|
|
|
More "Plight" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... received so many shocks and bruises, that I was taken out with my head and all the rest of my body terribly battered, and a dislocated leg and arm. When I was brought home, the family immediately sent for the physicians, who, on their arrival, seeing me in so bad a plight, concluded, that within three days I should die; nevertheless, they would try what good two things would do me; one was to bleed me, the other to purge me; and thereby prevent my humours altering, as they every moment expected, ...
— Discourses on a Sober and Temperate Life • Lewis Cornaro
... smile. Worse than that, the wife sees her husband tortured in gaol; the husband sees his wife a victim to some horrible disease, lands gone, houses destroyed by flood or fire, and everything in an unutterable plight—the reward of former sins." ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... The plight of the travelers of the air was anything but enviable. They were wet through, for it needed only a few minutes exposure to the pelting storm to bring this about. They could not tell, in the midst of the darkness, where they were, and they almost feared to move for fear they might be on ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... peril and plight the knight travels on until Christmas-eve, and to Mary he makes his moan that she may direct him to some abode. On the morn he arrives at an immense forest, wondrously wild, surrounded by high hills on every side, where ...
— Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight - An Alliterative Romance-Poem (c. 1360 A.D.) • Anonymous
... air maelstroms and frenzied whirls, all across the sky; so overpowering the chill tempest that burst from those inky clouds; so sudden the darkness that fell, the slinging hail volleys that lashed and pelted them, that any clear perception of their plight ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... seamen, whom they employed in the profitable Indian traffic, would not have listened for a moment to any thought of giving up a struggle which had been so resolutely and successfully maintained for so many years. For financially the archdukes were in even worse plight than the Netherlanders, even though for a short time, with the help of Spinola, appearances seemed to favour the Belgic attacks on the Dutch frontier districts. In 1605 the Genoese general, at the head of a mixed but well-disciplined force in his own pay, made a rapid advance towards Friesland, ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... may they be?" inquired the King, smiling. "Just because I have come in rough-and-ready plight, your house ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... said the dog. 'Sore was the plight of thy wife and thy horses when the giant drove them ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... was extremely embarrassing, and the only circumstance on which we had to congratulate ourselves was, the improved condition of our men; for several of the cattle and horses were in a sad plight. The weather had been so extremely oppressive, that we had found it impossible to keep them free from eruptions. I proposed to Mr. Hume, therefore, to give them a few days' rest, and to make an excursion, with such of them as were serviceable, to D'Urban's ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... delight to listen to him. There was a man called Piloto, a goldsmith, very able in his art, who, together with myself, joined Buonarroti upon these occasions. [1] Thus acquaintance sprang up between me and Luigi Pulci; and so, after the lapse of many years, he came, in the miserable plight which I have mentioned, to make himself known to me again in Rome, beseeching me for God's sake to help him. Moved to compassion by his great talents, by the love of my fatherland, and by my own natural tenderness of heart, I took him into my house, and ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... farther off, escaped with a few drops, and burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter on beholding our miserable plight. ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... lift from the ground His form in woeful plight, To convent cell, for keeping well, Bear ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... themselves they might have won an easy victory; but for the past twenty-four hours the rain had been falling incessantly, Turenne's army had been marching on the previous day, and had been fighting for seven hours, and was incapable of further exertions, while that of Enghien was in little better plight, having passed the night in the rain on the ground it ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... got to have the cash, kid! Got to have it, don't you see? It was I who landed us in this plight and I'm the one to get us out. It's nobody's fault ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... felt the pulse of Perez, shook his head, and, in short, imitated with inimitable exactness all the technical airs and graces of a regular graduate of Salamanca.—"Cousin," cried he at length, with a sly look at Juana, "I pity your plight—from my soul I do; but your case is, I am grieved to say, desperate, unless I am informed of the cause of these monstrous weals, bruises, slashes, and chafings, in order that my prescription, may—"—"The cause of them," said Perez, almost frightened to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 350, January 3, 1829 • Various
... babe. Graves by the lonely forest, by the shore Of rivers and of ocean, by the ways Of the thronged city, have been hollowed out And filled, and closed. This day hath parted friends That ne'er before were parted; it hath knit New friendships; it hath seen the maiden plight Her faith, and trust her peace to him who long Had wooed; and it hath heard, from lips which late Were eloquent of love, the first harsh word, That told the wedded one her peace was flown. Farewell to the sweet sunshine! One glad day Is added now to Childhood's merry days, And one ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... I saw a man bearing a burden on his back, walking up and down the Alley in grievous plight; and ever and anon he put his hands into his breeches pockets, as if in search of something, but drew out nothing. Then he turned his pockets inside out, and cried—"Wo is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... I was one of the very first militant suffragettes to break a window—if not the very first. The point is, indeed, in dispute. And were it not for my devotion to the cause I would not now be in my present terrible plight—doomed to wander from pillar to post with that thing" (she pointed with a shudder to the box into which Elmer was still gloomily poking ice)-"chained to me like a—like a——" She hesitated for a word, and Cleggett, tactlessly enough, with some vague ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... servant dear, If thou wilt only fight for me, My sister bright to thee I’ll plight, And she ...
— Marsk Stig - a ballad - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... till enough light came to enable them to reach the Jeanne D'Arc, if she was still afloat; then to climb aboard and hunt for provisions and life preservers or something to use for a raft. If he could do this, then they would be in a somewhat better plight, at least for a time. He prayed that the Jeanne D'Arc might still ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... behind were in evil plight. There was not a dry eye amongst the women, I am certain; while Harry was in floods of tears, and Charley was bowling. We could not send them to bed in such a state; so we kept them with us in the drawing-room, where they soon fell fast asleep, ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... That her old playmate, lover, husband should come to such a plight at the very time she had struck him the hardest blow of all filled her with remorse. In a hundred ways she tried to make up to him for the loss of herself and for the loss of his eyes. She became his constant companion; never had she been so kind and so considerate. They saw no one from the ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... that sore plight of ruined man Christ's pity could not lightly scan: Nor let God's building nobly wrought Ingloriously ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... have rarely exceeded $2.50 per week.) But in these thirteen years the cost of living had risen, and at this rate for board the boarding-house keepers could no longer make ends meet, and many were ruined. The mill-owners, seeing what desperate plight these women were in, agreed to deduct from the weekly rent a sum equivalent to twelve cents per boarder, and they also authorized the housekeepers to charge each girl twelve cents more. This raised the total income of the housekeepers to practically ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... as a pumpkin? From stem to stern the vessel was caked in glossy ice, and from her gaffs and booms hung huge icicles like the stalagmites of the Dropping Cave. All the other smacks were in the same plight, and it was quite clear that no fishing could be done for awhile, because every set of trawl-gear was banked in ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... again appeared, and a few minutes before dinner M. de Tourville made his entrance into the drawing-room, no longer in the plight of a shipwrecked mariner, but in gallant trim, wafting gales of momentary bliss as he went round the room paying his compliments to the ladies, bowing, smiling, apologizing,—the very pink of courtesy!—The gentlemen of the family, who had seen him the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... enough to have excited dread in one of stouter nerves than Max Blande, who, faint and exhausted, lay there in so helpless a plight that he was not in a condition to do more than anxiously watch his captors, as they talked loudly in Gaelic ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... word of honour as a gentleman that I shall go free whithersoever I will. If, therefore, you think a magistrate requisite to inquire into this business, send for one. I think, however, that you would do much better to plight me your word at once, and let me go. I know no one but Sir John Fenwick here: therefore I can betray no one but him; and to Sir John Fenwick I pledge my word that ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... very sad plight indeed, I nursed and petted him until quite late in the afternoon, his companions not far off observing my movements with great interest. At last I said ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... promised to plight her faith to Compton the moment Lady Bassett should be restored to health; and so, with hopes and smiles, and the novelty of a daughter's love, she fought with death for Lady Bassett, and at last she ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... escaped ourselves, but see what a pitiable plight our oxen are in. They will not be able to draw another load in a week, at least; and what are we to ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... was in Grande Pointe. I have seen the wild flower taken from its cool haunt in the forest, and planted in the glare of a city garden. Alas! the plight of it, poor outshone, wilting, odorless thing! And then I have seen it again in the forest; and pleasanter than to fill the lap with roses and tulips of the conservatory's blood-royal it was to find it there, once more the simple queen of ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... of that night, while many other matters pressed on them, the minds of the three Courteneys turned to one theme. Ramsey's inquiries had called it up and the presence and plight of the immigrants, down below, kept it before them: the story of Hugh's grandmother, ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... that I should speak to you of our despair when thus torn from our relatives and friends, when we saw ourselves cooped up in the hull of that ship as malefactors? Is it necessary that I should describe the horror of our plight, our sufferings, our mental anguish during the many days that our voyage on ...
— Acadian Reminiscences - The True Story of Evangeline • Felix Voorhies
... dearest, come! tho' all in vain; Once more beside you summer main We'll plight our hopeless vows again— Unclose ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... more than she had done lately in view of this future time. Her being somewhat weather-browned would not matter; it would be rather an advantage, as testifying to her banishment; but she must be in comfortable plight, ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... us are large and forbidding. And, certainly, no one can or should minimize the plight of millions of our friends and neighbors who are living in the bleak emptiness of unemployment. But we must and can give them good ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... offer Henri had already made, Frank Barnes might well have been in a sorry plight. And, indeed, he offered now to let ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston
... Dick, running all the same; and in passing the yard they closed the gate, for Solomon was safe inside; but as they reached the house, where Mrs Winthorpe stood staring aghast at her son's plight, Solomon burst forth with another ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... I was spending my months in jail, had time to die of broken health and broken hearts, due to physical assaults or neglect, combined with a system of mental torture yet more effective and barbarous. Hundreds more are in similar plight, in Atlanta jail alone, who might be saved by timely attention and common humanity. Of this, more anon. I wish now to say that I undertake this work with a purpose as serious as I am capable of; and that among the inducements that move me, personal ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... reputation if it was said that he gave his men a taste for cruelty and riot, so he suppressed their indignation. They obeyed him, too, for now that civil war was done with, there was less insubordination on foreign service. Their thoughts were now distracted by the pitiful plight of the legions who had been summoned from the country of the Mediomatrici.[434] Miserably conscious of their guilt, they stood with eyes rooted to the ground. When the armies met, they raised no cheer: they had ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... but he would never have left a little girl in the plight in which Max, with all his boasting, ...
— Princess Polly At Play • Amy Brooks
... when ye come to St Mary's kirk, "Ye's tarry there till night." And so her father pledged his word, And so his promise plight. ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... should observe, was an officer of the Court of Wards, who was joined with the escheator and did not act singly; I conceive therefore that Shakspeare by this expression indicates an associate; one in the same plight as others; negatively, one who does not stand alone. In Cymbeline, Act iii. Sc. 2., ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 45, Saturday, September 7, 1850 • Various
... lecturer. By some hard luck he happened to be passing that way when the crowd was looking for the Abolitionist, and was discovered. "There he goes," was the cry that was raised, and a fire of eggs and other things was opened upon him. He reached his home in an awful plight, and it was charged that his conversation was not ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... lords," the king said to his knights as he sat in a little room in an inn at Zara, "that my plight is a bad one. I am surrounded by enemies, and, alas! I can no longer mount my steed and ride out as at Jaffa to do battle with them. My brother, John Lackland, is scheming to take my place upon the throne of England. Philip of France, whose mind is far better at such ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... Notwithstanding the terrible plight of the capital, Oxford was gaiety itself. The king was accompanied by his consort, who then was hopeful of an heir, and also by Lady Castlemaine and Miss Stewart. Lady Castlemaine did not escape the shaft of University wit, for ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... was sadly in need of money. It was fortunate that his old friend, Mr. Harrison, Margie's dead father, had taken it into his head to plight his daughter's troth to him while she was yet a child. Mr. Harrison had been an eccentric man; and from the fact that in many points of religious belief he and Mr. Paul Linmere agreed, (for both were miserable skeptics,) he valued him above all other men, and thought his daughter's ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... continued, "I am very sorry, Miss Cullen, if I did anything the circumstances did not warrant," while cursing myself for my precipitancy and for not thinking that Miss Cullen would never have been caught in such a plight with a man unless she had been half willing; for a girl does not merely threaten to call for help if she really ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... time treated as though I were anything but a willing and happy member of their team. It was known that I was not, but if any emotion was shown, it was sympathy at my plight in not being one of them. This was viewed in the same way as any other accident of ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... you can comprehend the loneliness, the hollow futility of our plight. Fifty thousand skilled workmen with nothing to do. Some of the less adaptable gave up, prostrating themselves upon the bare rocks until their joints froze from lack of use, and their works corroded. Others served the miners ...
— B-12's Moon Glow • Charles A. Stearns
... a houseboat girl herself. Readers of the first houseboat story will recall how Madeleine's fiance, Judge Hilliard, rescued Madge and Phyllis from a serious situation and saved Madeleine from a far worse plight than that in which ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... extraordinary position! What had I done to get this stranger wished onto me? And how long was he going to stay with me? I found myself recalling the plight of Mary who had a ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... thought of her myrtle, tended in vain at home by Barbara Schmidt; she thought of Ulm courtships, and how all ought to have been; the solemn embassage to her uncle, the stately negotiations; the troth plight before the circle of ceremonious kindred and merry maidens, of whom she had often been one—the subsequent attentions of the betrothed on all festival days, the piles of linen and all plenishings accumulated since babyhood, ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... two half-tiles in it on one side, and one whole one on the other; which showed it had been in better plight; but now the very mortar had followed the rest of the tiles in every other place, and left ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... months, if not for years, before any one had heard of it. Yuan Shih-kai had the priceless opportunity of studying them at close range and soon made up his mind about certain things. When the storm burst, pretending to see nothing but mad fanatics in those who, realizing the plight of their country, had adopted the war-cry "Blot out the Manchus and the foreigner," he struck at them fiercely, driving the whole savage horde headlong into the metropolitan province of Chihli. There, seduced ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... he, 'We're lost, every soul and the good money! we've struck a reef, Adam, and 'tis the end and O the good money!' Hereupon I climbed 'bove deck, the vessel on her beam ends and in desperate plight and nought to be seen i' the dark save the white spume as the seas broke over us. None the less I set the crew to cutting away her masts and heaving the ordnance overboard (to lighten her thereby), but while this was doing comes a great wave roaring out of the dark and dashing aboard ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... Madra, with his wondrous skill and might, Faltering, on his knees descending, fell in sad inglorious plight, ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... certain statements by Mr Belasco and by writers in and to The Referee, the Theatrical Syndicate does, in fact, control to a very great extent the drama in America, and there is no real doubt about the accuracy of the proposition that the drama in the States is in a worse plight than the drama in London. If, judging by the ordinary picked American productions over here, the evidence were otherwise insufficient, the tone of Mr Klaw's article ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... failed and she sank clinging to the pommel. Twice she tried and twice the trembling of her limbs held her captive. With the loss of each moment the beat of the hoofs on the trail below became more distinct. The very desperation of her plight kept her clinging to the pommel, incapable of thought, so that when she finally flung herself to the saddle she was surprised to find herself there. To the left the trail dropped sharply to a precipice, ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... fingers stung Gertie's face and plucked at her proud frills. He lifted her over fallen trees, freed her from branches, and all the time, between his own sobs, he encouraged her and tried to pretend that their incredible plight was not the ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... books—no habit of his youth!—although his shrewd mind had not left him in the usual plight of blank ignorance, which is often the portion of a splendid, young athlete leaving Eton! But now he studied subjects seriously, and the whys and wherefores of things; and he grew rather to enjoy the evenings alone, between the goings and comings of his parties, ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... him. "He saw me without bread to put in my mouth, and offered me not a crumb, although he had money belonging to me in his hands. He saw me in boots full of holes, and gave me to understand that I was not to come to see him in such plight." Such was the poor fellow's distress, that he was almost glad when the purpura, with its intolerable pains, returned, that he might crawl to the hospital, where he could say, that, "bad as the hospital-fare is, it is at least certain, and is, after all, ten times better than that I am able to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... the stars all shinun out, an' the moon all so bright! I never looked upon the like. An' so I stood in the bows; an' I don' know ef I thowt o' God first, but I was thinkun o' my girl that I was troth-plight wi' then, an' a many things, when all of a sudden we comed upon the hardest ice we'd a-had; an' into it; an' then, wi' pokun an' haulun, workun along. An' there was a cry goed up,—like the cry of a babby, 't was, an' I thowt mubbe 't was a somethun had got upon ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... our plight, if not his words; gave a soft little cry of mingled pity and self-reproach; forced ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... from his bank the promissory note on which the money had been borrowed, and send it to him. The promissory note had not come, and the matter had passed from Sir Tancred's mind. Now, he perceived that, if Mr. Lambert chose to deny that payment, he was in no little of a plight. ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... house some few days afterwards, I should have seen a pale, anaemic looking creature, with projecting teeth and a thoroughly imbecile expression, come out of it. I believe a large percentage of idiots and imbecile epileptics owe their pitiable plight to vampires which, in their infancy, they had the misfortune to attract. I do not think that, as of old, the vampires come to their prey installed in stolen bodies, but that they visit people wholly in spirit form, and, with their superphysical mouths, suck the brain cells dry of intellect. ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... go to the hospital, and I was goin' to the Vicar to ask for a letter, but I dreads comin' back up that hill." As it was she had already walked half a mile. In the third case a man's indifference to his own suffering was to blame for the plight in which he found himself. Driving a van, he had barked his shin against the iron step on the front of the van. Just as the skin had begun to heal over he knocked it again, severely, in exactly the ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... imprudent chivalry; he forgot the activity Simoun had displayed in urging Paulita's marriage, which had plunged Isagani into the fearful misanthropy that was worrying his uncle. He forgot all these things and thought only of the sick man's plight and his own obligations as a host, until his senses reeled. Where must he hide him to avoid his falling into the clutches of the authorities? But the person chiefly concerned was not worrying, ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... to their tents, laughing at the plight of their captain, as he issued, furious, from the ruins. Frank began to run too; but thinking that this would be considered an indication of guilt, he stopped. Atwater was ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... to find Anne and harness the team. While he is doing that, I'll get you a little lunch to take with you and write a note to your mother. Perhaps you can come again before we break camp, but I'm sorry to send you home in such a sad plight.' ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... girl; but still, the disappointment is as great, although the consequences are not so calamitous. Among the higher classes, how often do young men receive encouragement, and yield themselves up to a passion, to end only in disappointment! It is not necessary to plight troth; a young woman may not have virtually committed herself, and yet, by merely appearing pleased with the conversation and company of a young man, induce him to venture his affections in a treacherous sea, and ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... law; but he was civilly walked down-stairs by the master of the establishment, who forbad him the house evermore. The dashing youth, however, put both the money and the affront in his pocket, and was only too thankful to get away in so good a plight. ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... five feet on the level, and driving and drifting into the hollows, so that for several days the less frequented roads in that part of the country were impassible. And now, when Mrs. Marjoram, but for her own sad plight, would have thought of poor Aunt Hannah, there was no one enough interested to give her loneliness a moment's consideration, till, one morning, one street lad cried out suddenly to another that Aunt Hannah must ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... your nonsense for some luckier night— Who can have put my master in this mood? What will become on 't—I'm in such a fright, The Devil's in the urchin, and no good— Is this a time for giggling? this a plight? Why, don't you know that it may end in blood? You'll lose your life, and I shall lose my place, My mistress all, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... current, and sending him struggling down a rapid, it threw him at last, like a bundle of old clothes, on a shallow, where he managed to get on his feet, and staggered to the shore in a most melancholy plight. Thereafter he returned to the encampment, like a drowned rat, with his long hair plastered to his thin face, and his soaked garments clinging tightly to his slender body. Had he been able to see ...
— Away in the Wilderness • R.M. Ballantyne
... I was some time before I got my senses again. When I did I found that I was tied hand and foot, and was lying there on the sands, with three or four of our fellows in the same plight as myself. They all belonged to the jolly-boat in which I had come ashore. The other boat had made a shift to push off with some of its hands and get back to the ship; but I did not know that until afterwards, for I was lying down behind a hillock ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... O Gladness of an Hour Made flesh and blood! O beauteous Human Flower Too sweet to pluck, and yet, though seeming-cold, Ordain'd to love! I pray thee, as of old, Be kind to me. I saw thee yesternight, And for an instant I was urged to plight My troth again; for in thy face I saw What seem'd a smile evoked ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... plight, Avenant exclaimed one day, "How have I offended his Majesty? He has no more faithful subject ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... we reached our destination, "I may count upon you not referring to the plight in which I returned to your place? I should not care for it to get abroad that the Pirate had got the better of me on the ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... majority of the artists, he regretted to observe 'motives apparently limited to their own views and ambition to govern.' Again the negotiation was broken off, the project went to pieces, and now the hope of establishing a national academy in England seemed in its worst plight—hopeless—gone down to zero. ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... all concluded that it was most probable the general had gone there, we shaped our course for Port Desire, and on our way met the Black pinnace by chance, which had also parted company from the general, being in a miserable plight. So we both proceeded for Port Desire, where we arrived on the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... the snow-storm develops into a regular blizzard; a furious, driving storm that would do credit to Dakota. Without gloves, and in summer clothes throughout, I quickly find myself in a most unenviable plight. It is no common snow-storm; every few minutes a halt has to be made, hands buffeted and ears rubbed to prevent these members from freezing; yet foot-gear has to be removed and streams ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... contrary to the advice of Carson, decided to remain behind, to enjoy themselves in a beautiful country where they found abundance of game. A week after the safe arrival of Mr. Carson and his party, these two men made their appearance in a truly pitiable plight. They had encountered a party of Indian hunters who, while sparing their lives, had robbed them of their arms, their ammunition and even of every particle of their clothing. Of course they were kindly received at the fort ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... a pitiable terror of the ordeal before her—a pitiful, mute, quivering distress, that this man, against whom, two hours before, she had felt such a store of bitter rancour, whose almost murderous assault she had so narrowly escaped, should now be in this plight. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... she replied. "I think he'll go to Ames in a disgraceful plight, but I can't get any closer to the subject than I ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... could get her no further than a shoal called Stubben, when she sunk, and soon after he had worked the NYEBORG up to the landing-place, that vessel also sunk to her gunwale. Never did any vessel come out of action in a more dreadful plight. The stump of her foremast was the only stick standing; her cabin had been stove in; every gun, except a single one, was dismounted; and her deck was covered with shattered limbs and ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... in, perfectly sober, with a big ruddy face, giant frame, and twinkling gray eyes. He was the man who had risen to speak his faith in the Hon. Samuel Budd that day on the size of the Hon. Samuel's ears. He, too, was unashamed and, as he explained his plight again, he ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.
... gives it its value. The best and most useful form, perhaps, which our remarks on it can take will be to furnish it with a running commentary explaining its allusions both to publications and to persons. It begins with a reference to the unhappy plight of Dr. King. This was Dr. William King, who is not to be confounded with his contemporaries and namesakes, the Archbishop of Dublin or the Principal of St. Mary Hall, Oxford, but who may be best, perhaps, described as the Dr. William King 'who ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... waves, which threatened to engulf her, as they were breaking on board from every direction. The deck-houses were washed away and the decks were filled with water, which began to find an entrance to the 'tween-decks, where the poor soldiers were battened down. In this plight it was necessary to get the remnant of the topsail secure, and if possible get a new sail in its place, so as to steady the ship. The second officer was ordered to get the sailors and do this, but he soon ...
— Notes by the Way in A Sailor's Life • Arthur E. Knights
... kisses and farewells, Kate and kind Lady de la Poer left the carriage, and entering the brougham that was waiting for them, drove to Bruton Street; Kate very grave and silent all the way, and shrinking behind her friend in hopes that the servant who opened the door would not observe her plight—indeed, she took her hat off on the stairs, and laid it on the ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... things there, as ever, in sad plight. Men, in their evil days, move my compassion; Such sorry things ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... said, and smiled himself into silence. Then he talked about more or less frivolous subjects; and, as always, he asked about Mr. Bryan and Mr. Roosevelt, "alike now, I suppose, in their present obscure plight." I told him I was going from his house to the House of Lords to see Sir Edward Grey metamorphosed ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... last, Dowton stayed his hand; but in the meantime Holland was summoned to appear upon the stage. The play was proceeding—what was to be done! All was confusion. It was not possible for Holland to present himself before the audience in such a plight as he had been reduced to. An apology was made "for the sudden indisposition of Mr. Holland," and the public were informed that "Mr. De Camp had kindly undertaken to go on for the part." Whether Dowton ever ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... deserved a bottle of the Royal Tokay, such as even Napoleon could not obtain. When the cheering was done, and every eye was fixed upon the blushing Scudamore—who felt himself, under that fixture, like an insect under a lens which the sun is turning into a burning-glass—the Chairman perceived his sad plight, and to give him more time ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... over my taking out Redwheels, and I am glad that neither he nor I could prevision the plight the shiny new runabout would be in before it was many hours older. With a stoical reserve he loaded in the two young lilacs that were in the exact state of sappiness Grandmother Nelson had recommended for transplanting, but his calmness nearly gave way when I had him put ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... he mentioned the circumstance to William Peirce, as he went to the Mineral Spring on Fast-day. Last Monday morning he told Colonel Putnam he could not fix the time. This witness stands in a much worse plight than either of the others. It is difficult to reconcile all he has said with any belief in the ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... you ditter doing there, Bart?" said Dunning, with a broad grin, as he came up and recognized the secretary in such a strange plight and attitude. ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... prince in a pretty plight. Not a pound in his pocket, not a pair of boots to wear, not even a cap to cover his head from the rain; nothing but cold meat to eat, and never a ...
— Prince Prigio - From "His Own Fairy Book" • Andrew Lang
... their number, besides their chief; the survivors were in a miserable plight, most of them wounded, some mortally, and all deprived of their camels, and the rest of their property. Renouncing their pride, they were obliged to supplicate from Barca Gana a handful of corn to keep them ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... but for a definite and vital end. In default the animal would be unable to obey the first law of Nature—self preservation—for it is soft-bodied and its dwelling has the serious defect of being open at both ends. In such plight lacking special organs it would be at cruel advantage in the struggle for existence. The posterior segment of the body is therefore developed into an operculum-like organ, smooth and of horny texture, which closes the narrow end of the tube. The other extremity is more elaborately ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... then an officer in Fraser's Highlanders, in his "Memoirs," though speaking of the march to Cross Creek, is silent about Highlanders offering their services. Nor is it at all likely, that, in the sorry plight the British army reached Cross Creek in, the Highlanders would unite, especially when the outlook was gloomy, and the Americans were ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... terrible, unbreakable circle. Only too clearly he could see the inevitable result. His men were wearing themselves out. Already many of them could scarce stir hand or foot, and might be dead for any aid which they could give him in winning the fight. Soon all would be in the same plight. Then these cursed English would break their circle to swarm over his helpless men and to strike them down. Do what he might, he could see no way by which such an end might be prevented. He cast his eyes round in his agony, and there was one of his Bretons slinking away to the side of ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... read the seditious manifestoes at all, and if they had read them, would not have understood one word, for one reason because the authors of such literature write very obscurely in spite of the boldness of their style. But as the workmen really were in a difficult plight and the police to whom they appealed would not enter into their grievances, what could be more natural than their idea of going in a body to "the general himself" if possible, with the petition at their head, ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... only generalized; now, he was come to his own plight. On several points he had been painfully in doubt: whether he had done the deed in self-defence; whether he had meant to do it; whether it had not been a blind, mad accident, since swollen by fevered imagination into the likeness of wilful crime. But against such doubts arrayed itself ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... serenely. 'From whence have you come?' was my next query. 'From a prison in London town,' was the strange reply. Doubtless this child (so I reasoned) was the daughter of some poor man who had suffered for conscience' sake; and, mayhap, some person who pitied his sad plight had taken the girl and thrown her on our charity, or, rather, mercy. 'Child,' said I, 'wilt come into the Manor with me, and have some chocolate and cake?' 'That will I, madam,' she answered softly. 'I came on purpose to stay with you.' The ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... singing outside taverns would be considered by men as a blind for something else. In addition she looked back upon her former occupation with loathing. It could not be denied that she was in an awkward plight. ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... I lay there, now cursing the jealousy of the clerks, who would have flayed me to save themselves, and now the cruelty of the grooms who thought it fine sport to whip a scholar. But the first tempest of passion had spent itself, when a woman—not the first whom my plight had attracted, but the others had merely shrugged their shoulders and passed on—paused before me. "What a white skin!" she cried, making great eyes at me; and they had cut my clothes so that I was half bare to her. And then, "You are not a street-prowler. How come you ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... sweetness is melting into fable; only the new Spirit in its holiest power can restore to those homes their boasted security of "each man's castle," for Woman, the warder, is driven into the street, and has let fall the keys in her sad plight. Yet darkest hour of night is nearest dawn, and there seems reason to ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Similarly, the human race must grow away from God as it takes upon itself the burden of knowledge. That surely is inherent in the fall of man. No philosopher has yet improved upon the first chapter of Genesis as a symbolical explanation of humanity's plight. When man was created—or if you like to put it evolved—there must have been an exact moment at which he had the chance of remaining where he was—in other words, in the Garden of Eden—or of developing further along his own lines with free ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... pity. "He had risked everything on the success of this, and the poor child would have been left in a sad plight. Marriage was rather out ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... of unions were represented in the organization: miners, masons, carpenters, plasterers, engineers, electricians, and many grades of helpers. Learning his plight, they rallied promptly to his aid. They appealed to their trades and to the central body of unions to intervene in his behalf with ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... tug-boat hove in sight, bound to the wrecked schooner, and seeing the men waving and their dangerous plight, eased her engines. Deal boats were towing astern, and Deal boatmen were on board, and out of their number Finnis and Watts bravely volunteered to go to the ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... drooping creature is terrified from all enjoyments—prays without ceasing till his imagination is heated—fasts and mortifies and mopes till his body is in as bad a plight as his mind, is it a wonder that the mechanical disturbances and conflicts of an empty belly, interpreted by an empty head, should be mistaken for the workings of a different kind to what they are? or that in such a situation every commotion should ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... late and cold; let us go. I am miserable, for I have lost my faith. This reversion to savagery is horrible and bewildering. What are we? What can we do when barbarians surround us? The loneliness and desolation of our plight! I feel utterly lost, Vilyashev. We are no good to anyone. Not so long ago our ancestors used to flog peasants in the stables and abduct maidens on their wedding-nights. How I curse them! They were wild beasts! Ibn-Sadif spoke the truth ... a thousand ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... not; so he lieth on the ground as he fell, till one passing by lift him up by the hand, regarding the ancient reverence for his hoary beard. Thus lay on the earth Iphicles, wielder of the shield. But I kept wailing as I beheld my sons in their sore plight, until deep sleep quite fled from my eyes, and straightway came bright morn. Such dreams, beloved, flitted through my mind all night; may they all turn against Eurystheus nor come nigh our dwelling, and ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... flung it in their eyes as fast as they dashed it from their lashes. They could not see a yard ahead. The light of the hacienda was nowhere visible. If its owner was away from home and his house in darkness, then was their plight ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... the blades, the crystal deep Of the silence of the morn, Of the forest yet asleep; And the river reaches borne In a mirror, purple gray, Sheer away To the misty line of light, Where the forest and the stream In the shadow meet and plight, ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... Thus was Sigurd troth-plight to the white-armed Gudrun, and all men were fain of their love and spake nought but praise ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... who incontinently had contributed to augment the rebel train when the Prince, in far different plight, on the 27th of November 1745, passed through Preston, on his route to London, piping "The king shall have ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... over her magnificent shoulders; the postillion smoking his pipe, in his shirt-sleeves and waistcoat, having flung aside his greatcoat, which had sustained a thorough wetting; and I without my wagoner's slop, of which, it being in the same plight, I ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... woeful plight, left the carriage and came to the manse, till his servant went to the castle for a change for him; but he could not wait nor abide himself: so he got the lend of my best suit of clothes, and was wonderful jocose both with Mrs Balwhidder and me, for he was a portly man, and I but ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... his arms when he sat up to write. The author of his life in Cibber adds, that when his distresses were so pressing as to induce him to dispose of his shirt, he used to cut some white paper in slips, which he tied round his wrists, and in the same manner supplied his neck. In this plight he frequently appeared abroad, while his other apparel was scarcely sufficient for the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... disconsolate drooping creature is terrified from all enjoyments—prays without ceasing till his imagination is heated—fasts and mortifies and mopes till his body is in as bad a plight as his mind, is it a wonder that the mechanical disturbances and conflicts of an empty belly, interpreted by an empty head, should be mistaken for the workings of a different kind to what they are? or that in such a situation every commotion should help to fix him in this malady, and make ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... heavy losses had befallen Counsellor Werter, which brought him within an inch of ruin. Had it not been for a sister left him who took care of him, the poor old gentleman would have been, indeed, in a miserable plight. A single word spoken by John Durer would have restored his ancient benefactor to court, and replaced him in the Emperor's favor. But vanity is without a heart; and wounded pride never forgives ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... out too fine. But when the judgement checks and suppresses at once the rising anger, it not only cures the soul for the moment, but restores its tone and balance for the future. It has happened to myself indeed twice or thrice, when I strongly fought against anger, that I was in the same plight as the Thebans, who after they had once defeated the Lacedaemonians, whom they had hitherto thought invincible, never lost a battle against them again. I then felt confident that reason can win the victory. I ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... the French peasant and his poverty will realise the plight of the little town. The peasant has no reserves of supplies. Life is reduced to its simplest elements. There is nothing ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... step on deck as the boat emerged from under a bridge. Another, in his Sunday clothes, as good luck would have it, being told to leap aboard from the bank, forthwith plunged up to his third waistcoat-button in the canal, and was fished out in a very pitiable plight, not at all amended by our three rounds of applause. Anon a Virginia schoolmaster, too intent on a pocket Virgil to heed the helmsman's warning, "Bridge! bridge!" was saluted by the said bridge on his knowledge-box. I had ...
— Sketches From Memory (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... ponds; marshes, and swamps, where many trees had been blown down upon each other. This caused us a thousand troubles and embarrassments, and great discomfort, as we were all the time wet to above our knees. We were four days in this plight, since in most places the ice would not bear. At last, on the 20th of the month, we succeeded in arriving at our village. [168] Here the Captain Yroquet had come to winter with his companions, who are Algonquins, also his ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... customary offerings to the poor] on the occasion of my safe arrival, such as oil, vegetables, and small coins, [102] and said to me, "Though my heart is greatly rejoiced at this meeting, yet, brother, in what sad plight do I see you?" I could make her no reply, but shedding tears, I remained silent. My sister sent me quickly to the bath, after having ordered a splendid dress to be sewn for me. I having bathed and washed, put ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... ground his teeth; tears of rage and mortification sprang to his eyes. He recalled his own feelings in instances where shame had fallen upon other men; he recalled his own easy indifference and the temptation to laugh at the plight of the poor devils. It had never entered his mind that some day he might be the object of like consideration in others more or less ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... lord, Let the dead thing live as a lifelong sign Of perfect plight in love and union. This Were no dishonour done to fatherhood But honour shown to wedlock. Here is spread The feast, the bride-feast of my love and thine, Whereat the cup of death shall serve our ...
— Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the sort of person on whom the character sat ill; one who would always be most at ease when shifting for himself; such a one as would reply to any doubt thrown on his power of doing so, that he had been in many a worse plight than this before. Yet you would hardly have classed him on that account as an adventurer, because that term implies unscrupulousness in the way one shifts for oneself. His face was a perfectly honourable one. It was a face whose strength did not interfere with ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... into hysterical tears, and he soon found himself involved in all the remorseful, inconsequent speeches to which a man in such a plight feels himself driven. She allowed herself to be calmed, and they had a dreary making-up. When it was over, however, George was left with the uneasy conviction that he knew very little of his wife. She was not of a nature to ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... even know the language of the country, they could not ask their way; and as they were surrounded by enemies, they must be constantly on their guard lest they should be surprised and taken prisoners or killed. They were indeed in a sorry plight; and no wonder that they all fancied they would never see their homes again. When night came on, they flung themselves down upon the ground without having eaten any supper. Their hearts were so ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... scene further, beyond the remark that the fighting was a furious and tremendous onslaught upon each other, so that in the space of twenty-six minutes, and after eleven rounds, both men were perfectly exhausted, and in a wretched plight. Crawley had his cheek laid open and both eyes nearly closed, and Ward ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... me, doth my lover, Kisses with each breath - I shall one day throw him over, And plight ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the Spanish fleet with broken sides lay round us all in a ring; But they dared not touch us again, for they fear'd that we still could sting, So they watch'd what the end would be. And we had not fought them in vain, But in perilous plight were we, Seeing forty of our poor hundred were slain, And half of the rest of us maim'd for life In the crash of the cannonades and the desperate strife; And the sick men down in the hold were most of them stark and cold, And the pikes were all broken or bent, and the powder was ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... drifting about its streets, at night, in the gloomy month of February, with but a few half-pence in his pocket. The deserts of Arabia are not more dreary and inhospitable than the streets of London at such a time, and to a stranger in such a plight. Do we want a picture as an illustration? We have it in his own words, and furnished, doubtless, from his ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... reach the Jeanne D'Arc, if she was still afloat; then to climb aboard and hunt for provisions and life preservers or something to use for a raft. If he could do this, then they would be in a somewhat better plight, at least for a time. He prayed that the Jeanne D'Arc ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... on the part of Nature but for a definite and vital end. In default the animal would be unable to obey the first law of Nature—self preservation—for it is soft-bodied and its dwelling has the serious defect of being open at both ends. In such plight lacking special organs it would be at cruel advantage in the struggle for existence. The posterior segment of the body is therefore developed into an operculum-like organ, smooth and of horny texture, which closes the narrow end of the tube. The other extremity is more ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... flooded back into her chilled veins Sheba endured a half-hour of excruciating pain. She had to clench her teeth to keep back the groans that came from her throat, to walk the floor and nurse her tortured hands with fingers in like plight. ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... distraught dotard. All the landmarks of his life seemed suddenly shifted. All the standards of his life hitherto orderly and fixed were now confused and whirling, and Cavanagh, understanding something of his plight, pitied him profoundly. It was of a piece with this ironic story that the innocent man should suffer madness and the guilty go calmly about their business of grazing their cattle on the ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... efforts to pull her without the breakers some way, and then let go our kellick again. Here we lay all the next day in a great sea, not knowing what would be our fate. To add to our mortification, we could see our companions in tolerable plight ashore, eating seal, while we were starving with hunger and cold. For this month past we had not known what it was to have ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... such a state, that he could not bring his mind to bear upon the question of which cakes his wife would probably prefer, and he stood helplessly holding up his hand till the good woman behind the counter discovered his plight, and uttered a loud cry of compassion. She ran and got a wet napkin, which she rubbed with soap, and then she instructed him by word and gesture to rub his hand upon it, and she did not leave him till his rescue was complete. He let her choose a variety of the cakes for him, and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... thou plight thy word to boot? True servant wast thou to my sire King Brute, And Brute thy ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... infrequent errors in typing as if she was a simpering girl who was trying to buy idleness with her charm. And he was speaking ill of her. That she knew from Mr. Mactavish James's kindnesses, which brightened the moment but always made the estimate of her plight more dreary, since just so might a gaoler in a brigand's cave bring a prisoner scraps of sweeter food and drink when the talk of her death and the thought of her youth had made him feel tenderly. Only that morning he had ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... much of its physical plant—post offices and other buildings-is obsolete and inadequate. Many new buildings and the modernization of present ones are essential if we are to have improved mail service. The second problem is the Department's fiscal plight. It now faces an annual ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower
... will you keep to-night? Before the altar will you lay again Your "shining armour," and renew your plight To wear ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 30, 1914 • Various
... I must explain to you how we are situated," said Wilfrid. "We are in a serious plight. You should be civil to this woman for several reasons—for your father's sake and your own. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the schooner (its weight diminished from the same cause as that of the water) alternately to such heights and depths, that if Captain Servadac had been subject to seasickness he must have found himself in sorry plight. As the pitching, however, was the result of a long uniform swell, the yacht did not labor much harder than she would against the ordinary short strong waves of the Mediterranean; the main inconvenience that was experienced ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... know he's not," she answered for him. In her steady eyes he could see, growing every moment, a new sense of the fearful plight of things and of her relation to them. Her young bosom rose and fell, and when her lips parted to speak again their corners twitched. "He—he's the new case! I will mention it! I've a good right. ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... is a safer guide than either right or duty. For hard as it is to know what gives us pleasure, right and duty are often still harder to distinguish and, if we go wrong with them, will lead us into just as sorry a plight as a mistaken opinion concerning pleasure. When men burn their fingers through following after pleasure they find out their mistake and get to see where they have gone wrong more easily than when they have burnt them through following after a fancied duty, or a fancied idea concerning right virtue. ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... games, but at evening a cold storm of rain set in, continuing all night and the next day, to the great discomfort of all. Custer's cavalry returned at evening of the 1st of March, looking in a sorry plight from their long ride in the mud. Reveille sounded at five o'clock on the morning of March 2d, and at seven the corps turned toward the old camp, at which it arrived, after a severe march through the mud, at sunset ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... cargo is flung back to place by the shock of a mighty surge. Nature was on guard again in a moment, straining and tense in its sentry over the habitation of a soul so nearly deserted but a minute before. Morgan listened, sweating in the desperation of his plight. ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... sitting on his horse at this point, amusing himself at the soldiers' plight, undertook to encourage and soothe their ruffled feelings by giving words of cheer. "Go ahead, boys," remarked the General, "and don't mind this; when I was in Mexico—" "But, General, it wasn't so cold in Mexico, nor did they fight war in winter, and a horse's legs are not ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... Her lip curled, and her eyes laughed satirically as she thought of the follies of those men—how they had let women lead them up and down in public places, drooling and sighing and seeming to enjoy their own pitiful plight. If that expression of satire had not disappeared so quickly, she might have got at the secret of her "miserable failure." For, it was her habit of facing men with only lightly veiled amusement, or often frank ridicule, in her eyes, ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... the pirate's flight smelt of mystery, and must have happened with the Spaniards' consent, or because the pirate had given gifts to the master-of-camp, so that the latter would allow him to depart; and that it was impossible for him to escape from such a plight in any other manner, even had the Spaniards been asleep." These suspicions are dissipated on their arrival at Manila, forty-five days after the departure from Tansuso, a run that should have been made in ten days. In chapter XXXII is told the return of the Chinese to ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... the tenth remained and shed tears, looking over the side of the vessel. They were all picked up, and restored dripping to the deck. The beautiful young lady upon seeing them said, "What am I to do? See what a plight they are in. How can I possibly choose, because every one of them is equally wet?" Then said my friend the captain, acting upon a sudden inspiration, "Take the dry one." I am sorry to say that she did so, and ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... my dear, we won't give up yet," he said. "Console yourself; I believe many others have been in the same plight ...
— Adventures in Toyland - What the Marionette Told Molly • Edith King Hall
... Rebecca's plight was pathetic. How could she refuse; how could she explain she was not a "member;" how could she pray before all those elderly women! John Rogers at the stake hardly suffered more than this poor child ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... gentleman who had married into Hamilton's family. He determined on a bold stroke. He was sorely in need of powder, provisions, money, and especially of fresh mounts for his troopers, the long rapid marches, cold weather, and scanty forage having reduced his horses to a very sorry plight. In Perth he might lay hands on all these, and possibly on a few recruits into the bargain. He was in Blair when the messengers found him on May 10th. With his handful of sabres he swooped down on Dunkeld, which he reached just in time to relieve a tax-collector of the dues he had ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... expedient for it, relying on God, who will aid them. The storms were frightful. The almiranta suffered the most terrible voyage that ever ship has suffered. For after a few blasts they had to cut down the mast, and, when they reached thirty-six degrees, they lost their rudder. In such plight they agreed to return, suffering destructive hurricanes, so that, had not the ship been so staunch, it would have been swallowed up in the sea a thousand times. Finally God was pleased to have it return, as ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... Daniel to the mayor; a half-hour later an official dispatch was on its way to the impresario Doermaul. It was couched in language that was sufficient to inspire any citizen with respect, referred to the desperate plight in which the company then found itself, and demanded in a quite imperious tone that something ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... one of his most characteristic literary productions. Braddock's appeals to the Philadelphia Assembly for a rough wagon-road and wagons for the army succeeded in raising only twenty-five wagons. Franklin visited him in his desolate plight and agreed to assist him, and appealed to the public to send to him for the use of the army a hundred and fifty wagons and fifteen hundred pack-horses; for the latter Franklin offered to pay two shillings a day each, as long as used, if provided with a pack-saddle. Twenty ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... was in this plight the Roman people were going wild with delight and offering whole oxen in sacrifice. Some carried small liberty caps, and they voted to Galba the rights pertaining to the imperial office. For Nero himself they instituted a search in all directions and for some time were ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... than once careened so as to ship alarming seas. The air, filled with sleet and icy snow, cut like a knife through the thickest clothing, and again Edward Tilley, swooning with exhaustion and cold, lay lifeless in the bottom of the boat, sadly watched by his brother in hardly better plight and by Carver, who, like the father of a family, carried all ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... from the window, suddenly, the most lovely song. It was the little live Nightingale, that sat outside on a spray. It had heard of the Emperor's sad plight, and had come to sing to him of comfort and hope. As it sang the specters grew paler and paler; the blood ran quicker and more quickly through the Emperor's weak limbs; and ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... was not a lawyer and who received from the Court an explanation of the consequences and penalties resulting from such plea. Unanimity was subsequently regained in Wade v. Mayo[848] in which the Justices had before them the plight of an 18-year-old boy, convicted on the charge of breaking and entering, who was described by a federal district court as not a stranger in court, having been convicted of prior offenses, but as still unfamiliar with court procedure and not capable of representing himself adequately. ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... far on the ocean one cold starless night, A small bark was sailing in pitiful plight: The boom of the billows, as on rushed the storm, O'ercame the stout hearts of the ...
— Favourite Welsh Hymns - Translated into English • Joseph Morris
... driven fighting, down the hill and back to the shelter of Worcester. With the Roundheads pressing hotly upon them they gained at last the Sidbury Gate, but only to find that an overset ammunition wagon blocked the entrance. In this plight, and without attempting to move it, they faced about to make a last ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... all in white, like a saint, And so is no mate for me; And the daisy's cheek is tipped with a blush, She is of such low degree; Jasmine is sweet, and has many loves, And the broom's betrothed to the bee;— But I will plight with the dainty rose, For fairest ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... year the resources of the Venetians had grown less and their plight more desperate. In 1668 they had received some assistance from French volunteers under the Duc de la Feuillade. This was followed by an application to Turenne for a general who would command their own troops in conjunction with Morosini. It was a forlorn hope ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... could command no ready-made entertainments. In the sweat of our brows we earned such concerts as we had, and any one who has ever got up a concert, even at home, knows how much sweating such activities involve. In the end, moved by pity at our plight, the Y.M.C.A. people used to lend us concert parties, especially "Lena Ashwell" parties, the best of their kind. I have always found the Y.M.C.A. generous in sharing their good things with those ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... question as to the identity of these kites. They were the Gap Gang, and in desperate plight. Their lugger was gone, and their leader dead. At sixes and sevens among themselves, they had quarrelled with the only man who might somehow have saved them. Behind them lay the gallows; before them the sea—and nothing to cross it in but the ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... was the preacher's name) continued on his way, now laughing at the sorry plight of his mockers, again singing a hymn with such power that the leaves of the trees seemed to tremble with the melody, and anon lifting his heart in prayer to his Maker. The object of his ride through the woods was to visit a settler who a short time before had been caught by a falling ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... my flaming fire, and said he was come to woo me, and named himself Gunnar; but I said that such a deed might Sigurd alone have done, with whom I plighted troth on the mountain; and he is my first troth-plight, and my well-beloved." ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous
... nymphs changed into laurel and gushing springs. I am come to take you, sir, before the officers of the Company aboard this ship, when, if you have aught to say for yourself, you may say it. I need not tell you, who saw so clearly some time ago the danger in which you then stood, that your plight is now ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... fresh air. Of return to the circle and "catching" it there; Of the girls who can stand up and read as they'd write. Of others who couldn't if they stood up all night; Ah! yes indeed, 'twas a pitiful plight. ...
— Silver Links • Various
... see my uncle; but that horrid old Lambernier met me just as I entered the woods. What shall I do if he tells that he saw me? This is not the road to the mill. It is to be hoped that he has not followed me! I should be in a pretty plight!" ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... had waited for him all these years. She had been sought after, and had refused several good offers from eligible widowers and others who pitied her sad plight and looked upon her as an old maid forlorn. But she was true to her love for Alfred. Possibly she had not been courted quite so assiduously as Tennyson's mother had been. When that dear old lady was past eighty she became very deaf, and the family often ventured ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... love thee— More than rich thoughts can dream, or mad lips speak; But how, or why, whether with soul or body, I will not know. Thou art mine.—Why question further? [Aside] Ay if I fall by loving, I will love, And be degraded!—how? by my own troth-plight? No, but my thinking that I fall.—'Tis written That whatsoe'er is not of faith is sin.— O Jesu Lord! Hast Thou not made me thus? Mercy! My brain will burst: I ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... night, inside the crocodile skin, he visited what places he chose, unhindered by the terrified dwellers, and after him came his followers of the Guild to steal the plunder and bear it back inside the walls of Oyster-le-Main. Never in all their adventures had these superb miscreants been in better plight; but now the trouble had begun, as you are going to hear. We return to Hubert ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... these was the fight in which Colonel Doran's column extricated itself with severe loss from a most perilous plight. The whole force under Doran consisted of 350 men with two guns, and this handful was divided by an expedition which he, with 150 men, undertook in order to search a distant farm. The remaining two ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... hostile ranks, vanishing from the eyes of his attendants. Blows rained on his iron mail. In the pressure of the crowd he fell to the earth. While seeking to raise himself again in his heavy armor, he cried, in his helpless plight, to a Swiss soldier, who had approached him ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... with —what above all he wanted, and what might have been so easily obtained through negotiation with the revolted Numidian tribes —a good light cavalry. He thus wantonly brought himself and his army into a plight similar to that which formerly befell Agathocles in his desperate ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... under ban, and at the last a day was set whereon all they must needs part from their wives. Though my story take root ere this, yet I pray thee bear it in mind, for we shall come thereto anon. Well, this damsel, with assent of her father, was troth-plight unto a young man whom she loved very dearly; but seeing her youth, their wedding was yet some way off. In good sooth, her father had given assent under bond that they should not wed for three years; and the three years should be run out in ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... a grain of hidden truth in the charge brought by his rival, Alan Heathcote? There was no mistaking the fact that something external had caused the magnate's startling indisposition, and Grant, even though he was badly scared at his father's plight, drew his own conclusions in regard to the matter. Meanwhile he stood helplessly calling until he collected presence of mind enough to go around to the other side of the table and raise his father's inanimate form to a ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... sweetest fruit in human reach For those fair hands now free, while armed wrong Trembles before her look, though it be strong; Thousands thus dwell beside her, virgins bright, And matrons with their babes, a stately throng! 1600 Lovers renew the vows which they did plight In early faith, and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... gentleman saw that he was discovered, he was so fearful of being recognised by the lady, that he descended in all haste through his trap-door; his despair at returning in such an evil plight being no less than his desire and assurance of a gracious reception had previously been. He found his mirror and candle on his table,(8) and looking at his face, all bleeding from the lady's scratches and bites, whence the blood was trickling over ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... "thou knowest that I am a plain man; to bid thee hope were to plight my word. And," he added seriously, "there be reasons grave and well to be considered why both the daughters of a subject should not wed with their king's brothers. Let this cease now, I ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... violence of his emotion; the reckless, the daring Henry Lovell was weeping like a child. Oh, then again I thought I liked him, for I knelt down by his side, I took his hand in mine, I bathed it with my tears, and I whispered to him that I would promise anything, that I would plight my faith to him, do anything but consent to the ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... long time, striving in vain to come to the surface. Finally he rose, spitting the bitter brine out of his mouth. Although he was in such a desperate plight, his mind was on the raft. Battling bravely with the waves he reached it, and springing on board sat down in the middle of it. Thus ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... was to lie there that night, seeing that as yet we had no more beds than we had bought for our own need from old Zabel Nering the forest-ranger his widow, at Uekeritze. Wherefore she took me aside: What was to be done? My bed was in an ill plight, her little godchild having lain on it that morning; and she could no wise put the young nobleman into hers, although she would willingly creep in by the maid herself. And when I asked her why not? she blushed scarlet, and began to cry, and would not show herself ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... me," said his landlord, "but before Mr. Mulcahy, who, as it is an oath connected with your moral conduct, is the best person to be present. It must be voluntary, however. Now, good-bye, Connell, and think of what we said; but take care never to carry home any of my servants in the same plight in which you put ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... the house, and almost before the officers of the law were aware of his escape, he had donned his garments, and without a scratch on his person, mingled unsuspected with the throng of spectators. The boatswain, notwithstanding the woeful plight he was in, for he was dreadfully punished, was marched off to the guard house, accompanied by his faithful second, and on the following day was mulcted in an exemplary fine ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... keep your nonsense for some luckier night— Who can have put my master in this mood? What will become on 't—I'm in such a fright, The Devil's in the urchin, and no good— Is this a time for giggling? this a plight? Why, don't you know that it may end in blood? You'll lose your life, and I shall lose my place, My mistress all, for ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... the enemy, we could make no use of the bow gun. Every brace and bowline cut away, her canvas torn to rags, her hull shot through, and half her men dead or wounded, she was, indeed, a sorry sight. The Niagara went by on the safe side of us, heedless of our plight. Perry stood near, cursing as he looked off at her. Two of my gunners had been hurt by bursting canister. D'ri and I picked them up, and made for the cockpit. D'ri's man kept howling and kicking. As we hurried over the bloody deck, there came a mighty crash beside ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... In this plight, therefore, he went home, and refrained himself as long as he could, that his wife and children should not perceive his distress; but he could not be silent long, because that his trouble increased. Wherefore ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Benjamin was alive, asked whether this was their younger brother; for he had seen him. Whereupon they said he was: he replied, that the God over all was his protector. But when his affection to him made him shed tears, he retired, desiring he might not be seen in that plight by his brethren. Then Joseph took them to supper, and they were set down in the same order as they used to sit at their father's table. And although Joseph treated them all kindly, yet did he send a ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... this uncomfortable plight, and trying to arrange our camp beds on the snow, for we could not get any balsam boughs here to put under us, we were joined by several wild Indians, who, coming down the lake, saw our camp-fire. They had a number of thin, wild, wolfish, half- starved Esquimaux dogs with them. They ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... is not for us to fling stones at them, seeing that we also often may catch ourselves thinking that Jesus has gone to sleep when storms come on the Church or on ourselves, and that He is ignorant of, or indifferent to, our plight. But though the disciples were wrong in their fright, and not altogether right in the tone of their appeal to Jesus, they were supremely right in that they did appeal to Him. Fear which drives us to Jesus is not all wrong. The cry to Him, even though it is the cry of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... garrison marched out with the honours of war, and were escorted by Messer Galeaz and the Marquis of Mantua to the French outposts. More than two thousand men had already died of sickness and starvation. Almost all their horses had been eaten, and the survivors were in a miserable plight. Many perished by the roadside, and Commines found fifty troopers in a fainting condition in a garden at Cameriano, and saved their lives by feeding them with soup. Even then one man died on the spot, and four others never reached the camp. Three hundred more ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... short consultation, Naude advised me to come home. They would stay in the bush and wait until the moon went down, he said. I hated leaving them in such a plight, but Naude insisted, and I only came away when he said he thought there would be more chance for them to get through unobserved if they were fewer in number. How they managed without residential passes and handicapped by those ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... little better plight than the army. England flew the royal ensign over six hundred ships of war and was the undisputed sovereign of the seas. Opposed to this mighty armada were five frigates, three ships, and seven brigs, which Monroe recommended ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... yonder—I became interested in her. I thought perhaps she had been injured. Then more or less by chance I found out the true facts. I spoke to her; she told me a little about her plight." ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... the first school, I had a painful facility of examining these matters. Frequently, when I have inquired the cause of the wretched plight in which some of the children were sent to the school,—perhaps with scarcely a shoe to their feet, sometimes altogether without,—I have heard from their mothers the most heart-rending recitals of the husband's misconduct. One family in particular I remember, consisting of seven children, two ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... occasionally, the river was free from boaters and the fishers who told of the fish that used to be got there in other times, so there was nothing to do but wait until my absence caused anxiety, when some one would surely come after me. Not a very alarming plight if one were well, but I felt one of my old cruel attacks was at hand, which was not encouraging. No one was within sight, but in case there should be a ploughman over a rise within hearing, I coo-eed long and well. My voice had been trained. I coo-eed three times, allowing an interval ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... YOU. Lastly, and above all else, keep and save your every kopeck. To save money is the most important thing in life. Always a friend or a comrade may fail you, and be the first to desert you in a time of adversity; but never will a KOPECK fail you, whatever may be your plight. Nothing in the world cannot be done, cannot be attained, with the aid of money." These injunctions given, the father embraced his son, and set forth on his return; and though the son never again beheld his parent, the latter's words and ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... 'motives apparently limited to their own views and ambition to govern.' Again the negotiation was broken off, the project went to pieces, and now the hope of establishing a national academy in England seemed in its worst plight—hopeless—gone down to zero. ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... not be in this sad plight," was the thought of the young Shawanoe; "therefore the Great Spirit expects Deerfoot not to think of his own life until they are saved from ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... the morning, on the 8th, Mr Pickersgill returned, together with his companions, in no very good plight, having been at the head of the arm he was sent to explore, which he judged to extend in to the eastward about eight miles. In it is a good anchoring-place, wood, fresh water, wild fowl, and fish. At nine o'clock I set out to explore the other inlet, or ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... night, these grisly waves, these winds and whirlpools loud and dread: What reck they of our wretched plight who Safety's shore ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... for whoever sought her favour was obliged to order the best and dearest of everything, not only for her and himself, but for a whole tableful of hungry guests. When she had met him just now he would never have recognised her had she not been in Gundel's company. True, the sight of her in this plight was not unexpected, yet it pierced him to the heart, for Kuni had been a remarkable girl, and yet was now in far greater penury than many of much less worth whom he had watched stumbling along the downward path before her. When he saw Lienhard Groland's glance rest upon ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... first, and I trust the last time too; it was wrong, very wrong. I'm thoroughly ashamed that you should have seen me in such a plight. I was betrayed into it. I ought to have been more on my guard; you mustn't think any more of it; I'll take care it doesn't ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... at daylight the next morning by some noise in the room. Looking up, they saw the little fellow at the fireplace breaking an egg. He had built a fire, had got eggs from the kitchen, and was cooking his breakfast. The little girl was mischievous and cheery in spite of her bad plight, and nobody knew of the baby except Grayson and the doctor. Grayson would let nobody else in. As soon as it was well enough to be peevish and to cry, he took it back to its mother, who was still abed. A long, dark mountaineer ...
— 'Hell fer Sartain' and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... Phil's eyes and he saw a determination in them that he knew he could never shake, and, knowing his own weakness, he would have killed Phil rather than see him in the same plight. ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... of oars was heard on either hand. It would be impossible to fight the enemy with any hope of success. Plight was their only resource. Morton steered for the frigate. The enemy's boats continued to come after them. Morton kept a look-out for the frigate's light. The Frenchmen saw at length that the pursuit was useless, and gave it up. No sooner was this ascertained ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... metals. The evils of a silver currency are obvious to all here. Its value has changed three times in one day since we have been in the country. Business is seriously disturbed, and suffers from this cause, and it is to such a plight that our misled silverites ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... deliberately insulting to Arved, who, however, let it pass because of their mutual plight. If they fell to fighting, detection would ensue. So he answered in ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... soon as they were aware of the accident, the two grooms pushed forward, and one of them galloped after Flint, whom he succeeded at last in catching; while the other, with difficulty preserving his countenance at the woful plight of the attorney, who looked as black as a negro, pointed out a cottage in the hollow which belonged to one of the keepers, and offered to conduct him thither. Potts gladly assented, and soon gained the little tenement, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the two latter summers of my stay there) when living at Cambridge with Edward Noel Long, afterwards of the Guards,—who, after having served honourably in the expedition to Copenhagen (of which two or three thousand scoundrels yet survive in plight and pay), was drowned early in 1809, on his passage to Lisbon with his regiment in the St. George transport, which was run foul of in the night by another transport. We were rival swimmers—fond of riding—reading—and of conviviality. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... now and again accentuated by a rumble of distant voices and gusts of vacant laughter, once or twice by a curious popping. For a long time he heard nothing else whatever. The effect was singularly disquieting and did its bit to quicken torpid senses to grasp his plight. ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... childe, Rome had not been now assailed. If I had neuer brought forth a sonne, I should haue laied mine old bones and ended my life in a free countrie. But I coulde neuer haue susteined, or suffred more miserie, then is nowe fallen vnto mee, nor neuer more dishonour, then to beholde thee in pitifull plight, a traytour to thy natife soile. And as I am the moste wretched wight of all mothers, so I trust I shal not long continue in that state. If thou procede in this enterprise, either sodaine death, or perpetuall shame bee thy rewarde." When his mother had ended these woordes, the whole ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... unobserved, thanks to the private door. It was bitterly cold and snowing hard, and we had scarce left the court-yard when I fell to shivering, my teeth clicking like castanets. Lady Morley-Frere, seeing my plight, held out a silver flask, and from the depths of her cloak growled out, "Drink, drink! 'Twill set you right in a trice. 'Tis hot and spiced, and good for you." I obeyed her. I had hardly swallowed it before a delicious warmth stole over me, and every ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... centuries, has more and more rejected the transcendental ideas of the human understanding. Yet the consequences of that rejection, in the increasing individualism of conduct which has kept pace with the growing subjectivism of thought, are now sufficiently apparent and the present plight of our civilization is already leading its more characteristic members, the political scientists and the economists, to reexamine and reappraise the concepts upon which it is founded. It is a similar attempt to scrutinize and evaluate the significant aspects ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... even Napoleon could not obtain. When the cheering was done, and every eye was fixed upon the blushing Scudamore—who felt himself, under that fixture, like an insect under a lens which the sun is turning into a burning-glass—the Chairman perceived his sad plight, and to give him more time and ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... hurried up and down the great thoroughfare, Howard Jeffries, tired and hungry and thoroughly disgusted with himself, stood still at the corner of Fulton street, cursing the luck which had brought him to his present plight. ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... the brother of the girl who was "all in the mustard," aware of Peter's plight, had stumbled across the useful bit of information and brought it to Peter at ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... young looks. Very soon she was asking him the most direct questions, which he had to parry as best he could. She made out at once that he was a foreigner and in the book trade, and then she let him know by a passing expression or two that naturally she understood why he was lounging there in that plight at that hour in the morning. He had been keeping gay company, of course, and had but just emerged from some nocturnal orgie or other. And then she shrugged her strong shoulders with a light, pitiful air, as though marvelling once more for the thousandth time over the stupidity of men who ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... along in weary plight, Through heavy jungle-mire, These two came later every night To warm them at the fire, Until the Captain said one day: 'O seaman good and kind, To save thyself now come away And ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... moment gazed, And quickly turn about; In doleful plight, the deacon sighs, "Murder will ...
— The Story of the Two Bulls • John R. Bolles
... a painful sight To see a nation great and good Reduced to such a sorry plight, And courtiers crawl where freemen stood, And king and priests combine to seize the spoil, While widows weep and beggar'd ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... Unktomi, "that the villagers and chief who bound and deserted you are in sad plight. They have hardly anything to ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... friendly and unembarrassed that Maskull felt scarcely any humiliation at sitting at her feet, naked and helpless. She realised his plight, and put into his hands a garment that she had been carrying over her arm. It was similar to the one she was wearing, but of a darker, ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... a moment gazed, And quickly turn about; In doleful plight, the deacon sighs, "Murder ...
— The Story of the Two Bulls • John R. Bolles
... in trim gardens takes his pleasure; But, first and chiefest, with thee bring Him that yon soars on golden wing, Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne, The Cherub Contemplation; And the mute Silence hist along, 'Less Philomel will deign a song, In her sweetest saddest plight, Smoothing the rugged brow of Night, While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke Gently o'er the accustomed oak. Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly, Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among I woo, to hear thy even-song; And, ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... have seemed to her, after being alone in here, that now our plight was far less desperate. She had told me how she was captured. A man accosted her on the terrace, saying he wanted to speak to her about Alan. Then a weapon threatened her. Amid all those people she was held up in old fashioned style, hurried to ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... now, of his own accord, he was going!... Twenty times he was on the point of turning back. He walked two or three times round the town, turning away just as he came near the Palace. He was not alone in his plight. His mother and brothers had also to be considered. Since his father had deserted them and betrayed them, it was his business as eldest son to take his place and come to their assistance. There was no room for hesitation or pride; he had to swallow ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... it. In a long life of dealing in various kinds of property, including horse-trading, very few people have ever got the best of me, and everybody knows that this is less a boast than a confession; and yet, this one good act of standing by this poor girl in her dreadful plight degraded me more in the minds of the community than all the spavins, thorough-pins, poll-evils and the like I ever concealed or glossed over. We are all schoolboys who usually suffer our whippings for things that should be overlooked; and the fact that we get off scot free when we should have ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... of sight, and their leader had sunk senseless on the turf by the roadside, did they dare a backward look. The moment he came to himself they started again for home, at what poor speed they could make, and reached the Crown and Mitre in sad plight, where, however, they found some compensation in the pleasure of setting forth their adventures—with the heroic manner in which, although vanquished by the irresistible force of enchantment, they had yet brought off their forces without the loss of a single man. ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... I have mercy when you have none?" he asked, quickly. "Let the prisoners die of grief; I am a prisoner too, and shall know also how to die. I shall not leave Innspruck unless you promise me that you will become my wife on my return, and plight me your faith before the altar of God. I swear by all that is sacred to me, I will not leave this city unless I take with me your solemn pledge that you will overcome your ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... Providence would have it, up at that very moment came the Master Builder himself, and seeing his son in such a plight, shook his head gravely, thinking him drunk in the gutter. But Reuben went up and told all the tale, as far as he knew or guessed it, and Dorcas having confirmed the same more by gestures than words, the unhappy father smote ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... of us who were more "Wormy." But shortly after our first Thanksgiving Day at the farm, he, too, fell ill and failed to come down to breakfast. On his absence being noted, Gram went up-stairs to inquire into his plight; and it was with a sense of exultation rather than proper pity, I fear, that Halse and I saw the old lady come down presently and get the Vermifuge Bottle. We heard Addison expostulating and arguing ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... which scarcely sufficed to reach the tabouret. That mattered little; Venner had eaten when he was hungry, drunk when dry, and knew the position of the flagon and dish to the ultimate inch. He was not caring about the light. His mind was filled to the exclusion of all else with his plight and the predicament ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... of these, two savages who have no common, artificial language, can communicate their thoughts in a manner quite intelligible: they can ask and refuse, affirm and deny, threaten and supplicate; they can traffick, enter into contracts, and plight their faith. The language of brutes consists in the use of those inarticulate sounds by which they express their thoughts and affections. Thus, the chirping of a bird, the bleating of a lamb, the neighing of a horse, and the growling, ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... might be. They went in for sincerity, or Turner, or "sweetness and light," with all the ardor of youthful neophytes. And it was good for them. But after a while they became, if not exactly weary in well-doing, at least a little weary of the unintermittent tirades against ill-doing. They were in the plight of the good Christian who goes to church every Sunday only to hear the parson rebuke the sins of the people who are not there. The man who dated his moral awakening from "Sartor Resartus" began to find the "Latter Day Pamphlets" wear on his nerves. ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... out into the porch I bethought myself of the porter. A hotel porter had helped me out of a similar plight in Breslau once years ago. This porter, with his red, drink-sodden face and tarnished gold braid, did not promise well, so far as a recommendation for a lodging for ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... increased, and men became so much more cruel than formerly that even the frogs and worms, that in the earlier days were never harmed, were now destroyed without mercy, or by sheer carelessness or contempt. Thus the animals came to be in such a sad plight that it was resolved by them to call great councils of their members together to consult upon what could be done for their ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... in hand the steward her he took, And plight that lady his troth alone, That she should be his married wife, And he would make her ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... happened that Jack the Giant-Killer on his way to Wales passed through the town, and, hearing of the Prince's plight, was so taken with his kindness and generosity that he determined to be the Prince's servant. So this was agreed upon, and next morning, after Jack had paid the reckoning with his last farthing, the two set out together. But as they were leaving the town, an old woman ran after ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... Robert wore fine high moccasins of tanned mooseskin, much stronger and better than ordinary deerskin, but before long he felt the water entering them and chilling him to the bone. Nevertheless, keeping his resolution in mind, and, knowing that the others were in the same plight, he made no complaint but trudged steadily on, three or four feet behind Willet, who chose the way that now led sharply downward. Once more he realized what an enormous factor changes in temperature were in the lives of borderers and how ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... said grandmamma, in dismay; "how came you in such a plight? We never thought of you being out in this shower. We supposed, of course, you would go to Mrs. Gray's, and wait till it ...
— Dotty Dimple at Her Grandmother's • Sophie May
... soldiers were pressed in France. In every great town of France, any able-bodied man, going through the streets on his business, was liable to be shoved by the crimps into a house called the oven. There he was shut up with others in the same plight; those fit for service were picked out, and the recruiters sold them to the officers. In 1695 there were thirty of ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... girl said a few consolatory words and jumped down from the wheel. She was torn both ways. Bella's plight was piteous, but to make her father rise in his present state of health and attend such a case, hours long, in the chill, night breath of the open—it might kill him! She turned toward the camp, vaguely conscious of the men standing in awkward attitudes and looking thoroughly uncomfortable ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... amounted to seventeen vessels, three of them of one hundred tons' burden each. With this gallant navy, Columbus, dropping down the Guadalquivir, took his departure from the bay of Cadiz, on the 25th of September, 1493; presenting a striking contrast to the melancholy plight, in which, but the year previous, he sallied forth like some forlorn knight-errant, on a desperate ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... parted with for the loss of a victory or two; wherefore the wing of the tyrant was clipped again, as to boasting,—I mean in comparison of what he would have done, if the Diabolonians had put the town to the same plight to which he ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... back through the corn-field to the Dunkard Church. A great gap had now opened in Jackson's line. Jones' division, its flank uncovered by Hood's retreat, found itself compelled to seek a new position. D.H. Hill's brigades, in the same plight, gave ground towards Sharpsburg; and Greene, following in pursuit, actually crossed the turnpike, and penetrated the West Wood; but neither Hooker nor Mansfield were able to support him, and unassisted he could ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... no time for words, either of joy or explanation; time enough for that when every one was safe indoors. Mr Rastle and Roach between them carried Loman, while Oliver, in scarcely better plight, was helped along by his ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... round the desert line of coast to the north-west, and had enabled us to procure a larger and more varied supply of stores, than we could possibly have brought up from Port Lincoln in a single dray. We were now amply furnished with conveniences of every kind; and both men and horses were in good plight and ready to enter upon the ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... was "a sight to behold." He had retired from the sitting room, and bade the family good night before nine o'clock, looking like a decent person. His pants were in good condition then; certainly, if they had been in their present plight, it would have ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... bred in Macon's heathenish lore, Which thou oppressest with thy puissant might, Yet trust thou wilt an helpless maid restore, And repossess her in her father's right: Others in their distress do aid implore Of kin and friends; but I in this sad plight Invoke thy help, my kingdom to invade, So doth thy virtue, so ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... never swears, Nor kicks intruders down his entry stairs, Though meekness plants his backward-sloping hat, And non-resistance ties his white cravat, Though his black broadcloth glories to be seen In the same plight with Shylock's gaberdine, Hugs the same passion to his narrow breast That heaves the cuirass on the trooper's chest, Hears the same hell-hounds yelling in his rear That chase from port the maddened buccaneer, Feels the same comfort while ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... loud. "Of course he erred. You don't suppose that I would give the authorities my real name, do you? Why, man, I am a nephew! I have an aged uncle—a rich millionaire uncle—whose heart and will it would break were he to hear of my present plight. Both the heart and will are in my favor, hence my tender solicitude for him. I am innocent, of course—convicts always are, you know—but that wouldn't make any difference. He'd die of mortification just the same. It's one of our ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... with my head and all the rest of my body terribly battered, and a dislocated leg and arm. When I was brought home, the family immediately sent for the physicians, who, on their arrival, seeing me in so bad a plight, concluded, that within three days I should die; nevertheless, they would try what good two things would do me; one was to bleed me, the other to purge me; and thereby prevent my humours altering, ...
— Discourses on a Sober and Temperate Life • Lewis Cornaro
... jerkin, practical leather and iron;—hide it, charitable canvas, from all but a few! Alas, precisely at this moment, the treacherous canvas rushes down,—hung so on purpose, thinks Ottocar; and it is a tent indeed; but a tent without walls; and all the world sees me in this scandalous plight! ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... that your stroke had cut off one of his ears, and laid his cheek bare from the eye to the chin. I fancy that he was too badly hurt to come to us, but in any case he would not have cared to show himself, in so terrible a plight." ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... are economic victims of the havoc and the waste of war. It is not Central Europe only, together with large parts of the Balkans, of Russia, and of Eastern Asia, that is in this evil plight. Europe as a whole is unprovided with the foodstuffs with which to feed its population and the raw materials with which to furnish employment. If there were prevailing among them the best of wills and of cooeperative arrangements, the European peoples could not keep themselves ...
— Morals of Economic Internationalism • John A. Hobson
... in little better plight than the army. England flew the royal ensign over six hundred ships of war and was the undisputed sovereign of the seas. Opposed to this mighty armada were five frigates, three ships, and seven brigs, ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... step so unsteady and utterance so thick that even she could not mistake the cause, she was bewildered and bitterly disappointed by the apparent contradictoriness of his action; and when he, too far gone for dissimulation, described and acted out in pantomime the doctor's plight and appearance, she became half hysterical from her desire to laugh, to cry, and to give vent to her ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... this I got a good night's rest in spite of the diabolical witlow; the witlow is so unromantic a wound that I shall leave it out of the narrative for the future. The next morning I was with General La Marmora at daylight and from him I went to the municipality. I found them in a sad plight, full of terror. The Syndic, or Mayor had been threatened in the night. Albertini, a leader of the revolt, one of the worst of ruffians I am told, entered his bedchamber at midnight with money orders and proclamations ready drawn ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... 57-year-old man who was not a lawyer and who received from the Court an explanation of the consequences and penalties resulting from such plea. Unanimity was subsequently regained in Wade v. Mayo[848] in which the Justices had before them the plight of an 18-year-old boy, convicted on the charge of breaking and entering, who was described by a federal district court as not a stranger in court, having been convicted of prior offenses, but as ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... she was about to leave the room, "come here. I am strong now, and I want to talk to you. Now tell me all about it. How did I get into this plight? And how ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... favourite's aim; In vain a rival barred his claim, Whose fate with Clare's was plight, For he attaints that rival's fame With treason's charge—and on they came, In mortal lists to fight. Their oaths are said, Their prayers are prayed, Their lances in the rest are laid, They meet in mortal shock; And, hark! the throng, with thundering cry, ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... and within a very short time I had been induced to part with all my money, and, in fact, some of my clothes. When I recovered my senses—for I must have lost them to act as I did—I found myself in a sad and sorry plight. ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... glance at her brother. Roy, despite his plight and the dust which enveloped him, was tight-lipped and defiant. No sign of a breakdown appeared on his features, for which Peggy ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... incitements. Thy fierceness finds no leisure; dalliance is far from thee, and savagery fostered. Nor is thy hand free from blasphemy while thou loathest the rites of love. Let this hateful strictness pass away, let that loving warmth approach, and plight the troth of love to me, who gave thee the first breasts of milk in childhood, and helped thee, playing a mother's part, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... the first place, then, men of Athens, we must not be downhearted at our present situation, however wretched it may seem to be. For in the worst feature of the past lies our best hope for the future-in the fact, that is, that we are in our present plight because you are not doing your duty in any respect; for if you were doing all that you should do, and we were still in this evil case, we could not then even hope for any improvement. {3} In the second place, you must bear in mind (what some of you ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... authority of Scripture, for this argument's sake, to be decisive, I address the believer who would give himself airs of superiority, would chuckle in an imaginary safety in believing, and presume to threaten the unbeliever as being in a worse case, or more dangerous plight, than he. 'Hast thou no fears for thy presumptuous self?' when on the showing of thine own book, the safety (if safety there be) is all on the unbelieving side? When for any one text that can be produced, seeming to hold out any ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... shall wed his kith and kin, And the red dawn discover a rover spent for breath Among the merrymakers who fondle him to death. And all the snowy sisters are dancing wild and grand, For him whose broken beauty shall slacken to their hand. They wanton in their triumph, and skirl at Malyn's plight; Lift up their hands in chorus, and thunder to the night. The gulls are driven inland; but on the dancing tide The master of the Snowflake is taken to ...
— Ballads of Lost Haven - A Book of the Sea • Bliss Carman
... for the catamount was crying with rage and pain. He fell writhing, striking with his forepaws at the snow, and raising his head to snap at nothing; but this did not last long. Slowly he dragged himself to a sitting posture, and I could understand his plight and estimate ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... lapels upon the coat, splashed liberally with mud, his feet equipped only with embroidered socks and saturated pumps, his shirt-front bestarred with souvenirs of all the soils for thirty miles, Count Bunker made a picture that lived long in their memories. Yet no foolish consciousness of his plight disturbed him as he ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... Dr. von Goeteburg, who answered him with ironical politeness, and depicted the pitiable plight of a Germany surrounded and attacked by a world of enemies. If, however, they were willing to leave him the princess's pearl necklace as security, he would consent to lend them the few marks they needed to cross ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... wardrobe, and my pupils leave off their thick shoes and tight old tartan pelisses, and wear silk stockings and muslin frocks, as fashionable baronets' daughters should. Rose came in yesterday in a sad plight—the Wiltshire sow (an enormous pet of hers) ran her down, and destroyed a most lovely flowered lilac silk dress by dancing over it—had this happened a week ago, Sir Pitt would have sworn frightfully, have boxed the poor ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the larger vessel Ned explained their plight to an officer. They were invited aboard the steamer. Their boat was hoisted aboard, ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... was at the several doors of the church, where we kept guard for the wounded, who lay about the floor in miserable plight for lack of water. Outside, drop-shooting was still kept up by the enemy in the bushes, and returned by ours ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... counterpoise of both heads, she regained her even keel; though sorely strained, you may well believe. So, when on one side you hoist in Locke's head, you go over that way; but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant's and you come back again; but in very poor plight. Thus, some minds for ever keep trimming boat. Oh, ye foolish! throw all these thunder-heads overboard, and then you will float light ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... to the best account, to supply the deficiencies of lodging-house furniture, and defend the windows and doors against the winter storms to be expected. The varieties in the fitting-up of the rooms, where the common necessaries provided by the owner, in the common indifferent plight, were contrasted with some few articles of a rare species of wood, excellently worked up, and with something curious and valuable from all the distant countries Captain Harville had visited, were more than amusing to Anne; connected as it all was with his profession, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... chanced to meet, for being obliged to till the ground. We have before said that these men were mounted. At first sight it would appear as though they would soon be on foot, for their horses appeared to be in a sad plight for so severe a campaign as that which lay before them. As has often occurred before, looks are frequently deceptive. In this instance, it was found to be the case; for, no sooner did these hardy ponies reach the mountains than their wonderful powers of endurance began to be exemplified. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... Geiste."[47] Their work he characterizes as "Stuemperarbeit," and their virtues as brilliant evils and nothing more. There is nothing sacred, he claims, that has not been desecrated by this nation. But it is chiefly his own experience which he recites, when, in speaking of the sad plight of German poets, of those who still love the beautiful, he says: "Es ist auch herzzerreissend, wenn man eure Dichter, eure Kuenstler sieht—die Guten, sie leben in der Welt, wie Fremdlinge im eigenen Hause."[48] Still more extravagantly does the poet caricature his own ...
— Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry • Wilhelm Alfred Braun
... could not passe: and for that cause the Gouernour would not goe from Cutifa-chiqui directly thither: And hee made account, that trauelling through a peopled Countrie, when his men and horses should be in better plight, and hee were better certified of the truth of the thing, he would returne toward it, by mountaines, and a better inhabited Countrie, whereby hee might haue better passage. (M630) He sent two Christians ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... be in this position, even had he seen with his own eyes every miracle recorded in the New Testament. But he has, not seen these miracles; and his intellectual plight is therefore worse. He accepts these miracles on testimony. Why does he believe that testimony? How does he know that it is not delusion; how is he sure that it is not even fraud? He will answer, that the writing bears the marks of sobriety and truth; and that ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... you say, mother," Annie caught up the words. "Well, I suppose the Careys will be in a far worse plight than we can be, and Cyril has been such a fool, though I don't suppose he meant much harm, with his dandyisms and idleness and his college airs—all that he has brought back ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... ill?" and Dorothy quickly counted what a disgrace it would be to a good mother to find her son in such a plight. ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... Weymouth.—The result was the upset of my ink, whereof you see the remains; and our last moments were spent in reparations and apologies. My two squires are in different plight from what they were ten weeks ago, racing up hills that it then half killed them to come down, and lingering wistfully on the top for last glimpses of our bay. I am overwhelmed with their courtesies, ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... insulting to Arved, who, however, let it pass because of their mutual plight. If they fell to fighting, detection would ensue. So he answered in ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... "Fire! fire!" Canter, canter, canter! Neighbors looked out of their windows, and, recognizing Ducklow's wagon and old mare in such an astonishing plight, and Ducklow himself, without his hat, rising from his seat and reaching forward in wild attitudes, brandishing the reins, and at the same time rending the azure with yells, thought he must ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... nonsense for some luckier night— Who can have put my master in this mood? What will become on 't—I 'm in such a fright, The devil 's in the urchin, and no good— Is this a time for giggling? this a plight? Why, don't you know that it may end in blood? You 'll lose your life, and I shall lose my place, My mistress ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... discovery of some way out of their predicament, left for a long walk. Alone in the little house, the Major brooded half the morning over the plight in which the old chief's dictum had placed them, then dismissed the profitless forebodings and went out to the ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... raiments, wrapped up in cloaks, and evidently guarded by the men-at-arms, who set up a joyous shout as they rode in. Monsieur de Merouville uttered an exclamation of astonishment, as he recognized the dreaded personages collected together in such a plight. ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... became eloquent, as young madmen in my plight do. She silenced me, however, with the ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... been in such plight before, and the shop trusted her, knowing that she always strove to pay off her debts, but the farmer rated her vehemently, declaring that she had been good for nothing since the ladies had been putting fancies and megrims in her head, and that ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was one of intense agony to Mr. Hardesty. Exposed to hunger and thirst, and cold and insult, what had he done to deserve such misfortunes? And that was Christmas, too; what a merry day to all the world without; and in what a contemptible plight was he! What would little Master John think of his absence; and how much would be sold at his little store before night? These reflections only enhanced the agony of his imprisonment; so wrapping himself tightly in the folds of his cloak, he crouched down in a corner of the closet, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... must explain to you how we are situated," said Wilfrid. "We are in a serious plight. You should be civil to this woman for several reasons—for your father's sake and your own. She ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... vengeful rage, Rushed the night-rover at the sage. One lightning glance of fury, hot As fire, the glorious hermit shot, As the fiend neared him in his stride, And straight, consumed to dust, he died. In pity for the Brahmans' plight Agastya wrought this deed of might: This grove which lakes and fair trees grace In his ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... him, brother." A sixth would recommend a purge, The next would an emetic urge; The last produced a box of pills, A certain cure for earthly ills: "I had a patient yesternight," Quoth he, "and wretched was her plight, And as the only means to save her, Three dozen patent pills I gave her; And by to-morrow I ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... Emotional satisfaction and moral satisfaction based on emotional instinct appeal to the child. He pities the plight of the animals in the Bremen Town Musicians, and he wants them to find a refuge, a safe home. He is glad that the robbers are chased out, his sense of right and wrong is satisfied. Poetic justice suits him. This is one reason why fairy tales make a more definite impression ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... and walked through the park beside the judge, hoping for some further details of his uncle's present plight and future condition, but the only thing his Honor added to what he already knew was his wonderment over the fact that St. George, having no immediate use for the money except to pay his bills, should have raised so large a sum on a mortgage instead ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... sorry about anything, my lord, I pray you," answered the soubrette with another brilliant smile; "but for your kindness we should have been in far worse plight; forced to pass the night in the poor old chariot, stuck fast in the mud; exposed to the cutting wind and pelting rain. We should assuredly have found ourselves in wretched case this morning. Besides, this chateau which you speak ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... been the only white men who did us wrong, then might our plight not have become so desperate; but many there were, upwards of sixteen so Master Hunt declared, who from day to day carried away secretly such weapons and tools, or powder and shot, as they could come upon, ...
— Richard of Jamestown - A Story of the Virginia Colony • James Otis
... This, I believe, caused some of our fellows to think I was hit. Of course, after hurling a choice malediction after my horse, I was quickly on my feet and doubling after the rest of the "Boys of the Bulldog Breed." An officer of the Dorsets, Captain Kinderslie, seeing my plight, rode up amid the whistling bullets and insisted on my holding his hand and running by the side of his horse, till we came to Sergeant-Major Hunt, who had caught and was holding Bete Noire. Naturally, the reins ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... had he been dragged by a wild horse through a thicket of brambles, he could scarcely have appeared in a more wretched plight. ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... now have the honor of making his acquaintance under extremely unfavorable circumstances;—almost an invalid, and arrayed in this slovenly dishabille. My dear Mr. Tickels," she added, "you must not look at me, for I am really ashamed of having been caught in this deplorable plight." ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... environment been different. In the city they would have turned their backs and walked away from each other. But two storm-driven men upon a raft don't separate until land is sighted. Gloria, at least, was in her present plight comparable to a shipwrecked sailor of little skill and less resource. Hence, what was to be, remained to ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... Convocation. The Synod was held at Paris, in the Priory of Saint-Eloi, under the presidency of the Archbishop, from the 1st of March till the 23rd of April, 1429.[1389] The assembled bishops represented to my Lord the Regent the sorry plight of the ecclesiastical lords: the peasants, pillaged by soldiers, no longer paid their dues; the lands of the Church were lying waste; divine service had ceased to be held because there was no money with which to support public ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... bottom of this gulf? Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!" They heard, and were abashed, and up they sprung Upon the wing, as when men wont to watch On duty, sleeping found by whom they dread, Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake. Nor did they not perceive the evil plight In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel; Yet to their General's voice they soon obeyed Innumerable. As when the potent rod Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day, Waved round the coast, up-called a pitchy cloud Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind, That o'er ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... he said, as we reached our destination, "I may count upon you not referring to the plight in which I returned to your place? I should not care for it to get abroad that the Pirate had got the better of me on the ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... his own stateroom, the young man began a thorough exploration, realizing more keenly than before that without baggage or money his plight might prove distressing. But, look as he would, he could find no trace of either, and an inadvertent glance in the mirror betrayed the further fact that his linen was long since past a presentable stage. Another despairing search showed that even his watch was gone and that his only asset, evidently ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... alive, asked whether this was their younger brother; for he had seen him. Whereupon they said he was: he replied, that the God over all was his protector. But when his affection to him made him shed tears, he retired, desiring he might not be seen in that plight by his brethren. Then Joseph took them to supper, and they were set down in the same order as they used to sit at their father's table. And although Joseph treated them all kindly, yet did he send a mess to Benjamin that was double to what ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... Abstain from Pleasure, and restrain your Will, Subdue Desire, and bridle loose Delight: Use scanted Diet, and forbear your Fill; Shun Secrecy, and talk in open sight: So shall you soon repair your present evil Plight. [1]' ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... to perform their functions; so that the poor object was half his time on crutches, incapable of employ, and languishing in a tiresome state of indolence and inactivity. His habit was lean, lank, and cadaverous. In this sad plight he dragged on a miserable existence, a burden to himself and his parish, which was obliged to support him till he was relieved by death at more than ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... sorry sight, the unhappy man, unable for the moment to account for his plight, stood aghast, until his gaze, penetrating to the rear of his smudged physiognomy, beheld the reflection of the coal heaps upon ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... year's imprisonment. The jailer held the lantern close to the tanned face of the reader and nodded encouragingly to Bousquier. The latter was mumbling the Lord's Prayer. Greatly agitated, and groping about for a way out of his plight, he said finally that everything was as he had first related, only the tobacco-dealer had paid him not with a gold-piece but a couple of silver coins. He repeated his confession before the magistrate, who had been summoned despite the ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... benign! who go'st Visiting, through this element obscure, Us, who the world with bloody stain imbrued, If, for a friend, the King of all, we own'd, Our prayer to him should for thy peace arise, Since thou hast pity on our evil plight Of whatsoe'er to hear or to discourse It pleases thee, that will we hear, of that Freely with thee discourse, while e'er the wind As now is mute The land that gave me birth Is situate on the coast, where Po ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... small block could be the nucleus of a lump as large as a pumpkin? From stem to stern the vessel was caked in glossy ice, and from her gaffs and booms hung huge icicles like the stalagmites of the Dropping Cave. All the other smacks were in the same plight, and it was quite clear that no fishing could be done for awhile, because every set of trawl-gear was banked in by a slippery, ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... of Jamaica, from which spot I could make my way on foot, even if it were on the opposite end. Thus I could take messages and letters from you to your daughter and Mr. Delaplaine, and ease the minds both of them and my mother, all of whom must now be in most doleful plight, not knowing anything about you or hearing anything from me, and this for so long a time; then you could remain here with no feelings of haste until you had disposed of your cargoes and ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... shall be obeyed, my lord," said Glendinning; and choosing those whose horses were in best plight to be his attendants, he went off as fast as the jaded state of their cavalry permitted. Hill and hollow vanished from under the ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... tumbled backwards into the slush and weeds. He scrambled back, his hat falling off into the reeds, and splashing Mr. Dutton all over, while Monsieur began to bark 'with astonishment at seeing his master in such a plight,' declared the ladies, who ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Frenchman, you appear to be a man of great learning and sound sense; know that I am a noble, established at the Court of Sicily, but alone, and I seek a friend. You seem to be in the same plight, and, judging from appearances, you do not seem friendly with your lot, and have apparently need ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... through two days, was too violent for raft or boat to live, and at so early a season native craft are never seen on these seas. Briefly, a week might have elapsed before our friends at El-Muwaylah, who were startled by the wildness of the wind, could have learned our plight, or could have taken measures to relieve ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... thither during days of conflict which had come later, and he was not loth to believe that the neglect of this service and the idle vow had been corner-stone of his misfortunes, and had helped to bring about his miserable plight. ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... said, "we are pretty much in the same plight. I knew her when her husband brought her here a bride, the loveliest creature alive. Arthur Fenton was a clever, selfish, wholly irreligious man; and I could not help seeing how completely he failed to understand or appreciate his wife. She was kind to me, and when her trouble came she ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... calculated to give a high opinion of his respectability. His uniform jacket of dark green cloth was soiled and torn; his boina, which had served him for a nightcap during his imprisonment, was in equally bad plight; he was uncombed and unwashed, and a beard of nearly six weeks' growth adorned his face. It was in a tone of some suspicion that the peasant enquired his business, but Paco had his answer ready. Taken prisoner by the Christinos, he said, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... left again for England, and was never afterwards heard of. It is difficult to understand how her people could have avoided seeing the others' distress; it is harder still to believe that, seeing their plight, the Bridgewater's company could have thus deserted the castaways. Of course, this explanation would have been demanded, but the Bridgewater was an "overdue" ship long before the news of the disaster ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... I say is, that the wheel of the cart being broken, and the horse dead lame, and Charles there in that plight—(points to the sleeping peasant)—it is a folly to think of getting on further ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... persuade themselves that it was not the Bramble, a relief schooner that was supposed to cruise along the coast. But it assuredly had been the Bramble, and her men had not seen the signals against the gloomy background of scrub and hills. They knew nothing of Kennedy's death, nor of Carron's plight. The agony of this disappointment must have been more bitter than death. Mitchell was the next to die, and the survivors were too weak to give him burial. Then Niblett and Wall departed, but on the last day of the year relief ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... through the law, like some great engine forcing itself through turbid water, and dragged his useful friend in his wake, like a boat towed astern. As the boat so favoured is usually in a rough plight, and mostly under water, so, Sydney had a swamped life of it. But, easy and strong custom, unhappily so much easier and stronger in him than any stimulating sense of desert or disgrace, made it the life he was to lead; and he no more thought of emerging from his state of lion's jackal, ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... that the old man visited him, and gave him a pull from his flask. Next morning, much refreshed, he wandered into the country, which he found to be an uninhabited island. He now repented of his undutiful conduct in leaving his parents, and felt his sad plight to be a fitting punishment ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... feeble, he looked, as he was, a broken man; but he rose to the very height of an eloquence which had already become traditional. His quotation of Meg Merrilies' address to the Laird of Ellangowan, and his application of it to the plight of the Irish Church, were as apt and as moving as anything in English ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... sun has set, I dwell In darkness as a dead man out of sight; And none remains, not one, that I should tell To him mine evil plight This bitter night. I will make fast my door That hollow friends may ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... often a wild hope sent him to the Salon des Etrangers only to lose his winnings afterwards at whist at the club. His life for the past two months had been like the immortal finale of Mozart's Don Giovanni; and of a truth, if a young man has come to such a plight as Victurnien's, that finale is enough to make him shudder. Can anything better prove the enormous power of music than that sublime rendering of the disorder and confusion arising out of a life wholly give up to sensual indulgence? that fearful picture of a deliberate effort to shut ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... witch: Ho thou! Wilt thou plead some errand hither from my sister? Dost thou deem me so witless as not to know that if she had sent thee hither thou wouldst not have come in this plight? Nay, I know; thou hast stolen thyself from her: thou art a thief, and as a thief shalt thou ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... junction Latisan had matters which gave him no time to ponder on the possible plight of ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... all of them much better dressed, he was certain of that. But he was equally assured that not one of them would have forborne to laugh at his plight, as he sat abject and ridiculous in the very largest puddle ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... it now—it is betrayed This moment in mine eye, And in my young cheeks' crimson shade, And in my whispered sigh. You know it now—yet listen now— Though ne'er was love more true, My plight and troth and virgin vow Still, still I keep ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... thine eyes, old friend? After these years Doth my low plight still stir thy memories? Or think'st thou of Orestes, where he lies In exile, and my father? Aye, long love Thou gavest him, and seest the fruit thereof Wasted, for thee and all who ...
— The Electra of Euripides • Euripides
... through with Madeline. Long since disillusioned but still having power and pride to suffer intensely the latter found herself in the tragic position of being-a wife and yet no wife. In her desperate plight she besought her grandfather's clemency and forgiveness but that rigid old covenanter had declared that even as she had made her bed in willful disobedience to his command so she should lie on it for ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... concubinage for about eighteen years when the last three books of The Faerie Queen were published, Mirabella's penance of being forced to "stray through the world" accompanied by "Disdaine" and "Scorne," would match her plight as Florio's mistress, but would not apply to her ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... great many children in the Rzhanoff house, who were in the same pitiable plight; there were the children of dissolute women, there were orphans, there were children who had been picked up in the streets by beggars. They were all very wretched. But my experience with Serozha showed me that I, living the life ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... to account for their plight and presence; Brandes, listening and watching the mother out of greenish, sleepy eyes, made up ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... night, So sad was their plight! The sun it went down, And the moon gave no light! They sobbed and they sighed, and they bitterly cried, And the poor little things, they lay down ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... hijo mio, at my sorrowful plight," said the bruised Ricardo, with some asperity; "I have met with dangers of venomous serpents, and been stabbed cruelly ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... where the oxen were in charge of the other two native boys—since on this upland there was no pasturage to drive them back to the waggon. For, as he explained to her, in such tempests cattle are apt to take fright and rush away for miles, and without cattle their plight would be even worse than it was ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... man did accordingly until he was close to the King who thus addressed him, "O young man, what is thy name?" The other replied, "I am Manjab hight wherefrom hath been cut off all cause of delight and who for a year hath suffered parlous plight." "O Manjab," quoth the Caliph, "favour for favour and the beginner is the better, and ill for ill and the first is the worst, and whoso seed of good soweth shall reap it, and whoso planteth evil shall harvest it, and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... Britons from their plight, but themselves became masters of the country which they had delivered. They were joined by the Angles and Jutes, and divided the territory into the kingdoms known in history as the Saxon Heptarchy,[73] which had an existence of about two hundred and fifty years. The various members ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... men crouched there silent, realizing their desperate plight. They must escape, before ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... proprietor, to make it slip back again; the contracted part, or neck, of the patera, being of such a peculiar formation as to cling fast to the base of the nose, although it had found no difficulty in gliding along its hypothenuse. Was ever minister in a worse plight? Was there ever contretemps so unlucky? Did ever any man—did ever any minister, so effectually hoodwink himself, or so thoroughly shut his eyes, to the plain light of nature? What was to be done? The place ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 547, May 19, 1832 • Various
... house. And, as party spirit was the order of the day, an attempt was made to lay the burden of it to that account. In short, the young culprit got some of the best blood of the land to enter as his securities, and was set at liberty. But, when Wringhim perceived the plight that he was in, he took him, as he was, and presented him to his honourable patrons. This raised the indignation against the young laird and his associates a thousand-fold, which actually roused the party to temporary madness. They were, perhaps, a little excited by the wine and spirits they ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... she dared not confirm verbally those reckless words; their very recklessness caused her to fear. If they were sick of the whole thing—well, what about it? What were they to do? They were in it, weren't they, up to their necks? Of two people who mutually recognised the plight, only one must foam and rage and stutter out unpalatable truths about it; it was for the other to pour on the oil, to deceive and pretend and propitiate and cajole, to try to keep things running and the creaking ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... with which they pretend to supply the need themselves, is the best proof of how deeply they misunderstand the gravity of their plight. Look at these Theosophists, Spiritualists, and members of the Inner Light,—mere cliques, mere handfuls of uninspired and uninspiring cranks. They'll never spread a uniform and unifying culture. They cannot therefore make language once ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... know some of Christian's adventures and episodes after Evangelist left him, but we do not take up these at present. We pass on to the next time that Evangelist finds Christian, and he finds him in a sorry plight. He has listened to bad advice. He has gone off the right road, he has lost sight of the gate, and all the thunders and lightnings of Sinai are rolling and flashing out against him. What doest thou here of all men in the world? ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... felt as if there was a fiend in me. You did not want the sealskin jacket, but you bid against me and won it. Then I felt mad, and, whatever you had offered for the coral, I should have bidden higher. It was all your fault; it was you who got me into debt. I would not be in the awful, awful plight I am in to-night ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... the truth, he was sadly in need of money. It was fortunate that his old friend, Mr. Harrison, Margie's dead father, had taken it into his head to plight his daughter's troth to him while she was yet a child. Mr. Harrison had been an eccentric man; and from the fact that in many points of religious belief he and Mr. Paul Linmere agreed, (for both were miserable skeptics,) ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... a worse plight than ever. There was no commissario to be had at that hour. I was in total darkness; not a door was open; nor was there an individual in the street; and, recollecting the reputation Rome had of late acquired for midnight ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... attempts to speak positively, from recollecting that he mentioned the circumstance to William Peirce, as he went to the Mineral Spring on Fast-day. Last Monday morning he told Colonel Putnam he could not fix the time. This witness stands in a much worse plight than either of the others. It is difficult to reconcile all he has said with any belief in the accuracy ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth." ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... quickly. He could see that the girl was burning up with fever, and he could hear her voice growing husky,—could hear, too, the painful laboring of her breath. When she was not mumbling incoherent nonsense she was laughing hoarsely at the plight she was in, and after that she would hold both hands to her chest and moan in a way that made Lone grind ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... Heideck, and I thank you for your friendly intentions; but I would not have invited you here at this unusual hour had it been solely my intention to enlist your kind sympathy. I am in a most deplorable plight—doubly so, because there is no one here to whom I can turn for advice and assistance. That in my despair I thought of you has, no doubt, greatly surprised you; and now I can myself hardly understand how I could have presumed to trouble ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... where the camel-corps fell into an awkward plight among the rocks of the Kerreri slope, had the attack any chance of success; and there the shells of one of the six protecting gunboats helped to check the assailants. On this side, too, Colonel Broadwood and his Egyptian cavalry did excellent service by leading no small part ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... I have to watch myself Each hour. Oh, hapless plight! For if I should be great, of course, Those lines would come ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... many a rallying eddy, into Vittoria. That town was no place of refuge, but a death-trap; for Graham had pushed on a detachment to Durana, on the high-road leading direct to France, and thus blocked the main line of retreat. Joseph's army was now in pitiable plight. Pent up in the choked streets of Vittoria, torn by cannon-shot from the English lines, the wreckage of its three armies for a time surged helplessly to and fro, and then broke away eastwards towards Pamplona. On that side only was safety to be found, for British hussars scoured ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... to laugh in spite of his plight, for the humorous twinkle in the old man's eyes as he uttered his ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... him for his plucky voyage, and expressed the greatest concern at the plight of the Admiral; but he was very busy at the moment, and was on the point of transacting a piece of business that furnished a dismal proof of the deterioration which had taken place in him. Anacaona—the lady with the daughter whom we remember—was now ruling over the province of ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... right-dealing Zeus, Justice, the queen of suppliants, look down, That this our plight no ill may loose Upon your town! This word, even from the young, let age and wisdom learn: If thou to suppliants show grace, Thou shalt not lack Heaven's grace in turn, So long as virtue's gifts on heavenly ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... means," said Unktomi, "that the villagers and chief who bound and deserted you are in sad plight. They have hardly anything to ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... officer" found himself in a very uncomfortable plight; for, with an aching head, he was but too happy to escape with a most stinging reprimand: and he had the consolation then to learn, that, had he not endeavoured to play upon the simplicity of Mr Rattlin, he would most surely have escaped ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... reader is no doubt better able to discriminate than I. Judging by the long strings of ladies of all ages to be seen going on the pilgrimage, one would almost come to the conclusion that half the women of Kerman are in a bad plight, or else that the other half only is ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... rich thoughts can dream, or mad lips speak; But how, or why, whether with soul or body, I will not know. Thou art mine.—Why question further? [Aside] Ay if I fall by loving, I will love, And be degraded!—how? by my own troth-plight? No, but my thinking that I fall.—'Tis written That whatsoe'er is not of faith is sin.— O Jesu Lord! Hast Thou not made me thus? Mercy! My brain will ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... lost, every soul and the good money! we've struck a reef, Adam, and 'tis the end and O the good money!' Hereupon I climbed 'bove deck, the vessel on her beam ends and in desperate plight and nought to be seen i' the dark save the white spume as the seas broke over us. None the less I set the crew to cutting away her masts and heaving the ordnance overboard (to lighten her thereby), but while this was doing comes a great wave roaring out of the dark and dashing aboard us whirled ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... face—a stream which, in his own careless way, he wiped off now and then with the sleeve of his coat, thereby making his aspect conspicuously bloody. Tremendous was the flutter in Ada's heart when she saw him in this plight, for well did she know that deeds of daring had been done before such marks could have been left upon her ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... frame, and twinkling gray eyes. He was the man who had risen to speak his faith in the Hon. Samuel Budd that day on the size of the Hon. Samuel's ears. He, too, was unashamed and, as he explained his plight again, he did it ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.
... me?" begged Andy. Frank had stopped to speak to an acquaintance, and did not see the plight of ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... found its way from the fire. He could not move it a hairbreadth, for they had piled a great heap of stones against it. He crawled back to where he had been lying, in the faint hope of finding his pickaxe, But after a vain search he was at last compelled to acknowledge himself in an evil plight. He sat down and tried to think, but soon ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... evolved a plan to wait till enough light came to enable them to reach the Jeanne D'Arc, if she was still afloat; then to climb aboard and hunt for provisions and life preservers or something to use for a raft. If he could do this, then they would be in a somewhat better plight, at least for a time. He prayed that the Jeanne D'Arc might still ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... much of a settlement, young gentlemen," said Alex, laughing, as he saw their plight. "But I think we can get through with what supplies we have and not trouble the Company ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough
... Never—while cliffs O'er the plain jutting Plight void death to the leaper! Never while waves Curl gray lips Yearning ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice
... torn apart in the market-place of Vera Cruz, baited in the streets to the yells of on-lookers, hung by the arms to out-of-doors scaffolding to die by inches, or be torn by vultures. The two ships at sea were in terrible plight. North, west, south was the Spanish foe. Food there was none. The crews ate the dogs, monkeys, parrots on board. Then they set traps for the rats of the hold. The starving seamen begged to be marooned. They would risk Spanish cruelty to escape starvation. Hawkins landed {139} ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... made this digression, O conscript fathers, not so much for the sake of speaking of myself, (for I should be in a sorry plight if I were not sufficiently acquitted in your eyes without the necessity of making a formal defence,) as with the view of warning some men of too grovelling and narrow minds, to adopt the line of conduct which I myself have ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... at self-control, Ned's muscles trembled and he found it difficult to walk steadily. Assuming that his chums were in like plight, the lad summoned all his courage and reached out a reassuring hand to the others. The contact with his friends seemed to restore the equilibrium that had been Ned's most valuable asset in times of stress and danger in his ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... plied him, Hand in hand they kneel beside him, While their mutual vows they plight To the God of life ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... too, were in a woful plight, for want of forage. We were obliged to send our baggage ones, every week, for their rations of corn, three days' march, through oceans of mud, which ought, properly, to have been navigated with boats. The whole cavalcade always moved under the ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... larger vessel Ned explained their plight to an officer. They were invited aboard the steamer. Their boat was hoisted aboard, ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... she, "I'll do a downright brazen thing, now my hand is in. I declare I'll tell you how to secure me. You make me plight my troth with you this minute, and exchange rings with you, whether I like or not; engage my honor in this foolish business, and if you do that, I really do think you will have me in spite of them all. But there,—la!—am ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... the bell, caught Patrick by the waist-line, thrust him under her desk, fenced him in with a chair, and turned to Isaac who had only just realized the full horror of his plight. Isidore Belchatosky and Eva Gonorowsky had torn off the white tunic—thereby disclosing quantities of red flannel—and exhibited its desecrated back. And speech, English speech returned to the Prince of Hester Street. Haltingly at first, but with ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... despair the boy went back to the innkeeper to complain, and the landlord would have thrashed him if he had not run away, and he ran until he reached his uncle's. His uncle, when he saw him in such a plight, said: "Oh! what is the matter?" "Uncle!" said the boy, "the same innkeeper has changed the tablecloth, too, for me." The uncle was on the point of giving the dunce a good thrashing; but afterward, seeing that it was a child, he calmed his anger, ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... merely dazed her. She could do nothing for herself. She was as helpless as a rabbit in London. She drew aside the window-curtain and had a glimpse of the river. It was inevitable that she should think of suicide; for she could not suppose that any girl had ever got herself into a plight more desperate than hers. "I could slip out at night and drown myself," she thought seriously. "A nice thing ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... the right, met with the same obstruction and lost many of its men and officers while waiting for the British artillery to smash a way through for them. This the artillery did when word had been carried back telling of the plight of the infantry. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... in the name and in behalf of our respective constituents, fully and entirely ratify and confirm each and every of the said Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union, and all and singular the matters and things therein contained. And we do further solemnly plight and engage the faith of our respective constituents, that they shall abide by the determinations of the United States, in Congress assembled, on all questions which by the said Confederation are submitted to them; and that the Articles thereof shall be inviolably ...
— Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition • J.A. James
... We can even discern through the ruins of the paretic's reaction that his false beliefs concerning the body are often not so false after all, and that his damaged brain of itself is not so apt to return false ideas about his somatic interior as about his worldly importance and plight. There then seems to be more reality about somatic than about personal delusions: the contents of somatic delusions are rather more apt to correspond with demonstrable realities than the contents of personal delusions. Accordingly our analysis of delusional ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... ditter doing there, Bart?" said Dunning, with a broad grin, as he came up and recognized the secretary in such a strange plight and attitude. ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... my lords," the king said to his knights as he sat in a little room in an inn at Zara, "that my plight is a bad one. I am surrounded by enemies, and, alas! I can no longer mount my steed and ride out as at Jaffa to do battle with them. My brother, John Lackland, is scheming to take my place upon the throne of England. Philip of France, whose mind is far better at such matters than at setting ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... marry this young woman, and at the end of a year they had a son. She then said to her husband: "I am the daughter of the King of the Tung-t'ing Lake. It was you who saved me from my miserable plight on the bank of the Ching, and I swore I would reward you. Formerly you refused to accept my hand, and my parents decided to marry me to the son of a silk-merchant. I cut my hair, and never ceased to hope that I might some time or other be united ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... I dwell In darkness as a dead man out of sight; And none remains, not one, that I should tell To him mine evil plight This bitter night. I will make fast my door That hollow friends may trouble me ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... the cap, and had cut away her flying-jib halliards and stay, with the result that the sail was towing under her forefoot; her fore-topsail tye had also been cut, and the yard was down on the cap, rendering their plight worse than ever. This loss of head sail occurring at a moment when, having partially luffed to fire at us, the wind was well on her starboard quarter, the frigate now showed symptoms of flying up into the wind altogether; and although it was evident, from the sluggish ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... of self-aggrandisement, (15) whether in private or in public life; but consider well (16) that the best of men, (17) the true nobility, are discovered by their virtues; (18) they are a laborious upwards-striving race; whilst the base are in evil plight (19) and are discovered by their demerits. (20) Since in proportion as they rob the private citizen of his means and despoil the state (21) they are less serviceable with a view to the public safety than any private citizen; ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... say so!" replied John. "Indeed, my dear child, if the dragoons are off, we shall be in a very sad plight." ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... elements, how much harder was it for an old man, who, deeming himself stronger than he actually was, and buoyed up by sheer nerve and mental obstinacy, had, of his own choice, brought himself into this needless plight and danger. For now, in utter weariness of body and spirit, Helmsley began to reproach himself bitterly for his rashness. A mere caprice of the imagination,—a fancy that, perhaps, among the poor and lowly he might find a love ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... was the first, and I trust the last time too; it was wrong, very wrong. I'm thoroughly ashamed that you should have seen me in such a plight. I was betrayed into it. I ought to have been more on my guard; you mustn't think any more of it; I'll take care ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... to naught the folk could say. Loud they cried, "Beware the puddle!" Plump! She stepped into the middle. And a pretty plight ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... evidently guarded by the men-at-arms, who set up a joyous shout as they rode in. Monsieur de Merouville uttered an exclamation of astonishment, as he recognized the dreaded personages collected together in such a plight. ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... his emotion; the reckless, the daring Henry Lovell was weeping like a child. Oh, then again I thought I liked him, for I knelt down by his side, I took his hand in mine, I bathed it with my tears, and I whispered to him that I would promise anything, that I would plight my faith to him, do anything but consent to the secret marriage ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... into the room, with her dog Fanchon following in the same lame plight,—she laughing heartily at their similarity of gait, and holding up a letter just ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... distance to the helpless lad with a practised eye, and groaned in despair. "They'll fall short by a dozen feet," he murmured hopelessly. "God forgive me, for bringing him to this plight." ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... many in different plights, and according to their plight, kept in different places. The well bound were ranged in the sanctuary of Mr. Bronte's study; but the purchase of books was a necessary luxury to him, and as it was often a choice between binding an old one, or buying a new one, the familiar volume, which had been hungrily read by all the ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... nothing was seen or heard of him. It was feared that he had left the country on one of his wandering freaks, and his poor mother was reduced almost to despair, when one day he arrived at her door almost as forlorn in plight as the prodigal son. Of his thirty pounds not a shilling was left; and instead of the goodly steed on which he had issued forth on his errantry, he was mounted on a sorry little pony, which he had nicknamed Fiddle-back. As soon as his mother was well assured ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... his sheiks all agreed that he had arrived here some time ago in a very miserable plight, exceedingly dirty, and riding upon a donkey. He was without baggage of any kind, and he introduced himself by giving a present to Kabba Rega of an old, battered metal basin and jug, in which he washed, together with a very old and worn-out small carpet, upon ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... congratulated him, observing that I hoped he would never be short of money, but if that was his plight all he had to do was to ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... Bear was in a sad fix. And for my part, when I first heard of his plight I did not see how he was ever going to get out ...
— The Tale of Cuffy Bear • Arthur Scott Bailey
... hands and cry over them. "Oh, my dear lord," she sobbed, "you are so changed! And your hair—your beautiful hair! Oh, it is well that Earl Edmund and your lady mother are dead,—it would break their hearts, as it does mine!" Forgetting her own plight, she wept bitterly over his, though he tried with every gentle ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... through the corn-field to the Dunkard Church. A great gap had now opened in Jackson's line. Jones' division, its flank uncovered by Hood's retreat, found itself compelled to seek a new position. D.H. Hill's brigades, in the same plight, gave ground towards Sharpsburg; and Greene, following in pursuit, actually crossed the turnpike, and penetrated the West Wood; but neither Hooker nor Mansfield were able to support him, and unassisted ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... her magnificent shoulders; the postillion smoking his pipe, in his shirt-sleeves and waistcoat, having flung aside his greatcoat, which had sustained a thorough wetting; and I without my wagoner's slop, of which, it being in the same plight, I had ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... confounded, that it took me a long while, chasing my thoughts up and down, and ever stunned again by a fresh stab of pain, to realise that I must be lying somewhere bound in the belly of that unlucky ship, and that the wind must have strengthened to a gale. With the clear perception of my plight, there fell upon me a blackness of despair, a horror of remorse at my own folly, and a passion of anger at my uncle, that once more bereft me of ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... A youth did plight his troth to Poesy. "Thee only," were the fervent words he said, Then sadly sailed across the foaming sea, And lay beneath ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... He had accommodated himself with ease to lying and the practice of deceit; and even the taking of human life seemed no longer a monstrous thing. If he were caught in the Governor's company he would have a pretty time of it satisfying a court of his innocence; but he considered his plight tranquilly. ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... and chiefest, with thee bring Him that yon soars on golden wing, Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne, The Cherub Contemplation; And the mute Silence hist along, 'Less Philomel will deign a song, In her sweetest saddest plight, Smoothing the rugged brow of Night, While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke Gently o'er the accustomed oak. Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly, Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chauntress, oft the woods ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... easy to understand their plight. If we know ourselves we are strengthened that much, because we can bolster up our weaknesses. We will know enough to combat timidity. We can then know what we are capable of, and thus become conscious of our innate powers that only need to be called into ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... Machaerus could no longer hold him; nevertheless Jesus seemed to have abandoned him to his fate, which comprized not only confinement but other indignities, and physical torture.[571] It may have been a part of John's purpose to call Christ's attention to his pitiable plight; and in this respect his message was rather a reminder than a plain inquiry based on actual doubt. Indeed, we have good grounds for inference that John's purpose in sending disciples to inquire of Christ was partly, ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... went his hands high above his head. Blinking furiously in the glare, he comprehended his plight. ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... and they went on again. The horse was a very powerful one, and for a while went very fast; but two persons make a heavy load, and soon the enemy began to gain on them. The man was now in a bad plight; the enemy were overtaking him, and the woman holding him bound his arms so that he ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... of the lecturer. By some hard luck he happened to be passing that way when the crowd was looking for the Abolitionist, and was discovered. "There he goes," was the cry that was raised, and a fire of eggs and other things was opened upon him. He reached his home in an awful plight, and it was charged that his conversation was not unmixed ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... very tall man, dressed in a green cloak with a silver brooch at the shoulder. He had a golden band about his hair and golden sandals on his feet, and he was laughing heartily at the plight ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... we had to speak both short and loud, whereas there was much to do. But now will we twain talk of matters that concern chieftains who are going on a hard adventure. And ye women, do ye dight the Hall for the evening feast, which shall be the feast of the troth-plight for you twain. This indeed we owe thee, O guest; for little shall be thine heritage which thou shalt have with my sister, over and above that thy ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... and at so early a season native craft are never seen on these seas. Briefly, a week might have elapsed before our friends at El-Muwaylah, who were startled by the wildness of the wind, could have learned our plight, or could have taken measures to relieve ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... rode so desperately to the Dale home that wonderful day tragically to proclaim his plight, followed by fervid vows to go away and make a new fortune, has long since won my sympathy. I have always resented Ericus Dale's attitude toward that youth on learning he was a pauper. It is bad enough to confess to a girl that ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... that the reporters for the other papers fared no better. Nothing daunted, however, after the speechmaking, Edward resolutely sought the President, and as the latter turned to him, he told him his plight, explained it was his first important "assignment," and asked if he could possibly be given a copy of the speech so that he ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... he was wedded to a wife in his own country, and he hid the matter so cunningly, that I knew naught thereof. When I heard tell of his dame, I swooned for pure sorrow. Now I find that this false lover, has, like a felon, betrayed me in a strange land. What will chance to a maiden in so foul a plight? Great is that woman's folly who ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... relentless ferocity, and the kidnapping of their children was followed by other acts almost as cruel. If a Jew was suspected of possessing money, he was forced by the gentle persuasion of the Governor's men to disgorge. Broken in fortune and in spirits, the Israelites were indeed in a pitiable plight. ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... your uncle Frank and his friend Gustave Dore how to fence many years ago, and now I am going to have you taught." Well, in one of his cartoons issued during the siege, Cham (disgusted, like most Frenchmen, at the seeming indifference of Great Britain to the plight in which France found herself) summed up the situation, as he conceived it, by depicting the British Lion licking the boots of Bismarck, who was disguised as Davy Crockett. When my father remonstrated with Cham on the subject, ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... on our first journey to London," continued he, with a gay laugh which did not consort fully with the plight in which he showed. "We started by coach, as gentlemen; and now we come on foot, like laborers or thieves. 'Twas my own fault. Yesterday I must needs quit the Edinboro' stage. Last night our chaise was stopped, and we were ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... recovered from the tumult of excitement and admiration caused by the departure of the gallant band of cavaliers upon their foray when they beheld the scattered wrecks flying for refuge to their walls. Day after day and hour after hour brought some wretched fugitive, in whose battered plight and haggard woebegone demeanor it was almost impossible to recognize the warrior who had lately issued so gayly and gloriously ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... under conditions of climate, health and soil that a people of say 90,000,000 hemmed in a territory little larger than France, will find commensurate to their needs? No European people is in such plight. ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... Kurlistan he saw a dying horse near to the river, and the horse looked piteously towards the water but could not reach it. And the father of my grandfather saw Welleran go down to the river's brink and bring water from it with his own hand and give it to the horse. Now we are in as sore a plight as was that horse, and as near to death; it may be that Welleran will pity us, while the King's axeman cannot because of ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... thoroughly alarmed. That her old playmate, lover, husband should come to such a plight at the very time she had struck him the hardest blow of all filled her with remorse. In a hundred ways she tried to make up to him for the loss of herself and for the loss of his eyes. She became his constant companion; never had she been so kind and so considerate. ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... Helen May in that light forced him to consider what would be her plight if he and his co-workers failed, if the plan went on to actual fulfillment, and the Mexican element actually did revolt. Babes, they were, those two alone there in Sunlight Basin, with a single-shot "twenty-two" for defense, when every ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... dimly on the horizon, and before them was the world of waters. Robert balanced himself on the swaying deck, and, for a minute or two, he enjoyed too much the sensation of at least qualified freedom to think of his own plight. While he stood there, breathing deeply, his lungs expanding and his heart leaping, the slaver who had gone away, reappeared, ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... sir," he announced to himself, "dead fish with formaldehyde dressing, petrified dough, and aqua nivis." The storm continued, and as he smoked the gravity of his plight forced ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... the tax paid by Nature; for pride, humanity, and manhood stood staunch in spite of it. "No, no, I can't," said he "I mustn't. Don't tempt me to leave you in this plight, and be a cur! Live or die, I must be the last man on her. Here's something coming out to us, the Lord in Heaven ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... know that already," Geck's peculiar little face, which had become so friendly to Hanlon through long association, broke out into a smile that was quickly shadowed by sorrow at thought of the plight of his people. "There is nine mines. Human masters make Guddu work in all ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... help it, I must treat him kindly. Often without a thought, I return the gentle, loving pressure of his hand. I reproach myself that I am deceiving him, that I am nourishing in his heart a vain hope. I am in a sad plight! God knows, I do not willingly deceive him. I do not wish him to hope, yet I cannot ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... had thought better of it, and was already sorry he had not kept the peace. At all events, though his toilet and wardrobe were splendid—for fine fellows in his plight deny themselves nothing—yet morally he was seedy, and in temper soured. His duns had found him out, and pursued him in wrath and alarm to England, and pestered him very seriously indeed. He owed money beside to several of his brother officers, and it was not pleasant to face them without ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... say. I feel for you, Bolton. Changed as you are, you were once a friend. I certainly haven't any reason to feel friendly to you, especially as you came here with the intention of extorting money from me. But I can make allowance for you in your unfortunate plight, and am willing to do something for you. Bring me the document you say you possess, and I will give ...
— A Cousin's Conspiracy - A Boy's Struggle for an Inheritance • Horatio Alger
... handling a ship he was the smartest officer of the deck he had ever known. But in early middle life disease overtook him, and, though flat on his back, he had been borne on the active list because there was nothing else to do with him. In that plight he was even promoted. There was another who, as a midshipman, had lost a foot in the War of 1812, but had been carried on from grade to grade for forty years, until at the time I speak of he was ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... time a very large force, led by Clinton, advanced towards Morristown; and this was believed to be a serious and determined attempt to attack Washington, whose army was in a pretty bad plight, and not at all prepared to fight large bodies of well-appointed troops. Lord Stirling, with the other officers of the regular army, aided by forces of militiamen greatly excited by atrocities which had been committed by the British troops in the neighborhood, ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... sitting at supper now, exhausting themselves in conjectures where she could be. Ephie was very hungry, and at the thought of the warmth and light of the supper-table, a lump rose in her throat. If it had been only her mother, she might have faced her—but Joan! Home in this plight, at this hour, hatless, and with swollen face, to meet Joan's eyes and questions!—she shivered at the idea. Moreover, the whole PENSION would get to know what had happened to her; she would need to bear inquisitive looks and words; she would have to ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... to be regaled with choicest viands of Alice's choice larder and with the sweetest speeches of Alice's graceful heart. I was authorized only to convey the invitations to this delectable banquet, and here was a pretty plight for a man to be in, surely enough! But my bachelor friend Kinzie (ough, the Mephisto!) helped me out. I reported back to Alice that Judge Trask was out of town, that Colonel Flail was sick abed with grip, and that Mr. Bisland was altogether too ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... "My Lord, Princesses will be wroth; On every side they sit and wait To plight to you ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... bed of dry leaves, raised himself so as to watch the troop as it rode forth again from the ruined gate. Whether she who sat hidden within the carriage had heard of his evil plight he knew not, and could not have brought himself to ask. The last of his own horsemen (some of whom had taken leave of him with tears) having vanished from sight, he fell back, and for a while knew nothing but the burning torment in ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... are, not to be severe in criticising my palpable neglect of all parliamentary duty. It would not be easy to explain to you, or even to make you comprehend, or any one in prosperous and affluent plight, the private difficulties I have to struggle with. My mind, and the resolute independence belonging to it, has not been in the least subdued by the late calamity; but the consequences arising from it have more engaged and embarrassed me than, perhaps, I have been willing to allow. ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... be. They went in for sincerity, or Turner, or "sweetness and light," with all the ardor of youthful neophytes. And it was good for them. But after a while they became, if not exactly weary in well-doing, at least a little weary of the unintermittent tirades against ill-doing. They were in the plight of the good Christian who goes to church every Sunday only to hear the parson rebuke the sins of the people who are not there. The man who dated his moral awakening from "Sartor Resartus" began to ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... over dale, Thorough bush, thorough briar, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, We'll have to follow everywhere, If Sara's laughter we would snare. I will go and lead the van, You may follow if you can. Sara's would be an awful plight ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... hope then! they had no battering-train. Ere this arrived, I trusted that Lord Lake would hear of our plight, and march down to rescue us. Thus occupied in thought and conversation, we rode on until the advanced sentinel challenged us, when old Puneeree gave the word, and we passed on into the centre ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... I received some months since, when I was praying for her, follows me daily: 'At evening time it shall be light,'—At the Watch-night service Mr. Wood desired us, on our return home, to take pen and paper, and testify whom we would serve. To Thee, O Lord, I plight my vows; in the strength of Thy grace, I WILL SERVE THEE. Thou, who seest me, ratify the decision in heaven. Help me to perform what Thou requirest of me. My talents, my time, my body, my soul; be wholly Thine. Amen, ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... York. There, at least, she would have been free to shut herself up, away from all eyes but her own. Moreover, she had to look forward to what she should do at the end of the meal. For all she saw, she was going to be then in even a worse plight than she was now. For he would be able to talk, and she must needs answer and keep from crying. Above all things else, she must keep from crying. She did not wish him to think her a little fool ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... quietly earn my living; at the same time making my presence known to no one. I did buy such a business, got swindled in the most clever way, and lost every farthing I possessed in the world! I had to make my plight known to old friends who all either gave or lent me money. Still my position was a very precarious one. I tried an insurance agency, one of the last resources of the educated destitute, but soon found out that I was unfitted for work in which impudence is a prime ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... say so; for sore indeed would be the plight of the unwary seaman who should find himself under similar circumstances, unprepared. A long line of white foam suddenly appeared on their starboard bow, racing down toward them and spreading out right and left with frightful rapidity, until the whole horizon, from ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... a larger and more varied supply of stores, than we could possibly have brought up from Port Lincoln in a single dray. We were now amply furnished with conveniences of every kind; and both men and horses were in good plight and ready to enter upon the ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... ceremony which he had gone through with Madeline. Long since disillusioned but still having power and pride to suffer intensely the latter found herself in the tragic position of being-a wife and yet no wife. In her desperate plight she besought her grandfather's clemency and forgiveness but that rigid old covenanter had declared that even as she had made her bed in willful disobedience to his command so she should lie on it for ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... let them grace thy brows With wreathes of fadeless asphodel, And let them yearly plight their vows Unto the bard ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... the hope advanced by Lefever that de Spain might by some chance have cartridges in his pocket, Scott's information was disquieting. However, it meant for de Spain, they knew, only the greater need of succor, and when the news of his plight was made known later in the day to Jeffries, efforts ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... satisfactory account of himself he would be released. He only doggedly shook his head. When I asked if he had been hurt in his bout with Dutch he smiled and extended his arms in denial. He was a very decent-looking fellow, blue-eyed and smooth-shaven, who seemed to accept his plight with a degree ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... likely that Edward could be very fond of presenting himself in this lamentable plight before the duke of Burgundy; and that having so suddenly, after his mighty vaunts, lost all footing in his own kingdom, he could be insensible to the ridicule which must attend him in the eyes of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... thither they carry the dame, All underneath a green hill's side, But worse and worse her plight became. In such peril through the ...
— The Dalby Bear - and Other Ballads • Anonymous
... lost its power in coming across the Alps. Miltitz also was in his way, who, with equal authority from the pope, was endeavoring to supersede the Bull by attempts at reconciliation. It came to Wittenberg in such a sorry plight that Luther laughed at it as having the appearance of a forgery by Dr. Eck. He knew the pope had been bullied into the issuing of it, but this was the biting irony by which he indicated the character of the men by whom it was moved and the pitiable ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... construction of a stout fence of thorn bushes, and then sat down to supper after our work was done, and turned in to sleep; but not before we had posted watchmen to guard our canoe, lest the daring thieves of Uvira might abstract it, in which case we should have been in a pretty plight, and in most ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... sickness and death. But is this right? "I also" he thought "am subject to decay and am not free from the power of old age, sickness and death. Is it right that I should feel horror, repulsion and disgust when I see another in such plight? And when I reflected thus, my disciples, all the joy of life which there is in life ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... seven eyes flashing with anger, the Gigaboo turned toward the rest of the people, as if seeking a new enemy; but the brave Men of Mo, seeing the sad plight of their Prince and being afraid of the awful nippers on the beast's claws, decided to run away; which they did, uttering as they went loud ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum
... thing to do was to drift down the river and trust to luck to find a landing-place. In their extremity they shouted at the top of their voices to let their comrades know of their plight, but their cries were unanswered and they began to wish that they had saved their breath to use in the task of keeping the canoe steady ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... was standing farther off; escaped with a few drops, and burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter on beholding our miserable plight. ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... the trees bud with an infant foliage, the sun smiles in the heavens, and the pellucid streams reflect his glorious rays, the day was fixed by Sir Robert Somerset, and approved by the beloved objects of his then peculiar solicitude, in which his paternal hand should plight theirs together before the altar of ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... the Whig propositions of '41 will not be detrimental to that party, even if in the interval they be appropriated piecemeal, as will probably be the case, by their Conservative successors. But for the moment, and in the plight in which the Whig party found themselves, it was impossible to have devised measures more conducive to their precipitate fall. Great interests were menaced by a weak government. The consequence was inevitable. Tadpole and Taper ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... present state proceeds from fortune's stings; By birth I boast of a descent from kings; Hence may you see from what a noble height I'm sunk by fortune to this abject plight. ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... be made for their natural increase from 1880 to 1890 the white race would show a decennial increase appreciably below that of the blacks. If the Negro, then, is threatened with extinction, the white race is in a still more pitiable plight. ...
— A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1 • Kelly Miller
... had followed them. My wisest course, I thought, was to let him sleep until I heard the cannon, when his struggle for a wife must end. Fifty times at least did I stand regarding him as he slept; and if I did not pity his plight sufficiently, you know the reason. What were Margaret's sufferings at this moment? Was she wringing her hands for her son lost in the flood, her son in disgrace with the congregation? By one o'clock no cannon had sounded, and my suspense had become intolerable. I shook Gavin ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... book as they approached, and catching sight of his little girl's soiled dress, "Why, Elsie," he exclaimed, in a mortified tone, "can that be you? such a figure as you are! Where have you been, child, to get yourself in such a plight?" ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... but, tell me, they of the fat marsh, and they whom the wind drives, and they whom the rain beats, and they who encounter with such sharp tongues, why are they not punished within the ruddy city if God be wroth with them? and if he be not so, why are they in such plight?" ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... can hardly be imagined. A mob, a moneyed class, and an aristocracy almost equally worthless, hating each other, and hated by the rest of the world; Italians bitterly jealous of Romans, and only in better plight than the provinces beyond the sea; more miserable than either, swarms of slaves beginning to brood over revenge as a solace to their sufferings; the land going out of cultivation; native industry swamped by slave-grown imports; the population decreasing; the army degenerating; wars waged ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... of Europe and the powers that they possess are of the nature of dictatorship, but happily ours is not their plight.... The tendency there has been for the government to take over the functions of the middleman, first with one commodity and then with another, until in the extreme case of Germany practically all food commodities are taken directly by the government from the producers ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... aside, And new fetis dayly ben contryvyde, Men[nys actes] can in no plight abyde, 444 They ben chaungeable and oft mevide, Thing some-tyme alowide is nowe reprevide, And aftir this shall thingis vppe aryse, That men sette nowe but [at] litle ...
— Caxton's Book of Curtesye • Frederick J. Furnivall
... use?' says he: 'it's utterly impossible for me to wade through; and even if I could, I should be in such a dirty plight, that it would defy all the waters in the Mississippi to wash me clean again. No,' he added in a desponding tone, 'I should be like a live eel in a frying-pan, Colonel, sort of out of my element, if I attempted to live like an honest man at ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... sore plight. Both commanders were sick, and, nearing the Line, on the 30th of July, Loaysa died. Four days after, Sebastian del Cano, who had escaped and weathered so many storms and dangers, expired also, leaving the command of the expedition ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge
... story that the king of gods, 'Indra,' once became a pig, wallowing in mire. He had a she pig and a lot of baby pigs and was very happy. Then some other angels saw his plight, came to him and told him, 'You are the king of the gods, you have all the gods to command. Why are you here?' But Indra said, 'Let me be. I am all right here, I don't care for the heavens while I have the sow and little pigs.' The poor gods were at their wits' end what to do. ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... less degree, had set men, many men, quite beside themselves. Her lip curled, and her eyes laughed satirically as she thought of the follies of those men—how they had let women lead them up and down in public places, drooling and sighing and seeming to enjoy their own pitiful plight. If that expression of satire had not disappeared so quickly, she might have got at the secret of her "miserable failure." For, it was her habit of facing men with only lightly veiled amusement, or often frank ridicule, in her eyes, in the curve of her lips, that frightened them off, that gave them ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... chilling waters of the mill-race at a point where the city fathers have allowed it to remain uncovered. Seeing their victim plunged into a watery grave, as they thought, the thugs took to their heels. The Colonel extricated himself from his perilous plight, by dint of herculean strength, and started to pursue them, but they had disappeared from sight in the vicinity of Crowder & Fancett's lumber yard. Things have come to a pretty pass, we must say, if such a dastardly outrage ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... before aught else you require a bath! Truly it offends my love of the beautiful to see you in this dusty plight." He struck upon the gong. "Also you require a good meal, served with a flagon of my famous Italian wine. You did well to come here in person, my son. If naught hath been said to Mora, no harm is done; and together we can doubly safeguard the matter. ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... certain facts. I honoured your daughter and realised her position fully. Our plight was never made in words, nor should I have presumed to advance any claim to her hand if I had not made good my expectations, Mr. Challoner. I meant to win both her regard and yours by acts, not words. I felt that I had a great deal to do and I was prepared to work and wait. I loved her—" ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... more than the amputation of a limb, if it were kindly and courteously performed from a wish to help us out of our difficulty, and with the full consciousness on the part of the doctor that it was only by an accident of constitution that he was not in the like plight himself. So the Erewhonians take a flogging once a week, and a diet of bread and water for two or three months together, whenever ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... horribly fagged out: as if he needed care and petting and good food. No one knew exactly how he lived. His rooms, according to Dick's report, were fireless and ill kept, but he stuck to them because his landlady, whom he had fished out of some financial plight, had difficulty in obtaining other lodgers. He belonged to no clubs, and wandered out alone for his meals, mysteriously refusing the hospitality which his friends pressed on him. It was plain that he was very poor, and Dick conjectured that he sent what he earned to an aunt in his native ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... impossibility. Nevertheless, something must be done at once to put Madeline at least in travelling trim; for the things of which—to use her own sensitive expression—Miss Wimple had "cleansed" her when she came were out of the question. It was as true of this poor young lady in her trunkless plight, as of any dishevelled Marius in crinoline, who sits down and weeps among the brand-new ruins of a Carthage of satin, lawns, and laces, that she had Nothing to Wear. So Miss Wimple, encouraged by the happy success of the Hoop stratagem, forthwith began to cast about her; and for the present ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... oath of office on that passage of Holy Writ wherein it is asked: "What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" This I plight ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... altar with a friend, To hear him plight his faith to a young bride, A rosy child of simple heart and mind. Yet two short years before, on that same spot, I heard the funeral chant above the bier Of a first wife—a woman bright as fair, Or blessed or cursed with genius, full of fire— Who loved him with a passion ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... about with flowers, Will plight your faith to-day, Hold, evermore enthroned, the love Which you have crowned in May; And Time will sleep upon his scythe, The swallow rest his wing, Seeing that you at autumntide Still ...
— Songs, Merry and Sad • John Charles McNeill
... it) in the Pall Mall Gazette. What fate has been like Thine? Betrayed by Judas in the garden, denied by Peter before the cock crew, crucified between thieves, and mourned for by a harlot, and then sent bound and bare, nothing changed, nothing altered, in Thy ignominious plight, forthward in the world's van the glory and symbol of a man's new idea—Pity. Thy day is closing in, but the heavens are now wider aflame with Thy light than ever before—Thy light, which I, a pagan, standing on the last verge of the old world, declare to be darkness, the coming ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... the sun turns against the clock, When Avon waters upward flow, When eggs are laid by barn-door cock, When dusty hens do strut and crow, When up is down, when left is right, Oh, then I'll break the troth I plight, With careless eye Away I'll fly And ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... entering the brougham that was waiting for them, drove to Bruton Street; Kate very grave and silent all the way, and shrinking behind her friend in hopes that the servant who opened the door would not observe her plight—indeed, she took her hat off on the stairs, and laid it on the table in ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... After some reverses, he entered upon a long course of victories by which the rebels were driven from most of their strongholds; and in 1859, he submitted a plan for an advance on Nanking, which was approved and ultimately carried out. Meanwhile, the plight of the besieged rebels in Nanking had become so unbearable that something had to be done. A sortie on a large scale was accordingly organized, and so successful was it that the T'ai-p'ings not only routed the besieging army, but were able to regain large tracts of territory, ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles
... he exclaimed when he had been told of the death of the cattle and the plight of the men. "So they come back; did they? Well, we'll soon have a big force here takin' out gold and ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker
... the vessel. Another instance was Cassius Scaeva,[481] who in the fight at Dyrrachium had one eye destroyed by an arrow, his shoulder transfixed with one javelin and his thigh with another, and on his shield he had received the blows of one hundred and thirty missiles. In this plight he called to the enemy as if he designed to surrender himself, and two of them accordingly approached him, but with his sword he lopped off one man's shoulder and wounding the other in the face, put him to flight, and finally he escaped himself with the aid of his friends. In Britannia on ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... owing to its pervading corruption has once begun to decline, if it is to recover at all, must be saved not by the excellence of the people collectively, but of some one man then living among them, on whose death it at once relapses into its former plight; as happened with Thebes, in which the virtue of Epaminondas made it possible while he lived to preserve the form of a free Government, but which fell again on his death into its old disorders; the reason being that hardly any ruler lives so long as to have time to accustom to right methods ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... melancholy plight,— Falstaff in tears, Othello deadly white,— Poor Romeo reckoning what his doublet cost, And Juliet whimpering for her dresses lost,— Their wardrobes burned, their salaries all undrawn, Their cues ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... His plight was greeted with howls of derision, which fell into silence as John Wendell made the trial. His unpractised hand in some way pulled down the goose, and the rebound of the sapling plucked the booty out of his grasp, and flung it ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... vouchsafed to me in me youthful days to be acquainted with shperrits" and so Tommy Finnegan went on, expounding a system of philosophy, while the perspiration came out on Jurgis' forehead, so great was his agitation and embarrassment. In the end one of the men, seeing his plight, came over and rescued him; but it was some time before he was able to find any one to explain things to him, and meanwhile his fear lest the strange little Irishman should get him cornered again was enough to keep him dodging about ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... agricultural instructor in sericulture who joined in our conversation was not much concerned by the plight of the priests. "The causes of goodness in our people," he said, "are family tradition and home training. Candidly, we believe our morals are not so bad on the whole. We are now putting most stress on economic development. How to maintain ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... just the one estimable if misdirected quality possessed by Burr, and, whetted by his desperate plight, no length would daunt him. A year or two ago he hinted to me that I had thrown away my opportunities. Pressed, he admitted that I was a fool not to have changed the government when I could. When I reminded him that I could only have done such a thing by turning traitor, he replied, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... play-bill? Mistakes of a Night! If the title's prophetic, I pity his plight! She Stoops. Let us hope she won't fall at full length, For the piece—so 'tis whispered—is wanting in strength. And the humour is "low!"—you are doubtless aware There's a character, even, that "dances a bear!" Then the cast is so poor,—neither marrow nor pith! Why can't ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... the day after the races, and Cora sat with her brother on the porch of their bungalow. She had told him of Mabel's plight and was asking him to help her clear up some of the ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... takes Command.%—Two weeks after this battle Washington reached the army, and on July 3, 1775, took command beneath an elm still standing in Cambridge. Never was an army in so sorry a plight. There was no discipline, and not much more than a third as many men as there had been a few weeks before. But the indomitable will and sublime patience of Washington triumphed over all difficulties, and for eight months he kept the British shut up in Boston, while he ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... race, fight with him with thy arms, putting forth as much strength only as thy antagonist hath now left!' Then that slayer of hostile heroes, the son of Pandu, thus addressed by Krishna, understood the plight of Jarasandha and forthwith resolved upon taking his life. And that foremost of all men endued with strength, that prince of the Kuru race, desirous of vanquishing the hitherto unvanquished Jarasandha, mustered ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... pinched my eyes to and pondered on my wretched plight. 'Twas silent all around; I heard nothing, nothing. That lasted pretty long, till I began to feel that the boards were so hard and that my body, which had been thrashed black and blue, was hurting me. My back was stiff and my arms and legs grew cold. And yet I nor wished nor meant to stir: ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... travelling for about a month, living and getting along as best we could, when one evening we camped some forty miles from Bamangwato. By this time we were indeed in a melancholy plight, footsore, half starved, and utterly worn out; and, in addition, I was suffering from a sharp attack of fever, which half blinded me and made me weak as a babe. Our ammunition, too, was exhausted; I had only one cartridge left for my eight-bore rifle, and Hans and ...
— Hunter Quatermain's Story • H. Rider Haggard
... weeks back, all the critics have spoken of "A Ballad of a Nun," and admitted its surprising strength and beauty. They have left me in the plight of that belated fiddle in "Rejected Addresses," or of the gentleman who had to be content with saying "ditto" to Mr. Burke. For once they seem unanimous, and for once they are right. The poem is ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... intense agony to Mr. Hardesty. Exposed to hunger and thirst, and cold and insult, what had he done to deserve such misfortunes? And that was Christmas, too; what a merry day to all the world without; and in what a contemptible plight was he! What would little Master John think of his absence; and how much would be sold at his little store before night? These reflections only enhanced the agony of his imprisonment; so wrapping himself tightly in the folds of his cloak, he crouched down in a corner ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... proud and happy, and full of sad superior pity for all young men who, through incorrect views concerning women, had neglected to plight themselves. ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... Faithful's face to the celestial city, and he is off now to look for another pilgrim. We know some of Christian's adventures and episodes after Evangelist left him, but we do not take up these at present. We pass on to the next time that Evangelist finds Christian, and he finds him in a sorry plight. He has listened to bad advice. He has gone off the right road, he has lost sight of the gate, and all the thunders and lightnings of Sinai are rolling and flashing out against him. What doest thou here of all men in the world? asked Evangelist, with a severe ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... heart, but they were due as much to excitement as to fear. In truth he was more excited than afraid; for he had absolutely nothing to lose save a suit of old clothes and his horse, and both of these were in sorry enough plight to be little tempting to those hardy ruffians, who were accustomed to have travellers to rob of a ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... friend, knowing of my plight, has just telephoned about a very fine New Thought school which will be glad to receive my ward. Well, they'll have some entirely new thoughts in that school which they've ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... in evil plight; but as the night wore on they saw that a great fire sprang up in the midst of the sound over against there whereas they had come. But when Grettir's shipmates saw the fire, they said one to the other that he would be a happy man who might get it, and ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... I was depressed, melancholy, and under a continued consternation, something of which the morning sun might dissipate, so that I should be able to take a heartier view of my woful plight. So after a good look seawards and at the heavens to satisfy myself on the subject of the weather, and after a careful inspection of the moorings of the boat, I entered her, feeling very sure that, if a sea set in from the west or south and tumbled her, the motion would quickly arouse ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... he was in the same plight, as to a delayed decision, but he did not speak as though he were very hopeful of being ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... and torrential rain. Sometimes the roof and sides collapsed, as the Oxfords found to their cost when an iron girder killed four men. Sometimes the pressure of water merely caused leakage, but in either case the result was eventually the same. The plight of the men without shelter was often extremely wretched. They lived in water and liquid mud, which mingled with their food and with the fabric of their clothes. However, it was found possible to hold the line more thinly, ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... made us all very melancholy, and it is difficult to say which of the two we cursed most heartily in secret for our misfortunes, Cortes or Salazar, for we gave them ten thousand maledictions, and our hearts sunk within us to think of our miserable plight after all our fatigues and dangers. Cortes retired to his chamber, and did not appear again till the evening, when we unanimously entreated him to hasten to Mexico, that he might recover the government from the usurper. He replied kindly: "My dear friends, this villainous ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... back with a large piece of ice, which he placed in the carriage. Lovaina told him to break off a lump for my room. He became indignant, and in pantomime vividly described the suffering of guests at the Tiare with the ice exhausted, and Lovaina's plight if she could sell no ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... to myself, after a long cogitation, "if she wants to marry me, she must go to James Town for a parson, and if I once get there, I will contrive, as soon as extra constables are sworn in, to break off the match." But, seriously, I was in an awkward plight. There was something in that woman that was awful, and I could imagine her revenge to be most deadly. I thought the old Indian squaw to be bad enough, but this new mistress was a thousand times worse. What a hard fate, I thought, ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... command of Captain Grigg and Lieutenant Shepherd, to help move the Federal prisoners from Richmond, Va., to Andersonville, Ga. We were on this service until 26th of March. These prisoners were in a pitiable plight and infected with small-pox. William Allen and Pink Pryor caught it from them; don't see why we all did not. During this time or early in March the Brigade made an expedition against Suffolk, Va., and after a running fight with negro cavalry, took that town, but did not hold it long. ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott
... red cloak—alack!—as was presently seen when they dismounted, that gentleman was in a sorry plight. He wore a leather jerkin, so cut and soiled that any groom might have disdained it; a pair of green breeches, frayed to their utmost; and coarse boots of untanned ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... in this plight. We have said, "Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anger shut up his tender mercies?" From our prison-cell we send up the appeal to our Brother in the glory: "Help us; for if Thou leavest us to our fate, we shall question if Thou art He." We are tempted to stumbling. We are like ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... between the sections of the senate, and as having a statesman's acquaintance with the secrets of all cabals: at times the appointment to the most important posts of command was decided by a word from his mistress Praecia. Such a plight was only possible where none of the men taking part in politics rose above mediocrity: any man of more than ordinary talent would have swept away this system of factions like cobwebs; but there was in reality the saddest lack of men ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... I instantly forgot my plight and my natural instincts asserted themselves. As if I had been then what I had been ten days before, I ordered Chryseros to loose Agathemer and he obeyed me, as if I had been what I felt ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... with life expire: Our vow'd affections both have often tried, 830 Nor any love but yours could ours divide. Then, by my love's inviolable band, By my long suffering, and my short command, If e'er you plight your vows when I am gone, Have pity ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... politely, "but you've really entertained me more now than one could expect from a gentleman in your distressing plight. Come, Rex." She turned back again at the hemlocks which flanked the forest path. "I'll ask Miss Westfall to send some men," ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... recalling the separate events of the day. The court room had been crowded to the verge of suffocation; when he entered it a sudden hush and a mighty craning of necks had been his welcome, and he had felt his cheeks redden and pale with a sense of shame at his hapless plight. Those many pairs of eyes that were fixed on him seemed to lay bare his inmost thoughts; he had known no refuge from their ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... there were many in different plights, and according to their plight, kept in different places. The well bound were ranged in the sanctuary of Mr. Bronte's study; but the purchase of books was a necessary luxury to him, and as it was often a choice between binding an old one, or buying a new one, the familiar volume, which had been hungrily read by all the members ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... rage and mortification sprang to his eyes. He recalled his own feelings in instances where shame had fallen upon other men; he recalled his own easy indifference and the temptation to laugh at the plight of the poor devils. It had never entered his mind that some day he might be the object of like consideration in others more or less ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... Crow was alarmed. Never in all his life had he found himself in such a plight. He stayed at home only long enough to tie his foot up in a bandage, which made it look bigger than ever. And then he hurried off as fast as he could fly to call upon Aunt Polly Woodchuck, who was said ...
— The Tale of Old Mr. Crow • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the hard stones and dashed after it. But the enemy, by this, had my fellows on the run, and were driving them at stretch gallop. To worsen my plight, as I pursued I caught sound of hoofs pounding behind and, as it seemed, overtaking me; supposed that a horseman was riding me down; and, reining the mare back fiercely, slued about to meet his onset. It proved to be the poor pack-horse I had left in the valley! He must have galloped ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... most eligible from her crippled state; and this mode pursued, I see nothing to prevent the capture of the five or six Ships of the Enemy's Van. The two or three Ships of the Enemy's Rear[122] must either bear up, or wear; and, in either case, although they would be in a better plight probably than our two Van-Ships (now in the Rear) yet they would be separated, and at a distance to leeward, so as to give our Ships time to refit; and by that time, I believe, the Battle would, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... stretched out to seize upon me. Oh! it was then I gave such a cry—and I fled! fled! fled! but the old woman pursued me—yes, the corpse tracked me behind; and she has only just now disappeared, on hearing the sound of your voice. I then hid behind this tree, where you now see me, in a piteous plight." ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... feels it considerate to warn purchasers that they are "five cents, straight" and not six for a quarter. I saw that if the collector before me were subject to human moments, he must be suffering one now. So, while he smoked, I told him freely of Miss Caroline, of her furniture and her plight. ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... and plight, she led the pony this way and that, up and down, listening, trying to force a shout through her swollen lips. At length, in despair, she knew she could search no more. A lifelessness of feeling was creeping upon her. Mechanically she walked beside her pony, and it was the animal ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... load upon my head and shoulders to hold my face down, I was obliged, near as I was to the window, instantly to raise it again to avoid suffocation. I need not, my dear friend, ask your commiseration, when I tell you, that in this plight, from half an hour past eleven till near two in the morning, I sustained the weight of a heavy man, with his knees in my back, and the pressure of his whole body on my head. A Dutch surgeon who had taken his seat upon my left shoulder, and a Topaz (a black Christian soldier) bearing ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... time. It had to do with that hard-testing period, just after his meeting with Carlin, when he had journeyed to Poona to confer with the eldest brother, Roderick Deal, and had been forced to wait more than a month. In that interval he had learned about hyenas at first hand, through the plight of Beatrice Hichens and the children; also his servant Bhanah had come to him, and the Great Dane, Nels; still it had been a vague stretch of days, ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... noiselessly about, very grave and silent, as if doing penance for some violation of the code of honor. By many gentle, indirect approaches, I perceived that part of his tail-feathers were undeveloped. The sylvan prince could not think of returning to court in this plight,—and so, amid the falling leaves and cold rains of autumn, was patiently biding ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... fiercely on the top of his head, he carefully drew the bushy top of the poplar sapling into such a position that it gave him shade. As its roots were still aground, it showed no tendency to float off and forsake him in his plight. ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... time before I got my senses again. When I did I found that I was tied hand and foot, and was lying there on the sands, with three or four of our fellows in the same plight as myself. They all belonged to the jolly-boat in which I had come ashore. The other boat had made a shift to push off with some of its hands and get back to the ship; but I did not know that until ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... ghost notified others in kindred plight of the success that had attended her efforts, it is certain that, if the contemporary records are to be accepted, the few short years of life remaining to her were largely occupied in ministering to the wants of distressed spirits. Phantom monks, nobles, peasants, pressed upon her with terrible ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... not here! O, how that word doth play With both our fortunes, differing, like ourselves, Both one; and yet divided, as opposed! I high, thou low: O, this our plight of place Doubly presents the two lets of our love, Local and ceremonial height, and lowness: Both ways, I am too high, and thou too low, Our minds are even yet; O, why should our bodies, That are their slaves, be so without their rule? I'll cast myself down to thee; ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... in order to get rid of them he sent them to the University of Salamanca, where, out of sight, they were out of mind, for he thought no more about them, and did not even send them the means of subsistence. In these straits, after struggling for some months against their wretched plight, the lads were obliged to leave Salamanca, and beg their way home, tramping barefoot through France and Italy, till they made their way back to Rome, where they found their father harsher and ...
— The Cenci - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and mother-bird, In you what trouble will be stirred When, home returned from weary flight, You learn your babies' hapless plight! ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... (Sunday).—The night was very bad—thunder and lightning, torrents of rain—the road knee-deep in mud and water, and often blocked up with waggons "come to grief." I pitied the wretched plight of the unfortunate soldiers who were to follow us. Our progress was naturally very slow indeed, and we took eight hours ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... there, like those of some captured wild animal which fears danger; and as he looked he caught sight of the footman gazing at him with a peculiar grin upon his countenance, which seemed to be quite friendly, and indicated that the man rather enjoyed the plight in which his young master ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... her hand the slow wheel stoppeth, Silken flax from distaff droppeth, And a cruel, killing pain Striketh up from heart to brain; And she knoweth by that token That the spinning all is vain, That the troth-plight has been spoken, And the thread of life thus broken Never can ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... scarcely sat down when the door again resounded, and she played over the same game as she had done with the cauzee, who on his also entering the bed-chamber was somewhat pleased at seeing a brother magistrate in the same ridiculous plight with himself. The venerable lovers condoled by signs with each other, but dared not speak for fear of discovery. The chief of the butchers, on his arrival, was next ushered up stairs, and his present received, then made to undress and put on a ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... it's just as easy to bear blessings, mother," began Jewel, and then she noticed her child's plight. "Darling Anna Belle, what are you doing!" she exclaimed, picking up the doll and brushing her dress. "I shouldn't think you had any more backbone than an error-fairy! Now don't look sorry, dearie, because to-day it's your turn ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... orders! He sings; the girls join in. "We have done the business; All the trade is driven. The betrothal we will plight, And upon the wedding night A fine feast ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... the plate, and "him as formerly wore the bishop's mitre" with the jewels, the Dwarf gets out of society by being, as he significantly expresses it, "sold out," and in this plight returns penitently one evening to the show-house of his still-admiring proprietor. Mr. Magsman happens at the moment to be having a dull tete-a-tete with a young man without arms, who gets his living by writing with his toes, ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... are around us everywhere, many known to my readers personally, and any number who may be known to them by a very short walk from their own dwellings, who are in this very plight! Their vicious habits and destitute circumstances make it certain that without some kind of extraordinary help, they must hunger and sin, and sin and hunger, until, having multiplied their kind, and filled up the measure of their miseries, the gaunt fingers of death will close upon ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... of me in the street one night. He was in the most pitiable plight, but I recognized the man, and I got him to tell me his history, or at least the outline of it. In brief, it amounted to this—he had been ruined ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... the loss of a victory or two; wherefore the wing of the tyrant was clipped again, as to boasting,—I mean in comparison of what he would have done, if the Diabolonians had put the town to the same plight to which he had put ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... his journey, however, Hugh Flaxman had at last confessed himself to Catherine and Robert. His obvious plight made any further scruples on their part futile, and what they had they gave him in the way of sympathy. Also Robert, gathering that he already knew much, and without betraying any confidence of Rose's, gave him a hint or two on the subject of Langham. But more not the friendliest ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... you should have seen him shiver When they pulled him from the river. He was in a sorry plight! Dripping wet, and such a fright! Wet all over, everywhere, Clothes, and arms, and face, and hair: Johnny never will forget What it is to ...
— Struwwelpeter: Merry Tales and Funny Pictures • Heinrich Hoffman
... cock-sparrow took her up tenderly in his bill, and flew away home with his precious burden. Now, just as he was crossing the big river in front of his house, the old hen-sparrow, in her gay dress, looked out of the window, and when she saw her old husband bringing home his young bride in such a sorry plight, she burst out laughing shrilly, and called aloud, 'That is right! that is right! Remember what ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... Indra's heaven, so at least 'tis said, No nuptial rites prevail[55], nor is the bride Led to the altar by her future lord; But all in secret does the bridegroom plight His troth, and each unto the other vow Mutual allegiance. Such espousals, too, Are authorised on earth, and many daughters Of royal saints thus wedded to their lords Have still received their ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... should be able to subsist, even if he could evade those who sought him, had thus become problematical. John Steele fingered that last sovereign; started to turn, when he caught the look in the other's eyes. Did it recall to him his own plight but a short twenty-four ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... speeding inland in the extra coach of a special train carrying the mails. The hours I passed in Durban were not without occupation. The hospital ship 'Sumatra' lay close to our moorings, and as soon as it was light I visited her to look for friends, and found, alas! several in a sorry plight. All seemed to be as well as the tenderest care and the most lavish expenditure of money could make them. All told much the same tale—the pluck and spirit of the troops, the stubborn unpretentious valour of the Boer, the searching musketry. ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... have done all I could—Cousin Manasseh knows it—to show him I can be none of his. I have told him,' said she, blushing, but determined to say the whole out at once, 'that I am all but troth-plight to a young man of our own village at home; and, even putting all that on one side, I wish ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... well-composed figure of Mr. Jefferson's young secretary, social captain of matters at the Executive Mansion, and personal aide to the President. His quick glance caught sight of the gathering line of carriages; a second glance estimated the plight of those now jammed into the anteroom like so many cattle and ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... in sandy valley, Bugle that screamed a warning of surprise, Shreds of the colour torn before the rally, Jewel of troth-plight seen by dying eyes— Welcome, dear tokens of the lad we mourn. Tell how that day his faithful heart was leaping; Help me, who linger in the home forlorn, Throw me a ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... Still, if he be not gone, I think we might persuade him to take a trip on the craft you speak of. It was once Harry's sinister luck to slip overboard in the harbour of Guaymas—dropping almost into the jaws of a tintorero shark—and my good fortune to be able to rescue him out of his perilous plight. He is not the man to be ungrateful; and, if still in San Francisco, I think you may count upon him for taking service on board this Chilian vessel. True, he's only one, but worth two—ay, ten. He not only knows how to work a ship's sails, but on a pinch could take a lunar, and make ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... showed us such a tumult of passions rising at once in one bosom! or what buskined hero standing under the load of them, could have more effectually moved his spectators, by the most pathetic speech, than poor miserable Nokes did, by this silent eloquence, and piteous plight of ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... bell, and committed it to a servant's care; and then I inquired what had urged her to escape from Wuthering Heights in such an unlikely plight, and where she meant to go, as she refused ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... twenty-four hours the rain had been falling incessantly, Turenne's army had been marching on the previous day, and had been fighting for seven hours, and was incapable of further exertions, while that of Enghien was in little better plight, having passed the night in the rain on the ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... said, "Do not come whining here, Sir Facing-both-ways. I hate you worst of all the gods in Olympus, for you are ever fighting and making mischief. You have the intolerable and stubborn spirit of your mother Juno: it is all I can do to manage her, and it is her doing that you are now in this plight: still, I cannot let you remain longer in such great pain; you are my own offspring, and it was by me that your mother conceived you; if, however, you had been the son of any other god, you are so destructive that by this time you should have been lying lower ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... marry, grubbing in the dirt and soiling her hands in that style! It was his impression that only Dutch women worked in a garden; and for all he knew of its products she might be setting out a potato plant. Quick Edith caught his expression, and while she crimsoned with vexation at her plight, felt a new and sudden sense of contempt for the semblance of a man ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... outlined against the dim moonlight. The youth glanced furtively at them, comprehending more fully than at any time before the sad mistake he had made in disobeying the orders of Kenton. But for that he would not have been in his present plight. ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... crag and bird, Frost and sun and eldest night, To me their aid preferred, To me their comfort plight;— "Courage! we are thine allies, And with this hint be wise,— The chains of kind The distant bind; Deed thou doest she must do, Above her will, be true; And, in her strict resort To winds and ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... was a pitiful plight. No sane man would venture down such a chasm, impenetrable with thorns, and night descending. So we built a beacon fire and waited for dawn. All during the long dark hours we heard the distant appeal of the hounds, ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... people that possess it; but, tell me, they of the fat marsh, and they whom the wind drives, and they whom the rain beats, and they who encounter with such sharp tongues, why are they not punished within the ruddy city if God be wroth with them? and if he be not so, why are they in such plight?" ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... in not wishing to see you in such a plight," replied Fink. "Ladies fare worst of all. All that constitutes their toilette vanishes entirely in torrents such as these. Do you know the costume of the ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... beatings of his heart, but they were due as much to excitement as to fear. In truth he was more excited than afraid; for he had absolutely nothing to lose save a suit of old clothes and his horse, and both of these were in sorry enough plight to be little tempting to those hardy ruffians, who were accustomed to have travellers to rob of ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... was in a worse plight than ever. There was no commissario to be had at that hour. I was in total darkness; not a door was open; nor was there an individual in the street; and, recollecting the reputation Rome had of late acquired for ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... Lady Sparrow had returned home in the sad plight in which they had first found her, weeping and bleeding from the mouth, her whole family and relations had done little else but speak of the cruelty of the old woman. "How could she," they asked each other, "inflict such a heavy punishment for ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... proposal to go to the Mississippi Steel Company was voted down, because Mississippi Steel was in the hands of Wall Street men; and neither Judge Dupree nor General Montague had realised at that time the hopelessness of the plight of ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... passion's over. Woman, that fair and fond deceiver, How prompt are striplings to believe her! How throbs the pulse, when first we view The eye that rolls in glossy blue, Or sparkles black, or mildly throws A beam from under hazel brows! How quick we credit every oath, And hear her plight the willing troth! Fondly we hope 'twill last for ay, When, lo! she changes in a day. This record will for ever stand,' "Woman, thy vows are trac'd ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... and Dennis looked around vainly for some additional covering. The thronging fugitives were all in a similar plight, and their only course was simply to endure till ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... and that he must bear their cold looks and colder silence without seeming to notice them. He had schooled himself to the task, and he was now performing it. It was not only that he would have to move among men without being noticed, but that he must endure to pass the whole evening in the same plight. But he was resolved, and he was now doing it. He bowed to the Speaker with more than usual courtesy, raising his hat with more than usual care, and seated himself, as usual, on the third opposition-bench, but with more than his usual fling. He was a big ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... Yorkshire and Lancashire shake with your shout on that occasion. The ringers cracked a bell in Briarfield belfry; it is dissonant to this day. The Association of Merchants and Manufacturers dined together at Stilbro', and one and all went home in such a plight as their wives would never wish to witness more. Liverpool started and snorted like a river-horse roused amongst his reeds by thunder. Some of the American merchants felt threatenings of apoplexy, and had themselves bled—all, like wise men, at this first moment of prosperity, prepared to rush into ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... and tied sandals to our feet made of bark which we cut from the trees with sharp stones, fixing them on by means of the tough flexible roots of a plant called bejucos. Travelling in this sorry plight, we came in two days to the village of Yaguarrama, where Fray Bartholome de las Casas was then parish priest, who was afterwards bishop of Chiapa. I went next day to the town of Chipiona, belonging to Alonso de Avila, where I ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... reading their way. On Sundays the congregation rarely numbered a dozen. It seemed that, as the end of the Vicar's task drew nearer, so the prospect of filling the church receded and became more shadowy. And if his was a queer plight, Jacky Pascoe's was queerer. The Bryanite continued to come by night and help, but at rarer intervals. He was discomforted in mind, as anyone could see, and at length he took Mr. Raymond ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of course,—and since, compared with the others, we were virtually unarmed, we ought, I suppose, to have been thankful that we were not murdered in cold blood, as doubtless we should have been if our dangerous plight had not so delighted Kipping's cruel humor, and if both Falk and Kipping had not felt certain that they would never see or hear of us again. But we found little comfort in realizing that, as matters ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... the cash, kid! Got to have it, don't you see? It was I who landed us in this plight and I'm the one to get us out. ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface; but there was nothing unfriendly in his silence. I simply felt that he lived in a depth of moral isolation too remote for casual access, and I had the sense that his loneliness was not merely the result of his personal plight, tragic as I guessed that to be, but had in it, as Harmon Gow had hinted, the profound accumulated cold ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton
... how the time passes, Truth and Conscience, that show the bounded vse and decent forme of things, are tyed vp, and cannot be heard. Still Fructum non invenio, I finde no fruits. I am sorry to passe the fig-tree in this plight: but as I finde it, so I must leave it, till the Lord mend it."—Pp. 39, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... shall not be abased, Till the day of the uttermost trial when the war-shield of Odin is raised. So my word is the word of wooing, and I bid thee remember thine oath, That here in this hall fair-builded we twain may plight the troth; That here in the hall of thy waiting thou be made a wedded wife, And be called the Queen of the Niblungs, ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... anything I ever told you about Finn. Ochone, Shorsha! perhaps you will be telling me about the snake once more? I think the tale would do me good, and I have need of comfort, God knows, Ochone!" Seeing Murtagh in such a distressed plight, I forthwith told him over again the tale of the snake, in precisely the same words as I have related it in the first part of this history. After which I said, "Now, Murtagh, tit for tat; ye will be telling me one of the old stories of Finn-ma-Coul." "Och, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... had been rebuilt by Ramses II. and decorated by the Rames-sides, was in a sorry plight when the XXIInd dynasty came into power. Sheshonq I. did little or nothing to it, but Osorkon I. entirely remodelled it, and Osorkon II. added several new halls, including, amongst others, one in which he celebrated, in ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... "They were in sore plight for fighting, for most of them had been obliged to sell even their arms and armour to procure food. Spinola, hearing of their approach pushed forward with a strong force to intercept them, and so came upon them at Fleurus, eight miles from Namur, on ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... the day. Hall now got another man in Thorolf's place in the boat, and went on fishing as before. Thorolf was ill-contented with his lot, for he felt he had come to shame in their dealings together; yet he remained in the islands with the determination to set straight the humble plight to which he had been made to bow against his will. [Sidenote: Hall's death] Hall, in the meantime, did not fear any danger, and thought that no one would dare to try to get even with him in his own country. ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... enough to hold a whole chorus of singers. The enormous pie in which twenty-eight musicians were discovered when the crust was cut may have been the original of that pasty whose opening revealed four-and-twenty blackbirds in a similar plight. Wild animals wandered gravely at a machinist's will through deep forests, but in the midst of the counterfeit brutes there was at least one live lion, for Gilles le Cat[5] received twenty shillings from the duke for ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... the same way that Germans are looked upon here, as quite outside the pale of common morality. Fully realising what this must mean for me, these kindly Germans would go off into a day dream of wonderment as to how they might feel in a similar plight, and one ended up with the reflection, 'Ja, es ist halt jetzt die Zeit der Maertyrer' (it is indeed the time of the martyrs once more)." Surely there is something strangely poignant about the convinced and steadfast martyrdom and ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... likelihood of his ever being called upon to do it. So he stood in the doorway of his deserted shop, for all his young assistants, his curlers and shampooers, had been mobilized, and looked up and down the deserted street, and congratulated himself that he was not in as bad a plight, financially and otherwise, as ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... was quite out of ammunition, except canister, which could not be used with safety over the heads of our troops. Our outer lines of breastworks had been captured, and were held by the enemy. So much as was left of Berry's division was in absolute need of re-forming. Its supports were in equally bad plight. The death of Berry, and the present location of our lines in the low ground back of the crest just lost, where the undergrowth was so tangled and the bottom so marshy, that Ward, when he marched to Berry's relief, had failed to find him, obliged the Federals ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... Mrs. Turner came to speak with me and Joyce, and I took them and shewed them the manner of the Houses sitting, the door-keeper very civilly opening the door for us. We went walking all over White Hall, whither General Monk was newly come, and we saw all his forces march by in very good plight and stout officers. After dinner I went to hear news, but only found that the Parliament House was most of them with Monk at White Hall, and that in his passing through the town he had many calls to him for a free Parliament, but little ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... get the rope to himself. With that rope John hoped to hang his brother yet. 'Dearest Madame,' he said, 'Richard cannot marry in Navarre even if he were willing. Once he has been betrothed, and has broken plight; once he saw his mistress betrothed, and broke her plight. Now he is wedded, or says that he is. Suppose that you get him to break this wedlock, will you give him another woman to deceive? There is no more faithless beast ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... ring she gave me Right royally dwarf-worked, To none will I pass it For prayer or for sword-stroke, Save to him who can claim it By love and by troth plight, Let that hero speak If ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... and hastily to the children of his tribe, and the men came one by one to shake hands with Dalgetty, while the women, clamorous in their gratitude, pressed round to kiss even the hem of his garment. "They plight their faith to you," said Ranald MacEagh, "for requital of the good deed you have done to ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... then Ivanov's chief of staff, is said to have counselled a Russian retreat like those which lured Charles XII and Napoleon to their doom; but the temptations of Austrian weakness and German concentration on the West and the plight of France and Belgium led to the adoption of other advice and the premature invasion of Prussia, Galicia, and Hungary; and in August 1915 it was too late for a voluntary and innocuous retreat. The ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... the forceful sonnets of that tragic Portuguese, Antero de Quental, who died by his own hand. Feeling acutely for the plight of his country on the occasion of the British ultimatum in 1890, he wrote as follows:[66] "An English statesman of the last century, who was also undoubtedly a perspicacious observer and a philosopher, Horace Walpole, said that for those who feel, life is a tragedy, and a comedy for those ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... and their belongings into the big truck. Just as they were about to start they saw some infantry coming, seven men whom they knew, but in such a plight! They were unshaven, with white, sunken faces, and great dark hollows under their eyes. They were simply "all in," and ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... hopefulness which she did not feel, "I am surprised at you. You haven't given up hope. It is just the darkness and being hungry that makes things appear so dreadful. I have been thinking about our plight, and when daylight comes I am going to try to climb up the wall to the window. The mud has broken away between some of the logs, so that I can get my foot in the opening. We shall have to dig it away ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... upon the highway, and if we mistake not 'tis the King's." Cedric loosed himself from Constance and hurried from the room. She flew after him; but he had passed Sir Julian and flung himself upon a horse. Pomphrey saw her plight, and, whether from pity, gallantry, or intrigue, lifted her quickly—before she had time to withdraw from him—into a coach. Cedric remonstrated with him; but Julian was confident of his motive and started the coach at full speed. They flew along in the opposite direction ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... cunning old Spider then laughed outright; "Poor fellow!" he said, "you are in a sad plight! Ha! ha! what a dunce you must be to suppose, That the heart of a Spider should pity ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... conjurors incontinently begin playing on their instruments and singing and dancing; and the conjurors dance to such a pitch that at last one of them shall fall to the ground lifeless, like a dead man. And then the devil entereth into his body. And when his comrades see him in this plight they begin to put questions to him about the sick man's ailment. And he will reply: "Such or such a spirit hath been meddling with the man,[NOTE 9] for that he hath angered the spirit and done it some despite." Then they say: "We pray thee to pardon him, and to take of his blood or of his goods ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... grievance in such a case? Helen, above all, would never show it; and Althea was at once oppressed, and at the same time oddly sustained by the thought that she had, all inevitably, done her friend an injury. She lay awake at night, turning over in her mind Helen's present plight and framing loving plans for the future. She took refuge in such plans from a sense of having come to an end of things. To think of Helen, and of what, with their wealth, she and Franklin could do for Helen, seemed, really, her strongest hold on life. It ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... many men who could have preserved their reason under monstrous circumstances such as these, and I take it that there is no man living who dare up and say that he would not be abominably frightened were he to find himself in such a plight. In these papers I have endeavored to show Captain Owen Kettle as a brave man, indeed the bravest I ever knew; but I do not think even he would blame me if I said he was badly ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... was in a sad fix. And for my part, when I first heard of his plight I did not see how he was ever going to ...
— The Tale of Cuffy Bear • Arthur Scott Bailey
... chaotic, totally incapable of keeping order among these murderous Bedouins. The country would be a second Persia under her. Persia is intolerable enough for the Europeans who trade there at present: but the plight of this country might easily be worse. We are bound to control the bit from Basra to the sea to protect existing interests. The whole future of that area—as of all Mesopotamia—depends on a scientific scheme of drainage and irrigation. At present half the country is ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... Like one who after a night of drunken revelry hies to his bed, still reeling, but with conscience yet pricking him, as the plungings of the Roman race-horse but so much the more strike his steel tags into him; as one who in that miserable plight still turns and turns in giddy anguish, praying God for annihilation until the fit be passed; and at last amid the whirl of woe he feels, a deep stupor steals over him, as over the man who bleeds to death, for conscience is the wound, and there's naught to staunch ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... take the Almighty to witness That I Frances Coke Yonger daughter to Sir Ed. Coke late Lord Chiefe Justice of England, doe give myselfe absolutely to Wife to Henry Ven. Viscount Balboke, Erle of Oxenford, to whom I plight my fayth and inviolate vows, to keepe myselfe till Death us do part: And if even I breake the least of these I pray God Damne mee body and soule in Hell fyre in the world to come: And in thys world I humbly Beseech God the Earth may open and Swallowe mee up quicke to ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... had hold of Sir Percival's horse and thereupon others swarmed upon him and what with the blows of their maces and clubs, he was in sorry plight. Nor could Sir Launcelot turn to help him for he was in great conflict with the two knights and a large number of them on foot and Sir Neil equally so. As for Allan he had already ridden down two of the attackers and had ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... the power of the crafty Helge. Bearing down quickly upon the evil-workers, it despatched one of them with its sharp prow, while Frithiof, with one thrust of his weapon, destroyed the other. But the vessel was filled with water, and the sailors were forced to bale continually. In this desperate plight the Orkney Islands were reached, and the exhausted crew were borne ashore. Frithiof, too, was worn with fatigue, yet he carried eight of his men at one time from the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... to Heyst how it happened. At that precise moment he had no explanation ready for the man on the wharf, who, he guessed, must be wondering much more at the presence of his visitors than at their plight. ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... rowed quickly back past where the prisoners sat contentedly enough; save the cow, which kept making the great rock wall echo with her lowings, while three more of her kind now stood on high, gazing down at her plight. ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... occasion of offending God, by fleeing to the mountains, where she wandered about for almost four months, suffering, although with much satisfaction, many hardships and privations; nor did she return to the village until she learned that he who had brought her to such a plight ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... would alter matters. Drusus spent the evening in a pathetically forced attempt to read his Callimachus. He was weary physically, and intended to retire early. AEmilia, who felt sorry enough for the plight of her rather distant cousin, had tried to console him and divert him with guitar[84] music, and had called in an itinerant piper,[85] but these well-meant efforts at amusement had been dreary failures. Drusus had just bidden his body-servants undress him, when he was informed that ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... lord come in with me, and heard that he was to lie there that night, seeing that as yet we had no more beds than we had bought for our own need from old Zabel Nering the forest-ranger his widow, at Uekeritze. Wherefore she took me aside: What was to be done? My bed was in an ill plight, her little godchild having lain on it that morning; and she could no wise put the young nobleman into hers, although she would willingly creep in by the maid herself. And when I asked her why not? she blushed scarlet, and began to cry, and would not show herself again the whole evening, ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... friends married, and felt soured thereat. Thenceforth her way is marked by tears, by utter weakness, by a woful self-surrender. Threatened by her only God, her son, heart-broken at finding herself in a plight so unnatural, she falls desperate. She tries to drown all her memories in sleep. At length comes an issue for which neither of them can fairly account, an issue such as nowadays will often happen in the poorer quarters of large ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... sir; a penny—won't you buy? I'm cold and wet and tired, a sorry plight; Don't turn your back, sir; take one just to try; I haven't made a single sale to-night. Oh, thank you, sir; but take the pencil too; I'm not a beggar, I'm a business man. Pencils I deal in, red and black and blue; It's hard, but still I do the best I can. ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... pathetic case; no doubt he hadn't the remotest conception what he really was—and no doubt, also, there are many who would honestly take his view. As if the fact that he was born with all possible advantages did not make him and his plight inexcusable. It passes my comprehension why people of his sort, when suffering from the calamities they have deliberately brought upon themselves by laziness and self-indulgence and extravagance, should get a sympathy that is withheld from those ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... General Samuel Graham, then an officer in Fraser's Highlanders, in his "Memoirs," though speaking of the march to Cross Creek, is silent about Highlanders offering their services. Nor is it at all likely, that, in the sorry plight the British army reached Cross Creek in, the Highlanders would unite, especially when the outlook was gloomy, and the Americans ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... by Messer Galeaz and the Marquis of Mantua to the French outposts. More than two thousand men had already died of sickness and starvation. Almost all their horses had been eaten, and the survivors were in a miserable plight. Many perished by the roadside, and Commines found fifty troopers in a fainting condition in a garden at Cameriano, and saved their lives by feeding them with soup. Even then one man died on the spot, and four others never reached the camp. ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... guilty," exclaimed I, "of having expressed any sort of affection for her. I know somebody who can best bear me witness in this respect." Emilia smiled, and rejoined, "I understand you; and, if we are not discreet and determined, we shall all find ourselves in a bad plight together. What will you say if I entreat you not to continue your lessons? You have, I believe, four tickets yet of the last month: and my father has already declared that he finds it inexcusable to take your money any longer, unless you wish to devote yourself ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... times, from 1649 onwards, when his affairs were in the most hopeless plight, Charles had clearly announced that he could make no terms with those "who voted or acted in that bloody murder." Amongst the vast majority in all parties who accepted the Restoration, there were ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... Margaret," she said, "I really don't care two straws about going to The Cedars. From what you have told me the Danvers do not appear to be a very attractive family, and I painted my own plight blacker than I need have done. I have got somewhere to go. The empty school at Hampstead is open to me for the rest of the summer holidays. Miss Marvel gave me leave to spend them there if I had nowhere to go, so I shall be all right. So, for goodness ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... thee. On the other hand, O bull of the Bharata race, fight with him with thy arms, putting forth as much strength only as thy antagonist hath now left!' Then that slayer of hostile heroes, the son of Pandu, thus addressed by Krishna, understood the plight of Jarasandha and forthwith resolved upon taking his life. And that foremost of all men endued with strength, that prince of the Kuru race, desirous of vanquishing the hitherto unvanquished Jarasandha, mustered all his ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... contains news which I am sure will be very welcome to you all. It is to the effect that our wireless operator has succeeded in getting into touch with the Bolivia and acquainting the captain of that vessel with our somewhat unfortunate plight. The Bolivia, as some of you are doubtless aware, is homeward bound, but upon learning the news of our accident, her captain has unhesitatingly interrupted his voyage and is at this moment heading for our position as rapidly as his powerful ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... I jumped out, and ran to his assistance; but he was so prickly all over, that it was difficult to lay hold of him. His needles and pins ran into my fingers in a dozen places. To make matters worse, his nose began to bleed, so that he was in a pitiable plight. However, I picked him up at last, found he was not seriously injured, gave him a clean handkerchief (which he promised to return), and started him off again in his cart, in a sitting position ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... to enable them to reach the Jeanne D'Arc, if she was still afloat; then to climb aboard and hunt for provisions and life preservers or something to use for a raft. If he could do this, then they would be in a somewhat better plight, at least for a time. He prayed that the Jeanne D'Arc ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... knew the truth at last,—they had been deceived by a false hope, led by a false leader. Crying out against him who had brought them to such a plight, so far from home, they vanished one by one, until of the army that had entered the ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... accuracy, they tumbled off the poop swearing to serve me in a hundred horrible ways when they caught me, and fell again to drinking and quarrelling amongst themselves. I was indeed in an unenviable plight, by no means sure that I would not be slain out of hand when they became sufficiently sober to capture me. As I marked the progress of their damnable orgy I cast about for some plan to take advantage of their condition. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... arms, officers, and volunteer soldiers; and when I reached Belgrade, in May of the year named, there had already been fighting, in which the Servians had by no means got the worst. No word of the Servian tongue had I, and it was the reverse of pleasant for a war correspondent in such plight to learn that outside of Belgrade nobody, or at least hardly anybody, knew a word of any other language than the native Servian. As I ate, I was being attended by a very assiduous waiter, whose alertness and anxiety to please were very conspicuous. He was smart with quite un-Oriental ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... was not unlike that of the lecturer. By some hard luck he happened to be passing that way when the crowd was looking for the Abolitionist, and was discovered. "There he goes," was the cry that was raised, and a fire of eggs and other things was opened upon him. He reached his home in an awful plight, and it was charged that his conversation was not ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... could not see them at the time, there were excellent reasons for not stating there and then the delicious plight in which we had really left Levy's myrmidons. I myself would have driven home our triumph and his treachery by throwing our winning cards upon the table and simultaneously exposing his false play. But Raffles was right, and I should have been wrong, as I was ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... should shine, Purer then the Vestall fire: Nothing here but should be thine, That thy heart can well desire: Where at large we will relate, From what cause our friendship grewe, And in that the varying Fate, Since we first each other knewe: 60 Of my heauie passed plight, As of many a future feare, Which except the silent night, None but onely thou shalt heare; My sad hurt it shall releeue, When my thoughts I shall disclose, For thou canst not chuse but greeue, When I shall recount my woes; There is nothing to that friend, To whose close vncranied ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... his arms, realizing that he must not exhaust his strength in trying to raise his weight hand over hand. Thus, after the first few minutes of fright and after he had dared to open his eyes and take stock of the dangerous plight in which he found himself, he began calmly to reason, as very often one will who finds himself in imminent peril, the situation being too serious to allow him time ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... and all her garment blew, Close rownd about her tuckt with many a plight: Upon her fist ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... another junk with two masts, and in something better plight to look at than the former. When we came on board we found them upon the same errand, but only that they were people of some better fashion than the other; and here we got some plunder, some Turkish stores, a few diamonds in the ear-drops of five ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... class is stronger than my class, the working class. Here, because I'm dangerous to that master class. This isn't said to make myself out a martyr. It's only to make you see things right. I'm not complaining at this plight. I've richly earned it—under ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... were adjusted, the body was raised higher until the weight swung clear. In this plight they became a fearful sight to look upon. The flesh, to support their bodies with the additional weights attached thereto, was raised some eight inches by the skewers, and their heads sinking forward on their breasts, ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... were of the best he did very little sleeping that night. He was in a grave situation. Even if he had a fair field his plight would be serious enough. But he guessed that during the long hours of darkness Durand was busy weaving a net of false evidence from which he could scarcely disentangle himself. Unless Bromfield came forward at once as a witness for him, ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... then all this clamor at the doors of national privacy is well enough; but let them remember that when nations lose their dignity and their racial pride, there is sure to follow the squabbling and the jealousy, the rough speech and vulgar manners, of the domestic circle, in the same plight of spiritual shamelessness. The best that any of us learn is to be a little more patient, a little more charitable, a little more careful of the dignity of others in our own homes, or abroad, and then the light ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... coffin and let fall a tear, departing quickly with a cold smile. Worse than that, the wife sees her husband tortured in gaol; the husband sees his wife a victim to some horrible disease, lands gone, houses destroyed by flood or fire, and everything in an unutterable plight—the reward of former sins." ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... king said to his knights as he sat in a little room in an inn at Zara, "that my plight is a bad one. I am surrounded by enemies, and, alas! I can no longer mount my steed and ride out as at Jaffa to do battle with them. My brother, John Lackland, is scheming to take my place upon the throne of England. Philip of France, whose mind is far better at such matters than at setting ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... doth arise, Removed is, th' Effect surceaseth still. Abstain from Pleasure, and restrain your Will, Subdue Desire, and bridle loose Delight: Use scanted Diet, and forbear your Fill; Shun Secrecy, and talk in open sight: So shall you soon repair your present evil Plight. [1]' ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... one, sinner as I am!" said I. "Nay, Margaret, I doubt not my thoughts have been far unholier than thine. Thou rememberest not, I am sure; but ere we were professed, I was troth-plight unto a young noble, and always that life that I have lost flitteth afore me, as a bird that held a jewel in his beak might lure me on from flower to flower, ever following, never grasping the sweet illusion. Margaret, sister, despise me not for my confession! ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... into which it plunged me. To have suffered, myself,—to have fallen under the ban of suspicion and the disgrace of arrest—had certainly been hard; but it was nothing to beholding another in the same plight through my own rash and ill-advised attempt to better my position and Carmel's by what I had considered a totally ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... every side, but saw nothing that could give him the slightest cause for hope. With every step he was being carried deeper and deeper into the recesses of the jungle where no hunter dare venture, where the elephant, the tiger, and the leopard rule as undisputed masters. His plight was terrible. Who would free him, who could free him of the bonds which held him in subjection to so cruel ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... one of them. His canoe struck on a ledge, in passing over a little fall, swung around sidewise to the current, and half filled with water; he and Harry had to leap out into the stream waist-deep. Sam and I made merry at their plight. But Nemesis was waiting for me a few ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... still an acute shortage of housing for the lower and middle-income groups, especially in large metropolitan areas. We have laid the groundwork for relieving the plight of lower-income families in the Housing Act of 1949. To aid the middle-income families, I recommend that the Congress enact new legislation authorizing a vigorous program to help cooperatives and other nonprofit ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman
... Henry's heir, Am come to crave thy just and lawful aid; And if thou fail us, all our hope is done. Scotland hath will to help, but cannot help; Our people and our peers are both misled, Our treasure seiz'd, our soldiers put to flight, And, as thou seest, ourselves in heavy plight. ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... and loud. "Of course he erred. You don't suppose that I would give the authorities my real name, do you? Why, man, I am a nephew! I have an aged uncle—a rich millionaire uncle—whose heart and will it would break were he to hear of my present plight. Both the heart and will are in my favor, hence my tender solicitude for him. I am innocent, of course—convicts always are, you know—but that wouldn't make any difference. He'd die of mortification just the same. It's one of our family traits, that. So I gave a false name to the ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... government."[207] Philipps repaired the fort, which, as the engineer Mascarene says, "had lain tumbling down" before his arrival; but Annapolis and the whole province remained totally neglected and almost forgotten by England till the middle of the century. At one time the soldiers were in so ragged a plight that Lieutenant-Colonel Armstrong was forced to clothe them ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... autographic acquaintances stood him in good stead. He went in turn to each noted person he had met, explained his plight and stated his ambitions, with the result that very soon the magazine and the public were surprised at the distinction of the contributors to The Brooklyn Magazine. Each number contained a noteworthy list of them, and when an article by the President ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... had exhausted every resource his imagination suggested, he sat in the straw, smoking and brooding, his mind incessantly seeking some way out of his plight. At intervals he shouted, pounded, and whistled. He walked the floor, and reexamined it and the cellar walls. He looked at his watch. It was three o'clock in the morning. He was exhausted, and his body ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... wrote home from Aumboe, said: "I should be glad I cood come rite home with my slaves, for my vessel will not last to proceed far. We can see daylight all round her bow under deck." But he was not in any unusual plight. And not only the perils of the deep had to be encountered, but other perils, some bred of man's savagery, then more freely exhibited than now, others necessary to the execrable traffic in peaceful ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... latter was saying. "Those poor fellows had a narrow escape. It was well we saw their plight and sent a boat after them. It ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... Mr. Eastman thought it would be well to go to New York for a few days until the storm blew over. Jeffries the book-keeper could attend to all that was needed. Mr. Lawrence would find Hope Mills in a bad plight, to be sure; but he would not be the first man who had come to ruin. Mr. Eastman put his desk in order,—he never kept any tell-tale papers,—walked leisurely out of Hope Mills with that serene, impassable face and high heart no misfortune ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... Fido might both have been drowned if the people on the bridge had not run to save them. The street and number of Paul's house were printed on Fido's collar: so they carried the two there. Paul's mother cried when she saw the sad plight her little boy was in; and he was quite sick for ...
— The Nursery, November 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 5 • Various
... damsel[FN215] saw me in this plight, she said to me, "O man, tell me thy story, for, by Allah, an I may avail to thy deliverance, I will assuredly further thee thereto." I gave ear to her speech and put faith in her loyalty and told her the story of the damsel whom I ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... would have been easier, will not be able to make up his mind today, and will certainly be even less able to do so tomorrow. Every delay only makes us still more inert and but lulls us more and more into gentle acquiescence to our wretched plight. Neither could the external stimulations to reflection ever be stronger and more insistent, for surely he whom these present conditions do not arouse has lost all feeling. You have been called together ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... obscure night Fevered with Love's anxiety (O hapless, happy plight!) I went, none seeing me, Forth from my house, where all things ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... aye flow these cheeks adown, iii. 14. Deep in mine eyeballs ever dwells the phantom form of thee, viii. 61. Deign grant thy favours; since 'tis time I were engraced, v. 148. Describe me! a fair one said, viii. 265. Did Azzah deal behest to sun o' noon, ii. 102. Did not in love-plight joys and sorrows meet, iii. 182. Dip thou with spoons in saucers four and gladden heart and eye, viii. 223. Displaying that fair face, iv. 195. Divinely were inspired his words who brought me news of you, iv. 207. Do you threaten me wi' death for my loving you so well? vii. 221. Drain ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... eyes looked up eagerly at her. "Who is she? Oh, yes, I know, I know," and a moan came from his lips as he whispered: "Does she know I've come? Does it make her hate me worse to see me in such a plight? Ho, Aunt Eunice, put your ear down close while I tell you something. Ad said—you know Ad—she said I was—I was—I can't tell you what she said for this buzzing in my head. Am I very sick, Aunt Eunice?" and about the chin there was a quivering motion, which betokened a ray ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... our neighbors were all in the same plight with ourselves. They must be, of course, and many of them far less prepared to meet it. There might be whole families in the last extremity of cold right about us. I went to the window, and with my knife scraped away ...
— The Cold Snap - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... obtained that Hero has been falsely accused. She is recovered from her swoon. Claudio marries her. Benedick and Beatrice plight troth. ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... the mood that possessed me, I examined listlessly. It was an old-fashioned and slender circle of gold, so pale that it looked silvery, such as in times long past had commonly been used either for troth-plight or marriage-vows, surmounted by two small united hearts of the same dull metal by way of ornament. Mrs. Austin, I remembered, possessed one, the aversion of my childhood, ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... To some, dame, believe (and I speak o' what I know), Wormwood the trial and the Uzzite's black shard; And the faithfuller the heart, the crueller the throe. Duty? It pulled with more than one string, This way and that, and anyhow a sting. The flag and your kin, how be true unto both? If either plight ye keep, then ye break the other troth. But elect here they must, though the casuists were out; ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... Woman that fair and fond deceiver, How prompt are striplings to believe her, How throbs the pulse, when first we view, The eye that rolls in glossy blue; Or sparkles black, or mildly throws, A beam from under hazel brows; How quick we credit every oath, And hear her plight the willing troth; Fondly we hope 'twill last for aye, When lo! she changes in a day, The Record will forever stand, "That woman's ...
— Fugitive Pieces • George Gordon Noel Byron
... many shocks and bruises, that I was taken out with my head and all the rest of my body terribly battered, and a dislocated leg and arm. When I was brought home, the family immediately sent for the physicians, who, on their arrival, seeing me in so bad a plight, concluded, that within three days I should die; nevertheless, they would try what good two things would do me; one was to bleed me, the other to purge me; and thereby prevent my humours altering, as they every moment expected, to such a degree, ...
— Discourses on a Sober and Temperate Life • Lewis Cornaro
... very short time I had been induced to part with all my money, and, in fact, some of my clothes. When I recovered my senses—for I must have lost them to act as I did—I found myself in a sad and sorry plight. ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... now in a worse plight than ever; for he has long ago found that the sword utterly defies his skill: the steel will yield neither to his hammer nor to his furnace. Just then there walks into his cave a Wanderer, in a blue mantle, spear ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... nothing unfriendly in his silence. I simply felt that he lived in a depth of moral isolation too remote for casual access, and I had the sense that his loneliness was not merely the result of his personal plight, tragic as I guessed that to be, but had in it, as Harmon Gow had hinted, the profound accumulated cold of ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton
... colonial struggles which occupied the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries will be taken up in another chapter; at this point, therefore, we turn from the expanding nations on the Atlantic seaboard to note the mournful plight of the older commercial powers—the German and Italian city-states. As for the former, the Hanseatic League, despoiled of its Baltic commerce by enterprising Dutch and English merchants, its cities restless and rebellious, gradually broke up. In 1601 an ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... was rowed quickly back past where the prisoners sat contentedly enough; save the cow, which kept making the great rock wall echo with her lowings, while three more of her kind now stood on high, gazing down at her plight. ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... hard luck he happened to be passing that way when the crowd was looking for the Abolitionist, and was discovered. "There he goes," was the cry that was raised, and a fire of eggs and other things was opened upon him. He reached his home in an awful plight, and it was charged that his conversation was not ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... led him, and at every step he either sighed because he had lost his power or blessed "the little girls who gave him a hand." It seemed to the scouts rather odd that no one had discovered his plight until they had found him, but after all, it was not hard to understand how an old fisherman could be overlooked ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... Grey Beaver's foot shot out, lifting Lip-lip into the air with its violence so that he smashed down to earth a dozen feet away. This was the man-animal's justice; and even then, in his own pitiable plight, White Fang experienced a little grateful thrill. At Grey Beaver's heels he limped obediently through the village to the tepee. And so it came that White Fang learned that the right to punish was something the gods reserved for themselves and ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... sheiks all agreed that he had arrived here some time ago in a very miserable plight, exceedingly dirty, and riding upon a donkey. He was without baggage of any kind, and he introduced himself by giving a present to Kabba Rega of an old, battered metal basin and jug, in which he washed, together with a very old and worn-out small carpet, upon which he was ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... critical time as well as later when they were breathing normally again that the poor eclopes beyond the barrier were without shelter in the autumn rains and altogether in desperate plight; but it was only now and again that a few found time to pay them a hasty visit and cheer them with those little gifts so dear to the imaginative heart of the French soldier. Sooner or later, of course, the Government would have taken them in hand and organized ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... up four or five feet on the level, and driving and drifting into the hollows, so that for several days the less frequented roads in that part of the country were impassible. And now, when Mrs. Marjoram, but for her own sad plight, would have thought of poor Aunt Hannah, there was no one enough interested to give her loneliness a moment's consideration, till, one morning, one street lad cried out suddenly to another that Aunt Hannah ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... came to speak with me and Joyce, and I took them and shewed them the manner of the Houses sitting, the door-keeper very civilly opening the door for us. We went walking all over White Hall, whither General Monk was newly come, and we saw all his forces march by in very good plight and stout officers. After dinner I went to hear news, but only found that the Parliament House was most of them with Monk at White Hall, and that in his passing through the town he had many calls to him for a free Parliament, but little other welcome. I saw ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... ourselves with raw fish and a last hearty drink from the lake, we each took a spear and started on a search wilder than any ever undertaken by Amadis of Gaul or Don Quixote himself. Even the Bachelor of Salamanca, in his saddest plight, did not present so outrageous an appearance to the eye as we. We wore more clothing than the Incas, which is the most that ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... still longer consultation our enemies advanced on us for the fourth time, but very slowly. Meanwhile I had been taking stock of the position. The camel corps, or what was left of it, oblivious of our plight which the dust of conflict had hidden from them, was travelling on to the north, more or less victorious. That is to say, it had cut its way through the Black Kendah and was escaping unpursued, huddled up in a mob with the baggage animals safe in its centre. The Black Kendah themselves were ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... grimace on the part of Nature but for a definite and vital end. In default the animal would be unable to obey the first law of Nature—self preservation—for it is soft-bodied and its dwelling has the serious defect of being open at both ends. In such plight lacking special organs it would be at cruel advantage in the struggle for existence. The posterior segment of the body is therefore developed into an operculum-like organ, smooth and of horny texture, which closes the narrow end of the tube. The other extremity is more elaborately ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... the lad returning in such a sorry plight, he understood at once what had happened to him, and making no bones about the matter, he told Antonio what a fool he had been to allow himself to be so imposed upon by the landlord, and to let a worthless animal be palmed off on him instead of ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... repeated and underscored—she had belied herself; she was willing to meet Alvan, she wished to meet him. She could open her heart to Alvan's true friend—his only true friend. He would instantly discern her unhappy plight. In the presence of his associate she could explain nothing, do nothing but what she had done. He had frozen her. She had good reason to know that man for her enemy. She could prove him a traitor to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that night—Dec. 27, 1836—is Pollard's graphic picture of the Devonport mail snowed up at Amesbury. Six horses could not move it, and Guard F. Feecham was in parlous plight. Pollard's companion picture of the Liverpool mail in the snow near St. Alban's on the same night is equally interesting. Guard James Burdett fared little better than his comrade on the ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... are about to die the most unthinkably horrid death that it is given a white man to die—let this word of the plight of your wife add to the torments that you must suffer before the last savage spear-thrust releases you from ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... pity saw his wretched plight, Then from the pitcher took her midday meal, And soon relieved his hunger and his thirst. The grateful prince, delighted, told his tale, And she, well pleased, thus spake: "Fair youth! grieve not, Behold the brook ...
— Tales of Ind - And Other Poems • T. Ramakrishna
... each other," he yelled, his mind intent on helping some of them into his boat. But as well talk to the wind. The boys who couldn't swim—and most of them were in that plight—were grabbing this way and that, to seize upon anything that would ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... be accepted, I shall not only hold myself everlastingly obliged to you, but I shall grant you a higher place in my esteem. Yet, through deference to scruples which you may possibly possess, I most cheerfully plight to you my honour, that this transaction shall be concealed from Mrs. Talbot and from ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... right To leave a brother in such a plight as this— Either to imitate your courtesy, Or by your act to ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... half of that night, while many other matters pressed on them, the minds of the three Courteneys turned to one theme. Ramsey's inquiries had called it up and the presence and plight of the immigrants, down below, kept it before them: the story of Hugh's grandmother, ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... had as yet no intention of returning to the barn, preferring that others should encounter the uncertain temper of one so recently tried in uncommon and painful ways, professed much interest in her plight, remarking, however, that he feared he did not drive well enough to find his way over the plateau of rock which lay between the road ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... my cadet, whom I had left behind me with beef which he was to have taken over to my place a week and more back; whereon my mind misgave me that a poor Irishman who had been left alone at my place might be in a sore plight, having been left with no meat and no human being within reach for a period of ten days. I don't think I should have attempted crossing the river but for this. Under the circumstances, however, I determined at once on making a push for it, and accordingly taking my two cadets ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... grieved and ashamed, yet could see no means of remedy. The Persians drove out the poor sick, wounded, and scorched Christians, who were not able to help themselves, so that my heart yearned with compassion to see their woeful plight. In the evening, the Khan of Shiras came over, as if in triumph, to view the castle and its great ordnance, of which there were near three hundred pieces,[311] part of which belonged to the galleons, and the rest to the castle. This evening, the commanders ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... Colon last, at two o'clock in the afternoon. The Spanish losses, besides the fleet, were 323 killed and 151 wounded; the Americans lost one killed and one wounded. The city of Santiago, deprived of its fleet, found itself in a desperate plight and surrendered on July 16. Shortly afterwards General Miles led an expedition into Porto Rico, but operations were soon brought to a close because of the suspension of hostilities, and from a military point of view the importance of the campaign ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... Austria proper, and everything spoke of prosperity and comfort. Neat, populous villages, hung upon every hill-side—the southern side invariably—and there were no shortcomings in the accommodation for man or horse. But our finances were in a miserable plight; and our sustenance during the two and a half days occupied in tramping the more than eighty miles between Brunn and Vienna, consisted for the most part of fruit, bread, and water. We crossed the Danube at a place called "Am Spitz," where there is ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... more than he already was and answered in his most dignified voice, one calculated to stop opposition by its very graces, "Their plight is unfortunate, but as they are not my subjects, it ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... duel, but the heavier caliber shells were commencing to tell; number 3 gun was struck and part of the crew wiped out. Our telephonist 'phoned headquarters for the weightier women to get busy, telling them of our plight, and inside six minutes the ladies of larger girth, the 9.02 howitzers, started debating the question with Fritzie so vigorously that inside of thirty minutes not a single reply was to ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... them bleed; and with horrible actions, partly by prayers, and partly with lunatic curses, they move or terrify the ignorant country folk into giving them alms. This poor fellow was such a one; and the king, seeing him in so wretched a plight, with nothing but a blanket about his loins to cover his nakedness, could not be persuaded but that the fellow was some father who had given all away to his daughters and brought himself to that pass; for nothing, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... after the races, and Cora sat with her brother on the porch of their bungalow. She had told him of Mabel's plight and was asking him to help her clear up some of the ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... not know we had rowed so far, but just then the boat bumped up against the side of the lugger, and old Jonas rose, took the painter as he stepped into the bows, and handed it to Binnacle Bill, whose grim old face relaxed into a grin as he saw our plight. ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... and proud, the courage to make others accept one's happiness seems easily within reach; but to be rebuffed in one direction and blamed in another is not a very pleasant plight. ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... sparring with Jackson for exercise this morning; and mean to continue and renew my acquaintance with the muffles. My chest, and arms, and wind are in very good plight, and I am not in flesh. I used to be a hard hitter, and my arms are very long for my height (5 feet 8-1/2 inches). At any rate, exercise is good, and this the severest of all; fencing and the broad-sword never fatigued me half ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... home, and it was pitchy dark, when, having swam across the stagnant channel, he trudged, wet and weary, to the barred door of Cacosotte's Tavern, and knocked. Mex undid the bolts and let her master in, her sagacious eyes swiftly taking note of his bodily plight and desperate mood. To her demonstration of savage tenderness he returned a ferocious growl, and shoved ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... hostile as that of the enemy, and after being shot down by the arrows of the French they remained for days in a starving condition in a hollow between the hostile lines. Here they would all have died of hunger, but Philippe at last took pity on the terrible plight of these defenceless women and children and old folks, and having allowed them a small supply of provisions they were at last released from their ghastly position. Such a tragedy as this lends terrible pathos to the ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... for Handy Solomon, and was surprised to see him still alive, standing upright on a ledge the other side of the herd. His clothing was literally torn to shreds, and he was covered with blood. But in this plight he was not alone, for when I turned toward my companions they, too, were tattered, torn, and gory. We were a dreadful crew, standing there in the half-light, our chests heaving, our rags ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Jonzac. There, after receiving an outfit from some Protestant captains, he jotted down at the bottom of the receipt which he gave them in return, the whimsical declaration "that never in his life would he blame the war for having stripped him, since he could not possibly leave it in a sorrier plight than that ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... stealthier movement. It seemed painfully furtive. For the first time during the evening his jaded mind, that had instinctively sought the solace of contemplating trifles, reverted to its own tormented processes. "Am I not hiding?" he said to himself, in a sort of sarcastic pity of his plight. ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... looked after her in dismay. If he had turned his only friend against him then was he indeed in a sad plight! ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... not thoughts exactly, but they flitted through Tom's consciousness as he struggled to keep his head clear of the tempestuous waters. And even in his own desperate plight he recalled that their last words had been words of discord, for he knew now (generous as he was) that he was to blame for this dreadful end of all their fine hopes—that Archer had been right—they should have stayed at Melotte's hovel. ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... us pray to the Lord for the servant of God, Velasco, and for the hand-maid of God, Kaya, who now plight each other their troth, and for their salvation. . . . That he will send down upon them perfect and peaceful love. . . . That he will preserve them in oneness of mind and in steadfastness of faith. . . . ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... earth, that all thing breeds, Might be the cause of so impatient plight? What furie, or what feend, with felon deeds 45 Hath stirred up so mischievous despight? Can griefe then enter into heavenly harts, And pierce immortall breasts ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... lanterns, and gave power to committees of native villagers to prosecute the parents of truants. The result has been a prompt, marked and growing improvement in the attendance and the general interest. Better still, the educated Maori youths are awakening to the sad plight of their people. Pathetic as their regrets are, the healthy discontent they show may lead ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... intreated me, & has instantlie urg'd, y^t I sholde make him a Visitt.—And I take much Shame to myselfe, y^t I have not given him y^is Satisfaction since he was married, wh. is nowe ii Yeares.—A goode Fellowe, & I minde me a grete Burden to his Frends when he was in Love, in wh. Plight I mockt him, who am nowe, I much feare ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... the shepherd's voice but mock. He thought undoubtedly he could. He tried: the tone in which he spoke, Loud echoing from the wood, The plot and slumber broke; Sheep, dog, and man awoke. The wolf, in sorry plight, In hampering coat bedight, Could neither ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... had drawn damp stripes down his countenance. His hands were scratched and inclined to bleed, and one leg had apparently been in a morass. Added to these physical drawbacks there was no visible sign of success, which was probably the worst part of Jack Meredith's plight. ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... prudent and frugal on ordinary occasions, Farmer Barnard is no miser. His horses, dogs, and pigs are the best kept in the parish,—May herself, although her beauty be injured by her fatness, half envies the plight of his bitch Fly: his wife's gowns and shawls cost as much again as any shawls or gowns in the village; his dinner parties (to be sure they are not frequent) display twice the ordinary quantity of good things—two couples of ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... of the plight of General Kearny, and was just starting a relief column upon a night march for the hill, when at nine o'clock one of his sentries challenged a dark figure ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... miles of Belgian railways, and they are sending them to the Polish theatre of war. But, brutally as the poor Belgians have been treated, one shudders to think of the cruelty and the greed of the Prussian in the new conquered Russian territories, and of the pitiful plight of the ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... miles, the snow-storm develops into a regular blizzard; a furious, driving storm that would do credit to Dakota. Without gloves, and in summer clothes throughout, I quickly find myself in a most unenviable plight. It is no common snow-storm; every few minutes a halt has to be made, hands buffeted and ears rubbed to prevent these members from freezing; yet foot-gear has to be removed and streams waded in the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... could only venture to walk on during the flashes, though one's instinct was rather to stand still, awestricken and mute. The thunder growled and cracked incessantly, but far away, toward the Inchanga Valley. If the wind had shifted ever so little and brought the storm back again, our plight would have been poor indeed; and with this dread upon us we trudged bravely on and breasted the hillside with what haste and courage we could. During the rare momentary intervals of darkness we could perceive that the whole place was ablaze with fireflies. Every blade of grass ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... Dark clouds were now gathering ahead, and the atmosphere prophesied a severe storm; therefore they urged that I should ride a little faster, as they, for a considerable distance, could guide me on the right way. I explained to them my plight through inexperience, said that I could only creep on slowly with safety, and bade them Good-by. As the sky was getting darker every minute, they consented, wishing me a safe journey, and started ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... stopped by the obstacle. He plunged in with the terrified old lady, and landed her in safety where her services were wanted. Having put the horse into the stable (where it was afterwards found in a woful plight), he proceeded to the room of the servant, whose duty he had discharged, and finding him just in the act of drawing on his boots, he administered to him a most merciless drubbing with his own horsewhip. Such an ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... carved figures, of large wine-vats, and of humming-tops. The Baron had tried to think; but after passing the bridge at Gournay, the soft somnolence of digestion had sealed his eyes. The horses understood the coachman's plight from the slackness of the reins; they heard the footman's basso continuo from his perch behind; they saw that they were masters of the situation, and took advantage of their few minutes' freedom to make their own pace. Like intelligent slaves, ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... stars showed him empty spaces of billowy sand; there were black spots marking hollows and nowhere his horse. But yet he went forward hopefully or at least striving to retain his hope. He had little liking for the plight that would be his were he set afoot here in the heart of the Bad Lands. But at the end of upwards of an hour of fruitless search he went back to the water-hole and his traps, seeing the folly of further seeking now. He would have to camp here until daybreak. Tomorrow he might find ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... the king said to his knights as he sat in a little room in an inn at Zara, "that my plight is a bad one. I am surrounded by enemies, and, alas! I can no longer mount my steed and ride out as at Jaffa to do battle with them. My brother, John Lackland, is scheming to take my place upon the throne of England. Philip of France, whose ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... and to hold[131] from this day forward for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer,[132] in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part and thereto I plight thee ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... Convention at Albany. Mayor Wood of New York. Buchanan's Vacillation. Treason all about Him. Star of the West Fired on. Inaction of Congress. Crittenden's Compromise Lost. Washington Peace Congress. Vain. Earnestness of South. Lincoln Inaugurated. His Address. How Received. His Difficult Task. Plight of Army, Navy, Treasury. Sumter Fired on. Defended. Evacuated. Effect at North. War Spirit. 75,000 Volunteers. The Sixth Massachusetts in Baltimore. Washington in Danger. General Scott's Measures. ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... hour 'twas in the night, They took me in my plight, And led me straightway to the captain's door. O God, they caught me in the stream—what ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... from being convinced by them, that I am determined to go on to eat and drink, and walk and ride, in order to keep that MATTER, which I so mistakenly imagine my body at present to consist of, in as good plight as possible. Common sense (which, in truth, very uncommon) is the best sense I know of: abide by it, it will counsel you best. Read and hear, for your amusement, ingenious systems, nice questions subtilly agitated, with all the refinements that warm imaginations suggest; but consider them ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... without delay or bungle, the party were instantly in the saddles and cantering briskly across the prairie. As they rode along cries of baffled rage came to their ears; and they knew that the Indians had discovered the plight of their ponies. ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... and the grand vizier walked in a melancholy mood through the fields, not knowing what to do in their sad plight. They could not get out of their stork-skins, and it would not do for them to go back to the town to tell any one of their condition, for who would believe a stork if he said that he was the caliph? And even if they ...
— What the Animals Do and Say • Eliza Lee Follen
... the tumult of excitement and admiration caused by the departure of the gallant band of cavaliers upon their foray when they beheld the scattered wrecks flying for refuge to their walls. Day after day and hour after hour brought some wretched fugitive, in whose battered plight and haggard woebegone demeanor it was almost impossible to recognize the warrior who had lately issued so gayly and gloriously from ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... wrong, As though the folded hand, the coward heart Were saintly signs of souls sublimely strong; As though the man who acts the waiting part And but submits, had little wings a-start. But may I never reach that anguished plight Where I at last grow weary of ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... a brief explanation to account for their plight and presence; Brandes, listening and watching the mother out of greenish, sleepy eyes, made ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... actor Talma, when dressed for the first time in correct classical costume, indignantly asked where he was to put his snuff-box.] of him from whom I have received any kindness? True; but a benefit is in an evil plight if we cannot be grateful for it ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... mother's first- born, thou shalt not die, and no evil shall reach thee in the midst of Egypt." But Bithiah said, "Of what advantage is my security to me, when I see the king, my brother, and all his household, and his servants in this evil plight, and look upon their first-born perishing with all the first-born of Egypt?" And Moses returned, "Verily, thy brother and his household and the other Egyptians would not hearken to the words of the Lord, therefore did this evil ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... expressed it, "the soldiers would put her out," i. e. extinguish the sparks which were burning her dresses. In this way it happened that she had not a single dress which had not been more or less riddled by these sparks. With her clothing in this plight she visited Chicago again late in the summer of 1863, and the ladies of the Sanitary Commission replenished her wardrobe, and soon after sent her a box of excellent clothing for her own use. Some of the articles in this box, the gift of those who admired her earnest devotion to the interests ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... was in a sorry plight; She hung and dangled in a spider's web. It was too late to make a hurried flight. The sand is sifting and the tides ...
— Clear Crystals • Clara M. Beede
... and, to my credit be it said, only selected one shilling, with which I paid the bathing-man, and walked off undiscovered to my own machine. The fat old she-triton laughed till she cried. I dressed in my proper costume leisurely enough, and was amused to hear afterwards of the luckless plight in which a stout gentleman had found himself by the temporary loss of all his apparel whilst he ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... there we are looked upon in the same way that Germans are looked upon here, as quite outside the pale of common morality. Fully realising what this must mean for me, these kindly Germans would go off into a day dream of wonderment as to how they might feel in a similar plight, and one ended up with the reflection, 'Ja, es ist halt jetzt die Zeit der Maertyrer' (it is indeed the time of the martyrs once more)." Surely there is something strangely poignant about the convinced and steadfast martyrdom and self-sacrifice of both sides. Surely ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... vigilance. A round of the premises convinced Alaire that the place was effectually guarded, and showed her the futility of trying to slip away. She realized, too, that even if she managed to do so, her plight would be little better. For how could she hope to cover the hundred miles between La Feria and the Rio Grande when every peon ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... present confined to them. 'Go not,' saith he, 'into the way of the Gentiles, and into any of the cities of the Samaritans enter ye not; but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel' (Matt 10:5,6; 23:37). But go rather to them, for they were in the most fearful plight. These, therefore, must have the cream of the gospel, namely, the first offer thereof, in his lifetime; yea, when he departed out of the world, he left this as part of his last will with his preachers, that they also should offer it first to Jerusalem. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... a few minutes before the storm thickened, they would have, long ere then, been comfortably sheltered from the inclemency of the weather. However, they were not in a disposition to indulge in any vain regrets; and shortly arriving at the house, they presented themselves in their sad plight. The noise of the dogs had attracted the attention of the people of the place, who, imagining the cause, were expecting to see the approach of some traveller; so, when John and William made their appearance, they were met at the door by ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... who recklessly pursue the path of self-aggrandisement, (15) whether in private or in public life; but consider well (16) that the best of men, (17) the true nobility, are discovered by their virtues; (18) they are a laborious upwards-striving race; whilst the base are in evil plight (19) and are discovered by their demerits. (20) Since in proportion as they rob the private citizen of his means and despoil the state (21) they are less serviceable with a view to the public safety than any private citizen; (22) and what can be worse or more disgraceful ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... bolster his grit, Captain Jack Benson found himself in a fearful plight. At first, he could only stare, with terror-dilated eyes, at that candle—ever burning ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... his hand, impatient to get to Maya's room, was moved to pity at the creature's plight. Besides, the Jellies were harmless, and this one certainly wouldn't be seeking admittance without having ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... filled the settee. In my dark corner, in my comfortable chair, I could smile to myself as I watched his plight and that of his companions. I could not see Mary well, for the lamp and the long table separated us, but I fancied that in her retreat she, too, was laughing. Poor Tim had the end of the bench. He sat very erect, with his head up, his eyes on the wall ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... her tyre, and all her garment blew, Close rownd about her tuckt with many a plight: Upon her fist the bird which ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... remains in the memory of evening. But this passion for romance, and this disappointment, show how much we need real elevations and pure poetry; that which shall show us, in morning and night, in stars and mountains, and in all the plight and circumstance of men, the analogons of our own thoughts, and a like impression made by a just book and by the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... counting the wounded man of course,—and since, compared with the others, we were virtually unarmed, we ought, I suppose, to have been thankful that we were not murdered in cold blood, as doubtless we should have been if our dangerous plight had not so delighted Kipping's cruel humor, and if both Falk and Kipping had not felt certain that they would never see or hear of us again. But we found little comfort in realizing that, as matters stood, ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... to take life in her hand—however precious a thing, what use is it if you hoard it?—and see what she could make of it, what usury its free loan to fate and fortune would earn. She might lose it; youth made light of the risk. She might crawl back in sad plight; the Prodigal Son did not think of that when he set out. She found herself wishing she had nothing, that she might be free to start ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... chances under review, turning the white between his thumb and forefinger. Unfortunately he was on bad terms with some old friends who would once have taken pity on him in such a plight. He had lampooned them in verses; he had beaten and cheated them; and yet now, when he was in so close a pinch, he thought there was at least one who might perhaps relent. It was a chance. It was worth trying at least, and ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... probably belonging to James and John, is labouring across the six or seven miles to the eastern side. Matthew describes the boat as it would appear from shore, as being 'covered' and lost to sight by the breaking waves. Mark, who is Peter's mouthpiece, describes the desperate plight as one on board knew it, and says the boat was 'filling.' It must have been a serious gale which frightened a crew who had spent all ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... troth to which the high accomplishers, Hera and Zeus, do honour. Yea, and thus Is Aphrodite to dishonour cast, The queen of rapture unto mortal men. Know, that above the marriage-bed ordained For man and woman standeth Right as guard, Enhancing sanctity of troth-plight sworn; Therefore, if thou art placable to those Who have their consort slain, nor will'st to turn On them the eye of wrath, unjust art thou In hounding to his doom the man who slew His mother. Lo, I know thee full ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... in sore plight for fighting, for most of them had been obliged to sell even their arms and armour to procure food. Spinola, hearing of their approach pushed forward with a strong force to intercept them, and so came upon them at Fleurus, eight miles from Namur, on ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... the corn-transplants and other vessels which perished there was no numbering made; and so great was the loss that the commanders of the fleet, being struck with fear lest the Thessalians should attack them now that they had been brought into an evil plight, threw round their camp a lofty palisade built of the fragments of wreck. For the storm continued during three days; but at last the Magians, making sacrifice of victims and singing incantations to appease the Wind by enchantments, 198 and in ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... was said, but when the meal was nearly over Ivra asked him how long he was going to stay with them. Immediately he stopped eating and dropped his spoon. His eyes filled with tears. He had utterly forgotten about his plight until then,—how he was homeless, workless and bound to starve and freeze sooner or later. Ivra's mother saw the misery in his face and quietly spoke, "We hope for a long time. As long as you want to, anyway. Three in a wood will be merrier than two in a wood. . . . If you ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot
... bird 'at the outset. But the record of Cousin, who tells the story in his Histoire de Constantinople, states that 'the weight of his body having more power to drag him down than his artificial wings had to sustain him, he broke his bones, and his evil plight was such that he ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... of scorched timbers came to his nostrils, Jerry O'Keefe had recognized the desperation of his plight and he laid out his simple plans in accordance. He meant to stay where he was till the last endurable moment, hoping against hope for the coming of the rescuers. When it was no longer possible to remain, he would go out of the door and sell his life at a price—but he knew he would have to sell it, ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... O conscript fathers, not so much for the sake of speaking of myself, (for I should be in a sorry plight if I were not sufficiently acquitted in your eyes without the necessity of making a formal defence,) as with the view of warning some men of too grovelling and narrow minds, to adopt the line of conduct which I myself have always pursued, ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... is? One visit showed me the possibilities of the place, but a second convinced me of its impossibilities without a pal. So I had practically given up the idea, when you came along on the very night and in the very plight for it! But here we are at the Albany, and I hope there's some fire left; for I don't know how you feel, Bunny, but for my part I'm as cold ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... this next-door wood, flitting noiselessly about, very grave and silent, as if doing penance for some violation of the code of honor. By many gentle, indirect approaches, I perceived that part of his tail-feathers were undeveloped. The sylvan prince could not think of returning to court in this plight,—and so, amid the falling leaves and cold rains of autumn, was patiently biding ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... bust, Erigena, When scouts came flocking from the empty hall, And porters trembled at the Doctor's call; Ah! call'd in vain, with laugh supprest they stood And bit their nails, a dirty-finger'd brood. E'en Looker gloried in his master's plight,[21] And John beheld, and chuckled at the sight.[22] Genius of discord! thou whose murky flight With iron pennons more obscured the night— Thou, too, of British birth, who dost reside In Syms's or in Goodwin's blushing tide,[23] Say, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... prince. The preacher had not been seated long, scarcely long enough to pass the usual interchange of first salutations and enquiries, when Mrs. Hopkins began in her old style to say she was "sorry that things were so untidy; her house was upside down; she was mortified to be found in such a plight; she really hoped before his arrival to have had all things in such order as she always liked to see them. She hoped he would excuse their being so." Superintendent Robson looked around and about the room in all directions, to ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... and he swept his sleeves across them and his forehead. That was better. Blinking, and wiping his face again and again, he looked dully around him until memory came back, and brought recognition of his plight. ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... to her forehead. And he said he was glad that he had made her happy. But he did not tell her that he had forced himself to plight thus, tangibly, his troth to her that there might be no escape from the path of honor which he ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... him again," said Mistress Betty. "He must be in a desperate plight.—Did you hear how Jack Audubon ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... generous of nature and sanguine of disposition, was moved by the representations of Juan Perez, and requested that Columbus might be again sent to her. Bethinking herself of his poverty and his humble plight, she ordered that money should be forwarded to him, sufficient to bear his traveling expenses, and to furnish ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... Kays, distracted, with matted locks and bosom bare to the scorching sun, wanders forth into the desert in quest of her abode, causing the rocks to echo his voice, constantly calling upon her name. His friends, having found him in woeful plight, bring him home, and henceforth he is called Majnun—that is, one who is mad, or frantic, from love. Syd Omri, his father, finding that Majnun is deaf to good counsel—that nothing but the possession of Layla can restore him to his senses—assembles his followers and departs for the abode ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... scrambled out, although in a dirty plight, and were going to have punished him for all his ill behavior; but he patted Tiger upon the back, who began snarling and growling in such a manner as made them desist. Thus this little mischievous boy escaped ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... maid replied, As her light skiff approached the side, "I well believe, that ne'er before 455 Your foot has trod Loch Katrine's shore; But yet, as far as yesternight, Old Allan-bane foretold your plight, A gray-haired sire, whose eye intent Was on the visioned future bent. 460 He saw your steed, a dappled gray, Lie dead beneath the birchen way; Painted exact your form and mien, Your hunting suit of Lincoln green, That tasselled horn so gaily ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... yonder brake beneath the cliff,— There lies Red Murdoch, stark and stiff. Thus Fate has solved her prophecy, Then yield to Fate, and not to me. To James, at Stirling, let us go, When, if thou wilt be still his foe, Or if the King shall not agree To grant thee grace and favour free, I plight mine honour, oath, and word, That, to thy native strengths restored, With each advantage shalt thou stand, That aids thee now to guard thy land."— Dark lightning flashed from Roderick's eye— "Soars thy presumption then ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... realise the serious character of the extraordinary plight in which he thus unexpectedly found himself involved. For it now flashed upon him that, in the astonishment following upon his seizure, he had failed to raise any outcry, with the object of making his friends ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... winter again among friends. They met here during this time the man who advised the captain at Buenos Aires to pitch the Aquidneck's cargo of hay into the sea; for not taking the advice—witness, alas! the captain's plight! ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... in affluent circumstances. But, of course, Madeleine was almost a houseboat girl herself. Readers of the first houseboat story will recall how Madeleine's fiance, Judge Hilliard, rescued Madge and Phyllis from a serious situation and saved Madeleine from a far worse plight than that in which he found ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... I was now in an unfortunate plight, when I had the good luck to meet with the French valet of a certain noble lord whose name I will not mention. He was pleased to fall in with a person who could speak the language of la belle France, and on hearing ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... worked hard, but the President was too rapid for him; he did not get the speech, and he noticed that the reporters for the other papers fared no better. Nothing daunted, however, after the speechmaking, Edward resolutely sought the President, and as the latter turned to him, he told him his plight, explained it was his first important "assignment," and asked if he could possibly be given a copy of the speech so that he could ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... ejaculated Tricotrin; "am I mistaken, or—Look, look, Adolphe! I would bet ten to one in sonnets that it is Goujaud, the painter, whose plight ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... the squadron disported themselves in this manner, when the "Encounter" was declared the winner by 400 yards. At the moment of shortening sail, our lame duck, the "Mosquito," hove in sight astern, in a sad plight, as is usual with lame ducks. She had lost her fore-topmast and jib-boom during the night, off O'Kosiri. She was at once signalled to repair to Hakodadi with all ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... shrank inexpressibly from the renewed mental struggle into which it plunged me. To have suffered, myself,—to have fallen under the ban of suspicion and the disgrace of arrest—had certainly been hard; but it was nothing to beholding another in the same plight through my own rash and ill-advised attempt to better my position and Carmel's by what I had considered a totally ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... who will aid them. The storms were frightful. The almiranta suffered the most terrible voyage that ever ship has suffered. For after a few blasts they had to cut down the mast, and, when they reached thirty-six degrees, they lost their rudder. In such plight they agreed to return, suffering destructive hurricanes, so that, had not the ship been so staunch, it would have been swallowed up in the sea a thousand times. Finally God was pleased to have ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... in a more desperate plight than Lincoln when he entered office on the fourth of March, 1861, four months after his election, and took his oath to support the Constitution and the Union. The intervening time had been busily employed by the Southern States in carrying ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... seemed a link with the outer world, and to denote we were not forgotten, even by those in a somewhat similar plight ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... refuge was that little boat. Her father's long aloofness from life had created such an isolation round his closing years that his daughter had no one but me to turn to for protection against the plots of her own Intendente. And, at the thought of our desperate plight, of the suffering awaiting us in that small boat, with the possibility of a lingering death for an end, I wavered for a moment. Was it not my duty to return to the bay and give myself up? In that case, as Castro expressed ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... came home one time In a most piteous plight, For she had fallen in the mud; Indeed she was a sight. The housemaid standing in the door Exclaimed, "What child is this?" "Why, Hannah, can't you see I'm Ann?" Cried ...
— Careless Jane and Other Tales • Katharine Pyle
... violent for raft or boat to live, and at so early a season native craft are never seen on these seas. Briefly, a week might have elapsed before our friends at El-Muwaylah, who were startled by the wildness of the wind, could have learned our plight, or could have taken measures to relieve ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... has shielded you thus far! What a plight if you were forced to look to the Invisible Hand for your food and shelter! You would soon be begging on ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... in the heart, runs through all the Symphonies, but nowhere is it so strongly depicted as in this, his last. We have here in new picturing, humanity at bay, as in the recently completed Kyrie of the grand mass. The apparently uneven battle of the individual with fate,—the plight of the human being who finds himself a denizen of a world with which he is entirely out of harmony, who, wrought up to despair, finds life impossible yet fears to die,—is here portrayed in dramatic language. To Wagner the first movement pictured to him "the idea of the world in its most terrible ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... his plight, try to stop him. Since we are pretending that he makes everything he touches elastic, the instant you touch him you bounce helplessly away ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... of these blind ones; on thee doth perpetuity of our race depend. On thee also depend our funeral cake, our fame and our descendants!' My mother is old, and my father also is so. I am surely their crutch. If they see me not in the night, what, oh, will be their plight! I hate that slumber of mine for the sake of which my unoffending mother and my father have both been in trouble, and I myself also, am placed in such rending distress! Without my father and mother, I cannot bear to live. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... eingeschraenktem Geiste."[47] Their work he characterizes as "Stuemperarbeit," and their virtues as brilliant evils and nothing more. There is nothing sacred, he claims, that has not been desecrated by this nation. But it is chiefly his own experience which he recites, when, in speaking of the sad plight of German poets, of those who still love the beautiful, he says: "Es ist auch herzzerreissend, wenn man eure Dichter, eure Kuenstler sieht—die Guten, sie leben in der Welt, wie Fremdlinge im eigenen Hause."[48] Still more extravagantly does the poet caricature his own people ...
— Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry • Wilhelm Alfred Braun
... a fuss you make! One would think you were the only man in your plight. What about the fellows who have really lost an arm? Well, are you settled? ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... Night, thou spirit-elf, Rise up and bless. Help us to cleanse in holiness Show how to dress in saintliness Our weary selves, Expurge our deeds of earthiness Expunge desires of selfliness Rise up and bless ... This strong Soul dying in such plight.... ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... manner of curious plans to attract attention to my plight from a long distance over the sea. Fire was my main thought. I knew that no vessel—scarcely a mail-carrying steamship—would pass a fire at sea without investigation. Had I been a modern Munchausen I might have found some way of drawing ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... now, poor o'erworked drudge, is on thy mind? No more in even swathe thou layest the corn: Thy fellow-reapers leave thee far behind, As flocks a ewe that's footsore from a thorn. By noon and midday what will be thy plight If now, so soon, ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... was some time before I got my senses again. When I did I found that I was tied hand and foot, and was lying there on the sands, with three or four of our fellows in the same plight as myself. They all belonged to the jolly-boat in which I had come ashore. The other boat had made a shift to push off with some of its hands and get back to the ship; but I did not know that until afterwards, for I was lying down behind a hillock ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... on me all yesternight, Thine eyes were blue, thy hair was bright As when we murmured our troth-plight Beneath the thick stars, Rosaline! Thy hair was braided on thy head, As on the day we two were wed, Mine eyes scarce knew if thou wert dead, But my shrunk heart ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... sometimes amusing anecdotes are told in connection with the inopportune visit. Thus not long ago the newspapers chronicled the plight of a woman who undertook to surprise an acquaintance from whom she had not heard for several years. She was driven to their house and dismissed the carriage. A strange face met her at the door, and she learned that her friend had removed to another city nearly ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... feel repulsion and disgust at the sight of old age, sickness and death. But is this right? "I also" he thought "am subject to decay and am not free from the power of old age, sickness and death. Is it right that I should feel horror, repulsion and disgust when I see another in such plight? And when I reflected thus, my disciples, all the joy of life which there is ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... Deerfoot they would not be in this sad plight," was the thought of the young Shawanoe; "therefore the Great Spirit expects Deerfoot not to think of his own life until they are saved from the death which ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... him, and at every step he either sighed because he had lost his power or blessed "the little girls who gave him a hand." It seemed to the scouts rather odd that no one had discovered his plight until they had found him, but after all, it was not hard to understand how an old fisherman could ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... other. There I was held, day after day, by the will of the gods. Our provision of corn was spent and my men were in danger of perishing of hunger. Then one day while my companions were striving desperately to get fish out of the sea, I met on the shore one who had pity for our plight. ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... way, and the watchers on the shore held their breaths as the light boat was dashed about on the waves, now climbing to a dizzy height, now sinking out of sight altogether. The sailing boat was in a sad plight when they reached her, for, in addition to being nearly capsized by every wave, she had sprung a leak and was filling gradually in spite of frantic bailing. The launch arrived just in time and took off the three sailors, landing them safely on shore ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... gulls dropped greedily upon the floating refuse, and rising, circled over the black, liquid lanes and open spaces between the hulls of the many ships. But it was insufficient to lift the yacht, tied up to the southern quay of the Porto Grande. She lay there inert and in somewhat sorry plight under the steady downpour. For the moment all the winsome devilry of a smart, sea-going craft was dead in her, and she sulked, ashamed through all her eight hundred tons of wood and iron, copper, brass, and steel. For she was coaling, over-deck, and was grimy ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... load themselves with provisions. Their shoes were worn by the length of the way, and the rest of their apparel by the actions in which they had been engaged; but, in spite of all, their attitude was still lofty. They carefully concealed their wretched plight from the notice of the Emperor, and appeared before him with their arms bright and in the best order. In this first court of the palace of the Czars, eight hundred leagues from their resources, and after so many battles and bivouacs, they were anxious to appear still clean, ready and ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... is in a bad plight. He has been fired at with a gun loaded with small shot; and wounds made in that way are very puzzling. I trust no vital part has been injured; but I cannot answer for any thing. I have often in my practice seen very small injuries, wounds caused by a small-sized shot, which, nevertheless, proved ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... then—so argued Mrs. Robarts—they two, let their loyalty to Lady Lufton be ever so strong, could not justify it to their consciences to stand between Lucy and her lover. Mark had still somewhat demurred to this, suggesting how terrible would be their plight if they should now encourage Lord Lufton, and if he, after such encouragement, when they should have quarrelled with Lady Lufton, should allow himself to be led away from his engagement by his mother. To which Fanny had answered that justice was justice, ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... (as city papers say it) and marry at twenty-one. But he that is now deceased was once full of hope and strength (at fourteen), and in the brave days of twenty-one did he, that is now struck down, plight his troth. So, doubtless, runs the thought in that intimate phrase so dear ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... BULLY, though he never swears, Nor kicks intruders down his entry stairs, Though meekness plants his backward-sloping hat, And non-resistance ties his white cravat, Though his black broadcloth glories to be seen In the same plight with Shylock's gaberdine, Hugs the same passion to his narrow breast That heaves the cuirass on the trooper's chest, Hears the same hell-hounds yelling in his rear That chase from port the maddened buccaneer, Feels the same comfort while his acrid words Turn the sweet milk ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... why,—perhaps she realized afterward,—but she believed him absolutely, implicitly. A fervor of sympathy for his plight, of commiseration, surged up in her heart. "I wisht it war so I could gin ye some pervisions," she sighed, "though ye do 'pear toler'ble triflin' ter ...
— Wolf's Head - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... been deeply affected by the terrible appearance of her favourite Ivor, and who had never seen him in such a plight before, quietly slipped out of old Molly's hut and went straight to that of the keeper. She found him seated on a chair with his elbows on his knees, his forehead resting on his hands, and his strong fingers grasping his hair as if about to tear it out ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... night, seeing that as yet we had no more beds than we had bought for our own need from old Zabel Nehring the forest ranger his widow, at Uekeritze. Wherefore she took me aside: What was to be done? My bed was in an ill plight, her little god-child having lain on it that morning; and she could nowise put the young nobleman into hers, although she would willingly creep in by the maid herself. And when I asked her why not? she blushed scarlet and began to cry, ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold
... but found that his allies deserted him at a critical {123} moment and left him to face the formidable army of the Cardinal. The Huguenots submitted to their fate in the summer of 1629, finding themselves in a worse plight than they had been when they surrendered La Rochelle, for Richelieu treated with them no longer as with a foreign power. He expected them to offer him the servile obedience of conquered rebels. Henceforth he exerted himself to restore the full supremacy ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... took place about three months after the death of Mr. Parsons. In her renovated outlook regarding matrimony, Selma included formal preparations for and some pomp of circumstances at the ceremony. It suited her pious mood that she was not required again to be married off-hand, and that she could plight her troth in a decorous fashion, suitably attired and amid conventional surroundings. Her dress was a subject of considerable contemplation. She guided her lover's generosity until it centred on a diamond spray for her hair and two rings set with handsome precious stones. She did not discourage ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... king." A hunter saves her and proceeds to make improper advances, but she, faithful to her lord, curses the hunter and he falls dead before her. Then she resumes her solitary roaming in the gloomy forest, "distressed by grief for her husband's fate," unmindful of his cruelty, or of her own sad plight. ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... arms, buttocks, thighs, and legs, hung dangling upon the other, and might reach to the mid-leg. The nurse, moreover, told us that it urined at both bodies, and that the members of the other were nourished, sensible, and in the same plight with that she gave suck to, excepting that they were shorter and less. This double body and several limbs relating to one head might be interpreted a favourable prognostic to the king,—[Henry III.]—of maintaining these various parts of our state under the union ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... sorcery that were in him. When Mary went to him he was a bruised and bleeding heap of flesh lying unconscious by the post to which he was fastened. The women in the yard were sitting about indifferent to his plight. ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... us that the eldest son in their royal succession was thus brought up; after his birth he was delivered, not to women, but to eunuchs of the greatest authority about their kings for their virtue, whose charge it was to keep his body healthful and in good plight; and after he came to seven years of age, to teach him to ride and to go a-hunting. When he arrived at fourteen he was transferred into the hands of four, the wisest, the most just, the most temperate, and most valiant of the nation; of whom the first was ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... able in his art, who, together with myself, joined Buonarroti upon these occasions. [1] Thus acquaintance sprang up between me and Luigi Pulci; and so, after the lapse of many years, he came, in the miserable plight which I have mentioned, to make himself known to me again in Rome, beseeching me for God's sake to help him. Moved to compassion by his great talents, by the love of my fatherland, and by my own natural tenderness of heart, I took him into my house, and had him medically treated in such ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... rolled on and brought no tidings, I sent word to his friends in Athens, asking what should be done with property left under my charge by him who, as I deemed, had met an untimely end. Ere the answer arrived, the Lord Lycidas himself appeared at my door, but in evil plight, weak in body and troubled in mind. He would give no account of the past; he said not where he had sojourned; and yester-morn, though scarcely strong enough to keep the saddle, he mounted his horse, and rode off—I know not whither; nor said he ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... of it, came back to life; and I—pledged to its secrecies with the rest—I had to stay dumb. I was a drowning man, then, Tumulty—clutching at straws, till I became an adept at it. There, perhaps, as you say, I did do "wonders"—of a kind: all I could, anyway. That was my plight, while there in Paris we held high court, and banqueted, and drank healths from dead men's skulls. Did nobody guess—outside—what was going on? I gave one signal that I thought was plain enough, when I sent for the George Washington to bring me home again. But, though I listened for it ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... business in London, and quietly earn my living; at the same time making my presence known to no one. I did buy such a business, got swindled in the most clever way, and lost every farthing I possessed in the world! I had to make my plight known to old friends who all either gave or lent me money. Still my position was a very precarious one. I tried an insurance agency, one of the last resources of the educated destitute, but soon found out that I was unfitted for work in which impudence is a prime factor. Then ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... troth-plight to the white-armed Gudrun, and all men were fain of their love and spake ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... disported themselves in this manner, when the "Encounter" was declared the winner by 400 yards. At the moment of shortening sail, our lame duck, the "Mosquito," hove in sight astern, in a sad plight, as is usual with lame ducks. She had lost her fore-topmast and jib-boom during the night, off O'Kosiri. She was at once signalled to repair to Hakodadi with all ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... at him a little askance. It was perfectly understood between them that Cicely was more or less acquainted with her brother's plight, and since her engagement to Marsworth had been announced it was astonishing how much more ready Farrell had been to confide in her, and she to ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... ourselves into such a wild dance that the jailer rushed in to see what was the matter, probably afraid for his onions. He told us to stop, but he spoke very differently to what he had before. By that, I felt that we were not in a very serious plight. I had further proof of this when a moment later he came in carrying a big bowl of milk, our cow's milk. And that was not all. He brought a large piece of white bread and some cold veal, which he said the prosecutor had sent us. Decidedly, prisons were ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... mile and hour after hour, the little cavalcade crept toward Chattanooga, Grant's face becoming more haggard and furrowed with pain at every step, but showing a fixed determination to reach his goal at any cost. On every side signs of the desperate plight of the besieged garrison were only too apparent. Thousands of carcasses of starved horses and mules lay beside the road amid broken-down wagons, abandoned provisions and all the wreckage of a disorganized ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... bitterly; she distributed [the customary offerings to the poor] on the occasion of my safe arrival, such as oil, vegetables, and small coins, [102] and said to me, "Though my heart is greatly rejoiced at this meeting, yet, brother, in what sad plight do I see you?" I could make her no reply, but shedding tears, I remained silent. My sister sent me quickly to the bath, after having ordered a splendid dress to be sewn for me. I having bathed and washed, put on these clothes. She fixed on an elegant apartment, near ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... bitterly regret the foolish ambition with which I had set out. At last my sister, whose eyes were better than mine, saw a light. We went wallowing through the drifts towards it, and discovered a house. Here we got a boy to guide us; and so at last reached our friend's, in as sad a plight as ever two such mortals were in. Since which time," added Salmon, "I have rather inclined to the opinion that slow beginnings, with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... noises and Mac heard the last vestige of air hiss out of the chamber. He found the hatchway too tight for comfort and had a moment of fear when his tool pack caught in the orifice, wedging him neatly. He could hear Logan and Ruiz through his earphones, explaining their plight to Ground Control. They wanted to know why in blue blazes Valier hadn't contacted the doughnut when it came within range, and Logan had no defense save preoccupation with his own plight. Belatedly, Ruiz made radio contact with the doughnut, which was ...
— Tight Squeeze • Dean Charles Ing
... the other, the occurring suspicion that the girl must be Letty's new shopkeeping friend, Miss Marston, on her way to visit her. What a sweet, simple young woman she was! he thought; and straightway began to argue with himself that, as his boots were in such evil plight, it would be more pleasant to spend the evening with Letty and her friend, than to hold on his way to his own friend's, and spend the evening smoking and lounging about the stable, or hearing his sister play polkas and mazurkas ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... in his normal plight The good but impecunious knight Addressing Thompson said: "Methinks a great increasing fame Shall add new glory to thy name, And cluster round ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... had released the prisoner at the inn, on which he gave us such a comical account of the dwarf's unhappy plight that we could not keep ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... among friends. They met here during this time the man who advised the captain at Buenos Aires to pitch the Aquidneck's cargo of hay into the sea; for not taking the advice—witness, alas! the captain's plight! ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... my eyes to and pondered on my wretched plight. 'Twas silent all around; I heard nothing, nothing. That lasted pretty long, till I began to feel that the boards were so hard and that my body, which had been thrashed black and blue, was hurting me. My back was stiff and my arms and legs grew cold. And yet I ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... Gibraltar by the Italians. That Gibraltar was 300 miles long, before they lost it to the Germans. But they had few guns in their fortress. They showed us emplacement after emplacement without a stick of artillery in it. They had told the French and the English of their plight, and a few artillery companies had been sent in; but only a fraction of the need. There was no central council of the allies then. Every nation was running its own little war, and Italy was left to fall, and now the four thousand miles ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... at the door by a pleasant-faced little woman who hurried us to the fire. We told her our plight. "Why, certainly you must stay with me," she said. "I am glad the Bishop and Deb are away. They keep all the company, and I so seldom have any one come; you see Debbie has no children and can do so much better for any one ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... much to do. But now will we twain talk of matters that concern chieftains who are going on a hard adventure. And ye women, do ye dight the Hall for the evening feast, which shall be the feast of the troth-plight for you twain. This indeed we owe thee, O guest; for little shall be thine heritage which thou shalt have with my sister, over and above that thy sword ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... father. His plight was more desperate than mine, for I had resembled the condemned before the firing-party, to whom the expected bullet brings a merely physical shock. He, poor man, heard his sentence, which is the heart's pang of death; and how fondly and rootedly he had clung to the idea of my marriage ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... carry the dame, All underneath a green hill's side, But worse and worse her plight became. In such peril ...
— The Dalby Bear - and Other Ballads • Anonymous
... "things strike us in a totally different light according as they are near at hand or far off. It is no time for you to despair. Such as I am, and brought to this sorry plight by the buffets of time and fortune, I yet make shift to endure a life wherein my pleasures are to translate Greek and dine sometimes with sundry very worthy friends. Look at me, mademoiselle, and say,—would you consent to live in the same ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... on the last chapter of the Book of Judges, wherein is the chronicle of the plight of the tribe of Benjamin, which could not get women to marry into it. The wife famine of the Benjamites was not in the least interesting to Mr. Pepperall, but he would not tempt the Lord again. So he read on, while the children yawned and ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... other charges and other retreats in corresponsive spaces, and interlink circle with circle, and wage the armed phantom of battle. And now they bare their backs in flight, now turn their lances to the charge, now plight peace and ride on side by side. As once of old, they say, the labyrinth in high Crete had a tangled path between blind walls, and a thousand ways of doubling treachery, where tokens to follow failed in the [591-625]maze unmastered and ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... Spider then laughed outright; "Poor fellow!" he said, "you are in a sad plight! Ha! ha! what a dunce you must be to suppose, That the heart of a Spider should ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... soil. The gentle winsomeness of the wooing stands out appealingly as one goes through those fragments of teaching talks running throughout. The rare faithfulness of it to the nation and its leaders is thrown into bold relief by the very opposition that reveals their dire spiritual plight ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... yourself in retirement. Now, how much I am indebted to you I realised when you told me that you were spending for my benefit the sum which you are always reported to have laid by at your bankers; but, now that I have learnED that you never possessed such a fund, but that, on hearing of my destitute plight, and being moved by it, you decided to spend upon me the whole of your salary—even to forestall it—and when I had fallen ill, actually to sell your clothes—when I learnED all this I found myself placed in the harassing ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... I'd write, But they cannot be wrote, And who can indite What was never indote! And my love I hasten to plight—the ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... who began to suspect what the grievance might be which had excited the discontent implied in the Roman's speech, "This morning you appeared to be in less hurry to set out than now, so to me you seem to be in the plight of game trying to escape; however, I know Klea better than you do. Shooting is no sport of hers, nor will she let herself be hunted, for she has a characteristic which you, my friend Publius Scipio, ought ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... voyage—to an almost unknown land—Elspie McKay and Daniel Davidson should fall into that condition which is common to all mankind, and less wonder that, being a daring youth with a resolute will, Daniel should manage to induce the pliant, loving Elspie, to plight her troth while they were gazing over the ship's side at the first iceberg they met. We may as well hark back here a little, and very briefly sketch the incident. It may serve as a ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... capacious enough to hold a whole chorus of singers. The enormous pie in which twenty-eight musicians were discovered when the crust was cut may have been the original of that pasty whose opening revealed four-and-twenty blackbirds in a similar plight. Wild animals wandered gravely at a machinist's will through deep forests, but in the midst of the counterfeit brutes there was at least one live lion, for Gilles le Cat[5] received twenty shillings from the duke for the chain and locks he made to hold the savage beast ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... admiral had no one to assist him but the mates of the vessel, some of whom crawled up to their duty more dead than alive. The ship of the second in command, the Dort, was even in a more deplorable plight. The commodore was dead; the first captain was still doing his duty; but he had but one more officer capable of remaining ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... remorse. If Guion was really contrite, if he really wanted to relieve the world of his presence, he could blow his brains out. Ashley had known, or known of, so many who had resorted to this ready remedy for a desperate plight that it seemed simple. His thoughts were too complex, however, for immediate expression, and, before he could decide what to respond, ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... he felt the pulse of Perez, shook his head, and, in short, imitated with inimitable exactness all the technical airs and graces of a regular graduate of Salamanca.—"Cousin," cried he at length, with a sly look at Juana, "I pity your plight—from my soul I do; but your case is, I am grieved to say, desperate, unless I am informed of the cause of these monstrous weals, bruises, slashes, and chafings, in order that my prescription, may—"—"The cause of them," said Perez, almost frightened to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 350, January 3, 1829 • Various
... Rheims from amid the ranks Said: "Look, my liege, on your faithful Franks: Seven full years have they held this land, With pain and peril on every hand. To me be the mace and the glove consigned; I will go this Saracen lord to find, And freely forth will I speak my mind." The Emperor answered in angry plight, "Sit thee down on that carpet white; Speak not till I ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... of necessity each would recall From the other the poor foolish records of all Those emotions, whose pain, when recorded, seem'd bliss, Should we write as we wrote? But one thinks not of this! At Twenty (who does not at Twenty?) we write Believing eternal the frail vows we plight; And we smile with a confident pity, above The vulgar results of all poor human love: For we deem, with that vanity common to youth, Because what we feel in our bosoms, in truth, Is novel to us—that 'tis novel to earth, And will prove the exception, ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... are large and forbidding. And, certainly, no one can or should minimize the plight of millions of our friends and neighbors who are living in the bleak emptiness of unemployment. But we must and can give them good ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... our vessels through the spacious seas With horses of the deep. A perilous way is this Of boundless waves, and there are stormy seas On which we toss here in this (reeling) world O'er the deep paths. Ours was a sorry plight Until at last we sailed unto the land, Over the troubled main. Help came to us That brought us to the haven of salvation, God's Spirit-Son, and granted grace to us That we might know e'en from the vessel's deck Where we must bind with anchorage secure Our ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... how I made it ter Ma'am Kittridge's—but I done it! The old lady seen the plight I was in, and she made me sit down by the kitchen fire just like I was. Wouldn't let me ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... he now had lost. It was pitchy dark, with a most villainous storm of rain and wind. Saracen caught the infection of his master's doubts; he stopped short, and bowed his head to snuff the ground. Prosper laughed at the plight they were both in, and looked about him, considering what he should do. Very far off he could see a feeble light flickering; it was the only speck of brightness within his vision, and he judged it too steady for a fen-flame. Lodging of some sort should be there, for where there is a candle ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... reappeared in her new costume. A more miserable transformation it is hardly possible to imagine. The clothes hung loosely about her, in forlorn dowdyness. She felt that she was ridiculous. All grace was gone, all beauty. It was distressing to witness her mortified plight. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... him. "I see, sir," said he, turning courteously to Vivaldi, "that you are in a bad plight, and I hope that I or my carriage may be of service to you." He ventured a second glance at Fulvia, but she had turned aside and was inspecting the wheel of the chaise with an air of ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... smartest officer of the deck he had ever known. But in early middle life disease overtook him, and, though flat on his back, he had been borne on the active list because there was nothing else to do with him. In that plight he was even promoted. There was another who, as a midshipman, had lost a foot in the War of 1812, but had been carried on from grade to grade for forty years, until at the time I speak of he was a captain, then the highest rank in the navy. ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... rebuilt by Ramses II. and decorated by the Rames-sides, was in a sorry plight when the XXIInd dynasty came into power. Sheshonq I. did little or nothing to it, but Osorkon I. entirely remodelled it, and Osorkon II. added several new halls, including, amongst others, one in ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... satisfaction and pride. The forty minutes that I passed in the apartment of the Countess d'Andillot, after learning of her death, were the most thrilling and absorbing moments of my life. In those forty minutes, involved as I was in a most dangerous plight, I calmly studied the scene of the murder and reached the conclusion that the crime must have been committed by one of the house servants. I also decided that, in order to get the pearl, that servant must be arrested, and so I left the wainscoat button; ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... take thee, Edith, to my wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth." ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... say to us; and that, unless we chose to become converts to the Romish Church, we might whistle for our acres, and light our pipes with the certificate. Our Yankee friends at Brazoria, however, laughed at our dilemma, and told us that we were only in the same plight as hundreds of our countrymen, who had come to Texas in total ignorance of this condition, but who had not the less taken possession of their land and settled there; that they themselves were amongst the number, and that, although it was just ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... occurrence and the pirate's flight smelt of mystery, and must have happened with the Spaniards' consent, or because the pirate had given gifts to the master-of-camp, so that the latter would allow him to depart; and that it was impossible for him to escape from such a plight in any other manner, even had the Spaniards been asleep." These suspicions are dissipated on their arrival at Manila, forty-five days after the departure from Tansuso, a run that should have been made in ten days. In chapter XXXII is told the return of the Chinese to ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... whose parents were in affluent circumstances. But, of course, Madeleine was almost a houseboat girl herself. Readers of the first houseboat story will recall how Madeleine's fiance, Judge Hilliard, rescued Madge and Phyllis from a serious situation and saved Madeleine from a far worse plight than that in which he found ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... light to usher the human spirit into realms of being at the doors of which music itself shall beat in vain? Or if we compare the universe accessible to sight with that accessible to sound—the plight of the blind in contrast to that of the deaf—there is the same discrepancy; the field of the eye is immensely richer, more various and more interesting than that of ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... minded what we did, but if every person we met 'cut us dead' and acted as if we were non-existing things, a kind of rage and impotent despair would ere long well up in us, from which the cruelest bodily tortures would be a relief; for these would make us feel that, however bad might be our plight, we had not sunk to such a depth as to be unworthy of attention at all."[5] This recognition the worker gets partly through the records which ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... they won't think we're in this plight until quite late, if it ever does occur to them. Then it will be dark, and they can't see ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster
... to eat some of the native rye bread. The housewife and all the women in the house being terrible even to look upon, it seemed perfectly awful to eat bread that they had made, but yet we were so hungry. Reader, pity our plight. ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... been taken, and Commandant Thewnissen, with a hundred whom we could ill spare, were in the hands of the enemy, And to make matters still worse, our men were already seized with panic, arising from the now hopeless plight of General Cronje ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... East Tennessee was in good plight for roasting, and our men showed great facility in cooking, and marvelous capacity in devouring it. Ten large ears were not too much for many of them. On resuming our march one day, after the noon halt, one of the soldiers said he was unable to walk, and asked permission to ride in ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... he could get at her. Her immediate lot, however, was a cruel one. Deep as was her cause for anger against the man who had so inhumanly used her, still it was natural that she should turn to him with love rather than with aversion. To whom else could she in such plight look for love? When, therefore, she heard that he was slain, her heart sank within her; she turned her face to the wall, and laid herself down to die: to die a double death, for herself and the fatherless babe that ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... can't blame him. Besides, we don't know that he's guilty. We're quite in the dark, except that we're certain how it must end. If the chance should occur to you of giving Willoughby a word of counsel—it may—you might, without irritating him as my knowledge of his plight does, hint at your eyes being open. His insane dread of a detective world makes him artificially blind. As soon as he fancies himself seen, he sets to work spinning a web, and he discerns nothing else. It's generally ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... an obscure night Fevered with Love's anxiety (O hapless, happy plight!) I went, none seeing me, Forth from my house, where all ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... nations Rumania also entered the lists, suddenly horrified at discovering the sad plight of the Vlakh shepherds, who had probably wandered with unconcern about Macedonia with their herds since Roman times. As their vague pastures could not possibly ever be annexed to Rumania, their case was merely used in order to justify Rumania in claiming eventual territorial ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... combat / him, too, had Luedegast. Then full upon each other / they spurred their chargers fast, As on their shields they lowered / their lances firm and tight, Whereat the lordly monarch / soon found himself in sorry plight. ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... notion of making some excuse to go home and dress, for his plight was by no means due to necessity. He had a correct outfit of evening clothes, bought at the urgent command of his mother, which he had worn several times at public dinners given by the city Board of Trade and once at a dancing party at the home of the head of his firm. However, ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... inhospitably inflexible. These little touches were Forster all over. One would have given anything to let him have his two or three glasses, but one had to be cruel to be kind. Old Sam Johnson was of the same pattern, and could not resist a dinner-party, even when in serious plight. He certainly precipitated ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... grief she showed; but thus she spoke weeping to her mistress: "My lady, I have found Yvain, who has proved himself to be the best knight in the world, and the most virtuous. I cannot imagine what sin has reduced the gentleman to such a plight. I think he must have had some misfortune, which causes him thus to demean himself, for one may lose his wits through grief. And any one can see that he is not in his right mind, for it would surely never be like him to conduct himself thus indecently ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... not over plentiful, and she had to toil from early morning till far into the night to earn the bare necessities of life. There were times like to-night, when she felt rebellious and bitter at her plight, but her tired eyes and fingers had to get to the end of the task, for that meant bread for the children ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... his trussed and helpless plight, Jack Ryder grinned. He moved his head slightly. "That blackbird of ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... to trace our later movements down to our present plight, the pain in my head became intolerable. I came to an insurmountable barrier, an ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... and had to think of our own safety. Just as we had come to this resolve, another sea rolled towards the wreck, and when it passed over not a fragment of her remained hanging together. We were in a sad plight. None of us had saved more than the clothes we had on our backs, and some of the watch below had not had time even to put on all theirs. In getting into the boat I had lost my shoes, which I thought a great misfortune, as my feet felt very cold, ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... Grande Pointe. I have seen the wild flower taken from its cool haunt in the forest, and planted in the glare of a city garden. Alas! the plight of it, poor outshone, wilting, odorless thing! And then I have seen it again in the forest; and pleasanter than to fill the lap with roses and tulips of the conservatory's blood-royal it was to find it there, once more the simple queen of ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... "The plight of the Russian people is a warning to other peoples to immediately start building the new society, by building industrial unions right now, before the structure of the old society topples over. Industrial unions are the only social apparatus that will ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... go down to the sea in ships," said he, "must needs learn a good deal if they would prosper. I have studied the heavens somewhat, because more than once it has been my lot to find myself at sea without a compass, and in a plight like that a knowledge of the stars and planets is a good thing for a man to have at his command. Now, if we do but set our faces to yonder constellation we shall keep in a straight line for Acapulco—and God send we ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... who was collecting the money, and took from him the amount he had received, and told him he might have all the rest that he could collect. He (Funny Joe) then decamped, and was never heard of more in Cape Town. He was next at Rangoon, where he got into the same plight for want of funds; but his mother wit came to his aid again, and this time he posed before the public as a naturalist who had discovered off the coast what he pronounced could be nothing else than a "mermaid," and for the exhibition of this marine ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... fly was in a sorry plight; She hung and dangled in a spider's web. It was too late to make a hurried flight. The sand is sifting and the tides ...
— Clear Crystals • Clara M. Beede
... used him as a vehicle) that his daughter was in the interior of a neighboring mountain, and might be recovered if he would demand her. So he ascended to the summit of the mountain, and there claimed his child. She straightway appeared in miserable plight, "arida, tetra, oculis vagis, ossibus et nervis et pellibus vix haerentibus," etc. By the judicious care, however, of her now cautious parent she was restored to physical and moral respectability. For some valuable ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... possible, What will become of earth? men will no more Respect Society or strive to save Humanity alive: henceforth theyle seeke For lost fidelity on Caves or topps Of untrodd Rocks, and plight their trothes to beasts; Commix with them and generate a race Of creatures, though less rationall, yet more Indude with truth. O Clariana, can There be a motive able to convert This pretious Christall temple, built for purity And goodnes adoration, to a faine For Idoll falshoods ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... confused, hopeless misery and ruin, lie, fettered and prostrate, even priest as well as potentate, undistinguishable victims of crude, unblenching violence, with its climax of nefarious sacrilege. We, common mortals, therefore, can hope for no deliverance from, or even succour in, the woful plight thus dismally contrived for us all by the fair-skinned race who have now become our masters." Such was naturally the train of thought that ran through those forlorn bosoms. The formidable death-dealing guns [197] of the invaders, ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... who was older and generally well, long smiled in a superior way at the grimaces of us who were more "Wormy." But shortly after our first Thanksgiving Day at the farm, he, too, fell ill and failed to come down to breakfast. On his absence being noted, Gram went up-stairs to inquire into his plight; and it was with a sense of exultation rather than proper pity, I fear, that Halse and I saw the old lady come down presently and get the Vermifuge Bottle. We heard Addison expostulating and arguing in rebuttal for some minutes, but ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... of evening. But this passion for romance, and this disappointment, show how much we need real elevations and pure poetry; that which shall show us, in morning and night, in stars and mountains, and in all the plight and circumstance of men, the analogons of our own thoughts, and a like impression made by a just book and by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... it?" said Deede Dawson, and seemed a little amused, as though the thought of his stepdaughter's plight pleased him rather than not. "Well, if she can't come down here, we'll go up there. Turn round, my man, and go up the stairs and keep your hands over your head all the time. I shan't hesitate to shoot if you ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... "Then plight our faith anew Three puddin'-owners true, Who boldly claim In Friendship's name The noble Irish stoo, Hurrah, ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... is the church, save where the altar stands, Dressed like a bride, illustrious with light, Where one old priest exalts with tremulous hands The one true solace of man's fallen plight. ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... just reached the goal of a holy pilgrimage, as indeed they had. He saw their standards, he heard the din of their firearms, and high above them on the wall of the tower he saw the khaki-clad figure of a single Sepoy calmly flashing across the valley news of the defenders' plight. ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... no help for it, unless she confessed her plight to some of the stranger guests and begged a drive home. Lucinda's pride scorned such a request and the admission of neglect it involved. No, she would walk, since that was all there was to it; but she would not go by the main ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... an outcry made in Heaven, Wo, wo, wo, to the inhabitants of the Earth by reason of the voice of the Trumpet. I am sure, a descent made by the Angel of death, would give cause for the like Exclamation: Wo to the world, by reason of the wrath of the Devil! what a woful plight, mankind would by the descent of the Devil be brought into, may be gathered from the woful pains, and wounds, and hideous desolations which the Devil brings upon them, with whom he has with a bodily Possession made a Seisure. You may both in Sacred and Profane History, ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... reminiscence of that night—Dec. 27, 1836—is Pollard's graphic picture of the Devonport mail snowed up at Amesbury. Six horses could not move it, and Guard F. Feecham was in parlous plight. Pollard's companion picture of the Liverpool mail in the snow near St. Alban's on the same night is equally interesting. Guard James Burdett fared little better than his comrade on the ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... through upon them, until they were about as wet as the Dutchman. This was hard fare for Benjamin, who had been accustomed to a comfortable bed and regular sleep. It was impossible for him to rest in such a plight, and he had all the more time to think. He thought of home, and the friends he had left behind, of the comfortable quarters he had exchanged for his present wet and perilous berth, and he began to feel that he had ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... child that disobeyed my will." "Are there not others for that discipline? Is it for thee to strike?" His siri then He took, and kissed the Queen with fondest love. All the dyangs fair Bidasari's plight Observed, and kindly pity filled their breasts. "How cruel is the conduct of the Queen!" They said. "She made us bring her to her side But to maltreat the child the livelong day. It seems as if she wished to slay her quite." Then ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors
... mio, at my sorrowful plight," said the bruised Ricardo, with some asperity; "I have met with dangers of venomous serpents, and been stabbed cruelly by ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... Illinois officials demanding silver instead of bank-notes in payment of taxes, Lincoln wrote a letter to a Springfield paper from the "Lost Townships," signing it "Aunt Rebecca." In it he described the plight to which the new order had brought the neighborhood, and he intimated that the only reason for issuing such an order was that the State officers might have their salaries paid in silver. Shields was ridiculed unmercifully ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... section, Cabeza de Vaca and the people along with him were relieved by the Indians; and on endeavouring again to put to sea, the bark was overset, three of the Spaniards were drowned, and Cabeza and a few more got again on shore, naked and without arms. On seeing the miserable plight of these unhappy Spaniards, the Indians came to them with provisions, sat down by them and lamented their misfortunes, carried them to their houses, and made fires by the way to warm them, otherwise they must have perished with the cold, as they were naked and it was now the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... Nejd, and Kays, distracted, with matted locks and bosom bare to the scorching sun, wanders forth into the desert in quest of her abode, causing the rocks to echo his voice, constantly calling upon her name. His friends, having found him in woeful plight, bring him home, and henceforth he is called Majnun—that is, one who is mad, or frantic, from love. Syd Omri, his father, finding that Majnun is deaf to good counsel—that nothing but the possession of Layla can restore him to his senses—assembles his followers and departs for the abode ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... made Yorkshire and Lancashire shake with your shout on that occasion. The ringers cracked a bell in Briarfield belfry; it is dissonant to this day. The Association of Merchants and Manufacturers dined together at Stilbro', and one and all went home in such a plight as their wives would never wish to witness more. Liverpool started and snorted like a river-horse roused amongst his reeds by thunder. Some of the American merchants felt threatenings of apoplexy, and had themselves bled—all, like wise men, at this first moment of prosperity, prepared ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... hammock cooking supper, a party of white men came upon them, seized their rifles, examined their camping equipment and then fell to beating them. While they were occupied in this way some friends of the campers came up and seeing the plight of their comrades opened fire on the white men. The latter returned the ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... represented in the organization: miners, masons, carpenters, plasterers, engineers, electricians, and many grades of helpers. Learning his plight, they rallied promptly to his aid. They appealed to their trades and to the central body of unions to intervene in his behalf with the ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... forced to run ashore—the Cristobal Colon last, at two o'clock in the afternoon. The Spanish losses, besides the fleet, were 323 killed and 151 wounded; the Americans lost one killed and one wounded. The city of Santiago, deprived of its fleet, found itself in a desperate plight and surrendered on July 16. Shortly afterwards General Miles led an expedition into Porto Rico, but operations were soon brought to a close because of the suspension of hostilities, and from a military point of view the importance ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... to the past. The accession of Hadrian has swept all the storm-clouds from the author's sky. But in the unhappy days but lately passed away, the poet's lot was most miserable. His work brings him no livelihood; his patron's liberality goes but a little way. The historian is in no less parlous plight. The advocate makes some show of wealth, but it is, as a rule, the merest show; only the man already wealthy succeeds at the bar; many a struggling lawyer goes bankrupt in the struggle to advertise himself and push his way. The teacher of rhetoric ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... ahead, and the atmosphere prophesied a severe storm; therefore they urged that I should ride a little faster, as they, for a considerable distance, could guide me on the right way. I explained to them my plight through inexperience, said that I could only creep on slowly with safety, and bade them Good-by. As the sky was getting darker every minute, they consented, wishing me a safe journey, and started ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... unselfish in not wishing to see you in such a plight," replied Fink. "Ladies fare worst of all. All that constitutes their toilette vanishes entirely in torrents such as these. Do you know the costume of the Venus ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... been the fact of her living so much in the life of others and being open to endless sorrows through them. The dim affectionate eyes, the deprecating half-smile of his mother, engaged sympathy for the unfair plight. ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... exult over them, but that we may feel pity for them. For they, too, are exposed to all these same evils, in common with ourselves; as may be seen in the preceding times. Only, they are in a worse plight than we, because they stand outside our fellowship,[24] both as to body and soul. For the evil that we endure is as nothing compared to their evil estate; for they are in sin and unbelief, under the wrath of God, and under the dominion of the devil, ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... than Peter Doane himself would recognize his desperation of plight—and if he had "gone bad" there was but one road for his feet and the security of the colony depended upon ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... had the experience of keeping their own counsel for a long term of years know that every year makes it harder to take others into confidence. A concealed troth-plight, marriage, widowhood—to name the big concealments involving no disgrace—gets less and less easy to publish as time slips by, even as the hinges rust of doors that no man opens. There may be nothing to blush about in that ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... she heard the sweetness of his voice. Had I not better tell the truth of her at once? Oh, if she could only have been his again! What madness during these last six months had driven her to such a plight as this! The old love came back upon her. Nay; it had never gone. But that trust in his love returned to her,—that trust which told her that such love and such worth would have sufficed to make her happy. But this confidence in him was worthless now! ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... betrayed no particular emotion, and some of them even laughed, which the professor thought, at the time, was rather strange. But there was little opportunity for speculation. The men were in a sad plight. Few of them had more than the clothes they stood in, though each one wore about his waist a belt, and all of them seemed to guard ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... we no difference know, They do the females as the males bestow; So he of one of his daughters' marriages gave the ward, Like a true vassal, to Glenluce's Laird; He knew what she did to her master plight, If she her faith to Rutherfurd should slight, Which, like his own, for greed he broke outright. Nick did Baldoon's posterior right deride, And, as first substitute, did seize the bride; Whate'er he to his mistress did or said, He threw the bridegroom ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... church reduced to ruins and most of his parish destroyed by fire by the invading Huns, and never budged from his post—had himself recently drawn up for such occasions. What the usual form of such documents is I cannot say, but in view of the serious plight of France and the renaissance of patriotic fervour in the brave and unconquerable French nation, the cure had infused into this one an element of public ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... the sun was beating down too fiercely on the top of his head, he carefully drew the bushy top of the poplar sapling into such a position that it gave him shade. As its roots were still aground, it showed no tendency to float off and forsake him in his plight. ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the soil. There was, therefore, nothing for them to do; they had no money with which to speculate in town allotments, they had no land on which to commence farming for themselves, and they were in a wretched plight. Provisions had rapidly increased in price, so that flour rose from L20 to L80 per ton; no food was being produced from the land, and nothing whatever was being done to develop the resources of the colony, whilst the ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... was now floundering, covered from head to foot with inky-coloured slime. As soon as they were aware of the accident, the two grooms pushed forward, and one of them galloped after Flint, whom he succeeded at last in catching; while the other, with difficulty preserving his countenance at the woful plight of the attorney, who looked as black as a negro, pointed out a cottage in the hollow which belonged to one of the keepers, and offered to conduct him thither. Potts gladly assented, and soon gained the little tenement, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... man turned with some apprehension mingling with his joy. He would almost as soon be detected appropriating funds from the bank where he clerked, as be caught in this ignominious plight. There was just a slight sense of relief, however, for they had been a long time in the water. But he would ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... Plunging through mud I reached the door, and, glancing through the window, descried the inevitable pig inside the kitchen. The people—to be just to them—seemed a little fluttered, if not ashamed, of the plight in which I found them. It was quite evident that since the new 80l. house was built not a drop of water had been expended on its interior. The wooden staircase leading to the bedrooms aloft was in such condition that I shuddered to ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... a hasty look, Each bent on his eager way; One glance at him was the most they took, "Somebody stuck," said they; But it never occurred to the nine to heed A stranger's plight and a ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest
... pitiful plight. No sane man would venture down such a chasm, impenetrable with thorns, and night descending. So we built a beacon fire and waited for dawn. All during the long dark hours we heard the distant appeal of the hounds, ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... The air was oppressive. It seemed as if there was some sulphurous fume, which at times made me dizzy. Either there was a roaring in my ears or I heard afar off the howl of wolves. Then I bethought me of my dear Madam Mina, and I was in terrible plight. The dilemma ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... enemy's vessels were sunk or forced to run ashore—the Cristobal Colon last, at two o'clock in the afternoon. The Spanish losses, besides the fleet, were 323 killed and 151 wounded; the Americans lost one killed and one wounded. The city of Santiago, deprived of its fleet, found itself in a desperate plight and surrendered on July 16. Shortly afterwards General Miles led an expedition into Porto Rico, but operations were soon brought to a close because of the suspension of hostilities, and from a military point of view the importance ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... no evil shall reach thee in the midst of Egypt." But Bithiah said, "Of what advantage is my security to me, when I see the king, my brother, and all his household, and his servants in this evil plight, and look upon their first-born perishing with all the first-born of Egypt?" And Moses returned, "Verily, thy brother and his household and the other Egyptians would not hearken to the words of the Lord, therefore did this ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... give a minute account of how Clay and Nugget spent the night on the island. As the absence of their companions was more and more prolonged they became worried and anxious, and gave but little thought to their own miserable plight. ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... United States. We have been accustomed to rub our Aladdin's lamp of opportunity and the good genii have sent us workers. But suddenly, no matter how great our efforts, no one answers our appeal. The reservoir of immigrant labor has run dry. We are in sorry plight, for we have suffered from emigration, too. Thousands of alien workers have been called back to serve in the armies of the Allies. In my own little village on Long Island the industrious Italian colony was broken up by the call to return ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch
... in weary plight, Through heavy jungle-mire, These two came later every night To warm them at the fire, Until the Captain said one day: 'O seaman good and kind, To save thyself now come away And leave ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... An-yon, me know that already," Geck's peculiar little face, which had become so friendly to Hanlon through long association, broke out into a smile that was quickly shadowed by sorrow at thought of the plight of his people. "There is nine mines. Human masters make Guddu work ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... shepherd, pity my distressed plight! (If, as thou seem'st, thou art so mean a man,) And seek not to enrich thy followers By lawless rapine from a silly maid, Who, travelling [33] with these Median lords To Memphis, from my uncle's country of Media, Where, ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... of the most wretched days of my life. My anxiety about the beasts, the exhaustion brought on by my efforts to get them safe to land, and the sense of misery and degradation I felt when I thought of the plight I was found in on the blessed Sabbath-day, ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock
... said he. "I had misjudged you. I thank heaven that my compunction at leaving poor Staunton all alone in this plight caused me to turn my carriage back and so to make your acquaintance. Knowing as much as you do, the situation is very easily explained. A year ago Godfrey Staunton lodged in London for a time and became passionately attached to his landlady's daughter, whom he ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... ship. The engine of the launch failed after we had gone a few yards, the boat was blown rapidly down the coast, and we were eventually thrown out into the surf at "The Nuggets." The Captain, who witnessed our plight, sent his launch in pursuit of us, but its engines also failed. It now became necessary for the crew of the whale-boat to go to the assistance of the launch. However, they could do nothing against the wind, and, in the end, the ship herself got up anchor, gave ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... had risked everything on the success of this, and the poor child would have been left in a sad plight. Marriage was rather out of ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... way when the crowd was looking for the Abolitionist, and was discovered. "There he goes," was the cry that was raised, and a fire of eggs and other things was opened upon him. He reached his home in an awful plight, and it was charged that his conversation was not unmixed ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... respective constituents, fully and entirely ratify and confirm each and every of the said Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union, and all and singular the matters and things therein contained. And we do further solemnly plight and engage the faith of our respective constituents, that they shall abide by the determinations of the United States, in Congress assembled, on all questions which by the said Confederation are submitted to them; and that the Articles thereof shall be inviolably ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... in the morning, on the 8th, Mr Pickersgill returned, together with his companions, in no very good plight, having been at the head of the arm he was sent to explore, which he judged to extend in to the eastward about eight miles. In it is a good anchoring-place, wood, fresh water, wild fowl, and fish. At nine o'clock I set out to explore the other inlet, or the one next the sea; and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... 1866 the desperate plight of the cause of union called for skilful generalship in four different arenas of political action. In any one of them a false move would have been fatal to success; and there was always the danger that, on so extended a front, the advocates of union ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun
... "What a wretched plight for the richest man in the world," he said to himself, and the next moment he realized that he ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... no occupation, is in a sad plight: The man who lacks concentration of effort is worse off. In a recent test of the power of steel plates, designed for ship armor, one thousand cannon were fired at once against it, but without avail. A large cannon was then ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... Bryce answered, although he knew their plight was well-nigh hopeless. "I'll give that man Pennington a run for his money, or I'll ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... was neither handsome nor revealed aught which might stir vague, deep currents of romance, Missy regretted that even Arthur had seen her in such a sorry plight. She wished he might see her at a better advantage. For instance, galloping up on a spirited mount, in a modish riding-habit—a checked one with flaring-skirted coat and shining boots and daring but swagger breeches, perhaps!—galloping insouciantly ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... quite so disconcerting as to be prepared to overcome a resistance and then to find no resistance there; to be ready with convincing arguments, and then not have them called for. This, very naturally, was the plight of John Galbraith. ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... city's peerless might Withstanding all oppression - Then flee thereto in thy sad plight, Be free from sin's possession. Behold thy refuge in this dreary land Where all may find true, peaceful rest, A rock, impregnable on every hand, Where perfect love reigns ever blest; We sinful men, the way must search, And there in faith for pardon pray, And live a blissful, tranquil ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... was still moving at a slow pace from which it had not varied since it first had been seen. It was evident that the sophs were either indifferent or absolutely confident, Will could not determine which. For a moment his heart misgave him. What a plight he would be in if it should appear that he and his classmates had been following a purposely designed trick of their rivals. The thought was by no means reassuring, but there was no time afforded for reflection, for the wagon he was following even then ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... two savages who have no common, artificial language, can communicate their thoughts in a manner quite intelligible: they can ask and refuse, affirm and deny, threaten and supplicate; they can traffick, enter into contracts, and plight their faith. The language of brutes consists in the use of those inarticulate sounds by which they express their thoughts and affections. Thus, the chirping of a bird, the bleating of a lamb, the neighing of a horse, and the growling, whining, ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... see, he told himself, that he would better his plight by seeking fresh retreat. If the Daily were to be believed, all the United Kingdom read it and discussed its Catchy Clues. He decided it were wiser to remain racked at Temple Colney rather than try his luck, and perhaps be torn ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... you would go," she murmured, "I really am not well." She could scarcely hear her own voice amid the deafening tumult of her pulses. Fright stiffened the fixed smile on her lips. Her plight ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... Eagle. "A noble deed you have done this day, and nobly have you won back the respect of your brother birds and earned the everlasting gratitude of men. Now what shall we do to help you in your sorry plight?" After a moment's thought he turned to the other birds and said, "Who will give a feather to help patch a covering for our ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... field of battle, 'mid the frenzy of fight, Others have given their lives, without doubt or heed; The place matters not—cypress or laurel or lily white, Scaffold of open plain, combat or martyrdom's plight, 'Tis ever the same, to serve ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... abruptly, as she was about to leave the room, "come here. I am strong now, and I want to talk to you. Now tell me all about it. How did I get into this plight? And how came I into ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... been long at work, when the smell of the melting materials overcame me, and obligated me to go into the streets gasping for breath, where meeting with the cool air, I swooned away, and broke my face in the fall. My companions, finding me in this plight, carried me back, extremely sick and unserviceable. Before long, I heard one of them complain of sickness, and thus he could proceed no further; therefore, I saw if we abandoned our project this night, it might not be resumed, which made me resolve to set the cellar ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... her sleep, and Dennis looked around vainly for some additional covering. The thronging fugitives were all in a similar plight, and their only course was simply to endure till some path ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... imagine Booth would have agreed to this; for, though some love of gaming had been formerly amongst his faults, yet he was not so egregiously addicted to that vice as to be tempted by the shabby plight of Robinson, who had, if I may so express myself, no charms for a gamester. If he had, however, any such inclinations, he had no opportunity to follow them, for, before he could make any answer to Robinson's ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... when she stumbled, blaming her for their plight, threatening to leave her if she should fall, and flaying himself on with renewed panic, he brought her to the top of the double crevasse and the prospector's crossing. But here, with the levels of the spur before them, her strength reached low ebb. This time he ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... shoulders; the postillion smoking his pipe, in his shirt-sleeves and waistcoat, having flung aside his greatcoat, which had sustained a thorough wetting; and I without my wagoner's slop, of which, it being in the same plight, I had ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... follow and slay Norouas, who had spoiled his flax. So hasty had he been in setting forth that he had taken no food or money with him, and when evening came he arrived at an inn hungry and penniless. He explained his plight to the hostess, who gave him a morsel of bread and permitted him to sleep in a corner of the stable. In the morning he asked the dame the way to the abode of Norouas, and she conducted him to the foot of a mountain, where she said ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... stood beside the altar with a friend, To hear him plight his faith to a young bride, A rosy child of simple heart and mind. Yet two short years before, on that same spot, I heard the funeral chant above the bier Of a first wife—a woman bright as fair, Or blessed or cursed with genius, full of fire— Who ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... provide at once the best means to meet the emergency when it arises, and the best means are those which are the most certain and economical. Those now authorized have the virtue neither of directness nor economy. We have already eliminated one of the causes of our financial plight and embarrassment during the years 1893, 1894, 1895, and 1896. Our receipts now equal our expenditures; deficient revenues no longer create alarm Let us remove the only remaining cause by conferring the full and necessary power on the Secretary of the Treasury and impose upon him the duty to uphold ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... scarcely recovered from the tumult of excitement and admiration caused by the departure of the gallant band of cavaliers upon their foray when they beheld the scattered wrecks flying for refuge to their walls. Day after day and hour after hour brought some wretched fugitive, in whose battered plight and haggard woebegone demeanor it was almost impossible to recognize the warrior who had lately issued so gayly and gloriously from ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... dull to carouse. The homes of England! their sweetness is melting into fable; only the new Spirit in its holiest power can restore to those homes their boasted security of "each man's castle," for Woman, the warder, is driven into the street, and has let fall the keys in her sad plight. Yet darkest hour of night is nearest dawn, and there seems ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Essential Poetry in the Faust now as when I first read it—longer ago than 'Le Bon Pasteur,' and in other subsequent Attempts. I was tempted to think this was some Defect—great Defect—in myself: but a Note at the end of the Volume informs me that a much greater Wit than I was in the same plight—even Coleridge; who admires the perfect German Diction, the Songs, Choruses, etc. (which are such parts as cannot be translated into Prose); he also praises Margaret and Mephistopheles; but thinks Faust himself dull, and ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... small to receive all her family, the Osmia is in the same plight as the Mason-bee in the presence of an old nest. She thereupon acts exactly as the Chalicodoma does. She breaks up her laying, divides it into series as short as the room at her disposal demands; and each series begins ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... a little askance. It was perfectly understood between them that Cicely was more or less acquainted with her brother's plight, and since her engagement to Marsworth had been announced it was astonishing how much more ready Farrell had been to confide in her, and she to be ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... undesigned offence they had given, his features retrieved their natural vivacity, and he professed himself perfectly satisfied with their polite acknowledgment. Then they condoled him upon the evil plight of his nose, and seeing some marks upon his shirt, asked with seeming concern, if he had lost any blood in the fray? To this interrogation he replied, that he had still a sufficient quantity left for the occasions of his friends; and that he should deem it his greatest glory to expend ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... some of our people, especially by the newly-arrived soldiers, simply because they were natives, that I was afraid they might leave us in a body; and if they had done so we should have been in a sad plight. One of my own servants, a native Christian, complained bitterly to me of the ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... Sigurd troth-plight to the white-armed Gudrun, and all men were fain of their love and spake nought but ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... people stood firm a little longer, gathering round their Lord; but my Cid was in search of him, and when he saw where he was, he made up to him, clearing the way as he went, and gave him such a stroke with his lance that he felled him down to the ground. When the Frenchmen saw their Lord in this plight they fled away and left him; and the pursuit lasted three leagues, and would have been continued farther if the conquerors had not had tired horses. So they turned back and collected the spoils, which were more than they could carry away. Thus was Count Ramon Berenguer made prisoner, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... amid the glittering throng" Of mountebanks at Greenwich fair, Where I have heard the Chinese gong Filling, with brazen voice, the air. I've join'd wild revellers at night— I've crouch'd beneath the old oak tree, Wet through, and in a pretty plight, But, oh! I've NOT ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... debt, and left his children insufficiently provided for. George and Barbara were at first maintained by their mother, and afterwards by Colin of Findon who had married their grandmother, widow of Sir Roderick Mackenzie of Findon, while Alexander and Anne were in even a worse plight. ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... to St Mary's kirk, "Ye's tarry there till night." And so her father pledged his word, And so his promise plight. ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... Gardeur, let us take leave of the Intendant, and return at once to the city, but not in that plight!" added he, smiling, as Le Gardeur, oblivious of all but the pleasure of accompanying him, grasped his arm to leave the great hall. "Not in that garb, Le Gardeur! Bathe, purify, and clean yourself; I will wait outside in the fresh air. The odor of this ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... long and loud. "Of course he erred. You don't suppose that I would give the authorities my real name, do you? Why, man, I am a nephew! I have an aged uncle—a rich millionaire uncle—whose heart and will it would break were he to hear of my present plight. Both the heart and will are in my favor, hence my tender solicitude for him. I am innocent, of course—convicts always are, you know—but that wouldn't make any difference. He'd die of mortification just the same. ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... charitable canvas, from all but a few! Alas, precisely at this moment, the treacherous canvas rushes down,—hung so on purpose, thinks Ottocar; and it is a tent indeed; but a tent without walls; and all the world sees me in this scandalous plight! ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... enticed him to her trail. His hands now flew instinctively to the holsters, but finding the weapons gone, he spread his fingers outward with the eloquent, abjuring, deprecating Latin gesture, and stood like a rock. Seeing his plight, the newcomer unbuckled his own belt containing two revolvers, threw it upon the ground, ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... silent, as if doing penance for some violation of the code of honor. By many gentle, indirect approaches, I perceived that part of his tail-feathers were undeveloped. The sylvan prince could not think of returning to court in this plight, and so, amid the falling leaves and cold rains of autumn, ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... his throat; "but for that, I should be all the better for the dip. Let us go on deck again; I am stifling here. And keep up your spirits, Jack. Don't give way the least bit, or it will be all over with you. We are in a fearful plight, but help may yet come." And I promised him solemnly that I would do ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... turned again to better things. Gradually he began to have an inkling of a possibility that made his blood icy—a possibility that not even the spectacle of Milo Barrus having interesting things done to him could mitigate—namely, a vision of himself in the same plight ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... net several organs of national life were caught, immobilized and connected with the Fatherland. And it was not until they strove to move and discharge their functions on behalf of the Russian nation that they became fully conscious of their plight. German intrigue and subterranean scheming, under the mask of sympathy—now for the autocracy, now for socialism—had effected far-reaching changes in the Empire, which few even among observant politicians ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... upon the bell the library door opened, and Uncle Marmaduke made his appearance, dragging with him the unwilling Dick: the unfortunate boy was effectually sobered now, pale and trembling and besmirched with coal-dust—in fact, in very much the same plight as his ill-used father had been in ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... bringing her to such a place? There was but a single answer. Such was the nature of their work that they must needs seek the seclusion that a dead city afforded. The girl trembled at thought of her plight. ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... is not so unexampled as you are inclined to think. Nearly thirty years ago a young man as you are came in just such a plight as you and stood outside this window at two o'clock of a dark morning. Even so early in my life I was at my books," and he smiled rather sadly. "I let him in and he talked to me for an hour of matters strange and dreamlike, and enviable to me. I have never forgotten that hour, nor ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... to hand up the vessel, but the boy, now much frightened, refused unless he were first helped out himself. That the man would not do, and after much talk drew another circle around the cave-mouth, bade it close, and left the boy a prisoner in most evil plight. ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... night's rest in spite of the diabolical witlow; the witlow is so unromantic a wound that I shall leave it out of the narrative for the future. The next morning I was with General La Marmora at daylight and from him I went to the municipality. I found them in a sad plight, full of terror. The Syndic, or Mayor had been threatened in the night. Albertini, a leader of the revolt, one of the worst of ruffians I am told, entered his bedchamber at midnight with money orders and proclamations ready drawn out, and ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... and dry, but this Monday was cooler and the north wind, blowing freshly over the wide Nile, broke the amber-brown of the water into little waves of sparkling blue edged with silver ripples. The river was beautiful to her, even in her sorry plight, and to-day there were little clouds in the sky, furtive, scuddy little clouds with wind-teased edges, and they cast soft shadows over the river and over the tender green of the fields and the flat, mirroring ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... caused some of our fellows to think I was hit. Of course, after hurling a choice malediction after my horse, I was quickly on my feet and doubling after the rest of the "Boys of the Bulldog Breed." An officer of the Dorsets, Captain Kinderslie, seeing my plight, rode up amid the whistling bullets and insisted on my holding his hand and running by the side of his horse, till we came to Sergeant-Major Hunt, who had caught and was holding Bete Noire. Naturally, the reins were entangled in his forelegs, but I soon got them clear and mounted. ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... the blanket over her bare shoulders, and folded it round more like a coat. He feared she might collapse before they could accomplish their design. The plight of this girl ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... laughed loud at the gathering crowd, While he held his sides in mirth, To see old Kris in a plight like this, ...
— The Goblins' Christmas • Elizabeth Anderson
... before now, if she had tried to take the inner channel instead of keeping out to sea for miles, and then steering in straight for Monkshaven port. And the ships that had been thus lost had been in good plight and order compared to this vessel, which seemed nothing but a hull ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... measured the distance to the helpless lad with a practised eye, and groaned in despair. "They'll fall short by a dozen feet," he murmured hopelessly. "God forgive me, for bringing him to this plight." ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... difficult of access by motor-car, although the road to them was almost covered by weeds and undergrowth. Supposing that the doctor had yielded to persuasion and taken Joyce to see the old Mogul Palace, and supposing that they had subsequently met with an accident, their plight might be truly pitiable. Very few natives found it necessary to travel by the jungle path so long disused, for the Government having constructed metalled highways in all directions, travellers ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... spite of his plight, for the humorous twinkle in the old man's eyes as he uttered ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... with flats in tow, but the demand for these to tow out stock is greater than they can meet with promptness. All are working night and day, and the 'Susie' hardly stops for more than an hour anywhere. The rise has placed Trinity in a dangerous plight, and momentarily it is expected that some of the houses will float off. Troy is a little higher, yet all are in the water. Reports have come in that a woman and child have been washed away below here, and two cabins floated off. Their occupants are the same who ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... so friendly and unembarrassed that Maskull felt scarcely any humiliation at sitting at her feet, naked and helpless. She realised his plight, and put into his hands a garment that she had been carrying over her arm. It was similar to the one she was wearing, but of a darker, ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... they rusht, repulse 600 Repeated, and indecent overthrow Doubl'd, would render them yet more despis'd, And to thir foes a laughter; for in view Stood rankt of Seraphim another row In posture to displode thir second tire Of Thunder: back defeated to return They worse abhorr'd. Satan beheld thir plight, And to his Mates thus in derision call'd. O Friends, why come not on these Victors proud? Ere while they fierce were coming, and when wee, 610 To entertain them fair with open Front And Brest, (what could we more?) propounded terms Of composition, strait they chang'd thir ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... oars was heard on either hand. It would be impossible to fight the enemy with any hope of success. Plight was their only resource. Morton steered for the frigate. The enemy's boats continued to come after them. Morton kept a look-out for the frigate's light. The Frenchmen saw at length that the pursuit was useless, and gave ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... men, while I was spending my months in jail, had time to die of broken health and broken hearts, due to physical assaults or neglect, combined with a system of mental torture yet more effective and barbarous. Hundreds more are in similar plight, in Atlanta jail alone, who might be saved by timely attention and common humanity. Of this, more anon. I wish now to say that I undertake this work with a purpose as serious as I am capable of; and that among the inducements that move me, ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... acquaintances are not limited to this small corner, Miss Miller,' retorted Gwen, holding her head proudly; 'we should be in a poor plight if they were. And if we felt dull, London is not out of reach. I am ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre
... outside the ship and the sea and our perilous plight! The death of Alresca, the jealousy of Carlotta Deschamps, the plot (if there was one) against Rosa—what were these matters to me? But Rosa was something. She was more than something; she ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... reached the king's apartment, he began to cry out, and call for justice in a lamentable tone. The king ordered him to be admitted; and asked who it was that had abused and put him into that miserable plight. "Sire," cried Saouy, "it is the favour of your majesty, and being admitted into your sacred councils, that has occasioned me to be so barbarously treated." "Say no more of that," replied the king, "only ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... with me, and heard that he was to lie there that night, seeing that as yet we had no more beds than we had bought for our own need from old Zabel Nering the forest-ranger his widow, at Uekeritze. Wherefore she took me aside: What was to be done? My bed was in an ill plight, her little godchild having lain on it that morning; and she could no wise put the young nobleman into hers, although she would willingly creep in by the maid herself. And when I asked her why not? she blushed scarlet, and began to cry, and would not show herself again the whole ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... no, this will do," Flora said. On one point she was quite clear. She wasn't going to leave those two together for a moment to discuss her plight; not till she could first get at Harry alone. Then and there she turned to the mirror and with her combs began to catch back and smooth the disorder of her hair, seeing all the while Clara's reflection hovering perturbed and vigilant ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... habit of writing—whether they be sermons to hurl across your pews, or sonnets in the Spring—doubtless you have moments when you sit at your desk bare of thoughts. Mother Hubbard's cupboard when she went to seek the bone was not more empty. In such plight you chew your pencil as though it were stuff to feed your brain. Or if you are of delicate taste, you fall upon your fingers. Or in the hope that exercise will stir your wits, you pace up and down the room and press your nose upon the window ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... arrogance with which they pretend to supply the need themselves, is the best proof of how deeply they misunderstand the gravity of their plight. Look at these Theosophists, Spiritualists, and members of the Inner Light,—mere cliques, mere handfuls of uninspired and uninspiring cranks. They'll never spread a uniform and unifying culture. They cannot therefore make language once more a ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... been punished they soon learned the extent of the calamity they had inflicted upon the Spaniards. Through their spies they ascertained their diminished numbers, witnessed their miserable plight, and had the sagacity to perceive that they were very poorly prepared to withstand another attack. Thus they gradually regained confidence, marshalled their armies anew, and commenced an incessant series ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... balance himself carefully with every one,—he slipped or stumbled, and his cane flew out of his hand. Happily—because he seemed unable to reach it himself—a young girl just emerging from the drug-store saw his plight and stooping for the stick, handed it to him. He received it with a smile, and while it was yet in both of their hands, said in the most matter-of-fact way ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... landlord, "but before Mr. Mulcahy, who, as it is an oath connected with your moral conduct, is the best person to be present. It must be voluntary, however. Now, good-bye, Connell, and think of what we said; but take care never to carry home any of my servants in the same plight in which you ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... daily cost of living, and the bills that could not be deferred, were eating deep into Laura's subsidy. Ralph's anxieties returned, and his plight was brought home to him with a shock when, on going one day to engage passages, he learned that the prices were that of the "rush season," and one of the conditions immediate payment. At other times, he was told the rules were easier; but in September and October ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... blood that I could never get him to come time enough to me, though I have spoke a hundred times; but he is very sluggish, and too negligent ever to do well at his trade I doubt), and having lately considered with my wife very much of the inconvenience of my going in no better plight, we did resolve of putting me into a better garb, and, among other things, to have a good velvet cloake; that is, of cloth lined with velvet and other things modish, and a perruque, and so I sent him and her out to buy me velvet, and I to the Exchange, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... a few consolatory words and jumped down from the wheel. She was torn both ways. Bella's plight was piteous, but to make her father rise in his present state of health and attend such a case, hours long, in the chill, night breath of the open—it might kill him! She turned toward the camp, vaguely conscious of the men standing in awkward attitudes and looking ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... misery and ruin, lie, fettered and prostrate, even priest as well as potentate, undistinguishable victims of crude, unblenching violence, with its climax of nefarious sacrilege. We, common mortals, therefore, can hope for no deliverance from, or even succour in, the woful plight thus dismally contrived for us all by the fair-skinned race who have now become our masters." Such was naturally the train of thought that ran through those forlorn bosoms. The formidable death-dealing guns [197] of the invaders, the ships ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... days the live cargo of beasts had to balance themselves with the ship's movement in these turbulent seas without one moment's respite or change of position. No wonder that on arriving at Granton they were in a miserable plight. Within five minutes, however, of our being roped to the pier they were being taken off in horse boxes, three at a time, and the entire number were landed in ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... corn in East Tennessee was in good plight for roasting, and our men showed great facility in cooking, and marvelous capacity in devouring it. Ten large ears were not too much for many of them. On resuming our march one day, after the noon halt, one of the soldiers said he was unable to walk, ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... Visitt.—And I take much Shame to myselfe, y^t I have not given him y^is Satisfaction since he was married, wh. is nowe ii Yeares.—A goode Fellowe, & I minde me a grete Burden to his Frends when he was in Love, in wh. Plight I mockt him, who am nowe, I ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... or counting the restored statues on the river bridge. I always feel a longing to speak to these late birds of passage for they look so forlorn without their mates, that they make me think of my own sad plight so far away from you all; when the lectures begin I hope that I will be more satisfied than I ...
— A Napa Christchild; and Benicia's Letters • Charles A. Gunnison
... horse at this point, amusing himself at the soldiers' plight, undertook to encourage and soothe their ruffled feelings by giving words of cheer. "Go ahead, boys," remarked the General, "and don't mind this; when I was in Mexico—" "But, General, it wasn't so cold in Mexico, nor did they fight war in winter, and a horse's legs are not so tender as a man's ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... ox fall down by the way, he should not hide himself, but should surely help the owner to lift the creature up again.[912] If such was their duty toward a brother's beast, much greater was their obligation when a brother himself was in so extreme a plight. ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... crept out of the bush, half naked, and in a piteous plight, and began to ponder how he should take his revenge and serve his late companion some trick. At length he went to a judge, and said that a rascal had robbed him of his money, and beaten him soundly into the bargain, ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... artificial flowers, and tissue-paper fool's caps. Uncle said I'd better put one on and go to bed, for I looked as though I'd been to a French bal masque. I never want to hear him say so again, and I'll never let dawn catch me out in such a plight anymore." ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... Things are going pretty badly with the wounded. They are crowded here in Washington in immense numbers, and all those that came up from the Wilderness and that region arrived here so neglected and in such plight it was awful (those that were at Fredericksburg, and also from Belle Plain). The papers are full of puffs, etc., but the truth is the largest proportion of worst cases get little or ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... ashamed they should see your father in this plight? No wonder. I came to England with no prospect, but the chance of finding you. It was a mad quest; but a father's heart is superstitious—feels a loadstone drawing it somewhere or other. I might have done very well, staying abroad: when ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... things were in far better plight, even with the feeble, short-handed prize crew. Prudently snugged down in ample time, with extra hands at the steering tackles, they let her drive. She would perhaps wear clear of the coast and there was hope ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... beginning of the fine lady into which Dolly finally blossomed, and when that day Frank went home to his dinner he noticed something in her manner which he could not understand until she told him of Mrs. Atherton's call, and the plight in which that lady ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... no principle or plausible pretext in this case which would not lead to granting a pension in any case of alleged disability arising from military service followed by suicide. It would be an unfair discrimination against many who, though in sad plight, have been refused relief in similar circumstances, and would establish an exceedingly troublesome and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... more attention. The shock of her own plight had almost driven from her mind the thought of Evelyn, but when a woman got on the train leading a child about her age, the old pain concerning her came back. She began to ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... day a new vision had entered into the charmed circle of her life? If it were so, she did not acknowledge the fact to herself; or even wonder in her own mind, why the sudden breaking of her troth-plight had not left her in a sadder humor. For she put "Little Witch" into a brisk canter, and with a smile upon her face rode into the main street ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... to the seriousness of the situation in this part of Outer Mongolia. Consequently we had no choice but to remain in Uliassutai. Here also were living several Polish soldiers who had escaped from the prison camps in Russia, two Polish families and two American firms, all in the same plight as ourselves. We joined together and made our own intelligence department, very carefully watching the evolution of events. We succeeded in forming good connections with the Chinese commissioner and with the Mongolian Sait, which greatly helped us ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org
|
|
|
