"Plight" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was there, and when, over the heads of the people—for she had mounted with characteristic energy on the parapet, assisted by Queeker and accompanied by Fanny Hennings—she beheld Stanley Hall in such a plight, she felt a disposition to laugh and cry and faint all at once. She resisted the tendency, however, although the expression of her face and her rapid change of colour induced Queeker with anxious haste to throw out his ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... from every newcomer. There was a panic throughout this vicinity a few days ago, over the landing of a flatboat, and the coming ashore of the unfortunates who were on it. They were in a most pitiful plight. I hope never to see a sadder sight than that poverty-stricken little family. But they were not suffering from any disease more contagious than want; they were only cold, wet, tired, hungry, and disheartened. The poor mother was sitting on the damp sand near the water's edge, with her little ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... mind and a strong understanding, and lives, believe, in the fear of the Lord. She asked many questions about the religious sects in England, as to the state of real piety, their forms, baptism, &c. Then she came to our own Society. I was in poor plight for answering questions; however, I explained the spiritual view we took of those subjects, and asked permission to send her books, in the reception of which she seemed to promise herself ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... of 1866 the desperate plight of the cause of union called for skilful generalship in four different arenas of political action. In any one of them a false move would have been fatal to success; and there was always the danger that, on so extended a front, the advocates of union might be fighting at cross purposes and ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun
... in a plight so ill 245 That I've forgotten mine outright. If one could but only know All the end in the beginning That one might have straightway so Knowledge ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... voyage is rough, the weather bad and the fare below par, my spirits always rise. I say to myself: "My son, this is certainly tough—but who cares! We can stand it, we have had this way right along year after year—but just imagine your plight if there were some one in your ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... beard for madness, and cursed the moment he first knew him; but seeing him at last knocked down and settled, the shepherds being scampered, he thought he might venture to come down, and found him in a very ill plight, though not altogether senseless. "Ah! master," quoth he, "this comes of not taking my counsel. Did I not tell you it was a flock of sheep, and no army?"—"Friend Sancho," replied Don Quixote, "know, it is an easy matter for necromancers to change the shapes of ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... demonstrate that he was a man equal to any man's struggle. He had signally failed in his purpose, for reasons that were still a little obscure to him. Failure had made him a little bitter, bred a pessimism it took the plight of his aunts to cure. Even if he had failed to achieve his heart's desire he had acquired power to make two lives content. Save that it ministered to his self-respect to know that he could win in that fierce ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... comprehend the loneliness, the hollow futility of our plight. Fifty thousand skilled workmen with nothing to do. Some of the less adaptable gave up, prostrating themselves upon the bare rocks until their joints froze from lack of use, and their works corroded. Others served the miners ...
— B-12's Moon Glow • Charles A. Stearns
... to sorrow must I tune my song, And set my Harpe to notes of saddest wo, Which on our dearest Lord did sease er'e long, Dangers, and snares, and wrongs, and worse then so, 10 Which he for us did freely undergo. Most perfect Heroe, try'd in heaviest plight Of labours huge and hard, too hard for ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... constituents, fully and entirely ratify and confirm each and every of the said Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union, and all and singular the matters and things therein contained. And we do further solemnly plight and engage the faith of our respective constituents, that they shall abide by the determinations of the United States, in Congress assembled, on all questions which by the said Confederation are submitted to them; and that the Articles thereof shall be inviolably observed ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... showed him empty spaces of billowy sand; there were black spots marking hollows and nowhere his horse. But yet he went forward hopefully or at least striving to retain his hope. He had little liking for the plight that would be his were he set afoot here in the heart of the Bad Lands. But at the end of upwards of an hour of fruitless search he went back to the water-hole and his traps, seeing the folly of further seeking now. He would have to camp here until daybreak. Tomorrow he might find his ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... it was given unto me by a lady, mighty as I deem, and certainly most lovely, who delivered me from an evil plight, and a peril past words, but whereof I will tell thee afterwards. And she it was who told me of the way to the Well at the World's End, and many matters concerning them that seek it, ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... are old enough to remember—you made Yorkshire and Lancashire shake with your shout on that occasion. The ringers cracked a bell in Briarfield belfry; it is dissonant to this day. The Association of Merchants and Manufacturers dined together at Stilbro', and one and all went home in such a plight as their wives would never wish to witness more. Liverpool started and snorted like a river-horse roused amongst his reeds by thunder. Some of the American merchants felt threatenings of apoplexy, and had themselves bled—all, like wise ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... it. He was then in such a state, that he could not bring his mind to bear upon the question of which cakes his wife would probably prefer, and he stood helplessly holding up his hand till the good woman behind the counter discovered his plight, and uttered a loud cry of compassion. She ran and got a wet napkin, which she rubbed with soap, and then she instructed him by word and gesture to rub his hand upon it, and she did not leave him till his rescue was complete. He let her choose a variety of the cakes ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... 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, or ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... Kennel of Hounds in good order and plight, lead them forth, and to your Game; only take this Caution; do not forget to have in your Pack a couple of Hounds, called Hunters in the High-wayes, that will Scent upon hard Ground, where we cannot perceive Pricks or Impressions; and let a couple of Old stench Hounds accompany ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... still: it skills them not what chance come on the dice. But ye whom love hath bound by order of desire, To love your lords whose good deserts none other would require, Come ye yet once again and set your foot by mine, Whose woeful plight and sorrows great, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... had, for water-power, acquired some fame; There he found work that did a day employ, And learned what gave to him much greater joy— How some five miles would bring him to the farm, Where he might hope to meet a welcome warm. Fatigued, he reached the house in strangest plight— For sweat and dust made him a sorry sight. The mother was engaged in converse there With her first-born—a daughter blithe and fair. These knew him not—so different his array From What it was upon that Sabbath day. And though he gave to each a friendly greeting, It might have ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... 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, the festival ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... from Company K, under command of Captain Grigg and Lieutenant Shepherd, to help move the Federal prisoners from Richmond, Va., to Andersonville, Ga. We were on this service until 26th of March. These prisoners were in a pitiable plight and infected with small-pox. William Allen and Pink Pryor caught it from them; don't see why we all did not. During this time or early in March the Brigade made an expedition against Suffolk, Va., and after a running fight with negro cavalry, took that town, ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott
... the natives had been punished they soon learned the extent of the calamity they had inflicted upon the Spaniards. Through their spies they ascertained their diminished numbers, witnessed their miserable plight, and had the sagacity to perceive that they were very poorly prepared to withstand another attack. Thus they gradually regained confidence, marshalled their armies anew, and commenced an incessant series ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... 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, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... and also did let them know that Mansoul was not to be parted with for the loss of a victory or two; wherefore the wing of the tyrant was clipped again, as to boasting,—I mean in comparison of what he would have done, if the Diabolonians had put the town to the same plight to which he had put ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... will aid them. The storms were frightful. The almiranta suffered the most terrible voyage that ever ship has suffered. For after a few blasts they had to cut down the mast, and, when they reached thirty-six degrees, they lost their rudder. In such plight they agreed to return, suffering destructive hurricanes, so that, had not the ship been so staunch, it would have been swallowed up in the sea a thousand times. Finally God was pleased to have it return, as if by a miracle; and as such was it considered by all the inhabitants of Manila. The other ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... with no little surprise that the news of the plight that was said to have befallen Andy Foger was received by Tom and his associates. The newspaper had quite an account of the affair, and, even allowing the usual discount for the press dispatches, it looked as if the former bully was in rather ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... stripped us naked, they beat us with branches of nettles and branches of prickly holly, and finally, tying our hands and feet together, they left us to be scorched by the sun during the day, and to be devoured by the wild beasts that prowled about at night. Here we lay all day in a most pitiable plight, and there undoubtedly we should have perished, had it not been for the gratitude and kindness of a slave whom, during our stay at Behar, we had many times befriended and protected, as far as lay in our power, against the tyranny ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... Looking up, they saw the little fellow at the fireplace breaking an egg. He had built a fire, had got eggs from the kitchen, and was cooking his breakfast. The little girl was mischievous and cheery in spite of her bad plight, and nobody knew of the baby except Grayson and the doctor. Grayson would let nobody else in. As soon as it was well enough to be peevish and to cry, he took it back to its mother, who was still abed. A long, ...
— 'Hell fer Sartain' and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... of those times. And it is this which gives it its value. The best and most useful form, perhaps, which our remarks on it can take will be to furnish it with a running commentary explaining its allusions both to publications and to persons. It begins with a reference to the unhappy plight of Dr. King. This was Dr. William King, who is not to be confounded with his contemporaries and namesakes, the Archbishop of Dublin or the Principal of St. Mary Hall, Oxford, but who may be best, perhaps, described as the Dr. William King ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... save where the altar stands, Dressed like a bride, illustrious with light, Where one old priest exalts with tremulous hands The one true solace of man's fallen plight. ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... at the early hour of six we found a blazing log-fire in the shipbuilder's hospitable house, and "Biddy," more the "Biddy" of an Irish novelist than a servant in real life, with her merry face, rich brogue, and potato-cakes, welcomed us with many expressions of commiseration for our drowned plight. ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... Sigurd troth-plight to the white-armed Gudrun, and all men were fain of their love and spake nought but praise ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... sleep, and Dennis looked around vainly for some additional covering. The thronging fugitives were all in a similar plight, and their only course was simply to endure till some path of ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... orphan," and the troth-plight husband of Seri'na (daughter of lord Acasto). He is a soldier, so proud and susceptible that he is forever taking offence, and setting himself up as censor or champion. He fancies his sister Monim'ia has lost her honor, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... folk of the Golden City at some time or another. Its existence explained why Denham remained nearby. He had been hoping that some vehicle would travel along its length, containing civilized people to whom he could signal and ultimately explain his plight. And, being near the steel globe, his narrative would have its ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... offer," answered Sir Christopher, "and plight thee my knightly troth to observe the conditions. And in this, my adversity, it is a consolation to know that the noblest spirit who is to sit in judgment on me, believes me not wholly lost to the duties and ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... their Religion into their own hands again.... As in a body, when the blood is fresh, the spirits pure and vigorous, not only to vital, but to rational faculties, and those in the acutest and the pertest operations of art and subtlety, it argues in what good plight and constitution the body is, so, when the cheerfulness of the people is so sprightly up as that it has not only wherewith to guard well its own freedom and safety, but to spare, and to bestow upon the solidest and sublimest points of controversy and new invention, it betokens us ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... heavy gale sprang up, which increased to a hurricane. A signal of distress was made by the unfortunate ten-gun brig, while the other sloop was evidently in a bad plight. ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... ring she gave me Right royally dwarf-worked, To none will I pass it For prayer or for sword-stroke, Save to him who can claim it By love and by troth plight, Let that hero speak If that ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... knight: "Lords and barons, may God to you be kind! And all your souls redeem for Paradise! And let you there mid holy flowers lie! Better vassals than you saw never I. Ever you've served me, and so long a time, By you Carlon hath conquered kingdoms wide; That Emperour reared you for evil plight! Douce land of France, o very precious clime, Laid desolate by such a sour exile! Barons of France, for me I've seen you die, And no support, no warrant could I find; God be your aid, Who never yet hath lied! I must not fail now, brother, by your side; Save I be slain, for sorrow shall I die. Sir ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... impatient I am to see my brother, and tell him of his plight! The good man has been victimized, with ...
— The School for Husbands • Moliere
... of his father's plight, a haunting dread that Colonel Harrington might make him some trouble, and the uncertainty of continued work in the express service, all combined to depress his mind with anxiety and suspense, and he ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... of a family of that name long years ago. Pennington of Pennington. Why are you in this plight?" ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... Uncle Marmaduke made his appearance, dragging with him the unwilling Dick: the unfortunate boy was effectually sobered now, pale and trembling and besmirched with coal-dust—in fact, in very much the same plight as his ill-used father had been ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... the lecturer. By some hard luck he happened to be passing that way when the crowd was looking for the Abolitionist, and was discovered. "There he goes," was the cry that was raised, and a fire of eggs and other things was opened upon him. He reached his home in an awful plight, and it was charged that his conversation was not unmixed ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... not proved profitable. Few of us gathered any eggs; one who was more successful, and had secured enough to make it extremely difficult for him to scale the rocks, slipped, fell on his face, and scrambled all his store. His plight was laughable, but he was scarcely in the mood to relish it, as he washed his sack and blouse in cold water, while ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... some time before Wharton could rouse himself to action. The situation absorbed him. Miss Boyce's friend was now in imminent danger of his neck, and Miss Boyce's thoughts must be of necessity concentrated upon his plight and that of his family. He foresaw the passion, the saeva indignatio, that she must ultimately throw—the general situation being what it was—into the struggle for Hurd's life. Whatever the evidence might be, he would be to her either victim or champion—and Westall, ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... down upon a boulder and reflected upon my unfortunate plight. I had not told anyone that I proposed to come to the Blue John mine, and it was unlikely that a search party would come after me. Therefore I must trust to my own resources to get clear of the danger. There was only one ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... order his own physician to attend me, that I should have every attention without the slightest charge or expense to myself, etc., etc., and ended by saying I was to command him if he could serve me. In return I told him since he was so distressed over the accident and my plight, I should say no more about either, but as I was too badly shaken to complete the business on which I had come to Paris I should request him to instruct his subordinates to aid me in transmitting the funds I had brought from London back again. He called the manager and told him to ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... long and loud. "Of course he erred. You don't suppose that I would give the authorities my real name, do you? Why, man, I am a nephew! I have an aged uncle—a rich millionaire uncle—whose heart and will it would break were he to hear of my present plight. Both the heart and will are in my favor, hence my tender solicitude for him. I am innocent, of course—convicts always are, you know—but that wouldn't make any difference. He'd die of mortification just the same. It's one ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... occasion he had arrived in very bad plight indeed: he had brought away from Cork nothing but what he could carry on his body, and had been forced to pawn what he could pawn in order that he might subsist. And then he had been taken with ague, and ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... courteously performed from a wish to help us out of our difficulty, and with the full consciousness on the part of the doctor that it was only by an accident of constitution that he was not in the like plight himself. So the Erewhonians take a flogging once a week, and a diet of bread and water for two or three months together, whenever their ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... lonely forest, by the shore Of rivers and of ocean, by the ways Of the thronged city, have been hollowed out And filled, and closed. This day hath parted friends That ne'er before were parted; it hath knit New friendships; it hath seen the maiden plight Her faith, and trust her peace to him who long Had wooed; and it hath heard, from lips which late Were eloquent of love, the first harsh word, That told the wedded one her peace was flown. Farewell to the ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... hard, but the President was too rapid for him; he did not get the speech, and he noticed that the reporters for the other papers fared no better. Nothing daunted, however, after the speechmaking, Edward resolutely sought the President, and as the latter turned to him, he told him his plight, explained it was his first important "assignment," and asked if he could possibly be given a copy of the speech so that he could "beat" the ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... were there lying on the platforms; about a hundred of them, with their clothes torn, and covered with dust. They presented a sad picture. They were, it is true, only slightly wounded; but it cuts one to the heart to see soldiers in that plight, hauled out upon the ground without straw to lie upon or any doctor to attend to them. However, they had all had first-aid dressings. Below the bandages that bound their heads their feverish eyes gleamed in the light of the ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... crying, and trying in vain to hold up the fragments of her dress, which was torn in, at least, a dozen places. Katy could not stop crying, and it was fortunate that Aunt Izzie happened to be out, and that the only person who saw her in this piteous plight was Mary, the nurse, who doted on the children, and was always ready to help ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... the chief features of the South American coast-line had seemingly improved. To all appearance, she alone among the passengers, now that Christobal was gone, realized vaguely the perilous plight of the Kansas. The fact was that even a girl of her apparently frivolous disposition could not avoid the ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... and fleas and lice He spent his days and nights; Waist deep in mud, besmeared with blood, He fought a hundred fights; His faith was lost, the angel host Of Mons he didn't see; No Comrade White beheld his plight, ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens
... and in danger of being surrounded, and thinking Brutus is in the same plight, or a prisoner or dead—and that Titinius is taken or killed—gets his bondman, whose life he once saved, to kill him in return ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... precipice several hundred feet in depth. Above them was a smooth cliff unbroken save by the point of rock where the wrecked body of the Gump still hung suspended from the end of one of the sofas. There really seemed to be no means of escape, and as they realized their helpless plight the little band of adventurers gave ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... back to town by way of their roundabout ascent would waste time. If he was going to rescue her before night, he must take the shortest cut, and that was across the face of the sheer cliff. For the first time she understood how serious was their plight. ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... reached the bottom lands of the Arkansas River and were safe from fire, as the valley was very wide and covered with tall green grass which could not burn; and no sooner was the last wagon on safe ground than the fire gained the rim of the green bottomland. Our oxen were exhausted and in a bad plight, so we fortified and camped here for several days to recuperate before we forded the river. This took up several days, as the water was quite high and the river bottom a dangerous quicksand. To stop the wheels ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... in strangest plight. That last still night. That lasts till night. On either side an ocean exists. On neither side a notion exists. Among the rugged rocks the restless ranger ran. I said pop-u-lar, not pop'lar. I said pre-vail, not pr'vail. I said be-hold, ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... suppressed the cry. The end of Romeo and Juliet—date I confess it?—has always hovered for me close to that border which is not sublime. For the hapless lovers missed all for want of a little common sense. There was naught inevitable in their plight. I see the Comic Spirit leaning across to stay the hand of the impetuous Romeo. Why not take a moment's ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... Richard and his court were feasting in the camp outside the walls of Chalus, they of the castle were in the most miserable plight that may be conceived. Hunger, as well as the fierce assaults of the besiegers, had made dire ravages in the place. The garrison's provisions of corn and cattle, their very horses, dogs, and donkeys had been eaten up—so that it might well be said by Wamba "that famine, as well ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... them—and they began to drive bargains with publishers and managers. Their intent was to sell for cash and in the highest market; and their strenuous effort after the Main Chance put their gifted brother in a bad plight before the world of art. Beethoven's brothers seized his very early and immature compositions and sold them without his consent or knowledge. So humiliated was Beethoven by seeing these productions of his childhood hawked about that he even instituted lawsuits ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... himself said) consented at the first word, and from thence forward the two brothers were always of one party: Jack having, as he impudently phrased it, lent him forty shillings to put himself in a proper plight, and soon after their being together having broke open an alehouse, where they got a tolerable booty, in a high fit of generosity, John presented it all to his brother, as, soon after, he did clothes to a very considerable extent, so that the young man might not ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... have to do that," declared one of the Twinkle Twins. "See you again, boys!" and with waves of their hands they set off to find the nearest telephone, that they might send word of their plight to their hangars. ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... were not expecting this; still they kept their heads, and a man named Mar cut at him and caught his ankle, so that his foot hung crippled. With that he rolls down the beach, and the sea was at the flood. In such plight as he was in, Eyjolf set to and swam; and swimming he came twelve fathoms from shore to a shelf of rock, and knelt there; and then he fell full length upon the earth, and spread his hands from him, turning to the East ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... dear, If thou wilt only fight for me, My sister bright to thee I’ll plight, And she thy wedded wife ...
— Marsk Stig - a ballad - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... ashore. He lay dazed for a time, and dreamed that the old man visited him, and gave him a pull from his flask. Next morning, much refreshed, he wandered into the country, which he found to be an uninhabited island. He now repented of his undutiful conduct in leaving his parents, and felt his sad plight to be a ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... was going to the mill to see my uncle; but that horrid old Lambernier met me just as I entered the woods. What shall I do if he tells that he saw me? This is not the road to the mill. It is to be hoped that he has not followed me! I should be in a pretty plight!" ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... himself, so that I had to lead him the last four or five miles. Moreover, this cut on my hand must needs break forth bleeding more than I knew in the dark, or I had not frighted thee by coming in such sorry plight," and he in his turn gazed reassuringly into her eyes as she stood over him, anxiously examining, as if she scarce durst trust him, that if stiff and bruised at all, it mattered not. Then she begged ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... demand for these to tow out stock is greater than they can meet with promptness. All are working night and day, and the 'Susie' hardly stops for more than an hour anywhere. The rise has placed Trinity in a dangerous plight, and momentarily it is expected that some of the houses will float off. Troy is a little higher, yet all are in the water. Reports have come in that a woman and child have been washed away below here, and two cabins floated off. Their occupants ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... rushing forward he seized a long bare pole, and, wielding it with his whole force, he drove the fierce warriors back; and, laying about him on every hand, he soon sent them a thousand ways in great haste, and in a very sore plight. ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... that, if he would bring his companions home, he must avoid injuring the sacred cattle of the Sun, which pastured in the Isle of Thrinacia. If these were harmed, he would arrive in Ithaca alone, or in the words of the Cyclops's prayer, I in evil plight, with loss of all his company, on board the ship of strangers, to find sorrow in his house.' On returning to the Isle Aeaean, Odysseus was warned by Circe of the dangers he would encounter. He and his friends set forth, escaped ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... some time before I got my senses again. When I did I found that I was tied hand and foot, and was lying there on the sands, with three or four of our fellows in the same plight as myself. They all belonged to the jolly-boat in which I had come ashore. The other boat had made a shift to push off with some of its hands and get back to the ship; but I did not know that until afterwards, for I was lying down behind a hillock of sand and ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... They were full of quaint, sarcastic references to his plight, glib comments on the close proximity of the scaffold, and bitter lamentations over the detention of his brother Ernie, whose misery and unhappiness seemed to weigh more heavily with him than his own ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... the Fox cried out, "O! I burn, I burn! And I feel in a pitiful plight;" But the Goose held fast the lid of the churn, So Reynard he died ...
— The Fox and the Geese; and The Wonderful History of Henny-Penny • Anonymous
... chairs up to the table, only too delighted with the invitation. Their entertainer watched them as they attacked the food, and a thrill of pity ran through him as he beheld their sorry plight, dirty, ragged, arms gone, their sole attire a pair of red trousers and the capote, kept in place by bits of twine and so patched and pieced with shreds of vari-colored cloth that one would have taken them for men who had ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... out for combat / him, too, had Luedegast. Then full upon each other / they spurred their chargers fast, As on their shields they lowered / their lances firm and tight, Whereat the lordly monarch / soon found himself in sorry plight. ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... shilling, with which I paid the bathing-man, and walked off undiscovered to my own machine. The fat old she-triton laughed till she cried. I dressed in my proper costume leisurely enough, and was amused to hear afterwards of the luckless plight in which a stout gentleman had found himself by the temporary loss of all his apparel whilst he ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... night Fevered with Love's anxiety (O hapless, happy plight!) I went, none seeing me, Forth from my house, ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... been in almost as bad a plight, Hal. It was well indeed that we filled up our panniers, in the knowledge that there was little to be obtained in Ghent; though in truth we knew not that the pressure of want was ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... him. What was the use? He could not escape. Why should he wish to kill these soldiers? It was not they who were responsible for his plight—they were but obeying orders. The close presence of death made life seem very desirable. These men, too, desired life. Why should he take it from them uselessly. At best he might kill one or two, but in the end he would be killed ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... varied and fastidious repast accompanied by a good deal of physiology—but it was too bad that, having successfully got through it, she should be threatened with annihilation immediately afterward. It was no sort of consolation to her to know that she would be in the same plight with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... his oath, he must needs leave my mother. But ere he departed he sware to her that he would return when he had achieved his quest; but he kept not his oath. Thus have I sought him in many a court. All this did my lady mother tell me, and also of the troth-plight. Little good hath it done me that he be my father, and that he sware to my mother, ere he departed, that for her honour, and for her profit, he would return to her without fail. Doth he live, God send him mocking (this I pray in all humility), but an he be already dead, ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... says it is so; yet he pulled himself together as became the leader of an expedition, and did what he could for Eversofar until the rouseabout came with food and water. Then he broke down and cried— he denies this also. They tied the sick man on the horse and trudged back to the station in a bad plight. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... company and always willing to talk. "This is how it wur. None-so-pretty she caught cold when she'd bin here a couple of weeks, and the master he sent for coo-doctor. And coo-doctor come and says: 'She's in a pretty plight,' says he; 'information of the lungs she's got, and you'll never get her through it. A little dillicut scrap of a animal like that,' he says; 'she ain't not to say fit for this part of the country! An' so ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... dubious but at least potential profits to every member of the Roman community, and the gulf between the full citizens and the members of the allied communities was ever widening, it was more than doubtful whether a member of the former class, however desperate his plight, would readily condescend to enroll himself amongst the latter. But, even apart from these considerations, it must have seemed very questionable to any one, who held the traditional view that colonisation ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... heart. Yet, in spite of all my economy, when I had been at the school for several months, my funds gave out completely. I reached the point where I could not afford sufficient food for each day. In this plight I was glad to get, through one of the teachers, a job as an ordinary clerk in a downtown wholesale house. I did my work faithfully, and received a raise of salary before I expected it. I even managed to save a little money out of my modest earnings. In fact, I began then to contract the money ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... was the upset of my ink, whereof you see the remains; and our last moments were spent in reparations and apologies. My two squires are in different plight from what they were ten weeks ago, racing up hills that it then half killed them to come down, and lingering wistfully on the top for last glimpses of our bay. I am overwhelmed with their courtesies, and though each is lugging about twenty ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Peace Conference would let it—we have seen an imaginative revolt against war, not on the part of mere men of letters, but on the part of soldiers. Ballads have survived from other wars, depicting the plight of the mutilated soldier left ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... insistence that she accept Captain Yeovil's suit, it had been a great match for her, for the d'Aumeniers were impoverished exiles, while the Yeovils were a rich family and of a line almost as long as her own. It had been easy enough to plight her troth to the young Englishman at first, but since she had seen Marteau, she realized that it would not be easy to keep that engagement. Fortunately, Captain Yeovil had been on service in Spain and the South of France with the Duke ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... little of the chase, having plenty of work, for, had a gale come on, our ship, and a good many others, would assuredly have been driven ashore, in the plight we were in. Anyhow, at night their ships got into the Texel, and our vessels, which had been following them, anchored five or six leagues out, being afraid of the sands. Altogether we had burnt or sunk twenty-six of their ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... is a good instance of Beaumont and Fletcher's pathetic characters. She is troth-plight wife to Amintor, and after he, by the king's command, has forsaken her for Evadne, she disguises herself as a man, provokes her unfaithful lover to a duel, and dies under his sword, blessing the hand that killed her. This is a common type in ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... than before. As no trains were running at this hour, he walked in the direction where he would be likely to meet with an omnibus. But it was a long time before one passed which was any use to him. When he reached home he was in cheerless plight enough; to make things pleasanter, one of his boots ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... beheld their Plight, And to his Mates thus in Derision call'd. O Friends, why come not on those Victors proud? Ere-while they fierce were coming, and when we, To entertain them fair with open Front, And Breast, (what could ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... Hudson's Bay stock found that it had not earned him a sixpence during that year. The company's business was being cut down by the operations of its aggressive rival. The chief cause, however, of the company's financial plight was not the trade war in America, but the European war, which had dealt a heavy blow to British commerce. Napoleon had found himself unable to land his army in England, but he had other means of striking. In 1806 he issued the famous Berlin ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood
... while a shout or a sound of bell was borne over the roofs, or infrequent voices and footsteps sounded in the street beyond our gate. The men in the court under my window were quiet too, talking among themselves without much raillery or laughter; I knew they discussed the unhappy plight of the heir of St. Quentin. The chimes had rung some time ago the half-hour after nine, and I was fidgeting to be off, but huffed as I was with him, I could not lower myself to go ask Vigo's leave to start. He might come after ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... it, I must treat him kindly. Often without a thought, I return the gentle, loving pressure of his hand. I reproach myself that I am deceiving him, that I am nourishing in his heart a vain hope. I am in a sad plight! God knows, I do not willingly deceive him. I do not wish him to hope, yet I cannot let ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... great slave hunt in every direction there is no room to doubt. Though much more might be said about the parties concerned, it must suffice to add that they came to the Vigilance Committee in a very sad plight—in tattered garments, hungry, sick, and penniless; but they were kindly clothed, fed, doctored, and sent on their ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... elections and defeat there was always what had been done or what ought to have been done at Washington to discuss, it being strongly felt that without the assistance of Barnesville, Washington would be in a sorry plight indeed. ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and found to my relief the guard of the 16th Battalion. They had a big fire in the chimney-place, and were smoking and making tea. It was then about one o'clock, and they were both surprised and amused at my plight, but gave me a very glad welcome and offered me a bed and blankets on the floor. I was just going to accept them when I asked if the blankets were "crummy". The men burst out laughing. "You bet your life they are, Sir," they cried. "Well, boys," I said, "I think that I prefer to spend ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... of himself he would be released. He only doggedly shook his head. When I asked if he had been hurt in his bout with Dutch he smiled and extended his arms in denial. He was a very decent-looking fellow, blue-eyed and smooth-shaven, who seemed to accept his plight with a ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... Cause, whence Evil doth arise, Removed is, th' Effect surceaseth still. Abstain from Pleasure, and restrain your Will, Subdue Desire, and bridle loose Delight: Use scanted Diet, and forbear your Fill; Shun Secrecy, and talk in open sight: So shall you soon repair your present evil Plight. [1]' ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... only one chance for deliverance, we must get the tidings of our dreadful plight to Fort Wallace, a hundred miles away. Jack Stillwell and another brave scout were chosen for the dangerous task. At midnight they left us, moving cautiously away into the black blank space toward the southwest, and making a wide detour from their real line of direction. ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... Queene, my Mistris: O Lady, weepe no more, least I giue cause To be suspected of more tendernesse Then doth become a man. I will remaine The loyall'st husband, that did ere plight troth. My residence in Rome, at one Filorio's, Who, to my Father was a Friend, to me Knowne but by Letter; thither write (my Queene) And with mine eyes, Ile drinke the words you send, Though Inke be ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... prolonged beauty; neither can we endure continuously the stifling hollows between the hills. Be very sure the year-round countryman does not see what you see coming tired and half-broken from the town; and those who are caught and maimed by the City cannot conceive their plight, as do you, returning to them again from ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... sank clinging to the pommel. Twice she tried and twice the trembling of her limbs held her captive. With the loss of each moment the beat of the hoofs on the trail below became more distinct. The very desperation of her plight kept her clinging to the pommel, incapable of thought, so that when she finally flung herself to the saddle she was surprised to find herself there. To the left the trail dropped sharply to a precipice, choked by the close crowding of many scrub ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... the list was Demosthenes. In this dilemma, Phocion, who did not wish to speak upon such a question, was loudly called upon by the people for his opinion; when he rose and said that the persons whom Alexander demanded had brought the state into such a miserable plight that they deserved to be surrendered, and that for his own part he should be very happy to die for the commonwealth. At the same time he advised them to try the effect of intercession with Alexander; and it was ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... Kendall, who put in there with the Roiall marchant and left him there to refresh him on the Iland, being otherwise like to haue perished on shipboord: and at our comming wee found him as fresh in colour and in as good plight of body to our seeming as might be, but crazed in minde and halfe out of his wits, as afterwards wee perceiued: for whether he was put in fright of vs, not knowing at first what we were, whether friends or foes, or of sudden ioy when he vnderstand we were his olde consorts ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... never got so punished for a joke in his life before, and he took very good care not to let his sense of the ridiculous put him in such a plight again, as for more than two mortal hours he suffered all the tortures of a condemned criminal; as he said, he would rather ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... themselves up. The only one of the three who had suffered in the least from the fall was Anne, and she was only conscious of a severe shaking which had half stupefied her for the time. The wheel lay flat in the road, so that there was no possibility of driving further in their present plight. They looked around for help. The only friendly object near was a lonely cottage, from its situation evidently ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... its descent from the frontier. In a spruit, a branch of the Sand river, which runs through Schultz' farm, the Maxim, outpaced and overdriven, stuck fast, and it was promptly attacked and captured by a party of twenty-five of the enemy who had descried its plight from Talana, its detachment holding out until all were killed or wounded. In this affair nine Boer prisoners were also released. About 1.15 p.m., a party of two hundred Boers was seen descending Impati through the collieries at its northern extremity. The mountain already held ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... to evade my father's grasp, but could not, and, being unwise, struck him on the breast. My father felled him. The man lay in a flabby heap under the table, roaring lustily that he was being murdered; but so little sympathy did his plight extract, that, on the contrary, every man within happy reach, save Jagger and Skipper Tommy, gave him a hearty kick, taking no pains, it appeared, to choose the spot with mercy. As for Jagger, he had snatched up his whip, and was ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... What is this limp, discolored rag which returns to me iron-moulded, blued until it is nearly black, rough-dried, starched in patches, with the fringe of red earth only more firmly fixed than before? Behold my favorite ivory cotton! My white gowns are even in a worse plight, for there are no two yards of them the same, and the grotesque mixture of extreme yellowness, extreme blueness and a pervading tinge of the red mud they have been washed in renders them a piteous example of misplaced confidence. Other ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... ruler 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 States in carrying out their threat of disunion in the event of his election. ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... covered with the napkin and did whatso her lord had bidden her; after which she tare her gear and bared her head and letting down her hair, went in to the Lady Zubaydah, crying out and weeping. When the Princess saw her in this state, she cried, "What plight is this? What is thy story and what maketh thee weep?" And Nuzhat al-Fuad answered, weeping and loud-wailing the while, "O my lady, may thy head live and mayst thou survive Abu al-Hasan al-Khali'a; for he is dead!" The Lady Zubaydah mourned for him and said, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... the death of Lopez at Cerro Cora, women, even of the richest and most influential families, returned to their homes nearly naked: the large majority made their reappearance in a still more forlorn plight. The population of the republic, which had numbered about one million three hundred thousand at the beginning of the conflict, had dwindled to two hundred thousand or two hundred and fifty thousand. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... could get at her. Her immediate lot, however, was a cruel one. Deep as was her cause for anger against the man who had so inhumanly used her, still it was natural that she should turn to him with love rather than with aversion. To whom else could she in such plight look for love? When, therefore, she heard that he was slain, her heart sank within her; she turned her face to the wall, and laid herself down to die: to die a double death, for herself and the fatherless babe that was ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... employed at all; and where there is, most of the sects have no ring, no giving away, nor any of those observances which were practised in the churches of old. There existed no impediment, therefore; and after a decent interval spent in persuasions, Margery consented to plight her vows to the man of her heart before they left the spot. She would fain have had Dorothy present, for woman loves to lean on her own sex on such occasions, but submitted to the necessity of proceeding ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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
... mistress! O, lady, weep no more! lest I give cause To be suspected of more tenderness Than doth become a man. I will remain The loyal'st husband that did e'er plight troth ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... is hearing of the captivity Of the man whose plight is told; And hard it is to try the venom of blades With the warrior ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... stars. May not this serve as a symbol of the potency of light to usher the human spirit into realms of being at the doors of which music itself shall beat in vain? Or if we compare the universe accessible to sight with that accessible to sound—the plight of the blind in contrast to that of the deaf—there is the same discrepancy; the field of the eye is immensely richer, more various and more interesting ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... had gone wrong with Auld Jock. It was the man who wore the air of a culprit. A Scotch laborer does not lightly confess to feeling "fair silly," nor sleep away the busy hours of daylight. The old man was puzzled and humiliated by this discreditable thing. A human friend would have understood his plight, led the fevered man out of that bleak and fetid cul-de-sac, tucked him into a warm bed, comforted him with a hot drink, and then gone swiftly for skilled help. Bobby knew only that his master had unusual ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... music as Mrs. Pat remembered the woman who had bothered her for money that morning in Carnfother. She and the blind old man were tramping slowly up the road, seemingly as useless a couple to any one in Mrs. Pat's plight as could ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... the Earl, bitterly. "Ay, Richard de Montfort, you had best take heed to yourself, he was your best friend; and a sore lookout it is for us all. Between the old dotard his father and the poor babes his children, England is in woeful plight. Would that your father's wits were among us still! There's some curse on this fools' errand of a Crusade, for here is the sixth prince it hath slain, and well if we lose not our Princess too. But ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... handle, which shifted her observation; she saw in an instant all the absences that left them free. "How can we be anything else? But isn't that exactly your plight? 'We ladies'—oh we're nice, and you must be having enough of us! As one of us, you know, I don't pretend I'm crazy about us. But Miss Gostrey at least to-night has left you alone, hasn't she?" With which she again looked about as if Maria might ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... Moryson. Jones had fought with Charles I in the English civil wars, and now exhibited the wounds received in the service of the father as a plea for pardon for his rebellion against the son. Moryson was moved to pity at the plight of the old veteran and wrote to Madam Berkeley requesting her to intercede for him with the Governor.[764] "If I am at all acquainted with my heart," wrote the Lady in reply, "I should with more easinesse of ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... plight the knight travels on until Christmas-eve, and to Mary he makes his moan that she may direct him to some abode. On the morn he arrives at an immense forest, wondrously wild, surrounded by high hills on ...
— Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight - An Alliterative Romance-Poem (c. 1360 A.D.) • Anonymous
... run home before you catch cold," said Hiram, who could not help laughing at the young rascal's plight. "And let girls ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... her lips, and were spoken slowly as though chosen with care. "The sad plight of the ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... hammock cooking supper, a party of white men came upon them, seized their rifles, examined their camping equipment and then fell to beating them. While they were occupied in this way some friends of the campers came up and seeing the plight of their comrades opened fire on the white men. The latter returned the fire and killed ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... upheld him for so many years gave away. He opened his veins and lay down to die, when in his despair he heard the voice of Gefhardt, the friendly sentinel from the other prison. Hearing of Trenck's sad plight, he scaled the palisade, and, we are told expressly, bound up his wounds, though we are not told how he managed to enter the cell. Be that as it may, the next day, when the guards came to open the door, they found Trenck ready to meet them, armed with a brick in one hand, and a ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... it—longer ago than 'Le Bon Pasteur,' and in other subsequent Attempts. I was tempted to think this was some Defect—great Defect—in myself: but a Note at the end of the Volume informs me that a much greater Wit than I was in the same plight—even Coleridge; who admires the perfect German Diction, the Songs, Choruses, etc. (which are such parts as cannot be translated into Prose); he also praises Margaret and Mephistopheles; but thinks Faust himself dull, and great part of the Drama flat and tiresome; and the whole Thing ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... kill me, the Prince Camillo had given orders to break my legs: and since to abandon me in this plight went against the conscience of his followers (and even, it is possible, against his own), he had left Marc'antonio behind to nurse me—thus gratifying a second spite. The Prince ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... the young lord come in with me, and heard that he was to lie there that night, seeing that as yet we had no more beds than we had bought for our own need from old Zabel Nering the forest-ranger his widow, at Uekeritze. Wherefore she took me aside: What was to be done? My bed was in an ill plight, her little godchild having lain on it that morning; and she could no wise put the young nobleman into hers, although she would willingly creep in by the maid herself. And when I asked her why not? she blushed scarlet, and began to cry, and would not show herself ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... impetuously all night long, in so much that we were wet from head to foot and had not one dry thread about us; and so violent was the rain that we could not keep any fire going to warm or dry ourselves. Not one minute's sleep did we get during the whole night, and our plight was indeed an awful one, remote from our companions and wholly destitute of all human comfort. As morning broke, our plight was little relieved, for a vast sea surrounded us on one side, and on the other ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... upon the ground and numerous salmon spears were their only furniture. In a few minutes my arrival created a prodigious commotion. The whole population turned out to stare at me. The children ran into the bushes to hide. But feminine curiosity conquered feminine timidity. Although I was in the plight of the forlorn Odysseus after his desperate swim, I had no 'blooming foliage' to wind [Greek text which cannot be reproduced]. Unlike the Phaeacian maidens, however, the tawny nymphs were all as brave as Princess Nausicaa herself. They stared, and pointed, and buzzed, and giggled, ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... rowed quickly back past where the prisoners sat contentedly enough; save the cow, which kept making the great rock wall echo with her lowings, while three more of her kind now stood on high, gazing down at her plight. ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... 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
... hurt," said Dick, running all the same; and in passing the yard they closed the gate, for Solomon was safe inside; but as they reached the house, where Mrs Winthorpe stood staring aghast at her son's plight, Solomon burst forth with another ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... 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 she ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... him more or less mechanically—her mind, roving from one consideration of their plight to another, had caught at a certain viewpoint and was groping with it. They were stalled more effectively than any accident to the car could have stalled them—they were there for the night, there seemed no escape from that. But there was nothing to be afraid of. She had ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... house, with their 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 of ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester
... them grace thy brows With wreathes of fadeless asphodel, And let them yearly plight their vows Unto the bard they love ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... by a man on foot, without shoes or coat, and his head bandaged by a handkerchief. He announced himself as the Captain Duncan who had been captured by Wade Hampton in Fayetteville, but had escaped; and, on my inquiring how he happened to be in that plight, he explained that when he was a prisoner Wade Hampton's men had made him "get out of his coat, hat, and shoes," which they appropriated to themselves. He said Wade Hampton had seen them do it, and he had appealed to him personally for protection, as an officer, but Hampton answered him ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... look like ants and all the bustle and stir of their hurrying lives seems pitifully confused and aimless. But the man in the street who is looking and striving upward is in a different situation. However poor his present plight, the thing he aims at and is striving toward stands out clear and distinct above him, inspiring him with hope and ambition in his struggle upward. For the man who is down there is always something to hope for, always something to be gained. ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... workmen (in Hedemarken) were compelled to seek relief from the Poor Fund when their families were large. The smaller farmers and the labourers are in the worst plight, since the falling off in the timber trade has made them feel the want of the usual steady demand for labour at high wages.' Further: 'it has become very difficult for the least affluent and for ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... Antioch, the key to northern Syria. The city fell after a siege of seven months, but the crusaders were scarcely within the walls before they found themselves besieged by a large Turkish army. The crusaders were now in a desperate plight: famine wasted their ranks; many soldiers deserted; and Alexius disappointed all hope of rescue. But the news of the discovery in an Antioch church of the Holy Lance which had pierced the Savior's side restored their drooping spirits. The whole army issued forth from the ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... my 1905 holiday may be summed up thus. Russia was powerless, and the dismayed Balkan States could not move without her. Austria had a free hand, and seemed likely to take advantage of Russia's plight. (It should be remembered to her credit that she did not.) There was very marked discontent in Montenegro against the Prince, and it was quite obviously engineered from Serbia, and perhaps from Russia too. The struggle ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... enemies by looking worn and haggard. She must consider her appearance a little more than she had done lately in view of this future time. Her being somewhat weather-browned would not matter; it would be rather an advantage, as testifying to her banishment; but she must be in comfortable plight, and for ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... chivalry; he forgot the activity Simoun had displayed in urging Paulita's marriage, which had plunged Isagani into the fearful misanthropy that was worrying his uncle. He forgot all these things and thought only of the sick man's plight and his own obligations as a host, until his senses reeled. Where must he hide him to avoid his falling into the clutches of the authorities? But the person chiefly concerned was not worrying, he ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... captain. He was seventy-four years old with snow-white hair and had only one eye. Graham soon sank into a chair and was quite past reading barometers or anything else. He could just assent to remarks made to him by the captain and that was all. Ellen was in no better plight and sat on a bench near me, and I cannot say I felt cheerful, for the schooner, which was empty and had not much ballast, was rolling considerably. I carried on various conversations and strained my eyes to see if Mr. Keytel's boat was coming. It was a long wait, and when at last he did ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... plight hardly better than his own. Autumnal rains, uncommonly heavy and persistent, had ruined the newly-cut road. On the mountains the torrents tore it up, and in the valleys the wheels of the wagons and cannon churned it ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... sight, bound to the wrecked schooner, and seeing the men waving and their dangerous plight, eased her engines. Deal boats were towing astern, and Deal boatmen were on board, and out of their number Finnis and Watts bravely volunteered to go to the rescue in ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... winsomeness of the wooing stands out appealingly as one goes through those fragments of teaching talks running throughout. The rare faithfulness of it to the nation and its leaders is thrown into bold relief by the very opposition that reveals their dire spiritual plight and ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... Wormwood the trial and the Uzzite's black shard; And the faithfuller the heart, the crueller the throe. Duty? It pulled with more than one string, This way and that, and anyhow a sting. The flag and your kin, how be true unto both? If either plight ye keep, then ye break the other troth. But elect here they must, though the casuists were out; ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... our enemies advanced on us for the fourth time, but very slowly. Meanwhile I had been taking stock of the position. The camel corps, or what was left of it, oblivious of our plight which the dust of conflict had hidden from them, was travelling on to the north, more or less victorious. That is to say, it had cut its way through the Black Kendah and was escaping unpursued, huddled up in a mob with the baggage animals ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... whip coiled in his hand, impatient to get to Maya's room, was moved to pity at the creature's plight. Besides, the Jellies were harmless, and this one certainly wouldn't be seeking admittance without ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay |
