"Wretchedly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Once and again a man at the office would ask me to dine with him (regarding me as a bachelor, of course), and always I felt bound to plead a prior engagement. One night, when Fanny had gone early to bed, feeling wretchedly ill, and sullenly angry because I would have no liquor of any sort on the premises, not even the lager beer which it had been my own habit for some time past to drink with meals, Heron sat with me in our living-room, ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... the stage, to faire four is to play to a wretchedly thin house, or to obtain not the slightest applause. It is taking great pains for nothing, in short ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... said Syd, coolly, "and a wretchedly unpleasant voice it is. Go and bray somewhere else, donkey. Let's see, it was the ass that tried to kick ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... lad was Aladdin! His mother was wretchedly poor; A widow, who scarce ever had in Her cupboard enough of a store To frighten the ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... wife, "we live very wretchedly here in this nasty stinking ditch. Do go back, and tell the fish ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... her that night at the restaurant, he remembered—wondered and forgotten. He had been unhappy that night, with the peculiar unhappiness of a naturally decisive man wretchedly in two minds, and she had given him a ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... faltered, looking away; for the sight of his grief had conquered. "It's hard to believe—wretchedly hard—that you and I should have been born to hate and destroy each other;—and that you, with the hand I've so patiently taught to write, killed—him!" He groaned. "But, Dale," she stepped closer, "I've just been facing facts, and believe that our strong wills can adjust it all;—that through ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... of sinful pleasure which he had so many years been running with desperate eagerness and unworthy delight, now filled him with indignation against himself, and against the great deceiver, by whom (to use his own phrase) he had been "so wretchedly and scandalously befooled." This he used often to express in the strongest terms, which I shall not repeat so particularly, as I cannot recollect some of them. But on the whole it is certain that, by what passed before he left his chamber the next day, the whole frame and disposition ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... him. My head ached frantically, I was wretchedly in want of sleep. I jumped to my feet, standing in front ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... be easy for you," replied the Mastiff, "to get as fat as I am if you liked. Quit this forest, where you and your fellows live so wretchedly, and often die with hunger. Follow me, and you ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... have a person managing his estates, in the best possible condition to serve him. His property, in fact, is not represented in the grand jury panel of the county. This is a great loss to him—a serious loss. In the first place, it is wretchedly, shamefully deficient in roads—both public and private. In the next place, there are many rents left unpaid, through the inability of the people, which we could get paid by the making of these roads, and other county arrangements, which ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... four pieces to stop that poor little Pawn when one would have done, utterly ignoring the policy of economy of force, his game consequently got disarranged and he lost, after about an hour's fighting, No. 1. He proposed another, played wretchedly, and lost No. 2; worse and worse he played always wanting to increase his stake, but I remained true to the classics and would not deviate from the time-honoured stake. As it was I had to draw seven dollars which my opponent parted with most pleasantly, asked me ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... from that wretched stream which had been the cause of all my misfortunes. Then I felt about for a comfortable seat among the rocks, and, having discovered a place where I could get a support for my back, I stretched out my legs and settled myself down to wait. I was wretchedly damp and cold, but I tried to cheer myself with the reflection that modern science prescribed open windows and walks in all weather for my disease. Gradually, lulled by the monotonous gurgle of the stream, and by the absolute darkness, I sank ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the Egyptian regiments taken at Beyrout defiled before the commander-in-chief. The Turkish bands in garrison moved at their head. The prisoners marched in file; and, having but just landed from their prison-ships, looked wretchedly. Having a red woollen bonnet, white jackets, and large white trowsers, they looked like an assemblage of "cricketers." The men were universally young, slight made, and active, with sallow cheeks, many nearly yellow, orange, and even black; still, if well ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... and the more so as the weather was very bad at the time. This annoyance continued until the 25th of December, and it was with much satisfaction that he saw himself quit of it. After leaving the Council he used to enter his cabinet singing, and God knows how wretchedly he sung! He examined whatever work he had ordered to be done, signed documents, stretched himself in his arm-chair, and read the letters of the preceding day and the publications of the morning. When there was no Council he remained in his cabinet, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... quill pen to his liking, he would write a few lines carefully, kill a number of flies, take a peep at Alban from beneath his shaggy brows and then resume the cycle of his labors. Alban pitied him cynically. This labor of docketing scarred backs seemed wretchedly monotonous. He was really glad when the fellow spoke to him, in as amazing a combination of tongues as man had ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... ran to overtake them. Then the children tried to run away, but the smaller ones could not keep up; they stumbled and fell. Then all of them stood still—wretchedly unhappy, and crying as if their ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... sigh so effectively as Lady Amelie Lisle; thus it was with difficulty she refrained from smiling. Basil looked so wretchedly anxious and uncomfortable, she saw that he was longing to say something, ...
— The Coquette's Victim • Charlotte M. Braeme
... as poor as the rats in your granary; and it is not to be supposed that Mr Grey will long go on paying their rent for them, just for the frolic of sustaining Mr Hope against Mr Walcot. It is paying too dear for the fancy. The Hopes are wretchedly pinched for money. They have dropped their subscription to ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... before entering Poggio, the carriage-road to the Madonna strikes off to the right by the east side of the promontory, while a stony bridle-path goes right over the centre. The town seen on the opposite side of the valley is Bussana. Poggio, one of the many wretchedly poor villages, has two churches. The road, which has ascended all the way from San Remo to Poggio, still continues to ascend by the Ceriana valley to Ceriana. Inn: H.Etoile d'Italie, 6m. from San Remo, commanding ever-extending views, which, together with the profusion of wild ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... middle ages. The full legend of the wickedness of the half-breed is best to be learnt from a drunken mean white from Virginia or the Cape. The half-breed, one hears, combines all the vices of either parent, he is wretchedly poor in health and spirit, but vindictive, powerful, and dangerous to an extreme degree, his morals—the mean white has high and exacting standards—are indescribable even in whispers in a saloon, and so on, and so on. There is really not an atom ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... Arbuthnot-Joyce plays golf so badly that he prefers a solitary round with only the caddy present. He had a new boy one day recently, and played as wretchedly as usual. ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... Conference, Count Munster, in his frequent diatribes against its whole purpose, and especially against arbitration, was wont to insist that the whole thing was a scheme prepared by Pobedonostzeff to embarrass Germany; that, as Russia was always wretchedly unready with her army, The Hague Conference was simply a trick for gaining time against her rivals who kept up better military preparations. There may have been truth in part of this assertion; but the motive of the great Russian statesman in favoring the conference was probably ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... is an island situated in the corner of the Mediterranean Sea, and formerly celebrated—one knight met in a wood another knight, who had the appearance of a Frenchman. Presumably, this Frenchman was by some chance stripped of everything, and was so wretchedly attired that but for his princely air he might have been taken for a blackguard. It was possible that his horse had died of hunger or fatigue, on disembarking from the foreign shore for which he came, on the faith of the good luck which happened to the ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... calamity Heaven preserve them,) they will find reasons for it thick as the leaves of Vallumbrozer, or, to use a still more expressive comparison, as the combined heads of author and editor. The work is wretchedly got up.... We should like to know how much British gold was pocketed by this libeller of our ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... be properly aired then, or something. I have never seen you looking so wretchedly. I do wish you would be frank with me. Something must have worried you. People don't look ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... soldier, badly frozen, hastened to tell her his misery; the mattress was instantly given to him. A comrade hearing of his good fortune, presented himself for relief; the palliasse became his property, the comforters being bestowed on a third, who was as wretchedly lodged as the others. There was as yet no applicant for the pillow, which was a useless article of furniture to her, as she slept on the bare ground, or a plank, resting her head upon straw, notwithstanding the inclemency of Canadian winters. Yet she felt amply rewarded for her privations, by ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... name of friendship. "O youth! enchanting stage, profusely blest." Life is a fairy scene: almost all that deserves the name of enjoyment or pleasure is only a charming delusion; and in comes repining age in all the gravity of hoary wisdom, and wretchedly chases away the bewitching phantom. When I think of life, I resolve to keep a strict look-out in the course of economy, for the sake of worldly convenience and independence of mind; to cultivate intimacy with a few of the companions ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... prostrated him with palpitations for the rest of the evening. The wind howled dismally all night, and strange cracking and groaning noises sounded here, there, and everywhere in the empty house. I slept as wretchedly as possible, and got up in a mighty bad humour to breakfast by myself the ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... day with rain and snow, so that while the streets, which are wretchedly paved with big blocks of stone, were bad for wheeled traffic, there was ...
— Through Siberia and Manchuria By Rail • Oliver George Ready
... rifle might have been fired at no specific target. Gasping, beaten, more than half-drowned, Shann was pummeled by waves, literally driven up on a rocky surface which skinned his body cruelly. He lay there, his arms moving feebly until he contrived to raise himself in time to be wretchedly sick. Somehow he crawled on a few feet farther before he subsided again, blinded by the light, flinching from the heat of the rocks on which he lay, but unable to do more ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... be natural, and was failing wretchedly. His voice was actually sad, and she had never heard it sad in all their intercourse before. She had never thought it could be sad, and the sound was something like a revelation of the man. It made her afraid of herself—afraid ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Barbot (iv. 9) tells us "the Gaboon blacks are barbarous, wild, bloody, and treacherous, very thievish and crafty, especially towards strangers. The women, on the contrary, are as civil and courteous to them, and will use all possible means to enjoy their company; but both sexes are the most wretchedly poor and miserable of any in Guinea, and yet so very haughty, that they are perfectly ridiculous ... They are all excessively fond of brandy and other strong liquors of Europe and America ... If they fancy one has got a mouthful more than another, and they are half drunk, they will soon fall ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... remember you!" she exclaimed. "And to think that when I had your card I couldn't imagine where I had heard the name before! You are my dear estate agent's clerk, who wouldn't take my money, and who was so wretchedly rude ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... occasionally fling a mist over the glorious vision before me, for with all your single-hearted sincerity you have your faults, but I am not like you. If you knew my thoughts; the dreams that absorb me, and the fiery imagination that at times eats me up, and makes me feel society, as it is, wretchedly insipid, you would pity me, and I dare say despise me." Miss Nussey writes again, and Charlotte trembles "all over with excitement" after reading her note. "I will no longer shrink from your question," ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... a suppliant from a very distant realm; yet in my sadness I am colder than your stones, more alone than in a desolate place. She that dwells within you holds my love. I long for her shadow or the sound of her step. I am more wretchedly in love than ever—I, an impotent, invisible spirit. Must I bear this sorrow in addition to my others, in my fruitless search for rest? My life will be a waking nightmare, most bitter irony ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... The boy whom she fancied she held in such subjection, such profound respect. Landry Court had dared, had dared to kiss her, to offer her this wretchedly commonplace and petty affront, degrading her to the level of a pretty waitress, making ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... that my article on Byron is very popular; one among a thousand proofs of the bad taste of the public. I am to review Croker's edition of Bozzy. It is wretchedly ill done. The notes are poorly written, and shamefully inaccurate. There is, however, much curious information in it. The whole of the Tour to the Hebrides is incorporated with the Life. So are most of Mrs. Thrale's anecdotes, and much of Sir John Hawkins's lumbering book. The whole makes ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... accustomed to such late hours. Wilford says I will get accustomed to them, that in New York they are seldom in bed before eleven or twelve, but I never shall. It will kill me, I am sure, and yet I rather enjoy the sitting up if I did not feel so wretchedly next day. The party was very pleasant indeed, and everybody was so kind to me, especially Mr. Ray, who stood by me all the time, and who somehow seemed to help me, so that I knew just what to do, and was not awkward at all. I hope not, at least for ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... How was this guard to explain his position with absolutely no sign of a struggle to bear him out? It was hardly plausible that a big, strong fellow could be so easily overpowered single-handed; there was something wretchedly incongruous about the—but there came a startling and effective end to ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... imprecation of the strongest kind, and the greater part of the imprecation was literally fulfilled in the sad ends of Hadley and Ashmore. The latter fled from his country, but he lived a miserable life, and died as wretchedly as he had lived. Hadley still remained in the country, and was known for many years to the people of Rocky River. He was very intemperate, and in his fits of intoxication was very harsh to his family in driving them from his house in the dead hours of the night. His neighbors, in order to chastise ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... hole of a house, in an alley they call a court; stairs wretchedly narrow, even to the first-floor rooms: and into a den they led me, with broken walls, which had been papered, as I saw by a multitude of tacks, and some torn bits held on by the ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... Saturday; there were Robinson, Sackville, and R[ichar]d Fitzpatrick,(34) who a la suite d'une heure, has been attacked with the rheumatism, and looks wretchedly, and quite decrepid. I went afterwards and sat an hour with poor Lady Bol[ingbroke]; she was very easy and cheerful, et avec une insensibilite qui m'en donneroit pour elle; but that cannot be. She told me she had a favour to ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... equal to the task, the public should be acquainted with their merit; but I am disgusted with paying great sums for wretched performances. I am ashamed of the prints in my books, which were extravagantly paid for, and are wretchedly executed. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... not strong enough to resist it. Before the next spring came, the people of Upton spoke of her as confirmed in her miserable failing. There was no one but herself who could now break off this fatal habit; and her will had grown wretchedly feeble. The sin domineered over her, and she felt herself a helpless slave to it. There had been no want of firmness or tenderness on the part of her husband; but it had taken too strong a hold upon her before he came to her ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... be right. Only, mamma Rachael, tell me one thing. Are you sure that—that he isn't thinking me a child, and likes me only for that? This very night he called me 'my child,' and said he was going. That made me wretchedly angry, so I came ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... time I could see Olivia before my marriage. Afterward I should see much of her; for Julia would invite her to our house, and be a friend to her. I spent a wretchedly sleepless night; and whenever I dozed by fits and starts, I saw Olivia before me, weeping bitterly, ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... as I saluted: but his voice was listless and I thought him looking wretchedly ill. "You're in Number 4 Company, are you not? I heard that ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Shakespeare's equal)—would not have ventured to predict. The "Village Minstrel" was so named after the principal poem, which contains one hundred and nineteen Spenserian stanzas, and is to a considerable extent autobiographical. It was composed in 1819, at which time Clare was wretchedly poor, and this will no doubt account for the repining tone of a few of the verses. It abounds, however, in poetical beauties, of which the following stanzas may be ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... nothing to hope for. More foolish then the childe, in bewailing the time he cannot recall, and not remembring the euill hee had therein: and more wretched then the yongman, in that after a wretched life not able, but wretchedly to die, he sees on all sides but matter of dispaire. As for him, who from his youth hath vndertaken to combate against the flesh, and against the world: who hath taken so great paines to mortifie himselfe and leaue the worlde before his time: who besides those ordinarie euilles ...
— A Discourse of Life and Death, by Mornay; and Antonius by Garnier • Philippe de Mornay
... of weariness and disenchantment. There is nothing so depressing as a bare room lit up by flaring gas-jets against the gloom of a late afternoon of rain; and the lights in Scipione's little cellar restaurant flared away in the most outrageous manner. Harding, across the table from me, wretchedly fluttered the pages of a popular magazine and looked ill-natured and horribly unkempt. The new table-cloths had not yet been laid for dinner. The sawdust on the floor was mostly mire. Angelina, the cook, was screaming ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... multitudes in awe; Before the bluster of whose huff, 1645 All hats, as in a storm, flew off; Ador'd and bowed to by the great, Down to the footman and valet; Had more bent knees than chapel-mats, And prayers than the crowns of hats; 1650 Shall now be scorn'd as wretchedly; For ruin's just as low as high; Which might be suffer'd, were it all The horror that attends our fall: For some of us have scores more large 1655 Than heads and quarters can discharge; And others, who, by restless scraping, With publick frauds, and private rapine, Have mighty heaps of wealth ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... You cannot think how rejoiced I am to receive the tidings of my husband's convalescence. I have been so tortured with anxiety during the last four weeks! You cannot think how wretchedly anxious I have been. I could not have endured to stay away from his bedside but that my duty imperatively required it. I have lost flesh, and my anxiety has worn upon me. Now, how gladly will I resume ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... to ring the bell when you require anything; otherwise you will ruin my servants.' Much ashamed of my ignorance on this higher plane of English custom," continues the Idealist, "I crept back to my parlour and laughed heartily as I looked round the dirty, wretchedly furnished room, and reflected on the abyss set by prejudice between the ground-floor ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... Yet it gave me, and I could weep to admit it, a monstrous joy to know that Theresa thought she was leaving Allan of her own free intention, when it was I who was contriving, arranging, insisting.... And yet she wretchedly felt my presence near her; I ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... during June, July and August. And the responses have been encouraging. I do not think that a single one of the missions which I have visited will fail to take care of itself during those months, unless it be San Bernardino. The times are wretchedly hard, but the missions seem to have gotten a good hold on the consciences and ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 48, No. 7, July, 1894 • Various
... realized, for the first time, that she had been horribly brazen—or, at least, she told herself that she had been—and as a consequence, she was wretchedly ill at ease. Her distress was in marked contrast with the man's self-possession, which amounted almost to indifference. There was no spark visible of the fire which had flashed earlier in the day. It was as though he had steeled himself ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... when I should effect my escape. I communicated this purpose, and recommended the old hag to poor Effie by a letter, in which I recollect that I endeavoured to support the character of Macheath under condemnation-a fine, gay, bold-faced ruffian, who is game to the last. Such, and so wretchedly poor, was my ambition! Yet I had resolved to forsake the courses I had been engaged in, should I be so fortunate as to escape the gibbet. My design was to marry your sister, and go over to the West Indies. I had still a considerable sum of money left, and I trusted ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... new Slovene colonies here from time to time and to render life intolerable for Italians. But, even so, the population is still sparse, and all the country is infertile, except for the Vippacco Valley, which, though wretchedly cultivated hitherto, would richly repay the application of capital and modern methods. Here, I think, is a clear case where strategic considerations, which are definite, must prevail over racial considerations, which are dubious. These lands must be ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... scandals of her court. The death of her husband, suspicious as it was, had left her sole mistress of an empire, and of the power of public opinion, in a country where a sneer might send the offender to Siberia. The wretchedly relaxed religion of the Greek church, where a trivial penance atones for every thing, and ceremonial takes the place of morals, as it inevitably does wherever a religion is encumbered with unnecessary ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... from the smallnesses of a local spirit, his Christian idealism which took no heed of the accidents or considerations of worldly prosperity. What! was Catholicism to become an African religion, a restricted sect, wretchedly tied to the letter of tradition, to the exterior practices of worship? To reign in a little corner of the world—did Christ die for that? Never! Christ died for the wide world. The only limits of ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... am forced to take, to write to MD; Patrick has brought me none clipped; but, faith, the next shall be smaller. I dined to-day, as I told you, with Dilly at Sir Andrew Fountaine's: there were we wretchedly punning, and writing together to Lord Pembroke. Dilly is just such a puppy as ever; and it is so uncouth, after so long an intermission. My twenty-fifth is gone this evening to the post. I think I will direct my next (which is this) to Mr. Curry's, and let them send it to Wexford; and then the ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... they were driven like a flock of birds into a narrow place outside and hung to a beam to die wretchedly. Melanthios also was brought down from the armory and cast among the ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... she flung herself into the nearest arm-chair, sobbing wretchedly, although on that night she had cause to cry out to Heaven and rejoice for God's mercy to her for so unexpectedly restoring her sight. But, ah, me! how strange it is that all the blessings Heaven can shower upon us seem as dross when the one love ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... A more miserably clad, wretchedly provided, and unprepossessing military host, probably never entered a civilized city. In all, except our order, deportment, and arms, we might have been mistaken for a procession of tatterdemalions, or a tribe of Nomades from Tartary. There ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... stock, but the Ladaki living on the uppermost stretch of the basin near Tibet are Buddhists and polyandrists, while the Baltis farther down the valley are Mussulmen and polygamists. The Baltis, with their plurality of wives and numerous children, are wretchedly poor and live in squalor on the verge of starvation; but as the elevation of their valley ranges only from 4000 to 8500 feet, they are inured to heat, and therefore emigrate in large numbers to the neighboring Mohammedan ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... men and cattle having been lost thus wretchedly, when at length he had emerged from the marshes, he pitched his camp as soon as he could on dry ground. And here he received information, through the scouts sent in advance, that the Roman army was round the walls of Arretium. ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... lifeboats, and expended money liberally in constructing and supporting them. Before the close of 1863, Greathead had built 31 boats, 18 for England, 5 for Scotland, and 8 for foreign countries. This was so far well; but it was a wretchedly inadequate provision for the necessities of the case. Interest had indeed been awakened in the public, but the public cannot act as a united body; and the Trinity House seemed to fall back into the sleep from which ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... unveil himself and dismiss the clouds from all the earth beneath. Yet we could not linger, unique though the occasion, dearly bought our privilege; the miserable limitations of the flesh gave us continual warning to depart; we grew colder and still more wretchedly cold. The thermometer stood at 7 deg. in the full sunshine, and the north wind was keener than ever. My fingers were so cold that I would not venture to withdraw them from the mittens to change the film in the camera, ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... canoes, received their fire without returning it, bore down upon them, killed eighteen of them, and captured three, only one escaping. In 1695, he was in command at Fort Frontenac. In 1697, he succeeded to the command of a company of infantry, but was suffering wretchedly from the gout at Fort Frontenac. In 1710, Vaudreuil, in a despatch to the minister, Ponchartrain, announced his death as occurring in the previous winter, and added the brief comment, "c'etait ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... a very great man, but you are a wretchedly poor liar. As Mr. Washington would say, your sincerity is one of the most valuable of your gifts, and without it you could not convince a child. As if this were not enough, only yesterday, on the boat, I overheard ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... too fast asleep to hear Mrs. Drabdump's knock—these things agitated me and disturbed my rest. I lay tossing on my bed, planning every detail of poor Constant's end. The hours dragged slowly and wretchedly on toward the misty dawn. I was racked with suspense. Was I to be disappointed after all? At last the welcome sound came—the rat-tat-tat of murder. The echoes of that knock are yet in my ear. 'Come over and kill ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... wretchedly thin field out again yesterday," said Mrs. Hoopington. "Why you didn't bring one or two hunting men down with you, instead of that stupid Russian boy, I ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... crew; when matters again returned to their usual lethargic state. It was no unfrequent event, however, for vessels to be lost. They were too often laden with a total disregard to seaworthiness, and wretchedly handled. It was favor, not capacity, that determined the patronage of these lucrative appointments. [39] Many galleons fell into the hands of English and Dutch cruisers. [40] ["Philippine Company" and smugglers cause change.] But ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... prince was appointed imperial swineherd, and as such he lived in a wretchedly small room near the pigsty; there he worked all day long, and when it was night he had made a pretty little pot. There were little bells round the rim, and when the water began to boil in it, the bells began to play the ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... dissipated his great property, and died suddenly in Newgate market. "The sins of the father," says the decalogue, "shall be visited on the children." John Peter, son-in-law of Alexander, a horrid blasphemer and persecutor, died wretchedly. When he affirmed any thing, he would say, "If it be not true, I pray I may rot ere I die." This awful state visited ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... of the entire war, was primarily due to the courage and stubborn endurance of Turkey's Anatolian soldiery, ignorant, stolid, hardy, fearless peasants, who were taken straight from their farms in Asia Minor, put into wretchedly made, ill-fitting uniforms, hastily trained by German drillmasters, set down in the trenches on the Gallipoli ridge and told to hold them. No one who is familiar with the conditions under which these Turkish soldiers fought, who knows how wretched were the conditions under which they lived, ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... lights, the pictures on the walls, the music of the orchestra, the sight of a few or many smiling faces—is so much to the good. So keen is the American play-goer's sense of humor that often when a play is wretchedly bad it comes to the rescue, and the applause is terrifically loud. This does not mean that the play has succeeded. It means rather that the play will die, a victim of the deadliest ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... stirred the city of Bombay to its centre at this time was indeed a memorable one. The connecting of India with England direct by a deep-sea cable was a matter of the greatest importance, because the land telegraph which existed at the time was wretchedly worked, passing, as it did, through several countries, which involved translation and re-translation, besides subjecting messages to needless delay on the part of unbusiness-like peoples. In addition to the brighter prospects which the proposed cable was opening up, the presence of the ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... from year to year, till at the end of three years from the date at which the son had left Folking, there had come to be a complete confidence between him and his father. John Caldigate had gone into partnership with Crinkett,—who had indeed tried to cheat him wretchedly but had failed,—and at that time was the manager of the Polyeuka mine. The claim at Ahalala had been sold, and he had deserted the flashy insecurity of alluvial searchings for the fundamental security of rock-gold. He was deep in the crushing of quartz, ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... and came back with four more Overland 4s bonds under his coat. He was in for it now and might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb. He was beginning to get used to the idea of being a thief. He was, to be sure, wretchedly unhappy, but he was experiencing the excitement of trying to dodge Fate until Fortune looked his way. Cotton still went down. It never occurred to him that Prescott perhaps had not bought all the cotton. Now that he is in prison he thinks maybe ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... terminating fatally (not in death, but in disappointment, which, as it occurred, I used to imagine a thousand times more bitter than death, but from which one recovers somehow more readily than from the other-named complaint)—all, I say, terminating wretchedly to myself, as if some fatality pursued my desire to become ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... counted a score of dismal coffee-shops kept by Chinese, and frequented by natives, sailors, and beach-combers. They were dark, disagreeable recesses, with grimy tables and forbidding utensils, in which wretchedly made coffee was served with a roll for a few sous; one of them also offered meats of a ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... lay on a wretched cot in a little bedroom. Ralph was amazed at the change in the magnate since he had last seen him. Farrington was thin, pale and weak. He was gasping painfully for breath, and groaned wretchedly as he ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
... with him, but none the less he writes: 'If Mr. Bradshaw is yet alive, I here declare to the world and to him that I freely forgive him what he owes, both in money and books, if he will only be so kind as to make me a visit. But I am afraid the worthy gentleman is dead, for he was wretchedly overrun with melancholy, and the very blackness of it reigned in his countenance. He had certainly performed wonders with his pen, had not his poverty pursued him and almost laid the necessity ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... favoured intercrossing. I should like to see this whole problem solved. I have fancied that perhaps there was during long ages a small isolated continent in the S. Hemisphere which served as the birthplace of the higher plants—but this is a wretchedly poor conjecture. It is odd that Ball does not allude to the obvious fact that there must have been alpine plants before the Glacial period, many of which would have returned to the mountains after the Glacial period, when the climate again became warm. ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... steaming asphalt of the quiet avenue. A few old trees had been allowed to remain on these blocks, and they drooped over the street, giving a pleasant shade to the broad houses and the little patches of sward. Just around the corner were some rickety wooden tenements, and a street so wretchedly paved that in the great holes where the blocks had rotted out stood pools of filthy, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... of his artistic craving. Besides, he had not stirred, but remained crouching on his low chair, at a distance from the bed. At last she risked the ordeal, and uncovered her tranquillised face. What else could she do? She was at his mercy, and he looked so wretchedly unhappy. ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... a glint of inquiry in the Master's eye, the Mistress suddenly bent over and buried her face in the deep mass of Bruce's ruff as the dog stood lovingly beside her. Then, still stroking the collie's silken head, she returned her husband's wretchedly questioning glance with a resigned little nod. The Master cleared his throat noisily before he could speak with the calm indifference he sought. Then, turning to the ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... a letter this morning that upset me rather. It is silly of me to take any notice, and I shouldn't if I were well. I've been wretchedly nervy lately, and it makes ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... work, admired as it has been by great men of all ages, and lately, I hear, by the poet Cowper, should be only not unknown to general readers. It has been translated into English two or three times—how, I know not, wretchedly, I doubt not. It affords matter for thought that the last translation (or rather, in all probability, miserable and faithless abridgment of some former one) was given under another name. What a mournful proof of the incelebrity of this great ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... his published works did Rheticus venture to make the new system known, and he at last gave up his professorship and left Wittenberg, that he might have freedom to seek and tell the truth. Reinhold was even more wretchedly humiliated. Convinced of the truth of the new theory, he was obliged to advocate the old; if he mentioned the Copernican ideas, he was compelled to overlay them with the Ptolemaic. Even this was not thought safe enough, and in 1571 the subject was intrusted to Peucer. ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... not aware of the presence of the Genoese giant, whom he did not know even by sight. Others, however, quickly recognized him, and he was asked to play, which he at first declined, but finally consented to do after urgent solicitation. Purposely he played a few variations in wretchedly bad style, which caused a suppressed laugh from those ignorant of his identity. The young professor came forward again and played another selection in a most pretentious and pointed way, as if to crush the daring wretch who had ventured to compete with him. Paganini again ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... Lily was wretchedly unhappy. For one thing, she had begun to feel that Mademoiselle was exercising over her a sort of gentle espionage, and she thought her grandfather was behind it. Out of sheer rebellion she had gone again to the house on Cardew Way, to find Elinor ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the top than at the bottom, so that there is a projection beyond the hollow part resembling the end of a plank; the sides are tolerably thin, but how the tree is felled and fashioned, we had no opportunity to learn. The only tools that we saw among them are an adze, wretchedly made of stone, some small pieces of the same substance in form of a wedge, a wooden mallet, and some shells and fragments of coral. For polishing their throwing-sticks, and the points of their lances, they use the leaves of a kind of wild fig-tree, which bites upon wood almost as keenly ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... reposed their entire confidence, to hasten to their assistance. No message whatever could have been more welcome to the ambitious Barbarossa than one of this nature. His new-acquired realm brought him in but a very scanty revenue; nor was he absolute.... He had been wretchedly baffled at Buj[e]ya, but hoped for better success at Algiers, which, likewise, is a place of much greater consequence, and much more convenient for his purpose, which, as has been said, was to erect a great monarchy of his ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... taxation, where every man knows just how much he pays, and by the use of the Referendum, where the sense of justice of the entire public is expressed as to how tax burdens should be distributed, Switzerland has developed a system by which the division of society into the harmfully rich and wretchedly poor has been checked, if not prevented. In the most advanced cantons, as has been brought out by Professor Cohn in the 'Political Science Quarterly,' the taxes, both on incomes and on property, are progressive. ...
— Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum • James W. Sullivan
... which concerned him most in life was passing behind the veil of trees and bushes, and its sound filled his ears. He had no thought of anything else. It was widening its sweep, coming nearer to the house where he was tied so wretchedly by wounds; and he would see it—see who was winning—his ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... wretchedly tired,' she said kindly. 'Won't you sit down? This is a very restful chair. Of course it is about this terrible business and your work as correspondent. Please ask me anything you think I can properly tell you, Mr Trent. I know that you won't make it worse for ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... sing, the copyists so altered the scores that the boy did not recognize his own work at rehearsals. Finally father and son had to agree that the opera be withdrawn, realizing that if it were played it would be so wretchedly done that it would bring more blame than ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... Florence; I flatter myself you will like him: I, who am not troubled with partiality to my family, admire him much. Your brother has got the two books of Houghton, and will send them by the first Opportunity: I am by no means satisfied with then; they are full of' faults, and the two portraits wretchedly unlike. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... young Socialist when I first met him," said Trefusis. "When Brown was an unknown and wretchedly poor man, my mother, at the petition of a friend of his, charitably bought one of his pictures for thirty pounds, which he was very glad to get. Years afterwards, when my mother was dead, and Brown famous, I was offered eight hundred pounds for this picture, ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... the poor wretchedly and lazily depended upon the alms of the rich, which were especially bestowed at a funeral, to buy their prayers for the repose of the soul; and at wedding, for a blessing on the newly-married couple. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... machines nodded to her now and then, bantering her across the noise of their wheels. She was ignorant of it, too stupid to know whether life took her in sport or in earnest! The men themselves worked in their flannel shirts. Not far from us was a wretchedly ill-looking individual, the very shadow of manhood. I observed that once he cast toward us a look of interest. Under my feet was a raised platform on which I stood, bending to my work. During the morning the consumptive man strolled over and whispered ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... been over, next where it had been lying, and finally where it should go. After this it began to wend its way slowly along, and acted just as though it had never fallen. The birch had become most wretchedly soiled, but now rose up and made itself tidy. Then they sped onward, faster and faster, upward and on either side, in sunshine and in rain. "What in the world can this be?" said the mountain, all glittering with dew, as the summer sun shone down on it. The ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... so wretchedly," he asked, "in all the purpose of my life? What could I have done better? What is it that ...
— The Mansion • Henry Van Dyke
... included a few suggestions as to the wisdom of our separating and, the men agreeing, Selwyn and I went in the Pullman, and poor little rich Madeleine and Tom to a day-coach, where crying babies and peanut-hulls and close air and torn papers would have made them wretchedly unhappy had they not been happily unconscious of them. I was sorry for them, but marriage involves much. As the train pulled out I waved from the window to Mrs. Mundy, who, on the platform, waved back with one hand and with the other wiped her eyes. Mrs. Mundy loves me, but she, ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... round those of the opposite party who remained influential, and whom they had hitherto despised; and especially to see with what embarrassment, what fear, what terror, they began to crawl before the young Princess, and wretchedly court the Duc de Bourgogne and his friends, and bend to them in the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the vessels sought the open sea. When two days out, a strange sail was sighted. Jones crowded all sail on the "Richard," and set out in hot pursuit, but found, to his bitter disappointment, that his ship was a wretchedly slow sailer. Therefore, signalling to the swift-sailing "Cerf" to follow the stranger, he abandoned the chase to the smaller craft. All night long the cutter followed in the wake of the stranger, and when day broke the two vessels were near enough to each other to readily make out each other's character. ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... a garret-room in a wretchedly ruinous condition. The plaster had come away in several places, and through between the laths in one spot hung the tail of a great rat. In a dark corner lay a man dying. A woman sat by his side, with her eyes fixed, not on his face, though she held his hand in hers, but ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... He tumbled wretchedly from his bed, swore at his injured ankle, hopped to the door, unlocked it, and hopped back with panic swiftness before his father's entrance. He sat in his crumpled pajamas amidst his crumpled, dingy bedclothes, his hair scattered ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... unable to confound their neighbors with their own superiority, join causes in the hope of confounding each other with the superiority of their betters (involved, but I am not done with them); to the idealistic ones whose cowardice converts the suffering of others into a mirror wherein stares wretchedly back at them a possible image of themselves; to the idealistic ones who, frightened by this possible image of themselves, join Movements for the triumph of Love and Justice and the overthrow of Tyranny in the frantic hope of breaking the mirror; to the social ones who regard belching ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... lake; and even now it belcheth up heavy steam clouds from the smouldering wound. And no bird spreading its light wings can cross that water; but in mid-course it plunges into the flame, fluttering. And all around the maidens, the daughters of Helios, enclosed in tall poplars, wretchedly wail a piteous plaint; and from their eyes they shed on the ground bright drops of amber. These are dried by the sun upon the sand; but whenever the waters of the dark lake flow over the strand before the blast of the wailing wind, ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... and those who had exercised an independent authority under the government of the Turks were with difficulty induced to submit to the control of the central government. The few men of intelligence and liberal views among them had a difficult task to perform; but the wretchedly undisciplined state of the Turkish armies aided its successful accomplishment. The principal military events of the year were the terrible massacre of the inhabitants of the Island of Scio by the Turks in April; the defeat of ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... fared most wretchedly different. They were crowded into sugar houses and Jails without blankets or covering; had Very little given to them to eat, and that little of the Very worst quality. So that in two months and four days ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... We were swung and tossed together all that time like shot in a stage thunder-box. The mate was thrown down and had his head cut open; the captain was sick on deck; the cook sick in the galley. Of all our party only two sat down to dinner. I was one. I own that I felt wretchedly; and I can only say of the other, who professed to feel quite well, that she fled at an early moment from the table. It was in these circumstances that we skirted the windward shore of that indescribable island of Ua-pu; viewing with dizzy eyes the coves, the capes, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... think him rather handsome, Gwen—you should see him now! He has grown ten years older in as many months—his hair is absolutely streaked with gray, his eyes are sunken, his cheeks are hollow. He looks miserably, wretchedly out of health. If men ever do break their hearts," said Lady Portia, going over to a large mirror and surveying herself, "then that misguided young man broke his ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... not take a vacation, and the summer was very hot, and when Flossy came home from Rye she found him wretchedly ill, and discovered that he had had a trained nurse for two weeks before he let her know anything about it. Then people pitied Flossy for having her summer interrupted, and Flossy felt that it was a shame; but she very ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... pegs were invented in 1811 and came into common use about 1815 for the cheaper grades of shoes: Soon the practice of sending out the uppers to be done by women in their own homes became common. These women were wretchedly paid, and when the sewing machine came to do the work better than it could be done by hand, the practice of "putting ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... my word, all. In a few months, when my pew-rents will be coming in, I should have settled with those cormorants; otherwise, my total and irretrievable ruin, and the disgrace and humiliation of a prison attends me. I know it; I can bear it; I have been wretchedly weak, Pendennis: I can say mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, and I can—bear—my—penalty." In his finest moments he was never more pathetic. He turned his head away, and concealed it in a handkerchief not so white as those which veiled his emotions ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Richmond. Before entering Twickenham, we passed a lath-and-plaster castellated edifice, much time-worn, and with the plaster peeling off from the laths, which I fancied might be Horace Walpole's toy-castle. Not that it really could have been; but it was like the image, wretchedly mean and shabby, which one forms of such a place, in its decay. From Hampton Court to the Star and Garter, on Richmond Hill, is about six miles. After glancing cursorily at the prospect, which is famous, and doubtless very extensive and beautiful if the English mistiness would ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... wretchedly different from the savages! In this country, all the men esteem themselves equally men; and in man, what they most esteem is, the man. No distinction of birth; no prerogative attributed to rank, to the prejudice ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard
... throb of his unresisting heart. His wretchedness seemed as deep as his original nature, if not identical with it. It was the misfortune of a second guest to cherish within his bosom a diseased heart, which had become so wretchedly sore that the continual and unavoidable rubs of the world, the blow of an enemy, the careless jostle of a stranger, and even the faithful and loving touch of a friend, alike made ulcers in it. As is the habit of people thus afflicted, he found his chief employment in exhibiting ...
— The Christmas Banquet (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Ortiz had reseated himself as Bell sat down, and now he fingered nervously, wretchedly, the objects on his desk. A penholder broke between his fingers and he flung ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... he replied. "I know it is wretchedly inadequate, it doesn't touch the root of the matter. Oh! it's miserably inadequate—I should think I did know that! Only it might smooth the surface a bit, perhaps, and put a stop to one source of annoyance. ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... your old friends. Miss Williams and I live much as we did. Miss Cotterel still continues to cling to Mrs. Porter, and Charlotte is now big of the fourth child. Mr. Reynolds gets six thousands a year. Levet is lately married, not without much suspicion that he has been wretchedly cheated in his match. Mr. Chambers is gone this day, for the first time, the circuit with the Judges. Mr. Richardson is dead of an apoplexy, and his second daughter has married ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... away, of course, and I let her talk about the same as you let a dentist work with his fingers in your mouth.... But now I must go up and make sure my Poppsy is safely tucked in. I have just opened the door and looked out. It is storming wretchedly. God pity any little boys who are abroad ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... in digging, Robinson's back, unused to severe toil, ached wretchedly. He decided to make a spade. With his flint he bored four holes in a great, round mussel shell. They formed a rectangle as long as a little finger and as wide. Through these holes he drew cocoanut fibre and bound the shell to ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe - for American Boys and Girls • Samuel. B. Allison
... "It was late, and Mamercus was the man to extort confession." So Agias found himself thrust into a filthy cell, lighted only by a small chink, near the top of the low stone wall, into which strayed a bit of moonlight. The night he passed wretchedly enough, on a truss of fetid straw; while the tight irons that confined him chafed his wrists and ankles. Needless to add, he cursed roundly all things human and heavenly, before he fell into a brief, troubled sleep. In the morning Mago, who acted as jailer, brought him a pot of water ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... you," retorted Letitia defiantly. "You talk like some of the wretchedly frivolous criticisms, so called, that men like Acton Davies and Alan Dale inflict upon the long-suffering public. They never amuse me. Ibsen may make his heroines the recipients of ugly legacies, but he ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... favorable, we were able to clear ourselves of debt and begin anew. But, seemingly, this prosperity was not for us, for these years of plenty were almost invariably followed by one or two less fruitful ones that came and "swallowed up the whole," leaving us as forlorn and as wretchedly poor as we were before. This failure of the crops because of drouths unduly long, wet seasons, the ravages of worms, caterpillars, and other uncontrollable circumstances, not only meant that the whole of that year's labor was to bring no tangible rewards, but that ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... countenances, for we wanted to seem pioneers, or Mormons, half-breeds, teamsters, stage-drivers, Mountain Meadow assassins—anything in the world that the plains and Utah respected and admired—but we were wretchedly ashamed of being "emigrants," and sorry enough that we had white shirts and could not swear in the presence of ladies without looking the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Day, only half conscious of what was said, thinking of Bernard going wretchedly about his hated work with a "sharp watch" set ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... went by wretchedly enough. Mr. Parsons (for that I learned was his name) did not leave me for a moment alone, and there was nothing to divert my thoughts from the extremely disagreeable situation. I could see no sign of any kind of book; and, indeed, the only form of print in the house seemed ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... hogs, sheep, and poultry for sea stock, all at a pretty reasonable price; but I do not know that any sea-provisions are to be had, except wine. The bullocks and hogs are very good, but the sheep are small and wretchedly poor. ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... furnished only with men's saddles, there was quite a commotion. 'The ladies will never be able to ride all that way in that fashion; only native women can ride so, not real ladies,' and so terrible did they make out the prospect of the road, that we were persuaded to take two wretchedly uncomfortable side-saddles with us as far as Thingvalla, which we never used, far ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... pondering wretchedly. The man who had been struck on the head was breathing stertorously. His companion soon dropped off to sleep, like the German, so that Dick was the only one awake. Through the window, presently, came the herald of the dawn, the slowly advancing light. And suddenly Dick saw a shadow against the light, ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske
... thirty-seven and a half when there came upon her a great fear. It had been a wretchedly bad season. Two failures. The rent on her two-room apartment in Fifty-sixth Street jumped from one hundred and twenty-five, which she could afford, to two hundred a month, which she couldn't. Mary—Irish Mary—her personal maid, left her in January. Personal maids are one of the superstitions of ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... whichsoever side advances on the enemy with the more resolute courage, their opponents, in general, cannot withstand their onset. 43. I have also remarked, fellow-soldiers, that such as are eager in the field to preserve their lives at any rate, for the most part perish wretchedly and ignominiously, while I see that such as reflect that death is to all men common and inevitable, and seek in battle only to fall with honour, more frequently, from whatever cause, arrive at old age, and live, while they live, with greater happiness. 44. Being ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... untwisting at the very feet of your companion, who looks at it in despair. Again you make an attempt with no success at all, the refractory twine eluding your utmost endeavors to hold it. Once more! Your fellow-twister walks off at last, with a wretchedly rough affair, which he good humoredly says "will do ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... Wretchedly Stephen settled back into his seat. He would rather have walked to Torrington, done almost anything rather than remain there in the quiet autumn stillness and listen to the accusations of his conscience. ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... two or three days after this sort of thing had been going on, "you look wretchedly pale and tired. Why do you stay out so late ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... Halifaxes were urging their western trip upon her, Lady Halifax declaring roundly that she was looking wretchedly, Miss Halifax suggesting playfully the possibility of an American heroine for, her next novel. Janet, repelling both publicly, admitted both privately. She felt worn out physically, and when she thought of producing another book her ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... remembrance came the almost certain conviction that it was also a forgery; I was tempted for a moment to produce it, and to explain the circumstances—would to God I had done so!—but shame at the idea of having been so wretchedly duped prevented me, and the opportunity was lost. I must confess that the agent of the bank behaved, upon the whole, in a very handsome manner; he said that as it was quite evident that I had disposed of certain horses at the fair, it was very ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow |
