"Infirm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gone for Andrew were much too infirm to get close to "The Falcon." For with the daylight her work had begun, and she was surrounded on all sides by a melee of fishing-boats. Some were discharging their boxes of fish; others were struggling to get some point of vantage; others again fighting to escape the uproar. ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... told, being infirm of body, was comforted through God's goodness by a vision of the joy of the blessed. "Suddenly there appeared to him an angel in a great radiance, which angel held a viol in his left hand and a bow in his right. And while St. Francis remained in stupefaction at the sight, this angel drew the ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... apparel and sally forth in grand procession, with banners flying, to meet the princess and her company and do them honour, and let cry throughout the city that neither cloistered damsel nor honoured lady nor infirm old woman should fail to go forth to meet the bride. So they all went out to meet her and the chiefest of them vied in doing her service, meaning to bring her to the King's palace by night. Moreover, the grandees agreed to decorate the ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... be emancipated or leave the place. The only demand they made upon us was enough money annually to get a new "critter," that is, a mule. With a certain lack of ingenuity the mule was reported each Christmas as having passed away, or at least as having become so infirm as to necessitate a successor—a solemn fiction which neither deceived nor was intended to deceive, but which furnished a gauge for the size of the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... Studied from that old spirit-leaved book Which starry Uranus with finger bright Sav'd from the shores of darkness, when the waves Low-ebb'd still hid it up in shallow gloom;— And the which book ye know I ever kept For my firm-based footstool:—Ah, infirm! Not there, nor in sign, symbol, or portent Of element, earth, water, air, and fire,— 140 At war, at peace, or inter-quarreling One against one, or two, or three, or all Each several one against the other three, As fire with air loud warring when ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... were to be dimly perceived in the darkness above us. It was as if the voices of generations of men yet echoed and eddied in the silent air. It was strange, too, that my friend the porter going before me, ponderously infirm, with his feeble old hands striving in vain to keep the tall flambeau he held steadily before him,—strange, I say, that he was the only domestic I saw in the vast halls and passages, or met with on the grand staircase. At length ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... Edmund, at my post, and as my brother Eldred and Earl Algar and their brave companions died at their posts in the field of battle, so I am prepared to die here where God has placed me. I shall retain here with me only a few of the most aged and infirm monks, too old to fly or to support the hardships of the life of a hunted fugitive in the fens; together with some of the children who have fled here, and who, too, could not support such a life. It may be that when the fierce Danes arrive ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... shall be told. In order to deprive the British troops of winter quarters he determined to burn the town of Niagara, leaving the innocent and non-combatant inhabitants, helpless women and little children, the sick and infirm, homeless and shelterless amid the rigours of ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... was mild and hazy, and unlike winter but for the prematurely low sun struggling through the haze, as Raffles and I emerged from the nether regions at Westminster Bridge, and stood for one moment to admire the infirm silhouettes of Abbey and Houses in flat gray against a golden mist. Raffles murmured of Whistler and of Arthur Severn, and threw away a good Sullivan because the smoke would curl between him and the picture. It is perhaps the picture that I can now see clearest of all ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... often longed for had come, but it was too late. Forty years he had passed in public life and he could not now take up again the interests and occupations of his youth. Agriculture had no more charms for him; he was too infirm for sport; he could not, like his father, pass his old age in the busy indolence of a country gentleman's life, nor could he, as some statesmen have done, soothe his declining years by harmless and amiable literary ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... of this meeting Huxley could not appear. He gave the impression of being aged but not infirm, and no one realised that he had spoken his last word as champion of the law of evolution. (See, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... care. But Mistress Alison was not to be dismayed by poverty; she was a tranquil and loving woman, who had never married; but who, as if to compensate her for the absence of nearer ties, had a simple and wholesome love of all created things. She was infirm now, but was quite content, when it was fine, to sit for long hours idle for very love, and look about her with a peaceful and smiling air; she prayed much, or rather held a sweet converse in her heart with God; she thought little of her latter end, which she knew could not be long delayed, ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... ordered, on account of some sickness, to drink cow's milk, there were fourscore milch kine driven after him; also, he sent him a bed, furniture, and servants for it, the Grecians not having skill enough to make it, as also chairmen to carry him, being infirm in body, to the seaside. Not to mention the feast made for him at court, which was so princely and splendid that Ostanes, the king's brother, said to him, "O, Timagoras, do not forget the sumptuous table you have sat at here; it was not put ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... help that you could give. Sometimes we have to move the Sunday-school organ about and there are windows that stick and all manner of things about a church that only a practiced mover and driver could do. You know the janitor is rather old and infirm and as for me—well, Hank, when you come down to it, that's about all we ministers are, just movers. Our business is to help find just the right and happiest places for people, to show them their part ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... if he should grow old and infirm, while Linda lay still young and beautiful and unchanged in her sleep; if she might awake, after long years, and see in him only a feeble old man. And he knew that he would not be sorry he had waited, even if he ...
— Salvage in Space • John Stewart Williamson
... to be taken to their birthplace, that they may die and be buried there. If possible, these wishes are always complied with by the relatives and friends. Parents will point out the spot where they were born, so that when they become old and infirm, their children may know where they wish their bodies to be disposed of."[249] Again, some tribes in the north and north-east of Victoria "are said to be more than ordinarily scrupulous in interring the dead. If practicable, they will bury the corpse near the spot where, as a child, it first ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... Omaha tribe has been in the region now known as the State of Nebraska, north of the city which bears their name. There they dwelt in permanent villages, surrounded by their garden plots of corn, beans, squashes, etc. From these villages every year in June all the tribes except the sick and infirm went forth to follow the buffalo herds in order to obtain their supply of meat and pelts. As this tribal hunt was essential to the needs of the life of the people, it was a very serious affair, ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher
... and tears, As darkness flies when morn appears. Do thou, dear Queen, and Rama too Behold what power like mine can do. My aged father I will kill, The vassal of Kaikeyi's will, Old, yet a child, the woman's thrall, Infirm, and base, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... itself, therefore, to the public gaze, naked and friendless, like the infirm man of the Gospel—solus, ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... was over eighty years of age and too infirm to attend the funeral, but the Marquis of Titchfield and Lord Henry ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard
... the Stranger, and was seen no more: But whether o'er the waters, as of old Footing that Galilean Sea, with faith Not now infirm he reached the southern shore, Or passed from sight as one whom crowds conceal, The fisher knew not. At the tent arrived, Before its little door he bent, and lo! Within, there knelt a venerable man With hoary ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... expired, and the door opened and the servant came in to lay the supper. Her nose was high, her gaze cruel, radiant, and conquering. She was a pretty and an impudent girl of about twenty-three. She knew she was torturing her old and infirm mistresses. She did not care. She did it purposely. Her motto was: War on employers, get all you can out of them, for they will get all they can out of you. On principle—the sole principle she possessed—she would not stay in a place more than six months. She liked change. ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... glancing again at the bed, though the epithet was meant to apply to Jackson and not to Arthur. "What can I do to circumvent him? Write to Horace, of course, and warn him of Elsie's danger." And though usually vacillating and infirm of purpose, on this occasion Walter showed himself both prompt and decided. The next mail carried the news of his discovery to Elsie's natural protector,—her father, who with Rose, the Allison family, and little Horace, ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... paid to the aged and infirm. A poor blind man came groping his way, and was kindly conducted to a seat in an airy place. A lame man came wearily up to the door, when one within the house rose and led him to the seat he himself had just occupied. As we sat facing the congregation, we looked around upon the multitude to find ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... called upon to support. The law compelled the owner to maintain his old and helpless slaves and this represented the spirit of the large majority of the slaveholders. Those were rare cases indeed when an owner was hailed into court for failing to provide for an infirm member of his slave household. The true Kentuckian never begrudged the expense that such support incurred. One of the ablest lawyers of the State, Benjamin Hardin, made the statement that "if it were not for supporting my slaves, I would never go ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... centuries of Rome the power of speaking was acquired solely by practice. Eloquence was not reduced to the rules of an art, far less studied through manuals of rhetoric. The celebrated speech of Appius Claudius when, blind, aged, and infirm, he was borne in a litter to the senate-house, and by his burning words shamed the wavering fathers into an attitude worthy of their country, was the greatest memorial of this unstudied native eloquence. ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... Executive duty upon this occasion there has not been wanting a just sensibility to the merits of the American Army during the late war; but the obvious policy and design in fixing an efficient military peace establishment did not afford an opportunity to distinguish the aged and infirm on account of their past services nor the wounded and disabled on account of their present sufferings. The extent of the reduction, indeed, unavoidably involved the exclusion of many meritorious officers of every ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson
... brilliant, and more minute than Count Cortina, always expressing his opinion with caution, but very ready and able to give information on anything in this country, unconnected with politics. General Moran, now infirm, and long since retired from public service, is universally respected, both as a military man and a gentleman. He is married to a daughter of the late Marquis de Vivanco, general of division, who long held out against the independence, and when ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... would sometimes bestow a little consideration upon ourselves, and employ the time we spend in prying into other men's actions, and discovering things without us, in examining our own abilities we should soon perceive of how infirm and decaying material this fabric of ours is composed. Is it not a singular testimony of imperfection that we cannot establish our satisfaction in any one thing, and that even our own fancy and desire should ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... sickness prevents the slave from working. The poor creatures are therefore forced to sacrifice their chastity, in order to procure clothing; and beggary is the usual resource of those who are old and infirm. The Ketis of the court, indeed, are allowed some privileges, and have a considerable influence among the young men of family. In the day time they attend the Maha Rani or queen; and when she goes out, some of them armed with swords follow her on horseback, and form her body guard. They are ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... favourite, came whining to her feet. How old he looked! Old, and broken, and infirm, as if ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... with her tools of magic, the broom and mop, has very infrequent access. In the way of furniture, there is a stove with a voluminous funnel; an old pine desk with a three-legged stool beside it; two or three wooden-bottom chairs, exceedingly decrepit and infirm; and—not to forget the library—on some shelves, a score or two of volumes of the Acts of Congress, and a bulky Digest of the Revenue laws. A tin pipe ascends through the ceiling, and forms a medium of vocal ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... severities, obliged her to so strict an observance of its fasts, as proved extremely injurious to her health. Upon which Dr. Denton Nicholas, a very ingenious learned physician of her acquaintance, advised her to abate of those rigours of abstinence, as insupportable to a constitution naturally infirm. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... more, from having no other friend on whom it may fall. I saw Clare's father in the garden: it was a fine day, and his rheumatism allowed him just to move about, but with the aid of two sticks, he could scarcely drag his feet along; he can neither kneel nor stoop. The father, though so infirm, is only fifty-six years of age; the mother is about seven years older. While I was talking to the old man, Clare had prepared some refreshment within, and with the appetite of a thresher we went to our luncheon of bread and cheese, and capital beer from the Bell. In the midst of our operations, ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... a friend in the town, (for they were not all devils at Orange, as he emphatically assured us), he was enabled to procure a few common necessaries, to improve the scanty prison allowance of some of the more infirm; but his charitable labour soon ceased, for all were successively dispatched by the guillotine in a short space of time. In the course of three months, 378 persons perished by decree of the miscreants composing the Revolutionary ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... Walloons on the left were under the Duke of Albuquerque, while in the centre were the veteran Spanish infantry under the command of General Fuentes, who had often led them to victory. He was too old and infirm to mount a horse, but lay in a litter in the midst of ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... had been thirty years or more since Daddy Jake had done any work. He had a very comfortable cabin; and although his wives (for the old man had been married several times) were all dead, and many of his children were now old and infirm, he had a number of grandchildren and great-grand-children who attended to his wants; and then, too, his master cared very particularly for his comfort, and saw that Daddy Jake had good fires, and that his clothes were kept clean and mended, and his food nicely cooked; so the ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... me the weekly list of the sick people about here, sir, who stand in need of a little wine. My lady always had a regular distribution of good sound port and sherry among the infirm poor; and Miss Rachel wishes the custom to be kept up. Times have changed! times have changed! I remember when Mr. Candy himself brought the list to my mistress. Now it's Mr. Candy's assistant who ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... opposite to Svjatoinos was discovered in 1770 by LJACHOFF, whose name the island now bears. In 1788 Billings' private secretary, MARTIN SAUER, met with Ljachoff at Yakutsk, but he was then old and infirm, on which account, when Sauer requested information regarding the islands in the Polar Sea, he referred him to one of his companions, ZAITAI PROTODIAKONOFF. He informed him that the discovery was occasioned by an enormous herd of ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... canopy of gnarled boughs and thick, sombre leaves. To the right—and some small distance away from the large house—a little hut of reeds, covered with mats, had been put up for the special convenience of Omar, who, being blind and infirm, had some difficulty in ascending the steep plankway that led to the more substantial dwelling, which was built on low posts and had an uncovered verandah. Close by the trunk of the tree, and facing the doorway ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... enough I think even now I should escape and join the royal party, broken as it may be and by all accounts is, at this moment. Deer stalking is all very well, but I fly at higher game." "I feel the same as you do," replied Humphrey: "but recollect, Edward, that the old man's very infirm, and what would become of our sisters if we ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... intoxicated, inveigled into a so-called marriage with a young but notorious girl, whose only claim was her pretty face, while her situation was hopelessly degraded. This creature, Minnie Merle, had an infirm grandmother, who, in order to save the reputation of the unfortunate girl, appealed so adroitly to Cuthbert's high sense of honour, that her arguments, emphasized by the girl's beauty and helplessness, prevailed over reason, and—I may add—decency and one day ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... top of us! Luckily the moon was out, and with her aid I made myself as bright as possible. The footsteps belonged to a youth, not, certainly, oppressed by melancholy, to judge by the tune he was whistling, or very infirm, to judge by the pace ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... to the hammock, (which was built for the use of the infirm and aged, but the weight of these creatures is scarce half that of men,) and sixteen of them carried me back to my captor's homestead. That night I fell asleep before it was dark enough to see the stars, and assure myself, by a glance at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... getting so old and infirm, poor dear!" said Molly, interrupting. In reality she cared little what they did at San Leon, so long as they were all together and having a good time. But she saw on Dorothy's expressive face a keener disappointment than the affair seemed to warrant and ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... following anecdote of Kao Tsu, the first Han Emperor: "Wishing to crush the Hsiung-nu, he sent out spies to report on their condition. But the Hsiung-nu, forewarned, carefully concealed all their able-bodied men and well-fed horses, and only allowed infirm soldiers and emaciated cattle to be seen. The result was that spies one and all recommended the Emperor to deliver his attack. Lou Ching alone opposed them, saying: "When two countries go to war, they are naturally ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... present relating to his favourite pastime, either pointers, hounds, falcons, or varlets who were adepts in the art of venery or hawking (Figs. 139 and 140). When the cunning monarch became old and infirm, in order to make his enemies believe that he was still young and vigorous, he sent messengers everywhere, even to the most remote countries, to purchase horses, dogs, and falcons, for which, according to Comines, he ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... marriage and other private circumstances, a coldness which he had hitherto preferred to any warmth of familiarity between them. He deferred the intention from day to day, his habit of acting on his conclusions being made infirm by his repugnance to every possible conclusion and its consequent act. He saw Mr. Bulstrode often, but he did not try to use any occasion for his private purpose. At one moment he thought, "I will write a letter: I prefer that to any circuitous talk;" ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... she said, in a voice totally different to that in which she had spoken to the factor. "Best quiet in your hut. The old and infirm must be sheltered and fed; of that there is no doubt; but let the evil-doer and idle beware. On them I shall have no mercy. Sandy Redland, mark me: I will have no cruelty or oppression—remember that. The instant you ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... of honeysuckle with one hand, and of sweet-briar with the other. Porthos clawed hold of some peas which were twined round poles stuck into the ground, and ate, or rather browsed upon them, shells and all: and Planchet was busily engaged trying to wake up an old and infirm peasant, who was fast asleep in a shed, lying on a bed of moss, and dressed in an old stable suit of clothes. The peasant, recognizing Planchet, called him "the master," to the grocer's great satisfaction. "Stable the horses well, old fellow, and you shall ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... accused myself for a fool: not discerning the difference betwixt memory and understanding, which is to make matters still worse for me. But they do me wrong; for experience, rather, daily shows us, on the contrary, that a strong memory is commonly coupled with infirm judgment. They do, me, moreover (who am so perfect in nothing as in friendship), a great wrong in this, that they make the same words which accuse my infirmity, represent me for an ungrateful person; they bring my affections into question ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... committed such an outrage on the representative of the British government, under whose protection he was; thus losing his territory, and bringing English troops so near the Tibet frontier. The Rajah answered that he never did anything of the kind; that he was old and infirm, and unable to transact all his affairs; that the mischief had arisen out of the acts and ignorance of others, and finally begged the Commissioner to investigate the whole affair, and satisfy himself about it. During ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... wife tied a bandage over their eyes. The cows, held by long ropes, obeyed a mere twitch or a special low call back to the roadside, knowing very well that, the danger once past, they could finish their browsing in the next field. Old mother Tonsard, who was getting more and more infirm, succeeded Mouche in his duties, after Fourchon, under pretence of caring for his natural grandson's education, kept him to himself; while Marie and Catherine made hay in the woods. These girls knew the exact spots where the fine forest-grass abounded, and ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... such scraps of history as connected themselves with these subjects, was precisely of a kind to captivate the good old knight; besides the convenience which he found in having a friend to appeal to when his own memory, as frequently happened, proved infirm and played him false concerning names and dates, which, and all similar deficiencies, Master Michael Mumblazen supplied with due brevity and discretion. And, indeed, in matters concerning the modern world, he ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... and infirm. We can understand his taking an evening stroll, but the ground was damp and the night inclement. Is it natural that he should stand for five or ten minutes, as Dr. Mortimer, with more practical sense than I should have given him credit for, ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... her as a distraction that drew them from their bad dreams. Since she had been infirm, they had to attend to her like a child. The care they lavished on her forced them to scatter their thoughts. In the morning Laurent lifted her up and bore her to her armchair; at night he placed her on her bed again. She was still heavy, and he had to exert all his ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... said, "that there are defects in our country. What I say of them is this—that they are incidental very much to an old country like our own. Dr. Simpson knows very well, and so does every medical man, that when a man gets old he gets very infirm, his blood vessels get ossified, and so on; but I shall not enter into that part of the subject. What is true of an old country is true of old men, and old women, too. I am very much disposed to say of this young nation of America, that ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... advantage of secrecy for myself. On the Saturday I drives into the little market in a donkey-cart with greens, and on Sunday morning I goes to church in a very respectable disguisement, and the sexton puts me in a pew with some women of infirm mind in workhouse dresses, for which, my daughter, I had much to do to restrain myself from knocking him down. But I does; and I behaves myself through the service with the utmost care, following the movements of the genteeler portion of the company, those in the pew ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... a pleasant-faced lady of perhaps sixty years, but though rather infirm so that she walked with a cane, she was bright and cheery-looking. She was dressed in her usual thick black satin gown and lace mitts, with a fine lace kerchief around her neck and crossed on her breast, and a string of fine ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... proved little more than a truce. For almost half a century the European sovereigns had been waiting for Charles II of Spain to die. He was the last of his race, last of the Spanish Hapsburgs descended from the Emperor Charles V, and so infirm and feeble was he that it seemed the flickering candle of his life must puff out with each passing wind. Who should succeed him? In Mazarin's time, that crafty minister had schemed that the prize should go to France, and had wedded young Louis XIV to a Spanish ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... in the house of the grim cousin who sheltered her. The death of this cousin flung Margaret on her own resources. A friend had procured her employment as the "companion" of a rich, eccentric old lady, infirm of health and temper. Margaret lived with her for five years, and to the young girl they seemed treble the time. Her employer was fault-finding, peevish, unreasonable, and many a time Margaret's patience almost failed her—almost, but not quite. In the end it brought her ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... saw him again in Washington at the opening of the Thirty-ninth Congress, in December, 1865, he looked very much aged since our last meeting, and infirm in health. In repose his face was like a death-mask, and he was carried in a chair to his seat in the House by two stalwart young negroes. There is good authority for the story that once when they had set him down, he said to them, with his grim humor: "Thank you, my good fellows. What shall ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... hard fighting, had now become an illustrious commander. Whatever he may be called in history, he was known in camps and on the battle-field under the nickname of Old Blood-and-Thunder. This war-worn veteran, being now infirm with age and wounds, and weary of the turmoil of a military life, and of the roll of the drum and the clangour of the trumpet, that had so long been ringing in his ears, had lately signified a purpose of returning to his native valley hoping to find repose ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... business with Ensum is like to go on, but I must give, and she consents to it, another 100. She says she doubts my father is in want of money, for rents come in mighty slowly. My mother grows very unpleasant and troublesome and my father mighty infirm through his old distemper, which altogether makes me mighty thoughtfull. Having heard all this and bid her welcome I to the office, where late, and so home, and after a little more talk with my wife, she to bed ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... extended to the incoming "saints." The "Holy City" and sacred temple soon to be destroyed were abandoned for perilous journeyings in the wilderness. The chapter that immediately follows in the history of this people is indeed pathetic. The terrible sufferings of the aged and infirm, of helpless women and children, as the shadows of the long night of winter gathered about them on their journey, can never be adequately told. But, inspired with the thought that they were the Israel of God, that Brigham Young was their divinely appointed leader, ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... at the Greyhound, Bath, I have been confined to my bed-room, almost to my bed. Pray for my recovery, and request Mr. Roberts's[89] prayers, for my infirm, wicked heart; that Christ may mediate to the Father, to lead me to Christ, and give me a living instead of a reasoning faith! and for my health, so far only as it may be the condition of my improvement, ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... founded Royal Society of Literature; and three years later he was promoted to the see of Salisbury, over which he presided for twelve years, prosecuting his benevolent designs with unwearied industry. As at St David's, so at Salisbury, he founded a Church Union Society for the assistance of infirm and distressed clergymen. He strenuously opposed both Unitarianism and Catholic emancipation. He died on the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... indeed excepted, and endless addition of littleness to littleness, extending itself over a great tract of land.' 'For a young man,' he says, 'for a man of easy fortune, London is the best place one can imagine. But for the old, the infirm, the straightened in fortune, the grave in character or in disposition, I do not believe a much worse place can ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... found him a very tractable patient. He had no faith in either physicians or physic. Mead wrote[86]to Sir Martin Stuteville: "Sir Edward Coke being now very infirm in body, a friend of his sent him two or three doctors to regulate his health, whom he told that he had never taken physic since he was born, and would not now begin; and that he had now upon him a disease which all the drugs of Asia, the gold of Africa, nor ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... had now a population of a million and a half, it still had no effective police. The guardians of the peace at that date were infirm old men, who spent their time dozing in sentry boxes, and had neither the strength nor energy to be of service in any emergency. The young fellows of fashion considered these venerable constables as legitimate game. They ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... untransformed, emanations, effluences, electricity, for instance, or the fluids of a magnet which sends to a distant subject an order to traverse all Paris to rejoin it. Science has no call to contest these phenomena. On the other hand, Dr. Brown-Sequard rejuvenates infirm old men and revitalizes the impotent with distillations from the parts of rabbits and cavies. Were not the elixirs of life and the love philtres which the witches sold to the senile and impotent composed of ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... struck me as still more conscious, partly perhaps because she deprecated her mother's free flow—she was enough of an "improvement" to measure that—and partly because she was too distressed by the idea of leaving her infirm, her perhaps dying father. It wasn't indistinguishable that they were poor and that she would take out a very small purse for her trousseau. For Mr. Porterfield to make up the sum his own case would have had moreover greatly to ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... to carry any of their plans into effect. This particular one, on the very eve of its accomplishment, was marred, as it was imagined, by the secret intervention of the friends of Mirabeau. The Government became more and more infirm and wavering in its purposes; the Princess was left without instructions, and under such circumstances as to expose her to the supposition of having trifled with the good-will of ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 6 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... remissness of that great man" have done much harm—yet discerns that the prospect for the future is far gloomier by his loss. Even Coventry, when he was gone, could recall the Lord Treasurer whom he had so often thwarted as "a wise and solid though infirm man."] ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... RESPECTED SIRS,—The infirm state of my bodily health would be a sufficient apology for not taking up the pen at this time, wholesome as I deem it for the mind to apricate in the shelter of epistolary confidence, were it not that a considerable, I might even ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... house of their father, and finding the sons absent, were about to wreak vengeance on the old man, whom they hated for the sons' sake. With this intent one of the party drew a pistol; but just as it was aimed at the breast of the aged and infirm old man, Dicey rushed between the two, and though the ruffian bade her get out of the way or receive in her own breast the contents of the pistol, she regarded not his threats, but flung her arms round her father's neck and declared ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... conviction. Yet we have hope of better days. My uncle is infirm, and of an age that threatens hourly. Or if he lives, You never have offended him; and for distresses so ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... demonstration of this, we have only to make ourselves acquainted with the fervour and tenderness of their conjugal, parental, and filial sensibilities,—and the great care they take of all who are aged, infirm, and blind, among them. Were these highly interesting qualities sanctified by pure religion, they would exhibit much of the beauty and loveliness of the christian character. I am aware that an opinion is general, ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb
... was allowed to converse so familiarly with her, whilst he, her lay admirer, could only have stolen glimpses of her as she passed to church or to public spectacles. He set about the ruin of his supposed rival with cunning atrocity; and, finding that the young woman was infirm in health, suborned a physician, as worthless as himself, to declare that she was pregnant. Her credulous father, without inquiring whether the intelligence was true or false, went to the superior of the convent, and accused Augustin, who, though thunderstruck at ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... written to introduce them to you. I know your infirm health; but I am sure, if you were stretched on your bed in your last illness, and could lift your hand at all, you would extend it to welcome these poor hunted fellow-creatures. Henceforth, England is their nation and their home. It is with real regret for our personal loss in their ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft
... by one, were the women got into the lifeboat. Some of these women were old and infirm; some were invalids. Who can conceive the horror of the situation to such as these, save those who ...
— Battles with the Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... it is said that they are kept by a daily brushing of the beds, which are taken to pieces every morning, entirely free from vermin. The grounds are well laid off, and are in admirable order. In short, the whole place is a model of neatness and careful administration. None but the aged and infirm, who are destitute, are admitted. Each newcomer is bathed immediately upon his or her arrival, and clad in the plain but comfortable garments provided by the establishment. He is then taken to the Warden's office, ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... of the highest truths. He had been obliged, as the context informs us, to abandon an intended visit to Corinth. The miserable crew of antagonists, who yelped at his heels all his life, seized this change of purpose as the occasion for a double-barrelled charge. They said he was either fickle and infirm of purpose, or insincere, and saying 'Yea' with one side of his mouth and 'Nay' with the other. He rebuts this accusation with apparently quite disproportionate vehemence and great solemnity. He points in the context to the faithfulness of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... copied from a pattern will what was bought for sixpence up to Mr. Marsh's in town," said Jenny loftily. "It do begin, 'I, M.N., bein' o' sound mind though infirm in body'—Abel, d'ye see, weren't infirm in body; he were as well as ever he were in his life, poor chap, ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... have been washed by the rains and greatly damaged. He remembered it as a path that was quite easy to traverse either up or down. But Old Pipes had been a very active man, and as his mother was so much older than he was, he never thought of himself as aged and infirm. ...
— The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales • Frank R. Stockton
... away the people from Khartoum, he sent away the Governor and some of the other leading Egyptian officials first. I think he suspected they would intrigue; he always had more confidence in the people than in the ruling Turks or Egyptians. The oldest soldiers, the very infirm, the wounded (from Hicks's battles) were sent next, and a ghastly crew they were. But the precautions he took for their comfort were very complete, and although immediately before reaching me they had to cross a very bad part of the desert between Abou Hamed and Korosko, ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... work done by a suckler is about three fifths of that done by a full hand, a little increased toward the last...Pregnant women at five months are put in the sucklers' gang. No plowing or lifting must be required of them. Sucklers, old, infirm and pregnant receive the same allowances as full-work hands. The regular plantation midwife shall attend all women in confinement. Some other woman learning the art is usually with her during delivery. The confined woman lies up one month, and the midwife ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... in the court-yard of the prison, while without the prison stood the usual armed soldier, about two dozen trucks for the baggage, and the infirm convicts, and on the corner a crowd of relatives and friends of the convicts, waiting for a chance to see the exiles as they emerged from the prison, and, if possible, to have a last few words with them, or deliver some things they had ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... their inheritance. Priests shall be bound, in regard to their wills, by the same law as other people. (16) If a man has sexual intercourse with a woman to whom he is engaged, he shall not be punished, since they are already married in the eye of God. (17) No person who is infirm shall be compelled by priests to make a will. (18) The sacrament shall not be withheld from any one for debt or other reason. The church or priest has a remedy in court. (19) Fines for adultery and fornication ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... IX. Aunt Joyce went with me yesterday to see Isaac. We found him of the chimney-corner, whence he seldom stirreth, being now infirm. Old Mary had but then made an end of her washing, and she was a-folding the clean raiment to put by. I ran into the garden and gathered sprigs of rosemary, whereof they have ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... soft, lady-like, with a sweet dash of quiet pleasant humour,—a girl who certainly need not be left begging about the world for a husband. And this life at Dunripple was pleasant enough. Though the two elder Marrables were old and infirm, Walter was allowed to do just as he pleased in the house. He was encouraged to hunt. There was shooting for him if he wished it. Even the servants about the place, the gamekeeper, the groom, and the old butler, seemed to have recognised him as the heir. There would have been so comfortable ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... the herb-doctor, with some dignity and more feeling, "now that our infirm friend is withdrawn, allow me, to the full, to express my concern at the words you allowed to escape you in his hearing. Some of those words, if I err not, besides being calculated to beget deplorable distrust in the patient, ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... Wealth the vine, Stanch and strong the tendrils twine; Through the frail ringlets thee deceive, None from its stock that vine can reave. Fear not, then, thou child infirm, There's no god dare wrong a worm. Laurel crowns cleave to deserts, And power to him who power exerts; Hast not thy share? On winged feet, Lo! it rushes thee to meet; And all that Nature made thy own, Floating in air or pent in stone, Will rive the hills and swim the ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... beg pardon, sah, Massa Edard," and the old man, now growing quite infirm from age, hobbled away talking to himself. "Sure nuff, you ole fool, Joe, might 'a knowed you shouldn't tole no such tings ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... spite of the fact that I had been robbed of my rightful heritage, he was proud that he had a Pennington for a grandson. Thus I am sure that it was his will that I should have the Barton for my own. But during the last few years he had been very feeble and infirm, and thus in the hands of a clever lawyer he could easily be deceived ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... note of my visit to Les Baux. I must have gone to sleep as soon as I had recorded this necessity, for I search my small diary in vain for any account of that enchanting spot. I have nothing but my memory to consult—a memory which is fairly good in regard to a general impression, but is terribly infirm in the matter of details and items. We knew in advance, my companion and I, that Les Baux was a pearl of picturesqueness; for had we not read as much in the handbook of Murray, who has the testimony of an English nobleman as to its attractions? We also knew that it lay ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... death, in his absence, at the Assizes Court of La Drome, for having murdered five people, and was cast off by his own faction. For some time his wife, who was infirm and deformed, might be seen going from house to house asking alms for him, who had been for two months the arbiter of civil war and assassination. Then came a day when she ceased her quest, and was seen sitting, her head covered by a black ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... leaving their own wives under our protection while they carried on their campaign against us. At the very instant that Kruger was falsely stating at Marseilles that we were making war on women and children, his own infirm wife was being so sedulously guarded by British soldiers that the passer-by was not even allowed to stare curiously at the windows or to photograph ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... which all the other solitaries of those parts exercised, though of a tender constitution himself. The fervor of his soul, and the fire of divine love, supported him under his incredible labors {445} though his body was weak and infirm. It is sloth that makes us so often allege a pretended weakness of constitution, in the practice of penance and the exercises of devotion, which courage and fervor would not even feel. See Theodoret, Phil. c. 22, t. 3, p. 868, and ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... Cocke, Miss Mary, etc., etc. Tell Agnes, if she thinks Sallie is IN EXTREMIS, to go to her. I do not want her to pass away, but it is a great disappointment to me not to have her with me. I am getting very old and infirm now, and she had better come to her papa and take ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... know the value of existence and who labor for the glory of God and of the truth. Till then we are but babblers and chatterers, spendthrifts of our time, our faculties and our gifts, without aim, without real joy—weak, infirm, and useless beings, of no account in the scheme of things. Perhaps it is through love that I shall find my way back to faith, to religion, to energy, to concentration. It seems to me, at least, that if I could but find my work-fellow and my destined companion, ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Christian, anointed with sacramental oil, and according to the pontifical rubric it is also to be sanctified, in the interior of its chalice, by a bishop, in seven cruciform unctions with the oil of the infirm that it may send to the dying the message which shall sustain them in their ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... to the footlights, to make the (then standing) pit recoil several feet, by the mere magic of her eyes, the pit, who enjoyed the terror as a luxury, flung crowns to her, and wept at the thought of losing her; but Clairon infirm was Clairon forgotten, and to a decaying actor or actress a French audience is the most merciless in the world. The brightest and best of them, as with us, died in the service of the public. Monfleury, Mondory, and Bricourt ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... the Carmelite convent; this had thoroughly aroused the abbe's suspicions, in spite of his first enthusiasm at the penitence of the sinner. The Carmelites had persecuted him in his youth, and in the end the prior had driven him to secularize himself. The prior was still alive, old but implacable; infirm, and withdrawn from the world, but strong in his hatred, and his passion for intrigue. The abbe could not hear his name without shuddering, and he begged me to ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... Observation. Persons who are infirm, and whose vital powers are feeble, in general, accustom themselves to an undue amount of clothing and warm rooms. A more judicious practice would be, to exercise more and use a moderate amount of clothing, together with ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... boys from 12 to 18 years of age, and sickly and infirm Negro men, five dollars per month, one ration, and ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... ready to return to England. August 3, 1680, he read to the Council an order from the King granting him permission to leave the colony, and a few days later he set sail in The James.[909] The government was again left in the hands of the infirm Chicheley.[910] ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... after Irij had declared that in this extremity he was anxious to do whatever his father might advise, Feridun continued: "My son, thou art unable to resist the invasion of even one brother; it will, therefore, be impossible for thee to oppose both. I am now aged and infirm, and my only wish is to pass the remainder of my days in retirement and repose. Better, then, will it be for thee to pursue the path of peace and friendship, and like me throw ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... house, and turned into the field path to avoid the dust, Etty said, "I do not know whether you care much about it, but you have given pleasure to these good old people, who have but little variety in their daily routine, being poor, and infirm, and lonely. It is really a duty to cheer them up, if we can." I felt that it warmed my heart to have shared that duty with her, and I said so. I thought she looked doubtful and surprised. It was a good opening for egotism, ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... Quebec, with the knowledge and approbation of the said Jonathan Sewell; that Jonathan Sewell had advised the arrest of Messrs. Bedard, Blanchet and Taschereau, upon an unfounded pretext; that Jonathan Sewell had instigated the oppression of the old and infirm Francois Corbeil, by which the old man lost his life; that Jonathan Sewell had instigated Sir James Henry Craig to issue a proclamation causing the public to believe that Mr. Bedard had been guilty of treason, and that the province was in a state approaching to open rebellion; that ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... to see, in the person of this king, the same infirm and emaciated old man, that came on board the Resolution when we were off the north-east side of the island of Mowee; and we soon discovered amongst his attendants, most of the persons who at that time had remained with us all night. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr |
