"Wretch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... By the Gods that protect purity! call her not woman! Did she not prompt the wretch to poison his own son! Oh! call her anything but woman! But what—what—in the name of all that is good or holy, can have brought you to know ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... want the poor wretch's life; only to save our own. Now, what next? We'd better lie still for a bit to see if they ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... Ferguson's, and was listening again to Wallis Plimpton's cynical amusement as to how he and Everett Constable and Eldon Parr himself had "gat out" before the crash; "got out" with all the money of the wretch who now stood before him! His ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... do that. There is, in particular, a woman among them who passes as the wife of the lancer whom the captain killed yesterday. She is dressed like a lancer, and she tortured me the most yesterday, and suggested burning me; and it was she who set fire to the wood. Oh! the wretch, the brute! Ah! how I am suffering! My loins, my arms!" and he fell back gasping and exhausted, writhing in his terrible agony, while the captain's wife wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and we all shed tears of ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... foot in it once. That's a d—d underhand thing to do, by the way—coming round to sound a fellow upon the woman you are going to marry. You deserve anything you get. Then of course you rush and tell her, and she takes care to make it pleasant for the poor spiteful wretch the first time he calls. I will do you the justice to say, however, that you don't seem to have told Madame de Cintre; or if you have she's uncommonly magnanimous. She was very nice; she was tremendously ...
— The American • Henry James
... and became haggard and woeful, and she cried out: O if I could but weep, as ye children of Adam! O my grief and sorrow! Child, child! then will betide that falling into her hands which I spake of e'en now; and then shall this wretch, this servant of evil, assuredly slay thee there and then, or will keep thee to torment thee till thy life be but a slow death. Nay, nay, do as I should do, and fare with hidden head, and my ring on thy finger. Or else, O child, how wilt thou ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... terror. The colossal forms of flesh with which the multitudes of saved and damned are equally endowed, befit that extremity of physical and mental anguish more than they suit the serenity of bliss eternal. There is a wretch, twined round with fiends, gazing straight before him as he sinks; one half of his face is buried in his hand, the other fixed in a stony spasm of despair, foreshadowing perpetuity of hell. Nothing could express with sublimity of a higher order the sense of irremediable ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... tent and proclaimed before the whole army, emperor of Quama, king of Tanaqui, Arctonia and Alectoria, and duke of Kispusianania. Afterwards we made a triumphal entry into the capital, where prince Timuso, himself acknowledged me for emperor. Thus, from a miserable, shipwrecked wretch, I became a great and powerful monarch. I soon married the daughter of the deceased emperor, for the people still loved and honored the old royal family. This princess ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... country merely because it is a symbol of a holiday. It is freedom from an irksome task. It means a closing of your desk. But if you had to live in the country, you would grumble in a month's time. Even a bullfrog—and he is brought up to it, poor wretch—croaks at night." ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... phantom of power they possessed into the hands of the army officers, and when the Restoration took place they did not receive even the compliment of notice, as items to be counted in the sweeping change. Amidst the national joy, the poor wretch upon whom there had descended an inheritance that he was not fit to bear, "found it necessary to transport himself into France, more for fear of his debts than of the King, who thought it not necessary to inquire after a man so long forgotten." [Footnote: Rebellion, ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... "The wretch! What business has he to talk to my mother in that style?" said he to himself. "I have a great mind to kick him ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... "Unhappy wretch! By the way Voules and I treated him he must have had a miserable life of it on board. I suspect that he and Hargrave, if they had had the opportunity, would have treated me as I deserve. Would that ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... when he himself was not there was a problem which Dick, being a mere man and not a demon, had utterly failed to solve. Of course, he could easily have set all manner of man-traps and spring-guns, but as these might have taken effect upon some poor wretch who had no design upon his life, he could not ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... the king a prisoner, and his countrymen trampled on by deceit and usurpation. As he walked on, musing over these circumstances, he met with little interruption, for the streets were deserted. Here and there a poor miserable wretch passed him, who seemed, by his wan cheeks and haggard eyes, already to repent the too successful prayers of the deputation, The shops were shut. Thaddeus stopped a few minutes in the great square, which used to be crowded with happy citizens, but ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... was engaged held their hands; but others of them continued firing and throwing stones, by one of which I was knocked down, and had no sooner got up than a citizen was going to knock me down with a musket. Though I did not know his name, yet I had the presence of mind to cry out, "Forbear, wretch; if thy father did but see thee—" He thereupon concluded I knew his father very well, though I had never seen him; and I believe that made him the more curious to survey me, when, taking particular notice of my ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... preceptor) Rama, the son of Jamadagni, shooting his great weapons, could not cause me the slightest pain. What canst thou, therefore, do to me? They that are good, do not approve self-praise. Infamous wretch of thy race, know that I indulge in little boast because I am enraged. Vanquishing on a single car all the assembled Kshatriyas of the world at the Swayamvara of the daughters of the ruler of Kasi, I abducted those maidens. Alone, I stopped on the field of battle the rush of countless ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... "I am a wretch and a sinner!" he cried, "but tell me what to do and I will do it." Raising him with gentle courtesy, Vincent bade him take courage, and spoke to him of all the good that a man of his position might do in the world. The Count, ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... the most ungrateful wretch, and the most perfidious of all mankind, if I had not shown myself as faithful to the princess as she was to me who had been the cause of her misfortunes; therefore I answered the genie, 'How should ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... with unusual rapidity for a woman, climbing the path without relaxing her gait or losing her breath. The sharp, damp air brought to her face colour that Carron had been unable to call up. He was, poor wretch, so utterly secondary to her, that he was as little important as the long-forgotten spider. It was Joyselle who occupied her thoughts, whom her mental eyes saw, as she walked steadily seawards, as plainly as if ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... I'm ill that I sent for you, or rather let her ladyship send for you. Lord bless you, Thorne; do you think I don't know what it is that makes me like this? When I see that poor wretch, Winterbones, killing himself with gin, do you think I don't know what's coming to myself ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... mantle, and was offered a piece of stale bread, and a glass of tepid water. Food he refused, but touched the rim of the cup with his parched lips. It is curious to read in Suetonius of the many grimaces the wretch made before he could determine to kill himself; he made up his mind to do so only when he heard the tramping of the horsemen whom the Senate had sent to arrest him. He then put the dagger into his throat, aided in giving the last thrust by his freedman Epaphroditus. The centurion ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... Chrysippus by himself. Indeed, sir, you are making great progress. What kind of progress? But why do you mock the man? Why do you draw him away from the perception of his own misfortunes? Will you not show him the effect of virtue that he may learn where to look for improvement? Seek it there, wretch, where your work lies. And where is your work? In desire and in aversion, that you may not be disappointed in your desire, and that you may not fall into that which you would avoid; in your pursuit ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... arming himself with one of the iron bars he had filed out. The jailer, who returned rather earlier than usual to secure the dead man's leavings, opened the door, whistling as he came in; but when he was at arm's length, Beauvoir hit him such a tremendous blow on the head that the wretch fell in a heap without a cry; the bar ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... which being loos'd from the Body by Sleep, resort here, and for the short Space allotted them, indulge the Passions which predominate, or undergo the Misfortunes they fear while they are in your Globe. Look ye, said he, yonder is a Wretch going to the Gallows, and his Soul feels the same Agony, as if it was a real Sentence to be executed on him. Our Charity obliges us, when we see those imaginary Ills, to drive the Soul back to its Body, ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... poor wretch brought here last spring for shoplifting. Her term's out next week. She has had a sharp attack of pneumonia, and has not much strength to bear it: she is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... long incision fr'm th' chin down an' another acrost an' not findin' what we expicted, but manny things that ought to be kept fr'm th' fam'ly, we put th' Cap back an' wint on. Th' op'ration was a complete success. Th' wretch is restin an' swearin' easily. We have given him a light meal iv pickles an' antiseptic oats, an' surgical science havin' done its duty, mus' lave th' rest to Nature, which was not in th' consultation, ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... the other side of the body, Courthope's shoe struck upon another hard object which he found to be a case, stolen locked as it was, which contained, no doubt, the other valuables whose loss Madge had first discovered. The wretch, weighted by a burden in each hand, had apparently missed his way when endeavouring to return to the shed in which he had left his horse, and wandering in circles, perhaps for hours, had evidently succumbed to drink and to cold, caught as in a trap by the unusual ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... his own heart, that it exceeded his power to extract them. As for Smudge, his mind had its misgivings concerning the propriety of his own act, and, with the quickness of his nature, sought to protest itself against its own suggestions, by making an exception of that wretch, as against the general mandates of God. Van Tassel he probably could, in a manner, pardon, the mischief having been in a measure repaired; though it was a forgiveness that was strangely tinctured with his own deep contempt for ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... such a miscreant cur offend our sight?" "Look at his torn hide," sneered a Jewish wit, "You could not cut even a shoe from it," And turned away. "Behold his ears that bleed," A fourth chimed in, "an unclean wretch indeed!" "He hath been hanged for thieving," they all cried. And spurned the loathsome beast from side to side. Then Jesus, standing by them in the street, Looked on the poor, spent creature at his feet, And, bending o'er him, spake unto the men, "Pearls are not ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... he repeated, as if he were defying me by defying his own abhorrence of the word. "On my death—death—Death! But I'll spoil the speculation. Eat your last under this roof, you feeble wretch, ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... Then the wretch got some tools and bored a hole in the partition wall of his sitting-room. The paper had large flowers. He was artist enough to conceal the trick with water-colors. In his bed-room the ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... who now is a very wretched one, for her husband has been nearly ruined by this awful curse; one who, as those who know her best can testify, is a cultured lady, and her husband was once every way worthy of her, but he is now a poor, dilapidated wretch—a wreck, mentally, morally, and physically; and she is now prostrated upon what, in all probability, will be her death-bed, brought low by the hardship and mental anguish she has endured; for she and her children—and God never blessed a mother with better ones—have been reduced to abject poverty ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... according to the mythology of sailors, is the fiend that presides over all the evil spirits of the deep, and is often seen in various shapes, perching among the rigging on the eve of hurricanes, shipwrecks, and other disasters, to which a seafaring life is exposed; warning the devoted wretch of death and woe. No wonder then that Trunnion was disturbed by a supposed visit of this demon, which, in his opinion, foreboded some ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... to you?" sharply. "But I will tell you where and how. Two winters ago a poor, bloated, penniless wretch took up his lodging in a cheap hotel in New York. He left it only to visit the gambling-houses near. An old friend of mine recognized Hugh, and warned me of his whereabouts. I went up to the city at once, but when I reached it he had disappeared. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... reindeer-skins, and such like—giving in exchange tea, sugar, flour, household utensils, etc. No transaction takes place without the drinking of brandy, for which the Samoyede has an insatiable craving. When the trader has succeeded in making a poor wretch quite tipsy, he fleeces him, and buys all he wants at some ridiculous price—the result of the transaction generally being that the Samoyede is in debt to his 'benefactor.' All the traders that come to the ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... watery-eyed, red-lidded poodle in an establishment of this order. The masculine contempt for the pug has died. It took twenty years to accomplish these obsequies. But the poodle, the poor poodle! Call a man a thief, a wretch, a villain, and he will defend himself; but call him a poodle, and he slinks out of sight. It is impossible to explain definitely the cause of this supreme contempt for the poodle, nor why it should be considered the epitome of opprobrium to be ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... Jesus was diametrically opposed to the accusation, and that there was nothing in them to warrant his condemnation, Pilate employed his final resource for prejudicing the trial, viz., the deposition of a purchased traitorous informer. This miserable wretch—who was, no doubt, Judas—accused Jesus formally, of having incited ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... to beat! Cleomenes himself was hurtled out in sore defeat. His stiff-backed Spartan pride was bent. Out, stripped of all his arms, he went: A pigmy cloak that would not stretch To hide his rump (the draggled wretch), Six sprouting years of beard, the spilth Of ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... a cruel, heartless wretch!" she answered, her eyes flashing. "Because you have abused the goodwill of a generous family; because you have tortured a kind old man and a loving daughter. If you were as white as any person on earth, I would not marry ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... important item had been added to his knowledge of the case. Carlia, it seems, had gone literally helpless to her downfall. "Drugged" was the word Mrs. Whitman used. The villainy of the foul deed moved the young man's spirit to a fierce anger against the wretch who had planned it, and the same time his pity increased for the unfortunate victim. As Dorian sat there and listened to the story which the woman had with difficulty obtained from the girl, he again suffered the ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... must have detected her in some way. I do not even know that she is there, but to-night I mean to know. If she is within those walls—and alive—she will answer my signal. But for heaven's sake keep that drunken wretch from going over there. He's bent on it. The major gave me leave again for to-night, provided I would see Gleason safely to your camp, and he has been maundering all the way out about how he knew more'n I did,—he and Potts, who's half-drunk too,—and how ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... this affecting exhibition of maternal love, and forbore violence. For two hours she thus contended against all their solicitations, until, entirely overcome by exhaustion, she fell in a swoon upon the floor. The child was then hurried from the apartment, and placed under the care of a brutal wretch, whose name, Simon, inhumanity has immortalized. The unhappy child threw himself upon the floor of his cell, and for two days remained without any nourishment. The queen abandoned herself to utter despair. Madame Elizabeth and Maria Theresa performed ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... "The wretch! he should be burnt," said the prior, who, like most Englishmen of his day, confounded all such researches with the black art; "didst thou ever see the ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... regular plan of campaign. Among his relations there had been a cousin, Otto von Krewesmuehlen, the owner of a large property in Franconia. The poor wretch had passed more of his lifetime in Meran and Cannes than on his own estate; but he had married in spite of that for the sake of the entail, and unfortunately had married an acquaintance in the Riviera who also was ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... be hopeless, and yielding to the racking torture which was quickly applied, the guilty wretch made a full confession of his crime. As a boy he had often heard of Chin Pao-ting's annual voyages to the West, while local gossip had so enlarged upon the merchant's wealth that the junk bearing him and his merchandise might well be a veritable treasure ship, so that when ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... think not sorely." He was unable for the moment to rise, for the man whom Edgar last struck lay across him. Edgar at once hauled the moaning wretch off him, and held out his hand to the other, who grasped it with more heartiness than he had expected, and rose without ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... Gloucester, Clarence, Hastings, Henry VI., his two murdered nephews: then came forth the unhappy Jane Shore, pale, exhausted, and starving; no one daring to offer a mouthful of food to save the poor wretch from death. But the scene changes. It is night; and I see Falstaff and his companions at the rising of the moon, 'by whose light they steal.' They go forth and are lost sight of in the misty shadows of those ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... on. Each withered beldame by turns addressed the party, whilst the poor wretch, the tranquillity of whose dying moments was interrupted by these scenes, gradually sank. At last the vital spark departed, and that moment an old woman started up, mad with grief and rage, tore the hut in which he had lain to atoms, saying, "this is now no good;"* and then poured ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... one of their comrades, named Dominique, had taken part with the mutineers, and that he had just been thrown into the sea. Immediately forgetting the fault and the treachery of this man, he threw himself in after him, at the place where the voice of the wretch had just been heard calling for assistance; he seized him by the hair, and had the good fortune to get him on board. Dominique had received, in a charge, several sabre wounds, one of which had laid open his head. Notwithstanding the darkness we found the wound, which appeared to us to be very ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... out swiftly. The fingers clutched Courtney's hair, pushing his head back. Even as the wretch opened his lips to squeal for mercy, the cold muzzle of the weapon was jammed against the flesh under his ear. There was a ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... within him burn'd, Whene'er his footsteps he hath turn'd From home, to Guildhall's civic feast? If such there breathe, go mark him well— For him no portly paunch can swell; Large though his shop, his trade the same, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim, Despite his shop, his trade, his cash, The wretch who knows not ven'son hash, Living, shall forfeit civic fame, And dying, shall descend with shame, In double death, to Lethe's pools, Despis'd by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 565 - Vol. 20, No. 565., Saturday, September 8, 1832 • Various
... at the corner over the legs of a man. It was the poor hunted wretch that had dragged himself past my hiding-place. How distinctly do I remember his poor, pitiful, gnarled hands as he lay there on the pavement—hands that were more hoof and claw than hands, all twisted and distorted by the toil of all his days, with on the palms a horny ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... the Assizes for the county of which the town of C——r is the county town, was tried and convicted a wretch guilty of one of the most horrible murders upon record. He was a young man, probably (for he knew not his own years) of about twenty-two years of age. One of those wandering and unsettled creatures, who seem to be driven from place to place, they know not why. Without home; without name; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various
... have been hurried violently and swiftly from the world, when the scene has been rendered frightful with excess of human life; when curious eyes have glared from casement and house-top, and wall and pillar; and when, in the mass of white and upturned faces, the dying wretch, in his all-comprehensive look of agony, has met not one—not one—that bore the impress ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... quits." But I was not running the war, and had got to obey orders, if I broke heartstrings and corset strings. I would have given anything to have got out of the job. The idea of arresting a woman and searching her, and seeing her cry, and have her think me a hard-hearted wretch, was revolting, and I found myself wishing she would take some other road. May be she looked like somebody that I knew at home, and may be she had a big brother in the Confederate army who would look me up after the war and everlastingly maul the life out of me for insulting ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... enmity and hatred. No sooner, however, had her father named Hycy Burke with such approval, than the storm within her directed itself against him, and she said, "For God's sake, father, name not that unprincipled wretch to me any more. I hate and detest him more than any man living he has no good quality to redeem him. Ah! Hanna, Hanna, and is it come to this? The dream of my happiness has vanished, and I awake to nothing now but affliction and sorrow. As for happiness, I must think of ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... being, our interpreter, in the patois of the country, requested we might be admitted inside, for tire sole purpose of judging of the manners and customs of foreign nations. The creature who received our request was habited much after the same fashion as our footmen, only the wretch, as if to put his uncivilization beyond a doubt, actually wore white cotton stockings, and his hair without powder. Being shown up stairs, we entered a room of considerable dimensions, and our astonishment may be more easily conceived than expressed, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 287, December 15, 1827 • Various
... himself after. As he spoke, the blood had streamed up to his forehead, and streamed back again, leaving him pale. A flash like steel had shot out of his eyes—the dear eyes that are not cold. It was true, as this cruel wretch reminded me, Raoul would do things under the torture of jealousy that he would cut off his hand sooner than do when his own, sweet, ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... The wretch is lying on the ground near by, shaking with fear, in spite of the fastenings in which he is tightly held. He knows he is in dire danger, and has only so far escaped through having surrendered to a settler instead of to one of ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... proves me base: If she first meet the curled Antony He'll make demand of her, and spend that kiss Which is my heaven to have. Come, thou mortal wretch, [To the asp, which she applies to her breast.] With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate Of life at once untie: poor venomous fool, Be angry, and despatch. O, could'st thou speak, That I might hear thee call great Caesar, ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... childish temperament, given to woo and bind him, in a thousand simple, silly ways, into a likeness of that Love that holds the world, and that gave man no higher hero-model than a trustful, happy child. It was the birthright of this haggard wretch going down the hill, to receive quick messages from God through every voice of the world,—to understand them, as few men did, by his poet's soul,—through love, or color, or music, or keen healthy pain. Very many ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... of Gisbourne stared upon Robin as though bereft of wits; but his wonder quickly passed to a wild rage. "Art thou indeed Robin Hood?" cried he. "Now I am glad to meet thee, thou poor wretch! Shrive thyself, for thou wilt have no time for shriving when I am done with thee." So saying, he also ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... motives are of such kinds, and are imparted in such measures, that the influence of them depends upon the recipients themselves? "It is not meet to govern rational free agents in via by sight and sense. It would be no trial or thanks to the most sensual wretch to forbear sinning, if heaven and hell were open to his sight. That spiritual vision and fruition is our state in patria." (Baxter's Reasons, p. 357.) There may be truth in this thought, though roughly expressed. Few things are more ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... faithless coward! O dishonest wretch! Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice? 135 Is't not a kind of incest, to take life From thine own sister's shame? What should I think? Heaven shield my mother play'd my father fair! For such a warped slip of wilderness Ne'er issued from his blood. ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... softly open; then, advancing with the light held high so as to show the children's faces without flaring painfully upon them, stood at one side and signed to the Signor to come forward. And he was too much startled and impressed—ugly, cold-hearted little wretch though he was—by the sight before him to notice the strange, half-triumphant, half-defiant expression ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... been betimes at the well, but the maiden did not appear there. Then he questioned the cripple—who by day was an absolute helpless cripple— but the man utterly denied all knowledge of any such circumstance. He, why, poor wretch that he was, he never hobbled further than the shed close behind the well; he would give the world if he could get as far as the wood—he knew nothing about ladies or pilgrims—such a leg as his was enough to think about. And the display to which he forthwith treated the Knight of ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of perpetual banishment. A brother of the Earl of Shrewsbury, a Talbot, a name respectable in this country whilst its glory is any part of its concern, was hauled to the bar of the Old Bailey, among common felons, and only escaped the same doom, either by some error in the process, or that the wretch who brought him there could not correctly describe his person,—I now forget which. In short, the persecution would never have relented for a moment, if the judges, superseding (though with an ambiguous example) the strict rule of their artificial duty by the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... thief taken red-handed, but quite another, and a much more harrowing one, to have him slip through your fingers, precipitate himself into mid-air, and drop four stories to the pavement, scattering his brains far and wide. There was not a vestige of hope for the poor wretch. ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... go on being in love, and was never in the least disturbed in his passion; and if he was not successful, at least the little wretch could have the pleasure of HINTING that he was, and looking particularly roguish when the Ravenswing was named, and assuring his friends at the club, that "upon his vort dere vas no trut IN ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Then leaue her sir, for by the powre that made me, I tell you all her wealth. For you great King, I would not from your loue make such a stray, To match you where I hate, therefore beseech you T' auert your liking a more worthier way, Then on a wretch whom Nature is ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... sort us'd; the worst, whose spirits brake out in noise, (33) He cudgell'd with his sceptre, chid, and said, "Stay, wretch, be still, And hear thy betters; thou art base, and both in power and skill Poor and unworthy, without name in counsel or in war." We must ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... a miserable wretch! I doubted you, I! When all I had to do was to recall the way people misrepresented things I had done! I sent back your letters ... and read and reread the old blue ones. Don't you remember how you used to ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... publickly made, and as Sir James Tirrel was suffered to live;(24) but was shut up in the Tower, and put to death afterwards for we know not what reason. What can we believe, but that Dighton was some low mercenary wretch hired to assume the guilt of a crime he had not committed, and that Sir James Tirrel never did, never would confess what he had not done; and was therefore put out of the way on a fictitious imputation? It must be observed too, that no inquiry was made into the murder on ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... Nathan's house! then he knows all - Perhaps has to the patriarch been betrayed. O Conrade, what vile mischiefs thou hast brooded Out of thy cross-grained head, that thus one spark Of that same passion, love, can set so much O' 'th' brain in flame? Quick, then, determine, wretch, What shalt thou say or do? Step back a moment And see if this good friar will please ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... pig!" said Patty; "there's no other word for such a horrid thing as I am! Why, Clementine, I've made presents for nearly everybody I know, and I haven't done a thing for charity! Did you ever know such an ungrateful wretch?" ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... to hang on and ride for my life, because I knew the old fire-eater would reckon it a pleasure to put an end to such a wretch as me, if he ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... case, O my friend, one must think Massilia's victim, who held the carouse For the length of a carnival year, Knew worse: but the wretch had his opening choice. For thee, by our law, no alternatives were: Thy fall was assured ere thou camest to a voice. He cancelled the ravaging Plague, With the roll of his fat off the cliff. Do thou with thy lean as the weapon of ink, Though they call thee an angler who fishes the vague ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a simpleton as that!" yelled the little man. "Don't you see that a wretch of a fish is ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... "Ungrateful wretch," his friend cried, "that's just what I've been telling him that YOU are! Let the return you make not ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... direct the storm; in which a rude untutored mind, never before harbouring a thought of crime, sees the crime start up from an abyss, feels it to be an enemy, yet yields to it as a fate. So that when, at the last, some wretch, sentenced to the gibbet, shudderingly looks back to the moment "that trembled between two worlds,"—the world of the man guiltless, the world of the man guilty,—he says to the holy, highly educated, rational, passionless ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Mrs Scott, "they are all right. They are perfectly trustworthy—indeed, they are actively aiding and abetting us in the exceedingly disagreeable but necessary deception we are practising upon king M'Bongwele. The wretch!" she continued, starting indignantly to her feet. "Would you believe it? He actually has the ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... them. Another peasant, called Fituvy, completely nonplussed him. This peasant had an unusually energetic countenance, almost like some brigand. "Well, this one seems hopeful at any rate," Nejdanov thought. But it turned out that Fituvy was a miserable wretch, from whom the mir had taken away his land, because he, a strong healthy man, WOULD NOT work. "I can't," he sobbed out, with deep inward groans, "I can't work! Kill me or I'll lay hands on myself!" And he ended by ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... speak of love to me? Why, from the first moment I saw you, I despised you. And now I tell you to your face that I hate and loathe you, for the vile, contemptible wretch that you are. ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... are men who prefer enlisting to starvation; scurvy fellows from the back slums of cities, with whom Falstaff would not have marched through Coventry. Let them come South, and we will put our negroes at the dirty work of killing them. But they will not come South. Not a wretch of them will live on this side of the border longer than it will take us to reach the ground and drive them off." The Northern press responded in kind: "No man of sense," it was declared, "could for a moment doubt that this much-ado-about-nothing would end in ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... those desirers of the impossible, would have accorded to the poor wretch, in exchange for his wealth, the liberty he so earnestly prayed for. But the kings of modern times, restrained by the limits of mere probability, have neither courage nor desire. They fear the ear that hears their orders, and ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... athenaeum; and was accompanied by a gruesome spate of florid lyrics: some (happily) secret, and some exposed with needless hardihood in a college magazine. The world, which has looked leniently upon many poetical minorities, regards such frenzies with tolerant charity and forgetfulness. But the wretch concerned may be pardoned for looking back in a mood of lingering enlargement. As Sir Philip Sidney put it, "Self-love is better than any gilding to make that seem gorgeous ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... sufferers; and fastened on to each, was a small knob or anvil, where the directing devil could repose his elbow at his ease, and listen, near the walled-up ear, to the lamentations and confessions of the wretch within. There was that grim resemblance in them to the human shape—they were such moulds of sweating faces, pained and cramped—that it was difficult to think them empty; and terrible distortions lingering within them, seemed to follow me, when, taking to my boat again, I rowed off to ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... state of the unregenerate heart? It is one of either indifference or hatred. The latter is the former fully ripened. It is said that Voltaire carried a seal ring upon which were engraved the words, "Crush the wretch," and every time he sealed a letter he impressed his spirit of hatred upon that letter. Now, the gospel sets forth the love of God in Christ and the loveliness of Christ's sacrifice for us in such a manner as to change the indifferent or malignant heart into one of supreme love to Christ. When ...
— The Spirit and the Word - A Treatise on the Holy Spirit in the Light of a Rational - Interpretation of the Word of Truth • Zachary Taylor Sweeney
... will do good in a few, a very few, cases. But, on the whole, it will do, I may say, incalculable harm. How was it distributed? In little paper bags, like those used by the banks. It sent half the poor fellows crazy! Just imagine—a broken-down wretch who'd lived on the verge of starvation for, maybe, years, suddenly has a bag of sovereigns put into his hand! ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... wretch himself, he appeared no more. Search was made for him in every direction, but he was not to be found, and Helen thought it was well that Lady Davenant should be spared the pain of seeing or hearing more ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... blind, deaf, senseless, dead?' said Newman. 'Do you know that within one day, by means of your uncle Ralph, she will be married to a man as bad as he, and worse, if worse there is? Do you know that, within one day, she will be sacrificed, as sure as you stand there alive, to a hoary wretch—a devil born and bred, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... of the tempest. As men have ceased to fall in my way, I no longer view them with aversion; I only pity them. If I sometimes fall in with an unfortunate being, I try to help him by my counsels, as a passer-by on the brink of a torrent extends his hand to save a wretch from drowning. But I have hardly ever found any but the innocent attentive to my voice. Nature calls the majority of men to her in vain. Each of them forms an image of her for himself, and invests her with his own ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... prevent him, you little careless creature? Why don't you come to us of an evening, instead of moping at home with that Captain Dobbin? I dare say he is tres aimable; but how could one love a man with feet of such size? Your husband's feet are darlings—Here he comes. Where have you been, wretch? Here is Emmy crying her eyes out for you. Are you coming to fetch me for the quadrille?" And she left her bouquet and shawl by Amelia's side, and tripped off with George to dance. Women only know how to wound so. There ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... themselves men. Oh, God in heaven! how have I deserved that I should rest upon down and wear silk, that the grape should pour forth her most precious blood for me, and that all should throng around me and offer me their homage and love? This poor wretch is better and worthier than I, and misery is his nurse, and mockery and venomous scorn are the only sounds that hail his wedding. Every delicacy that is placed before me, every draught out of my costly goblets, my lying on soft ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... inwardly to be able to pray; but indeed to pray, to pray with a faith to which a blessing is promised, this is the reward of faith, this is the gift of God to the elect. Oh! if to feel how infinitely worthless I am, how poor a wretch, with just free-will enough to be deserving of wrath, and of my own contempt, and of none to merit a moment's peace, can make a part of a Christian's creed; so far I ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... folds her presents). The mean wretch, how she's messed it up. But wait a bit, I'll cut up her jacket ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... A miserable wretch, and all my fury Is lost upon him; holds the Mask, appointed I'th' ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (1 of 10) - The Custom of the Country • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... walk while the shadows were on the hillsides. That day, the moment my little boys went to school, I left my work, and, without waiting for gloves or shadows, hurried over the hills, not to see "that vile wretch," but to win a soul. I thought ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... "but although once, like everybody else, I adored that girl, really as a matter of justice she deserves all she gets, the false-hearted little wretch. Still it is true," he added, relenting, "she gave us very good camels, to say ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... mentioned; but the farce is in general kept up as well as the Chinese comic scene of entreating and imploring a man to stay with you, with the implied compact between you that he shall by no means think of doing it. A poor wretch he must be who would wantonly sit down on one of these bandbox reputations. A Prince-Rupert's-drop, which is a tear of unannealed glass, lasts indefinitely, if you keep it from meddling hands; but break ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... no heed to his maudlin defence. It rapidly was dawning upon her that these men had secured her lover's release on bail at half-past ten o'clock, an hour and a half before she had given her bribe of nine thousand crowns to the gaoler. That being the case, it was becoming clear to her that the wretch deliberately had taken the money, knowing that Brock was not in the prison, and with the plain design to rob her of the amount. It was a transaction in which he could be perfectly secure; bribing of public officials is a solemn offence in Austria and Germany. She could have ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... assertions will need to be proved only by a bare perusal of this hateful bill, by which the meanest, the most worthless reptile, exalted to a petty office by serving a wretch only superiour to him in fortune, is enabled to flush his authority by tyrannising over those who every hour deserve the publick acknowledgments of the community; to intrude upon the retreats of brave men, fatigued and exhausted by honest industry, to drag them out with all the wantonness of grovelling ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... caitif wretch, whom long affliction holdeth, And now fully believ's help to bee quite perished; Grant yet, grant yet a look, to the last moment of his anguish, O you (alas so I finde) caus of his onely ruine: Dread not awhit (O goodly cruel) that pitie may enter Into thy heart ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... the scenes waiting for him, and she was told they had come for engagements. Baskets of food, pork pies and tongue, came for him, but these she pitched out of the window; and she soundly boxed the ears of one little wretch, whom she had found loitering about the stage-door. Kate was right sometimes in her suspicions, sometimes wrong, but in every case they accentuated the neurosis, occasioned by alcohol, from which she was suffering. Still, by some extraordinary cunning, she contrived ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... this in a kind of stupor, looking straight at Harry, without seeing him. Is it possible, she was thinking, that this base wretch, after, all his promises, will take his wife and children and leave me? Is it possible the town is saying all these things about me? And a look of bitterness coming into her face—does the fool think he can ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... burnt off on the top of my head?" he asked in comical despair. "These are the hottest coals of fire I've ever had handed out to me, That wretch of a Ruth knew she was ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... saw before a feast of men contorted in grotesque shapes by some violent death. Many lay beside the table, some on it, their faces blotched with great, unsightly wheals, their chests bloated until they seemed about to burst. Only one poor wretch had any life left in him—he lay exhausted on the floor with great streams of frothy mucous pouring from ...
— The Sword and the Atopen • Taylor H. Greenfield
... was his mind, his heart, or his body that suffered. He only knew that it was there,—a load that could never be lightened. What comfort was it to him now, that he had beaten a miscreant to death's door—that he, with his old hands, had nearly torn the wretch limb from limb—that he had left him all but lifeless, and had walked off scatheless, nobody daring to put a finger on him? The man had been pieced up by some doctor, and was away in Asia, in Africa, in America—soldiering somewhere. He had been a lieutenant in those ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... as he went off, "it would have been a great mistake to have spoken. I have got that wretch of a Quennebert into my clutches at last; and there is nobody but himself to blame. He is taking the plunge of his own free will, there is no need for me to ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... and humbled metropolitan advanced to the royal throne with downcast eye but unfaltering voice; accused himself of weakness and folly, and firmly refused to sign the articles. "Miserable wretch that I am," cried he, with bitter tears coursing down his cheeks, "I see the Anglican Church enslaved, in punishment for my sins. But it is all right. I was taken from the court, not the cloister, to fill this station; from ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... wretch, or my mighty hammer shall put a stop to thy prating. At one blow will I strike thy head from thy neck, and then will thy evil tongue be ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... here; and now Shane, in a plain three miles away from any wood, and where I would have asked of God to have had him, hath, with 120 horse, and a few Scots and galloglasse, scarce half in numbers, charged our whole army, and by the cowardice of one wretch whom I hold dear to me as my own brother, was like in one hour to have left not one man of that army alive, and after to have taken me and the rest at Armagh. The fame of the English army, so hardly gotten, is now vanished, and I, wretched and dishonoured, ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... This wicked and miserable Wretch, whether by practise, or meanes, to bring himselfe to some vntimely death, and thereby to auoide his Tryall by his Countrey, and iust iudgement of the Law; or ashamed to bee openly charged with so many deuillish practises, and so much innocent bloud as hee had spilt; or by ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... except the single winding path by which the portal might be safely approached, were, like the thickets through which they had passed, surrounded with every species of hidden pitfall, snare, and gin, to entrap the wretch who should venture thither without a guide; that upon the walls were constructed certain cradles of iron, called swallows' nests, from which the sentinels, who were regularly posted there, could without being exposed ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... no more The joyful house and best of wives shall welcome, Nor little sons run up to snatch their kisses And touch with silent happiness thy heart. Thou shalt not speed in undertakings more, Nor be the warder of thine own no more. Poor wretch," they say, "one hostile hour hath ta'en Wretchedly from thee all life's many guerdons," But add not, "yet no longer unto thee Remains a remnant of desire for them" If this they only well perceived with ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... shaking all over and the terrible cry grew still more frightful. For some seconds Vasili Andreevich could not collect himself or understand what was happening. It was only that Mukhorty, whether to encourage himself or to call for help, had neighed loudly and resonantly. 'Ugh, you wretch! How you frightened me, damn you!' thought Vasili Andreevich. But even when he understood the cause of his terror he could ...
— Master and Man • Leo Tolstoy
... hoping and expecting that the cowboys would hear him. But nobody came. Awkwardly, with left hand, he washed his face. Upon a nail in the wall hung a little mirror, by the aid of which Dick combed and brushed his hair. He imagined he looked a most haggard wretch. With that he faced forward, meaning to go round the corner of the house to greet the ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... the abbot. "Thou mayst sacrifice her at thine own impious rites. But see, there is one poor wretch yet struggling with the foaming torrent. ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the right temple a stream of blood had run down and made a little pool on the floor. When Monsieur Stangerson saw his daughter in that state, he threw himself on his knees beside her, uttering a cry of despair. He ascertained that she still breathed. As to us, we searched for the wretch who had tried to kill our mistress, and I swear to you, monsieur, that, if we had found him, it would have gone ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... Something less foul it was than dung; 'Twas straw half rotten; yet, he as a Christian died. And sorely hath remorse his conscience wrung. "Wretch that I was," quoth he, with parting breath, "So to forsake my business and my wife! Ah! the remembrance is my death, Could I but have her pardon in ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... eagerly for a glimpse of the actors, and when the press streamed out, greeted it with volleys of questions. They saw the unconscious marshal borne forth, followed by the old Judge, now a palsied wretch, slinking beside his captor, a very shell of a man at whom they jeered. When McNamara lurched into view, an image of defeat and chagrin, their voices rose menacingly. The pack was turning and he knew it, but, though racked and crippled, he bent upon them a visage so full of defiance and ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... been killed had been sent thither to assassinate Timoleon. Meanwhile others brought back the man from the rock, who loudly declared that he had done no wrong, but had justly slain him in vengeance for his father, whom this wretch had killed at Leontini. Several of those present bore witness to the truth of his story, and they marvelled much at the ways of Fortune, how she makes the most incongruous elements work together to accomplish her purposes. The Corinthians ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... I shall have to tell you all. — That wretch has a terrible power over me. I loved him once. But I refused to take the ring from your desk, because I knew it would get you into trouble. He threw me into a somnambulic sleep, and sent me for the ring. But I should have remembered if I had taken ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... is the more formidable of the two, for I think that we shall very shortly get an explanation of yours, while mine may remain forever a mystery. The question now is, what shall we do with this poor wretch's body? We cannot leave it here to ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... Couste what he wanted was a glass of wine and water. In a moment Lachaussee brought it in. The lieutenant put the glass to his lips, but at the first sip pushed it away, crying, "What have you brought, you wretch? I believe you want to poison me." Then handing the glass to his secretary, he added, "Look at it, Couste: what is this stuff?" The secretary put a few drops into a coffee-spoon, lifting it to his nose and then to his mouth: the drink had the smell and taste of vitriol. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... there lay, between two cabbage leaves, a pomegranate and a piece of white bread. The pilgrim, who was accustomed to all kinds of miracles, praised God, and ate. And when he had eaten, he thanked God the Merciful. The dog stood by the whole time, and watched him. "Ungrateful wretch that I am to have forgotten thee!" said the pilgrim; "now I will try my fortune!" He began to dig with his staff, and see! there lay a fresh bone, which he gave to the dog, his benefactor. They became friends, and kept together. They now went ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... up from his knees like one beside himself with rage. Cursing aloud, he snatched his gun from the wall, rushed into the courtyard and looked about for whomsoever had uttered that cry that he might shoot the wretch down ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... rouge makes thee sick? And China Bloom at best is sorry food? And Rowland's Kalydor, if laid on thick, Poisons the thirsty wretch that bores for blood? Go! 'twas a just reward that met thy crime; But shun the sacrilege ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... societies, because you know yourself that you people who have no petty vices are never known to give away a cent, and that you stint yourselves so in the matter of food that you are always feeble and hungry. And you never dare to laugh in the daytime for fear some poor wretch, seeing you in a good-humor, will try to borrow a dollar of you; and in church you are always down on your knees, with your eyes buried in the cushion, when the contribution-box comes around; and you never ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... from his eyes, likest to fire, stood out a hideous light. He saw within the house many a warrior sleeping, a peaceful band together. Then his mood laughed. The foul wretch meant to divide, ere day came, the life of ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... it's awfully exciting," Norah said, "but I'm terribly sorry for the poor man who was killed. What a wicked old wretch the other must be!—his own mate, too! I wonder what he was ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... my wife does. Yet our happiness here is a trivial matter, whereas war is a great disaster. You have not seen—as I, my little Miguel, have often seen—a man viewing his death-wound with a face of stupid wonder, a bewildered wretch in point to die in his lord's quarrel and understanding never a word of it. Or a woman, say—a woman's twisted and naked body, the breasts yet horribly heaving, in the red ashes of some village, or the already dripping hoofs which will presently crush this body. Well, it is to prevent many ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... quiet, some law was passed removing a restriction. The old English writer Pepys, according to his diary, after spending a good deal of money for himself finds a little left and buys his wife a new gown, because, he says, "It is fit that the poor wretch should have something to content her." I have seen many laws passed for the advantage of women and they were generally passed on ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... should have been watching Ranelagh; and when she lifted the glass to her lips and looked at me, almost as earnestly as she did at Ranelagh,—but it was a different kind of earnestness,—I felt like—like—well, like the wretch I was and always had been; possibly, always will be. She drank;—we wouldn't call it drinking, for she just touched the wine with her lips; but to her it was debauch. Then she stood waiting, with the strangest gleam in her eyes, ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... in a front seat and passed the bread and wine at communion. Archie's heart rose to his throat as he saw this paragon so devout in church. He felt like rising in his seat and denouncing him before all the people as a tyrant and a hard-hearted wretch. But he kept quiet, though he found it impossible to partake of the communion ...
— The Adventures of a Boy Reporter • Harry Steele Morrison
... He foamed at the mouth. He cried: 'The egg, the egg of the day of my birth. I am an Emperor. I know that you want to kill me. Keep away, you wretch!' He strode down the room, then, returning, came towards me with open arms. 'My friend,' he said, 'my old comrade, what do you wish me to bestow on you? An Emperor—an Emperor.... My father was right.... the red egg. ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France |
