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More "Plight" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... married man having wife and mother to support, (I mention this in order to properly convey my plight) conditions here are not altogether good and living expenses growing while wages are small. My greatest desire is to leave for a better place but am ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... news of fire and riot, mixed with reports of the military being called out and firing on the people, numbers being killed, &c. Fortunately there was much exaggeration in these tales, and by degrees most of the Birmingham men found their way home, though many were in sad plight through the outrageous behaviour of themselves and the "victorious" crew who went off so gaily with them in the morning. The elections in after years may ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... the storm-clouds from the author's sky. But in the unhappy days but lately passed away, the poet's lot was most miserable. His work brings him no livelihood; his patron's liberality goes but a little way. The historian is in no less parlous plight. The advocate makes some show of wealth, but it is, as a rule, the merest show; only the man already wealthy succeeds at the bar; many a struggling lawyer goes bankrupt in the struggle to advertise himself and push his way. The teacher of rhetoric and the school-master receive but a miserable fee, ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... then no gentlemen in all the world? Are you not a man yourself? Have you no pity for a woman in such plight as mine?" ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... all, Revealed or unrevealed, in heaven or earth, In how sad plight our city is, thy mind, If not thy eye, discerns. Prophet, in thee Resides our sole hope of deliverance. Phoebus, if thou hast not the tidings heard, Has to our envoys answered, that the plague Will never leave this city till we find The murderers of the late King Laius, And slay them or expel ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... gushing springs. I am come to take you, sir, before the officers of the Company aboard this ship, when, if you have aught to say for yourself, you may say it. I need not tell you, who saw so clearly some time ago the danger in which you then stood, that your plight is now ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... thin and sickly and seemed poverty-stricken enough to disarm hostility. Obviously, he was down on his luck. Had it not been for that indefinable self-reliant look which drovers—the Ishmaels of the bush—always acquire, one might have taken him for a swagman. His horse was in much the same plight. It was a ragged, unkempt pony, pitifully poor and very footsore, at first sight, an absolute "moke"; but a second glance showed colossal round ribs, square hips, and a great length of rein, the rest hidden beneath a wealth of loose hair. ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... that God, whom thou didst not adore, I do beseech thee (that this ill and worse I may escape) to lead me, where thou saidst, That I Saint Peter's gate may view, and those Who as thou tell'st, are in such dismal plight." ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... to make peace. Under the direction of a clever leader they organize a conspiracy for this purpose throughout all Greece, and at the same time gain possession in Athens of the fortified Acropolis. The terrible plight the men are reduced to by this separation gives rise to the most laughable scenes; plenipotentiaries appear from the two hostile powers, and peace is speedily concluded under the management of the sage Lysistrata. Notwithstanding ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... him. As soon as he reached the king's apartment, he began to cry out, and call for justice in a lamentable tone. The king ordered him to be admitted; and asked who it was that had abused and put him into that miserable plight. "Sire," cried Saouy, "it is the favour of your majesty, and being admitted into your sacred councils, that has occasioned me to be so barbarously treated." "Say no more of that," replied the king, "only let me hear the whole story simply, and who the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... they brought up the prisoners, all of them bound in chains and some wounded. But Cyrus when he saw their plight ordered the chains to be struck off, and sent for surgeons to dress their wounds, and then he told them that he came neither to destroy them nor to war against them, but to make peace between them and the Armenians. "I know," he said, "before your pass was taken you did not wish for peace. ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... indeed had so far very little precise knowledge of what his companion's feeling might be toward his own critical plight. He would have liked to get at it; for there was something in this winning, reserved girl that made him desire her good opinion. And yet he shrank ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... several streams must be crossed, and these were held in great dread, for if swimming became necessary, the plight of the little company, with the thermometer striking steadily below freezing point, would be pitiful indeed. The ranchman was resolved to save his wife and child from such an affliction, by constructing some kind of a raft, ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... his rhymes, and is probably one of the instances where death has saved a man from damnation. You were the ruin of that poor fellow amongst you: had it not been for his patrons, he might now have been in very good plight, shoe-(not verse-) making: but you have made him immortal with a vengeance. I write this, supposing poetry, patronage, and strong waters, to have been the death of him. If you are in town in or about the beginning of July, you will find me at ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... penned it in as good French as I could muster, begging Monsieur Foscue to communicate at once with his Eminence, telling him how I had been captured, and that my Letter of Credit had been taken from me, and of the Sorry Plight I was now in. I was given to understand that from Six to Nine Months must pass by before I could expect an Answer; for that Safe Conducts to Christian Packets between Algiers and Marseilles were only granted thrice a year, and the last was but just departed. Whereupon I resigned ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... life, felt the touch of the merciful hand and heard the sound of the loving voice, leading them, calling them back to God, back to the "beauty ever ancient and ever new." Such souls as these, it is true, constitute one class of erring, but repenting sinners; but there is another class whose plight is far more pitiable. They are those long-delayed, but finally repentant sinners, men and women who have lived their lives away from the Church and its sacraments, who have grown old and gray in the ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... marking on the bag, and their merriment equaled his own, while Tony alternately glowered and grinned. He had begun to think that somebody had cast on him the "evil eye," so dreaded by his countrymen, and he was relieved to find that his plight was due to natural causes. Yet the thought of all that wasted ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... it were out of the sky. It sank like lead. Thanks to the lifebuoys Underhill and the men rose quickly to the surface. Two of them, who could not swim, cried out despairingly for help. Underhill seized one and held him up; the other was saved by the promptitude of young Smith. Seeing their plight, he caught up a rope which had been brought ashore, and flung it among the group of men struggling in the water. The drowning man clutched it, the others swam to it, and by its aid all were drawn ashore, gasping for breath, and sorely battered ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... household. The whole squadron amounted to seventeen vessels, three of them of one hundred tons' burden each. With this gallant navy, Columbus, dropping down the Guadalquivir, took his departure from the bay of Cadiz, on the 25th of September, 1493; presenting a striking contrast to the melancholy plight, in which, but the year previous, he sallied forth like some forlorn knight-errant, on a ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... necessaries of life. There was no inn and no tent. We had either to sleep in our filthy open boat, or take our tents and everything with us. Goa is not healthy enough to sleep out al fresco. Fortunately a kind-hearted man, who was the agent of the steamers, and his wife, seeing the plight we were in, conceded us a small room in their house with their only spare bed. Luckily we had one of those large straw Pondicherry reclining-chairs, which I just bought from the captain of the steamer, ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... amends for all. Just the same soft white dress of the afternoon—or was it one like it?—with no ornaments, no bridal veil. I have always pitied men who have to plight their troth to a moving mass of lace and tulle, weighed down with orange-blossoms massive as lead. This was my own little wife as she would walk by my side through life, dressed as she might be the ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... wander'd to the gate, Where stood Alceste in sad weary plight, Sore press'd with sentience of her hapless fate, Weeping, nigh hopeless, in the pale moonlight. Tarried he there in strange delicious strait, Lapt in the wonder of his dreaming sight; Then opening wide his arms in raptured prayer, Her gentle ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... a dark night, Burning with ecstasies wherein I fell, Oh happy plight, Unheard I left the house wherein I dwell, The ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... cost of labor," replied Bince. "The same holds true of everybody else. Every manufacturer in the country is in the same plight ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... carried the day. Hall now got another man in Thorolf's place in the boat, and went on fishing as before. Thorolf was ill-contented with his lot, for he felt he had come to shame in their dealings together; yet he remained in the islands with the determination to set straight the humble plight to which he had been made to bow against his will. [Sidenote: Hall's death] Hall, in the meantime, did not fear any danger, and thought that no one would dare to try to get even with him in his own country. So one fair-weather ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... near correct, then you are entitled to my most hearty apology. Fred is a peculiar and high-strung boy, but I believe his impulses are right in the main. I will add that I believe his account of how he came to be in this strange plight. He took the car early this morning. I am just returning from a spin in our larger automobile. I saw my runabout at the edge of the road and it occurred to me to stop and see if my son were here. Is there anything more to be said about my son's ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... the habit of writing—whether they be sermons to hurl across your pews, or sonnets in the Spring—doubtless you have moments when you sit at your desk bare of thoughts. Mother Hubbard's cupboard when she went to seek the bone was not more empty. In such plight you chew your pencil as though it were stuff to feed your brain. Or if you are of delicate taste, you fall upon your fingers. Or in the hope that exercise will stir your wits, you pace up and down the room ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... press me for further particulars of the Amalgamated subscriptions. We all know the story of the comedian informed in the midst of a performance of his beloved wife's death, who yet must laugh and antic to the end of the play. I appreciated the heavy-hearted actor's plight as I surveyed the little throng so vitally interested in their dollar affairs. I longed to mount a chair and tell them how they had been duped, but my role called for different lines. It was my part to feign satisfaction and my duty ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... stag's horns in his mouth. He had swallowed the stag, but could not get the horns down; so he had to wait in patience with that uncomfortable mouthful till his stomach digested the body, and then the horns would drop out. In this plight the Dutchman found him as he was going in his canoe up the river, and sent a ball ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... the picket fence into a clump of castor beans, and stood in the dusk, trying to cover himself with the leaves, like Adam in the garden, talking commonplaces to Enid through chattering teeth, afraid lest at any moment she might discover his plight. ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... in peril and plight the knight travels on until Christmas-eve, and to Mary he makes his moan that she may direct him to some abode. On the morn he arrives at an immense forest, wondrously wild, surrounded by high hills on every side, ...
— Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight - An Alliterative Romance-Poem (c. 1360 A.D.) • Anonymous
... evening of the murder. Afterwards he attempts to speak positively, from recollecting that he mentioned the circumstance to William Peirce, as he went to the Mineral Spring on Fast-day. Last Monday morning he told Colonel Putnam he could not fix the time. This witness stands in a much worse plight than either of the others. It is difficult to reconcile all he has said with any belief in the ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... for the owl, nor his gloomy plight! The owl hath his share of good— If a prisoner he be in the broad daylight, He is lord in the dark greenwood! Nor lonely the bird, nor his ghastly mate, They are each unto each a pride; Thrice fonder, perhaps, since a strange, dark fate Hath rent them ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... on Ullr." He felt a brief sadistic pleasure as he watched Keaveney's face sag in horror. "On this planet, there's not more than a three months' supply of any sort of food a human can eat. And the ships that'll be coming in until word of our plight can get to Terra won't bring enough to keep us going. We need the farms and livestock and the animal-tissue culture plant at Konkrook, and the farms at Krink and on the plateau back of Skilk, and we need peace and native labor ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper
... and Dennis looked around vainly for some additional covering. The thronging fugitives were all in a similar plight, and their only course was simply to endure till some path of ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... author better than the beings of his imagining; but I can not help a little surprise, and perhaps amusement, at some odd critical exceptions in the present instance, when I see several bards in very reputable plight, and quite exempted from all participation in the faults of their heroes, who nevertheless might be found with little more morality than the Giaour; and perhaps—but no—I must admit Childe Harold to be a very repulsive ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... streets of Paris. He read Edouard Drumont's anti-Semitic journal "La France Juive" and said, "I have to thank Drumont for much of the freedom of my present conception of the Jewish problem." While he was in Paris he was stirred as never before by the feeling that the plight of the Jews was a problem which would have to have the cooperation of enlightened statesmanship. What excited him in the strangest way was the unaccountable indifference of Jews themselves to what seemed to him the menace of the existing situation. He saw the Jews in every ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... seemingly as old as the rock out of which it grew, climbing a conical hill, to dominate all the wide, white reaches above which it stood, like an armoured sentinel on a watch-tower. As I gazed, struck with admiration, which for an instant made me forget our plight, he began to push. The car, surprised at his strength and determination, half decided to move, then changed her mind and refused to budge. In a second, before he could guess what I meant to do, I had flashed out of my seat into the snow, and was wading in his tracks ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... Wood of New York. Buchanan's Vacillation. Treason all about Him. Star of the West Fired on. Inaction of Congress. Crittenden's Compromise Lost. Washington Peace Congress. Vain. Earnestness of South. Lincoln Inaugurated. His Address. How Received. His Difficult Task. Plight of Army, Navy, Treasury. Sumter Fired on. Defended. Evacuated. Effect at North. War Spirit. 75,000 Volunteers. The Sixth Massachusetts in Baltimore. Washington in Danger. General Scott's Measures. March ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... who sent him into his fields to feed swine,—thus doth he designate the most coarse and loathsome sin. When, after much labour, he had come to the utmost misery, and might not even fill his belly with the husks that the swine did eat, at last he came to perceive his shameful plight, and, bemoaning himself, said, 'How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... buskined hero standing under the load of them, could have more effectually moved his spectators, by the most pathetic speech, than poor miserable Nokes did, by this silent eloquence, and piteous plight of his features? ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... efficient organization of the national army was the work of the Jacobins, and while the Mountain was discredited in Paris, it was not so in the provinces; moreover, the army which was on foot and in the field was in the main a Jacobin army. Royalty was so hated by most Frenchmen that the sad plight of the child dauphin, dying by inches in the Temple, awakened no compassion, and its next lineal representative was that hated thing, a voluntary exile; the nobility, who might have furnished the material for a French House of Lords, were traitors ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... in this plight. We have said, "Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anger shut up his tender mercies?" From our prison-cell we send up the appeal to our Brother in the glory: "Help us; for if Thou leavest us to our fate, we shall question if ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... of wind did not last long, and the rain soon settled down into a steady drizzle, but we were in a sad plight. It was after nine o'clock before we had put ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... "Conceive, then, my plight, dear lady," he concluded, "when, on reaching London, I found that the few coins which remained to me had been left in the clothes which I gave to this Droop, and I have come hither to implore the temporary aid of ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... He had seen his friends married, and felt soured thereat. Thenceforth her way is marked by tears, by utter weakness, by a woful self-surrender. Threatened by her only God, her son, heart-broken at finding herself in a plight so unnatural, she falls desperate. She tries to drown all her memories in sleep. At length comes an issue for which neither of them can fairly account, an issue such as nowadays will often happen in the poorer quarters of large towns, where ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... into the kettle. Then he removed the outer blanket and succeeded in rolling the unconscious form nearer to the fire. When he uncovered the face he saw that the man was an Indian—a young buck of twenty-five or thirty, and he wondered the more at his plight. Removing the kettle from the fire, he set it beside him and succeeded in propping the Indian's head upon his knees. With a tin cup, he dipped some scalding tea from the kettle and allowing it to cool a little, dropped a small quantity between the man's ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... house, half-way to the monastery, I thought to obtain bread, but as I approached it twelve large brown mastiffs rushed out and assailed me. I was in a pitiable plight, warding them off with my stick, and did not escape without bites. I called for help, and some one then whistled from a window and called the dogs back. I don't fear dogs, but these were powerful animals, and withal a tremendous surprise. I must have had a bad time ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... capsule, receptacle, quiver, chest; event, happening, instance, circumstances, condition, affair, plight, predicament, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... of any of our Barham folk to aid a shipwrecked automobile. You drive them so heedlessly, young gentleman. I confess," she continued, judiciously, "that I rather enjoy your plight." ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... never get him to come time enough to me, though I have spoke a hundred times; but he is very sluggish, and too negligent ever to do well at his trade I doubt), and having lately considered with my wife very much of the inconvenience of my going in no better plight, we did resolve of putting me into a better garb, and, among other things, to have a good velvet cloake; that is, of cloth lined with velvet and other things modish, and a perruque, and so I sent him and her out to buy me velvet, and I to ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... wrong with Auld Jock. It was the man who wore the air of a culprit. A Scotch laborer does not lightly confess to feeling "fair silly," nor sleep away the busy hours of daylight. The old man was puzzled and humiliated by this discreditable thing. A human friend would have understood his plight, led the fevered man out of that bleak and fetid cul-de-sac, tucked him into a warm bed, comforted him with a hot drink, and then gone swiftly for skilled help. Bobby knew only that his master had ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... actions, partly by prayers, and partly with lunatic curses, they move or terrify the ignorant country-folks into giving them alms. This poor fellow was such a one; and the king seeing him in so wretched a plight, with nothing but a blanket about his loins to cover his nakedness, could not be persuaded but that the fellow was some father who had given all away to his daughters, and brought himself to that pass: for nothing ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... Graves by the lonely forest, by the shore Of rivers and of ocean, by the ways Of the thronged city, have been hollowed out And filled, and closed. This day hath parted friends That ne'er before were parted; it hath knit New friendships; it hath seen the maiden plight Her faith, and trust her peace to him who long Had wooed; and it hath heard, from lips which late Were eloquent of love, the first harsh word, That told the wedded one her peace was flown. Farewell to the sweet sunshine! One glad day Is added now to Childhood's merry days, And ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... seamen who live upon the debris of the vessel, postponing in anguish the arrival of the last hour. The very servants who danced attendance upon him like slaves in dress suits, knew of his misfortune and discussed his shameful plight; but not even the slightest suggestion of insolence disturbed the colorless glance of their eyes, petrified by servitude. He was such a nobleman! He had scattered his money with such majesty!... Besides, he was a genuine member ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... will speak to no one, so she said to-day, until the Lady Barbara is recovered, until Lord Farquhart is free. It will be all that I can do to gain access to her to make my demand for the Lady Barbara's clothes. And she is—she says that she is sick of the whole world. Her cousin's plight, Lord Farquhart's danger, have sickened her of the whole world. It's for her sake that I would free Lord Farquhart. Until Lord Farquhart is released, Judith Ogilvie's mind cannot rest for a single second. So for her sake you must work to free him, for Judith's sake, for ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... my turn to explain," broke in Harriet. She did not tell him that Drayton had been actuated by gratitude toward her because she had assisted him in escaping from a similar plight at Yorktown. She did not wish her brother to know the part she had taken in that affair, so now she ignored his question, and began her explanation. "I gave up hope that day you and Peggy left me at the inn, my brother. I knew ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... territory. The steam-boat company is supported by a large annual grant, about 50,000 sterling, from the imperial government. Barra was formerly a pleasant place of residence, but it is now in a most wretched plight, suffering from a chronic scarcity of the most necessary articles of food. The attention of the settlers was formerly devoted almost entirely to the collection of the spontaneous produce of the forests and rivers; agriculture was ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... not a ray remains in the memory of evening. But this passion for romance, and this disappointment, show how much we need real elevations and pure poetry; that which shall show us, in morning and night, in stars and mountains, and in all the plight and circumstance of men, the analogons of our own thoughts, and a like impression made by a just book and by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... unshed tears Master Tommy came at her call for their big sister's word was law with the twins. And in a sad plight he was too after his misadventure. His little man-o'-war top and unmentionables were full of sand but Cissy was a past mistress in the art of smoothing over life's tiny troubles and very quickly not one speck of sand was to be seen on his ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... to give anything like an adequate idea of our plight for the next few days. The artillery scheme, including a six days' bombardment, began on the following day with wire cutting, causing a certain amount of retaliation, which added to our trouble. This got worse on the following days, doubtless ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... in a prison pen about the Camden jail. As he was without shelter and almost without food, the wounds refused to heal, and in his weak and half-starved condition he fell a victim to smallpox. His mother, hearing of her boy's wretched plight, secured his release and took him home. He was ill for months, and before he entirely recovered his mother died, leaving him quite alone in ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... way through the law, like some great engine forcing itself through turbid water, and dragged his useful friend in his wake, like a boat towed astern. As the boat so favoured is usually in a rough plight, and mostly under water, so, Sydney had a swamped life of it. But, easy and strong custom, unhappily so much easier and stronger in him than any stimulating sense of desert or disgrace, made it the life he was to lead; and he no more thought of emerging ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... the greatest rascal-cut-throats have had somebody to be fond of them, and if those monsters, why not ordinary mortals? And with whom shall a young lady fall in love but with the person she sees? She is not supposed to lose her heart in a dream, like a Princess in the Arabian Nights; or to plight her young affections to the portrait of a gentleman in the Exhibition, or a sketch in the Illustrated London News. You have an instinct within you which inclines you to attach yourself to some one: you meet Somebody: you hear Somebody ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... at this time in great trouble. They were hiding in dens and caves because of the Midianites, who had conquered them and overrun their country. When their corn was ripe these enemies came and destroyed it, so altogether they were in sad plight. One day Gideon was threshing wheat in a secluded place, so as to escape the notice of the Midianites, when an angel from God appeared to him, bidding him to go and save the Israelites from their foes. Gideon obeyed the command: but before commencing the battle ...
— Mother Stories from the Old Testament • Anonymous
... that already," Geck's peculiar little face, which had become so friendly to Hanlon through long association, broke out into a smile that was quickly shadowed by sorrow at thought of the plight of his people. "There is nine mines. Human masters make Guddu work in ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... the boat. Since we were outnumbered now eleven to six,—not counting the wounded man of course,—and since, compared with the others, we were virtually unarmed, we ought, I suppose, to have been thankful that we were not murdered in cold blood, as doubtless we should have been if our dangerous plight had not so delighted Kipping's cruel humor, and if both Falk and Kipping had not felt certain that they would never see or hear of us again. But we found little comfort in realizing that, as matters stood, although in our own minds we were ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... own, proceeded with great promptitude to make equally emphatic deliverances on the opposite side of the same political question.[354:1] But nice logical consistency and accurate working within the lines of a church theory were more than could reasonably be expected of a people in so pitiable a plight. The difference on the subject of the right function of the church continued to be held as the ground for continuing the separation from the General Assembly after the alleged ground in political geography had ceased to be valid; the working motive for it was more obvious in the unfraternal ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... man came to me from the prison to be sent home, some two hundred miles beyond Bangor, Me. As I looked at him I was perfectly astonished that we had a man among us who would think, for a moment, of sending away a dependent, human being, and sickly, too, in such a plight; a rather thin coat, vest and pants that might last him two or three days; no collar, cravat, mittens, overcoat, or boots, but brogans, and those not mates, one of which so pinched his foot that he was forced to remove it shortly after coming in. His person and clothes were filthy indeed, ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... see how the land lay round Oakland; while he was absent we talked over our plans, and looked over his cattle to find a remount for my guide. The roan's malady had not been exaggerated; he was indeed in a miserable plight, suffering, I thought, from acute internal inflammation. After dinner we had some very pretty rifle practice, at short distances, with a huge, clumsy weapon. I saw a boy of sixteen put five consecutive bullets into the circumference of a ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... learned that, the full depth of the man's guilt burst upon him like a thunderbolt. Richard Wharton understood now why Vivian Callingham had left him alone on those desert rocks, and sailed away in the ship without telling the captain of his fellow-castaway's plight. He saw the whole vile plot the man had concocted at once, and the steps he had taken ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... all right at home, but her habit of hanging on to his coat with both hands when danger threatened would be embarrassing in public, and he did not even dare to think what Danny would say if he saw him in such a disgraceful plight. And then he conceived the rest of the brilliant plan himself. They would not steal Nancy away this time, but they would go to the Birch Crick, and if Danny was there they would send a message by him to Nancy, asking her if she would ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... in the days of old that Sigurd, the young Volsung, the slayer of Fafni, came to the house of Giuki. He took the troth-plight of two brothers; the doughty heroes gave oaths one to another. They offered him the maid Gudrun, Giuki's daughter, and store of treasure; they drank and took counsel together many a day, Child Sigurd and the sons of Giuki; until they went to ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... "things strike us in a totally different light according as they are near at hand or far off. It is no time for you to despair. Such as I am, and brought to this sorry plight by the buffets of time and fortune, I yet make shift to endure a life wherein my pleasures are to translate Greek and dine sometimes with sundry very worthy friends. Look at me, mademoiselle, and say,—would you consent to live in ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... plight I bethought me of Jebal, and found means to send him a letter sealed with his ring. Nor did he forget his promise, for within twelve days Zobeide and I were galloping for Beirut on two horses so swift ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... Journal office, in New Street. It was a little room, about 10 ft. by 6 ft., and the approach was up three or four steps. Here he reigned supreme, concocted Radical leaders in bad taste and questionable English, and received advertisements and money. The whole thing was in wretched plight until about the year 1844, when—Mr. Michael Maher being editor—Mr. Feeney, who was connected with another paper in the town, went to London, saw Mr. Joseph Parkes, and arranged to purchase The Journal. ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... soul!" ejaculated Tricotrin; "am I mistaken, or—Look, look, Adolphe! I would bet ten to one in sonnets that it is Goujaud, the painter, whose plight I mentioned ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... present state proceeds from fortune's stings; By birth I boast of a descent from kings; Hence may you see from what a noble height I'm sunk by fortune to this abject plight. ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... turned to Monsieur Du Bois, whose clothes were in the same miserable plight with those of Madame Duval; and who, wet, shivering, and disconsolate, ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... seemed to hesitate, but then there came a steady grating under the bottom, which gradually traveled forward, and ceased as the ship, rolling heavily, slid gently into deep water.... Rarely, if ever, can a ship have appeared in such an uncomfortable plight as ours to find herself free and safe within the space of an hour.... To be in ten feet of water in a ship that draws fourteen feet cannot be a pleasant position—nor can there be a doubt [Page 194] that the shocks which the Discovery ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... book as they approached, and catching sight of his little girl's soiled dress, "Why, Elsie," he exclaimed, in a mortified tone, "can that be you? such a figure as you are! Where have you been, child, to get yourself in such a plight?" ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... day that sets me free From yon dread Ogre's prison! Oh, happy world, since 'tis for me Such rescuers have 'risen. But see, your Majesty! the plight Of Hero—he the Prince, my brother! Wilt thou his wrong not set aright? Another favour ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... and wide to become acquainted with different fashions and governments. So this prince journeyed in great state from land to land, until his purse was empty. He knew not what to do, for he would not discover his plight to the nobles of the land in which he happened to be; indeed, he did not care to let them know who he was. Now, he chanced to be in Padua, and he resolved to unbosom himself to the rabbi, tell him that he was a great noble of the Polish land, and borrow somewhat to relieve ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... classes in Russia, many of whom, upon the advance of the German and Austrian armies, were compelled to flee from their homes in a practically destitute condition. A graphic description of the pitiable plight of these unfortunate people is given in ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... to do that," declared one of the Twinkle Twins. "See you again, boys!" and with waves of their hands they set off to find the nearest telephone, that they might send word of their plight to ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... of the Whig propositions of '41 will not be detrimental to that party, even if in the interval they be appropriated piecemeal, as will probably be the case, by their Conservative successors. But for the moment, and in the plight in which the Whig party found themselves, it was impossible to have devised measures more conducive to their precipitate fall. Great interests were menaced by a weak government. The consequence was inevitable. Tadpole and Taper saw ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... ammunition, is partly surrounded by the enemy, is almost paralyzed by bombardment; when he is literally in the last ditch, with a strip of cold steel the only thing between him and death—then Tommy smiles, then he cracks a joke. Without a thought of himself, without a murmur, he faces any desperate plight. ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... Christ—John had bought and sold, Jesus Christ—John had eaten and drunk; To him, the Flesh meant silver and gold. (Salva reverentia.) Now it was, "Saviour, bountiful lamb, "I have roasted thee Turks, though men roast me! 50 "See thy servant, the plight wherein I am! "Art thou a saviour? Save ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... have my hand, Dear, to lie along in thine? As a little stone in a running stream, it seems to lie and pine. Now drop the poor pale hand, Dear, unfit to plight with thine. ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... mounted my horse and started home, and from that moment until the next day I knew nothing whatever that took place. From the way I was bruised and battered I judge that I must have struck almost every fence corner between McPhillipps' place and home. My legs were in a woful plight, and having turned black and blue, they were frightful to see. On arriving at the gate which led into the front yard at home, I fell off my horse and tumbled to the ground, a wretched heap of helpless clay. I remained ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... night, How sad was their plight! The sun it went down And the stars hid their light. They sobbed and they sighed and sadly they cried, Till the poor little things at last lay down ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... lady, whose tears were of the nerves, he made offer of his devotion in any shape; and she was again in the plight to which a desperado can push a woman of the gentle kind. She had the fear of provoking a collision if she reminded him, that despite her entreaties, he had compelled her, seconded by her aunt as he had been, to submit to his absurd protection on ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... leave a fellow-countrywoman, least of all could Salemina forsake a fellow-citizen, in such a hapless plight. ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... since the day before we sailed, a young girl, not more than fourteen years of age, was found concealed among the casks, where she had secreted herself in order to accompany the boatswain to sea. Upon being brought on deck she was in a pitiable plight . . . that her acquaintances, of which she had many on board, could scarcely recognise her. Upon being interrogated, she declared she had, unknown to all on board, concealed herself in the hold the day before the vessel sailed, and that her swain knew nothing of the step she had taken. ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... of the beautiful city and the pitiable plight of the survivors who escaped annihilation from quake and fire only to face death in the equally horrible forms of starvation and exposure touched the heartstrings of humanity. The response to the needs of ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... on a bed of dry leaves, raised himself so as to watch the troop as it rode forth again from the ruined gate. Whether she who sat hidden within the carriage had heard of his evil plight he knew not, and could not have brought himself to ask. The last of his own horsemen (some of whom had taken leave of him with tears) having vanished from sight, he fell back, and for a while knew nothing but the ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... the Johnstown flood when the horror of that disaster was still plainly written in their eyes, but destitute as they were of home and food and clothing, they were in better plight than those fever-stricken, starving pacificos, who have sinned in no way, who have given no aid to the rebels, and whose only crime is that they lived in the country instead of in the town. They are now ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis
... slumber Upon thy breast, Once again to-night, Whilst I must number Hours of sad unrest, And broken plight. Is it for this that I rebuke Young men, who dare at me to look? Whilst she, replete with arts and wiles, Dishonours you and ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... marooned on a desolate island with no adequate provisions for their needs. Pizarro, however, insisted and Almagro sailed with the other ship. Shortly afterward, Pizarro sent the remaining ship with the most obstinate of the mutineers to Panama. A letter revealing their sad plight, which was concealed in a ball of cotton sent as a present to the wife of the governor by one of the men on the island of Gallo, was smuggled ashore at Panama when Almagro's ship reached that point, despite his vigilant efforts to allow no such ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... his breast A moment, as it might be; 'Twill be my dog, he thought, and said, "My faith I plight to thee." ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... curled, and her eyes laughed satirically as she thought of the follies of those men—how they had let women lead them up and down in public places, drooling and sighing and seeming to enjoy their own pitiful plight. If that expression of satire had not disappeared so quickly, she might have got at the secret of her "miserable failure." For, it was her habit of facing men with only lightly veiled amusement, or often frank ridicule, in her eyes, in the curve of her lips, that ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... prison in London town,' was the strange reply. Doubtless this child (so I reasoned) was the daughter of some poor man who had suffered for conscience' sake; and, mayhap, some person who pitied his sad plight had taken the girl and thrown her on our charity, or, rather, mercy. 'Child,' said I, 'wilt come into the Manor with me, and have some chocolate and cake?' 'That will I, madam,' she answered softly. 'I came on purpose to stay with you.' The little one ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... am still here; indeed, I do not feel inclined to go abroad. Next month, however, I shall certainly go. Of course, only to follow my vocation and reason, which latter would be in a sorry plight if it were not strong enough to master every other thing in ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... imagine Booth would have agreed to this; for, though some love of gaming had been formerly amongst his faults, yet he was not so egregiously addicted to that vice as to be tempted by the shabby plight of Robinson, who had, if I may so express myself, no charms for a gamester. If he had, however, any such inclinations, he had no opportunity to follow them, for, before he could make any answer to Robinson's proposal, a strapping wench came up ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... in different plights, and according to their plight, kept in different places. The well bound were ranged in the sanctuary of Mr. Bronte's study; but the purchase of books was a necessary luxury to him, and as it was often a choice between binding an ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... half-contemptuous pity. "He had risked everything on the success of this, and the poor child would have been left in a sad plight. Marriage was ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... of the folks in your block, fellows; how many of them are in some sad plight which would make you shrink from exchanging places with them? They are being set upon; can you get in there and help in some way,—you with your good free strong arm, your big, sympathetic heart, your pocketbook, your ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... approached by a man on foot, without shoes or coat, and his head bandaged by a handkerchief. He announced himself as the Captain Duncan who had been captured by Wade Hampton in Fayetteville, but had escaped; and, on my inquiring how he happened to be in that plight, he explained that when he was a prisoner Wade Hampton's men had made him "get out of his coat, hat, and shoes," which they appropriated to themselves. He said Wade Hampton had seen them do it, and ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... gold ring she gave me Right royally dwarf-worked, To none will I pass it For prayer or for sword-stroke, Save to him who can claim it By love and by troth plight, Let that hero speak If ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... had been made unusually great to keep her stationary. She held fast with one hand and stretched downward with the other, but the book insolently flirted its leaves just out of reach. She took a survey of Warwick; he had not perceived her plight, and she felt an unwonted reluctance to call for help, because he did not look like one used to come and go at a woman's bidding. After several fruitless essays she decided to hazard an ungraceful descent; and, gathering herself up, was about to launch boldly out, when Warwick cried, "Stop!" ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... as if to ask who was calling her by name; then, deciding that the screams came from the direction of the granary, she hurried as fast as she could up the steps, and opened the door. Her amazement was only equalled by her distress at the girls' plight. ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... Madra, with his wondrous skill and might, Faltering, on his knees descending, fell in sad inglorious plight, ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... (in Hedemarken) were compelled to seek relief from the Poor Fund when their families were large. The smaller farmers and the labourers are in the worst plight, since the falling off in the timber trade has made them feel the want of the usual steady demand for labour at high wages.' Further: 'it has become very difficult for the least affluent and for labourers to gain a livelihood in the prevailing money ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... helping influence has been Mama and the warnings I have had from witnessing things that went wrong. I think the more one lives and the more one thinks, the simpler things get. The greatest of all dangers seems to me to fool oneself. Really this seems to me to be the only hopeless plight and there comes to a certain fascination in trying to say things plainly to oneself. Nothing is as strong as plain truth about a thing, and the moment one shirks it ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff
... stopped, the door opened and a stout woman climbed in, bearing a big basket, and followed by a young man with straw-coloured whiskers. Laura sat up like a dart and pulled her hat straight, crimson with mortification at being discovered in such a plight. She had instantly curbed her tears, but she could not disguise the fact that she had red eyes and a swollen nose—that she was in short what Sarah called "all bunged up". She made no reply to the newcomer's exclamations, but sat clutching her handkerchief and staring out of the window. The woman's ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... made, no word was spoke, Till noble Angus silence broke; And he a solemn sacred plight Did to St. Bryde of Douglas make, That he a pilgrimage would take To Melrose Abbey, for the sake Of Michael's restless sprite. Then each, to ease his troubled breast, To some blessed saint his prayers addressed- Some to St. ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... take their right, Well-a-day, well-a-day, We were in a sad plight, O' th' holy party! Such practise hath a scent Of kingly government, Against it we are ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... had released the prisoner at the inn, on which he gave us such a comical account of the dwarf's unhappy plight that we could ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... Grande Pointe. I have seen the wild flower taken from its cool haunt in the forest, and planted in the glare of a city garden. Alas! the plight of it, poor outshone, wilting, odorless thing! And then I have seen it again in the forest; and pleasanter than to fill the lap with roses and tulips of the conservatory's blood-royal it was to find it there, once more the simple queen ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... field; the sick had been gathered to hospitals nearer home; the musicians had reported to the surgeons, and the men were left, to the sharp notes of sixty rounds of ball cartridge carried in their boxes and knapsacks,—in the plight of the Massachusetts regiment that marched through the mobs of Baltimore, to the music of the cartridge-box, in the first April of ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... not that I am guilty," exclaimed I, "of having expressed any sort of affection for her. I know somebody who can best bear me witness in this respect." Emilia smiled, and rejoined, "I understand you; and, if we are not discreet and determined, we shall all find ourselves in a bad plight together. What will you say if I entreat you not to continue your lessons? You have, I believe, four tickets yet of the last month: and my father has already declared that he finds it inexcusable to take your money any longer, unless you wish to devote yourself to the art ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... I unloosed my braces. I acted with caution, notwithstanding my disagreeable plight. I took care not to drop them while knotting the two together; and I also took care to make the knot a firm one, as well as to waste only a very little of the precious length of the buckskin. I should need every inch ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... gentleman who had married into Hamilton's family. He determined on a bold stroke. He was sorely in need of powder, provisions, money, and especially of fresh mounts for his troopers, the long rapid marches, cold weather, and scanty forage having reduced his horses to a very sorry plight. In Perth he might lay hands on all these, and possibly on a few recruits into the bargain. He was in Blair when the messengers found him on May 10th. With his handful of sabres he swooped down on Dunkeld, ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... and she sees the plight; It will take her wits to set it right: That big bandana on Deb's black head, Ere Dick can jump, 'tis over him spread; Then two soft hands they hold him fast: The bright little ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... him, that he lifted up his paw and let him go. Some time after the Lion was caught in a trap, and the hunters, who desired to carry him alive to the King, tied him to a tree while they went in search of a wagon to carry him on. Just then the little Mouse happened to pass by, and seeing the sad plight in which the Lion was, went up to him and soon gnawed away the ropes that bound the King of the Beasts. "Was I not right?" ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... she heard the sweetness of his voice. Had I not better tell the truth of her at once? Oh, if she could only have been his again! What madness during these last six months had driven her to such a plight as this! The old love came back upon her. Nay; it had never gone. But that trust in his love returned to her,—that trust which told her that such love and such worth would have sufficed to make her happy. But this confidence in him was worthless now! Even though ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... committed it to a servant's care; and then I inquired what had urged her to escape from Wuthering Heights in such an unlikely plight, and where she meant to go, as she refused remaining ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... The plight of the whole army resembled that of a wounded animal which feels it is perishing and does not know what it is doing. To study the skillful tactics and aims of Napoleon and his army from the time it entered Moscow till it was destroyed is like studying the dying leaps and ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... down too fiercely on the top of his head, he carefully drew the bushy top of the poplar sapling into such a position that it gave him shade. As its roots were still aground, it showed no tendency to float off and forsake him in his plight. ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... were kindly and courteously performed from a wish to help us out of our difficulty, and with the full consciousness on the part of the doctor that it was only by an accident of constitution that he was not in the like plight himself. So the Erewhonians take a flogging once a week, and a diet of bread and water for two or three months together, whenever their straightener ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... Here was a pretty plight. I told him, in the suave manner which Mademoiselle W—— had recommended to me, that Mr. Washburn would have included this lady's name on my card had he foreseen that there would be any difficulty in allowing her to ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... large as a pigeon's egg on the back of his head, a black-and-blue spot on his forehead and a bad cut on his upper lip. His joy at seeing her and the tearful cry he gave as he threw his arm's about her neck quite overcame Mrs. Burke, and caused her eyes to grow dim. She was angry at the plight in which she found him, and said some hard things to the woman who had promised to look after the child, at which the latter grew angry in turn, and told her to stay at home and take care of the brat herself, or put him ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... agricultural instructor in sericulture who joined in our conversation was not much concerned by the plight of the priests. "The causes of goodness in our people," he said, "are family tradition and home training. Candidly, we believe our morals are not so bad on the whole. We are now putting most stress on economic development. How to maintain their families is the question ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... the doorway just in time to save Everett from the wish, if not even a vain attempt, to sink through the floor, "bring Mr. Mark right on in to breakfast before the waffles set. Sister Viney, your coffee is a-getting cold." Little Miss Amanda had seen and guessed at his plight and the coffee threat to Miss Lavinia had been one of the nimble manoeuvers that she daily, almost hourly, employed in the management of her sister's ponderosity. Thus she had saved this day, but Everett knew ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... he attempts to speak positively, from recollecting that he mentioned the circumstance to William Peirce, as he went to the Mineral Spring on Fast-day. Last Monday morning he told Colonel Putnam he could not fix the time. This witness stands in a much worse plight than either of the others. It is difficult to reconcile all he has said with any belief in the ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... of evasion and guerilla warfare soon exhausted his resources and demoralised his armies. This was Edward's last personal intervention in the business. He had long been irritated by the persistent interference of the French king in Scottish affairs, and his anger was not lessened by his hard plight forcing him, on more than one occasion, to grant short truces to the Scottish insurgents at Philip's intervention. His relations with France were becoming so strained that he preferred to spend 1337 in the south and entrust ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... door by a pleasant-faced little woman who hurried us to the fire. We told her our plight. "Why, certainly you must stay with me," she said. "I am glad the Bishop and Deb are away. They keep all the company, and I so seldom have any one come; you see Debbie has no children and can do so much better for any one stopping ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... Wotherspoon stood at the rail, trying with nerveless fingers to roll cigarettes. Two of the girls were weeping in each other's arms. The water bubbled under the turn of the yacht's counters. Two of the sailors were discharging blank shells from the rifle astern in hopes of calling attention to the plight of the craft. The deck was a conglomerate, nervous confusion of smart yachting costumes, uniforms, ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... monsters, why not ordinary mortals? And with whom shall a young lady fall in love but with the person she sees? She is not supposed to lose her heart in a dream, like a Princess in the Arabian Nights; or to plight her young affections to the portrait of a gentleman in the Exhibition, or a sketch in the Illustrated London News. You have an instinct within you which inclines you to attach yourself to some one: you meet Somebody: you hear Somebody constantly praised: you walk, or ride, or ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "Fair ladies, thro' this man and me Hath all this war been wrought, And death of the most noblest knights Of whom we have record. And thro' the love we loved is slain My own most noble lord. Wherefor, Sir Lancelot, wit thou well, As thou dost wish my weal, That I am set in such a plight To get my dear soul heal. For sinners were the Saints in Heaven And trust I in God's grace To sit that day at Christ's right hand And see His Blessed Face. Therefore I heartily require And do beseech thee sore For all the love betwixt us was To see my face no more. ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... now, for the catamount was crying with rage and pain. He fell writhing, striking with his forepaws at the snow, and raising his head to snap at nothing; but this did not last long. Slowly he dragged himself to a sitting posture, and I could understand his plight and estimate my ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... for their natural increase from 1880 to 1890 the white race would show a decennial increase appreciably below that of the blacks. If the Negro, then, is threatened with extinction, the white race is in a still more pitiable plight. ...
— A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1 • Kelly Miller
... not. Nor let thy false imagination That I was bed-rid, make thee think I am so: Thou shalt not find it. I am, now, as fresh, As hot, as high, and in as jovial plight, As when, in that so celebrated scene, At recitation of our comedy, For entertainment of the great Valois, I acted young Antinous; and attracted The eyes and ears of all the ladies present, To admire ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... had only generalized; now, he was come to his own plight. On several points he had been painfully in doubt: whether he had done the deed in self-defence; whether he had meant to do it; whether it had not been a blind, mad accident, since swollen by fevered imagination into the likeness of wilful crime. ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... for me and went to talk with our ten hostages, who were herded together apart from the other ten armed Kurds. They seemed to regard themselves as in worse plight than prisoners and awaited with resignation whatever might be their kismet. So I asked them were they afraid lest Gooja Singh might meet with violence, and they replied they were afraid of nothing. They added, however, that no man could say in those ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... from his book as they approached, and catching sight of his little girl's soiled dress, "Why, Elsie," he exclaimed, in a mortified tone, "can that be you? such a figure as you are! Where have you been, child, to get yourself in such a plight?" ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... troth-plight; I know I am not his equal, I told him so, but he thrust this ring on me in the boat, in the dark, and how could I ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that way when the crowd was looking for the Abolitionist, and was discovered. "There he goes," was the cry that was raised, and a fire of eggs and other things was opened upon him. He reached his home in an awful plight, and it was charged that his conversation was ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... bone, sinew, and muscle; and turning, tracked off towards the forest, dragging with it the helpless and paralyzed victim. Luckily the two men in the canoe had just paddled round the point, in sight of, and close to, camp. The man in the bow, seeing the plight of their comrade, seized his rifle and fired at the bear. The bullet went through the beast's lungs, and it forthwith dropped its prey, and running off some two hundred yards, lay down on its side and died. The rescued man recovered ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... sight to behold." He had retired from the sitting room, and bade the family good night before nine o'clock, looking like a decent person. His pants were in good condition then; certainly, if they had been in their present plight, it ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... left Charity in a state of nerves. Her curiosity was a mania, but she feared that assuaging it might leave her in a worse plight. She hated herself for her enterprise and was tempted to cancel it. But when she heard Cheever come home at midnight and go to his room without speaking to her she felt a grim resentment toward him that was like a young hate with ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... seven miles to the eastern side. Matthew describes the boat as it would appear from shore, as being 'covered' and lost to sight by the breaking waves. Mark, who is Peter's mouthpiece, describes the desperate plight as one on board knew it, and says the boat was 'filling.' It must have been a serious gale which frightened a crew who had spent all their ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... the son of Allan. In love with Lucy Ashton, daughter of Sir William Ashton, lord-keeper of Scotland. The lovers plight their troth at the "Mermaid's Fountain," but Lucy is compelled to marry Frank Hayston, laird of Bucklaw. The bride, in a fit of insanity, attempts to murder the bridegroom, and dies in convulsions. Bucklaw recovers, and goes ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... and the grass restored, the houses repaired and new ones planned. True, landlords groaned about unpaid rents, and money-lenders almost wept over the sums the British had despoiled them of. The country estates were in a sad plight, many of them, but others ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... adjusted, the body was raised higher until the weight swung clear. In this plight they became a fearful sight to look upon. The flesh, to support their bodies with the additional weights attached thereto, was raised some eight inches by the skewers, and their heads sinking forward ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... manner of curious plans to attract attention to my plight from a long distance over the sea. Fire was my main thought. I knew that no vessel—scarcely a mail-carrying steamship—would pass a fire at sea without investigation. Had I been a modern Munchausen I might have found some way of drawing ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... day, by the will of the gods. Our provision of corn was spent and my men were in danger of perishing of hunger. Then one day while my companions were striving desperately to get fish out of the sea, I met on the shore one who had pity for our plight. ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... in with some of my Keighley friends, and within a very short time I had been induced to part with all my money, and, in fact, some of my clothes. When I recovered my senses—for I must have lost them to act as I did—I found myself in a sad and sorry plight. ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... maiden in the yellow night, The single-mooned eve!—on Earth we plight Our faith to one love—and one moon adore— The birth-place of young Beauty had no more. As sprang that yellow star from downy hours Up rose the maiden from her shrine of flowers, And bent o'er sheeny mountain ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... often has her bosom bled; Thus have I seen her fainting led From feasts intended to dispel The woeful thoughts she nurs'd so well. And must she, by the king's command, To Eustace plight that fever'd hand? Proud, loyal as he is, can he, A victim to the same decree, Receive it, while regretting me? For that poor, withering heart, resign The ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... countenance. His hands were scratched and inclined to bleed, and one leg had apparently been in a morass. Added to these physical drawbacks there was no visible sign of success, which was probably the worst part of Jack Meredith's plight. ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... it possible that I should hear such words from my gracious lord's mouth and see him in such a plight! Alas, our unlucky house, to be plagued with an evil spell! Does not my lord remember what he did yesterday, when ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... the minute you turn out." He carefully removed the mud pancakes from his shoes by scraping them across the hub of the stalled car and edged back to stand with his arms on his hips while he surveyed the full plight of them. ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... heart he said it was a vain hope, a happy delusion that might serve to make the harsh bondage endurable till time dispelled it. The simple words of the girl were eloquent portrayal of Israel's plight, and Kenkenes subsided into a sorry state of helpless sympathy. She was not ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... only one chance for deliverance, we must get the tidings of our dreadful plight to Fort Wallace, a hundred miles away. Jack Stillwell and another brave scout were chosen for the dangerous task. At midnight they left us, moving cautiously away into the black blank space toward the southwest, and making a wide detour from their ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... hand, the word pitiful, which used to mean "compassionate," is no longer applied to what we feel at seeing a sad thing, but to the sadness of the thing itself. We do not now say a person is pitiful when he feels sorry for some one, but we speak of a "pitiful sight" or a "pitiful plight." ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... help it, darling; because, you see, I hadn't any powder left; and I was coming through the woods—just as I told you—when the Yanks got sight of me." He smiled down at her bravely, striving to add a dash of comedy to his tragic plight. "And I tell you, Virgie, your old dad had to run like a turkey—wishing to the ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... their plight, it was no sadder than the plight of many of their class. The horrors of a protracted war had visited with equal severity the dwelling places of the rich and the poor. It was not a question of the provision of the sinews of war; tax had been enacted of all classes ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... Captain Jones learned of the fearful plight of the Frolic he sent his surgeon on board, and everything possible was done to ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... board from every direction. The deck-houses were washed away and the decks were filled with water, which began to find an entrance to the 'tween-decks, where the poor soldiers were battened down. In this plight it was necessary to get the remnant of the topsail secure, and if possible get a new sail in its place, so as to steady the ship. The second officer was ordered to get the sailors and do this, but he soon reported that the sailors, ...
— Notes by the Way in A Sailor's Life • Arthur E. Knights
... your clothes dried before we set off. I am very thankful you have escaped, but I am afraid we shall not be allowed to come again by ourselves over the moor to visit the cottage. The first time I tumbled down and wetted my clothes, and now you are in a worse plight, for your clothes are all muddy and spoilt, and you might have lost your life if old Alec had ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... lords," the king said to his knights as he sat in a little room in an inn at Zara, "that my plight is a bad one. I am surrounded by enemies, and, alas! I can no longer mount my steed and ride out as at Jaffa to do battle with them. My brother, John Lackland, is scheming to take my place upon the throne of England. Philip of France, whose ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... every soul and the good money! we've struck a reef, Adam, and 'tis the end and O the good money!' Hereupon I climbed 'bove deck, the vessel on her beam ends and in desperate plight and nought to be seen i' the dark save the white spume as the seas broke over us. None the less I set the crew to cutting away her masts and heaving the ordnance overboard (to lighten her thereby), but while this was doing comes a great wave roaring out of the dark and dashing ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... came back the next day in a piteous plight, keeping silence as to his share in the occurrences of the evening, and with a dismal story of having been drunk, of having been waylaid and bound, of having been left on the road and picked up ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Creek. The Colorado was crossed November 24. On December 6 the small command, weary with its march and illy provisioned, was attacked at San Pascual by Gen. Andres Pico. Two days of fighting found the Americans in sad plight, with eighteen killed and thirteen wounded. The enemy had been severely handled, but still barred the way to the nearby seacoast. Guide Kit Carson and Naval Lieutenant E.F. Beale managed to slip through to San Diego, there to summon help. It came to the beleaguered Americans ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... uncle's urgent insistence that she accept Captain Yeovil's suit, it had been a great match for her, for the d'Aumeniers were impoverished exiles, while the Yeovils were a rich family and of a line almost as long as her own. It had been easy enough to plight her troth to the young Englishman at first, but since she had seen Marteau, she realized that it would not be easy to keep that engagement. Fortunately, Captain Yeovil had been on service in Spain and the South of France with ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... Gesselbeck's home. I arrived at Estaline about 6 a.m., but there was no Brother Gesselbeck there! I walked to a restaurant across the street and asked if any one knew Brother Gesselbeck. Yes, they knew him and why was I inquiring? I then told them my plight, that I was expecting him to be there to meet me. "Well," the man said, "Mr. Gesselbeck is an honest man and if he had gotten your card he would have been here, but yesterday was Washington's birthday, a holiday, and he will not get your card until ...
— Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag • S. O. Susag
... struck; several of us escaped in the boats; we had lots of gold with us, but no water. For two days and two nights we suffered horribly: but at last we ran ashore near a French seaport; our sorry plight moved compassion, and as we had money we were not suspected; people only suspect the poor. Here we soon recovered our fatigues, rigged ourselves out gayly, and your humble servant was considered as noble ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... warned to render them no assistance. Disease and famine completed the tale of misery, and the first colonists deserted their posts. Their successors, who arrived to find empty huts, surrounded by lonely Scottish graves, were soon in worse plight, and they were driven out by a band of Spaniards. The unfortunate company lingered on for some time, but merely as traders. The Scots blamed the king's ill-will for their failure, and he became more than ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... to sorrow must I tune my song, And set my Harpe to notes of saddest wo, Which on our dearest Lord did sease er'e long, Dangers, and snares, and wrongs, and worse then so, 10 Which he for us did freely undergo. Most perfect Heroe, try'd in heaviest plight Of labours huge and hard, too hard ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... privily to the head office of the big fruit brokers for whom Dan Cullen had worked as a casual labourer for thirty years. Their system was such that the work was almost entirely done by casual hands. The cobbler told them the man's desperate plight, old, broken, dying, without help or money, reminded them that he had worked for them thirty years, and asked them to do something ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... Infinite admiration of her burned in them, infinite delight in her, desire for her; at the same time a kind of angry hopelessness darkened them, and a kind of bitter amusement, as of one amused at his own sad plight. ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... sorry for the man, who seemed scarcely capable of looking after himself, and he thought it unwise to leave him in such a plight. At the same time, he was impatient of lingering in the heart of the clammy fog at such a late hour; so, as his companion seemed indisposed to move, he caught him again by the arm without ceremony. The abrupt action seemed to waken again the ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... in the hammer to plight the maid; Upon her lap the bruiser lay, And firmly plight our hands and fay.' The Thunderer's soul smiled in his breast; When the hammer hard on his lap was placed, Thrym first, the king of the Thursi, he slew, And ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... have the thing from only one of these witnesses, you know nothing; you should be sceptical. If the witness is dead, you should be still more sceptical, for you cannot enlighten yourself. If from several witnesses who are dead, you are in the same plight. If from those to whom the witnesses have spoken, your ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... ethereal, Compared for mischief to venereal? Can clouds give buboes, ulcers, blotches, Or from your noses dig out notches? We leave the body sweet and sound; We kill, 'tis true, but never wound. You know a cloudy sky bespeaks Fair weather when the morning breaks; But women in a cloudy plight, Foretell a storm to last till night. A cloud in proper season pours His blessings down in fruitful showers; But woman was by fate design'd To pour down curses on mankind. When Sirius[2] o'er the welkin rages, Our kindly help his fire assuages; But woman is a cursed inflamer, No parish ducking-stool ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... Prince sprang forward to meet them, and taking the waiting-maid for his bride, he lifted her down from her horse and led her upstairs to the royal chamber. In the meantime the real Princess was left standing below in the courtyard. The old King, who was looking out of his window, beheld her in this plight, and it struck him how sweet and gentle, even beautiful, she looked. He went at once to the royal chamber, and asked the bride who it was she had brought with her and had left thus standing in ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... show his gratitude for this act of kindness he immediately made a rush at me, screaming with all his might; happily the chain was made fast, and I took care afterwards to keep out of his way. The old mother gorilla was in an unfortunate plight. She had an arm broken and a wound in the chest, besides being dreadfully beaten on the head. She groaned and roared many times during the night, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... suddenly the landlord, snatching up a long knife, sliced off about a pound of raw bacon from a ham which hung overhead, and, presenting it to the Jew, swore that if he did not swallow it down at once he should not be allowed to go. The man was in a worse plight than ever. He said he was a 'poor Shoe,' and durst not eat that. In the midst of the uproar, Church and King were forgotten, and eventually I prevailed upon the landlord to accept from me as much as ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... my hose; Drenched are coat and mantle too, Coat and mantle, both just new, Wretched plight, heaven knows! Pretty stir's abroad to-day; Look outside, good ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... now when I think of what might have happened. Before you were asked to the house, I was coolly informed that you would not leave it alive if I so much as breathed a word to you concerning my unhappy plight. The first word of an appeal to you would have been the signal for—for your death. That is what they held over me. They made it very clear to me that nothing was to be gained by an appeal to you. You would die, and I would be ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... task he was not slow in accomplishing, fear lending strength to trained muscles, and we soon had the good fortune to discover a safe landing-place beneath the lee of a long molasses shed, where our plight was unobserved by ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... would to bolster his grit, Captain Jack Benson found himself in a fearful plight. At first, he could only stare, with terror-dilated eyes, at that candle—ever burning just a ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... procure a larger and more varied supply of stores, than we could possibly have brought up from Port Lincoln in a single dray. We were now amply furnished with conveniences of every kind; and both men and horses were in good plight and ready to enter upon the ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... the day, I dreamed fast of mirth and play,— In youth is pleasure, in youth is pleasure, Methought I walked still to and fro, And from her company I could not go; But when I waked, it was not so,— In youth is pleasure, in youth is pleasure. Therefore my heart is surely plight, Of her alone to have a sight, Which is my joy and heart's delight,— In youth is pleasure, ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... suffer. Over there we are looked upon in the same way that Germans are looked upon here, as quite outside the pale of common morality. Fully realising what this must mean for me, these kindly Germans would go off into a day dream of wonderment as to how they might feel in a similar plight, and one ended up with the reflection, 'Ja, es ist halt jetzt die Zeit der Maertyrer' (it is indeed the time of the martyrs once more)." Surely there is something strangely poignant about the convinced and steadfast ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... of the positions themselves. What mankind did in the primitive state may not be a hopeless subject of inquiry, but of their motives for doing it it is impossible to know anything. These sketches of the plight of human beings in the first ages of the world are effected by first supposing mankind to be divested of a great part of the circumstances by which they are now surrounded, and by then assuming that, in the condition thus imagined, they would ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... the Earl pronounced confidently from his place at the head of the table, "are already a broken race. They are on the point of exhaustion. Austria is, if possible, in a worse plight. That is what will end the war—the exhaustion of ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... done it beyond a doubt, hoping thereby to have the revenge for which his savage heart thirsted. Ill would it have gone with him could the men have laid hands on him at that moment. They were just in the mood to have inflicted such punishment as would probably have put the wretch in a worse plight than his intended victim, and many and fervent were their vows of vengeance, expressed in language rather the reverse of polite. Strict almost to severity as Johnston was in his management of the camp, the majority of the men, including all the best elements, regarded him with deep respect, ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... wrong about me now? You seem to glory in finding fault. What is the matter with my 'plight' as ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... to see you in such plight as your letter shows you in. It is strange that just at this time, when everybody is praising you, and when fortune is beginning to smile upon your hitherto wretched circumstances, you should be invaded by those blue devils. It belongs, however, to your age and temper to be thus ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... promised to plight her faith to Compton the moment Lady Bassett should be restored to health; and so, with hopes and smiles, and the novelty of a daughter's love, she fought with death for Lady Bassett, and at last she ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... Jerry had maintained his courage and strength by keeping constantly in mind Joe's plight, so Joe stuck to his terrible task, suffering the most severe punishment, by an unwavering confidence in Jerry's ability to get assistance in the ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... it, and that was the city."(1136) A sum of money having been hastily raised to satisfy their demands, they consented to march out, and the next morning (3 Feb.) Monk entered at the head of his force—"in very good plight and stout officers"—and proceeded to the quarters assigned to him at Whitehall recently occupied ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... concerned, you certainly may—if Dick will join, too," answered Stukely. "I will not let him go ashore alone to answer for the loss of the boat; for the accident which caused the plight in which you found us was at least as much my fault as his. But I do not believe that we are going to have the chance to get ashore, therefore—what say you, Dick, shall we accept Captain Marshall's very generous offer, ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... great promptitude to make equally emphatic deliverances on the opposite side of the same political question.[354:1] But nice logical consistency and accurate working within the lines of a church theory were more than could reasonably be expected of a people in so pitiable a plight. The difference on the subject of the right function of the church continued to be held as the ground for continuing the separation from the General Assembly after the alleged ground in political geography had ceased to be valid; the working motive for it was more obvious in the unfraternal and ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... in trotting, and you will sometimes find yourself compelled to give your escort the appearance of being discourteous by drawing rein suddenly, leaving him, unwarned, to trot on, apparently disregarding your plight. Both your horse and his will resent your action, and unless he resemble both Moses and Job more strongly than most Americans, he will have a few words to say in regard to it, after you have repeated it once or twice. And, lastly, Esmeralda, ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... isn't much of a settlement, young gentlemen," said Alex, laughing, as he saw their plight. "But I think we can get through with what supplies we have and not trouble ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough
... watched her. Then he followed, making his way through the friendly crowd in hall and sitting-room, and mounted the dry-goods box prepared for the auctioneer. He looked about him and smiled a little, partly because people were gazing at him sympathetically, and partly over his own embarrassing plight. For he was a shy man. Nobody knew it but himself, and he was afraid that after to-day everybody ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... that I was not in a bad plight; but although I appreciated this, I grew more and more troubled and uneasy. For several days I had not seen a sail, and if I should see one how could I attract attention? It must be that the condition of the vessel indicated that there was no ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... in the same block, is a very sad sight. A drunken husband! See how patiently his poor wife is trying to coax him not to go out. She is fearful he may fall in the street, and get hurt, and then she feels ashamed to have him seen in such a plight; now she gently removes his hat—then he puts it on again; now her arm is about his neck—but only to have it rudely pushed aside, poor woman. I hope she believes in God, and knows ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... the James, away from tidewater, the ice extended farther out into the river, until when they neared Werowocomoco there was a sheet of it that stretched half a mile out from shore. Smith had determined, so desperate was the plight of the colonists, that he would not go back to Jamestown without a good supply of corn and other food. He hoped that Powhatan would consent to his buying it; but he meant to take it by force if necessary. For some ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... Daughter of All America and the Son of All Japan stand hand in hand before their people, and as they plight their troth, all bitter feelings pass away, the shouts of anger cease, and there is no ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... stronger each day, and crosser, which is a good sign. At last I have told him of Sada San's plight; and he is for starting for Kioto to-morrow to "wipe the floor with Uncle Mura," as he elegantly expresses it. But of course he 's still too weak to even think ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... looked after her in dismay. If he had turned his only friend against him then was he indeed in a sad plight! ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... had bought and sold, Jesus Christ—John had eaten and drunk; To him, the Flesh meant silver and gold. (Salva reverentia.) Now it was, "Saviour, bountiful lamb, "I have roasted thee Turks, though men roast me! 50 "See thy servant, the plight wherein I am! "Art thou a saviour? Save ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... nor do I want my troth-plight friend, for thou art that now, slain; but neither do I want the one nor the other to lurk safely at home when his brothers are at the war. There's no coward's blood in my heart more than in yours, Captain Standish, and I care not to shelter any man behind my petticoats. ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... to the helpless lad with a practised eye, and groaned in despair. "They'll fall short by a dozen feet," he murmured hopelessly. "God forgive me, for bringing him to this plight." ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... place by me was mere chance work. If I hadn't been in the insurance office for so many years, and by that means become acquainted with most of the directors of the bank, I never would have attained my present comfortable place. It makes me sick when I think of the miserable plight we would now be in, if that piece of good fortune had not accidentally ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... takes the same position exactly on the right behind the groom. At the termination of the anthem, the bride hands her bouquet to the maid of honor (or her prayer-book to the clergyman) and the bride and groom plight their troth. ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... spite of their plight. "Looks like it," he agreed. There was something ridiculous about being bundled into an antique Western jail. "Anyway, we didn't get bitten by ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... find things there, as ever, in sad plight. Men, in their evil days, move my compassion; Such sorry things to plague ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... being caught up, as it were, and whirled along in dense clouds, whilst the poor little town itself was absolutely blotted out by the blinding masses of fine powder. For half an hour or so we could afford to watch and smile at our neighbors' plight, but soon we had to flee for shelter ourselves within the house, for a furious hot gale drove heavily up behind the dust and nearly blew us away altogether. Still, there was no thunderstorm, though we quite wished for one to cool the air and refresh the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... three boats chartered, with flats in tow, but the demand for these to tow out stock is greater than they can meet with promptness. All are working night and day, and the 'Susie' hardly stops for more than an hour anywhere. The rise has placed Trinity in a dangerous plight, and momentarily it is expected that some of the houses will float off. Troy is a little higher, yet all are in the water. Reports have come in that a woman and child have been washed away below here, and two cabins floated off. Their occupants are the same who refused to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... lay between them and our boots; and most of us had no boots left by the time we sighted the Black Hills. Once there, we found provisions and plenty; but never, I venture to say, never was civilized army in such a plight as was the command of General George Crook when his brigade of regulars halted on the north bank of the Belle Fourche in September, 1876. Officers and men were ragged, haggard, half starved, worn down to mere skin and bone; and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... the deceased chief was brought to the fort by his relatives with a request that the whites should assist at his burial; but they were in a sorry plight for such a service. There were found some sufficiently sober for the task, however, and they accordingly ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... her new costume. A more miserable transformation it is hardly possible to imagine. The clothes hung loosely about her, in forlorn dowdyness. She felt that she was ridiculous. All grace was gone, all beauty. It was distressing to witness her mortified plight. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... children wrangled and fought in the gutters, drunken women shouted foul language at one another everywhere was wickedness everywhere want. Her heart felt as if it would break. What was to reach these poor, miserable fellow creatures of hers? Who was to raise them out of their horrible plight? The coarse distortion and the narrow contraction of Christ's teaching which she had just heard, offered no remedy for this evil. Nor could she think that secularism would reach these. To understand secularism you meed ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... accomplishers, Hera and Zeus, do honour. Yea, and thus Is Aphrodite to dishonour cast, The queen of rapture unto mortal men. Know, that above the marriage-bed ordained For man and woman standeth Right as guard, Enhancing sanctity of troth-plight sworn; Therefore, if thou art placable to those Who have their consort slain, nor will'st to turn On them the eye of wrath, unjust art thou In hounding to his doom the man who slew His mother. Lo, I know thee full of wrath Against one deed, but ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... are going pretty badly with the wounded. They are crowded here in Washington in immense numbers, and all those that came up from the Wilderness and that region arrived here so neglected and in such plight it was awful (those that were at Fredericksburg, and also from Belle Plain). The papers are full of puffs, etc., but the truth is the largest proportion of worst cases ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... filled with blood, and on looking for the cause I found five small brown leeches, beautifully striped with yellow, firmly attached to my ankles. I had not heard that these were pests in Perak, and feared that they were something worse; but the elephant driver, seeing my plight, made some tobacco juice and squirted it over the creatures, when they recoiled in great disgust. Owing to the exercise I was obliged to take, the bites bled for several hours. I do not remember feeling the first puncture. I have now heard that these blood-suckers infest leaves and herbage, ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... who witnessed the break-up of the Whig party in 1853 and of the Democratic Party in 1860 the plight in which parties find themselves at this time may be described as at least, suggestive. The feeling is at once to laugh and to whistle. Too much "fuss and feathers" in Winfield Scott did the business for the Whigs. Too ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... side of the Vindictive he saw a second storming party coming over the side, equipped with Lewis machine-guns and rifles and hand bombs. Frank approached the commander of the party, Lieutenant-Commander Hastings, and outlined the plight of those ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... to Rome, granting them full powers to treat concerning his affairs, and to conclude the war upon any terms whatsoever. These five immediately set out for the Roman winter-quarters, but being beset and spoiled by Getulian robbers on the way, fled, in alarm and ill plight,[306] to Sylla, whom the consul, when he went on his expedition, had left as pro-praetor with the army. Sylla received them, not, as they had deserved, like faithless enemies, but with the greatest ceremony and munificence; from which the barbarians concluded that what was said ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... over. As he flew on by the Lybian coast he heard a sound of wailing, and beheld a beautiful maiden chained by her hands and feet to a rock. He asked what had led her to this sad plight, and she answered that she was Andromeda, the daughter of Cepheus and Cassiopeia, king and queen of Ethiopia, and that her mother had foolishly boasted that she was fairer than the Nereids, the fifty nymphs who are the spirits of the waves. Neptune was so much displeased that he sent a flood ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... well-a-day, What fine result—what triumph rare! As one turns from the coffin'd dead So left you me:—I could but stare Upon the door through which you fled— I proud and grave—but punished quite. And what care you for this my plight!— You have recovered liberty, Fresh air and lovely scenery, The spacious park and wished-for grass; The running stream, where you can throw A blade to watch what comes to pass; Blue sky, and all the spring can show; Nature, ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... of his men believed him; but he swore that he would never seek to do them harm, and that if he found any of them in evil plight he would deliver them out of it. With ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... dull to carouse. The homes of England! their sweetness is melting into fable; only the new Spirit in its holiest power can restore to those homes their boasted security of "each man's castle," for Woman, the warder, is driven into the street, and has let fall the keys in her sad plight. Yet darkest hour of night is nearest dawn, and there seems ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... consequences. If, as at times she almost feared, he were to leave her, what would her position be? Already disgraced, discredited in the eyes of the world, she would find it impossible to face that world all alone, without the shelter of her husband's name; and although Toni's plight was nothing to her, there were times when she almost wished she had left the girl alone and had not encouraged her to take the fatal step of leaving ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... and Herbert in no better plight; their hunting weapons were in the adjoining room, and Rupert seemed to bar the way. I have said that the king was no coward, yet I think, that the sight of Rupert, bringing back the memory of his torments in the dungeon, half cowed him; for he shrank back crying, ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... once heard of a shipwrecked captain doing! Or, perhaps some ship was taking him around the Horn—it took time to go around that Horn, as everybody knew—or suppose a whaler had taken him off and carried him up north, could he expect to get back in a day, and did she want him to find her in such a plight? ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... no need of that," Paul said. "They are sure to come back and see our plight soon. I can't see what's keeping Russ. He promised to come back as soon as he fixed up another camera. It's ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... and he lived in a stall, But Charlotte, my nymph, had no lodging at all. And at a Broom-Squire's, in pitiful plight, Did pray and beseech for a lodging one ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... hopes ye annih'late, Ye powers of the sky! Who'll strengthen me, fainting, Against the god's might? Who'll heed my lamenting, My sorrowful plight? Ah! whom can I wend to? Will earth e'er attend to A powerless cry, Which cruel gods smile at? My hopes ye annih'late, Ye powers of the sky! Ha! ye have crush'd my heart! Oh Hother! Hother! Where art thou? Ah! I can no more! I'm swooning! O Death! ...
— The Death of Balder • Johannes Ewald
... of the book is redemption (3:7, 8; 12:13 etc.), particularly that half of redemption indicated by deliverance from an evil plight. It records the redemption of the chosen people out of Egyptian bondage, which becomes a type of all redemption in that it was accomplished (1) wholly through the power of God, (2) by a means of a deliverer (3) under the cover ...
— The Bible Book by Book - A Manual for the Outline Study of the Bible by Books • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... he saw a dying horse near to the river, and the horse looked piteously towards the water but could not reach it. And the father of my grandfather saw Welleran go down to the river's brink and bring water from it with his own hand and give it to the horse. Now we are in as sore a plight as was that horse, and as near to death; it may be that Welleran will pity us, while the King's axeman cannot because of the commands of ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... finding such good friends as Glen had met. The reverse is more commonly true. Glen knew well enough that the boy on the road, trusting to chance for friends, is much more apt to fall a prey to people of the J. Jervice variety. He remembered the pitiful plight of a boy who had been returned to the school after falling into the hands of tramps, and he thanked an unknown Providence that he had tumbled into the ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... for half an hour, but they could find nothing that looked like a road. Some of the sleigh load were openly apprehensive and inclined to blame Hardy for their plight, but for the most part they were plucky and good-natured, trying to turn off their growing fear ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... chanced to occupy it, and himself awaken as with the sound of a trumpet this people who slept upon the verge of a precipice, between hell that gaped below and God who sat on high, serenely regardful of his creatures' plight. Though so short a time in Virginia, he was already become a man of note, the prophet not without honor, whom it was the fashion to admire, if not to follow. It was therefore natural enough that the Commissary, ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... the management of the most unruly set of cooks that ever infested the kitchen of a respectable gentleman; and they had made a shocking mess. And, too, Grandpapa, was unhappy; his clothes bore seedy marks, and his breeches were in such a plight—it really excited our pity. I called his attention to an unmentionable rent in a conspicuous place, but he seemed careless about it—said it was of no consequence—and that Uncle Sam was a good old soul, and always paid the tailor—he knew from experience. Suddenly ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... the altar with a friend, To hear him plight his faith to a young bride, A rosy child of simple heart and mind. Yet two short years before, on that same spot, I heard the funeral chant above the bier Of a first wife—a woman bright as fair, Or blessed ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... his hand upon the bell the library door opened, and Uncle Marmaduke made his appearance, dragging with him the unwilling Dick: the unfortunate boy was effectually sobered now, pale and trembling and besmirched with coal-dust—in fact, in very much the same plight as his ill-used father had been ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... continued Potts gravely, "a woman who should fall in love with one of us fellows and deem him a hero would be substantially in Titania's plight when she adored Bottom, and about as much an object of pity when her hero disclosed an asininity which would be at least as near to being his real character as the ...
— Potts's Painless Cure - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... brilliance in the handling of his troops nor to the gallantry and efficiency of those concerned in the operations under his orders, but simply to his opponent being almost bereft of armament. Be that as it may, Russia was in such evil plight for arms and ammunition from the summer of 1915 on to that of 1916 that she was wellnigh powerless, except in Armenia. She only became really formidable again during the period of quiescence that, as usual, set in during ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... man," cried Dorothy, "as you will say when you meet him. A word of caution, Tom," she added, seeing my desperate plight, and relenting a little. "Say nothing to him of the tender passion, for he has lately been crossed in love, and is very sore about it. A certain Mistress Cary, to whom he was paying court, hath rejected him, and wounded him as much in his self-esteem as in his love, which, I fancy, was not ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... Percy. Never before had he known Jim to acknowledge himself beaten. Their plight must ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... should consider resistance useless,' replied Saturn, 'for I tried it and failed; but at least one has a chance of success; and yet, having resisted this spirit and failed, I should not consider myself in a worse plight than you would voluntarily place yourself in ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli
... in France. In every great town of France, any able-bodied man, going through the streets on his business, was liable to be shoved by the crimps into a house called the oven. There he was shut up with others in the same plight; those fit for service were picked out, and the recruiters sold them to the officers. In 1695 there were thirty ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... back, and more boys, awakened by their fellows, sat up and enjoyed his plight. In the fourth attempt he managed to gain half way up before he fell, coming down heavily on his side. This was hailed with low laughter and querulous chirpings that might well have come from the throats ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... grim-bearded bust, Erigena, When scouts came flocking from the empty hall, And porters trembled at the Doctor's call; Ah! call'd in vain, with laugh supprest they stood And bit their nails, a dirty-finger'd brood. E'en Looker gloried in his master's plight,[21] And John beheld, and chuckled at the sight.[22] Genius of discord! thou whose murky flight With iron pennons more obscured the night— Thou, too, of British birth, who dost reside In Syms's or in Goodwin's blushing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... brings with it its own peculiar festivity. After the great distribution of money, Fatia Negra will take the daughter of Onucz by the hand and plight his troth to her in front of a crucifix placed on a high pedestal. The oath of betrothal will be an invention of Fatia Negra himself, filled with well assorted curses and promises. And he will swear to regard Anicza as his lawful bride from ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... But that sore plight of ruined man Christ's pity could not lightly scan: Nor let God's building nobly wrought Ingloriously be brought ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... this display of fervid sympathy on the part of a stranger for my humble friends in their sorry plight. But I could not avail myself of ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... rats and mice, for example, he would hide himself amongst the meal and hang downwards by the feet as though he were dead. His master, therefore, though he did not build too much on what the cat had said, felt some hope of being assisted in his miserable plight. ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... were adjusted, the body was raised higher until the weight swung clear. In this plight they became a fearful sight to look upon. The flesh, to support their bodies with the additional weights attached thereto, was raised some eight inches by the skewers, and their heads sinking forward ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... fecund element of our white population. If allowance be made for their natural increase from 1880 to 1890 the white race would show a decennial increase appreciably below that of the blacks. If the Negro, then, is threatened with extinction, the white race is in a still more pitiable plight. ...
— A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1 • Kelly Miller
... homes of England! their sweetness is melting into fable; only the new Spirit in its holiest power can restore to those homes their boasted security of "each man's castle," for Woman, the warder, is driven into the street, and has let fall the keys in her sad plight. Yet darkest hour of night is nearest dawn, and there seems ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... join his leader. The corner of the street by the canal, where Sir Andrew Ffoulkes would be waiting with the coal-cart; then there was the spinney on the road to St. Germain. Armand hoped that, with good luck, he might yet overtake his comrades, tell them of Jeanne's plight, and entreat them to ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... was in a miserable plight. My strength had been assailed by anguish, and fear, and watchfulness, by toil, and abstinence, and wounds. Still, however, some remnant was left; would it not enable me to reach my home by nightfall? I had delighted, from my ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... critical moment, as he came up, Sumner succeeded in grasping him and drawing him to the boat. By this time, they had drifted a long way down and saw another rapid approaching. By swimming desperately, they avoided being carried into this in their awkward plight, and, towing the boat after them, landed none too soon on a pile of driftwood on the bank. A gun, some barometers, and other articles that were in the open compartment, were lost, though one roll of blankets had been caught and ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... the kind people stood the Prince up and helped him to the palace, where the King was greatly shocked at his sad plight. Fiddlecumdoo was so broad that the only thing he could sit down on was the sofa, and he was so thin that when Princess Pattycake sneezed he was blown half way ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum
... men crouched there silent, realizing their desperate plight. They must escape, before the sun rose. ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... hastily,—"Indeed, my lord, there is a chaise upon the highway, and if we mistake not 'tis the King's." Cedric loosed himself from Constance and hurried from the room. She flew after him; but he had passed Sir Julian and flung himself upon a horse. Pomphrey saw her plight, and, whether from pity, gallantry, or intrigue, lifted her quickly—before she had time to withdraw from him—into a coach. Cedric remonstrated with him; but Julian was confident of his motive and started the coach at full speed. They flew along in the opposite direction ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... harder than before. As no trains were running at this hour, he walked in the direction where he would be likely to meet with an omnibus. But it was a long time before one passed which was any use to him. When he reached home he was in cheerless plight enough; to make things pleasanter, one of his boots had let ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... was giving us what we asked. But would she give us all we asked? Just as there might have been a renewed chance of getting an answer to this question, black men in a black boat hailed us. Sir Marcus had deigned at last to remember our plight. ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... down to the sea in ships," said he, "must needs learn a good deal if they would prosper. I have studied the heavens somewhat, because more than once it has been my lot to find myself at sea without a compass, and in a plight like that a knowledge of the stars and planets is a good thing for a man to have at his command. Now, if we do but set our faces to yonder constellation we shall keep in a straight line for Acapulco—and God send we may land ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... is a good woman at a small homestead not a mile away. She has kept us from starving, and, like many of the Hollanders, has a kind heart. I will do my best to get her to befriend you, Mistress, for I see you are in a sorry plight.' ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... visitor was Mr. Hamilton. He came to tell me of an accident case. A young labourer had fallen off a scaffolding, and a compound fracture of the right arm had been the result. He was also badly shaken and bruised, and was altogether in a miserable plight. ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... of being seen in such a plight, and had an instinctive dislike of showing her feelings to a stranger, for Marjory was an extremely ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... young Mary's plight: She took the cup, no word she spake, She had even wished that very night To sleep and never ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... terror at their plight. Catherine, more resolute, tried to encourage her companion; but as they jogged and jolted over the deserted road for what seemed hours, even her own ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... was suffering from both cold and hunger, and was in pitiable plight. Again he writes: "Lieutenant Daunt, Ninth Regiment, and another officer of some Sixtieth Regiment, were frozen to death last night, and two officers of the Ninety-Third Regiment were smothered by charcoal. The streets of Balaklava are a sight, with swell English cavalry ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... brought up in a home of severe simplicity, where gentleness and kindness were taught and practiced, pitied the woman and her children in their sad plight and loaned her the needed interest payment to stave off ejection from her home. Thereafter, he looked after her family until the oldest son was able to manage his ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... of doing this only for the fact that he knew Percy and his shadow, Sandy, were aware of the plight of the precious flier. And while Frank was inclined to partly believe that the Carberry boy might let up in his mischief-making ways for awhile at least, after all they had done for him up on Old Thundertop, Andy could not bring himself to trust the ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... had sent an embassy to the protecting State, to inform the senate of his brother's murder and his own evil plight. But, diffident as he was, he must have felt that a passive endurance of the outrages inflicted by Jugurtha dimmed his prestige and imperilled his position; he found himself at the head of the larger ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... nails, no iron to make either of. We made a detour of three miles to what was represented as a regular shop. The owner had secured the service of a colored blacksmith for a special job, and was, not inclined to accommodate us; he had no shoes, no nails. But the colored blacksmith, who appreciated the plight we were in, offered to make a shoe, and to crib four nails from those he had laid aside for a couple of mules; and after a good deal of delay, we were enabled to go on. The incident shows, as well as anything, the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... dungeon for no crime except that he was a foreigner, when a word from the President of the United States, of which he was a citizen, would have effected his release. Washington was aware of Paine's miserable plight, yet he forgot the obligations of friendship; and notwithstanding frequent letters from Munro, the American ambassador at Paris, he supinely suffered the man he had once delighted to honor to languish in wretchedness, filth, and disease. George Washington did much for American Independence, but ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote
... young girl, not more than fourteen years of age, was found concealed among the casks, where she had secreted herself in order to accompany the boatswain to sea: upon being brought on deck, she was in a most pitiable plight, for her dress and appearance were so filthy, from four days' close confinement in a dark hold, and from having been dreadfully seasick the whole time, that her acquaintances, of which she had many ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... and then there is always a muddle. And when Emer comes—," he checked his indiscreet utterance by pretending to have a difficulty in restraining the horses, and then added confusedly: "Besides, I'd rather be in your plight ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... and when they were seen, a great cry arose throughout the army, and men left their fires and their mending of arms and clothes, and ran out to meet him, a gaunt man in rusty armour, on a gaunt horse, followed by others in no better plight. His mantle was all stained with rain and mud, and was rent in many places, and his mail was brown, save where it had been chafed bright by his moving; his great Norman horse was rough with his winter coat and seemed all joints and bones, and Dunstan and Alric rode ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... covered with the napkin and did whatso her lord had bidden her; after which she tare her gear and bared her head and letting down her hair, went in to the Lady Zubaydah, crying out and weeping. When the Princess saw her in this state, she cried, "What plight is this? What is thy story and what maketh thee weep?" And Nuzhat al-Fuad answered, weeping and loud-wailing the while, "O my lady, may thy head live and mayst thou survive Abu al-Hasan al-Khali'a; for he is dead!" ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... reminiscence of that night—Dec. 27, 1836—is Pollard's graphic picture of the Devonport mail snowed up at Amesbury. Six horses could not move it, and Guard F. Feecham was in parlous plight. Pollard's companion picture of the Liverpool mail in the snow near St. Alban's on the same night is equally interesting. Guard James Burdett fared little better than his ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... our case was hopeless. It was equally apparent that all were ready to die at their guns rather than surrender; and such I believe to have been the determination of the crew, almost to a man." A crippled ship, armed with carronades, was indeed in a hopeless plight. At six minutes before four in the afternoon the attack began. The Essex riding to an anchor with a southerly wind, the Cherub took position on her starboard bow, or southwest from her; the Phoebe north, under her stern. Both British ships began fighting under sail, not being yet ready to ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... clanged the bell, caught Patrick by the waist-line, thrust him under her desk, fenced him in with a chair, and turned to Isaac who had only just realized the full horror of his plight. Isidore Belchatosky and Eva Gonorowsky had torn off the white tunic—thereby disclosing quantities of red flannel—and exhibited its desecrated back. And speech, English speech returned to the Prince of Hester Street. Haltingly at first, but with growing fluency he cursed ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... found that his allies deserted him at a critical {123} moment and left him to face the formidable army of the Cardinal. The Huguenots submitted to their fate in the summer of 1629, finding themselves in a worse plight than they had been when they surrendered La Rochelle, for Richelieu treated with them no longer as with a foreign power. He expected them to offer him the servile obedience of conquered rebels. Henceforth ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... but lost his seat. The Count's people stood firm round their Lord; but my Cid was in search of him, and when he saw where he was, he made up to him, clearing the way as he went, and gave him such a stroke with his lance that he felled him. When the Frenchmen saw their Lord in this plight they fled away and left him; and the pursuit lasted three leagues, and would have been continued farther if the conquerors had not had tired horses. Thus was Count Ramon Berenguer made prisoner, and my Cid won from him that day the good sword Colada, which was worth more than ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... hold of each other," he yelled, his mind intent on helping some of them into his boat. But as well talk to the wind. The boys who couldn't swim—and most of them were in that plight—were grabbing this way and that, to seize upon anything that would ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... sitting, and kept the House up till half-past three in order to do it. Dr. ADDISON had need of what the IRON DUKE called "two o'clock in the morning courage" to ward off attacks. Once, when Sir ARTHUR FELL was depicting the desperate plight of the landladies of Yarmouth, forbidden under a penalty of a hundred pounds to charge more than twenty-five per cent. in excess of their pre-war prices, it looked as if the Minister must give way; but with some difficulty he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 30th, 1920 • Various
... person in her position thus to treat overtures, friendly and courteous overtures, from one in his position. And never before—never—had a woman been thus unresponsive. Instead of feeling relief that she had disentangled him from the plight into which his impulsive offer had flung him, he was piqued—angered—and his curiosity was inflamed as never before about ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... seeing his plight, try to stop him. Since we are pretending that he makes everything he touches elastic, the instant you touch him you bounce helplessly ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... friend, ere we both go our ways, this it is. When we are free, and thou knowest all that I have done, I pray thee deem me not evil and wicked, and be not wroth with me for my deed; whereas thou wottest well that I am not in like plight with other women. I have heard tell that when the knight goeth to the war, and hath overcome his foes by the shearing of swords and guileful tricks, and hath come back home to his own folk, they praise him and bless him, and crown him with flowers, and boast of him before God in the minster ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... All in a honey madness hotly bound On blissful burglary. A cunning sound In that wing-music held me: down I lay In amber shades of many a golden spray, Where looping low with languid arms the Vine In wreaths of ravishment did overtwine Her kneeling Live-Oak, thousand-fold to plight Herself unto her own ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... home, some two hundred miles beyond Bangor, Me. As I looked at him I was perfectly astonished that we had a man among us who would think, for a moment, of sending away a dependent, human being, and sickly, too, in such a plight; a rather thin coat, vest and pants that might last him two or three days; no collar, cravat, mittens, overcoat, or boots, but brogans, and those not mates, one of which so pinched his foot that he was forced to remove it shortly after coming in. His person and clothes were filthy ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... before the full South-west breeze. When I say he forgot it, the fact was present enough to him, but it became an outward fact: he had ceased to feel it within him. It was not a portion of his being, hard as Mrs. Mel had struck to fix it. Consequently, though he was in a far worse plight than when he parted with Rose on board the Jocasta, he felt much less of an impostor now. This may have been partly because he had endured his struggle with the Demogorgon the Countess painted ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... grisly waves, these winds and whirlpools loud and dread: What reck they of our wretched plight who ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... it collapsed entirely, and precipitated the rider over the handle-bars. The lower part of the frame had broken short off, where it was previously cracked, and had bent the top bar almost double in the fall. In this sad plight, we were rejoiced to find in the "City under the Shade" the Scotch missionary, Mr. Laughton, who had founded here the most remote of the China Inland Missions. But even with his assistance, and that of the best native mechanic, our repairs were ineffective. At ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... to marry him?" Lena persisted, and half induced Anna to act a feeble part, composed of sobs and kisses and full confession of her plight. Anna broke from her in time to leave what she had stated of herself vague and self-justificatory, so that she kept her pride, and could forgive, as she was ready to do even so far as to ask forgiveness ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of Madra, with his wondrous skill and might, Faltering, on his knees descending, fell in sad inglorious plight, ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... low-lands bordering on the southern ocean, there are five regions of sacred water. They are delightful and eminently holy. Go ye thither without delay. That tiger among men, Dhananjaya, the son of Pandu of pure soul, will soon deliver you, without doubt, from this sad plight.' O hero, hearing the Rishi's words, all of us came hither. O sinless one, true it is that I have today been delivered by thee. But those four friends of mine are still within the other waters here. O hero, do a good deed by delivering ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... Weymouth.—The result was the upset of my ink, whereof you see the remains; and our last moments were spent in reparations and apologies. My two squires are in different plight from what they were ten weeks ago, racing up hills that it then half killed them to come down, and lingering wistfully on the top for last glimpses of our bay. I am overwhelmed with their courtesies, and though each is lugging about twenty pounds weight of stones, and Mab besides in Leonard's ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was he found by May, the most high-blooded and aristocratic of greyhounds; and from this plight did May rescue him;— invited him into her territory, the stable; resisted all attempts to turn him out; reinstated him there, in spite of maid, and boy, and mistress, and master; wore out every body's opposition, by the activity of her protection, and the pertinacity ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various
... near the rocks. He saw her clamber upon them and start toward him, springing from one to another, wading across submerged places, climbing around or over the higher points. And even there, in his desperate plight, as he watched her coming steadily toward him, her eyes fixed on the difficult path, and her skirt instinctively gathered a little in one hand, the sight of her fearless grace thrilled through him, and filled him ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... conscious she found herself in a small cabin, with many others in like pitiable plight. Her aunt was bending over her on one side and Gregory on the other, chafing her hands. At first she could not remember or understand, and stared ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... mosquito-plague had infected the great, busy, joyous metropolis of the south. Ignorant of the real processes of the infection, New Orleans had fought it blindly, frantically, in an agony of panic, and when at last the frost put an end to the helpless city's plight, she lay spent and prostrate. The yellow fever of 1905 came with a more formidable and unexpected suddenness than that of 1897. It sprang into life like a secret and armed uprising in the midst of the city, full-fledged and terrible. But there arose against it the trained fighting line of scientific ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane
... in all the world? Are you not a man yourself? Have you no pity for a woman in such plight as mine?" ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... and growth is possible. These two may be put very briefly: organisation and enthusiastic devotion. These are both important, but in very different degrees. Organisation without valour is in a worse plight than valour without organisation. The one is fundamental, the other secondary. The one is the true cause, so far as men are concerned, of victory, the other is but the instrument by which the cause works. There have been many victories won ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... was impossible that I should hesitate; I did not know, it is true, what might await me within, but it could not be worse and might well be better than my present plight. The door was open; I stepped in; and no sooner had I crossed the threshold than I was aware of an experience more extraordinary and delightful than it had ever been my lot to encounter. I had the ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... dropped their guns and took to the water, hoping to be able to swim to a neighbouring island. This was a counsel of despair, for wounded and exhausted as they were, the feat was impossible. When the Sioux rushed down to the shore, they realized the plight of the French, and did not even waste an arrow on them. One by one the swimmers sank beneath the waves. After watching their tragic fate, the savages returned to scalp those who had fallen at the camp. With characteristic ferocity they hacked and mutilated ...
— Pathfinders of the Great Plains - A Chronicle of La Verendrye and his Sons • Lawrence J. Burpee
... would rather have been hewn in pieces than agree. And now, of his own accord, he was going!... Twenty times he was on the point of turning back. He walked two or three times round the town, turning away just as he came near the Palace. He was not alone in his plight. His mother and brothers had also to be considered. Since his father had deserted them and betrayed them, it was his business as eldest son to take his place and come to their assistance. There was no room for hesitation or pride; he had to swallow down his shame. He entered the Palace. ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... chiefest, with thee bring Him that yon soars on golden wing, Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne, The cherub Contemplation; And the mute Silence hist along, 'Less Philomel will deign a song, In her sweetest saddest plight, Smoothing the rugged brow of Night, While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke Gently o'er the accustom'd oak. —Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly, Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among I woo, to hear thy even-song; And, missing ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... something like one aroused from a dream to the stern realities and terrors of life. By the end of next week, the inside of the house and part of the outside would be finished, and as far as he knew the firm had nothing else to do at present. Most of the other employers in the town were in the same plight, and it would be of no use to apply even to such of them as had something to do, for they were not likely to take on a fresh man while some of ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... simpering girl who was trying to buy idleness with her charm. And he was speaking ill of her. That she knew from Mr. Mactavish James's kindnesses, which brightened the moment but always made the estimate of her plight more dreary, since just so might a gaoler in a brigand's cave bring a prisoner scraps of sweeter food and drink when the talk of her death and the thought of her youth had made him feel tenderly. Only that morning he had padded up behind Ellen and set a white parcel by her typewriter. "Here's ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... chide any one, sinner as I am!" said I. "Nay, Margaret, I doubt not my thoughts have been far unholier than thine. Thou rememberest not, I am sure; but ere we were professed, I was troth-plight unto a young noble, and always that life that I have lost flitteth afore me, as a bird that held a jewel in his beak might lure me on from flower to flower, ever following, never grasping the sweet illusion. Margaret, sister, despise me not for my confession! ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... then, O excellent by strength! And speak wise words, not out of season. You see how, by his talking overmuch, The tortoise fell into this wretched plight!" ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... by these presents, in the name and in behalf of our respective constituents, fully and entirely ratify and confirm each and every of the said Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union, and all and singular the matters and things therein contained. And we do further solemnly plight and engage the faith of our respective constituents, that they shall abide by the determinations of the United States, in Congress assembled, on all questions which by the said Confederation are submitted to them; and that the Articles thereof shall be inviolably observed by the States we respectively ...
— Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition • J.A. James
... ran to their tents, laughing at the plight of their captain, as he issued, furious, from the ruins. Frank began to run too; but thinking that this would be considered an indication of guilt, he stopped. Atwater ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... in, and found a friendly clergyman, Dr. Hamilton by name, to whom they explained their plight. They answered his questions—yes, they were both of age, and they had told their parents. Also, with much stammering, Thyrsis explained that his worldly goods ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... struck her, for the wavering walk and bandaged head, with hand pressed to the forehead, did not suggest her brother. At the next instant the man lifted a white face, and Charlotte gave a startled cry as she saw that it was John Lansing himself, in a sorry plight. ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... that dark and narrow dell, As all the fiends from heaven that fell Had peal'd the banner-cry of Hell! Forth from the pass, in tumult driven, Like chaff before the wind of heaven, The archery appear; For life! for life! their plight they ply, And shriek, and shout, and battle-cry, And plaids and bonnets waving high, And broadswords flashing to the sky, Are maddening in the rear. Onward they drive, in dreadful race, Pursuers and pursued; Before ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... More than rich thoughts can dream, or mad lips speak; But how, or why, whether with soul or body, I will not know. Thou art mine.—Why question further? [Aside] Ay if I fall by loving, I will love, And be degraded!—how? by my own troth-plight? No, but my thinking that I fall.—'Tis written That whatsoe'er is not of faith is sin.— O Jesu Lord! Hast Thou not made me thus? Mercy! My brain will burst: I ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... sister. Will of course kept to himself the events of his last two days in London; he did not venture to hint at any knowledge of Rosamund's movements. A suspicion was growing in his mind that she might not have left England; in which case, was ever man's plight more ridiculous than his? It would mean that Rosamund had deliberately misled him; but could he think her capable of that? If it were so, and if her feelings toward him had undergone so abruptly violent a change simply because of the discovery she had made—why, ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... black as night, Oriana, Ere I rode into the fight, Oriana, While blissful tears blinded my sight By star-shine and by moonlight, Oriana, I to thee my troth did plight, Oriana. ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... and he saw a determination in them that he knew he could never shake, and, knowing his own weakness, he would have killed Phil rather than see him in the same plight. ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... head of the boat so much that the water leaked through upon them, until they were about as wet as the Dutchman. This was hard fare for Benjamin, who had been accustomed to a comfortable bed and regular sleep. It was impossible for him to rest in such a plight, and he had all the more time to think. He thought of home, and the friends he had left behind, of the comfortable quarters he had exchanged for his present wet and perilous berth, and he began to feel that he had paid too dear for ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... considered. Now, according to certain statements by Mr Belasco and by writers in and to The Referee, the Theatrical Syndicate does, in fact, control to a very great extent the drama in America, and there is no real doubt about the accuracy of the proposition that the drama in the States is in a worse plight than the drama in London. If, judging by the ordinary picked American productions over here, the evidence were otherwise insufficient, the tone of Mr Klaw's article ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... embraced me with affection, and wept bitterly; she distributed [the customary offerings to the poor] on the occasion of my safe arrival, such as oil, vegetables, and small coins, [102] and said to me, "Though my heart is greatly rejoiced at this meeting, yet, brother, in what sad plight do I see you?" I could make her no reply, but shedding tears, I remained silent. My sister sent me quickly to the bath, after having ordered a splendid dress to be sewn for me. I having bathed and washed, put on these clothes. She fixed on an elegant ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf? Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!" They heard, and were abashed, and up they sprung Upon the wing, as when men wont to watch On duty, sleeping found by whom they dread, Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake. Nor did they not perceive the evil plight In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel; Yet to their General's voice they soon obeyed Innumerable. As when the potent rod Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day, Waved round the coast, up-called ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... taken on board a steamer which immediately started down river. At three o'clock in the morning they were landed on the river bank about forty miles below St. Louis, at a spot where there was neither house, road, nor clearing. Before the marooned party had time to realize its plight the steamer ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... enlightened nations. Surely, if this childish practice is still a rule in polite society, it is one "more honoured in the breach than the observance." In no city on the Eastern side of the Alleghany Mountains did I meet a single drunken American in the street. The few whom I did detect in that plight were manifestly recent importations from ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... the usual story that is told, England had been engaged with a long and vain struggle with the demon of protection, and had been year after year sinking farther into the depths, until at a moment when she was in her distress and saddest plight, her manufacturing system broke down, "protection, having destroyed home trade by reducing," as Mr. Atkinson says, "the entire population to beggary, destitution, and want." Mr. Cobden and his friends providentially appeared, ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... captured wild animal which fears danger; and as he looked he caught sight of the footman gazing at him with a peculiar grin upon his countenance, which seemed to be quite friendly, and indicated that the man rather enjoyed the plight in which his young master ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... "let me rise and dress;" He tried—fell back; and then he must confess He could not labour for another week! Oh, wretched plight— For him, his work was life! Should he keep sick, 'twas death! All four sat mute; sudden a my of hope Beamed in the soul of Abel. He brushed the tear-drops from his ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... activity Simoun had displayed in urging Paulita's marriage, which had plunged Isagani into the fearful misanthropy that was worrying his uncle. He forgot all these things and thought only of the sick man's plight and his own obligations as a host, until his senses reeled. Where must he hide him to avoid his falling into the clutches of the authorities? But the person chiefly concerned was not worrying, ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... out, dripping to the very crowns of their heads, with their Sunday shirts and jackets in a horrible plight. The truth, slowly gathered from their mutual accusations, was this: they had resolved to have a boating excursion on Redley Creek, and had abstracted the tub that morning when nobody was in the kitchen. ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... my illusions. A friend of my own age had recently married an officer much younger than herself. At the end of a year's happiness he left her; and society, far from pitying her, laughed at her plight. ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... of the outlaw sounded so coarse and disagreeable as now when hope seemed gone. His villainous face lighted with evil triumph as he surveyed the plight ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... hawthorne house; With counsaile of the night, I will be here With wholesome viands; these impediments Will I file off; you shall have garments and Perfumes to kill the smell o'th prison; after, When you shall stretch your selfe and say but, 'Arcite, I am in plight,' there shall be at your choyce ...
— The Two Noble Kinsmen • William Shakespeare and John Fletcher [Apocrypha]
... shilling, with which I paid the bathing-man, and walked off undiscovered to my own machine. The fat old she-triton laughed till she cried. I dressed in my proper costume leisurely enough, and was amused to hear afterwards of the luckless plight in which a stout gentleman had found himself by the temporary loss of all his apparel whilst he was disporting in ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... year the resources of the Venetians had grown less and their plight more desperate. In 1668 they had received some assistance from French volunteers under the Duc de la Feuillade. This was followed by an application to Turenne for a general who would command their own troops ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... another everywhere was wickedness everywhere want. Her heart felt as if it would break. What was to reach these poor, miserable fellow creatures of hers? Who was to raise them out of their horrible plight? The coarse distortion and the narrow contraction of Christ's teaching which she had just heard, offered no remedy for this evil. Nor could she think that secularism would reach these. To understand secularism you meed a fair share of intellect what intellect would these ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... am in tolerable plight, and in my last letter told you what I had done in the way of all rhyme. I trust that you prosper, and that your authors are in good condition. I should suppose your stud has received some increase by what I hear. Bertram must be a good horse; does he run next meeting? I hope you ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... shed tears of a night over his poor family of soldiers. Only he and Frenchmen could have pulled themselves out of such a plight; but we did pull ourselves out, though, as I am telling you, it was with loss, ay, and heavy loss. The Allies had eaten up all our provisions; everybody began to betray him, just as the Red Man had foretold. The rattle-pates in Paris, ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... Helena.] who was left there eighteene moneths before by Abraham Kendall, who put in there with the Roiall marchant and left him there to refresh him on the Iland, being otherwise like to haue perished on shipboord: and at our comming wee found him as fresh in colour and in as good plight of body to our seeming as might be, but crazed in minde and halfe out of his wits, as afterwards wee perceiued: for whether he was put in fright of vs, not knowing at first what we were, whether friends or foes, or of sudden ioy when he vnderstand we were his olde consorts ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... now in an unfortunate plight, when I had the good luck to meet with the French valet of a certain noble lord whose name I will not mention. He was pleased to fall in with a person who could speak the language of la belle France, and on hearing that I was of gentle birth, ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... to remain in darkness all night. My saddle-bags were with the mule, and I did not even know now where the animal might be. I was soaking wet, shivering with ague, nothing to eat, plenty of cigarettes and matches, but unable to smoke or even make a light, so my disagreeable plight can to some extent be imagined. Moreover, there were about six inches of water all round me, so that I could not attempt to sleep. The cold was intense, and I can safely say that I never spent such a long, disagreeable, ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... believe, caused some of our fellows to think I was hit. Of course, after hurling a choice malediction after my horse, I was quickly on my feet and doubling after the rest of the "Boys of the Bulldog Breed." An officer of the Dorsets, Captain Kinderslie, seeing my plight, rode up amid the whistling bullets and insisted on my holding his hand and running by the side of his horse, till we came to Sergeant-Major Hunt, who had caught and was holding Bete Noire. Naturally, the reins were entangled in his forelegs, but I ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... appear, interrupted for a time the regular trade which, ever since the Saite kings of the XXVIth dynasty, had been carried on by the Greeks with the Oases, by way of Abydos. A stranger who ventured as far as the Thebaid would have found himself in the same plight as a European of the last century who undertook to reach the first cataract. Their point of departure—Memphis or Cairo—was very much the same; their destinations—Elephantine and Assuan—differed but ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... sericulture who joined in our conversation was not much concerned by the plight of the priests. "The causes of goodness in our people," he said, "are family tradition and home training. Candidly, we believe our morals are not so bad on the whole. We are now putting most stress on economic development. How to maintain their ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... present time given me neither remedy, aid, nor favor—which I expected from friends and vassals of a sovereign so related by kinship and blood with his majesty; and as I would have done for them, if I had found them in the plight in which they find me. It is no valid objection to say that I have had ships in which I could have left—such, for example, as the "Capitana" and the "San Juan," which went to Nueva Espana—for the "Capitana" carried about two hundred persons, and the patache "San Juan" seventy, which number ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... through which they were reading their way. On Sundays the congregation rarely numbered a dozen. It seemed that, as the end of the Vicar's task drew nearer, so the prospect of filling the church receded and became more shadowy. And if his was a queer plight, Jacky Pascoe's was queerer. The Bryanite continued to come by night and help, but at rarer intervals. He was discomforted in mind, as anyone could see, and at length he took Mr. Raymond aside and ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and to try to set them right. He had all the whips and instruments of torture that Egyptian rulers had used piled up outside the Palace and burned. In the gaol he found two hundred men, women, and children lying in chains and in the most dismal plight. Some were innocent, many were prisoners of war. Of many their gaolers could give no reason for their being there. One woman had been imprisoned for fifteen years for a crime committed when she was ...
— The Story of General Gordon • Jeanie Lang
... with less than three miles more to their credit, halted for cautious reconnaissance, with the ruined ranch still a long mile away, there came sound of feeble hail from a patch of willows down by the brookside, and presently, in fearful plight, they dragged forth Bennett's colored man-of-all-work, unharmed, but half dead with terror. Yes, Indians had suddenly come in the early evening. First warning was from the Maricopa boy who came running from the spring, saying ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... was in the same plight, as to a delayed decision, but he did not speak as though he were very hopeful ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... sitting-room on Monday the storm continued, snowing and blowing a gale from the southwest, which, though not disturbing us even slightly, we felt sure would be bad for those at sea and at Nome; our own experiences at that place giving us always a large sympathy for others in similar plight. Long afterwards we learned that in this storm the "Elk" had been blown ashore at Nome, and was pretty thoroughly disabled, if not entirely wrecked, and we wondered if poor cook Jim had "done been mighty busy, sah, gittin' tings fixed" ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... —Satan beheld their Plight, And to his Mates thus in Derision call'd. O Friends, why come not on those Victors proud? Ere-while they fierce were coming, and when we, To entertain them fair with open Front, And Breast, (what could we more?) ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... length dawned upon the British commander, he made a futile attempt at a diversion by sending Benedict Arnold to attack New London. It was as weak as the act of a drowning man who catches at a straw. Arnold's expedition, cruel and useless as it was, crowned his infamy. A sad plight for a man of his power! If he had only had more strength of character, he might now have been marching with his old friend Washington to victory. With this wretched affair at New London, the brilliant and wicked Benedict Arnold disappears from American ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... his father's plight, a haunting dread that Colonel Harrington might make him some trouble, and the uncertainty of continued work in the express service, all combined to depress his mind with anxiety and suspense, and he tried to dismiss the themes by whistling a quiet, soothing ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... in a worse plight than ever. There was no commissario to be had at that hour. I was in total darkness; not a door was open; nor was there an individual in the street; and, recollecting the reputation Rome had of late acquired for midnight assassinations, I began ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... disconsolate drooping creature is terrified from all enjoyments—prays without ceasing till his imagination is heated—fasts and mortifies and mopes till his body is in as bad a plight as his mind, is it a wonder that the mechanical disturbances and conflicts of an empty belly, interpreted by an empty head, should be mistaken for the workings of a different kind to what they are? or that in such a situation every commotion ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... have the gold, Hewlett," he muttered, apparently ignorant that I, too, was a prisoner and in hardly better plight. "You are the last of the four. I tried to ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... necessity more nearly than any friend's, those Bronte girls, and the pinch of poverty was for their own foot; therefore were they always considerate to any that fell into the same plight. During the Christmas holidays of 1837, old Tabby fell on the steep and slippery street and broke her leg. She was already nearly seventy, and could do little work; now her accident laid her completely aside, leaving Emily, Charlotte, and Anne to spend their Christmas holidays in doing the housework ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... Nevertheless, if the man had been stung, the free world would say—"job well done." For in a few weeks he would have ceased to be strictly human, becoming a dangerous threat to his fellows. And if the girl had been unable to escape from him before that time, she would have been subject to the same plight. Morgan decided that he would have done the same thing if given time ...
— Collectivum • Mike Lewis
... got out all right!" suddenly exclaimed Ross, half aloud, as the thought swept over him of the plight in which his chum ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... Krafft said. "We are civilized, after all. You can't expect us to fight a war—and you surely can't expect us to ignore the plight ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... the majority of the artists, he regretted to observe 'motives apparently limited to their own views and ambition to govern.' Again the negotiation was broken off, the project went to pieces, and now the hope of establishing a national academy in England seemed in its worst plight—hopeless—gone down to zero. ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... through two days, was too violent for raft or boat to live, and at so early a season native craft are never seen on these seas. Briefly, a week might have elapsed before our friends at El-Muwaylah, who were startled by the wildness of the wind, could have learned our plight, or could have taken ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... laughing. Perhaps, after all, her fears were exaggerated, but she dreaded Charles's helpless acquiescence in the plight to which he had been reduced by Mr Gillies's refusal to advance him a penny outside the ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... poor animal, handling her as gently as possible, for she was in a sad plight. It was plain he must not have her here any longer: worse to her at least was sure to follow. He went up, trembling himself now, to Mrs Merton. She told him she was just running to fetch him when he arrived: she had no idea how ill he was. But he felt all the better for the excitement, ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... stood and watched his face, waiting for him to lift his eyes. But he refused obstinately to lift them, and went on rearranging with aimless fingers the pens and papers on his writing-table. At length she plucked up her courage. "Husband," she said, "let us take counsel together. We are in a plight that wrath will not cure: but, be angry as you will, we cannot give Hetty ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... have nothing to say to us; and that, unless we chose to become converts to the Romish Church, we might whistle for our acres, and light our pipes with the certificate. Our Yankee friends at Brazoria, however, laughed at our dilemma, and told us that we were only in the same plight as hundreds of our countrymen, who had come to Texas in total ignorance of this condition, but who had not the less taken possession of their land and settled there; that they themselves were amongst the number, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... if you can comprehend the loneliness, the hollow futility of our plight. Fifty thousand skilled workmen with nothing to do. Some of the less adaptable gave up, prostrating themselves upon the bare rocks until their joints froze from lack of use, and their works corroded. Others served the miners ...
— B-12's Moon Glow • Charles A. Stearns
... sad plight, Avenant exclaimed one day, "How have I offended his Majesty? He has no ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... El Dorado for the present less gilded plight of the Spanish: "Fifty thousand ducats! Holy Virgin! Are we Incas of Peru—Atahualpas who can fill a hall with gold? Now, ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... received a solemn warning that his scholarship was in some danger, though he was not actually deprived of it, and finally, instead of the good class his tutor had once expected, he took a low third, and left Cambridge in almost as bad a plight as ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... accentuated by a rumble of distant voices and gusts of vacant laughter, once or twice by a curious popping. For a long time he heard nothing else whatever. The effect was singularly disquieting and did its bit to quicken torpid senses to grasp his plight. ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... Gazette in 1867, and afterwards republished in Friendship's Garland. Arminius, the cultivated Prussian, accompanies his English friend to Petty Sessions in a country town, and is horrified by the degraded plight of an old peasant who is tried for poaching. The English friend (the imaginary Arnold) says that for his own part he is not so much concerned about the poacher as about his children. They are being allowed to grow up anyhow. Really he thinks the time has come when compulsion ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... called. Naturally, efforts were made early in the war to lessen the danger by armouring the body of the machine sufficiently to protect the aviator and his engine—for if the aviator escaped a shot which found the engine, his plight would be almost as bad as if the ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... voices tremble through the night; Within the sky the pallid King of Light Wraps silvered ermine round him while he may, And Heaven's harem greets its star array. One lone white cloud rests in the azure height— A veiled court lady in some sorrow's plight— Whom cruel love ...
— Sonnets from the Crimea • Adam Mickiewicz
... empty spaces of billowy sand; there were black spots marking hollows and nowhere his horse. But yet he went forward hopefully or at least striving to retain his hope. He had little liking for the plight that would be his were he set afoot here in the heart of the Bad Lands. But at the end of upwards of an hour of fruitless search he went back to the water-hole and his traps, seeing the folly of further seeking now. He would have ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... would get off with a year's imprisonment. The jailer held the lantern close to the tanned face of the reader and nodded encouragingly to Bousquier. The latter was mumbling the Lord's Prayer. Greatly agitated, and groping about for a way out of his plight, he said finally that everything was as he had first related, only the tobacco-dealer had paid him not with a gold-piece but a couple of silver coins. He repeated his confession before the magistrate, who had been summoned despite the lateness of ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... young and strong would have found it hard to brave such an uproar of the elements, how much harder was it for an old man, who, deeming himself stronger than he actually was, and buoyed up by sheer nerve and mental obstinacy, had, of his own choice, brought himself into this needless plight and danger. For now, in utter weariness of body and spirit, Helmsley began to reproach himself bitterly for his rashness. A mere caprice of the imagination,—a fancy that, perhaps, among the poor and lowly he might find a love or ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... how to hit to a hair's-breadth that moment of evening when the light and the darkness are so evenly balanced that the constraint of day and the suspense of night neutralize each other, leaving absolute mental liberty. It is then that the plight of being alive becomes attenuated to its least possible dimensions. She had no fear of the shadows; her sole idea seemed to be to shun mankind—or rather that cold accretion called the world, which, so terrible in the mass, is so unformidable, ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... refinements are above her station, is in pitiable plight: she is too fastidious to espouse the men who would marry her; the men she would marry she rarely meets. For, The only thing that, to love, is insupportable is ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... in the yellow night, The single-mooned eve!-on earth we plight Our faith to one love—and one moon adore— The birth-place of young Beauty had no more. As sprang that yellow star from downy hours, Up rose the maiden from her shrine of flowers, And bent o'er sheeny mountain and dim plain Her way—but left not ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... Duke of York's army, after remaining in a sorry plight near Ostend, it moved forward to Quesnoy to prolong Coburg's right; but the retreat of the main body involved his retirement towards Ostend, near which town he routed some detachments of French. For a time the Allies gained a few advantages and recovered lost ground. But the Republicans ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... been punished they soon learned the extent of the calamity they had inflicted upon the Spaniards. Through their spies they ascertained their diminished numbers, witnessed their miserable plight, and had the sagacity to perceive that they were very poorly prepared to withstand another attack. Thus they gradually regained confidence, marshalled their armies anew, and commenced an incessant series of assaults, avoiding any general action, and yet wearing out the Spaniards with the ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... so we left the poor horses standing in a forlorn little group, gazing with sad lack-luster eyes at the masters who had brought them to such a plight. Inyati took with him a canvas bag that had been used as a saddlecloth, and I wondered what he hoped to find to fill it, for there was no vestige of vegetation to be seen, except some tiny seeds just sprouting here and there in the hollows ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... take leave of the Intendant, and return at once to the city, but not in that plight!" added he, smiling, as Le Gardeur, oblivious of all but the pleasure of accompanying him, grasped his arm to leave the great hall. "Not in that garb, Le Gardeur! Bathe, purify, and clean yourself; I will ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... token do I know you." He took her hand, and added, "By the mystic spell that drew us to each other, I conjure you here to plight your troth to me ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... been my worst enemy and he came very near to ruining me. But I see no reason why hate should blind me in judging his case. I should be glad to have him plainly convicted and put to death. It would please me. But I am not pleased at his present plight. I am not convinced of his guilt. I don't believe any slave evidence given under torture. A tortured slave will say anything he thinks likely to relax his sufferings or please his questioners. And I see no proof of Calvaster's guilt in the other evidence. ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... your servants can give the necessary information," replied the urbane official. If I had lost an umbrella he could not have viewed my plight with more inhuman blandness! ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... which Liberal Ministers tried to persuade them would amply protect Ulster Protestants under a Dublin Parliament, giving a vivid picture of the plight they would be in under a Nationalist administration, which, he declared, meant "a tyranny to which we never can and never will submit"; and then, in a pregnant passage, he summarised ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... students, have so little in common, except a peevish rivalry—there is such an entire want of broad college sympathies and ordinary college friendships, that we fancy that no University in the kingdom is in so poor a plight. Our system is full of anomalies. A, who cut B whilst he was a shabby student, curries sedulously up to him and cudgels his memory for anecdotes about him when he becomes the great so-and-so. Let there be an end of this ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is a painful sight To see a nation great and good Reduced to such a sorry plight, And courtiers crawl where freemen stood, And king and priests combine to seize the spoil, While widows weep and beggar'd ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... a pitiful plight. I was weak from the effects of a fever, Gahra lame from the effects of an accident. My money was nearly all gone, my baggage had been lost by the upsetting of a canoe, and our worldly goods consisted of two sorry mules, our ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... cloud, Marked from his birth for happy fate, Whom signs auspicious decorate? Why does no henchman, young and fair, Precede thee, and delight to bear Entrusted to his reverent hold The burthen of thy throne of gold? Why, if the consecrating rite Be ready, why this mournful plight? Why do I see this sudden change, This altered mien so sad ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... baselessness of the positions themselves. What mankind did in the primitive state may not be a hopeless subject of inquiry, but of their motives for doing it it is impossible to know anything. These sketches of the plight of human beings in the first ages of the world are effected by first supposing mankind to be divested of a great part of the circumstances by which they are now surrounded, and by then assuming that, in the condition thus imagined, they would preserve the same ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... days—Queen Anne having died in the meantime—and the Tory Government being consequently dismissed in disgrace. Poor Gay, who had offended the Whigs by dedicating his "Shepherd's Week" to Bolingbroke, came home in a worse plight than before. He had left England in a state of poverty—he returned to it in a state of proscription—although he perhaps felt comforted by an epistle of welcome from Pope, which did not, it is likely, affect ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... I see you know, now. It was I whom you heard playing, that first day. It was I, touched by your plight in that forlorn and dusty barracks, who gave you some slight relief. It was easy enough for me to cut across to Geddes's house, reach in through his kitchen window, lift his tray, and escape through the ragged hedges while his ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... had been rebuilt by Ramses II. and decorated by the Rames-sides, was in a sorry plight when the XXIInd dynasty came into power. Sheshonq I. did little or nothing to it, but Osorkon I. entirely remodelled it, and Osorkon II. added several new halls, including, amongst others, one in which he celebrated, in the twenty-second ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... in the dirt and soiling her hands in that style! It was his impression that only Dutch women worked in a garden; and for all he knew of its products she might be setting out a potato plant. Quick Edith caught his expression, and while she crimsoned with vexation at her plight, felt a new and sudden sense of contempt for the semblance ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... boy—you have got more on your hands now than will suffice you: so off with you home, and take care that when we return we do not find the doves flown, Nero lost, or Reuben with black eye or bruised leg, and yourself in some unlucky plight, my boy. Now go home, and God bless and watch over you, my sons. We hope it will not be long before we return," and he waved his hand to bid good bye. Marten had run himself out of breath, so he was not able to answer his ...
— Brotherly Love - Shewing That As Merely Human It May Not Always Be Depended Upon • Mrs. Sherwood
... performs some very remarkable magic. The ten I have mentioned assembled, with the Scarecrow and Glinda, in Ozma's throne room, right after dinner that evening, and the Sorceress told them all she knew of the plight ...
— Glinda of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... smartest officer of the deck he had ever known. But in early middle life disease overtook him, and, though flat on his back, he had been borne on the active list because there was nothing else to do with him. In that plight he was even promoted. There was another who, as a midshipman, had lost a foot in the War of 1812, but had been carried on from grade to grade for forty years, until at the time I speak of he was a ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... have been frightened enough, for it was certainly in great danger, and the Shepherd knew what a terrible plight it must be in, wandering about tired and hungry, far away from the fold. For what do you think he did?" Grace continued, looking at Geordie; "he actually left all the other sheep—the ninety-nine, you know—in the wilderness, and went away to seek for ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... born, thou shalt not die, and no evil shall reach thee in the midst of Egypt." But Bithiah said, "Of what advantage is my security to me, when I see the king, my brother, and all his household, and his servants in this evil plight, and look upon their first-born perishing with all the first-born of Egypt?" And Moses returned, "Verily, thy brother and his household and the other Egyptians would not hearken to the words of the Lord, therefore did ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... his plight, try to stop him. Since we are pretending that he makes everything he touches elastic, the instant you touch him you bounce helplessly away in the ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... stand in strangest plight. That last still night. That lasts till night. On either side an ocean exists. On neither side a notion exists. Among the rugged rocks the restless ranger ran. I said pop-u-lar, not pop'lar. I said pre-vail, not pr'vail. I said be-hold, ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Thorough bush, thorough briar, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, We'll have to follow everywhere, If Sara's laughter we would snare. I will go and lead the van, You may follow if you can. Sara's would be an awful plight ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... had exhausted every resource his imagination suggested, he sat in the straw, smoking and brooding, his mind incessantly seeking some way out of his plight. At intervals he shouted, pounded, and whistled. He walked the floor, and reexamined it and the cellar walls. He looked at his watch. It was three o'clock in the morning. He was exhausted, and his body still ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... that may be, we had failed in our essay. The position had not been taken, and Commandant Thewnissen, with a hundred whom we could ill spare, were in the hands of the enemy, And to make matters still worse, our men were already seized with panic, arising from the now hopeless plight of General Cronje and his ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... found by May, the most high-blooded and aristocratic of greyhounds; and from this plight did May rescue him;— invited him into her territory, the stable; resisted all attempts to turn him out; reinstated him there, in spite of maid, and boy, and mistress, and master; wore out every body's opposition, by the activity of her protection, and the pertinacity of her self-will; made him ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various
... tho' all in vain; Once more beside you summer main We'll plight our hopeless vows again— Unclose ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... power divine; Then trembling, as he turned to Zophiel, said, "But for one service shall thou call it thine: Bring me a wife; as I have named the way; (I will not risk destruction save for love!) Fair-haired and beauteous like my mother; say— Plight me this pact; so shalt thou bear above, For thine own purpose, what has here been kept Since bloomed the second age, to angels dear. Bursting from earth's dark womb, the fierce wave swept Off every form that lived and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... a simpering girl who was trying to buy idleness with her charm. And he was speaking ill of her. That she knew from Mr. Mactavish James's kindnesses, which brightened the moment but always made the estimate of her plight more dreary, since just so might a gaoler in a brigand's cave bring a prisoner scraps of sweeter food and drink when the talk of her death and the thought of her youth had made him feel tenderly. Only that morning he had padded up behind Ellen and set a white parcel ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... no feeble voice, and said: Dame, I am come back unto thee, as thou seest, in even such plight as I fled from thee; and I have a mind to dwell in this land: what sayest thou? The witch neither moved nor spake at her word; and the kine, who had held silence when she first came up, and had turned from her, fell to ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... spoon and a tenpenny nail Stole a tin dishpan and went for a sail. But the cook he grew curious, Fussy, and furious; Gathered his trappings, and went on their trail. He found them that night in a pitiful plight, And sent them all home on the ...
— The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes • Leroy F. Jackson
... was the upset of my ink, whereof you see the remains; and our last moments were spent in reparations and apologies. My two squires are in different plight from what they were ten weeks ago, racing up hills that it then half killed them to come down, and lingering wistfully on the top for last glimpses of our bay. I am overwhelmed with their courtesies, and though each is lugging about twenty pounds weight ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Percy said, By the might of our Ladye!" "There will I bide thee," said the Douglas, "My troth I plight ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)
... race. It is a history of evil wrought by civilization, of curses heaped on a strange, simple people by men who sought to exploit them or to mold them to another pattern, who destroyed their customs and their happiness and left them to die, apathetic, wretched, hardly knowing their own miserable plight. ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... we fail to scan her second question: "Do you not say that you have come hither a wanderer over the deep?" Verily the case is suspicious. Ulysses sees his plight, and at once offers the most elaborate explanation, going back and giving a history of himself for the last seven or eight years. Now we know why the poet specially praised the mind of Arete, and ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... will aid them. The storms were frightful. The almiranta suffered the most terrible voyage that ever ship has suffered. For after a few blasts they had to cut down the mast, and, when they reached thirty-six degrees, they lost their rudder. In such plight they agreed to return, suffering destructive hurricanes, so that, had not the ship been so staunch, it would have been swallowed up in the sea a thousand times. Finally God was pleased to have it return, as if by a miracle; and as such was it considered by all the inhabitants of Manila. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... the Vicar to ask for a letter, but I dreads comin' back up that hill." As it was she had already walked half a mile. In the third case a man's indifference to his own suffering was to blame for the plight in which he found himself. Driving a van, he had barked his shin against the iron step on the front of the van. Just as the skin had begun to heal over he knocked it again, severely, in exactly the same way, and he described to me the immense size of the aggravated ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... His hands were scratched and inclined to bleed, and one leg had apparently been in a morass. Added to these physical drawbacks there was no visible sign of success, which was probably the worst part of Jack Meredith's plight. ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... Guildhall. He there made many apologies for the indignity which two days before he had been obliged to put upon them; assured them of his perseverance in the measures which he had adopted; and desired that they might mutually plight their faith for a strict union between city and army, in every enterprise for the happiness and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... perchance, if our strength held out, we might keep the now crazy, straining, and complaining fabric beneath us afloat long enough to afford us some chance of saving our lives. Yet the hope was, after all, but a slender one; for with the coming of daylight we were able to see that our plight was very considerably worse than we had dreamed it to be during the hours of darkness; for then we had believed that the loss of our masts and the springing of a somewhat serious leak represented the sum total ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... say that blade is black, nor yet that white is white; for rash assertions oft come back, and put us in a plight. Some people hold that black is white, and some that white is black; to me the neutral course looks right; I take the middle track. If I should say that black is white, and white is black, today, some one would mix the two tonight—tomorrow they'd ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... cracked over the horses' backs. Tom voiced one last, ringing shout. The cart wheel rose up, the horses leaped forward, and the big timber cart was out of its plight. ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... help me?" begged Andy. Frank had stopped to speak to an acquaintance, and did not see the plight of his brother. ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... noiselessly about, very grave and silent, as if doing penance for some violation of the code of honor. By many gentle, indirect approaches, I perceived that part of his tail-feathers were undeveloped. The sylvan prince could not think of returning to court in this plight, and so, amid the falling leaves and cold rains of autumn, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... the 'Thunder' at the Isle of Wight; and when the rest went on to Plymouth, the 'Jason' stayed behind ignominiously in Portsmouth because her captain had no ready money to pay a distraining baker. The 'Husband' was in the same plight for twelve days more. The squadron was, however, increased by seven additional vessels, one of them commanded by Keymis, through the enforced waiting at Plymouth, where, on May 3, Raleigh issued his famous Orders to the Fleet. On June 12 ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... shack on a little cove, just before midday, he found several fishermen, to whom he applied for clothing. They had pity on his plight, fitted him out with a shirt, serviceable breeches and rough boots, and gave him, as well, as much biscuit and dried fish as he wished to carry. Thus reinforced he continued to put the leagues behind him till night, when he slept under a convenient jack-pine. ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... we yearn for most is a drink of butter-milk. The man stops in front of our stall, pours out a cupful of that precious liquid, and seeing the thirst in our eyes, I suppose, beseeches us to drink. We explain our penniless plight. "Buy our books, and we'll buy your butter-milk," but he does not want our books. Then we wish we had not squandered our farthings on those impossible cakes. The butter-milk man proposes he should trust us for the money; he is sure to come across us again. ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... was afraid of soiling his reputation if it was said that he gave his men a taste for cruelty and riot, so he suppressed their indignation. They obeyed him, too, for now that civil war was done with, there was less insubordination on foreign service. Their thoughts were now distracted by the pitiful plight of the legions who had been summoned from the country of the Mediomatrici.[434] Miserably conscious of their guilt, they stood with eyes rooted to the ground. When the armies met, they raised no cheer: they had no answer for those who offered comfort and encouragement: ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... confess that, in advancing these arguments, I feel somewhat like an advocatus diaboli. It is all very well to treat the puzzled clubwoman as a joke. When a man slips on a banana-peel and goes down, we may laugh at his plight; but suppose the whole crowd of passers-by began to pitch and slide and tumble! Should we not think that some horrible epidemic had laid its hand on us? The ladies with their Medici and their Travels are not isolated instances. Ask the librarians; they know, ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... becomes confirmed in his belief, he finds that so long as he lives he has something the matter with him. He no sooner gets cured of one than something else attacks him. There is no medicine like air and exercise and occupation. The man who gives in to trifling ailments is in a sad plight. He is never happy unless he is sick. He is unreasonable, and he is the last one to appreciate what can be done by a man who cures ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... and hour after hour, the little cavalcade crept toward Chattanooga, Grant's face becoming more haggard and furrowed with pain at every step, but showing a fixed determination to reach his goal at any cost. On every side signs of the desperate plight of the besieged garrison were only too apparent. Thousands of carcasses of starved horses and mules lay beside the road amid broken-down wagons, abandoned provisions and all the wreckage of a ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... which He promised to abide for ever; and (3) which the Holy Ghost Himself, speaking through St. Paul, declared to be "the pillar and ground of truth" (1. Tim. iii. 15). Nevertheless, if the Catholic Church, numbering over 250,000,000 of persons, is not to fall into the sad plight that has overtaken all the small churches that have gone out from her, she must not only desire unity, as, no doubt, all the sects desire it, but she must have been provided by her all-wise Founder with what none of them even profess to possess, viz., some simple, ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... other charges and other retreats in corresponsive spaces, and interlink circle with circle, and wage the armed phantom of battle. And now they bare their backs in flight, now turn their lances to the charge, now plight peace and ride on side by side. As once of old, they say, the labyrinth in high Crete had a tangled path between blind walls, and a thousand ways of doubling treachery, where tokens to follow failed in the [591-625]maze unmastered and irrecoverable: even in such a track do the children of ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... passed his arms when he sat up to write. The author of his life in Cibber adds, that when his distresses were so pressing as to induce him to dispose of his shirt, he used to cut some white paper in slips, which he tied round his wrists, and in the same manner supplied his neck. In this plight he frequently appeared abroad, while his other apparel was scarcely sufficient for the purposes ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... these young hearts not knowing that they loved, Not she at least, nor conscious of a bar Between them, nor by plight or broken ring Bound, but an immemorial intimacy, Wander'd at will, but oft accompanied By Averill: his, a brother's love, that hung With wings of brooding shelter o'er her peace, Might have been other, ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... here is also sad. One cannot get a bucket of coal. The stores and dealers have none. The schools are closing, as there is no coal. Soon everybody will be in the same plight. Neither coal nor vegetables can be bought. Holland is sending us nothing more, and we have none. We get 3-1/2 lb. of potatoes per person. In the next few days we shall only have swedes to eat, ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... they dried on my back. This was one of the most wretched days of my life. My anxiety about the beasts, the exhaustion brought on by my efforts to get them safe to land, and the sense of misery and degradation I felt when I thought of the plight I was found in on the blessed Sabbath-day, I ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock
... time as well as later when they were breathing normally again that the poor eclopes beyond the barrier were without shelter in the autumn rains and altogether in desperate plight; but it was only now and again that a few found time to pay them a hasty visit and cheer them with those little gifts so dear to the imaginative heart of the French soldier. Sooner or later, of course, the Government would have taken them in hand and organized ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Poor man alone! Ah, well-a-day, What fine result—what triumph rare! As one turns from the coffin'd dead So left you me:—I could but stare Upon the door through which you fled— I proud and grave—but punished quite. And what care you for this my plight!— You have recovered liberty, Fresh air and lovely scenery, The spacious park and wished-for grass; The running stream, where you can throw A blade to watch what comes to pass; Blue sky, and all the spring can show; Nature, ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... and covered with tall green grass which could not burn; and no sooner was the last wagon on safe ground than the fire gained the rim of the green bottomland. Our oxen were exhausted and in a bad plight, so we fortified and camped here for several days to recuperate before we forded the river. This took up several days, as the water was quite high and the river bottom a dangerous quicksand. To stop the wheels of a wagon for one moment meant the loss of the wagon and the lives of ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... us that," Edgar said. "Our plight speaks for itself. Call your wife, I pray you, or female servants; they will know what to do to bring the young maid to herself. But tell her to let the girl know as soon as she opens her eyes that her father is alive, and is, I trust, ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... was limited, or drove long distances in wagons over the sun-baked prairie. The heat was intense and the hot winds, blowing incessantly, seared everything they touched. After two years of drouth, the farmers were desperately poor, and Susan, concerned over their plight, wondered why Congress could not have appropriated the money for artesian wells to help these honest earnest people, instead of voting $40,000 ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... addressed His care unto his pistols' plight, Replaced them in their box, undressed And Schiller read by candlelight. But one thought only filled his mind, His mournful heart no peace could find, Olga he sees before his eyes Miraculously fair arise, Vladimir closes up his book, And grasps a pen: his verse, albeit With lovers' rubbish ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... cheap! Life has shielded you thus far! What a plight if you were forced to look to the Invisible Hand for your food and shelter! You would soon ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... that be adequate? I could have managed that any hour within the last score of years. Oh no! for I have studied you carefully. Oh no! instead, I have contrived this plight. For the Prince of Orange is manifestly murdered. Who killed him?—why, Madona Biatritz, and none other, for I will swear to it. I, I will swear to it, who saw it done. Afterward both you and I must be questioned upon the rack, ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... pair of horns, was almost level with the surface of the ground and its small bright eyes leered wickedly at its noisy enemies. It struggled clumsily upon their approach, but nothing could relieve the hopelessness of its plight. ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... softly. It must have seemed to her, after being alone in here, that now our plight was far less desperate. She had told me how she was captured. A man accosted her on the terrace, saying he wanted to speak to her about Alan. Then a weapon threatened her. Amid all those people she ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... would be in this position, even had he seen with his own eyes every miracle recorded in the New Testament. But he has, not seen these miracles; and his intellectual plight is therefore worse. He accepts these miracles on testimony. Why does he believe that testimony? How does he know that it is not delusion; how is he sure that it is not even fraud? He will answer, that the writing bears the marks of sobriety ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... struck him with the butt of his carbine. "See," he said to Dacre, who was stalking on in unconscious revery; "see, she has thrown you a rose. Be of good cheer, man." And Geoffrey could not help thinking that if the one he loved had dropped a rose at his feet, how slight a thing his present plight ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... time, he had lost all patience. He thought no longer of the venison. He thought only of freeing himself from the detestable plight in which he was placed. He sprang and bounded over the ground; now rubbing his head along the surface, now scraping it with his huge paws, and ever and anon dashing himself against the stems of the trees that grew around. All this while, his growling, and howling, and ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... of the fine lady into which Dolly finally blossomed, and when that day Frank went home to his dinner he noticed something in her manner which he could not understand until she told him of Mrs. Atherton's call, and the plight in which that lady had ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... then! they had no battering-train. Ere this arrived, I trusted that Lord Lake would hear of our plight, and march down to rescue us. Thus occupied in thought and conversation, we rode on until the advanced sentinel challenged us, when old Puneeree gave the word, and we passed on into ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... both, perhaps—who knows?—if it had been. Ah me, if one could peer into the future, how many weddings there are at which tears would be more appropriate than smiles and laughter! Would Charles Dickens and Catherine Hogarth have foreborne to plight their troth, one wonders, if they could have foreseen how slowly and surely the coming years were to sunder their hearts and lives?—They were married on ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... death. But is this right? "I also" he thought "am subject to decay and am not free from the power of old age, sickness and death. Is it right that I should feel horror, repulsion and disgust when I see another in such plight? And when I reflected thus, my disciples, all the joy of life which there is in life died ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... peril, always in a bad plight, just on the edge of destruction, and only to be saved by ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... ambulance and wagon used as ambulance was heavy laden; at every infrequent cabin or lonely farmhouse were left the too ill to travel farther. The poor servants, of whom there were some in each company, were in pitiable plight. No negro likes the cold; for him all the hot sunshine he can get! They shivered now, in the rear of the companies, their bodies drawn together, their faces grey. The nature of most was of an abounding cheerfulness, but it was not possible to be cheerful ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... even the taking of human life seemed no longer a monstrous thing. If he were caught in the Governor's company he would have a pretty time of it satisfying a court of his innocence; but he considered his plight tranquilly. ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... whereas there was much to do. But now will we twain talk of matters that concern chieftains who are going on a hard adventure. And ye women, do ye dight the Hall for the evening feast, which shall be the feast of the troth-plight for you twain. This indeed we owe thee, O guest; for little shall be thine heritage which thou shalt have with my sister, over and above that thy sword ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... than Peter Doane himself would recognize his desperation of plight—and if he had "gone bad" there was but one road for his feet and the security of the ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... Shears, gaily. "What a fuss you make! One would think you were the only man in your plight. What about the fellows who have really lost an arm? Well, are you settled? Thank goodness ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... servants were so roughly treated by some of our people, especially by the newly-arrived soldiers, simply because they were natives, that I was afraid they might leave us in a body; and if they had done so we should have been in a sad plight. One of my own servants, a native Christian, complained bitterly to me of the treatment he ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... I beheld the Abbe Serapion, graver and more anxious of aspect than ever. He gazed attentively at me, and sorrowfully exclaimed: 'Not content with losing your soul, you now desire also to lose your body. Wretched young man, into how terrible a plight have you fallen!' The tone in which he uttered these words powerfully affected me, but in spite of its vividness even that impression was soon dissipated, and a thousand other cares erased it from my mind. At last one evening, while looking ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier
... When sunk on thy breast, Thy kisses fast falling, And drunken with love, My troth I did plight. ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... Thorolf's place in the boat, and went on fishing as before. Thorolf was ill-contented with his lot, for he felt he had come to shame in their dealings together; yet he remained in the islands with the determination to set straight the humble plight to which he had been made to bow against his will. [Sidenote: Hall's death] Hall, in the meantime, did not fear any danger, and thought that no one would dare to try to get even with him in his own country. So one fair-weather ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... turn like grim death upon the helpless. Except they change their way, helplessness will overtake them like a thief, and they will look for some one to deliver them and find none. Traitors to those whom it is their duty to protect, they will one day find themselves in yet more pitiful plight than ever were they. But I fear they will not believe it before their fate has them ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... hands or feet were able to perform their functions; so that the poor object was half his time on crutches, incapable of employ, and languishing in a tiresome state of indolence and inactivity. His habit was lean, lank, and cadaverous. In this sad plight he dragged on a miserable existence, a burden to himself and his parish, which was obliged to support him till he was relieved by death at more than thirty ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... able-bodied workmen (in Hedemarken) were compelled to seek relief from the Poor Fund when their families were large. The smaller farmers and the labourers are in the worst plight, since the falling off in the timber trade has made them feel the want of the usual steady demand for labour at high wages.' Further: 'it has become very difficult for the least affluent and for ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... lovely, with soft cheeks, long eyelashes, eyes deep and liquid, and Tasso's gold in her hair, though of a bad figure, ill set off by a bad dress,—but Venus herself could not have been seen to advantage in such evil plight as they, panting, perspiring, ruffled, frowzy,—puff-balls revolving through an atmosphere of dust,—a maze of steaming, reeking human couples, inhumanly heated and simmering together with a more than ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... colony. The miserable remnant watched his receding sails with dreary foreboding, a foreboding which seemed but too just, when, on the next day, a storm, more violent than the Indians had ever known, howled through the forest and lashed the ocean into fury, Most forlorn was the plight of these exiles, left, it might be, the prey of a band of ferocious bigots more terrible than the fiercest hordes of the wilderness. And when night closed on the stormy river and the gloomy waste of pines, what dreams of terror may not have haunted the helpless ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... subject; by abuse, they take at an imposed and enforced price. By law they ought to take but one apprizement by neighbors in the country; by abuse, they make a second apprizement at the court gate; and when the subjects' cattle come up many miles, lean and out of plight by reason of their travel, then they prize them anew at an abated price. By law, they ought to take between sun and sun; by abuse, they take by twilight and in the night time, a time well chosen for malefactors. By law, they ought not to take in the highways, (a place by her majesty's high prerogative ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... provided with no other weapons than the knowledge of reading and writing. It is bad enough for the boys; but as for the girls—they had better have been thrown as soon as born to the lions. I speak rather to those who are in better plight, who live comfortably upon the year's income, which is not too much, and who look forward to putting their boys in the way of an ambitious career, and to marrying their daughters. But as for the endowment of the girls, they have ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... bride's beauty made amends for all. Just the same soft white dress of the afternoon—or was it one like it?—with no ornaments, no bridal veil. I have always pitied men who have to plight their troth to a moving mass of lace and tulle, weighed down with orange-blossoms massive as lead. This was my own little wife as she would walk by my side through life, dressed as she might be the next ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... the French peasant and his poverty will realise the plight of the little town. The peasant has no reserves of supplies. Life is reduced to its simplest elements. There is nothing ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... carefully rolling up the small-clothes into as compact a form as possible, and all heedless of the breath of heaven, which might certainly be supposed at such a moment, and in such a plight, to "visit his frame ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... administrations of Europe and the powers that they possess are of the nature of dictatorship, but happily ours is not their plight.... The tendency there has been for the government to take over the functions of the middleman, first with one commodity and then with another, until in the extreme case of Germany practically all food commodities are taken directly by the government from the producers and ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... could not see them at the time, there were excellent reasons for not stating there and then the delicious plight in which we had really left Levy's myrmidons. I myself would have driven home our triumph and his treachery by throwing our winning cards upon the table and simultaneously exposing his false play. But Raffles was right, and I should have ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... forty-five of their number, besides their chief; the survivors were in a miserable plight, most of them wounded, some mortally, and all deprived of their camels, and the rest of their property. Renouncing their pride, they were obliged to supplicate from Barca Gana a handful of corn to keep them from starving. The sultan of Mandara, in whose cause they had suffered, treated ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... first half of that night, while many other matters pressed on them, the minds of the three Courteneys turned to one theme. Ramsey's inquiries had called it up and the presence and plight of the immigrants, down below, kept it before them: the story of Hugh's grandmother, born and bred ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... but he was one who seemed to have passed by and left his mark, and then to have gone on altogether out of sight. She had told him that she could not but think of John Gordon, but that that was all. She would, if he asked it, plight her troth to him and become his wife, although she must think of John Gordon. This thinking would last but for a while, he told himself; and he at his age—what right had he to expect aught better than that? She was of such a nature that, when she had given herself ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... Cuffy Bear was in a sad fix. And for my part, when I first heard of his plight I did not see how he was ever going to ...
— The Tale of Cuffy Bear • Arthur Scott Bailey
... not wish to speak upon such a question, was loudly called upon by the people for his opinion; when he rose and said that the persons whom Alexander demanded had brought the state into such a miserable plight that they deserved to be surrendered, and that for his own part he should be very happy to die for the commonwealth. At the same time he advised them to try the effect of intercession with Alexander; and it was at last only by his own personal application ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... Dr. von Goeteburg, who answered him with ironical politeness, and depicted the pitiable plight of a Germany surrounded and attacked by a world of enemies. If, however, they were willing to leave him the princess's pearl necklace as security, he would consent to lend them the few marks they ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... clapped a handful of snow on my cheek. He had been through the winter's campaign, and this was no new work for him. He tore open my shirt and pressed snow on the wound in my shoulder, from which the blood was pumping slowly. I was in a horrid plight, but in my heart knew all the while that Miste had failed ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... as she was about to leave the room, "come here. I am strong now, and I want to talk to you. Now tell me all about it. How did I get into this plight? And how came I into ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... tangled wood, but also most of the food with which he had started, and a good deal of skin from his shins, elbows, knuckles, and knees, as well as the greater part of his patience. Truly, he was in a pitiable plight, for the forest had turned out to be almost impassable for horses, and in his journey he had not only fallen off, and been swept out of the saddle by overhanging branches frequently, but had to swim swamps, cross torrents, ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... Forrester, though granting to his supposed plight a glance of sympathetic concern, was in a hurry to get home and he was, again, spared the necessity of a graceless confession. He piloted them through the crowd, saw them—Miss Woodruff, Mrs. Forrester and Victor,—fitted ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... whole town, to be given to the four winds, he could not have looked a Bully more shorn and forlorn, if he had had his ears cropped. Even that unlucky female, Mrs. Sparsit, fallen from her pinnacle of exultation into the Slough of Despond, was not in so bad a plight as that remarkable man and self-made Humbug, Josiah ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... For she could still profess to herself a miserable degradation in being married to a man of no name: she would be gloomily convinced that Harry was by his father's villainy a proven knave. But what hurt her most was the growing suspicion that she was much to blame for her own plight. Alison Lambourne, who acknowledged no law but her own will, who had never dreamed that she could be wrong in her desires, driven to confess a ruinous blunder! Imagine her distress. At first she chose to ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... looking into men's tired, pinched faces, disfigured with passion or sorrow, or with sheer weariness of existence—did He see something of the Father's face looking appealingly up to be helped out of their sad plight? I wonder. Was it as though the Father's face cried out to Him out of these poor beaten faces? I think so. Do you remember that time when our Lord Jesus associated Himself so closely with just such men and women, in talking of a coming day? He says "inasmuch as ye did it to ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... and icy snow, cut like a knife through the thickest clothing, and again Edward Tilley, swooning with exhaustion and cold, lay lifeless in the bottom of the boat, sadly watched by his brother in hardly better plight and by Carver, who, like the father of a family, carried all ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... not help in keeping out the Mongols, their time would come to be assailed and to share in the common ruin. But Ningtsong did not pay heed to the warning, and scarcely concealed his gratification at the misfortunes of his old opponents. The nearer the Mongols came, and the worse the plight to which the Kins were reduced, the more did he rejoice. He forgave Tuli the violation of Sung territory, necessary for his flank attack on Honan, and when the knell of the Kins sounded at the fall of Kaifong, he hastened to help in striking the final blow at them, and to participate, ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... brought him to his senses, howbeit he was still so dazed that he groped blindly for the swaying reeds to pull himself up on the bank. His assailant could not forbear laughing heartily at his plight, but was also quick to lend his aid. He thrust down his long staff to Robin crying, "Lay hold of that, an your fists whirl not so much ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... victory; but for the past twenty-four hours the rain had been falling incessantly, Turenne's army had been marching on the previous day, and had been fighting for seven hours, and was incapable of further exertions, while that of Enghien was in little better plight, having passed the night in the rain on the ground ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... human body was discernible in white ashes, into which the entire mortality of a man or woman had resolved itself. Among all this extinct dust, there might perchance be a thigh-bone, which crumbled at a touch; or possibly a skull, grinning at its own wretched plight, as is the ugly and empty habit of ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... end the dreaded ice monster was beyond both sight and hearing. The exercise of rowing had warmed Cabot as well as temporarily diverted his mind from a contemplation of the terrible scenes through which he had so recently passed. Now, however, as he rested on his oars, a full sense of his wretched plight came back to him, and he grew sick at heart as he realised how forlorn was his situation. He wondered if he could survive the night that was rapidly closing in on him, and, if he did, whether the morrow would find him any better off. He had no idea of the direction in which ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... saw the lad returning in such a sorry plight, he understood at once what had happened to him, and making no bones about the matter, he told Antonio what a fool he had been to allow himself to be so imposed upon by the landlord, and to let a worthless animal be palmed off on him instead of his ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... not, cannot, but with life expire; Our vow'd affections both have often tried, Nor any love but yours could ours divide. Then, by my love's inviolable band, By my long-suffering, and my short command, If e'er you plight your vows when I am gone, Have pity ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... the Owl, grieving loud as he flew, Saying how his false lover had bade him adieu; And though he knew not where to find her or follow, Yet round their old haunts he would still whoop and halloo, For no sleep could he get in his sorrowful plight. So that is the reason ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... military and naval preparations already made were quite sufficient to repel the attack. One of these officials—probably the best informed of all—said to me quite frankly: "If Japan had attacked us in May or June, we should have been in a sorry plight, but now [November, 1903] we ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... was made, no word was spoke, Till noble Angus silence broke; And he a solemn sacred plight Did to St. Bryde of Douglas make, That he a pilgrimage would take To Melrose Abbey, for the sake Of Michael's restless sprite. Then each, to ease his troubled breast, To some blessed saint his prayers addressed- Some to St. Modan made their ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... rest of my stay in that part of the country, I never failed to urge my cousin to narrate the events which had brought Coote-down to its present melancholy plight. But it was not till I called to take leave of her, perhaps for ever, that she complied. On that occasion, she placed in my hands a neatly-written manuscript in her own handwriting, which she said ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... sieges (in one of which I commanded) was the only one who did not complain of the food as unfit and horrible to eat, am seized with such a shuddering horror at the sight of a water-cress that I am forced to go away." One of his children was in the same plight as regards the inoffensive vegetable, cabbage. Scaliger also speaks of one of his kinsmen who fainted at the sight of a lily. Vaughheim, a great huntsman of Hanover, would faint at the sight of a roasted pig. Some individuals have been disgusted at the sight of eggs. There is an account ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... been living in concubinage for about eighteen years when the last three books of The Faerie Queen were published, Mirabella's penance of being forced to "stray through the world" accompanied by "Disdaine" and "Scorne," would match her plight as Florio's mistress, but would not apply to ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... excitement and admiration caused by the departure of the gallant band of cavaliers upon their foray when they beheld the scattered wrecks flying for refuge to their walls. Day after day and hour after hour brought some wretched fugitive, in whose battered plight and haggard woebegone demeanor it was almost impossible to recognize the warrior who had lately issued so gayly and ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... other Hey-day (Haidee) to console him, than the melancholy one extracted from me with a deep sigh, as I received his shattered frame. Here's Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy," in a very melancholy plight indeed, and (what a fashionable watering-place my cabin has turned to!) here's Burke's "Peerage," with all the royal family and aristocracy of the kingdom, taking a dip, and a captain of a man-of-war, like another Sally Gunn, pulling ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... no sound came from his parched throat. He had barely strength to point with a finger to his lips. Needham was in but little better plight, though he managed to murmur, "water—water." Several cans-full were instantly brought by ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... woful Plight have I brought myself! Here must I (all Day long, 'till I am hang'd) be confin'd to hear the Reproaches of a Wench who lays her Ruin at my Door—I am in the Custody of her Father, and to be sure, if he knows of the matter, I shall have a fine time on't betwixt this and ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... inter darkness! That saved them moonshiners and raiders from killin' each other. It saved a deal o' bloodshed—ez sure ez shootin 'Twar mighty smart in ye. But"—suddenly bethinking himself of sundry unfilial gibes at Uncle Nehemiah and the facetious account of his plight—"Lee-yander, ye mustn't be so turr'ble bad, sonny; ye ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... Messer Forese, as he rode, hearkening to Giotto, who was a very fine talker, fell to considering his companion from head to foot and seeing him everywise so ill accoutred and in such scurvy case, burst out laughing and without taking any thought to his own plight, said to him, 'How sayst thou, Giotto? An there encountered us here a stranger who had never seen thee, thinkest thou he would believe thee to be, as thou art, the finest painter in the world?' 'Ay, sir,' answered Giotto forthright, ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... not to till land, but at length necessity urged them to obedience, and a small but insufficient crop was reaped in due season. Hard pressed for food, they lived principally on cats, rats, lizards, snakes, dogs, roots and wild fruit, and several died of disease. In this plight a ship was sent to Mindanao Island, commanded by Bernado de la Torre, to seek provisions. The voyage was fruitless. The party was opposed by the inhabitants, who fortified themselves, but were dislodged and slain. Then a vessel was commissioned to Mexico with news and to solicit reinforcements. ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... of the peace had been observed, the plight of the Loyalists would have been bad enough. But as it was, the outcome proved even worse. Every clause in the treaty relating to the Loyalists was broken over and over again. There was no sign of an abatement of the popular feeling ...
— The United Empire Loyalists - A Chronicle of the Great Migration - Volume 13 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • W. Stewart Wallace
... of Warwick reached London, he proceeded at once to the Tower to release old King Henry from his confinement. He found the poor king in a wretched plight. His apartment was gloomy and comfortless, his clothing was ragged, and his person squalid and dirty. The earl brought him forth from his prison, and, after causing his personal wants to be properly attended to, clothed him once more in royal ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... fallen!" They heard, and were abashed, and up they sprung Upon the wing, as when men wont to watch On duty, sleeping found by whom they dread, Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake. Nor did they not perceive the evil plight In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel; Yet to their General's voice they soon obeyed Innumerable. As when the potent rod Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day, Waved round the coast, up-called a pitchy ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... gives me his word of honour as a gentleman that I shall go free whithersoever I will. If, therefore, you think a magistrate requisite to inquire into this business, send for one. I think, however, that you would do much better to plight me your word at once, and let me go. I know no one but Sir John Fenwick here: therefore I can betray no one but him; and to Sir John Fenwick I pledge my word that I will ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... when what should I see coming up to the dock but the Varmint II. As soon as the people on board saw me they immediately began to urge me to come with them. They had seen the Growler just pulling out and leaving me in my unfortunate plight." ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay
... the settee. In my dark corner, in my comfortable chair, I could smile to myself as I watched his plight and that of his companions. I could not see Mary well, for the lamp and the long table separated us, but I fancied that in her retreat she, too, was laughing. Poor Tim had the end of the bench. He sat very erect, with his head up, his eyes on the wall before him, his folded ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... other side of the lake Dick and Tom were working with feverish energy, almost beside themselves with fear at their comrade's terrible plight. ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... boats chartered, with flats in tow, but the demand for these to tow out stock is greater than they can meet with promptness. All are working night and day, and the 'Susie' hardly stops for more than an hour anywhere. The rise has placed Trinity in a dangerous plight, and momentarily it is expected that some of the houses will float off. Troy is a little higher, yet all are in the water. Reports have come in that a woman and child have been washed away below here, and two cabins floated off. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... best places in the world for Monsignor to pick up again the threads of life. For one thing, it was near to England—English was spoken there amongst the educated almost as frequently as French; yet it was not England, and Monsignor's plight would not cause him any great inconvenience. Further, France was at present the theatre of the world's interest, since the Emperor was there, and on the Emperor's future depended largely the destinies of Europe: his conversion, it was thought, might be the final death-blow to ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... almost stunned him, and then with a superadded kick sent him away limping and howling; whereupon the fool, attacking him furiously with a stick, would certainly have finished him, had not his master descried his plight and come to ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... thing to do: I must wire our Secretary of State, apprising him of the exact situation in Abbevilliers with particular reference to my own plight, and strongly urging on him the advisability of instantly ordering a fleet of American battleships to the coast of France, there to make a demonstration in force. With me, to think has ever been to act. I begged the landlord ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... delay perhaps as brief as that which was required to pillory, and, therefore, to hamstring the miserable falsehood and ineptitude called the Party System (that is, in some ten years or less), to reduce the Official Press to the same plight. In some ways the danger of failure is less, for our opponent is certainly less well-organized. But beyond that—beyond these limits—we shall not attain. We shall enlighten, and by enlightening, destroy. We shall not provoke public action, ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... sticke. Now Mariners do push with right good will the pike, The haileshot of the harquebush The naked slaue doth strike. Through targe and body right that downe he falleth dead His fellow then in heauie plight, doth swimme away afraid. To bathe in brutish bloud, then fleeth the graygoose wing. The halberders at hand be good, and hew that all doth ring. Yet gunner play thy part, make haileshot walke againe, And fellowes row with like good heart that we may get the maine. Our arrowes ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... sore plight of ruined man Christ's pity could not lightly scan: Nor let God's building nobly wrought Ingloriously be brought ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... tenderly in his bill, and flew away home with his precious burden. Now, just as he was crossing the big river in front of his house, the old hen-sparrow, in her gay dress, looked out of the window, and when she saw her old husband bringing home his young bride in such a sorry plight, she burst out laughing shrilly, and called aloud, 'That is right! that is right! Remember what ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... to defend his principle of never accepting a miracle, M. Renan has indeed got into a sorry plight, and Mr. Rogers, in controverting him, has not greatly helped the matter. By stirring M. Renan's bemuddled pool, Mr. Rogers has only bemuddled it the more. Neither of these excellent writers seems to suspect that transmutation of species, ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... lumber-jack who had the misfortune to fall sick or to meet with an accident was in a sorry plight indeed. If he possessed a "stake," he would receive some sort of unskilled attention in one of the numerous and fearful lumberman's boarding-houses,—just so long as his money lasted, not one instant ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... "the Mahdi," as that meant the Redeemer of the world. She knew that the Egyptian Government regarded him as a rebel and an imposter. But continually striking her forehead and invoking heaven to witness her innocence and unhappy plight, she began to weep and at the same time wail mournfully as women in the East do after losing husbands or sons. Afterwards she again flung herself with face on the ground, or rather on the carpet with which the inlaid floor was covered, and waited ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... with the grace of an expert gymnast on to the bank, thankful if you escape unhurt and only bespattered by mud. These pits are carefully kept in condition by a small group of men who appear, as by magic, to offer assistance at the suitable moment. No plight, however, excites their pity sufficiently to induce them to render help apart from a pecuniary reward of an exorbitant nature. Once within the city gates there is hope that you will soon find a shelter. You will have accomplished "the stage" which has been allotted from time immemorial. Marco ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... And now, of his own accord, he was going!... Twenty times he was on the point of turning back. He walked two or three times round the town, turning away just as he came near the Palace. He was not alone in his plight. His mother and brothers had also to be considered. Since his father had deserted them and betrayed them, it was his business as eldest son to take his place and come to their assistance. There was no room for hesitation or pride; he had to swallow down his shame. He entered the Palace. ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... are about to die the most unthinkably horrid death that it is given a white man to die—let this word of the plight of your wife add to the torments that you must suffer before the last savage spear-thrust releases you ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... but they flitted through Tom's consciousness as he struggled to keep his head clear of the tempestuous waters. And even in his own desperate plight he recalled that their last words had been words of discord, for he knew now (generous as he was) that he was to blame for this dreadful end of all their fine hopes—that Archer had been right—they should have ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... wretched plight. Since the thought of a rival had occurred to him, he could not rest for a moment. More than ever he longed to see the lady face to face. He persuaded himself that if he but knew the worst he would be satisfied; for then he could abandon Prague, and find that relief ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... ground beneath the feet of the struggling men. A descending rifle butt had struck him a glancing blow on the head. Hal, engaged at that moment with another German officer, saw his friend's plight, ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... sleep, and Dennis looked around vainly for some additional covering. The thronging fugitives were all in a similar plight, and their only course was simply to endure till some path ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... bright with spring colors, and the outlaw printer of the McClure Press excited and voluble over the possibilities of the country. Now the investment broker found a land of desolation and ruin, and the printer in sorry plight, living in a crude, bare shack, clad like some waif of the streets in the clothes donated ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... crafty Helge. Bearing down quickly upon the evil-workers, it despatched one of them with its sharp prow, while Frithiof, with one thrust of his weapon, destroyed the other. But the vessel was filled with water, and the sailors were forced to bale continually. In this desperate plight the Orkney Islands were reached, and the exhausted crew were borne ashore. Frithiof, too, was worn with fatigue, yet he carried eight of his men at one time from the ship ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... other rower did not reappear above the surface. Malchus shouted in vain to some of the passing boats to pick him up, but all were so absorbed in their efforts to advance and their eagerness to engage the enemy that none paid attention to Malchus or the others in like plight. Besides, it seemed probable that all, if they stuck to their canoes, would presently gain one bank or other of the river. Malchus, too, had started rather low down, and he was therefore soon out ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... expedition, and did what he could for Eversofar until the rouseabout came with food and water. Then he broke down and cried— he denies this also. They tied the sick man on the horse and trudged back to the station in a bad plight. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... miller reached home and entered the kitchen, his mother's first words related to the plight of Archie, who sat sullenly nursing his bruised mouth ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... then laughed outright; "Poor fellow!" he said, "you are in a sad plight! Ha! ha! what a dunce you must be to suppose, That the heart of a Spider should pity ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... true, Clinia, as I believe it is, who is there more fortunate than you? Do you mark this {girl} whom he speaks of, as dirty and drabbish? This, too, is a strong indication that the mistress is out of harm's way, when her confidant is in such ill plight; for it is a rule with those who wish to gain access to the mistress, first to ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... Ah, shepherd, pity my distressed plight! (If, as thou seem'st, thou art so mean a man,) And seek not to enrich thy followers By lawless rapine from a silly maid, Who, travelling [33] with these Median lords To Memphis, from my uncle's country of Media, Where, all my youth, I have been governed, Have pass'd the army ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... Comanches meant to set fire to the house; if he hadn't thought so, I wouldn't have been in this plight; it strikes me that it is about time they made a start; if they do so, I will take a hand in ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... not at all willing that Danny's plight should be discovered by an officer, so he quickly went to Danny's assistance, and "fired" him by bodily pulling him out ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... so beautiful, there, mute and white, He kissed her on the lips and on the eyes (The most a prince could do in such a plight); But chiefly gazed on her in still surprise, And when he saw her lily eyelids rise, For him the whole world had ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... strong hopes of their getting up. Things are going pretty badly with the wounded. They are crowded here in Washington in immense numbers, and all those that came up from the Wilderness and that region arrived here so neglected and in such plight it was awful (those that were at Fredericksburg, and also from Belle Plain). The papers are full of puffs, etc., but the truth is the largest proportion of worst cases get little or ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... said a few consolatory words and jumped down from the wheel. She was torn both ways. Bella's plight was piteous, but to make her father rise in his present state of health and attend such a case, hours long, in the chill, night breath of the open—it might kill him! She turned toward the camp, vaguely conscious of the men standing in awkward attitudes and looking thoroughly uncomfortable ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... actor Talma, when dressed for the first time in correct classical costume, indignantly asked where he was to put his snuff-box.] of him from whom I have received any kindness? True; but a benefit is in an evil plight if we cannot be grateful for it even when we ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... though he never swears, Nor kicks intruders down his entry stairs, Though meekness plants his backward-sloping hat, And non-resistance ties his white cravat, Though his black broadcloth glories to be seen In the same plight with Shylock's gaberdine, Hugs the same passion to his narrow breast That heaves the cuirass on the trooper's chest, Hears the same hell-hounds yelling in his rear That chase from port the maddened buccaneer, Feels the same comfort while ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... on in the village near by. He attended the various political meetings held at the "Travellers' Rest," and was a prominent man on training and election days. After a while, his wife began to look on these days with a troubled feeling, for they generally sent him home in a sad plight; and it took nearly a week for him to get settled down again to his work. Thus the declension began, and its progress was too sadly apparent to the eyes of Mrs. Foster, even before others, less interested than herself, observed it. At the end of ten years from the happy ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... a great many children in the Rzhanoff house, who were in the same pitiable plight; there were the children of dissolute women, there were orphans, there were children who had been picked up in the streets by beggars. They were all very wretched. But my experience with Serozha showed me that I, living the life I did, was not in ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... were sunk or forced to run ashore—the Cristobal Colon last, at two o'clock in the afternoon. The Spanish losses, besides the fleet, were 323 killed and 151 wounded; the Americans lost one killed and one wounded. The city of Santiago, deprived of its fleet, found itself in a desperate plight and surrendered on July 16. Shortly afterwards General Miles led an expedition into Porto Rico, but operations were soon brought to a close because of the suspension of hostilities, and from a military point of view the importance of the campaign ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... finds some guest to provide money for his entertainment. He sends Little John and all his men to bring in any earl, baron, abbot, or knight, to dine with him. They find a knight, and feast him beneath the greenwood tree: but when Robin demands payment, the knight turns out to be in sorry plight, for he has sold all his goods to save his son. On the security of Our Lady, Robin lends him four hundred pounds, and gives him a livery, a horse, a palfrey, boots, spurs, etc., and Little John ...
— Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series • Frank Sidgwick
... night, So sad was their plight, The sun it went down, And the moon gave no light. They sobbed and they sighed, and they bitterly cried, And the poor little things, they lay ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown
... to the lady who stood waiting for her at the carriage door, "am I dreaming? I never saw my nephew's children in such a plight before. I can scarcely believe they ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... and chiefest, with thee bring Him that yon soars on golden wing, Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne, The cherub Contemplation; And the mute Silence hist along, 'Less Philomel will deign a song, In her sweetest saddest plight, Smoothing the rugged brow of Night, While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke Gently o'er the accustom'd oak. —Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly, Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among I woo, to hear thy ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... of a final effort on my part to induce my friend to abandon his mad project. We conversed quite an hour, until I had exhausted my breath, as well as my arguments, indeed; and all without the least success. I pointed out to him the miserable plight he must be in, in the event of illness; but it was an argument that had no effect on a man who had never had even a headach in his life. As for society, he cared not a straw for it when ashore, he often boasted; and he could not yet ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... its crossing word came that Longstreet's army was moving to attack us, which caused an abandonment of the foraging project, and orders quickly followed to retire to Strawberry Plains, the retrograde movement to begin forthwith. I sent to headquarters information of the plight I was in—baggage and supplies on the bank and wagons in the stream —begged to know what was to become of them if we were to hurry off at a moment's notice, and suggested that the movement be delayed until I could recover my transportation. Receiving in reply ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 3 • P. H. Sheridan
... not explain to Heyst how it happened. At that precise moment he had no explanation ready for the man on the wharf, who, he guessed, must be wondering much more at the presence of his visitors than at their plight. ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... fine high moccasins of tanned mooseskin, much stronger and better than ordinary deerskin, but before long he felt the water entering them and chilling him to the bone. Nevertheless, keeping his resolution in mind, and, knowing that the others were in the same plight, he made no complaint but trudged steadily on, three or four feet behind Willet, who chose the way that now led sharply downward. Once more he realized what an enormous factor changes in temperature were in ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... very sad plight indeed, I nursed and petted him until quite late in the afternoon, his companions not far off observing my movements with great interest. At last I said to the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... his own position was now even less than before to the liking of Gold Harald, for no kingdom had he any more than aforetime; while to this was added the wrath of the King. So went he to his friend Hakon and made wail of his plight unto him, and besought of him good counsel, if he had such to give him, as to how he might become possessed of the realm; and he said he was minded to seek his kingdom by force of arms. Then Hakon bade him not breathe word of this to anyone ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... the plight of General Kearny, and was just starting a relief column upon a night march for the hill, when at nine o'clock one of his sentries challenged a dark figure ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... measured the distance to the helpless lad with a practised eye, and groaned in despair. "They'll fall short by a dozen feet," he murmured hopelessly. "God forgive me, for bringing him to this plight." ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... there were many in different plights, and according to their plight, kept in different places. The well bound were ranged in the sanctuary of Mr. Bronte's study; but the purchase of books was a necessary luxury to him, and as it was often a choice between binding an old one, or buying a new one, the familiar volume, which had been hungrily read by all the members ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... them to the University of Salamanca, where, out of sight, they were out of mind, for he thought no more about them, and did not even send them the means of subsistence. In these straits, after struggling for some months against their wretched plight, the lads were obliged to leave Salamanca, and beg their way home, tramping barefoot through France and Italy, till they made their way back to Rome, where they found their father harsher and ...
— The Cenci - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Mexia, leaving El Dorado for the present less gilded plight of the Spanish: "Fifty thousand ducats! Holy Virgin! Are we Incas of Peru—Atahualpas who can fill a hall with ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... settee. In my dark corner, in my comfortable chair, I could smile to myself as I watched his plight and that of his companions. I could not see Mary well, for the lamp and the long table separated us, but I fancied that in her retreat she, too, was laughing. Poor Tim had the end of the bench. He sat very erect, with his head up, his eyes on the wall before him, his folded hands resting on ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... gentleman who occasionally imbibed was so pleased at the plight of the School-master and of the Bibliomaniac that he invited the Idiot up to his room, where the private stock was kept for just such occasions, and they put in ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs
... who came her plight to see Splashed tears in cups of milk or tea; The room it grew so very damp Her limbs began to feel ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... in a sad plight between two realities of such mighty proportions that they could be disbelieved in localities ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... maid replied, As her light skiff approached the side,— 'I well believe, that ne'er before Your foot has trod Loch Katrine's shore But yet, as far as yesternight, Old Allan-bane foretold your plight,— A gray-haired sire, whose eye intent Was on the visioned future bent. He saw your steed, a dappled gray, Lie dead beneath the birchen way; Painted exact your form and mien, Your hunting-suit of Lincoln green, That tasselled horn so gayly gilt, That falchion's crooked ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... is filled every night With loafers and bummers of most every plight; On their backs is no clothes, in their pockets no bills, Each day they keep starting ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... set of cooks that ever infested the kitchen of a respectable gentleman; and they had made a shocking mess. And, too, Grandpapa, was unhappy; his clothes bore seedy marks, and his breeches were in such a plight—it really excited our pity. I called his attention to an unmentionable rent in a conspicuous place, but he seemed careless about it—said it was of no consequence—and that Uncle Sam was a good old soul, and always ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... and I love thee, and I love thee— More than rich thoughts can dream, or mad lips speak; But how, or why, whether with soul or body, I will not know. Thou art mine.—Why question further? [Aside] Ay if I fall by loving, I will love, And be degraded!—how? by my own troth-plight? No, but my thinking that I fall.—'Tis written That whatsoe'er is not of faith is sin.— O Jesu Lord! Hast Thou not made me thus? Mercy! My brain will burst: I cannot ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... a little askance. It was perfectly understood between them that Cicely was more or less acquainted with her brother's plight, and since her engagement to Marsworth had been announced it was astonishing how much more ready Farrell had been to confide in her, and she to ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... they change their way, helplessness will overtake them like a thief, and they will look for some one to deliver them and find none. Traitors to those whom it is their duty to protect, they will one day find themselves in yet more pitiful plight than ever were they. But I fear they will not believe it before their fate has them by ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... up before the door of Lorna's home, from which she had departed in such blithe spirits, Bob's heart was thumping almost guiltily. He felt in some ridiculous way as though he were almost responsible for her plight himself. Perhaps he had done wrong to wait so long. Yet, even his quick eyesight had failed to discover the knockout drops or powder which the wily Shepard had slipped into that disastrous glass of beer. Maybe his interference would have saved ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... hands on, to search for her dear Sir Harry. By a lucky chance, she came to the very spot where he was lying white with pain, and by her offers of abundant reward and by gold, which she fairly showered on the men near by, she succeeded in extricating him from his fearful plight. Tenderly he was borne to a neighbouring house, and there, as soon as he could stand, a priest was summoned to tie the knot too long ignored. He had vowed, while pinned down by the weight of stone, to amend his life ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... thought of Mr. Even, but nothing was further from my mind than to let him see me in my present plight. One morning I met him, face to face, on the Bowery, but he ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... providentially appeared, breathless, but brisk and beaming, and in no wise dismayed by the plight of her luckless son, for a ten years' acquaintance with Wash's dauntless nature had inured his mother to "didoes" that would have ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... faith, my Mary, And plight me your lily-white hand; O plight me your faith, my Mary, Before ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... lover of Lenore, was not to be stopped by the obstacle. He plunged in with the terrified old lady, and landed her in safety where her services were wanted. Having put the horse into the stable (where it was afterwards found in a woful plight), he proceeded to the room of the servant, whose duty he had discharged, and finding him just in the act of drawing on his boots, he administered to him a most merciless drubbing with his own horsewhip. Such an important ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... the hangman, in a tone of greater confidence, 'that you got into bad company. The man that was with you was looked after more than you, and it was him I wanted. As to me, what have I got by it? Here we are, in one and the same plight.' ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... of me in the street one night. He was in the most pitiable plight, but I recognized the man, and I got him to tell me his history, or at least the outline of it. In brief, it amounted to this—he had been ruined by ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... and all her garment blew, Close rownd about her tuckt with many a plight: Upon her fist the bird which ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... thou shalt not die, and no evil shall reach thee in the midst of Egypt." But Bithiah said, "Of what advantage is my security to me, when I see the king, my brother, and all his household, and his servants in this evil plight, and look upon their first-born perishing with all the first-born of Egypt?" And Moses returned, "Verily, thy brother and his household and the other Egyptians would not hearken to the words of the Lord, therefore did this ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... in a pitiable plight. All her strength had gone and she could scarcely breathe. Although she was only about twenty-nine years of age, her life was ebbing away. There still remained traces of remarkable beauty: Her head and hair were lovely, and her eyes were soft ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... exclaimed. "Why should I attack you?" For the instant, in realization of his own plight, he had forgotten that the original purpose of his quest had been the capture of this man who was now become his captor... But the half-breed's words recalled the fact ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... common, artificial language, can communicate their thoughts in a manner quite intelligible: they can ask and refuse, affirm and deny, threaten and supplicate; they can traffick, enter into contracts, and plight their faith. The language of brutes consists in the use of those inarticulate sounds by which they express their thoughts and affections. Thus, the chirping of a bird, the bleating of a lamb, the neighing of a horse, and the growling, whining, ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... hope then! they had no battering-train. Ere this arrived, I trusted that Lord Lake would hear of our plight, and march down to rescue us. Thus occupied in thought and conversation, we rode on until the advanced sentinel challenged us, when old Puneeree gave the word, and we passed on into the centre ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... woman was not communicative, nor did she appear to be sympathetic. The plight of this girl might have moved even an unresponsive heart, but Rosario showed a stolid face to her distress. What had to be said, she said. For the ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... Jabe Potter— he did it!" Was it an accusation referring to the boy's present plight? And how could her Uncle Jabez— the relative she had not as yet seen— be the cause of Tom Cameron's injury? The spot where the boy was hurt must have been five miles from the Red Mill, and not even on the Osago Lake turnpike, on ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... by the Indians; and on endeavouring again to put to sea, the bark was overset, three of the Spaniards were drowned, and Cabeza and a few more got again on shore, naked and without arms. On seeing the miserable plight of these unhappy Spaniards, the Indians came to them with provisions, sat down by them and lamented their misfortunes, carried them to their houses, and made fires by the way to warm them, otherwise they must have perished with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... a fiend in me. You did not want the sealskin jacket, but you bid against me and won it. Then I felt mad, and, whatever you had offered for the coral, I should have bidden higher. It was all your fault; it was you who got me into debt. I would not be in the awful, awful plight I am in to-night but for ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... in the United States. We have been accustomed to rub our Aladdin's lamp of opportunity and the good genii have sent us workers. But suddenly, no matter how great our efforts, no one answers our appeal. The reservoir of immigrant labor has run dry. We are in sorry plight, for we have suffered from emigration, too. Thousands of alien workers have been called back to serve in the armies of the Allies. In my own little village on Long Island the industrious Italian colony was broken up by the call to return to ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch
... they beat us with branches of nettles and branches of prickly holly, and finally, tying our hands and feet together, they left us to be scorched by the sun during the day, and to be devoured by the wild beasts that prowled about at night. Here we lay all day in a most pitiable plight, and there undoubtedly we should have perished, had it not been for the gratitude and kindness of a slave whom, during our stay at Behar, we had many times befriended and protected, as far as lay in our power, against the ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... snake, bates anything I ever told you about Finn. Ochone, Shorsha! perhaps you will be telling me about the snake once more? I think the tale would do me good, and I have need of comfort, God knows, ochone!" Seeing Murtagh in such a distressed plight, I forthwith told him over again the tale of the snake, in precisely the same words as I have related it in the first part of this history. After which, I said, "Now, Murtagh, tit for tat; ye will be telling me one of the old stories of Finn-ma-Coul." "Och, Shorsha! I haven't heart enough," said ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... piling up four or five feet on the level, and driving and drifting into the hollows, so that for several days the less frequented roads in that part of the country were impassible. And now, when Mrs. Marjoram, but for her own sad plight, would have thought of poor Aunt Hannah, there was no one enough interested to give her loneliness a moment's consideration, till, one morning, one street lad cried out suddenly to another that Aunt Hannah must be ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... flaky pie crust and luscious filling had lost their charm for Jimmy, but his opponent was in even worse plight. He managed to finish his fourth pie, but when the cook handed him a fifth, the task ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... "there is no better, both being equally stubborn and perverse, though one may be finer-looking and more vainglorious than the other. Yet should I foster this one to the detriment of her fellow, what would be this person's plight if haply the weaker died and the stronger broke away and fled! By treating both alike I retain a double thread on life, even if neither ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... enabled us to procure a larger and more varied supply of stores, than we could possibly have brought up from Port Lincoln in a single dray. We were now amply furnished with conveniences of every kind; and both men and horses were in good plight and ready to enter ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... with which they pretend to supply the need themselves, is the best proof of how deeply they misunderstand the gravity of their plight. Look at these Theosophists, Spiritualists, and members of the Inner Light,—mere cliques, mere handfuls of uninspired and uninspiring cranks. They'll never spread a uniform and unifying culture. They cannot therefore make language once more a ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... was at the wheel when the squall struck the ship, had put her in stays before the sail was furled, with the result that she heeled over and Desmond had narrowly escaped being flung into the sea. Seeing the boy's plight, Bulger had sprung forward, and, knocking Parmiter from the wheel, had put the vessel on the other tack, thus giving Desmond the one chance of escape which, fortunately, he had been able to seize. The captain had been incensed to a blind fury, first ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... continuing the war. Stephen forthwith broke up his camp and retreated towards Constantinople. On his way he was met by the Emperor Alexius, at the head of a considerable force, hastening to take possession of the conquests made by the Christians in Asia. As soon as he heard of their woful plight, he turned back, and proceeded with the Count of Blois to Constantinople, leaving the remnant of the Crusaders to ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... might be. There never is, with nerve cases, and she was a nerve case. So Sir Hamilton really must arrange to stay at home just this one afternoon, that Lady Ancester's visit should not be absolutely sterile. If the nerve case's plight and Sir Hamilton's isolation were communicated to her on her arrival, she could choose for herself whether to come in or go on to Poynders. She chose to come in and interview Sir Hamilton. So consider that ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... knights, Baldwin and Berard, succeed in doing so in quest of adventure. The Saxons will not attack, trusting that the French will be destroyed by delay and the seasons. And, indeed, after two years and four months, the barons represent to the Emperor the sad plight of the host, and urge him to call upon the men of Herupe (North-west France) for performance of their warlike service. This is done accordingly, and the Herupe barons make all haste to their sovereign's aid, and come up ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... crept out of the bush, half naked, and in a piteous plight, and began to ponder how he should take his revenge and serve his late companion some trick. At length he went to a judge, and said that a rascal had robbed him of his money, and beaten him soundly into the bargain, and that this fellow carried a bow at his back, and had a fiddle ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... of the Contrite Heart, and is a summary of it. It is taken from Psalm ciii. 10. It offers no excuse but owns that we have sinned and are in wretched plight, as does the prayer which follows. This prayer was taken from the Sarum Missal, where it stands in a Mass for ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... committee's logic was unassailable when applied to the plight of a relatively small number of talented and qualified black soldiers, a different solution would have to prevail when the far larger number of Negroes ineligible for Army schooling either by talent, inclination, or previous education ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... each other interrogatively. Should they make a clean breast of their plight and enlist the doctor's help, or would it be quite safe? Davy nodded acquiescence, and Tim ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... attentively to this account of the Balkan situation. They had heard some inkling of the seriousness of the Serbian plight, but had not realized until now that Germany had at last set out to crush the little Balkan kingdom as she had crushed Belgium in the early days of the ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... (Deut. 27:26): "Cursed be he that abideth not in the words of this law, and fulfilleth them not in work." If therefore other men could be saved without the observance of the Old Law, the Jews would be in a worse plight than other men. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... with awful might The laws of wedlock still dost patronize, And the religion of the faith first plight With sacred rites hast taught to solemnize; And eke for comfort often called art Of women in their smart; Eternally bind thou this lovely band, And all thy blessings unto us impart. And thou, glad Genius! in whose gentle hand The bridal bower and genial bed remain, Without blemish ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... The only one of the three who had suffered in the least from the fall was Anne, and she was only conscious of a severe shaking which had half stupefied her for the time. The wheel lay flat in the road, so that there was no possibility of driving further in their present plight. They looked around for help. The only friendly object near was a lonely cottage, from its situation evidently the ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... hands and feet; to show his gratitude for this act of kindness he immediately made a rush at me, screaming with all his might; happily the chain was made fast, and I took care afterwards to keep out of his way. The old mother gorilla was in an unfortunate plight. She had an arm broken and a wound in the chest, besides being dreadfully beaten on the head. She groaned and roared many times during the night, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... that, if he would bring his companions home, he must avoid injuring the sacred cattle of the Sun, which pastured in the Isle of Thrinacia. If these were harmed, he would arrive in Ithaca alone, or in the words of the Cyclops's prayer, I in evil plight, with loss of all his company, on board the ship of strangers, to find sorrow in his house.' On returning to the Isle Aeaean, Odysseus was warned by Circe of the dangers he would encounter. He and ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... of doctors practising in the open country was always inadequate, but in recent years it has decreased until now many large sections are without any resident physician. The influenza epidemic of 1918, following the shortage of doctors during the war, revealed the plight of many a rural community without medical service. The higher standards now required by medical colleges and state licensing boards has resulted in a real shortage of physicians and the young men are not going into the country to practise. A ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... top from Germany—the land of little carved figures, of large wine-vats, and of humming-tops. The Baron had tried to think; but after passing the bridge at Gournay, the soft somnolence of digestion had sealed his eyes. The horses understood the coachman's plight from the slackness of the reins; they heard the footman's basso continuo from his perch behind; they saw that they were masters of the situation, and took advantage of their few minutes' freedom to make their own pace. Like intelligent ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... bowed low to the other lady. And now, the chair having stopped, the motive power became visible in the shape of a flushed page pushing behind, who seemed to have in part outgrown and in part out-pushed his strength, for when he stood upright he was tall, and wan, and thin, and his plight appeared the more forlorn from his having injured the shape of his hat, by butting at the carriage with his head to urge it forward, as is sometimes done by elephants ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... which had been rebuilt by Ramses II. and decorated by the Rames-sides, was in a sorry plight when the XXIInd dynasty came into power. Sheshonq I. did little or nothing to it, but Osorkon I. entirely remodelled it, and Osorkon II. added several new halls, including, amongst others, one in which he celebrated, in the twenty-second year of his reign, the festival of his deification. A record ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... to recede into the distance, the surface of the river forms a "misty line of light", just before it melts into the shadows of the forest. Where do the forest and the stream seem to meet? What does the word "plight" suggest about their meeting? What suggests a meeting-place out of sight? Why is the meeting represented as taking place in the shadow? Now what is described ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... passed through Leonard's brain as he realised her fearful plight. Then for a while he forgot all about her, since his attention was amply occupied with his own and Juanna's peril. Now they were rushing down the long slope with an ever-increasing velocity, and now they breasted ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... is covered with dust. Run for a basin, Chatty, and some lint. You've been fighting, or something." These cries rose from the different voices round him, while old Joseph, who had seen from a window the plight in which his master was, stood gazing, somewhat cynical and very curious, in the background. The scene was the hall, which has been already described, and into which all ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... anti-Semitic journal "La France Juive" and said, "I have to thank Drumont for much of the freedom of my present conception of the Jewish problem." While he was in Paris he was stirred as never before by the feeling that the plight of the Jews was a problem which would have to have the cooperation of enlightened statesmanship. What excited him in the strangest way was the unaccountable indifference of Jews themselves to what seemed to him the menace of the existing situation. He saw the Jews in every land encircled ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... levelled arms. Next they start on other charges and other retreats in corresponsive spaces, and interlink circle with circle, and wage the armed phantom of battle. And now they bare their backs in flight, now turn their lances to the charge, now plight peace and ride on side by side. As once of old, they say, the labyrinth in high Crete had a tangled path between blind walls, and a thousand ways of doubling treachery, where tokens to follow failed in the [591-625]maze ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... his favourite's aim; In vain a rival barred his claim, Whose fate with Clare's was plight, For he attaints that rival's fame With treason's charge—and on they came, In mortal lists to fight. Their oaths are said, Their prayers are prayed, Their lances in the rest are laid, They meet in mortal shock; And, ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... relief. Miss Anthony, who, with a nice little Mexican pony and narrow saddle, had made her descent with grace and dignity, welcomed me on the steps of the hotel, and laughed immoderately at my helpless plight. ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... seeing that as yet we had no more beds than we had bought for our own need from old Zabel Nehring the forest ranger his widow, at Uekeritze. Wherefore she took me aside: What was to be done? My bed was in an ill plight, her little god-child having lain on it that morning; and she could nowise put the young nobleman into hers, although she would willingly creep in by the maid herself. And when I asked her why not? she blushed scarlet and began to cry, and would not show herself again the whole evening, ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold
... Samuel Graham, then an officer in Fraser's Highlanders, in his "Memoirs," though speaking of the march to Cross Creek, is silent about Highlanders offering their services. Nor is it at all likely, that, in the sorry plight the British army reached Cross Creek in, the Highlanders would unite, especially when the outlook was gloomy, and the Americans were ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... themselves with provisions. Their shoes were worn out by the length of the march, and the rest of their apparel by the successive actions in which they had been engaged; but, in spite of all, their attitude was still lofty. They carefully concealed their wretched plight from the notice of the emperor, and appeared before him with their arms bright and in the best order. In this first court of the palace of the Czars, full sixteen hundred miles from their resources, and after so many battles and bivouacs, they were anxious to appear still clean, alert, ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... of dreams threw his mind into sudden alertness. In an instant he was thinking systematically, and in the definite realisation of his plight. ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... his message I forthwith hastened to the presence of my friend, and was sore troubled to find him in so grievous a plight. It was plain to all beholders that his course was well-nigh run, for a great change had taken place even in the last ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... consultation, Naude advised me to come home. They would stay in the bush and wait until the moon went down, he said. I hated leaving them in such a plight, but Naude insisted, and I only came away when he said he thought there would be more chance for them to get through unobserved if they were fewer in number. How they managed without residential passes and handicapped by those parcels, I do ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... fancied them returning from the cave surly and disappointed, ready to vent their wrath on us. All, except the unspeakable Magnus, had shown so far a rough good nature, even amusement at our plight, but you felt the snarl at the corner of the grinning lips. You knew they would be undependable as savages or vicious children, who find pleasure in inflicting pain. And then there was always my own hideous danger as the ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... Various tiresome delays occurred. They waited for the 'Thunder' at the Isle of Wight; and when the rest went on to Plymouth, the 'Jason' stayed behind ignominiously in Portsmouth because her captain had no ready money to pay a distraining baker. The 'Husband' was in the same plight for twelve days more. The squadron was, however, increased by seven additional vessels, one of them commanded by Keymis, through the enforced waiting at Plymouth, where, on May 3, Raleigh issued his famous Orders to the Fleet. On ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... mountain sat. Not soiled and worn As if he from the earth had labored up, But as some bird of heavenly plumage fair He looked, which down from higher regions came, And perched it there to see what lay beneath. The nations gazed and wondered much and praised; Critics before him fell in humble plight, Confounded fell and made debasing signs To catch his eye; and stretched, and swelled themselves To bursting nigh, to utter bulky words Of admiration vast: and many, too Many, that aimed to imitate his flight, With ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... mixed up in it. I am glad you came in early tonight." Then the father informed Alfred that some half a dozen rowdies had hidden in the old tannery and bombarded the Potts procession with all sorts of missiles and things. He told of the rage of Keifer, the plight ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... warm and generous of nature and sanguine of disposition, was moved by the representations of Juan Perez, and requested that Columbus might be again sent to her. Bethinking herself of his poverty and his humble plight, she ordered that money should be forwarded to him, sufficient to bear his traveling expenses, and to furnish ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... us speeding inland in the extra coach of a special train carrying the mails. The hours I passed in Durban were not without occupation. The hospital ship 'Sumatra' lay close to our moorings, and as soon as it was light I visited her to look for friends, and found, alas! several in a sorry plight. All seemed to be as well as the tenderest care and the most lavish expenditure of money could make them. All told much the same tale—the pluck and spirit of the troops, the stubborn unpretentious valour of the Boer, the searching musketry. Everyone ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... we're not ashamed of, because we can't help it," Prescott rejoined. "Our vacation up here is nearly at an end just because our funds are in the same plight—-nearly at an end, ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... ashamed they should see your father in this plight? No wonder. I came to England with no prospect, but the chance of finding you. It was a mad quest; but a father's heart is superstitious—feels a loadstone drawing it somewhere or other. I might have done very well, staying abroad: when I hadn't ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... Inside the briery maze of hedge round hedge; And there might I be staying now, stock-still, But that I laughing bade eyes follow nose And so straight pushed my path through let and stop And soon was out in the open, face all scratched, But well behind my back the prison-bars In sorry plight enough, I promise you! So here: I won my way to truth through lies— Said, as I saw light,—if her shame be shame I'll rescue and redeem her,—shame's no shame? Then, I'll avenge, protect—redeem myself The stupidest of sinners! Here I stand! Dear,—let me once dare call you so,—you ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... Moon laughed loud at the gathering crowd, While he held his sides in mirth, To see old Kris in a plight like this, ...
— The Goblins' Christmas • Elizabeth Anderson
... stock operator—the market-maker—is the straw to save them from drowning, and to him they turn as the one possible source of aid and hope. I only knew these men at sight's end, but they knew me and were sure in their abject plight that I could help them—by what wizardry they never stopped to think. They were terribly certain that unless the market turned, their brokers must have additional margin or their stock would be thrown overboard, sinking prices still lower and bringing down their friends' stock, ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... if ye could not, though ye would, lift hand— Ye halting leaders—to abridge Hell's reign. . . If such your plight, most hapless ye of men! But if ye could and would not, oh, what plea, Think ye, shall stead you at your trial, when The thundercloud of witnesses shall loom At ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... dismounted, and continued to impel his arrows against the enemy from behind his shield. But Rakush brooked not the dreadful storm, and galloped off unconscious that his master himself was in as bad a plight. When Zuara saw the noble animal, riderless, crossing the plain, he gasped for breath, and in an agony of grief hurried to the fatal spot, where he found Rustem desperately hurt, and the blood flowing copiously from every wound. The champion observed, ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... keep his oath, he must needs leave my mother. But ere he departed he sware to her that he would return when he had achieved his quest; but he kept not his oath. Thus have I sought him in many a court. All this did my lady mother tell me, and also of the troth-plight. Little good hath it done me that he be my father, and that he sware to my mother, ere he departed, that for her honour, and for her profit, he would return to her without fail. Doth he live, God send him mocking (this I pray in all humility), but an he be already dead, then may God ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... and numerous salmon spears were their only furniture. In a few minutes my arrival created a prodigious commotion. The whole population turned out to stare at me. The children ran into the bushes to hide. But feminine curiosity conquered feminine timidity. Although I was in the plight of the forlorn Odysseus after his desperate swim, I had no 'blooming foliage' to wind [Greek text which cannot be reproduced]. Unlike the Phaeacian maidens, however, the tawny nymphs were all as brave as Princess Nausicaa herself. ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... talk to me Of covenants. Men and lions plight no faith, Nor wolves agree with lambs, but each must plan Evil against the other. So between Thyself and me no compact can exist, Or understood intent. First, one of us Must fall and yield his life blood to ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... was upheaved. You may smile, but my plight was awful. In the sultry night I grew cold. My bridle-hand, still lying under her palm, turned and folded its big stupid fingers over hers. Then our hands slid apart and we rode back. "I wish I were good enough to know the stars," she said, ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... mon corbillon: qu'y met-on? Allons, les jumeaux! a vous!" Jeanne thought the twins were really in a plight and that she would have to help them out with a gift, but, quick as thought, Castor seized Pollux, saying, "J'y mets mon compagnon!" and Pollux, divining his intention, grasped Castor, declaring excitedly, "Et moi aussi, j'y mets ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various
... ring she gave me Right royally dwarf-worked, To none will I pass it For prayer or for sword-stroke, Save to him who can claim it By love and by troth plight, Let that hero speak ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... hose; Drenched are coat and mantle too, Coat and mantle, both just new, Wretched plight, heaven knows! Pretty stir's abroad to-day; Look outside, good ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... was night, so sad was their plight, The sun it went down, and the stars gave no light. They sobbed and they sighed, and they bitterly cried, And the poor little things they ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... man turned with some apprehension mingling with his joy. He would almost as soon be detected appropriating funds from the bank where he clerked, as be caught in this ignominious plight. There was just a slight sense of relief, however, for they had been a long time in the water. But he ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... straightened out his hat, opened the front door quickly, pulled it to with a bang, as if he had just come in, and stalked upstairs in dignity. Never has a man more conscious and oppressive rectitude than one who has barely escaped a dreadful plight. No word came from the just-awakened terror in a night-dress. He had ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... encumbered as I was, without a hand to help myself, no words can render an idea of my difficulties. A priest, with six or seven others, was examining a church in process of repair, and he and his acolytes laughed loudly as they saw my plight. I remembered having laughed myself when I had seen good men struggling with adversity in the person of a jackass, and the recollection filled me with penitence. That was in my old light days, before this trouble ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for some luckier night— Who can have put my master in this mood? What will become on 't—I 'm in such a fright, The devil 's in the urchin, and no good— Is this a time for giggling? this a plight? Why, don't you know that it may end in blood? You 'll lose your life, and I shall lose my place, My mistress all, for ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... proceeded not altogether with impunity, however; for we hooked several of them, who, confident in their own sagacity and strength of wing, swooped eagerly at the baited hooks towed far astern of the ship, and were thus drawn on board, screaming and flapping their wings in a very ridiculous plight. To render this curious circle of mutual destruction quite complete, though it may diminish our sympathy for the persecuted flying-fish, I ought to mention that on the same day one dropped on board in the middle of its flight, and in its throat ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... reclined himself on the cushions, and assembling his courtly retinue, commenced his harangue respecting the plans necessary to be adopted under existing circumstances. His councillors, however, appeared in a very sorry plight to give advice: they looked at each other with woe-begone countenances, and their sleepy eyes seemed to concur in one opinion, though they did not actually venture to give it utterance, that the most rational ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... heart softened towards her "sub" in this difficult plight; she waited a few days to mature her plans, and then made an interesting announcement to the pupils at the ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... holding the reins close to the heads of the horses. It was still snowing hard, and with the cold wind driving the flakes into swirls and drifts, it was anything but pleasant. Had they been left behind by the horses running away, their plight would have ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... substances might not betray us. But we had not been long at work, when the smell of the melting materials overcame me, and obligated me to go into the streets gasping for breath, where meeting with the cool air, I swooned away, and broke my face in the fall. My companions, finding me in this plight, carried me back, extremely sick and unserviceable. Before long, I heard one of them complain of sickness, and thus he could proceed no further; therefore, I saw if we abandoned our project this night, it might not be resumed, which made ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... beside the altar with a friend, To hear him plight his faith to a young bride, A rosy child of simple heart and mind. Yet two short years before, on that same spot, I heard the funeral chant above the bier Of a first wife—a woman bright as fair, Or blessed or cursed with genius, full of fire— Who loved him ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... storm came on; a plank struck; several of us escaped in the boats; we had lots of gold with us, but no water. For two days and two nights we suffered horribly: but at last we ran ashore near a French seaport; our sorry plight moved compassion, and as we had money we were not suspected; people only suspect the poor. Here we soon recovered our fatigues, rigged ourselves out gayly, and your humble servant was considered as noble a captain as ever walked deck. But now, alas, my ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 'll be troth-plight to th' first man as 'll wed her and keep her i' plenty; that's a' she thinks about,' ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the preacher's name) continued on his way, now laughing at the sorry plight of his mockers, again singing a hymn with such power that the leaves of the trees seemed to tremble with the melody, and anon lifting his heart in prayer to his Maker. The object of his ride through the woods was to visit a settler who a short time before had been caught by a falling tree and ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... but she, faithful to her lord, curses the hunter and he falls dead before her. Then she resumes her solitary roaming in the gloomy forest, "distressed by grief for her husband's fate," unmindful of his cruelty, or of her own sad plight. ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... our Diet, what signifies it with what Food this Body of ours is fed which is satisfied with very little, if we live according to Nature? Which of us two is in the best Plight? You who live upon Partridges, Pheasants and Capons; or I ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... escorted by Messer Galeaz and the Marquis of Mantua to the French outposts. More than two thousand men had already died of sickness and starvation. Almost all their horses had been eaten, and the survivors were in a miserable plight. Many perished by the roadside, and Commines found fifty troopers in a fainting condition in a garden at Cameriano, and saved their lives by feeding them with soup. Even then one man died on the spot, and four others never reached the camp. Three hundred more ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... John, I sue for yours: not to charge you; for I must let you understand I think myself in better 150 plight for a lender than you are: the which hath something emboldened me to this unseasoned intrusion; for they say, if money go before, ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... are pretty much in the same plight. I knew her when her husband brought her here a bride, the loveliest creature alive. Arthur Fenton was a clever, selfish, wholly irreligious man; and I could not help seeing how completely he failed to understand or appreciate his wife. She was kind ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... boys soon uncovered from the sand a pile of the eggs, and in a little while they were steaming in the hot water. Then Jack arranged the shell-dishes on the sand. He went over to where the others were gloomily considering their plight. ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... the other coast; the prize-fight special,—and the last section, at that. There was no man up the tracks with a red flag to guard against a pile-up. And they also looked bored; they must have been standing there quite a while. And hot. So, you see, his plight was not so bad! He didn't have to breathe that air and sit in a slippery red-plush ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... little girls found themselves in a sad plight it was the two who now huddled close together in the hermit's hut. Even Polly was thoroughly frightened, and as to Maggie, nothing but the angry growls of Cinder restrained the violence of ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... currency are obvious to all here. Its value has changed three times in one day since we have been in the country. Business is seriously disturbed, and suffers from this cause, and it is to such a plight that our misled silverites at ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... in his own defence. Disarmed by his own act, he was set on by the police, brutally struck down, kicked and stoned, and was dragged off to gaol, faint and bleeding, to meet there some of his comrades in much the same plight as himself. Then Manchester went mad, and race-passions flared up into flame; no Irish workman was safe in a crowd of Englishmen, no Englishman safe in the Irish quarter. The friends of the prisoners ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... again—across the footlights! He had not seen her since the night of the stone-laying, over a week earlier. He had not sought to see her. He had listened then to the delicate tones of her weak, whispering, thrilling voice, and had expressed regret for Rose Euclid's plight. But he had done no more. What could he have done? Clearly he could not have offered money to relieve the plight of Rose Euclid, who was the cousin of a girl as wealthy and as sympathetic as Elsie April. To do so would have been to ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... useless,' replied Saturn, 'for I tried it and failed; but at least one has a chance of success; and yet, having resisted this spirit and failed, I should not consider myself in a worse plight than you would voluntarily place yourself in ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli
... along in weary plight, Through heavy jungle, mire, These two came later every night To warm them at the fire. Until the captain said one day, "O seaman good and kind, To save thyself now come away, And leave ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... at the plight of the German, he made an effort to arise and the machine promptly slid down an incline and sparked and gyrated until Hans' hair fairly stood on end ...
— Boy Scouts on Motorcycles - With the Flying Squadron • G. Harvey Ralphson
... repose on a lie. We may expect, in a delay perhaps as brief as that which was required to pillory, and, therefore, to hamstring the miserable falsehood and ineptitude called the Party System (that is, in some ten years or less), to reduce the Official Press to the same plight. In some ways the danger of failure is less, for our opponent is certainly less well-organized. But beyond that—beyond these limits—we shall not attain. We shall enlighten, and by enlightening, destroy. We shall not provoke public action, for the methods and ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... awkward plight," said he. "Yesterday, that well known collector, Prince Crescenzi, came to my studio. One of my pictures took his fancy, and he ordered another from me, for which he would pay six ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... commotion. — Macalpine made a soldierly retreat with two horses; but the captain was suddenly surrounded and disarmed by the footmen, whom a French valet de chambre headed in this exploit; his sword was passed through a close-stool, and his person through the horse-pond. In this plight he returned to the inn, half mad with his disgrace. So violent was the rage of his indignation, that he mistook its object. — He wanted to quarrel with Mr Bramble; he said, he had been dishonoured on his account, and he looked for reparation at his hands. — My uncle's back ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... the older Republican States as no other presidential candidate had been since "Old Hickory" offered himself as against the seasoned statesmanship of John Quincy Adams. The gentry of the East were in a worse plight than were the Southern statesmen of 1828, for Lincoln was more of a ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... thee, and I love thee— More than rich thoughts can dream, or mad lips speak; But how, or why, whether with soul or body, I will not know. Thou art mine.—Why question further? [Aside] Ay if I fall by loving, I will love, And be degraded!—how? by my own troth-plight? No, but my thinking that I fall.—'Tis written That whatsoe'er is not of faith is sin.— O Jesu Lord! Hast Thou not made me thus? Mercy! My brain will burst: ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... glad I am you came!" she cried, low. "I knew you would not fail me if you but learned of my plight; but it's wonderful you should be here so soon. I prayed every minute of my ride that Juanita would ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... his knife broke in two, and the courage that had upheld him for so many years gave away. He opened his veins and lay down to die, when in his despair he heard the voice of Gefhardt, the friendly sentinel from the other prison. Hearing of Trenck's sad plight, he scaled the palisade, and, we are told expressly, bound up his wounds, though we are not told how he managed to enter the cell. Be that as it may, the next day, when the guards came to open the door, they found Trenck ready to meet them, armed with a brick in one ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... action, to soar in the storm of his own raising; and to make it more apparent that he had been as great a sufferer as the rest, he only threw a quilt over his shoulders and did not draw on his stockings. In this plight he scaled the stairs and joined the storming party, where the little man was leading the forlorn hope, with his candlestick in one hand and the remnant of his burnt stocking between the finger and thumb of ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... conventional as the remark surely was, Jimmy was certain of an undercurrent of mischief in it. He glanced up to protest, but two baby-blue eyes fixed upon him in apparent wonderment, made him certain that anything he could say would seem rude or ridiculous; so, as usual when in a plight, he looked to ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... is usually a very small matter, but with me it might mean a great deal. How far should I have to go? When could I find out? What would be the plight of my people when found? Or should I find them at all? Might they not pass by and be on the way down the Columbia River before I could reach the main immigrant trail? These and kindred questions weighed on my mind as ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... not that,' said Arthur; 'I never liked any one better than Hunt, and it is nine if not ten miles from the town. But, Violet, I find we are in worse plight than I thought. Here are bills that must be renewed, and one or two things I had forgotten, and while I owe the money and more too, I could hardly in honesty speculate with the price of ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sailed, the officers of the Ardent united in signing such a representation of her miserable plight as induced Admiral Graves to order her back to Port Royal, and the Jason, by not putting to sea with the convoy, from want of water, never joined him at all. The rest proceeded, and after those vessels that were bound for New York had separated, ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... should be made so ludicrous on his eminence after death. He is bitter at the inertia of the men who set him up. Were he an ornament of the Church, not of the State that he served so conscientiously, how very different would be the treatment of his plight! If he were a Saint, occluded thus by the municipality, how many the prayers that would be muttered, the candles promised, for his release! There would be processions, too; and who knows but that there might even be a miracle vouchsafed, a rending of the veil? The ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... small to receive all her family, the Osmia is in the same plight as the Mason-bee in the presence of an old nest. She thereupon acts exactly as the Chalicodoma does. She breaks up her laying, divides it into series as short as the room at her disposal demands; and each series begins with ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... one that hath his foot unentangled by sufferings, both to exhort and to admonish him that is in evil plight. But I knew all these things willingly, willingly I erred, I will not gainsay it; and in doing service to mortals I brought upon myself sufferings. Yet not at all did I imagine, that, in such a punishment ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... as Dona Anita emerged from the Alcalde's office. He was a friend of her husband—a gringo—but trusted by the Spanish Californians, many of whom he had befriended. To him Mrs. Windham turned half desperately, confessing in a rush of words her family's plight. "What is to become of us?" she questioned passionately. "Ah, that my Roberto were here! He would know how to deal with these desperadoes." She gestured angrily toward the sloop-of-war which rode at anchor in ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... was about two miles short of the original goal. They were forced to take advantage of the first kopje, as Boer scouts were all round them, and the day was ushered in with desultory firing. It was a sorry position which they had chosen, and the men were in a sorrier plight. All their reserve ammunition was gone, and though they had saved pieces of the screw-guns, they were not able with these pieces to patch ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... common to bear repetition. We can not pass through the streets, we can not enter a place of public assembly, or ramble in the fields, without the gloomy shadow of Ignorance sweeping over us. The rural population is indeed in a worse plight than the other classes. We quote—with the attestation of our own experience—the following passage from one of a series of articles which have recently appeared in a morning newspaper: "Taking the adult class of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... James and John, is labouring across the six or seven miles to the eastern side. Matthew describes the boat as it would appear from shore, as being 'covered' and lost to sight by the breaking waves. Mark, who is Peter's mouthpiece, describes the desperate plight as one on board knew it, and says the boat was 'filling.' It must have been a serious gale which frightened a crew who had spent all ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... blanket over her bare shoulders, and folded it round more like a coat. He feared she might collapse before they could accomplish their design. The plight of this girl ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... in few: "Bard! by that God, whom thou didst not adore, I do beseech thee (that this ill and worse I may escape) to lead me, where thou saidst, That I Saint Peter's gate may view, and those Who as thou tell'st, are in such dismal plight." ...
— The Vision of Hell, Part 1, Illustrated by Gustave Dore - The Inferno • Dante Alighieri, Translated By The Rev. H. F. Cary
... kept up their conversation for some time, and the more they talked the more they became convinced that their plight was more serious than they had at first supposed. It seemed very plain to them now that Lord Hastings must believe in their guilt and that he would not raise a finger in ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... and pulling at our trousers; and as soon as we could catch our horses, in spite of the lameness of mine, we started off. We could not travel fast at night, but immediately day broke we galloped on; and I am thankful indeed, my dear Maurice, to find you uninjured—but how did you get into this plight?" ...
— Adventures in Australia • W.H.G. Kingston
... Their plight was bad enough, but it might have been much worse. Percy shivered a bit as he looked at the wallowing dory and the ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... cold smile. Worse than that, the wife sees her husband tortured in gaol; the husband sees his wife a victim to some horrible disease, lands gone, houses destroyed by flood or fire, and everything in an unutterable plight—the reward ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... beginning of the fine lady into which Dolly finally blossomed, and when that day Frank went home to his dinner he noticed something in her manner which he could not understand until she told him of Mrs. Atherton's call, and the plight in which ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... knight was in a pitiful plight, and innocently confessed to the Lady that he experienced so much pleasure at this touch that the pains of his malady increased, and that death was preferable ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... somehow, that he comprehended her plight. Then, after a time, he put his left arm about her waist. She spread the great red wings out behind him, the right one passing over his shoulder; and in this fashion they went forward ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... standing in this war; theirs is the happy lot that might have fallen to Belgium had she not resisted; the war goes to and fro through Albania; and when the settlement comes, it is highly improbable that the slightest notice will be taken of Albania's plight in the region. In which case these particular Albanians will either be driven into exile to America or they will be goaded to revolt, which will be followed no doubt by the punitive procedure ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... that night had to be taken for rest and the morning found men and horses in a terrible plight. Not one drop of water had they left, and all they had been able to do for the horses and mules had been to sponge their parched mouths. They had camped near some trees and bushes, as usual, and it was just about daylight ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... sharply. Was one set of actions the same to Christa as another? and was she content to forget all their own shame and all her father's wretched plight if she could only have a few pleasures for herself? It was exactly the passive state that she had desired to evoke in Christa; but there are many spectres that come to our call and then appal us ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... hovered, wailing, delivered over to vague, unseen sorrow, and, though a tiny infant, it seemed to be Paul Quentin, too, in some dreadful plight, appealing to her in the name of their dead love to save him. She did not love him; she did not love the child; but her heart seemed ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... Major. And the friends of the slave are hereby invited to make that new constellation their cynosure, vowing by it, and anti-slavery lovers arranging their matrimonial engagements, if possible, so as to plight their troth only when it is in ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... tremble through the night; Within the sky the pallid King of Light Wraps silvered ermine round him while he may, And Heaven's harem greets its star array. One lone white cloud rests in the azure height— A veiled court lady in some sorrow's plight— Whom cruel love and day ...
— Sonnets from the Crimea • Adam Mickiewicz
... that the miserable citizens had turned to the tyrant Rome for rescue. They who had risen against Florus and had driven him out would have willingly accepted him again in place of Simon bar Gioras and John of Gischala, before two years had elapsed. Now, their plight was so desperate that they clambered daily upon the walls of their unhappy city to look for the first glimpse of the approaching enemy, Titus, whom they had learned to ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... the hospital at St. Omer, and was then transferred to Boulogne, together with a New Zealand sergeant who was in the same plight as myself, and whom I later had the pleasure of meeting under more favourable and happier conditions at dear old St. Dunstan's. At Boulogne, I was given a thorough examination, and the doctors concluded that an absolutely useless member ...
— Through St. Dunstan's to Light • James H. Rawlinson
... from both cold and hunger, and was in pitiable plight. Again he writes: "Lieutenant Daunt, Ninth Regiment, and another officer of some Sixtieth Regiment, were frozen to death last night, and two officers of the Ninety-Third Regiment were smothered by charcoal. The streets of Balaklava are a sight, with swell English cavalry and horse-artillery ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... sweetness is melting into fable; only the new Spirit in its holiest power can restore to those homes their boasted security of "each man's castle," for Woman, the warder, is driven into the street, and has let fall the keys in her sad plight. Yet darkest hour of night is nearest dawn, and there seems reason to ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... coffee, preserves, jams, jellies, and everything else, was taken. Not a pound of anything to eat was left on the place. All the best cupboard ware, and part of the bedding and my wife's clothing were taken. This was a sorry plight to find ourselves in when we returned from the funeral. The country was full of soldiers, and nothing was done towards recovering the property. Thus we started on a darker and rougher road for ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... others were laughing at the plight of the German, he made an effort to arise and the machine promptly slid down an incline and sparked and gyrated until Hans' hair fairly stood ...
— Boy Scouts on Motorcycles - With the Flying Squadron • G. Harvey Ralphson
... has just been brought to me from Captain Prowse, and it contains news which I am sure will be very welcome to you all. It is to the effect that our wireless operator has succeeded in getting into touch with the Bolivia and acquainting the captain of that vessel with our somewhat unfortunate plight. The Bolivia, as some of you are doubtless aware, is homeward bound, but upon learning the news of our accident, her captain has unhesitatingly interrupted his voyage and is at this moment heading for our position as rapidly as his powerful engines will drive him. He expects to arrive alongside ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... the shameful charge that he had falsely laid upon him. Having therefore issued a writ for libel against him, he pressed him so closely, that Rosso, not being able to clear himself or make any defence, felt himself to be in a sorry plight, perceiving that he had not only accused his friend falsely, but had also stained his own honour; and to eat his words, or to adopt any other shameful method, would likewise proclaim him a false and worthless man. Resolving, therefore, to kill himself by his own hand rather than be punished by others, ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... disgrace the Service by his Ignorance. Now, by Rashness they meant resenting Insults and Injuries done their Lady; and by Ignorance, not knowing how to buy and sell, and live by the Loss. So that, all Things considered, it were a Marvel her Affairs should be in better Plight than they are, or her Debts be paid ...
— The True Life of Betty Ireland • Anonymous
... Napoleon," p. 151. "The commonest officers were crazy with delight at having white linen and fine new boots. All were fond of music; many walked a league in the rain to secure a seat in the La Scala Theatre.... In the sad plight in which the army found itself before Castiglione and Arcole, everybody, except the knowing officers, was disposed to attempt the impossible so as not to quit Italy."—"Marmont," I., 296: "We were ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... further: in a year I will give thee full answer according as to how thou dost bear thyself between now and then, for this is no light gift thou askest; also that, if ye will it, you twain may now plight troth, for the blame shall be yours if it is broken, and not mine, and I give ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... my distressed plight! (If, as thou seem'st, thou art so mean a man,) And seek not to enrich thy followers By lawless rapine from a silly maid, Who, travelling [33] with these Median lords To Memphis, from my uncle's country ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... a stall did lie all night, In this most sad and wretched plight; Then thought it was high time to see ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... darkness of the cabin Jean led her back to the corner and his heart was full. Speech was difficult, because the very touch of Ann's hands had made him divine that the success of his venture in no wise changed the plight of ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... should haue laied mine old bones and ended my life in a free countrie. But I coulde neuer haue susteined, or suffred more miserie, then is nowe fallen vnto mee, nor neuer more dishonour, then to beholde thee in pitifull plight, a traytour to thy natife soile. And as I am the moste wretched wight of all mothers, so I trust I shal not long continue in that state. If thou procede in this enterprise, either sodaine death, or perpetuall shame bee thy rewarde." When his mother had ended these ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... rascal-cutthroats have had somebody to be fond of them, and if those monsters, why not ordinary mortals? And with whom shall a young lady fall in love but with the person she sees? She is not supposed to lose her heart in a dream, like a Princess in the Arabian Nights; or to plight her young affections to the portrait of a gentleman in the Exhibition, or a sketch in the Illustrated London News. You have an instinct within you which inclines you to attach yourself to some one: you meet Somebody: you hear Somebody ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of a less austere rule, were the bands of discharged soldiers, their occupation gone, who crowded every village. It was easy to show, as was indeed the case, that these discontented warriors owed their present plight to the hated English. For while one of the conditions of peace, after the First Sikh War, insisted on the disbandment of the greater portion of the formidable Sikh army, the enlightened expedient of enlisting our late enemies into ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... keep your ribs from hitting together." He cut off a couple of pounds of raw bacon and put it in my pocket together with a "bait" of Plowboy tobacco. And so I hit the road. When I came to the place where my pals were working, cutting willows along the levee, I told them of my plight. ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... intrenchment, but without success, and at nightfall Villiers proposed a parley. The French ammunition was running short, the men were fatigued by their marches, and drenched by the rain which had been falling the whole day. The English were in a still worse plight. Their powder was nearly spent, their guns were foul, and among them they ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... comfortable, restful sleep, we were awakened again, and were asked for plague passports—and hadn't any. I believe the third intruder may have called to give me one; at any rate, I had to hunt about on a platform crowded with natives and other poor Britishers in pyjamas, in the same plight as myself and looking mighty cross, and finally got two pieces of paper, each with all sorts of horrible instructions and threats thereon, and un-understandable orders to show ourselves somewhere for examination for the next ten ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... propound?" the good man responded:—"Nay indeed, doubt have I none of aught that I heard; but rather assured faith in the verity of all. One thing, however, I heard, which caused me to commiserate you and the rest of you friars very heartily, in regard of the evil plight in which you must find yourselves in the other world." "And what," said the inquisitor, "was the passage that so moved thee to commiserate us?" "Sir," rejoined the good man, "it was that passage in the Gospel which says:—"You shall receive an hundredfold." "You heard aright," said the ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... and his body cruelly cut in order to exorcise the powers of sorcery that were in him. When Mary went to him he was a bruised and bleeding heap of flesh lying unconscious by the post to which he was fastened. The women in the yard were sitting about indifferent to his plight. ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... Mayhew. "That sort of trick isn't played on folks in any decent resort on shore. I don't understand Mr. Benson's conduct. I remember his mishap at Dunhaven. I remember the plight he got into at Annapolis; and now he and Mr. Hastings are found in this questionable shape. I am very much afraid these young men do not conduct themselves, on shore, in the careful manner that must be expected of civilian instructors ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... Anna! to tell thee my plight, 'Tis old love unrequited that prostrates my might, In presence or absence, aye faithful, my smart Still racks, and still searches, and tugs at my heart— Broken that heart, yet why disappear From my country, without one embrace ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... were troth-plight; and William went forth on his career of labor and success, and I remained at home, loving him, living for him, striving to make my every act what he would have it. I went into company as he had bidden me; I studied and improved myself; I grew handsomer, too. All who saw ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... First, much of its physical plant—post offices and other buildings-is obsolete and inadequate. Many new buildings and the modernization of present ones are essential if we are to have improved mail service. The second problem is the Department's fiscal plight. It now faces an annual ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower
... the young lord come in with me, and heard that he was to lie there that night, seeing that as yet we had no more beds than we had bought for our own need from old Zabel Nehring the forest ranger his widow, at Uekeritze. Wherefore she took me aside: What was to be done? My bed was in an ill plight, her little god-child having lain on it that morning; and she could nowise put the young nobleman into hers, although she would willingly creep in by the maid herself. And when I asked her why not? she blushed scarlet and began to cry, and would not show herself again the whole evening, ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold
... and nails and sprigs of rosemary into their arms to make them bleed; and with horrible actions, partly by prayers, and partly with lunatic curses, they move or terrify the ignorant country folk into giving them alms. This poor fellow was such a one; and the king, seeing him in so wretched a plight, with nothing but a blanket about his loins to cover his nakedness, could not be persuaded but that the fellow was some father who had given all away to his daughters and brought himself to that pass; for ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... reached the king's apartment, he began to cry out, and call for justice in a lamentable tone. The king ordered him to be admitted; and asked who it was that had abused and put him into that miserable plight. "Sire," cried Saouy, "it is the favour of your majesty, and being admitted into your sacred councils, that has occasioned me to be so barbarously treated." "Say no more of that," replied the king, "only let me hear the whole story simply, and who ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... of Sundays? Better for you had you passed the night with your roistering friends at Kakiat, or started homeward earlier, for Sabbath-breaking is no sin now, and you, poor ghost, will find little sympathy for your plight. Grant that your month of Sundays, or your cycle of months of Sundays, be soon up, for it is sad to be reminded that we may be punished for offences many years forgotten. When the sun is high to-morrow a score of barges will vex the sea of Tappan, ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... should not be oppressed by thee. On the other hand, O bull of the Bharata race, fight with him with thy arms, putting forth as much strength only as thy antagonist hath now left!' Then that slayer of hostile heroes, the son of Pandu, thus addressed by Krishna, understood the plight of Jarasandha and forthwith resolved upon taking his life. And that foremost of all men endued with strength, that prince of the Kuru race, desirous of vanquishing the hitherto unvanquished Jarasandha, mustered all his ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... were in sore plight when we arrived at Rouen, but the duke saw that we were provided with clothes and with horses ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... loves you too, with such a holy fire, As will not, cannot, but with life expire: Our vowed affections both have often tried, Nor any love but yours could ours divide. Then, by my love's inviolable band, By my long suffering and my short command, If e'er you plight your vows when I am gone, Have pity on the faithful Palamon." This was his last; for Death came on amain, And exercised below his iron reign; Then upward to the seat of life he goes; Sense fled before him, what he touched he froze: Yet could ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... she promised to plight her faith to Compton the moment Lady Bassett should be restored to health; and so, with hopes and smiles, and the novelty of a daughter's love, she fought with death for Lady Bassett, and at last she won the ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... conscious of a strange sensation. It was partly due to his impetuosity he felt that Retto had been injured. Larry partly blamed himself for Mr. Potter's present plight, since through the reporter's instrumentality the millionaire's friend had not been able to keep in ...
— Larry Dexter's Great Search - or, The Hunt for the Missing Millionaire • Howard R. Garis
... were of the best he did very little sleeping that night. He was in a grave situation. Even if he had a fair field his plight would be serious enough. But he guessed that during the long hours of darkness Durand was busy weaving a net of false evidence from which he could scarcely disentangle himself. Unless Bromfield came forward at once as a witness for him, his case would be hopeless—and ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... Whig propositions of '41 will not be detrimental to that party, even if in the interval they be appropriated piecemeal, as will probably be the case, by their Conservative successors. But for the moment, and in the plight in which the Whig party found themselves, it was impossible to have devised measures more conducive to their precipitate fall. Great interests were menaced by a weak government. The consequence was inevitable. Tadpole and Taper saw it in a moment. They snuffed the factious ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... watched his receding sails with dreary foreboding, a foreboding which seemed but too just, when, on the next day, a storm, more violent than the Indians had ever known, howled through the forest and lashed the ocean into fury, Most forlorn was the plight of these exiles, left, it might be, the prey of a band of ferocious bigots more terrible than the fiercest hordes of the wilderness. And when night closed on the stormy river and the gloomy waste of pines, what dreams of terror may not have haunted the helpless women who ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... the first half of that night, while many other matters pressed on them, the minds of the three Courteneys turned to one theme. Ramsey's inquiries had called it up and the presence and plight of the immigrants, down below, kept it before them: the story of Hugh's grandmother, born and ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... muscle; and turning, tracked off towards the forest, dragging with it the helpless and paralyzed victim. Luckily the two men in the canoe had just paddled round the point, in sight of, and close to, camp. The man in the bow, seeing the plight of their comrade, seized his rifle and fired at the bear. The bullet went through the beast's lungs, and it forthwith dropped its prey, and running off some two hundred yards, lay down on its side and died. The rescued man recovered full health and strength, ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... obeyed, my lord," said Glendinning; and choosing those whose horses were in best plight to be his attendants, he went off as fast as the jaded state of their cavalry permitted. Hill and hollow vanished from under the feet of ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... mimic clock tower was capacious enough to hold a whole chorus of singers. The enormous pie in which twenty-eight musicians were discovered when the crust was cut may have been the original of that pasty whose opening revealed four-and-twenty blackbirds in a similar plight. Wild animals wandered gravely at a machinist's will through deep forests, but in the midst of the counterfeit brutes there was at least one live lion, for Gilles le Cat[5] received twenty shillings from the duke for the chain and locks he made to hold the ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... manifestoes at all, and if they had read them, would not have understood one word, for one reason because the authors of such literature write very obscurely in spite of the boldness of their style. But as the workmen really were in a difficult plight and the police to whom they appealed would not enter into their grievances, what could be more natural than their idea of going in a body to "the general himself" if possible, with the petition at their head, ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Mortimer laughing—"No, no, my boy—you have got more on your hands now than will suffice you: so off with you home, and take care that when we return we do not find the doves flown, Nero lost, or Reuben with black eye or bruised leg, and yourself in some unlucky plight, my boy. Now go home, and God bless and watch over you, my sons. We hope it will not be long before we return," and he waved his hand to bid good bye. Marten had run himself out of breath, so he was not able to answer his father, and he was not sorry to ...
— Brotherly Love - Shewing That As Merely Human It May Not Always Be Depended Upon • Mrs. Sherwood
... so disconcerting as to be prepared to overcome a resistance and then to find no resistance there; to be ready with convincing arguments, and then not have them called for. This, very naturally, was the plight ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... the home humor, in the summer, we do not mind how drenching the rain is, and we may even take delight in getting our own legs splashed as we glance at the "very touching stockings" and the "very gentle and sensitive legs" of other weaker ones in the same plight. But here was I in a gale on the bleakest tableland one can find in this part of Yuen-nan, and a sorry sight truly did I make as I trudged "two steps forward, one step back" in my bare feet, covered only with rough straw sandals, ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... York, 6 killed, 2 drowned, and 4 wounded, and 200 mules and 200,000 rations thrown into the sea, the expedition returned to New Orleans, whence, by reason of unseaworthiness of transports, part of it had not yet started. The transports came back in a sorry plight, the Cahawba on one wheel, the river steamboat Laurel Hill without her smokestacks, and all the others of her class with their frail sides stove. The Clifton and the Sachem, whose losses are but partially reported, ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... iron-moulded, blued until it is nearly black, rough-dried, starched in patches, with the fringe of red earth only more firmly fixed than before? Behold my favorite ivory cotton! My white gowns are even in a worse plight, for there are no two yards of them the same, and the grotesque mixture of extreme yellowness, extreme blueness and a pervading tinge of the red mud they have been washed in renders them a piteous example of misplaced confidence. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... lord awoke: the looking-glass above the fireplace soon intimated to him his plight: as you may imagine, I now live under threat and ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... introduction and of credit, and with no resources but a few coins which happened to be in his pockets. He knew nobody in Calcutta. He disliked very much to present himself to the persons to whom he had been commended by his friends in America in that sorry plight with the possibility that he might be suspected of being an impostor. Accordingly, he determined that he would take care of himself. He walked about the street to see what he could find to do. As he went along he saw the sign of the Oriental Quarterly Review. He went ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... the folks in your block, fellows; how many of them are in some sad plight which would make you shrink from exchanging places with them? They are being set upon; can you get in there and help in some way,—you with your good free strong arm, your big, sympathetic heart, your pocketbook, your resources of ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... the right, met with the same obstruction and lost many of its men and officers while waiting for the British artillery to smash a way through for them. This the artillery did when word had been carried back telling of the plight ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... But ere he departed he sware to her that he would return when he had achieved his quest; but he kept not his oath. Thus have I sought him in many a court. All this did my lady mother tell me, and also of the troth-plight. Little good hath it done me that he be my father, and that he sware to my mother, ere he departed, that for her honour, and for her profit, he would return to her without fail. Doth he live, God send him mocking (this ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... in my veins and the winy fragrance of antique woods and pastures. I laughed; I clapped my hands; I danced on the ice-rubbish, so that they thought me mad. But, for the other—the man—he was in a different plight. He was transfigured; his nervousness was gone in a flash. He cast himself down upon his knees, and gazed and gazed, his hands clasped, upon that sleek, mild progenitor of his, that pure image of gentle self-containment, whose very ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... signal reassured him. "I see, sir," said he, turning courteously to Vivaldi, "that you are in a bad plight, and I hope that I or my carriage may be of service to you." He ventured a second glance at Fulvia, but she had turned aside and was inspecting the wheel of the chaise with an air of the most ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... lay it upon your wife and self, that you may make a Sunday-appearance like MY tenants. Mean time, take this (putting his hand in his pocket, and giving him five guineas), to put yourselves in present plight; and let me see you next Sunday at church, hand in hand, like an honest and loving couple; and I bespeak you to ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... for a purpose, to demonstrate that he was a man equal to any man's struggle. He had signally failed in his purpose, for reasons that were still a little obscure to him. Failure had made him a little bitter, bred a pessimism it took the plight of his aunts to cure. Even if he had failed to achieve his heart's desire he had acquired power to make two lives content. Save that it ministered to his self-respect to know that he could win in that fierce struggle of the marketplace, money had lost its high value for him. Money ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... discussing the times and the utter lack of news from home, when the last tidings had been most alarming. Poor lady! I think it was a comfort to her, for she loved my mother; but we could not but grieve to see her in such a plight. As we went home we planned that we would carry a faggot in the carriage the next day, and that I would take it upstairs to her. And so I actually did, but the sentry insisted on knowing what I was carrying hidden in ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... say—"job well done." For in a few weeks he would have ceased to be strictly human, becoming a dangerous threat to his fellows. And if the girl had been unable to escape from him before that time, she would have been subject to the same plight. Morgan decided that he would have done the same thing if given time to weigh the ...
— Collectivum • Mike Lewis
... a much worse plight; for, whereas Mrs Major Negus had only swallowed a lot of sea-water and had been only nearly frightened to death, Mr Lathrope's sallow face was so unearthly pale that Mr Meldrum was certain he had received ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... leaving the country, was a sorry, and possibly might not be a very effectual one. Do what he would, his domestic sky was likely to be overcast to the end of the day. Thus he brooded, and his resentment gathered force. He craved a means of striking one blow back at the cause of his cheerless plight, while he was still on the scene of his discomfiture. For some minutes no method suggested itself, and then he ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... Eastman thought it would be well to go to New York for a few days until the storm blew over. Jeffries the book-keeper could attend to all that was needed. Mr. Lawrence would find Hope Mills in a bad plight, to be sure; but he would not be the first man who had come to ruin. Mr. Eastman put his desk in order,—he never kept any tell-tale papers,—walked leisurely out of Hope Mills with that serene, impassable face and high heart no misfortune ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... But one common topic to be employed will be indignation at his offence, and another will be the argument, that it is right to pity those who are in distress, owing to misfortune, and not those who are in such a plight through their own wickedness. ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... darling; because, you see, I hadn't any powder left; and I was coming through the woods—just as I told you—when the Yanks got sight of me." He smiled down at her bravely, striving to add a dash of comedy to his tragic plight. "And I tell you, Virgie, your old dad had to run like a turkey—wishing to the Lord he ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... no occupation, is in a sad plight: The man who lacks concentration of effort is worse off. In a recent test of the power of steel plates, designed for ship armor, one thousand cannon were fired at once against it, but without avail. A large cannon was then brought out. This cannon used but one-tenth as much powder as did ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... furtive. For the first time during the evening his jaded mind, that had instinctively sought the solace of contemplating trifles, reverted to its own tormented processes. "Am I not hiding?" he said to himself, in a sort of sarcastic pity of his plight. ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... in a similar plight the old-fashioned woman—or at least the ubiquitous woman of the special eternal type that fictionists call "old-fashioned"—would have been either a bleating, tremulous gazelle or a brazen siren. But Miss Webling ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... were then turned to Monsieur Du Bois, whose clothes were in the same miserable plight with those of Madame Duval; and who, wet, shivering, and disconsolate, had crept ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... playing on their instruments and singing and dancing; and the conjurors dance to such a pitch that at last one of them shall fall to the ground lifeless, like a dead man. And then the devil entereth into his body. And when his comrades see him in this plight they begin to put questions to him about the sick man's ailment. And he will reply: "Such or such a spirit hath been meddling with the man,[NOTE 9] for that he hath angered the spirit and done it some despite." ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... several kings or caciques. The one who lived near the Admiral's landing place had been extremely friendly to his strange visitors, and when in the morning he saw their sad plight, he sent all the people of the town out in large canoes to unload the ship. He himself came down to the shore and took every precaution that the goods should be brought safely to land and cared for. The next day, Wednesday, ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... place, then, men of Athens, we must not be downhearted at our present situation, however wretched it may seem to be. For in the worst feature of the past lies our best hope for the future-in the fact, that is, that we are in our present plight because you are not doing your duty in any respect; for if you were doing all that you should do, and we were still in this evil case, we could not then even hope for any improvement. {3} In the second place, you must bear in mind (what some ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... to meet them, and taking the waiting-maid for his bride, he lifted her down from her horse and led her upstairs to the royal chamber. In the meantime the real Princess was left standing below in the courtyard. The old King, who was looking out of his window, beheld her in this plight, and it struck him how sweet and gentle, even beautiful, she looked. He went at once to the royal chamber, and asked the bride who it was she had brought with her and had left thus standing in the court below. "Oh!" replied the bride, "I brought her with me to keep me company on the journey; ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... moment, only one, whose existence was comforting to remember. The hundreds of kind and good people, who were merely kind and good where popular sentiment expected or commended such conduct, gave no re-assurance; on the contrary, they proved the desperation of our plight, since wisdom and goodness themselves were busy at the ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... beginning of the war Alexeiev, then Ivanov's chief of staff, is said to have counselled a Russian retreat like those which lured Charles XII and Napoleon to their doom; but the temptations of Austrian weakness and German concentration on the West and the plight of France and Belgium led to the adoption of other advice and the premature invasion of Prussia, Galicia, and Hungary; and in August 1915 it was too late for a voluntary and innocuous retreat. The safety of the majority had to be bought ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... giving up in despair, there came a humming sound and a moment later the well-known signal of distress had been flashed out across the waves. Three times he repeated it. Three times in a few sharp words he told their general location and their plight. Then with wildly beating heart, he pressed the receivers to his ears and awaited ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... you for what you have given to Mr. Phelps. I don't call this billet part of the acknowledgment. All the world is dispersed: the ministers are at their several villas: one day in a week serves to take care of a nation, let it be in as bad a plight as it will! We have a sort of Jewish superstition, and would not come to town on a Saturday or Sunday though it were to defend the Holy of ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... The Texan's plight had applied any spur the pursuers might have needed. Confident they were now going to gather in at least two bushwhackers, the shouting behind took on a premature shrilling of triumph. There was a blast of shooting, ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... out with the honours of war, and were escorted by Messer Galeaz and the Marquis of Mantua to the French outposts. More than two thousand men had already died of sickness and starvation. Almost all their horses had been eaten, and the survivors were in a miserable plight. Many perished by the roadside, and Commines found fifty troopers in a fainting condition in a garden at Cameriano, and saved their lives by feeding them with soup. Even then one man died on the spot, and four others never reached the camp. Three hundred more died at Vercelli, some of ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... I have mercy when you have none?" he asked, quickly. "Let the prisoners die of grief; I am a prisoner too, and shall know also how to die. I shall not leave Innspruck unless you promise me that you will become my wife on my return, and plight me your faith before the altar of God. I swear by all that is sacred to me, I will not leave this city unless I take with me your solemn pledge that you will overcome your pride and ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... angry at his Irish assurance, tossed him against the rocks, brought him back in fierce eddies, and again and again threw him against a solid face of stone. When he was rescued he was a mass of bruises, but fortunately no bones were broken. It was some days before he could get out, and in his sorry plight, bandaged so his face was scarcely visible, Spencer found him. "Herbert, do you believe in the actuality of matter?" was John's ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... speak, but Annabel de Chaumont could talk faster than the four others combined, so they knew our plight before we learned that they were the Grignon and Tank families, who were going into the west to find settlement and had made the house their camp for one night. The Dutch maid, dark and round-eyed, and the flaxen little Grignon, had respect for their elders and held their tongues while Madame ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... story ages and ages old. The local correspondent did not plagiarize from the Chinaman: merely, the humorous bent of the two was identical. In the ancient Oriental tale, a man who wore the thief's collar as a punishment was questioned by an acquaintance concerning the cause of his plight. ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... I thought it could be in a woman; And if it can, I will presume in you, To feed for aye her lamp and flame of love, To keep her constancy in plight and youth, Out-living beauties outward, with a mind That doth renew swifter than blood decays. Or, that persuasion could but thus convince me, That my integrity and truth to you Might be affronted with the match and weight Of such a ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... would have been able to rush the machine guns and so gain a great victory was more problematical. Anyway, our advance at dawn was half heroic, half lamentable. The men were so beat that if they tripped and fell, they lay like dead things. The enemy were almost in worse plight and so we took prisoners, but as soon as we came up against nerveless, tireless machine guns we had to stagger back to ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... destruction of my race. I made no distinction between my own children and the children of Pandu. My own sons were prone to wilfulness and despised me because I am old. Blind as I am, because of my miserable plight and through paternal affection, I bore it all. I was foolish after the thoughtless Duryodhana ever growing in folly. Having been a spectator of the riches of the mighty sons of Pandu, my son was derided for his awkwardness while ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... Constance perceived in the clear light of the street, that not only was the person Mr. Pellew was carrying into the house—whom she could only identify otherwise as having snow-white hair—covered with dust and soiled, but that Gwen and Miss Grahame were in a like plight, the latter in addition being embarrassed by a rent skirt, which she was fain to hold together as she crossed the doorstep. Once in the house she made short work of it, finishing the rip, and acquiescing in the publicity of a petticoat. It added to Aunt Constance's ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... Unconsciously, her throat was arranged for a sudden shrill scream. High in the tree branches she could hear the voice of the wind, a melody of the night, low and sad, the plaint of an endless, incommunicable sorrow. Her own distress, the plight of the men in gray—these near matters as well as all she had known or imagined of grief—everything was expressed in this soft mourning of the wind in the trees. At first she felt like weeping. This sound told ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... Madeleine was almost a houseboat girl herself. Readers of the first houseboat story will recall how Madeleine's fiance, Judge Hilliard, rescued Madge and Phyllis from a serious situation and saved Madeleine from a far worse plight than that in which he found ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... any one, sinner as I am!" said I. "Nay, Margaret, I doubt not my thoughts have been far unholier than thine. Thou rememberest not, I am sure; but ere we were professed, I was troth-plight unto a young noble, and always that life that I have lost flitteth afore me, as a bird that held a jewel in his beak might lure me on from flower to flower, ever following, never grasping the sweet illusion. Margaret, sister, despise me not for my confession! ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... were directed towards the barred windows of a private house, through which nothing but insects and the hearts of moon-struck young men could obtain access. I felt very sorry for you both. I could see that your studies were being seriously interrupted, and that the plight of ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... to the table, only too delighted with the invitation. Their entertainer watched them as they attacked the food, and a thrill of pity ran through him as he beheld their sorry plight, dirty, ragged, arms gone, their sole attire a pair of red trousers and the capote, kept in place by bits of twine and so patched and pieced with shreds of vari-colored cloth that one would have taken them for men who had been looting some battle-field and were wearing ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... best the world can give—call it by what name thou wilt and prize it at its utmost worth—is nothing more than these: wind and smoke and a dream and a flower. But though all have fled from thee and left thee to die alone in grievous plight, this ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... venial crimes in Love's gay spring, Prompt the youthful Female's sigh; When her roses all take wing, And Matrons sage her plight descry; ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... scandalised, flustered, very sore, poor birds, and quite past recollecting that feathers grow again if the system is sound and the cuticle health. To Iglesias these purse-proud, self-righteous, middle-aged gentlemen presented a spectacle at once pathetic and humorous in their present sad plight. A calm head and clear judgment might do much to ameliorate their position, and a calm head and cool judgment he was confident of possessing. Only was he, after all, disposed to place these useful possessions at ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... extremely unfavorable circumstances;—almost an invalid, and arrayed in this slovenly dishabille. My dear Mr. Tickels," she added, "you must not look at me, for I am really ashamed of having been caught in this deplorable plight." ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... vague shape was gone, swallowed up in the night. He hurried after it over the ridge. The stars showed him empty spaces of billowy sand; there were black spots marking hollows and nowhere his horse. But yet he went forward hopefully or at least striving to retain his hope. He had little liking for the plight that would be his were he set afoot here in the heart of the Bad Lands. But at the end of upwards of an hour of fruitless search he went back to the water-hole and his traps, seeing the folly of further ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... and loud. "Of course he erred. You don't suppose that I would give the authorities my real name, do you? Why, man, I am a nephew! I have an aged uncle—a rich millionaire uncle—whose heart and will it would break were he to hear of my present plight. Both the heart and will are in my favor, hence my tender solicitude for him. I am innocent, of course—convicts always are, you know—but that wouldn't make any difference. He'd die of mortification just the same. It's one of our family traits, that. So I gave a false name to the authorities, and ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... the Deacon, and Miss Wingate could see that his distress at the plight of young Bud was as genuine as that of any of ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... from recollecting that he mentioned the circumstance to William Peirce, as he went to the Mineral Spring on Fast-day. Last Monday morning he told Colonel Putnam he could not fix the time. This witness stands in a much worse plight than either of the others. It is difficult to reconcile all he has said with any belief in the ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... father, only to be repelled anew by the expression, almost of fatuity, she discovered on his face as he bent over the letter once more. Suddenly she experienced an overwhelming realization of the desperation of Hannah's plight,—the destiny of spending one's days, without sympathy, toiling in the confinement of these rooms to supply their bodily needs. Never had a destiny seemed so appalling. And yet Janet resented that pity. The effect of it was to fetter ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of which I commanded) was the only one who did not complain of the food as unfit and horrible to eat, am seized with such a shuddering horror at the sight of a water-cress that I am forced to go away." One of his children was in the same plight as regards the inoffensive vegetable, cabbage. Scaliger also speaks of one of his kinsmen who fainted at the sight of a lily. Vaughheim, a great huntsman of Hanover, would faint at the sight of a roasted pig. Some individuals have been disgusted at the sight of eggs. There ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... the amputation of a limb, if it were kindly and courteously performed from a wish to help us out of our difficulty, and with the full consciousness on the part of the doctor that it was only by an accident of constitution that he was not in the like plight himself. So the Erewhonians take a flogging once a week, and a diet of bread and water for two or three months together, whenever their ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... cabals set on foot by rival opera-managers in London, who, by importing Italian singers, drew off the patronage of the nobility, and ultimately succeeded in reducing him to the condition of an insolvent debtor. While in this wretched plight an invitation came to him from the Duke of Devonshire, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, to visit Dublin. He eagerly accepted it, and in the correspondence which passed between them promised to contribute ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... Some One did not merely apprentice himself to a printer at fourteen (as city papers say it) and marry at twenty-one. But he that is now deceased was once full of hope and strength (at fourteen), and in the brave days of twenty-one did he, that is now struck down, plight his troth. So, doubtless, runs the thought in that intimate phrase so dear ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... not to be parted with for the loss of a victory or two; wherefore the wing of the tyrant was clipped again, as to boasting,—I mean in comparison of what he would have done, if the Diabolonians had put the town to the same plight to which he ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... she came limping into the room, with her dog Fanchon following in the same lame plight,—she laughing heartily at their similarity of gait, and holding up a letter ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... sure of a hearty welcome and a home among those connexions, whose wealth and virtues he had heard so often extolled by his grandfather, was a matter not easily settled. As good fortune would have it, he fell in with an Irishman as thoughtless as himself, and whose plight so exactly resembled his own, that, such is the sympathetic power of misfortune, they formed a mutual attachment almost as soon as they came in contact. Both were pedestrians bound to London, and both were equally destitute of money or friends; and one honest mode only remained for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 327, August 16, 1828 • Various
... she liked; to have a good time, and to be responsible to nobody. There was a mother-in-law in the case, of course, and, although the brand has become tiresome, this particular lady was necessary in order to emphasize Suzanne's apparently hapless plight. ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... statements by Mr Belasco and by writers in and to The Referee, the Theatrical Syndicate does, in fact, control to a very great extent the drama in America, and there is no real doubt about the accuracy of the proposition that the drama in the States is in a worse plight than the drama in London. If, judging by the ordinary picked American productions over here, the evidence were otherwise insufficient, the tone of Mr Klaw's article would ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... two of her least prized trinkets. Going out in all weathers to look for employment had not improved her clothes; her best pair of boots let in water; she was jaded, heartsick, dispirited. As with others in a like plight, she dared not look into the immediate future, this holding only terrifying probabilities of disaster; the present moment was all sufficient; little else mattered, and, although to-morrow promised ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... power to stir her,—and she told herself Jack had so failed, without asking herself why,—then some other man might easily accomplish that, to her unutterable grief. She had told herself many a time that no more terrible plight could overtake her than to love and be loved and sit with hands folded, foregoing it all. She shrank from so tragic an evolution. It meant only pain, the ache of unfulfilled, unattainable desires. If, she reflected cynically, this man beside her stood for such a motif in her life, he might better ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... this cave and perish with the smoke and the heat? Rather will we go forth and fight with our enemies, then we may have a chance of saving ourselves." They left the cave, going through openings at the side, and they attacked Issachar and Gad in front and behind. Dan and Naphtali saw the plight of their brothers and ran to their assistance. They laid about with their swords, hewing a way for themselves to Issachar and Gad, and, united with them, they, too, opposed ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... all, is a safer guide than either right or duty. For hard as it is to know what gives us pleasure, right and duty are often still harder to distinguish and, if we go wrong with them, will lead us into just as sorry a plight as a mistaken opinion concerning pleasure. When men burn their fingers through following after pleasure they find out their mistake and get to see where they have gone wrong more easily than when they have burnt them through ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... lips to her forehead. And he said he was glad that he had made her happy. But he did not tell her that he had forced himself to plight thus, tangibly, his troth to her that there might be no escape from the path of honor which he ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... absent, seeing that there was no knowing how indisposed she herself might be. There never is, with nerve cases, and she was a nerve case. So Sir Hamilton really must arrange to stay at home just this one afternoon, that Lady Ancester's visit should not be absolutely sterile. If the nerve case's plight and Sir Hamilton's isolation were communicated to her on her arrival, she could choose for herself whether to come in or go on to Poynders. She chose to come in and interview Sir Hamilton. So consider that the lady of the house is indisposed, and ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... a French dungeon for no crime except that he was a foreigner, when a word from the President of the United States, of which he was a citizen, would have effected his release. Washington was aware of Paine's miserable plight, yet he forgot the obligations of friendship; and notwithstanding frequent letters from Munro, the American ambassador at Paris, he supinely suffered the man he had once delighted to honor to languish in wretchedness, filth, and ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote
... costume. A more miserable transformation it is hardly possible to imagine. The clothes hung loosely about her, in forlorn dowdyness. She felt that she was ridiculous. All grace was gone, all beauty. It was distressing to witness her mortified plight. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... skirts about her slender limbs, and, without wasting time in looking back upon the perilous road she had just traversed, she hastened up the hill. A few moments later she reached the door of the chateau in a plight most pitiable to behold. It was time. A moment more and her limbs trembling with excitement and exhaustion, would have refused to sustain her. She fell on her knees and deposited her burden upon some tufts of heather; then with a mighty effort she ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... the counterpoise of both heads, she regained her own keel, though sorely strained, you may well believe. So, when on one side you hoist in Locke's head, you go over that way; but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant's and you come back again; but in very poor plight. Thus, some minds forever keep trimming boat. Oh, ye foolish! throw all these thunderheads overboard, and then you ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... Ross, of Sir John and Lady Tozer, of the doctor, her maid, the hundred and one individualities of her pleasant life aboard ship. Could it be that they were all dead? The notion was monstrous. But its ghastly significance was instantly borne in upon her by the plight in which she stood. Her lips quivered; the tears trembled in ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... takes his pleasure; But, first and chiefest, with thee bring Him that yon soars on golden wing, Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne, The Cherub Contemplation; And the mute Silence hist along, 'Less Philomel will deign a song, In her sweetest saddest plight, Smoothing the rugged brow of Night, While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke Gently o'er the accustomed oak. Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly, Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among I woo, ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... This word is French; but it has lately been adopted by some English writers.—TRANS.] of Falstaff; disguised as the Ghost of a Hunter who, with ragged horns, wanders about in the woods of Windsor, he is to wait for his frolicsome mistress; in this plight he is surprised by a chorus of boys and girls disguised like fairies, who, agreeably to the popular belief, are holding their midnight dances, and who sing a merry song as they pinch and torture him. This is the last affront put upon poor Falstaff; and with this contrivance the ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... face again if I left him to take his chances in life with no help from me, still less if I did that which he could scarcely forgive. He could not understand all that has happened since we thought him dead. He would only remember that I deserted him in his present pitiable plight. Do you understand ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... maiden Else, Hearken, true-love, to me, Weep no more for thine own troth-plight, However it ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... & has instantlie urg'd, y^t I sholde make him a Visitt.—And I take much Shame to myselfe, y^t I have not given him y^is Satisfaction since he was married, wh. is nowe ii Yeares.—A goode Fellowe, & I minde me a grete Burden to his Frends when he was in Love, in wh. Plight I mockt him, who am nowe, I much feare me, ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... gathered his scattered Ironsides, that gallant host was driven fighting, down the hill and back to the shelter of Worcester. With the Roundheads pressing hotly upon them they gained at last the Sidbury Gate, but only to find that an overset ammunition wagon blocked the entrance. In this plight, and without attempting to move it, they faced about to make a last ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... Unktomi, "that the villagers and chief who bound and deserted you are in sad plight. They have hardly anything to eat and ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... a sad plight to find ye in," said the squire, regretfully, as he held out his hand, forgetful that the prisoner's cords ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... a hasty look, Each bent on his eager way; One glance at him was the most they took, "Somebody stuck," said they; But it never occurred to the nine to heed A stranger's plight and a stranger's need. ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest
... listen to her, force him to admit. She caught a slight cold, neglected it, tried to sing it away. Her voice left her abruptly. She went to Jennings as usual the day she found herself able to do nothing more musical than squeak. She told him her plight. Said he: ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... have and to hold, from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... incident. "Conde turned round to his men-at-arms, and showing first his injured limbs and then the device, 'Sweet is danger for Christ and for fatherland!' which fluttered upon his banner in the breeze, 'Nobles of France,' he cried, 'this is the desired moment Remember in what plight Louis de Bourbon enters the battle for Christ and fatherland!' Then, lowering his head, he charges with his three hundred horse upon the eight hundred lances of the Duke of Anjou. The first shock of this charge was irresistible; such for a moment was the disorder amongst ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... my life (as I have since often reminded him) I never saw a man worse scared. The woman had actually thrown off her jacket and stood up in a loose under-bodice that left her arms free—and exceedingly red and brawny arms they were. How he had come into this plight I could guess as little as what the issue was like to be, when in the gateway there appeared my uncle and Mr. Knox, and close at their heels a rabble of men and women arm-in-arm, headed by a red-nosed clergyman with an immense white favour pinned ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... enough pay a visit of congratulation to the bride's parents, and soon after the betrothed couple return these visits with some ceremony. It is quite impossible, by the way, to talk of Germans who are officially engaged without calling them the bride and bridegroom. They plight their troth with the plain gold rings that will be their wedding rings, and this stage of their union is celebrated with as much ceremony and merrymaking as the actual wedding. The Germans are giving up so many of their quaint poetical customs that the girl of ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... receive Protestants into their houses. My mother's house had long been filled with soldiers, as well as that of my sister De Darassus; and not knowing where to go, I suffered great agony of mind for fear my poor wife should give birth to her infant in the street. In this lamentable plight, the good providence of God led us to the house of Mdlle. de Guarrison, my wife's sister, from whence, most fortunately, a large number of soldiers, with their officers, were issuing. They had occupied it for some time, and had allowed the family no rest. Now they were changing their ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... Mr. Mayhew. "That sort of trick isn't played on folks in any decent resort on shore. I don't understand Mr. Benson's conduct. I remember his mishap at Dunhaven. I remember the plight he got into at Annapolis; and now he and Mr. Hastings are found in this questionable shape. I am very much afraid these young men do not conduct themselves, on shore, in the careful manner that must be expected of civilian instructors ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... ever fallen!" They heard, and were abashed, and up they sprung Upon the wing, as when men wont to watch On duty, sleeping found by whom they dread, Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake. Nor did they not perceive the evil plight In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel; Yet to their General's voice they soon obeyed Innumerable. As when the potent rod Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day, Waved round the coast, up-called a pitchy cloud Of ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... began to swear at the Wind, and, taking his stick, he set out to follow and slay Norouas, who had spoiled his flax. So hasty had he been in setting forth that he had taken no food or money with him, and when evening came he arrived at an inn hungry and penniless. He explained his plight to the hostess, who gave him a morsel of bread and permitted him to sleep in a corner of the stable. In the morning he asked the dame the way to the abode of Norouas, and she conducted him to the foot of a mountain, where she said the ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... they won't think we're in this plight until quite late, if it ever does occur to them. Then it will be dark, and they can't see ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster
... to himself, King Arthur looked about him and saw that his companions were knights in the same hard case as himself; and he inquired of them how they came to be in that plight. "Sir," said one of them, "we are in duresse in the castle of a certain recreant knight, Sir Damas by name, a coward false to chivalry. None love him, and so no champion can he find to maintain his cause in a ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... in. I gets heavier every day. The doctor wants me to go to the hospital, and I was goin' to the Vicar to ask for a letter, but I dreads comin' back up that hill." As it was she had already walked half a mile. In the third case a man's indifference to his own suffering was to blame for the plight in which he found himself. Driving a van, he had barked his shin against the iron step on the front of the van. Just as the skin had begun to heal over he knocked it again, severely, in exactly the same way, and he described to me the immense size of the aggravated ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... we no difference know, They do the females as the males bestow; So he of one of his daughters' marriages gave the ward, Like a true vassal, to Glenluce's Laird; He knew what she did to her master plight, If she her faith to Rutherfurd should slight, Which, like his own, for greed he broke outright. Nick did Baldoon's posterior right deride, And, as first substitute, did seize the bride; Whate'er he to his mistress did or said, ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... make my tale longer than need is, dear hearts," pursueth she, "and therefore I will but tell you that in course of time, with assent of my father and his mother, my cousin Leonard and I were troth-plight. I loved him, methinks, as well as it was in woman to love man: and—I thought he loved me. I never knew a man who had such a tongue to cajole a woman's heart. He could talk in such a fashion that thou shouldst feel perfectly ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... meetings held at the "Travellers' Rest," and was a prominent man on training and election days. After a while, his wife began to look on these days with a troubled feeling, for they generally sent him home in a sad plight; and it took nearly a week for him to get settled down again to his work. Thus the declension began, and its progress was too sadly apparent to the eyes of Mrs. Foster, even before others, less interested than herself, observed it. At the end of ten years from the happy wedding day, the farm, ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... Crawley is made to put on the brightest pea-green in her wardrobe, and my pupils leave off their thick shoes and tight old tartan pelisses, and wear silk stockings and muslin frocks, as fashionable baronets' daughters should. Rose came in yesterday in a sad plight—the Wiltshire sow (an enormous pet of hers) ran her down, and destroyed a most lovely flowered lilac silk dress by dancing over it—had this happened a week ago, Sir Pitt would have sworn frightfully, have boxed the poor wretch's ears, and put her upon bread and water for a month. All ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... last throb was thine, that blood Baptized thine Image in it's flood, And gushing from the fount of Faith O'erflowed with Passion even in Death, Constant to thee as in it's hour Of rapture in the secret bower. Thou too hast kept thy plight full well, As many a baffled ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... more than she had done lately in view of this future time. Her being somewhat weather-browned would not matter; it would be rather an advantage, as testifying to her banishment; but she must be in comfortable plight, and ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... tender that neither his hands or feet were able to perform their functions; so that the poor object was half his time on crutches, incapable of employ, and languishing in a tiresome state of indolence and inactivity. His habit was lean, lank, and cadaverous. In this sad plight he dragged on a miserable existence, a burden to himself and his parish, which was obliged to support him till he was relieved by death at more ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... will be seen that I was not in a bad plight; but although I appreciated this, I grew more and more troubled and uneasy. For several days I had not seen a sail, and if I should see one how could I attract attention? It must be that the condition of the vessel indicated that there was no ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... shilling in his pocket to pay for a hackney-coach! He is free to laugh at a comrade for coming besplashed up to his eyes and wet to the skin, though at night he goes to his own home in just the same plight. There was one of them some months ago who had a violent brawl with the Savoyard at the door. They had a running account; the creditor insisted on being paid, and the debtor was not in funds, and yet he could not go upstairs without passing through ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... fortunately chanced, to iron rings. Formerly there were a drove of eight—the others being free—so exquisitely outlined in all their parts that one night, when the door had been left incautiously open, they stepped down from the wall and escaped to the woods. How deplorable would have been the plight of these unfortunate beings, if upon passing into the state of a living existence they had found that as a result of the limited vision of their creator they only possessed twelve legs and three whole bodies ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... we had no choice but to remain in Uliassutai. Here also were living several Polish soldiers who had escaped from the prison camps in Russia, two Polish families and two American firms, all in the same plight as ourselves. We joined together and made our own intelligence department, very carefully watching the evolution of events. We succeeded in forming good connections with the Chinese commissioner and with the Mongolian Sait, which greatly helped ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... long with a pair of stag's horns in his mouth. He had swallowed the stag, but could not get the horns down; so he had to wait in patience with that uncomfortable mouthful till his stomach digested the body, and then the horns would drop out. In this plight the Dutchman found him as he was going in his canoe up the river, and sent a ball through ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... Vaniman was moved by the expansive hope that his plight had appealed to this man; he hastened to take what Wagg offered. It was a ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... skill to deal with an orchard. And truly, neither fig, nor vine, nor olive, nor pear may flourish in a garden without care. But yet another thing will I say to thee, and be not thou wroth when thou hearest it. Thy garden, indeed, is well cared for, but thou thyself art in evil plight. For old age lieth heavy upon thee, and thou art clad in filthy garments. Yet truly it is not because thou art idle that thy master thus dealeth with thee; nor, indeed, art thou in any wise like unto a slave; for thy face and thy ...
— The Story Of The Odyssey • The Rev. Alfred J. Church
... well peopled, and they said there were mountaines, which the horses could not passe: and for that cause the Gouernour would not goe from Cutifa-chiqui directly thither: And hee made account, that trauelling through a peopled Countrie, when his men and horses should be in better plight, and hee were better certified of the truth of the thing, he would returne toward it, by mountaines, and a better inhabited Countrie, whereby hee might haue better passage. (M630) He sent two Christians from Chiaha with certain Indians which knew the Countrie of Chisca, and the language thereof ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... doth my lover, Kisses with each breath - I shall one day throw him over, And plight troth ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... so evident that every mere beholder fell back, letting the Callender-Valcour group, with Steve and the gentle detective, press closer. With none of them, nor yet with Hilary, was there anything to argue; their plight seemed to her hopeless. For them to marry, for her to default, and for him to fly, all in one mad hour—one whirlwind of incident—"It cannot be!" was all she could say, to sister, to stepmother, to Flora, to Hilary ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... too, in turn Broke a-bloom and the palm-tree seemed perfect: yet more was to learn, E'en the good that comes in with the palm-fruit. Our dates shall we slight, When their juice brings a cure for all sorrow? or care for the plight Of the palm's self whose slow growth produced them? Not so! stem and branch. Shall decay, nor be known in their place, while the palm-wine shall staunch Every wound of man's spirit in winter. I pour thee ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... of the chase, having plenty of work, for, had a gale come on, our ship, and a good many others, would assuredly have been driven ashore, in the plight we were in. Anyhow, at night their ships got into the Texel, and our vessels, which had been following them, anchored five or six leagues out, being afraid of the sands. Altogether we had burnt or sunk twenty-six of their ships of war, while we lost only two frigates, both of which were ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... began to realise the serious character of the extraordinary plight in which he thus unexpectedly found himself involved. For it now flashed upon him that, in the astonishment following upon his seizure, he had failed to raise any outcry, with the object of making his friends acquainted with his predicament; indeed, he had been so fully occupied in ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... it an equally imperative and not-to-be-disregarded order to arise. The story of the old veteran who was carrying home his dinner and who dropped his hands to his side and his dinner to the gutter when a practical joker called "Attention"; the pathetic plight of the superannuated business man who is totally at a loss away from his familiar duties, are often quoted illustrations of how completely habit may determine a ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... with both hands, and bestowed on the fist such a bite that the knife fell from it, and the hand began to bleed. More people had run up in the meantime, who separated them and set them on their feet. Franti took to his heels in a sorry plight, and Stardi stood still, with his face all scratched, and a black eye,—but triumphant,—beside his weeping sister, while some of the girls collected the books and copy-books which were strewn over ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... in Haddon Hall to whom I cared to say farewell. They were Lady Madge and Will Dawson. The latter was a Scot, and was attached to the cause of Queen Mary. He and I had become friends, and on several occasions we had talked confidentially over Mary's sad plight. ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... had been living in concubinage for about eighteen years when the last three books of The Faerie Queen were published, Mirabella's penance of being forced to "stray through the world" accompanied by "Disdaine" and "Scorne," would match her plight as Florio's mistress, but would not apply ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... If it's wet in the road, you can bank on sinkin' in to the hocks the minute you turn out." He carefully removed the mud pancakes from his shoes by scraping them across the hub of the stalled car and edged back to stand with his arms on his hips while he surveyed the full plight of them. ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... a month of Sundays? Better for you had you passed the night with your roistering friends at Kakiat, or started homeward earlier, for Sabbath-breaking is no sin now, and you, poor ghost, will find little sympathy for your plight. Grant that your month of Sundays, or your cycle of months of Sundays, be soon up, for it is sad to be reminded that we may be punished for offences many years forgotten. When the sun is high to-morrow a score of barges will vex ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... trunks again appeared, and a few minutes before dinner M. de Tourville made his entrance into the drawing-room, no longer in the plight of a shipwrecked mariner, but in gallant trim, wafting gales of momentary bliss as he went round the room paying his compliments to the ladies, bowing, smiling, apologizing,—the very pink of courtesy!—The gentlemen of the family, who had seen him the preceding night in his frightened, angry, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... Kennel of Hounds in good order and plight, and being desirous to enjoy those Pleasures, for which we have observed the aforesaid Rules; Lead them forth, and to your Game (Gentlemen:) Only take this Caution along with you; Do not forget to have in your Pack a couple of Hounds, called Hunters in the Highwayes, that ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... Plight, And to his Mates thus in Derision call'd. O Friends, why come not on those Victors proud? Ere-while they fierce were coming, and when we, To entertain them fair with open Front, And Breast, (what could we more?) propounded terms Of Composition, straight they chang'd their Minds, Flew ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... object on reaching Montreal, the little clothing allowed him being miserably dirty and ragged, his beard and hair dishevelled, his legs torn by thorns and briers, his face gashed, blood-stained, and swollen. Colonel Schuyler, a prisoner there, beheld his plight with deep commiseration, supplied him with clothing and money, and did his utmost ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... kind; Wherein I feel as much extremity, As may be felt in body or in mind. For by that sight, which should recure my pain, My sorrows are redoubled all in vain. Now I perceive that only I alone Am her belov'd, her looks assure me so: The thought thereof provokes me to bemoan Her heavy plight that grieveth at my woe. This intercourse of our affections— I her to serve, she thus to honour me— Bewrays the truth of our elections, Delighting in this mutual sympathy. Thus love for love entreat's the queen of love, That with her help Love's solace we may prove. I see my mistress seeks ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... most remarkable and most singular scene of all that rose-water revolution was the Duke's departure from his capital and his duchy. Other sovereigns in similar plight have hidden themselves, travestied themselves, had hairbreadth escapes, or have not escaped at all. In Tuscany the fallen ruler went forth in his own carriage with one other following it, both rather heavily laden with luggage. The San Gallo ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... Rebecca's plight was pathetic. How could she refuse; how could she explain she was not a "member;" how could she pray before all those elderly women! John Rogers at the stake hardly suffered more than this poor child for the moment as she rose to her ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... now, poor o'erworked drudge, is on thy mind? No more in even swathe thou layest the corn: Thy fellow-reapers leave thee far behind, As flocks a ewe that's footsore from a thorn. By noon and midday what will be thy plight If now, so soon, thy ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... inquiries when I could get an express train for Albany, when what should I see coming up to the dock but the Varmint II. As soon as the people on board saw me they immediately began to urge me to come with them. They had seen the Growler just pulling out and leaving me in my unfortunate plight." ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay
... has been like Thine? Betrayed by Judas in the garden, denied by Peter before the cock crew, crucified between thieves, and mourned for by a harlot, and then sent bound and bare, nothing changed, nothing altered, in Thy ignominious plight, forthward in the world's van the glory and symbol of a man's new idea—Pity. Thy day is closing in, but the heavens are now wider aflame with Thy light than ever before—Thy light, which I, a pagan, standing on the last ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... silence of his wound made much worriment. The little blistering voices of pain that had called out from his scalp were, he thought, definite in their expression of danger. By them he believed that he could measure his plight. But when they remained ominously silent he became frightened and imagined terrible fingers that clutched ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... in, perfectly sober, with a big ruddy face, giant frame, and twinkling gray eyes. He was the man who had risen to speak his faith in the Hon. Samuel Budd that day on the size of the Hon. Samuel's ears. He, too, was unashamed and, as he explained his plight again, he did ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.
... and promised to tell my uncle. After nightfall he opened the gate and led us in by a back passage to my aunt's apartments where she and my uncle were waiting for me. They both burst into tears as they beheld my plight. Two old serving women, who had been many years in the family, helped us to change our clothes and gave us a bath and food. My feet had suffered the most. They were swollen and ulcerated and the dirty rags and dust adhering to the sores had left them in a wretched condition. It took many baths ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... horse to Lafayette and told him hurriedly to go to Hoff, the rendezvous agreed upon. Lafayette mounted the horse and started out. But he could not bear to leave his two rescuers in such a plight, so he came back to ask if he could not do ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow
... what was I to do? My plight was almost as desperate as it could well be; for not only was I utterly bereft of every one of those who were nearest and dearest to me, but I was likewise homeless, and literally penniless. The house which I called home was destroyed; every ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... is true, was now in a worse plight than before; but this time not alone. Damash had abandoned his men, run away, and lost the gun, pistols, and horse the Emperor had given, or rather lent, him. Many of the petty chiefs and soldiers had followed Damash's example, and ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... under her breast; she had to drag her reluctant feet across the room. Her spirit sank, and then leaped. It whispered that looks and words and touches could only hurt and shame her for this hour of her evil plight. They must rouse her resistance and cunning wit. It was a fact that she was helpless for the present. But she still lived, and her ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... on, and I watched the stowing of the plunder after this, for I had no more to say. I thought of my father, and of the trouble he would be in if he knew my plight, and tried to think what a tale I should have to tell him when I reached ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... manfully on. By and by he was able to eat a bit of bread, and felt better still. But as he recovered, he became aware that with fatigue and dirt his appearance must be disreputable in the extreme. How was he to approach Lady Joan in such a plight? If she recognized him at once, he would but be the more ashamed! What could she take him for but a ne'er-do-weel, whose character had given way the moment he left the guardianship of home, and who now came to sponge ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... that the greatest rascal-cutthroats have had somebody to be fond of them, and if those monsters, why not ordinary mortals? And with whom shall a young lady fall in love but with the person she sees? She is not supposed to lose her heart in a dream, like a Princess in the Arabian Nights; or to plight her young affections to the portrait of a gentleman in the Exhibition, or a sketch in the Illustrated London News. You have an instinct within you which inclines you to attach yourself to some one: you meet Somebody: you hear Somebody ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... its shifted cargo is flung back to place by the shock of a mighty surge. Nature was on guard again in a moment, straining and tense in its sentry over the habitation of a soul so nearly deserted but a minute before. Morgan listened, sweating in the desperation of his plight. ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... have small taste for championing maids in distress: For State we care little: for Church we care less: To Premium and Bonus our homage we plight: "Percentage!" we cry: and "A fig ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... Elm was taken down, the squares were freed from rubbish and the grass restored, the houses repaired and new ones planned. True, landlords groaned about unpaid rents, and money-lenders almost wept over the sums the British had despoiled them of. The country estates were in a sad plight, many of them, ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... original hospital transport of the Sanitary Commission, where she labored faithfully for some weeks after the change of base to Harrison's Landing, when she was associated with Mrs. Almira Fales in caring for the suffering wounded on shore. They found the poor fellows in a terrible plight, in rotten and leaky tents, and lying on the damp soil, sodden with the heavy rains, and poisonous from the malarial exhalations, in need of clothing, food, medicine, and comfort; and though but scantily supplied with the needful ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... the sublimest scenery of earth,' and hating his associate—hating him, she repeated and underscored—she had belied herself; she was willing to meet Alvan, she wished to meet him. She could open her heart to Alvan's true friend—his only true friend. He would instantly discern her unhappy plight. In the presence of his associate she could explain nothing, do nothing but what she had done. He had frozen her. She had good reason to know that man for her enemy. She could prove him a traitor to Alvan. Certain though ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of his prospects and especially of the generosity of his friend Solomon Binkus and of the plight the ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... his good-night, as on her father's she had turned from the hospital. The young man, wondering how she would receive the news of Katie's treachery, asked himself what she could find now in excuse for the girl who had used her faithful friend as the unconscious messenger of her broken plight? Stephen knew well enough that the old glamour would come back, but to-night he was full only of indignation against Katie. To have used Elizabeth as she had done was ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... weeks. Indeed, too much so, for then, to my regret, the "City dads" passed an ordinance prohibiting the running of billiard rooms. As I had commenced housekeeping about the time I opened the billiard room, and had gone in debt for my furniture, I found myself in a sad plight. The sale of the outfit enabled me to pay but a ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... free from boaters and the fishers who told of the fish that used to be got there in other times, so there was nothing to do but wait until my absence caused anxiety, when some one would surely come after me. Not a very alarming plight if one were well, but I felt one of my old cruel attacks was at hand, which was not encouraging. No one was within sight, but in case there should be a ploughman over a rise within hearing, I coo-eed long and well. My voice had been trained. I coo-eed three ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... rated for his confession, in a magazine article of the day, that he did not understand the Rock Limpet, though he added a kindly longing 'for the old day, before Mr. Turner had lighted on the "Fallacies," and could see like other people.'[25] But was Mr. Ruskin in any better plight? Was he any nearer the painter's meaning? ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... tug-boat—as the way was fifty years ago. Liverpool was a gray-stone labyrinth open to the deluge, and its inhabitants went to and fro with umbrellas over their heads and black respirators over their mouths, looking as if such were their normal plight—as, indeed, it was. Much of this was not needed to quench the enthusiasm of the children. The Waterloo Hotel, to which, by advice of friends, we were driven, seemed by its very name to carry out the idea of saturation, which the activities of nature so insistently conveyed. It was intensely discomfortable, ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... to myself, after a long cogitation, "if she wants to marry me, she must go to James Town for a parson, and if I once get there, I will contrive, as soon as extra constables are sworn in, to break off the match." But, seriously, I was in an awkward plight. There was something in that woman that was awful, and I could imagine her revenge to be most deadly. I thought the old Indian squaw to be bad enough, but this new mistress was a thousand times worse. What a hard fate, I thought, was mine, ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... touched her now as at other times. She wondered whether, if they had been alone, she would not have confessed her perplexities and asked his counsel. In their talks she had been impressed by his rugged common sense, and her plight was one that demanded the exercise of just that quality. Rose turned the pages of her book. Her father and Nan continued their conference in low tones ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... master saw the lad returning in such a sorry plight, he understood at once what had happened to him, and making no bones about the matter, he told Antonio what a fool he had been to allow himself to be so imposed upon by the landlord, and to let a worthless animal be palmed off on him ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... from the tumult of excitement and admiration caused by the departure of the gallant band of cavaliers upon their foray when they beheld the scattered wrecks flying for refuge to their walls. Day after day and hour after hour brought some wretched fugitive, in whose battered plight and haggard woebegone demeanor it was almost impossible to recognize the warrior who had lately issued so gayly and gloriously from ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... his eyes that Eva O'Neil was conquered, just as the first Eve was by the eyes and tongue of the serpent. Not, God knows, that the great Eve was any great shakes, for she left the world in a nice plight by falling in love with a serpent; but upon my credit she was not the first woman, excuse the blunder, who fell in love with a serpent, and suffered accordingly. I appeal to ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... feared, he were to leave her, what would her position be? Already disgraced, discredited in the eyes of the world, she would find it impossible to face that world all alone, without the shelter of her husband's name; and although Toni's plight was nothing to her, there were times when she almost wished she had left the girl alone and had not encouraged her to take the fatal step of ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... be described as long undulations carrying the schooner (its weight diminished from the same cause as that of the water) alternately to such heights and depths, that if Captain Servadac had been subject to seasickness he must have found himself in sorry plight. As the pitching, however, was the result of a long uniform swell, the yacht did not labor much harder than she would against the ordinary short strong waves of the Mediterranean; the main inconvenience that was experienced was the ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... become of Commissariat Vidal? Was it possible that there was another Frenchman in as perilous a plight as myself? The thought had hardly entered my head when our party stopped and one of them uttered a peculiar cry. It was answered from among the brambles which lined the base of a cliff at one side of a clearing, and an instant later ten or a dozen more ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Andy. Frank had stopped to speak to an acquaintance, and did not see the plight of ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... Thou glorious author of a hapless race, Whose daughter 'twas my mother's boast to be, Who well may'st blush to see me in such plight, For the last time I come to ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... command the prison of Machaerus could no longer hold him; nevertheless Jesus seemed to have abandoned him to his fate, which comprized not only confinement but other indignities, and physical torture.[571] It may have been a part of John's purpose to call Christ's attention to his pitiable plight; and in this respect his message was rather a reminder than a plain inquiry based on actual doubt. Indeed, we have good grounds for inference that John's purpose in sending disciples to inquire of Christ was partly, and perhaps largely, designed to confirm in these disciples an abiding faith ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... even more undecided than she had been before consulting them. She now ventured to go to the house in the Rue du Colombier, intending to confide her troubles to her father and mother; for she was like a sick man who, in his desperate plight, tries every prescription, and even puts faith ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... to the pictures of that immortal history. The little girl of two, curled up on her mother's lap close by, listened sleepily, and Elsie, applauding and prompting as a properly regulated mother should, was all the time, in spirit, hovering pitifully about her guest and his plight. There was in her, as in Boyson, a touch of patriotic remorse; and all the pieties of her own being, all the sacred memories of her own life, combined to rouse in her indignation and sympathy for Herbert's poor friend. ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... affection, and wept bitterly; she distributed [the customary offerings to the poor] on the occasion of my safe arrival, such as oil, vegetables, and small coins, [102] and said to me, "Though my heart is greatly rejoiced at this meeting, yet, brother, in what sad plight do I see you?" I could make her no reply, but shedding tears, I remained silent. My sister sent me quickly to the bath, after having ordered a splendid dress to be sewn for me. I having bathed and washed, put on these clothes. She fixed on an elegant apartment, near her own, for my residence. ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... he doeth, and that he doeth what he doeth for us with complacency and delight. But when it is set forth to us under the notion of mercy, then it bespeaks us to be in a state both wretched and miserable, and that his bowels and compassions yearn over us in this our fearful plight. ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... unless every man present gives me his word of honour as a gentleman that I shall go free whithersoever I will. If, therefore, you think a magistrate requisite to inquire into this business, send for one. I think, however, that you would do much better to plight me your word at once, and let me go. I know no one but Sir John Fenwick here: therefore I can betray no one but him; and to Sir John Fenwick I pledge my word that ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... was snoring like a wooden top from Germany—the land of little carved figures, of large wine-vats, and of humming-tops. The Baron had tried to think; but after passing the bridge at Gournay, the soft somnolence of digestion had sealed his eyes. The horses understood the coachman's plight from the slackness of the reins; they heard the footman's basso continuo from his perch behind; they saw that they were masters of the situation, and took advantage of their few minutes' freedom to make their own pace. Like intelligent slaves, ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... offer Henri had already made, Frank Barnes might well have been in a sorry plight. And, indeed, he offered now to let his chum ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston
... complete and ludicrous defeat on that crafty old fellow, Guillaume Sevier! And, by heaven! when I do what seems the unluckiest thing of all, when, against my will, I fall in love with my dear friend's wife, when my honour is opposed to my happiness, when I am reduced to the saddest plight—why, I say, by heaven, she turns out not to be his wife at all! Lucia, am I not born ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... energies in the construction of a stout fence of thorn bushes, and then sat down to supper after our work was done, and turned in to sleep; but not before we had posted watchmen to guard our canoe, lest the daring thieves of Uvira might abstract it, in which case we should have been in a pretty plight, and in ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... been Donald McKaye's intention to go up to the logging-camp on the first log-train leaving for the woods at seven o'clock on Monday morning, but the news of Dirty Dan's plight caused him to change his plans. Strangely enough, his interview with his father, instead of causing him the keenest mental distress, had been productive of a peculiar sense of peace. The frank, sympathetic, ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... confronted with tubes too small to receive all her family, she is in the same plight as the Mason-bee in the presence of an old nest. She thereupon acts exactly as the Chalicodoma does. She breaks up her laying, divides it into series as short as the room at her disposal demands; and each series begins with females and ends with males. ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... me, but showed me in many ways that he had entered into a new world, in which he desired to be alone. That Beulah Sands's plight had roused into intense activity all the latent romance of my friend's nature, did not surprise me. I foresaw from the first that Bob would fall head over heels in love with this beautiful, sorrow-laden girl, and it was soon obvious ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... then, men of Athens, we must not be downhearted at our present situation, however wretched it may seem to be. For in the worst feature of the past lies our best hope for the future-in the fact, that is, that we are in our present plight because you are not doing your duty in any respect; for if you were doing all that you should do, and we were still in this evil case, we could not then even hope for any improvement. {3} In the second place, you must bear in mind (what some of you have heard from others, and ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... that the eldest son in their royal succession was thus brought up; after his birth he was delivered, not to women, but to eunuchs of the greatest authority about their kings for their virtue, whose charge it was to keep his body healthful and in good plight; and after he came to seven years of age, to teach him to ride and to go a-hunting. When he arrived at fourteen he was transferred into the hands of four, the wisest, the most just, the most temperate, and most valiant of the nation; of ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... unwilling and unable to rise, dreading lest harm should happen to his little charge, and fearing not a little, should such have been the case, the consequences to himself. He was half starved, too, for he had had nothing to eat all day, and was altogether in a very wretched plight. When, however, he was brought on deck, with some food put into his inside and the assistance of the carpenter, he was once more set on his legs. Many a day, however, passed before the sound of his once merry fiddle was heard on the forecastle of the Fame, for the ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... won't give up yet," he said. "Console yourself; I believe many others have been in the same plight ...
— Adventures in Toyland - What the Marionette Told Molly • Edith King Hall
... asked P——, glancing round. I guessed to whom he alluded, and beckoned to our guides, who were sitting at some short distance, in ignorance of our plight, but had been watching our actions with all the attention, and listening to our conversation with all the comprehension of persons who did not understand our language. An instant sufficed to ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... as his morbid mind thus distorted it, tempted Swanson no longer. For being in this plight he did not feel that in any way he was to blame. But with a flaming anger he still blamed his brother officers of the court-martial who had not cleared his name and with a clean bill of health restored him to duty. Those were the men he blamed; ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... his heel with a sudden impulse and walked away from Maiden Lane quickly. All that he thought now was that he would not have them see him in his plight. He felt the shabbiness of his clothes without looking at them. As he walked, a great sense of loneliness came ...
— The Tipster - 1901, From "Wall Street Stories" • Edwin Lefevre
... scanty raiments, wrapped up in cloaks, and evidently guarded by the men-at-arms, who set up a joyous shout as they rode in. Monsieur de Merouville uttered an exclamation of astonishment, as he recognized the dreaded personages collected together in such a plight. ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... scene of activity and cheerfulness. The Sudra, however, is spoken of everywhere as a being whose degradation can never be removed, and to touch whom is to be defiled. Those who belonged to no caste were in a still worse plight and lived ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... special train, come through from the other coast; the prize-fight special,—and the last section, at that. There was no man up the tracks with a red flag to guard against a pile-up. And they also looked bored; they must have been standing there quite a while. And hot. So, you see, his plight was not so bad! He didn't have to breathe that air and sit in a slippery ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... course, and they charged highly for their services. But they could not very well be dishonest, nor die! They would go on forever, at least as long as there was the institution of private property and an intricate code of laws to safeguard it. Thus the judge argued to himself again in considering the plight of these Clarks, and decided to use the Washington Trust Company of B——, ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... the honours of war, and were escorted by Messer Galeaz and the Marquis of Mantua to the French outposts. More than two thousand men had already died of sickness and starvation. Almost all their horses had been eaten, and the survivors were in a miserable plight. Many perished by the roadside, and Commines found fifty troopers in a fainting condition in a garden at Cameriano, and saved their lives by feeding them with soup. Even then one man died on the spot, and four others never reached the camp. Three hundred ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... it could be in a woman (As, if it can, I will presume in you) To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love, To keep her constancy in plight and youth, Outliving beauties outward with a mind That doth renew swifter than blood decays: Or that persuasion could but thus convince me, That my integrity and truth to you Might be confronted with the match and weight Of such a winnowed purity in love— How were ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... over the threshold when the door resumed its former state. The hinges settled back on the panels, the posts returned to the bars, and the bolts flew back to their sockets again. I lay prostrate on the ground in a squalid plight, terrified, naked, cold, and drenched. Indeed, I was half dead, though still alive; and pursued a train of reflections like one already in the grave, or to say the least on the way to the cross, to which I was surely destined. "What," said I, "will become of me, when this man is found in ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... bide on 'em, in a manner; an' the sky was jes' so blue, an' the stars all shinun out, an' the moon all so bright! I never looked upon the like. An' so I stood in the bows; an' I don' know ef I thowt o' God first, but I was thinkun o' my girl that I was troth-plight wi' then, an' a many things, when all of a sudden we comed upon the hardest ice we'd a-had; an' into it; an' then, wi' pokun an' haulun, workun along. An' there was a cry goed up,—like the cry of a babby, 't was, an' I thowt mubbe 't was a somethun had got upon one o' they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... not imagine Booth would have agreed to this; for, though some love of gaming had been formerly amongst his faults, yet he was not so egregiously addicted to that vice as to be tempted by the shabby plight of Robinson, who had, if I may so express myself, no charms for a gamester. If he had, however, any such inclinations, he had no opportunity to follow them, for, before he could make any answer to Robinson's proposal, a strapping ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... to know whether I have ever experienced anything like my feeling for you since the first moment I saw you, I never have and never shall, and thereto I plight thee my troth." ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... became conscious she found herself in a small cabin, with many others in like pitiable plight. Her aunt was bending over her on one side and Gregory on the other, chafing her hands. At first she could not remember or understand, and ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... mother-bird, In you what trouble will be stirred When, home returned from weary flight, You learn your babies' hapless plight! ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... a number of young men who found the coldness of Prince Alexander and his anxiety to please the Austrians both very much out of harmony with the new Liberal ideas of Western Europe. They would have been horrified to see the plight of Macedonia, which after the Crimean War became, if possible, still worse, for during it the Porte took up the first loan; others followed, and in a surprisingly short time the Turk stood face to face with bankruptcy, so that in his dealings ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... obtained promises of aid from Charles I of England and Philip IV of Spain, but found that his allies deserted him at a critical {123} moment and left him to face the formidable army of the Cardinal. The Huguenots submitted to their fate in the summer of 1629, finding themselves in a worse plight than they had been when they surrendered La Rochelle, for Richelieu treated with them no longer as with a foreign power. He expected them to offer him the servile obedience of conquered rebels. Henceforth he exerted himself to restore the full supremacy of the ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... chafing the mule's back. With such huge cargas as the Mexicans load upon their mules, it is impossible, by any precautions, to prevent their backs and withers from becoming horribly mangled, and it is common to see them working their animals day after day in this miserable plight. This heavy packing causes the scars that so ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... if he would bring his companions home, he must avoid injuring the sacred cattle of the Sun, which pastured in the Isle of Thrinacia. If these were harmed, he would arrive in Ithaca alone, or in the words of the Cyclops's prayer, I in evil plight, with loss of all his company, on board the ship of strangers, to find sorrow in his house.' On returning to the Isle Aeaean, Odysseus was warned by Circe of the dangers he would encounter. He and his friends set forth, escaped the Sirens (a sort of mermaidens), evaded the Clashing ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... to notice nothing, and he would rather have been hewn in pieces than agree. And now, of his own accord, he was going!... Twenty times he was on the point of turning back. He walked two or three times round the town, turning away just as he came near the Palace. He was not alone in his plight. His mother and brothers had also to be considered. Since his father had deserted them and betrayed them, it was his business as eldest son to take his place and come to their assistance. There was no room for hesitation ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... it, darling; because, you see, I hadn't any powder left; and I was coming through the woods—just as I told you—when the Yanks got sight of me." He smiled down at her bravely, striving to add a dash of comedy to his tragic plight. "And I tell you, Virgie, your old dad had to run like a turkey—wishing to the ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... went with Daniel to the mayor; a half-hour later an official dispatch was on its way to the impresario Doermaul. It was couched in language that was sufficient to inspire any citizen with respect, referred to the desperate plight in which the company then found itself, and demanded in a quite imperious tone that something be done ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... normal plight The good but impecunious knight Addressing Thompson said: "Methinks a great increasing fame Shall add new glory to thy name, ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... hadn't the remotest conception what he really was—and no doubt, also, there are many who would honestly take his view. As if the fact that he was born with all possible advantages did not make him and his plight inexcusable. It passes my comprehension why people of his sort, when suffering from the calamities they have deliberately brought upon themselves by laziness and self-indulgence and extravagance, should get a sympathy that is withheld from those of the honest human rank and file falling into far ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... and angry, and his shame at being seen in such plight, in his own house, overcame any prudence or self-control he had left. Besides, he felt himself sufficiently defended ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... port. That Antwerp should not belong to Germany is as much an anomaly as if New Orleans and the Mississippi delta had been excluded from Louisiana, or as if New York had remained English after the War of Independence. Moreover, Belgium's present plight was her own fault. She had become the vassal of England and France. Therefore, while "probably" no attempt would be made to place Belgium within the German Empire alongside Bavaria, Wuerttemberg, and Saxony, because of her non-German ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... a bridegroom must not, no matter how little he liked "taking orders from a negro," fling away his worldly goods some few days before he was to pronounce his bridegroom's vow. So here, at Mrs. Trevise's dinner-table, I caught for one moment, to the full, a vision of the unhappy boy's plight; he was sticking to a task which he loathed that he might support a wife whom he no longer desired. Such, as he saw it, was his duty; and nobody, not even a soul of his kin or his kind, gave him a word or a thought of understanding, gave him ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... think he had two—and a very handsome girdle of a sky-colour and green (in French called pers et vert), saying that such a livery did become him well, for that he had always been perverse, and in this plight bringing him before Pantagruel, said unto him, Do you know this roister? No, indeed, said Pantagruel. It is, said Panurge, my lord the king of the three batches, or threadbare sovereign. I intend to make him an honest man. These devilish kings which we have here are ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... are only spirit. His arguments are, strictly speaking, unanswerable; but yet I am so far from being convinced by them, that I am determined to go on to eat and drink, and walk and ride, in order to keep that MATTER, which I so mistakenly imagine my body at present to consist of, in as good plight as possible. Common sense (which, in truth, very uncommon) is the best sense I know of: abide by it, it will counsel you best. Read and hear, for your amusement, ingenious systems, nice questions subtilly agitated, with all the refinements that warm imaginations ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... with deft celerity, and hastened back to assist in removing his young master's boots. He exclaimed dramatically upon their soaked condition, but Piers was in too great a hurry to give any details regarding the cause of his plight. He whirled into the bathroom at express speed, and was out again almost before Victor had had time to ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... against Robert de Beaumanoir, that he had returned to England only to die. Edward felt this loss severely, gave Robert a splendid funeral in St. Paul's church, and declared that "he would listen to nought until he had avenged him, and that he would reduce the country of Brittany to such plight that, for forty years, it should not recover." Philip of Valois, on his side, gave signs of getting ready for war. In 1343 he had convoked at Paris one of those assemblies which were beginning ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... irritated by his seeming indifference, 'a fellow is in a deuced bad plight, if he has to plead poverty, when he ought to be able to help one or two beside himself! I envy you, Scheffer. I envy you every time I come here. You can do so much! You could leap all the college gates in no time, if you were fool enough ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... "am I mistaken, or—Look, look, Adolphe! I would bet ten to one in sonnets that it is Goujaud, the painter, whose plight I mentioned to you!" ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... it, I must treat him kindly. Often without a thought, I return the gentle, loving pressure of his hand. I reproach myself that I am deceiving him, that I am nourishing in his heart a vain hope. I am in a sad plight! God knows, I do not willingly deceive him. I do not wish him to hope, yet I cannot ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... pardon the fooleries of the night, since in this way only could I hope to escape the surveillance of these miscreants and do you service. The pigeons we are loosing bear messages telling of your doleful plight, and I doubt not that when it becomes known, help will come to you. Sir Gualtier Giffard is, as you know, at your father's castle awaiting messages from him, and we have thus every reason to hope that ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... and waited while Pehrson came in silently and laid the file folders of the offending case on the desk. Pehrson was the epitome of owl-eyed efficiency, but now he showed sympathy behind his great horn-rimmed spectacles as he considered Baker's plight. "I wish we could find some way to make the Clearwater research grant," he said. "With just a couple of good Ph. D.'s who had published a few things, the Index ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... who had the misfortune to fall sick or to meet with an accident was in a sorry plight indeed. If he possessed a "stake," he would receive some sort of unskilled attention in one of the numerous and fearful lumberman's boarding-houses,—just so long as his money lasted, not one instant more. Then he was bundled brutally into the street, no matter ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... barrels of food as we've got won't last us for so very long, even if we goes on short commons. And we can't always reckon on catchin' fish and turtle, or gettin' eggs, and a few months 'd find us in the same plight as was pore William Evans when we first came ashore on this here island. Oh, I pray that they may be keepin' a sharp ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... heart had been so wrought upon by the sad plight of her soldier friend that she had begged to be taken to see him and to be allowed to carry him flowers with her own hand. Her mother, in whom smoldered the fires of dead samurai, was quick to be gracious to a fallen foe, and it was with her consent ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... to the city on Wednesday night." "The dog was returned in a terrible plight." "In the store-room or cupboard you're sure ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... pitiful plight. No sane man would venture down such a chasm, impenetrable with thorns, and night descending. So we built a beacon fire and waited for dawn. All during the long dark hours we heard the distant appeal of the hounds, and ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... to discuss his plight and how he might best defend himself. She was fully as fearful as he. But she did not show it. She must cheer him up, and she kept insisting that the police could not fix the murder on him, that they had nothing to go upon. If they had, they would have already arrested ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... these presents, in the name and in behalf of our respective constituents, fully and entirely ratify and confirm each and every of the said Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union, and all and singular the matters and things therein contained. And we do further solemnly plight and engage the faith of our respective constituents, that they shall abide by the determinations of the United States, in Congress assembled, on all questions which by the said Confederation are submitted ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... For when the Cause, whence Evil doth arise, Removed is, th' Effect surceaseth still. Abstain from Pleasure, and restrain your Will, Subdue Desire, and bridle loose Delight: Use scanted Diet, and forbear your Fill; Shun Secrecy, and talk in open sight: So shall you soon repair your present evil Plight. [1]' ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... in misfortune or affliction of any kind will be the thought of other people who are in a still worse plight than yourself; and this is a form of consolation open to every one. But what an awful fate this means for mankind ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer
... out of sight, they were out of mind, for he thought no more about them, and did not even send them the means of subsistence. In these straits, after struggling for some months against their wretched plight, the lads were obliged to leave Salamanca, and beg their way home, tramping barefoot through France and Italy, till they made their way back to Rome, where they found their father harsher and ...
— The Cenci - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... possible to imagine. The clothes hung loosely about her, in forlorn dowdyness. She felt that she was ridiculous. All grace was gone, all beauty. It was distressing to witness her mortified plight. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... decided to remain behind, to enjoy themselves in a beautiful country where they found abundance of game. A week after the safe arrival of Mr. Carson and his party, these two men made their appearance in a truly pitiable plight. They had encountered a party of Indian hunters who, while sparing their lives, had robbed them of their arms, their ammunition and even of every particle of their clothing. Of course they were kindly received at the fort and all their ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... to all this several streams must be crossed, and these were held in great dread, for if swimming became necessary, the plight of the little company, with the thermometer striking steadily below freezing point, would be pitiful indeed. The ranchman was resolved to save his wife and child from such an affliction, by constructing some kind ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... attendants. Her husband was in Paris, she told me; half her servants were dead, the rest had fled. Still she retained in a remarkable degree both courage and courtesy, and accepting with fortitude my reasons and excuses for perforce leaving her in such a plight, gave me a clear account of Bruhl and his party, who had passed her some, hours before. The picture of this lady gazing after us with perfect good-breeding, as we rode away at speed, followed by the lamentations of her women, remains with me to this day; filling ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... not been for the plight of these loved ones he might have persuaded himself to go back to Virginia and give himself up for trial. Time had encouraged him in the belief that his innocence would prevail. He had talked it over ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... loved me: I Return those duties back as are right fit, Obey you, love you, and most honour you. Why have my sisters husbands, if they say They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed, That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry Half my love with him, half my care and duty: Sure, I shall never marry like my sisters, To ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... pear may flourish in a garden without care. But yet another thing will I say to thee, and be not thou wroth when thou hearest it. Thy garden, indeed, is well cared for, but thou thyself art in evil plight. For old age lieth heavy upon thee, and thou art clad in filthy garments. Yet truly it is not because thou art idle that thy master thus dealeth with thee; nor, indeed, art thou in any wise like unto a slave; for thy face and thy stature are as it might be of a king. Such ...
— The Story Of The Odyssey • The Rev. Alfred J. Church
... question the willingness of any of our Barham folk to aid a shipwrecked automobile. You drive them so heedlessly, young gentleman. I confess," she continued, judiciously, "that I rather enjoy your plight." ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... lantern which illuminated a kindly, weatherbeaten face, looking like that of an old sailor. I discovered later that he had come from Normandy, and like most Normans had spent half his life on the waves. He seemed interested in my hapless plight: perhaps ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... without seeming to notice them. He had schooled himself to the task, and he was now performing it. It was not only that he would have to move among men without being noticed, but that he must endure to pass the whole evening in the same plight. But he was resolved, and he was now doing it. He bowed to the Speaker with more than usual courtesy, raising his hat with more than usual care, and seated himself, as usual, on the third opposition-bench, but with more than his ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... let him understand that the plight was not his but theirs. They were to suffer on, she implied, in a mutual, unacknowledged ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... admit. She caught a slight cold, neglected it, tried to sing it away. Her voice left her abruptly. She went to Jennings as usual the day she found herself able to do nothing more musical than squeak. She told him her plight. Said he: ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... his sympathy for the misfortunes of "la grande nation," and his horror at the terrors of the Commune, did not prevent his pity going forth to the broken leader who had played and lost, and who returned to England in a plight far sadder and more desperate than that in which he had lived his Bohemian life thirty ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... entered upon a long course of victories by which the rebels were driven from most of their strongholds; and in 1859, he submitted a plan for an advance on Nanking, which was approved and ultimately carried out. Meanwhile, the plight of the besieged rebels in Nanking had become so unbearable that something had to be done. A sortie on a large scale was accordingly organized, and so successful was it that the T'ai-p'ings not only routed the besieging army, but were able to regain ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles
... occasionally imbibed was so pleased at the plight of the School-master and of the Bibliomaniac that he invited the Idiot up to his room, where the private stock was kept for just such occasions, and they put in a very pleasant ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs
... the stars all shinun out, an' the moon all so bright! I never looked upon the like. An' so I stood in the bows; an' I don' know ef I thowt o' God first, but I was thinkun o' my girl that I was troth-plight wi' then, an' a many things, when all of a sudden we comed upon the hardest ice we'd a-had; an' into it; an' then, wi' pokun an' haulun, workun along. An' there was a cry goed up,—like the cry of a babby, 't was, an' I thowt mubbe ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... saw dimly that the hand was covered with blood. His eyes then filled again; and he swept his sleeves across them and his forehead. That was better. Blinking, and wiping his face again and again, he looked dully around him until memory came back, and brought recognition of his plight. ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... souls passionately inclined to mercy and justice. Colonel John was of the latter—a black swan. For at this moment, lying, and aware that he lay, in some peril of his life, he was more troubled by the evil plight of the helpless, whose cabins had given him a foster-mother, and made him welcome in his youth, whose blood, too, he shared, than by his ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... Fortunately, there were few ill effects, and the medical staff was not overworked because of it. There might have been many casualties, though, if it had not been for the New Zealanders, who, hearing of our plight, came out with water-carts and ambulances and picked up those who had ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... about a hundred of them, with their clothes torn, and covered with dust. They presented a sad picture. They were, it is true, only slightly wounded; but it cuts one to the heart to see soldiers in that plight, hauled out upon the ground without straw to lie upon or any doctor to attend to them. However, they had all had first-aid dressings. Below the bandages that bound their heads their feverish eyes gleamed in the light of the lanterns. Their bandaged arms were supported by pieces of linen tied ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... store for him. He had gone but a few steps when he met Rufus, who gazed in astonishment at his step-father's plight. Martin naturally supposed that Rufus would exult in his humiliation; but he did ...
— Rufus and Rose - The Fortunes of Rough and Ready • Horatio Alger, Jr
... John, is labouring across the six or seven miles to the eastern side. Matthew describes the boat as it would appear from shore, as being 'covered' and lost to sight by the breaking waves. Mark, who is Peter's mouthpiece, describes the desperate plight as one on board knew it, and says the boat was 'filling.' It must have been a serious gale which frightened a crew who had spent all their lives ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... her father's she had turned from the hospital. The young man, wondering how she would receive the news of Katie's treachery, asked himself what she could find now in excuse for the girl who had used her faithful friend as the unconscious messenger of her broken plight? Stephen knew well enough that the old glamour would come back, but to-night he was full only of indignation against Katie. To have used Elizabeth as she had done was an ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... Sceptical Dilettantism, the curse of these ages, a curse which will not last forever, does indeed in this the highest province of human things, as in all provinces, make sad work; and our reverence for great men, all crippled, blinded, paralytic as it is, comes out in poor plight, hardly recognisable. Men worship the shows of great men; the most disbelieve that there is any reality of great men to worship. The dreariest, fatalest faith; believing which, one would literally despair of human things. Nevertheless look, for example, at Napoleon! A Corsican ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... seated behind, was snoring like a wooden top from Germany—the land of little carved figures, of large wine-vats, and of humming-tops. The Baron had tried to think; but after passing the bridge at Gournay, the soft somnolence of digestion had sealed his eyes. The horses understood the coachman's plight from the slackness of the reins; they heard the footman's basso continuo from his perch behind; they saw that they were masters of the situation, and took advantage of their few minutes' freedom to make their own pace. Like intelligent slaves, they ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... New Street. It was a little room, about 10 ft. by 6 ft., and the approach was up three or four steps. Here he reigned supreme, concocted Radical leaders in bad taste and questionable English, and received advertisements and money. The whole thing was in wretched plight until about the year 1844, when—Mr. Michael Maher being editor—Mr. Feeney, who was connected with another paper in the town, went to London, saw Mr. Joseph Parkes, and arranged to purchase The Journal. ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... you, Madam, to that Degree, that if you leave me in a distrust of your Anger, I cannot survive it; I beg, intreat, conjure you to speak, your Silence torments me worse than your Reproaches cou'd; am I so much disdain'd, that you will not afford me one Word?' The lamentable Plight of the wretched Lady every one may guess, but no Body can comprehend; she saw the dearest of Mankind prostrate at her Feet, and imploring what she wou'd as readily grant as he desire, yet herself under a Necessity of ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... moor there dwells a wife; she spaed my fortune true, And said I'd plight my troth with one who ware a jacket blue; That morn before my Grannie woke, just when the lapwing stirred, I sped across the misty rise and sought ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... a long cogitation, "if she wants to marry me, she must go to James Town for a parson, and if I once get there, I will contrive, as soon as extra constables are sworn in, to break off the match." But, seriously, I was in an awkward plight. There was something in that woman that was awful, and I could imagine her revenge to be most deadly. I thought the old Indian squaw to be bad enough, but this new mistress was a thousand times worse. What a hard fate, I thought, was mine, that I should be thus ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... jealousy of the clerks, who would have flayed me to save themselves, and now the cruelty of the grooms who thought it fine sport to whip a scholar. But the first tempest of passion had spent itself, when a woman—not the first whom my plight had attracted, but the others had merely shrugged their shoulders and passed on—paused before me. "What a white skin!" she cried, making great eyes at me; and they had cut my clothes so that I was half bare to her. And then, "You are not a street-prowler. ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... tubes too small to receive all her family, the Osmia is in the same plight as the Mason-bee in the presence of an old nest. She thereupon acts exactly as the Chalicodoma does. She breaks up her laying, divides it into series as short as the room at her disposal demands; and each series begins with females and ends with males. This breaking up, on the one hand, into sections ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... back, his stockings falling over his heels, his shirt open and soaking with blood, speechless, for his mouth was filled with splinters of his broken jaw. Such was the man who the morning before had been Dictator, and master of all the armies of France. Couthon was in little better plight. Twenty-one in all were condemned on the 10 Thermidor and taken in carts to the guillotine. An awful spectacle. There was Robespierre with his disfigured face, half dead, and Fleuriot, and Saint-Just, and Henriot next to Robespierre, his forehead gashed, his right ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... no common language with Berenger but Latin. He asked a few questions, and on hearing the answers, declared that the sacrament of marriage had been complete, but that—as was often done in such cases—he would once more hear the troth-plight of the young pair. The brief formula was therefore at once exchanged—the King, when the Queen looked entreatingly at him, rousing himself to make the bride over to Berenger. As soon as the vows had been made, in the briefest manner, the King broke in boisterously: 'There, you are twice marred, ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... console and cheer them. They paced wildly up and down, their thin bodies and hungry faces revealing their inward sufferings and they now began to realize that cold weather was approaching. Their plight was a serious thing to me and the time passed on for I hated to leave them to their misery, going back as I was to a comfortable home. When at last I hurried back, what was my horror to find that the family had gone and that the house was ...
— The Nomad of the Nine Lives • A. Frances Friebe
... and the Marquis of Mantua to the French outposts. More than two thousand men had already died of sickness and starvation. Almost all their horses had been eaten, and the survivors were in a miserable plight. Many perished by the roadside, and Commines found fifty troopers in a fainting condition in a garden at Cameriano, and saved their lives by feeding them with soup. Even then one man died on the spot, and four others never ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... more than a little sorry for her, and also a bit rueful at his own plight. Things had gone wrong for him from the commencement of the evening. And this—well, the gage of battle had been flung in his face and he was no man to refuse the challenge. But his muscles were taut until the soft voice of Naomi broke ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... and mother hated him, and we all had to secretly leave home and travel abroad in order for me to avoid his undesirable attentions. But notwithstanding that, my heart now bleeds for him in his terrible plight, and I want to do something for him. My conscience would not allow me to pass along without trying to aid him. You say that in his ravings he claims that a kiss from Arletta would save him. I have never done such a thing before in ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... thou fill'st in Eros name to-night, O Hero, shall the Sestian augurs take To-morrow, and for drowned Leander's sake To Anteros its fireless lip shall plight. Aye, waft the unspoken vow: yet dawn's first light On ebbing storm and life twice ebb'd must break; While 'neath no sunrise, by the Avernian Lake, Lo where Love walks, Death's ...
— The House of Life • Dante Gabriel Rossetti
... wild excitement and delight the schooner's crew gave two; and they had good cause for their exultation, for the firing from the boats had quite ceased, the efforts of their commanders being directed towards disentangling themselves from their sorry plight, many minutes elapsing before the boats were clear and the men able to row, while by this time several hundred yards had been placed between them and the object of ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... to the ground beneath the feet of the struggling men. A descending rifle butt had struck him a glancing blow on the head. Hal, engaged at that moment with another German officer, saw his friend's plight, ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... on each side through perpendicular cliffs, filling it up with great blocks of stone," and adding that "a few more days of similar country would bring their horses to a standstill." Their backs and the feet of the cattle were in a woeful plight from its effects: one horse was lost, and a bull and several head of cattle completely knocked up. Bad as yesterday's journey was, this day's beat it; they managed to travel ten miles over the most villanous country imaginable, ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... window above was banged to. The mob of roisterers fled helter skelter, laughing and jeering. Not one amongst them offered to assist their wretched leader. They left him alone in his sorry plight to get out of it as best he might. They had not the smallest consideration for one even of their own number overtaken by misfortune. Roaring with laughter at the frightful picture he presented, they dispersed to their own homes, and the wretched Frederick was left alone in the street ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... already spoken of the forceful sonnets of that tragic Portuguese, Antero de Quental, who died by his own hand. Feeling acutely for the plight of his country on the occasion of the British ultimatum in 1890, he wrote as follows:[66] "An English statesman of the last century, who was also undoubtedly a perspicacious observer and a philosopher, Horace Walpole, said that for those who feel, life is a tragedy, ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... let us take leave of the Intendant, and return at once to the city, but not in that plight!" added he, smiling, as Le Gardeur, oblivious of all but the pleasure of accompanying him, grasped his arm to leave the great hall. "Not in that garb, Le Gardeur! Bathe, purify, and clean yourself; I will wait outside in the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... earlier, not a Russian of them all would have ever again seen a krepost. As it was, two thousand left their bones in the woods to be picked by wolves and vultures. The rest succeeded in reaching Girsel-aoul, a fortress on the line about fifty miles north of Dargo, but in sorry plight indeed. Preparations had been made there for a military triumph, with salvos of cannon, music, and colors flying; and the minister of war, Prince Tschernitscheff, had most inopportunely arrived to witness it; but instead he beheld the battalions marching in with faintly ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... you to the Zoo—don't see him in your sitting-room. That will give him just the extra fillip, and he will go, and you will be demure, and then by those stimulating lions' and tigers' cages you can plight your troth. It will be quite respectable. Wire to me at once on Monday to Sedgwick, and you must come back to Park Street directly I return on Thursday, ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... a lump as large as a pumpkin? From stem to stern the vessel was caked in glossy ice, and from her gaffs and booms hung huge icicles like the stalagmites of the Dropping Cave. All the other smacks were in the same plight, and it was quite clear that no fishing could be done for awhile, because every set of trawl-gear was banked in ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... only the instrument to lead, him to evil." Such was the tale that Herodotus heard at Paros. Certain it was that Miltiades either dislocated or broke his leg during an unsuccessful siege of the city, and returned home in evil plight with ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... year, and not a pound was left. All the flour, meal, sugar, coffee, preserves, jams, jellies, and everything else, was taken. Not a pound of anything to eat was left on the place. All the best cupboard ware, and part of the bedding and my wife's clothing were taken. This was a sorry plight to find ourselves in when we returned from the funeral. The country was full of soldiers, and nothing was done towards recovering the property. Thus we started on a darker and rougher road for the rest ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... Ann came home one time In a most piteous plight, For she had fallen in the mud; Indeed she was a sight. The housemaid standing in the door Exclaimed, "What child is this?" "Why, Hannah, can't you see I'm Ann?" ...
— Careless Jane and Other Tales • Katharine Pyle
... flew to the glen Eager to comfort the poor little Wren. The Mocking Bird shivered with cold and pain, "Oh! never," he cried, "will I steal again, And I'll try, oh! I'll try to do what is right, Nor ever be found in such a sad plight." The dear, gentle Dove, who had lingered behind, Came close to the prisoner, loving and kind, And she whispered so low, "Come home to my nest; I'll care for you tenderly, give you my best. I know you are sorry, I know you will try, So come, let us home to my ...
— Nestlings - A Collection of Poems • Ella Fraser Weller
... of the deceased chief was brought to the fort by his relatives with a request that the whites should assist at his burial; but they were in a sorry plight for such a service. There were found some sufficiently sober for the task, however, and ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... Anguishly, in pain, Anon, at once, Apair, weaken, Apparelled, fitted up, Appeach, impeach, Appealed, challenged, accused, Appertices, displays, Araged, enraged, ; confused, Araised, raised, Arase, obliterate, Areared, reared, Armyvestal, martial, Array, plight, state of affairs, Arrayed, situated, Arson, saddle-bow, Askance, casually, Assoiled, absolved, Assotted, infatuated, Assummon, summon, Astonied, amazed, stunned, At, of, by, At-after, after, Attaint, overcome, Aumbries, chests, ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... westbound express were nearing the town in charge of the marshal of Lone Rock, and Helen (who had telegraphed her plight to Hanscom and had received no reply) was in silent dread of the ordeal which awaited her. Her confidence in the ranger had not failed, but, realizing how difficult it was to reach him, she had small hope of seeing his kindly face at the end of ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... same plight, I have no certificate," observed Brotteaux. "We are both suspects. But you are weary. To bed, Father. We will discuss ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... see you know, now. It was I whom you heard playing, that first day. It was I, touched by your plight in that forlorn and dusty barracks, who gave you some slight relief. It was easy enough for me to cut across to Geddes's house, reach in through his kitchen window, lift his tray, and escape through the ragged hedges while his cook's broad back was turned. Achmet was willing enough ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... his teeth are. Well, I think he has had enough," and suddenly he released the Abati, who, a gory and most unpleasant spectacle, fell to the ground and lay there panting. His companions, seeing their chief's melancholy plight, advanced upon the Professor in a threatening fashion; indeed, one of them ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... ground with a force that almost stunned him, and then with a superadded kick sent him away limping and howling; whereupon the fool, attacking him furiously with a stick, would certainly have finished him, had not his master descried his plight and ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... listened to the story, Socrates asked: How comes it that Ceramon, (2) with so many mouths to feed, not only contrives to furnish himself and them with the necessaries of life, but to realise a handsome surplus, whilst you being in like plight (3) are afraid you will one and all perish of starvation for want of the ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... The two cowardly little men had not the necessary pluck of conspirators, and now that there seemed to be a very good chance that their nefarious doings would be made public they were both in deadly fear of the consequences. Silver was in the worst plight, since he was well aware that the law would consider him to be an accessory after the fact, and that, although his neck was not in danger, his liberty assuredly was. He was so stunned by the storm which had broken so ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... vouched for it—'she had a comfortable faith in the Commission. But, I say'—the woman leaned forward in her earnestness—'I say that Commission will waste its time! I don't deny it will investigate and discuss the position of the outcast women of this country. Their plight, which is the work of men, will once more be inquired into by men. I say there should be women on that Commission. If the middle and upper class women have the dignity and influence men pretend they have, why aren't they represented there? Nobody pretends the matter doesn't ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... ... he forgot that he was sitting in the pit of a theatre listening to a play written by a man who had died three hundred years ago ... and remembered only that he was a young man with aspirations and romantic longings, and that a young woman, in a pitiable plight, was gazing into his eyes ... and his heart reached out to her. He drew in his breath quickly, murmuring a soft "Oh," and as he did so, his dream-woman fell dead and he did not even turn to look ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... Be Trusted" Twelve-year-old Brides and Bridegrooms A Wedding Procession in Agra {xvi} 5000 Rupees for a Wedding Feast The Plight of the Child-wives Cruel Treatment of Widows The Picture Not Wholly Dark One Worthy Tribute to the ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... and agonizing men, with the knowledge that his suffering and that of his fellows in misery is not caused by the cruelty of fate, but by the injustice of other human beings,—what happens to such a man when he sees those dear to him starving, when he himself is starved? Some natures in such a plight, and those by no means the least social or the least sensitive, will become violent, and will even feel that their violence is social and not anti-social, that in striking when and how they can, ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... thrust out hands to plague and torment her. If the man who sought to speak with her by stealth, who dogged her footsteps and hung on the skirts of her party, were Tignonville—her lover, who at his own request had been escorted to the Arsenal before their departure from Paris—then her plight was a sorry one. For what woman, wedded as she had been wedded, could think otherwise than indulgently of his persistence? And yet, lover and husband! What peril, what shame the words had often spelled! At the thought only she trembled and her colour ebbed. She saw, as one who stands ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... cutting off the last possible means of escape. Prisoners were surrendering in thousands. They looked weak and exhausted; in many cases they had fled over a parched country and beneath a burning sun for three or four days, without touching a drop of water. Their plight was pitiable. By that evening, the Turkish armies west of the Jordan had ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock
... mountains of Nejd, and Kays, distracted, with matted locks and bosom bare to the scorching sun, wanders forth into the desert in quest of her abode, causing the rocks to echo his voice, constantly calling upon her name. His friends, having found him in woeful plight, bring him home, and henceforth he is called Majnun—that is, one who is mad, or frantic, from love. Syd Omri, his father, finding that Majnun is deaf to good counsel—that nothing but the possession of Layla can restore him to his senses—assembles ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... Mary, to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... much difficulty naked, bruised, and wounded. We were forced to adopt the clothing of our first parents, and tied sandals to our feet made of bark which we cut from the trees with sharp stones, fixing them on by means of the tough flexible roots of a plant called bejucos. Travelling in this sorry plight, we came in two days to the village of Yaguarrama, where Fray Bartholome de las Casas was then parish priest, who was afterwards bishop of Chiapa. I went next day to the town of Chipiona, belonging to Alonso de Avila, where I got myself decently clothed ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... any of his men believed him; but he swore that he would never seek to do them harm, and that if he found any of them in evil plight he would deliver them out of it. With that Robin ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... long time, striving in vain to come to the surface. Finally he rose, spitting the bitter brine out of his mouth. Although he was in such a desperate plight, his mind was on the raft. Battling bravely with the waves he reached it, and springing on board sat down in the middle of it. Thus ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... a bad plight now, as he felt the barrel floating out from the land and tossing about on ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... on the first day of mobilization, and developed into real tragedy as the days slipped by. For although at first there was something a little ludicrous in the plight of the well-to-do, brought down with a crash to the level of the masses and loaded with paper money which was as worthless as Turkish bonds, so that the millionaire was for the time being no richer than the beggar, pity stirred in one at the sight of real suffering ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... fair Eliza be your silver song, That blessed wight, The floure of virgins, may she flourish long, In princely plight. ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... in worse plight than was at first thought. The Nina also found this or that to do besides squaring her Levant sails. We stayed in Gomera almost three weeks. The place was novel, the day's task not hard, the Admiral and his captains complaisant. We had leisure and island company. To many ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... the land knows that it is I who have reduced him to his present plight. The Court is full of his kinsmen. Some day one of them will come into power. Then an inquiry will be set afoot, and disaster will overtake us. And since we have flouted Heaven and defied the laws of humanity, neither spirits nor divinities ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... secret pourparlers were going forward between Berlin and Moscow for the purpose of arriving at a workable understanding between the two governments, and that the Allied troops at Odessa, Archangel, and Murmansk were in a wretched plight and in direr need of an armistice ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... meet the emergency when it arises, and the best means are those which are the most certain and economical. Those now authorized have the virtue neither of directness nor economy. We have already eliminated one of the causes of our financial plight and embarrassment during the years 1893, 1894, 1895, and 1896. Our receipts now equal our expenditures; deficient revenues no longer create alarm Let us remove the only remaining cause by conferring the full and necessary power ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... mean views shall ever make me fight The sacred vows of love I once did plight. The heart that's true, will still remain the same Though crosses press, they but refine the flame And more sure joys the virtuous passion wait With calm content, than with the pomp of ...
— The Female Gamester • Gorges Edmond Howard
... the lake Dick and Tom were working with feverish energy, almost beside themselves with fear at their comrade's terrible plight. ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... from the frontier. In a spruit, a branch of the Sand river, which runs through Schultz' farm, the Maxim, outpaced and overdriven, stuck fast, and it was promptly attacked and captured by a party of twenty-five of the enemy who had descried its plight from Talana, its detachment holding out until all were killed or wounded. In this affair nine Boer prisoners were also released. About 1.15 p.m., a party of two hundred Boers was seen descending Impati ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... poor, did their duties in general with as much courage as any, and perhaps with more, because their work was attended with more hazards, and lay more among the poor, who were more subject to be infected, and in the most pitiful plight when they were taken with the infection. But then it must be added, too, that a great number of them died; indeed it was scarce possible it should ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... Colwood—nice little creature, that companion—they would find some use for her in the future. And on the lower terrace, Alicia Drake, and—that girl? He laughed, amusing himself with the thought of Alicia's plight. Alicia, the arrogant, the fastidious! The odd thing was that she seemed to be absorbed in the conversation that was going on. He saw her pause at the end of the terrace, look round her, and deliberately lead the way down a long ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... seeing their sorry plight, sent a messenger to the birds, who told them that even now coverings were ready ...
— Stories of Birds • Lenore Elizabeth Mulets
... master to the bottomless pit; he tore his beard for madness, and cursed the moment he first knew him; but seeing him at last knocked down and settled, the shepherds being scampered, he thought he might venture to come down, and found him in a very ill plight, though not altogether senseless. "Ah! master," quoth he, "this comes of not taking my counsel. Did I not tell you it was a flock of sheep, and no army?"—"Friend Sancho," replied Don Quixote, "know, it is ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... depressing. It is not that Gissing's picture of poverty in the literary profession is wanting in the elements of truth, although even in that profession there is even more eccentricity than the author leads us to suppose in the social position and evil plight of such men as Edwin Reardon and Harold Biffen. But the contrast between Edwin Reardon, the conscientious artist loving his art and working for its sake, and Jasper Milvain, the man of letters, who prospers simply because he is also a man of business, which is ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... quite the thing to let a woman like this... But as quickly a sense of his ingratitude swept him. Whether it was the thing or not, it was impossible to wound the one person who stood so ready to serve him. A great compassion seemed suddenly to flood him—for a moment he forgot his own plight. ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... over it, parted and presented a most inviting entrance, between two close hedges, delicately soft and pouting. Her gallant was now ready, having disencumbered himself from his clothes, overloaded with lace, and presently, his shirt removed, shewed us his forces at high plight, bandied and ready for action. But giving us no time to consider the dimensions, he threw himself instantly over his charming antagonist who received him as he pushed at once dead at mark, like a heroine, without flinching; for surely never was girl constitutionally ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... complain, An' you prop dat gate up right; But you notice right nex' day Dat hit's in de same ol' plight. So you fin' dat hit's a rule, An' daih ain' no use to blow, W'en de gals is growin' up, Dat de front ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... was made of twenty-five men from Company F and twenty-five men from Company K, under command of Captain Grigg and Lieutenant Shepherd, to help move the Federal prisoners from Richmond, Va., to Andersonville, Ga. We were on this service until 26th of March. These prisoners were in a pitiable plight and infected with small-pox. William Allen and Pink Pryor caught it from them; don't see why we all did not. During this time or early in March the Brigade made an expedition against Suffolk, Va., and after a running fight with negro cavalry, took that town, but ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott
... how a knave hath late compassion On Melicent's forlorn condition; For which he saith as ye shall after hear: "Dame, since that game we play costeth too dear, My truth I plight, I shall you no more grieve By my behest, and here I take my leave As of the fairest, truest and best wife That ever yet I knew in all ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... the coxswain's efforts. Consequently we were drifting about on the stream and likely to be swept down by the ebb tide. We were unfortunately on the far side of the river from Abadan, and consequently our plight would not be observed from the works. The situation was not a pleasant one because we stood a very good chance of being run down ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... his own apartments appeared the tall and well-composed figure of Mr. Jefferson's young secretary, social captain of matters at the Executive Mansion, and personal aide to the President. His quick glance caught sight of the gathering line of carriages; a second glance estimated the plight of those now jammed into the anteroom like so many cattle and evidently ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... "What a wretched plight for the richest man in the world," he said to himself, and the next moment he realized that he was in ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... combat / him, too, had Luedegast. Then full upon each other / they spurred their chargers fast, As on their shields they lowered / their lances firm and tight, Whereat the lordly monarch / soon found himself in sorry plight. ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... in revolt against their world and the pedantry of its little inflexible laws; and all her old traditions had become odious to her, seeming, for the moment, deeply tainted with dishonour, and partly the cause of her disastrous plight. A great, ruining wave had broken over her life, and in her passionate helplessness she cried only for some firm and absolute shore, else the silence of the engulfing waters, not for the vain ropes of social convention with which they would drag her back into ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... That she was ardently loved by each she realized with recurring thrills of pleasure; that she loved in return she felt no doubt—but alas! which? How perfectly delightful it would be could she only fall into some desperate plight, from which the really daring knight might rescue her! That would cut the Gordian knot. While laboring in this state of indecision she must have voiced her ambition in some effective manner to the parties concerned, for late one Wednesday night Moffat ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... him, and when he saw where he was, he made up to him, clearing the way as he went, and gave him such a stroke with his lance that he felled him down to the ground. When the Frenchmen saw their Lord in this plight they fled away and left him; and the pursuit lasted three leagues, and would have been continued farther if the conquerors had not had tired horses. So they turned back and collected the spoils, which were more than they could carry away. Thus was Count Ramon Berenguer made prisoner, and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... water, hoping to be able to swim to a neighbouring island. This was a counsel of despair, for wounded and exhausted as they were, the feat was impossible. When the Sioux rushed down to the shore, they realized the plight of the French, and did not even waste an arrow on them. One by one the swimmers sank beneath the waves. After watching their tragic fate, the savages returned to scalp those who had fallen at the camp. With characteristic ...
— Pathfinders of the Great Plains - A Chronicle of La Verendrye and his Sons • Lawrence J. Burpee
... the addition of a number of volunteers from such leading families in England as those of Winchester, Somerset, Rich, Herbert, had already made considerable progress in the siege when, at last, at the orders of the widowed Queen, the French also arrived, but in the worst plight and suffering severely from illness, so that they could not carry out the intention, with which they came, of sequestrating the place in the interests of France. When the fortress had been taken it was delivered to the two princes, ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... are dark; Faith folds her wings; and Hope, in piteous plight, Has dimmed her radiant lamp to feeblest spark. Love bleeding lies—— "I SEE THE ...
— 'All's Well!' • John Oxenham
... the distance to the helpless lad with a practised eye, and groaned in despair. "They'll fall short by a dozen feet," he murmured hopelessly. "God forgive me, for bringing him to this plight." ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... himself, apparently paying no attention to the terrible bruises which disfigured half his face and doubtless half his body as well, she admitted to herself that it was only his example, which had enabled her to maintain her self-control in their present plight. As she crawled over Perkins' discarded suit, she remembered that he had not taken any weapons from it. After a rapid glance around to assure herself that she was not being watched, she quickly searched the coat, ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... weather is fine. And then they find in each other the devoted kindness which is known only among proscribed races. It costs a woman in luck no effort to bestow some help, for she says to herself, "I may be in the same plight ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... 'at the outset. But the record of Cousin, who tells the story in his Histoire de Constantinople, states that 'the weight of his body having more power to drag him down than his artificial wings had to sustain him, he broke his bones, and his evil plight was such that ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... was able to eat a bit of bread, and felt better still. But as he recovered, he became aware that with fatigue and dirt his appearance must be disreputable in the extreme. How was he to approach Lady Joan in such a plight? If she recognized him at once, he would but be the more ashamed! What could she take him for but a ne'er-do-weel, whose character had given way the moment he left the guardianship of home, and who now came to sponge upon her! And if he should be ill! He would ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... gave place to terror. The fever in her blood increased, and sent delirium to her brain. Hours passed, but her husband did not return. Not until the cold dawn of the next sorrowful morning did he make his appearance, and then in such a wretched plight that it was well for his unhappy wife that she could not recognize his condition. He came too late—came from one of the police stations, it is said, having been found in the street too much intoxicated to find his way home, and in danger of perishing in ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... they had to write for nothing or for very little. And here, too, that Spanish proverb holds good, which declares that honor and money are not to be found in the same purse—honora y provecho no caben en un saco. The reason why Literature is in such a bad plight nowadays is simply and solely that people write books to make money. A man who is in want sits down and writes a book, and the public is stupid enough to buy it. The secondary effect of this is the ruin ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... credit be it said, only selected one shilling, with which I paid the bathing-man, and walked off undiscovered to my own machine. The fat old she-triton laughed till she cried. I dressed in my proper costume leisurely enough, and was amused to hear afterwards of the luckless plight in which a stout gentleman had found himself by the temporary loss of all his apparel whilst he was disporting in ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... hopefulness which she did not feel, "I am surprised at you. You haven't given up hope. It is just the darkness and being hungry that makes things appear so dreadful. I have been thinking about our plight, and when daylight comes I am going to try to climb up the wall to the window. The mud has broken away between some of the logs, so that I can get my foot in the opening. We shall have to dig it away in other ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... lovers met to plight their vows, and on its smooth bark was often cut the figure of two hearts joined in one. In summer, the forest furnished shade, and in winter warmth from the fire. In the spring time, the new leaves were a wonder, and in autumn the pigs grew fat ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... insurance office for so many years, and by that means become acquainted with most of the directors of the bank, I never would have attained my present comfortable place. It makes me sick when I think of the miserable plight we would now be in, if that piece of good fortune had ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... not be oppressed by thee. On the other hand, O bull of the Bharata race, fight with him with thy arms, putting forth as much strength only as thy antagonist hath now left!' Then that slayer of hostile heroes, the son of Pandu, thus addressed by Krishna, understood the plight of Jarasandha and forthwith resolved upon taking his life. And that foremost of all men endued with strength, that prince of the Kuru race, desirous of vanquishing the hitherto unvanquished Jarasandha, mustered all ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... pronounced confidently from his place at the head of the table, "are already a broken race. They are on the point of exhaustion. Austria is, if possible, in a worse plight. That is what will end the war—the ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hostility. Obviously, he was down on his luck. Had it not been for that indefinable self-reliant look which drovers—the Ishmaels of the bush—always acquire, one might have taken him for a swagman. His horse was in much the same plight. It was a ragged, unkempt pony, pitifully poor and very footsore, at first sight, an absolute "moke"; but a second glance showed colossal round ribs, square hips, and a great length of rein, the rest hidden beneath a wealth of loose hair. ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... waving their torches to light them to the assault. This frightful apparition was a poor forlorn horse, studded with lights fastened to cords, that shook and flickered about in so fearful a manner. In this plight he had been turned out of the gates, the garrison looking on, with frightful ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... realise the serious character of the extraordinary plight in which he thus unexpectedly found himself involved. For it now flashed upon him that, in the astonishment following upon his seizure, he had failed to raise any outcry, with the object of making ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... it better than I can say it. Similarly, the human race must grow away from God as it takes upon itself the burden of knowledge. That surely is inherent in the fall of man. No philosopher has yet improved upon the first chapter of Genesis as a symbolical explanation of humanity's plight. When man was created—or if you like to put it evolved—there must have been an exact moment at which he had the chance of remaining where he was—in other words, in the Garden of Eden—or of developing ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... when it was night, So sad was their plight, The sun it went down, And the moon gave no light. They sobbed and they sighed, and they bitterly cried, And the poor little things, they lay ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown
... words:— "Fair Princess! since, before all gods and men, Thou makest me thy choice, right glad am I Of this thy mind, and true lord will I be. For so long, loveliest, as my breath endures, Thine am I! Thus I plight my troth to thee." So, with joined palms, unto that beauteous maid His gentle faith he pledged, rejoicing her; And, hand in hand, radiant with mutual love, Before great Agni and the gods they passed, The world's protectors worshipping. ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... it was night, So sad was their plight! The sun it went down, And the moon gave no light! They sobbed and they sighed, and they bitterly cried, And the poor little things, ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... increase from 1880 to 1890 the white race would show a decennial increase appreciably below that of the blacks. If the Negro, then, is threatened with extinction, the white race is in a still more pitiable plight. ...
— A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1 • Kelly Miller
... slowly for half an hour, but they could find nothing that looked like a road. Some of the sleigh load were openly apprehensive and inclined to blame Hardy for their plight, but for the most part they were plucky and good-natured, trying to turn off their growing fear ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... last two days in London; he did not venture to hint at any knowledge of Rosamund's movements. A suspicion was growing in his mind that she might not have left England; in which case, was ever man's plight more ridiculous than his? It would mean that Rosamund had deliberately misled him; but could he think her capable of that? If it were so, and if her feelings toward him had undergone so abruptly violent a change simply because of the discovery she had made—why, then Rosamund ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... among the wild young gallants at the playhouses. They were gentlemen or beggars as daily circumstances ordained. When this was the case with such authors as Greene, Peele, and Massinger, we need not wonder at finding "a whole knot" of writers in infinitely worse plight, who lived (or starved) by writing ballads and pamphlets on temporary subjects. In a brief tract, called "The Downfall of Temporising Poets," published 1641, they are said to be "an indifferent strong corporation, twenty-three of you sufficient ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... as she heard the sweetness of his voice. Had I not better tell the truth of her at once? Oh, if she could only have been his again! What madness during these last six months had driven her to such a plight as this! The old love came back upon her. Nay; it had never gone. But that trust in his love returned to her,—that trust which told her that such love and such worth would have sufficed to make her happy. But this confidence in him was worthless now! Even though he ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... a culprit. A Scotch laborer does not lightly confess to feeling "fair silly," nor sleep away the busy hours of daylight. The old man was puzzled and humiliated by this discreditable thing. A human friend would have understood his plight, led the fevered man out of that bleak and fetid cul-de-sac, tucked him into a warm bed, comforted him with a hot drink, and then gone swiftly for skilled help. Bobby knew only that his master ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... would that be adequate? I could have managed that any hour within the last score of years. Oh no! for I have studied you carefully. Oh no! instead, I have contrived this plight. For the Prince of Orange is manifestly murdered. Who killed him?—why, Madona Biatritz, and none other, for I will swear to it. I, I will swear to it, who saw it done. Afterward both you and I must be questioned ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... or plausible pretext in this case which would not lead to granting a pension in any case of alleged disability arising from military service followed by suicide. It would be an unfair discrimination against many who, though in sad plight, have been refused relief in similar circumstances, and would establish an exceedingly troublesome and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... violence of his emotion; the reckless, the daring Henry Lovell was weeping like a child. Oh, then again I thought I liked him, for I knelt down by his side, I took his hand in mine, I bathed it with my tears, and I whispered to him that I would promise anything, that I would plight my faith to him, do anything but consent to the ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... understand the plight of the Russian army one must have some idea of the character of the Masurian Lake district. It was probably molded by the work of ice in the past. Great glaciers, in their progress toward the sea, have ground out hundreds of hollows, where are found ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
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