"Wretchedly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up at him wretchedly. 'It all went wrong nearly from the first,' he said, 'so far as I ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... Supplement, 1774-1791, which latter are usually bound in one. It is an alphabetical Dictionary, like Vogt's and Fournier's, of what are called rare books. The descriptions are compendious, and the references respectable, and sometimes numerous. My copy of this scarce, dear, and wretchedly-printed, work, which is as large and clean as possible, and bound in pale Russia, with marbled edges to the ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... at the piano, and Prince Metternich, as prompter, squeezed into a prompter's box, looking wretchedly uncomfortable. We commenced the rehearsal, which, on the whole, went off ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... was not a sign of agitation about him, though he frowned from time to time. At noon, it was considered hopeless for him to attempt to escape by sea. The English had found out that he was at Rochefort; he must either give himself up to them, or cross the breadth of France again. We were wretchedly anxious; the minutes seemed like hours! On the one hand there were the Bourbons, who would have shot Napoleon if he had fallen into their clutches; and on the other, the English, a dishonored race: they covered themselves with shame by flinging a ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... not allowed to detrain at Abbeville till 9.30 P.M., as the platforms were already occupied by other troops. It was wretchedly cold and pitch-dark by the time we had got away from the station, and we marched in dead silence through the town at 12.30 A.M. Not a soul was in the streets, not even a policeman from whom to ask the way, and we nearly ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... to be; and it would be most beneficial to him, in every sense, to have a person managing his estates, in the best possible condition to serve him. His property, in fact, is not represented in the grand jury panel of the county. This is a great loss to him—a serious loss. In the first place, it is wretchedly, shamefully deficient in roads—both public and private. In the next place, there are many rents left unpaid, through the inability of the people, which we could get paid by the making of these roads, and other county arrangements, which the ill-thinking call jobs. ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... farewell of somewhat doubtful character to his entertainers, Elfric was assisted to the boat. The air did not revive him, he felt wretchedly feverish and giddy, and could hardly tell ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... the smallnesses of a local spirit, his Christian idealism which took no heed of the accidents or considerations of worldly prosperity. What! was Catholicism to become an African religion, a restricted sect, wretchedly tied to the letter of tradition, to the exterior practices of worship? To reign in a little corner of the world—did Christ die for that? Never! Christ died for the wide world. The only limits of His Church ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... Milton's 'Eiconoclastes,' with MS. notes, supposed to be written by Milton, was bought by Waldron for 2s., who afterwards gave it to Dr. Farmer. Dr. Dibdin declares, that "never was a precious collection of English history and poetry so wretchedly detailed to the public in an auction-catalogue" as that of Mr. Wynne's library; and yet it will be seen that it must have realised a considerable sum of money. He mentions, that "a great number of the poetical tracts were disposed of, previous ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... when Mother came home and went to bed and stayed there two days and the Doctor came, and the children crept wretchedly about the house and wondered if the world was coming to ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... Falto overruled the proposition. "It was late, and Mamercus was the man to extort confession." So Agias found himself thrust into a filthy cell, lighted only by a small chink, near the top of the low stone wall, into which strayed a bit of moonlight. The night he passed wretchedly enough, on a truss of fetid straw; while the tight irons that confined him chafed his wrists and ankles. Needless to add, he cursed roundly all things human and heavenly, before he fell into a brief, troubled sleep. In the morning Mago, who acted as jailer, brought him a pot ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... very glad," she answered. "Do you know that you made me wretchedly nervous? I was told just as I was going on that you had come to smash us all to atoms in that ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... half conscious of what was said, thinking of Bernard going wretchedly about his hated work with a "sharp watch" ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... petition, by a pecuniary subscription; although they, snake-like, or rather Bristol-men-like, declined to be seen openly supporting it. I own I did not rely much upon these promises, and it was fortunate that I did not, for, if I had, I should have been most wretchedly deceived. ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... letters to Washington, the tone of which heretofore had been uncivil enough, now became harsh and insolent, full of fault-finding, and bristling all over with biting reproofs and unmanly insinuations. Although wretchedly ignorant of military matters, and at a distance from the seat of active operations, yet he must needs take upon himself the full control of all the troops of the province, without seeming to trouble his mind as to what might be the wishes and opinions of him who was in fact their true leader. ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... thou seest thyself here present, the race of Agamemnon in calamities. I indeed sleepless sit companion to the wretched corse, (for he is a corse, in that he breathes so little,) but at his fortune I murmur not. But thou a happy woman, and thy husband a happy man, have come to us, who fare most wretchedly. ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... less oppose and resist those unnatural and impious actions, when the mole-catcher hath been present at the perpetrating of the fact, and a party contractor and covenanter in that detestable bargain. What do they do then? They wretchedly stay at their own miserable homes, destitute of their well-beloved daughters, the fathers cursing the days and the hours wherein they were married, and the mothers howling and crying that it was not their fortune to have brought forth abortive ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... peas. Together assembled stedfast in mannys mynde. Cawseth his honour and worthynes to encreas. And his godly lyfe a godly ende shal fynde But these lewde caytyfs which doth theyr myndes blynde With corrupt maners lyuynge vnhappely. In shame they lyue and wretchedly they dye. ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... notion of the appearance of these places in Giurgewo and Galatz; but in this imperial town I had fancied I should find them somewhat neater and more ornamental. But this delusion vanished as soon as I entered the first coffee-house. A wretchedly dirty room, in which Turks, Greeks, Armenians, and others sat cross- legged on divans, smoking and drinking coffee, was all I could discover. In the second house I visited I saw, with great disgust, that the coffee-room was also used ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... full, and then begins what we consider to be the indispensable feature of the whole concern. Two or three hundred men in the men's Shelter, or as many women in the women's Shelter, are collected together, most of them strange to each other, in a large room. They are all wretchedly poor—what are you to do with them? This is what ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... new friend ate. But the coffee M. St.-Ange declared he could not touch: it was too wretchedly bad. At the French Market, near by, there was some noble coffee. This, however, would have to be bought, and Parson ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... had receded from Peter's skin and eyes; he looked very much nearer forty than thirty. And Eileen was reflecting that despairing attitude. She could think only of him toiling wretchedly in the mines or quarries, striving against a fate as unfriendly, as unyielding, as a wall ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... His father could not bear the sight. It filled him more with angry compassion than with the tender reverence and hushed awe with which Ursula watched her darling slipping as it were from her hold. So Mr. Egremont wandered wretchedly about the lower rooms, while Mark and Annaple tried their best for him through the long summer evening, darkening into night. By and by Alwyn lifted his hand, turned his head, opened his lips, and whispered, 'Hark, sister, she is ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... chiefly militia and new-raised recruits, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Mercer, an officer of courage and experience; but the situation of the forts was very ill-chosen; the materials mostly timber or logs of wood; the defences wretchedly contrived and unfurnished; and, in a word, the place altogether untenable against any regular approach. Such were the forts which the enemy wisely resolved to reduce. They assembled a body of troops, consisting of 1,300 regulars, 1,700 Canadians, and a considerable number of Indian auxiliaries, ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... room moreover, though agreeably bedimmed, gave out the staleness of the season's end. "If you hadn't come to-day," she went on, "you'd have missed me till I don't know when, for we've let the Hovel again—wretchedly, but still we've let it—and I go down on Friday to see that it isn't too filthy. Edward, who's furious at what I've taken for it, had his idea that we should go there ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... truth to his students. Neither in his lecture announcements nor in his published works did Rheticus venture to make the new system known, and he at last gave up his professorship and left Wittenberg, that he might have freedom to seek and tell the truth. Reinhold was even more wretchedly humiliated. Convinced of the truth of the new theory, he was obliged to advocate the old; if he mentioned the Copernican ideas, he was compelled to overlay them with the Ptolemaic. Even this was not thought safe enough, and in ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... easy. Jermak and his small band of picked fighters were more than a match for the wretchedly armed and craven-spirited Tartars, who fled at the sound of firearms. In 1581 the settlement, called Sibir, fell to the invaders; and, though they soon abandoned this rude encampment for a new foundation, the ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... at Thorn on the day of our arrival. Suspicions might well arise, among the crowd, on seeing a strong tall young man, wretchedly clothed, with a large sabre by his side, and a pair of pistols in his girdle, accompanied by another as poorly apparelled as himself, with his hand and neck bound up, and armed likewise with pistols, so that altogether he more resembled a ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... my companion, without another arrow for my bow. "Why not another?" she inquired as I sat there hesitating and thinking it over; and she wished to know why even now and before taking the trouble of becoming an inmate (which might be wretchedly uncomfortable after all, even if it succeeded), I had not the resource of simply offering them a sum of money down. In that way I might obtain the documents ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... not keep herself from reflecting that the old clergyman in the Close at Barchester certainly had but two sons, one of whom was now the doctor at Greshamsbury, and the other of whom had perished so wretchedly at the gate of that farmyard. Who then was the father ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... that I resolved in future to be wise enough to finish all these domestic occupations before I had my bath. The worst of getting up so early proved to be that by nine o'clock I was very tired, and had nothing else to do for the remainder of the long, noisy day. As for the meals, they were wretchedly unsociable; for F—— only came in to snatch a mouthful or two, standing, and it was of little use trying to make things comfortable for him. I must confess here, what I would not acknowledge at the time, that I found it a very long and dull visit. My husband never had time to speak to me, and ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... shee prepareth for thee: and if euer sparke of pitie did warme thy frosen hart, arme thy selfe with greater crueltie then euer thou was wont to doe, and come hither to make her sobbe her laste and extreme sighes, whom thou haste wretchedly deceiued: for in doing otherwise thou maiest peraduenture to late, bewaile my death and thy beastlye crueltie." And thinking to make a conclusion of her letter, the teares made her woords to die in her mouth, ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... The wretchedly furnished room was scrupulously clean. Above the truckle-bed, a cheap little image of the Virgin was fastened to the wall, with some faded artificial flowers arranged above it in the form of a wreath. Two women, in dresses of coarse black stuff, sat at a small round table, working at the ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... farmhouse up the road yonder. Well, there is not only sorrow, but sin and shame as well in that house. The old people are most respectable, and they were once fairly comfortably off before the agricultural depression ruined them. They are wretchedly poor now, but they struggle on somehow. About eighteen months ago their daughter went off to Kidderminster to work in the mills. She said she would get good wages and send some of them home every week. For some ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... soon spent by the crew; when matters again returned to their usual lethargic state. It was no unfrequent event, however, for vessels to be lost. They were too often laden with a total disregard to seaworthiness, and wretchedly handled. It was favor, not capacity, that determined the patronage of these lucrative appointments. [39] Many galleons fell into the hands of English and Dutch cruisers. [40] ["Philippine Company" and smugglers cause change.] But these tremendous profits gradually ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... nothing so very bad in the country, which is by nature the richest in all Spain, and the most abundant. True it is that the generality of the inhabitants are wretchedly poor, but they themselves are to ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... found her so much lovelier than before that where once he had shyly coveted he now desired with a fervour that swept him headlong into a panic of dread lest he had waited too long and that he had irretrievably lost her while engaged in the wretchedly mundane and commonplace pursuit of trifles. He was intensely amazed, therefore, to discover that she had loved him ever since she was a child in short frocks. He expected her to believe him when he said ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... from Luckner to Kellerman. There were only three fortresses which it was necessary for the allies to capture or mask—Sedan, Longwy, and Verdun. The defences and stores of these three were known to be wretchedly dismantled and insufficient; and when once these feeble barriers were overcome, and Chalons reached, a fertile and unprotected country seemed to invite the invaders to that "military promenade to Paris," which they gaily talked ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... long, endlessly, wretchedly long forenoon, Conniston went about his work like a man under sentence of death, his face white and drawn, his step heavy, his voice silent save when necessity drove him to ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... favorable, we were able to clear ourselves of debt and begin anew. But, seemingly, this prosperity was not for us, for these years of plenty were almost invariably followed by one or two less fruitful ones that came and "swallowed up the whole," leaving us as forlorn and as wretchedly poor as we were before. This failure of the crops because of drouths unduly long, wet seasons, the ravages of worms, caterpillars, and other uncontrollable circumstances, not only meant that the whole of that ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... no reply. He caught at the door, looking up wretchedly at his father. When the minister turned away without speaking again, he drew a long breath ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... a wretchedly dressed tramp. Browning allowed the man to get upon his feet, and then, facing him, demanded, sternly: "Why are you here? Did you come ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger
... he was ready to hang himself. About that time, I suppose, when he heard of Kate Robinson's death, he shut himself up in his rooms for several days—said he was not well, and could not see any body. When he came out again, he looked wretchedly ill, and unhappy: I pitied him—I felt the truth of what Rosamond said, 'that there is such a mixture of good and bad in his character, as makes me change my opinion of him ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... one of the magnificent new hotels we traverse this busy street, and then suddenly plunge down the Rue de la Fontaine to what was once the bed of the castle fosse—where the houses are small and dirty, and the walls and slates barely hold together, so wretchedly old and tottering are they—where, instead of bustle and grandeur, there is only gloom and poverty, and in place of the enjoyment of the present, there is the longing for a lot a little less hard in the future; we feel as though we had gone back several centuries in as many minutes, and ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... wore a frightened, shifty expression as he stepped to the tender. His face was wretchedly pale, his hands trembled as he proceeded to pile in the coal. Every vestige of unsteadiness and maudlin bravado was gone. He resembled a man who had gazed upon some unexpected danger, and there was a half guiltiness in his manner as ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... in the majority of cases these sources provided him only with bare or even crude sketches, and perhaps nothing furnishes clearer proof of his genius than the way in which he has seen the human significance in stories baldly and wretchedly told, where the figures are merely wooden types, and by the power of imagination has transformed them into the greatest literary masterpieces, profound revelations of the underlying ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... so, I stand before your cold front as a suppliant from a very distant realm; yet in my sadness I am colder than your stones, more alone than in a desolate place. She that dwells within you holds my love. I long for her shadow or the sound of her step. I am more wretchedly in love than ever—I, an impotent, invisible spirit. Must I bear this sorrow in addition to my others, in my fruitless search for rest? My life will be a waking nightmare, most bitter irony of fate." The trees swayed above his head, and ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... I am wretchedly uncertain in my dates, but it must have been some time late in the reign of Queen Anne, that a fishing yawl, after vainly labouring for hours to enter the bay of Cromarty, during a strong gale from ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... persist in this talk about being killed, I'll go upstairs and never come down again," cried Dorothy, wretchedly, and ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... and troubled sleep, Oscar awoke in the morning, feeling quite wretchedly. As soon as his mother entered the room, her quick eye detected the unfavorable change; but he did not seem inclined to complain much of his feelings, and appeared averse to conversing about them. She ascertained, however, ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... brute to you, Elsa," he affirmed with all the strength of his manhood, the power of his love, which, in spite of all, would not believe in its own misery; "he would have made you wretchedly unhappy . . . ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... tell somebody of my discovery. Then I remembered with a sort of shock that there wasn't anybody I could tell. Not a soul in the whole city who cared. For a moment that thought made me utterly and wretchedly homesick. But it all passed away the moment I began my letter to Jack and Betty. I think the reason that this epistle to you has grown longer and more garrulous than usual, is because you have assured ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... afraid that, in the wear and tear of this strange life, I have written to Gad's Hill in the wrong order, and have not written to you, as I should, that I resolve to write this before going to bed. You will find it a wretchedly stupid letter; but you may imagine, my dearest girl, that ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... the Potts affair very seriously. He made it a point to encounter the Colonel on an early day and to address him on Main Street in tones that lacked the least affectation of suavity or diplomatic guile. He had seen diplomacy tried and found wretchedly wanting. He would have no more of it ever. Like the straightaway man he was, he went to ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... new-raised recruits, under the command of lieutenant-colonel Mercer, an officer of courage and experience; but the situation of the forts was very ill chosen; the materials mostly timber or logs of wood; the defences wretchedly contrived and unfinished; and, in a word, the place altogether untenable against any regular approach. Such were the forts which the enemy wisely resolved to reduce. Being under no apprehension for Crown Point, they assembled a body of troops, consisting of thirteen ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... end with shame and grief and fear; A little thing the man had had to do, They said, if longing burned within him so. But at their words the older men must bow Their heads, and, smiling, somewhat thoughtful grow, Remembering well how fear in days gone by Had dealt with them, and poisoned wretchedly Good days, good deeds, and longings for all good: Yet on the evil times they would not brood, But sighing, strove to raise the weight of years, And no more memory of their hopes and fears They nourished, but such gentle thoughts as fed The ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... wretchedly ill during this period, he wrote letters which are good to read for their humor and for their pictures of foreign cities. Rome he writes of as an idle, afternoony sort of place from which it is difficult to depart. He worked as eagerly over the historic ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... choose a thing myself I am never sure that I like it. The assistant was so polite; she told me to ask for Miss —-; she said she would like to fit me. Sally was coming up with us, but she changed her mind and remained at home, I was very glad, for she is wretchedly cross, and not looking at all well. You would not admire her in the least; she is growing very yellow. But I don't mean to be ill-natured, so we'll let Sally bide, as we say in Sussex. After Russell & Allen's we went to Blanchard's, and had a nice ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... at the mouth of the Javari River, a southern tributary of the Solimoes River, forming there the boundary between Brazil and Peru. Dark green foliage perched high up on asparagus-like stems of trees formed a background to that wretchedly miserable place. ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... divert my mind by new travels, I hardly know where. I have exhausted Europe, having been there three times. I have often thought I should like to look on the Oriental gardens and bright waters of Damascus. Everything is so wretchedly new, and so disagreeably fast, in this country! It must be refreshing to see a place that has known no changes for ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... Ducie giving him ten points out of fifty, he could never be persuaded to venture. If the Captain, when he went down to Bon Repos, had any expectation of replenishing his pockets by means of faro and unlimited loo, he was wretchedly mistaken. But whatever secret annoyance he might feel, he was too much a man of the world to allow his host even to suspect ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... greatest trapes in town? Women were made to give our eyes delight; A female sloven is an odious sight. Fair Isabella is so fond of fame, That her dear self is her eternal theme; Through hopes of contradiction, oft she'll say, "Methinks I look so wretchedly to-day!" When most the world applauds you, most beware; 'Tis often less a blessing than a snare. Distrust mankind; with your own heart confer; And dread even there to find a flatterer. The breath of others raises our renown; Our own as surely blows ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... a man who has not a good command of the vernacular of a people cannot be to them a good missionary; for a few of the best missionaries I know, speak the vernacular wretchedly. But I do emphasize the fact that proficiency here is of prime importance and I would also add that it should be the first work of a missionary after entering his field. To dawdle with the language the first year, is, generally speaking, to ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... said wretchedly. Rage began to redden his features. "Ricca," he said, "I promised I'd find your jewels. ... I promise you again that I'll never drop this business until your gems — and the Flaming Jewel — are ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... world possessed by people who welcome merchants but "hate to see soldiers"; being themselves "no soldiers at all, only accomplished traders and most skillful artisans." Here was the promised land for Europeans, wretchedly poor, but good soldiers enough. Here was Eldorado, symbol of all external and objective values which so fired the imagination in that age of discovery; presenting a concrete and visualized goal, a summum bonum, attainable, not by contemplation, but by active endeavor; ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... Wheeler's division of dismounted cavalry, including the Rough Riders and Kent's infantry division, advanced as best it could over the horrible Santiago road, ankle-deep in mud and water, to El Poso Hill, on and about which it passed a wretchedly uncomfortable night. Seven thousand heavily equipped men, mingled with horses, artillery, pack-mules, and army wagons, all huddled into a narrow gully slippery with mud, advance so slowly, however eager they may be to push forward, that although the movement was ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... it," confessed the young man wretchedly, "but Willie knows that what you accuse me ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... short cuts across hills and promontories, where there were bends in the stream. In their way they passed several camps of Shoshonies, from some of whom they procured salmon, but in general they were too wretchedly poor to furnish anything. It was the wish of Mr. Stuart to purchase horses for the recent recruits of his party; but the Indians could not be prevailed upon to part with any, alleging that they had not ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... have, indeed, lost a friend, as their tears and remembrance amply testify when they recount her kindnesses, her gentle words, her deeds of charity and love. "Flowers grew under the feet of her," said one wretchedly poor, yet, I thought, quite poetical old woman, whose declining days she had lightened of much of their weariness. A track of glory seems that which she has left behind; and there was so much that was beautiful and consoling in her last ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... guard to explain his position with absolutely no sign of a struggle to bear him out? It was hardly plausible that a big, strong fellow could be so easily overpowered single-handed; there was something wretchedly incongruous about the—but there came a startling and effective ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... live very wretchedly here in this nasty stinking ditch. Do go back, and tell the fish we ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... persons described, the duke at length became convinced of the truth of the assertion, and departing from the cave, rejoined his people. All the impetuous passions of his nature were roused and inflamed by the discovery of his son in a situation so wretchedly disgraceful. Yet it was his pride rather than his virtue that was hurt; and when he wished him dead, it was rather to save himself from disgrace, than his son from the real indignity of vice. He had no means of reclaiming him; to have attempted it by force, would have been at ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... enough. In France they have grand roads everywhere. Their machines are made for such roads, and on such roads they can fairly fly. In this country we have a few fairly good roads, but the majority of our highways are wretchedly bad. The American makers have built machines adapted for such roads, and on these roads our better-made motor cars are superior to anything we can bring across ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... seriously during the first year of her child's life, and in February, when Jimmy was beginning to utter his first delicious, stammering monosyllables, it was with great gravity that she realized that motherhood was approaching her again, that at Thanksgiving she would have a second child. She was wretchedly languid and ill during the entire spring, and found her mother-in-law's and Alice Valentine's calm acceptance of the ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... said Syd, coolly, "and a wretchedly unpleasant voice it is. Go and bray somewhere else, donkey. Let's see, it was the ass that ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... with him this spirit of improvement. When in London, he found the streets wretchedly dirty. One morning he found a poor woman at his door in Craven street, sweeping the sidewalk with a wretched broom. Her pallid and exhausted appearance touched the sympathies of Franklin. He asked who ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... could not but be aware that he was extremely angry, and she herself felt wretchedly uncomfortable. What if Anna Wolsky were all right after all? Would she not blame her for ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... stoutest nerves; made them turn pale with fear; his miserable, deluded supplicants, who were obliged to sacrifice to him, anointed their bodies with oil, bathed in certain rivers, and after they had offered their cake of honey and received their destiny, became so dejected, so wretchedly forlorn, that to this day their descendants, when they behold a malencholy man, exclaim, "He has consulted the oracle of Trophonius." It was these invisible gods, which superstition always paints as furious tyrants, ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... the clouds from all the earth beneath. Yet we could not linger, unique though the occasion, dearly bought our privilege; the miserable limitations of the flesh gave us continual warning to depart; we grew colder and still more wretchedly cold. The thermometer stood at 7 deg. in the full sunshine, and the north wind was keener than ever. My fingers were so cold that I would not venture to withdraw them from the mittens to change the film in the camera, and the other men were in like case; indeed, our hands were ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... interesting—a dramatis personae of the boldest and most finished kind—and in fact every thing that can command the most marked and pointed attention of the reader or spectator. And all this notwithstanding the disadvantages of appearing in foreign dress; for it hardly need be stated how wretchedly many of the ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... effectively as Lady Amelie Lisle; thus it was with difficulty she refrained from smiling. Basil looked so wretchedly anxious and uncomfortable, she saw that he was longing to say ...
— The Coquette's Victim • Charlotte M. Braeme
... which he lived, he develops his "mighty line" and depicts great scenes in magnificent bursts of poetry, such as the stage had never heard before. In five years, while Shakespeare was serving his apprenticeship, Marlowe produced all his great work. Then he was stabbed in a drunken brawl and died wretchedly, as he had lived. The Epilogue of Faustus might be written across ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... wretchedly," said her stepmother. And, turning to M. de Nailles, she added: "Don't you think, 'mon ami', she is as yellow as a quince!" Marien dared not press the hand which she, who had been his little friend for years, offered him as usual, but this time ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... ladies,—assuming that in the whole course of his life he had ever shown them to any woman, which is very doubtful. He had met her first as a mere child and had opened the way for her to the stage. At the time that he ran across her, she was living wretchedly and trying to learn the art of making artificial flowers. Today, thanks to her talent, she earned enough to keep her mother and ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various
... effect my escape. I communicated this purpose, and recommended the old hag to poor Effie by a letter, in which I recollect that I endeavoured to support the character of Macheath under condemnation-a fine, gay, bold-faced ruffian, who is game to the last. Such, and so wretchedly poor, was my ambition! Yet I had resolved to forsake the courses I had been engaged in, should I be so fortunate as to escape the gibbet. My design was to marry your sister, and go over to the West Indies. I had still a considerable sum of money left, ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... is wretchedly poor, like most royal women not actually seated on the throne. I can't offer my paramour financial independence, not even luxury, but, thank heaven, I saved up enough to provide for his present needs, even if my treasury be drained to the last twenty-mark piece, ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... back in the mountains of western North Carolina, far up on the mountainside, at the head of a cove, there lived a fifteen-year-old boy. He had sisters and brothers and parents, but they dwelt in a little tumble-down shack and were wretchedly poor. Jake was the oldest of the children, and he had to work hard in the little patch of corn on the steep mountainside, ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... Mr. Durant was to be found at the Fourth National Bank; but, as for giving information in regard to that class, he was sure it was beyond him. He (Alfred) had asked only last Sabbath who the boy was who behaved so wretchedly, and also who was the fellow next him, but Mr. Durant had ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... [as] flower-frequenting insects were developed and favoured intercrossing. I should like to see this whole problem solved. I have fancied that perhaps there was during long ages a small isolated continent in the S. Hemisphere which served as the birthplace of the higher plants—but this is a wretchedly poor conjecture. It is odd that Ball does not allude to the obvious fact that there must have been alpine plants before the Glacial period, many of which would have returned to the mountains after the Glacial period, ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... "Yes—wretchedly enough," Mrs. Dyott returned, getting her letters together. She left her place, holding them as a neat achieved handful, and came over to the fire, while Mrs. Blessingbourne turned once more to the window, where she was ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... uncomfortable day. When she met the family at the breakfast-table Grandma Rose seemed to regard her with cold displeasure; "Mamma Vi" spoke gently and kindly; hoping she felt no injury from last night's exposure, but looked wretchedly ill; and in answer to her mother's inquiries admitted that she had been kept awake most of the night by a violent headache, to which Rosie added, in an indignant tone, and with an angry glance ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... bad at the time. This annoyance continued until the 25th of December, and it was with much satisfaction that he saw himself quit of it. After leaving the Council he used to enter his cabinet singing, and God knows how wretchedly he sung! He examined whatever work he had ordered to be done, signed documents, stretched himself in his arm-chair, and read the letters of the preceding day and the publications of the morning. When there was no Council he remained ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... overwhelming; and she acts the scene of the killing with sufficient realism to raise her entire performance to the highest level of vocal dramatic art. An Italian prima donna who has been heard in the same role at the same opera house sings the invocation wretchedly, but acts the following scene, the killing of Scarpia, with startling realism. She wins applause for her performance, as much applause as the other, which shows that an operatic audience will not only tolerate, but even applaud a singer who substitutes ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... proud mourner, hurrying the eye over sweet-scented billets; compelled, in very justice to the dead, to convince himself that the mother of his children was corrupt only at heart,—that the Black Horses had come to the door in time,—and, wretchedly consoled by that niggardly conviction, flinging into the flames the last flimsy tatters on which his honour (rock-like in his own keeping) had been fluttering to and fro in the charge of a vain treacherous fool,—envy you that mourner? No! not ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... which I squandered in my youth in dissipation; but I perceived my error, and reflected that riches were perishable, and quickly consumed by such ill managers as myself. I farther considered, that by my irregular way of living I wretchedly misspent my time; which is, of all things, the most valuable. I remembered the saying of the great Solomon, which I had frequently heard from my father; That death is more tolerable than poverty. Struck with these reflections, I collected the remains of my fortune, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... the boy wretchedly. "That's what's got me fussed. I chance to know how the March Hare books stood. Somebody's made good that money I took—made it good without saying a word ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... Referendum, where the sense of justice of the entire public is expressed as to how tax burdens should be distributed, Switzerland has developed a system by which the division of society into the harmfully rich and wretchedly poor has been checked, if not prevented. In the most advanced cantons, as has been brought out by Professor Cohn in the 'Political Science Quarterly,' the taxes, both on incomes and on property, are progressive. In each case a certain minimum is exempted. In the case of ...
— Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum • James W. Sullivan
... I can't talk. I am so wretchedly nervous that I don't know what to do with myself, and you know, my dear," she said, appealing to her husband, "that I am not given to ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... you, he guards your door; 'tis an excellent dog in every respect. Forgive him his larceny; he is wretchedly ignorant, he cannot ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... chariot rolling away. Dokahra looks stolidly at Menones for a moment, then turns through curtains, right. Menones presses his heart in pain, moans wretchedly, and draws a blanket over ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... remain quiet while she was left in such painful doubt about her dearest, well-loved Harry Norman.' How to speak of Gertrude, or how not to speak of her, Mrs. Woodward knew not—at last she added: 'The three girls send their kindest love; they are all as wretchedly anxious as I am. I know you are too good to wish that poor Gertrude should suffer, but, if you did, you might have your wish. The tidings of your illness, together with your silence, have robbed her of all her happiness;' and ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... Dorothea's strong feeling about his claims on the family property, by her being convinced that she was in the right and her husband in the wrong, but that she was helpless. This afternoon the helplessness was more wretchedly benumbing than ever: she longed for objects who could be dear to her, and to whom she could be dear. She longed for work which would be directly beneficent like the sunshine and the rain, and now ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... something which you take very hard, which torments you wretchedly, which in short makes life a misery to you. Your looks and your carriage betray this, even if you were silent. Where is your wonted and beloved cheerful countenance gone, your former beauty, your lively glance? Whence come these sorrowful ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... her own account, M. Brandon, her father, a thoroughbred Yankee, was a man of great enterprise and energy, who was ten times rich, and as often wretchedly poor again in his life, but died leaving several millions. This Brandon, she says, was a banker and broker in New York when the civil war broke out. He entered the army, and in less than six months, thanks to his marvellous energy, ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... and yet unfit to return to restraint, curse the world, and scorn it, and be miserable, like my Lord Byron and other philosophers of his kidney; or else mount a step higher, and, with conceit still more monstrous, and mental vision still more wretchedly debauched and weak, begin suddenly to find yourself afflicted with a maudlin compassion for the human race, and a desire to set them right after your own fashion. There is the quarrelsome stage of drunkenness, when a man can as yet walk and speak, when ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... trying to be indifferent, or to appear so, was more assiduous than ever. The conflict was too violent for his present state of health; the spirit was willing, but the body suffered; he lost his appetite, and looked wretchedly; his spirits were calmly low—the world seemed to fade away—what was that world to him that Mary did not inhabit; she lived ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft
... humility on my part had, however, not disarmed him. I had the proof of it the next day, and the way he showed his humor was even marked by an exhibition of wretchedly ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... only three elephants. So much for hurrying through our ground. If we had remained for a week at the foot of the Gunner's Coin we could have obtained supplies of all kinds from Doolana, and we should have enjoyed excellent sport through the whole country. Our total bag was now wretchedly small, considering the quantity of ground that we had passed over. We had killed nine elephants and two deer. V. Baker had a miserable time of it, having only killed two elephants when he was obliged to return. The trip might, in fact, be said ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... up the trench, Sliding and poising, groping with his boots; Sometimes he tripped and lurched against the walls With hands that pawed the sodden bags of chalk. He couldn't see the man who walked in front; Only he heard the drum and rattle of feet Stepping along the trench-boards,—often splashing Wretchedly where ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... again a man at the office would ask me to dine with him (regarding me as a bachelor, of course), and always I felt bound to plead a prior engagement. One night, when Fanny had gone early to bed, feeling wretchedly ill, and sullenly angry because I would have no liquor of any sort on the premises, not even the lager beer which it had been my own habit for some time past to drink with meals, Heron sat with me ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... unfortunately, it is too often conducted by teachers who are themselves without trained musical ability and who permit their pupils to shout rather than sing music of an inferior order to the accompaniment of a piano wretchedly out ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... growing dusk and still no pack train in sight. No criminal on trial for his life could have felt more wretchedly apprehensive than I. At last we came to a stream. Nimrod, who had dismounted to examine ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... against lion." The one made the most High his house of defence, and his hope was under the shadow of his wings; while the others trusted in the princes of this world, who are made of none effect, and in the ruler of the darkness of this world, to whom they have subjected themselves miserably and wretchedly. ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... brought out with unexampled splendour and success, with Monsieur Poumons as first tenor, and an enormous orchestra, had almost crushed poor Dolphin in its triumphant progress: so that great as his genius and resources were, they seemed to be at an end. He was dragging on his season wretchedly with half salaries, small operas, feeble old comedies, and his ballet company; and everybody was looking out for the day when he ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Soldiers fared most wretchedly different. They were crowded into sugar houses and Jails without blankets or covering; had Very little given to them to eat, and that little of the Very worst quality. So that in two months and four ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... half-drowned, Shann was pummeled by waves, literally driven up on a rocky surface which skinned his body cruelly. He lay there, his arms moving feebly until he contrived to raise himself in time to be wretchedly sick. Somehow he crawled on a few feet farther before he subsided again, blinded by the light, flinching from the heat of the rocks on which he lay, but unable to do ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... Estelle's letter contains bad news. Her father is dead; the estate is wretchedly insolvent; and she is ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... wretchedly perplex'd that I'm forc'd to go out a doors now; and troth, it goes sore against my mind; however, 'tis upon sure grounds. For now's the time for our Officer to distribute the Money to the Poor: Now if I shou'd be negligent, ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard
... of Bull Run, July 21, 1861, won by the Confederate General Beauregard over General McDowell, against all expectation, to the dismay and indignation of the whole North,—the result of over-confidence on the part of the Union troops, and a wretchedly mismanaged affair,—the attention of the Federal government was mainly directed to the defence of Washington, which might have fallen into the hands of the enemy had the victors been confident and quick enough to pursue the advantage they had ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... than ignorance in Homer, to account for a difference which he imagined to exist between the Ithaca of his time and that of the poet. But Strabo, who was an uncommonly accurate observer with respect to countries surveyed by himself, appears to have been wretchedly misled by his ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... their long tramp across country, and they were sadly in need of food and rest. It was wretchedly disappointing, after they had at last made the sea, to have to turn back again inland. They were a very silent pair as they toiled back over the ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... wretchedly. And suddenly Norma knew. Not that he liked her, not that she fascinated and interested him, not that they were friends. But that he loved her with every fibre of his being, ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... imagination the pitiful life-conditions which surrounded children a century and a half ago. Often the lot of the children of the poor, who then constituted the great bulk of all children, was little less than slavery. Wretchedly poor, dirty, unkempt, hard-worked, beaten about, knowing strong drink early, illiterate, often vicious—their lot was a sad one. For the children of the poor there were few, if any, educational opportunities. Writing on the subject ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... into the Young Man's cheeks. "Oh, I say, Edgarton!" he pleaded. Mirthlessly, wretchedly, a grin began to spread over his face. "Oh, I say!" he faltered. "I ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... sight. Others, however, quickly recognized him, and he was asked to play, which he at first declined, but finally consented to do after urgent solicitation. Purposely he played a few variations in wretchedly bad style, which caused a suppressed laugh from those ignorant of his identity. The young professor came forward again and played another selection in a most pretentious and pointed way, as if to crush the daring wretch who had ventured to compete with him. ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... plan as the Dutch optician's: it was another mode of achieving the same end. He took an old small organ-pipe, jammed a suitably chosen spectacle glass into either end, one convex, the other concave, and, behold! he had the half of a wretchedly bad opera-glass capable of magnifying three times. It was better than the Dutchman's, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... house, in an alley they call a court; stairs wretchedly narrow, even to the first-floor rooms: and into a den they led me, with broken walls, which had been papered, as I saw by a multitude of tacks, and some torn bits held on ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson |
