"Piteous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pointing out that in this factory precious machinery had been swept away—in that house a mother and five children had been drowned in their beds—here some wonderful escape had taken place—there had befallen some piteous tragedy. Soon clearing the village, we came to a factory which stood in the bottom of the valley, with some ruined buildings beside it. This had been the property of a Mr Sandford, and he lived close to his mill. Taken completely ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... tears run slowly down her face, O piteous Christ upon the Cross! And through her tears she ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... of which I here make a summary, she told me in all their dark extent, with every piteous detail of conjugal battles ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... rain; next morning they were brought back to town still manacled, under the scorching beams of a sun intensely hot, and must infallibly have expired, had not nature expelled the fever in large painful boils, that covered almost the whole body. In this piteous condition they were embarked in an open boat for Muxadavad, the capital of Bengal, and underwent such cruel treatment and misery in their passage, as would shock the humane reader should he peruse the particulars. At Maxadavad they were led through the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... made to bring the President's votes to Webster. This was agreeable to Fillmore, who placed a letter of withdrawal in the hands of a Buffalo delegate to be used whenever he deemed it proper. But twenty-two Southern men declined to be transferred, while the most piteous appeals to the Scott men of New York met with cold refusals. They professed any amount of duty to their party, but as regards the Fillmore combine they were implacable. They would listen to no terms of compromise while their great enemy remained in the field. Meantime, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... reduce in veritie Historiall, the great siege, cruel oppugnation, and piteous taking of the noble and renowmed citie of Rhodes, the key of Christendome, the hope of many poore Christian men, withholden in Turkie to saue and keepe them in their faith: the rest and yeerely solace of noble pilgrimes of the holy sepulchre of Iesu Christ and other holy places: the ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... there was something a great deal more than the physical shrinking from physical death in that piteous cry, Jesus Christ did not die nearly as bravely as many a poor, trembling woman who, at the stake or the block, has owed her fortitude to Him. Many a blood-stained criminal has gone out of life with less tremor than that which, unless you take the explanation that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... a pity that England did not show some of this sympathy sooner, instead of standing idly by until Turkey had brought Greece to her present piteous plight. ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 29, May 27, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... incongruities of human government will be swept away, and the light of omniscient wisdom will shine on all alike. There will he meet the little child who strayed from the fold into the snows of death early in the married life, and there will he sit beside that fond old heart who heard his first piteous wail in this cold world, and nestled him to her bosom all warm with a ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... widely opened eyes, gazing wildly straight before him, his hands extended, and trembling violently; while, as his fellow-prisoner leaned forward and caught him by the arm to try and soothe him, believing him to be in pain, he snatched his hand away, and in a piteous cry uttered the ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... in a piteous state from the sickness, which had cut off hosts of people of all ranks. It lasted seven or nine days in each, and seems to have been a malignant fever. Pericles lost his eldest son, his sister, and almost all his dearest ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dimly lighted corner by the canopy, came a little piteous wail; then another followed, and was lost in the singer's voice. During a long phrase on the harpsichord, sharp and tinkling, the singer turned his head towards the dais, and there came a plaintive little sob. But he, instead of stopping, struck a sharp chord; and with a thread of voice so ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... arcade. Make men to see their eyes, Forced to suspect behind each reed or rose The thorn of lurking foes. And O, before the daylight goes, After the deed against the skies, After the last belief and longing dies, Make men again to see their eyes Whose piteous casements now all unafraid Peer out to that far verge where evermore, Beyond all woe for which a tear atones, The likeness of our own dishonor moans, A sea that has no ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... differences of taste and time, the vogue of the Novel in Richardson's day can easily be understood, and through all the stiffness, the stilted effect of manner and speech, and the stifling conventions of the entourage, a sweet and charming young woman in very piteous distress emerges to live in affectionate memory. After all, no poor ideal of womanhood is pictured in Clarissa. She is one of the heroines who are unforgettable, dear. Mr. Howells, with his stern insistence on truth in ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... then who and what she was, he would not have deemed it a disgrace to love a child of Hagar Warren. But Margaret did not know him, and when he said again, "Will Maggie answer me?" there came from her lips a piteous, wailing cry, and turning her face away she answered mournfully: "No, Mr. Carrollton, no, I cannot be your wife. It breaks my heart to tell you so; but if you knew what I know, you would never have spoken to me words of love. You would have rather thrust me from you, ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... screen shading the light, near the stove in the middle ward, until the next were due. One night I heard a cat mewing. It seemed to be almost under my chair, I got up and looked everywhere. Yes, there it was again, but this time coming from under one of the men's beds. It was a piteous mew, and I was determined to find it. I spent a quarter of an hour on tiptoe looking everywhere. It was not till I heard a stifled chuckle from the bed next the Dutchman's that I suspected anything, and then, determined they should get no rise out of me, sat down quietly in my chair ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... quite easily she felt her heart die in her breast, leaving only the shell, the husk, of what had been Randalin, Frode's daughter. Her first thought Was a vague wonder that after it she could breathe and move as if she were still alive. Her next, a piteous desire to escape from him while she had this strength, before the end should really come. Clutching the broken chain, she drew herself up bravely, her words coming in uneven breathfuls. "I want not that recompense, ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... to me! No, give me the cannon!" mamma began begging like a little child. Her face showed a piteous fear that she would not get it. Kolya was disconcerted. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... struggling in the agitated water, those who still lived endeavouring to extricate themselves from the mass of corpses, falling fast, but often rising again with their last energies, streaming with water and blood, and uttering piteous cries and appeals for mercy, which were mocked by the fiends around them. Many women were amongst them; one I noticed carrying a little child, which, struggling forward, she held up to the soldiers as if in appeal. As she reached the bank, one of the wretches ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... Whatever the cause of my yielding may have been, I did yield. I prefer to pass over in silence the doubts and hesitations which beset me for the remainder of the day; the arrival, toward evening, of the piteous note from Von Rosenau, which finally overcame my weak resistance to his will; and the series of circumstantial false statements (I blush when I think of them) by means of which I accounted to my sister for ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... turned her heavy eyes With such a piteous glance upon my face; It pierced my heart, and fast the gathering tears Blinded my sight. Alas! poor maniac; For thee no hope shall dawn—no tender thought Wake in thy blighted heart a thrill of joy. The immortal mind is levelled with the dust, Ere the tenacious cords of ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... is little and unimportant. The most remarkable circumstance, is the extreme poverty to which the monks were reduced in 1384; when, on being called upon to pay the sum of forty-six shillings and eight-pence, they pleaded their utter inability, and presented to the king the following piteous remonstrance:—"Cette Abbaie, etant frontiere de l'Anglois, n'aiant ni chateau ni defense, a ete arse et mise en un si chetif point, qu'il y a peu de lieux ou nous puissions habiter, si ce n'est es demeurans des anciens edifices, et es vieilles masures.......... ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... A feeble piteous sound answered him, and following the direction of the reply, he strode along, between the rocks and thorn-bushes that guarded the slope of the hill, to a valley covered with thick moss, veiling treacherously marshy ground in which it was easy ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... loose adventure, and had not won the heart of my Lady Castlemaine, since he had made no love to her, which was not a thing to be lightly forgiven to any handsome and stalwart gentleman. Besides this, he had been so moved by the piteous case of the poor Queen, during her one hopeless battle for her rights when this termagant beauty was first thrust upon her as lady of her bedchamber, that on those cruel days during the struggle when the poor Catherine had found herself sitting ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... "wonderful," to which one of the boys retorted that it was not wonderful at all but "merely natural and could not be helped." Personally I think singing was the most effective medium for passing the time which we could have hit on. It drowned the volleys of oaths, curses, wails, groans, sobbings, and piteous appeals which rose to Heaven from all around us. If we had kept dumb our minds must have been depressingly affected if not unhinged by what we could ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... up, much against his will, and his piteous protests no longer added to the girl's agony. She clung to the after rail, and watched the boat, now a tiny dot hard to discern amidst the ripples caused by the inflowing tide. Her intimate acquaintance with the daily happenings of life ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... disapproved his conduct, that she never admitted him to her conversation, nor suffer'd him to enter her house. She, indeed, often relieved him with such donations, as spoke her generous disposicion.—But this was on the sollicitation of friends, who frequently set his calamities before her in the most piteous light; and from a principle of humanity, she became not a little instrumental in ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... support. Then it slid down, its movement visible in the bulging of the drenched cloth. This was followed by a heavy, squelching flop. The body, whatever it was, had fallen into the streaming water pouring from within the hut. Then came a long-drawn, piteous moan that held the men gazing silently and stupidly at ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... provisions; in another, they were slaying men, horses, and cattle, and these actions were accompanied with appropriate sounds. The cattle, particularly, had become sensible of their impending fate, and with awkward resistance and piteous cries, testified that reluctance with which these poor creatures look instinctively on the shambles. The groans and screams of men, undergoing, or about to undergo, the stroke of death, and the screeches of the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... thousands of weak and immature elk have perished in the Jackson Hole country, from starvation and exposure. The ranchmen of that region have had terrible times,—in witnessing the sufferings of thousands of elk tamed by hunger, and begging in piteous dumb show for the small and all-too-few haystacks of ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... her for whose sake thou art thus, ask not of her case on shine account. But thou keptest thy secret and fellest sick, while she told her secret and they said she had gone mad; so she is now in prison, with an iron chain about her neck, in most piteous plight; but, Allah willing, the healing of both of you shall come from my hand." Now when Kamar al-Zaman heard these words, his life returned to him and he took heart and felt a thrill of joy and signed to his father to help him sit ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... sullen in the white abyss. The ruthless hunter wants nor dogs nor toils, Nor with the dread of sounding bows he drives The fearful flying race: with ponderous clubs, As weak against the mountain-heaps they push Their beating breast in vain, and piteous bray, He lays them quivering on the ensanguined snows, And with loud shouts rejoicing bears ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... means Gerard escaped a witness of his anguish at leaving her he loved, and Martin escaped a piteous sight. He did not see the poor young things kneel and renew before Heaven those holy vows cruel men had interrupted. He did not see them cling together like one, and then try to part, and fail, and return to one another, and cling again, like drowning, despairing creatures. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... the arm, crying, "They are batooning my husband!" Another shrieked from a window, 'Help, help, they are killing my father!' Children ran about the streets, crying, "Oh, my father!—oh, my mother!" It seemed a heartless task to be going from one to another begging something to eat under such piteous circumstances; and yet how knew I that as bad or worse a tragedy might be acted at my uncle's if I failed ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... their feet at the piteous sigh which came from the back drawing room, and it was followed by ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... ripple went the water, and the cries whispered away as fading echoes, and then Pete's voice rose in a piteous wail. ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... dwell upon the incidents of the execution than attempt a sentence upon those who willed that it should be. It was at once most piteous and most inevitable. The hour of retribution had come at length, when at the hands of the Roman church was to be required all the righteous blood which it had shed, from the blood of Raymond of Toulouse to the blood of the last victim who had blackened into ashes at Smithfield. The voices crying ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... burst upon us like a great light. Smoothly white, her skin was, perfect. Wide blue eyes, now appealing, even piteous, looked from beneath a wealth of golden brown hair. White teeth, straight and even, flashed behind the natural crimson ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... away. Yet the victims were soon replaced by others, for had not the cardinal-archduke sworn to extract the thorn from the Belgic lion's paw even if he should be eighteen years about it, and would military honour permit him to break his vow? It was a piteous sight, even for the besieged, to see human life so profusely squandered. It is a terrible reflection, too, that those Spaniards, Walloons, Italians, confronted death so eagerly, not from motives of honour, religion, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... lift the baby she was holding,—when her husband came in. He was a working man, tall and robust looking. He walked toward the pantry. "You mustn't cut a pie," the little wife called out laughing. Then turning to me, she said, with a sort of appealing, piteous glance, "He don't understand how hard it is for me to make pies." I know a young woman, not a strong woman, who, with a family of very little children, does her own work, and makes from one to two dozen pies at a common baking, "'cause hubby loves ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... she sailed for Norway, and Joergen made himself useful on the farm, and at the fishery, in which there was much more done then than is now-a-days. The shoals of mackerel glittered in the dark nights, and showed the course they were taking; the crabs gave piteous cries when pursued, for fishes are not so mute as they are said to be. Every Sunday when he went to church, and gazed on the picture of the Virgin in the altar-piece, Joergen's eyes always wandered to the spot where Clara had ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... came up from the darkness of the pit in a piteous howl. Betsy made a great effort and stopped crying. She sat down on a stone and tried to think. And this is what came into her mind as a guide: "What would Cousin Ann do if she were here? She wouldn't cry. She would ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... revelry of the village; but sounds of another kind were heard on the surrounding hills; piteous wailings of the women, who had retired thither to mourn in darkness and solitude for those who had fallen in battle. There the poor mother of the youthful warrior who had returned home in triumph but to die, gave full vent to the ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... Ev'n there sad sights we cannot miss; 200 Beggars at every corner stand, With doleful look and trembling hand; Hear the shrill piteous cry of sweep, See wretches riddling an ash heap; The streets some for old iron scrape, 205 And scarce the crush of wheels escape; Some share with dogs the half-eat bones, From dunghills pick'd with ...
— No Abolition of Slavery - Or the Universal Empire of Love, A poem • James Boswell
... intertwined with Portia's? What dramatic purposes does it serve? Are Jessica and Launce alike justified in leaving Shylock? Why? (See Introduction to the Play in First Folio Edition for suggestion). Is the Jew's lament for his daughter although piteous, inadequate. ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... and bite the tip of his toe and nibble at his heel; and the man feels no hurt and his sweet sleep is not broken by my biting. But there are two things I fear above all else the whole world over, the hawk and the ferret—for these bring great grief on me—and the piteous trap wherein is treacherous death. Most of all I fear the ferret of the keener sort which follows you still even when you dive down your hole. [3601] I gnaw no radishes and cabbages and pumpkins, ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... to the river's brink, and was deliberately taking aim at her. Furious at such brutality, Berenger fired the pistol he held in his hand, and the wretch dropped from his horse; but at the same moment his pistol exploded, and the child rolled down the bank, whence a piteous wail came up, impelling Berenger to leap down to her assistance, in the full face of the enemy. Perhaps he was protected for the moment by the confusion ensuing on the fall of the officer; and when he reached the bottom of the bank, he saw the little creature on ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Persons who had pitied me for having "such a big head and so much hair" now found reason for comment "on my small head with no hair." The most expensive head cover never deceived anyone, however simple, and I was obliged to make my debut in St. Louis in this piteous plight. ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... figure of Christ received more emphasis, until it became the vehicle for exhibiting those painful aspects of death from which no divine message of resurrection could be inferred. The big crucifix ascribed to Michelozzo shows how far exaggeration could be carried.[49] The opened mouth, the piteous expression, the clots of blood falling from the wounds, combine to make a figure which is repellent, and which lost all justification, from the fact that this tortured dying man shows no conviction of divine life to come. Donatello's bronze crucifix at Padua, made years afterwards, ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... monster, carp or sturgeon, trout or crocodile. The left of the sign was none the less tempting; it represented a roast chicken lying upon its back with its head under its wing, and raising its mutilated legs in the air with a piteous look; it had for its companion a cluster of crabs, of a little too fine a red to have been freshly caught. The whole was interspersed with bottles and glasses brimful of wine. There were stone jugs at each extremity, the sergeants of the rear-rank of this gastronomic platoon, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... He to another river came, That smoothly flowed, a silent stream: This he thought easily to pass; But ere he in the middle was, He plunged into a gulf profound, And for his feet no bottom found; But, forced to swim with all his might, Got to the shore in piteous plight. ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... numbered by God, I know; but man can number them also, if he pleases, and make them longer or shorter by his obedience or disobedience. Secondly, Phebe, our sons have gone on before us as pioneers, and they send us piteous accounts of the spiritual needs of the colonists and the native populations out yonder. I preach often on the evils of over-population and its danger to our country, and I prescribe emigration to most ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... jaws of a rude gateway stood a waggon of stones. Harnessed to this were three sorry-looking mules and, leading them, the piteous wreck of what had been a blue roan. The latter was ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... it is so dreadful!" she moaned in piteous tone as she sank upon the cushions of the divan, Adam sitting beside her, her hand tight clasped in his own. "I didn't think Phil would bring all this trouble on us. I would forgive him anything but the way in which he deceived papa. He knew there was no copper in the mine, ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... nightingale, And, entering, found, sunk in mysterious swoon, A little maiden dreaming there alone. She babbled of her father sitting pale 'Neath wings of Death—'mid sights of sorrow and bale, And pleaded for his life in piteous tone. ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... long brilliant rays of light. The unclouded sky met the sparkling earth, and both glittered with unnatural brilliancy. To Paulett and Ellen, every thing spoke of desolation and death; and an exclamation escaped Ellen, in a low tone, that it was a piteous and horrible spectacle. But Charles, standing still at their side as they looked on the scene, cried it was beautiful; the colours of the sun were so splendid on the fine white trees, and one could see so far, and every thing was so ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... to Fricka proclaims her queenly and overbearing, with right and power on her side, and relentless determination to use them. Then there is the Valkyries' war-whoop—well known from its use in the Valkyries' Ride. Sieglinda has tender, piteous cries. In the scene of pleading and counter-pleading between Siegmund and Brunnhilda we have Wagner at the zenith of his powers: the pleading of the man, the calm, cold majesty of the Valkyrie, awe and pathos ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... "A most piteous scene took place," he said, "on the day when Sister Seraphine first heard again the call of the outer world. Most moving it was, as told me by the Prioress. The distraught nun lay upon the floor of her cell in an abandonment of frantic weeping. She imitated the galloping of a horse with her hands ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... the proposition; But poor Dudu, with large drops in her own, Resulting from the scolding or the vision, Implored that present pardon might be shown For this first fault, and that on no condition (She added in a soft and piteous tone) Juanna should be taken from her, and Her future dreams should ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... hint so? The going's hot, and the steeds must go! Chargers entered for such a race Must not complain of the pounding pace; Must not grumble at crushing weight. Yes; they appear in a piteous state, Almost foundered, and well nigh blown, With the burden big o'er their shoulders thrown. Ever swelling, like miser's sacks; But why have horses such broad strong backs, If not to bear—to the death at need, Though lungs may choke, and though flanks ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 5, 1892 • Various
... but my gown and swam a little way, till I happened upon one of the ship's planks whereto I clung and bestrode it like a horse, whilst the winds and the waters sported with me and the waves carried me up and cast me down; and I was in most piteous plight for fear and distress and hunger and thirst. Then I reproached myself for what I had done and my soul was weary after a life of ease and comfort; and I said to myself, "O Sindbad, O Seaman, thou ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... faith might be. Thus, in addition to danger from pirates, privateers, and men-of-war, an English merchantman had to risk attack by any one who was either passionately Roman or determined to use religion as a cloak. Raids and reprisals grew apace. The English were by no means always lambs in piteous contrast to the Papal wolves. Rather, it might be said, they took a motto from this true Russian proverb: 'Make yourself a sheep and you'll find no lack of wolves.' But, rightly or wrongly, the general ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... would change her residence to the Locusts, in case the peddler had no further use for her services. After a few preliminary conditions on the part of the wary housekeeper, the arrangement was concluded; and making a few more piteous lamentations on the weight of her own losses and the stupidity of Harvey, united with some curiosity to know the future fate of the peddler, Katy withdrew to make the necessary preparations for the approaching funeral, which was ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... of the unsack'd shalt be, So thick from dark Achaia's shore The cloud of war hath covered thee. Ah! not again I tread thy plain— The spear—the spear hath rent thy pride; The flame hath scarr'd thee deep and wide; Thy coronal of towers is shorn, And thou most piteous art—most naked and forlorn! ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... ribbons. The road led them across a heath upon which huge pieces of rock lay strewn about. There they noticed a large bird hovering in the air, flying slowly round and round above them; it sank lower and lower, and at last settled near a rock not far away. Immediately they heard a loud, piteous cry. They ran up and saw with horror that the eagle had seized their old acquaintance the dwarf, and was going to ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... bent over his account-books and coffers. There was pretty Genevieve, his sister, with her husband, Crispin Eyre. And there were the comrades of his boyhood, and the prating monk, and the unhappy lady with her white face framed in rich velvets and furs, and her piteous beseeching hands that were never still. Those faces, in the glow of the fire and the shine of tall candles in their silver sconces, were to be with him often in the ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... corner to the byre, whence through all the roar, every now and then they had heard the cavernous mooing of Crummie, piteous and low. He found a stream a foot deep running between her fore and hind legs, and did not wonder that she wanted to be on the move. Speedily he loosed her, and fastening the chain-tether to her halter, led her out. She was ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... and would not go back to it; and after a few minutes he telephoned Adelaide, ordered a cart, and set out to take her for a drive. Mrs. Whitney watched him depart with a heavy heart and so piteous a face that Ross was moved almost to the point of confiding in her what he was pretending not to admit to himself. "Ross is sensible beyond his years," she said to herself sadly, "but youth is so romantic. It never can see ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... all the spirit and wrath of the old woman: her cries of distress as she darted from one to the other, striking to the right and left with her feeble arms, her form trembling with passion, were at once ludicrous and piteous; and these were responded to by the shrill exclamations of the fierce tymbesteres, as they retorted scratch for scratch, and blow for blow. The spectators grew animated by the sight of actual outrage and resistance; the humpbacked tinker, whose unwholesome fancy one of the aggrieved tymbesteres had ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 12th of the month, empty handed. They all felt the danger that again threatened them, as it had done twice before during the winter, when they had to kill and eat some of their starving dogs. People spoke to each other in whispers, and everything was quiet, save for the never-ceasing and piteous cries of the hungry children, begging for food which their parents could not give them. Most of the time I stayed in bed, trying to keep warm and to avoid exercise that would only make me all the more hungry. It was impossible to keep warm this night, ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... to know him, and stretching her arm toward him as a child does toward its mother when danger threatens, she laid her head upon his bosom with a piteous wail—the only really audible ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... the night. My heart bounded as for an instant it occurred to me it would be in my dungeon! No such good fortune! They passed my door. At any rate, my chum should know where I was, so I proceeded to make a demonstration against my door and beseech, in the most piteous way, to be released. Of course, it was no use, but that did not matter; I never expected ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... down, her face was pinched and piteous; there was a strained, pathetic look in her eyes. She snuggled up in her old attitude on the arm of his chair, and what he said compared but poorly with the clear, authoritative, injured statement he had thought out with ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... he spoke, and now threw out her arms to draw him back. He eluded her clasp, and dropped to the ground on his feet, but fell backward, and did not at once rise again. She shrieked, and then called out in a piteous tone: "Speak to me, Colonel L'Isle. For Heaven's sake, speak. Say ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... man. It needed no second glance to tell me that this was Judge Hammond. I put my hand upon him, and uttered his name; but he answered not. I spoke more firmly, and slightly shook him; but only a piteous moan ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... words. But every novel experiment seems doomed to fail, or meet with some disaster. The water in the bottle had been reduced too low by vaporism, and the bottle burst suddenly, with a loud report. That report was followed by a piteous wail. ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... us to believe those piteous tales about your losing flesh and colour with homesickness," declared Max, his hand on his sister's shoulder, as he turned her full toward the firelight. "Jove, I never saw you look more like one of those pink peonies you think so much ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... years, Craddock's wife's mother took care that every communication from him, every demand for an explanation, every piteous plea for enlightenment, for one interview, should be ignored. The mother sent the girl to relatives in Europe; and after Craddock had spent three years and all the money that he had saved toward ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... all her life, since she was a baby, not a day, not a night, Evelyn, and now—so sweet, so dear—why Mrs. Mavick!" And the Scotch woman, dazed, with a piteous appeal in her eyes, trying in vain to control her face, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... [COMING FORWARD.] Do, good Detraction, do, and I the while Shall shake thy spight off with a careless smile. Poor piteous gallants! what lean idle slights Their thoughts suggest to flatter their starv'd hopes! As if I knew not how to entertain These straw-devices; but, of force must yield To the weak stroke of their calumnious tongues. What should I care what every dor doth buz In credulous ears? ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... made to revive him as soon as he was placed in a comfortable position on the bed in the room, sweet-scented with herbs, and with such success that in a short time there was a movement of the eyelids, followed by a low moan which, though piteous, was welcomed by the boys gladly, for ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... On the floor of its chancel the brasses of his father and his grandfather mark their graves. A step nearer to the altar, unmarked by brass or epitaph, lies the grave in which, with bitter tears and cries, his greencoats laid the body of the leader whom they loved. "Never were heard such piteous cries at the death of one man as at Master Hampden's." With him indeed all seemed lost. But bitter as were their tears, a noble faith lifted these Puritans out of despair. As they bore him to his grave they sang, in the words of the ninetieth psalm, how fleeting in the ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... reasoned, in piteous argument. Her gnarled hands trembled as she worked, and now, with nobody to note her weakness, tears fell unregarded down her face. "There's things I wouldn't ask for, whether or no. Mebbe they'd have to be took away from somebody else; an' I never was one to plead up poverty. ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... still pursued Apollo, thinking that he was Agenor, but at last the god made himself known to his pursuer. The hero reproached him angrily for his deception, and then with the utmost speed he hastened across the plain towards the city. From the ramparts the aged King Priam beheld him coming, and in piteous words he cried out to Hector, imploring him to take refuge within the walls. Queen Hecuba, too, with tears in her eyes, begged her son to withdraw, and not be so mad as to encounter the terrible Greek chief alone. But Hector would ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... extravagant as the scene was, it was faithful to the facts, in all its absurd details. The thing happened in Lampton's own house, and I was present. In fact I was myself the guest who ate the turnips. In the hands of a great actor that piteous scene would have dimmed any manly spectator's eyes with tears, and racked his ribs apart with laughter at the same time. But Raymond was great in humorous portrayal only. In that he was superb, he was wonderful—in a word, great; in all ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... consent to a compromise with her would be manifestly useless. Her first and foremost interest now was to find out how she really stood in the estimation of Julian Gray. In a terror of suspense, that turned her cold from head to foot, she stopped him on his way out, and spoke to him with the piteous counterfeit of ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... Achilles dire to both. He stood, and weeping spake withal: "Achates, lo! forsooth What place, what land in all the earth but with our grief is stored? 460 Lo Priam! and even here belike deed hath its own reward. Lo here are tears for piteous things that touch men's hearts anigh: Cast off thy fear! this fame today ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... zeal, and tumbled over Ramgolam, who was stooping remarkably near the keyhole. Dodd hastily bolted the cabin-door, and looked with trembling lip and piteous earnestness in Kenealy's face and Fullalove's. They were mute with surprise at a gaze so eloquent and ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... so tender." Even the beautiful suggestion that Shakespeare as he wrote had in mind his own dead little son still fresh and living at his heart can hardly add more than a touch of additional tenderness to our perfect and piteous delight in him. And even in her daughter's embrace it seems hard if his mother should have utterly forgotten the little voice that had only time to tell her just eight words of that ghost story which neither ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... through the air — with heavenly plunder? — Gripping the dazzling bird my dreaming knew? Nay! but a piteous freight, A dark and heavy weight Despoiled of silver plumage, its voice forever stilled, — All of the wonder Gone that ever filled Its guise with glory. Oh, bird that I have killed, How brilliantly you flew Across my rapturous ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... dread of this prospective ruin which made the killing of girl-babies so prevalent in India in the old days before England laid the iron hand of her prohibitions upon the piteous slaughter. One may judge of how prevalent the custom was, by one of Sleeman's casual electrical remarks, when he speaks of children at play in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... And another piteous cry was wrung from the hearts of the people to know how long, O, Lord! were these terrible scenes—killings, not battles; and with no result but blood ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... buried, inviolate Of body and soul, in the very space By the altar,—keeping saintly state In Pornic church, for her pride of race, Pure life, and piteous fate. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... early and late I hear nothing but the rolling of vehicles, hammering, quarrelling, and piano-strumming. A grave without repose, death without the privileges of the dead, who have no debts to pay, and need write neither letters nor books—that is a piteous condition. Long ago the measure has been taken for my coffin and for my necrology, but I die so slowly that the process is tedious for me as well as my friends. But patience: everything has an end. You will one ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... case it is of piteous distress, If, carrying a secret grief about, We wish to bury it in a recess, And find another there, ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... personal distinction. He is indeed most keenly sensible of the favour which bestowed them all. But his deep gratitude must ever be given to the goodness which dictated the touching assurance he has now received of your Majesty's interest in the piteous fate of one who for eighteen years has been all the world to him, whose patient, gentle spirit, and whose brave heart had turned aside so many perils, and who yet has sunk at last under the very means on which all had securely reckoned as ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... drew back her arm for the first blow, and the whip hissed through the air. He winced slightly under the blow. Then she let blow after blow rain upon him, with her mouth half-opened and her teeth flashing between her red lips, until he finally seemed to ask for mercy with his piteous, blue eyes. ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... voices—which they can distinguish as those of the house-Servants—male and female—all negroes or mulattoes. There are shrieks, intermingled with speeches, the last in accent of piteous appealing; there is moaning and groaning. But where are the shouts of the assailants? Where the Indian yell—the dread slogan of the savage? Not a stave of it is heard—nought that ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... come!" said the poor lady under her breath, and put out a hand as if feeling for some stick of furniture to lean against. "It has come!" she repeated aloud, but still hoarsely; and with that she turned to the lass with a most piteous look, and "Oh, Kirstie, girl," she cried, "you won't leave me? I have been kind to you—say you ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... plainly the elder sister's duty to stay on over the important meeting with Stanor Vaughan. The modern girl scoffs at the idea of chaperonage, but the O'Shaughnessys were not modern. Bridgie felt the impulse to protect, and Pixie's piteous "Stay with me, Bridgie!" marked the one moment of weakness which she had shown. So Bridgie remained in London, comforted by the knowledge that her husband was well and her children in good hands, and seldom in her life had five days passed so slowly. Sunday itself had seemed a week ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... use in trying to ameliorate the condition of the Gipsy while he remains a traveller. He will tell you piteous stories, but he will take care of himself. As ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... dismiss'd Him thence rejoicing also, for we hoped 370 To mix in social intercourse again, And to exchange once more pledges of love. He spake; then sorrow as a sable cloud Involved Laertes; gath'ring with both hands The dust, he pour'd it on his rev'rend head With many a piteous groan. Ulysses' heart Commotion felt, and his stretch'd nostrils throbb'd With agony close-pent, while fixt he eyed His father; with a sudden force he sprang Toward him, clasp'd, and kiss'd him, and exclaim'd. 380 My father! I am he. Thou seest ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... doctor was evidently alarmed. The baby disturbed, and frightened by the noise and jar, had wailed almost incessantly; and Hetty was more nearly at her wits' end than she had ever been in her life. It was piteous to see her,—usually so brisk, so authoritative, so unhesitating,—looking helplessly into the face of the ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... him! Look you, how pale he glares! His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones, Would make them capable.—Do not look upon me; Lest, with this piteous action, you convert My stern effects: then what I have to do Will want true colour; ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... enough; for Roger, coming through the fields with the milk, heard this piteous sobbing, and setting down his cans, parted the branches of the apple tree, saying in his kindest voice: "Why, my Kitty, my Pretty, what is the matter with you? who hurt my little—I—I ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... dogs, Turk and Juno, on the wreck, as they were both large mastiffs, and we did not care to have their additional weight on board our craft; but when they saw us apparently deserting them, they set up a piteous howl, and sprang into the sea. I was sorry to see this, for the distance to the land was so great that I scarcely expected them to be able to accomplish it. They followed us, however, and, occasionally resting their fore paws on the out-riggers, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... to his chariot, lashed his horses to speed, and dragged him about in sight of the wailing wife and parents of his victim. This he repeated several times, aggravating the atrocity a hundredfold by his intention—in spite of the piteous entreaties of the dying Hector—to throw his corpse to be eaten by the dogs, thus depriving even his spirit of rest, and his family of religious consolation. Nay, Achilles expresses the savage wish that his rage might lead him so far as to carve and eat ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... I saw the slashings, gold on red, across the breasting of his captain's riding coat. One little crooking of the trigger-finger and the lead had gone upon its errand. But at the balancing instant that piteous cry was lifted once again: "O Massa! Massa Cap'm! God 'a' mussy—shoot po' nigga and ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... rank vegetation of the garth, in whose coarse herbage here and there I stumbled upon a limp white form stretched out—a waif the less in the world! I don't say it was a happy passage for me: it was made to the visible consternation of her I wished to befriend. Her piteous yellow eyes searched mine for sympathy; she wanted to tell me something and I wouldn't understand! As I neared her she shivered and mewed twice. Then she limped painfully off—poor soul, she had but three feet!—to another tree, leaving behind her, ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... be termed an assistant, of his labours, was his trusty agent, who trotted from room to room after him, affording him exactly the same degree of sympathy which a dog doth to his master when distressed in mind, by looking in his face from time to time with a piteous gaze, as if to assure him that he partakes of his trouble, though he neither comprehends the cause or the extent of it, nor has in the slightest degree the power ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Coffee and pipes were now brought in; and sitting down on a low marble bench, we consigned ourselves to the influence of the melting atmosphere, thinking of the unhappy condition of the mutton-chop, when it exclaimed in a piteous voice to the gridiron, "I am all of a perspiration." There were several other bathers undergoing this process of fermentation; and when the coffee was finished, and the pipe laid aside, two fellows placed ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... worked and played so many happy hours, and on to the back pasture where the Dillon sheep had been killed and she had kept the Sheriff from shooting Jack. And she saw and noted everything with a piteous pain and dry eyes. But she gave no sign that night, and not until she was in bed did she with covered head give way. Then the bed shook with her smothered sobs. This is the sad way with women. After the way of men, Chad proudly marched the old Wilderness ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox |
