"Rueful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rueful and abashed that Sabre laughed; and then said to Nona, "Why is elegant 'yours', ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... was a rueful sight, To see this melancholy knight In such a dismal and hapless case; His hat deformed by stain and dent, His plumage broken, his doublet rent, His beard and flowing locks forlorn, Matted, dishevelled, and unshorn, His boots with dust and mire besprent; But dignified in his ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... feeling gradually died away, and was then suddenly and stunningly 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, ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... manager relapsed into silence, rueful and melancholy. Their road ran steadily upward from the sleepy valley, skirting a wood where the luxuriance of the overhanging foliage and the bright autumnal tint of the leaves were like a scene of a spectacular play. Out of breath from the steepness of the ascent, and, with his hand ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... he had been too severe: her daughter-in-law, who was very pretty, said her brother had given him too much reason; hinting, at the same time, that he was addicted to some terrible vices; upon which several individuals repeated the interjection, ah! ah! "Yes (said Mons. L—y, with a rueful aspect) the boy has a pernicious turn for gaming: in one afternoon he lost, at billiards, such a sum as gives me horror to think of it." "Fifty sols in one afternoon," (cried the sister). "Fifty sols! (exclaimed the mother-in-law, with ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... breakfast-time next morning. Rosa was like freshly-poured champagne, in sweet and sparkle. Alfred, rueful and limp, as if the dripping clouds that verified Mabel's prediction had soaked him all night. He was dry and comfortable—to carry out the figure—within twenty minutes after his beloved fluttered, like a tame canary, into the chair next his own—in five ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... 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. She added, with a rueful gesture, "Still, ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... went about with a money- seeking air, his eyes bent downward into the dust, and carrying his hands in his pockets, as men are apt to do when they have nothing else to put into them. He could not even pass the city almshouse without giving it a rueful glance, as if destined ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... with a pardonable feeling of agitation that I tugged at the wrought-iron bell-pull on the perron of the magnificent mansion in the Avenue du Jura. To begin with I felt somewhat rueful at having to appear before ladies at this hour in my travelling clothes, and then, you will admit, Sir, that it was a somewhat awkward predicament for a man of highly sensitive temperament to meet on terms of equality a refined if stout lady whose ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Crump did look, and the rueful expression of Rachel, set off by the inky stains, was so irresistibly comical, that, after a little struggle, she too gave way, ...
— Timothy Crump's Ward - A Story of American Life • Horatio Alger
... had not, to be honest, a word to say. He was fairly defeated, his flank turned, his guns captured. He had counted so surely on a panic, on the man whom he knew to be a knave proving also a coward, that even his anger—and he was very angry—could not hide his discomfiture. He looked, indeed, so rueful, and at the same time so wrathful, that ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... of deadly hate, Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep, Cocytus, named of lamentation loud Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon, Whose waves of torrent fire inflame ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... further & still confused Accounts from the Northward. Schuylers Letters are rueful indeed! even to a great Degree, and with such an awkward Mixture as would excite one to laugh in the Midst of Calamity. He seems to contemplate his own Happiness in not having had much or indeed any Hand in the unhappy Disaster. He throws Blame ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... story is not finished," Grandpapa replied, with a rueful face; "we had set to work to sweep, and brush, and clean with a will, in order to make the room more worthy of its occupants, ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... many officers both Union and Confederate, he was often in liquor; liquor was always in him. This "knight of the rueful countenance," of the sad heart, the mourning voice, the disabled right arm, and the weakness for apple-jack!—his only hope was to have an exchange of prisoners; but Lincoln and Stanton and Grant would not consent to that. ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... spoke scornfully) vowed and protested that my lady's face was none the worse—the lad broke out and said, "It IS worse and my mistress is not near so handsome as she was;" on which poor Lady Castlewood gave a rueful smile, and a look into a little Venice glass she had, which showed her, I suppose, that what the stupid boy said was only too true, for she turned away from the glass, and her ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... and broke every rule, and defied God and man, and spent money which I had not got, and lived a generally rake-hell life. There are very few of my friends who did these things, and they have mostly fallen in the race long ago, leaving a poor and rueful memory behind. Nor do I see why it is so glorious to pretend to have done such things, especially if one has not done them! I was a sober citizen enough, with plenty of faults and failings; and this is not a tract to convert ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... voices, tenderly low and incoherent, interrupting eagerly, breaking in on each other to explain and protest and plead. If Stewart's protracted neglect of the interests of a father would have availed to rouse resentment, Lana's reply to Stewart's rueful declaration more surely would have exasperated the Senator; she emphatically commanded Stewart to say not one word on the subject ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... affectionate smile that won him friends wherever he went and had given him a champion even in the tutor he ducked, broke momentarily through the rueful expression of his face, as he said: "Oh, there's no sort of ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... stood a rueful spectacle,—a bewildering guide board, flecked with bits of white paper, showing that the notice or message which had recently been pasted and tacked thereon had since been stripped ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... spiritual forefather, and hoping to attach himself to a branch of the Royal Clan Alpine, the MacGregors, as the root of the Stevensons. Of Fergusson, he had, in early youth, the waywardness, the liking for taverns and tavern talk, the half-rueful appreciation of the old closes and wynds of Old Edinburgh, a touch of the recklessness and more than all the pictorial power which, in Fergusson, Burns so ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... and death, and she in her tender youth and sweet beauty immured in it by an error of judgment, a fatal mistake incidental to rash enthusiasm and total inexperience. If Annie ever arrived at that rueful conclusion, how could she bear the penalty she ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... first 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 Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... his own way!" said Sam, with rueful submission, at the same time winking most Portentously to Andy, whose delight was now very near the ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... soldier—and the expression of his face was so rueful, as he pronounced these words, that the ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... he was, and defend herself from his accusations. But she was too tired to do it; and besides, words seemed so far away, and feelings seemed far away, too. Francis and the work at the cabin and Pennington, with his kind, plump, rueful face, and even the O'Maras and Logan, seemed suddenly unreal and of little account. The only thing that really mattered was a chance to go somewhere and lie down and sleep. Perhaps she could lean back a little in the side-car as he took ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... Mr. Doolittle's rueful narrative treats mainly of miscellaneous murders and scalpings, interesting only to the sufferers and their friends; but he also chronicles briefly a formidable inroad that still holds a place in ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... Dawson," was the answer, and then, turning to Laura, she added with a somewhat rueful laugh, "but ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... he cast 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 welcome ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... assisted Ellen to dismount, and he now stood looking, with rueful eyes, at the naked banks of the river. Neither tree nor shrub grew along its borders, with the exception of here and there a solitary thicket of low bushes, from among which it would not have been an easy matter to have ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... him and fired a few shots in a kneeling posture. While thus engaged, I heard the sound of a blow behind me, and looking around, I saw Ginter tumbling on the ground, his heels in the air. He quickly gathered himself up to a sitting posture with a very rueful countenance, giving vent to his feelings in sundry expletives, as soon as he could get breath enough to deliver them properly. With many a doleful grunt he examined the extent of his injuries. A bullet had struck the belt of his cartridge-box, nearly over ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... reply, but after examining the letter he rose with a rueful countenance, and departed unceremoniously, a ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger
... been cleaned, the stove had 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
... 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 may never have a knife and fork; castles and houses of which the poor rogues ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in the testimony of my ears? If that were true, it was Pleyel that had been hitherto immured in the opposite chamber: he whom my rueful fancy had depicted in so many ruinous and ghastly shapes: he whose footsteps had been listened to with such inquietude! What is man, that knowledge is so sparingly conferred upon him! that his heart should be wrung with distress, and his frame ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... as he read the poem: and Mr. Hack laughed too but with rather a rueful face.—"It won't do," he said, "the public won't stand it. Bungay's people are going to bring out a very good book, and have set up Miss Bunyan against Lady Violet. We have most titles to be sure—but the verses are too bad. Lady Violet ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the 12th of April, the travellers had the customary visit to their yard of a long line of women, who came every morning with rueful countenances and streaming eyes to lament the approaching death of the old widow. They wept, they beat their breast and tore their hair; they moaned, and exhibited all manner of violent affliction ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... saw their rueful case, Let fall adown his silver beard some tears. 'Certes,' quoth he, 'it is not e'en in grace, T' undo the past and eke your ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... and deeply intimate. Philosophy did not seem to catch her mind; and fine phrases encountered a rueful assent, more flattering to their grandeur than to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sleek, slim youth it was who sat up facing me, with a flush of gentle surprise on his face, and dapper hands that felt cautiously about his anatomy for injured places. He looked so quaintly rueful yet withal so good-tempered that I could not help bursting into laughter in spite of my own amazement. Then he laughed too, a sedate, musical chuckle, and said something incomprehensible, pointing at the same time to a cut upon my finger ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... cadence like the waves of the sea exhausted by the storm. Some one cried out, a loud, agitated, woeful cry of rebellion, questioned and appealed in impotent anguish, and, losing hope, grew silent; and then again sang his rueful plaints, now resonant and clear, now subdued and dejected. In response to this song came the thick waves of dark sound, broad and resonant, indifferent and hopeless. They drowned by their depth and force the swarm of ringing wails; questions, appeals, groans blended in the alarming song. At times ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... Admiralty for that purpose, but they received them with an indifference almost amounting to apathy. They very closely examined the heroic Miago, who submitted to be handled by these much-dreaded Northern men with a very rueful countenance, and afterwards construed the way in which one of them had gently stroked his beard, into an attempt to take him by the throat and strangle him! an injury and indignity which, when safe on board, he resented ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... of his rueful face the Major burst into fresh laughter. "His fast day!" he chuckled. "These Moros are sure literal-minded—they follow your words exactly. I've had some queer examples ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... conglomerate of the pan. We made merry, however, over our poor meal and the grateful warmth of the fire; and somewhere towards midnight we entertained the question of going to bed. We had avoided the topic as long as possible, from a foreboding that our hostess would present us with some rueful tale of blankets lost in the flood. Besides, we were not without misgivings that, should the clouds return and the river rise as before, house and all might follow the other things down the stream, and no one could tell where we might find ourselves on awakening. On broaching the ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... I can never feel at home out-of-doors," Mary announced, with such a rueful expression ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... perhaps, as ever any human being can have suffered who has survived it. I would not needlessly harass my readers' feelings by a detail of all that I endured; for extremities such as these, under any circumstances of heaviest misconduct or guilt, cannot be contemplated, even in description, without a rueful pity that is painful to the natural goodness of the human heart. Let it suffice to say that a few fragments of bread from the breakfast table of one individual, and these at uncertain intervals, constituted my whole support. . . . I was houseless, and seldom slept ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... was accordingly 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
... 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
... 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 down at ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... bow of the boat, which began rapidly to fill. First he swore, then he laughed, for he was possessed of infinite good humor. The only thing left for him to do was to swim for the gate. With a rueful glance at his thin clothes, he dropped himself over the side of the wreck and struck out toward the gate. The water, having its source from the snowclad mountains, was icy. He was glad enough to grasp the lower bars of the gate and draw himself up. He was on the ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... 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
... uttered a low, rueful sound. How funny Peg was! And when Mrs. Grandoken had gone to prepare for the night, Lafe insisted that Jinnie tell him over and over all the happenings of the evening. For a long time afterwards she sat ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... wolves, upon the shore Of the fierce stream, and cows them all with dread: Their flesh yet living sets he up to sale, Then like an aged beast to slaughter dooms. Many of life he reaves, himself of worth And goodly estimation. Smear'd with gore Mark how he issues from the rueful wood, Leaving such havoc, that in thousand years It spreads ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... He beat his Breast, and tore his Hair, For Loss of his dear Crony Bear, That Eccho from the hollow Ground His Doleful Wailings did resound More wistfully, bu many times, Then in small Poets Splay-foot Rhymes, That make her, in her rueful Stories To answer to Introgatories, And most unconscionably depose Things of which She nothing knows: And when she has said all she can say, 'Tis wrested to the Lover's Fancy. Quoth he, O whither, wicked ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... getting much too frightened now to enjoy the fun any longer: she stood, gazing with rueful looks at the broken mirror—O if the cross old housekeeper should find it out! She thought the best plan would be to steal out of the room, but on turning round, she perceived that the door had become most unaccountably shut—there was no getting out. What was to be done? While she ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin
... scribbled a check, said brief and unfriendly good-nights; Isabelle merely raised passionate dark eyes to his. She was languidly gathering in her spoils when the lights of his car flashed yellow on the drive and he was gone. Harriet, who had lost more than twenty dollars, gave a rueful laugh. The old lady watched everyone ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... intend to say that this is all for the best?" observed Vernon in rather a rueful tone, as, the ladies having ridden on, he was attempting to rub off the dirt from his face with his pocket handkerchief—the first wipe of which was sufficient to show him how much the effects of his tumble had changed the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... toward her with a smile. "Not at all. Sometimes I used to try when no one heard, and once when I was in the hammock with my brother's little girl, I joined her in the song she was singing. She looked at me in a minute with a rueful countenance, and said, 'Aunt Helen, I can't sing when you are making such a noise!'" Bernice laughed. "I haven't tried much since," ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... the sad solitudes of the steppes by a never-ending chain of corpses. The old and the young, the sick man on his couch, the mother with her baby—all were left behind. Sights such as these, with the many rueful aggravations incident to the helpless condition of infancy—of disease and of female weakness abandoned to the wolves amidst a howling wilderness—continued to 5 track their course through a space of full two ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... sweat-bedewed hair with fingers which left a fearsome streak above his left eyebrow. The girl laughed. But the doctor's decorated face was rueful. ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... debates Of Princes', Kings', and Nations' fates, With many rueful, bloody stories Of Tyrants, Jacobites, and Tories: From liberty how angels fell, That now are galley-slaves in hell; How Nimrod first the trade began Of binding Slavery's chains on Man; How fell Semiramis—God damn her! ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... madame placed herself majestically on a sofa, put out her foot, called Fido, and relapsed into an icy silence. Frank had long since evacuated the premises, with a rueful look at his wife, but never daring to cast a glance at me. I saw the whole business at once: here was this lion of a fellow tamed down by a she Van Amburgh, and fetching and carrying at her orders a great deal more obediently than her little yowling ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... declared the shaggy man, in a rueful voice, as he got upon his feet again. He turned ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum
... you to see those fellows, Mr. Crow," was Bonner's rueful lament. "But the doctor says I must be quiet until this confounded thing heals a bit. Together, I think we could bluff the whole story out ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... panic-stricken little face, and staring eye-balls, were approached close to the writhing features of his redoubted principal—as I think I have seen honest Sancho Panza's, in one of Tony Johannot's sketches, to that of the prostrate Knight of the Rueful Countenance. ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... everything we do seems like desecration to somebody. Here am I making history very rapidly for this colony of ants." She looked down with a rueful ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... kind Richardson had no answer. He could only acknowledge it with a rueful smile that did not lift the shadow from his eyes. There were no sunbeams caught in Quita's 'bits of sea water' just then; and for a while silence and tobacco-smoke reigned in the room. Richardson, who appeared to be reading the closely ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... gone far, 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 ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... you, you little cur!' broke out Sir Henry, with a shout of laughter, and giving Alphonse a good kick which sent him flying off with a rueful face. ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... horseback, Mr. Moseley?" abruptly asked Miss Sarah, turning her back on the young divine, and facing the gentleman she addressed. John, who was now hemmed in between the sisters, replied with a rueful expression that brought a smile into the face of Emily, who was placed ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... will keep out of sight to-day. I do not wish to answer questions. Besides, I haven't anything here suitable to put on." and she bestowed a rueful look upon her pretty evening dress, all crumpled and burned, that lay over the back ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... 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 history in the ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... the last afternoon of his stay at Bishopsthorpe, he told himself with a rather rueful grin, that his manners must have improved a little, for they took him ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... pleased the country, exciting a sympathy in every right-thinking Englishman. Here was no humbug of any sort, no obtaining of money under false pretences. At first hearing of it, honest John Bull staggered back several paces, with a face rueful and aghast; buttoned up his pockets, and meditated violence even; but, in a few moments, albeit with a certain sulkiness, he came back, presently shook hands with the Minister, and getting momentarily more satisfied of his honesty, and of the necessity of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... the walls of Klosterheim palpitated with emotion, as the two parties neared each other. Many almost feared to draw their breath, many writhed their persons in the anguish of rueful expectation, as they saw the moment approach when the two parties would shock together. At length it came; and, to the astonishment of the spectators, not more, perhaps, than of the travellers themselves, the whole cavalcade of strangers ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... little or no expense is incurred, and those who are not rich can still welcome their friends as often as they like without any of the terrific preparations for the entertainment which make it a burden and a bore, and without a rueful glance at the weekly bill afterwards. Occasionally, chocolate is handed round, and any amount of tumblers of cold water. The chocolate is served in small coffee-cups, and is of the consistency of ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... thought it hard From favorite pursuits debarred, Nor gazed with rueful face; For every object seemed to be Invested with the witchery ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... saw a munificent shower of tips vanishing into nothing. His face was rueful but his ...
— Jerry Junior • Jean Webster
... whose potent arm sustains The keys of Hell and Death.—The Grave, dread thing! Men shiver when thou'rt named: Nature appall'd 10 Shakes off her wonted firmness. Ah! how dark Thy long-extended realms, and rueful wastes! Where nought but silence reigns, and night, dark night, Dark as was chaos, ere the infant Sun Was roll'd together, or had tried his beams Athwart the gloom profound.—The sickly taper, By glimmering through thy low-brow'd misty vaults (Furr'd round with mouldy ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... of the bookcases with a note-book and pencil, cataloguing on an absurd but independent plan of her own. He gave a rueful ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... against him now, but that far more formidable enemy, Henstead's wounded vanity. The best judges refused to estimate how many votes that ride on the high horse was likely to cost him; but all agreed that the bill would be heavy; even Smiley, his own agent, shook a rueful head over the probable figure. And all this advantage had accrued to the Quisante faction without involving any reproach or any charge of unfair tactics; rather were they praised for ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... Life," he said, "at the top of every page almost. I don't wonder the author felt it necessary to remind you—or perhaps he was reminding himself? I can see him," said Father Payne, "saying to himself with a rueful expression, 'This is a Life, undoubtedly!' Why, the waxworks of Madame Tussaud are models of vivacity and agility compared to it. I never set eyes on ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... up 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," ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... 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 by the ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... Robert thought, and resumed his musing as before. The lady's track now led him homeward, for he had no will of his own. Rounding the lane, he was surprised to see Mrs. Boulby by the hedge. She bobbed like a beggar woman, with a rueful face. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 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 ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... 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 ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... alas! has long forgot to please; The scene of beauty and delight is chang'd; No roses bloom upon my fading cheek, Nor laughing graces wanton in my eyes; But haggard grief, lean-looking, sallow, care, And pining discontent, a rueful train, Dwell on my brow, all hideous and forlorn. One only shadow of a hope is left me; The noble-minded Hastings, of his goodness, Has kindly underta'en to be my advocate, And move my ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... ordinarily, of questioning a statement made by "Captain Kinzer;" but the rueful expression deepened on his face, the basket of eels dropped heavily on the grass, the tough black fingers of his hands twisted nervously together for a moment, and then he sat ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... him short before The anvil of his speech received the hammer, With "Pray, sir, leave the room, and say no more, Or madam dies."—Alfonso muttered, "D—n her,"[78] But nothing else, the time of words was o'er; He cast a rueful look or two, and did, He knew not wherefore, that ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... all is to learn to the dregs our own ignoble fallibility. When we have fallen through storey after storey of our vanity and aspiration, and sit rueful among the ruins, then it is that we begin to measure the stature of our friends: how they stand between us and our own contempt, believing in our best; how, linking us with others, and still spreading wide the influential circle, they weave us in and in with the fabric of contemporary ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... round the abbess. They had been accustomed to look up to her as all-powerful, and they now implored her protection. The mother abbess looked with a rueful eye upon the treasures of beauty and vestal virtue exposed to such imminent peril. Alas! how was she to protect them from the spoiler! She had, it is true, experienced many signal inter-positions of providence in her individual favor. Her early days had been passed ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... is coming over to see me one of these days, aunt," said Lucy, with a droll expression, half arch, half rueful. She added timidly, "There is no objection to ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... deal at his decision; but I have thought of it a good many times 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 well ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... most rueful tone, Anselmus replied: "Ah! Herr Conrector, if you knew what strange things I have been dreaming, quite awake, with open eyes, just now, under an elder-tree at the wall of Linke's garden, you would not take it amiss of me that I am ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... at 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 the world ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... minus a thigh bone was placed in the center of my field of labor, and under the care of Dr. Kelly; but full ten days after this arrangement was made, he came with a rueful ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... passionate Work!—yet wise and well, 45 Well chosen is the spirit that is here; That Hulk which labors in the deadly swell, This rueful sky, this pageantry ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... be done sooner or later; but"—for a second a rueful smile lit up his despondent young face—"I wish I hadn't got to do it ... and at ten o'clock ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... 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 ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... displeasure on the priest, and answered, "Sir chaplain, you have more share in the history than either you or I could desire. Excuse me, if I am unwilling to trouble these light-hearted warriors with so rueful a tale." ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... a little difficult to get on his feet. His limbs were mixed up with the garments Mr. Butteridge had discarded when that gentleman had thought he must needs plunge into the sea. Bert bawled out half angry, half rueful, "You might have said you were going to tip the basket." Then he stood up and clutched the ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... one fresh from the chateau of Brest,—is not apt to be over nice in the article of cookery, and I readily accompanied my knight of the rueful countenance to his table d'hote, which I found to be a long oval board, three fourths bare of cloth and guests, while five human visages ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... buildings look grey, its sky and its streets assume a sombre hue; the scattered, leafless trees and wind-blown dust and paper but add to the general solemnity of color. 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 ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... and two or three enormous old trees. The boy was a little nervous as he approached this ancient cemetery; and, under the bright moonlight, he saw a man whom he distinctly recognized as the Count, whom they designated by a sobriquet which means 'the man of smiles.' He was looking rueful enough now, and was seated on the side of a tombstone, on which he had laid a pistol, while he was ramming home ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... oppression; that from his supposititious advocacy of it he had laid himself liable to the suspicion of being himself of the revenue force,—his mission here to spy out moonshiners; that his companion's mind was even now dwelling anew, and with a rueful difference, on that masterly drawing of ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... public. We've tried again and again to strike off something hideous enough, but it has always in these cases appeared to us quite beautiful compared to the object finally turned out, on their improved lines, for the unspeakable market; so that we've only been able to be publicly rueful and depressed about it, and to plead practically, in extenuation of all the extra trouble we saddle them with, that such things are, alas, ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... caytive thrall, 160 When all was past, tooke up his forlorne weed,[*] His mightie armour, missing most at need; His silver shield, now idle maisterlesse; His poynant speare, that many made to bleed, The rueful moniments[*] of heavinesse, 165 And with them all departes, to tell his ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... under one of the gates of this city, I was struck with horrour by a rueful cry, which summoned me to remember the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... have rung in the poet's ears like a sad refrain. The Digentia lost its charm; he could not see its crystal waters for the shadows of Charon's rueful stream. The prattle of his loved Bandusian spring could not wean his thoughts from the vision of his other self wandering unaccompanied along that "last sad road." We may fancy that Horace was thenceforth little seen in ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... dyin', after all," was Sam's rueful comment, as he suggested: "Ef massah only clamber ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... much amusement the efforts of several negroes to drag a one-horse hack out of the mud into which it had sunk up to its hubs. Suddenly the occupant of the carriage opened the door and beckoned to him. Recognizing Mrs. Bennett, Goddard, with a rueful glance at his immaculate boots, floundered through the mud to ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... when I saw him in company with his Liddesdale companion, to mimic with infinite humor the sudden outburst of his old host, on hearing the clatter of horses' feet, which he knew to indicate the arrival of the keg—the consternation of the dame—and the rueful despair with which the young clergyman closed ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... 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 ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... It was plain that these feet had kicked off sportive children oftener than they had plodded with a freight through miry lanes. He was altogether a fine-weather, holiday sort of donkey; and though he was just then somewhat solemnised and rueful, he still gave proof of the levity of his disposition by impudently wagging his ears at me as I drew near. I say he was somewhat solemnised just then; for, with the admirable instinct of all men and animals under ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... approached the scene of carnage, accompanied by the inmates of his dwelling, with rueful countenances, illumined by tapers, when the cause of their disquietude was soon discovered. No apparition or sprite forsooth, but a full grown donkey of the Andalusian breed, lay weltering in gore, yet warm with partial life! By timely liberality the valorous ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Volume 12, No. 329, Saturday, August 30, 1828 • Various
... one who had ever been associated with them. Carefully dressed in the very worst of taste from his scarfpin to his boots, he had evidently just been too carefully shaved, for there were scratches on his wide, ludicrous face, and his smile was as rueful as a clown's. ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... leave that to Jasper—I call him my walking account-book. I'm sorry you fellows were let in though; I can't understand it; although"—with a rueful laugh—"I suppose it was my fault with that tenner. Yet, I must say, I noticed the man as he galloped past, and saw no, signs ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... pity the brute, our nostril's rueful aversion. Else admire not if each ravisher angrily ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... not," returned Billy, with a rueful laugh. "She's got three shawls on this morning, and you know that always means that she's felt a draft somewhere—poor dear. I'll tell her, though, and I'll see you at eleven," finished Billy, as she ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... Phillips' squad broke into the laboratory and came toward the chief. They had been working at physical labor, for they were still perspiring and one regarded his hands with a rueful expression. ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... be content to retail certain doctrines which have been already retailed to them in their own youth. Every generation has to educate another which it has brought upon the stage. People who readily accept the responsibility of parentship, having very different matters in their eye, are apt to feel rueful when their responsibility falls due. What are they to tell the child about life and conduct, subjects on which they have themselves so few and such confused opinions? Indeed, I do not know; the least said, perhaps, the soonest mended; and yet the child keeps ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... officers, who had dragged off the stunned and insensible gladiator, returned with rueful countenances. They feared for his life; he was utterly incapacitated from ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... with rueful emphasis, "I fully understand the proposition, and I tell you, Brett, I don't like it. There has been enough blood spilt in this beastly business already, and I feel a sort of personal responsibility for you, you know, because ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... artist, as if in his 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 him into the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner |
