"Commiseration" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pavement and was seen describing his mysterious desires to an affable gentleman behind the plate-glass; he measured with his knuckles and illustrated in pantomime the snapping of something over his knee; the clerk shook his head in commiseration and signalled to an attendant, who darted off. Soon Hunt appeared with a small package and they started on again, turning a corner abruptly and winding through less exciting streets. The shops grew smaller and dingier; drays passed lumbering by and street cars jarred along beside them, ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... woman can entertain any other feeling than that of commiseration for the man over whose happiness she has been compelled to throw a cloud, while the idea of triumphing in his distress, or abusing his confidence, must be ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... the sacred feasts, and was now deprived of both these dignities. So I found it a very trying task to accuse a man on whom sentence had already been passed, for though the shocking offences with which he was charged weighed heavily against him, he yet was protected to a certain extent by the commiseration felt for a man already condemned to punishment that one might ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... you are annoyed about something," she says, in a maddening tone of commiseration, regarding him keenly, while he gravely ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... critics that America is sublimely unconscious that her childhood is gone. And this gay paradox is less arresting than the asseveration that America is lacking in humour because she is lacking in self-knowledge. There is a certain grimly comic irony in this commiseration with us, on the part of our British critics, for our failure joyously to realize our old age, which they would have us believe is a sort of premature senescence and decay. The New World is pitied for her failure to know without ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... Bill Wilder or go to jail, by the eternal," cried the young man, quite as angrily, whereupon I looked upon him with a mixture of admiration and commiseration, with a gulping certainty in my throat that I was about to see murder done. He was a strange young man, with the rare marked look that would compel even a poor memory to pick him out again. For example, he was very tall and very slim, with red hair blown every which way over a ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the country had to let it rest, for there was no evidence against anyone. Amongst those who came to inquire after the Squire was Andy Neil. He came often, and was full of commiseration, and loudly cursed the brute who had very nearly done for his old landlord. But the neighbors had suspicions with regard to Andy, for he had been turned out of his cot in the mountains, and was living in the village now. They scowled at him when he passed, and turned aside; ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... again at Parvis. He was trying to conceal his disturbance under what he imagined to be an expression of indulgent commiseration; but the edges of his lips were blue. "He thinks me mad; but I'm not mad," she reflected; and suddenly there flashed upon her a way ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... Roxburgh, of which his father was pastor. His mother, whose name was Hume[160], inherited, as coheiress, a portion of a small estate. The revenue of a parish in Scotland is seldom large; and it was, probably, in commiseration of the difficulty with which Mr. Thomson supported his family, having nine children, that Mr. Riccarton, a neighbouring minister, discovering in James uncommon promises of future excellence, undertook to superintend his education, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... in my ear that he was one of the dreadful Lobishomens, a devoted race, held in mingled horror and commiseration, and never mentioned {383} without by the Portuguese peasantry. They believe that if a woman be delivered of seven male infants successively, the seventh, by an inexplicable fatality, becomes subject to the powers of darkness; and is compelled, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 208, October 22, 1853 • Various
... the least, beyond the feeling natural to the affinity of blood; and I might have spared myself many hours of anxious concern, on his account, could I only have seen what was now so unreservedly told to me. Poor Bulstrode! a feeling of commiseration came over me, as I listened to my companion's assurances that he had never in the least touched her heart, while, at the same time, blushing very red, she confessed my own power over it. An expression to this effect even escaped ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... and sudden movements betrayed a great fund of a certain coarse energy, and, as her step-daughter now entered the parlor, she was fanning her flushed face with an open letter. Her expression was one of triumph only half-concealed by ill-assumed commiseration. ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... assented Beatrice, on a note of commiseration. And if the corners of her mouth betrayed a tendency to curve upwards, she immediately compelled them down. "But perhaps he does not speak Italian very well?" ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... of his fate, or by way of clearing his conscience, as the knights used to confess of a morning before combat, had exonerated Mr. Crawfurd before he came upon the ground. The Court was strongly in his favour, and he was sent back to his family and property without anything more severe than commiseration; but that could never reach ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... paper. Julian silently complied. The kind-hearted young viscount took out a bottle of wine, of which Julian swallowed off a tumblerful, and then, without speaking a word, strode off to the senate-house, which he reached pale and agitated, attracting, as he entered, the notice and commiseration ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... us he was absent for about an hour. When he returned, there were traces in his appearance of the storm through which he had passed. His hands trembled with agitation; he even looked weakened as he sank into his chair, We regarded him with commiseration. ...
— Esmeralda • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Beulah held his cold hands in hers, and watched, in almost breathless anxiety, for some return of animation. She knew that he was intoxicated; that this, and this only, caused the accident; and tears of shame and commiseration trickled down her cheeks. Since their parting interview, previous to his marriage, they had met but once, and then in silence, beside Cornelia in her dying hour. It was little more than a year since she had risked ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... masters. The heads of the various corporations sought to distinguish themselves by the novelty or the perfection of their productions; and it was among these that the condition of Master Zacharius excited the most lively, because most interested, commiseration. His rivals pitied him the more willingly because they feared him the less. They never forgot the old man's success, when he exhibited his magnificent clocks with moving figures, his repeaters, which provoked general admiration, ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... Beautiful and gay, and the lately married and cherished wife of a most worthy man, Mrs. N. died a short time after the birth of her first child. She had appeared to be recovering well; she relapsed and died. It is one of those events that excites sympathy in the hardest, and commiseration in ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... we are to regard the Bourbons as a fallen and unfortunate race, the objects rather of commiseration than apprehension, and Napoleon as the only sovereign who has really threatened our independence, and all but effected the subjugation of the Continent, we can scarcely conceive the terror with which a century and a half ago they, with reason, inspired all Europe, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... appeasing the indignation of such as we have any way offended, when we see them in possession of the power of revenge, and find that we absolutely lie at their mercy, is by submission, to move them to commiseration and pity; and yet bravery, constancy, and resolution, however quite contrary means, have sometimes served to produce the same effect.—[Florio's version begins thus: "The most vsuall waie to appease those minds wee have offended, when revenge lies in their ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... the most tender manner, on her escape. But before she dived to unknown depths, she cast a parting glance at the wretched Shetlander, whose despairing looks excited in her breast a few transient feelings of commiseration. ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... again, another slip of paper handed out. "But he was struck down there by a musket-ball, and——Troops have proceeded. Will arrive in half a minute after this." Mother abandons all hope; general commiseration; troops rush in, down a platform; son only wounded, ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... to punish," she said after some minutes of awkward silence. There was commiseration in her tone. The situation was becoming ludicrous to Sir Edward, though there was a certain amount of annoyance at feeling his inability ...
— Probable Sons • Amy Le Feuvre
... spurious brilliancy of that division of her sex that claims as intuition an inability to master the processes of thought, and attributes to this faculty all fortunate conclusions, but none that is faulty. I thought, with some commiseration for him, that at bottom her manner showed some real leaning towards the lover she had discarded—that she felt the need of a pincushion, as it were, into which to stick the little points of her malevolence. I think I was inclined to be hard on ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... March 28, 182-, was precisely one of the nights that were wont to call forth these expressions of commiseration. The level rainstorm smote walls, slopes, and hedges like the clothyard shafts of Senlac and Crecy. Such sheep and outdoor animals as had no shelter stood with their buttocks to the winds; while the tails of little birds trying ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... Valentia's Travels were bespoke, and Mr. Evans shewed me that every similar copy of his new edition of "Burnett's History of his own Times" was disposed of, I could not help elevating my eyes and hands, in token of commiseration at the prevalence of ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... without offering her aid, although this ruin to her would enrich him very greatly. She had expected nothing from him, had wanted nothing from him; but by degrees, when absent from him, the feeling had grown upon her that he had been hard to her in abstaining from expressions of commiseration. She had yielded to him in the whole affair, assuring him that nothing should be done by her to cause him trouble; and she would have been grateful to him if in return he had said something to her of her future mode of life. She had intended to speak ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... nerves crack; And whilst his marrow, with the latent pest, Runs fluid, high tow'rd heaven his arms he holds, Exclaiming;—"now Saturnia, feast thy soul "With my destruction; joy, O savage!—view "From lofty heaven my tortures; satiate now "Thy rancorous soul:—but if a foe may move "Commiseration, (for thy foe I am) "Take hence this life, grievous, through direful pains: "Hateful to thee, and destin'd first for toils. "Death now would be a boon; and such a boon "A step-dame might confer. Have I for this, "Busiris slain, who drench'd the temples ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... spend their evenings at the theatres are permitted to see but one side of this tableau. The curtain lifts upon the group of smiling ballet-girls, but it never unveils their private life. The theatre is intended to amuse, not to excite commiseration for the realities of every-day life around us. Why should anything disagreeable be allowed? If it sought to make people unhappy, it would soon become ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... barely in time to save himself from perishing of hunger and thirst. But there are other modes of chastisement too horrible and too abominable to be told, all of which were practised upon this unfortunate man—unfortunate in having no friend, for strange to say he received but little sympathy or commiseration from the rest of that wicked crew. Though a harmless creature enough, he was one of those unfortunates whose habits prevent them from ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... one of them aided or abetted, or had a guilty knowledge of, the conspiracy; yet certainly there was evidence enough to place them under such suspicion, that, if they were really innocent, they deserve commiseration for their unfortunate situation. ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... think of her beside you? Oh, why was money ever let to come into the world to curse us?" with many other puzzling questions of a like character, and much severe condemnation of Fate and Heaven and other parties generally, and much self-commiseration. ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... a vivid recollection of that drive home. Jeffreys was vaguely conscious of them calling on the way for the doctor, and taking him along in the carriage. He also heard Scarfe say something to Mr Rimbolt in tones of commiseration, in which something was added about the inconsiderateness and untrustworthiness of Jeffreys. But for the rest he reclined back in his seat, scarcely conscious of anything ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... of a search party, Silsbee and one of the hired men, and vociferation and blame. Blame always for himself, the elder, who might have "known better!" A little fear, perhaps, but he could not fancy either pity or commiseration. Perhaps the thought upheld his pride; under the prospect of sympathy ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... 