"Rueful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... toad-eaters in general, or might bring into the house favourites of her own. I am sure any kind-hearted man of the world must feel for the position of these faithful, doubtful, disconsolate vassals, and have a sympathy for their rueful looks and demeanour as they eye the splendid preparations for the ensuing marriage, the grand furniture sent to my lord's castles and houses, the magnificent plate provided for his tables—tables at which they ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... broke bright and sunny. The first care of the boys was to examine their canoe; and they found, as they had feared, that a huge hole had been made, in her bottom, by the crash against the rocks on landing. They looked for some time with rueful countenances at it; and then, as usual, turned to Ned, to ask him what he thought had best ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... resource to carry on their little commerce for the ensuing week. I doubt not but the paper may have had some share in alienating the minds of the people from the revolution. Whenever I want to purchase any thing, the vender usually answers my question by another, and with a rueful kind of tone inquires, "En papier, madame?"—and the bargain concludes with a melancholy reflection on the hardness ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... them lectures on Defence, Attack; They fidgeted and shuffled, yawned and sighed, And boggled at my questions. Joy was slack, And Wisdom gnawed his fingers, gloomy-eyed. Young Fancy—how I loved him all the while— Stared at his note-book with a rueful smile. ...
— Counter-Attack and Other Poems • Siegfried Sassoon
... down on these old sticks, they'll have to break open the door and pick me up," he said to himself with a rueful smile." I'll try it baby fashion." Sitting down, he let his crutches slide along beside him, and holding the injured leg straight out before him hitched along from stair to stair until he reached the bottom. Then with even greater caution than he had used before he walked to the ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... well—it won't be long—if you will call the money lent. He says he'll work his fingers off but what he'll pay you every cent." And then he cast a rueful glance at the soiled jacket where it lay, "No, no, my boy! take back the coat. Your brother's badly ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... general of the probabilities were virtual certainties. Possessed of our friend's nationality, to start with, there was a general probability in his narrower localism; which, for that matter, one had really but to keep under the lens for an hour to see it give up its secrets. He would have issued, our rueful worthy, from the very heart of New England—at the heels of which matter of course a perfect train of secrets tumbled for me into the light. They had to be sifted and sorted, and I shall not reproduce the detail of that process; ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... of good Samaritan, my dear Felicia," he begged her with a certain rueful humour, "and take the poor foolish woman off my hands. Plant her where you like, so long as it is well out of my neighbourhood. She has made an egregious fiasco of her position here. As you love me, just remove her from my sight—let this land have rest and ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... on with a rueful smile, and wonders. He sees nothing in any one of these religions to justify its claim to infallibility or pre-eminence. It seems to him unreasonable to assert that any theology or any saviour is indispensable. He realises that a man may be good ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... subdued to one of rueful pride. "When I am beaten by a better man, I have courage enough to get out of his way and take no ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... a rueful glance at his boots, but bowing and smiling all the way. I learnt much of the neighbourhood from Mrs Collins, but with the warm colouring she judged amiable. I must except, however, the poor of the parish. There she spoke, with a censure no doubt deserved, ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... had been exceedingly gay and satirical—(in his calm way; he quotes Horace, my favorite bits as an author, to myself, and has a quiet snigger, and, so to speak, amontillado flavor, exceedingly pleasant)—Lankin, with a rueful and livid countenance, descended into his berth, in the which that six foot of serjeant packed himself I ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hard in the subtle thing That's spirit: tho' cloistered fast, soar free; Account as wood, brick, stone, this ring Of the rueful neighbours, and—forth to thee! ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... only one of the three who has accomplished nothing," was Winter's rueful comment. Nor could any critic have gainsaid him, for he seemed to have been wasting precious hours while his subordinates were making ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... rather hard to explain," he replied with a rueful knitting of the brows, for he realized her disgust at ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... man, a gossip, took up one of Meadows' books. "Australia! ah!" grunted Merton, and dropped it like a hot potato; he tried another, "Why, this is Australia, too; why, they are all Australia, as I am a living sinner." And he looked with a rueful ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... many of those slips were deliberate?" Tim challenged, then joined Phil's rueful laugh. "Not all of them were, I got to admit, but most ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... sighed the Duchessa, with a rueful shake of the head. "His foolish British self-consciousness! His British inability to put himself in another person's place, to see things from another's point of view! Could n't he see, from her point of ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... get for tryin' your hand at prospecting," Sam said, with a laugh, and Fred arose to his feet with a rueful look on his face, which caused his ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... unwelcome; undesirable, undesired; obnoxious; unacceptable, unpopular, thankless. unsatisfactory, untoward, unlucky, uncomfortable. distressing; afflicting, afflictive; joyless, cheerless, comfortless; dismal, disheartening; depressing, depressive; dreary, melancholy, grievous, piteous; woeful, rueful, mournful, deplorable, pitiable, lamentable; sad, affecting, touching, pathetic. irritating, provoking, stinging, annoying, aggravating, mortifying, galling; unaccommodating, invidious, vexatious; troublesome, tiresome, irksome, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... part in the hunting was to interfere with matters as much as possible. As a hunting dog he had only one advantage; he didn't bark. But he deserved no credit for that. It wasn't his nature to bark. As Bull tore enthusiastically about, Whitey would watch him with a rueful smile, and say, "The only way he could help would be by going home, and of course he can't ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... but I felt him," answered Ned, with a rueful look at his fingers. "He stepped right on me. And when he came inside the tank to-night I knew him at once. I guess he was as surprised to see me as I was ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton
... Bill's countenance was altogether rueful. Life had not been very kind to him and he very naturally longed for some opportunity to dodge continued hardship. He wished that he might, like the boy Edison, make opportunity, but that sounded more plausible in lectures than in real life. He was moodily silent now, while ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... neck and left cheek, and a bit stiff of shoulder, was rueful but very eager. Frank's gutted gear was out of the blastoff drum, and spread around the shop. Most of it was already fixed. Ramos had ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... rueful laugh. She more than half-liked to have Ruth leave her no alternative. It somehow made her seem less responsible to herself. If the decision were taken out of her hands she could not be held accountable and—the enjoyment would be there all ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... by the fire, I ventured to suggest to him that as he had finished pasting extracts into his commonplace book he might employ the next two hours in making our room a little more habitable. He could not deny the justice of my request, so with a rather rueful face he went off to his bedroom, from which he returned presently pulling a large tin box behind him. This he placed in the middle of the floor, and squatting down upon a stool in front of it he threw back the lid. I could see that ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... succeeded by a conviction of the truth. The whole story of the past night sprang into his mind with every detail, as by an exercise of the direct and speedy sense of sight, and he arose from the ditch and, with rueful courage, went ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sombre hue; the scattered, leafless trees and wind-blown dust and paper but add to the general solemnity of colour. There seems to be something in the chill breezes which scurry through the long, narrow thoroughfares productive of rueful thoughts. Not poets alone, nor artists, nor that superior order of mind which arrogates to itself all refinement, feel this, but dogs and all men. These feel as much as the poet, though they have not the same power ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... renewed it; and now it is swelled to such an amount with that cursed interest, that he never can pay it; and one bill, of course, begets another, and to be renewed every three months; 'tis the devil and all! So little as I ever got for all I have borrowed," added Frank with a rueful amaze. "Not L1500 ready money; and it would cost me almost as ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... streets who had made a move as of turning away from the temptations of the gates of Destruction, and making for the gate of life. But they either failed to find it or grew weary on the way; very few went through—one man of rueful countenance, ran in earnest while crowds on all sides derided him, some mocking, {28b} some threatening him, and his kindred clinging to him, begging him not to condemn himself to lose the whole world at one stroke. "I lose but a small portion of it, and were I to lose all, ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... count on monopolizing the governor," pursued Duncan, presently, with a rueful smile. "I shall feel no end in the way for a while, I'm afraid, Of course, I didn't think Dad would always keep"-his serious eyes met Harriet's—"always keep my mother's place empty; but this came rather suddenly, ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... all against you, Epicurus, the name of pleasure is an affront to them: they know no other kind of it than that which has flowered and seeded, and of which the withered stems have indeed a rueful look. ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... hand holding on by the leg of the table, and a bottle of brandy in the other. His prayer-book he had abandoned during a fright, and it was washing about in the lee-scuppers. Jerry was delighted, but put on a rueful face. ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... mile, And through the meadowland, he came erewhile To where the highways parted, and no man Was nigh to tell him whitherward they ran; But while he halted all in doubtful mood, An eagle, as if mourning for her brood Stolen, above him sped with rueful cry; And when that he perceived the fowl to fly Plaining aloud, unto himself he said, "Now shall yon mournful mother overhead Instruct the wandering of my feet, and they Shall follow where she leadeth:" and away The bird went ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... his head, with a rueful countenance. "I bought him from one of the French vignerons below Westover," he said. "The fellow was astride the poor creature, beating him with a club because he could not go. I laid Monsieur Crapaud in the dust, after which we compounded, he for my purse, I for the animal; ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... somehow misgave her about her friend. Rebecca's wit, spirits, and accomplishments troubled her with a rueful disquiet. They were only a week married, and here was George already suffering ennui, and eager for others' society! She trembled for the future. How shall I be a companion for him, she thought—so ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to be done? The Dolly would not sail perhaps for ten days, and how were we to sustain life during this period? I bitterly repented our improvidence in not providing ourselves, as we easily might have done, with a supply of biscuits. With a rueful visage I now bethought me of the scanty handful of bread I had stuffed into the bosom of my frock, and felt somewhat desirous to ascertain what part of it had weathered the rather rough usage it had experienced in ascending ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... dreary vale, In pensive mood rehearsed her piteous tale; Her piteous tale the winds in sighs bemoan, And pining Echo answers groan for groan. I rue the day, a rueful day I trow, The woeful day, a day indeed of woe! When Lubberkin to town his cattle drove, A maiden fine bedight he kept in love; The maiden fine bedight his love retains, And for the village he forsakes the plains. Return, my Lubberkin, these ditties hear, Spells will I try, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... a forfeit; but we were far past our unfriendly days, and I received nothing worse than a stern, "I am surprised at you, Miss Morris," and at my rueful response, "Yes, so am I surprised at Miss Morris," he laughed outright and pushed me toward the open door, bidding me hurry over to the dressmaker's. I had a partial revenge, however, for one of the plates he insisted on having copied for me turned out so hideously ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... made; and every morning after breakfast, Karl, often with a rueful face, often with an audible protest, mounted his horse, and rode to Greenfield, leaving the household at Outpost to a long day of various occupations until his return ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... am not. The haughty young lady turned me down as a dancer very early in our acquaintance. I don't blame her," he added, with a rueful laugh, "but her extreme candour still rankles. She told me quite plainly that she had no use for an American who could neither ride nor dance. I did intimate to her, very gently, that there were a few little openings in the States for ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... so Percy, nearly bursting with a plan that now seemed to him very grand, was obliged to take some one else into his confidence. And that one happened to be old Mr. King, whom he met as he came downstairs with a very rueful countenance. ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... and the chauffeur stooped over the body of their young employer. Mr. Carrington did not so much as turn his head. He put his walking-stick under his arm, and rubbed the knuckles of his left hand with rueful tenderness. None the less he looked pleased; it was gratifying to a slight man of his sedentary habit to have knocked down such a large, round Pomeranian Briton with such exquisite neatness. Wheeling their bicycles, Erebus and Wiggins walked beside him with a proud air. They felt that ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... Marmaduke, recognizing her with rueful astonishment. "You knew I was looking for you, ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... appeared to be really one of the best things in the world, and led to endless banter. They were well dressed, and it could be imagined that the ancient bridegroom had come in for the support of the whole good-looking, healthy, light-hearted family. In some degree he looked it, and wore but a rueful countenance for a bridegroom; so that a very young newly married couple, who sat next the jolly sister-and-loverhood could not keep their pitying eyes off his downcast face. "What if he, too, were young at heart!" the kind little wife's regard ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... meeting what a graceless young dog he had been, that in his youth he had a good share of wit. Reader, if thou hadst seen the gentleman, thou wouldst have sworn that it must indeed have been many years ago, for his rueful physiognomy would have scared away the playful goddess from the meeting, where he presided, forever, A wit! a wit! what could he mean? Lloyd, it minded me of Falkland in the "Rivals," "Am I full of wit and humor? No, indeed, you are ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... above my upper lip has come off, so that I cannot even shave or masticate, and I am equally unfit to appear at your table, and to partake of its hospitality. Will you therefore pardon me, and not mistake this rueful excuse for a 'make-believe,' as you will soon recognise whenever I have the pleasure of meeting you again, and I will call the moment I am, in the nursery phrase, 'fit to be seen.' Tell Lady B. with my compliments, that I am rummaging my papers for a MS. worthy of her acceptation. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... and walked out, forgetting to show the trick of the bow to the little housekeeper who stood with a rueful pout in ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... been cleaned, and everything the stove excepted, was wet, and shining with soft soap and sand: the smell of which dry-saltery impregnated the air. In the midst of the dreary scene, the Captain, cast away upon his island, looked round on the waste of waters with a rueful countenance, and seemed waiting for some friendly bark to come that ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... suppose I'll have to keep my promise now, though it takes my last cent to pay for it," said Mr. Lloyd, with a pretence of looking rueful. ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... Araby, Of Occiant, of Argoille and of Bascle! Spears intermix, death to repel or give. Nathless the French recoil not from the strife. On either side they fall heaped high. Till eve The storm of battle raged. Meanwhile the knights Of France upon that day bore rueful loss; Nor stayed the carnage till ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... about the horse, communing doubtfully, not knowing where to find another, an old man approached us, and, with rueful look and gesture, besought us not to deprive him of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... blame you for being curious, Elice," sympathized Armstrong. "I felt a bit the same way myself." A rueful grin. "Merely among ourselves, however, and as a word of advice between friends, you'd better curb your impatience ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... very, very well, George. Oh, I understand just what you are feeling. And oh, I do so wish that you could—(with a little sigh)—but then it wouldn't be George, not the George I married— (with a rueful ...
— Mr. Pim Passes By • Alan Alexander Milne
... the marshal answered, with a somewhat rueful laugh. "Twenty miles' ride to North Wilkesboro', and back. But I'll do it, of course. I wouldn't miss it for a good deal. I'll have my men waiting at Trap Hill. If things shape right, I'll make the raid ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... Rosa looked rueful, and almost sullen. She said she had parted with her doctors for him, but she really could not go about without stays. "They are as loose as ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... loaf! With a rueful face I placed it on the breakfast table. "I hoped to have given you a treat, but I fear you will find it worse than ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... rueful that she laughed out loud. "You are forgiven, Mr. Deane. Even more, I offer you the fishing, and am proud That you should find it pleasant from this shore. Nobody fishes now, my husband used To angle daily, and I too with him. ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... "she's in a pretty unnatural state. I think she ought to get married, Baird—" To his friendly and disarming twinkle Baird replied with a rueful smile. ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... felt the touch of her lips on his hand. Then she turned, with a white cheek and smiling mouth, to meet the greetings and rueful congratulations of the friends that were ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... reason you should look so rueful! Make the most of Phoebe beforehand. Besides, Mr. Parsons ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... can never feel at home out-of-doors," Mary announced, with such a rueful expression that they ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... name?" asked Jack, rather rueful that the fine theory he had built up was thus easily ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... if we had but known—" answered one of the Frenchmen, with a rather rueful smile. "However," he continued, shrugging his shoulders, "although you have contrived to get hold of us—and the captain—you have not yet got the ship; and before you can get her you will be obliged to use a great deal more guile than sufficed for our capture; ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... his hands. "Therefore," he said with a rueful smile, "it can fairly be said that we have no foreign policy, effectively speaking. We pursue the expedient, ud Klavan, and hope for the best. The case which Mr. Mead and I are currently considering ...
— Citadel • Algirdas Jonas Budrys
... slaughter not a few of them; till, as the burning ship began to blaze more fiercely, he bade the seamen take thereout all that they might by way of guerdon, which done, he quitted her, having gained but a rueful victory over his adversaries. His next care was to recover from the sea the body of the fair lady, whom long and with many a tear he mourned: and so he returned to Sicily, and gave the body honourable sepulture in Ustica, an islet that faces, as ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... we've found by experience," he replied, with a rueful smile. "I've done pretty badly, Phil; but things are brighter. I'm able now to begin putting some money away for you myself, and I shall do it, of course, just the same. But as to your mother's offer, you must accept it; it's a large sum, far more than I could ever command. It ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... one thing to indulge in a moment's fun, and quite another to pay the price afterwards. Sixteen very rueful faces were assembled in the passage outside the study by 5.15. Nobody would have had the courage to knock, but the Principal herself opened the door, and bade them enter. They filed in like a row of prisoners. Mrs. Morrison marshalled them into a double line opposite her desk, then, standing ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... damnable luck as to be run down in home waters, but he supposed that Fate was against him. He only asked now to be put ashore as soon as possible, being for the moment heartily sick of sea-travel. This with his most rueful grimace which Captain Beaumont of the Corfe Castle received with ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... nonsense, child!" cried he again in rueful tones. "You, return to that place now ... what good do you think you could do—eh?" But here recollecting himself, he hesitated and started upon a more plausible line of expostulation. "Pooh, pooh! You can't ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... to stir the kettle, but, her youthful arms being quite unequal to sustaining its weight, she let it drop, retreating with a wild Indian yell of alarm. The stream of boiling water fortunately escaped her, but nearly put out the fire. When the steam and dust had subsided, the rueful scouts picked up the empty kettle gingerly, as it ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... him to bring Haines. Did you hear Miss Mitchell's joke about Moore and Martyn? That Moore is Martyn's wild oats? Awfully clever, isn't it? They remind one of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Our national epic has yet to be written, Dr Sigerson says. Moore is the man for it. A knight of the rueful countenance here in Dublin. With a saffron kilt? O'Neill Russell? O, yes, he must speak the grand old tongue. And his Dulcinea? James Stephens is doing some clever sketches. We are becoming ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... rueful nod. "Yes, what the other fellow has been through doesn't count for much. We all have to blister our fingers before we'll believe that ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... Preacher, but they touch'd him not: Stakes brought to smite him, threaten'd in his cause, And tongues, attuned to curses, roar'd applause; Louder and louder grew his awful tones, Sobbing and sighs were heard, and rueful groans; Soft women fainted, prouder man express'd Wonder and woe, and butchers smote the breast; Eyes wept, ears tingled; stiff'ning on each head, The hair drew back, and Satan howl'd and fled. "In that soft season ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... upstairs tired and sleepy to share Monica's room, and Terence and Brian Desmond, who with his friend Kelly are struggling into their top-coats in the hall. The rain is descending in torrents, and they are regarding with rather rueful countenances the dog-cart awaiting them outside, in which they had driven over in the sunny morning that seems impossible, when Madam O'Connor sweeps ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... should refuse to entertain a baron. She saw many incidental advantages in the plan, not the least of which was that Mr. Millard would be a familiar in the house during the Baron's stay. Hilbrough acquiesced with a rueful sense that he should be clumsy enough at entertaining a foreigner and a man of title. Mrs. Hilbrough thanked Millard heartily for his obliging kindness, but what he cared most for was that Miss Callender's serious face ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... plenty, anyway," he said, after a moment. "The proposition's got a load on it. It will take us a long time to get out of debt. The river driving won't pay quite so big as we thought it would," he concluded, with a rueful little laugh. ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... the blue stones with rueful eyes. He knew them well. He had seen them contrasted with ruddy chestnut hair, and the whitest skin in Christendom—or at any rate the whitest he had ever seen, and a man's world can be but ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... places thus made vacant.—Of the crowd of those who were turned out of Cambridge Fellowships, and the crowd of those who were put in to succeed them, we can take no account in this History. Yet a process which presents us with the vision of about 150 rueful outgoers from comfortable livelihoods in one University, met at the doors by as many radiant comers-in, can have been no unimportant incident, even in a national revolution. What became of all the rueful outgoers ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... eyes, that rested on her, more than one attraction was needed. It was very pleasant to see the good comradeship that existed between these two, and the frank expression of their delight in meeting again. Here was a friendship without any reserve, or any rueful misunderstandings, or necessity for explanations. Irene's eyes followed them with a wistful look as they went off together round the piazza and through the parlors, the girl playing the part of the hostess, and inducting ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... mind admitting that if a man of that kind was to fall in love with me, I'd black his boots for him," she said. Then she added, with a whimsically rueful ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... the School Road with a rueful face, he was alone, for Janet, who was cleverer than he, was always earlier at school. The absence of children in the sunny street lent to his depression. He felt forlorn; if there had been a chattering crowd marching along, ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... his rueful eyes, He saw the thatched-roof cottage rise: The prospect touched his heart with cheer, And promised kind deliverance near. A stable, erst his scorn and hate, Was now become his wished retreat; His passion cool, his pride forgot, A Farmer's ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... going wrong, why didn't he shout out?" asked young Carteret, with a rueful face. "I couldn't have ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... who sat behind this spectre exhibited also some symptoms of extenuation; but being a brave jolly dame naturally, famine had not been able to render her a spectacle so rueful as the anatomy behind which she rode. Dame Gillian's cheek (for it was the reader's old acquaintance) had indeed lost the rosy hue of good cheer, and the smoothness of complexion which art and easy living had formerly substituted for the more delicate bloom of youth; her eyes were ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... the growing danger that this adventurer, lashed on by debts and unrestrained by reputation, might venture upon some desperate act. The strained relations between the party of Order and the President had taken on a threatening aspect, when an unforeseen event threw him back, rueful into its arms. We mean the supplementary elections of March, 1850. These elections took place to fill the vacancies created in the National Assembly, after June 13, by imprisonment and exile. Paris elected only Social-Democratic candidates; it even united the largest vote upon one of ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... since, how much better things turned out for me than if I had had my own way. Too bad he had to go so young! We need such men. I wish we had a few like him on the Home Board." He turned toward his companion with a rueful smile. "I am rather glad that happened down at the Home to-day. It has given me a little personal experience with the Dragon that may be convenient to have." He smiled again at her, that kindly, whimsical little smile that so ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... saving wife, I'm afraid," Mrs. Richie said, with rueful pride, "for that foolish boy of mine declines, if you please, to be helped out by an allowance ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... flush of this young beauty? Sir Tom, who thought he knew women (at least of the kind of La Forno-Populo), shook his head and felt it very doubtful whether the Contessa was sincere, or if she could indeed make up her mind to take a secondary place. He thought with a rueful anticipation of the sort of people who would flock to Park Lane to renew their acquaintance with La Forno-Populo. "By Jove! but shall they though? Not if I know it," said Sir ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... when she heard his exclamation, and laughed at his rueful face. "Oh, that isn't Fairy's expression. She thinks brilliant and clever people are just adorable. It is only I who think them horrible." Even Prudence could see that this did not help matters. "I—I do not mean that," she stammered. ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... Communipaw eyed each other with rueful countenances; their squadrons had been totally dispersed by the late disaster. Some were cast upon the western shore, where, headed by one Ruleff Hopper, they took possession of all the country lying ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... Anne, with a rueful face, "I know how it will be. You'll have to go home for good, and you won't think of me ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... partook of his hospitality. On the day after the battle of Corunna, when these gentlemen came on board, he ordered a cock to be driven into a hogshead of prime old sherry; and his satisfaction was perfect, when his steward, with a rueful countenance, communicated to him, on arriving at Spithead, that "his very best cask of wine had been drunk dry on the passage ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... effort, if it had the determination, wanted the cheerfulness of duty. Our condition savoured too much of a grinding constraint—too much of the vassalage of necessity;—it had too much of fear, and therefore of selfishness, not to be contemplated in the main with rueful emotion. We desponded though we did not despair. In fact a deliberate and preparatory fortitude—a sedate and stern melancholy, which had no sunshine and was exhilarated only by the lightnings of indignation—this was the highest and best state of moral feeling to which the most noble-minded ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... nerves were knocked to smithereens, and a man can overlook a lot, under the circumstances. She was a mere jelly when the bombardment began——" goes on rueful Captain Bingo. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... into a shout of laughter at the spectacle of four men, one of whom was the dignified manager of the great White Pine Mining Company, calmly sitting on the prostrate bodies of four others, while a fifth, who had just struggled to his feet with a very rueful countenance, suddenly dropped to the deck again as he caught sight ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... cut me short in her imperious way: "But we are not lovers this morning: at least," with a half-relenting look at my rueful face, "we are very good friends, and I choose to sit here to show ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... they tell me at the bank," said Mr. Day, with rather a rueful smile. "This Mexican mine business is developing some troubles, and they want me to go down there and straighten ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... stomach cried cupboard, filled his wallet with the rich provisions of the priests, boasting to the wounded man that his master was the redoubtable Don Quixote of La Mancha, otherwise called the Knight of the Rueful Countenance. When the adventure was over, Don Quixote questioned his squire on this name, and Sancho replied, "I have been staring upon you this pretty while by the light of that unlucky priest's torch, and may I never stir if ever I set eyes on a ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Snac, with a somewhat rueful grin. "This here Rachel Blythe as has come back to the parish has come to a reconciling with your uncle, as was a by-gone flame of hern; and her tells my mother as it's thee and thy bride ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... girl was still staring in rueful indignation at this snub from her dog, Brice found time and thought to stare with still greater intentness up the tree, at a bunch of bristling fur which occupied the first crotch and which glared wrathfully ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... before they saw a cat sitting in the middle of the road and making a most rueful face. 'Pray, my good lady,' said the ass, 'what's the matter with you? You look quite out of spirits!' 'Ah, me!' said the cat, 'how can one be in good spirits when one's life is in danger? Because I ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm |
