"Miserable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... placidly at him, which was far worse than if she had tilted her head. Through two dreary, interminable acts he sat looking at the stage, trying to talk small talk with the Starletts and remaining absolutely miserable; but shortly before the beginning of the last act he was able to take a quite new and gleeful interest in life, for the young woman from Savannah came fluttering into the Elliston box, bearing in tow the beautiful and ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... warmth and the shadow of comfort over a miserable fire. The dogs were beyond, herded far within the shelter, their fierce eyes agleam with a reflection of the feeble firelight as they gazed out hungrily in its direction. It was a cavernous break in the rock-bound confines ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... talk about going away," said Mrs. Fulton; "the fact is bad enough. I'm not a bit ashamed to have people know that I'll be miserable and cross all ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... Birmingham about nine o'clock, and, after breakfast, went to call on his old schoolfellow Mr. Hector[1343]. A very stupid maid, who opened the door, told us, that 'her master was gone out; he was gone to the country; she could not tell when he would return.' In short, she gave us a miserable reception; and Johnson observed, 'She would have behaved no better to people who wanted him in the way of his profession.' He said to her, 'My name is Johnson; tell him I called. Will you remember the name?' She answered ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... oppression, thought that the intellectual few had God-given powers to rule, and to exact tribute from them to the extent of commanding every ounce of exertion of which their bodies were capable. It was here, Gloria, that society began to form itself wrongly, and the result is the miserable travesty of to-day. Selfishness became the keynote, and to physical and mental strength was conceded everything that is desirable in life. Later, this mockery of justice, was partly recognized, and it was acknowledged to be ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... Irish renegade captain burst into a hearty laugh, and I wrenched myself round to look, and felt better. A minute before, I had seen Bob disappear into the house, and had mentally denounced him as a miserable little coward; but my eyes flashed now as I saw him hurry out with three rifles over his right shoulder, a bandolier belt across his left, and two more, well filled with cartridges, hanging to the ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... carved upon the temple doors, to show us how ready they are, so soon as any poor creature comes to Christ for life to take the care and charge of its conduct through this miserable world. 'Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... politicians and miserable plotters. They seldom, even in verse or fiction, manage a state plot well. Scott, at least, has completely failed in his treatment of the Popish plot in "Peveril," and they always bungle it in reality. They are either ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... restaurant "Under the Bridge" on Podwal St. It was a long and narrow garden with a few miserable trees. At the very entrance there was a well. A whitewashed fence on the left side of the garden divided it from the neighboring property which must have been a lumberyard, for piles of beams and boards could be seen looming above the fence. A few ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... clearing and a miserable log-hut near by. The family had fled, frightened by the cannonade. We found them cowering in the woods,—a man, his wife and daughter. The land all around them was exceedingly rich, but they were very poor. All they had to eat was hog and hominy. They had been told ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... thirteenth of the weight of a normal adult is blood. A man who weighs 170 pounds has 13 pounds of blood. This proportion is not true in the obese, and is not true in children. Whether the person is sick in bed, miserable though up and about, or beginning to feel the first sensations of slight incapacity for his life work, his ability properly to circulate this one thirteenth of his weight through the various arterial and venous channels and capillary tracts must, with the increasing tension and speed of our ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.
... also what a terrible thing it is to have a guilty conscience, as the officer who visited Argyll plainly had. It teaches that a bad man's life of remorse and shame is a thing far more miserable, and far more to be feared, than a good man's ...
— Evangelists of Art - Picture-Sermons for Children • James Patrick
... her sharply for her stubbornness and selfish ingratitude. If only she had been frank in the beginning. Miss Harlowe would have explained all to Miss Wilder, and Miss Wilder would have been satisfied. Then she would have had no sale of her wardrobe, and Miss Harlowe would have been spared all this miserable trouble. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... and Warren being arraigned, and Gatacre getting recalled, while others passed through the fire officially unscathed. Speaking of Gatacre, we—having just been made acquainted with the Stormberg affair—were saying nasty things of him. Monday was altogether a miserable day, with the outlook far less bright than our fancy had ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... Mrs. Hopkins's after his dinner with the young lawyer, and asked if Susan was ready to go with him. At the sound of his voice, Gifted Hopkins smote his forehead, and called himself, in subdued tones, a miserable being. His imagination wavered uncertain for a while between pictures of various modes of ridding himself of existence, and fearful deeds involving the life of others. He had no fell purpose of actually doing either, but there was a gloomy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... my son. A most precious document, the very mirror of a living human soul. What touched me most, perhaps, were the Father's references to his mother. A monk may not have his mother to himself, and if the love of woman is much to him he is miserable indeed until he has fixed his eyes on the most blessed among women. But the religious life does not destroy natural affection. It only kills in order to bring forth new life. The corn of wheat dies that it may live again. That is the true Christian asceticism, my ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... him a bad exchange for the horse, and compelled his master to take him back. Then he was sold for so much rum. This was called another bad bargain by the man who had bought him, and again he was returned, to be sold for tobacco with the same result. Nobody wanted the poor, miserable slave-boy, who was on the point of committing suicide when he was bought by a Portuguese trader and carried away in a slave ship. How little that wretched boy knew what the future had in store for him as he lay chained in the hold ...
— The American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 10. October 1888 • Various
... finding that they had some roots, I promised to send some men with goods to trade with them. They had the usual very large heads, remarkable among the Digger tribe, with matted hair, and were almost entirely naked: looking very poor and miserable, as if their lives had been spent in the rushes where they were, beyond which they seemed to have very little knowledge of any thing. From the words we could comprehend, their language was that of the ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... of the sass-wood drink it is allowed to settle before administration, and in the bean that you get a very heavy dose, both arrangements tending to produce the immediate emetic effect indicative of innocence. If this effect does not come on quickly you die a miserable death from the effects of the poison interrupted by the means taken to kill you as soon as it is decided from the absence of violent ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... strange vicissitude rolled over the career of our heroines. Some thousands of pounds gilded the path they passed over. With all the recklessness of youth, they squandered their ill-gotten money. Many a poor ruined family eked out a miserable existence, whilst their gold, entrusted to the wretched banker who had gone to his account, was flung recklessly on the tables of chance by the children he had nursed in the school of iniquity. Like sand passing through the fingers, like ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... gentle Undine would let the miserable maiden say no more. She threw her arms around Bertalda's neck, and said, 'Bertalda, dear Bertalda, you shall live with me and be my sister. You shall come with me ...
— Undine • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... justifies what he is about to do. In accordance with the instructions of the sun-god, the eagle is stripped of his wings and feathers, and left to die a miserable death. In its present form this tale of the eagle and serpent forms part of the Etana story.[1037] Jeremias is right in questioning whether it originally had anything to do with Etana.[1038] Two distinct stories have been combined, much as in the Gilgamesh epic several tales have been thrown ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... the day when wise mammas, going through the list of nursery diseases which their children have had, will wind up triumphantly with, "Mumps, measles, chicken-pox,—and they are all over with 'Amy Herbert,' 'The Heir of Redclyffe,' and the notion that they are going to be miserable for the ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... "I have always dreaded the water. I did promise mamma and Bess to conquer my nervousness and not make folks miserable, but now just see how things happen to upset me," and she was ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... had been a little less cold and miserable we probably would have quarrelled. As it was, we merely humped over, and motioned the astonished Manuel to return to the shore. Our boat's head turned, we dropped down under the bow of the ship. In order to avoid the sweep of the seas Manuel held us as closely as possible under ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... demand for higher wages by their labourers at the instigation of Joseph Arch.[661] This famous agitator was born at Barford in Warwickshire in 1826, and as a boy worked for neighbouring farmers, educating himself in his spare time. The miserable state of the labourer which he saw all around him entered into his soul, meat was rarely seen on his table, even bacon was a luxury in many cottages. Tea was 6s. to 7s. a lb., sugar 8d., and other prices in proportion; the labourers stole turnips for ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... glimpse I had caught of Maria's death-struck face so rankled in my soul through the long watches of that sleepless night that on the morrow, in anguished contrition, I confessed all that miserable story ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... little how open and apparently honest the conduct of such men may be among each other; there is, notwithstanding this, a distrust, a fear, a suspicion, lurking at every heart, that renders personal security unsafe, and life miserable. But how, indeed, can they repose confidence in each other, when they know that in consequence of their connection with such systems, many of the civil duties of life cannot be performed without perjury on the one hand, or risk of life on the other, ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... voice. "I'll take you, you mean covetous creature, and ... ! All these mothers-in-law and sisters-in-law have come forward and raised money to celebrate your birthday, and are you yet not satisfied that you must also drag in those two miserable beings! But what do ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... and only yesterday, after an official threat of instant dismission, I was told it was my business to act, not to think. God help me! what have I done to provoke such bitter insult? I have ever discharged my miserable duty—discharged it, Mr. Lindsay, however repugnant to my feelings, as an honest man; and though there awaited me no promotion, I was silent. The wives or sisters of those whom they advanced over me had bastards to some of the —— ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... begins to enjoy the fruits of his industry, his acquired property is seized upon by the sheriff's officer for the payment of his master's debts; he is forcibly separated from his wife and children, dragged to public auction, purchased by a stranger, and perhaps sent to terminate his miserable existence in the mines of Mexico; excluded for ever from the light of heaven; and all this without any crime or imprudence on his part, real or pretended. He is punished ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... himself and his belongings back to Nancy, to his little room in the Rue Stanislaus, where, at any rate, he could read, meditate, or make plans for the future without being every moment tormented by miserable, petty annoyances. His temper was becoming soured, his nerves were unstrung, and his mind was so disturbed that he fancied he had none but enemies around him. A cloudy melancholy seemed to invade his brain; he was seized with a sudden fear that he was about to have ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... signal of the muddy pools under her mother's eyes and the little quivering nerve beneath the temple, she shut him out of her presence for a day and a night, and when he came fuming up every few minutes from the hotel veranda, miserable and fretting, met him at the closed door of her mother's darkened room ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... a low tone of voice. "I think some people at the window are listening." And he led the way to a distant portion of the seminary grounds. After that, Grace told all she knew of the miserable affair, and Nellie related just how she had seen the diamond ring on the ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield
... presence of the queen, passed through the long line of silent courtiers, who refused to salute him, or even to honor him with a look, stammered out his miserable apology, and, receiving no response, retired covered with confusion. Elizabeth, we thank thee! This one noble deed atones for ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... the flat, hung about a bit in the hope of seeing Nina. Then he did see her at Rozanov's party, and this, although he said nothing to me about it at the time, had a tremendous effect on him. He thought she looked "awful." All the joy had gone from her; she was years older, miserable, and defiant. He didn't speak to her, but from that night he made up his mind. Rozanov's party may be said to have been really the turning-point of his life. It was the night that he came out of his shell, grew up, faced the world—and it ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... of Winifred and of her quality of "understanding"; and of the miserable matter of business which had made her his wife—and of his own complacent and smug indifference, and his contemptible weakness ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... looked across the Sound. Then he said in a soft, musing voice: 'I once knew just such another clever boy. He was so clever that men beat him with sticks and put on great sea-boots to kick him with, so that he lived a miserable life, and was subsequently hanged in ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... "O! She is very happy now, very happy. When you met her in the train she was very miserable, for her lover had just left her at Marseilles, and she was coming back, poor child. But she liked you at once, though she was still rather sad, you understand. Now she has all she wants, and she writes and tells ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... craning out of the bog-hole, but it sucked him down at last. Even in dry seasons it is a danger to cross it, but after these autumn rains it is an awful place. And yet I can find my way to the very heart of it and return alive. By George, there is another of those miserable ponies!" ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... not these, O Mirza, habitations worth contending for? Does life appear miserable, that gives thee opportunities of earning such a reward? Is death to be feared, that will convey thee to so happy an existence? Think not man was made in vain, who has such an eternity reserved for him. I gazed, with inexpressible pleasure, on these happy islands. At length, ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... the little one whom thou wilt surely not repulse, who comes, who comes herself to seek thee. My soul, my life, my body, my person, all is one thing—which is thine, my captain. Well, no! We will not marry, since that displeases thee; and then, what am I? a miserable girl of the gutters; whilst thou, my Phoebus, art a gentleman. A fine thing, truly! A dancer wed an officer! I was mad. No, Phoebus, no; I will be thy mistress, thy amusement, thy pleasure, when thou wilt; a girl who shall belong to thee. ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... Think of poor Northcliffe. He thinks he's saved the nation from its miserable government, and the government now openly abuses him in the House of Commons. Northcliffe puts on his brass knuckles and turns the Times building upside down and sets all the Daily Mail machine ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... indebted to the great power of vegetation and natural richness of the soil, than to their own good culture and judicious management. They had abundance of the necessaries, and several of the conveniencies of life. But their habitations were clumsy and miserable huts, and having no chaises, all travellers were exposed in open boats or on horseback to the violent heat of the climate. Their houses were constructed of wood, by erecting first a wooden frame, and then covering it with clap-boards without, ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... and nearer, the longer we had existence, to utter spiritual death, that inward fire of hell torments, maturing in evil through a long eternity. Such is the course we are beginning to run when born into the world; and were it not for the gospel promise, what a miserable event would the birth of children be! Who could take pleasure at the sight of such poor beings, unconscious as yet of their wretchedness, but containing in their hearts that fearful root of sin which is sure in the event of reigning and triumphing unto everlasting ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... friends of Catilina without allowing them to plead their own cause. Pompeius would not help him, and the people banished him four hundred miles from Rome, when he went to Sicily, where he was very miserable; but his exile only lasted two years, and then better counsels prevailed, and he was brought home by a general vote, and welcomed almost as if it had ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... imagined,—and the consideration reflects the highest honour on the humanity of our Government,—that the adoption of the measure would tend materially to diminish the sufferings of the miserable objects of human traffic—the unfortunate slaves—who too frequently sank under the confinement and disease incidental to a protracted voyage to Sierra Leone, before their ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... have not our names in the Red Book console ourselves by thinking comfortably how miserable our betters may be, and that Damocles, who sits on satin cushions, and is served on gold plate, has an awful sword hanging over his head, in the shape of a bailiff, or hereditary disease, or family secret.—Thackeray, Vanity Fair, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... broadswords? Sang the heroes with their weapons, Sang the eldest, sang the youngest, Sang the middle-aged, enchanted; Only one he left his senses, He a poor, defenseless shepherd, Old and sightless, halt and wretched, And the old man's name was Nasshut. Spake the miserable shepherd: "Thou hast old and young enchanted, Thou hast banished all our heroes, Why hast spared this wretched shepherd?" This is Lemminkainen's answer: "Therefore have I not bewitched thee: Thou art ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... disparage it "eminently worthy of a great fool." He laid it down as a "precious truth" that one's effectiveness depends upon "the power of persuasion, of charm; that without this all fury, energy, reasoning power, acquirement, are thrown away and only render their owner more miserable." ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... a charge As ever yet death-breathing brother gave. Looke for no mirth, unlesse you take delight, In mangled bodies, and in gaping wounds, Bloodily made by mercy-wanting hands. Truth will not faine, but yet doth grieve to showe, This deed of ruthe and miserable woe. ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... Crash! He heard the missile strike the brute with a heavy thud. The dog gave one last frightful yelp of pain, then dropped and lay silent Whether the beast was dead or only stunned Jack did not know, nor did he care. He knew that he had silenced the miserable cur, and that was all ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... could not be aware of this world, in which everything desired by the senses, or apprehensible by them, was going to destruction—so futile a tragedy, so contemptible a fleeting dream, a nothingness of which the miserable woman seemed to see herself, at last, as the most ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... it would end!" moaned the elder traveller, wringing his hands, and quite forgetting in his anguish that he had himself proposed the expedition, and had never predicted anything of the sort. "Oh that we were well out of this miserable business!" ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll
... the glades Slide, as they thaw, the heavy sheets, to swell The rushing waters of an ice-cold spring, So melted she in tears of anguished pain, And for her own, her husband, agonised, And cried to her heart with miserable moans: "Woe for my wickedness! O hateful life! I loved mine hapless husband—dreamed with him To pace to eld's bright threshold hand in hand, And heart in heart! The gods ordained not so. Oh had the black Fates snatched me from the earth Ere I from Paris turned away in hate! My living love hath ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... petty thieves, shifty-eyed scoundrels, dull brutes of murderers, and occasionally a criminal of a higher class, summoned for the preliminary examinations. Here, under the eye of a bored guard, they had passed miserable hours while the judge, smiling or frowning, hands in his pockets, strode back and forth over the shabby red-and-green carpet putting endless questions, sifting out truth from falsehood, struggling against stupidity ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... called on to live out her life without entering upon this blessed relation. If she has been taught that woman's sphere is marriage and marriage alone, that only by that means can she hope for a life of happiness, usefulness, and respect, she will probably become a miserable, helpless, lonely, irritable woman—perhaps seeking marriage at any price to escape from the condition she dreads; or failing that, finding life ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... he said. "I don't trust this crazy little pier of yours one atom. Any one of these boards looks capable of crumbling and letting one through.—And, Damaris, please don't be cross with me or I shall be quite miserable. Forgive my having asked you stupid questions. I was a blundering idiot. Of course, what I heard last night was just some echo, some trick of wind or of the river and tide. I was half asleep and imagined the ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... largest freedom possible to the intellectual and imaginative jaws, and let the taste of it squander itself all the way down from the front teeth until it is lost in the digestive joys of memory. There is no miserable quail limit to novels—you can read thirty novels in thirty days or 365 novels in 365 days for thirty years, and the last one will always have the delicious taste ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... said the bishop, firmly, 'in order that you may fully understand my position. As you know, my dear wife—for I still must call her so—came to reside there under her married name of Mrs Krant. She was poor and unhappy, and when I called upon her, as the vicar of the parish, she told me her miserable story. How she had left her home and family for the sake of that wretch who had attracted her weak, girlish affections by his physical beauty and fascinating manners; how he treated her ill, spent the most of her money, and finally left her, ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... derived from these five limitations. This reflection is, that the persons, who are proudest, and who in the eye of the world have most reason for their pride, are not always the happiest; nor the most humble always the most miserable, as may at first sight be imagined from this system. An evil may be real. though its cause has no relation to us: It may be real, without being peculiar: It may be real, without shewing itself to others: It may be real, without ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... Walsingham, expressing himself as became a crushed and contrite man, never more to raise his drooping head again, but warmly and manfully urging upon the attention of the English government—for the honour and interest of the Queen herself—"the miserable state of the poor soldiers." The necessity of immediate remittances in order to keep them from starving, was most imperious. For himself, he was smothering his wretchedness until he should learn her Majesty's final decision, as to what was to become of him. "Meantime," said he, "I carry my ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... could fasten Cheever to her, win him truly for herself. She honestly felt that she could be of value to him, and make more of a man of him than his lawful wife ever could. Perhaps she was right. At any rate, she was miserable, and if a person is going to be miserable she might as well be right while ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... did not have a good night by any manner of means. Instead of returning to his hotel he wandered aimless and miserable along the river front. He no longer had any doubt as to his duty. Mr. Tutt had demolished Tutt in a breath,—and put the whole proposition clearly. Tutt had given, as it were, and Mr. Tutt had taken away. However, he told himself, that wasn't all ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... me!" She laughed. "It's possible, because it happened! Otherwise, of course, neither of us could believe it! Oh, don't be silly. Don't look miserable." ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... about rather aimlessly, feeling miserable enough. But, all at once, it occurred to him, "Would it not be cheaper for him to take board by the week in some boarding-house?" Reckoning up, he found that his hotel bill would be three dollars and a half a week, while his meals, even if he were quite abstemious, would make ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... home very miserable; but when his mother heard what had happened she said: "It is a hard thing you want to do; but if you must, you must. To-night I will make some fresh magic, and you ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... the poor animal, who looked for support to me, who knew not how to support myself. Then the image of Isopel Berners came into my mind, and when I bethought me how I had lost her for ever, and how happy I might have been with her in the New World had she not deserted me, I became yet more miserable. ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... utmost loneliness, for my father thought the children with whom I wished to associate were too far beneath me in social station. My sole companion was the old dame who took care of the house—the one person in the world of whom my father seemed to have fear. So the miserable years dragged by. When I had just begun to make some plans by which I might escape from this dungeon they so falsely called my home—just at the time I was most despairing—like a joyful, radiant rift of ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... made him very unhappy. Odd! that a boy who had never had a home should be homesick! Yet that was the real name of the miserable, sinking sensation at his heart; and as he crossed the hall to the bathroom, his face was the picture ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... no longer irritated him like nettles. He looked with curiosity upon them and began to understand. The agony of his unconscious fury was replaced by a clear contemplation of the separating abyss; and this made him even more miserable. ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... unapproachable by virtue of the boon the Rishis had granted to him. And the divine husband of Sachi vanished from sight once again. And invisible to all beings, he wandered biding his time. And Indra having disappeared, Sachi fell into grief. And exceedingly miserable, she bewailed, "Alas! O Indra, if ever I have made a gift, or made offering to the gods, or have propitiated my spiritual guides, if there is any truth in me, then I pray that my chastity may remain inviolate. I bow myself to this goddess Night,—holy, pure, running her course ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Clare's scathing judgment, but she was sure the latter did not, could not, understand the extent of Everard's bitter disappointment. She did not care to say any more, or ask questions, and could only wait until the whole sad, miserable affair was over. Some of the guests returned to the house after the funeral, and these, with the family, were present when Mr. Bowden read aloud the will of the late Squire of Cheverley Chase. Like most testamentary documents, it was couched ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... blankets, once, twice, thrice. He was still talking to the wondering Monsieur Gratiot. But no other voice was heard, and the eyes of all were turned on him in amazement. But at last, when the drama had risen to the pitch of unbearable suspense, he looked down upon the two miserable pyramids at his feet, and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... had shown since the accession of Mary gave way the moment his final doom was announced. The moral cowardice which had displayed itself in his miserable compliance with the lust and despotism of Henry displayed itself again in six successive recantations by which he hoped to purchase pardon. But pardon was impossible; and Cranmer's strangely mingled nature found a power in its very weakness when he was brought into ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... and shut the door. He thought he would feel more comfortable if he couldn't see Mother's eyes. Then he sat down to look at the picture book again. But he felt more miserable than ever. ...
— Seven O'Clock Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... hand and looked up into his face with eyes which actually had tears in them. "I shall be so miserable if you are cross. I shall feel that I have spoiled your day. I wish now that I had gone in the little boat. I wish I had been upset and drowned. Then perhaps you would ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... Macedonians, with the consent and at the desire of the Romans, the Athenians were introduced; who, having suffered grievously, could, with the greater justice, inveigh against the cruelty and inhumanity of the king. They represented, in a deplorable light, the miserable devastation and spoliation of their fields; adding, that "they did not complain on account of having, from an enemy, suffered hostile treatment; for there were certain rights of war, according to which, as it was just to act, ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... can we say, upon such principles, for the pity of Him whose bowels melt with tenderness? Who are the objects of his pity? Are not poor miserable objects, who are plunged into a hopeless, helpless situation through the fall, and become offenders through the original transgression? The doctrine under consideration is so far from representing any pity to such unavoidable objects, that it really represents God, of his own sovereign ...
— A Solemn Caution Against the Ten Horns of Calvinism • Thomas Taylor
... almost reached his limit of physical endurance, and he was only too glad of relief for his smarting skin and aching muscles. Fishing was a miserable business, and he wanted no part of it; on that he was fully decided. But even if a job is unpleasant, a man would rather resign than be discharged. Jim's abruptness hurt his pride; ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... through the camp, surprised at the quantities of things with which it was running over. The most miserable were melancholy, and the rest ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... and I were both terribly lonely. The depths of his loss in the lovely and lovable wife who had been his constant companion for nearly six years I could not fathom at the time. For my own part, I was quite as miserable as I have ever been since, and I doubt if I shall ever feel such overwhelming desolation again, unless the same sorrow befalls me as then ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... remarked, "which are brought to represent poverty as no evil, shew it to be evidently a great evil. You never find people labouring to convince you that you may live happily upon a plentiful fortune. So you hear people talking how miserable a king must be, and yet they all wish to be in his place." Boswell vol. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... was a very miserable one; for she had to fend for the aged father and bedridden mother of Edward Hall, and there were no beasts left but only a few geese and ducks that the rebels could not lay their hands on. And the only home that they had was the farmhouse that was upon Edward ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... of Athens. After the capture of Constantinople by the Franks and the establishment of the Latin empire (1204), he retired to the island of Coos, where he died. He was a versatile writer, and composed homilies, speeches and poems, which, with his correspondence, throw considerable light upon the miserable condition of Attica and Athens at the time. His memorial to Alexis III. Angelus on the abuses of Byzantine administration, the poetical lament over the degeneracy of Athens and the monodes on his brother Nicetas and Eustathius, archbishop of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the fatal resolve and crossed the Solway into Elizabeth's realm, trusting to the magnanimity of the woman whom she had tried to ruin and supplant. Again her heart had deceived her. Elizabeth had no pity for a vanquished foe, and for the rest of her miserable life, well nigh a score of years, Mary Stuart was a prisoner. But in all those years she never ceased to plot and plan for the overthrow of Elizabeth and her own elevation to the Catholic throne ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... The miserable woman pressed her hands over her eyes, as if to shut out the sight of her own disgrace. The dwarf looked at her compassionately, and said ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... miserable existence. How will it all end? There is absolutely nothing to be got here. Honey costs 6s. 6d. a pound, goose fat 18s. a pound. Lovely prices, aren't they? One cannot do much by way of heating, as there is no coal. We can just freeze and ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sea-robberies carried on under his sanction. "If I were to make peace with everybody," he said, "what should I do with my corsairs? What should I do with my soldiers? They would take off my head for the want of other prizes, not being able to live on their miserable allowance!" ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... old Teggley drew out the corners of his lips and grinned as if he was glad that Bob Chowne was so miserable. For Bob did not move, only sat with his hands supporting his face, staring down before him, bent, ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... Gospel in Foreign Parts, which for nearly three quarters of a century, sometimes in the spirit of a narrow sectarianism, but not seldom in a more excellent way, devoted its main strength to missions in the American colonies. Its missionaries, men of a far different character from the miserable incumbents of parishes in Maryland and Virginia, were among the first preachers of the gospel in the Carolinas. Within the years 1702-40 there served under the commission of this society in North Carolina nine missionaries, in South ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... presence, were part of a conspiracy against her, he burned with the desire to thwart it. They had made a puppet of him; they had sent him to and fro at their will and pleasure; and they had done this, no doubt, in order that in his absence they might work—Heaven knew what vile and miserable work! But he would know, too! He was going to know! He would not be so ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... his many attentions were the result of any real feeling on his part, or only such as he considered due to the woman he expected to make his wife. You see what girls are. How I despise myself now for this miserable frivolity! ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... don't get regular. We're in for this job, ah, and we're going to see it through, too, because we think it's the right thing to do and because we wanted to do a turn of fighting. We ain't bloodthirsty, and I'm not going to say we shall be miserable when it's all over, but while it's going on we like it. There's risks everywhere, even with the quietest jobs. I knew a chap once as drove a goat-cart for children at the seaside, and one day when the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914 • Various
... are the only wretched. In a world which furnishes so many employments which are useful, and so many which are amusing, it is our own fault if we ever know what ennui is, or if we are ever driven to the miserable resource of gaming, which corrupts our dispositions, and teaches us a habit of ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... as his acquaintance called him, 'long Dumps,' was a bachelor, six feet high, and fifty years old: cross, cadaverous, odd, and ill-natured. He was never happy but when he was miserable; and always miserable when he had the best reason to be happy. The only real comfort of his existence was to make everybody about him wretched—then he might be truly said to enjoy life. He was afflicted with a situation in the Bank worth ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... praises, or affected acknowledgments, our regard not only to ourselves, but to our sovereign ought to remind us. For nothing is more evident, my lords, than that no monarch can be happy while his people are miserable; that the throne can be secure only by being guarded by the affections of the people; and the prince can only gain and preserve their affections, by promoting their interest, and supporting ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... he. 'I'm distressed!' continued he. 'I'm wretched!' added he, slapping his knees. 'I'm perfectly miserable!' he concluded, with a strong emphasis on the 'miserable.' ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... wanting in the miserable plot of my life," she answered. "I will reach him soon in my ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... shrieking out covered with fire, they were driven back again till the devouring element grasped them at length in its deadly embrace. Then, with loud shouts of demoniacal satisfaction, the enraged soldiers rushed away to look for fresh victims. Miserable was the fate while they were in that humour, of those who fell into their hands. I never saw so dreadful a spectacle before, and hope never to see such ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... Persian poet Omar took, you will remember, precisely the same view. You need not think that it would be wise to accept such teaching for a rule of life, but it has a certain value as a balance to the other extreme view, that we should make ourselves miserable in this world with the idea of being rewarded in another, concerning which we have no positive knowledge. The lines with which the poem concludes at least deserve to be ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... is truly miserable, his misery reaching its keenest whenever he either looks into his mirror or stands before a portrait that hangs against the wall of the sala. It is a likeness of Adela Miranda; for he has taken possession of the house of his predecessor, with ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... come out of prison; and the wonder was, where he had got the money to pay his traveling expenses. It turned out that he had got it from the second Mrs. Manuel herself. She had filled his empty pockets; and there she was, waiting confidently in a miserable London lodging, to hear from him and join him as soon as he was safely settled in foreign parts! Where had she got the money, you may ask naturally enough? Nobody could tell at the time. My own ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... its power; and he who should then hope to conjure with it would find himself as much mistaken as Cassim in the Arabian tale, when he stood crying, 'Open Wheat,' 'Open Barley,' to the door which obeyed no sound but 'Open Sesame.' The miserable failure of Dryden in his attempt to translate into his own diction some parts of the 'Paradise Lost' is a ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... of Socialism modern civilisation has become!—not the Socialism of the so-called Socialists—a system modelled apparently upon the methods of the convict prison—a system under which each miserable sinner is to be compelled to labour, like a beast of burden, for no personal benefit to himself, but only for the good of the community—a world where there are to be no men, but only numbers—where ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... laughed. "Indeed we do, just as we do out of our men. Yet the women of this age are very happy, and those of the nineteenth century, unless contemporary references greatly mislead us, were very miserable. The reason that women nowadays are so much more efficient co-laborers with the men, and at the same time are so happy, is that, in regard to their work as well as men's, we follow the principle of providing every one the kind of occupation he or she is best adapted to. Women being inferior ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... excused if he was put out and miserable. He was in the wrong, and he knew it. And yet the mariner in which the rebuke had been administered was such as no man of spirit could cheerfully endure. The one idea in his mind was, not how to punish the house for its disorder, but how to ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... For three miserable days I had been exposed, half naked and bareheaded, in an open boat, without water, or food, or shade. The third fierce West Indian noon was long passed, and once more the dry, burning sun sank in the west, like a red hot shield of iron. I glared on the noble dog as he lay at the bottom of the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... Maximus, which he held at an early stage of his public career. This office, by letting him too much behind the curtain, and exposing too entirely the base machinery of ropes and pulleys, which sustained the miserable jugglery played off upon the popular credulity, impressed him perhaps even unduly with contempt for those who could be its dupes. And we may add—that Csar was constitutionally, as well as by accident of position, too much a man ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... no strength for exertion of any kind; and worse than that, he had no motive, and in his weakness he was most miserable. It was a change he needed, they all knew, and when the days began to grow long and warm, something was said about returning to ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... has any moral right to keep a wild mammal, bird, reptile or fish in a state of uncomfortable, unhappy or miserable captivity, and all such practices should be prevented by law, under penalty. It is entirely feasible for a judge to designate a competent person as a referee to examine and decide upon ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... animals, and they seemed to know by instinct that she was their friend. One day she came across her father's old shepherd, looking as miserable as could be; and, on inquiring the cause, found that a mischievous boy had thrown a stone at his favourite dog, which had broken its leg, and he was afraid it would ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... around. And Rosy wants to change. And there's so much noise and dirt, and so many peddlers and beggars. And—and—" She was thinking of Susan Bates's library, but would not permit herself a spoken reference to it. "And so much work to keep things tidy. And those miserable fellows breaking into our barn. I don't ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... idea till then how wretchedly these poor creatures were huddled together, without even such comforts as they were used to; but when I found that it was impossible for the sick child to be cared for in the miserable place where they lived, I began to come to myself a little, or rather to forget myself, and contrive something ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... Eleventh. "In the month of March, 1481, Louis was seized with a fit of apoplexy at St. Benoit-du-lac-mort, near Chinon. He remained speechless and bereft of reason three days; and then but very imperfectly restored, he languished in a miserable state.... To cure him," says a contemporary historian, "wonderful and terrible medicines were compounded. It was reported among the people that his physicians opened the veins of little children, and made him drink their blood, to ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... the time Eleanor should have carried out her intention of going back to the house. Instead, she sat on in the deepening twilight under the feminine delusion that she was being good to the miserable youth who sat huddled close to her knees on the step ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... among themselves, came near them. Loiseau, excited, wanted to deliver up that "miserable woman," bound hand and foot, to the enemy. But the Count, descended from three generations of Ambassadors, and endowed with the physique of a diplomat, was advocating more tactfulness and ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... you, my love!" he cried, and kissed her fondly. "You pity me—you will save me from this miserable, degrading life?" ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... known, when the town grew inquisitive, and the critics were compelled to ferret out his antecedents, that the new actor had already attained middle age,—that he had been vegetating for years in that obscurest and most miserable of all dramatic positions, the low comedian of a country-theatre,—that he had come timidly to London and accepted at a low salary the post of buffoon at a half-theatre half-saloon in the City Road, called indifferently the "Grecian" and the "Eagle," where he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... anything—we were too miserable. She looked round the dreadful rooms as if she were trying to see them for the first time, as if some reverberation of the horror we had felt did penetrate to her in her remoteness. ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... an end to his peace; and he may begin to pack up. This perpetual bondage breaks down his mind, subdues his courage, and makes a timid nervous woman of one who is entitled, and who ought to be, a man. He drags out a miserable existence, and dies a miserable slave. There are exceptions to this rule, it is true; because there are clergymen with talent enough to rise above these disadvantages, enforce respect, and maintain their ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... ceiling, and the rafters were stained black by the smoke of the peat fire which burned in the middle of the floor, and the only chimney for which was a small hole in the roof. A stool, a broken chair, and a crooked table, constituted the entire furniture of the miserable place; unless we may include a heap of straw and rags in a corner, which served ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... breath'st a panting supplication To hear my voice, my face to see; Thy mighty prayer prevails on me, I come!—what miserable agitation Seizes this demigod! Where is the cry of thought? Where is the breast? that in itself a world begot, And bore and cherished, that with joy did tremble And fondly dream us spirits to resemble. Where art thou, Faust? whose voice rang through my ear, Whose mighty yearning drew ...
— Faust • Goethe
... we entered any of the big restaurants I would send her along ahead, and I would trail to hear the cracks. It was grand to see them rubber and hear the women say, "She isn't so much," or "My, isn't she padded frightfully!" and hear the men say, "Gee! A dream," or "Pipe, Dan, I guess she's perfectly miserable, eh?" I lost two or three sets of studs that trip just from ...
— Billy Baxter's Letters • William J. Kountz, Jr.
... said Clarendon; "and I had almost as lief, as to be cooped up in a dirty fishing-smack with vulgar sailors, half-starved with their miserable fare." ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill
... left void of dominion, Brent was their temple, so was their other building; Their high priests were slain, their treasure came to nothing. The strength and beauty of thine own heritage. Thus didst thou leave them in miserable bondage. Oft had they warnings, sometimes by Ezekiel, And other prophets, as Isaias and Jeremiah, Sometimes by Daniel, sometimes by Hosea and Joel, By Amos and Obadiah, by Jonah and by Zephaniah, By Nahum and Micah, by Haggai, and by Zachariah, By Malachi, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... necessarily occupy for the existence of civilized society, and in which they constitute its blessing and ornament—the only position which they have ever occupied in any human society—to place them in a situation in which they would be alike miserable and degraded. Low as we descend in combating the theories of presumptuous dogmatists, it cannot be necessary to stoop to this. A youth of eighteen may have powers which cast into the shade those of any of his more advanced cotemporaries. He may be capable ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... Girlhood are not many; the real causes for gloom are few; the most are imaginary. This is true of all ages. Our borrowed trouble is much more than that which comes as our own in the legitimate course of our life. Trouble is the worst article we can borrow. We have the least need for it, and it is a miserable dose to take. Of all things which it does, Girlhood should not borrow trouble. A heavy interest will have to be paid for it in the future; and there is danger that it will make the soul absolutely bankrupt. If borrowed trouble ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... lasted most of the night. About an hour after it commenced the Turks opened a heavy rifle and machine gun fire against the Light Horse Brigade and Walker's Ridge. This continued for some time but there was no further development. Owing to the weather the Battalion spent a very miserable night. ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... voice trembled. "How can any one be too good to help the miserable? If you had said that I was not worthy of such a privilege—Can you, knowing me as no one else does or ever will, think that I could live here in peace, whilst those poor creatures stint and starve themselves ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... Another used these words: "While the decree of reprobation is eternally executing on the vessels of wrath, the smoke of their torment will be eternally ascending in view of the vessels of mercy, who, instead of taking the part of these miserable objects, will say, Amen, Alleluia! praise ye ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... the farmer, relaxing his gaze. "She looks in the glass and sees herself, and then she gets miserable and uppish because there ain't nobody in these parts good enough for ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... of mind. I cast myself at your feet, imploring, with the most ardent prayers, that compassion, which I flatter myself I perceive in your hearts, for these poor creatures, whom you cannot without remorse render miserable. If you really, Sirs, think I too have had the happiness to be of some use to you and your nation, whilst Chief at Dacca, and that I have rendered you some services, I only beg that you would recollect ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill |
