"Pity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... does not learn his Greek play cheats the parent who spends money for his education. A boy who cheats his parent is not very far from robbing or forging upon his neighbour. A man who forges on his neighbour pays the penalty of his crime at the gallows. And it is not such a one that I pity (for he will be deservedly cut off), but his maddened and heart-broken parents, who are driven to a premature grave by his crimes, or, if they live, drag on a wretched and dishonoured old age. Go on, sir, and I warn you that the very ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Horse's Fore-legs, and by crossing of it threw Horse and Rider to the Ground; by which means he was soon slain; and that from this occasion the place obtain'd the name of Cripple-gate, which it retains to this day." It is a pity so quaint a story belongs to the realm of legend, for there is no substantial proof forthcoming of ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Exeter - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Percy Addleshaw
... your conceit and your mastership. However, I suppose when the time comes I shall have to obey my father. What a pity it is we girls cannot choose our husbands for ourselves! Perhaps the time may come ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... dreamt of the time when, helped by her, her husband should go forward in his career, when, steered under her guidance, Rachel would go along the smiling path to happiness. And now, instead, she was to be to husband and daughter but the constant object of care and solicitude and pity. Yes, pity—that was the worst of it. "An invalid," she repeated to herself, and felt that at last she knew what that word meant that she had heard all her life, that she had applied unconcernedly to one fellow-creature or another without realising all that it means of tragedy, of startled, ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... ever should be choked by frivolity or pride, and frozen by indifference and self-indulgence! Gentle souls spring up in unfavourable soil. Rameses was a strange father for such a daughter. How came this dove in the vulture's cage? Her sweet pity beside his cold craft and cruelty is like the lamb couching by the lion. Note, too, that gentlest pity makes the gentlest brave. She sees the child is a Hebrew. Her quick wit understands why it has been ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... with a cablegram from here in it which says that when the police invaded the parliament and expelled the 11 members I waved my handkerchief and shouted 'Hoch die Deutschen!' and got hustled out. Oh dear, what a pity it is that one's adventures never happen! When the Ordner (sergeant-at-arms) came up to our gallery and was hurrying the people out, a friend tried to get leave for me to stay, by saying, "But this gentleman is a foreigner—you don't need to turn ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... metaphysical vanities, and their outlandish jargon. The idea that it is necessary for me to believe that Abel understood the Christian doctrine of redemption, is monstrous. There is no proof that Abel know anything about it. The probabilities lean all the other way. It is a pity those self-satisfied theorizers have not something else to do, than to encumber religion and perplex good ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... think," said Saint George, with his ear to the panel. "A young man and woman have just swung into this corner, and he's saying to her, 'Ah, the pity; 'tis over for ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... to ruin me in every way," I added. "Read on." Then I saw her face change to pity as she came to the next clause. So now she knew the truth about Grace Sheraton, and, I hoped, ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... he had lost. Such had been the constancy of his imagination to her, so had Time spared her under its withholding, that now, seeing how roughly the inexorable hand had struck her, his soul was filled with pity and amazement. ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... conscience is pure of the sense of having broken the least known duty, and that the same consequence would follow any marriage of any member of my family with any possible man or woman. I look to time, and reason, and natural love and pity, and to the justification of the events acting through all; I look on so and hope, and in the meanwhile it has been a great comfort to have had not merely the indulgence but the approbation and sympathy ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... said that unsettled questions have no pity for the repose of nations. It should be said with the utmost emphasis that this question of the suffrage will never give repose or safety to the States or to the nation until each, within its own jurisdiction, makes ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... rapidly driven to the railway station, and conveyed to the Hospital for Lunatic Criminals. It was only when she was within this vast and grim abode of madness that she realized the horror of her situation. It was only when she was received by the kind physician and read pity in his eyes, and saw his look of hopeless incredulity when she attempted to tell him that she was not insane; it was only when she passed through the ward to which she was consigned and saw the horrible creatures, the victims of a double calamity, whose ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... wave of intense pity swept over him. Nor was his pity for the man who had kept his secret so profoundly all these years. It was for the child, and the widow he had left behind. But more than all it was ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... some history, he says, and among other pieces of history, "I am endeavouring to get a little into the accounts of this, our own poor country,"—a pathetic expression, which represents Burke's perpetual mood, as long as he lived, of affectionate pity for his native land. Of the eminent Irishmen whose names adorn the annals of Trinity College in the eighteenth century, Burke was only contemporary at the University with one, the luckless sizar who in the fulness of time wrote the Vicar of Wakefield. There is no evidence that at ...
— Burke • John Morley
... conductor. But his eyes did not reproach her, nor did they pity her, they only expressed admiration, admiration ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... horses are starved. And what may not happen in India, injured and irritated as it is, if that army were lost!... John Stuart Mill wrote that if we got into civil war with Ireland about Landed Tenure, no Government would pity us, and 'all the Garibaldis in the world' ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... and never noticed any friendliness towards us. Should the necessity of looking for allies arise, it is nearly certain that both Italy and Spain would be disposed to range themselves on our side. It will be a pity if diplomatic bungling occurs to alter ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... court, as required, in dress uniform. It was the first time that they had worn these handsome service garments officially, and it seemed a pity that they should have to wear them ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... tell you all. If you know this part of the world, young sirs, you have doubtless heard of the old Manor of Basildene, where dwells one, Peter Sanghurst by name, who is nothing more nor less than a wizard, who should be hunted to death without pity. Men have told me (I know not with what truth) that these wizards, who give themselves over to the devil, are required by their master from time to time to furnish him with new victims, and these victims are generally children — fair and promising children, who can first ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... this, that by just punishment the execrable heretics, common enemies, having been taken away, the former peace and tranquillity should be restored to the kingdom. And do not allow yourself, by the suggestion of the empty name of pity, to be deceived so far as to seek, by pardoning Divine injuries, to obtain false praise for compassion; for nothing is more cruel than that pity and compassion which is extended to the impious and those who deserve ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... Mrs. Hollis, as she briskly rubbed the sideboard with some unsavory furniture-polish, "if Mrs. Nelson does come here, you be sure to put on your white apron before you open the door; and for pity sake don't forget the card-tray! You ought to know better than to stick out your hand for a lady's calling-card. I told you about that ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... Incomparable One that created the universe and flung upon its horizonless ocean of space those giant suns, whose signal-lights are so remote that we only catch their flash when it has been a myriad of years on its way. For that Supreme One is not a God of pity or mercy—not as we recognize these qualities. Think of a God of mercy who would create the typhus germ, or the house-fly, or the centipede, or the rattlesnake, yet these are all His handiwork. They are ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... no danger and desire no change, they cannot give birth to a Demosthenes, a Webster, a Sumner, a Wendell Holmes, or a Butler; and where a society attains to a moral standard, in which there are no crimes and no sorrows from which tragedy can extract its aliment of pity and sorrow, no salient vices or follies on which comedy can lavish its mirthful satire, it has lost the chance of producing a Shakespeare, or a Moliere, or a Mrs. Beecher-Stowe. But if I have no desire to disparage my fellow-men above ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... squeaky noise these creatures make!" said big Bear, as he brushed off the butterfly. "What a pity it is they have ...
— The National Nursery Book - With 120 illustrations • Unknown
... it is hard for a patrician to be in want of money; for that which in the case of others excites pity and compassion, becomes, in the case of a person of rank, a calamity and a disgrace. When any ordinary individual is in great straits, and informs his creditors, this immediately affords him relief from his trouble; but a patrician, when unable to pay his creditors, ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... becomes logical in terminating in pity, like that of Schopenhauer. I know that I am running foul of certain admirers of the author who do not see any pity in his work, and it is understood that he is pitiless. But examine his stories more closely and you will find it revealed in every page, provided you go ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Pem. Pity such true love, which like blessed seed Sowne in such fertile soyle his princely brest, By the rough stormy brow and winters hate Of adverse parents should be timelesse nipt And dye e're it attayne ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... and stretched out one hand. 'Come over to us. 'Tis such great pity else—'tis such ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... No, no; as I said before, he may walk where he likes, both by night and by day; he's safe from everything of the kind; even a ghost daren't lay a finger on him; and as the devil and the fairies are connected, he's safe from him, too, in this world at laste; but the Lord pity him when he goes to the next; for there ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... the relations of husband and wife, parent and child. It may be worthy of notice, that the injunction under consideration is found in Paul's letter to the Jewish Christians. This attempt to awaken pity in behalf of the slave, and to produce abhorrence of slavery, was made upon these, and not upon the Gentile Christians; because, perhaps, that they, who had always possessed the Oracles of God, could bear it; and they ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... for the blood of aristocrats, had risen from this square. Pageants of kingship and royal death had passed across these pavements through the great doors there. Peasant women, in the darkness, had wept against these walls, praying for God's pity for their hearts. Now the English officers were lighting cigarettes in the shelter of a wall, the outline of their features—knightly faces—touched by the moonlight. There were flashes of gun-fire in the sky ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... great pity," she said, with a little intentional venom pointing her words, "to have Violet sacrifice herself and compromise her position by rashly marrying this low carpenter; and," she added, eagerly, "I should be delighted to have ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... America, under whose guardianship we have grown to a prominent place among the people of earth, and may arrive at a better prominence among the nations of the saved, has been secured by that Revolution. We could scarcely know whether most to pity or contemn the man who should labor to persuade us that such a Revolution had never occurred, or that the facts ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... heard the trampling of dragoons and the heavy wheels of cannon; and often in the day, when I saw three or four persons speaking together, I ran towards them, and broke in upon their discourse with some wild interrogation, that made them answer me with pity. ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... over her and drew a shuddering breath. Was he wrong? He didn't dare think about that. He had to go on. Looking down at the thinness of her bent back, with the tiny projections of her spine showing through the thin cloth, he felt an immense pity—a pity he couldn't surrender to. This thin, helpless, frightened woman was his only resource. She had to work. He had to make ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... Surely rest is better than ceaseless toil and pain! But what shall we say of such a heedless God as those Christians are content to worship! Is he a merciful God? Is he a loving God? How shall he die to escape the remorse of the authorship of so much misery? Our pity turns from the dead creature to the live creator who could live and know himself the maker of so many extinguished hearts, whose friend was—not he, but Death. Blessed be the name of the Father of Jesus, there ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... said Maisie, looking with pity at the white and grey kittens, "that we need tell Tom to drown them quite directly. Mightn't we leave them till to-morrow, and hear what Aunt ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton
... but I suffered dreadfully from rheumatism, and knew not how to manage to go to a fountain, at fifty leagues' distance, the waters of which would cure me. I was to go among a strange people. An enchanter appeared before me, and said to me, 'I pity your distress; here, I will give you a little packet of the powder of prelinpinpin; whoever receives a little of this from you will lodge you, feed you, and pay you all sorts of civilities.' I took the powder, and thanked him." ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... and the heir, of perhaps the finest houses and the most magnificent estates in England," said Lord Lackington, with a shrug of pity. "And Chudleigh would gladly give them all to keep that ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... changes induced by time or local peculiarity. Even the beautiful and glowing description of English corn-gleaning given by Thomson, is felt by practical observers to be greatly too much of the Oriental hue, too redolent of the fragrance of a fanciful Arcadia. It is a pity that this interesting custom is not more faithfully transcribed into our national poetry; and it is with the hope that a future Burns may make the attempt, that the writer of this article ventures to give a ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... an ineffectual experiment, and then persuaded the children to let her go by assurances of a speedy return. She sped down, brimming over with pity and indignation, to communicate to her father this cruel neglect, and as she passed Henry Ward's door, and heard several voices, she ventured on a timid summons of 'papa,' but, finding it unheard, she perceived that she must act for herself. Going down-stairs, ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the control of its life from the few to the many, the change that is now going on all around us. When the time comes that men and women speak of the state in which they live as Socialism, and look back upon the life we live to-day with wonder and pity, they will speak of the period of revolution as including this very year, and, possibly, all the years included in the lives of the youngest persons present. At all events, no considerable body of Socialists ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... fetlock: Joe said he must have been kicked there. I was surprised to find that the trap also had come home—there it was in its place with the snow still unmelted on its wheels. I helped Joe to dress poor Nigger's leg, saying that it was a pity we had not noticed it before. Joe was grumbling about "some people not having enough sense to know when a horse was lame," so I ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... and Madame de Bourgogne was more tranquil. Some one having said to the Princess, that having—no real cause to be affected, it would be terrible to play a part, she replied, quite naturally, that without feigning, pity touched her and decorum controlled her; and indeed she kept herself within these bounds with truth and decency. Their chamber, in which they invited several ladies to pass the night in armchairs, became immediately a palace of Morpheus. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... Montoni's 3000 francs, which I received before you came to Paris, furnished me with the means—my death speaks the result! After robbery so base as mine, I fear it will be of no use for me to solicit your kindness for my wretched wife and forlorn family. Oh, Sir, if you have pity on them and treat them kindly, and do not leave them to perish in a foreign land, the consciousness of the act will cheer you in your last moments, and God will reward you and yours for it tenfold. Their sensibilities will not cause ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... youth, and promising a lasting reform. The pacha, seeing at his feet a comely youth, with fair hair and blue eyes, a persuasive voice, and eloquent tongue, and in whose veins flowed the same blood as his own, was moved with pity and pardoned him. Ali got off with a mild captivity in the palace of his powerful relative, who heaped benefits upon him, and did all he could to lead him into the paths of probity. He appeared amenable to these good influences, and bitterly to repent his past ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... pigeon skeletons) I will set to work at the abstract, though how on earth I shall make anything of an abstract in thirty pages of the Journal, I know not, but will try my best. I shall order Bentham; is it not a pity that you should waste time in tabulating varieties? for I can get the Down schoolmaster to do it on my return, and can tell ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... times than a work comprising a more extended range of observation; and yet what was suffered in Ballitore was comparatively trifling when compared with the sufferings of other villages and towns. The first trial was the quartering of the yeomen, "from whose bosom," writes this gentle lady, "pity seemed banished." The Suffolk Fencibles and the Ancient Britons were next quartered on the unfortunate inhabitants. Then commenced the cruel torturing, for which the yeomen and militia obtained an eternal reprobation; the public floggings, ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... 34. It would have been better to wait (to have waited). 35. I should like to hear (to have heard) the speeches of Hayne and Webster. 36. The furniture was to be (to have been) sold at auction. 37. It was a pity I was the only child, for my mother had fondness of heart enough to spoil (to have spoiled) a dozen children. 38. I am writing to him so that he may (might) be ready for us. 39. I have written ...
— Practical Exercises in English • Huber Gray Buehler
... hair is like silk, and his teeth are whiter Than whitest of jasmin flowers. Pity they marry him thus. I would change my jewels against his caresses. Verily, sisters, this marriage is greatly a ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... nonsense indeed! It is a pity you don't take the trouble to study fatalism, the religion ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... and then at the child, with a mingled look of curiosity and pity. Evidently he was much surprised to see a woman in such a place, begging, but, without asking any questions, gave her some change, and turning to those ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... his face, enduring the scrutiny to which he was treated with an air of charming unconsciousness, from which any one might suppose he harboured not the slightest desire to hear what Swinstead was saying to his neighbour, as they both looked his way. It was a pity he ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... applied himself to with extreme facility. So remarkable a change was not, in that age, to be accounted for but by a miracle. It was asserted and believed that the Holy Virgin, touched with his great desire to become learned and famous, took pity upon his incapacity, and appeared to him in the cloister where he sat, almost despairing, and asked him whether he wished to excel in philosophy or divinity. He chose philosophy, to the chagrin of the Virgin, who reproached him in mild and sorrowful accents that he had not made ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... would arise, When, fondling a child on the knee, He might read, in its innocent eyes A lesson of pity for me. ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... death-whoop," said Du Lhut composedly. "It was a pity to fire, and yet it was better than letting ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Why should this childish singing raise these contrasts, and put her at odds so with her own life? For a moment I doubt not this dear girl saw herself as we were beginning to see her. Who says that the rich and the prosperous and the successful do not need pity? ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... a pity, Eester," the husband coolly answered, "that you did not take it; I reckon it would have done considerable good. But, boys, if it should turn out as Ahiram thinks, that there are Indians near us, ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... her in a meditative silence rather unusual for her. "Lydia, you don't look a bit well," she said kindly. "Are you still bothered with that nausea?" She sat down by her sister-in-law and put her arms around her with an impulse of affectionate pity that almost undid Lydia, always so helplessly responsive to tenderness. "What's the matter, Lyd?" Madeleine went on. "Something's not going just right. Are you scared about this second confinement? Is Paul being horrid about something? You just take my advice, and if you ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... again in peril—in more imminent peril than before; my life is not worth a minute's purchase, unless you save me. You, and you alone, can now save me. Oh! Miss Bannerworth, if ever pity touched your heart, save me from those only whom I now fear. I could meet death in any shape but that in which they will inflict it upon me. Hear ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... bread and butter, and jam and pickles, and a festive cake. And after they had feasted, Thyrsis stretched himself and leaned back against the trunk of a tree, and gazed up at the sky, quoting the words of a certain one-eyed Kalandar, son of a king, "Verily, this indeed is life! 'Tis pity ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... one, a verie prettie one) sure some Scape; Though I am not bookish, yet I can reade Waiting-Gentlewoman in the scape: this has beene some staire-worke, some Trunke-worke, some behinde-doore worke: they were warmer that got this, then the poore Thing is heere. Ile take it vp for pity, yet Ile tarry till my sonne come: he hallow'd but euen now. ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... over the evidence time and time again. He was a conscientious man. He felt that the law of the State had been defied— had been outraged—and yet within his heart was that natural feeling of sympathy and pity for the unfortunate being for whom but a few short weeks of life remained, and he could not help regretting the part he had been obliged to take in convicting ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... restore, Back he returns impetuous to his prey, Clapping his wings, he cuts th' ethereal way. Thus do I nourish with my blood this pest, Confined my arms, unable to contest; Entreating only, that in pity Jove Would take my life, and this cursed plague remove. But endless ages past, unheard my moan, Sooner shall ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... herself having seen ninety-nine winters, while Abigail had known but a paltry sixty-five, "yew allers go an' cut yer pity on the skew-gee. I don't see nothin' ter bawl an' beller erbout. I say that a'ny man what can't take kere o' himself, not ter mention his wife, should orter go ter ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... No one has made such charming use of the trick as Mark Twain. The dryness of the story of a greenhorn's sufferings who had purchased "a genuine Mexican plug," is one of the funniest things in literature. The intense gravity and self-pity of the sufferer, the enormous and Gargantuan feats of his steed, the extreme distress of body thence resulting, make up a passage more moving than anything in Rabelais. The same contrast, between an innocent style of narrative and the huge palpable nonsense of the ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... related respectively to the seven states of physical matter—to "earth, water, air and fire," or to translate from mediaeval symbolism to modern accuracy of expression, to the solid, liquid, gaseous and etheric conditions. It has long been the custom to pity and despise the ignorance of the alchemists of the middle ages, because they gave the title of "elements" to substances which modern chemistry has discovered to be compounds; but in speaking of them ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... taken part in the creation of the world, we should probably have bestowed more special, distinctive force on all that is best in man, most immaterial, most essentially human. If a thought of love, or a gleam of the intellect; a word of justice, an act of pity, a desire for pardon or sacrifice; if a gesture of sympathy, a craving of one's whole being for beauty, goodness, or truth—if emotions like these could affect the universe as they affect the man who has known them, ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... painful agitation? Ungrateful, too, as weak, to fly the breast that has been familiar to thee through life, and seek another, and as yet but once beheld, asylum. Alas! Why do I blame thee! the terror of Ananga's shaft has rendered thee a fugitive;—let me implore his pity. Lord of the flowery bow, victor of demons and of gods! dost thou not blush to waste thy might upon a weak defenceless maiden, or art thou truly without form and sense? Ah me, I fear my death impends, and this the fatal cause." She looks at the picture ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... emotion too complex to analyse. There was pity in it, but amusement too. The emotion, though she did not recognize it, was maternal. Mothers, listening to their children pleading with engaging absurdity for something wholly out of their power to bestow, feel that same wavering between tears and laughter. Sally wanted to pick Ginger up and kiss ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... he, "this were great pity to slay so fair a maid! Right great charity it were if I could say aught to her, and they perceive it not, and she should be on her guard against them, for if they slay her, then were Aucassin, my damoiseau, dead, and that were ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... them to aim at being free and obliging: and it was difficult, he said, for persons of cheerful dispositions, so to behave as to avoid censure: openness of heart and countenance in the sex (more was the pity) too often subjected good people, whose fortunes did not set them above ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... the prison, moved by pity, immediately released the unoffending old man. Passing through a Turkish burying ground, he reached his home unobserved. It was the Sabbath day, and he says, "Being delivered from the hands of reckless men, I fell down on my face about the eighth hour, with my wife alone, and gave glory ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... considerable slaughter on both sides, the enemy were compelled to retreat. We were ordered to the field to bring in the wounded and prisoners. Never—never shall I forget that day: the remembrance even now unmans me. Oh, lady! forgive these tears, and pity the anguish of an old man's heart. Day had just began to dawn when we arrived upon the plain, and commenced our search among the bodies, to see if there were any who yet remained lingering in existence. Passing by and over ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various
... too!" exclaimed Mr. Grigsby, his gaze narrowing. "I reckon they must have got in by the southern route along the Gila River. And if so, I pity 'em. It's a ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... so he drew in his nets and took out two bream. These he threw into the bucket, and humming a merry song turned to go home. At that moment a traveller, poorly clad, with hair and beard white as the wings of a dove, spoke to him, saying, "Have pity on a feeble old man, obliged to lean on his stick, hungry and ragged. I beg you, in Heaven's name, to give me either money or bread. The sun will soon set, and I who have eaten nothing to-day shall have to pass the night fasting, with the bare ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... when people are located on the border land, and I hear it is really but a short ride to the coast, where your enemies have their war vessels for blockade. Did I understand you to say the military men have come for your friend, the Federal Captain? What a pity! He danced ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... of a Cyclops, trembled, rocked with the athletic lift of the flood, made a panicky plunge into a convenient tree; groaned, dodged, and took off through the brush like a scared cottontail. I felt a boy's pity and sympathy for those houses that got up and took to their legs across the yellow waste. It did not seem fair. I have since experienced the same feeling for a jack-rabbit with the hounds a-yelp at ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... "vengeance for him, but for her pity. Let this humiliation be her only punishment. I promised silence in return for ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARTIN GUERRE • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... pity sake!" interrupted Handy. "Let up! I don't want to have a geographical inventory of the girl's parents, relatives, and personal effects to ascertain ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... bonnet to be worn this sorrowful year, and seeing you occupied with your internal discords, anxiously turned to London for help, and London henceforth dictates to all the modistes of the universe. City of desolation, I pity you! No more will you impose your sovereign laws, concerning Suivez-moi-jeune-homme[63] and dog-skin gloves. No more will your boots and shirt-collars reach, by the force of their reputation, the sparely-dressed inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands. And, ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... me to despair. I am capable of turning my poor sisters out of house and home—flat and home, I mean—in anger at their delay. On their account, in pity for their youth, do stay, Mrs. Widdowson! Besides, I have a new song that I want you to bear—words and music my own. One little quarter of an hour! And I know the girls will ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... and for fifteen minutes they drove along in silence. There was now absolutely no pity in his heart. The vast black problem of his own tortured love seemed to be soaking into him from ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... he went to Nineveh and startled the people by the cry, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be destroyed!" At that cry, the whole place repented as one man; and from the king to the beggar all fasted and wept, till God had mercy on their repentance and ready faith, and turned away His wrath, in pity to the 120,000 innocent children who knew not yet to do ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... got upon a wall, Attempted down to slide withal; But the silken twist untied, She fell, and, bruised, she died. Love, in pity to the deed, And her loving luckless speed, Twined her to this plant we call Now the ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... All that meant parade and glory, the uniforms that make men identical by making each proud of himself for his brass buttons and gold lace. Even in the heavy atmosphere of the shop's rear, though they appeared somewhat dingy and tarnished, they had their undeniable charm, and I thought with pity of the hands that had to ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... good, to tender pity true, Queen of a virtuous King, this trophy view; Cold ice and snow sustain its fragile form, But ev'ry grateful heart to thee is warm. Oh, may this tribute in your hearts excite, Illustrious pair, more pure and real delight, Whilst thus your virtues are sincerely prais'd, Than pompous domes by ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... of having fitted and pleased his customer, and a bricklayer, if he be diligent, is rewarded by knowing that his master understands his value, but I never knew what it was to receive a single response. I wrote for an abstraction; and spoke to empty space. I cannot help claiming some pity and even respect for the class to which I belonged. I have heard them called all kinds of hard names, hacks, drudges, and something even more contemptible, but the injustice done to them is monstrous. Their wage is hardly earned; it is peculiarly precarious, ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... and vegetables than we would have to an extraterrestrial's eating our eggs and chickens, for example. We're going to try to introduce some Earth plants here, though, as the higher forms of vegetation are dying out and we're afraid the lower might follow. Pity it's too late for a ...
— The Venus Trap • Evelyn E. Smith
... Robert Pilgrim when I made my journey to God's Voice last January, and he threatened to shoot me; yet, God forbid that I ever looked like that. Maybe that which I seem to see in Spurling is only the reflected change in myself. Christ pity us lonely men!" ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... expressions were so worthy, so fitting, so measured, everything being according to truth and duty; and the letter, in fact, being so perfectly well written, that although I remember it roughly, I dare not give it, for fear of spoiling it. What a pity that a mind capable of such self-possession, at such a moment, should have become valueless from ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... fireplace; the little Homais, in spite of their spirit, could not stir without someone watching them; at the slightest cold their father stuffed them with pectorals; and until they were turned four they all, without pity, had to wear wadded head-protectors. This, it is true, was a fancy of Madame Homais'; her husband was inwardly afflicted at it. Fearing the possible consequences of such compression to the intellectual organs. He even went ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... him ate its way into all the foundations, and as the fair superstructure of character settled, the moral perpendiculars and planes of projection became more and more distorted. Fairness was gone, and in its place stood angry resentment, ready to rend and tear. Pity and ruth were going: the daily report from Margery told of the lessening chance of life for Andrew Galbraith, and the stirrings evoked were neither regretful nor compassionate. On the contrary, he knew very well that the news of Galbraith's death would be a ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... remarked, as he joined the family gathered around Alf and the rabbits in the sitting-room. "It's a pity the world wasn't wide enough ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... to see the Alhambra," said Lady Marion, with perfect truth. "As we are so near, it would be a pity to go back ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... when acting for some extrinsic purpose is impelled by an intrinsic motive, your doctrine remains faulty all the same; for the Lord is no longer a Lord, even if he is actuated by intrinsic motives only (such as the desire of removing the painful feeling connected with pity).—Your doctrine is finally inappropriate for that reason also that you maintain the Lord to be a special kind of soul; for from that it follows that he must ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... Surely through their fear they thought to see much they did not see, and to hear much they did not hear. What prayers did not rise to the gods, or reminders of sacrifices, compassion for children, longing for wives, pity for parents and meditations on what would result in case of defeat? 40. What god would not pity them for the magnitude of the danger? What man would not weep? Who would not wonder at their daring? ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias
... children there are in our city, Who have no fathers or mothers to pity; Plenty of people whose working and heeding Scarcely can keep all their dear ones from needing. Now, if I came every year in December, These are the ones I ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... a marriage without apparent affection, are painful. If a lady be compelled so to marry, we pity her doom; if she do it voluntarily, we cannot but feel a disgust at the connection. Yet how often, could we unveil human hearts, should we see at the altar, nothing deeper than stratagem, expediency, fancy, or at best, friendship, ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... mountain, the awful silence that seemed to be, not the absence of sound, but the presence of some spiritual entity, gave assurance of peace. Out there, in the cold air, or in the wide skies, or in the vast gulf of night, there was nothing to suggest either pity or compassion—only the ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... claimed the frontier of the Rhine, offering to Austria not only the territory of Venice upon the mainland, but the city of Venice itself. De Gallo yielded. Whatever causes subsequently prolonged the negotiation, no trace of honour or pity in Bonaparte led him even to feign a reluctance to betray Venice. "We have to-day had our first conference on the definitive treaty," he wrote to the Directory, on the night of the 26th of May, "and have agreed to present the following propositions: the line of the Rhine for France; ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... "A pity it are! I was once a horphin myself. Well, yer a spunky little chap to be wantin' to go to sea, and ye deserve somethin' for it. If I were captain I'd take you along; but ye see I'm only afore the ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... say, the people of this lovely village were not worthy to dwell in a spot on which Heaven had smiled so beneficently. They were a very selfish and hard-hearted people, and had no pity for the poor, nor sympathy with the homeless. They would only have laughed, had anybody told them that human beings owe a debt of love to one another, because there is no other method of paying the debt of love and care which all of us owe to Providence. You will hardly believe what I am going to ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... There isn't much love lost between us, more's the pity. You've always thought more of your infernal 'Cause' than of your daughter. But we're Craggs, both of us, and it's the Cragg custom to stand ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... with halters round your wretched necks, Which some contrition for your crime bespeaks, And much-offended majesty implore: Say, piteous, kneeling in the royal view, "Have pity on a sad abandoned crew, And we, great king, will sin no more; Forgive, dread sir, the crying sin, And Mister ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... a joyous little laugh. For he knew if Doris meant to say him "Nay," she would not let her head droop on his shoulder, or yield to the clasp of his arm. And suddenly his soul was filled with infinite pity for Hawthorne, and—yes—he felt sorry for ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... its height. Oh, the pity of Fate which makes the apex of everything so very limited as to standing room! Three minutes after the presentation and acceptation of the photograph Aunt Mary's glance became suddenly vague, and ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... has been censured by the court: but, I have my own opinion. I sincerely pity him; and have wrote to Lord Melville, and Sir Evan Nepean, to try what can be done. All ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol II. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... trouble, man, for a hundred and a hundred times my Lord hath assured me that I shall be with him for ever, but I am making moan for my body. And thereupon entertained him agreeably concerning the Lord's purging away sin from his own children, Isa. xxvii. 9. At another time he said, Pity me, O ye my friends, and do not pray for my life; you see I have a complication of diseases upon me; allow me to go to my eternal rest. And then with deep concern of soul he cried, Look, O my God, upon mine affliction, and forgive all my sins. And yet, says his servant, never ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... useful to the traveller, and is therefore here repeated. "I have before alluded to the painfulness of Raffaelle's treatment of the Massacre of the Innocents. Fuseli affirms of it, that, 'in dramatic gradation he disclosed all the mother through every image of pity and terror.' If this be so, I think the philosophical spirit has prevailed over the imaginative. The imagination never errs; it sees all that is, and all the relations and bearings of it; but it would not have confused the mortal frenzy of maternal terror, with various development of ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... face of all Europe, the Swiss had repulsed his men, and Neuss obstinately refused to open her gates, while the world wondered at the duke's obstinacy displayed in the wrong place. The belief expressed several times by Commines that God troubled Charles's understanding out of very pity for France, ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... clad in half a garment, lean and pale and smutted, and with hair covered with dust, drew near and entered into its midst. And beholding her, some fled in fear, and some became extremely anxious, and some cried aloud, and some laughed at her, and some hated her. And some, O Bharata, felt pity for, and even addressed, her, saying, 'O blessed one, who art thou, and whose? What seekest thou in woods? Seeing thee here we have been terrified. Art thou human? Tell us truly, O blessed one if thou art the goddess of this wood or ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... not the ghost of a pose in her frank, downright young pride. Her cousin felt like a person who has been walking down-stairs and tries to step off a tread that isn't there. Elliott's own cheeks reddened as she thought of the patronizing pity she had felt. Luckily, Laura hadn't seemed to notice it. And Laura was quick to see things, too. Elliott realized, with a little stab of chagrin, that Laura wouldn't understand why her cousin had pitied her, even if some one should be at pains to ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... pity," remarked Mr. Lindsey. "But you'll have recollections of what they told you about your father from their own remembrance ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... the unhappy young woman, sinking nervelessly into a seat. "Have pity upon me, wretched, bewildered as I am!" Tears relieved her, and after awhile, she said, "It is useless, sir, to prolong this interview. I could not, I solemnly assure you, if I would, tell you where to search ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... within his breast that which unbridled resentment would have uttered, and said quietly, and without betraying the least trace of anger:—"In truth 'twas the worst night I ever spent, but I understood quite well that the lady was in no wise to blame, for that she herself, being moved to pity of me, came down here to make her excuses, and to comfort me; and, as thou sayst, what has not been to-night will be another time: wherefore commend me to her, and so, adieu!" Then, well-nigh paralysed for cold, he got him, as best he might, home, where, weary and fit to die for drowsiness, he ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio |
