"Wretch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... give their life for Christ. Ah me, God, sweet Love! Raise swiftly, "Babbo," the gonfalon of the most holy Cross, and you will see the wolves become lambs. Peace, peace, peace, that war may not delay this happy time! But if you will wreak vengeance and justice, take them upon me, poor wretch, and give me any pain and torment that may please you, even to death. I believe that through the stench of my iniquities many evils have happened, and many misfortunes and discords. On me, then, your poor daughter, take any vengeance that you will. Ah me, father, I die of grief and ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... bill was passed, did not relish the levying of a heavy tax on the whiskey that was to fill them. The exciseman was to their view precisely what Dr. Johnson had defined him in his dictionary: "an odious wretch, employed to collect an unjust tax." Revolutionary proceedings had been inaugurated by resistance to a tax on tea. But tea at that day was looked upon as a luxury in which only a few could indulge, while whiskey was regarded as a necessity, of universal consumption. Resistance went ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... heart of the writhing wretch knew its own bitterness, only those tear-blinded eyes saw the pitiful panorama of a penurious Jew's struggle for Culture. For, nursed in a narrow creed, he had dreamt the dream of Knowledge. To know—to know—was the passion that consumed ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... thereabouts with a harsh, unpleasant countenance ordered a stone for the grave of his bitter enemy, with whom he had waged warfare half a lifetime, to their mutual misery and ruin. The secret of this phenomenon was that hatred had become the sustenance and enjoyment of the poor wretch's soul; it had supplied the place of all kindly affections; it had been really a bond of sympathy between himself and the man who shared the passion; and when its object died, the unappeasable foe was the only mourner for the dead. He expressed a purpose of being ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... his mother had described it accurately to him. An olive-tree stood inside the wall near the entrance. Benedetto took between his teeth the knife Anselmo had given him, and swung himself over the wall and thence on to the window-sill. The wretch hesitated a moment before he broke the pane. Suppose his mother uttered ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... twitched and twisted itself into a sort of grin, and he sat grinding his teeth and staring at the man in the black robe. He was silent for a little. And then he found his voice, and the oaths rolled terrible, thundering from him, as he cursed that murderous wretch, and bade him go down and burn for ever in hell. And the tears were raining down his face, and ...
— The Angels of Mons • Arthur Machen
... the reveille. I may mention the fact that Prof. Francis Nicholas Crouch, the composer of the famous and beautiful song, "Kathleen Mavourneen," was the bugler of our Battery, and he was the heartless wretch who used to persecute us that way. To be waked up and hauled out about day dawn on a cold, wet, dismal morning, and to have to hustle out and stand shivering at roll call, was about the most exasperating item of the soldier's life. The ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... like—giving in exchange tea, sugar, flour, household utensils, etc. No transaction takes place without the drinking of brandy, for which the Samoyede has an insatiable craving. When the trader has succeeded in making a poor wretch quite tipsy, he fleeces him, and buys all he wants at some ridiculous price—the result of the transaction generally being that the Samoyede is in debt to his 'benefactor.' All the traders that come to the colony bring brandy, and one great drinking-bout ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... by time but Grief.[79] Untimely hoary hairs cover my head, And my loose skin quakes on my flesh half dead. O happy death, that spareth sweetest years, And comes in sorrow often called with tears. Alas, how deaf is he to wretch's cries; And loath he is to close up weeping eyes; While trustless chance me with vain favours crowned, That saddest hour my life had almost drowned: Now she hath clouded her deceitful face, My spiteful days prolong their weary race. My friends, why ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... central figure being Sir Edmund Andros, elderly, but erect and soldier-like. Those around him were his favorite councilors, and the bitterest foes of New England. At his right rode Edward Randolph, our arch-enemy, that 'blasted wretch,' as Mather calls him, who achieved the downfall of our ancient government, and was followed with a sensible curse, through life and to his grave. On the other side was Bullivant, scattering jests and mockery as he rode along. Dudley came behind, with a downcast look, dreading, ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... such a man," the poet said, "in an old time which I almost forget. To-day he is quite dead. There is only a poor wretch who has been faithless in all things, who has not even ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... manner in which these domestic affairs were transacted than I am now; and I knew instances of the greatest hardship arising from the fact that the law permitted such things to be done. I have known a drunken, miserable wretch of a husband take possession of a large property of a virtuous, excellent woman, who had a family of small children depending upon her, and turn her out to support her family by sewing and by manual labor; ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... to the tenets of ton, a Goth; a monster; a vulgar wretch. One who eats twice of soup, swills beer, takes wine, knows nothing about ennui, dyspepsia, or peristaltic persuaders, and does not play ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various
... I'm a wretch indeed. Methinks, I see him already in the cart, sweeter and more lovely than the nosegay in his hand! I hear the crowd extolling his resolution and intrepidity! What volleys of sighs are sent down from the windows ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... be awfully disappointed, should you consider me a perfect wretch, if I went home now instead of ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... Cruel Wretch forsakes me and detests me, Ought I, (ye Heav'ns) to suffer this? Follow, Ingrate, the Fire that burns you, Follow the Love, Ingrate, that now consumes you. You flatter still your self in vain, My Arts can never fail ...
— Amadigi di Gaula - Amadis of Gaul • Nicola Francesco Haym
... there, and I have passed happily among the streams, living on venison, salmon, and trout without thought of a Mingo or a scalp! I sometimes wish that them blessed days might come back, for it is not my real gift to slay my own kind. I'm sartain the Sergeant's daughter don't think me a wretch that takes pleasure in preying ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... well with Lemm: his vociferous speeches, his harsh manners, frightened the German, who was not used to such things.... An unfortunate wretch always scents another unfortunate wretch from afar, but rarely makes up to him in old age,—and this is not in the least to be wondered at: he has nothing to share with him,—not ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... stated openly: 'Wait until the others have gone, and if the Government leave them in my hands, I'll make them ready to sign anything.' Sufficient has been said concerning this individual to warrant the description publicly given of him by Colonel Rhodes{38}—'A brutal and inhuman wretch!' Like most bullies the man is also a coward. When he witnessed the outburst of feeling among the prisoners in consequence of the death of their comrade, he would not venture into the precincts of the gaol for two days, ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... us all through the mire? Surely, my son, whatever you feel about your mother and sister, you can't wish your poor father to suffer anything more on that wretch's account?" ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... for precipitating a rupture with Venice; and their success was so far assured that Bonaparte at Leoben secretly bargained away nearly the whole of the Venetian lands. Furthermore, a fortnight before the signing of these preliminaries, he had suborned a vile wretch, Salvatori by name, to issue a proclamation purporting to come from the Venetian authorities, which urged the people everywhere to rise and massacre the French. It was issued on April 5th, though it bore the date of March 20th. At once the Doge warned his people ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... see me rolling over on the ground laughing at it? Why, Zoega, I never saw any thing so absurd as that in my life; any decent Geyser would have given at least an hour's notice. This miserable little wretch went off half cocked. I was just laughing to think how sick we made ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... time, let those, whose writings form the opinions and the practices of their contemporaries, endeavour to transfer the reproach of such imprisonment from the debtor to the creditor, till universal infamy shall pursue the wretch whose wantonness of power, or revenge of disappointment, condemns another to torture and to ruin; till he shall be hunted through the world as an enemy to man, and find in riches no shelter ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... thou—thou lean and haggard wretch! Thou living satire on the name of man! Thou that hast made a god of sordid gold, And to thine idol offered up thy soul? Oh, how I pity thee thy wasted years: Age without comfort—youth that had no prime. To thy dull gaze the earth was never green; ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... than love, we are ready to accuse him of usurping a right which is not his, of seeking happiness for himself alone, and our selfishness suffers an additional pang in the thought that this man has no need of us. But who does not pity the wretch when he beholds his sufferings? who would not deliver him from his woes if a wish could do it? Imagination puts us more readily in the place of the miserable man than of the happy man; we feel that the one condition touches us more nearly than the other. Pity is sweet, because, ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... degenerates, but I remember one tall, delicate-looking man who seemed unable to apply either his strength or his attention to his work. He was denounced by the foreman under whom he worked as not only useless, but "the starvenest wretch as ever I see," intended to convey the impression, and confirming my own conclusion, that cold and hunger were really the cause of his inability to render a ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... The three tarpaulins being at the bottom of the tree made their escape without much difficulty; but Jack, who, to support the dignity of his new command, had ascended almost to the top, was unfortunately taken prisoner. The consequence was, that his father (who had to deal with a wretch who was as crusty by nature as he was by name) after being obliged to pay ten times the value of the fruit, conducted his son to Mr. Sharp, the gentleman who had the trouble of his education, from whom he received a severe flogging in the presence of all his school fellows, ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... strangers. He pulled a man down once, a tramp who was lurking about the place. Leo had got loose somehow, and he was at his throat in a moment. The poor fellow has the scar now; but I made it up to him, poor wretch." ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... have seen his face! Theo, if you'll give me your word never to tell it to any one, I cried like a baby; for Price looked for all the world like Stephen looked when they were stoning him. But you'll never tell I said so? I was a cowardly wretch to insult him as I did; and to think how he has paid me back—"coals of ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... feeble and decrepit, and would show no fight even if attacked by a small boy with a kris. Raja Haji told me that he botched the killing a good deal, but that he hacked the life out of the Chinaman at last, though the poor wretch, like Charles II., took an unconscionable time adying. Death to this Chinaman must have only been one degree less unpleasant than it was ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... Fair. He called us English all pigs. We suffered it because he was a master in his craft. If he misliked any work that a man had done, with his own great hands he'd rive it out, and tear it down before us all. "Ah, you pig—you English pig!" he'd scream in the dumb wretch's face. "You answer me? You look at me? You think at me? Come out with me into the cloisters. I will teach you carving myself. I will gild you all over!" But when his passion had blown out, he'd slip his arm round the man's neck, and impart knowledge worth ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... soul, like the bee, extracts sweetness even from bitter herbs. The most unhappy wretch still tries to squeeze out a little happiness from his woes, and the merest shadow and pretext will serve his turn. Sometimes I think that this intense longing for happiness is one proof more that happiness ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... when I came home on sick leave, that my mother tried her hardest to induce me to leave the service; but though I would do almost anything in the world to please her, I could not bring myself to do that; a man without a profession is such a lost wretch. It is rather hard upon her, poor soul; for my elder brother died not very long ago, and she has only my vagabond self left. 'He was the only son of his mother, ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... once taken by the wind and sent flying over the sandy plain, faster than human foot can run, far out to the island, and often over it to the sea beyond. The frolicsome dog, which generally accompanies the postmaster's cart, is the only hope on which the hatless wretch can then rely; and usually this ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... former wrongs Were but beginnings to my miseries, But this the height of all: rather than part With my Ascanio, I'le deny my oath, Profess my self a Strumpet, and endure What punishment soe're the Court decrees Against a wretch that hath forsworn her self, Or plai'd the ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... limits of a neighboring town, a wretch Fell by the wayside, struck by sudden Death That vice propels. A Man of God, who sought Like his blest Master every form of woe Found him, and to a shelter and a couch Convey'd. Then bending down, with earnest words For time grew short, he urg'd him to repent. "Say, Lord have mercy on ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... the reader will think, than the matter deserved. One shudders to imagine what would be his anguish at the simple disappointment of his purpose; but that it is possible might render him less sensible to the weight of his bonds. That a solitary hopeless wretch, who had not a friend or relative in any other region of the globe, should form an attachment to these affectionate islanders, and attempt to settle in the midst of their proffered enjoyments, was so imperatively natural, that one cannot help feeling indignation at the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... distinct portion of the essence of God, and contain a certain part of Him in yourself. Why do not you consider whence you came? You carry a god about with you, wretch, and know nothing of it. Do you suppose I mean some god without you, of gold or silver? It is within yourself you carry Him, and profane Him, without being sensible of it, by impure thoughts and unclean actions. If even the ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... confidentially to Mr. Cottrell in the drawing-room, "the Fates are against me. I have done all that woman could, but I cannot contend with destiny. It is sad; but whatever with due forethought I propose, destiny, embodied in the shape of that wretch Jim, persistently thwarts. There is no such thing as instilling the slightest tact ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... some most unscrupulous "stocking" of the cards without detection. But even one of these, after having dealt himself both bowers and the king, besides two aces, suddenly imagined he had discovered Grump's motive, and so earnest was he in exposing that nefarious wretch, that one of his opponents changed hands with him. Even the barkeeper mixed the bottles badly, and on one occasion, just as the boys were raising their glasses, he metaphorically dashed the cup from their lips by a violent, "I tell you what" ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... pinnacle at Rome, And of a like proportion all his bones. He open'd, as we went, his dreadful mouth, Fit for no sweeter psalmody; and shouted After us, in the words of some strange tongue, Rafel ma-ee amech zabee almee!— 'Dull wretch!' my leader cried, 'keep to thine horn, And so vent better whatsoever rage Or other passion stuff thee. Feel thy throat And find the chain upon thee, thou confusion! Lo! what a hoop is clench'd about thy gorge.' Then turning to myself, he said, 'His howl Is its own mockery. This is Nimrod, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... The spear went through the shield and passed on through his richly wrought cuirass, tearing the flesh from his side, but Pallas Minerva did not suffer it to pierce the entrails of the hero. Ulysses knew that his hour was not yet come, but he gave ground and said to Socus, "Wretch, you shall now surely die. You have stayed me from fighting further with the Trojans, but you shall now fall by my spear, yielding glory to myself, and your soul to Hades of the ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... in uncertainty. It was only on the 3rd of January, 1860, that orders were sent from Rome to Perugia, for the execution to take place there instead of at Cannara, on the 13th. On that day the verdict of the court is conveyed to the unhappy wretch. On the 14th, so the last paragraph informs us, "The condemned" Luigi Bonci "was beheaded by the public executioner, in the market-place of Perugia, and his head was there exposed for an hour to the gaze ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... breast the cedar boughs are laid, On his bare breast, dry sedge and odorous gums, Laid ready to receive the sacred spark, And blaze, to herald the ascending sun, Upon his living altar. Round the wretch The inhuman ministers of rites accurst Stand, and expect the signal when to strike The seed of fire. Their Chief, apart from all, ... eastward turns his eyes; For now the hour draws nigh, and speedily He look's ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... [The Dark Lady tries to kiss her hand]. No more. Go. [The Dark Lady goes, convulsed]. You have been cruel to that poor fond wretch, Master Shakespear. ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... the neighbours to his mother's assistance. Two or three hastened to the call; and as soon as Philip saw them occupied in restoring his mother, he ran as fast as he could to the house of a medical man, who lived about a mile off—one Mynheer Poots, a little, miserable, avaricious wretch, but known to be very skilful in his profession. Philip found Poots at home, and insisted upon his ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... societies, because you know yourself that you people who have no petty vices are never known to give away a cent, and that you stint yourselves so in the matter of food that you are always feeble and hungry. And you never dare to laugh in the daytime for fear some poor wretch, seeing you in a good-humor, will try to borrow a dollar of you; and in church you are always down on your knees, with your eyes buried in the cushion, when the contribution-box comes around; and you never give the revenue-officers a true ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... to him than a thousand careers!" Saidee flung herself away from the girl's arm. "I see now," she went on angrily, "what you were leading up to, when you pretended to sympathize. You were waiting for a chance to try and persuade me that I'm a selfish wretch. I may be selfish, but—it's as much for his happiness as mine. It's just as I thought it would be. You're puritanical. You'd rather see me die, or go mad in this prison, than have me do a thing that's unconventional, according to ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... his eyes, He views the wretch, and sternly thus replies: "Peace, factious monster, born to vex the state With wrangling talents formed for foul debate, Curb that impetuous tongue, nor, rashly vain, And singly mad, ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... being able to hinder the dismissal, though not touched himself, should at once withdraw and never return to his post, until the first was reinstated in his. And after these explanations, new cries broke out against the perfidy of this miserable wretch—(for the most odious terms ran glibly from the end of his tongue)—who thought like a fool to cover his perfidy with a veil of gauze, in slipping off to Basville, so as to be instantly sought and brought back, in fear lest he should lose his place by the slightest resistance or the slightest ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... of them, more hard of heart, Did vow to do his charge, Because the wretch that hired him Had paid ...
— My First Picture Book - With Thirty-six Pages of Pictures Printed in Colours by Kronheim • Joseph Martin Kronheim
... Maulear had reached the other door, and was about to escape. He, however, heard steps hurrying from every direction down the corridor. The cries of Scorpione had awakened all the house, and just as the wretch tore open the window and precipitated himself into the chamber, relations, friends and guests of the house, who had collected on the terrace and corridor, rushed in with him. Signora Rovero was ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... I was seized with my disorder, I protested against both these assassins;—but what can a helpless, feverish, toast-and-watered poor wretch do? In spite of my teeth and tongue, the English consul, my Tartar, Albanians, dragoman, forced a physician upon me, and in three days vomited and glystered me to the last gasp. In this state I made my ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... these minxes like Kensington Gardens," she cried. "Look at the woman: she leaves the baby on the grass, for the giant to trample upon; and that little wretch of a Hastings Bragg is riding on the ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... infant the better, too frequently we see them confined to hot stuffy rooms when they should be out in the sunshine, or under the trees. Instead of being allowed to gain health and strength in the forests, which are the schoolhouses of nature, the miserable little wretch is later sent to a public school as soon as he or she can be trusted to go alone on the streets, and the tiny victim too frequently contracts diphtheria, scarlet fever, whooping-cough, measles, or some other disease as a reward of merit. ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... invitation, made the best of it when accepted. The people united in sincere effort to show a whole-souled hospitality to all strangers deserving of it. Gentlemen in the government were received with frank and free-handed kindness; and even a wretch, who had wintered in the shade of the Washington upas, was allowed to flutter about and not be gunned for by the double-barreled ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... answered; called again and a ship boy sleeping near, uncurled himself, stretched, and came to hand. "It's all safe, and the Admiral sleeping and the master sleeping and the watch also!" said the boy. Pedro Acevedo it was, a well-enough meaning young wretch. ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... home again, I shall not disobey my father. To think that the wretch told Mr. Whippleton all about ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... come to that; unhappy, miserable Alice! how could you bestow the affections of a warm, true heart on a despicable wretch like Theophilus Moncton. The old fiend's ambition and this fatal ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... cowardly intruders, who, safe behind the leafy cover that was meant to shield modesty, threw jeers and mockery in return. But the Gentile boys ran away soon, or ran away punished. A chemise and a petticoat turn a frightened woman into an Amazon in such circumstances; and woe to the impudent wretch who lingered after the avengers plunged into the thicket. Slaps and cuffs at close range were his portion, and curses pursued him ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... could but stare. "The wretch!" However, she made, without alarm, no more of it; she returned to her previous question. "You've ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... at him with a face so blanched with grief only a hard-hearted wretch like Judson could have ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... wretch not only tried to conceal his greedy desire to save his own pockets by securing the allowance of pin-money left to his wife, but absolutely persisted in ignoring the plain fact that his visit to me sprang from the serious pecuniary interest which he and Annabella now had in the life and ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... lips, and every part, How nature strove in them to show her art, In shine, in shape, in colour and compare! But now hath death, the enemy of love, Stain'd and deform'd the shine, the shape, the red, With pale and dimness, and my love is dead. Ah, dead, my love! vile wretch, why am I living? So willeth fate, and I must be contented: All pomp in time must fade, and grow to nothing. Wept I like Niobe, yet it profits nothing. Then cease, my sighs, since I may not regain her; And woe to wretched death that ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... recklessness lasted with him "about a month or more," till "one day as he was standing at a neighbour's shop-window, cursing and swearing and playing the madman after his wonted manner, the woman of the house, though a very loose and ungodly wretch," rebuked him so severely as "the ungodliest fellow for swearing that ever she heard, able to spoil all the youth in a whole town," that, self-convicted, he hung down his head in silent shame, wishing himself a little child again that he might ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... good resolutions and strengthened him to continue in his new life. The trial ended in his conviction and sentence to the State prison for the term of nine years, as I have before said. In the prison he became acquainted with the poor wretch referred to in the beginning of my talk, Jack Hunt, the writer of the letter which I am going to read. You will see that the acquaintanceship bore fruit for Hunt. When Hunt's time was out, he wandered to St. Louis; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... his trail. An' so with vengeance eatin' at his crim'nal heart he p'ints that bronco's muzzle straight as a bird flies for Wolfville. Whoever do you-all reckon now he wants? Cherokee Hall? Son, you've followed off the wrong waggon track. Silver Phil—imagine the turpitoode of sech a ornery wretch!—is out for the lovely skelp of Faro Nell who detects him in his ha'r-copper frauds ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... the rich did not always scorn to hire windows overlooking the scene. The condemned man was first stretched upon a cross and struck by the executioner eleven times with an iron bar, every stroke breaking a bone. The poor wretch was then laid on his back on a cart wheel, his broken bones protruding through his flesh, his head hanging, his brow dripping bloody sweat, and left to die. A priest muttered religious consolation by his side. By such sights as these was the ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... seized with remorse, sends to him, to all the others who worked on the Tunisian loan, the accustomed December bonus. It is brought by a tall footman: "From Monsieur le Baron." The Imaginaire says this aloud. The pretty faces turn to look at him; they laugh and move about, and the poor wretch wakes with a start. ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... the King; "it is now high time that we should catch this wretch, even if it costs me my only daughter. He has not even respect for the court tailor; so what will such conduct lead to? And besides, he is eating up all my subjects, which I can not allow; for if I have no subjects, I can no longer be ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... "You miserable wretch! How comes it that you dare to deck yourself out in this way in your master's armor? You have murdered and robbed him, I suppose. Come here and pull ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Urraca heard this she was sorely grieved, and in her great sorrow she lamented aloud, saying, Wretch that I am, many are the evil messages which I have heard since my father's death! He hath disherited my brother King Don Garcia of his kingdom, and taken him, and now holds him in irons as if he were ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... what he said, Agnes quietly put on her hat and shawl took her umbrella in her hand, and stepping directly up to the brutal wretch said, in a determined tone ...
— Angel Agnes - The Heroine of the Yellow Fever Plague in Shreveport • Wesley Bradshaw
... in France, tries to enter burglariously the dwelling-house of his hated rival. Label—"The misguided wretch paused for a moment while he examined one of the mile-stones." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various
... bear to look on the wretch," said Harman, "but as I Strongly suspect, that she may in some shape be useful to us, I desired her to come here. She called three times upon me, but I could not bring myself to see or speak to' her; she shall be the bearer of no messages to me," he said bitterly, "let her ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... to a sitting posture, crying "you wretch, you beast, you blackguard," but still I kept my fingers on the cunt; she closed her legs, so as to shut my hand between her thighs, and keep it motionless, and tried to push me off; but I clung round her. "Take your hand away," said she, "or I will ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... a moment, poor fond wretch, at finding herself where she would gladly have stayed for ever: but quickly ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... They are emphatically "in prison," restrained by chains, goaded with whips, tasked, and under keepers. Not a wretch groans in any cell of the prisons of our country, who is exposed to a confinement so vigorous and heartbreaking as the law allows theirs to be continually ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... my life!" she announced. "I thought a bogy or a kelpie was devouring me, but it was only Dandy, the old pony. He stuck his head round the tent door, and mistook my hair for a mouthful of grass, the wretch!" ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... him in the common direction. If the word was lost on Richling's defective hearing, not so the touch; for the speaker was Ristofalo. The two friends ran with all their speed through the passage and out into the alley. A few rods away the chased wretch had been overtaken, and was made to face his pursuers. When Richling and Ristofalo reached him there was already ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... our hopes maturely rise, Push'd on to war the coward dauntless dies, And sinking minds beneath unwieldy care, Cast off the load, and move with sprightful air. To her, all arts their origin must owe: What wretch so dull but eloquent must grow, When the full goblets with persuasive wine, Inebriate with bright elegance divine, The drunken beggars plume like proudest kings, And the poor tipsy slave ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... transformed himself to suit the character that he represented. He was congratulated on bringing to life for our age Achilles and Agamemnon, as Homer painted their types. Yet, I think he was sometimes told: "You paint that wretch of a Don Juan a little too faithfully." Certainly, art would never make ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... my miserable little darling, don't I know that! But, see here, Violet, I'm not a villain if I am an unfortunate wretch. I never thought of any wrong or harm; you are too dear to me, you are like some sweet little baby that a man wants to take in his arms and kiss and comfort and hold forever. That is how you ought to be loved. But I know a good deal better ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... 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 he were asking an alms, but he hobbled so slowly on his thick legs, foully bandaged with rags, that Ralph soon distanced him, and he heard the wretch stop and fall ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... creatures, perhaps more weary than the rest, were sleeping; when one of their number rolled into the fire no one attempted to help him out. These stern logicians argued that if he were not dead his burns would warn him to find a safer place. If the poor wretch waked in the flames and perished, no one cared. Two or three soldiers looked at each other to justify their own indifference by that of others. Twice this scene had taken place before the eyes ...
— Adieu • Honore de Balzac
... Then at his will let him it subiect make: Then what he will let Caesar doo with me: Make me limme after limme be rent: make me My buriall take in sides of Thracian wolfe. Poore Antonie! alas what was the day, The daies of losse that gained thee thy loue! Wretch Antony! since then Maegaera pale With Snakie haires enchain'd thy miserie. The fire thee burnt was neuer Cupids fire (For Cupid beares not such a mortall brand) It was some furies torch, Orestes torche, which sometimes burnt his mother-murdering soule (When wandring madde, rage boiling in ...
— A Discourse of Life and Death, by Mornay; and Antonius by Garnier • Philippe de Mornay
... the wretch, following his natural instinct, may become disorderly; but I refuse to accept him as a sample of humanity. 'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die' is by no means the ethical consequence of a rejection of dogma. To many ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... withhold from the court) was considered so unbroken and so thoroughly conclusive, that the jury, without leaving their seats, returned an immediate verdict of "Guilty of murder in the first degree." Soon afterward the unhappy wretch received sentence of death, and was remanded to the county jail to await the inexorable vengeance ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... he lieth in the churchyard, and t' other hath her hair and my very eyes: and the truth is, I can't bear any man on earth to miscall her, but myself. God help me; I doubt I love her still too well to sit by and see her tortured. She was all in black for her fault, poor penitent wretch. Give me the letters; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... "Oh! this dastardly wretch is profiting by his knowledge of secrets which a long intimacy has enabled him to discover. Do not believe him, I entreat ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... openings containing groups of the tholukh; but the general aspect of the pass was horrible and desolate, and we eagerly pushed on towards the end. There was nothing, apparently, to support life; but we found and caught a young fox: how the little wretch procured food was a mystery which our guides could not explain. However, life no doubt had its joys for him, and we let him loose in the plain below. I also picked up a dead bird, of a species common in the desert, with white head or cap, and white tail, except ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... above his head; the organ-grinder thought it was for joy, but it was a signal agreed upon. A shrill whistle sounded on the air. The organ-grinder knew the sound and knew that it was intended to summon the officers of the law. He wondered what poor wretch was getting into trouble; but it was none of his business. He took a whip from within his coat, and with it struck ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... punishment and vengeance, would have imparted to this act a still greater brilliancy of credit and effect; for boldness and liberty would have sprung from it as natural consequences. I heard at that time a lady of fashion, usually rational and amiable, call Mademoiselle de Lavalette "a little wretch," for aiding her mother in the escape of her father. When such extravagancies of feeling and language are indulged in the hearing of kings and their advisers, they should be received as warnings to resist, and not to submit. Marshal Ney, pardoned and banished after condemnation, by royal letters ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Dr. Suaby's asylum, not ten miles from her country-seat. This intelligence touched her. She contrasted her own happy condition, both worldly and spiritual, with that of this unfortunate reprobate, and she felt bound to see if nothing could be done for the poor wretch. A timid Christian would have sent some man to do the good work; but this was a lion-like one. So she mounted her horse, and taking only her groom with her, was ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... of all, who on their coast arrive The wretch, who unforewarn'd approaching, hears The Sirens' voice, his wife and little ones Ne'er fly to gratulate his glad return; But him the Sirens sitting in the meads Charm with mellifluous song, although he see Bones heap'd around them, and the mouldering ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... indelicately like a tea-sipping milliner girl. Some excuse for him there might have been, had he been hurried away by imagination or passion. But with him indecency is a disease, and he speaks unclean things from perfect inanition. The very concubine of so impure a wretch as Leigh Hunt would be to be pitied, but alas! for the wife of such a husband! For him there is no charm in simple seduction; and he gloats over it only when accompanied with ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... fierce and now maddening in the extreme. My hands trembled, my face was bloated, and my eyes were bloodshot. I had almost ceased to look like a human. Hope had flown from me, and I was in complete despair. I moved about over my father's farm like one walking in sleep, the veriest wretch on the face of the earth. My real condition not unfrequently pressed upon me until, in an agony of desperation, I would put my swollen hands over my worse than bloated face and groan aloud, while tears scalding hot streamed down over my fingers and arms. I staid at home a ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... it down with desperate force on the heads of the governor's assailants, felled one, while the other staggered back and dropped his pistol. Mr. Denham caught it like a flash, and fired it in the face of a wretch who was aiming at Lester's heart. The convicts fell back, and over their bodies the governor and his aid sprang ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... any state, nor should men be allowed to form unequal loveless alliances, which are in no sense true marriages. A magistrate or lawgiver might well address an old man who marries a young girl in the words of Sophokles: "Poor wretch, a hopeful bridegroom you will be;" and if he found a young man fattening like a partridge in the house of a rich old woman, he ought to transfer him to some young maiden who is without a husband. ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... before the Shah. (Vol. I.) I readily recognize him now, and he recognizes me, and asks me when I am going to leave Teheran; but in the gloomy vestibule of the other palace, my own memory of his face and figure was certainly at fault. It turns out, after all, that the wretch whom we paid to guide us to the Russian Legation, in his ignorance guided us ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... he cried. "He has done something big! I knew he would! He has defeated Alvarez and that wretch Wyatt!" ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... virtue, her piety and conscientiousness he would descant to me by the half hour. His sincerity it was impossible to question. It was beyond doubt that he respected her, admired her, honoured her. She was a saint, an angel—a wretch, a villain such as he, was not fit to breathe the same pure air. To do him justice, it must be admitted he showed no particular desire to do so. As an aunt or grandmother, I believe he would have suffered her gladly. He had nothing to say against her, except that he found ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... its influence upon the troubled and anxious mind of man. The poet or the scientist who bows in adoration before the glory of God revealed in nature, prays in effect to that God and his soul is refreshed and renewed. The poor wretch who stands blindfolded before the firing squad, waiting the word that ends the life of a military spy, is near enough to God—and the whispered prayer upon his lips is cure for the wounds that take ...
— The Untroubled Mind • Herbert J. Hall
... first met you in Kalvik, I said I would stop at nothing to succeed. Well, I meant it. I am more desperate now than I was then. I could have stood over that wretch at the dock, the other day, and watched him drown, because he dared to step in between me and my work, I could walk into Willis Marsh's room and strangle him, if by so doing I could win. Yes!" he checked her, "I know I am wrong, but that is how ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... she hails an Aristarchus, Ready to fly with kindred souls, O'er blooming flowers or burning coals, To fame or shame, to shrine or gallows, Let him but lead—sublimely callous! A Leipsic man—(confound the wretch!) Has made her topographic sketch, A kind of map, as of a town, Each point minutely dotted down; Scarce to myself I dare to hint What this d——d fellow wants to print! Thy wife—howe'er she slight the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... conjobble, foutra, etc., are legitimate English words! Alas, had a native of the United States introduced such vulgar words and offensive ribaldry into a similar work, what columns of abuse would have issued from the Johnsonian presses against the wretch who could thus sully his book and corrupt the language!" He criticises the accuracy with which Johnson has discriminated the different senses of the same word, and words nearly synonymous. The illustrative quotations which bear ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... "Wretch!" answered Lucifer. "For what did you stipulate but rescue from the Inquisition? Learn that when you signed, the steps in the corridor were the steps of those who were bringing you a pardon. But now you are mine beyond reprieve, to all ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... The poor wretch was too glad to be spared to do aught but repeat that he would do my errand faithfully, and thank me; and, but for the sort of madness that was still on me, I must have been ashamed to torture him so. I am sorry now as I think of it, and many a man who has well deserved ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... face, as, at every stroke, he made the water shimmer in the moonlight; and every moment as his forehead grew wet and his hands clammy, the midship, man expected to see the waves close over the poor wretch's head. ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... there so peacefully in the west, was it any better? At a like distance the earth would seem still fairer, and perhaps even now some wretch in Venus is asking himself a similar question. Is it not probable that just as all the worlds are made of the same materials, so the mixture of good and evil is much the same in all? I turned to the stars, where in all ages man has sought an answer to his riddles. ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... year, papa, when you know that they could not secure me happiness with such a wretch? Such a union, sir, could not be—cannot be—must not be, and I will add, whilst I am in the possession of will ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... get out a writ of habeas corpus to expose the falsity of the claim, he would be thrust into prison under one provision of the Fugitive Slave Law, for interfering with the man claiming to be in pursuit of a fugitive, and I, by the perjury of a solitary wretch, would by another of its provisions be helplessly doomed to lifelong bondage, without ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... from Maryland. The man raised his hoe in a threatening manner, and the overseer fired upon him. The slave fell, but instantly rose up on his hands and knees, and was beaten down again by the stock of the overseer's gun. The wounded wretch raised himself once more, drew a knife from the waistband of his pantaloons, and catching hold of the overseer's coat, raised himself high enough to inflict a fatal wound upon the latter. Both fell together, and ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... handsome wretch!" she murmured vexedly, stimulated to renewed activity by her resentment; then she followed ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... whipped, and the man who, when we are running along the street, and the people in full cry after us bawling 'Stop thief,' throws himself between us and our pursuers, and checks the torrent, saying, 'Let the poor wretch alone, his lot is hard enough; let him go, and his crime will be his punishment.' We also count among our benefactors the good wenches who aid us by their labours while we are in prison, or at the galleys; our fathers, and the mothers who brought us into the world; and, finally, we take care to ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... vins, and opposite the dirty little charbonnier, and standing about a little hole which he calls his boutique a group of women in discoloured peignoirs and heavy carpet slippers. They have baskets on their arms. Everywhere traces of meagre and humble life, but nowhere do I see the demented wretch common in our London streets—the man with bare feet, the furtive and frightened creature, gnawing a crust and drawing a black, tattered ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... that he was gone, gone for ever. It was easy enough to say that with composed voice to Miss Baker. There is nothing so easy as bravado. The wretch who is to be hung can step lightly while multitudes are looking at him. The woman who is about to give up all that her heart most values can declare out loud that the matter is very indifferent to her. But when the victim of ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... elevation, even while his own treachery sapped its foundation! Edward having made use of him, all these sacrifices of honor and of conscience are insufficient to retain his favor; and Baliol is removed from his kingdom to an English prison! Can I feel anything so honoring as indignation against a wretch so abject? No! I do indeed pity him. And now that I have cleared my grandfather's name of such calumny, I am ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... displeasure he poured out the vials of his wrath. He incited audiences to riot. Against his brother editors he hurled such epithets as "loathsome and leprous slanderer and libeller," "pestilential scoundrel," "polluted wretch," "foul jaws," "common bandit," "prince of darkness," "turkey buzzard," "ghoul." Somehow, in thinking of the old days, I find it hard to reconcile those men and women who lived under the Knickerbocker sway with ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... look of utter misery sat down on the grass. All the children and women came pouring out of the lodges round us, and with screams and cries made a close circle about him, while he sat supporting himself with his hands, and looking from side to side with a vacant stare. The wretch was starving to death! For thirty-three days he had wandered alone on the prairie, without weapon of any kind; without shoes, moccasins, or any other clothing than an old jacket and pantaloons; without intelligence and skill to guide his course, ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... "Indeed? The wretch! I will have her broomed out of the house. What a shame to spoil your morning out like this! As for Khema, where are the hussy's manners to go and disturb you when you are engaged? Anyhow, Chota Rani, don't you worry yourself with these domestic ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... him. He did not see the choking wretch whose wrist Narcissus twisted, until he struck at Narcissus again and, trying to follow him, stumbled ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... where slavery existed. Another writer discussing Jefferson's equivocal position on this question said that one would have thought that "modern philosophy himself" would not have the face to expect that the wretch, who is driven out to labor at the dawn of day, and who toils until evening with a whip over his head, ought to be a poet. Benezet, who had actually taught Negroes, declared "with truth and sincerity" that he had found among them as great variety of talents as among a like ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... sake, speak the truth! Here have I been chasing Brian half over the world, getting myself shipwrecked and thrown on desert islands, and what not, all because I wanted you, Elizabeth, to acknowledge that I was not such a mean and selfish wretch as you concluded me to be. Have I cleared myself? or, perhaps I should say, have I expiated the crime that I ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... programme of the tournament, and the secret of this sullen wretch's great industry was ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... wretch tried to deny his words, but it was too late. The roar of the multitudes was as that of an angry sea that hungers for its prey and will not be denied. He who had spoken and him to whom he spoke were seized by a score ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... fresh flood of tears. "A wretch, a miser. You are unworthy, sir, to be linked to a family from whom Germain takes his gentlemanly qualities. Had he nothing but you in him, he would be a grovelling clod-hopper to-day instead of ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... one word He spoke:—"I trow, not one of us art thou!" Then with his olifant from which he parts Never, he smites the golden studded helm, Crushing the steel, the head, the bones; both eyes Are from their sockets beaten out—o'erthrown Dead at the Baron's feet he falls:—"O wretch," He cries, "how durst thou, or for good or ill, Lay hands upon Rolland? Who hears of this Will call thee fool. Mine olifant is cleft, Its gems and gold all scattered by the ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... rushing in with extended hands: "Don't answer the wretch, Mr. Welling. Of course she can with you. Dansons!" She gives a hand to Miss Greenway and Welling each; the others join them, and as they circle round the ...
— A Likely Story • William Dean Howells
... kissed the rod, Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, cheer. Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, foot trod Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that year Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... ungainly countenance that was exposed to his scrutiny by the operation. "I have heard of Christian men who have sold themselves to gain, and who, forgetting religion and the love of their race—have been known to league with the savage in order to pursue rapine in the settlements. This wretch hath the subtlety of one of the French of the ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... and mother's guilty shame, With Jove's disdain at such a rival's feed: The wretch compel'd, a runegate became, And learn'd what ill, a miser-state did breed, To lye, to steal, to prie, and to accuse, Nought in himself, each other ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... must a been a wicked wretch. He poisoned the old lady. He'd robbed her before he did it. Took all her money to give her an annuity, and ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... dead, and here is my ring! Oh, Amelia! falsely murdered! Oh, bloody deed! Oh, wretch that I am! Oh, angels forgive me! Oh, God, withhold thy vengeance! Oh, Amelia! if Heaven would make a thousand worlds like this, set with diamonds, and all of one perfect chrysolite, I would not have done this for them all, I would ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... round the bark which feels the tempest's shock, The lightning plays, and shows the fatal rock, So memory brings our sorrows all to light With vivid truth presents them to the sight; Pursues the wretch who else some joy might find, To fix her seat of empire in his mind. As desert lakes in sad illusion fly, Before the weary traveller's cheated eye So memory shows, those hopes we still would cherish. Pleased but to fade, allured ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various
... he walks, he has his tail curled up so tight that it seems to lift his feet from the ground; and he seldom makes use of more than three legs at a time, keeping the other drawn up as a reserve. This last wretch ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... Ten others, who were brought upon the deck for the same purpose, did not wait to be hand-cuffed, but bravely leaped into the sea, and shared the fate of their companions. It is a fact, that the people on board this ship had not been put upon short allowance. The excuse which this execrable wretch made on board for his conduct, was the following, "that if the slaves, who were then sickly, had died a natural death, the loss would have been the owners; but as they were thrown alive into the sea, it would ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson
... after the disappearance of Edward Jacobs, and in them the signs of morbid eccentricity were more apparent. The writer owned to having "put Jacobs out of the way," upbraided Dudley for interfering on behalf of such a wretch, and accused him of ingratitude in refusing to leave England with his father, who had done mankind in general and him in particular a service in killing a monster. The writer went on to accuse Dudley of siding with his father's enemies, of wishing to have him shut up, and told him that ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... another. He could turn from a tale of the supernatural to write a model for future authors of realistic detective stories. He could solve difficult riddles with masterly analysis, and in his next story place a conscience-stricken wretch on the rack and then turn away calmly to write a tale of natural beauty. He specially liked to invest an impossible story with scientific reality, and he employed Defoe's specific concrete method of mingling fact with fiction. With all the seriousness ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... The old wretch actually began to whimper. She had been sore tried, and must have had a fragment of affection for Cuckoo somewhere about her nature. For she did not want to part with her, and the tears she now let fall were ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... "Yes; that little wretch has a good deal to answer for. What a pity that Eric spoils him so, or rather suffers himself to be spoilt by him. I'm glad Vernon's escaped his influence now; he's too fine a boy to be made as bad as the general ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... said than felt. Can he or she be cheerful who is forced to sin against God and himself? There is little to be cheerful with, where the nature is not its own. Why should I be the despised wretch at your Uncle's feet: did God, the great God, make me a slave to ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... scarecrow pass With a wild and wolfish stare At each empty absinthe glass, As if he saw Heaven there. Poor damned wretch, to end your pain There is still the Greater Drink. Yonder waits the sanguine Seine . . . It is later than ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... discerning eyes she observed with a silent wonder, without shyness, but with confident curiosity." Not alone in the kitchen, which is under her control, can Lena show what is in her. When a young bull broke loose and came after the women, she met him with sparkling eyes, "Stop you wretch!" When he would not allow himself to be turned aside, she threw a swift look flashing with anger upon the men, who were idly looking on, then swung the three-legged milking stool which she had taken along and ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... to yourself; but it was not him that you aimed at —your gun was not pointed low enough to hit the dog—it was leveled at me, you sneaking wretch; and I have only to thank my own prudence and your sleepy head for having escaped with my life. I tell you candidly, that I threw the powder out of your pan while you were asleep. If I served you as you deserve, I should now put my bullet into you; but I can not kill a ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... which contained snappish editorials about its neighbors, aspiring criticisms upon the publications of different authors, always ending in an unmistakable "puff," if they were at all popular, or a feeble attempt at discriminating censure, if the unlucky scribe was unknown to fame, and had (poor wretch,) his way yet to ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... the torture, and presently scalped their victim alive, when Champlain, sickening at the sight, begged leave to shoot him. They refused, and he turned away in anger and disgust; on which they called him back and told him to do as he pleased. He turned again and a shot from his arquebus put the wretch out of misery. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... pig!" said Patty; "there's no other word for such a horrid thing as I am! Why, Clementine, I've made presents for nearly everybody I know, and I haven't done a thing for charity! Did you ever know such an ungrateful wretch?" ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... flung the door wide open. As she did so the guard cried out at the top of his voice that the prisoner had escaped. And if ever a man was berated it was that big soldier who had fallen asleep at the post of duty. "You drunken wretch!" she cried; "I knew how it would be; I knew it!" He tried to make an explanation, but she would not hear it. "Oh, I'll make you pay for this! Go—go and find him, and if you fail take your cut-throats away ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... swell; In vain the lost wretch calls on mercy to save; Unseen hands of spirits are ringing his knell, And the death-angel flaps his ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... despatched him with their spears. The head of the animal, which was of unusual size, was cut off and carried home to the old king in triumph; and when he heard of the danger that Whyna had been in, he caressed her with tears, and I could not help saying that the old wretch had some heart after all. Whyna told the king that if I had not pierced the animal with my spear, and prevented his taking his first spring, she should have lost her life, and the monster grinned a ghastly smile at me, which I presume he meant ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... a train a day. Give me a train a week." "You be d——d," growls Kitchener. Back he comes. The hungry eyes are still staring. Incarnate custom flows past. Never in all his life will such a chance recur. Poor wretch! It is like ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... "Wretch! do you believe that my character could be injured on the unsupported evidence of any words ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... in the streets of Siskiyou when the prisoner was brought into town, and the wretch's life had come near a violent end at the hands of the mob, for Buck Montgomery had many friends. But the steadier citizens preserved the peace, and the murderer was in the prison awaiting his trial by formal law. It was now some weeks since the tragedy, and ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... the most miserable wretch alive, but if she is happy, it is no matter about me. You've won easily what I've slaved and toiled all my life for. You won't value it as I'd have done—but if you make her happy, nothing else matters. I've only one favour to ask of you. Don't let ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... and alone, with a desperado who was all fenced about with firearms, saved the company's property and, it might be, the lives of passengers. Later he had taken the dynamite from the engine to prevent its exploding, wrecking the machine and killing the crew. And rather than inform upon the wretch who had committed the crime he had gone to prison, and had ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... of them, more hard of heart, Did vow to do his charge, Because the wretch, that hired him, Had paid him ...
— R. Caldecott's First Collection of Pictures and Songs • Various
... effort Aunt Agnes made to alter my resolution, but she saw fit to tell Aunt Helen of my escapade at Mr. Barr's studio, who came to me in horror. Her predictions were about to be realized, she said. Notwithstanding all her warnings, my name was associated with a vulgar adventurer. "A handsome wretch as I remember him," she added, "but—even on your aunt's admission, who is none too nice in her estimate of people—unprincipled, ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... great and so resistless that the duchess was torn from the side of her brother, the Duke de Nemours, and from both of her children. A moment after the separation, as the mother, frantic with terror, was groping around in search of her sons, a brutal wretch of gigantic stature recognized the Count de Paris, and, seizing him by the throat, endeavored to strangle him. One of the National Guard who chanced to be near rescued the child, and succeeded in placing him in the hands of his mother. But the younger child, the Duke de Chartres, could ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... faith, and remained on the spot a keeper of the premises for the trader who owned them. They found him, and dragged him into the street, and brought him forward to the ass, and to the idol on its back, and bade him worship the one and the other. The poor wretch obeyed; he worshipped the ass, he worshipped the idol, and he worshipped the genius of the emperor; but his persecutors wanted blood; they would not submit to be cheated of their draught; so when ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... to a throne, which he would not otherwise have had (being but a base descendant of the Lancaster line); and proved a gloomy and vile husband to her; for no other cause, than because she had laid him under obligations which his pride would not permit him to own.—Nor would the unprincely wretch marry her till he was in possession of the crown, that he might not be supposed to owe it ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... field with footstep slow The lingering maid began to take her way, Leaving her lover in great fear and woe, For now he longs for nought but her alway: The wretch, who cannot bear that she should go, Strives with a whispered prayer her feet to stay; And thus at last, all trembling, all afire, In humble wise he ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... stripped him, they tied his hands behind him and thrust his head into the sack, which contained several of these horrible reptiles alive! They then fastened the sack at the mouth round his neck, and having feasted their ears for a time with his cries, they abandoned him to his fate. The poor wretch, stung by the vipers in the face and eyes, presently became mad and ran through several villages, ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... who cannot see this. Do your best. You will be rewarded according to your honesty. You will be saved by the fire that will destroy your work, and will one day come to see that Christ's way, and no other whatever, can either redeem your own life, or render the condition of the poorest or the richest wretch such as would justify his creation. If by the passing of this or that more or less wise law, you could, in the person of his descendant of the third or fourth generation, make a well-to-do man of him, he would probably be ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... each pursues his own, Satire, be kind, and let the wretch alone: But show me one who has it in his power To act consistent with himself an hour. Sir Job sail'd forth, the evening bright and still, 'No place on earth' (he cried) 'like Greenwich hill!' Up starts a palace, lo, the obedient base ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al |
