"Wretch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in complimenting himself and talking about his "grandeur d'ame." This greatness of soul may be measured from the command he gave his heirs to annoy a man who had refused to swear homage to him, "it not being reasonable to leave at rest this little wretch, who descends from a low family, and whose grandfather was nothing but a notary." He also commands his nieces and nephews to take the same vengeance upon his enemies "as I should have done in my green and vigorous youth, during which I may boast, and I thank God for it, that I never received ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... forth he went, Spoiled of the livery that till now had made him Enviable with the vulgar. And in vain He hoped another lord; the tender dames Were horror-struck at his atrocious crime, And loathed the author. The false wretch succumbed With all his squalid brood, and in the streets With his lean wife in tatters at his side ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... were, toward the Florida coast and across your path. For us that was a fortunate reef upon which you dashed. The gods must have made your helmsman blind, for he ran you into a destruction that gaped not for you. Why did every wretch that we hung next morning curse you before ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... a great pity for this poor wretch, so full of affection. But it is unfortunate for him to have taken it into his head to try to storm a fortress which ...
— The School for Husbands • Moliere
... rather forfeit than her name: Once known, for ever lost would be her fame Besides the heinous sin and vile offence, God knew she rather would with all dispense; Mere complaisance had led her to comply; Would she admit a wretch with blearing eye, To incommode, and banish tranquil ease? Who could conceive her formed a clod to please? Can I, said she, the paths of honour quit, And in my bed a loathsome brute permit? Or e'er regard the plan but with disdain? ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... of Israel were the sequel of the cloth on Ben-hadad's face. The secret of much enormous crime is the kind of relief from conscience which is found in committing a yet greater sin. The Furies drive with whips of scorpions, and the poor wretch goes plunging and kicking deeper and deeper in the mire, further and farther from the path. So you can never say: 'I will only ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... wretch to whine about myself like this, but—but I'm all in the dark, you know, and ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... started up from the table; the doctor shrank from the bedside. The two looked at the dying wretch, mastered by the same loathing, chilled by the same dread. He lay there, with his child's head on his breast; abandoned by the sympathies of man, accursed by the justice of God—he lay there, in the isolation of Cain, and ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... ne'er within him burn'd, As home his footsteps he hath turn'd From wandering on a foreign strand! If such there breathe, go mark him well; For him no Minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concent'red all in self. Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonor'd, ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... the net. If you will look at it you will find it to be badly mutilated, I think." An examination proved that Phil was right. Mr. Sparling had all he could do to prevent the angry circus men from wreaking their vengeance on the wretch then and there. ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... return, but there are 2 or 3 more ill and absent, which was the plea for refusing me. I will never commit my peace of mind by depending on such a wretch for a favor in future, so shall never have heart to ask for holidays again. The man next him in office, Cartwright, furnished him with ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... words, which none but gods should hear, Should lose their sweetness in a soldier's ear: I am not that Almanzor whom you praise; But your fair mouth can fair ideas raise:— I am a wretch, to whom it is denied To accept, with honour, what I wish with pride; And, since I light not for myself, must bring The fruits of all my conquests ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... a wretch I am, to have made this mistake!" cried Mr. St. Clair. "But I'll find your Evelyn. I'll go for a horse. I'll take this child back. Don't cry, little girl. I won't rest till I find your Evelyn;" and he rushed from the house, almost knocking down several children in the passageway—the ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... sister, who was co-ordinate with him in authority, had a scarcely inferior altitude. His chief business was to keep Pele appeased. He lived on the shore, but often went up to Kilauea with sacrifices. If a human victim were needed, he had only to point to a native, and the unfortunate wretch was at once strangled. He was not only the embodiment of heathen piety, but of heathen crime. Robbery was his pastime. His temper was so fierce and so uncurbed that no native dared even to tread on his shadow. More than once he had killed a man for the sake of food and clothes not worth ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... till I found myself in my room, exhausted and bent down with pain, at eleven. The fact was I had played the fool and overwalked myself, and my avenger, the bullet, began to remind me of his presence in my system. For three mortal hours no poor wretch, save in his death struggle, endured greater agony than I did. At last, a 'compassion that never faileth,' bestowed on me an interval of ease, and I slept. Heavily, I imagine, since for some time a strange ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... his head in his hands, and said: "Ah, the dwarf—the dwarf! Fool that I was; I might have known it. His race always hated mine. Ah, wretch! that I had ...
— The Last of the Huggermuggers • Christopher Pierce Cranch
... across the threshold, a colored girl holding her by the queue. The colored girl saw her running and, to prevent her from being dragged back by her tormentors, seized her by the queue and helped her run to the Mission. It was the merchant's young wife. The wretch had left her on false pretense in a den of shame. She was tied to a window by day and to a bed by night, a thoroughly unwilling slave. Three days before her escape, the chief of police and an interpreter had gone through the house, questioning every inmate as ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... fellow in the Morgue one day,—a poor wretch who had drowned himself a week or two before. Great God, how horrible he looked! If there was any certainty they would find one immediately, and bury one decently, there'd be no particular horror ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... word," he continued, "but I meant to be a bigamist. This girl thought all was fair and legal, and never dreamt she was going to be entrapped into a feigned union with a defrauded wretch already bound to a bad, mad, and embruted partner. Follow me. I invite you all to visit Grace ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Bouvard; "the wretch who follows his appetites is right from his own point of view just as much as the honest man ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... insult and impiety. To have permitted the man-thief to expiate his crime by restoring double, would have been making the repetition of crime its atonement. But the infliction of death for man-stealing exacted the utmost possibility of reparation. It wrung from the guilty wretch as he gave up the ghost, the testimony of blood, and death-groans, to the infinite dignity and worth of man,—a proclamation to the universe, voiced in mortal agony, "MAN IS INVIOLABLE."—a confession shrieked in phrenzy at ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... wished to gain information from him?" I observed, feeling anxious to preserve the life of the poor wretch. ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... spirits into carrying their wounded comrade out of sight, presumably to the hut. Inspired by their leader's fearless example, they even removed the third injured Dyak from the vicinity of the cave, but the celerity of their retreat caused the wretch ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... cried Alicia distractedly. "My God! I can't go to prison! I can't! That's too much. I've done nothing! Look—read this!" Handing over Underwood's letter, she went on: "You can see for yourself. The wretch frightened me into such a state of mind that I hardly knew what I was doing—I went to his rooms to save him. That's the truth, I swear to God! But do you suppose anybody will believe ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... wretch cannot vie with any man in virtue, out of his wickedness he begins to slander him. The abject, envious wretch will slander the virtuous man when absent, but when brought face to face ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... plainly against the wicked lives of prelates and popes, and for this he was to be burned, although d'Ailly and Gerson also had done so, and this very Council had deposed a vile wretch, Pope John XXIII. ...
— John Hus - A brief story of the life of a martyr • William Dallmann
... poor wretch, a wild-beast of a man, at whom I gazed with greater interest than at his fellows; although I know not that each one of them, in their semi-barbarous moral state, might not have been capable of the same savage ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... attempt to rob Mrs. Garrison's house and soundly deplored the unstrategic and ill-advised attempt of "an American named Canton" to capture the desperado. "The police department is severe in its criticism of the childish act which allowed the wretch to escape detection without leaving the faintest clew behind. Officers were close at hand, and the slightest warning would have had them at the Garrison home. The capture of this man would have meant much to the department, as he is undoubtedly one of the diamond robbers who are working havoc ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... walking about, happens to give one of their faces a kick; the sufferer weeps, and then curses him—with such infernal truth does the writer combine the malignant with the pathetic! Dante replies to the curse by asking the man his name. He is refused it. He then seizes the miserable wretch by the hair, in order to force him to the disclosure; and Virgil is represented as commending the barbarity![33] But he does worse. To barbarity he adds treachery of his own. He tells another poor wretch, whose face is iced up with his tears, as if he had ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... Saget who sent her too!" burst out Lisa, as soon as the old woman was gone. "Is the old wretch going to send the whole market here to try to find out what we talk about? What a prying, malicious set they are! Did anyone ever hear before of crumbed cutlets and 'assortments' being bought at five o'clock ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... "HOME, SWEET HOME;" but here is a contemptible and selfish demagogue who discards all such feelings, and would transfer his country and home to strangers and outlaws, to European paupers and criminals, if he could thereby receive a temporary election, or receive a pocket-full of money. For such a wretch I have no sympathy, and no feelings but those of scorn and contempt, and hence it is that I speak ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... his works to fill, fulfil. Well ought I, wretch, if I were kind— natural. Night and day to work his will, And ever have that Lord in mind. But ghostly foes grieve me ill, spiritual. And my frail flesh maketh me blind; Therefore his mercy I take me till, betake me to. For better bote can I ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... "You wretch!" she cried, shaking a bunch of lilies at Katherine, as she stood in the narrow passage; "you're always going out when ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... writings with his conversation which was so often to be observed. He forgot how lavishly he had, in his dedication to "The Wanderer," extolled the delicacy and penetration, the humanity and generosity, the candour and politeness of the man whom, when he no longer loved him, he declared to be a wretch without understanding, without good nature, and without justice; of whose name he thought himself obliged to leave no trace in any future edition of his writings, and accordingly blotted it out of that copy of "The Wanderer" which was in ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... girl in London. Drunk with gin, she killed her lover in a fit of jealousy. The lover was a wretch of whom the London police are well quit, and this woman was packed off to Paris for a time to let the matter blow over. The hussy was well brought up—the daughter of a clergyman. She speaks French ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... a view we get of the souls of men, bound and condemned to die, given up to selfishness and godlessness, the moment we stand by the cross of Jesus, and realise, with Him, that a pardon is possible! The meanest wretch that walks looks different from us. Even the outwardly respectable and very ordinary person who lives next door, to whom we so seldom speak, is at once clothed with a new interest in our minds, if we really believe that there ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... her; and lo, said he, I shall ally myself to, perhaps, a numerous family of vagabonds; at least, whether it be so or not, the manner in which these children were exposed, being publicly known, may furnish a pretence for any wretch to ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... Buchanan, the world-renowned writer, exiled from his own country, appealing to Henry VIII. for protection! Happy? "No. Over mountains covered with snow, and through valleys flooded with rain, I come a fugitive." Moliere, the popular dramatic author! Happy? "No. That wretch of an actor just now recited four of my lines without the proper accent and gesture. To have the children of my brain so hung, drawn, and quartered, tortures me like a ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... Intercessor, the mother of the dead died too! Behold me, a lonely, ruined, wifeless, childless wretch! I made all the world my foe! The old love of liberty (alone left me) became a crime; I plunged into the gloom of the forest, a robber-chief, sparing—no, never-never—never one York captain, one spurred knight, one ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... own birthday, or, better still, the New Year, instead of his auntie's birthday, so that he might have turned over a new leaf at once with due solemnity. He actually remembered a pious saw uttered over twenty years earlier by that wretch in a white tie who had damnably devised the Saturday afternoon Bible-class, a saw which he furiously scorned—"Every day begins a New Year." Well, every day did begin a New Year! So did every minute. Why not begin ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... the loss of the horse and clothes, by the possession of the remaining ninety-five tomauns, which would be sufficient for my present wants; and then those powerful words, Khoda buzurg est! God is great, stood me in lieu (as they do many a poor wretch besides) of a provision for the future, and of protection against all the unforeseen misfortunes preparing for us by ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... I contemplated with certainty an approaching revolution in France; I was vexed to think that there was not one conspicuously great and energetic man among the leaders of the Opposition, and that such a poor wretch as Rochefort was once more daily mentioned and dragged to the front. Of Gambetta no one as yet thought, although his name was respected, since he had made himself felt the last season as the most vehement speaker in the Chamber. But it was not speakers who were wanted, ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... his face and groaned in his heart, and said, "It is the end, O Lord God, it is the end—polluted wretch that I am, with the blood of these people ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... new ally, without waiting to be entreated, sprang into the air, and calling out "Stop! stop! wicked wretch!" attacked and dragged down the other Rakshas. He, in defending himself, when only a short distance from the ground, let the lady fall, and I caught her with outstretched arms in such a manner that, though much shaken and alarmed, she was not seriously injured. I held her ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... been told that they were afraid of me at home. Heaven knows why! for I should have thought that pompous, heartless, rigid, tyrannical wretch, my husband, was the one to be afraid of; and not a warm-hearted creature ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... herself to the unconscious little being as she took it in her arms, but belying her words by the grace and instinctive maternal expertness with which she handled and soothed the infant. "Yes, you can go, Sarah—au revoir, Mademoiselle Madeleine. Fie the little wretch, what faces she pulls! And you, Margery, you need not wait either; I shall keep this creature for a while. Poor little one!" sang the mother, walking up and down, and patting the small back with her jewelled hand as she ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... wretch of an ultra-frowsy thing in the Scientific American, 7-298, which we condemn ourselves, if somewhere, because of the oneness of allness, the damned must also be the damning. It's a newspaper story: that ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... me to give each case due consideration before fixing the poor wretch's doom after conviction, I invariably ordered the prisoner to stand down until ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... from what she would have felt towards it, had it been set before her while she was the blooming, thoughtless creature in the little cottage in the country. It is only by fits and starts that the poor drunken wretch, living in a garret upon a little pittance allowed him by his relations, who was once a man of character and hope, feels what a sad pitch he has come to. If you could get him to feel it constantly, there would be some hope of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... conscience, if ever I seen one, as made the brute beast run like that, from the sight of the doctor," chimed in first old lady, who quarreled with her "old man" on principle, and seldom came out second best. "Faith, an' the murtherin' wretch has ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... managed to get into his windpipe, and immediately, like a whale rising to the surface of the sea to blow, or like a stone triton spouting forth the water of a fountain, a violent upward rush of imprisoned breath discharged through every aperture of the suffocating wretch the wine ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... lead him to a certain wood, and kill him, and sacrifice with their accustomed solemnities, and taste of his entrails, and take an oath upon this sacrificing a Greek, that they would ever be at enmity with the Greeks; and that then they threw the remaining parts of the miserable wretch into a certain pit." Apion adds further, that, "the man said there were but a few days to come ere he was to be slain, and implored of Antiochus that, out of the reverence he bore to the Grecian gods, he would disappoint ...
— Against Apion • Flavius Josephus
... fresh flood of tears. "A wretch, a miser. You are unworthy, sir, to be linked to a family from whom Germain takes his gentlemanly qualities. Had he nothing but you in him, he would be a grovelling clod-hopper to-day instead of a ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... dictated, I came to the conclusion to stick by my story, and carry out the deception to the end of the chapter. But my mortification, my confusion, my chagrin, at being subjected to this unforeseen cross-examination, can hardly be conceived. I envied the condition of the wretch standing by the gallows with a noose around his neck. After a brief pause, my tormentor continued "Do you ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... the sky, The Atlantic billows roared, When such a destined wretch as I, Washed headlong from on board, Of friends, of hope, of all bereft, His floating home ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... renounce God and die. Job, however, was not perturbed by her words, because he divined at once that Satan stood behind his wife, and seduced her to speak thus. Turning to the tempter, he said: "Why dost thou not meet me frankly? Give up thy underhand ways, thou wretch." Thereupon Satan appeared before Job, admitted that he had been vanquished, ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... question 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 ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... Suddenly the poor wretch felt a gust of cold air on the hands resting upon the flags; it came from under the little door to which the ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... communication respecting me would be forwarded to the Commandante of the district in the course of the day, which would probably result in my being passed on to that functionary. In the meanwhile he begged me to make free use of his house and everything in it. Of course, the misguided little wretch had no intention of throwing his fat wife at my head; still, I had no doubt that it was she who inspired these complimentary phrases, telling him, perhaps, that he would lose nothing by a courteous ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... as possible before he was out of bed. While it was yet dark in the house, I left my bag in the bedroom and crept gently down the stairs to the basement, where the porter-hostler was sleeping in a box of rags. I suppose the poor wretch had not long finished his multifarious duties, for I could arouse him only to a state of semi-consciousness, and could get no information from him. I then went up to the front door, carefully turned ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... its unwelcome light, and found me a shivering, crouching wretch. That incestuous love with which we had defied the fates, had now borne its ...
— Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches • George P. Goff
... despair!" he answered. "What else could I look for, being what I am, and leading such a life as mine? Were I an atheist,—a man devoid of conscience,—a wretch with coarse and brutal instincts,—I might have found peace, long ere now. Nay, I never should have lost it! But, as matters stand with my soul, whatever of good capacity there originally was in me, all of God's gifts that were the choicest have become the ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the other boatswain's mates stood with their cats, those dreadful instruments of power, in their hands ready for use. While preparations were being made, the miserable wretch looked round on every side, as if seeking for some one who could save him from the punishment he was about to receive. Not a glance of pity did he get from his messmates. They knew him too well. At last he looked ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... Thro' pleasure and thro' pain, alike unchecked. Then, what were lets to me? Amongst the strong I wrestled for ambition's upper seats— Clung to the slippery shrouds of policy— And in my fury prayed for eagle's wings To poize me in the shadow of the sun. At wealth I grasped as a poor crippled wretch Grasps at the crutch that steadies him along; Yet not for it but for the power it brought, For, Timon-like, within my heart of hearts I cursed the yellow dust I trampled on. But by the wayside I sat down and wept As a child weeps above some ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... you know what you touch?—a wretch not fit to crawl the earth much less be touched ...
— Little Pollie - A Bunch of Violets • Gertrude P. Dyer
... with me, young feller," he said. "You won't ride Jazz in the ring to-night; he's the rottenest, most treacherous little wretch with the outfit, and I only put you on him to call your bluff. Want to join the show? We had to leave our rough-rider back in the last town ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... Ah Wretch! to whom untried thou seemest fair! By me, who late thy halcyon surface sung, [1]The walls of Neptune's fane inscrib'd, declare That I have dank and dropping garments hung, Devoted to the GOD, whose kind decree Snatch'd me to shore, from ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... good God, look down from Heaven upon the most distressed wretch upon earth. See me with my soul divided, my glory and my guide taken from me, and in him all my comfort in this life; see me staggering in my path, which made me expect a temporal blessing for a reward of the great integrity, innocence, and uprightness ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... he saw Morton and Glover with Job Truefitt, "have you Englishmen found time, amid all this confusion, to come and look after a wounded wretch like me; an enemy too—who has been taught with his utmost strength to hate ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... economy and strict attention to business. It is my husband's wretched state of mind that makes me so anxious for the discovery of the thief. I may be wrong, but I felt hopeful of success as soon as you entered the house; and I believe that, if the wretch who robbed us is to be found, you are the man to discover him." I accepted this gratifying compliment in the spirit in which it was offered, firmly believing that I shall be found, sooner or later, to have thoroughly ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... papa must have his way; and if it is to do the boy good, I can sacrifice a crab—I mean myself—not a crustacean. I am not going to be such a selfish wretch as ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I am accustomed to be very much distracted. For oftentimes I am not there where I am bodily standing or sitting, but am rather there where my thoughts carry me" (Bk. iii. c. 48). The same writer wrote, "And I, a wretch and the vilest of men.... I can hardly spend one half hour as I ought." St. Teresa wrote, "I am not less distracted than you are during Office, and try to think that it arises from weakness of ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... is affectionate to me beyond measure. Still, always I feel that if I were to vex her, the lower deep below the lowest deep would not be low enough for me. I always feel that. She would advertise me directly for a wretch proper. ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... an Enemy to all good Men. Does the ungrateful Wretch hide his own head, And send his ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... about two weeks after you left, a knock came at his door, and your mother entered. To this lonely wretch her coming seemed like an angel's. She was cold and wet and freezing, yet her first words were, that she must see her children. Keseberg understood that she intended to start out that very night, and soon found that she was slightly demented. She ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... most merciless wretch who ever threw stones at a woman was pitiful in comparison with Caroline's ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... up at Thornleigh 'Eath; I got a fortnight's stretch; An' still I feels 'is wicked teeth, That spiteful little wretch; An' still my thumb 's all any'ow In weather (as it is just now) That's frosty, 'ard an' chill; 'Tis few things seems to do it good.... Why, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... life, and death's extreme disgrace; The smoke of hell, the monster called Pain: Long shamed to be accursed in every place, By them who of his rude resort complain; Like crafty wretch, by time and travel taught, His ugly evil in others' good to hide; Late harbours in her face, whom Nature wrought As treasure-house where her best gifts do bide; And so by privilege of sacred seat, A seat where beauty shines and virtue reigns, He ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... circumstances allowed, according to English usage. He was found guilty, and was sentenced to die. He made no complaint, or none of which a record is preserved. He asked for the Sacrament, which was of course allowed, and Drake himself communicated with him. They then kissed each other, and the unlucky wretch took leave of his comrades, laid his head on the block, and so ended. His offence can be only guessed; but the suspicious curiosity about his fate which was shown afterwards by Mendoza makes it likely that he was in Spanish pay. The ambassador cross-questioned ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... forgotten Laveuve, the miserable wretch who lay at death's door; and all of them were hastening away to their business or their passions, caught in the toils, sinking under the grindstone and whisked away by that rush of all Paris, whose fever bore them along, throwing one against another in an ardent scramble, in which ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... fragments of bomb shells, and wore ghastly trophies from the guillotine. But short of a Reign of Terror, making all men mad, one does not expect such things. Few people (I fancy) if they knew it, would care to use the glass from which some poor wretch had drunk his draught of poison; and even to touch the murderer's knife stored up in a public museum, would turn most hearts sick. But if you could only see as God sees; if things in society were but labelled and classed; you would find your cards ...
— Tired Church Members • Anne Warner
... went to that tree where the head hung. And he looked into the face of the head, and therewith he saw that it was indeed the head of Sir Tauleas that hung there. Then Sir Launcelot said: "This is very wonderful. Now I pray you, tell me what knight was it who slew this wicked wretch, and how his head came to be left ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... about "little wretch!" "Jane Jennings!" and, pointing excitedly to the scene of his recent discomfiture, asked, "Lives there, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... know Posin to be an unfeeling wretch, and a half-blood Indian; but he is also known to be a great coward, and surely no harm could have been feared ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... some poor wretch, who was crouched there, making his preparations for eternity, just as I myself was about to do. He gave me one scared look, as if he feared I was some one come to stop him, and jumped into the water. In his sudden leap one foot dragged after ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... hardened wretch is in every feature a villain—except that he has a rosy complexion, downy whiskers, and buttermilk eyes, instead of the black flashing orbs of fiction. Sheriff Boyd decoyed him into town, skilfully avoiding any rousing of his tigerish ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... denounced him for a hypocrite, not knowing that the artist may have a life apart from his art, and that to Peace religion was an essential pursuit. So he died, having released from an unjust sentence the poor wretch who at Whalley Range had suffered for his crime, and offering up a consolatory prayer for all mankind. In truth, there was no enemy for whom he did not intercede. He prayed for his gaolers, for his executioner, for the Ordinary, for his wife, for Mrs. Thompson, his drunken doxy, and he ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... a great deal for granted, you wretch!" exclaimed Myra, dimpling into smiles. "As I know I am the wife of Cojuelo, I shall feel I am committing bigamy when ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... was calling after me at that time. And it was days before I caught a glimpse of Miss Wallis again, at least to speak to her. At last, one night she came to my room; and without a. moment of parley, I said to her, "Oh, my dear! what was that wretch saying to you?"—"What wretch?" says she, quite sharp like. "Why, Captain Crowfoot," says I, "to be sure."—"What have you to say against Captain Crowfoot?" says she, quite scornful like. So I tumbled out all I had against him in one breath. ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... not know?" shrieked Gabriel Nietzel. "I read it in your face, you have murdered her. Yes, yes, I see it, I feel it—you have murdered her! Confess it, wretch! fall down upon your knees and confess ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... her knees, imploring the saints, and the stars, and the angel Michael, to fight against Santa Anna. To Isabel she whispered, "I have even informed the evil one where he may be found. The wretch who ordered such infamies! He poisons the air of the whole world as he goes through it. I shall never be happy till I know that he is in purgatory. He will be hated even there—and in a worse place, too. Yes, it is pleasant to think of that! There will be many accusers ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... approaches it. This was the state of the impenitent thief. But the other drew back from his companion with horror. The very excess of sin overleaped itself; and for the first time he saw how vile a wretch he was. This was brought home to him by the contrast of the patience and peace of Jesus. His brutal companion had hitherto been his ideal; but now he perceives how base is his ferocious courage in comparison with the strength ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... hold of the constable and sprang forward. "Oh, my pretty Cherry," she cried, taking the dead bird from the point of the rapier. "You wretch! to harm an innocent little creature like that!" and she smoothed the feathers of the bird and kissed ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... asked a man to point out the way to London after she escaped into the lane beside Mrs. Wells's house. A man, Thomas Bennet, swore that on January 29, 1753, he met 'a miserable, poor wretch, about half-past four,' 'near the ten-mile stone,' in a lane. She asked her way to London; 'she said she was affrighted by the tanner's dog.' The tanner's house was about two hundred yards nearer London, and the prosecution made much of this, as if a dog, with plenty of leisure and a feud against ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... followed by one of the most monstrous productions, the mind of man ever groaned withal. Never did melancholy madman labouring under the horrors of an inflammation of the brain—never did a wretch fevered with gluttony and intemperance, and writhing under the pressure of the night-mare, dream of more horrible circumstances than those which Mr. Lewis has offered in this prodigious melo-drame, for the ENTERTAINMENT ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... head, and two wings on the side, so that if you make up a ball of tow like an egg, and pull the skin over it, you can't be so very far wrong; but an animal wants curves here and hollows there, and nicely rounded hind legs, and his head lifted up gracefully, and that—Ugh! the wretch! I'll burn it first chance. I won't try ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... Among that licentious people, nobody, not even the chief magistrate nor the very judges themselves, by whose permission the comedians were permitted to play, received any quarter, but were exposed to public scorn by any merciless wretch of a libeller who chose to sacrifice them. Nor were the bad effects of these calumnies confined to public scorn—they often went to the pecuniary ruin of families; sometimes, as in the case of Socrates, afterwards to the death ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... of Mlle. Danglars' broken marriage-contract away back in the past. Could this beggar be the scoundrel who had masqueraded under the assumed title of Prince Cavalcanti and had so nearly become her husband? Perhaps; but even if he were that unscrupulous wretch, what harm could his reappearance do at this late day, now that the old story had been thoroughly sifted and almost forgotten? Albert was well aware of all the details of the Cavalcanti episode, and it was ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... Another wretch, unto his fellow saith, "Thou fishest fair! She which that thee hath fired Is false, inconstant, and she hath no faith. She for the road of folk is so desired; And, as an horse, from day to day she is hired! That when thou twinnest from her company, Cometh another; and ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... than dependence. I had been thinking too much of the girl for my own good, and our separation had brought me to a sudden realisation of how deeply I was beginning to care for her. I hated her, too, the pitiless wretch, so there was a double reason for ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... hath, which I am glad of, that I may give T. Hater L20 and keep L10 towards a boy's keeping. Thence Mr. Coventry and I to the Attorney's chamber at the Temple, but not being there we parted, and I home, and there with great joy told T. Hater what I had done, with which the poor wretch was very glad, though his modesty would not suffer him to say much. So to the Coffee-house, and there all the house full of ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... who wrote the review on Fitzgerald Barker's last poem. Only I know you won't. I remember nothing done so well. I should think the poor wretch will hardly hold his head up again before the autumn. But it was fully deserved. I have no patience with the pretensions of would-be poets who contrive by toadying and underground influences to get their volumes placed on every drawing-room table. I know no one to whom the world has been so ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... however, would have been fruitless, if two negroes, who were coming from the opposite side, had not helped them. As it was, the fellow was soon captured. He was pinioned, and, as he would not walk, severely beaten, most of the blows being dealt upon the head, so that I feared the poor wretch's skull would be broken. In spite of this he never moved a muscle, and lay, as if insensible to feeling, upon the ground. The two other negroes were obliged to seize hold of him, when he endeavoured ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... said Mrs. Dinnett, "and we'll see if he can show his face among honest men again. We that have abided by the law all our days—now we'll see what the law can do for us against this godless wretch." ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... hardened, drunken wretch," observed the Colonel. "Will you be civil enough to show ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... Today I will, in battle, slay thee that art the root of this quarrel and that hast become so proud in consequence of Duryodhana's patronage. Putting forth my strength, I will certainly slay thee in this battle, and Bhimasena will slay this Duryodhana, this wretch among men, through whose evil policy this quarrel born of dice hath arisen." Having said these words, Arjuna rubbed the string of his bow and took aim at Vrishasena in that battle, and sped, O king, a number ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... high-bred—without a fault, indeed, if it had not been for that horrid habit of smoking, which, as they judiciously observed, however, was a peculiar characteristic of the Russians. I am afraid, they would have set her down as a vulgar wretch, had they not been forewarned that she was aristocratic. The French lady seemed to look upon the foreign one as an intruder, and scarcely deigned to turn her eyes in that direction. Probably this was because she was so charming, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various |
