"Wretched" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the best of which were from his burin. In addition there are to be editions of these compositions in middling and small sizes as well as in wood engravings. The object is to provide something which has real artistic merit in place of the wretched pictures which are offered for the devotion of the faithful in so many churches and in Catholic prayer-books. The Pope himself, to whom the first colored drawings have been shown, takes a lively interest in the enterprise, ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... "And if she succumbs to the temptation, she will be faithless to the love which has coursed through her whole life as the Nile flows through the land of her ancestors. Then, Charmian, stay, stay under any circumstances, cling to her more firmly than ever, for then, then, my sister, she will be more wretched—ten, a hundred fold more wretched than if Octavianus deprives her of everything, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... after nouns they become more like verbs and are in fact conjugated like them; e.g., tacai iama 'a high mountain,' xiguei ideiri 'frequent comings and goings,' caxicoi (10 fito 'a wise man,' cavaij mono 'a wretched thing,' aiaui coto 'a dangerous thing,' umare tuqi no cuchi 'one's natural, or mother tongue.' There are also adjectives ending in na which, when they are placed before nouns, do not alter the construction; e.g., qirei na coto 'a clean thing.' ...
— Diego Collado's Grammar of the Japanese Language • Diego Collado
... need not be told at length. My fortunes underwent the variations which befall all. Sometimes I was rich one day, and poor the next. I never thought too exclusively of money, believing rather that we were born to be happy, and that the surest way to be wretched is to prize it overmuch. Had I done so, I should have mourned over many a promising speculation proving a failure, over many a pan of preserves or guava jelly burnt in the making; and perhaps lost my mind when the great fire of 1843, which devastated Kingston, ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... some have a scull-cap, white or red, and others are bare-headed. I laughed when I surveyed with my inexperienced eye these grisly, skeleton, phantom troops, and thought of the splendid invincible guard which the Pasha promised me. And yet amongst these wretched beings was riding sublime ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... brings with it; so that, if God has not made you miserable, you should never fail, like the ascetics, to make yourself so. I fear you never can be perfectly 'spiritual' till you have made yourself supremely wretched. But to quit this point," I continued; "if immortality be a delusion, I fear we say that it covers the divine administration with an penetrable cloud,—one which we cannot hope will removed. The inequalities of that ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... at 9.30 a.m. on January 11th, striking south for Warmal. There were a good many wretched villages in succession half a mile or so apart from one another, such as Dubna, Hasan-Jafa, Luftulla and Husena Baba. The ground was covered with white salt ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... or was there, to cloud Percy's life with such knowledge? Why, my dear Miss Elliott, if we all knew what other people know about us, we should be wretched! No! the mysteries of life are as merciful as the revelations; let us be thankful for all that we do ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... of his time with his friend the bishop; much with his daughter Mrs. Bold, now, alas, a widow; and had almost daily visited the wretched remnant of his former subjects, the few surviving bedesmen now left at Hiram's Hospital. Six of them were still living. The number, according to old Hiram's will, should always have been twelve. But after the abdication of their ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... was a vain, fussy, and spiteful fool, with power enough to thwart Montcalm at every turn. The intendant, Bigot, was the greatest knave ever seen in Canada, and the head of a gang of official thieves who robbed the country and the wretched French Canadians right and left. The French army, all together, numbered nearly seventeen thousand, almost twice Wolfe's own; but the bulk of it was militia, half starved and badly armed. Both Vaudreuil and Bigot could and did interfere disastrously with the five different forces ...
— The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf • William Wood
... Assign'd for life to unremitting grief; For, let Heaven's wrath enlarge these weary days, If hope e'er dawns the smallest of its rays. Time o'er the happy takes so swift a flight, And treads so soft, so easy, and so light, That we the wretched, creeping far behind, Can scarce th'impression of his footsteps find; Smooth as that airy nymph so subtly born With inoffensive feet o'er standing corn;[3] Which bow'd by evening breeze with bending stalks, Salutes the weary traveller as he walks; But o'er ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... Dr. Lacey, "I will care for her; for though you did me a great wrong, you saved me from being today the most wretched of men." ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... distress. "You know he is my trustee—I told you, didn't I? I see him very seldom, and we don't take much interest in each other; he's nothing but a man of business, the kind I detest; he can't talk of anything but money and shares and wretched things of that sort. But you know ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... three wretched days on that Chicken, and when it was finished Thor again took down his gun—it seemed a much heavier gun now. He crawled to the barn, but he was so weak and shaky that he missed several times before he brought ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... morning, while she was feeding the chickens; and the eldest girl screaming and screeching at the thoughts of going to bed, because Sally, in order to bring her under her authority, had told her a frightful 'raw-head-and-bloody-bones' story; the horse had broken into the garden, and made wretched work with the vegetables; and fifty pounds of butter had become fit for the grease-pot, because the hoops of the firkin had sprung, and Sally had so much to do, that she never thought of going to see whether the butter was covered ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... fall into a fit, or drop in an apoplexy, on hearing the news. There is a most melancholy instance of this in the very next house,—of a Jew made suddenly and unexpectedly rich, who instantly became insane in consequence, and is now the most wretched and melancholy spectacle that man can ever become,—starving in the midst of abundance, and moving like a beast about his house. But of all ill luck that can happen to the lottery-gambler, the worst is to win a small prize. It is all over with him from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... indignity of the Christian priests standing upon him while he was being dragged out. That seems to have helped cure his followers of their faith in him. They delivered the temple treasure into the hands of the King—seven chests filled with money and valuables, among them a silver cup which the wretched King Svend had sent to Svantevit as a bribe to the Wends for joining him against his own country and kin. But those days were ended. It was the Danes' turn now, and Wendland was laid waste until "the swallows ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... but one Mind, and that it is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, the influence of all other thoughts will fade quite away. It is because we recognize the carnal mind whose thoughts are frivolous, vain, wretched or miserable, that we are unsettled and dissatisfied. There can be no foundation, no sense of security, to the one who is continually listening to ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... returned the wretched Biler, blubbering again, and again having recourse to his coat-cuff: 'I shouldn't care, sometimes, if it was growed too. My misfortunes all began in wagging, Sir; but what could ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... and swallows. Within this rocky honeycomb— "cette ville en monolithe," as it has been aptly called, for it is literally scooped out of one mountain block—live a few poor people, foddering their wretched goats at carved piscina and stately sideboards, erecting their mud-beplastered hovels in the halls of feudal princes. From Les Baux road to Fontvieille, 7m.; whence rail to Mont-Majour and Arles (see ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... should do this when he is running for his life, thou wouldst condemn him. And dost thou not condemn thyself that dost the very same in effect? nay worse; that loiterest in thy race, notwithstanding thy soul, heaven, glory, and all is at stake? Have a care, have a care, poor wretched sinner; ...
— The Heavenly Footman • John Bunyan
... wretched cat. "But I am miserably frightened," she admitted. "I don't dare to think about the thing. I don't dare to look at the waves. I talked to you so as to take my mind off my troubles. I ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... action. The charitable man is loved by all, well-known and far-renowned! his friendship prized by the gentle and the good, in death his heart at rest and full of joy! He suffers no repentance, no tormenting fear, nor is he born a wretched ghost or demon! this is the opening flower of his reward, the fruit that follows—hard to conjecture! In all the six conditions born there is no sweet companion like pure charity; if born a Deva or a man, then charity brings worship and renown on every hand; if born among the lower ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... into a matter of no small importance. The story itself cannot here be related; it would not well bear recital: enough that the person flogged was a middle-aged man of the Waist—a forlorn, broken-down, miserable object, truly; one of those wretched landsmen sometimes driven into the Navy by their unfitness for all things else, even as others are driven into the workhouse. He was flogged at the complaint of a midshipman; and hereby hangs the drift of the thing. For though this waister was so ignoble ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... it's any use to you I'm prepared to admit once for all that I was an ass. We'll never have the wretched Mimi in the house again. I'll give ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... where he droops between the sister dames, And fondly melts—the other scorns his flames,— The mighty slave of Omphale behind Is seen, and he whom Love and fraud combined Sent to the shades of everlasting night; And still he seems to weep his wretched plight.— There, Phyllis mourns Demophoon's broken vows, And fell Medea there pursues her spouse; With impious boast, and shrill upbraiding cries, She tells him how she broke the holy ties Of kindred for his sake; the guilty shore That from her poignard drank ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... broom. Mercy on us! how my mistress began to rave and tear! Well, after all, there's nothing like good ironstone ware for wear. If ever I marry, that's flat, I'm sure it won't be John Dockery— I should be a wretched woman in a shop full of crockery. I should never like to wipe it, though I love to be neat and tidy, And afraid of meat on market-days every Monday and Friday I'm very much mistook if Mr. Lambert's will be ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... the ruins of a wretched little village called Belhhamiyeh, formerly under the patronage of the 'Adwan; and thence appeared in full view upon the hill above the great castle of the Crusaders called Belvoir, but now named Cocab, or Cocab el Hawa. Upon the plain by the ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... I think anybody could believe, or even understand; and when I hope to have her well again with me, it would be sinning against her feelings to go about to praise her; for I can conceal nothing that I do from her. She is older and wiser and better than I, and all my wretched imperfections I cover to myself by resolutely thinking on her goodness. She would share life and death, heaven and hell, with me. She ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... opportunity to violate. In 1540 the war recommenced, and a number of dissolute young men of good family formed themselves into organized companies of bandits and overran the country, to the terror of the wretched peasantry and the utter ruin of many hundreds of honest families. But in 1543 a second Joan of Arc was raised up by Providence to deliver the Nicois in the person of the still popular heroine, Catterina Segurana. Francis I. had recently scandalized Christendom by allying himself with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... which long afterwards checked my growth. I recollect it as a dream, that I would go home to my mother, but that my cries were hushed by the Sergeant, first with good words and then with menaces. I remember dimly, that I at one time found myself in a foul and wretched house, where hideous men treated me harshly, and I longed to die.—— Then comes, like a sunbeam, the impression of another home, of a clear heaven, pure air, green meadows, and of friendly, mild people, who, with infinite ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... more nervous every minute. "Hurry!" she cried every few seconds. "I am sure those men will return before you ever get the wretched place afire. What is ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... of the strongest opponents of the South and of Slavery were disposed to accept the dismemberment of the Union almost complacently, there were men of a very different type to whom it seemed an outrage to be consummated only over their dead bodies. During the wretched months of Buchanan's incurable hesitancy the name of Jackson had been in every mouth. And at the mere sound of that name there was a rally to the Union of all who had served under the old warrior in the days when he had laid his hand of steel upon the Nullifiers. Some ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... humanity long adjourned and put off. The hideous aspect of pauperism, the debasement and vice in our cities, tell us by their eloquent silence or in inarticulate mutterings, that the rich and the powerful and the intellectual do not do their duty by the poor, the feeble, and the ignorant; and every wretched woman who lives, Heaven scarce knows how, by making shirts at sixpence each, attests the injustice and inhumanity of man. There are cruelties to slaves, and worse cruelties to animals, each disgraceful to their perpetrators, and equally ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... which he had displayed on several trying occasions; and his death was as unexpected as it was shocking to the whole community. Other outrages might be enumerated, but these are sufficient to illustrate the wretched state of the country and the unprotected condition of the persons and property of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... you less often than I might, because, though I am always wretched, yet when I write to you or read a letter from you, I am in such floods of tears that I cannot endure it. Oh, that I had clung less to life! I should at least never have known real sorrow, or not much of it, in my life. Yet if fortune has reserved for me any hope of ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... belong to their world, and was not supposed to know the ins and outs of their customs. Besides, why should custom stand between such a love as mine and its object? Conventional propriety was for the pitiful earth and its wretched abortive passions. Perhaps I should frighten her? No, I did not believe it. In this golden land even the birds seemed fearless. As well think to frighten ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... lance, doubling backward in his death-agony as he fell; there, another turned fiercely, and fired his pistol full at the dragoon who charged him, but missed, and was cleft next moment to the chin. In another place a wretched man had dropped on his knees, and, while in a supplicating attitude, was run through the neck by a lancer. But, to say truth, little quarter was asked by these Bashi-Bazouks, and none was granted. They fought on foot, fiercely, with spear ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... done in 1438! The first: void, weak and without expression; the second: full of life and character; and note that this difference strikes the eye even now, notwithstanding the difficulty of comparison owing to the wretched condition to which the panel at ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino
... repartees, sarcastically observed, "I do not quarrel with the Abbe d'Aubignac for having so closely followed the precepts of Aristotle; but I cannot pardon the precepts of Aristotle, that occasioned the Abbe d'Aubignac to write so wretched a tragedy." ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... home. When Doctor Wicker came to-day, and I looked out and saw you with that miserable little coat with the sleeves half-way up to the elbows and great holes in it which you will not let anybody patch because you are too proud to wear patches, and those wretched faded trousers, out at the knees, and which have been turned up and hemmed at the bottom so often that they are six inches above your shoes, and your whole scarecrow appearance, I was so ashamed of you that I could not keep the tears ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... man resembles a fiddler, whose music, though liked, is not much praised, because he lives by it; while a gentleman performer, though the most wretched scraper alive, throws ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... an enemy. He seems to have been a wretched, contemptible spy; but what's wrong with you?" he suddenly exclaimed, as his eyes went to the boy's face. It was of an ashen pallor, and he was trembling in ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... Reina, who was one of the foremost religious in the Bisayan province—a fine linguist, and one who added much to the sacristies, and was very discerning in things pertaining to the altar—was prior in the same village, he heard that a wretched mestizo woman in his district was leading a dissolute life; for on that occasion the encomendero Don Agustin Flores was there. This man came at the head of a number of blinded and unruly Spaniards. The religious had the woman seized and placed in a private ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... his heart. He often had to pawn his clothes to keep from starving. He sold his "Life of Voltaire" for twenty dollars. After great hardship he managed to publish his "Polite Learning in Europe," and this brought him to public notice. Next came "The Traveller," and the wretched man in a Fleet Street garret found himself famous. His landlady once arrested him for rent, but Dr. Johnson came to his relief, took from his desk the manuscript of the "Vicar of Wakefield," and sold it for three hundred dollars. He spent two years revising "The Deserted Village" after ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... great anxiety, we passed a wretched night; and, at daylight, commenced a thorough search for traces of the missing boys. Finally Jerry discovered their tracks in the road leading towards camp; and it seemed possible that we might have missed them in the darkness, and, if we at once returned, should ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... in adversity to despise death; but he acts more bravely, who can live wretched."—Martial, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... express purpose of driving him several steps to the bad, this must have been it. The line was only just opened. The station was a rude wooden hut, and there was no village near at hand. Alone in the wilds of Yorkshire, with few books, little to do, no prospects, and wretched pay, with no society congenial to his better taste, but plenty of wild, rollicking, hard-headed, half-educated manufacturers, who would welcome him to their houses, and drink with him as often as he chose to come, what was this morbid ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... circumstances. The confused state of the furniture, displaced for the convenience of being easily viewed and carried off by the purchasers, is disagreeable to the eye. Those articles which, properly and decently arranged, look creditable and handsome, have then a paltry and wretched appearance; and the apartments, stripped of all that render them commodious and comfortable, have an aspect of ruin and dilapidation. It is disgusting also to see the scenes of domestic society and seclusion thrown open to the gaze of ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... 'Where do those foolish, wretched, and sinful men go, O chief of men, that steal or misappropriate such ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... well-regulated equine couple would permit themselves. In fact, our great satirist was of opinion that conjugal love was unadvisable, and illustrated the theory by his own practice and example—God help him—which made him about the most wretched being ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... Giver!" cried Miss Thacker, with an accent on the adjective which brought the blood into Lilias's cheeks. The wretched woman seemed to have fathomed her reluctance, and to be scoffing at her beneath a pretence of approval; but surely, now that she had got what she wanted, she would take her departure, and end this most trying scene. She made a little movement of dismissal, whereupon ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... districts it was quite impossible for them to keep up the amount of the tribute. Yet the hawks' bells, which once had been so eagerly coveted and were now becoming hated symbols of oppression, had to be filled somehow; and as the day of payment drew near the wretched natives, who had formerly only sought for gold when a little of it was wanted for a pretty ornament, had now to work with frantic energy in the river sands; or in other cases, to toil through the heat of the day in the cotton fields which they had formerly only cultivated enough to furnish ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... I found more leisure for reflection, the dire doubt returned in full strength, and I bitterly pondered upon it. Need I name the subject of my wretched reflections? Isolina de Vargas! ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... danger to the community. Native Commissioners have been permitted to practise extortion, injustice, and cruelty upon the natives under their jurisdiction. The Government has allowed petty tribes to be goaded into rebellion. We have had to pay the costs of the 'wars,' while the wretched victims of their policy have had their tribes broken up, sources of native labour have been destroyed, and large numbers of prisoners have been kept in goal for something like eighteen months without trial. It was stated in the newspapers that, out of 63 men imprisoned, 31 had died in that ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... remained some time in this wretched little room, as though at the bottom of a hole. All at once, Therese heard a clock in the neighbourhood strike ten. She felt as if she would have liked to have been deaf. Nevertheless, she looked for her hat which she fastened to ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... about to happen, and those magnates had rushed to the paying teller's side. "Do you know that signature?" said the old man with a gleam in his eye. Now it was the teller's turn to feel wretched. "Pay five hundred and fifty thousand—Babbit, soap man! oh! what an idiot I am!" All this went through his head. The president, the cashier, abased themselves before the irate old man. It was all a mistake! They assured him! They assured him! Beg pardon! Impertinence of new teller. ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... of this song is the precision with which each character enters and joins the slowly increasing circle. But that is its only merit. It is wretched doggrel, and would make the play far too tedious. I was, however, ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... fact, made no secret to Lord Melbourne, in the famous interview at Brighton, of his conviction that Lord John Russell had neither the ability nor the influence to qualify him for the task; and he added that he would 'make a wretched figure' when opposed in the Commons by men like Peel and Stanley. His Majesty further volunteered the remark that he did not 'understand that young gentleman,' and could not agree to the arrangement proposed. William, moreover, took occasion ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... healthy sleep that wraps her now, Else would she waken at my anxious cry; 'Tis death-sleep, wretched man. ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... an irreparable wrong, oh, THAT was too much for him. For he had kept two of his sons out of their own all these years, only in order to make the position and prospects of the third, at last, certainly doubtful, and perhaps wretched. ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... said the priest, "philosophy conducts the soul to clemency. As far as I am concerned I willingly give absolution to knaves, rogues and rascals and all the wretched. And more, I owe no grudge to good people, though in their case there is much insolence. And if, Master Leonard, like myself, you should have been familiar with respectable people, you would know that they are not a rap better than the others, and are often of a less ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... it more strongly? She had, indeed, opposed it; and for a whole wretched week she who had never yet gainsaid him in anything had argued and pleaded with her son, attempting at the same time to bring in his uncles to wrestle with him, seeing that his poor paralyzed father was of no account, and so to make a stubborn family fight of it. ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... signs, the difficulty I felt in putting him in possession of it—"here sir," said he, "and God bless you;" then, stooping with his mouth, I put it between his lips!—Ah, thought I, as I turned from this wretched object, the most hard-hearted of those who were concerned in breaking public treaties, and rejecting overtures for peace, would have relented, if with my feelings they had beheld this single victim of the millions that ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... midday, as she watched by the bedside of a little patient with a branch of maple in her hand to keep the flies away, she drowsed, and one of the wretched little insects lighted on her moist red lips. Soon thereafter the "walking typhoid" caught her as she was striding past Lum Chapman's blacksmith-shop. Instinctively she kept on toward home, and reached there raving: "Don't let him come—don't let him come!" And when the news got about ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... not a man and brother? Have I not a soul to save? Oh, do not my spirit smother, Making me a wretched slave; God of mercy, God of mercy, Let ...
— The Anti-Slavery Harp • Various
... the purpose of furthering their own vicious ends. They live principally in a neighborhood which abounds in lodging-houses for sailors, the lowest class of liquor stores, dancing and concert rooms, and various other low places of amusement; a neighborhood swarming with brothels, whose wretched inmates are permitted to flaunt their sin and finery, and ply their hateful trade openly, by day and night; where at midnight the quarrels, fights, and disturbances, are so noisy and so frequent that none can hope for a night's rest until they are inured by habit; where, ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... hill, and across the river, is the village of Pucyura. When Raimondi was here in 1865 it was but a "wretched hamlet with a paltry chapel." To-day it is more prosperous. There is a large public school here, to which children come from villages many miles away. So crowded is the school that in fine weather the children sit on benches out of doors. The boys all go barefooted. The girls wear ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... have settled the feud, but for my positive command that they should follow me in as much peace as the rascally vulgar would permit. And thus they arrived here in the guise of flying men, when, with my command to repel force by force, they might have set fire to the four corners of this wretched borough, and stifled the insolent churls, like malicious fox cubs in a burning brake ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... being Sunday, my uncle found her as he went to church. She was sweeping a new crossing. She seemed to have found a lower deep still, for, alas! all her new clothes were gone, and she was more tattered and wretched-looking than before. As soon as she saw my uncle she burst ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald
... the wood, trying to daunt him, Led him confused in circles through the brake. He was forgetting his old wretched folly, And freedom was his need; his throat was choking; Barbed brambles gripped and clawed him round his legs, And he floundered over snags and hidden stumps. Mumbling: 'I will get out! I must get out!' Butting and thrusting ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... glides away 'Mid mirth and music, flattery's whispered tone, Her dreary penance—ever to be gay, Yet longing, oh! how oft—to be alone; But when all other hearts seek needful rest, And heavy sleep the saddest eyelids close, Her dreams are those the wretched only know, As memory o'er her ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... Washington brought him to the front of the English troops at a moment when the French fleet held the sea, and the British army was driven by famine in October to a surrender as humiliating as that of Saratoga. The news fell like a thunderbolt on the wretched Minister, who had till now suppressed at his master's order his own conviction of the uselessness of further bloodshed. Opening his arms and pacing wildly about the room, Lord North exclaimed, "It is all over," and resigned. At this ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... JUST BEFORE MAXEN (an exultant exuberant curious Letter; too long for insertion,—part of it given above).... "For your Tragedy of SOCRATE, thanks. At Paris they are going to burn it, the wretched fools,—not aware that absurd fanaticism is their dominant vice. Better burn the dose of medicine, however, than the useful Doctor. I, can I join myself to that set? If I bite you, as you complain, it is without my knowledge. But I am surrounded with enemies, one ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the window, the broken panes of which were stuffed with rags, dry grass, and heather, though not tight enough to prevent the wind from whistling, and the rain, snow, and sleet from driving in upon the wretched inmate. Except where the solitary gleam of cold evening light fell upon the crouching figure of poor Mountain Moggy, all else in the hovel was gloom and obscurity. Little, however, did Moggy heed the weather. Winter or summer, chilling blasts or warm sunshine, the changeful seasons brought no change ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston
... to his wretched home, and eyed the dismal scene, and the havoc one man had made—the marble floor all stained with blood—Ina Klosking supported in a chair, white, and faintly moaning—Zoe still crushed and glaring at vacancy, and Fanny sobbing round her with pity and terror; for she knew there must be worse to ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... the results. Demented individuals are met in no small numbers inside of hospitals and asylums, and outside as well, who owe to this vice their awful condition. Plenty of half-witted men whom one meets in the every-day walks of life have destroyed the better half of their understanding by this wretched practice. ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... that they had all gained the shore, the day was far spent; the natives, who were of the Caffre race, and who had been busy in obtaining all the iron that they could from the mainmast, which had drifted on shore, left the beach at dark. The wretched sufferers lighted fires, and having collected some casks of beef and flour, and some live stock, they remained on the rocks daring that night. The next morning the captain proposed that they should make their way to Cape Town, ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... sounded to me insufferably disagreeable. And now whatever I write I shall have to send because if I destroy this letter also I shall not have time to write another before you come to see me as you promised. And the reason for my wretched night was that I was haunted by all the reasons there are why you should not come. They are so difficult to put into words that I despair, after three attempts, of doing it in any but an offensive manner. Pity, Aurora, the plight of your poor patient; ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... dog had not changed its attitude. The moments sped by. Suddenly the poor beast began to struggle violently. It was a huge specimen of the husky breed, exceptionally powerful and wolfish in its appearance. The wretched brute moaned incessantly, but its pain only made it struggle the harder to free itself from its harness. At length it succeeded in wriggling out of the primitive "breast-draw" which held it. Then the suffering beast limped painfully ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... ability to do this is less than that of any one else. In very truth he seems to despise and hate me now. The barriers between us grow stronger and higher every day. How different it all might have been if—. But what is the use of these wretched 'ifs'? What is the use of resisting this blind, remorseless fate that brings happiness ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... he clutched at his breast, the hand which Roy tried to grasp trembled and was like ice. The two scouts saw that there was no use talking with him. The wretched creature was out of his senses. Huddling in a posture of abject terror he clutched the object which he held tighter against his breast, his head bowed and shaking, his whole form ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... could not fight the Turks single-handed I was always told that Bulgarian help was certain. The army was anxious to begin, for it was mobilized, and the revolt had cost more than had been expected. But for the fund I raised the wretched refugees would have suffered yet more bitterly. Montenegro cared nothing for them. All she wanted was territory. Great Serbia was discussed with singular cold-bloodedness, one of the schoolmasters saying at the dinner-table that it would never be "made till the ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... the past—of the short and secret courtship with its illusions, greater and more perilous than love's illusions commonly are—of her first days of married life, when, in spite of her rash disobedience, she was feverishly happy; of the awaking, and total disenchantment, and the wretched years that followed, all came to her in a floating, broken vision, filling her with emotions which had, at last, lost their bitterness. She yielded to them without resistance and without effort, and sank into a long silence, which was broken at last ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... God will die, He who dies to do Him honour. And a man whose life is here But a round of cares and crosses, Should be grateful unto death As the end of all his sorrows; Since it comes the tangled thread Of a wretched life to shorten, Which to-day the evil Phoenix Of its works that now prove mortal Would revive amid the ashes Of my wrong and my dishonour. Then my life, my breath were poison, Venom would my breast but foster, Until I had shed ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... will never ask me to marry a man I do not love, and I shall never love Arthur Fletcher. If this is to be as you say, it will make me very, very wretched. It is right that you should know the truth. If it is only because Mr. Lopez has ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... the Hindoos, have been occasioned by the cruel and unjust monopolies of certain unworthy servants of the East India Company, who to aggrandize their own fortunes have oftentimes bought up, on speculation, all the salt in the different ports and markets, and thus have deprived the ingenious but wretched natives of their only remaining comfort, salt being the only addition they are usually enabled to make to their poor pittance of rice. Many of the poor in England, previously to the late reduction especially, have loudly lamented the ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... of the officials, offered to undertake it. He was a handsome man, thirty-six years old or thereabouts: nothing in his looks betrayed his connection with the police; he wore any kind of dress with equal ease and grace, and was familiar with every grade in the social scale, disguising himself as a wretched tramp or a noble lord. He was just the right man, so his ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... high. There are two little inns, with five or six rooms each, and one boarding-house of the same size. We could only get one small room, into which all three were packed, at a charge of a dollar and a quarter per day; while for two wretched meals we paid a dollar and a half each. The reader may judge of our fare from the fact that one day our soup was raspberry juice and water, and another time, cold beer, flavoured with pepper and cinnamon. Add tough beafsteaks swimming in ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... Sinclair, "these wretched fools thought my organization was a utopia until they learned that I was no better for them than the Solar Guard. Unfortunately they learned too late and were sent here to dig underground pits for my spaceships and ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... say it? Why do you torment me? Why do you banish me at once, and tell me that I must go home a wretched, miserable ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... can have been that moved me to act as I then did, for, in the truth, the manner of that rascal of a groom was little prepossessing, and his master, I doubted, could be little better that he left the fellow to hector it thus over that wretched tavern oaf. But I ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... fidelity to his God. He begged her to recall Samuel to life, that he might be comforted and instructed by him. She pretended to comply with his request; but, before she could commence her usual mysterious operations, Samuel arose! and the forlorn, wretched, and heart-broken king listened to his tremendous doom, as it was uttered by the spirit of ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... Boggs is present, an' is leanin' back appreciatin' the show an' the Valley Tan plenty impartial. Dan likes both an' is doin' 'em even jestice. Over opp'site to Dan is a drunken passel of sports from Red Dog, said wretched hamlet bein' behind Wolfville in that as in all things else an' not ownin' no ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... between Madame Bonaparte (the mother), Madame Napoleon Bonaparte, Princesse Louis Bonaparte, Princesse Murat and the Princesse Borghese. By this you may conclude in what manner we intend to treat the wretched inhabitants of the other side of the Rhine. This Daru is too good a calculator and too fond of money to throw away his expenses; he is master of a great fortune, made entirely by his arithmetical talents, which have enabled him for years to break ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... to the village we found the people on the eve of one of those terrible outbursts of superstitious passion which rarely if ever pass away without some wretched human creature perishing under ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... yielded up their meaning as they have been practically applied and extended. The act of September 28th, granting land bounties to the soldiers of the Mexican war, opened the way for the monopoly of many millions of acres of the public domain by sharks and speculators, while proving a wretched mockery of the just claims of the men in whose name it was urged. The Swamp Land Act of the same date, owing to its loose and unguarded provisions and shameful mal-administration, has been still more fruitful of wide-spread spoilation and plunder. The act of September 20th, ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... said Sally, shortly. She had never felt so wretched in her life. Foreign travel, she decided, was a mistake. It might be pleasant and broadening to the mind, but it seemed to put you so out of touch with people when you got back. She analysed her sensations, and arrived at the conclusion that what she was resenting ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... oxen, employed in dragging the canes and other produce of the plantation. Jenks his garden we found in good order, and beautiful with many plants in full blossom; but Jenks his house seemed dreary and desolate, with no books, a wretched print or so, dilapidated furniture, and beds that looked like the very essence of nightmare. Nothing suggested domestic life or social enjoyment, or anything—; but as Jenks is perfectly unknown to us, either by appearance or reputation, we give only a guess in the dark, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... anticipated. The lay intruders were making a last attempt to keep up their evil custom; and, after the death of the usurper who made this false claim, another person attempted to continue it; but popular feeling was so strong against the wretched man, that he was obliged to fly. Ecclesiastical discipline was soon restored; and after Malachy had made a partition of the diocese, he was permitted to resign in favour of Gelasius, then Abbot of the great Columbian ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... sight, little wretch, born to worry the blessed gods and plague the race of men!" "Mother," said Hermes, gently, "why talk thus to me, as though I were like mortal babes, a poor cowering thing, to cry for a little scolding? I know thy interest and mine: why should we stay here in this wretched cave, with never a gift nor a feast to cheer our hearts? I shall not stay. It is pleasanter to banquet with the gods than to dwell in a cavern in draughts of whistling wind. I shall try my luck against Apollo, ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... their guns relatively to those of his own vessel, it would seem that his action, though immediate, should have been only tentative. If it proved on trial that the speed of the Tennessee was greater than that of the monitors, she might yet prove master of the situation. Despite the beak, which her wretched speed and exposed steering chains rendered untrustworthy, her great defensive strength and the fact of carrying rifled guns indicated that long range, and not close quarters, was the first game of the Tennessee. ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... caused. Indeed, for a long time, her only thought was for herself and her unfortunate predicament. She had never been so frightened in her life. Nothing had ever looked so big, so dismal, and so altogether hopeless as this wretched side street where her fugitive had disappeared. There was not a policeman in sight. She didn't know which way to go, but promptly realized that she should not stay just there in that degraded neighborhood. Even the wider street from which she had diverged, with its endless lines of wagons and ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... I was hired for!" he mused, "a fence; a wretched mask put up to hide the trickery and chicanery and criminality—the crookedness which has never been put aside; which nobody ever meant to put aside! My God! they've let me stultify myself in a thousand ways; let me sit here day ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... revolting food had been consumed." "The scenes I have witnessed of misery are something dreadful; and I must say that your wish for me to return with the work incomplete would not be expressed if you saw the state of these poor people. The horrible furtive looks of the wretched inhabitants hovering about one's boats haunts me.... I hope to get the Shanghai people to assist, but they do not see these things: and to read that there are human beings eating human flesh produces less effect ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... Patterson sent a letter to President Dickinson, accusing the farmers of sedition, and hinting that extreme measures were necessary. Having thus, as he thought, prepared the way, he attacked the settlement, turned some five hundred people out-of-doors, and burned their houses to the ground. The wretched victims, many of them tender women, or infirm old men, or little children, were driven into the wilderness at the point of the bayonet, and told to find their way to Connecticut without further delay. Heartrending scenes ensued. Many died ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... fact, says he, Bruno has advanced all that was ever brought forward by all heathen philosophers, and by all heretics, ancient and modern. A time for retractation was given, both before sentence and after, which should be noted, as well for the wretched palliation which it may afford, as for the additional proof it gives that opinions, and opinions only, brought him to the stake. In this medley of charges the Scriptures are a dream, while Adam, Eve, devils, and salvation are truths, and the Saviour a deceiver. We have examined no work of ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... Maria's indisposition was over, but Harry was wretched. Then in the evening the horse Harry was riding, in the matter of which he had been cheated by his cousin Will, at Castlewood, came down on his knees and sent the rider over his head. Mr. Harry was picked up insensible and carried home into a house called Oakhurst ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds. |
