"Alas" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... energetic measures, and many a mouse fell a victim to a well-aimed peck from a cock's beak; but alas! the mice took energetic measures also, and resisted to the death, so that many a fowl's leg was bitten to the bone. Much had been said, and much was done, but the mice were ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... thee![FN129] Yes indeed it was I who did this good deed; and snatching up my sword I drew it and made at her to cut her down. But she laughed my words and mine intent to scorn crying: To heel, hound that thou art! Alas[FN130] for the past which shall no more come to pass nor shall any one avail the dead to raise. Allah hath indeed now given into my hand him who did to me this thing, a deed that hath burned my heart ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... is completely secluded from all places of public instruction, and subjected to laws which repress all their energies, both of mind and heart. India furnishes examples of conjugal devotedness, worthy a more enlightened direction. Alas! that such a spirit can find no purer modes of self-sacrifice, than casting the body on a funeral pile, or beneath the wheels of Juggernaut. Profane History, in its wide range, gives us indeed but an occasional gleam of the genuine virtues of woman. How unlike Christianity, which presents ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... reverential gravity. "No one in these modern days can approach the immortal splendour of that great master. He must have known heroes and talked with gods to be able to hew out of the rocks such perfection of shape and attitude as his 'David.' Alas! my strength of brain and hand is mere child's play compared to what HAS been done in sculpture, and what WILL yet be done; still, I love the work for its own sake, and I am always trying to ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... explained, "I know beforehand that you are speaking the truth as you see it. I know beforehand that any scheme in which you are engaged is for the benefit of our fellow creatures and not for their harm. But alas! you make yourself the judge of these things, and there are times when individual effort is the most dangerous ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... which held an ample supply of coal for the week. The system had two advantages—it enabled me to do my trading in the commune, which I liked, and it relieved Amelie from having to carry heavy hods of coal in all weathers from the grange outside. But, alas, the railroad communications being cut—no coal! I had big wood enough to take me through the first weeks, and have some still, but it will hardly last me to Christmas—nor does the open fire heat the ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... all came Caractacus with an undaunted air and a dignified aspect. He appeared no way dejected at the amazing concourse of spectators that were gathered upon this occasion, but, casting his eyes on the splendors that surrounded him, "Alas!" cried he, "how is it possible that a people possessed of such magnificence at home could envy me an humble cottage in Britain?" When brought into the Emperor's presence he is said to have addressed him in the following manner: ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... victorious, one nation against the whole world; crowned by the Vengeur, triumphant in death; plunging down carrying vive la Republique along with her into eternity, in Howe's victory of the First of June. Alas, alas! a myth, founded, like the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... suited my convenience to remain for a few days in Berlin, and I was therefore compelled to present myself at Potsdam. There I received a great surprise. Wilhelm spoke to me of you, and though, alas! my heart is still bruised, he helped ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... I have seen the General turn down the wine-glasses at his side. That indomitable will of his enabled him to remain steadfast to his resolve, a rare case as far as my experience goes. Some have refrained for a time. In one noted case one of our partners refrained for three years, but alas, the old enemy at last ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... terrible game of savate or cudgels; moreover, he played the piano in a fashion which would have enabled him to become an artist should he fall on calamity, and owned a voice which would have been worth to Barbaja fifty thousand francs a season. Alas, that all these fine qualities, these pretty faults, were tarnished by one abominable vice: he believed neither in man nor woman, God nor Devil. Capricious nature had commenced by endowing him, a ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... penalised in a straightforward, professional way. If a man, for instance, is irritable, impatient, unpunctual, let him take up some line where he is bound to be professionally bland, patient, methodical. That would be the act of a philosopher; but, alas, how few of us choose our ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Mrs. Guy Flouncey, at length succeeded in being asked to one of Lady St. Julians' assemblies. It was a great triumph, and Mrs. Guy Flouncey determined to make the most of it. She was worthy of the occasion. But alas! next morning, though admitted to the rout, Mrs. Guy Flouncey was left out of the list! It was a severe blow! But Mrs. Guy Flouncey is in every list now, and even strikes out names herself. But there never was a woman ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... owing two millions! I should be killed in a duel the first week; therefore I shall not return there. Your love—the most tender and devoted love which ever ennobled the heart of man—cannot draw me back. Alas! my beloved, I have no money with which to go to you, to give and receive a last kiss from which I might derive some strength for my ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... danced at "balls and routs" until he was sixty-four. To attend a dance, he often rode to Alexandria, ten miles distant from Mount Vernon. The year he died he was forced, on account of his failing health, to give up this recreation. "Alas!" he wrote, "my dancing days are ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... rival is stronger, handsomer, and—victorious, what then? Alas, the song dies in his throat, plumes hang crestfallen, and the disconsolate creature must creep about through tangles and brush, watching from a distance the nest-building, the delights of home life which fate has forbidden. But the poor bachelor need not by any means ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... sun—to me he comes to repose his heart upon. But as for any blessedness he has to show me, why, since he does not feel any himself, no wonder he has none to give away. I thought a Christian was superior to time and place; but all is hollow. Alas, alas, I am young in life to feel the force of that saying, with which sages go out of it, 'Vanity and hollowness!' Agellius, when I first heard you were a Christian, how my heart beat! I thought of her who was gone; and at first I thought I saw her in you, ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... they went away; "if another exists, different from the first——well—I see no reason why a whim should wreck my happiness." Then, tempted and scheming, she sat motionless for hours. Alas! for the soul which of its own free will, unmoors itself from the Rock of Ages, to drift away on dark and uncertain seas; who, lured away by the sun-gilt mirage, throws down the cross, scorns the thorny ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... and, taking his hand in hers, placed it on the head of her young champion. "I have brought you kingdoms as my dower," she said, "but I have not, alas! brought you a son so worthy as Ramiro of being their ruler. I freely forgive the Infante the suffering he has caused me, and hope that, with advancing years, he will cultivate the virtues in which he has shown himself to be deficient. But Ramiro has already given evidence ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... of weeds and nettles, Lay a violet, half hidden; Hoping that his glance unbidden Yet might fall upon her petals. Though she lived alone, apart, Hope lay nestling at her heart, But, alas! the cruel awaking Set her little heart a-breaking, For he gathered for his posies Only roses ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... "The maid, alas! her thoughts are gone, She nothing sees—no sight but one! The maid, devoid of guile and sin, I know not how, in fearful wise, So deeply had she drunken in That look, those shrunken serpent eyes, That all her features were resigned To this sole image ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... which remained such to the very last; there was no doubt whatsoever that the child believed himself to have seen his mother; that he could not have seen her in her human bodily presence, there is as little doubt as there is, alas! that in this world he never did see her again. The poor child constantly adhered to his story, and with a circumstantiality far beyond all power of invention that could be presumed in an artless infant. Every attempt at puzzling him or entangling him in contradictions by means of cross-examination ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... what with the wool from his sheep and the grain that was stored in these barns year by year, the Cotswold farmer was a rich man. Alas! Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis! One can picture the harvest home, annually held in the barn, in old days so cheery, but now often nothing more than a form. Here, however, in this village, I learnt that, in spite of bad times, ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... SOS. Alas! if anything has revealed to you the secret of my heart, I beseech you to tell it to no one; and, above all things, to keep it secret from the fair princess whose ...
— The Magnificent Lovers (Les Amants magnifiques) • Moliere
... with Germany. Alas, again I sighed, "Ah me," and viewed the aspect gloomily, for I was then in apogee from all that mighty company that domineered the H. of C. A. ruled the roast, not A.J.B. But happy thought, that company of muddlers held one hope for me—my constant pal of Yeomanry, the smashing, ...
— Punch, Volume 156, January 22, 1919. • Various
... sufficient rewards for depriving them of parts of their country. Others there are who charitably add to these things, presents of weapons and ammunition, arguing that thus they can kill their game, and gain their own subsistence without resorting to plunder; but alas! this latter argument is not found, in the majority of instances, to be the peaceful manner in which they employ these gifts. Very often the weapons which they have but recently received, are turned upon their donors with ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... so; because you are mystically inclined, you believe us to be a race of seers; because you are complex natures, you complicate ours. Because our beauty is strange to you, you think us strangely beautiful. Alas! my dear young friend, you have yet to learn your Italians. There is no such Italy, least of all Tuscany, as you profess to have read of in Donna Aurelia's simple soul. I don't know the young lady, but I know her kind. She is undoubtedly a good-hearted, shrewd ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... travellers, and the clatter of their arms had died away in the distance, the widow wrung her hands and exclaimed, "Yonder ride Apelles and his men of war to Modin, to do the bidding of the tyrant; and they bear the accursed thing with them, to be set up on high and worshipped. Alas! they will compel all the Hebrews at Modin to bow down to ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... their majesties Eat pastries every day. The knave affirms his stomach squirms, And looks the other way. Alas, alas, to such a pass Doth gluttony invite! 'Tis very sad to be so bad, ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... and pickling! They undertook it all for me, but in the end I had a small laugh at their expense. I gave them my grandmother's recipes for brandied peaches and pickled peaches, and though rigidly temperance, they consented to do a dozen jars of each. Alas! they mingled the two—now as I write it down I wonder if perhaps they did it on purpose, on the principle that drug stores now put a dash of carbolic in our 95 per cent alcohol. In which case, of course, the joke ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... approached the tempting morsel nothing could be more abject than his manner—stealing furtive glances at the eyes of his master, and trying to conciliate him by wagging the downcast tail between his legs. Alas, poor Brusa! I suspected it from the beginning. What do you think of yourself now? Grabbed by the back of the neck in the powerful hands of Geir Zoega! Not a particle of use for you to whine, and yelp, and ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... Her large eye lighted with expression wild, That, ah! too plainly speaks maternal wo! The tearful infant, lost in bitter grief, Thrills forth its plaintive call for tender care; While from a mother's trembling hand relief, Alas! can answer no imploring pray'r. Swift-falling tears! and piercing cries of pain! Maternal passion kindling into glow! Peace banished from its sweet domestic reign! Stricken with grief!—ah! sad and cruel blow! Behold the matron in a fury blue, Beating her screaming ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... which such men as these have turned up with their plowshares and bedewed with their blood, undertake the pursuit of fantastic meals of salt junk and hardtack upon the wide seas? On the kindest view it seems an unanswerable question. Alas! I have the conviction that there are men of unstained rectitude who are ready to murmur scornfully the word desertion. Thus the taste of innocent adventure may be made bitter to the palate. The part of ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... the Beautifullest and the Squalidest come in collision, and extinguished one another. Jean-Paul Marat and Marie-Anne Charlotte Corday both, suddenly, are no more. "Day of the Preparation of Peace"? Alas, how were peace possible or preparable, while for example, the hearts of lovely Maidens, in their convent-stillness, are dreaming not of Love-paradises and the light of Life, but of Codrus's-sacrifices and Death well-earned? That twenty-five ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... is. of course, no space to reproduce this, but here and henceforward the reader is referred to Map B.] of Friesland, on a much larger scale than anything I had used before, and when I was unobserved studied the course of the canal, with an impatience which, alas! quickly cooled. From Emden northwards I used the same map to aid my eyesight, and with its help saw in the gathering gloom more heaths and bogs once a great glimmering lake, and at intervals cultivated tracts; a watery land as ever; pools, streams and countless drains and ditches, Extensive ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... old mother kept on cursing me at intervals. Instinct, rather than actual knowledge, led her to attribute this disappearance to my initiative. I did not attempt to reason her out of the belief, for alas! I began to ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... education. In his second year he bought a prostitute from a brothel and raised her to his level—that is, took her as his kept mistress, and she lived with him for six months and then ran away back to the brothel-keeper, and her flight caused him much spiritual suffering. Alas! his sufferings were so great that he had to leave the university and spend two years at home doing nothing. But this was all for the best. At home he made friends with a widow who advised him to leave the Faculty of Jurisprudence and go into the Faculty of Arts. And so he did. When ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... there was no sound at all, except a very soft occasional scrape of a boot-nail that betokened that the Major was seeking cover somewhere. Then, so suddenly that he started all over, Frank felt a hand on his arm and smelt a tobacco-laden breath. (Alas! there had been no ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... finished his long-winded harangue with the logical deduction at the end, he was quite tired, and the perspiration streamed from his face. He could not, alas, even express himself correctly in Russian, though he knew no other language, so that he was quite exhausted, almost emaciated after this heroic exploit. But his speech produced a powerful effect. He had spoken ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... (now deceased, alas!) used to say that a good horse was, a good horse until it had run away once, and that a good watch was a good watch until the repairers got a chance at it. And he used to wonder what became of all the unsuccessful tinkers, and gunsmiths, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... "Alas! he left town this very day. He is a secessionist; but he has great influence, and appears very friendly ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... Alas! alas! are we not all like this very Apostle, who, in an ecstasy of trust and longing, ventured himself on the wave, and as soon as he felt the cold water creeping above his knees lost his trust, and so lost his buoyancy, and was ready ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... Peter's case. Little did the astonished Peter know whence his exhortation to the LORD to pity Himself came; "Get thee behind me, Satan," showed that our LORD had traced this counsel, which did not seek first the Kingdom of GOD, to its true source. Alas, the counsel of worldly-minded Christians does far more harm than that of the openly wicked. Whenever the supposed interests of self, or family, or country, or even of church or mission come first, we may be quite sure of the true source of that counsel; ...
— A Ribband of Blue - And Other Bible Studies • J. Hudson Taylor
... lake; and girdling the lake the forest-covered Monte Cavo rose towering into the moonlit sky, just showing on its topmost peak that white speck which once was the temple of the Latian Jupiter, and is now, alas! only the monument of an Englishman's crime against history, art, and Rome. The air was soft, and perfumed with scent from the roses in the side-alleys below. A monotonous bird-note came from the ilex darkness, like the ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... weeping girl to herself, "why should I wish to see him again? Alas! I have already seen him too often, for my future peace of mind. He is going home to his parents, his relatives, his friends, his home, and perhaps to his wife;" and this last thought crossed her mind ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... his head and obeyed: "But when the hour of death comes, O my caliph, then alas! thou wilt learn that all thy delights ...
— Fifty Famous People • James Baldwin
... the credit of our hero, that in defiance of Wharton's raillery, he talked, and—oh! still more wonderful!—thought of public virtue, during nearly half of his first session in parliament. But, alas! whilst his political principles thus withstood the force of ridicule, temptation soon presented itself to Vivian in a new shape, and in a form so seducing, as to draw his attention totally away from politics, and to put ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... quarrel, which he had for a time thought would dissolve his old life into ruin. Now Lord Chiltern was again his very intimate friend. And there had used to sit a needy money-lender whom he had been unable to banish. Alas! alas! how soon might he now require that money-lender's services! And then he recollected how he had left these rooms to go into others, grander and more appropriate to his life when he had filled ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... Alas! how many sailors' wives, in our sea-girt isle, have received similar "messages from the sea," and lived under the dark cloud of never-ending suspense—hoping against hope that the dear ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... of satisfaction or rest. "This sore travail hath God given to the sons of men to be exercised therewith." That is, the heart of man hungers and thirsts, and he must search till he does find something to satisfy; and if, alas! he fail to find it in "time," if he only drinks here of waters whereof he "that drinks shall thirst again," eternity shall find him thirsting still, and crying for one drop of water to cool his tongue. ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... Miss Virginia have made Virgil the end and aim of an educational existence, and so have kept her pupil entirely under her own care; but, alas! she knew nothing further; she had no acquaintance with Greek, and she had never flirted with Euclid; and the rector persuaded Mr. Green that these were indispensable to a boy's education. So, when Mr. Verdant Green was (in ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... make up a war party and go forth to seek her? "Alas! that may not be," Timid Hare told herself. "My dear father would himself meet death at the hands of ...
— Timid Hare • Mary Hazelton Wade
... spun? No, there were none! We were so chill, so small and lone. Have we to higher regions gone? To give the key Peter was not prone. I saw the sacramental stone And laid my hallowed hands thereon. Alas! the bread and wine were gone. With dazzling radiance all things shone, 'Twas ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... Alas! In the presence of the darkness which environs us, and which awaits us, in our ignorance of what the immense dispersion will make of us, we reply: "There is probably no work more divine than that performed by these souls." ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Alas! again the world had builded foolishly; for with early manhood, they fell in love with the same round-cheeked school-teacher. Jonathan married her, after what wrench of feeling I know not; and the other fled to the town, whence he never returned save for ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... special claim on her affection. For the first dozen years of their marriage all had gone smoothly with Mr and Mrs Asplin, and the vicar had had more work than he could manage in his busy city parish; then, alas, lung trouble had threatened; he had been obliged to take a year's rest, and to exchange his living for a sleepy little parish, where he could breathe fresh air, and take life at a slower pace. Illness, the doctor's bills, the year's holiday, ran away with a large sum of money; the stipend of the ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... valley was slow and majestic. Death fought long and desperately before he could claim his victim; and it was not until the last three years that body and mind grew thoroughly apathetic. "I have lost my intellect," said Landor, nearly two years ago: "for this I care not; but alas! I have lost my teeth and cannot eat!" Was it not time for him ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... irresistibly pointed him out as a candidate for election to the French Academy, but here he was met by the barbed wire of jealousy and exasperated vanity. He had laughed at too many pretentious mandarins to hope to escape their resentment. At last, in 1693, but alas! at the expense of a vast deal of intrigue on the part of his illustrious protectors, he stormed that reluctant fortress. In his Reception Discourse, he revenged himself on his enemies by firing volley after volley of irony into their ranks, and the august body was beside itself with rage. No ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... Alas, the shifting years have sped, Since we were hale and strong, Who oft have seen the hot blood shed, Nor held the deed a wrong; When the flames leap'd bright, thro' the frightened night, When the scrak rang thro' the lea, When a man might fight, and when might ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... is dazzling; But, alas! its bloom will fade The nearer we approach. For thy external attractions find no echo within. I can never ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... after year the same old European scenes. And there in the Himalaya is the grandest scenery in the world, and not a painter from Europe ever goes there—except just one, the great Russian Verestchagin, whose pictures, alas! are now buried somewhere in Russia. The Indian Services might do something, and they have indeed produced one great painter of Himalayan scenery, Colonel Tanner. But the Services are limited, and it is to Europe that ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... shook its head. "My education, alas! has only proceeded to the N." Her speech was quaint, unhesitating, but oddly inflected. "I regret—but I am not ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... child," he said, speaking with unwonted solemnity, "if what you have just stated be, alas! the truth, then indeed, you and you only can throw some light on the terrible mystery which has been puzzling us all ... you may be the means which God hath chosen for bringing an evildoer to justice.... Will you, therefore, try ... though ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... Around us are the hedges 'with golden gorse bright blossoming, as none blossom now-a-day.' We have heard of death, but we know not what it is; and the word CHANGE has no meaning for us; and summer and winter, and seed-time and harvest, has each its unutterable joys. Alas! we can never remain long in this happy dream-land. Nevertheless, we have profited greatly by the journey. The cowslips and violets gathered by us in childhood, shall be potent in the hour of temptation; and the cap of rushes woven for us by kind hands in days gone by, shall be a surer ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... the Looking-glass The Mother sets her Daughter, The Image strikes the smiling Lass With Self-love ever after, Each time she looks, she, fonder grown, Thinks ev'ry Charm grows stronger. But alas, vain Maid, all Eyes but your own Can see ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... so much.' Alas! and that was the way in which this eighteen months in Milton—to him so unspeakably precious, down to its very bitterness, which was worth all the rest of life's sweetness—would be remembered. Neither loss of father, nor loss of mother, dear as she was to Mr. Thornton, could ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... approaching triareme, she was wondering how she could awake to thoughts of British glory her rather heavy-witted father, Coel the King—an hereditary prince of that ancient Britain in which he was now, alas, but a tributary prince of the ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... at all, Senor," he answered; "but alas! every one is not a Christian. In Spain, for instance, we have many ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... me from ennui," he answered, yawning. "Alas! I already feel it closing in upon me. My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence. These little problems ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... volumes which lie in rows on the tables of my club. I will not stop now to enquire why English taste demands covers which show every mean stain, every soiled finger-print; but these volumes are always a reproach to me, because they show me, alas! how many subjects, how many methods of presenting subjects, are wholly uninteresting and unattractive to my trivial mind. This time, however, my eye fell upon a poem full of light and beauty, and ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... is gratified mainly by means of the cockpit. One of the most familiar sights of the islands is the native man with a game cock or just a plain rooster under his arm. They pet and fondle these birds as we do cats or lap-dogs, and on Sundays (alas!) they gather at the cockpits to match their favorites against each other. Many barrios have large covered pits seating hundreds of people. The pit of Mariveles, which happened to be in the yard next to ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... hair, From such a plight Could you not spare One acolyte? I know a broken heart that went To serve you but as ornament. Alas! a ruby now you wear, ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... "Alas!" exclaimed one old woman. "We have no good food. All our helpers are dead, and we take what others leave. Bulls and poor cows are all the ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... sitting there with one hand outstretched and the other holding a book, his white hair and beard neatly combed, reminds me of something Biblical and prophetic like pictures in old churches. Alas! no one seems to buy his story of prohibition. I think he would do lots better in Kansas or Iowa. A particularly fascinating one is the man of mending wax who stands before his table like some professor of chemistry with a tiny flame and saucers of mysterious ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... as gay and good-natured as a boy. He can bear to hurt the feelings of no one, not even a cat, human or otherwise. And then, naturally, like all men, he has a weakness for being comfortable. Money should grow in his pockets, but alas! it does not. They are often empty, and he knows not how to put up with that. It is no doubt the duty of his daughter to take a husband rich and generous enough to put Monsieur in the position he should fill, without ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... principled fellows, with high moral standards and unimpeachable characters. And there are, alas, those of another type also, and these are the ones who invariably make trouble for others and are pretty sure to disgrace themselves. Fortunately, this type rarely survives the four years' crucial test of character, efficiency and ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... and thoughtful host, and promised to study that work more than I had ever before done. I ought to have said that I would begin and study it—for, alas! how completely had I ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... estimable men among them living in England, who deserve every desirable praise for having sent over instructions to their Agents in the West Indies from time to time in behalf of their wretched Slaves. And yet, alas! even these, the Masters themselves, have not had influence enough to secure the fulfilment of their own instructions upon their own estates; nor will they, so long as the present system continues. They will never be able to carry their meritorious designs into effect ...
— Thoughts On The Necessity Of Improving The Condition Of The Slaves • Thomas Clarkson
... tender minds, and so far succeeded that when my brother was four years old he could repeat the Apostles' Creed, the general confession, and the Lord's Prayer without a blunder. My mother made herself believe that he delighted in them; but, alas! it was far otherwise; for strange as it may appear concerning one whose later life was a continual prayer, in childhood he detested nothing so much as being made to pray, and to learn his catechism. In ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... Alas, that it should turn out that he too was something from which her delicate little soul asked to be rescued! He could not bear the thought of altering her. The prospect of taking her as his wife, of making her live in close contact with his masculinity, ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... vanish into the thick bushes. Another irruption, another pall of smoke, and Jack's heart bounds in exultant joy, for he sees the New York flag in the van. Sherman has reached the point of dispute. But alas! the guns are run back, and as the gray lines sway rearward in billowy, regular measure, they retain the Titanically ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... yours, and the powerful intervention of the celibate was needed to make your union complete. How shall we give a name to this miracle, perhaps the only one wrought upon a patient during his absence? Alas, my brothers, ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... above it in a region of blue sky and great wandering shadows. That sky was bluest when I could beat my mates at examination-time, or beat them at a foot-race, or even beat their stringy heads. Alas, with the years all this fine contempt began to fade; for the words I longed for, and all their dazzling opportunities, were theirs, not mine. But they should not keep these prizes, I said; some, all, I would ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... Chatenoeuf, had gone out of the gates, but that she had a thick veil over her face, and he could not see it. When your father and the colonel had interrogated the man and dismissed him, my poor sister burst into tears and said, 'Alas! alas! then she has kept her word, and has thrown herself into the Seine. Oh, Monsieur Allarde, my sister said you would incur a heavy responsibility by sending that poor girl back, and now it has proved but too true: poor dear Valerie!' Your father and the colonel were ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... Alas! Next morning David was just going out to dinner, when a message was brought him from Market Place. He started off thither at a run, and found a white and gasping Dora wandering restlessly up and down the upper room; while Sarah, the old Lancashire cook, ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... do? This is our modern society. We are obliged to see a little of all sorts. Such a pitiful scene! I don't feel myself again yet, after it—such sobs and tears! Perhaps you heard—a poor young wife throwing herself down here at my feet—a mother of a family, madame! Alas! that's how the world is—this is what the love of finery and the fondness of admiration will lead to. People spend and spend, until finally they can only pay the interest of what they owe at the shops. Yes, indeed, madame, that happens constantly. I could mention the shops. People hope ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... September with her sister, a pleasure upon which she had long counted. Peggy was invited to join her, but alas! Captain Stewart had rendered THAT impossible by asking his sister-in-law to pass September ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... the bindery after that scene on the steamer, and had gone some place else to work, and he walked the streets for hours at a time, searching for her among the crowds of working-girls as they trooped down Broadway in laughing, chattering groups each evening, only to turn away, alas! disappointed and almost broken-hearted. ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... of ceaseless fighting and marching, it is necessary to say that we were soon sleeping the sleep of utterly exhausted and worn out soldiers, but alas, our rest was soon to be disturbed and we were to take up the weary march once more. Immediately after our arrival within the gates of Shenkursk, the British High Command at once called a council of war to hastily decide ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... to the year, And bringest all things beautiful and sweet; Thy lovely miracles themselves repeat In the green glory of the grass, And peeping flowers that stay our lingering feet With their soft eyes, blue like the sky and clear; Thou bringest not, alas, Our lily, our May-blossom, O ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... gold! No pearl of Orient with her vies; To prove her peerless I make bold: So round, so radiant to mine eyes, smooth she seemed, so small to hold, Among all jewels judges wise Would count her best an hundred fold. Alas! I lost my pearl of old! I pine with heart-pain unforgot; Down through my arbour grass it rolled, My own pearl, ...
— The Pearl • Sophie Jewett
... alas, all these things have fallen away, and have passed from memory. They indeed did not even wait, that, having been apprehended, they should go up, or, having been interrogated, they might deny. Many were conquered before the battle, prostrated without an attack. ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... like a man, he would have borne them; but that he, Major John Jones, D.G.S. C.P.B., &c. &c, who had drank the "pious, glorious, and immortal," sitting astride of "the great gun of Athlone," should come to this! Alas, and alas! He retired that night to his chamber a "sadder if not a wiser man;" he dreamed that the "statue" had given place to the unshapely figure of Leo X., and that "Lundy now stood where Walker stood before." He humped from his bed in a moment of enthusiasm, he vowed his revenge, and ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... your banner wears, Two emblems,—one of fame; Alas, the other that it bears, Reminds us of your shame. The white man's liberty in types, Stands blazoned by your stars; But what's the meaning of your stripes, They ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... of wealth and domination. These few run breathless to gain a mountain. But what have the gods whispered to the ten thousand who sit in the outer office, that they bend and blink upon their ledgers? Have the gods whispered to them the promise of great wealth? Alas, before them there lies only the dust and heat of a level road, yet they too are broken ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... us comfort, especially since the wind has dropped. About 4 the sky showed signs of breaking, the sun and a few patches of land could be dimly discerned. The wind shifted in light airs and a little hope revived. Alas! as I write the sun has disappeared and snow is ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... But alas, wives have means of extracting secrets when their suspicions are alert and clamoring that no husband has the wit to elude, man being too ingenuous to follow the circumlocutory methods of the subtler sex. Not that there was ever anything subtle about Mrs. Abbott's methods. Mr. Abbott ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... sadly crumpled; above the knees, to a casual glance, he presented the appearance of a man carefully attired in evening dress; below, his legs were sodden and muddied, his shoes of patent-leather, twin wrecks. Alas for jauntiness and elegance, alack ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... "Alas, this compact reads only one way. It means that you give and I receive. Will you—will you believe, in the future, that despair alone could have driven me to the ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... evident, that Gilbert, perplexed and bewildered as her words left him, felt that he dared not press her further. He could not doubt the truth of her first assertion; but, alas! it availed only for his own private consciousness,—it took no stain from him, in the eyes of the world. Yet, now that the painful theme had been opened,—not less painful, it seemed, since the suspected dishonor did not exist,—he craved ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... But, alas, when the hour strikes for the Rector to answer to his call he is unable to become the undergraduate he used to be, and so the only door into you is closed. We, your elders, are much more interested in you than you are in us. We are not really important to you. ...
— Courage • J. M. Barrie
... But alas. One night she took me up to her room and showed me her paintings. They were bad. They were fearfully bad, and my face must have shown ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... Hobbes, that war is the state of nature to mankind. It is certain at least, that the love of mischief is very congenial to that part of it, which, on the whole, receives the least modification of what is natural, from the restraints of education. The darling dreams of Rousseau, alas! have no prototype in the history ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... saw the other point of view as well—alas, all too plainly. She was a martyr to conscience, like Walter Tyrrel himself; was it right of her, then, to tie Eustace for life to a girl who was really a madman's daughter? This hateful question was up before her often in ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... mate, his face lighted by a gleam of anticipated triumph. One huge fellow passed directly beneath the bowsprit, and Mr. Thompson let drive the harpoon with all the strength and energy he possessed. We hauled upon the line with vigor alas! It required but little exertion to haul it in; the mate had ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... profaned by the foot of man, and everything in it is white or blue. Miss Phoebe is not present, but here are Miss Susan, Miss Willoughby and her sister Miss Fanny, and Miss Henrietta Turnbull. Miss Susan and Miss Willoughby, alas, already wear caps; but all the four are dear ladies, so refined that we ought not to be discussing them without a more formal introduction. There seems no sufficient reason why we should choose Miss Phoebe as our heroine rather than any one of the others, ...
— Quality Street - A Comedy • J. M. Barrie
... said I; 'I will bring you home something more by to-morrow; eat and drink Lizzy. I have suffered; but for you and your child's sake, I will do my best.'—'Your best,' she said, 'will kill us both; but, alas, there is no other aid at hand. You may one day, however, come here too late ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous
... She saw a falcon flying. "O happy falcon that thou art, Thou fliest wherever thou likest; Thou choosest in the forest A tree that pleases thee. Thus I too had done. I chose myself a man: Him my eyes selected. Beautiful ladies envy me for it. Alas! why will they not leave me my love? I did not desire the beloved of any one of them. Now woe to thee, joy of summer! The song of birds is gone; So are the leaves of the lime-tree: Henceforth, my pretty eyes too Will be overcast. ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... They had gone, but the blissful memory! I leaned on the window sill, and the moon with its bounteous mellow radiance filled my room. But listen, hark! Only two doors beyond, the same voices, the same melodious tones, and alas, yes, the same words, every verse and the same chorus—same masculine ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... "Alas!" thought I, "such is the world, and such will ever be the case with such imperfect beings as we are. How vain to expect any thing like consistency, much less perfection, in our erring natures. Hurt but the self-love of a man, wound his vanity, and all obligations ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... the Departement du Nord, Douai is, alas, the most modernized: there the innovating spirit has made the greatest strides, and the love of social progress is the most diffused. There the old buildings are daily disappearing, and the manners and customs ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... Canada was contemplated by these hordes of semi-barbarians, the offscouring of society, bred in bar-rooms. Alas! for poor human nature, should this scum ever overlay the surface of American freedom! It would indeed be the nightmare of intellect, the incubus of morality. A commonwealth well managed may be a decent government for an honest man to exist under, but a loaferism, to use ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... had been sentenced to ten days for drinking, and it was he who carried the plaster. The other proudly informed us that he was a policeman, and had come to make sure that the prisoner returned. Thoroughly delighted at their coming, we broke our custom and gave the men a trifle. Alas, the day! That very night both men, policeman and prisoner, were thrust into the ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... were pressing forward to shake him by the hand again, when he drew his arm through Perker's, and hurried from the prison, far more sad and melancholy, for the moment, than when he had first entered it. Alas! how many sad and unhappy beings had ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... enough, and that the interview would end; but alas for my hopes! Said that blood-hound of the press: "Will you give public healings ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... since faded, and the words on the monument, "Here died Wolfe victorious," did not proclaim his bloody triumph over the French, but his self-conquest, his victory over fear and pain and love of life. Alas! when shall the poor, blind, stupid world honor those who renounce self in the joy of their kind, equally with those who devote themselves through the anguish and loss of thousands? So old a world ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... of official gradation and pre-eminence. How often do young men of similar temperament indulge in the same enticing speculations, and allow themselves to be carried away by the blissful creations of a fertile fancy; alas! only to awake from the intoxication of their delightful dream, to realize the pangs of a bitter disappointment, and a total dispersion of all their brightest hopes. Not that we deprecate the indulgence of such romantic feelings. We believe it frequently produces that ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... time the quintessence of society in the town consisted of such as were called upon and returned the calls of the county families. Now, alas, almost every country gentleman's house in the neighborhood is no longer occupied by its ancient proprietors, and is sold or let to successful tradespeople, so that the quintessence of society in the town ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... Alas, how poor the gifts that lovers give— I can but give you of my flesh and strength, I can but give you these few passing days And passionate words that, since our speech began, All lovers whisper in ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... world rather than in God's way." "My son," said the friar, "this is a righteous wrath; nor could I find occasion therein to lay a penance upon thee. But did anger ever by any chance betray thee into taking human life, or affronting or otherwise wronging any?" "Alas," replied Ser Ciappelletto, "alas, sir, man of God though you seem to me, how come you to speak after this manner? If I had had so much as the least thought of doing any of the things of which you speak, should I believe, think you, that I had been thus supported ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... or period at which the Lives (Latin and Irish) were written is manifestly, for half a dozen good reasons, a question of the utmost importance to the student of the subject. Alas, that the question has to some extent successfully defied quite satisfactory solution. We can, so far, only conjecture—though the probabilities seem strong and the grounds solid. The probabilities are that the Latin Lives date as a rule from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous
... So that, were I actually to die before they could have time to take the necessary informations, you must not blame them too severely. You must call it a fatality. I know not what you must call it: for, alas! I have made them as miserable as I am myself. And yet sometimes I think that, were they cheerfully to pronounce me forgiven, I know not whether my concern for having offended them would not be augmented: since I imagine that nothing can be more wounding to a spirit not ungenerous ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... by the eastern shore of the island. A wide flat was there, washed on one side by the river. Here more than a thousand mounds arose. Alas! could I ever ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... was diverted from his pious intention of going to Westminster to offer up his devotions of prayer and praise in publick according to the appointment of his Majesty, and made his oblations unto God in the presence-chamber;" but it is, alas, equally certain, according to Oldmixon, Lord Dartmouth, and other reliable authorities, he spent the first night of his return in the company of Barbara Palmer. From that time this abandoned woman exercised an influence over the king which wholly disgraced his court, and ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... other in half-sorrowful consolation. But alas! next year even Mayor Harper had to ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... the night. The next morning we all mounted, alas! for the last time, and, escorted by a great number of local magnates, took the road for the river. Here we left our mounts to Doyle, who was to return with them to Baguio. It was with great regret that I parted from Bubud: he had carried me faithfully and well, and ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... Creature so faire his reconcilement seeking, His counsel whom she had displeas'd, his aide; As one disarm'd, his anger all he lost, And thus with peaceful words uprais'd her soon. Unwarie, and too desirous, as before, So now of what thou knowst not, who desir'st The punishment all on thy self; alas, Beare thine own first, ill able to sustaine 950 His full wrauth whose thou feelst as yet lest part, And my displeasure bearst so ill. If Prayers Could alter high Decrees, I to that place Would speed before thee, and be ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... Carlyon had quantities of books of photographs of all the famous statues in Europe and especially in Italy and Greece, but she could not find any likeness to him in any of her recollection of them. Alas! his face was not at all Greek. His nose was high and aquiline, his forehead high and broad, and there was something noble and dominating in his fearless regard. His hair even did not grow very prettily, though ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... on his horse. It was saddled and bridled in the stable all day. One knew it not. He was walking like a cat, when suddenly he parted the peons around him, like grain before a mad bull—and behold! he was on the pinto's back and away. And, alas! there is no horse that can keep up with the pinto. God grant he may not get in the way of the r-r-railroad, that, in his very madness, ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... be thinking of, he scarcely knows what himself. And there is a devil that makes another to be pleasing himself with wanton and wicked speculations. It is also possible, that we have our closets or our studies gloriously perfumed with devotions every day; but, alas! can we shut the Devil out of them? No: let us go where we will, we shall still find a devil nigh unto us. Only when we come to heaven, we shall be out of ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... breaking the regular thud of the hoofs. We surrounded the farm in absolute silence, dismounting some thousand yards away, and fixing bayonets. I told the men I wanted no shots—that would have brought down the commando—but cold steel and silence. We crept up and swept the farm—it was weird, but, alas! they were out on the loot. The men were furious, but ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... he says, "Alas, this cry of hunger! it is the eternal cry of Sicily; I have heard nothing else for three months. There are miserable wretches, whose hunger has never been appeased, from the day when, lying in their cradle, they began to draw the milk ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... it, in Preference of all other Matters that can present themselves to your Consideration. I need not, after I have said this, tell you that I am in Love. The Circumstances of my Passion I shall let you understand as well as a disordered Mind will admit. That cursed Pickthank Mrs. Jane! Alas, I am railing at one to you by her Name as familiarly as if you were acquainted with her as well as my self: But I will tell you all, as fast as the alternate Interruptions of Love and Anger will give me Leave. There is a most agreeable young Woman in the World whom I am passionately ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele |
