"Parlous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I, 'frank as you have been with us, I can scarce be equally so with you, without the permission of the gentleman who has just left the room. He is the leader of our party. Pleasant as our short intercourse has been, these are parlous times, and hasty confidences are apt to ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... course as one wherein she has accepted a degree of responsibility second only to a mother's, and not a by-path leading merely to pleasure and for the idling away of an unoccupied hour. Potential manhood is a difficult force to handle, and none should embark upon the parlous enterprise of arousing it without due regard for the consequences. We may not let loose a young lion from its leash, and, when dire consequences follow, excuse ourselves on the score that we thought the devastating ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... It was a parlous time to go over. The French had defeated one army after another, of the Allies, and were in the hey-dey of their first success. The trouble seemed to be lack of unity of command, and lack of able leadership. The Duke of York was in command of the British army, but allowed himself to be out-maneuvered ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... Lin tells us that these imply five obvious and generally advantageous lines of action, namely: "if a certain road is short, it must be followed; if an army is isolated, it must be attacked; if a town is in a parlous condition, it must be besieged; if a position can be stormed, it must be attempted; and if consistent with military operations, the ruler's commands must be obeyed." But there are circumstances which sometimes forbid a general to use these advantages. For instance, "a certain road may ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... Highness's sudden departure. He says openly that it is contrary to both military discipline and, I regret, mon Prince, to honour. He says if all his generals permitted themselves to run after their mistresses when it suited them, the army would be in a parlous state.' Indeed the Elector of Hanover had expressed himself in ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... variously rewarded profession of literature to propose seriously to follow it for a living, he will already have said these things to himself, with more force and pungency. He may have satisfied himself that he has a necessary desire for "self-expression," which is a parlous state indeed, and the cause of much literary villainy. The truly great writer is more likely to write in the hope of expressing the hearts of others than his own. And there are other desires, too, most legitimate, that he may feel. An English humorist said recently in the preface to his ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... obviously he could not explain what she felt to be a rebuff. To make full disclosure of certain transactions would have stripped Eben Tollman of disguise and brought results as parlous as those he had feared on the afternoon when he left his strong box unlocked. Structures of self-delusion might have fallen into shapeless debris under the batteries of her frank questioning. Eben Tollman could dismiss from thought the woman who has lost her way or the man who has succumbed to ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... and success in the legal profession is another," said the young man oracularly. "Between our omnipresent legislatures which spend our time and money repealing what we lawyers already know, and enacting laws for the courts to set aside, these are what might be called parlous times for the profession, but my long suit is not in understanding statutes, ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... woebegone, screamed shrilly at sight of her. The lady's nerves were in a parlous condition—"on a raw edge" was her own phrase—and the relief of seeing her errant charge again was so great that the ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... whereas hers would by no means necessarily add to his. "What does give me happiness, then?" he asked himself; "what could conceivably increase my zest for life? Evidence of power, exercise of faculty: so far as I know, nothing else whatever. A parlous state of affairs. But it is the difference, I presume, between a giving creature and a getting one which explains all. Is a man, then, never to give, and be happy? Has he ever tried? Is a woman not to get? Has she ever had a chance of it?" He puzzled over these things in his ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... my own salvation not In a parlous state? And oft Do I question if my life Still be linked with ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... friend, Hears talk of Roping,—but the Jubilee! Nay, there you have me: old Francesco once (This was in Milan, in Visconti's time, Our wild Visconti, with one lip askance, And beard tongue-twisted in the nostril's nook) Parlous enough,—these times—what? "So are ours"? Or any times, i'fegs, to him who thinks, - Well 'twas in Spring "the frolic myrtle trees There gendered the grave olive stocks,"—you cry "A miracle!"—Sordello writeth thus, - Believe me that indeed 'twas thus, and he, Francesco, you are with me? ...
— New Collected Rhymes • Andrew Lang
... blankly. "Time machine? Impossible. Of course not. After the tractor killed you, and you were buried, what good would such fantasies be, even if they existed? No, we simply reincarnated you by pooling our magic. Though it was a hazardous and parlous thing, with the ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... exactly what he had feared, he had shown them the inside of this scheme as instinct had revealed it to him, and he had begged for aid. One man alone, surrounded by enemies, and in a country where all things were possible, was in a parlous position if once the extent of his knowledge were surmised. So far, the plot had not yet matured. So far, though the clouds had gathered and the thunder was muttering, the storm had not broken. The reason for that he knew—the ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... abuse as "profluvious." Deacon's book takes the form of a dialogue, and after nearly 200 pages of argument, in which the unfortunate herb gets no mercy, one of the interlocutors, a trader in tobacco, is so convinced of the iniquity of his trade, and of his own parlous state if he continue therein, that he declares that the two hundred pounds' worth of this "beastly tobacco" which he owns, shall "presently packe to the fire," or else be ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... pass of Tutataroa our greatest peril came. The ocean swept through this narrow channel like a mill-race. The first swell tossed us up ten feet, and we rode on it fifty before Teta could disengage us from its clasp, and, without capsizing, divert our course westward instead of toward the parlous shore. One such jeopardy succeeded another. We were in a quarter of an hour directly under black and frowning heights from which a score of cascades and rills leaped into the air, their masses of water, carried by the gusts, falling upon us in showers and clouds, aiding the flying scud ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... stroke hath he dealt in all this strife. Methinks, he recketh not how it fare here at court, sith he hath his will in full. Men say of him, he be bolder than any other wight. Little hath that been seen in these parlous (1) days." ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... brother; and now, before I say further, let me ask thee, plainly, and without offence, Dost thou so love the House of York that no chance could ever make thee turn sword against it? Answer as I ask,—under thy breath; those drawers are parlous spies!" ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... holds my guiding rein, I swear * I'll meet on love ground parlous foe nor care: Good sooth I'll vex revilers, thee obey * And quit my slumbers and all joy forswear: And for thy love I'll dig in vitals mine * A grave, nor shall my vitals ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... term the currency grew stable; We bought Alaska and we laid the great Atlantic cable; And then there came eight years of Grant; thereafter four of Hayes; And in his time the parties fell on fierce and parlous days; And Garfield came, and Arthur too, and Congress shoes were worn, And Brooklyn Bridge was built, and I, your gifted bard, ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams
... others whose heads were blue enough and low enough to argue considerable distance. He had intended his cousin Gabr to be the real guide, and to take to himself all the credit; but I had sent off the parlous "judge" ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... beneath the fortress and the forest a parlous passage wherein dwells the fiend, the which I have much discomfit of. But with ye aside me, fair knight, there is naught ...
— A Knyght Ther Was • Robert F. Young
... out of a human mouth had a human meaning; and not one of the fixed fools of history was such a fool as he looks. And when our great-uncles or great-grandmothers told a child he might be drowned by breaking the Sabbath, their souls (though undoubtedly, as Touchstone said, in a parlous state) were not in quite so simple a state as is suggested by supposing that their god was a devil who dropped babies into the Thames for a trifle. This form of religious literature is a morbid form if ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... people would have done had they been left absolutely unprotected and unprovided for among the remnants of what had once been their homes. It was certain that Miss Hobhouse's pamphlet revealed a parlous state of things, but did she realise that wood, blankets, linen and food were not things which could be transported with the quickness that those responsible heartily desired? Did she remember that the British troops also had to do without the most ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... this last breath to fan it into a very blaze of wrath. And what he said to them touching themselves, their country, and the Kirk Committee that had made sheep of them, was so bitter and contemptuous that none but men in the most parlous and pitiable of ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... himself) Play with your eyes shut. Imitate pa. Filling my belly with husks of swine. Too much of this. I will arise and go to my. Expect this is the. Steve, thou art in a parlous way. Must visit old Deasy or telegraph. Our interview of this morning has left on me a deep impression. Though our ages. Will write fully tomorrow. I'm partially drunk, by the way. (He touches the keys again) Minor chord comes now. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... or sympathy for others. Many an upstart voluptuary surveys the elegancies of his well-furnished mansion in comparative ignorance of the means employed for their perfection; and, as regards his stock of knowledge conducive to happiness, he is in a more "parlous state" than the poor shepherd who had not been at court. How many of the prodigals that cross in the steam-boat from Dover to Calais are acquainted with the first principles of the mighty power by which they are impelled, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... witching goes muffled rumour mine dark silent unfortunate richmond existing great hotly brute select mooted parlous ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... them—no other hand making one at all for six-and-thirty years), there appeared 314 cartoons in about 286 weeks. It sometimes happened that Punch appeared without a cartoon at all, especially in those parlous cashless days of 1842, and again in 1846 and 1848; but, on the other hand, two cartoons were frequently given in the same number, usually from different hands, though occasionally Leech would do both. The 314 designs ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... one-dollar bills. As I handed them over I noticed that one of them had seen parlous times. Its upper right-hand corner was missing, and it had been torn through the middle, but joined again. A strip of blue tissue paper, pasted over the split, ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... said Sir Walter easily. "It is not lack of trust in you, my good friend. But you are the holder of an office, and knowing as I do the upright honesty of your character I feared to embarrass you with things whose very knowledge must give you the parlous choice of being false to that office or ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... Truth, and who by the help of its light pronounces all these zealous worshippers alike, to be but "Infidels and Turks," and says to all, in language not quite so polite as that of Touchstone, "Truly, shepherds, ye are in a parlous state," herself makes no such public demonstration of her faith. To an Eastern infidel travelling in the West, she would even appear, to outward eye, a tenfold greater infidel than her neighbours. Except on one day in seven, he would seldom find a place of public worship open to his gaze, while ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... flint-food chew! So thou, and pleasant happy life 5 Lead wi' thy parent's wooden wife. Nor this be marvel: hale are all, Well ye digest; no fears appal For household-arsons, heavy ruin, Plunderings impious, poison-brewin' 10 Or other parlous case forlorn. Your frames are hard and dried like horn, Or if more arid aught ye know, By suns and frosts and hunger-throe. Then why not happy as thou'rt hale? 15 Sweat's strange to thee, spit fails, and fail Phlegm ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... is much better again; she now goes donkey rides with an old woman, who compliments her on her French. That old woman - seventy odd - is in a parlous spiritual state. ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... my learned poet doth not lie for that matter: I am neither more nor less than merry Sir Thomas always. Wilt sup with me? by God, I love a parlous wise fellow that smells of a politician ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... Elephant Raja was "starred" over the head of W. C. Macready, and the real water tank in the Cataract of the Ganges helped to increase the attractions of John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons. But we ourselves are evidently in a parlous state at the present day, when actors vainly endeavor to struggle through twenty lines of blank verse—when we are told mechanical effects and vast armies of supers make up the production of historical plays—when ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... sure we're in a parlous case. The forest laws are dev'lish severe here: an they catch us trespassing upon their hunting ground, we shall pay a neat poll-tax: nothing less than our heads ...
— The Indian Princess - La Belle Sauvage • James Nelson Barker
... pine-trees and sand." It had almost escaped us, that he here for the first time made the acquaintance of a "great many large vultures, called buzzards, the shooting of which is prohibited, as they feed upon carrion, and contribute in this manner to the salubrity of the country." This "parlous wild-fowl" has the honor to attract the attention of his Highness again in Charleston, where he informs us that its life is, in like manner, protected by law, and where it is called from its resemblance to another bird, the turkey-buzzard. . . . In Columbia, ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... poor a thanksgiving! Surely this is a fit case for a Court of Love!—how and in what way a fair lady should greet her knight after a parlous quest?" ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... was not until we had effected our entry through the room which had been my very own, and made our parlous way across the lighted landing, to the best bedroom of those days and these, that I really felt myself a worm. Twin brass bedsteads occupied the site of the old four-poster from which I had first beheld the light. The doors were the same; my childish hands had ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... night—Dec. 27, 1836—is Pollard's graphic picture of the Devonport mail snowed up at Amesbury. Six horses could not move it, and Guard F. Feecham was in parlous plight. Pollard's companion picture of the Liverpool mail in the snow near St. Alban's on the same night is equally interesting. Guard James Burdett fared little better than his comrade on the ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... Job's, but his, for exploration of the parlous lands of romance that lie hard by Twenty-eighth Street and Sixth Avenue. But he had to go out to lunch with Charley Carpenter, the assistant bookkeeper, that he might tell the news. As for Charley, He needed frequently to have a confidant who ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... might be nearer after Lorenzo died and was succeeded by his son. Piero dei Medici sent the preacher away from the city, for he knew that men whispered among themselves that the Dominican had foretold truly the death of Innocent and the parlous state of Florence under the {45} new Pope, Alexander VI (Alexander Borgia). He did not like the predictions of evil for his own house of Medici, which had now wielded supreme power in Florence for over sixty years. It would go hardly with him if the people were to rise ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... ascertained facts, whereas Furneaux had an almost uncanny knowledge of the kinks and obliquities of the criminal mind. In the phraseology of logic, Winter applied the deductive method and Furneaux the inductive; when both fastened on to the same "suspect" the unlucky wight was in parlous state. ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... the most studious and strenuous of all scholiasts who ever claimed acquiescence or challenged dissent on the strength of his lifelong labours and hard-earned knowledge of the letter of the text. Such an one is indeed "in a parlous state"; and any boy whose heart first begins to burn within him, who feels his blood kindle and his spirit dilate, his pulse leap and his eyes lighten, over a first study of Shakespeare, may say to such a teacher with better reason than Touchstone said to Corin, "Truly, ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... humour, and while Nelly, even as she spoke, knew she was talking nonsense and only waited his reminder of the inevitable in a friendly spirit, yet, when the reminder came, it was couched in words so forcible and so direct, that for a parlous moment her own sense ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... smaller toothed whales, the killers, dolphins, and porpoises (though one of them—the bottle-nosed whale—is being killed out), are not as yet seriously threatened by commercial man. But the whalebone whales are in a parlous state. The Right whales, as they are called, are the chief of these. They are huge creatures, 60 ft. in length, with an enormous head: it is as much as one third of the total length in the Greenland whale. Besides the Greenland species there are four ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... quotations (no great evidence of scholarship, but made jestingly familiar by the old school curricula) which our fathers could use with safety in any chance company of the society to which they were accustomed; but even the most familiar of them would be a parlous experiment in small talk to-day. They have vanished from common conversation even more completely than they have disappeared from the debates of the House of Commons. And this is only a type of the change which has come over the educated speech of ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... being now useless, and the Su-chen herself in a very parlous condition, it was obviously out of the question to think of attempting to conclude the fight by means of the light guns and small-arms alone; the ship would not float long enough for that. Some other plan of action must therefore be adopted, and Frobisher gave his attention to the idea for ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... his brother and the cause of their journey, and he said, "I purpose to go with my brother, this sick wight, to the holy woman, her whose petitions are answered, so she may pray for him, and Allah may heal him by the blessing of her orisons." Quoth the villager, "By Allah, my son is in parlous plight for sickness and we have heard that this Devotee prayeth for the sick and they are made sound. Indeed, the folk counsel me to carry him to her, and behold,[FN422] I will go in company with you." And they said, "'Tis well." So they all nighted in that intent ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... from the Lord Treasurer," said Elizabeth, addressing Sir Percevall, "that your petition hath reference to a monopoly. Know you not, Sir Knight, that these be parlous days for making of new monopolies? Our subjects murmur, and 'tis said that we have already been too generous with these great gifts. ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... I know not well what urged thy act, Whether thou'lt pass in palace, or die rackt; But then, shone on the guns, a sublime soul.— A Bayard-boy's, bound by his pure parole! Honor redeemed though paid by parlous price, Though lost be sunlit sports, wild boyhood's spice, The Gates, the cheers of mates ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... fiery Fez he lingered, subtle SMITHEZ, being bound To contract Commercial Treaty with the minions of MAHOUND. Full eight weeks' negociations smoothed that Treaty's parlous way; On the fifth July the Sultan swore it should ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various
... delight in it were so wholly there that in ten years I had hardly been in as many Boston houses. As I have said, I met Doctor Holmes at the Fieldses', and at Longfellow's, when he came out to a Dante supper, which was not often, and somewhat later at the Saturday Club dinners. One parlous time at the publisher's I have already recalled, when Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Autocrat clashed upon homeopathy, and it required all the tact of the host to lure them away from the dangerous ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... manoeuvre of the English and the danger of their consorts, had made all sail as quickly as possible, and were now running away before the wind in order to go about and stand up on the starboard tack to engage the English vessels and relieve their companions, which were in a somewhat parlous state. ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... made an end of her story, which was commended of all, Filomena, by the queen's good pleasure, proceeded to speak thus: "The story told by Neifile bringeth to my mind a parlous case the once betided a Jew; and for that, it having already been excellent well spoken both of God and of the verity of our faith, it should not henceforth be forbidden us to descend to the doings of mankind and the events that have ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... besought. This one fits for the smoky receptacle cherishing millions, magnetic to tens of millions more, with its caked outside of grime, and the inward substance incessantly kicking the lid, prankish, but never casting it off. A good stew, you perceive; not a parlous boiling. Weak as we may be in our domestic cookery, our political has been sagaciously adjusted as yet to catch the ardours of the furnace without being ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... no use," he muttered despairingly, as he looked above him again, and, as he did so, saw that the men were laughing at his predicament, for, as Touchstone the clown told the shepherd, he was "in a parlous case." ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... thus the dog was born; the gathered crowd Cheered their approval of this wise remark; A glad tail wagged its pride, and clear and loud Rang out the music of the earliest bark, While envious Nature sighed, "O parlous miss! I was a silly not to think ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 13, 1914 • Various
... criminal. Finally, to workmen who have been influenced or persuaded to do anything by anybody except another workman, is given a suit for damages against the person so persuading them. The lot of the employer in Oklahoma is indeed a parlous one! ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... the top of the rise where we were encamped, and sat down alone to think matters over. Our condition was somewhat parlous; all our beasts were now dead, even the second donkey, which was the last of them, having perished that morning, and been eaten, for food was scanty since of late we had met with little game. The Strathmuir men, who now must carry the loads, were almost worn ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... mass ye may not question it!.... Give him good feed, boy, and stint it not, an thou valuest thy crown; so get ye lightly to the stable and do even as I bid.... Sir, it is parlous news I bring, and—be these pilgrims? Then ye may not do better, good folk, than gather and hear the tale I have to tell, sith it concerneth you, forasmuch as ye go to find that ye will not find, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... plain speaking; how else should a critic, who believes that he has diagnosed the disease, convince a modern patient of his parlous state? To just hint a fault and hesitate dislike (not Pope, but I split that infinitive) is regarded nowadays merely as a sign of a base, compromising spirit; or not regarded at all. Artists, especially in England, cannot away with qualified praise ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... STORY. Melchizedek the Jew, with a story of three rings, escapeth a parlous snare set for him ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... 18th they had achieved a height of over 6,000 feet, and by that time the sledges were in such a parlous state that Scott had all of them unpacked and the runners turned up for inspection. Horrid revelations followed; one sledge remained sound, and Scott promptly decided that there was one course and only one to take, ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... frayed painter, and hauled the dug-out to a point where, the bank being higher, embarkation was more easy. He dissuaded the navigators from sitting on the boards placed over the gunwales, as likely to be, what he called, parlous, and recommended that the boards be placed on the floor of the craft to keep the water off their "paants." The fishermen consented, and sat down safely at each end facing one another, with his assistance to hold the dug-out steady, the dominie ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... morning, November 8, 1868, to this good day, I have known no other life and had no other aim. Those were indeed parlous times. It was an era of transition. Upon the field of battle, after four years of deadly but unequal combat, the North had vanquished the South. The victor stood like a giant, with blood aflame, eyes dilate ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... life and food was keener; the old patriarchal appetite for ritual was disappearing; the people were beginning to assert themselves against the land-owners; the land-owners were encroaching upon the power of the ruling princes; and China was in a parlous state. ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... mused the MEMBER FOR SARK, looking on from one of the side galleries, "was in 1886, when GLADSTONE introduced his first Home Rule Bill. Twelve months earlier, under guidance of Land League, Ireland was in a parlous state. Coercion Act in full force. Jails thronged with patriots convicted under its rigorous clauses. Still there were left at liberty enough to maim cattle and shoot at landlords. If Germany had happened to step in at that epoch it would have been a perilous time for England. The House of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 147, August 12, 1914 • Various
... "I do na know," said he, slowly; "heaps of men can do the little things, but parlous few the big. So some one must be bigging it, or folks would all sing very small. And he doeth the big most beautiful, they say. They call him the Swan ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... "A parlous case, methinks!" said Sir Pertinax, staring at the Dwarf's rueful visage. "Learned ye aught ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... sail was in sight. This news caused much commotion among us, still more when our own lookout cried that the vessel bearing towards us under press of sail out of the west was beyond doubt a frigate, and in all likelihood a Frenchman. I knew our case would be parlous if indeed it was so, for neither the privateer nor the merchant barque we had captured was armed in any wise to match a line-of-battle ship. Moreover 'twas unlikely that in our partly crippled condition ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... thither—if there be any magic in ce doux demi-jour so loved in France, in stuff for flattery ready pointed and feathered, in freedom of admiration, "and all in the way of business"—then is a lovable sitter to a love-like painter in "parlous" vicinity (as the new school would phrase it) to sweet heart-land! Pleasure in a vocation has no offset in political economy as honor has ("the more honor the less profit"), or portrait-painters ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... should I make a long story of it? You must know that it was the most parlous and fierce and fearful battle that ever has been fought in our day. Nor have there ever been such forces in the field in actual fight, especially of horsemen, as were then engaged—for, taking both sides, there were not fewer than 760,000 horsemen, a mighty force! and that without ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Roberts included, knew nothing of its actual heaviness. This revelation was tangible and distinct. The gun story narrated by our newspaper only too clearly exemplified the meagre information sent out concerning the public larder, the public health, the parlous pass altogether to which the public had been reduced. No confidence could be reposed in the men at the helm; in pilots who betrayed unwillingness to steer for harbour; who preferred recklessly to exploit their valour for the sake of a selfish ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... years are on my soul, And on my conscience. I've an incubus: My one distinction, and a parlous toll To glory; but hope lives ...
— The Man Against the Sky • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... his drawn sword in his teeth, since both hands were needed for the parlous descent, he commenced his task while the others ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... it was a subject for frequent comment that Rufus Craig had not appeared in the north country to take command of his forces in those parlous times when the Three C's interests were threatened. In council Lida and her advisers began to wonder how much information regarding the Flagg operations had filtered to the outside or whether the defeated Comas bosses were not apprehensively withholding ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... hand-sewn slippers, deposits the boots as according to rule in the ottoman, and crosses to the fire. There must be something on David's mind to-night, for he pays no attention to the game, neither gives advice (than which nothing is more maddening) nor exchanges a wink with Alick over the parlous condition of James's crown. You can hear the wag-at-the-wall clock in the lobby ticking. Then David lets himself go; it runs out of him like ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie
... passing strange that he should take so much notice of thee as to exchange blows with thee with his own hand. Haply thou art either very quick or parlous slow at arms." ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... no doubt: O, 'tis a parlous boy; Bold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable: He is all the mother's, from the ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... done me a parlous ill turn, Cousin Reuben," he said sadly to his cousin, "by bidding me hide this matter from my wife. A few more such secrets, and I should be a ruined man. Never before have I known her seized with a desire for such prodigality of vesture. I have looked upon her, all ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... four hours in the water, found me in a parlous condition in the tide-rips off Mare Island light, where the swift ebbs from Vallejo Straits and Carquinez Straits were fighting with each other, and where, at that particular moment, they were fighting the flood tide setting up against ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... hands and legs and heads hewn off: and besides the dead that fell, many a wounded man, that never rose again, for the sore press there was. The din and uproar were so great from this side and from that, that God might have thundered and no man would have heard it! Great was the medley, and dire and parlous was the fight that was fought on both sides; but the Tartars had the best of ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... army was greatly complicated by the hundreds of thousands of civil refugees who all, more or less, looked to Wrangel as their leader, and grouped themselves around him—all of them, however, in an equally parlous plight. ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... hear the news of an engagement. There was the sober sheet (crossed) from the elderly relative living in the country, who, never having been married herself, takes the opportunity of giving four pages of advice to one about to enter that parlous state. There was the fatherly letter from the country rector who christened Millicent, and thinks that he may be asked to marry her in a fashionable London church—and so to a bishopric. On heavily-crested stationery follow ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... parlous lump upon his forehead where it struck the thwart," said the minister, "but the life's yet in him. He'll shame honest men for many a day to come. Your Platonists, who from a goodly outside argue as fair a soul, could never have been acquainted with ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... therefore, whether he be called to see his client at the Tombs or in the police station, or is consulted in his own office, at once informs the latter that he is indeed in a parlous state. He demonstrates to him conclusively that there exist but a few steps between him and the gallows, or at least the State's prison, and that his only hope lies in his procuring at once sufficient money to—first, get out on bail; second, buy off the witnesses; third, ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... this?"—"The wage for his porter's work," answered the officer, his face respectfully wrinkled with the trace of a smile. "Though one could say from his exhaustion that he received other favour than coin. The very thought of his filthy repast drives the rascal to most fearful retchings. He is in a parlous way, and if your lordship deign forbearance...."—"Heigh!" He was interrupted by the exclamation of Saburo[u]zaemon, now examining the leaf most intently. "I say now! An oak leaf, the broad reminder of the kiri (paulownia imperialis), such might come from last year's ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... "equality of sacrifice" is to be a reality and not merely a bitter jest. Look for a moment at the tale that these profits show! The Projectile Company has multiplied its 1913 profit thirteen times over! Five or six years ago its affairs were in so parlous a state that 19s. had to be written off as lost from each 20s. share. Now, as Mr. Charles Duguid reminds us, "it is paying a first dividend of 50 per cent and is returning to the shareholders 3s. 6d. out of the 19s. they regarded as lost." The return on the shares, according to the ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... What saist thou, bully Bottome? Bot. There are things in this Comedy of Piramus and Thisby, that will neuer please. First, Piramus must draw a sword to kill himselfe; which the Ladies cannot abide. How answere you that? Snout. Berlaken, a parlous feare ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... their relations. Thus, when we regard the manners of the dog, we see a romantic and monogamous animal, once perhaps as delicate as the cat, at war with impossible conditions. Man has much to answer for; and the part he plays is yet more damnable and parlous than Corin's in the eyes of Touchstone. But his intervention has at least created an imperial situation for the rare surviving ladies. In that society they reign without a rival: conscious queens; and in the only instance of a canine wife-beater ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... beginning of those parlous times when the Democrats, having come into power upon a wave of impassioned idiocy and jealousy, were beginning to make us poor at home and despised abroad. A schoolmaster president, with three cabinet officers plucked by the hair from a Gilbert and Sullivan ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... reading. On the center-table, cheap magazines; on the stage, vaudeville—these are habits that sap the ability for slow, ruminative pleasure in the arts. Luckily, they are not the only modern manifestation, else were we in a parlous state, indeed! The trouble with Scott, then, may be resolved in part into a trouble with the modern folk ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... in another letter (which appears not) as 'pointing to a pretty variegated landscape of wood, water, and hilly country; which had pleased her so much, that she had drawn it; the piece hanging up, in her parlous, among some of her ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... first to build in this virgin waste," mused the young man aloud. "Rough and parlous were the days when he came to this land, Zachariah. There was no town of Lafayette, no neighbours save the rude, uncultured trappers. Now see how the times have changed. And, mark my guess, Zachariah, there will be still greater changes before we are laid away. There will be cities ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... were so many refuse piles. Men in khaki moved to and fro like bees before their hive, overrunning the restaurants, the crapulous lunch houses, the parlous hotels, and the stands of the street vendors on which rotten ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... thus remain to share life with the white survivors in South Africa would be a contented one, or whether they would be living in chains, of which the thraldom of coming events appears to be casting its shadow before. But at the time it sounded parlous to think that anything could interrupt the calm of the tolerant British colonists and egg them against their Dutch rulers, who call them foreign adventurers. Nor could we conceive of any reason why the Boers, who have now more freedom than they ever dreamt of possessing under their ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... they were upon was higher than the other and covered with a wood, and as Mr. Fox followed at some distance he beheld a parlous sight. At a turn in the way, down the bank, there rushed a woman, a frantic figure, hair flying, garments disordered, and with a shriek flung herself full length upon the earth before my lord Marquess's horse, ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... stood La Boulaye like a statue, unmoved and immovable. The Captain was speaking to her, gently and soothingly, but her thoughts became more taken with the silence of La Boulaye than with the speech of Charlot. Even in that parlous moment she had leisure to despise herself for having once—on the day on which, in answer to her intercessions, he had spared her brother's life—entertained a kindly, almost wistful, thought concerning this man whom ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... person with whiskers and dressed in the uniform of a butler in the British Navy, ask a German waiter if the pork pie is built. Ja, Ja, replies the waiter. Archy's suspicions are awakened, and he climbs into the pork pie through an air hole, and prepares his soul for parlous times. The naval butler takes the pie on board a launch, and Archy, watching through one of the portholes of the pastry, sees that they are picked up by a British cruiser "an inch or two outside the three-mile line." (This was in neutral days, remember.) Archy continues ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... came to inquire with the solicitude of seeming friendship, but outside that house he was busy breathing life into a scheme of broad and parlous scope, and in all but a literal sense that scheme was a violation of ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... can get at them. And you must know also that if they take prisoner a man of another country, and he cannot pay a ransom in coin, they kill him and eat him straightway. It is a very evil custom and a parlous.[NOTE 5] ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Wherefore the best one can do, is to get it sound, well roasted, and as fresh as may be. Much as I love and practice home preparation, I am willing to let the Trust or who will, roast my coffee. Roasting is parlous work, hot, tedious, and tiresome, also mighty apt to result in scorching if not burning. One last caution—never meddle with the salt unless sure your hand is light, your memory so trustworthy you will not ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... him, hardly was he settled down at Carthage than his father died. This made his future again problematical. How was he to keep up his studies without the sums coming from his father? The affairs of Patricius must have been left in the most parlous condition. But Monnica, clinging to her ambitious plans for her son, knew how to triumph over all difficulties, and she continued to send Augustin money. Romanianus, the Maecenas of Thagaste, who was doubtless applied to by her, came once more to the rescue of the hard-up student. ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... street for playground, exercise, observation, and talk; what kind of young men and maidens are we to expect that these boys and girls will become? If this were the exact, plain, and naked truth we were in a parlous state indeed. Fortunately, however, there arc in every parish mitigations, introduced principally by those who come from the city of Samaria, or it would be bad indeed for the next generation. There are a few girls' clubs; the ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... occasions, yet so far as was visible it was only the Jewish guests—comically distinguished by serviettes shamefacedly dabbed on their heads—who fidgeted under the pious torrent. These were no doubt fearful of boring the Christians whose precious society the Jew enjoyed on a parlous tenure. In the host's son Julius a superadded intellectual impatience was traceable. He had brought back from Oxford a contempt for his father's creed which was patent to every Jew save Sir Asher. Barstein, observing all this uneasiness, became curiously ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... I found the lady so impolitely named "the Old Cow" in a parlous state. There she lay upon the floor, an unpleasant object because of the blood that had escaped from her wound, surrounded by a crowd of other women and of children. At regular intervals she announced that ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... a bold front, blustered, and promised his adherents no end of good things, and told them that, as in 1884-85, it was God's will to turn the English back at the eleventh hour, Khalifa Abdullah was truly in a parlous state. With all the Sirdar's care, we could not keep from the dervish leader the extent of our preparations or forwardness for the advance. As usual, Sir Herbert Kitchener was well ahead of the time planned ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... "Hi, hi! That's parlous odd. Keep her as you have her, and have out Bill, the carpenter, to see if there's any iron overside. Nay, let her off a little more, for that's a hard-looking piece of shore out yonder, for all of the ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... not. Excuse my bluntness, but these are parlous times for wayfarers and I cannot afford to have a tin can tied to me as I ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... only choose. Unfortunately, the glory of the view does not make up to them for the lack of town bustle and nightly "movies," so it isn't always easy to make comfortable summer arrangements. As you start so you go on, for changing horses in mid-stream has ever been a parlous business. A temperamental high-school boy who came to drive the motor and water the garden, though he appeared barefooted to drive me to town, and took French leave for a day's fishing, pinning a note to the kitchen door, saying, "Expect me when you see me and don't wait dinner," afflicted ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... the skipper, with a wink. "'Tis hard t' believe. He've been huntin' gulls' nests in parlous places on the cliff o' ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... These were parlous times in Grub Street; in the days when the art of letters, though undeniably prolific, was not productive of an income which would assure even a practised hand freedom from care and want. Within a half-mile on either side of this blind alley leading off Fleet Street, from Ludgate Hill on the ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... seem an odd thing that this lady should so readily have taken a stranger into her confidence. Yet reflect upon the parlous condition in which she found herself. Deserted by her dispirited grooms, her enemies hot upon her heels, she was in no case to trifle with assistance, or to despise an offer of services, however frail it might seem. With both hands she ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... reason of their journey, and he said, 'I purpose to go with my brother, this sick man, to the holy woman, her whose prayers are answered, so she may pray for him and God may make him whole by the blessing of her prayers.' Quoth the villager, 'By Allah, my son is in a parlous plight for sickness and we have heard that the holy woman prayeth for the sick and they are made whole. Indeed, the folk counsel me to carry him to her, and behold, I will go in company with you. And they said, 'It is well.' So ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... Society there could not be many in this condition—but if the chance had been theirs and they had neglected it (in which category were obviously Roman Catholics and Dissenters), the punishment was sure and merited. It was clear that the miscreant was in a parlous state. Perhaps Philip had not been taught it in so many words, but certainly the impression had been given him that only members of the Church of England had any real ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... a famine here. The Minister got off an urgent telegram to the Consul to get to work and have them released, and also saw von der Lancken about it, with the result that the wires are hot. I hope to hear to-night that they are free. These are parlous times to be travelling ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... no questions, they did not look forward gioomily to doubtful prospects. The same philosophy, or lack of it, that had always made life full of merry hope when their stomachs were filled, taking no thought of the morrow, animated them now. Fate had given Mayo and his associate an ideal crew for that parlous job. It was not a question of union hours and stated wages; they worked all night just as cheerily ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... literally in the sand at Scheveningen, and was not surprised to hear that Omey Island was once so famous for the national staff of life that few cared to grow anything else. But there are difficulties everywhere, and it is parlous work to break up ground at Omey. There is too much fresh air; for it blows so hard that people are afraid to disturb the thin covering of herbage which overspreads the best part of the island. "If ye break the shkin of 'um, your honour, the wind blows the sand away ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... to their conception of right and wrong. The Papacy itself seems to have had no definite ideas of right and wrong at the time, or at least did not put them into practice; had, in fact, become thoroughly corrupt and ineffective for good. Christendom was in a parlous state, disunited and assailed by hosts of barbarians, Danes, Saracens, Hungarians. The latter had become especially dangerous to the Slavonic peoples. Before Arpad arrived at Pressburg (now called Bratislava, please) in 829, the territory inhabited by Slavonic ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... the Picture (WARD, LOCK) is that it would be better worth reading if it contained less of the tale—which, to speak quite candidly, is parlous nonsense—and more of the trimmings. The trimmings are mostly concerned with art bargain-hunting, and are excellent fun. Most of us have the treasure-trove instinct sufficiently developed to like reading about a young man who picks up Gainsboroughs for a tenner, or unearths lost masterpieces of ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... him, and rolled with him into the middle of the room, and beat his head against the tiles. On the frightful cries of the victim, Louisa, Melchior, everybody, came running. They rescued Ernest in a parlous state. Jean-Christophe would not loose his prey; they had to beat and beat him. They called him a savage beast, and he looked it. His eyes were bursting from his head, he was grinding his teeth, and his only thought was to hurl himself again on ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... time. I went home that night acutely sympathetic towards the worries of the Prime Minister. Mulross would be abroad in a day or two, and Vennard and Cargill were volcanoes in eruption. The Government was in a parlous state, with three demented Ministers on ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... phrase. At the opening of the sixteenth century every established institution—political, social, and religious—was shaken and showed the rents and fissures caused by time and by the growth of a new life underneath it. The empire—the Holy Roman—was in a parlous way as regarded its cohesion. The power of the princes, the representatives of local centralized authority, was proving itself too strong for the power of the Emperor, the recognized representative of centralized authority for the whole German-speaking world. This meant ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... be parlous words an we wish to honor the memory of our New England grandsires; and let us remember that these negative toilet traits were not peculiar to them, but dated from the fatherland. A century ago the English were said to be the only European people that had ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... An absurd period, excusable only on the score of its brevity. A parlous condition! A traitorous guide, froward, inspired of all manner of levity, pursuant of hopeless phantasms, dupe of roseate and pernicious myths (love-at-first-sight, and the like), butt of the High Gods' stinging laughter, ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... in even a more parlous state. I know nothing of applied electricity in its simplest forms. I could not explain the theory of the gas engine, and plumbing is to me one of ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... general prospects of East End labour. He described the scheme, but in such a way as rather to damn it than praise it; and as for the Bill itself, which he had undertaken to compare with former Factory Bills, when he sat down he left it, indeed, in a parlous case—a poor, limping, doubtful thing, quite as likely to ruin the East End as to do it a hand's turn ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... eye there's early death looking out of his eyes," Jane Marks would say. "Such blue eyes belong to the sky, Minnie, and there's more to it than his angel face, because the child's so parlous good that it ain't straining truth to say the Old Adam be left out of him. And granted that, this vale of tears is no place for such a boy. Heaven's his home," Mrs. Marks would say, "and so you must fortify yourself ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... was plain enough in the word-combats of Queen Mary and her lady gaoler in Loch Leven. Much more conspicuous is the "swashing blow" in the repartee of "St. Ronan's." The insults lavished on Lady Binks are violent and cruel; even Clara Mowbray taunts her. Now Lady Binks is in the same parlous case as the postmistress who dreed penance "for ante-nup," as Meg Dods says in an interrupted harangue, and we know that, to the author's mind, Clara Mowbray had no right to throw stones. All these jeers are offensive to generous feeling, and in the mouth of Clara are intolerable. Lockhart ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... her dismay, confronted by a parlous choice. Consent to Diana's accompanying her in this condition she could not; ride on alone to Mr. Wilding's house was hardly to be thought of, and yet if she delayed she was endangering Richard's life. By the very strength of ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... the confident demeanor of the paddling warriors in the canoes were destined to be justified, the big steamer was in parlous state. Her vast bulk and sheer walls of steel did not daunt them. They came on steadily against the rapid current, and spread out into a crescent when within a few hundred yards of the ship. Then three men, crouching in the bows of different ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... me, and you make me tell her name. No, no. O terrible torments, that trounce in my toe! Love, my masters, is a parlous matter! how it runs out of my nose! It's now in my back, now in my belly; O, now in the bottom ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... palm grove, till Tom Peter introduced us, and cleared for us a decent hut. The buildings, if they can be so called, are poor and ragged, copies of those which we shall see upon the uplands. Presently we were visited by the king named after that saint "of whom the Evil One was parlous afraid." This descendant of the "Counts of Sonho," in his dirty night-cap and long coat of stained red cloth, was a curious contrast to the former splendour of the "count's habit," with cap of stitched silk which could be worn only by him and his nobles, fine linen shirt, ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... our visit the republic was in a parlous state. H.E. Mr. Gardiner, the new President, refused to swear in the Upper House, and the Lower refused to acknowledge the Presidential authority. Consequently business had been at a standstill for ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... great crowd gathered round; but no conclusion was reached. They broke up with an understanding that the inquiry should be completed another day; and now they are all agog to see which will win and prove his case. You all see how parlous and precarious is our position, depending on a single mortal. These are the alternatives for us: to be dismissed as mere empty names, or (if Timocles prevails) to enjoy ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... serial in the Etat, and his Esther,[*] appearing similarly in the Parisien. June he spent at Lagny, where his manuscripts were being printed, in order to correct the proofs and get his money. But the Etat ceased issue while he was there; and the Parisien, being in parlous condition, refused likewise to pay up, so that he had to go off with a thinner-lined pocket than he had expected. Otherwise, he was in a fitting state of grace to meet his fair tyrant, whose envelope lectures had brought him into fear ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... who had followed the three ex-Emperors into the Southern lines in 1352 fell into two cliques, each advocating the nomination of a different successor. This discord exercised a debilitating influence, and when Go-Murakami died (1368), the Southerners found themselves in a parlous condition. For his son and successor, Chokei, failing to appreciate the situation, immediately planned an extensive campaign against Kyoto from the east and the south simultaneously. Then Kusunoki Masanori passed into the Northern camp. Few events have received wider historical comment in Japan. ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... parlous one for the vixen, and as she pulled herself together for flight along the side of the slope she doubtless regretted bitterly the curiosity which had impelled her to visit the den of her ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... a cry, but she was not of the fainting kind, and soon she was weeping and laughing by turns, kissing her handsome lad again and again. Presently, as if forgetting herself, she cried, "Ah, my boy, there's a parlous deed going on up at the Towers! You should be going to help." And George learned to his astonishment that the Squire's house was being at that moment attacked by a formidable and desperate gang. Fairburn had gone off to render what assistance he could. It was ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... with whole-hearted fervour. It having become known that he was engaged in preparing this brief for the people of China, every influence was brought to bear to prevent such a disastrous publication. Influential deputations were sent to him to implore him to remember the parlous international situation China found herself in,—a situation which would result in open disaster if subjected to the strain of further discords. For a time he hesitated launching his counter-stroke. But at length the Republican Party persuaded him to deal the tyrant the needed blow; and his ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... them, but Stepan Verhovensky does not, anyway. I saw them that time in Petersburg avec cette chere amie (oh, how I used to wound her then), and I wasn't afraid of their abuse or even of their praise. I'm not afraid now either. Mais parlous d'autre chose.... I believe I have done dreadful things. Only fancy, I sent a letter yesterday to Darya Pavlovna and... how I ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... retinue of carts, waggons, guns, mounted men, "voetgangers" nearly three miles long. The Boers walking comprised 150 burghers without horses, who refused to surrender to the Portuguese, and who had now joined the trek on foot. Of the 1,500 mounted Boers 500 possessed horses which were in such a parlous condition that they could not be ridden. The draught cattle were mostly poor and weak, and the waggons carrying provisions and ammunition, as also those conveying the guns, could only be urged along with great difficulty. In the last few months our cattle and horses had been worked hard nearly ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... moment, breathing fast, her eyes widening, that part of her which was weak woman for the moment putting her in parlous danger, realising the which she pressed her sides with hands ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... out. However, it turned out that he had come down from Serches, being somewhat anxious as to what might be happening on the other side of the river—with considerable justification, for if we had been driven back on to the one bridge which crossed the river we might have been in a parlous state. ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... the truth of a single word you have said, my dear Prince," the Prime Minister remarked, "there is another aspect of the whole subject which I think that you should consider. If you find us in so parlous a state, it is surely scarcely dignified or gracious, on the part of a great nation like yours, to leave us so abruptly to our fate. Supposing it were true that we were suffering a little from a period of too lengthened prosperity, from ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... heavily on the iron table, and he looked round him in semi-intoxicated stupefaction. He was in a confidential humour, and when a man is in this humour, drunk or sober, he is in a parlous state. It was certainly rather unfortunate that Uncle Ben should have in this expansive moment no more sympathetic companion than an ancient, intoxicated Frenchman, who spoke ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... calling was peaceful. The year 1702 alone must have caused him some disquiet, when during the war the city of Cremona was taken by Marshal Villeroy, on the Imperialist side, retaken by Prince Eugene, and finally taken a third time by the French. That must have been a parlous time for the master of that wonderful workshop whence proceeded the world's masterpieces, though we may almost fancy the absorbed master, like Archimedes when the Romans took Syracuse, so intent on his labor that he hardly heard the din and roar of battle, till some rude soldier disturbed the serene ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... wit and wicked mind," father of Guizor (groom of Pollente the Saracen, lord of "Parlous Bridge"). Sir Ar'tegal, with scant ceremony, knocks the life out of Guizor, for demanding of him "passage-penny" for crossing the bridge. Soon afterwards, Brit'omart and Talus rest in Dolon's castle ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... the air; it is mostly composed of native iron and other heavy metallic bodies; and it does its best to bury itself in the ground in the most orthodox and respectable manner. The man who sees this parlous monster come whizzing through the clouds from planetary space, making a fiery track like a great dragon as it moves rapidly across the sky, and finally ploughing its way into the earth in his own back garden, may well be excused for regarding ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... compelled Chichikov to face these things. Among commissions entrusted to him was that of placing in the hands of the Public Trustee several hundred peasants who belonged to a ruined estate. The estate had reached its parlous condition through cattle disease, through rascally bailiffs, through failures of the harvest, through such epidemic diseases that had killed off the best workmen, and, last, but not least, through the senseless conduct of the owner himself, who had furnished a house in Moscow in the latest style, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... may favor his design, and would especially recommend that our noble brother propitiate with prayers and offerings the holy Saint Hubert. We, ourselves, have importuned this holy saint, and he has proved marvellously helpful on parlous occasions. ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... true that the mark has fallen, and that the German financial fabric is in a parlous condition. But that fabric is kept from crumbling away by the war, just as the Egyptian papyrus is preserved so long as it does not come into contact with the air. Moreover, common prudence should impel us to find out at what a cost to ourselves we have reduced the value of the mark. If ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... "Call the National Guard To quell this parlous muss— For all of the widows of Thomas Blythe Are upon the spree ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... they heard that Wigfall had been carrying on negotiations in Beauregard's name, and stated that, to their certain knowledge, he had had no communication with Beauregard. They spoke of the matter with great delicacy, for Wigfall was a parlous man, and quick to settle disputed points with the pistol. Anderson replied with spirit that, under the circumstances, he would run up his flag again, and resume the firing. They begged him, however, not to take action until they had ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday
... and funerals, I have seen and attended more than enough of them out here. At this present moment a friend, a New Zealander, is in parlous plight. He was shot in the right shoulder, the wound soon healed, but the arm was almost useless, so the massage fiend here used to come and give him terrible gip. Then doctor No. 3 came along, said he had been treated wrongly, that the artery was severed, etc., and operated on him. The operation ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... marryin' time tu!" declared Mr. Blee. "Look at me," he continued, "parlous near seventy, ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... may cost him dearly. But if they go well, and this siege is raised, he has nothing more to fear. Mine is a parlous case. However ends this siege, for me there will be no escape from the vengeance of Gian Maria and Guidobaldo. They know my share in it. They know that your action was helped by me, and that without me you could never ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini |
