"Piteous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... drum. More than one twisted cripple flung himself before the horse of the Prince, begging for "the King's touch." In each case the Young Chevalier disclaimed any power of healing, but his kindly heart forbade his denying the piteous appeal. With a slight smile of sympathy he would comply with the request, saying, "I touch, but God heal." At the head of each clan-regiment rode its chief, and in front of every company the captains, ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... Cathedral; Francis in the year before the judgment of the Most High began to fall upon the guilty king and his accursed progeny. Since then everything seemed to have gone wrong. The last six years of Henry the Second's reign were years of piteous misery, shame, and bitterness. His two elder sons died in arms against their father, the one childless, the other, Geoffrey, with a baby boy never destined to arrive at manhood. The two younger ones were Richard ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... the first shock of sudden loss, she was surprised to find the memory of his faults and failings, short life and piteous death, grew dim, as if a kindly hand had wiped out the record and given him back to her in the likeness of the brave, bright boy she had loved, not as the wayward, passionate young man who ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... turned her heavy eyes With such a piteous glance upon my face; It pierced my heart, and fast the gathering tears Blinded my sight. Alas! poor maniac; For thee no hope shall dawn—no tender thought Wake in thy blighted heart a thrill of joy. The immortal mind ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... is given to us by Montaigne, who visited the cell, where it seems the unfortunate inmate was made a show of to all whom curiosity or pity attracted to the hospital. "I had even more indignation than compassion when I saw him at Ferrara in so piteous a state—a living shadow of himself." His jailer was Agostino Mosti, who, although he was himself a man of letters, and therefore should have sympathised with Tasso, on the contrary carried out to the utmost the cruel commands of his prince, and by his harsh language and ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... face with its fringe of straight black hair! That must be public property, and its piteous appeal had no power beyond the mother, to stay ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... the only people whom the ants had attacked, and complaints, piteous and loud, came from all parts of the camp, of the attacks made by the fiery little pests. Many of the men, however, appeared bite proof, and only growled and swore at having ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... still not denying that she stood in a fearful strait. It was a terrible scene that followed. Such a frightful agitation and hurry to accomplish in a few counted hours what ought to have been the business of a life. Such calling for psalms and prayers; such piteous beseechings for help; and, last of all, such an awful awakening of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... meeting was to take place. Our progress was intercepted by the unexpected appearance of an old woman, who, in the scarlet cloak which is the picturesque characteristic of the female peasantry of the south, was moving slowly down the avenue to meet us, uttering that peculiarly wild and piteous lamentation well known by the name of 'the Irish cry,' accompanied throughout by all the customary gesticulation of passionate grief. This rencounter was more awkward than we had at first anticipated; for, upon a nearer approach, the person proved to be no other than an old ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... rock; its carelessness of what any one thinks or feels about it, putting forth no claim, having no beauty, nor desirableness, pride, nor grace; yet neither asking for pity; not, as ruins are, useless and piteous, feebly or fondly garrulous of better days; but, useful still, going through its own daily work,—as some old fisherman, beaten grey by storm, yet drawing his daily nets: so it stands, with no complaint about its past youth, in blanched and meagre massiveness and serviceableness, ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... He turned one piteous gaze after them, with a bitter twinge, not of reproach, but of loneliness; and then, dragging himself up by the side of his horse, he turned the other way and drew out his pistol, and waited for the end. Whether he waited seconds or minutes he never ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... piteous cries of children coming up out of the sea where the Lusitania went down. And Germany has never asked ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... the shop-bell rang sharply, and Hepzibah set down the remnant of her final cup of tea, with a look of sallow despair that was truly piteous to behold. In cases of distasteful occupation, the second day is generally worse than the first. We return to the rack with all the soreness of the preceding torture in our limbs. At all events, ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Ser Peppe. The fool's face was paler than its wont, whilst the usual roguery had passed from his eyes and his mouth, fear having taken possession of its room. He met the Duke's cruel glance with one of alarm and piteous entreaty. ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... and small, groped over the coverlet, with nervous twitchings, as every now and then the howls or the pistol-shots of the mob in the streets below them fell on her ear. And at every such movement the lips of the girl by her pillow twitched in piteous sympathy. About half-past twelve there was sharp firing in volleys to the southward of them, that threw the half-conscious sufferer into an agony of supersensitive disturbance. Then there came a silence that seemed ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner
... dawn," whispered the Interpreter to himself; "and, when that comes, the bells and the organs will utter a jubilate repeated by the echoes of Paradise." Then, turning to me, he said—"This is sad: this is piteous: but less would not have sufficed for the purposes of God. Look here: put into a Roman clepsydra one hundred drops of water; let these run out as the sands in an hourglass; every drop measuring the hundredth part of a second, so that each ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... woman who had been tossing and turning from side to side, in a sort of madness of restrained and attenuated movement, sat up against her crushed pillow, and knew that there was probably some new line on her face, an accentuation of the sharpness of the cheek-bones, a more piteous droop at ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... wandered off and she had no one to send to look for them. These few logs of wood were all she had to bake bread with; would I ask the General to see that the soldiers did not take them? And then the Kaffirs! It was a piteous tale launched on a flood of tears. Possibly it was exaggerated; people have different ways of asking for help; but the terror in the woman's eye when she spoke of the Kaffirs was genuine. And I remembered the cripple's ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... makes a piteous story, for it is the life of one who was ever seeking—seeking for the man to whom she could look up, who could be strong and brave and ardent like herself, and at the same time be more powerful and more steadfast ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... where patients, through some preconceived notion, or from false ideas of shame or discredit attaching to some particular disease, are trying to mislead you, the very vigor of their efforts will often reveal their secret, just as the piteous broken-winged utterings of the mother partridge reveal instantly to the eye of the bird-lover the presence of the young which she is trying to lure him away from. Only let a patient talk enough about his or her symptoms, and the truth will ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... take that!" called out the Frenchman in a louder key and in a tone of anger, as if battling with the blacks on board the Saint Pierre over again; and then, after a pause we heard a piteous cry. "My God! they are going to shoot me! Look! Look! To the rescue, colonel, ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... "Blanca! Blanca!" he seemed to call. And as night came down, I noticed that he was not far from the place where we had overtaken her. At length he seemed to find the trail, and when he came to the spot where we had killed her, his heart-broken wailing was piteous to hear. It was sadder than I could possibly have believed. Even the stolid cowboys noticed it, and said they had "never heard a wolf carry on like that before." He seemed to know exactly what had taken place, for her blood had stained the ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... the Swedes? I hate them as I hate the pit of hell, And under Providence I trust right soon To chase them to their homes across their Baltic. My cares are only for the whole: I have A heart—it bleeds within me for the miseries And piteous groanings of my fellow-Germans. Ye are but common men, but yet ye think With minds not common; ye appear to me Worthy before all others, that I whisper thee A little word or two in confidence! See now! already for full fifteen years, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Destroyer of Female Chastity. This man, who was of a simple and decent aspect, was so dazed by the buffeting of the crowd, so spattered by the mud and filth hurled at him from a hundred taunting hands, and his countenance distorted by so piteous a look of animal fear, that he seemed more like a madman being haled to Bedlam than a penitent making public amends ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... found a tobacco shop where stamps and postal cards were sold and mailed a piteous appeal to Molly. She then found a telegraph office and wrote a telegram to be sent collect, but the hard-hearted operator refused to send it unless she prepaid it, and that she could not do. Her French deserted ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... girl who lay trembling in his arms better than he loved his pride; and had she told him then who and what she was, he would not have deemed it a disgrace to love a child of Hagar Warren. But Margaret did not know him, and when he said again, "Will Maggie answer me?" there came from her lips a piteous, wailing cry, and turning her face away she answered mournfully: "No, Mr. Carrollton, no, I cannot be your wife. It breaks my heart to tell you so; but if you knew what I know, you would never have spoken to me words of love. ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... of them and that they had gone toward Detroit. The slave-hunters at once set out in that direction. The fugitives returned to the house, devoured their breakfast immediately and secured the assistance of the landlord, who hearing their piteous story agreed to take them in his boat to Canada. In the language of Henson, "Their bosoms were swelling with inexpressible joy as they mounted the seats of the boat, ready, eager, to spring forward, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... nothing for the silly old Mrs. Erskine, but my heart bled for her daughter, who became a piteous white at the turn the talk had taken, and put her handkerchief to her face, affecting a cough. Nancy saw this ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... and brightened somewhat. "I may think myself that—indeed?" she murmured, in piteous raillery. "You mean in name! Well, I don't want to be ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... wrapped tightly round in turbans, stood out in sharp contrast upon the white background. Some wore fur caps with ear-flaps. All had sheepskin coats and high boots. Many used snow-spectacles. Watching this silent procession of men with heavy loads upon their backs, struggling higher and higher with piteous panting, one could not help wondering anxiously as to how many of them would return to their own country alive. Moving cautiously to avoid treacherous crevasses, I made my way ahead to a spot six hundred feet higher, where I halted for a while on a rocky island fairly clear of snow. As coolie ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... nuns—the deliberate cold-blooded cruelty which punished with death the resentment, the imprudence, often the mere birth, of orphaned lads; the prayers or the tears of schoolgirls who might well hav urged the piteous plea of Sejanus' infant daughter—these recal the indiscriminate ferocity of wild beasts, the atrocities occasionally committed by destructive maniacs in an excess of fury, or the infectious frenzies of lycanthropy and similar forms of epidemic madness, rather than such ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... us. Oh, now you weep; and, I perceive, you feel The dint of pity: these are gracious drops. Kind souls, what, weep you when you but behold Our Caesar's vesture wounded? Look you here, Here is himself, marred, as you see, with traitors. 1st Cit. O piteous spectacle! 2d Cit. O noble Caesar! 3d Cit. We will be revenged! All. Revenge! About! Seek! Burn! Fire! Kill! Slay! Let not a traitor live. Ant. Stay, countrymen. 1st Cit. Peace there! hear the noble Antony. 2d Cit. We'll hear him, we'll follow him, we'll die with him. Ant. Good ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... entranced her, that time flew by unheeded, and Christopher Staines came back from her father. His step was heavy; he looked pale, and deeply distressed; then stood like a statue, and did not come close to her, but cast a piteous look, and gasped out one word, that seemed almost to ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... It was a piteous sight to see the poor French folk as they fled from their homes, with their most cherished belongings ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... where the sea churns with sand. Three ships the south wind catches and hurls on hidden rocks, rocks amid the waves which Italians call the Altars, a vast reef banking the sea. Three the east forces from the deep into shallows and quicksands, piteous to see, dashes on shoals and girdles with a sandbank. One, wherein loyal Orontes and his Lycians rode, before their lord's eyes a vast sea descending strikes astern. The helmsman is dashed away and ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... a black tape. Persons who had pitied me for having "such a big head and so much hair" now found reason for comment "on my small head with no hair." The most expensive head cover never deceived anyone, however simple, and I was obliged to make my debut in St. Louis in this piteous plight. ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... They three, in that long-distant summer-time— 625 The castle, and the dewy woods, and hunt And hound, and morn on those delightful hills In Ader-baijan. And he saw that youth, Of age and looks to be his own dear son, Piteous and lovely, lying on the sand, 630 Like some rich hyacinth, which by the scythe Of an unskilful gardener has been cut, Mowing the garden grass-plots near its bed, And lies, a fragrant tower of purple bloom, On the mown, dying grass;—so Sohrab lay, 635 Lovely in death, ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... so seldom interferes with kindly intention in the lives of men, had cut what had become a strangling knot, and Kitty, from a dreadful, never-forgotten burden, had become a rather touching, piteous memory, growing ever dimmer as first the months, and then the years, ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... eagle came down upon Gwydion's knee. And Gwydion struck him with his magic wand, so that he returned to his own form. No one ever saw a more piteous sight, for he was nothing ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... labour, there was a man of a "haughty and ferocious" aspect. As soon as the child was born, adds Scott, he demanded the midwife to give it him, and, hurrying across the room, threw it on the back of a fire that was blazing in the chimney, in spite of the piteous entreaties of the mother. Suspicion eventually fell on Darrell, whose house was identified by the midwife, and he was tried for murder at Salisbury, "but, by corrupting his judge, Sir John Popham, he escaped the sentence of the law, only to die a violent death by a fall from his horse." This tale ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... managed to haul the ponderous woman to her feet. The boy was a good deal hurt physically, but his mental distress at sight of the lost beer prevented him from noticing his bruises. When he fully grasped the extent of the calamity he actually became pale, and I do not think I ever saw such a piteous little face in my life. I asked "How much was it, little 'un?" His lips trembled, and he said, "I dunno. I put a-money down, and her knows what to put in a-bottle. Father got to 'ave his beer, else he not have good supper." I thought, "This youngster isn't ill-used, or he wouldn't ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... she saw the man who was nearing the bank. She rose to her feet in the rocking boat, and stretched out her arms,—calling his name, "Brian! Brian! Brian!" Then the impact of the boat against a larger wave of the rapids brought her to her knees, and she clung to the thwarts with piteous cries. ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... since the departure of its great high-priest. From this quarter then Dee could get no information on the stone or elixir of the alchymists, and all his efforts to discover them by other means were not only fruitless but expensive. He was soon reduced to great distress, and wrote piteous letters to the Queen, praying relief. He represented that, after he left England with Count Laski, the mob had pillaged his house at Mortlake, accusing him of being a necromancer and a wizard; and had broken all his furniture, burned his library, consisting of four thousand rare ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... out all the waistcoats I had, and my business was now to try if I could not make jackets out of the great watch-coats which I had by me, and with such other materials as I had; so I set to work a-tailoring, or rather indeed a-botching; for I made most piteous work of it. However, I made shift to make two or three waistcoats, which I hoped would serve me a great while; as for breeches or drawers, I made but very sorry ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... his attention, then not infrequently new imitations of sounds would be given correctly—e. g., when I said "bo"—but these, again, would no longer succeed when called for. Indeed, such attempts often broke down utterly at once. Thus the child once heard a hen making a piteous outcry, without seeing the creature, and he tried in vain to imitate the sound, but once only, and not again. On the other hand, he often succeeds in repeating correctly movements of the tongue made for him to see, ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... sentence in my brain. In the morning, I rose and dressed, dreaming. As I was turning the handle of my door to go down to breakfast, suddenly I swung round in a fit of tears. It was so piteous to think that he should have waited by her twenty years in a slow anguish, his heart burning out, without a reproach or a complaint. I saw him, I still see ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... starting forward and a flush coming into her face. "I know that— that is what it is for. To pay back worthily— to give back a thousandfold what you have received. Those girls can't be idle, can they?" she added in a gentle, piteous ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... did not move. For a moment she thought she was dreaming, and that the voice had spoken in her dream. Then as she looked up with a wild hope that it was so—that all the past hour would prove to be nothing but a terrible nightmare—her dazed, piteous eyes met those ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... freshwater cistern which had been built in a hollow between the rocks. There were some who thought that his death might have been accidental, but old Doctor Bowditch said, "My friends, there was only too much reason for it." Of all the wrecks on that dangerous coast was not this the most piteous and tragical! William Hunt narrowly missed being one of the greatest of painters. Though some of his portraits are wretched failures, there are others of his pictures that might grace any gallery ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... the midst of all the roar the piteous bellowing of cattle, penned up in the cars. He saw a dark form stealing around the end of a car; in a moment a light spurted out as if a match had been touched to kerosene; there was a gleam of light, and the stock-car with its load of cattle was wrapped ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... of able, and we doubt not conscientious writers engaging in attempting the impossible,—painful and humiliating." He says, "they evidently do not breathe freely over their work; but shuffle and stumble over their difficulties in a piteous manner." (p. 250.) He asserts dogmatically that "the interpretation proposed by Buckland to be given to the Mosaic description, will not bear a moment's serious discussion:" (p. 230:) while Hugh Miller "proposes to give an entirely mythical or enigmatical ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... greedy JOE and glosing JIMMY, And the third was named Grand Old BILLEE; And they were reduced to the piteous prospect Of grubbing ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... to conceive the consternation and surprise the Portuguese gentry were in, nor is it very decently to be expressed. The poor Governor was so much more than half dead with fright that he really befouled himself in a piteous manner, and the rest were in not much better condition. They trembled, cried, begged, crossed themselves, and said their prayers as men going to execution, but it was all one, they were told flatly that the captain was not to be trifled with, that the ship was in want ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... in the beginning, which drew them away from obedience to their natural king; and that with such an example [as this of the Lutaos before them] the peoples [of Mindanao] would not change sides in order to please a nation so unreliable [as the Spaniards]. The Subanos also presented their piteous remonstrances that as a people of the hill-country, and of timid disposition, they were exposed to greater misfortunes. They went to the fort and renewed their importunities, saying that the Spaniards were deserting ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... wain. [21] —Did Sabine grace adorn my living line, Blandusia's praise, wild stream, should yield to thine! Never shall ruthless minister of death 75 'Mid thy soft glooms the glittering steel unsheath; No goblets shall, for thee, be crowned with flowers, No kid with piteous outcry thrill thy bowers; The mystic shapes that by thy margin rove A more benignant sacrifice approve— 80 A mind, that, in a calm angelic mood Of happy wisdom, meditating good, Beholds, of all from her high powers required, Much done, and much designed, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... women of the neighborhood, not omitting the parish dominie; scarce an hour in the day but a knot of them might be seen wagging their white caps together round her door, while the poor woman made some piteous recital. The daughter, too, was fain to seek for more frequent consolation from the stolen interviews of her favored swain, Dirk Waldron. The delectable little Dutch songs with which she used to dulcify the house grew less and less frequent, and she would forget ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... to drag her off. She clung to the saddle wildly, knowing how hopeless it was, but somehow feeling that she must not leave that one poor haven of safety. Then she felt herself going, and in that sickening moment screamed for help—a child's piteous cry: ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... the violence; but the madness generally prevailed, and as the worst men were leaders here, all the dreadful passions of human nature were displayed. Shameless rapacity, brutal intemperance, savage lust, cruelty and murder, shrieks and piteous lamentations, groans, shouts, imprecations, the hissing of fires bursting from the houses, the crashing of doors and windows, the reports of muskets used in violence, resounded for two days and nights in the streets of Badajos. On the third, when the ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... piteous shine That home-things wear when there's aught amiss; From the stairway floated the rise and fall Of an infant's call, Whose birth had ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... long since scooped Through granites which Titanic wars had groined. Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned, Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred. Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared With piteous recognition in fixed eyes, Lifting distressful hands as if to bless. And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall; With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained; Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground, And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan. ...
— Poems • Wilfred Owen
... gangway and then the stout figure of the detective came staggering into the circle of light around the shaft. He had evidently been wounded seriously, for he fell as he drew near to where the boys were standing and raised his eyes in a piteous appeal for help. Will stooped over and ...
— Boy Scouts in the Coal Caverns • Major Archibald Lee Fletcher
... plan of one's own what it shall do or be. The child's future shall shape out some darling purpose or plan, and fulfill some long unfulfilled expectation of the parent. And thus, though the wind of every generation sweeps its hopes and plans like forest-leaves, none are whirled and tossed with more piteous moans than those which come out green and fresh to shade the happy spring-time of the cradle. For the temperaments of children are often as oddly unsuited to parents as if capricious fairies had been ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... faintness solemn, sweet, and slow A hymn from Dian's temple; while upswelling, The incense went to her own starry dwelling. But though her face was clear as infant's eyes, Though she stood smiling o'er the sacrifice, The Poet wept at her so piteous fate, Wept that such beauty should be desolate: So in fine wrath some golden sounds he won, And ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... look," said Mr Temple; and Arthur, as his leg was lifted, uttered a piteous moan, and ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... a sound of blubbering from within, interspersed with piteous cries like those emitted by a rabbit transfixed by headlights. They sounded to Cam like an account man he knew over at GFR&O; and this in turn meant that the ultimatum was probably proceeding from the fabled throne room of ...
— Telempathy • Vance Simonds
... be lost or gained, I spoke out with all the force of which I was capable, surprising and terrifying Marechal Besons to such a point, with my hardihood, that he had not a word to say in order to aid me. When I had finished, M. d'Orleans thanked me in a piteous tone, by which I knew the profound impression I had made upon his mind. I proposed, while he was still shaken, that he should at once send to Madame de Maintenon, to know when she, would grant him an audience; for he had determined to speak to her first of his intention to give up Madame ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... of habit. We'll get it all back soon. Voyons"—he took her fat chin in his hand and turned up her face, on which make-up, perspiration and tears melted into one piteous paste. "This is not the ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... alleys, in the squares, Begging, lying little rebels; In the noisy thoroughfares, Struggling on with piteous trebles. ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... breast. Lingard, his hand on the tiller, sat up erect, expectant and silent. Mrs. Travers had drawn her cloak close around her body. Their glances plunged infinitely deep into a lightless void, and yet they were still so near the brig that the piteous whine of the dog, mingled with the angry rattling of the chain, reached their ears faintly, evoking obscure images of distress and fury. A sharp bark ending in a plaintive howl that seemed raised by the passage of phantoms invisible to men, rent the black stillness, ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... Carthew slammed the door of the Eagle and got into the driving-seat than a young woman, a perfect stranger to Mr. Prohack, appeared, and through the open window asked in a piteous childlike voice if Mr. Prohack was indeed Mr. Prohack, and, having been informed that this was so, expressed the desire to speak with him. Mr. Prohack was beside himself with annoyance and thwarted energy. Was the entire universe ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... companion-way. One of them was Alice Merton, and he was moved to such pity by the sight of her white face and evident weakness that he put down his curry-comb and brush and went to help her. Her face was flooded with colour as she raised her piteous blue eyes to him, and her hand shook as he drew ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... was what I wanted, something to soak the earth and turn the roads into water-courses and clog the enemy transport, something above all to blind the enemy's eyes ... For I remembered what a preposterous bluff it all had been, and what a piteous broken handful stood between the Germans and their goal. If they knew, if they only knew, they would brush ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... pocket he drew a small sheet of crumpled paper. In order to get this to him, a poor, timid woman had gone out into a raging crowd, had borne its brutality for hours, and then, a piteous bundle of broken nerves, had by sheer accident accomplished that which hundreds of others, braver, abler, more confident, and more deserving, had tried to do and failed. Morally this small slip of paper had upon it the blood, and the ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... the shadows of the between-world to the glare of gas-light, from the communion of spirits to the brisk business-like tones of Dr. Hull, was quite too much for the poor lady, and with a piteous gesture, she buried her face in her hands. Alta now came out of the cabinet, and said that her mother would like them to examine it ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... attempted to introduce "a new species of writing," and public enthusiasm testified to his success. Colly Cibber read "Clarissa" before its publication, and was wrought up into a high state of excitement by the story. "What a piteous, d——d, disgraceful pickle you have placed her in!" he wrote to Richardson. "For God's sake, send me the sequel, or—I don't know what to say! * * * My girls are all on fire and fright to know what can possibly have become of her." And when ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... but though I tried, I could not warm her little hands again: And so there in the icy dark she died. . . . The dawn came groping in with fingers gray And touched me, sitting silent as a stone; I kissed those piteous lips, as cold as clay— I did not cry, I did not even moan. At last I rose, groped down the narrow stair; An evil fog was oozing from the sky; Half-crazed I stumbled on, I knew not where, Like phantoms were the folks that passed me by. ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... and fro on their narrow couches, tearing out the straw with their hot and quivering fingers, or twisting the soiled sheets with a feeble and shaking grasp. Some were calling for water, and praying in piteous tone for mountains of ice, cold bright ice to fall ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... a pained, low cry, and buried her face passionately on his shoulder. "Oh, you know, you know!" she cried, in a piteous voice. "And you love me, yet you tempt me to break my parole. If I could do it and be freed of the responsibility! If a miracle ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... world without the beggar's outstretched palm, the miser's heartless, stony stare, the piteous wail of want, the livid lips of lies, the cruel ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... but art poured out the appeal for pardon with supreme power to move, roused to outdo itself, perhaps, by that first piteous cry that had broken from the master-singer's lips. The plaintive notes floated on the golden air as if a culprit spirit were pleading for forgiveness at the gates of paradise, a ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... more piteous tragedy in history than the story of the decline and ruin of this superbly prosperous, literary and artistic country, and yet out of the ashes came new courage. Burned, broken, the Belgians and the Dutch were not beaten. Pushed at last into Holland, where they united their ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... "No piteous, unconscious moaning sound—which so wastes our strength that, even if we have sworn to be firm, a rush of unconquerable tears sweeps away the oath—preceded her waking. No space of deaf apathy followed. The first words spoken were not those of one becoming estranged from this world, and already ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... down, her face was pinched and piteous; there was a strained, pathetic look in her eyes. She snuggled up in her old attitude on the arm of his chair, and what he said compared but poorly with the clear, authoritative, injured statement he had thought out with much care. His ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... On him! on him! Look you, how pale he glares! His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones, Would make them capable.—Do not look upon me; Lest, with this piteous action, you convert My stern effects: then what I have to do Will want true colour; tears, perchance ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... about The Ring and the Book which must arise from the presence of some other fine compensating or equivalent quality. Perhaps one may say that this equivalent for grandeur is a certain simple touching of our sense of human kinship, of the large identity of the conditions of the human lot, of the piteous fatalities which bring the lives of the great multitude of men to be little more than "grains of sand to be blown by the wind." This old woe, the poet says, now in the fulness of the days ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... late at night, dirty and dusty, their clothes torn, their faces bruised, boasting maliciously of the blows they had struck their companions, or the insults they had inflicted upon them; enraged or in tears over the indignities they themselves had suffered; drunken and piteous, unfortunate and repulsive. Sometimes the boys would be brought home by the mother or the father, who had picked them up in the street or in a tavern, drunk to insensibility. The parents scolded and swore at them peevishly, and beat their spongelike ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... argument, and to prove that the desire to borrow shows no imprudence on his own part, and that a tendency to lend will show none on the part of the intended lender. It may be said that this mode fails oftener than any other. There is the piteous manner,—the plea for commiseration. "My dear fellow, unless you will see me through now, upon my word I shall be very badly off." And this manner may be divided again into two. There is the plea piteous with a lie, and the plea ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... Such was the piteous account that Madame de Ste. Petronelle (otherwise Dame Elspeth Johnstone) gave, and which the Lady of Glenuskie soon perceived to be only too true during the days spent at Nanci. To the two young sisters ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... but was paying no attention to what was being said. His whole mind was concentrated on the swaying roof of the wrecked cabin, and the piteous sight of that frightened little fellow clinging ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... such a picture of terror and panic that I was almost sorry for him. His fellow-prisoner, too, who stood a good chance of the fag- end of my bullet, was equally piteous in his protestations. ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... Zoroaster once more, and tell him that she knew all the truth—that she knew he had not deceived her, and that she implored his forgiveness for the wrong she had done him. He would let her rest her head upon his breast and weep out her heartful of piteous sorrow once before she died. And then—the quiet stream of the Araxes flowed softly, cold and clear, among the rose-gardens below the palace. The kindly water would take her to its bosom, beneath the summer's moon, and the nightingales she loved would sing her a gentle good-night—good-night ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... the day, told her kid to keep at home, and not to open the door to strangers. She had not been gone long when up came a fox, with head bound from "headache," and foot bound from "gout," and carrying a ped of trinkets. The fox told the kid a most piteous tale, and showed her a little mirror. The kid, out of pity and vanity, opened the door; but while stooping over the ped to pick up a little bell, the fox clapped down the lid ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... they reached it they swarmed over it madly, unheeding of the water beneath. In whole battalions they plunged into the sea, most of them sinking immediately; but some of them swimming about in circles with piteous cries. The sea was discolored with their swarming heads for ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... was touched by Havelok's piteous speech, and felt some faint compassion, so that he could not slay the lad himself; yet he knew that his only ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... man who could eat up a mountain of bread. The Simpleton did not hesitate long, but ran quickly off to the forest, and there in the same place sat a man who had fastened a strap round his body, making a very piteous ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... eggs and played hide-and-seek. She passed through the orchard where they had worked and played so many happy hours, and on to the back pasture where the Dillon sheep had been killed and she had kept the Sheriff from shooting Jack. And she saw and noted everything with a piteous pain and dry eyes. But she gave no sign that night, and not until she was in bed did she with covered head give way. Then the bed shook with her smothered sobs. This is the sad way with women. After the way of men, Chad proudly marched the old Wilderness Road that led to a big, bright, beautiful ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... piteous tones, "do not look upon me in that way! Take from me those mournful eyes, oh, take them away! for that look burns into my heart! Hadley! Hadley! have pity on me! and spare me! Am I ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... and wounded, and stiff and sore, He laid him down on the sandy shore; He blessed the force of the charmed line, And he banned the water-goblins spite, For he saw around in the sweet moonshine Their little wee faces above the brine, Giggling and laughing with all their might At the piteous hap of ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... 'Rascal,' said Cordova, suddenly turning to his domestic with a furious air and regular Spanish grimace, 'you are doing nothing; why don't you take more?' 'I can't hold any more, your worship,' replied the latter in a piteous tone. 'My pockets are already full; and see how full I am here,' he continued, pointing to his bosom. 'Peace, bribon,' said his master; 'if your bosom is full, fill your hat, and put it on your head. We owe you more than we can express,' said he, turning round and addressing us in the blandest ...
— A Supplementary Chapter to the Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... the lad, with coaxing and almost piteous apology. "I backed Grosvenor's play, and you know he's always the most wonderful luck in the world. I couldn't tell he'd go a crowner and have such cards as he had. How shall I get the money, Bertie? I daren't ask the governor; and besides I told Poulteney he should have it this morning. ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... superabundance of his heroism, at a gun where he had no business to be, and in running it out, he had jammed his toe in a scupper hole, so fast that there was no extricating him; and notwithstanding his piteous entreaty "to be eased out handsomely, as the leg was made out of a plank of the Victory, and the ring at the end out of one of her bolts," the captain of the gun finding, after a stout pull, that the man was like to come home in his ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... client has placed her piteous case in my hands. It is the Lady Eva Brackwell, the most beautiful DEBUTANTE of last season. She is to be married in a fortnight to the Earl of Dovercourt. This fiend has several imprudent letters—imprudent, ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the two regarded the little brown woman so unconscious of their gaze. By the piteous wizened face screwed up in the sunlight, by the faded hair, nut-cracker jaws, and hollow eyes they utterly condemned Mrs. Tuttle, who, blue feathers floating, was also absorbed in watching the stream of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... had been opened by a lancet. The furious animal missed the throat and jugular vein; but the horse was so dreadfully torn, that he was not at first expected to survive. The expressions of agony, in his tears and moans, were most piteous and affecting. Whether the lioness was afraid of her prey being taken from her, or from some other cause, she continued a considerable time after she had entered the hovel roaring in a dreadful manner, so loud, ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... the wine into the road, Most piteous to be seen, Which made his horse's flanks to smoke As they ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... moved at the piteous sight, that I from my heart repented the undertaking, and would willing had given over, thinking he had full enough; but, he encouraging and beseeching me earnestly to proceed, I gave him ten more lashes; and then resting, surveyed the ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... lonely girl—isolated by the worst curse that can affect humanity—grievous hereditary vice—the innocent scape-goat of another's sin. Alas, how many homes even in our favoured land are desolated as well as desecrated from this one cause. What piteous waste of sweet young life, crushed under unnatural burdens. The sin of England, we say—the shameful curse ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... camel-drivers was held, and the question discussed, "Whether the camel should be killed?" It was decided that it should be doctored and left to graze until a Targhee was sent from Ghat for it. A most piteous sight it was to look upon the poor camel, prostrate and moaning, as if pleading the excuse of its malady for not moving on. I could not stop to look at the wretched animal. Nevertheless, I returned again, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... turning piteous eyes upon his face, "I know it must be partly true, but do you think it is really quite as bad as that? I believed ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... Thought, which once would talk with me Of a bright seraph sitting crowned on high, Found such a cruel foe it died, and so My Spirit wept, the grief is hot even now— And said, Alas for me! how swift could flee 30 That piteous Thought which did my life console! And the afflicted one ... questioning Mine eyes, if such a Lady saw they never, And why they would... I said: 'Beneath those eyes might stand for ever 35 He whom ... regards must kill with... To have known ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... chapel, and carved the figure of a slaughtered lamb on a stone in the gable. Another lamb—a living lamb—was being killed by the butcher of Ballajora as Philip went by the shambles. The helpless creature, with its inverted head swung downwards from the block, looked at him with its piteous eyes, and gave forth that distressful cry which is the last wild appeal of the stricken animal when it sees death near, and has ceased to fight ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... were brought back to town still manacled, under the scorching beams of a sun intensely hot, and must infallibly have expired, had not nature expelled the fever in large painful boils, that covered almost the whole body. In this piteous condition they were embarked in an open boat for Muxadavad, the capital of Bengal, and underwent such cruel treatment and misery in their passage, as would shock the humane reader should he peruse the particulars. At Maxadavad they were led ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... for twenty years, had conscientiously striven to chill her readers' blood, should be compelled at last to turn round and gibe at her own spectres, reveals into what a piteous plight the novel of terror had fallen. When even the enchantress disavowed her belief in them, the ghosts must surely have fled shrieking and affrighted and thought never more to raise their ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... It was piteous to see her sorrowful figure as, in this strange house, she was leaning over the table with her face buried in her hands in mute despair; determined, however, not to cry, ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... on either side of the mangled body, overwhelmed by this sudden and irrevocable disaster which had brought all our long and weary labours to so piteous an end. Then as the moon rose we climbed to the top of the rocks over which our poor friend had fallen, and from the summit we gazed out over the shadowy moor, half silver and half gloom. Far away, miles off, in the direction of Grimpen, a single ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... as they were in their lives, Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn were not long divided by death; and, piteous as is the story of the last years of Catherine, it pales before the hideous tragedy of the ruin of Anne Boleyn. "If I have a son, as I hope shortly, I know what will become of her," wrote Anne of the Princess Mary.[959] ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... I wonder what he means by looking at me in that piteous manner? I can do nothing to relieve him. I'm sure if I could I would. But 'the way of the transgressor is hard,' Mr. Le Noir, and he who sins ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... his thoughts. The whole course of dishonour seemed so clear; he traced it from Monica's earliest meetings with Barfoot at Chelsea. Wavering between the impulse to cast off his wife with every circumstance of public shame, and the piteous desire to arrest her on her path of destruction, he rushed into a middle course, compatible with neither of these intentions. If at this stage he chose to tell Monica what had come to his knowledge, it should have been done with the sternest ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... wide, the story saith, Out of the night came the patient wraith. He might not speak, and he could not stir A hair of the Baron's minniver. Speechless and strengthless, a shadow thin, He roved the castle to find his kin. And oh! 'twas a piteous sight to see The dumb ghost follow ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... their answer, he cried aloud, "Woe is me!" and sank like a stone. It was a cold night, and, after some hours, young Godfrey became benumbed, lost his hold, and likewise sank; but the butcher, in his sheepskin coat, held on till daylight, when he was picked up by some fishermen, and told his piteous tale. ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... tokin that I forgeve thee: My harte, do thyn office." And then by and by, he was putt upoun the gibbet, and hanged, and there brynt to poulder.[433] When that the people beheld the great tormenting of that innocent, thei mycht not withhold frome piteous morning and complaining of the ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... fatal to the inhabitants, especially to those who have been nurtured in Europe. Her encoffined remains were shipped on board a vessel, to be conveyed to England for burial, in accordance with her expressed wish. When the poor creature came to that part of her piteous tale, when, as she called her, her "beautiful angel of a mistress" was put in the coffin, and the estate hands were called in to take a last view of her (a custom in vogue there sometimes), she was overpowered with grief, and her utterance was ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... planted at the head and the foot, upon which flags are placed; the grave is then enclosed by pickets driven in the ground. The funeral ceremonies now begin, the widow being the chief mourner. At night and morning she will go to the grave and pour forth the most piteous cries and wailings. It is not important that any other member of the family should take any very active part in the 'cry,' though they do participate to ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... I see, sir, I see!" said Packer with piteous eagerness, taking the manuscript the star handed him. "Now, then, ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... from him embarrassed the girl. But when the blood began to return to her cheek, she heaved a sigh so piteous and profound as to move every spring of ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... disconsolate mother as her wounded son was carried in at the gate—"Ee maffo fonio abada!" ("He never told a lie; no, never!") When they had conveyed him to his hut, and laid him upon a mat, all the spectators joined in lamenting his fate, by screaming and howling in the most piteous manner. ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... the saturated ground. The presence of the old man, who appeared before me unexpectedly, was by no means welcome. I could have wished, if not to hide, at least to clothe, myself. The shame, the shivering, the effort to cover myself in some degree, made me cut a most piteous figure. The old man employed the moment in venting the severest reproaches against me. "What hinders me," he exclaimed, "from taking one of the green cords, and fitting it, if not to your neck, to your back?" This threat I took in very ill part. "Refrain," I cried, "from ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... the wound, I saw it with mine eyes, God saue the marke, here on his manly brest, A pitteous Coarse, a bloody piteous Coarse: Pale, pale as ashes, all bedawb'd in blood, All in gore blood ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... which seemed to plead for a remission of responsibility. "I want to give myself up to others; I want to know everything that lies beneath and out of sight, don't you know? I want to enter into the lives of women who are lonely, who are piteous. I want to be near to them—to help them. I want to do something—oh, I should ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... beauty and activity. The beautiful child, clasped close to his breast, her face buried on his shoulder under his shaggy locks, was a strange contrast to his appearance, but only added to the look of piteous helplessness and desolation, as she hung upon him in her alarm at the agitation ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... arrest their progress. The gallant seamen, he knew, would be dashing in among them in spite of the hot smoke, and doing their best to rescue the unfortunate wretches, but he feared that few would be saved. Even where he was he could hear their piteous shrieks, as the flames caught hold of them, chained as they were and unable to escape. As was too likely the pirates had set fire to the barracoon on purpose to delay the English; this plan succeeded perfectly. Often the same sort of thing ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... to fill the hole and drown out the woodchuck? Sometimes it seemed as if the hole was a bottomless pit. But sooner or later the water would rise in it, and then there was sure to be seen the nose of the woodchuck, keeping itself on a level with the rising flood. It was piteous to see the anxious look of the hunted, half-drowned creature as—it came to the surface and caught sight of the dog. There the dog stood, at the mouth of the hole, quivering with excitement from his nose to the tip of his tail, and behind him were the cruel boys dancing with joy ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... pair of grey eyes, bright a week ago, now dimmed with tears, and patched beneath with lines of sorrow. His clean-cut, rather passionate lips were set now, with down-turned corners, in a line of angry self-control piteous to see; and his clear skin seemed stained and dull. He had never dreamt of such misery ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... piteous, how ill she looked. A pang of compassion went through him. And after the pang there came a warm, delicious tremor. It recalled the feeling he used to have when he did things for Edith, a sensation ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... left alone And mourns her cruel fate; She makes a sad and piteous moan, Alone without a mate. She fears her friend is dead and gone— Confirmed in her belief, Her sorrow finds relief in song, And thus she tells her grief. 'Sweet mate! Alas, where art thou now? I miss thine eyes so bright, Thy feet upon the tender bough, Thy breast so pure and bright.' She wanders ...
— Apu Ollantay - A Drama of the Time of the Incas • Sir Clements R. Markham
... their great, widespread tossing branches; and she fell upon her knees and kissed the very stones at her feet and the green blades of waving grass that she never once thought she would see again, and she raised her white arms to heaven with such piteous cries of thankfulness that the angels must have ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey |
