"Pitiable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Michael had ended by accepting his vague pretences with apparent calm, indignation, wrath, would have possessed him; he believed, however, that the old man out of kindness subdued what he really felt. Sidney's state was pitiable. He knew not whether he more shrank from the thought of being infected with Joseph Snowdon's baseness or despised himself for his attitude to Jane. Despicable entirely had been his explanations to Michael, but how could he make them more sincere? To tell the whole truth, to reveal ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... Tales"—an accomplished classical scholar and teacher, yet no less an accomplished master and lover of his native dialect of middle Georgia. He, like Dickens, permits his rustic characters to think, talk, act and live, Just as nature designed them. He does not make the pitiable error of either patronizing or making fun of them. He knows them and he loves them; and they know and love him in return. Recalling Colonel Johnston's dialectic sketches, with his own presentation of them from the platform, ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... therefrom are in the utmost need—so much so that we have not been able to pay this year the president, auditors, archbishop, bishops, prebendaries, or ministers of instruction and justice, not having the means to pay them. Most pitiable of all has been the plight of the soldiers, who are suffering the utmost extremity, without there being any resources with which to aid them. All this has been caused by the excessive cost of the galleys, and the great expenses incurred by some expeditions made with them without anything being thus ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... who was in a pitiable state, and for a long time she labored to soothe him as though he were a child. She undertook to question him about the things which lay uppermost in her mind and which this night had half revealed, but he became fretful and irritated at the mention of mines ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... a sheltered doorway across the street, standing guard while his artful brother entered and ransacked the store whose awning now afforded him a comfortable refuge? And how was he to know that Ernie had glared out upon their tender love scene with eyes in which there was the most pitiable jealousy, the most implacable hatred? Dick Cronk, however, knew that his brother was over there and that he must have seen these two together in the flashes. Moreover, he knew that Ernie had been carrying a ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... the witty, high-bred Hervey! He is happy that day—away from the coarse, passionate king, whom he hated with a hatred that burns itself out in his lordship's 'Memoirs;' away from the somewhat exacting and pitiable queen; away from the hated Pelham, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... no man ever did for another, and worked without a penny of wages. It was you yourself who set me against you, by giving me a task against which my soul revolted,—by making me a spy over your unfortunate wife, whose weakness is as pitiable as are her misfortunes and your rascally treatment of her. Flesh and blood could not bear to see the manner in which you used her. I tried to help her to escape from you; and I would do it again, if the opportunity offered, and ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... yard, where his mistress kept a few pet bantam fowls, and, after eating their eggs, he secured one of the hens, and began plucking it. The noise of the poor bird called some of the servants to the rescue, when they found the half-plucked creature in such a pitiable condition that they killed it at once. After this, Mr. Monkey was chained ...
— Minnie's Pet Monkey • Madeline Leslie
... suffer more, whatever you might do, for I am the most wretched, pitiable creature ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... the Belgian refugees to us, a most pitiable band. French Switzerland has the honor of beginning the movement which has made possible the bringing to Switzerland and placing in hundreds of households these innocent victims of this hideous war. In addition, subscriptions have ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... very vices, for the first time seriously oppressed him. He bestirred himself in dusting his black clothes, washing his hands and face, and other acts characteristic of his studiously neat habits, and for a moment forgot his annoyance. The thought of deserting his weaker and more pitiable companions never perhaps occurred to him. Yet he could not help feeling the want of that excitement which, singularly enough, was most conducive to that calm equanimity for which he was notorious. He looked at the gloomy walls that rose a thousand feet sheer above the circling ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... they are mad. And if on the other hand, they would like to revert to ruined Austria and have the value of all their money reduced ten times, surely they are not very sane. Or if they think that they who suffered little should reap the major benefits of the war-victory, they are certainly pitiable egoists. ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... a sad and pitiable life! I pray you set the wretched fellow free. How great soever may be his offence, His ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... room, and half an hour afterwards left the house, leaving my father in a state of pitiable nervousness. Night after night I heard him pacing his room, and it was just as he was recovering his confidence that the ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... for him at Salzburg which he was loath to accept. He asked that the Archbishop permit him to travel once in two years. He feared that he "would find no congenial society" in Salzburg, where, moreover, music did not stand in large appreciation. Mozart's subsequent experiences were of the most pitiable character.) ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... the position changed when he had become bankrupt and affairs were in the hands of creditors. Watt therefore renewed the subject and agreed to go and settle in Birmingham, as he had been urged to do. Roebuck's pitiable condition he keenly felt, and had done everything ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... section maintains that there is a real objective presence of Christ's Body and Blood under the forms of the consecrated bread and wine. The other maintains that there is no real presence whatsoever, except in the hearts of the believing communicant."[5] Was such a state of pitiable helplessness ever seen or heard or dreamed of anywhere! And yet this church, please to observe, is supposed to be a body sent by God to teach. Heaven preserve us from such a teacher. As a further ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... knows all about the romance, I say, and the educational advantages, but I doubt if he had turned his attention to the harbour lights; and it may be news even to him, that in the year 1863 their case was pitiable. Hanging about with the east wind humming in my teeth, and my hands (I make no doubt) in my pockets, I looked for the first time upon that tragi-comedy of the visiting engineer which I have seen so often re-enacted on a more important stage. Eighty years ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ears. When one reflects upon her extraordinary tragedy, when one attempts to gauge the significance of her character and of her life, it is difficult to know whether to pity most, to admire, or to fear. Certainly there is something at once pitiable and magnificent in such an unflinching perception of the futilities of living, such an uncompromising refusal to be content with anything save the one thing that it is impossible to have. But there is something alarming too; was ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... stumbled into camp, Harding ragged and exhausted, and Clarke limping after him in an even more pitiable state. The doctor had suffered badly from the hurried march; but his conductor would brook no delay, and the grim hints he had been given encouraged him to put forth his ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... in fear. Other forests on it rang with the cries of hundreds upon hundreds of animals. Sharabhas and lions suddenly ran out. In consequence of all this that mountain, though it was reduced to a very pitiable plight, still assumed a very beautiful aspect. The vidyadharas dwelling on its summits soared into the air. The kinnaras also became very anxious, distracted by the fear caused by the fall of Skanda's dart. The Daityas then, by hundreds and thousands, came out of that blazing mountain, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Monarchs and representatives, pitiable actors in parliamentary comedies, this in the last analysis is what you are: talismans against the future! Every year brings you the grievances of the people; and when you are asked for the remedy, your wisdom covers its face! ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... and accounts of profits. Once or twice, at their first coming, Mrs. Johnstone had descended for a walk in the streets; but by this time the unhappy lady had it fixed in her mind that she was being watched and followed, and shook with apprehension at every corner. So pitiable indeed were the glances she flung behind her, and so frantic the precautions she used to shake off her supposed pursuers and return by circuitous ways, that Kirstie pressed her to no more ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... had read of it in the "Golden Legend." Was not evil Satan himself? And had not she seen how, although he constantly reappeared, he was always overthrown? After every battle he remained crushed to earth, thoroughly conquered, and in a most pitiable state. ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... management of a drove of mules. In a fit of drunken madness, he committed the outrage which brought the young woman in question down to my old master's for protection. This young woman was the daughter of Milly, an own aunt of mine. The poor girl, on arriving at our house, presented a pitiable appearance. She had left in haste, and without preparation; and, probably, without the knowledge of Mr. Plummer. She had traveled twelve miles, bare-footed, bare-necked and bare-headed. Her neck and shoulders{64} were ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... blissful sleep the dead whose wounds bleed and ache no longer! How wretched and pitiable are the living as they lie on the ground, tortured by the wounds which the howling night wind has dried so that they bleed no more! Those poor deserted ones in the valley and on the hills the sun has awakened, ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... How pitiable it is to see a great good man be-fuddled by a half truth. For to allege "Industrialism" to be the grand agency in the elevation of a race of already degraded labourers, is as much a mere platitude as to say, "they must eat and drink and ...
— Civilization the Primal Need of the Race - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Paper No. 3 • Alexander Crummell
... of love, such as she had never uttered to him before, nor thought she could utter. Then the poor creature, trembling all over, began to say over that ashy face little foolish things that were at once terrible and pitiable. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... they went. The extremity was now too great for argument. They dared not so much as look at their women-folk, lest they should be unmanned by the sight of those huddled creatures—their finery but serving to render them the more pitiable in their sickly affright. In a body the whole thirty of them swept from the room, and with Bellecour at their head and Ombreval somewhere in the rearmost rank, they made their ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... races, to see who will come out first. Men and women with souls to be saved passing the hour in wondering where that man got his cravat, or what store that woman patronizes. In many of our churches the preliminary exercises are taken up with the discussion of wardrobes. It is pitiable. Is it not wonderful that the Lord does not strike the meeting-houses with lightning? What distraction of public worship! Dying men and women, whose bodies are soon to be turned into dust, yet before three worlds strutting like peacocks. People ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... learned D'Aguesseau," says Michelet, "notwithstanding the pitiable, the wretched sides of his character, had two lofty sides, his reform of the laws, and a personal passion, the taste and urgent need of universality, a certain encyclopaedic sense. A young man came to him one day, a man of letters living by his pen, and somewhat under a ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... been locked ever since the day before we sailed, a young girl, not more than fourteen years of age, was found concealed among the casks, where she had secreted herself in order to accompany the boatswain to sea: upon being brought on deck, she was in a most pitiable plight, for her dress and appearance were so filthy, from four days' close confinement in a dark hold, and from having been dreadfully seasick the whole time, that her acquaintances, of which she had many on board, could ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... of the hour, these votes were immediately communicated to the king, who was in a pitiable condition, aged, nearly blind, half crazed, and stubborn even to insanity, in his determination to subjugate the Americans. The poor old man, in his rage, threatened to abandon England, to renounce the crown, and to cloister himself in his estate of Hanover. ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... and instantly fell ill again of the fever. He vowed that he could leave her and think no more of her, and so he could pretty well, at least, succeed in quelling that rage and longing he had whenever he was with her; but as soon as he returned he was as bad as ever again. Truly a ludicrous and pitiable object, at least exhausting everybody's pity but his dearest mistress's, Lady Castlewood's, in whose tender breast he reposed all his dreary confessions, and who never tired of hearing ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... it suddenly with a glass shade, before it had time to swallow its prey. The serpent, appeared stunned by its own capture, and allowed the rat to escape from its jaws, which cowered at one side of the glass in the most pitiable state of trembling terror. The two were left alone for some moments, and on my return to them the snake was as before in the same attitude of sullen stupor. On setting them at liberty, the rat bounded towards the ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... had reached his eyes; it could not be dispersed; and the consequence was, that he was then blind. The second was lame; he had badly ulcerated legs, and appeared to be very weak. The third was a mere spectre; I think he was the most pitiable object I ever saw. I considered him as irrecoverably gone. They all complained to me of their bad usage on board the Thomas. They said they had heard, of my being in Bristol, and they hoped I would not leave it without inquiring into the murder ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... the baby, he stopt to enquire to whom it belonged; to herself, she said, and begged his charity with the most pitiable cries of distress; telling him that she was travelling to join some of her fraternity, who were in a body near Bath, but was so ill with an ague and fever that she feared she should die ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... optimism are opposite sentiments attached to a doctrine identically the same. In either case no improvement is possible, and the authority of human ideals is denied. To escape, to stanch natural wounds, to redeem society and the private soul, are then mistaken and pitiable ambitions, adding to their vanity a certain touch of impiety. One who really believes that the world's work is all providentially directed and that whatever happens, no matter how calamitous or shocking, happens by divine right, has ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... rocked, a pitiable bundle of terrors, apparently sobbing plaintively. Thibaut sickened at such ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Philosophers, scholars, poets and musicians have them well-developed. But where imagination is uncontrolled by higher reason and where idealism is not backed by a strong will, there you have the idle 'dreamer of dreams' and such a state of mind is reprehensible and pitiable indeed! ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... his gold chain! what a dream it was! you were infected with the illusion, and did not wish that it should be removed! you had no room for laughter! if an unseasonable reflection of morality obtruded itself, it was a deep sense of the pitiable infirmity of man's nature, that can lay him open to such frenzies—but in truth you rather admired than pitied the lunacy while it lasted—you felt that an hour of such mistake was worth an age with the eyes open. Who would not wish to live but for a day in the conceit of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... which conducted you hither, with the heart neatly but painfully extracted. Look upon a woman's work, Davy, and shun the sex. I tell you it is better to go blindfold through life, to have—pardon me—your own blunt features, than to be reduced to such a pitiable state. Was ever such a refinement of cruelty practised before? Never! Was there ever such beauty, such archness, such coquetry,—such damned elusiveness? Never! If there is a cargo going up the river, let me be salted and lie at the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... limp and apparently lifeless, his head tucked under his body, clothes over his head, exposing the larger part of his anatomy—a pitiable lump, lying in the sandy path twenty feet from the well. The handle of the windlass had caught him across the shoulders, sending him flying through the air. For days thereafter "Al-f-u-r-d" was swathed in bandages and bathed with liniments; for a time, at ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... we children had almost forgotten our late favorite, when one day he came mewing into the yard, and in so pitiable a condition that all our hearts were moved for him. He was in an emaciated state distressing to behold, and then one of his hind legs was broken so that the bone protruded through the skin. The dear old cat was at once fed, but it was soon seen that his injury ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... coax the squirrel down again by such encouraging noises as she had found successful in winning the confidence of kittens and puppies. Amabel was the victim of that weakness for falling in love with every fussy, intelligent, or pitiable beast she met with, which besets some otherwise reasonable beings, leading to an inconvenient accumulation of pets in private life, though doubtless invaluable in the public services of people ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... did, or you would have been in the pitiable condition of the princess who had her head turned. I sat directly back of your box, in the dress-circle. Then ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... I was truly a pitiable object, but my white dress was the greatest sufferer: while the tears that rolled down my cheeks grew blacker and blacker as they descended. I almost wished myself home again; but Sylvia, between her ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... secular buildings were reduced to ashes. Vineyards and fields were ravaged, and the inhabitants put to the edge of the sword. Only a few strong places escaped the fury of the soldiers.... The city of Cahors fell into the power of the conqueror and was reduced to the same pitiable condition into which it had been brought by the Saracens. The inhabitants of Quercy who survived owed this to the subterranean retreats which they had made and to the caverns in the rocks that had served them as refuges during the incursion of the infidels. The principal caves are ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... with the wicked, these are the evils which they that are immortal have to bear. The death of sons and wives, of kinsmen and friends, and the pain of dependence on others, are some of the greatest of evils. (These may all be noticed in a deathless life). There is no more pitiable sight in the world, as I conceive, than that of men destitute of wealth being insulted by others. The acquisition of family dignity by those that have it not, the loss of family dignity by those that have it, unions and disunions,—these ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... still exists in some old churches, at the back of the choir, half-way up from the crypt, a little stone box, to which lepers were admitted to listen to the services, exhibiting to the curious and fearful throng their pitiable brute-like figures cowering against the holes cut in the wall. Francoise well remembered having seen, in the village in which she was brought up, the leper, the terror of her childhood, listening to the mass in his stone ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... humanity of the farmer, was now employed in raising his master. His lordship made the most pitiable figure that can be imagined. His features, as well as his dress, wore an appearance perfectly uniform. "Whither would you convey him?" said Mr. Godfrey, who was now returned. "What shall we do with him?" "Oh, and please you, sir," said the footman, "his lordship has a house about half a mile off." ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... view, Cordelia died by hanging in order to show Shakspere's conviction that she was a malefactor; and Desdemona by stifling as a fitting punishment for adultery. The idea is outside of serious discussion. Barely to assume that Shakspere held Hamlet for a pitiable weakling is a sufficiently shallow interpretation of the play; but to assume that he made him die by way of condign punishment for his opinions is merely ridiculous. Once for all, there is absolutely nothing in Hamlet's creed or conduct which Shakspere ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... throughout the house, and on regaining our seats, "the King-maker" had crept from beneath the mass, leaving Edward IV. still struggling under it: the former, with his moustache, ermine cloak, and other appendages, in pitiable disorder, was now haranguing the audience in the tone of a deeply-injured man. By what means I never could divine, or even suspect, but Mr. Betty arrived at the originator of the deed, and, to avoid more disastrous consequences, I ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... like grotesque ghosts. They're staggering under a mental load too heavy for them, and actually it might be a physical load from its effects. They get lop-sided, I swear they do, and they acquire all sorts of miserable little personal habits that make them both pitiable and ridiculous. For my part, I believe the day will come when no woman will be permitted to try for the higher degrees till her brain has been scientifically tested and found to be adequate for ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... marquis of Santillana has made use of it to point the moral of perhaps the most pleasing of his didactic compositions. [41] John did not long survive his favorite's death, which he was seen afterwards to lament even with tears. Indeed, during the whole of the trial he had exhibited the most pitiable agitation, having twice issued and recalled his orders countermanding the constable's execution; and, had it not been for the superior constancy, or vindictive temper of the queen, he would probably have yielded to these impulses of returning ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... heart as the influence of such a scene. He felt that he stood within a circle of misery, and that it was a solemn and serious task even to enter into conversation with them. But, as he had come to make friendly inquiries about the unfortunate girl, he forced himself to break this pitiable but ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... the French saying, that there is no ill without something of good. What state more pitiable to the eye of a man of robust health than that of the Confirmed Valetudinarian? Indeed, there is no one who has a more profound pity for himself than your Valetudinarian; and yet he enjoys two of the most ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... indeed pitiable. But, happily, they are exceptions. If we can none of us as yet fully appreciate the beauties of Nature, we are beginning to ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... on that afternoon or evening. Nearly every Saturday a number of these young men were invited to our house to tea, or supper, for it was a good, substantial meal. The misery of some of these lads, owing to embarrassment, possibly from awe of the Superintendent, was pitiable and evident even to me, a boy of ten or eleven years old. But as soon as my father got command, as it were, of the situation, one could see how quickly most of them were put at their ease. He would address himself to the task of making ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... physiognomy was pitiable, with his moustaches and his black hair, which was hanging down under ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... Has he killed himself? Why?" she went on. "For the last two years, since they made him deputy-mayor, he is all-I-don't-know-how. To put him into public life! On the word of an honest woman, isn't it pitiable? His business is doing well, for he gave me a shawl. But perhaps it isn't doing well? Bah! I should know of it. Does one ever know what a man has got in his head; or a woman either?—there is no harm in that. Didn't we sell five thousand francs' ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... eyes, At ease rejoicing in its murmurous shade, Yet never once awakes from his dull dream To mark with curious joy the kingly trunk, The sweeping boughs and tower of leaves that gave it, Even so the most of men; they take the gift, And care not for the giver. Strange indeed Are they, and pitiable beyond measure, Who, thus unmindful of their wretchedness, Crowd at life's bountiful gates, like fattening beggars, Greedy and blind. For see how rich a thing Life is to him who sees, to whom each hour Brings some fresh wonder to be brooded on, Adds some new group or studied ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... this man, now that his adventure was over and his end near? If he were in very truth a prince, how pitiable, how paltry! What cheap martyrdom! If an impostor, had the game been worth the candle?—Death seemed a coin of high value for this short, vanished comedy. The man alone could answer, for the truth might not be known, save by the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... fell beneath his searching glances, and hot blushes suffused her cheeks, she, the mother of his child and many years gone his wife, he did not move one step to meet her advances. O, her pitiable confusion! ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... concerning the English girl, who had himself been the readiest to endue her with the romantic attributes becoming a heroine of her country's Secret Service! What if he must now esteem her in the merciless light of to-night's exposure, as the most pitiable of all human spectacles, a poor lovesick thing sans dignity, sans pride, sans heed for the world's respect, a woman pursuing a man weary ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... calculated, the royal revenues might be raised to an average of 60,000,000 reals. The arrival of Bobadilla, however, on August 23, 1500, speedily changed this state of affairs into a greater and more pitiable confusion than the island had ever before witnessed. On landing, he took possession of the Admiral's house, and summoned him and his brothers before him. Accusations of severity, of injustice, of venality even, were poured down on their heads, and Columbus anticipated ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... some unhappy family fell a victim to French bribery and savage cruelty. As for me, though now in comfortable circumstances, with an affectionate and amiable wife, it was not long before I suddenly became the most pitiable of mankind. I can never bear to think of the last time I saw my dear wife, on the fatal 2d of October, 1754. That day she had left home to visit some of her relations, and, no one being in the house but ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... thought on in pitiable confusion of mind, not knowing that all these matters were beyond my ordering, since a path was already made ready to my feet, which I must follow or die. And let this be a proof of the honesty of my words, since, had I been desirous of glozing the truth, I need have written ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... low an ebb that nothing but the most loyal administration might now save her. Even then a strong honest man might possibly have weathered the storm already lowering over this New World dominion; but, with pitiable perverseness, every trait in Bigot's character helped it on to ruin. In private life vain, selfish, heartless, extravagant to the point of folly; in public life mercenary and venal beyond shame—such were the characteristics of the man whom Louis's favourite chose to be civil administrator ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... been seriously hurt by forcing their heads into empty cans that have contained meat or soup. Sometimes they are not able to free themselves. Their terror is pitiable, and if not found they may run into some hiding place and die a miserable death. It would be easy to see that a can, when emptied, is pounded out of shape, so that no animal can get its head into it. To do this might save ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... cage, and the birds scrambled out. One ran one way, and another another; but the Khoja contrived to keep up with the cock, which he drove before him with his stick, the poor bird waddling hither and thither, and fluttering from side to side with distress and indecision pitiable to behold. ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... a pitiable plight. Nellie's garments were soaked by the water through which she had passed, but the heavy heat of the air prevented her suffering from cold, though the clinging garments caused her to feel ill at ease; and, like her tidy mother, ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... associates at Manchester, Derby, Nottingham, and Sheffield; and among them the light of truth was to be shed from its cloudy tabernacle in Mr. Coleridge's Pericranium. At the house of a "Brummagem Patriot" he appears to have got dead drunk with strong ale and tobacco, and in that pitiable condition he was exposed to his disciples, lying upon a sofa, "with my face like a wall that is white-washing, deathly pale, and with the cold drops of perspiration running down it from my forehead." Some one having ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... long since lost his situation at the sheep fold, having proved rather an attraction to dogs, who are fond of low company, than a protection to sheep. Untidy, thriftless, a loafer, kicked and cuffed about by the public and half starved, he presented a pitiable contrast to his wife, neat little lady, who, after her husband had lost his situation, left him and joined a respectable circle of cows and spent her time with them, fat, sleek, eminently respectable, and as regular as clockwork ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley
... afflicted, tries many distractions which are, to say the least, unsuited to children. But one of them, the distraction of seeing the world, is innocent and beneficial. Also it is childish, being a continuation of what nurses call "taking notice," by which a child becomes experienced. It is pitiable nowadays to see men and women doing after the age of 45 all the travelling and sightseeing they should have done before they were 15. Mere wondering and staring at things is an important part of a child's education: that ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... of the many sad pictures in the Satires of Juvenal are more pitiable than that of the wretched "Quirites" struggling at their patrons' doors for the pittance which formed their ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... styled by an American I met, who was one of the victims) the Antelope Valley. Every one who could leave it had done so, but there were many who could not, who had spent their all to get there. Some of these had wives and children, and their condition was of course most pitiable. There was naturally no work to be had there, and I heard that many of them were living on charity. The hotel-keeper in the valley, a most charitable man, and his good wife, did all in their power to mitigate the suffering, ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... the born gamester, who clings so madly to the belief that luck must come to him, and sets on that belief as though a bank were his to lose his gold from, was never more utterly spoken in all its folly, in all its pitiable optimism, than now in ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... their gentle paleness compared with the frightfully livid one of Francis Levison? His agitation was pitiable to witness, his face a terror to look upon; once or twice he gasped, as if in an agony; and then his eyes happened to fall on Otway Bethel, who stood near. Shorn of his adornments—which might not be thought adornments upon paper—the ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... assurance that they would be more faithful. Their very poverty would make them the more liable to money temptation; and the poor, you must remember, although so much more pitiable, were not morally any better than the rich. Then, too—and that was the most important reason why the masses of the people, who were poor, did not send men of their class to represent them—poverty as a rule implied ignorance, and therefore ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... child, what about yourself? Peter is all right, but you are hurt—your face is bleeding, you—you——" He could not tell her what a pitiable little object she was. One of her eyes was swelled, and fast discolouring; on her forehead a great lump stood out, scratches decorated her cheek, from which the ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... the School Committee are to a public-school teacher. He may either deprecate and dodge them, or he may manfully welcome them as the very best means of improvement for all under his care. Which is the more common view? What sight more pitiable than to behold an officer begging off from inspection because he has just come in from picket, or is just going out on picket, or has just removed camp, or was a day too late with his last requisition for cartridges? No doubt ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... constitution, I think, since you won that Garrison Cup. It's very wrong of you not to cure yourself, when you know how it annoys Mrs. Molyneux. He is right, though, Miss Tresilyan; it is a case of real distress: our vocal destitution is pitiable; so, if you have any benevolence to spare, do bestow it upon us, and your petitioners will ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... exercising absolute authority over the moral and material interests of those subordinated to his jurisdiction. The study of the Law was carried to the extreme of devotion. To have an illiterate, an 'Am ha-Arez, a "rustic", in one's family, was considered a pitiable fate. ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... was set off by a crown of white hair; her well-built figure was well covered with black drapery, her ears and neck comfortably caressed with lace, showing none of those withered spaces which one would think it a pitiable condition of poverty to expose. She glided along gracefully enough, her dark eyes still with a mischievous smile in them as she observed the company. Her partner's young richness of tint against the flattened hues and ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... human stupidity was one of fear rather than disdain; she could not look Novikoff in the face, but trembled before him, like a slave. Her plight was pitiable as that of a helpless bird whose wings have been clipped, and ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... express intensest desire. Let me ask you—Are you thirsty for power? Is there a yearning down in your heart for something you have not? That is the first step. No good to offer food to a man without appetite. "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst." Pitiable are they that need and do not know their need. Physicians find their most difficult work in dealing with the man who has no desire to live. He is at the lowest ebb. Are you thirsty? There is a special promise for thirsty ones. "I ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... those sanguinary laws, to which reference has been made: hence, too, the increasing disposition which is every where seen to render the situation of the free blacks intolerable. Never was it so pitiable and distressing—so full of peril and anxiety—so burdened with misery, despondency and scorn; never were the prejudices of society so virulent and implacable against them; never were their prospects so dark, and dreary, and hopeless; never was the hand of power so heavily laid ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... other pitiable phenomena of the same kind in human society, bear witness to the egoistic and rapacious nature of man, which proves how little the social instinct is developed in his brain. Human society is founded much more on ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... issues is as local and transitory as it is repulsive and disturbing. To future generations it will appear as pitiable as the obsession of the seventeenth century by religious quarrels appears to-day; indeed, it is less rational, since the object with which it is concerned is less important. And it is a poison which inflames every wound and turns each trivial ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... realized it and saw this and looked down on that lonely, patient, wistful little creature making the best shift she could with those pitiable playthings, something came up from that man's breast into his throat. He had not supposed he had any of it left in his soul—it was tender, ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... pressing on each other and leaning forward. The roofs of these time-worn habitations are full of holes, and have been patched here and there with laths; from underneath them project mildewed beams, which are shaded by the dusty-leaved elder-trees and crooked white willow— pitiable flora of those suburbs inhabited by ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... cooks inside, and four maids and six footmen on the roof, with a butler driving, come down from London in a trap, and wait the month. And as the last carriage of the company drives away, the servants' coach is packed, and they all bowl back to town again. It's pitiable, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the majority towards the Government approached hostility. As a manifestation of contemporary national character, of unwillingness to subordinate personal gain to public welfare, to loyalty to country, it was pitiable and shameful, particularly as it affected large communities; but its instructive significance at this time is the evidence it gives that forty years of confederation, nearly twenty-five being of the closer union under the present Constitution, had not yet welded the people into a whole, or created ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... were never washed, were covered from top to bottom with the splashes of the passing vehicles. On the brass rods in the windows were displayed three grey rags left by customers who had died in the hospital. And inside it was more pitiable still; the dampness of the clothes hung up at the ceiling to dry had loosed all the wallpaper; the Pompadour chintz hung in strips like cobwebs covered with dust; the big stove, broken and in holes from the rough use of the poker, looked in its corner like ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... of motives, as she believed) to excite suspicion and discomfort in the minds of others; and, notwithstanding her well-known character as a prophesier of evil things, she did sometimes succeed in making people unhappy. She was, as the minister said, a pitiable example of the effects of unsanctified affliction, and a warning to all who felt inclined to murmur under the chastening hand ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... physical courage is to be despised, even by females. On the contrary, I think it is a trait of character which is quite too much neglected in female education. It is not only lamentable, but pitiable, to see a female of twenty, thirty, or fifty years of age, shrinking at the sight of a spider, or a toad, even when there is not the smallest prospect of its coming within three yards of her. Nor ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... generally happens that the child dies before birth, or lingers out a miserable existence of a few days or weeks thereafter. A most pitiable sight these little ones are. Their faces look as old as children of ten or twelve. Often their bodies become reduced before death to the most wretched skeletons. Their hollow, feeble cry sends a shudder of horror through the ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... did not hear what. He was white and trembling, in pitiable case even to eyes that could only see skin-deep; but the doctor's step came beating like a drum to him, and he was solidly seated when the doctor entered—without ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... father," he took his leave immediately, and presently the weak and shambling figure of the child's father stumbled in, to be expostulated with, and scolded, and treated as the person of the house always treated him, when he came home in such a pitiable condition. ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... the second daughter of the Earl of Warwick, who had been betrothed to the Prince of Wales, King Henry's son, was left, by the fall of the house of Lancaster and the re-establishment of King Edward the Fourth upon the throne, in a most forlorn and pitiable condition. Her father, the earl, was dead, having been killed in battle. Her betrothed husband, too, the Prince of Wales, with whom she had fondly hoped one day to sit on the throne of England, had been cruelly assassinated. Queen Margaret, ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... that his master, fully believing that he was concealing something, ordered him to tell at once what remained unseen, and where it was hidden away. Face to face with discovery of his secret, the old man, in a pitiable state of concern, spoke out even more fully ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... Rachael, what facts had Magsie? Rachael's heart rose on a wild rush of confidence. Magsie had no basis for her pretension. Magsie was young, and she had madly and blindly fallen in love. There was her single claim: she loved. Rachael could not doubt it after that hour in the sitting- room. But what pitiable folly! To love and to admit ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... boats were lowered and the survivors from the liner once again cast adrift to face the horrors of the previous night. Rafts floated free with all that were left of the crew of the sloop—two officers and thirty men. Their condition was pitiable. There had been no time to get either food or extra clothing, and so heavily laden were the light structures of capuc and wood that ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... Spaniard looked on with an expression of melancholy reflection. "That boy," he said "at last, has the trust and friendship of the King. Before him lies every prospect of advancement, yet he has been beguiled by the Countess Astaride, and throws himself into a plot against Karyl. It is pitiable when one is perfidious so young—and with such ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... was pitiable for the old woman, whom, when I came to her again, I found to have swooned away. It was all I could do with my bruised arm to lift her and bring her to the ladder. How I got her down and into her cabin I know not; but when I came out again to my lady's side, the ship ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... being embarrassed, and thought of the time when, as a pretty young girl, she had walked, proud and unconcerned, along these very avenues. It seemed to her that she had fallen off so much since then, and become so pitiable. Her idea of sitting in the front row of the concert hall appeared presumptuous, almost unfeasible. It seemed also highly improbable now that Emil Lindbach would recognize her; indeed, it struck ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... and in school. No one considers the sources of conduct in a child who shows fear or makes a noise, or who is absorbed in himself, or who has an impetuous nature. Mothers and teachers show in this their pitiable incapacity for the most elementary part in the art of education, that is, to be able to see with their own eyes, not with pedagogical ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key
... for each' be nothing more than a text for a banner or a motto for a wall; if its truth has not captured the hearts and minds of men and women in that new society, we shall be an official-ridden people with our eye on the best posts in the State for ourselves or our sons; and we shall be as pitiable in our spiritual deformity as we are in our economic bondage."[1210] "Socialism demands more than that we should merely import Socialistic institutions into our midst. It insists on a moral regeneration of society ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... with the dazed look of beings who feel themselves lost yet still are driven by the life within them to press on, the five fugitives—pitiable handful of the Legion—were plodding south-west, ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... alone, free to make his toilet, unembarrassed by company. But even then he would have preferred the rough companionship of the miners in the common dormitory of the general store to this intrusion upon the half-civilization of the women, their pitiable little comforts and secret makeshifts. His disgust of his own indecision which brought him there naturally recoiled in the direction of his host and hostesses, and after a hurried ablution, a change of linen, and an attempt to remove the stains of travel ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the besieging vanities of life. Gerty's faith had fallen from her long ago, and, as she remembered this, Laura felt a jealous impulse to snatch her friend away from the restless worldliness and the inordinate desires. The pitiable soul of Gerty showed to her suddenly as a stunted and famished city child struggling for life in an atmosphere which carried the taint of death, and in her imagination the picture was so vivid that she saw the face of the child turned toward her ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... and the Christian element,—appear in con-junction in the reign of Louis the Fat. We have still the warrior-chief of a feudal society founded by conquest in him who, in spite of his moderation and discretion, cried many a time, says Suger, "What a pitiable state is this of ours, to never have knowledge and strength both together! In my youth had knowledge, and in my old age had strength been mine, I might have conquered many kingdoms; "and probably from this exclamation of a king in the twelfth century came ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... ballad-mongers," who carry the shamelessness of the Middle Ages into the nineteenth century, and awake a sleeping neighborhood to the brazen knowledge of their loves and wanton fancies! Destruction and demoralization pursue these pitiable imitators of a barbarous age, when ladies' names and charms were shouted through the land, and modest maiden never lent presence to tilt or tourney without hearing a chronicle of her virtues go round the lists, shouted by wheezy heralds and taken up by roaring swashbucklers! ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... our orchestra fell off one by one; the music finally ceased; and when we stopped waltzing and cast an uneasy glance around us, we beheld all our musicians, their chests pressed against the railings, their arms extended toward the ocean, in the pitiable attitude of Punch when knocked down by the policeman." Some days later, during a performance of La Fille du Regiment at Brighton, in the last act, while the orchestra was playing the prelude to the final rondo, "Jenny Lind ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... of the Mother Church, to be taken from his side? And at the word of a self-convicted man of sin—a man whose tardy repentance was not yet absolved by the Holy Church? Never! never! Father Pedro dwelt upon the stranger's rejections of the ministrations of the Church with a pitiable satisfaction; had he accepted it, he would have had a sacred claim upon Father Pedro's sympathy and confidence. Yet he rose again, uneasily and with irregular steps returned to the corridor, passing the door of the familiar little cell beside his own. The window, the ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... highly delighted at finding he had the power of doing something, however little, toward succouring the poor wretches whose pitiable condition was ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... desert. All fine words, but hopeless to explain that which has lured more than one white woman out into the golden wilderness to the wrecking of her soul; and which has nothing whatever to do with the pseudo-psychic waves which trick us into such pitiable hysteria and hallucination. ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... terror, his weak lower jaw had dropped, and his mouth was wide open. So overcome was he, that he had no strength left to stand, so his entire weight rested upon his bonds. Never was there a more pitiable object of abject terror and cowardice. But the Indians did not seem in the least affected by their captive's misery. With stern, impassive faces they went on with their chanting, which steadily increased in ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... testimony before the indicting jury. This testimony was so insignificant that it was not thought necessary to summon her before the Criminal court. Like all persons of extreme sensibility, the poor woman sat silent in the salon, where she kept company with Mademoiselle Goujet, in a pitiable state of stupefaction. To her, as to the abbe, and indeed to all others who did not know how the accused had been employed on that day, their innocence seemed doubtful. There were moments when Marthe believed that Michu and his masters and Laurence had ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... came again to see Mrs. Gray, salty with tears, and crushed with the slight Sarah had put upon her. She was a plain pale woman, anyway, and weeping made her pitiable. She explained the situation with her head ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... might this pitiable young wife of the king fall a victim to the same dark fate! How easily might Catharine Parr, like Anne Boleyn and Catharine Howard, purchase her short-lived glory with an ignominious death! At any time an inconsiderate word, a look, a smile, might be her ruin. ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... anything but light hearts, for their appearance was far from being as neat as when they set off in the morning. Fred was all over flour, through kneeling in the mill and lolling up against the sacks; while his cousins looked as wet, muddy, and pitiable, as two unfortunate, half-drowned young monkeys could look. The butterflies flitted before them and danced up and down in the sunny air, displaying their gorgeous wings; the yellowhammer flew out from amongst the nettles, ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... distress. He gave me the most harrowing description of the killing of General Lecomte! It seems that the mob had seized him in his home and carried him to the garden of some house, where they told him he was to be judged by a conseil de guerre, and left him to wait an hour in the most pitiable frame of mind. ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... is pitiable to see how the best of the early scholars struggled bravely, but vainly, to solve problems which would not even have existed for them if their collections had not been so incomplete. This lack of material was a disadvantage ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... vast number of our men then held captive at Andersonville, the same whom General Stoneman had hoped to rescue at the time of his raid. Some of these prisoners had already escaped and got in, had described the pitiable condition of the remainder, and, although I felt a sympathy for their hardships and sufferings as deeply as any man could, yet as nearly all the prisoners who had been captured by us during the campaign had been sent, as fast ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... out among all hands. We sucked small pieces and got a little relief from thirst engendered by the salt spray, but at the same time we reduced our bodily heat. The condition of most of the men was pitiable. All of us had swollen mouths and we could hardly touch the food. I longed intensely for the dawn. I called out to the other boats at intervals during the night, asking how things were with them. The men always managed to reply cheerfully. One of the people on ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... escaped from the guardians which' the good Earl of Kent had put over him to take care of him in his lunacy, was found by some of Cordelia's train, wandering about the fields near Dover, in a pitiable condition, stark mad, and singing aloud to himself, with a crown upon his head which he had made of straw and nettles and other wild weeds that he had picked up in the corn-fields. By the advice of the physicians, Cordelia, though earnestly desirous of seeing her father, was prevailed upon to put ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... or the state of the pavement. A salary was attached to the post, but she very rarely received it, although she was expected to dress like everybody else, that is to say, like very few indeed. In society she played the most pitiable role. Everybody knew her, and nobody paid her any attention. At balls she danced only when a partner was wanted, and ladies would only take hold of her arm when it was necessary to lead her out of the room to attend to their dresses. She was very self-conscious, ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... evidences recovered prosperity. William the Conqueror in 1084 celebrated Easter at Abingdon, and left his son, afterwards Henry I., to be educated at the abbey. After the dissolution in 1538 the town sank into decay, and in 1555, on a representation of its pitiable condition, Queen Mary granted a charter establishing a mayor, two bailiffs, twelve chief burgesses, and sixteen secondary burgesses, the mayor to be clerk of the market, coroner and a Justice of the peace. The council was empowered ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... captive to Him who triumphed in his resurrection and ascension to glory, and under the control and permissive will of Him, whom they denominate Keetchee Manitou, or Great Spirit; and, consequently they are enslaved to all that is pitiable in ignorance and superstition. Acknowledging the being of a God, the uncultivated minds of these savages have led them to shrink from the thoughts of annihilation, and to look forward with hope to a future ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... fluttering ruin; and while Ranald's stout homespun smock and trousers had successfully defied the bush, his dark face and unkempt hair, his rough dress and heavy shanty boots, made him appear, to Maimie's eyes, an uncouth, if not pitiable, object. ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... side during all of these operations. She seemed afraid or ashamed to join the others; she avoided Lady Deppingham as completely as possible. Her effort to be friendly when they were thrown together was almost pitiable. ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... of the doorway. When I turned around, those three helpless creatures stood clinging to one another in the big empty vestibule, making a most pitiable group. ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... now a pitiable spectacle. He finished his glass, and caught Hanger by the collar of his coat—staring into his face to get at all the ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... soldiers had been heavy hearted at the prospect of leaving the Valley, the people of Staunton had been plunged in the direst grief. For a long time past they had lived in a pitiable condition of uncertainty. On April 19 the sick and convalescent of the Valley army had been removed to Gordonsville. On the same day Jackson had moved to Elk Run Valley, leaving the road from Harrisonburg ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... hearing nothing, except the childish babble of his old father or the voices from the hall below, where his servants are fighting off reporters and cranks and people with grievances. Oh, I tell you, Duane, it's pitiable, all right!" ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... wanton offence. He was as cool and self-possessed under the blaze and dazzle of fame as a common man would be under the shade of his garden-tree, or by the hearth of his home. But the tyrant who kept Europe in awe is now a pitiable object for scorn to point the finger of derision at: and humanity shudders as it remembers the scourge with which this man's ambition was permitted to devastate every home tie, and every ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... multitude of people who can do nothing of the kind, and who take no real interest in anything except spending money and gossiping, are to be really pitied, is true. Some of them once had minds—and these are the most pitiful or pitiable of all. It is to be regretted that novels are, with rare exceptions, written to amuse this class, and limit themselves strictly to "life," never describing with real skill, so as to interest anything which would make life worth living ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... triumphantly from the Chateau de Bruyeres—and such a horse! a miserable, old, broken-down hack, whose ribs were so prominent that he looked as if he lived upon barrel-hoops instead of oats and hay; his lack-lustre eyes, drooping head, halting gait, and panting breath combined to make him a most pitiable object, and he plodded on at a snail's pace, looking as if he might drop down dead on the road at any moment. Only the three women were in the chariot—the men all walking, so as to relieve their poor, jaded beast as much as possible. The weather was bitterly cold, and they wrapped ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... and similar opposite qualities, simultaneously acted as motives upon Peepi, certes, he would have been a most pitiable mortal, in a ceaseless eddy of resolves, incapable ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... accustomed to the roughness of the sea to heed this, we were nevertheless very sorry for these exposed deck-passengers, few of whom escaped seasickness. Crowded together as they were during the copious rainfall, their sufferings that afternoon and night were pitiable. There were some families with women and children, and such shelter as a canvas awning could afford was kindly arranged for them. When we anchored in shoal water off the coast next morning, and ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... fate of British India still hung in the balance. The attitude of some European Powers, whom the breaking forth of the Mutiny had encouraged in the idea that England's power was waning, was full of menace, especially in view of what the Prince Consort justly called "our pitiable state of unpreparedness" for resisting attack. Prompted by him, the Queen caused close inquiry to be made into the state of our home defences and of the navy—the first step towards remedying the deficiencies therein existing. Also a "cold wave" seemed to be passing ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... and pitiable sight than they presented cannot well be imagined. They were all on foot, each man weak and emaciated, leading a horse or mule as weak and emaciated as themselves. They had experienced great difficulty in descending the mountains, made slippery by rains and melting ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... then his zeal was quickened by his personal kindness for Valentin; he had a sort of pity for him which he was well aware he never could have made the Comte de Bellegarde understand. He never lost a sense of its being pitiable that Valentin should think it a large life to revolve in varnished boots between the Rue d'Anjou and the Rue de l'Universite, taking the Boulevard des Italiens on the way, when over there in America one's promenade was a continent, ...
— The American • Henry James
... Fitzwilliam's courage alone prevented the army from being annihilated. Out of 500 English 50 lay dead, and 50 more were badly wounded. The survivors fell back to Armagh 'so dismayed as to be unfit for farther service.' Pitiable were the lamentations of the lord deputy to Cecil on this catastrophe. It was, said he, 'by cowardice the dreadfullest beginning that ever was seen in Ireland. Ah! Mr. Secretary, what unfortunate star hung over me that day to draw me, that never could be persuaded to be absent ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... Montezuma was in a pitiable state of superstitious indecision. It was popularly believed that Quetzalcoatl would some day return, and it was more than probable to the Aztec monarch and his counsellors that he might be reincarnated in the person of Cortes and his followers. Indeed, the common ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady |
