"Famine" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and sleeping. With full stomachs, bickering and quarrelling began among the younger males, and this continued through the few days that followed before the breaking-up of the pack. The famine was over. The wolves were now in the country of game, and though they still hunted in pack, they hunted more cautiously, cutting out heavy cows or crippled old bulls from the small ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... of such a Government (composed of all the parties of the Soviet) is indispensable to prevent a new flow of blood, the coming famine, the destruction of the Revolution by the Kaledinists, to assure the convocation of the Constituent Assembly at the proper time, and to apply effectively the programme adopted by the Congress ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... entire summer out of one year, and broke in upon another. The fields were neglected; fences, roads, barns, and even the meeting-house, went into disrepair. Burdens were accumulated upon the already over-taxed resources of the people. An actual scarcity of provisions, amounting almost to a famine, continued for some time to press upon families. Farms were brought under mortgage or sacrificed, and large numbers of the people were dispersed. One locality in the village, which was the scene of this wild and tragic fanaticism, bears to this day the marks of the blight then brought ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... and spared not. One with another they turned black and died—the young and the old, the rich and the poor, the man and the woman, the prince and the slave. The pestilence slew and slew, and ceased not by day or by night, and those who escaped from the pestilence were slain of the famine. No longer could the bodies of the children of Kor be preserved according to the ancient rites, because of the number of the dead, therefore were they hurled into the great pit beneath the cave, through the hole in the floor of the cave. Then, at last, a remnant of this the great ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... heard those words of thine, it seemed to me, I know not why, was directed by thy hand. Look now on Rezu who thought himself unconquerable and yet was slain by the black Axe-bearer and whose bones to-night stay the famine of the jackals. Moreover I am accursed who sought to steal its servant from Heaven to be my love, and how know I when and where vengeance will fall at last? Indeed, it has fallen already on me, who through the long ages amid savages must mourn widowed and ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... they really occupied. To Steele, it was not Indian Territory that was valuable but Texas. For him the Indian country, barren by reason of the drouth, denuded of its live stock, a prey to jayhawker, famine, and pestilence, did nothing more than measure the distance between the Federals and the rich Texan grain-fields, from whence he fondly hoped an inexhaustible supply of flour[787] for the Confederates was to come. In short, the great and wonderful ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... news of her sudden poverty! None but a woman that loved with a trusting and devoted heart could doubt what all this meant. Days, weeks, months passed away, till time wore out hope, for he never came. As some fainting wretch in a famine visits his scanty store in trembling secrecy, bit by bit consumes it to the last, and then despairs, so she lived on till her faith grew less and less, and she hid its last remnant in her heart, lest it should be torn from her; but ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... with his desire for information unsatisfied, I rang up Wellings Park. It was the Sunday morning after the reception. To my surprise, Sir Anthony answered me; for he was an old-fashioned country churchgoer and plague, pestilence, famine, battle, murder and sudden death had never been known to keep him out of his accustomed pew on Sunday morning. Edith, he informed me, had gone to church; he himself, being as nervous as a cat, had funked it; he was afraid lest he might get up in the middle of the ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... five years after by the Lavin'ians, for having protected some of his servants who had plundered them and slain their ambassadors; so that, by this accident, Rom'ulus once more saw himself sole monarch of Rome. 18. Soon after the death of Ta'tius, a cruel plague and famine having broken out at Rome, the Camerini embraced the opportunity to lay waste the Roman territory. But Rom'ulus gave them battle, killed six thousand on the spot, and returned in triumph to Rome. He took likewise Fidenae, a city about forty furlongs distant from his capital, ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... military necessity for killing anybody. General Morales sent back a positive rejection, for he still entertained a faint hope of the timely arrival of assistance, and he did not inform General Scott how sadly he had failed in all his attempts to obtain supplies for the inhabitants and his army. Famine was already beginning to threaten all of the poorer classes who had neglected their opportunities to leave the city, or who had been unable to do so. As for Ned Crawford's provisions, he had continued to board with Anita, or with ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... his back the princess bore; The rock attained; but hardships were not o'er; Misfortunes dire the noble pair pursued And famine, worst of ills, around was viewed. No ship was near; the light soon passed away; The night the same; again appeared the day; No vessel hove in sight; no food to eat; Our couple's wretchedness seemed now complete; Hope left them both, and, ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... penned at this time show that his health and appetite had mended during his residence at the Maison Despeaux:* (* Flinders' Papers.) "My appetite is so good that I believe it has the intention of revenging me on the Governor by occasioning a famine in the land. Falstaff says, 'Confound this grief, it makes a man go thirsty; give me a cup of sack.' Instead of thirsty read hungry, and for a cup of sack read mutton chop, and the words would fit me very well." The second passage is from his private journal, ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... moment, after what had been an interval of weary famine to all but these two, host and hostess appeared, the lady as usual, picturesque, though in the old black silk, with a Roman sash tied transversely, and holly in her hair; and gaily shaking hands— "That's right, Lady Rosamond; so you are trusted ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a doubt within my mind of yore; I sought to end that doubt and laboured sore; But now I search its mystery no more, But leave it safe within the Eternal's hand. The tiger hunts the lamb and yearns to kill, Himself by famine hunted, fiercer still; And much there is that seems unmingled ill; But God is ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... an incomprehensible machine is man! who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment, and death itself, in vindication of his own liberty, and, the next moment, be deaf to all those motives whose power supported him through his trial, and inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... this interest rather I would emphasise—the penetration into the remotest jungle of the great organisation of the British Government is a wonderful thing. By the coinage, the post-office, the railways, the administration of justice, the encouragement of education, the relief of famine,—by such ways the great organisation has penetrated everywhere,—in spite of faults, the greatest blessing that has come to India in her long history. Travelling by rail from Calcutta to Benares, the metropolis of Hinduism, situated upon the north bank of ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... at once knew it came from a painter, or 'evil devil,' as the Indians justly call that scourge and terror of the woods; and, from the strength and volume of his voice, I also knew he must be a large one, while, from its savage sharpness, I further conjectured it must be a famine cry, which, if so, would show the animal to be a doubly ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... had fancied that Germany was undergoing an awful process of slow death; that she was faced with economic ruin; that her trade and manufacture had been smashed, causing untold ruination and forcing famine into every home; that the German populace were being crushed under the terrors of defeat, were cursing "the Kaiser and his tyrannical militarism," and waiting for the inevitable uprising with revolution and general social ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... used in every-day language, should be admitted in science only to designate a famine-price, fraudulently and intentionally ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... his Apophthegms, says, "Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, in a famine, sold all the rich vessels and ornaments of the church, to relieve the poor with bread; and said, 'There was no reason that the dead temples of God should be sumptuously furnished, and the living temples ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various
... times the minimum and twice the optimum quantity of food per day. For every one who starves, hundreds gorge themselves to death. "Food kills more than famine", and the poor, who eat sparsely from necessity, suffer far less from gout, cancer, rheumatism and other food-aggravated diseases than ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... name, and when these seem unattainable, he takes refuge from "the whips and scorns of time," the burning fever of pride, the gnawings of hunger, in suicide. He goes to his little garret room,—refusing, as he goes, a dinner from his landlady, although he is gaunt with famine,—mixes a large dose of arsenic in water, and—"jumps the life to come." He was just seventeen years and nine months old! When his room was forced open, it was found that he had torn up most of his papers, and had left nothing to throw light ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... approached his own door his wife came forth to meet him. "Much gladness!" she cried aloud before she saw his burden; "tempered only by a regret that you did not abandon your chase at an earlier hour. Fear not for the present that the wolf-tusk of famine shall gnaw our repose or that the dreaded wings of the white and scaly one shall hover about our house-top. Your wealthy cousin, journeying back to the Capital from the land of the spice forests, has been here in your absence, leaving you gifts of fur, silk, carved ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... him enter the city, covering him with a cloud (818-989). He reaches the prison, the doors of which fly open at his touch, and rescues Matthew, whom he sends away with all his company (990-1057). The Mermedonians, confronted with famine, choose one of their number by lot to serve as food for the rest. He offers his son as a substitute, but, as the heathen are about to slay their victim, Andrew interposes and causes their weapons to melt away like wax (1058-1154). Instigated ...
— Andreas: The Legend of St. Andrew • Unknown
... great hall of his palace in the Kremlin. It came at a time when already there was enough to distract his mind; for although the table before him was spread and equipped as became an emperor's, the gaunt spectre of famine stalked outside in the streets of Moscow, and men and women were so reduced by it that cannibalism was alleged to be breaking out ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... divine Spirit as our Guide. 'Thy Spirit is good lead me into the land of uprightness.' There is only one power that can draw us out of the far-off land of rebellious disobedience, where the prodigals and the swine's husks and the famine and the rags are, into the 'land of uprightness,' and that is, the communicated Spirit of God, which is given to all them that desire Him, and will lead them in paths of righteousness for His name's sake. It is He that works ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... did but look on her, and died. Whate'er we suffer'd from our sullen fate, 20 Her sight is purchased at an easy rate. Three gloomy years against this day were set, But this one mighty sum has clear'd the debt: Like Joseph's dream, but with a better doom, The famine past, the plenty still to come. For her the weeping heavens become serene; For her the ground is clad in cheerful green: For her the nightingales are taught to sing, And Nature has for her delay'd the spring. The Muse resumes her long-forgotten lays; 30 And Love, restored ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... now to come a very bad year, and the famine was so great that these poor people resolved to rid themselves of their children. One evening, when they were all in bed and the fagot-maker was sitting with his wife at the fire, he said to her, with his heart ready to ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... remain in the island. I had, in the second year of the war, determined to resign on account of the pecuniary difficulties of my position. We were living in a besieged town, with all necessaries of life at famine prices, and, since my brother's death, I had no fund to draw on for my excessive expenses. The Cretan committee in Boston, considering my resignation probably fatal to the insurrection, had promised that they would be responsible for any expenses above my salary, and on that understanding ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... and his companions with all sorts of affliction, because they were rebels. He said that now this great God was angry with the Indians, because they refused to furnish food to his faithful worshippers; that he proposed to chastise them with famine and pestilence. ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
... grasshoppers, and ten thousand other insects, mingled with the more remote and solitary cries of the pewit and the curlew! Then, to think of the coach-horse, urged on his sultry stage, or the plough-boy and his teem, plunging in the depths of a burning fallow, or of our ancestors, in times of national famine, plucking up the wild fern-roots for bread, and what an enhancement of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... previously ruling species, but of most of the forms that are at all closely related to it. Sometimes, indeed, as in the case of the extinct giants of South America, they vanished without any considerable rivals, victims of pestilence, famine, or, it may be, of that cumulative inefficiency that comes of a too undisputed life. So that the analogy of geology, at anyrate, is against this too acceptable view of man's certain tenure of the earth for the next few million years ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... transportation and the extensive use of power-propelled machinery, famine should be unheard of in civilized countries. In our land there is a sufficient quantity of food and people seldom suffer because they have not enough, but considerable suffering is due to excessive intake and to poor quality of food. Weight for weight, ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... the sacrificial hymns of the Marquesans, when human victims were offered, frequent allusions were made to 'the red apples eaten in Naoau,' ... and to the 'tabooed apples of Atea,' as the cause of death, wars, pestilence, famine, and other calamities, only to be averted or atoned for by the sacrifice of human victims. The close connection between the Hawaiian and the Marquesan legends indicates a common origin, and that origin can be no other than that from which the Chaldean ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... empires. All this had been done, too, not by disorderly and barbarous hordes, seeking in other lands the abundance that was wanting at home; but with system and regularity, by men who had turned the ploughshare into the sword for the occasion, quitting abundance to encounter fatigue, famine, and danger. In a word, the Senor Montefalderon saw all the evils that environed his own land, and foresaw others, of a still graver character that menaced the future. On matters such as these did he brood in his walk, and bitter did he find ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... passports; while the Sicilian Court, though well disposed, lacked the energy and the propelling force necessary to compel the collection and despatch of the needed grain. On one occasion Troubridge or Ball, desperate at the sight of the famine around them, sent a ship of war into Girgenti, a Sicilian port, seized, and brought away two corn-laden vessels. "The measure was strong," said Nelson, but he refrained from censuring; and, while apologizing to the Government, added he hoped it "would ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... the swift wave of sympathy that surged over the earth. A famine in India, a devastating earthquake in Mexico, a bid for freedom on the part of an oppressed population, a deed of heroism at sea—each was felt within practically a few moments, emotionally, in an English, French or German village. Our hearts were throbbing continuously ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... and cunning than Mooween, fare badly when driven by famine to attack this useless creature of the woods, for whom Nature nevertheless cares so tenderly. Trappers have told me that in the late winter, when hunger is sharpest, they sometimes catch a wild-cat or lynx or fisher in their traps with his mouth and sides full of porcupine quills, ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... that I was once passionately enamoured of a slave-girl and ofttimes sued her for love-liesse, but could not prevail upon her, because she still held fast by her chastity. Presently there came a year of drought and hunger and hardship; food failed and there befel a sore famine. As I was sitting one day at home, somebody knocked at the door; so I went out and behold, she was standing there; and she said to me, 'O my brother, I am sorely an-hungered and I lift mine eyes to thee, beseeching thee to feed me for Allah's ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... of twin gods, and worshipped at certain villages in time of war, famine, and pestilence. The month of May was a specially fixed time for prayers, and food offerings. The lizard was the guiding incarnation, and carefully watched in times of war. If in going to battle a lizard was seen darting across the road, they returned at once. If it ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... There was great distress all over the {101} country. The enormous expense of the long wars was still making itself felt in huge taxation. The condition of agriculture was low, and many districts were threatened with something like famine. Trade was suffering from the reaction which always follows a long and exhausting war. It was confidently expected that the royal speech would take some account of the widespread national distress and would foreshadow some measures to deal with it. The speech, however, ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... savage contests many tribes must have been utterly exterminated. Some, probably, perished by hardship and famine. Others, whose leading star had given them a happier direction, became great and powerful tribes, and, in their turns, sent off fresh adventurers in search of still more fertile seats. The prodigious waste of human life occasioned by this ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... demons," says Origen, "which produce famine, unfruitfulness, corruptions of the air, and pestilence. They hover concealed in clouds, in the lower atmosphere, and are attracted by the blood and incense which the heathen offer to them as gods."[38] ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... island, which for decades had despatched by the daily diligence, or by special vehicle or boat, the drafts of the village nets, sent not a fin. Never in Tahiti's history except when war raged between clans, or between Tahitians and French, had there been such a fish famine. ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... "the most God-forsaken land in the world." The convict settlers were so ill-chosen, and the Government so neglected to supply them with even the barest necessities from Home, that for several years after their landing they were in constant distress from famine; and disease and death from this cause alone was an evil regularly to be encountered by the silent, hard-working Phillip. The only means of relief open to the starving settlement was by importing food from ...
— The Beginning Of The Sea Story Of Australia - 1901 • Louis Becke
... Durbar tent, where, under a canopy and in front of a sort of throne, His Royal Highness held a Levee and marked in every way possible his approval of the splendid work lately done by Sir R. Temple and his officials in stamping out famine. Luncheon followed, and then the train was taken for Benares. Here he arrived at dark and found the magnificent ghauts or terraces alive with lights. The procession drove over the bridge of boats across the Ganges ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... 'understanding.'] This is but one example, an illustrious one indeed, of what has been going forward in innumerable pairs of words. Thus in Wiclif's time and long after, there seems to have been no difference recognized between a 'famine' and a 'hunger'; they both expressed the outward fact of a scarcity of food. It was a genuine gain when, leaving to 'famine' this meaning, by 'hunger' was expressed no longer the outward fact, but the inward sense of the fact. Other pairs of words between which a distinction is recognized ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... one," and then he showed him that the seven fat cows, and the seven full heads of wheat meant seven good years in the land of Egypt, when the harvests would be great; and the seven lean cows, and the seven empty heads of wheat, meant seven years of famine, when the east winds should spoil the wheat, so there would be nothing to reap in time of harvest and the people would want bread. He told the king that he had better set a wise man over the land, who would attend to saving the grain during the seven good ...
— Child's Story of the Bible • Mary A. Lathbury
... river road to Bridgeport was opened, the enemy being driven from the banks, two bridges were built, and Hooker's army added to his force. The enemy, having a much superior force, and assuming the surrender of the Army of the Cumberland to be only a question of time and famine, sent Longstreet with 15,000 men to reinforce the army of Johnston, holding Burnside in Knoxville, to the relief of whom the enemy supposed Sherman to be marching. Grant waited for Sherman, who was coming on between Longstreet and Bragg. All general orders for the battle were prepared in advance, ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... fire, listening idly to the reminiscences that the holiday mood awakened in the older women. Mrs. Cortelyou had been a California pioneer, and liked to talk of the old prairie wagons, of Indian raids, of flood and fire and famine. Susan, stirred by tales of real trouble, forgot her own imaginary ones. Indians and wolves in the strange woods all about, a child at the breast, another at the knee, and the men gone for food,—four long days' trip! The women of those days, thought Susan, carried their share of the load. She ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... its traces were also plainly written there. It is painful to see the marks of hunger on the human face, but to see the cheeks of childhood blanched by famine, to behold the attenuated limbs and bright wolfish eyes, ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... philosopher it may well seem strange that this certitude should thus be in need of progressive corroboration. But so it is, and the pampered modern lover may well wonder how his great-grandfather and great-grandmother supported the days, or even kept their love alive, on such famine rations as a letter once a month. A letter once a month! They must have had enormous faith in each other, those lovers of old-time, or they must have suffered as we can hardly bear to think of—we, ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... execution in the same length of time. Gen. 40. Pharaoh's dream of the seven fat kine and the seven lean kine, also of the seven full ears and the seven thin ears, signified seven years of plenty and seven years of famine. Gen. 41. ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... the wrath of God, which by famine, fire, or sword humbleth the spirits of the repentant, trieth the patience of the faithful, and hardeneth the hearts of the ungodly. It is the misery of time and the terror of Nature, the dispeopling of the earth and the ruin of her beauty. Her life is action, her ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... on the table already laid for breakfast; then she hurried out of the room again. She came back with a cantaloupe and grapes, and cold ham, and put them before Clementina and her guest, who both ignored the hunger with which he swept everything before him. When his famine had left nothing, he said, in ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... secured every pass behind him, approached the Welsh army in its last retreat. He here avoided the putting to trial the valor of a nation proud of its ancient independence, and inflamed with animosity against its hereditary enemies; and he trusted to the slow, but sure effects of famine, for reducing that people to subjection. The rude and simple manners of the natives, as well as the mountainous situation of their country, had made them entirely neglect tillage, and trust to pasturage alone for their subsistence; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... floor of Zeus filled with his evil gifts, and one with blessings. To whomsoever Zeus whose joy is in the lightning dealeth a mingled lot, that man chanceth now upon ill and now again on good, but to whom he giveth but of the bad kind him he bringeth to scorn, and evil famine chaseth him over the goodly earth, and he is a wanderer honoured of neither gods nor men. Even thus to Peleus gave the gods splendid gifts from his birth, for he excelled all men in good fortune and wealth, and was ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... Samaritan am I. Give me the water that shall be a well of water springing up to everlasting life, that I thirst not in the fever of doing. Give me the manna of life to eat that I faint not nor cry out in plague, pestilence, or famine. Give me Thy grace, O God, as Thou hast given it to Michel de la Foret, and guide my feet as I follow him in life and in death, for Christ's ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... man, Acton stood about five feet ten, a gaunt, spare, and sinewy figure, slightly bent; his head sprinkled with gray; his face marked with those rigid lines, which tell, if not of positive famine, at least of too much toil on far too little food; in his eye, patience and good temper; in his carriage, a mixture of the sturdy bearing, necessary to the habitual exercise of great muscular strength, together with that gait ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... round the Cross could not hold them, and a pulpit was set up in the King's garden at Westminster Palace, where four times the number of those at the Cross might assemble. For eight years there had been "a famine of the word of the Lord" in England, and now men and women came hungering and ready to be fed. Perhaps, if we had borne eight years' famine, we should not quite so readily cry out that the provisions are too abundant. An outcry for short sermons has always hitherto marked the ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... his thoughts are? You know well the Bishop should have something against Father John to have left him through the years in that poor mountainy place, minding the few unfortunate people that were left out of the last famine. A man of his learning to be going in rags the way he is, there must be some good cause ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... according to the rules of epic poetry, carries on one great and long action, and succeeds in it at last? What descriptions ever excited more horror than those, first of the Massacre, and then of the Famine at Paris? Was love ever painted with more truth and 'morbidezza' than in the ninth book? Not better, in my mind, even in the fourth of Virgil. Upon the whole, with all your classical rigor, if you will but suppose St. Louis a god, a devil, or a witch, and that he appears in person, and ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... straps are called, round their waist, Wilmot?" said Swinton. "They are called the belts of famine. All the natives wear them when hard pressed by hunger, and they say that they are a great relief. I have no doubt but such ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... is also regulated by ghosts and spirits. It is they who cause the wind to blow or to be still, the sun to shine forth or to be overcast with clouds, the rain to descend or the earth to be parched with drought; hence fertility and abundance or dearth and famine prevail alternately at the will of these spiritual directors. From this it follows that men who stand on a footing of intimacy with ghosts and spirits can by judicious management induce them to adapt the weather to the varying needs of mankind. But it is to be observed that the supernatural ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... the little ones die, And women sink weary and weak; And the paths of life, with suffering rife, Be paved with the hearts that break? While souls, famine-smitten and crusht, Seek food in the skies away, This workman strong, with sinews of steel, Sits singing his terrible lay: Strike! Strike! Strike! Let the bright wheels of Industry rust: Let us earn in our shame A pauper's name, Or eat of ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... active share, and were benefited by the spoils. The Almighty beheld and took cognisance, but no immediate retribution followed. Towards the close of David's reign, however, for some unknown reason, the whole land was visited with a famine. Month after month it stalked abroad, and year after year, until three years of want had afflicted the chosen people. At the end of that time David, having resorted to all possible means of providing food in vain, began to reflect that there was meaning in the visitation, and "sought ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... sea-rovers, emigrants from a crowded country, to strike upon and settle island after island, and as time went on to multiply exceedingly in their new seats. In either case the end must be the same; soon or late it must grow apparent that the crew are too numerous, and that famine is at hand. The Polynesians met this emergent danger with various expedients of activity and prevention. A way was found to preserve breadfruit by packing it in artificial pits; pits forty feet in depth and of proportionate ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Roman Catholic colony and church. The latter stands in a large garden, celebrated for its quinces and apricots. Lastly, the English Church Missionary Society have an establishment here under the direction of the Rev. Dr. Bruce, whose good deeds during the famine are not likely to be forgotten by the people of Ispahan and Djulfa, whatever their creed or religion. The trade of Djulfa is insignificant, although there is a large amount of wine and arak manufactured there, and sold "under the rose" to the Ispahanis. The production of the juice of the grape ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... built in them. When cold, keen winds blew fierce without, the soldier sat comfortable within, and soon our North Chickamauga camp became a semi-paradise—a home in the woods. It was here the brigade suffered so much from hunger; famine was our ghost, it haunted us by day and ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear
... to the consideration of measures of improvement, of measures to combat famine and disease. In Carrier's view there was only one way of accomplishing this—the number of mouths to be fed must be reduced, the diseased must be eliminated. It was the direct, ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... political life shortly after 1848, I found this anti-Catholic feeling most intense. The Catholics in Massachusetts were, in general, in a very humble class. The immigration, which had well begun before the great Irish Famine, was increased very much by that terrible calamity. The Irishmen were glad to build our railroads at sixty cents a day, dwelling in wretched shanties, and living on very coarse fare. They had brought with them the habit of drinking whiskey, comparatively harmless in ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... the Old! Here Noah lived when the Flood came, here Abraham and Isaac and Jacob pitched their tents and pastured their flocks. From here the sons of Jacob, who was also called Israel, went down to the land of Egypt to buy corn when there was a terrible famine lasting many years. We know that they settled there, having found their brother Joseph in great power; and long, long after they had all been dead their descendants multiplied into a great people and were treated as slaves by the Egyptians, so God brought them back ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... have an absent fit now for once in your life," said his brother. "Are you the man to ask if I heard any more of them, when you yourself gave me a sovereign to send them in the famine?" ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... happens that the Camanches are unable to procure their necessary supply of meat, and in some cases, when the migration occurs at a later period than usual, the Indians find themselves practically without food, and disastrous seasons of famine ensue. This involves the sending forth of expeditions in search of the tardy herds. These hunting parties, having to pass through the country occupied by other tribes, are almost certain to be assailed and harassed ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... the dead. The sons of Michal before her lay, And her own fair children, dearer than they: By a death of shame they all had died, And were stretched on the bare rock, side by side. And Rizpah, once the loveliest of all That bloomed and smiled in the court of Saul, All wasted with watching and famine now, And scorched by the sun her haggard brow, Sat mournfully guarding their corpses there, And murmured a strange and solemn air; The low, heart-broken, and wailing strain Of a mother ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... among their bedroom prints, she would think this preparation not at all to the prejudice of their emotions on hearing their tutor read that narrative of the Apology which has been consecrated by the reverent gratitude of ages. This is the impoverishment that threatens our posterity:—a new Famine, a meagre fiend with lewd grin and clumsy hoof, is breathing a moral mildew over the harvest of our human sentiments. These are the most delicate elements of our too easily perishable civilisation. And here again I like to quote a French testimony. Sainte Beuve, referring ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... sod, Made firm the corner stone. Whate'er of gold Sun-ripened harvests of the royal lands Yielded from Thames to Stour, or tax and toll From quays mast-thronged to loud-resounding sea, Save what his realm required by famine vexed At times, or ravage of the Mercian sword, Went to the work. His Queen her jewels brought, Smiling, huge gift in slenderest hands up-piled; His thanes their store; the poor their labour free. Some clave the quarry's ledges: from its depths Some haled the ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... poverty, bring forth fruits so precious? We must believe and declare, then, that if, in this our age, there were a due meed of remuneration, there would be without a doubt works greater and much better than were ever wrought by the ancients. But the fact that they have to grapple more with famine than with fame, keeps our hapless intellects submerged, and, to the shame and disgrace of those who could raise them up but give no thought to it, prevents them ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... from Maniana, about the beginning of the rainy season, and found the Dooty protected by the inhabitants, he sat down before Sai with his army, and surrounded the town with the trenches I had now seen. After a siege of two months, the townspeople became involved in all the horrors of famine; and whilst the king's army were feasting in their trenches, they saw with pleasure the miserable inhabitants of Sai devour the leaves and bark of the Bentang tree that stood in the middle of the town. Finding, however, that the besieged would sooner perish than surrender, the king had recourse to ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... it is not common for young couples to have their own homes; hence the dwellings in the native quarters are packed with several generations of the same family, and that makes the occupants easy prey to plagues, famine and other agents of ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... pathetic motion of her hands. "By Harrik's death I am free, a slave no longer. O my lord, where I go bounty and famine are the same." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... those distressed looking shops which bring a sensation of dreariness over the mind, and which cause a sinking of the heart before you have time to ask why you are saddened—a frail and feeble barrier it seems against penury and famine, to yield at the first approach of the gaunt enemy—a shop that has no aspect of business about it, but compels you to think of distraining for rent, of broken hearts, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... that left people destitute—a fire, a flood, a tornado, a strike, or a famine, there would go hurrying a generous consignment of the "Aglaia" at its "nothing" price. It was given away cautiously and judiciously, but it was freely given, and not a penny could the hungry ones pay for it. There got to be a saying that whenever there was a disastrous fire in the poor ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... and the rains set in early, about mid-May, before they had found shelter. The whites were attacked with climate-fever, which did not respect even the doctors. Quarrels and insubordination resulted, and 800 of the little band were soon carried to the grave. Then a famine broke out. A ship from England, freighted with stores, provisions, and frame-houses, was driven back by a storm. Forty-five acres had been promised to each settler-family; it was found necessary to diminish the number to four, and the ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... telling the youngster, sir," said he, "that one of the first things a seaman has to learn is how to bear the hardships it may please Providence to send him, whether he has to be shot at, as he has now, or to suffer famine on a raft or desert island, or to have the sea breaking over him on a wreck or on the cold, slippery rocks. Maybe he'll have to try them all before he settles down with a wooden leg, ashore in his own cottage, or bears ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... well-preserved old palaces. No doubt it would be worth more to live in Pisa than it would cost, for the history of the place would alone be to any reasonable sojourner a perpetual recompense, and a princely income far exceeding his expenditure. To be sure, the Tower of Famine, with which we chiefly associate the name of Pisa, has been long razed to the ground, and built piecemeal into the neighboring palaces, but you may still visit the dead wall which hides from view the place where it stood; and you may thence drive on, as ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... buoyancy of spirit which raised him to a contempt of obstacles, almost justifying the boast of the historian, that "he contended indifferently, at the same time, with man, with the elements, and with famine!" *6 [Footnote 6: "Peleando en un tiempo con los Enemigos, con los Elementos, i con la Hambre." Herrera, Hist General, dec. 5, lib. 10, cap. 2] After traversing the terrible desert, Almagro reached the ancient town of Arequipa, about sixty leagues from Cuzco. Here he learned with astonishment ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... "protected" by a prohibitory tax upon foreign corn, all in order that the landlord might collect undiminished rentals from his farm lands. But, alas! there was no "protection" from starvation. Is it strange that gaunt famine was a frequent visitor in the land?—But men must starve ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... Michaelmas?—the great book-epidemic times at Leipzig and Frankfort! Hurrah for the waste-paper!—'twill make a royal feast. Your nimble brokers, Gluttony and Lust, bring you whole cargoes from the fair of life. Even Ambition, your grandpapa—War, Famine, Fire, and Plague, your mighty huntsmen, have provided you with many a jovial man-chase. Avarice and Covetousness, your sturdy butlers, drink to your health whole towns floating in the bubbling cup of the world-ocean. I know a kitchen in Europe where the rarest dishes have been served up ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... sight—and I pray thee, Almighty God! should I prove false to the vow or vows I now make, in becoming a member of this Holy Brotherhood, to shut from me the light of thy countenance—to visit the wrath of thy indignation upon me—to let my walks here on earth be paths of desolation, at the end of which be famine and death, and, in the world to come, torment and more tormenting pains racking my soul for ever! But, Almighty God! should I keep and carry out these, the only true principles, which thou in thy wisdom hast set aside for thy children ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... temptations try, And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly! For him no wretches born to work and weep Explore the mine or tempt the dangerous deep; No surly porter stands in guilty state To spurn imploring famine from his gate: But on he moves to meet his latter end, Angels around befriending virtue's friend; Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay, Whilst resignation gently slopes the way; And all his ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... where he proposed to winter, Xerxes now hastened home. Sixty thousand Persians under Artabazus accompanied the king only as far as the passage into Asia; and it was with an inconsiderable force, which, pressed by famine, devastated the very herbage on their way, and which a pestilence and the dysentery diminished as it passed, that the great king crossed the Hellespont, on which the bridge of boats had already been broken by wind and ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the most distressing accounts of the famine in Persia. It is said that cannibalism is as common among the starving ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... of famine, the adults often denied themselves in order to make the food last as long as possible for the children, who were not able to bear hunger as well as the old. As a people, they can live without food much ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... than at one time seemed probable. Louis gave up his dream of dominating Europe, but he kept all the Continental acquisitions made earlier in his reign. And yet the price of the king's warlike policy had been a heavy one. France paid it in the shape of famine and pestilence, excessive taxes, heavy debts, and the impoverishment of the people. Louis, now a very old man, survived the Peace of Utrecht only two years. As he lay on his deathbed, the king turned to his little heir [16] and said, "Try to keep peace with your neighbors. I have been too ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... Sabellian immigration, and to have been of no great moment during the first hundred and fifty years of the republic. The refusal of the Samnites in Capua and Cumae to supply the Romans with grain in the famine of 343 may be regarded as an indication of the altered relations which subsisted between Latium and Campania, till at the commencement of the fifth century the Roman arms restored and gave increased impetus to the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... and stars which remarkably corresponds to the speculation of the Piutes. The Mintira of the Malayan Peninsula say that both sun and moon are women. The stars are the moon's children; once the sun had as many. They each agreed (like the women of Jerusalem in the famine), to eat their own children; but the sun swallowed her whole family, while the moon concealed hers. When the sun saw this she was exceedingly angry, and pursued the moon to kill her. Occasionally she gets a bite out of the moon, and ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... and I did not wish to take it until the failure of all other expedients had rendered it necessary. Above all, I did not wish to talk about it until and unless I actually acted. I had definitely determined that somehow or other act I would, that somehow or other the coal famine should be broken. To accomplish this end it was necessary that the mines should be run, and, if I could get no voluntary agreement between the contending sides, that an Arbitration Commission should be appointed which would command such public confidence as ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... eat and live. If we ever get to Ithaca we will make restitution, for we will build altars to the Sun and place costly gifts upon his shrine. But if it is his will to destroy us in his anger, then let us die amid the billows of the deep, for that is better than to die by famine.' ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... famine was soon felt. The colonists did not understand how to get crops from the soil. They attempted to follow the times and the manners of England; but here they were in the Antipodes, where everything was exactly opposite to English conditions. There were no natural grain-crops; there were ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... confronting each other. Within a month the whole Continent might be in arms. Pious men saw in this stroke, so sudden and so terrible, the plain signs of the divine displeasure. God had a controversy with the nations. Nine years of fire, of slaughter and of famine had not been sufficient to reclaim a guilty world; and a second and more severe chastisement was at hand. Others muttered that the event which all good men lamented was to be ascribed to unprincipled ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... used to deceive and mislead, to trick and cozen mankind, and to persuade them out of their lawful property, become the most dangerous possessions, and are as mischievous as plagues, pestilence, and famine. How can you dare to arrogate to yourself that part of philosophy which teaches you to look upon the luxuries of life with indifference, while your heart must tell you that you have not the least claim to it, and that you sacrifice ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... to recount the names of men, who might drop into nothing, and leave no vacuity.... The weather is a nobler and more interesting subject; it is the present state of the skies and of the earth, on which plenty and famine are suspended, on which millions depend for the necessaries of life.' 'Garrick complained that when he went to read before the court, not a look or a murmur testified approbation; there was a profound ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... sufficient to show what an immense educational and economic benefit they are likely to confer when they are widely extended throughout Ireland, as I hope they will be in the near future. Under this system, which, to quote the report of the Indian Famine Commission, 1901, 'separates the working bees from the drones,' the industrious men of the community who had no clear idea before of the meaning or functions of capital or credit, and who were generally ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... in whose death-laden atmosphere political action was impossible. The famine had made of the country one huge graveyard. A silence fell upon the land, lately so clamorous for her rights, so hopeful, and so defiant. The Repeal organization spoke no more; the tramp of the Confederate Clubs was no longer heard in the streets; O'Connell was dead; the Young Ireland leaders ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... For my part, I never sit at the door that I don't get double the stomach that I do at a horse race. The air upon Banstead-Downs is nothing to it for a whetter; yet I never see it, but the spirit of famine appears to me, sometimes like a decayed porter, worn out with pimping, and carrying billet doux and songs: not like other porters, for hire, but for the jests' sake. Now like a thin chairman, melted down to half his proportion, with carrying a poet ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... local tradition, Capdenac was on the point of being captured by the English, when it was saved from this fate by a stratagem. The defenders were starving, and the besiegers were relying upon famine to reduce them. In order to make the English believe that the place was still well provisioned, a pig was given a very full meal of all the corn that could be scraped together and then pushed over the side of the rock in a cautious ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... had forgotten to order anything else for lunch. She found the cook just serving it up, because such a dish as that took more time than an ordinary lunch, and the things had come late. Louise said, Yes, she understood that; and went back to Maxwell, whom she found walking up and down the room in a famine very uncommon for him. She felt the motherly joy a woman has in being able to appease the hunger of the man she loves, and now she was glad that she had not postponed the fillet till dinner as she had thought of doing. Everything was turning out so entirely for the best ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... part of my object to hurt the feelings of the Episcopalians and Catholics. If they think that there is some subtle relation between hunger and heaven, or that faith depends upon, or is strengthened by famine, or that veal, during Lent, is the enemy of virtue, or that beef breeds blasphemy, while fish feeds faith—of course, all this is nothing to me. They have a right to say that vice depends upon victuals, sanctity on soup, religion on rice and ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... presume that, between wheat and rice, one hundred ship-loads may be counted on in the whole from us. Paris consumes about a ship-load a day, (say two hundred and fifty tons.) The total supply of the West Indies, for this year, rests with us, and there is almost a famine in Canada and Nova Scotia. The States General were opened the day before yesterday. Viewing it as an opera, it was imposing; as a scene of business, the King's speech was exactly what it should have been, and very ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... district were relying upon catching seals in the autumn. At Kolymsk, on the Kolyma river, the authorities require every man to catch one-tenth more than enough for his own use. This surplus is placed in a public storehouse and issued in case of famine. It is the rule to keep a three years supply always at hand. Several seasons of scarcity led to the ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... found there was not the least feasibility;—and that he himself must go home, on the score of hunger. Which he did, November 2d; leaving Romanzow reinforced at discretion [40,000, but with him too provisions are fallen low], and the advice, 'Cut off their supplies: time and famine are our sole chances here!' Butturlin's new Russians, endless thousands of them, under Fermor and others, infesting the roads from Stettin, are a great comfort to Romanzow. Nor could any Eugen—with his Platens, Thaddens, and utmost expenditure of skill and of valor and ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... in the effort to appreciate the immense multiplicity of articles which must cross the Bay, the Hudson, the Harlem, and the East rivers, to-morrow, if the lives of its inhabitants are not to become the prey of famine, riot, and pillage. Yet, as we write, all are sleeping; and their quiet slumbers are not disturbed for a moment by the thought of so frightful a perspective. On the other hand, forty-five States and ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... go to prove that the cannibalism of the New Zealanders had, on its first introduction, been intimately associated with certain feelings or notions which seemed to demand the act as a duty, and not at all with any circumstances of distress or famine which compelled a resort to it as a dire necessity. There is too much reason for apprehending, however, that the unnatural repast, having ceased in this way to be regarded with that disgust with which it is turned from by every unpolluted appetite, has now become an enjoyment in ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... will say, "It is true they never touch dead flesh; it is only living flesh that they devour." That is being very delicate indeed, and what I can by no means allow them: for if they were flesh-eaters, I greatly suspect that, in the severe famine which I have spoken of, they would have made a hearty meal of the butchers meat which they found in the court-yards; or at least would have devoured several persons, who fell in their way, which they never did. The following fact ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... men overborne with sorrow, consumed by famine, or putrefied by filth; many of them in the most vigorous and useful part of life; for the thoughtless and imprudent are commonly young, and the active and busy ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... must provide Brave marshall troopes with resolution armde, To stand the shock of bloudy doubtfull warre, Not danted though disastrous Fate doth frowne, And spit all spightfull fury in their face: Defying horror in her ugliest forme, And growes more valiant, the more danger threats; Or let leane famine her affliction send, Whose pining plagues a second hel doth bring, Thei'le hold their courage in her height of spleene, Till valour win plenty to supply them, What thinke ye, would ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... Badajoz, owing to the treachery and cowardice of its commander; and was moving north, when the news reached him that Massena was falling back. The latter's position had, indeed, become untenable. His army was wasted by sickness; and famine threatened it, for the supplies obtainable from the country round had now been exhausted. Wellington was, as he knew from his agents in the Portuguese government, receiving reinforcements; and would shortly be in a position to assume ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... them all to the sword, leaving only the captain alive for the ransom that they can get for him. For two years there have been such droughts in the Malucas Islands that many clove-trees have been destroyed, causing a great famine. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... East Side. To keep down his growing surplus he doubled his donations to organized charity, presented the Y. M. C. A. of his native town with a $10,000 collection of butterflies, and sent a check to the famine sufferers in China big enough to buy new emerald eyes and diamond-filled teeth for all their gods. But none of these charitable acts seemed to bring peace to the caliph's heart. He tried to get a personal note into his benefactions by tipping bellboys and waiters $10 and $20 bills. He got well ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... survives the wreck and reek of mortality, to be rewarded or punished in another world, according to what it hath demanded in the flesh. The Appetite whose coarse clamoring was for the unwholesome viands of the general market and the public refectory shall be cast into eternal famine, whilst that which firmly through civilly insisted on ortolans, caviare, terrapin, anchovies, pates de foie gras and all such Christian comestibles shall flesh its spiritual tooth in the souls of them forever and ever, and wreak ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... store, or he was droving cattle down on a six months' journey to market; or he was away looking at new country, or taking supplies out to men on the half-provisioned stations of the "outer-back;" or else he was off to some new mining camp or opal-field, to sell a dray-load of goods at famine prices. ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... been divorced in her turn, he took Ino back again, and by her had Learchus and Melicerta. Ino, not being able to endure the presence of the children of Nephele, endeavored to destroy them. The city of Thebes being at that time afflicted with famine, which was said to have been caused by Ino, who ordered the seed to be parched before it was sown, Athamas ordered the oracle of Delphi to be consulted. The priests, either having been bribed, or the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... recurring complaint of employers is the scarcity of good men, especially of men able to exercise discretion in positions of responsibility. Was it Joseph's skill in interpreting Pharaoh's dreams, or his wise counsel in suggesting methods of providing for the people during famine that gave him his position of high trust and authority? Was the policy which made Pharaoh practical owner of all the land first instituted by Joseph, or was it already in force in Egypt? (Hist. Bible, I, 133.) In the thought of the prophetic narrative, was Joseph's fiscal system regarded as ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks
... them with a smile of ineffable sweetness and protection; like Rowena going to see Rebecca; like Marie Antoinette visiting the poor in the famine; like the Marchioness of Carabas alighting from her carriage-and-four at a pauper-tenant's door, and taking from John No II. the packet of Epsom salts for the invalid's benefit, carrying it with her own imperial hand into the sick-room—Blanche felt a queen stepping ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the land, igloos had been built. Over the village and against the frozen promontories loomed a majestic yet fearful shadowy shape—that of a giant thing, swathed in purple, its arm uplifted threateningly—the spectre of suffering and famine. ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... was progressing—not the siege of Berlin, unfortunately! We had reached the period of severe cold, the bombardment, the epidemics, the famine. But thanks to our efforts, to the infinite tenderness which enfolded him, the serenity of the old old man was never troubled. To the end, I was able to get white bread and fresh meat for him—for him alone, of course. ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... alternative of desperately attempting to cut our way [through] a vastly superior enemy with the certain loss of a valuable stock of artillery and artillery stores, which the continent has been collecting with great pains; or by famine and fatigue have been made an easy prey to the enemy. In either case the campaign would have ended in the total ruin of our army. The resolution therefore to retreat was unanimous, and tho' formed late in the day was executed the following night with unexpected ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston |
