"Wretchedness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... advantages of a stationary population.[25] Such a recognition, such an aspiration, indicates that a new hope is dawning on the world's horizon, and a higher ideal growing within the human soul. The mad competition of the industrial world during the past century, with the sordid gloom and wretchedness of it for all who were able to see beneath the surface, has shown for ever what comes of the effort to produce a growing population by high birth-rates in peace-time. The Great War of a later day ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... State; December 8, 1862, issued a proclamation ordering Congressional elections, and on the 15th levied an assessment upon the richer Southern sympathizers "in behalf of the many helpless widows, wives, and children in the city of Nashville who have been reduced to poverty and wretchedness in consequence of their husbands, sons, and fathers having been forced into the armies of this unholy and nefarious rebellion." Was nominated for Vice-President of the United States at the national Republican convention at Baltimore June 8, 1864, and was elected on November ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... The wretchedness of his tone quite touched me. I forgot my anger and sense of resentment, and all the old affection and loyalty came back with a rush. How could I ever have imagined a fellow like Crofter was worthy to hold a candle to my ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... founded on fact. A young village couple married, and soon after their marriage went to live in London. Success did not follow the honest-hearted husband in his search for employment, and he and his young wife were reduced to actual want. In their wretchedness a child was born to them, which died in the midst of the desolate circumstances by which the young mother was surrounded. For three years the mother was deprived of reason—a gloomy period of Death in Life—and ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... girlhood Joan had heard continually of the woes of the war, and she had herself witnessed some of the wretchedness that it caused. A feeling of intense patriotism grew in her with her growth. The deliverance of France from the English was the subject of her reveries by day and her dreams by night. Blended with these aspirations were recollections ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... she reached a part of the Whitechapel district where some of the deepest poverty and wretchedness in London is to be found. Turning into a labyrinth of small streets and alleys, she paused in the neighbourhood of the court in which was her home—if such it ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... subjects of exclusive interest to themselves; and the art of fiction in which they finally delight is only the more studied arrangement and illustration, by colored fire-lights, of the daily bulletins of their own wretchedness, in the prison calendar, the police ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... the House last year!" said Erica. "How curiously lives are linked together! Words spoken by my father years ago set thoughts working in you you make a speech and refer to them. I read a report of your speech in a time of chaotic wretchedness, and it comes like an ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... Twelve candles are lighted, and placed at convenient distances on the floor in a row. As the guest leaps over them, the first he blows out will indicate his wedding-month. One candle only placed on the floor and blown out in the same way means a year of wretchedness ahead. If it still burns, it presages a year ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... to him. That might be from her own jealous temper, which, she knew, was apt to make her fancy every one preferred to herself: but she had thought that he liked Margaret best, as she was sure Mr Enderby did. Whichever way she looked at the case, it was all wretchedness. She had lost her self-sufficiency and self-respect, ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... the lawyer said, "you have been boys, as I have, and you can form your own ideas as to the wretchedness that must prevail among a body of lads of whom more than half are caned daily. This, your worships, is a state of tyranny which might well drive any boys to desperation. But I have not done with Mr. ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... continually. The multitude had been laid upon him as if he had conceived them; their tears had been his meat, night and day, until he had felt as if God had withdrawn His favor from him, and he had prayed that he might be slain, and not see his wretchedness.[119] And now, at last, the command came, "Get thee up into this mountain." The weary hands that had been so long stayed up against the enemies of Israel, might lean again upon the shepherd's staff, and fold themselves for the shepherd's ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... another island, we found a number of Chinese employed in digging out the guano. We were not surprised at seeing them look very miserable and unhappy, for the oppressive odour arising from the fresh-dug guano was intolerable, to us even for a short time. We were told that many of them in their wretchedness commit suicide, flying, through their ignorance, from present evils to those they know not of, instead of endeavouring manfully to support their lot, if inevitable, or to seek proper means to escape from it if they have the power—not that I thought this at the time, by-the-by. ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... cheer, and returning to his wife without company. Finally, he remembered his father and his mother, and he could not help but picture himself sitting at home with Kate five years after their marriage, when the first happiness of each other's society had faded, had staled, had turned to the wretchedness of starvation in its state of siege. Or perhaps going out for walks with her, just themselves, always themselves only, they two together, this evening, last evening, and to-morrow evening; through the ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... even ceased to rise occasionally to take a look round, to see whether, perchance, another sail might have hove in sight. I believe that some of my companions in suffering found a temporary refuge from their wretchedness in short snatches of fitful sleep; at all events I caught at intervals the sound of low mutterings, as of sleeping men; but, as for me, exhausted though I was, I could not sleep. My anxiety on behalf of these poor wretches, ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... talk of an operation. Susan was told very little of it. Long afterward she remembered with certain resentment the cavalier manner in which her claims were dismissed. Her mother went to the hospital, and two days later, when she was well over the wretchedness of the ether, Susan went with Mary Lou to see her, and kissed the pale, brave little face, sunk ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... payment to collect the corpses and carry the sick to the infirmaries. Of course they could only be wrought up to such work by intoxication and unlimited opportunities of plunder, and their rude treatment both of the dead and of the living sufferers added unspeakably to the general wretchedness. To be carried to the infirmary was certain death,—no one lived in that heap of contagion; and even this shelter was not always to be had,—some of the streets were full of dying creatures who had been turned out of their houses and could ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the appearance of a city of the dead: not an inhabitant was walking in the streets, not a head was seen at the windows. The mendicants themselves (and he who has not seen the Sicilian mendicant, knows not what wretchedness is,) lay in the corners of the streets, stretched out, doubled up, panting, without strength to stretch out their hand for charity, or voice to ask an alms. Pompeii, which I visited three months afterwards, was not more ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... wards is something as though one set a tame elephant to pick up pins. No doubt he could pick them up, but it would cost something to feed him. It is a perfectly arguable proposition that the Court of Chancery produces as much wretchedness and poverty as it prevents, and it certainly is a bold step, except under the most exceptionable circumstances, to place anybody in its custody who has money that can be dissipated in law expenses. But of course these are revolutionary ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... deserted save for a beggarman and woman, who met on the causeway. The pair drew stealthily into one of the recesses over the piers, where they lurked together on the door-step of a hucksters booth. They seemed well enough content, both of them, to mingle their joint wretchedness, and when we went by were thinking of quite other things than craving our charity. Nevertheless my good master, who was the most compassionate of men, threw them a half farthing, the last piece of money left ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... lovely to be kind; But charity should not be blind; For as to wretchedness ingrate, You cannot raise it from ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... maiden, "art thou the vile Bennaskar, or the still more vile Mahoud? Oh, let me sleep till death, and never more behold the wretchedness of life!" ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... carried off captive, young and old, into a distant land. The small portion of country which still remained inhabited round Jerusalem, had been overrun again and again by cruel armies of heathens. Without Jerusalem was waste and ruins, bloodshed and wretchedness; within every kind of iniquity and lies, division and confusion. If ever there was a miserable and contemptible people upon the face of the earth, it was the Jewish nation in Jeremiah's time. Jeremiah makes no secret of ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... bad harvests was the cause of great migrations to the factory towns, and the already large ranks of the unemployed grew greater day by day. The poverty and wretchedness of the working class is painted vividly for us by Carlyle when he speaks of "half a million handloom weavers, working 15 hours a day, in perpetual inability to procure thereby enough of the coarsest food; Scotch farm-labourers, who 'in ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... my big chance to step in and save the girl I happen to love, from persecution and wretchedness, if not worse," said he simply. "If I can do that, what the devil does it matter what happens to me? You talk about name and career! Man, man, what could anything be worth to me if I had to know ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... in England and Holland proclaimed and still proclaim their wretchedness broadcast. The future may bring redress, but the present story of Belgium belongs to the world. America, the greatest of the neutral countries, has a right to know now the suffering and misery of this ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... d'Imbleval was screaming with pain; and the nurse had to attend to her while the newborn child was yelling like a stuck pig and the terrified mother, unable to stir from her bed, fainted.... Add to this all the wretchedness of darkness and disorder, the only lamp, without any oil, for the servant had neglected to fill it, the candles burning out, the moaning of the wind, the screeching of the owls, and you will understand that Mlle. Boussignol was scared out of ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... had been transformed. Behind my blurred vision, as I hurried along, I saw no squalor, no wretchedness now. Through tears of thankfulness the houses, the streets, and the hurrying people were all glorified, all transfigured. Everything was right—the whole world and ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... hedged with dull texts, he had strangely fallen. The sight of her lashed him. She made it her business or it was her pleasure to go the rounds beside Mr. Woodseer visiting his poor people. She spoke of the scenes she witnessed, and threw no stress on the wretchedness, having only the wish to assist in ministering. Probably the great wretchedness bubbling over the place blunted her feeling of loss at the word of Admiral Baldwin's end; her bosom sprang up: 'He was next to father,' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... pillow, and no covering save an old cloak." He slept only from exhaustion, and could hear himself moaning in his sleep; but his little companion, relieved of fear, and perhaps a little better fed than he, slept soundly and well at all times. He learned to love the poor child as his partner in wretchedness. He made also one other friend, a girl of the streets, named Ann, who was kind to him, and whom he remembered with gratitude to the end of his ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... melancholy day for everyone. And to fill the cup of wretchedness to overflowing, the rain, beginning with a drizzle, ended with a downpour. Consultations took place between men who had not spoken to one another for weeks. Fred offered to go on, at all events to Salt ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... that? We have a Definition of the Monster, in Eph. 6.12. A Spiritual Wickedness, that is, A wicked Spirit. A Devil is a Fallen Angel, an Angel Fallen from the Fear and Love of God, and from all Celestial Glories; but Fallen to all manner of Wretchedness and Cursedness. He was once in that Order of Heavenly Creatures, which God in the Beginning made Ministering Spirits, for his own peculiar Service and Honour, in the management of the Universe; but we may now write that Epitaph upon him, How art thou fallen from Heaven! thou hast ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... themselves."[31] He further asserts that "even though the martial spirit of the people were of no use towards the defence of the society, yet to prevent that sort of mental mutilation, deformity, and wretchedness which cowardice necessarily involves in it, from spreading themselves through the great body of the people, it would still deserve the ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch
... turn our spinning-wheels—and,—ARE WE YET CLOTHED? Are not the streets of the capitals of Europe foul with sale of cast clouts and rotten rags? Is not the beauty of your sweet children left in wretchedness of disgrace, while, with better honour, nature clothes the brood of the bird in its nest, and the suckling of the wolf in her den? And does not every winter's snow robe what you have not robed, and shroud what you have not shrouded; and every winter's wind bear ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... he should overlook the utter ruin of whole orders and classes of men, extending itself directly, or in its nearest consequences, to at least a million of our kind, and to at least the temporary wretchedness of a whole community,—I do not deny to be in some sort natural; because, when people see a political object which they ardently desire but in one point of view, they are apt extremely to palliate ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... ground was cultivated, and from the fertility of that province, which is reckoned the poorest in France, conceive the wealth and affluence of the nation in general. Peregrine, amazed as well as disgusted at this infatuation, answered that what he ascribed to industry was the effect of mere wretchedness; the miserable peasants being obliged to plough up every inch of ground to satisfy their oppressive landlords, while they themselves and their cattle looked like so many images of famine; that their extreme poverty ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... was scarcely more than a whisper. In her wretchedness, she told the truth, being unable to think sufficiently ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... further inquire how a hitherto harmless usage, which like many others had but served to keep up superstition, could degenerate into so serious a disease, we must take into account the unusual excitement of men's minds and the consequences of wretchedness and want. The bowels, which in many were debilitated by hunger and bad food, were precisely the parts which in most cases were attacked with excruciating pain, and the tympanitic state of the intestines points out to the intelligent ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... sailed from hence in 1794. There was indeed a woman, one Ann Smith, who ran away a few days after our sitting down in this place, and whose fate was not exactly ascertaineds; if she could have survived the hardships and wretchedness of such a life as must have been hers during so many years residence among the natives of New Holland, how much information must it have been in her power to afford! But humanity shuddered at the idea of purchasing it at so ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... it be for thee then if thou Art as free from sin and shame as now! Well for thee if thy tongue can tell A tale like this, of a day spent well! If thine open hand hath relieved distress, And thy pity hath sprung to wretchedness— If thou hast forgiven the sore offence And ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... if I am left at liberty," he exclaimed, frantically tearing his hair. "I have looked at the past. I look at the future. I am miserable. I see nothing but wretchedness before me. I contemplated self-destruction. I purposed dropping quietly over the stern into the water. I did not wish to create confusion. If I had jumped overboard before you all, a boat would have been lowered, and I should have been picked up; but—must I own it?—my ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... are not. Look at Rose. Francie, with her gilded wretchedness, thinks Rosie's lot quite despicable; but I can tell you, Molly, she is the most utterly comfortable and contented little soul on the face of this earth. She would not change places with a queen." "But Rose is not plain. Rose is the happy medium. And THEY are ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... Residency, and its predatory effects. It will give full credit to what was generally rumored and believed, that substantially and beneficially the Nabob never received fifty out of the one hundred and sixty thousand pounds; which will account for his known poverty and wretchedness, and that of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... occasional sickness were far overbalanced by intervenient days, and, perhaps, weeks void of pain, and overflowing with comfort. So that in short, to return to the subject, human life, as far as I can perceive from experience or observation, is not that state of constant wretchedness which Johnson always insisted it was; which misrepresentation, (for such it surely is,) his Biographer has not corrected, I suppose, because, unhappily, he has himself a large portion of melancholy in his constitution, and fancied the portrait a faithful ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... also, and that was the only reason why she had given herself, bound herself for life to him, why she had renounced everything else, all her cherished plans, all the unknown future. She had fallen into this marriage, into this hole without any edges by which one could climb out, into this wretchedness, this sadness, this despair, because, like Rosalie, ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... herewith submitted will be found painfully replete with accounts of the ruin and wretchedness produced by recent earthquakes, of unparalleled severity, in the Republics of Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia. The diplomatic agents and naval officers of the United States who were present in those countries at the time of those disasters ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Johnson • Andrew Johnson
... Eastern language with which Wilfrid the Crusader was familiar), or fudge, in plain Saxon; and retired with a broken, gentle spirit, neither able to bear the sight of her rival's happiness, nor willing to disturb it by the contrast of her own wretchedness. Rowena, like the most high-bred and virtuous of women, never forgave Isaac's daughter her beauty, nor her flirtation with Wilfrid (as the Saxon lady chose to term it); nor, above all, her admirable diamonds and jewels, although Rowena was ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... her husband. She also refused meat and drink and resolved to cast herself into the sea; but the Magian chained her and straitened her and clothed her in a coat of wool and said to her, "I will continue thee in wretchedness and humiliation till thou obey me and accept me." So she took patience and looked for the Almighty to deliver her from the hand of that accursed; and she ceased not travelling with him from country to country till he came with her in fine to the city wherein ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... be regained. How it is to be done the sages are not agreed. But they of old were unanimous that some divinity must lend his aid, that some god-sent guide is needed to rescue man from the slough of wretchedness in which he ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... glory, shall be taken from your sides, and no remaining mark of military distinction left but wants, infirmities, and scars? Can you, then, consent to be the only sufferers by the Revolution, and, retiring from the field, grow old in poverty, wretchedness, and contempt? Can you consent to wade through the vile mire of dependency, and owe the miserable remnant of that life to charity, which has hitherto been spent in honor? If you can, go, and carry the jest of tories and the scorn of whigs; the ridicule, and, what is worse, the pity of the world! ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... sent down from Sydney to Van Diemen's Land, were conveyed in small crafts and small numbers, and without much regard to their health; but as an example of wretchedness, nothing could exceed the usual passage from Hobart Town to Macquarie Harbour. The unhappy men, often destitute of clothing, were placed in the hold of a vessel, without bedding or blankets, and ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... will tell you all I know about it.—Some six weeks ago, I woke suddenly one morning, very early—I think about three o'clock—with an overpowering sense of blackness and misery. Everything I thought of seemed to have a core of wretchedness in it. I fought with the feeling as well as I could, and got to sleep again. But the effect of it did not leave me next day. I said to myself: 'They say "morning thoughts are true." What if this should be the true way of looking ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... during all this time! I was suspicious of everybody and trembled at common noises. Any unexpected look of stranger caused a start. It was in vain that I reasoned against this foolish fear. My misery was so great that I contemplated suicide. It seemed to me that both of the Laniers gloated over my wretchedness. They enlarged on the perils of my situation. I really believe they wished me to take my own life. From things which I then did under their advice I often think they intended deserting me. If the bodies of Alice and Oswald had been found, I ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... coldly from the entreaties of his friend. Yet he opened his purse liberally to those whom others refused. Vagabonds, drunkards, fallen women, those who had gone down far into the depths of misery and wretchedness, and from whom respectable people shrank in disgust, never appealed to him in vain. "The devil's poor," he whimsically called them. He would listen to them patiently, moved to the depths of his soul by their sad stories, and would send them ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... chagrin and exasperation Dr. Bayard had taken his revenge. It was too late now to prepare their little Elinor for characteristics of which she had never dreamed, too late to warn her that her superb father was not the hero her fancy painted. In utter consternation, in wretchedness of spirit, the old couple saw her borne away, tearful at leaving them, yet blissful at being with papa, and going once more to the army, and they could only pray heaven to guard her and to ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... may renounce the outward world, and isolate yourself in a cave or in the depths of a forest, but you will take all your selfishness with you, and unless you renounce that, great indeed will be your wretchedness and deep your delusion. You may remain just where you are, performing all your duties, and yet renounce the world, the inward enemy. To be in the world and yet not of the world is the highest perfection, the most blessed peace, is to achieve the greatest victory. The renunciation ...
— The Way of Peace • James Allen
... nature of which eludes the most minute enquiry, though the effects are well known to be a weariness of life, an unconcern about those things which agitate the greater part of mankind, and a general sensation of gloomy wretchedness[115]. From him then his son inherited, with some other qualities, 'a vile melancholy,' which in his too strong expression of any disturbance of the mind, 'made him mad all his life, at least not sober[116].' Michael was, however, forced by the narrowness of his circumstances to be very ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... and happy world. Ahriman instantly made deformity, impurity, and gloom, in opposition to it. All beauty, virtue, harmony, truth, blessedness, were the work of the former. All ugliness, vice, discord, falsehood, wretchedness, belonged to the latter. They grappled and mixed in a million hostile shapes. This universal battle is the ground of ethics, the clarion call to marshal out the hostile hosts of good and ill; and all other war is but a result and a symbol of it. The strife thus indicated ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... this crushing wretchedness! And I a vainer fool than one who yearns Clutching at rainbows spanned across the sky! Ah, hope diseased! My spirit lured astray By siren hope drifts hard by some dark fate: And hope alternating despair has mixed My life so long ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... lifting his eyes added, "I do not want the land down here; I want heaven. This woman had only two to work for her. Death has taken the better one and are we to take the other? Perish such avarice! Why, in the throes of such wretchedness, she ought to have comfort much rather than further trouble." Another time he remitted L5 due from a knight's son, at his father's death, saying it was unjust and mischievous that he should lose his money because he had lost his father too. "He shall not have double misfortune at ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... a long run of fever, a lost position, and consequent discouragement had brought poverty and wretchedness to ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... charged with no fault, save an irritability of temper, which grew upon him with his misfortunes and infirmities, and, latterly, that occasional excess to which we have alluded, which sprung rather from dotage and wretchedness than from inclination, and in which he was far more to ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... and depopulation. In 1394 was born Prince Henry. He was the son of John I. and Philippa, daughter of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, and was therefore the nephew of Henry IV. of England. Perceiving and commiserating the wretchedness of the people, and casting about him for a remedy, Henry saw but one: that was departure from the land, emigration, colonization, escape from the tyranny of the soil, of nobles and of ecclesiastics—a tyranny which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... brilliant life, and reign everywhere like a queen if it were not for the terrible past. Like a spectre, it stands in our path, and while she is innocent, the curse of being the cause of both our wretchedness strikes ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... no more the cruel taunts of the populace. The ranks became less dense, and this terrible procession passed by—the street was once more unobstructed. The prince rushed onward regardless of the direction he was taking, crushed as he was by the disgrace and wretchedness brought upon Prussia. He was again suddenly in front of a large gathering. He looked about him wonderingly and in dismay. Without knowing it, he had gone down to the large square in front of the Brandenburg Gate, where was a ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... Carlyle is "Thomas Carlyle with his bilious howls and bankrupt draughts on hope." Hawthorne, he learns, though we cannot tell from whence, "thought it inexpressibly ridiculous that any one should notice man's miseries, these being his staple product," and was "swallowed up in the wretchedness of life;" also, "the Concord novelist was a handsome, bulky character, with a soft rolling gait; a wit said he seemed like a boned pirate." From these more or less contemptuous views of mankind at large Mr. Channing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... molasses. A diminutive ration of meat might possibly come once a month, not oftener. In the stockade, containing the 11,000 men, there was a partial show of tents, not enough for 2000. A large proportion of the men lived in holes in the ground, in the utmost wretchedness. Some froze to death, others had their hands and feet frozen. The rebel guards would occasionally, and on the least pretence, fire into the prison from mere demonism and wantonness. All the horrors that can be named, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... what is not; here I shed invariable tears over Werther, however often I read it; here I wade through Wilhelm Meister, and sit in amazement before the complications of the Wahlverwandschaften; here I am plunged in wonder and wretchedness by Faust; and here I sometimes walk up and down in the shade and apostrophise the tall firs at the bottom of the glade in the opening soliloquy of Iphigenia. Every now and then I leave the book on the seat ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... against nature that a healthy, growing lad should be so much cast down as not to see and be interested in the strange, new, passing world of things about him; and little by little Nick roused from his wretchedness and began to look about him. And a wonder grew within his brain: why had they stolen him?—where were they taking him?—what would they do with him there?—or would they soon ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... there on the floor in the dim and dusty corner, it seemed as if her wretchedness held no hope. Turn whichever way she might, the dreadful words she had uttered rang through her heart. They could not be unsaid; they were never to be forgotten but must always stay ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... eyes with his hands. The old governor, who had purposely been more circumvolute even than usual, in order not too suddenly to shock his feelings, looked up at him with a kind expression, which showed that he truly entered into his wretchedness. ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... What's the moon to a man like me? Let it shine—let anything be, so that I never see another day!... Eustacia, I don't know where to look: my thoughts go through me like swords. O, if any man wants to make himself immortal by painting a picture of wretchedness, let ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... poison, can learn to endure absolute solitude, can bear contumely, scorn, and shame, and never show it. Carry Brattle had already become accustomed to misery, and as she walked she thought more of the wretchedness of the present hour, of her weary feet, of her hunger, and of the nature of the rest which she might purchase for herself at some poor wayside inn, than she ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... after all was over, Mrs. Stokes gave me back three out of the seven guineas; and then I could not help sobbing out to her my doubts and wretchedness, telling her that this was the last money I had; and when that was gone I knew not what was to become of the best wife that ever a ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... make myself useful to you, and have failed. But how can I see the sad sight of your wretchedness, and not feel the impulse to try again? I have gone to the hotel to find Philip, and to bring him back to you a penitent and faithful man. Wait for me, and hope for great things. A. hundred thousand kisses to ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... efforts which the French nation then made for the purpose of organizing a Corps of Public Instruction. If he had ventured, the title of Pupil of the original Normal School would have been beyond doubt that which he would have assumed by way of preference. Gentlemen, that school perished of cold, of wretchedness, and of hunger, and not, whatever people may say, from certain defects of organization which time and reflection would have easily rectified. Notwithstanding its short existence, it imparted to scientific studies ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... story. Putting the moral delinquency out of the question, he was extremely glad for Arthur's sake that the latter had escaped from a danger which might have made his whole life wretched; "which certainly," said Warrington, "would have occasioned the wretchedness and ruin of the other party. And your mother—and your friends—what a pain it would have been to them!" urged Pen's companion, little knowing what grief and annoyance these good ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... been wedged up with fugitives in railway trains more dreadful than the open roads, stifling in their heat and heart-racking in their cargoes of misery. Poor women have wept hysterically clasping my hand, a stranger's hand, for comfort in their wretchedness and weakness. Yet on the whole they have shown amazing courage, and, after their tears, have laughed at their own breakdown, and, always children of France, have been superb, so that again and again I have wondered ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... was in Madrid with her father, which caused him so much joy that I had fears lest it derange his understanding. But a cloud came over his joy when she told him that such was the surveillance she was under that her life seemed a mere continuation of wretchedness. And while she still declared her love was unchanged, she artfully added that her father had so modified his opinions of foreigners as to press a suit between her and a Spanish Count, of whom it was said that he possessed ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... us like a swarm of locusts coming as a plague: In the slimy trail of this alcoholic serpent can be found everything that is dark and dreadful—yea, everything that is ruinous. In it can be found men without manhood, women without womanhood, infancy without hope, want and woe, rage and wretchedness, disease and death; and, furthermore, in the trail of this venomous serpent can be found broken vows and broken hearts, bad manners and bad morals, bad words and bad actions, bad parents and bad children, a bad beginning and a bad end. Then ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... then I slunk about them like a wretch, My lords; I spied upon their lips, their hands, Their eyes! I watched them like a murderer; I listened underneath their window-sills At night to catch their dreaming words, until I scorned myself for this wild wretchedness! Nothing, nothing I found, and yet Iseult From that time on was dearer than my God ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... about the iron bars that guarded his window, but the feeling of horror that suddenly seized him was remote from self-pity. He was thinking of Elizabeth. What unspeakable wretchedness he had brought into her life, and he was still to bequeath her this squalid brutal death! It was the crowning shame and misery to the long months ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... translation is based on 'weras,' adopted by H.-So.—K. and Th. read 'wera' and, arranging differently, render 119(2)-120: They knew not sorrow, the wretchedness of man, aught of misfortune.—For 'unhaelo' (120) R. suggests 'unfaelo': The uncanny creature, ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin
... of your unbroken, ancient, and unsullied line! But I like this jolly fellow in the green riding jacket; he drank and hunted with the nobles, and employed the peasants to run down the tall deer with the hounds. Indeed, the ignorance, stupidity, and wretchedness of the serf were the strength of the noble, and give convincing ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... you are known to be A passion sent to plague the hearts of men; For every one you bring felicity Bringing rebuffs and wretchedness to ten. I have been oft where human life sold cheap And seen men's brains spilled out about their ears And yet that never cost me any sleep; I lived untroubled and I shed no tears. Fools prate how war is an atrocious thing; I always knew that nothing it implied ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... a complication of evils. The knowledge was imposed upon it that, amid all these calamities, it had one consolation—Its miseries were not eternal—That itself had the power to end them. This power it has employed, because it found itself incapable of supporting any longer the wretchedness of its own situation, and the blindness and injustice of mankind: and as, while it lived, it lived scorned and neglected, so it now commits itself to the waves; in expectation, after it is dead, of ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... the lecture she left the hall with Eleanore. When the ugly, disagreeable creature told her of the wretchedness of her life, how she was abused by her parents and brothers, and that there was not a soul in the world who cared for her, Eleanore was moved. The fact that Philippina was Daniel's blood cousin made her forget the aversion she felt, and drew from her a promise to go ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... be seen from these quotations that our relations with the Transvaal, hostile as they may have been, were scarcely true relations—that the real enmity and rancour, the blood-spilling and wretchedness that commenced at this period, and are at the moment of writing still continuing, were due, firstly, to party spirit in Great Britain, and secondly, to the machinations of adventurers, who, having no status elsewhere, put the ignorance ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... bore him mechanically to his favourite seat, and here he remained, with his head in his hands, his eyes fixed on the trodden gravel of the path. He had to learn, once and for all, that, by tomorrow, everything would be over; for, notwithstanding the wretchedness of the past days, he was as far off as ever from understanding. But he was loath to begin; he sat in a kind of torpor, conscious only of the objects his eyes rested on: some children had built a make-believe house of pebbles, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... conch-shells, and was the home of a few fisherman and wreckers; this was all Marcy thought there was of Nassau, and consequently his surprise was great when he found himself looking out upon the wharves of a thriving, bustling little town. The slave-holders' rebellion, "which brought woe and wretchedness to so many of our States, was the wind that blew prosperity to Nassau." When President Lincoln's proclamation, announcing the blockade of all the Confederate ports was issued, Nassau took on an air of business and importance, and at once became the favorite resort of vessels engaged in contraband ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... naturally of a sanguine temper, took the cue she had given him, but he could not help reproaching himself as the cause of all her wretchedness. This it was that enervated his heart and threw him into agonies, which all that profusion of heroic tenderness that the most excellent of women intended for his comfort served only to heighten and aggravate: ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... death-bed possess, Who in the credulous hour of tenderness Betrayed, then cast thee forth to Want and Scorn! The world is pitiless: the chaste one's pride 5 Mimic of Virtue scowls on thy distress: Thy Loves and they that envied thee deride: And Vice alone will shelter Wretchedness! O! I could weep to think that there should be Cold-bosom'd lewd ones, who endure to place 10 Foul offerings on the shrine of Misery, And force from Famine the caress of Love; May He shed healing on the sore disgrace, He, the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... he longed to make somebody or something else miserable too, so instead of a pat, he gave the dog a kick that sent it limping off with a yelp of pain and remonstrance. He had made another creature as miserable as himself, but somehow it didn't seem to lessen his own wretchedness. Indeed, he couldn't help feeling that he had done a mean, cowardly thing, and Tode never liked to feel himself a coward. He looked after the dog. It had crawled into a corner and was licking the injured paw. Tode walked toward ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... wistfully, as she thought, "I'm not sure about him. I hope it's only a passing disappointment, for we should not like to think that our happiness had brought him wretchedness." ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... my baby dear, A little while forget thy sorrow, The wind is cold, the night is drear, But drearier it will be to-morrow. For none will help, tho' many see Our wretchedness—then close thine eyes, love, Oh, most unbless'd on earth is she Who on ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... was only hatching into life,—I should not have been a welcome visitant, with the brow and the language of such feelings. When afterwards the other face of your calamity was turned upon you, and showed itself in defeat and distress, I shunned you full as much. I felt sorely this variety in our wretchedness; and I did not wish to have the least appearance of insulting you with that show of superiority, which, though it may not be assumed, is generally suspected, in a time of calamity, from those whose previous warnings ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... her habitation proved utterly fruitless, and having by this time reached the banks of the Thames, I plunged without a moment's hesitation, into its dark waters, resolving to end at once a life which promised nothing to its possessor, but wretchedness and wo. But my fatal resolution was frustrated by a man, who, unperceived had for some time previous watched my wild and desperate course, and who jumped into the water as I a second time rose to its surface, ...
— Blackbeard - Or, The Pirate of Roanoke. • B. Barker
... comparison with ours, under this enlightened and christian nation, no more than a cypher—or in other words, those heathen nations of antiquity, had but little more among them than the name and form of slavery, while wretchedness and endless miseries were reserved, apparently in a phial, to be poured out upon our fathers, ourselves and ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet
... his head away, striving to swallow the lump that would rise to his throat. He had a sense of infinite wretchedness ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... there is an enormous population, prices are lower, people are not wasteful, and the necessities of life do not cost so much. The Chinaman goes to America to obtain the benefit of high wages, not to reduce wages. I have never seen such poverty and wretchedness in China as I have seen in London, or such vice and poverty as can be seen in any large American city. Mr. Geary scorns the treaties between his country and China, and laughs at our commercial relations. He says, "There is nothing in the Chinese ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... have it. Does it look like her leaving him?" Mrs. Wix enquired. She brooded again; then she went on with more intensity: "Do you want to know really and truly why? So that she may be his wretchedness and ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... aristocratic training of Pope Leo cannot, however, dull the generous sympathies of his heart, or blind his clear vision of "the misery and wretchedness which press so heavily at this moment on the large majority of the very poor." He says: "The condition of the working population is the question of the hour." This will be a rude awakening to those conservative Catholic churchmen who have ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... decorated with the Legion of Honour, and owning one of the large Paris drapery shops. He showed himself good-naturedly condescending in his elegance, and desirous of displaying an enlightened taste for art. The female cousin at once went upstairs, turned round the studio, sniffed at all the bare wretchedness, and then walked down again, with a hard mouth, as if she were irritated at having taken the trouble to come. The second cousin, on the contrary, drew himself up and walked first behind the hearse, filling the part of chief mourner with proud and ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... impiety and absurdity, which makes infinite goodness the eternal source of infinite misery, there is wisdom in the Manichaean doctrine of two conflicting principles, holding a divided dominion over the universe, and contending, one for the production of the universal degradation and wretchedness, the other, for the purity and bliss of ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... survived the raft of the Medusa. I still remember a certain pine cockchafer met for the first time. The plumes on her antennae, her pretty pattern of white spots on a dark brown ground were as a ray of sunshine in the gloomy wretchedness of the day. ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... Munchen 23d (Adelung, iv. 241-244).] Munchen is transported with joy to see the Legitimate Sovereign again; and blazes into illuminations,—forgetful who caused its past wretchednesses, hoping only all wretchedness is now ended. Let ruined huts, and Cham and the burnt Towns, rebuild themselves; the wasted hedges make up their gaps again: here is the King come home! Here, sure enough, is an unfortunate Kaiser of the Holy Romish Reich, who can once more hope to pay his milk-scores, being a loved Kurfurst ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle |