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 to ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... be separated! There was only time to exchange one glance of mutual commiseration and then Horace slowly left the room with sad forebodings, more on his brother's account than his own, and feeling that as far as helping one another was concerned they might as well be doomed to serve their time at ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... policy of the Cabinet of Vienna prevented the manifestation of its displeasure by remonstrances, or by any outward act. At Berlin, in consequence of the neighbourhood of the French troops in Hanover, the commiseration for the death of the Due d'Enghien was also confined to the King's cabinet, and more particularly to the salons of the Queen of Prussia; but it is certain that that transaction almost everywhere changed ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... husband wanted his liberty, he should have it, she declared, at that price and no other. Major Harbottle did indeed deeply long for his liberty, and his interesting friend, Mrs. Thynne, had, one can only say, the most vivid commiseration for his bondage. Whatever chance they had of winning, to win would be, for the end they had at heart, to lose, so they simply abstained, as it were, from comment upon the detestable procedure which terminated in the rule absolute. I have often wondered whether the whole business would not ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... expression is marked triste et tres doucement expressif. I shall call it the motive of Sorrow, for it seems like the comment of the music upon the transporting and utter sadness of the play's denouement. It voices a gentle and passive commiseration, rather than a ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... exhausted, climbing up and up the snowy slope towering above where he now stood, with the savage beast close at his heels, merciless and untiring, and so determined that it had gone on tracking him ever since his escape. All this robbed him of any feeling of commiseration for the ferocious creature, and he hoped fervently that it was coming on surely to ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... told me later, for our friendship, begun when he was eight years old, had leaped into sudden renewal; but without any idea of exciting my commiseration. Yet it made ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... sorrow this conviction caused. Almost involuntarily, as the procession slowly proceeded, and the countess passed within three paces of his horse's head, he bent his lordly brow in silent homage; she saw it and returned it, more effected by the unfeigned commiseration on that warrior's face, than at aught which had occurred to shame and humble ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... kept gin, brandy, and beer in her berth. Whether sober or not, she was equally voluble; and as her language was not only inelegant, but replete with coarseness and profanity, the annoyance was almost insupportable. She was a professed atheist, and as such justly an object of commiseration, the weakness of her unbelief being clearly manifested by the frequency with which she denied the existence ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... latent feeling of remorse lurked within her heart, and she did not seem to feel much interest in the affairs of the Moors. These considerations, together with the imminency of her danger, led Theodora to throw herself on the protection of the crone, and beseech her pity and commiseration. But before she could try the effect of her persuasion, the door suddenly swung open, and the dreaded figure of Caneri presented itself ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... of nocturnal illumination. Nero lent his own gardens for the spectacle, and gave a chariot-race, mingling with the people in the costume of a charioteer, or driving among them in his chariot; by which conduct he raised a feeling of commiseration towards the sufferers, guilty though they were, and deserving of the extremest penalties, as though they were being exterminated, not for the public interests, but to gratify the ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... seriously alarmed, and the beauty of the object heightened his pity and commiseration. His anxiety increased to that degree that, losing his presence of mind, and giving way to his feelings, he apostrophised the inanimate form, and, hanging over it with the tenderness of a mother over her lifeless child, as a last ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... to tears of real grief now, was for seeking the aid of grown-ups. I wasted precious breath in adjuring her as she loved me to keep silence. For my part death seemed imminent and certain. But I pictured Fred's grinning commiseration should our elders rescue me, and—I held on. By slow degrees I got one arm and shoulder back into the cabin, pausing there to rest. From that moment I was safe; but I was too cunning to let the fact appear. My reward began then, and most voluptuously I savoured ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... no notice of her, as she lay barking like some enraged animal on the ground. Again I stood in profound ignorance, sickening with the sight of suffering, which I knew not how to alleviate, and which seemed to excite no commiseration, merely from the sad fact of its frequent occurrence. Returning to the house, I passed up the 'street.' It was between eleven o'clock and noon, and the people were taking their first meal in the day. By the by, E——, how do you think Berkshire ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... chair, nodding his head, and reiterating his commiseration for the lady of the feathers in a faint and recurring hiccough. Valentine got up and ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... he is a Jew, and in addition to that his eyes had begun to trouble him, he had not succeeded in completing the course. They all treated him carefully and considerately, with some sort of solicitous, somewhat mawkish, commiseration, which chimes so well with the inner, backstage customs of houses of ill-fame, where underneath the outer coarseness and the flaunting of obscene words dwells the same sweetish, hysterical sentimentality as in female boarding ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... by a few words of praise that would make him believe he was showing great improvement in his stride. It could be seen by the way his eye lighted up that Noodles appreciated this flattery; he had a real jaunty air as he walked on, and even cast an occasional glance of commiseration back at the fellows less highly ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... assembled. She appeared on the raised platform upon which she was to suffer, in a genteel undress, which contributed still more to heighten her extreme beauty. The sweetness of her countenance obtained for her the commiseration of those who were ordered and accustomed to execute the will of the despotic and cruel emperor. Young, lively, and admired, sought for, and caressed by everybody, high in rank, and rich in worldly wealth, she stood, no longer surrounded by the attentions and homage due to her ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... coronation, therefore, no tumult was created in favour of the queen; she, in fact, on whom the populace, almost as one man, had, but a little time before, waited with addresses, assuring her of support and commiseration, was allowed to go from door to door of the abbey seeking admittance, and to be at every door rejected with contumely and scorn, with impunity. George IV. was crowned without interruption; and a ceremony more august ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... of February, 1822, the jailer came for me about ten o'clock, and conducted me into the Hall of the Commission. The members were all seated, but they rose; the President, the Inquisitor, and two assisting Judges.—The first, with a look of deep commiseration, acquainted me that my sentence had arrived; that it was a terrible one; but that the clemency of ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... by reason as any mark with which a child is born is to be taken away by any future application. Hence it is that good-nature in me is no merit; but having been so frequently overwhelmed with her tears before I knew the cause of any affliction, or could draw defences from my own judgment, I imbibed commiseration, remorse, and an unmanly gentleness of mind, which has since ensnared me into ten thousand calamities; and from whence I can reap no advantage, except it be that, in such a humour as I am now in, I can the better indulge myself ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... was no scandal, only commiseration, and both Countess Olga and Tamara were petted and spoilt—while, if there was a roguish note in Valonne's sympathetic condolences, none of them appeared ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... unbuckled his sword, and placed it, with his cap, on a side-table, desiring his wife to lose no time in pouring out the coffee, as he must be off again immediately, she felt, she knew not wherefore, very sick at heart, and became even paler than before. Nor was she at all re-assured by the tone of commiseration in which, after drawing a chair to her side, and affectionately pressing her hand, he inquired after her own and ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... and is harder to deal with than the old few. For where societies are large, and competition to have something is the predominant fever, there must be always many losers and few gainers. In short, they are savages groping their way in the dark towards some gleam of light, and would demand our commiseration for their infirmities, if, like all savages, they did not provoke their own destruction by their arrogance and cruelty. Can you imagine that creatures of this kind, armed only with such miserable weapons as you may see in our museum of antiquities, clumsy iron tubes charged ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... with something of commiseration in his countenance; but being a decided enemy to homeopathic innovation, he had made up his mind that a strong dose of apprehension was positively necessary; and now, only gratified at its powerful effect, he resumed his surveillance with a heartlessly ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... one from Cheiron, which he insisted upon opening—a brief dry line of commiseration for his accident, with no mention of Halcyone in it. The complete ignoring of his letter to announce their marriage cut him deeply. He realized Mr. Carlyon guessed that the accident had happened before that event could take place, and his silence about it showed what he thought. John Derringham ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... of Stafford gratified the prejudices of the country party; but it contributed nothing to their power and security: on the contrary, by exciting commiseration, it tended still further to increase the disbelief of the whole plot, which began now to prevail. The commons, therefore, not to lose the present opportunity, resolved to make both friends and enemies ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... said; "I am in trouble about you, poor fellows! I don't think I shall sleep three hours to-night, to think of you. I shall tell all the cabin they shall give you beds, because they shall see you are gentlemen!" Whether he did so or the officers were moved by spontaneous commiseration, we knew not, but in half an hour a servant beckoned us into the cabin, ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... in his voice moved Millie Splay. She was all kindness in that moment of her triumph. She turned to Martin Hillyard in commiseration. "Oh, don't tell me that you are in love with her too! ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... to their minds the sorrow that was about to fall upon the unfortunate young man; the three women were silent, and looked at him with an air of commiseration that caught his attention. ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... interfering,—giving up the right to all the man's plate and chairs and tables which it had acquired by the finding of the coroner's verdict,—not from tenderness to Madame Melmotte, for whom no great commiseration was felt, but on behalf of such creditors as poor Mr Longestaffe and his son. But Marie's money was quite distinct from this. She had been right in her own belief as to this property, and had been right, too, in refusing to sign ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... garments of mourning, and paced the silent Forum with gloom and despair written on their faces, as though they were the innocent victims of a great wrong. But, while they took this overt means of stirring the commiseration of the crowd, it was whispered that the last treacherous device for averting the danger was being tried. The cause would perish with the demagogue, and Tiberius might be secretly removed. Confidence in this view was strengthened when it was known ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... and his voice to the accustomed pitch.[570] Men contrasted him with his gentle and stately brother Tiberius, endowed with all the quiet dignity of the Roman orator, and diverging only from the pure and polished exposition of his cause to awake a feeling of commiseration for the wrongs which he unfolded.[571] Tiberius played but on a single chord; Caius on many. Tiberius appealed to noble instincts, Caius appealed to all and his Protean manifestations were a symbol of a more complex creed, a wider knowledge of humanity, a greater recklessness as to his means, ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... much in it," he said, "when here all about us, and especially in our large cities, there are plenty of objects for our commiseration quite as wretched, undoubtedly, as those ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... (multitudes of the) people, Is an unceasing sorrow to my heart; My commiseration fills (my breast). O thou bright and great Heaven, Shouldest thou ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... in a tone of commiseration, though she had no idea whether it was twenty or forty miles he ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... is indeed a curse; and bitter is the lot of him who is born with slaves on his hands. And now, instead of denouncing as inhuman and unmerciful monsters and tyrants, those who are thus unfortunate, I say, let the commiseration and pity of every good citizen and christian in the land be excited, and let fervent prayers be offered in their behalf, and that God would direct the whole American mind to the adoption of the most effectual measures for the accomplishment ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... a good round trot, we came in contact with another carriage. Luckily no other accident happened than breaking their traces and grinding their wheels. But though disabled by our driver, not a syllable of complaint or commiseration was uttered by one party or the other. Our driver proceeded, leaving them to take care of themselves. I observed, too, that in manoeuvering the Vessel in passing the Gulf yesterday, where some tacks were necessary, all was performed in ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... and the doctor still cling to Fort Benton!" The next remark of the caller was spoken with commiseration. "Is the ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... waive of anger, a combination of all for resistance as if each one of the party had been called upon to make the sacrifice demanded of Boule de Suif. The Count declared just like the barbarians in ancient times. The women specially showed Boule de Suif an affectionate and energetic commiseration. The good sisters who showed up only at meal time, had bowed their ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... a look of commiseration on her face, but exclaimed in surprise, "Why, your hand isn't ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... to reach the excellence it has conceived for itself alone that great works have been produced. The sweetest strains of music sometimes come from women where no one listens to their melodies. Nor does a great artist seek or need commiseration, if ever so unfortunate in worldly circumstances. He may be sad and sorrowful, but only in the profound seriousness of superior knowledge, in that isolation to which all genius ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... was not at home. The butler reported that she was dining at the Wheelers', and he thought the man eyed him with restrained commiseration. ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... native possessor, and therewith the usual liability to pay tribute. He is inferior to other owners only in this one point, that he lacks the power of alienating his property. Let him who has derived so much benefit from our commiseration now relieve others. Fortunate and enviable has turned out his captivity[826], which enables him at one and the same time to enjoy the citizenship of Rome and the privileges ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... white-curtained valley, saw the outcasts divide their slowly decreasing store of provisions for the morning meal. It was one of the peculiarities of that mountain climate that its rays diffused a kindly warmth over the wintry landscape, as if in regretful commiseration of the past. But it revealed drift on drift of snow piled high around the hut—a hopeless, uncharted, trackless sea of white lying below the rocky shores to which the castaways still clung. Through the marvellously clear air the smoke of the pastoral village of Poker Flat rose ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... was arraigning, was counsel for it, so to speak, and Raven had got, in sheer decency of honor, to stand to his guns. But it was all worse than he thought. Dick's entrance was so quick, his onslaught so unstudied, his glance so full of alarmed commiseration, that Raven saw at once he had been shocked out of all manly proprieties. Dick caught at a chair, on the way to the table, brought it with him and, placing it at a near angle to Raven's, dropped ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... order of the sitting is determined, and the harangues begin, harangues in which each speaker exposes his own ambitions, greeds, hypocrisies, and egoism, until Monsieur d'Aubray, the orator of the tiers etat, closes the debate with a speech in turn indignant, ironical, or grave in its commiseration for the popular wrongs—an utterance of bourgeois honesty and good sense. The writers—Canon Pierre Leroy; Gillot, clerk-advocate of the Parliament of Paris; Rapin, a lettered combatant at Ivry; Jean Passerat, poet and commentator on Rabelais; Chrestien and Pithou, two Protestants discreetly ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... concerns, were frequent in their inquiries at his house during his sickness, and made him the subject of conversation at the forum and in private circles; nor did any person either rejoice at the news of his death, or speedily forget it. Their commiseration was aggravated by a prevailing report that he was taken off by poison. I cannot venture to affirm anything certain of this matter; [143] yet, during the whole course of his illness, the principal of the imperial freedmen and the most confidential of the physicians ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... was a troubled one. He, too, had heard of the American defaulter, who has a celebrity of his own in Canada penetrating to different men with different suggestion, and touching here and there a pure and unworldly heart, such as Pere Etienne bore in his breast, with commiseration. The young priest did not conceive very clearly of the make and manner of the crime he suspected the elusive and mysterious stranger of committing; but he imagined that the great sum of money he knew him possessed of, was ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... service to society would doubtless be to drive him back into impenitence and despair. For a little time she clung desperately to her purpose, hardening her heart and shutting her ears to the clamant appeal of the reawakened sentiment of commiseration. Then the man turned slowly and looked up at her as if the finger of her thought had touched him. There was no sign of recognition in his eyes; and she constrained herself to gaze down upon him coldly. But when the Belle Julie's bow touched the bank, and the waiting crew melted ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... pitiable circumstances of bodily distress, to proscribe them as objects of terror and danger, instead of being as they actually are, helpless innocuous fellow creatures, calling loudly for our promptest succour and commiseration in their utmost need. They would go further to array man against his fellow man in all the cruel selfishness of panic terror, sever the dearest domestic ties, paralize commerce, suspend manufactures, ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... the influence of her protestation, despite his will to the contrary. That irritation against himself only reacted against the girl, and caused him to steel his heart to resist any tendency toward commiseration. So, this declaration of innocence was made quite in vain—indeed, served rather to strengthen his disfavor toward the complainant, and to make his manner harsher when she voiced the pitiful question over which she had wondered ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... passed across the face of Richard Edward. For some moments he remained buried in a mournful silence, and many sighs came from his breast. All looked at him with profound commiseration. At last he raised his head, and said, ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... thoughts, my dear princess, I keep my commiseration for my wretched self—every crumb of it. For I am the lonely exile—that is, I am just about to be—not you. Be advised, don't quarrel with the good gifts of the gods. Deadham Hard is frankly entrancing. How willingly would I put off taking ship for your vaunted India, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... bend of his supple figure, he advanced with a dashing swing to meet them. Sanin felt a pang; but glancing at Klueber's face, to which its owner endeavoured, as far as in him lay, to give an expression of scornful amazement, and even commiseration, glancing at that red-cheeked, vulgar face, he felt a sudden rush of anger, and took ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... as it is. The other day a station-master, somewhere up country, kicked a native who was, as he says, milking a goat belonging to the former. The native fell dead, and the local paper, without a word of commiseration for the victim or his family, complains of the hardship of compelling the station-master to go to Calcutta, in this warm weather, to have the case inquired into. Other instances in which the natives ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... passion of the artist was aroused. A plain woman might have looked unutterable things, and he would have passed on with a shrug, or but a thought of commiseration. But that oval, downcast face followed him. Its sadness and pain interested him because conveyed to his eye by a ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... probably have mustered courage enough to support the same character till they led him out to death. But de Lescure's tears affected him. He felt that he was pitied; and though his pride revolted against the commiseration of those whom he had injured, his heart was touched, and his voice faltered, as he again declared that he desired no mercy, and that he was ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... visage;—an object of horror and loathing. Was it not assuming a terrible responsibility to send this rampant sinner to his long account? Yet the choice was between his life and Penn's; and had not Pomp done well? Still Penn could not help feeling remorse and commiseration ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... upon him a look of so imploring a nature, that his temporary vexation yielded to a feeling of immense commiseration for that afflicted creature: and he gave her to understand, by another rapid glance, ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... welcome to my heart These rankling wounds inflicted by the god, Who on his scutcheon bears the monster-fish[50] Slain by his prowess; welcome death itself, So that, commissioned by the lord of love, This fair one be my executioner. Adorable divinity! Can I by no reproaches excite your commiseration? Have I not daily offered at thy shrine Innumerable vows, the only food Of thine ethereal essence? Are my prayers Thus to be slighted? Is it meet that thou Should'st aim thy shafts at thy true votary's heart, Drawing thy bow-string even ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... his experience is apt to be very peculiar, and certainly not altogether agreeable. Never, therefore, envy an author his feelings on such an occasion, on the score of their superior enjoyment, but rather let him be visited with your softest pity and tenderest commiseration. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... the richest, and they were mainly of her own country, she sold her smartest, latest dresses, jewels, and trinkets at a very good figure, and put the money away against the Conservatoire in the future. She worked hard, she endured patiently everything but commiseration. "I'd have you know, Miss," she said to Miss de Laine, daughter of the famous house of Musslin, de Laine & Co., of New York, "that whatever my position HERE may be, it is not one to be patronized by a tapeseller's daughter. My case is not such a very 'sad one,' thank ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... had a hundred solid crowns in a drawer of their closet and two excellent cows in their stable. They lacked nothing, and could quietly pass their old age without fear of poverty or toil, and without having to look to the friendship or the commiseration ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... Cecilia," and by Don Hernan de Escalante, captain of the said ship, he had received very little hard cash, and several of his friends, when they had looked at those strips of paper, and turned and twisted them about, in a variety of ways, with an expression in their countenances which betokened commiseration, hoped that he might, by the mercy of Providence, get the siller for them, but that it would be next a miracle if he did. In a moment all his airy castles and the delightful profits he had anticipated ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... killed; a million men could not restore the life one man has taken. Society is distressed beyond expression; so is the murderer, who is all sorrow and tenderness for the departed. There is general weeping, and great unavailing regret, and much commiseration for the widow: and then a mock trial, and no end of speechifying, beautiful remorse on the part of the survivor, lovelier tributes to the memory of deceased, a verdict of not guilty, and a dismissal of the murderer and his accomplices into the world, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... ordered her out, and then, when the girl would have escaped and gone down-stairs again, Margaret confronted her in the hall, placed her hands on her shoulders, and with a world of mingled merriment and commiseration in her tone ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... mustn't be moved for an hour yet," and gayly pestled away at a prescription, while she resumed her office of grinding the pounded ice round and round upon her husband's skull. Isabel offered her the commiseration of friendly words, and of looks kinder yet, and then, seeing that they could do nothing, she and Basil fell into the endless procession, and passed out of ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... from the parched sand. Never was despair more awfully pictured on men's faces as they gazed at one another after finding that their efforts were unavailing. Their case was truly pitiable, and they turned to the guide as if they expected commiseration; but the case had become too desperate for him to think of others. In a stern, hard ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne
... within the stingy cells, his great heart melted with pity. For the first moments, his disposition to jest passed away, and all his soul rose up in indignation. If profane words came to his lips, they came from genuine commiseration, and a sense of the outrage that had been committed upon those who had been stamped with the image of ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... all, the least to be feared was tall, stiff M. Thomas Elgin. Seated by her, he had shown her discreetly some little attentions; and, when she observed him more closely, she discovered in his eyes something like commiseration. ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... glimpse of domestic harmony which had been offered her, gave her no regret, no longing. It was not a condition of life which fitted her, and she could see in it but an appalling and hopeless ennui. She was moved by a kind of commiseration for Madame Ratignolle,—a pity for that colorless existence which never uplifted its possessor beyond the region of blind contentment, in which no moment of anguish ever visited her soul, in which she would never have the taste of life's delirium. Edna vaguely ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... household stores consume. But neither she those nuptial rites abhorr'd, Refuses absolute, nor yet consents To end them; they my patrimony waste Meantime, and will not long spare even me. To whom, with deep commiseration pang'd, Pallas replied. Alas! great need hast thou Of thy long absent father to avenge These num'rous wrongs; for could he now appear 320 There, at yon portal, arm'd with helmet, shield, And grasping his two spears, such as when first I saw him drinking joyous at our board, From ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... this poor merchant's flesh,— Thou wilt not only loose the forfeiture, But, touch'd with human gentleness and love, Forgive a moiety of the principal; Glancing an eye of pity on his losses, That have of late so huddled on his back, Enough to press a royal merchant down And pluck commiseration of his state From brassy bosoms and rough hearts of flint, From stubborn Turks and Tartars, never train'd To offices of tender courtesy. We all expect ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... a sum in simple addition. I could not help a feeling of deep surprise and commiseration that one of Rebecca's age should have stumbled at it at all, but I essayed to examine it very closely and worked it out for her as slowly as possible. "Do you see your mistake?" ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... another pause. The friend shook his head, raising his eyebrows as if he had heard a jest deserving only of commiseration, ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... effects of his passion, as, all regardless of his own safety, he endeavored to restore his expiring friend to life, have assured me, that though they were witnesses of the whole scene, they felt for him only the deepest commiseration." ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... freshness. She continued to receive Continental honors, and in 1840, after a splendid season in St. Petersburg, she was dismissed by the Czar with magnificent presents. In Berlin, about this time, she was received with the deepest interest and commiseration, for she lost nearly all her entire fortune by the failure of Engmuller, a banker of Vienna. She filled a long engagement in Berlin, which was generously patronized by the public, not merely out of admiration of the talents of the artist, but with the wish of repairing in some small measure ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... we, chiefs and rabbis of the humble Jewish community, present ourselves before the exalted throne of Your Eminences to offer them respectfully fidelity and homage in the name of our co-religionists, and to implore their benevolent commiseration. For us, we shall not fail to supplicate the Most High to accord peace and a long tranquillity to the Sovereign Pontiff, who reigns for the happiness of all; to the Apostolic Holy Seat, as well as to Your Eminences, to the ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... them any of her ornaments that they might fancy—saw them come down, one after another, full of mirth and eager expectation, and looking so pretty and graceful in their beautiful evening-dresses, heard their expressions of commiseration toward herself, and watched the last carriage roll away without a sigh or regret that she was left behind. And in another moment a graceful little figure glided quietly across the library, and sitting down on a stool at Mr. Dinsmore's feet, looked lovingly into his face with ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... he considered at an end. Already, in fond anticipation, he was on board the brig, and had found a welcome reception from her commander had related to him all the hardships and dangers they had undergone, and had been listened to with commiseration; already had he assured himself of his doing all he could to enable him to fulfil his engagements with these people, and thought themselves happy in finding a vessel belonging to their own country in the river at the ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... waxed stronger and louder still. They knew our maternal grandfather and grandmother, and remembered old Donald Roy; and when my cousin named my father, there was a strongly-expressed burst of sorrow and commiseration, that the son of a man whom they had seen so "well to do in the world" should be in circumstances so deplorably destitute. I was too ill to take much note of what passed. I only remember, that of the food ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... What, your most gracious onnur, a hannot I had the glory and the magnifisunce to dangle her in my arms, before she was a three months old? A hannot I a known her from the hour of her birth? Nay, as a I may say, afore her blessed peepers a twinkled the glory of everlastin of infinit mercifool commiseration and sunshine? A didn't I bob her here, and bob her there; a up and a down, aback and afore and about, with a sweet gracious a krow and a kiss for honest poor Aby, as your onnur and your onnurable Madam, my Lady, ever gracious to me a poor sinner ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... never so possessed by the demon of impatience as I have been this afternoon. There hasn't been a soul around that I cared to talk with, and if you knew how out of conceit I am with my own company, you would feel some commiseration. How I envied you your visit to the garden this afternoon, for I felt sure you took your father thither. May I not go with you again to-morrow, or soon? I wish to make my sketch more accurate ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... road-side. The feeble, heedless, rapt old man might have perished there, had not some carters, bringing up whisky casks from the Ferry, seen the catastrophe, and rushed up, raising him, and dichtin' him, with much commiseration and blunt speech—"Puir auld man, what brocht ye here in sic a day?" There they were, a rough crew, surrounding the saintly man, some putting on his hat, sorting and cheering him, and others knocking the balls off the pony's feet, and stuffing ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... calling for mercy to thy Jesus, repeat more oftener to thyself, Sic morior damnatus ut Judas! And thus much, Martin, in the way of compassion, have I spoke for thy edification, moved thereto by a brotherly commiseration, which if thou be not too desperate in thy devilish attempts, may reform thy heart to remorse, and thy pamphlets to some more profitable ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... precious, the power of choosing their own mates for life. Their formal weddings are guided upon principles of political expedience only, and those to whom they are wedded are frequently, in temper, person, and disposition, the most unlikely to make them happy. Society has commiseration, therefore, towards us, and binds our unwilling and often unhappy wedlocks with chains of a lighter and more easy character than those which fetter other men, whose marriage ties, as more voluntarily assumed, ought, in proportion, to be more strictly binding. ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... of a fix," he said, seating himself and fastening his eyes on the floor with an air of profound self-commiseration. "You see, this girl of Brownell's she came up where I was mending the flume yesterday, and we got right well acquainted. She seems friendly. She took off her coat and laid it on a boulder, and we set down there in our shirt-sleeves ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... said, "the contents of your letter have been communicated to me; and permit me to say that you and Mademoiselle Onslow have the heartiest sympathy and commiseration of myself and my passengers in your most unpleasant situation. But, monsieur, I fear I cannot possibly help you in the way that would doubtless be most acceptable to you—namely, by receiving you on board my ship. The scoundrels who hold ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... Message. Obviously, the longer he has it under consideration, the worse he finds it. He has nausea from its bragging, his head aches with its loudness, and its emptiness fills him with wind. We are at our wits' end to prescribe for him, and take our leave with grave commiseration, telling him that we, too, have had it, but that the symptoms it produces in the North are a reddening in the cheek and a spasmodic contraction of the right arm. Now comes great dinner on. A slave announces it, and with as little ceremony as may ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... in these dungeons during the other months of the year; and that they were BLINDED to make them sing better and be more serviceable at the period when he needed them. As we looked shudderingly at these forlorn little creatures, and expressed our commiseration at their fate, the younger brother stepped forward, and, examining one of the cages, in which sat hunched up in one corner a stiff lump of feathers, coolly announced that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... ask. Was not their very luxury rendered intolerable to them by comparison with the lot of their brothers and sisters in the harness, and the knowledge that their own weight added to their toil? Had they no compassion for fellow beings from whom fortune only distinguished them? Oh, yes; commiseration was frequently expressed by those who rode for those who had to pull the coach, especially when the vehicle came to a bad place in the road, as it was constantly doing, or to a particularly steep hill. At such times, the desperate straining ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... at all events we have, and if he's a wise man that he will live himself and let us live. Faith, it's a little exaggeration as far as some of us are concerned, but if it excites the old gentleman's commiseration, sure Father O'Rouke would absolve me for that as well as a few other lies I have had to tell in ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... not far wrong in his estimate of the effect likely to be produced by his manacles, and when the ships of Villegio arrived at Cadiz in October, the spectacle of an Admiral in chains produced a degree of commiseration which must have exceeded his highest hopes. He was now in his fiftieth year and of an extremely venerable appearance, his kindling eye looking forth from under brows of white, his hair and beard snow-white, his face lined and spiritualised with suffering and sorrow. ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... philosophical exertion, we cannot help deploring that the zeal and attention of the leaders of these charitable crusades have never been directed to the countries under consideration. These unhappy countries have failed to rouse attention or excite commiseration; and as they sink lower and lower, they afford a striking proof how civilization may be dashed, and how the purest and richest lands under the sun may be degraded and brutalized by a continued course of oppression and misrule. It is under these circumstances that I ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... authoritatively apprised of the real situation in the Indian Territory farther south, they need never have been anxious as to the safety of Fort Gibson. Steele's situation was peculiarly complex. As private personage and as commander he elicits commiseration. Small and incapable was his force,[873] intriguing and ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... shall weep for you elsewhere. Some days are left me. In a very few the whole of this little world will lie between us. I have sanctified in you the memory of your father. Genius but reveals dishonour, commiseration covers it. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... gloves, like beaux in a French comedy, backwards and forwards; the priests looking gorgeous, although in their second-best robes, their gold plates shining as they collected the money; for whether married first, second or third class, the Church exacts its due. I felt real commiseration for these middle- class, evidently hard-working people, as the gold plate was presented again and again, first, I presume, for the Church; secondly, for the poor; thirdly, for Heaven knows what. Then two of the bridesmaids, each taking the arm of a white-gloved, swallow-tailed cavalier, made ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... inmate of a palace, and by this incongruous and misplaced splendor he provoked, and, perhaps we may say, deserved his fate. A monarch who loses his crown for the most part awakens interest and sympathy; but no historian has a word of commiseration for the last of the Sassanidae, who is reproached with feebleness, cowardice, and effeminacy. It must certainly be allowed that he was no hero; but considering his extreme youth when his perils began, the efforts which he made to meet them, and the impossibility ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... And as they passed back along the lane of humanity which they had fought their way through a few minutes previously, many of those whose arms still tingled with the jar of the parried blows which they had aimed at them, now greeted their return with murmurs of commiseration or admiration. Then, almost before they realised where they were, they found themselves, still hemmed in by their armed guards, facing the cacique, who sat for some moments silent, regarding them with an inscrutable ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... gladly be rid of any painful, because reproachful, emotion, he laid his hand calmly on the arm of his wife, and led her directly in front of Inez. Pointing to the sweet countenance that was beaming on her own, with a look of tenderness and commiseration, he paused, to allow his wife to contemplate a loveliness, which was quite as excellent to her ingenuous mind as it had proved dangerous to the character of her faithless husband. When he thought abundant time had passed to make the ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... blood as myself, undergoing the righteous sentence of the law, in a manner so degrading to themselves, and so pitiful to all that beheld them. But, nevertheless, considering what they had done, they neither deserved, nor did they seem to care for commiseration, holding up their brazen faces as if they had been taking a pleasure walk for the benefit of their health, and the poukit hens, that dangled before them, ornaments of their bravery. The whole crowd, young and ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... she might be any age between forty and fifty. There were grey threads in her tidy black hair. She was neatly dressed in a well-made black dress with a small lace collar. There was a slight look of self-commiseration on her face. She had a cigarette between her ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... A pang of commiseration shot through Bernald as he saw him there, so innocent and so exposed. His plump pulpy body, which made his evening dress fall into intimate and wrapper-like folds, was like a wide surface spread to the shafts of irony; and the mild ripples of his voice seemed to enlarge ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... the source of these riches, it shall now be shown how, and for what services, they were bestowed on mortals. Gratitude is a noble trait in the Fairy character, and favours received they ever repaid. But the following stories illustrate alike their commiseration, their caprice, ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... not accidental, and that her intention was to conceal, by the apparent mishap, an emotion which was increasing and becoming inconvenient. At any rate, if that was her object it was perfectly accomplished, for the recitation was abruptly terminated, there was general commiseration over the shattered vase, and when the pieces were picked up. and order was restored, it was nearly time ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... how few hours ago it was since the lady had herself fled to his arms, all blushes and ardour. Well, these great strokes of fortune usually befall the unworthy, and Bellamy was now the legitimate object of my commiseration and the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... excite observation and remark. He was watched and tracked to the barn, and then the discovery came about as a matter of course. The Reddys made much of Joe—they had no quarrel with an innocent persecuted child—but their kindness and commiseration were simply darts to throw ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... in tones of the deepest commiseration, though he smiled as he added: "There's only one thing to be said, my lord. If that picture is clever enough to deceive such great experts, surely it has achieved its object. It certainly looks old enough to satisfy the most exacting of ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... up,'" he goes on, in a tone of assumed commiseration. "This evening has been too much for you. Acting a part at any time is extremely trying ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... destiny which he has in vain attempted to resist, and to be only another proof of the unceasing persecution to which he is exposed; and though he no longer commands admiration, or deserves esteem, he becomes more than ever the object of the deepest commiseration. Talma appears to attach much importance to the impression which this passage may produce, as much of the view which he exhibits of the character of Orestes seems intended to assist its effect; and we certainly consider ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison |
