"Miserable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the big meadow into the park he thought of nothing but the promised explanation. His own intense desire to be freed from his miserable uncertainty weighed with him less than his duty, as he conceived it, of shielding her, of illuminating her path with his experience, and of lending his undivided strength to keep her from overstepping her moral precipice. Perhaps it was merely a remnant of pride that prevented ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... behind her, as if to be certain he had not lost trace of her and then plunged down a very narrow lane which ran betwixt two rows of poor and ruinous cottages. She paused for a second at the door of one of those miserable tenements, again cast her eye up the lane towards Roland, then lifted the latch, opened the door, and disappeared ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... your fellow-prisoners. The French commander, charmed with the greatness of your soul, accordingly consigned it to the use for which it was intended by the donor; by which means the lives of so many miserable men were saved, and a comfortable provision made for their subsistence, who had otherwise perished, had not you been the companion of their misfortune; or rather sent by Providence, like another Joseph, to keep out famine from invading those whom in humility you called your brethren. How happy ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... had entirely forgotten her, which made her quite miserable. "Now he feels that he is the son of Big Ingmar, and that I am only the school-master's Gertrude," she pouted. It seemed strange to her that she should take this so to heart. Between the dances some ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... "Oh, wretched state! oh, miserable king!" exclaimed Boabdil, in a tone of great anguish. "I never had a father. I have now no people; a little while, and I shall have no country. Am I never to have ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book I. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... had a hole in it. Johnny Town-mouse quite honestly recommended it as the best bed, kept exclusively for visitors. But the sofa smelt of cat. Timmy Willie preferred to spend a miserable ...
— The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse • Beatrix Potter
... Station heated in her soul by a visit to Eric Cobbley. A miserable Gallery had refused to let that straight-haired genius have his one-man show after all. Its impudent manager, after visiting his studio, had expressed the opinion that it would only be a 'one-horse show from the selling point of view.' This crowning example of commercial cowardice towards ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... and deceit, and has been the outcome of a tragic misunderstanding on the part of a politically uneducated and inexperienced people. The German people were tired of their political impotence, of their miserable dynastic quarrels, of their abject subservience to their parasitic princelings. The German people, broken up in a hundred petty States, had the legitimate and praiseworthy ambition of becoming a united people. German unity had been for generations a cherished dream of German patriots. ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... face, who drew back astounded; then resuming his honeyed manner Hawes turned to the justices. "I return into your hands, gentlemen, the office I received from you. I thank you for the support you have afforded me in my endeavors to substitute discipline for the miserable laxity and slovenliness and dirt we found here; and your good opinion will always console me for the insults I have received from a crack-brained parson and his tools in the jail ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... a mean, miserable shanty sort of place down a narrow alley in a poor part of the town. When we reached its door there was a group of women and children round it, all agog with excitement. But the door itself was closed, and it was not opened ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... seen our race abroad under fair conditions knows how frank and handsome the Englishman is elsewhere, and might be here. But when he looks around him in Sheffield or in East London, he sees none but miserable and stunted forms. The life of the English labourer is a steady march down a hill with a poorhouse at the bottom. At the same time the observer finds, when he asks for the remedy, that in these matters there is not a pin to choose ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... From the miserable roads, eight hours a day of travelling was found quite enough for man and beast; the product of which eight hours was from ten to twelve leagues. On the last day but one of the journey, the travelling party, which was precisely the original dinner party, reached ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... by stumbling violently as he ascended the platform, which stimulated a general giggle already in being at the mere calling of his name. All of the class were bright with happy anticipation, for the miserable Ramsey seldom failed their hopes, particularly in "Declamation." He faced them, his complexion wan, his expression both baleful and horrified; and he began in a loud, hurried voice, from which every ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... fellow was a stinger as I knew), And so along the wall, over the bridge, 90 By the straight cut to the convent. Six words there, While I stood munching my first bread that month: "So, boy, you've minded," quoth the good fat father, Wiping his own mouth—'twas refection-time— "To quit this very miserable world? 95 Will you renounce" ... "the mouthful of bread?" thought I; By no means! Brief, they made a monk of me; I did renounce the world, its pride and greed, Palace, farm, villa, shop, and banking-house, Trash, such as these poor devils of Medici 100 Have given ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... layers of literary lead, whose weight and dulness render the working of them tedious;—but this need not, and does not, dishearten the digger, for in all mines the poor and worthless material is ever in excess of that which is valuable, and miserable indeed must be the spirit of him who should refuse to manipulate the "dirt" because the large nuggets and gems are few and far between. Throughout all the cuttings flow glittering brooks of knowledge, and also ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... miserable Isaac; "it is impossible that your purpose can be real! The good God of nature never made a heart capable ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... of relief, and she did not want to find she had not after all escaped from the need of refuge. She had not even dreamed of Frederick. For the first time in years she had been spared the nightly dream that he was with her, that they were heart to heart, and its miserable awakening. She had slept like a baby, and had woken up confident; she had found there was nothing she wished to say in her morning prayer, except Thank you. It was disconcerting to be told she was after ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... and the farmer presented Paul with a miserable little glass full to the brim. This Paul insisted that the matron should drink first and on its being replenished he more emphatically insisted that the farmer should drink before him. While the farmer was drinking, ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... one argument," he said. "We came here, came to the wilderness out of civilization, for one object only—to lead the heathen to God. We have met with a fair success. Shall we leave these miserable islanders to perish, when we have it in ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... only had a friend to apply to!" thought the rector. "If I could only find some one to help me in this miserable place!" ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... stated that what was most remarkable and ominous in connection with this foul work was the fact that, although footprints were seen in the ground, they were all those of the miserable man, for there were no other marks visible. From this fact and the previous evil life of this wretched creature, the people in those parts believed that the fearful struggle had taken place between W. E. and the Evil One, and that he had not ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... churchman, in order that I may daily examine the road that I have to traverse and be instructed how to complete it according to my religion, in which I am firmly resolved to live and die. This is a last duty which cannot be denied to the most wretched and miserable person alive; it is a liberty which you give to all foreign ambassadors, just as all other Catholic kings allow yours the practice of their religion. And as for myself, have I ever forced my own subjects to do anything ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: History • Ontario Ministry of Education
... every nook and crevice of the carriage, and the cracks were legion: the windows leaked, the closed ventilators overhead leaked, the doors at each end of the carriage leaked, and we wrapped ourselves in our ulsters and traveling-rugs and sat huddled up, miserable and shivering. But it wasn't wind alone that blew in through the numerous holes. There was wind, of course, in plenty, but it carried in it a soft, powdery red dust, a fine, thin dust, able as the wind that bore it to sift through every crack and opening. It filled ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... at 8:45 p.m. Between Wolverhampton and Birmingham lies the great ore and manufacturing district of England. Ore-beds and smoke-stacks cover all the area some thirty miles long and sixteen miles wide, except that occupied by the miserable cottages (some of them mere hovels) of the laborers. Looking at this immense area from the cars, it presents the appearance of one continuous town. No wonder that England can accommodate a population of some twenty odd ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... century. This was surely, in France at least, the age of good society, the period when the "right people" made every haste to be born in time. Such people must of course have belonged to the fortunate few—not to the miserable many; for if a society be large enough to be good, it must also be small enough. The sixty years that preceded the Revolution were the golden age of fireside talk and of those amenities that proceed from the presence of women ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... their marriage, because she saw the dreaded signal of the muddy pools under her mother's eyes and the little quivering nerve beneath the temple, she shut him out of her presence for a day and a night, and when he came fuming up every few minutes from the hotel veranda, miserable and fretting, met him at the closed door of her mother's darkened ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... evidently been tracts of hard-wood forest, indicated by the unsightly stumps of well-grown trees, not smoothly felled by regular axe-men, but hacked, haggled, and unevenly amputated, as by a sword or other miserable tool, in an unskilful hand. Fifty years will not repair this desolation. An army destroys everything before and around it, even to the very grass; for the sites of the encampments are converted into barren esplanades, like ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to me afterward, "He wants to crawl on his share of the responsibility. I'd buy the picture if I could raise the cash, and end the whole miserable business." ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... do know nothing, and can know nothing? We live in a world which is full of misery and ignorance, and the plain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the little corner he can influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less ignorant than it was before he entered it. To do this effectually it is necessary to be fully possessed of only two beliefs: the first, that the order of Nature is ascertainable ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... I made it my affair to visit the scenes of poverty and misery in the Quartiere dei Prati. When I did so I found that I had already passed through the quarter without noting anything especially poor or specifically miserable, and I went a third time to make sure that I had not overlooked something impressively lamentable. But I did not see above three tenement-houses with the wash hung from the windows, and with the broken shutters of poverty and misery, in a space where on the ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... on the burning marl, lies Beelzebub, his bold compeer, who dreads lest the Almighty comes after them and further punish them. But Satan, rejoining that "to be weak is miserable, doing or suffering," urges that they try and pervert God's aims. Then, gazing upward, he perceives God has recalled his avenging hosts, that the rain of sulphur has ceased, and that lightning no longer furrows the sky. He, therefore, ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... place to wait, the Trophy House. The pictures of the champions seemed to scowl at me, and ask what right had such as I even to admire them, and the blue and gold ribbons and the silver cups made me very miserable. I had never won no blue ribbons or silver cups; only stakes for the old Master to spend in the publics, and I hadn't won them for being a beautiful, high-quality dog, but just for fighting—which, of course, as Woodstock Wizard III. says, is low. So I started ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... to start a cheer, but could not make it come out of his throat—only a clicking, squeaking kind of sound came. As a cheer it was a miserable failure. ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... After a fit, he feels a great horror of going to bed again. If one were to seize him at his boarding-house, his chance would be bad, because if any heard his snortings, they would not probably know what was the matter. These two afflictions might seem enough to make one man miserable, yet he ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... year. With its close the royal garments are taken from him, he is placed on board a ship, and carried to a vast and desolate island, where, unless he has previously been wise and prepared for the day, he will find neither friend nor subject, and be obliged to pass a weary, lonely, miserable life. Then a new king is selected here, and so year follows year. The kings who preceded thee were careless and indifferent, enjoying their power to the full, and thinking not of the day when it should end. Be wise, then. ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... how glad I am!" cried one of these creatures, while the other, less vital or more miserable, whimpered and gurgled a little behind ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... spoil of ravening fishes; that no more Should men say, Here was Athens. This shalt thou 40 Sustain not, nor thy son endure to see, Nor thou to live and look on; for the womb Bare me not base that bare me miserable, To hear this loud brood of the Thracian foam Break its broad strength of billowy-beating war Here, and upon it as a blast of death Blowing, the keen wrath of a fire-souled king, A strange growth grafted on our natural soil, A root of Thrace in Eleusinian earth Set for no comfort ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... laughed. "Indeed we do, just as we do out of our men. Yet the women of this age are very happy, and those of the nineteenth century, unless contemporary references greatly mislead us, were very miserable. The reason that women nowadays are so much more efficient co-laborers with the men, and at the same time are so happy, is that, in regard to their work as well as men's, we follow the principle of providing every one the kind of occupation he or she is best adapted to. Women being inferior ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... week, with nothing on our hands, Hugh, we can turn our attention to this miserable business again, ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... of miserable curs!" she cried to Chard, who was standing with his handkerchief to his lips, glaring savagely at the prostrate figure of Harvey. "Stand back," and she covered him with her weapon, as he made a step towards her, "stand back, or I will shoot ...
— Tessa - 1901 • Louis Becke
... a door opened suddenly, letting forth the red reflection of a rush-light and a filthy, overpowering smell of alcohol. Almost before every tavern door stood little peasant carts, harnessed with shaggy, big-bellied, miserable-looking hacks, whose heads were bowed submissively as if asleep; a tattered, unbelted peasant in a big winter cap, hanging like a sack at the back of his head, came out of a tavern door, and leaning his ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... voted the highest honors to General Greene, who, by his prudence, wisdom, and valor, had, with such insignificant forces and miserable equipments, achieved so much for the cause of liberty. He never gained a decided victory, yet his defeats bad all the effect of successes, and his very retreats strengthened the confidence of his men and ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... another the miserable, shivering victims were assisted by the pirates under the water, and one by one disappeared. The Old Codger with the Wooden Leg was the last, and one of the pirates returned for him. When he had followed the others, ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... divisions fatal to our peace. Such attempts ought to be repelled with a decision which shall convince France, and the world, that we are not a degraded people, humiliated under a colonial spirit of fear, and sense of inferiority, fitted to be the miserable instruments of foreign influence, and regardless of national honour, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... mature, a troop of soldiers coming by fell upon the fig-tree and her figs were all torn off her, and her boughs cut away and broken. Then, when she was thus maimed in all her limbs, the elm asked her, saying: "O fig-tree! which was best, to be without offspring, or to be brought by them into so miserable ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... dreadful features of this catastrophe has been the miserable weakness displayed by the authorities of Johnstown and the surrounding boroughs. Johnstown needed them sadly for forty-eight hours. There is supposed to be a Burgess, but like most burgesses he is a shadowy and mythical personage. If there ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... formerly the richest tanner in Athens, now the most miserable of slaves. For the first time I understand the words of the poet: 'Better to be a slave in this world than a ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... strange that it should be so, but I have seen many parents who were miserable because their children were sportive and joyful. Oh, when will the days of monkish sadness and austerity be over; and the public sentiment in the christian world ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... poked his cotton night-cap out of bed—"frost an inch thick on the windows, water all frozen in the pitcher, and I an old bachelor. Heigho! nobody to give any presents to—no little feet to come patting up to my bed to wish me 'A happy New Year.' Miserable piece of business! Wonder what ever became of that sister of mine who ran off with that poor artist? Wish she'd turn up somewhere with two or three children for me to love and pet. Heigh-ho! It's a miserable piece of business to be an ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... coverings shortly after the rupture of the corselet along its median line contain, as we have seen, the wings and elytra with their innumerable nervures. If not perfect, at least the general plan is complete, with all its innumerable details. To expand these miserable bundles and convert them into an ample set of sails it is enough that the organism, acting like a force-pump, should force into the channels already prepared a stream of humours kept in reserve for this moment and this purpose, the most laborious of the whole ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... "You miserable little whelp!" howled his owner. "You've dishonored me. You threw that race, damn you! That's what I get for giving you a chance when you couldn't get a mount anywhere." His long pent-up venom was unleashed. "You threw it. ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... passed and the money she had saved was all spent. No more work was brought to her to do. A miserable consciousness of lost caste prevented her from going to seek it. She did not dream of the extent of her misfortune; she did not know that even if she had sought work from her old employers, it would have been ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... great injustice. With just barely enough vitality to hand your name down to posterity and blast the fair future of Dakota by leaving your trade-mark on future generations, you snivel and whine over your blasted life! If your life had been blasted a little harder twenty years ago, the life of your miserable little wife would have ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... those convicts who left the settlement, as has already been related, came back; some were still missing, and several were said to be killed by the natives. The miserable situation of those who returned to the settlement, would, it was believed, most effectually prevent any more ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... contact that was needed to centralise the numerous local struggles, all of the same character, into one national struggle between classes. But every class struggle is a political struggle. And that union, to attain which the burghers of the Middle Ages, with their miserable highways, required centuries, the modern proletarians, thanks to railways, ...
— The Communist Manifesto • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
... he went away for a fortnight to stay with the man called St. John, she was miserable till ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... Charlie. "You'd never have known me now, if this miserable mustache had only stuck where it belonged. But, honestly, Miss Lou, don't I make a ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... broke in Peter. "What a question to ask a man! Listen to the croakings of your miserable tadpoles with the prettiest girl in seven counties—in seven States, for that matter—sitting beside him! Oh!—you needn't look, you minx! If he heard a single croak he ought to be ducked in the puddle—and then packed off home ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... hes got for me. [to Knox] I tell you, Jo, this doesnt sit well on you. You may call it preaching if you like; but it's the truth for all that. I say that if youve happiness within yourself, you dont need to seek it outside, spending money on drink and theatres and bad company, and being miserable after all. You can sit at home and be happy; and you can work and be happy. If you have that in you, the spirit will set you free to do what you want and guide you to do right. But if you havent got it, then youd best be respectable and stick to the ways that are marked out for ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... had thus become mortal and miserable by the sin of its first parents, assumed nevertheless a highly interesting position. The man stands in the middle between the two worlds of light and darkness, left to his own free will. As a creature of Ormazd he can and ought ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... same stunted pines, where a few charcoal-burners and resin-tappers eked out a forlorn and obscure existence. There are a score of such settlements, such gloomy forests, dotted over this plain of Tver, which covers an area of nearly two hundred square miles. The remainder of it is pasture, where miserable cattle and a few horses, many sheep and countless pigs, seek ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... water, stopping for breath at every landing. And dressed like a woman of the people, she went to the fruiterer, the grocer, the butcher, a basket on her arm, bargaining, meeting with impertinence, defending her miserable money, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... to her. She did not tell herself that his image had been shattered. Her idea was that all her misery had come from the untowardness of the meeting. But there was the fact that she had seen the man and heard his voice, and that the seeing him and hearing him had made her miserable. She certainly desired that it might never be her lot either to see him ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... respect, the reverence, she might receive, were it not for this miserable affectation; takes pains, by aping youth, to make herself unworthy of her years, and is content to be thought less discreet than she might otherwise be deemed, for fear she should be imagined older ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... assumed to be refined, it is not a rare thing to see gentleness degenerate into effeminacy, politeness into platitude, correctness into empty sterility, liberal ways into arbitrary caprice, ease into frivolity, calm into apathy, and, lastly, a most miserable caricature treads on the heels of the noblest, the most beautiful type of humanity. Gentle and graceful beauty is therefore a want to the man who suffers the constraint of matter and of forms, for he is moved by grandeur ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... troops, until they were forbidden to do so by law. Nine-tenths of the population of Gaul were slaves. Charlemagne made Alcuin the present of an estate on which there were twenty thousand slaves. Especially in times of scarcity, as in 805 and 806, their lot was a miserable one. At such times, they fled in crowds to the monasteries. The social state was that of feudalism "in all but the development of that independence in the greater lords, which was delayed by the strength of Karl, but ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... the lock he turned. The gaoler had left him with no light but the rays of the moon, which, shining through a barred window some eight or ten feet from the ground, shed a gleam upon a miserable truckle-bed and left the rest of the room in deep obscurity. The prisoner stood still for a moment and listened; then, when he had heard the steps die away in the distance and knew himself to be alone at last, he fell upon the bed with a cry more like the roaring ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... picture was stuck up at Rome, representing the church lying on a bed, gashed with dreadful wounds, and beset all over with flies, which were sucking her, whilst the Emperor of Germany was kneeling before her with a miserable face, requesting a little money towards carrying on the war against the heretics, to which the poor church was made to say: 'How can I assist you, O my champion, do you not see that the flies have sucked me to the very bones?' Which story," said he, "shows that the idea of going ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... also which had made him weak. He had thought much about Mary for some time past. He had told himself that by her means might be procured some cure to the wound in his heart which had made his life miserable for so many years. But had John Gordon come in time, the past misery would only have been prolonged, and none would have been the wiser. Even Mrs Baggett would have held her peace, and not thrown it in his teeth that he had attempted to marry the girl and had failed. As it was, all the world ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... twenty years continuously, excepting when she awoke for a few moments at long intervals to ask for something to eat. Perhaps when he and Mrs. Fogg were dead the baby might be rented to a menagerie, and be carried around the country as a spectacle. The idea haunted him. It made him miserable. He tried for two or three hours to fix his mind upon his office-duties, but it was impossible. He determined to go back to the house to ascertain if the baby had returned to consciousness. When he got there, Mrs. Fogg was beginning to feel very ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... account," he said to Andrew Mallison. "I have spent a miserable day," and he stamped off to ...
— Joe The Hotel Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.
... have not improved it; the bed-curtains especially, which for the last forty years have supplied each traveller with a precious little bit, hastily torn off, are of course in tatters. The bedstead is of common deal, coarsely put together; a miserable portrait of Le Kain, in crayons, hangs inside of the bed, and two others, equally bad, on each side, Frederic and Voltaire himself. Round the room are bad prints of Washington, Franklin, Sir Isaac Newton, and several other celebrated personages; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various
... ample time to consider her position. The day arrived when she told her husband that since everything was over between them, the only decent thing to do was to part. But that was more than he had bargained for; he was miserable; the cousin had better return to her parents, and he would prove to his wife that he was a man ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... long grass, apparently in a dying condition. There was a broad trail in the grass leading from the spot where it lay toward the far edge of the timber; but the trail was short, not more than a few yards long, growing less and less distinct as it receded, showing that the miserable creature had been in the clearing for several days, dragging itself slowly, and doubtless with infinite suffering, toward the water, which it had thus far failed to reach. Its coal-black coat, "watered" with the characteristic markings of the panther, also in black, was ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... book,—"to be interpreted like any other book." Prophecy is denied, and Miracles are rejected or explained away,—on the plea that they are alike incredible. These men lay claim to intellectual gifts above their fellows; and know not that they are "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." Rebels are they against the Most High; and find their exact image in those citizens who "sent a message after Him, saying, We will not have this Man to reign over us[641]." The gist of ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... was left alone he took down his gun, and stood near the door for a long time examining it absent-mindedly. His thoughts were far away, much farther than the ends of the barrels, which seemed to point toward the mountain. That miserable Ironworker! That insufferable bully! Something had stirred within him, an irresistible antipathy, the first time he had seen him. Nobody in the island aroused his ire as did that ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... about that Johnnie, most miserable of men, was all at once made happy beyond his wildest dreams. And he proved himself worthy of her; from that time there was not a more diligent and sober young labourer in the village, nor one of a more cheerful disposition, ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... ordered by his providence; or to serve deadly devils and lifeless idols, whose glory and boast is in adultery and the corrupting of boys, and other works of iniquity that have been recorded concerning your gods in the books of your superstition? Have ye no modesty, ye miserable men, fuel for unquenchable fire, true copy of the Chaldean race, have ye no shame to worship dead images, the works of men's hands? Ye have carved stone and graven wood and called it God. Next ye take the best bullock ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... while Jimmy's bosom became too heavily freighted, and he paused to sigh. He cheered himself up on these occasions by slyly licking the churn-dasher; but the good cheer on the dasher was a stimulant that left him more miserable than it found him. Ever and anon from some remote chamber in the house behind him came the faint, gasping cry of a day-old baby. That cry drowned the cooing of the doves, the song of the robin, and the chirping of the dwellers in the grass; to Jimmy the bleat of the little human lamb ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... prospects of his country. These prospects are to be realized if we are only wise and true to the obligations of the compact of our fathers. For all which can sow dissension can stop the progress of the American people, can endanger the achievement of the high prospects we have before us is that miserable spirit, which, disregarding duty and honor, makes war upon the Constitution. Madness must rule the hour when American citizens, trampling as well upon the great principles at the foundation of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, as upon the honorable obligations ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... them up and grinding them to pieces and sending for new ones. The Poles, who had come by tens of thousands, had been driven to the wall by the Lithuanians, and now the Lithuanians were giving way to the Slovaks. Who there was poorer and more miserable than the Slovaks, Grandmother Majauszkiene had no idea, but the packers would find them, never fear. It was easy to bring them, for wages were really much higher, and it was only when it was too late that the poor people found out that ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... was that he had some extremely dangerous friends; his second, that it would be impolitic to break with them; for if Mme. d'Espard, Mme. de Bargeton, and Chatelet should fail to keep their word with him, he might need their terrible power yet. By this time Etienne and Lucien had reached Barbet's miserable bookshop on the Quai. ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... white men than that of Philadelphia, while there is not a river-bottom in the whole South in which the extremes of heat during the summer are so great as in St. Louis. Slave-labor cultivates, in a miserable, shiftless manner, less than two per cent, of the area of the Cotton States; and upon this insignificant portion a crop of cotton has been raised in one year worth ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... 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 hope, and ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... England were to attack together with the loyalists of the south and the friendly Indians. But everything was bungled. The fleet, the land force, the loyalists and the Indians all seemed to be pulling different ways, and attacked at different times. The assault on Charleston was a miserable failure, and to the delight of the colonists the whole British force sailed away to join Howe in the north, and for more than two years there was no fighting in ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... that honours thee? How miserable a thing soever, yet a thing still; And though a thing of nothing, thy ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (2 of 10) - The Humourous Lieutenant • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... Great was accustomed to say: "The older one gets the more convinced one becomes that his Majesty King Chance does three-quarters of the business of this miserable universe." Sorel's "Eastern Question." ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... and offensive stupidity. Evidently I was unworthy of any better lot than I had. I should live and die an 'inmate' and a drudge. I deserved nothing else. In short, I was a very despicable lad, had probably lost the only friend I should ever have, and, certainly, I was very miserable. ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... cage, poor Vance was indeed in deep despair. He saw no way out of his troubles, and could not help weeping as he bemoaned his miserable lot. ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam
... upon the ground, dropped upon their knees in a semicircle around us, and amidst the hoarse laughter of the troopers, and the irrepressible merriment of the Frenchmen, rose up the muttered prayers of the miserable Spaniards, who believed that now their last ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... jewels, of which he strictly forbade any inventory to be taken, amounted to many millions more. The legacies to his nieces and to other aristocratic friends were truly princely. To the poor he left a miserable pittance amounting to ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... they had sent you venison, and the deuce knows what; and when I saw Lady Jane at my party shake you by the hand, and speak to you so kindly, I took all Abednego's tales for gospel. That was the reason you got the place, mark you, and not on account of your miserable three thousand pounds. Well, sir, a fortnight after you were with us at Fulham, I met Preston in the House, and made a merit of having given the place to his cousin. 'Confound the insolent scoundrel!' ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... which are stretched out to receive them and to give them rest and the keys of knowledge. When will man learn what was taught to him of old, that faith is the only plank wherewith he can float upon this sea and that his miserable works avail him nothing; also that it is a plank made of many sorts of wood, perhaps to suit our ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... half women. These came aboard, and it seemed as though we were to be separated; for the women took Almah, while the men took me. Upon this I entreated the Kohen not to separate us. I informed him that we were both of a different race from his, that we did not understand their ways; we should be miserable ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... that I was, I fled back through the gates. Yes, after all those years of seeking, still I fled rather than die, and though I was wounded with a spear and stones, managed to reach and spring upon my horse. Then, as I was headed off from our camp, I galloped away anywhere, still to save my miserable life from those savages, so strongly is the instinct of self-preservation implanted in us. From a distance I looked back and saw by the light of the fired tents that the Fung were attacking the Arabs with whom ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... furrows, in every description of plowing, should be near enough together to move the whole, leaving no hard places between them. The usual "cut and cover" system, to get over a large area in a day, is miserable economy. The more evenly and flatly land can be turned over in plowing, the better it will be; it retards the growth of weeds, and secures a better action upon substances plowed under. An exception to deep plowing is in breaking up the original prairies ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... us who have not our names in the Red Book console ourselves by thinking comfortably how miserable our betters may be, and that Damocles, who sits on satin cushions, and is served on gold plate, has an awful sword hanging over his head, in the shape of a bailiff, or hereditary disease, or family secret.—Thackeray, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... "Even if I knew I should drop dead the moment I got out on the floor, what would it matter! I should get to him the sooner then, and tell him why I didn't open the door. Can you suppose for a moment I should let any care for this miserable body of mine come between my eyes and the ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... deal of weeping on my part, she handed me a beautiful sapphire-and-diamond brooch and a very large photograph signed by her dear hand en souvenir. The King gave Johan his photograph and the decoration of la couronne d'Italie. The day passed only too quickly. I cannot tell you how miserable I was to take leave of their Majesties, who had always been so kind and ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... in the lonely cottage, he could not; he loves her honestly with fervor and sincerity, but he simply must go out into the world where men are, and take his share of the excitement and the struggle; he would soon be absolutely miserable if marooned from life, even with the woman he loves. Those novels that represent a man as having no interest in life but love are false to human nature. In this poem Browning represents facts as they are; it is not simply that the man wants to ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... whose sting, though not so potent and irksome, should be without any alleviation whatever. He sent great swarms of musquitoes. Deprived of tails, by which flies could be brushed away at the pleasure of the wearers, the Indians dragged out for a long time a miserable existence. The musquitoes stung them, and their tails teased them. The little insects worried them continually, and their frisky companions, the women, were any thing but a cup of composing drink. At length the Great Spirit, seeing how the poor Indians were afflicted, mercifully ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... Being in a miserable minority in parliament (157 Unionists against 379 Liberals, 51 Labour members, and 83 Nationalists), some form of consolidation among the Unionists was immediately necessary, and negotiations took place between Mr Balfour and Mr Chamberlain which resulted in the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... my Mother's Death, when I came to be at my own Disposal, which happen'd about two Months after, he offer'd, nay most earnestly sollicited me to it, which still he perseveres to do. This is strange! (return'd the other) and it appears to me to be your own Fault, that you are yet miserable. Why did you not, or why will you not consent to your own Happiness? Alas! (cry'd Bellamora) 'tis the only Thing I dread in this World: For, I am certain, he can never love me after. Besides, ever since I have abhorr'd the Sight ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... blanket, but merely a sack or rug for the night, a bed being almost out of the question. Few had more than one room, however large the family. The rent was from 1s. 6d. to 3s. per week. Of those who had two rooms, the upper one was most miserable, scarcely an article of furniture. In fact, the distress and suffering appeared so great, that although we had agreed, according to a resolution of the General Committee, only to give cards, we could ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... 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
... to go to the Crimea!" he said, "I would gladly go there. It would give me a chance to die happily. It would repay me for all my miserable life. I want to go, Thora. You want me to go, Thora! Yes, you ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... aggravating, Gladys, or I must shake you,' said Clara, with the frank candour of a privileged friend. 'And really I cannot understand why you should be anxious to keep in touch with that old life, which was so awfully mean and miserable.' ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... the advantage, for the police in their flurry stopped for a minute or two debating whether to take the river banks or the road. But in Shawn's head the pursuing footsteps beat, beat, while he was yet far beyond them, and the trumpets of the Day of Judgment rang in his miserable ears. He had the smoking gun in his hands, for he hadn't the wit to get rid of it. And yet the man was safe, if he had had his wits about him, for he was the last man for Mr. Ramsay-Stewart to suspect or allow suspicion to ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... lest she should get out of arm's reach of him among those rough men, and longing with all her heart to take his hand for moral as well as physical support. It must have been both laughable and pathetic in the extreme. That miserable sword persisted in tripping her, and the jack-boots, so much too large, evinced an alarming tendency to slip off with every step. How insane we all were not to have foreseen this from the very beginning. It must have been a unique ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised. And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins. If in 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.' And after a little while, 'For this corruptible ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... boy's feet, it seemed that he had been following the plough with his father, whom he had probably seen shot down; and, in attempting to escape, had been pursued, overtaken, and murdered. The ruin was complete: not one of the family had been spared. Such was the character of this miserable warfare. The wretched people of the frontier never went to rest without bidding each other farewell; for the chances were they might never wake again, or wake only to find their last sleep. When leaving one spot for the purpose of giving protection to another ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... from making light of thee and thy happiness, that He came down into the flesh, and lived a life of suffering, and offered Himself a sacrifice to the justice which thou hadst provoked, that thy miserable soul might have a remedy. It is no less than miracles of love and mercy that He hath showed to us; and yet shall we slight ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... advance with alacrity to the attack of works incapable of being defended by the wretched Garrison posted behind them, consisting of Sailors unacquainted with the use of arms, of Citizens incapable of Soldiers' duty, & of a few miserable Emigrants. The General is confident that a vigorous & spirited attack must be attended with success. The Troops shall have the effects of the Governor, Garrison, & of such as have been active in misleading the Inhabitants & distressing the friends of liberty, equally divided ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... and Gooche's we passed four very miserable days. The two small huts and the sheep shed were filled to overflowing, and we lay on the floor of the latter at night, cold, stiff, dirty, and packed into our places like sardines. The rain and sleet, slop, cold, and offensive ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... writer's age "twice told the period spent on stubborn Troy," and you will still leave him more than forty when he sate down to the miserable siege of court-favour. He has ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... others, some of them small gentry of no repute, and others merely vulgar and inferior persons, who are about to be brought to immediate trial; and I have it from a sure hand, that some of these persons, for the purpose of saving their own miserable lives, intend to charge men of much higher rank than themselves with crimes of which they never had any thought, simply because they were acquainted with some of the unfortunate gentlemen by whom these evil and foolish things were designed. Such being the case, ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... and declared that if they could induce the Captain to turn about and put them back on shore again, they would rather creep on their hands and knees clear back to old Missouri over rocks and sand, than to ride any further on such a miserable old boat ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... miserable hours, and come to the evening, when, faint with fasting and nausea, we struggled up to the deck for air, ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... really the most happy of men—that is, as the chap says in the play, I would be if I wasn't so damned miserable. But I owe no man a penny and I have assets—I have L80 to last me through the winter and two marvellous plays; and I love, next to yourself, the most wonderful woman God ever ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... leave, perhaps for ever, a spot in which the stream of life has flowed peacefully and pleasantly for many years, and where many little enjoyments, successes, and triumphs have been experienced. Even a Crusoe cannot depart from his desolate island without a pang, although he goes, after years of miserable solitude, to rejoin the human family. It was the month of August, and the glory of the summer was becoming mellowed and softened. The nights were gradually growing longer and the days shorter, the reapers were in the harvest-fields, the woods and groves were beginning ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various
... quiet people with useful knowledge. I took the arduous and universally neglected duty of teaching the English people how to be amused entirely on my own shoulders, and left the easy and customary business of making them miserable to others. ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... to me? Perhaps this is the reason: The cardinal desired to be kind to me, and I have truly great need of repose, but the Brothers who are out in the world, suffering hunger and a thousand tribulations, and also those others who are in hermitages or in miserable houses, when they hear of my sojourn with a cardinal will be moved to repine. 'We endure all privations,' they will say, 'while he has all that he can desire; 'but I ought to give them a good example—that ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... prisoners politely acknowledged the genteel kindness they had received from their captors; the privates, who were all wounded men, expressed in the strongest terms their grateful sense of the tenderness which had been shown them in their miserable situation; some of them could do it only by their tears. It would have been to the honor of the British arms if the prisoners taken from us could with justice have made the same acknowledgement. It cannot be supposed that any officers of rank or common ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... an obstacle against the smooth-flowing current of his thoughts. Supposing that Julia got the notion of marrying—how miserable that would make everything. Very likely she would never do any such thing; he had observed in her no shadow of a sign that a thought of matrimony had ever crossed her brain. Yet that was a subject ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... his hand and her warm, impulsive nature prompted her to be kind. But instinct would not be gainsaid: a curious instinct to which she refused to respond. What had she to fear from this miserable and cringing little worm who had not even in him the pride of defeat? What harm could he do to her, or to those whom she loved? Her brother was in England! Her husband! Bah! not the enmity of the entire world could make her fear ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy |
