"Niobe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... most fully with men and women in repose, when intellect, not the heart, rules. His prose has all the purity of outline and harmony of Greek plastic art. He could not wield the painter's brush, but the great sculptor had yet power to depict the grief of a "Niobe," the agony of the "Laocooen," or the majesty of a "Moses." Like a sculptor, he rarely groups ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... arrows feathered weel. In her left hand her bow was bended strong, Therein a shaft headed with mortal steel, So fit to shoot she singled forth among Her foes who first her quarries' strength should feel, So fit to shoot Latona's daughter stood When Niobe she killed ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... into the conservatory and wanted to be comforted. And we did comfort her as best we could. All the winter through she was in and out from the conservatory to the dining-room, becoming very friendly and answering to her name instantly: papa had named her Niobe. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... said, "we all care for the Apollo Belvidere and the Venus of Milo because it tickles our vanity to view the physical perfection of the race to which we belong; it is our own possibilities of anguish that we pity in the Laocoon and the Niobe; it is"— ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... Tantalus. The main one is the making of the ivory shoulder of Pelops after Demeter has eaten the shoulder of flesh. With that you have Broteas, the brother of Pelops, carving the first statue of the mother of the gods; and you have his sister, Niobe, weeping herself to stone under the anger of the deities of light. Then Pelops himself, the dark-faced, gives name to the Peloponnesus, which you may therefore read as the "isle of darkness;" but its central city, Sparta, the "sown city," is connected with all the ideas of the earth ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... disappointed not to find a tender Niobe, but feeling that his dignity demanded the first apology, he made none, only came leisurely in and laid himself upon the sofa with the singularly relevant remark, "We are going to have a new ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... and proceeded to shake the human bundle, calling the man again by name; when, after a little while, he disinterred his terrified face from amidst the folds of his coverings, looking as pale as a Niobe in marble. ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... Parthenon, and was perfectly conscious of the difference between Phidias and his pupils. Even now, if one takes the pains to think of it, the difference between such works as the so-called "Genius" of the Vatican and the Athenian marbles, or between the Niobe group at Florence and the Venus torso at Naples, for example, seems markedly individual enough, though the element of style is still to our eyes the most prominent quality in each. Indeed, if one really reflects upon the subject, it will not seem exaggeration to say that to anyone who has studied ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... on the Baroness who sat still, as though her breast had received the shot. With tragic eyes she gazed out above Karen's head; then: "It is true," she said in a low voice, as though communing with herself; "I am indeed alone." She rose. With the slow step of a Niobe she moved down the ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... Painting, in which it seemed to be conceded that color expressed passion, whilst sculpture more severely expressed thought: yet painting did not exclude the expression of thought, or sculpture that of feeling,—witness Niobe,—but it must be an universal ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... following his body 'like Niobe, all tears.' And then within a month—'O God! a beast would have mourned longer'—she married again, and married Hamlet's uncle, a man utterly contemptible and loathsome in his eyes; married him in what to Hamlet was incestuous wedlock;[43] married him not for any reason of state, nor even ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... of old! What sorrows have ye sung, And tragic stories, chronicled in stone,— Sad Philomel restored her ravish'd tongue, And transform'd Niobe in dumbness shown; Sweet Sappho on her love forever calls, And Hero on the drown'd ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... O Niobe! with what afflicted eyes Thee I beheld upon the pathway traced, Between thy seven and seven ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... which Daedalus belonged the prehistoric period, and his works and those of other artists of his day have all perished. Two very ancient specimens of sculpture remain—the Lion Gate of Mycenae and the Niobe of Mount Sipylus; but as their origin is not known, and they may not be the work of Greek artists, it is best for us to pass on to about 700 B.C., when the records ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... gods, and revealed their secrets, for which he was punished in the under world by perpetual hunger and thirst, yet placed with fruit and water near him, which eluded his grasp when he attempted to touch them. He had two children, Pelops and Niobe. The latter was blessed with seven sons and seven daughters, which so inflamed her with pride that she claimed equality with the goddesses Latona and Diana, who favored her by their friendship. This presumption so incensed the goddesses, that ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... the sea For verdure, vale, or river, flower or leaf,— If first to no man else, thou'rt first to me. New loves may come with duties, but the first Is deepest yet,—the mother's breath and smiles; Like that kind face and breast where I was nursed Is my poor land, the Niobe of isles. ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... cheeks and shining eyes she was a different child from the weeping Niobe who had sat ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... Flaxman's or St. Gaudens', but his designs have more of grandeur than the former, and he is more original than the latter. There are faults of modelling in his "Orpheus," and its attitude resembles that of the eldest son of Niobe in the Florentine gallery,— although the Niobe youth looks upward and Orpheus is peering into darkness,—its features are rather too pretty; but the statue has exactly what Powers' "Greek Slave" lacks, a definite motive,—that of an earnest seeker,—which pervades it from head to ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... in silence, fixed and breathless; But presently the threatening arm slid down; The fierce, destroying frown Departed from her eyes, which took a deathless Expression of despair, like Niobe's— Her ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... pitiful, peddling, Anglicized Rome, first viewed in unutterable dismay from the coupe of the vettura,—a Rome all full of taverns, lodging-houses, cheating chambermaids, vilest valets de place, and fleas! A Niobe of nations indeed! Ah! why, secretly the heart blasphemed, did the sun omit to kill her too, when all the glorious race which wore her crown fell beneath his ray? Thank Heaven, it is possible to wash away all this dirt, and ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... smile makes every barren hill-side blush In rose and purple for the glories fled, As early watchers note th' encroaching flush From proud Ravello to Atrani spread, And curse the cruel arm that once did crush This sea-sprung Niobe, and leave her dead." ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... of heroines, like Niobe, all tears, palls at last, and Belinda, having wept her fill, craves ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... Thebes, and husband of Niobe; famous for his magical power with the lyre by which the stones were collected for the building of the city.—Hor., "De ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... why the Prince's chauffeur had acquired the countenance of a male Niobe. Wormlike resignation to utter misery was, we had judged, his prevailing characteristic; but hard work, ingratitude, and goodness knows how much abuse, caused the worm to ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... on Greenough, Crawford, or Powers, and the two latter upon Washington Allston. There was a small vase of oracular gas from Delphos, which I trust will be submitted to the scientific analysis of Professor Silliman. I was deeply moved on beholding a vial of the tears into which Niobe was dissolved; nor less so on learning that a shapeless fragment of salt was a relic of that victim of despondency and sinful regrets,— Lot's wife. My companion appeared to set great value upon some Egyptian ...
— A Virtuoso's Collection (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... covering to her delicate form; but the mid-summer and midnight air was hot, sullen, and still, and no motion in the statue-like form itself, stirred even the folds of that raiment of very vapor which hung around it as the heavy marble hangs around the Niobe. Yet—strange to say!—her large lustrous eyes were not turned downwards upon that grave wherein her brightest hope lay buried—but riveted in a widely different direction! The prison of the Old Republic ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... were he who lost from thought A noble father, lamentably slain! I love thy strain, Bewildered mourner, bird divinely taught, For 'Itys,' 'Itys,' ever heard to pine. O Niobe, I hold thee all divine, Of sorrows queen, Who with all tearful mien Insepulchred in stone ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... lot of man to suffer, it is also his fortune to forget. Oblivion and sorrow share our being, as Darkness and Light divide the course of time. It is not in human nature to endure extremities, and sorrows soon destroy either us or themselves. Perhaps the fate of Niobe is no fable, but a type of the callousness of our nature. There is a time in human suffering when succeeding sorrows are but like snow falling on an iceberg. It is indeed horrible to think that our peace of mind should arise, not from ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... of Louise de la Valliere, "like Niobe, all tears," flying to the arms of the abbess of the Visitandines for refuge from the anguish of beholding the insolent De Montespan enthroned in her place. It took all the eloquence and persuasive powers of Colbert to induce the fair ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... forgotten. It seems like one in deep distress. "A stranger," says Waterton, "would never believe the sound to be the voice of a bird. He would say it was the last groan of a midnight murdered victim, or the cry of Niobe for her children before she was turned into stone. Suppose a person in great sorrow, who begins with a loud note, Ha, ha, ha, ha! and so on, each note lower and lower, till the last is scarcely heard, pausing a moment or two between every note, and some idea may be formed of the moaning ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... them scandalous adventures or dishonest acts. Hermes was notorious for his thieving, Aphrodite for her coquetry, Ares for his ferocity. All were so vain as to persecute those who neglected to offer sacrifices to them. Niobe had seen all her children pierced with arrows by Apollo because she herself had boasted of her numerous family. The gods were so jealous that they could not endure seeing a man thoroughly happy; prosperity for the Greeks ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... who is left! She is weeping now alone, Like a Niobe bereft Of her own; And at length I dare to speak To the woman seated there, With the tears upon ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... laid out the money in a silver pencil-case; which article, after he had related the above anecdote, he took out of his pocket and assured me he never would part with. He then favoured me with the following history of Woollett's plate of the 'Niobe,' and, as it is interesting, I shall endeavour to relate it in ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... remember: why she would hang on him, As if encrease of Appetite had growne By what is fed on; and yet within a month? Let me not thinke on't: Frailty, thy name is woman. A little Month, or ere those shooes were old, With which she followed my poore Fathers body Like Niobe, all teares. Why she, euen she. (O Heauen! A beast that wants discourse of Reason Would haue mourn'd longer) married with mine Vnkle, My Fathers Brother: but no more like my Father, Then I to Hercules. ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... look like some one in a dream. I really might imagine you a piece of rare statuary—one of the Niobe group strayed from the Florentine gallery to meet the wistful gaze ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... hundred and twenty years before the Christian era, by Thrasyllus of Deceleia, to record the victory of a tribe at a great festival of Bacchus. This statue has been variously christened. Some believe it to be the fragment of a Niobe; others of a Diana. It is generally allowed to be a noble sample of Greek sculpture. Hereabouts, also, is the well-known imperfect statue of Icarus (113), brought in fragments from the Acropolis. The urn marked 122 is a sepulchral vessel, with figures in bas-relief; 123 is ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... expression of the Soul that the creator of the Niobe has presented to us. All the means by which Art tempers even the Terrible, are here made use of. Mightiness of form, sensuous Grace, nay, even the nature of the subject-matter itself, soften the expression, through this, that Pain, transcending all expression, annihilates itself, and Beauty, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... curtains. A diverting little monster. I bear him no ill will. Although I grow slightly envious of his madness. Yet his madness is a terrific flattery. It is involved and piquant and one of the things that remain for me to study cautiously. The madness of Goliath and, of course, this gentleman Niobe. ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... can chasten nudity in the Goddess of the Tribune at Florence, to the embodied melancholy of Hamlet in the brooding Lorenzo of the Medici Chapel,—from the stone despair, the frozen tears, as it were, of all bereaved maternity, in the very bend of Niobe's body and yearning gesture, to the abandon gleaming from every muscle of the Dancing Faun,—from the stern brow of the Knife-grinder, and the bleeding frame of the Gladiator, whereon are written ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... pyles let no man raise To her name for after-dayes; Some kind woman, borne as she, Reading this, like Niobe, Shall turne marble, and become Both her mourner and ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... up to him in the next, by the unquenchable worm—as he'll find out when he tries his 'down, dog' tricks; his 'drop that, will you?' None of that down there in the fire. What says the Book? My dear, my dear," and she took the girl in her arms with a fine look about her of Niobe amid arrows, "I've a bosom for your head and a roof to shelter us both, and we'll see what we shall see. There's castles and towers for the great oneyers and their minions; but mine is in the Fulham Road, my dear; my own property out of a building society that does business ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... would hang on him, As if Increase of Appetite had grown By what it fed on; yet within a Month! Let me not think. Frailty! Thy Name is Woman. A little Month; e'er yet those Shoes were old, With which she follow'd my poor Father's Body, Like Niobe, all Tears; Why she, even she, (Oh Heav'n, a Beast that wants Discourse of Reason, Would have mourn'd longer) married with mine Uncle, My Father's Brother; but no more like my Father, Than I to Hercules. ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... perfect Niobe, if you go on at this rate, Cherry. Really, we must not have these lessons, if they excite you ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... There is the eye gate, and through it pass friends, a multitude of strangers, the forests, the fields, the marching clouds. There is the ear gate, and therein go trooping all sweet songs, all conversation and eloquence, all laughter with Niobe's woe and grief. There is conversation, and thereby we cross the threshold of another's mind, and wander through the halls of memory and the chambers of imagination. But these faculties are limited. The ear was made for one ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... king bade the mother plead with her son, obey the promptings of nature, and bid him live for her sake. She had stood through all the fearful scene, not like a Niobe in tears, but with hands clasped and eyes upraised, as one who sees the invisible, and drinks in courage from words inaudible to other ears than her own. She heard the king, approached her young son, laid her hand on his shoulder, and gazed on him with ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... antique statue of the huntress Diana—at one time haughty, rapid, imperious, with eyes and arrows that dart and kill. Harry watched and wondered at this young creature, and likened her in his mind to Artemis with the ringing bow and shafts flashing death upon the children of Niobe; at another time she was coy and melting as Luna shining tenderly upon Endymion. This fair creature, this lustrous Phoebe, was only young as yet, nor had nearly reached her full splendour: but crescent and brilliant, our young gentleman of the University, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... about two hours in the gallery, and for the first time saw the Niobe. This statue has been for a long time a favourite of my imagination, and I approached it, treading softly and slowly, and with a feeling of reverence; for I had an impression that the original Niobe would, like the original Venus, surpass all the casts and copies I ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... to those we had recently encountered in poor down-trodden Ireland, the Niobe of nations, besprinkled with the tears of centuries for the loss of her ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... fain be kinglier, say, than I am? Even so, you will not sit like Theseus. You would prove a model? The Son of Priam Has yet the advantage in arms' and knees' use. You're wroth—can you slay your snake like Apollo? You're grieved—still Niobe's the grander! You live—there's the Racers' frieze to follow: ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... rest, saith [5997]Constantine, "and for that cause flung headlong from heaven, and buried in a pit, but the earth took pity of them, and brought out cypress trees to preserve their memories." [5998]Niobe, Arachne, and Marsyas, can testify as much. But it is most grievous when it is for a kingdom itself, or matters of commodity, it produceth lamentable effects, especially amongst tyrants, in despotico Imperio, and such as are more feared ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... let no man raise, To her name, for after daies, Some kind woman, born as she, Reading this like Niobe, Shall turn marble, and become, Both her ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 75, April 5, 1851 • Various
... that which actually at last put me in a fever was the sight of the female attendant of the ladies' cabin, whose form was so buckled up in stays of the most rigid order, that the heat, American-bred as she was, appeared to have rendered her a Niobe, for she was tall and as straight as a poplar-tree, and much of the colour of its inner rind. Oh! the heat, the intolerable heat, on Lake Erie that night! The worthy captain declared he had never experienced its like, and that as for rest it was impracticable. If the lady's-maid, ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... now opened the door of an apartment, which appeared to have been more lately tenanted than the rest, yet which exhibited signs of the general desertion; a marble table, covered with a decaying drapery, a Carrara alabaster of Niobe and her children on the mantelpiece, a huge mirror, and a tapestry of one of the hunts of Henri Quatre, showed that Time had been there, and that the Prussians had not; but the indistinct light of the single chandelier left me but little opportunity ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... Marner really existed (nay! even had George Eliot created him in her maturity) neither would he have felt recompensed. Far likelier, he would have been turned to stone, in the first instance, as was poor Niobe when the divine arrows destroyed that unique collection on which she had lavished so many years. Or, may be, had he been a very strong man, he would have found a bitter joy in saving up for a new hoard. Like Carlyle, ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... faithless and faithful, having favourites to whom she gave up her heart, and a husband for whom she kept her bed. As a Christian she was a heretic and a bigot. She had one beauty—the well-developed neck of a Niobe. The rest of her person was indifferently formed. She was a clumsy coquette and a chaste one. Her skin was white and fine; she displayed a great deal of it. It was she who introduced the fashion of necklaces of large pearls clasped round the throat. She had a narrow forehead, sensual lips, fleshy ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... sea-serpents, when a red-faced, bottle-nosed Frenchman clapped himself right before me, and, placing his spectacles very deliberately astride his proboscis, echoed out, 'Sacre, mille tonnerres! this is the damned pirate who boarded the "Niobe"!'" ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Niobe is feigned to have been turned into stone, from her never speaking, I suppose, in her grief. But they imagine Hecuba to have been converted into a bitch, from her rage and bitterness of mind. There are others who love to converse with solitude ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... Still dreaming of the dames renown'd of old, Whom hate or love of the Immortals swept Within the toils of Ate manifold; And most she loved the ancient tales that told How the great Gods, at length to pity stirr'd, Changed Niobe upon the mountains cold, To a cold stone; and ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... inspector came to-day. I was at the blackboard in the Maths lesson, when there was a knock at the door and the head came in with the Herr Insp. For a moment I thought he had come about that matter, and I went as white as a sheet (at least the girls say I did; Hella says I looked like Niobe mourning for her children). Thank goodness, the sum was an easy one, and besides I can always do sums; in Maths and French I am the best in the class. But the Herr Insp. saw that I had tears in my eyes and said something to the head; then the head said: "She has ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... in spite of such minor attractions as those of Niobe and her daughters, at once to achieve the Tribune, feeling, as poppa said, that it would be most unfortunate to have our admiration all used up before we reached it. The guide led the way, and it was beguiled with the fascinating experience of the Miss Binghams, who had met Queen ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... creature!—but the boys were wild for mischief, and just as saucy and self-willed as they could be, and, worst of all, Kathie got into one of her crying moods. She cried all the time she was dressing, and all through breakfast,—a kind of whining cry that just wears on a person. Phil called her Niobe, and declared that if she didn't look out, she'd float away on her tears; Fee threatened to put her in a picture, just as she looked; I coaxed and promised her one or two of my things, and Nora scolded: nothing had any effect, ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... which he himself in a less degree, and with feeling and thought to atone for them, perpetually commits. Take the white bit of rock on the opposite side of the river, just above the right arm of the Niobe, and tell me of what the square green daubs of the brush at its base can be conjectured to be typical. Rocks with pale-brown light sides, and rich green dark sides, are a phenomenon perhaps occurring in some of the improved ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... remember, my dear Madame de Camps, that in 1831 you and I went together to the Beaux-Arts to see the exhibition of works which were competing for the Grand Prix in sculpture? The subject given out for competition was Niobe weeping for her children. Do you also remember my indignation at one of the competing works around which the crowd was so compact that we could scarcely approach it? The insolent youth had dared to turn that sacred subject ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... chaste Daphne wreathed, Yon stone was mournful Niobe's mute cell, Low through yon sedges pastoral Syrinx breathed, And through those groves wail'd the sweet Philomel; The tears of Ceres swell'd in yonder rill— Tears shed for Proserpine to Hades borne; And, for her lost Adonis, yonder ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... arrived at Patesville by an early morning train before the town was awake, and walked unnoticed from the station to his mother's house. His meeting with his sister was not without emotion: he embraced her tenderly, and Rena became for a few minutes a very Niobe of grief. ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... Robin Hood's arrows would be strengthening. When suffering pain, "a right gude willie-waught," or a stiff cup of hemlock of the Socrates brand, before retiring, he considered very good. He said he had heard recommended a dose of salts distilled from the tears of Niobe, but he didn't approve of that remedy. He observed that he had a high opinion of hearty food, such as potted owl with Minerva sauce, airy tongues of sirens, stewed ibis, livers of Roman Capitol geese, the wings ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... angles about the mouth, but as she marked the chilling repose of the countenance, so indicative of conscious power and well-regulated strength, why did memory travel swiftly back among the "Stones of Venice," repeating the description of the hawthorn on Bourges Cathedral? "A perfect Niobe of May." Had this man petrified in his youth before the steady stylus of time left on his features that subtle tracery which passing years engrave on human faces? The motto of his magazine, Veritas sine clementia, ruled his life, and, putting aside the lenses of ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... often passed in silence, and, from the grace of their attitudes, the beautiful proportions of their figures, and their naked feet, you might have fancied you beheld an antique group of white marble, representing some of the children of Niobe; if those eyes which sought to meet those smiles which were answered by smiles of the most tender softness, had not rather given you the idea of those happy celestial spirits, whose nature is love, and who are not obliged to have recourse to words for the expression of that intuitive sentiment. ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... happy, and I—shall try to be. Who knows what time may do—that and Texas? Now, my little Niobe, dry up your tears. Mine are all gone, and I feel in first rate spirits. ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... it is that grief should be so unbecoming!" says Cecil, laughing. "I always think what a guy Niobe must have been if ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... woo thee, Phillis, with more earnest weeping Than Niobe for her dead issue spent; I pray thee, nymph who hast our spring in keeping, Thou mistress of our flowers and my content, Come home, and glad our meads of winter weary, And make thy woeful Damon ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... daffodil tribe suit my famishing prisoners, who allow themselves to die of inanition on the leaves of the following genera, the only varieties with which the modest resources of my garden have allowed me to experiment: asphodel, funkia, or niobe, agapanthus, or African lily, tritelia, hemerocallis, or day lily, tritoma, garlic, ornithogalum, or star of Bethlehem, squill, hyacinth, muscari, or grape-hyacinth. I record, for whom it may concern, this profound contempt of the Crioceris for the ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... pale and motionless, compelled to watch the horrid scene, like Niobe when chained to Sipylus. His servile spirit bowed before the ruler's power, instead of arming his right hand with the dagger of revenge, and when the frantic king asked him the same question a second time, he actually answered, pressing his hand on his heart: "A god could ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... ended (ep. "Theogony" 963 ff.) with some such passage as this: 'But now, ye Muses, sing of the tribes of women with whom the Sons of Heaven were joined in love, women pre-eminent above their fellows in beauty, such as was Niobe (?).' Each succeeding heroine was then introduced by the formula 'Or such as was...' (cp. frags. 88, 92, etc.). A large fragment of the "Eoiae" is extant at the beginning of the "Shield of Heracles", which may be mentioned here. The "supplement" (ll. 57-480) is ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... sluggish stream you will find the heavy chub. In the livelier current, the trout and the pike. If a man loves prints you have an excellent clue to his character; take for instance, the inventory of mine at College:—Four views of the ruins at Rome; Charles Fox; Belisarius; Niobe; and four Landscapes of Poussin; and Claude Lorraine. These last are of constant source of pleasure. I become acquainted with the inhabitants in every house, and know every inch of ground in the prospect. They ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... the Annuals, comes to woo us with the kindred charms of poetry and playful humour—romance and real life—full of kindly feelings, sighs and tears, such as Niobe shed, and smiles that with their witchery light up the finest affections to cherish drooping nature, and guide our footsteps along this world of weal and woe. To be more explicit, the character of the present volume is well told by Mr. Haynes ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various
... flings wide the doors for us and, passing reverently inside, we are confronted by the magnificent equestrian statue of Mr. Bookham Pryce, the founder of the firm. This masterpiece of the Post-Cubist School was originally entitled, "Niobe Weeping for her Children," but the gifted artist, in recognition of Mr. Pryce's princely offer of one thousand guineas for the group, waived his right to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 7th, 1920 • Various
... and Niobe were there, DISRAELI much the worse for wear, Samson before he'd cut his hair, Lord BYRON and Apollo; A female group surrounded by A camel (though I don't know why)— And all of them were ten feet high And all, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 26, 1919 • Various
... been nearly wrecked through the skipper's intemperance, and had finally been put ashore at Malta. He had also been Byron-smitten, and had followed in the wake of the author of "Childe Harold" to the Levant; had contemplated "the Niobe of nations" among the ruins of Rome; had witnessed the dance of the dervishes amid the fallen temples of Athens; and had "felt his patriotism gain force upon the plain of Marathon."[202] He had twice visited South America as the agent of a company formed for the working of certain ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... the gods have shown, In turning Niobe to stone: But man's superior power you see, Who ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... at home with her, perhaps, after the first fortnight, or so. But when a man has been ranging, like the painful bee, from flower to flower, perhaps for a month together, and the thoughts of home and a wife begin to have their charms with him, to be received by a Niobe, who, like a wounded vine, weeps her vitals away, while she but involuntary curls about him; how shall I be ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... moodily. It was about a week after his disturbing adventures in J. B. Wheeler's studio, and life had ceased for the moment to be a thing of careless enjoyment. Mr. Wheeler, mourning over his lost home-brew and refusing, like Niobe, to be comforted, has suspended the sittings for the magazine cover, thus robbing Archie of his life-work. Mr. Brewster had not been in genial mood of late. And, in addition to all this, Lucille was away on a visit to a school-friend. And when Lucille went ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... series of letters containing shameless realistic caricatures was handed to him the afternoon following. They came fast and thick. Not a day's interval of grace was allowed. Niobe under the shafts of Diana was hardly less violently and mortally assailed. The deadliness of the attack lay in the ridicule of the daily habits of one of the most sensitive of men, as to his personal appearance, and the opinion of the world. He might have concealed the sketches, but he could ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... said the King, "some evil spirit is abroad this morning; and the wenches are all bewitched, I think. Cheer up, my girl. What, in the devil's name, has changed thee at once from a Nymph to a Niobe? If thou standest there longer thou wilt grow to the very marble wall—Or—oddsfish, George, have you been bird-bolting in this ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... shaft, And the dull twanging bowstring, and the raft Branch down sweeping from a tall ash top, Call'd up a thousand thoughts to envelope Those who would watch. Perhaps, the trembling knee And frantic gape of lonely Niobe, Poor, lonely Niobe! when her lovely young Were dead and gone, and her caressing tongue 340 Lay a lost thing upon her paly lip, And very, very deadliness did nip Her motherly cheeks. Arous'd from this sad mood By one, who at a distance loud ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... Hall of Niobe, which follows, is one of the most perfect works that ever grew into life under a sculptor's chisel. Mutilated as it is, without head and arms, I never saw a more expressive figure. Ilioneus, the son of Niobe, is represented as kneeling, apparently in the moment ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... a little, appeared the sweet shy face of my weeping Niobe of the park. I felt she saw and recognized me, and my face grew warmer at the thought. I made bold to ask one of the gentlemen standing near me who the lady might be, and not desiring to point at her, simply described her as well as ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... [Lat.] [Vergil]; one's heart bleeding; down, thou climbing sorrow [Lear]; mirth cannot move a soul in agony [Love's Labor's Lost]; nessun maggior dolere che ricordarsi del tempo felice nella miseria [It]; sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things [Tennyson]; the Niobe of Nations [Byron]. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... westerly and north-westerly direction for long stretches of 3,500 m., 4,000 m., 2,000 m., until we came to an equilateral-triangular island, 300 m. each side—Erminia Island. A small channel not more than 20 m. across separated this from an irregularly-shaped island, 600 m. long—Niobe Island. After this came a low island of sand and gravel 5 ft. high and 300 m. long, with merely a few trees upon it, whereas the other two islands were covered with dense and most beautiful vegetation. The main channel of the river ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... with another burst of woe, except from the unfortunate Marie, who stood like a pale and rigid Niobe—her grief too deep ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... after a drenching on account of the David Lockwin Annex—a costly fabric—Mr. Harpwood marvels that men should be created so for the solace of widows! The other ladies show their discontent. Fortunes are on every hand, and Esther is like Niobe, all tears. Why does Harpwood turn all tears, weeping for Lockwin? This causes Harpwood to ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... comes in in her automobile rig and talks about her 'bubble.' Mercury has a bicycle; he's a trick rider, and does all sorts of stunts. And Venus is a summer girl, dressed up in a stunning gown and a Paris hat. And Hercules has a punching-bag—to make himself stronger, you know. And Niobe has quantities of handkerchiefs, dozens and dozens of them; she's ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... means of retaliation. And it is odd that it was not till thirty years after that I perceived one. It then struck me that the eternal intercession might have been equally odious to her. To find herself prostrate for ever, weeping like Niobe, and, if the Gazette was to be believed, refusing to raise herself from the mud or the flinty pavement till I had been forgiven, and reinstated in my rank—ah, how loathsome that must have been to her! Ah, how loathsome the whole cycle ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... with rosy hands unbind 430 The struggling pinions of the WESTERN WIND; Chafe his wan cheeks, his ruffled plumes repair, And wring the rain-drops from his tangled hair. Blaze round each frosted rill, or stagnant wave, And charm the NAIAD from her silent cave; 435 Where, shrined in ice, like NIOBE she mourns, And clasps with hoary arms her empty urns. Call your bright myriads, trooping from afar, With beamy helms, and glittering shafts of war; In phalanx firm the FIEND OF FROST assail, 440 Break his white towers, ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... connoisseur; I have goblets as big as wine-jars, a hundred of 'em more or less, with engraving that shows how Cassandra killed her sons, and the dead boys are lying so naturally that you'd think 'em alive. I own a thousand bowls which Mummius left to my patron, where Daedalus is shown shutting Niobe up in the Trojan horse, and I also have cups engraved with the gladiatorial contests of Hermeros and Petraites: they're all heavy, too. I wouldn't sell my taste in these matters for any money!" A slave dropped a cup while he was running on in this fashion. Glaring at him, Trimalchio said, ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... Niobe—weeping not for her children, she never had any, but for her youth. She is the religion of half Mayfair, though I don't know whether she's got a religion. Men who wouldn't look at her when she was sixteen, twenty-six, thirty-six, worship her now she's sixty. ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... often to say that the chief pleasure he had in visiting Rome was to find the Greek gods and the heroes and heroines of Greek story throned in the Vatican. He preferred Niobe to the Mater Dolorosa and Helen to both; the worship of sorrow must give place, he declared, to ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... idiot," said the unsympathizing Rose. Then she sat down and proceeded to make a series of the most grotesque faces, winking her eyes and twinkling her fingers round the head of "Niobe," as she called Lilly, till the other girls were in fits of laughter, and Niobe, though she shrugged her shoulders pettishly and said, "Don't be so ridiculous, Rose Red," was forced to give way. First she smiled, then a laugh was heard; ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... Thermopylae, in defense of their loved Southland. Right, he conceded, had not triumphed here. For hordes of brutal soldiery had invaded the fertile soil, the tempest of war had swept the land and left it desolate. The South lay battered and bruised, and pros trate in blood, the "Niobe of nations," as sad a victim ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... gone, when the door had closed to behind him, the figure of the strange youth lost its soldierly bearing, and his limbs with a painful spasm subsided into that picturesque pose in which artists generally represent Niobe, or the Daughters of Sion mourning by the willows of Babylon. Every trace of energy and vigour vanished from his face, his eyelids closed over his tearful eyes, and his lips parted with an expression of the deepest emotion. Once more he raised his ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... From the episode of Niobe down to the best song in the "Princess," how many beautiful lines have been devoted to those outward ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... hath death, the enemy of love, Stain'd and deform'd the shine, the shape, the red, With pale and dimness, and my love is dead. Ah, dead, my love! vile wretch, why am I living? So willeth fate, and I must be contented: All pomp in time must fade, and grow to nothing. Wept I like Niobe, yet it profits nothing. Then cease, my sighs, since I may not regain her; And woe to wretched death that thus ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... of the stranger. The salix babylonica, or the weeping willow, in its geographical range, sweeps through the plains of Judea, and by the ruins of Babylon, from the verge of the Mediterranean to the frontiers of Japan—a lovely line of beauty—the Niobe of vegetation! Sad memorial of the mournful march of the captive Hebrews. It is, we think, a very striking circumstance, that these countries should even now retain such unchanged lineaments of their ancient history. Time seems to linger, or move slowly on; as if the wheels ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various
... He was not mistaken. Nero listened, with stony face and fixed eyes, to the consolation offered by knights and senators. It was evident that, even if he suffered, he was thinking of this: What impression would his suffering make upon others? He was posing as a Niobe, and giving an exhibition of parental sorrow, as an actor would give it on the stage. He had not the power even then to endure in his silent and as it were petrified sorrow, for at moments he made a gesture as if ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... fat and crying like Niobe or Niagara, Mrs. Peters threw her arms around her lord and dissolved upon him. Mr. Peters would have striven to extricate the dollar bill from its deposit vault, but his arms were bound to ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... than to keep these forms of gods and heroes ever present to our fancy. The assertion may appear somewhat strange at present, but I hope in the sequel to demonstrate its justice: it is only before the groups of Niobe or Laocon that we first enter into the spirit of the tragedies ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... whom both heaven and earth and seas are seen; Queen of the nether skies, where half the year Thy silver beams descend, and light the gloomy sphere; Goddess of maids, and conscious of our hearts, So keep me from the vengeance of thy darts, (Which Niobe's devoted issue felt, When hissing through the skies the feathered deaths ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabel Lee." And the sense of loss goes through and through one like a flight of arrows. Another noble picture, more realistic, more sculpturesque, is of Annabel mourning on her knees in her room. Her bended head makes her akin to "Niobe, ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... bride). Nobody else was there but the family, and Ida, whose husband was abroad; the sun shone, though it was not yet May—and then we breakfasted; and John Gilpin made a very funny speech, though with tears in his voice; and as for poor Maman-belle-mere, as Barty called her, she was a very Niobe. ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... voice, and he rowed the boat noiselessly under the shadow of a willow on the bank. But the skiff had scarcely been brought to a stop there when an elderly matron, who shared the couch of an old Macedonian man of a distinguished, soldierly appearance, called the name "Niobe." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the desire of explaining unusual natural appearances, coupled with the idea that sin must be followed by retribution, we also owe the well-known Niobe myth. Having incurred the divine wrath, Niobe saw those dearest to her destroyed by missiles from heaven, and was finally transformed into a rock on Mount Sipylos which bore some vague resemblance to the human form, and her tears ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... like her sirname with the last letter changed to n. But to resoom: The galleries of Florence contains priceless pictures and statuary, so many of 'em that to enjoy them as you should, and want to, would take years. Why, in the hall of Niobe I wanted to stay for days to cry and weep and enjoy myself. I took my linen handkerchief out of my pocket to have it ready, for I laid out to weep some, and did, the mother's agony wuz so real, holdin' one child while the rest wuz grouped about her in dyin' agony. One of ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... When haughty Niobe, with joy and pride, Saw all her shining offspring grace her side; She view'd their charms, exulting at each line, And then oppos'd 'em to the race divine! Enrag'd Latona urg'd the silver bow: Immortal vengeance laid their beauties low. No more a mother now—too much she mourn'd, By grief ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... the strange narrow jealousy of her nature, trembled for her laurels. Myrrha was followed by Marie Stuart, and Marie Stuart by Medea. In the latter part Madame Ristori excited the greatest enthusiasm. Ary Scheffer designed her costumes for her; and the Niobe that stands in the Uffizzi Gallery at Florence, suggested to Madame Ristori her famous pose in the scene with the children. She would not consent, however, to remain in France, and we find her subsequently playing in almost every country in the world from Egypt ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... row?" was the reply. "Have the French landed? or is the kitchen chimney on fire? eh! What do I behold! Fairlegh, lightly and elegantly attired in nothing but his shirt, and Thomas standing like Niobe, the picture of woe! Here's a sight ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... about a book, was to be dealt with criminally, free speech, free action, the noble inheritance of our ancestors, were gone, and the liberties of the country no more. Collecting himself for a last effort, he represented the Goddess of Liberty, like Niobe, all tears, weeping over the fate of her children, should the iniquity, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... long my grief has kept me drunk: Sure there 's a lethargy in mighty woe; Tears stand congealed, and cannot flow. ........ Tears for a stroke foreseen, afford relief; But unprovided for a sudden blow, Like Niobe, we marble grow, And petrify ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... passing, but afterwards. I made a good suggestion to Miss Hosmer for the design of a fountain,—a lady bursting into tears, water gushing from a thousand pores, in literal translation of the phrase; and to call the statue "Niobe, all Tears." I doubt whether she adopts the idea; but Bernini would have been delighted with it. I should think the gush of water might be so arranged as to form a beautiful drapery about the figure, ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... earth! Must I remember? why, she would hang on him, As if increase of appetite had grown By what it fed on: And yet, within a month,— Let me not think on't,—Frailty, thy name is Woman!— A little month; or ere those shoes were old With which she follow'd my poor father's body, Like Niobe, all tears;—she married with my uncle, My father's brother; but no more like my father Than I to Hercules. It is not, nor it cannot come to, good: But break, my heart, for ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... paused at the spot where Columbine and I had sat down so disconsolately in our ragged finery, and looked dubiously upon London. I almost expected to see her again, standing on the hill's brink, "like Niobe all tears;"—mournful ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... London, thou Niobe, who sittest in stone, amidst thy stricken and fated children; nurse of the desolate, that hidest in thy bosom the shame, the sorrows, the sins of many sons; in whose arms the fallen and the outcast shroud their distresses, ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... long ago on the slopes of Mount Sipylos, between the valley of the Hermos and the Gulf of Smyrna. The traditional capital of this kingdom was Magnesia, the most ancient of cities, the residence of Tantalus, the father of Niobe and the Pelopidae. The Leleges rise up before us from many points at the same time, but always connected with the most ancient memories of Greece and Asia. The majority of the strongholds on the Trojan coast belonged to them—such as Antandros ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... third time. The crazy "murderess" had veered her course, but what was that other object nearby? A Niobe weeping for her own and the world's sorrows! Or this one over here—a shrieking maniac calling on all Hell's legions for vengeance on fancied enemies! Beyond, gibbering victims of paresis, white-haired idiots, wasted sufferers from ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... rock, extending his graceful hand in triumph over the terrible snake. Oh, he was simply beautiful! Venus entranced me. She looked as if she had just risen from the foam of the sea, and her loveliness was like a strain of heavenly music. I also saw poor Niobe with her youngest child clinging close to her while she implored the cruel goddess not to kill her last darling. I almost cried, it was all so real and tragic. General Loring kindly showed me a copy of one of the wonderful bronze ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... the green willows and poplars by the roadside, which, like mourners by an open grave, had been bowing their heads to the earth, and brandishing their long arms, with their silver tresses spread out on the winds, now stood as if dead, with an expression of dumb grief like the statue of Niobe on Sipylos. Only the trembling aspen shook its ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... it should indicate strong liking, and that honestly. It matters not so much what the thing is, as that the builder should really love it and enjoy it, and say so plainly. The architect of Bourges Cathedral liked hawthorns; so he has covered his porch with hawthorn,—it is a perfect Niobe of May. Never was such hawthorn; you would try to gather it forthwith, but for fear of being pricked. The old Lombard architects liked hunting; so they covered their work with horses and hounds, and men blowing trumpets two yards long. The base Renaissance ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin |
