"Wretched" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her admiringly, conscious of her imperious mood. What was to become of her? Would she marry well? Would she marry in time? Thus far no breath of the wretched days in Louisville had affected Berenice. Most of those with whom Mrs. Carter had found herself compelled to deal would be kind enough to keep her secret. But there were others. How near she had been to drifting on the rocks when ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... imagination can ever do justice to the features of Sir Beranger, when, three leagues from the city, the right reverend prelate and his apostolic brethren threw off the mask with peals of un-canonical laughter, led the wretched cit off to Lourdes through crooked by-roads, and there extracted from his disconsolate relatives five thousand francs of ransom,—which they, holy men, doubtless devoted to the purposes of their order. There is a story for a rhymer Sherwood ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... heavy weather. Indeed, the peril was even greater, inasmuch as the savages on comparatively fine days ventured forth on their marauding excursions, and in boisterous weather disappeared from sight, their wretched canoes being frail and undeserving the name of craft at all. This being so, I now enjoyed gales of wind as never before, and the Spray was never long without them during her struggles about Cape Horn. I became in ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... The past's our own: No fiend can take that from us! Ah, poor boy! Had I, like thee, been bred from my black birth-hour In filth and shame, counting the soulless months Only by some fresh ulcer! I'll be patient— Here's something yet more wretched than myself. Sleep thou on still, poor charge—though I'll not grudge One moment of my sickening toil about thee, Best counsellor—dumb preacher, who dost warn me How much I have enjoyed, how much ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... to his side, and rolled his eyes agonizingly towards his mother, but she took no notice. She got some paper out of the cupboard, and Ephraim sat down and began quirling it into long spirals with a wretched sulky air. ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... of eating lemons will testify. Sometimes the pleasurable recollection of a delightful dinner will cause the mouth to water years afterward, or the "image" of particularly atrocious medicine will wrinkle the nose long after it made one day in boyhood wretched. ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... tone sounded less cordial. She had withdrawn her hands, and her humour, at such a moment, jarred on him. In spite of his good resolutions he had managed to put his foot into it after all. Perhaps she had begun to suspect his secret and was displeased. He departed feeling utterly wretched and out of heart, and got very scant comfort from his book, for it only reminded him of how seriously he had compromised himself. He was in two minds whether or not to send it back, but decided not to do so in fear lest he might give fresh offence. The next day at dawn the ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... I should observe, it was also Gabrielle's, for the sisters shared the same room. The moon cast strong lights and shadows, and I kept in the shade till close to the house, when what was my disgust to hear the wretched tinkle of a guitar under the window! Serenades might be all very well for Italy, but we did not favor them in Nismes; and stepping briskly up to the musician, I said abruptly, "We want none ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... various sources, and contains much that is Alfred's own and highly characteristic of him. The last words of it may be quoted; they form a fitting epitaph for the noblest of English kings. "Therefore he seems to me a very foolish man, and very wretched, who will not increase his understanding while he is in the world, and ever wish and long to reach that endless life where all shall be made clear.'' Besides these works of Alfred's, the Saxon Chronicle almost certainly, and a Saxon Martyrology, of which ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... bringing similar results, draws up a heavy burden buried in those depths. But only youth has energy, with fixed unwinking gaze, to contemplate grief, to hold it in the arms and to the heart, like a child which makes it wretched, ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... because he could not brook subjection to the Son of God, a failing which was noble compared with treachery to the Son of man. The hatred of Judas is not altogether virtuous. We compound thereby for our neglect of Jesus and His precepts: it is easier to establish our Christianity by cursing the wretched servant than by following his Master. The heinousness also of the crime in Gethsemane has been aggravated by the exaltation of Jesus to the Redeemership of the world. All that can be known of Judas is soon collected. ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... Gothic architecture is,—that style which, in its efforts to escape beyond the tragic contradiction in its mediaeval heart, yelled its hysterical cry heavenwards and even melted the stones of its structures into a quivering and fluid jet, in order to give adequate expression to the painful and wretched conflict then raging between the ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... his wretched company a dozen times a day, He used to quit his charger in a parabolic way, His method of saluting was the joy of all beholders, But Ahasuerus Jenkins had a head ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... away to the meagre table of the smallest of our Anthidia (A. scapulare, LATR. (A Cotton-bee, cf. idem: chapter 9.—Translator's Note.)), who makes her nests in dry bramble-stems. The scanty fare makes a wretched dwarf of the offspring belonging to either sex, without depriving them of any of their racial features. We still see the Burnt Zonitis, with the distinctive sign of the species: the singed patch at the ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... still at the office, yet I shall think D. Gauden do well in it, and what I would advise him to, because I love him. I up to my Lord Brouncker at his lodgings; and sat with him an hour on purpose to talk over the wretched state of this office at present, according to the present hands it is made up of; wherein he do fully concur with me, and that it is our part not only to prepare for defending it and ourselves against the consequences ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... opposing the motion. On the fifth and last night Mr. Cobden said that his chief objection to the motion was, that it did not include agricultural as well as manufacturing distress. The agricultural labourers were in a wretched state; neither them nor the farmers were any gainers by the corn-laws. With neither of these classes had landlords any right to identify themselves. The landlord was no agriculturist: he might live all his days in London or in Paris. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... packets were sailing every day, filled with men of fashion and ladies of note, on their way to Brussels and Ghent. People were going not so much to a war as to a fashionable tour. The newspapers laughed the wretched upstart and swindler to scorn. Such a Corsican wretch as that withstand the armies of Europe and the genius of the immortal Wellington! Amelia held him in utter contempt; for it needs not to be said that ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... escaped us by a miracle," he said. "All day long we had sentinels on all the heights commanding the sea, and at night we patrolled the waters in our ship. Yet for all our vigilance he has slipped through our hands. But I will not be baffled thus," he added, stamping with fury. "This wretched boy must die, or we shall never accomplish our purpose. Let us make haste and slay him before he comes back to the town, or he will call a meeting of the people and proclaim to all Ithaca that we sought to slay him, and failed. Then the ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... van came rolling down the street the other day with a big spirited Percheron in the center and two wretched nags on either side. The Percheron was doing all the work, and it seemed that he would have got along far better in single harness, than he managed with his ...
— The Clock that Had no Hands - And Nineteen Other Essays About Advertising • Herbert Kaufman
... forgetful: what if Lady Leveret, for example, had come into that shop? It seems to me you are never satisfied with meeting the people you ought to meet, but that you must go and associate with all the wretched cripples and beggars you can find. You should remember you are a woman, and not a child—that people will talk about what you do if you go on in this mad way. Do you ever see Mrs. Kavanagh or her daughter do any of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... and such as she, somewhere, and people are beginning to see and feel the importance of it here; but until the thought and hope become a reality the State will simply put the child in with the idiots and lunatics, to grow more and more wretched, more hopeless, more stupid, until the poor little light is quenched in utter darkness. There is hope for her now, I am sure of it. If Mrs. Grubb's neighbours have told me the truth, any physical malady that may be pursuing her is in its very first stages; ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... imponderably near him. Wretched and bereft though I was, I could not have left him ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... the bells of Heaven The wildest peal for years, If Parson lost his senses And people came to theirs, And he and they together Knelt down with angry prayers For tamed and shabby tigers And dancing dogs and bears, And wretched, blind pit ponies, ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... results, was the most momentous recorded in history, Pope Urban preached the First Crusade. He said little about the dangers which threatened the Roman Empire in the East from the Turks, but dwelt chiefly on the wretched condition of the Holy Land, with its churches polluted by unbelievers and its Christian inhabitants tortured and enslaved. Then, turning to the proud knights who stood by, Urban called upon them to abandon their wicked practice of private warfare and take up arms, instead, against ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... heavily. He turned into a quiet restaurant to get a meal and ate without noticing what was put before him. At the earliest opportunity he sought the train and buried himself in the corner of a compartment praying that the wretched night might lessen the number of travellers. Behind an evening paper which he did not attempt to read he smoked in silence, which the two other men in the carriage did not break. Foreigners both, they huddled in great coats in opposite corners and were asleep ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... convent until the spring of 1812. She was still very unwell, and could not be moved without great difficulty. The priest lodged with a poor widow who lived in the neighbourhood, and Anne Catherine had in the same house a wretched little room on the ground-floor, which looked on the street. There she lived, in poverty and sickness, until the autumn of 1813. Her ecstasies in prayer, and her spiritual intercourse with the invisible world, became more and more frequent. She was about ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... been more or less absorbed by the stronger races, and the result in the archipelago has been the formation of several tribes of half-breeds numbering considerably more than half a million. Side by side with them, and equally poor and wretched, are the Manthras, a cross between the Negritos and Malays and the degenerate descendants of the Saletes, a warlike tribe conquered by the Malayan Rajah Permicuri in 1411. Then come the Malay Sulus, all Mohammedans and still governed by their ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... English-French, and long loaves of bread. They think the long loaves very humorous! There are Y.M.C.A. canteens at most stations, so we are well fed. The horses are miserable, of course. They were unhappy on board ship. A horse can't be sick, you know, even if he wants to. And now they are wretched in their trucks, Rinaldo and Swallow are, of course, terrified, while Jezebel, having rapidly thought out the situation, takes it all very quietly. She has just eaten an enormous lunch. Poor Rinaldo wouldn't touch his, and Swallow only ate ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... however, not wholly to abandon him in this wretched state, but he comforted him with the cheering promise that the seed of the woman should some time or other completely subdue sin, or to use the scriptural language, "should bruise the serpent's head;" or, in other words, as sin was of a spiritual nature, so it ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... government of the emperor Arcadius, they laid waste the Illyrian provinces down to the Peloponnesus, and made repeated irruptions into Italy, in 400 and 402, under their valiant leader Alarich. In 408 he besieged Rome, and exacted considerable sums from it. He renewed the siege in 409, and made the wretched prefect Attalus emperor, whom he afterwards deposed, and recognised Honorius again. At last he took Rome by storm on the 24th August, 410. The city was completely plundered, but the lives of the people spared. He withdrew ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... one of the most invariable characteristics of Genius, and by which its most glorious efforts are achieved, if excited into unhealthy action by over-exercise, not unseldom renders its possessor unreasonable and wretched, while his works are benefiting or delighting others, and while the very persons who most highly appreciate them are often the least disposed to pardon ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... looked at each other, the same thought with us, and then on a sudden the wretched woman made a step forward and clutched me by the arm, her face like death, her breath ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... injury. How could I have the heart to force her to forego such a glory, merely for the sake of the poor insignificant kazi that I am! I should never get over it; 'tis done! I will immolate my happiness to hers! I shall be very wretched; but—but—I shall be divan-beghi." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 327, August 16, 1828 • Various
... like to dine and fall asleep, but you don't!—You remember that you live in the country—that is, you are a slave, a rag, a bit of string, a bit of limp flesh, and you've got to run round and do errands. Where we live a pleasant custom has grown up: when a man goes to town every wretched female inhabitant, not to mention one's own wife, has the power and the right to give him a crowd of commissions. The wife orders you to run into the modiste's and curse her for making a bodice too wide across the chest and too narrow across the ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... destructively as was necessary to accomplish the purpose of forcing Naples to let the Sicilian rebels alone. But then it is said, and it is the pitiful pretext of equal treatment to both parties, that the orders were alike to prevent action of the King's troops and the revolters. Was ever there a more wretched shift, a more hollow pretence, than this? Keep the Sicilians from breaking an armistice enforced to save them from utter and final destruction! Keep the beaten Sicilian rebel from overpowering his victorious masters! Keep ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... had ceased on their approach and as they stood hesitating a strange figure suddenly appeared round the corner of the wretched rookery of a place. The man, who stood facing them, a startled look in his light blue eyes, was apparently about middle age. He wore a full beard of a golden brown color and was barefooted and hatless. His clothes consisted of a tattered shirt and a pair of ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... my dear Julien," he continued, "a certain education is necessary for you. If only I had a little more time I should be invaluable. You have taken all your life too narrow a view. That wretched Eton training! You would have been better off at a ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... seem favorites of fate, In Pleasure's lap caressed; Yet think not all the rich and great Are likewise truly blest. But oh! what crowds in every land Are wretched and forlorn! Through weary life this lesson learn, That man was ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... poor Jim six long months on the rack. First she'd say she'd marry him, and then she'd say she wouldn't (not that she ever really meant that she wouldn't), for she just wanted to torment him; and she succeeded so well that Jim became utterly wretched, and went to his master to know "ef'n he couldn't make dat yaller gal ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... sea or into the side of the mountain; and there by torchlight they suffered the cruel tortures of their overseers without having power to make their groans heard above ground. No lot upon earth could be more wretched than that of these unhappy men; to all of them death would have been ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... bed, every one of you. It's a thankful man I'll be when your father and mother come home. The wretched bachelor who undertakes to look after a houseful of children like you is to be pitied. Nobody will ever catch me doing it again. Felicity, is there anything fit to ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... never, where the flame Sprang to the roofs, and Helen ne'er he found Where flock'd the wretched women in their shame The helpless altars of the Gods around, Nor lurk'd she in deep chambers underground, Where the priests trembled o'er their hidden gold, Nor where the armed feet of foes resound In shrines ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... and sisters parted at the door of the sitting-room Brother Nathan plucked at the Eldress's sleeve; "Is she very wretched—Lydia? Where is she now, Eldress? Poor ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... that," declared John. "If you stand for sense and experience and try to learn them, they think you're a fossil and out of sight of reality; and if you attempt to be young and interest yourself in their wretched little affairs and pay the boy with the boys and the girl with the girls, they think ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... in God's creatures, no blessings in his own life. He can tell you all his misfortunes, but ask him what good things God has done for him, and he cannot remember. My brothers, guard against the discontented tongue. It is a grievous sin against God, and it makes its owner and all around him wretched. Let the praises of God be in your mouth, and the two-edged sword of faith in your hand, and you will make your way through all difficulties, and triumph over all troubles. Count up God's mercies and blessings every day, and you cannot murmur. Sing the Te Deum oftener, and you ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... spoken of now haunted and perplexed me so constantly, that I became moody and wretched. While in this state, a man from a neighboring ward fell one morning into conversation with the chaplain, within earshot of my chair. Some of their words arrested my attention, and I turned my head to see and listen. The speaker, who wore a sergeant's chevron and carried ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... eaten, they added, in order to cheer him, that he was to be washed down with a really pleasant drink called kawi. The king's son then tied Stade's legs together in three places. "I was made," says the wretched man, "to hop with jointed feet through the huts; at this they laughed and said 'Here comes our meat hopping along,'" Death seemed imminent. They did Stade, however, no injury beside shaving off his ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... their limbs with pains, and load their lives with the guilt of their parents? why should they hinder that trade to which they must owe all the comforts which plenty affords? why should they endeavour to intercept their existence, or suffer them to exist only to be wretched? ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... grossly inconsistent with himself. For, after drawing his distinction between Parsing and Construing, as above, he takes no further notice of the latter; but, having filled up seven pages with his most wretched mode of "PARSING," adds, in an emphatic note: "The Teacher should direct the Pupil to CONSTRUE, IN THE SAME MANNER, any passage from MY CLASS-BOOK, or other Work, at the rate of three or four lines per ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... glorying in Christ Jesus. If a man has learned his emptiness he will look about for something to fill it. Unless I know myself to be under condemnation because of my sin, and fevered, disturbed, and made wretched, by its inward consequences which forbid repose, the sweetest words of Gospel invitation will pass by me like wind whistling through an archway. But if once I have been driven from self-confidence, then ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... humanity—not over-wretched, for the condition of the slaves in the household of Arminius Quirinius had not been an unhappy one—they all seemed astonished, some even highly pleased, at thus finding themselves the centre of attraction in the ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... of God in his inward man; but he found another law in him, in his body, warring against the law of his mind—that is his conscience and reason, and making a slave of him till he was ready at times to cry, "Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... beneath an exterior that commends itself to the reverence of his flock, while he sees the softer partner of his guilt standing in the full glare of exposure and humbling herself to the misery of atonement—between this more wretched and pitiable culprit, to whom dishonour would come as a comfort and the pillory as a relief, and the older, keener, wiser man, who, to obtain satisfaction for the wrong he has suffered, devises the ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... the people to see the King for themselves, and make sure he was uninjured, as they cheered, and followed it in surging throngs to the very gates of the Palace,—while in another and reverse direction the wretched youth whose miserable effort to commit a dastard crime had so fortunately failed, was marched off, under the guard of a strong body of police to the State-Prison, there to await his trial and condemnation. A small crowd, hooting and cursing the criminal, pursued him as he ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... contain the story Which Mr. H——— related to me. While he was telling it, a gentle wind arose; the miniature sloops drifted feebly about the ocean; the wretched owners flew from point to point, as the deceptive breeze promised to waft the barks to either shore; the early robins trilled now and then from the newly fringed elms; and the old young man leaned on the rail in the ...
— A Struggle For Life • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... several nights, and, since his afflicting insanity, could seldom be prevailed on to enter his own room. After pausing a few minutes, while her lips appeared to move with the prayer her heart so fervently formed, she undid the bolt, quietly opened the door, then partially closed it, and left her wretched parent ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... away in haste, as the process had already occupied half an hour, and I was telephoning to avoid delay. Five minutes later I passed the bureau. The landlord was still at that wretched instrument. I hurried by without daring to look up, fearing that I should be appealed to again. I dared not even ask whether the message ever reached ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... those faces, in which her ignorance of Parisian types did not permit her to distinguish the type of probity from that of dishonesty. The appearance of misery alarmed her, and all whom she met seemed wretched and miserable. Her toilet, which was the same she had worn during the previous evening, was elegant even in its careless disorder: for it was the one in which she had presented herself to the queen-mother; and, moreover, when she drew aside the mantle which covered ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... signs of winter: the olives were now ripe, and appeared on each side of the road as black as sloes; and the corn was already half a foot high. On the second day of our journey, we passed the Rhone on a bridge of boats at Buccaire, and lay on the other side at Tarrascone. Next day we put up at a wretched place called Orgon, where, however, we were regaled with an excellent supper; and among other delicacies, with a dish of green pease. Provence is a pleasant country, well cultivated; but the inns are not so ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... IV. gained his throne, the country was in a most wretched condition. In the desolating wars, population had fallen off. Everywhere there were poverty and lawlessness. Yet war with Spain was inevitable. In this war, Henry was the victor; and the Peace of Vervins restored the ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... not hear the taunting reply or heed the sneer. He was still staring at this counterpart of himself, this very image yet who was not himself, but a human derelict, a wretched, sodden outcast. All at once, an overwhelming, horrible suggestion rushed across his brain. Could it be, was it—his long lost twin brother? Almost gasping, ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... of all efforts to keep a stiff upper lip, the night was wretched. The rain fell in torrents. The only way to keep the fire alight was by keeping it under the blanket shelter, and Milton was half smothered with smoke. He insisted on the others going to sleep, but in spite of their utter weariness, the ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... me happy. But an hour ago I was the most wretched of men. I have lost my sister, and I feared your esteem. Both are restored to me. My sister is by my side, and the gem that sparkles on my finger tells me that even calumny has failed to rob me of your friendship—your love. ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... reins alone relieved the monotony of appointment by being of rope. Small wooden pegs supplied, by some ingenuity I could not fathom, the absence of buckles. The carriole itself had not even a piece of iron to act in any way as a spring, and the agony we suffered when this wretched machine creaked, and squeaked, and jolted over the stones, is indescribable; and, to the eye, it was one of the clumsiest pieces of carpentry I ever met with; nor do I hesitate in saying, that an approximation to a civilized condition was more evident ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... Sally, shortly. She had never felt so wretched in her life. Foreign travel, she decided, was a mistake. It might be pleasant and broadening to the mind, but it seemed to put you so out of touch with people when you got back. She analysed her sensations, and arrived at the conclusion that what she was resenting was the fact that Gerald was trying ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... know," she said, "I have got the most racking headache; I wonder if you would hear me through my English History questions, Kitty. It would be awfully kind of you. I am so wretched about every thing and things seem so hopeless, and it is so perfectly miserable to think of spending all the holidays here, for I don't believe Mrs. Clavering is going to take us to the seaside after all. Really, I think life is not ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... usual teasing way, he made signs behind that worthy's back to the effect that his sister ought to ask him to sit by her. However, when Hirzel saw that his sister looked really troubled, he came immediately like a good brother and did what his sister wished. All this was not lost on that wretched Jacques, who between present circumstances, and his own thoughts of what must come before he gained Marguerite, had by no means ...
— Legend of Moulin Huet • Lizzie A. Freeth
... society. She was condemned to wear a dress different from that of other people; she was liable at any moment to be stoned for her conduct; she was one whom it was a ritual impurity to touch. She was wretched beyond measure; but while so corrupt, she was not utterly hardened. Incapable of virtue, she was not incapable of gratitude. Weltering in grossness, she could still be touched by the sight of purity. Plunged ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... this new exercise. He became more witty, more masterful, while the repartee of his adversaries sank to wretched piffle. He met disaster only once. That was when his conscience began to hurt him after a particularly bitter assault on Bulger in which the latter had been more than usually contemptible in the matter of the overdue debt. He felt that he had really been too ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... gross, that after the third visit I could endure him no longer; and incurred, by dismissing him, the censure of all my friends, who declared that my nicety was greater than my prudence, and that they feared it would be my fate at last to be wretched with ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... ye, and let your own flesh and blood see ye. If that's too much to do for your old dad, ye might do it to please that digger squaw as a Christian act." Whether in the hidden depths of the old man's consciousness there was a feeling of paternal vanity in showing this wretched aborigine the value and importance of the treasure she was about to guard, I cannot say. Flip darted an interrogatory look at Lance, who nodded a quiet assent, and she flew into the inner room. She did not linger on the ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... ourselves? Not only weakness and nothingness, but wickedness: for the thoughts and imaginations of a man's heart are only evil, and that continually. We are by nature children of wrath, and are conceived in sin, and born in unrighteousness! O this wretched and vile thing, sin! But thanks be to God, who hath redeemed me from it. O Lord, take me to thyself. Behold, dear mother, he has prepared a place ...
— Stories of Boys and Girls Who Loved the Saviour - A Token for Children • John Wesley
... envy him? He would be going away for one, two, or three months; and all that time, instead of our wretched privations, he would be transformed into a ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... won her heart, even before she heard the pitiful story of the wretched little musician, and when Peace had finished recounting the morning's events, the mistress of the stone house turned toward her aunt with blazing, wrathful eyes, exclaiming impetuously, "Isn't that shocking? Oh, how dreadful! We must help him, Aunt ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... she cried in an agonizing tone, "your kindness will kill me more than cruelty. I am unworthy of so much tenderness; forgiveness, only forgiveness, is the melancholy boon that the wretched, the guilty Theodora craves from ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... is sublime, and yet His manly shyness is absurd; Of all the girls he ever met It was myself he most preferred; He'd try and try, but couldn't get His wretched tongue to say ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various
... it's bad enough for you to have thrashed me as you did, without bringing mother and Aunt Enna, and maybe grandfather too, down on me about those wretched masks and things; so give 'em up and let Dick and me put 'em back before ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... however, told him he must go and tidy his Hair, which he was preparing to obey. Oh! these are the People who somehow interest me; and if I were not now too far advanced on the Road to Forgetfulness, I should be sad that my own Life had been such a wretched Concern in comparison. But it is too late, even to ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... understand what the guide-books mean when they call the market of Gafsa "rich and well-appointed": a five-pound note, I calculate, would buy the entire exhibition. The produce, though varied, is wretched; but the scenery fine. Over a dusty level, strewn with wares, you look upon a stretch of waving palms, with the distant summit of Jebel Orbata shining in the deep blue sky. Here are a few butchers and ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... windows, and on a card he saw the words "To Let." Gone! Had he after all cleared out for good? But how-without money? And the girl? Bells were ringing now in the silent frostiness. Christmas Eve! And Keith thought: 'If only this wretched business were off my mind! Monstrous that one should suffer for the faults of others!' He took a route which led him past Borrow Street. Solitude brooded there, and he walked resolutely down on the far side, looking hard at the girl's window. There was a light. The curtains just failed ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... on the last Sunday before the close of the war. A detachment of Confederate prisoners, possibly two thousand in all, had just been brought in. They were in rags, starved, sick, and altogether as wretched a sight as one would be willing to see in a lifetime. A train of cars was standing on the siding. The President came out of a car and stood on the platform. As he gazed at the pitiable sufferers, he said not a word, but his breast heaved with ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... I strayed in Charing Cross as wretched as could be With thinking of my home and friends across the tumbling sea; There was no water in my eyes, but my spirits were depressed And my heart lay like a sodden, soggy doughnut in my breast. ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... eve Of Julia's travail. When the babe was born, Its presence tempted him to cherish schemes Of future happiness. "You shall return, 190 Julia," said he, "and to your father's house Go with the child.—You have been wretched; yet The silver shower, whose reckless burthen weighs Too heavily upon the lily's head, Oft leaves a saving moisture at its root. 195 Malice, beholding you, will melt away. Go!—'tis a town where both of us were born; None will reproach you, for our ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... wrong," she proceeded, rather aimlessly, "but I can't make it seem right. I don't know whether I can make you understand, but the idea of being happy, when everybody else is so miserable, is more than I can endure. It makes me wretched." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... villany he premeditated. There was another claimant for the crown as usual, Turlough O'Brien. He was defeated, but nevertheless the Earl turned to his side, got Brian Roe into his hands, and had him dragged to death between horses. The wretched perpetrator of this diabolical deed gained little by his crime,[337] for O'Brien's sons obtained a victory over him the following year. At one time he was so hard pressed as to be obliged to surrender at discretion, after living on horse-flesh for several days. In 1281 the unprincipled ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... will blab—it's the nature o' the beast—that stupid little much-divorced animal that married him—" he glared at two innocent young shoppers who were passing, "Gad, women are such sophisticated cows nowadays—" Spring always made him wretched, spring always made him fretful, spring always sent him off for the woods somewhere, any woods so long as it was woods. He pondered over whether he could get away Friday or would have to wait till Saturday morning, and eventually ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... turned out of the old Canterbury way and pointed south toward the coast, leaving the chalk lands and coming down into the clay of the Weald. It was a wretched, rutted mule-track running through thick forests with occasional clearings in which lay the small Kentish villages, where rude shock-headed peasants with smocks and galligaskins stared with bold, greedy eyes at the travelers. Once on the right they caught a distant view of the Towers ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... prejudice and cruelty. Fear and physical pain extorted confessions and complicated accusations of their neighbors from multitudes of innocent people.[241] Indeed the parallel between these unfortunate smearers and no less wretched witches is a close one. I am inclined to think that, as some crazy women fancied they were witches, so some morbid persons of this period in Italy believed in their power of spreading plague, and yielded to the fascination of malignity. Whether such moral mad folk really ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... unscrupulous Bohemians. Not long since, a collection of paintings was offered for sale in New York, the owner being dead. They had been collected at great expense, and were the pride of their former owner. With a few exceptions they were wretched copies, and in the whole lot, over five hundred in number, there were not six genuine "old masters," or "masters" of ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... through the joint influence of parents and husbands, to join the latter; and those only who have been acquainted with the life of slavery and degradation a native female is subject to, can at all form an opinion of the wretched prospect before her. ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... And the wretched girl strove to throw the guilt of the sin she premeditated upon her victim, upon the Intendant, upon fate, and, with a last subterfuge to hide the enormity of it from her own eyes, upon La Corriveau, whom she would lead on to suggest the crime and commit it!—a course which Angelique ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... through many chambers, there came forward to receive him the most sweetly mannered gentleman alive, who not only gave him his hand, but retained his guest's, saying, "We are a sort of cousins, I believe, and ought to have been acquainted before, but you know perhaps my wretched state," though what that was nobody exactly did know, particularly as Lord Montfort was sometimes seen wading in streams breast-high while throwing his skilful line over the rushing waters. "I remember your grandfather," ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... of indifference to Flossie. A rejected lover is useful in so many ways. It may be a triumph to make one man supremely happy; but the effect is considerably heightened if you have at the same time made another man supremely wretched. Flossie found that the spectacle of young Sidney's dejection restored all its first fresh piquancy to her engagement. At Tavistock Place he more than justified his existence. True, he did not remain depressed for very long, and there was something not altogether ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... Morgan song, and obliged him to dance, fat and fagged as he was, to his own music, while they applauded him with shouts of "Go it, old Yank! Louder!" till their commanding officer ordered them to harness a worn-out crow bait to his wagon, and bring him three wretched jades for the horses he wanted to recover, and ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... when the full soul loatheth the honey-comb. Nevertheless, although I speak thus in my poor judgment, I would not put force on the conscience of any man, leaving to the learned to follow the learned, and the wise to be instructed by the wise, while poor simple wretched souls are not to be denied a drink from the stream which runneth by the way.—Ay, verily, it will be a comely sight in England when men shall go on as in a better world, bearing with each other's infirmities, joining in each other's comforts.—Ay, truly, the rich drink out of silver flagons, ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... cotton yarn. By this toilsome industry she fed herself and found food for her son Alaeddin the scapegrace who, seeing himself freed from bearing the severities of his sire, increased in idleness and low habits; nor would he ever stay at home save at meal-hours while his miserable wretched mother lived only by what her hands could spin until the youth had reached his fifteenth year.—And Shahrazad was surprised by the dawn of day and ceased ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... of the cork grips of his handlebars—the road being in a wretched condition after the recent hauling of the crop—and quickened his pace. He told himself that, no matter what the time was, he would not stop for luncheon at the ranch house, but would push on to Guadalajara and have a Spanish dinner at Solotari's, ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... grew more pale than a corpse, and tottered so that she was forced to hold by a chair: and I, wretched man, who would readily have sworn away my life for her, when I saw and heard this, my senses forsook me, so that I fell down from the bench, and Dom. Consul had to call in the constable to ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold
... Shakespeare's time," Mrs. Pitt reflected. "You must know that sanitary conditions were fearful then, and that Stratford was as bad, if not worse, than other towns in that respect. Even as late as 1769, when Garrick visited here, he considered it 'the most dirty, unseemly, ill-paved, wretched-looking town in all Britain.' The people had absolutely no idea of cleanliness. In Stratford, there were six places where it was lawful to dump rubbish,—right in the street! Just fancy! Sometimes these dumps prevented a man from making his ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... camp. He was quickly drenched to the skin, but realising how excellent a screen for rushing the camp this downpour would make, he remained at his post, shivering with cold, for the rest of the night; and by the time that morning dawned, was feeling weary and wretched. ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... long-legged coward!" sneered Jack, angrily. "You know about how much punk you'd have if I had my hands and legs free, and stood before you on even terms. How you'd beg, you wretched craven!" ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... face fell. She was a wretched sailor, and Virginia knew it. Even the crossing from Dover to Calais was torture to ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries. She suffered from the poverty of her dwelling, from the wretched look of the walls, from the worn-out chairs, from the ugliness of the curtains. All those things, of which another woman of her rank would never even have been conscious, tortured her and made her angry. The sight of the ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... he said to himself, "leads a wretched life. How much more respected are the glass-blowers, the clock-makers, and ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... XV. or those of the Revolution of 1789. He founded the Abbey of Solignac, near Limoges, and it is not improbable that the reputation of this city for metal-work and enamelling may be dated from his foundation. With such works as those of Eloy before them, it is difficult to believe that the wretched and puerile attempts at ornamental penmanship and illumination which are shown at Laon and other places as the work of this period can possibly represent the highest efforts of the calligrapher. But we must remember that St. Eloy was an extraordinary genius in his art, and that the ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... surveyed the city then went they to their ships and led the Archbishop with them. Then was he a captive who erewhile had been the head of the English race and of Christendom.[I] There might then be seen misery there where oft erewhile men had seen bliss, in that wretched city whence had first come to us Christendom and bliss before ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... this year and for ever may all be well with you, my dear sir, for your care of us. A good kind man! We're letting Eunoe get squeezed—come, wretched girl, push ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... Terry. "All you've got to know is that I won't have anything further in any way whatever to do with you. I won't have you helping us with our mortgage; I won't have you advancing money to us; I won't stand one little minute for any of your—your wretched interference with our affairs! If you think you can—can butt in on our side of any fight ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... beneath the leaves, spawn and slime. He came up like a cork, choking and sputtering, and started to wade to the shore as the water was only up to his arm-pits. But as he attempted to scramble out, he was pushed back and forced to stand in his wretched plight for several minutes. At length he was allowed to leave the pond, and with teeth chattering with cold and fear, he was told to dress himself as ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... wretched face, and strode back toward the tent. He must get away from them for a little, he must try to think, he must find something to do. And as he turned a yell of derisive triumph from two hundred throats went booming and thundering ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... of me. Of course I was unhappy, wretched,—miserable. I knew why he was there. You can understand, Polly, that when a man really loves he must be the miserablest or ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... calculated, with the seeming high regard for accuracy that marks all efficiency experts, that these wretched devices cost her twenty-eight cents and a half each per diem. Estimating the total of them on the ranch at one hundred, this meant to her a loss of twenty-eight dollars and a half per diem. I used per diem twice to impress the woman. I added that it was pretty slipshod business ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... day that seemed endless dragged away. Bertie went home to his wife in the afternoon, taking Tawny Hudson, subdued and wretched, with him. ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... he first joined the Court, he found Francis travelling from city to city with a retinue of eighteen thousand persons and twelve thousand horses. Frequently they came to places where no accommodation could be had, and the suite were lodged in wretched tents. It is not wonderful that Cellini should complain of the French being less civilised than the Italians of his time. Francis among his ladies and courtiers, pretending to a knowledge of the arts, sauntering with his splendid train into the goldsmith's workshop, encouraging Cellini's violence ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... for utterance, but it was denied her. Roy's simple statement of Dale's love had magnified her emotion by completely changing its direction. She forgot what she had felt wretched about. She ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... used violence to us. You did not come to vindicate our honor, while we were virgins, against our assailants; but do come now to force away wives from their husbands and mothers from their children, a succor more grievous to its wretched objects than the former betrayal and neglect of them. Which shall we call the worst, their love-making or your compassion? If you were making war upon any other occasion, for our sakes you ought to withhold ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... high on the beach. How unfeeling it was o' him to rob you o' your little property in the very first o' your grief! But, see, he is so worn out that he can hardly walk over the rough stones. Ah, me, he is down! wretched old man. I must run to his assistance—but no, he has risen again. See he is coming straight to the house; an' now he is at the door." In a moment after, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... preposterous. The spectacle of the pot calling the kettle black, never edifying, aroused Dan's ire against Thatcher. And Bassett was not that sort; his old liking for the man stirred to life again. Even the Rose Farrell incident did not support this wretched tissue of fabrication. He had hated Bassett for that; but it was not for the peccable Thatcher to point a mocking finger ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... never get a good living. But the moment I entered Halle, the university town, all my resolutions came to nothing. Being now more than ever my own master, I renewed my profligate life afresh, though now a student of divinity. Yet in the midst of it all I had a desire to renounce this wretched life, for I had no enjoyment in it, and had sense enough left to see that the end, one day or other, would be miserable. But I had no sorrow of heart on account of ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... Helen all his elaborate precautions for the preservation of his China tea. Helen was wholly sympathetic. The utter correctness of her attitude towards Mrs. Butt was balm to him. Only one theory was conceivable. The wretched woman must have had a key to his caddy. During his absence from the house she must have calmly helped herself to tea at five shillings a pound—a spoonful or so at a time. Doubtless she made tea for her private consumption exactly when she chose. It was even possible that she walked off from ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... Dick," she whispered. "I know something right inside my heart tells me that you will come back. It is only like putting aside our happiness for a little. Dear, you would be wretched if you could not go. Just having me would not make ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... long time Brown did not speak; sat bleak-browed in the wretched room; Slowly a tear stole down his cheek, and he kissed her hand in the dismal gloom. To break his oath, to brand her shame; his well-loved friend, his worshipped wife; To keep his vow, to save her name, yet at the cost of what? ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... marriages favoured the deceit, and Jacob found that he was wedded to Leah, and not to the object of his affection. The deceit was most unjustifiable. The disappointment and the resentment must have been proportionally great; and miserable was the excuse of Laban, and wretched the device which was offered as an atonement. Yet Jacob must have bowed before the retributions of an avenging God, and the remembrance of his own treachery may have ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... betray too much interest in any man who was not of a certain fortune.—It is the cold, vulgar truth, madam, nor are we in the slightest degree exaggerating.—Elderly gentlemen, twisting single gloves in a very wretched manner, came up and bowed to the dowagers, and smirked, and said it was a pleasant party, and a handsome house, and then clutched their hands behind them, and walked miserably away, looking as affable as possible. And the dowagers made a little fun of the elderly gentlemen, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... How can you think of such a thing? But it would be so much better if you could wait here until I—Oh, what a wretched thing to have to seem so cowardly to you! But the difficulties are so great, darling. I shall be a perfect stranger in Bordeaux. I don't even speak the language at all well. When I reach there I shall be ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... deploring Pitt's junction with "a man whose imbecility and falsehood, under Mr. Pitt's own sanction," had weakened the country. Pitt would now gain a few votes, no additional talents, and an increase of rancour in the Opposition. "We shall," adds Rose, "drag on a wretched existence and expire not creditably. What next will happen God only knows."[702] Canning was equally annoyed at the new Coalition.[703] His sharp tongue and still sharper pen had deeply annoyed Addington. Who, indeed, would not have resented this reference ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... the kingdom about A.D. 1592, since which time it has been frequently burned. It stands closely surrounded by mountains, on the banks of a lake constructed by the last King of Kandy, in 1807. The habitations of the people were most wretched, as the king alone, and members of the royal family, enjoyed the privilege of having glazed windows, whitened walls, and tiles; the palace, and some of the Buddhist temples, are the only ancient edifices which remain, and even these are crumbling ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... gods,' says this primitive man, 'compare our times with yours; see how happy you are, and how wretched were we. The earth, newly formed, the air heavy with moisture, were not yet subjected to the rule of the seasons. Three-fourths of the surface of the globe was flooded by the ever-shifting channels of rivers uncertain of their course, and covered ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau |
