"Piteous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... away; he could not meet Marguerite's piteous eyes; he feared their mute reproach. Neither did he dare to look at the blind man in his shabby and heroic uniform, with his countenance aged by duty and glory. He ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... at last distributed among the two Sexes, who made a most piteous Sight, as they wandered up and down under the Pressure of their several Burthens. The whole Plain was filled with Murmurs and Complaints, Groans and Lamentations. Jupiter at length, taking Compassion on the poor Mortals, ordered them a second time to lay down their Loads, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... his sacrilege was slain by the angry goddess. It told how the beautiful priestess, coming alone to make prayer in the sanctuary for strength to resist her love, stumbled over the lover's corpse and, knowing it, died of grief. It told how Hathor, goddess of love, melted by the piteous sight, breathed back life into their nostrils, and since they might not remain upon earth, wafted them to the Under-world, where they awoke and embraced and dwell on for ever and for aye, ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... hour rejoice, since only thus Can thy proud heart grow wholly piteous. Thus only to the world thy speech can flow Charged with the sad authority of woe. Since no man nurtured in the shade can sing To a true note one psalm of conquering; Warriors must chant it whom our own ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... the coals began to burn him, the King came to himself and stood up. "Ho! my captain of the guards!" his Majesty exclaimed, stamping his royal feet with rage. O piteous spectacle! the King's nose was bent quite crooked by the blow of Prince Giglio! His Majesty ground his teeth with rage. "Hedzoff," he said, taking a death-warrant out of his dressing-gown pocket, "Hedzoff, good Hedzoff, ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... does not half measure the proportion of those sorrows that come upon woman by reason of her want of influence and power. All the young men that, breaking down, break fathers' and mothers' hearts; all those that struggle near to the grave, weeping piteous tears of blood, it might almost be said, and that at last, under paroxysms of despair, sin against nature, and are swept out of misery into damnation; the spectacles that fill our cities, and afflict and torment ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... have discovered that the rector was paying away money, and the most miserable, tattered, whining specimens of humanity rang his door-bell. They had piteous tales to tell of children dying for want of proper nourishment, of wives lying unburied for lack of ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... to my dinner, but couldn't touch a bit. It was a nice little dinner, too,—a little roast chicken and a scrap of bacon and some nice floury potatoes. No use. The thought of that child would come before me, and her piteous cry: "Oh, don't, dear Lord, don't!" and, "Sure you won't let Him, Mother; you said you wouldn't;" and with a great big lump in my throat I pushed aside the plate and went over to ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... that I shall leave town for a month: my friend Monclar looks piteous when I talk of such an event. I can't bear to leave him; he is to take my portrait to-day (a famous one he has taken!) and very like he engages it shall be. I am going to town for ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... distresses, it is now an idle tale to tell. That night passed like none before it, and none which have come after it. My mind moved with a piteous monotony over and over and about the aching thought: to see Helen—to see Helen—to be patient till morning, and tell Helen—Only to get through this horrible night, and hurry, rushing to the morning ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... weakness, even the most irreproachable Philistine among us; and as Bertram said those words in rather a piteous voice, it occurred to Philip Christy that the loan of a portmanteau would be a Christian act which might perhaps simplify matters for the handsome and engaging stranger. Besides, he was sure, after all—mystery or no mystery—Bertram Ingledew was Somebody. That nameless charm of dignity ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... up the grand staircase, and would be announced. Eagle turned her face above me, the long line of her throat uplifted, and went courageous and smiling on her way. The marquis had adapted himself to the court requirements of the Empire. Noble gentleman of another period, he stalked a piteous masquerader where he had once been ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... inharmonious songs. Half- devoured carcasses of these "ships of the desert" lie every where, with jackals and vultures gnawing at them. Even living camels are sometimes seen staggering about, which have been left to starve by their masters as unfit for further service. I shall never forget the piteous look of one of these poor creatures which I saw dragging itself to and fro in the desert, anxiously seeking for food and drink. What a cruel being is man! Why could he not put an end to the poor camel's ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... between it and the wood. First, my hat blew off; then a pistol jumped out of the holster; but I was too near to give up, - meaning to return for these things afterwards. Two or three times I ran right over the fawn, which bleated in the most piteous manner, but always escaped the death-blow from the grey's hoofs. By degrees we edged nearer to the thicket, when the fawn darted down the side of a bluff, and was lost in the long grass and brushwood, I followed at full speed; but, unable to arrest the impetus of the horse, we dashed ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... Common Prayer writ by grim males, so entranced her, that time flew by unheeded, and Christopher Staines came back from her father. His step was heavy; he looked pale, and deeply distressed; then stood like a statue, and did not come close to her, but cast a piteous look, and gasped out one word, that seemed almost ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... shall be When to my place of rest, With milder grace my wild fawn shall return Here where she looked on me Upon that day thrice blest: Then she shall bend her radiant eyes that yearn In search of me, and (piteous sight!) shall learn That I, amidst the stones, am clay. May love inspire her in such wise, With gentlest breath of sighs, That I, a stony corpse, shall hear her pray, And force the very skies, That I may wipe the ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... o'clock in the afternoon when the first subterranean shock was felt; and long before five the agonized earth was still. Long before five, the stupefied survivors stood slowly recovering their faculties of speech and motion. Long before five, a piteous wail ascended to heaven from fathers and husbands and wives and mothers, desolately mourning the dead in the streets of Caracas, La Guayra, Merida, San Felipe, and Valencia. In this manner the Holy Thursday of 1812 drew toward ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... still unreleased can understand the pang that I felt with Allan sitting almost within my touch. Almost irresistibly the wish beset me to let him for an instant feel my nearness. Then I checked myself, remembering—oh, absurd, piteous human fears!—that my too unguarded closeness might alarm him. It was not so remote a time that I myself had known them, those blind, uncouth timidities. I came, therefore, somewhat nearer—but I did not touch ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... Craddock's wife's mother took care that every communication from him, every demand for an explanation, every piteous plea for enlightenment, for one interview, should be ignored. The mother sent the girl to relatives in Europe; and after Craddock had spent three years and all the money that he had saved toward the buying of a house for his wife and himself, in trying ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... had suffered all his mature life under a too painful and scrupulous sense that he, more than other men, was called to be his brother's keeper. It was natural that, during these exhausting days, the fierce death on Westall's rugged face, the piteous agony in Dynes's young eyes and limbs, should haunt him, should make his landlord's place and responsibility often mere ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Ithaca, but Lycians more had fallen, Had not crest-tossing Hector huge perceived The havoc; radiant to the van he flew, Filling with dread the Grecians; his approach Sarpedon, son of Jove, joyful beheld, 810 And piteous thus address'd him as he came. Ah, leave not me, Priamides! a prey To Grecian hands, but in your city, at least, Grant me to die: since hither, doom'd, I came Never to gratify with my return 815 To Lycia, my ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... Harry Stillman, who came on a few names further. Harry had pounded away all the week on Webster's reply to Hayne, and he now stood forth in piteous contrast to his ponderous theme. His thin, shaking legs toed-in like an Indian's, and his trousers were tight, and short, and checked, which seemed to increase the tightness and shortness. He had narrow shoulders and thin, long arms, which he used like a jumping jack, each ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... replied Wulf in a piteous tone, "is that Frederick-Christian or not, he's got a devilish heavy foot, and when ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... shriek. The continuance of these shrieks proved that the stroke had not been instantly fatal. I waited to hear it repeated, but the sounds that now arose were like those produced by dragging somewhat along the ground. The shrieks, meanwhile, were incessant and piteous. My heart faltered, and I saw that mighty efforts must be made to preserve my joints and my nerves steadfast. All depended on the strenuous exertions and the fortunate dexterity ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... is full of mystery. All that first morning, with a piteous earnestness, a piteous heartlessness, Hope Carolina played funeral in the front yard, in the place where the stone fort had once been and where the peach-pits were now planted. Every now and then she would stop patting the little mounds of earth—mounds of earth ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... a few consolatory words and jumped down from the wheel. She was torn both ways. Bella's plight was piteous, but to make her father rise in his present state of health and attend such a case, hours long, in the chill, night breath of the open—it might kill him! She turned toward the camp, vaguely conscious of the men standing in awkward attitudes ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... and to abandon which was almost to acknowledge the independence of the Rebel States. Thus far the Free States had waited with commendable patience for some symptom of vitality in the new Administration, something that should distinguish it from the piteous helplessness of its predecessor. But now their pride was too deeply outraged for endurance; indignant remonstrances were heard from all quarters, and the Government seemed for the first time fairly to comprehend that ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... pig,' said she, 'it is so poor, its back is as sharp as a knife. It hurt me properly, that's a fact, and has most broke my crupper bone.' And she put her hand behind her, and moaned piteous. ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... of his danger, he stopped short, spread out all four legs, and set up the most piteous and discordant bray that ever wrung ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... buried that which remained of it, and raised over the ashes a great mound of earth. And this being done, they drew near to the place of the sepulchre; and as they approached, the king heard within a very piteous voice, and knew it for the voice of his son. Then he bade his attendants loose the door with all speed; and when they had loosed it, they beheld within a very piteous sight. For the maiden Antigone had hanged herself by the girdle of linen which she wore, and the young man Prince Haemon stood with ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... away?" They were afraid to answer her. With all her little strength, she clasped her beloved friend and play-fellow round the waist. "My own dear, you're not going to leave me!" The dumb misery in Sydney's face struck Linley with horror. He placed Kitty in her mother's arms. The child's piteous cry, "Oh, don't let her go! don't let her go!" followed the governess as she suffered her martyrdom, and went out. Linley's heart ached; he watched her until she was lost to view. "Gone!" he murmured ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... unnatural rigidity of her face broke up into piteous, terrible weeping, and she flung ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... been bursting with grief. Then for an hour he had lain quieter, except that he had looked sadly in my direction, and striven to make some sign with his death-cold hands. At last he again essayed his piteous request in a hoarse, deep voice, but the words issued in so many inarticulate sounds, and once more I failed to divine his meaning. By turns I brought each member of the household to his bedside, and gave him something to drink, but he only shook his ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... nerves were fast giving way under the strain, and no one could help her. If she left the room or the house, the consciousness that the helpless creature was lying silently weeping for lack of the sight of her pursued her like a presence. She saw the piteous old face on the pillow, and the slow tears trickling down the cheeks, just as distinctly as if she were sitting by the bed. On the whole, the torture of staying was less than the torture of being away; and for weeks together she did not leave the house. Sometimes a ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... pantomime seems like some horrible satiric picture of a world without cause or effect, a mass of 'jarring atoms,' a prolonged mental torture of irrelevancy. The ordinary farce seems a world of almost piteous vulgarity, where a half-witted and stunted creature is afraid when his wife comes home, and amused when she sits down on the doorstep. All this is, in a sense, true, but it is the fault of nothing in heaven or earth except the attitude and the phrases quoted at the ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... 'Catherine, my darling, you are the strong one. They will look to you. Support them.' And she could see in imagination her own young face pressed against the pillows. 'Yes, father, always—always!'—'Catherine, life is harder, the narrow way narrower than ever. I die'—and memory caught still the piteous, long-drawn breath by which the voice was broken—'in much—much perplexity about many things. You have a clear soul, an iron will. Strengthen the others. Bring them safe to the day of account.'—'Yes, father, with God's help. Oh, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... were ushering in the spring. I had put Miss Marchmont to bed; I sat at the fireside sewing. The wind was wailing at the windows; it had wailed all day; but, as night deepened, it took a new tone—an accent keen, piercing, almost articulate to the ear; a plaint, piteous and disconsolate to the nerves, trilled ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... the rub, patron," said Joseph in a piteous tone; "the scamps spoke English, so I could not understand them. But I am sure ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... account-books and coffers. There was pretty Genevieve, his sister, with her husband, Crispin Eyre. And there were the comrades of his boyhood, and the prating monk, and the unhappy lady with her white face framed in rich velvets and furs, and her piteous beseeching hands that were never still. Those faces, in the glow of the fire and the shine of tall candles in their silver sconces, were to be with him often in the ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... of piteous distress, If, carrying a secret grief about, We wish to bury it in a recess, And find another there, who ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... very deaf, very infirm—she fancied I was driving her away, as many others might have done; and, with a truly piteous ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... the passion he evidently cherished for numismatics had reasserted itself, and he now stood with his eyes bent as eagerly upon the display of coins over which he hung, as if no shaft of death had crossed the space without and no young body lay in piteous quiet beyond ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... legs last night for three hours and three quarters, and I sat through it all. As far as I could observe through the bars I was the only person in the House who listened to him. I'm sure Mr. Gresham was fast asleep. It was quite piteous to see some of them yawning. Plantagenet did it very well, and I almost think I understood him. They seem to say that nobody on the other side will take trouble enough to make a regular opposition, but that there are men in the City ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... I wonder what he means by looking at me in that piteous manner? I can do nothing to relieve him. I'm sure if I could I would. But 'the way of the transgressor is hard,' Mr. Le Noir, and he who ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... spirit although it keeps a man up puts no flesh on his bones, and soon it became a piteous sight to stand in the Town Square and mark the faces and figures of those who passed by. Strong men staggered from weakness as they walked, women glided along like mournful white wraiths, even the little children in their quaint garb looked worn and emaciated. ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... faces broke into smiles as they hugged one another, whispering encouragingly, "Mother's coming, dear! Mother's coming!" Every one rejoiced but Beth. She lay in that heavy stupor, alike unconscious of hope and joy, doubt and danger. It was a piteous sight, the once rosy face so changed and vacant, the once busy hands so weak and wasted, the once smiling lips quite dumb, and the once pretty, well-kept hair scattered rough and tangled on the pillow. All day she lay so, only rousing now and then to mutter, "Water!" with ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... carried off, so that the streets were now almost entirely deserted, and in many places the grass was shooting up thickly in the road. In some streets every house bore the sign of a red cross, and the tolling of the bells of the dead-carts and piteous cries and lamentations were the only sounds that broke the ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... instant it occurred to me it would be in my dungeon! No such good fortune! They passed my door. At any rate, my chum should know where I was, so I proceeded to make a demonstration against my door and beseech, in the most piteous way, to be released. Of course, it was no use, but that did not matter; ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... was something a great deal more than the physical shrinking from physical death in that piteous cry, Jesus Christ did not die nearly as bravely as many a poor, trembling woman who, at the stake or the block, has owed her fortitude to Him. Many a blood-stained criminal has gone out of life with ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... Daisy uttered a piteous little cry and, like a tender flower cut down by a sudden, rude blast, would have fallen at his feet had he not reached out his arm to ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... want to talk to you about your mother; I don't want to defend her to you; I'm past that. I'll say nothing of your summing up of her character,—it's grotesque, it's piteous, such assurance! But I do tell you straight what I've come to feel of you—that you are a cold-blooded, self-righteous, self-centered girl. And I'll say more: I think that your bringing-up, the artificiality, the complacent theory of it, is your best excuse; and I think that you'll never find any ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... candle lighted in the south room, and her grandmother sat there knitting. Ann Lizy, a piteous little figure in her white night-gown, stood in ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... I can't!" said Olive Chancellor, with a face which seemed to plead for a remission of responsibility. "I want to give myself up to others; I want to know everything that lies beneath and out of sight, don't you know? I want to enter into the lives of women who are lonely, who are piteous. I want to be near to them—to help them. I want to do something—oh, I should like so ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... he had chosen to their king, and all the officers. Then came a scene fit, belike, to make one weep. They all crowded around him, as though his presence meant life to them, and his departure would reave them of their very souls; and what piteous pleading, what extravagance of grief did they omit? They kissed him; they hung about him; they were beside themselves for anguish of heart. "Wo is us," cried they, "for this grievous calamity!" They called him, Master, Father, Saviour, ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... for the artist to return home. When it dawned upon the poor deaf mute he was about to lose his friend, he set up the most piteous wailing, and refused to be comforted, not even by ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe
... that I might best live down the misery of the time if I devoted myself to philosophy."[325] From this we may see how his mind had worked when the old occupation of his life was gone. "Nihil agere autem quum animus non posset!" How piteous was his position, and yet how proud! There was nothing for him to do—but there was nothing because hitherto there had been so much that he ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... hangs on Deronda, looks up to him, feels that for her every possibility of good lies in association with him, are those of a guileless, artless child. She has been called a hard-hearted, callous woman of the world: her worldliness is on the surface alone. Her first cry to Deronda is the piteous wail of a forsaken child; the letter with which their relations close is the fond yearning of a child towards one whom she looks up to ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... amiss,—because she was pretty and might be made bright again, and because he was young, and because he loved her, he longed, were it possible, to make her paths pleasant for her. Her fall, her first fall had been piteous to him, rather than odious. He, too, would have liked to get hold of the man and to have left him without a sound limb within his skin,—to have left him pretty nearly without a skin at all; but that work had fallen into the miller's ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... acknowledgment of a debt to Shakespeare (see p. 177). Finally, Dom Diego's plangent laments at Ginevra's cruelty recall Glaucus' unrestrained weeping at Scylla's cruelty in Lodge's Scillaes Metamorphosis. But whereas the "piteous Nimphes" surrounding Glaucus weep till a "pretie brooke" forms,[29] "the fayre Oreades pitty-moved gerles" that comfort Dom Diego are loath to lose the "liquid pearles" he weeps. Consequently they gather (and presumably preserve) them with "Spunge-like Mosse" (p. 95). Lynche extends his debt ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... small affluent of the St. John's gave access by water to a point within eighteen miles of Outina's principal town. The two barges, crowded with soldiers, and bearing also the royal captive, rowed up this little stream. Indians awaited them at the landing, with gifts of bread, beans, and fish, and piteous prayers for their chief, upon whose liberation they promised an ample supply of corn. As they were deaf to all other terms, Laudonniere yielded, released the chief, and received in his place two hostages, who were ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... day to day is changed in sundry sort; The proof whereof myself may well report, Who oft transformed by him may teach the same. I first was turned into a wounded hart, That bare the bloody arrow in my side; Then to a swan that midst the waters glide, With piteous voice presaged my deadly smart; Eftsoons I waxed a faint and fading flower; Then was I made a fountain sudden dry, Distilling all my tears from troubled eye; Now am I salamander by his power, Living in flames, but hope ere long to be A voice, to ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... the deck, the scene presented to our gaze was piteous beyond all description, the ship appearing to have been first run into by some other craft and then left to drift about at the mercy ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... And for to wit whom I would mean, The eldest son of the noble King Henry the Fourth; of knighthood well and spring; In whom is showed of what stock that he grew, The root is virtue; Called Henry eke, the worthy Prince of Wales, Which me commanded the dreary piteous tale Of them of Troy in English to translate; The siege, also, and the destruction, Like as the Latin maketh mention, For to complete, and after Guido make, (p. 400) So I could, and write it for his ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... but look to mun! so fine a sailor as ever drank liquor; and now greedy after a hit of sweet trade! 'tis piteous like; but I bring mun a hit whenever I come, and he looks for it. He's one of my own flesh like, is old Martin. He sailed with my father Captain Will, when they was both two little cracks aboard of a trawler; and my father went up, and here I am—he didn't, and there he is. We'm up now, we Hawkinses. ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... on Greased Lightning's back, and the manager cracking his whip, the beautiful horse began to trot round and round the arena. At first the creature went fairly quietly, and Orion managed to keep his seat. His piteous white face, the black shadows under his eyes, his little trembling hands were noticed, however, by Susan. She kept near on purpose and tried to encourage him by smiles and nods. When he passed close to her he heard her hearty voice saying, "Well done, little chap! You ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... fulfilled the office of a common pest, to suffer on the gallows at last. What a fine thing it is to have a good heart! Both our gentlemen now sunk into a reverie, from which they were awakened, at the entrance of the park, by a young man in rags, who, with a piteous tone, supplicated charity. Clarence, who to his honour be it spoken, spent an allotted and considerable part of his income in judicious and laborious benevolence, had read a little of political morals, then beginning to be ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 345, December 6, 1828 • Various
... and stretching; their eyes closed, their legs gave way and they seemed to suffocate. In vain did musical glasses and harmonicas resound, the piano and voices re-echo; these supposed aids only seemed to increase the patients' convulsive movements. Sardonic laughter, piteous moans and torrents of tears burst forth on all sides. The bodies were thrown back in spasmodic jerks, the respirations sounded like death rattles, the most terrifying symptoms were exhibited. Then suddenly ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... what thou dost not say. Be not troubled, but speak out thy soul to me;" and presently he told her more. As I do live, never listened I to sadder story. So piteous it was that my tears fell down like rain, and I was sore afraid that my sighing would discover my whereabouts. But the Almighty is merciful even to sinners, and I remained unnoted. 'Twas the old tale ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... that the girl had directed to her old friend before she bowed and passed on had filled him with dismay and despair. It was somehow like the piteous look of a wounded animal, incapable of expressing its pain. All thoughts and fancies of his own little vexations or embarrassments were instantly banished from him: he could only see before him those sad and piteous eyes, full of kindness to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... gestures of the little preachers were corresponding words learned by heart and false enough to make one squint. To the comic encouragement, to the "consolations lavished" in prize-book phrases by the voices of young urchins with colds, were the affecting benedictions, the whining and piteous mummeries of a church-porch after vespers. And the moment the young visitors departed, what an explosion of laughter and shouting in the garret, what a dance in a circle round the present brought, what an upsetting of the arm-chair in which one had pretended to be lying ill, of the ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... than I am (as she ought to be, with Burne-Jones nose and eyes), but this morning, when I sprang at her out of the bath-room, like a young tigress escaped from its cage on its ruthless way to a motor-boat, she looked so piteous and yielding, that I felt I could carry her—and my point at the same ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... not used to it," pleaded poor Alice in a piteous tone. And she thought to herself, "I wish the creatures ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... revived, and saw that piteous one Above me standing, who had been conductress Aforetime of my ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... only in that still night air that we could have heard it, but, hushed as it was, there was no mistaking its feminine timbre. It spoke hurriedly, gaspingly for a few sentences, and then was silent—a piteous, breathless, imploring sort of voice. Miss Witherton and I stood for an instant staring at each other. Then we walked quickly in ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... rude gateway stood a waggon of stones. Harnessed to this were three sorry-looking mules and, leading them, the piteous wreck of what had been a blue roan. ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... slaves. Finally appeared the Musgow, a more distant and savage race, mounted on small fiery steeds, covered only with the skin of a goat or leopard, and with necklaces made of the teeth of their enemies. They threw themselves at the feet of the sultan, casting sand on their heads, and uttering the most piteous cries. The monarch apparently moved by these gifts and entreaties, began to intimate to Boo Khaloom his hopes, that these savages might by gentle means be reclaimed, and led to the true faith. These hopes were held by the latter in the utmost derision, and he privately assured Major Denham, that ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... birds so terribly wounded in the first onset that, although not killed, it was impossible for it to continue the fight. His rage at the mishap knew no bounds, and he vented it madly on the poor creature. He roasted it alive—standing by and hearing its piteous cries. In the midst of the horrible torture the wretched man became so excited that a fit of apoplexy supervened, and he positively expired before the poor ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... The piteous appeal went to the heart of the monk, and he knelt down, and by the aid of a small lamp, examined the wounds of ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... consciousness, the youth was seized with a fit of trembling so violent that he with difficulty stood upright, and cried out in piteous tones,— ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... the closed door—tears excited by the terrible look of anguish, so steady, so immovable—so the same to-day as it was yesterday—on her nurse's face. The little creature in her arms began to utter its piteous cry, as it shivered with the cold. Bridget stirred; she moved—she listened. Again that long whine; she thought it was for her daughter; and what she had denied to her nursling and mistress she granted to the dumb creature that Mary had cherished. She opened the door, ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... hair from thy veiled eyes, show thy face as thee beseems, For yet is starlight in the skies, weird woman piteous through my dreams, 'Nay,' she mourns, 'forsooth not now, veiled I sit for evermore, Rose is shed, and charmed prow shall not touch the ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... bird had crept into the hollow tree to hide, and so to Bob's whine, which expressed fear and asked what he was to do, the shepherd answered, "Get him." Bob dashed in, but quickly recoiled, whining in a piteous way, and began rubbing his face on his legs. Bawcombe in alarm jumped down and peered into the hollow trunk and heard a slight rustling of dead leaves, but saw nothing. His dog had been bitten by an adder, and he at once returned ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... upon his vis-a-vis, the boys, he tapped sternly upon the table. This happened at a juncture when Themistocleus had bitten Alkid on the ear, and the said Alkid, with frowning eyes and open mouth, was preparing himself to sob in piteous fashion; until, recognising that for such a proceeding he might possibly be deprived of his plate, he hastened to restore his mouth to its original expression, and fell tearfully to gnawing a mutton bone—the grease from which ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... and raved in the most distressing manner. The unfortunate haricot was still on his mind, and he was persecuted by men with strange-shaped heads and carrot eyes. Sometimes he imagined himself pursued by Caddy, and would cry in the most piteous manner to have her prevented from beating him. Then his mind strayed off to the marble-ground, where he would play imaginary games, and laugh over his success in such a wild and frightful manner as to draw tears from the eyes of all around him. He was greatly changed; the bright colour ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... was to be given to the French emperor her girlish soul experienced a shudder; but her father told her how vital was this union to her country and to him. With a sort of piteous dread she questioned the archdukes who ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... Jester felt its throbs he gave no sign. Seated beside him on the grass he talked in the light tone that served his trade, as if Aldebaran's woes were but a flight of swallows 'cross a summer sky, and would as soon be gone. And when between his quirks he'd drawn the piteous tale entirely from him, he doubled up with laughter and smote ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... and stretching her arm toward him as a child does toward its mother when danger threatens, she laid her head upon his bosom with a piteous wail—the only really audible sound she ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... our meeting Gabriel Harvey with his new Italian books and pamphlets; and Spenser, if possible, should be there; Dr. Dee would tell the piteous story of his four thousand volumes, printed and unprinted, Greek, in French, and High-Dutch MSS., etc., and of forty years spent in gathering the books that were all on their way to the pawnshop. He might have told the fortunes of all the books with the help ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... of being paid for what she had so freely given hurt Jane. Without realizing its coldness and emptiness, her life had been truly void of human warmth before the little, lonely girl stole in to fill it with her piteous, proud presence. A happier child, with more childish ways, might not so fully have compassed Jane's awakening; for this had been in proportion to the needs of the one who so forlornly made plea for entrance. Having once thrown wide the door of her heart, ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... considerable distances from each other, were seated about a dozen characters, male and female, all of them dressed in sable, and wearing countenances of woe. Sawley advanced, and wrung me by the hand with so piteous an expression of visage that I could not help thinking some awful catastrophe had ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... men-of-war, an English merchantman had to risk attack by any one who was either passionately Roman or determined to use religion as a cloak. Raids and reprisals grew apace. The English were by no means always lambs in piteous contrast to the Papal wolves. Rather, it might be said, they took a motto from this true Russian proverb: 'Make yourself a sheep and you'll find no lack of wolves.' But, rightly or wrongly, the general English view was that the Papal attitude was one of attack while their own was ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... vigor made it seem all the more piteous that he should now be lying in the very extremity of suffering, unable to bear even the weight of the bed clothes. But all through that weary time his fortitude never gave way, and the vein of humor which had stood him in such good stead all his ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... was almost past discernment or thought. The events of the day succeeding one another so swiftly, and fraught with panic, had, despite her hope and fortitude, reduced her to a helpless condition of piteous fear. She understood that the savages scented danger, or had, in their mysterious way, received intelligence such as rendered ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... when they first realize her loss, is of a peculiarly mournful character; it sounds something like a succession of wails on the minor key, and can no more be mistaken by the experienced bee-keeper, for their ordinary, happy hum, than the piteous moanings of a sick child can be confounded, by an anxious mother, with its joyous crowings, when overflowing with ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... looked down at the child once or twice in a state of puzzle. A third time she looked up with her great eyes, and said, "Oh, please carry me a bit!" and her piteous, tired face turned the scale. "If she were Lady Mary or Lady Blanche," thought he, "I should pick her up at once, and be proud of the burden. Here goes!" And he took her up in his arms, and walked ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... persuade the princess Blanche to accompany him into France, under the pretext of forming an alliance for her with Louis's brother, the duke of Berri. The unfortunate lady, comprehending too well her father's real purpose, besought him with the most piteous entreaties not to deliver her into the hands of her enemies; but, closing his heart against all natural affection, he caused her to be torn from her residence at Olit, in the heart of her own dominions, and ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... "and know where all along your love has lain. That other way is only darkness—the convent, which will keep you buried, while you will never have heart for the piteous seclusion, till your life is broken all to pieces; till you have no hope, no desire, no love, and at last, under a cowl, you look out upon the world, and, with a dead heart, see it as in a pale dream, and die at last: you, born to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... which drew them away from obedience to their natural king; and that with such an example [as this of the Lutaos before them] the peoples [of Mindanao] would not change sides in order to please a nation so unreliable [as the Spaniards]. The Subanos also presented their piteous remonstrances that as a people of the hill-country, and of timid disposition, they were exposed to greater misfortunes. They went to the fort and renewed their importunities, saying that the Spaniards were deserting and abandoning them [notwithstanding] their humble submission, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... history we have to ascertain is one, the tragedy of whose fate has blotted the remembrance of her sins—if her sins were, indeed, and in reality, more than imaginary. Forgetting all else in shame and sorrow, posterity has made piteous reparation for her death in the tenderness with which it has touched her reputation; and with the general instincts of justice, we have refused to qualify our indignation at the wrong which she experienced, by admitting either ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... the whole thing, the self-deception of a criminal idealist shattering his existence like a thunder-clap out of a clear sky, and re-echoing amongst the wreckage in the false assumptions of those other fools. Fancy that hungry and piteous imbecile furnishing to the curiosity of the revolutionist refugees this utterly fantastic detail! He appreciated it as by no means constituting a danger. On the contrary. As things stood it was for his advantage ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... At this piteous sight, Richard became a hero. Being an extremist in all things, Richard, roused, caught Dorothy to his bosom—the first embrace since that blessed boot-heel evening in the Waldorf! He folded her in those Pict arms in most radical fashion, ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... next day Rataplan presented a piteous sight. His poor ankles were swollen enormously; his eyes were so inflamed that he was quite blind, and, to make matters worse, the mahouts saw that he was suffering now from the ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... of them, said: "We had such piteous cases of perfectly well-dressed, well-educated, gently-bred women that we hardly dared offer them the one-franc-fifty and 'gouter' (bowl of cafe-au-lait with bread and butter), which was all we were able to give for four hours' work ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... heroes. Let him face me then!— Ay! though he be a God whose anger burns Against the Danaans! Yea, mine heart forebodes That this my smiter was Apollo, cloaked In deadly darkness. So in days gone by My mother told me how that by his shafts I was to die before the Scaean Gates A piteous death. Her words ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... held frequent councils with all the old women of the neighborhood, not omitting the parish dominie; scarce an hour in the day but a knot of them might be seen wagging their white caps together round her door, while the poor woman made some piteous recital. The daughter, too, was fain to seek for more frequent consolation from the stolen interviews of her favored swain, Dirk Waldron. The delectable little Dutch songs with which she used to dulcify the house grew less and less frequent, and she would forget her ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... beheld them mourning he had compassion on them, and shook his head and spake to his own heart: "Ah, hapless pair, why gave we you to king Peleus, a mortal man, while ye are deathless and ever young? Was it that ye should suffer sorrows among ill-fated men? For methinketh there is nothing more piteous than a man among all things that breathe and creep upon the earth. But verily Hector Priam's son shall not drive you and your deftly-wrought car; that will I not suffer. Is it a small thing that he holdeth the armour and vaunteth himself ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... for the Turk, who, under the pleasing conviction that his brains were knocked out, uttered a piteous groan, and fell fainting on ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... on board. In accomplishing this, the boy was completely ducked; but whether he was otherwise hurt, or this catastrophe occurring when out of breath or fatigued with over-exertion, I do not know; but he began to cry in a more piteous manner than could be justified by the cause alleged, namely, the wetting of his only garment, an old piece of sacking. I directed Mohammed to reward his services with a piastre, a small silver coin of the value of ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... where his gentleness won him many friends. But they could not stop the progress of his disease, or comfort his poor, lonely heart. The night before he died, no one near him could sleep for his piteous moaning and sad cries,—"I am afraid to die; I ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill
... you know, With all us old ones in the camp, For that little child to go! It's right the old should die, but that A harmless little child Should miss the joy uv life 'nd love— That can't be reconciled! That's what we thought that summer day, And that is what we said Ez we looked upon the piteous face Uv Marthy's younkit dead; But for his mother sobbin' The house wuz very still, And Sorry Tom wuz lookin' through The winder down the hill To the patch beneath the hemlocks Where his darlin' used to play, And the mountain brook sung lonesomelike ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... great grief, since there was scarce here and there a piece of goods among these costly gifts, things given as great treasures, which faintly upheld the ancient fame of the cradle of the industrial arts. Nay, in some cases, it would have been laughable, if it had not been so sad, to see the piteous simplicity with which the conquered race had copied the blank vulgarity of their lords. And this deterioration we are now, as I have said, actively engaged in forwarding. I have read a little book, {3} a handbook to the Indian Court of last year's Paris Exhibition, which takes the ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... French and Latin, and applied himself with ardor to the study of the classics; at fifty he gave himself up to Greek. His first tragedy (for he was chiefly a dramatist), entitled "The Destruction of Jerusalem," was not very successful. The second, "Palamades," in which was delineated the piteous and terrible tale of Olden Barneveldt, a victim of Maurice of Orange, caused a criminal action to be brought against the author. He fled, and remained in concealment until the unexpectedly mild sentence ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... piteous eyes behold The very soul that over England flamed! Deep, pure, intense; consuming shame and ill; Convicting men of sin; making faith live; And,—this the mightiest miracle of all,— Creating God again ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... at the head and the foot, upon which flags are placed; the grave is then inclosed by pickets driven in the ground. The funeral ceremonies now begin, the widow being the chief mourner. At night and morning she will go to the grave and pour forth the most piteous cries and wailings. It is not important that any other member of the family should take any very active part in the "cry," though they do participate ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... candlelight. Once, not long after his marriage, he had appealed to his wife in the same way, when, after an unusual run of luck, he had returned in triumph with his winnings. She, poor girl, looked first at them and then at him, with a piteous little attempt at a smile; then suddenly burst into tears, and turned away. It was the first and last time he tried to win her sympathy in these matters, and was, perhaps, the beginning of the sort of estrangement that ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... groaned the other, and for the first time the words held a note that was not wholly boyish, it sounded wistful, even rather piteous. "People's ways are all so different. It's rather infernal—trying to please everybody, ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... lips There speak her grievous woe, Though in her chamber in the night Her frequent tears would flow. She dreamt of wrong where love was sought, Of crafty cruel eyes, Of one steep stair, of grasping hands That stifled piteous cries; ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... balance she fell forwards, and was precipitated through the bushes into the ravine below, conscious only of unspeakable terror and an agonising pain in one of her ancles, which rendered her quite powerless. The noise of the stones she had dislodged in her fall and her piteous cries, brought Louis and Hector to her side, and they bore her in their arms to the hut of boughs and laid her down upon her bed of leaves and grass and young pine boughs. When Catharine was able to speak, she related to Louis and Hector the cause of her fright. ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... of mortal man Whose life is but a span, I count ye but the shadow of a shade! For he who most doth know Of bliss, hath but the show; A moment, and the visions pale and fade. Thy fall, O Oedipus, thy piteous fall Warns me none born of women blest ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... how piteous, how ill she looked. A pang of compassion went through him. And after the pang there came a warm, delicious tremor. It recalled the feeling he used to have when he did things for Edith, a sensation singularly ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... furniture and loading trucks. Ruffians were pushing in at the open doors, snatching valuables and insulting the owners. There was a hasty seizing of goods, and a wild dash into the street from imperiled houses, a shouting for trucks and carriages, piteous inquiries for absent friends, distressed cries for absent protectors, screams of little children, swift, wild faces pushing eagerly in this direction and that; oaths and prayers and shoutings; women bowed beneath mattresses and heavy furniture; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... his head somewhat as Jack explained how he wished to wed the daughter of the chief of the crew; but when the lover pleaded his cause with all the eloquence at his command, and painted in piteous words the misery the gentle girl had endured in the midst of her unhallowed surroundings, the kind-hearted ecclesiastic relented, and forthwith despatched Brother Lawrence to examine and counsel the maid, hear her confession, and absolve her from her ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... natural disposition, facing hatred and obloquy. She whose life was one long martyrdom, for conscience' sake offered up a whole holocaust of martyrs: she who thirsted for love died clothed with a nation's hate. Where in all history is a tragedy more piteous than that ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... Spanish and in a very delicate hand. Brant knew Spanish well, and in twenty minutes he had read them all. They proved to be epistles from a lady who signed herself Juanita de Montalvo, written to the Count Juan de Montalvo, whom she addressed as her husband. Very piteous documents they were also, telling a tale that need not be set out here of heartless desertion; pleading for the writer's sake and for the sake of certain children, that the husband and father would return to them, or at least remit them means to live, ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... from the gangway and then the stout figure of the detective came staggering into the circle of light around the shaft. He had evidently been wounded seriously, for he fell as he drew near to where the boys were standing and raised his eyes in a piteous appeal for help. Will stooped over ...
— Boy Scouts in the Coal Caverns • Major Archibald Lee Fletcher
... Truth, where wert thou then When all for thee they racked each piteous limb? Wert thou in heaven, and busy with thy hymn When those poor hands convulsed that held thy pen? Art thou a phantom that deceives! men To their undoing? or dost thou watch him Pale, cold, and silent in his dungeon dim? And wilt thou ever speak to him again? "It moves, it moves! Alas, ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... a sudden stop, lifted his head with a jerk, his ears set forward, snorting an alarm. Quick on his action there came a shot, close at hand. Whetstone started with a quivering bound, stumbled to his knees, struggled to rise, then floundered with piteous groans. ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... yourselves by an attentive examination of the patient." And, with a rapid movement, Dr. Griffon, throwing the bed-clothes back, almost entirely uncovered Jeanne. It is repugnant to our feelings to depict the piteous struggles of this poor creature, who wept bitterly from shame, imploring the doctor and his auditory to ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... of her. Bebee gave a great cry, and stood still, trembling and trying not to sob aloud. She had never thought of money; she had forgotten that youth and strength and love and willing feet and piteous prayers,—all went for nothing ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... thinking of? She did not run. Robbie looked at her in piteous distress; Duncan was beside himself. He cast a beseeching glance at Elsie, a momentary one of resentful anger at his mother, an impatient one at Robbie, the unfortunate messenger ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... starting to her feet, "I must go to him! go at once. O dearest mother, do not hinder me!" and she clasped her hands in piteous entreaty, the big tears rapidly chasing each ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... in the weather seemed to have come at last. A deluge of rain was what I wanted, something to soak the earth and turn the roads into water-courses and clog the enemy transport, something above all to blind the enemy's eyes ... For I remembered what a preposterous bluff it all had been, and what a piteous broken handful stood between the Germans and their goal. If they knew, if they only knew, they would brush us ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... Bob—and he was saying something unspeakable—about her! She listened like one in a trance—then she struggled up from her chair with tragic long arms extended, and the cry that rang from her lips was piteous. ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... conflict through which he was passing in his last hours. While sitting near his bedside on one occasion, she was suddenly recalled from a revery by the sound of the sighs and sobs of the royal patient. To her solicitous questions as to the cause of his distress, she received the most piteous exclamations, interrupted by weeping: "Ah, my nurse, my friend, how much blood! how many murders! Ah, what wicked counsels have I had! My God, have pity upon me and pardon me! I know not where I am; so perplexed and agitated have they ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... himself—direct, simple, telling her all she wanted to know, yet leaving much unsaid. Rose had once been shown a love-letter in which the word "kiss" occurred thirty-four times. She was glad that there was nothing of that sort in Jervis's letter, and yet she longed with a piteous, aching longing to feel once more his arms clasping her close, his lips trembling ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... would at once go to the palace, that she would do so, if possible, before Mrs. Proudie could have had an interview with Mr. Slope, and that she would be either submissive, piteous, and pathetic, or else indignant, violent, and exacting, according to the manner in ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... shut up in haste, when the emptied streets are flooded, and almost black, and the paper lanterns, piteous objects, wet through and extinguished,—I find myself, I know not how it happens, flattened against a wall, under the projecting eaves, alone in the company of Mdlle. Fraise, my cousin, who is crying bitterly because her fine dress is wet through. ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... tokens of mourning, and the monotonous, piteous plaint of the wailing women, which ever and anon rose into a loud, shrill, tremulous shriek, echoed through the silent rooms within to this hall, announcing that death had claimed a victim ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... on his heart, heavy with thoughts of her, and would he rather it were Maddy there in the bridal room? If so, his burden was hard indeed, but not so hard as hers, and kneeling on the floor, poor Maddy laid her head in the chair, and, 'mid piteous moans, asked God, her Father, to help them both to bear—help her and Guy—making the latter love as he ought the gentle girl who had left home and friends to live with him in a far-distant land; asked, too, that she might tear from her heart every sinful thought, loving Guy only as she ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... had I noticed that peculiarity in a cripple before? That I had observed it somewhere I felt certain. For nearly half the day I turned this over and over in my mind, and then, in the middle of our evening meal, enlightenment came to me. I remembered the man whose piteous tale had so much affected Beckenham on the day of our arrival, and the sound his crutches made upon the pavement as he left us. If my surmise proved correct, and we could only manage to communicate with him, here was a golden opportunity. But how were we to do this? We discussed ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... happened. Father and son were waiting for him in the library. They instantly saw by his face that things had not gone well, and each snarled according to his nature. When he heard that the money was gone the old man broke into piteous lamentations. ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... entered a cottage, never sat beside a sick bed, nor smoothed a dying pillow. Edna would have been horrified at such a suggestion. What had her bright youth to do with disease, dirt and misery? "Don't tell me about it," was her usual cry, when any one volunteered to relate some piteous story. That such things should be allowed in a world governed by a merciful Providence was incredible, terrible, but that she should be brought into contact with it was an offence to her ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... But The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is a book to be read by any who want an insight into the conditions of working-class life at its average, with its virtues, its vices, its courage, its intolerable piteous anxieties. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914 • Various
... fifteen hundred. He explained all this personally to Mr. Bonteen, who condescended to see him. He was very eager to make Mr. Bonteen understand how bad even then would be his condition. Mr. Bonteen was, of course, aware that he would have to pay very heavily for insuring his wife's life. He was piteous, argumentative, and at first gentle; but when Mr. Bonteen somewhat rashly told him that the evidence of a former marriage and of the present existence of the former wife would certainly be forthcoming, he defied Mr. Bonteen ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... looked but like pits of shade. Presently the other began to move towards him, waving a large misshapen hand which gleamed with a kind of scurfy whiteness; and he cried out unintelligible words, which seemed half angry, half piteous. Ralph knew that the Leper was before him, and though he loathed to fly before so miserable a wretch, he turned and hurried on into the forest; the creature screamed the louder, and it seemed as though ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... spell Of my heart's frenzy, that a living hell Be burning there!—Back! back! if thou art mad— Methought thou wast, but thou art only sad. Is this thy child, old man? look, look, and see! In truth it is a piteous thing for thee To become childless—Well-a-well, go by! Is there no grave? The quiet sea is nigh, And I will bury her below the moon; It may be but a trance or midnight swoon, And she may wake. Wake, ladye! ha! methought It was like her—Like her! and is it not? My angel ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart
... said Priscilla, starting forward and a flush coming into her face. "I know that— that is what it is for. To pay back worthily— to give back a thousandfold what you have received. Those girls can't be idle, can they?" she added in a gentle, piteous sort of way. ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... not won the heart of my Lady Castlemaine, since he had made no love to her, which was not a thing to be lightly forgiven to any handsome and stalwart gentleman. Besides this, he had been so moved by the piteous case of the poor Queen, during her one hopeless battle for her rights when this termagant beauty was first thrust upon her as lady of her bedchamber, that on those cruel days during the struggle when the poor Catherine had found herself sitting alone, deserted, while her husband and her ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... her poignant sensation was that she had no friends. It did not matter to Jeannette that history was being made before her, and one of the great battles of the world was about to be fought. It only mattered that she should discern the Fraser plaid as far as eye could follow it. There is no more piteous thing than for one human being to be overpowered by the god ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood |
