"Plight" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... more replies of equal veracity, on reading being made to the respondent of the present interrogatory, Diderot "said that the answers contain the truth, persisted in them, and signed," as witness his hand. A sorrowful picture, indeed, of the plight of an apostle of a new doctrine. On the other hand, the apostle of the new doctrine was perhaps good enough for the preachers of the old. Two years before this, the priest of the church of Saint Medard had thought it ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... an heroic exploit, he said "he hoped they would not disgrace themselves by wearing their cloaks." The consequence was, that these feather-bed soldiers suffered most wretchedly, as they were soaked to the skin before they had got two miles on the road to Bristol. Their being kept in this woeful plight all day caused the death of two or three of them; Robert Ansty, a butcher, and Wilton, who kept the Bear inn at Holloway, never recovered from the effects of their trip to Bristol. There was, in truth, no more call for soldiers at Bristol on that day than there was for them in the ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... Back to Saybrook. Extermination of Pequot Tribe. Peace. Miantonomoh and Uncas. Dutch War with Indians. Caused by Kieft's Impolicy. Liquor. Underhill Comes. Mrs. Hutchinson's Fate. Deborah Moody. New Haven Refuses Aid. Appeal to Holland. Underhill's Exploits. Kieft Removed. Sad Plight of New Netherland. Subsequent Hostilities and ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... noiselessly about, very grave and silent, as if doing penance for some violation of the code of honor. By many gentle, indirect approaches, I perceived that part of his tail-feathers were undeveloped. The sylvan prince could not think of returning to court in this plight, and so, amid the falling leaves and cold rains of autumn, was patiently biding ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... had become more and more frequent for the last few years. And so, prostrated by sickness, nearly ruined in means, and now hopeless of encouragement from the Sovereigns, the discoverer of the New World arrived at Seville, on the 7th of November, 1504, in as miserable a plight as his worst enemy ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... the hunters, who desired to carry him alive to the King, tied him to a tree while they went in search of a wagon to carry him on. Just then the little Mouse happened to pass by, and seeing the sad plight in which the Lion was, went up to him and soon gnawed away the ropes that bound the King of the Beasts. "Was I not right?" said the ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... stupidity was one of fear rather than disdain; she could not look Novikoff in the face, but trembled before him, like a slave. Her plight was pitiable as that of a helpless bird whose wings have been clipped, and that ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... Is not a preparation as long and arduous required to make a designer as to make a painter or a sculptor? And is not the half-baked designer in as sorry a plight as the half-baked artist of any kind? The answer to both is simple: The lay student is not in any degree a painter or a sculptor or a designer, neither is he in training for any of these professions. The advantage of the Design method is, that with no skill ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... means relaxed their vigilance. A round of the premises convinced Alaire that the place was effectually guarded, and showed her the futility of trying to slip away. She realized, too, that even if she managed to do so, her plight would be little better. For how could she hope to cover the hundred miles between La Feria and the Rio Grande when ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... melting into fable; only the new Spirit in its holiest power can restore to those homes their boasted security of "each man's castle," for Woman, the warder, is driven into the street, and has let fall the keys in her sad plight. Yet darkest hour of night is nearest dawn, and there seems reason ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... were represented in the organization: miners, masons, carpenters, plasterers, engineers, electricians, and many grades of helpers. Learning his plight, they rallied promptly to his aid. They appealed to their trades and to the central body of unions to intervene in his ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... pews, men worship God in words, But meet their kind with swords, When Fair Religion, stripped of holy passion, Walks masked as Fashion, Let me not wax indignant at the sight; Or waste my strength bewailing her sad plight. This is my task: to search in my own mind Until the qualities of God I find; To seek them in the hearts of friend and foe - Or high or low; And in my hours of toil, or prayer, or play, To live my creed each day. ...
— Poems of Optimism • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... manner of curious plans to attract attention to my plight from a long distance over the sea. Fire was my main thought. I knew that no vessel—scarcely a mail-carrying steamship—would pass a fire at sea without investigation. Had I been a modern Munchausen I might ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... wounded were there lying on the platforms; about a hundred of them, with their clothes torn, and covered with dust. They presented a sad picture. They were, it is true, only slightly wounded; but it cuts one to the heart to see soldiers in that plight, hauled out upon the ground without straw to lie upon or any doctor to attend to them. However, they had all had first-aid dressings. Below the bandages that bound their heads their feverish eyes gleamed in the light of the lanterns. Their bandaged arms were supported by pieces of linen tied ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... gallants at the playhouses. They were gentlemen or beggars as daily circumstances ordained. When this was the case with such authors as Greene, Peele, and Massinger, we need not wonder at finding "a whole knot" of writers in infinitely worse plight, who lived (or starved) by writing ballads and pamphlets on temporary subjects. In a brief tract, called "The Downfall of Temporising Poets," published 1641, they are said to be "an indifferent strong corporation, twenty-three of you sufficient ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... as before, was too frightened to articulate a sound, and my wife was in the same plight. With Dora, however, it was otherwise, and she electrified us by going up to ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... evil plight, but bearing himself with such dignity as was adapted to the princely character, Albert was ushered into the apartment of Victor Lee, where, in his father's own chair, reclined the triumphant enemy of the cause to which the house of ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... he lifted her down from her horse and led her upstairs to the royal chamber. In the meantime the real Princess was left standing below in the courtyard. The old King, who was looking out of his window, beheld her in this plight, and it struck him how sweet and gentle, even beautiful, she looked. He went at once to the royal chamber, and asked the bride who it was she had brought with her and had left thus standing in the court below. "Oh!" replied the ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... mosquito-plague had infected the great, busy, joyous metropolis of the south. Ignorant of the real processes of the infection, New Orleans had fought it blindly, frantically, in an agony of panic, and when at last the frost put an end to the helpless city's plight, she lay spent and prostrate. The yellow fever of 1905 came with a more formidable and unexpected suddenness than that of 1897. It sprang into life like a secret and armed uprising in the midst of the city, full-fledged and terrible. ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane
... the morning, on the 8th, Mr Pickersgill returned, together with his companions, in no very good plight, having been at the head of the arm he was sent to explore, which he judged to extend in to the eastward about eight miles. In it is a good anchoring-place, wood, fresh water, wild fowl, and fish. At nine o'clock I set out ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... and in following her, he trod upon a soft place, which gave way with him, and before he knew where he was, he found himself in the midst of the market of the fell-mongers, who were calling skins for sale and buying and selling. When they saw him in this plight, naked, with yard on end, shaven face, dyed eyebrows and rouged cheeks, they cried out and clapped their hands at him and flogged him with skins upon his naked body, till he swooned away; when they set him on an ass and carried him to the chief of the police, who said, "What is this?" ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... is a safer guide than either right or duty. For hard as it is to know what gives us pleasure, right and duty are often still harder to distinguish and, if we go wrong with them, will lead us into just as sorry a plight as a mistaken opinion concerning pleasure. When men burn their fingers through following after pleasure they find out their mistake and get to see where they have gone wrong more easily than when they have burnt them through following after a fancied duty, ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... ground he looked at the rent in dismay. He was generally nice and particular about his clothes, and he was very unwilling to go to Mary Erskine's, and let her and Bella see him in such a plight. He was equally unwilling to go home again, and to ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... problems confronting us are large and forbidding. And, certainly, no one can or should minimize the plight of millions of our friends and neighbors who are living in the bleak emptiness of unemployment. But we must and can give them good reason ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... they bound his hands. That sore unworthy plight Might well express his helplessness, doomed never more to fight. Again, from cincture down to knee, long bolts of iron he bore, Which signified the knight should ride ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... avenge Atli on Thorbiorn Oxmain at the right moment. At last he finds it; and Thorbiorn, as well as his sixteen-year-old son Arnor, who rather disloyally helps him, is slain by Grettir single-handed. His plight at first is not much worsened by this; for though the simple plan of setting off Thorbiorn against Atli is not adopted, Grettir's case is backed directly by his kinsmen and indirectly by the two craftiest men in Iceland, Snorri the Godi and Skapti the Lawman, ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... such a case? Helen, above all, would never show it; and Althea was at once oppressed, and at the same time oddly sustained by the thought that she had, all inevitably, done her friend an injury. She lay awake at night, turning over in her mind Helen's present plight and framing loving plans for the future. She took refuge in such plans from a sense of having come to an end of things. To think of Helen, and of what, with their wealth, she and Franklin could do for Helen, seemed, ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... they, in lowliest plight, repentant stood Praying; for from the mercy-seat above Prevenient grace descending had removed The stony from their hearts, and made new flesh Regenerate grow instead; that sighs now breathed Unutterable; ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... a few attendants, rode leisurely off towards the south. Eight miles from Omdurman a score of swift camels awaited him, and on these he soon reached the main body of his routed army. Here he found many disheartened friends; but the fact that, in this evil plight, he found any friends at all must be recorded in his favour and in that of his subjects. When he arrived he had no escort—was, indeed, unarmed. The fugitives had good reason to be savage. Their leaders had led them only to their ruin. To cut the throat of this one man who ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... bleed; and with such horrible actions, partly by prayers, and partly with lunatic curses, they move or terrify the ignorant countryfolks into giving them alms. This poor fellow was such a one; and the king seeing him in so wretched a plight, with nothing but a blanket about his loins to cover his nakedness, could not be persuaded but that the fellow was some father who had given all away to his daughters, and brought himself to that pass: for nothing he ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... bombardment; when he is literally in the last ditch, with a strip of cold steel the only thing between him and death—then Tommy smiles, then he cracks a joke. Without a thought of himself, without a murmur, he faces any desperate plight. ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... had risked everything on the success of this, and the poor child would have been left in a sad plight. Marriage was ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... called upon to do it. So he stood in the doorway of his deserted shop, for all his young assistants, his curlers and shampooers, had been mobilized, and looked up and down the deserted street, and congratulated himself that he was not in as bad a plight, financially and otherwise, as some ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... For when the Cause, whence Evil doth arise, Removed is, th' Effect surceaseth still. Abstain from Pleasure, and restrain your Will, Subdue Desire, and bridle loose Delight: Use scanted Diet, and forbear your Fill; Shun Secrecy, and talk in open sight: So shall you soon repair your present evil Plight. [1]' ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... coax you into sitting. I sent you, ten days ago, a batch of notes, and a most unworthy letter of thanks for one of your parcels of gift-books; and I write the rather now to tell you I am better than then, and hope to be in a still better plight before July or August, when a most welcome letter from Mr. Tuckerman has bidden us to expect you to officiate as Master of the Ceremonies to Mr. Hawthorne, who, welcome for himself, will be trebly welcome ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... inheritance, and would gladly have done her to death, knew not what better to do than to fly back here, leaving word for her lord where she was to be found; and thus it came that ere she had been gone from us a year, she returned in more desolate plight than at the first." ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Hsiu in Jang, when Liu Piao sent reinforcements with a view to cutting off Ts'ao's retreat. The latter was obliged to draw off his troops, only to find himself hemmed in between two enemies, who were guarding each outlet of a narrow pass in which he had engaged himself. In this desperate plight Ts'ao waited until nightfall, when he bored a tunnel into the mountain side and laid an ambush in it. As soon as the whole army had passed by, the hidden troops fell on his rear, while Ts'ao himself turned and met his pursuers in front, so that they were thrown into confusion ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... news which I am sure will be very welcome to you all. It is to the effect that our wireless operator has succeeded in getting into touch with the Bolivia and acquainting the captain of that vessel with our somewhat unfortunate plight. The Bolivia, as some of you are doubtless aware, is homeward bound, but upon learning the news of our accident, her captain has unhesitatingly interrupted his voyage and is at this moment heading for our position as rapidly as his powerful engines will drive him. He expects to arrive ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... towards the shore. Although he was upset by the accident which had so suddenly substituted the water for the ship (and it was nearing supper time, and there were always ices for supper!), Chimp was not a boy at all given to fear, and he could think of his new plight with composure. His first calm thought was regret for the mongoose which he was taking back to school, 'although,' as he said to himself, 'the chances are, Porker wouldn't let me keep it,' Porker being the way in which Chimp spoke of Dr. Cyril Bigley Plowden, Principal of Witherson College. ...
— The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice • E. V. Lucas
... a painful sight To see a nation great and good Reduced to such a sorry plight, And courtiers crawl where freemen stood, And king and priests combine to seize the spoil, While widows ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... hiss out of the chamber. He found the hatchway too tight for comfort and had a moment of fear when his tool pack caught in the orifice, wedging him neatly. He could hear Logan and Ruiz through his earphones, explaining their plight to Ground Control. They wanted to know why in blue blazes Valier hadn't contacted the doughnut when it came within range, and Logan had no defense save preoccupation with his own plight. Belatedly, Ruiz made radio contact with the doughnut, which was still ...
— Tight Squeeze • Dean Charles Ing
... my sister so to seek, Or so unprincipled in virtue's book, And the sweet peace that goodness bosoms ever, As that the single want of light and noise (Not being in danger, as I trust she is not) 370 Could stir the constant mood of her calm thoughts, And put them into misbecoming plight. Virtue could see to do what Virtue would By her own radiant light, though sun and moon Were in the flat sea sunk. And Wisdom's self Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude, Where, with her best nurse, ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... efforts at self-control, Ned's muscles trembled and he found it difficult to walk steadily. Assuming that his chums were in like plight, the lad summoned all his courage and reached out a reassuring hand to the others. The contact with his friends seemed to restore the equilibrium that had been Ned's most valuable asset in times of stress and ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... eminently respectable in life should be made so ludicrous on his eminence after death. He is bitter at the inertia of the men who set him up. Were he an ornament of the Church, not of the State that he served so conscientiously, how very different would be the treatment of his plight! If he were a Saint, occluded thus by the municipality, how many the prayers that would be muttered, the candles promised, for his release! There would be processions, too; and who knows but that there might even be ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... just and lawful aid; And if thou fail us, all our hope is done. Scotland hath will to help, but cannot help; Our people and our peers are both misled, Our treasure seiz'd, our soldiers put to flight, And, as thou seest, ourselves in heavy plight. ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... the beginning of the fine lady into which Dolly finally blossomed, and when that day Frank went home to his dinner he noticed something in her manner which he could not understand until she told him of Mrs. Atherton's call, and the plight in which ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... year's imprisonment. The jailer held the lantern close to the tanned face of the reader and nodded encouragingly to Bousquier. The latter was mumbling the Lord's Prayer. Greatly agitated, and groping about for a way out of his plight, he said finally that everything was as he had first related, only the tobacco-dealer had paid him not with a gold-piece but a couple of silver coins. He repeated his confession before the magistrate, who had been summoned despite the lateness ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... most remarkable thing I have ever heard! Wouldn't you like to tell me how you happened to get into such a plight?" ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... pretty safe to figure that the legislature man Shall receive but scanty praises though he does the best he can, And with fellows on the left of him and fellows on the right, Full of sage advice and counsel, his is not a happy plight; But the record has been written and for us it stands for aye, So, it's good-bye, Mister Speaker! ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... benumbed her senses. Oh, if some one would come and carry her to mamma! It was so dreadful to be alone in the night. It was worse than hunger and cold. If she only had Dinah! Dinah would be sorry. Poor Dinah! She was in as bad a plight as her mistress. No one had taken her from the door-step where she was lying in a heap, soaked through and through by the rain. All her faculties were gone now, all her members disordered. There was nothing about her ...
— Baby Pitcher's Trials - Little Pitcher Stories • Mrs. May
... wandering about the old cathedral or counting the restored statues on the river bridge. I always feel a longing to speak to these late birds of passage for they look so forlorn without their mates, that they make me think of my own sad plight so far away from you all; when the lectures begin I hope that I will be more satisfied than ...
— A Napa Christchild; and Benicia's Letters • Charles A. Gunnison
... going on in the village near by. He attended the various political meetings held at the "Travellers' Rest," and was a prominent man on training and election days. After a while, his wife began to look on these days with a troubled feeling, for they generally sent him home in a sad plight; and it took nearly a week for him to get settled down again to his work. Thus the declension began, and its progress was too sadly apparent to the eyes of Mrs. Foster, even before others, less interested than herself, observed it. ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... their selections for themselves, leaving the remainder for their followers. Amongst the captives were a father and two sons. In October, 1899, the Americans sent a gunboat to Cottabato, and the wife of this captive, mother of his two boys, represented her plight to the commander, who forthwith sent for Piang and ordered him immediately to send a message to the individual holding the captives to release them and hand them over to the messenger, who would conduct them back to Cottabato. Piang, without ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... with ease to lying and the practice of deceit; and even the taking of human life seemed no longer a monstrous thing. If he were caught in the Governor's company he would have a pretty time of it satisfying a court of his innocence; but he considered his plight tranquilly. ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... the reassurance came that at least one good fighting man was waiting to do nothing but assist her. For the moment she threw caution to the winds and remembered nothing but her plight and her ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... in very handsome plight," said Chiffinch; "and you know his Majesty is gracious enough ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth. ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... and proud, the courage to make others accept one's happiness seems easily within reach; but to be rebuffed in one direction and blamed in another is not a very pleasant plight. ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... be imagined, such battling as this did not put much money into the treasury of the parent company; and the letters written by Sanders at this time prove that it was in a hard plight. ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... of which escaped me, he constituted himself a reception committee of one and started for the ladder's foot. But our doughty Teuton was a resourceful person. Roused to the urgency of his plight, he looked wildly up at me, down at the officer, and, hastily pushing up the nearest window, hoisted himself across its sill, and again took refuge in the St. ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... or shall be ready in some proper house, with their friends and neighbors." That the church is named first as the proper place shows that it is to be preferred for a marriage. It can be solemnized there in a more seemly and dignified way than elsewhere, and those coming to plight their vows may be more deeply impressed with the solemnity ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester
... current, and sending him struggling down a rapid, it threw him at last, like a bundle of old clothes, on a shallow, where he managed to get on his feet, and staggered to the shore in a most melancholy plight. Thereafter he returned to the encampment, like a drowned rat, with his long hair plastered to his thin face, and his soaked garments clinging tightly to his slender body. Had he been able to see himself at that moment, ...
— Away in the Wilderness • R.M. Ballantyne
... to abandon all hope of saving any more of our unfortunate shipmates, and had to think of our own safety. Just as we had come to this resolve, another sea rolled towards the wreck, and when it passed over not a fragment of her remained hanging together. We were in a sad plight. None of us had saved more than the clothes we had on our backs, and some of the watch below had not had time even to put on all theirs. In getting into the boat I had lost my shoes, which I thought a great misfortune, as my feet felt very cold, and I ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... him for so many years gave away. He opened his veins and lay down to die, when in his despair he heard the voice of Gefhardt, the friendly sentinel from the other prison. Hearing of Trenck's sad plight, he scaled the palisade, and, we are told expressly, bound up his wounds, though we are not told how he managed to enter the cell. Be that as it may, the next day, when the guards came to open the door, they found Trenck ready ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... fire; and nothing actually remained of the "Coldstream Guards" but a kettle-drummer of uncertain nationality, and a man carrying a red and green flag, which he might very possibly have captured from some Sunday-school treat. The opposite side were in no better plight: men were lying crushed under the ruins of the works which they had so gallantly defended; and hardly enough artillerymen were left to have pulled back, with their united efforts, the spring of one of the pea cannons. The leaders on both sides remained unscathed, and continued to ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... knew, too, now where to join his leader. The corner of the street by the canal, where Sir Andrew Ffoulkes would be waiting with the coal-cart; then there was the spinney on the road to St. Germain. Armand hoped that, with good luck, he might yet overtake his comrades, tell them of Jeanne's plight, and entreat them ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... sorrow must I tune my song, And set my Harpe to notes of saddest wo, Which on our dearest Lord did sease er'e long, Dangers, and snares, and wrongs, and worse then so, 10 Which he for us did freely undergo. Most perfect Heroe, try'd in heaviest plight Of labours huge and hard, too hard ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... chief features of the South American coast-line had seemingly improved. To all appearance, she alone among the passengers, now that Christobal was gone, realized vaguely the perilous plight of the Kansas. The fact was that even a girl of her apparently frivolous disposition could not avoid the ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... inspected. Many wretched young men, and some old ones, too, were routed out, but the proprietors of the camp seemed to have a right to their services, either by contract, or through the action of the criminal laws. Sad indeed was their plight, but the rescuers had no legal right to ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... undeniably the most depressing. It is not that Gissing's picture of poverty in the literary profession is wanting in the elements of truth, although even in that profession there is even more eccentricity than the author leads us to suppose in the social position and evil plight of such men as Edwin Reardon and Harold Biffen. But the contrast between Edwin Reardon, the conscientious artist loving his art and working for its sake, and Jasper Milvain, the man of letters, who ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... he was to lie there that night, seeing that as yet we had no more beds than we had bought for our own need from old Zabel Nering the forest-ranger his widow, at Uekeritze. Wherefore she took me aside: What was to be done? My bed was in an ill plight, her little godchild having lain on it that morning; and she could no wise put the young nobleman into hers, although she would willingly creep in by the maid herself. And when I asked her why not? she blushed scarlet, and began to ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... was night, So sad was their plight! The sun it went down, And the moon gave no light! They sobbed and they sighed, and they bitterly cried, And the poor little things, they lay ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... warning of scorched timbers came to his nostrils, Jerry O'Keefe had recognized the desperation of his plight and he laid out his simple plans in accordance. He meant to stay where he was till the last endurable moment, hoping against hope for the coming of the rescuers. When it was no longer possible to ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... miserable as such an accommodation is at all times, they were glad and thankful to creep into it. It was about eight feet square, and six or seven feet high. They now congratulated each other on their deliverance, but found themselves in very bad plight. The missionaries had taken but a small stock of provisions with them, merely sufficient for the short journey to Okkak. Joel, his wife and child, and Kassigiak the sorcerer, had nothing at all. They were therefore obliged to divide the small ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... in woful plight; borne in an hour syne by four carles who said you had been set upon by the Master of Albany, and sair harried, and they say the Tutor doth nought but wail for his bairns. How won ye out ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Cousin, who tells the story in his Histoire de Constantinople, states that 'the weight of his body having more power to drag him down than his artificial wings had to sustain him, he broke his bones, and his evil plight was such that he did not ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... most expedient for it, relying on God, who will aid them. The storms were frightful. The almiranta suffered the most terrible voyage that ever ship has suffered. For after a few blasts they had to cut down the mast, and, when they reached thirty-six degrees, they lost their rudder. In such plight they agreed to return, suffering destructive hurricanes, so that, had not the ship been so staunch, it would have been swallowed up in the sea a thousand times. Finally God was pleased to have it return, as if by a miracle; and as such was it considered by all the inhabitants ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... crimes in Love's gay spring, Prompt the youthful Female's sigh; When her roses all take wing, And Matrons sage her plight descry; ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... Achilles. Infirm though he was, he would attack, with madly heroic courage, dogs ten times his size and was regularly and terribly thrashed by them. Like Don Quixote, the brave Knight of La Mancha, he set out triumphantly and returned in most evil plight. Alas! he was destined to fall a victim to his own courage. Some months ago he was brought home with a broken back, the work of a Newfoundland, an amiable brute, which the next day played the same trick to a ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... since he boarded the sailboat, he looked into the face of the young lady. Her clothing was thoroughly drenched by the spray, and her face was moist as though she were a mermaid just emerged from the depths of the ocean. But even in her present plight Shuffles saw that she was a very pretty girl. She was shivering with cold, and it was necessary to ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... half an hour, but they could find nothing that looked like a road. Some of the sleigh load were openly apprehensive and inclined to blame Hardy for their plight, but for the most part they were plucky and good-natured, trying to turn off their ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... captain. He was seventy-four years old with snow-white hair and had only one eye. Graham soon sank into a chair and was quite past reading barometers or anything else. He could just assent to remarks made to him by the captain and that was all. Ellen was in no better plight and sat on a bench near me, and I cannot say I felt cheerful, for the schooner, which was empty and had not much ballast, was rolling considerably. I carried on various conversations and strained my eyes to see if Mr. Keytel's boat was coming. ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... "Why should I attack you?" For the instant, in realization of his own plight, he had forgotten that the original purpose of his quest had been the capture of this man who was now become his captor... But the half-breed's words recalled ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... their royal succession was thus brought up; after his birth he was delivered, not to women, but to eunuchs of the greatest authority about their kings for their virtue, whose charge it was to keep his body healthful and in good plight; and after he came to seven years of age, to teach him to ride and to go a-hunting. When he arrived at fourteen he was transferred into the hands of four, the wisest, the most just, the most temperate, and most valiant ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... enough to have excited dread in one of stouter nerves than Max Blande, who, faint and exhausted, lay there in so helpless a plight that he was not in a condition to do more than anxiously watch his captors, as they talked loudly in ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... Ben, who was fond of company and always willing to talk. "This is how it wur. None-so-pretty she caught cold when she'd bin here a couple of weeks, and the master he sent for coo-doctor. And coo-doctor come and says: 'She's in a pretty plight,' says he; 'information of the lungs she's got, and you'll never get her through it. A little dillicut scrap of a animal like that,' he says; 'she ain't not to say fit for this part of the country! An' ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... he cannot see or make understand his case. He snatches at the slightest ray of hope. He is in despair from the beginning to the end. No prison has the trained men who, with intelligence and sympathy, should know and watch and help him in his plight. No state would spend the money necessary to employ enough attendants and aids with the learning and skill necessary to build him up. Money is freely spent on the prosecution from the beginning to the end, but no effort is made to help or save. The motto of the state is: "Millions ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow
... ditter doing there, Bart?" said Dunning, with a broad grin, as he came up and recognized the secretary in such a strange plight and attitude. ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... should consider resistance useless,' replied Saturn, 'for I tried it and failed; but at least one has a chance of success; and yet, having resisted this spirit and failed, I should not consider myself in a worse plight than you would voluntarily place yourself ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli
... her accustomed date, As loath the Night, incens'd by Fate, Should wreck our lovers. Hero's plight; Longs for Leander and the night: Which ere her thirsty wish recovers, She sends for two betrothed lovers, And marries tham, that, with their crew, Their sports, and ceremonies due, She covertly ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... to M. Le Mercier to offer the English a conference." He says further that ammunition was falling short, and that he thought the enemy might sally in a body and attack him.[155] The English, on their side, were in a worse plight. They were half starved, their powder was nearly spent, their guns were foul, and among them all they had but two screw-rods to clean them. In spite of his desperate position, Washington declined ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... resources of the Venetians had grown less and their plight more desperate. In 1668 they had received some assistance from French volunteers under the Duc de la Feuillade. This was followed by an application to Turenne for a general who would command their own troops in conjunction with Morosini. It was a forlorn hope ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... from constraint, showed some signs of regaining health with free-will; yet, agreeably to his own foreboding, shortly before arriving at Lima, he relapsed, finally becoming so reduced as to be carried ashore in arms. Hearing of his story and plight, one of the many religious institutions of the City of Kings opened an hospitable refuge to him, where both physician and priest were his nurses, and a member of the order volunteered to be his one special guardian and consoler, by ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... of speech I was somewhat different from the low tramp I looked. But youth is often impatient and hard; my appearance consorted so little with my tongue that he had much excuse for regarding me as a ne'er-do-well, the less deserving of pity because he probably owed his plight to ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... ill?" and Dorothy quickly counted what a disgrace it would be to a good mother to find her son in such a plight. ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... glorious summer morning, saw a resumption of the battle along exactly the same lines, with the same persistent attack and defense along the eastern part of the front, and with the British making full use of the blunder made by the German right. General von Kluck had realized his plight, but, even so, he had not secured an understanding of the size of the force that was threatening his flank, and he sent as a reenforcement a single army corps which had been intrenched near Coulommiers on the Grand Morin. The British had three full army corps and were ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... different degrees are economic victims of the havoc and the waste of war. It is not Central Europe only, together with large parts of the Balkans, of Russia, and of Eastern Asia, that is in this evil plight. Europe as a whole is unprovided with the foodstuffs with which to feed its population and the raw materials with which to furnish employment. If there were prevailing among them the best of wills and of cooeperative arrangements, the European peoples could not keep themselves ...
— Morals of Economic Internationalism • John A. Hobson
... your nonsense for some luckier night— Who can have put my master in this mood? What will become on 't—I'm in such a fright, The Devil's in the urchin, and no good— Is this a time for giggling? this a plight? Why, don't you know that it may end in blood? You'll lose your life, and I shall lose my place, My mistress ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... strongly depicted as in this, his last. We have here in new picturing, humanity at bay, as in the recently completed Kyrie of the grand mass. The apparently uneven battle of the individual with fate,—the plight of the human being who finds himself a denizen of a world with which he is entirely out of harmony, who, wrought up to despair, finds life impossible yet fears to die,—is here portrayed in dramatic language. To Wagner the first movement pictured to him "the idea of the ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... Tooth to expose the trick. The wily Indian, perhaps knowing the habits of the race he had forsaken, had been prowling about among the sullen prisoners. He openly laughed at them for the plight in which he found them, taunting them as cowards ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... lives, believe, in the fear of the Lord. She asked many questions about the religious sects in England, as to the state of real piety, their forms, baptism, &c. Then she came to our own Society. I was in poor plight for answering questions; however, I explained the spiritual view we took of those subjects, and asked permission to send her books, in the reception of which she seemed to promise herself ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... his hitherto luxurious couch, this also was transformed into the substance which had now become the curse of his existence. The despairing king at last implored the god to take back the fatal gift, and Dionysus, pitying his unhappy plight, desired him to bathe in the river Pactolus, a small stream in Lydia, in order to lose the power which had become the bane of his life. Midas joyfully obeying the injunction, was at once freed from the consequences of his avaricious demand, and from this time ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... passed like a swift dream for Sir Hugh. He could think of nothing but the Lady Mary, with a strange leaping of the heart; that she was in the Castle above him, hidden somewhere like a flower in the dark walls; that he would stand before her to plight his Lord's troth; that he would ride with her through the forest; and that he would have her near him through the months, when she was wedded to the Earl—all this was a secret and urgent joy to him; not that he thought ever to win her love—such a traitorous imagining never even crossed ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was thought good enough for a slaver. Captain Linsday, of Newport, who wrote home from Aumboe, said: "I should be glad I cood come rite home with my slaves, for my vessel will not last to proceed far. We can see daylight all round her bow under deck." But he was not in any unusual plight. And not only the perils of the deep had to be encountered, but other perils, some bred of man's savagery, then more freely exhibited than now, others necessary to the execrable traffic in peaceful blacks. It as a time of constant wars and the seas swarmed ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... pulse beat, his breast heaved; and this internal strife seemed to thunder into his ears. He was now enacting the tragedy of all crippled, starved, hunted wolves at bay in their dens. Only his tragedy was infinitely more terrible because he had mind enough to see his plight, his resemblance to a lonely wolf, bloody-fanged, dripping, snarling, fire-eyed ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... hand in his. His chest rose. He knew she was seeking to beguile him, but he could not take his eyes off hers. He was in a worse plight than a woman listening to ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... perfectly sober, with a big ruddy face, giant frame, and twinkling gray eyes. He was the man who had risen to speak his faith in the Hon. Samuel Budd that day on the size of the Hon. Samuel's ears. He, too, was unashamed and, as he explained his plight again, he ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.
... night was almost unendurable for Helen. When she slept it was to dream horrible dreams; when she lay awake it was to have her heart leap to her throat at a rustle of leaves near the window, and to be in torture of imagination as to poor Bo's plight. A thousand times Helen said to herself that Beasley could have had the ranch and welcome, if only Bo had been spared. Helen absolutely connected her enemy with her sister's disappearance. Riggs might have been a ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... of labor," replied Bince. "The same holds true of everybody else. Every manufacturer in the country is in the same plight we are." ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a little more than she had done lately in view of this future time. Her being somewhat weather-browned would not matter; it would be rather an advantage, as testifying to her banishment; but she must be in comfortable plight, and for ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... So we were troth-plight; and William went forth on his career of labor and success, and I remained at home, loving him, living for him, striving to make my every act what he would have it. I went into company as he had bidden me; I studied and improved myself; I grew handsomer, too. All ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... in this case the young lady did unconsciously feel a deep interest in refuting and overcoming Nevil Beauchamp. Colonel Halkett denied the benefits of those bills. 'Look,' said he, 'at the scarecrow plight of the army under a Liberal Government!' This laid him open to the charge that he was for backing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... wonder at the alteration. But if the Horse be a hardy one, and used to be hard ridden, then you will see, that one days rest, and his belly full of good meat and drink, will in one day or two almost restore him to his former plight, the food being within that short space of time so distributed, that all the Vessels will be replenish'd again, as before. And the cleaner the Horse is, the sooner recruited, and the less sign of hard riding will appear. This seems to shew the facility, with which ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... anti-Semitic journal "La France Juive" and said, "I have to thank Drumont for much of the freedom of my present conception of the Jewish problem." While he was in Paris he was stirred as never before by the feeling that the plight of the Jews was a problem which would have to have the cooperation of enlightened statesmanship. What excited him in the strangest way was the unaccountable indifference of Jews themselves to what seemed ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... this, and his imperturbable good-humour banished the last vestige of Mrs Gilmour's vexation at the children's plight. ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the second night Loaysa passed in the tools, Luis went to work with them, whipped off the staple in a trice, opened the door, and let in his Orpheus. Great was his surprise to see him on his two crutches, with such a distorted leg, and in such a tattered plight. Loaysa did not wear the patch over his eye, for it was not necessary, and as soon as he entered he embraced his pupil, kissed him on the cheek, and immediately put into his hand a big jar of wine, a box of preserves, and other sweet things, with ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... won't give up yet," he said. "Console yourself; I believe many others have been in the same plight before us." ...
— Adventures in Toyland - What the Marionette Told Molly • Edith King Hall
... buildings are becoming dilapidated and useless," they wrote, "and those who inhabit them will be frozen or starved unless the Governors contribute from their private means." They likewise vigorously called the attention of the Home Government to their incongruous and lamentable plight. "We desire earnestly," they said, "to impress upon Her Majesty's Government that the attainment of the benevolent and noble object of the founder of McGill College has been unfortunately if not culpably delayed." Yet they insisted that the present problem ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... to her has frequently heard him knock her head against the wall, and pound it, when he was out of temper, through her gains of prostitution being less than usual. He lavished upon her every sort of cruelty and abuse, and at length she grew so wretched, and was reduced to so dreadful a plight, that she ceased to attract. At this he became furious, and pawned all her clothing but one thin garment of rags. The week before her first confinement he kicked her black and blue from neck to knees, ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... the usual story that is told, England had been engaged with a long and vain struggle with the demon of protection, and had been year after year sinking farther into the depths until at a moment when she was in her distress and saddest plight her manufacturing system broke down, "protection, having destroyed home trade by reducing," as Mr. Atkinson says, "the entire population to beggary, destitution, and want." Mr. Cobden and his friends providentially ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... straight, A Surgeon, cry'd, A Surgeon. He tumbled down, and, as he fell, Did Murther, Murther, Murther, yell. 540 This startled their whole body so, That if the Knight had not let go His arms, but been in warlike plight, H' had won (the second time) the fight; As, if the Squire had but fall'n on, 545 He had inevitably done: But he, diverted with the care Or HUDIBRAS his hurt, forbare To press th' advantage of his fortune While danger did ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... when she stumbled, blaming her for their plight, threatening to leave her if she should fall, and flaying himself on with renewed panic, he brought her to the top of the double crevasse and the prospector's crossing. But here, with the levels of the spur before them, her strength ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... I see you know, now. It was I whom you heard playing, that first day. It was I, touched by your plight in that forlorn and dusty barracks, who gave you some slight relief. It was easy enough for me to cut across to Geddes's house, reach in through his kitchen window, lift his tray, and escape through the ragged hedges while his cook's broad back was ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... Formerly there were a drove of eight—the others being free—so exquisitely outlined in all their parts that one night, when the door had been left incautiously open, they stepped down from the wall and escaped to the woods. How deplorable would have been the plight of these unfortunate beings, if upon passing into the state of a living existence they had found that as a result of the limited vision of their creator they only possessed twelve legs and three ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... side of the lake Dick and Tom were working with feverish energy, almost beside themselves with fear at their comrade's terrible plight. ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... do in this sad plight? For once he acted right: He to the god his fate bemoaned, Asked pardon, and his folly owned. Jove, like a tender master, fond to save, His weakness ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... but the tax paid by Nature; for pride, humanity, and manhood stood staunch in spite of it. "No, no, I can't," said he "I mustn't. Don't tempt me to leave you in this plight, and be a cur! Live or die, I must be the last man on her. Here's something coming out to us, the Lord ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... the face of necessity more nearly than any friend's, those Bronte girls, and the pinch of poverty was for their own foot; therefore were they always considerate to any that fell into the same plight. During the Christmas holidays of 1837, old Tabby fell on the steep and slippery street and broke her leg. She was already nearly seventy, and could do little work; now her accident laid her completely aside, leaving Emily, Charlotte, and Anne to spend their Christmas ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... hospital. The young man, wondering how she would receive the news of Katie's treachery, asked himself what she could find now in excuse for the girl who had used her faithful friend as the unconscious messenger of her broken plight? Stephen knew well enough that the old glamour would come back, but to-night he was full only of indignation against Katie. To have used Elizabeth as she had ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... she could bring herself to smoke a meerschaum, like other women in Rein, she might keep the mischief out; but it struck her as a disgrace to a female, and it made a great hole in the pocket. Those who were born in such a village as Rein were in an evil plight. The cottages were badly built, the kitchens reeked with smoke, and were so bitterly cold in winter, though the fowls had to roost there, that water froze in them. In fact, no one could stay in the kitchen in winter. Then all the family must crowd into the stube, living and sleeping there. When Nanni ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... For she could still profess to herself a miserable degradation in being married to a man of no name: she would be gloomily convinced that Harry was by his father's villainy a proven knave. But what hurt her most was the growing suspicion that she was much to blame for her own plight. Alison Lambourne, who acknowledged no law but her own will, who had never dreamed that she could be wrong in her desires, driven to confess a ruinous blunder! Imagine her distress. At first she chose to pretend that she had been overthrown by ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... straight to the camp at Aberan, and offered her for sale to the serdar; who, having agreed to take her, ordered her to be conducted to his seraglio at Erivan, and there put into service; that the horrid plight in which she stood, when exhibited to the serdar, her disfigured looks, and her weak and drooping state, made her hope that she would remain unnoticed and neglected; particularly when she heard what was his character, and to what extent he carried ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... barraine ground, whom winter's wrath hath wasted, Art made a mirror to behold my plight: Whilome thy fresh spring flower'd: and after hasted Thy summer prowde, with daffodillies dight; And now is come thy winter's stormy state, Thy mantle mar'd wherein thou maskedst ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... uncovered from the sand a pile of the eggs, and in a little while they were steaming in the hot water. Then Jack arranged the shell-dishes on the sand. He went over to where the others were gloomily considering their plight. ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... a good fellow," said he. "I had misjudged you. I thank heaven that my compunction at leaving poor Staunton all alone in this plight caused me to turn my carriage back and so to make your acquaintance. Knowing as much as you do, the situation is very easily explained. A year ago Godfrey Staunton lodged in London for a time and became passionately attached to his landlady's daughter, ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... well grown animal—was in a very serious plight. It was eight or ten feet from the edge of the road where the logs were. And the calf had evidently struggled a good deal and was now quite exhausted. It turned its head to look at the children and ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope
... snapping of a twig in the underbrush brought his mind back with a jerk to their present plight. He wished they had brought the rifles from the plane. Some animal was lurking there in the shadows. Wolves, grizzlies, ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... was in a pitiful plight, and innocently confessed to the Lady that he experienced so much pleasure at this touch that the pains of his malady increased, and that death was preferable ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... from both cold and hunger, and was in pitiable plight. Again he writes: "Lieutenant Daunt, Ninth Regiment, and another officer of some Sixtieth Regiment, were frozen to death last night, and two officers of the Ninety-Third Regiment were smothered by ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... employed at all; and where there is, most of the sects have no ring, no giving away, nor any of those observances which were practised in the churches of old. There existed no impediment, therefore; and after a decent interval spent in persuasions, Margery consented to plight her vows to the man of her heart before they left the spot. She would fain have had Dorothy present, for woman loves to lean on her own sex on such occasions, but submitted to the necessity ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... enabled us to procure a larger and more varied supply of stores, than we could possibly have brought up from Port Lincoln in a single dray. We were now amply furnished with conveniences of every kind; and both men and horses were in good plight and ready to enter ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... complained and said Ben always showed the white feather. Mrs. Underhill couldn't endure cowards. She was angry, too, to see his nice winter jacket in such a plight. ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... pressed in England, soldiers were pressed in France. In every great town of France, any able-bodied man, going through the streets on his business, was liable to be shoved by the crimps into a house called the oven. There he was shut up with others in the same plight; those fit for service were picked out, and the recruiters sold them to the officers. In 1695 there were thirty of these ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... tall man, dressed in a green cloak with a silver brooch at the shoulder. He had a golden band about his hair and golden sandals on his feet, and he was laughing heartily at the plight of ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... true, was now in a worse plight than before; but this time not alone. Damash had abandoned his men, run away, and lost the gun, pistols, and horse the Emperor had given, or rather lent, him. Many of the petty chiefs and soldiers had followed Damash's example, and some twenty-five matchlocks ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... spoke not of scruples, asked no vows, Nor offered any; she had never heard Of plight and promises to be a spouse, Or perils by a loving maid incurred; She was all which pure Ignorance allows, And flew to her young mate like a young bird; And, never having dreamt of falsehood, she Had not one word to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... otherwise? Is he to live and prosper, who aims at the life of that to which God has given being and authority? Shall he flourish in pride and glory who hath helped to pull down what God built up? Not so, Piso. 'Tis no wonder that the Christians are now in this plight. It could be no otherwise. And in every corner of this huge fabric wilt thou behold some of my tribe looking on upon this sight, or helping at the sacrifice. Yet, as thou knowest, I am not among them. There is no hope for ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... Law: for it is written (Deut. 27:26): "Cursed be he that abideth not in the words of this law, and fulfilleth them not in work." If therefore other men could be saved without the observance of the Old Law, the Jews would be in a worse plight than ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... beings the stock operator—the market-maker—is the straw to save them from drowning, and to him they turn as the one possible source of aid and hope. I only knew these men at sight's end, but they knew me and were sure in their abject plight that I could help them—by what wizardry they never stopped to think. They were terribly certain that unless the market turned, their brokers must have additional margin or their stock would be thrown overboard, sinking prices still lower and bringing down their friends' ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... who has no occupation, is in a sad plight: The man who lacks concentration of effort is worse off. In a recent test of the power of steel plates, designed for ship armor, one thousand cannon were fired at once against it, but without avail. A large cannon ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... of a settlement, young gentlemen," said Alex, laughing, as he saw their plight. "But I think we can get through with what supplies we have and not trouble ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough
... "when I considered the sad plight of our poor cousin, I thought it would be best for me to go and see to him myself. There are the letters," he added, taking them from his pocket, and handing them to his sister. "You will see, Jemima, that the poor fellow is in sore straits—ill, ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... of oars was heard on either hand. It would be impossible to fight the enemy with any hope of success. Plight was their only resource. Morton steered for the frigate. The enemy's boats continued to come after them. Morton kept a look-out for the frigate's light. The Frenchmen saw at length that the pursuit was useless, and gave it up. No sooner was this ascertained than Lord Claymore ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... hearts not knowing that they loved, Not she at least, nor conscious of a bar Between them, nor by plight or broken ring Bound, but an immemorial intimacy, Wander'd at will, but oft accompanied By Averill: his, a brother's love, that hung With wings of brooding shelter o'er her peace, Might have been other, save for Leolin's— Who knows? but so they wander'd, hour ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... and the horse looked piteously towards the water but could not reach it. And the father of my grandfather saw Welleran go down to the river's brink and bring water from it with his own hand and give it to the horse. Now we are in as sore a plight as was that horse, and as near to death; it may be that Welleran will pity us, while the King's axeman cannot because of the commands of ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... said abruptly, as she was about to leave the room, "come here. I am strong now, and I want to talk to you. Now tell me all about it. How did I get into this plight? And how came I into ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... reticule and drew forth a small, buckskin bag. "Will you not accept it? Yesterday, at the claims, I panned it out myself. I am sorry for your plight. I am sorry for anyone in the ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... it?" said Deede Dawson, and seemed a little amused, as though the thought of his stepdaughter's plight pleased him rather than not. "Well, if she can't come down here, we'll go up there. Turn round, my man, and go up the stairs and keep your hands over your head all the time. I shan't hesitate to shoot if you don't, and ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... would have turned his brother's defeat into victory, drew back his thirteen thousand men in good order to guard Hungary. As Napoleon himself had been in a dangerous condition of over-confidence before Aspern, so now his soldiery were clearly in the same plight. Self-conceit had made them unreliable. Bernadotte's corps had displayed something very much like cowardice and mutiny at the last. The army still fought in the main like the perfect machine it was, but the individual men had lost their stern virtue. They believed that victory, plunder, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... plight. No sane man would venture down such a chasm, impenetrable with thorns, and night descending. So we built a beacon fire and waited for dawn. All during the long dark hours we heard the distant appeal of the hounds, ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... and crosser, which is a good sign. At last I have told him of Sada San's plight; and he is for starting for Kioto to-morrow to "wipe the floor with Uncle Mura," as he elegantly expresses it. But of course he 's still too weak to even think ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... stands, despite the labors of Stewart, Hamilton, Hegel, Comte, very much where it did when Socrates ran amuck among the casuistical Quixotes of his day, and left the philosophic tilters of Greece, the knights-errant in search of the supreme good, in the same plight with the chivalry of Spain after Cervantes, the science of mind, and particularly mental pathology, has made some steps forward on crutches furnished by the medical profession. The treatment of insanity is on a more rational and efficient footing. The statistician collects, and invites the moral ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... weeks before, when discussing the question with Juve, had now to accept his hypothesis as a certainty: his acts caused his unseen personality to hit you in the eyes! Only one person could pull the strings with such a demon hand!... Yes, Fandor could no longer doubt that his desperate plight was due to the terrific, ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... for him all these years. She had been sought after, and had refused several good offers from eligible widowers and others who pitied her sad plight and looked upon her as an old maid forlorn. But she was true to her love for Alfred. Possibly she had not been courted quite so assiduously as Tennyson's mother had been. When that dear old lady was past eighty she ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard |
