"Humiliation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lost in the struggle are as forgotten as the multitudinous leaves which bestrew the ground of an autumnal forest. I fear I am in a very bad state of mind. It is true, as you intimate in your letter, that I am passing through a certain humiliation of spirit; and I am thus inclined to speculate on the value of all truths and philosophies. I seem to see that material things control truths and influence our human natures in every way. Our experience demonstrates this fact. And ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... their shouts of exultation in his honor had its drawback in the sullen silence of the other half, who regarded the great Bourbon as their conqueror rather than their king, and his triumphant entrance as their defeat and humiliation. ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... its limits an hour before the time named. A distinguished college president from a nearby town was given the chair, and in a few words he voiced the indignation and the humiliation which they all felt. Then one speaker after another bitterly denounced the administration, and advocated the overthrow of the Government. One, more intemperate than the rest, urged an immediate attack on Thor and all his kind. This was met ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... incorruptible 'patriot' prostrate between its wheels with a petition for a prefecture, a title or a pension. The crimes and follies of the First Republic had made France and the world sick of its name. Its true story was a tale of shame and humiliation, not fit to be dragged out into the blaze of the glory ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... when, at their third sitting (Jan. 22, afternoon), they were informed that "some gentlemen were at the door with a message from the Lords." The message was merely a request that the Commons would join the Lords in an address to his Highness asking him to appoint a day of humiliation throughout the three nations; but, purporting to be from "the Lords," it cut very deep. By a majority of seventy-five to fifty-one it was resolved "That this House will send an answer by messengers of their ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... to account for exactly. In the absence of all ordinary moral principles it might have been natural for me to accept the theory which I daily saw carried into practice, that makes it right; but the humiliation and suffering which my Uncle John inflicted on me in virtue of this theory, taught me to be dissatisfied with it. I could appreciate the right of the bravest, and I genuinely despised those who, with death in their power, yet chose life ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... that was before it was the capital of a free country. It has been forty-four years since the capital of a European Power has had hostile troops marching in triumph through its streets, and the humiliation has been terrible. The Belgians have always had a tremendous city patriotism and have taken more pride in their municipal achievements than any people on earth, and it must hurt them more than it could possibly hurt any other people. The Burgomaster, when he ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... despairing invalid who changes his doctor every hour, changed ministers every day. Each new attempt but revealed a new weakness. France could not sustain war and could not obtain peace. Vainly she offered to abandon Spain, and limit her frontier. This was not sufficient humiliation. They exacted that the king should allow the hostile armies to cross France, in order to chase his grandson from the throne of Spain; and also that he should give up, as pledges, Cambray, Mettray, La Rochelle, and Bayonne, unless he preferred dethroning him himself, ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... complaints of the generals who surrounded him. Nearly all were discouraged, and conceived the necessity of a complete and long retreat; they weighed, however, all the inconveniences of this, and felt beforehand all the humiliation; their perplexity was extreme. Napoleon at last spoke; his plan was decided. By abandoning the island of Lobau, and repassing the great arm of the Danube with the entire army, it would be necessary to leave behind 10,000 wounded, the whole ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... man before him, and was forming vague projects of how best to make him understand in private and without humiliation that the money which he had lost would be returned to him in full. Strangely enough he was still holding in his hand that king of diamonds which Endicott had ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... unable to find a lodging, and the little money with which they had started was at last exhausted, and they had no prospect of earning more. Although it was sorely against their will, they were at last compelled to ask for bread at the hands of charity. Here again they were made to feel the humiliation of their position; for in going from door to door, seeking for help which they so sorely needed, they met with scarcely anything but rebuffs, and sometimes indeed with abuse. Often their meal consisted only ...
— The Basket of Flowers • Christoph von Schmid
... doing to our valiant soldiers.[65] You see what miserable humbugs we are. And because we have got involved in meshes of aristocratic red tape to our unspeakable confusion, loss, and sorrow, the gentlemen who have been so kind as to ruin us are going to give us a day of humiliation and fasting the day after to-morrow. I am sick and sour to think of such things at this age of the world. . . . I am in the first stage of a new book, which consists in going round and round the idea, as you see a ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... happiness. But big lazy Johnnie's fancy went to a small jockey's cap of red and yellow, to be worn with a football jersey of orange and green in stripes, and blue trousers. This gorgeous costume was to compensate for present pains and humiliation, for he had nothing but a scanty and dirty loin-cloth, a necklace of grass beads, and a chip of lustrous black-lip pearl-shell stuck in one ear. As they worked they let their fancies range, and thus was the toil eased and the ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... even if you were, the voice of that man down there is enough to drive any sane person crazy. He sounds exactly as if he were intoning a church service over our misfortunes. That is certainly adding horror to humiliation," she finished with merriment. ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... corrected, who was at least twenty-one years old, flushed as he glanced swiftly at sixteen-year-old Jack. To say "sir" to such a youngster seemed almost like a humiliation. Yet the cadet repeated his question, adding the "sir." Jack quickly answered the question. Then two or three other questions were asked by other cadets. It was plain, however, that to all of the cadets the use of "sir" to ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... water to "gush forth from the rock." Duty can lead me nowhere without Him, and His provision is abundant both in "the thirsty desert and the dewy mead." There will be a spring at the foot of every hill, and I shall find "lilies of peace" in the lonely valley of humiliation. ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... change in the once brilliant girl, and her broken, dejected manner, apparently incapable of taking interest in anything. She would scarcely admit her uncle at first, but when she discovered that even Constance was in perfect ignorance of her part in the loss of Michael, she was overcome with the humiliation of intense gratitude, and the sense of a wonderful ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was keenly conscious of the converging lines of fate, the meeting of which was so rich in baleful promise. She was prostrated at the result of her work at the reception. She had seen Florian in a position of utter humiliation. She had observed the gray pallor in Elizabeth's face as she walked from the room, and felt on her conscience the murder of their happiness. She had seen—and this hurt her more than she would to herself admit—she ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... of the poor girls, on the contrary, are most sadly neglected. Needlework is almost the only accomplishment thought necessary for them. There is no country in the world in which the woman are in a greater state of humiliation, than in China. Those whose husbands are of high rank, live under constant confinement; those of the second class are little better than upper servants, deprived of all liberty; whilst the poort share with their husbands the ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... perfectly well how she was talked about and her frivolous conduct commented upon by such people as Lady Jane and her set. But he could not help himself. Daisy was master, and he submitted, with a feeling of humiliation which showed itself upon his face and made him very quiet and ill at ease, except when Bessie was with him. There was something about Bessie which restored his self-respect and made a man of him, Bessie was his all, and ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... disgust and humiliation, drew near a crowd of men and women in the long living-room. Her brother was haranguing the assemblage, standing forth among them like an unconquered bantam. In spite of herself, she felt a wave of shame and pity creep over her as ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... economically, and get on." To most boys brought up in comfort, not to say luxury, the prospect of working hard for small pay would not have seemed inviting. But Carl was essentially manly, and had sensible ideas about labor. It was no sacrifice or humiliation to him to become a working boy, for he had never considered himself superior to working boys, as many boys in ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... transaction was completed, prevented it from attracting curiosity, or even from obtaining a place in any of the published records of that time; so that Emily, who remained in Languedoc, was ignorant of the defeat and signal humiliation of her ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... taking prisoners at Longueval, where they rummaged in German dugouts after the line had been taken by the 15th Scottish Division and the 3d, and they brought back a number of enormous Bavarians who were like the Brobdingnagians to these little men of Lilliput and disgusted with that humiliation. I met the whole crowd of them after that adventure, as they sat, half naked, picking the lice out of their shirts, and the conversation I had with them remains in my memory because of its grotesque humor and tragic comicality. They were excited ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... ingloriousness, derogation; abasement, debasement; abjectness &c adj.; degradation, dedecoration^; a long farewell to all my greatness [Henry VIII]; odium, obloquy, opprobrium, ignominy. dishonor, disgrace; shame, humiliation; scandal, baseness, vileness^; turpitude &c (improbity) 940 [Obs.]; infamy. tarnish, taint, defilement, pollution. stain, blot, spot, blur, stigma, brand, reproach, imputation, slur. crying shame, burning ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... back to where the squires were now aiding the fallen knight to arise. The senior squire drew his dagger, cut the leather points, and drew off the helm, disclosing the knight's face—a face white as death, and convulsed with rage, mortification, and bitter humiliation. ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... effect these changes had was the throwing out of some of our best and bravest officers (there not being places for all), but as a matter of fact this was to their advantage, as they escaped the humiliation of surrender, and returned home a few days earlier than the rest ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... utterly that Hilda felt guilty of using absurdly heavy artillery. They sat together for a moment or two in silence with only that supervening sense of successful aggression between them, and the humiliation was Hilda's. Presently it grew heavy, embarrassing. Alicia got up and began a slow, restless pacing up and down before the alcove they sat in. Hilda watched her—it was a rhythmic progress—and when she came near with a sound of ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... with genuine surprise, and with a quick sense of inferiority and humiliation. "Oh, sir, you would not be so ill-natured as to make a jest of me!—I know how ignorant, how uninformed, what a raw boy I am. Marcus has been ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... war, or church government, or city business; or perchance, a family has left his shop to do business in yours, or his church to worship God in yours, or such like. It will be a certain relief to you to recollect such things. But with it all there will be a shame and a humiliation and a deep inward pain that will escape into a cry of prayer for him and for yourself and for all such sinners on the same street. If you do not find an escape from your sharp resentment in ejaculatory prayer and in a heart-cleansing great good-will, your heart, before you are a hundred ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... to be a heavier blow than the last, and Terence bowed under the accumulated weight. Vance could see the boy struggle, waver between fierce pride and desperate humiliation and sorrow. To Vance it was clear that the stiff pride of Elizabeth as she sat in the chair was a brittle strength, and one vital appeal would break her to tears. But the boy did not see. Presently he straightened, bowed ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... his love for Elizabeth. Sometimes, in his room or shaving before the bathroom mirror, he wondered what she could see in him to care about. He shaved twice a day now, and his face was so sore that he had to put cream on it at night, to his secret humiliation. When he was dressed in the morning he found himself once or twice taking a final survey of the ensemble, and at those times he wished very earnestly that he had some outstanding quality of appearance that ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... humiliation of Brahmanas would humiliate the very deities. By bowing unto Brahmanas one does not, O Yudhishthira, incur any fault. They, deserve to be worshipped. They deserve to have our Salutations. Thou shouldst behave towards them as if they are thy sons. Indeed, it is those men endued with ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... saucer, splendid clocks of all kinds; one of them belonged to Lord Howe, which he had to leave behind him when he was "obliged to run away from the States in such a hurry!" Mr. Childs' seemed to think I must know all about this, but I am afraid I had quite forgotten that humiliation. This reminds me of a story I heard lately of an American lionizing an Englishman about; they came within sight of Bunker's Hill, and the American as delicately and modestly as he could announced: "That, sir, is Bunker's Hill," the Englishman put up his glass and looked, and then said: ...
— The British Association's visit to Montreal, 1884: Letters • Clara Rayleigh
... Delarayne!" he exclaimed, still fearing that the humiliation of the discovery, despite the relief it gave, would prove too much for her immensely proud nature. "I share your secret now. I am strong. You will feel my strength with you. You are no longer alone. You will not have any ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... a comedian not to turn the humiliation he had just endured into a scene finale. With tears in his voice, which presently fell from his eyes, he turned ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... tone evidencing more anger than spiritual exaltation, "surely thy ancient servant Job never bowed before greater affliction than this now visited upon me. Verily 't is even as the experiences of the Apostle Paul, yet without his reward in the flesh. I beseech Thee from the depth of humiliation—even as did Daniel from the lions' den—loosen my arms that I may smite as with Thy wrath this profaner of Thy most holy name, thus bringing peace unto the smitten heart of Thy faithful servant. O Lord, what have I done to be deserted ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... restoring the young King, actually held him prisoner, compelling him to act in such subservience to their designs as to sacrifice those, who, without any sinister views, risked their lives in his support. The humiliation of these pretended friends by the victory of Cromwell enabled the King to burst the fetters of Argyle, and throw himself into the arms of the true Loyalists, with whom he concerted measures and recruited his army, while Cromwell refreshed his fatigued and ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... of their senators, to FRANCE, to ask his pardon and receive his terms. They were obliged to submit to it for the sake of peace. Would he on any occasion either have demanded or have received the like humiliation from Spain, or Britain, or any other ...
— The Federalist Papers
... wished to avoid him only because she was in plainer clothes—a circumstance that, with his knowledge of her changed fortunes, struck him to the heart. It seemed to him that even as a humble employee of the bank he was in some way responsible for it, and wondered if she associated him with her humiliation. He longed to speak with her and assure her of his sympathy, and yet he was equally conscious that ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... you about it," said Robert. "I have already told you more than once what I think. Mr. Haw's object is to help those who are destitute. He looks upon us as his equals, and would not presume to patronise us, or to act as if we could not help ourselves. It would be a humiliation to us ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... elation because he rode westward and toward that valley in which he had followed Jackson through the thick of great achievements. In the North they had nicknamed it "The Valley of Humiliation," but Jackson was gone, and Milroy, whom he had defeated once, was there again, holding and ruling the little city of Winchester. Harry's blood grew hot, because he, too, as Jackson had, loved Winchester. He did not know what ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... claquers hammered madly whenever the very feeblest joke showed its head. Sawyer supported their herculean efforts with bursts of stentorian laughter. As Mark explained, not without a touch of pride, inferior jokes never fared so royally before. But his hour of humiliation was at hand. On delivering a bit of serious matter with impressive unction, to which the audience listened with rapt interest, he glanced involuntarily, as if for her approval, at his friend in the box. He remembered the compact, but it was too ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... pride and power of Stilicho constituted his real guilt. An honorable reluctance to shed the blood of his countrymen appears to have contributed to the success of his unworthy rival; and it is the last humiliation of the character of Honorius, that posterity has not condescended to reproach him with his base ingratitude to the guardian of his youth, and the support ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... not know if she regretted having yielded to him, or whether she did not wish, on the contrary, to enjoy him the more. The humiliation of feeling herself weak was turning to rancour, tempered by their voluptuous pleasures. It was not affection; it was like a continual seduction. He subjugated her; ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... be a convulsive twinge at my heart, and I used to feel hot all down my back at the mere thought of the wretchedness of my attire, of the wretchedness and abjectness of my little scurrying figure. This was a regular martyrdom, a continual, intolerable humiliation at the thought, which passed into an incessant and direct sensation, that I was a mere fly in the eyes of all this world, a nasty, disgusting fly—more intelligent, more highly developed, more refined in feeling than any of them, of course—but a ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... the parasite of Great Britain; who appeal to the lower nature of her people; to the fears of one section and the cupidity of both; advising Unionists to rely on British power and all Irishmen on British alms. A day will come when the humiliation will be seen in its true light. Even now, I do venture to appeal to that small but powerful group of moderate Irish Unionists who, so far from fearing revenge or soliciting charity, spend their whole lives in the noble aim of ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... yourself too much for the humiliation to which you have just submitted. As you said yourself, you yielded only to violence, and your apologies are void in my eyes. Believe me, I exact nothing. Why did I not divine, this morning, that Fritz ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... Randolph rejoiced as only a mean and spiteful boy would be capable of doing at the humiliation and anticipated disgrace of a boy whom he disliked. He had indulged in more than one expression of triumph, and sought every opportunity of discussing the subject, to the disgust of all fair-minded persons. Even Sam Noble protested, though a toady ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... right. The sagacious Corsican, no doubt, foresaw that it could not have long remained the property of France. Sooner or later the American flag would wave over the Crescent City, and Napoleon's easy bargain has no doubt saved America a war, and France a humiliation. ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... greater in polygamy than in monogamy. Thus, as a practice that runs strongly counter to one of the great purposes of marriage, and is, to say the least, no help to the other, and carries with it the humiliation of the female sex, polygamy is justly argued ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... sits alone at the table, and is attended in the most public manner with more than European ceremony. This is done to create an awe and respect towards him in the eye of the vulgar; but lest it should elevate him too much in his own opinion, in order to his humiliation he receives every evening in private, from a kind of beadle, a gentle kick on his posteriors; besides which he wears a ring in his nose, somewhat resembling that we ring our pigs with, and a chain round his neck not unlike that worn by our aldermen; ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... ruined you, my poor Inocencio, I have ruined you! How generous you are! But listen, I swear to you, by the memory of my father, that I will atone for the humiliation ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various
... hung his head with shame before the portiers at being a party to it; he no longer felt like resenting Davis's amusement; he only wondered that he could keep his face in relating the idiotic mischance. Each successive failure to discover his lodging confirmed him in his humiliation and despair. Very likely there was a way out of the difficulty, but he did not know it. He became at last almost an indifferent spectator of the consul's perseverance. He began to look back with incredulity at the period of his life passed before entering ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... which my soul had panted for years, as the hart panteth for the water-brooks. (Renewed laughter.) But where was Duluth? Never, in all my limited reading, had my vision been gladdened by seeing the celestial word in print. (Laughter.) And I felt a profounder humiliation in my ignorance that its dulcet syllables had never before ravished my delighted ear. (Roars of laughter.) I was certain the draughtsman of this bill had never heard of it, or it would have been designated ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... Monmouth had commenced his march towards the west, and was already advanced half way from Edinburgh. This news silenced their divisions for the moment, and it was agreed that the next day should be held as a fast of general humiliation for the sins of the land; that the Reverend Mr Poundtext should preach to the army in the morning, and Kettledrummle in the afternoon; that neither should touch upon any topics of schism or of division, ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... and model his conduct strictly in accordance with their ideas of what was right and proper, or take the consequences. And what were those consequences likely to be? Judging from what he had already seen, his dethronement and utter humiliation seemed to be among the least severe of future possibilities. Instead of remaining the irresponsible autocrat he had hitherto been, he would, during the sojourn of these strangers in his vicinity, be obliged to carefully weigh and consider his every word and action, in order that he might neither ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... and humiliation. Disabilities imposed on Jews and Christians.] On the other hand, for those who held to their ancestral faith there was no escape from the second or the third alternative. If they would avoid the sword, or, having wielded it, were beaten, they must become tributary. Moreover, the payment of ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... offspring of the author's fancy. And yet it was by help of such as these he had thought to push his way to immortality! How the world would laugh at him! and, as he thought this, a few bitter tears of shame and humiliation trickled down the sides ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... Napoleon to sacrifice, or at least resign temporarily, a portion of that glory acquired in so many battles, and which nothing could efface in history. Napoleon replied, "I will sign whatever you wish. To obtain peace I will exact no condition; but I will not dictate my own humiliation." This concession, of course, amounted to a determination not to sign or ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... went out onto the steps of the Karenins' house and stood still, with difficulty remembering where he was, and where he ought to walk or drive. He felt disgraced, humiliated, guilty, and deprived of all possibility of washing away his humiliation. He felt thrust out of the beaten track along which he had so proudly and lightly walked till then. All the habits and rules of his life that had seemed so firm, had turned out suddenly false and inapplicable. The betrayed ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... beautiful to me is gone—my faith, my feeling of security—all gone! No, no, no! I can never begin with that, and it is wicked of you to want to make me believe I can. After such a disillusionment and such a humiliation? No! I would rather never be married—even it I have to go away from here. I daresay I shall find something to fill my life; it is only for the moment that I am so helpless. And anything is better than to fill it with what is unclean. If I did not refuse that without hesitation, ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... was altogether a painful and disastrous occasion. There were artists present who then for the first time were to get their impression of a great singer, prepared of course to believe that that reputation had been exaggerated. Among these was Rachel, who sat enjoying the humiliation of decayed grandeur with a cynical and bitter sneer on her face, drawing the attention of the theatre by her exhibition of ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... he must be brought to apologize, or leave the hospital, perhaps. But he did not hurt you. Your own reaction did that. For outside things or people cannot damage what we are in ourselves. The way we respond to them does the harm. When you can control your expression of anger and humiliation, and substitute for your intense feeling a desire that such a patient may learn that pain is often the gateway to healing; that some respect for women may be kindled in him, so that eventually such an outburst in the ward may be impossible ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... took up his belongings and started away toward the village. His course led him right past Abner Adams' house, but, fortunately, Mr. Adams was not in sight. Phil would have felt a keen humiliation had he been forced to meet the taunts of his uncle. He hurried on past the house without ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... and asked what had brought her down from her theological peak to such a valley of humiliation as a ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... poor angel, of her artless, unthinking generosity? Does she still fancy that it is in her power to assert my innocence before the world? Oh, mother (if she do), use your utmost influence to make her give up the idea! Spare her the humiliation, the disappointment, the insult, perhaps, to which she may innocently expose herself. For her sake, for my sake, leave no means untried to attain ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... thus exalted in situation above my [sic] situated, (as I may say,) in the very van, exposed to the sneer of every satirical reader and sententious critic? Am I placed in a post so dangerous, and are contempt and humiliation my only reward? O, mankind, where is your gratitude? Think, generous reader, on the services I have so often rendered you: think how often, when you were about to enter upon the stupendous folio, or the dull and massy quarto, four inches at least in thickness, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... of this marriage revealed to me, as by a flash of lightning, my whole inner world of feeling. When I knew that he was forever lost, I first knew what he had become to me. The pangs of disappointment, of self-humiliation,—I hardly know which were the stronger,—were like poisoned arrows in my heart. It was my first trouble, and I had to bear it in silence and alone. Not for worlds would I have had it guessed that I had cherished an unreturned affection, and it would have killed me to hear ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... man who stood in the place Jem had longed for, the man who sat at the head of his table, was this "thing!" That was what she felt him to be, and every hurt she could do him, every humiliation which should write large before him his presumption and grotesque unfitness, would be a blow struck for Jem, who could never strike a blow for himself again. It was all senseless, but she had not want to reason. Fate had not reasoned in her behalf. She ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... pockets (including some priceless marbles) were impounded; he had two columns of dates to commit to memory before he could go home; and, hardest of all, because of a little blot, he was reduced to the ineffable humiliation of writing all ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... humiliation as well-deserved chastisement for his chimerical fancies, Pierre retired, stepping backwards according to the customary ceremonial. He made three deep bows and crossed the threshold without turning, followed by the black eyes of Leo XIII, which ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... see my burning cheeks—cheeks flushed with shame at your insulting proposal—and might guess that you had asked me, and that I had refused you. And I should shrink from the disgrace of anyone's knowing that you had put such a humiliation upon me. You have been frank with me—after your kind, Lord Southminster; frank with the frankness of a low and purely commercial nature. I will be frank with you in turn. You are right in supposing that I love Harold Tillington—a man whose name I hate to mention in your presence. But you are ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... concealing his sense of humiliation in the very best way; "why I fired two barrels at one snipe before Gould killed it for me. I am a perfect ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... which he mentioned, was the sign of the cross in baptism. Another member added the kneeling at the sacrament; and remarked, that if a posture of humiliation were requisite in that act of devotion, it were better that the communicants should throw themselves prostrate on the ground, in order to keep at the widest distance ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... which that noble Queen of Prussia, whom Napoleon treated with such coarse brutality, used to quote in her humiliation and exile; they were the lines my mother often quoted in the troubles of her later life. I absolutely declined to accept or admit the enormous truth hidden in them. I could not understand it. I remember quite well how I ...
— De Profundis • Oscar Wilde
... looked upon it as a humiliation either to consult a medical man, or to make a pilgrimage to some shrine, like so many women did, in their despair, and her proud, loyal and loving nature at last rebelled against that hostility, which showed itself in the angry outbursts, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... Tomb (into which, be it authentic or not, no man can enter without a shock of breathless fear, and deep and awful self-humiliation) must have struck all travellers. It stands in the centre of the arched rotunda, which is common to all denominations, and from which branch off the various chapels belonging to each particular sect. In the Coptic chapel I saw one ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... scattered upon the floor. Mr. Harland, supposing it the act of one of his half-drunken companions, turned with an angry exclamation upon his lips; but the expression of anger upon his countenance suddenly gave place to one of shame and humiliation when he saw his wife standing before him, pale but resolute. In a subdued voice he addressed her, saying, "Mary, how came you here?" "Do not blame me, William," she replied; "for I could not see you again go astray ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... away again, but a little thrill of exultation ran through her. It had been with dismay she had first heard him speak of his marriage, which was, perhaps, not altogether astonishing, and she had fled home in an agony of anger and humiliation. That state of mind had, however, not lasted long, and when it became evident that the wedding was, at least, postponed indefinitely, she commenced to wonder whether it was quite impossible that Hawtrey should come back to her. She felt that he belonged to her ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... Sunday.... Over her little bed is a text in letters of flame: "Thou God seest me!" After burning with indignation and humiliation for some time, she falls at last to sleep, with an unspoken prayer of thanksgiving to her Heavenly ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... laughter, or those parts of the pit which had not known Braintop would have been indignant. Mr. Pole became more and more possessed by the fun, as the contrast of Braintop's abject humiliation with this glaring testimony to his conceit tickled him. He laughed till he complained of hunger. Emilia, though she thought it natural that Braintop should carry a pocket-mirror if he pleased, laughed ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... comforted. Even the affectionate welcome accorded him by his people failed to dispel his gloom or cheer his soul. Day and night he brooded over his defeats and disasters, and sighed dolefully as his memory recalled the humiliation to which, in his person, the cause of Christianity had been exposed at the ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... arrive. And so I lay, tossing all night long sleepless on my bed, and cursing the moon, which poured as if to mock me a silver flood of light upon the floor, seeming to say: Think what a night it must be in the garden! until in an agony of reminiscence and humiliation, I turned my back to it, and lay with my face to the wall. And when at last day returned, I arose and sat, in deep dejection, worn out, and at my wits' very end, never even daring to look towards ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... I think I saw on the faces of many of these Uhlans and Dragoons a regret that they had not followed the old warrior, and an unhappiness when they compared the heroic position of the Blankensteins with their own humiliation. ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... wearily into a chair, but took Dona Eustaquia's hand in a tight clasp. Her white skin shone in the dim light, and with her black hair and green tragic eyes made her look like a little witch queen, for neither suffering nor humiliation could bend that ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... namesake, Elizabeth of England, [66] whose history presents some features parallel to her own. Both were disciplined in early life by the teachings of that stern nurse of wisdom, adversity. Both were made to experience the deepest humiliation at the hands of their nearest relative, who should have cherished and protected them. Both succeeded in establishing themselves on the throne after the most precarious vicissitudes. Each conducted her kingdom, through a long and triumphant reign, to a height of glory, which it had never ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... this deportment, endeavoured to allay his transports with reason; but finding all he said ineffectual, and great confusion occasioned by his frolics, he knocked him down with his right hand, and by threats kept him quiet in that state of humiliation. But it was not in the power of rum to elevate the purser, who sat on the floor wringing his hands, and cursing the hour in which he left his peaceable profession of a brewer in Rochester, to engage in such a life of ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... her and walked out of the room in a tumult of grief and humiliation. Woodview and all belonging to it had grown unbearable, and heedless to what complaint the cook might make against her she ran upstairs and shut herself into her room. She asked why they should take pleasure in ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... confided nothing definite to any one. Resentment, humiliation at having been worsted arms in hand, and an uneasy feeling of having been involved into a scrape by the injustice of fate, kept Lieutenant Feraud savagely dumb. He mistrusted the sympathy of mankind. That would of course go to that dandified ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... and studying the world of mind according to the inductive method, he pursued the high a priori road, and reconstructed it to suit his preestablished origin of human knowledge. This was not to study and interpret the work of God "in the profound humiliation of the human soul;"(45) but to re-write the volume of nature, and omit those parts which did not accord with the views and wishes of the philosopher. In the pithy language of Sir William Hamilton, he ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... really: he wants the money, but he also wants to feel dignified. 'If I thought it would make you happier if I accepted it,' he says, 'of course I should view the matter differently. It would give me a reason for accepting what I must confess would be a humiliation,' Isn't that infernal? Then he says that I may perhaps think that his troubles have coarsened him, but that he unhappily retains all his old sensitiveness. Then he goes on to say that it was I who encouraged him to preserve a high ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... a good Scene, if one could be present at it, to see this Idol by turns lift up her Eyes to Heaven, and steal Glances at her own dear Person. It cannot but be a pleasing Conflict between Vanity and Humiliation. When you are upon this Subject, choose Books which elevate the Mind above the World, and give a pleasing Indifference to little things in it. For want of such Instructions, I am apt to believe so many People ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... life at Port-Royal was distinguished for austerity. The inmates rose at three o'clock in the morning, and, after the common prayer, kissed the ground as a sign of their self-humiliation before God. Then, kneeling, they read a chapter from the Gospels and one from the Epistles, concluding with another prayer. Two hours in the morning and a like number in the afternoon were devoted to manual labor in the gardens adjoining the ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... did tell him what little I knew of the events of the last hour. I told him of the shame and humiliation of it all. He pondered for a minute and asked me at length if I believed Miss Elisabeth suspected anything of my ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... the north-east, and it was not till several days afterwards that Marsh's body was recovered, entangled in the wreckage, to leeward of the vessel, and sorely mangled. Wrapped in a sail, and with the rope still round him which ought to have drawn him into safety, lay the poor 'body of humiliation' in which had once dwelt a gallant spirit; but a good hope burned within me as the triumphant lines rang ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... for degrading himself like this, against herself for ever having found glamour in the man. It humiliated her to remember how utterly she had once allowed his personality to master hers. And under the sting of this humiliation she felt hard and pitiless. Dimly she was aware that a curious change had come over her to-night. Normally, the sight of any living thing in distress was enough to stir her quick sympathy: but Gerald mourning over the prospect of having to go back to regular work made no appeal ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... such a flash of sunshine and trill of bird-song that she sprang up smiling, whether she would or no. Indeed, she felt happier than she could have believed to be possible. The anger, the despair, even the self-humiliation and anguish of repentance, were gone with the night. Morning was here,—a new day and a new life. "Here is the new Hildegarde!" she cried as she plunged her face into the clear, sparkling water. "Do you see me, blue dragons? Shake paws, you foolish creatures, ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... the very nature of that wealth, while in position, influence, reputation, and popularity, I was inferior to none, however distinguished—I cannot, I repeat, go on longer lamenting over myself and those dear to me in a life of such humiliation as this, and in a state of such utter ruin. Wherefore, what do you mean by writing to me about negotiating a bill of exchange? As though I were not now wholly dependent on your means! And that is just the very thing in which I see ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... as surprised, by his confidences. His words breathed sincerity, and the look of humiliation and pain on his face had deepened. He looked ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... moved on, the chain galling more deeply, and a bitter sense of humiliation as well as bondage robbing him ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... after this meeting that the disaster came and the country was startled by the failure of those whom it had regarded as its strongest men. I fear Mr. Scott's premature death[32] can measurably be attributed to the humiliation which he had to bear. He was a sensitive rather than a proud man, and his seemingly impending failure cut him to the quick. Mr. McManus and Mr. Baird, partners in the enterprise, also soon passed away. These two men were manufacturers ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... territory laid waste by the victorious Napoleon, and their thrones occupied by rulers of Gallic or Italian preferences. They had striven very sluggishly to stem the current of national subjection and humiliation. The star of France being in the ascendant, the Rhine was no longer their friendly ally and western limit. No stage in the history of a people is more gloomy and calls more loudly for sympathy than when national prestige is gone, and dignities ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... "My show? My humiliation," said my brother-in-law. "Think of it. My wife's brother in service. How can I ever hold up this noble head again? And this after all my years of striving to elevate. But there! Can the leopard change his spots, or the chauffeur his boots? By the way, how did you get into them? Rather a tight fit, ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... which their mishap has transformed into irritation. A young Baron Lieutenant, like von Forstner, pretended that he couldn't make his bed, and refused to answer before simple soldiers. He couldn't feel anything but the humiliation of being a prisoner, and couldn't get accustomed ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... equally responsible with the leaders, who strongly objected to shifting any portion of their responsibility upon others, and who desired to stand with those who were prepared to bear the brunt of the charge. To them the suggestion to plead guilty was as gall and wormwood, and was regarded as another humiliation which they were required to endure, another climbing-down similar to the disarmament, and attended, like it, with exasperating and baffling complications and involvements that made refusal an impossibility. The one call to which these men would respond was the call to ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... to the separation in schools and churches, and the denial of redress to seduced colored women, which had long been the custom in the South. All these new enactments meant not simply separation, but subordination, caste, humiliation, and flagrant injustice. ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... fall until she stood once more in the room where she and Leopold had been happy together. There she had sat at the piano, and he had bent over her, love in his eyes—honest love, she had thought, her heart full of thanksgiving. How little she had guessed then the humiliation in store for her, and the end of all her hopes! How could she bear her pain, and how could she go ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... villains have been known to turn into good men in their riper years, and have sometimes been almost saints in their old age. Corbario smoked his cigarette and mentally registered his mistake, and it is to be feared that the humiliation he felt at having made it was much more painful than the recollection of having dropped one deadly tablet into a little bottle that contained many harmless ones. He compared it in his mind to the keen disappointment he had felt when he had gone down to hide Marcello's body, and had discovered ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... earned her thirty sous. Gervaise arrived on the Saturday morning with a pail and a scrubbing brush, without seeming to suffer in the least at having to perform a dirty, humble duty, a charwoman's work in the dwelling-place where she had reigned as the beautiful fair-haired mistress. It was a last humiliation, the ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... condition to make any impression upon her—she could not at first realize that the temple had fallen before the assault of men of the outer world. When she did, there must have come, too, a terrible realization of what it meant to her—the loss of power—humiliation—the exposure of the fraud and imposture which she had for so long played upon ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... married state, which is a kind of state of humiliation for a lady, you must think yourself subordinate to your husband; for so it has pleased God to make the wife. You must have no will of your own, in petty things; and if you marry a gentleman of sense and honour, ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... mother up, praying and beseeching her not to stoop before me in such affliction and humiliation. I did so in broken, incoherent words, for besides the trouble I was in, it frightened me to see her at MY feet. I told her—or I tried to tell her—that if it were for me, her child, under any circumstances to take upon me to forgive her, I did it, and had done it, many, many years. ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... from the spectacle of my humiliation and of her triumph. The sudden silence that had fallen upon me seemed to frighten her. "I spared you, at the time," she said. "I would have spared you now, if you had not forced me to speak." She moved away as if to leave the room—and hesitated before she got ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... With a look of disgust she turned and said to her companion, "He isn't wounded at all, he has only got the 'flu'". At once they lost all interest (p. 287) in me, and went off leaving me to my fate. Stung by this humiliation, I called two orderlies and asked them to carry me out into the garden and hide me under the bushes. This they did, and there I found many friends who had been wounded lying about the place. My batman had come with me and had brought my kit, so a box of good cigars which ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... the silent terror of his mother, who sate watching the poor child as he tossed wakeful upon his midnight bed. His malady defied her skill, and increased in spite of all the nostrums which the good widow kept in her closet and administered so freely to her people. She had to undergo another humiliation, and one day little Mr. Dempster beheld her at his door on horseback. She had ridden through the snow on her pony, to implore him to give his aid to her poor boy. "I shall bury my resentment, madam," said he, "as your ladyship buried ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Rogers did give to Mark Twain was his priceless counsel and time—gifts more precious than any mere sum of money—favors that Mark Twain could accept without humiliation. He did accept them, and never ceased to be grateful. He rarely wrote without expressing his gratitude, and we get the size of Mark Twain's obligation when in one letter ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... righteousness, and progress, he humbly bows and meekly does obeisance. But before that nameless prejudice that leaps beyond all this he stands helpless, dismayed, and well-nigh speechless; before that personal disrespect and mockery, the ridicule and systematic humiliation, the distortion of fact and wanton license of fancy, the cynical ignoring of the better and the boisterous welcoming of the worse, the all-pervading desire to inculcate disdain for everything black, from Toussaint to the devil,—before this there rises a sickening despair that would disarm ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... such a bitter humiliation to him," she said to her husband. "Every one knew it. He actually hated them. His pride has full sway here." Perhaps there was not one person who accepted the invitation without feeling some curiosity about little Lord Fauntleroy, and wondering if ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... there is something—possibly something very grave, certainly something that requires she should make use of artificial aids. She won't admit it publicly, because with her idolatry of her beauty, the feeling she is all made up of, she sees in such aids nothing but the humiliation and the disfigurement. She has used them in secret, but that is evidently not enough, for the affection she suffers from, apparently some definite ailment, has lately grown much worse. She looked straight ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... and humiliation, I went to my room. And there, before I could help it, the name "Emmy" rose to my lips. I shivered, crying out the name once more, now like a despairing shriek of distress. Then I fell down upon my bed and wept as though I would weep out my ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden |
