"Dire" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the dread of democratic violence prevailed over the suspicions endeavored to be awakened of monarchism and an arbitrary executive. This feeling was, no doubt, strengthened greatly by refugees from St. Domingo, who related the dire effects which democratic acts had produced in that island. France, however, was never more formidable. Tidings of her victories poured in, whilst those of England told of bank payments suspended, a mutiny in the fleet, and the abandonment of ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... resolution was to live in open communion with my kind. So intense, indeed, did my anxiety to execute this purpose become that it might have led even to frenzy had not a fortunate circumstance interposed to save me from so dire a calamity. ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... victim of the chaparral. The possibility was remote; death at this moment seemed as far off as ever—if anything it was too far off. No, she would find the water-hole somehow; or the unexpected would happen, as it always did when one was in dire straits. She was too young and too strong to die yet. Death was not ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... she added, as a continuation of the same cry, and sobbing pitifully: and the rarity with her of such abandonment only made the condition more dire. ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... thither; lay our faggots on the ground, In neat stacks beleaguering the insurgents all around; And the vile conspiratresses, plotters of such mischief dire, Pile and burn them all together in one vast and righteous pyre: Fling with our own hands Lycon's wife to fry in the thickest fire. By Demeter, they'll get no brag while I've a vein to beat! Cleomenes ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... boldest opponent, inspires the fear of man, and puts to flight the entire animal kingdom—lions, tigers, and leopards, all but the restless and plucky mongoose—and whose slightest scratch is attended with such dire results, are two in number, one in each upper jaw, and placed anteriorly to all other teeth, which they exceed by five or six times in point of size. Situated just within the lips, recurved, slender, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various
... not able to keep his dire threat about the lorcha's nose, but it is only just to say that he tried to. We met a heavy sea outside of Corregidor, and never have I seen anything more dizzy and drunken and pathetic than the rolls and heaves ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... you wish my name? Vous voyez en moi—you see, lady, in me, le Chevalier Riccaut de la Marliniere, Seigneur de Pret-au-val, de la branche de Prens d'or. You remain astonished to hear me from so great, great a family, qui est veritablement du sang royal. Il faut le dire; je suis sans doute le cadet le plus aventureux que la maison n'a jamais eu. I serve from my eleven year. Une affaire d'honneur make me flee. Den I serve de holy Papa of Rome, den de Republic St. Marino, den de Poles, den de States General, till enfin I am brought her. Ah! Mademoiselle, que ...
— Minna von Barnhelm • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... Laodice. "One can journey with you. I am under no restriction, and the rabbis do not bind you against me. I can secure you comforts along the way, and give you protection. There in no such dire need that I enter Jerusalem ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... moment may arrive. The malcontents are in close connexion with Vermont, and that district, it is believed, is in negotiation with the government of Canada. In one word, my dear general, we are all in dire apprehension that a beginning of anarchy with all its calamities is made, and we have no means to stop the dreadful work. Knowing your unbounded influence, and believing that your appearance among the seditious might bring them back to peace ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... be as those others that you, Jonathan, saw. You have told us of their gloating lips. You heard their ribald laugh as they clutched the moving bag that the Count threw to them. You shudder, and well may it be. Forgive me that I make you so much pain, but it is necessary. My friend, is it not a dire need for that which I am giving, possibly my life? If it were that any one went into that place to stay, it is I who would have to go ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... serving days was completed to the full allowance. The last of the wheat was served on the 17th (a proper quantity being reserved for seed) and on the next provision-day ten pounds of Indian corn were substituted instead of the allowance of wheat. Nothing but dire necessity could have induced the gathering and issuing this article in its present unripened state, the whole of it being soft, full of juice, and wholly unfit to grind. Had the settlers, with only a common share of honesty, ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... huge apartment houses (and diminutive apartments) is the other prime factor in the case. While the hotel dinner may have come into fashion first as the dire necessity of the "cliff dwellers," its convenience appeals to many householders who formerly would not have dreamed of offering their guests the hospitality of a cafe. Many conservative people still deplore the innovation; ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... never yet one mortal song inspire— Goddess of Wisdom! here thy temple was, And is, despite of War and wasting fire,[1.B.] And years, that bade thy worship to expire: But worse than steel, and flame, and ages slow,[2.B.] Is the dread sceptre and dominion dire Of men who never felt the sacred glow That thoughts of thee and thine ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... no purpose that Lloyds' agent pointed out the convenience and advantage of the inner port: it was as useless for the local pilot to look grave and recall dire happenings to Captains who had elected to effect their repairs in the outer harbour—just here, at Port William. Old Jock's square jaw was set firm, his eyes were narrowed to a crafty leer; he looked on everyone with unconcealed suspicion and distrust. He was a shipmaster of ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... precipitated. Winter maintained stoutly that the police must triumph in the long run, whereas Furneaux held, with even greater tenacity, that although the gang would undoubtedly be broken up, that much-desired end might have been attained after, and not before, a dire tragedy ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... title that is for a man!(171) A wild youth, wayward, but full of tenderness and affection, quits the country village where his boyhood has been passed in happy musing, in idle shelter, in fond longing to see the great world out of doors, and achieve name and fortune—and after years of dire struggle, and neglect and poverty, his heart turning back as fondly to his native place, as it had longed eagerly for change when sheltered there, he writes a book and a poem, full of the recollections and feelings of home—he paints the ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... dire expedition of 1758 against Ticonderoga, and with it our expectations of seeing Montreal, or Quebec, that season. I dare say, we had fully ten thousand bayonets in the field that bloody day, and quite five thousand ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... cela va sans dire; it is only our devoir, Madame, to exprimer to the ladies some of the ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... speak again nurses and children came streaming and screaming from the lake toward the house. "Nellie Wilder is drowned," was the burden of their dire message. ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... year did she remit to the last a moiety of her earnings, and many a half-dollar that had come from Rose's pretty little hand, had been converted into gold, and forwarded on the same pious errand to the green island of her nativity. Ireland, unhappy country! at this moment what are not the dire necessities of thy poor! Here, from the midst of abundance, in a land that God has blessed in its productions far beyond the limits of human wants, a land in which famine was never known, do we at this moment hear thy groans, and listen to tales of suffering that ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... declared, had absolutely no business above Cape Race and north of Sable Island on the trip on which she went to her doom. Choosing the northern route brought about the dire disaster, in his mind, and it was the saving of three hours for the sake of a new record that ended in the collision with the tragic victory for the ghostlike monster out of ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... full moon bright, * Stay thy speech and with boon of good news requite. Love pledged me his word he would see thee and said, * Hie thee home and order the house aright. I awoke this morning in cark and care, * In tears distraught and in dire despite; For the wrongs and farness thou doom'st me dree * Have forced my forces ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... wolf pulling down a calf. Another white wolf stood not far off. My horse jumped as if he had been shot; and the realization darted upon me that here was where the certain something began. Spot—the mustang had one black spot in his pure white—snorted like I imagined a blooded horse might, under dire insult. Jones's bay had gotten about a hundred paces the start. I lived to learn that Spot hated to be left behind; moreover, he would not be left behind; he was the swiftest horse on the range, and proud of the distinction. I cast one unmentionable word on the breeze toward ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... dans les coeurs s'excite N'est point, comme l'on scait, un effet du merite; Le caprice y prend part, et, quand quelqu'un nous plaist, Souvent nous avons peine a dire pourquoy c'est. Mais on vois que l'amour ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... state publicly what they really thought of the strings, the nails, the spools, the wires, and the pulleys, in private they did not hesitate to denounce derisively the scientist's contrivances and assert that some fine day the house on the bluff would come to dire disaster. ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... and you now have the blessing of the Church. I, as your shepherd, made so by the holy Pope of Rome, command you, therefore, to be faithful to your new master—pray that God may bless his arms, and grant him victory over his ungodly enemy. My anger and dire punishment shall reach any one who refuses to obey this command. He who dares to stand by the heretic king, is himself a heretic, and a rebellious subject of the Church. Be on your guard; heavy punishment shall meet those who dare to rejoice over the fame of ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... house old Jim was again at ease, so much so, indeed, that he quite forgot to begin that promised work upon his claim. He had never worked except when dire necessity made resting no longer possible, and then only long enough to secure the wherewithal for sufficient food to last him through another period of sitting around to think. If thinking upon subjects of no importance whatsoever had been a lucrative employment, Jim would certainly have accumulated ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... man! Surely better had it been for him, if he were lying beneath the earth, enveloped in his shroud, still unconscious of bitter toils. Would that the dark wave, when the maiden Helle perished, had overwhelmed Phrixus too with the ram; but the dire portent even sent forth a human voice, that it might cause to Alcimede sorrows and countless ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... winter was to be crucial. My clients were clamorous, and were hinting at all sorts of dire doings if they were not treated better. Roebuck was questioning, in the most malignantly friendly manner, "whether, after all, Harvey, the combine isn't a mistake, and the old way wasn't the best." On the other hand Burbank was becoming restless. He had so cleverly taken ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... de Feu" of Merville. We were told on the very highest authority that at one time over two hundred years ago, the town caught fire and that nothing could be done to save it. In this dire extremity the parish priest prayed to God and promised him that if he would save the village the town would each year for all time have a memorial procession of thanksgiving; immediately the fire went out and the thankful villagers and their descendants have since that ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... them of all else that was dear and sacred to brave and honorable men! But how differently Father Ryan acted when the oppressed people of the South were restored to their rights, and when the great heart of the North went out in sympathy towards them in their dire affliction during the awful visitation of the yellow fever, when death reaped a rich harvest in Memphis and elsewhere, and a sorrow-stricken land was once more buried in ruin and desolation! It was then, indeed, ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... with stinging smart Exploded in Ignaty's heart. In anguish dire I weep again The arm that at Sevastopol I ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... all tremulously, and in dire suspense—"reasons!" she waited his reply breathlessly. The thought of Harry being in the power of Lopez, of the hate and malignant vengeance which Lopez might pour forth upon his devoted head, had all occurred to her at once at the mention of his ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... Christians were encamped. At last, dysentery, that fatal malady of warm climates, began to commit frightful ravages among the troops; and the plague, which appears to be born of itself upon this burning, arid sand, spread its dire contagion ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... household. In Notes and Queries a correspondent remarks that crowing hens are not uncommon, that their crow is very similar to the crow of a very young cock, and must be taken as a certain presagement of some dire calamity. ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... had a vision," declared the monk. "Last night there was revealed unto me the dire result of thy folly. I saw thee, the victim of thy nation's ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... days went on, Lady Fairweather became somewhat daunted by the dire predictions of chills and fever as a result of our long lying in the marshes; and one day she deserted the ship and sailed away on a bigger one. We thought she was to be gone only a little while, but she proved ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... said and written about the dietetic evils of these articles that their very names have been almost synonymous with indigestion and dyspepsia. That they are prolific causes of this dire malady cannot be denied, and it is doubtless due to two reasons; first, because they are generally compounded of ingredients which are in themselves unwholesome, and rendered doubly so by their combination; and secondly, ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... thrown into the wind by the collision, her sails were thrashing to and fro with a tremendous clatter, which, combined with a roar of escaping steam from the tug, created such dire confusion among the smugglers as rendered them almost incapable of resistance. In fact, their captain was the only one who made a show of fighting; and, springing at him with a howl of delight, Mike Connell sent him sprawling to the deck with ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... soustenoyent les tailles de mon jardin, lesquelles estant bruslees, je fus constraint brusler les tables et plancher de la maison, afin de faire fondre la seconde composition. J'estois en une telle angoisse que je ne scaurois dire: car j'estois tout tari et deseche a cause du labeur et de la chaleur du fourneau; il y avoit plus d'un mois que ma chemise n'avoit seiche sur moy, encores pour me consoler on se moquoit de moy, et mesme ceux qui me devoient secourir alloient crier ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... bodily health at the present moment. I lost my situation as head-clerk in the Export Department of the Ironmongers' Association, and found myself, at the age of forty, compelled to begin life again with a wife and three children. Everything I have turned my hand to has failed, and I am in dire want. May I ask you, under these circumstances, to be so good as to advance me L500 for a few months. I will give any security you like. Perhaps I might repay some part of the loan by doing work for you during the election. This ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... in a tone of sincere surprise which to Cranbrook was very amusing. The conversation was now fairly started. The American told with much expenditure of eloquence the story of "the wrath of Achilles, the son of Peleus," and of the dire misfortunes which fell upon the house of Priamus and Atreus in consequence of one woman's fatal beauty. The girl sat listening with a rapt, far-away expression; now and then a breeze of emotion flitted across her features and a tear glittered ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... direful, frightful, majestic, solemn, appalling, dread, grand, noble, stately, august, dreadful, horrible, portentous, terrible, dire, fearful, imposing, shocking, terrific. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... pas forte; j'ai contracte une toux opiniatre, il y a plus de deux ans, qui ne me quitte point. Cependant j'espere mettre la main a l'[oe]uvre bientot. Je ne peux dire, mademoiselle, combien votre affection,—car vous les aimez, votre livre et votre lettre en temoignent assez,—pour mes compatriotes et mon pays me touche; et je suis fiere de pouvoir le dire que les heroines de nos grandes epopees sont dignes de tout honneur et de tout amour. Y a-ti-il ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt
... table; Sir Andrew Ffoulkes and Lord Antony Dewhurst, two typical good-looking, well-born and well-bred Englishmen of that year of grace 1792, and the aristocratic French comtesse with her two children, who had just escaped from such dire perils, and found a safe retreat at last on ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... care and tenderness were emblazoned on my mind. Scenes of anguish, pain, and dire distress were branded on my brain during days, weeks, and months of famine,—famine which reduced the party from eighty-one souls to forty-five survivors, before the heroic relief men from the settlements could ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... serve were broken by the ever-recurring obligation to stand up for the Marseillaise, to stand up for God Save the King, to stand up for the Russian National Anthem, to stand up again for the Marseillaise. "Et dire que ce sont des Hongrois qui jouent tout cela!" a humourist remarked ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... triple, with large or small links, some thick and heavy, while others are as slight and flexible as the finest Venetian lace. The poorest peasant woman, alike with the lady of the court, could boast of the possession of a chain, and she must have been in dire poverty who had not some other ornament in her jewel-case. The jewellery of Queen Ahhotpu shows to what degree of excellence the work of the Egyptian goldsmiths had attained at the time of the expulsion of the Nyksos: they had not only preserved ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... about that fact, and when he was so informed by his friends years ago, refused to listen to any of us. The half-brother left the country rather than quarrel with him over the estate. Later, this half-brother was in serious financial trouble, and I happened to come across him when he was in dire need of money. Knowing of the will, I loaned him all he needed, and took out a first mortgage on his property. Owing to peculiar circumstances, I put in a provision that there was to be no foreclosure so long as the interest was paid. I even went beyond the request which the man made, ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... grief at this dire misfortune, and eager was his desire for vengeance. He scorned to seek the foe with a great host behind him, nor did he dread the combat in any way, for he called to mind his many feats of war, and especially his fight ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... within the three-way framework of the Constitution of the United States. The coordinate branches of the Government continue freely to function. The Bill of Rights remains inviolate. The freedom of elections is wholly maintained. Prophets of the downfall of American democracy have seen their dire predictions ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... am sure, Madam. If we are drawn into war, his opposition becomes futile. If we are not: well, if we are not, it will not be his doing that we escape that—dire necessity. ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... death, behold Hell's jaws gaping at us! Who will from such dire distress Free and scathless set us? Lord, that dost thou, thou only: It fills thy tender heart with woe We should sin and suffer so. Holy, holy Lord God, Holy, mighty Lord God, Holy Saviour with the tender heart, Everlasting God, Let us not be gasted By ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... instant, the shrill sound of the whistle rung, piercing, through the dismal place in which we were imprisoned. It was answered. The same hoarse voices once more were heard: but in tones fifty fold more dire. ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... Odin, wroth with thee is the AEsir's prince; Frey shall loathe thee, even ere thou, wicked maid! shalt have felt the gods' dire vengeance. ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... horrible fate of his predecessors, he warned his troop: "You have seen what misfortune overtook the angels who said 'What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?' Let us have a care not to do likewise, lest we suffer the same dire punishment. For God will not refrain from doing in the end what He has planned. Therefore it is advisable for us to yield to His wishes." Thus warned, the angels spoke: "Lord of the world, it is well that Thou hast thought of creating man. Do Thou create him according to Thy will. And as for ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... horrid cruelties which they committed in the cities of Egypt, of Cyprus, and of Cyrene, where they dwelt in treacherous friendship with the unsuspecting natives; and we are tempted to applaud the severe retaliation which was exercised by the arms of the legions against a race of fanatics, whose dire and credulous superstition seemed to render them the implacable enemies not only of the Roman government, but of human kind. The enthusiasm of the Jews was supported by the opinion, that it was unlawful for them to pay taxes to an idolatrous master; and by the flattering ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... one who needed assistance. These trials, added to the fact that his wife was frequently in ill health, and not very economical, served to keep the family in continual straits. Occasionally they were even without fire or food, though friends always assisted such dire distress. Mozart's father had declared procrastination was his son's besetting sin. Yet the son was a tireless worker, never idle. In September, 1787, he was at Prague, writing the score of his greatest opera, "Don Giovanni"; ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... and he who can may prove Mighty in arms and by the grace of Mars Lay chieftains low; and let him tell the tale To me who drink his health, while on the board His wine-dipped finger draws, line after line, Just how his trenches ranged! What madness dire Bids men go foraging for death in war? Our death is always near, and hour by hour, With soundless step ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... world into which he had been permitted to see, unscrupulous, pleasure seeking, energetic, subtle, a world too of dire economic struggle; there were allusions he did not understand, incidents that conveyed strange suggestions of altered moral ideals, flashes of dubious enlightenment. The blue canvas that bulked so largely in his first impression of the city ways appeared again ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... sacrificed to a great general interest, and that even humanity should be forgotten. It is for posterity to judge whether this terrible situation was that in which Bonaparte was placed. For my own part, I have a perfect conviction that he could not do otherwise than yield to the dire necessity of the case. It was the advice of the council, whose opinion was unanimous in favour of the execution, that governed him, Indeed I ought in truth to say, that he yielded only in the last extremity, and was one of those, perhaps, who beheld ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... work that was not likely to belong to Mr. White. And this colored figure? It was the representative of the clan Macleod: and this bit of cloth that lay on the open book was of the Macleod tartan. He withdrew quickly, as though he had stumbled on some dire secret. He went to the window. He saw only leafless trees now, and withered flowers; with the clear sunshine touching the sides of houses and walls that had in the ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... the way, and that high-explosive is awkward stuff to deal with—a gun of my own 5-inch battery in South Africa was, shortly after I had left the unit to take up other work, blown to pieces by a lyddite shell detonating in the bore, with dire results to the detachment. To secure detonation is more difficult in a small, than in a big shell; but other countries had managed to solve the problem in the case of ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... comedies and threatened tragedies are of daily occurrence. The people we know best are those whom we have seen at their play and at their work, in moments of elation and doubt, and in times of great happiness and dire distress. And so it is that he who has followed the activities of a pair of birds through all the joys and anxieties of nest building, brooding, and of caring for the young, may well lay claim to a close ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... ask; a love that gives and gives, and seeks nothing in return; that impels a woman to follow the man at his bidding, be his way through the world cast in places never so rugged; cleaving to him where all besides shall have abandoned him; and, however dire his lot, asking of God no greater blessing than that of ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... it up afresh and held it, and must have dozed off, as I suppose. Awoke, to feel it being pulled again; it was slipping, slipping, and then with a sudden, violent jerk it was thrown on the floor. Il faut dire that during all this I had glanced several times at Bolter, who seemed profoundly asleep. But now alarmed I tried to wake him. In vain, he slept like the dead; his face, always a pasty white, now like marble in the moonlight. After some hesitation I put the blanket back on the bed ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... courted the bee, And the owl the porcupine; If churches were built on the sea, And three times one were nine; If the pony rode his master, And the buttercups ate the cows; And the cat had the dire disaster To be worried, sir, by a mouse; And mamma, sir, sold her baby, To a gypsy for half a crown, And a gentleman were a lady, This world would be upside down. But, if any or all these wonders Should ever come about, ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... of all men should this sorrow dire Unto thy servant bitterly befall? For, Lady, thou dost know I ne'er did tire Of thy sweet sacraments and ritual; In morning meadows I have knelt to thee, In noontide woodlands hearkened hushedly Thy heart's warm beat in sacred slumbering, And in ...
— English Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... faut vous le dire, C'est un de ces captifs prir destins, Des rives du Jourdain sur ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... Great Britain and Ireland the redbreast's nest is spared, while those of other birds are robbed without ceremony; and his life is equally sacred. No schoolboy who has ever killed a robin can forget the dire remorse and fear that followed the deed. And little wonder, for terrible are the punishments said to overtake those who persecute this little bird. Generally such a crime is believed to be expiated by the death of a friend. Sometimes the punishment ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... wrong,—that I was watching,—waiting the evil to come. The child died. Her fear for him was utterly superseded by fear for her husband. What if I should find him out and betray him? The anxiety occasioned by this possibility made her hate me. The agony of her little one's departure, the fear of some dire discovery, the consciousness of guilt near enough of vicinage almost to seem her own, combined to nearly distract her mind, and it seemed like a joyful relief when I departed. The sudden release from that constant ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... who would be foremost To lead such dire attack? But those behind cried "Forward!" And those before cried "Back!" And backward now and forward Wavers the deep array; And on the tossing sea of steel To and fro the standards reel; And the victorious trumpet ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... sensation," I argued. "The triumphant and gleeful declarations of the mad but mysterious assassin. No. Promise me, Edwards, that you will postpone this projected step of yours, which can, in any case, even though my love be innocent, only result in dire disaster." ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... offered was so greatly below what she knew to be the true value, that she would not sell it. Her own wardrobe, however, was going fast, nothing disposable remained of her grandmother's, and this piece of lace must be turned to account in some way. While reflecting on these dire necessities, Adrienne remembered our family. She knew to what shop we had been sent in Paris, and she now determined to purchase one of us, to bestow on the handkerchief selected some of her own beautiful needle work, to trim it with this lace, and, by the sale, to raise a sum sufficient ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... breast, And in low murmurs sing sad obsequies (If a despairing wretch such rites may claim) O'er my cold limbs, denied a winding sheet. And let the triple porter of the shades, The sister Furies, and chimeras dire, With notes of woe the mournful chorus join. Such funeral pomp alone befits the wretch By beauty sent untimely to ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... singular - kilil) and 2 self-governing administrations* (astedaderoch, singular - astedader); Adis Abeba* (Addis Ababa), Afar, Amara (Amhara), Binshangul Gumuz, Dire Dawa*, Gambela Hizboch (Gambela Peoples), Hareri Hizb (Harari People), Oromiya (Oromia), Sumale (Somali), Tigray, Ye Debub Biheroch Bihereseboch na Hizboch ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... des desirs, esclave des regrets, L'homme s'agite, et s'use, et vieillit sans progres Sur sa toile de Penelope; Comme un sage mourant, puissions-nous dire en paix J'ai trop longtemps erre, cherche; je me trompais; Tout ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Heaven on my head for trying to mix Canada in the war, whilst a third faction suffering from the Celtic gift of second sight described how mysterious falling stars and meteors flashing across the sky at night, and other portents, presaged dire disaster to the British arms in the war, and more particularly to ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... the child crossed by the dreamer and the mystic, bred of Calvinism and speculation on human fate and chance, and on the mystery of temperament and inheritance, and all that flows from these—reprobation, with its dire shadows, assured Election with ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... his pursuer was crawling down the far white prairie slope. Jack hopped quietly into the yard. A long-legged Rooster, that ought to have minded his own business, uttered a loud cackle as he saw the Rabbit hopping near. The Dog lying in the sun raised his head and stood up, and Jack's peril was dire. He squatted low and turned himself into a gray clod. He did it cleverly, but still might have been lost but for the Cat. Unwittingly, unwillingly, she saved him. The black Dog had taken three steps toward the Warhorse, though he did not know the Rabbit was there, and was now blocking the only ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... puny infant. He had dawdled among men centuries older than himself. His whole being was out of harmony with the universe. Fate had held his soul fast during those Dark Ages when he might have striven nobly, and now had cast it forth, an anachronism. It was a soul misplaced in eternity. The dire realization grew and grew, and with it the tragic agony, until with a sudden and the bitterest of cries he flung up his arms and fell heavily ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... lady hankered after the flesh-pots, and endeavored to stay herself with private sips of milk, crackers, and cheese, and on one dire occasion she partook of fish at a ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... still sail'd on—sail'd on— Sail'd on till Ocean seem'd to be All shoreless as Eternity, Till, from its long-loved Star estranged, At last the constant Needle changed,{C} And fierce amid his murmuring crew Prone terror into treason grew; While on his tortured spirit rose, More dire than portents, toils, or foes, The awaiting World's loud jeers and scorn Yell'd o'er his profitless Return; No—none through that dark watch may trace The feelings wild beneath whose swell, As heaves the bark the billows' race, His Being rose and fell! Yet over doubt, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... tears of hopeless love; how my tongue strayed From fond and wooing speech, so sore afraid, That all my discourse was of time and tide, And of the stars which up in Heav'n abide. O words, alas! ye lack the skill to tell The dire confusion that upon me fell, Whilst love thus wracked me; nor can ye disclose My love's immensity, its pains and woes. Yet, though, for all, your powers be too weak, Perchance, some little, ye are fit to speak— Say to her thus: "Twas fear ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... petted animal of this species having "bitten off the tip of his grandmother's finger,"—a resolution which proved, as we shall see, unfortunate for the squirrels, but of immense advantage to science. To gratify this dire animosity, and in fulfilment of his vow, he persevered for nearly half a century in the perilous and exciting sport of squirrel-hunting, departing "every Year, for forty-nine successive Years, on the 22d of October, excepting when that Day fell on a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... were now completely out of hand. They knew not what Moses wanted to do, nor did they comprehend what Moses was attempting to make the Lord threaten: except that he had in mind some dire mischief. Accordingly, the people decided that the best thing for them was to go forward as Joshua and Caleb proposed. So, early in the morning, they went up into the top of the mountain, saying, "We be here, and will go up unto the ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... them. Often she came and went, bringing peace and welcome food, quite at home in the little streets of Jamestown. And Captain John Smith in his writings has said that without her help in times of dire need, and without her influence for peace, the feeble colony must surely have perished, either by famine or by the hands of her savage kindred. Much we owe to the Indian maid who helped so greatly in the early struggles of the founders of ...
— The Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith • E. Boyd Smith
... nothing had recalled it yet. "I had no idea," he resumed, "of what the life of a farm-laborer really was, in some parts of England, until I undertook the rector's duties. Never before had I seen such dire wretchedness as I saw in the cottages. Never before had I met with such noble patience under suffering as I found among the people. The martyrs of old could endure, and die. I asked myself if they could endure, and live, like the martyrs whom I saw round me?—live, week after week, month ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... for a library that, instead of heading its compartments, 'Philology, Natural Science, Poetry,' etc., one shall head them according to the diseases for which they are severally good, bodily and mental,—up from a dire calamity or the pangs of the gout, down to a fit of the spleen or a slight catarrh; for which last your light reading comes in with a whey-posset and barley-water. But," continued my father, more gravely, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the time of the first Reform Bill (1830) the members of the House of Commons were threatened with dire consequences if they could not give what the mob considered satisfactory ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... of Arestino remained alone to brood over his plans of vengeance. It was horrible—horrible to behold that aged and venerable man, trembling as he was on the verge of eternity, now meditating schemes of dark and dire revenge. But his wrongs were great—wrongs which, though common enough in that voluptuous Italian clime, and especially in that age and city of licentiousness and debauchery, were not the less sure to be followed by a fearful retribution, ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... elevator and went from the hotel. He got a cab immediately, and promised that dire things would happen to the chauffeur if he did not get to a certain corner up beside the Park in record time. Jim Farland had given him a badge to be used if he was questioned by a police officer, and he was to say that he was an operative ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong
... call on his father periodically for money to pay for dire necessities. It was not surprising that B——'s jobs changed frequently and he went from city to city—the general direction of his fortunes, habits, and health being downward. Just now he has a job on a little weekly paper in a village. His bare pittance in these ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... enemies unseen. Well pleased before With this fair stranger-youth's ingenuous face, He bids him welcome with a courtly grace, And on the morn proclaims to all his band This warrior shall receive his daughter's hand. The fiery Blackfeet, when this word they know, Dart glances of dire hatred at their foe; But, hold! the criers once again appear— "This foreign bridegroom hath a magic here! Weapon like his no Blackfoot ever saw! Bring forth a mark and then prepare with awe To ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... the chapter in Isaiah where the prophet denounced the "round tires like the moon, the bonnets and the head bands, the mantles, and wimples, and crisping pins, and changeable suits of apparel," and other vanities, and predicted dire ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... into consideration about as much as they did the inhabitants of Kamschatka. The conditional repeal of the Berlin and Milan decrees was a back door for them, and they availed themselves of it to sneak out of it. This necessity, this act of dire necessity, the Federal papers cry up as evincing a most forbearing spirit towards us, and really astonish the English themselves who never dreamt that it could be ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... congratulate Dr. Ryerson on his successful defence.... We should esteem it a dire calamity, could any dishonour be attached to his name. He is one of the most devoted, conscientious, able and successful officers in the public service. In the school system of Upper Canada, he has built for himself an enduring monument, as a benefactor ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... careful definition of the ritual system, of his legal acumen, of his paternal care for the people's welfare; but, like his contemporaries and friends of Ts'i, Tsin, Cheng, Sung, Wei; and even of Wu and Yueh; he was working for the immediate good of his own state in times of dire peril; whereas Confucius from first to last was aiming at the restoration of religion (i.e., of the imperial, ritualistic, feudal system); and for this reason it was that, after the violent unification of the empire by the First August Emperor in 221 B.C., followed by his fall and ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... An omen of dire import all thugs believe is to hear the cry of a kite between midnight and dawn; to hear it before midnight does not matter, for the sleeper in turning over smothers the impending disaster beneath ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... excited from the moment he had seen the sail in the offing. In his dire distress, on this almost desolate shore, he had beheld what might prove to be speedy relief, and, much as he had needed it, he had hoped that it might not come so soon. He had been apprehensive and anxious when he supposed friendly ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... are turning our attention to agricultural pursuits. Wheat is at a premium; a farmer can get from $1 to $1.10 per bushel in cash for wheat on his wagon. All Europe will be in dire need of foodstuffs next year and for some years to come and we in Canada hope ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... we suffered dire Hardships! What torrential rains Fell upon us at the peak Where was neither ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... creature Man is made! How by himself insensibly betrayed! In our own strength unhappily secure, Too little cautious of the adverse power, On pleasure's flowery brink we idly stray, Masters as yet of our returning way: Till the strong gusts of raging passion rise, Till the dire Tempest mingles earth and skies, And swift into the boundless Ocean borne, Our foolish confidence too late we mourn: Round our devoted heads the billows beat, And from our troubled view the lessening ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... The significance of their name is given by Sagard as follows: Ils sont errans, sinon que quelques villages d'entr'eux fement des bleds d'Inde, et font la guerre a vne autre Nation, nommee Assitagueronon, qui veut dire gens de feu: car en langue Huronne Assista signifie du feu, et Eronon, signifie Nation. Le Grand Voyage du Pays des Hurons, par Gabriel Sagard, a Paris, 1632, p. 78. Vide Relation des Jesuites, 1641, ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... by the dire result of his apparently inhuman thoughtlessness, Alfred glanced at Aggie, uncertain as to ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... very different. In the north-eastern and northern districts—for instance, in Ladybrand, Winburg, Kroonstad, Heilbron, Bethlehem, Harrismith and Vrede—there were still many families, and these could not be sent to Boshof or to Hoopstad or to the Colony. And when, reduced to dire want, the commandos should be obliged to abandon these districts, their wives and families would have to be left ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... leaders left the city, some threatening dire revenge. Many of the employees, who had lost their situations, were already searching for work elsewhere. All who were behind in their payments of rents due the company, were served with notices of evictment, ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... speak, supplied me with regular details of whatever took place, till she herself, with the rest of the ladies and other attendants, being separated from the Royal Family, was immured in the prison of La Force. When I returned to Paris after this dire tempest, Madame Clery and her friend, Madame de Beaumont, a natural daughter of Louis XV., with Monsieur Chambon of Rheims, who never left Paris during the time, confirmed the correctness of my papers. The Madame Clery I mention is the same ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... against the hillside—an attitude for a church, you know, that makes it look as if it could be ever so much higher if it liked; and the trees grew about it thickly, so as to make a density of shade in the churchyard. A very quiet place it looks; and yet I saw many boards and posters about threatening dire punishment against those who broke the church windows or defaced the precinct, and offering rewards for the apprehension of those who had done the like already. It was fair day in Great Missenden. There ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to be wondered at that he urged Haggis to press on with greater speed, for now he was certain that his chum must be in a terrible fix, out from which there was no self-help. He would hardly waste cartridges so recklessly were he not in some dire extremity. ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... not easy, and, as if on purpose to prevent it, Pennie's stories had just now taken the direction of dire and dreadful subjects. They varied a good deal at different times, and depended on the sort of books she could get to read. After a visit to Nearminster, where Miss Unity's library consisted of rows and rows of solemn old brown volumes, Pennie's stories were chiefly religious ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... in legion strength by banks and insurance companies to implement payroll packages in RPG and other such unspeakable horrors. In its native habitat, the code grinder often removes the suit jacket to reveal an underplumage consisting of button-down shirt (starch optional) and a tie. In times of dire stress, the sleeves (if long) may be rolled up and the tie loosened about half an inch. It seldom helps. The {code grinder}'s milieu is about as far from hackerdom as one can get and still touch a computer; the term connotes ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... more. On its leisurely progress to the north it was joined by crowds of the newly freed negroes, who attached themselves to every regiment in droves, and the lately hostile inhabitants came also at every stopping place, "with baskets and two-wheeled carts" for supplies to relieve their dire necessities. ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... visite, qu'il vous plait me donner en ce lieu, et principalement en un temps si facheux. J'eusse aussi grande envie de baiser les mains de sa Majeste et de voir sa cour, n'eut ete que son Altesse a envoye des navires expres pour m'emporter d'ici en Angleterre, et que j'ai oui dire que le Roi a remue sa cour de Copenhague ailleurs, a cause de la peste. Je suis tres-joyeux d'entendre de la sante de sa Majeste, auquel je souhaite toute sorte ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... Marquesan queen, there was a uuama tehito, or ancient hole, the origin of which was lost in the dimness of centuries. It was fifty feet long and said to be even deeper, though no living Marquesan had ever tasted its stores, or never would unless dire famine compelled. It was tapu to the memory of ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... shaking off its humid winding sheet, and the old task was resumed; man began once more to dispute the soil with the invading waves. A portion of the land, which seemed to have been forever lost, was regained; but at the cost of what determined strife, after how many battles, with what dire alternations! Within a century, three entire polders on the north coast of Noordbeveland have again vanished, and in the place where they were there flows a stream forty yards deep. In 1873, the polder of Borselen, thirty-one acres in extent, sank into the waters. Each year the terrible ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... Lord answered the man who cried out to Him in his dire extremity. The boards resounding beneath him suddenly gave him a bright idea of deliverance. Above and around there was no place of safety, but might there not be a ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... children. I know many families of which the married branches continue to live in their father's house, forming a sort of small colony, and living in the most perfect harmony. They cannot bear the idea of being separated, and nothing but dire necessity ever forces them to leave their fatherland. To all the accounts which travellers give them of the pleasures to be met with in the European capitals, they turn a deaf ear. Their families are in Mexico—their parents, and sisters, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... two years he besieged the city. Four wealthy citizens of Jerusalem had stored up enough food to last the inhabitants a much longer time than this, but the people being anxious to fight with the Romans, destroyed the storehouses and brought dire famine upon ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... society, so is it extremely convenient upon occasions to be blind. The cuts, direct and oblique—the looks at, and the looks over—the distant, formal bow, and the adroit turn upon the heel (should you perceive the party, intended to be cut for the time being at least, advancing with dire intent of obliging a recognition), may be, especially upon old and provincial friends, practised ad libitum, without the slightest danger of your character for etiquette, politeness, suavity, and general pleasantness, being ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... residents of this mundane sphere; and no power that could be brought to bear could induce some of them to plant corn, make soap, kill pigs, or perform many other important duties in certain phases of the moon, for they would be positive if they did it would result in dire disaster. ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... an aching heart indeed; for her compassion for the sufferings of others did not permit her to remain unmoved amidst such dire misfortunes. Still she never lost her habitual composure; her only occupation was to console the mourners: her first impulse on these occasions to bless God, and accept at His hands all that His providence ordained. ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... there was something more, away and beyond. (And, in relation to my much later development as a drinker, this whisper, this promise of the things at the back of life, must be noted, for it was destined to play a dire part in my more recent ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... what a tartar! Whoa, I say! If only I had a whip!" he panted, as the horse began to move around on a pivot. "Now, why can't you act nice, when I'm in such dire need of your services? If you don't ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill
... faced the little companies of survivors and learned more of the awful ordeal through which they had passed, I marvelled, not that some yielded, but that so many stood steadfast. Edicts were issued commanding them to recant on pain of dire punishment, but promising protection to those who obeyed. The following proclamation posted on the wall of the yamen at Ching-chou-fu ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... excitement there as elsewhere, for the newspapers had arrived with the mail and the dire news spread like wildfire. ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... to speak, but the words refused to come to her icy lips. She made an effort to raise her eyes to Jack's face, with a careless smile; but it was a failure—a dire failure. ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... the rarest treasures that wisdom yields; to it clings the tenderness of my soul. I have made it the charm, the joy of this heart, the solace of my wearied senses, the sweet hope of my old age. All this they take from me—these gods! And thou wouldst have me utter no complaint concerning this dire edict from which I suffer! Ah! with too much rigour their power tramples upon the affections of our heart. To withdraw their gift, have they not waited till I had made it my all? Rather, if it was ...
— Psyche • Moliere
... cried Roberta, putting down her egg-spoon; "don't let's be horrid to each other. I'm sure some dire calamity is happening. Don't ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... moment when her beam Guided first thither by the forked shaft, Strikes through the crevice of Arishtah's tower—" "Sayst thou?" astonished cried the sorceress, "Woman of outer darkness, fiend of death, From what inhuman cave, what dire abyss, Hast thou invisible that spell o'erheard? What potent hand hath touched thy quickened corse, What song dissolved thy cerements, who unclosed Those faded eyes and filled them from the stars? But if with inextinguished light of life Thou breathest, ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... There the fortresses were allowed to decay, the soldiers, half-clothed and unpaid, to become beggars or bandits, the treasures to be pilfered, and commerce to become a system of fraud; while the colonists were driven to detest their mother land. This weakness was followed by dire consequences. Bands of outcasts from various nations, who had settled on Spanish territory in the West Indies, at first to forage on the cattle of Hispaniola, organized into pirate crews, and, under the name of buccaneers, became frightful scourges of the commerce ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... facto proclaimed any Roman a rebel and a traitor. No man, the firmest or the most obtuse, could be otherwise than deeply agitated, when looking down upon this little brook—so insignificant in itself, but invested by law with a sanctity so awful, and so dire a consecration. The whole course of future history, and the fate of every nation, would necessarily be determined by the irretrievable act ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... their letters weighed too heavily upon him. Even in the daylight he needs must look out over that placid sunlit sea and imagine here and there upon its surface the low tower and grey turtle-back of a submarine. Success here might be so great a thing, so great a saving of lives, so dire a blow to the enemy. Somehow that day slowly dragged its burning hours to sunset, the coolness of the evening came, and the swift darkness upon its heels, and once more, high up on the hillside, the vigil was renewed. ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason |
