"Lugubrious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... leave the island, even though it be only to cross to the mainland. The gift of such sight is sometimes hereditary in a family for generations, but this is not an invariable rule, for it often appears sporadically in one member of a family otherwise free from its lugubrious influence. ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... depicted vividly by Adela, and were addressed as a sort of reproach to the lugubrious letters of her sister. She said pointedly once: "Really, if we are to be miserable, I turn Catholic and go into a convent." The strange thing was that Arabella imagined her letters to be rather of a cheerful character. She ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... wallowed in the lugubrious comfort of his own post-mortem revenge he wished that he had left unsaid some of the things he had said. Quelled by the vision of his wife weeping over him and repenting her cruelties, they began to seem less cruel. ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... me ridiculous in the eyes of the other boys. One night I was wandering in the playground and heard him playing the violin in his study. My taste in music was barbarian; I liked comic songs, which I used to sing to myself in a lugubrious voice, and in London the plaintive clamour of the street-organs had helped to make my sorrows rhythmical. But now, perhaps for the first time, I became aware of the illimitable melancholy that lies at the heart of all great music. It seemed to me that the German master, ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... Lamb entered the office red in the face and considerably out of breath, rapidly followed by a lugubrious individual, talking volubly in an argumentative monotone. This person seemed to be ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... of musk; he bears a red tuft at the tip of his antennae; his breast is covered with nankeen; and across his wing-cases he wears a double, scalloped scarf of vermillion. An elegant, almost sumptuous costume, very superior to that of the others, but yet lugubrious, ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... Pete told me this story and other interesting tales of this wild western country, but mostly our conversation turned to this old man of the mountains who was such a mystery to everyone, even to Big Pete, but who, despite the lugubrious reputation, had proved a kindly gentleman and a good friend ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... will of the owner to be the most active piece of human machinery that ever responded to the impulses of youth and health. But then, his face! What pencil could faithfully delineate features at once so comical and lugubrious—features that one moment expressed the most solemn seriousness, and the next, the most grotesque and absurd abandonment to mirth? In him, all extremes appeared to meet; the man was a contradiction to himself. Tom was a person of few words, and so intensely lazy that it required a strong ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... industriously polishing the bar and singing the while one of the more lugubrious and monotonous hymns, looked up with his customary ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... to-day was Mr. Newdick, the City clerk who had been present at Monica's wedding. He and Mrs. Luke Widdowson were the sole friends of her husband that Monica had seen. Mr. Newdick enjoyed coming to Herne Hill. Always lugubrious to begin with, he gradually cheered up, and by the time for departure was loquacious. But he had the oddest ideas of talk suitable to a drawing-room. Had he been permitted, he would have held forth to Monica by the hour on the history of ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... no one would ever enter it except for a funeral or a wedding, he felt safe from intrusion. There he sank down upon the slippery horsehair lounge, and, staring helplessly at the severe portrait of Mrs. Peaslee, done by a lugubrious artist in crayon, wiped the sweat from his forehead and tried to ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... were going through our performances by the slight illumination of the stars, without any positive certainty as to where the Captain kept his tinder box and candle, that we might furnish some sort of light upon the lugubrious state of affairs. ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... spacious and handsomely furnished—being, in fact, the chamber of Mrs. Wilcox, the mother of the little fellow who occupied the wide bed. He lay there in lugubrious state, the rosy face stained with much crying, just showing above the edge of the counterpane; his tangle of yellow curls crushed upon the bolster. Below these was a white mound, stretched along the middle of the bed, just the length of Robby, aged seven and a half, the youngling ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... showed a disposition to undue merriment, the chief shut them all in his wigwam, lest their Gentile eyes should profane the mysteries. Here, immured in darkness, they listened to the howls, yelpings, and lugubrious songs that resounded from without. One of them, however, by some artifice, contrived to escape, hid behind a bush, and saw the whole solemnity,—the procession of the medicinemen and the bedaubed and befeathered warriors; the drumming, dancing, and stamping; ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... ability to receive consolation was quite as ready as her grief had at first been impetuous; the sobs which seemed to be breaking her heart ceased all at once; new thoughts, more gentle, less lugubrious, took possession of the young queen's mind; the trace of tears vanished, and a smile lit up her liquid eyes like the sun's ray following on rain. This change, anxiously awaited, was soon observed by Joan's chamberwoman: she stole to the queen's room, and falling on ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... emphatically as almost to convince us of his belief that in refusing to mourn in the most lugubrious degree for cousins the ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... chatter, had come to seem to him far more even than Oswyn, about whom there would always lurk something shadowy and unreal, a last link with the living; when the tide was nearly out, so that the stillness was not even broken by the long, lugubrious syren of a passing steamer, his isolation was borne in upon him with something of the sting of ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... place in a body, and each had his appointed seat. There were places for the chiefs, the drummers, the dancers, the women, and the priests. The drums— perhaps twenty strong, and some of them twelve feet high— continuously throbbed in time. In time the singers kept up their long-drawn, lugubrious, ululating song; in time, too, the dancers, tricked out in singular finery, stepped, leaped, swayed, and gesticulated—their plumed fingers fluttering in the air like butterflies. The sense of time, in all ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... interludes of smokings and gigglings in the darkness of the verandah, occasional more intellectual flights in the shape of songs and recitations,—mostly of a somewhat lugubrious tendency, to judge by the faces of the auditors, but being mostly in patois they were unintelligible to the British foreigners,—more dances,—coats off now, to reduce the temperature of the performers,—more refreshments, more dances,—dances with broomsticks ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... of their actions. The nearest relatives were careful to close their mouths, for they feared lest the soul of the dead would enter into their bodies and do them a great deal of harm. Then they began their mourning by lugubrious songs, which one of the kin intoned, while the others were very attentive in order to respond, in time, with fearful cries. That lasted more or less time according to the excellence of the deceased, whose exploits were ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... of the emperor's sister Octavia and of Mark Antony, the famous triumvir whose name remains forever linked in story with that of Cleopatra. This daughter of Antony was certainly the noblest and the gentlest of all the women who appear in the lugubrious and tragic history of the family of the Caesars. Serious, modest, and even-tempered, she was likewise endowed with beauty and virtue, and she brought into the family and into its struggles a spirit of concord, serenity of mind, and sweet reasonableness, though they ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... had all sorts of garments ready for the use of the sorcerers; that on the day of the sabbath, there is a bell weighing a hundred pounds, four ells in width, and with a clapper of wood, which made the sound dull and lugubrious. He related several horrors, impieties, and abominations which were committed at the sabbath. He repeated the schedule which Lucifer had given him, by which he bound himself to cast a spell on those women who ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... fact to his neighbors, of whom there were more than thirty, and they, either from sympathetic interest in a brother, or because they resented being waked thus unceremoniously in the midst of enjoyable naps, began echoing their sentiments in the most lugubrious manner. To all sorts of notes in the musical scale the voices of these dogs ranged, they seeming to spare no pains to give varied entertainment. How these creatures work so hard, eat and sleep so ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... leisure, with a fortune and—me!' And at the same moment Rogers, in his deep arm-chair before the fire, was saying to himself, 'I'm glad Minks has come to me; he's just the man I want for my big Scheme!' And then—'Pity he's such a lugubrious looking fellow, and wears those dreadful fancy waistcoats. But he's very open to suggestion. We can change all that. I must look after Minks a bit. He's rather sacrificed his career for me, I fancy. He's got high aims. Poor ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... asked to contemplate gloomy pictures of what will follow on this Bill, let them recur to the example of Parliaments gone by. When the Ten Hours Bill was introduced in 1847, a Bill which affected the hours of adult males inferentially, the same lugubrious prophecies were indulged in from both sides of the House. Distinguished economists came forward to prove that the whole profit of the textile industry was reaped after the eleventh hour. Famous statesmen on both sides spoke strongly against ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... that dastardly crime, But the victim's intangible shade Can be seen to this day, so the villagers say, In diaphanous garments arrayed. In the gloom of the room where she met with her doom She's appearing once nightly, it seems, And the listener quails as lugubrious wails Are succeeded by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various
... every breath that comes to his ears, The rustling of another's laurels! The air of the place is called salubrious; The neighborhood of Vesuvius lends it An odor volcanic, that rather mends it, And the buildings have an aspect lugubrious, That inspires a feeling of awe and terror Into the heart of the beholder, And befits such an ancient homestead of error, Where the old falsehoods moulder and smoulder, And yearly by many hundred hands Are carried away, in the zeal of youth, And sown like tares in ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... shivers. He dreams, even without wishing it, of those men of the forests who lived here in the ages, in the uncalculated and dark ages, because, suddenly, from a point distant from the shore, a long Basque cry rises from the darkness in a lugubrious falsetto, an "irrintzina," the only thing in this country with which he never could become entirely familiar. But a great mocking noise occurs in the distance, the crash of iron, whistles: a train from Paris to Madrid, which is passing over there, behind them, in the black of the French ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... rather disappointed that she should have received no money, and wishing that she had said Walter Franklin had not paid her rent, crept off, a lugubrious figure, across the bridge. Franklin watched her till she was out of sight, then took off his hat, exposing a high, baldish head. His face was dark, and he began to mutter to himself. ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... terrible on all sides and thousands were killed on this lugubrious field; the French resisted on both ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... would probably be called upon to dare much, and if he did not begin to show some daring at once, how could he respect himself, or trust to himself for future daring? So he boldly asked for Mrs Mackenzie, and was at once shown into the parlour. There sat the widow, in her full lugubrious weeds, there sat Miss Colza, and there sat Mary Jane, and they were all busy hemming, darning, and clipping; turning old sheets into new ones; for now it was more than ever necessary that Mrs Mackenzie should make money at once ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... curiosities; and as to the tea, the grounds, apparently the peat of the valley, filled up nearly an eighth of the cup, causing Lucilla in lugubrious mirth to talk of 'That lake whose gloomy tea, ne'er saw Hyson nor Bohea,' when Rashe fretfully retorted, 'It is very unkind in you to grumble at everything, when you know I ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was but dull and lugubrious to the remainder of the party. The girls seemed to feel that there was something solemn about the coming competition between two such dear friends, which prevented and should prevent them all from being merry. Harry perfectly sympathized in the feeling; and even Alaric, ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... pronounced in a more lugubrious note: he shook his head, and after a pause, he recommenced. "England is no longer priest-ridden, sir; but she is worse, she is law-ridden. Litigation and law expenses have, like locusts, devoured up the produce of industry. No man is ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... Presently youth's need of action brought him half-unconsciously to an erect position. He glanced dully this way and that, and then slowly moved along the bridge towards the Villeneuve bank. Girls bare-headed, arm-in-arm, looked up at him and laughed, he was so long and lean and comical with his ugly lugubrious face and the little straw hat perched on top of his bushy carroty poll. He did not mind, being used to derision. In happier days he valued it, for the laugh would be accompanied by a nudge and a "Voila Auguste!" He took it as a tribute. It was fame. Now he was so deeply sunk in his black ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... mental state to which the office of representative on mission leads. Below Carrier, who is on the extreme verge, the others, less advanced, likewise turn pale at the lugubrious vision, which is the inevitable effect of their work and their mandate. Beyond every grave they dig, they catch a glimpse of the grave already dug for them. There is nothing left for the gravedigger but to dig mechanically day after ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... a stolid expression, redeemed slightly, perhaps, by its exchange often for a lugubrious one. I should feel disposed to predict for him the scoring of an immense success in the personation of such characters as those of the melancholy Dane; or of Antonio, in the Merchant of Venice, after the turn of the tide in his fortunes, when the vengeful figure of the remorseless Shylock rests ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... Ticonderoga, and it seemed as though England was never to rise from the dust of humiliation. It was openly said that Louisbourg would never fall; that it was as impregnable as Quebec. Oh, there was such lugubrious talk! And then came the news of the victory, and of Brigadier Wolfe's valiant and doughty deeds. You may guess how your mother's eyes shone at that! And all England echoed to ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... why religion should be associated with gloom and disheartening ugliness. The long-drawn music of an Old Testament psalm is not without a certain doleful impressiveness, but the human soul needs occasional stimulus, even on Sundays, of something less lugubrious. Certain congregations hate hymns: they consider them carnal and uninspired. As for organ-music in a church, that would be praising God by machinery, a preposterous and intolerable approximation to Popery. Not long ago, a ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... the thongs, raised the bar of the entrance, and placed Gyges behind the folding-door as Candaules had done the evening previous. This repetition of the same acts, with so different a purpose, had something of a lugubrious and fatal character. Vengeance, this time, had placed her foot upon every track left by the insult. The chastisement and the crime alike followed the same path. Yesterday it was the turn of Candaules, to-day ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... one who was turning a long screw, "Jacobs, my boy, do you take the chair to-night?"—"Yes," said Jacobs who was a long lugubrious-looking man, "I do take the chair, if I live over this ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... an orchestral tutti. They are marvellously expressive instruments, and without a peer in the whole instrumental company when a solemn and spiritually uplifting effect is to be attained. They can also be made to sound menacing and lugubrious, devout and mocking, pompously heroic, majestic, and lofty. They are often the heralds of the orchestra, and ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... lugubrious peregrinations and took up her residence in the monastery of Santa Clara at Tordesillas, where she consented to the burial of her husband's body in a spot visible from her windows. Peter Martyr was one of the few persons who saw the unhappy lady and even gained some influence over ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... went to a picture show. She was amazed to find there, instead of the accustomed orchestra, a pipe organ that panted and throbbed and rumbled over lugubrious classics. The picture was about a faithless wife. Terry left in ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... heart-broken children was proof against such oblivion. Moreover, hope began to dawn in the hearts beneath pink gingham and outing flannel when the teacher from Sheridan, discouraged perhaps by a total lack of cordiality in her students, resigned after two lugubrious days of service. Then Mr. Samuel Wilson, accompanied by Mr. Benjamin Jarvis and the third trustee rode in a body to the Hunter ranch, and offered Mary a substantial "raise" if she would only stay on until December, and finish the fall term so ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... of that human voice, lifted in the midst of this solitude, darkness and desolation, had something so uncanny, so lugubrious about it, that it would have caused even the speaker to shudder, had not Roland, as he himself said, been inaccessible to fear. He looked about for a place from which he could command the entire hall. An isolated table, placed on a sort of stage at ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... heard one sermon, which could not in the nature of things have the charm of novelty of presentation to the members of the home circle, and the theology of which was not too clear to tender apprehensions; with three hymns more or less lugubrious, rendered by a village-choir, got into voice by many preliminary snuffles and other expiratory efforts, and accompanied by the snort of a huge bassviol which wallowed through the tune like a hippopotamus, with other exercises of the customary character,—after ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... just on the point of giving way. These two points were considered very fine by the critics: they are two such ghastly epigrams as continually disfigure French Tragedy. For this reason I have never been able to read Racine with pleasure,—the dialogue is so crammed with these lugubrious good things—melancholy antitheses—sparkling undertakers' wit; but this is heresy, and had better ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a lugubrious account of his troubles with space sick voyagers. But I was in no mood to listen to him. My gaze was down on the spider incline, up which, over the bend of the ship's sleek, silvery body, the passengers and their friends were coming in little groups. The upper ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... locality almost filled with black holly bushes, where you can only see the sky overhead and the spot of ground you are standing on. In September the "boschveldt" is usually dry and withered and the scorching heat makes the surroundings seem more lugubrious ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... dissonances," he says, "in the sense in which Mr. Tegner uses the expression, certainly betray a disease of the soul, but this disease is not peculiar to a temperament which is fostered by a personal emotional affinity for lugubrious topics and ideas given by birth and developed by circumstances; but it is inherent in the weakness (which at times doubtless surprises even the strongest ...) of desiring to set up its sorrowful view of the world as a theory, and treat it as absolutely true and ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... appeared to be crushed. The almost violent serenity of the funereal moment had disappeared; the phantom of social justice tormented him. He, who generally returned from all his deeds with a radiant satisfaction, seemed to be reproaching himself. At times he talked to himself, and stammered lugubrious monologues in a low voice. This is one which his sister overheard one evening and preserved: "I did not think that it was so monstrous. It is wrong to become absorbed in the divine law to such a degree as not to perceive human law. Death belongs to God alone. By ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... lot of fun for the rest of you," said Billy, in a lugubrious tone, as he rubbed the leg that had been bound to that of his partner, "but it is not so funny ...
— The Hilltop Boys on the River • Cyril Burleigh
... burst into lugubrious sobs and rocked themselves back and forth in unison. "'Twar Dad!" ...
— Who Crosses Storm Mountain? - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... recruit had not returned. Mex scarcely kept her eyes open where she crouched, Indian fashion, on a buffalo robe, behind the bar. Nine Eyes had bolted the outer door before retiring. Eleven o'clock; the white owls were at their boldest, hooting lugubrious serenades to the answering wolves. Pepillo was at the cabin door, trying the latch. Mex heard the sound, got up, ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... church. I confess I looked with some interest myself towards the old family pew, appertaining to Wildfell Hall, where the faded crimson cushions and lining had been unpressed and unrenewed so many years, and the grim escutcheons, with their lugubrious borders of rusty black cloth, frowned so ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... other through my unconsenting brain, annoyed me greatly, for I profess to hold my imagination pretty well under control, and to have but small concern for ghostly horrors. Shaking aside my nervousness, I began to whistle softly as I strolled up to examine the old fountain. But on noticing how lugubrious, how appropriate to the neighborhood and my feelings was the air that came to my lips, I laughed aloud. At the sudden sound of my voice I felt both startled and somewhat abashed. Laughter here was clearly out of place; ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... observed, "the new junior does strike one as being downright stunning. She came from New York City, and"—with a lugubrious sigh—"though I've never set eyes on her before, I was informed this morning that she is to be my roommate for the ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... addition to the establishment since Mary's departure; but in her might be easily recognised the Tia, the individual who in Limenian households holds a position between companion and housekeeper. She introduced herself by the lugubrious appellation of Senora Dolores, and, receiving Mary with obsequious courtesy, explained that the Senor and Senora were at a tertulia, or evening party. She lighted Mary and Mr. Ward into the quadra; and there Mr. Ward, shaking hands with her as if he would ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... favoring a quiet ceremony, recognized that Rita cherished a desire to quit theatreland in a chariot of fire, and accordingly the wedding was on a scale of magnificence which outshone that of any other celebrated during the season. Even the lugubrious Mr. Esden, who gave his daughter away, was seen to smile twice. Mrs. Esden moved in a rarified atmosphere of gratified ambition and parental pride, which no doubt closely resembled that ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... parlour to which I was ushered, sat two gentlemen somewhat advanced in years, who I rightly supposed were my medical confreres. One of these was a tall, pale, ascetic-looking man, with grey hairs, and retreating forehead, slow in speech, and lugubrious in demeanour. The other, his antithesis, was a short, rosy-cheeked, apoplectic-looking subject, with a laugh like a suffocating wheeze, and a paunch like an alderman; his quick, restless eye, and full nether lip denoting more of the bon vivant than the abstemious ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... selected within the house party. Lord Rufford stood up with Arabella and John Morton with Lady Penwether. Mr. Gotobed selected Miss Penge, and Hampton and Battersby the two Miss Godolphins. They all took their places with a lugubrious but business-like air, as aware that they were sacrificing themselves in the performance of a sad duty. But Morton was not allowed to dance in the same quadrille with the lady of his affections. Lady Penwether explained ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... becoming to the young of the sex, and which is never departed from here until after marriage, moving in perfect time to delightful music, as if animated by a common soul. The men, too, did better than usual, being less lugubrious and mournful than our sex is apt to be in dancing. I do not know how it is in private, but in the world, at Paris, every young woman seems to have a good mother; or, at least, one capable of giving her both a good ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... perhaps that a Cockney dandy could not be caricatured, and he consequently went desperate lengths, but threw in here and there a touch of nature. Mr. Lyon was as energetic as ever in Gammon; Mrs. Yates as lugubrious as is her wont in Miss Aubrey; Mrs. Grattan acted and looked as if she were quite deserving of a man with ten thousand a year. As to her singing, if her husband were in possession of twenty thousand per annum, (would to the gods he were!) it could not have been more ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... was conscious that a serious and menacing event was approaching in my life. It was a case of real auto-suggestion. Was it so serious because I thought it so? Or had I a presentiment? I do not know. Perhaps, too, after what has happened, all previous events have taken on a lugubrious tint ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... certain breaches of trust by bank officers and treasurers, which occurring within a short time of one another had startled the community. This last subject begot a somewhat doleful train of commentary and gave the lugubrious their cue. Complaints were made of our easygoing standards of morality, and our disposition not to be severe on anybody; of the decay of ideal considerations and the lack of ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... deriving as great pleasure as any millionaire might from the sailing of a choice yacht; but he was aware only that, as he neared the end of his double journey, he felt in better trim in mind and body to face his lugubrious and rebellious ward. ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... clubs, studios, and theatres of every degree; the youthful effervescence of her student-friends venting itself in such collegians' pranks as parading deserted quarters of the town by moonlight, in the small hours, chanting lugubrious strains to astonish the shopkeepers. The only great celebrity whose acquaintance she had made was Balzac, himself the prince of eccentrics. Although he did not encourage Madame Dudevant's literary ambition, he showed himself ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... dropped in, was suddenly reminded of that lugubrious old ballad, "The Mistletoe Bough," and recited large worn fragments of it impressively. It tells of how a beautiful girl hid away in a chest during a Christmas game of hide-and-seek, and how she was found, ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... Mr. Trail assumed a lugubrious countenance befitting the tragic compliment with which he prepared to greet the young Virginian; but the latter answered him very curtly, declined his offers of hospitality, and only stayed in Mr. Trail's house long enough to drink a glass ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... said; 'this man rideth England with seven thousand spies; these three years I have lived in terror of my life. I have had no bliss that fear hath not entered into—in very truth inter delicias semper aliquid saevi nos strangulavit.' His lugubrious tones grew higher with hatred; he raised one hand above his head and one gripped tight her fat shoulder. 'Terror hath bestridden our realm of England; no man dares to whisper his hate even to the rushes. Me! Me! Me!' he reached a pitch of high-voiced fury. 'Me! Virum doctissimum! ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... over the porch and moss on the roof. My room is a neat little spot 'off the parlor'—just big enough for the bed and me. Over the head of my bed there is a picture of Robby Burns standing at Highland Mary's grave, shadowed by an enormous weeping willow tree. Robby's face is so lugubrious that it is no wonder I have bad dreams. Why, the first night I was here I dreamed I ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... observed amongst noble families on such occasions. The church in which the corpse was buried, was hung with black cloth; and even the innumerable wax tapers which burned upon the altar and around the coffin failed to diminish the lugubrious aspect of the scene. ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... in his rambles about town, is occasionally struck with some singular demonstrations for which he is at a loss to account. Sometimes they assume a benevolent form, and sometimes they have a holiday-making aspect, yet with a touch of the lugubrious. In London, or in some one of the thriving towns lying within a score of miles of it, he strolls into a church, where he sees a number of loaves of bread piled up at the back of the communion-table, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... Captain Alick, but this has been a very exciting time; and while we were all so busy, your two prisoners have taken to themselves legs or wings, and cleared out," said he, with a lugubrious gaze at me, as I sat upon ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... fall of rain set in during the night, and made the morning of departure gray. Blurred clouds rested helplessly on the backs of the hills, and wept themselves into the wet valley without seeming to grow less lugubrious for the indulgence. There was no wind; trees and plants stood up and were soaked in passive resignation. The weather-beaten boards of the barn were drenched black, except a small place right under the eaves, which looked as if it had been painted ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... pleased with his company as one would be in a pitfall with a tiger. At last it stopped at the door of the Lunatic Asylum, and the post-boy dismounting from his reeking horses, pulled violently at a large bell, which answered with a most lugubrious tolling, and struck awe into the breast of ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the greatness of Chicago. Then they drove to a vast new hotel in which Mr. Parker had taken a conservative interest, and they still talked of the marvellous growth of the city, its Ultimate Destiny,—terms which had a lugubrious sound in the New Englander's piping voice. As they turned northwards around the great oval of Washington Park, the sun was sinking into a golden haze of dust and smoke. The horses dropped to a peaceful walk, and Milly knew that it ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... grace to the proceedings; and I regard with personal animosity the bassoon, which is blown at intervals by the big-legged priest (it is always a big-legged priest who blows the bassoon), when his fellows combine in a lugubrious stalwart drawl. But there is far less of the Conjurer and the Medicine Man in the business than under like circumstances here. The grim coaches that we reserve expressly for such shows, are non-existent; if the cemetery be far out of the town, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... scrambled eggs was liable to come in, flaming, on a golden sabre. But Luba wanted the Solar Room, and Malone was not at all sure she wouldn't use blackmail if he turned her down. "Fine," he said in a lugubrious tone. ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... been mainly effected by men of the commercial classes, and the shareholders in them principally belonged to the manufacturing districts,—the capitalists of the metropolis as yet holding aloof, and prophesying disaster to all concerned in railway projects. But when the lugubrious anticipations of the City men were found to be so entirely falsified by the results—when, after the lapse of years, it was ascertained that railway traffic rapidly increased and dividends steadily improved—a change came over the spirit of the London capitalists. They then invested largely in railways, ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... smallest audience and making the best Budget speech for many years. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has two manners. He can be as boisterous, exuberant, and gay, as any speaker in the House, and he can also be as lugubrious as though his life had been spent in the service of an undertaker. He was in the undertaker mood this evening. Slowly, solemnly, sadly, he unfolded his story of the finances of the country. He had taken the trouble to write down every word of what he had to say—an evil habit ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... every argument in their power. Often have they been heard in the dusk of evening singing behind a remote hedge that melancholy ditty, "Let us BOTH be unhappy together," which rose upon the twilight breeze with a cautious quaver of sorrow truly heartrending and lugubrious. ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... touched the bottom. The water bore us along in its impetuous bound of victory. And now it could do what it pleased with us. We gave ourselves up. We went downstream with frightful rapidity. Great clouds, dirty tattered rags hung about the sky; when the moon was hidden there came lugubrious obscurity. Then we rolled in chaos. Enormous billows as black as ink, resembling the backs of fish, bore us along, spinning us round. I could no longer see either Babet or the children. I ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... Gradually, as the scattered strains were marshaled into something like an air, she began to sing also, glossing over the instrumental weaknesses, filling in certain dropped notes and omissions, and otherwise assisting the ineffectual accordion with a youthful but not unmusical voice. The song was a lugubrious religious chant; under its influence the house seemed to sink into greater quiet, permitting in the intervals the murmur of the swollen creek to appear more distinct, and even the far moaning of the wind on the ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... and, though he had looked about him with very serious eyes, as he passed through the bar, he had borne that, and his carriage up the stairs; but when he was transferred to his father, whose air, as he took the boy, was melancholy and lugubrious in the extreme, the poor little fellow could endure no longer a mode of treatment so unusual, and, with a grimace which for a moment or two threatened the coming storm, burst out with an infantine howl. "That's how he has been ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... noises, but infinitely more monotonous. The wind held many notes, rising, falling always beating out some sort of great elemental tune; whereas the river's song lay between three notes at most—dull pedal notes, that held a lugubrious quality foreign to the wind, and somehow seemed to me, in my then nervous state, to sound wonderfully well the ...
— The Willows • Algernon Blackwood
... agreed Mary Louise, and turned to go. And as she did so she caught a most lugubrious expression on the face of Uncle Buzz, a gradual lengthening of all the muscles on one side of the face, resolving itself finally into a prodigious wink, deliberate and malign. Fortunately, it passed in the darkness ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... of lugubrious visions and suspicions, one day disgraced General Swetchine by removing him from office. But this official dismission did not entail banishment, and was followed by no loss of social caste. The general and his exemplary wife continued to live amidst their numerous friends ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... yore, as not long since. But the necessity of speaking in low tones distinguishes our remarks and imposes on them a lugubrious tranquillity. ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... Dick was pale and quiet; his sunshine was veiled in banks of cloud, and I found it difficult to rouse him. On arrival at the hall we found it crowded. I was naturally delighted; his pleasure was more restrained. Indeed, he confided to me, with a look that, for him, was positively lugubrious, that he would have been more gratified if the horrid place had been empty. However, there was nothing for it. Not a soul, except myself, knew that Dick was lecturing for the first time in his life; the chairman led us to the platform; and, after a brief introduction relative to ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... half-envious glances, as they noted the beauty of the face, and the grace of the figure in its black dress, which, plain as it was, seemed to make theirs still more dowdy and vulgar. In the midst of this lugubrious account of the annoyances and worries of the journey, Mr. Heron ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... we did not often halloo, Khalid, like a huntsman pursuing his game, would lose himself in the pathless, lugubrious damp of the forest. If we did not prevent him at times, holding firmly to his coat-tail, he would desperately pursue the ghost of his thoughts even on such precipitous paths to those very depths in which Socrates and Montaigne always felt at home. But he, a feverish, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... long time since we had met when I received one morning a line of his dear little handwriting, formerly so firm, now trembling and uncertain. "We are in Paris. Come and see me. I am so dull." I found him with his wife, his child and his dogs, in a lugubrious little apartment in the Batignolles. The disorder which in this narrow space could not be spread about, seemed more hideous even than in the country. While the child and dogs rolled about in rooms the size of a chessboard compartment, Heurtebise; who ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... the churches are crowded and there are banquets and dances going on everywhere. In the cities the small boys amuse themselves by setting off fireworks. During the Christmas week dances are frequent, and in the country they continue sometimes for days to the lugubrious accompaniment of accordions and large drums. December the twenty-eighth, Holy Innocents' day, is All Fools' day, instead of April the first, it being argued that just as the innocents of Herod's day ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... along with him, slept with him during the night, accompanied him to the gallows in the morning, and sat under him when they were adjusting the noose, looking up with feelings of unutterable dismay, as clearly indicated by the lugubrious and woebegone cast of his ragged ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... the symphonies of Reinhold Gliere or Spendiarov and you will have eloquent chapters of a modern living Bible. No music of another country is such a true mirror of a nation's racial character, life, passion, blood, struggle, despair and agony, as the Russian. One can almost see in its turbulent-lugubrious or buoyant-hilarious chords the rich colors of the Byzantine style, the half Oriental atmosphere that surrounds everything with ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... welcome to a Bostonian — or should have been — although fatal to Adams. The name of Hamilton Fish, as Secretary of State, suggested extreme conservatism and probable deference to Sumner. The name of George S. Boutwell, as Secretary of the Treasury, suggested only a somewhat lugubrious joke; Mr. Boutwell could be described only as the opposite of Mr. McCulloch, and meant inertia; or, in plain words, total extinction for any one resembling Henry Adams. On the other hand, the name of Jacob D. Cox, as Secretary of the Interior, ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... been away all night and returned to the camp in time to see these lugubrious preparations. I had no doubt that the prisoners had been tried and condemned, but I soon learned that this was not the case, and drawing near to a group formed by General Exelmans, the two brigadiers ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... seemed to him he was not like an old man so much as a lusty infant which struggles against having the breast snatched from it. He laughed at the notion of this, with that impersonal relish which seemed to me singularly characteristic of the self-consciousness so marked in him. I never heard one lugubrious word from him in regard to his years. He liked your sympathy on all grounds where he could have it self-respectfully, but he was a most manly spirit, and he would not have had it even as a type of the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... a sort of lugubrious chuckle, and, in low tones, I began to upbraid him with his apathy. Even with his one arm he should have obeyed my call to the oar. It was incomprehensible to me that we had not been fired at. Castro enlightened me, in a few moody and scornful words. The Rio Medio people, ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... was with a sensation of surprise that Sidney first became aware of light-heartedness in the young girl who was a silent hearer of so many lugubrious discussions. Ridiculous as it may sound—as Sidney felt it to be—he almost resented this evidence of happiness; to him, only just recovering from a shock which would leave its mark upon his life to the end, his youth wronged by bitter necessities, ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... that as a joke, nohow, Mose," said a lugubrious looking individual, whose face looked as if it had been playing "I spy" with a tallow candle and got ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... it will be the faces of the dead and wounded that will live most clearly in the memory, but at present the pictures of the Belgian soldier which stand out sharpest are less lugubrious and ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... you the last lugubrious sheet, I have not had time to write you further. When I say that I had not time, that as usual means, that the three demons, indolence, business, and ennui, have so completely shared my hours among them, as not to leave me a five minutes' ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... what was said, but not so far that they could not recognize the skulker as Lieutenant Jacob Alspaugh. The Provost Marshal apparently demanded the skulker's name, and wrote it in a book. Alspaugh seemed to give the information, and accompanied it with a lugubrious pointint to a bandage around his knee. The Provost Marshal stooped and took the handkerchief off, to find that not even the cloth of the pantaloons had been injured. He contemptuously tore the straps from Alspaugh's shoulders, ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... principal clerk in the establishment. Edouard le Blanc readily and sincerely condoled with his friend upon the sudden obscuration of his and Adeline's hopes, adding that he had always felt a strong misgiving upon the subject; and after a lugubrious dialogue, during which the clerk hinted nervously at a circumstance which, looking at the unpleasant turn matters were taking, might prove of terrible import—a nervousness but very partially relieved by Eugene's assurance, that, come what may, he would take the responsibility ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... despises hypocrisy. It holds up to laughter the peculiarities, the idiosyncrasies, and the little insanities of mankind. It thrusts the spear of ridicule through the shield of pretence. It laughs at the lugubrious and it has ever taught and will, in all probability, forever teach, that Man is more than a title, and that human love laughs at all barriers, at all the prejudices of society and caste that tend to keep apart two ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... form an idea of. The jargon partook of every accent and intonation the empire boasts of; and from the sharp precision of the North Tweeder to the broad doric of Kerry, every portion, almost every county, of Great Britain had its representative. Here was a Scotch paymaster, in a lugubrious tone, detailing to his friend the apparently not over-welcome news that Mistress M'Elwain had just been safely delivered of twins, which, with their mother, were doing as well as possible. Here an eager Irishman, turning ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... that death-chamber lugubrious: the windows wide open, the night and the wind entering freely from the garden, making a strong draught; a human form on a table; the body, which had just been embalmed; the hollow skull filled with a sponge, the brain in a basin. The weight ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... crossed, leaned his shoulders against the bulkhead of the cabin. He was bending his head under the deck beam; his fair beard spread out magnificently over his chest; he looked colossal, ineffectual, and mild. There was something lugubrious in the aspect of the cabin; the air in it seemed to become slowly charged with the cruel chill of helplessness, with the pitiless anger of egoism against the incomprehensible form of an intruding pain. We had no idea what to do; we began to ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... pernicious effect upon the uprightness of the greater part of the company. Having the sanction of authority, several others, the minor spirits it is true, settled down under their chairs without a struggle. The survivors made some lugubrious efforts at a triumph over their less stubborn companions, but the laborious and husky laugh was but a poor apology for the proper performance of this feat. Munro, who to his other qualities added those of a sturdy bon-vivant, together ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... for briefs. Mr. Bakewell, in particular, the man who that day was the counsel for the prosecution in Paul Stepaside's case, was an utterly different man from what he had been when he appeared in court. Then he was solemn, pompous, and almost lugubrious; now he cracked a joke with the best, and told humorous stories with infinite gusto. The judge, too, while naturally patronising and unable to throw aside in entirety the dignity of his office, so far unbent as to ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... sang a song of defiance that even the mournful chant of sheep on the distant slopes failed to subdue. The crowing of a belated and no doubt mortified rooster, the barking of faraway dogs, the sighing of journeying winds, the lugubrious whistle of Mr. Clarence Dillingford, —all of these added something to ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... for any of us? This ruinous person was associated with a hand-cart as decrepit as himself, but not nearly so cheerful; for though he spoke up briskly with a spirit uttered from far within the wrinkles and the stubble, the cart had preceded him with a very lugubrious creak. It groaned, in fact, under a load of tin cans, and I was to learn from the old man that there was, and had been, in his person, for thirteen years, such a thing in the world as a peddler of buttermilk, and that these cans were now filled with that pleasant ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... so very late, after all. And even if it were there would be no necessity for being so lugubrious over it. And permit me to add, Randal, that when you take a lady out for a row, it is in the very worst possible taste to ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... these plains. Even the doctor fell away in the "talk" line. Says Mr. Jump: "These 'ere plains ain't as social as they might be." Some one is responsible for the following brief effort to evolve in verse the lugubrious elements of a ride over alkali plains with failing provender, weary horses, desiccating heat and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... this is a pleasure to have a minute's talk with you in the cool under an apple tree. You are gay, with Grouitches, and other festive creatures, while I am glum, gloomy and lugubrious. You know this is a novel experience for me to be in care of two nurses and a doctor, not to speak of a wife; but I am obedient, docile, humble, tractable, and otherwise dehumanized. The plan here is to follow my boy's statement of the ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... of Nickie's very humorous and original impersonation of the Yarra-banker was his waggish begging. When he had danced, before leaving his partner, he assumed a most lugubrious ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... was running like a mill-race, bending the willows, lapping hungrily at the crumbling shore. The bank was black with groups of people, tearful wives and whimpering children, lugubrious neighbors, pessimistic citizens. Bruce called the men together and assigned each boat its place in line. Beyond explicit orders that no boatman should attempt to pass another and the barges must be kept ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... close of the lugubrious ceremony the iron gates of the house of death swung hoarsely upon their hinges. The "De Profundis" pealed from the high altar, and Henry the Great ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... standing at order arms at the side of a lane, waiting for the command to march, when suddenly the youth remembered the little packet enwrapped in a faded yellow envelope which the loud young soldier with lugubrious words had intrusted to him. It made him start. He uttered an exclamation and ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... ejaculation, Ho! and ranged himself with the rest, squatted on the earthen floor or on the platform along the sides of the house. The kettles were slung over the fires in the midst. First, there was a long prelude of lugubrious singing. Then the host, who took no share in the feast, proclaimed in a loud voice the contents of each kettle in turn, and at each announcement the company responded in unison, Ho! The attendant squaws filled with their ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... taken a lively interest in the issue of this journey, and looked forward with impatience for the information it would furnish. Their anxieties too for the safety of the corps had been kept in a state of excitement by lugubrious rumours, circulated from time to time on uncertain authorities, and uncontradicted by letters, or other direct information, from the time they had left the Mandan towns, on their ascent up the river in April of the preceding year, 1805, ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... seen in this remarkable cave, I could not rest satisfied till I had dived down to see it: which I did, but found it so dark, as Jack had said, that I could scarcely see anything. When I returned, we had a long conversation about it, during which I observed that Peterkin had a most lugubrious expression on his countenance. ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... for the way was dangerous. This capital of the Confederacy was under a cloud. It had just lost one Red Head, its chief sachem; and first of all it behooved the baronet to condole their affliction. The ceremony was long, with compliments, lugubrious speeches, wampum-belts, the scalp of an enemy to replace the departed, and a final glass of rum for each of the assembled mourners. The conferences lasted a fortnight; and when Johnson took his leave, the tribes stood pledged to lift the ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... at his wits' end, but wishing to finish this lugubrious performance with a flourish, proposed (unhappy thought) that I should address a few words to the now miserable, broken-hearted crowd. I will give you a thousand guesses, dear aunty, and still you will never guess ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... picturesque effect, and was regarded with feelings of veneration by many of the American passengers, one of whom paid a tribute to the departed hero, which he wound up by observing with nasal emphasis and lugubrious countenance, "If twarnt for that ere man, wher'd we be, I waunt to know; not here I guess." This sentiment, although I could scarcely see the point of it myself, elicited half-a-dozen "do tells" and "I waunt to knows" from those around; expressions which, foolish as they sound ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... he paused and listened. He could hear the distant lowing of the wild bulls, and the crowing of the cocks at the hacienda, mingled with the lugubrious notes of the great wood owl, perched near him upon a branch. He could hear the distant sound of water—the cataract of the Salto de Agua—and, in the same direction, the continuous howling of ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... washed up the pavement and prepared her vegetables for sale in the most realistic manner. The second scene, when Potsdam wakes up in the morning, reminded me of the opening of the second act of "Lohengrin." The last act was very sad, and rather lugubrious, representing Frederick the Great seated in the garden in front of Sans-Souci. There was no singing in this act at all, only pantomime. The respectful manner and the sad faces of the lackeys as they helped the poor old King to his chair and covered his knees ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... the power of making the fatigue disappear, and the finger placed in the ergograph again commenced to mark lines of different heights, according to the amount of excitation. It was also found that music of a sad and lugubrious character had the opposite effect, and could check or entirely inhibit the contractions. Professor Tarchanoff does not profess to give any positive explanation of these facts, but he inclines to the view that 'the voluntary muscles, being furnished with excitomotor and depressant fibers, act ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... little mosaics along the entablature are extremely curious. A Dominican monk, still young, who showed us the church, seemed a creature generated from its musty shadows I odours. His physiognomy was wonderfully de l'emploi, and his voice, most agreeable, had the strangest jaded humility. His lugubrious salute and sanctimonious impersonal appropriation of my departing franc would have been a master-touch on the stage. While we were still in the church a bell rang that he had to go and answer, and as he came back and approached ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... served them for parlor, kitchen, and hall, the power of regret vanquished fatigue, and sadness drove away sleep, then Jack, who compared himself to Peter the Great, when a voluntary exile in the shipyards of Saardam, would endeavor to infuse a little mirth into the lugubrious party. If all his efforts to make them merry failed, all three would join together in a humble prayer to their Heavenly Father, who bestowed resignation upon ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... a delightfully piquant Rosina, nevertheless moved with leaden feet in many of its scenes, because of the ponderous and lugubrious Stagno, who essayed a part far from his province, when he tried to sing the Count. On November 28th "Don Giovanni" was reached with the finest distribution of women's rles, I dare say, that New York has ever seen, and one ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Alameda and the foliage of the pines that extended along the coast so as to mask the fortifications at the top, drawing forth from the shadows the gray masses of the cruisers anchored in the harbor and the black bulk of the cannon that formed the shore batteries, filtering into the lugubrious embrasures pierced through the cliff, cavernous mouths revealing the mysterious defences that had been wrought with mole-like industry in the heart ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez |
