"Alack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Alack! is there no painter of English history bold enough to immortalize himself by painting this trial? Sir Thomas More was beheaded on Tower Hill, in the bright sunshine of the month of July, on its fifth day, 1535, the king ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... manage the financial affairs of this kingdom better than any Chancellor of the Exchequer, or other minister of State, past or present; and that had he been at the head of affairs we should not have lost our North American Colonies, or have got plunged over head and ears in debt as we are, alack! already; and now, with war raging and all the world in arms against us, getting deeper and deeper into the mire." Without holding my worthy principal in such deep admiration as our head clerk evidently did, I had a most sincere regard and respect ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... my Corydon, my Corydon, Been, alack! her swain— Cor. Had my lovely one, my lovely one, Been in Ida plain— Phyl. Cynthia Endymion had refused, Preferring, preferring, My Corydon to play withal. Cor. The Queen of Love had been excused Bequeathing, bequeathing, My Phyllida the ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... But, alack for Molly, he did talk to her on almost every occasion on which they met. It was from no conscious lack of royalty to Rose; it was largely because he was so full of her and her affairs that he would in an assembly of indifferent ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... you pass by, As you are now, so once was I. Just so game, and just so gay, But now, alack, they've stopped my pay. No more I peep out of my blinkers, Here ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... Alack! the blaze of Mistress Thankful's brown eyes had become somewhat dimmed in the grave half-lights of the room, in the graver, deeper dignity of the erect, soldier-like figure before her. The bright color born of the tempest within and without ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... alack! How did I escape you, Dane, when mind and mood you mastered me? The auguries were fair. I, too, should have been a singer, and lo, I strive for science. All my boyhood was singing, what of you; and my father was a singer, too, in his own fine way. Dear to me is your ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... hard to be pleased with my new situation. The country, the house and the grounds are, as I have said, divine; but, alack-a-day! there is such a thing as seeing all beautiful around you—pleasant woods, white paths, green lawns, and blue sunshiny sky—and not having a free moment or a free thought left to enjoy them. The children are constantly with me. As for correcting them, I quickly ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... come up the street, in earnest conversation. And as John turned in at the door (for Mr Rose would not follow) she heard him say almost mournfully, "Alack! then there is no likelihood ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... one,—for such, I say, were the outlines of Dr. Slop's figure, coming slowly along, foot by foot, waddling thro' the dirt upon the vertebrae of a little diminutive pony, of a pretty colour—but of strength,—alack!—scarce able to have made an amble of it, under such a fardel, had the roads been in an ambling condition.—They were not.—Imagine to yourself, Obadiah mounted upon a strong monster of a coach-horse, pricked into a full gallop, and making all practicable ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... her face glowing, although her strange eyes were cast down. Alack! the Colonel's face was equally flushed, and his own beady eyes were on his desk. To any other woman he would have voiced the banal gallantry that he should now, himself, look forward to that reward, but the words never reached his lips. He laughed, coughed slightly, ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... Sister, alack! think how our father fell, O'erwhelmed with hatred and with infamy Through sins which his own act had brought to light, His eyes bereft of sight by his own hand; How she that was his wife and mother too Perished, self-strangled with a twisted cord, ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... But alack! as is the way with all beauty, it is but short-lived. The end of their peaceful passion came with the announcement of Pedro's return from the Court, now at Aragon. Isabella Angelica, history relates, was beside herself with misery. Enrique ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... is TIM, where PRUE, alack! Where mother fondly pliant now? Where for that matter too is JACK, And where the grisly Giant now? In lonely stall, with vacant brow I sit and eye the coryphees: In my time they were Fairies; now They seem to me but ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various
... while, then Button meowed to Stubby to tell him what he could see on the shelf for them to eat, and where Billy could find some potatoes and other vegetables. Stubby crawled out from under the tubs and ran to where Button said the shelf was, but alas, alack! how was he to get at the things on the shelf? It was six feet above him and so hung from the ceiling that there was absolutely no way for him to climb ...
— Billy Whiskers' Adventures • Frances Trego Montgomery
... "A particularly greasy squaw. I wish I might truthfully report an artist's Indian of the Minnehaha type, but alack, it was the same one I've seen ever since I've been in the city, and that you've seen for years ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... again to observe the sad countenance of Strings. "Alack-a-day! Why do you not take the nosegay?" she asked, wonderingly; for she herself was so very happy that she could not see why Strings too should not ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... And their courage and skill, And declared that the ladies of Richmond would rave O'er such matchless perfection, and gracefully wave In rapture their delicate kerchiefs in air At their morning parades on the Capitol Square. But alack! and alas! Mark what soon came to pass, When this army, in spite of his flatteries, Amid war's loudest thunder Must stupidly blunder Upon those accursed "masked batteries." Then Beauregard came, Like a tempest of flame, To consume them in wrath On their perilous path; And Johnston bore ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... Eve the unpitying sun Smiled grimly on the solemn fun, "Alack," he sighed, "what HAVE ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... "Alack a day, Sir," replies the fellow, "why it is in print, and the whole Town knows you are dead. Why, there's Mr. WHITE the joiner is but fitting screws to your coffin! He'll be here with it in an instant. He was afraid you would have wanted it before ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... but he heard you declare how you had been taken and had escaped. Alack, Master Garret, we are in a sore strait! How comes it that you are not safe in Dorsetshire, as I have been happily ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... fit for any crime, Stole all, and left me but the empty sack. Before me lay a long and lonely track Of darkling hills and barren steeps to climb; Behind me lay in shadows the sublime Lost lands of Love's delight. Alack! Alack! ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... All was then a pleasure trip—a picnic, as it were. No sooner was camp struck than a place was cleared and dancing began to the sound of the violin. Many of these young ladies were well dressed—actually wore "store clothes!" But alas, and alack, I was destined to see these same young ladies who started out so gay and care-free, in tattered dresses, barefooted and dusty, walking and driving the loose cattle. Too many excursions and pleasure jaunts had ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... Alack! alas! something so bad had happened, so terrible a tragedy had been enacted that even Flower and Hiawatha combined could no longer keep Mrs. Cameron away from her ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... he answered, "and may be as far away as—any other engagement—of mine, that is." And in saying it poor Stuyvesant realized it was an asinine thing. So, alack, did she! An instant agone she was biting her pretty red lips for letting the word escape her, but his fatuity gave her all the advantage in spite of herself. It was the play to see nothing that called for reply in his allusion. ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... our era, King Mempric, the wicked king whom the wolves ate—as was right and fitting they should—built a noble city, which as time went on "was called Oxonia, or by the Saxons Oxenfordia." Alack! it turns out that we must make an enormous step along the course of time before we can find trace of any such city or anything like it. It turns out that "the year 912 saw Oxford made a fortified town, with a definite duty ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... Glory for her nursling wrought! No paper, pens, ink, fire, or tools of steel, To exercise the quick brain's teeming thought. ' 'Alack that I so little can reveal! Fancy one hundred for each separate ill: Full space and place I've left ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... tinkle frae the west, My lambs are bleating near; But still the sound that I lo'e best, Alack! I canna hear. Oh, no! sad and slow, The shadow lingers still; And like a lanely ghaist I stand, And croon ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... "Alack-a-day! that I should have a son with so little wit!" cried the old woman; "it was no ghost, but a thief, who is now making merry with all ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... know I was hearkening, or they'd have 'greed in a moment for to give me a hiding. Besides, I had no need to cudgel my brains; I'd only to ask you plump. You'll tell me, I know. Which is it, Mistress? I'm for Gaunt, you know, in course. Alack, Mistress," gabbled this voluble youth, "sure you won't be so hard as sack my Squire, and him got a bullet in his carcass, for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... alack! Letters of a lover in an extremity of love, crying for help, are as curious to cool strong men as the contortions of the proved heterodox tied to a stake must have been to their chastening ecclesiastical judges. Why go to the fire when a recantation ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... our eyes in clear reality, in naked, unadorned truth. Indeed, there were many things that the good folks would have loved to point to with pride. You have to search for these now. There are, alas and alack, a few things they would have hidden, had they only known what was in store for them. But all these things, good, indifferent and bad, remained in their places; and here they are, unsuspecting, real, natural, charming like Diana ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... Alack! If the parents could see with the vision of boys and if boys used the eyes of their sires, then fun would be labor, with rapture elysian, and toil would be play, to the ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... Alack! I have dropped my gauntlet in the street. But it is of no import. I thank God that no harm has come to any one. My thanks once more, and may pleasant dreams await ye.' She sprang up the steps and was ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... over the fire, lamenting: "One-and-twenty buttonholes of cherry-coloured silk! To be finished by noon of Saturday: and this is Tuesday evening. Was it right to let loose those mice, undoubtedly the property of Simpkin? Alack, I am undone, for I ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter
... through York [now of course Toronto, AUTHOR] when the whole west was a mass of crimson fire; and once grasping my hands pointing to cloud-specks in the arc of red, she said, "See the spots. They look like drops of blood," while her beautiful eyes grew larger and shining with poetic fervor. Alack-a-day! I wonder if I shall ever see ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... lost soul, alack!— Half he lived some ages back; But, with hardly opened eyes, Thinking him already wise, Down he sat and wrote a book; Drew his life into a nook; Out of it would not arise To peruse the letters dim, Graven dark on his own ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... Priam, Paris. The anonymous letter was in force even in that remote period, the age of myths. It is consistent, for nearly all anonymous letters are myths. A wife stays out late; her actions may be quite harmless, only indiscreet. There is, alack! always some intimate friend who sees, who dabbles her pen in the ink-well and labors over a backhand stroke. It is her bounden duty to inform the husband forthwith. The letter may wreck two lives, but what is this beside stern, implacable duty? When man writes an anonymous letter he is in want ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... of Mankind rode so meditatively, so dejectedly, that I knew by his attitude, he said: 'Alack, it galls me to ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... "Alack!" quoth he, "what have we here? A diamond, I protest! Which lords and ladies buy so dear, And ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... must come and go, Sev'n days at most will bring him back; 'Twas he himself that told me so:— Then cease, fair maid, to cry Alack!" ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... Alack! they're gone—a thousand ways! And some are serving in "the Greys," And some have perished young!— Jack Harris weds his second wife; Hal Baylis drives the WAYNE of ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... ray of light pierced the gloom; and the little boy hurried towards it. He was holding his cage tight in his arms; and the first thing he did was to look at his bird.... Alas and alack, what a disappointment awaited him! The beautiful Blue Bird of the Land of Memory had turned quite black! Stare at it as hard as Tyltyl might, the bird was black! Oh, how well he knew the old blackbird that used to sing in its wicker prison, ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc
... GLOSTER. Alack, my lord, that fault is none of yours; He should, for that, commit your godfathers:— O, belike his majesty hath some intent That you should be new-christen'd in the Tower. But what's the ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... what you hesitated to speak, my good Galeotti? and didst thou think thy speaking it would offend me?" said the King. "Alack, I know that thou art well sensible that the path of royal policy cannot be always squared (as that of private life ought invariably to be) by the abstract maxims of religion and of morality. Wherefore do we, the Princes of the earth, found churches and ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... Alack! 'tis melancholy theme to think How Learning doth in rugged states abide, And, like her bashful owl, obscurely blink, In pensive glooms and corners, scarcely spied; Not, as in Founders' Halls and domes of pride, Served with grave homage, like a tragic queen, But with one lonely priest compell'd ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... have him," cried Philip, as they both scrambled up the bank. But, alack and alas! Pepitia's foot got caught in her long train just as she got to the top of the bank, and down she fell, ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... the gray uniforms and red-banded caps had indeed seemed the good geniuses of the excursion, but alack! they exhibited a different aspect when they had conducted their party back to the entrance of the funicular railway. Not satisfied with the payment which the government tariff allowed them to charge, they demanded from each of the visitors exorbitant ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... are the principal interjections, arranged according to the emotions which they are generally intended to indicate:—1. Of joy; eigh! hey! io!—2. Of sorrow; oh! ah! hoo! alas! alack! lackaday! welladay! or welaway!—3. Of wonder; heigh! ha! strange! indeed!—4. Of wishing, earnestness, or vocative address; (often with a noun or pronoun in the nominative absolute;) O!—5. Of praise; well-done! good! bravo!—6. Of surprise with disapproval; whew! ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... guardian's probable view of her engagement: an abasement incurred by John. Lizzie lacked what is called a sense of duty; and, unlike the majority of such temperaments, which contrive to be buoyant on the glistening bubble of Dignity, she had likewise a modest estimate of her dues. Alack, my poor heroine had no pride! Mrs. Ford's silent censure awakened no resentment. It sounded in her ears like a dull, soporific hum. Lizzie was deeply enamored of what a French book terms her aises intellectuelles. Her mental ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... suppose?" "No; I have eggs." We resolved to sup on eggs. A fire of logs was kindled up stairs, and a table was extemporized out of some deals. In a quarter of an hour in came our supper,—black bread, fried eggs, and a skein of wine. We fell to; but, alack! what from the smut of the chimney and the dust of the pan, the eggs were done in the chiaro scuro style; the wine had so villanous a twang, that a few sips of it contented me; and the bread, black as it was, was the only thing palatable. I got the landlady ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... "Alack!" said Romeo, "there is more peril in your eye than in twenty of their swords. Do you but look kind upon me, lady, and I am proof against their enmity. Better my life should be ended by their hate than that hated life should be prolonged to ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... alack that ye sent it back, It was written sae clerkly and well! Now the message it brought, and the boon that it sought, I ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... come down the stairs into a lower room and was speaking to the servants, a serving-man of his came raving out of another room, with a naked rapier in his hand, and set it just to my side. I looked steadfastly on him and said "Alack for thee, poor creature! what wilt thou do with thy carnal weapon, it is no more to me than a straw." The standers-by were much troubled, and he went away in a rage; but when news came of it to his master, he turned him out ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... young girl, with many tears and kisses, said farewell. As she was passing through the gate an axle of her carriage broke, and all cried out 'Alack!' which was interpreted by some as a presage. She departed from Paris, and at eight miles' distance from the city she had her tents pitched. During the night fifty men arose and, having taken a hundred of the best horses, and as many golden bits and ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... blew a pleasant gale, As a frite under sail, Came a-bearing to the south along the strand. With her swelling canvas spread. But without an ounce of lead, And a signalling, alack t she ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... I was thought to do pretty well here in the country till he came; but alack a day, I 'm nothing to ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar
... the blood-irons to Robin Hood's vein, Alack, the more pity! And pierced the vein, and let out the blood, That full ...
— Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series • Frank Sidgwick
... goes; The birds fly down, alack! "You cannot have our feathers, dear," They say; ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... reception of the news of his unkind treatment, her involuntary reproaches to her sisters, 'Shame, ladies, shame,' Lear's backwardness to see his daughter, the picture of the desolate state to which he is reduced, 'Alack,'tis he; why he was met even now, as mad as the vex'd sea, singing aloud,' only prepare the way for and heighten our expectation of what follows, and assuredly this expectation is not disappointed when through the tender care of Cordelia he revives ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... the joys of the road are chiefly these, A Purple Cow that no one sees, A grove of green and a sky of blue, And never a hope that cow to view. But a firm conviction deep in me That cow I would rather be than see. Though, alack-a-day, there be times enow, When I see pink snakes and ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells
... command;—agues, consumptions, fevers, inflammations, swords, robbers, hemlock, juries, tyrants,—not one of which gives them a moment's concern so long as they are prosperous; but when they come to grief, then it is Alack! and Well-a-day! and Oh dear me! If only they would start with a clear understanding that they are mortal, that after a brief sojourn on the earth they will wake from the dream of life, and leave all behind them,—they would live more sensibly, ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... to Milan, it seems; then I go also to Milan. Five days now departed; but they can travel but slowly;— I quicker far; and I know, as it happens, the home they will go to.— Why, what else should I do? Stay here and look at the pictures, Statues and churches? Alack, I am sick of the statues and pictures!— No, to Bologna, Parma, Piacenza, Lodi, and Milan, Off go we to-night,—and the Venus ...
— Amours de Voyage • Arthur Hugh Clough
... pair of stockings!—But, alack, what a tantalizing situation I am in!—There are osiers enough in the vicinity, but no hose to be had for ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... and alack About six o'clock The good ship strack On the Almond Rock And split like ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... thinkin'," Jamie said at last, a little wistfully, "that I micht hae been as weel wi' Chirsty." Chirsty was Janet's sister, and Jamie had first thought of her. Craigiebuckle, however, strongly advised him to take Janet instead, and he consented. Alack! heavy wobs have taken all the grace from Janet's shoulders this many a year, though she and Jamie go bravely down the hill together. Unless they pass the allotted span of life, the "poorshouse" will never know them. As for bonny Chirsty, she proved a flighty thing, and married a deacon in the Established ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... in a tone meant to make her comprehend the importance of her answer, had she not been already aware of it. The ice was broken, however, and with less pause than at first, she now replied,—"Alack! alack! she never breathed word ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... he looked so pleased, alack! She unhooked and plunked him back.— "I never like to catch what I can," Said Miss ...
— The Book of Joyous Children • James Whitcomb Riley
... fire! Ho, water! for my heart's afire! Ho, neighbours! help me, or by God I die! See, with his standard, that great lord, Desire! He sets my heart aflame: in vain I cry. Too late, alas! The flames mount high and higher. Alack, good friends! I faint, I fail, I die. Ho! water, neighbours mine! no more delay I My heart's a cinder if you do ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... clack! clack! clack! Who could cry in such weather, 'alack!' With a sky so blue, and a sun so bright, Sing 'winter, winter, winter is back!' Sportive in flight, chatter ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... "Alack, alack!" cried the abbot, plaintively, "thou knowest little, my son, what hardships we endure in these parts, how larded our larders, and how nefarious our fare. The flesh of ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... love! I thought you were gay and fair, Merry of mien and debonair. What then means this brow so black, Whose sullen gloom twin eyes give back, Poor little god in tears, alack! ...
— The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems • Dora Sigerson
... EVERYMAN. Alack! shall we thus depart indeed? Oh Lady, help! without any more comfort, Lo! Fellowship forsaketh me in my most need. For help in this world whither shall I resort? Fellowship here before with me would merry make, And now little sorrow for me doth he take. It is said, in prosperity ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... had seen at once how great a part the tailor plays in a young man's career; a tailor is either a deadly enemy or a staunch friend, with an invoice for a bond of friendship; between these two extremes there is, alack! no middle term. In this representative of his craft Eugene discovered a man who understood that his was a sort of paternal function for young men at their entrance into life, who regarded himself as a stepping-stone between a young man's present and future. And Rastignac in gratitude made the ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... "Alack!" thought Dick, "can the poor lad have perished? There is his horse, for certain—a brave grey! Nay, comrade, if thou criest to me so piteously, I will do all man can to help thee. Shalt not lie there ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... gutter, and kept raking about in it all the while to find it, but our Lord already knew that he had lost it in play. St. Peter again gave him three groschen, and now he did not allow himself to be led away once more, but fetched them the loaf. Our Lord then inquired if he had no wine, and he said, "Alack, sir, the casks are all empty!" But the Lord said he was to go down into the cellar, for the best wine was still there. For a long time he would not believe this, but at length he said, "Well, I will go down, but I know that there is none there." When he turned the tap, however, ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... to lose his wits for sorrow, and Dankwart, his brother, said, "By my troth, I rue this adventure. Once we hight warriors, and shall we perish in this country by the hand of a woman? Alack! that we ever came hither! Had my brother Hagen but his sword, and I mine, Brunhild's men would abate their pride; I ween they would walk softer. If I had sworn peace with a thousand oaths, that maid should die sooner than that my lord ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... last,"—she said, taking up her stand between Lavretzky and Liza.—"I had mislaid it myself. That's what it is to be old, alack! However, youth is no better. Well, and art thou going to Lavriki thyself, with thy wife?"—she ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... him five hundred dollars, and run me up to the fore yardarm in a wreath of white smoke; but he was true as steel; and oh that he was now doing for me what I have done for him! who would have moaned over me,—me, who am now without wife or child, and have disgraced all my kin! alack—a—day, alack—a—day!"—And he sobbed and wept aloud, as if his very heart would have burst in twain.—"But I will soon follow you, Paul; I have had my warning already; I know it, and I believe it." At this instant the ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... the earth have gone, alack! Deep into war's mire and muck. If you want to put it again on its track, Don't shift your load on another man's back: ...
— Hello, Boys! • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... and alack! one fatal day an evil-minded fellow got a lump of something solid in his jug, and instead of holding his peace he held a post-mortem examination and essayed to prove by some Darwinian process of reasoning that the opaque thing was more apish than orthodox! Prior ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... Norwegian what wilt thou do then?' said Styrkar. 'I would slay thee; but alack I have no weapon to do it with,' the peasant replied. 'If thou canst not slay me, peasant, I will make trial if I cannot slay thee,' and therewith Styrkar swung his sword and brought it down on the man's neck so that his head was cut off; and then took he the fur coat and springing ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... already there, but, when the scout returned with such dire tidings, they decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and all made haste to get back to their rooms ere the enemy appeared. But, alack-a-day! that enemy could flit about in a surprisingly lively manner, and, ere some of them had reached safety behind their own doors, she came in view. To get to their rooms now was out of the question, so, making a virtue of necessity, they all slipped ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... alack!" "We're all of a pack! For no matter how we walk, Or what folk say to our face, our back Is sure ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... Rufus or the 'Red' 1087-1100 In ten-eight-seven ruled instead; This may be; but we know, alack, Though he was red his deeds were black. Crusades The first Crusade in ten-nine-five, 1095 A million men, a very hive, Swarm to the East, the Holy plain From the Mohammedans ...
— A Humorous History of England • C. Harrison
... "Alack!" said the duck and "A-quack!" said the daughter, "We've never seen objects like this in the water! Suppose we submit it to old Mrs. Ewe? She's wise about wool, and has seen the ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... myself,' quoth she, 'alack, what were it, But with my body my poor soul's pollution? They that lose half with greater patience bear it Than they whose whole is swallow'd in confusion. That mother tries a merciless conclusion Who, having two sweet babes, when death takes one, Will ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... ever more desired to look again on his wife and babies than I; but, alack and alas! I am bound with a chain which seems to tighten more and more each day, and draw me further and further from where I desire to be. But I trust the time will soon come when I shall ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... did not think 't would work on him like that. How pale he grew! Alack! I fear some ill Will come of this. I'll to the Countess now, And warn her ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... Mir. Alack, for pitty: I not remembring how I cride out then Will cry it ore againe: it is a hint That wrings mine ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Alas! Alack! Peruke-making and hair-dressing were not all they ought to be. Poor William owed a lot of money. He was indebted with interest to John Carlyle and John Dalton for L42 15s. 7d.; William Ramsay for L83 14s. ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... waved and its consequent state of new glossiness was a very distinct improvement on the former elf locks. In the sunshine it took tones of warm burnt sienna, like the hair of the Madonna in certain of Titian's great pictures. Lessons, alack! were uphill work. Rona was naturally bright, but some subjects she had never touched before, and in others she was hopelessly backward. The general feeling in the school was that "The Cuckoo", as they nicknamed her, was an experiment, and no one could guess exactly what ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... after supper, entertained with the Glastonbury Thorn. When we have wondered at that a little, "Father," saith the son, "let us have the Spirit in the Wood." After that, "Now tell us how you served the robber." "Alack!" saith Sir Harry, with a smile, "I have almost forgotten that; but it is a pleasant conceit, to be sure;" and accordingly he tells that and twenty more in the same order over and over ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... for each knew that the other, if turned into an enemy, might come out with some decidedly awkward revelations. So they went on in the old way, squabbling continually over trifles and making it up again, but on the whole ready to stand up for each other against the rest of the Form. Yes, alack!—the rest of the Form, for Gwen, in spite of her well-meant efforts, had not yet won popularity in the Fifth. She had tried to be genial and sociable, but nobody seemed to want her. If she joined in a conversation, ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... hold of it, near where it was fastened to the chimney, to show the frog boy how it was done, but, alas, and also alack-a-day! All of a sudden that rope became untied, it slipped out of Uncle Wiggily's paw and fell to the ground! Now, what do you think ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... complex arts as spinning, baking and brewing. Her expertness, perhaps, never reached a high level, but at all events she made a gallant effort. But that was long, long ago, before the new enlightenment rescued her. Today, in her average incarnation, she is not only incompetent (alack, as I have argued, rather beyond her control); she is also filled with the notion that a conscientious discharge of her few remaining duties is, in some vague way, discreditable and degrading. To call her a good cook, I daresay, was never anything but flattery; the early American cuisine ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... he wore the day before, It was clean cast away; And at every step he fetcht a sigh, "Alack and a well ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... Alack! we are thinking of two personages sundered by centuries. My mind dwells on CHARLEMAGNE, whilst WILLIAM is evidently ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 3rd, 1891 • Various
... at that they saw, and questioned them of their case. So the young Princes vied each with other who should be the first to discover the story to the folk; and when the Magian saw this, he came up, crying out, "Alack!" and "Ruin!" and said to them, "Why and wherefore have ye broken open my chest? Verily, I had in it jewels and ye have stolen them, and this damsel is my slave-girl and she hath agreed with you both upon a device to take my wealth." Then he rent his raiment and cried for aid, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... "Alack-a-day! There were a hundred pints in the cask at the start, and I have taken me a pint every day this month of June—it being to-day the thirtieth thereof—and if my Lord Abbot can tell me to a nicety how much good wine I have taken in all, let him ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... are wi' him, an' he's a strong swimmer. Perhaps half an hour will take him there. He's all right in himself. He can swim it, sure. But alack! it's when he gets there his trouble will be, when none can warn him. Look how the waves are lashing the cliff; and mark the white water beyond! What voice can sound to him out in those deeps? How could he see if even one ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... mingled cup of ancient woes, Hard to be borne, that here in Atreus' house Befel, was grievous to mine inmost heart, But never yet did I endure such pain. All else I bore with set soul patiently; But now—alack, alack!—Orestes dear, The day and night-long travail of my soul! Whom from his mother's womb, a new-born child, I clasped and cherished! Many a time and oft Toilsome and profitless my service was, When his shrill outcry called me from my couch! For the young child, before the sense ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... and see." Nora rushed away. She came back in a few moments with her purse; she flung the contents on Molly's bed. Molly took up the silver coins as they rattled out of Nora's purse. Alack and alas! all she possessed was eight ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... "Alack!" sighed Loki again, "weak enough he is without his magic weapon. But you, O Thrym—surely your mightiness needs no such aid. Give me the hammer, that Asgard may no longer be shaken by Thor's grief for his ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... and alack and lucky for me, I read on. I discovered that the compass, that trusty, everlasting friend of the mariner, was not given to pointing north. It varied. Sometimes it pointed east of north, sometimes west of north, and on occasion it even turned tail on north and pointed south. The variation ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... Alack! for dread of being hanged, With voice so piercing shrill he twanged The word of luckless sound, His beast sprang forward at the cry, And plumb the priest dropped down from high Into the ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... of late is shocking bad, In fact, the latest catch we had (We kept the matter shady), But, hauling in our nets,—alack! We found no salmon, but a sack That ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... heard 'the call from Macedonia.' The bishop of Oxford, the bishop of London, the lord mayor of London, and a colonial society in England gathered up some industrious young women as suitable wives for the British Columbia miners. Alack the day, there was no poet to send letters to the outside world on this handling of Cupid's bow and arrow! The comedy was pushed in the most business-like fashion. Threescore young girls came out under the auspices of the society and the Church, carefully shepherded by a clergyman and a stern ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... the nose and mouth and teeth he has, Hauberk close-mailed, and all the whole carcass, Saddle of gold, with plates of silver flanked, And of his horse has deeply scarred the back; He's slain them both, they'll make no more attack: The Spanish men in sorrow cry, "Alack!" Then say the Franks: "He strikes ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... telling her all that had befallen him from commencement to conclusion but, when she heard speak of Badi'a al-Jamal, her eyes ran over with railing tears and she cried, "O Badi'a al-Jamal, I had not thought this of thee! Alack for our luck! O Badi'a al-Jamal, dost thou not remember me nor say, 'My sister Daulat Khatun whither is she gone?'" And her weeping redoubled, lamenting for that Badi'a al-Jamal had forgotten her.[FN421] Then said Sayf al-Muluk, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... a dignity entered into me, and my neck was stiffened, my head poised. I gathered together certain certificates of goods and chattels, pointed my heel towards him and his cabbages, and journeyed townward. I was yet a man. There was naught in those certificates to be ashamed of. But alack-a-day! While my heels thrust the cabbage-man beyond the horizon, my toes were drawing me, faltering, like a timid old beggar, into a roaring spate of humanity—men, women, and children without end. They had no concern with me, nor I with ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... for which an association of some kind has not been formed at some time or other, since first the swarthy savage learned that it was necessary to unite to kill the lion which infested the neighbourhood! Alack for human nature! I fear by far the larger proportion of the objects of associations would be found rather evil than good, and, certes, nearly all of them might be ranged under two heads, according as the passions of hate or desire found a common object in several hearts. Gain on the one ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... "Alack-a-day, Miss, I had a great stock of that same china ware, but now I'm quite out of them kind of things; but I believe," said he, rummaging in one of the deepest drawers, "I believe I have one left, and here ...
— The Bracelets • Maria Edgeworth
... "Alack, my lord, such credit is due only to the blessed saints, especially St. Wilfred, whom you first learned to love at Aescendune, as you have often ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake |
