"Wail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... general wail arose, and Mrs. Wing fainted entirely away. Madam Sooty-back was quite satisfied with the effect she had ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... Catherine said, in muffled tones. "Francois! You loved me, Francois. Ah, boy, boy!" she cried, with a pitiable wail; "come back to me, boy ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... won't let 'im come back to his poor old Jane. They're a keepin' us apart, they're a keepin' us apart!" And her voice died away in a wail. She stopped in the middle of ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... at the bellowing assistant of Indian vengeance, found himself turning again to Tula and the padre. That wild wail and the undertone of the drum was getting horribly on his nerves,—yet he could not desert, ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... harbour—fish that had been torn by the nets; but he was only just in time, for in the soft grey light he could see the gulls already busy floating down on their ghostly-looking wings in the gloom, uttering a mournful, peevish wail, and carrying off fragments of ...
— A Terrible Coward • George Manville Fenn
... long-sounding curfew from afar Loaded with loud lament the lonely gale, Young Edwin, lighted by the evening star, Lingering and listening, wander'd down the vale. There would he dream of graves, and corses pale, And ghosts that to the charnel-dungeon throng, And drag a length of clanking chain, and wail, Till silenced by the owl's terrific song, Or blast that shrieks by fits ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... expire at Dian's shrine,— So doomed, to free the chivalry of Greece, In Aulis lingering for a favoring wind To waft them to the fated walls of Troy. Two songs with but one burden, twin-like tales. Sad tales! but this the sadder of the twain,— This song, a wail more desolately wild; More fraught this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... A wail of fear went up from the wreck and was echoed from the beach, but by the blessing of Providence she kept afloat until we made our way under her bowsprit and rescued ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... picked out another and another half pilchard, and threw them as far as he could, when, almost as each piece touched the water, a soft-looking grey gull swept down and caught it from the surface with its strong beak, uttering a low peevish-sounding wail as it swept up again, hardly seeming to move its long ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... The wail of a distant shell rose to a shriek and the explosion was instantaneous. The little man suddenly went limp and his rifle rolled down ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various
... been looking on incredulously at her champion's unaccountable tardiness in coming to the point. But this public repudiation was too much for her. She gave a little low wail as she heard the shameless words of recantation, and then, without a word, jumped lightly down from her bench and ran away to ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... dawn—the death-fire leaped From ridge to river-head, From the Malwa plains to the Abu scars: And wail upon wail went up to the stars Behind the grim zenana-bars, When they knew ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... the direction of the south. A fourth one was heard farther off, and both voices united in a plaintive wail. Any one unacquainted with the remarkable perfection with which the Navajos imitate the nocturnal chant of the so-called coyote, would have been deceived, and have taken the sounds for the voices of the animals themselves; but Tyope recognized ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... Tadpole began to weep and wail, For little Tommy Tadpole had lost his little tail; And his mother didn't know him as he wept upon a log, For he wasn't Tommy Tadpole, but Mr. ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... held or lost before. The storm that was raging in the sky grew gradually stronger and came still nearer, but she scarcely noticed it: it was only as the symphony sounding in sad harmony with her unspoken wail. Flash followed flash, swifter, nearer, more vivid; the thunder crashed and roared as if it would have beaten the house to the ground and rent the very earth whereon it stood; the rain fell in torrents that broke the flowers like hail and ran in turbulent rivulets ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... their sentence waits They thrust pale Justice from their haughty gates, Invisible their steps the Virgin treads, And musters evil o'er their sinful heads. She with the dark of air her form arrays, And walks in awful grief the city ways: Her wail is heard; her tear, upbraiding, falls O'er their stained manners ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... almost to a wail. She turned suddenly to Koltsoff. "Of course you understand that you must leave us as soon as possible." Koltsoff, who had arisen, eyed her sullenly. She turned to Jack, who met ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... mistress to her room. There she was obliged to leave her alone; and so it happened that, just as the grey dawn trembled with the first flush of a new and brighter day, the child arrived unassisted and without welcome, and sent up a wail of protest. When the doctor came at last, and had time to attend to her, he pronounced her to be a fine child, and declared that she had made a good beginning, and would do well for herself, which words the nurse ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... to live a famous cascade called the Swallow Falls, where the water drops down a chasm of great depth. If you listen to the noise of the cataract, you may hear mingled with it a peculiar kind of wail as from a man in great agony. It is said to be the wail of a Sir John Wynn, of Gwydir, whose spirit is under a curse, and is imprisoned at the bottom of the falls on account of his cruelty and misdeeds on earth. On those rare nights when the full ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... raised their bodies partly from the sands, like a resurrection of the already dead, and there then rang out upon the night air a sound such as my ears had never before heard in my life, such as, I pray God, they may never listen to again. I do not know what that dreadful death-wail meant in words, only that it touched the lowest depths of human horror. All along the beach that fearful chorus of the damned wailed forth, and echoed back from rock and cliff. The cry for mercy could not ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... every statement with the wail that if he had not been robbed in Bucyrus he would be ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... wail of sorrow sobbed itself out from beneath Azzie's fingers. In a moment more, the audience would have been in tears. She sat for a moment silent. When she touched the keys again, it was to give expression to a march, measured, heavy, solemn. At this, emerging from ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... 31) based on poems of Heine's are particularly successful, especially in the excellent opportunity of the lyric describing the wail of the Scottish woman who plays her harp on the cliff, and sings above the raging of sea and wind. The third catches most happily the whimsicality of the poet's reminiscences of childhood, but hardly, I think, ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... this place, I heard a feeble wail, which seemed to come out of the earth. It was but a strip of crooked side-walk where I stood; the dingy wall was on every side, converting the mid-day into twilight; and not a soul was in sight. I started, and could almost have run, when I heard that dismal sound. It seemed ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... Kelly was accounted a warm, comfortable woman. Her husband had left her for a better world some ten years since, with six children; and the widow, instead of making continual use, as her chief support, of that common wail of being a poor, lone woman, had put her shoulders to the wheel, and had earned comfortably, by sheer industry, that which so many of her class, when similarly situated, are ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... harmonium in distress!" replied Bob, with a slight laugh. And even as he spoke the wail was repeated, though this time could be distinctly heard the voice of some person struggling to articulate to ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... already cowering again, except the provinces of Holland and Zealand. No one dared approach, even to learn what had occurred within the walls of the town, for days after its doom had been accomplished. "A wail of agony was heard above Zutphen last Sunday," wrote Count Nieuwenar, "a sound as of a mighty massacre, but we know not what has ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... whilom wail'd those Briton kings, Who unto her in vision did appear, Craves leave to strengthen her night-weathered wings In the warm sunshine of your golden Clere [clear]; Where she, fair Lady, tuning her chaste lays Of England's Empress to her hymnic string For your affect, ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... Christian, and she also begged us to insist on a Christian burial for herself. To the schoolgirls she sent the message that they must meet her in her Master's presence, and a few hours later "the bells of the city rang out for joy, and it was said to her: 'Enter into the joy of thy Lord.'" The wail that went up from the schoolgirls when I told them, I shall not forget; she was the first of our company to pass over. Two days later the pupils of her class and ourselves gathered with the family for a simple service in the courtyard of her home. On the coffin the words were written at her ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... Katherine's eyes as she listened to this stern wail of a bruised spirit, but with instinctive wisdom she refrained from uttering fruitless expressions of sympathy. She would not encourage Rachel to dwell on the hateful subject; she only replied by pressing her friend's hand in silence, and she began to speak of Mrs. Ormonde's ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... yet no one returned. Once Marjorie went to the door and listened, but there was only the faint wail of the winter wind up the stairs to be heard. Then, five minutes later, there were steps and Mr. John came in. His face looked a little stern, but he smiled with ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... stood motionless in amazement. Minnie put down her work. The crying continued. It was no feeble wail, but a good hearty roar with a running accompaniment of sobs in another key. Two children were being as miserable and unhappy as they knew how. As they came close to the leafy screen that protected Rosanna and ...
— The Girl Scouts at Home - or Rosanna's Beautiful Day • Katherine Keene Galt
... wail in her voice; "he will not speak to me." The men were sobbing aloud. She looked at them with wide-open eyes of wonder. "Why are they weeping? Will he never speak to me again? Tell me," she insisted gently. The words were running ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... the banister and declared to the expectant father below that it was "a fine healthy Commander-in-Chief." Therefore, a Commander-in-Chief is not like a poet. But when a Commander-in-Chief dies, the spirit of a thousand Beethovens sob and wail in the air; dull cannon roar slowly out their heavy grief; silly rifles gibber and chatter demoniacally over his grave; and a cocked hat, emptier than ever, rides with the mockery of ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... themselves away as quietly as could be expected of six clumping boots and an unlimited quantity of animal spirits in a high state of effervescence. As they trooped off, an unmistakable odor of burnt milk pervaded the air, and the crash of china, followed by an Irish wail, caused Mrs. Dean to clap on her three shawls again and excuse herself ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... raised a shrill quavering wail that carried like the howl of a coyote. Again the reverberating echoes ran up the precipices and slowly died out far above, and again no response came from the top of the ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... Jack's welcoming hand and greet all the others, some of whom were new acquaintances. The fragrance of coffee and frying bacon filled the sharp air, while from the summits of the surrounding cliffs the hungry chorus of yelping wolves sent up their wail of disappointment. ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... ten yards before us, and every uncouth oak or rocky fragment we approached seemed lurking spies or gigantic enemies. One time the murmur of the wind among invisible woods of beech, sounded like the wail of distress; and at another the noise of a torrent we could not discover, counterfeited the report of musquetry. In this suspicious manner we journeyed through the forest which had so recently been the scene of assaults and depredations. At length, after winding several restless ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... handfuls of the leaves were torn out and scattered over the place. My stock of medicines was smashed; and all our furniture and clothing carried off and sold at public auction to pay the expenses of the foray. I do not mention these things by way of making a pitiful wail over my losses, in order to excite commiseration; for though I feel sorry for the loss of lexicons, dictionaries, &c., &c., which had been the companions of my boyhood, yet, after all, the plundering only set me entirely free for my expedition ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... it were so, There now would be no Venice. But let it Live on, so the good die not, till the hour Of Nature's summons; but "the Ten's" is quicker, And we must wait on't. Ah! a voice of wail! [A faint cry within. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... and as they gained the threshold, they heard a strain of music from within,—a strain of piercing, heart-rending anguish. It was not like some senseless instrument, mechanical in its obedience to a human hand,—it was as some spirit calling, in wail and agony from the forlorn shades, to the angels it beheld afar beyond the Eternal Gulf. They exchanged glances of dismay. They hurried into the house; they hastened into the room. Pisani turned, and his look, full of ghastly intelligence and stern command, awed them ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... turned pale, and moaned: "Oh, mother! mother! he's left!" She broke into crying. The negroes, quickly sympathetic, began to wring their hands and wail. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... dead black; his eyebrows of exquisite curve, narrow and intense; his voice deep when unmoved and calm; keen and sharp to piercing fierceness when vehement and roused—in the pulpit, at times a shout, at times a pathetic wail; his utterance hesitating, emphatic, explosive, powerful,—each sentence shot straight and home; his hesitation arising from his crowd of impatient ideas, and his resolute will that they should come in their order, and some of them not come at all, only the ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... acquaintance with their owners. One was a man's voice, sonorous and weighty, that sounded as if it were accustomed to propound mighty problems from the pulpit. The other was a woman's, high-pitched as the wail of a cat on a windy night, that caused the listening girl to nestle back on her pillow with the instant resolution to remain where she was until the intruders saw fit to depart, even if by so doing she ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... voice had run its gamut, in the emotion which consumed him, and from a menacing growl of protest, it had risen to a shrill wail of weakness and despair. ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... is that awful wail that suddenly smites the stillness as with a blow? It seems like the wailing of all the lost souls of the war. It sounds like the crying of the more than five million sorrowing women there are left comfortless in Europe. It is the siren. An air-raid is on. The "alert" is sounding. The ...
— Soldier Silhouettes on our Front • William L. Stidger
... fire of chat (that is, if one is a woman) so I had told everything to Phyllis by the time I had begun fastening the white serge frock in which I was to go to The Hague and the Concours Hippique. Just then the Japanese gong sent forth its melancholy wail, so we hurried down, and I forgot to tell Phyllis not to mention the incident. I didn't think it the kind of incident which would be approved by the van Buren family, and on second thoughts I didn't approve ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... sustained by unconquerable will, over the oppression of physical force, the tyranny of resistless power. It exhibits the charity of the Saviour in the Paradise Regained, united to the indomitable spirit of Satan, who is chained on the burning lake, in Paradise Lost. It is the prophetical wail of humanity, so often doomed to suffer in the best ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... over, with a resolved face she went to her room. She would really tell this boy a home-truth or two. It was a—a sister's place to do so. The mother, she knew well enough, would do no more than send a little wail, and would end by telling the dear boy that, of course, he knew best, and that she was very happy to think that he was taking such pains about his studies. Someone must point out to the boy his overwhelming selfishness, and it seemed that no one was at hand but herself. ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... geisha, with her face whitened with powder, and her lips painted a bright red, and her elaborately-dressed hair full of ornaments, sits down to a sort of guitar called a samisen and sings, but her song has no music in it. It is a kind of long-drawn wail, very monotonous and tuneless to European ears. The dancing is a kind of acting in dumb show, and consists of a number of postures, while the movements of the fan take a large share in ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Japan • John Finnemore
... went out, it was about eleven o'clock, and the surrounding jungle was full of the horrible noises of an African night; the wail of the small lemur, that sounds like the death-moan of a child; the more distant roar of the lion in the black depths of the forest, too thick for the moonlight to ever penetrate; the giant trees of the bombax around the encampment, wreathed with llianes and parasitical poison vines ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... present, take part in the same. It was deemed a good sign of the state of the sufferer's soul, if from the gloomy recesses of the wall was heard the agonized groan of his dismal response. This was regarded in the light of a penitent wail from the dead, because the customs of the order ordained that when any inmate should be first incarcerated in the wall, he should be committed to it in the presence of all the brethren, the chief reading the burial service as the live body was sepulchred. Sometimes ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... one last attack, when a musket ball struck Cathelineau on the arm, and passing through the flesh entered his breast. He was on foot, in front of the brave peasants whom he was leading, and they all saw him fall. Oh, M. de Lescure, if you had heard the groan, the long wail of grief, which his poor followers from St. Florent uttered, when they saw their sainted leader fall before them, your ears would never forget the sound. We raised him up between us, and carried him back to a part of the town which was in our hands, and from thence over the Pont Rousseau to Pirmil, ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... flowers come forever; I'll meet thee again; I'm longing to see thee— Time bears me to thee!" (Wail.) ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... lake Lying calm and black Under the night, Floats the wail Of the pipes: And beyond, loom Langdale Pikes, dim, Shadowy sentinels. Over all, the stars, Like ...
— A Little Window • Jean M. Snyder
... and friends arrived at the foot of the mound, and at a certain moment, as if the leader of an orchestra were leading a funeral chant, there arose a great wail of tears, sighs, and sobs. They lamented the deceased with a plaintive rhythm and doleful cadence. The kinsmen beat their heads; the kinswomen tore their faces with their nails and lavished more blood than tears. But these demonstrations were not sufficient to propitiate the soul of the deceased, ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... he wandered, and came out upon the sea-shore, on the barren rocks where the fierce light struck down, and the water moaned its low, perpetual wail of unrest. "Ah!" he said; "the sea will be more merciful; it, too, is wearied unto death and ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... children shrieked together and fled, stumbling in dry bog, weeping in terror. Carl's backbone was all one prickling bar of ice. But he waved his stick fiercely, and, because he had to care for her, was calm enough to realize that the wail must have been the cry ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... had a plainsman's ear as well as a plainsman's eye. As he listened, through the wail of the wind borne along the distance, he caught the words of a song, low and pleading like a plaintive cry ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... paso before the King, that he might see it well. He was on his feet, his head bared and bowed; and while he stood veiled in rising incense, some emotional soul in the audience broke into a Moorish wail, the prayer song or saeta of the people, improvising words which caught ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... will have a turning, and that night came to an end at last; and we were footsore and tired enough, and to my mind the babby were getting weaker and weaker, and it wrung my heart to hear its little wail! I'd ha' given my right hand for one of yesterday's hearty cries. We were wanting our breakfasts, and so were it too, motherless babby! We could see no public-houses, so about six o'clock (only we thought it were later) ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... and we'll grow in grandeur and splendor every day, and the time will come when every man and every woman shall have the same rights as every other man and every other woman has. I believe, we are growing better. I don't believe the wail of want shall be heard forever; that the prison and gallows will always curse the ground. The time will come when liberty and law and love, like the rings of Saturn, will surround the world; when the world will cease making these ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... to feed those already there. Philip often discerned the wish that the child might be born dead or might die quickly. He delivered one woman of twins (a source of humour to the facetious) and when she was told she burst into a long, shrill wail of misery. Her mother ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... to be there. Instantly on arriving Johnny set up a wail, because there was talk of putting him inside the vehicle; and this persisted until the coachman, a goat-bearded Yankee, came to the rescue and said he was darned if such a plucky young nipper shouldn't ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... said the young man; "I command thee to tell me, O Zadok! Why are the people all gone mad this morning, and why do they weep and wail, and why do they go crazy when I do but ask them why they ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... To-ot! The shrill wail of the locomotive whistle broke rudely through her revery and brought her to a sudden realization that if she didn't bestir herself, Mrs. Wescott would be at the station with ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... in this very uncomfortable state of mind, with the jungle wrapped in profound silence as well as gloom, there broke on the night air a wail so indescribable that the very marrow in Nigel's bones seemed to shrivel up. It ceased, but again broke forth louder than before, increasing in length and strength, until his ears seemed to tingle with the sound, and then it died away to a sigh ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... troubled about my girls." They were walking up and down in the garden. From time to time there sounded from the house behind them the long, sad wail of a French horn. ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... which spread, From shore to shore, "our mighty Pan is dead," O'er the cross benches (cross from being crost) Sounds the loud wail, "Our Winchelsea is lost!" ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... the group seemed like a gracefully posed genre picture. Before we knew what she was about, Margarita had slipped in behind the music master and brought both hands down with a crash on the keys, so that the Chopin Prelude ended abruptly in an hysterical wail and the young lady half fell off the stool—only half, for Margarita pushed her the rest of the way, I regret to say. Fortunately Mary was able to get us out of it, but I fear there was no more Prelude that day! Why will women play Chopin, by the ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... Plume bent his bow, with all his strength drew the arrow back to the flint point, and sent the blue arrow on its mission of death. So swiftly had the arrow passed through the eagle's body that, thinking White Plume had missed, a great wail went up from the crowd, but when they saw the eagle stop in his flight, give a few flaps of his wings, and then fall with a heavy thud into the center of the village, there was a greater cheer than before. "The red eagle shall be used to decorate the seat of honor in your tepee," ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... from window, doorway, and roof. The wind, blowing from the south, carried sparks and cinders to the adjoining houses, glowing in the summer heat. A wail of horror from the people ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... little wagging tail; I miss the plaintive, pleading wail; I miss the wistful, loving glance; ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... square-built seamen, drinking away together in the dismal cabin, which reeked of fish-pickle and bilge-water. The overhead beams came down too low for their tall statures, and rounded off at one end so as to resemble a gull's breast, seen from within. The whole rolled gently with a monotonous wail, inclining one slowly ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... silence reigned throughout the company. They gazed intently upon Wassamo and his wife as they waded out into the water, waving their hands. They saw them go into deeper and deeper water. They saw the wave close over their heads. All at once they raised a loud and piercing wail. They looked again. A red flame, as if the sun had glanced on a billow, marked the spot for an instant; but the Feather-of-Flames and his wife had disappeared ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... the men sat holding on to their precarious perches, listening to an occasional sound from the river or the shore, loud splashings right away out in the direction of what they supposed to be the main current, and an occasional trumpeting wail or shriek from the forest—sounds that chilled and produced blood-curdling sensations at the first, but to which the men became more and more accustomed as the hours slowly ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... a wail. Into her burning eyes merciful tears rushed, and sinking on her knees she rested against the railing, shaken by a ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... day when he had uttered his first wail had his Highness of Babbiano heard words of such import from the lips of living man. A purple flush mottled his cheeks at the ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... of kings, that watching from Thy throne Sufferest the monster of Ust-Kara's hold, With bosom than Siberia's wastes more cold, And hear'st the wail of captives crushed and prone, And sett'st no sign in heaven! Shall naught atone For their wild pangs whose tale is yet scarce told, Women by uttermost woe made deadly bold, In the far dungeon's night that hid their moan? Why ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... but the sound of running water and the wail of the wind. Since leaving the Indians they had seen no sign of life and believed that they were crossing uninhabited wilds. Blake could not tell what had suddenly roused his attention, but in former days he had developed his perceptive faculties by close night watching on the Indian frontier, ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... had been broken by the first clatter of sabots—that wooden noise, measured, unmistakable, approaching. Two pairs of sabots and a long road. Two broad backs bent under bulging loads; an infant's wail; a knock at the Red Cross Door—but that was nearly eight ...
— Where the Sabots Clatter Again • Katherine Shortall
... helped me to wait." And then as Mark gave an ironic wail: "You've tided me over. My condition has wanted somebody or something. Therefore, to complete this service, will you be so good as to open ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... with pleasure listen To widow's wail and orphan's cry; And shall we gird, as joyful witness, The death-watch of ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Walter, and I felt so peaceful and happy. But just as you touched my hand, there came a mist between us—a dense and chilling mist, that made the marrow curdle in my bones, and my joints stiff and iron-bound; and a voice, a low mournful voice, like the wail of a dying bird, said, 'Come!'—and I attempted to answer, 'Not yet;' but my tongue felt frozen to my teeth, and my teeth were as icicles within my lips; and I was enshrouded in the mist. Then suddenly a pang shot through my heart, as if it were the ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... ditch, all the way round the camp, and Suydam galloping after. Somewhere in the middle of it a hideous whiffling wail came down the sky: Trrou... trrou... trou!—and then a crash! The bomb had hit the water just off the end of the pier. I kept on running. There was another Trrou... trrou! another geyser of water, and the ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... abstracted from all mutiny acts and articles of war, that these soldiers were in such a situation that they could not help themselves. People were coming from Royal Exchange Lane, and other parts of the town, with clubs and cord-wood sticks; the soldiers were planted by the wail of the Customhouse; they could not retreat; they were surrounded on all sides, for there were people behind them as well as before them; there were a number of people in the Royal Exchange Lane; the soldiers were so near to the Customhouse that they could not retreat, unless they had gone into ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... Penelope, stricken at heart? Nay, even the gods who live at ease suffer thee not to wail or be afflicted, seeing that thy son is yet to return; for no sinner is he in the ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... one day." John, in the 1st chapter of Revelations, says, concerning the coming of Jesus, "Behold he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him." And in the last chapter of Revelations he represents Jesus, as saying, "Surely ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... his partner through the Blue Water or John Speriwig; boys shout and applaud, and the enjoyment and confusion are intense, till eleven o'clock comes. By this time the children who swarm in the side-rooms are not to be kept quiet longer, even by hunches of bread and cake; there is a general howl and wail, that rises yet higher than the scraping of fiddles, and mothers rush from their partners to knock small heads together, and cuff little nursemaids, and force the wailers down into unoccupied corners of beds, under ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... friendes from thee fail, And death by rene hend[48] their life, Why shouldest thou then weep or wail? It is nought against God ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... sharp part of the hook scraped the skin from her hollow cheek. It paused an instant on the level of her chin, then descended into the upturned chest of the child. With a scream, Scraggy dragged the boy back, and a wail rose from the tiny lips. Crabbe turned, cursing audibly, and stumbled up the steps to the stern of the boat. The woman heard him fall in his drunken stupor, and listened again and again for him to rise. ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... about, peering and hoping with a half-fearing expectation, a sweet, threadlike wail trembled out toward her across the moonlit and shadowed space. Her father was tuning his violin. Her mother sat at his side, hushing Bobby in her arms. Betty could hear the sound of her rockers on the porch floor. Now the plaintive call of ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... the new-comer, with his face to the porch door, and the answer came back to him in a wail like the wind itself. ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... Willis. "Yes, in another twenty years or so, perhaps; to wail for such an unlikely event will never do; my young friend, Master Jack Becker, is in a hurry, and we must all leave this place within a ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... little western gap in the hills. It was his star; it was sinking fast: and she would keep her lamp burning. When he climbed to his room, the cry of the whippoorwill in the ravine came to him through his window—futile, persistent, like a human wail for happiness. The boy went to his knees at his bedside that night, and the prayer that went on high from the depths of his heart was that God would bring the wish of ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... in expectation of relief, began to rise once more. He was angry. Why didn't she do something? This delay was unendurable. His voice mounted in a long, piercing wail. ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... but to know it, he must demonstrate his statement. To assume that 448:1 there are no claims of evil and yet to indulge them, is a moral offence. Blindness and self-righteousness cling 448:3 fast to iniquity. When the Publican's wail went out to the great heart of Love, it won his humble desire. Evil which obtains in the bodily senses, 448:6 but which the heart condemns, has no foundation; but if evil is uncondemned, it is undenied ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... the stricken crowd Bowed down their heads in tears O'er the sweet young priest in his vestment shroud. Ah! the happy, happy years! They are dead and gone, and the Requiem Mass Went slowly, mournfully on, The Pontiff's singing was all a wail, The altars cried and the people wept, The fairest flower in the Church's vale Ah me! how soon we pass! In the vase of his ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... stopped short with a wail. Sir Joseph, who had been trying to quiet her by patting her hand, paused with ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... cried, very dramatically, "heed my warning voice! Wail and not rejoice!" A nice sort of caution to be injected into a merrymaking. "The foe to thy rest, is the one you love best. Think not my warning wild, 'tis thy refound child. She loves a youth of the tribe I sway, and braves the world's reproof. List to ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... Then his wife said unto him, My son is dead, seeing he stayeth long; and she began to wail him, ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... like the wail of a man in torture burst from him. It woke more than one sleeper in the distant chambers of the Chateau, making them start upon their pillows to listen for another cry, but none came. Bigot was a man of iron; he retained ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Not a wail was heard, or a "fizzle's" mild sigh, As his corpse o'er the pavement we hurried. The ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... live in Albany for the whole world," said Leonore, resuming her old self with horrible rapidity. But just then she burnt her finger with the match with which she was lighting the lamp, and her cruelty vanished in a wail. "Oh!" she ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... out a sob, sprinkle a few tears upon the counsel table, and gently thrust the pin into the infant's anatomy. Sob from Gottlieb—opportune wail from the baby. ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... invalid in the bed in the parlour was not a repaying subject. Cousin Eugenie belonged to that type of elderly women who, having been spoiled in youth, find the rest of life fall far short of their expectations. Her voice had acquired a perpetual wail, and the corners of what had once been a pretty mouth drooped in an eternal peevishness. She found herself in a morass of misery and shabby discomfort, but had her days continued in an even tenor she would still ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... Obedient to that voice he left his cave; When from a shepherd's cottage near his way, Whence he had often heard the busy hum Of industry, and childhood's merry laugh, There came the angry, stern command of one Clothed in a little brief authority, Mingled with earnest pleadings, and the wail Of women's voices, and above them all The plaintive treble of a little child. Thither he turned, and when he reached the spot, The cause of all this sorrow was revealed: One from the king had seized their little all, Their goats and sheep, and e'en the child's pet lamb. But when ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... And then, in the last place, I have taken upon me to do this, that I may deliver, if not you, yet myself, and that I may be clear of your blood, and stand quit, as to you, before God, when you shall, for neglect, be damned, and wail to consider that you have lost your souls. 'When I say,' saith God, 'unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou,' the prophet or preacher, 'givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... upon the merciful human life about him. He never remembered to have had any real feeling till on that day with Kathleen—the day he died. The bitter complaint of a woman he had wronged cruelly, by having married her, had wrung from him his own first wail of life, in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... just returned from the Unitarian church where we listened to Mr. Gannett's rare dissertation on the religion of Lowell; but all the time there was an inner wail in my soul, that by your fastening yourself in New York City I couldn't help you carry out the dream of my life—which is that you should take all of your speeches and articles, carefully dissect them, and put your best utterances ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... had, like others in the city, A country cottage very pretty; Where they amused their leisure hours, In innocence, with plants and flowers, Till fate had cut Tom's thread across, And left poor John to wail his loss. ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... hold, and obedient to the pressure of his lips. Since then he had lived from feeble hope to hope; and now, when he struck upon that hard and narrow tract of corduroy studded with comfortless buttons, he began again his melancholy wail. ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... a perfect wail of woe; and then, jumping from her seat at the table, she ran to her mother's side, and flung herself into her arms, where she gave way to one of her ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... soldiers in the armies of the United States seriously offended the Southern view of "the eternal fitness of things." No action on the part of the Federal Government was so abhorrent to the rebel army. It called forth a bitter wail from Jefferson Davis, on the 12th of January, 1863, and soon after the Confederate Congress elevated its olfactory organ and handled the subject with a pair of tongs. After a long discussion the ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... away down the reach a ferry-boat lifted its infinitesimal wail, and then the silence of the night river came down once more, profound and inscrutable. A corner of the wick above my head sputtered a ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... compact mass extending in a broad line of massive hind-quarters over a surface of half an acre. This space formed a complete street in their wake, as they levelled everything before them; and the high grass stood up on either side like a wail. ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... not faint, Dr. Sheef. If it IS my husband I shall ask you to leave me alone in the room with him for a little while." The final word trailed out into a long, tremulous wail, showing how near she was to the breaking point in her wonderful effort at self-control. The men looked away hastily. They heard her draw two or three deep, quavering breaths; they could almost feel the tension that she was ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... came a cry that was a wail of parenthood, as we all sank to the ground just as the terrible black monster tore the roof from the Little House and hurled it toward us across the street. I saw a huge rafter hurtle through the air and strike down Mark ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... some fraction of me, happily Floats through the window even now to a tree Down in the misting, dim-lit, quiet vale, Not like a peewit that returns to wail For something it has lost, but like a dove That slants unswerving to its home and love. There I find my rest, and through the dark air Flies what yet lives in ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... bought at the Sewell auction, why does Buck Davis, who lives on the river flats, cross our hills, unless Murder Hollow be blockaded with snow, or unless he has turkeys for sale? But Buck Davis with turkeys would surely have stopped here, unless he were selling a large stock in town. A wail from the sacking at the back of the sleigh tells the tale. It is a winter calf, and Buck Davis is going to sell it for one dollar to the Boston Market where it will be turned into potted chicken. This leaves the mystery of his change of route unexplained. After two days' sitting ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... when Lum got back. Smoke was coming out of his rickety chimney, and the wail of an old ballad reached his ears. Singing, the girl did not hear him coming, and through the open door he saw that the room had been tidied up and that she was cooking supper. The baby was playing on the floor. She turned at the creak of ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... her voice sounded like the croaking of some dismal raven. Jurgis sat with his hands clenched and beads of perspiration on his forehead, and there was a great lump in Ona's throat, choking her. Then suddenly Teta Elzbieta broke the silence with a wail, and Marija began to wring her hands and ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... skyline, and the next turning must bring him in view of the ill-assorted couple he was pursuing. Then the colour went suddenly out of things, and a grey light settled itself with a quick shiver over the landscape. Van Cheele heard a shrill wail of ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... and mute in their places the wardens; No voice in my longing ear whispered the mystical sentence, And my heart was heavy, and chilled with the fruitless endeavour. On this side lay the snow and the wind, like the wail of repentance, Moaned in the branches forlorn but through the closed lattices ever Drifted a stir and a fragrance of springtime ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... they fell there was none to sing their coronach or wail the death-wail over them. Those who sacrificed themselves for the peace, the liberty, and the religion of their fellow-countrymen, lay bleaching in the field of death for long, and when at last they ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to say a few words to readers of The Sabbath Scoop on the alleged decay of the British drama. There is indeed some apparent truth in this allegation. On all sides I hear managers sending up the same old wail of dwindling box-office receipts and houses packed with ghastly rows of deadheads. No "paper" shortage there, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... room, broken presently by the mother's wail as she fell on her knees at the bedside, and taking the cold hand in hers covered it ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... Loud the wail of lamentation When the Tamals saw their warriors Who had fallen in the combat Lying lifeless on the mountain. Louder still, the cry of anguish When they found their Maid of Mercy Helpless now, and sorely wounded. No more would her strong ...
— The Legends of San Francisco • George W. Caldwell
... a gentle winding, reached the middle of the forest. The huge pine-trees spread above our heads a mournful-looking vault, and gave forth a kind of long, sad wail, while at either side their straight, slender trunks formed, as it were, an army of organ-pipes, from which seemed to issue the low, monotonous music of ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... her thoughts, and went a few paces towards the apparition, whilst he mechanically shouldered his gun. But at the same moment the herd took another direction, and fled with wild speed towards the east. The wind rose, and swept with a mournful wail through the ice-desert. ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... "A wail is man's earliest speech on this earth, and a groan his farewell to it. Full of suffering does he come into life, full of sorrow does he go to his resting-place, and no one asks him where he ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... that a female principal in a school gets only eight hundred and twenty-five dollars for doing work for which a male principal gets sixteen hundred and fifty dollars? I hear from all this land the wail of womanhood. Man has nothing to answer to that wail but flatteries. He says she is an angel. She is not. She knows she is not. She is a human being who gets hungry when she has no food, and cold when she has no fire. Give her no more ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... can but gather a dozen friends and man a single galley, you will be in season. But the time is short. I hear a fearful cry—the cry of women—and the feeble shriek of Francesca Ziani is among the voices of those who wail with a new terror! I see their struggling forms, and floating garments, and disheveled hair! Fly, young men, lest the names of those whom Venice has written in her Book of Gold, shall henceforth be written ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... All-Lincoln girls' basketball team plays our deadly enemy, South High. And what will happen without Ginny Cox? Who else can make the baskets she can? Defeat—ignominious defeat will be our sad lot——" Her voice trailed off in a wail that found its echo ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... square barricade, two sides of which were the wagons, with the mules haltered to the wheels. Every man then supplied himself with all the ammunition he could carry, and the Mandan scouts setting up the depressing wail of the Indian death-song, we all awaited the attack with the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... O wingless wind that walk'st the sea, Weak wind, wing-broken, wearier wind than we, Who are yet not spirit-broken, maimed like thee, Who wail not in our inward night as thou In the outer darkness now, What word has the old sea given thee for mine ear From thy faint lips to hear? For some word would she ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... underbrush it was not surprising. Kitty, though, was surprised and a little bit alarmed, and she ran from point to point, calling and calling again; but for a long time the only answer was the long sighs the wind gave as it rushed over the level land, and lost itself with a little wail of anger amongst the old tors. Then at last came a long shout, and Dan appeared, and almost at the same moment a drop fell smartly on Kitty's cheek, then another and another, and suddenly a heavy downpour ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch |
