"Piteous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of beauty, and the flush of wine, For fops, fools, gamesters, knaves, and Lords combine: Each to his humour—Comus all allows; 650 Champaign, dice, music, or your neighbour's spouse. Talk not to us, ye starving sons of trade! Of piteous ruin, which ourselves have made; In Plenty's sunshine Fortune's minions bask, Nor think of Poverty, except "en masque," [100] When for the night some lately titled ass Appears the beggar which his grandsire ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... alarmed, and, quite losing command of herself, called upon him in piteous accents to answer, or if anything had befallen him to give her some sign of his whereabouts in order that she might be guided to his assistance. Still calling him, she was about to attempt the perilous ascent of the cliff-face in quest of him when she ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... them by our prayers and good works, and especially by, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Thus may we shorten their time of banishment, assuage their pains, and continue to storm Heaven itself with our piteous appeals until the Lord deign to look down in mercy, open their prison doors, and admit them to the full light of His holy presence, and to the everlasting embrace of ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... alone, She hears in her anguish his piteous moan, As he eagerly listens—but listens in vain, To catch the loved tones of his mother again! The curse of the broken in spirit shall fall On the wretch who hath mingled this wormwood and gall, And his gain like a mildew shall blight and destroy, Who hath torn from his ...
— The Anti-Slavery Harp • Various
... the envelope through that the next moment might bring a piteous outcry from within, as if I had drawn upon the vital nerves of an organism. Yet none came; I found myself erect once more with the envelope in my hand, reading the writing on its face. It was scrawled in ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... faithful to the facts, in all its absurd details. The thing happened in Lampton's own house, and I was present. In fact I was myself the guest who ate the turnips. In the hands of a great actor that piteous scene would have dimmed any manly spectator's eyes with tears, and racked his ribs apart with laughter at the same time. But Raymond was great in humorous portrayal only. In that he was superb, he was wonderful—in ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... hair, held in place by a black tape. Persons who had pitied me for having "such a big head and so much hair" now found reason for comment "on my small head with no hair." The most expensive head cover never deceived anyone, however simple, and I was obliged to make my debut in St. Louis in this piteous plight. ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... then dumb, then blind; and sometimes, all these disorders together would come upon them. Their tongues would be drawn down their throats, then pulled out upon their chins. Their jaws, necks, shoulders, elbows, and all their joints would appear to be dislocated, and they would make most piteous outcries of burnings, of being cut with knives, beat, &c. and the marks of wounds were afterwards to be seen." At length an old Irish woman, not of good character, who had given one of those girls some harsh ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... Instead of the gay, almost fashionable suburb of Noeux les Mines, with numbers of people in the streets, it was now a wilderness of empty houses; the only sign of life, the piteous little groups of women and children waiting by the roadside for some French car to come and take them to a place of safety. The miners alone remained. Inspired by Clemenceau, who had visited the place a day or two before, they were working ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... don't send my baby away," she implored, in quite a piteous voice; "he is always with me now, and so good and quiet, only you startled ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... hastened to the gate leading into the hill meadow, and perceived a figure struggling in the strong grasp of Sylvanus. The sentinel's left arm was round the prisoner, and the gun was in his right hand. As they came towards the gate, the Squire heard piteous entreaties in a feminine voice to be let go, and the answer: "'Tain't no kind o' use, Tryphosy, even ef ye was arter Timotheus an' not me; that ain't it, at all. It's this: yer didn't say Bridesdale when I charlinged ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... a poor, old and decrepid beggar, clothed in rags, hideous of visage, and with a peculiarly fearful and tremendous expression in his eyes. Apollonius called out to the Ephesians, "This is an enemy to the Gods; turn all your animosity against him, and stone him to death!" The old man in the most piteous tones besought their mercy. The citizens were shocked with the inhumanity of the prophet. Some however of the more thoughtless flung a few stones, without any determined purpose. The old man, who had ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... of? She did not run. Robbie looked at her in piteous distress; Duncan was beside himself. He cast a beseeching glance at Elsie, a momentary one of resentful anger at his mother, an impatient one at Robbie, the unfortunate messenger of ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... weep bearded heroes; This the hero-cry of anguish." Quick she pushed her boat to water, To the floods her goodly vessel, Straightway rows with lightning swiftness, To the weeping Wainamoinen; Gives the hero consolation, Comfort gives she to the minstrel Wailing in a grove of willows, In his piteous condition, Mid the alder-trees and aspens, On the border of the salt-sea, Visage trembling, locks dishevelled. Ears, and eyes, and lips of sadness. Louhi, hostess of Pohyola, Thus addresses Wainamoinen: "Tell me what has been thy folly, That thou ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... One day the news was brought to their new king, By a small troop of sorrow-stricken men, That ev'ry night a tiger from his den Came down and fearful havoc wrought amongst Their toiling cattle, and the piteous tales Of dreadful woe they poured into his ear Moved Timma's heart, who took his trusty bow And forthwith started with a faithful band To drag the tiger from his mountain cave And then for ever stop his mad career. For days and nights he wandered in the ...
— Tales of Ind - And Other Poems • T. Ramakrishna
... Bellaise had the more effect on her, because she well remembered the traditions whispered among the peasants with whom her childhood had been passed, that the village crones declared nothing had gone well with the place since the Bellaise had been expelled, with a piteous tale of the broken-hearted lady, that she had never ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was very glad indeed to see the crow, and cried to him in a piteous voice: "Be quick, be quick, and help me, before the terrible hunters find me and ...
— Hindu Tales from the Sanskrit • S. M. Mitra and Nancy Bell
... striking, not for themselves, but for human nature, outraged and despoiled in their persons and in those of their fellow sufferers. And are we, who ourselves are not in this horrible predicament, to stand by and coldly condemn these piteous victims of the Furies and Fates? Are we to decry as miscreants these human beings who act with heroic self-devotion, sacrificing their lives in protest, where less social and less energetic natures would lie down and grovel in abject submission to injustice and wrong? Are we ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... author has been known so free, He once suggested a catastrophe— In short, John dabbled till his head was turn'd; His wife remonstrated, his neighbours mourn'd, His customers were dropping off apace, And Jack's affairs began to wear a piteous face. One night his wife began a curtain lecture; "My dearest Johnny, husband, spouse, protector, Take pity on your helpless babes and me, Save us from ruin, you from bankruptcy— Look to your business, leave these cursed plays, And try again your ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... this pang!" he cry'd, Then to his bosom prest The dying maid, who piteous sigh'd, And ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams
... and loading trucks. Ruffians were pushing in at the open doors, snatching valuables and insulting the owners. There was a hasty seizing of goods, and a wild dash into the street from imperiled houses, a shouting for trucks and carriages, piteous inquiries for absent friends, distressed cries for absent protectors, screams of little children, swift, wild faces pushing eagerly in this direction and that; oaths and prayers and shoutings; women bowed beneath mattresses and heavy furniture; wheels interlocking in an inextricable ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... precipitated through the bushes into the ravine below, conscious only of unspeakable terror and an agonising pain in one of her ancles, which rendered her quite powerless. The noise of the stones she had dislodged in her fall and her piteous cries, brought Louis and Hector to her side, and they bore her in their arms to the hut of boughs and laid her down upon her bed of leaves and grass and young pine boughs. When Catharine was able to speak, she related to Louis and Hector the cause ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... has found her place on shore; The sun gone down again to rest; And all is still but ocean's roar; There stands the man unbless'd. But see, he moves—he turns, as asking where His mates? Why looks he with that piteous stare? ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... would expect the like charity themselves in such a condition!—"What! you rascal," said Don Quixote, "do you think yourself at the gallows, and at the point of death, that you hold forth in such a piteous strain? Dastardly wretch without a soul, dost thou not know that the fair Magalona once sat in thy place, and alighted from thence, not into the grave, but into the throne of France, if there is truth in history? And do not I sit by thee, that I may vie with the valorous ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... legs last night for three hours and three quarters, and I sat through it all. As far as I could observe through the bars I was the only person in the House who listened to him. I'm sure Mr. Gresham was fast asleep. It was quite piteous to see some of them yawning. Plantagenet did it very well, and I almost think I understood him. They seem to say that nobody on the other side will take trouble enough to make a regular opposition, but that there are men in the City who will write ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... said she, 'it is so poor, its back is as sharp as a knife. It hurt me properly, that's a fact, and has most broke my crupper bone.' And she put her hand behind her, and moaned piteous. ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... borrowed the name of a celebrated Irish leader, to typify that spirit of violence and insurrection which is necessarily generated by systematic oppression, and rudely avenges its crimes; and the picture he has drawn of its prevalence in that unhappy country is at once piteous and frightful. Its effect in exciting our horror and indignation is in the long run increased, we think— though at first it may seem counteracted—by the tone of levity, and even jocularity, under which he has chosen to veil the deep sarcasm and substantial terrors of his story. ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... does not appeal except in moments of contention. Hence the drama, to interest an audience, must present its characters in some struggle of the wills,—whether it be merely flippant, as in the case of Benedick and Beatrice, or gentle, as in that of Viola and Orsino, or terrible, with Macbeth, or piteous, with Lear. The drama, therefore, is akin to the epic, in that it must represent a struggle; but it is more akin to the novel, in that it deals with human character in its individual, rather than its ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... Max," responded the girl, "and do not wish to be sure. I will see you at Metz, and there we may part. It is our fate. We must not be doleful, Sir Max, we must be—we must be—happy and brave." Her poor little effort to be happy and brave was piteous. ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... the split tongues gabbled in his ears. Now and again, when he could catch or guess at the meaning of a word, he answered the speaker gently; or the others, seeing that he had not understood them aright, painfully tried to explain the error. Oh! it was a piteous thing to see and hear. My gorge rose against the young brute of an Emperor and his councillors who, for ambition's sake, had wrought this horrible crime. Little did I know then that ere long their fate would be his own, and that a mother's hand would deal ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... a lancet. The furious animal missed the throat and jugular vein; but the horse was so dreadfully torn, that he was not at first expected to survive. The expressions of agony, in his tears and moans, were most piteous and affecting. Whether the lioness was afraid of her prey being taken from her, or from some other cause, she continued a considerable time after she had entered the hovel roaring in a dreadful manner, so loud, indeed, that ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... the wonder and admiration of all, this extraordinary woman showed her full strength and the inexhaustible power she possessed over her own emotions. With a smile piteous in its triumph over a suffering the depths of which they were just beginning to sound, she held his gaze in ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... and became piteous with desire and grief, and he bent his brows upon them, for they seemed to him light-minded and ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... congenital antipathy. Montaigne says there are persons who dread the smell of apples more than they would dread being exposed to a fire of musketry. The readers of the charming story "A Week in a French Country-House" will remember poor Monsieur Jacque's piteous cry in the night: "Ursula, art thou asleep? Oh, Ursula, thou sleepest, but I cannot close my eyes. Dearest Ursula, there is such a dreadful smell! Oh, Ursula, it is such a smell! I do so wish thou couldst smell it! Good-night, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Bentley or Hodder until the incident was past. It was terrible indeed to behold this woman revert—almost in the twinkling of an eye—to a vicious wretch crazed for drink, to feel that the struggle had to be fought all over again. Unable to awe Sally Drover's spirit, she would grow piteous. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in inverse ratio with age. A little child raises a piteous cry of fright if it is left alone for only a few minutes; and later on, to be shut up by itself is a great punishment. Young people soon get on very friendly terms with one another; it is only the few among ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... hissed through the air. He winced slightly under the blow. Then she let blow after blow rain upon him, with her mouth half-opened and her teeth flashing between her red lips, until he finally seemed to ask for mercy with his piteous, blue eyes. It ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... his hand to his heart, he closed his eyes, became pale, and uttered a piteous moan. Gilbert sprang towards him, ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... mother was aroused by the ineffectual efforts of Mary Jane to awaken her nurse. On entering the chamber, she found that the dear child had not slept at all. Her head was throbbing with pain, and she was saying in a piteous manner, "I can't wake up Nancy." Her mother immediately carried her to her own bed, and having placed her there, perceived that from an almost icy coldness, she had suddenly changed to an ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... wretched folk as they emerged from the companion-way. One of them was Alice Merton, and he was moved to such pity by the sight of her white face and evident weakness that he put down his curry-comb and brush and went to help her. Her face was flooded with colour as she raised her piteous blue eyes to him, and her hand shook as he drew ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... on the head, and another that was but a little wounded in the arm, & then put the other languishing wretches out of their pain: while he that was not hurt, with bended knees and uplifted hands, made piteous moans, and signs to them to spare his life; nor, indeed, were they unmerciful to the poor wretch, but pointed to him to sit down at the root of a tree hard by; and then, one of the Englishmen, with ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... sweetheart; will you fly with me? And the proud mother will meet you. And the gentle cousin will attend on you. And Castle Dare will welcome the young bride!"—what would she have said? The moment was over. She only saw the train go gently away from the station; and she saw the piteous eyes fixed on hers; and while he was in sight she waved her handkerchief. When the train had disappeared she turned away with ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... rest than the cuckoo's note lasted, or they could sing a song. But that quern was such that it ground anything that the grinder chose, though until then it had ground nothing but gold and peace. So the maidens ground and ground, and one sang their piteous tale in a strain worthy of Aeschylus as the other worked— they prayed for rest and pity, but Frodi was deaf. Then they turned in giant mood, and ground no longer peace and plenty, but fire and war. Then the quern went fast and furious, and that very night came Mysing the Sea-rover, and slew ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... does Mrs. Palling. Notice the beehives. They are looking decidedly rakish adorned with black streamers in honour of the occasion. I have written to London to-day for a fresh supply of black ribbon, for the last was torn from my Sunday hat. I had no heart to refuse Mrs. Palling's piteous appeal, but the demand is becoming so constant that, as she does not seem inclined to keep a supply herself, I feel I ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... she gabbled piteously, all manner of incomprehensible roulades of lamentation and entreaty; coyly, penitently, in a most interesting agitation, she produced the very key from her breast, with a string tied to it. My father was little moved by this piteous tempest. He coolly took the key and tried it in the desk, which it locked and unlocked quite freely, though the wards were complicated. He shook his head and looked ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... useless. Her first and foremost interest now was to find out how she really stood in the estimation of Julian Gray. In a terror of suspense, that turned her cold from head to foot, she stopped him on his way out, and spoke to him with the piteous counterfeit ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... came up from the darkness of the pit in a piteous howl. Betsy made a great effort and stopped crying. She sat down on a stone and tried to think. And this is what came into her mind as a guide: "What would Cousin Ann do if she were here? She wouldn't cry. She would ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... lips There speak her grievous woe, Though in her chamber in the night Her frequent tears would flow. She dreamt of wrong where love was sought, Of crafty cruel eyes, Of one steep stair, of grasping hands That stifled piteous cries; ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... daughter of a simple baron, and that the right divine or royalty would make it sufficiently holy without the rite divine of the church. He was, therefore, graciously pleased to fall into an exceeding passion, when his confidential messenger returned from his embassy in piteous plight, having been, by the baron's order, first tossed in a blanket and set in the stocks to cool, and afterwards ducked in the moat and set again in the stocks to dry. John swore to revenge horribly this flagrant outrage on royal prerogative, and to obtain possession of the lady by force of ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... nearer, he heard the crone mutter some words, which Mobarec imagined to be used in order to stifle the piteous cries of the child. ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... resignedly from one burning patch of shade to another. Among the verandah roof-beams, three grey squirrels argued, with subdued chitterings, over a kipper's head stolen from a breakfast plate; and at intervals a piteous wailing came from the servants' quarters, where, as all knew, Nizam Din, kitmutgar, was beating his pretty wife, Miriam Bibi, for the third time that week, because she had grown careless in the matter of covering her face, since the coming of Zyarulla, ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... one little tired husky bark he gave at his old enemy, the Italian workman, passing by, would have broken your heart; and the effort he made with a bone, as he visited the well-remembered neighbourhood of the ice-box for the last time, was piteous beyond telling. Those sharp, strong teeth that once could bite and grind through anything could do nothing with it now. To lick it sadly with tired lips, in a sort of hopeless way, was all that was left; ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... believe him..." She kept on repeating the words like a talisman. It was natural, after all, that he should have behaved as he had: defended the girl's piteous secret to the last. She too began to feel the contagion of his pity—the stir, in her breast, of feelings deeper and more native to her than the pains of jealousy. From the security of her blessedness she longed to lean over with compassionate hands...But Owen? What was Owen's ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... perplex him, as it perplexes every thinking creature, with wonder at the universal bitterness that taints all creation, at the universal death whereby all forms of life are nurtured, at the universal anguish of all existence which daily and nightly assails the unknown God in piteous protest at the inexorable laws of inexplicable miseries and mysteries. But because such suffering was thus universal, therefore he almost ceased to feel pity for it; of the two he pitied the beasts far more than the human kind:—the horse staggering beneath the lash in all the feebleness ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... anguish his craven heart has given way, and he makes a piteous appeal for mercy. Not to those near him, knowing it would scarce be listened to; but to the man he has much wronged, calling out his name, ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... a fearful day—a day that no one who was there will ever forget. The heat, too, was unbearable. The sun shot down his piteous rays upon us, and the higher he rose the hotter it became. It was terrible to see the dead lying uncovered in the scorching rays; and our poor wounded suffered indescribable tortures from thirst. ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... followed by a terrible shriek. I sprang up and darted into the passage: from another door in it came the white leopardess with a new-born baby in her mouth, carrying it like a cub of her own. I threw myself upon her, and compelled her to drop the infant, which fell on the stone slabs with a piteous wail. ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... jerking her stomach, he sat straight up, and then, as if instinctively trying to get away from her, pressed back against the wall, hiding the painting of the Ouled Nail and the French soldier. A dark flush rose on his face and even flooded his forehead to his low-growing hair. His eyes were full of a piteous anxiety and discomfort, and he glanced almost guiltily to right and left of him as if he expected the hooded Arab spectators to condemn his presence there now that the dancer drew their attention to it. The dancer noticed ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... flash shewed the bark, with one sail unfurled, driving towards the coast. Blanche hung upon her father's arm, with looks full of the agony of united terror and pity, which were unnecessary to awaken the heart of the Count, who gazed upon the sea with a piteous expression, and, perceiving, that no boat could live in the storm, forbore to send one; but he gave orders to his people to carry torches out upon the cliffs, hoping they might prove a kind of beacon to the vessel, or, ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... that his feet would just escape the ground. In that situation he was to wait till the doctor had taken his tea. I shall never forget that night. Never before, in my life, had I heard hundreds of blows fall; in succession, on a human being. His piteous groans, and his "O, pray don't, massa," rang in my ear for months afterwards. There were many conjectures as to the cause of this terrible punishment. Some said master accused him of stealing corn; others said the slave had quarrelled with his wife, in presence of the ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... Betty's bent on her intent; For her good neighbour, Susan Gale, Old Susan, she who dwells alone, Is sick, and makes a piteous moan, 20 As if her very life ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... sea churns with sand. Three ships the south wind catches and hurls on hidden rocks, rocks amid the waves which Italians call the Altars, a vast reef banking the sea. Three the east forces from the deep into shallows and quicksands, piteous to see, dashes on shoals and girdles with a sandbank. One, wherein loyal Orontes and his Lycians rode, before their lord's eyes a vast sea descending strikes astern. The helmsman is dashed away and rolled forward headlong; her as she lies the billow sends spinning thrice round with it, and engulfs ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... of weakness, even the most irreproachable Philistine among us; and as Bertram said those words in rather a piteous voice, it occurred to Philip Christy that the loan of a portmanteau would be a Christian act which might perhaps simplify matters for the handsome and engaging stranger. Besides, he was sure, after all—mystery or no mystery—Bertram Ingledew was Somebody. That ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... all this but was paying no attention to what was being said. His whole mind was concentrated on the swaying roof of the wrecked cabin, and the piteous sight of that frightened little fellow clinging ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... which scare Thy heart in man, to brutes thou wilt not spare. Are these less sad and real? Pain in man Bears the high mission of the flail and fear; In brutes 'tis purely piteous. ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... huge pieces of rock lay strewn here and there. Now they noticed a large bird hovering in the air, flying slowly round and round above them; it sank lower and lower, and at last settled near a rock not far off. Directly afterwards they heard a loud, piteous cry. They ran up and saw with horror that the eagle had seized their old acquaintance the dwarf, and was going to carry ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... at his feet lay the equally faithful Rex, who could be neither coaxed nor driven from the room, but remained quietly watching his master's face, an almost human love and sorrow looking out of his eyes, as he answered the occasional moans with a low, piteous whine. ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... sparkled at the proposition; But poor Dudu, with large drops in her own, Resulting from the scolding or the vision, Implored that present pardon might be shown For this first fault, and that on no condition (She added in a soft and piteous tone) Juanna should be taken from her, and Her future dreams should ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... scrawny neck and wrinkled face—a dried, parchment-like face which resembled some of the little monkeys Tarzan knew so well. He saw the terror in the man's eyes—never before had Tarzan seen such terror in the eyes of any animal, or such a piteous appeal for mercy upon the ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a moss-grown boulder sitting, Watching the graceful swallows flitting, Hearing the cuckoo's note. Sheep on the hills around me feeding, While in their piteous accents pleading, The lambkins' bleatings float. —Oh, dear! a fly gone down ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... did not end with this joyful sight. One of the dreadful facts of the dreadful time was the frequent deception of boatmen by Indians and renegades who pretended to be escaping prisoners, and who lured them to their destruction by piteous appeals for help. The boatmen now refused to land for Davis; they told him they had heard too many stories like his, and they kept on down the stream, while he followed wearily along the shore. At last he entreated them to row in a little nearer, so that he could swim out to ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... usually so reverently tender to her parents, so soft, so gentle, seemed now to take no notice of the unusual state of things, but talked to me—to any one, on indifferent subjects, regardless of her father's gravity, of her mother's piteous looks of bewilderment. But once my eyes fell upon her hands, concealed under the table, and I could see the passionate, convulsive manner in which she laced and interlaced her fingers perpetually, wringing them together from time to time, wringing till the compressed flesh ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... worse might have happened to the Pilgrims anywhere else in England, under the dread lord there then was, and in fact something of the same hardship did befall them afterward at the place a little northeast of Boston, which we were now to visit for their piteous sake. ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... ride before it's time for school. Holloa, there John! you lazy cuss! Bring forth my horse, Bucephalus!" So spake the man of letters. Straight Black John went through the stable gate, But soon returned with hair on end, While terror wings his speed did lend, And out he sent his piteous wail: "O boss! Old ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... beginning—as soon as I could—I told you I was afraid of myself." There was a piteous pleading in the low murmur in which Deronda turned his ear only. Her face afflicted him too much. "I felt a hatred in me that was always working like an evil spirit—contriving things. Everything I could do to free myself came into my mind; and it got ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... schemes and South Sea bubbles, were here repeated on a greater scale and in more aggravated form. To most, the loss of wealth was loss of ancestry, repute, respectability, decency, recognition of their fellows—all. Small wonder that their withers were fearfully wrung, and their wails piteous. Enterprise and prosperity were frozen as in a sea of everlasting ice, and guardians of trusts, like Ugolino, plunged their robber fangs into the scalps and entrails of ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... like a bit of Jervis himself—direct, simple, telling her all she wanted to know, yet leaving much unsaid. Rose had once been shown a love-letter in which the word "kiss" occurred thirty-four times. She was glad that there was nothing of that sort in Jervis's letter, and yet she longed with a piteous, aching longing to feel once more his arms clasping her close, his ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... woodchuck? Sometimes it seemed as if the hole was a bottomless pit. But sooner or later the water would rise in it, and then there was sure to be seen the nose of the woodchuck, keeping itself on a level with the rising flood. It was piteous to see the anxious look of the hunted, half-drowned creature as—it came to the surface and caught sight of the dog. There the dog stood, at the mouth of the hole, quivering with excitement from his nose to the tip of his ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... and charming little town, lying like a bright crystal at the foot of Mont Blanc. Round each of several big telescopes under striped canvas umbrellas, was collected a crowd. We could guess at what they were looking. "Shall we stop and see that piteous dark packet lying lonely on the snow?" I asked, pausing. But the Boy hurried on. "No, no," he said, "I should feel as if I had been spying on the dead through a keyhole. I want to buy something ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... and you, you are here to train up loyal subjects to me. See that you fulfil this task!" Is there in human history a document more blasting to the reputation for political wisdom or foresight of him who penned it? It were an insult to the great Florentine to style such piteous ineptitudes Machiavellian. Yet they succeeded. The new evangel had lost its power; the freedom of Humanity was the dream of a few ideologues; the positive ideals of later times had not yet arisen. Well might men ask ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... It was piteous to think of the poor fellow waiting and hoping for an answer to such a letter as this, and dying without one, while all the time it was lying unread in the Captain's desk, and no one even knew of the changed life and fresh hopes. Sir Jasper was much moved by ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... as he spoke, and now threw out her arms to draw him back. He eluded her clasp, and dropped to the ground on his feet, but fell backward, and did not at once rise again. She shrieked, and then called out in a piteous tone: "Speak to me, Colonel L'Isle. For Heaven's sake, speak. Say you are not ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... seldom interferes with kindly intention in the lives of men, had cut what had become a strangling knot, and Kitty, from a dreadful, never-forgotten burden, had become a rather touching, piteous memory, growing ever dimmer as first the months, and then the years, ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... were devoured, Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one, And he was faithful to a corse, and kept The birds and beasts and famished men at bay, Till hunger clung them,[57] or the dropping dead 50 Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food, But with a piteous and perpetual moan, And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand Which answered not with a caress—he died. The crowd was famished by degrees; but two Of an enormous city did survive, And they were enemies: they met beside The dying embers of an altar-place ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... with much difficulty, arrived a few days later, to find a piteous Cecilia, white-faced, stunned and bewildered. She pleaded desperately against leaving France; amidst all the horror and chaos that had fallen upon her, it seemed unthinkable that she should put the sea between herself and Bob. But to remain was impossible. Aunt Margaret's English maids ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... there was the appeal, 'there was this piteous appeal', as Sabre said, and there was Sabre profoundly touched by it, and there was his wife bridling over it—one up against her husband who'd always stuck up for the girl, d'you see, and about two million up in justification of her own opinion of her. There they were; and ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... parish-priests, of harmless nuns—the deliberate cold-blooded cruelty which punished with death the resentment, the imprudence, often the mere birth, of orphaned lads; the prayers or the tears of schoolgirls who might well hav urged the piteous plea of Sejanus' infant daughter—these recal the indiscriminate ferocity of wild beasts, the atrocities occasionally committed by destructive maniacs in an excess of fury, or the infectious frenzies ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... day the fever increased, until he grew delirious, and raved in the most distressing manner. The unfortunate haricot was still on his mind, and he was persecuted by men with strange-shaped heads and carrot eyes. Sometimes he imagined himself pursued by Caddy, and would cry in the most piteous manner to have her prevented from beating him. Then his mind strayed off to the marble-ground, where he would play imaginary games, and laugh over his success in such a wild and frightful manner as to draw tears from the eyes of all around him. He was greatly ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... A certaine piteous louer, to moue his mistres to compassion, wrote among other amorous verses, this one. Madame, I set your ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... a piteous state from the sickness, which had cut off hosts of people of all ranks. It lasted seven or nine days in each, and seems to have been a malignant fever. Pericles lost his eldest son, his sister, and almost all his dearest friends in it; but still ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sad scene met the view. In the interior were a number of persons apparently in the last stage of starvation, whose haggard countenances, long hair and beards, and scanty clothing, showed the hardships they had endured. One of them coming forward, threw himself on his knees, imploring the chief in piteous accents to have compassion ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... later no one remained in the street. The cook, with her thigh broken by a shell splinter, had been carried into the kitchen. Alpatych, his coachman, Ferapontov's wife and children and the house porter were all sitting in the cellar, listening. The roar of guns, the whistling of projectiles, and the piteous moaning of the cook, which rose above the other sounds, did not cease for a moment. The mistress rocked and hushed her baby and when anyone came into the cellar asked in a pathetic whisper what had become of her husband who had remained in the street. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... heroic spirit the poor fellow did as he was bidden, but followed the brave resolve with a piteous look into the other's face ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... courage must never fail. He must be manly and independent, or he will be told he's a baby, ridiculed, teased, and despised. When war assumes her serious dress, he sees the helplessness of women and children, he hears their piteous appeals, and chivalry burns him, till he does his utmost of sacrifice and effort to protect, and comfort, ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... I pray you, stop!" cried poor Sprigg, in piteous accent, at every new peril which seemed to threaten his destruction. At length, as if in spite, the moccasins stopped, so abruptly that he was thrown forward upon the ground, with a violence that left him stunned for several moments. Then, with hands that shook, ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... wrists and rudely forced out the quivering sinews. They flayed off the skin from the top of his head, [65] and poured upon the bleeding wound a stream of boiling melted gum. Champlain remonstrated in vain. The piteous cries of the poor, tormented victim excited his unavailing compassion, and he turned away in anger and disgust. At length, when these inhuman tortures had been carried as far as they desired, Champlain was permitted, ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... Priscilla, starting forward and a flush coming into her face. "I know that— that is what it is for. To pay back worthily— to give back a thousandfold what you have received. Those girls can't be idle, can they?" she added in a gentle, piteous sort of way. ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... perhaps nineteen years old, and had the very young look a simple trusting nature and innocent untried life bring. She was small, fragile, and fair, with the pure fairness born of a cold climate. Her large blue-gray eyes had in them the piteous appeal sometimes to be seen in the eyes of a ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... she said, with a piteous little expression of appeal. 'I'm so uncomfortable, and my foot's going to sleep. And you needn't ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... broken short off, and I left completely at his mercy, with nothing but the stump in my hand. See here, my lord duke! just look what he did to my precious, priceless Sahagun." And Jacquemin Lampourde, with a piteous air, drew out and exhibited the sorry remains of his trusty sword—almost weeping over it—and calling the duke's attention to the ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... the bluebird, piping loud, Filled all the blossoming orchards with their glee; The sparrows chirped as if they still were proud Their race in Holy Writ should mentioned be; And hungry crows, assembled in a crowd, Clamored their piteous prayer incessantly, Knowing who hears the ravens cry, and said, "Give us, O Lord, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... never before entered a cabin with a search-warrant, constable, or with the military, he was "not up to the thing"—as both the serjeant and constable remarked to each other. While he listened to the piteous story of a woman about a husband who had broken his leg from a ladder, sarving the masons at Sir Herbert's lighthouse, and was lying at the hospital, not expected, [Footnote: Not expected to live.] the husband was lying all the time with both his legs ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... shrank away like a fading spectre. He came next day and next day, only to see re-enacted the same piteous scene,—the woman pleading to be made a wife ere death hushed Tony's blasphemies, the man chuckling in pain-racked glee at the prospect of her bereaved misery. Not all the prayers of Father Leblanc nor the wailings of Mrs. Murphy could alter the determination of the will beneath the shock ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... to his feet as though he were frightened. He was wet, unshaven, white and shuddering, piteous to look at. He stared with ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... but his shall she Scourge the storms back of the sea, To no fame but his shall give Grace, being dead, with hers to live, And in double name divine Half the godhead of their shrine. But now with what word, with what woe may we meet 850 The timeless passage of piteous feet, Hither that bend to the last way's end They shall walk upon earth? What song be rolled for a bride black-stoled And the mother whose hand of her hand hath hold? For anguish of heart is my soul's strength broken And the tongue sealed ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... love to see him—but is he black? Sophie says the people in those countries are black. Oh, I shouldn't like a black cousin, Miss Kerr, indeed I should not," cried Bunny in a piteous voice. ...
— Naughty Miss Bunny - A Story for Little Children • Clara Mulholland
... would only be quiet when pillowed in the arms of his new-found friend. A physician who was called pronounced his ailment to be scarlet-fever. He soon became delirious, and his fretful moans for his "new grandma" were so piteous that Miss Ainslie could not make up her mind to leave him. She stayed by his bed-side all day, saying nothing of returning to Red Wing, until late in the afternoon a messenger came from there to inquire after her, having traced her by inquiry among several who had seen her during the storm, ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... could not be termed an assistant, of his labours, was his trusty agent, who trotted from room to room after him, affording him exactly the same degree of sympathy which a dog doth to his master when distressed in mind, by looking in his face from time to time with a piteous gaze, as if to assure him that he partakes of his trouble, though he neither comprehends the cause or the extent of it, nor has in the slightest degree ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... swept onward with low and piteous sound, while the "Hermit of the Cedars" sat beneath his humble roof, beside a rough table, and, by the light of a tallow candle, pored over a closely-written page. In the recess of the small window, a bright-haired boy was sitting, very like the dreamy Edgar who sat ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... contrast upon the white background. Some wore fur caps with ear-flaps. All had sheepskin coats and high boots. Many used snow-spectacles. Watching this silent procession of men with heavy loads upon their backs, struggling higher and higher with piteous panting, one could not help wondering anxiously as to how many of them would return to their own country alive. Moving cautiously to avoid treacherous crevasses, I made my way ahead to a spot six hundred feet higher, where I halted for a while on a rocky island fairly clear of snow. ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... starting, father; you can see that quite well." A little piteous pout revealed the immense importance which she attached to the sight ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... false, historically, than the saints that adorn our churches, with their mincing attitude, their piteous expression, that indescribably anaemic and emaciated—one may almost say emasculated—air which shows in their whole nature; they are pious seminarists brought up under the direction of St. Alphonso di Liguori or of St. Louis di Gonzagua; they are not saints, not the violent ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... "Hopeless! Piteous! In last year's Tripos the paper was positively inhuman. The girls said it was impossible even to understand the questions, much less ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... object which thus made an epoch for uncle Pullet was no other than little Lucy, with one side of her person, from her small foot to her bonnet-crown, wet and discolored with mud, holding out two tiny blackened hands, and making a very piteous face. To account for this unprecedented apparition in aunt Pullet's parlor, we must return to the moment when the three children went to play out of doors, and the small demons who had taken possession of Maggie's soul ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... repeated, vague-like and turning her eyes so piteous at me that I looked the visitor straight in the face and getting between her and my mistress ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... my vision crumbled. Awake, I glared upon a page where the words ran crazily about like a disrupted colony of ants. I stammered at the thing, feeling my cheeks blaze, but no two words would stay still long enough to be related. I glanced a piteous appeal to authority, while old Leggett, still standing by, crumpled his shaven upper lip into a professional sneer that I ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson |
