"Commiseration" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my naming of it, sir," he said, regarding with much commiseration the mere surface of the vicar's face; "but perhaps you don't know that your chin have bust out a-bleeding where you cut yourself ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... of your letter have been communicated to me; and permit me to say that you and Mademoiselle Onslow have the heartiest sympathy and commiseration of myself and my passengers in your most unpleasant situation. But, monsieur, I fear I cannot possibly help you in the way that would doubtless be most acceptable to you—namely, by receiving you on board my ship. The scoundrels who hold you in their ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... the cold open, exposed to the gusting of the wind, and with an empty belly. He was besides infirm; the disease shook him to the vitals; and his companions watched his endurance with surprise. A profound commiseration filled them, and contended with and conquered their abhorrence. The disgust attendant on so ugly a sickness magnified this dislike; at the same time, and with more than compensating strength, shame for a sentiment so inhuman ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... the helme; whose roomes being still furnished with fresh supplies, and our artillery still playing vpon them with continuall volleys, it could not be but that much bloud should be shed in that place. [Sidenote: Exceeding humanity shewed to the enemy.] Whereupon our Generall moued with singular commiseration of their misery, sent them his owne chyrurgions, denying them no possible helpe or reliefe that he or any of his company could affoord them. Among the rest of those, whose state this chance had made very deplorable, was Don Fernando de Mendoca Grand captaine and Commander ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... have been oppressed with many miseries. I thank Him, too, that my fever hath not taken me at this time.' He proceeded to excuse his counterfeit sickness at Salisbury: 'It was only to prolong the time till his Majesty came, in hopes of some commiseration from him.' He dwelt more seriously on two or three main points of suspicion conceived by the King against him. They, he believed, had specially hastened his doom. One was connected with his supposed intrigues with France. He gave an indignant ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... jest," she said, "that I disliked compliments—I now tell you in earnest, that I do not ask sympathy, and that I despise consolation. What I have borne, I have borne—What I am to bear I will sustain as I may; no word of commiseration can make a burden feel one feather's weight lighter to the slave who must carry it. There is only one human being who could have assisted me, and that is he who has rather chosen to add to my embarrassment—Rashleigh Osbaldistone.—Yes! the time ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... have said why,—perhaps she realized afterward,—but she believed him absolutely, implicitly. A fervor of sympathy for his plight, of commiseration, surged up in her heart. "I wisht it war so I could gin ye some pervisions," she sighed, "though ye do 'pear toler'ble triflin' ...
— Wolf's Head - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... hostage, too, is always one which strongly attracts the sympathy and kind feelings of those who hold him in custody. A captive is regarded in some sense as an enemy; and though his hard lot may awaken a certain degree of pity and commiseration, still the kind feeling is always modified by the fact that the object of it, after all, though disarmed and helpless, is still a foe. A hostage, however, is a friend. He comes as security for the faithfulness of a friend and an ally, so that the sympathy and interest ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... dignities. So I found it a very trying task to accuse a man on whom sentence had already been passed, for though the shocking offences with which he was charged weighed heavily against him, he yet was protected to a certain extent by the commiseration felt for a man already condemned to punishment that one ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... a great deal of misplaced commiseration," one of the officers said. "We have all thought of you as having been tortured to death, either by Holkar or Ameer Khan; and now we find you have been better housed and better fed ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... 310 In craggy Ithaca, my mother seek In marriage, and my household stores consume. But neither she those nuptial rites abhorr'd, Refuses absolute, nor yet consents To end them; they my patrimony waste Meantime, and will not long spare even me. To whom, with deep commiseration pang'd, Pallas replied. Alas! great need hast thou Of thy long absent father to avenge These num'rous wrongs; for could he now appear 320 There, at yon portal, arm'd with helmet, shield, And grasping his two spears, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... might have expressed amazement, commiseration or protest; its sound remained ambiguous. They had come to a rustic bench. "Let's sit down for a while," she said; "I'm not as ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... her little family; that he had, soon after, under pretence of assisting the royalists in Calabria, abandoned his sovereign, and actually joined the republicans with the force committed to his charge; he cannot be well regarded as an object entitled to any very extraordinary degree of commiseration. ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... the Belas fared forth from the concentration camp followed by a company of soldiers carrying the big net. Tula with her own hand led the fat lat heifer. His eyes were filled with commiseration ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... the French to the westward is fair for you to follow. In passing to the southward they go close to you. In short, it covers Egypt, Italy, and Turkey." He was anxious that the British Government should buy it. "If we, from delicacy, or commiseration of the unfortunate king of Sardinia, do not get possession of that island, the French will. If I lose Sardinia, I ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... a snort, and was about turning to go to the spot where his horse was tethered, when he stopped short, to stand staring at Bart, with a look full of commiseration, and Bart read it truly—"I'll stop, my lad, if you can ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... the number nor character of his adversaries, and at break of day was found, covered with wounds, in the midst of twenty officers who had been slain around him. He was still breathing, and lived three days; but the