"Miserable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up. I can't tell you how it hurts to do it, but I don't dare to leave my father. If anything happened to him I could never forgive myself—never. He isn't well. It would do no good to take me with you now. I should be so miserable I should ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... sahib, when we were cold and stiff and miserable to the very verge of death, we came to a little place called Oeschersleben, and there the cruelty came to an unexpected end. We were ordered out of the trucks and met on the platform by a German, not in uniform, who showed distress at our predicament and who hastened ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... time you are laying a trap for me—endeavoring to catch me and betray me! Well, yes, sir! yes! What you have discovered through your spies is true. I was tried and sentenced as a thief—I was married when I first saw you—and it is this miserable creature, this offscouring of the kennels, this thief, that has become the wife of the proud Mr. Mohun—in the eyes of the world at least! I am so still—my character is untainted—dare to expose me and have me punished, and it is your proud name that will ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... "Your majesty, the miserable girl refused ever to acknowledge the marriage. The man they had forced upon her imprisoned her for years, giving out to the world that she was insane, but holding out to her a promise of release, whenever she would recognize him as her husband. She never would—she ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... its robe it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... it is in looking back to this time, when coming events were casting their sad shadows before them, to think that no one took the opposite side, and that none among all the number argued before us that we had met with a miserable failure; that no one was ready with a rude word to break the bonds of friendship and to use his eloquence to destroy our habit of life, our trust in one another, our faith in God and the eternal justice of His providence, ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... was believed to have lived three hundred and thirty-three or three hundred and sixty years earlier. Dionysius says that his account, which is that of Fabius, occurred in the sacred songs, and it is in itself perfectly consistent. Fabius cannot have taken it, as Plutarch asserts, from Diocles, a miserable unknown Greek author; the statue of the she-wolf was erected in the year A.U. 457, long before Diocles wrote, and at least a hundred years before Fabius. This tradition therefore is certainly the more ancient Roman one; and it puts Rome in connection with Alba. A monument ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... Matt. Westm. The Danes inuade this land.] Shortlie after the decease of Dunstane, the Danes inuaded this realme on each side, wasting and spoiling the countrie in most miserable wise. They arriued in so manie places at once, that the Englishmen could not well deuise whither to go to encounter first with [Sidenote: Alias Wecederport. H. Hunt. Simon Dun.] them. Some of them spoiled a place or towne called Wichport, and from thence passing further ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (7 of 8) - The Seventh Boke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... Opposition. Nothing could be more absurd than Tierney's conduct, speaking entirely against Creevey, and by his vote identifying himself with the Opposition upon it. Lord N—— was really the height of folly, to call it by no other name, for the division was so miserable a one, and so completely confined to the Opposition, that there was no one reason why he should ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... "forgive me! But I am so utterly miserable, dear, that any poor little straw seems ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... Kennedy," O'Neil said, "that the good fortune that has hitherto attended you has spent itself. O'Sullivan and I both regarded it as a good omen that you should be the one ensign selected to go with us, but this miserable delay at Dunkirk, and the fact that we are on board the slowest tub in the fleet, seems to show that Dame Fortune is no longer going to exercise herself ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... interest of that miserable man, Marcus Harding. I want you to break the link that binds him to Henry Chichester—if there is one. I want you to ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... can't ever repeat hose miserable weeks of misunderstanding. Everything is all explained up. I know, now, that you don't love Miss Winthrop, or just girls—any girl—to paint. You love me. Not the tilt of my chin, nor the turn of ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... is the oddest thing, but even since we had that talk with the doctor and agreed to give the whole thing up, I've been perfectly miserable. I haven't enjoyed a single thing I've ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Rest, the greater world swung on its way; the whirl of society, politics, fashion and frivolity revolved like the wheel in a squirrel's cage, round which the poor little imprisoned animal leaps and turns incessantly in a miserable make-believe of forest freedom,—but to the old gardener who lifted the latch of his gate and went in to the Sunday dinner prepared for him by his stout and energetic helpmate, who was one of the best dairy-women in the whole countryside, there ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... usually, it was in praise of such men as had died in defence of their country, or in derision of those that had been cowards; the former they declared happy and glorified; the life of the latter they described as most miserable and abject. There were also vaunts of what they would do and boasts of what they had done, varying with the various ages; as, for example, they had three choirs in their solemn festivals, the first of the old men, ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... say a word about it to Aunt Deel. Don't ever speak o' that miserable melon ag'in to anybody. You scoot around to the barn, an' I'll be there in a minute and fix ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... Reed to his wife of that date, in which he says: "While I am writing, there is a heavy firing and clouds of smoke rising from the wood [on Long Island]. General Putnam was made happy by obtaining leave to go over—the brave old man was quite miserable at being kept here." (Reed's Life of Reed.) This firing, as Washington wrote to Schuyler on the same date, occurred in the morning. Putnam had been engaged during the summer, principally, in looking after the defences in the city and the river obstructions. ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... or a number of them, sicken and die, or linger out a miserable existence, and we naturally after failing to ascribe the cause to bad soil, want of moisture or adverse atmospheric agencies, conclude that the tree is infested with insects, especially if the bark in certain places seems diseased. Often the disease is in streets ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... minds are instructed in this great truth that though they had the riches of Dives, and the glory and pleasures of Solomon, and yet fail to be righteous, they have missed their vocation, and are "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked."(38) "For, what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"(39) On the contrary though they are as poor as Lazarus, and as miserable as Job in the days of his adversity, they are assured that their condition ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... foolish measures was that of ordering all firemen from the departments up to Paris. They remained in the city a week, and were then sent home. In their absurd and heavy uniforms, and with nothing whatever to do, the poor country fellows presented a miserable appearance as they sat in rows along the curbstones of the avenues, with their helmets glittering in the August sun, "looking," as some one remarked, "like so many rare beetles on exhibition," the spectacle being all the more ludicrous from the extreme dejection ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... Higham good evening in a curt way, and Madame accompanied him to the front door. There they had a spirited discussion. Madame considered an allowance of half a crown would be ample; he said, in going, that his wife was a mean, miserable cat. ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... some days afterwards, a fete to the people of Paris, and distributed abundant alms to the indigent. He desired that even the miserable should have his day of content, at the commencement of that era of joy, which his reconciliation with his people promised to his reign. The Te Deum was sung in the cathedral of Paris, as on a day of victory, to bless ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... neither can marry you. Don't be alarmed, we are only dead to the world, and gone to the Continent. 'Get thee to a nunnery.' Hamlet knew best. If I could have married any man it would have been you. You are the only gentleman I have ever known. But I don't love you. It's a miserable pity. I wish I did. I wonder why 'love' is an active verb in all languages. It ought to have a passive form, like 'loquor' (though that passive should be reserved for parrots). Forgive the governess! ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... him, take her to that far-off world that she never dreamed existed. He could show her the things of that world, its wonders and beauties. He could train her in its ways. He would watch over her, love her.... And she would be miserable and heartsick for the sight of this awful desolation. He knew it—he told himself it was the truth—and he ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... Ah! here comes Beauchamp, looking as solemn as an owl. Can you not manage to screw out a smile, Raoul? A glimpse of yourself in a glass just now would frighten you to death. Look a bit lively, there is plenty of time for being miserable." ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... down, and now Christine—she thinks I don't know. I'm no fool; I see a lot of things. I'm no good. I know that I've made her miserable. But I made a merry little hell for you too, and ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... school was near the church, and while Peters steered the car carefully through groups of children who were loitering in the road she sat silent beside him, wondering, in miserable self-condemnation, how much she had betrayed during those few moments of hysterical outburst. Resolutely she determined that she would be strong, strong enough to put away the dread that haunted her, strong enough to meet trouble ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... astonishment with him, why the Spartans were so fearless of death, since any one in his senses would much rather die, than exist on such execrable food.—Vide Athenaeum, lib. iv. c. 3. When Dionysius the tyrant had tasted the black broth, he exclaimed against it as miserable stuff; the cook replied—"It was no wonder, for the sauce was wanting." "What sauce?" says Dionysius. The answer was,—"Labour and exercise, hunger and thirst, these are the sauces we Lacedaemonians use," and they make the ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... must sometimes, and giving always left a pain behind, because the gift came not from a spirit of benevolence. There were other and various causes of unhappiness, all of which combining, made Mr. Bolton, as old age came stealing upon him, about as miserable as a man could well be. Money, in his eyes the greatest good, had not brought the peace of mind to which he had looked forward, and the days came and went without a smile. His children had grown up and passed into the ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... passed in this way. Aksionov could not sleep at night, and was so miserable that he did ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... about rather aimlessly, feeling miserable enough. But, all at once, it occurred to him, "Would it not be cheaper for him to take board by the week in some boarding-house?" Reckoning up, he found that his hotel bill would be three dollars and a half a week, while his meals, even ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... machinery, or cheap foreign labor, or one thing or another, were quite willing to go; but as they couldn't afford to pay their passages to Canada, the Company appealed to the benevolent to pay for them by subscription, as the change would improve their miserable condition. I did not see why I should pay to provide a rich company with tenant farmers, and I told Jansenius so. He remarked that when money and not talk was required, the workmen of England soon found out who ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... in the crime of that Good Friday wear a peculiar brand of infamy as they are portrayed on the pages of history; but among them all, the most despicable, the one whose name bears the deepest infamy, is Judas, an apostle turned traitor, for a few miserable coins betraying his best friend into the ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... on the body.) Poor miserable dust! This body now is honest as the best, The very best of earth, lie where it may. This mantle must conceal the thing from sight, For soon Rosalia, as I bade her, shall Be here. Oh, Heaven! vouchsafe ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... no reply. He was too miserable, too tired to explain his state of mind. He was doubtful whether he could explain to Mop or to Joe his unwillingness to lie to ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... the top of Cove Hill (another of the many Aldershot names). The men had been lining the exposed edge of Observation Hill all night, without any shelter, whilst the thick cold rain fell upon them. It was raining still, and they lay about among the rocks and thorny mimosa bushes in rather miserable condition. ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... so," she replied. "However, I can see how it would induce morbidity, though there are those who are happiest only when they're miserable." ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... my utmost Endeavours; but will never let my Heart reproach me with having done any thing towards [encreasing [7]] those Feuds and Animosities that extinguish Religion, deface Government, and make a Nation miserable. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... another time; but I'll tell you what you do; go get Mrs. Higbee and your traps and come let us put you up to New York. We've got lots of room—run along now—and we'll have some of that ham, 'the kind you have always bought,' for lunch. A.L. Jackson is a miserable cook, too, if I don't know the truth." Gently urging Higbee through the door, he stifled a systematic inquiry into the details ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... use of worry? You always get worrying and stewing, Jimmy, and you know it doesn't help things any and makes you miserable, and there's never been a time yet when it didn't turn out in the end that there never was anything to really worry about, after all. If you keep on you'll get yourself scared. Now quit it. I was more at fault for ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... not come up to the proper standard, however agreeable they may be as acquaintance, certainly cannot make good husbands. In company of such, it behooves you to be well on your guard, and accept no attention from them. Should you marry such a one, you would be sure to be miserable. ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... average of ideals and conventional standards of life, Dick Gale was a starved, lonely, suffering, miserable wretch. But in his case the judgment would have hit only externals, would have missed the vital inner truth. For Gale was happy with a kind of strange, wild glory in the privations, the pains, the perils, and the silence and solitude to be endured on this desert land. In ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... authoritie? Speudeus. Yea, yf he speake vprightely. Hedonius. Heare nowe them, and beare awaye wyth you the saiynge of || an vnthriftie seruaunt, whyche is more wyttier then all the paradoxes of the Stoickes. SPE. I tarie to heare what ye wil say. HEDO. Ther is nothyng more miserable then a mynd vnquiet & agreued with it selfe. SPE. I like this saiyng well, but what doo you gather of it? HEDO. If nothing bee more miserable the an vnquiet mynde, it foloweth also, that there is nothing happiar, then a mynde voyde of all ...
— A Very Pleasaunt & Fruitful Diologe Called the Epicure • Desiderius Erasmus
... home, we should have a class of priests more national and more attached to British rule; at least we would have gentlemen and scholars, who would humanise their flocks. These have since been shown to be miserable sophisms. "Maynooth is a thoroughly ultramontane school. We have exchanged the French-bred priest, illread in Dens, with low notions of the supremacy, and proportionally high notions of the British Crown, for a race of crafty, Jesuitical, intriguing, thorough-trained priests of the ultramontane ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... he at once gave orders to Mahomet to have the baggage repacked and the tents removed, while we were requested to mount two superb white hygeens, with saddle-cloths of blue Persian sheep-skins, that he had immediately accoutred when he heard from Mahomet of our miserable camels. The tent was struck, and we joined our venerable host with a line of wild and splendidly-mounted attendants, who followed us ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... then. Mat was very cowed and miserable when he saw how I took it; he wanted to coax me into ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... enough. Cannon did well on sugar, but nobody dissected the whiskey section which bored gimlet holes into the bottom of every barrel of high wine to let it out without paying a cent of tax. The Democrats are therefore the real free whiskeyites. This ought to be shown up thoroughly in the Senate. Our miserable platform places us on the defensive. The Mills bill places the Democrats on the defensive if it is rightly handled. I do not mean attacking the free wool part of it, for that portion if enacted would do your ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... the unfounded rumor of a Spanish cruiser and destroyer lying in wait, the army of 17,000, under Major-General William R. Shafter, landed with little opposition a short distance east of Santiago. The sickly season had begun. Moreover, it was as good as certain that, spite of all the miserable Cuban army could do, Santiago's 8,000 defenders would soon be increased from neighboring Spanish garrisons. So, notwithstanding his inadequate provision for sound, sick, or wounded and his weakness in artillery, Shafter pushed forward. His gallant little army brushed the ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... grown up, were talking against England, our ally. Then and thereafter, even as to-day, they talked against her as they had been talking since August, 1914, as I had heard them again and again, indoors and out, as I heard a man one forenoon in a crowd during the earlier years of the war, the miserable years before we waked from our trance of neutrality, while our chosen leaders were ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... blood without a valid reason. He could not, even, in the name of love, cut her off from all that she had been, from all that had made her what she was, and make her happy. And MacRae knew that if they married and Betty were not happy and contented, they would both be tigerishly miserable. There was only one possible avenue, one he could not take. He could not seek peace with Gower, even ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... time and one pretense and some at another, just as they pressed, without any sort of regard to their relations or dependencies. They never had any kind of system, right or wrong; but only invented occasionally some miserable tale for the day, in order meanly to sneak out of difficulties into which they had proudly strutted. And they were put to all these shifts and devices, full of meanness and full of mischief, in order to pilfer piecemeal a repeal of an act which they had not the generous courage, when ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... the States immediately concerned, but to the harmony of the Union, will have been accomplished by measures equally advantageous to the Indians. What the native savages become when surrounded by a dense population and by mixing with the whites may be seen in the miserable remnants of a few Eastern tribes, deprived of political and civil rights, forbidden to make contracts, and subjected to guardians, dragging out a wretched existence, without excitement, without ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... which, however, it could not find. Almost all the people of the suburb were dissenters, as indeed were the generality of the people of Llangollen, and knowing the cat to be a church cat, not only would not harbour it, but did all they could to make it miserable; whilst the few who were not dissenters, would not receive it into their houses, either because they had cats of their own, or dogs, or did not want a cat, so that the cat had no home and was dreadfully persecuted by nine-tenths of the suburb. Oh, there ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... too sick in spirit to wish to meet them now. To be alone—to be alone—to be alone—some gasping inner spirit prayed continually. They would go to Oxfordshire, of course. But Miss Toland would be miserable in the country, she was always miserable ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... him too many times. There's no cruel-hearted savage on the Plains more dangerous to the settlers on the frontier; not one av 'em 'ud burn a house, and kill men and children, and torture and carry off women, quicker than this miserable dog that a girl who should value her good name has been counsellin' with time and again, this summer, partly on account of jealousy, and partly because of a silly notion of bein' romantic. Back in June she made a trip to the cabin double quick to ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... After she had drunk, when her eyes met her father's fixed on her in mute and mournful inquiry, her lips closed, and formed themselves into an expression which he remembered they had always assumed when, as a little child, she used silently to hold up her face to him to be kissed. The miserable contrast between what she was now and what she had been them, was beyond the passive endurance, the patient resignation of the spirit-broken old man; the empty cup dropped from his hands, he knelt down by the side of the couch and ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... be half a million in bills pressed together in that heavy, flat packet. Bills were absolutely safe plunder. But Kloon had turned a deaf ear to his suggestions,—Kloon, who never entertained ambitions beyond his hootch rake-off,—whose miserable imagination stopped ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... sad at heart. Did not work in garden. Tried to weed a little grass along the paths but simply couldn't. This is a cruel job. How was it that Roosevelt grew stout on it? His nature must be different from mine. What a miserable nature he ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... fancies Macbeth was subject. His queen and he had their sleeps afflicted with terrible dreams, and the blood of Banquo troubled them not more than the escape of Fleance, whom now they looked upon as father to a line of kings who should keep their posterity out of the throne. With these miserable thoughts they found no peace, and Macbeth determined once more to seek out the weird sisters, and ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Tanahung Raja had given him, attacked Karna Sen, and took his dominions. The fugitive prince, as I have mentioned, was received by Budkharna, the Kirat, as sovereign of Morang; but I have already given an account of the miserable events ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... fornication. Indeed there is something to be said in vindication of it; for, notwithstanding the severity of the law against offenders in this way, it must be confessed that the practice of this passion is unattended with that curse and burthen upon society which proceeds from a race of miserable and deserted bastards, who are either murdered by their parents, deserted to the utmost want and wretchedness, or bred up to prey upon the commonwealth: and it likewise prevents the debauchery of many a young maiden, and the prostitution of honest men's wives; not to mention ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... become my companion in the pious work." "It is not impossible," said Zelinda thoughtfully. "Thou must, however, come with me to my island, and there thou shalt be regaled as is befitting such an ambassador, far better than here on the desolate sand, with the miserable palm-wine that thou ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque
... doesn't quit his nonsense," I replied, "he'll soon be past helping. He doesn't go out on his range, his few cattle wander everywhere, his shack is in a beastly state, and he himself is going to pieces, miserable fool that he is." For it did seem a shame that a fellow should so throw ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches (1850) and History of Frederick the Great (1858).] of Carlyle the most famous is The French Revolution (1837). On this work Carlyle spent much heart-breaking labor, and the story of the first volume shows that the author, who made himself miserable over petty matters, could be patient in face of a real misfortune. [Footnote: The manuscript of the first volume was submitted to Carlyle's friend Mill (him of the "sawdustish" mind) for criticism. Mill lent it ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... one trait of gratitude shown by Ali at the end of this expedition, and his record of good deeds is then closed. Compelled by a storm to take refuge in a miserable hamlet, he inquired its name, and on hearing it appeared surprised and thoughtful, as if trying to recall lost memories. Suddenly he asked if a woman named Nouza dwelt in the village, and was told there was an old infirm woman of that name in great poverty. He ordered ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... death-knell was soon to be tolled, constantly poured on the great Irish Tribune the most scurrilous abuse. One of the mock titles with which they honored him was that of "King of the Beggars." Such pitiful ribaldry awakened the highest powers of the Roman orator. "Poor, miserable, and most pitiful fatuity which, while intending to mock, actually did him honor. For, what sovereignty is more beautiful than that whose tribute is not wrung from unwilling fear, but that is a voluntary, love-inspired offering? What sovereignty is more ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... agency for keeping us apart. To-day those memories are fading. I was much struck by a remark I heard last spring from the Bishop of Southwark, that one reason why we are more ready nowadays to contemplate reunion is just that we belong to a generation to whom those miserable doings are far-off things outside alike our ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various
... a plague to his country, resolves to inclose many thousand acres of ground, the owners, as well as tenants, are turned out of their possessions, by tricks, or by main force, or being wearied out with ill usage, they are forced to sell them. By which means those miserable people, both men and women, married and unmarried, old and young, with their poor but numerous families (since country business requires many hands), are all forced to change their seats, not knowing whither to go; and ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... conditions, Bettina's second season in London was unlike the first in both its object and its results. From some unknown and unquestioned source she was becoming penetrated with the "scorn for miserable aims that end with self," and by the time that she was ready to return to Kingdon Hall her life had become so informed with its new purpose that she looked forward to the leisure which her removal there would give with real ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... miserable old man to get up without a light. Oh fie, Bill. I thought you loved your poor old father better than to neglect him so—there, that will do: now send in Lucy ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... the associationist psychology continued to hold sway, and showed, with Dugald Stewart's miserable attempt at establishing two forms of association, its incapacity to rise to the conception of the imagination. With the poet Coleridge, England also showed the influence of German thought, and Coleridge elaborated with Wordsworth a more correct conception of poetry and of its difference from ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... This miserable list, as you will see, means that we have nothing with which to reply to the enemy's fire. We are not so proud and foolish as to wish to silence the guns ranged against us, but, at least, we should be able to make some reply. In desperation, the sailor-gunners tried to manufacture a ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... results. Even in the plains of Mexico and Puebla, the grain-fields are irrigated to some small degree. But notwithstanding this progress in the right direction, the face of the country shows the most miserable waste of one of the chief elements of the wealth and prosperity of the ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... question in small households—for without gravies on hand you cannot make good hash, or many other things that are miserable without, and excellent with it. Yet how difficult it is to have gravy always on hand every mistress of a small family knows, in spite of the constant advice to "save your trimming to make stock." ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen
... Duke of Wellington in possession of everything which had taken place between him and them upon the subject of reform and with regard to the creation of peers, admitting that he had consented, but saying he had been subjected to every species of persecution. His ignorance and levity put him in a miserable light and proved him to be one of the silliest old gentlemen in his dominions." Greville goes on to say: "But I believe he is mad, for yesterday he gave a dinner to the Jockey Club, {176} at which, notwithstanding his cares, he seemed ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Madonna?" I echoed, in a voice that was as unlike my own as was the mood that then possessed me. "You are the air I breathe, the sun that lights my miserable world. You are dearer to me than honour, sweeter than life. You are the guardian angel of my existence, the saint to whom I have turned morning and evening in my prayers for grace. ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... Fanny think of such a letter? He falls to miserable meditation over the slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune, and the constant erection of new obstacles in the course of his luckless love. And of Fanny's love he always has had a smouldering doubt: yet he remains her vassal, from the first, as he has told her—irrevocably ...
— A Day with Keats • May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron
... false hair, false titles, false jewellery, and false histories, a colony of brigands lie in their first sleep. Gentlemen of the green-baize road who could discourse from personal experience of foreign galleys and home treadmills; spies of strong governments that eternally quake with weakness and miserable fear, broken traitors, cowards, bullies, gamesters, shufflers, swindlers, and false witnesses; some not unmarked by the branding-iron beneath their dirty braid; all with more cruelty in them than was in Nero, and more crime ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... words, the disclosing of Enlightened Consciousness. We are living the very life of Buddha, enjoying His blessing, and holding communion with Him through speech, thought, and action. The earth is not 'the vale of tears,' but the glorious creation of Universal Spirit; nor man 'the poor miserable sinner' but the living altar of Buddha Himself. Whatever we do, we do with grateful heart and pure joy sanctioned by Enlightened Consciousness; eating, drinking, talking, walking, and every other work of our daily life are the worship and devotion. We agree with Margaret Fuller when she says: ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... two of unexpected pleasure passed for Peter. In these new surroundings he found he could separate Lady Elfrida from his miserable past, and the conventional restraint of Ashley Grange. Again, the revelation of her familiar name Friddy seemed to make her more accessible and human to him than her formal title, and suited the girlish simplicity that lay at the foundation of her character, of which ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... not sit near the fire if your head is made of butter.' We should not try to walk through this wicked world without making very certain that we have stubbed the thorns out of our hearts. Oh, dear friends! here is the secret to the miserable inconsistencies of the great bulk of professing Christians. They have got the seed in, but they have not got the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... commissariat—with which the force was very insufficiently supplied, as the natives of India of that class for the most part refused, on account of their caste prejudices, to engage themselves for service across the sea. Reinforcements arrived; and Rangoon, which but six weeks before presented a miserable and deserted appearance was, towards the beginning of January, ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... loads that are much too heavy, and if he complains, they twist his wings and beat him. He's always tied to a stake on a rope just long enough to go across the river. His only friends are the crocodiles, who say 'Hello' to him once a week if they don't forget. Really, he's the most miserable animal I've ever come across. When I left I promised I'd try to help him someday, although I couldn't see how. The rope around his neck is about the biggest, toughest rope you can imagine, with so many knots it would take ...
— My Father's Dragon • Ruth Stiles Gannett
... evening we arrived at a few scattered villages, surrounded with extensive cultivation; a tone of which, called Buggil, we passed the night in a miserable hut, having no other bed than a bundle of corn stalks, and no provisions but what we brought with us. The wells here are dug with great ingenuity, and are very deep. I measured one of the bucket-ropes, and found the depth of the well to be ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... safe in heaven; and when he is there, there need not be a gap in his strain, but in a nobler, sweeter strain he may still continue singing His power to save. There are a great many of you that think Christian people are a very miserable set, don't you? You say, "Let me sing my song." Ay, but, my dear friends, we like to sing a song that will last; we don't like your songs; they are all froth, like bubbles on the beaker, and they will soon die away and be lost. Give me a song that will last; give ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... Sometimes he was perfectly charming, and wooed her in the most enchanting manner, murmuring soft things in her ear, and kissing and caressing her, till I almost fell in love with him myself. Then he would leave her alone,—oh! for days and days,—till she drooped, poor thing! and was perfectly miserable. And then perhaps he would come again in a fury, and shake and beat her in the most frightful manner, tearing her hair out, and sometimes flinging her right into the arms of poor Sir Scraggo, who quivered with emotion, but never ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... of his being married, and now he really has been killed. I have just written to his wife, though I have never seen her. Still, that is part of a Colonel's business. Poor Capt. Allgood! He looked so peaceful lying on the stretcher. We are rather miserable in the trenches, as we have to live in a sea of mud. I think it is worse this time than ever. I have been busy getting it shovelled out and trying to cheer everyone up. Yesterday when we were coming in, the Germans started shelling the village we had to go through. I moved round it by another ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... his conical cape and tarpaulin hat, streamed with water. The drooping horse looked as though it had been fished out, half unconscious, from a pond. Mrs. Fyne found some relief in looking at that miserable sight, away from the room in which the voice of the amiable visitor resounded with a vulgar intonation exhorting the strayed sheep to return to the delightful fold. "Come, Florrie, make a move. I can't wait on you ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... have our twenty acres apiece of timber—and you've no idea what a tremendous lot of money that will bring, considering the investment. Fred's worked so hard lately that he's all run down and looks miserable. The doctor told him the mountains would do him a world of good. And the professor wants to do something definite and practical—they are filling up the college with student-teachers, willing to teach some certain subject for the instruction they'll get in some other—and ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... we do not want any new school theology. The holy religion of our fathers is good enough for me. Here it is a loving father, a crucified and triumphant and pleading saviour for us poor, miserable and helpless sinners, and a ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... miserable waiting Susannah had thought of many things that might occur, and nerved herself to meet them, but this distemper of soul, this failure of will in the man who had been undaunted through years of persecuting torture, was so wholly unexpected that she ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... of our neighbors." A certain Herr von Justi, who had also incurred the unfavorable notice of the Litteraturbriefe, used this review to revenge himself on Mendelssohn. He wrote to the Prussian state-councillor: "A miserable publication appears in Berlin, letters on recent literature, in which a Jew, criticising court-preacher Cramer, uses irreverent language in reference to Christianity, and in a bold review of Poesies diverses, ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... loving and kind as she was sometimes at Stoneleigh, but as a gambler, an adventuress, a woman of whom men jested and made sport—a woman who had probably ensured and fleeced him, as Neil would have expressed it. Bessie knew all the miserable catalogue of expedients resorted to by her mother to extort money from her victims; cards, chess, bets, philopenas, loans she never intended to pay, and which she accepted as gifts the instant the offer was made, and when these failed, pitiful tales of scanty means and ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... with any man—the tone that to me seems best. You miserable fool! As sure as you're a rogue this affair shall cost you your position. You have waxed fat and sleek in your seneschalship; this easy life in Dauphiny appears to have been well suited to your health. But as ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... faces were much improved. Weakness of eyes seemed common among these people, and therefore the officers had their cabin darkened, while the unfortunate rowers had to labor in the blazing sun. Such was my conclusion, and the fact reminded me of the miserable fellahin of Egypt, who have ophthalmia from the blazing sun ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... surprised that that miserable whelp escaped with his life," he said. "Usually, in cases of this sort, the rascal who betrays his friends receives short shrift from those who make use of him. He knows too much for their safety, and gets a knife between his ribs as soon ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... dead who still live on In minds made better by their presence; live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude; in scorn For miserable aims that end with sell; In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge man's ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... governed by a multitude of secondary, obscure, or impenetrable causes. It is a game of chance in which the most skilful may lose like the most ignorant. 'The older one becomes the more clearly one sees that King Hazard fashions three-fourths of the events in this miserable world.' ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... somehow, or had been dreaming he heard; many eager questions and beseechings which James and I could make nothing of, and on which she seemed to set her all, and then sink back ununderstood. It was very sad, but better than many things that are not called sad. James hovered about, put out and miserable, but active and exact as ever; read to her when there was a lull, short bits from the Psalms, prose and metre, chanting the latter in his own rude and serious way, showing great knowledge of the fit words, bearing up like a man, ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... Perhaps now you'll believe me for the future, and not be starting miserable, sceptical objections to every word I say. What did you say when she talked to you about her art? Did you cross-question her about ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... "Why you won it fairly," she said. "We played a miserable game. A few colds shouldn't have made all that difference. I don't ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... These were the blind followers of Mr. O'Connell, to whom it seemed blackest guilt to question his supremacy or infallibility, on the one hand, and on the other, all who sympathised with genuine and lofty emotions, and regarded the attack on Mr. Davis as wanton, brutal and contemptible. The miserable little faction that existed on the spoils of the Association magnified the difference and fanned the discontent. That Young Ireland had received its death-blow passed ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... suppose that decision and fearlessness are always the attributes of strength. Angels will hover in the equipoise of indecision while clowns will make up their minds. Many a fool will rush in to woo and win a woman, who makes her after-life miserable by inconsiderate dealings with incongruous circumstance, in that very unbending temper of mind through which he wins at first. Trenholme did not love the less, either as lover or brother, because he shrank, as from the galling of an old wound, ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... other nations, I have already said, that the divinity ought not to be made a party concerned in imposing diseases, which may possibly have natural causes; unless it be expresly declared, that they were inflicted immediately by the hand of God.[123] For of all the diseases, with which miserable mortals are tormented, there are none so wonderful and dreadful to appearance, but may be the natural consequences of bodily indispositions. Wherefore God himself, if he thinks proper, can employ either natural causes, or the ministry of good angels, to inflict all sorts of diseases ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead
... do, sir! and thank you most deeply,' said Lopes earnestly. If this had reached my father's ears, it would have broken his heart. Oh, thank you so very much! You do not know how miserable ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... was with tears. The device was a lion holding a sword. The two assassins, Achillas and Photinus, he put to death; and the king, being defeated in battle, perished in the river. Theodotus, the rhetorician, escaped the vengeance of Caesar, by leaving Egypt; but he wandered about a miserable fugitive, and was hated wherever he went. At last, Marcus Brutus, who killed Caesar, found the wretch, in his province of Asia, and put him to death, after having made him suffer the most exquisite tortures. The ashes of Pompey were ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... filibustering idea, revived under the most unfavorable circumstances, of fighting for their own hand, dragging the European name in the dirt, and founding an independent authority of some vague, undefinable and transitory character. Major Gordon listened to the unfolding of this scheme of miserable treachery, and only his strong sense of the utter impossibility, and indeed the ridiculousness of the project, prevented his contempt and indignation finding forcible expression. Burgevine, the traitor to the imperial cause, the man whose health would not allow him ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... them, they were laughed at by the officials of the place. They experienced no difficulty, however, in purchasing the same stock for a small sum, which they at once did, and hurried back to camp. By this unpleasant episode we learned of the stealth and treachery of the miserable people in whose country we were. We, therefore, took every precaution to prevent a repetition of the affair, and kept up a ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... Wolf's first visit he was obliged to exert all his powers of persuasion to induce his miserable friend to give up her resolution of moving into her former home. Besides, after the conversation with Charles's messenger, she had felt so ill that no visitor except himself had ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... cheeks, talking between her sobs. "It was not true, not one word of it, she just said it all to be disagreeable. She likes me to be miserable; I don't believe she ever had any parents of her own—I mean, not what you call parents. Some say she was born in a workhouse, a caravan, or an East-end doss. Though how she managed to be what she is they can't explain. I thought she was nice, mammy. ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... door slowly open, and discovered a small, miserable cell-its walls, of rugged stone, having no other covering than the incrustations which time, and many a dripping winter, had strewn over their vaulted service. On the ground, on a pallet of straw, lay a female figure in a profound sleep. But the light ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... speaking a woman does not betray her husband nor deceive him, unless he himself corrupts her heart, tramples on her feelings, or repulses and estranges her by his meanness, his selfishness, narrowness, and his miserable, worthless nature. You must love her! Let her feel that she is not only your female, but the crown of your head, as precious as your child and friend; wear her close to your heart, let her feel the warmth of it, and you may rest in peace; year after year she will cling closer ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... little man. "You don't know how miserable it makes me—the mere idea. Tell them to be patient. The secret of dealing with women, I have found, is to do nothing rashly." The clock struck five. "I must go now," said Joey. "Don't misjudge her, Peter, and don't let the others. ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... principle of "no taxation without representation" to her colonies in America, lost her these possessions. A government to be stable and efficient must possess adequate powers for the collection of its revenue. The miserable condition to which the old Confederation was reduced by reason of the inadequacy of its powers in this respect, has already been discussed. Says Fiske: "Between the old Continental Congress and the government under which we ...
— Government and Administration of the United States • Westel W. Willoughby and William F. Willoughby
... "I have always dreaded the water. I did promise mamma and Bess to conquer my nervousness and not make folks miserable, but now just see how things happen to upset me," and ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... consistent plan of military operations. Charles Fox went a step further than most of the speakers in opposition. He declared that treachery and not ignorance must have prevailed in the national councils, to reduce the nation to so miserable a condition; and he warned ministers that when the nation was reduced to such a state of wretchedness and distraction that the laws of the land could afford no relief, the law of nature would put arms into the hands of the people, and then they, who had caused the evil, would suffer for ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... past. He had a sense of restfulness to which he had long been a stranger, as though he had taken some mental opiate to soothe the pain of remembrance. London, and the flat, and the grinding drudgery of Fleet Street, the miserable little creditors worrying at the door—all these seemed now to belong to some former existence, to be part of the life of a different Jimmy Grierson. Vera knew nothing of such things; and, in her society, he himself managed to ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... from the broken ground on which they were discovered, the undergrowth of the wood which hid both armies from each other. But soon that disorder turned into the wildest panic and flight. It would almost seem as if between these two hereditary opponents one must always be forced into this miserable part. Not all the chivalry of France had been able to prevent it at the long string of battles in which they were, before the revelation of the Maid; and not the desperate and furious valour of Talbot could preserve his English force from the infection now. Fastolfe, ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... With miserable eyes Jan lay staring into the dark, wondering how he could be like his father and Barry in a country where there ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker
... we cannot, I think, reasonably doubt. Any government, indeed, so that it was central, so that it gathered itself into a single hand and took its impress from a single mind, would have been better a thousand times than the miserable condition of half-conquest, half-rule, whole anarchy and confusion which set in and continued with hardly ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... Francesca, still very white, and staring at the brick floor. "I have seen it. I could not speak of it. You are unhappy—miserable. Your life is ruined, and I have done ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... going. One old lady takes her position beside us for the night, and its poor bony sides are filled for once, and its brown eyes in the morning look grateful and eager for more. R. says he thinks the most miserable are those with fox-terrier blood; and they do not outlive their second litters. It lay on the sand a little way off the greater part of the night, the shyer dogs still farther off, scarcely seen in the darkness. Perhaps these half-breds have inherited ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... many; the real causes for gloom are few; the most are imaginary. This is true of all ages. Our borrowed trouble is much more than that which comes as our own in the legitimate course of our life. Trouble is the worst article we can borrow. We have the least need for it, and it is a miserable dose to take. Of all things which it does, Girlhood should not borrow trouble. A heavy interest will have to be paid for it in the future; and there is danger that it will make the soul absolutely bankrupt. ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... never comes into a life to be held there in confinement. He seeks our life that it may become a channel through which he may flow to bless and make happy other lives. He is not only our peace—he is our righteousness as well. How miserable we would be in our sins and shortcomings were this not so! But all the more on that account will we desire to do what we can to make up for our deficiencies. Loving him, we shall want to do his will. He wills that all shall hear of the ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 42, No. 1, January 1888 • Various
... Farwell entered. The nurse greeted her, but the poor girl who had spent an almost sleepless night, stood regarding the woman before her with a kind of envying wonder. What right had this creature to be so happy while she a Christian was so miserable? ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... band, at the moment of anticipated victory. He saw them flying wildly up the hill, in irretrievable rout, followed by the whooping victors, who, with the fugitives, soon vanished entirely from view, leaving the field of battle to the dead and to the thrice miserable captives. ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... woman knows something of anatomy, physiology, and the laws of hygiene. Such knowledge should be helpful, and generally is, but if it causes anyone to think incessantly about the workings of the body, to that person it is detrimental. We all know such individuals. They are made miserable because they scrutinize functions, like the beating of the heart, that go on automatically and should be left unobserved, or they minutely analyze their feelings and misinterpret normal sensations as ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... most prodigious hot and inflamed. The disease is the shingles. I eat nothing but water-gruel; am very weak; but out of all violent pain. The doctors say it would have ended in some violent disease if it had not come out thus. I shall now recover fast. I have been in no danger of life, but miserable torture. I must not write too much. So adieu, deelest MD MD MD FW FW, ME ME ME, Lele. I can say lele yet, oo see. Fais, I don't conceal a ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... Leaning back in the carriage, she sat there like an uprooted shrub. Silent and suffering, she looked at no one, wrapped herself in her grief, and buried herself so completely in the unseen world, the refuge of the miserable, that she saw nothing around her. Crows crossed the road in the air above them cawing, but although, like all strong hearts, hers had a superstitious corner, she paid no attention to the omen. The party travelled on in ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... fought in the dark, from which the poet kept aloof, for he could not see that God dwelt amidst the chaos. But Browning found "harmony in immortal souls, spite of the muddy vesture of decay." He found nature crowned in man, though man was mean and miserable. At the heart of the most wretched abortion of wickedness there was the mark of the loving touch of God. Shelley turned away from man; Wordsworth paid him rare visits, like those of a being from a strange world, ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... elevations here and depressions there, diversify the surface of the alluvial region. The latter are occupied by enormous marshes, while the former support the permanent dwellings of the present scanty and miserable population. ...
— Hasisadra's Adventure - Essay #7 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... was to call for him at a little before eight o'clock. But she decided that she would first seek Elise; before she accused the man, she would question the woman. Above and beyond all anger she felt at this miserable episode, there was pity in her heart for the lonely girl. She was capable of fierce tempers, of great caprices, of even wild injustice, when her emotions had their way with her; but her heart was large, her nature deep and broad, and her instincts kind. The little touch ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... miserable barbarian! I'll kill him yet!" shouted the enraged Louis, as we gathered round him. "He had the audacity to take my very best kettle to boil onions in, after I had told him repeatedly not to do so. I hate onions, anyhow; and besides, I was just going ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... know him?" exclaimed Olga. "Why did you never tell me before? I shall never forget how miserable I was because he didn't live to be reinstated in the French Army. But it's years ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... hope, then let us part; Having long taught my flesh to master fear, I should have learned by now to rule my heart, Although, Heaven knows, 'tis not so easy near. Oh, you were made to make men miserable And torture those who would have joy in you, But I, who could have loved you, dear, so well, Take pride in being a good loser too; And it has not been wholly unsuccess, For I have rescued from forgetfulness Some moments of this precious time that flies, Adding to my past wealth of memory The pretty ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... lamentations. The turkeys must be replaced; the little girl was not her own, but an enfant trouvee, whom she had nursed and loved as her own—and how was she to be received after her crime! the husband was irate, the children were miserable, neither cookery nor fire were to be seen, and despair reigned triumphant. A small present, and a good deal of reasoning, brought her a little to herself; and we persuaded the eldest girl to light the ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... some in the jolly boat, some on a raft, others by lashing themselves to pieces of timber, hogsheads, and even hencoops, to reach the shore; but out of four hundred and seventy-two persons who a few days before had left the coast of Holland, not more than eighteen escaped the raging billows. The miserable remnant received generous attention from the inhabitants of the place, who did all in their ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... not always easy to say the right word to a little fellow who has the right on his side and needs to have the other side shown to him, too; he is terribly pedantic besides, and says that one can't sing a morning song in the evening, and when he began to wail in his helplessness, it made me miserable. How should one always just be able to ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri
... with his eyes wide open, too happy to sleep—lay and dreamed of the time when he should be a man, and could gather into the great house he meant to own all the little homeless ones in the wide world; all the sorry little waifs that strayed through the streets of great cities, that crowded in miserable tenements, that ...
— Big Brother • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... It must not be supposed that Anne was a reader of Shakspeare. She had no doubt, often seen the Enchanted Island. That miserable rifacimento of the Tempest was then a favourite with the town, on account of the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... eternally condemned they wish to drag down with them as many souls as possible; the evil souls of Stainton Moses desire the perdition of man to gratify their own bad inclinations. Demons are spirits, wicked indeed, but yet spirits, whereas the evil souls of Stainton Moses are only miserable ghosts driven mad by love of matter. Certainly everything is possible, as Professor Flournoy says, but this theory is somewhat astonishing, for it seems to make the inhabitants of the next world gravitate round our miserable earth, and is like ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... dwelling and subsistence, it may easily be recollected, what a vast number of the earth's inhabitants there are whose places of dwelling are in all those states of worse cultivation and commodiousness, and what multitudes leading a miserable and precarious life amidst the inhospitableness of the waste, howling wilderness. Each presented circumstance of fertility or shelter, salubrity or beauty, may be named as what is wanting to a much greater number of the occupants ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... "Ah, miserable dog!" thundered Herne; "dost thou think I am to be hurt by mortal hands, or mortal weapons? Thy former experience should have taught thee differently. But since thou hast provoked it, take ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... did not blame him, though she doubted not his guilt; she felt how madly she might act if once jealous of him, and how much cause had she not given him for jealousy, miserable guilty wretch that she was! Speak on, desolate mother. Abuse her as you will. Her broken spirit feels to have ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... you rightly?" he continued, coming up and laying his great hand upon my shoulder. "You mean to say that, after all we went through because of that miserable necklace, you've gone and chucked it? Do you know it ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... had been hearing a scratching and whining. She opened the door, and out ran a wretched-looking dog, huge and gaunt, with the red marks of recent wounds all over his body, and his neck swathed in a discoloured bandage. He went straight to Richard, and began fawning upon him and licking his hands. Miserable and most disreputable as he looked, he recognised in ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... God, that is, his holy word; for that heavenly oracle cannot fail, which declares that "where there is no vision, the people perish,"[1] Nor should you be seduced from this pursuit by a contempt of our meanness. We are fully conscious to ourselves how very mean and abject we are, being miserable sinners before God, and accounted most despicable by men; being, (if you please) the refuse of the world, deserving of the vilest appellations that can be found; so that nothing remains for us to ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... quite sure you aren't doing just what you did before, getting infatuated, and making yourself miserable over some one who ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... over, I married and went to Oklahoma, where I found the most miserable wild nuts imaginable. However, I stayed but a short time and returned to my native state where the wild nuts were reasonably good. In 1935, I made a trip to California and visited the Persian walnut orchards ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various
... sense of decency, contrived to obtain, from time to time, a portion of her hard earnings. She could never have believed that John Redburn would come to this; for, as a clerk in her father's counting room, he had been all that was good and noble; but there he was a miserable sot, lost to himself, to his ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... not let me worry you. I am an obstinate pig, but you must not be miserable at my looking at the same thing in a different light from you. I must get to the bottom of this question, and that is all I can do. Some cleverer fellow one day will knock the bottom out of it, and see his way to explain what ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... her tear-spilling, wonderful eyes, wide open, to Peter's, and demanded: "But, oh Peter, I am so miserable I am almost dead. I have said you were a rock, and you are a rock. peter, can you get me out ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... hands and let them drop to his sides. Then he muttered something—a long sentence—in dialect. His voice sounded like a miserable old man's. ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... relieved of the perplexed affairs that nothing would make plain, through having them returned upon his hands by a dozen agents in succession who could make neither beginning, middle, nor end of them or him, he found his miserable place of refuge a quieter refuge than it had been before. He had unpacked the portmanteau long ago; and his elder children now played regularly about the yard, and everybody knew the baby, and claimed a ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... an ignorance for which I could feel nothing but sorrow and sympathy, as the inevitable result of the hard conditions of her life and environment. But now I recognized with considerable foreboding, not only all this, but much more besides. Henrietta Manners, that humble, under-fed, miserable box-maker, was the very incarnation of bigotry and intolerance, one by whom any idea, or any act, word, or occurrence out of the ordinary rut set by box-factory canons of taste and judgment, must be condemned ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... fellow, and kissing him as he would an affectionate child, bade him adieu, and ascended, the steps leading to the third story (Mount Rascal) in advance of the jailer, to be confined in a dark, unhealthy cell, there to await the caprice of one man. To describe this miserable hole would be a task too harrowing to our feelings. We pass it for those who will come after us. He little thought, when he shook the hand of his little companion, that it was the last time he should meet him ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... source, and none whatever from elsewhere; the blacks, therefore, were dying below like rotten sheep, of suffocation, as was reported by those who came up from time to time after attending to the most pressing wants of the miserable creatures. And to make what was already bad enough still worse, it was impossible to remove the dead from among the living so long as the ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... period known to us as the Dark Ages, or Middle Ages, namely, the period between ancient and modern times. In the Middle Ages humanity was very ignorant, hampered by all sorts of evil superstitions; while the daily life of the people was miserable and without comforts, lacking many things which we consider necessities. Yet even in those far-away days things were improving, because man has always felt the desire to make his lot better; and the constant effort of these people of the Middle Ages led to that beautiful awakening ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley |
