"Mire" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the mine. When the passages were narrow the boys and girls had a girdle fastened round their waists, a chain was fixed to this, and passed between their legs and hooked to the carriage. Then, crawling on hands and knees through the filth and mire, they pulled these trucks as cattle would drag them, whilst their backs were bruised and wounded by knocking against the ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... firesides: herded together like cattle; driven at the point of the bayonet, amid the gibes, jeers, and scoffs of soldiers, up to this dreary place, and thrust promiscuously into a dark vault in this castle; almost smothered in filth and mire; a prey to pestilent disease, and to every malignity which brutality could inflict, they died here unpitied. A few escaping down the rocks were recaptured, and ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... nearly dark, and Harry was about to sit down in despair, when suddenly a voice sounded close to him. He answered again, and immediately a barefooted boy sprang to his side from behind. The boy stood astonished at Harry's appearance. The latter was splashed and smeared from head to foot with black mire, for he had several times fallen. His broad hat drooped a sodden mass over his shoulders, the dripping feather adding to its forlorn appearance. His high riding boots were gone, having long since been abandoned in the tenacious ooze in which they had stuck; his ringlets ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... of all this medley of personal material and secret matters of Church polity falling into the hands of those who might make capital of it, and thereby drag the Rincon honor through the mire, cast the man prostrate in ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... his face, and found that the day and rain had come together. Dick once more was struck to the heart with dismay. How could he stand this and the snow together? The plain would now run rivers of water and he must trudge through a terrible mire, ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... Thirty Mountains had reached the spot where Slavata with his cavalry was attempting the passage of the morass. Some of the Hulans were entangled there from the soft nature of the ground, the horses having sunk in the mire almost up to their saddle-girths. Others, among whom was their leader, had successfully ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... away, perforce, in the evening-time from all this lovely landscape, from the pure air, from the cascades, the rocks, and the ferns, from everything agreeable to the senses, to the most literal, shameful, wallowing in the mire. We have spoken, so far, only of the scene; let add a word in very truth, about 'man and his dwelling-place.' How shall we describe it? We are at the Hotel de la Poste, and we are housed like pigs; we (some of us) eat ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... excitedly dancing on the lid of the luncheon-filled chest, as she hung precariously over the back of the tonneau, and bawled her remarks at the unfortunate occupants of the auto behind them, which seemed to sink deeper and deeper in the mire with every effort to dig ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... ought to be. There is no intelligent co-ordination of studies in Ireland and we suffer as no other country from ignorantly imposed "systems" which have had for their object, not the development of Irish brains but the Anglicisation of Irish youth, who were drenched with the mire of "foreign" learning when they should have been bathed in the pure stream ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... D'ye think I don't know the taste of sweat? Many's the gallon I've drunk of it—ay, in the midwinter, toiling like a slave. All through, what has my life been? Bend, bend, bend my old creaking back till it would ache like breaking; wade about in the foul mire, never a dry stitch; empty belly, sore hands, hat off to my Lord Redface; kicks and ha'pence; and now, here, at the hind end, when I'm worn to my poor bones, a kick and done with it." He walked a little while in silence, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... them by words, or wither them with a glance; but alas! in her indignation she raises a threatening hand, forgetful of the important duties it was fulfilling, and down go gown, petticoats, and auxiliaries in the filthy mire; the boys of course roar with delight—it's the jolliest fun they have had for many a day; the old lady gathers up her bundle in haste, and reaches the opposite side with a filthy dress and a furious ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... gull, "Italy infects you not, but your own diseased spirits. Italy? Out, you froth, you scum! because your soul is mud, and that you have breathed in Italy, you'll say Italy has denied you: away, you boar: thou wilt wallow in mire in the sweetest ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... I arrayed her, And goodly raiment, Or ever I gave her To the folk of the Goths. That was the hardest Of my heavy woes, When the bright hair,— O the bright hair of Swanhild!— In the mire was trodden By the treading ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous
... less particular when he knew they were going to the christening of an infant. It was then plainly Toby's opinion that, while they might not take quite so much time to christen as to marry, there was still no need to rush off with the priest's vestments out of order and his own fetlocks weighted with mire. The two had many friendly contests on these occasions, but Toby's will was the stronger, and his temper was not quite so mild; and as it is always the less amiable who wins, it was commonly he who won, in ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... to die an' be done with it, he sometimes thinks. Then comes a day when his temptation is ten times more than he is able to bear. He throws up the sponge; he has done his best an' failed, so away he goes like the sow that was washed to his wallowing in the mire. But he has not done his best. He has not gone to his Maker; an' surely the maker of a machine is the best judge o' how to mend it. Now, when a believer in Jesus comes to the same point o' temptation he falls on his knees an' cries ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... true. I left Minden two weeks ago, but the impassable condition of the roads compelled me to travel with snail-like slowness. My carriage every day stuck in an ocean of mire, so that I had to send for men from the adjoining villages in order to set it going again. The axle-tree broke twice, and I was obliged to remain several day in the most forsaken little country towns until I succeeded in getting my ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... meeting at the Kershope Burn. This will lead you over by Priesthaugh Swire, and down the Allan into Teviotdale. Beware of a bog which you will pass some two miles on this side of Priesthaugh. 'Tis the mire Queen Mary stuck in when she rode to visit her lover when he lay sick at Hermitage. May the Lord be good to you, laddie, and grant you a safe convoy, for ye carry a brave heart in that little ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... of Pope Urbane And Valmond, emperor of Allemaine, Despoiled of his magnificent attire, Bare-headed, breathless, and besprent with mire, With sense of wrong and outrage desperate, Strode on and thundered at the palace gate: Bushed through the court-yard, thrusting in his rage To right and left each seneschal and page, And hurried up the broad ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... with a sigh, "you've pricked my bubble, Daddy, and made me ashamed. With all my professed scorn of theories, and my endeavors to avoid them, I walked straight into the theoretic mire ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... fame, To us at Malta even came. Adieu, O Rink, and 'thrilling steel,' Another sort of thrill we feel, As eye entranced, those forms we follow, And see the Graces beaten hollow. Adieu, John's Gate! your mud and mire Must end in time, as does each fire! Adieu, that pleasant four-mile round, By bilious subs so useful found. Adieu, Cathedral! and that choir, All eye and ear could well desire. Adieu, that service—half-past three— And chance walks after, home to tea. And 'city ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... and when McClellan's scientific engineering had driven the rebels from their strong works without a struggle to retain them, he moved forward with the gallant army. "On to Richmond!" again sounded along the lines, and the soldiers toiled through mud and mire, hoping and expecting to strike the final blow that would crush out ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... into line with our guns hidden in a deep narrow cart-track, their dark muzzles trained on the enemy, and the gunners, knee-deep in the mire of the lane, sweating at their work. "We're under covering fire now," our young lieutenant explained, as we trudged forward, lifting enormous masses of clay on our boots at every step. "One battalion is engaged already; hear ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill
... to believe in it. I have known a person who seemed to be clean lifted up out of the mud and mire of troublesome circumstances, and to have got up to a region of permanent clear air and sunshine. I have been ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... left the Princess Dowager in the mire. The next incident was of a negative kind. Mr. Pitt, who, if he had been wise, would have come to help her out, chose to wait to see if she was to be left there, and gave himself a terrible fit of ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... hear them, as the wind drowned with its roar the noise of their approach; besides which they kept a good way off from each other, that they might not be betrayed by the clash of their weapons. They were also lightly equipped, and had only the left foot shod to preserve them from slipping in the mire. They came up to the battlements at one of the intermediate spaces where they knew them to be unguarded: those who carried the ladders went first and planted them; next twelve light-armed soldiers with only a dagger and a breastplate mounted, ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... discontent, though he can be of all religions, therefore truly of none. Thus by naturalising himself some would think him a very dangerous fellow to the State; but he is not greatly to be feared, for this dejection of his is only like a rogue that goes on his knees and elbows in the mire ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... their own works. Nay, Heaven and salvation be free gifts—the glorious gifts of a glorious God, and worthy of the Giver. But when such gifts are set before you but for the asking, is it too much that ye should rise out of the mire and come? ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... come, dear Dean, Your humble friend to entertain, Through dirt and mire along the street, You find no scraper for your feet; At which you stamp and storm and swell, Which serves to clean your feet as well. By steps ascending to the hall, All torn to rags by boys and ball, With scatter'd fragments on the floor; A sad, uneasy parlour door, Besmear'd with chalk, and carved ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... heel to head, Our gallant lord his true men led. Will Lund's earl halt his hasty flight, And try on land another fight? His banner yesterday was seen, The sand-bills and green trees between, Through moss and mire to the strand, In arrow ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... bed was splattered all over, so was the carpet, and even the bureau had splashes on its sides. Besides that, he had fallen from the bed where Poisson had probably thrown him, and was snoring on the floor in the midst of the filth like a pig wallowing in the mire, exhaling his foul breath through his open mouth. His grey hair was straggling into ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... cheerfully agree with one of the most active benefactors of the Jewish nation, who while he acknowledges these facts, changes the blame of them to the Christians." Very true, and truly I do not know, what right one man has to trample another into the mire, and then abuse him for being dirty. Mr. Everett remarks upon the same subject, p. 210, "Bowed down with universal scorn, they have been called secret and sullen; cut off from pity and charity, they have been thought selfish and unfeeling, and are summoned ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... any phase of his problem, Bjoernson also takes up briefly the illegitimate line of the Kurts, which, being unsupplied with any favorable environment, sinks deeper and deeper into the mire of vice. The inevitable result is insanity and ultimate extinction. Mrs. Rendalen's visit to the slums, and her recognition of the peculiar scream of her own son in a terrible little ragamuffin, is one of the most remarkable incidents in ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... wholly given to matter, contracts deeply its nature, loses all its original splendour, and almost changes its own species into that of another; just as the pristine beauty of the most lovely form would be destroyed by its total immersion in mire and clay. But the deformity of the first arises from inward filth, of its own contracting; of the second, from the accession of some foreign nature. If such a one then desires to recover his former beauty, it is necessary to cleanse the infected parts, ...
— An Essay on the Beautiful - From the Greek of Plotinus • Plotinus
... add to its interest, it borders on Sedgemoor, the scene of the bloody battle during the Monmouth rising, whereat a thousand were slain on the field. It is a local legend that the unhappy Duke and his staff may be seen, on stormy nights, crossing the path which skirts the mire, after which this building is named, with flaming torches ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... roads. The gradual inland movement of the population had finally compelled them, however, to give some attention to the means of land transportation and many rude earth roads were built to replace the old Indian trails. These roads were unspeakably poor, sloughs of mire during the thaws of winter and spring and thick with dust in the summer, but bad as they were they carried considerable traffic and their use was constantly growing. Inland towns were beginning to grow up at the focusing points of the country roads, and the owners of general stores ...
— Outline of the development of the internal commerce of the United States - 1789-1900 • T.W. van Mettre
... are in ruins, from the effect of the destructive war of La Vendee. From thence to Le Palet, most intricate narrow roads, or more properly speaking, pathways, darkened by the overhanging branches of trees, and in many parts deep with mire, from the sun's rays not being able to dry the ground, make it difficult to proceed, and we several times lost our way. It was late before we reached Le Palet, and though I had not tasted food for many hours, I could not resist stopping to view ...
— A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe in 1817 • W.D. Fellowes
... and the earl spoke despondingly about ten thousands and twenty thousands, and the viscount somewhat flippantly of fifty thousands and sixty thousands; and this was continued till the earl felt that his son was too deep in the mire to be pulled out, and the son thought that, deep as he was there, it would be better to remain and wallow in it than undergo so disagreeable a process as that to which his father subjected him in extricating him from it. It was settled, however, that Mr. Jervis, Lord Cashel's agent, should ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... just what you have always wished, Dick. Oh! I'm so glad! How nice of Mrs. Gibbs, and—Bessie!" she exclaimed; for her woman's intuition had instantly jumped at the truth which Dick had only reached after more or less floundering in the mire. ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... ourselves to setting out on foot. We went about two kilometres as bravely as possible, and then I stopped, quite exhausted. The mud which clung to our shoes made these very heavy. The effort we had to make at every step to get our feet out of the mire tired us out. I sat down on a milestone, and declared that I would not ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... man was obliged to go from one city to another, he often rode on horseback. Instead of a trunk for his clothing, he carried a pair of saddlebags. Instead of sitting at his ease in a parlor car, he went jolting along through mud and mire, exposed ...
— Fifty Famous People • James Baldwin
... down By Fortune's waves, but never left to drown. The Sirens' song you know, and Circe's bowl: Had that sweet draught seduced his stupid soul As it seduced his fellows, he had been The senseless chattel of a wanton queen, Sunk to the level of his brute desire, An unclean dog, a swine that loves the mire. But what are we? a mere consuming class, Just fit for counting roughly in the mass, Like to the suitors, or Alcinous' clan, Who spent vast pains upon the husk of man, Slept on till mid-day, and enticed their care To rest by listening ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... London; and precisely because she was this we must set her down as intrinsically a good woman—one of the truest, frankest, and most right-minded of whom the history of such women has anything to tell. All that external circumstances could do to push her down into the mire was done; yet she was not pushed down, but emerged as one of those rare souls who have in their natures an uncontaminated spring of goodness and honesty. Unlike Barbara Villiers or Lucy Walters or Louise de Keroualle, she was neither a harpy nor a ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... survive the death of public honor and honesty, nor private morality fail to catch the contagion of public profligacy. If the representative men of a country, those in whom its high trusts are reposed, be corrupt and shameless, they will drag down into the same mire the morals of the people they plunder and misrepresent. Indeed we want no prophet, nor one raised from the dead, to tell us the awfully fatal results. What can be done to stem the fearful torrent of evils that flood the land? We all know that when, in 1765, the famous Stamp ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... Ch. Comte—following out his hypothesis—shows us his capitalist acquiring one after another the products of his employees' labor, he sinks deeper and deeper into the mire; and, as his argument does not change, our reply of course ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... curious to learn whether the truth will ever be generally known concerning the seizure of the Anglo-rebel steamer Peterhoff. Then the people would learn how old Welles bravely defended what turpe Seward had decided to drag in the mire. The people would learn what an utterly ignorant impudence presided over the restoring to England of the Peterhoff's mail bag of a vessel a contrabandist, a blockade runner, and a forger. The people would know ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... midst of the plain; and they, being heedless, did both fall suddenly into the bog. The name of the slough was Despond. Here, therefore, they wallowed for a time, being grievously bedaubed with the dirt; and Christian, because of the burden that was on his back, began to sink in the mire. Then said Pliable, "Ah! neighbor Christian, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... wet weather such a foot-way is a necessity, because pigs, fowls, and dogs, and in some cases goats, run freely beneath and around the house, and churn the surface of the ground into a thick layer of slippery mire. ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... lazy and stupid; because I am perverse and vicious, therefore raise up Thy power, and come to me, Thy miserable creature, Thy lost child, and with Thy great might succour me. Lift me up, because I have fallen very low; deliver me, for I have plunged out of Thy sound and safe highway into deep mire where no ground is. Help myself I cannot, and if Thou help me not, ...
— Out of the Deep - Words for the Sorrowful • Charles Kingsley
... taking the tickets and stood with the ticket-box in his hand, trying to calm the crowd, but he was as a straw in the wind. The maddened people ran over him. When the excitement cleared away he was found almost buried in mud, mire, and oil outside, his clothes torn to shreds, but he still grasped the ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... Senate, and I loved him more and more. Many did not realise his brilliancy, because he had such poise of character, such even methods. The trouble has been, with so many men of great talent in Washington, that they stumble in a mire of dissipation. Mr. Hendricks never got aboard that railroad train so popular with political aspirants. The Dead River Grand Trunk Railroad is said to have for its stations Tippleton, Quarrelville, Guzzler's Junction, Debauch Siding, Dismal Swamp, Black Tunnel, Murderer's ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... and authority. For Edith, she stood stunned and bewildered still. She saw the man lifted and carried into a chemist's near by. Instinctively she followed—it was in saving her he had come to grief. She saw him placed in a chair, the mire and blood washed off his face, and then—was she stunned and stupefied still—or was it, was it the face of ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... Verse, as Croaking comforts Frogs,[46] And Mire and Ordure are the Heav'n of Hogs. As well might Nothing bind Immensity, Or passive Matter Immaterials see, As these shou'd write by reason, rhime, and rule, Or we turn Wit, whom nature doom'd a Fool. If Dryden err'd, 'twas human frailty once, But blund'ring ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... have liked to pursue the conversation, but did not know how to do it. So far from gaining any information, he felt that he was sinking deeper in the mire. "After all," he reflected, "there are worse things in life than being run away with by a pretty girl, even if one doesn't happen to know exactly where she is taking him, and even if she doesn't happen to know exactly whom she is taking." He stretched out his ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... not say such things to her, but they were the principles on which all his sentiments were founded: and as she knew him mire and more intimately, compared and discussed their tastes and likings, and the grounds on which they were formed, there were tokens, which could not help now and then showing themselves, of those opinions of which Marian ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... a hopeless trade; it only plunged Derues deeper and deeper into the mire of financial disaster. The noblemen either forgot to pay while they were alive, or on their death were found to be insolvent. Derues was driven to ordering goods and merchandise on credit, and selling them at a lower price for ready ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... Ecosse et la brune Italie, Et la Grce, ma mre, o le miel est si doux, Argos, et Ptlon, ville des hcatombes, Et Messa, la divine, agrable aux colombes; Et le front chevelu du Plion changeant; Et le bleu Titarse, et le golfe d'argent Qui montre dans ses eaux, o le cygne se mire, La blanche Oloossone la blanche Camyre. Dis-moi, quel songe d'or nos chants vont-ils bercer? D'o vont venir les pleurs que nous allons verser? Ce matin, quand le jour a frapp ta paupire, Quel sraphin pensif, ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... the woman he had married. But with Jeff it would be for one of the least of these. There flashed into her mind an old Indian proverb she had read. "I met a hundred men on the road to Delhi, and they were all my brothers." Yes! None were too deep sunk in the mire to be brothers and ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... as easy as they had thought. The peninsula was very low and the greater part of it had been overflowed recently. Their feet, no matter how lightly they stepped, sank in the mire, and when they pulled them out again the mud emitted a sticky sigh. An owl perched in a tree, high above the marsh, began to hoot dismally, and Shif'less Sol uttered ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Having beguiled her into an extravagant mode of expenditure, from motives of self-protection I have been forced to plunge deeper into the mire of deception. I have informed her that she is to refer all tradespeople to Nevin. Quite innocently she may let us in ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... being worse than they. I am Posthumus, That kill'd thy daughter:—villain-like, I lie— That caused a lesser villain than myself, A sacrilegious thief, to do't. The temple Of Virtue was she; yea, and she herself. Spit, and throw stones, cast mire upon me, set The dogs o' the street to bay me; every villain Be call'd Posthumus Leonatus; and Be villainy less than 'twas! O Imogen My queen, my life, my wife! O Imogen, ...
— Cymbeline • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... brought us, my dear. You know of course that Mrs. Harvey Herrington has come out for suffrage—thrown in her whole personal weight and, no doubt, her money. I can't understand it—with her home, and her husband—going into the mire of politics. But that is what she has done. And Grace Hatfield called up not ten minutes ago to say that she has just led a delegation of ladies up to your husband's office. Think of it—to his office! The first day!... Well, Emelene, ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... master's orders; but Gilbert, who liked not the noise, refused to proceed in the ordinary way. Then the squire, turning his tail to the drummer, he advanced in a retrograde motion, and with one kick of his heels, not only broke the drum into a thousand pieces, but laid the drummer in the mire, with such a blow upon his hip-bone, that he halted all the days of his life. The recruits, perceiving the discomfiture of their leader, armed themselves with stones; the serjeant raised his halbert in a ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... circle; and what should have been genius degenerates into cunning. Brought up from your cradles to dissembling your most beautiful emotions—your finest principles are always tinctured with artifice. As your talents, being stripped of their wings are driven to creep along the earth, and imbibe its mire and clay; so are your affections perpetually checked and tortured into conventional paths, and a spontaneous feeling is punished as a deliberate crime. You are untaught the broad and sound principles of life; all that you know of morals are its decencies and forms. Thus you are incapable ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... back to this. He harped upon his destitution, so that I could not but see purpose in it. He was already cunning in the art of getting money without asking for it. My heart ached for him; one goes down hill with such fatal speed and ease, and the mire at the bottom is so loathsome. I hastened ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... towed to the shore; but here it was wet and slippery, and it required considerable agility to get ashore without slipping in the soft mud. Every one accomplished it safely but Dimple, whose foot slipped, and over she went, full length into the mire. A sorry sight she was indeed, when she was picked up; plastered from head to foot; face, hands and hair full of the soft ooze. But after she had been scraped off, Callie concluded that it would be better to ...
— A Sweet Little Maid • Amy E. Blanchard
... the rain ceased, but the fog continued. Their path led through marshy ground thoroughly soaked with rain, so that they often sank to their knees in the mire. Their feet were shod with moccasins made of the hide of buffaloes. These being alternately wet and dried, became stiff, and blistered their feet cruelly. Fortunately, they struck upon one of the "streets" made by the buffaloes, as in thousands they followed one after ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... often had Emma bewailed to her that the most, grievous burden of her malady was her fatal tendency to brood sickly upon human complications! She could not see the blessedness of the prospect of freedom to a woman abominably yoked. What if a miserable woman were dragged through mire to reach it! Married, the mire was her portion, whatever she might do. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Thou subdued under me. 41. Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies, that I might destroy them that hate me. 42. They looked, but there was none to save; even unto the Lord, but He answered them not. 43. Then did I beat them as small as the dust of the earth, I did stamp them as the mire of the street, and did spread them abroad. 44. Thou also hast delivered me from the strivings of my people, Thou hast kept me to be head of the heathen: a people which I knew not shall serve me. 45. Strangers shall submit themselves unto me: as soon as they hear, they shall be ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the sound of Milling's respectful voice. What a lop-sided thing a civilised sense of values seemed to be! Even when you had dragged the white robes of your spirit deep in the mire, you must still be scrupulously careful not to soil the hem of the white satin that ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... here and there; Wearied out by thirst and famine—to a cabin drew they near. When they reached that lowly cabin—then did great Nishadha's king With the princess of Vidarbha—on the hard earth seat them down; Naked, with no mat to rest on—wet with mire and stained with dust. Weary then with Damayanti—on the earth he fell asleep. Sank the lovely Damayanti—by his side with sleep opprest, She thus plunged in sudden misery—she the tender, the devout. But while on the cold earth slumbered—Damayanti, all distraught Nala in his mind by ...
— Nala and Damayanti and Other Poems • Henry Hart Milman
... Byron is the most human and outspoken, daring to say what many would fear or blush to meditate upon. He fearlessly reveals the infirmities and audacities of a double and mysterious nature, made up of dust and deity, now grovelling in the mire, then borne aloft to the skies,—the football of the eternal powers of good and evil, enslaved and yet to be emancipated, as we may hope, in the last and final struggle, when the soul ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... an enemy of the Romans. Wherefore Marius, arising and stripping himself, plunged into a puddle full of thick muddy water; and even there he could not escape their search, but was pulled out covered with mire, and carried away naked to Minturnae, and delivered to the magistrates. For there had been orders sent through all the towns, to make public search for Marius, and if they found him to kill him; ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... tread them out; follow after them with muddy shoes, and cover them up. In vain. See how they rise through the mire! Who can tread out the ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... interesting to find Dennie writing in his introduction, "Literary industry, usefully employed, has a sort of draught upon the bank of opulence, and has the right of entry into the mansion of every Maecenas.... Authors far elevated above the mire of low avarice have thought it debasement to make ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... trampling his memory in the mire, the Baron von Blitzenberg, deserted and dejected, his face still buried in his hands, endured the slow passage of the doleful afternoon. Unlike the prisoner at The Lash, who, by a coincidence that happily illustrates the dispensations of Providence, was undergoing at the same moment an identical ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... from their well-earned rest to toil onwards in their march. The wind howled fiercely over the moorland; a close, thick, wetting rain descended. Chilled to the bone, worn out with long fatigue, sinking to the knees in mire, onward they marched to destruction. One by one the weary peasants fell off from their ranks to sleep, and die in the rain-soaked moor, or to seek some house by the wayside wherein to hide till daybreak. ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Falla folk had gone down in a quagmire and Jan saw at once that it was the best cow they had on the farm, one for which Lars Gunnarson had been offered two hundred rix-dollars. She had sunk deep in the mire and was now so terrified that she lay quite still and sent forth only feeble and intermittant bellowings. It was plain that she had struggled desperately for she was covered with mud clear to her horns, and round about her the green moss-tufts had been torn up. She had bellowed so loud that Jan thought ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... exercise of this new moral force, but he did argue on grounds of political expediency for the citizens' right of petition,—a right conceded even to the subjects of unlimited despotism. An Ahasuerus could throw petitions into the mire, without reading, but it was customary to ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... stopped to look up at the great sides of beef, and the younger child stole up to one of them, laid her little hand upon it caressingly, then kissed it. The butcher came out and ordered them off, and Beth pursued her way through the mire with tears in her eyes. She had suffered temptation herself that same evening. She had to pass an Italian eating-house where she used to go sometimes, before she had any one depending on her, to have a two-shilling dinner—a good meal, decently served. Now, when she was always hungry, this was one ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... violet's azure flush He skips along in lightsome mood; And now he thrids the bramble-bush, Till its points are dyed in fairy blood; He has leaped the bog, he has pierced the brier, He has swum the brook, and waded the mire, Till his spirits sank and his limbs grew weak, And the red waxed fainter in his cheek. He had fallen to the ground outright, For rugged and dim was his onward track, But there came a spotted toad in sight, And he laughed as he jumped upon her back; He ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... from the effects of the thaw. A swollen creek had converted the ground on one side of the track into a shallow lake; the front street resembled a muskeg, furrowed deep by sinking wheels. The vehicles outside the hotels were covered with sticky mire; the high, plank sidewalks were slippery with it, and foot passengers when forced to leave them sank far up their long boots; one or two of the stores were almost cut off by the pools. It rained between gleams of sunshine, and masses of dark cloud rolled by above ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... of government alone are vitally important, and by the adherence to or abdication of these principles each nation will be judged. The revered name of Republic is as capable of being dragged in the mire as that of the title of any other form of government. Mere names and words have lately had a strange and even a disastrous power of misleading and deceiving, not persons only, but nations,—even a whole continent ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... Reformation even in your Kingdome, happily rescued from their former tyrannies, as well as in this of scorched England, now in the furnace: Only they have varied the Scene, pouring out all their fury upon us at the present: That so, having once troden us under as mire in the streets, they may afterward more easily; (which God avert) set their proud and impure feet upon your necks also. Wherefore the good leave and favour of the honourable Houses of Parliament, we shall now spare the further exciting of you to that which we doubt not ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... York City, with no partitions between. Here they "cook, eat, sleep, wash, live and die," in the one room. In our large cities are armies of children, whose shoulders "droop with parental vice," whose feet are fast in the mire of miserable conditions, whose hovel homes line the sewers of social life, and who are cursed and doomed ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... they do not as they do, will be their chief executioners, and help first to bring a faggot to burn them. What mulct, what penance soever is enjoined, they dare not but do it, tumble with St. Francis in the mire amongst hogs, if they be appointed, go woolward, whip themselves, build hospitals, abbeys, &c., go to the East or West Indies, kill a king, or run upon a sword point: they perform all, without any muttering ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... we took a step towards wrong, there it is for ever, and all its horrible things with it—deceit, concealment, falsehood, subterfuge, pretence: vile and beastly things like that. I couldn't endure them; and I much less could endure thinking I had caused you to suffer them. And then on through that mire to dishonour.—It's easy, it sounds rather fine, to say the world well lost for love; but honour, honour's not well lost for anything. You can't replace ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... clenched hands, he said, in the same hard tones which seemed to have passed beyond the expression of feeling, "I'm a brute and worse. I have been wounding you as with blows by my vile story. I have been dragging your pure thoughts through the mire of my ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... reached there, for the apartments preparing for him were far from ready, and he had to wait throughout the winter in the vicinity, in a castle of the Count of Oropesa, and in the midst of an almost continual downpour of rain, which turned the roads to mire, the country almost to a swamp, and the mountains to vapor-heaps. The threshold of his new home was ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... Wood-god, Fairy, Elfe, or Fiend, Satyr or other power that haunts the Groves, Shall hurt my body, or by vain illusion Draw me to wander after idle fires; Or voyces calling me in dead of night, To make me follow, and so tole me on Through mire and standing pools, to find my ruine: Else why should this rough thing, who never knew Manners, nor smooth humanity, whose heats Are rougher than himself, and more mishapen, Thus mildly kneel to me? sure there is a power In that great name of Virgin, that binds ...
— The Faithful Shepherdess - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10). • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... days are growing shorter and the twilight falls, perhaps it is enough if we can feel that we have at the best but faithful failures; perhaps enough if we have forgotten the dust and the rocks and the mire, and have treasured only the memories of the beauty and the music and the joy which was ours by the way; surely enough if we can look forward happily and peacefully ...
— Some Summer Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... falls I go home and enter my writing-room. On the threshold I put off my country habits, filthy with mud and mire, and array myself in royal courtly garments. Thus worthily attired, I make my entrance into the ancient courts of the men of old, where they receive me with love, and where I feed upon that food which only is my own and for which I was ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... hear them howling day and night? Can you possibly say that they are kind or compassionate? Or are they willing to be good and great when one comes? Do you have confidence in a single one of them? Have they not even dragged your good name into the mire? Are any of the things that are sacred to you and to me sacred to them? Can they be moved the one-thousandth part of an inch by your distress or my distress or the distress of any human being? Is not the slime ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... own body speak with the hardihood of invincible ignorance or with the folly of those blind ones who in all ages have opposed the light of progress. Few there are to insist openly that woman remain a passive instrument of reproduction. The subject of birth control is being lifted out of the mire into which it was cast by puritanism and given its proper place among the sciences and the ideals of this generation. With this effort has come an illumination of all other social problems. Society is beginning to give ear to the promise of modern womanhood: "When you have ceased to chain me, ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... human mind can think up," Dolly answered. "Warren Wilks reads all the philosophical and scientific magazines, and he fairly floors us—there I go again; when I talk I either grab the stars or stick my nose in the mire. I mean that Warren's subjects ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... dreams The moonlight of the morning's joy!— All this my heart could dwell on here, But for those gross mementoes near; Those sullying truths that cross the track Of each sweet thought and drive them back Full into all the mire and strife And vanities of that man's life, Who more than all that e'er have glowed With fancy's flame (and it was his, In fullest warmth and radiance) showed What an impostor Genius is; How with that strong, mimetic art ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... muskeg lands which border the Athabasca; and that very night, while Shag slumbered in the deep sleep of a full age, A'tim, whose lean stomach tugged at his eyelids and kept them open, stole off into the forest, and searched by the strong light of the moon for a bog that would mire ...
— The Outcasts • W. A. Fraser
... One of those fine fellows who wallow in the mire and then expect us to make exceptions. [Stops pacing, facing ...
— Moral • Ludwig Thoma
... by rain and stream, deep mired in bogs, chased times without number by the enemy's outriders, and hardshipped freely for food and horse provender before we saw the camp on the Pedee. All this you may figure for yourselves, the main point being that we came at length to the goal, weary, mire-splashed and belted to the last buckle-hole to pinch down the hunger pains, but sound of skin, wind ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... moneylender, to whom he is too often driven when he has a child to marry or a parent to bury or a Brahman to entertain. Indebtedness is the great curse of Indian agriculture, and the peasant's chief necessity is cheap credit obtained on a system that will not cause him to sink deeper into the mire. Here again it is not Indian politicians, but the British rulers of India who have found a solution, and it is of such importance and promise that it deserves more than ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... now quite restored, needed no second bidding, but with his drawn sword in his hand, and his cloak so muffled over his left arm as to serve for a kind of shield without offering any impediment to its free action, suffered them to lead the way. Through mud and mire, and wind and rain, they walked in silence a full mile. At length they turned into a dark lane, where, suddenly starting out from beneath some trees where he had taken shelter, a man appeared, having in his charge three saddled horses. One of these (his own apparently), in obedience ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... tamely in the very arms of opportunity. He kept to the same ignoble counsel that had so wrought disrepute for Mr. Croker. And, afar from thoughts of assailing those who had dragged Tammany Hall through mire to achieve their villain ends, he went openly into their districts, commended them to the voters, hailed them as his friends and urged their retention in the executive board. Is it marvel, then, that Mr. Nixon as a 'leader' ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... shake hands, and the bargain's made, the property and the price of purchase remain in the same hands.'—Madame Balnokhazy too was jesting when she said to her daughter: 'My dear Melanie, we have fallen up to our necks in the mire, we cannot be very particular about the hand that is to drag us out. Lorand will never come back again, Gyali has deceived us; but only tit for tat,—for we deceived him with that tale of the regained property in which ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... took a young girl—lifted her up from the mire of the streets and carried her in my arms. Next my heart I carried her. So I would have borne her all through life—lest haply she should dash her foot against a stone. For her shoes were worn very thin when I ...
— When We Dead Awaken • Henrik Ibsen
... (four) of rock-crystal. (* These legends of diamonds are very ancient on the coast of Paria. Petrus Martyr relates that, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, a Spaniard named Andres Morales bought of a young Indian of the coast of Paria admantem mire pretiosum, duos infantis digiti articulos longum, magni autem pollicis articulum aequantem crassitudine, acutum utrobique et costis octo pulchre formatis constantem. [A diamond of marvellous value, as long as two joints of an infant's finger, and as ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... boy," said MacLean, "This quarrel's mine by virtue of my making it so. Mistress Truelove, you shall have no further annoyance. Now, you Lowland cowards that cannot see a flower bloom but you wish to trample it in the mire, come taste the ground yourself, and be taught that the ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... and say they will not serve. I cannot write to our generals at this time, for the Pursuevant found me at a country village, a mile from Gravesend, hunting after runaway mariners, and dragging in the mire from alehouse to alehouse, and could get no paper.' On the 6th he was at Queenborough, on the 13th at Dover, whence he reports disaster by a storm on Goodwin Sands, and finally on the 21st he arrived at Plymouth. His last letters are ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... no a sheep, nor in some ways as guid's a sheep, A grant ye that, but such as he is was it no ma duty to pull him oot o' the mire o' ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... fire, you have to burn against, or you are gone—a name which ought to be the first in war, and the last in peace—a name which, like 'Jack-o'-the lantern, blinds your eyes while you follow it through mud and mire. ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... illimitable interests, for the sordid ease of the hearth and the good word of the unworthy. He fills men with thoughts that shake down the unlovely temple of comfort. This was good, to force whoever was not already too far sunk into the mire, high up to the larger atmosphere, whence they could see how minute an atom is man, how infinite and blind and pitiless the might that encompasses his little life. Many feeble spirits ran back homewards from the horrid solitudes and abysses of Manfred, and the moral terrors of ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 3: Byron • John Morley
... and did terrify me with dreadful visions.'[19] 'I often wished that there had been no hell, or that I had been a devil to torment others.' A common childish but demoniac idea. His mind was as 'the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.' 'A while after, these terrible dreams did leave me; and with more greediness, according to the strength of nature, I did let loose the reins of my lusts, and delighted in all transgression against the law of God.' 'I was the very ringleader of all the youth that kept me ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... face beams forth from the dust-covered and dingy canvas with beauty, sportiveness, and pensive grace. Poor charming woman! Had she not met that wandering boy on the highway; had she not opened to him her house and heart, his sensitive and suffering genius might have been extinguished in the mire. The meeting seemed like the effect of chance, but it was predestination meeting the great man under the form of his first love. That woman saved him; she cultivated him; she excited him in solitude, in liberty, and in love, as the houris ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... at once, however, by confounding the mill road with the mill lane, and a shaggy dog that lay in a wagon shed pursued me about a mile. The road was full of mire; no dwellings adjoined it, and nothing human was to be seen in any direction. I came to a crumbling negro cabin after two plodding hours, and, seeing a figure flit by the window, called aloud for information. Nobody replied, and when, dismounting, ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... of pictures, yon carcass that rots on the wire; His hand with its sensitive cunning is crisped to a cinder with fire; His eyes with their magical vision are bubbles of glutinous mire. ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... gentleman never should. It is true, he may contrive to leave his clog at home, but then he pays dear for a useless and galling appendage but, in my situation as a travelling tinker, I could not have done so; I must have dragged my clog after me through the mud and mire, and have had a very different reception than ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... with a crash, and a young man had bounded upon one of the chairs. He had the face of one inspired—pale, eager, with wild hawk eyes, and tangled hair. His sword hung straight from his side, and his riding-boots were brown with mire. ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that it is probable that the very mire of the London streets contains that mysterious substance known as radium, the most tremendous agent of light and heat ever yet discovered by man; so in man himself, however low his state, there is the spark of God, ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various
... the younger man made rejoinder. His power of resistance was growing, swiftly swallowing all sense of expediency. "If I choose to wallow in the mire, what the devil is it to you? You didn't send that accursed fool Kelly round for your own pleasure, I'll take my oath. What is it you want me for? ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... Brides and Maids of Honor, Wild Flowers a Specialty; and above was a little dusty show-case, wherein pearls, yellow with age, glass grapes and cherries surrounded the pretentious name of Angelina Le Mire. ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... fancy I acted cruelly towards you on that wretched day in St. Gundolph Lane; but I really could scarcely act otherwise. I was so harassed and tormented by my own position, that I could not be expected to get myself deeper into the mire by interceding for you. However, now that I am my own master, I can make it up to you. Rely upon it, my good fellow, I'll atone for ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... reader, of a little town, {17} Which thereabouts they call Bob-up-and-down, Under the Blee, in Canterbury way? Well, there our host began to jest and play, And said, "Hush, hush now: Dun is in the mire. What, sirs? will nobody, for prayer or hire, Wake our good gossip, sleeping here behind? Here were a bundle for a thief to find. See, how he noddeth! by St. Peter, see! He'll tumble off his saddle presently. Is that ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... the strength of body and strength of mind to control your Sympathy and your Knowledge. Unless you control your emotions they run over and you stand in the mire. Sympathy must not run riot, or it is valueless and tokens weakness instead of strength. In every hospital for nervous disorders are to be found many instances of this loss of control. The individual has Sympathy but ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... distinction left but your wants, infirmities, and scars? Can you then consent to be the only sufferers by this revolution, and, retiring from the field, grow old in poverty, wretchedness, and contempt? Can you consent to wade through the vile mire of dependency, and owe the miserable remnant of that life to charity which has hitherto been spent in honour? If you can—go—and carry with you the jest of tories, and the scorn of whigs;—the ridicule, and, what is worse, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... troops had to march directly across the fields, and here it proved absolutely impossible to move the wagon-trains and artillery any distance. This was the main reason why the movement had to be abandoned. I saw many wagons down over their hubs, stalled in the mire. And the guns and caissons of a battery of artillery were stalled near our camp, and had to be abandoned for the time. The horses were saved from miring with great difficulty. A few days later the guns and caissons ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... extinguish the flames, while the Rebu poured down to repel them. A desperate fight ensued, but the bravery of the Rebu prevailed, and the Egyptians were driven back. Their attack, however, had answered its purpose, for in the struggle the fagots had been trodden deeper into the mire, and the fire was extinguished. The Rebu now went back to their first position and waited the attack which they were powerless to avert. It was upward of an hour before it began, then the long line of Egyptian footmen opened, and their chariots were seen fifty abreast, ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... end of December, began a guerilla warfare about certain prerogatives of the parliament. The movement sank into the mire of petty chicaneries on the prerogative of the two powers, since, with the abolition of universal suffrage, the bourgeoisie had done away with ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... on my shoulder—tried to crawl a little higher— Found the Main Drain sewage outfall blocked, some eight feet up, with mire; And, for twenty reeking minutes, Sir, my very marrow froze, While the trunk was feeling blindly for a purchase on ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... heath. His room, upstairs, had been lately done up (I could hear the crackle of the new chintz) and the difference only made his smirches and bruises, his splendid tainted genius, the more tragic. If he wasn't barefoot in the mire he was sure to be unconventionally shod. These were the things Adelaide and I, who were old enough friends to stare at each other in silence, talked about when we didn't speak. When we spoke it was only about the brilliant girl George Gravener was to marry and whom he had ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... respect for the public service which these recommendations display, are all the more remarkable when we reflect that there was as yet no sign of a public conscience upon the subject. The patronage of the Government was scrambled for, as a matter of course, in the mire into which Jackson ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... unravelling of this tissue of imposition; we will wander no longer in this labyrinth of fraud, of low and vile intrigue, of dark crime of which the clue disappears in the night, and of which the trace is lost in a doubtful mixture of blood and mire; we will listen no longer to the cry of the widow and her four children reduced to beggary, to the groans of obscure victims, to the cries of terror and the death-groan which echoed one night through the vaults of a country house near ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... gracious message, accompanied with a ring, as a testimony of his affection. Wolsey, who was on horseback when the messenger met him, immediately alighted; and, throwing himself on his knees in the mire, received in that humble attitude these marks of his majesty's gracious disposition ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... She might be twenty miles from Stornham, but the possible fact did not, at the moment, seem to concern her. (Where is he now—where is he now?) Childe Harold was trying to rise, despite his hurt, and his evident determination touched her. He was too proud to lie in the mire. She limped to him, and tried to steady him by his bridle. He was not badly ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... into the Lake, and down he fell, and his feet stuck fast in the mud and mire. Then his three companions, seeing him proved guilty of the crime, flew away and left him to his fate. Then the Donkey began to "bray" for mercy, and called at the top ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... understand what he himself had been. But one never can wholly escape from one's self, and what had been surely still was there. And now this innocent child had been given him to guard and protect. He had managed to get himself into the mire till over his head, and doubtless he would easily succeed in drawing her down into it too. No, no, it shall not be thus—no, she is to go on living her clear, bright girl's life in spite of him. And the carriage rattled and rattled. Darkness had set in, and here ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen
... wandering to and fro, hither and thither, up and down, swayed by every breath of popular caprice; so it move to the mere cry of "Progress!" its followers are content. To-day, in the hands of the skeptical philosopher, it assaults the heavens. Tomorrow it may: float over the mire of Mormonism, or depths still more vile. It was under the flag of progress that, in the legislative halls of France, the name of the Holy Lord God of Hosts, "who inhabiteth eternity," was legally blasphemed. It was under the flag of progress that, on the 10th ...
— Female Suffrage • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... this feast which he spreads in our sight, our author only lets us taste a morsel—a couple of lines taken apparently from a lost ballad on the fate of the Chevalier de la Beaute, rubbed down by the rough Scottish tongue to 'Bawty,' at Billie Mire ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... of the serpent,—that whispers from the mire of the sea. Or that sigh of the evil, from the dust ascending before thee. Each soul is still weeping—each heart in sorrow alone. Or that mind of the living that ...
— The Secret of the Creation • Howard D. Pollyen
... has them, brow, bay, tray, and points; and see something worth seeing between Haddon Wood and Countisbury Cliff, with good Mr. Palk Collyns to show you the way, and mend your bones as fast as you smash them. Only when that jolly day comes, please don't break your neck; stogged in a mire you never will be, I trust; for you are a heath-cropper ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... bronco is unfathomable. This one now pitched weakly once or twice, then gave up in unconditional surrender. Bob's surprise was complete. He had expected, after being shaken violently, to be flung into the mire again. The reaction was instantaneous and exhilarating. He forgot that he was covered with mud and bruises, that every inch of him cried aloud with aches. He had won, had mastered a wild outlaw horse ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... with weeping cheer, Whose cold hand guides the youngling year Down misty roads of mire and rime, Before thy pale and fitful face The shrill wind shifts the clouds apace Through skies the morning scarce may climb. Thine eyes are thick with heavy tears, But lit with hopes ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... nothing but a dimly discernible smother of foam and spray, for the crests of the breakers were snatched up and carried by the wind. The town was sodden; the streets were running mud. Stove-pipes were down, tents lay flattened in the mire, and the board houses were shaking as if they might fly to pieces at any moment. The darkness was uncanny, and the tempest seemed to be ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... sister's hair, and thrice he smote her side; "Ha' done, ha' done with your impudent fun—ha' done with your games!" she cried; "You have made mud-pies of a marvellous size—finger and face are black, You have trodden the Way of the Mire and Clay—now up and wash you, Jack! Or else, or ever we reach our home, there waiteth an angry dame— Well you know the weight of her blow—the supperless open shame! Wash, if you will, on yonder hill—wash, if you will, at the spring,— Or keep your dirt, to your ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... can let thee go, Lady, without one thought, one base desire To tarnish that clear vision I gained by fire, One stain in me I would not have thee know. That is great might indeed that moves me so To look upon thy Form, and yet aspire To look not there, rather than I should mire That winged Spirit that ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... to walk with the utmost care, lest he become engulfed, and finally all of them cut lengths of cane with which they felt about in the mire ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... bosky grove and the clouded sky without. The glass was now blankly white, opaque, sheeted with ice, and only the wind gave token how the storm raged. It was indeed a wild night for a drive of fifty miles through a mountain wilderness, over roads sodden with the late rains, the deep mire corrugated into ruts by the wheels of travel and ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... how severe the world may be upon a woman after she is down in the mire, there is no denying that it is reluctant to tumble her from her eminence and throw her there. A woman will find more champions than detractors in the face of the most serious charge; especially a young and pretty one, or one whose life has been such ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... city are paved with stone or brick, as indeed are all the highways throughout Manzi, so that you ride and travel in every direction without inconvenience. Were it not for this pavement you could not do so, for the country is very low and flat, and after rain 'tis deep in mire and water. [But as the Great Kaan's couriers could not gallop their horses over the pavement, the side of the road is left unpaved for their convenience. The pavement of the main street of the city also is laid out in two parallel ways of ten paces in width on either side, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... contrary to all reason, but it was true. Might not the girl be true too? Was it not possible, he asked himself, and answered that it was more than possible, it was the truth. He chose to believe in her, and turned his anger against McVay, who could drag her through such a mire. He felt the tragedy of a high-minded woman tricked out in stolen finery, and remembered with a pang that he himself was hurrying ...
— The Burglar and the Blizzard • Alice Duer Miller |
