"Plight" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... began to kick. Giving the reins to my father, I jumped out, and ran to his assistance; but he was so prickly all over, that it was difficult to lay hold of him. His needles and pins ran into my fingers in a dozen places. To make matters worse, his nose began to bleed, so that he was in a pitiable plight. However, I picked him up at last, found he was not seriously injured, gave him a clean handkerchief (which he promised to return), and started him off again in his cart, in a sitting position this time, and ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... a dark night, or if it had been snowing, we should have been in a bad plight; but the moon was our friend. The night passed away and the wolves had not made their appearance. When daylight came we were all pretty tired, and we moved the reindeer nearer to the tent. Then after the coffee was made and drunk, and some reindeer ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... were so roughly treated by some of our people, especially by the newly-arrived soldiers, simply because they were natives, that I was afraid they might leave us in a body; and if they had done so we should have been in a sad plight. One of my own servants, a native Christian, complained bitterly to me of the treatment ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... plight of General Kearny, and was just starting a relief column upon a night march for the hill, when at nine o'clock one of his sentries challenged a dark figure ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... too, that he shed tears of a night over his poor family of soldiers. Only he and Frenchmen could have pulled themselves out of such a plight; but we did pull ourselves out, though, as I am telling you, it was with loss, ay, and heavy loss. The Allies had eaten up all our provisions; everybody began to betray him, just as the Red Man had foretold. The rattle-pates in Paris, who had kept quiet ever since the Imperial Guard had ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... was repeated to the King by those whom he had appointed to speak with her, and when it was found that she could by no means be brought to renounce her husband, she was sent to her father, and this in so pitiful a plight that all who beheld her pass wept to see her. And although she had done wrong, her punishment was so grievous and her constancy so great, that her wrongdoing was made to appear ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... they be?" inquired the King, smiling. "Just because I have come in rough-and-ready plight, your house ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... temptation to speculators. If they can only gain control of it they can reap rich benefit from all the honest effort that has been put into it. They can destroy its beneficiary wage and profit-sharing, squeeze every last dollar out of the public, the product, and the workingman, and reduce it to the plight of other business concerns which are run on low principles. The motive may be the personal greed of the speculators or they may want to change the policy of a business because its example is embarrassing to other employers who do not want to do what is right. The industry cannot be ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... them to the Polish theatre of war. But, brutally as the poor Belgians have been treated, one shudders to think of the cruelty and the greed of the Prussian in the new conquered Russian territories, and of the pitiful plight of ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... which reigned in Upper Hindustan after the assassination of 'Alamgir the Second, and the flight of Shah 'Alam. Upper Hindustan was then in a sad plight, ravaged alternately by the Abdalis, the Marhattas, and the Jats—the king a pageant, the nobles rebellious, the subjects plundered and oppressed, and the country open to every invader—though this was near 100 years ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... plight for the richest man in the world," he said to himself, and the next moment he realized that he was ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... instructions must be read in the light of the information at the disposal of the superior officer at the moment of issue, and they adhered to them pedantically.[42] Lord Roberts could not have anticipated Broadwood's plight when he ordered Colvile ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... shocking," he remarked. "I had no idea that the largest city of the most enlightened country in the world was in such a sorry plight." ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... people that possess it; but, tell me, they of the fat marsh, and they whom the wind drives, and they whom the rain beats, and they who encounter with such sharp tongues, why are they not punished within the ruddy city if God be wroth with them? and if he be not so, why are they in such plight?" ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... deny what thou hast challenged," said the Grand Master, "provided the maiden accepts thee as her champion. Yet I would thou wert in better plight to do battle. An enemy of our Order hast thou ever been, yet would I have thee honourably ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... been rebuilt by Ramses II. and decorated by the Rames-sides, was in a sorry plight when the XXIInd dynasty came into power. Sheshonq I. did little or nothing to it, but Osorkon I. entirely remodelled it, and Osorkon II. added several new halls, including, amongst others, one in which he celebrated, in the twenty-second year of his reign, the festival ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... was left to Sylvia and Rumple, who put Rockefeller along at his very best pace, for they were all frightened at Rupert's sad plight, which was to rob their arrival of all the delight they had pictured when they should drive up to their father's house and personally announce to him the ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... not. Nor let thy false imagination That I was bed-rid, make thee think I am so: Thou shalt not find it. I am, now, as fresh, As hot, as high, and in as jovial plight, As when, in that so celebrated scene, At recitation of our comedy, For entertainment of the great Valois, I acted young Antinous; and attracted The eyes and ears of all the ladies present, To admire each ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... What will become of earth? men will no more Respect Society or strive to save Humanity alive: henceforth theyle seeke For lost fidelity on Caves or topps Of untrodd Rocks, and plight their trothes to beasts; Commix with them and generate a race Of creatures, though less rationall, yet more Indude with truth. O Clariana, can There be a motive able to convert This pretious Christall temple, built for purity And goodnes adoration, to a faine ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... de Soulanges. The handsomest wondered at her easy surrender. The men could not understand such luck as the Baron's, not regarding him as particularly fascinating. A few indulgent women said it was not fair to judge the Countess too hastily; young wives would be in a very hapless plight if an expressive look or a few graceful dancing steps were enough to ...
— Domestic Peace • Honore de Balzac
... canal, where Sir Andrew Ffoulkes would be waiting with the coal-cart; then there was the spinney on the road to St. Germain. Armand hoped that, with good luck, he might yet overtake his comrades, tell them of Jeanne's plight, and entreat them to work for ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... followed he now had lost. It was pitchy dark, with a most villainous storm of rain and wind. Saracen caught the infection of his master's doubts; he stopped short, and bowed his head to snuff the ground. Prosper laughed at the plight they were both in, and looked about him, considering what he should do. Very far off he could see a feeble light flickering; it was the only speck of brightness within his vision, and he judged it too steady for a fen-flame. Lodging of some sort should be there, for where there is a candle ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... burns dead and dim; But Christabel the lamp will trim. 185 She trimmed the lamp, and made it bright, And left it swinging to and fro, While Geraldine, in wretched plight, Sank down upon ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... irritated by his seeming indifference, 'a fellow is in a deuced bad plight, if he has to plead poverty, when he ought to be able to help one or two beside himself! I envy you, Scheffer. I envy you every time I come here. You can do so much! You could leap all the college gates in no time, if you ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... hat and walked through the park beside the judge, hoping for some further details of his uncle's present plight and future condition, but the only thing his Honor added to what he already knew was his wonderment over the fact that St. George, having no immediate use for the money except to pay his bills, should have raised so large a sum on a mortgage ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... of scorched timbers came to his nostrils, Jerry O'Keefe had recognized the desperation of his plight and he laid out his simple plans in accordance. He meant to stay where he was till the last endurable moment, hoping against hope for the coming of the rescuers. When it was no longer possible to remain, he would ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... in the chaffing. He was miserably conscious, all the while, that his own folly had been solely responsible for the present plight of these ...
— Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis - Or, Two Midshipmen as Naval Academy "Youngsters" • H. Irving Hancock
... die! They would go on forever, at least as long as there was the institution of private property and an intricate code of laws to safeguard it. Thus the judge argued to himself again in considering the plight of these Clarks, and decided to use the Washington Trust Company of ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... they get theirs!" chuckled Rolfe, listening rapturously, forgetting for the moment his own sorry plight. ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... night, these horrid waves, these gusts that sweep the whirling deep; What reck they of our evil plight, who on ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... reckless words; their very recklessness caused her to fear. If they were sick of the whole thing—well, what about it? What were they to do? They were in it, weren't they, up to their necks? Of two people who mutually recognised the plight, only one must foam and rage and stutter out unpalatable truths about it; it was for the other to pour on the oil, to deceive and pretend and propitiate and cajole, to try to keep things running and ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... undecided than she had been before consulting them. She now ventured to go to the house in the Rue du Colombier, intending to confide her troubles to her father and mother; for she was like a sick man who, in his desperate plight, tries every prescription, and even puts faith in old ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... mist out here to shroud her from attack. The air was clear and bright, with a robust breeze which stirred a flashing surf on the shoals. Under lower sails, the two sloops watchfully crept nearer until their crews could examine the stranded brig and read the story of her plight. She stood on a slant with the decks sloped toward the enemy. This made it impossible to use her guns with any ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... soon as he reached the king's apartment, he began to cry out, and call for justice in a lamentable tone. The king ordered him to be admitted; and asked who it was that had abused and put him into that miserable plight. "Sire," cried Saouy, "it is the favour of your majesty, and being admitted into your sacred councils, that has occasioned me to be so barbarously treated." "Say no more of that," replied the king, "only let me hear the whole story simply, and who ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... me, doth my lover, Kisses with each breath - I shall one day throw him over, And plight ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... remains in the memory of evening. But this passion for romance, and this disappointment, show how much we need real elevations and pure poetry; that which shall show us, in morning and night, in stars and mountains, and in all the plight and circumstance of men, the analogons of our own thoughts, and a like impression made by a just book and by the face ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... million did; at the close of that century the figure was found to have decreased by more than fifty thousands of cho. From such a result, opposed as it is to all records of normal development, the unhappy plight of the agricultural classes may ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... cured!" Hilaire cried; "let me rise and dress;" He tried—fell back; and then he must confess He could not labour for another week! Oh, wretched plight— For him, his work was life! Should he keep sick, 'twas death! All four sat mute; sudden a my of hope Beamed in the soul of Abel. He brushed the tear-drops from his een, ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... for Pulkova, which is about five miles away. The station-master told me that no carriage from Pulkova was waiting for me, which tended to confirm the fear that the dispatch had not been received. After making known my plight, I took a seat in the station and awaited the course of events, in some doubt what to do. Only a few minutes had elapsed when a good-looking peasant, well wrapped in a fur overcoat, with a whip ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... beating down too fiercely on the top of his head, he carefully drew the bushy top of the poplar sapling into such a position that it gave him shade. As its roots were still aground, it showed no tendency to float off and forsake him in his plight. ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... you know, now. It was I whom you heard playing, that first day. It was I, touched by your plight in that forlorn and dusty barracks, who gave you some slight relief. It was easy enough for me to cut across to Geddes's house, reach in through his kitchen window, lift his tray, and escape through the ragged hedges while his cook's broad back was turned. ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... pinched my eyes to and pondered on my wretched plight. 'Twas silent all around; I heard nothing, nothing. That lasted pretty long, till I began to feel that the boards were so hard and that my body, which had been thrashed black and blue, was hurting me. My back ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... abruptly, as she was about to leave the room, "come here. I am strong now, and I want to talk to you. Now tell me all about it. How did I get into this plight? And how came ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... noblemen. They travel far and wide to become acquainted with different fashions and governments. So this prince journeyed in great state from land to land, until his purse was empty. He knew not what to do, for he would not discover his plight to the nobles of the land in which he happened to be; indeed, he did not care to let them know who he was. Now, he chanced to be in Padua, and he resolved to unbosom himself to the rabbi, tell him that he was a great noble of the Polish land, and borrow somewhat to relieve his pressing need. Such ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... long beautiful hair streaming over her magnificent shoulders; the postillion smoking his pipe, in his shirt-sleeves and waistcoat, having flung aside his greatcoat, which had sustained a thorough wetting; and I without my wagoner's slop, of which, it being in the same plight, I ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... rest of my stay in that part of the country, I never failed to urge my cousin to narrate the events which had brought Coote-down to its present melancholy plight. But it was not till I called to take leave of her, perhaps for ever, that she complied. On that occasion, she placed in my hands a neatly-written manuscript in her own handwriting, which she said ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... habit of his youth!—although his shrewd mind had not left him in the usual plight of blank ignorance, which is often the portion of a splendid, young athlete leaving Eton! But now he studied subjects seriously, and the whys and wherefores of things; and he grew rather to enjoy the evenings alone, between the goings and comings of his parties, when, buried in a huge chair before ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... at first envisage his own plight in definite and comprehensible terms. Things happened to him so much of late, his own efforts had counted for so little, that he had become passive and planless. His last scheme had been to go round the coast of England as ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... brave, and even with death staring them in the face kept to their posts, ready to handle their useless guns, for I submerged at once. But I had stayed on top long enough to see the other cruisers, which I learned were the Cressy and the Hogue, turn and steam full speed to their dying sister, whose plight they could not understand, unless it had been due ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... but it was too late to get back into San Antonio, and while a few of the farmers managed to escape, the Mexican cavalry took up a position in the bed of a dry creek. The plight of those outside of the city was seen by those within, and General Cos instantly despatched more cavalry to the relief, and ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... hospital had been suggested to Hilda by the plight of little "Pervyse," and the hundreds of other babies of the war whom she had seen, and the hapless peasant mothers. Military hospitals are for soldiers, not for expectant mothers or orphaned children, ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... the plight of the old man. His best friend could not have recognized him covered as he was with ink. As if ashamed of what he had done, Bowles scrambled to his feet, hurried out of the office and made a break for his own quarters. But ...
— Halsey & Co. - or, The Young Bankers and Speculators • H. K. Shackleford
... for I think he had two—and a very handsome girdle of a sky-colour and green (in French called pers et vert), saying that such a livery did become him well, for that he had always been perverse, and in this plight bringing him before Pantagruel, said unto him, Do you know this roister? No, indeed, said Pantagruel. It is, said Panurge, my lord the king of the three batches, or threadbare sovereign. I intend to make him an honest man. These devilish kings which we have here are but as so many calves; ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... lords," the king said to his knights as he sat in a little room in an inn at Zara, "that my plight is a bad one. I am surrounded by enemies, and, alas! I can no longer mount my steed and ride out as at Jaffa to do battle with them. My brother, John Lackland, is scheming to take my place upon the throne of England. Philip of France, whose mind is far better at such matters than at setting ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... the head office of the big fruit brokers for whom Dan Cullen had worked as a casual labourer for thirty years. Their system was such that the work was almost entirely done by casual hands. The cobbler told them the man's desperate plight, old, broken, dying, without help or money, reminded them that he had worked for them thirty years, and asked them to ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... it seems from the tradition that it was by the beauty of his eyes that Eva O'Neil was conquered, just as the first Eve was by the eyes and tongue of the serpent. Not, God knows, that the great Eve was any great shakes, for she left the world in a nice plight by falling in love with a serpent; but upon my credit she was not the first woman, excuse the blunder, who fell in love with a serpent, and suffered accordingly. I ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... that since the Russian-Japanese War, Russia, weakened as she was, felt her influence in European affairs waning. I knew it was about time for her to make a desperate effort to regain European prestige. I recalled that upon Russia's plight after the Japanese war, Austria immediately annexed Herzegovina and Bosnia. She did this with the tacit understanding and backing up of Germany. I knew that as a result of this, Russia was again at work in ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... the corn-transplants and other vessels which perished there was no numbering made; and so great was the loss that the commanders of the fleet, being struck with fear lest the Thessalians should attack them now that they had been brought into an evil plight, threw round their camp a lofty palisade built of the fragments of wreck. For the storm continued during three days; but at last the Magians, making sacrifice of victims and singing incantations to appease the Wind by enchantments, 198 and in addition to this, offering ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... peace Kypris and Apollo of the silver bow take their pleasure, having set on this mad one that knoweth not any law. Father Zeus, wilt thou at all be wroth with me if I smite Ares and chase him from the battle in sorry plight?" ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... passes, Truth and Conscience, that show the bounded vse and decent forme of things, are tyed vp, and cannot be heard. Still Fructum non invenio, I finde no fruits. I am sorry to passe the fig-tree in this plight: but as I finde it, so I must leave it, till the Lord mend it."—Pp. 39, 40., ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... green as the new foe came. The ravens had picked the eyes out of the dead buck and eaten a hole in its back. They had even begun on the living buck, but he had been able to use one front foot to defend his eyes; still his plight could scarce have been more dreadful. It made the most pitiful spectacle Rolf had ever seen in wild life; yes, in all his life. He was full of compassion for the poor brute. He forgot it as a thing to be hunted for food; thought of it only as a harmless, beautiful ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... outwork though it was of the main Boer army in its descent from the frontier. In a spruit, a branch of the Sand river, which runs through Schultz' farm, the Maxim, outpaced and overdriven, stuck fast, and it was promptly attacked and captured by a party of twenty-five of the enemy who had descried its plight from Talana, its detachment holding out until all were killed or wounded. In this affair nine Boer prisoners were also released. About 1.15 p.m., a party of two hundred Boers was seen descending Impati through the collieries at its northern extremity. The mountain already held the enemy's van; ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... old woman pursued me—yes, the corpse tracked me behind; and she has only just now disappeared, on hearing the sound of your voice. I then hid behind this tree, where you now see me, in a piteous plight." ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... unable to make deliberate choice. That she was ardently loved by each she realized with recurring thrills of pleasure; that she loved in return she felt no doubt—but alas! which? How perfectly delightful it would be could she only fall into some desperate plight, from which the really daring knight might rescue her! That would cut the Gordian knot. While laboring in this state of indecision she must have voiced her ambition in some effective manner to the parties concerned, for late one Wednesday night Moffat ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... of Warwick reached London, he proceeded at once to the Tower to release old King Henry from his confinement. He found the poor king in a wretched plight. His apartment was gloomy and comfortless, his clothing was ragged, and his person squalid and dirty. The earl brought him forth from his prison, and, after causing his personal wants to be properly attended to, clothed him once ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... decayed and impaired in its equipments that a whole day was consumed in the passage of a mail train over the eighty miles traversed. The Seaboard route to Portsmouth, Virginia, was prostrate and out of use. The Wilmington Road, though it was in somewhat better plight, was still served by feeble engines, which drew a few trains slowly along the track, ironed no more heavily than the wheels ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... mouthful of withered grass. When the snow got to be three or four feet deep, and her foster mother, along with a wide-antlered bull, three other cows, and a couple of youngsters had trodden out a 'moose yard' with its maze of winding alleys, her plight grew sore. All along the bottom edges of these alleys she nibbled the dead grass and dry herbage, and she tried to browse, like her companions, on the twigs of poplar and birch. But the insufficient, unnatural food and the sharp cold ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... hewn in pieces than agree. And now, of his own accord, he was going!... Twenty times he was on the point of turning back. He walked two or three times round the town, turning away just as he came near the Palace. He was not alone in his plight. His mother and brothers had also to be considered. Since his father had deserted them and betrayed them, it was his business as eldest son to take his place and come to their assistance. There was no room for hesitation ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... example, he would hide himself amongst the meal and hang downwards by the feet as though he were dead. His master, therefore, though he did not build too much on what the cat had said, felt some hope of being assisted in his miserable plight. ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... his flesh. He was rescued and the ship sailed for Jamestown with all possible haste. His wounds were dressed, but he was in a dangerous condition and there was no skilled surgeon to care for him, so his plight was pitiable. An Indian carried the sad news to Pocahontas, who at once deserted her comrades for solitary brooding in the forest. Then she took the long wood trail to Jamestown. Hours later one of the settlers found her standing outside the stockade, peering through the cracks ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... he was able to get a better grip on himself and realize fully his terrible plight, he began to think how, after all, the scout, with all his resource and fine courage, his tracking and his trailing and his good turns, is pretty helpless in a real dilemma. Here was an adventure, and rather too much of a one, and ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... make pride into a balm for broken hearts!" I said to myself in scorn of this flowery eloquence. For a few minutes I forgot my own plight to pity these people whom I had never seen. The Paris Daily Messenger slid off my lap on to the floor, and dropped with the back page up. When I had glanced toward the bed, and seen that Brian still slept, my eyes fell on the paper again. The top part of the last page is always devoted ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... than once careened so as to ship alarming seas. The air, filled with sleet and icy snow, cut like a knife through the thickest clothing, and again Edward Tilley, swooning with exhaustion and cold, lay lifeless in the bottom of the boat, sadly watched by his brother in hardly better plight and by Carver, who, like the father of a family, carried all his children in ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... the mouth of the pass Suzanne, laden with the child, was pushed down by those who followed, and doubtless would have been trampled to death, had not one of Swart Piet's men, desiring to clear the way, or, perhaps, moved to pity at her plight, dragged her to her feet again. But when he had done this he did not let her go, but held her, staring at her beauty with ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... fever, partly also because the wind was extremely strong that day and caused waves of some size in the stream, which dashed against the canoe and splashed us all over. Again my men were seasick that day, and got furious with me as I could not help laughing at their plight. ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... the daughter of right-dealing Zeus, Justice, the queen of suppliants, look down, That this our plight no ill may loose Upon your town! This word, even from the young, let age and wisdom learn: If thou to suppliants show grace, Thou shalt not lack Heaven's grace in turn, So long as virtue's gifts on heavenly ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... in a worse plight than ever. There was no commissario to be had at that hour. I was in total darkness; not a door was open; nor was there an individual in the street; and, recollecting the reputation Rome had of late acquired for midnight assassinations, I began to grow a little apprehensive. After wandering ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... endeavour, my dear," said he, "to dress myself according to my station. Yesterday, not expecting to see you, I was in a sad plight. I would have preferred you to meet me in my naval uniform, but as that is now, to say the least, inconvenient, and as I reside on shore in the capacity of a merchant or business man, I attire myself to suit my present condition. Ah! my good brother-in-law, ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... caught sight, in the distance, of a horseman galloping along the road at full speed. His turban was off, and his sword broken. Others followed, in even worse plight; and as they came nearer I saw that blood was streaming from the heads or ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... holding her eyelids open with her fingers, for she knew that the 'good people,' if they do show themselves, are only visible between one winking of the eyes and another. But this vision did not pass away, and surely never were fairy knights in such a sorry plight as was this travel-stained, dishevelled company that drew rein at the door ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... a fine plight when you've broken one of my arms or legs," she would say to him. "Who'll keep you then, ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... afternoon, sending word to Merry, who came promptly to the aid of the afflicted. The next day Dick left his aunt at the cottage with Kate, and warning them that he should be gone all day, and perhaps not see them until the next morning, he set off for Rosedale, where he told Jack Kate's plight. Vincent heard the story, too, and when it was ended he ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... and all that night, however, the party pulled steadily along the shore without finding an opening in the cliffs or any part which could be scaled by man. During this period their plight was miserable in the extreme, for the weather at the time was bitterly cold; they were drenched through and through with spray, which broke so frequently over the side as to necessitate constant baling, and, to make matters worse, towards evening of the second day snow began to fall ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... handling a ship he was the smartest officer of the deck he had ever known. But in early middle life disease overtook him, and, though flat on his back, he had been borne on the active list because there was nothing else to do with him. In that plight he was even promoted. There was another who, as a midshipman, had lost a foot in the War of 1812, but had been carried on from grade to grade for forty years, until at the time I speak of he was a captain, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... of the same seed of which churls spring, of the same seed spring lords; as well may the churl be saved as the lord. Wherefore I counsel thee, do just so with thy churl as though wouldest thy lord did with thee, if thou wert in his plight. A very sinful man is a churl as towards sin. I counsel thee certainly, thou lord, that, thou work in such wise with thy churls that they rather love thee than dread thee. I know well, where there is degree above degree, it is reasonable that men should do their duty ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... maid replied, As her light skiff approached the side, "I well believe, that ne'er before 455 Your foot has trod Loch Katrine's shore; But yet, as far as yesternight, Old Allan-bane foretold your plight, A gray-haired sire, whose eye intent Was on the visioned future bent. 460 He saw your steed, a dappled gray, Lie dead beneath the birchen way; Painted exact your form and mien, Your hunting suit of Lincoln green, That tasselled horn so gaily gilt, 465 That falchion's crooked blade and hilt, ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... was the prince in a pretty plight. Not a pound in his pocket, not a pair of boots to wear, not even a cap to cover his head from the rain; nothing but cold meat to eat, and never a servant ...
— Prince Prigio - From "His Own Fairy Book" • Andrew Lang
... Hera and Zeus, do honour. Yea, and thus Is Aphrodite to dishonour cast, The queen of rapture unto mortal men. Know, that above the marriage-bed ordained For man and woman standeth Right as guard, Enhancing sanctity of troth-plight sworn; Therefore, if thou art placable to those Who have their consort slain, nor will'st to turn On them the eye of wrath, unjust art thou In hounding to his doom the man who slew His mother. Lo, I know thee full of wrath Against one deed, but all ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... insistence that she accept Captain Yeovil's suit, it had been a great match for her, for the d'Aumeniers were impoverished exiles, while the Yeovils were a rich family and of a line almost as long as her own. It had been easy enough to plight her troth to the young Englishman at first, but since she had seen Marteau, she realized that it would not be easy to keep that engagement. Fortunately, Captain Yeovil had been on service in Spain and the South of France with the Duke of Wellington's army, and only a few weeks ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... there, as ever, in sad plight. Men, in their evil days, move my compassion; Such sorry things ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the truth, he was sadly in need of money. It was fortunate that his old friend, Mr. Harrison, Margie's dead father, had taken it into his head to plight his daughter's troth to him while she was yet a child. Mr. Harrison had been an eccentric man; and from the fact that in many points of religious belief he and Mr. Paul Linmere agreed, (for both were miserable skeptics,) he valued ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... Let the dead thing live as a lifelong sign Of perfect plight in love and union. This Were no dishonour done to fatherhood But honour shown to wedlock. Here is spread The feast, the bride-feast of my love and thine, Whereat the cup of death shall serve our lips To drink forgetfulness of all but love. Herein ...
— Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... but he found, June 6th, that provisions were being smuggled in to them, and so he attacked the building, beginning by opening fire with his mountain guns. Meantime, General Augusti, hearing of his soldiers' plight, sent four thousand ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... both his life and his fortune. And yet this risk can be diminished by forethought, for, when health depends upon climate, we can do much to control nature and by diligence improve evil conditions. If the farm is unhealthy by reason of the plight of the land itself, or of the water supply, or is exposed to the miasma which breeds in some localities, or if the farm is too hot on account of the climate, or is exposed to mischievous winds, these discomforts can be mitigated ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... understand the plight of the Russian army one must have some idea of the character of the Masurian Lake district. It was probably molded by the work of ice in the past. Great glaciers, in their progress toward the sea, have ground out hundreds of hollows, ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... twentieth century. In the war that has just ended, however—or that would have ended if the Peace Conference would let it—we have seen an imaginative revolt against war, not on the part of mere men of letters, but on the part of soldiers. Ballads have survived from other wars, depicting the plight of the mutilated ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... truth in the charge brought by his rival, Alan Heathcote? There was no mistaking the fact that something external had caused the magnate's startling indisposition, and Grant, even though he was badly scared at his father's plight, drew his own conclusions in regard to the matter. Meanwhile he stood helplessly calling until he collected presence of mind enough to go around to the other side of the table and raise his father's inanimate form to a ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... and under the Redgauntlets, since the riding days, and lang before. It was a pleasant bit; and I think the air is callerer and fresher there than onywhere else in the country. It's a' deserted now; and I sat on the broken door-cheek three days since, and was glad I couldna see the plight the place was in; but that's a' wide o' the mark. There dwelt my gudesire, Steenie Steenson, a rambling, rattling chiel' he had been in his young days, and could play weel on the pipes; he was famous at 'Hoopers and Girders'—a' Cumberland couldna, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... a pitiful plight. No sane man would venture down such a chasm, impenetrable with thorns, and night descending. So we built a beacon fire and waited for dawn. All during the long dark hours we heard the distant appeal of the hounds, and ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... should be like money tried before being required, not found faulty in our need. For we ought not to have our wits about us only when the mischief is done, but we ought to try and prevent the flatterer doing any harm to us: for otherwise we shall be in the same plight as people who test deadly poisons by first tasting them, and kill or nearly kill themselves in the experiment. We do not praise such, nor again all those who, looking at their friend simply from the point of view of decorum and utility, think ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... cathedral or counting the restored statues on the river bridge. I always feel a longing to speak to these late birds of passage for they look so forlorn without their mates, that they make me think of my own sad plight so far away from you all; when the lectures begin I hope that I will be more satisfied than ...
— A Napa Christchild; and Benicia's Letters • Charles A. Gunnison
... while the sod was forming, to say nothing of the large expenditure necessary for the purchase of the sheep. The land when so treated, however, enabled the investor to pay higher rents than the open-field husbandmen who "rubbed forth their estate in the poorest plight."[128] ...
— The Enclosures in England - An Economic Reconstruction • Harriett Bradley
... post by the rose gate, felt a queer little chill creep over her. It was so solemn, so very much more solemn than she had imagined it would be. She wondered how she would feel if the time ever came for her to stand in Eugenia's place, and plight her faith to some man in that way—"for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... saw his church reduced to ruins and most of his parish destroyed by fire by the invading Huns, and never budged from his post—had himself recently drawn up for such occasions. What the usual form of such documents is I cannot say, but in view of the serious plight of France and the renaissance of patriotic fervour in the brave and unconquerable French nation, the cure had infused into this one an element of ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... the murder. Afterwards he attempts to speak positively, from recollecting that he mentioned the circumstance to William Peirce, as he went to the Mineral Spring on Fast-day. Last Monday morning he told Colonel Putnam he could not fix the time. This witness stands in a much worse plight than either of the others. It is difficult to reconcile all he has said with any belief in the accuracy ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... furniture. In a few minutes my arrival created a prodigious commotion. The whole population turned out to stare at me. The children ran into the bushes to hide. But feminine curiosity conquered feminine timidity. Although I was in the plight of the forlorn Odysseus after his desperate swim, I had no 'blooming foliage' to wind [Greek text which cannot be reproduced]. Unlike the Phaeacian maidens, however, the tawny nymphs were all as brave as Princess Nausicaa herself. ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... are really," wrote Nelson to Hood, "without firing, wine, beef, pork, flour, and almost without water: not a rope, canvas, twine, or nail in the ship. The ship is so light she cannot hold her side to the wind.... We are certainly in a bad plight at present, not a man has slept dry for many months. Yet," he continues, with that indomitable energy which made light of mere difficulties of material, and conveys so impressive a lesson to our modern days, when slight physical defects appear insurmountable, and ships not wholly ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan |
