"Tragical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her tragical exit. "That is a young lady who detests business; but she does not object to its fruits—dresses, lace, footmen, diamonds, and a carriage to drive about in. On the contrary, she would ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... understood to have had no basis except in the waste brains of courtier men and women; but their existence there can become tragical enough. Add to which, the Great Elector, like all the Hohenzollerns, was a choleric man; capable of blazing into volcanic explosions, when affronted by idle masses of cobwebs in the midst of his serious businesses! ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle
... Cottrell, in mock-tragical tones, "that we are thirteen to dinner? Do you not know that Lionel Beauchamp is the thirteenth? and do you not know what Fate has invariably in store for the thirteenth at a ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... turned out a calamitous year for the people of Ferrara, for there occurred a very tragical event in the court of their sovereign. Our annals, both printed and in manuscript, with the exception of the unpolished and negligent work of Sardi, and one other, have given the following relation of it,—from which, however, are rejected many ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... was it not? It would have been a tragical dream—it was more tragical in being no dream at all, but a reality. What had taken place was simple, and easy to understand. That woman had come thither, on this stormy night, to murder me; and she had ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... wait for five or six hours in front of a post-house, (as there was seldom an apartment into which I could enter) I thought with trembling of that army which might overtake me at the extremity of Europe, and render my situation at once tragical and ridiculous; for it is thus with the failure of an undertaking of this kind. The circumstances which compelled me to it not being generally known, I might have been asked why I quitted my own house, even although it had been made a prison to me, and there are ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... Lasource, a man of high-flown language and tragical imagination. His unpowdered and closely-cut hair, his black coat, his austere demeanour, and grave and ascetic features, recalled the minister of the Holy Gospel and those Puritans of the time of Cromwell who sought for God in liberty, and in ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... a long and weary night to many within and without the abbey. Every thing betokened a dismal day. The atmosphere was damp, and oppressive to the spirits, while the raw cold sensibly affected the frame. All astir were filled with gloom and despondency, and secretly breathed a wish that, the tragical business of the day were ended. The vast range of Pendle was obscured by clouds, and ere long the vapours descended into the valleys, and rain began to fall; at first slightly, but afterwards in heavy continuous ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... even yet save her? For now it would appear as if the supremely tragical moment might ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... (a company) of brave youths, otherwise endued with good gifts, by thy inducement hast thou brought to their utter destruction and confusion." The Jesuit himself commands our respect, although we refuse him our esteem; for he felt some compunction at the tragical executions which were to follow, and "wished all the blame might rest on him, could the shedding of his blood be ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... manner of blacklegs were at work with here and there an honest man; national oratory was at once visionary, ludicrous and tragical; fanatics of the bomb, the knife and the poison-cup for years were abroad in the land. These situations, growing from times past, compel you to hold with Bismarck that ultimate appeal to the sword was after all the only ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... fourth volume of Dilke's Old Plays. Lamb, surprisingly enough, has given not a single extract from that noble tragedy: it was reserved for Leigh Hunt, when speaking of its author, to remark that "there is one character of his (De Flores in 'The Changeling') which, for effect at once tragical, probable, and poetical, surpasses anything I know of in the drama of domestic life." The praise is not a whit too high; the truth could ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... suppose it is. But one can get beyond tragedy—beyond the state of feeling tragical, I mean. Father himself is tragical. One feels he is mistaken—and yet he wouldn't be any different, and be himself, I suppose. He's sort of crucified on an idea of the working people. It's rather horrible when he's ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence
... more tragical was the news of the missionaries who had gone from the London Missionary Society to Linyanti, to labor among Sekeletu's people. Mr. and Mrs. Helmore and several of his party had succumbed to fever, and the survivors ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... common observation," says the author, in the chapter on sympathy and its effects, "that objects which in the reality would shock, are, in tragical and such like representations, the source of a very high species of pleasure. This taken as a fact, has been the cause of much reasoning. The satisfaction has been commonly attributed, first to the comfort we receive in considering that so melancholy a story is no more than a fiction; and next ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... again, ten years after her second marriage, she concentrated her hopes and affections on her handsome and amiable son Maurice. Though fondly attached to her, he was yet to be the cause of her heaviest sorrows, by his more than hazardous marriage, and by his premature and tragical fate. ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... and it was the greater that few knew the extent of it. His letters came down franked from town, and he showed the invitations to Helen with a sigh. It was beautiful and tragical to see him refuse one party after another—at least to those who could understand, as Helen didn't, the melancholy grandeur of his self-denial. Helen did not, or only smiled at the awful pathos with which the Major spoke of the Court Guide in general: but young Pen looked with great respect ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... not indifferentism.... But in negation, as in fire, there is a destructive power, and how to keep it in bounds, how to tell it where to stop, when that which it must destroy, and that which it must spare are often inseparably welded together? Here it is that the often-noticed tragical aspect of human life comes in: for action we require will, and for action we require thought; but thought and will have parted from each other, and separate ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... rehearse. All gaping wait the event. This Critic opes His right ear to the strain. The other hopes To catch it better with his left. Long trade It were to tell, how the deluded maid A victim fell. And now right greedily All hands are stretching forth the songs to buy, That are so tragical; which She, and She, Deals out, and sings the while; nor can there be A breast so obdurate here, that will hold back His contribution from the gentle rack Of Music's pleasing torture. Irus' self, The staff-propt Beggar, his thin gotten pelf Brings out ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... but interrupted herself, half-way, with a sob. She was seized by a fantasy that if Sophie died an old maid her sister would have been the cause of it—would be a murderess! The sudden jarring of this idea—tragical enough, even without the ghastly spice of reality that there was about it—against the ludicrous element with which tradition flavors the name of old maid—caught the young woman at unawares, and ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... and in twenty-four hours, he would write himself up to the chin in verse. His muse was singularly prolific and her progeny various. He roamed recklessly through the realm of poesy. Every style seemed his—blank verse and rhyme, ode and epic, lyrical and tragical, satiric and elegiac, sacred and profane, sublime and ridiculous, he was equally good at all. His poetry might not perhaps have stood a very strict classification, but he produced a fair, marketable sample, which deserved (his ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... look easy often are found difficult when attempted. When Sam began to wield the doctor's instruments he did so awkwardly. He lacked that delicacy of touch which can only be acquired by practice, and the result was tragical. The knife slipped, inflicting a deep gash, and causing a quick flow ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger
... tragical! One would imagine I was Marshal Radetzky. But are you ever going to tell ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... not one that should disturb a writer of fiction. The question is, are the characters melodramatic. Will anyone suggest to me the marriage of a girl of seventeen with a man over sixty is melodramatic. It may be, but I think it tragical, and so it was in this case. As for Orlando Guise, I describe the man as I knew him, and he is still alive. Some comments upon the story suggested that it was impossible for a man to spend the night on the prairie with ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to be regarded as the chief hero. Surely this is an exaggerated representation of the proportion which sorrow bears to happiness in human life; and the fact that a popular writer has (whether consciously or not) brought every one of the five stories which she has published to a tragical end gives a very uncomfortable idea of the tone of our present literature. And other such symptoms are only too plentiful—the announcement of a novel with the title of "Why Paul Freeoll Killed his Wife" being one of the latest. With all ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... when we approached the Spanish limits; even so God hath not hitherto permitted them to establish a possession permanent upon another's right, notwithstanding their manifold attempts, in which the issue hath been no less tragical than that of the Spaniards, as by their ...
— Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage to Newfoundland • Edward Hayes
... that Obadiah had not got above threescore yards from the stable-yard, before he met with Dr. Slop;—and indeed he gave a dirty proof that he had met with him, and was within an ace of giving a tragical one too. ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... that point. (See Burgoyne's Narrative and Collection of Documents, pp. 65, 66, second edition.) But in spite of all restraints, the cruel temper and lawless habits of these savages would sometimes burst forth—sometimes not more fatally to their enemies than to their friends. The tragical fate of Miss MacRea raised one loud cry of indignation on both sides of the Atlantic. This lady, in the bloom of youth and beauty, the daughter of an American Loyalist, was betrothed to an officer in the British provincial troops. Anxious for her security, the officer engaged some Indians to escort ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... the Paulinism which is falsely called Christianity, it stands, by its dogmatic portion or contents, in such striking and irreconcilable, nay absolutely absurd contradiction with all the acquisitions and principles of modern science that its future tragical fate can only be a question of time. But even its ethical contents or its moral principles are in no way essentially distinguished above those of other peoples, and were equally well and in part better ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... stirring scenes and tragical events characterizing the early days of California one can well understand that there came of necessity many brave and adventurous argonauts and many women of superior mental force, from among whom in after years the woman suffrage cause might ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... they hatch out broods of palatial villas equipped with men and maid servants, horses, carriages, motors, yachts; and if the original settlers remain it is in a helpless inferiority, a broken spirit, and an overridden ideal. This tragical history is the same at Magnolia, and at York Harbor, and at Dublin, and at Bar Harbor; even at Newport itself; the co-operative housing of New York is making a like history. It is true that the Philistines do not come in and dispossess the autochthonic groups; ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... Silence answered only by sighing and moaning, For two whole days she had been kept in constant fear and worry, afraid every minute of some tragical message, perplexed by the conflicting advice of all manner of officious friends, sleepless of course through the two nights, and now utterly ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... revealing a tear-stained face and trembling lips. "YOU would cry, too, if you were an orphan and had come to a place you thought was going to be home and found that they didn't want you because you weren't a boy. Oh, this is the most TRAGICAL thing ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Macartney, that a friend of his had written a tragedy. It is, however, possible that I may have been inaccurate in my perception of what Dr. Johnson related, and that he may have been talking of the same ludicrous tragical subject that Mr. Hume had mentioned. BOSWELL. The story of Combabus, which was originally told by Lucian, may be found in Bayle's ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... sat staring at the fire. "A pretty story!" said the Colonel at last. "Dick Steele should have had it; 'twould have looked vastly well over against his Inkle and Yarico. There the maid the savior, here the man; there perfidy, here plain honesty; there for the woman a fate most tragical, here"— ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... but from that day to this they have never been heard from, no trace of them has been found, and the mystery of their disappearance is as complete now as it was five minutes after they vanished—a more tragical termination than the story of the old pilot on a Lake George steamer, who, surrounded one morning by a group of tourist-questioners, pointed to Roger Slide Mountain, and said: "A couple went up there and never came back again." "What do you suppose, captain," said ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... without distress; yet he would always gird it on when he went to dig in his garden. That is a touch which qualifies the man. A weaker nature would have shrunk from the sight of what only commemorated a failure. But he was of Thoreau's mind, that if you can "make your failure tragical by courage, it will not differ from success." He could look back without confusion to his enthusiastic promise. If events had been contrary, and he found himself unable to carry out that purpose - well, there was but the more reason to be brave ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Mary Pennycuick in his arms. Spent and panting from his struggle, and awed by the tragical significance of the affair, his heart exulted at his deed. He thanked God that he had been in time—with a fervour proportionate to her rank and consequence—and anticipated the splendid reward awaiting him as the benefactor of the great family, ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... tragical encounter, though, was with the monkey. Have you forgotten that? It was on one of your birthdays—you had a good many of them in Florence—I forget which it was. You must have been about ten. I had taken you to the Zoological ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... this clever young artist and satirist was both singular and tragical. It appears that on the 21st of February, 1828, Theodore Lane, who then resided in Judd Street, Brunswick Square, called upon his brother-in-law, Mr. Wakefield, a surgeon of Battle Bridge, intending to proceed in the latter's gig to Hampstead, ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... was enough to make a man silent and melancholy," remarked young Harmar. "I can imagine how I would have felt if deprived of her I loved, in as tragical a manner." "Don't—don't mention it, my dear!" exclaimed his wife, sensibly affected at the thought ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... most shocking instances of this method of warfare was that of the destruction of the French cross-Channel steamer Sussex. It must stand forth, as the sinking of the steamer Lusitania did, as so singularly tragical and unjustifiable as to constitute a truly terrible example of the inhumanity of submarine warfare as the commanders of German vessels have for the past twelvemonth been conducting it. If this instance stood alone, some explanation, some disavowal ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... assuming a tragical character," said Mrs. Hardyng, to whom Clemence went at once for advice. "'The plot thickens,' as the story-books say. Why, child, take courage; you will be a heroine yet, and I shall be thrown completely in the shade—left disconsolate ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... they hold before the sowing is a criminal and repugnant trago-comedy. The tragical part is the first thing that is done. When they have assembled in the middle of the woods * * * they tightly bind the slave whom they are going to sacrifice. All armed with sharp knives, leap and jump about their victim striking him, one after the other, or several ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... very highly of her son; her disappointment, therefore, over his failure at college had not been keen. Besides, tragical suffering is the sublime privilege of deep natures: she escaped by smallness. Nothing would have made her very miserable but hunger and bodily pains. Against hunger she exercised ceaseless precautions; bodily pains she had none. The one other thing that could ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... obeyed," she cried. "Yet I never forbade him to write to me. Oh! he has forgotten me, and he is right. If his life had been spoiled, it would have been too tragical; one life is enough, is it not? Would you believe it, dear; I read English newspapers simply to see his name in print. But he has not yet taken his seat in the ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... the severest laws against them, and employed the hand of executioners to ruin them. The seditious multitudes, by murders and massacres, have committed outrages against them, if possible, still more violent and tragical. Besides their common share in the sufferings of society, they have undergone a series of horrid and unutterable calamities, which no other description of men has ever experienced in any age, or in any country. Princes and people, Pagans, Mahometans, and Christians, disagreeing ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... A Narraganset, made prisoner by Maj. Talcott in 1679, begged to be delivered to the Mohicans that he might be put to death in their own way. The New Englanders complying with his request, preparations were made for the tragical event. "The Mohicans, formed a circle, and admitting within it as many of the whites as chose to witness their proceedings, placed the prisoner in the centre. One of the Mohicans, who had lost a son in the late engagement, with a knife cut ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... that Sophocles, the tragical poet, when in his old days he was by his own sons accused before the judges for a doting and sottish man, as one that fondly wasted his own substance, and seemed to need a governor to see unto him; to the intent he might clear himself of the fault, he came into the ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... contemplated on the incidents and events of this tragical story. Conscience whispered him, are not Malcomb's miseries superior to thine? Candour and correct reason must have answered yes. "Melissa perished, said Alonzo, but not by the hand of her lover: she expired, ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... merry game like butterflies, when one, in playful provocation, will escape from another, hide behind a flower, be overtaken at last, and then, wantonly joying with the other, fly away into the golden sunlight. But a spider, a spider can prepare a sudden tragical ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... violence; and it required only this present picture to convince her that she would never be able to gaze upon it callously, without pity and terror. Newspaper life—at least the reportorial side of it—has an odd effect upon men and women; it sharpens their tragical instincts and perceptions and dulls eternally the edge of tenderness and sentimentality. It was natural for Kitty to possess the keenest perceptions of tragedy; but she had been taken out of the reportorial field in time to preserve ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... of Frederick II., in 1250, was followed by a series of misfortunes to his descendants, so tragical as to form a story full of pathetic interest. His son Enzio, a man of remarkable beauty and valor, celebrated as a Minnesinger, and of unusual intellectual qualities, had been taken prisoner, as we have already told, by the Bolognese, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... cibolero. His vanity had been scathed as well, for he was now satisfied that Catalina was deeply interested in the man, if not already on terms of intimacy—on terms of love, mutually reciprocated and understood. He had visited her since the tragical occurrence at the Presidio. He had observed a marked change in her manner. He had thought to triumph by the malignant abuse heaped on the assassin; but she, although she said nothing in defence of the latter—of course she ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... a worse failure than my first, for I did pity poor Joe, but this man is detestable, and I never will forgive him that last insult. I dare say I was absurdly tragical, I'm apt to be when very angry, but what a temper he has got! The white, cold kind, that smoulders and stabs, instead of blazing up and being over in a minute. Thank Heaven, I'm not his wife! Well, I've made an enemy and lost my place, for of course Mrs. Saltonstall ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... as well add here the catastrophe of this tragical tale. From information received by the Lieutenant, after his arrival in Madrid, it appears that poor Pepe breathed his last about eight hours after the attack, and long before his widowed mother could arrive to close the eyes ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 478, Saturday, February 26, 1831 • Various
... Most of the gentlewomen there present, being near allied to the unfortunate woman, and likewise to the knight, remembering well both his love and death, did shed tears as plentifully as if it had been to the very persons themselves in usual performance of the action indeed. Which tragical scene being passed over, and the woman and knight gone out of their sight, all that had seen this strange accident fell into diversity of confused opinions, yet not daring to disclose them, as doubting some ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... of the rotatory calabash? They are as nothing; in a good many respects they are as less. Divorced from this, getting half-divorced from this, they are a thing to fill one with a kind of horror; with a sacred inexpressible pity and fear. The most tragical thing a human eye can look on. It was said to the Prophet, "Behold, I will show thee worse things than these: women weeping to Thammuz." That was the acme of the Prophet's vision,—then ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... and somewhat pedantically noting his authorities in the margin when he came to print. "Sejanus" is a tragedy of genuine dramatic power in which is told with discriminating taste the story of the haughty favourite of Tiberius with his tragical overthrow. Our drama presents no truer nor more painstaking representation of ancient Roman life than may be found in Jonson's "Sejanus" and "Catiline his Conspiracy," which followed in 1611. A passage in the ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... horrible contrast. For Wimp, alone, the painted face had fuller, more tragical, meanings. The audience seemed turned to stone. They sat or stood—in every variety of attitude—frozen, rigid. Arthur Constant's picture dominated the scene, the only living thing in ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... encounters, in order to avoid this dreadful nightmare of a solitary old age. But before he has got as far as the doorstep he reflects further. Suppose he marries, and after twenty years his wife dies and leaves him a widower! He will still have a solitary old age, and a vastly more tragical one than if he had remained single. Marriage is not, therefore, a sure remedy for a solitary old age; it may intensify the evil. Children? But suppose he doesn't have any children! Suppose, there being children, they die—what anguish! Suppose merely that they are seriously ...
— Mental Efficiency - And Other Hints to Men and Women • Arnold Bennett
... except their own. We are very uncorrupt and tolerably enlightened judges of the transactions of past ages; where no passions deceive, and where the whole train of circumstances, from the trifling cause to the tragical event, is set in an orderly series before us. Few are the partisans of departed tyranny; and to be a Whig on the business of a hundred years ago is very consistent with every advantage of present servility. This retrospective wisdom and historical patriotism are things ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... to St. Petersburg to receive the congratulations of his subjects, having left Plevna behind him, 'full of horrors.' He is dead now, but his son and all princes who live by the sword would do well to peruse and reperuse the accounts of the tragical scenes that the victors left upon the battle-field when they departed to receive the ovations of the fickle populace. The Roumanians feted their victorious allies, to whom it must be admitted that we have here done ample justice in all their proceedings. But they were the same Russians who, ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... foot of the fall as thick as a shoal of herrings. Whether from the noise of the fall, or a natural defect in the old woman's hearing, it is hard to determine, but certain it is, she had no knowledge of the tragical scene which had been so lately transacted at the tents, though she was not more than two hundred yards from the place. When we first perceived her she seemed perfectly at ease, and was entirely surrounded ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... place a garrison in the city and to deprive the citizens of their charter if matters were not mended. His anger was with difficulty appeased by the Recorder, and he at last contented himself with privately admonishing the aldermen to see the young fellows punished. The end of the affair was tragical enough. The original sentence was carried out, with the result that one of the apprentices ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... on the side of moderation and conciliation, but that Canning himself, on succeeding him, dissociated Great Britain from the holy alliance by taking his stand upon an admirable despatch of Castlereagh and adopting it as his own. When he met with his tragical end, the brutal shouts of exultation raised by a portion of the crowd at his funeral were the expression of sheer ignorance and not of intelligent public opinion. He was a tory, in days when most patriots were tories, but he was a tory of the best type; and we of a later generation can ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... a tragical one, although they did not appear to be in any immediate peril. The vessel remained motionless between the rocks which seemed to hold her firmly, and their adventure appeared to be more sad than frightful. Erik had only one thought—the expedition ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... instances of the kind, is that of Sarah Jacob, known as the "Welsh Fasting Girl," and whose history and tragical death excited a great deal of comment in the medical and lay press in Great Britain a few years ago. The following account of the case is mainly derived from Dr. Fowler's[10] ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond
... pupils "from the beginning at a point of view whence the life of mankind could be contemplated as one movement, single though infinitely varied, unerring though wandering, significant yet mysterious, secure and self-enriching although tragical. There was a general sense of the spiritual nature of reality and of the rule of mind, though what was meant by spirit or mind was hardly asked. There was a hope and faith that outstripped all save the vaguest understanding but ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... was very ill, in consequence of a fall from a horse when she was thirteen, a critical moment in a girl's life; and her despairing mother, perplexed by the contradictory advice of medical men, was taking her each year to a different watering-place. Then he learnt the startling news of the sudden tragical death of that mother, who was so severe and yet so useful to her kin. She had been carried off in five days by inflammation of the lungs, which she had contracted one evening whilst she was out walking at La Bourboule, through having taken off her mantle to place it round the shoulders ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... them—all mankind looking on—in the nation's vision, setting them even in their own vision—taking the Trusts that thought they had got what they wanted, making them stand up and look (in some great public lighted place) at what pathetic, tragical failures they are, letting them see that what their Trust had wanted all along, if it had only thought about it, was not success one went to jail for—success by getting the best out of the most people, but success by serving the most ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... much of the text, that I baffled him by getting it printed in four-and-twenty hours, by Moxon's assistance. He wanted me to call it 'The Sister'!—and I have before me, while I write, the stage-acting copy, with two lines of his own insertion to avoid the tragical ending—Tresham was to announce his intention of going into a monastery! all this, to keep up the belief that Macready, and Macready alone, could produce a veritable 'tragedy', unproduced before. Not a shilling was spent on scenery or dresses—and a striking scene ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... his Remarks on the Tragedies of the Last Age; and in his Short View of Tragedy, 1693, he said, "In the neighing of a horse or in the growling of a mastiff, there is more humanity than, many times, in the tragical flights of Shakspere." "To Deptford by water," writes Pepys, in his diary for August 20, 1666, "reading Othello, Moor of Venice; which I ever heretofore esteemed a mighty good play; but, having so lately read the Adventures of Five Hours, it seems ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... tragical consequences of all this folly, one is tempted to wish that the legislature would interfere in these matters, and prevent the desperate injury which is thus done to the race. The climate, which is ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... Mr Burney's report; and to complete the account of this tragical transaction, it may not be unnecessary to mention, that the people in the cutter were Mr Rowe, Mr Woodhouse, Francis Murphy, quarter-master; William Facey, Thomas Hill, Michael Bell, and Edward Jones, fore-castle ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... life is a torture. Fortunately, however, they perish in the end, either from discord with real life, or from the irresistible revolt of their suppressed instincts, or from foiled hopes of possessing the man. The type is tragical, offering us the spectacle of a desperate struggle against nature. It is also tragical as a Romantic inheritance dispersed by the prevailing Naturalism, which wants nothing but happiness: and for happiness strong and ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... in a highly tragical state of mind all day, and who was meditating on nothing less sublime than an eternal separation from her lover, which she had imagined, with all the affecting attendants and consequents, was entirely ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... with an unfavourable opinion of the moral character of the people amongst whom they were then residing, but on this evening of the Sabbath, a Fantee was robbed of his effects, and stabbed by an assassin below the ribs, so that his life was despaired of. The most unlucky part, however, of this tragical affair to Richard Lander, was, that the natives, from some cause, which he could not divine, had imbibed the conceit that he was skilled in surgery. In vain, he protested that he knew nothing of the anatomy of the human frame—there were many ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war ...
— Why We are at War • Woodrow Wilson
... be hanged, as he supposed, the only favor which he asked for was a long drop and no priests. And all the while, gentlemen, he still kept his eyes fixed on the lady's corpse, till he was led away with me, while all that stood by, God reward them for it, lamented openly the tragical end of those ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... his days in such a sort as this, but it was no fault of Barnaby True's, nor could he have done anything to prevent it, seeing that he was not even born into the world at the time that his grandfather turned pirate, and was only one year old when he so met his tragical end. Nevertheless, the boys with whom he went to school never tired of calling him "Pirate," and would sometimes sing for his benefit that ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... When I think of what you have just offered me, my heart fills with gratitude indeed it does. I can't be your wife, sir; let me—let me be your daughter." Saying which, Rebecca went down on HER knees in a most tragical way, and, taking Sir Pitt's horny black hand between her own two (which were very pretty and white, and as soft as satin), looked up in his face with an expression of exquisite pathos and confidence, when—when the door opened, and Miss ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to the lot of an officer of the French navy, M. Jules de Blosseville, to attempt to explore those distant parts, and to shed an interest over them, both by his discoveries and by his tragical and premature end. ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... Esq.; (Son of the Hon. Lieut. General Fielding, who upon his Return from his Travels entered himself of the Temple in order to study the Law, and married one of the pretty Miss Cradocks of Salisbury) will own himself the AUTHOR of 18 strange Things called Tragical Comedies and Comical Tragedies, lately advertised by J. Watts, of Wild-Court, Printer, he shall be mentioned in Capitals in the Third Edition of Mr. CIBBER'S Life, and likewise be placed among the Poetae minores Dramatici of the Present Age: Then will both his Name and Writings ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... appeared to be so far from the tragical recollection which must have first caused this disturbance in her poor mind; but her grand-daughter thought proper to make ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... young nobleman, who had acquired her husband's friendship, and had on that account become the object of her jealousy; but unfortunately the King drank of the fatal cup along with his favorite, and soon after expired. This tragical incident, joined to her other crimes, rendered Eadburga so odious that she was obliged to fly into France; whence Egbert was at the same time recalled by the nobility, in order to ascend the throne ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... herself before breakfast, but saw that the day was still sacred to men, and amused herself by watching their contretemps. In the first place the key of the bathing-shed could not be found. Charles stood by the riverside with folded hands, tragical, while the servant shouted, and was misunderstood by another servant in the garden. Then came a difficulty about a spring-board, and soon three people were running backwards and forwards over the meadow, with orders and counter orders ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... operas, founded on some Biblical subject, are creditably performed by the pupils in a private theatre connected with the establishment. I was never present but at one of these representations, when the tragical story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Ahednego was performed. Honor to Cardinal Tosti for his successful ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... led to the mention of Signor Orsino and of the affair that had banished him from Venice; respecting which Emily had ventured to ask a few questions. Ugo appeared to be well acquainted with the circumstances of that tragical event, and related some minute particulars, that both shocked and surprised her; for it appeared very extraordinary how such particulars could be known to any, but to persons, present when the assassination ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... that her mother-in-law was regarding her; she did not see that her husband had left the room; she thought of no contest of wits, of no game she had won or lost. She thought only of the tragical mistake she had made—the dull, blundering crime she had committed; and still bowed over, and gnawing her nails, she looked sideways with her hard, round, ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... good a fortune-teller not to be able to foresee that his own destiny would be tragical if he waited the arrival of the man with the silver greyhound upon his sleeve. He made, as we say, a moonlight flitting, and was nowhere to be seen or heard of. Some noise there was about papers or letters found in the house, but it died away, and Doctor Baptisti Damiotti ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... of these tragical scenes was now soon to be acted. The Counts Egmont and Horn, having submitted to some previous interrogatories by Vargas and others, were removed from Ghent to Brussels, on the 3d of June, under a strong escort. The following day they passed through the mockery ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... foreign, too, about the veteran's air. Mr. Chapman had looked so thoroughly English: that tragical and meagre personage looked ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... properly sealed, Lombard said, with a countenance curiously divided between a tragical expression and a smile of fatuous complacency, "There was a clear case of poetical justice in your being left behind in the desert to-night. To see the lights of the train disappearing, leaving you alone in the midst ...
— Deserted - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... early a strong and peculiar stimulus. A copy of Spenser lay in the window of his mother's apartment, and in it he delighted to read, and became the devoted slave of poetry ever after. When only ten he wrote 'The Tragical History of Pyramus and Thisbe,' and at twelve 'Constantia and Philetus.' Pope wrote a lampoon about the same age as Cowley these romantic narratives; and we have seen a pretty good copy of verses ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... sad comment on the moving masses who are so thoroughly led captive by the Devil as to imagine that they are traveling on a more convenient way to Heaven while they are actually on the Broad Highway to destruction. The logical ending of such a life is pictured in the remorseful and tragical experiences of Mr. World and Miss Church-Member in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. It is our prayer that each reader may be saved from such a terminus of life by journeying on the King's Highway and taking Christ as his all in all. Then when he comes to the place made shadowy by ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... numerous natural openings, while in all directions are seen the huts of the labourers, sticking like the nests of birds, wherever a ledge has enabled them to be constructed. One of the richest silver mines of Peru is that of Salcedo, but nothing is now known of it except its tragical history. A Don Jose Salcedo, a Spaniard, without a maravedi in his pocket, made love to an Indian girl, whose mother promised to reveal to him a rich silver lode on condition that he married ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston
... extinct. And it is not unlikely that he was little interested in theory as such, and more than likely that he was impatient of pedantic distinctions between 'pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable or poem unlimited.' But that would not prove that he never reflected on his art, or could not explain, if he cared to, what he thought would be ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... terrified at the spectacle, and in such haste to escape, that his foot slipped, and he fell down the stone steps: his ankle was sprained by the fall, and he was brought to Dr. Campbell's. Forester was shocked at this tragical end of his intended comedy. The poor man was laid upon a bed, and he writhed with pain. Forester, with vehement expressions of concern, explained to Dr. Campbell the cause of this accident, and he was much touched by the dancing-master's good nature, ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... Doth Skelton entreat you While he facete Will briefly repeat ye The history all And tale tragical, By whose treachery And base injury Robin the good, Call'd Robin Hood, Died in Sherwood. Which till you see, Be ruled by me: Sit patiently, And give a plaudite, If ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... This poem, as the two preceding ones, is taken from the Banner of the South, where it appeared June 13, 1868. It affords a glimpse of the tragical romance of the poet's life. The voice that he hears is that of "Ethel," the lost love of his youth. Her memory never left him. In the poem entitled What? it is again her spirit voice that conveys to ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... He fled to the sea,—uncertain, vacillating, and discouraged,—and sailed for Egypt, relying on the friendship of the young king; but was murdered treacherously before he set foot upon the land. His fate was most tragical. His fall was overwhelming. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... A tragical bit of romance colored the mature life of the Grande Mademoiselle. She had always professed a great aversion to love, regarding it as "unworthy of a well-ordered soul." She even went so far as to ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... it seems, (and that too much for your health,) employed in writing. I hope it is in penning down the particulars of your tragical story. And my mother has put me in mind to press you to it, with a view that one day, if it might be published under feigned names, it would be as much use as honour to the sex. My mother says she cannot help admiring you ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... tragic thing in life is that there is nothing tragical, while death is just death, when anyone dies ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... The Sandhill is situated I called after Lieutenant Gore, and the inlet, which we entered just before dark, Disaster Inlet, from a circumstance of what may be called a tragical nature which happened in it. Like all the other inlets, as we afterwards found, it had a bar scarcely passable at low-water for boats; but within there was a depth of two and three fathoms. It appears that the streams passing out of ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... mind of every honest man, must excite feelings of regret and disgust. Numerous facts are on record, of human food, contaminated with poisonous ingredients, having been vended to the public; and the annals of medicine record tragical events ensuing from ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... PHILIP admits all that, but in a kind of agony calls on God and man to realise the meaningless horror of it all and forbid, at any price, the possibility of its recurrence. If sometimes unjust and nearly always tragical, the book none the less is free from ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 5, 1920 • Various
... go." And so they talk on of all these horrible things, half buried under canopies of lampas, surrounded by flowers, by the light of thousands of wax-candles burning in golden lustres; and these women, who foresee such great catastrophes—tragical events, which may divide them from all they love, from parents, from friends—have beautiful dresses, with trimmings from England, and make the prettiest little gestures while speaking. It is because in France vanity is so deeply rooted that it leads to indifference. Presumption stands in ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various
... No tragical consequences, however, ensued. Mother and sons both appeared the next morning, and were reported as "all right" by the first inquirer from the Folly; but Jessie came to her lessons with swollen eyelids ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... why she should be expected to see a trashy, traditional apparition like the so-called Cullumpton ghost, that is only vouched for by housemaids and tipsy stable-boys, when my uncle, who was the owner of Exwood, committed suicide there under the most tragical circumstances, and most certainly haunts ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... command of Mr. J. Reed, among the Snakes, to join there the hunters left by Messrs. Hunt and Crooks, near Fort Henry, and to secure horses and provisions for our journey. This woman informed us, to our no small dismay, of the tragical fate of all those who composed that party. She told us that in the month of January, the hunters being dispersed here and there, setting their traps for the beaver, Jacob Regner, Gilles Leclerc, and Pierre Dorion, her husband, had been attacked by the natives. Leclerc, having ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... she had been dramatically struggling and suffering, and a new heaven and a new earth should be in sight. Why has the Church stopped being a drama? Why is she hesitating and fearing? Doubts and comfort have weakened the Church. The most tragical religion has climbed from Golgotha to Olympus and is now lying there comfortably, in sunshine and forgetfulness, while Chronos, appeased, continues to measure the time by thousands of years, ...
— The Agony of the Church (1917) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... say this to flatter your passing caprice, mademoiselle," said the duke, to whom the little scene, so tragical for Modeste, had left time for thought; "but I declare I am so profoundly disgusted with the world and the Court and Paris that had I a Duchesse d'Herouville, gifted with the wit and graces of mademoiselle, I would gladly bind myself to live like a philosopher ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... drawn from the tragical and too often disgustful history of witchcraft, it is not one of exultation at our superior enlightenment or shame at the shortcomings of the human intellect. It is rather one of charity and self-distrust. ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... requires but a handful of people to represent multitude; and this lonely handful of redmen in the pueblo of Tesuque, numbering at most but seventy-five or eighty individuals, lessened, as is the case with all the pueblos of the country to a tragical degree by the recent invasions of the influenza epidemic, showed the interested observer, in groups of five or a dozen dancers and soloists including drummers, through the incomparable pageantry of the buffalo, the eagle, the snowbird, and other varying types of small dances, the mastery ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... only practiced now by country clowns, was a favourite sport even in the courts of princes, and before fair ladies and princesses. To this wrestling match, therefore, Celia and Rosalind went. They found that it was likely to prove a very tragical sight; for a large and powerful man, who had been long practiced in the art of wrestling, and had slain many men in contests of this kind, was just going to wrestle with a very young man, who, from his extreme youth and inexperience in the art, the beholders ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... soon after followed by a scene truly tragical—the murder of the two young princes. Richard gave orders to Sir Robert Brakenbury, constable of the Tower, to put his nephews to death, but this gentleman, who had sentiments of honor, refused to have any hand in the infamous office. The tyrant then sent for Sir James Tyrrel, who promised obedience; ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... perchance in some one defectious piece we may find a blemish: now in his parts, kinds, or species (as you list to term them), it is to be noted, that some poesies have coupled together two or three kinds, as tragical and comical, whereupon is risen the tragi-comical. Some in the like manner have mingled prose and verse, as Sanazzar and Boethius. Some have mingled matters heroical and pastoral. But that cometh all to one in this question; ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... thinking how many night-caps had wagged over these warming-pans in past generations; what jests may have been made, and kisses taken, while they were in service; and how often they had been uselessly paraded in the bed of death. If they could only speak, at what absurd, indecorous, and tragical scenes had they not ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Dedicatory to Antony Hammond, Esq., of Somersham-Place, prefacing that pathetic tragedy, The Fatal Marriage; or, The Innocent Adultery[1] (4to, 1694), Southerne writes: 'I took the Hint of the Tragical part of this Play from a Novel of Mrs. Behn's, call'd The Fair Vow-Breaker; you will forgive me for calling it a Hint, when you find I have little more than borrow'd the Question, how far such a Distress was to be carry'd, upon ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... head of the murmuring rapids, Joe now proceeded to skin the moose with a pocket-knife, while I looked on; and a tragical business it was,—to see that still warm and palpitating body pierced with a knife, to see the warm milk stream from the rent udder, and the ghastly naked red carcass appearing from within its seemly robe, which was made to hide it. The ball had passed through the shoulder-blade ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... would marry a man of two thousand Louis a year. This was not very likely to happen to the daughter of a soldier in the guards. It did happen, nevertheless. The little Bontemps married the President Beaudouin, who was mad. But, the tragical part of the story is, that her mother had also foretold that she would die in childbirth of her first child, and that she did actually die in child-birth, at the age of eighteen, doubtless under a strong impression of her mother's prophecy, to which the improbable event ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... it would be the end. She knew that positively. The question could never be opened up again. She could not let it pass without a final effort. It was inconceivable that this shadow could always lie across his life. Whatever tragical event had occurred belonged to the past—surely the future might hold some alleviation, some happiness that might compensate for the sorrow that had lined his face and brought the silver threads that gleamed in his thick ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... this new inamorata, and sailing with her forthwith on her return to Ephesus, his departure would at once be satisfactorily explained to his father on his arrival, and he might return to his friends at Tyre after their emotions at the tragical catastrophe of Leucippe had in some measure subsided. After much persuasion, Clitophon accedes to this arrangement, with the sole proviso that nothing but the fiancailles, or betrothal, shall take place in Egypt, and that the completion of the marriage shall be deferred ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... we! It is only when our madness is upon us that we cease to be commonplace, and wax tragical and great, or else original and grotesque and humorous, with that true deep humor that compels both our laughter and our tears, and leaves us older, sadder, and wiser than it ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... stones, erected upon the neighbouring heights of Blackhouse, are shown, as marking the spot where the seven brethren were slain; and the Douglas-burn is averred to have been the stream, at which the lovers stopped to drink: so minute is tradition in ascertaining the scene of a tragical tale, which, considering the rude state of former times, had probably foundation in ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... as he expresses them there at St. Helena, are almost tragical to consider. He seems to feel the most unaffected surprise that it has all gone so; that he is flung out on the rock here, and the world is still moving on its axis. France is great, and all great; and ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... cause nor affection for either party, and whose only object was plunder and pay, began their indiscriminate and ungovernable ravages on both sides. They robbed and murdered peasants, whether royalists or others; men, women, children, straggling and wounded soldiers of both armies. The tragical catastrophe of a young lady of the name of Macrea, whose story is almost literally detailed in the foregoing paragraphs of the text, is well known. It made a great impression on the public mind at the time, both in ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... years, and those years the most important of her life— the years that developed her character—she lived undetected as a brilliant cavalry officer under her brother's patronage. And the bitterest grief in poor Kate's whole life, was the tragical (and, were it not fully attested, one might say the ultra-scenical,) event that dissolved their long connection. Let me spend a word of apology on poor Kate's errors. We all commit many; both you and I, reader. No, stop; that's not civil. You, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... the four combatants fought on horseback at the Porte St. Antoine. At the first pass Francois de Guise was wounded, but at the third his sword pierced the body of his antagonist, who fell from his saddle and expired a few minutes afterwards. Notwithstanding this tragical result, however, the murderer alike of the father and the son boldly returned to Paris, where he was visited and congratulated by numbers of the nobles, who, instead of shrinking from all contact with a man who had desolated ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... party interested in the wrong. Indeed, by the unanimous consent of all who took notice of the affair, the seconds, or one of them at least, in this case, must be regarded as deeply responsible for the tragical issue; nor did I hear of one person who held them blameless, except that one who, of all others, might the most excusably have held them wrong in any result. But now, from such a case brought under the review of a court, such as I have supposed, and improved in the way I ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... rescue of Paula and Orion-the imperilled victims of Fate, her dry eyes sparkled through tears; she kissed Mary's burning cheeks once more and called her her own dear, dear little daughter. This gave the child courage; with tragical dignity, which brought a smile to the governess' lips, she took Eudoxia's bible from the desk, and said, fixing her beseeching gaze on ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... him a long detail of the tragical cause of my return, and of the sad condition he saw me in. "Alas!" cried he, "was it not enough for me to have lost my son, but must I have also news of the death of a brother I loved so dearly, and see you reduced to this deplorable condition?" He told me how uneasy he was that ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... beginnings of the world, he depicts the amazement and the grief of man when for the first time he saw his fellow-man die. The entrance on earth of that unknown and terrible power which has since been called death is solemn and tragical. The body is lying there motionless and cold amid its brethren, who are amazed at the sleep which they cannot break, at the livid pallor and the stiffness of the limbs. Horror succeeds surprise when the signs ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... she thought you had given up just when things might have come your way. Nan is a little flirt, but she's all right. What's more, she was getting fond of you. Nan is meanest to the man she likes best. The way to handle her, Whit, is to master her. Play high and mighty. Get tragical. Then grab her up in your arms. I tell you, Whit, it'll all come your way if you only keep your nerve. I'm your friend and so is Milly. We're going out to her house presently—and Nan ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... his glory and science were invulnerable, his enemies attacked his odd moods and his temper, whereas, in fact, he was simply characterized by what the English call eccentricity. Sometimes very handsomely dressed, like Crebillon the tragical, he would suddenly affect extreme indifference as to what he wore; he was sometimes seen in a carriage, and sometimes on foot. By turns rough and kind, harsh and covetous on the surface, but capable of offering his whole fortune to his exiled masters—who ...
— The Atheist's Mass • Honore de Balzac
... because the collector cannot expect to live until the whole stock is disposed of, and because, in the order of nature, much must at last fall to rein unbought, unless the reporter's Devouring Element appears and gives a sudden tragical turn to ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... was called by him a comedy because its ending was not tragical, but "happy"; and admiration gave it the epithet "divine." It is in three parts—Inferno (hell), Purgatorio (purgatory), and Paradiso (paradise). It has been made accessible to English readers in the metrical ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... the Young Electrician, "what would you call one?" The way his lips mouthed the question gave an almost tragical purport to it. ...
— The Indiscreet Letter • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... fateful hour to keep his head. Mr. Sexton was equal to the occasion. He spoke slowly, and there was a hush in the House to catch his every syllable, for his words were the harbingers of fate. As he spoke so would be decided one of the most momentous and indeed tragical of human issues. He spoke, I say, slowly—but at the same time it was evident that he had his mind well fixed on the end which he wished to reach. Nothing adds so much to the effectiveness of oratory as the sense that the man who ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... disappearance of Major Lashley was at the bottom of it. He thought again of the pond. He imagined a violent kidnapping and his fancies went to work at devising motives. Some quarrel long ago in the crowded city of Tangier and now brought to a tragical finish amongst the oaks and fields of England. Perhaps a Moor had travelled over seas for his vengeance and found his way from village to village like that Baracen lady of old times. And when he had come to this point of his reflections, he heard a light rapping upon his door. He got ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason |
