"Miserable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Same Place. Still neither horses nor men. At 1.30 they arrived; my men had gone over to the range, and had searched every creek, but without success. When found, the runaway animals were standing on a rise looking very miserable and at a loss what to do; they had skirted the hill as far down as Mount Delusion. The men took them to the last water, remained there through the night, and left for this place this morning. I will give them an hour's rest, and go to the springs to-night. Arrived at the springs at sundown; they ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... seat in the gallery, is flattered and coaxed and caressed until one wonders whether the source of virtue is the drinking of sour ale. Mr. Ingram, you do it yourself. You impress mamma and me with the belief that we are miserable sinners if we are not continually doing some act of charity. Well, that is all very pleasant and necessary, in moderation; but you don't find the poor folks so very anxious to live for other people. They don't care much what becomes of us. They take ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... did my comrade invite me to a meal, which, even with this preface, was far more miserable and scanty ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... royal family circle, into which she had forced her way, she was an unwelcome stranger; and such homage as she received was conceded to her rank and not to herself. "Of all princesses," she once wrote to a friend, "I really think I am the most miserable." ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... of it," she said unsteadily. "Lizzie is miserable, to-day. Will you tell your mother, Billy, and ask her to come over to see her this evening? I mustn't ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... back on my pillows, and I groaned. Here was a predicament! Mistaking me for that miserable rebel I had succoured at Mirepoix, and whose letters I bore upon me that I might restore them to some one whose name he had failed to give me at the last moment, the Vicomte de Lavedan had poured the damning story of his treason into ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... had, Tom!" he burst out with. "Why, would you believe it, some miserable tramps raided the camp, and got away ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... Kirk rarely whined. He had never felt so miserable in his life, but he tried to infuse a tone of lightness into the conversation. After all, if Ruth's intuition fell short of enabling her to understand his feelings, nothing was to be gained ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... a long time after that terrible hour. Although Maud had not succeeded in strangling her, yet the black silk handkerchief left marks on her neck. Then the struggle, the shock and the remembrance of the horrors related by the miserable woman, threw her into a nervous fever, and it was many weeks before she recovered sufficiently to enjoy life. Deborah never forgave herself for having left Sylvia alone, and nursed her with a fierce tenderness which ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... and I got caught in a miserable little snow flurry," explained Roberta, pulling the pink shawl closer, "and—I got my feet wet. My throat's horribly sore. It won't be well for a week, and I can't try ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... miserable matter of Vicenza that detained the Council in such lengthy session," he said, "and it was not fit to have been mentioned in thy presence, my sweet wife; I might well be angry. But since thou wert not there, ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... and populousness of China and Indostan, he found, in St. Domingo, and in all the other parts of the new world which he ever visited, nothing but a country quite covered with wood, uncultivated, and inhabited only by some tribes of naked and miserable savages. He was not very willing, however, to believe that they were not the same with some of the countries described by Marco Polo, the first European who had visited, or at least had left behind him any description ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... troubled by the children's disappointment, was assuring them with eager mendacity that Kris would be certain to make his usual visit, while down-stairs the mother walked slowly to and fro. She had that miserable gift, an unfailing memory of anniversaries, and now, despite herself, the long years rolled back upon her, so that under the sad power of their recurrent memories she seemed ...
— Mr. Kris Kringle - A Christmas Tale • S. Weir Mitchell
... them. It is this passion that drives men to all the ways we see in use of signalizing themselves, and that tends to make whatever excites in a man the idea of this distinction so very pleasant. It has been so strong as to make very miserable men take comfort, that they were supreme in misery; and certain it is, that, where we cannot distinguish ourselves by something excellent, we begin to take a complacency in some singular infirmities, follies, or defects of one kind or other. It is on this principle that flattery is so prevalent; ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... iron constitution and keen perceptions, and his capital of more than four hundred thousands of florins and income of ten thousand, convinced that a man is always endowed by Heaven with too much for his own happiness, and just enough to make him miserable. ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... Honain!' said the Princess, with a melancholy air. 'You are the only person who has an idea in all Bagdad, and you leave me. A miserable lot is mine, to feel everything, and be nothing. These books and flowers, these sweet birds, and this fair gazelle: ah! poets may feign as they please, but how cheerfully would I resign all these elegant consolations of a captive ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... and hit her brother hard with all her baby force, then, without waiting to see if she had hurt him or not, she rushed from the room without speaking, made straight for her own little bedroom, and, throwing herself down on the floor with her head on a chair, burst into a storm of miserable, angry crying. ...
— Rosy • Mrs. Molesworth
... through the streets of his city, if it did not bring back the smile, brought back the old pride of ownership and domination. He still had a kingdom; he was still king. Resentment rose against the cause of the miserable twelve hours which had thrown the machinery of his being out of order. He passed the word to himself that he should sleep to-night and that from this moment, henceforth things would be the same as they had been before Jack came home. Yes, there was just one reality for him. It was enthroned in his ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... right through into the other world," the doctor answered bluntly; "and as there don't seem to be anybody else to take the bull by the horns, I'd advise you, having made the woman's life about as hard and miserable as you could, to try and help her to ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... universally belov'd, and admir'd She died as generally rever'd, and regretted, A loss felt by all who had the happiness of knowing Her, By none to be compar'd to that of her disconsolate, affectionate, Loving, & in this World everlastingly Miserable Husband, Sir JOHN SHELLEY, Who has caused this ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... importance of this handling was felt by every one, and therefore it was understood that the real game would be played out on this middle day. It had been all very well for Chaffanbrass to bully Dockwrath and make the wretched attorney miserable for an hour or so, but that would have but little bearing on the verdict. There were two persons there who were prepared to swear that on a certain day they had only signed one deed. So much the solicitor-general ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... and kept me away. I never permitted my wife to want for the comforts of life during my absence; but she sued for divorce some years ago and it was granted, with alimony which I doubled. You know the miserable story now. Pardon me for dragging it to such a length. I don't see why I should have told it ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... took all Nan's wit and wisdom to keep him from betraying the secret; for it was best to say nothing and spare all discussion of the subject for Rob's sake. Ted's remorse preyed upon him, and having no 'Mum' to confide in, he was very miserable. By day he devoted himself to Rob, waiting on him, talking to him, gazing anxiously at him, and worrying the good fellow very much; though he wouldn't own it, since Ted found comfort in it. But at night, when all ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... then you will pass years in a dungeon, riveted to a wall, groping for your jug that you may drink, gnawing at a horrible loaf of darkness which dogs would not touch, eating beans that the worms have eaten before you. You will be a wood-louse in a cellar. Ah! Have pity on yourself, you miserable young child, who were sucking at nurse less than twenty years ago, and who have, no doubt, a mother still alive! I conjure you, listen to me, I entreat you. You desire fine black cloth, varnished shoes, to have your hair curled and sweet-smelling oils on your locks, to please low women, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... all my friends think I am very forgetful and that you think I am ungrateful as well, but I am going to plead not guilty. Right after Christmas Mr. Stewart came down with la grippe and was so miserable that it kept me busy trying to relieve him. Out here where we can get no physician we have to dope ourselves, so that I had to be housekeeper, nurse, doctor, and general overseer. ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... said she, 'you too accurately describe a miserable passage in my life, which has often been represented in a false light. The best of husbands'—here she sobbed, and became slightly inarticulate with her grief—'will sometimes be displeased. I was young and curious, he was justly angry with my ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the same state, I shall come to you in the ensuing spring, when you must engage a house for me somewhere in the country, amid beautiful scenery, and I shall then become a rustic for a year, which may perhaps effect a change. Resignation!—what a miserable refuge! and yet it is my sole remaining one. You will forgive my thus appealing to your kindly sympathies at a time when your own ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... prosperity of the world and most earnestly to their power strive to promote them, have all the disturbances and disasters happening charged on them by those fiery vixens, who (in pursuance of their base designs, or gratification of their wild passions) really do themselves embroil things, and raise miserable combustions in the world. So it is that they who have the conscience to do mischief will have the confidence also to disavow the blame and the iniquity, to lay the burden of it on those who are most innocent. Thus, whereas nothing more disposeth men to live orderly and peaceably, nothing ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... Chikuyo going N. for the Lake, and Mironga being but one-and-a-half hour off, we went on to Chipanga: this is the proper name of what on the Zambesi is corrupted into Shupanga. The headman, a miserable hemp-consuming[31] leper, fled from us. We were offered a miserable hut, which we refused, Chikala meanwhile went through the whole village seeking a better, which we ultimately found: it was not in this chief to ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... determined enemy to every species of violence. I see no connection, but what the obstinacy of pride and ignorance renders necessary, between justice and the sword, between reason and bonds. I deplore the miserable condition of the French, and think that we can only be guarded from the same scourge by the undaunted efforts of good men.... I severely condemn all inflammatory addresses to the passions of men. I know that the multitude ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... done all he could, since his return from lawyer Dawson's, to make his house bright and warm for the reception of his beloved. He had a strong apprehension of the probable fate of poor Daniel Robson; he had a warm sympathy with the miserable distress of the wife and daughter; but still at the back of his mind his spirits danced as if this was to them a festal occasion. He had even taken unconscious pleasure in Phoebe's suspicious looks and tones, as he had hurried ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... could make nothing of, and on which she seemed to set her all, and then sink back ununderstood. It was very sad, but better than many things that are not called sad. James hovered about, put out and miserable, but active and exact as ever; read to her when there was a lull, short bits from the Psalms, prose and metre, chanting the latter in his own rude and serious way, showing great knowledge of the fit words, bearing up like a man, ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... STREPSIADES. Miserable fellow! Why, 'tis I who had you taught how to refute what is right, and now you would persuade me it is right a son should beat ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... not tell her the hope Bettina had given, which was singing joyfully in his heart all the time. And so Mrs. Douglas was tortured all through the night with miserable forebodings. ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... near the window, had just opened the Court Almanac which he received every year. This book had great influence over him; he read it with extreme attention, and reading prodigiously stirred up his bile. My mother, knowing by heart all his ways and oddities, used to try to hide the miserable book, and often whole months would pass without a sight of it. But, in revenge whenever he did happen to find it, he would sit for hours with the book before ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... sir, will in the end be sure to set right whatever opinion contradicts her great laws, let who will be the teacher. But, indeed, the more I reflect on those miserable times in which we both lived, the more I esteem it a favour of Providence to us that we were cut off so soon. The most grievous misfortune that can befall a virtuous man is to be in such a state that he can hardly so act as to approve ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... a result of all this, the kind-hearted private employers and capitalists would find that no one would come and work for them to be driven and bullied and sweated for a miserable trifle of metal money that is scarcely enough to purchase sufficient of the necessaries of life to keep body ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... arrest, Cadet Prescott put in more than two miserable hours endeavoring to get that letter written. But he couldn't get it penned. Then a knock came the door, and a telegram was handed in. ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... but these people do not understand you. You are true to your ideal, but the women you have hitherto known were only so many imperfect realisations of it, and so you went from one to the other, always searching, but never satisfied. And you have it in you to be so much happier or so much more miserable than other men—I should have trembled for you if your hopes had ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... men with a hip-pocket to whom the open spaces of the world call loudly; whereupon Mr. Levinski took Winifred on one side and told the audience how, when he had been a young man, some good woman had refused him for a similar reason and had been miserable ever since. Accordingly in the Second Act Winifred withdrew her refusal and offered to marry Dick, who declined to take advantage of her offer for fear that she was willing to marry him from pity ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... place instantly! These scribblers, rag-smudges, incroyable! Why, it is perfectly preposterous! Did you ever hear such dissonance? His tie is in G major, and I am painting this symphony in E minor. I will have to start it again. Take that roaring tie of yours off, you miserable wretch! Remove ...
— Whistler Stories • Don C. Seitz
... end is the state, with a long table, covered with a sumptuous cloth, embroidered and embossed with gold,—at least what was gold; so are all the tables. Round the top of the chamber runs a monstrous frieze, ten or twelve feet deep, representing stag-hunting in miserable plastered relief. The next is her dressing-room, hung with patch-work on black velvet; then her state bedchamber. The bed has been rich beyond description, and now hangs in costly golden tatters. The hangings, part of which they say her Majesty worked, are composed of figures as large ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... repugnance. All this, it must be remembered, took place in the earliest part of the reign of the Emperor Alexander I[A]. He was obliged, greatly against his will, to return to his father's country house. Dirty, poor, and miserable did the paternal nest seem to him. The solitude and the dullness of a retired country life offended him at every step. He was devoured by ennui; besides, every one in the house, except his mother, regarded him ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... had refused to partake of the clams while the man in gray was present, was feeling very hungry, and that made him still more miserable. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... talents, engrossed the Duchesse's platonic affections at this juncture. When he had sold his beasts at market, he would ride over and read Rousseau and Schiller with Madame la Duchesse, who formed him. His pretty young wife was rendered miserable by all these readings, but what could the poor little ignorant countrywoman know of Platonism? Faugh! there is more than one woman we see in society smiling about from house to house, pleasant and sentimental and formosa superne enough; but I fancy a fish's tail is flapping under ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Saturday night to Monday morning—at home, in his mother's company. It was a wise decision, and it served a double purpose; for not only did it remove a sure victim from the band of savages that held possession of the school through every weekly holiday, but it gave one miserable boy just enough respite from his wretchedness to stifle the revelations which time and suffering would otherwise have surely brought. Even so, at first, Becker trembled lest the terrible Chief should be made aware of his son's treatment at that noted school. But weeks passed and no ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... occurs in many and many a well-meant sermon, is a real danger to modern Christianity. When detected, it may seriously injure many believers, and fill them with miserable doubts. So my advice to you, as a young theological student, is "Sift your reasons well, and, before you offer them to others, make sure that ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... enemies shall die with us. Come then, ye generous Portugueze, and unite with us. You have among yourselves the objects of your vengeance—obey not the authors of your misfortunes—attack them—they are but a handful of miserable panic-struck men, humiliated and conquered already by the perfidy and cruelties which they have committed, and which have covered them with disgrace in the eyes of Europe and the world! Rise then in a body, but avoid ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... wrote Mrs. Stanton, "No, my dear, instead of my resigning and leaving those half-fledged chickens without any mother, I think it my duty and the duty of yourself and all the liberals to be at the next convention and try to reverse this miserable ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... saying. "Can it be,"—he thought,—"that I shall not be able to conquer myself,—that I shall give in to this—nonsense?" (The severely-wounded in war always call their wounds "nonsense." If a man could not deceive himself,—he could not live on the earth.) "Am I really a miserable little boy? Well, yes: I have beheld close by, I have almost held in my hand, the possibility of happiness for my whole life—it has suddenly vanished; and in a lottery, if you turn the wheel just a little further, a poor ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... behavior allows of none milder. And what have I done in my turn? snatched from a lingering death an unfortunate young man, whose only crime consisted in having pleased this unreasonable madame d'Egmont. I procured the king's protection for the miserable object of the princess's affection; I obtained his safe removal to another country; and, having done all this, I communicated my knowledge of the transaction to the comtesse d'Egmont. Does this bear any comparison ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... say, "Trot on, dear Brownie! we'll soon be there!" by way of cheering herself; for certainly the Brownie needed no cheering, and was trotting on bravely. Then the thought of Mr. Van Brunt, as she had seen him lying on the barn floor, made her feel sick and miserable; many tears fell during her ride when she remembered him. "Heaven will be a good place," thought little Ellen as she went; "there will be no sickness, no pain, no sorrow; but Mr. Van Brunt!—I wonder if he is fit to go to heaven?" This was a new matter of thought and uneasiness, ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... which, for obvious reasons, was not included in the written Memorial. They were directed to state, in a manner more circumstantial than we had dared to write, the peculiar horrors of our situation; to discover the miserable food and putrid water on which we were doomed to subsist; and finally to assure the General that in case he could effect our release, we would agree to enter the American service as soldiers, and remain during the war. Thus instructed our ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... safe," cried the captain, hurrying up to him. "I can talk to the miserable wretches now. Hi! there, forward. Come away from those guns. Capstan-bars, all of you. Keep in shelter, and down with every one who tries to get on board; ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... miserable wights in being, they destroy the rights of nature, and disappoint the blessings of Providence. Give me a man that keeps his five senses keen and bright as his sword, that has 'em always drawn out ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar
... habitants from Kamouraska" they stuck to the deck and encamped under the great sail, but the rain fell so heavily that they could not even keep their cigars alight. At length "with beards like Jews," cold, wet, half-starved and miserable, they reached their destination. As they landed at Murray Bay they saw a salmon floundering in a net, bought it, and carried it with them to the house of a man named Chaperon where they had engaged lodgings. Here, says Dr. Henry, the sensation of being clean and comfortable ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... unimaginably depraved characters. Sharp unexpected touches evoke humanity in the fantoccini of his wayward art. No dramatist has shown more consummate ability in heightening terrific effects, in laying bare the innermost mysteries of crime, remorse, and pain, combined to make men miserable. It has been said of Webster that, feeling himself deficient in the first poetic qualities, he concentrated his powers upon one point, and achieved success by sheer force of self-cultivation. There is perhaps some truth in this. At any rate, his genius was of a narrow and peculiar ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... enclosed his answer to my letter under this address, 'To Thomas Jefferson Esq., American Governor of Virginia.' I paused on receiving the letter, and for some time would not open it; however, when the miserable condition of our brethren in Charleston occurred to me, I could not determine that they should be left without the necessaries of life, while a punctilio should be discussing between the British General and myself; and ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... Austria, Guy-Patin made a congress of all the giants and dwarfs in the Germanic Empire. A peculiarity of this congress was that the giants complained to the authorities that the dwarfs teased them in such a manner as to make their lives miserable. ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... no exaggeration of the astral effects of the emotions we indulge in the physical body. If, then, the sorrow of a weeping relative distresses us here it is clear that it must bring really keen distress to the one who is the subject of such grief. His life may thus be made miserable by the very persons who would be the last to cause him sorrow if they understood ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... went on with her books, but the more she read the more miserable she became, because there was nobody with whom she could interchange what she thought about them. She was alarmed at last to find that something very much like hatred to her husband was beginning to develop itself. She was alarmed because ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... myself to deserts and woods, inhabited only by beasts; but they cannot use me more cruelly than I have been used by my fellow-creatures; therefore, I will rather trust myself with them, than continue to be a miserable slave.' ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... jealous self-watchfulness in our sweet Shakespeare, and dream of any congeniality between him and one that, by every tradition of him, appears to have been as mere a player as ever existed; to have had his mind tainted with the lowest players' vices,—envy and jealousy, and miserable cravings after applause; one who in the exercise of his profession was jealous even of the women-performers that stood in his way; a manager full of managerial tricks and stratagems and finesse: that any resemblance should be dreamed of between him and Shakespeare,—Shakespeare who, in the ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... these sixty thousand people, fellow-creatures of ours, who are known as the lazaroni of Naples, whom we half pity and altogether despise, and look upon as lowest members of the Caucasian race, are not altogether very miserable. On the contrary, taken as a whole, they form the oiliest, fattest, drollest, noisiest, sleekest, dirtiest, ignorantest, prejudicedest, narrow-mindedest, shirtlessest, clotheslessest, idlest, carelessest, jolliest, absurdest, rascaliest—but still, all that, perhaps—taken all in all—the happiest ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... guest, like you, sir, comes to me like a blessing." And the Cat, greatly impressed, remained. After a good supper he lay down by the fire, and, having run all day, was at once asleep, and made but one nap of it till morning. But how astonished, and oh, how miserable he was, when he awoke, to find himself on the open heath in the snow and almost starved! The wind blew as if it had a keen will to kill him; it seemed to go all through his body. Then he saw that he had ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... to talk with me about her one day. "I am a very miserable man, Grant," he said. "I am afraid I have lost my wife's regard. Oh, don't tell me it is partly my fault. I know it well enough. And I know you haven't had a very good opinion of me lately. But I am ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... how I dident hear the raskle's insultin remarks, but I was secretly itchin to be a silent spectator to his funeral, and see his miserable carciss sunk down under about 6 foot of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 36, December 3, 1870 • Various
... was passing the miserable hovels which lay out by the northern dunes, a poor young woman came to her door and called to him; she held the remains of a pair of elastic-sided boots in her hand. "Oh, shoemaker's boy, do be so kind as to mend these a bit for me!" she pleaded. "Just sew them up anyhow, so that they'll ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... the body.) Poor miserable dust! This body now is honest as the best, The very best of earth, lie where it may. This mantle must conceal the thing from sight, For soon Rosalia, as I bade her, shall Be here. Oh, Heaven! vouchsafe to me the power To do this last stern act of justice. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... overcast. A good supply of fish caught in the morning. A small black native dog made its appearance about the camp, and was immediately run down and worried by our dogs. From the miserable mangey appearance of this animal I conjectured that it had belonged to the natives who were probably skulking about us, and who are very much attached to their dogs. I was therefore very sorry that this poor animal ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... of the followers of routine, and of teachers wanting in talent! We see and hear a great many virtuosos, old and young, with and without talent, renowned and obscure. They either play in an entirely mechanical manner and with faulty and miserable touch, or else, which is less bearable, they strut with unendurable affectation and produce musical monstrosities. In order to conceal their indistinct mode of execution, they throw themselves upon the two pedals, and are guilty ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... up a stick and struck him, and beat his horse and drove him away; but as he was leaving he caught a glimpse of Finola at the door of the hut, and saw that she was crying. This sight made him so very miserable that he could think of nothing else but her sad face that he had always seen so bright, and he allowed the old horse to go on without minding where he was going. Suddenly he heard a voice saying: "It is time for you ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... the people preferred digging for honey in the rocks. Of the inhabitants we find it recorded that, like all Nomads, they are idle to the last degree, contenting themselves with tanned skins for dress and miserable huts for lodging. Changing ground for the flocks and herds is a work of little trouble; one camel and a donkey carry all the goods and chattels, including water, wife, and baby. Milk in all stages (but never polluted by fire), wild ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... would add, "you might make a note that the world would not come to a miserable end if everyone was born dumb"—but he was very glad ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 30, 1917 • Various
... was trying to buy off the real heir to the estate with a pitiful pittance, in order to preserve the ill-gotten remainder for Lady Emily's son, why, Granville for his part would be no active party to such a miserable compromise. If some other man was the Colonel's lawful heir, let that other man take the property and enjoy it; but he, Granville Kelmscott, would go forth upon the world, an honest adventurer, to seek his fortune with his own right hand ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... Uncle Jolly, as he poked his cotton night-cap out of bed—"frost an inch thick on the windows, water all frozen in the pitcher, and I an old bachelor. Heigho! nobody to give any presents to—no little feet to come patting up to my bed to wish me 'A happy New Year.' Miserable piece of business! Wonder what ever became of that sister of mine who ran off with that poor artist? Wish she'd turn up somewhere with two or three children for me to love and pet. Heigh-ho! It's a miserable piece of business to ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... a time in the abyss of self-reproach. The very day they reached Gauley Bridge in their unceremonious retreat, he came to me, crying with shame, and said, "General, I have behaved like a miserable coward, I ought to be cashiered," and repeated many such expressions of remorse. I comforted him by saying that the intensity of his own feeling was the best proof that he had only yielded to a surprise ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... he has any intention of calling his story 'The River.' But I am sure the last chapter will contain something about an unhappy wretch who wore a derby hat at the moment he walked hand in hand with his miserable Past into ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... friend—in fact, I felt as if I had no friend. So I sat down on a chair in the yard with the little dog by me, thinking, I remember, that the chair was our own property and no one had a right to object to my being there. And I also remember that the whole miserable affair brought to mind most vividly scenes of eviction that had been illustrated in the papers from time to time, when poor women had been ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... me, joyful occurrences; they are facts in my life: I relate them, as I formerly have related that which was miserable, humiliating, and depressing; and if I have done so, in the spirit which operated in my soul, it will not be called pride or vanity;—neither of them would assuredly be the proper name for it. But people may perhaps ask at home, Has Andersen ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... Falkner had been less self-conscious he would have seen it plainly. But Kate only buried her face in her lifted muff, slightly raised her pretty shoulders, and, dropping her tremulous eyelids, walked on. "It seems a pity," she said, after a pause, "that we cannot preserve our own miserable existence without taking something from others—sometimes even a life!" He started. "And it's horrid to have to remind you that you have yet to kill something for the invalid's supper," she continued. "I saw a ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... impotent too. And there are many of us whose type of religion is far gloomier than it should be, and whose motive of service is far more servile than it ought to be, just because we have not got beyond the centurion, and can only say, 'I am not worthy; I am a poor, miserable sinner.' ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... pulling off the gray lichens as she listened, now slips away, and goes home and writes a letter; and to-morrow morning, when the mail goes to the next village, two people will be happy in God's world instead of being miserable. And now? Oh, now it is a merry song; for, after all, Melody is a child, and a happy child; and though she loves the sad songs dearly, still she generally likes to end up ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards
... wept passionatelie, and claspt her Arms about me; but, when I began to speak, and to tell her of much that had made me miserable, she hearkened in motionlesse Silence, till I told her that Father had torn the Letter and beaten the Messenger. Then she cried, "Oh, I see now what may and shall be done! Roger shall be Peacemaker," and ran off with Joyfulnesse; I not withholding her. But I can never ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... of my lack of beauty, my miserable five-feet-one-inch stature, and I looked at the man beside me, small and round-shouldered, and we were both dependent children of indigence. The contrast we presented to the other pair struck me hard, and I laughed a ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... That thou shouldst dwell with me, and leave the old. Sure dost not like me!—Shrivel'd hag of hate, My phiz, and thanks to thee, is sadly long; I am not either, beldame, over strong; Nor do I wish at all to be thy mate, For thou, sweet Fury, art my utter hate. Nay, shake not thus thy miserable pate; I am yet young, and do not like thy face; And, lest thou shouldst resume the wild-goose chase, I'll tell thee something all thy heat to assuage, —Thou wilt not hit my ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... and its outer end is closed by a triumphal arch. Next to this, and outside of the city as it then was, the king purchased ground, perhaps because it was cheap, and built the present university edifice. As much farther out of the then city proper lies the miserable little town of Schwabing. Professors and students disliked to be taken so far from their lodgings and their beerhouses, and the old university had been quite within the city. When the removal took place, Dr. Neumann sketched the history of ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the objects of the tour was to see the fair at Nijni Novgorod, and here the travellers arrived on August 6th, after a miserable railway journey. Owing to the breaking down of a bridge, the unfortunate passengers had been compelled to walk a ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... thought too has distressed me to the very bottom of my soul! My parents are advanced in years; if I should lose them before I have confessed my secret to them! It is written above that I am to know every sorrow! Heaven has cruelly tried me, but to-day a ray of pity seems to have fallen upon my miserable fate. The princess is steadily improving, and I have received good news from Maleszow; I ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... gorgeous and goodly equipage.... Who hath persuaded him, that this admirable moving of heaven's vaults, that the eternal light of these lamps so fiercely rolling over his head ... were established ... for his commodity and service? Is it possible to imagine anything so ridiculous as this miserable and wretched creature, which is not so much as master of himself, exposed and subject to offences of all things, and yet dareth call himself Master and Emperor of this universe?... [To consider ... the ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... quarters of a century, sometimes in the spirit of a narrow sectarianism, but not seldom in a more excellent way, devoted its main strength to missions in the American colonies. Its missionaries, men of a far different character from the miserable incumbents of parishes in Maryland and Virginia, were among the first preachers of the gospel in the Carolinas. Within the years 1702-40 there served under the commission of this society in North Carolina nine missionaries, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... presence of a Mr Crick. Sometime ago Mr Crick was expelled by an indignant house, wearied of his prolonged indecencies of demeanour, but his constituency sent him back untamed and rejoicing—his mission being to prove that the Ministry was composed of thieves and liars. The miserable charges dwindled into nothing; but one at least of his constituents is persuaded that the debates, as printed in the newspapers, would lose so much of sparkle if Mr Crick were banished permanendy from the house that ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... it friendship," he went on resolutely, "for this one week let no such false word be uttered between us—you must know, I say, that our love has been everything to me! Till I met you, my life was empty, miserable; since I met you it has been filled, satisfied, and that even if I have received what Madame de Lera dares ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... fairly choked her with anger. "Why did I refuse to marry him? Francois Bigot! Do you ask me seriously that question? Did you not tell me of your own love, and all but offer me your hand, giving me to understand—miserable sinner that you are, or as you think me to be—that you pledged your own faith to me, as first in your choice, and I have done that which I had better have been dead and buried with the heaviest pyramid of Egypt on top of me, buried without hope ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... also our need of the miserable sous—make it impossible for us to keep our manuscripts sheltered from the asses. Art ought to be—like one's beloved—out of reach, out of the world. Art and prayer are the only decent ejaculations of the soul. So when one of my books appears, I let go of it with horror. I get as far ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... conscience speaks louder. And here, even at this early point in his history, what I might call his fourth birth may begin to take place: I mean the birth in him of the Will—the real Will—not the pseudo-will, which is the mere Desire, swayed of impulse, selfishness, or one of many a miserable motive. When the man, listening to his conscience, wills and does the right, irrespective of inclination as of consequence, then is the man free, the universe open before him. He is born from above. To him conscience needs never speak aloud, needs never speak twice; ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... compassion has this sad experience given me for sinners. It has taught me why so few of them emerge from the miserable state into which they have fallen. Such as see it only cry out against their disorders, and frighten them with threats of future punishment! These cries and threats at first make some impression, and they use some weak efforts after liberty, ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... that he gave her she murmured, "Yes, yes, yes!" "Would she be his own dear wife?" "Ah, if she dared. She would have no other spouse, no, not even if the Emperor came himself with all the seven electors. But he must not make her more miserable than she was already. What could they do? he never would be allowed to marry her." "He would manage that." Then he pressed her again to his heart, with such ardour that the knave behind the door grew jealous, and springing up, called out—"If ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... day had it not been for the masterly foresight of Speug and the opportune arrival of Jock Howieson. That worthy had taken his division by a circuitous route, in which they had been obstructed by a miserable Episcopal school which wanted a fight on its own account and had to receive some passing attention. A little late, Howieson reached the Cathedral, and then, judging it better not to come down Breadalbane Street, where his attack would have been exposed, he made his ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... in truth, namely, openly and known both in heaven and earth, and in hell, and let me have respect and authority enough so that I may be trusted and believed more than any lawyer. For so God the Father of all mercies hath entrusted to me, a poor, miserable, condemned sinner, the Gospel of His dear Son, and therein thus far I have behaved and conducted myself truly and faithfully, and it has made much progress in the world through me, and I am honored as a teacher of truth, notwithstanding the curse of the Pope and the wrath of emperors, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... in the republication of Sanskrit texts, and there are traces among the Hindus of a growing feeling, not very different from that which Tacitus described, when he said of the Germans: "Who would go to Germany, acountry without natural beauty, with a wretched climate, miserable to cultivate or to look at—unless it ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... left Coralie in the morning and returned to the Latin Quarter, he took out his purse and found the money he had lost. At first he felt miserable over the discovery, and thought of going back at once to return a gift which humiliated him; but—he had already come as far as the Rue de la Harpe; he would not return now that he had almost reached the Hotel de Cluny. He pondered over Coralie's forethought ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... him of all people? It never for a moment occurred to him to doubt Casey's word. He saw it now; hideous as the deed was, Casey was capable of it—had always been capable of it. Let it go for a miserable tribute to Casey's honesty in the past that Gilbart accepted the infernal statement at once and without suspicion. He knew now that from the bottom of their intercourse this candid devil had been grinning up at him all the time; only his own cowardly, comfortable habit of seeing the world as ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... rebellion—St Laurent, Batoche, and Duck Lake—in a collective letter dated March 12, 1885, denounced in the strongest language 'the miscreant Louis David Riel' who had led astray their people. The venerable bishop of St Albert, while pleading for Riel's dupes, had no word of pity for the 'miserable individual' himself. Under date July 11, 1885, the bishop writes thus to ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... 1859, and in 1873 was appointed canon of Westminster. After publishing "Village Sermons" and "The Saint's Tragedy," Kingsley took part with F.D. Maurice in the Christian Socialist movement of 1848, attacking the horrible sweating then rife in the tailoring trade, calling attention to the miserable plight of the agricultural labourer, and the need for sanitary reform in town and country. In "Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet," first published in 1849, Kingsley writes from the point of view of the earnest artisan of sixty years ago, and the success of the book, following the author's pamphlet ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds. |
