"Miserable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... beseechings which James and I could make nothing of, and on which she seemed to set her all and then sink back ununderstood. It was very sad, but better than many things that are not called sad. James hovered about, put out and miserable, but active and exact as ever; read to her, when there was a lull, short bits from the Psalms, prose and metre, chanting the latter in his own rude and serious way, showing great knowledge of the fit words, bearing up like a man, and doting over ...
— Rab and His Friends • John Brown, M. D.
... smiled slowly. I call him Gentleman Pettit now to myself. It's a miserable name to give a man, but it sounds better than it ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... already estimated the amount of hay in my stack! said Brandur. You have already divided this miserable haycock among yourselves, divided it down to the very last straw. And you have weighed it almost to a gram. Then why speak to me about it? Why not take it just as it is and scatter it to the four winds? Why not?— The voice of the old ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... central tide of life, and that the only rebutting evidence was the cry of the burdened heart that dared not believe a possibility so stern, so appalling. He wrestled dumbly and darkly against these sad convictions, and how many times, in miserable solitude, did he send out a wistful prayer that, if it were possible, some hint, some slender vision might be granted him as a proof that one so dear, so desired, so momently missed, was still near him in spirit. But no answer came back from the dark threshold, and, leaning ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... new to him, one so different from the grateful and gracious enthusiast he had met all these months that he could not comprehend the change, could not at once adjust his confused senses. So miserable was he that suddenly, with one of her swift changes, she smiled at him, even through her sudden tears. "No! No!" she exclaimed. "See! ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... there is no doubt about it. Whether it ever could rise again is to my mind extremely doubtful. The ideal of women in Germany is the lowest in Europe. Infantile mortality is very high, immorality is widespread, and, in consequence, venereal disease is rampant. Notice, too, the miserable and niggardly pittance that is being paid to the wives and families of German soldiers, while nothing whatever is being paid to unmarried wives and their children. True security for women and children ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Mr. Know-All, 'Yes, my lord, we know him; his name is Atheism; he has been a very pestilent fellow for many years in the miserable town of Mansoul.' ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where men should be ...
— The Anti-Slavery Crusade - Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series • Jesse Macy
... us; so now began the most serious time when we could not get rest day nor night except under incessant fire. The left of our brigade rested on the Norfolk railroad, and we held this position in the open fields under a July sun for six weeks, the regiments changing position every week. Our food was miserable—musty meal and rancid Nassau bacon. Our bread was cooked at the wagon yard on canal, west side of Petersburg. When the bread had been cooked twelve hours it would pull out like spider-webs. We were on picket or fatigue duty nearly every night. One-third had to stand to ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott
... adventure was like a picnic to both. It was no such desperate affair as that of Dick's when he was alone on the plain. They further increased their shelter from the snow by an artful contrivance of brush and fallen boughs, and although enough still fell upon them to make miserable the house-bred, they did not care. Both fell asleep after a while, with flurries of snow still striking upon their faces, and were awakened far in the night by the roar of an avalanche farther up the canyon; but they soon went to sleep again and arose ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... her head. It was but a poor attempt at truth, a miserable lying truth to deceive herself with, but it seemed better than to lie the whole truth outright, and say that her father—Beatrice's father—had been dead but just a week. The blood burned in her face. Brave natures, good and bad alike, hate falsehood, not for its wickedness, ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... prisoners; and the multitudes without, deserted by those to whom they had looked up for advice, their friends in prison, with the unknown terrors of the law suspended over them, probably then felt that, miserable and lost as they had been before, they had now fallen even lower in the scale of human misery. Criminal proceedings were quickly instituted. Several commissions were sent down to the districts in which these disturbances had take place, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... hereafter in relation to the few Indians yet remaining in that Territory. Their number is believed not to exceed 240, of whom there are supposed to be about 80 warriors, or males capable of bearing arms. The further pursuit of these miserable beings by a large military force seems to be as injudicious as it is unavailing. The history of the last year's campaign in Florida has satisfactorily shown that notwithstanding the vigorous and incessant operations of our troops (which can not be exceeded), the Indian mode of warfare, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... junk-shop in Stanton street, known as the rookery at the corner. (This man lived with Hag Zogbaum.) We returned at night with our booty, and re- ceived our wages in gin or beer. The unsuccessful were set down as victims of bad luck. Now and then the old woman would call us a miserable lot of wretches she was pestered to take care of. At one time there were in this den of wretchedness fifteen girls from seven to eleven years old, and seven boys under eleven-all being initiated into the by-ways of vice and crime. Among the girls were Italians, Germans, Irish, ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... rabble," the "scum of the people," "idle and poor people," "rag, tag, and bobtail." The Council reported that there were "hardly two amongst them" who owned estates, or were persons of reputation. Berkeley complained that his was a miserable task to govern a people "where six parts of seven at least are ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... miserable and the air heavy with the smell of dirt and stale tobacco. Charity's heart sank. Old derided tales of the Mountain people came back to her, and the woman's stare was so disconcerting, and the face of the sleeping man so sodden and bestial, ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... capitulating on condition of receiving a promise that their lives should be spared, and that they should be well treated; but Parysatis persuaded her husband to break his plighted word, and they perished in the ashes. Their miserable fate did not discourage the satrap of Lydia, Pissuthnes, who was of Achaemenian race: he entered the lists in 418 B.C., with the help of the Athenians. The relations between the Persian empire and Greece had continued ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... pass my time trotting about from church to church, from consistory to consistory, when I ought properly to be leading a magnificent army in the battlefield, where you would enjoy a captain's rank, instead of being the chief of a few miserable sbirri?" ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the children, Sam," said the sick woman, raising herself in her miserable bed. "I'll forgive yer everything if you'll do the right thing fur them. Do—do—everything!" said the woman, throwing up her arms and falling backward. Her husband's arm caught her; his lips brought to her wan face a smile, which the grim visitor, who an instant later stole her breath, pityingly ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... presented a picture of that famishing wretchedness to which these lonely fugitives among the mountains are sometimes reduced. Having received wherewithal to allay his hunger, he disappeared, but in the course of a day or two returned to the camp, bringing with him his son, a miserable boy, still more naked and forlorn than himself. Food was given to both; they skulked about the camp like hungry hounds, seeking what they might devour, and having gathered up the feet and entrails of some beavers that were lying ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... 200,000 had deserted San Francisco, and by that much was his food problem solved. Well do I remember that day. In the morning I had eaten a crust of bread. Half of the afternoon I had stood in the bread-line; and after dark I returned home, tired and miserable, carrying a quart of rice and a slice of bacon. Brown met me at the door. His face was worn and terrified. All the servants had fled, he informed me. He alone remained. I was touched by his faithfulness and, when I learned that he had eaten nothing all day, I divided my ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... only in so far as they tend towards happiness, we naturally ask what is meant by 'happiness.' For the term in the common use of language is only to a certain extent commensurate with moral good and evil. We should hardly say that a good man could be utterly miserable (Arist. Ethics), or place a bad man in the first rank of happiness. But yet, from various circumstances, the measure of a man's happiness may be out of all proportion to his desert. And if we insist on calling the good man alone ...
— Philebus • Plato
... upon Clontarf being prohibited, the Repealers would have announced some other gathering in some other place. You that say it is not at an end, tell us why did they forbear doing that? Secondly, Mr O'Connell has substituted for Repeal—what? The miserable, the beggarly petition, for a dependent House of Assembly, an upper sort of "Select Vestry," for Ireland; and that too as a bonus from the Parliament of the empire. This reminds us of a capital story related by Mr Webster, and perhaps within the experience of American statesmen, in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... before the gates, they asked for some days delay, to allow those of their number who had determined not to survive the loss of liberty time to die. It was granted, and not a few took advantage of it. At last the miserable remnant appeared before the gates. Scipio chose fifty of the most eminent to form part of his triumphal procession; the rest were sold into slavery, the city was levelled with the ground, and its territory was ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... of Minorca in perpetuity? I fear we must, or else raise twelve millions more next year, to as little purpose as we did this, and have consequently a worse peace afterward. I turn my eyes away, as much as I can, from this miserable prospect; but, as a citizen and member of society, it recurs to my imagination, notwithstanding all my endeavors to banish it from my thoughts. I can do myself nor my country no good; but I feel ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... never really lived till I left there. I was like an animal caught in a net, like a man struggling for air. You can't know what it is to me now to be with people who are thinking of something else than of how to make a few dollars in a miserable country store." ...
— Different Girls • Various
... several days, but I think I will soon return to Sulgostow. I suffer everywhere, and it always seems to me that I will be most happy in whatever place I am not. My lot is brilliant in imagination, but miserable in reality. And yet, my parents have received me well, and have treated me with the greatest kindness. But a matter of comparatively slight importance is one of the causes of my uneasiness here: I have no money; I cannot make the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... be dangerous to oppose them; therefore, if to follow my inclination I should dissuade you from showing the complaisance the emperor expects from you, it may expose you to his resentment, and may render myself and you miserable. These are my sentiments; but before we conclude upon anything let us consult the speaking-bird, and hear what he says; he is wise, and has promised his ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... and, as it was the great boast of the heresiarchs that their Gnosis secured freedom from the dominion of the flesh, multitudes, who secretly sighed for deliverance, were thus induced to test its efficacy. But Gnosticism, in whatever form it presented itself, was a miserable perversion of the gospel. Some of its teachers entirely rejected the Old Testament; others reduced its history to a myth; whilst all mutilated and misinterpreted the writings of the apostles and evangelists. Like the Jewish Cabbalists, who made void the law of God by expositions ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... town by the least inviting road. On one side were rows of miserable houses with broken windows and grimy walls and doors, that looked as if all their brightness had gone into the smart public-houses ...
— Dick Lionheart • Mary Rowles Jarvis
... book. Still later he read it with contemptuous laughter at the poor knight. But when in later life, he lay racked on a bed of pain his attitude of sympathy returned. "Dulcinea del Toboso," he says "is still the most beautiful woman in the world; although I lie stretched upon the earth, helpless and miserable, I will never take back that assertion. I can not do otherwise. On with your lances, ye Knights of the ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... are some sins that cannot be taken away—the sins of faithless women, the "LITTLE" sins as they are called nowadays—for we have grown very lenient in some things, and very severe in others. We will imprison the miserable wretch who steals five francs from our pockets, but the cunning feminine thief who robs us of our prestige, our name and honorable standing among our fellow-men, escapes almost scot-free; she cannot be put in prison, or sentenced to hard labor—not ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... might feel towards him as his guardian, there was nothing that he could not forget and forgive in the father of his wife,—which did not make me respect him any more, you may be sure, and showed me that it was useless to appeal to his generosity. My life now was miserable indeed. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... own race was concerned, Free Joe was an exile. If the slaves secretly envied him his freedom (which is to be doubted, considering his miserable condition), they openly despised him, and lost no opportunity to treat him with contumely. Perhaps this was in some measure the result of the attitude which Free Joe chose to maintain toward them. ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... on, and Pottinger and I sat on the bench in a mild drizzle at half-past three in the morning, with as miserable a country round about as mortal man ever beheld. By-and-bye one of the subs., a poor Pole, moved by compassion and the hope of reward, cautiously invited us to come into his den. He spoke a very little German and a little ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... crying had seized her that they were much alarmed. Her good parents stood beside the bed, and when she begged them to let her go back, they said that she might do just as she liked. Then her eyes fell on Endrid. Any one so utterly miserable and helpless she had never seen before; and beside him stood his mother, silent and motionless, with the tears running down her face and her eyes fixed on Randi's. Then Randi raised herself on her elbow and looked straight in front of her for ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... The quick temper which always lurked so very little beneath the surface of her cheerfulness was stirred. She felt suddenly chilled and miserable. She tried to tell herself that Freddie was just an amiable blunderer who spoke without sense or reason, but it was no use. She could not rid herself of a feeling of foreboding and discomfort. It had been the one jarring note in the sweet melody of her love-story, this ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... M.P. On his death, Sydney Smith wrote—-"I say nothing of the great and miserable loss we have all sustained. He will always live in our recollection; and it will be useful to us all, in the great occasions of life, to reflect how Horner would act and think in them, if God had prolonged ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... up a precarious living fishing and hunting, and lived at first in a miserable house of bark, under a tree, but later moved into quite a pretentious building back of the new Clemens home on Hill Street. It was really an old barn of a place—poor and ramshackle even then; but now, more than sixty years later, a part of it is still standing. The ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... thronging multitudes. The attractions of the city are irresistible, even to those who exist in the most wretched conditions. The tenement districts baffle description, yet nothing is more difficult than to get their miserable occupants to leave their fetid and squalid surroundings for the country. To the immigrants the city is a magnet. Here they find colonies of their own people, and prize companionship more than comfort. "Folks is more company than stumps," said an old woman in the slums to Dr. Schauffler. ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... latter had fallen into decay, and others were being used as miserable homes by those who could afford no better. In one or two, saloons held forth, the light from their swinging doors making yellow patches on ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... Pansey, ferociously; 'aren't we all miserable sinners? Dr Pendle's a human worm, just as you are—as I am. You may dress him in lawn sleeves and a mitre, and make pagan genuflections before his throne, but he is only a worm for ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... shame, none of the direction, and little of the profit. I am sure many of the members who compose even the majority of that body must feel as I do, notwithstanding the applauses of the Revolution Society. Miserable king! miserable assembly! How must that assembly be silently scandalized with those of their members who could call a day which seemed to blot the sun out of heaven "un beau jour"![90] How must they be inwardly ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... is a representation of desertion. If they are broken, you will be hounded by miserable suspicions of disloyalty ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... a friend—in fact, I felt as if I had no friend. So I sat down on a chair in the yard with the little dog by me, thinking, I remember, that the chair was our own property and no one had a right to object to my being there. And I also remember that the whole miserable affair brought to mind most vividly scenes of eviction that had been illustrated in the papers from time to time, when poor women had been evicted for nonpayment ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... instruction to all, and especially to those who are strong Mediums of deluding and destroying spirits the great Prince amongst whom is Emperor Napoleon. But we write this treatise, to deliver him from those miserable tyrants, and to make him a preacher of peace also to his departed friends. What we write for him, we write that it might ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar
... from it when her grief was worn out, worn out like her love. She still loved her son, but with a distant, disillusioned affection, which she knew to be futile, and she lost all interest in herself and him. So she dragged through a wretched, miserable year, without his paying her any heed. And then, poor creature, since her heart could neither live nor die without love, she was forced to find something to love. She fell victim to a strange passion, such as often takes possession of women, ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... everything was. The stillness of the very early morning is quite different from that of the night. During the latter people are asleep, and may be presumed to be happy. In the former they are about to wake up and be miserable. That, at least, was my notion, as I walked into the ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... obtaining a testimonial from the reigning Pope. Let a solemn procession be held in my honour, and intercession be publicly made for me, and I should ascend forthwith. I have consequently represented my case to many of your predecessors: but, O Alexander, you seventeenth-century Popes are a miserable breed! No fellow-feeling, no esprit de corps. Heu pietas! heu prisca fides! No one was so rude as your ascetic antecessor. The more of a saint, the less of a gentleman. Personally offensive, I ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... of the young woman was with him continually. He went to bed with it; he got up with it. At every moment of the day he was pestered with it. It interfered with his work, got mixed up in his business. What a miserable confession for a man to make; a fine way to waste his time. Was it possible that only the other day he had stood in front of the music store in Bonneville and seriously considered making Hilma a present of a music-box? Even now, the very thought of it made him flush with shame, and this ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... wilderness of reeds and slime, a favorite resort of the marsh-hen. The vegetation, as might be supposed, is scant, or at least dwarfish. No trees of any magnitude are to be seen. Near the western extremity, where Fort Moultrie stands, and where are some miserable frame buildings, tenanted during summer by the fugitives from Charleston dust and fever, may be found, indeed, the bristly palmetto; but the whole island, with the exception of the western point, and a line of hard, white beach on the ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... the second paddock, looking as miserable as a bandicoot. Dad made her promise not to meddle with the fire. 'Promise me you won't try any putting out on your own account,' he said; and Norah promised very reluctantly. I was jolly sorry you were out of it, you know, old ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... his copy; a period of experiencing the ever-familiar, but ever-unpleasant, sensation which ensued upon those words as the boy's ear was painfully twisted between two long fingers bent backwards at the tips—such is the miserable picture of that youth of which, in later life, Chichikov preserved but the faintest of memories! But in this world everything is liable to swift and sudden change; and, one day in early spring, when the rivers had melted, the father set forth with his little son in a teliezshka ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... you venture here? This is our island, far better than your miserable Malta. We have taken possession of it, and will hold it against all the world. Begone with you, or we will sink you, and your ship to ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... disillusioned. So it is with my mother. I let her go on and think me perfect. It does her good, and it does me good because it makes me try to live up to that idea of hers as to what I am. If she had the same opinion of me that we all have she'd be the most miserable ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs
... had been dead for some time. His step-father, James Martin, was a drunkard, and he had been compelled to take away his little sister Rose from the miserable home in which he had kept her, and had undertaken to support her, as well as himself. He had been fortunate enough to obtain a home for her with Miss Manning, a poor seamstress, whom he paid for her services in taking ...
— Rufus and Rose - The Fortunes of Rough and Ready • Horatio Alger, Jr
... "isn't that just like life! You bother and bother about something that doesn't exist and make yourself miserable for nothing. No, ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... Raising the lid you would find the jug half filled with water. Sometimes in the tangle up above, between two trees, you would see a thing like a bird come to ruin. Orchids grew here as in a hothouse. All the trees—the few there were—had a spectral and miserable appearance. They were half starved by the voluptuous growth ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... Mlle. O'Hara looked at him in silence for a moment, and she gave a little, troubled, anxious frown. Men can be quite indifferent to suffering in each other if the suffering is not extreme, and women can be, too, but men are quite miserable in the presence of a woman who is in pain, and women, before a suffering man, while they are not miserable, are always full of a desire to do something that will help. And that might be a small, additional proof—if ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... gets more; that is to say, the causes of most of the dissatisfaction and discontent of the world are envy and jealousy. In many cases it may be a righteous sort of jealousy or envy. A woman, especially because she is a rival of her fellow-woman mainly in small things, becomes acutely miserable when she is outstripped by her neighbor and especially if she is passed by her ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... of issuing miserable catch-penny lives of every eminent person immediately after his decease, Arbuthnot wittily styled him "one of the new terrors of death."—CARRUTHERS: Life of Pope ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... console Don Diego by telling him that he was a surgeon, and that if he could only obtain a pair of pincers he would soon remedy that evil; but the Spaniard shook his head and assured him that there was a miserable man in the town calling himself a vendor of physic, who had already nearly driven him mad by attempting several times to pull ...
— Lost in the Forest - Wandering Will's Adventures in South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... one of our acquaintance in this country advocate this measure and we are almost certain that 97-100 of the present population are opposed to it." Again it is remarked in this paper: "We left the slave states because we did not like to bring up a family in a miserable, can't-help-one's-self condition," and dearly as he loved the union, he would prefer California independent to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... swiftly for all: Jack Marche taught Barbara Lisle to fish for gudgeon; Betty Castlemaine tormented Cecil Page to his infinitely miserable delight; Ricky von Elster made tender eyes at Dorothy Marche and rowed her up and down the Lisse; and his sister Alixe read sentimental verses under the beech-trees and sighed for the sweet mysteries that young German girls sigh for—heart-friendships, ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... is one, and the best, mode of passing to the heavenly state. 'Hinc itur ad astra'. But his earliest predecessors contended that it was the only mode, and to this St. Paul justly replies:'—If in this life only we have hope, we are of all men most miserable.' ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... singer, hungering for plunder, now wants to be rich, very rich. She tried her 'prentice hand on Baron Hulot, and soon plucked him bare—plucked him, ay, and singed him to the skin. The miserable man, after trying to vie with one of the Kellers and with the Marquis d'Esgrignon, both perfectly mad about Josepha, to say nothing of unknown worshipers, is about to see her carried off by that ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... your scruples to rest, my dear Karsten. We agreed that it should be so; you had to be saved, and you were my friend. I can tell you, I was uncommonly proud of that friendship. Here was I, drudging away like a miserable stick-in-the-mud, when you came back from your grand tour abroad, a great swell who had been to London and to Paris; and you chose me for your chum, although I was four years younger than you—it is true it ...
— Pillars of Society • Henrik Ibsen
... sterility of the male partner. Curiously and unfortunately these men never suspect themselves. The wife is the delinquent member, in their estimation. She is the victim of jest and suspicion, and later of jibes and insults. Many women have had their lives rendered miserable and unhappy because of this suspicion. They are compelled by their husbands to submit to examination and unpleasant and painful treatment and operations with the intention of rectifying a defective condition that does not exist. Many conscientious physicians ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... I had witnessed Jacob's punishment I felt miserable. I was restless and excitable, and did not know what to do with myself. I thought my heart would burst within me. I asked myself all kinds of questions: What am I doing here? What did I come here for? What are all those people to me? As if I had come there only the day before, and of my own free ...
— In Those Days - The Story of an Old Man • Jehudah Steinberg
... of K. Henrie grounded vp a guiltie conscience.] The king was not hastie to purchase the deliuerance of the earle March, bicause his title to the crowne was well inough knowen, and therefore suffered him to remaine in miserable prison, wishing both the said earle, and all other of his linage out of this life, with God and his saincts in heauen, so they had beene out of the waie, for then all had bene well inough as he thought. ...
— Chronicles (3 of 6): Historie of England (1 of 9) - Henrie IV • Raphael Holinshed
... came a period of aggression and resistance. The Stamp Act was passed, but stamp could not be sold, and the lives of stamp-venders became miserable. Soldiers crowded citizens upon Boston Common; citizens mobbed the soldiers; soldiers fired, killing five citizens, and were saved from destruction only by the active interference of the patriot leaders. ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... me in," panted poor Netty; "do, please, and I ain't Susy—I'm Netty, and this ain't my little cousin—he's my own brother, and he's bad, very bad. Oh, ma'am, I'm such a miserable girl!" ...
— A Big Temptation • L. T. Meade
... its opposite neighbour, and the Aspen welcomed it gladly. You would have thought it great happiness to live in such a lovely spot, I know, but there is never perfect bliss, and if little folks will be discontented, they make the prettiest place appear wretched and miserable. ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... heavy fur-coat and dropped it. This seemed to be a subject of great interest to the bear, for it was longer in inspecting it than the other things. And now poor Butts went tearing along like a maniac, in his flannel shirt and trousers. He was a miserable and curious object, for his body, besides being very long, was uncommonly lanky, and his legs and arms seemed to go like the wings of a windmill. Never, since the day of his birth, had Davy Butts run at such a pace, in such light clothing, and ...
— Fast in the Ice - Adventures in the Polar Regions • R.M. Ballantyne
... daughter still! She cried out, and, walking hurriedly to him, laid herself close against him, and he hugged her closer yet—poor, miserable, erring ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... will do . . . and now to slash and slash; Rip them to ribands, rend them every one, My dreams and visions—tear and stab and gash, So that their crudeness may be known to none; Poor, miserable daubs! Ah! there, it's done. ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... I select one experience that should encourage all who labor in the Master's vineyard. I had traveled two hundred miles in a day to reach an engagement, and the last seven miles in a buggy over a miserable road. I did not reach the village until nine o'clock. Without supper and chilled by the ride, I threw off my wraps and wearily made my way through the lecture. A little later in my room at the hotel, while I was taking a lunch of bread and milk, a minister entered ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... is the matter? Are you ill? Have you heard bad news? Oh, I forget," continued Josie, as Dorry made no reply; "what a goose I must be! Of course you are miserable without Don, you darling! But I've come to bring good news, my lady—to me, at least—so cheer up. Do you know something? Mamma and Papa are going to start for San Francisco on Wednesday. They gave me my choice—to go with them or to stay with you, and I decided to stay. ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... before he died, he was heard to ejaculate the following prayer, in the anticipation of his speedy departure; "Lord, though I am a miserable and wretched creature, I am in covenant with thee, through thy grace; and I may, I will come to thee, for thy people. Thou hast made me, though very unworthy, a mean instrument to do them good, and Thee service; and many of them have set too high value upon me, though others ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... reason which Johnnie could not fathom, Cis suddenly began to show a great deal of interest in the flat. Indeed, she was by way of making his life miserable, what with her constant warnings and instructions about keeping the rooms neat and clean. And she proved that her concern was genuine by continuing to rise early each day in order to help him ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... not only to the States immediately concerned, but to the harmony of the Union, will have been accomplished by measures equally advantageous to the Indians. What the native savages become when surrounded by a dense population and by mixing with the whites may be seen in the miserable remnants of a few Eastern tribes, deprived of political and civil rights, forbidden to make contracts, and subjected to guardians, dragging out a wretched existence, without excitement, without ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... Colonel may have been to blame in their quarrel of the night before—and the French clock told its own story—still I could not help but feel that Rad should have borne with him more patiently. The scene I had just witnessed in the dining-room made me miserable. The Colonel was a proud man and apology came hard for him, his son might at least have met ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... year 1814, when it was constructed by a company in subscription shares of L.50 each, landing or embarking was rendered generally a miserable task, except during very favorable weather, at the moment of high tide. The practice then was, to cram the passengers promiscuously into a common luggage-cart, till it was drawn out upon the almost level sands sufficiently far for a large wherry to float alongside, into which they ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon
... have told you that without being able to regain the complete exercise of my faculties, I retained the sense of my danger. I struggled, then, with all my strength, and doubtless opposed, weak as I was, a long resistance, for I heard him cry out, 'These miserable Puritans! I knew very well that they tired out their executioners, but I did not believe them so strong ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... dragging his deformed and tattered person from door to door on his wooden crutches. But he could not make up his mind to go elsewhere, because he knew no place on earth but this particular corner of the country, these three or four villages where he had spent the whole of his miserable existence. He had limited his begging operations and would not for worlds ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... to draw her forth into lively conversation. "She gets into the strangest states—just like her poor mother! And like her I'm afraid, sometimes, will make herself and every one else around her miserable. I pity Leon Dexter, if this be so. He may find that his caged bird will not sing. Already the notes are few and far between; and little of the ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... far from the world, sharing the one chair, and almost happy in the midst of the wretchedness and poverty which filled their souls with emotion. A week passed, and they knew one another as though they had been intimate for years. Mother Fetu's miserable abode was filled with sunshine, streaming from this ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... "Miserable aristocrat! Do you want to have our heads cut off?" he shouted furiously. "You just take to your heels and never show yourself here again. Don't come to me for materials for ...
— An Episode Under the Terror • Honore de Balzac
... take. Men dare not print or say what they feel of the judges, the public governors, the action of the police, the controllers of fortunes and of news. This Fear will have about it something comic, providing infinite joy to the foreigner, and modifying with laughter the lament of the patriot. A miserable hack that never had a will of his own, but ran to do what he was told for twenty years at the bidding of his masters, being raised to the Bench will be praised for an impartial virtue more than human. A drunken fellow, the son of a drunkard, having stolen control over some ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... plaster, and guano. His beautiful highly improved home farm is near Newcastle; but that upon which he has met with great success in the use of guano, lies about four miles from Dover. Before he purchased it had become celebrated for its miserable poverty. It is now equally celebrated for its productiveness. The use of guano in that part of the State has now reached a point far beyond what the most sanguine would have dared to predict four years ago; and the benefits are of the most flattering kind. Lands have been increased in ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... we had very little appetite, no ambition, and a miserable sense of malaise and great fatigue. There was nothing for it but to shoulder our packs, arrange our tump-lines, and proceed with the same steady drudgery—now a little harder than the day before. We broke camp at half-past ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... weren't we? But we slipped into it without knowing. Good-by. I don't think I shall ever forget the dear old Pool, and the temple, and—the rest. But you must please forget me and forgive me. I am very miserable about it and about everything. I think we had better not know each other any more, so please don't answer this. Just put it in the fire and think no more about it or me. I wanted to tell you all this when I saw you to-day, but ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... one of the stopping places—where one steps off to think, you know. I don't want to think. I have had nine such miserable years. All through the war there was one's work, one's hospital, the excitement of the gigantic struggle. And now everything seems flat. One struggles on without incentive. One lives ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a snizerable meak—I mean miserable sneak, that fellow is!" exclaimed Harry. "He goes into a dirty piece of business like this, and then he gets down ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... Priests and friars and confessors, necessarily and essentially, a sordid, stupid, and wretched herd; or than they could be in any other country, where an archbishop held the place of an universal bishop, and the vicars and curates that of the ignorant, dependent, miserable rabble aforesaid; and infinitely more sensible and learned than they could be in either.——This subject has been seen in the same light by many illustrious patriots, who have lived in America, since the days of our forefathers, and who have adored their memory ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... of that gown has been a sacred thing to me, ever since. It is always with me, though I never wear it.—A detailed account of the hours which followed, I shall hope to give you some day, my dearest. I cannot write it. Let me hurl on to paper, in all its crude ugliness, the miserable fact which parted us; turning our dawning joy to disillusion and sadness. Garth—it was this. I did not believe your love would stand the test of my plainness. I knew what a worshipper of beauty you were; how you must have it, in one form or another, always around you. I got out my diary in which ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... the beauty of youth, especially, which makes it so fit for purposes of love, spoiled and wasted by the random flood and fire of a violent tempest; the glittering beauty of the Greek "war-men," expressed in so many brilliant figures, and the splendour of their equipments, in collision with the miserable accidents of battle, and the grotesque indignities of death in it, brought home to our fancy by a hundred pathetic incidents,—the sword hot with slaughter, the stifling blood in the throat, the spoiling of the body in every member severally. He thinks of, and records, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... from Cavite, and even making them embark. He says with show of great courage that he is going out, although he is told that such a thing is impossible with the ships that he has, for the enemy have many. Having spent all the money and exhausted the miserable inhabitants whom he has thus burdened, he calls a council at this juncture, and asks whether it is advisable to go out. Since the enemy are so superior they cannot tell him to go out, and in addition they see little gain in it; accordingly it is resolved that it is not advisable to go out. Your ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... the milliner, who had recognized Straker as an excellent customer of the name of Derbyshire, who had a very dashing wife, with a strong partiality for expensive dresses. I have no doubt that this woman had plunged him over head and ears in debt, and so led him into this miserable plot." ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... world be closed against this trade, we may then indulge a reasonable hope for the gradual improvement of Africa. The chief motive of war among the tribes will cease whenever there is no longer any demand for slaves. The resources of that fertile but miserable country might then be developed by the hand of industry and afford subjects for legitimate foreign and domestic commerce. In this manner Christianity and civilization may gradually penetrate ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... is looked on as the greatest evil. Now, if the evil of banishment proceeds not from ourselves, but from the froward disposition of the people, I have just now declared how contemptible it is. But if to leave one's country be miserable, the provinces are full of miserable men; very few of the settlers in which ever return to their country again. But exiles are deprived of their property! What, then! has there not been enough said on bearing poverty? But with regard to banishment, if we examine the nature of things, not ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... I knew that!" cried Verhovensky in an access of furious anger. "You are lying, you miserable, profligate, perverted, little aristocrat! I don't ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... to bodily health, to the delight of meeting her children, to the glad sensation of security. But as the days went on, a miserable feeling of apathy stole over her: a feeling as if all whom she had loved in the world had died, leaving her living ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... she said. "I was too happy, and too miserable. It's the widest-awake mixture I ever tried." Then, picking up the teapot, she added curiously: "Where's the powder? I expected to see you arrive with a ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... hotel for dinner, the pup lookin' miserable sorrowful. Frenchy was goin' to kick the pup out—he was a low-grade heathen, but he was big an' he didn't mind a little trouble ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... of paper. A week of darkness changed the deep green to a dingy olive. But the experiment could not be continued. The nightly admission of air by lifting the paper covering was insufficient to maintain the imprisoned creatures. They were happy, though captive, while in a mimic ocean, but miserable in a dark dungeon. Languid and spiritless, they lay supine, or crawled listlessly and aimlessly about. This would not do, and so light was again admitted freely to all but one side of the tank; there, a screen of yellow ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... and disturbed. Evidently this sort of thing had been going on for some time and I had just discovered it. It placed me in a miserable light. When Colton had declared, as he had in both our interviews, that the Lane was a nuisance I had loftily denied the assertion. Now those idiots in the village were doing their best to prove me a liar. I should ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... had seen tens and twenties as she hurried them through her trembling fingers, and Sudsville gossiped and talked for two hours after she was led away, still moaning and shivering, to the bedside of poor Clancy, who was the miserable cause of it all. The colonel listened to the stories with such patience as could be accorded to witnesses who desired to give prominence to their personal exploits in subduing the flames and rescuing life and property. ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... there. What wonder that when the ashes were raked from the long-smouldering fires of envy, of injustice, of oppression, of extortion, of misrule of every conceivable sort, they sprang into fierce flame? What wonder that when the bonds of silence were loosed from their miserable mouths, such a wild clamor went up to Heaven as made the king tremble upon his throne and his ministers shake with fear? Who could tell at what moment this unlooked-for, unprecedented clemency might be withdrawn and ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... who has spent many a night rounding the mob on lonely Queensland cattle camps where hostile blacks were as thick as dingoes has a peculiar aversion to one plain covered with dead gums, because the curlews always made him feel miserable ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... installed by force." Three or four madmen on it ruled, and if one held any discussion with them, "it was always threats.... Always trembling, always afraid,—that is the way I passed eight months doing duty in that miserable place."—Finally, in medium-sized or large towns, the dead-lock produced by collective dismissals, the pell-mell of improvised appointments, and the sudden renewal of an entire set of officials, threw into the administration, willingly or ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... and be a sinner in order to serve him! Then my conscience is not the voice of God in me! How then am I made in his image? What does it mean? Ah, but that image has been defaced by the fall! So I cannot tell a bit what God is like? Then how am I to love him? I never can love him! I am very miserable! I ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... kind? To be kind at any cost. She never calculated the cost of anything; which was another irritating reflection for Miss Jewdwine. Poor as she was, she thought nothing of paying twenty-five or thirty shillings for her board and a miserable lodging, when she might—she ought—to have been living with her relations free of all expense. But there was the sting, the unspeakable sting; for it meant that Lucia would do anything, pay anything, rather than stop another ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... there is said to be, on an average, seventy-three days of rain, and one of snow, between October and April. We remained there only two days, and it rained almost incessantly during the whole time; the place looking very miserable under the circumstances. However, the inhabitants appeared quite used to it, and walked about unconcernedly enough, with their green umbrellas, evidencing at least some sunny days in ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... that strike clear through," he said. "Our union demands were just. Here in this war I am fighting just the same way as we fought against the mine operators in Michigan. I figure it out that Germany represents low pay, long hours and miserable working conditions for the world. I think the Kaiser is the world's greatest scab. I am over here to ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... out. It was not a heartening spectacle. A few water- soaked tents formed the miserable foreground, from which the streaming ground sloped to a foaming gorge. Down this ramped a mountain torrent. Here and there, dwarf spruce, rooting and grovelling in the shallow alluvium, marked the proximity of the ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... all know him now, as a coward and a miserable sneak. What's the good of demonstrating it further? It would ...
— Captain Sam - The Boy Scouts of 1814 • George Cary Eggleston
... Convalescent Home in my mind at the moment, a vast building. In these great blocks what they call ventilation is a steady draught, and there is no 'home' about it. It is all walls and regulations and draughts, and altogether miserable. I would infinitely rather see any friend of mine in John Brown's cottage. That terrible disease, however, seemed to quite spoil the violet bank opposite, and I never picked one there afterwards. There is something in disease so destructive, as ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... a nation, feeling as I do, with you, how adversely it is affected by the prolongation of the "temporary" occupation, which, as matters stand, seems likely to endure till the next war, even should it be postponed till half a century hence, I cannot but feel miserable at the situation of this affair, and I once more ask your pardon for in this way liberating my mind, or, I fear, rather discharging upon you, regardless of your prodigious avocations, this last expression of a regret deeper than that which I ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... really shaken and miserable he felt, the sharpshooter retired to his own quarters at the Barracks and was seen no more that night: but he sent word to Dorothy, the "Little One," that Netty, the lamb, had been given a soft bed close to his own and would be ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... There was an ancient hostelry called the Black Prince in Chandos Street, which is mentioned by Dickens. This was demolished to make way for the Medical College. Opposite was the blacking shop where Dickens spent a miserable part of ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... not help giving a low cry of commiseration. The sound must have been heard by those who were huddled around the miserable fire, for they scrambled to their knees. As the tiny blaze sprang up just then, it showed the scouts the four Stanhope boys looking pinched and wan, with their eyes staring the wonder they must have felt at ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... when he looks backward. When I look backward myself, I have always a ray of comfort: it is in the generous conduct of a sister, who forsook me not when I was forsaken by every one. You have had your reward. You live happy in the esteem and love of all who know you, and I drag on the life of a miserable impostor, indebted for the marks of regard I receive to a tissue of deceit and lies, which the slightest accident may unravel. He has produced me to his friends, since the estate opened to him, as a daughter of a Scotchman of rank, banished on account of the Viscount ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... what determination of long-suffering they won't be offended! with what innocent dexterity they can drop the drop of poison into the cup of conversation, hand round the goblet, smiling, to the whole family to drink, and make the dear, domestic circle miserable!)—I burst out of my parenthesis. I fancy my Baroness and Countess smiling at each other a hundred years ago, and giving each other the hand or the cheek, and calling each other, My dear, My dear creature, My dear Countess, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the poor marquis to such a degree that he thought it best to leave her. After that episode, she returned to her lover; and, rejected by him and her friends, and becoming the subject of the gossip of the entire city, she sought consolation from one acquaintance after another, and was miserable ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... I long to visit Bradford; to spend a few evenings by your firesides, in telling you what I have seen and heard. Alas! we have no fireside, no social circle. We are still alone in this miserable country, surrounded by thousands ignorant of the true God." ... "But we still feel happy in our employment, and have reason to thank God that he has brought us here. We do hope to live to see the Scriptures translated into the Burman language, ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... the best of a bad situation, and try to get all the comfort I can. I'm in your hands at present, and we're foes, but just the same we can talk, and try to make each other comfortable so that we can be comfortable ourselves, and try not to be any more miserable than we can help. I'm not going to cry ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... Wolsey's hands in 1527, was again cited in 1529 before the Bishop of London. Three times he refused to recant. He was offered a fourth and last chance. The temptation was too strong, and he fell. For two years he was hopelessly miserable; at length his braver nature prevailed. There was no pardon for a relapsed heretic, and if he was again in the bishop's hands he knew well ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... events that led up to this act. You will hear from her own lips the tragic circumstances of her life, the still more tragic infatuation with which she has inspired the prisoner. This woman, gentlemen, has been leading a miserable existence with a husband who habitually ill-uses her, from whom she actually goes in terror of her life. I am not, of course, saying that it's either right or desirable for a young man to fall in love with a married woman, or that it's his business to rescue ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... state of partial and blind revolt. Discontented, they attributed their suffering to the principles to which they owed all their happiness, and in receding from which they had become proportionately miserable. They have hankered after other gods than the God of Sinai and of Calvary, and they have achieved only desolation. Now they despair. But the eternal principles that controlled barbarian vigour can alone cope with morbid civilisation. The equality of man can only be accomplished by the ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... was left. It was Saturday evening after supper. Instead of the aforetime Saturday-evening flutter and bustle and shopping and larking, the streets were empty and desolate. Richards and his old wife sat apart in their little parlour—miserable and thinking. This was become their evening habit now: the life-long habit which had preceded it, of reading, knitting, and contented chat, or receiving or paying neighbourly calls, was dead and gone and forgotten, ages ago—two or three weeks ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... different from the New York of 1847. It still retained some of the knickerbocker customs of the olden time. The site of the Fifth Avenue Hotel was then a stone- yard where grave stones were cut. All north of Twenty-third street, now the seat of plutocracy, was then sparsely occupied by poor houses and miserable shanties, and the site of Central Park was a rough, but picturesque body of woodland, glens and rocky hills, with a few clearings partly cultivated. Even then the population of New York was about 400,000, or more than three-fold ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... bargain my sister made for me," Jim answered shortly. He had observed the poultry-farm from which the old man had started, with its miserable little hovel of a house and immense spread of chicken-runs, and drawn his own conclusions as to the character of its owner. "You needn't be afraid ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... so miserable leaving Cousin James so alone all winter," Sallie continued with the most beautiful sympathy in her voice, as she looked out of the window towards Widegables. "I wonder if I ought to make up my mind to stay with him? He loves ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... as follows, by way of exemplifying the position:— "We have a remarkable instance of this in a notorious malefactor, well known by the name of Jack Sheppard. What amazing difficulties has he overcome! what astonishing things has he performed! and all for the sake of a stinking, miserable carcass; hardly worth the hanging! How dexterously did he pick the chain of his padlock with a crooked nail! how manfully he burst his fetters asunder! — climb up the chimney! — wrench out an iron bar! — break his way through a stone wall! ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... charge, no result followed, and Nero was greatly enraged. He sent for Pollio, and assailed him with reproaches and threats, and as for Locusta, he declared that she should be immediately put to death. They were both miserable cowards, he said, who had not the firmness to do their duty. Pollio, in reply, made the most earnest protestations of his readiness to do whatever his master should command. He assured Nero that ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... had asked me. I guessed that your friends consulted your interest less than their own inclination to expose Rousseau; and I think their omission of what I said on that subject proves I was not mistaken in my guess. My letters hinted, too, my contempt of learned men and their miserable conduct. Since I was to appear in print, I should not have been sorry that that opinion should have appeared at the same ime. In truth, there is nothing I hold so cheap as the generality of learned men; and I have often ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... significant words, De Chemerant wished to retire. Croustillac took hold of him and said, in a low tone, "Remain, sir, remain, I desire to surprise, to confound them, the miserable wretches!" ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... fifty passengers, had not on this occasion carried nearly nine hundred, a hundred, at least of whom were children of an unpleasant age. Captain Semmes captured the Ariel once, and it is to be deeply regretted that that thrifty buccaneer hadn't made mince-meat of her, because she is a miserable tub at best, and hasn't much more right to be afloat than a second- hand coffin has. I do not know her proprietor, Mr. C. Vanderbilt. But I know of several excellent mill privileges in the State of Maine, and not one of them is so thoroughly ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne
... of sinister threats and complications. Iris did not know the wretched circumstances which had come to pass since they parted, and which had changed the whole aspect of his life. How could he tell her? Why should it be his miserable lot to snatch the cup of happiness from her lips? In that moment of silent agony he wished he were dead, for death alone could remove the burthen laid on him. Well, surely he might bask in the sunshine of her laughter for another day. No need to embitter her joyous heart ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... England, that, in fact, its existence is unrecognized. Prostitution thrives, nevertheless; but numbers do not discourage the moralist, and when he reads in the newspapers of degraded females, "unfortunates," he breathes a sigh; and if these reports contain descriptions of miserable circumstance and human grief, he ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... safely placed at about 20 B.C.E. The first part of his life therefore was passed during the tranquil era in which Augustus and Tiberius were reorganizing the Roman Empire after a half-century of war; but he was fated to see more troublesome times for his people, when the emperor Gaius, for a miserable eight years, harassed the world with his mad escapades. In the riots which ensued upon the attempt to deprive the Jews of their religious freedom his brother the alabarch was imprisoned;[40] and he himself was called ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... had observed, with astonishment, that she was extremely beautiful,—though her attire was of the most wretched kind, and her long, loose hair in disorder. He wondered that so handsome a girl should be living in such a miserable and lonesome place. ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... off the fumes of the wine, arose in the morning and going down, missed his pig and saw the door open; whereupon he questioned this one and that if they knew who had taken it and getting no news of it, began to make a great outcry, saying, 'Woe is me, miserable wretch that I am!' for that the pig had been stolen from him. As soon as Bruno and Buffalmacco were risen, they repaired to Calandrino's house, to hear what he would say anent the pig, and he no sooner saw them than he called out to them, well nigh weeping, and said, ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... the little boy on the beach, who stood with downcast head, and grinding his toes into the sand and looking very miserable and ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... in Tamil is even more explicit: "The hold by which I hold them I will never let go." Ponnamal returned, weary in mind and in body, after three days of travelling and effort; she had caught a glimpse of the baby, and the little face haunted her. The elder child was reported very miserable, and she had seen nothing of her. The guardian, of course, had not dealt with her direct; but she heard he had taken legal advice, and was sure of his position. There was nothing hopeful to report. ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... early at Cosenza; the night air is dangerous, and—Teatro Garibaldi still incomplete—darkness brings with it no sort of pastime. I did manage to read a little in my miserable room by an antique lamp, but the effort was dispiriting; better to lie in the dark and ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... two small windows—one of them is now blocked up. The upper one is the same in design as those others on the south side of the same apartment. These we shall consider presently. Above the central pier at the entrance to this porch is a miserable figure in stone, intended to represent ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Chichester (1901) - A Short History & Description Of Its Fabric With An Account Of The - Diocese And See • Hubert C. Corlette
... breaking; the longest night will have an end, so will this miserable pain at my heart. Daylight will surely come when I shall be happy with Richard. Don't tell him, Victor, don't; and now leave me, for my head ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... miserable fifteen minutes for me." responded Jack Benson. "I have been torn between the impulse to mind my own business, and the fear that you may be throwing yourself away on a man whom you would promptly ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... Dudley to the Knight, "when this morning, only half the number of the savages presented themselves; and now doth it pass my understanding how this miserable wretch lost his life." ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... without communication with her ally, in spite of a certain precaution adopted by her mistress, the first thing the latter did when she entered being to take the key of the cellar stairs from her pocket, and release Jean, who issued crestfallen and miserable, and was sternly dismissed to bed. The next day, however, for reasons of her own, Miss Horn permitted her to resume her duties about the house without remark, as if nothing had happened serious enough to ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... should come and ask: "Is love worth trying?" or, "How about religion?" For country life is to each human being a fresh, strange, original adventure. We enjoy it, or we do not enjoy it, or more probably, we do both. It is packed and crowded with the zest of adventure, or it is dull and miserable. We may, if we are skilled enough, make our whole living from the land, or only a part of it, or we may find in a few cherished acres the inspiration and power for other work, whatever it may be. There is many a man whose ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... grow," said he. "But, mother, I say," and his voice quavered as he spoke, "what a miserable room yours is! I can't bear to think of ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... farther improvement would be a light coat of fine manure on the surface. All furrows, in every description of plowing, should be near enough together to move the whole, leaving no hard places between them. The usual "cut and cover" system, to get over a large area in a day, is miserable economy. The more evenly and flatly land can be turned over in plowing, the better it will be; it retards the growth of weeds, and secures a better action upon substances plowed under. An exception to deep plowing is in breaking up the original prairies of the West: they have to be broken ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... pass very pleasantly; he said to himself he might as well remain in Rome and enjoy himself, as go back to England and be miserable. Wherever he went, he could not see Leone. He would not trust himself; he loved her too much, if he were in the same land, ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... cider, to the girls he liked the least. He shunned Cynthia, and when he was accidentally near her, and she asked him if he would get her a glass of cider, he rudely told her—like a goose as he was—that she had better ask Ephraim. That seemed to him very smart; but he got more and more miserable, and began to feel that he was ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... sorry, and for a moment Vincent's fate seemed somehow to throw a sort of halo round his memory, but very soon the sorrow faded, until at last it became little more than an uneasy consciousness that he ought to be miserable and was not. ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... bread and soup. I have returned to the distributing stations at the end of the day and have found men, women, and children sometimes still standing in line, but later compelled to go back to their pitiful homes, cold, wet, and miserable. It was not until eighteen weary hours afterward that they got the meal they missed. The need will continue to be great for many months after peace is declared. Factories have been stripped of their machinery. There is a complete stagnation of industry. It will take months to ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy |
