Frown

“ Whether the thoughts that chased one another so rapidly through that busy brain were kindly or angry, whether the glimpses of the future were gloomy or hopeful—the smooth, white brow and steady lips betrayed, neither by frown nor smile. ”

“ And would it not be dreadful, if when you grew up, you always had a frown on your face and were not nice looking at all? You know the frown wrinkles try to stay, and every time we let them come out they leave a tiny mark. ”

“ Frown on him!
He comes with a withering breath,
With a gloomy scowl,
With a shriek and a howl,
Freezing Nature to death!
He stamps on the hills,
He fetters the rills,
And every hollow with snow he fills! ”

“ He had a deep frown between the eyes, which were of a cold stone color, of a most peculiar expression, and exceedingly quick and restless; always darting hither and thither, never as if looking for a bright side to anything, but always as if seeking for something amiss. ”

“ What see you in the dying year?
And so from face to face I flit,
The countless eyes that stare and stare;
Some are with approbation lit,
And some are shadowed with despair.
Some show a smile and some a frown ”

“ This explanation does not seem to me satisfactory, because it only pushes the question further back, and we must still ask: But why does the child frown when it cries? But, indeed, it suffices to render Darwin’s hypothesis improbable, if we call to mind that new-born children frown before they shed a single tear. ”

“ But if you frown at the world the world is going to frown at you, and if you mistrust it, it will mistrust you. I used to stand as a boy on the river bank on my father's farm and shout at the great rugged cliff across the silver Buffalo River. ”

“ Don’t frown, you look best when you are laughing. I get so tired of frowning faces. Wilfred so often frowns all dinner-time when he is thinking over something connected with microbes. And he frowns over his chess, when he cannot make up his mind whether to exchange bishops. We play chess every evening. ”

“ You have set your heart and face against society, when you thought it wrong, and returned it frown for frown. Excellent: now can you afford to forget it, reckoning all your action no more than the passing of your hand through the air, or a little breath of your mouth? ”

“ The smile disappears, the features contract into an expression of pain, and, beginning to cry, it turns away its head, and makes such movements of escape as are possible. What is the meaning of these facts? Why does not the frown make it smile, and the mother's laugh make it weep? ”

“ The angry voice of a nursemaid no longer arouses only a formless feeling of dread, but also a specific idea of the slap that may follow. The frown on the face of a bigger brother, along with the primitive, indefinable sense of ill, brings the ideas of ills that are definable as kicks, and cuffs, and pullings of hair, and losses of toys. ”

“ To frown at pleasure, and to smile in pain. ”

“ With foolish sonnets to present her with,
With legs, with curtsies, congees, and such like:
Nor with penn'd speeches, or too far-fetch'd sighs:
I hate such antique, quaint formality.
ANS. O, but I cannot snatch [6] occasion:
She dashes every proffer with a frown.
FUL. A frown, a fool! art thou afraid of frowns?
He that will leave occasion for a frown,
Were I his judge (all you his case bemoan) ,
His doom should be ever to lie alone.
ANS. I cannot choose but, when a wench says nay,
To take her at her word, and leave my suit. ”

“ The severity of the frown, however, was chastened by the expression of the just man, who, although righteously offended, is nevertheless prepared to listen to an explanation, and perhaps accept an apology. ”

“ One does not blush to show modesty or embarrassment to others, but because the capillary circulation alters in response to stimuli. But others use the blush, or a slightly perceptible tightening of the muscles of a person with whom they are associated, as a sign of the state in which that person finds himself, and as an indication of what course to pursue. The frown signifies an imminent rebuke for which one must prepare, or an uncertainty and hesitation which one must, if possible, remove by saying or doing something to restore confidence. ”

“ I am very often on the brink of hating myself. So much thoughtlessness of others; such callousness to sorrows not my own: my hard heart has often reproached thee for sparing a sigh or a wish from me; that every gloom has not been dispelled by my presence, was treason, forsooth, against my majesty, and the murmurs that delighted love should breathe, to welcome thy return, were changed into half-vindictive reluctance,--not quite a frown,--and upbraidings, in which tenderness was almost turned out of door by anger. ”

“ If you insist on his standing up and giving sign of life, he frowns, loosens his collar, which seems to choke him, looks at the floor, then at the ceiling, then at you. Being unable to utter a sound, he frowns more, to make you believe that he is very dissatisfied with himself. ”

“ Speaks the answer, Nay!
In the night I know but sorrow
Till the dawn’s faint beam;
Mist-enwrapped, in each to-morrow,
Agony of dream.
He who for the first time loveth,
Godlike, worlds of bliss doth rule;
He who twice that joy essayeth,
Luckless wight—he is a fool.
Loving where no love returneth,
Such a fool, alas!—am I;
Sun and moon and stars are laughing,
I laugh, too,—and die. [115]
Little maid, with lips so rosy,
With thy blue eyes, sweet and clear,
All my thoughts to thee are flying,
All my life is with thee, dear!
Slowly pace the leaden-footed
Hours that mark the winter’s night ”

“ Lit up, in the agitation of speaking, by many a harsh or scornful beam, yet always sinking, in moments of repose, to an expression of high-bred melancholy, it was a face that looked, after all, made for suffering—already half pleading, half defiant—as of a creature you could hurt, but to the last never shake a hair's breadth from its estimate of yourself. ”

“ When we are assailed by regrets in the evening, and filled with anxieties for the morrow, how can our heart rebound with joy, or our lips wear the smile of confidence and tranquility? Behold some of the many sources from which the fatal fiend of melancholy is fed and strengthened. ”

“ I dreaded, too, the wreck of my mind and body, which—God knows—during a short life have been most severely tried. Eleven continuous nights of sleepless horror reduced me to almost blindness, and being taken into Wales to recover, the sweet scenery, the sea, the sound of music caused me fits of unspeakable distress. You will say: 'What a fool!' But if you knew the many causes that I have for sorrow, which I cannot even hint at here, you would perhaps pity as well as blame. ”

“ THERE ARE SUCH WEARY LITTLE LINES There are such weary little lines about the mouth of you, Such tragic little mirthless lines—they mock at dreams come true, And twist your lips when you would smile, until all joy is dead, And I, who want to laugh with you, am fain to weep instead! ”

“ Had you to weep because the being whom you had learned to worship had with wanton frolic and a mocking smile plucked out your heart-strings and left you forlorn and desolate, a prey to ignominy and to lifelong regret? And had you to weep tears of bitter humiliation in the knowledge that those who hated and despised you were laughing their fill at your folly? Oh! I, too, Mademoiselle Fernande, was young then ... ”

“ The face is pallid with sorrow; the large, dark, liquid eyes are full of mournful light; the voice pierces to the heart in its tones of supplication, and vibrates with a nameless thrill of despairing agony. ”

“ The expression of her face is indefinite at first sight, but a certain inexpressibly bitter line around its full lips and the dark blue, dreamy, and gloomy eyes give the little face the almost painful expression often marking children who have been born in grief and sorrow. ”

“ But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written. You have been told also life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary. ”

“ A few words lightly spoken by the tongue of slander, a significant expression of the eyes, a cruel shrug of the shoulders, with a pursing of the lips,—and then, friendly hands grow cold, the accustomed smile is displaced by a sneer, and one stands alone and aloof with a dazed feeling of wonder at the vague, intangible something that has caused it all. ”

“ It has the right to grin. It may be but a grim smile over the consciousness that it has sounded the last sorrow and that henceforth no greater evils are in store; it may be a mocking, sardonic grin at the thought of our discomfiture over its unwelcome presence and the knowledge that we cannot drive it out. ”

“ I must weave a veil of dazzling falsehood to hide my grief from vulgar eyes, smoothe my brow, and paint my lips in deceitful smiles—even in solitude I dare not think how lost I am, lest I become insane and rave. ”

“ Her brow was care-worn, blighted by the scathe
Of fell disease, which had destroy'd her prime,
And wither'd youth, when youth is loveliest.
She turn'd her from my look—the curious gaze,
To sorrow is a piercing mockery. ”

“ As the day came on, the sounds of lamentation arose. The friends of that one wept. So I asked the sparrows, and the sun, and the gray sky why these friends wept. What is grief? I asked of them. Why should these weep? What has happened when one dies? Where has the spark of life gone? Did it fall to these sodden pavements, for ever done, or did it go on up, to meet the kiss of the rising sun? And the sparrows, which fall to the ground, answered not. The sun rose calm and passionless, but dumb. The sky folded in, large but inscrutable. None the less arose the voice of lamentation and of woe. ”

“ It is such a shock to look at yourself after a day's outing, to find your "fringe" hanging in straight lines all down your forehead, an arrangement that is so particularly unbecoming. You begin to wonder at what time during the day it commenced to unbend, and if you have had that melancholy, damp appearance many hours. ”

“ That, as it happens in dreams, when a dear face, stooping to kiss us,
Takes, ere the lips have touched, some malign and horrible aspect,
His face faded away, and the face of the Dead––of that other––
Flashed on mine, and writhing, through every change of emotion,––
Wild amaze and scorn, accusation and pitiless mocking,––
Vanished into the swoon whose blackness encompassed and hid me. ”

“ Dim tales of horrors long since forgotten recurred to him with a devilish persistency, so that, lying there wide-eyed, he could almost fancy that evil face leaning out of the picture above to smile down at him with all its old malignity. ”

“ And yet each whispering wind has blown
Abroad the story of my shame.
I dread to see men shrink away
With startled looks of scorn or fear,
When in life’s crowded marts some day,
That name falls on their ear. ”

“ Your lips half part in a painted smile,
Hiding your thoughts, revealing but your guile;
Your dark-veiled, dusky, Saracenic eyes
Look down, and look but to despise
The fools who bend to kiss your dainty feet ”

“ And in the morning glow,
You walked a way beside me
To make me sad to go.
Do you know me in the gloaming,
Gaunt and dusty grey with roaming?
Are you dumb because you know me not,
Or dumb because you know? ”

“ A silence has fallen upon the house more melancholy than the loudest expression of grief. The servants are conversing over their supper in frightened whispers, and conjecturing moodily as to the fate of their late master. ”

“ Is it for nothing the wind sounds almost articulately sometimes—sings as I have lately heard it sing at night—or passes the casement sobbing, as if for sorrow to come? Does nothing, then, haunt it—nothing inspire it? ”

“ Grant me the shade of thy wings, O Death, for I would rest within.
Weary of smiling faces when the heart is like to break.
Of lips that are too silent when they long the while to speak,
Of tears that fall from eyes too young, of quivering lips that laugh. ”

“ Oh, the cold, quiet night, when speech is not and sleep has forgotten us! when all the doubts and fears and jealousies that in the blessed daylight slumber, rise up to torture us when even the half-suspected sneer, the covert neglect, that some hours ago were but as faintest pin-pricks, now gall and madden as a poisoned thrust! ”

“ Their own way to the brink:
Then—shall I call you blind?—
You chose to plunge and sink.
God knows the gall we drink
Is not the mead we cry for,
Nor was it, I should think—
For you—a thing to die for. ”

“ Heard in some starlit cañon, the passing of a Poor-will in full cry is an indescribable experience, producing feelings somewhere between pleasure and fear,—pleasure in the delightful melancholy of the notes heard in the dim distance, but something akin to terror at the near approach and thrilling climax of the portentous sounds. ”

“ A flat, sad land it is, where shadows are,
Whose lorn estate my verse may never tell.
I walked among them and I knew them well:
Men I had slandered on life's little star
For churls and sluggards; and I knew the scar
Upon their brows of woe ineffable. ”

“ Without the storm a sail would be a rag. But his was the excessive feebleness of the rag, which the wind inflates till it tears it. He felt himself sinking. Was he about to fall unconscious on the pavement? To faint is the resource of a woman, and the humiliation of a man. ”

“ It may signify rage, or nothing more than the joy of living, and of having a place in which to yell. It is this cry that is uncannily human-like in sound, and when heard for the first time it seems to register anguish. ”

“ Tears are as sweet as laughter to some natures. The proverbial Englishman, we know from old chronicler Froissart, takes his pleasures sadly, and the Englishwoman goes a step further, and takes her pleasures in sadness itself. ”