"Pitiable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... six wretched and pitiable efforts to "write down" by a man who had never before made a consistent effort to write at all. Not one of them contained a spark of vitality, and their total yield of grace and felicity was less than that of an average newspaper column. During their ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... interested me as much as its lively neighbour, the Strand, irritated and worried me. An uneasy, shoddy street I thought the Strand, full of insistent tawdriness and of broken-spirited folk whose wretchedness had something in it more despicable than pitiable. Save for its occasional gaping rustics (whom I thought sadly misguided to be there at all) I cordially hated the Strand. But the Embankment I regarded as one of the most romantic thoroughfares in London; and many a score of articles (which ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... pitiable sight, and moving quickly to her side I touched her on the shoulder and asked her ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... little kid up here, been left by her father in one of the settlers' tents. She's the most pitiable little object I ever saw. I think her father is a drunken tough from Shanty Town. She oughtn't to be left up here alone near such a baby-eater as I am. I wish you'd come up and see about her. If you don't come alone, get Mrs. Williams, ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... wealth and hereditary dignity of a nation, and both again controlled by a judicious check from the reason and feeling of the people at large, acting by a suitable and permanent organ? Is it, then, impossible that a man may be found who, without criminal ill intention or pitiable absurdity, shall prefer such a mixed and tempered government to either of the extremes,—and who may repute that nation to be destitute of all wisdom and of all virtue, which, having in its choice to obtain such a government ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... part,' continued Proserpine, 'I make it a rule to support the weaker side, and nothing will ever persuade me that Ixion is not a victim, and a pitiable one.' ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli
... Thou hast created: in Thee abide, fixed for ever, the first causes of all things unabiding; and of all things changeable, the springs abide in Thee unchangeable: and in Thee live the eternal reasons of all things unreasoning and temporal. Say, Lord, to me, Thy suppliant; say, all-pitying, to me, Thy pitiable one; say, did my infancy succeed another age of mine that died before it? was it that which I spent within my mother's womb? for of that I have heard somewhat, and have myself seen women with child? and what before that life again, O God my joy, was I ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... 1830 were the most pitiable through which this country has ever passed. The conscience of the North was pledged to the Missouri Compromise, and that Compromise neither slumbered nor slept. In New England, where the old theocratical oligarchy of the colonies ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... Heaven! a sad and pitiable life! I pray you set the wretched fellow free. How great soever may be his offence, His horrid ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... more eagles—the rest is well known. The Red Man went over to the Bourbons, like the scoundrel that he is. France is crushed; the soldier is nothing; they deprive him of his dues; they discharge him to make room for broken-down nobles—ah, 'tis pitiable! They seized Napoleon by treachery; the English nailed him on a desert island in mid-ocean on a rock raised ten thousand feet above the earth; and there he is, and will be, till the Red Man gives him back his power for the happiness of France. These others say he's ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... loss of much fragmentary clothing in his passage through that tangled wood, but also most of the food with which he had started, and a good deal of skin from his shins, elbows, knuckles, and knees, as well as the greater part of his patience. Truly, he was in a pitiable plight, for the forest had turned out to be almost impassable for horses, and in his journey he had not only fallen off, and been swept out of the saddle by overhanging branches frequently, but had to swim swamps, ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... without her ermine, these in the crowd without their motley and the merry, merry jangling of the bells, and you will find how slender are the muscles that the armour lays bare, how shrivelled the breast that the ermine strips, how dragged and weary is that pitiable, naked figure which a few moments before was dancing fantastically, grimacing with ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... he realized it and saw this and looked down on that lonely, patient, wistful little creature making the best shift she could with those pitiable playthings, something came up from that man's breast into his throat. He had not supposed he had any of it left in his soul—it was tender, agonizing, ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... soon find satiety; instead of exhilaration, fatigue; instead of contentment, disillusion; instead of satisfaction, dust; instead of romance, the greedy claws of the harpy; and the further we go in response to this glamour the more pitiable our outlook; for the sweets and possibilities of Evil are extraordinarily limited. Can any man devise a new sin? No, but ever pursues the same old round, the same ...
— The Romance of the Soul • Lilian Staveley
... merry, unthinking moth of the lamp. Deprived of his position, and struck by a few of the involved and baffling forces which sometimes play upon man, he would have been as helpless as Carrie—as helpless, as non-understanding, as pitiable, if you will, ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... enjoyment so keen as the satisfaction of a long-cherished grudge. There is an even deeper depravity which hates just in proportion to benefits received; which hates because it is enraged by a high example; which hates even more virulently because the object of its hatred is meek or weak or pitiable. "I have read of a woman who said that she never saw a cripple without longing to throw a stone at him. Do you comprehend what she meant? No? Well, I do." It was a woman ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... home in a pitiable state of cold and exhaustion, but she was much cheered by finding the house in good order, and a warm supper awaiting her, prepared by the hands of the ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... expect it, I can tell you. They're in a pitiable funk, I hear. One regiment is ordered to Uxbridge already, because they daren't trust it. They'll find soldiers are men, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... back on her and lurched around the table on his way out. He stroked blood from his face with his palm, and was glad that she had not recognized him; and yet, her failure to do so, even though he was such a pitiable figure of the man she had known, was one more slash of the whip of anguish across his raw soul. For a moment they had stood there, face to face, and only blank unrecognition greeted him; it made this horrible contretemps seem all the ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... grew into young men, and the young men became greyheaded; no longer did the animals spring out of the earth; as the whole world was now lord of its own progress, so the parts were to be self-created and self-nourished. At first the case of men was very helpless and pitiable; for they were alone among the wild beasts, and had to carry on the struggle for existence without arts or knowledge, and had no food, and did not know how to get any. That was the time when Prometheus brought them fire, Hephaestus and ...
— Statesman • Plato
... pessimism and absolute optimism are opposite sentiments attached to a doctrine identically the same. In either case no improvement is possible, and the authority of human ideals is denied. To escape, to stanch natural wounds, to redeem society and the private soul, are then mistaken and pitiable ambitions, adding to their vanity a certain touch of impiety. One who really believes that the world's work is all providentially directed and that whatever happens, no matter how calamitous or shocking, happens by divine right, has a quietistic ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... 'Is that you, Pietro?' I said; 'you begging here in the streets! what has brought you to this wretched trade?' He gave me, however, no very clear account of himself, but evidently desired to avoid me when he recognized who I was. But, shocked to find him in so pitiable a condition, I pressed my questions, and finally told him I could not bear to see any one who had been in my service reduced to beggary; and though I had no actual need of his services, yet, rather than see him thus, he might return to his old position ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... Heartsick with disgust, Clayton hurried into the lane that wound through the valley. Were these hovels, he asked himself in wonder, the cabins he once thought so poetic, so picturesque? How was it that they suggested now only a pitiable poverty of life? From each, as he passed, came a rough, cordial shout of greeting. Why was he jarred so strangely? Even nature had changed. The mountains seemed stunted, less beautiful. The light, streaming ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... my capacity. Even at an early age, I found that I had not the heart for the fray. Stamped on my narrow forehead, on my whole being, perhaps, so clearly that every unsympathetic boss could understand at once, was the mark of the visionary. My pitiable willingness to work was ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... some unhappy family fell a victim to French bribery and savage cruelty. As for me, though now in comfortable circumstances, with an affectionate and amiable wife, it was not long before I suddenly became the most pitiable of mankind. I can never bear to think of the last time I saw my dear wife, on the fatal 2d of October, 1754. That day she had left home to visit some of her relations, and, no one being in the house but myself, I stayed up later than usual, expecting her return. How ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... many sad pictures in the Satires of Juvenal are more pitiable than that of the wretched "Quirites" struggling at their patrons' doors for the pittance which formed their ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... hear—lest he mark—lest the great Jehovah"—his voice swelling suddenly into loud, piercing tones—"Maker of heaven and earth, Judge of the quick and the dead, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the eternal Godhead from everlasting to everlasting, should know that you, pitiable, crawling worm—that you, corrupt in nature and conceived in sin! child of wrath and of the devil! say that there is no God! Woe, woe! for the Judge cometh! Woe, woe! for the gnashing of teeth and the outer darkness! Woe, woe! ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... highly delighted at finding he had the power of doing something, however little, toward succouring the poor wretches whose pitiable condition was ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... part. If the despairing part of us cries out that it is frightened, wearied, anxious, we must not heed it; we must again and again assure ourselves that the peace is there, and that we miss it by our own fault. Above all let us not make pitiable excuses for ourselves. We must be like the woman in the parable who, when she lost the coin, did not sit down to bewail her ill-luck, but swept the house diligently until she found it. There is no such thing as loss in the world; what we ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... But when the chief seated himself in her vicinity, and fell into one of his fits of abstraction, and the whole party became comparatively still and hushed, the poor girl's suspense was almost insufferable. She knew that human beings were all around her, and yet her situation was truly pitiable and lonely. She felt assured that if the war-party had returned in pursuit of her, the same means which enabled them to trace their victim to the fallen trunk would likewise have sufficed to indicate her hiding-place. Then why should ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... very people sent by the King to take care of them on the way; the King's wakeel having got into his palkee and gone on before them towards the palace. They were beaten with whips, sticks, and the hilts of swords, till one of the four fell down insensible, and the other three were reduced to a pitiable condition. The Resident took measures to protect them from further violence, recalled the wakeel; and, after admonishing him for his dishonourable conduct, had the prisoners taken unfettered to a convenient house near the prison. The wounded minister wrote to ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... picked up on the stairs a little yellowish cat, ugly and pitiable. Now, curled up in a chair at my side, he seems perfectly happy, and as if he wanted nothing more. Far from being wild, nothing will induce him to leave me, and he has followed me from room to room all day. I have nothing at all that is eatable in the house, ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in his fate, Affected by the details of his pitiable state. They waited on the Secretary, somewhere in Whitehall, Who said he would receive them any ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... to my state-room to dress, and found Keene sitting in the main cabin, on one of the sofa lockers, attired only in shirt and trousers, perspiring freely, and in a general state of limpness that was pitiable to behold. ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... themselves prisoners, pleading earnestly at the same time for their captive daughters. The Indians bound them with cords, placed guards over them, and then retired to their camp. The poor girls, roused by the tumult, now saw their parents in this pitiable condition. Here they were, likewise made captives, ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip
... were faint from want of food, and others had heart disease, and fell exhausted in the road, the soldiers prodding them with their bayonets to make them get up! After several hours' detention there, they were brought back to Altheim, where the poor lady arrived a pitiable wreck! What an experience! I have been packed ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson
... deep-sea fisheries. Fish in Australia is nothing more than a high-priced luxury, although projects for the development of the deep-sea fisheries have been repeatedly suggested. Somehow or other we never get beyond this stage, and as a consequence the yield from our fisheries is simply pitiable. A widespread use of fish and an adequate fish supply would give employment to hundreds and to thousands. As I have pointed out in the chapter relating to this subject, the want of enterprise shown in starting our deep-sea fisheries is an ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... at the charity hospital, was suffering greatly, and presented a pitiable spectacle. His clothing was covered with blood, and his face was beaten almost into a pulp. He said that he had gone to the market to work and was quietly sitting down when the mob came and began to fire on him. He was not aware at first that the crowd was after ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... paper money at less than its nominal value, and death upon investors in foreign securities, were powerless. The National Convention, fighting a world in arms and with an armed revolt on its own soil, showed titanic power, but in its struggle to circumvent one simple law of nature its weakness was pitiable. The louis d'or stood in the market as a monitor, noting each day, with unerring fidelity, the decline in value of the assignat; a monitor not to be bribed, not to be scared. As well might the National Convention try to ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White
... inside the door, not a step farther could he bring himself to advance, and from the furtive glances which he ever and anon cast through the doorway, it was very evident that he would make his escape if he dared. Even Charles and Anna drew back from the pitiable object which met their sight. The light streaming through the window fell on a low pallet, on which, covered with a sheet, lay the form of Mountain Moggy. By her side sat Jenny Davis, whom William recognised as her champion ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston
... surged again in Aja's soul, saying within himself: Out on this pitiable old scarecrow of a King, whose only thought is dancing! the King turned, and stood aside. And Aja looked, and instantly, the laughter died out of his heart, which ceased as it were to beat. And he murmured to himself: ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain
... hundreds wounded, and thousands ran howling into the woods. The Latin- grammar master had a spare night-cap lent him, and a long-tail coat, which he wore hind side before. He presented a ludicrous though pitiable appearance, ...
— Holiday Romance • Charles Dickens
... it sometimes lasts all day—nothing can distract his melancholy. He refuses to eat, does not even read the newspapers; books, except as projectiles for Watkins, have no charms for him. His state is truly pitiable. ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... need—so much so that we have not been able to pay this year the president, auditors, archbishop, bishops, prebendaries, or ministers of instruction and justice, not having the means to pay them. Most pitiable of all has been the plight of the soldiers, who are suffering the utmost extremity, without there being any resources with which to aid them. All this has been caused by the excessive cost of the galleys, and the great expenses incurred ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... of six kilometers from Binche, we came on the first proof of seeming wantonness we encountered that day. An old woman sat in a doorway of what had been a wayside wine shop, guarding the pitiable ruin of her stock and fixtures. All about her on the floor was a litter of foul straw, muddied by many feet and stained with spilled drink. The stench from a bloated dead cavalry horse across the road poisoned the air. The ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... of dollars and cents, where other boys are men, and men forget that they ever were young! But this, you say, is all sentimental nonsense. Of course it is. I admit the full folly of such thoughts. It would be a pitiable spectacle indeed to see every body inspired by the vagabond spirit of Robinson Crusoe. No doubt, if you were sitting upon a rock on the Gulf of Finland, my respected Californian friend, you would be hammering off the croppings and trying to discover the indications. ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... helplessness. Then they all came and showed him their gifts. While he examined them Mr. and Mrs. Bilton carefully averted their eyes and gazed hard at the opposite wall, while Cora Cordelia urged him, in stage whispers, not to let them suspect. It was pitiable the state to which he was reduced. Of course resisting this Christmas enthusiasm was out of the question. To be sure it came over him once with startling force, as she showed him a toy water-wheel, that went by sand,—which she had purchased for her ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... sign of the cross.. He! it was he, slipping along by the wall on the other side of the paved road... At first she thought it an hallucinating apparition... No, Tartarin himself, in flesh and blood, only paler, pitiable, ragged, was creeping along that wall like a beggar or a thief. But in order to explain his furtive presence in Tarascon, it is necessary to return to the Mont Blanc and the Dome du Gouter at the precise ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... you're perfectly right, ma'am," quoth the imperturbable Frank. "But as I was saying, this is a pitiable business, this about poor Archie; and you and I might do worse than put our heads together, like a couple of sensible people, and bring it to an end. Let me tell you, ma'am, that Archie is really quite ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the time of Napoleon the First. Neither do we sympathise with the famous saying of Nelson that "one Englishman is equal to three Frenchmen!" The tendency to praise one's-self has always been regarded among Christian nations as a despicable, or at least a pitiable, quality, and we confess that we cannot see much difference between a boastful man and a boastful nation. Frenchmen have always displayed chivalrous courage, not a whit inferior to the British, and ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... intellect in every form: and we should be grateful to any school of philosophers, even if we disagree with them; doubly grateful in this country, where for so long a period our statesmen were in so pitiable an arrear of public intelligence. There has been an attempt to reconstruct society on a basis of material motives and calculations. It has failed. It must ultimately have failed under any circumstances; its failure in an ancient and densely-peopled kingdom ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... doubtful character showed every symptom of confiding her case to him in the near future. Indeed it was made quite obvious to him that the two or three hours between dinner and bed contained an amount of unhappiness, which was really pitiable, so many people had not succeeded ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... sobbed, and held his hands suspended from the wrists, a most pitiable object. "Ah! you old ruffian!" soliloquized the tearful pupil, "won't my father give ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... admits that prior to her marriage with the deceased soldier she had married another man whom she could only say she believed to be dead, I believe her case to be a pitiable one and wish that I could join in her relief; but, unfortunately, official duty can not always be well done when directed ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... to be coming along at the moment. Hearing the laugh, and seeing the pitiable object of it, he flew into a rage, sprang at Desmond, and ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... with similar terrible application and results. Professors encouraged, friends applauded, we wondered at and admired him. We did not envy him, however, for he became, as I commenced by saying, a pitiable wreck. Look at him as he ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... low bow and was turning away when Lancelot Vane suddenly appeared. His face was very pallid and he clutched the door to steady himself. What with his evident weakness and his bandaged head he presented rather a pitiable picture. ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... of the Revolution, when there was fighting in the very courtyard of the factory, so pitiable an inventory never had been seen in the Fromont establishment. Receipts and expenditures balanced each other. The general expense account had eaten up everything, and, furthermore, Fromont Jeune was indebted to ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... who prospers on to ease and fortune, forgetful or ignorant of the ruin on which his success is built. For that death the resurrection and the life seem not to be. Whatever his creed or his religious profession, his state is more pitiable than that of the sceptic, whose words perhaps deny Christ, but whose works affirm Him. There has been much anxiety in the Church for the future of the world abandoned to the godlessness of science, but I cannot share it. If God is, nothing exists but from Him. He directs the very reason ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... answers to his assailants. It is a pity that he has no kind friend to suggest to him that he had better not bandy words with the Examiner. His plea about the "printer" was too ludicrous, and his second note is pitiable. I only regret that the names of Ellis and Acton Bell should perforce be mixed up with his proceedings. My sister Anne wishes me to say that should she ever write another work, Mr. Smith will certainly have the ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... found, limp and apparently lifeless, his head tucked under his body, clothes over his head, exposing the larger part of his anatomy—a pitiable lump, lying in the sandy path twenty feet from the well. The handle of the windlass had caught him across the shoulders, sending him flying through the air. For days thereafter "Al-f-u-r-d" was swathed in bandages and bathed with liniments; for a time, ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... not the only requisite in a governor and head to replace the Prince of Orange, nothing came of this motion. Don Antonio remained in Paris, in a pitiable plight, and very much environed by dangers; for the Duke of Guise and his brother had undertaken to deliver him into the hands of Philip the Second, or those of his ministers, before the feast of St. John of the coming year. Fifty thousand dollars were to be the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... bringing the animal back with her, in some mysterious way dangerously ill. According to Minna's account, we could only think that the dog had swallowed some virulent poison spread in the street. His condition was pitiable. Though he showed no marks of outward injury, yet his breathing was so convulsive that we thought his lungs must be seriously damaged. In his first frantic pangs he had bitten Minna violently in the mouth, so that I had sent for a doctor immediately, who, however, soon ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... feared from Mr. Buck's retaliation should he learn that he had been tricked. Besides, she wished, if possible, to go on helping Alston. She doubted, too, if he would receive it well that she had been helping him. Might he not gravely resent it that through her action such a pitiable part in the drama had been forced on him? Then there was something sweet to Little Lizay in suffering all alone for Alston—in having this secret unshared: she respected herself more that she did not risk everything ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... cry to the light, when she saw its pitiable touching little body, her heart melted. In one dazzling moment she knew the glorious joy of motherhood, the mightiest in all the world: in her suffering to have created of her own flesh a living being, a man. And the great wave of love which moves the universe, caught her whole body, dashed her ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... walked heavily about the room as if it were a chamber in a barrack; he talked incessantly; gave all manner of directions; made the unfortunate Queen swallow all manner of foods and drinks because he took it into his head that they would do her good; and she submitted, poor, patient, pitiable creature, and swallowed and vomited, swallowed again and vomited again, and uttered ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... grieved to see him so unhinged. It is a pitiable thing when a man loses his pluck, and the woman must play the part ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... the hour, these votes were immediately communicated to the king, who was in a pitiable condition, aged, nearly blind, half crazed, and stubborn even to insanity, in his determination to subjugate the Americans. The poor old man, in his rage, threatened to abandon England, to renounce the crown, and to cloister himself in his estate of Hanover. He was however compelled ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... my dear little folks, did you ever hear of such a pitiable case in all your lives? Here was literally the richest breakfast that could be set before a king, and its very richness made it absolutely good for nothing. The poorest laborer, sitting down to his crust of bread and ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... of the wildest men; his fate, which was tragical, is now to most readers rather of a ghastly grotesque than of a lamentable and pitiable character. Few know, or have ever considered, in how wild an element poor Peter was born and nursed; what a time he has had, since his fifteenth year especially, when Cousin of Zerbst and he were married. Perhaps the wildest and maddest ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Their condition was pitiable. Unable to speak for himself, he lay raving in his room, talking to Vail and complaining of a white figure that bothered him. The key that Elsa Lee picked up was another clue, and in their attempt to get rid of it I had foiled them. Mrs. Johns, an old friend and, as I have said, ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... descendants of their former owners. I know of a case on a large plantation in the South in which a young white man, the son of the former owner of the estate, has become so reduced in purse and self-control by reason of drink that he is a pitiable creature; and yet, notwithstanding the poverty of the coloured people themselves on this plantation, they have for years supplied this young white man with the necessities of life. One sends him a little coffee or sugar, another a little meat, and so on. Nothing ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington
... in three years, he calculated, the royal revenues might be raised to an average of 60,000,000 reals. The arrival of Bobadilla, however, on August 23, 1500, speedily changed this state of affairs into a greater and more pitiable confusion than the island had ever before witnessed. On landing, he took possession of the Admiral's house, and summoned him and his brothers before him. Accusations of severity, of injustice, of venality even, were poured down ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... pitiable, in the face of the majestic work of John Wesley in Cornwall, to see the shattered ruins of it which remain. When the Wesleys achieved their notable revival and swept off the dust of a dead Anglicanism which covered religious Cornwall like a pall ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... compelled to remain continent for about seven months, during which time he met no woman kindly disposed towards him; and he declared before the judge that that had caused the greatest astonishment of his long and honourable life. In this most pitiable state he saw in the fields during the merry month of May a girl, who by chance was a maiden, and minding cows. The heat was so excessive that this cowherdess had stretched herself beneath the shadow of a beech ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... home of his own free will, leaving his affairs in a pitiable condition. Madame de la Chanterie is, even to this day, amazed at the catastrophe, which no human foresight could have prevented. The persons she prudently consulted before the marriage had assured her that the suitor's ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... has now declared with no uncertain voice that she intends to fight under the British Flag, and the KAISER'S vexation on realising that the money spent on a certain famous telegram was sheer waste is said to have been pitiable. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 26th, 1914 • Various
... the two men were standing, Jean was somewhat afraid lest they might be slashers. This fear, however, was at once removed when she beheld their pitiable condition. Their clothes were in tatters, and their bearded faces were drawn and haggard. They stared at her with eyes from which all hope had fled, and so weak did they seem that they could hardly stand. Their backs were bent as if through age, and they ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... innumerable multitude of people who can do nothing of the kind, and who take no real interest in anything except spending money and gossiping, are to be really pitied, is true. Some of them once had minds—and these are the most pitiful or pitiable of all. It is to be regretted that novels are, with rare exceptions, written to amuse this class, and limit themselves strictly to "life," never describing with real skill, so as to interest anything which would make life worth living for—except love—which is good to ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... pillar and scourged; in which the expression of pure divinity and suffering humanity is finely blended, and well contrasted with savage cruelty in the countenances of his executioners. But most of these paintings are neglected, and so falling to decay that it is pitiable to ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... stern and unsympathetic; and here again Maupassant was the disciple of Flaubert. His manner was not only unemotional at first, it was icily impassive. These first stories of his were cold and they were contemptuous;—at least they made the reader feel that the author heartily despised the pitiable and pitiful creatures he was depicting. They dealt mainly with the externals of life,—with outward actions; and the internal motives of the several actors were not always adequately implied. But in time the mind came to interest Maupassant as much as the body. In the ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... and distressing was the condition of the besieged. While the garrison soldiers on guard were constantly compelled to face death in nocturnal sallies, or led a pitiable existence in damp huts, having inevitable surrender constantly before their eyes, and disarmament and imprisonment as the reward of all their struggles and exertions, the citizens in the towns, the women and children, were in constant danger of being shivered ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... assegai, tasted very good, the Zulu put his head into the mouth of the shelter and asked if we were ready. I nodded, and, supporting each other, Scowl and I limped from the place. Outside were about fifty soldiers, who greeted us with a shout that, although it was mixed with laughter at our pitiable appearance, struck me as not altogether unfriendly. Amongst these men was my horse, which stood with its head hanging down, looking very depressed. I was helped on to its back, and, Scowl clinging to the stirrup leather, ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... surfeited and sick of everything, and soon wearied of even the most wanton imaginary pleasures: they had always to go one better—better than the rest, better than their own best—and they squeezed out their very life-blood, they squeezed out their guts: it was a pitiable ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... cry, and advanced toward the man who bore the cripple in his arms. He was a pitiable sight, for most of his beard and hair had been scorched, and in places doubtless he had received burns more or less serious; but he paid no ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... Marche paid me great compliments on this exploit. I had hoped that he would be jealous; he did not even appear to dream of it, but rather made merry over the pitiable state of his toilet. The day was excessively hot, and we were quite dry before the end of the walk. Edmee, however, remained sad and pensive. It seemed to me that she was making an effort to show me as much friendship as at luncheon. This affected me considerably; for I was not only ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... getting the harness of words on to its back. There had been hours in his youth when all the unsolved riddles, the untasted joys, the great possibilities of even a common existence like his, so pressed upon him, that the shortness of the longest life of man seemed the most pitiable thing about it. But when he took tea with Vrow Schmidt and her daughters, and supper-time would not come, Peter Paul thought of the penance of the Wandering Jew, and ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... heard her; his being was possessed by the pitiable image of Hannah dying alone and dog poor. He had always pictured her—except in the fleet vision of debasement—as young and graceful and disturbing. Without further speech he left the kitchen and crossed the house to the shut parlor. ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... for leave To see the world outside these palace walls. Not without difficulty did I gain Permission, and with Channa in a chariot I drove away—when suddenly before me I saw a sight I'd never seen before. There was a man with wrinkled face, bleared eyes, And stooping gait, a sight most pitiable. ...
— The Buddha - A Drama in Five Acts and Four Interludes • Paul Carus
... from Beauvais to Treport, without success; they had sought him at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where he was said to be hidden, at Saint-Denis-de-Monts, at Saint-Romain, at Rouen. The prefects of Eure and Seine-Inferieure were ordered to set all their police on his track. The result of this campaign was pitiable, and they only succeeded in arresting d'Ache's younger brother, an inoffensive fellow of feeble mind, appropriately named "Placide," who was nicknamed "Tourlour," on account of his lack of wit and his rotundity. His greatest fear was of being mistaken for his ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... street, standing guard while his artful brother entered and ransacked the store whose awning now afforded him a comfortable refuge? And how was he to know that Ernie had glared out upon their tender love scene with eyes in which there was the most pitiable jealousy, the most implacable hatred? Dick Cronk, however, knew that his brother was over there and that he must have seen these two together in the flashes. Moreover, he knew that Ernie had been carrying ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... in pitiable plight. His armour was gone. His doublet had been half stripped from off his back. He was bleeding from more than one wound, and in his eyes was a fixed and glassy stare, like that of one walking in sleep. His face was ghastly pale, ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Baxter told a good deal more about himself—how he had been knocking around in all sorts of questionable places and how the dissipation had grown very distasteful to him. It had certainly ruined his health, and his eyes had a hollow, feverish look in them that made his appearance rather pitiable. ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... comparison. The pathetic ignominy of the village male is complete on Sunday afternoon, on his great day of liberation, when he is accompanied home, drunk but sinister, by the erect, unswerving, slightly cowed woman. His drunken terrorizing is only pitiable, she is so obviously the more ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... her surreptitiously; and Lucius turned his face upon his mother's, almost with an air of triumph. But she bore it all without flinching;—bore it all without flinching, though the state of her mind at that moment must have been pitiable. And Mrs. Orme, who held her hand all the while, knew that it was so. The hand which rested in hers was twitched as it were convulsively, but the culprit gave no outward sign of ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... thoroughly alarmed for the safety of his wife's little favourites, not knowing what mishap might have overtaken them. As for nurse, her state of mind was pitiable. She alone had been left in charge of the children, and she only was responsible to the Misses Turner for their safety. And what would Captain Dene say—her master, whom she had solemnly promised to take good care of his motherless children? ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... him in such a pitiable way that I was sorry the moment I handed him my card. He took it so differently from what I had expected. When he raved about dying and nothing to live for, I was at my wit's end. Finally, just after ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... got into such a pitiable funk that I was afraid lest out of sheer nervousness his finger might press home the trigger any minute. The chances were big against his hitting me, but I knew that the report would bring spectators, and those I most particularly didn't want. Still, I could not see ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... upward with a pitiable smile. "No, it is you whom I love, my Etienne. You cannot understand how at this very moment every fibre of me—heart, soul, and body—may be longing just to comfort you, and to give you all which you desire, my Etienne, and to make you happy, my handsome Etienne, at however ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... Ulysses, ever-wise, replied. Alcinoues! high exalted over all Phaeacia's sons! the time suffices yet 460 For converse both and sleep, and if thou wish To hear still more, I shall not spare to unfold More pitiable woes than these, sustain'd By my companions, in the end destroy'd; Who, saved from perils of disast'rous war At Ilium, perish'd yet in their return, Victims of a pernicious woman's crime.[48] Now, when chaste ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... make me suffer more, whatever you might do, for I am the most wretched, pitiable creature in existence," sobbed ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... that used for the same purpose, by women in Holland, or to that for carrying milk in many parts of Switzerland. In winter time the buckets of water become buckets of ice the moment they are drawn from the well, and then it is really pitiable to see these poor beggars with the skin of their hands all cracked and bleeding with the cold. They run along at a good pace when loaded, and show great judgment in avoiding collision, sighing as they go a loud hess! hess! ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... the first lady's friends, certainly not educated to the critical enjoyment of such spectacles; and there on the stage were those mistaken women, in such sad variety of boniness and flabbiness as I have tried to hint, addressing their pitiable exposure to a supposed vileness in us, and wrenching from all original intent the innocent dullness of the drama, which for the most part could have been as well played in walking-dresses, to ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... false doctrines and their luxurious living, receive that word of our Lord, 'Blessed are the poor in spirit,' when they were poor themselves neither in fact nor in disposition?" Even the donative of Constantine to the Roman bishop Silvester was declared to be a pitiable fiction. This lie had been so clearly exposed that it was obvious to the very day-laborers and to women, and that these could put to silence the most learned men if they ventured to defend the genuineness of this donative; so that the Pope, with his cardinals, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... When Luther therefore describes the decay of instruction in Popery, he speaks from personal experience. About the middle of January, 1529, he wrote to Spalatin: "Moreover, conditions in the congregations everywhere are pitiable, inasmuch as the peasants learn nothing, know nothing, never pray, do nothing but abuse their liberty, make no confession, receive no communion, as if they had been altogether emancipated from religion. They have neglected their ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... burned down and hollowed out trees by fire, for canoes, and never chopped off the timber, but only deadened it, in clearing land. The condition of depraved man, unimproved by habits of civilization, and unblest with the influences and consolations of the gospel, is pitiable in the extreme. Such was the character and condition of the "Red skin," before his land was visited by the "Pale faces." I have often seen the aboriginal man in all his primeval wildness, when he first came in contact with the evils and benefits of civilization,—have admired his noble form ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... his load. The soldier struggled with him for his musket, and wrested it from him; on which the thief let go the knapsack, and attempted to make off; but when he heard the soldier cock his piece, expecting to be instantly shot, he threw himself down on the road and roared out in the most pitiable manner. The soldier took a steady aim at him, but unfortunately his musket flashed in the pan, and the slave started up and ran in amongst ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... nature of the place, and they were not entirely unfavorable, for the speed and impetuosity of the muddy stream had given him a good deal to think about. He dismissed his reflections until a more favorable time, and placing the lantern on the sand turned to Nugget, who was in a pitiable state of fright. ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... Manchester, Derby, Nottingham, and Sheffield; and among them the light of truth was to be shed from its cloudy tabernacle in Mr. Coleridge's Pericranium. At the house of a "Brummagem Patriot" he appears to have got dead drunk with strong ale and tobacco, and in that pitiable condition he was exposed to his disciples, lying upon a sofa, "with my face like a wall that is white-washing, deathly pale, and with the cold drops of perspiration running down it from my forehead." ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... Dante's side that night, though the vision vanished at the time when the lances of the Dragon-flag rode out of the sheltering wood to welcome our coming. Well, now it seems that, when Dante was assailed by that very human, pitiable, and pardonable pain and frailty, he suddenly became aware again of the God of Love that was riding hard by him, but this time a little in front, and this time on a great black war-horse. It seemed to Dante that the wonderful youth turned ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... beheld a butterfly and, catching her, held her in his hands and feasted his eyes upon her prettiness. But as he held her so, the pollen rubbed off her wings and she fluttered, a pitiable thing, weakly ...
— A Book Without A Title • George Jean Nathan
... How touching, how pitiable, was her expression, half arch, half pleading, and so beautiful! "Oh, lovely and terrible prodigy!" I thought, "draw back; banish those thoughts; or, rather, no longer think at all—for you are on the edge of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... school: hence she was unable to make a sufficiently reputable appearance in apparel at their accustomed little balls. The daughter of the schoolmistress, her only child, and at that time a very young girl, felt for the poor governess, and the pitiable insufficiency in the article of finery; but being unable to help her from her own resources, devised within herself a means by which it might be done otherwise. Having heard of the great fame of Sir Joshua Reynolds, his character for generosity, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... of the woman he loved was America. But never once did he set eyes upon her till she and her father mounted the gang-plank to the vessel which was to carry them across the wide Atlantic. The change in Herbeck was pitiable. His face had aged twenty years in these sixty odd hours. His clothes, the same he had worn that ever-memorable night, hung loosely about his gaunt frame, and there was a vacancy in his eyes which was eloquent of mental collapse. The girl quietly and tenderly guided him to the deck and ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... but utterly incapable of understanding them—consequently a dupe in friendship, in business, in everything; governed by all who could manage to win his admiration, or on very slight grounds could claim his affection. His capacity was small, and yet he believed he knew everything, which was the more pitiable, as all this came to him with his places, and arose more from stupidity than presumption—not at all from vanity, of which he was divested. The most remarkable thing is that the chief origin of the King's tender regard for him was this very incapacity. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... in the world. The neighbors in the house had helped them, after their father ran away, until they were old enough to help themselves; and they did not seem to think there was anything in the least wretched or pitiable in their way of living. The last thing I heard, when I left them that day, was La Biondella crying 'Bang!'—then a bark, a thump on the floor, and a scream of laughter. If it was not for their dog, I should go and see them oftener. But the ill-conditioned beast has taken a dislike ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... have noticed these men, in their walks, as often as we have, we know not; this we know—that the miserably poor man (no matter whether he owes his distresses to his own conduct, or that of others) who feels his poverty and vainly strives to conceal it, is one of the most pitiable objects in human nature. Such objects, with few ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... several more in a vain endeavour to extricate himself from a bunker, do not stand near him and audibly count his strokes. It would be justifiable homicide if he wound up his pitiable exhibition by applying his niblick to your head. It is better to pretend that you do not notice these things. On the other hand, do not go out of your way to say that you are sorry when these misfortunes happen. Such expressions imply a kind ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... agriculture formed the main economic resource and the twenty-five years following the war were, for the most part, consumed in recovering from that struggle. Although conditions varied from place to place, the situation in many portions of the South was little short of pitiable. Not only were factories, public buildings and railroads, houses and barns, tools and seeds destroyed, capital and credit gone, mining at a standstill and banks ruined, but bands of thieves infested many districts, federal officers were frequently dishonest and defrauded ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... thing is to do. A mysterious fiat goes forth and a million women simultaneously put on black straw hats surmounted by a cock in his pride. Another mysterious order goes forth and two million women simultaneously begin reading the latest novel by Robert W. Chambers. Pitiable are those in whom this instinct is wanting and who must tag timidly behind, venturing only where a million others have gone before. Perhaps it is, with such people, a case of arrested development. Boys of sixteen and girls of fourteen ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... note, and withdrew unpursued. Fitzwilliam's courage alone prevented the army from being annihilated. Out of 500 English 50 lay dead, and 50 more were badly wounded. The survivors fell back to Armagh 'so dismayed as to be unfit for farther service.' Pitiable were the lamentations of the lord deputy to Cecil on this catastrophe. It was, said he, 'by cowardice the dreadfullest beginning that ever was seen in Ireland. Ah! Mr. Secretary, what unfortunate star hung ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... womanly love roused for the first time in her will also show this desolate heart the path to eternal love. And Parsifal had finally shown her, the pitiable one, the only ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... purpose—a Mary Vertrees who was incapable of penetrating that purpose. Sibyl sat there believing that she was projecting the image of herself that she desired to project, never dreaming that with every word, every look, and every gesture she was more and more fully disclosing the pitiable truth to the clear eyes of Mary. And the Sibyl that Mary saw was an overdressed woman, in manner half rustic, and in mind as shallow as a pan, but possessed by emotions that appeared to be strong—perhaps even violent. What those emotions were Mary had not guessed, but she ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... easy matter to scramble over the stony beach to the place where Patrick was lying; and rather a pitiable sight it was to see him with his leg doubled under him, and with a face so very pale that it was no wonder Vea cried out with pure horror, for she evidently thought he was going to faint, ...
— Bluff Crag - or, A Good Word Costs Nothing • Mrs. George Cupples
... Had he blushed, had he stammered, had he even kept up his former frantic and pitiable attitude, she might at that supreme moment have forgiven him. But to her astonishment his face changed, his handsome brow cleared, his careless, happy smile returned, his graceful confidence came back—he stood before her the ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... than one bath in the one day; and after Katherine, on Hardy's part, had suggested sundry innovations, involving the condemnation of all the pictures and ornaments she could lay her hands on,—a piece of sacrilege which Mrs. Rogers regarded more in sorrow than in anger, as indicating a pitiable aberration of intellect,—the rooms were taken from ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... the humanity of the farmer, was now employed in raising his master. His lordship made the most pitiable figure that can be imagined. His features, as well as his dress, wore an appearance perfectly uniform. "Whither would you convey him?" said Mr. Godfrey, who was now returned. "What shall we do with him?" "Oh, and please you, sir," said the footman, "his lordship ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... other hand, they would like to revert to ruined Austria and have the value of all their money reduced ten times, surely they are not very sane. Or if they think that they who suffered little should reap the major benefits of the war-victory, they are certainly pitiable egoists. ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... swift, stealthy footsteps of a man running at full speed along the corridor. I leaned forward to listen. Then, without a moment's warning, they paused outside my door. It was hastily pushed open and as hastily closed. A man, half clothed and panting, was standing facing me—a strange, pitiable object. The boots slipped from my fingers. I stared at ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... heavily and stung more sharply than the last. Oh, if he could but know that his poem had been given to the world—that it had not been blotted from existence! This was what was meant by Hell. No torture that man had ever pictured could approach the torments of such regret, such uncertainty, such pitiable impotence. Truly, if his sin had been great, ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... sure to make a treaty with us. As they talked of their privations I learned, for the first time, of the full horrors of the winter camp at the forge in the valley. There was still enough wretchedness to show how far worse must have been the pitiable condition of the army during that winter of '77-'78. I passed the next day at rest with Jack. I had had enough of the volunteer business, and determined, to Jack's regret, to take service with the horse. ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... indeed pitiable. But, happily, they are exceptions. If we can none of us as yet fully appreciate the beauties of Nature, we are beginning to do ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... the chair was no longer merely malevolent: he had grown suddenly, unutterably tired. His hatred seemed to well up out of the very depths of balked effort and thwarted hopes, and the fact made him more pitiable, and ...
— The Triumph Of Night - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... drop heavily like slow tears, each adding a new touch of woe. The savage manners of the times used the literal forcing out of the eyes from their sockets as the easiest way of reducing dangerous enemies to harmlessness. Pitiable as the loss was, Samson was better blind than seeing. The lust of the eye had led him astray, and the loss of his sight showed him his sin. Fetters of brass betrayed his jailers' dread of his possibly returning strength; and the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... had proceeded from it, had reached his eyes; it could not be dispersed; and the consequence was, that he was then blind. The second was lame; he had badly ulcerated legs, and appeared to be very weak. The third was a mere spectre; I think he was the most pitiable object I ever saw. I considered him as irrecoverably gone. They all complained to me of their bad usage on board the Thomas. They said they had heard, of my being in Bristol, and they hoped I would not leave it without inquiring into the murder ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... to myself after this long digression, I and other two of the young Aberdeen lads were purchased by a farmer, and removed that afternoon to his home, about twelve miles from Baltimore. A more pitiable figure, as regards dress, never landed on any shore. I had still the same remnant of clothes with which I had left Edinburgh; but now they scarcely held together, and were besmeared with tar; my feet and legs were clean, but shoes or stockings were a luxury I had been long unused to. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... top-gallant masts and yards struck to make her ride more easily; but as the day advanced, the violence of the wind increased, and vain seemed every effort of the crew to manage the ship. There were many mothers and little children on board, whose state was truly pitiable. The ship was scourged onward by the resistless blast, which continued to increase until it ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... with the other by the waistband of his breeches, and bearing him to the door, as he would any other noxious animal, fairly pitched him head foremost into the street, to the manifest surprise and dismay of the passengers, to whom he told a "pitiable tale," when one of the crowd pronounced him to be a notorious dog-stealer, and the fellow, immediately on this recognition, made a precipitate retreat. 328 "I am glad," said Dashall to his friends, who had witnessed ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... wandered from the truth and lost myself, my child,' said Caleb, with a pitiable expression in his bewildered face. 'I have wandered from the truth, intending to be kind to you; and ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... the born gamester, who clings so madly to the belief that luck must come to him, and sets on that belief as though a bank were his to lose his gold from, was never more utterly spoken in all its folly, in all its pitiable optimism, than now in ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee] |
