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Forlorn   /fərlˈɔrn/   Listen
Forlorn

adjective
1.
Marked by or showing hopelessness.  "A forlorn cause"



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"Forlorn" Quotes from Famous Books



... supervision and police regulation for the Gipsies, with compulsory education for their children, we readily dedicate these local illustrations to the furtherance of his good work. The ugliest place we know in the neighbourhood of London, the most dismal and forlorn, is not Hackney Marshes, or those of the Lea, beyond Old Ford, at the East-end; but it is the tract of land, half torn up for brick-field clay, half consisting of fields laid waste in expectation of the house-builder, which ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... cost Italy the flower of her youth. The Italian Army was continually on the offensive during those months against the strongest natural defences to be found in any of the theatres of war. On countless occasions Italian heroes went forth on forlorn hopes to scale and capture impossible precipices, and sometimes they succeeded. Through that bloody series of offensives the Italians slowly but steadily gained ground, and drew ever nearer to Trento and Trieste. Only those who went out to the Italian Front before ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton

... goddess, Whose name is the breath of love, Darling of blooming Lehua. My lady rides with the gray foam, On the surge that enthralls the desire. 15 I pine for the sylph robed in gauze, Who rides on the surf Maka-iwa— Aye, cynosure thou of all hearts, In all of sacred Wailua. Forlorn and soul-empty the house; 20 You pleasure on the beach Ali-o; Your love is up ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson

... up stairs, and took her to a room entirely dark, and so close for want of air that she could hardly breathe in it. She retreated to the landing-place till he had opened the shutters, and then saw an apartment the most forlorn she had ever beheld, containing no other furniture than a ragged stuff bed, two worn-out rush-bottomed chairs, an old wooden box, and a bit of broken glass which was fastened to the wall by ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... all your warmest and deepest sympathies—the look of a very masculine Joan of Arc! You don't know why, but you feel you would make any sacrifice for a man who looks at you like that, follow him to the death—lead a forlorn ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... with grape; the slope was strewn with bombs, hand-grenades, and bags of powder; a great mine pierced it beneath; a deep ditch had been cut betwixt the breach and the adjoining ramparts, and these were crowded with riflemen. The third division, under General Mackinnon, was to attack the breach, its forlorn hope being led by Ensign Mackie, its storming party by General Mackinnon himself. The lesser breach was a tiny gap, scarcely twenty feet wide, to the left of the great breach; this was to be attacked by the light division, under Craufurd, its ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett

... to his marriage in 1815, his bride "gentle" and "fair," but not the "one beloved,"—to the wedding day, when he stood before an altar, "like one forlorn," confused by the sudden vision of the past fulfilled with Love ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... after having brought up his small army to something over seven hundred men, he took a stand on Buffalo Bayou, a deep, narrow stream flowing into the San Jacinto River, resolved there to strike a blow for Texan independence. It was a forlorn hope, for against him was marshalled the far greater force of the Mexican army. But Houston gave his men a watchword that added to their courage the hot fire of revenge. After making them an eloquent and impassioned address, he fired their souls with the war-cry ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... going through woods, whence a robber might pounce upon you all of a sudden and demand your life, or your portemonnaie, or your watch, or your rings, or something, that Miss Stackpole thought unprotected women, out on a drive, were on the whole forlorn creatures. But in our neighborhood a highwayman was a myth,—we had hardly ever even heard of one; and so, after no end of misgivings lest one or another lion in the way should after all compel the relinquishment of the excursion, literally ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various

... reveal to our astonished gaze the number of forlorn and sad hearts that were made to rejoice in the pardoning mercy of God through ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles

... backs. I have saved my note-book, which chanced to be in my breast-pocket when the nip took place. How awfully sudden it was! We now appreciate the wise forethought of Captain Harvey in sending the large boat to Forlorn-Hope Bay. This boat is our last and only hope. We shall have to walk forty ...
— Fast in the Ice - Adventures in the Polar Regions • R.M. Ballantyne

... had been encountered early that morning when, feeling lonelier than she ever had felt in all her life, she dressed early and ran out to the stable to visit Apache. He seemed as lonely and forlorn as his little mistress and thinking to cheer him as well as herself, she had led him forth by his halter and together they had enjoyed one grand prance down the driveway. Unluckily, Miss Baylis had seen this harmless little performance, and not being able to appreciate perfect human and ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... bridge, which was defended with great vigour. At length it was resolved, in a council of war, that a detachment should pass at a ford a little to the left of the bridge, though the river was deep and rapid, the bottom foul and stony, and the pass guarded by a ravelin, erected for that purpose. The forlorn hope consisted of sixty grenadiers in armour, headed by captain Sandys and two lieutenants. They were seconded by another detachment, and this was supported by six battalions of infantry. Never was a more desperate service, nor was ever exploit performed with more valour and intrepidity. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... all Joe sat looking at Ollie, great pity for her forlorn condition and broken spirit in his honest eyes. She did not meet his glance, not for one wavering second. When she went to the stand she passed him with bent head; in the chair she looked in every direction but his, mainly at her ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... did the cyclists moan in many newspapers, taking the matter au grand serieux, with quite unusual regard for mechanical accuracy, and a total disregard for the political allusion and point. Similarly in January of the same year the "Forlorn Maiden" of trade was shown lying across the railway lines while an engine is bearing down upon her. But "there are five rails in sight, all at equal distances apart, though the railway gauge is four feet eight inches and a half, ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... think she would; she would not dare. Phinny is not bold, in that way. Could you do anything with him, do you think?' The accent of forlorn anxiety was touching from the usually so imperturbable sister. She watched Wych Hazel's face ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... of the prophecy are different from those of Isaiah. Unique emphasis is laid on the creative power of Jehovah, and this thought is applied to the case of forlorn Israel with overwhelming effect; for it is none other than the eternal and omnipotent God that is about to reveal Himself as Israel's redeemer, in fulfilment of ancient words of prophecy, xliv. 7, 8. This very attitude to prophecy marks the book as late; it would not be possible in a pre-exilic ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen

... bear children in strength, And bite back the cry of their pain in self-scorn; But the birth-pangs of nations will wring us at length Into wail such as this, and we sit on forlorn When ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... hand, and with these words: "You'd better think it over carefully, my boy. It's the most idiotic thing I ever heard of, and there isn't one chance in a million. It won't do you any good to fail, even on a forlorn ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... return? The raging fire, where once 'twas thine to burn, Why with fresh fuel, wretched soul, supply? Those thrilling tones, those glances of the sky, Which one by one thy fond verse strove to adorn, Are fled; and—well thou knowest, poor forlorn!— To seek them here were bootless industry. Then toil not bliss so fleeting to renew; To chase a thought so fair, so faithless, cease: Thou rather that unwavering good pursue, Which guides to heaven; since nought ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... his own natural and proper work. Therefore God must take this maul in hand (the law, I mean) to beat in pieces and bring to nothing this beast with her vain confidence, that she may so learn at length by her own misery that she is utterly forlorn and damned. But here lieth the difficulty, that when a man is terrified and cast down, he is so little able to raise himself up again and say, 'Now I am bruised and afflicted enough; now is the time of grace; now is the time to hear Christ.' The foolishness of man's heart is ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... about to occupy, and contrasting it with her own lonely condition, vowed nevertheless that the angel boy would never enjoy such affection as hers was, or find in the false world before him anything so constant and tender as a sister's heart. "It may be," the forlorn one said, "it may be, you will slight it, my pretty baby sweet, You will spurn me from your bosom, I'll cling around your feet! O let me, let me, love you! the world will prove to you As false as 'tis to others, but I am ever true." And behold the Muse was boxing ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... worth of life or the magnitude of the peril that threatens it; it may, as often in the case of veteran soldiers, be the result of discipline without the aid of principle; or it may depend wholly on intense and engrossing excitement, so that he who would march fearlessly at the head of a forlorn hope might quail before a solitary foe. But if one be, in the face of peril, at the same time calm and resolute, self-collected and firm, cautious and bold, fully aware of all that he must encounter and unfalteringly brave in meeting it, such courage is a high ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody

... forlorn hope, under Captain Oswald, got past most of the Grand Battery unscathed. But by the time the main body was following under Morgan the British blue-jackets were firing down from the walls at less ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood

... scene. On a mat, covered with irons, lies the forlorn Conrad. The flitting flame of a solitary lamp hardly reveals the heavy bars of the huge grate that forms the entrance to its cell. For some minutes nothing stirs. The mind of the spectator is allowed to become fully aware ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... was gloomy, there; and large raindrops beat incessantly against the panes, so that Lialia could not tell if it were these or her tears which hid the garden from her view. The trees looked sad and forlorn, their pale, dripping leaves and black boughs faintly discernible amid the general downpour that converted the lawn ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef

... Henry did not want the youth to join him on his journey to China. The love the young nobleman still felt for his native country bade him leave this promising member of it, if only as a forlorn hope, to prove to Englishmen that here and there, at ever more distant intervals, their blood was still capable of producing something that ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici

... with her hands under her cheek, lay staring in a vague pleasure at the castle and the forest. "Enchanted casements"—"perilous seas"—"in fairy lands forlorn." The lines ran sleepily, a little ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... she is," they sighed when at every weekend they found their forlorn and scanty washing ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... hidden quality which hinders nervous people from any steady occupation on the eve of an anticipated change. He could not go on with his printing of Hebrew on little Jacob's mind; or with his attendance at a weekly club, which was another effort of the same forlorn hope: something else was coming. The one thing he longed for was to get as far as the river, which he could do but seldom and with difficulty. He yearned with a poet's yearning for the wide sky, the far-reaching vista of bridges, the tender and ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... was in a forlorn state, and was unable to keep up even a show of authority. Every one was against him. The Houses were against him. 'The superior judges were intimidated from acting,' and 'there was not a justice of the peace, sheriff, ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... felt so utterly forlorn and desolate that an impatience of the place came over her. She was indeed fond of her uncle, but he was much absorbed in his studies, his parish, and in anxious correspondence on the state of the Church, and was scarcely a companion to her, ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... principalities and the Prince of Darkness. And now will you, bearin' the name you do, of General Grant, will you flinch before this black-hearted foe that aims at the heart and souls of your countrymen and countrywomen, or will you lead the Forlorn Hope? I believe that if you would raise the White Banner and lead on this army of the Cross, Church and State would rally to your battle-cry, angels would swarm round your standard and the Lord of Hosts go ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... led the "left" wing of the Credit Mobilier brigade in the raid on the Treasury, under Oakes Ames, was desperately wounded and received honorable mention from Schuyler Colfax, since dismissed the service. He headed the "forlorn hope" in the attack on the Washington pavements. Was again badly wounded; this time in the—no, I mean, from behind by his own men. In this attack a private named de Golyer used a $5,000 dollar bill for wadding, ...
— The Honest American Voter's Little Catechism for 1880 • Blythe Harding

... This is the maiden all forlorn, That milk'd the cow with the crumpled horn, That tossed the dog, That worried the cat, That kill'd the rat, That ate the malt, That lay in ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown

... been sustaining nature with cups of tea all through the agitating day. It was a kind of drama drinking, and she was as much a slave of the teapot as the forlorn drunken drab of St. Giles's is a ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon

... miserably passed, the fugitives suffering for want of food and shelter. When the dawn of the next day broke, their forlorn walk was resumed, there being no enemy in sight. By this time the whole party, with the exception of Marius, was greatly depressed. He alone kept up his spirits, telling his followers that he had been six times consul of Rome, and that ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... no one," asked Paul, "who will notice you or speak to you? Do you live so alone now?" It made his heart ache to look down upon the pining, forlorn creature before him. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... tempted to wonder, as you looked, how so thin a glimmer could control and disperse such solid blackness. When Jones and I entered we found a little company of our acquaintances seated together at the triangular foremost table. A more forlorn party, in more dismal circumstances, it would be hard to imagine. The motion here in the ship's nose was very violent; the uproar of the sea often overpoweringly loud. The yellow flicker of the lantern spun round and round and tossed the shadows ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson

... death denied, this world, a scene How dismal and forlorn! To death we owe, that 'tis to man A blessing ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... a Tabernacle in that quarter, for the poverty and wickedness were very dreadful. Boys not yet in their teens staggered by half-tipsy, or lounged at the doors of gin-shops. Bonnetless girls roamed about singing and squabbling. Forlorn babies played in the gutter, and men and women in every stage of raggedness and degradation marred the beauty of that fair ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott

... are forlorn, And men that sweat in nothing but scorn: That is on all that ever were born, ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... in consequence prefer to walk to the Manor, the girls calculated he might put in an appearance on the scene at about twenty minutes past seven. They had arranged to have dinner at a quarter to eight, and sat side by side now, looking a little forlorn in the frocks they had grown out of, and a little lonely, like half-fledged chicks, without their mother's ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade

... have liked to have Marius throw himself into his arms. He was displeased with Marius and with himself. He was conscious that he was brusque, and that Marius was cold. It caused the goodman unendurable and irritating anxiety to feel so tender and forlorn within, and only to be able to be hard outside. Bitterness returned. He interrupted ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... to Barley Wood, in which the author wrote the following inscription: "To Mrs. Fry, presented by Hannah More, as a token of veneration of her heroic zeal, Christian charity, and persevering kindness, to the most forlorn of human beings. They were naked and she clothed them; in prison and she visited them; ignorant and she taught them, for His sake, in His name, and by His word who went about ...
— Excellent Women • Various

... appalled, but he went vigorously to work at that fire, although he had never laid eyes on anything so primitive as that stove in all his life. Presently, by using common sense, he had the thing going and a forlorn little kettle ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... wonder if your experience is the same as mine was? I found that about six o'clock in the evening, the hour when I would normally have been hastening home to wife and babes, was the most poignant time. I was horribly homesick. If I did go back to my forlorn apartment, the mere sight of little Priam's crib was enough to reduce me to tears. I seriously thought of writing ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley

... twisted by the strange turns of our history, which have turned a military discipline into a pacific oligarchy, and that into a mere plutocracy at last. And there are similar historic riddles to be unpicked in the similar forms of social address. There is something singularly forlorn about the modern word "Mister." Even in sound it has a simpering feebleness which marks the shrivelling of the strong word from which it came. Nor, indeed, is the symbol of the mere sound inaccurate. I remember seeing a German story of Samson in which he bore ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton

... a day In the merry month of May, Sitting in a pleasant shade Which a grove of myrtles made, Beasts did leap and birds did sing, Trees did grow and plants did spring, Every thing did banish moan Save the Nightingale alone. She, poor bird, as all forlorn, Lean'd her breast against a thorn, And there sung the dolefullest ditty, That to hear it was great pity. Fie, fie, fie, now would she cry; Tereu, tereu, by and by: That to hear her so complain Scarce I could from tears refrain; For her griefs so lively shown Made ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... would have her know that I cannot be, and ought not be, in health while deprived of the happiness of seeing her and enjoying her discreet conversation, and that I implore her as earnestly as I can, to allow herself to be seen and addressed by this her captive servant and forlorn knight. Tell her, too, that when she least expects it she will hear it announced that I have made an oath and vow after the fashion of that which the Marquis of Mantua made to avenge his nephew Baldwin, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... genuine, he begins upon an island. One might say, if in a hurry, that Defoe began it, but in leisure recall the fearful spell of islands in the Greek legends. It is easily understood. If you have watched at sea an island shape, and pass, forlorn in the waste, apparently lifeless, and with no movement to be seen but the silent fountains of the combers, then you know where the Sirens were born, and why awful shapes grew in the minds of the simple Greeks out of the wonders in Crete devised by the wise and mysterious Minoans, ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson

... abrupt hill in the middle of an enormous green meadow a Castle stood, just as Richard had predicted. It was To Let, and was not looking its best. Some man of enterprise, taking advantage of its forlorn condition, had glued an advertisement upon its donjon keep. You could almost have measured that advertisement in acres; it recommended a face cream, and represented a lady with a face of horrible size, whose naturally immaculate ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson

... a pale, poverty-stricken woman, whose forlorn aspect contrasted strongly with his plump and comfortable physiognomy. She was dressed in a tattered black stuff gown, discoloured by various stains, and intended, it would seem, from the remnants of rusty crape with which it was here and there tricked out, to represent ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... with a forlorn smile took the great chair, and then gazed absently out of the window upon the charming landscape, brilliant with the glow of the setting sun. Elmer meanwhile went on with his work, and for a little space neither spoke. Then she said, with a faint trace ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... and families of those who unfortunately may perish in their attempts to save the lives of others, and for those who happily may be thus preserved. It purposes to provide them with that food, clothing, medical aid, and shelter, which their forlorn situation may require—to enable those who may belong to this country to proceed to their homes, or to the nearest port where they may obtain future employment. And the subjects of other powers to return to their native land, or to place them in ...
— An Appeal to the British Nation on the Humanity and Policy of Forming a National Institution for the Preservation of Lives and Property from Shipwreck (1825) • William Hillary

... whose father and mother died while she was still a little child. All alone, in a small house at the end of the village, dwelt her godmother, who supported herself by spinning, weaving, and sewing. The old woman took the forlorn child to live with her, kept her to her work, and educated her in all that is good. When the girl was fifteen years old, the old woman became ill, called the child to her bedside, and said, "Dear daughter, I feel my end drawing near. I leave thee the little house, which will protect thee from ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... hesitated when he found himself so suddenly introduced to the silent misery of the forlorn captive. A hard breathing told him the situation of the pallet, but the walls, which were solid on the side of the corridor, effectually prevented the ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... witness the issue of the adventure; so in due time these forlorn damsels were seen advancing over the bridge ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... deafening was the applause. Now there was utter silence. She glanced up at the crowd, but there was no response to her unspoken appeal in that forest of hostile faces. And her gentle heart bled for the forlorn little man before her. To make it up she smiled on him so sweetly as ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... lo, behind the woods, near by, The moon brings a hut to light. Forlorn, pale, trembling To the doors she came nigh; She stooped, and gently laid down The babe on the strange threshold. In terror away she turned her eyes And disappeared in the darkness of ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin

... sight which day brought him, lost no time in attacking. In the hot battle which ensued, September 13, 1759, both commanders fell, Wolfe cheering his heroes to sure victory, Montcalm urging on his forlorn hope in vain. The English remained masters of the field and ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... the taller, stooped, and with a smile of melancholy, but unconscious sympathy, kissed the forlorn creature's lips, and after beckoning Agnes to ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... long while, that law matter, and the conversations between Kornel and my father ran mainly in guesses about it, with much talk that was very forlorn of interest. But what did it matter to me? I had the man, and knew I could keep him; had I foreseen the future, even then I would not have cared. But for all that, I was very uneasy one hot day when Kornel rode over ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... when a wave by the wild wind's blore Down from the clouds upon a ship doth light, And the whole hulk with scattering foam is white, And through the sails all tattered and forlorn Roars the fell blast: the seamen with affright Shake, and from death a ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark

... was again forsaken and forlorn; but she took heart and said, 'As far as the wind blows, and so long as the cock crows, I will journey on, till I find him once again.' She went on for a long, long way, till at length she came to the castle whither the princess had carried the prince; and there was a feast got ready, and ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm

... were his Aethiopian comrades left To wander of their King forlorn: a God Suddenly winged those eager souls with speed Such as should soon be theirs for ever, changed To flying fowl, the children of the air. Wailing their King in the winds' track they sped. As when a hunter mid the forest-brakes Is by a boar or grim-jawed lion slain, And now his ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus

... lovingly; thanks to you both—the warmest, deepest thanks for all. . . . You, Pul. . . ." And she clasped the mother and daughter to her bosom, while Mary, clinging to her, hid her little face in her skirts, weeping bitterly. . . . "You, Dame Joanna, took me in, a forlorn creature, and made me happy till Fate fell on us all—you know, ah! you know too well.—The kindness you have shown to me show now to my little Mary. And there is one thing more—here comes the interpreter again!—A moment ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the Reliques. But Goldsmith's ballad is original enough to put aside all the discussion about plagiarism which was afterwards started. In the old fragment the weeping pilgrim receives directions from the herdsman, and goes on her way, and we hear of her no more; in Edwin and Angelina the forlorn and despairing maiden suddenly finds herself confronted by the long-lost lover whom she had so cruelly used. This is the dramatic touch that reveals the hand of the artist. And here again it is curious to note the care with which Goldsmith repeatedly revised ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black

... The forlorn party began to cheer up. All now began to feel hungry. "I'll tell you what it is: if we don't get something to eat soon, I for one shall die of inanition," exclaimed Billy. "I can't stand starving at the best of times, and I ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston

... more life in one "self-approving hour,"-one act of benevolence,—one work of self-discipline,—than in threescore years and ten of mere sensual existence. Go out among the homes of the poor, lift up the disconsolate, administer comfort to the forlorn; in some way, as it may come across your path, or lie in the sphere of your duty, do a deed of kindness; and in that one act you shall live more than in a year of selfish indulgence and indolent ease,—yea, more than in a lifetime of such. The poet, with his burning, immortal ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin

... very lonely and forlorn and forgotten this Christmas morning as he lay in a knot under the soogan, listening to the wind twanging the stove-pipe wire and ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart

... answered by the Colonel's voice shouting clearly the order for the gates to be shut; but the massacre had begun, the mad Mussulman fanatics who had undertaken the forlorn hope being ready to do or die; and, as the rattle of the moving gates began, an answering war-cry came from not far away, the rush of a large body of men making for ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn

... glad and sorry for the interruption. In our forlorn condition we needed assistance badly enough, but I would have preferred to have Flora all to myself for some time longer. However, I made the best of it, and gave the voyageurs a warm greeting. They were ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon

... it," approved Brennan. "I've been in a few forlorn hope fights before and have seen the impossible happen, in ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson

... sentences winds its 'forlorn way obscure' over the page like a patriarchal procession with camels laden, wreathed turbans, household wealth, the whole riches of the author's mind poured out upon the barren waste of his subject. The palm tree spreads its sterile ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Higginson's efforts. He appealed to the forlorn wife at North Elba, New York, to go to Harper's Ferry, ask to see her husband and whisper her plan into his ear. He sent the money and got Mrs. Brown as far as Baltimore on her journey when Brown heard of it and stopped her with ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon

... shut my eyes to many things, being solely conscious of the horribly forlorn condition in which I find myself in my ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... I must go back several years. I once knew a Swiss boy, a typical Tyrolean. The day I met him in Chicago he had just arrived from his native land, and seemed so forlorn and lonely and miserable that my heart went right out to him. He was such a big, handsome child, too, about twenty years old. He could not understand a word of English, and no one talked to him, but ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood

... which, to tell the truth, Dame Van Winkle had always kept in neat order. It was empty, forlorn, and apparently abandoned. This desolateness overcame all his connubial fears—he called loudly for his wife and children—the lonely chambers rang for a moment with his voice, and then all ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various

... from the common African-we mean, as he is recognised through our prejudices. His forehead was bold and well-developed-his hair short, thick and crispy, eyes keen and piercing, cheeks regularly declining into a well-shaped mouth and chin. Dejected and forlorn, the wretch of chance stood before them, the fires of a burning soul glaring forth from his quick, wandering eyes. "There!" exclaimed Marston. "See that," pointing at his extremes; "he has foot enough for a brick-maker, and a head ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... without bloodshed if possible was Gordon's object. It was a forlorn hope; still if any one man could accomplish it Charles Gordon ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross

... word," said his father. Nettie was frightened, for she saw he meant to have the whole, and she had destined a bit for her mother. However, when she gave her father his second slice, she ventured, and took the other with a cup of tea to the forlorn figure on the other side of the stove. Mrs. Mathieson took only the tea. But Mr. Mathieson's ire was roused afresh. Perhaps toast and tea didn't ...
— The Carpenter's Daughter • Anna Bartlett Warner

... looked from his forlorn figure to the beautiful, flushed face of the girl, I saw her eyes grow wonderfully soft and sweet, and brim over with tears. And, when Black George had betaken himself back to his smithy, she also turned, and, crossing swiftly to ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... I landed, rather forlorn, that first morning, on the immense covered wharf where the Customs mysteries were to be celebrated. The place was dominated by a large, dirty, vociferous man, coatless, in a black shirt and black apron. His mouth and jaw were huge; he looked like ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke

... bravest of that patriotic band. When he heard Robert Bruce's horn, he knew the sound well, and cried out, that yonder was the King, he knew by his manner of blowing. So he and his companions hastened to meet King Robert. They could not help weeping when they considered their own forlorn condition, but they were stout-hearted men, and yet looked forward to freeing ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... 1847 the forlorn condition of the Campus began to be officially noticed; appropriations of small sums were made from time to time for trees and shrubs and a scheme for the laying out of avenues and walks and the planting of groups of trees was adopted. Unfortunately, ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw

... life, I wish I was dead and out of the way; and then you could do very well for yourself, and I think that pretty face of yours would get you a husband perhaps.' And Mary flung her arms about his neck, and told him how willing she was to work for him, and how forlorn she should be without him, and desired she might never hear any more of such wicked wishes. Still, she had an ardent desire to give him the fowl and the ale he had longed for, for his next Sunday's dinner; ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various

... wild morn When, anchoring in the cove at last, Our band, all weary and forlorn Ashore, like wave-worn sailors, cast— Sought for a sheltering roof in vain, And scarce could scanty food obtain To break ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell

... forests, wheat land, corn land, iron, copper, coal-wait till the railroads come, and the steamboats! We'll never see the day, Nancy—never in the world—-never, never, never, child. We've got to drag along, drag along, and eat crusts in toil and poverty, all hopeless and forlorn—but they'll ride in coaches, Nancy! They'll live like the princes of the earth; they'll be courted and worshiped; their names will be known from ocean to ocean! Ah, well-a-day! Will they ever come back here, on the railroad and the steamboat, ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... his own lodgings, he crossed the road, and paused at the Brunells' gate. Something forlorn and desolate in the atmosphere of the little home seemed to clutch at his heart, and on a swift impulse he strode up the path, ascended the steps of the porch and peered in the window of the living-room. Everything in the usually orderly room was topsy-turvy, and everywhere ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander

... electric battery and a coil of wire forming part of his baggage. There was a group of boulders two hundred yards off, which was certain to be taken advantage of by an enemy, since it formed a perfectly safe redoubt from which to fire on the zereba, or to shelter a group forming the forlorn hope of an attack. This Reece fixed upon as the most favourable spot for his mine, and here the gun-cotton was placed in the position he deemed most adapted for a favourable explosion, and connected ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... Melancholy, ............Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born In Stygian cave forlorn ............'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy! Find out some uncouth cell, ............Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings, And the night-raven sings; ............There, under ebon shades and low-browed ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton

... heaven were opened, and the rain, mingled with the spray caught up by the hurricane, was dashed and hurled upon the forlorn youth, who still lay where he had been first thrown down. But of a sudden, a wash of water told him that he could there remain no longer: the sea was rising—rising fast; and before he could gain a few paces on his hands and knees, another wave, as if ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat

... about Behring's Point—Charlie was absurdly certain that he had known it before, and had some reason for not landing—for a more forlorn and poverty-stricken foot-hold of humanity could hardly be conceived; a poor little cluster of negro cabins, indeed, scrambling up from the beach, and with no streets but craggy pathways in and out among the ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne

... miles while that wonderful half-hour was being used up. Matilda looked supremely happy. Now and then Hugh saw her glance rest admiringly on Brother Lu. She must have begun to believe that after all the coming of this poor sick brother of hers, who had appeared so forlorn, and with such a dreadful and alarming cough, was gradually emerging from his chrysalis stage, ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson

... as if the sovereign authority it represented had given way. The countenances and deportment of the men harmonized with the weather; they moved about gloomily and despondently, their bright accoutrements sullied with the wet, and their buskins clogged with mire. A forlorn sight it was to watch the shivering sentinels on the walls; and yet more forlorn to see the groups of the abbot's old retainers gathering without, wrapped in their blue woollen cloaks, patiently enduring the drenching showers, and awaiting the last awful ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... oracles of old. He chose to consider himself a victim of an astonishing series of circumstances, and in a certain sense this was true, although the circumstances were largely of his own creation. Good companies and bad, established concerns and promoters' flotations, auspicious ventures and forlorn hopes—he had been associated with them all, and from each one he emerged with untroubled calm while the unhappy machine, its steering gear usually crippled by his hand alone, went plunging downhill over the cliff into the soundless waters ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... could there be? It occurred to me last night, when I was reading the paper, that I might scare up a feature or two in the case, and I was out of my bed early this morning to try. It was a forlorn hope, I'll admit, but anything was better than nothing, and I've had my reward. I've had ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... fearful, and he said in his heart, 'Ah me! what is to befall me now? Here am I, naked and forlorn, and I know not amongst what people I am come. And what shall I do with myself when night comes on? If I lie by the river in the frost and dew I may perish of the cold. And if I climb up yonder to the woods and seek refuge in the ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum

... trespassing too nearly on their little occupation of ground. The flowers themselves shot up and grew as they had a mind. Prince's feather was conspicuous, and some ragged balsams. A few yellow marigolds made a forlorn attempt to look bright, and one tall sunflower raised its great head above all the rest; proclaiming the quality of the little kingdom where it reigned. The poor cripple moved down a few steps from the house door, and ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner

... collection; but he may have been jealous of what he could see in me, of some passion that could be aroused. But if so he never repented. I shall never forget his last words. He saw me standing beside his bed, defenceless, symbolic and forlorn, and all he found to say was, ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... pervades his books? Be it as it may, his books have no melody, no emotion, no humor, no relief to the dead prosaic level. In his profuse and accurate imagery is no pleasure, for there is no beauty. We wander forlorn in a lack- lustre landscape. No bird ever sang in all these gardens of the dead. The entire want of poetry in so transcendent a mind betokens the disease, and, like a hoarse voice in a beautiful ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... I went to Westminster Abbey to hear a sermon from Canon Harford on A Cheerful Life. A lively, wholesome, and encouraging discourse, such as it would do many a forlorn New England congregation good to hear. In the afternoon we both went together to the Abbey. Met our Beverly neighbor, Mrs. Vaughan, and adopted her as one of our party. The seats we were to have were full, ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... Avenue, south towards Van Buren Street, where she intended to take a car, she passed the door of a large wholesale shoe house, through the plate-glass windows of which she could see a middle-aged gentleman sitting at a small desk. One of those forlorn impulses which often grow out of a fixed sense of defeat, the last sprouting of a baffled and uprooted growth of ideas, seized upon her. She walked deliberately through the door and up to the gentleman, who looked at her weary ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... his courtiers had won from the criminal law Ralegh's condemnation. They were still hunting after apologies for the conviction. Watson, Clarke, and Brooke had supplied none of the missing links. In vain had Commissioners been examining and re-examining the prisoners. Their forlorn hope was the agony or recklessness of the two lords ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... were fixed upon the favoured few, who, with upraised hands, were repeating the Kalima[2] before they set forth upon their perilous ride, but Charteris managed to convey a brief warning to the Darwani chiefs and officers near him. The forlorn hope burst forth from the low jungle that had served as cover all day—starting on the left of the advanced party, so as not to mask its fire, and as their progress was marked with shouts by their fellows, his ear caught the sound he had expected, the ring of ramrods behind him on the right. ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... just as well as we ever did; and we can laugh at a good charade quite as loud as any of you can. So you need not take it on yourselves to suppose that because you are among "old people,"—by which you mean married people,—all is lost, and that the hours are to be stupid and forlorn. The best series of parties, lasting year in and out, that I have ever known, were in Worcester, Massachusetts, where old and young people associated together more commonly and frequently than in any other town I ever happened to live in, and where, for that very reason, ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale

... fighting for a forlorn hope, his grinning little Goorkhas gallantly and intrepidly following wherever he would lead, and he saw the awful darkness down which his feet had stumbled, a terrible chasm that had yawned to engulf ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... if 'twa'n't for you and Marry," she returned wearily, crouching in a forlorn heap, with elbows on knees and chin in palms. "It's hard enough for women that's got their own young ones, and can mind 'em and make 'em mind. I can't do nothing with ours, and when I go to pa he just gets cross and lights out. And then ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... forward to skirmish. They advanced with due form and ceremony until they neared the woods, when they opened fire with such a racket that we supposed the enemy had been found in force. But they soon let up, and presently sent back a solitary prisoner, about as forlorn, dilapidated looking a specimen of grayback as ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride

... amid those islands in 1814, a desperate savage battle off the mouth of the Rock, and the memory of this was in my mind as my eyes searched those distant shores, silent now in their drapery of fresh green foliage, yet appearing strangely desolate and forlorn, as they merged into the gray tint of distance. Well I realized that they only served to screen savage activity beyond, a covert amid which lurked danger and death; for over there, in the near shadow of the Rock Valley, was where Black Hawk, dissatisfied, revengeful, ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... now got a lead and dropped it over the side of the ship, in the almost forlorn hope that possibly she might lie over some hole on the bottom. The soundings proved to be, as indeed he expected, but a little ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... placed himself, how the flies all took to biting when both hands were occupied, and how they all miraculously disappeared when he had set down the frying-pan and knife to fight them. I could sympathize, too, with the lonely, forlorn, lost-dog feeling that clutched him after it was all over. I could remember how big and forbidding and unfriendly the forest had once looked to me in like circumstances, so that I had felt suddenly thrust outside into empty spaces. Almost was I tempted to intervene; but I liked ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White

... people are citizens to match the noblest; they are of the aristocracy of the imagination, the peers in their own right of the society of romance. And for all that, their state is mostly desolate and lonely and forlorn. ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... like safety guided down, Return me to my native element: Lest from this flying steed unreined (as once Bellerophon, though from a lower clime), Dismounted, on th' Aleian field I fall, Erroneous there to wander, and forlorn. Half yet remains unsung, but narrower bound Within the visible diurnal sphere: Standing on earth, not rapt above the pole, More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged To hoarse or mute, though fallen on evil days, On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues; In darkness, and with dangers ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... her rescue while the woman was dragging her along by her hair, and I caught the dear forlorn wretch in my arms. 'Welcome, anyway welcome, my dearest lost one, my treasure, to your poor old father's bosom. Though the vicious forsake thee, there is yet one in the world who will never forsake thee; though thou hadst ten thousand crimes ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton

... written to welcome you to England, but I may be with you when it is opened. It was glorious news to hear that you were coming—I was only playing a forlorn bluff when I sent those cables. You're on the sea at present and should be half way over. Our last trip over together you marvelled at the apparent indifference of the soldiers on board, and now you're coming to meet one ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson

... advantage of the truce, and seated himself on the edge of the porch, his peg-leg sticking straight out in forlorn nakedness. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... swept away to the other side of the room, and Lucy was left forlorn and stranded. It seemed to her an immense party; there were at least eight or ten fresh faces beyond those she had seen already. And just as she was looking for a seat into which she might slip and hide herself, Lady Venetia Danby, who was standing near, playing ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the front of the house, and its square Georgian windows faced eastward across the river to the narrow spit of marsh-land and the open sea beyond it. A crescent of moon far gone on the wane, yellow and forlorn, was rising from the sea. An uncertain path of light lay across the face of the far-off tide-way—broken by a narrow strip of darkness and renewed again close at hand across the wide river almost to the sea-wall beneath ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman

... a perfect description of Patteson, who came more completely up to that ideal than anyone I ever knew. Here was a man capable of the purest and most tender friendship, with an exquisite appreciation of all that is noblest in life, and he was ready to give up all, and content to lead the forlorn hope of Christianity, and perish in the front ranks of the noble army. "And having been a little tried he shall be greatly rewarded, for God proved him, and found him worthy ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... cheer — King, that no subject man nor beast may own, Discrowned, undaughtered and alone — Yet shall the great God turn thy fate, And bring thee back into thy monarch state [191] And majesty immaculate. Lo, through hot waverings of the August morn, Thou givest from thy vasty sides forlorn Visions of golden treasuries of corn — Ripe largesse lingering for some bolder heart That manfully shall take thy part, And tend thee, And defend thee, With antique sinew ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... Stop the wind of that nabbing-cull, constable Payne? [11] If he does, he'll to Tyburn next sessions be dragg'd, And what kiddy's so rum as to get himself scragg'd? [12] No! blinky, discharge her, and let her return; For ne'er was poor fellow so sadly forlorn. Zounds! what shall I do? I shall die in a ditch; Take warning by me how you're ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer

... however, one solitary gentleman, who perhaps had daughters of his own, took compassion upon the forlorn traveller. ...
— The Boarding School • Unknown

... the hordes was not a dash wholly without system—such an inference would be a great mistake. There was no pretence of alignment or order—there never is in such attacks—forlorn hopes, receiving the signal, rush on, each individual to his own endeavor; here, nevertheless, the Pachas and Beys directed the assault, permitting no blind waste of effort. They hurled their mobs at none but the weak places—here a breach, ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... sheet contains any news of interest at all. This is rather a lonely place for my men and they get dissatisfied at times. All workmen seem chronically dissatisfied, and their women constantly urge them to rebellion. Already there are grumblings, and they claim they're buried alive in this forlorn forest. Don't appreciate the advantages of country life, you see, and I've an idea they'll begin to desert, pretty soon. Really, a live newspaper might do them good—especially if you print a little socialistic drivel now and then." Again he devoted a moment ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne

... ballad, as it is one of the most beautiful, is also one of the most popular. It should be compared with Fair Margaret and Sweet William, in which the forlorn maid dies of grief, not by ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick

... was of a party in the forlorn hope, and was commanded on what seemed almost a desperate service, to dispossess the French of the church-yard at Ramillies, where a considerable number of them were posted to remarkable advantage. They succeeded much better than was expected; and it may well be supposed that Mr. Gardiner, who had ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge

... There are two of me now, and one can't stand the pain. There is a man in me, sworn to do a man's work like a man, and duty to God and the priesthood has big chains around his heart dragging it across the river. But, low, now—there is a little, forlorn boy in me, too—a poor, crying, whimpering, babyish little boy, who dreamed of you and longed for you and was promised you, and who will never get well of losing you. Oh, I know it well enough—his tears will never dry, his heart will always have a big hurt in it—and your ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson

... knees beside Dulcie's chair, kissing her hands. The fire lighted them. It was like a play, with Mary a forlorn spectator in the blackness of ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey



Words linked to "Forlorn" :   hopeless



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