"Alas" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of his precious manuscript. But, alas 'tis written in Egyptian hieroglyphics. Joe calls to his assistance the wonderful stone, "the gift of God," and peeping hastily through it, he sees an angel pointing somewhere towards a miraculous pair of spectacles!!! Yes, two ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... "But alas! such feelings were destined to be of short duration. While we were thus employed at Mafeking, the openly-declared enemies of the Imperial Government, and of peace and order in Bechuanaland, had been at their appropriate work elsewhere within the Protectorate. Before sunset the same evening, I ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... that all the bad money ever made must be manufactured here, the truth is that five-sixths of the villainous crew who deal in that commodity obtain their supplies from London, and not from our little "hardware village." But alas! there is a dark side to the picture, indeed, for, according to the Registrar-General's return of June, 1879 (and the proportionate ratio, we are sorry to say, still remains the same), Birmingham ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... me the smiling mornings shine, And reddening Phoebus lifts his golden fire; The birds in vain their amorous descant join, Or cheerful fields resume their green attire. These ears, alas! for other notes repine; A different object do these eyes require; My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine; And in my breast the imperfect joys expire; Yet morning smiles the busy race to cheer, And new-born pleasure brings to happier men; The fields to all their wonted tribute bear; To warm ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... For hear, alas, the dreadful truth, Nor hear it with a frown: Thou can'st not make the tea so fast As I can gulp ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... spirit they have not changed.... How grave a disappointment it must be to our great President, who has exerted himself so to bring the German people to reason, to make them understand the horror that they alone have brought deliberately upon the world! Alas! Far from it. Indeed, they have attempted with insidious propaganda to undermine the morale of our troops...." A little storm of muttered epithets went through the room. The Reverend Dr. Skinner elevated his chubby pink palms and smiled benignantly..."to undermine ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... affected by the Persian female, but soft white draperies, from beneath which peeped a pair of loose baggy trousers and tiny feet encased in gold-embroidered slippers. Invisible to her, I made every effort, from my hiding-place behind a projecting stall, to catch a glimpse of her face, but, alas! a yashmak was in the way—not the thin gauzy wisp affected by the smart ladies of Cairo and Constantinople, but a thick, impenetrable barrier of white linen, such as the peasant women of Mohammedan countries wear. Who could she be? What was ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... "Alas," she grieved, "no gift have I for the infant Saviour. Would that I had but a flower to place in ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... is covered with promises: houses, horses, servants, yea, every thing is at his disposal. But, alas! the traveler soon finds that this ceremony of words does not extend to deeds. He is never expected to call for the services so pompously proffered. So long as he stays in Quito he will not lose sight of the contrast between big promise and beggarly performance. This outward civility, ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... slim, active boys, with their bosoms open, and their hair cut on their forehead, whilst behind it flows naturally in ringlets. It is something uncommon here to meet a young man, and more especially a boy, with a pale or sallow face, with deformed features, or disproportioned limbs. With us, alas! it is not to be concealed, the case is very much otherwise; if it were not, handsome people would hardly strike us so very much as they ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... Alas, the young children! they are seeking Death in life, as best to have! They are binding up their hearts away from breaking, With a cerement from the grave. Go out, children, from the mine and from the city— Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do! Pluck your handfuls of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... But alas, these are not the passages which have raised so much fury against me. One or two mistakes in facts of no importance, or a single blunder, would not have provoked them; they are not so tender of my reputation as a writer. All their outrage is occasioned ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... magister'—heir apparent to the tiller—betrothed to the sweep—wedded to the deck—how art thou laid low! Where is the blooming cheek, ruddy with the browning air? where the bright and swimming eye? Alas where? 'Tum breviter dirae mortis aperta via est,' as sweet Tibullus hath it;" and the Dominie sobbed anew. "Had this stroke fallen upon me, the aged, the ridiculed, the little regarded, the ripe one for the sickle, it would have been well—yet fain would I have instructed thee ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... nephew comes of age, or till his stepfather returns, that we must keep the enchantress at bay. Then the poor lad will be safe, providing always that she and her Colonel have not made a rake of him by that time. Alas, what a wretch am I not to be able to do more for him! Child, you have ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... have no acquaintance with him, but I respect his evident talents. Consistent truth and goodness will assuredly in the end overcome every thing; but inconsistent good can never be a match for consistent evil. Alas! I look in vain for some wise and vigorous man to sound the word Duty in the ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... of the earth who had lived delicately with her, and the merchants of the earth who were made rich by her, bewailed her, standing afar off for the fear of her torment, and crying, Alas! alas, that great Babylon! for in one ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... only shows you know not Venice. Alas! how should you? she knows not herself, In all her mystery. Hear me—they who aim At Foscari, aim no less at his father; The sire's destruction would not save the son; They work by different means to the same end, And that is—but they ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... lass, a fair one, As fair as e'er was seen; She was indeed a rare one, Another Sheba queen. Her waist exceeding small, The fives did fit her shoe; But now alas! sh' 'as left ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... to Mr. Griffin's proposal that I should edit such a Cyclopaedia, I had it in my mind that I might make the scissors eminently effective. Alas! on narrowly examining our best Cyclopaedias, I found that the scissors had become blunted through too frequent and vigorous use. One great exception exists: viz., the Penny Cyclopaedia of Charles Knight.[470] The cheapest and the least pretending, it is really the most philosophical ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... to answer at Guildhall upon the 14th. Upon which day he attended, with a firm resolution to answer. But while he went out for a refreshment, he was called for, and none answering, his bail bond was forfeited, which afterward gave him no small uneasiness when his bail's wife said to him, Alas! why have you ruined our family? However, to prevent further damage, he appeared on the 20th, when he was arraigned in common form and examined, Whether he was at Bothwel, and if he approved of bishop Sharp's ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... and lurched; a top fraction of the egg flew in the direction of the Q.C., and the remaining portion oozed, in yellow confusion, rapidly into her plate. Alas for that past mistress of elegant dignity, Salemina! If I had been at Her Majesty's table, I should have smiled, even if I had gone to the Tower the next moment; but as it was, I became hysterical. My neighbour, a portly member of Parliament, looked amazed, Salemina grew scarlet, the situation ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its Virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... death resounded in the following note in an old manuscript: "As the owner of a fig-tree knows when it is time to cull the figs, so God knew the appointed time of Rashi, and carried him away in his hour to let him enter heaven. Alas! he is no more, for God has taken him." These few lines, without doubt the note of some copyist, show with what deep respect the memory of Rashi came to be cherished but shortly after his death. Like Rabbeun Gershom he was awarded after his death the title of "Light ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... not understand him—not a word. He spoke in the language of his people—of his people that know no mercy and no shame. And he was angry. Alas! he was always angry now, and always speaking words that she could not understand. She stood in silence, looking at him through her patient eyes, while he shook her arms a little ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... conceive whence we are? Dost thou know either whence we come or to whom we belong, or whither we shall go? Something we are, but what will in a short time become of us, canst thou tell?' And the other drop might answer, 'Alas, poor fellow-drop, be assured we are nothing, for the sun may arise and draw us up and scatter us and so bring us to nothing.' Says the other again, 'Suppose it do, for all that, yet we are, we have a being, ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... waves above them her green leaves, Dewy with nature's tear drops, as they pass, Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, Over the unreturning brave,—alas! Ere evening to be trodden like the grass," &c.—Childe Harold, Canto iii. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851 • Various
... Alas! how little we knew on the day of my ordination, and in those halcyon moments of our first housekeeping! To be the confidential friend in a hundred families in the town,—cutting the social trifle, as my friend Haliburton says, "from the top of the whipped-syllabub ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... hundred sheep, besides the other necessary rations, carts, &c. The instructions were to land at Rockingham Bay, and examine the eastern coast of the peninsula, to Port Albany in the extreme north, where a ship would meet and receive them. Such was the programme, alas for the performance! ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... friend a libertine! Malicious and hostile authors have asserted, without, however, adducing any proof, that a criminal intimacy existed between Bonaparte and Hortense. A falsehood, an unworthy falsehood! And this report has been generally current, not only in France, but throughout all Europe. Alas! can it, then, be true that calumny exercises so mighty a charm that, when it has once taken possession of a man, he can never be freed from ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... the worst, it often happens that some unexpected success breaks on his path like a bright sunbeam. Alas! it often happens, also, that when his hopes are high and his prospects brightest, a dark cloud overspreads him like a funeral pall. We might learn a lesson from this—the lesson of dependence on that Saviour who careth ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... money, Burton and his company had, to use Mrs. Burton's expression, "returned triumphantly," with twenty-five tons of minerals and numerous objects of archaeological interest. The yield of the argentiferous and cupriferous ores, proved, alas! to be but poor. They went in search of gold, and found graffiti! But was Burton really disappointed? Hardly. In reading about every one of his expeditions in anticipation of mineral wealth, the thought forces itself upon us that it was adventure rather ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... AEn. Alas sweet boy, thou must be still a while, Till we haue fire to dresse the meate we kild: Gentle Achates, reach the Tinder boxe, That we may make a fire to warme vs with, And rost our new ...
— The Tragedy of Dido Queene of Carthage • Christopher Marlowe
... Carenelle, St. Martin, Nointel, and the surrounding domains, were reunited to the manor of l'Ile Adam, and the neighbouring forests, and the cadet became the head of the house. At this time Madame was forty-five, and was still fit to bear children; but alas! she conceived not. As soon as she saw the lineage of l'Ile Adam destroyed, she was anxious ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... tempestuous and stormy seas. Chappewee's wife said to him, "You must have done something very wrong when you were up the tree, for we no longer enjoy the light of the day. The glorious orb, which the old man Chappewee brought to us, before his children ate of the black fruit, has disappeared. Alas, for us, who have lost our best friend, the sun! Alas, for us, who, it may be, are involved in a night that will never ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... said, apologetically. "What our fine young friend here told me was like some one stepping on my gouty foot. I've been maybe a little too zealous—too exacting. Then I'm old and testy ... What does it matter? How could it have been prevented? Alas! it's black like that hideous Benton ... But we're coming out into the light. Lodge, didn't you tell me this Number Ten ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... if advantage is thus to be taken with impunity of the absense of a brave defender of his country? Alas for the immodesty of women! They might learn virtue even from the chaste example of the cooing turtle-dove, who when once deprived by misfortune of her mate, ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... Our medals are wrought like his, but they do not mean the same thing; our regiments are cheered as his are, but the thought in the heart is not the same; the Iron Cross is on the bosom of his king, but it is not the sign of our God. For we, alas, follow our God with many relapses and self-contradictions, but he follows his very consistently. Through all the things that we have examined, the view of national boundaries, the view of military methods, the view ...
— The Barbarism of Berlin • G. K. Chesterton
... be right!" replied the minister, who sat revolving only how best, alas, to cover his retreat! "I will go home at once and think it all over. Indeed, I am even now all but convinced that what you say must be what the ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... match with evenly balanced players on a good grass court, under ideal weather conditions, has only to be experienced to be appreciated. It is then you realize what great enjoyment this game gives to any one who loves it. Alas! the really good grass court and ideal weather are very hard to get in England. I suppose there was scarcely a day in 1909 that could be described as perfect for lawn tennis; and our good grass courts are ...
— Lawn Tennis for Ladies • Mrs. Lambert Chambers
... the human conscience, in each revival of religion, in each era of advance in the knowledge of divine truth, in each soul that has been regenerated, comforted, or taught. Mediately his work has been carried on through the church, the body of those that believe. But, alas! how sadly his witness has been weakened and hindered by the medium through which it has come. He has not been able to do many mighty works because of the unbelief which has kept closed and barred those ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... and perhaps by the language of counsel known to themselves, he sprang into the air, and by one strong effort reached the point of a rock that projected into the river. The joy became loud and universal; but, alas! it was soon changed into notes of sorrow, for the poor, wounded bird, in trying to fly toward his nest, dropped again into ...
— Anecdotes of Animals • Unknown
... hero flees, beating the wave with his and casting to the gales of the open sea his idle promises,—there, standing among the shingle of the beach, the daughter of Minos follows him, alas! with her beautiful sad eyes: she stares, astonied, like to a Bacchante changed into a statue. She looks forth, and her heart floats upon the great waves of her grief. She lets slip from her head her fine-spun coif, she tears away the thin veils which ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... But alas! that delight was of short duration. Mrs. Longfellow was taken sick in Amsterdam in October, and they were detained there for a month. She seemed to recover, and they journeyed on to Rotterdam, where she fell ill again and died ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... Alas, we have most of us to walk bare-headed; but that is the meaning of the story of Nemea,—worth laying to heart and thinking of sometimes, when you see a dish garnished with parsley, which was the crown at the ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... gods—who, however, were content in being present and applauding the devouring skill of the peptic host and toast-master. Even serene Majesty at Yieldiz would give away, I think, an hundred of its sealed dishes for such a skillet of eggs in such an enchanted scene. But for it, alas! such wild and simple joy is a sealed book. Poor Serene Majesty! Now, having gone through the fruit course—and is not the olive a fruit?—I fill my jug at the River to make my coffee. And here I ask, In ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... happy life must have been to husband and wife in this new Paradise!" cries M. Victor Tissot. "Yet it was Paradise Lost before long, for alas! in this, as in the other Paradise, the Eve, the sweet young wife, was tempted by ambition. She took the apple, ate, and gave it to ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... had so many attacks upon "her (Mrs. Piozzi's) subject," that at last she fairly begged quarter. Yet nothing she could say could put a stop to, "How can you defend her in this? how can you justify her in that? &c. &c." "Alas! that I cannot defend her is precisely the reason I can so ill bear to speak of her. How differently and how sweetly has the Queen conducted herself upon this occasion. Eager to see the Letters, she began reading them with ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... too soon, alas, too soon; for now fish are coming; here, there, everywhere; the orders have been strictly obeyed, there is abundance for all purposes. The cooks receive them, and look for Vatel to give orders for their disposal. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... lounging in the doorway, using a toothpick and examining her with interest. The voices from the inner room had ceased; everyone was listening, but she did not care. All at once a click louder than those preceding told her she had been put through at last. Hope leapt within her. Alas! It suffered an immediate extinction, when she found herself au courant of a conversation between two people of opposite sexes, a dalliance flirtatious in character, interspersed with laughter and snatches of ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... Dir. Alas too hard mishapp! When I but dreame of what mine eies beheld, My hart doth freeze, my limmes do quiuering quake, I senceles stand, my brest with tempest tost Killes in my throte my wordes, ere fully borne. Dead, dead he is: be sure of ...
— A Discourse of Life and Death, by Mornay; and Antonius by Garnier • Philippe de Mornay
... "Alas! alas!" a low voice, full of care, Murmur'd beside me: "Turn and look on me: I am that Rosamond, whom men call fair, If what ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... taken from his own studio, and the skilful old artisan had recognised his preliminary work upon the diadem which he, Hermon, had afterward adorned with ornaments himself. But, alas! this first must at the same time be his last great success, and he was condemned to live on ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Democrats would behave as timid henchmen of the Prussian Junker, and my friend Vandervelde, leader of the International Social Democracy and now Belgian Minister of State, indignantly repudiated my reflections on his German comrades. Alas! the Gospel according to St. Marx has been as ineffectual as the Gospel according to St. Marc. The Social Democracy which called itself the International (with a capital I) has proved selfishly ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... ship to the crystal streamlet; but, alas! the weight of the stones carried it straight to the bottom. There it lay in the pebbly channel, with the clear waters rippling above it, and the little girl stood aghast upon ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker
... Who cries, Woe? who, Alas? Who has contentions? Who, complaining? Who has dullness of eyes? They who linger long over wine, They who go about tasting mixed wine. Look not upon the wine when it is red, When it sparkles in the cup. At last it bites like a serpent, ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... favourite passage out of his favourite book, 'Don Quixote.' She would surely forgive him then, and his heart would no longer hurt him. Certainly she could never go on making him so miserable if she knew his feelings! She was too soft and gentle for that. Alas! it was not Sylvia who came; but Anna, fresh from sleep, with her ice-green eyes and bright hair; and in sudden strange antipathy to her, that strong, vivid figure, he stood dumb. And this first lonely moment, which he had so many times ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... young people take on themselves the marriage vow does not as a rule result in suitable companionships. When a girl falls in love with a young man she is unable to perceive his shortcomings and vices, and when, after living together for a few months, she begins to find them out, it is alas too late. If, previous to her engagement, she had taken her mother into her confidence, and asked her to use her good offices to find out the character of the young man whom she favored, a fatal and unhappy mistake might have ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... "Alas my love, you do me wrong To cast me off discourteously, And I have loved you so long, Delighting in your company. Greensleeves was all my joy, Greensleeves was my delight, Greensleeves was my heart of gold, And who but ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... have some dealing. One of the best services true man can do a neighbour, is to persuade him—I speak in a parable—to house his children for a while, that he may know what they are: the children of another may be the saving of his children and his whole house. Alas for the man the children of whose brain are the curse of the household into which they are received! But from Barbara's house Richard had taken into his a vital protoplasmic idea that must work, and would never cease to work until the ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... fear at what he taught, Old men and young men, wives and maids unwed, And children screaming in the crowds unsought: Some to their temples with accustomed feet Bent—as the oxen go beneath the rod, To fling themselves before some pictured saint, "Alas! God help us if there is ...
— The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems • Dora Sigerson
... of us composed a text as absurd as the drawings. Who will give us back those delicious evenings of laughter, jest and chat, when without stirring from home or depending on anything from without our whole household was so happy?" Alas! they were not of long duration. By and by Sister Marcelline went away, leaving her patient a pen on which she had embroidered, "Remember your promises." He was afflicted by her departure, and wrote some lines to her, who, as he said, did not know what poetry ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... The Comitium had become an exchange, the criminal trial a mine of gold for the jurymen. No law is any longer obeyed save only this one, that nothing is given for nothing. All virtues have vanished; in their stead the awakened man is saluted by impiety, perfidy, lewdness, as new denizens. "Alas for thee, Marcus, with such a sleep and such an awakening!"— The sketch resembles the Catilinarian epoch, shortly after which (about 697) the old man must have written it, and there lay a truth in the bitter turn at the close; where Marcus, properly reproved for his unseasonable accusations and ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... voice of her old friend the coachman, who had come to fetch her away. She cackled to him in a most loving way; but, alas! the coachman had nothing to say ...
— Dick and His Cat and Other Tales • Various
... Ellinor seemed, alas! to have as little taste for the luxuries with which I had provided her as the pig had for the silver trough. What I called conveniences were to her incumbrances: she had not been used to them; she was put out of her ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... recently. There are long-haired wild-looking pigs roving about that might do for an impromptu pig-stick. There are feathered fowl in abundance, and fish for the asking, many kinds of sport and many kinds of hunts, but, alas, there is a very important one we would all gladly do without—that provided by the zoological gardens in the peasant's bed. Possibly the straw mattresses or luikko may be the cause, or the shut-up wooden frames of the bedstead, or the moss used to keep the rooms warm and exclude ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... immediately copied in numerous newspapers in England and America. He was always proud of the celebrity that story achieved; but he never sought to claim the credit for himself. He freely admits that it was not Mark Twain, but the frog, that became celebrated. The author, alas, remained ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... these we have yet to speak of our two Sacraments instituted by Christ, of which also every Christian ought to have at least an ordinary, brief instruction, because without them there can be no Christian; although, alas! hitherto no instruction concerning them has been given." (733, 1.) Thus Luther materially enlarged the Catechism. True, several prayer- and confession-books, which appeared in the late Middle Ages, also treat of the Sacraments. As for ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... Alas! No. He was without any beauty, even without the beauty of ugliness. He was ugly, that was all; nothing more nor less; in short, he was uglily ugly. He was not humpbacked, nor knock-kneed, nor pot-bellied; his legs were not like a pair of tongs, and his arms ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Alas, it is truly said, "None but sword-swallowers should endeavour to swallow swords," thereby signifying the vast chasm that lies between those who are really adroit in an undertaking and those who only think that they may easily become so. Presently it began to become deeply impressed upon my discrimination ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... mast of a sinking ship. Cavalry in troops, with drawn sabres, artillery in batteries lined the sides of an open pathway, a complete warlike host awaiting him who was soon to pass,—perhaps to try to rescue him, to carry him off by force from the redoubtable foe in whose power he was. Alas! cavalry charges, cannonades were of no avail. The prisoner was firmly bound, protected by a threefold wall of solid wood, of metal and of velvet, inaccessible to shot and shell, and not at the hands of those soldiers could he ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... no: heaven knows I need a muse; But which of all the nine, pray, should I choose? Thalia, Clio, and Melpomene, I love them all, but none, alas, loves me; For if you want a muse to take your part You must be solely hers with all your heart; And I have mingled since my earliest youth My smiles and tears, my fictions and my truth; Nay, in this very tale, scarce yet half done, I've courted all the nine, and so won none! Not ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis
... so dreaded came to pass. In the evening paper there was quite a sensational account of it. Thank Heaven, no name was given; but alas, the description of him, of his wife and five little children, was unmistakable. I felt as though I had sat still and watched a cat kill a bird. It was raining, not hard, but drearily, and the dead leaves fluttered against the ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... They do not concern you, my beloved friend. On your side all is perfection. But alas! you are not everybody, or everywhere. Never mind! This is a joy, an honour, indeed, to make ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... well," said Larry, ungrudgingly, even though the mask that was to have hung so carelessly from his saddle was panting deep and safe in the sandpit, listening warily for a possible eviction notice from the hunt-terrier (left, alas hunting rabbits in the heart of Gloun Kieraun) thanking its own wits for the recollection ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... show, and keeping his eyes on Nelly and her grandfather, as they rather lingered in the rear. The child bore upon her arm the little basket with her flowers, and sometimes stopped, with timid looks, to offer them at some gay carriage, but, alas! there were many bolder beggars there, adepts at their trade, and although some ladies smiled gently as they shook their heads, and others cried: "See, what a pretty face!" they let the pretty face pass on, ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... of Naples cooeperated with the liberals. And this shameful alliance with the Camorra of Naples is not yet dissolved; the last parliamentary struggles relative to the acts of the government of Naples have given us a sad echo of it—which, alas, proves that it still lasts without hope of change for the future. It is especially at the initial stages of revolutions that these sorts of people abound. It is then, indeed, that the abnormal and unhealthy spirits predominate over the faltering ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... with a sigh: "My good master Cassim. He can neither eat nor speak." In the evening she went to the same druggist, and with tears in her eyes asked for an essence given to sick persons for whose life there is little hope. "Alas!" said she, "I am afraid even this will not save my ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... But alas! the next morning our Irish girl came in with a most rueful face. "And is it milking that baste you'd have me be after?" she said; "sure, and she won't let me ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... getting poor in the most drastic and disagreeable manner,—and those fairy palaces, which rose under our very eyelids over-night, vanishing, like the palace of Aladdin from the vision of the Grand-Seignior after he awoke in the morning. But, alas! the revulsion does not stop with the overthrow of the palaces which had been reared without labor; it is not satisfied with the dissipation of mere fancies and dreams; but, being itself a most real thing, it carries with it many a stately structure, which the toil, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... prayerful as the last, he found a rebellious unbelief rising in his heart. He was travelling roads no Christian had ever trod, on a wild-goose errand, while his comrades were winning fame in the battle-front. Alas! that a bright sword should ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... in the pursuit of Truth!'—'Pursuit do you say?' cried the other, 'here am I with my years eighty and odd—if I haven't found Truth by this time where is my chance, pray?' My own Ba, if I have not already decided, alas for me and the solemn words that are to help! Though in another point of view there would be some luxurious feeling, beyond the ordinary, in knowing one was kept safe to one's heart's good by yet another wall than ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... On the mountain side, a few hundred feet above the Ramganga, is a village of three score double-storeyed houses. These are very picturesque. Their white walls are set off by dark brown woodwork. But alas they are as whited sepulchres. It is only from a distance that they are picturesque. They are typical ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... is led to presume that no American editor has any plan in the composition of his newspaper. I never know whether I have as yet got to the very heart's core of the daily journal, or whether I am still to go on searching for that heart's core. Alas! it too often happens that there is no heart's core. The whole thing seems to have been put out at hap-hazard. And then the very writing is in itself below mediocrity; as though a power of expression in properly arranged language ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... he has loosed Andromeda's chains, for her limbs are numb with bondage, and she cannot rise and walk, but clings to him with dragging arms as he beats back to land with his burden. Well, he had strength for both—it was her weakness which had put the strength in him. It was not, alas, a clean rush of waves they had to win through, but a clogging morass of old associations and habits, and for the moment its vapours were in his throat. But he would see clearer, breathe freer in her presence: she was at once the dead ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... went forth in brave array, the city's one best bet. There was a little shower that day, and I got slightly wet. And then the truth was driven in that my new rags were punk. Alas, my friends, it was a sin the way those trousers shrunk! The buttons from my waistcoat flew with dull and sickening crack; my coat soon changed from brown to blue and then split up ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... menial and dirty duties. They were the ship's scavengers, and had much uncleanly business to see to. Linschoten, describing a Portuguese ship's company, dismisses them with three contemptuous words, "the swabers pump"; but alas, that was but the first duty of your true swabber. Boteler, writing in the reign of James I., gives him more than ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... describe it? Yes; from no morbid wish to dwell upon the frightful scenes which, alas! grew too common, but as some palliation of the acts of our men, against whom charges were plentiful about ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... owing to this temperance that she preserved her health, and even enjoyed it more than ever, notwithstanding the change of climate; but, alas! the good sense, resolution, and forbearance she thus acted with, was not followed by the humble companion ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... my feeling," said Cardo, "but alas! I have her own words to assure me of the bitter truth. 'If I ever loved you,' she said, 'I have ceased to do so, and I feel no more love for you now, than I do for yonder ploughman.' In fact, Ellis, I could not realise while I was speaking to her that ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... "Alas," said Santa Claus. "This year I have only one toy engine, and a poor little lame boy has asked for that in a letter he sent to me up the chimney the other night. And I have only one toy auto, and a little boy ...
— Curly and Floppy Twistytail - The Funny Piggie Boys • Howard R. Garis
... admirable constancy. The restaurant was thronged with new-comers, who spread out even over the many-tabled esplanade before it; but it was in no wise demoralized. That night we sat down in multiplied numbers to a table d'hote of serenely unconscious perfection; and we permanent guests—alas! we are now becoming transient, too—were used with unfaltering recognition of our superior worth. We shared the respect which, all over Europe, attaches to establishment, and which sometimes makes us poor Americans wish for a hereditary nobility, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... a general swoop of a hundred and twenty nightcaps belonging to his companions, and disposed of them to his satisfaction; but as it was discovered that of all the youths in the college of Clermont, he only was the possessor of a cap to sleep in, suspicion (which, alas! was confirmed) immediately fell upon him: and by this little piece of youthful naivete, a scheme, prettily conceived and ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and quenched candle-ends pervaded the apartment, and slips of gray light appeared between the curtains. The day, alas! had come upon them. Frank yawned; and pale with weariness he longed that his guests might leave him. Chairs had been brought out on the balcony. Muchross and his friends had adjourned from the ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... "Alas, poor girl!" said I, "I fear that her happiness will hang upon a slender thread. But suppose we change the conversation: first, because the subject is so meagre, that we might easily wear it out, and secondly, because such jests may ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Alas! never. Brief, as bright, was our theatrical career. But the memory of it lives in the college still: of the comedy, and the supper, and the curious mistake which followed it: and the dean has not to this hour lost the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... conscience are such as no man among us is able to comply with. And what then? Am I to be shut up to despair? am I to say: Then nobody can dwell within that bright flame? Am I to say: Then when God meets man, man must crumble away into nothing and disappear? Am I to say, for myself: Then, alas for me! when I stand at His ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... arrives, warmly welcomed, both: with Voltaire there are difficulties; but surely he too will, before long, manage to arrive. The good Suhm, who had been Saxon Minister at Petersburg to his sorrow this long while back, got in motion soon enough; but, alas, his lungs were ruined by the Russian climate, and he did not arrive. Something pathetic still in those final LETTERS of Suhm. Passionately speeding on, like a spent steed struggling homeward; he has to pause at Warsaw, and in a few days dies there,—in a way mournful to Friedrich ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... that no person might be permitted to enter the room, was for a few moments silent. His mind appeared to labour under oppressive remembrances; he made several attempts to speak, but either resolution or strength failed him. At length, giving madame a look of unutterable anguish, 'Alas, madam,' said he, 'Heaven grants not the prayer of such a wretch as I am. I must expire long before the marquis can arrive. Since I shall see him no more, I would impart to you a secret which lies ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... "I know beforehand that you are speaking the truth as you see it. I know beforehand that any scheme in which you are engaged is for the benefit of our fellow creatures and not for their harm. But alas! you make yourself the judge of these things, and there are times when individual effort is the most ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... than run the risk of possibly causing the Police to put it in circulation, under the impression that it was a coin of the higher value. He spent ten shillings on a ticket to Boulogne-sur-Mer, and with the remaining half-sovereign played at Chemin de Fer at the Casino. And, alas! this was his first straying from the path of virtue. Unfortunately he was most unlucky (from a moral point of view) in his venture, leaving the tables with a sum exceeding forty pounds. Feeling reluctant ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various
... there's not much bauble about it, and the cocked-hat he called a mediaeval intrusion, though, to my thinking, there were precious few cocked-hats in the Middle Ages. Then he said he would no more serve as Alderman; and the Mayor and the Town Clerk cried—"Alas, good soul!"—and accepted his resignation with all ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various
... Saint-Ferdinand, or books to keep to the accountant below. Jenkins, as he made this reflection, smiled in pity, then went straight in as he was invited by the following inscription, "Enter without knocking." Alas! the permission was scarcely abused. A tall young man wearing spectacles, and writing at a small table, with his legs wrapped in a travelling-rug, rose precipitately to greet the visitor whom his short sight had prevented him ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... Alas! sir, replied she, blushing, you commanded me to answer with sincerity, but how can I resolve a question which as yet I have never asked myself?—All that I can say is, that I now am happy by ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... possible danger, as all the Indians in this part of the country are friendly. But, to tell you the truth, Roger, I am quite jealous of you, as you are now able to go out into the forest by yourself, and meet with all sorts of adventures; whilst I, alas! am compelled to stay at home, with no other amusement than occasionally a 'sewing' ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... the East, thou mournest for the host, Bereft of all thy sons, alas the day! For them whom Xerxes led hath Xerxes lost— Xerxes who wrecked the fleet, and flung ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... "Alas, no; Brennan appears to hate you with all the animosity of his strange nature, and his influence is so much stronger than mine that I have almost been commanded not to mention your ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... too true, she thought, bitterly. Alas! for the unprotected and helpless of my sex, men of wealth and position rarely offer an honorable suit to women of a lower standing in society. I will have as little as possible to say to this ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... alas for the poor father's hopes and the childlike Indian vow! True, they found abundance of food,—a beaver dam full of beaver, a moose, a porcupine taken by the Indian medicine man. Father Le Jeune, with radiant face, met the hunters returning ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... the helm of the State; it was very certain that the King should not long keep to his marriage with the lady from Cleves; lamentable it was that Cleves had fallen away from Protestantism and from the league that so goodly had promised for truth in religion. But so, alas that the day had come! so it was. The King was a man brave and royal in his degree, but unstable, so that to keep him to Protestantism and good government a firm man was earnestly needed. There was none other man than Privy Seal. Let him consider earnestly ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... parted in a tiff—that's the way she got rid of him. There was another man in the case, but Philip was too innocent to know this. The peaceful hills of New York lured and beckoned. He responded to the call and started back home. In half the time it took to go, he had arrived. But alas, the hills had shrunken. The mighty stream that once ran through Stockbridge ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... Society was a lifeless corpse. The society might have been waked up if Mr. Lowell, then returning from England, could have been induced to co-operate. He was approached on the subject, but would not respond,—he only said that he desired rest! Alas for the hollowness of ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, May 1887 - Volume 1, Number 4 • Various
... offer these remarks in no spirit of uncalled-for criticism, but because I see how much the moral authority of the United States and their splendid situation as the providential peace makers of some future—alas! still far off—day has been impaired by the aforementioned proceedings. We cannot help considering them as so many acts of ill-disguised hostility against ourselves and of compliance with our foes. How can you expect, then, to have your good offices accepted with ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Alas! can she inconstant prove? Does sickness force her stay? Or is it fate, or failing love, That keeps my love away, To make the hour a day to me, And make the day a year? The hour and day we should have met— But my ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... King (said the first) I would rest wt ease all the day on that hy stack wt my vomb up to the sun: the 2nd, if I ware King I would eat my sup every day swimming wt bacon: the 3d, I would feid my swine a cheval: the 4t, Alas, ye have left me nothing to choose; ye have chosen ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... for your protection, since,-perhaps for my sins!-it intitles me to your annotations. To resent, therefore, this offering, however insignificant, would ill become the universality of your undertaking; though not to despise it may, alas! be out of ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... us. It is certainly a bad scheme, to any Christian country, which God hath blessed with fruitfulness, and where the people enjoy the just rights and privileges of mankind, that there should be any beggars at all. But, alas! among us, where the whole nation itself is almost reduced to beggary by the disadvantages we lie under, and the hardships we are forced to bear; the laziness, ignorance, thoughtlessness, squandering temper, slavish ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... was incessant in her Prayers to the Gods that they might restore her Zadig. Her Eyes were Night and Day overwhelm'd with Tears. She waited with Impatience for the happy Moment, when those of Zadig might dart their Fires upon her; but alas! the wounded Eye grew so inflam'd and swell'd, that she was terrified to the last Degree. She sent as far as Memphis for Hermes, the celebrated Physician there, who instantly attended his new Patient with a numerous Retinue. ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... not why I should be amused by that man's nonsense,' said Camilla, suddenly becoming grave at the very crisis of a most attractive smile, 'when I am so melancholy at the thought of Vetranio's departure. What will become of me when he is gone? Alas! who will be left in the palace to compose songs to my beauty and music for my lute? Who will paint me as Venus, and tell me stories about the ancient Egyptians and their cats? Who at the banquet will direct what dishes I am to choose, and what I am to reject? Who?'—and poor little ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... am misunderstood!" if the Matron shall say, or the Maid: "Alas! I do not understand," my son, ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... educated to bear his fate. 21. It is I whom you see. 22. The study of history is a study that demands a well-trained memory. 23. Beyond the city limits the trains run more rapidly than they do here. 24. Alas! I can travel no more. 25. A lamp that smokes is a torture to one ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... and pipes of brass May LULLI now forsake, While I make music on the grass Before the storm-clouds break; He stops his ears and cries "Alas!" Because he cannot make With all his fiddlers ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 24, 1917 • Various
... dreaded warrior for the safety of the city. These venerable ambassadors were repelled with scorn. Again, the sacred priests and augurs were deputed to make the petition, this time in the name of the gods of the people; but, alas, they too entreated in vain. Then it was remembered that the stern man had always reverenced his mother, and she with an array of matrons, accompanied by the little ones of Coriolanus, went out to add their efforts to those which had failed. As they appeared, Coriolanus ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... of peace to my distempered soul! Return, Monimia, appear, though but for one short moment, to my longing eyes! vouchsafe one smile! Renaldo will be satisfied; Renaldo's heart will be at rest; his grief no more will overflow its banks, but glide with equal current to his latest hour! Alas! these are the raving of my delirious sorrow! Monimia hears not my complaints; her soul, sublimed far, far above all sublunary cares, enjoys that felicity of which she was debarred on earth. In vain I stretch these eyes, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... stream, whose grassy banks are now as green as in springtime. We walked along the Sorgues— which is quite as beautiful and worthy to be sung as the Clitumnus—to the end of the village to take the road to Vaucluse. Beside its banks stands the "Hotel de Petrarque et Laure." Alas that names of the most romantic and impassioned lovers of all history should be desecrated to a sign-post ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... the approaching triareme, she was wondering how she could awake to thoughts of British glory her rather heavy-witted father, Coel the King—an hereditary prince of that ancient Britain in which he was now, alas, but a tributary prince of the all ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... the emperor, "how fearful is this deadly silence! One might fancy that he walked in Pompeii; and Pompeii, alas, is not more lonely. To think that I, an emperor, must look on ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... strong enough," said the artist. "Mr. Semitopolis's statue has not turned up, and I am afraid I shall be answerable for the money; but I think nothing of that—what I fear, my dear Mr. Finsbury, what I fear—alas that I should have to say it!—is exposure. The Hercules was to be smuggled out of Italy; a thing positively wrong, a thing of which a man of my principles and in my responsible position should have taken (as I now see too ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ever-varying pain, The gentle sufferer scarcely would complain, Hid every sigh, each trembling doubt reprov'd, To spare a pang to those fond hearts she lov'd. And often, in short intervals of ease, Her kind and cheerful spirit strove to please; Whilst we, alas, unable to refuse The sad delight we were so soon to lose, Treasur'd each word, each kind expression claim'd,— ''Twas me she look'd at,'—'it was me she nam'd.' Thus fondly soothing grief, too great to bear, With ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... awful death was told, "Alas!" cried she, "he had grown too bold— Too vain and proud! Had he only kept, Like the prudent Mole, in his nest, and slept. Or worked underground, where none could see, He might have still ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould
... like a Moslem call to prayer; but, alas! it was directed at a people who had sloughed all pretensions to be ranked among those who respond to such calls, to any calls which would distract them from their objective in the pelting pursuit of ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... our joy and desire," replied Azariah, "but alas! I fear it will not be possible to have such a request granted. The exact number is selected and no females are marked ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones
... the enemy, "powerful on sea," first burst upon the shield-shaped Isle of Saints. At the close of the eighth century we cast back a grateful retrospect on the Christian ages of Ireland. Can we do so now, at the close of the eleventh? Alas! far from it. Bravely and in the main successfully as the Irish have borne themselves, they come out of that cruel, treacherous, interminable war with many rents and stains in that vesture of innocence in which ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... spread through all the city, and people flocked to his lodging with money and diseases. He was dazzled at the prospect of riches. After three or four years of this kind of thing, if the tax man did not hear too much of his success, he could return to Spain and live in comfortable retirement. Alas! for human hopes, he returned sooner than he had intended. A few days after the death of his first patient somebody asked how he ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... us, which will only end with life. Mrs. Fairfax, of Gilling Castle, and her two handsome daughters were also at Rome. She was my namesake—Mary Fairfax—and my valued friend till her death. Now, alas! many ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... Alas! poor Mary discovered her error too late. Marston turned out a profligate drunkard. At first he did not come out in his true colours. A son was born, and he insisted on calling him March, for no other reason than that he was born in the ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... Alas! those children of the Earth With hate began to burn, And Murder stained her beauteous robe, And bade the young Earth mourn. And ages, heavy ages, still Have bowed with gathering woe The form of her whose life was ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... Not much, alas! Probably because we are still so undeveloped that it would be, for many reasons, unsafe to let us know how great a future is before us. Strongest in hope is the argument of Charles Fourier, based on what he declared to be ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... engaging priest was surely the most agreeable person to be met, and the most dangerous to ladies' hearts,—with his rich suit of black, and his smug, clean-shaven face, and his jeweled hands, and his sweet, seducing manners. Alas! the world is changed! The priests whom you see playing tre-sette now at the conversazioni are altogether different men, and the delightful abbate is as much out of fashion as the bag-wig or the queue. When in fashion he loved the theatre, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... "Alas! alas! Caesar, were not all the same oaths sworn yesterday to Valeria? But I will trust you, at least so far as to partake your present dangers. Flight may be necessary:—form your plans. Be they what they may, there is one ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... are kind!" replied the old woman sighing. "Alas, age has brought me down to this; I wanted to walk a little distance and can go no further because my feet ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... courage constantly baffled. But yester eve a party of merchants came slowly on their mules from Dusseldorf. The honest men saw them crawling, and let them penetrate near a league into the forest, then set upon them to make them disgorge a portion of their ill-gotten gains. But alas! the merchants were no merchants at all, but soldiers of more than one nation, in the pay of the Archbishop of Cologne; haubergeons had they beneath their gowns, and weapons of all sorts at hand; natheless, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... there." In a word, he would not think of going there without me. "I go there, Friday?" says I; "what shall I do there?" He turned very quick upon me at this. "You do great deal much good," says he; "you teach wild mans be good, sober, tame mans; you tell them know God, pray God, and live new life." "Alas, Friday!" says I, "thou knowest not what thou sayest; I am but an ignorant man myself." "Yes, yes," says he, "you teachee me good, you teachee them good." "No, no, Friday," says I, "you shall go without me; leave me here to live by ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... commanded, a body of disciplined troops thus constituted, and of a fighting strength so respectable, might have been trusted not only to hold its own against Afghan onslaught, but if necessary to take the offensive with success. But alas, the heart of the hapless force had gone to water, its discipline was a wreck, its chiefs were feeble and apathetic; its steps were dogged by the incubus of some 12,000 camp followers, with a great company of women and children. The awful fate brooded over its forlorn banners of expiating ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... softly homewards our horses' heads. For my fear is That to some youth already this heart has been given; already This brave hand has been clasped, has pledged faith to some fortunate lover. Then with my offer, alas! I should stand in ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... SOS. Alas! if anything has revealed to you the secret of my heart, I beseech you to tell it to no one; and, above all things, to keep it secret from the fair princess whose ...
— The Magnificent Lovers (Les Amants magnifiques) • Moliere
... stands written in my mind's tablets as the type of all that was gallant, amiable, and fascinating in man. His wit was not more conspicuous than the overflowing goodness of his heart, which he poured in such full measure on his friends, as to leave, alas! small ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... does not pretend that our "new drama" is as far in front of the old as the "Death of Procris" is in front of Landseer's stags. Alas, no! It merely suggests that taste is encouraged by an open mind, and is ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... indifferently and fearlessly. She looked bold and resourceful and unscrupulous, and she was all of these. They were handsome girls, had the fresh color of their country up-bringing, and in their eyes that brilliancy which is called,—by no metaphor, alas!—"the light of youth." ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... as an invert realizes his abnormal and dangerous situation in society, in which he feels a pariah, he often makes up his mind to follow the advice of ignorant friends, and even, alas, of ignorant doctors, and try and cure himself by marriage. Sometimes he begins by visiting a brothel to see if he is capable of normal coitus with a woman. In this he often succeeds, if he is able to picture to himself a man in the person of the prostitute. He tries to ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... he came in again, but, alas! with mischief in his heart! and raising me up, he said, Rise, Pamela, rise; you are your own enemy. Your perverse folly will be your ruin: I tell you this, that I am very much displeased with the freedoms you have taken with my name to ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... little city. Situated high above sea level, with a climate so bracing and life-giving that the phthisis bacillus can hardly live in it, it seemed to our soldiers, after their long march across the veldt, a veritable City of Refuge. Alas! how soon it was to be turned ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... easy it is for the proper-false In women's waxen hearts, to set their forms! Alas! our frailty is the cause, not we; For, such as we are made ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... 'Alas! and woe is me!' very lamentable events had occurred to Betsinda that morning, and all in consequence of that fatal warming-pan business of the previous night. The King had offered to marry her; of course Her Majesty the ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that was her one thought—things had gone wrong with him. Oh, if she could only give him his heart's desire! This wonderful unknown Elizabeth—had she refused him? Was there some one else? Alas, these questions were not to be answered. She must play her part of a faithful little sister, who must ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... me?"—eftsoones the answer came From the lips of the lady with blonden hair like a wreath of golden flame, As she lifted the light of her beauteous eyes to the questioning lips of the knight, And muttered those words of import dire, And flashed her eyes with a baleful fire— Alas! ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., Issue 31, October 29, 1870 • Various
... "Alas, my Phebe!" she exclaimed, "who dare tell her? Not me; no, no! She is shut up in her little chamber, and she forgets all the world—her children even, and Roland himself. It is as if she went away into another life, ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... Robert, and when bedtime came (he always slept in our room) and still no signs of our pet, I thought we should both have gone mad. Of course, we advertised, selecting the most popular and, accordingly, the most likely papers, and we resorted to other mediums, too, but, alas! it was hopeless. Our darling little Robert was irrevocably, irredeemably lost. For days we were utterly inconsolable, doing nothing but mope morning, noon, and night. I cannot tell you how forlorn we felt, nor how long we should have remained in that ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... not be difficult after nightfall. As for purchasing a carriage to replace the tarantass, that was impossible. There were none to be let or sold. But what want had Michael Strogoff now for a carriage? Was he not alone, alas? A horse would suffice him; and, very fortunately, a horse could be had. It was an animal of strength and mettle, and Michael Strogoff, accomplished horseman as he was, could make good use ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... of it being thus diligently ignored, Bushido itself could long remain free from a thousand and one evils of which money is the root. This is sufficient reason for the fact that our public men have long been free from corruption; but, alas, how fast plutocracy is making its way in our ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... would fain have been energetic in collecting and making things for sale at her stall, for she really taught herself to be anxious that the negro soldiers' orphans should have provision made for them; but, alas! her energy was all repressed, and she found that she was not to be allowed to do anything ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope |
