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Languish   Listen
verb
Languish  v. i.  (past & past part. languished; pres. part. languishing)  
1.
To become languid or weak; to lose strength or animation; to be or become dull, feeble or spiritless; to pine away; to linger in a weak or deteriorating condition; to wither or fade. "We... do languish of such diseases." "Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife, And let me languish into life." "For the fields of Heshbon languish."
2.
To assume an expression of weariness or tender grief, appealing for sympathy.
3.
To be neglected and unattended to; as, the proposal languished on the director's desk for months.
Synonyms: To pine; wither; fade; droop; faint.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Languish" Quotes from Famous Books



... consent that she married this barbarian, but she would have him, though her year was not out. Ah! her first husband, my son Languish, would not have carried it thus. Well, that was my choice, this is hers; she is matched now with a witness- -I shall be mad, dear friend; is there no comfort for me? Must I live to be confiscated at this rebel-rate? Here come two more of ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve

... in the drawing-room, playing odds and ends of music on the piano, and humming to himself. Judging by appearances, the sentimental side of his character was persistently inclined to betray itself still. He was silent and sensitive, and ready to sigh and languish ponderously (as only fat men CAN sigh and languish) on the ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... well that they may not be prolific. It is better for the soul to sink on the earth than to languish in carnal fetters." ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert

... modern successors. In the fine climate of Greece, Italy, and Spain, they were a natural growth, and involved no great strain upon a wooer's endurance. They assume a very different aspect under a northern sky, where young Absolute, found by his Lydia Languish "in the garden, in the coldest night in January, stuck like a dripping statue," presents a rather lugubrious spectacle. Horace (Odes, III. 7) warns the fair Asterie, during the absence of her husband abroad, to shut her ears against ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin

... who must have betrayed me, and remained instead of the prince. I opened a niche in the wall, kicked his rotten carcass into the lagoon, and, more wretched than ever, returned to this hell wherein I languish, while ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... pursued with so much ardour and eagerness that they were not even interrupted at nightfall, but were continued by torchlight and with relays of labourers. To Hayes, again become his property, Lord Chatham was removed in December, 1767. But there, during many months ensuing, he continued to languish in utter seclusion, and with no ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke

... tendency, the cause in its present extent can not be of very long duration. The evil will not, however, be viewed by Congress without a recollection that manufacturing establishments, if suffered to sink too low or languish too long, may not revive after the causes shall have ceased, and that in the vicissitudes of human affairs situations may recur in which a dependence on foreign sources for indispensable supplies may be among the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson

... failed Thy tears, yet Him they might not fail, Thy Life, thy Son, Who unto the Cross was nailed, Even fresh tears that could avail, In prayer begun. 96 For far greater woe was His When He saw thee faint and languish In thy distress, More than His own agonies, And doubled is All His torture at thy anguish Measureless. 97 For no words have ever told No prayer or litany wailed Such grief and loss: Our weak thought may not enfold Nor thee behold As thou wert when ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente

... it seemed as if the swell of the sea would throw us upon the ice bank just mentioned, and we got ready to launch our little boat, to use in case of necessity. If we had taken refuge on the above-mentioned ice it would only have been to languish and die in misery. While we were deliberating whether to launch our boat, a fresh breeze arose to our great delight, and thus we escaped from the ice. After we had sailed two leagues, night came on, with a very thick fog, causing us to haul down our sail, as we could not see, and as there were several ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain

... see thee in another's arms, In love to lie and languish, 'Twad be my dead, that will be seen, My heart wad burst wi' anguish. ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... last. "He would have been obliged to languish all his life in that frightful prison! At all events, he is not suffering now! Now he is better off! Evidently, ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... white: There, while the sterner sex disdains To soothe the woes they cannot feel, Woman will strive to heal his pains, And weep for those she cannot heal: Hers is warm pity's sacred glow; From all her stores she bears a part, And bids the spring of hope re-flow, That languish'd in ...
— Miscellaneous Poems • George Crabbe

... to put up with coarse food; but they will scarcely dare to torture him, still less to condemn him to the auto-da-fe. Oh, no, they will not do that! But while Dyer has been talking, I have been thinking, and my mind is already made up. Hubert must not be permitted to languish a day longer in prison than we can help. Therefore I shall at once set to work to organise an expedition for his rescue, and trust me, if he does not contrive to escape meanwhile—as he is like enough to do—I will have him out of the Spaniards' hands in six months from the ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood

... it."—"Consciously or in a dream?"—"I believe I was more asleep than awake. For if any one had come upon me then I should have felt it very painfully. I have incidentally noted the words: 'Oh moon with thy white face, thou knowest I am in love only with thee. Come down to me. I languish in torture, let me only comfort myself upon thy face. Thou enticing, beautiful, lovely spirit, thou torturest me to death, my suffering rends me, thou beautiful Moon, thou sweet one, mine, I implore thee, release me from this pain, ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger

... jolting of the cab and the heat of the morning sun made him languish. His energy gave way again. He could not even distinguish any longer where they were. The Baron amused himself by increasing his terror, talking about the "corpse," and of the way they meant to get back clandestinely to the city. Joseph ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert

... danger! It is with governments as with individuals. The institutions which have occasioned anarchy and devastation before, will, if persisted in, produce them again. Vile and detestable as have been the monsters of antiquity, the world still contains their parallels; and if they languish in obscurity, if they have not attained a celebrity equally atrocious, it is because they possess not equal facilities for the display of their real character and propensities. Human nature is still the same, and wherever a field is opened for the growth of tyranny, ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... the sister, dead; and who will answer that letter, think you? Some good Christian soul who has pity for the sick man, and who will not permit him to languish in waiting the sister who will come to him never. For us of the Roman Catholic religion the duty of charity is paramount. You of the Anglican faith—bah, how you are cold, how you are hard, how you ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... were before he made his appearance, nor have they been wanting since. There is, therefore, no reason why those who have devoted themselves to the study of Eloquence, should suffer their hopes to languish, or their industry to flag. For, in the first place, even that which is most excellent is not to be despaired of;—and, in all worthy attempts, that which is next to what is best ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... may get out that pale yellow dress. No, beautiful, the one with the black satin stripes on the bodice—because I don't want my hair cast completely in the shade, do I? Now, let me see—black feather, gloves, large pompadour, and a sweet smile. No, I don't want a fan—that's a Lydia Languish trade-mark. And two silk skirts rustling like the deadest leaves imaginable. Yes, I think that will do. And if you can't hook up my dress without pecking and pecking at me like that, I'll probably go stark, staring crazy, Celestine, and then you'll be sorry. No, it isn't a bit tight—are you ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell

... ill-treated, neglected, miserable. Then, too, existence for you must be a scene of continual change and excitement, or else the world is a dungeon: you must be admired, you must be courted, you must be flattered—you must have music, dancing, and society—or you languish, you die away. Have you no sense to devise a system which will make you independent of all efforts, and all wills, but your own? Take one day; share it into sections; to each section apportion ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... the woes o' the hero an' heroine o' some nov-el an' stub their gouty toe a-kickin' of the villain. An' then there's the ladies—'specially the very young 'uns, God bless their bibs an' tuckers! Lord, how they sigh an' tremble an' toss their pretty curls an' weep an' languish. I heard o' one as always read wi' her smellin'-salts handy, but then, to be sure, she was a maiden lady of uncertain age as wished she wasn't an' was smitten wi' love for Tom ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... classes for the teaching of temper to married couples, only I fear the institution would languish for lack of pupils. The husbands would recommend their wives to attend, generously offering to pay the fee as a birthday present. The wife would be indignant at the suggestion of good money being thus wasted. "No, John, ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... a dim and sickly eye To wait the close of all? But grant her end More distant, and that prophecy demands A longer respite, unaccomplished yet; Still they are frowning signals, and bespeak Displeasure in His breast who smites the earth Or heals it, makes it languish or rejoice. And 'tis but seemly, that, where all deserve And stand exposed by common peccancy To what no few have felt, there should be peace, And ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... transplant them to the Places where they are wanting: but as they do not all grow, especially when they are a little too big, or the Season not favourable, and because the greatest part of those that do grow languish a long time, it always seem'd to me more proper to set fresh Kernels; and I am persuaded, if the Consequences are duly weighed, it will be ...
— The Natural History of Chocolate • D. de Quelus

... existing with France, were, however, signally disappointed. Their opponents were wiser; for they not only measured accurately the indignation of the French by their own, but they took good care that it should not languish for want of encouragement. The French Directory might have been reconciled to the situation had it been plain to them that there was neither an "Anglicized" party nor a French party in the United States, but ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay

... characteristic length of neck indicated the rarest wines of France and Germany; while the portly magnum of claret—the wine par excellence of every Irish gentleman of the day—passed rapidly from hand to hand, the conversation did not languish, and many a deep and hearty laugh followed the stories which every now and then were told, as some reminiscence of early days was recalled, or some trait of a former ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... long time he stood motionless; then, crumpling the card up and placing it in his pocket, he took the bowl in his arms and bore it to his bedroom. Wrapped again in its coverings, it was left to languish on the top of the cupboard behind a carefully constructed rampart of old cardboard boxes ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs

... Soul that must languish in endless anguish, Thy life is a little spell, So take thy fill, ere the Pow'rs of Ill Shall drag Thee, ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... assistance he might recover; the people did not scruple to say, that the captain would act a more honourable part to discharge another pistol at him, and dispatch him at once, than to deny him relief, and suffer him to languish in a cold wet ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... we have no water here, and but a little food, and we must choose between these three things—to languish like a starving lion in his den, or to strive to break away towards the north, or"—and here he rose and pointed towards the dense mass of our foes—"to launch ourselves straight at Twala's throat. Incubu, the great warrior—for to-day he fought like a buffalo in a net, and Twala's soldiers ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard

... sir Anthony, in love with Lydia Languish, the heiress, to whom he is known only as ensign Beverley. Bob Acres, his neighbor, is his rival, and sends a challenge to the unknown ensign; but when he finds that ensign Beverley is captain Absolute, he declines to fight, and resigns ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... wind, in what dim, loathsome cave, Languish the tender-plumed gales of spring? No more their dances dimple o'er the wave, Nor freighted pinions song and perfume bring: Those gales are dead—that dimpling sea is dark; And cloudy ghosts clutch at ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor

... the philosophy of the sciences. Again, you cannot abandon the later clause of the definition; namely that referring to the relations between the sciences, without abandoning the explicit reference to an ideal in the absence of which philosophy must languish from lack of intrinsic interest. That ideal is the attainment of some unifying concept which will set in assigned relationships within itself all that there is for knowledge, for feeling, and for emotion. ...
— The Concept of Nature - The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919 • Alfred North Whitehead

... week, with something piquant lurking at every turn. A week so busy, so kaleidoscopic in its quick succession of events that my own troubles and grievances were pushed into a neglected corner of my mind and made to languish there, unfed ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber

... pallid, Fill the air with words of anguish: All our doings are invalid, Sick and old, we slowly languish. ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel

... present to him. In the Convito it betrays itself often, and with touching unexpectedness. Even in the treatise De Vulgari Eloquio, he takes as one of his examples of style: "I have most pity for those, whosoever they are, that languish in exile, and revisit their country only in dreams." We have seen that the one decisive act of Dante's priorate was to expel from Florence the chiefs of both parties as the sowers of strife, and he tells us (Paradiso, XVII.) that he had formed ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... but he was no match for the father of Jonesville, who wielded a cue with a dexterity born of years of devotion to the game. In consequence, Blaze's enjoyment was in a fair way to languish when the proprietor of the Elite Billiard Parlor returned from ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... consideration thereof causes an affliction of the soul, according to Lam. 3:19, "Remember my poverty . . . the wormwood and the gall," which refers to the Passion, and afterwards (Lam. 3:20) it is said: "I will be mindful and remember, and my soul shall languish within me." Therefore delight or joy is not ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... I am not recommending Fielding to boys and girls. "Tom Jones" was one of the works that Lydia Languish hid under the sofa; even Miss Languish did not care to be caught with that humorous foundling. "Fielding was the last of our writers who drew a man," Mr. Thackeray said, "and he certainly did not study from ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang

... or thousand-fold more suffering than the experiments of physiologists—if such laws are passed, the result will assuredly be that physiology, which has been until within the last few years at a standstill in England, will languish or quite cease. It will then be carried on solely on the Continent; and there will be so many the fewer workers on this grand subject, and this I should greatly regret. By the way, F. Balfour, who has worked for two or three years in the laboratory at Cambridge, declares to George that ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... her own; act many parts, with strange catch-words and burdens that seemed to act with mystical power on her own fancy, sometimes stimulating her to convulse the hearer with laughter, sometimes to melt him to tears. When her power began to languish, she would spin again till fired to recommence her singular drama, into which she wove figures from the scenes of her earlier childhood, her companions, and the dignitaries she sometimes saw, with fantasies unknown to life, unknown to heaven ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller

... spirits languish, Around and round the spot she goes, Ah! charming Chloe's lost in anguish, Her friend wakes not ...
— The Bakchesarian Fountain and Other Poems • Alexander Pushkin and other authors

... Heavens are dismayed; They tremble, and the sound thereof is the sound of thunder: They weep, and their tears are outpoured in the rain; They sigh, and the wild winds are the voice of their sighing. The flowers die, the fruitful fields languish and turn pale; The old men and the little children go unto their appointed place When Thou withdrawest thy light, ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard

... and intensifying influence from the sympathy of his fellows. If he knew himself to be solitary and alone in his opinions, unsupported by that human sympathy which every one craves, his ideas would languish, and be greatly diminished in their power. It is only great minds, of exceptional character, which can do battle, single-handed, against the world. Most men require to be propped and supported on all sides, by the great power of public opinion. ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... was a disappointment to Halidon that the great project of the Academy of Arts should languish on paper long after all its details had been discussed and settled to the satisfaction of the projector, and of the expert advisers he had called ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... should have made a fair appeal to the justice and generosity of the nation. Frenchmen, who yield so readily to every dignified sentiment, would not have allowed the faithful and virtuous servants of their King to languish in poverty. We may appeal to the universal assent which was given to the proposal[12] made by the marshal duke of Tarentum, that ten millions of francs should be annually appropriated for the indemnification of the emigrants who had been deprived ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... heart thus pierc'd would never rove, Nor meanly seek a second love; No distance e'er could give him pain— No rivalry torment his brain. Self-love will bear a many knocks, A thousand mortifying shocks; One moment languish in despair, The ...
— Vignettes in Verse • Matilda Betham

... supplicate him, little feet patter close around him, small hands, eagerly outstretched, appeal to him. Anon rise shrieks and infantile crowings of delight as each small hand is drawn back grasping a plump paper bag—shrieks and crowings that languish and die away, one by one, since no human child may shriek properly and chew peanuts at one and the same time. And in a while, his stock greatly diminished, Ravenslee trundles off and leaves behind him women who smile still and small boys and girls ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol

... frequently languish, even in the hands of the busy, if they have not some employment subsidiary to that which forms ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various

... by despatching the grumbling seller of goods with his own weapon, which created less joy in the commercial community than the Baron seemed to expect. Thus navigation on the swift current of the Rhine began to languish, for there was little profit in the transit of goods from Mayence to Cologne if the whole consignment stood in jeopardy and the owner's life as well, so the merchants got into the habit of carrying their gear overland on the backs of mules, thus putting the nobility to great inconvenience ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr

... Smit by her sacred frown, The fiend, Dissension, like a vapor sinks; And e'en the all-dazzling crown Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks. Such was this heaven-loved isle, Than Lesbos fairer and the Cretan shore! No more shall freedom smile? Shall Britons languish, and be men no more? Since all must life resign, Those sweet rewards which decorate the brave 'Tis folly to decline, And steal inglorious to ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various

... but where there is no funny slope, nor shaded plain, to relieve them—where all is beetling cliff and yawning abyss, and the landscape presents nothing on every side but prodigies and terrors—the head is apt to gow giddy, and the heart to languish for the repose and security of ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... forenoon, and quite late into the next day, I was left brooding and chafing at my misfortune, self-inflicted I will confess, but not the less irksome to bear. I had almost persuaded myself that I should be left to languish here quite friendless and forgotten, when the luck turned suddenly, and daylight broke in to disperse my gloomy forebodings. Several visitors came, claiming to see me, and were presently admitted in turn. First came the ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths

... wanted to say was, that she was a faithless wife, a reckless lover, a revengeful and unforgiving woman, since Joseph was left to languish in captivity for two long years, without any effort on her part, as far as we can learn or infer, to ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley

... Divorced or doing thereanent. Ye annals So brilliant, where the list of routs and dances is,— Thou Morning Post, sole record of the panels Broken in carriages, and all the phantasies Of fashion,—say what streams now fill those channels? Some die, some fly, some languish on the Continent, Because the times have hardly ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... he can shoot straight enough, and I've heard tell that he don't LIE. That mout and it moutn't be good for your brother who goes around with him considerable, there's different ways of lookin' at that; you understand what I mean? You follow me?" For all that, the conversation seemed to languish this evening, partly through some abstraction on the part of Wayne and partly some hesitation in McGee, who appeared to have a greater fear than usual of not expressing himself plainly. It was quite ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... names have been on its membership roll, and of this number twelve have set their faces toward the Gospel ministry. Oh, what a source of joy to me that I leave that association in such a high condition of vigor and prosperity! No church can languish, no church can die, while it has plenty of young blood in ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

... suspect her sincerity, and I did not see, in her plan of getting me to leave the country, anything that resembled hypocrisy. In a word, I was firmly convinced that at the first word of love her door would be closed to me. Upon my return I found her thin and changed. Her habitual smile seemed to languish on her discolored lips. She told me that she had been suffering. We did not speak of the past. She did not appear to wish to recall it, and I had no desire to refer to it. We resumed our old relations of neighbors; yet ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset

... Death of Alexander, it began to Languish, and never recover'd its entire Strength till the Reign of Augustus, in which the Rules of this ...
— The Preface to Aristotle's Art of Poetry • Andre Dacier

... own hand did make, Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate', To me that languish'd for her sake: But when she saw my woeful state, Straight in her heart did mercy come, Chiding that tongue that ever sweet Was us'd in giving gentle doom; And taught it thus anew to greet; 'I hate' she alter'd with an end, That followed it as gentle day, Doth follow night, ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare

... Hurstwood's nature takes a vigorous form. It is no musing, dreamy thing. There is none of the tendency to sing outside of my lady's window—to languish and repine in the face of difficulties. In the night he was long getting to sleep because of too much thinking, and in the morning he was early awake, seizing with alacrity upon the same dear subject and pursuing ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... capitalism superimposed on feudalism. Or you may take it as a book of adventure, and find our hero and his erratic uncle plunging into orgies of hazardous exploits and achievements. Or you may take it as a novel of love, and languish with the hero in a misdirected amour, and burn with him in a glorious, futile, and tragic affection. Or you may take it as a novel of England, of the many currents of English life joining in one vast stream on ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James

... then, so entirely changed?' exclaimed Talma, quickening his pace. 'Poor exile! unhappy genius! torn from thy native soil, to languish and die!' ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various

... society suffer, that the slaveholder may continue to gather his vigintial crop of human flesh? What is his mere pecuniary claim, compared with the great interests of the common weal? Must the country languish and die, that the slaveholder may flourish? Shall all interest be subservient to one?—all rights subordinate to those of the slaveholder? Has not the mechanic—have not the middle classes their rights?—rights incompatible ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child

... she would make such an application of living toads as is mentioned she would be well." Now is it likely that this unknown gentleman should express so much tenderness for this single sufferer, and not feel any for the many thousands that daily languish under this terrible disorder? Would he not have made use of this invaluable nostrum for his own emolument; or at least, by some means of publication or other, have found a method of making it public for the good of mankind? In short, ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White

... so," Sir Mortimer replied. "At home I was forever naught; on these seas I might yet serve my Queen, though with a shrunken arm. And Robert Baldry with many another whom I had betrayed might yet languish in miserable life. God knows! perhaps I thought that God might work a ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... head of her house it is certainly vacuous," Ideala agreed, "like the lives of our own ladies when they are not forced to do anything. Why, at Scarborough this year they had to take to changing their dresses four times a day; so you can imagine how they languish for want of occupation." ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand

... contumelious language of her husband to his brother, of her sister to (her sister's) husband, and contended, that it were better that she herself were unmarried, and he single, than that they should be matched unsuitably, so that they must languish away through life by reason of the dastardly conduct of others. If the gods had granted her the husband of whom she was worthy, that she should soon see the crown in her own house, which she now saw at her father's. She soon inspires the young ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... must not Brest and the Shipping Interest languish? Poor Brest languishes, sorrowing, not without spleen; denounces an Aristocrat Bertrand-Moleville traitorous Aristocrat Marine-Minister. Do not her Ships and King's Ships lie rotting piecemeal in harbour; Naval Officers mostly fled, and on furlough too, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... you play Lydia Languish vastly well," pursued the mother; "but Lydia, by herself, would soon tire; somebody must keep up the spirit and bustle, and carry on the plot of the piece, and I am that somebody—as you shall see. Is not that our hero's voice which I ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... present misconceptions of love and society. The first move, obviously, in stopping war was the suppression of such ameliorating forces as the Red Cross; and, conversely, with complete unions, infidelity would languish and disappear. ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer

... I received a letter from a friend with whom I had been interned. He secured his release some months before I shook the dust—and mud—of Ruhleben from my feet. On the day we parted he sympathised deeply with me at the prospect of being condemned to languish in the hands of the enemy until the clash of arms had died down. I did not seek to disillusion him, although, even at that time, I had made up my mind to get away by ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... ignoble punishment; if he offend, he suffers as a soldier. Imprisonment, or death, alone displaces him from the ranks. He is not cut down fainting, and covered with the ignominious wounds of the dissecting scourge, and sent to languish in the reeking ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr

... more like a girl than a boy. His hair is as yellow as Maedel's; it's wavy like a girl's, and he wears it long and parted in the middle; and his eyes are large and very blue,—Phil says they are "languishing," and he and Felix have given him another nick-name of "Lydia Languish." He wore evening clothes, with a white flower in his buttonhole, and there were diamond studs in the bosom of his shirt, and a diamond ring on one of his fingers. When papa introduced him, he put his heels together and made us three ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus

... complexion which I had when you saw me at Venice. My leanness is extreme, my sight is dim, my hands shake, and my knees totter, so that I can hardly drag myself to my country-house at Certaldo, where I only languish. After reading your letter, I wept a whole night for my dear master, not on his own account, for his piety permits us not to doubt that he is now happy, but for myself and for his friends whom he has left in this world, like a vessel in a stormy sea without ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... manes 'Give me a kiss, me purty gurl,' Tom," he answered, bursting into a roar of laughter. "It's a quishton ye'll foind moighty convanient to axe some-toimes whin ye're in these parts, mabouchal; an' Oi'd advise ye to larn the languish ez soon ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson

... disappointed in soul, ill in body, and almost starving, was forced to seek the refuge of a hospital, whither he retired in the single garment which remained unsold from his ambassadorial outfit. But he did not languish long in this miserable condition, for the Pope heard of his misfortunes, remembered his eloquence, and sent him back to Rome, invested with the office of Apostolic Notary, and endowed with a salary of five golden florins daily, a stipend which at that time amounted almost to wealth. ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... Tangier, Edward and his brother Fernando were taken prisoners, and were allowed to return home only on promise to surrender Ceuta. Don Fernando remained as the hostage they demanded. The Portuguese would not agree to surrender Ceuta, and Don Fernando was forced to languish in captivity, since the Moors would accept no other ransom. He was a patriotic prince than whom were none greater in ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... remark. Life is languid, the blood becomes lazy, at the extremities of our bodily system, as we ourselves know by dolorous experience under the complaint of purpura; and analogously we find the utility of our supreme government to droop and languish before it reaches the Indian world. Hence partly it is (for nearer home we see nothing of the kind), that foreign adventurers receive far too much encouragement from our British Satraps in the East. To find themselves within 'the regions ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... whom my bosom loves best, I languish in mis'ry and care; Her presence could banish each woe from my heart, But ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... in beautiful decay?—her eyes Dissolving with a feverish glow of light, Her nostrils delicately closed, and on Her cheek a rosy tint, as if the tip Of Beauty's finger faintly press'd it there,— Alas! Consumption is her name. Thou loved and loving one! From the dark languish of thy liquid eye, So exquisitely rounded, darts a ray Of truth, prophetic of thine early doom; And on thy placid cheek there is a print Of death,—the beauty of consumption there. Few note that fatal bloom; for bless'd by all, Thou movest through thy noiseless ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 337, October 25, 1828. • Various

... such, but infamous when misapplied. It is certain that many a young Woman in this Town has had her Heart irrecoverably won, by Men who have not made one Advance which ties their Admirers, tho' the Females languish with the utmost Anxiety. I have often, by way of Admonition to my female Readers, give them Warning against agreeable Company of the other Sex, except they are well acquainted with their Characters. Women may disguise it if they think fit, and the more to do it, they may be ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... Thou wilt not complete me now, Before my head in death I bow, In dreary Kedar walk with me; My life would languish losing Thee. ...
— Favourite Welsh Hymns - Translated into English • Joseph Morris

... sufferings. But the point, the acme of my distress, consisted in the awful uncertainty of our final fate. My prevailing opinion was, that my husband would suffer violent death; and that I should of course become a slave, and languish out a miserable though short existence, in the tyrannic hands of some unfeeling monster. But the consolations of religion in these trying circumstances, were neither few nor small. It taught me to look beyond this world, to that rest, that peaceful, happy rest, where Jesus reigns, and ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart

... in his financial embarrassment. There is an ominous silence in the story of his life, then comes the information that the man who had done so much for others was left at last to languish in a debtors' jail, die unbefriended and be ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers

... far away, my Lady Joan! Here be no courtly swains, no perfumed, mincing lovers, to sigh and bow and languish for you. Here is Solitude, lady. Desolation hath you fast and is not like to let you go—here mayhap shall you live—and die! An ill place this and, like nature, strong and cruel. An ill place ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... and exile. If it is asked why I did not meet the arrest and seek a trial, my answer is, that I would have welcomed an arrest to be followed by a judge and jury; but you well know that I could not have secured these constitutional rights. I would have been transported beyond the State, to languish in some Federal fortress during the pleasure of the oppressor. Witness the fate of Morehead and his Kentucky associates in their distant ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... would scream discordantly, "so you taught, you old bonze, that God delights to see His creatures languish in contrition and deny themselves His dearest gifts. Impostor, hypocrite, sneak, sit on nails and eat egg-shells for ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... roam: I'll find some place where adders nest in winter, Loathsome and venomous; where poisons hang Like gums against the walls: there I'll inhabit, And live up to the height of desperation. Desire shall languish like a with'ring flower, Horrors shall fright me from those pleasing harms, And I'll no more be caught with beauty's ...
— The Orphan - or, The Unhappy Marriage • Thomas Otway

... soon became hardened. Denver at that time was a hotbed of gambling, with murder and lynch law a secondary pastime. Not being deterred by our experience, we continued our sightseeing, ending up at the only theatre in the city, afterwards called the "Old Languish." ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young

... no other witness of whom you can think, monsieur? Some witness that might be produced more readily. For if you can, indeed, establish the identity you claim, why should you languish in prison for ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini

... soliciting with all his power; whereas, if he had not been enabled, by a most accidental piece of good fortune, to lift himself into the sphere of an officer, he had all the reason in the world to believe that this gentleman, and all the rest of his wealthy relations, would have suffered him to languish in obscurity and distress; and by turning his misfortune into reproach, made it a plea for their want ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... The dinner continued gayly, Saniel replying to Phillis's smiles, who would not permit the conversation to languish. She helped him to each dish, poured out his wine, leaving her chair occasionally to put a piece of wood on the fire, and such shoutings and laughter had never been heard ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... time can show, Doomed for a lady-love to languish, Among these solitudes doth go, A prey to every kind of anguish. Why Love should like a spiteful foe Thus use him, he hath no idea, But hogsheads full—this doth he know— Don Quixote's tears are on the flow, And all for distant ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... black ivory, the West Coast gave vast fortunes. The price was the lives of millions of slaves. And to-day it almost seems as though the sins of the fathers were being visited upon the children; as though the juju of the African, under the spell of which his enemies languish and die, has been cast upon the white man. We have to look only at home. In the millions of dead, and in the misery of the Civil War, and to-day in race hatred, in race riots, in monstrous crimes and as monstrous lynchings, we seem to see the fetish ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis

... exercise,— For scope wherein her conscious strength to test In keen pursuit and venturous enterprise, For dear exemplars, in whose course serene Affection's tearful warmth might sympathise, For these the yearning mind would languish, e'en Though with all else that wish could name endued, While, in her striving for self-discipline, Foiled, and with fervid impulses imbued Vainly, where neither aught could valour dare Nor aught confront and challenge fortitude: And where no ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton

... quietly, lifted his neglected newspaper to obtain the light at the right angle, and then allowed it to languish upon his lap again. Frowning, he began to tap the floor with ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington

... the ripen'd ear. 135 Now one shrill voice the notes prolong, Now a wild chorus swells the song: Oft have I listen'd, and stood still, As it came soften'd up the hill, And deem'd it the lament of men 140 Who languish'd for their native glen; And thought how sad would be such sound, On Susquehanna's swampy ground, Kentucky's wood-encumber'd brake, Or wild Ontario's boundless lake, 145 Where heart-sick exiles, in the strain, Recall'd fair Scotland's ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott

... jungle. It is there they seek the excitement of war, the pleasures of the chase, the labors of the field, and the abundance of fruit in the rich produce which assists in supporting their families. The pathless jungle is endeared to them by every association which influences the human mind, and they languish when prevented from roaming there ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel

... other cause of anguish But Tereus' love, on her by strong hand wroken; Wherein she suffering, all her spirits languish, Full womanlike, complains her will was broken, But I, who, daily craving, Cannot have to content me, Have more cause to lament me, Since wanting is more woe than ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various

... being plied behind backs; the books multiplying daily on shelves and in windows, and the ragged boys with their pennies waiting to see if there was a new piece by Allan Ramsay; while perhaps in the corner, where lay the lists of the new circulating library—the first in Scotland—Miss Lydia Languish with her maid, or my lady's gentlewoman from some fine house in the Canongate, had come in to ask for the last new novel from London, the Scotch capital having not yet begun to ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... giving her, she may give thee again: Wilt thou her fault learn? she may make thee tremble. Fear to be guilty, then thou may'st dissemble. Think when she reads, her mother letters sent her: Let him go forth known, that unknown did enter. 20 Let him go see her though she do not languish, And then report her sick and full of anguish. If long she stays, to think the time more short, Lay down thy forehead in thy lap to snort. Inquire not what with Isis may be done, Nor fear lest she to the theatres ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... might await them. But the women are more patriotic, and would brave all in following the fortunes of the Confederate States Government. Is this because they do not participate in the hardships and dangers of the field? But many of our men are weary and worn, and languish for repose. These would probably remain quiescent on parole, submitting to the rule of the conqueror; but hoping still for foreign intervention or Confederate victories, and ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... of her mother, Ann still continued to languish, though she had a nurse who was entirely engrossed by the desire of amusing her. Had her health been re-established, the time would have passed in a ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft

... Matilda! my betrothed bride! Write to me ere the evening closes, for I shall never be able to shut my eyes in slumber upon my prison couch, until they have been first blessed by the sight of a few words from thee! Write to me, love! write to me! I languish for the reply which is to make or mar me for ever. ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... drunkard, the criminal; yes, for the wicked or the weak in all their forms.... But the saints and the heroes of this day, who draw no sword, whose right hand is never bloody, who burn in no fires of wood or sulphur, nor languish briefly on the hasty cross; the saints and heroes who, in a worldly world, dare to be men; in an age of conformity and selfishness, speak for Truth and Man, living for noble aims, men who will swear to no lies howsoever popular; who will honor no sins, though never so profitable, respectable, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... that war claimed the attention of the historian. The high-minded soldier could not brook a state of inaction with such promising prospects before him. His best feelings revolted at being compelled to languish within the strict pale of military obedience, when so rich a field for doing good service presented itself; and in place of becoming the assailant, he was soon doomed, by awaiting the attacks of his opponents, to sacrifice not only life, but, ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... be hazarded; without harmony, as far as consists with freedom of sentiment, its dignity may be lost. But, as the legislative proceedings of the United States will never, I trust, be reproached for the want of temper or of candor, so shall not the public happiness languish for the want of my ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... official compliments had been exchanged, the conversation began to languish; and the minister seized my right hand and gently drew it from the mysterious recesses of ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... the Nile Valley wheat. It is the one complete, perfect, vegetable food. It contains all the elements necessary to the making of the human body. The supply of wheat is the arterial blood that makes this world of ours do something. Without wheat we would languish—go quickly ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... the St. Gothard Tunnel, and the Americans mowed down by shot and shell while fighting for the abolition of slavery, have helped to develop the cotton industry of France and England, as well as the work-girls who languish in the factories of Manchester and Rouen, and the inventor who (following the suggestion of some worker) succeeds in improving ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... quoth ESHER, M.R., "That Solicitors languish for lack of bread? That want of cases, as felt by the Bar, To cases of want has recently led? Oh, how does it come, and why, and whence, That men shun the Law as ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 21, 1891 • Various

... tidings came to me, unhappy maid, O how great sorrow my sad soule assaid. Then forth I went his woefull corse to find, And many yeares throughout the world I straid, A virgin widow, whose deepe wounded mind 215 With love long time did languish as the striken hind. ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser

... likelihood of her not being able to do so as much as he would desire and demand. This she took for the protest of her pure reason. In reality, grieved though she was on account of that Dr. Shrapnel, her captive heart resented the anticipated challenge to her to espouse his cause or languish. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the minstrel maid; And many in derision smil'd, To see him pay a peasant's child, For such they deem'd me, deep respect, While birth and grandeur met neglect. Soon, sway'd by duty more than wealth, He listen'd and he look'd by stealth; And I grew careless in my lays; Languish'd for that exclusive praise. Yet, conscious of an equal claim, Above each base or sordid aim, From wounded feeling and from pride, My pain I coldly strove to hide: And when, encounter'd by surprize, Rapture rose flashing ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham

... this man lives for himself alone, and only the baser passions spring up in his breast. His soul is too narrow for Christian benevolence; sympathy and emotion are disabled and all his nobler faculties languish. Action, from intelligent and benevolent principles, is a great fountain of happiness. Few streams of bliss equal those which flow from charitable exertions. Benevolence and well-doing are great inducements to ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 7, July, 1880 • Various

... you languish in your dungeon cell? Your true knight points an arrow with this missive, and shoots it in at your window. (I trust your father will not resent this poetic license.) I was thrilled at the sight of you as an Amazon, and I agree about the riding ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke

... the plan, even if I should accomplish it. I should get myself into trouble, dark and deep. Well, if I had to languish behind bars for a while I could survive it. But she might not. As I thought of this I knew that I had made up my ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... family, without a tincture of affectation, will languish as they gaze on the lovely Luna. Not, as a grumpy, grisly old bear of a bachelor once said, "Because there's a man in it!" No; the precious pets are fond of moonlight rather because they are the daughters ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... amused, and the livelihood of the actors and actresses and their relatives depended upon it; if all German music were eliminated there would be little left to choose from; and the important racing horse industry could not be allowed to languish on account of a ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith

... Wail to be justified. Shall there be mutterings at the seasons' yield? Has eye of man seen bared the granary floors? Are the fields wasted? Spilled the oil and wine? Is the fat seed under the clod decayed? Does ever the fig tree languish or the vine? Who has beheld the harvest promise fade? Or any orchard heavy with fruit asway Withered away? No, not these things, but grosser things than these Are the dim parents of a guilt not dim; Ancestral urges out of old caves blowing, When Fear watched at our ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... Germany from the Matunga three military officers and three elderly married civilians over military age. They were going but a week's voyage from their homes (July 1917); but, torn from their homes and families, they were to languish for months in a German internment camp. Neither must be forgotten the old captains and mates and young boys—some of the latter making their first sea voyage—taken into captivity in Germany, where they have probably been exhibited as illustrating ...
— Five Months on a German Raider - Being the Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the 'Wolf' • Frederic George Trayes

... I doe but languish, I doe but sorrow: and even those pleasures, all things present me with, in stead of yeelding me comfort, doe but redouble the griefe of his losse. We were copartners in all things. All things were with us at halfe; me thinkes I have ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... find out love: But when I came to feel how far above All fancy, pride, and fickle maidenhood, All earthly pleasure, all imagin'd good, Was the warm tremble of a devout kiss,— Even then, that moment, at the thought of this, 750 Fainting I fell into a bed of flowers, And languish'd there three days. Ye milder powers, Am I not cruelly wrong'd? Believe, believe Me, dear Endymion, were I to weave With my own fancies garlands of sweet life, Thou shouldst be one of all. Ah, bitter strife! ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats

... wave o'er Delphi's steep, Isles, that crown th' Aegean deep, Fields, that cool Ilissus laves, Or where Maeander's amber waves In lingering labyrinths creep, 70 How do your tuneful echoes languish, Mute, but to the voice of anguish! Where each old poetic mountain Inspiration breath'd around; Every shade and hallow'd fountain 75 Murmur'd deep a solemn sound: Till the sad Nine, in Greece's evil hour, Left their Parnassus for the ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray

... withdrawn to a safe distance, Lord Roberts would certainly have halted, as he had done at Bloemfontein, and waited for remounts and reinforcements. But the war could not be allowed to languish when an active enemy lay only fifteen miles off, within striking distance of two cities and of the line of rail. Taking all the troops that he could muster, the British General moved out once more on Monday, June 11th, ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... civil rights in the armed forces ended with his battle with the Fahy Committee. Certainly in the months after the committee was disbanded he did nothing to push for integration and allowed the subject of civil rights to languish. ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... been a beauty in her youth—dark, dashing, positive, saucy. She had enough will so that she never became a drudge nor did she languish and fade. She was twenty-eight years old when she first appeared in the field of our vision—twenty-eight, and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... various forms of disease and infirmity, which demand special treatment or a permanent asylum; and while institutions designed to meet these wants are more wisely and economically administered under private than under public auspices, the state should never suffer them to fail or languish for lack of subsidy from private sources. The most desirable condition of things undoubtedly is that—more nearly realized in France than in any other country in Christendom—in which the relief of the poor and suffering ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody

... though?" agreed Grace smilingly. "Yes, my dear Daffydowndilly, you have a delicate task before you. Playing Lady Bountiful to the girls who are left behind without them suspecting you won't be easy. There are certain girls who would languish in their rooms all day, rather than accept a mouthful of food that savored of charity. I don't believe our eight girls ever suspected us of playing Santa Claus to them ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower

... of that which is consolatory while we are here, and of that which in plain reason ought to render us contented to stay no longer. You, Leontion, would make others better; and better they certainly will be, when their hostilities languish in an empty field, and their rancour is tired with treading upon dust. The generous affections stir about us at the dreary hour of death, as the blossoms of the Median apple swell and diffuse their fragrance ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... agreeable and altogether lovely that dear Robert F. did not go near her the entire evening; only gave her, from across the room, by my side, the bow of compensation. He left that rose, thanks to me and my successful efforts, to languish unnoticed in its lover's knot of pale blue. Ah, Kate Meadows, that time your lover's knot was made ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.

... our love when under earth reposes This heart at last lulled in eternal sleep— Recall our love when on my grave dark roses In solitude their tender petals weep. You will not see me more, but in immortal anguish My stricken soul will ever near you languish; Under the midnight sky A spirit voice will sigh, ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... finds even its just Resentments languish and die away when their Object becomes the unresisting prey of Death. Such is my Experience with regard to Betty Fisher, whose ill Life hath now terminated, and from whom, confronted at the Bar ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning

... health might have been perfectly restored, which I do not now think will ever be the case. Before true passion, I am convinced, everything but a sense of duty moves; true love is warmest when the object is absent. How Hugh could let Fanny languish in England, while he was throwing money away at Lisbon, is to me inexplicable, if he had a passion that did not require the fuel of seeing the object. I much fear he loves her not for the qualities that render her dear to my heart. Her tenderness and delicacy are not even conceived of by a man ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... the station o' loftiest grandeur, Amidst its profusion I'd languish in pain, And reckon as naething the height o' its splendor, If wanting sweet Jessie, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... dyangs I counted, but they come No more. All four have gone and homage paid To Bidasari. All my tricks are foiled. In no one can I trust." Dang Lila then Approached and said: "Acts of unfaithfulness Bring never happiness. God's on the side Of loyalty. Now those dyangs are sad And languish after thee, but fear the King, Dost thou not think, O Queen, thou ill hast wrought? For while the King is absent none will come Thy heart to cheer." The Queen replied with ire: "Seek not to consolation give. The King Esteems me not. I'll ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors

... purple sky,—cool and dewy and fresh;—they are the thoughts of Thelma; such thoughts! So wise and earnest, so pure and full of tender shadows!—no hand has grasped them rudely, no rough touch has spoiled their smoothness! They open full-faced to the sky, they never droop or languish; they have no secrets, save the marvel of their beauty. Now you have come, you will have no pity,—one by one you will gather and play with her thoughts as though they were these blossoms,—your burning hand ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... Union, were left to the tender mercies of the 'Berkeley Border Guard,' and such braves as the Texan Rangers, the Mississippi Bowie-knives, and the Louisiana Tiger Zouaves. Gray-headed men like Pendleton and Strother were dragged from their homes to languish for weeks in Richmond jails, and the old reign of terror was reestablished with renewed virulence. Shall we ask these poor, deceived Unionists of Northern Virginia what they think of Gen. Patterson, and of the success of his campaign? How can we estimate the injury to the cause of the Union inflicted ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... e, i, o; but has rather in these combinations the force of the w consonant, as quaff, quest, quit, quite, languish; sometimes in ui the i loses its sound, as in juice. It is sometimes mute before a, e, i, y, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson

... wilt thou, Isolda, follow? The land that Tristan means of sunlight has no gleams; it is the dark abode of night, from whence I first came forth to light, and she who bore me thence in anguish, gave up her life, nor long did languish. She but looked on my face, then sought this resting-place. This land where Night doth reign, where Tristan once hath lain— now thither offers he thy faithful guide to be. So let Isolda straight declare if she will meet ...
— Tristan and Isolda - Opera in Three Acts • Richard Wagner

... in the race utterly misses his aim. The real enjoyment existed, altho it was unperceived by him, in the mere strife for superiority. When he has outstript all his rivals the contest is at an end: and his spirits, which were invigorated only by contending, languish for want of ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser

... my Childless Eyes may lighten With the Beauty of his Presence." Said the Sheikh, "Be wise, and leave it Wholly in the Hand of Allah, Who, whatever we are after, Understands our Business best." But the Man persisted, saying, "Sheikh, I languish in my Longing; Help, and set my Prayer a-going!" Then the Sheikh held up his Hand— Pray'd—his Arrow flew to Heaven— From the Hunting-ground of Darkness Down a musky Fawn of China Brought—a Boy—Who, when the Tender ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... had told him to find you a good housekeeper; thinking it over on his way, he remembered his friend Madame Dubois, and the matter was thus arranged without malice or pretense. She is a regular find, a perfect jewel for you, and if you get taken with her I don't think she will allow you to languish for long." ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... thou descended upon my gray head, Thou hand of God! How comes my son to me! My son, my only glory, here I languish, And tremble to behold thee! Shall I see Thy deadly wounded body, I that should Be wept by thee? I, miserable, alone, Dragged thee to this; blind dotard I, that fain Had made earth fair to thee, I digged thy grave. If only thou amidst ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells

... further down, in faith, in hope, in charity towards one another: our wealth is dissipated, our spirits languish, our strength decays, our united life falls into disunion: it is not indifference, but "ennui" with which we look at ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... nothing of a future life; but I prefer ignorance to a belief that the most heinous baby that ever died in sin is to languish in a state of damnation—even 'in a wide sense' as our good ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson

... Patrick, am a modern lover, and when, yesterday, the dagger of disappointment was driven deep into my heart, I immediately played poker as hard as I could and incidentally got loaded. This is the modern point of view. I understand on good authority that in old times lovers used to. languish. That is probably a lie, but at any rate we do not, in these times, languish to any great extent. We get drunk. Do you understand, Patrick? " The waiter was used to a harangue at Coleman's breakfast time. He placed his hand over his mouth ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane

... the poets, and its service is that it makes one forget! The theatre, its comedies and farces and cunning amusements all designed to help me to forget! Art with its seductions is to obsess the soul with foreign thoughts! Women who languish upon one's eyes and tempt with their beauties, they also would steal away our memories. I will have ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham

... persecution new converts swell the ranks. The propaganda is almost exclusively of a secret character. The repressive measures of the government drive the disciples of the new philosophy to conspirative methods. Thousands of victims fall into the hands of the authorities and languish in prisons. But nothing can stem the rising tide of enthusiasm, of self-sacrifice and devotion to the Cause. The efforts of teachers like Peter Kropotkin, Louise Michel, Elisee Reclus, and others, inspire the devotees ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman

... wealth, And those that languish into health, Th' afflicted into joy, th' opprest ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... painters and musicians. Musicians she knows best among artists—perhaps has been most interested in them and has associated most with them because of the heroic vitality which a virtuoso must have to achieve any real eminence. The poet may languish over verses in his garret, the painter or sculptor over work conceived and executed in a shy privacy; but the great singer must be an athlete and an actor, training for months and years for the sake of a few hours of triumph before a throbbing audience. It is, therefore, not upon ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren

... vital will be a list of the emotions that become its owner, with recipes for simulating them. According to the colour she wills her hair to be for the time—black or yellow or, peradventure, burnished red—she will blush for you, sneer for you, laugh or languish for you. The good combinations of line and colour are nearly numberless, and by their means poor restless woman will be able to realise her moods in all their shades and lights and dappledoms, to live many lives and masquerade through ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm

... every line The perfume of an age long passed away, Wafting us back to 1829, Museum pieces of a by-gone day, You should not languish in the public press Where modern thought might reach and do you harm, And vulgar youth insult your hoariness, Missing the flavor of your old world charm; You should be locked, where rust cannot corrode In some old rosewood cabinet, dimmed by age, With silver-lustre, tortoise shell and ...
— Are Women People? • Alice Duer Miller

... gowns were cut with a more austere simplicity. Then came the Restoration and the Romantic movement, and the great days of 1830. Woman read her Chateaubriand and her Victor Hugo and her Byron, and became sentimental. It was bon-ton to languish a good deal, and the dressmakers were required to find a suitable costume for the occupation. They proved equal to the demand.... In England, these vestments are called Early Victorian, and are scoffed at, ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton

... making the ice break; and, thought I to myself, if we do not mind our eye we shall be crushed and buried. But what was to be done? To quit the ship for that piercing flying gale, charged with sleet and hail and foam, was merely to languish for a little and then miserably expire of frost. No, thought I, if the end is to come let it find me here; and with that I snugged me down amid the coats and cloaks in my cot, and, obstinately holding my eyes closed, ultimately ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell

... thee, my friend, 70 The ministry of freedom and the faith Of popular decrees, in early youth, Not vainly they committed; me they sent To wait on pain, and silent arts to urge, Inglorious; not ignoble, if my cares, To such as languish on a grievous bed, Ease and the sweet forgetfulness of ill Conciliate; nor delightless, if the Muse, Her shades to visit and to taste her springs, If some distinguish'd hours the bounteous Muse 80 Impart, and grant (what she, and she alone, Can grant to ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside



Words linked to "Languish" :   waste, yearn, pine, languisher, hanker, ache, devolve, deteriorate, pine away, long, fade, die, weaken, drop, yen, degenerate



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