"Helplessness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... into. It is precisely the thing that is most wanted,—just as "Uncle Tom" was wanted, three years since, to show what negro slavery in your republic was like. It is plantation-life, particularly in the present case, that I mean. As for your exposure of the weakness and helplessness to the churches, I deeply honor you for the courage with which you have made the exposure; but I don't suppose that any amendment is to be looked for in that direction. You have unburdened your own soul in that matter, and if they had been corrigible, ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... lives as what they make out of life in the collectivism that family life enforces. At least, I seem to get from her book a unity of meaning, the lack of which in our lives, as we live them daily, makes for helplessness ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... anguished side-glance from Marise and sent back to her a shrugged message of helplessness in the face of Destiny. The man didn't live who could head old Bayweather off when he got started on local history. And besides, this would give him time to get those last three letters finished. Aloud he said, "I wouldn't dare say a ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... they accomplish the next move? That is one of the secrets. Their money was gone, the silence of the press had crushed them with an overwhelming sense of helplessness, but nevertheless they turned the trick. They reached the upper and middle class readers of the South Side District, Troy's district, which the papers were determined to keep as much in ignorance as possible. All one night, silent, swift-moving men whipped the paste across the billboards ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... you so acute a sense of helplessness as to have a horse back with you, under the saddle or between shafts. The reins lie limp in your hands, as if detached from the animal; it is impossible to check him or force him forward; to turn him around is to confess yourself ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... is unnecessary. Here are three ryo[u]." He brought out the shining oblong pieces. O'Mino's eyes were bright with terror. "Ah! Has Densuke turned thief? How was this money secured? What has happened? Why so late in returning?" But Densuke was made confident and ready of tongue by the physical helplessness of O'Mino. "Don't be alarmed. Densuke is neither thief nor murderer. He is no Shirai Gompachi. Perhaps there is a corpse within, not washing. Would the Ojo[u]san see a head, arms, legs, freshly severed?" He laughed harshly as she turned her head from him to the bundle, ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... tints of red and white in her face I have never seen equalled. Her eyes were of speedwell blue, and looked as if they were meant to be always more or less brimming with tears. To say the truth, her face had not half the character which gave force to that of the other little damsel, but a certain helplessness about it gave it a peculiar charm. She was dressed exactly like the other, with one exception; her bonnet was of white beaver, and she became it like ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Hisham, thus arrogating to himself a share in the two most inalienable prerogatives of sovereignty. His robes were made of a peculiar fashion and stuff appropriated to royalty; he received embassies seated on the throne, and declared peace and war in his own name. To such utter helplessness was the khalif reduced,[22] that he was unable even to oppose the removal of the royal treasure fiom Cordova to a fortified palace which Al-mansur had built for his residence, not far from Az-zahra, and had named, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... lying on what threatened to be his death-bed the feeling on both sides only increased in intensity. The Ministry were indifferent to the helplessness of their enemy. Wilkes was expelled from the House of Commons. He was expelled from the Militia. The common hangman was ordered publicly to burn the North Briton, but the hangman was not suffered to obey the order. An angry mob set upon him and upon the sheriffs who were assisting ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the saddest spectacle I had ever seen. As I recall it after more than sixty years, the scene of silent grief, of unutterable helplessness, has still a haunting power over me, the oldest lad not eight years of age, the youngest a girl baby in arms, the young father aghast before the sudden tragedy which had come upon him. There must have been something in my sympathy which drew him toward me, for on his return ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... were anxious to find out. He had heard of secret assaults, of midnight clubbings, of prisoners being choked and brutally kicked by a gang of ruffianly policemen, in order to force them into some damaging admission. A chill ran down his spine as he realized his utter helplessness. If he could only get word to a lawyer. Just as the coroner was disappearing through the door, he darted forward and laid a hand ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... human help possible. Tom had run down between two long piles of boards, not yet in flames, but already a sheet of fire swept madly across the open space. They could only look at each other, dumb with their own helplessness, and wait. How long this horror of expectation lasted no one knew, but at last, as if from the very mouth of hell, Tom Davis came, staggering and swaying,—his singed coat still rolled about his head, and his hands stretched ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... feel like the puppy. "I ought to have rounded him up," Mr. Bradley was saying to himself; "Houghton will hold me responsible!" And even while making unpleasant remarks to the bridegroom, he was composing, in his mind, a letter to Mr. Houghton about the helplessness incidental to a broken leg, which accounted for his failure in "rounding up." "I couldn't get on to his trail!" he ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... note in the sermon and saw another man than he knew, as the Rabbi, in a low voice, without heat or declamation, with frequent pauses and laboured breathing, as of one toiling up a hill, argued the absolute supremacy of God and the utter helplessness of man. One hand ever pressed the grapes, but with the other the old man wiped the perspiration that rolled in beads down his face. A painful stillness fell on the people as they felt themselves caught in the meshes of this inexorable net and dragged ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... chains that darkness on them hangs Still ratt'ling in their ears, Creates within them heavy pangs, And still augments their fears. 30. Thus hopeless of all remedy, They dyingly do sink Into the jaws of misery, And seas of sorrow drink. 31. For being cop'd[12] on every side With helplessness and grief, Headlong into despair they slide Bereft of all relief. 32. Therefore this hell is called a pit, Prepared for those that die The second death, a term most fit To show their misery. 33. A pit that's bottomless is ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... suppressed excitement terrified her. In pain and fear and helplessness she looked at her niece. Inez, with that steady self-possession that is born of long and great endurance, came to ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... side, too wise, at first, to struggle unavailingly. If long hunting experience makes a man personally rather indifferent about accidents, it also teaches him when there is danger to the animal he rides; looking at Falcon's utter helplessness and the constrained twist of his hind legs, which I tried in vain to straighten, I began to have uncomfortable visions of ricked backs and strained sinews: I was on the wrong side of the river, too, for help; though even the rope of a Dublin Garrison "wrecker" would have helped but little then. ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... that in his helplessness he felt like the man who went down to Jericho and fell among thieves. Five days after his arrival at Ujiji he writes as follows: "But when my spirits were at their lowest ebb, the good Samaritan was close at hand, for one morning ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... pensive and solitary, tracing shapeless figures on the ground with the point of her parasol. He glanced at her somewhat carelessly the first time of passing, more curiously on the second occasion, and the third time with considerable attention. Something in her attitude—helplessness, hopelessness, nay indeed, despair itself, all expressed in the drooping head, the listless hand tracing those idle characters on the gravel—enlisted the sympathies of Gustave Lenoble. He had pitied her even before his gaze had penetrated ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... "land ahead" to raise one's spirits, perhaps more especially when crossing the Channel. There is no one who does not hail with delight the first sight of the shore. It gladdens the hearts of the sickly ones, and soon their childlike helplessness disappears; hope and life return, sending the warm blood once more to the pallid cheek, and lighting the languid eye with fresh joy and anticipation. It is pleasant to see how quickly the sufferers shake off the evil spirit of the sea—the terrible ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... amiss, it was from ignorance rather than wickedness." A charming and a curious being, serious and simple, profound and childlike, winning by reason of his very vagaries, his good-natured originality, his helplessness in common life, La Fontaine knew how to estimate the literary merits as well as the moral qualities of his illustrious friends. "When they happened to be together," says he, in his tale of Psyche, "and had talked to their heart's content of their diversions, if they chanced to stumble upon any ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... should be undertaken. The existing conditions are such as require prompt attention, not only in the interests of the general public and for the sake of the general good of the country, but especially for the sake of the immigrant. Because of his greater ignorance and helplessness and his usually strong desire to settle on land, he suffers more often and more severely than the native-born American from the unscrupulousness and dishonesty and laissez-faire methods that flourish in the absence of a public land policy and ...
— A Stake in the Land • Peter Alexander Speek
... fourteen fish, killing most of them with our oars. There were suckers and one catfish in the lot. You can judge for yourself how thick the water was, that such mudfishes as these should have been choked to helplessness. Our captured fish were given a bath in a bucket of rain-water, and we had ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... carpenters would ask for tips. The framework was ready for the foundations to be laid, but the masons never came and when at last the masons did come it was apparent that there was no sand; somehow it had been forgotten that sand was wanted. Taking advantage of our helplessness, the peasants asked thirty copecks a load, although it was less than a quarter of a mile from the building to the river where the sand was to be fetched, and more than five hundred loads were needed. There were endless misunderstandings, ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... instant that awe with which absolute helplessness invests the sleeping and dead was felt by both husband and wife. Only the upper part of the sleeper's face was visible above the bedclothes, held in position by a thin white nervous hand that was encircled ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... story of Sir Francis Lennox's conduct, carefully avoiding every mention of the circumstance which had given rise to it,—namely, the discussion about Violet Vere. She merely explained that she had suddenly fainted, in which condition Sir Francis had taken advantage of her helplessness to insult her. ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... The weakness and helplessness of humanity, in relation to the fortunes of this life, have been a favorite theme with philosophers and teachers ever since the world began; and every term expressive of all that is uncertain, insubstantial, and unstable has been exhausted in describing the feebleness ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... well! When on his clasping arm thy head reclineth, When on thy lips his ardent kisses dwell, And the bright flood of burning light, that shineth In his dark eyes, is poured into thine; When thou shalt lie enfolded to his heart, In all the trusting helplessness of love; If in such joy sorrow can find a part, Oh, give one sigh unto a doom like mine! Which I would have thee pity, but not prove. One cold, calm, careless, wintry look, that fell Haply by chance on me, is all that he E'er gave my love; round that, my wild thoughts ...
— Poems • Frances Anne Butler
... poor girl, in the extremity of her forlornness and distress, forgot all the little maidenly conventionalities and young-lady-like restraints of everyday life—and, in a burst of natural grief and honest confiding helplessness, hid her face on my bosom, and cried there as if she were a child again, and I was the mother to whom she had been used ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... day long. She treated him like a child of six, told him how to sit at table, how to hold his fork when he ate, how to address people who came to the house or to the station. The mother in her was aroused by Hugh's helplessness and, having no children of her own, she began to take the tall awkward boy to her heart. She was a small woman and when she stood in the house scolding the great stupid boy who stared down at her with his small perplexed ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... hands free to aid Germany in her hour of despair. The doom of the Lutheran princes of the north had followed hard on the ruin of the Calvinistic princes of the south. The selfish neutrality of Saxony and Brandenburg received a fitting punishment in their helplessness before the triumphant advance of the Emperor's troops. His general, Wallenstein, encamped on the Baltic; and the last hopes of German Protestantism lay in the resistance of Stralsund. The danger called the Scandinavian powers ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... as if on parade. Erect, observant, and self-possessed, he felt himself "on duty," and, putting spurs to his horse, cantered along the high-road, finding an inexpressible relief in motion. He was doing something in the interest of helplessness and of HER. He had no doubt of his right to interfere. He did not bother himself with the rights of others. Like all self-contained men, he had no plan of action, except what ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... tighter round the rail of the chair. Without witnesses, without means, without so much as a refuge—thanks to her own coarse cruelties of language and conduct—in the sympathies of others, the sense of her isolation and her helplessness was almost maddening at that final moment. A woman of finer sensibilities would have instantly left the room. Grace's impenetrably hard and narrow mind impelled her to meet the emergency in a very different way. A last base vengeance, to which Lady Janet had voluntarily exposed ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... those who loved her, unconscious of the threatening danger. The heavy chill retained its grasp, the resistless torpor of paralysis crept slowly on, and then complete insensibility. In this utter helplessness, which baffled every effort of human skill, night wore away, and morning dawned. There was no change and days passed ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... bands they bound his hands. That sore unworthy plight Might well express his helplessness, doomed never more to fight. Again, from cincture down to knee, long bolts of iron he bore, Which signified the knight should ride on ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... girl has some rights of her own," he said, and then I was silent and a little ashamed, having a sense of female helplessness which I had never felt before and ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... on previous occasions, when conditions were reversed, had interfered to our disadvantage, now shielded us from further pursuit. It can readily be seen what demoralization would follow such an exhibition of our utter helplessness. But still there seemed to be no alternative but to prolong the agony, although perfectly assured that we could not escape death or capture, and that in a very brief time. Soon after nightfall I found our battery, which had traveled over a shorter and less exposed road, and thereby ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... Countess. The dim sense of her equivocal position—of her comparative humbleness of birth and fortunes, oppressed and pained her; and even her gratitude to Harley was made burthensome by a sentiment of helplessness. The grateful long to requite. And what could ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... imbelle [Lat.], brutum fulmen [Lat.], blank, blank cartridge, flash in the pan, vox et proeterea nihil [Lat.], dead letter, bit of waste paper, dummy; paper tiger; Quaker gun. inefficacy &c (inutility) 645 [Obs.]; failure &c 732. helplessness &c adj.; prostration, paralysis, palsy, apoplexy, syncope, sideration^, deliquium [Lat.], collapse, exhaustion, softening of the brain, inanition; emasculation, orchiotomy [Med.], orchotomy [Med.]. cripple, old woman, muff, powder puff, creampuff, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... helplessness in rescuing humanity from disease," I answered calmly. "Please tell me ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... trying than to find anxious exertions for their comfort and amusement, either entirely unnoticed and useless, or met with petulant contradiction and ungrateful irritation. Those who have themselves experienced the helplessness caused by disease well know how bitterly the trial is shared by the invalid herself. How deeply she often mourns over the unreasonableness and irritation she is without power to control, and what tears of anguish she sheds ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... herself, nor of Oliver, nor of the wife waiting for the news at home; she was only thinking of this dear old man who sat with bowed head, his courage gone, all the joyousness out of his life. What hurt her most was her own utter helplessness. In most things she could be of service: now she was powerless. She ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... together a large body of Peloponnesian hoplites, whilst his brother, the admiral, kept watch and ward by sea to prevent the importation of supplies into Piraeus by water. Thus the men in Piraeus were soon again reduced to their former helplessness, while the ardour of the city folk rose to a proportionally high pitch under ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... a state of dejection bordering on helplessness, and sunk in the gloomiest thoughts. He woke his noble and saintly wife, and poured into her heart the history of the past three years, sobbing like a child deprived of a toy. This confession from an old man ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... was rolling and writhing in helplessness, snarling viciously, and now and then howling, as it tried to rise to its feet. Rube could see the brute's big round eyes flashing brightly at first and then becoming ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... gentleman do when his lackey starts to quote Plutarch?" with mock helplessness. "Well, lad, read Plutarch and profit. But keep your grimy hands off my Rabelais, or I'll ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... this first and most important of all sexual relations an important share, which prepares the object selection and assists in reestablishing the lost happiness. Throughout the latency period the child learns to love other persons who assist it in its helplessness and gratify its wants; all this follows the model and is a continuation of the child's infantile relations to his wet nurse. One may perhaps hesitate to identify the tender feelings and esteem of the child for his foster-parents with sexual love; I believe, however, that a more thorough psychological ...
— Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex • Sigmund Freud
... for it was more like hell than anything I can imagine. The never-ending processions of groaning men being brought in on those horrible blood-soaked stretchers, suffering unimagined tortures, the filth, the cold, the stench, the hunger, the vermin, and the squalor of it all, added to one's utter helplessness to do more than very little to relieve their misery, was almost enough to make even ...
— Field Hospital and Flying Column - Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia • Violetta Thurstan
... to accomplish a sheerly superhuman task, it is not surprising that it cannot be finished in one attempt but requires time. It necessitates great persistence. In the life of the mystic the states of love and aspiration for God alternate with those of spiritual helplessness and barrenness. (Horten, ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... Oriental potentate, however, who was accompanied by a gorgeous suite like that of the Wise Men in Italian pictures, seemed satisfied with his information, and moved over with his stately glide in our direction. Elsie and I were standing near the gangway among our rugs and bundles, in the hopeless helplessness of disembarkation. He approached us respectfully, and, bowing with extended hands and a deferential air, asked, in excellent English, 'May I venture to inquire which of you two ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... the sense of vexation and helplessness choked his utterance. "She vanished out of sight at Baiae, as a flash of lightning passes away in the sky. I cannot imagine the cause of her disappearance. The pirates, indeed, might have wished to take her for ransom; but no, they bore her off ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... with a strip of stuff that she had torn with the help of her teeth from her under-garment. She now bound it up afresh, and nursed the little creature, caressing it like an infant. The dog was as wretched and suffering as herself, and besides it was the only being that, in spite of her helplessness, she could cherish and be dear to. But ere long she lost the power even to speak caressing words or to stir a hand to stroke the dog. It slipped off her lap and limped away, while she sat staring blankly before her, and at last ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... for his wound to heal. He was therefore taken to the Lewises, suffering very much in his removal, and arriving in a condition which required the most assiduous care. For more than four months he remained with them, patient and gentle in his helplessness and suffering, and very thankful for the ministrations of kindness he received. He was nursed as tenderly as if his own sisters had attended him, instead of strangers, and was so carefully concealed that the nearest neighbors ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... to ask why he should take this sudden interest in this stranger girl or in her family. The fact was, he had never before been confronted with so clear a case of hardship and distress. The solitariness, the helplessness of the child appealed to him: it was as if he had seen a wren threatened by a hawk, or a rabbit seized by a weasel. He could not help interfering, and doing ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... in the Delaware. The original armament of the latter, from which she derived her rate, had been changed to forty 32-pounder carronades and six long twelves; total, forty-six guns. It is noticeable that this battery, which ultimately contributed not merely to her capture, but to her almost helplessness under the fire of an enemy able to maintain his distance out of carronade range, was strongly objected to by Captain Porter. On October 14 he applied to be transferred to the "Adams," giving as reasons "my insuperable dislike to carronades, ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... of the ingenuity of that symbol. Its very helplessness forbade to Emily the exultation of revilement. Good Heavens! It is bad enough to be tied by your own weakness to a face that you hate, but to be chained forever to that thing, to rise up with it and lie down with it, to talk to it, to insult it, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... considered the subject in that way, and in very thoughtlessness might have thrown himself overboard. I had early in the voyage observed the poor lad, and taken an interest in him from his seeming youth and helplessness; and I resolved, as far as I had the power, to stand his friend, and to protect him from the cruelty of his messmates—with what result was to be seen. When on deck, if I observed a seaman about to bestow the ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... printed speech: "We read of a time when 'a nation shall be born in a day.' We have seen it come to pass, and this people is a babe yet. 'Is not the babe a blessing in the house? Its very helplessness is a blessing, in that it educates the finest sensibilities of humanity.' The problem to be solved now is how to nurse this babe aright. The thoughtful observer will be easily convinced that the ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 42, No. 1, January 1888 • Various
... Marguerite by accident. Yet by intention! Why not by intention? First, there was his fear of sinning against his father's love. That alone might have failed to hold him back; but, second, there was his helplessness. Love made Tarbox, if any thing were needed to make him, brave; it made Claude a coward. And third, there was that helpless terror of society in general, of which we have heard his friend talk. I have seen a strong horse sink trembling to the earth at the beating of an empty drum. Claude looked ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... Why? Because we are trying to do the Holy Spirit's work, the work that He alone can do, convince men of sin. If we would only bear in mind our own utter inability to convince men of sin, and cast ourselves upon Him in utter helplessness to do the work, we ...
— The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit • R. A. Torrey
... abandoned to them, on the plea that otherwise they would be unable to defend themselves in case of an Entente landing: refusal would be considered an unfriendly act. As his orders forbade resistance, Colonel Hatzopoulos had no choice but to yield. Thus the Greeks were reduced to absolute helplessness; and their isolation was completed on 9 September, when British sailors landed and ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... night was different from the others. The two previous nights she had been ill and half-unconscious: her very helplessness appealed to Bill's chivalry. To-night she stood on her own feet. Matters were down to a normal basis again, and for the first time she began to experience a certain embarrassment in her position. She was suddenly face to face with the fact that the ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... last gave it its present name by chance of having taken up The Blithedale Romance, and noting with pleased surprise how closely Hawthorne's account of his heroine fitted his own creation. The Nydia was started with the idea of presenting the helplessness of blindness, with a hint of the exaltation of the other senses that is consequent upon the loss of sight, and showed at first merely a girl groping along a wall in search of a door; and the Arethusa was the outgrowth of a general inspiration caused by a reading of Spenser's ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... is not so hard as some other down-stepping: imagine one who had been made to believe in his own divinity finding all homage withdrawn, and himself unable to perform a miracle that would recall the homage and restore his own confidence. Something akin to this illusion and this helplessness had befallen the poor spoiled child, with the lovely lips and eyes and the majestic figure—which seemed now to have no ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... our uneasiness. After each "bombing-stunt" we thought: "We were lucky this time—it will be our turn next though." Moreover, we began to realize our helplessness. We were compelled to remain in our tents during a raid and there was no possibility of taking shelter. We could have put on our steel helmets—they would at least have afforded some head protection, but hardly any of us had the courage to do anything that might be regarded ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... their being associated with the enslaved Negro was accidental. No sooner had they assisted the runaway slave to freedom than they forgot him. He was left to make good in the autonomous, laissez faire atmosphere of a vigorous democracy. Soon, however, his economic helplessness and inefficiency, his ignorance of the tense northern life aroused the same men who had helped him to freedom to the realization that he was of an alien race, with characteristics that made his social assimilation ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... instances, produced congestion and displacement of the womb and ovaries. It is not observed at this time, or if observed it is not understood, and thus is laid the foundation for years of neurasthenia, helplessness, and disease. ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... Young Lady declares that he has a sort of roll in his chair, when he says it, that makes her sea-sick] who was the most innocent, artless, guileless, natural bunch of lace and feathers you ever saw; she was all candor and helplessness and dependence; she sang like a nightingale, and talked like a nun. There never was such simplicity. There was n't a sounding-line on board that would have gone to the bottom of her soulful eyes. But she managed the captain and all the officers, and controlled the ship as if she had ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... was on the same search. But now to-day she had suddenly come on some of the footprints of the Man of Sorrow as He toiled over the mountains of earth searching for lost humanity, and her own heart echoed His love and sorrow for the world. She cried out in her helplessness for something to give to ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... explanations of His sufferings. Look at them in turn, with this thought in our minds. 'He saved others; Himself He cannot save,' was launched as a sarcasm which confuted His alleged miracles by His present helplessness. How much it admits, even while it denies! Then, He did work miracles; and they were all for others, never for His own ends; and they were all for saving, never for destroying. Then, too, by this very taunt His claim to be the 'Saviour' is presupposed. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... Princess. And before that woman, so little beloved, the Countess would appear at no disadvantage. It was the work of minutes. Von Rosen had the captain's eye in matters of the toilette; she was none of those who hang in Fabian helplessness among their finery, and, after hours, come forth upon the world as dowdies. A glance, a loosened curl, a studied and admired disorder in the hair, a bit of lace, a touch of colour, a yellow rose in the bosom; and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... our life on earth is a larval state of greedy helplessness, and that death is a pupa- sleep out of which we should soar into everlasting light. They tell us that during its sentient existence, the outer body should be thought of only as a kind of caterpillar, and thereafter as a chrysalis;—and they aver that we lose ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... in some great public cause. But to perish by the frightful thing which shot up its spectral height before me; to be dragged as a spectacle to scoffing and scorning crowds—dragged, perhaps, in the feebleness and squalid helplessness of a confinement which might have exhibited me to the world in imbecility or cowardice; to be grasped by the ruffian executioner, and flung, stigmatized as a felon, into the common grave of felons—the thought darted through my mind like a jet of fire; but it gave me the strength of fire. I determined ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... spot a short sickness laid to rest far from his native land, when the company had paid due honours to the dead son of Abas. And at the cruel woe they were seized with unbearable grief. For when with due honours they had buried him also hard by the seer, they cast themselves down in helplessness on the sea-shore silently, closely wrapped up, and took no thought for meat or drink; and their spirit drooped in grief, for all hope of return was gone. And in their sorrow they would have stayed from going further had not Hera kindled exceeding courage in Ancaeus, ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... reached the threshold of the boudoir. What to him was an earthly paradise, was almost attained. In a state of blissful helplessness, intoxicated by a delicious sensation of being completely dominated by a will stronger than her own, she permitted him to take her where he wished. Her eyes closed, her head on his shoulder, she submitted willingly to ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... comparatively very simple. A polyglot combination of States, having little in common and apparently held together only by the decaying genius of the aged Emperor Franz Joseph, the dual monarchy was regarded everywhere as on the verge of dissolution. Her helplessness before Russia's army became apparent early in the war, and the eagerness with which Germany seized the opportunity thus presented is pointed to as emphasizing the ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... and son, in the library smoking. He had arrived at a bad moment, for the bomb outrage, coming on top of Lily's refusal to come home under the given conditions, had roused Anthony to a cold rage, and left Howard with a feeling of helplessness. ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and less well-developed condition, he would have been still more helpless. The Duke of Argyll, for instance, insists (96. 'Primeval Man,' 1869, p. 66.) that "the human frame has diverged from the structure of brutes, in the direction of greater physical helplessness and weakness. That is to say, it is a divergence which of all others it is most impossible to ascribe to mere natural selection." He adduces the naked and unprotected state of the body, the absence of great teeth or claws for defence, the small strength and speed ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... the gale, the flashes of lightning, the appalling thunder, the feeling that he was in reality all but under the waves and the knowledge that the proverbial plank between him and death was of the very thinnest description, a sensation of helplessness and of dependence on the Almighty, such as he had never before experienced, crept over him. What the thoughts of the hermit were he could not tell, for that strange man seldom spoke about himself; but Moses was ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... marble she looked, lying there in her absolute helplessness beneath his stranger gaze! How pure the white brow, with its clustering rings of glossy hair! How exquisitely fine the white hand to which the dimples of babyhood yet clung! How classic the contour of her face, into which already the warm hue of health was creeping! ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... lingered upon the "dear" as though he anticipated getting a great deal of amusement out of her later on. And so she understood him, for there came a look of trouble into her face and she made a little gesture of helplessness. Thresk ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... measured by many thousands of Kalpas.[1371] Having passed many hundred thousands of years in that condition, Jiva then attains to the colour called Tawny (and becomes born as an intermediate creature). In that condition he dwells (for many long years), in perfect helplessness. At last when his sins are exhausted (in consequence of his having endured all the misery they are capable of bringing), his mind, casting off all attachments, cherishes Renunciation.[1372] When Jiva becomes endued with the quality of Sattwa, he then dispels everything ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... influence of these "uninspired" literatures and cultures, became more and more important as both his person and his position in the cosmos ceased to be interpreted either in those terms of the moral transcendence of deity, or of the helplessness and insignificance of his creatures, which inform both the Jewish-Christian Scriptures and the philosophic absolutism of the ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... his gentle, big-eyed, soft-voiced Anna!—came to him with a new and dreadful shock. His frame stiffened and his poor old, soft hands clenched into pathetic fists. "He shall not—" he began with a brave bluster, but then stopped, realizing his own helplessness. ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... 'tis a risky undertakin'! I've been inclined to fret that my working days are over, for dearly would I like to have gone with you, and done what I could to make you comfortable; but 'tis the Lord's will, and my age and helplessness doesn't prevent me from prayin' for you all! You have the same psalm in your mind, Miss Agatha, that I have been readin' and studyin' this afternoon. I would dearly like to give you each a verse out of it, ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre
... between them on the path. Turning his horse up the course of the stream, he soon came in sight of his brother on the ledge before him. With a suppressed scream of rage, he rode head-long at him, and ere he had time to make the least defence, hurled him over the precipice. The helplessness of the strong man was uttered in one single despairing cry as he shot into the abyss. Then all was still. The sound of his fall could not reach the edge of the gulf. Divining in a moment that the lady, whose name was Elsie, must have fled in the opposite direction, ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... the basis of a mythological story. The Fleece, like the hoard of the Nibelungen, is the occasion, but the curse attached to it is not the cause, of crimes; this cause is the cupidity of human nature and the helplessness of the individual who allows the forces of evil to gain sway over him. Jason, in overweening self-indulgence, attaches himself to a woman to whom he cannot be true. Medea, in too confident self-sufficiency, is not proof against the blandishments of an unscrupulous adventurer and progresses ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... to her, then, that all her care for his helplessness was in vain. He neither needed nor looked for help. It was all one to him whether he lived in magnificence in a furnished house or ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... watching her, always waiting. And it would come to her sometimes like a cold chill, that this yellow man and such men as he were watching them all slowly going down lower and lower, were waiting to leap upon them in their last helplessness and enslave them all as white girls were sometimes enslaved, even already, in those filthy opium joints whose stench nauseated the hurrying passers-by. Perhaps under all their meekness these Chinese ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... he shivered and longed for the scene to come to an end, for his utter helplessness seemed to overwhelm him, and he felt ready to ask why he had placed himself ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... answered his niece, relapsing into all the helplessness of first grief; "indeed I do not know; her brother-in-law, Sir James Ashbroke, invited her to the Pleasaunce, but my brother objects to her going there, his uncle has behaved so neglectfully about ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... Everything! ... Danger now of every sort. She could be brave, she could meet anything if she were only sure of Martin. But he too seemed strange to her. She remembered his dark look, his frown when she had refused him. Oh, this loneliness, this helplessness. If she could be with him, beside him, she would fear nothing. That night, the first faint suspicion of jealousy, of doubt, an agonising dart of pain at the knowledge of what it would mean to her now if he left her, stirred in her ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... to this prayer that He shuts me up, to strengthen me against the temptations which the praises of the world present, and so, by meditation on his dealings with me and reviewing the way in which He has led me, showing me my perfect helplessness without Him, He is preparing to bless me with stronger faith and more unreserved ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... attitude of a horse at the extreme right, which turns in falling, and exposes to the spectator the inside of the near thigh and the belly. But, notwithstanding these drawbacks, the representation has great merit. The figures live and breathe—that of the dying king expresses horror and helplessness, that of his pursuer determined purpose and manly strength. Even the very horses are alive, and manifestly rejoice in the strife. The entire work is full of movement, of variety, and ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... the helplessness of his position grew upon him. He was deep in the foothills, many miles, as far as he knew, from the home of any settler. In daylight he could, no doubt, find his way back to town, but daylight might be ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... simply because he could not; he was struck dumb, gasping for breath, the room whirling around before him, while he stared at her with dazed, unseeing eyes. His very helplessness to respond she ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... hurried out into the day. A low tumult of sound was in the air, unintelligible and yet thrilling. A dozen steps brought him to the end of the building and he looked toward the cage. For a space after that he stood without moving, filled with a sudden, sickening horror as he realized his helplessness in this moment. If he had not overslept, if he had talked with Hauck, he might have prevented this monstrous thing that was happening—he might have demanded that Tara be a part of their bargain. It was too late now. An excited and yet strangely quiet crowd was ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... room, he writhed in the agony of helplessness. The Prince, his court, the government—all were to be blasted to satisfy the end of this sickening conspiracy. Loraine! She, too, was doomed! He groaned aloud in ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... palms with a blank gesture of helplessness. "It is useless!" she answered. "Nobody would believe me. Consider the situation. YOU know the needle I gave you was the one Sebastian meant to use—the one he dropped and I caught—BECAUSE you are a friend of mine, and because you have learned to trust me. But who else would credit it? I ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... and peeling wallpaper, kitchens for the most part underground, and either without bathrooms or with built-out bathrooms that were manifestly grudging afterthoughts, such as harbour the respectable middle classes of London. The house agents perceived intimations of helplessness in their manner, adopted a "rushing" method with them strange to people who had hitherto lived in a glowing halo of episcopal dignity. "Take it or leave it," was the note of those gentlemen; "there are always people ready for houses." The line that property in land and houses takes in ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... supper, come and help me." And it seemed in this moment of tumult, that Susan ceased to be a woman to be cared for and protected and became his equal, fighting with him against the forces of the primitive world. The traditions of her helplessness were stripped from her, and he called her to his aid as the cave man called his woman when the storm ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... it?" she said, eagerly; then remembering his helplessness, she added: "I will say over the letters of the alphabet, and when I reach the right one ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... into with honesty and truthfulness were the works and laws of God, because it was so shameful and so miserable that from an ignorance which industry and good-sense could remedy, the tribes of mankind passed their days in self-imposed darkness and helplessness. It was God's appointment that men should go through this earthly stage of their being. Each stage of man's mysterious existence had to be dealt with, not according to his own fancies, but according to the conditions imposed on it; and it was one of man's first duties to arrange ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... shall bear a message to Emer. Tell her the Sidhe have thrown a spell of helplessness upon me while deceiving me with false visions of my aiding them in their war with the evil enchanters. Ask Emer to come to me, for her presence may help to rouse me from this spell that benumbs my ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... a minute's pause while the commissioner recovered himself. Then, the thought of his own helplessness and the inevitable ruin that faced him and his returned, and his face grew drawn and hopeless. The triumphant and gleeful chortling of the old squaw attracted ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... bring to bear on the requirements of these Yankee callings? How he worried over the prospect which looked so pleasant the night before! Champagne, flowers, light, and perfume were gone from it. He pitied himself in his helplessness. The thought of Lily deprived of her delicate evening dresses, her diurnal bouquets, caramels, and her pecunious caprices, was not pleasant. He could not see her in any light that made her so agreeable as in the light that he must ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... those rats and of that long night drove me mad with fear. I rolled about on the floor, I struck out with my arms and legs, like one possessed, in violent, childish fury. Then, worn out, I let my arms and legs rest; at last, tired, swallowed up in my helplessness, left without will or feeling, I waited for what was to come. I had terribly wicked thoughts: of escaping from the house, of setting fire to the house, of murder! I was an outcast, I was being tortured. I should have liked to show them what ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... shook his fist at him, and vociferated with excited gestures something which to Halfdan's ears had a very unintelligible sound. He made a vain effort to defend himself; the situation appeared so utterly incomprehensible to him, and in his dumb helplessness he looked pitiful enough to move the heart of a stone. No English phrase suggested itself to him, only a few Norse interjections rose to his lips. The man's anger suddenly abated; he picked up the paper which he had thrown on the sidewalk, and stood for a while ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... Covent Garden, the child stepping blithely by my side, graceful even then, notwithstanding her immatureness, and quaintly attractive, though her deep blue eyes were full of tears, and the white terror had not passed wholly from her face. It was those few moments of her complete and trustful helplessness which had transformed my life for me, those few moments in which the huge folly of these later days had been born. For her very coming seemed to have been at a chosen time—at one of those periods of weariness which a man must feel whose ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sylph drawn out of all natural form at the waist, but that she was attempting to walk in little shoes supported upon high pivots called heels under the centre of the feet. It was an ingenious combination of torture and helplessness, to which no social circle in my native land offers a parallel. It is a wonderful achievement, due, I have no doubt, Mr. Easy Chair, to the manifest superiority of your great country, and plainly a striking illustration of it. Yet it ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... constantly exhibits this principle. The shell of the peach shelters the inner seed; the outer petals of the bud the tender germ; the breast of the mother-bird protects the helpless birdlets; the eagle flies under her young and gently eases them to the ground; above the babe's helplessness rise the parents' shield and armor. God appoints strong men, the industrial giants, to protect the weak and poor. The laws of helpfulness ask them to forswear a part of their industrial rights; and they fulfill their destiny only by fulfilling ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... Christianity, the contrast between body and soul, the unlimited importance of the earth as the "world," the marvellous occurrences in nature. If once the opposite views gain the mastery—for instance, a strict law of nature, the helplessness and superfluousness of all gods, the strict conception of the soul as a bodily process—all is over. But all Greek culture ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... sprang up and began to pace the room. How to help him. Slowly, and with a minute examination, she went in memory through his story, with its egoism, its cruelty, its ambition, its punishment, its childlike helplessness of to-night, and of many nights. She recalled each word that he had spoken until she came to almost the last, "I have prayed. But God forgives only those who reverse their evil acts. Mine can never be reversed. I can never be kind to my child—" Just there she stopped. Maurice's words ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... before his lips smothered its iteration in his throat. "Bee-have!" Holvey hissed in his ear, and as the child struggled into a sitting posture his involuntary bleat, "Mamma!" was so meekened by fear and plaintive recollection and submissive helplessness that it could scarcely have been distinguished a boat's ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... not emotion in the glance, no aversion or remonstrance. It was the glance she had for Esther, for Rhoda Knox. "Here I am," it said, "flat, but not at your mercy. You can't make me do anything I don't want to do. I am in the last citadel of apparent helplessness. You can't any of you drag me out of my bed. You can't even make me speak." And she would not speak. Esther, creeping out on the landing to listen, was confident grandmother never said a word. What spirit it was, what indomitable pluck, thought Esther, to lie there at the ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... noting the contradiction in her that she would at one moment appear knowing and masterful, with depths of reserve that the other people neither fathomed nor knew of; and at another moment frankly girlish, with an appealing feminine helplessness which is woman's greatest strength, coercing every strong ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... sentimentality, and infuriated by meanness and cruelty, but the whole size and grandeur of her nobility seemed to me to shine all about her and set her apart from the rest of human beings. She was not a woman whom I ever could have loved—she had not the weaknesses and naiveties and appealing helplessness that drew love from one's heart. Nor could I have ever dared to face the depth and splendour of the passion that there was in her—I was not built on that heroic scale. God forgive me if, as I watched them, I felt a sudden glow of almost eager triumph at the thought of ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... leanness, Unkindness, and chill; Its whistle is ringing, An iciness bringing, Where the brown leaves are clinging In helplessness, still, And the snow-rush is delving With furrows ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Mr. Bernard's head, and put it round the neck of the miserable Dick Veneer, who made no sign of resistance,—whether on account of the pain he was in, or from mere helplessness, or because he was waiting for some unguarded moment to escape,—since ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... appeared to have suddenly lost the use of those faculties which had already effected so much. Her figure seemed rooted to the spot where she had spoken, and her eyes were fixed in a Settled gaze, as if dwelling on some horrid object, While she yet stood in this attitude of unconscious helplessness, the doorway became again darkened, and the figure of the Pilot was seen on its threshold, clad, as usual, in the humble vestments of his profession, but heavily armed with the weapons of naval war. For an instant, he stood a silent spectator of the scene; and ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... while these ideas were taking my spirit by storm, I cannot tell; but I perceived soon that Mr. Rivers had placed a chair behind me, and was gently attempting to make me sit down on it. He also advised me to be composed; I scorned the insinuation of helplessness and distraction, shook off his hand, and began to walk ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... perhaps most beautiful when there is something of the child about it, something naive and unconventional. There are men, of whom I think that Cardinal Newman was pre-eminently one, who seem to have had the appeal of a pathetic sort of beauty and even helplessness. Newman seems to have always been surprised to find himself so interesting to others, and perhaps rather over-shadowed by the responsibility of it. He was romantically affectionate, and the tears came very easily at the call of emotion. Such incidents ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson |
