"Miserable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a blank, as far as most achievements were concerned, and, had the miserable queen obtained her wishes, the ships of England, and all the English hold dear, would have been handed over to the tender mercies of ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... you direct," the baronet explained. "I tell you candidly what way I discovered my son to be mixed up in this miserable affair. I promise you indemnity for your loss, and an apology that shall, I trust, satisfy your feelings, assuring you that to tamper with witnesses is not the province of a Feverel. All I ask of you in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... period their only food was fish, and occasionally merely shellfish; but never was this miserable fare partaken of by the emigrants, who assembled to receive their respective portions, without a blessing being asked, and thanks being offered by the pious Brewster, who, with a spirit of gratitude too often unknown to those who revel in abundance, praised God for ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... recommended Chessington. I begged and implored not to be sent away, but Mother said the doctor was quite right, and that I was far too grown-up for my age, and an only child ought to have young companions, so I must certainly go to school at once. I was absolutely miserable my first term. I'm a little more used to it now, but I begin to count the days to the holidays directly I get back to St. Chad's. There are still eight weeks before ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... had in the essay called "Omar and the Sacred Vine" attacked the evil of pessimistic drinking. A man should never drink because he is miserable, he will be wise to avoid drink as a medicine for, health being a normal thing, he will tend in search of it to drink too much. But no man expects pleasure all the time, so if he drinks for pleasure the danger of excess ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... The miserable condition of our troops, the season of the year, the almost total lack of means of transportation for supplies and of a pontoon bridge to cross the river, rendered any considerable movement on our part impossible. But to relieve ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... a cowardly one—that he would sell out, or rather give up his estate to his cousin, take his mother, and turn his back upon the village altogether. He knew what he had to expect. He tasted well in advance the miserable and half ludicrous shame of a man who has been openly jilted by a woman. He tasted, too, the covertly whispered suspicion which had perhaps never quite departed, and which now was surely raised to new life by Dorothy's loud cries of accusation. He knew that he was ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... demand for this class of literature is the most pregnant evidence of the miserable effects of misapplied education and defective instruction that could well be brought forward. But it is by no means confined to the uncultured masses who have been driven through the standards of an elementary school. Thousands who have been put ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... which is an air with variations. Everything now seems melancholy and monotonous. We have been tossed about during four days in sight of Vera Cruz, and are now further from it than before. The officers begin to look miserable; even the cook with difficulty ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... immediate necessities. Even his credit was not bettered by bills at long periods; he does not pretend that he raised any money upon them; nor is it conceivable that a banker at Benares would be more willing to honor the drafts of so miserable, undone, and dependent a person as the Nabob of Oude than those of the Governor-General of Bengal, which might be paid either on the receipt of the Benares revenue, or at the seat of his power, and of the Company's exchequer. Besides, it is ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and Mme. d'Albany were in Florence, safe; but established in a miserable inn, without their furniture, their horses, their books; all left in Paris; nay, almost without the necessary clothes, and with very little money. From the dirty inn they migrated into rather unseemly furnished lodgings, and finally, after some debating about ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... casts his eyes he is confronted with a mass of largely preventable and even curable suffering. The fortunate people in Britain are more happy than any other equally numerous class have been in the whole history of the world. I believe the left-out millions are more miserable. Our vanguard enjoys all the delights of all the ages. Our rearguard straggles out into conditions which are crueller than barbarism. The unemployed artisan, the casual labourer, and the casual labourer's wife and ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... lighting a fire, but Vetch, who, by tacit consent, had been chosen leader of the expedition, forbade it, saying that the light might betray them. "They'll think we're drowned, and won't pursue us," he said. So all that night the miserable wretches ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... no longer an effect. Regulus offers us an example of the first kind, when, to keep his word, he gives himself up to the vengeance of the Carthaginians; and he would serve as an example of the second class, if, having betrayed his trust, the consciousness of this crime would have made him miserable. In both cases suffering has a moral course, but with this difference, that on the one part Regulus shows us its moral character, and that, on the other, he only shows us that he was made to have such a character. In the first case ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... The street consisted of some scattered houses, which, separated by large vegetable gardens, plainly indicated the occupation of the inhabitants and the origin of the name Gardener's Lane. I was wondering in which of these miserable huts my odd friend might live. I had completely forgotten the number; moreover it was impossible to make out any signs in the darkness. At that moment a man carrying a heavy load of vegetables passed me. "The old fellow is scraping his fiddle again," he grumbled, "and disturbing ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... of her own guilt; a faltering accent on her late menacing tongue, and uplifted handkerchief, "I see she will be my lady: and then I know how it will go with me!"—Was not this, my ladies, a triumph of triumphs to the late miserable, now exalted, Pamela!—could I do less than pardon her? And having declared that I did so, was I not to shew the sincerity of ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... Emperor's progress, strength, and weakness. The six hundred thousand armed Frenchmen were used up, and the whole fabric falls; the six hundred thousand are reduced to sixty thousand, and straightway all the rest of the fine imperial scheme vanishes: the miserable senate, so crawling and abject but now, becomes of a sudden endowed with a wondrous independence; the miserable sham nobles, sham empress, sham kings, dukes, princes, chamberlains, pack up their plumes and embroideries, pounce upon what money and plate they can lay their hands on, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... understand the situation—at least I imagined that the nearer I came to a proposal the more she seemed to expect it. It was certainly a very critical and important epoch in my life. If I spoke I should make myself happy or miserable forever; and if I did not speak I had every reason to believe that the lady would not give me another chance to ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... make it up at the last. All went well with me in the morning, but in the afternoon I was so worn out and so tired and dull that I could not command myself to say what I really knew. Of course I made a miserable failure. I was afraid to meet my father and ashamed to see your face when I had come out so badly. I did the worst thing I could do. I added wrong to wrong, not thinking of all the worry and trouble I was making. I was quite desperate when I met ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker
... yours. There are thousands of miserable women who would ask for no greater blessing than to change places ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... indiscriminately used towards both gentle and simple in some gloomy underground places in this said Tower. I have heard of a Sworn Tormentor and his assistants, whose fiendish task it was to torture poor creatures' souls out of their miserable bodies, and of a Chirurgeon who had to watch lest the agonies used upon 'em should be too much for human endurance, and so, putting 'em out of their misery, rob the headsman of his due, the scaffold of its prey, and the vile mobile that congregate at public executions of their raree show. ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... the mud. The lady puts her umbrella so low that the rain is kept from the child, but it falls upon her own gay clothes. The little girl must be that lady's daughter. But see! they stop at the door of yonder miserable-looking house. The lady cannot live there, surely. She gives the child a little book. The little girl enters alone. I see her now in the house. She is the daughter of the poor, ...
— The Pedler of Dust Sticks • Eliza Lee Follen
... in utter distraction. What did it mean? Had she failed him again? Or was it simply that she had changed the city of refuge from Paris to Homburg? He was about to name the new station to the cabman, but then, 'letter follows'. Surely that meant that he was to wait for it. Perplexed and miserable, he stood with the telegram crumpled up in his fist. What a ridiculous situation! He had wrought himself up to the point of breaking with the world and his past, and now—it only remained to satisfy ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... To master his passion were henceforth a thing impossible: as well counsel the empurpled waves which Poseidon lifts with his trident to lie tranquilly in their bed of sand and cease to foam upon the rocks of the shore. Gyges was no longer master of himself, and he felt a miserable despair, as of a man riding in a chariot, who finds his terrified and uncontrollable horses rushing with all the speed of a furious gallop toward some rock-bristling precipice. A hundred thousand projects, each wilder than the last, whirled confusedly through ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... the resting-place of Dafydd Ab Gwilym! After wandering for some miles towards the south over a bleak moory country I came to a place called Fair Rhos, a miserable village, consisting of a few half-ruined cottages, situated on the top of a hill. From the hill I looked down on a wide valley of a russet colour, along which a river ran towards the south. The whole scene was cheerless. Sullen hills were all around. Descending the hill ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... pilgrimage. After they had been thus exhibited to the public, they stopped at a wooden shed, where they were to rest before taking their final departure. There were about fifty of them, old men and youths, and even women, some of them young, poor creatures, looking miserable, heart-broken, ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... quite by surprise. "By all means accept the place; don't remain in the government service a day longer than you have to. A scientific man here has no future before him, and the quicker he can get away the better." Then he began to descant on our miserable "politics" which brought about such a ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... of our stage, therefore, exhibits, in its miserable wealth, a motley assemblage of chivalrous pieces, family pictures, and sentimental dramas, which are occasionally, though seldom, varied by works in a grander and higher style by Shakspeare and Schiller. In this state of things, translations ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... confidence to try the effect of a sally from every quarter, while they had any strength remaining. In the many encounters which followed, their cavalry were generally successful, but their infantry were beaten: however, it was by no means so joyful to conquer, as it was miserable to be worsted in any respect by a besieged and almost subdued enemy. A plan was at length adopted, by which their deficiency in strength might be compensated by stratagem. Young men were selected from all the legions, who, from the vigour and activity of their bodies, excelled in swiftness; ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... indignation against the visitor, but his lack of physical strength seemed to crowd upon him just at that moment. He sank upon the lounge again, and with his face against Mrs. Anderson's arm, said: "Thank you, motherette, for fighting for me. Perhaps even with all this miserable ill-health of mine I can ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... wretched Judas before the tree. He tears off his girdle, "a snake," he calls it, and places it about his neck, snapping off a branch of the tree in his haste to fasten it. "Here, accursed life, I end thee; let the most miserable of all fruit hang upon this tree." In the action we feel that Judas is not so much wicked as weak. He has little faith and little imagination, and his folly of avarice hurries him into betrayal. Those who see the play feel as the actors feel, ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... all, in the remarkable game that I saw Silver now engaged upon—keeping the mutineers together with one hand and grasping with the other after every means, possible and impossible, to make his peace and save his miserable life. He himself slept peacefully and snored aloud, yet my heart was sore for him, wicked as he was, to think on the dark perils that environed and the shameful gibbet ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... old age," says Cicero, "I find four causes why it is thought miserable: one, that it calls us away from the transaction of affairs; the second, that it renders the body more feeble; the third, that it deprives us of almost all pleasures; the fourth, that it is not very far from death. Of these causes let us ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... literature—unlike Homer, according to Mr Moore, he never nods, though in the light of great literature, poor Stevenson is always at his noddings, and more than that, in the words of Leland's Hans Breitmann, he has "nodings on." He is poor, naked, miserable—a mere pretender—and has no share in the makings of great literature. Mr Moore has stripped him to the skin, and leaves him to the mercy of rain and storm, like Lear, though Lear had a solid ground to go on in self-aid, which ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... Lady rapped out sharply, with clear conviction. 'The miserable boy! Why on earth hasn't he been ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... lips; "I tell you, I hate holidays. The shops look merry, do they, with their bright toys and their green branches? The pantomime is crowded with merry hearts, is it? The circus and the show are brimful of fun and laughter, are they? Well, they all make me miserable. I haven't any pretty-faced girls or bright-eyed boys to take to the circus or the show, and all the nice girls and fine boys of my acquaintance have their uncles or their grand-dads or their cousins to take them to those places; so, ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... generally been very severe contests, and in Yorkshire, with nearly twice the constituency that there was at the last election, John Wortley was within a few hundreds of his opponents, when on the former occasion he was in a miserable minority. ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... which all bore the stamp of falsehood, he requested me to send him by return of post the sum of 60,000 francs on account of what I had promised him for some business he executed in England by the direction of M. de Talleyrand, General Rapp, and myself. Such miserable wretches are often caught in the snares they spread for others. This was the case in the present instance, for the fellow had committed, the blunder of fixing upon the year 1802 as the period of this pretended business ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the names of places in Orkney and Zetland are Norse, and bear descriptive and applicable meanings in that tongue; but hesitate to extend these names beyond the Norwegian colonisation, and to connect them with the Picts or other earlier inhabitants. No argument can be founded on the rude and miserable subterraneous buildings called Picts' houses, which, if they ever were habitations, or anything else than places of refuge, must have belonged to a people in a very low grade of civilisation. Be this as it may, Orkney and Zetland remained under the Norwegian dominion from the time of Harold Harfager ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 182, April 23, 1853 • Various
... smiled, well understanding whither the lady looked for her ideal Pope. She went on to speak of the part Vigilius had played in the deposition and miserable death of his predecessor Silverius, and that, as was too well known, at the bidding of haughty, unscrupulous women, the Empress Theodora and her friend Antonina, wife of Belisarius. Verily, the time had come for a ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... On the same principle a row of fixed holes, quite close together, let in to the cells by pipes what was alleged to be the freshest air. For these great scientific organizers insisted that a man should be healthy even if he was miserable. They provided a walk long enough to give him exercise and holes large enough to give him oxygen. There their interest in human nature suddenly ceased. It seemed never to have occurred to them that the benefit of exercise ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... punishment being sent upon him by God, who seeth all things. And I give you in charge, that you publicly propose a copy of this epistle through all my kingdom, that the Jews may be permitted peaceably to use their own laws, and that you assist them, that at the same season whereto their miserable estate did belong, they may defend themselves the very same day from unjust violence, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is Adar; for God hath made that day a day of salvation instead of a day of destruction to ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... you. It is very malicious, and evidently the offspring of personal spite, but it is very clever.' Then you go down to your club, and take the thing up with the tongs, when nobody is looking, and make yourself very miserable; or you buy it, going home in the cab, and, having spoilt your appetite for dinner with it, tear it up very small, throw it out of window, and swear you ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... replied Florence; "if it were not for Kitty Sharston this Scholarship would never have been offered. I wish it never had been offered," she continued, with a burst of confidence which she could scarcely repress. "Oh, Miss Keys, I have a great weight on my mind; I am a miserable girl." ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... Guy-Patin made a congress of all the giants and dwarfs in the Germanic Empire. A peculiarity of this congress was that the giants complained to the authorities that the dwarfs teased them in such a manner as to make their lives miserable. ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... over at the corner where his old boon companions were huddled together, the miserable centre of a circle ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... when she retired, offered to escort her home. She thanked him, took his arm, walked slowly with him to the south hall of Bedlam, and there bid him adieu. No one knows just what was talked of on that eventful walk, but it was the last he ever sought with her, and for weeks Bayard was a moody, miserable man. All Laramie swore he had proposed and had been rejected, but no one ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... away about old times, regular confidential, and though she'd great spirits generally, she used to change quite sudden sometimes and say she was a miserable woman, and wished she hadn't been in such a hurry and married as she had. Then she'd crack up Jeanie, and say how true and constant she'd been, and how she was rewarded for it by marrying the only man she ever loved. She used to blame her temper; she'd always had it, she said, and couldn't ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... readers occasioned a profound silence, and they were heard at first with the greatest attention, which continually decreased as they went on, and turned at last into downright horse-laughs and hooting; so miserable did the verses appear. He comforted himself for this disgrace by a victory he gained some time after in the feast of Bacchus at Athens, in which he caused a tragedy of his ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... hundred yards wide, at that hour crowded with horsemen and foot passengers. On one side, the rich quarter stands squarely with its airy and lofty houses, laid out in regular order; on the other, is huddled together the poor quarter, a miserable collection of low hovels of a conical shape, in which a poverty-stricken multitude vegetate rather than live, since Kouka is neither a trading nor a ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... of a Si Kedge, though, for saying that was his bullet, when anybody could see that it came from my rifle? Why, he only pinked the deer in the neck, because I could see the mark. Oh! the thieves, the miserable skunks, to cheat me out of my prize! I'll never, never get over ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... unfortunate lack of coordination of religious agencies in Negro colleges. Frequently we find several organizations attempting to do the same thing and each makes a miserable failure in the attempt. More than that, this lack of coordination and correlation results in duplications which surely mean wasted energy and non-effectiveness. If all of the religious agencies were supervised in such a way that each would know his specific task and would ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... a voice so small that I hardly recognize it for my own, "that I shall not be quite as ill all the way as I was crossing from Calais to Dover; and the steward," continue I, in miserable meditation, "kept telling me all the while what a fine passage we ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... mountain heights. Thrice now does the horned moon fill out her light, while I linger in life among desolate lairs and haunts of wild beasts in the woodland, and from a rock survey the giant Cyclopes and shudder at their cries and echoing feet. The boughs yield a miserable sustenance, berries and stony sloes, and plants torn up by the root feed me. Sweeping all the view, I at last espied this fleet standing in to shore. On it, whatsoever it were, I cast myself; it is enough to have escaped the accursed tribe. Do you rather, by any death you will, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... miserable affair altogether: General Froneman ought to have called his men back when he saw that General Liebenberg had not sent his contingent. I have heard however that Captain Cilliers refused to leave the position until it became no longer tenable. It was hard indeed for ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... in making it a plague to the inventor. It was not till after the Reformation that there was any systematic hunting out of witches in England. Then, no doubt, the innocent charms and rhyming prayers of the old religion were regarded as incantations, and twisted into evidence against miserable beldames who mumbled over in their dotage what they had learned at their mother's knee. It is plain, at least, that this was one of ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... rule the painter closed with him at once, ashamed and humbled at this miserable chaffering, glad also to get a little money now and then. But this time he was obstinate, and took to insulting the picture-dealer, who, giving tit for tat, all at once dropped the formal 'you' to assume the glib 'thou,' denied his talent, overwhelmed him with invective, ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... I met hundreds of families in flight, carrying their few miserable possessions. The spectacle of collapsing carts and fainting women was frequently seen. When one reached the lava stream a stupefying spectacle presented itself. From a point on the mountain between the towns I saw ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... not tormenting myself; but I think yours is a miserable plan. You would have people feel no sympathy for the troubles of others, unless they can be paraded ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... just and faithful in judgment!—Renowned Count of the French, valiant captain of our armies, why did I leave thee here to perish? How can I behold thee dead, and not die myself? Why hast thou left me sorrowful and alone? A poor miserable King! But thou art exalted to the kingdom of heaven, and dost enjoy the company of angels and martyrs. Without cease I shall lament over thee, as David did over Saul and Jonathan, and ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... through the struggle as nominally the superior House, but really the mere ciphers of the Commons; to have had to throw all their aristocratic dignity and all their permissible conservatism at last into the miserable form of partisanship with a despotic Presbyterianism and zeal for the suppression of Sects, Heresies, and Independency:—here was a retrospect for men of rank, men of ambition, men of pride in their pedigrees! And now to have an Army of these Independents, Sectaries, and Heretics, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... calamity he was under, and commanded that he should go out of the city as a polluted person. Hereupon he was so confounded at the sad distemper, and sensible that he was not at liberty to contradict, that he did as he was commanded, and underwent this miserable and terrible punishment for an intention beyond what befitted a man to have, and for that impiety against God which was implied therein. So he abode out of the city for some time, and lived a private life, while his son Jotham took the government; ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... temples, and the scattered fragments of idols. The neglected gardens no longer check the advancing sands, which in some places were drifting over the ramparts. Through its abandoned gateway we almost staggered with weakness, and directed our course to the miserable bazaar. The only meat we could find was pork, that shibboleth between Mohammedanism and Confucianism. The Dungan restaurant-keeper would not cook it, and only after much persuasion consented to have it prepared outside and brought back to be eaten beneath his roof. With better water and more substantial ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... would never have signed these contracts agreeing to give your valuable services to us for such a ridiculously small remuneration. Things are dearer here than in London, you know; you could not live on such miserable pittances. Now I am unfortunately in the unhappy position that whilst here absolutely at the head of affairs and an autocrat, I am at the same time bound to accept these contracts made in London, and ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... part of the dignity of their position to sit down after Court work at two o'clock in the morning to a collation of salmon and roast beef, and drink bumpers of claret and mulled port with the provosts and other local worthies, although they were due in Court that same morning at nine to try some miserable creature for a serious crime. Lord Pitmilly had no stomach for such proceedings, his inclination was stronger for decorum and law than for revelling. Once at a Circuit town he ordered his servant to bring to his room a kettle of hot water. Lord Hermand on his way to dinner ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... must be unhappily mated with such a man as Lord Holme. The passionate desire to console a perfectly-contented woman had caused him to go too far, and bring down upon himself a fiat of exile, which he could not defy since Lady Holme permitted it to go forth, and evidently was not rendered miserable by it. So the acquaintance with Rupert Carey had ceased, and life had slipped along once more on wheels covered with ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... they do certainly exist, it may with propriety be asked, how they are possible?—for that they must be possible is shown by the fact of their really existing.* But as to metaphysics, the miserable progress it has hitherto made, and the fact that of no one system yet brought forward, far as regards its true aim, can it be said that this science really exists, leaves any one at liberty to doubt with reason the very possibility of ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... forgotten, and people from other places began to build houses in the enchanted city. The monkey-prince was always watching for an opportunity to catch a beautiful girl who should break the spell that kept him in his miserable condition. Soon a church was built near the foot of the tree in which he lived. He had already succeeded in capturing two ladies, but they had died of fear. After incalculable suffering and extraordinary patience, the time for ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... interior causes of decline is revolt, or a division into parties, when the party that has the disadvantage generally calls in some neighbour to its aid. This is the most miserable fate that can befal sic a country, and no punishment is sufficiently severe for the men, who have so far lost every sentiment of patriotism as to have ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... the bargain my sister made for me," Jim answered shortly. He had observed the poultry-farm from which the old man had started, with its miserable little hovel of a house and immense spread of chicken-runs, and drawn his own conclusions as to the character of its owner. "You needn't ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... it would be very nice for you and me to go a little journey all by ourselves. You and I. No one else. If it were not such miserable weather we would have gone off on a little impromptu tour. I've been longing for something of the kind for some weeks; but we live such a restricted kind of life here! I declare sometimes I get quite sick of the very sight of the chairs and tables ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... or any one know that she was wretched—maddened—hating herself and the whole world—believing in nothing good, nothing holy—not even in her who spoke. The words, the smile, appeared the mocking hypocrisy of one who had persuaded her to marry, and must ere long know of that hasty marriage the miserable result This thought steeled her heart even against ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... Choir. O let them weep, my God, and groan for fear, The miserable, who will not see The eternal splendour of Thy holy city. But we must chant, to whom Thou dost reveal Thy everlasting light; Of all Thy gifts and ...
— Athaliah • J. Donkersley
... shall speedily become as solemn as ever a fool in the land, as dull as an owl bathing its eyes in the morning sunshine, which—having overslept itself—it takes for the full moon, and dismal enough to satisfy the most ardent advocate of the religious duty of being miserable,—eschewing laughter as we would the tax-gatherer, and refreshing our oppressed spirits alone with serious jokes, and such merriment as may be presented to us under the sanction and recommendation of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... after this marriage had taken place King lost his position at the embassy, and only received in exchange for it a mean government clerkship in Rome at a meagre salary. Thither he removed, and after dragging out a miserable and disappointed existence five years longer, he died in the arms of his beautiful and still young wife. Thereafter the youthful widow managed to keep life in herself and her two little ones by dint of pinching, management ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... mercy!" thought Mave, "how will she live—how can she live here? An' is she to die in this miserable ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... with, everybody ought to buy a pair to kick the legislature with, and they will be found of assistance in kicking the bucket especially if somebody should kick at being kicked. Ten dollars for legs, uppers and soles! while souls, and miserable souls at that, are bringing twenty thousand dollars in Sacramento! Ten dollars! ten dollars! gone at ten dollars! Next is something that you ought to have, gentlemen,—a lot of good gallowses—sometimes called suspenders. ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... is the matter," Joyselle began, speaking very quickly. "I will tell you. It is this. There is in me a god, and I refuse to give him speech. I have genius and I waste it; I have a soul and I am crushing it. I am a most unworthy and miserable being!" ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... feeling: 'Mais il y a des longuers! Oh, mother, the hours we have spent hanging about draughty corridors, half dressed and shivering with cold; and the crowding and crushing, and unlovely faces, all looking so miserable and showing the discomfort and fatigue they were enduring so plainly! I call it positive suffering, and I never want to see another Drawing Room. My soul desires nothing now but decent clothing and hot tea.' And that is all ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... contemplation of the present monetary conditions on the continent of Europe, which constitute fraud and robbery on the most wholesale scale ever practised by governments (with the style and title of democracies!) upon the miserable victims, called citizens, and supposed to be endowed with the blessings ...
— The Paper Moneys of Europe - Their Moral and Economic Significance • Francis W. Hirst
... course of this world." Should we then turn back to it and enjoy its pleasures and ambitions? If we do, we walk in the flesh and then we do not know the joy and peace of the fellowship of His Son, but are joyless and miserable. But if the fact of the fellowship of God's Son is a reality in power, it will keep us from ...
— The Lord of Glory - Meditations on the person, the work and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ • Arno Gaebelein
... wherever she appeared. Her reckless extravagance left her wholly destitute after losing her voice and her husband, Signor Sandoni, a harpsichord-maker. She passed her last years in Bologna, subsisting on a miserable pittance ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... marriage. The real diamonds and the high rank would not be hers with John Morton. She would have to be content with such rank as is accorded to Ministers at the Courts at which they are employed. The fall would be great from what she had once expected,—and therefore she was miserable. There had been a young man, of immense wealth, of great rank, whom at one time she really had fancied that she had loved; but just as she was landing her prey, the prey had been rescued from her by powerful ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... charity but his misery. My friend, seeking the glory of God, discharged the parish of the child, and took him as his own; yet there seemed to be little hopes of doing good upon him, for he was a very monster of wickedness, and a thousand times more miserable and vile by his sin than by his poverty. He was running to hell as fast as he could go, and was old in vice when he was but young in years: we scarcely hear of one so like the devil in his infancy as was this poor child. What ...
— Stories of Boys and Girls Who Loved the Saviour - A Token for Children • John Wesley
... the meadows, however, he was evidently startled at the miserable day's work they ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... life of the unhappy being who seemed to be courting his fate. I pulled the trigger. I could hear the ball strike, but what was my horror to see the animal rush forward, and the next moment trample Hans Scarff beneath his feet. A single shriek escaped the miserable man, and then all was silent. Excited as I was, I did not notice that Harry fired at the second elephant at the same moment. His bullet must have entered the animal's brain, for it sank a helpless ...
— Adventures in Africa - By an African Trader • W.H.G. Kingston
... for betraying the trust reposed in him by Mr. Astor, was made a Partner of the Northwest Company, crossed the mountains, and died a miserable death at Bas de la Riviere, Winipeg. Donald M'Kenzie, his coadjutor, went back to the Columbia River, where he amassed a considerable fortune, with which he retired, and lived in Chautauque County ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... of foxes," he said to Agathe. "In all my days I never saw a man carry things with such a high hand as that soldier; they say war educates young men! Joseph has let himself be fooled. They have shut his mouth with wine, and those miserable pictures, and four thousand francs! Your artist hasn't ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... beauties. Perhaps in all the City churches there is no other object quite so curious as this old nameless mummy. He was once, it may be, Lord Mayor—a good many Lord Mayors have been buried in this church—or, perhaps, he was a Sheriff, and wore a splendid chain; or he may have been the poorest and most miserable wretch of his time. It matters not; he has escaped the dust—he is a mummy. Somehow he contrives to look superior, as if he was conscious of the fact and proud of it; he cannot smile, or nod, or wink, ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... through the girl's heart at these reflections was so sharp that it startled her into a realisation of her own position. Dad was coming home, she was going to live with him once more, and instead of being happy and elated she was miserable—miserable! She was going to leave her aunt's home, with the restrictions and lack of sympathy which had made it so trying, and was once more to live with the fondest and most indulgent of parents, and instead of filling her with delight the news seemed ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... said he; "he must have got a reefer's warrant since I left home. Now, White-Jacket, what's to be done? I have calculated that the store ship may be expected here every day; my brother will then see me—he an officer and I a miserable sailor that any moment may be flogged at the gangway, before his very eyes. Heavens! White-Jacket, what shall I do? Would you run? Do you think there is any chance to desert? I won't see him, by Heaven, with this sailor's frock on, and he with the ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... rang through her voice as she repeated the words. "You do, and yet you are bound to make both of us miserable," ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... grasp the thunder? Well that it has not been given to you, miserable mortals! To crush to pieces the innocent respondent—that is the tyrant-fashion of relieving one's ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... half-frozen slush, so that many, when they took off their shoes, were unable to get their swollen feet into them again, and might be seen barefooted about the camp, the snow half a foot deep on the ground,"—creeping for shelter into "miserable tents pitched as it were at the bottom of a marsh, where twelve or fourteen unhappy creatures lay soaking without change of clothing" until they were called out again to their worse than slave-labor,—disease, brought on by exhaustion, exposure, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... provision too liberal and kind to deserve the stamp of injustice. Either course promises them peace and happiness, whilst an obstinate perseverance in the effort to maintain their possessions independent of the State authority can not fail to render their condition still more helpless and miserable. Such an effort ought, therefore, to be discountenanced by all who sincerely sympathize in the fortunes of this peculiar people, and especially by the political bodies of the Union, as calculated to disturb the harmony of the two Governments and to endanger the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... door, on the other hand, were nervous and miserable, and shifted their positions uneasily now and again. A small fire burned in the middle of ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... sire," said he. "It must happen now and again to all of us. M. le Baron will soon be well. Meanwhile he is—oh, miserable!" ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... Prince Geoffrey, another of the king's sons, came to a miserable end. He was killed in a tournament. He was riding furiously in the tournament in the midst of a great number of other horsemen, when he was unfortunately thrown from his steed, and trodden to death ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... finding none, until seven-thirty, and then made camp by candle-light, in a poor place at that, having trudged thirty-five miles that day. A night-made camp is always an uncomfortable camp, and an uncomfortable camp means a miserable night, which to-morrow must pay for. We did not get to bed till nearly midnight, and it was nine-forty-five when we started out next morning, and we made only fifteen ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... earth A woe more desperate and miserable,— A spectacle wherein the wrath of God Avenges him more terribly. It is A vain, weak people of faint-heart old men, That, for three hundred years of dull repose, Has lain perpetual dreamer, folded in The ragged purple of its ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... thoughtfully. "Sometimes, when I's too happy, I wants to be a little miserable. Then I just tell Sylvie about it, oo know, and Sylvie sets me some lessons. Then it's ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... dress. "Oh, Dorothy, do not leave me," she wailed. "I am so miserable, so unhappy! Throw the apple blossoms out of the window and come back to me. I need someone! Oh, I feel as if I shall die, all ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose
... last night has now been brought out into the open. The poor beast is in a miserable condition, very thin, very weak on the hind legs, and suffering from a most irritating skin affection which is causing its hair to fall out in great quantities. I think a day or so in the open will help matters; one or two of the other ponies under the forecastle ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... They 'ad a miserable day. When the dog got sick o' sitting in a pub 'e made such a noise they 'ad to take 'im out; and when 'e got tired o' walking about he sat down on the pavement and they 'ad to drag 'im along to the nearest pub agin. At five o'clock in the arternoon Ginger Dick was ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... the "chapar distance" will be seven, or seven and a half; the difference between the two is the chapar-jee's modokal; without modokal there is no question but that a Persian would feel himself to be a miserable, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... two years the miserable quarrel continued; Bismarck was now the public and avowed enemy of the Court and the Ministry. Moltke died, and he alone of the great men of the country was absent from the funeral ceremony, but in his very absence he overshadowed all who ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... circulation into his frigid fingers; then, picking up the basket as if to increase the warmth of his body by added effort, he went off beside Henri, Jules marching on the farther side, his teeth still chattering, utterly cold and miserable. However, the sharp walk to the farm made them feel warmer, so that they had almost stopped shivering by the time they reached the yard. From outside the window of that front room, which was still illuminated, ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... understand you rightly?" he continued, coming up and laying his great hand upon my shoulder. "You mean to say that, after all we went through because of that miserable necklace, you've gone and chucked it? Do you know it ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and followed the gesture of the speaker. The mountain rose from the very verge of the town, a ragged mass of sand and rock, with miserable sagebrush clinging here and there, as dull and uninteresting as the dust itself. Then he lowered the hand from beneath which he had peered and faced about with a sigh. "I guess it ain't much good trying that way. But I got to get to Stillwater ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... with the gentlemen of the South. While Mr. Pickens could openly call the resolution of the 18th of January a miserable and contemptible resolution,—while Mr. Thompson could say it was only fit to be burnt by the hands of the hangman, without rebuke or reproof,—I was to be censured by the house for casting ridicule upon them by asking the question whether the ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... behave myself,—only it was said in figures. I'm much obliged to "Quintius" for the advice; but I should like to explain, that I am subject to the toothache, and when it is bad I cannot possibly write comic poetry. I must be miserable, but it's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... beside the blind boy. A large supply of the balyan root lay near them, and a dog so lean as scarcely to be able to stand, drew his feeble body close up beside the two children as if desirous to defend them. They formed indeed a miserable group, exhibiting nevertheless instances of affection and fidelity creditable both to the human and canine species. An old man came up to the fire afterwards with other children. He told us the name of the waterholes between ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... and founding an attachment, not to be surpassed in Greek or Roman story, which subsisted until death? Has that same rival long ceased to care for that same priceless pearl, and married for money, and become usurious? Above all, do we really know, now, that we should probably have been miserable if we had won and worn the pearl, and that we are ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... and say so. He is a great statesman, and at the bottom a patriot. Ordinarily he discharges the duties of a public office with greater ability than any man I know. Mind, I say 'ordinarily,' but he has become irritable, uncomfortable, so that he is never perfectly happy unless he is thoroughly miserable and able to make everybody else just as uncomfortable as he is himself. He is either determined to annoy me, or that I shall pat him on the shoulder and coax him to stay. I don't think I ought to do it. I will not do it. I will take him at his word." So he did. This was at the end of June, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... "Miserable as I was, it was impossible that I should hesitate; I did not know, it is true, what might await me within, but it could not be worse and might well be better than my present plight. The door was open; I stepped in; and no sooner had I crossed the threshold than I was aware of ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... cried, patting the soft arched neck, "eat away, old chap. You needn't be miserable if I am. I can't go and ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... gratitude we owe to the improvement of our reason, to science, and to our accumulated knowledge."[65] As Sir J. Lubbock has well observed: "It is not too much to say that the possible dread of unknown evil hangs like a thick cloud over savage life, and embitters every pleasure. These miserable and indirect consequences of our highest faculties may be compared with the incidental and occasional mistakes of the instincts ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott
... sense of sin was less acute that day, took the public worship, while the Fast-day preacher still lay sick in his closet at home and wrote thus on the ground: 'I am no more worthy to be called Thy son,' he wrote. 'Behold me here, Lord, a poor, miserable sinner, weary of myself, and afraid to look up to Thee. Wilt Thou heal my sores? Wilt Thou take out the stains? Wilt Thou deliver me from the shame? Wilt Thou rescue me from this chain of sin? Cut me not off in the midst of my sins. Let me have ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... issued to the judges to receive no cause brought before them by the clergy; to hear and decide all causes in which they were defendants; to do every man justice against them; to do them justice against nobody.[***] The ecclesiastics soon found themselves in the most miserable situation imaginable. They could not remain in their own houses or convents for want of subsistence; if they went abroad in quest of maintenance, they were dismounted, robbed of their horses and clothes, abused by every ruffian, and no redress could be obtained by them for the most violent injury. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... him," Margaret said to herself with a sharp sting at her heart, for she had to confess sadly that Dick had come to the point where he needed saving. She had learned from Iola the whole miserable story of Barney's visit, of his terrible indictment of his brother and the final break between them, but she had seen little of him during the past six months. From that terrible night Dick had gone down in physical and in moral health. ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... nothing on earth to do with the affair, instead of coming to my assistance, when, as I thought, I really needed it, especially seeing my own father was of the combination against me; for what can be more miserable than to be taken for wiser or better or cleverer than you know perfectly well you are. I looked down the table, straight and sharp at him, thinking to rouse him by the most powerful of silent appeals; and when he opened his mouth very solemnly, staring at ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... a portion of the world, has become adapted to special climates. Wheat imported from India and sown in good wheat soil in England produced the most meagre ears; while wheat taken from France to the West Indian Islands produced either wholly barren spikes or spikes furnished with two or three miserable seeds, while West Indian seed by its side yielded an enormous harvest. The orange was very tender when first introduced into Italy, and continued so as long as it was propagated by grafts, but when trees were raised from seed many of these ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... it rained, and the castaways put in rather a miserable existence. Fortunately, they had carried the food into the tent, where it was protected from the terrific tropical downpour. The rain kept up for three days, and during all that time Mr. Tarbill ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... very disagreeable indeed if she were thwarted. He had had nothing but storming since yesterday morning when Nellie's letter had come, and he had had two half-cooked suppers and a miserable cold breakfast. He did like a good supper, and if this was what it was going to ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... time since; and conversing with Bloomfield he said the same thing; but he was greatly collected, his eyes animated, and full of the subjects he discussed—unfortunately still harping on all the idle and miserable intrigues about the Princess Charlotte. What, however, most struck me, and what I am most anxious to observe to you, was his increased hostility and indignation against the Opposition, and more ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... it means so much to us," said the boy, shaking his head. "Jicksy! And me with such a miserable old name!" ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... was the more solitary from the absence of Edgar, who had always been her chief partner in her pursuits. His departure had seemed like a defection; and yet she had reproached herself for so feeling it when he had run upstairs, on arriving with Mr. Underwood, looking paler, more scared and miserable, than any of them; and he was sobbing so much when he took his place in the procession, that Wilmet had made Felix take Alda, that she might support him. None of his mother's steady reserve and resolute stillness had descended to him, he was all ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was the state of affairs during the Sixteen States of the Five Dynasty-Period and the Ten States of the Five Successions as deplorably miserable and disastrous as the state of affairs now prevailing in Mexico, although there was no election of Presidents then? In quoting objective facts as illustrations the critic should not allow his choice to be dictated ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... the Republicans to carry the state. As I rode through the country I saw for miles and miles luxuriant crops of thousands of acres of wheat, corn, oats and barley. It was said that this was merely a part of the campaign strategy of the Republicans, that really the people were very poor and miserable and on the verge of starvation. This was the burden of the speeches of General Ewing, who attributed the miseries of the people to my "wicked financial policy," and said that I was given over to the clutches of the money ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... generosity, suffering is relieved, and you know that, thanks to the science of your surgeons, this relief is not merely momentary, but that the wounded man who would have remained a cripple if he had been less ably cared for, will be, thanks to you, completely cured, and that, instead of dragging out a miserable existence, he will be able to live a normal life and support a family which will bless you. Such men will owe it all to the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... edge of the bleak shore where the little waves rolled in idly, looking gray and greasy under the fog. He leaned his arms on the sill, but aside from the seal-roar, everything seemed peaceful and the lad was just about to turn away from the window in the feeling of miserable anger that comes from being tired but not able to sleep, when he saw a flash ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... glad, moreover, at finding so many of them there together in fit companionship, mutually recognized and duly honored, all reconciled now, whatever distant generations, whatever personal hostility or other miserable impediment, had divided them far asunder while they lived. I have never felt a similar interest in any other tombstones, nor have I ever been deeply moved by the imaginary presence of other famous dead people. A poet's ghost is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... I wear the garb of a holy friar, I am a sinful man. You imagine you have owned an ass, but it was myself, transformed into this shape for the deadly sin of gluttony, and condemned to do penance by feeding on grass and being beaten and starved by your household. Think of the miserable life I have endured, the windy shed which was my home, and the damp and musty straw which formed my bed; my scanty food was given me grudgingly and I have patiently endured toil and blows. But to-day my penance is at an end and I begin life as ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... don't want to be here, or anywhere," exclaimed Georgy in piteous accents; "I feel so miserable about Charlotte, that if I could lie down and die, it would be a comfort to me. And it really seems a mockery having dinner at such a time. It's just as it was during poor Tom's illness; there were fowls and all sorts of things cooked, and ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon |
