"Miserable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Western ideas of redress. Perhaps even now she was precipitating a duel between them. Her cheeks grew wan again, her breath came quickly, tears gathered in her eyes. Oh, she was a dreadful girl, she knew it; she was an utterly miserable one, and she knew ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... viii., p. 221.).—Is not the word hunks, so common in people's mouths,—An old hunks, an old miser or miserable wretch, to be referred to the same derivation as ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 206, October 8, 1853 • Various
... it mixes itself readily with the blood again, and brings on putrid fevers; destroys the substance of the spleen itself, or being thrown upon some other of the viscera, corrodes them, and leads on this way a swift and miserable death. If it fall upon the liver, its tender pulpy substance is soon destroyed, jaundices beyond the help of art first follow, then dropsies and all their train of misery; if on lungs, consumptions; if ...
— Hypochondriasis - A Practical Treatise (1766) • John Hill
... Limbs of the Persons who travel in them. What Havock these industrious Sons of Blood and Wounds have made within twenty Miles of London in the Compass of a Summer's Season, is best known by the Articles of Accidents in the common News-Papers: The miserable Shrieks of Women and Children not being sufficient to deter the Villains from doing what they call their Duty to their Masters; for besides their Daily or Weekly Wages, they have an extraordinary stated Allowance for every Chaise they can reverse, ditch, ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... sufficiently probable dressing of facts, and the public will be entirely satisfied. What's Hecuba to us, or we to Hecuba? Or is Thackeray's way any nearer the truth, who strips Louis the Great of all his stage-properties, and shows him to us the miserable forked ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... miserable way, our first camping trip terminated. It was raining the following morning and continued very wet for several days; we were not able to return to "the old ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... haughtily. "Either you leave me unjarred by your English conventionalities, or you pay these miserable francs and go ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... on the ground. Feel just behind you. There aren't a arm-chair, but a big bit of timber as has been cut down.—There, that's better. May as well make one's miserable life happy, and I don't suppose we shall have anybody sneaking round now.—Ah, yes, that there Robinson Crusoe did have a fine time of it. Everything his own, including a ship safely docked ashore full of stores, and nothing to do but break her ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... ruefully upon events. He knew that he had played poorly; that he had twice tied up the play by allowing his thoughts to wander; that his end-running had been slow, almost listless, and that his performance at goal-kicking had been miserable. He had missed two tries from placement, one on the twenty yards and another on the twenty-seven, and had only succeeded at a drop-kick by the barest of margins. He couldn't even lay the blame on his injured shoulder, for that was no longer a factor ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... melted away—sheep rotted, cattle died, 'and blighted was the corn.' Of several children none reached maturity, and the savage proprietor survived every thing he loved or cared for. He died blind and miserable. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 574 - Vol. XX, No. 574. Saturday, November 3, 1832 • Various
... liked to know about various things to which she had made no reference. Did she live in a frowsy lodging-house near the great works? What kind of food did she get? What did she do with her evenings and her Sundays? Was she bored? Was she miserable or exultant? Had she acquaintances, external interests; or did she immerse herself completely, inclusively, in the huge, smoking, whirring, foul, perilous hell which she had described? The contemplation of the horror of the hell gave him—and ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... loved or hated—Richelieu and Mazarin, Louis XIII. and Anne of Austria, the Queen of England, Henrietta Maria, and her amiable daughter the Duchess d'Orleans, Chateauneuf, and the Duke of Lorraine. Her fondly loved daughter had expired in her arms, of fever, during the miserable war of the Fronde. He who had been the first to lure her from the path of duty—the handsome but frivolous Holland—had ascended the scaffold with Charles I.; and her last friend, much younger than herself, the Marquis de Laigues, had preceded her ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... with bitter irony and sarcasm, paraphrases our argument by saying: "The white people of Nebraska are good enough to govern themselves, but they are not good enough to govern a few miserable negroes!" ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... exist completely, scenery, and actors to give it voice and gesture, are necessary; before music can be anything more than hieroglyphics, the signs must be transmuted into sound by singers or instrumentalists. Wagner embodied this truth in his pathetic reference to Lohengrin: "When ill, miserable and despairing, I sat brooding over my fate, my eye fell on the score of my Lohengrin, which I had totally forgotten. Suddenly I felt something like compassion lest the music might never sound from off the death-pale paper." In ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... as far as most achievements were concerned, and, had the miserable queen obtained her wishes, the ships of England, and all the English hold dear, would have been handed over to the tender mercies ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... prayer; Then give thy friend to shed the sacred wine; Though much thy younger, and his years like mine, He too, I deem, implores the power divine; For all mankind alike require their grace, All born to want; a miserable race!" He spake, and to her hand preferr'd the bowl; A secret pleasure touch'd Athena's soul, To see the preference due to sacred age Regarded ever by the just and sage. Of Ocean's king she then implores the grace. "O thou! whose arms this ample globe embrace, Fulfil ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... I hadn't poisoned the wells for her, she could have shaken me for most any man she liked. By George, I'll get to weeping on your neck in a minute, just thinking about her. I started in to tell you what a miserable little wretch she is and I'm winding up by bragging about her. She's got that in her! But she'll bust Amzi before she winds up. And I hope you appreciate the value of that news. Old Amzi, if he hasn't changed, ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... and looked him in the face An angel beautiful and bright; And that he knew it was a Fiend, This miserable Knight! ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... alive, that's all. And to do that, order and strictness are essential.... That's all about it!" said he, clenching his vigorous fist. "And fairness, of course," he added, "for if the peasant is naked and hungry and has only one miserable horse, he can do no good either for himself or ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... snatched the crown from my head. Holding me fast, he told me that he intended to give the crown to his daughter, and to enchant my husband the prince, so that he should not know the difference between us. Since then she has filled my place and been queen in my stead. As for me, I was so miserable that I threw myself into the sea, and my ladies, who loved me, declared that they would die too; but, instead of dying, some wizard, who pitied my fate, turned us all into fishes, though he allowed me to keep the face and body of a woman. ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... Southey, and Byron have taught us this freer scope of invention, but characterised by a depth of passion which is not found in D'Avenant. In his age, the title which he selected to describe the class of his poetical narrative, was a miserable source of petty criticism. It was decreed that every poem should resemble another poem, on the plan of the ancient epic. This was the golden age of "the poet-apes," till they found that it was easier to produce epic ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... Horace judged it better to withdraw without insisting further. "I'm afraid," he said to Mrs. Futvoye, after they had rejoined Sylvia in the drawing-room—"I'm afraid your husband is still a little sore with me about this miserable business." ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... ago I was stationed as doctor in a tiny Basque town, in Cestona. Sometimes, in summer, while going on my rounds among the villages I used to meet on the highway and on the cross-roads passersby of a miserable aspect, persons with liver-complaint who were taking the waters at ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... began to walk towards the houses. Kennedy felt miserable. He never allowed himself to be put out, to any great extent, by his own worries, which, indeed, had not been very numerous up to the present, but the misfortunes of his friends always troubled him exceedingly. ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... 'But—miserable creature! how can she think of spending her life there, cooped up with that nasty old man; and no hope ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... "Miserable man that I am, whom the Greeks hate and the Trojans are eager to slay!" When the Trojans heard that the Greeks hated him, they were curious, and asked who he was, and how he came to be there. "I will tell you all, oh King!" he answered ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang
... looking in vain for a hut which may once have stood there, but now stood no longer. We lit a fire, but did not overcome the cold, which tormented us throughout the night, for the wind blew off the summits; and at last we woke from our half-sleep and spent the miserable hours in watching the Great Bear creeping round the pole, and in trying to feed the dying embers with damp fuel. And there it was that I discovered what I now make known to the world, namely, that gorse and holly will burn of themselves, even while they are yet rooted in the ground. So ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... wept—had sent up a dinner which really left her very little extra chance of celebrating Peace, when that most blessed day should come. Over dessert, Colonel West rose unexpectedly, and made a little speech, proposing the health of the boys, who sat, for the first time, with utterly miserable faces, restraining an inclination to ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... doubt, lady," I answered. "Yet it was long ago, and the plunderers are far away. Why not rise and raid them in turn? To live under such a nightmare is miserable, and a poet on my side of the ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... third or fourth round, when I had seemed quite unequal to the first. Professing the most absolute bankruptcy from the very beginning, giving the man no sort of hope that I would pay even one farthing in the pound, I never could be made miserable by unknown responsibilities. ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... more busy and important than any other trifler. Monsieur le Noir, a man who, without property or importance in any corner of the earth, has, in the present confusion of the world, declared himself a steady adherent to the French, is made miserable by a wind that keeps back the packet-boat, and still more miserable by every account of a Malouin privateer caught in his cruise; he knows well that nothing can be done or said by him which can produce any effect but that of laughter, that he can neither ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... crossed The country in my very sight; And when that peril ceased at night, The sky broke out in red dismay 15 With signal-fires. Well, there I lay Close covered o'er in my recess, Up to the neck in ferns and cress, Thinking on Metternich our friend, And Charles's miserable end, 20 And much beside, two days; the third, Hunger o'ercame me when I heard The peasants from the village go To work among the maize: you know, With us in Lombardy, they bring 25 Provisions packed on mules, a string With little bells that cheer their task, And casks, and boughs ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... like that, you miserable cur!" said Joe, brutally. "It's bad enough to have you here at all, without your disturbing the whole place. ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... and through the land of Canaan on both sides of the Jordan.{1} The men of this church knew about the Lord that He was to come, and were imbued with the goods of faith, and yet they fell away and became idolaters. These spirits were in front towards the left, in a dark place and in a miserable state. Their speech was like the sound of a pipe of one tone, almost without rational thought. They said they had been there for many centuries, and that they are sometimes taken out that they may serve ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... it the other day by writing me a little note, telling me first how he loved me in black ink and then how he loved me in blue, after which he tore it up; wasn't that a shame? Anna writes that you seemed miserable the day she was at your house. The fact is, people of such restless mental activity as you and I, my dear, never need expect to be well long at a time—for, as soon as we get a little health we consume it just as children do candy. George and I are both able, however, to take long walks, and ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... "Miserable boy!" cried Nicholas, his eyes blazing in their cavernous hollows, "the time has come when this matter must be settled betwixt us twain. Swear that thou wilt go no more to the churches of the Protestant faction, be the ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the admirable creature his largely remaining folly would, in his worst moments, that is when he feels best, persuade him to think himself; he is just one of God's poor creatures. What share this besetting sin of the good young man may have had in the miserable failure of this one, we need not inquire; but it may well be that he thought the Master under-valued his work as well as his wealth, and was less ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... dead, flat failure," continued the preacher. "Not so much a wicked man, no murderer, no drunkard, no gambler, but a miserable failure. Poor fellow! At the end of life a wretched bankrupt, losing even his original endowment. How would you like to come home after ten, twenty, thirty years of experiment with life and confess to your father that you were dead ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... to give as hostages to the King Antiochus. Leah is bound to a cypress-tree by her own people, who attribute their misfortunes to her and to her sons. Only Noemi, the despised daughter-in-law remains to liberate the miserable mother, and together they resolve to ask the tyrant's pardon ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... believe it to be at this moment. But whilst these outrages must be admitted to exist to an alarming extent, it cannot be denied that they have arisen from circumstances of the most unparalleled distress: the perseverance of these miserable men in their proceedings tends to prove that nothing but absolute want could have driven a large, and once honest and industrious, body of the people, into the commission of excesses so hazardous to themselves, their families, and the community. At the time to which ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... shall dispute, if perchance they will allow us, on God, on Christ, on Man, on Sin, on Justice, on Sacraments, on Morals. I shall see whether they will dare to speak out what they think, and what under the constraint of their situation they publish in their miserable writings. I will take care that they know these maxims of their teachers:—"God is the author and cause of evil, willing it, suggesting it, effecting it, commanding it, working it out, and guiding the guilty counsels of the wicked to this end. As the call of ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... at Winthrop, but, as though fearful of interruption, toward the door. His eyes were harassed, furtive, filled with miserable indecision. Many times before Winthrop had seen men in such a state. He knew that for the sufferer it foretold a physical break down, or that he would seek relief in full confession. To give the man confidence, he abandoned his ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... the world that he did not understand, something evil and hateful and miserable that he had never felt in himself. But he felt it in the others, and it made him so sorry, so distressed for them, that it seemed like a heavy weight, a burden on his own heart. It was like the work of those demons, of whom his mother had told him, who entered into people and ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... There, just before her father's death, he and she had lived, for four delicious, miserable, momentous weeks. She had never seen the place since, but now she recognized it—every tree, every field, the very farm-house garden, once so bright, now lying deep in snow. She ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... whole effect is destroyed. The spell loses its power; and he who should then hope to conjure with it would find himself as much mistaken as Cassim in the Arabian tale, when he stood crying, 'Open Wheat,' 'Open Barley,' to the door which obeyed no sound but 'Open Sesame.' The miserable failure of Dryden in his attempt to translate into his own diction some parts of the 'Paradise Lost' is a ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... rang. A maid-servant went to it and spoke in a low tone. Presently she came to the door and called her mistress. Mostyn sat limp, cold, undecided, miserable. ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... detained first by Imhotep, the old physician, and then by an assistant of Apollodorus, the sculptor, with some new busts of the philosophers—the high-priest had already given orders that the girl should be kept concealed; for when I asked to see her, I was conducted first to her miserable room, which seemed more fit for peasants or goats than for a Hebe, even for a sham one—but I found ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... manye suche, though ye laugh, and beleve it not, and not hard to shewe them with a wet finger." The same author observes that our devotion ought to "stande in depe sighes and groninges, wyth a full consideration of our miserable state and Goddes majestye, in the heart, and not in ynke or paper: not in hangyng writtin Scrolles about the Necke, but lamentinge unfeignedlye ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... heard the singing, came to the gate to meet him. Some of the seminarists had been in Bogdaniec before with the abbot; but others of them having joined the retinue lately, had never seen it until now. They were disappointed when they saw the miserable house which could not be compared with the large mansion in Zgorzelice. But they were reassured when they saw the smoke coming out from the thatched roof of the house; and they were greatly pleased ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... son of a duke. Falling under that charm probably (and also because her brother had given her a hint), she attempted to open her heart to Renouard, who was watching with all the power of his soul her niece across the table. She spoke to him as frankly as though that miserable mortal envelope, emptied of everything but hopeless passion, were indeed the son ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... reaching the garden. What a sight met my eyes! The broad path stretched itself out before me smooth and wet; not a single hole remained,—all were buried deep under the sand. Instead of the air being, as was usual, fairly alive with busy, happy creatures, there was now, here and there, a miserable mud-covered insect clinging to a leaf, and wearily trying to clean its ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... she stammered; 'you must come; you will make me so miserable if you don't. You can't want me to be miserable.... And even if you knew that you would die there, even if that shade should be fatal to both of us, would you hesitate or cast a regretful look behind? We should remain there, at the foot ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... Elizabeth refused, and the woman taking a knife from a dresser, cut open her stays, and removed them. The woman and the other people present then hustled her up stairs into a wretched garret, and locked the door. She found here a miserable straw-bed, a large black pitcher nearly full of water, and twenty-four pieces of bread, seeming as if a quartern-loaf had been cut in so many pieces. Her story went on to say, that she remained in this place for four weeks, eating so much of the bread and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... divide save the furniture in our office, which he presented to me. The following Wednesday he sailed with two members of his family. I saw him off, bidding him what proved to be a last farewell. I left the wharf feeling very lonely and miserable. It may be well to remark here that he died a year later in Italy, one more victim of a fast life, while I was spared, but took no warning from his fate. In truth, I was in the Primrose Way, which is ever found a most ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... unhappy, and he could not tell why. He wanted something, and he knew not what. His shyness developed into fierce aggressiveness, unreasonable, alarming. He prowled continually among the camps, sullen and quarrelsome, vaguely miserable, and blaming his misery upon all the world. He took to spending much time, with small profit to himself, among the chained gangs of slaves, where were cruel sounds and crueller sights. At the hiss and cut ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... me lie!' he pleaded. 'I'll no' get better anyway.' And then, with a moan that went to my heart, 'O why did I come upon this miserable journey?' ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... anything?" Greenfield cried querulously. "Where's anything bigger, more than what we've done? And to have it end like this—to have a bug—a miserable, squashy bug ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... eye, and hear it ring a knell in the purse which holds our common stock." "Which did hold it, as thou wouldst say, most valiant commander," replied the inferior warder; "but what that purse holds now, save a few miserable oboli for purchasing certain pickled potherbs and salt fish, to relish our allowance of stummed wine, I cannot tell, but willingly give my share of the contents to the devil, if either purse or platter exhibits symptom of any age richer than the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... garrison" posted behind the walls of Quebec, "consisting of sailors unacquainted with the use of arms, of citizens incapable of the soldier's duty and [a gibe at the corps in which Nairne served] a few miserable emigrants." He went on to promise his troops that when they took Quebec "the effects of the Governor, garrison, and of such as have been active in misleading the inhabitants and distressing the friends of liberty" should be equally divided among the victors. The opposing sides showed, in ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... religious scarcely in name, but always inherently, essentially and untiringly a political power." As Bishop Neely of the M. E. Church was leaving Rio, Dr. Alexander, one of Brazil's most influential gentlemen, said to him: "It is sad to see my people so miserable when they might be so happy. Their ills, physical and moral, spring from lack of religion. They call themselves Catholics, but the heathen are scarcely less Christian!" Is it surprising that the Italian paper L'Asino (The Ass), which exists only to ridicule Romanism, has recently ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... a complaint to the uffiziale or magistrate of the place. I found him wrapped in an old, greasy, ragged, great-coat, sitting in a wretched apartment, without either glass, paper, or boards in the windows; and there was no sort of furniture but a couple of broken chairs and a miserable truckle-bed. He looked pale, and meagre, and had more the air of a half-starved prisoner than of a magistrate. Having heard my complaint, he came forth into a kind of outward room or bellfrey, and rung a great bell with his own hand. In consequence ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... bitterness that beauty, that happiness. After all, nature was not dumb in the poor fellow, and his human sensibility, all maliciously contorted as it was, quivered no less than any other. He thought of the miserable portion which Providence had allotted to him; that woman and the pleasure of love, would pass forever before his eyes, and that he should never do anything but behold the felicity of others. But that which rent his heart most in this sight, that which mingled indignation with his anger, was ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... luck," she contradicted quickly. "I know what it is—it has just come to me this minute. It is because God has better things waiting for you! It is all rough and miserable just now, but further along the path it will get beautiful again. Oh, I believe it will be very beautiful; and when you get there, Arthur, you will be thankful that you went on, and did ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... Miserable! yet for thy errors, vanities, sins, I will not now rebuke thee, Thy unexampled woes and pangs have quell'd them all, And left ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... statement about English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. They support Pope, I see, in the Quarterly; let them continue to do so: it is a sin, and a shame, and a damnation to think that Pope!! should require it—but he does. Those miserable mountebanks of the day, the poets, disgrace themselves and deny God in running down Pope, the most faultless of poets, and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... in a very few days. When I have fixed upon lodgings for them I must go back to Finden; then they will return with me as soon as we can get the house emptied. It's rather miserable selling things one has lived among from childhood. A friend in Wattleborough will house for us what we really can't ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... it. If his father was trying to buy off the real heir to the estate with a pitiful pittance, in order to preserve the ill-gotten remainder for Lady Emily's son, why, Granville for his part would be no active party to such a miserable compromise. If some other man was the Colonel's lawful heir, let that other man take the property and enjoy it; but he, Granville Kelmscott, would go forth upon the world, an honest adventurer, to seek his fortune with his own right hand wherever he ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... more, Alixe Delavigne recalled, with a vow of vengeance, that sad past, the slow breaking of the butterfly, the revelation of all Hugh Fraser's cold-hearted tyranny, the sway of his demoniac jealousy—jealous, even, of a sister's innocent love. And that last miserable scene, on the eve of their projected voyage to India, when the maddened tyrant discovered Pierre Troubetskoi's long-belated letter, returned once more to madden her. Fraser had simply ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... Bela's death, stop on your way across the bridge to look back upon Dark Hollow and cry in the bitterest tones which escape human lips, 'Oliver! Oliver! Oliver!' You were heard to speak this name, Judge Ostrander," he hastily put in, as the miserable father raised his hand in ineffectual protest. "A man was lurking in the darkness behind you, who both saw and heard you. He may not be the most prepossessing of witnesses, but we cannot ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... their salvation! To count their beads and mutter their Ave Marias; 'tis all they need. Yon fisher, with his great gold ear-rings, who throws his nets and cuddles his Juanita and carouses with his mates, hath more to thank the saints for than miserable I, who, blessed with wealth, am cursed with loneliness, and loving my fellow-men, yet know they are but sheep. God's sheep, natheless, silly and deaf to the cry of their true shepherd, and misled ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... sometimes in the spirit of a narrow sectarianism, but not seldom in a more excellent way, devoted its main strength to missions in the American colonies. Its missionaries, men of a far different character from the miserable incumbents of parishes in Maryland and Virginia, were among the first preachers of the gospel in the Carolinas. Within the years 1702-40 there served under the commission of this society in North Carolina nine missionaries, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... told you this at first; I longed to do it, but I was afraid you'd go and leave me. I was so lonely, so miserable, Christie. I could not give you up when I had learned to love you; and I did learn very soon, for no wretched creature ever needed help and comfort more than I. For your sake I tried to be quiet, to control my shattered nerves, and hide rny desperate thoughts. You helped me very much, and your ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... as Ned had life and strength to protect her Sibylla was reasonably secure. But Ned, he repeated to himself, would always have her safety and well-being upon his mind in addition to his other cares and anxieties. It was a miserable plight for both of them, he mused, and he didn't see how they were to get out of it— unless, indeed, they could manage to steal away in a boat and give the ship the slip some fine dark night. And what would become of them then? he asked himself. What chance of ultimate escape ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... comfort. Tom and Joe went out after dark, and brought in a large lot of moss, and the next morning all went to work, Judie made very little progress with her scraping, but she kept steadily at it, and it served its purpose in making her less miserable than before. The days passed more rapidly to Tom and Joe, too, and the whole party grew more cheerful under the influence of work. It was now ten days, however, since Sam had gone away, and his non-appearance was really alarming. When work stopped for the night, the thought of Sam ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... the murderer and blasphemer having suffered most grievously, as he entreated other men, so died he a miserable death in a ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... insulting, and grew almost hourly worse, until I was compelled, in order to stop his insults, to declare openly that I would never speak to him again on this side the grave, and I never did. My life was made miserable, and what ought to have been a quiet and orderly performance was rendered a continual scene of bickering and conflict, too often about the ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... been here a few days. But I dearly love the one you call Betty. She came into my room one night when I had the tooth-ache, and brought a spice poultice and a hot-water bag. Mamma was at a concert, and Fanchette was cross, and I was so miserable and lonesome I wanted to die. But Elizabeth knew exactly what to do to stop the pain, and then she stayed and talked to me for a long time. She told me about a house party she went to last year, where the girls ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Worse than the fact that the Portuguese had escaped uninjured for this once, was the knowledge that he could not hope thoroughly to punish them without first effecting great reform in the materials at his disposal. On the 5th of May he wrote to the Government to complain of the miserable condition of the ships and crews provided for him by the Brazilian Government. "From the defective sailing and manning of the squadron," he said, "it seems to me that the Pedro Primiero is the only one that can assail an enemy's ship-of-war, ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... the third. "I was just talking to the Imperial Soothsayer, and he tells me that no one from this miserable Kingdom of Oz can be destroyed. But I have a plan. Incline your Royal ears— listen." The voices dropped to such a low whisper that neither Happy nor the ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... neutrals, as respects France, Mr. Clements," I answered, "and it would not be right for us to take part in your quarrels. I will not hesitate to say, however, that I have received so much kindness on board the Briton, that I should feel miserable in not being permitted to share your danger. Something may turn up, that will enable me to be of assistance—ay, ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... into the moonlight. At the same time, countless figures seemed to rise from the ground—from nowhere—and in every direction Peter was blocked. The stench of Len Yang's miserable inhabitants crept from these figures upon the ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... has noted all the phases of her existence will have understood the various illusions by which Dinah, like many another woman, had been deceived. After an attempt to master Monsieur de la Baudraye, she had indulged the hope of becoming a mother. Between those miserable disputes over household matters and the melancholy conviction as to her fate, quite a long time had elapsed. Then, when she had looked for consolation, the consoler, Monsieur de Chargeboeuf had left her. Thus, the overwhelming temptation ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... from the other part, which was held by her probably as a God-send rather than a punishment, for it gave the females the very opportunity desired for really seeing on what the men had to live. After this, when a woman left she was not slow in her declamations against the miserable fare of the men, and how ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... reason to complain of him than for him. It is certain that this subordination which places the sovereign under the necessity of receiving the law from his people is the worst calamity that can happen to a man of our rank. I have pointed out to you elsewhere, my son, the miserable condition of princes who commit their people and their own dignity to the management of a premier minister; but it is little beside the misery of those who are left to the indiscretion of a popular assembly; the more you grant, the more they claim; the more you caress, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the nation. His retreat to the north saved England from this great calamity, and probably saved himself, and his adherents in both countries, from a more summary fate than that which drove his miserable and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... the sheep, they resolved to send some one to explore and report. John Batman naturally volunteered, and the association chartered for him a little vessel, the Rebecca, in which, after nineteen days of sea-sickness and miserable tossing in the strait, he succeeded in entering Port Phillip on the 29th of May, 1835. Next morning he landed near Geelong and walked to the top of the Barrabool Hills, wading most of the way through grass ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... of eminence whom there is any sign of his having known, that she was proud, passionate, and eloquent, that she was much connected with the little world of Transcendentalism out of which the experiment of Brook Farm sprung, and that she had a miserable end and a watery grave—if these are facts to be noted on one side, I say; on the other, the beautiful and sumptuous Zenobia, with her rich and picturesque temperament and physical aspects, offers many points of divergence from the plain and strenuous invalid who represented ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... and estate" is peculiarly apocalyptic. It sheds a quite new light upon a fact which, in Mrs. Gaskell's time, was regarded as a proof that some remains of conscience still stirred within this miserable fellow. Some months after his dismissal, towards the end of this unhappy year of 1845, he met this lady at Harrogate by appointment. It is said that she proposed a flight together, ready to forfeit all her grandeur. It was Branwell ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... tones of the most lively affection, "you! ah! you know it well! You are the best, the only friends, I have here below. I should be the basest and the most miserable of men if I did not guard the recollection of all your kindnesses until my eyes close in death. Yes, you are my friends; yes, I am devoted to you—and it is for that very reason that ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... not given him a knowledge and love of the Christian faith—he would go forth into the world, able indeed with reference to those purposes of science, successful with the accumulation of wealth for the multiplication of more, but 'poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked' with reference to everything that constitutes the true and sovereign purposes of our existence—nay, worse, worse—with respect to the sovereign purpose— than if he had still remained in the ignorance ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... cashier, "your son is in so unfortunate a position that his friends find it absolutely necessary to ask you to share the somewhat heavy expense which he is to them. He can no longer do his work at the office; and Mademoiselle Florentine, of the Porte-Saint-Martin, has taken him to lodge with her, in a miserable attic in the rue de Vendome. Philippe is dying; and if you and his brother are not able to pay for the doctor and medicines, we shall be obliged, for the sake of curing him, to have him taken to the hospital of the Capuchins. For three ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... The miserable condition of our troops, the season of the year, the almost total lack of means of transportation for supplies and of a pontoon bridge to cross the river, rendered any considerable movement on our part impossible. ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... it happened one day, after the tribe had moved away from the camp, that this old woman and her boy were following along the trail behind the rest, when they came to a miserable, old, worn-out horse, which they supposed had been abandoned by some Indians. He was thin and exhausted, was blind of one eye, had a sore back, and one of his fore legs was very much swollen. In fact, he was so worthless that none of the Pawnees had been willing to take ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... savage was to be seen. Flushed with victory, and exulting in their revenge, they had retired to their towns, to feast the eyes of their brethren, with the scalps of the slain. The field of battle presented a miserable spectacle. All was stillness, where so lately had arisen the shout of the impetuous, but intrepid whites, and the whoop and yell of the savages, as they closed in deadly conflict; not a sound was to be heard but the hoarse cry of the vulture, flapping ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... deployez, their hair black, their only clothes a large old shaggy garment, flossoye, tied over the shoulders with a cloth or cord, sash, lien, and under it a poor petticoat, roquet. In short, they were the poorest miserable creatures that had ever been seen in France; and notwithstanding their poverty, there were among them women, who by looking into people's hands told their fortunes. And what was worse, they picked people's pockets of their money; and ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... by his own free will. But Geraint has overtaken him, and avenged the insult to the maiden to the uttermost." And thereupon, behold a porter came to the spot where Gwenhwyvar was. "Lady," said he, "at the gate there is a knight, and I saw never a man of so pitiful an aspect to look upon as he. Miserable and broken is the armour that he wears, and the hue of blood is more conspicuous upon it than its own colour." "Knowest thou his name?" said she. "I do," said he, "he tells me that he is Edeyrn the son of Nudd." Then she ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 2 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... indignant cries, all exclaiming with one voice that the princes ought to leave their horses and fight in the ranks on equal terms with their men, lest if any mischance should occur they should avail themselves of the facility of escaping, and leave the mass of the army in miserable plight. ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... nothing from anybody that she did not expect from herself; indeed, she would spare others in far larger proportion. But the sense of obligation which led her to offer herself up to the last volt of her energy made her miserable when she considered that she was not fairly done by in return. Pressed down and running over were the services she offered to the general good, and it was on the ground of the merest justice that she required from her daughters ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... they purport to be, they are the very sthrongholds of England in this country, and, with scarce an exception, the deadliest opponents to the very indepindence that we have benn jist spakin about. For the most part, they are filled chock full of a pack of miserable toadies to the governmint, which manages to gather into them a pack of rottin, ladin Irishmin who can make speeches, dhrink 'the day and all who honor it,' sing 'God save the Queen,' and talk English blatherskite about the glory of the impire, the army and navy, and everythin else ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... over-persuades Lucrezia into trusting that they will find their felicity in each other. Their happiness is of the briefest duration, owing to the unreasonable character of the prince, who leads the actress a miserable life; his love taking the form of petty tyranny and retrospective jealousy. After long years of this material and moral captivity, the ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... that after all I should be happier there, and that I had better turn back and not see London any more. However, I changed my mind once again, and decided to come on to London, and accept the risks of being miserable there without my hotel. Then I asked Jules whither he was bound, and he told me that he was off to Constantinople, being interested in a new French hotel there. I wished him good ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... I'm engeeged upon is a very different one," he resumed, talking another swallow of the oft-replenished draught. "It's a thraitise of moine which I ixplict to upsit the thaories of the miserable Saxon schaymers that desthort the pleen facts of antiquetee to shoot their own narrow an' disthortid comprayhinsions. An' I till ye what—whin my thraitise is published, it'll make a chumult among thim ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... not mind, because as long as he knew that he and Mamma would get into heaven all right he wouldn't worry so much about other people. But Mamma was always worrying about them and making you give up things to them; and she must be miserable when she thought of them burning in hell for ever and ever, and when she tried to reconcile God's justice with his mercy. To say nothing of the intellectual discomfort she was living in. When you had found out ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... I was glad to escape from Thebes. Moreover, that miserable one had hurt me sorely, making me sure of what I had only guessed, namely, that with women I was but a fool, so great a fool that then and there I swore by my guardian god that never would I look with love on one of them again, an ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... she had felt more than usually depressed and listless Emile had taken her to one of the cafes and given her absinthe which had made her feel recklessly well for the moment, and ten times more miserable the next day. He had also advised her to smoke, saying that it was good for people who had whims and fancies, but smoking did not appeal to her, and she never envied the Spanish woman ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... soldiers were accordingly dispatched, and soon returned, with a set of the most miserable-looking wretches I ever beheld; who were thrust into the hall, and dropping on their knees, were examined in that attitude, as to their qualifications. Some, it appeared, had been at the port of Tien-sing, but were no seamen; others followed ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... open. Both, however, coincided in this, that they regarded the affairs of life as presenting perpetual interpositions of a providential or rather supernatural kind—angels and devils being in continual conflict for the soul of every man, who might become the happy prize of the one or the miserable prey of the other. These spiritual powers were perpetually controlling the course of nature and giving rise to prodigies. The measure of holiness in a saint was the number of miracles he had worked. Thus, in the life of St. Benedict, it is related ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... mean miserable sneak, that fellow is!" exclaimed Harry. "He goes into a dirty piece of business like this, and then he gets down ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... stripped off Smith's clothes and ordered him to put on coarse sheepskins. He next shaved his head and put an iron ring round his neck, after which he ordered him to go to work with the rest of his slaves. Smith's life was now very miserable. He therefore made up his mind to escape as ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... him go, saying as he went: "Are you not ashamed, you little scoundrel, to attempt to do hurt to those who have never injured you, and to want to add to the suffering of those who already are sufficiently miserable? Although you escape now, be assured, sir, that if you do not repent and mend your manners, you will meet with a severe punishment for ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... archbishop of Toledo, at once to Medina, and prepared to follow as fast as the feeble state of her health would permit. The efforts of these eminent persons, however, were not much more successful than those of the bishop. All they could obtain from Joanna was, that she would retire to a miserable kitchen in the neighborhood, during the night; while she persisted in taking her station on the barrier as soon as it was light, and continued there, immovable as a statue, the whole day. In this deplorable state she was found by the queen on her arrival; ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... India boat the "Lunka" for Calcutta. We were literally bundled pell mell on board, some twenty passengers and baggage, and some five hundred native troops all in a heap in the waist on top of us—what a miserable muddle. The French passengers smiled derisively at the inefficacy or rather total absence of any system of embarkation of passengers, and the Americans opened their eyes! Always they repeat on board—"Why, you first class passengers don't pay us." ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... to be a pattern and model of usefulness and self-forgetfulness, but they would have me so, and I couldn't go out in the streets and tell them I was not. I've had to play the part till I'm tired. I've had to walk demurely, and talk and smile to people I despised, and do all sorts of miserable things. But I never pretended to you. You knew I was not satisfied or happy. I used to tell you all my troubles and ask your advice about everything. And you know you said harsh things to me sometimes. You knew me better than any one else, and I did not think you would ever treat me so. Did you think ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... Gillian's white, miserable face just as Virginie reappeared in the doorway to announce ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... miserable, cheap horse-jockey, and I shall treat him with the contempt he deserves," he blustered. "If it hadn't been for my dog his old boneyard could never have gone twice around ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... pretends to reputation; persecuted most perhaps by such as have only kept their secret better; and having no refuge to fly to—the common, the stews, the street, is the fate of such a poor wretch; penury, want, and disease, her sure attendants; and an untimely end perhaps closes the miserable scene. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... been reluctant to confide his troubles even to her; he knew that Granny would speak of them to no one except the one great Comforter, no, not even to Kirsty's mother; so he nursed his mournful secret through one long miserable day. But Isabel's eyes were very bright and soon spied the trouble in Scotty's face. So one day, as they sat on the edge of the old log bridge and swung their feet in the cool, brown water, he opened ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... Edestone started. Although he could scarcely control himself and felt like strangling the chicken-hearted wretch, he recovered himself in time to say with a look of disgust, "You poor miserable creature." ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... collecting provisions of the Indians for the winter, instead of attempting this strange discovery of the South Sea, and wasting their time on a more strange coronation. "Now was there no way," asks Smith, "to make us miserable," but by direction from England to perform this discovery and coronation, "to take that time, spend what victuals we had, tire and starve our men, having no means to carry victuals, ammunition, the hurt or the sick, but on their ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... wretched and miserable, I returned to the factor's house. I entered the sitting room and was glad to find it empty and dark. I lighted a lamp, and coaxed up the dying embers of the fire with fresh wood. I was in no mood for sleep, and for a long time I sat by ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... case in this light, the more strongly did his poor wife's conduct in improving the blood and breed of the Petrick family win his heart. He considered what ugly, idle, hard-drinking scamps many of his own relations had been; the miserable scriveners, usurers, and pawnbrokers that he had numbered among his forefathers, and the probability that some of their bad qualities would have come out in a merely corporeal child, to give him sorrow in his old age, turn his black hairs gray, his gray ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... the slick un that robbed the bank, and got away on thet there Brazos pony thet miserable bookkeepin' dude giv him. The sergeant here an' his men are a-goin' to take him to Cuivaca in the mornin'. You stand guard over him 'til midnight, then they'll relieve you. They gotta get a little sleep first, though, an' I gotta get some supper. Don't ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... dignified man with a severe expression of countenance and somewhat portly appearance, had on his arm a young lady veiled in black—his betrothed, who with a wondering glance took stock of the low, miserable rooms, and endeavored to show a face at once friendly and full of grief as the situation demanded. Max, the merchant, came behind them. He looked rather dissolute; his smart-looking mustache gave him an air ill-befitting the feelings of a newly-orphaned son, and his mourning was more evident ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... outskirts of the crowd—"don't do it. Don't put an everlasting stain on the fair name of our town. No one has ever been lynched in this county and none in this State, so far as I know. Don't let us begin it. If I thought the miserable scoundrel inside would escape—if I thought his money would buy him off—I'd be the man to lead you to batter down those doors and hang him on the nearest tree—and you know it." There were cheers at this. "But he won't escape. His money can't buy him ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... rich people's houses, he caught glimpses of filthy side streets, squalid alleys, and tumble-down tenements. He saw forlorn little children scud away like rats into their holes as he drew near, and wretched, vicious-looking men and women fighting with each other for places in the crowd. Sharp, miserable faces peered round corners at him, and nobody smiled because every one hated or distrusted his neighbor, and they dreaded and disliked the young King because all the King Mordreths had been evil and selfish, and ...
— The Land of the Blue Flower • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... his hand and looked up into his face with eyes which actually had tears in them. "I shall be so miserable if you are cross. I shall feel that I have spoiled your day. I wish now that I had gone in the little boat. I wish I had been upset and drowned. Then perhaps you would have been ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... to secure you against a man so vile. Tell me (I have a right to know) whether you prefer this man to all others?—Yet God forbid that I should know you do; for such a declaration would make us all miserable. Yet tell me, are your ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... had one redeeming trait—it was an appreciation of the humorous. No man has ever been entirely lost or entirely miserable, who has had a touch of humor in him. As the Bishop put a pillow under his head and then locked the door to keep any one else out, the ridiculousness of it all came over him, ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... unhappy. Odd! that a boy who had never had a home should be homesick! Yet that was the real name of the miserable, sinking sensation at his heart; and as he crossed the hall to the bathroom, his face was the picture ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... that there is no instance, in modern times, of a Chuzzlewit having been found on terms of intimacy with the Great. But here again the sneering detractors who weave such miserable figments from their malicious brains, are stricken dumb by evidence. For letters are yet in the possession of various branches of the family, from which it distinctly appears, being stated in so many words, that one Diggory Chuzzlewit ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... world altogether. He's nothing but a nuisance here, and he can't be really happy. I imagine that even for his own sake he'd be a great deal better dead. He may not see that himself, but it's very likely to be true. What's the use of his dragging out a miserable existence in a place where he is getting more and more unpopular every year? He can't like it. Where ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... quite sure you aren't doing just what you did before, getting infatuated, and making yourself miserable over some one who doesn't ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... of the footlights.) I am Prince Calaf, 'sh! Nobody must know my name. Calaf—I don't mind telling you. My father is Timur, once the mighty King of Astrakhan—the cruel Sultan of Taschkent drove us out of our own country. O miserable fate! O heavenly gods! I wandered for months and months with my parents in the desert. Our foe, the Sultan, sent riders after us. At the Court of Kaikobad, King of the Carcasenes, I served as a gardener. His daughter, the Princess ...
— Turandot, Princess of China - A Chinoiserie in Three Acts • Karl Gustav Vollmoeller |
