"Abject" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who followed her into the room, carrying her impedimenta, wore the bored expression of the R.A. who is expected to admire the work of an outsider. He was the abject slave of his good-natured wife—she was good-natured, in spite of her love of scandal—and his only fault from her point of view, and his greatest one in the eyes of people in general, lay in an unfortunate ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... Life of Cromwell went on slowly, varied by visits to his relatives in Scotland, travels on the Continent, and interviews with distinguished men. His mind at this period (1842) was most occupied with the sad condition of the English people,—everywhere riots, disturbances, physical suffering and abject poverty among the masses, for the Corn Laws had not then been repealed; and to Carlyle's vision there was a most melancholy prospect ahead,—not revolution, but universal degradation, and the reign of injustice. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... touched at Lele and landed five white men, with a retinue of nearly one hundred savage natives from Pleasant Island, an isolated spot situated in 0.25 S., and these people—white and brown—so terrified the Strong's Islanders that the old King Togusa was in abject fear of them. We (Hayes and myself) soon learnt their story, which was that they had been compelled to fly for their lives from Pleasant Island on account of an engagement between the various clans of that place. The two chiefs under ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... moved. The utter helplessness of the man; his abject and complete surrender to the demon which possessed him—all this appalled him. He had seen many drunken men in his time—roysterers and brawlers, most of them—but never one like Poe. The poet seemed to have lost his identity—nothing of the man of the world was left—in speech, thought, ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the lips of the woman, who shrank away in abject terror, but her voice failed her. The impassible face that looked down upon her seemed the very personification of ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... heav'n, and to my guide Turn'd me, who signal made that I should stand Quiet, and bend to him. Ah me! how full Of noble anger seem'd he! To the gate He came, and with his wand touch'd it, whereat Open without impediment it flew. "Outcasts of heav'n! O abject race and scorn'd!" Began he on the horrid grunsel standing, "Whence doth this wild excess of insolence Lodge in you? wherefore kick you 'gainst that will Ne'er frustrate of its end, and which so oft Hath laid on you enforcement of your pangs? What profits at the fays to but ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... marry the bankrupt's daughter, to whom he was engaged, the old merchant disinherited him. Captain George fell on the field of Waterloo, but the heart of old Osborne would not relent, and he allowed the widow to starve in abject poverty. He adopted, however, the widow's son George, and brought him up in absurd luxury and indulgence. A more detestable cad than ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... except very few, which had been in other countries for some reasonable cause, all that gorgeousness of apparel seemed shameful and reproachful; in so much that they most reverently saluted the vilest and most abject of them for lords; passing over the Ambassadors themselves without any honour; judging them by their wearing of golden chains to ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... a fresh perplexity in Frank's soul, which amused Amyas at first, when it seemed merely jest, but nettled him a good deal when he found it earnest. For Frank looked forward to asking the queen's permission for his voyage with the most abject despondency and terror. Two or three days passed before he could make up his mind to ask for an interview with her; and he spent the time in making as much interest with Leicester, Hatton, and Sidney, as if he were about to sue for a reprieve ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust, Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be just; Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified, And the multitude make virtue of the faith they ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... the Doctor left the room, leaving Paul in a state of abject horror and dread which need not be described. Never, never again would he joke, as he had been wont to do with Dick in lighter moods, on the subject of corporal punishment under any circumstances—it was no fit theme for levity; if this—this outrage were really done to him, he ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... a tedious tale to relate all their follies, surrounded as they were by a bountiful nature and a kindly people, and yet soon reduced to abject want. In the party there were brawling soldiers and piratical sailors, with only a few quiet, decent artisans and shop-keepers, but with a swarm of reckless young nobles, who had nothing to recommend them but a long name, and who expected to prove themselves ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... bare floor is a sign of mourning, and so, by association of ideas, of an abject attitude ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... philosophical contemplation.—That two such great and luminous minds should have been so dark in one corner,—that they should have held it to be 'Wicked rebellion in the British subjects established in America, to resist the abject condition of holding all their property at the mercy of British subjects remaining at home, while their allegiance to our common Lord the King was to be preserved inviolate,—is a striking proof to me, either ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... exorbitant rents, far higher than what they would now pay for the well-ventilated and well-equipped self-contained houses of the London County Council and building companies which provide accommodation for the industrial classes. Sir Charles saw the abject and helpless condition of the people of London, and resolved, when he succeeded to office, to try and remedy the evils under which they laboured. His enthusiasm in the cause of the poor caught on, and in a short time "slumming" became a fashionable craze. Committees were formed—the premier ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... they could not catch it—it always vanished—vanished just like a phantom directly they came up to it; and the dogs when urged to seize it would only bark and howl, and show indications of the most abject terror. ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... like wildfire, and men came running from all directions to greet the latest arrivals. It was a scene of abject squalor that met Cecil's eyes as he rode with the others into the camp. Never had he seen among the Indian races aught so degraded as ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... her story. Sometimes she was superb in her wrath; at others, abject in her misery. She seemed to pass through the whole ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... and leave the embers, and to kill a viper and foster its young, would not be the acts of rational beings. Though the clouds pour down the water of vegetation, thou canst never gather fruit from a willow twig. Exalt not the fortune of the abject, for thou canst never extract sugar from a mat ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... instant of abject terror, two things struck Puffin. One was that the Major looked at the open door behind him as if meditating retreat, the second that he carried a Gladstone bag. Simultaneously Major Flint spoke, if indeed that reverberating ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... paper were produced by the ship's executive officer and passed around the circle. Hardly a word was spoken during this procedure, the usual debonair Bill Witt slouching against the hull of the Dewey, a picture of abject despair. It took only a few minutes to prepare the slips and they were collected by Officer Cleary, who in turn deposited them in the code box. Captain McClure stirred them around for a moment and then directed Officer ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... universal language? As to the second, the organic perfectibility of the vegetable world is undisputed, is Nature less powerful in the nobler existence of thinking man? The very destruction of the two most active causes of physical deterioration—here, luxurious wealth; there, abject penury,—must necessarily prolong the general term of life. (See Condorcet's posthumous work on the Progress of the Human Mind.—Ed.) The art of medicine will then be honoured in the place of war, which is the art of murder: the noblest study of the acutest ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... herself deceived," exclaims the more candid separatist or sceptic, taking up the argument declined by his scoffing brother. Catholics, it is supposed, are under the dominion of so abject a superstition, that the moment the subject of their religion is introduced, they cease to exert their ordinary common sense and powers of criticism, and believe any thing and every thing that seems to be marvellous. ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... might have supposed that the Chairman of the Republican Committee would have done nothing of the kind, but he did. Again the Harvey method was effective. Hays instead of resenting the denunciation wrote Harvey a rather abject letter, expressing the fear that he might have made a mistake in discussing politics during the war and asked for ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... bunched electrics lit up that distressful palace of all the luxuries, and they fared sumptuously, swinging on through the emptiness of abject desolation. Now they heard the swish of a water-tank, and the guttural voice of a Chinaman, the clink-clink of hammers that tested the Krupp steel wheels, and the oath of a tramp chased off the rear-platform; now the solid crash of coal ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... most wealthy and beautiful in France, upon the brother of her favourite Leonora,[52] an unhappy being who was not only deformed in person, but so wholly deficient in intellect that every effort even to teach him to read had proved ineffectual. So abject was he, indeed, that Concini had been careful never to allow him to come into contact with Henri IV lest he should be banished from the Court; and this ill-advised donation consequently excited great disapprobation, and elicited fresh murmurs ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... Amongst the many charitable institutions of Mexico, there appears to me (in spite of the many prejudices existing against such institutions) none more useful than this. These otherwise unfortunate children, the offspring of abject poverty or guilt, are left at the gate of the establishment, where they are received without any questions being asked; and from that moment, they are protected and cared for, by the best and noblest ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... immediately attracted students from all parts, and it was perhaps natural that other educational institutions should fear for their own existence. But the pettiness and meanness with which this fear was expressed at Prague resulted for the Jesuits in a penury so abject, that for many months they had nothing to eat but bread and cheese, and nothing to drink but water from their own well. For several days they were even prevented from going out for want of suitable garments. Nevertheless, however much they might have to suffer ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... It may seem very fine for the moment, but it will realize something very different afterward. Suppose you are not caught up? All the better. I'm forty-four, independent, free, a slave to no man nor monkey. Better live, to write your own tale than be the abject one to another. Better be forty-four and yourself, than a cipher belonging to some body else. Far better beware of the young men than be worn by them. At least so thinks ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... individual, collective, and universal rights, behold the Baronet stopped short, and turning sharp round, declared that he would not go with us; and that he would only support the right of liberty for householders, leaving all the rest of the community in a state of abject slavery and bondage! Up to this period—till this fatal decision, with the exception of one or two little obliquities of conduct, Sir F. Burdett had enjoyed the confidence, and received the support of every wise, good, and disinterested man in the ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... is it that you thus throw obstacles in the way of advancing thought? Is it the law of God that you should persecute and put to shame that which eventually you will be compelled to adore? Had I been pliant, abject and a flatterer, I might have succeeded! In me you have persecuted that which represents all that is noblest in man—His consciousness of his own power, the majesty of his labor, the heavenly inspiration which urges him to put his hand to enterprise, and—love, that spirit of human trust, ...
— The Resources of Quinola • Honore de Balzac
... robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. . . . They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. . . . 'They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking down upon them. 'And they cling to me, appealing ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... Mealy, but the naked body slipped away from him; and just then the combatants saw the satisfied grin freeze on the faces of the boys in the water. A step crunched the gravel near them, and in a moment that flashed vividly with rejoicing that the fight was ended, then with abject, chattering terror, Mealy Jones saw his father approaching. Mealy did not run. The uplifted cane and the red, perspiring face of his father transfixed the lad, yet he felt called upon to say something. His voice came from ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... mansion rearing its proud front aloft. And he was the imprudent one, and the others were the sensible, the wise. What would ever become of himself and his troop of children? Would he not die in some garret? would they not lead lives of abject wretchedness? Ah! it was evident the others were right, the others were sensible. And he felt unhinged, he regarded himself with contempt, like a fool who has allowed himself to ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... abstained from proposing emancipation, but were ready to reject it when proposed by others. How much soever he looked forward with anxious expectation to the period when the negroes might with safety be liberated, he knew too well the effect which the long continuance of abject slavery produced upon the human mind to think of their immediate emancipation, a measure which at the present moment would be injurious both to them and to the colonies. He and those who acted with him were satisfied with having gained an object ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... man. He has great power, but it is not his own. He merely wields the lever of the state, which a child, an idiot, or a madman can do. It is the office, not the man we gaze at. Any one else in the same situation would be just as much an object of abject curiosity. We laugh at the country girl who having seen a king expressed her disappointment by saying, 'Why, he is only a man!' Yet, knowing this, we run to see a king as if he was something more than a man.—To display the greatest powers, unless they are applied ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... saw, quite wildly, his words dictated by abject terror—the terror he had resisted so long, but which had caught him ...
— The Willows • Algernon Blackwood
... nerves, the king spoke to the headman of our party, addressing to him a few curt words in a decidedly ungracious tone of voice; whereupon the headman, taking the precaution first to conciliate his Majesty by prostrating himself and rubbing his nose in the dust in token of abject submission, rose to his feet and proceeded to spin a long yarn, of which I was evidently the subject, since he repeatedly pointed to me. He must have included in his narrative the incident of the snake-bite, for at one ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... anger. Twisting, struggling, writhing, cursing, two men lay upon the ground held in a fierce embrace, much in the manner of two wildcats. Beyond them, huddled upon the ground, her face covered with her hands, a picture of abject terror, crouched ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... a miserable, ill-lighted room, of small size and destitute of all furniture save a truckle bed, a heap of clean straw in a corner, on which lay a black shawl, a deal chair, and a small table. Abject poverty was stamped on the whole place. On the bed lay the dead man, covered with a sheet. Beside it kneeled, or rather lay, the figure of a woman. Her dress was a soiled and rusty black. Her hair, fallen from its fastenings, hung dishevelled on her shoulders. Her ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... result of loss of blood and weakness, she took to be an expression of fear. But, in reality this was not so. At all times, and especially since he knew that he had got consumption, Semenoff had dreaded death. At the outset of his malady, he was in a state of abject terror, much as that of a condemned man for whom hope of a reprieve there was none. It almost seemed to him as if from that moment the world no longer existed; all in it that formerly he found fair, and ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... the unfortunate Swartz—but I would scarcely have recognized him, if I had not known that it was he. His frame had fallen away almost to nothing. His clothes hung upon him as upon a wooden pole. His cheeks were pale, sunken; his eyes hollow; his bearing, cowed, abject, and submissive beyond expression. Let me spare the reader one horror, however. Hunger was not torturing the unfortunate man at this moment. Beside him, on the floor, lay a piece of meat, and an unfinished loaf—thus it was evident that food had been brought ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... didn't quite tell her the truth about Mr. Vernon and me," said Lady St. Craye, wallowing in the abject joys of the confessional. "And I am a beast and not fit to live. But," she added with the true penitent's instinct of self-defence, "I know it's only—oh, I don't know what—not love, with ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... what had passed, trembled for his skin, and attempted to conciliate favour by the most abject flattery. He began with protesting that, for his part, he thought the apartments were perfumed with Arabian spices; and, exclaiming against the rudeness of the Bear, admired the beauty of his Majesty's ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... she is, and remains in her abject, pitiless, unutterable misery, because this sentence of the world has placed her beyond the helping hand of Love and Friendship. It may be said, no doubt, that the severity of this judgment acts as a protection to female virtue,—deterring, as all known punishments ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... was the gross libeller of Goldsmith, and the far grosser libeller of Garrick. 'When proceedings were commenced against him in the Court of King's Bench [for the libel on Garrick], he made at once the most abject submission and retractation.' Prior's Goldsmith, i. 294. In the Garrick Carres, (ii. 341) is a letter addressed to Kenrick, in which Garrick says:—'I could have honoured you by giving the satisfaction of a gentleman, if you could (as Shakespeare says) have ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... more heroic than that of the federal army and especially that of the Phalanx regiments If valor could have triumphed over such odds, the assaulting forces would have carried the works, but only abject cowardice or pitiable imbecility could have lost such a position under existing circumstances. The negro regiments on the north side of the works vied with the bravest, making three desperate charges on the confederate batteries, losing heavily, but ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... yet contains only one forty-second part of the population of France; and one half of its inhabitants, being in the most abject indigence, consume but little. Its revenue is nearly equal to that of the Republic of Columbia, and it exceeds the revenue of all the custom-houses of the United States* before the year 1795, when that confederation had 4,500,000 inhabitants, while ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... abject terror of the Faith Healer as he begged not to be left alone with Tim—for they had not meant death, and Ingles thought he read death in Tim's ferocious eyes—they laughed cynically, and left it to Tim to uphold the honour ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Burma is a resource-rich country that suffers from government controls, inefficient economic policies, and abject rural poverty. The junta took steps in the early 1990s to liberalize the economy after decades of failure under the "Burmese Way to Socialism", but those efforts have since stalled and some of the liberalization measures have been rescinded. Burma has ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... recollect, nor perhaps penetration to perceive, the effect that this little sally might have upon his interests. Despotic and boorish as was the genius of Mr. Hartley, it cowred under that of Sophia with the most abject servility. And that lady now vowed eternal ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... dilated with the boundless view, and his chest heaved with an impossible desire, I saw Xerxes and his army, tossed and glittering, rank upon rank, multitude upon multitude, out of sight, but ever regularly advancing, and with confused roar of ceaseless music, prostrating themselves in abject homage. Or, as with arms outstretched and hair streaming on the wind, he chanted full lines of the resounding Iliad, I saw Homer pacing the Aegean sands of the Greek sunsets of ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... is in town," he said, hastily. "I saw his man at dinner. The train was reported late, but she made up time." Grasping desperately at his dignity, he swallowed an abject apology and retreated into ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... beaten enemies were resolute enough, accepting defeat with grim carelessness, or with sphinx-like indifference, or even with airy jocularity. But for the most part their alert, eager deference, their tame subservience, the abject humility and debasement of their bent shoulders drove Jadwin to the verge of self-control. He grew to detest the business; he regretted even the defiant brutality of Scannel, a rascal, but none the less keeping his head high. The more the fellows ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... uncommonly hard work, for Winnie looked so innocent, so pretty, so unconscious, so sympathetic with everybody and everything, so very young, yet so wondrously wise and womanly, that he felt an irresistible desire to prostrate himself at her feet in abject slavery. ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... speak the English language have borne such servitude. It reduces the whole population of the ten States—all persons, of every color, sex, and condition, and every stranger within their limits—to the most abject and degrading slavery. No master ever had a control so absolute over the slaves as this bill gives to the military officers over ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... in the morning, might bring accident, ruin, and perhaps sudden death before sunset. He shook all over, and the blue eyes never winked, and seemed to grow more and more angry till they positively blazed with wrath, and, at last, the fellow uttered a cry of abject fright and turned and ran up the dirty street at the top of his speed. But Cucurullo went quietly on his way, smiling with a little satisfaction; for, after all, it was something to command kindness and hospitality, ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... better goes, wound up at twelve at night. Then in oblivion's grateful cup I drown The galling sneer, the supercilious frown, The strange reserve, the proud, affected state Of upstart knaves grown rich, and fools grown great. No more that abject wretch[93] disturbs my rest, Who meanly overlooks a friend distress'd. 90 Purblind to poverty, the worldling goes, And scarce sees rags an inch beyond his nose; But from a crowd can single out his Grace, And cringe and creep to fools who strut in lace. Whether those classic regions are ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... seat on the Rostra in a curule chair. Tiridates and his suite were then introduced between the two long lines of soldiers; and the prince, advancing to the Rostra, made an oration, which (as reported by Dio) was of a sufficiently abject character. Nero responded proudly; and then the Armenian prince, ascending the Rostra by a way constructed for the purpose, and sitting at the feet of the Roman Emperor, received from his hand, after his speech had ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... dangerous rebellion, thrown off its allegiance to all things else, and insolently proclaimed St. Elmo Murray its king. She could not analyze her new feelings, they would not obey the summons to the tribunal of her outraged self-respect; and with bitter shame and reproach and abject contrition, she realized that she had begun to love the sinful, blasphemous man who had insulted her revered grandfather, and who barely tolerated her presence ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... abject terror, supposing it was the burglar who had caught him, 'don't kill me! don't kill me! My money is all in the trunk in ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various
... and in various ways stimulated the circulation of the evening papers. Most of them were living down something, and it was Lady Kimbuck's habit, when thwarted in her lightest whim, to retire to her boudoir and announce that she was not to be disturbed as she was at last making a start on her book. Abject surrender followed ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... Empire' was not much more than a shadow.... As for the mass of the people, their spirit was broken; for a time they gave up even the longing for the rights which they had lost, and taught their children abject obedience in order that they might ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... leave at all hazards. She gave her husband to understand, that she had resolved to seek a home in Canada. Fortunately, he was free, but slavery had many ways of putting the yoke on the colored man, even though he might be free; it was bound to keep him in ignorance, and at the same time miserably abject, so that he would scarcely dare to look up in the presence of ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... Italian he was. There was something great, something too of the despot about this old Homer bearing within him an Odyssey doomed to oblivion. The greatness was so real that it triumphed over his abject position; the despotism so much a part of him, that it rose ...
— Facino Cane • Honore de Balzac
... of their situation makes them mean, and the exercise of delegated power tyrannical. If they have either spirit or talent, they lift themselves above their situation; but when they cannot do this, they are, in my estimation, the most abject of all classes—gipsies and beggars not excepted. Mr Cherfeuil was, in himself, a mine of learning; but he delivered it out from the dark cavities of his mind, encumbered with so much ore, and in such misshaped masses, that it required another person ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... to enjoy robust health, and had Mary been as Mary was a month or two since, the Marchioness and Lady Susanna would have been contented that the present separation should have been permanent. They would at any rate have taken no steps to put an end to it which would not have implied abject submission on Mary's part. But now things were so altered! If this Popenjoy should die, and if Mary should have a son, Mary's position would be one which they could not afford to overlook. Though Mary should be living in absolute rebellion with that horrid Dean, still her Popenjoy ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... put under the yoke, signified that whoever committed murder, however useful and strong he might be, was to forfeit his life; and that, by a cruel death, which was implied by the striking off of its head; and that the murderer, as vile and abject, was to be cut off from the fellowship of men, which was betokened by the fact that the heifer after being slain was left to rot in ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... notice that changed, abject aspect, that bearing, devoid totally of confidence? All pretense of a certain coster smartness that he remembered, had vanished; the hair, once curled with cheap jauntiness, hung now straight and straggling; a tawdry ornament which had stood out ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... the country were esteemed, doubtingly; and he was a bold man who dared to extol even canvass-back ducks, in the year 1800! At the present day, the feeling is fast undergoing an organic change. It is now the fashion to extol everything American, and from submitting to a degree that was almost abject, to the feeling of colonial dependency, the country is filled, to-day, with the most profound provincial self-admiration. It is to be hoped that the next change will bring us to ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... man hear the name of this great mandarin, who was a profound source of terror to the criminals and evil-doers within his jurisdiction, than he fell on his knees before him in the most abject fright, and repeatedly knocking his head on the ground, besought him to have mercy ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... o'clock on that same evening they reached their depot, and passed from abject discomfort to rest and peace. Bruised, sore and tired as they were, [Page 175] Lashly sang merrily as he stirred the pot, while Scott and Evans sat on the sledge, shifted their foot-gear, spread out their clothes to dry, and talked cheerily about ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... fourteen, and able to understand what I am going to ask of you. If I were not chained to this miserable chair, if I were not a hopeless, abject cripple, I would not depute anyone, not even you, my only child, to do that, which God demands that one of ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... vanity, and maternal love. It has torn down the sense of beauty in the human soul, and set up in its place little ugly idols which it compels us to worship with more than Japanese devotion. It has contradicted Nature in the most obvious things, and been listened to with abject submission. Its empire has been no less extensive than deep-seated. The serf to custom points his finger at the slave to fashion—as if it signified whether it is an old or a new thing which is irrationally conformed to. The man of letters despises both the slaves of fashion and of custom, ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... upon our side within fifty yards of where I crouched; and it was not presence of mind, but abject fear, which kept me crouching. I counted them again as they leaped the bank and seemed to look at me. I could see the dark array of eyes, and could scarcely keep from shrieking. But my throat was dry and made no sound, and a frightened ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... attention and exclusively absorb it for a time. Most of what I have to tell of young Stavrogin will come later. But I will note now as a curious fact that of all the impressions made on him by his stay in our town, the one most sharply imprinted on his memory was the unsightly and almost abject figure of the little provincial official, the coarse and jealous family despot, the miserly money-lender who picked up the candle-ends and scraps left from dinner, and was at the same time a passionate ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... sent down from London an army of stupid men, who have kept our household in a state of abject terror for eight long weeks, and where are ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... She is as high-strung as an Arabian steed,—proud, heroic, romantic, and French! and such must be permitted to take their own time and way, which we in our gaucherie can only humbly wonder at I have ever professed myself her abject slave, ready to follow any whim, and obeying the slightest signal of the jewelled hand. As that is her sacred pleasure, I have been inhabiting the most abstract realms of heroic sentiment, living on the most diluted moonshine, and spinning ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... affirmed that he drank off the cup of suffering to the very extremity of what his peculiar nature allowed. And in no life of so short a duration, have there ever been crowded equal extremities of gorgeous prosperity and abject infamy. It may be added, as another striking illustration of the rapid mutability and revolutionary excesses which belonged to what has been properly called the Roman stratocracy then disposing of the world, that within no very great succession of weeks that ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... ridding him of all faith in a Divinity and in an immortal life, and thus exonerating him from all accountability and all future retribution. But it failed to perceive that, in the most effectual manner, it annihilated all real liberty, all true nobleness, and made of man an abject slave. ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... said, "it wrung the heart of one man. For I have not told you all. I was interested enough to climb up into the amphitheatre. The man sat there alone amongst a wilderness of empty seats. He was the picture of abject misery. I could scarcely see his face, but his attitude was convincing. It was not a thing of chance either. I made some remark about him to an attendant, and he told me that night after night that man had occupied ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of the Exodus saw there was respite, he hardened his heart. Abject in his fear before Moses, he was ready to promise anything; insolent in his pride, he swallows down his promises as soon as fear is eased, his repentance and his retractation of it combined to add new ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... what will happen to them next, which causes nearly all the mischief. We have treated the Cape Colony as we have treated Ireland, and with every prospect of bringing about the same results. First 'coercion,' then abject surrender, then coercion again—'a process,' as Mr. Froude justly remarks, 'which drives nations mad, as it drives children, yet is inevitable in every dependency belonging to us which is not entirely servile, so long as it ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... himself discovered, when he makes one desperate and final effort to escape, but ceases all struggling as you come up, and behaves in a manner that stamps him a very timid warrior,—cowering to the earth with a mingled look of shame, guilt, and abject fear. A young farmer told me of tracing one with his trap to the border of a wood, where he discovered the cunning rogue trying to hide by embracing a small tree. Most animals, when taken in a trap, show fight; but Reynard has more ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... paramour. Of course it was his money, and his only. All the world knew that. Had she not left his roof, breaking her marriage vows, throwing aside every duty, and bringing him down to his present state of abject misery? Her own fortune! If she wanted the interest of her wretched money, let her come to Loughlinter and receive it there. In spite of all her wickedness, her cruelty, her misconduct, which had brought him,—as ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... be absent a good while, though that feeling might have been occasioned by Duane's thrilling interest and anxiety. Finally he heard heavy steps. Lawson came in alone. He was leaden-faced, humiliated. Then something abject in him gave place to rage. He strode the room; he cursed. Then Longstreth returned, now appreciably calmer. Duane could not but decide that he felt relief at the evident rejection ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... country in the Western Hemisphere, with 80% of the population living under the poverty line and 54% in abject poverty. Two-thirds of all Haitians depend on the agricultural sector, mainly small-scale subsistence farming, and remain vulnerable to damage from frequent natural disasters, exacerbated by the country's widespread deforestation. A macroeconomic program developed in ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... sorrow," reasoned she with herself, "that thus oppresses me; for though I reverenced my grandfather, yet the loss of his society has scarcely been felt by me. It cannot be fear—the fear of death; for my soul is not so abject as to confine its desires to this sublunary scene. What, then, is this mysterious dread that has taken possession of me? Why do I suffer my mind to suggest to me images of horror, instead of visions of bliss? Why can I not, as formerly, picture to myself the beauty and the brightness of a soul ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... the law itself, desired to put upon it.[8] He again offered Cicero a legation in Gaul, but would do nothing for him if he stayed in Rome; while Pompey, who had been profuse in promises of protection, either avoided seeing Cicero, or treated his abject entreaties with cold disdain.[9] Every citizen, by a humane custom at Rome, had the right of avoiding a prosecution by quitting the city and residing in some town which had the ius exilii. It is this course that we find Cicero already entered upon when the correspondence ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... The abject Tim—poor tool!—frightened and cowering, nodded to admit it. "Gimme the grant, Birt," he faltered, helplessly. "I oughtn't ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... had taken it, beyond doubt, and with intensity that frightened him. He would not have believed that so many tears could stream from one woman's eyes—nor that his good, broad-faced, honest wife could be so abject in her misery. "Oh, I knowed it, I knowed it all along—it would be that way! I hadn't never ought to married you—you know I told ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... can be secured only by the hope of great reward. Until human nature changes we can expect nothing different. Socialism implies popular selection of industrial leadership. Wherever tried thus far in the world's history there has usually been abject failure. The mass can choose leaders in emotion but not directors of industry. The selection of experts by the non-expert can be wise only by accident. If the selection is not popular, then Socialism is tyranny, as its enemies charge. If it be popular, or in so far as it is popular, direction ...
— The Inhumanity of Socialism • Edward F. Adams
... either of Caesar or his lion, marred this impression. His bow, as he approached the potentate, was neither abject nor awkward, and Caesar felt bitter wrath at the thought that this splendid youth, of all men, should have selected him as the butt of his irony. He would have regarded it as a peculiar gift of fortune if this man—such a brother of such a sister—could but love him, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... grew pale, and left the room. Smollett and Carlyle then walked home through secluded streets, and were silent, lest their speech should bewray them for Scots. "John Bull," quoth Smollett, "is as haughty and valiant to-day, as he was abject and cowardly on the Black Wednesday when the Highlanders were ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... only one consolation, and that a poor one. She had received a letter from Christopher Parish, a letter of abject remonstrance and entreaty. He grovelled at her feet. He talked frantically of poison and the river. If she would but meet him and hear him in his own defence! And Polly quite meaning to do so, gave herself the pleasure of appearing obdurate for ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... let them take you and lock you up," she said, facing him. The abject terror in his eyes went straight to her heart. "Oh, you poor thing!" she cried, in swift compassion. "You—you wouldn't hurt a fly. You couldn't. Come along! Quick! I'll do this much for you, just this once. Never again! You can get down the ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... boat hoisted out, sent our first lieutenant, Mr Saumarez, to take possession of the prize, with orders to send all the prisoners on board the Centurion, the officers and passengers first. When Mr Saumarez boarded the prize, he was received by her people at the side with the most abject tokens of submission; as they were all, especially the passengers, who were twenty-five in number, extremely terrified, and under the greatest apprehensions of meeting with very severe and cruel usage. But the lieutenant endeavoured, with great courtesy, to dissipate their terror, assuring ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... for a crust of bread to take part in all sorts of mummeries which make every decent man feel ashamed! Some young men cannot be in your service for three years without becoming hypocrites, toadies, sneaks. . . . Is that a good thing? Your Polish superintendents, those abject spies, all those Kazimers and Kaetans, go hunting about on your hundreds of thousands of acres from morning to night, and to please you try to get three skins off one ox. Excuse me, I speak disconnectedly, but that doesn't matter. You don't look upon ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... that far yet. They are mangy and bruised and mutilated, and often you see one with the hair singed off him in such wide and well defined tracts that he looks like a map of the new Territories. They are the sorriest beasts that breathe—the most abject—the most pitiful. In their faces is a settled expression of melancholy, an air of hopeless despondency. The hairless patches on a scalded dog are preferred by the fleas of Constantinople to a wider range on a healthier ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... stirred my heart until I trembled with the intensity of the passion that I must needs conceal. And even while I was feeling that I must tell her all, and have done with it, tell her that I was her abject slave, and she my goddess, my queen; that in the face of such a love as mine no man could have any claim upon her; even then, there arose the still, small voice that began to call me an unfaithful steward and to remind me of a duty and trust that ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... eased his four men of their burdens and taken his chocolate, caused the doors of the Holiest of Holiests to be thrown open, and issued forth. Then, what submission, what cringing and fawning, what servility, what abject humiliation! As to bowing down in body and spirit, nothing in that way was left for Heaven—which may have been one among other reasons why the worshippers of ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... working classes, is owing to the laws and institutions which the aristocracy themselves have formed,—that is a very grave one. Mr. George thought that it was owing to those laws and institutions, and not to any thing in the natural or physical condition of the country itself, that there was so much abject poverty in Great Britain. ...
— Rollo in London • Jacob Abbott
... tin cans and extending their syllabic quantities measured according to the unchanging rule of a pedantic and dull prosody. He disliked the texture of those stiff verses, in their official garb, their abject reverence for grammar, their mechanical division by imperturbable caesuras, always plugged at the end in the same way by the impact of ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... before Carley sank into abject and open wretchedness. She managed to keep pace with Glenn until exercise warmed her blood. At every little ascent in the trail she found herself laboring to get her breath. There was assuredly evidence of abundance of air in this canyon, but somehow she could not get enough of it. Glenn ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... ay, Guido of Ravenna, son— Down on his knees, as full of abject prayers For peace and ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... dances came feasts of unheard of magnificence, during which the pope in the sight of all men completely ignored Lent and did not fast. The abject of all these fetes was to scatter abroad a great deal of money, and so to make the Duke of Valentinois popular, while ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... He's abject. It's no secret among his friends. Men like that—and of that age—sometimes arrive at such a terminal—men with Graylock's record sometimes get theirs. She has given him a run, believe me, and he's brought up with a crash against a stone wall. He ...
— Between Friends • Robert W. Chambers
... expect nothing but disaster from their influence. For a moment the impulse was strong to release the captive; luckily reason prevailed, and I tightened my grip on the frail prize, whose frame was shaken with sobs and whose bearing denoted the most abject despair. I gave many timid reassurances by word and hand before the sobs came slower and fear began to loose its hold. As she raised her head I took occasion to pass my right hand lightly over her face. Rendered sensitive by strong excitement, my palm read her features as the ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... never heard the names of his accusers, nor was he furnished with a full bill of the charges against him in writing. At this stage he was usually remanded, and the judicial proceedings were deliberately lengthened out with a view of crushing his spirit and bringing him to abject submission. For his defence he might select one advocate, but only from a list furnished by his judges; and this advocate in no case saw the original documents of the impeachment. It rarely happened, upon this one-sided method of trial, that an accused person was acquitted altogether. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... that men could pay us, if we remembered that every day we sat at the table of the Great King? Yet must we not forget that we are in strictest bonds His servants also; for there is no impiety so abject as that which expects to be deadheaded (ut ita dicam) through life, and which, calling itself trust in Providence, is in reality asking Providence to trust us and taking up all our goods on false pretences. It is a wise rule to take the world as we find it, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... among the peasantry, there can be little doubt that it has since greatly increased. As not more than one-sixth of the soil is supposed to be in cultivation, there is abundance of excellent land undisposed of; as every man, therefore, with ordinary industry can support himself and his family, abject want and pauperism are almost unknown. The innumerable herds of swine, which form the staple commodity of the country, both for home consumption and export, rove freely through the oak and beech forests which cover great part of Servia, and in which every one is at liberty ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... Democrates wrung his hands. "I am desperate. Take these papyri, read, pay, then let me never see your face again." He flung the two rolls in the Prince's lap and sat in abject misery. ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... and trust entirely to the general aversion of our people against this coin; using all honest endeavours to preserve, continue, and increase that aversion, than submit to apply those palliatives which weak, perfidious, or abject politicians, are, upon all occasions, and in all diseases, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... that Miss Crawley became quite cheerful, to the admiration of the doctors when they visited her, who usually found this worthy woman of the world, when the least sickness attacked her, under the most abject depression and ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the great dog stood; ears cocked, head inquiringly on one side; looking down upon the ledge. Cyril shrank to a quivering little heap of abject terror, at sight of the indistinct animal shape ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... ridiculing them. 'Mon Dieu,' says Lyndon, 'what fools they are; what dullards, what fribbles, what addle-headed coxcombs; this is one of the lies of the world, this diplomacy'—as if it were not also a most important and difficult branch of the national services. Abject reverence of great folk he regarded as the besetting disease of middle-class Englishmen; and so we find Lyndon remarking, by the way, that Mr. Hunt, Lord Bullingdon's governor, 'being a college tutor and ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... without being your own slaves. It is a far worse bondage to live as chartered libertines than to walk in the paths of obedience. Better serve God than the devil, than the world, than the flesh. Whilst they promise men liberty, they make them 'the most abject and downtrodden vassals ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... disappointed and said, I had determined not to consult the Jews in this matter at all, because their abject condition in the world did not leave them any good quality. You should have said, he told the Jew, that you believe in him who created the world and governs it; who made man and provides for him. Every religionist defends his ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... Hunter Street, and Matterson, of Pitt Street, make a highly creditable show, and in the southern capital, Jenkins, of Swanston Street, is well known for his excellent display. Otherwise the exhibition of fish for sale in either city is disappointing in the extreme, and is nothing less than an abject confession of our inability to ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... when he looked upon the horrible deed of his hands, he then suddenly felt a loathsome, abominable, abject fear. The half-naked body of Verka was still quivering on the bed. The legs of Dilectorsky gave in from horror; but the reason of a hypocrite, coward and blackguard kept vigil: he did still have spirit ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... among the English, who had become sensible, though too late, of their defenceless condition, and began already to experience those insults and injuries which a nation must always expect, that allows itself to be reduced to that abject situation. A secret conspiracy was entered into to perpetrate, in one day, a general massacre of the Normans, like that which had formerly been executed upon the Danes; and the quarrel was become ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... friends, Some with entreaties, some with taunts and threats, Came to us to pervert us; with the rest Again Perpetua's father, worn with care; Nor could we choose but pity his distress, So miserably, with abject cries and tears, He fondled her and called her 'Domina,' And bowed his aged body at her feet, Beseeching her by all the names she loved To think of him, his fostering care, his years, And also of her babe, whose life, he said, Would ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman
... deckers of the old pattern, British and French,—one hundred in all,—stretched across the Gulf of Finland in front of the fortresses of Cronstadt. Behind the fortresses lay the Russian fleet, helpless and abject; and yet, as events showed during our own Civil War half a dozen years later, a very slight degree of inventive ability would have enabled the Russians to annihilate the hostile fleet, and to gain the most prodigious naval victory of modern times. Had they simply taken one or two of their own great ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... introduced us sketchily, and the faded Victorian wife regarded my aunt with a mixture of conventional scorn and abject respect, and talked to her in a languid, persistent voice about people in the neighbourhood whom my aunt ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... is beyond belief; he has not a moral human instinct, and is below the brute. How is it possible to improve such abject animals? They are not worth the trouble, and they are only fit for slaves, to which position their race ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... "How abject is the equine race, Condemned to slavery's disgrace! Consider, friends, the deep reproach— Harnessed to drag the gilded coach, To drag the plough, to trot the road, To groan beneath the pack-horse ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... of disaster. We may be sure that, if these things are allowed to continue without opposition, long before the close of the twentieth century, our agricultural people will be reduced individually to the abject serfdom of a houseless, homeless day-laborer. At this time it is almost impossible for a majority of the sons and daughters of the farms of our Republic to obtain possession of enough land to enable them ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... feeling of warmth Rose-Marie moved just a fraction of an inch closer to the boy. She knew, somehow, that his small, curiously abject apology was in a way related to the "kid sister"; she knew, almost instinctively, that this Lily who could make a smile come to the dark little face, who could make a tenderness dwell in those hard young eyes, was the only avenue ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... to take it; Susan saw possibilities of making it over into the sort of environment of which she had dreamed. In novels the descriptions of interiors, which weary most readers, interested her more than story or characters. In her days of abject poverty she used these word paintings to construct for herself a room, suites of rooms, a whole house, to replace, when her physical eyes closed and her eyes of fancy opened wide, the squalid and nauseous cell to which poverty condemned her. In the streets she would sometimes pause before a ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... now only mere Phantoms, which he could raise or annihilate at his Pleasure. It is true, that this has made the King of the Kofirans the most powerful Monarch in the Universe; but perhaps, it also makes the People the most miserable; tho' an abject Veneration for their Kings will not permit them to own their Slavery, ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... sons That one by one pursue: if you give way, Or hedge aside from the direct forthright, Like to an entered tide they all rush by And leave you hindmost; Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank, Lie there for pavement to the abject rear, O'errun and trampled on: then what they do in present, Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours; For time is like a fashionable host, That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, And with his arms outstretched, as he would ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... be confounded with mean-spiritedness, or that abject state of feeling which permits a man to surrender the rights of his character to any one who chooses to infringe upon them. While it thinks little of personal considerations, it thinks the more of character and principle. ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... it and rubbed his eyes. It would not be winked out. There was a loud crash of thunder and a furious dash of rain against the window; then another blinding stroke of lightning. He drew the clothing over his head in abject terror. Again the thunder rolled as if in savage comment on the ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... afternoons he frequently worked at his home-lessons, which therefore might suffer under the regime of a Bible class. His attention had been directed to the peace which passeth understanding. So he had been beaten, and was secretly twitted by Clara as an abject victim. Hence it was with a keen and peculiar feeling of triumph, of hopelessly cornering the inscrutable generation which a few months ago had cornered him, that he demanded, perhaps perkily: "What about the ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... classrooms breathe an air sufficiently frigid and suggestive of inhuman interests and unmeaning discipline, the icy air of that office had at first almost taken his breath. The place was so ridiculously serious! There might conceivedly be interests in the world worthy of so abject an absorption, so bleaching an obeisance of the individual; but Henry, with the dews of certain classics still upon him, remembered that anything really Olympian in its importance is always strong enough to smile. It is a lesser strength that must make the muscular effort of severity. True ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... that if any secular priest commit some transgression, your royal Audiencia should not immediately summon him, but should give notice to the prelate and ordinary to remedy it. This should apply to complaints sent by the alcalde-mayor against the clergyman; the alcades-mayor are not so abject that they would not have even then their share of the fault. In short, they are ecclesiastics; and it seems just that in the meantime the prelates should not be behind in punishing them, and in righting matters. The secular clergy should not go, on information that may often be false, before audiencias ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... Frost, is full of Thomas's fidelity to little things, things as unglorified as the unfreezing of the "rock-like mud," a child's path, a list of quaint-sounding villages, birds' nests uncovered by the autumn wind, dusty nettles—the lines glow with a deep and almost abject ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... no longer quite young, advanced and publicly kissed Job. I think it was in its way the most delightful thing (putting its impropriety aside for a moment) that I ever saw. Never shall I forget the respectable Job's abject terror and disgust. Job, like myself, is a bit of a misogynist—I fancy chiefly owing to the fact of his having been one of a family of seventeen—and the feelings expressed upon his countenance when he realised that he was not only being embraced publicly, and without authorisation on his ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... private a "horrid old woman," which perhaps, when her maid undressed her, she was. But she was having a distinctly "good time" in Cairo; she called her son, who was in delicate health, "my poor dear little boy!" and he, though twenty-eight on his last birthday, was reduced to such an abject condition of servitude by her assertiveness, impudent gayety and general freedom of manner, that he could not open his mouth without alluding to "my mother," and using "my mother" as a peg whereon to hang all his own opinions and emotions as well as the opinions ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... upheaval that requires a rebuilding of one's faith. His belief in himself was broken. His belief in his power was gone. Coming after weeks of thought and fear about blindness, Claire's words tore him asunder and made him feel that there was nothing for him but abject misery and ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... helpless while some horrid beast of prey crept upon me to devour me in that utter darkness of the Bandlu pits of Caspak. I reeked with cold sweat, and my flesh crawled—I could feel it crawl. If ever I came nearer to abject cowardice, I do not recall the instance; and yet it was not that I was afraid to die, for I had long since given myself up as lost—a few days of Caspak must impress anyone with the utter nothingness of life. The waters, the land, the air teem with it, and always it is being devoured by ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Louis was reduced to a state of humiliation that excited a compassion so profound as to prevent its own open expression—the most galling of all sentiments to a proud mind. In the year 1709 he solicited peace on terms of most abject submission. The states-general, under the influence of the duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene, rejected all his supplications, retorting unsparingly the insolent harshness with which he had formerly received similar proposals from them. France, roused to renewed ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... bound up with the maintenance of English liberties. "Armies," he said many years later, "first victorious over Englishmen, in a conflict for English constitutional rights and privileges, and afterwards habituated (though in America) to keep an English people in a state of abject subjection, would prove fatal in the end to the liberties of England itself." He had firm hold of that insidious danger which belittles freedom itself in the interest of curtailing some special desire. "In order to prove that the Americans ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... had elapsed since that August evening when, terrified by his brother's sudden and violent death, Edward Duke of York had dictated his will in terms of such abject penitence. The effect of that terror was wearing away. The unseen world, which had come very near, receded into the far distance; and the visible world returned to its usual prominence. And York's aim had always ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... people was, for either bread or work; and to still, if possible, this woeful clamor, local committees, by large subscriptions, aided, in some cases, by loans from government, contrived to find them employment on useful public works. Previous to this, nothing could surpass the prostration and abject subserviency with which the miserable crowds solicited food or labor. Only give them labor at any rate—say sixpence a day—and they did not wish to beg or violate the laws. No, no; only give them peaceable employment, and they would ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... produces more than double the revenue, while land is four times as valuable, the surest test of the prosperity of a country. This last is easily accounted for by the lamentable indolence of the masses, who are contented to live in the most abject poverty, neglecting even to take advantage of a naturally fertile soil. Yet must it not be supposed that indifference to its possession prompts this contempt for the cultivation of land. There is probably ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... spoke; his upraised hand had sunk at his side, at the first address of Matilda to her enemy, and the dagger had fallen from his hand upon the sward, where it might he seen glittering in the rays of the pale moon. His head was bent upon his chest in abject shame, and he seemed as one who had suddenly been ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... in abject despair; the sublime devotion of the old servant showed how firmly Jean believed in his criminality. He was about to assert his innocence further, when the loud sound of a closing ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... life had been a failure; total, miserable, abject. It had come to nothing; its harvest was a harvest of ashes. If it had been a useful life, he could have accepted its unhappiness; if it had been a happy life, he could have forgiven its uselessness; but it had been both useless and unhappy. He had ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... strange, unearthly whiteness, and the bright flashing eyes, gazing dreamily past the terror-stricken man looking down on her, with white, livid lips and blanched, horror-stricken face. His eyes almost leaped from their sockets in abject terror, as Lester Stanwick gazed on the ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... too much. Blindly Elder turned to escape. Instantly both pistols were once more at his head. And in final abject surrender he slowly rubbed the black ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... personal service. But the manifestation and expression of sympathy may make the gift of immeasurably more worth and efficacy. Considerate courtesy, delicacy, and gentleness are essential parts of beneficence. There are very few so abject that they do not feel insulted and degraded by what is coldly, grudgingly, superciliously, or chidingly bestowed; while the thoughtful tenderness which never forgets the sensibilities of those whom it relieves, inspires comfort, ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody |
