"Helplessness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a situation of greater helplessness, than a place on board a Western passenger-steamer under the guns of a hostile battery. A battle-field is no comparison. On solid earth the principal danger is from projectiles. You can fight, or, under some circumstances, can run away. On a Mississippi transport, you ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... such a revolution! I never was so happy in my life. Happy and sad too! I never was so sad. Now that's like a woman, isn't it? What I really mean is that I never saw so clearly the poverty and helplessness of the people before, and it makes me happy to think I can ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... Regardless of his own comfort and convenience, he devoted himself day and night to relieving the suffering of his men, who jestingly called themselves "Lee's Miserables," but grimly stuck to their posts with unshaken faith in their beloved chief who, in the midst of confusion and helplessness, remained calm and resourceful, never displaying irritation, never blaming anyone for mistakes, but courageously attempting to make the best of everything and finding time, in spite of all distractions, for the courtesy and the thoughtfulness ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... organette, an instrument much used at the time in campaign rallies, swelled the joyful tumult. As I mounted the platform the crowd was singing "Vote for Betty and the Baby," and I took that song for my text, speaking of the helplessness of women and children in the face of intemperance, and telling the crowd the only hope of the Coatesville women lay in the vote cast by their ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... material speck of matter called the earth. And this impression grows upon us as we study the greatest facts of human life. We enter this world knowing nothing and not nearly so well equipped to take care of ourselves as are other animals. There is no helplessness like that of a babe. But wonderfully early he begins to ask the question, "How?" A little boy will ask more questions in a day than his father will ask in a week; nor can he be stopped or deceived, because the question, "Why?" you can answer as ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... light seemed to beam upon him—he had evidently not considered the subject in that way, and in very thoughtlessness might have thrown himself overboard. I had early in the voyage observed the poor lad, and taken an interest in him from his seeming youth and helplessness; and I resolved, as far as I had the power, to stand his friend, and to protect him from the cruelty of his messmates—with what result was to be seen. When on deck, if I observed a seaman about to bestow the end of ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... ready with his oft-repeated suggestion, "All these things are against me." But oh, how false the word! The cold, and even the hunger, the watchings and sleeplessness of nights of danger, and the feeling at times of utter isolation and helplessness, were well and wisely chosen, and tenderly and lovingly meted out. What circumstances could have rendered the Word of GOD more sweet, the presence of GOD more real, the help of GOD more precious? They were times, ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... offered us, the mere details of which they [Lincoln and Seward] proposed to settle. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 1189.] But the whole South was already in apathetic despair under the conviction of their helplessness to check the triumphant march of Sherman's 60,000 veterans or prevent his junction with Schofield's 30,000. Instead of growing by an enthusiastic rally of the old men and the boys, the Southern army was dwindling by steady ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... doctor did not take these tidings as the other had hoped he might. He replied: "The malady which the nurse will almost inevitably contract in feeding the child is too grave in its consequences. Such consequences might go as far as complete helplessness, even as far as death. So I say that the indemnity, whatever it might be, ...
— Damaged Goods - A novelization of the play "Les Avaries" • Upton Sinclair
... all the time she stood, was infinitely more nervous than she was. Her native grace and dignity, and absence of all false shame entirely covered her helplessness, and in her earnestness, she had no room for confusion; her only quivering of voice was caught for one moment from the tremulous intensity of feeling that Colin Keith could not wholly keep from thrilling in his tones, as he at last proclaimed his right to love and to cherish her ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the facts?" it was demanding, with the causticity of baffled helplessness. "I am assured that there is no other key in existence; yet my safe has been unlocked. I am given to understand that without the password it would be impossible for an unauthorized person to tamper with my property. My password, deliberately chosen, is 'anthropophaginian,' sir. Is it ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... the two countries set the king's hands free to aid Germany in her hour of despair. The doom of the Lutheran princes of the north had followed hard on the ruin of the Calvinistic princes of the south. The selfish neutrality of Saxony and Brandenburg received a fitting punishment in their helplessness before the triumphant advance of the Emperor's troops. His general, Wallenstein, encamped on the Baltic; and the last hopes of German Protestantism lay in the resistance of Stralsund. The danger called the Scandinavian powers to its aid. Denmark and Sweden leagued to resist Wallenstein; ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... all from the slumber of infancy and helplessness, and sends us forth alone into the world to learn life's great lessons. When we have learned them well, he sends the pale messenger, Death, to take us home. How blessed will be that reunion! With the crown of wisdom ...
— Allegories of Life • Mrs. J. S. Adams
... negro the right to vote. More than sixty thousand defenseless negroes were unlawfully slain. Governors would announce publicly that they favored lynching. The Federal Government would get elected to power by condemning these outrages, and when there, would confess its utter helplessness. One President plainly declared, what was already well known, 'that the only thing that they could do, would be to create a healthy sentiment.' This secret organization of which we have been speaking decided that some ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... "Puppet Shogun." There was nothing shadowy, however, about the administration of the Hojo, [269]—men of immense energy and ability. By them Emperor or shogun could be deposed and banished without scruple; and the helplessness of the shogunate can be inferred from the fact, that the seventh Hojo regent, before deposing the seventh shogun, sent him home in a palanquin, head downwards and heels upwards. Nevertheless the Hojo suffered the phantom-shogunate ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... made to do yeoman's service in this respect. What Luther has declared regarding the sovereignty of God's rulership over men, regarding the relation of God also to the evil existing in this world, regarding the absence of chance in the affairs of men, regarding man's utter helplessness over and against the supreme will of God, is cited to prove that Luther's teaching leads, not to liberty, but either to recklessness or despair. Luther's views on "the captive, or enslaved, will" are declared to be the most degrading and demoralizing teaching ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... commissioned one set of nurses; and in doing this and adapting them to utter helplessness and weakness, what did he do? He made them to love the dependence and to see something to admire in the very perversities of their charge. He made them to humor the caprices and regard both reasonable and ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... hurriedly, and moved off. What could I do? I stood looking after him till he had vanished in the night, with a miserable baffled recognition of my helplessness to help him. ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... and luxuries? How would they dress themselves? How would they live? Shall it be by working? But they hate to work. They have never learned to work. It was partly as a defense against this woman helplessness that I took up trained nursing while Julian was ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... class are objects of terror, or at least of aversion, to the Indians. In the warm sand of the river banks, lies the lazy caiman.[92] He keeps his jaws wide open, only closing them to swallow the innumerable flies which he catches on his tongue. To the helplessness of these animals when on land, the natives have to be thankful that they are not the most dangerous scourges of the forest: in water, their boldness and swiftness of motion are fearful. The number of lizards here is not great, nor do they attain ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... deadly fire and the rest fled, fled as wildly and ingloriously as their fellows had done at Coltbridge or Prestonpans. A wild storm of rain dashing straight in their faces during the attack added to the confusion and helplessness of the dragoons. The right and centre of Hawley's infantry were at the same instant driven back by the other clans, Camerons and Stewarts and Macphersons. The victory would have been complete but for the good behaviour of three regiments ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... they found themselves in the midst of politics and wholly without influence. Thus they were led into the movement for the suffrage. It was only a few of the clear thinkers, the far seeing, who realized at the beginning that the principal cause of women's inferior position and helplessness lay in their disfranchisement and until they could be made to see it they were a dead weight on the movement. Men fully understood the power that the vote would place in the hands of women, with a lessening of their own, and in the mass they did ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... personal tragedy Grillparzer constructed on the basis of a mythological story. The Fleece, like the hoard of the Nibelungen, is the occasion, but the curse attached to it is not the cause, of crimes; this cause is the cupidity of human nature and the helplessness of the individual who allows the forces of evil to gain sway over him. Jason, in overweening self-indulgence, attaches himself to a woman to whom he cannot be true. Medea, in too confident self-sufficiency, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... She treated him like a child of six, told him how to sit at table, how to hold his fork when he ate, how to address people who came to the house or to the station. The mother in her was aroused by Hugh's helplessness and, having no children of her own, she began to take the tall awkward boy to her heart. She was a small woman and when she stood in the house scolding the great stupid boy who stared down at her with his small perplexed eyes, the two made a picture that afforded endless ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... one of a parcel of blood-thirsty wolves rushing down from the Alps; or, rather like a former incursion of the Indians upon the white settlements. Nothing is spared: neither age nor sex respected—the helplessness of women and children pleads in vain for mercy.... The case of Nat. Turner warns us. No black-man ought to be permitted to turn a Preacher through the country. The law must be enforced—or the tragedy of Southampton appeals to us ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... hint at such a pedigree. But I have done: till those cases of which certain philosophers have said so much have been authenticated; till you can produce an instance of a new-born babe, exposed on a mountain-side, in all the helplessness of his natal hour, and self-preserved,—nay, two of them,—for you must at least have a pair of these 'babes in the wood'; and till, moreover, it can be shown that they would have survived this experiment ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... much fun and jollity over the reversal of the usual order of things, and we carried out our programme to the farthest; while our gentlemen displayed a degree of inefficiency and helplessness which would have disgraced a six-year-old girl with ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... companion with his head sunk upon his breast, his eyes flashing from under his dark brows, and the slow, stealthy step of a beast of prey. There was a characteristic refinement of cruelty about his attack, as though he wished to gloat over the helplessness of his victim, and give him time to realize his position before ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... is of producing almost every thing, and actually producing nothing which might not become a staple with a proper application of capital and skill, its inhabitants are miserably poor, and daily sinking deeper and deeper into the utter helplessness of abject want. ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... intense feeling, she pressed the locket tightly in an agony of grief. Lo! as she unfolded her hand in utter helplessness, the locket fell apart. Into her lap rolled one little stone after another. When she took them up to look at them, she discovered that each stone was a diamond, seemingly ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... dampers"; and in some indescribable way we knew he had paid the woman who was just entering his life the highest compliment in his power. Then he added, "Told the chaps the little 'uns were generally all right." It is the helplessness of little women that makes them appear "all right" in the eyes of bushmen, helplessness ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... done to you?" he said, in his prostrate helplessness, and he breathed hard like a stag at the water's edge. "What do ...
— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac
... into a corner of the room. On a bunk covered with straw and rags lay a woman with a little baby near her. Its body was covered with a terrible rash, perfectly bare, almost hidden within the floor rags. The shy father, himself in pain, stood near, the personification of helplessness. If only there were food in the house! The district physician? He would have been compelled to prescribe food, light, warmth and sanitation for every hut he visited, if he did not wish his science to prove a mockery. He could not do that, so he came but rarely. Humanitarianism, ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... say that we simply felt faint under the weight of life and our archeological difficulties. The Babu, who, taking off his slippers, scampered over the thorns as unconcernedly as if he had hoofs instead of vulnerable human heels, laughed at the "helplessness of Europeans," and only made us ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... woman I could have spoken the decisive words which I still hesitated to speak to HER. The utter helplessness of her position—her friendless dependence on all the forbearing gentleness that I could show her—my fear of touching too soon some secret sensitiveness in her which my instinct as a man might not have been fine enough to discover—these considerations, and others like them, kept ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... God's Providence, but on the unknown chapter of accidents in the future, most of which will never come to pass; while the old have learned by experience and disappointment the vanity of human riches, the helplessness of human endeavour, the blindness of human foresight, and are content to go where God leads them, and say, "I will go forth in the strength of the Lord God, and will make mention of Thy righteousness only. Thou, O God, hast taught me from my youth up until now: therefore will ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... It was my helplessness that turned the best thing life can bring into a curse for ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... the soul of every man," said Tarzan, "must lurk the germ of righteousness. It was your own virtue, Jane, rather even than your helplessness which awakened for an instant the latent decency of this degraded man. In that one act he retrieved himself, and when he is called to face his Maker may it outweigh in the balance, all the ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... minister to religion, luxury, and culture. There were next the great mass of the people, the clerks and scribes, the craftsmen, the salesmen, the lightermen, stevedores, boatmen, marine store keepers, makers of ships' gear, porters—slaves for the most part—all from highest to lowest, plunged into helplessness. Whither could they fly for refuge? Upon whom could ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... and she lay on the sofa, chafing at her helplessness till, at length, Tom happened to come in, and brought her the English Testament she needed. Ah! There it was! "For the love ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... favour; though he persuaded himself that he must always do justice to Elinor's excellence. "She is just the woman for a friend," he observed to himself, "and friends I trust we shall be, when the past is forgotten. But Jane, with her transcendant {sic} beauty, her gentle helplessness, is the very creature that fancy ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... its being incurable: wherefore the sin against the Holy Ghost is said to be most grievous, because it is irremissible. But covetousness is an incurable sin: hence the Philosopher says (Ethic. iv, 1) that "old age and helplessness of any kind make men illiberal." Therefore covetousness is the most ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... it for all Duke William's long sword, but I did pay it to his generosity and forbearance, and now I grant it to thy weakness and to his noble memory. I doubt not that the recreant Frank, Louis, whom he restored to his throne, will strive to profit by thy youth and helplessness, and should that be, remember that thou hast no surer friend than Alan of Brittany. Fare thee well, my ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... legislation could be more perplexing and irritating; nor can the outlay involved fail for many years to be a serious burden upon our industry. But the nation cannot escape its responsibility for the future of this race, soon to be thrown in entire helplessness upon our protection. Honor and interest urge the same imperative claim. An unfaithful treatment will only make the evil worse, the burden heavier. In good faith and good feeling we must take up this work of ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker
... moment, General Smith was prevented from joining his family in Paris according to his original intention, and having old-fashioned notions relative to the helplessness of ladies, and no sort of confidence in Blanche's ability to distinguish herself as her mother's courier and protector, he cabled privately to Nesbit Thorne, requesting him to defer his Eastern journey for a month, and escort his ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... woe, all woe, which folded up heart and brain as with a cloak of fire, scorching up thought, memory, hope—all that could recall the past, vivify the present, or vision forth the future. She breathed indeed and spoke, and clung to that aged man with all the clinging helplessness of her sex, but scarce could she be said to live; all that was real of life had twined round her husband's soul, and ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... which leads from it to Idaho, is entirely monopolized by a narrow-gauge railroad, and is inaccessible for horses or mules. To be without a horse in these mountains is to be reduced to complete helplessness. My great wish was to see Green Lake, situated near the timber line above Georgetown (said to be the highest town in the United States), at a height of 9,000 feet. A single day took me from the heat of summer into the intense ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... lay awake, gazing up into the stars. His pain had gone, and he felt infinitely restful. The vast heavens were a protection now, a shield flung over his helplessness. ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... hundreds of strong castles throughout France. He secured from his French Pope approval of the extermination of the entire order and the torture and execution of its chiefs. Whether the charges against them were true or not, their helplessness in the grip of the King shows clearly the low ebb to which knighthood had fallen, and the rising power of the monarchs. The day of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... sense of his utter helplessness, Ventimore went to the arch which led to his bed-chamber and drew the curtain back with a furious pull. And just within the archway, standing erect with folded arms and the smile of fatuous benignity which ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... toiling through a smooth sea—it is always a smooth, oily, slippery sea—towards something to which I make no great headway. Sometimes I give up toiling through sheer and desperate aching of body and limbs, and let myself lie drifting into helplessness and a growing sleep. And then—in my dream—I start to find myself going down into strange cavernous depths of shining green, and I wake—in my dream—to begin fighting and toiling again against my compelling ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... there in the darkness with snow to his knees, clutching between his fingers the extinguished match, the helplessness of his position dawned upon him. What had happened to the parson he could easily guess, for the place was full of old stumps, half protruding from beneath the snow. No doubt he had struck one of these ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... peasant! And my wife——You do not know the distinguished delicacy of my wife, a refined helplessness, a peculiar dependent charm. Like some slender tropical creeper—with great white flowers.... But all this is foolish talk. It is impossible that Paris, which has survived so many misfortunes, should ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... but the sanctity of the cause which could so inspire them. Unsupported, save by the consciousness of a just cause, without other sympathy than that which the Confederate States fully gave, despising the plea of helplessness, and defying the threats of a powerful Government to crush her, Missouri, without arms or other military preparation, took up the gauntlet thrown at her feet, and dared to make war in defense of the laws and ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... the life and light of the house. Our arrival seemed to be a relief to Henderson. Little was said. I had never before seen him nervous, never before so restless and anxious, probably never before in all his career had he been unnerved with a sense of his own helplessness. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... has in this world is its mother. It comes here an utter stranger, knowing no one; but it finds love waiting for it. Instantly the little stranger has a friend, a bosom to nestle in, an arm to encircle it, a hand to minister to its helplessness. Love is born with the child. The mother presses it to her breast, and at once her heart's ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... was more attractive than the expression of his direct regard. He took up a crystal ball that lay on the marble, and looked into it as if he were reading his future in its lucid depths, and then put it down again, with an effect of helplessness. When he spoke, it was not in connection with what his daughter had been talking about. He said almost dryly, "I think I will go up and look over some papers I have to take with me, and then try to get a little ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... go deeper down into life we discover the secret of more and more sorrow and helplessness. We see that many souls round us lead idle and foolish lives, because they believe they are useless, unnoticed by all, unloved, and convinced they have nothing within them that is worthy of love. ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... he was soon made to cut so ridiculous a figure, and to feel his perfect helplessness, that he was compelled, for his own sake, to get back his good-humour again without delay. We had an additional allowance of grog served out, and what with dancing and singing, the fun was kept up till long ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... and slaughtering as it went. "In the same year, in Lindsey, and in East Anglia, and among the Kent men, many men were slain by the host." A year later, the wickings returned, growing bolder as they found out the helplessness of the people. They sailed up the Thames, and ravaged Rochester and London, with great slaughter; after which they crossed the channel and fell upon Cwantawic, or Etaples, a commercial port in the Saxon land of the Boulonnais. In 842, a Danish host defeated AEthelwulf himself at Charmouth in Dorset; ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... Christmas night when his Mother "wrapped him up in swaddling-clothes and laid him in a manger." The lovely little head nestled on its rough pillow as though on Mary's bosom; the tiny limbs were relaxed in sleep; the whole figure breathed at once the dignity of the Godhead and the pathetic helplessness of babyhood. Instinctively one loved, and pitied, and adored. Nor was this all. Every broken bit of straw that thrust its graceful, fuzzy head from between the rough bars of the manger, every twisted knot of grass, every ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... harsh methods, but there was no way to help it, the Reds were so cunning. They were secretly undermining the government, and was the government to lie down and admit its helplessness? The answer of 100% Americanism was thundered from every wood and templed hill in the country; also from every newspaper office. The answer was "No!" 100% Americanism would find a way to preserve itself from the sophistries ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... tell you all that the poor mother suffered as she lay there day after day helpless among her children. Her own illness and helplessness was the last drop, which made her cup overflow. Gradually, as she lay there listening to the roaring of the storm, it became clear, to her how little she had come to trust to her husband's promises of reformation. It was to her own efforts she must trust for the support of herself and her ...
— Stephen Grattan's Faith - A Canadian Story • Margaret M. Robertson
... long lances, soon reined in their mustangs within twenty paces of the party and gazed curiously at them. One of the band then rode up and asked in broken English if they were "Americans:" having thus made a reconnoisance and seeing their helplessness, without waiting for a reply, he beckoned to his companions who approached and demanded the surrender of the party. Under other circumstances a stout resistance would have been made; but in their present forlorn condition they could ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... in Scripture, and there is no dispute among Christians concerning it. The fall of man, his corruption and depravity; his state under the curse of a broken covenant, and his exposure to eternal misery; his helplessness and total inability to gain acceptance with God; his ignorance of himself—'dead in trespasses and sins,' 'without God and without hope in the world:' this is his situation by nature. But there is good news proclaimed: 'God so loved the world that he gave his only ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... His glory, He had (as it were) disbanded His legions of Angels, He came on earth without arms, except the arms of truth, meekness, and righteousness, and committed Himself to the world in perfect innocence and sinlessness, and in utter helplessness, as the Lamb of God. In the words of St. Peter, "Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth; who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously[3]." ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... insulted her, only he seemed to be always watching her, always waiting. And it would come to her sometimes like a cold chill, that this yellow man and such men as he were watching them all slowly going down lower and lower, were waiting to leap upon them in their last helplessness and enslave them all as white girls were sometimes enslaved, even already, in those filthy opium joints whose stench nauseated the hurrying passers-by. Perhaps under all their meekness these Chinese were braver, more stubborn, more vigorous, and it was doomed ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... away. If this were so, then was I indeed a prisoner, while the moments so necessary to my plans, and perhaps to the securing of my whole future happiness, were flying by like the wind. As I realized this, and my own utter helplessness, I fell into one of the chairs before me in a state of perfect despair. Not that any fears for my life were disturbing me, though one in my situation might well question if he would ever again breathe the open air from which he had been so ingeniously lured. I did not in that ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... about the republic, or alienation from republican institutions, among the young of the present day, as the condition of the civil service, the poor working of the post-office and the treasury or the courts, or the helplessness of legislators in dealing with the ordinary every- day problems. The largeness of the country, and the rapidity of its growth, and the comparatively low condition of foreign nations in respect to freedom, ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... told me a great deal; every detail is interesting. It is not death that's so terrible, it's illness, helplessness, and, above all, the fear that you are a burden to ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy
... but her hair and eyes were now a dusty black, her skin the color of putty, and her mouth a drooping curve that gave to her face the expression of one who was about to cry. Life had apparently for some time been more than she was equal to, and, incapable of battling further with it, she radiated a helplessness that was pitiable and yet irritating. Thin and flat-chested, her uncorseted figure in its rusty black dress straightened for half a minute, ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... with which I could save her, she would not, because she was my mother, have any greater claim than the other inmates on my exertions' (i. 83). 'But,' says an objector, 'your mother nourished you in the helplessness of infancy.' 'When she first subjected herself,' replies Godwin, 'to the necessity of these cares, she was probably influenced by no particular motives of benevolence to her future offspring. . . . It is the disposition of the mind . ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... all his children, having seen the beginning and end of all of them, and her present owners finding she{141} was of but little value, her frame already racked with the pains of old age, and complete helplessness fast stealing over her once active limbs, they took her to the woods, built her a little hut, put up a little mud-chimney, and then made her welcome to the privilege of supporting herself there in perfect loneliness; ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... intensely to earn some money to help out the situation, thinking how delightful it would be to put ten dollars into her father's hand with the astonishing announcement that it was her very own to do with as she pleased. But, realizing her helplessness in this line, she would resolve again and again to eat as little as possible, and as far as she was able to insist on wearing her old clothes, and to protest against spending even precious pennies for the pretty things she so loved to wear. But it was the eating question that ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... often and so ruthlessly rule the lives of the old. She clings desperately to the few people she knows ("'tis hard to die among strangers!") and the customs she has followed all her life. Against the stark power of her tragic helplessness neither the good nor the great of the earth may prevail. ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... helplessness) yet if they do itself, it wasn't my wish brought them or could send them away. OLD WOMAN — reprovingly. — If it wasn't, you'd do well to keep a check on her, and she turning a woman that was meant to be a queen. LAVARCHAM. Who'd check her like ...
— Deirdre of the Sorrows • J. M. Synge
... may have been the first and only occasion in Mr. Hampton's audacious career, he realized his utter helplessness. This mere slip of a red-headed girl, this little nameless waif of the frontier, condemned him so completely, and without waste of words, as to leave him weaponless. Not that he greatly cared; oh, no! still, it was an entirely new experience; the arrow went deeper than ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... her weakness and suffering; and this woman had a child, that was unable to walk or talk, at the age of five years, neither could it cry like other children, but made a constant, piteous moaning sound. This exhibition of helplessness and imbecility, instead of exciting the master's pity, stung his cupidity, and so enraged him, that he would kick the poor ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... She went further. She seemed to be pleading with fate—or rather with God—for the safety of her son. She would receive Brian with open arms; she would try to love him for Dino's sake. She would do all and everything that Dino required from her, if only she could conquer this terrible helplessness of feeling, this dumbness of tongue which had come over her. Surely it was but a passing phase: surely when someone came and stood before her the spell would be broken, and she would be able ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... by impulse, more capable than she herself was aware of noble action, but capable also of sudden, irrational cruelty. Just now her soul was at war with itself, embittered by rage, by what she had done, by what she had left undone, by her helplessness, by what she desired to do. Finally, despairing of any weariness bringing sleep—she had tried that the night before and failed—she put by her work and went up to her room, undressed and lay down ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... perpetually labouring after a meaning, but never reaching it. He is like one flung over into the sea, unprovided with the skill that should enable him to contend with the tumultuous element. He flounders about in pitiable helplessness, without the chance of extricating himself by all his efforts. He is lost in unintelligible embarrassment. It is a delightful and a ravishing sight, to observe another man come after him, and tell, without complexity, and in the simplicity of self-possession, ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... boy awaking out of the narrow dulness of Puritanism. The breadth and vastness of light and shade upon those manly limbs, so grand and yet so delicate, standing out against the background of lurid night, the helplessness of the bound arms, the arrow quivering in the shrinking side, the upturned brow, the eyes in whose dark depths enthusiastic faith seemed conquering agony and shame, the parted lips, which seemed to ask, like those martyrs in the Revelations, reproachful, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... invited—nay, almost commanded—to come, by an imperious little note. And of late, whenever Sir John began to wonder he began also to feel old. His fingers strayed towards his unsteady lips as if he were about to make one of those little movements of senile helplessness to ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... may all be so. [MR. ROBERTS continues to smile in agonized helplessness against THE CONDUCTOR'S injurious tone, which becomes more and more offensively patronizing.] But I can't do anything for you. Here are all these people asleep in their berths, and I can't go round waking them up because you ...
— The Sleeping Car - A Farce • William D. Howells
... of this fortress came like a thunder-clap over Europe. It announced the reign of anarchy in France, and the helplessness of the King. On hearing of the fall of the Bastille, the King is said to have exclaimed to his courtiers, "It is a revolt, then." "Nay, sire," said the Duke of Liancourt, "it is a revolution." It was evident ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... Delaware. The original armament of the latter, from which she derived her rate, had been changed to forty 32-pounder carronades and six long twelves; total, forty-six guns. It is noticeable that this battery, which ultimately contributed not merely to her capture, but to her almost helplessness under the fire of an enemy able to maintain his distance out of carronade range, was strongly objected to by Captain Porter. On October 14 he applied to be transferred to the "Adams," giving as reasons ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... waiting for his wound to heal. He was therefore taken to the Lewises, suffering very much in his removal, and arriving in a condition which required the most assiduous care. For more than four months he remained with them, patient and gentle in his helplessness and suffering, and very thankful for the ministrations of kindness he received. He was nursed as tenderly as if his own sisters had attended him, instead of strangers, and was so carefully concealed that the nearest ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... for a walk with a dog, however, the dog protects you: when you go for a walk with a cat, you feel that you are protecting the cat. It is strange that the cat should have imposed the myth of its helplessness on us. It is an animal with an almost boundless capacity for self-help. It can jump up walls. It can climb trees. It can run, as the proverb says, like "greased lightning." It is armed like an African chief. Yet it has contrived to make itself a pampered pet, so that we are ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... Rogers, 'and break into Mrs. S.'s room and take me. For God's sake let me see you!' See him!—see one friend who could and would help him in his misery! Oh! happy may that man count himself who has never wanted that one friend, and felt the utter helplessness of that want! Poor Sheridan! had he ever asked, or hoped, or looked for that Friend out of this world it had been better; for 'the Lord thy God is a jealous God,' and we go on seeking human friendship and neglecting the divine till it is too late. ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... the brighter side of conventual life in the days we are describing: we have shown it as often a needed shelter of woman's helplessness during ages of political uncertainty and revolution; we have shown it as the congenial retreat where the artist, the poet, the student, and the man devoted to ideas found leisure undisturbed to develop themselves under the consecrating protection of religion. The picture would be unjust to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... Mr. Bernard's head, and put it round the neck of the miserable Dick Veneer, who made no sign of resistance,—whether on account of the pain he was in, or from mere helplessness, or because he was waiting for some unguarded moment to escape,—since resistance ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... briefly. "Outlandish young woman out in the kitchen," she said with distinct disapproval, yet with evident helplessness ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... of McClellan on his troops can not be correctly estimated without some allusion to this officer, under whose command the Federal Army of the Potomac suffered such mortifying defeat. Of an effrontery while danger was remote equaled by helplessness when it was present, and mendacity after it had passed, the annals of despotism scarce afford an example of the elevation of such a favorite. It has been said that his talent for the relation of obscene stories engaged the ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... and unstable is human tissue. Our first anchorage was Port Mary, on the island of Santa Anna. The one lone white man, a trader, came alongside. Tom Butler was his name, and he was a beautiful example of what the Solomons can do to a strong man. He lay in his whale-boat with the helplessness of a dying man. No smile and little intelligence illumined his face. He was a sombre death's-head, too far gone to grin. He, too, had yaws, big ones. We were compelled to drag him over the rail of the Snark. He said that his health was good, that he had not had the fever for some time, ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... the whole plot became clear as daylight, and he was so spellbound with horror that a sort of numbness came over him and he came very near to fainting. He was in a condition of utter helplessness, and had anyone come into the room at that minute and called him by name he would simply have dropped to the floor in ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... for her, indeed, as his had long been, a regard founded on the most endearing claims of innocence and helplessness, and completed by every recommendation of growing worth, what could be more natural than the change? Loving, guiding, protecting her, as he had been doing ever since her being ten years old, her mind in so great a degree formed by his care, and her comfort ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... thirty-nine officers on the train, mostly cavalry, very brave and angelic and polite in their uncomfortable and unwonted helplessness. They liked everything enthusiastically—the beds and the food and the bandages. One worn-out one murmured as he was tucked up, "By Jove, it is splendid to be out of the sound of those beastly guns; it's priceless." I had ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... a sickening sense of helplessness, "they have not returned. Come inside the screen and speak low, so as not ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... student who after elaborate preparation with diagram, blackboard, plasticine, or sand-tray, will realise when the moment of free criticism comes, that in her nervousness she has omitted to make any use of that on which she had bestowed so much labour. Gradually, however, a new class emerges from utter helplessness into an encouraging ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... having forgiven his grandparent, he had been growing to feel for the desolate old man a sort of filial tenderness, and strong in his fresh young manhood, it seemed terrible to him to see John Trevlyn lying there in his helplessness ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... executive authority refused to acquiesce in the demands, the government employees struck, and then with the helplessness of the government and the destruction of all authority and the choking of government activities it was seen that to allow government employees the use of such an instrument was to recognize revolution as a lawful means ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... "wilding"—she was indeed a "wilding" or weed,—growing up unwanted in the garden of the world, destined to be pulled out of the soil where she had nourished and thrown contemptuously aside. A wretched sense of utter helplessness stole over her,—of incapacity, weakness and loneliness. She tried to think,—to see her way through the strange fog of untoward circumstance that had so suddenly enshrouded her. What would happen when Farmer Jocelyn died? For one thing she ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... shall I do—what shall I do—" she groaned in her helplessness. The dog's frantic struggles were proving too much for her strength, for she had to hold him with one hand; the other was on his windpipe. She knew 'Lias would soon be coming home; he could hear the sheep from the road, as she already heard the subdued bay of the hound and the muffled ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... that's no fair," he protested, but Janet only renewed her efforts, and Phyllis, taking advantage of his helplessness, jumped up. After that it was only a matter of seconds before Tommy was on the sofa completely ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill
... could have sworn that the thing moved. With eyes straining through the gloom the man lay watching the grim and sinister thing in the corner. Perhaps his overwrought nerves were playing a sorry joke upon him. He thought of this and also that his condition of utter helplessness might still further have stimulated his imagination. He closed his eyes and sought to relax his muscles and his nerves; but when he looked again, he knew that he had not been mistaken—the thing had moved; now it lay in a slightly altered form ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... by the Louvre," said the king. "Come." And they left the prison, passing before Baisemeaux, who looked completely bewildered as he saw Marchiali once more leave; and, in his helplessness, tore out the few remaining hairs he had left. It was perfectly true, however, that Fouquet wrote and gave him an authority for the prisoner's release, and that the king wrote beneath it, "Seen and approved. Louis;" a piece of madness that Baisemeaux, incapable of putting two ideas together, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... "He always did bring me bad luck." Penhallow was still asleep. Ought he to tell him of Peter Lamb. He decided not to do so, or at least to wait. Inborn kindliness acted as it had done before, and conscious of his own helplessness, he was at a loss. Near to dusk he lighted a pipe and sat down outside of Penhallow's hut. Servants of engineer officers spoke as they passed, or chaffed him. His readiness for a verbal duel was wanting and he replied curtly. He was trying to make out to his own satisfaction whether he ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... the mingled consciousness and helplessness of a dream, he heard Mr Dombey's door shut again, as Mr Carker came out: and immediately afterwards that gentleman called ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... sick, she told us how grieved and ashamed she was of her past life, but said she had a hope, through grace, that her dear sister's Saviour would be her Saviour too, for she saw her own sinfulness, felt her own helplessness, and only wished to cast herself upon Christ ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... reminded me of a talk I had with him long ago at Hatfield. If the result is a change in the Constitution of the House of Lords which will make it a real power, no one will be more sorry than Chamberlain, whose own wish is to keep it in the condition of ornamental helplessness. Lord Derby himself can hardly wish to see the country entirely in the hands of a single irresponsible Chamber elected by universal suffrage—and of such a Chamber, which each extension of the suffrage brings ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... desperation, perhaps brought about by a sense of helplessness in face of an armed nation, was one of the characteristics of the Paris Commune, as it was also of Nihilism in Russia. In fact the Communist effort of 1871 may be termed a belated attempt on the part of a daring minority to dominate France by seizing the machinery of government at Paris. ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... is it my fault that I cannot believe? What have I done that I should be afraid? I have never harmed anybody that I know of, and if I could believe I would. I wish I had died," she went on, passionately; "it would be all over now. I am tired of the world, tired of work and helplessness, and all the little worries which wear one out. I am not wanted here, I have nothing to live for, and I wish that ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... succession of peaks and passes and valleys that lay spread out over the sea of hills. "How in the world am I ever going to find one tiny little valley among all these?" she wondered. Her heart sank at the vastness of it all, and at her own helplessness, and the utter hopelessness of her stupendous task. "Oh, I can never, never do it," she faltered, "—never." And, instantly ashamed of herself, clenched her small, gloved fist. "I will do it! My daddy found his mine, and he didn't have any pictures to go by either. He just delved and worked ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... is that children can ever forget how much they owe their parents! When the widow Cahoon was young, she had watched over his infancy. She had carried him in her arms, unmindful of her own weariness, and had done all for him that his helplessness required. But now she is old; her eyes are dim; her hearing is impaired; her hands are tremulous, and she is unable to provide for herself. Yet Elek's heart is hard. He has forgotten all her love, and will not even give her a home. He ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... descend from the skies in Thy benevolence, born of the Holy Virgin. Thou dost divine the helplessness of ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... face of the Archbishop; there was an expression of helplessness in it, which almost amounted to dotage. "Dear me," thought I, "whom have I come to on an errand like mine? Poor man, you are not fitted to play the part of Martin Luther, and least of all in Spain. I wonder why your friends selected you to be Archbishop of Toledo; they thought perhaps that ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... as unlike as many another belonging to that particular branch of the genus homo—rooms in which we would probably receive a mild shock and be compelled to rebuild our entire structure of theories on the subject of the helplessness, uncomfortableness, and general miserableness of that specimen known as bachelor. To be sure, Steve Loveland was fortunate in the selection of his rookery, but that might be called an outcome of his genius—a genius with which bachelors ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... the young warriors broke before the guns of the pony-soldiers, worse yet might overtake them, though the windswept table lands dismayed them equally with the bullets. Munching their horse-meat, clutching their meager garments, they elbowed about the fires saying little. In their homeless helplessness their souls deadened. They could not divine the immediate future. Unlike the young warriors whose fires flashed brighter as the talons of Death reached most fiercely for ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington
... the sense of abject helplessness. She stood upon the sands against an entire ocean slowly rolling in against her. For, as all the forces of a human being combine unconsciously to eject a grain of sand that has crept beneath the skin to cause discomfort, so the entire mass of what ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood
... warm and affectionate friend in the "mama" who had certainly shewn no remarkable fondness for her formerly; but this she could easily suppose to have been her own fault or her own fancy. She had probably alienated love by the helplessness and fretfulness of a fearful temper, or been unreasonable in wanting a larger share than any one among so many could deserve. Now, when she knew better how to be useful, and how to forbear, and when her mother could be ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... more kindness in her manner than usual, to come to her rooms for some tea; they always seriously inclined to the consumption of that cheerful herb about this hour. Isabel clung to her companion as they went out with a meek helplessness which ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... just why, but I trust him. He seems like iron and steel. Then I was a little frightened at the prospect of trouble with the vaqueros. Both you and Stillwell have influenced me to look upon Stewart as invaluable. I thought it best to confess my utter helplessness and to look to ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... stopped and looked at him intently. "A terrible accident! I would have done anything, gone any distance, to avoid it. I am unable, with you, to pretend—that's curious—and that in itself gives me a feeling of helplessness. All sorts of impossible things are coming into my head to say to you. I mustn't." Her voice ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... gave her. "Cast me not from Thy Presence," she cried. "Take not Thy holy spirit from me," and then there flashed across her trembling soul the horror and blackness of darkness in which souls "cast from God's presence" must dwell forever. Prostrate in utter helplessness, she cast herself upon the Eternal Father's mercy. If He would forgive her selfish rebellion against the removal of Martha, if He would give her back the joy of the first years of her espousal to her husband, ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr |
