, and worshipping in the temples of the same God. [HERODOTUS, viii. 144.] All this may and should be borne in mind. And yet an Englishman can hardly watch the progress of America, without the regretful thought that America once was English, and that, but for the folly of our rulers, she might be English still. It is true that the commerce between the two countries has largely and beneficially increased; but this is no proof that the increase would not have ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... enthusiasm got the better of his curiosity for the moment. It was a nice psychological problem. Already Steel was impulsively busy in the conservatory pulling the pots down. It was a regretful thing to have to do, but everything had to be sacrificed, David shut his teeth grimly and ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... ladies—good, homely wives and mothers who, in their early married days of struggle, had toiled and cooked and sewed, with no time to imagine an aspect of the Eternal Feminine of which they had never had any experience, were perhaps a little shocked, perhaps a little regretful. One or two others, younger, with budding aspirations, but provincial in their ideals, were filled with wonder and ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... chamber. "Elizabeth Waldron," said she to her mirror, "you are going insane! Aren't you ashamed that now, when he has shown his love and understanding of the things you love and try to understand, and surprised you by the possession of the very qualities you have felt secretly regretful on account of his not having—that you feel—that way? What ails you, that you begin to feel toward the dearest man in all the world as if he were a stranger?—Ah, but you do, you do! And you'll never be happy with ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... Did our regretful poet dream at twenty-one of being the perfect lover? In his dreams he was the perfect lover, then. Yet actually what was he? What was she? What was their courtship, their marriage? You, prosy, contented, forty and forgetful, by your prosy hearth or shaking down the furnace ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... seat and shook his head in grave dissent. The speaker bent his gaze directly upon his great antagonist and spoke with strange regretful tenderness. ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... and is most industrious. She is not so awkward, either, and Miss Gillespie thinks it will be a good plan if I take her out with me driving sometimes when Sara is married. I shall only have Jocelyn then,' finished Aunt Philippa, with a regretful look at her daughter. I was much interested in all they had to tell me, but I was not sorry when we entered the Park and the stream of talk ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... to himself Ernest was not much concerned. His regretful astonishment centred in the ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... them noticed the severely correct figure in the frock-coat and immaculate hat who passed close behind with observant eyeglass fixed upon the little group, and with an air which, after the first flush of open-mouthed surprise, was eloquently expressive of regretful indignation ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... He wanted more weight, especially in the center trio, and was soon pleading with Mills to have Cowan reinstated. The head coach ultimately relented, and Devoe was given to understand that if Cowan expressed himself decently regretful and determined to do good work he could go back into the second. The big sophomore, who, by his frequent avowals, was in college for no other purpose than to play football, had simply been lost since his dismissal, and, upon hearing Devoe's message, eagerly came off his high horse and made a visit ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... flushed softly, as she felt the proud, admiring glance of her husband bent upon her. But underneath all her pleasure was a dull sense of pain and a consciousness of wrong-doing, which was a very serpent trail among her fragrant flowers. When she reached her home again a flood of regretful sorrow overwhelmed her heart, and she wept bitterly. Her husband sought most tenderly to soothe her grief, and secretly resolved to undermine the "superstition which caused the dear ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... men and women had come and gone, leaving him indifferent as to their coming and going, their pains and their joys; and to-night, though there were many matters with which his mind might well have been occupied, he found himself in the curious position of indulging in vague and almost regretful memories. The place at the other end of his table was empty, as it had been for many nights; for during the period of his titanic struggle with those men against whom he had declared war, he had shunned all society, and lived a life of stern and ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... regretful that the friend had been lost in the lover, never guessed that Tim's love was a thread which was destined to cross and re-cross those other threads held by the fingers of Fate until it had tangled the whole fabric of ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... Regretful glances were sent after that "big flat bottom boat," but women like Jennie had to be humored, and even ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... again he called and listened, "Whoopee! Whoopee!" and was regretful at the thought that he did not even know the name of the man who had saved him. Could he also save the others? The wild trail drew him and fascinated him. Each day he followed a little farther, and morning and evening he called his lonely cry, "Whoopee! Whoopee!" and still was answered ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... servants at supper in the great kitchen, where they had worked in the imperfect light through the long evenings of winter. The young Marius himself took but a very sober part in the noisy feasting. A devout, regretful after-taste of what had been really beautiful in the ritual he had accomplished took him early away, that he might the better recall in reverie all the circumstances of the celebration of the day. ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater |
