"Commiseration" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a glance of commiseration, while Archie looked startled, and Selina mentally observed that ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... know how to punish," she said after some minutes of awkward silence. There was commiseration in her tone. The situation was becoming ludicrous to Sir Edward, though there was a certain amount of annoyance at feeling his inability to carry out ...
— Probable Sons • Amy Le Feuvre
... out it would be all right," she urged. "And it would save me from becoming the object of general talk and commiseration here. Why, if Mr. Gaviller knew in advance, he'd probably insist on sending ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... full of trifling annoyances and surprises which were often unpleasant and sometimes humorous; but the new and arid order of things kept him so busy that he had little time for the apathy, bitterness, or self-commiseration which, in linked sequence, ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... taxing every nerve to carry through the part she had taken up. And in maintaining this attitude of external composure she was completely successful. Anyone who did not know her and her circle, who had not heard all the utterances of the women expressive of commiseration, indignation, and amazement, that she should show herself in society, and show herself so conspicuously with her lace and her beauty, would have admired the serenity and loveliness of this woman without a suspicion that she was ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... been induced to abstain from interfering,—giving up the right to all the man's plate and chairs and tables which it had acquired by the finding of the coroner's verdict,—not from tenderness to Madame Melmotte, for whom no great commiseration was felt, but on behalf of such creditors as poor Mr Longestaffe and his son. But Marie's money was quite distinct from this. She had been right in her own belief as to this property, and had been right, too, in refusing to sign those ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... is indeed a curse; and bitter is the lot of him who is born with slaves on his hands. And now, instead of denouncing as inhuman and unmerciful monsters and tyrants, those who are thus unfortunate, I say, let the commiseration and pity of every good citizen and christian in the land be excited, and let fervent prayers be offered in their behalf, and that God would direct the whole American mind to the adoption of the most effectual measures for the ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... on a note of commiseration. And if the corners of her mouth betrayed a tendency to curve upwards, she immediately compelled them down. "But perhaps he does not speak Italian very well?" ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... Whether sober or not, she was equally voluble; and as her language was not only inelegant, but replete with coarseness and profanity, the annoyance was almost insupportable. She was a professed atheist, and as such justly an object of commiseration, the weakness of her unbelief being clearly manifested by the frequency with which she denied ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... he holds probably a similar view of her fondness in the dining-room for what he describes as burnt beef. A hopeless bachelor who prided himself upon what he defiantly called his freedom, used to say, with an air of commiseration and extreme caution, that he supposed his married friends were probably what they called happy. But he added that he never knew any of the happy pairs to agree upon the proper warmth of a room, or the true turn of a roast, or the just amount of fresh air. Still, he said, demurely, I do ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... Mormons were the first Anglo-Saxons to encounter aridity, and they were baffled at first; but they studied it and mastered it by magnificent irrigation systems. As other settlers poured into the West the problem of the desert was attacked with a will, some of them replying to the commiseration of Eastern farmers by saying that it was easier to scoop out an irrigation ditch than to cut forests and wrestle with stumps and stones. Private companies bought immense areas at low prices, built irrigation works, ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... exaggerating the actual importance of this influence. Young children, who possess neither sexual appetite nor corresponding sensations, already give evidence not only of intense sentiments of sympathy and antipathy, anger and jealousy, but also of commiseration, when they see those whom they love suffer; they may even show that they already possess the sentiment of duty or disinterested devotion. All these phylogenetic derivatives of the sentiments of sexual attraction are thus developed ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... she was bewailing some severe domestic bereavement, and our companions, who were full of friendly commiseration, began to question her, but could obtain no answer but tears and cries. At length, by dint of coaxing and remonstrance, we discovered that the tragedy which had ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... went back to the group around the Captain, Julia Moss treated her husband to a glance of commiseration, thinking him a bored and defeated man. "You've missed the ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... travellers' carriages: the Jew traders, the Polish beggars, and the German spies. The country appears exclusively inhabited by these three classes of men. The beggars, with their long beards and ancient Sarmatian costume, excite deep commiseration; it is very true that if they would work they need not be in that state; but I know not whether it is pride or laziness which makes them disdain the culture ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... Leonardo officiated, has given many excellent lessons in education. Captain Rolando's tutors could never make any thing of him, because, whenever they reprimanded him, he ran to his mother, father, and grandfather, for consolation; and from them constantly received protection in rebellion, and commiseration for the wounds which he had inflicted upon his own hands and face, purposely to excite compassion, and ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... demanding categorically whether I had ever seen the spanker-boom jammed with the foretopsailyard, with the wind abeam. I replied meekly that I believed such a catastrophe had never occurred under my immediate observation, and as he turned to Bush with a smile of commiseration for my ignorance I ground my teeth and went below to inspect the pantry. Here I felt more at home. The long rows of canned provisions, beef stock, concentrated milk, pie fruits, and a small keg, bearing the quaint inscription, "Zante cur.," soon soothed my ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... this time, and Kate was not to remain in ignorance of what it was. The bench on which she was now sitting had its custodian in the person of a tall youth, who lifted his hat and smiled upon her with commingled amusement and commiseration. ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... by every civilised community the greatest crime ever perpetrated against humanity. Of all causes intended to benefit mankind, the abolition of chattel slavery must necessarily be placed amongst the first, and the Negro hails with joy every new advocate that appears in his cause. Commiseration for human suffering and human sacrifices awakened the capacious mind, and brought into action the enlarged benevolence, of Georgiana Carlton. With respect to her philosophy—it was of a noble cast. It was, that all men are by nature equal; that they ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... possessor, and therewith the usual liability to pay tribute. He is inferior to other owners only in this one point, that he lacks the power of alienating his property. Let him who has derived so much benefit from our commiseration now relieve others. Fortunate and enviable has turned out his captivity[826], which enables him at one and the same time to enjoy the citizenship of Rome and the privileges ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... time when Nekhludoff retraced his steps through the wide corridor, and the cells were open. The prisoners, in light yellow coats, short, wide trousers and prison shoes, eyed him greedily. Nekhludoff experienced strange feelings and commiseration for the prisoners, and, for some reason, shame that he should so calmly ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... and horrors heaped on prisoners, some of them women and mere children, as manifestations of bloodthirsty appetites. I do not know if I was sufficiently susceptible of a noble sentiment to be inspired with pity for the victim; but certain it is that I experienced that feeling of selfish commiseration which is common to all natures, and which, purified and ennobled, has become charity among civilized peoples. Under my coarse exterior my heart no doubt merely felt passing shocks of fear and disgust at the sight of punishments which I myself might have to endure ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... Peter behold the money, than a sudden placidity stole over his ruffled spirit:—nay, a certain benevolent commiseration for the fatigue and wants of the Traveller replaced at once, and as by a spell, the angry feelings ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and could he have found a single face that expressed contumely, he would have been prompt to quarrel with its owner; but meeting everywhere with looks of sobriety, and occasionally of commiseration, he very deliberately seated himself by the side of the hunter, and, placing his legs in the two vacant holes of ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... of the greatest Reflections upon Human Nature that Parental Instinct should be a stronger Motive to Love than Filial Gratitude; that the receiving of Favours should be a less Inducement to Good-will, Tenderness and Commiseration, than the conferring of them; and that the taking care of any Person should endear the Child or Dependant more to the Parent or Benefactor, than the Parent or Benefactor to the Child or Dependant; yet so it happens, that for one cruel Parent we meet with a thousand undutiful ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... previously sustained his firmness and fortitude, it had been by an effort which had cost him no little pain; but the warm welcome, the hearty manner, the homely unaffected commiseration, of the good old man, went to his heart, and no inward struggle ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... near with a look of commiseration on her face, but exclaimed in surprise, "Why, your ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... out its days and nights within the stingy cells, his great heart melted with pity. For the first moments, his disposition to jest passed away, and all his soul rose up in indignation. If profane words came to his lips, they came from genuine commiseration, and a sense of the outrage that had been committed upon those who had been stamped with the image ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... beyond the power of his belief. He stood still in his place, with folded arms, debating what he should do to save her. One thing alone was clear. She loved him to distraction. Possibly, he thought, her story was but an invention to excuse her cruelty and to win his commiseration. It failed to do either at first, but yet he would not leave her to ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... left to Guy the office of keeping the 1st of September, one which he greatly relished. Indeed, when he thought of his own deserted manors, he was heard to exclaim, in commiseration for the neglect, 'Poor partridges!' The Hollywell shooting was certainly not like that at Redclyffe, where he could hardly walk out of his own grounds, whereas here he had to bear in mind so many boundaries, that Philip was expecting to have to help him out of some direful scrape. He ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... head, and taking a shabby book under one arm and a palm-leaf fan in his hand, he marched all the way down Clark Street, past the City Hall, to the office. Everywhere along the route he was greeted with jeers or pitying words, as his appearance excited the mirth or commiseration of the passers-by. When he reached the entrance to the Daily News office he was followed by a motley crowd of noisy urchins whom he dismissed with a grimace and the cabalistic gesture with which Nicholas Koorn perplexed and repulsed Antony Van Corlear from the battlement ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... and I can only account for his showing himself as usual, by supposing either that he was not in fact so much annoyed as I had believed him to be, or that he was actuated by a desire of creating a feeling of commiseration among the English ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... pitied and abetted in this desire. As soon as his wife's convalescence released him from constant attendance upon her, he began an inspection of the region from the compassionate point of view; the small, frugal husbandry appealed to his commiseration, and he professed to have found the use of canvas caps upon the haycocks intolerably pathetic. "Why, I'm told," he said, "that they have to blanket the apple-trees while the fruit is setting; and they kill off our Colorado bugs by turning them loose, one at a time, on the potato-patches: ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... certainly not altogether agreeable. Never, therefore, envy an author his feelings on such an occasion, on the score of their superior enjoyment, but rather let him be visited with your softest pity and tenderest commiseration. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... near the citizens of Valencia seated on the wharves, fishing rod in hand, he would shoot a glance of commiseration toward their empty baskets. Over there by his house on the coast, before the sun would be up, he would already have covered the bottom of his boat with enough to eat for a week. ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... sweep of ostrich plume shaded an oval face upon which the climate of the Tropic of Cancer had made no impression, so delicately fair was its complexion. Ringlets of red-brown hair hung to her shoulders. Frankness looked out from her hazel eyes which were set wide; commiseration repressed now the mischievousness that normally inhabited ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... disillusion him. Standish tried to bolster him up with undergraduate slang, and to convey to Henry the fact that all the hill-folk were solidly behind him, but he knew better than to come out flat with commiseration. Then, too, Standish was conscious of a vague cloud which had come up to blur their relationship. He didn't suspect for an instant the true cause of it, which was his remark, some months ago, that he wouldn't employ in his office a friend such as Henry; but he felt it, and was ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... old man of sixty, worn out by so much fatigue, hunger, and thirst. They took him on foot through those streets boasting of their victory, the fearful inhabitants thrusting their heads out of the most hidden windows, frightened by the despotic governor, to whom any commiseration that should be shown to the poor archbishop was regarded as a detestable crime. The soldiers took the archbishop to the gate on the river, called Santo Domingo, where the prelate, complying with the precept of Christ, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... sure enough, at peace at last, and the special cause for the ending was of little importance. Sommers proceeded to make an examination, however; he would have to sign a certificate for the health officers. As he bent over the inert form, he had a feeling of commiseration rather than of relief. Worthless clay that the man was, it seemed petty now to have been so disturbed over his living on, for such satisfactions as his poor fragment of life gave him. Like the insignificant insect which preyed on its own petty world, he had, maybe, his rights to his prey. At ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... cured of his passion, but could not avoid feeling a very tender commiseration for her, who had been the unhappy object of it; he found also, on meditating on every passage of this adventure, that she was infinitely less to blame, in regard to him, than her parents had been; and that ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... it is meet to speak with all commiseration; yet so, that others by their example may receive instruction, and withal some light may appear, what stirring affections the discipline is like to inspire, if it light ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... classes receive an immense amount of consoling happiness from that ceremony of hat touching, and quite pity those who, unfortunately for themselves, know nothing about it. I would ask any such lady or gentleman whether he or she does not feel a certain amount of commiseration for the rudeness of the town-bred artisan who walks about with his hands in his pockets as though he recognized a superior in ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... importune Heaven, that all The sentence from thy head remov'd may light On me, sole cause to thee of all this woe, Mee mee onely just object of his ire. She ended weeping, and her lowlie plight, Immoveable till peace obtain'd from fault Acknowledg'd and deplor'd, in Adam wraught Commiseration; soon his heart relented 940 Towards her, his life so late and sole delight, Now at his feet submissive in distress, Creature so faire his reconcilement seeking, His counsel whom she had displeas'd, his aide; As one disarm'd, his anger all he lost, And thus with peaceful ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... said the commander, in a tone of sincere commiseration, "I'll order you some provisions ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... you are, who partake of my fate, accept my sincere commiseration—I would have said protection; but the privilege of man is ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... was early developed in her heart. Even before her conversion, her mind was often exercised with sentiments of commiseration for the situation of ignorant heathen and idolaters; and after that event it was the leading ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... on the table, a picture of smiling ease, raffish and fascinating, as full of sentimental sympathy as a lass in her teens. His commiseration was no less plain to me because it was hidden under a debonair manner. He looked at me in a sidelong fashion with ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... Why, for instance, should we dread death? So long as we fear it, it is not here; when it arrives, we shall no longer fear it; then, why is it an evil?—But, during life itself, how about sufferings?—We greatly increase our sufferings by complaints and by self-commiseration. If we acted in the reverse way, if when we were tortured by them we recalled past pleasures and thought of pleasures to come, they would be infinitely mitigated.—But, of what pleasures can a man speak who makes happiness consist ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... riding down the top of the hill here, riding carelessly, I'll admit, for when the horse shied, I was chucked off. I broke my arm and knocked my head. Oh, don't trouble," he added hastily, as if to ward off her commiseration. "I am all right now; the arm will soon be in ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... the time had come to impart to Mr. James a piece of news which he had supposed would require no imparting. He looked down upon his young master's recumbent form with a grave commiseration. It was true that he had never been able to tell with any certainty whether Mr. James intended the statements he made to be taken literally or not, but on the present occasion he seemed to have spoken seriously and to ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... life that had followed on the ghastly accident had indeed been worth the winning. There was no word of this in Vespasian's revelations. He only impressed on Christopher the necessity of avoiding any expression of pity or commiseration with the paralysed man, and a warning that a somewhat casual manner towards the world, and his entirely undemonstrative way, was no true index ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... the warm-hearted valet could swallow no more; but, assuming a look of commiseration and dignity, he drew back, and left the young tyro of the sea to enjoy his joke with a companion who just then ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... chaff the few grains of sense that may, perchance deserve notice. Assuring the gentleman that the Negro in this country aims at a higher degree of intellect than that exhibited by him in this debate, I cheerfully commend him to the commiseration of all intelligent men the world over—black men ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... spoils of wolf or fox—more costly but not more clean. Furs, felt, and woollen fabrics of the coarsest texture may also be noticed. Raiment of camel's hair, strapped with a leathern girdle after the manner of John the Baptist, may be seen any day, and the wearers are not regarded as objects of commiseration. ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... being both a scholar and a gentleman, he is also the best heavyweight boxer I have ever seen, in the ring or out of it, and that anyone who expects to make him do anything he does not want to do, will be a subject for commiseration—or the ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... came, and the sun, looking through the white-curtained valley, saw the outcasts divide their slowly decreasing store of provisions for the morning meal. It was one of the peculiarities of that mountain climate that its rays diffused a kindly warmth over the wintry landscape, as if in regretful commiseration of the past. But it revealed drift on drift of snow piled high around the hut—a hopeless, uncharted, trackless sea of white lying below the rocky shores to which the castaways still clung. Through the marvellously clear air the smoke of the pastoral village of Poker Flat rose miles away. Mother ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... maintained at the Prytanaeum, at the public expense, a thing that I have often known you, with less reason, grant to others. Do not impute it to obstinacy or disdain that I do not, according to the custom, supplicate and go about to move you to commiseration. I have both friends and kindred, not being, as Homer says, begotten of wood or of stone, no more than others, who might well present themselves before you with tears and mourning, and I have three desolate children with whom to move you to compassion; but I should do a ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... 28, 182-, was precisely one of the nights that were wont to call forth these expressions of commiseration. The level rainstorm smote walls, slopes, and hedges like the clothyard shafts of Senlac and Crecy. Such sheep and outdoor animals as had no shelter stood with their buttocks to the winds; while the tails of little birds trying to roost on some scraggy ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... her, voluble in commiseration. Of course, if she wasn't going, they wouldn't go. They didn't want to. They would sacrifice a thousand plays, but not an evening with Jane Holland. They bowed before her in all the postures and ceremonies of their adoration. And Jane Holland looked at them curiously with her tired eyes; ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... in the boats gradually grew more distant, while Aleck lay thinking what he had better do, for the low eager murmur of voices down below raised a feeling of commiseration in his breast, which made him feel disposed to go down and try to say a few words of comfort to the bereaved women, who had evidently been trying hard to save their husbands. But he felt that he would only ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... stanch friend, and he and I think alike on most questions of political and industrial life; although he once expressed to me some commiseration because, as President, I did not get anything like the money return for my services that he aggregated during the same term of years in the ring. Bob Fitzsimmons was another good friend of mine. He has never forgotten his early skill as a blacksmith, and among the things that I value ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... in the navigation of convict vessels, changed the aspect of their fortune, and filled all classes with commiseration: such was the wreck of the Amphitrite, in 1833, which struck on the coast of Bologne. That vessel was in a position of great danger, and the French pilot, Heuret, endeavoured to warn, in time to save; but the risk of the usual reward, it is said, the surgeon was unwilling ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... round as well as I could, hemmed in as I was, and fixed my eyes on!—astonishment!—on my conductor to the palace! The blood mantled in my face. 'You have stolen my watch,' said I. He could not immediately escape, and made no reply, but turned pale, looked at me as if intreating silence and commiseration, and put a watch into my hand. I felt a momentary compassion and he presently made ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... fell the hard labour, to us fell the honours of the enterprise, and to our chief the reward; yet none equalled the men in cheerfulness and sanguine hopefulness of a successful issue to our enterprise, without which, of course, energy would soon have flagged. Gallant fellows! they met our commiseration with a smile, and a vow that they could do far more. They spoke of cold as "Jack Frost," a real tangible foe, with whom they could combat and would master. Hunger was met with a laugh, and a chuckle at some future feast or jolly recollections told, in rough terms, of by-gone good ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... condemned on his attainder for being out in 1745, {201} and his wife in vain besieged George II. and the Royal Family with petitions for his life. 'The Scots Magazine' of May 1753 contains a bold and manly plea for clemency. 'In an age in which commiseration and beneficence is so very conspicuous among all ranks, and on every occasion, we have reason to hope that pity resides in that place where it has the highest opportunity of imitating the divine ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... fluid, high tow'rd heaven his arms he holds, Exclaiming;—"now Saturnia, feast thy soul "With my destruction; joy, O savage!—view "From lofty heaven my tortures; satiate now "Thy rancorous soul:—but if a foe may move "Commiseration, (for thy foe I am) "Take hence this life, grievous, through direful pains: "Hateful to thee, and destin'd first for toils. "Death now would be a boon; and such a boon "A step-dame might confer. Have ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... contents of your letter have been communicated to me; and permit me to say that you and Mademoiselle Onslow have the heartiest sympathy and commiseration of myself and my passengers in your most unpleasant situation. But, monsieur, I fear I cannot possibly help you in the way that would doubtless be most acceptable to you—namely, by receiving you on board my ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... sooner we bring this episode to an end the better pleased I shall be," answered the other. In reality, she had been more touched than she herself quite understood by the frank commiseration in Molly's eyes, and she could not remember when anybody had clasped her body so affectionately. The sensation it gave her was an odd one; else a person so eminently correct and punctilious as Miss Armacost ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... said; "I am in trouble about you, poor fellows! I don't think I shall sleep three hours to-night, to think of you. I shall tell all the cabin they shall give you beds, because they shall see you are gentlemen!" Whether he did so or the officers were moved by spontaneous commiseration, we knew not, but in half an hour a servant beckoned us into the cabin, and berths ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... maintain a long war on the Continent against a formidable coalition: her expenditure must be immense; and, great as were her resources, he felt it to be important that nothing should be wasted. He doubtless regarded with sincere commiseration and good will the unfortunate exiles to whom he had given so princely a welcome. Yet neither commiseration nor good will could prevent him from speedily discovering that his brother of England was the dullest and most perverse of human ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... commiseration. Horrid things had been happening to Eustace during the last few days, and it was quite a pleasant surprise each morning to find ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... illumination. Nero lent his own gardens for the spectacle, and gave a chariot-race, mingling with the people in the costume of a charioteer, or driving among them in his chariot; by which conduct he raised a feeling of commiseration towards the sufferers, guilty though they were, and deserving of the extremest penalties, as though they were being exterminated, not for the public interests, but to gratify the savage cruelty of ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... her aid, although this ruin to her would enrich him very greatly. She had expected nothing from him, had wanted nothing from him; but by degrees, when absent from him, the feeling had grown upon her that he had been hard to her in abstaining from expressions of commiseration. She had yielded to him in the whole affair, assuring him that nothing should be done by her to cause him trouble; and she would have been grateful to him if in return he had said something to her of her future mode of life. She had intended to speak to him about the hospital; but she ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... hospitals were unknown. It is true that in Rome and Athens a certain provision was made for the poor, and largesses were given them from time to time. But this was done from motives of political expediency, and not from sympathy or commiseration with their ills. But as soon as the early Christians were free to practice their religion openly, hospitals arose in all the great cities. In the latter half of the fourth century the distinguished Christian teacher, Ephrem the Syrian, in Edessa, placed rows of beds for ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft
... as a sweet morsel under the tongue, and quite determined to enjoy a miserable time in selfish morbidness and grumbling, it costs us no little sacrifice to throw off the morbid spell, to refuse the suggestions of injury, neglect and the remembrance of unkindness, to rise out of the mood of self-commiseration in wholesome and holy determination, and say, "I will rejoice in the Lord"; I ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... calm dignity with which he read them completely effaced the disagreeable distrust. It was then John Effingham remembered that he had once believed Paul himself might be the fruits of the heartless indiscretion he condemned. Commiseration and sympathy instantly took the place of the first impression, and he was so much absorbed with these feelings that he had not taken up the letter which was to follow, when Paul laid down the paper he had ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... in the extreme. Mr. Daly, it happened, was attending an opening elsewhere, and did not witness my second fall from grace. Then came Le Moyne to me—big and grave and kind, his plump face with the shiny spots on the cheek-bones fairly exuding sympathetic commiseration. He led me aside, he lowered his ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... forbidden one. But the chevalier soon put an end to them by announcing that his visit was a visit of farewell, and by telling her the reason that obliged him to leave her. The marquise was like the woman who pitied the fatigue of the poor horses that tore Damien limb from limb; all her commiseration was for the chevalier, who on account of such a trifle was being forced to leave Avignon. At last the farewell had to be uttered, and as the chevalier, not knowing what to say at the fatal moment, complained that ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... love. And it is only when there is this soul-longing to reach the excellence it has conceived for itself alone that great works have been produced. The sweetest strains of music sometimes come from women where no one listens to their melodies. Nor does a great artist seek or need commiseration, if ever so unfortunate in worldly circumstances. He may be sad and sorrowful, but only in the profound seriousness of superior knowledge, in that isolation to which all ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... a form of love; and just as we may never despise a fallen parent, just so do we owe him or her, even in the depths of his or her degradation, a meed of pity and commiseration. There is no erring soul but may be reclaimed; every soul is worth the price of its redemption, and there is no unfortunate, be he ever so low, but deserves, for the sake of his soul, a tribute of sympathy and a prayer for his betterment. And the child that refuses ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... stood and watched the death-procession pass, were some, women particularly, who bewailed and lamented the fate to which Jesus was going. We read of no man who ventured to raise his voice in protest or pity; but on this dreadful occasion as at other times, women were not afraid to cry out in commiseration or praise. Jesus, who had been silent under the inquisition of the priests, silent under the humiliating mockery of the sensual Herod and his coarse underlings, silent when buffeted and beaten by the brutal legionaries of Pilate, turned to the women whose sympathizing lamentations ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... of emptiness. Ida Mary and I realized that we had no place to go. With typical frontier hospitality, every home on the reservation was open to us; but that night we longed to be alone. It wasn't commiseration we needed, but quiet in which to grasp what had happened to us. We decided on Margaret's shack, left vacant when she had proved up. She had left ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... for that purpose. You cannot overrate the solicitude of Her Majesty's Government on the subject of the Aborigines of New Holland. It is impossible to contemplate the condition and the prospects of that unfortunate race without the deepest commiseration. I am well aware of the many difficulties which oppose themselves to the effectual protection of these people, and especially of those which must originate from the exasperation of the settlers, on account of aggressions on their property, which are ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... urged his fellow-man to break the commandments of the Most High, and deface, perhaps annihilate, the form that was moulded in His image. The words "liar and ruffian" haunted Edward's mind reproachfully; but then the provocation—"rebel!"—no gentleman could brook it. Because his commiseration for a people had endeared him to them, was he to be called "rebel"? Because, at the risk of his own life, he had preserved perhaps scores, and prevented an infraction of the law, was he to be called "rebel"? He stood acquitted before his own conscience:—after all, the most terrible ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... leave our undying sympathy and commiseration, dear friend," declared Mr. Travers. "Believe me, this has aged my wife and myself. Probably it would not be an exaggeration to say it has aged us all. That he should have come through Jutland, done worthy ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... What painful commiseration did he not experience on penetrating into an ill-kept convent library! "Then we ordered the book-presses, chests, and bags of the noble monasteries to be opened; and, astonished at beholding again the light of day, the volumes came out of their sepulchres and their prolonged ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... drawer of their closet and two excellent cows in their stable. They lacked nothing, and could quietly pass their old age without fear of poverty or toil, and without having to look to the friendship or the commiseration of any of ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... papa had got over his bankruptcy—"gone through the Gazette," was the expression Caddy used, as if it were a tunnel—with the general clemency and commiseration of his creditors, and had got rid of his affairs in some blessed manner without succeeding in understanding them, and had given up everything he possessed (which was not worth much, I should think, to judge from the state of the furniture), ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... upon death as otherwise than a loathsome thing—a thing not to be thought of in the heyday of youthful blood and jollity—a doleful spectre, in whose bony hands the roses of love must fall and wither! With a sense of deep commiseration in me, I spoke again ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... little house under the vacillating administration of her father, a music teacher who usually neglected his duties to write orchestral compositions for which the world seemed to have no especial need. His spirit was warped by bitter vindictiveness and puerile self-commiseration, and he spent his days in scorn of the labor that brought him bread and in pitiful devotion to the labor that brought him only disappointment, writing interminable scores which demanded of the orchestra everything under heaven ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... his own grief: he was touched by the chance propinquity of two alien sorrows in a great city throbbing with multifarious passions. It would have been more in keeping with the irony of life had he found himself next to a mother singing her child to sleep: there seemed a mute commiseration in the hand that had led him ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... apparently upon the fire. Ellen, from behind the boy, smiled at her husband, noting how completely his air of fatigue had fallen from him. Often before she had observed how any call upon R.P. Burns's sympathies rode down his own need of commiseration. ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... accepted. I must own, that I prepared to go to the Wightmans with some misgivings as to the pleasure I should receive. Almost every one of their old acquaintances, to whom I had addressed inquiries on the subject, spoke of them with commiseration, as "very poor." If Wightman could bear the change with philosophy, I hardly expected to find the same Christian resignation in his wife, whom I remembered as a gay, lively ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... all for resistance as if each one of the party had been called upon to make the sacrifice demanded of Boule de Suif. The Count declared just like the barbarians in ancient times. The women specially showed Boule de Suif an affectionate and energetic commiseration. The good sisters who showed up only at meal time, had bowed their ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... unquestionably be the index of that of the whole party, and thus the life or death of the king appeared to be suspended from his lips. It was known that the very evening before, while supping with a lady who expressed much commiseration for the captives in the Temple, he had declared that he would save the life of the king. The courage of Vergniaud was above suspicion, and his integrity above reproach. Difficult as it was to judge impartially, with the cannon and the pikes of the mob leveled at his breast, it ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... century, wives do not do such things, and partly because comfortable slippers are no longer worn. But she does the equivalent—whatever the equivalent may happen to be in that particular household. And he expects the commiseration and the solace in her face. He would be very hurt did he not find ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett
... really do not see how I need your commiseration, Cicely. The woman was an impossible person, half mad, half drunk. Do you understand what such a creature is when she has a grievance, and imagines some innocent person to be the author ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw
... intense feeling which he underwent was too much for his reason. I must say, that this circumstance was always a source of deep regret in the whole fleet, and that his being a Frenchman, instead of an Englishman, increased the feeling of commiseration. ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... looked after him with something of commiseration in his countenance; but being a decided enemy to homeopathic innovation, he had made up his mind that a strong dose of apprehension was positively necessary; and now, only gratified at its powerful effect, he ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... almost angelic, and certainly very far my superior intellectually, seemed from his helplessness peculiarly infantile in comparison with my robust energy, and became consequently, in my eyes, an object of tenderest commiseration. From the first he clung to me with strange tenacity, for our tastes were congenial. He brought with him from his Southern home stores of books and shells and curious playthings and mechanical toys, such as I had never seen before, and to spread these ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... kidnapping of Free Negroes from Northern States. The frequency of arrests in the Northern States, and the accompanying circumstances of cruelty and brutality in the execution of the law, soon made it especially odious throughout the North, and created an active feeling of commiseration for the unhappy victims of the Slave Power, which greatly intensified and increased the growing Anti-Slavery sentiment in ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... the deepest interest and pity, but nothing more. That although the general features of Mrs. Pollard's end were well enough known, no whisper of suspicion had been breathed against her or hers, that showed in the faintest way that any doubt mingled with the general feeling of commiseration. And yet it was too evident she was no favorite with the world at large, and that the respect with which she was universally mentioned was rather the result of the pride felt in her commanding manners and position, than from any personal liking for ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... a smile, half of inquiry, half of commiseration. 'Bacchus: an English name, I apprehend! All our gods came from the ancient Antakia before either the Turks or the English were heard of. Their real names are in every respect sacred; nor will they be uttered, even to the Ansarey, until ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... sum in simple addition. I could not help a feeling of deep surprise and commiseration that one of Rebecca's age should have stumbled at it at all, but I essayed to examine it very closely and worked it out for her as slowly as possible. "Do you see ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... entertain any other feeling than that of commiseration for the man over whose happiness she has been compelled to throw a cloud, while the idea of triumphing in his distress, or abusing his confidence, must be inexpressibly painful ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... former may easily lead you to hate and the latter to despise him; but fix your attention only upon his sufferings, his needs, his anxieties, his pains. Then you will always feel your kinship with him; you will sympathise with him; and instead of hatred or contempt you will experience the commiseration that alone is the peace to which the Gospel calls us. The way to keep down hatred and contempt is certainly not to look for a man's alleged "dignity," but, on the contrary, to regard him ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... this talk, and felt hideously ashamed that people should be pitying her. Vainly did she try to get some measure of comfort from her mother. Kapus Irma, irritated by the looks of commiseration which were being levelled at her daughter, dubbed the latter a fool for not having the sense to know how to keep her bridegroom ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... south, is to become weak and sentimental. The carved Christs turn up their faces and roll back their eyes very piteously, in the approved Guido Reni fashion. They are overdoing the pathetic turn. They are looking to heaven and thinking about themselves, in self-commiseration. Others again are beautiful as elegies. It is dead Hyacinth lifted and extended to view, in all his beautiful, dead youth. The young, male body droops forward on the cross, like a dead flower. It looks as if its only true ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... undertakes to speak in defence of the Lacedaemonians, standing the while behind a block, as he is to lose his head if he does not succeed in convincing them. In this ticklish predicament, he calls on Euripides, to lend him the tattered garments in which that poet's heroes were in the habit of exciting commiseration. We must suppose the house of the tragic poet to occupy the middle ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... the meeting, and he told them what he knew—told it to the last detail, while he saw the looks of amusement or commiseration that passed from man ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... anything more than newspaper articles, written by young positivists. For the people, who are rushing forward, for those spiritual needs, as strong as thirst and hunger, by which the man felt such ideas as God, faith, immortality, the doctor has only a smile of commiseration. And one might wonder at him a little bit. One could understand him better if he did not acknowledge the possibility of the disentangling of different abstract questions, but he affirms that the necessity ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz, |
