"Plight" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in advancing these arguments, I feel somewhat like an advocatus diaboli. It is all very well to treat the puzzled clubwoman as a joke. When a man slips on a banana-peel and goes down, we may laugh at his plight; but suppose the whole crowd of passers-by began to pitch and slide and tumble! Should we not think that some horrible epidemic had laid its hand on us? The ladies with their Medici and their Travels are not isolated instances. Ask the librarians; they know, but in countless instances they ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... altar with a friend, To hear him plight his faith to a young bride, A rosy child of simple heart and mind. Yet two short years before, on that same spot, I heard the funeral chant above the bier Of a first wife—a woman bright as fair, Or blessed or cursed with genius, full of fire— Who loved him with a passion high and rare; Whom ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... upstairs to the Desprez' private room; and he had just set it down on the floor in front of Anastasie, when the Doctor arrived, and was closely followed by the man of business. Boy and hamper were both in a most sorry plight; for the one had passed four months underground in a certain cave on the way to Acheres, and the other had run about five miles as hard as his legs would carry him, half that distance under ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... plight, repentant stood Praying; for from the mercy-seat above Prevenient grace descending had removed The stony from their hearts, and made new flesh Regenerate grow instead; that sighs now breathed Unutterable; ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... Arrah, Shorsha! what ye told me about the snake bates anything I ever told you about Finn. Ochone, Shorsha! perhaps you will be telling me about the snake once more? I think the tale would do me good, and I have need of comfort, God knows, Ochone!" Seeing Murtagh in such a distressed plight, I forthwith told him over again the tale of the snake, in precisely the same words as I have related it in the first part of this history. After which I said, "Now, Murtagh, tit for tat; ye will be telling me one of the old stories of Finn-ma-Coul." ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... which seemed an age to the Winnebagos. No word had come from Nyoda since a telegram she had sent upon her arrival, saying that Sherry was very low and not expected to live. They had written her about Veronica's plight, but there ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... his pleasure; But, first and chiefest, with thee bring Him that yon soars on golden wing, Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne, The Cherub Contemplation; And the mute Silence hist along, 'Less Philomel will deign a song, In her sweetest saddest plight, Smoothing the rugged brow of Night, While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke Gently o'er the accustomed oak. Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly, Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... rejoyceth our hearts, had we the grace of sober vsage), the clocks that tel vs how the time passes, Truth and Conscience, that show the bounded vse and decent forme of things, are tyed vp, and cannot be heard. Still Fructum non invenio, I finde no fruits. I am sorry to passe the fig-tree in this plight: but as I finde it, so I must leave it, till the Lord mend it."—Pp. 39, 40., ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... in a furious plight,—raving at her servants,—packing up her cloaths, and reflecting on her relations who had persuaded her to come to Bath.—When I entered she was kneeling by a huge travelling trunk, stuffing in a green purse ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning
... on and brought no tidings, I sent word to his friends in Athens, asking what should be done with property left under my charge by him who, as I deemed, had met an untimely end. Ere the answer arrived, the Lord Lycidas himself appeared at my door, but in evil plight, weak in body and troubled in mind. He would give no account of the past; he said not where he had sojourned; and yester-morn, though scarcely strong enough to keep the saddle, he mounted his horse, and rode off—I know not ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... king said to his knights as he sat in a little room in an inn at Zara, "that my plight is a bad one. I am surrounded by enemies, and, alas! I can no longer mount my steed and ride out as at Jaffa to do battle with them. My brother, John Lackland, is scheming to take my place upon the throne of England. Philip of France, whose mind is far better ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... he would have had no gun with which to hail the stranger, and, had he not cut away his own mast, she would have gone away, fearful that he was an enemy. Three cheers for the brave and thoughtful Captain Walker! He reached England, at last, but he and his men were in a sorry plight, for the vessel which had rescued them was almost as unseaworthy as their own, which sank in a great whirl of eddying foam, not half an hour after they had left her. Thus ended the career of the good ship which had chased all of the pirates away from ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... measured the distance to the helpless lad with a practised eye, and groaned in despair. "They'll fall short by a dozen feet," he murmured hopelessly. "God forgive me, for bringing him to this plight." ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... lost all patience. He thought no longer of the venison. He thought only of freeing himself from the detestable plight in which he was placed. He sprang and bounded over the ground; now rubbing his head along the surface, now scraping it with his huge paws, and ever and anon dashing himself against the stems of the trees that grew around. All ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... work to make his moaning wife as comfortable as the terrible circumstances of their plight would permit. He took off his coat and got her into it, binding her cork jacket around. A rope was trailing from the stern and he secured this and tied it round her waist, giving one end to Fraser to hold and keeping tight hold of ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... the porcupine; but the laugh turns almost into a tear when one stops to realize the nature of his plight. Why, the poor wretch is actually obliged to be near someone else in order to enjoy a sense of vitality! In other words, he needs somebody else to do his living for him. He is a vicarious citizen of the world, holding his franchise only by courtesy of Tom, ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... of his men believed him; but he swore that he would never seek to do them harm, and that if he found any of them in evil plight he would deliver them out of it. With ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... keep your nonsense for some luckier night— Who can have put my master in this mood? What will become on 't—I'm in such a fright, The Devil's in the urchin, and no good— Is this a time for giggling? this a plight? Why, don't you know that it may end in blood? You'll lose your life, and I shall lose my place, My mistress all, for that ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... Gen. Johnston says his men are in good plight, after combats enough to make a battle, in all of which the enemy ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... present state proceeds from fortune's stings; By birth I boast of a descent from kings; Hence may you see from what a noble height I'm sunk by fortune to this abject plight. ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... against the clock, When Avon waters upward flow, When eggs are laid by barn-door cock, When dusty hens do strut and crow, When up is down, when left is right, Oh, then I'll break the troth I plight, With careless eye Away I'll fly ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... the corn-transplants and other vessels which perished there was no numbering made; and so great was the loss that the commanders of the fleet, being struck with fear lest the Thessalians should attack them now that they had been brought into an evil plight, threw round their camp a lofty palisade built of the fragments of wreck. For the storm continued during three days; but at last the Magians, making sacrifice of victims and singing incantations to appease the Wind by enchantments, 198 and in addition ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... a hard plight as it was; but without the old monkey for a companion he would have thought his condition was a hundred times worse, and would hardly have had the courage to go on as ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis
... got on board the steamer again and returned to town. He then called at several places usually frequented by his master, and afterwards went home to Woburn Place. He has frequently been stolen, but always returns, sometimes in sad plight, with a broken cord round his neck, and with signs of ill-usage; but still he contrives ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... polish on his rough shoes; his clean-shaven face, touched her now as at other times. She wondered whether, if they had been alone, she would not have confessed her perplexities and asked his counsel. In their talks she had been impressed by his rugged common sense, and her plight was one that demanded the exercise of just that quality. Rose turned the pages of her book. Her father and Nan continued their conference in low ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... first sat in the case. The executor of the Sharon estate, on the 12th of March, 1888, filed a bill of revivor in the United States Circuit Court. This was a suit to revive the case of Sharon vs. Hill, that its decree might stand in the same condition and plight in which it was at the time of its entry, which, being nunc pro tunc, was of the same effect as if the entry had preceded the death of Mr. Sharon, the case having been argued and submitted during his lifetime. ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... not-to-be-disregarded order to arise. The story of the old veteran who was carrying home his dinner and who dropped his hands to his side and his dinner to the gutter when a practical joker called "Attention"; the pathetic plight of the superannuated business man who is totally at a loss away from his familiar duties, are often quoted illustrations of how completely habit may determine a ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... lovely wax blonde: but now the wax had all melted off her cheeks, she was as bald as a squash, one eye had been knocked out, and, worst of all, she had not a stitch of clothes on. Scrubby had brought her to this plight; but, for all that, Lyd loved the very ground Scrubby tumbled over; and so did all the rest of them, for that matter, never caring how much she abused them in her ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... looked upon here, as quite outside the pale of common morality. Fully realising what this must mean for me, these kindly Germans would go off into a day dream of wonderment as to how they might feel in a similar plight, and one ended up with the reflection, 'Ja, es ist halt jetzt die Zeit der Maertyrer' (it is indeed the time of the martyrs once more)." Surely there is something strangely poignant about the convinced and steadfast martyrdom and self-sacrifice of both sides. ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... full of lice creeping; But that if a louse could have leapen the better, She had not walked on the welt, so was it threadbare. 'I have been Covetise,' quoth this caitiff, 'For sometime I served Symme at style, And was his prentice plight, his profit to wait. First I learned to lie, a leef other twain Wickedly to weigh, was my first lesson: To Wye and to Winchester I went to the fair With many manner merchandise, as my master me hight.— Then drave I me ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... Cristobal Colon last, at two o'clock in the afternoon. The Spanish losses, besides the fleet, were 323 killed and 151 wounded; the Americans lost one killed and one wounded. The city of Santiago, deprived of its fleet, found itself in a desperate plight and surrendered on July 16. Shortly afterwards General Miles led an expedition into Porto Rico, but operations were soon brought to a close because of the suspension of hostilities, and from a military point of view the importance ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... possible that I should hear such words from my gracious lord's mouth and see him in such a plight! Alas, our unlucky house, to be plagued with an evil spell! Does not my lord remember what he did yesterday, when he went ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... their right, Well-a-day, well-a-day, We were in a sad plight, O' th' holy party! Such practise hath a scent Of kingly government, Against it we are ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... shall we bear and bend for ever, And shall no time our bondage sever And shall we kneel, but battle never, "For our own soil? "And shall our tyrants safely reign On thrones built up of slaves and slain, And nought to us and ours remain "But chains and toil? "No! round this grave our oath we plight, To watch, and labour, and unite, Till banded be the nation's might— "Its spirit steeled, "And then, collecting all our force, We'll cross oppression in its course, And die—or all our rights ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... who had lately been asking after him, first heard of his plight from the press. The same newspapers that brought them further details of the adventures of the new Pence-Whyland Franchise in the Common Council informed them that Abner Joyce—Abner, the one time foe of privilege—lay ill ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... which had been rebuilt by Ramses II. and decorated by the Rames-sides, was in a sorry plight when the XXIInd dynasty came into power. Sheshonq I. did little or nothing to it, but Osorkon I. entirely remodelled it, and Osorkon II. added several new halls, including, amongst others, one in which he celebrated, in the twenty-second year of his reign, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Odysseus stood; for nothing within walls Was hid, he knew the very trumpet-calls Wherewith they turned the guard out, and the cries The sentries used to hearten or advise The city in the watches of the night. Once in, no hope for Ilios; but his plight No better stood for that, since no way in Could he conceive, nor entry hope to win For any force enough to seize the gate And open for the host. But then some Fate, Or, some men say, Athene the gray-eyed, Ever his friend, never far from his side, ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... be particular about," said the sergeant; "it'll do you small good, my man, being in the same plight yourself. ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... understand the plight of the Russian army one must have some idea of the character of the Masurian Lake district. It was probably molded by the work of ice in the past. Great glaciers, in their progress toward the sea, have ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... laurel and gushing springs. I am come to take you, sir, before the officers of the Company aboard this ship, when, if you have aught to say for yourself, you may say it. I need not tell you, who saw so clearly some time ago the danger in which you then stood, that your plight is now ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... in a more desperate plight than Lincoln when he entered office on the fourth of March, 1861, four months after his election, and took his oath to support the Constitution and the Union. The intervening time had been busily employed by the Southern ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... the tempest of these wars, To their desired port, as we agreed, Go to your father and informe him thus: If personally heele view our friendly Tents And seale these Articles of peace proposde, This night you shall be troth-plight to our child. ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... cause for hope. With every step he was being carried deeper and deeper into the recesses of the jungle where no hunter dare venture, where the elephant, the tiger, and the leopard rule as undisputed masters. His plight was terrible. Who would free him, who could free him of the bonds which held him in subjection to ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... I arrived at Brownsville, leg-weary and wayworn, and in a shabby plight, as you may suppose, having been 'camping out' for some nights past. I applied at some of the inferior inns, but could gain no admission. I was regarded for a moment with a dubious eye, and then informed they did not receive foot-passengers. At last I went boldly to the ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... be no question as to the identity of these kites. They were the Gap Gang, and in desperate plight. Their lugger was gone, and their leader dead. At sixes and sevens among themselves, they had quarrelled with the only man who might somehow have saved them. Behind them lay the gallows; before them the sea—and nothing to cross it in but the lugger's long-boat, ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... were many in different plights, and according to their plight, kept in different places. The well bound were ranged in the sanctuary of Mr. Bronte's study; but the purchase of books was a necessary luxury to him, and as it was often a choice between binding an old one, or buying a new one, the familiar volume, which had ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... This was Edward's last personal intervention in the business. He had long been irritated by the persistent interference of the French king in Scottish affairs, and his anger was not lessened by his hard plight forcing him, on more than one occasion, to grant short truces to the Scottish insurgents at Philip's intervention. His relations with France were becoming so strained that he preferred to spend 1337 in the south and entrust Thomas Beauchamp, Earl ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... earth,' and hating his associate—hating him, she repeated and underscored—she had belied herself; she was willing to meet Alvan, she wished to meet him. She could open her heart to Alvan's true friend—his only true friend. He would instantly discern her unhappy plight. In the presence of his associate she could explain nothing, do nothing but what she had done. He had frozen her. She had good reason to know that man for her enemy. She could prove him a traitor to Alvan. Certain though ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... The plight in which the Watauga settlers now found themselves was truly desperate; and the way in which they surmounted this apparently insuperable difficulty is one of the most striking and characteristic events in the pre-Revolutionary history of the Old Southwest. It exhibits ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... with somewhat of a tone of mockery, adding, "Well, well—keep thou thy plight to me so long as I want thee not, and I will keep mine to thee if ever I should need thee. Now away with thee. I hear the horses impatient for thee; and what would be the lot of the beggar if he were seen chattering longer with a lordly young page than ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... left again for England, and was never afterwards heard of. It is difficult to understand how her people could have avoided seeing the others' distress; it is harder still to believe that, seeing their plight, the Bridgewater's company could have thus deserted the castaways. Of course, this explanation would have been demanded, but the Bridgewater was an "overdue" ship long before the news of the disaster ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... friends and neighbors." That the church is named first as the proper place shows that it is to be preferred for a marriage. It can be solemnized there in a more seemly and dignified way than elsewhere, and those coming to plight their vows may be more deeply impressed with the solemnity and importance ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester
... in hand the steward her he took, And plight that lady his troth alone, That she should be his married wife, And he would make her the lady ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... had lost half their number; the remainder had been scattered and exhausted in their successive charges. The bayonet companies of the loyalist militia were in the same plight; and the North Carolina tories, the least disciplined, could no longer be held to their work. Sevier's men gained the summit at the same time with Campbell's and part of Shelby's. The three colonels were heading their troops; and as Sevier saw Shelby, he swore, by God, the British had burned ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... hardly be imagined. A mob, a moneyed class, and an aristocracy almost equally worthless, hating each other, and hated by the rest of the world; Italians bitterly jealous of Romans, and only in better plight than the provinces beyond the sea; more miserable than either, swarms of slaves beginning to brood over revenge as a solace to their sufferings; the land going out of cultivation; native industry swamped by slave-grown imports; the population decreasing; the ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... her fingers could hardly pin the shawl she put over her head, made her way through the crowd. A few moments she stood before her door, as if uncertain which way to turn, her limbs trembling, her breath coming like sobs. In this plight ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... Don Quixote made at him that severed it in two; but with the portion that remained in his hand he dealt such a thwack on the shoulder of Don Quixote's sword arm (which the buckler could not protect against the clownish assault) that poor Don Quixote came to the ground in a sad plight. ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... war, and were escorted by Messer Galeaz and the Marquis of Mantua to the French outposts. More than two thousand men had already died of sickness and starvation. Almost all their horses had been eaten, and the survivors were in a miserable plight. Many perished by the roadside, and Commines found fifty troopers in a fainting condition in a garden at Cameriano, and saved their lives by feeding them with soup. Even then one man died on the spot, and four others never reached the camp. ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... think that everything had turned out well. "In the first place, for you to be here, in such a plight! And when I thought you were hunting ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... pity passed through Leonard's brain as he realised her fearful plight. Then for a while he forgot all about her, since his attention was amply occupied with his own and Juanna's peril. Now they were rushing down the long slope with an ever-increasing velocity, and now they breasted the first rise, during the last ten yards of which, as in the case of Otter, ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... However, I gained the bridge at last, and thence caught sight of a light twinkling before me. To make for it across the meadow and terrace was an easy task; yet, when I had reached the door and had hammered upon it, I was so worn out, and in so sorry a plight that I sank down, and had little need to play a part, or pretend to be worse ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... outside the ship and the sea and our perilous plight! The death of Alresca, the jealousy of Carlotta Deschamps, the plot (if there was one) against Rosa—what were these matters to me? But Rosa was something. She was more than something; she was all. A lovely, tantalizing vision of her appeared ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... few consolatory words and jumped down from the wheel. She was torn both ways. Bella's plight was piteous, but to make her father rise in his present state of health and attend such a case, hours long, in the chill, night breath of the open—it might kill him! She turned toward the camp, vaguely conscious of the men ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... verray tene! 1605 I see wel now that ye mistrusten me; For by your wordes it is wel y-sene. Now, for the love of Cynthia the shene, Mistrust me not thus causeles, for routhe; Sin to be trewe I have yow plight my ...
— Troilus and Criseyde • Geoffrey Chaucer
... in the midst of the day, I dreamed fast of mirth and play,— In youth is pleasure, in youth is pleasure, Methought I walked still to and fro, And from her company I could not go; But when I waked, it was not so,— In youth is pleasure, in youth is pleasure. Therefore my heart is surely plight, Of her alone to have a sight, Which is my joy and heart's delight,— In youth is pleasure, in youth ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... alone, no better harbourage could we find than that which we have just passed. But, men, our pilot tells me that the place—which is named Barbados—is much frequented by the Spaniards, if indeed they have not already taken possession of it; and we should find ourselves in sorry plight if, while the ship is hove down, two or three Spanish sail were to appear and attack us. Doubtless we should beat them off; but we've not come all this way to fight just for fighting's sake. I fight when and ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... is now in a worse plight than ever; for he has long ago found that the sword utterly defies his skill: the steel will yield neither to his hammer nor to his furnace. Just then there walks into his cave a Wanderer, in a blue mantle, spear in hand, with one eye concealed by the brim of ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... he been dragged by a wild horse through a thicket of brambles, he could scarcely have appeared in a more wretched plight. ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... to enlighten. He pompously reclined himself on the cushions, and assembling his courtly retinue, commenced his harangue respecting the plans necessary to be adopted under existing circumstances. His councillors, however, appeared in a very sorry plight to give advice: they looked at each other with woe-begone countenances, and their sleepy eyes seemed to concur in one opinion, though they did not actually venture to give it utterance, that the most rational course to pursue, after the fatigues ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... smoking little tug-boat—as the way was fifty years ago. Liverpool was a gray-stone labyrinth open to the deluge, and its inhabitants went to and fro with umbrellas over their heads and black respirators over their mouths, looking as if such were their normal plight—as, indeed, it was. Much of this was not needed to quench the enthusiasm of the children. The Waterloo Hotel, to which, by advice of friends, we were driven, seemed by its very name to carry out the idea of saturation, which the activities of nature so insistently conveyed. ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... permit us speedily to gain this shelter, but not before the boat was nearly filled with water, and we were all wet to the skin. At about seven o'clock in the evening we reached Aldea Gallega, shivering with cold and in a most deplorable plight. ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... in the morning, on the 8th, Mr Pickersgill returned, together with his companions, in no very good plight, having been at the head of the arm he was sent to explore, which he judged to extend in to the eastward about eight miles. In it is a good anchoring-place, wood, fresh water, wild fowl, and fish. At nine o'clock I set out to explore the other inlet, ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... left Charity in a state of nerves. Her curiosity was a mania, but she feared that assuaging it might leave her in a worse plight. She hated herself for her enterprise and was tempted to cancel it. But when she heard Cheever come home at midnight and go to his room without speaking to her she felt a grim resentment toward him that was like a young ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... prosecute the parents of truants. The result has been a prompt, marked and growing improvement in the attendance and the general interest. Better still, the educated Maori youths are awakening to the sad plight of their people. Pathetic as their regrets are, the healthy discontent they show ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... I might, I could find nothing to relieve our plight. I knew that Auberry would before this time have gone back to follow our trail, perhaps starting after us even before night had approached; but now the rain had blotted out all manner of trails, so rescue from that ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... rooms, every paltry personal inconvenience to which they were subjected, or feared that they were going to be subjected. Under the unprecedented stress this was, perhaps, not unnatural; but it would have seemed less displeasing had they also occasionally showed concern for England's plight and peril. ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... he did not fawn over the dignitary or lose his own quiet self-assertion. He was an American. He told of finding the tortured prospector and of the plight of the approaching ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... like a man. Whatever you mean by my child, say it for yourself, and don't speak as if my good sense had told me any thing. I stand here, doubting my own thoughts, cursing my own fears. Don't be a coward. I ask you whether you and Nest are troth-plight?" ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... is filled every night With loafers and bummers of most every plight; On their backs is no clothes, in their pockets no bills, Each day they keep starting for the dreary ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... sore plight for fighting, for most of them had been obliged to sell even their arms and armour to procure food. Spinola, hearing of their approach pushed forward with a strong force to intercept them, and so came upon them at Fleurus, eight miles from ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... Broke a-bloom and the palm-tree seemed perfect; yet more was 155 to learn, E'en the good that comes in with the palm-fruit. Our dates shall we slight, When their juice brings a cure for all sorrow? or care for the plight Of the palm's self whose slow growth produced them? Not so! stem and branch Shall decay, nor be known in their place, while the palm-wine shall stanch Every wound of man's spirit in winter. I pour thee such 160 wine. Leave the flesh to the fate it was fit for! the spirit be thine! By the spirit, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... the plight in which matters were found. The water poured out of the corners of the boxes as they were successively hoisted on shore. Too impatient to wait until they could be carried up to the fort, the gentlemen soon furnished themselves ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... and experience, that most of your advantages have escaped you, from unwillingness to do your duty, not from ignorance. I request you, if I speak my mind, to be patient, and consider only, whether I speak the truth, and with a view to future amendment. You see to what wretched plight we are reduced by some men ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... piled a great heap of stones against it. He crawled back to where he had been lying, in the faint hope of finding his pickaxe, But after a vain search he was at last compelled to acknowledge himself in an evil plight. He sat down and tried to think, ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... taking his stick, he set out to follow and slay Norouas, who had spoiled his flax. So hasty had he been in setting forth that he had taken no food or money with him, and when evening came he arrived at an inn hungry and penniless. He explained his plight to the hostess, who gave him a morsel of bread and permitted him to sleep in a corner of the stable. In the morning he asked the dame the way to the abode of Norouas, and she conducted him to the foot of a mountain, where ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... argued Mrs. Robarts—they two, let their loyalty to Lady Lufton be ever so strong, could not justify it to their consciences to stand between Lucy and her lover. Mark had still somewhat demurred to this, suggesting how terrible would be their plight if they should now encourage Lord Lufton, and if he, after such encouragement, when they should have quarrelled with Lady Lufton, should allow himself to be led away from his engagement by his mother. To which Fanny had ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... own factions that the miserable citizens had turned to the tyrant Rome for rescue. They who had risen against Florus and had driven him out would have willingly accepted him again in place of Simon bar Gioras and John of Gischala, before two years had elapsed. Now, their plight was so desperate that they clambered daily upon the walls of their unhappy city to look for the first glimpse of the approaching enemy, Titus, whom they had learned to call ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... gayly of the happy days they had spent together with Mrs. Gray; for Richards, the burglar, seemed now a sort of joke to them, and even the terrible recollection of the wolves was softened by time, and they could only laugh at poor Hippy's plight when his breath gave out and his legs ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... for half an hour, but they could find nothing that looked like a road. Some of the sleigh load were openly apprehensive and inclined to blame Hardy for their plight, but for the most part they were plucky and good-natured, trying to turn off their growing fear ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... the whole scheme of representative, parliamentary government, and, failing any plausible substitute, are driven back on some form of the soviet, or even government by industrial groups. Those that go to the limit and reject the whole scheme of democracy are in still worse plight for they have no alternative to offer except a restored monarchy, and this, the terminus ad quem of their logic, their courage will ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... life into me. Tell me, what do you think I had better do? I'm not proud—why, I'm willing to be a domestic servant, to go to one of the factories to fill match-boxes; but I've no experience. And there are thousands in my plight, thousands of girls who are worse off—well, no, I suppose they couldn't be worse off; and yet—I haven't paid this week's rent; and ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... abducted her. Calm and cool, always master of himself, apparently paying no attention to the terrible bruises which disfigured half his face and doubtless half his body as well, she admitted to herself that it was only his example, which had enabled her to maintain her self-control in their present plight. As she crawled over Perkins' discarded suit, she remembered that he had not taken any weapons from it. After a rapid glance around to assure herself that she was not being watched, she quickly searched the coat, bringing to light not one, but ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... Anita emerged from the Alcalde's office. He was a friend of her husband—a gringo—but trusted by the Spanish Californians, many of whom he had befriended. To him Mrs. Windham turned half desperately, confessing in a rush of words her family's plight. "What is to become of us?" she questioned passionately. "Ah, that my Roberto were here! He would know how to deal with these desperadoes." She gestured angrily toward the sloop-of-war which rode at anchor ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... I passed with my wife * In the saddest plight with all misery rife: Would Heaven when first I went in to her * With a cup of cold ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... penance for some violation of the code of honor. By many gentle, indirect approaches, I perceived that part of his tail-feathers were undeveloped. The sylvan prince could not think of returning to court in this plight, and so, amid the falling leaves and cold rains of autumn, ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... Love's gay spring, Prompt the youthful Female's sigh; When her roses all take wing, And Matrons sage her plight descry; ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... off; escaped with a few drops, and burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter on beholding our miserable plight. ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... when she stumbled, blaming her for their plight, threatening to leave her if she should fall, and flaying himself on with renewed panic, he brought her to the top of the double crevasse and the prospector's crossing. But here, with the levels of the spur before them, her strength reached low ebb. ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... spirit. His arguments are, strictly speaking, unanswerable; but yet I am so far from being convinced by them, that I am determined to go on to eat and drink, and walk and ride, in order to keep that MATTER, which I so mistakenly imagine my body at present to consist of, in as good plight as possible. Common sense (which, in truth, very uncommon) is the best sense I know of: abide by it, it will counsel you best. Read and hear, for your amusement, ingenious systems, nice questions subtilly agitated, with all the refinements that warm imaginations ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... his lordship was thrown head foremost into the mud. He swore like a trooper, and said he would get an act of parliament to put down the nuisance. His lordship came to the manse, and, being in a woeful plight, he got the loan of my best suit of clothes. This made him wonderful jocose both with Mrs. Balwhidder and me, for he was a portly man, and I but a thin body, and it was really droll to see his lordship clad in my garments. Out of this accident grew a sort of neighbourliness between Lord Eglesham ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... plight. I told him, in the suave manner which Mademoiselle W—— had recommended to me, that Mr. Washburn would have included this lady's name on my card had he foreseen that there would be any difficulty in allowing her to ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... gist of which escaped me, he constituted himself a reception committee of one and started for the ladder's foot. But our doughty Teuton was a resourceful person. Roused to the urgency of his plight, he looked wildly up at me, down at the officer, and, hastily pushing up the nearest window, hoisted himself across its sill, and again took refuge in the ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti |
