"Mire" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... skilled in the changes of winds and waves. If the sea should now return to its ancient bed, his people would be lost; for there was no escape, even toward the north, where deep pools of water were standing amid the mire and cliffs. Should the waves flow back within the next hour, the seed of Abraham would be effaced from the earth, as writing inscribed on wax disappears from the tablet under the pressure of a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... impressions with the feelings governing his mind now that it was adult and traveled. He felt that he had grown, but that the town had stuck in the mire. He felt an ambition to lift it and enlighten it. Like the old builder who found Rome brick and left it marble, Shelby determined that the Wakefield which he found of plank he should leave at least of limestone. Everything ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... sanctuaries of God, and shed the blood of the saints round about the altar. They have laid waste the dwelling-place of our hope; they have trodden down the bodies of the saints in the temple of God like mire in the street. What can I say? I can only lament in my heart with you before the altar of Christ, and say: Spare, Lord, spare Thy people, and give not Thy heritage to the heathen, lest the pagans say, Where is the God of the ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... the influence of Gottsched on German literature, of which more is said in the next book.—TRANS.] had inundated the German world with a true deluge, which threatened to rise up, even over the highest mountains. It takes a long time for such a flood to subside again, for the mire to dry away; and as in any epoch there are numberless aping poets, so the imitation of the flat and watery produced a chaos, of which now scarcely a notion remains. To find out that trash was trash was hence the greatest sport, yea, the triumph, of the critics of those ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... be overlooked in this connexion is that it must be a great comfort to the sinner and an encouragement of the most practical sort to find, as he sometimes will, that the hands which are dragging him and his kind from the mire, had once been as filthy as his own. When the worker can say to him, 'Look at me; in bygone days I was as bad as or worse than you'; when he can point to many others whose vices were formerly notorious, but who now fill positions of trust in the Army ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... mire", sang Drayton, "he doth with laughter leave us." These fires were also "fallen stars", ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... cheerfully agree with one of the most active benefactors of the Jewish nation, who while he acknowledges these facts, changes the blame of them to the Christians." Very true, and truly I do not know, what right one man has to trample another into the mire, and then abuse him for being dirty. Mr. Everett remarks upon the same subject, p. 210, "Bowed down with universal scorn, they have been called secret and sullen; cut off from pity and charity, they have been thought selfish and unfeeling, and are summoned to believe on the Prince of Peace by ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... Nevertheless, they were endowed with a sort of reckless, dashing courage which now and then seemed to have in it an element of grandeur. But it is time that I told you about myself, and gave you some idea of the development of my character in the thick of this filthy mire into which it had pleased God to plunge ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... were constantly reacted in these vast western solitudes, and the fate of the unfortunate traders would be unknown, until some day, perchance, a living skeleton, a famished being, covered with blood, dust, and mire, would arrive at one of the military posts on the borders, and relate an awful and bloody tragedy, from which he alone ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... infections that the Sunne suckes vp From Bogs, Fens, Flats, on Prosper fall, and make him By ynch-meale a disease: his Spirits heare me, And yet I needes must curse. But they'll nor pinch, Fright me with Vrchyn-shewes, pitch me i'th mire, Nor lead me like a fire-brand, in the darke Out of my way, vnlesse he bid 'em; but For euery trifle, are they set vpon me, Sometime like Apes, that moe and chatter at me, And after bite me: then like Hedg-hogs, which Lye tumbling in my bare-foote way, and mount Their pricks at my foot-fall: ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... sow that was washed returned to her wallowing in the mire;" and in like manner Cuff left off steering the souls of sinners through the temptations and sorrows of this wicked world, or the infant mind through the intricacies of a—b ab, and once more betook ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... and looked at her. At those words of hers he had once again the sensation of being pushed down by strong heavy hands into some deep mire where he must have company with filthy crawling animals—Hogg, Davray, and now ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... turning up at all. The comfort had been, hitherto, that he didn't realise brutalities. There were certain violins that emitted tentative sounds in the orchestra; they shortened the time and made her uneasier—fixed her idea that he could lift her out of her mire if he would. It didn't appear to prove that he would, his also observing Lady Ringrose's empty box without making an encouraging comment upon it. Laura waited for him to remark that her sister obviously would turn up now; ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... complicated. The woman over whose loss of virtue her forsaken husband mourns with passionate anguish and unavailing bitterness of regret, has been to him, whom she now leaves for another, an image of purity: her love and influence have lifted him from the mire, and "the Worst of it," the last pang which he cannot nerve himself to endure, is the knowledge that she had saved him, and, partly at least through him, ruined herself. The poem is one of the most passionate and direct ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... indebted to Kate Roby," says Mr. Herndon, "for an incident which illustrates alike his proficiency in orthography and his natural inclination to help another out of the mire. The word 'defied' had been given out by Schoolmaster Crawford, but had been misspelled several times when it came Miss Roby's turn. 'Abe stood on the opposite side of the room,' related Miss Roby to me in 1865, 'and was watching me. I ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... we shall forget. We shall be cheerful and happy. You remember: 'Where beauty shines amidst mire and baseness there is only torment'.... You need not mind, it is ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... For twenty-five years dragged in the mire of African slavery, the mother of quadroon children and ignorant of her own identity, they nevertheless welcomed her back to their embrace, not fearing, but hoping, ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... Perotti, "that I never yet turned my back on the enemy, nor shall I now begin. Moreover, were I ever so much inclined to do so, retreat is impossible." The retiring army was then proceeding along the borders of a deep ravine, filled with mire and water, and as broad and more dangerous than a river. In the midst of the skirmishing, Alexander of Parma rode up to reconnoitre. He saw at once that the columns of the enemy were marching unsteadily to avoid being precipitated into this creek. He observed the waving ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... on, floundering in muddy pools and sinking in belts of mire. The road had been made long since, by slave labor, when the Spaniards ruled, and had fallen into ruin, like the country, when their yoke was broken. Kit could trace the ancient causeway across the swamps and wondered ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... not know it, but he was nervous. All day he had been on the alert, and now to stay perfectly still in this strange, silent place, not daring to stir in the darkness lest he splash into some pool, or mire in a bog; with his eyes attempting to see, when it was too dark to see anything but the glow-worms in the grass and the will-o'-the-wisp, was an ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... looking to the fire, to foretell what strangers would come to his house the next day, or shortly thereafter, by their habit and arms, and sometimes also by their name; and if any of his goods or cattle were missing, he would direct his servants to the very place where to find them, whether in a mire or upon dry ground; he would also tell, if the beast were already dead, or if it would die ere they could come to it; and in winter, if they were thick about the fire-side, he would desire them to make ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... plucked at her skirts again and again in vain, and had eyed the money lying on the threshold with an absorbing greed that seemed to concentrate her faculties upon it, would have prowled about, until the house was dark, and then groped in the mire on the chance of repossessing herself of it. But the daughter drew her away, and they set forth, straight, on their return to their dwelling; the old woman whimpering and bemoaning their loss upon the road, and fretfully bewailing, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... have been perfectly hateful and abominable in this dirty, cheerless Berlin if we had not seen above us a glittering star, to which we could look up when all was so dismal here below, which shone upon our path and cheered us when we feared to sink in the mud and mire. This star, my son, do you know ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... him. During one of the Court journeys, the carriage in which Rose was riding broke down. He took a horse; but, not being a good equestrian, was very soon pitched into a hole full of mud. While there M. de Duras passed, and Rose from the midst of the mire cried for help. But M. de Duras, instead of giving assistance, looked from his coach-window, burst out laughing, and cried out: "What a luxurious horse thus to roll upon Roses!"—and with this witticism passed ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... Has moulded your son)—Ver. 898. "Mire finxit." He sarcastically uses the same word, "fingo," which Chremes ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... earnest—which he was likely to do whenever he spoke. He would begin to discuss my cows, the principles of farming, the sky, the birds of passage, the flowers, the sucking in of the Dutchman—which I told him all about before we had gone five miles—the mire-holes in the slews, anything at all—and rising from a joke or a flighty notion which he earnestly advocated, he would lower his voice and elevate his language and utter a little gem of an oration. After which he would be still and solemn for a while—to let it ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... little pony, His name was Dapple-gray, I lent him to a lady, To ride a mile away; She whipped him, she slashed him, She rode him through the mire; I would not lend my pony now For all ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... accident in the poor quarters near the Manzanares river, is surprised at the spectacle of poverty and sordidness, of sadness and neglect presented by the environs of Madrid with their wretched Rondas, laden with dust in the summer and in winter wallowing in mire. The capital is a city of contrasts; it presents brilliant light in close proximity to deep gloom; refined life, almost European, in the centre; in the suburbs, African existence, like that of an Arab village. Some years ago, not many, in the vicinity of the Ronda de Sevilla and ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... why you left her so," he said, "and why you did not face it. You feared her name might be dragged in the mire! Because he threatened to bring her into that miserable business, you never raised a hand. I always knew you were a gentleman, but I did not know you were Don ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... betrayed the traveller into a gulf of black, smothering mud; there were also dark and stagnant pools, the abodes of the tadpole, the bull-frog, and the water-snake, where the trunks of pines and hemlocks lay half-drowned, half-rotting, looking like alligators sleeping in the mire. ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... curious to learn whether the truth will ever be generally known concerning the seizure of the Anglo-rebel steamer Peterhoff. Then the people would learn how old Welles bravely defended what turpe Seward had decided to drag in the mire. The people would learn what an utterly ignorant impudence presided over the restoring to England of the Peterhoff's mail bag of a vessel a contrabandist, a blockade runner, and a forger. The people would know how Mr. Seward, aided by Mr. Lincoln, has done all in his power to make impossible ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... relief. He looked at the Canon in wonder and admiration. It had been beyond hope that a man grown gray in a narrow faith, a faith in which for centuries religion and politics had been inextricably blended, could have risen in one clear flight above the mire of prejudice. It seemed, even after he had spoken, impossible that in Ireland, where political opponents believe each other to be thieves and murderers, there could be found even one man, and he from the least emancipated class of all, who ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... attic room in New York City, with no partitions between. Here they "cook, eat, sleep, wash, live and die," in the one room. In our large cities are armies of children, whose shoulders "droop with parental vice," whose feet are fast in the mire of miserable conditions, whose hovel homes line the sewers of social life, and who are cursed and ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... I once took a young girl—lifted her up from the mire of the streets and carried her in my arms. Next my heart I carried her. So I would have borne her all through life—lest haply she should dash her foot against a stone. For her shoes were worn very ...
— When We Dead Awaken • Henrik Ibsen
... it was merely his way of looking at a world unknown to his listener. She did not know of what woman it was that he had dared to speak with such contempt; probably of some one she had never seen. It was not at the stranger alone; it was through her at all women that the mire of ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... the ship was to be launched. Here the train stopped, and absolutely deposited our whole party of excursionists, under a heavy shower, in the midst of a muddy potato-field, whence we were to wade through mud and mire to the ship-yard, almost half a mile off. Some kind Christian, I know not whom, gave me half of his umbrella, and half of his cloak, and thereby I got to a shed near the ship, without being entirely ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... replied Edith. "When our feet were in slippery places, and we leaned on Him, did he not support us firmly? and when the mire and clay were deep in our path, did He not keep ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... over Faversham's prostrate form. He was unconscious; his head and face were covered with blood, and his left ankle was apparently broken. A small open motor stood at the bottom of the hill, and an angry dispute was going on between an old man in mire-stained working-clothes, and the young doctor from Pengarth to whom the ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... depth of winter, the roads were often wrought into rivers of mire, and at many points almost impassable even for well-appointed conveyances. In connection therewith, I had one very perilous experience. I had to go from Clunes to a farm in the Learmouth district. The dear old Minister there, ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... speaking of something non-existent. It is rather the Eternal itself that the Mystics are seeking. They have first to awaken the Eternal within them, then they can speak of it. Hence the hard saying of Plato is quite real to them, that the uninitiated sinks into the mire, and that only one who has passed through the mystical life enters eternity. It is only in this sense that the words in the fragment of Sophocles can be understood: "Thrice-blessed are the initiated who come to the realm of the shades. They alone ...
— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner
... gold and perfumes, this careless indifference to all things, these unbridled passions, these religious beliefs cast into that heart like diamonds into mire, this life begun, and ended, in a hospital, these gambling chances transferred to the soul, to the very existence,—in short, this great alchemy, for which vice lit the fire beneath the crucible in which fortunes were melted up and the gold of ancestors and the honor ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac
... I listened, I heard a mutter of rough voices without, a tramp of feet, and the door swung suddenly open to admit two men, or rather three, for between them they dragged one, a short, squat fellow in riding boots and horseman's coat, but all so torn and bedraggled, so foul of blood and mire, as to seem scarce human. His hat was gone and his long, rain-soaked hair clung in black tangles about his bruised face and as he stood, swaying in his bonds, I thought him ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... "Rich in troops from Mourne and Bann, Blood he'll draw o'er shafts of spears; He will cast to mire and sand These ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... Iver was regardless where he trod. He sank over his knees in the mire, and was obliged to extricate himself before he ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... thought never had occurred to him of fighting for any cause or any person. He was not a Pole, although born in a Polish province of the Austrian Empire. His father was a Jew, of German extraction, as indicated by his name, which signifies a place where one sinks in the mire, a bog, swamp, or something of that nature; and he kept a tavern in a wretched little market-town near the eastern frontier of Galicia—a forlorn tavern, a forlorn tavern-keeper. Although always on the alert to sell adulterated brandy to his neighbour, ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... or another. One very handsome girl, bareheaded and barefooted, and got up light and airy as to costume, begged unblushingly without any excuse. She gathered up her light drapery with one hand, and kept up with the horse, skelping along through mud and mire as if she liked it. I noticed that she was set on by her parents who were the occupiers ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... the world may be upon a woman after she is down in the mire, there is no denying that it is reluctant to tumble her from her eminence and throw her there. A woman will find more champions than detractors in the face of the most serious charge; especially a young and ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... authority. For Edith, she stood stunned and bewildered still. She saw the man lifted and carried into a chemist's near by. Instinctively she followed—it was in saving her he had come to grief. She saw him placed in a chair, the mire and blood washed off his face, and then—was she stunned and stupefied still—or was it, was it the face of Sir ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... Many's the gallon I've drunk of it—ay, in the midwinter, toiling like a slave. All through, what has my life been? Bend, bend, bend my old creaking back till it would ache like breaking; wade about in the foul mire, never a dry stitch; empty belly, sore hands, hat off to my Lord Redface; kicks and ha'pence; and now, here, at the hind end, when I'm worn to my poor bones, a kick and done with it." He walked a little while in silence, and then, extending his hand, "Now, you Nance Holdaway," ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... grey mare, Meg, A better never lifted leg, Tam skelpit on thro' dub and mire, Despising wind, and rain, and fire; Whiles haulding fast his gude blue bonnet; Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet; Whiles glowring round wi' prudent cares, Lest bogles catch him unawares; Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh, Whare ghaists and ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... all right! The men are trumps." Mathew Coffin, too, came up. "It doesn't look much, Major Cleave, like the day we marched away! All the serenading and the flowers—we never thought war could be ugly." He glanced disconsolately down at a torn cuff and a great smear of frozen mire adorning his coat. "I'm rather glad the ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... the privileged few who use the power their money gives them to keep their less fortunate fellow men in servile subjection. I want to be rich, very rich, but I will use my wealth for good. With it I will help my fellow man rise from the mire. I will help him throw off the shackles with which conscienceless capitalism has fettered him. I want to be such a power ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... "Who's she?" ye question: yonder one ye sight Mincingly pacing mime-like, perfect pest, With jaws wide grinning like a Gallic pup. Stand all round her dunning with demands, 10 "Return (O rotten whore!) our noting books. Our noting books (O rotten whore!) return!" No doit thou car'st? O Mire! O Stuff o' stews! Or if aught fouler filthier dirt there be. Yet must we never think these words suffice. 15 But if naught else avail, at least a blush Forth of that bitch-like brazen brow we'll squeeze. Cry all together ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... and wait and listen. There is not a sound for a moment; then I hear a laugh from M'sieu' Cournal, such a laugh make me sick—loud, and full of what you call not care and the devil. Madame speak down at them. 'Ah,' she say, 'it is so fine a sport to drag a woman's name in the mire!' Her voice is full of spirit. and she look beautiful—beautiful. I never guess how a woman like that look; so full of pride, and to speak like you could think knives sing as they strike steel—sharp and cold. 'I came to see how gentlemen ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... guarantee her? Independence and integrity! That is exactly the same that Germany had promised her. For this Belgium had to be dragged through the horrors of war, and the good name of Germany as that of an honest nation had to be dragged through the mire, and hatred and murder had to be started, that Belgium might get on the battlefield, from the insufficient support of Russia and France and England, what Germany had freely offered her—independence ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... attention seriously to the question whether prevention is not better than cure. It is easier and cheaper, and in every way better, to prevent the loss of home than to have to re-create that home. It is better to keep a man out of the mire than to let him fall in first and then risk the chance of plucking him out. Any Scheme, therefore, that attempts to deal with the reclamation of the lost must tend to develop into an endless variety of ameliorative measures, of some of which I shall have somewhat ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... vice; Protestant straightness often lauds spirituality and faith, and neglects homely truth, candor, and generosity; and ultra-liberal Rationalistic refinement sometimes soars to heaven in its dreams, and wallows in the mire of ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... of the Gridiron one thought alone occupied him. Murray McTavish had lied. He had lied deliberately to Bill Brudenell. He had made no attempt to save the boy from the mire into which he had helped to fling him. On the contrary, he had thrust him deeper and deeper into it. Why? What—what was the meaning of it all? Where were things heading? What purpose lay ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... They are embedded in an economic system which has driven them—whether they liked it or not—along a path of imperialism. Once having entered upon this path, they are compelled to follow it into the sodden mire ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... hands actually touched the sticky mire when he, by accident, let them fall at his sides. If this sort of thing kept on, in less than twenty minutes it would ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... licentiate, in this emergency, but fortunately a small party of troopers on the other side, who had watched the chase, now galloped briskly forward to the rescue, and, beating off his pursuers, they recovered Cepeda from the mire, and bore him to ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... with the flaming color of that man's unappeased passion. Red—red! The hovels were spattered with the red clay. The man, the skinny, wretched creature who begged for a moment of his gracious mercy at the gate, dripped in ruby filth. The mule sank and wallowed in vermilion mire. ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... lawful I am sure your angel guardian smiled upon you; and if it was not, I cannot say you have nothing to answer for, and yet I think God may have said: 'She is a quadroone; all the rights of her womanhood trampled in the mire, sin made easy to her—almost compulsory,—charge it to account of whom ...
— Madame Delphine • George W. Cable
... It was like transfigured sunshine; as clear and mellow, only showing everything in a new wonderful significance. The shadows of the leaves on the road were so strangely black that Dowson and I had difficulty in believing that they were not solid, or at least pools of dark mire. And the hills and the trees, and the white Italian houses with lit windows! O! nothing could bring home to you the keenness and the reality and the wonderful Unheimlichkeit of all these. When the moon rises every night over the Italian coast, it makes a long ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... gentlemen, and send your sleep is light! Remains of this dominion no shadow, sound, or sight, Except the sound of weeping and the sight of burning fire, And the shadow of a people that is trampled into mire. Singing.—Break bread for a starving folk That perish in the field. Give them their food as they take the yoke ... And who shall be next to yield, good sirs, For such a bribe ...
— The Years Between • Rudyard Kipling
... turns round to reprove them by words, or wither them with a glance; but alas! in her indignation she raises a threatening hand, forgetful of the important duties it was fulfilling, and down go gown, petticoats, and auxiliaries in the filthy mire; the boys of course roar with delight—it's the jolliest fun they have had for many a day; the old lady gathers up her bundle in haste, and reaches the opposite side with a filthy dress and a furious temper. Let any mind, unwarped by prejudice and untrammelled ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... was produced by the sudden sinking of the two left wheels in the mire in such a manner that the ponderous Colonel Braddon was thrown into ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... Mr. Perkins, who was eating Mrs. Smithers's crisp, hot rolls with a very unpoetic appetite. "To me, the world grows worse every day. It is only a few noble souls devoted to the Ideal and holding their heads steadfastly above the mire of commercialism that keep our so-called civilisation from becoming an absolute hotbed of greed—yes, a hotbed of greed," he repeated, the words ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... Bill is miserably bad. I am fully resolved not to be dragged through the mire, but to oppose, by speaking and voting, the clauses which I think objectionable. I have told Lord Althorp this, and have again tendered my resignation. He hinted that he thought that the Government would leave me at liberty to take my own line, but ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... and briers, and, passing through a most horrid country, came to the dungeon, and place of punishment, which we beheld with an admiration full of horror: the ground was strewed with swords and prongs, and close to us were three rivers, one of mire, another of blood, and another of fire, immense and impassable, that flowed in torrents, and rolled like waves in the sea; it had many fish in it, some like torches, others resembling live coals; which they called lychnisci. There is but one entrance ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... of the deepest sorrow, not unmingled with contempt, on beholding the degradation of this splendidly endowed young man. He reminded him of a fallen angel, with his glorious plumage all soiled and polluted with the mire and corruption of earth. He never had had faith in his integrity; be believed him to be the tempter of Louis, the deceiver of Mittie, reckless and unprincipled where pleasure was concerned, but he did not believe ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... where was it? Burned to the ground; only a sorry heap of ruin marked where once it stood. No more cotton bales came from the Sea Islands. First one army, then the other, had swept over the Beaufort plantation, trampling its fields into mire. It had been seized, confiscated, retaken, re-confiscated, sold to this person and that. Nobody knew exactly to whom it belonged nowadays; but it was not to little Annie, rightful heiress of all. Stripped of every thing, ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... wallet dangling on his shoulder, holding Catherine the lacemaker round the waist, walking in the shadow with a wavering and triumphal step, spouting the gutter water under his sandals in a magnificent spirit of mire which seemed to celebrate his drunken glory, as the basins of Versailles make their fountains play in honour of the king. I put myself out of the way against the post in the corner of a house door, so as not to ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... boy," said MacLean, "This quarrel's mine by virtue of my making it so. Mistress Truelove, you shall have no further annoyance. Now, you Lowland cowards that cannot see a flower bloom but you wish to trample it in the mire, come taste the ground yourself, and be taught that the flower ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... dead whitened trees on the little island a peculiar ghostly appearance. The canoes soon grounded in the marsh grass, and, fastening them to paddles, stuck down in the mud, our hunters shouldered their fowling-pieces and trudged ahead through the mire. They had prepared themselves well for the trip and each wore a pair of rubber boots reaching to the hip drawn on over their rawhide boots ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... foreign doctor to suggest another theory and another society to engage in another form of activity? The Odes have it, "To prevent the monkey from climbing a tree is like putting mud on a man in the mire." For a person to adopt such methods while engaged in the making of a dynasty is the height of folly. Mencius says, "a Chuntse when creating a dynasty aims at things that can be handed down as good examples." Is it not the greatest ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... law of man or God. To-day their self-satisfaction has made them indifferent to anything that elevates. I had led them into a morass, and deeper in the mire ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... talked thus among themselves, some yet doubting whether the thing were true, cried one of them, "Now shall we know the certainty of this matter, for here cometh a herald with leaves of olive on his head, and he hath dust on his garments and mire on his feet, as one ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church
... before the traveller reached there, for the apartments preparing for him were far from ready, and he had to wait throughout the winter in the vicinity, in a castle of the Count of Oropesa, and in the midst of an almost continual downpour of rain, which turned the roads to mire, the country almost to a swamp, and the mountains to vapor-heaps. The threshold of his new home was far from an ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... know thy strength, and thou knowest mine; Neither our own, but given: What folly then To boast what arms can do? since thine no more Than Heaven permits, nor mine, though doubled now To trample thee as mire: For proof look up, And read thy lot in yon celestial sign; Where thou art weighed, and shown how light, how weak, If thou resist. The Fiend looked up, and knew His mounted scale aloft: Nor more; but fled Murmuring, and with him fled ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... predominance of fear. We looked one upon the other in perplexity and dismay, and I think I never beheld more pale faces assembled. By my father's direction, we looked about to find anything which might indicate or account for the noise which we had heard; but no such thing was to be seen—even the mire which lay upon the avenue was undisturbed. We returned to the house, more panic struck than I can describe. On the next day, we learned by a messenger, who had ridden hard the greater part of the night, that my sister was dead. On Sunday evening, she had retired to bed rather unwell, and, on ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... make his exit through the keyhole. Meantime the new-comer seats himself in solemn silence, and for five minutes the conversation is only kept up by monosyllables, in spite of the incredible efforts of all parties to appear unconcerned. The young man in his confusion plunges deeper into the mire;—he twists and writhes in secret agony—remarks on the sultriness of the weather, though the thermometer is below the freezing point; and commits a thousand gaucheries—too happy if he can escape from a situation than which nothing can ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 18, 1841 • Various
... the head of affairs we should not have lost our North American Colonies, or have got plunged over head and ears in debt as we are, alack! already; and now, with war raging and all the world in arms against us, getting deeper and deeper into the mire." Without holding my worthy principal in such deep admiration as our head clerk evidently did, I had a most sincere regard and respect ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... mood if Statira had not said that she would never say another word to him about it, and hung upon his neck, while 'Manda Grier looked on in sullen resentment. He came away sick and heavy at heart. He said to himself that they would be willing to drag him into the mire; they had no pride; they had no sense; they did not know anything and they could not learn. He tried to get away from them to Miss Carver in his thoughts; but the place where he had left her was vacant, and he could not conjure her back. Out of the void, he was haunted by a look of grieving ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... object of satire and parody. When the political danger was past, and people resumed their ordinary occupations, those who loved foreign literature returned to their old favourites—or, as the ultra-patriots called it, to their "wallowing in the mire"—simply because the native literature did not supply them with what they desired. "We are quite ready," they said to their upbraiders, "to admire your great works as soon as they appear, but in the meantime please allow us to enjoy what we possess." Thus in the last years ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... is my desire; Thy Voice finds echo in my soul. Suffering I crave! Thy words of fire Lift me above earth's mire, And sin's control. ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... pieces of a heart? Let him take mine! Who'll give his whole of passion for a part, And call't divine? Who'll have the soiled remainder of desire? Who'll warm his fingers at a burnt-out fire? Who'll drink the lees of love, and cast i' the mire The nobler wine? ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... his nature and the wickedness of his conduct. And deprived of his senses by Fate, he challengeth the very gods. In my vision I have seen every indication of his downfall. I have seen the Ten-headed, with his crown shaven and body besmeared with oil, sunk in mire, and the next moment dancing on a chariot drawn by mules. I have seen Kumbhakarna and others, perfectly naked and with crowns shaven, decked with red wreaths and unguents, and running towards the southern direction. Vibhishana alone, with umbrella over his head, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... measure, Fears to test his strength at broadswords, Into wild-boar of the forest, Swine at heart and swine in visage, Singing I will thus transform him; I will hurl such hero-cowards, This one hither, that one thither, Stamp him in the mire and bedding, In the rubbish of the stable." Angry then grew Wainamoinen, Wrathful waxed, and fiercely frowning, Self-composed he broke his silence, And began his wondrous singing. Sang he not the tales of childhood, Children's nonsense, wit of ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... ruin,—and yet thy clear-convincing voice, rendered imperishable by its faithfulness should have sounded forth in triumph above the foundering wrecks of Time! O Poet unworthy of thy calling! ... How thou hast wantoned with the sacred Muse! ... how thou hast led her stainless feet into the mire of sensual hypocrisies, and decked her with the trumpery gew-gaws of a meaningless fair speech!—How thou hast caught her by the virginal hair and made her chastity the screen for all thine own licentiousness! ... Thou ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... proper food for soldiers. As little can we admit the sorrows and sympathies of the Homeric heroes:—Achilles, the son of Thetis, in tears, throwing ashes on his head, or pacing up and down the sea-shore in distraction; or Priam, the cousin of the gods, crying aloud, rolling in the mire. A good man is not prostrated at the loss of children or fortune. Neither is death terrible to him; and therefore lamentations over the dead should not be practised by men of note; they should be the concern of ...
— The Republic • Plato
... mire to leave him, till the stars are all burnt out, While, in strange-looking shapes, they frisk about the ground, And, afar in the woods, they raise a dismal shout, Till I shrink into my cell again for terror of ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... from a former work of my own, these home illustrations to prove that bad laws can degrade and demoralize a people in a comparatively short time, in spite of race and creed and public opinion; and that, where class interests are involved, the most sacred rights of humanity are trampled in the mire of corruption. Even now the pauperism resulting of necessity from the large-farm system is degrading the English people, and threatening to rot away the foundations of society. On this subject I am glad ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... to travel. Relatives and friends of the President made their appearance: amazed, excited, eager, malicious. To see the impenetrably peculiar, elusively unapproachable Clarissa cast into the mire was a sight they were all anxious to enjoy. A few of the older ladies attempted a hypocritically gentle persuasion, and Clarissa's contemptuous silence and the pained look of her eyes seemed to imply avowals. The Prefect ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... for sin. Many a man has that, and yet rushes again into the old mire. To change the mind and will is not enough, unless the change is certified to be real by deeds corresponding. So John preached the true nature of repentance when he called for its fruits. And he preached the greatest motive for it which he knew, when he pressed home on sluggish ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... seven o'clock set off. It rained hard; the road was deep with mud, and very bad; several times the passengers were obliged to get out of the coach and walk through the rain and mud, the horses being unable to drag the load through such depths of mire. They floundered on, wading through mud and fording streams, until eleven o'clock, when they stopped to breakfast, having come but eight miles in four hours. They consulted whether to go on or turn back: ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... condemnation died. His brows were crowned with thorns of light: his eyes were bright as one who sees The starry palaces shine o'er the sparkle of the heavenly seas. 'Is it not beautiful?' he cried. Our Faery Land of Hearts' Desire Is mingled through the mire and mist, yet stainless keeps its lovely fire. The pearly phantoms with blown hair are dancing where the drunkards reel: The cloud frail daffodils shine out where filth is splashing from the heel. O sweet, and sweet, and sweet to hear, the melodies in rivers run: The rapture ...
— By Still Waters - Lyrical Poems Old and New • George William Russell
... a night march of great distress and trouble. Soon after the advance guard moved off, a heavy downpour converted the road into a sea of semi-liquid mire, which the transport ploughed into waves and furrows. These, invisible in the black darkness, almost held down the soldiers plunging knee-deep into them. The teams of mules, exhausted by prolonged labour and insufficient food, impatient by nature ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... mass men were sinking to the ground. The tipping, rolling logs tossed these bodies on their ends off into the water, or under the feet of the others. Cox's horse had jumped sidelong into the marsh, and now, its hind-quarters sinking in the mire, plunged wildly, flinging the inert body still fastened in the stirrups from side to side. Some of our men were firing their guns at random into ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... not speak to the Government. I speak to the House. I appeal to those who, on Monday last, voted with the Ministers against the test proposed by the honourable Baronet the Member for North Devon. I know what is due to party ties. But there is a mire so black and so deep that no leader has a right to drag his followers through it. It is only forty-eight hours since honourable gentlemen were brought down to the House to vote against requiring the professors in the Irish Colleges to make ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... used. "Like opium, it calms the agitations of our corporeal frame, and soothes the anxieties and distresses of the mind." Its powers are felt and its fascinations acknowledged, by all the intermediate grades of society, from the sot who wallows in the mire of your streets, to the clergyman who stands forth a pattern of moral excellence, and who ministers at the altar of God. For it the Arab will traverse, unwearied, his burning deserts; and the Icelander risk his life amidst perpetual snows. Its charms are experienced alike, by the ...
— A Dissertation on the Medical Properties and Injurious Effects of the Habitual Use of Tobacco • A. McAllister
... on the lid of the luncheon-filled chest, as she hung precariously over the back of the tonneau, and bawled her remarks at the unfortunate occupants of the auto behind them, which seemed to sink deeper and deeper in the mire with every effort to dig ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... steam all the day, and the volcano was unusually furious, insomuch that the air was loaded with its ashes. The rain which fell at this time was a compound of water, sand, and earth; so that it properly might be called showers of mire. Whichever way the wind was, we were plagued with the ashes; unless it blew very strong indeed from the opposite direction. Notwithstanding the natives seemed well enough satisfied with the few expeditions we had made in the neighbourhood, they were unwilling we should extend them farther. As ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... separandis quae sunt differentia, et resolvenda ambiguitate, et distinguendo, dividendo, illiciendo, implicando; ita si totum sibi vindicaverit in foro certamen, obstabit melioribus, et sectas ad tenuitatem vires ipsa subtilitate consumet. Itaque reperias quosdam in disputando mire callidos; cum ab illa vero cavillatione discesserint, non magis sufficere in aliquo graviori actu, quam parva quaedam animalia, quae in angustiis mobilia, campo deprehenduntur. ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... have any divorce trial," said Ishmael firmly. "We will not have your daughter's pure name dragged through the mire of a divorce court; we will have Lord Vincent and his accomplices arrested and tried; the valet for murder, and the viscount and the opera singer for conspiracy and kidnaping. We have proof enough to convict them all; the valet will be ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... all days she insisted disrespectfully, with rustic fury, that Mrs. Weir should stay at home. But, "No, no," she said, "it's my lord's orders," and set forth as usual. Archie was visible in the acre bog, engaged upon some childish enterprise, the instrument of which was mire; and she stood and looked at him a while like one about to call; then thought otherwise, sighed, and shook her head, and proceeded on her rounds alone. The house lasses were at the burn-side washing, and saw her pass with her ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... nature, as most commonly Sand grounds doe also: and the Iron Harrow which is the Harrow with Iron teeth, is euer to be vsed vpon binding grounds, such as through drynesse grow so hard that they will not be sundered, and through wet turne soone to mire and loose durt. Now whereas there be mingled earths, which neither willingly yeeld to mould, nor yet bindes so sore, but small industry breaks it, of which earth I shall speake hereafter, to such grounds the best Husbands vse a mixture, that is to say, one woodden ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham |
