"Woful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their fathers out of bed and kill them to save the disgrace of their dying in bed.[104] Keysler cites several instances of this savage custom in Prussia, and a Count Schulenberg rescued an old man who was being beaten to death by his sons at a place called Jammerholz, or "Woful Wood;" while a Countess of Nansfield, in the fourteenth century, is said to have saved the life of an old man on the Lueneberg Heath under ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... dogmatise, but his efforts in this direction have certainly not been crowned with success. On the contrary, although dealing with a subject which bristles with points of a highly controversial nature, he states his conclusions with an assurance which is little short of oracular. Heedless of the woful fate which has attended many of the fiscal seers who have preceded him, he does not hesitate to pronounce the most confident prophecies upon a subject as to which experience has proved that prophecy is eminently hazardous, viz. the ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... O shipman, woful, woful is thy tale! Our hearts are heavy and our eyes are dimmed. What ship is this that suffered such ...
— The Sisters' Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... name as Col. J. Corydon Malcome, a sounding appellation enough; and he was often seen walking up and down the streets in his rich, fur-lined overcoat and laced velvet cap, placed with a courtly air over his cloud of ebon curls. He was known to be a widower, and the woful extravagancies into which Mary Madeline Mumbles cajoled her doting mother, were enough to make one shudder in relating. Wimbledon was ransacked for the gayest taffetas, the jauntiest bonnets, and broadest Dutch lace, till, at length, poor Mr. Salsify ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... swaths through a rich man's field of wheat or barley, and thick fall the handfuls, even so the Trojans and Achaians leaped upon each other, destroying, and neither side took thought of ruinous flight; and equal heads had the battle, and they rushed on like wolves. And woful Discord was glad at the sight, for she alone of the gods was with them in the war; for the other gods were not beside them, but in peace they sat within their halls, where the goodly mansion of each was builded in the folds of Olympus. And they all were ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... be at this hour from danger free? Perhaps with fearful force some falling Wave Shall wash thee in the wild tempestuous Sea, And in some monster's belly fix thy grave; 20 Or (woful hap!) against some wave-worn rock Which long a Terror to each Bark had stood Shall dash thy mangled limbs with furious shock And stain its craggy ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... and darkness of the night Sir Owen awoke by reason of a woful outcry and lamenting; and then he knew that Earl Cadoc, the Knight of the Fountain, was dead from the ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... (1644): "I never heard that the Indians in these parts did ever before commit the like outrage upon any one family, or families; and therefore God's hand is the more apparently seen herein, to pick out this woful woman, to make her and those belonging to her an unheard of heavy example of their ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... antiquaries, and of the classical and benevolent testimony of Dr. Knox. Chatterton was, indeed, badly enough off; but he was at least saved from the pain and shame of reading this woful lamentation over fallen genius, which circulates splendidly bound in the fourteenth edition, while he is a prey to worms. As to those who are really capable of admiring Chatterton's genius, or of feeling an interest in his fate, I would only say, that I never heard any one ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... Ah, woful story of disastrous love! Ill-fated haste that did their ruin prove! One death, one grave, unite the faithful pair, And in one common fame their ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... market, and showed him a peck of olives for two coppers, and lastly showed him that a sleeveless vest[737] was only ten drachmae. At each place Socrates' friend exclaimed, "How cheap this city is!" So also we, when we hear anyone saying that our affairs are bad and in a woful plight, because we are not consuls or governors, may reply, "Our affairs are in an admirable condition, and our life an enviable one, seeing that we do not beg, nor carry ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... warned on this head before I arrived, but I was obliged once to take one. I paid about six times the London fare. However, as you can go almost anywhere in a tram-car with comfort, it does not much matter, especially as you escape the woful jolting a cab entails. ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... she was would not permit her, as the most lovely woman there, to take upon her own shoulders the ridicule that had already been cast upon the ass. Had he been young and gaily caparisoned, she might have done it; but his age, the clumsy trappings of rustic make, and his needy woful look of hard servitude, were too ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... and its works, uselessly they cannot speak: so they bind them to silence that they dare say no word save it be teaching others or praising GOD: and therefore, when they ask GOD aught, He grants it at once." But we, woful wretches, who deal with the world, that chatter all the day like magpies; now lie, now twist, now speak evil, now quarrel, now backbite, now swear great oaths, these defile our prayer and hinder it, that it is not heard; for our mouth is as far from ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole
... see the Master-piece of Flatt'ry rise, Th' anointed Son of Dulness and of Lies: Whose softest Whisper fills a Patron's Ear, Who smiles unpleas'd, and mourns without a tear.[43] Persuasive, tho' a woful Blockhead he: Truth dies before his shadowy Sophistry. For well he knows[44] the Vices of the Town, The Schemes of State, and Int'rest of the Gown; Immoral Afternoons, indecent Nights, Enflaming ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... technicalities of the profession; and a very keen study and acquaintance with these—certainly a too great reliance upon them, and upon the dicta of other lawyers—leads to a dreadful departure from elementary principles, and a most woful (sic) disregard, if not ignorance, of those profounder sources of knowledge without which laws multiply at the expense of reason, and not in support of it; and lawyers may be compared to those ignorant captains to whom good ships are intrusted, ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... a quick and sudden temperament, a snatch of his humour rent his broad cloth, and he returned home with a woful tail, and slept not—for his ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... Holding fast to his great purpose to find a passage to the East by the North, he compelled every one of Fate's deals against him—until that last deal—to turn in his favor; and even in that last deal he won a death so heroically woful that exalted pity for him, almost as much as admiration for his great achievements, has kept his fame through the ...
— Henry Hudson - A Brief Statement Of His Aims And His Achievements • Thomas A. Janvier
... the proud pinnacle. An enormous mass of rocks fell into the lake below, and the vapors rose in a rival cloud. High in the firmament they curled and twisted, their wreathing forms together telling a woful tale of destruction. ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... of Men by way of punishment upon them for their Sins. 'Tis thus when an Offended God puts the Souls of Men over into the Hands of that Officer who has the power of Death, that is, the Devil. It is the woful Misery of Unbelievers in 2 Cor. 4.4. The god of this World has blinded their minds. And thus it may be said of those woful Wretches whom the Devil is a God unto, the Devil so muffles them that they cannot see the things of their peace. ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... "Oh! woful day! Oh! unhappy church of Christ! fast rushing round and round the fatal circle of absorbing ruin!... Daily does every one see that things are going wrong. With sighs does every true heart confess that rottenness is somewhere; but, ah! it is hopeless ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith
... song, the story sweet, There is no man hearkens it, No man living 'neath the sun, So outwearied, so foredone, Sick and woful, worn and sad, But is healed, but is ...
— Aucassin and Nicolete • Andrew Lang
... Suns appeared at Heidelberg. The woful Calamities that have ever since fallen upon the Palatinate, we are all sensible of, and of the loss of it, for any thing I see, for ever, from the right Heir. Osman the great Turk is strangled that year; and Spinola besiegeth Bergen ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... became less manly—woman unlovely and rude." No wonder that the factory, like too many more, though a thriving concern to its owners, becomes "a prime nursery of vice and sorrow." "Virtue perished utterly within its walls, and was dreamed of no more; or, if remembered at all, only in a deep and woful sense of self-debasement—a struggling to forget, where it was hopeless to obtain." But to us, almost the most interesting passage in his book, and certainly the one which bears most directly on the general purpose of this article, is one in which he speaks of the ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... Triumphant words, through all the land's length sped. Triumphant words, but, being interpreted, Words of ill sound, woful as words can be. Another carnage by the drear Red Sea— Another efflux of a sea more red! Another bruising of the hapless head Of a wrong'd people yearning to be free. Another blot on her great name, who stands Confounded, left intolerably alone ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... fully, inch by inch, and there were various reasons why the majority, instead of overwhelming them by a conclusive vote or two, allowed them to struggle on. For one thing, though Baillie thought there was a "woful longsomeness" in the slow English forms of debating at such a time, it was felt by the English members that, in so important a business as the settling of a new constitution for the National Church, hurry ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... and aunts, nephews and nieces, and cousins—singing now! Easy it is to "warble melody" as to breathe air. But we hope harmony is the most difficult of all things to people in general, for to us it was impossible; and what attempts ours used to be at Seconds! Yet the most woful failures were rapturously encored; and ere the night was done we spoke with most extraordinary voices indeed, every one hoarser than another, till at last, walking home with a fair cousin, there was nothing left it but a tender glance of the eye—a tender pressure ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... tree the vulture spread its wide wings, and sailed off screaming into the deep shadows of the forest. Tom seized the check apron, but, woful sight! found nothing but a heart and liver tied ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... he flung down the pudding and ran away. The pudding being broke to pieces by the fall, Tom crept out covered over with the batter, and with difficulty walked home. His mother, who was very sorry to see her darling in such a woful state, put him into a tea-cup, and soon washed off the batter; after which she kissed him, and laid ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... woful plight, His limbs, that tottered with his weight, And, friendly, to the stable led, And saw him littered, dressed, and fed. In slothful ease all night he lay; The servants rose at break of day; The market calls. Along the road His back must ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... Crimsoned with the conflagration, and the roofs went thundering down! Oh, the prayers, the prayers and curses, that together winged their flight From the maddened hearts of many, through that long and woful night!— Till the fires began to dwindle, and the shots grew faint and few, And we heard the foeman's challenge only in a far halloo: Till the silence once more settled o'er the gorges of the glen, Broken only by the Cona plunging through its naked den. Slowly ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... letter. And why? Because I am willing to keep mine. But, indeed, he says, he hates me perfectly: But it is plain he does, or I should not be left to the mercy of this woman: and, what is worse, to my woful apprehensions. ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... sound and shine: Bid the land rejoice to see the land-wind's broad wings broken, Bid the sea take comfort, bid the world be thine. Half the world abhors thee beating back the sea, and blackening Heaven with fierce and woful change of fluctuant form: All the world acclaims thee shifting sail again, and slackening Cloud by cloud the close-reefed cordage of the storm. Sweeter fields and brighter woods and lordlier hills than waken Here at sunrise never hailed the sun and thee: Turn thee then, and give them comfort, ...
— Poems and Ballads (Third Series) - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... was sensible that I was depressed, melancholy, and under a continued consternation, something of which the morning sun might dissipate, so that I should be able to take a heartier view of my woful plight. So after a good look seawards and at the heavens to satisfy myself on the subject of the weather, and after a careful inspection of the moorings of the boat, I entered her, feeling very sure that, if a sea set in from the west or south and tumbled her, the motion would ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... binding: wanting repair. Here are a few Roman Classics, which are more choice than those in the Public Library: as Reisinger's Suetonius, in 4to. but cropt, and half bound in red morocco, with yellow sprinkled edges to the leaves—a woful specimen of the general style of binding in this library. Lucretius, 1486: Manilius, 1474: both in one volume, bound in wood—and sound and desirable copies. Eutropius, 1471; by Laver; a sound, desirable ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... language of cookery, there has been a woful departure from the simplicity of our ancestors,—such a farrago of unappropriate and unmeaning terms, many corrupted from the French, others disguised from the Italian, some misapplied from the German, while many are a disgrace to the English. ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... the match? P. Edw. I think King Edward will outrun us all. Q. Isab. Nay, son, not so; and you must not discourage Your friends that are so forward in your aid. Kent. Sir John of Hainault, pardon us, I pray: These comforts that you give our woful queen Bind us in kindness all at your command. Q. Isab. Yea, gentle brother:—and the God of heaven Prosper your happy motion, good Sir John! Y. Mor. This noble gentleman, forward in arms, Was born, I see, to be our anchor-hold.— Sir John of Hainault, be it thy renown, ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... of the Plague Year," Defoe shows death, with every accompaniment of pain and terror, stalking through the narrow streets of old London, and changing their busy hum into a silence broken only by the wailing of the mourners of fifty thousand dead; by the woful denunciations and mad prayers of fanatics; and by the madder yells of ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... it hang down, and with their two hands together behind their heads do make an hideous noise, crying and roaring as loud as they can, much praysing and extolling the Virtues of the deceased, tho there were none in him: and lamenting their own woful condition to live without him. Thus for three or four mornings they do rise early, and lament in this manner, also on evenings. Mean while the men stand still ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... needed the steady, sturdy influence of some one outside himself to keep him always in the beaten tracks. Already, for better or for worse, Catie's influence upon him was a strong one; stronger, Mrs. Brenton admitted to herself with a woful little sigh, than that of his own mother, despite the ill-concealed anxiety and the doting love that only a mother can give, and then only to an only son. Between the two of them, herself and Catie, Catie's will ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... [Sidenote: A woful complaint of lacke of nauie if need come. A storie of destruction of Denmarke for destruction of ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... to pray there had been outside a woful confusion of sounds,—scared and plunging horses, bellowing oxen, excited men shouting to the stock and to one another, the barking of dogs and the rattling of the wagons. Through this din he prayed, ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... mother leaped after her eyes to the apple; from the apple in Paradise down to the earth; from the earth to hell, where she lay in prison four thousand years and more, she and her lord both, and taught all her offspring to leap after her to death without end. The beginning and root of this woful calamity was a light look. Thus often, as is said, 'of little ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... fair, merry, and pleasant to look upon, though the chariots and four-in-hands were gorgeous and bedecked, there was a woful lack of cavaliers to make those damask cheeks mantle with a blush, for they were away fighting in the North. Thus it was, as I drove down the line in my uniform of scarlet and buff, to find a stand, that Mistress Polly and Mistress Betsy had their triumph, ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... to them but the rambling old house and its well-worn hereditaments; and though various parts even of the old mansion itself had been sold and moved away, still much more room remained than was needed by the mother and her five children,—the mother, whose woful condition had brought her to an utter contempt of the ancestral Fotheringtons, the children, who yet preserved a certain happiness in the midst of their poverty in remembering that at their great-grandfather's wedding a hundred guests were entertained ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... get together and have a society of their own, the which it is very affecting to watch—those tawdry pretences at gentility, those flimsy attempts at gaiety: those woful sallies: that jingling old piano; oh, it makes the heart sick to see and hear them. As Mrs. Raff, with her company of pale daughters, gives a penny tea to Mrs. Diddler, they talk about bygone times and the fine society ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... this loss, Ray Turner seemed even more incompetent for the management of business affairs. As the years passed, the daughter grew toward maturity in an experience of ever-increasing penury. Nevertheless, there was no actual want of the necessities of life, though always a woful lack of its elegancies. The girl was in the high-school, when her father finally gave over his rather feeble effort of living. Between parent and child, the intimacy had been unusually close. At his death, the father left her a character well instructed ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... the Garde Doloureuse," said the baron, turning to Philip Guarine—"God knoweth how well it deserveth the name!— there to learn, with our own eyes and ears, the truth of these woful tidings. Dismount, minstrel, and give me thy palfrey—I would, Guarine, that I had one for thee—as for Vidal, his attendance is less necessary. I will face my foes, or my misfortunes, like a man—that be assured of, violer; and look not so sullen, knave—I ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... stalk and rave about in the likeness of Jack Hobson; again, he would seem the counterfeit of Emmanuel Topp; then he would look like all the three of us put together; then like neither of us, nor like anybody else. Oh, sir, it was a woful thing to be haunted by this phantom apparition. Yet the strangest part of the affair was that neither of us seemed to feel a whit surprised at the dread presence; that we quietly and uncomplainingly let him drink our wine, and actually give orders for ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... land, and the hunter, forgetting his oath, slays four sea-gulls for food. The bird-wife 'shrilled out in a woful cry,' and taking the plumage of the dead birds, she makes wings for her children and for herself, and flies ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... thing. Yet there are about it touches, grand sweeps of outline, that show a master's hand. Sometimes,—to-night, for instance,—the curtain is accidentally drawn back, and I see a bare arm stretched out imploringly in the darkness, and an eager, wolfish face watching mine: a wan, woful face, through which the spirit of the dead korl-cutter looks out, with its thwarted life, its mighty hunger, its unfinished work. Its pale, vague lips seem to tremble with a terrible question. "Is this the End?" they say,—"nothing beyond? no more?" ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... with a woful sadness, "I want to stop, but I cannot. If I could only stop long enough ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... between, And thrice he heard a breech-bolt snick tho' never a man was seen. They have ridden the low moon out of the sky, their hoofs drum up the dawn, The dun he went like a wounded bull, but the mare like a new-roused fawn. The dun he fell at a water-course—in a woful heap fell he, And Kamal has turned the red mare back, and pulled the rider free. He has knocked the pistol out of his hand—small room was there to strive, "'Twas only by favor of mine," quoth he, "ye rode so long alive: There was not a rock of twenty mile, there was not a ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... a party was to ride To see an air balloon; And all the company beside Were dressed and ready soon: But she a woful case was in, For want of just ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... quantity of alkali to the pint must necessarily produce very different results at different times. As an actual fact, where this mode of making bread prevails, as we lament to say it does to a great extent in this country, one finds five cases of failure to one of success. It is a woful thing that the daughters of New England have abandoned the old respectable mode of yeast brewing and bread raising for this specious substitute, so easily made, and so seldom well made. The green, clammy, ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... even suspected his misconception of the situation,—I might have made him understand that neither at Cetinale nor at Porto d'Anzio had Maria Dovizio sung the Hymn to Apollo, that in both places it was Imperia who had chanted, Imperia who had responded to Chigi's caresses, and so this woful misunderstanding might never have divided these young lovers. Maria, far from being Chigi's guest at the moment of the discovery of the Apollo, was in Urbino, awaiting in ever-increasing wonder and dismay some word of affection from her betrothed. Failing to receive it she came ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... befitting such a vessel and such mariners. By its aid we steered our course by day, while the stars served as a guide by night; and, if they were obscured, we guessed our way by the motion of the clouds. In this woful plight we continued four days and nights. On the fifth day we were at the brink of despair, and abandoned all hopes of safety. Thence we ceased our labor, and laid aside our oars; for, either we had no strength left to use them, or were ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... one of their swords, and found it to be very little, if at all blunter on the edge, than the common swords are. Strange to see what a deal of money is flung to them both upon the stage between every bout. But a woful rude rabble there was, and such noises, made my head ake all this evening. So, well pleased for once with this sight, I walked home, doing several businesses by the way. In my way calling to see Commissioner Pett, who lies sick at his daughter, a pretty woman, in Gracious ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... 'Air — Ballinamony'. Ye brave Irish lads, hark away to the crack, Assist me, I pray, in this woful attack; For sure I don't wrong you, you seldom are slack, When the ladies are calling, to blush and hang back; 60 For you're always polite and attentive, Still to amuse us inventive, And death is your only preventive: Your hands and your ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... was in the world of lonely things—the flutter of twilight linnets, the aching call of gulls along a shore to which the netted foam crept out of darkness, the island of Aengus and the elder gods and the eternal glories that never were, tall kings and women girdled with crusted gold, the woful incessant chanting ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... swaggering out into the road. "Francy McCraw, our good neighbors are woful perplexed by that thread o' birch ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... better as a woman, eh, Martino?" asked she, spreading out her petticoats. "Aye, to be sure your eyes do tell me so, scowl and mutter as you will. See now, Martino, I have lived here three days and in all this woful weary time hast never asked my name, which is strange, unless dost know it already, for 'tis famous hereabouts and all along the Main; indeed 'tis none so wonderful you should ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... —Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead, Sunk though he be beneath ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... king, began to reign. At the same time the power of heretical Bulgaria, which had threatened to overwhelm the Eastern Empire, was broken down by the sturdy blows of the Macedonian emperor Basil. In this year the Christians of Spain met woful defeat at the hands of Almansor, and there seemed no reason why the Mussulman rule over the greater part of that peninsula ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... with a glove. They have ridden the low moon out of the sky, their hoofs drum up the dawn, The dun he went like a wounded bull, but the mare like a new-roused fawn. The dun he fell at a water-course—in a woful heap fell he,— And Kamal has turned the red mare back, and pulled the rider free. He has knocked the pistol out of his hand—small room was there to strive— ''Twas only by favour of mine,' quoth he, 'ye rode so long alive; There was not a rock for twenty mile, there was not a ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... and a woful change; and one of ominous import for our children. Most woful to those of my countrymen who, like the reader's humble servant, have passed a happy half-score of years in the delightful society and the incomparable capital ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... Naomi's bitter words seem to be moved partly by a sense of the coldness of the reception. She realises that she has indeed come back to a changed world, where there will be little sympathy except such as Ruth can give. It is with almost passion that she abjures her name 'Pleasant,' as a satire on her woful lot, and bids them call her 'Bitter,' as truer to fact now. The burst of sorrow is natural, as she finds herself again where she had been a wife and mother, and 'remembers happier things.' Her faith wavers, and her words almost reproach God. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... amongst us to this day, shameful ingratitude for our mercies, Horrid impenitency under our sins, yea, even among those, who stand most up for the defence of the Truth: And amongst many in our Armies, there is woful Prophanness and Debauchery. And though we profess to acknowledge, there can be no Pardon of Sins, no Peace and Reconciliation with God, but by the Blood of Jesus Christ; Yet few know Him, or see the ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... woful subjects they take, and how profusely they are decorated with knighthood. They are like the Black Brunswickers, these painters, and ought to be called Chevaliers de la Mort. I don't know why the merriest people in the world should please themselves ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... France were a sort of monsters: an horrible composition of superstition, ignorance, sloth, fraud, avarice, and tyranny. But is this true? Is it true that the lapse of time, the cessation of conflicting interests, the woful experience of the evils resulting from party rage, have had no sort of influence gradually to meliorate their minds? Is it true that they were daily renewing invasions on the civil power, troubling the domestic quiet of their country, and rendering the operations of its government ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... preached and dispensed the sacraments. Let any show where any person dispensed the sacraments that was not a preacher. Again, Paul and Barnabas equally travelled together, but Paul was chief speaker: what then? therefore some labored in the word, others in the sacraments only. This is woful logic. 4. To whomsoever the power of dispensing the sacraments was given by Christ, to them also the power of preaching was given; dispensing the word and sacraments are joined in the same commission, Matt, xxviii. 18-20: what Christ joins together let not man put asunder. 5. Touching the preaching ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... Ned, thou speak'st by woful Experience— but that I should miscarry after thy wholesom Documents— but we are all mortal, as thou say'st, Ned— Would I had never crost the Ferry from Croydon; a few such Nights as these wou'd learn a Man Experience ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... the diligence of the House, that upon the jealousy and rumour made a committee, that was very diligent and solicitous to make that discovery, there was never any probable evidence (that poor creature's only excepted) that there was any other cause of that woful fire than the displeasure of God Almighty: the first accident of the beginning in a baker's house, where there was so great a stock of faggots, and the neighbourhood of such combustible matter, of pitch and rosin, and the like, led it in an instant from house to house, through Thames ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... of 1767 formed the fourth period of American policy. How we have fared since then: what woful variety of schemes have been adopted; what enforcing, and what repealing; what bullying, and what submitting; what doing, and undoing; what straining, and what relaxing; what assemblies dissolved for not obeying, and called again without obedience; ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... friends! I wished to linger longer, but the inevitable would come—Fate sundered us. This is the same regretful feeling, only it is more poignant, and the farewell may be forever! FOREVER? And "FOR EVER," echo the reverberations of a woful whisper. ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... bearded chin and mouth above the level of the tide. Taking compassion upon him, Dick Taverner threw him an oar, and, instantly grasping it, the Alsatian was in this way dragged ashore; presenting a very woful spectacle, his nether limbs being covered with slime, while the moisture poured from his garments, as it would from the coat of a water-spaniel. His hat had floated down the stream, and he had left one boot sticking in the mud, while his buff jerkin, ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... could devour. The more incredulous reasoners would not allow of a real transformation, whether with or without the enchanted hide of a wolf, which in some cases was supposed to aid the metamorphosis, and contended that lycanthropy only subsisted as a woful species of disease, a melancholy state of mind, broken with occasional fits of insanity, in which the patient imagined that he committed the ravages of which he was accused. Such a person, a mere youth, was tried at Besancon, who gave ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... great many old Scotch songs, such as "the Gaberlunzie," "Aiken Drum," "Tak' yere Auld Cloak about ye," and "the Deuks dang ower my Daddie;" besides "The Mucking o' Geordie's Byre," and "Ca' the Ewes to the Knowes," and so on; but, do what I liked, I could not keep my spirits up, thinking of the woful end of the poor old horse, and of the ne'er-do-weel loon its master. Many an excellent instruction of Mr Wiggie's came to my mind, of how we misguided the good things that were lent us for our use here, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... rushed at him and scaled him and searched in his pockets, and pulled him about; nor that the day will never come when, growing into men and women, they will come to him for sympathy and guidance in their little trials and perplexities. Oh, woful to think that there are parents, held in general estimation too, to whom their children would no more think of going for kindly sympathy, than they would think of going ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... only other member of the family that ever visits us, the cedar-bird, is a roving gipsy. In Germany they say seven years must elapse between its visitations, which the superstitious old cronies are wont to associate with woful stories of pestilence — just such tales as are resurrected from the depths of morbid memories here when a comet reappears or the seven-year locust ascends from ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... Mop. What woful Ditty-making Mortal's this, That e'er the Lark her early Note has sung, Does doleful Love beneath my Casement thrum? -Ah, Seignior Scaramouch, is ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... would rather have set a bargain upon my ears than listen. And before we had moved an inch, we heard from above such hip-drip-drop that had we not straightway stepped aside, there would have fallen upon us hundreds of unhappy men whom a host of fiends were hurling headlong, and too hurriedly to a woful fate. "Ho, slowly sir!" quoth one sprite, "lest you displace your curly lock;" and to another "Madam, will you have your soft cushion? I fear me you will be much disordered ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... With his nephew Henry was Richard the old, Gascony's gallant Count Acelin, Tybalt of Rheims, and Milo his kin, Gerein and his brother in arms, Gerier, Count Roland and his faithful fere, The gentle and valiant Olivier: More than a thousand Franks of France And Ganelon came, of woful chance; By him was the deed of treason done. So was ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... work of original thought; five hundred years after the light of Athenian genius had been extinguished, the schools of Greece were still pursuing the beaten paths, and teaching the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle. It is the peculiar and prodigious advantage of travelling, that it counteracts this woful and degrading tendency, and by directing men's thoughts, as well as their steps, into foreign lands, has a tendency to induce into their ideas a portion of the variety and freshness which characterize the works of nature. Every person knows how great an advantage this proves ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... they should betray And nail Thee to the Cross to die; They wagged their heads and passed Thee by, And mocked Thee on that woful day; In vain they strove against Thee, Lord— Give Thou to them their ...
— Hymns of the Greek Church - Translated with Introduction and Notes • John Brownlie
... before, lest she should die suddenly and quietly without my knowing it, while we were alone together; but I got into a perfect agony now, for fear this last worst affliction should take me by surprise. I don't suppose five minutes passed all that woful night through without my getting up and putting my cheek close to her mouth, to feel if the faint breaths still fluttered out of it. They came and went just the same as at first, though the fright I was in often made me ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... To avert these woful afflictions was the cause of the extraordinary precautions on the part of Boone and Kenton, especially ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... Edinburgh, where they found a crowd assembled round the Luckenbooths, waiting for the breaking up of the States, which were then deliberating anent the proposal from the French king that the Prince Dolphin, his son, should marry our young queen, the fair and faulty Mary, whose doleful captivity and woful end scarcely expiated the sins and sorrows that she caused to her ill-used and poor misgoverned native realm ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... P. Wilder, of Dorchester, to an article on the same subject, in the Nov. number of the Horticulturist, for 1850, from the pen of the lamented Downing. It seems to have been written shortly after his return from Europe, and when he must have been most deeply impressed by the woful contrast, in point of physical health between the women of America and Europe. While he speaks in just and therefore glowing terms of the virtues of our countrywomen, he says: "But in the signs of physical ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... but ice as thick as pasteboard, too surely showing that the night has made good yesterday's threat. Dalgleish, with his most melancholy face, conveys the most doleful tidings from Bogie. But servants are fond of the woful, it gives such consequence to the person ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... been a pleasure and no penance. She abandoned herself with a weak luxury to the respite from suffering and anxiety; she made herself the good comrade of the young man whom perhaps she even tempted to flatter her farther and farther out of the dreariness in which she had dwelt; and if any woful current of feeling swept beneath, she would not fathom it, but resolutely floated, as one may at such times, on the surface. They laughed together and jested; they talked in the gay idleness of such ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... is between him and French Valori that the matter lies, Montijos and the others being mere satellites on their respective sides. Much battered upon, this Hyndford, by refractory Hanoverians pitting George as Elector against the same George as King, and egging these two identities to woful battle with each other,—"Lay me at his Majesty's feet" full length, and let his Majesty say which is which, then! A heavy, eating, haggling, unpleasant kind of mortal, this Hyndford; bites and grunts privately, in ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... man waited in vain. Then he went to his neighbor and asked him to give him back his dog. Without any shame or hesitation, the wicked neighbor answered that he had killed Shiro because of his bad behavior. At this dreadful news Shiro's master wept many sad and bitter tears. Great indeed, was his woful surprise, but he was too good and gentle to reproach his bad neighbor. Learning that Shiro was buried under the yenoki tree in the field, he asked the old man to give him the tree, in remembrance of ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... forth unharmed, a woful spectacle of extremest wretchedness, to which death would have been an undeserved relief. If we compare the clamorous and loud exclaims of Margaret after the slaughter of her son, to the ravings of Constance, we shall perceive ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... Some judge of author's names, not works, and then Nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men. Of all this servile herd, the worst is he That in proud dulness joins with Quality. A constant critic at the great man's board, To fetch and carry nonsense for my Lord. What woful stuff this madrigal would be, In some starved hackney sonneteer, or me? But let a Lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens! how the style refines! Before his sacred name flies every fault, And each exalted stanza teems ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... who has so lightened for us the sorrow of mere bereavement, and made quick-coming death a little thing—for some of us, indeed, a lovely thing—has not taught us how to bear the sufferings of those we love, the woful ache of pity for pangs we are powerless to relieve and can only try ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... eyes do surfeit with delight, My woful heart imprisoned in my breast, Wisheth to be transformed to my sight, That it like those by looking might be blest. But whilst mine eyes thus greedily do gaze, Finding their objects over-soon depart, These now the other's ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... slay him there," said they. "We will give him a woful end to his voyage in search of ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... earth with but a single regret: they have never been able fully to compass the ablative. But the rough-and-tumble student was the rule, with nose deep into stein, exaggerating little things into great, making woful ballad to his ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... woful whistle and Sandy Sawtelle valiantly strove for the true and just accord of his six strings. It was no place for a passive soul. I parted swiftly from the hammock and made over the sun-scorched turf for the ranch house. There ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... The lady appears to have carried on a furious flirtation with the bard—a cousin of her own—which she, naturally perhaps, but certainly cruelly, terminated by marrying an old East Indian nabob, with a complexion like curry powder, innumerable lacs of rupees, and a woful lack of liver. A refusal by one's cousin is a domestic treason of the most ruthless kind; and, assuming the author's statement to be substantially correct, we must say that the lady's conduct was disgraceful. What her sensations must be ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... specially competent for the task they have assumed. If the household library should possess such books more frequently, less ignorance would prevail on topics concerning which every American ought to be well-informed. Woful silence usually prevails when a foreigner asks for statistics on any point connected with our industrial progress, and very few take the trouble to get at facts which are easy enough to be had with a little painstaking. We are glad to see so much good ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... not help the gasp of dismay that escaped her, thinking of that fascinating row of pink slippers awaiting her up-stairs. From bridesmaids to doll-babies is a woful fall. ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... I will say that in spite of ill-usage, in spite of drawbacks, in spite of mysterious separation and union, of hope delayed and sickened heart—in the teeth of Vanessa, and that little episodical aberration which plunged Swift into such woful pitfalls and quagmires of amorous perplexity—in spite of the verdicts of most women, I believe, who, as far as my experience and conversation go, generally take Vanessa's part in the controversy—in ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... objects that I had so often buoyantly beheld,—deserted encampments, cross-roads, rills, farm-houses, fields, and at last came to Daker's. I called out to them, and explained my woful ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... tough luck of it. I didn't make my trade in camphor after all and I lost in stocks, when if I'd only waited five minutes more in the office I'd have got the message from my brokers and saved my five hundred. Expensive, my time is, eh?" with a woful shake ...
— The Tipster - 1901, From "Wall Street Stories" • Edwin Lefevre
... thing in his favor is his youth, and yet," continued Storms, thoughtfully, "that, after all, may be the worst. It would seem that he is too young to have done a great deal of evil; and yet, if he has committed many transgressions, it is a woful record for such a lad. It was too bad that the captain hinted that we have so much means, and he wouldn't have done it had he been in his right mind; but it has produced an effect upon Sanders, as I could see by the flash of his eyes, and the apparently indifferent questions ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... words her seemd due recompence Of all her passed paines: one loving howre For many yeares of sorrow can dispence: A dram of sweet is worth a pound of sowre: 265 She has forgot, how many a woful stowre For him she late endurd; she speakes no more Of past: true is, that true love hath no powre To looken backe; his eyes be fixt before. Before her stands her knight, for whom she ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... expect to be cut. Time and tide wait for no man. Too many cooks spoil the broth. Union is strength. Waste not, want not. What the eye sees not, the heart rues not. When rogues fall out honest men get their own. When the cat's away, the mice play. Willful waste makes woful want. You cannot eat your cake and ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... Captain Judgment was making this oration to the town of Mansoul, it was observed by some that Diabolus trembled.[103] But he proceeded in his parable, and said, 'O thou woful town of Mansoul! wilt thou not yet set open thy gate to receive us, the deputies of thy King, and those that would rejoice to see thee live? "Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong, in the days that he shall deal" in judgment ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... their tour in masquerade, Disguis'd in tatter'd habits went To a small village down in Kent; Where, in the stroller's canting strain, They begg'd from door to door in vain, Tried every tone might pity win; But not a soul would take them in. Our wandering saints, in woful state, Treated at this ungodly rate, Having through all the village past, To a small cottage came at last Where dwelt a good old honest yeoman Call'd in the neighbourhood Philemon; Who kindly did these saints invite In his poor hut to pass the night; And then the hospitable ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... in league with the enemy against me. I believe that the reason why they did not move earlier was the want of the great mover of all treasons—money: of which, in all parts of my establishment, there was a woful scarcity; but of this they also managed to get a supply through my rascal of a godson, who could come and go quite unsuspected: the whole scheme was arranged under our very noses, and the post-chaise ordered, and the means of escape actually ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sentences. He prepared what he intended to say with great exactness, and his favorite delusion was that he was about to astonish everybody with a remarkable effort. It never disturbed him that he commonly made a woful failure when he attempted speech-making, but he sat down with such cool serenity if he found that he could not recall what he wished to say, that his audience could not help joining in and smiling with him when he came to ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... but crouching low, I 2 Where Heaven-sent madness haunts his overthrow, Beyond my cure or tendance: woful plight! Whom thou, erewhile, to head the impetuous fight, Sent'st forth, thy conquering champion. Now he feeds His spirit on lone paths, and on us brings Deep sorrow; and all his former peerless deeds Of prowess fall like unremembered things From ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... in box, puffs, perfumes, plays, And tho' he passes for a Man of Trade, Is the chief squeaker at the Masquerade, Let him his Sister, or his wife beware, 'Tis not for nothing Courtiers go so far; Thus for a while he holds, till Cash is found To be a Dr. many a woful Pound, Then off he moves, and in another year, Turns true Alsatian, or Solicitor. For we (except o' th' stage) shall seldom find To a poor broken Beau, a Lady kind, Whilst pow'rful Guinea last, he's wondrous pretty, And much the finest Gentlemen o' th' City, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... the Chances, Beggar's Bush, and the Pilgrim, should have been placed in the very first class! But the whole attempt ends in a woful failure. ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... gathering darkness. "The silent falling of snow is to me one of the most solemn things in nature. The fall of autumnal leaves does not so much affect me. But the driving storm is grand. It startles me; it awakens me. It is wild and woful, like my own soul. I cannot help thinking of the sea; how the waves run and toss their arms about,—and the wind plays on those great harps, made by the shrouds and masts of ships. Winter is here in earnest! Whew! How the old churl whistles and ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the woful spirit in myn herte Declare o point of all my sorwes smerte To you, my lady, that I love most; But I bequethe the service of my gost To you aboven every creature, Sin that my lif ne may no longer dure. Alas the wo! alas the peines stronge That I for you have suffered, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... Said with glee, "Cheemaun, my darling, O my Birch-canoe! leap forward, Where you see the fiery serpents, Where you see the black pitch-water!" 60 Forward leaped Cheemaun exulting, And the Noble Hiawatha Sang his war-song wild and woful, And above him the war-eagle, The Keneu, the great war-eagle, 65 Master of all fowls with feathers, Screamed and hurtled through the heavens. Soon he reached the fiery serpents, The Kenabeek, the great serpents, ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... crept up to me, half from the words of woful meaning that I that afternoon had heard, and half the prisoned state, with fear, weak and absurd, jailing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... acts made anywise derogative to the work of God and reformation; likewise protests against all banishments, imprisoning, finings and confinements that the people of God had been put to these years by-past; describing the woful state and condition of malignants, and all the enemies of Jesus Christ. And in the last place speaks very fervently anent his own sufferings, state and condition, which he begins to express in these words, "Now if the Lord, in his wise and ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... vineyards and his orchards, and offered them with much thankfulness to the givers of good. But he forgot to deck the shrine of Artemis with gifts, little thinking that the huntress queen cared for anything which mortal men might offer her. Ah, woful mistake was that! For, in her anger at the slight, Artemis sent a savage boar, with ivory tusks and foaming mouth, to overrun the lands of Calydon. Many a field did the monster ravage, many a tree uproot; and all the growing ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... chaplain. Then Wilson yielded. He took possession in 1698, and was enthroned at Peel Castle. The picture of his enthronement must have been something to remember. Peel Castle was already tumbling to its fall, and the cathedral church was a woful wreck. It is even said that from a hole in the roof the soil and rain could enter, and blades of grass were shooting up on the altar. The Bishop's house at Kirk Michael, which had been long shut up, was in a similar plight; damp, mouldy, broken-windowed, green with ...
— The Little Manx Nation - 1891 • Hall Caine
... much astonished, and not less grieved, to see the son of his old friend in such woful plight. He rose up, however, embraced the youth, and asked the reason of ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... sympathy not sunk into this blank despair, but wandering about as strangers in streets and ways, with the hope of succour from casual charity; what have we gained by such a change of scene? Woful is the condition of the famished Northern Indian, dependent, among winter snows, upon the chance passage of a herd of deer, from which one, if brought down by his rifle-gun, may be made the means of keeping him and his companions alive. As miserable is that of some savage ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... of the little girl among the daisies there comes to him in woful contrast the little girl in the crowded cities' wretched streets. She is denied the daisy field. Stars do not tempt her to wonder. The narrow streets filled with material things, pressing close, crowd out sun and moon. The name of ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... beautiful garden that I had grown to love almost like my old home. But I heard enough to know that they were as mischievous as the day is long, and that they kept their poor old great-aunt Patricia in a woful state of nervous excitement from morning till night. I gathered, besides, that their father was a doctor, away from home much of the time. That was why their ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... Canon would rather have had his hand cut off than go out to meet an angry griffin; but he felt that it was his duty to go, for it would be a woful thing if injury should come to the people of the town because he was not brave enough to obey the summons of the Griffin. So, pale and ...
— The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales • Frank R. Stockton
... feared to see her in mourning robes, with a woful court about her,—trembling, sorrow-weighted, pitiful and unimpressive; and a low murmur of admiration just stirred the hush of the chamber as she took her place under the royal canopy and turned to confront the great assembly—the strength of ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... would silence and crush her, and I fear our children will see the glory of England vanishing like Arthur in the mist; they will cry too late the woful ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... occurring to thy intentionall or accidentall view of the following pages in this book should prove offensive to thee, I thought good to give thee an account of what hath occasioned the same, viz. In the woful days of the late usurper, the registring of births, not baptisms, was injoyned and required, to give a liberty to all the adversaries of Pedobaptisme, &c., and, besides some circumstances, too unhandsome for the calling and person of a minister, were then allso annexed ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.15 • Various
... department, that the devouring flames rarely ever make headway. They are quickly mastered. But it was not always so. There was a period about fifty years ago when great and destructive fires succeeded one another like a deluge and wiped out large portions of the growing city. There was then a woful lack of water, which is now most abundant, and the fire engines were very primitive in character and inadequate to the needs of the place. To-day every precaution is taken to guard against fire, and the great business blocks and the miles and ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... I found that so woful was the condition of the road between this city and the capital, that, although the distance is but thirty-seven miles, and that there remained full three hours of daylight, still no regular stage would encounter, until morning, the perils ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... his sack, with his rotten old hat, he looked a woful figure as the heavy shower beat on his back. But to Amaryllis ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... last words Clara suddenly turned to him and he beheld the same startled, profoundly-sorrowful visage, with the same large, bright tears in its eyes, with the same woful expression around the parted lips; and the visage was so fine thus that he involuntarily broke off short and felt within himself something akin to ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... genteel, but still in public life, Hugh was Under-Clerk to the Privy Council, and liked being so extremely. I gather this from his conduct in September 1681, when, with all the lords and their servants, he took the woful and soul-destroying Test, swearing it "word by word upon his knees." And, behold! it was in vain, for Hugh was turned out of his small post in 1684.[4] Sir Archibald and Hugh were both plainly inclined to be trimmers; but there was one witness of the name of Stevenson who held ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... This woful History began in my study of the Pelham Papers in the Additional Manuscripts of the British Museum. These include the letters of Pickle the Spy and of JAMES MOHR MACGREGOR. Transcripts of them were ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... strove to enter Parliament, and failed again and again; middle age crept on him, and the shadows of failure seemed to compass him round. In one terrible passage which he wrote in a flippant novel called "The Young Duke" he speaks about the woful fate of a man who feels himself full of strength and ability, and who is nevertheless compelled to live in obscurity. The bitter sadness of this startling page catches the reader by the throat, for it is a sudden revelation of a strong ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... the vivid and horrid picture offered to our imagination, of a number of human creatures shut up by their fellow mortals in some strong hold, under an entire privation of sustenance; and presenting each day their imploring, or infuriated, or grimly sullen, or more calmly woful countenances, at the iron and impregnable gates; each succeeding day more haggard, more perfect in the image of despair; and after awhile appearing each day one fewer, till at last all have sunk. Now shall we feel it as a relief to turn in thought, as to a sight of less portentous ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... and Austin, with the formal injunction not to leave them, the woful Benedict uttered no complaint, but followed in his place, like a blind ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... borne storm and heat helplessly, without even the shelter of a board, till they were burned and wasted to the likeness of haggard ghosts; most had forgotten hope, many decency; some were dying, and crawled over the ground with a woful persistency that it would have broken your heart to see; they were all fasting, for the day's rations, tossed to them the afternoon before, had been devoured, as was the custom, at a single meal, and proved scant at that; and they crowded ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... him as having nine nieces on his hands, and makes a woful face over the fact. He dispensed a charming hospitality here, and no friend who ever visited him forgot the pleasure. He was a most genial and cordial host, and loved much to have his friends bring the children, of whom he was passionately fond. His nieces watched ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... this Who wears a loop of gold upon his breast, Stuck heartwise; and whose glassy flatteries Take all the townsfolk ere they go to rest Who come to buy and gossip? Doth his eye Remember a face lovely in a wood? O people! hasten, hasten, do not buy His woful wares; the bird of grief doth brood There where his heart should be; and far away Dew lies on grave-flowers ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare
... It is in this woful condition that mankind, being slavish, interested, insidious, deceitful, and bloody, bear marks, if not of the least curable, surely of the most lamentable sort of corruption. [Footnote: Chardin's Travels.] Among them, war is the mere practice ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... all I have to say of Law. But a painful truth remains. I have to speak of the woful disorder in the finances which his system led to, disorder which was not fully known until after his departure from France. Then people saw, at last, where all the golden schemes that had flooded upon popular credulity had borne us;—not to the smiling and fertile shores of Prosperity and Confidence, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... told their story. The preceding winter had been one of much suffering, though by no means the counterpart of the woful experience of St. Croix. But when the spring had passed, the summer far advanced, and still no tidings of De Monts had come, Pontgrave grew deeply anxious. To maintain themselves without supplies and succor was impossible. ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... instructions for certain reforms in building-construction. This may be called the birth of the movement which later on developed into the Queen Anne or Free Classic style of the early eighteenth century. In this proclamation the king commands as follows: "In the first place, the woful experience in this late heavy visitation hath sufficiently convinced all men of the pernicious consequences which have attended the building with timber, and even with stone itself, and the notable benefit of brick, which in so many places hath resisted and even extinguished the fire; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various |
