"Pitiable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... delighted at finding he had the power of doing something, however little, toward succouring the poor wretches whose pitiable condition was so patent to ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... therefore, that the Irish Roman Catholic was in a situation which his English and Scottish brethren in the faith might well envy. In fact, however, his condition was more pitiable and irritating than theirs. For, though not persecuted as a Roman Catholic, he was oppressed as an Irishman. In his country the same line of demarcation which separated religions separated races; and he was of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... it was a pitiable thing about Grizel—it was something he had discovered weeks ago and marvelled over—that nothing distressed her so much as the implication that she could love him less. She knew she could not; but that he should think it possible was the strangest woe to her. It seemed to her to be love's ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... backside and swelling thighs, examining the marks still left from the previous punishment. He then turned him round, and inspected the pretty little cock, which, under the mortal fear he was in, hung down its head in a limp and pitiable state. ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... actively and profitably pursued; in three years, he calculated, the royal revenues might be raised to an average of 60,000,000 reals. The arrival of Bobadilla, however, on August 23, 1500, speedily changed this state of affairs into a greater and more pitiable confusion than the island had ever before witnessed. On landing, he took possession of the Admiral's house, and summoned him and his brothers before him. Accusations of severity, of injustice, of venality even, ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... the first time that he had been brought face to face with his pitiable diffidence. He was ashamed; he thought of how differently Lawrence would have met the situation—how much more directly he would have dealt with it. Irving resolved that hereafter he would not be afraid of any multitude of boys. But he refrained ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... country, and had brought her here—to the heat, to fever, and to boredom; and from day to day she was bound to reflect, like a mirror, his idleness, his viciousness and falsity—and that was all she had had to fill her weak, listless, pitiable life. Then he had grown sick of her, had begun to hate her, but had not had the pluck to abandon her, and he had tried to entangle her more and more closely in a web of lies. . . . These men ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... wrongs, the national curse overtakes him. In standing up for the letter of the law against all the pleadings of mercy, he has strengthened his enemies' hands, and sharpened their weapons, against himself; and the terrible Jew sinks at last into the poor, pitiable, ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... motor-cars. The walls of such buildings as were left standing were loopholed for musketry. Machine-guns and quick-firers were mounted everywhere. At night the white beams of the searchlights swept this zone of desolation and turned it into day. Now the pitiable thing about it was that all this enormous destruction proved to have been wrought for nothing, for the Germans, instead of throwing huge masses of infantry against the forts, as it was anticipated that they would do, and thus giving the entanglements and the mine-fields ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... he hates the things he has to do; he can take no satisfaction in his work because he feels that it is poorly done; and, finally, all of his joylessness reacts upon him, decreasing his efficiency and making him a more pitiable failure. ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... father," he took his leave immediately, and presently the weak and shambling figure of the child's father stumbled in, to be expostulated with, and scolded, and treated as the person of the house always treated him, when he came home in such a pitiable condition. ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... once more, the Brazilian came out of the dressing-closet, where he had been waiting, and he appeared with his eyes full of tears, in a really pitiable condition. Montes had ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... of every race or community, we may consider the lowest stratum, the great mass, and the leaders. Regarding not morality only, but general conditions, there is a considerable element of the Southern blacks whose condition is most pitiable. Such especially are many of the peasants of the Black Belt; barely able to support themselves, often plundered with more or less of legality by landlord and storekeeper, shut up to heavy, dull, almost hopeless lives. Inheritance weighs on them as well as environment; when these plantations ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... but they are careful to do these things in shadow and to parade their virtues in the light, or they would not be great men. Your insignificant man leaves his virtues in the shade; he publicly displays his pitiable side, and is despised accordingly. You, for instance, have hidden your titles to greatness and made a display of your worst failings. You openly took an actress for your mistress, lived with her and upon her; you were by no means to blame for this; everybody admitted that both of you were perfectly ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... away her grief. And yet would it? Was it not probable that a girl like her would feel even greater grief at the knowledge that her father was a hunted criminal instead of merely dead? She presented a most pitiable figure standing there, absolutely alone in the world. She had gone through experiences that day which would have made the average woman collapse, and to cap it all she had received the final blow in the news of ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... themselves prisoners, pleading earnestly at the same time for their captive daughters. The Indians bound them with cords, placed guards over them, and then retired to their camp. The poor girls, roused by the tumult, now saw their parents in this pitiable condition. Here they were, likewise made captives, for their love ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip
... under a mental load too heavy for them, and actually it might be a physical load from its effects. They get lop-sided, I swear they do, and they acquire all sorts of miserable little personal habits that make them both pitiable and ridiculous. For my part, I believe the day will come when no woman will be permitted to try for the higher degrees till her brain has been scientifically tested and found to be ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... really has thrown me over! All her talk was a blind—a trick." And, further exhibiting his youth in holding the individual responsible for the system of which the individual is merely a victim, usually a pitiable victim, he went to the opposite extreme and fell to denouncing her—cold-hearted and mercenary like her mother, a coward as well as a hypocrite—for, if she had had any of the bravery of self-respect, wouldn't she have been frank with him? He reviewed her in the flooding new light ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... a confused gabble, and we felt that if the blacks came up the rift we could easily beat them back; but if they came round by some other way to the rocky patch of forest where we were, our state was so pitiable that we could ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... realized it and saw this and looked down on that lonely, patient, wistful little creature making the best shift she could with those pitiable playthings, something came up from that man's breast into his throat. He had not supposed he had any of it left in his soul—it was ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... refuge: here was a man who loved you, and was ready to give you his home and his name, and show the world that he loved you in spite of all. Here was a chance for you, I thought, to show that you had not given your heart where it was not wanted; that you were not that pitiable object, a woman scorned. But you refused me. So then I took the law into my own hands. Was ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... need, take himself off at the slightest disquietude which should assail him, and in short, so that he might not again be caught unprovided as on the night when he had so miraculously escaped from Javert. These two apartments were very pitiable, poor in appearance, and in two quarters which were far remote from each other, the one in the Rue de l'Ouest, the other in ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... which we found Calcutta was indeed pitiable. The native quarter, especially that inhabited by the meaner sort of people, was not much injured, but all the English mansions and factories lay in ruins. The unfortunate servants of the Company, although thus restored to their former home, found themselves ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... from his brow as he peered into the mist. His hair was thick with salt, and his eyes smarted from the greenwood fire on the poop. The four slaves who crouched beside the thwarts-Carians with thin birdlike faces-were in a pitiable case, their hands blue with oar-weals and the lash marks on their shoulders beginning to gape from sun and sea. The Lemnian himself bore marks of ill usage. His cloak was still sopping, his eyes heavy with watching, and his lips black and cracked with thirst. Two days before the storm ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... God, who knows perfectly well how and where to strike, deprive the apologist of that wretched crew of all that rendered life pleasant in his eyes, the lack of which paralyzed him in body and mind, rendered him pitiable to others, loathsome to himself—so much so that he once said, 'Where is the beggar who would change place with me, notwithstanding all my fame?' Ah! God knows perfectly well how to strike. He permitted him to retain all his literary fame to the very last—his ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... a series of scenes most pitiable; Raleigh's brains are indeed broken. He is old, worn-out with the effects of his fever, lamed, ruined, broken-hearted, and, for the first time in his life, weak and silly. He takes into his head the paltriest notion that he can gain time to pacify the King by feigning himself ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... with soda water and brought it over to where Jimmy sat huddled up in the big chair. He looked a pitiable enough object—he wanted shaving, and he had not troubled to put on his collar; his feet were thrust into an old pair of bedroom slippers. He sipped the soda and pushed it ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... of these were directed against the Spaniards, who, suffering now from the swing of the pendulum of fate, were as much oppressed as they had formerly oppressed. Indeed, the situation of those Spaniards who still remained in Paraguay was now pitiable in the extreme. Persecuted on all sides by the high officials, they could expect, in the face of an example such as this, scant consideration ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... addressed immediately passed into the cold, damp room as he spoke—Mave, the cause of all this anxiety, evidently in such a state of excitement as was pitiable. Her mother, who, as well as every other member of the family, had been ignorant of this extraordinary attachment, seemed perfectly bewildered by the language of her husband, at whom, as at her daughter, she looked with a face on which might be read ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... surrender the guilty one. But everything was most horribly uncertain; and the more they debated the matter the worse complexion did it assume; so that by the time that the ship was back at the anchorage and the anchor let go, they were all in a most pitiable state of distress and fright. And this state was in nowise relieved when, as day was on the point of breaking, George entered the cabin, and they noted the stern, ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... the First. Neither do we sympathise with the famous saying of Nelson that "one Englishman is equal to three Frenchmen!" The tendency to praise one's-self has always been regarded among Christian nations as a despicable, or at least a pitiable, quality, and we confess that we cannot see much difference between a boastful man and a boastful nation. Frenchmen have always displayed chivalrous courage, not a whit inferior to the British, and history proves that in war they have been eminently successful. ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... at his door, and on opening the to saw a very pretty girl standing there, who said to him: 'Last night I should have died but for your august kindness. I know not how to thank you enough: this is only a pitiable little present. And she laid a small bundle at his feet and went away. He opened the bundle and found two beautiful ducks and two pieces of silver money—those long, heavy, leaf-shaped pieces of money—each worth ten or twelve dollars— such as ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... gone now. He looked, indeed, a most pitiable object as he stood there, his lower jaw ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... see that as she grew in strength Clement lost in assertiveness—in his feeling of command. He began to comprehend that with returning health the girl was not altogether pitiable. She had culture, social position ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... were in a pitiable condition—they all had sore eyes, and were otherwise afflicted in various ways. They say that hardly a native child in all the East is free from sore eyes, and that thousands of them go blind of one eye or both every year. I think this must be ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... that New York would have to be abandoned. General Greene and Congress believed in maintaining the fort, but future developments showed that Washington was right. The American troops, so far as clothing or equipment was concerned, were in a pitiable condition, and the result of the struggle makes one of the darkest pages of the war. On the 12th of November Washington started from Stony Point for Fort Lee and arrived the 13th, finding to his disappointment that General Greene, instead of having made arrangements for evacuating, ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... the session was opened. The benches of the Commons presented a singular spectacle. That great party, which, in the last three Parliaments, had been predominant, had now dwindled to a pitiable minority, and was indeed little more than a fifteenth part of the House. Of the five hundred and thirteen knights and burgesses only a hundred and thirty-five had ever sate in that place before. It is evident that a body of men so raw and inexperienced must have been, in some ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... help feed the English soldiers who were on their way home after being exchanged for German prisoners. We had the privilege of giving some of them the first white bread they had had in four years. The men who had been kept working behind the lines were in a pitiable condition. One such man happened to be at my table,—for they are taken off the train for two hours, given hot tea and roast beef and ham sandwiches,—and the poor fellow began taking sandwiches, eating a few bites, and stowing the rest feverishly away in his pocket. He couldn't ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... sufficiently reputable appearance in apparel at their accustomed little balls. The daughter of the schoolmistress, her only child, and at that time a very young girl, felt for the poor governess, and the pitiable insufficiency in the article of finery; but being unable to help her from her own resources, devised within herself a means by which it might be done otherwise. Having heard of the great fame of Sir Joshua Reynolds, his character for generosity, and charity, and recollecting that he had formerly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... an' pitch ye over into the Devil's Kittle, to wait fer yer runt lover to come arter ye." He twisted her about viciously. Despite her strength, unusual in a woman, Plutina was powerless in his grip. Holding her close, face to face, he contemplated the girl's pitiable distress with gloating eyes in which there was no faintest suggestion of pity. The prisoner met the malignant gaze for an instant. Then, her eyes fell, and she stood trembling. She was panting, partly from terror, partly from the violence with which she had struggled. ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... with the exception of some trifling services, like a grain of salt, without weight or bulk, and which a bird might carry away in its mouth. Is it not a serious and mortifying thought that we are making much of certain services which we render our Lord, but which are too pitiable to be considered, even if they were many in number? This is my case, and I am forgetting every moment the mercies of our Lord. I do not mean that His Majesty will not make much of them Himself, for He is good; but I wish I made no account of them myself, or even perceived that I did them, ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... let him go!" again exclaimed Arthur, whose kind heart was moved by the pitiable condition of our captive. "He will promise—I know he will; and I do not mind if he bullies me ever so much. We should think any one very cruel who kept us out in the cold as we have kept him. I am sure that he will promise what ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... conceal the poverty and hardship of these days, and would speak humorously of the "pretty pinching times" he saw, he never regarded his life at this time as mean or pitiable. ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... union. But afterwards he was cruel even to his own children, and because of the mere suspicion that she was attempting to poison him, he cut off her nose and mutilated her ears. He sent her back to her father in Gaul thus despoiled of her natural charms. So the wretched girl presented a pitiable aspect ever after, and the cruelty which would stir even strangers still more surely incited her father to vengeance. Attila, therefore, in his efforts to bring about the wars 185 long ago instigated by the bribe of Gaiseric, sent ambassadors into Italy to the Emperor ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes
... had taken from him all resolution. Of what use would it be to exhume Mr. Brockelsby after the doctors had cut him up? The impulse to rush in and confess had spent itself and he was now cravenly drifting with the tide. All judgment, all power of reflection had departed from him. He was now only a pitiable wretch with scarcely strength to stand by the door and listen, unable to originate ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... quaint little whimsical ways that make her very lovable. We are together every minute of the day, and yet we never tire of one another's company. I rather think I do most of the talking. If it is true that to be slow in words is a woman's only virtue, then, indeed, is my state pitiable, for talk I must, and G. is a delightful person to talk to. She listens to my tales of Peter and the others, and asks for more, and shouts with laughter at the smallest joke. I pass as a wit with G., and have a great success. She is going to stay with a married sister for the cold weather. ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... just picked up on the stairs a little yellowish cat, ugly and pitiable. Now, curled up in a chair at my side, he seems perfectly happy, and as if he wanted nothing more. Far from being wild, nothing will induce him to leave me, and he has followed me from room to room ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the pitiable death of the Caesar, the trumpet of judicial dangers sounded the alarm, and Ursicinus was impeached of treason, envy gaining more and more strength every day to attack his safety; envy which is ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... came in contact with a most pitiable object—a sickly, dead-white coloured native. I had heard of such beings, but had never seen one. He was about five feet five inches high, and very thin; his features were rather more prominent than those of a negro, his eyes were very small, very weak, ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... eyes, and an immense brown beard, that flowed downward half-way to the belt about his waist, which contained a small arsenal of knives and revolvers. He hobbled about with a heavy crutch constantly under his left arm, and was certainly a pitiable sight to behold. ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... a very pitiable state. (I learned some months later that he was come down expressly to dissuade Rumbald from any attempt at that time; but I did not know that then.) Here, only, thought I, is one of the chicken-hearted ones. I determined to play upon his fears, if I ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... girl did not speak at all, but stood motionless, staring in bewildered, pitiable, childlike fashion, and the color ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... the place where they lay, carrying a lump of flesh she had just fetched away, tore it in pieces, and laid it down before them; when she saw that they refused to eat, she laid her paws first upon one, then upon the other, and endeavoured to raise them up, making at the same time the most pitiable moans. Finding she could not stir them, she went off, and when she had got at some distance, looked back and moaned; and that not availing to entice them away, she returned, and smelling round them, began to lick their wounds. She went off a second time, ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... I thought it best to get Mr. Yatman out of the house immediately. He was in such a pitiable condition, that I called a cab and accompanied him home in it. At first, he cried and raved like a child; but I soon quieted him,—and I must add, to his credit, that he made me a most handsome apology for his language, as the cab drew up at his house-door. In return, I ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... get into the yard, where his mistress kept a few pet bantam fowls, and, after eating their eggs, he secured one of the hens, and began plucking it. The noise of the poor bird called some of the servants to the rescue, when they found the half-plucked creature in such a pitiable condition that they killed it at once. After this, Mr. Monkey was chained ...
— Minnie's Pet Monkey • Madeline Leslie
... occasionally of a stray unfortunate who has broken away from a state voluntarily, deliberately, chosen and entered upon, and who struggles through life with a violated vow saddled upon him. But one does not associate the sacred and heroic character of the vow with such pitiable specimens ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... locked up Howards End. It was pitiable to see in it the stirrings of warmth that would be quenched for ever. She raked out the fire that was blazing in the kitchen, and spread the coals in the gravelled yard. She closed the windows and drew the curtains. Henry would ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... aldermen to raise the men enjoined them to search all inns, taverns, alehouses, "tabling-houses" and tobacco-houses, and to press, especially, all "tapsters, ostlers, chamberlains, vagrants, idle and suspected persons."(296) By August the condition of the troops at Plymouth was pitiable. No money was forthcoming for wages, and the soldiers were forced to forage for themselves in the neighbouring country. At last the fleet set sail (8 Oct., 1625). Its destination proved to be Cadiz, whither it was ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... compassion for her. Sir Thomas is the victim; Mistress Alice the shrill virago. In those days, when every historic reprobate finds an apologist, is there no one to say a word in behalf of the Widow Middleton, whose lot in life and death seems to this writer very pitiable? She was quick in temper, slow in brain, domineering, awkward. To rouse sympathy for such a woman is no easy task; but if wretchedness is a title to compassion, Mistress Alice has a right to charity and gentle usage. It was not her fault that she could ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... various vegetation; every grassy bank glowing with mellowed color, and waving with delicate leafage. How, then, can the contrast be otherwise than painful, between this perfect loveliness, and the dead, raw, lifeless surface of the deal boards of the cottage. Its weakness is pitiable; for, though there is always evidence of considerable strength on close examination, there is no effect of strength: the real thickness of the logs is concealed by the cutting and carving of their exposed surfaces; and even what is seen is felt to be so utterly ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... he said, turning round, and looking down at them with a pitiable expression on his ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... bare suggestion of the need of the world in bulk. But we want to get a much closer look than that. These are men that we are talking about; our brothers, not merely hard, unfeeling, statistical totals of millions. Each man of them contains the whole pitiable picture of the sore need of the world vividly ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... sight of educated people who have nothing to do. Wealth is the fruit of service and endeavour. Work is the only medium by which the ravages of the war can be made good. Ignorance and idleness present a most pitiable spectacle, but the most criminal of all sights is education and idleness combined. Finally, let me say that whilst I have addressed myself mainly in terms of appeal to the workers, I am not unmindful at all of ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various
... take the return train for Geneva. I walked to the platform as if merely accompanying my friend, stood for a moment at the door of the carriage conversing with her, and then, as the train started for Culoz, quickly stepped in and shut the door. Her dismay was really pitiable: had I not been somewhat troubled in mind myself, I should have laughed outright. She saw nothing before me but certain destruction, and I am free to confess that the prospect of a telegram flashing over the wires at that moment from Belgarde to Culoz was not reassuring. The die, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... reached to his girdle. About middle height, and upwards of seventy years old, he was dressed in white, with a conical-shaped turban of the same colour and material, while at his back two attendants stood, waving over his head large fans of peacocks' feathers, the emblem of sovereignty—a pitiable farce in the case of one who was already shorn of his regal attributes, a prisoner in the hands of his enemies. Not a word came from his lips; in silence he sat day and night, with his eyes cast on the ground, and as though ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... what he would have said to its being placed altogether out of sight. Still there is something to be said on the other side. There is hardly one gentleman in twenty who knows how to carve; and as to ladies, though they did know once on a time, they do not now. What can be more pitiable than the right-hand man of the lady of the house, awkward enough in himself, with the dish twisted round to him in the most awkward possible position, digging in unutterable mortification for a joint which he cannot find, ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... addressing me, your mother's father, wilt thou embrace me, my son, saying, Who injures, who insults you, O father, who harasses your heart, being troublesome I say, that I may punish him who does you wrong, O father. But now I am miserable, and thou art wretched, and thy mother is pitiable, and thy relations are wretched. But if there is any one who despises the Gods, looking on this man's death, let ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... and, catching her, held her in his hands and feasted his eyes upon her prettiness. But as he held her so, the pollen rubbed off her wings and she fluttered, a pitiable thing, weakly ...
— A Book Without A Title • George Jean Nathan
... I hope the papers won't get hold of this piece of intelligence," she said seriously, as they walked together, rather pitiable ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... that man without his armour, this woman without her ermine, these in the crowd without their motley and the merry, merry jangling of the bells, and you will find how slender are the muscles that the armour lays bare, how shrivelled the breast that the ermine strips, how dragged and weary is that pitiable, naked figure which a few moments before was dancing ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... For all night long, mourning, disconsolate, The soul of my Patroclus, hapless friend! 130 Hath hover'd o'er me, giving me in charge His last requests, just image of himself. So saying, he call'd anew their sorrow forth, And rosy-palm'd Aurora found them all Mourning afresh the pitiable dead. 135 Then royal Agamemnon call'd abroad Mules and mule-drivers from the tents in haste To gather wood. Uprose a valiant man, Friend of the virtuous Chief Idomeneus, Meriones, who led them to the task. 140 They, bearing each in hand his sharpen'd axe And twisted cord, thence journey'd forth, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... before Tom in her brilliant evening dress and cloud-like loveliness, reducing him to a pitiable state ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... said, "they began by robbing the American Relief Committee's supplies, immediately following their solemn pledge to permit this food to succor the starving peasantry; therefore those pitiable folk, already tragic human wrecks, continued to starve. Next they killed these peasants' cows to fill their own precious bellies, and then the little babies began, by slow starvation, to die. But the men, women, and boys old enough to till the soil, or work in German factories, ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... of recognition leaped up in her sunken eyes, and she looked at him with a yearning, imploring expression, that was pitiable and distressing indeed. ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... But where imagination is uncontrolled by higher reason and where idealism is not backed by a strong will, there you have the idle 'dreamer of dreams' and such a state of mind is reprehensible and pitiable indeed! ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... little sons trudged by her side, the younger holding her hand, the older carrying his father's sword, which she had taken as the last relic of her love. In the end the fleeing woman, half frozen and in peril of starvation, was met by a soldier of the army of her foes. Her pitiable condition and the helplessness of her children moved him to compassion, and he gave ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... we distributed a small handful of halfpence, which they received with great eagerness. Yet I have been since told, that the people of that valley are not indigent; and when we mentioned them afterwards as needy and pitiable, a Highland lady let us know, that we might spare our commiseration; for the dame whose milk we drank had probably more than a dozen milk-cows. She seemed unwilling to take any price, but being pressed to make ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... bombs the spire of Strasburg cathedral; religious fanaticism in the Middle Ages directed itself to the destruction of "pagan" art, no matter how beautiful; but in these enlightened days for ecclesiastical fury to take up the barbarous role of destruction, which even savage war discards, is pitiable indeed. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... enclosure, for although the church is in ruins, the ground in and about it is still holy and in service when pious hands lay away in the bosom of earth the bodies of those who have borne the last burden, shed the last tear, and succumbed to the last enemy. But among all the pitiable spectacles presented in this ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... regarded such outrages with alarm is certain. They took the earliest opportunity to express their distress that the legation under their protection had thus been invaded. They assured Mr. Alcock with the most pitiable sincerity that "they had no power of preventing such attacks upon the legation, nor of providing against a renewal of the same with a greater certainty of success." "They could not," they said, "guarantee any of the representatives against ...
— Japan • David Murray
... authorities, out of the vast number of our men then held captive at Andersonville, the same whom General Stoneman had hoped to rescue at the time of his raid. Some of these prisoners had already escaped and got in, had described the pitiable condition of the remainder, and, although I felt a sympathy for their hardships and sufferings as deeply as any man could, yet as nearly all the prisoners who had been captured by us during the campaign had been sent, as fast as taken, to the usual depots North, they were then beyond ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... to her that he was jeering—then realized as vividly that he was not. And the full danger to her, perhaps to Mark himself, of shrinking from this man, striking her with all its pitiable force, she made a painful effort, slipped her hand under his arm, and said: "I'm very tired. You ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Baroness and her children in such an hour; but I must ever gratefully recollect the kind offers of asylum made to me by my Belgian acquaintance, and for months, they said, had the battle been lost. It is truly pitiable to see the wounded arriving on foot; a musket reversed, or the ramrod, serving for a staff of support to the mutilated frame, the unhappy soldier trailing along his wearied limbs, and perhaps leading a more severely-wounded ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various
... such as I had scarcely ever seen. It cost me nine soldiers, of whom three were Europeans. The latter were luckily replaced some days after by the same number who joined me.[143] Poor M. Brayer and M. Gourlade had been during almost the whole campaign in the most pitiable condition, especially the former, who I thought a thousand times must have died. As for me, the powders d'Aillot preserved me from the pestilential air, and cured me from the effects of a fall in my bajarow,[144] caused ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill
... these failed, getting bread for myself and child by giving a few music lessons to the poor people's children. But now, hearing that the man for whom I had given up all, had sold out, and now the avowed admirer of a wealthy American at New York, U.S.A., I gave up; my pitiable loneliness, poverty, failing health were too much and I completely broke down. You will wonder how I, in my retirement, heard of his unfaithfulness. Just about eight years ago, a creature who had once paid me compliments, a dissolute man, found me out, telling me ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... worse, she even strove (from the best of motives, as she believed) to excite suspicion and discomfort in the minds of others; and, notwithstanding her well-known character as a prophesier of evil things, she did sometimes succeed in making people unhappy. She was, as the minister said, a pitiable example of the effects of unsanctified affliction, and a warning to all who felt inclined to murmur under the ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... for a portrait a more or less jocose caricature of their adversaries. On the walls of the Pylons, and in places where the majesty of a god restrained them from departing too openly from their official gravity, they contented themselves with exaggerating from panel to panel the contortions and pitiable expressions of the captive chiefs as they followed behind the triumphal chariot of the Pharaoh on his return from ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... days of the Revolution, when there was fighting in the very courtyard of the factory, so pitiable an inventory never had been seen in the Fromont establishment. Receipts and expenditures balanced each other. The general expense account had eaten up everything, and, furthermore, Fromont Jeune was indebted to the firm in a large sum. You ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... The pitiable condition of four million human beings, flung from slavery into freedom, thrown upon their own resources, with no thought of responsibility, and with no preparation for the change, meant for them ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... man was young then, and has grown calmer and wiser now, and has regained a deeper and sounder faith in God. But the shock, he said, was dreadful to him. He felt that the matter was not merely painful and pitiable, but that it was a wrong and a crime; and on the faith of this very text, a wrong and a crime I believe it to be, and one which God knows how to avenge and to correct when man cannot. Somehow— for He has ways of which we poor mortals ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... the roughness of the sea to heed this, we were nevertheless very sorry for these exposed deck-passengers, few of whom escaped seasickness. Crowded together as they were during the copious rainfall, their sufferings that afternoon and night were pitiable. There were some families with women and children, and such shelter as a canvas awning could afford was kindly arranged for them. When we anchored in shoal water off the coast next morning, and the big flat-boats came to take them ashore, they had ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... and where he could. He had a few pupils at the moderate remuneration of two florins a month, and he had contrived to obtain possession of an old worm-eaten clavier, on which he used diligently to practise in the garret in the Kohlmarkt, where he lived. A pitiable description is given of the lodging he then occupied. It was on the sixth story, in a room without stove or window. In winter his breath froze on his thin coverlet, and the water, that in the morning he had to fetch himself from the spring for washing, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... is truth in both those criticisms: there are some young women who are so dainty, so accomplished, so delicate, that they can be of little use in this world. When misfortune comes to such and they are thrown out of the cosy nest, they are in a most pitiable condition indeed. They can do nothing to provide for themselves. Then there are others who so pride themselves on their independence, that one of the sweetest charms of womanhood is lost—the charm ...
— Girls: Faults and Ideals - A Familiar Talk, With Quotations From Letters • J.R. Miller
... of him was as clear as the red and white on her face; and foolish Francis felt in his turn flattered, for he too was fond of himself. There is no more pitiable sight to lovers of their kind, or any more laughable to its haters, than two persons falling into the love rooted in self-love. But possibly they are neither to be pitied nor laughed at; they may be plunging thus ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... cause in such a way that he was condemned; and the pamphlets which you compose against your friends, in regard to which you feel yourself so guilty that you do not dare to make them public. Yet it is a most miserable and pitiable state to be in, not to be able to deny these charges which are the most disgraceful conceivable to admit. But I will leave these to one side and bring forward the rest. Well, though we did grant the trainer, as you say, two ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... Universe in an Apocalypse that reveals the past. After the tremendous resurrection that took place at the voice of this man, the little drop in the nameless Infinite, common to all spheres, that is ours to use, and that we call Time, seems to us a pitiable moment of life. We ask ourselves the purpose of our triumphs, our hatreds, our loves, overwhelmed as we are by the destruction of so many past universes, and whether it is worth while to accept the pain of life in order that hereafter we may become an intangible speck. Then ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... It is pitiable to see how some among the Master's followers fail to learn this lesson. They contend for high places, where they may have prominence among men, where their names shall have honor. The only truly great in Christ's sight are those who forget ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... you,' he answered, with a pitiable attempt at his old sparkle. 'You have proved yourself; I have not—yet, and I could do the work of three ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... who was really in a pitiable state. "I'm sorry to trouble you, Mrs Clayton Vernon. But I want to speak to ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... said, "I have deceived many; I have cast down many. But now, as in the case of many, so in thine, I have been worsted in the battle." Then when Antony asked him, "Who art thou who speakest thus to me?" he forthwith replied in a pitiable voice, "I am the spirit of ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... can we have done that the dear Vidame is punishing us by keeping his word to the infanta? I should be pitiable indeed if I ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... told me what you are going to do with this man yet; you must stow the combustible piece of goods somewhere. Poor devil, his sufferings have made a pitiable ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... world have grown worse and I better, or was I blind before and indifferent? If this change is the result of a general decline of physical and intellectual powers—I am ill, you know, and every day I am losing weight—my position is pitiable; it means that my new ideas are morbid and abnormal; I ought to be ashamed of them and think them ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... thou wilt see it thyself, Nanni, if thou wilt stare upward long enough," said Niccolo; "for that pitiable tailor's work of thine makes thy noddle so overhang thy legs, that thy eyeballs can see nought above the stitching-board but the roof ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... than they. Their little souls are immaculate. "Of such is the kingdom of heaven." I can not believe in depraved babyhood; but I must believe in depraved youth and manhood. All about me are the sinful wrecks of once pure souls. It is wrong Education that has made them the sad, pitiable things they are. Oh, what wretched contortions of God's beautiful handiwork have men made of themselves! Of all the things that God has made, the human soul is most perfect and beautiful. The flower and trees and fields are beautiful. The flashing aurora, the golden clouds, the sapphire ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... am. My dear Stafford, I do not wish to upbraid you; I am simply making to myself a confession of weakness which would be pitiable in a stray dog, but which in a man of my years, with my experience of the world and reputation for common sense, is simply criminal. I do not wish to reproach you; I am quite aware that no reproach, not even ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... bearers gently laid him down, spreading their coats on the bare floor to receive him, till a bed could be found. Dixon and his wife, in a state of pitiable disturbance, went off to look for one, while Undershaw called ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... time, Mrs Smith told her, when her spirits had nearly failed. She could not call herself an invalid now, compared with her state on first reaching Bath. Then she had, indeed, been a pitiable object; for she had caught cold on the journey, and had hardly taken possession of her lodgings before she was again confined to her bed and suffering under severe and constant pain; and all this among strangers, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen |
