"Wretch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Indeed? The wretch! I will have her broomed out of the house. What a shame to spoil your morning out like this! As for Khema, where are the hussy's manners to go and disturb you when you are engaged? Anyhow, Chota Rani, don't you worry yourself with these domestic squabbles. Leave them to me, and ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... that among the imperfect beings who compose the human species, there is not, perhaps, a single one who, without some advantage to himself, without personal fear, in a word, without folly, would consent to punish everlastingly the wretch who might have the misfortune to offend him, but who no longer had either the ability or the inclination to commit another offence. Caligula found, at least, some little amusement to forsake for a time the cares of government, and enjoy the spectacle of punishment which he inflicted on those ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... Goat, at Charing Cross, and there I went and drank with them a good while, whom I found in very good health and very merry Then to my father's, and after supper seemed willing to go home, and my wife seeming to be so too I went away in a discontent, but she, poor wretch, followed me as far in the rain and dark as Fleet Bridge to fetch me back again, and so I did, and lay with her to-night, which I have not done these eight ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the sins which are due to clear physical causes, then the total of active sin is greatly reduced. Could one, for example, imagine that Providence, all-wise and all-merciful, as every creed proclaims, could punish the unfortunate wretch who hatches criminal thoughts behind the slanting brows of a criminal head? A doctor has but to glance at the cranium to predicate the crime. In its worst forms all crime, from Nero to Jack the Ripper, is the product of absolute lunacy, and those gross national ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... wretch, Raynor, called yesterday, and his babble set me almost wild. He never runs down—that is to say, when he exterminates a score of reputations, more or less, he does not pause between one reputation and the next. (By the way, he inquired about you, and ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... the wilderness, behold A lone heartbroken wretch in me, Who dreams in his embrace to fold His love, as wild ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... striking a post or pillar of the house where he had his headquarters. An interesting entry in Welles's Diary, made soon after the battle, reflects somewhat the feeling at the time. "Sumner expresses an absolute want of confidence in Hooker; says he knows him to be a blasphemous wretch; that after crossing the Rappahannock and reaching Centreville, Hooker exultingly exclaimed, 'The enemy are in my power, and God Almighty cannot deprive me of them.' I have heard before of this, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... most interesting paper on the wild dog appeared in the South of India Observer, of January 7th, 1869, alludes to "Evangeline" in the following terms:—"I saw the beast at the People's Park, and a more untameable wretch I never met with; and why so fair a name for such a savage de'il, I know not." It is strange that the most dog-like of the wild canines should refuse domestication when even the savage European wolf has become so attached as to pine during the absence of his ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... settee—playfully, through his pain] Ah, my dear Mrs. Ebbsmith, how can you have the heart to deceive an invalid, a poor wretch who begs you—[sitting on the settee] to allow him to sit down for a moment? [AGNES deposits the ...
— The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith • Arthur Wing Pinero
... poor emaciated man, in the same blood-stained county, while in a state of starvation pulled a turnip in a turnipfield, and was caught by the owner in the act of satisfying his hunger upon it; the inhuman wretch shot the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... to have some effect, for there were dead and wounded lying in the way, and some from breathlessness, some from shame, now slackened their pace and stooped to form litters of their muskets, on which some poor wretch who was crying for help with extended hands ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... men and women ran frantically hither and thither, unable to lend a helping hand to those drowning close to land. A rope was tied round the body of one, who, rushing into the boiling surf, firmly clasped one poor wretch in his arms, and both were drawn safely to shore. Again, and yet again, did the noble fellow rush into the angry sea, each time rescuing one from death. How eagerly we bent over each, as they were brought to shore, to see if our Ned was the fortunate one, and how heavy ...
— Leslie Ross: - or, Fond of a Lark • Charles Bruce
... her import clearly I did not know. There was a commotion in the forward part of the car. That same drunken wretch Jim had appeared; his bottle (somehow restored to him) in hand, his hat pushed back ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... revolution which overthrew his father-in-law, the infamous Phocas, and placed Heraclius upon the throne. But notwithstanding that service, the attitude of the general towards the new regime was not considered satisfactory, and with the cruel taunt, 'Wretch, thou didst not make a good son-in-law; how canst thou be a true friend?' Heraclius relegated him to political nonentity by forcing him to become a monk at the Chora. The new brother did not live long, but his wealth furnished the fraternity with the means ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... "That little wretch has told her, and she is laughing at my presumption," was his distressed conclusion. "I'll wring his neck for ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... "Don't object; it's useless! I won't have you go alone. You've done more than enough already. I'm a wretch to let you slave for me, your first day out of bed! But I daren't call at Peterson's alone, not because I'm afraid for myself, but because of Roger. Besides, I can depend on you ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... up," panted the boy; "and you can be proud of having mastered a poor starving wretch who never did you ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... white, and, especially, if the white be clothed with the authority of an ambassador of Christ. "A negro was executed in Autauga Co., not long since, for the murder of his master. The latter, it seems, attempted to violate the wife of his slave in his presence, when the negro enraged, smote the wretch to the ground. And this master—this brute—this fiend—was a preacher of the gospel, in regular standing!" In a former part of this communication, I said enough to show, that slavery prevents children from complying with the command to obey their parents. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Never make a blessing; Seek not e'en a throne By one wretch distressing. Better toil a slave For the blood-earned penny, Than be rich, and have A curse on ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... interpreter, whose look and speech he regarded as a revelation of villainy. He was tall and slim, with ricketty legs, dark shifty eyes, a low receding forehead, and a mouth and chin that indicated the animal. The captain felt instinctively the approach of trouble, and frankly told the wretch, who he knew was deceiving him, that every bale of tobacco would be held until after the freight was paid over in gold sovereigns; and with an air of ostentatious authority he gave instructions to have all the muskets and revolvers ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... two of the soldiers. Then the wretch whom Simms bestrode was treated to some of the same sort of consideration. The pair of Mexicans were laid side by side, after which the soldiers sprang to get ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... that—you don't mean that!" cried Mary, sweeping the hair with her hand back from her forehead—and her hand still remaining on her head—"O God! O God! what a wretch I am! Hear me, Jacob, hear me," cried she, dropping on her knees, and seizing my hands; "only get him his discharge—only let me once see him again, and I swear by all that's sacred, that I will beg his pardon on my knees as I now do yours. I will do everything—anything—if he will ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... attract his eyes, His wandering feet the magic paths pursue; And while he thinks the fair illusion true, The trackless scenes disperse in fluid air, And woods and wilds, and thorny ways appear: A tedious road the weary wretch returns, And, as he ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... greatly with famine and disease. At last a pretended traitor, Bellido Dolfos, offered to deliver the city into the hands of Sancho. While riding along with the king, under pretence of pointing out the gate whereby the troops might enter Zamora, this lying wretch stabbed the unsuspecting Sancho through and through with his own royal golden spear, given by the king to the knave to carry. Bellido then fled fast to the city. On the way he was seen by the Cid, who called to the flying horseman to stop, though knowing nothing of his crime. The villain only ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... agreed perforce, though she mistrusted her of the fat wretch, whose appearance poor Cicely also disliked. Still, for very fear Emlyn was humble and civil to her, for if she were not, who could know if she would put out all her skill upon behalf of her mistress? Therefore she did her bidding like ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... with him and listened to hear what the prince said, for she had not yet heard what he was saying, he was so feeble. When she heard him whisper: "Oh! how be-au-ti-ful is the doll; con-sid-er," and saw the doll, she cried: "Ah! wretch! it was you who had my doll! Leave it to me, I will cure you." When he heard these words he came to himself and said: "Are you the doll's mistress?" "I am." Just think! he returned to life and she began ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... wretch; it irritates me to see him sticking to it. Perhaps he is looking for his Camerino. I shall leave him, at any rate, to his fate; ...
— The Diary of a Man of Fifty • Henry James
... imprisonment, because it is gentlemen's game, as they say. Neither must they keep cattle, or set up a house, all ground being enclosed, without hiring leave for the one or buying room for the other of the chief encloser, called the Lord of the Manor, or some other wretch as cruel as he.... Now all this slavery of the one and tyranny of the other was at first by murder and cruelty one against the other. And that they might strengthen themselves in their villany against God's Ordinances and their Brother's Freedom and Rights, they ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... as I am concerned, the poor wretch! Yesterday I could curse her. I pity her to-day. She has gone her way and I go mine. Monsignor has declared me ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... I find, but they are alive still, and I found them waking when I realised that Mayes was alive and in England. The words 'sane' and 'insane' are elastic in their application, but I doubt if you would have called me strictly sane of late. I evolved mad schemes for the destruction of this wretch, and I was ready to devote myself and everything I possessed to the purpose. More than once I contemplated coming to you—seeing that you had met the man in one of his villainies—with the idea of enlisting your aid. But I reflected that you would probably ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... this wretch thinks me very simple or very depraved? He must come to one or the other conclusion," ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... in this house again, the deceitful, ungrateful wretch. And he shall not care for her, or befriend her in any way. She must love him, and it is no child's love, either. Why, I have been blind and silly all ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... breech-loading gun, and as the smoke of the discharge lifted, she saw a writhing, sinuous form fall heavily to the earth. After a brief inspection Webb came toward her in smiling assurance, saying: "The wretch got only one of the little family. Four birds are left. There now, don't feel so badly. You have saved a home from utter desolation. That, surely, will be a pleasant thing ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... your finger at me and say, "What an ungrateful wretch of a bird! It is gnawing at its chain day ...
— The Crescent Moon • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... more at having to spell correctly. Yet one may ask, Do we not a little over-estimate the value of orthography? This is a natural reflection enough when the maker of artless happy phrases has been ransacking the dictionary for some elusive wretch of a word which in the end proves to be not yet naturalised, or technical, or a mere local vulgarity; yet one does not often hear the idea canvassed in polite conversation. Dealers in small talk, of the less prolific kind, are continually falling back ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... I think, when this wretch rang the bell. The restlessness I speak of as born of undisciplined bigness, of moneyed magnitude, is visible everywhere, and more so in the hours of relaxation than those ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... the country for our trade and to parley between us and the natives. Now the lot fell upon the Genoese caravel (which had joined the explorers), to draw into the shore and land a prisoner, to try the good will of the natives before any one else ventured." The poor wretch, instructed to enquire about the races living on the river and their manners, polity, King's name and capital, gold supply, and other matters of commerce, had no sooner swum ashore than he was seized ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... reading his work out: "Music, sparkling wine, massive plate, rose-water in the hand-glasses, soup, fish—shall I have three sorts of fish? I will; they are cheap in this market. Ah! Fortune, you wretch, here at least I am your master, and I'll make you know it—venison," wrote Triplet, with a malicious grin, "game, pickles and provocatives in the center of the table; then up jumps one of the guests, ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... and embrace; Nay, cry not, poor wretch, nor plead, But haste, for life strikes a swift pace, And I burn with envious greed: Know you not, fool, we are the mock Of gods, time, clothes, and priests? But come, there is ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... flourishing a knife with which he had threatened to carve any one who came near the wicket of his prison, Constables were called in to quell this real or dramatised maniac, but they fell back in terror from the door of the prison. Their show of firearms made no impression upon the demented wretch. After awhile my father returned and was told of the trouble, and indeed he heard it before he reached home. The whole family implored him not to go near the man who was cursing, and armed with a knife. But father could not ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... being a beast, hating humanity, he grew to love other people, and be ready to sacrifice himself to save another. You remember how he voluntarily gave himself up to the law in that courtroom scene, just to save a miserable wretch who was about to be punished under the belief that he was ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... wretch!" cried the captain. "Are you laughing at us, eh? Or do you think that we won't be able to get the ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... because it sets forth in a definite shape a picture of the struggle in which so many perish, and because every individual life is implicated in it through memory. Ah! I, hapless wretch, should have been too happy to hear the sound of those heavenly voices I ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... valuable item, and saw to it that no other paper got it. And so his paper—the principal one in the town—had it in glaring type on the editorial page in the morning, followed by a Vesuvian opinion of our wretch a column long, which wound up by adding a thousand dollars to our reward on the paper's account! The journals out here know how to do the noble thing—when ...
— A Double Barrelled Detective Story • Mark Twain
... on the head, or draw the blade of a cuchilla across her throat, and so stop her grunting at once and for ever. The old wretch deserves no better fate and hanging's too good for her. But they'd find her dead body all the same; though not with a tongue in it to tell who stopped her wind, or, what's of more consequence, how and which way we went off. Besides, I dare say, the Senor Ludwig wouldn't agree to our ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... the worms of the earth. A second-hand book-shop always reminds me of a Necropolis. It is a kind of Serapeum where lies buried the kings and princes with the helots and underlings of literature. Ay, every book is a mortuary chamber containing the remains of some poor literary wretch, or some mighty genius.... A book is a friend, my brothers, and when it ceases to entertain or instruct or inspire, it is dead. And would you sell a dead friend, would you throw him away? If you can not keep him embalmed on your shelf, is it not the wiser part, and ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... because I'm ill that I sent for you, or rather let her ladyship send for you. Lord bless you, Thorne; do you think I don't know what it is that makes me like this? When I see that poor wretch, Winterbones, killing himself with gin, do you think I don't know what's coming to myself ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... to look round? Lucky for me if she pictures some terrible fate. What sort of confused nonsense is running through her head now? Soup and Marie take a prominent place, I wager. So precious hard up does one become in this rat's hole, that I make her my problem as she makes the soup hers, poor wretch! Yet, my excellent friend, Jean Didier, I would counsel you to keep your compassion for yourself, for, believe me, you want it at least as much. As much? Rather, a hundred times more! For she—she knows nothing of the blessings ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... pursued Bella, 'I'll make a confession to you. I am the most mercenary little wretch that ever lived ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... picture, No. 93, in the same room, is larger and more ambitious. It represents a carpenter's workshop, with a mechanic at each end of the long bench; one of these, a half-starved, hideous wretch, with hardly a trace of the human anatomy in his composition; and the other, a respectable and rather sagacious-looking person, with immeasurable legs. Behind the bench is a frightful old woman, of the lowest class; and before it another, younger, but repulsively ugly and vulgar, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... wretch, Louis," cried the lady, who had not hitherto spoken, nor even looked toward the criminal as he was passing by the windows—"and yet he was assuredly a most atrocious criminal. A cool, deliberate, cold-blooded poisoner! Out upon it! out upon it! ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... the monarch cried, "Amid the throng, and dare to give Their aid, and bid this wretch to live? I pledge my faith and crown beside, A woeful plight, a sorry sight, This outcast from all ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... the ottoman.) Don't look at me so—for God's sake! Let us go before it is too late. You're an infamous wretch! ...
— Erdgeist (Earth-Spirit) - A Tragedy in Four Acts • Frank Wedekind
... The connection established the truth of Mrs. Basil's statement. Here, perhaps, already married to the dissipated heir of some unproductive estate, Joyce Basil's lot was cast forever. It might even be that she had been tempted here by some wretch whose villany she knew not of. Reybold's brain took fire at the thought, and he pursued the fugitive into the doorway. A negro steward unfastened a slide and peeped at Reybold knocking in the hall; and, seeing him of respectable ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... declared Aunt Hattie emphatically. "Look at poor Madge here, and that wretch of a husband ...
— Mary Marie • Eleanor H. Porter
... across his forehead and the stem to run down his nose. Captain Jack got his tattooing kit ready, and the fellow was thrown upon the ground and held there. The Captain took his head between his legs, and began operations. After an instant's work with the needles, he opened his mouth, and filled the wretch's face and eyes full of the disgusting saliva. The crowd round about yelled with delight at this new process. For an hour, that was doubtless an eternity to the rascal undergoing branding, Captain Jack continued his alternate pickings and drenchings. At the end of that time ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... ancestral home. We have all been led to believe that love is splendid and wonderful, and the greatest thing in the world, and it pains us to part with it. Faith, we will not part with it. The man who would bid us put it by is a knave and a fool, a vile, degraded wretch, who will receive pardon neither in this ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... blank and ashen, like the face Of some poor wretch who drains life's cup too fast Yet, swaying to and fro, as if to fling About chilled Nature its lithe arms of grace, Smiling with promise in the wintry blast, The optimistic ...
— Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... and promise; forth he went, Spoiled of the livery that till now had made him Enviable with the vulgar. And in vain He hoped another lord; the tender dames Were horror-struck at his atrocious crime, And loathed the author. The false wretch succumbed With all his squalid brood, and in the streets With his lean wife in tatters at his side Vainly lamented to ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... little wretch did spoil our mill, but Rufus mended it; and as I thought Polly had been marauding on you, I brought ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it with her eye; He said, he did it with his dart; Betwixt them both (a silly wretch!) 'Tis I that have ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... with you as a man can be, my dear," she said to Margaret "Not worthy of him? Your past a barrier between you and him? Nonsense, Daisy; that is his affair. I know you are as good a girl as ever lived. Your father was poor, no doubt, and that wretched Mr. Cranley—yes, he was a wretch—had a spite against you. I don't know why, and you won't help me to guess. But Mr. Barton is too much of a man to let that kind of thing disturb him, I'm sure. You are afraid of something, Margaret Your nerves have been unstrung. ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... his life. He went right down the school list, and then he began again. Any lack of personal cleanliness drove him frantic. I myself have heard him order a boy with dirty nails and hands out of the room, crying, "Out of my sight, unclean wretch! Go and cleanse the hands God gave you, before I allow you to associate with clean gentlemen, and write out for me two hundred times, 'Cleanliness ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... oppressive rights of the feudal nobility of the empire so remorselessly exercised by one who had risen from the very dregs of the people. His adventure, although carefully concealed, began likewise to be whispered abroad, and the clergy already stigmatized as a wizard and accomplice of fiends, the wretch, who, having acquired so huge a treasure in so strange a manner, had not sought to sanctify it by dedicating a considerable portion to the use of the church. Surrounded by enemies, public and private, tormented by a thousand feuds, and threatened by the church with excommunication, ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... who was stealing upon him was near the steed, which, without any preliminary warning, let out both his heels, knocking the unsuspecting wretch fully a dozen feet and stretching him, badly wounded, ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... that is shown for all the gods fills me with grief and indignation. There is nothing that I should see, nothing that I should hear, with more pleasure, than the expulsion of Athanasius from all Egypt. The abominable wretch! Under my reign, the baptism of several Grecian ladies of the highest rank has been the effect of his persecutions." [133] The death of Athanasius was not expressly commanded; but the praefect of Egypt understood that it was safer for him to exceed, than to ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... tempted to tell you all, to grow egotistical, and pour out the long history of a private governess's trials and crosses in her first situation. As it is, I will only ask you to imagine the miseries of a reserved wretch like me thrown at once into the midst of a large family, proud as peacocks and wealthy as Jews, at a time when they were particularly gay, when the house was filled with company—all strangers: people whose faces I had never seen before. In this state I had a charge given ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... killed the souls and bodies, of all poor abused subjects, exposed to its influence. Gerard avowed himself to have been so long goaded and stimulated by these considerations—so extremely nettled with displeasure and bitterness at seeing the obstinate wretch still escaping his just judgment—as to have formed the design of baiting a trap for the fox, hoping thus to gain access to him, and to take him unawares. He added—without explaining the nature of the trap and the bait—that he deemed it his duty to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... a dozen startled men, gambling about a blanket; two or three sleeping off a drunk, and one hunted, haunted wretch nervously pacing up and down among the pines, were no match for the dash of a dozen blue jackets coming thundering into view. There was no thought of fight. Those who could catch their horses threw themselves astride bareback and shot for the heart of the hills; two or three scrambled ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... more than one instance of demons who have requested prayers, and have even placed themselves in the posture of persons praying over a grave, to point out that the dead persons wanted prayers. Sometimes it will be the demon in the shape of a wretch dead in crime, who will come and ask for masses, to show that his soul is in purgatory, and has need of prayers, although it may be certain that he finally died impenitent, and that prayers are useless for his salvation. All this is only a stratagem of a demon, who seeks to inspire ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... desperate easiness have you seen in me, or what mistaken merit in your self, should make you so ridiculously vain, to think I'd give myself to such a Wretch, one fal'n even to the last degree of Poverty, whilst all the World is prostrate at my Feet, whence I might chuse the Brave, the Great, the Rich? [He stands spitefully gazing at her. —Still as he fires, I find my Pride augment, and when he cools I ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... sight which awakens an inexpressible sensation of disgust and horror, to see her caress my poor little Ianthe, in whom I may hereafter find the consolation of sympathy. I sometimes feel faint with the fatigue of checking the overflowings of my unbounded abhorrence for this miserable wretch. But she is no more than a blind and loathsome worm, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... novel of his I read, pretty well turned my stomach. Mr Aronson's strong point was jokes about the war. If he heard of any acquaintance who had joined up or was even doing war work his merriment knew no bounds. My fingers used to itch to box the little wretch's ears. ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... never meant for a snake," said Drew, as he painfully dragged himself along. "Ugh, you little wretch!" he cried, and thrusting forward his gun, he passed the muzzle under a little short thick viper, which lay basking just in his way, ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... perfectly remember the horrible sorcerer. One spring I was at the hunt with your father near Penemunde, when this wretch suddenly appeared driving two cows before him on a large ice-field. He pretended that while he was telling fortunes to the girls who milked the cows, a great storm arose, and drove him out into the wide sea, which was a terrible ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... The wretch had burrowed in the intellectual ruins of Greece the moment the pistol went off, and college chat ceased. Hardie raised his opera-glass, and his first impulse was to brain the judicious Kennet, gazing up to him for an answer, with spectacles goggling like supernatural ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... opening at the appointed hour, disclosed One human countenance, the lamp's red flame Cowered as it entered, and at once sank down. Oh miserable! by that lamp to see My infant quarrelling with the coarse hard bread 215 Brought daily; for the little wretch was sickly— My rage had dried away its natural food.[830:1] In darkness I remained—the dull bell counting, Which haply told me, that the all-cheering sun Was rising on our garden. When I dozed, 220 My infant's moanings mingled with my slumbers And waked me.—If you were a mother, lady, I should ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... she gobbled, "who is this you have in your chamber? Ah, I've caught you! The ingratitude! You terrible old wretch!"—this to Granfa—"close that door instantly while I ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... indeed pleaded that they should leave him the money, or some of it, but this proposal Jim scouted, and in his zeal relieved the robber of a good deal more than he had stolen from Charlie. Then with kicks and blows they drove the wretch away as fast as ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... feel in the least inclined to offer her treats, though I'm sorry for her all the same. She does look such a woe-begone little wretch! It's my belief she thought it was a good opportunity to examine the scent-bottle when we were all upstairs, and that she put it down too roughly or let it slip from her hands and hadn't the nerve to own up at once. I don't wonder she is afraid to confess now; ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... done with the wretch, for ever. I hope he has got nothing from you; and, if you have promised him any thing, ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol. I. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... baby, indeed!' said Ida scornfully. 'Nasty little wretch, I say. One good thing is, up in that cold place all this time he's sure ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is the most abject piece of business that I ever read. It shows Landor to have a most rancorous and malicious heart. Nothing but a rooted hatred of his country could have made him dedicate his Jacobinical book to the most contemptible wretch that ever crept into authority, and whose only recommendation to him is his implacable enmity to his country. I think you might write to Southey; but I would not, on any account, have you publish such a ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... and she started, thereby showing that she knew me again, though it must have been hard for Marina to recognise her friend Teule in the blood-stained, starving, and tattered wretch who could scarcely find strength to climb the azotea. But at that time no words passed between us, for all eyes were bent on the meeting between Cortes and Guatemoc, between the conqueror and ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... did I see—And in the dominions of the great being I saw man [reduced?][97] far below the animals of the field preying on one anothers [sic] hearts; happy in the downfall of others—themselves holding on with bent necks and cruel eyes to a wretch more a slave if possible than they to his miserable passions—And if I said these are the consequences of civilization & turned to the savage world I saw only ignorance unrepaid by any noble feeling—a mere animal, love ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... consequences. In a few weeks he had been raised from penury and obscurity to opulence, to power which made him the dread of princes and nobles, and to notoriety such as has for low and bad minds all the attractions of glory. He was not long without coadjutors and rivals. A wretch named Carstairs, who had earned a livelihood in Scotland by going disguised to conventicles and then informing against the preachers, led the way. Bedloe, a noted swindler, followed; and soon from all the brothels, gambling houses, and spunging houses of London, false ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... seamen, who had been previously directed, threw a rope round his neck, and dragged him in a moment down to the boat; his cries brought a number of his friends into the skirts of the wood, from whence they threw many lances, but without effect. The terror this poor wretch suffered, can better be conceived than expressed; he believed he was to be immediately murdered; but, upon the officers coming into the boat, they removed the rope from his neck to his leg, and treated him with so much kindness, that he ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... infamous cruelties, even among the bloody records of the buccaneers. He was a Dutchman by birth, who had settled in Brazil during the occupancy of that country by the United Provinces. On the restoration of the Portuguese to their Brazilian possessions this bloody wretch retreated to Jamaica. His name not being known, he received the soubriquet of Rock Braziliano, by which he was henceforward known. Very soon after his arrival at Jamaica, he joined the pirates, first as an ordinary mariner; and acquitted himself so well ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... have been exchanged for it. The value of riches, and all else for which men toil and toil on while health and strength remain, were becoming as nothing in our sight. One thing alone called any of us to exertion. It was when some wretch, happier, perhaps, than we were, breathed his last, and the shrieks and wails of his relations or friends summoned us to commit his body to the ocean-grave, yawning to receive us all, the living as well as the dead. I must pass over that night. ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... Never had he seen such disconcerting pallor. It was not the waxen hue of the convalescent, not the lifeless grey of the perfume-or snuff-maker, it was a prison pallor of a bloodless lividness unknown today, the ghastly complexion of a wretch of the Middle Ages shut up till death in ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... they are tenacious of reputation with a vengeance; for they don't choose anybody should have a character but themselves! Such a crew! Ah! many a wretch has rid on a hurdle who has done less mischief than these utterers of forged tales; coiners of ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... offers his own right honourable intervention to bring so beautiful a business to bear. I am struck dumb with the assurance of his folly—absolutely mute and speechless—and how to prevent him making me further a fool is not easy, for the wretch has left me no time to assure him of the absurdity of what he proposes; and if he should ever hint at such a piece of d——d impertinence, what must the lady think of my conceit or of my feelings! I will write to his present quarters, however, that he may, if possible, have warning not to continue ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... cloth, on which are placed escutcheons, by way of dreary ornament; these escutcheons contain the arms of the covetous, viz. three vices, hard screwed, with the motto, "BEWARE!" On the floor, lie a pair of old shoes, which this sordid wretch is supposed to have long preserved for the weight of iron in the nails, and has been soling with leather cut from the covers of an old Family Bible; an excellent piece of satire, intimating, that such men would sacrifice even their God to the lust of money. From these ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... the wretch roughly by the arm, and was about to hurry him away, Curly emitted a cry of fear, ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... "Miserable wretch that he is! not only does he squander my finances, but with his ill-gotten plunder he corrupts secretaries, friends, generals, artists, and all, and tries to rob me of the one to whom I am most attached. And that is the reason why that perfidious girl so boldly ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... "Wretch! dost thou dare to make such an appeal to me?" cried Lady Exeter rising. "Begone, instantly, I say. Thou hast no order whatever from me; or if thou ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... is in general kept up as well as the Chinese comic scene of entreating and imploring a man to stay with you, with the implied compact between you that he shall by no means think of doing it. A poor wretch he must be who would wantonly sit down on one of these bandbox reputations. A Prince-Rupert's-drop, which is a tear of unannealed glass, lasts indefinitely, if you keep it from meddling hands; but break its tail ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... thou, slanderer! rouge makes thee sick? And China Bloom at best is sorry food? And Rowland's Kalydor, if laid on thick, Poisons the thirsty wretch that bores for blood? Go! 'twas a just reward that met thy crime; But shun ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... There found they solace. One day toward it moved, Dread apparition and till then unknown, Like one constrained, with self-abhorrent steps, A leper, long in forest caverns hid. Back to their cells the nuns had shrunk, o'erawed: Remained but Frideswida. Thus that wretch With scarce organic voice, and aiding sign, Wailed out the supplication of despair: 'Fly not, O saintly virgin! Yet, ah me! What help though thou remainest? Warned from heaven, I know that not thy fountain's healing wave Could heal my sorrow: not those ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... would he stand At the swing of my hand! For obscurity helps him, and blots The hole where he squats." So, I set my five wits on the stretch. To inveigle the wretch. All in vain! Gold and jewels I threw, Still he couched there perdue; I tempted his blood and his flesh, Hid in roses my mesh, 20 Choicest cates and the flagon's best spilth: Still he ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... travellers; of the cow-shed where I slept with the cow; of my idiot half-brother always sitting at the door, or limping down the Pass to beg; of my half-sister always spinning, and resting her enormous goitre on a great stone; of my being a famished naked little wretch of two or three years, when they were men and women with hard hands to beat me, I, the only child of my father's second marriage—if it even was a marriage. What more natural than for you to compare notes with me, and say, 'We are as one by age; at that same time I sat upon my mother's lap ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... fastidious, ungrateful wretch," he said to himself, as he saw his trunk started off to a better neighbourhood and prepared to follow it. "They've been very kind to me, and little Maggie would do almost anything for me"—little Maggie, whom he treated as a mere asexual biped and hectored in ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... horse's tail." Then, in despair, and wishing to put an end to his torments, he cried out, "Kill me," and, in struggling, kicked one of the men who held him in the lower abdomen. On the instant he is pierced with bayonets, dragged in the gutter, and, striking his corpse, they exclaim, "He's a scurvy wretch (galeux) and a monster who has betrayed us; the nation demands his head to exhibit to the public," and the man who was kicked is asked to cut it off.—This man, an unemployed cook, a simpleton who "went to the Bastille to see what was going on," thinks that as it is the general opinion, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... more The joyful house and best of wives shall welcome, Nor little sons run up to snatch their kisses And touch with silent happiness thy heart. Thou shalt not speed in undertakings more, Nor be the warder of thine own no more. Poor wretch," they say, "one hostile hour hath ta'en Wretchedly from thee all life's many guerdons," But add not, "yet no longer unto thee Remains a remnant of desire for them" If this they only well perceived with mind And followed up with maxims, they would free Their state ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... Queen of the Dew-drops. The young knight had as usual been betimes at the well, but the maiden did not appear there. Then he questioned the cripple—who by day was an absolute helpless cripple— but the man utterly denied all knowledge of any such circumstance. He, why, poor wretch that he was, he never hobbled further than the shed close behind the well; he would give the world if he could get as far as the wood—he knew nothing about ladies or pilgrims—such a leg as his was enough to think about. And the display to ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... If such there be, go, mark him well; For him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentered all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust, from whence he ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... this sudden burst of passion, he fell back upon his pillow, muttering and flushed. I bent over him, and caught a scattered phrase from time to time. He was dreaming of wealth, fancying himself rich and powerful, poor wretch! and ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... trusts its weight upon that treacherous crust. For one fleeting instant it will sway beneath the tread, then, in the flash of a thought, it will break, and once the surface gives no human power can save the victim. Down, down into the depths must the poor wretch be plunged, with scarce time to offer a prayer to God for the poor soul which so swiftly passes to its doom. Such is the muskeg; and surely more terrible is it than is that horror of ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... la Chanterie heard of this through a letter of farewell which her husband wrote to her. Instantly, giving her little girl to the care of a neighbor, she went to the town where that wretch was imprisoned, taking with her the few louis which were all that she owned. These louis enabled her to make her way into the prison. She succeeded in saving her husband by dressing him in her own clothes, under circumstances almost identical with those which, sometime later, were so serviceable ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... you do not know my situation, or you would see in the first instant, as you will so soon as I can speak to you, that if I continued at Paris, I should be the meanest and most contemptible wretch that was ever born into the world; I should falsify my word, I should betray my honour, I should repay the confidence that was reposed in me with the most cowardly treachery, I should disgrace every feeling that is honourable ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... Enchant of all, who on their coast arrive The wretch, who unforewarn'd approaching, hears The Sirens' voice, his wife and little ones Ne'er fly to gratulate his glad return; But him the Sirens sitting in the meads Charm with mellifluous song, although he see Bones heap'd around them, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... unequally punished, and sought to restore the balance of justice by exiling the Cardinal to La Chaise-Dieu, and suffering Madame de Lamotte to escape a few days after she entered l'Hopital. This new error confirmed the Parisians in the idea that the wretch De Lamotte, who had never been able to make her way so far as to the room appropriated to the Queen's women, had really interested ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... to this tale, and now she asked, 'And what says Master Andrew to such wild talk? I suppose he will use the poor deluded wretch gently and kindly, that's his nature; but sure he ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... better evidence than that which you would utterly reject. You would not disgrace the British peerage, you would not disgrace this court of justice, you would not disgrace human reason itself, by confiscating, on such evidence, the meanest property of the meanest wretch. You would not subject to the smallest fine for the smallest delinquency, upon such evidence. I will venture to say, that, in an action of assault and battery, or in an action for the smallest sum, such evidence would ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... And the little wretch told me I wasn't playing the game! What did he mean? Oh, Harry, I wouldn't have come if I hadn't wanted to play the game fairly. I'm sorry for what I said." She spoke now ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... my fault, my lord," replied the boy. "That old wretch doesn't like the gentry, and he has said he would be glad to see M. Tristan and all his sons hanging from ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... know what to do," he answered her doubtfully. "Put him across my saddle, poor wretch, I suppose; the fray must ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... metropolitan advanced to the royal throne with downcast eye but unfaltering voice; accused himself of weakness and folly, and firmly refused to sign the articles. "Miserable wretch that I am," cried he, with bitter tears coursing down his cheeks, "I see the Anglican Church enslaved, in punishment for my sins. But it is all right. I was taken from the court, not the cloister, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... but I apprehend, that all his motions, and mine own too, are watched by the execrable wretch: and indeed his are by an agent of mine; for I own, that I am so apprehensive of his plots and revenge, now I know that he has intercepted my vehement letters against him, that he is the subject of my dreams, as well as ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... dress, so unlike that which he had worn from his infancy, and wished to awake from what seemed at the moment a dream, strange, horrible, and unnatural. 'Good God!' he muttered, 'am I then a traitor to my country, a renegade to my standard, and a foe, as that poor dying wretch expressed himself, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... he will win it? Oh, if he only would! But supposing that he does not win it, it would be just as well that—that someone else should win it—someone in—in his own home. Oh, what a wicked wretch I am! What's that? It's baby! I do hope she won't wake up. There's all this mending, and I've only milk enough for one more bottle. There! She is waking up! You ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... A mychare seems to denote properly a sneaking thief. Way. Prompt., p.336. Mychare, a covetous, sordid fellow. Jamieson. Fr. pleure-pain: m. A niggardlie wretch; a puling micher or ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... wonder God will let His joyous sunshine gild my guilty head with its smiles, An outcast barred beyond the pale of hope, Beyond the lamp of their mercy's flickering light, They would scarcely wonder if the earth should ope And swallow up the wretch from ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... feel that the brutal wretch had any reasonable cause to complain of him, and especially no right to revenge himself for an injury received while his assailant was the aggressor. He had done his duty to his country. He had been compelled to act promptly; and he had not aimed ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... spearhead seize, And the bold sea-rover slay, Him whose blows on headpiece ring, Heaper up of piles of dead. Then on Endil's courser[17] bounding, O'er the sea-depths I will ride, While the wretch who spells abuseth, Life ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... covetous wretch Whose heart's at full stretch To gain an inordinate treasure; Him leave with the rest, And such mortals detest, Who sacrifice life ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... statements were so exquisitely performed that one could not help regretting their unsubstantial nature and the impossibility of preserving them under glass for instruction and delight of posterity. And all the time the wretch was drawing his chair nearer and nearer. Once or twice he looked about to see if we were observing, but we were in appearance blankly oblivious to all but one another and our several diversions. The low hum of our conversation, the gentle tap-tap of the cards as they ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... followed in quick succession. Some were beheaded, some were hanged, some were burned alive. All who had borne arms or worked at the fortifications were, of course, put to death. Such as refused to confess and receive the Catholic sacraments perished by fire. A poor wretch, accused of having ridiculed these mysteries, had his tongue torn out before being beheaded. A cobbler, named Blaise Bouzet, was hanged for having eaten meat-soup upon Friday. He was also accused of going to the Protestant preachings for the sake of participating ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the plague choke him with his considerateness, the wretch, the cut-throat that he is! Did ever anyone hear of such usury? Is he not satisfied with the outrageous interest he asks that he must force me to take, instead of the three thousand francs, all the old rubbish which he picks up. ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere
... meant to shield modesty, threw jeers and mockery in return. But the Gentile boys ran away soon, or ran away punished. A chemise and a petticoat turn a frightened woman into an Amazon in such circumstances; and woe to the impudent wretch who lingered after the avengers plunged into the thicket. Slaps and cuffs at close range were his portion, and ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... enchanted Montesinos, where he found people to make more of him than if he had been in his own house; for it seems he came in for a table laid out and a bed ready made. There he saw fair and pleasant visions, but here I'll see, I imagine, toads and adders. Unlucky wretch that I am, what an end my follies and fancies have come to! They'll take up my bones out of this, when it is heaven's will that I'm found, picked clean, white and polished, and my good Dapple's with them, and by that, perhaps, it will be found out who we are, at least ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... misery began? That poor little wretch ... she's lying dead too. They're both dead together now. ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... seemed a thankless wretch, my dear Miss Mitford,' etc. etc. 'You, my dear friend, know too well what it is to have to finish a book, to blame my not attempting,' etc. etc. 'This is the thirty-ninth letter I have written since yesterday morning,' says Harriet Martineau. 'Oh, I can ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... the hot and desperate struggle for breath, sounds came from her, but no words. But she ran forward blindly, and kneeling, caught him by the knees; he could not but find pity in his heart for the witless poor wretch, who seemed to be fighting, not with regret nor for need of his pity, but with some maggot in the brain which drove her deeper into the fiery centre of the storm. Richard did what he could. A religious man himself, he pointed her to the Christ on the wall; but ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... now," I said to myself passionately; "I don't think I'm a coward, but I cannot fire at the poor wretch, and I must accept ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... she reiterated, between vast sobs, that Captain Bean was a soulless wretch, that she would never set foot on Sculpin Point, and that she would die there on the sofa rather than ride in such an ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... "Come down here, ye wretch!" he exclaimed, taking up a knife from the table and holding it up threateningly. "Come down here, ye foul fiend. How dare ye touch a feather ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... Reginald Scot as an illiterate wretch, but admits that he had never read him. It was Wierus whom he chiefly sought ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... of falling in love with her; but it sickened him to think that a girl who had been brought up by his aunt, who had been loved at Bragton, whom he had liked, who looked so like a lady, should put herself on a par with such a wretch as that. In all this he was most unjust to both of them. He was specially unjust to poor Larry, who was by no means a wretch. His costume was not that to which Morton had been accustomed in Germany, nor would it have passed ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... had saved the life of Mrs. Jeffreys, Robert Seymour looked about him and listened. Now and again he heard a faint, choking scream uttered by some drowning wretch, and a few hundred yards away caught sight of a black object which he thought might be a boat. If so, he reflected that it must be full. Moreover, he could not overtake it. No; his only chance was to make for the shore. He was a ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... Spaniards has been shed," continued the muleteer, "men who had no ill-will towards our cause; and, shame to say, the only one in this our province who now carries the banner of the insurrection is the worthless wretch, Antonio Valdez." ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... Hogarthian, Manetesque in its directness, but with its own queer sharp beauty of paint, he was perfectly satisfied still that he had made no error, heavy though the price had been—heaviest he had ever paid. And next to it was hanging the copy of "La Vendimia." There she was—the little wretch-looking back at him in her dreamy mood, the mood he loved best because he felt so much safer when she ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... perceived by the light of the jailer's lantern a dozen figures stretched on straw pallets, and between the sleepers as many more empty couches, for which the newcomers were left to scramble. Tristram secured one as the door clanged and left them in pitch-black night, but gave it up to a pitiful wretch who crept near and kissing his hand implored leave to share it. Curling himself up upon the bare floor, he was quickly asleep and ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Champlain, sickening at the sight, begged leave to shoot him. They refused, and he turned away in anger and disgust; on which they called him back and told him to do as he pleased. He turned again and a shot from his arquebus put the wretch out of misery. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various |