only words he pronounced were those of commiseration for the fate of his country. When his body was taken from the hospital to prepare it for burial, several of the wounded in their despair tore the bandages from their wounds, a sergeant-major threw himself on his sword near the grave, and a lieutenant there blew out his ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... time I saw him in that transitional state which is so full of peril to persons of certain temperaments, escaping into too sudden freedom and light from the walls of a narrow and gloomy belief; and I could not but smile, with mingled amusement and commiseration, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... own particular dialect, something quite as offensive? It would become our species to manifest a more equitable and philosophical spirit, and to consider these interesting strangers as an unfortunate family which has fallen into the hands of brutes, and which is in every way entitled to our commiseration and our active interference. Hitherto I have never sufficiently stimulated my sympathies for the animal world by any investment in quadrupeds; but it is my intention to write to-morrow to my English agent to purchase a pack of hounds and a suitable stud of horses; and by ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... looked at Mr. Hislop with a serious expression of mingled incredulity and commiseration, saying: "Such ignerance, Annerew, such ignerance!"; and somehow Mr. Maguffin did not see his way to gathering up the broken threads ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... commiseration would have been wasted on Captain Boyd Mayo that evening. The captain snapped off the light in the chart-room as soon as they had departed, and there in the gloom he took his happiness to his heart, even as he had taken her delicious self to his breast. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... North, only to think, that all those fine-looking people whom Hattie saw from the barouche, that Monday afternoon, were liable on Tuesday morning to have their kid gloves and finery taken from them, and to be marched off to the auction-block! Hence our commiseration. And it is ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... Port stage, and captured them the very morning after the exploit, while they were still sleeping in a hayfield. Russel, a drunken Scotch carpenter, was even an acquaintance of his own, and he expressed much grave commiseration for his fate. In all that he said and did, Rufe was grave. I never saw him hurried. When he spoke, he took out his pipe with ceremonial deliberation, looked east and west, and then, in quiet tones and few words, stated his business or ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... homes, anyhow! Their occupants usually are dissatisfied; the women are nervous, irritable and unhappy; the men are seeking happiness elsewhere. The homes childless from choice should receive our condemnation, but the homes childless from necessity should receive our commiseration. The latter are much more prevalent than many of our race suicide agitators would admit. These are too prone to blame the woman for what is not her choice. We hear so much about the higher education of women promoting race suicide. A recent investigation carried on by a well-known magazine has ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry
... who did, out of commiseration for the lad, endeavor to explain to him the nature of Emilie de Fontaine, merely wasted his words; the gloomy lights of misfortune and the twilight of a prison were needed ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... harangues in which each speaker exposes his own ambitions, greeds, hypocrisies, and egoism, until Monsieur d'Aubray, the orator of the tiers etat, closes the debate with a speech in turn indignant, ironical, or grave in its commiseration for the popular wrongs—an utterance of bourgeois honesty and good sense. The writers—Canon Pierre Leroy; Gillot, clerk-advocate of the Parliament of Paris; Rapin, a lettered combatant at Ivry; Jean ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... on the Continent against a formidable coalition: her expenditure must be immense; and, great as were her resources, he felt it to be important that nothing should be wasted. He doubtless regarded with sincere commiseration and good will the unfortunate exiles to whom he had given so princely a welcome. Yet neither commiseration nor good will could prevent him from speedily discovering that his brother of England was the dullest and most perverse of human ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... tea with them followed, and was accepted. I must own, that I prepared to go to the Wightmans with some misgivings as to the pleasure I should receive. Almost every one of their old acquaintances, to whom I had addressed inquiries on the subject, spoke of them with commiseration, as "very poor." If Wightman could bear the change with philosophy, I hardly expected to find the same Christian resignation in his wife, whom I remembered as a gay, lively woman, ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... celebrate some hideous rite in connection with their peculiar customs, and at which they were determined I should not be present. I descended from the pi-pi, and attended by Kory-Kory, who on this occasion did not show his usual commiseration for my lameness, but seemed only anxious to hurry me on, walked away from the place. As I passed through the noisy throng, which by this time completely environed the Ti, I looked with fearful curiosity at the three packages, ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... exclaimed Tom, in a tone of commiseration. "I saw one of them Parleyvoos once, try to handle an axe, and I be darned, if he didn't come nigh cutting off the great toe of his right foot. If he hadn't been as weak as Taunton water—that, folks say, can't run down hill—as all them ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... Carnet, and several superior officers.—We went on shore carrying our brothers and sisters in our arms. My father presented us to the English governor, who had alighted; he appeared to be sensibly affected with our misfortunes, the females and children chiefly excited his commiseration. And the native inhabitants and Europeans tenderly shook the hands of the unfortunate people; the negro slaves even seemed to ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... are, who partake of my fate, accept my sincere commiseration—I would have said protection; but the privilege of man ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... English and Tahitian. After giving some directions to an old man to prepare food, our host's wife, a large, benevolent-looking woman, upwards of forty, also sat down by us. In our soiled and travel-stained appearance, the good lady seemed to find abundant matter for commiseration; and all the while kept looking at us piteously, ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... compared to them. The Hans Imhof shows a shrewd and forbidding schemer for gain on a large scale—a face which produces the impression of a trap or closed strong box, but, being so alert and intelligent, seems to demand some sort of commiseration for the constraint put upon its humanity in the creation of a master, a tyrant over himself first and afterwards over an ever-widening circle of others. The unknown master who is represented in Mrs. Gardner's beautiful picture ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... the strength of her hands against the sister who had been as a mother to her for so many years. That she had had provocation I did not doubt. Adelaide, for all her virtues, was not an easy person to deal with. Upright and perfectly sincere herself, she had no sympathy with or commiseration for any lack of principle or any display of selfishness in others. A little cold, a little reserved, a little lacking in spontaneity, though always correct and always generous in her gifts and often in her acts, her whole nature ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... a chair, and, commanding the turnkey to retire, he opened the conversation, endeavouring to throw into his tone and countenance as much commiseration as they were capable of expressing, for the one was sharp and harsh, the ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Constance was so nervous and so dreadfully upset by all she had undergone. Lady Merrifield was not the least nervous of the two, and she felt additionally displeased with Constance for not having said one word of commiseration when her sister had inquired for Dolores. On returning to the drawing-room, Lady Merrifield found the young lady standing by the window, playing with the blind, and looking as if she wanted ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the opportunity afforded by the bitter weather of appealing to the sympathies of the public. In summer the occupation of such persons is to some extent gone; in the hot sunshine their rags and piteous looks do not so strongly affect our feelings of commiseration; we know they are not suffering from cold; their petitions and entreaties accordingly fall upon deaf ears; in short, begging is not a paying trade in the hot months. In winter, all these conditions are ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... intelligence I sent thrice every day one servant or other to inquire after his health; and yesterday, about four in the afternoon, word was brought me that he was past hopes; upon which, I prevailed with myself to go and see him, partly out of commiseration, and I confess, partly out of curiosity. He knew me very well, seemed surprised at my condescension, and made me compliments upon it as well as he could in the condition he was. The people about him said he had ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... the generosity of your intentions, still I must confess that few things have ever affected me more painfully than to see from the 'Times' of to-day my private circumstances—the sacred domain of life—thrust as an object of commiseration upon public discussion,—a miserable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... board that had escaped. Squire Rhodes ordered a fine Holland shirt, and a suit of good clothes to be given to him, as also a hearty refreshing dram; and then, kindly giving him five shillings, dismissed him with every mark of commiseration for his unfortunate condition, not in the least suspecting him to be the poor Lyme man, whom both his lady and himself had been so generous in relieving his wants in the morning. Having succeeded so much to his satisfaction in levying two contributions, ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... any thing by Signs, but they mix with it some Sound or Voice. Thus the Exclamations of almost all Nations are alike; [a] is the Sound of him chiefly, who rejoyceth; [i] of him who is in Indignation, and Angry; [o] of one in Commiseration, or Exclamation; not to ...
— The Talking Deaf Man - A Method Proposed, Whereby He Who is Born Deaf, May Learn to Speak, 1692 • John Conrade Amman
... against us, and the waves were showing their white frills angrily in the offing. A double row of spectators had assembled at the jetty, to see us beat out of the bay. If they had come to see us hanged, their grim faces could not have expressed greater commiseration. Our only cheerful farewell came from the doctor and his friend and the two dogs. The remainder of the spectators evidently felt that they were having a last long stare at us, and that it would be indecent and unfeeling, under the circumstances, to ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... rasping voice, abuse of himself, the hurried and discontented detachment of a search party, Silsbee and one of the hired men, and vociferation and blame. Blame always for himself, the elder, who might have "known better!" A little fear, perhaps, but he could not fancy either pity or commiseration. Perhaps the thought upheld his pride; under the prospect of sympathy he might have ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... quite so innocent as he would make us believe; and whether the princes of the blood and the antient nobility had not some reasons to be jealous that the queen was usurping more power than the laws had given her. The catastrophe of her whole family so truly deserves commiseration, that we are apt to shut our eyes to all her weakness and ill-judged policy; and yet at every step we find how much she contributed to draw ruin on their heads and her own, by the confession even of her apologists. The Duke of Gloucester was the first prince ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... might be expected that all who should look upon it would be excited to a high pitch of indignation against the perpetrators of such a crime. The countenance, in the condition of repose which it assumed after death, appeared extremely beautiful, and seemed to address a mute but touching appeal to the commiseration of every beholder. It was necessary, therefore, to hurry it away. Besides, the soldiers themselves were impatient. They wished to get through with their horrid ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... full of surprise and commiseration. She related the scene in a circle of the highest nobility, in the saloon of the Marshal Prince of Beauvau, where the unaccountable self-sacrifice of the beautiful novice ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... he could have no power to restrain the grief that struggled for vent. It wasn't the pity that moved him—oh! no. There was never an hour in the day, when he was exposed to the observation of his fellow-mortals, that some expression of commiseration did not reach his sensitive ear, and many a stranger would stop him with the words of self-complacent condolence that would send the hot blood over his white forehead, and excite in him a bitter feeling of rebellion ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... impracticability of one like Shelley; for to her most impracticable would seem his lofty and ideal requirements. On the other hand, it is evident that Shelley regarded the unfortunate girl with feelings of deep commiseration; and I know that he not only pitied her, but felt strong compunctions for the share which his own mistaken conduct at the beginning, even more than at the end, had had in drawing her aside from what would have been her natural course in ordinary life. Mary, I believe, clearly understood the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... herself intensely. Once again this luckless couple look to her for help. She is to be the one to raise them from their "Slough of Despond,"—difficult but congenial task! "Then you have been existing on lemon tart and one glass of sherry since breakfast time?" she says, with the deepest commiseration. "Poor darling! I saw it; I noticed you ate nothing except the tart. You liked that, ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... life in reconciling Plato with the Cabala, finds nothing more to say than this: 'The sufferings of the Jews, in which the glory of the Divine justice delighted, were so extreme as to fill us Christians with commiseration.' With these words we may compare the following passage from Senarega: 'The matter at first sight seemed praiseworthy, as regarding the honor done to our religion; yet it involved some amount of ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... me, sole cause to thee of all this woe; Me, me only, just object of his ire! She ended weeping; and her lowly plight, Immoveable, till peace obtained from fault Acknowledged and deplored, in Adam wrought Commiseration: Soon his heart relented Towards her, his life so late, and sole delight, Now at his feet submissive in distress; Creature so fair his reconcilement seeking, His counsel, whom she had displeased, his aid: As one disarmed, his anger all he lost, And thus with ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... with an air of profound commiseration; but it was only assumed. He was inwardly jubilant, for his interest in the affair was in direct opposition to that of his employer. Indeed, if M. Fortunat lost forty thousand francs by the Count de Chalusse's death, Chupin expected ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... through which his opening eye caught the gleams of widely-surrounding waters. A ministering angel, in the shape of the peerless daughter of the wilds, who had lately so much occupied his thoughts, was wistfully bending over him, with a countenance in which commiseration and woe had found an impersonation which no artist's ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... perception of a spy, handled and sounded everything. Such desecration excited both fear and indignation among the faithful servants of the house, who still stood motionless about the salon. Monsieur d'Hauteserre exchanged looks of commiseration with his wife and Mademoiselle Goujet. A species of horrible curiosity kept every one on the qui vive. Peyrade at length came down, holding in his hand a sandal-wood box which had probably been brought from China by ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... I leave them at their preparation For the imperial presence, wherein whether Gulbeyaz show'd them both commiseration, Or got rid of the parties altogether, Like other angry ladies of her nation,— Are things the turning of a hair or feather May settle; but far be 't from me to anticipate In what way feminine ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... have not seen a galley at sea, especially in chasing or being chased, cannot well conceive the shock such a spectacle must give to a heart capable of the least tincture of commiseration. To behold ranks and files of half-naked, half-starved, half-tanned meagre wretches, chained to a plank, from whence they remove not for months together (commonly half a year), urged on, even beyond human strength, ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... practice of the law-courts is just the opposite: advocates try to arouse the commiseration of the judges for those who have endured some grievous and cruel wrong; whereas pity is rather due to the criminal, who ought to be brought to the judgment-seat by his accusers in a spirit not of anger, but of compassion and kindness, ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... was in bed; I would repulse her hands, and no longer return her kisses. One day, vexed at my answering her question as to the reason of my change towards her by stating that I had no cause for it, she, told me in a tone of commiseration that I was jealous of Cordiani. This reproach sounded to me like a debasing slander. I answered that Cordiani was, in my estimation, as worthy of her as she was worthy of him. She went away smiling, but, revolving in her mind the only way by which she could be revenged, she thought ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... of the writer, he perused their political obituary with much regret. However, office holding in the far East is not only an equivocal honor, but a precarious means of subsistence, which, as the aspirants fully understand, one can somewhat economize his commiseration. Why, they are used to it in that strange country. The last mail brings intelligence of the degradation of one hundred and ten office holders of all grades, from the proud minister of state down to the humble clerk. In this list of casualties, too, a friend ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... graceless to say that after drinking the cocktail Fitzgerald resumed his aforetime rosal lenses. He was naturally at heart an optimist, as are all men of action. And so the admiral, who had begun to look upon him with puzzled commiseration, came to the conclusion that the young man's liver had resumed its normal functions. An old woman would have diagnosed the case as one of heart (as Mrs. Coldfield secretly and readily and happily did); but ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... character requires knowledge, vigilance, affectionate severity, and prudent indulgence; and if few boys possess it, let us not complain of human nature. Will the husbandman who in spring has neglected his fields meet with commiseration when he complains that his harvest ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... chance propinquity of two alien sorrows in a great city throbbing with multifarious passions. It would have been more in keeping with the irony of life had he found himself next to a mother singing her child to sleep: there seemed a mute commiseration in the hand that had led him ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... his incertitude, his unaccountable silences and equally unaccountable effusions, in short, all the peculiarities of manner which such a condition of mind inevitably brings along with it, only increased and excited the passionate commiseration of Donna Maria. She saw him suffer, and it filled her with grief and tenderness. 'By slow degrees I shall cure him,' she thought. But slowly and surely, without being aware of it, she was losing her strength of purpose and was bending to the ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... poor devils!" said the commander, in a tone of sincere commiseration, "I'll order you some provisions on board ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... beyond the feeling natural to the affinity of blood; and I might have spared myself many hours of anxious concern, on his account, could I only have seen what was now so unreservedly told to me. Poor Bulstrode! a feeling of commiseration came over me, as I listened to my companion's assurances that he had never in the least touched her heart, while, at the same time, blushing very red, she confessed my own power over it. An expression to this effect even escaped ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... rather heavy), but the fact is, I fell underneath, and was utterly unable to move. Had I been pinned and riveted to the floor, I could not have been in a more helpless position. A man whose natural instincts are polite is surely a subject of sympathy and commiseration under such a pressure of difficulties as this. I breathed hard, but was unable to get out a single word of apology, till, with, a laugh and a bound, my fair partner regained her feet, and then she very good-naturedly assisted ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... 1623 to 1664 but two editions of Shakespeare's works, comprising in all about one thousand copies, had been printed. In an age when learning was by no means universal, and polite reading uncommon, it was indeed a scource of congratulation, rather than a topic for commiseration, that the work of a republican had in two years reached a sale of ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... in the Book we are now considering, are likewise drawn with such Sentiments as do not only interest the Reader in their Afflictions, but raise in him the most melting Passions of Humanity and Commiseration. When Adam sees the several Changes in Nature produced about him, he appears in a Disorder of Mind suitable to one who had forfeited both his Innocence and his Happiness; he is filled with Horrour, Remorse, Despair; in the Anguish ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... were made by all his friends to obtain its revocation. But Louis, as one of his historians has aptly remarked, was never so thoroughly a King as when he was called upon to punish,[181] a fact of which Richelieu was so well aware that he did not hesitate to affect the deepest commiseration for the unhappy Duke, and even to urge some of the principal nobles of the Court to ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... necessaries, with which she was but poorly supplied by the cold hand of chance charity. Our adventurer was exceedingly affected by the distress of this woman, whom he resolved to relieve; and in proportion as his commiseration was excited, his resentment rose against the miscreant, who seemed to have insinuated himself into the commission of the peace on purpose to ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... ottoman and staring at the waiter). I might as well be a married man already. (The waiter contemplates the captured Duellist of Sex with affectionate commiseration, ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw
... but Nancy stood firm; Mrs. James yielded. Nancy whispered her myrmidons, and, in a few minutes, was standing by the prisoner, a reverend person in dark spectacles, and a gray beard, that created commiseration, or would have done so, but that this stroke of ill-fortune had apparently fallen upon a great philosopher. He had contrived to get a seat under him, and was smoking a pipe with ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... the forfeiture, But, touch'd with human gentleness and love, Forgive a moiety of the principal; Glancing an eye of pity on his losses, That have of late so huddled on his back, Enow to press a royal merchant down And pluck commiseration of his state From brassy bosoms and rough hearts of flint, From stubborn Turks and Tartars, never train'd To offices of tender courtesy. We all expect a gentle ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... me know whether you think it would give him pleasure if I should write to him. I have often been near his state, and therefore have it in great commiseration." ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... defeat, so humiliating his exhibition of total collapse of morale that the company received the result with but slight manifestation of feeling. Without any show of sympathy even his friends slipped away, as if unwilling to add to his humiliation by their commiseration. On the other side, the congratulations offered Maitland were for the most part lacking in the spontaneity that is supposed to be proper to such a smashing victory. Some of his friends seemed to feel as if they had been called upon to witness an unworthy thing. ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... his firmness and fortitude, it had been by an effort which had cost him no little pain; but the warm welcome, the hearty manner, the homely unaffected commiseration, of the good old man, went to his heart, and no inward struggle could prevent ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... great crime, and what crime was so great as that of the betrayal of Frederick Dalton? Was it this that had crushed the traitor? Thoughts like these flashed through her mind, and her glance, which at first had softened from commiseration, now grew stern and cold and hard; and the fixed, eager look which came to her from those gloomy and mournful eyes was returned by one which was hard and pitiless and repellent. Back to her heart came that ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... angle of the apartment, the Arab slave might have been seen standing, silent and motionless as before, regarding with deep interest and commiseration the beautiful daughter of Laski. The secret which she was about, on one occasion, to betray to Hakem, had now betrayed itself to his own observation. She loved—she loved the son of him whom he had assassinated, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... large, and competition to have something is the predominant fever, there must be always many losers and few gainers. In short, they are savages groping their way in the dark towards some gleam of light, and would demand our commiseration for their infirmities, if, like all savages, they did not provoke their own destruction by their arrogance and cruelty. Can you imagine that creatures of this kind, armed only with such miserable weapons as you may see in our museum of antiquities, ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... remembered. He was dead, sure enough, at peace at last, and the special cause for the ending was of little importance. Sommers proceeded to make an examination, however; he would have to sign a certificate for the health officers. As he bent over the inert form, he had a feeling of commiseration rather than of relief. Worthless clay that the man was, it seemed petty now to have been so disturbed over his living on, for such satisfactions as his poor fragment of life gave him. Like the insignificant insect which preyed on its ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... passion) To form the place of assignation. Oh! would some modern muse inspire, And seat her by a sea-coal fire; Or had the bard at Christmas written, And laid the scene of love in Britain; He surely, in commiseration, Had chang'd the place of declaration. In Italy, I've no objection, Warm nights are proper for reflection; But here our climate is so rigid, That love itself, is rather frigid: Think on our chilly situation, And curb this rage for imitation. Then let us meet, as oft we've done, ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... filling his porcelain pipe, "I have to offer you my joint congratulation and commiseration. I congratulate you on your being no longer a scullion. I commiserate with you on the loss of your salary of eighteen pence a week. Your sensitive spirit would revolt against taking service under anyone of Mr. ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... useless for her to say that he had not told her he was ill. He was in no condition to face the truth. He was completely shattered—the victim of a country physician's practice and of an unrestrained irritability. Her commiseration had been all that was needed to have him yield himself unreservedly ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... my ear that he was one of the dreadful Lobishomens, a devoted race, held in mingled horror and commiseration, and never mentioned {383} without by the Portuguese peasantry. They believe that if a woman be delivered of seven male infants successively, the seventh, by an inexplicable fatality, becomes subject ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 208, October 22, 1853 • Various
... pity!" soliloquised the latter, repeating his former words in similar tones of commiseration. "F'r all that, the thing must be done. If thar war a rock big enough, or a log, or anythin'. No! thar ain't ne'er another chance to make kiver. So hyar goes ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... any future application. Hence it is that good-nature in me is no merit; but having been so frequently overwhelmed with her tears before I knew the cause of any affliction, or could draw defences from my own judgment, I imbibed commiseration, remorse, and an unmanly gentleness of mind, which has since ensnared me into ten thousand calamities; and from whence I can reap no advantage, except it be that, in such a humour as I am now in, ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... school bell started to ring, and both lads had to hurry to enter in time. Bob braced up and tried to assume his ordinary look. His pride came to the rescue, for no boy likes to find himself an object of commiseration among his mates. As for Jack, he had to put the entire matter from his mind just then, having other things ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... Valencia having finally opened its gates, the Cid marched in with a train of provision-wagons, for he longed to relieve the starving. Then, sending for the principal magistrates, he expressed commiseration for their sufferings, adding that he would treat the people fairly, provided they proved loyal in their turn. But, instead of occupying the city itself, he and the Christians returned to the suburbs, enjoining upon the Moorish governor to maintain order among his people, and ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... their court luxuries, and costly retinues thrown in? That citizen George would interpose for peace and international harmony, in the event of an unfortunate misunderstanding between the two countries, was equally certain; indeed he had more than once had occasion to view with feelings of commiseration those small jealousies against which great minds have to contend while seeking to carry out an enlarged policy. Painful as may be the assertion, it is nevertheless true, that whenever questions of an intricate nature arose those whose legitimate business it was to act in the matter were either moved ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... see him again," said Brady to Smith. "Tell him at all events we have, and if he's a wise man that he will live himself and let us live. Faith, it's a little exaggeration as far as some of us are concerned, but if it excites the old gentleman's commiseration, sure Father O'Rouke would absolve me for that as well as a few other lies I have had to tell ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... frequent opportunities of meeting with it; and his account of it, and his mode of treatment, though brief, are every way worthy of the close, practical inquirer into nature, and the sound medical philosopher. His description is not unmixed with strong expressions of horror and commiseration at its ravages. He describes it in a manner so similar to that in which it now prevails, that no doubt can exist of the identity of the diseases. He acknowledges, however, "rubedo, calor, dolor," among its symptoms. Cochlearia, theriaca and similar ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... before her and surveyed her with commiseration and a strong sense of personal grievance and reproach. "Yes, it's me," said he. "Papa told me to go to walk with you, and I didn't know which way you went, and I couldn't find out for a long time. Then I saw Mr. Anderson taking ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... into a deep muse over our accounts, staring at the page or out of the window; and at those times the look of his face, and the sigh that would break from him, awoke in me strong feelings of curiosity and commiseration. One day, I remember, we were late upon some business in the steward's room. This room is in the top of the house, and has a view upon the bay, and over a little wooded cape, on the long sands; and there, right over against the sun, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... wrong in his estimate of the effect likely to be produced by his manacles, and when the ships of Villegio arrived at Cadiz in October, the spectacle of an Admiral in chains produced a degree of commiseration which must have exceeded his highest hopes. He was now in his fiftieth year and of an extremely venerable appearance, his kindling eye looking forth from under brows of white, his hair and beard snow-white, his face lined and spiritualised with suffering and sorrow. It must ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... familiarity. The cottage at the edge of town went from straggling neglect to utter ruin, but John Anderson still clung to it with a senseless stubbornness over which they often shook their heads in pity—in heartfelt commiseration for the Judge who had to endure this eyesore at his very doors, in spite of all his shrewdness or the reputed size of his balance at the ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... descended the staircase into the long stony corridor. There were pictures along the walls of the corridor—pictures of upturned faces and clasped hands—and these drew words of commiseration for the artistic ignorance of the ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... and the sun, looking through the white-curtained valley, saw the outcasts divide their slowly decreasing store of provisions for the morning meal. It was one of the peculiarities of that mountain climate that its rays diffused a kindly warmth over the wintry landscape, as if in regretful commiseration of the past. But it revealed drift on drift of snow piled high around the hut,—a hopeless, uncharted, trackless sea of white lying below the rocky shores to which the castaways still clung. Through the marvellously clear air the smoke ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... sold her smartest, latest dresses, jewels, and trinkets at a very good figure, and put the money away against the Conservatoire in the future. She worked hard, she endured patiently everything but commiseration. "I'd have you know, Miss," she said to Miss de Laine, daughter of the famous house of Musslin, de Laine & Co., of New York, "that whatever my position HERE may be, it is not one to be patronized by a tapeseller's daughter. My case is not such a very 'sad one,' thank you, and I prefer ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... of March 28, 182-, was precisely one of the nights that were wont to call forth these expressions of commiseration. The level rainstorm smote walls, slopes, and hedges like the clothyard shafts of Senlac and Crecy. Such sheep and outdoor animals as had no shelter stood with their buttocks to the winds; while the tails of little birds trying to roost on some scraggy thorn ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... doing anything with or for these people. The fiat for their overthrow had evidently been issued. The fatuity which leads to self-destruction was fixed upon them; and, with a feeling rather of commiseration than anger, I prepared to leave the house. In this interview, I made a discovery, which tended still more to lessen the hostility I might otherwise have felt toward my uncle. I was constrained to perceive that he labored under an intellectual feebleness and incertitude which disconcerted ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... moved swiftly through the narrow path, toward the north, leaving the healing waters to mingle unheeded with the adjacent brooks and the bodies of the dead to fester on the neighboring mount, without the rites of sepulture; a fate but too common to the warriors of the woods to excite either commiseration or comment. ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... his sunken face too plainly revealed that he was just leaving the terrible Hopital du Midi. His blue overcoat, whitened at the seams, was still decorated with the ribbon of his cross; and the passers-by looked at the hero, doubtless some victim of the government, with curiosity and commiseration; the rosette attracted notice, and the fiercest "ultra" was jealous for the honor of the Legion. In those days, however much the government endeavored to bring the Order into disrepute by bestowing its ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... latent pest, Runs fluid, high tow'rd heaven his arms he holds, Exclaiming;—"now Saturnia, feast thy soul "With my destruction; joy, O savage!—view "From lofty heaven my tortures; satiate now "Thy rancorous soul:—but if a foe may move "Commiseration, (for thy foe I am) "Take hence this life, grievous, through direful pains: "Hateful to thee, and destin'd first for toils. "Death now would be a boon; and such a boon "A step-dame might confer. Have I for ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... Every brutal assassination is paraded as "a fact" for Lord Devon, and is recommended to that nobleman's attention; not that the helpless and unoffending family of the victim may be afforded redress, but that the executioner of their parent may obtain commiseration. No matter what the conduct of the tenant may have been—no matter what arrears of rent he may have owed—to evict him is a crime, which, in the eyes of those unprincipled journalists, seems to justify an immediate recourse ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... women gave way to entreaties. 'Great saint,' they pleaded, 'if you were to display some commiseration, we ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... which he had been sensible to the influence of her protestation, despite his will to the contrary. That irritation against himself only reacted against the girl, and caused him to steel his heart to resist any tendency toward commiseration. So, this declaration of innocence was made quite in vain—indeed, served rather to strengthen his disfavor toward the complainant, and to make his manner harsher when she voiced the pitiful question over which she had ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... educational journals of the day, and with the standard works on the theory of teaching, and to lose no opportunity for personal observation of the methods of others. I have often noticed, with equal pain and commiseration, that young teachers, after having once finished their preliminary studies and obtained a situation, are thereupon apparently quite content, making no further effort at improvement, but settling down for life in an inglorious mediocrity. The best teachers in this school are expected ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... the universe Raven was arraigning, was counsel for it, so to speak, and Raven had got, in sheer decency of honor, to stand to his guns. But it was all worse than he thought. Dick's entrance was so quick, his onslaught so unstudied, his glance so full of alarmed commiseration, that Raven saw at once he had been shocked out of all manly proprieties. Dick caught at a chair, on the way to the table, brought it with him and, placing it at a near angle to Raven's, dropped into it as ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... appropriates honourably to the sex in Lancashire the designation denoting the fancied crime of a few miserable victims of superstition. That gentle sex will never repudiate a title bestowed by one, little given to the playful sports of fancy, whose sorrows and unhappy fate have never wanted their commiseration, and who distinguished himself on this memorable occasion, at a ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... have been engaged in hard, laboring work. Before the war when the public discovered women doing very hard work, it excited indignation and pity. The women chain-makers of Craddock Heath, to cite one example, were accorded general commiseration. But during the war our feelings on the question would seem to have undergone a somewhat sudden transformation; a complete turn-round has taken place in our attitude. Heavy work done by women—foundry work, ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... suppose that hereafter, when certain small animals have crossed what he calls "the impervious distance," and acquired the power of language, they were to say, "We have only stung you, and you have killed us," would they obtain much commiseration? ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... short article signed by the M. Jules of whom we have already spoken. The perusal of that article produced a very unpleasant effect on Lavretsky's mind. He detected in it, underneath the writer's usual sprightliness, a sort of tone of charitable commiseration. Next he learned that a daughter had been born to him. Two months later he was informed by his steward that Varvara Pavlovna had drawn her first quarter's allowance. After that, scandalous reports about her ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... Australia. A native man received a wound in that portion of his frame which is only presented to enemies when in the act of flight, and the spear which was barbed remained sticking in the wound; a gentleman who was standing by watching the fray regarded the man with looks of pity and commiseration, which the native perceiving, came up to him, holding the spear (still in the wound) in one hand, and turning round so as to expose the injury he had received, said, in the most moving terms, "Poor fellow, sixpence give ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... which is to decide on the freedom of Europe has once broken out, Hungary has resources to carry it on: but she wants initial aid, because her finances are all grasped by our oppressors. You would not refuse to me, a houseless exile, alms and commiseration if I begged for myself. Surely then you cannot refuse it for my bleeding fatherland, when I beg of you, as individuals, trifling sums, such as each can well spare, and the gift of which does not entangle your country ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... the group around the Captain, Julia Moss treated her husband to a glance of commiseration, thinking him a bored and defeated man. "You've missed the Captain's racy talk," ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... responded to the gong presented a marked and pleasant contrast to the Shoe-Bar outfit. They greeted Stratton with some brevity, but after the first pangs of hunger had been assuaged and they learned where he was bound for, they expanded, and Buck was the object of much joking commiseration on the prospect ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... observation of the world, and she gave way to the torrent of feeling that broke through its bounds, in spite of her endeavors to control it. Marguerite was the only spectator of this silent but intelligible communion between these two young and pure spirits, and her soul was shaken by the unlooked-for commiseration of one so honored, and who was usually esteemed ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... our undying sympathy and commiseration, dear friend," declared Mr. Travers. "Believe me, this has aged my wife and myself. Probably it would not be an exaggeration to say it has aged us all. That he should have come through Jutland, done worthy deeds, won honorable ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... metropolis, and the waste of Means in the uncultivated country immediately around me. I had just been sympathizing with the forlorn inhabitants of the workhouse at Wandsworth, at the distance of only a mile; and half a dozen other such receptacles of misery invited commiseration within equal distances, in other directions; yet a radius of a few hundred yards round this spot would have included as much unappropriated and useless land as might have sufficed to confer independence and plenty ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... I don't think I can pay him a higher tribute than in saying that in addition to being both a scholar and a gentleman, he is also the best heavyweight boxer I have ever seen, in the ring or out of it, and that anyone who expects to make him do anything he does not want to do, will be a subject for commiseration—or the ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... pointing to the child she immediately gave it to him with much apparent fondness. It has been supposed that in holding up their children, as is sometimes the case, it is for barter, but I should rather conclude that it is for the purpose of exciting commiseration, and to obtain some European article for them. A few of the men were permitted to come on board, and the good humour of the captain invited one to dance with him: he took the step with much agility and quickness, and imitated every ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... confident. It must be owned that their end has been worthy of the rest, for not one of them has evinced good feeling, or magnanimity, or courage in their fall, nor excited the least sympathy or commiseration. The Duke of Fitzjames made a good speech in the Chamber of Peers, and Chateaubriand a very fine one a few days before, full of eloquence in support of the claim of the Duke of Bordeaux against that of ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville |
