"Wretch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... consternation at the sudden apparition, the event, and the words which preceded it. Claverhouse alone was unmoved. At the first instant of Mucklewrath's appearance, he had put his hand to his pistol, but on seeing the situation of the wounded wretch, he immediately withdrew it, and listened with great composure to ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... he hid him in a cave Strewn with the bones of some sad wretch who there, Apart from men, had sought a desert grave, And yielded to the demon of despair. There beauteous Zophiel, shrinking from the day, Envying the wretch that so his life had ended, Wailed ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... are brutes! I have done nothing to deserve this barbarity. I am no felon or thief, that I should be used in this way. I have broken no rule that was made known to me, since I have been in this place. The heartless wretch of a jailer thrust me into this hole, to gratify his own spite. He knows that I couldn't have thrown water on him purposely, for I couldn't see down into the yard. He never told me what I was to do with the dirty water, and there was no other place to throw it. He deserves being ...
— The Runaway - The Adventures of Rodney Roverton • Unknown
... wretch got to cut hisself open, and then flicker out, without anybody to say a prayer ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... relations of such person to leave them without compunction or remose; on those occasions they usually place within their reach a small peace of meat and a platter of water, telling the poor old superannuated wretch for his consolation, that he or she had lived long enough, that it was time they should dye and go to their relations who can afford to take care of them much better than they could. I am informed that this custom prevails ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... came into the world and apply the cowhide to her until she fell a victim to death in the road. He would see a husband take his dear wife, not unfrequently in a pregnant state and perhaps far advanced, and beat her for an unmerciful wretch, until her infant fell a lifeless lump at her feet. Moreover, "there have been, and are this day, in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, colored men who are in league with tyrants and who receive a great portion of their daily bread of the moneys which they acquire from ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... "I should be a wretch indeed if I wished otherwise," said Harry. "If you saw her perhaps you would agree with me that she is the essence of all that is pure and modest, and I could not approach her with any other thought in ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... that was easy. When we were talking to-night at tea about the hanging of Howard Tims, what disgust in your tone when you cried out, there should be no pity for the wretch ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... have followed that of a greater man. And now, too, the facts of the past night, as they became known, seemed to make the crime more wonderful, more exciting, more momentous than it would have been had it been brought clearly home to such a wretch as the Bohemian Jew, Yosef Mealyus, who had contrived to cheat that wretched Lizzie Eustace into ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... the detection and the prospect of being captured and brought to justice, turned savagely on the consul, inflicting several severe wounds on the head, hands, and face. The consul closed with him and threw him down, and called for his wife to bring his revolver. The wretch now begged so piteously for his life, and made such specious promises, that the consul magnanimously let him up, neglecting-doubtless owing to his own dazed condition from the scalp wounds-to disarm him. Immediately he found himself released ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... she has. The venom out of the snake's tooth will poison all the blood; but still the poor bitten wretch does not ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... Crocylus gave me, the dappled one, when he sacrificed the she-goat to the nymphs; but thou, wretch, even then wert wasting with envy, and now, at last, thou ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... well demand it, if such a feeling held a place within your breast. I might well demand your pity, Flora Bannerworth, for never crawled an abject wretch upon the earth's rotundity, ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... is no other object quite so curious as this old nameless mummy. He was once, it may be, Lord Mayor—a good many Lord Mayors have been buried in this church—or, perhaps, he was a Sheriff, and wore a splendid chain; or he may have been the poorest and most miserable wretch of his time. It matters not; he has escaped the dust—he is a mummy. Somehow he contrives to look superior, as if he was conscious of the fact and proud of it; he cannot smile, or nod, or wink, but he can ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... while Josie examined the scratches on her hands. 'I was studying my part in the willow, and Ted came slyly up and poked the book out of my hands with his rod. It fell in the brook, and before I could scrabble down he was off. You wretch, give it back this moment or I'll box your ears,' cried Josie, laughing and ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... spike into the heart of one. "Take that for hanging of my brother," screams a second, cleaving a Moor's skull with his hatchet. "Quits for turning an honest lad into a devil," calls a third, drawing his knife across the throat of a shrieking wretch, and so forth, till not one of all the crowd ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but his watery eyes ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... all explained she said in a low tone: 'It is that pernicious, evil man Dare—yet why is it he?—what can he have meant by it! Justice before generosity, even on one's wedding-day. Before I become any man's wife this morning I'll see that wretch in jail! The affair must be sifted.... O, it was a wicked thing to serve anybody so!—I'll send for Cunningham Haze this moment—the culprit is even now on the premises, I believe—acting as clerk of the works!' The usually well-balanced Paula was excited, ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... of Justice in the Doge's Palace, through secret passages, to the Piombi, or state prison, and thence to the Pozzi, a series of gloomy rock-hewn dungeons, where the air felt heavy with the breath of murder dignified by the name of judicial punishment, and where many a hopeless wretch had sighed out his love, his hopes, and finally ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... do my complaints reach thy ears? Or do the same winds bear away my fruitless words, and thy ships, ungrateful man? Now, {ah!} now, it is not to be wondered at that Pasiphae preferred the bull to thee; thou didst have the more savage nature {of the two}. Wretch that I am! He joys in speeding onward, and the waves resound, cleaved by his oars. Together with myself, alas! my {native} land recedes from him. Nothing dost thou avail; oh thou! forgetful to no purpose of my deserts. In spite ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... patient was robbed in like manner; then with her black pitcher reeking with the life she had plundered from those poor creatures, the wretch went out, comparing with a chuckle her horrid spoil, with the jar half-full of brandy, which the younger nurse had gathered from ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... had seen him that same morning, a nerveless, terror-stricken wretch, grovelling, like some craven cur, upon the floor, frightened, to the verge of imbecility, by a shadow, and less than a shadow, I was confronted by two hypotheses. Either I had exaggerated his condition then, or I exaggerated his condition now. So far as appearance went, it was incredible that ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... Help! I am robbed! I am robbed!" He made such an uproar that half a hundred men, women, and children were gathered around them in less than a minute. "Here is ingratitude for you!" cried Ali. "Here is wickedness and thievery! Look at this wretch, all good men, and then turn away your eyes! For twelve years have I lived with this young man as a father might live with a son, and now how does he repay me? He has stolen all that I have in the world—a purse of seventy sequins ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... food dreaming his time away. For then as now the common-minded rich Grudged ease to those whose toil brought them in means For every waste of life. At length I spoke, Insulting both my inarticulate soul And her with acted anger: "Lazy wretch, Is it for eyes like yours to watch the sea As though you waited for a homing ship? My father might with reason spend his hours Scanning the far horizon; for his Swan Whose outward lading was full ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... gold to any one who would murder the Prince of Orange. An attempt had already been made, but had failed, and William refused to take any measures for self-protection, saying, "It is useless: my years are in the hands of God; if there is a wretch who has no fear of death, my life is in his hand, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... upon their countrymen to love and honor their invincible hero, and declared that the wretch would be esteemed a disgrace to humanity, and should be transmitted to posterity with infamy, who would dare to use his tongue or pen against him. Such wretches, however, were found, and did not seem in the least to dread ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... "Wretch! darest thou blaspheme a God who has let thee live, notwithstanding the crimes that thou hast been guilty of? Believest thou that He has forgot to punish the fate of the learned Egyptian, whom thy avarice put to death, contrary to the ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... before, and in this wise came to this cursed heretic; and it was asked him how he believed, and he answered that he believed well that it was hallowed bread, and nought God's body. And then was the tonne put over him, and fire kindled therein; and when the wretch felt the fire he cried mercy, and anon the Prince commanded to take away the ton and to quench the fire. And then the Prince asked him if he would forsake his heresy, and take him to the faith of holy church; which if he would have done, he should have his life, and goods enough to ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... baroness, "for I wish to inform you that he is a villain, a wretch, a miserable fellow!" Her anger was rising again, but she struggled to control it. When Nino realised what she said he came forward and stood near the count, facing the baroness, his arms folded on ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... in bold relief, for his infamous cruelties, even among the bloody records of the buccaneers. He was a Dutchman by birth, who had settled in Brazil during the occupancy of that country by the United Provinces. On the restoration of the Portuguese to their Brazilian possessions this bloody wretch retreated to Jamaica. His name not being known, he received the soubriquet of Rock Braziliano, by which he was henceforward known. Very soon after his arrival at Jamaica, he joined the pirates, first as an ordinary mariner; and acquitted himself so well as to gain, in a short time, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Shakespeare. The leading young man of this comedy now under notice is represented as "a wild-headed gentleman," and revealed as an abject ruffian of unredeemed and irredeemable rascality. As much and even more may be said of the execrable wretch who fills a similar part in an admirably written play published thirty-six years earlier and verified for the first time as Heywood's by the keen research and indefatigable intuition of Mr. Fleay. The parallel passages cited by ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... casting his eye on an elderly man who was near him, he laid hold of him; and, with the assistance of some of his myrmidons, gave him up as a slave, and so settled his account. We felt more interested in the fate of this poor wretch, on account of his having been a prince himself, but never before saw the face of his oppressor. He went passenger in the ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... Betsy began to look upon herself as a most hardened wretch, wondering at the depths of iniquity to which she had fallen. The opera was the least of her offenses, for she was not harboring pride and contriving how to be rid of 'Tilda Tubbs, as clever a girl as ever lived, hoping that if she found ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... a name? A charm that lulls to Bleep, A shade that follows wealth or fame, And leaves the wretch to weep?" ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... he? Then go to him, and let him feed you and clothe you, you ungrateful wretch!" And with the words the angry man struck Job such a blow that he went reeling over, a ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... poor lad! my poor lad! John wanted me to come yesterday, and I delayed. I was a selfish wretch. Now I will take ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Yet, despite the agony of horror that froze my blood, I instinctively thrust my helm hard down and flattened in the sheets fore and aft; for the thought came to me that, perchance, a few fathoms out there, veiled from sight in the soft, velvet blackness of the night, some poor wretch—a victim, like myself, to the fury of the late gale— clinging desperately to a fragment of wreckage, might have caught a glimpse of the longboat's sails, sliding blackly along against the stars, and have emitted those terrible cries as a last despairing appeal for help and succour. Accordingly, ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... quarter," she said, as she heard the chiming of a distant clock. "I wish I'd gone myself instead of sending the poor child. What would Peter say if he knew—ah! and what would that old flinty-hearted wretch say if he knew! How I wish she would come, even if she ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... must be unsteady who goes to the races!" cried Rosamond. "You were so liberal about balls, I did expect one little good word for races; instead of which, you are declaring a poor wretch who goes to them capable of embezzling two thousand pounds, and I dare say ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... present who did not join in that cry. One of these, Nicodemus, stood up and asked the Sanhedrin, "How can you conclude so godless a bargain?" Then turning to Judas, he said, "And thou, abject wretch, dost thou not blush to sell thy Lord and master, thou God-forgetting traitor whom the earth shall swallow up? For thirty pieces of silver wouldst thou now sell that most loving friend and benefactor? O, pause while there is yet time. That blood-money will cry to heaven for vengeance, ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... him a complainant and a witness against him in the stupidest and most improbable of all accusations,—namely, that Paterson had menaced him with punishment, if he did not, in so many words, slander and calumniate Debi Sing; and then the Committee, seating this wretch as an assessor at their own board, who a few days before would have trembled like a whipped slave at the look of an European, encouraged him to interrogate ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... in this, If thou hast pity, though thy love be none, Kill me, and all true Lovers that shall live In after ages crost in their desires, Shall bless thy memory, and call thee good, Because such mercy in thy heart was found, To rid a lingring Wretch. ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... the face. Never had he seen such disconcerting pallor. It was not the waxen hue of the convalescent, not the lifeless grey of the perfume-or snuff-maker, it was a prison pallor of a bloodless lividness unknown today, the ghastly complexion of a wretch of the Middle Ages shut up till death in ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... in all its horror, the lowest violence; the sometimes comic side of these struggles is not to be seen here. At Bourges the myrmidons of the deep work and hit with a will. A devil with a wild beast's muzzle and a drunkard's face in the middle of his fat stomach, is hammering the skull of a wretch who struggles, grinding his teeth, while the devil bites his legs with the end of his tail that bears a serpent's head. Another monster, with a crushed face and pendant breasts, a man's face in his stomach and ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... feasting gathering of officers attached to the Mongolian Staff he saw before a feast of men contorted in grotesque shapes by some violent death. Many lay beside the table, some on it, their faces blotched with great, unsightly wheals, their chests bloated until they seemed about to burst. Only one poor wretch had any life left in him—he lay exhausted on the floor with great streams of frothy mucous pouring ...
— The Sword and the Atopen • Taylor H. Greenfield
... treated the great defaulter with the utmost courtesy and deference, appearing before him, hat in hand, with a profusion of servile bows. No absolute monarch could have been treated with greater reverence. The moral sense of the community was outraged. On the same day a poor wretch who had stolen a loaf of bread to keep his sick wife from starving was sentenced ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... deceived him. He said that he would kill me, and kill himself after. As he spoke, the blood had streamed up to his forehead, and streamed back again, leaving him pale. A flash like steel had shot out of his eyes—the dear eyes that are not cold. It was true, as this cruel wretch reminded me, Raoul would do things under the torture of jealousy that he would cut off his hand sooner than do when his own, sweet, poet-nature ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... made sure of the matter and heard the herald crying in the plain, "Let none of you come out against me save Sharrkan," they knew this cursed Luka to be champion of the land of Roum who had sworn to sweep the earth clean of Moslems. Now he was one of the greatest of villains, a wretch who caused hearts to pain; and the DayIamites, Turks and Kurds dreaded his might and main. Presently Sharrkan crave at him like a lion angry grim, mounted on a courser like a wild gazelle flying snell and slim; and coming nigh to him made the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... masters of the island, was to make the elephants trample upon the criminals, so as to crush their limbs first, and by avoiding the vital parts prolong their agony. When Mr. Sirr was there, he saw one of these elephant executioners. The word of command, "Slay the wretch!" was given to him; upon which he raised his trunk, pretended to twist it round a body, then slowly raised one of his fore feet, and placed it where the limbs of the victim would have been; then he stood motionless with his trunk ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... connection with our present subject: "When an old woman," says he, "begins to dote, and grow chargeable to a parish, she is generally turned into a witch, and fills the whole country with extravagant fancies, imaginary distempers, and terrifying dreams. In the mean time, the poor wretch that is the innocent occasion of so many evils begins to be frighted at herself, and sometimes confesses secret commerces and familiarities that her imagination forms in a delirious old age. This frequently cuts off charity from the ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... me Without the fiery iterance of my heart. Hear, hear me, love, who on the swathed tops Of ribbed Olympus, and thy steadfast throne, Dost sit the supreme judge of gods and men, And bear within thy palm the living bolt, High o'er the soiled air of this wan world; Look on yon helot wretch, and, wheresoe'er, Coursing what sea, or cabled in what port, The greatness of thine eye may light on him, Crush him with thunder! Thou, too, great Neptune of the lower deeps, Heave thy wet head up from the monstrous sea; Advance ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... whose heart must still bleed at the recollection that his confidential class-leader, but a week or two before his just conviction, had received the communion of the Lord's Supper from his hand. This wretch had been brought up in his pastor's family, and was treated with the same Christian attention as was shown to their own children." "To us who are accustomed to the base and proverbial ingratitude of these people this ill return of kindness and confidence is not surprising; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... swift was his great lumbering stride. He caught the man up, long before the fugitive was anywhere near the tree, and hurled him to the ground with a stroke of his tusk. Then he pulled up and deliberately knelt down on the unlucky wretch, who screamed horribly as his life was crushed out of him by the tremendous weight ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... partly to herself and partly to the boys, "of his landing you and all your luggage on the pavement like that, and then going off, before I came. He knew well enough I should have seen he only got his right fare. The wretch!" ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... like that;" and almost by force he drew her to the piazza. In a moment he was out with a breech-loading gun, and as the smoke of the discharge lifted, she saw a writhing, sinuous form fall heavily to the earth. After a brief inspection Webb came toward her in smiling assurance, saying: "The wretch got only one of the little family. Four birds are left. There now, don't feel so badly. You have saved a home from utter desolation. That, surely, will be a ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... account, like Jonah in the ship of Tarshish. But pray what are you, and on what account did you go to sea?" Upon which I very freely declared my whole story: at the end of which he made this exclamation: "Ye sacred powers: what had I committed, that such a wretch should enter into my ship to heap upon me such a deluge of miseries!" But soon recollecting his passion, "Young man" said he, "if you do not go back, depend upon it, wherever you go, you will meet with disasters and disappointments till your father's words are fulfilled upon ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... back his chair, and the look on his face was so terrible that it robbed the trembling wretch of ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... "The old wretch! but we will talk further of him. I will hasten to the prince's and return with Madame de Morinval, to fetch you to the ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... appeared the corporal with the spare, tall body of Smallbones under his arm. He held him, grasped by the middle part, about where Smallbones' stomach ought to have been, and the head and heels of the poor wretch both hung down perpendicularly, and knocked together as the corporal ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... not be the scoundrel's fault," he said in a tone of some magnanimity. "I know what women are—treachery for treachery's sake. Why should I destroy the poor wretch whose heart has probably been as scored as mine by the discovery of her treachery? He is ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... him on the platform as if an hour passed while he, who had played with a city father, stood, clothed with shame, before this commanding young woman. Had she ever looked upon a more abject wretch? and Carmichael photographed himself with merciless accuracy, from his hair that he had not thrown back to an impress of dust which one knee had taken from the platform, and he registered a resolution that he would never be again boastfully indifferent ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive, No gen'rous patron would a dinner give; But lo behold! when dead, the mould'ring dust, Rewarded with a monumental bust! A poet's fate, in emblem here is shewn, He ask'd for bread, and he ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... or if she had not, she had now Fire enough to inspire her with all that could charm and move. These she deliver'd to a young Wench, who waited on her, and whom she had entirely subdu'd to her Interest, to give to a certain Lay-Brother of the Order, who was a very simple harmless Wretch, and who served in the Kitchen, in the Nature of a Cook, in the Monastery of Cordeliers. She gave him Gold to secure his Faith and Service; and not knowing from whence they came (with so good Credentials) ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... given so much pleasure this evening; I only know that I have been very happy, and wondered not a little at my late melancholy. I believe it must have been partly caused by looking at myself (and that, too, as if I were a little, miserable, isolated wretch), instead of contemplating those things which have no relation to space and time and matter—the eternal and the infinite—or, if I thought of myself at all, feeling that I am part of a great and wonderful whole. It seems as if a new inner sense had been opened, revealing ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... earth. A second-hand book-shop always reminds me of a Necropolis. It is a kind of Serapeum where lies buried the kings and princes with the helots and underlings of literature. Ay, every book is a mortuary chamber containing the remains of some poor literary wretch, or some mighty genius.... A book is a friend, my brothers, and when it ceases to entertain or instruct or inspire, it is dead. And would you sell a dead friend, would you throw him away? If you can not keep him embalmed on your shelf, is it not the wiser ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... that, if ye are fain to sleep, ye shall have fit lodging in my house. Heaven forbid that I should suffer such guests as you to sleep on the cold deck, covered with dew, as if I were some needy wretch, with never a blanket to spare for a friend. May the gods preserve me from ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... apply. Did any of you ever set yourselves to keep up artificial respiration, or to trudge about for a whole night with a narcotized victim of opium, or transfuse blood (your own perhaps) into a poor, fainting exanimate wretch? If so, you will have some idea of the heartless attempt, and its generally vain and miserable result, to make a dull student apprehend—a debauched, interested, knowing, or active in anything beyond the base of his brain—a weak, etiolated ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... madness in his Moral Sentiments. "Of all the calamities," says he, "to which the condition of mortality exposes mankind, the loss of reason appears by far the most dreadful; and we behold that last stage of human wretchedness with deeper commisseration than any other. But the poor wretch who is in it, laughs and sings, perhaps, and is altogether insensible of his own misery. The anguish therefore which humanity feels at the sight of such an object, cannot be the reflection of any sentiment of the sufferer. The compassion of ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... source from whence his sorrows flow. As round the bark which feels the tempest's shock, The lightning plays, and shows the fatal rock, So memory brings our sorrows all to light With vivid truth presents them to the sight; Pursues the wretch who else some joy might find, To fix her seat of empire in his mind. As desert lakes in sad illusion fly, Before the weary traveller's cheated eye So memory shows, those hopes we still would cherish. Pleased but to fade, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various
... me your own story, Mr. Barry," said Mrs. Tracey excitedly, "let me tell you mine from the beginning, and show you how this heartless wretch has imposed upon you from the very first. The tale he has given you is a tissue of lies, interwoven with ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... "I didn't—couldn't—wouldn't—" and, unable to ejaculate further, she fairly ran out of the apartment into the entry, where she nearly fell over Charlie, who was enjoying the confusion his conduct had created. "Oh! you limb!—you little wretch!" said she. "You knew I was ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... "You abominable wretch!" exclaimed Mrs. Boomsby, placing her arms akimbo, and looking at me with the utmost ferocity, so that between her and the snake I found there was little choice. "What are you ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... than a thousand careers!" Saidee flung herself away from the girl's arm. "I see now," she went on angrily, "what you were leading up to, when you pretended to sympathize. You were waiting for a chance to try and persuade me that I'm a selfish wretch. I may be selfish, but—it's as much for his happiness as mine. It's just as I thought it would be. You're puritanical. You'd rather see me die, or go mad in this prison, than have me do a thing that's unconventional, according to your ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... I carved certain cabalistic signs on the big beech-tree you would presently appear to me in a pink cloud—you faithless little wretch!" ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... of a woman naked to the waist, and tied up to a triangle in a prison yard, being flogged by a soldier with willow wands, while a group of officers stood by, apparently greatly interested in the performance. Another painting showed a poor wretch being knouted to death in the market-place of a Russian town, and yet another showed a young and beautiful woman in a prison cell with her face distorted by the horrible leer of madness, and her little white hands clawing nervously at her ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... good herein is His teaching; what is erroneous, clearly comes out of that sea of evil—myself. If there be any—and there must be many—who, having attained to these states of prayer whereunto our Lord in His mercy has brought me—wretch that I am!—and who, thinking they have missed their way, desire to treat of these matters with me, I am sure that our Lord will help His servant to declare the truth ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... lonely wretch! One day, when he was thirteen years of age, there occurred a total eclipse of the sun, a phenomenon of which he had scarcely heard, and he had not the least idea what it could be. He was hoeing corn that day in a solitary place. When the darkness ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... something of himself, his thought, his sympathy, his vital power, to the men and women among whom he lived. Once, when a paralytic was brought to Jesus on a bed, he surprised everybody, and offended many, by giving the poor wretch the pardon of his sins, before he gave new life to his body. That was just because Jesus thought before he gave; because he desired to satisfy the deepest need; because in fact he gave something of himself in every gift. ...
— The Spirit of Christmas • Henry Van Dyke
... glistening, copper-coloured body, the mask of Little Bonsa on her head glared round with its fixed crystal eyes and fiendish smile as she turned her long neck from side to side. Seen thus she scarcely looked human, and Alan's heart was filled with pity for the poor bedizened wretch she named her husband, who had just been forced to announce the date of ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... with his arms clasped round a small wooden chest, which kept him afloat. "Moved by compassion," says the relator of the tale, "she stepped a little way into the sea, which was now calm, and seizing the half-drowned wretch by the hair of his head, drew both him and the chest to land, where with much trouble she unfolded his arms from the chest, which she set upon the head of her daughter who was with her. She herself carried Landolfo like a little child to the town, put ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... attached, to the strong ram Tie fast the rash offender. See! at first His horned companion, fearful, and amazed, Shall drag him trembling o'er the rugged ground; Then with his load fatigued, shall turn a-head, And with his curled hard front incessant peal 150 The panting wretch; till breathless and astunned, Stretched on the turf he lie. Then spare not thou The twining whip, but ply his bleeding sides Lash after lash, and with thy threatening voice, Harsh-echoing from the hills, inculcate loud His vile offence. Sooner shall trembling doves ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... was the first I had heard with exactness of the matter of old Hanne's having been a witch. And now that I knew it for certain I began to imagine all sorts of unholy things about the poor wretch, and grew greatly jealous of Helene being so often in the kitchen. Whereas before I had thought nothing at all about the matter, save that Hannchen was a dull, pleasant, muttering, shuffling-footed old woman, ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... viands of every tempting description were ranged with all that artistic skill so purely Parisian, making up a picture whose composition Snyders would not have despised. Over the door was a painting of a miserable wretch, with hands bound behind him, and his hair cut close in the well-known crop for the scaffold, and underneath was written, "Au Scelerat;" while on a larger board, in ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... wicked, treacherous villain told the police about Fred being up there. He wants to see Fred hang in order to save his own neck." The girl's voice rose to a shriek, and she sprang to her feet with blazing eyes. "Kincher," she cried, "you've got to help me put the rope round this wretch's ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... 23d October, reduced to a living skeleton, he reached Ujiji. What was his misery, instead of finding the abundance of goods he had expected, to learn that the wretch Shereef, to whom they had been consigned, had sold off the whole, not leaving one yard of calico out of 3000, or one string of beads out of 700 pounds! The scoundrel had divined on the Koran, found that ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... above keeping bees and take me higher than honey-combs. Yet look at hard truth. The clods round me get enough by their sweat to keep wives and feed children. I'm only a penniless, backboneless, hand-to-mouth wretch, living on the ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... good." And yet his story is so written that it is almost impossible not to entertain something of a friendly feeling for him. He tells his own adventures as a card-sharper, bully, and liar; as a heartless wretch, who had neither love nor gratitude in his composition; who had no sense even of loyalty; who regarded gambling as the highest occupation to which a man could devote himself, and fraud as always justified by success; ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... woebegone, as hardly to be recognisable, even to the eye of friendship. Of all his diverse-raging hairs not one to assert itself, but all plastered close with an oily sleekness by a slimy clinging mud, the thin ribs showing plainly, and the hinder part of the poor wretch's barrel a mere hand-grasp. His very tail, which had used to look like an irregular much-worn bottle-brush, was thin and sleek like a rat's, and he tucked it away as if he were ashamed of it. His feet were clotted with red earth, and he walked as if his head were a burden to him, he hung ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... to reach Portsmouth by the 10th of October. Ferdinand has sent me a diamond star. Wise behaved most nobly, and took up a line-of-battle ship's station; but all behaved nobly. I never saw such enthusiasm in all my service. Not a wretch shrunk any where; and I assure you it was a very arduous task, but I had formed a very correct judgment of all I saw, and was confident, if supported, I should succeed. I could not wait for an offshore wind to attack; the season was too far advanced, and the land-winds become light and calmy. ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... Come, little wretch—ah, silly heart! Mine only joy, what can I more? If there be any wrong thy smart, That may the destinies implore: 'Twas I, I say, against my will, I wail the time, but ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... tongue; "for why," said he, "are we to be the dross of the nations?" However, the rulers of the Church grew more and more alarmed at the circulation of the book. At length Archbishop Arundel, a zealous but not very learned prelate, complained to the Pope of "that pestilent wretch, John Wycliffe, the son of the old Serpent, the forerunner of Antichrist, who had completed his iniquity by inventing a new translation of the Scriptures"; and, shortly after, the Convocation of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... was caressing him, waking up to the dreadful truth of the corpse on the path in the rain. I got it into my head—for I was half- crazy—that only by some expiation I should be restored to health and peace; but how to make any expiation I could not tell. Unhappy is the wretch who longs to atone for a sin and no atonement is prescribed ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... in the effort to relieve the imaginary sufferer; but to this day the proofs of PERKIN WARBECK's absolute claim to the throne, and of JACK CADE's indubitable royal descent remain in the scheming brain of GORTON. Eventually the poor wretch did die in penury, but over that part of his story I need not linger. The irony of fate ordained that when he was actually in want he should wish to be thought in possession of a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 16, 1892 • Various
... the jury or the coroner, there will always appear a dozen places where the unfortunate might have cut his way out of the strangling coils, but he who surveys such situations from the outside has a clearer vision than the blinded and desperate wretch in the trap. He who enlists with the brigands of "frenzied finance" and takes the oath of addition, division, and silence cannot discharge himself because his comrades are needlessly harsh to their victims. ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... Hunchback that mouthful of fish which ended his term of days he died on the instant. Seeing this the Tailor cried aloud, "There is no Majesty and there is no Might save in Allah! Alas, that this poor wretch should have died in so foolish fashion at our hands!" and the woman rejoined, "Why this idle talk? Hast thou not ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... is not! I do not doubt His goodness—His compassion even for the wretched creatures whom He formed out of dust. But I—thoughtless in my youth; self-confident in prosperity; ungrateful and rebellious under affliction; how can such a wretch as I have been, believe in the love of God to me! God is good and just, but do not talk to me of His Love to man, as if it were possible He could feel for them the tenderness of kind affection! ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty
... might reason thus: "How will it serve the other cause to send one poor wretch to the scaffold, where there are so many just ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... "Ah! miserable wretch that I am! Have I not suffered enough to expiate the sins of my youth? Ah! wretched woman, why did you leave the gay life of a frivolous Frenchwoman? why did you devour the goods of God with churchmen, the substance of the poor with extortioners and fleecers of the poor? Oh! I have sinned indeed!—Oh ...
— Christ in Flanders • Honore de Balzac
... O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch! Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice? 135 Is't not a kind of incest, to take life From thine own sister's shame? What should I think? Heaven shield my mother play'd my father fair! For such a warped slip of wilderness Ne'er issued from his blood. ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... however, is anything but saintly; it is a most vicious wretch that may well be called the tiger of the insect world. The devotional attitude is the position in which it can best seize its insect prey; for when an unsuspecting insect lights on what seems to be a green twig, snap!—those blade-like forelegs ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... Judges to beg him off. Leach told her it was no use, that nothing could save that man; and accordingly the old Government were obdurate, when out they went. Off she went again and attacked all the new ones, who in better humour, or of softer natures, suffered themselves to be persuaded, and the wretch was saved. She went herself to Newgate to see him, but I never heard if she had a private interview, and if he was afforded an opportunity of expressing his gratitude with all the fervour that the service she had done ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... replied the marquis; "for this insolent wretch has been acting for the last three months not only with my sanction but even by ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... while he has subdued all away into virginal severity in Eve. And then note, and with conclusive admiration, how in the exact and only place where the poor modern fool's anatomical knowledge should have been shown, the wretch loses his hold of it! How he has entirely missed and effaced the grand Greek pectoral muscles of Giovanni's Adam, but has studiously added what mean fleshliness he could to the Eve; and marked with black spots the nipple and navel, where Giovanni ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... who was stealing upon him was near the steed, which, without any preliminary warning, let out both his heels, knocking the unsuspecting wretch fully a dozen feet and stretching him, badly wounded, ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... Good had it been had her spear reached thine heart, The heart that sighs for woman-creatures still! Thou carest not, unmanly-souled, not thou, For valour's glorious path, when once thine eye Lights on a woman! Sorry wretch, where now Is all thy goodly prowess? where thy wit? And where the might that should beseem a king All-stainless? Dost not know what misery This self-same woman-madness wrought for Troy? Nothing ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... give up all this? Why should prejudice and bigotry spoil my whole life?" she thought, beginning to pace up and down the room with quick, agitated steps. "Why should we suffer because that wretch has gone bankrupt? It is unfair, unjust, it ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... de Nivernois to extradite him, and Louis XV. granted the request to make England assent to some articles of the peace. It was an act unworthy of a king, for it violates the right of nations. It is true that the man is a wretch, but that has nothing to do with the principle of ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... a completely new principle. It consisted of a cleaver hung in a frame like a window; when any poor wretch got in, down it came with a tremendous din, and took off his head in a twinkling. They got the squire into one of these machines. In order to prevent any of his partisans from getting footing in the parish, they placed traps at every corner. It was impossible to walk through the highway at broad ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Dreadful as it was to face her prying eyes, it was still more dreadful not to know what had happened. He went down-stairs again. On the final flight the unhappy wretch started to whistle, hoping by that to attract her to her door that he might not have to ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... when I was about your age I tamed an old brown weasel. He was a wretch of a creature with scarcely a virtue—cruel, deceitful, cold-blooded; and yet I grew to love that brute as much as if he had had the gentleness of a dove. ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... "The wretch—the cutthroat!" cried the old man, shaking his clinched hand in the air. "Why didn't he kill me? He has robbed ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... you why," the other said. "Because he's cheap, and we get things from a fourth to a third less than we can get them anywhere else. The quality is first rate, and he's absolutely honest. And, besides, he's a genius. The wretch has touch. The things have a style, a look, a hang! Really it's something wonderful. Sure it iss," she ended in the tailor's accent, and then they both laughed and ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... truth was clear—I quickly sent him back his lovely cartes, His bangle, and his poetry of Cupid and his darts. I said to him how grieved I was his love had thus miscarried— And then I found out everything; alas! the wretch ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., January 3, 1891. • Various
... consequences. In a few weeks he had been raised from penury and obscurity to opulence, to power which made him the dread of princes and nobles, and to notoriety such as has for low and bad minds all the attractions of glory. He was not long without coadjutors and rivals. A wretch named Carstairs, who had earned a livelihood in Scotland by going disguised to conventicles and then informing against the preachers, led the way. Bedloe, a noted swindler, followed; and soon from all the brothels, gambling houses, and spunging ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... a terrible rage to find the wretch who had eaten up the eggs, and very soon he spied Lox snoring on ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... went she not to bed? "Because 'twas night." Did she then dance, or play? "Nor this, nor that." Well, night soon steals away in pleasing chat. "No, all alone, her prayers she rather chose, Than be that wretch to sleep till morning rose." Then lady Cynthia, mistress of the shade, Goes, with the fashionable owls, to bed: This her pride covets, this her health denies; Her soul is silly, but her body's wise. Others, with curious ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... brought to places of worship?—was the Word of God explained to him?—was the Book of Knowledge opened to him?—Or am I, the fountain of mercy, the nursing-mother of my people, to send a forsaken wretch from the streets to the scaffold, and to punish by unprincipled cruelty ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... felt. Can he or she be cheerful who is forced to sin against God and himself? There is little to be cheerful with, where the nature is not its own. Why should I be the despised wretch at your Uncle's feet: did God, the great God, make me a slave to ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... the sky had shaken and let stars Rain down like diamonds. Then there were clouds, And a sad end of diamonds; whereupon Despair came, like a blast that would have brought Tears to the eyes of all the bears in Finland, And love was done. That was how much I knew. Poor little wretch! I wonder where he is This afternoon. Out of this rain, ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... whose most interesting paper on the wild dog appeared in the South of India Observer, of January 7th, 1869, alludes to "Evangeline" in the following terms:—"I saw the beast at the People's Park, and a more untameable wretch I never met with; and why so fair a name for such a savage de'il, I know not." It is strange that the most dog-like of the wild canines should refuse domestication when even the savage European wolf has become so attached as to pine during the absence of his master. Jesse, in his ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... mechanically and require no whip, and the riders change about so as to relieve each other. When travelling, the whip trails behind, and can be brought with a tremendous crack that makes the hair fly from the wretch that is struck; and Esquimaux are splendid shots, so to speak. They can hit any part of a dog with certainty, but usually rest satisfied with simply cracking the whip—a sound that produces an answering yell of terror, whether the ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... Cassano, Benincasa was brought to Cosenza, and General Manhes ordered that both his hands be lopped off and that he be led, thus mutilated, to his home in San Giovanni, and there hanged; a cruel sentence, which the wretch received with a bitter smile. His right hand was first cut off and the stump bound, not out of compassion or regard for his life, but in order that all his blood might not flow out of the opened veins, seeing that he was reserved ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... "You horrid, handsome wretch!" she murmured vexedly, stimulated to renewed activity by her resentment; then she followed along ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... leafy cover that was meant to shield modesty, threw jeers and mockery in return. But the Gentile boys ran away soon, or ran away punished. A chemise and a petticoat turn a frightened woman into an Amazon in such circumstances; and woe to the impudent wretch who lingered after the avengers plunged into the thicket. Slaps and cuffs at close range were his portion, and ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... his hands, and said: "Ah, the dwarf—the dwarf! Fool that I was; I might have known it. His race always hated mine. Ah, wretch! that I had punished thee as ...
— The Last of the Huggermuggers • Christopher Pierce Cranch
... from Schlemmer [the copyist] what is still wanting in the "Kyrie;" show him the postscript, and so, satis, no more of such a wretch! Farewell! arrange everything; I am to bind up my eyes at night, and to spare them as much as possible; otherwise, says Smetana, I shall write little more music in ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... measure of prison beer, and began. What he said it would be impossible to print; but his admirers, who believed their wit to have surpassed himself, actually rolled among the gravel. For my part, I thought at first I should have died. I had not dreamed the wretch was so observant; but hate sharpens the ears, and he had counted our interviews and actually knew Flora by her name. Gradually my coolness returned to me, accompanied by a volume of living anger ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lie, Or wedg'd whole ages in a bodkin's eye: Gums and Pomatums shall his flight restrain, While clogg'd he beats his silken wings in vain; 130 Or Alum styptics with contracting pow'r Shrink his thin essence like a rivel'd flow'r: Or, as Ixion fix'd, the wretch shall feel The giddy motion of the whirling Mill, In fumes of burning Chocolate shall glow, 135 And tremble at the ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... soberly, and chose from among the guests four women of the saddest and most grievous, and no man of their kindred spake for going along with them; then she went her ways home, leading one of them by the hand, and strange was it to see those twain going through sun and shade together, that poor wretch along ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... the Indians out of the group and dragged him forward to the edge of the cliff. The king raised his hand as a signal. They caught the man by his leg and arm, and swung him three times backwards and forwards with tremendous violence. Then, with a frightful heave they shot the poor wretch over the precipice. With such force did they throw him that he curved high in the air before beginning to drop. As he vanished from sight, the whole assembly, except the guards, rushed forward to the edge of the precipice, ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the most holy Cross, and you will see the wolves become lambs. Peace, peace, peace, that war may not delay this happy time! But if you will wreak vengeance and justice, take them upon me, poor wretch, and give me any pain and torment that may please you, even to death. I believe that through the stench of my iniquities many evils have happened, and many misfortunes and discords. On me, then, your poor daughter, take any vengeance that you will. Ah me, father, I die of grief and cannot die! ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... heartily at the cowering wretch as he wiped his face, and they loudly applauded the act of the Ithacan chief. "Surely," said they, "Ulysses has performed many good deeds, but now he has done the best thing of all in punishing this foul-mouthed ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... him again to view it. Was he mad? This time the barrel in its slow revolution brought to view the wide flat face, the bulging brow and heavy lids, the tangled, disordered hair of the drowned O'Iwa. Scream after scream of the now frantic wretch rang in the air. These waters! Seek death there! No! No! A thousand times—No! He turned to flee the place, but his legs refused the service. With fell purpose he ripped the blade from its scabbard, tore open his clothes to give the deadly thrust. As he raised the ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... from since, till I set eyes on him just now. And the young lady, that was such a pretty dear, caught his illness, lost her beautiful looks, and wouldn't hardly be known for the same young lady now. Do you know it? You ungrateful wretch, do you know that this is all along of her goodness to ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... they were losing too heavily from our fire, they retreated in a hurry, leaving their dead behind them, and even a wounded man who was clinging to a rock. He, poor wretch, was in mortal terror lest we should shoot him again, which I had not the heart to do, although as his leg was shattered above the knee by an Express bullet, it might have been true kindness. Again ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... am I, wretch that I am, shut up to spin all that heap in a day and a night, when I have never even seen a spinning-wheel in ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... "You dreadful wretch!" exclaimed the lady. "Mother, let me make you acquainted with Mr. Burton, Helen Lawrence's brother. How is your sister, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... had caused to be inflicted upon the members of the Montijo family, and how to him was due the death of the Senorita, his sister, whom they had all loved so well: and when he had finished his story he flogged Alvaros until the miserable wretch screamed and howled for mercy, offering the most abject excuses and apologies for his conduct, and vowing by all the saints that if Carlos would but release him he would leave Cuba, never to return; that he would surrender ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... that even the Pope and papal church were not so papal as he. The man who came to him with the Pope's endorsement appeared to him like a god, while he would gladly have overwhelmed in ruin the sacrilegious wretch that dared to say a word against the Roman ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... had the wretch the words let fall, Than fain their sense he would recall In vain; those whitening lips—behold! The secret have already told. Into their Judgment Court sublime The Scene is changed;—their doom is ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... You shall have a full year in which to prove that your management of your department is good, or a failure. If you succeed, you're made for life. If you fail you can expect nothing at all in the way of leniency from old Tom Sayers, because he's as hard hearted an old wretch as ever began at the very bottom and worked himself to wherever he now is by hard ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... ready for exertion and who occupies a position of equality. Death at the hands of one that is equal or of a superior is laudable, but not that at the hands of one that is low, or of one that is a coward, or of one that is a wretch. This is well-known. Death at the hands of one that is sinful, or of one that is of low birth and wicked conduct, O king, is inglorious and leads to hell. One whose period of life has run out cannot be rescued by anybody. Similarly, one whose period of life has not ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... immediate orders that Hoegni's heart should be brought; but his servants, fearing to lay hands on such a grim warrior, slew the cowardly scullion Hialli. The trembling heart of this poor wretch called forth contemptuous words from Gunnar, who declared that such a timorous organ could never have belonged to his fearless brother. Atli again issued angry commands, and this time the unquivering heart of Hoegni was produced, whereupon Gunnar, turning to the monarch, solemnly swore that since ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... flock? Thou art not wont thus to lag behind. Thou hast always been the first to run to the pastures and streams in the morning and the first to come back to the fold when evening fell; and now thou art last of all. Perhaps thou art troubled about thy master's eye, which some wretch—No Man, they call him—has destroyed, having first mastered me with wine. He has not escaped, I ween. I would that thou couldst speak and tell me where he is lurking. Of a truth I would dash out his brains upon the ground and avenge ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... to day, That man shall never share my home, Or join my voyage: roofs give way And boats are wreck'd: true men and thieves Neglected Justice oft confounds: Though Vengeance halt, she seldom leaves The wretch whose flying steps ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... perhaps you'd say, Than break his heart for yesterday, Uneasy in the dreams that stray Where lost trails stretch— Well, he's my pity either way, Poor little wretch! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 13, 1914 • Various
... the wretch should be captured, should be haled to gaol. Even her half of the Louis Quinze timepiece recurred to poor Madame ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... deeds. Janey, I could not believe it, I have to believe, it is forced down my throat;—that man, your husband, because he could not forgive my choosing Chillon, schemed for Chillon's ruin. I could not believe it until I saw in the glass this disfigured wretch he has made of me. Livia serves him, she hates him for the tyrant he is; she has opened my eyes. And not for himself, no, for his revenge on me, for my name to be as my face is. He tossed me to his dogs; fair game for them! You do well, Janey; he is capable of any villany. And has been calling at ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... some invisible agency seemed to crush, body and mind, the lost wretch whom he addressed. The shock of such an answer as he now heard seemed to strike him idiotic, as a flash of lightning strikes with blindness. He regarded the king with a bewildered stare, waving his hand tremulously backwards and ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... should be an ungrateful wretch if I could not oblige you in so small a request. I promise not to disturb you, Zara; and do not think for one moment that I shall be dull. I have books, a piano, flowers—what more do I want? And if I like I can go out; then I have letters to write, and all sorts of things to occupy me. ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... import—it was Vice. Then with some inspiration not his own, Thinking, perchance, to touch that guilty heart, And wake it to repentance e'er too late, The artist told the tale of that bright morn, Placed the two pictured faces side by side, And brought the wretch before them. With a shriek That echoed through those vaulted corridors, Like to the cries that issue from the lips Of souls forever doomed to woe, Prostrate upon the stony floor he fell, And hid his face and groaned aloud in anguish. "I was that child once—I, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... in her; and lo, said he, I shall ally myself to, perhaps, a numerous family of vagabonds; at least, whether it be so or not, the manner in which these children were exposed, being publicly known, may furnish a pretence for any wretch ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... National Hotel, as they explain how narrow was the escape of the women in the parlor. But here was a man murdered at night, in a lonely place, and by a stranger—a man unknown to the saloons of Smith's Pocket—a wretch who could not plead the excitement of monte or the delirium of whiskey as an excuse. No wonder that Smith's Pocket surged with virtuous indignation beneath the windows of his prison, and clamored ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... Unhappy is the wretch, whose condition it is to be perpetually bound to the oar, and who is condemned to labour in one certain mode, during all the hours that are not claimed by sleep, or as long as the muscles of his frame, or the fibres of his fingers will enable him to ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... which we should all feel, if our sovereign were so treated. What man with a spark of loyalty in his breast, what man regardful of the honor of his country, when he saw his sovereign imprisoned, and so notorious a wretch appointed his deputy, could be a patient witness of such wrongs? The subjects of this unfortunate prince did what we should have done,—what all who love their country, who love their liberty, who love ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... dully. Somehow he remembered with a shudder hearing a newspaper acquaintance describe an execution. The poor wretch who was the law's victim went to the chair echoing in a colorless monotony words prompted into his ear by the priest at his side. Then he heard ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... in. Two horsemen rode abreast; between them, half dragged, the poor wretch made his way through the dust. His hands were tied behind him, and ropes around his body were fastened to the saddle horns of his double guard. The men who at midnight had been stern and silent ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... my head, and I recollected the words which that traitor had spoken with his feigned simplicity. So I mounted my horse, and with two servants to attend me, returned to the castle, where I all but caught Pagolo and that little wretch Caterina 'in flagrante.' No sooner had I reached the place, than that French bawd, her mother, screamed out: "Pagolo! Caterina! here is the master!" When I saw the pair advancing, overcome with fright, their clothes in disorder, not knowing what they said, nor, like people in a trance, where they ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... are simply outrageous!" "Wretch!" "Shocking!" and a volley of like exclamations greeted this outburst. Mrs. Stannard rose from her chair and shook ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... But she was not going to cry; certainly not! She was far too angry for tears; angry with herself no less than Macgregor. He had actually departed without being dismissed; worse still, he had had the last word! An observer—the thought struck her—would have assumed that she, weak wretch, had humbly allowed him to go and leave her in the wrong! Her maiden pride had somehow failed her, for she ought to have sent him forth crushed. And yet, surely, she had hurt, punished, humiliated him. Oh, no doubt ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell |
