half-melancholy

As they went up through the wood there had been some laughter between them over Aunt Greenow's letter; and they had discussed almost with mirth the merits of Oileymead and Mr Cheesacre; but as they got further on to the fell, and as the half-melancholy wildness of the place struck them, their words became less light, and after a while they almost ceased to speak.

Can You Forgive Her? 1993

Though I was going to the races, and fully prepared for a day of gaiety and amusement, a half-melancholy feeling stole over me as we rolled along amongst those stately old trees, and that lovely scenery, and those picturesque little places set down in that abode of beauty.

Kate Coventry An Autobiography G. J. Whyte-Melville

Then she knew he was fumbling for and finding some shining fragment and scoring it down the yellowing hair, and unconsciously her voice forsook the wild war-tunes and drifted into the half-gay, half-melancholy Rosin the Bow.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 31, May, 1860 Various

His face, surrounded by dark curly hair, wore a grave, half-melancholy look; but it would light up expressively when he talked.

Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor A Book for Young Americans Sherwin Cody

Mixed with the eager excitement of the hunter was a certain half-melancholy feeling as I gazed on these bison, themselves part of the last remnant of a nearly vanished race.

The Elson Readers, Book 5 Christine M. Keck

Madelon began to sing a little half-gay, half-melancholy

My Little Lady Eleanor Frances Poynter

"You, too?" she asked, with a return of the half-melancholy, half-bitter smile.

The Native Born or, the Rajah's People 1922

He flung out an arm in the direction of the waist, whence came the half-melancholy chant of the lounging buccaneers.

Captain Blood Rafael Sabatini 1912

With a half-melancholy smile and a gesture of delicate mockery at himself for the spell he has so completely fallen under, reluctantly the last master-singer turns to the door, and the curtain falls.

The Wagnerian Romances Gertrude Hall Brownell 1912

"They have outgrown us altogether, these young fellows," he said once with his quaint half-melancholy smile.

Days of the Discoverers L. Lamprey 1910