"Pity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "More's the pity. But it was none of poor Sir Piers's doing!" replied Titus; "he had no will of his own, poor fellow, during his life, and the devil a will was he likely to have after his death. It was all Lady Rookwood's doing," added he, in a whisper. "I, his medical adviser and confidential friend, was ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... you at home. Will all who pity the little wives pray for the men of India? Pray for those who are honestly striving to rid the land of this shameful curse. Pray that they may be nerved for the fight by the power of God's right arm. Pray for all the irresolute. "A sound of battle is in the land, . . . the Lord hath opened His ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... so they have allowed him to use the release of Sanguily as a pretext for disagreeing with the government, and resigning his position in Cuba. The Spaniards seem to be most careful of their friends' feelings, and most polite in all their dealings with one another. It is a pity that this very delicate code of honor does not prevent them from murdering helpless ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 20, March 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... and barking sound Death wept and nothing said; and presently Man arose and went wondering away; for he knew not if Death wept out of pity for his opponent, or because he knew that he should not have such sport again when the old game was over and Man was gone, or whether because perhaps, for some hidden reason, he could never repeat on Earth ...
— Fifty-One Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... which, and struggling with the wild sea-waves that every moment,threatened to swallow it up, he showed his daughter a fine large ship, which he told her was full of living beings like themselves. "O my dear father," said she, "if by your art you have raised this dreadful storm, have pity on their sad distress. See! the vessel will be dashed to pieces. Poor souls! they will all perish. If I had power I would sink the sea beneath the earth, rather than the good ship should be destroyed, with all the precious ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... but, though they all regarded him as little better than a troublesome lunatic, they all appear to have helped him very willingly. He frankly confesses that he lived at this time on charity; for, although he felt confident of being able to repay the small sums which pity for his family enabled him to borrow, his neighbors who lent him the money were as far as possible from expecting payment. Pretending to lend, they meant to give. One would pay his butcher's bill or his milk bill; another would send in a barrel of flour; another would take in payment some articles ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... thousand francs a-year pension, and to take care of their children, if M. de Leon would quit her. But M. de Leon would not hear of this, and his father accordingly complained to the King. The King summoned M. de Leon into his cabinet; but the young man pleaded his cause so well there, that he gained pity rather than condemnation. Nevertheless, La Florence was carried away from a pretty little house at the Ternes, near Paris, where M. de Leon kept her, and was put in a convent. M. de Leon became furious; for some time he would neither see nor speak of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Mrs. Dr. dear, and I do not think I will, because it is not a habit of the Bakers. But, if an all-wise Providence should decree it, I hope it will not take the form of big black spiders, for I loathe the animals. As for Mrs. Miller, I do not know whether she really deserves pity or not. There are some who say she just married Harrison to spite Richard Taylor, which seems to me a very peculiar reason for getting married. But then, of course, I am no judge of things matrimonial, Mrs. Dr. dear. And there is Cornelia Bryant at the gate, so ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... beech-trees; it was like going up and up towards a dim sanctuary where the holiest sat enthroned. A sense of consecration was upon her. It came, solemn and pure and still, out of the tumult of her tenderness and pity; but it was too awful for pity and for tenderness; it aspired like a flame and lost itself in light; it grew like a wave till it was vaster than any tenderness or any pity. It was as if her heart rose ...
— The Flaw in the Crystal • May Sinclair
... the conduct of most people. When any misfortune brings you into trouble, you will find enough ready to pity you, but few who will give you any material assistance. They will tell you what you then know yourselves, that you should not have done so and so; they will be sorry for you, and then take their leave ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... here now," said Selwood, affecting disappointment. "That's a pity. I wanted to see him. I wonder ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... the trail of his sensation. He thought that he might get an article out of it—with the help of Count Ploare and Zoug-Zoug. Who was Zoug-Zoug? He exulted in her picturesqueness, and he determined to lie in wait. He thought it a pity that Comte Ploare was not an Englishman or an American; but it couldn't be helped. Yes, she was, as he said to himself, "a stunner." Meanwhile he watched Gaston, noted ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Aladdin. Then he shook his head. The group was moving away now, and he and Johnnie were to themselves. "I'm afraid this book would be hard to equal," he said earnestly. "They aren't writing any more just like it—which is a pity. But you stay here and I'll see what I can find." He gave Aladdin back, ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... deeds which required audacity, a sort of grandeur, a false heroism; there have been criminals who held in check all the regular and legitimate forces of society, and whom one regarded with a mixture of terror and pity. There is nothing of that in Derues, not even a trace of courage; nothing but a shameless cupidity, exercising itself at first in the theft of a few pence filched from the poor; nothing but the illicit gains and rascalities of a cheating shopkeeper ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... robbery, or waste, which is only a milder term for the unfaithfulness of a servant, will be laid to the charge of that master or mistress, who knowing or having well-founded suspicions of such faults, is prevailed upon by false pity, or entreaty, to slide such servant into another place. There are however some who are unfortunately capricious, and often refuse to give a character because they are displeased with the servant leaving; but this is an unpardonable violation of the right of a servant, ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... pity of it," he said. "You're wasting the most important thing about you, your personality. You would do more good in a drawing- room, influencing the rulers, than you will ever do hiding behind a pen. It was the drawing-room that made the ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... errors and mistakes, and however good their design, their rules were found improper and impracticable. The Carolineans plainly perceived, that they would prove unsurmountable obstacles to the progress and prosperity of the colony, and therefore from motives of pity began to invite the poor Georgians to come over Savanna river, and settle in Carolina, being convinced that they could never succeed under such ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... foot, to destroy him who flies; and none who flees from him reaches his home. His heart is strong in his time; he is a lion who strikes with the claw, and never has he turned his back. His heart is closed to pity; and when he sees multitudes, he leaves none to live behind him. He is a valiant one who springs in front when he sees resistance; he is a warrior who rejoices when he flies on the barbarians. He seizes the buckler, he rushes forward, he never needs to strike again, he slays and none can ...
— Egyptian Tales, First Series • ed. by W. M. Flinders Petrie
... return of fortune. But these days also were too good to last; and the former favourite of two sovereigns fled, if I heard the truth, by night. There was a time when he was counted a great man, and Millet but a dauber; behold, how the whirligig of time brings in his revenges! To pity Millet is a piece of arrogance; if life be hard for such resolute and pious spirits, it is harder still for us, had we the wit to understand it; but we may pity his unhappier rival, who, for no apparent merit, was raised to opulence and momentary ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the pity! I shall always be delighted if you will come in at any time. By the by, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... replied, "it seems a great pity that so much of her life has already been spent among such disadvantages, the greater part of the most valuable portion ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... clean the paint, Allenby," said Norah, taking pity on his distressed face. "But there's really ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... down with its paralyzing and deadly significance. Murder itself seemed to look from those cruelly quiet and remorseless gray pupils. For a moment he forgot his own rage in this glimpse of Clinch's implacable resentment; for a moment he felt a thrill of pity for the wretch who had provoked it. He remained motionless and fascinated in his chair as the lazy lids closed like a sheath over Clinch's eyes again. Rawlins, who had probably received the same glance ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... to admire—the eyes of famine sparkling at immediate relief, or the horror of their preservers at the sight of so many spectres, whose ghastly countenances, if the cause had been unknown, would rather have excited terror than pity. Our bodies were nothing but skin and bone, our limbs were full of sores, and we were clothed in rags: in this condition, with tears of joy and gratitude flowing down our cheeks, the people of Timor beheld us with a mixture ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... it is true, had also been given full powers to negotiate with the Nations, but they looked rather askance at him because of two telegrams he had sent. One stating that the Legations had reached Tientsin in safety was a most unfortunate falsehood and prejudiced the world against him, more's the pity, as he had hitherto been considered able and powerful abroad. The other was a foolish request that no foreign troops should pass Tungchow—a town on the Grand Canal about fifteen miles from the capital. It was quite right and proper that, being appointed, Li should share Prince ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... undergone wood pulp paper does not last so long as the linen rag paper used by our ancestors. The pages of the newspapers, magazines and books printed nowadays are likely to become brown and brittle in a few years, no great loss for the most part since they have served their purpose, though it is a pity that a few copies of the worst of them could not be printed on permanent paper for preservation in libraries so that future generations could congratulate themselves ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... side ladrillos refractarios, fire bricks ladron, thief lana, wool langosta, lobster lanillas para banderas, bunting lapiz, pencil lardo, lard largo, long largo de talle, abundant, full largura, length lastima, pity laton, brass leccion, lesson la leche, milk lectura, reading leer, to read legajo, bundle (of papers) legislatura, (parliamentary) session lejos, far away lengua, tongue, language lento, slow, remiss ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... moaned his lordship, in a fervor of self-pity. "Here have I been all these years letting you give me Hades in every shape and form, when all the while—My goodness, ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... inclined to that peculiar form of smug pity a hotel visitor who has been in a place a week feels for yesterday's arrival. He knew the ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... aghast. With a gulping cry of alarm and pity, he stooped to lift his unconscious daughter. He had not intended to do ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... was scarcely the time for reflections of any sort. Life called, and labor, and duty; not mourning for the dead world, nor even wonder or pity at the tragedy ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... "It shall drive at us several of the kings of Erin around us if he should carry off the daughter. What is good is, let us dash after him, and let us slay him forthwith, before he may inflict destruction upon us." "It is a pity this," says Medb, "and it is a decay of hospitality for us." "It shall not be a decay of hospitality for us, it shall not be a decay of hospitality for us, the way ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... quiet, bent figure of sorrow, that sat merely staring at the hills, and saw naught of anything before him. The things he saw were not the things around him. He was moving in a multitude again. He was walking among them with pity in his heart—a great pity for their ignorance, their lack of vision; and he was giving them knowledge and restoring light to their eyes, to widen their range of vision, so that they could take things in their true perspective. ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... range the valley free, To slaughter I condemn; Taught by that power that pities me, I learn to pity them. ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... knew him, his closer friends, and his casual acquaintances as well, must have known, for weeks, of this disgrace. His friends had been sorry for him, with just a grain of contempt; his acquaintances had grinned over it with just a pleasurable salt of pity. "Do you know Aldrich? Well, his wife's in the chorus at the Globe Theater. And he doesn't know it, poor devil." That group at the round table at the club to-night. He could fancy their ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... shall be given; and from him that hath not shall be taken even that which he hath. This is the special text that we delight to follow, and success is the god that we delight to worship. "Ah! pity me. I have struggled and fallen—struggled so manfully, yet fallen so utterly—help me up this time that I may yet push forward once again!" Who listens to such a plea as this? "Fallen! do you want bread?" "Not bread, but a kind heart and a kind hand." "My friend, I ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... Napoleon. "I am not one to tend sheep," he answered. "Keep your bread. It is not so good that one wishes to eat it twice; and—here, I pity you for having always to eat that stuff. Take mine!" With that, he tossed his store of dry bread to the shepherd boys, and, walking back to town, ran in to visit his foster mother; that is, the woman who had been his nurse when he was ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... no answer. He sat on the side of his bed, with hanging head, utterly disconsolate, and seeing this, Rinkitink had pity for his sorrow. ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... mischievous results show themselves in a thousand ways—in the rank frauds committed by men who dare to be dishonest, but do not dare to seem poor; and in the desperate dashes at fortune, in which the pity is not so much for those who fail, as for the hundreds of innocent families who are so often involved in their ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... ceremony. Paul at first despised the report, brought by a merchant vessel, as he knew that they often spread erroneous intelligence in their passage; but some of the inhabitants of the island, with malignant pity, affecting to bewail the event, he was soon led to attach some degree of belief to this cruel intelligence. Besides, in some of the novels he had lately read, he had seen that perfidy was treated as a subject of pleasantry; and knowing that these books contained pretty faithful representations ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... that had been accused of practising witchcraft. They were thus severely intolerant of the sacrilegious and lawless interruptions of the shy young "victims," who received in general only sympathy, pity, and even stimulating encouragement from their ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... man's salvation; for, as is said Qq. Vet. et Nov. Test., qu. 83, "it is in the power of the Giver to have pity when, or as much as, He wills. Hence He came when He knew it was fitting to succor, and when His boons would be welcome. For when by the feebleness of the human race men's knowledge of God began to grow dim and their morals lax, He was pleased to choose Abraham ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... over, a tall, solemn, black-haired man, he who had written the song, and stood with his feet apart and stared at Nick, but spoke never a word, which Nick thought was very singular. But as he turned away he said, with a world of pity in his voice, "And I have writ two hundred plays, yet never saw thy like. Lad, lad, thou art a jewel in a wild swine's snout!" which Nick did not understand at all; nor why Master Carew said so sharply, "Come, Heywood, hold thy blabbing tongue; we are all ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... I pity all those who know life and death only from books. War is a great teacher. We learn to love the earth. And thus our homeland ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... and weeping, And It couldn't wipe its eyes, And It muttered I was keeping Back the moonlight from the skies; So I patted it for pity, But it whistled shrill with wrath, And a huge black Devil City Poured its peoples ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... fairly weighed together, but all are ready to abandon me; while of the numerous train of privileged graces, whose care and friendship followed me everywhere, I have now only two of the smaller ones who cling to me out of mere pity. I pray you, let these dark abodes lend their solitude to the anguish of my heart, and suffer me to hide my shame and grief in the ...
— Psyche • Moliere
... clemency! Have pity on an old soldier, crippled with wounds, and enslaved by delusions. He is in danger of losing both his daughter and his wife. Heaven grant he may ...
— The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts • Honore De Balzac
... of course, is that upon which all human beings would fall back if they were sinking in a swamp or impaled on a spike or deserted on an island. It is that of calling out for pity to the passerby. That retreat was perceived; and that retreat was cut off. A man in England can be sent to prison for asking another man for help in the name ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... minds, prefer that it should chiefly rest there. To discuss seems only to define it more sharply, and to be greatly condoled is only debilitating. Montaigne, to avoid death-bed sympathies, desired to die on horseback; while against the eternal repeating of these ills for pity, he says that "the man who makes himself dead when living is likely to be held as though ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... have read whole sermons in his soft purrings. And I verily believe that many people might learn much from the family cat, except for the fact that we humans are such poor translators. We know only our own language. More's the pity. ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various
... for once presume to instruct the times To know the Poet from the Man of Rhymes: 'Tis he, who gives my breast a thousand pains, Can make me feel each passion that he feigns, Enrage, compose, with more than magic art, With pity and with terror tear my heart; And snatch me o'er the earth or through the air, To Thebes, to Athens, when he ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... preacher, "The sword that smites the enemy abroad, also lays bare the primeval savage within the citizen at home." And again, "War is not so horrible in that it drains the dearest veins of the foe, but in that it drains our own hearts of the yet more precious elements of pity, mercy, generosity, which are the lifeblood of ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... the window, Aunt Chris," she cried, "and now I want to know the meaning of this mystery. Dudley suspects you of having a lover, but I am positive that you've stolen a march on me and have been to market. What a pity I confessed to you that I couldn't ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... ashamed of his momentary jealousy of his brother. When she had finished speaking, he laughed and said: "What a pity Jim sees me through such fine magnifying glasses. The undesirable qualities in my character he ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... But I daresay it was for the best. It's a pity you had not proclaimed it at Charing Cross, and then nobody would have believed a word about it. Of course my father ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... thread into her hands again, and sat spinning for two or three minutes without answering a word. She was a sensible old woman, and it seemed to her a sad pity that a fine young man like her foster-son should waste his life in pining for the love of a maiden who had lain asleep and enchanted for three hundred years. Yet the nurse loved him so dearly that she could not bear to cross him in anything, or to refuse to do anything that he asked. So she sat ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... to the topic, Hermogenes demanded: "Do you not see, Socrates, how often Athenian juries [8] are constrained by arguments to put quite innocent people to death, and not less often to acquit the guilty, either through some touch of pity excited by the pleadings, or that the defendant had skill to turn some charming phrase?" Thus appealed to, Socrates replied: "Nay, solemnly I tell you, twice already I have essayed to consider my defence, and twice the divinity [9] hinders me"; ...
— The Apology • Xenophon
... deal of fight in the boy," said the rector, chuckling. "His aunts were always begging him not to get into rows with the village boys. I even had to caution him myself. 'Never fight, sir,' I'd say; 'but if you do fight, whip 'em!' Yes, it's a pity he couldn't have been ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... Chetwynde himself. But, in spite of all that she had suffered, her constitution was strong. Tender hands were at her service, kindly hearts sympathized with her, and the doctor, whose nature was stirred to its depths by pity and compassion for this beautiful stranger, who had thus fallen under the power of so mysterious a calamity, was unremitting in his attentions. The crisis of the fever came, and all that night, while it lasted, he staid with her, listening to her disconnected ravings, and understanding enough ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... to Mr. Bilson at Paris,—and, handing it to her, bade that it should be given to a groom, with orders to ride over to the Summit post-office at once to catch the last post. As the housekeeper turned to go, she again referred to the departing guest. "It seems such a pity, ma'am, that Mr. Calton couldn't stay, as he always said you did him so much good." Miss Trotter smiled affably. But when the door closed she gave a hysterical little laugh, and then, dropping her handsome gray-streaked head in her slim hands, cried like a girl—or, indeed, ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... Varnhagen's store in precisely the same frame of mind. The grimy, match-lined walls of the merchant's untidy office, the litter of odds and ends upon the floor, the antiquated safe which stood in one corner, all aroused his pity and contempt. ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... yearning wish to aid, to explain, to cheer. The silence, the stillness, the hopelessness of the pathetic figure woke in me the intensest desire to give I knew not what—an overwhelming impulse of pity. It seemed a parable of all the joy that is so sternly checked, all the hopes made vain, the promise disappointed, the very death of the soul. It seemed infinitely pathetic that God should have made so fair a thing, and then withheld ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... repentance, it argued, reasoned, prayed, implored the inferior powers that rebelled or recanted beneath. With what sublime majesty it ruled and swayed the subjects that owned its imperial dominion; and how it touched heaven on the one hand for pity, and earth on the other in power! And when the turbulent passions raged and stormed, it soothed and quelled their rebellion; and then, in recompense to itself, it went out and up towards the celestials, and joined its ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... eye, and then, idiot that she is, announced that she'd like to have twelve. But talk is cheap. The modern woman who's had even half that number has pretty well given up her life to her family. It's remarkable, by the way, the silent and fathomless pity I've come to have for childless women. The thought of a fat spinster fussing over a French poodle or a faded blond forlornly mothering a Pekinese chow gives me a feeling that is at least ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... instant every thought of fear was swallowed up in burning indignation for the wrong, and a perfect passion of pity for the desperate man so tempted to avenge an injury for which there seemed no redress but this. He was no longer slave or contraband, no drop of black blood marred him in my sight, but an infinite compassion yearned to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... with a kind of mute appealing wonder. Somehow I could not let him go. He seems a link between us in our separation; and while my thoughts are set upon rebuking the errors of humanitarianism it will be well to have this object of human pity ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... to us," said Min, courageously; "but the troubles and trials of the people in fiction are; and I believe that every kind thought which a writer makes throb through our hearts, better enables us to pity the ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... story; only there were two old women who lived by themselves, and were so very poor that they had nothing in the world to eat but potatoes and salt. One day a friend went to see them, and when he sat down to their humble meal of roasted potatoes, he was moved with pity, and told them he was very sorry to see them ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May
... Holderness into one of these rooms, and promptly sat on the pine stool by the window. Holderness looked at him with a mixture of admiration and pity. ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... be we have a careful study of a boy and an exquisitely sympathetic portrait of a mother. The latter part of the book is admirable both in what it tells and in what it merely suggests. More is the pity that Mr. PRYCE has weighed down David's childish back with too heavy a load of detail. My advice to you is to skip some of the earlier pages, and so husband your strength for the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 • Various
... too young to stand the work in the oil-fields, and that is about all there is to do this time of year. I shall go over to the house now for my breakfast, and you look after things while I am gone and then you may go get yours," said the man, who felt genuine pity for ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... want of money. He alienated the State revenues, he levied excise duties and subsidies in the provinces which remained faithful to his cause, and he borrowed largely from those members of the Church and the nobility who manifested a generous pity for the sad destiny of the King and the monarchy. Many persons, however, instead of sacrificing themselves for their king and country, made conditions with him, taking advantage of his position. The heir to the throne was obliged in many points to give way, either ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... There is indeed a still deeper "final moment" than this; but it is so rare as to be out of the reach of average humanity. I refer to an attitude like that of Jesus upon the cross; in whose mood towards his own suffering there was no element of "pride of will" but only an immense pity for the terrible sensitiveness of all life, and a supreme heightening of the emotion of love ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... teaching of the Church. My purpose is to show Luther's attitude towards the Devil, witches, apparitions, and all the rest of that ghostly tribe; and in doing so I have no wish to indulge in "the most small sneer" which Carlyle reprobates; although I do think it a great pity that such a man as Luther should have been a slave to superstitions which Erasmus would have met with ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... Gunns smiled stiffly, and thought what a pity it was that these rich country people, who could afford to buy such good clothes (really Miss Nancy's lace and silk were very costly), should be brought up in utter ignorance ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... "and so bring ruin on the man who had given them profitable employment for many a year." He speaks of a time {222b} "when the inventive head and the sustaining heart of trade were held in bondage by the unruly lower members." A pity that the English working-men will not let themselves be pacified so easily with thy fable as the Roman Plebs, thou modern Menenius Agrippa! Finally, he relates the following: At one time the coarse mule-spinners had misused their power beyond all endurance. High wages, ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... statement immediately. He inspected his finger nails thoughtfully before he glanced up. "It's a pity, but I'm afraid that cannot be managed, Mr. Lindsay. The boys in my Western company have been with me, some of them, since the Independent Sales Company was organized. They worked for next to nothing till I got things started. Two ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... youth named Rhoecus, wandering in the wood, Saw an old oak just trembling to its fall, And, feeling pity of so fair a tree, He propped its gray trunk with admiring care, And with a thoughtless footstep loitered on. 40 But, as he turned, he heard a voice behind That murmured 'Rhoecus!' 'Twas as if the leaves, Stirred by a passing breath, had murmured it, And, while he paused bewildered, yet again ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... man was murdered in the arms of his daughter, and the first who struck him was a monster he was forbidden to employ, but to whom he had given work from compassion. "I saw the man," said he to his master in explanation of his conduct, "living in such a wretched hovel; I had pity on him, and could not help employing him." An anonymous letter, written to the unhappy victim previous to his murder, and warning him of his fate, is characteristic of the cool barbarity with which those "patient people" undertake a murder—of the sordid calculations ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... always a fool and a lout. If Andor had lived it would have been all right. I think Pali bacsi was quite ready to do something really handsome for him. Now that Andor is dead he has no one; and when he dies his money all goes to the government. It is a pity," he added, with a shrug of the shoulders. "If a peasant of Marosfalva had it it would do good ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... victim (can it be more than one?) agree that, after encouraging her to unbridled license, Mr. Dexter turned round and attacked her with a poker— whether above or below the belt is surely immaterial. 'Tis true, 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true; but not once or twice, I fear me, in 'our fair island-story' has a similar thing occurred. The unique (I hope) feature in this case is the man Dexter's open boast that the incident is closed, and it is now 'too late in the day' to reopen it. 'Too ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... express intention of "getting one" on the girls, and making a breakfast out of it. But now the accomplishment of their purpose seemed doubtful, and there was a hollow look about them all that should have made Mrs. Havel pity them. ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... of aversion are the rabbins. The sublimest passages of the Scriptures they shamefully corrupt. As a case in point, they prate concerning Enoch that, while he was good and righteous, he very much inclined toward carnal desires. God, therefore, out of pity, prevented his sinning and perishing through death. Is not this, I pray you, a shocking corruption of the text before us? Why should they say concerning Enoch in particular, that he was subject to the evil desires of the flesh? As if ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... not know just how I can account for a strain of compassion which mingled with this sense of irresponsibility in me; perhaps it was my feeling of security that attuned me to pity; but certainly I did not look at this young girl long without beginning to grieve for her, and to weave about her a web of possibilities, which grew closer and firmer in texture when she was joined by a couple who had apparently not left her a ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... mud out of his eyes, Harry felt a very comfortable self-satisfaction. It was agreeable to pity His Grace of Marlborough. For the Duke of Marlborough was still the greatest man in Europe, the greatest man in the world—credibly the greatest man that ever lived. A pleasant fool, to marry such a wife ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... evaluated the rector's attitude; it was with something of pity in his mind that he turned ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... got used to steady work," she went on presently. "Men ain't apt to if they roam around too long. It's a pity you didn't come back the year after the World's Fair. Your father picked up a good bit of land cheap then, in the hard times, and I expect maybe he'd have give you a farm. It's too bad you put off comin' back so long, for I always thought he meant to ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... I must go at once. What a pity! I want to stay so much. Adieu, dear father; I will be with you again this afternoon." She embraced and kissed the ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... able to grasp. The long night had left him with little sympathy. The more he had thought of that blow, the greater the aversion he felt towards Arsdale. If the boy had n't struck her he would feel some pity for him, but that blow given in the dark against a defenseless woman—the one woman who had been faithful and kind to him—that was too much. It had raised dark thoughts there ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... "Pity it is so learned a person left no monuments (save a sermon) to posterity; for I behold that posthume work as none of his, named by the transcriber The Valley of Vision, a Scripture expression, but here misplaced.... ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 30. Saturday, May 25, 1850 • Various
... burdens of a war that lasted seven years—to reduce it, I say, in six months, to so low an ebb, that even the opulent were in danger of perishing with hunger; that reputable citizens could no longer procure the coarsest fare; and that, though their hearts overflowed with pity and compassion, they were absolutely incapable of affording the slightest relief, not so much as a crust of bread, to the sick and wounded soldier. It is impossible to give you any idea of the dexterity and rapidity with which the French soldiers will so totally change the look of a village, ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)
... brows sublime, Though, hurrying silent by, relentless Time Assail you, and the winds of winter sweep Round your dark battlements; for far from halls Of Pride, here Charity hath fixed her seat, Oft listening, tearful, when the tempests beat With hollow bodings round your ancient walls; And Pity, at the dark and stormy hour Of midnight, when the moon is hid on high, Keeps her lone watch upon the topmost tower, And turns her ear to each expiring cry; Blessed if her aid some fainting wretch may save, And snatch him cold and speechless from ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... pity, perhaps, for the blank despair that settled down on the two young faces he explained: "Nothing goes in the circus business but novelty. The public is tired out with ventriloquism. No mystery about it now—kind of thing, too, that ...
— Una Of The Hill Country - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... if he has deceived me. I won't let another woman have him! I will be his wife!" She threw herself theatrically on her knees before Julius. "Oh, do help me to find out the truth!" she said. "Oh, Julius, pity me! I am ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... such a pity about the others," she told her mother. "They'll think I'm partial, and I'm not, though I do love Norah a little bit the best, she's so affectionate. I wish we were rich. Then I could buy ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... as philosopher; and of this fact he must be constantly aware. So if he gives himself the airs of a judge, if he relies on his own reputation to make or mar the reputation of a work of art, he ceases to be a critic and deserves all that artists in their haste have said about him. Still, it is a pity that artists, in their haste, should say these things; for when they do so they, too, become critics of the wrong sort, critics insensitive to criticism. They may think that they are upholding the cause of art; but they are upholding the cause of stupidity, that common ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... dare to defy me?" said Gorman, with an air of assumed pity. "A pretty case you would have to make out of it. You fill your shop with combustibles, you warn your tenant upstairs to get out of the premises for a time in a way that must be quite unaccountable to her (until the fire accounts for it), and your own clerk sees you spilling ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... when first with guileless heart Further to walk she's lothe, and yet more lothe to part? It was not rayne, but angels' pearly teares, In pity dropt to soothe Eliza's feares. Whence came the cloude that veil'd the orb of nighte, When first her lippes she yielded to delyght? It was not cloude, but whylst the world was hush, Mercy put forthe her hande ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 337, October 25, 1828. • Various
... out as if he were burning and smouldering inside; even the way he smiles. Dad asked me what I thought of him! That was only the second day. I thought he was too proud, then. And Dad said: 'He ought to be in a Highland regiment; pity—great pity!' He is a fighter, of course. I don't like fighting, but if I'm not ready to, he'll stop loving me, perhaps. I've got to learn. O Darkness out there, help me! And Stars, help me! O God, make me brave, and I will believe ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... young friend is not going to turn out well," Dr. Lindsay, who had overheard the discussion, added in a distressed tone. "I have done what I can for him, but he is very opinionated and green—yes, very green. Pity—he is a clever fellow, one of the cleverest young surgeons ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... at her, and as he looked the colour rose into her cheeks; there came a look of sympathy, perhaps of pity, into her eyes. Almost her lips began to smile. Ralston turned his head again towards the alley, and he started in his saddle. The young man had raised his head. He was gazing fixedly towards them. His features were revealed and Ralston ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... pity we've no cartridges fer th' weepin," he panted; "'twould save th' hangman a lot o' trouble. Now there'll be a butcher's ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... long shadows of the late afternoon stretched across the way, but the clear sky gave indication of prolonged twilight, and the air was warm and balmy. Nature was filled with life, and seemed to be proclaiming that the cold was past. As he moved along the street he met a funeral procession. "What a pity," he thought, "a man should die, with summer so near at hand!" He was also surprised at the keenness of his sight; for, inclosed in each man's body, he saw the outline of his soul. But the dead man's body was empty, like a cage without a bird. He also read the thoughts in their minds. "Now," said ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... night the interview took place. Let the curtain fall over the meeting, let it close also over the wedding solemnities which followed with due splendour two days after. There are scenes in life which we regard with pity ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... constant rioting, on the means thus obtained. Among them, are women who have, or who hire the use of, infant children; others, who are blind, or maimed, or deformed, or who can adroitly feign such infirmities, and, by these means of exciting pity, and by artful tales of wo, they collect alms, both in city and country, to spend in all manner of gross and guilty indulgences. Meantime, many persons, finding themselves often duped by impostors, refuse to give ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... only words. Let PUNCH, the rival of this Caledonian Asmodeus, do justice to the man whose "character is stamped on every page (of his own), who yet is above pity; poor, yet full of enjoyment; humble, yet ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... work and lessen the bill at the same time. She did not forego the pleasure of pitying herself because she chanced to find the task imposed upon her an agreeable one. There are few people in this world who are sufficiently just and sufficiently sane to deny themselves the luxury of self pity merely because the occasion does ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... could not commit the senseless cruelty of leaving me when you have taught me to love you with every beat of my heart. I have been patient—I have held myself in, but I must speak now. Marry me, and teach me. I know nothing. You know all I need to know. For pity's sake be ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... leaders. So, as time unfolds, shall be the collections of this Society, the depository of the material that shall preserve the memory of this people. Each section of this widely extended and varied nation has its own peculiar past, its special form of society, its traits and its leaders. It were a pity if any section left its annals solely to the collectors of a remote region, and it were a pity if its collections were not transformed into printed documents and monographic studies which can go to the libraries ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... in every city who get relief (only a little to be sure, but enough to do harm) who ought never to have one cent,—families where the man can work, but will not work. The little given out of pity for his poor wife and children really intensifies and prolongs their suffering, and only prevents the man from doing his duty by making him believe that, if he does not take care of them, some one else will. On the other ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... That's the penalty of Indian service. You are soon forgotten, in India as quickly as here. In most cases, no doubt, it doesn't matter. Men just as good and younger stand waiting at the milestones to carry on the torch. But in some cases I think it's a pity." ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... religion that is comprehended in one burning word, one transforming principle, LOVE; which is not a theory, but a divine passion, and whose hopes all rest on the doctrine of forgiveness; so few practically and heartily pity, forgive, and love the erring and the wretched of the family of man. Oh! it was not thus when PITY, eighteen hundred years ago, habited as a man, and leaning upon a pilgrim's staff, set out from the brow of Nazareth to the hill of Calvary, tracing with tearful ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... his tail were four dark bands. Yes, he was handsome. But Peter had no thought for his beauty. He could see nothing but the fierceness of the eyes that were fixed on the entrance to that hollow log. Peter shivered as if with a cold chill. He knew that in Terror was no pity or gentleness. ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... will be wrong. The Earl's attitude is pleasantly parental, and the attentions of the Countess's cavalier—an author—are confined to the extraction of copy. And anyhow Mary's instincts are sound. Now and again she remembers to pity the loneliness of her husband, whose cottage light she can see from the window of her bower; and once, by a ruse, she gets him to break the conditions and visit her; but when he learns that the invitation came from her, and not, as alleged, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... of death: the dean of Peterborough alone exclaimed, "So perish all Queen Elizabeth's enemies:" the earl of Kent alone replied, "Amen:" the attention of all the other spectators was fixed on the melancholy scene before them; and zeal and flattery alike gave place to present pity and admiration of the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... this to Brother Stephen, however, it was a pity that he did so in such a cold and haughty way that altogether Brother Stephen's anger was aroused, for he had a rather unruly temper; and so, smarting under the disappointment of not receiving his ...
— Gabriel and the Hour Book • Evaleen Stein
... foolishly and wickedly unappreciative they had been of such a treasure as I; and when I saw them sitting about the big fire in the lamp light, heartlessly comfortable and unconcerned, it was all I could do to keep back the tears of self-pity—and ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... myself! my Julian! Alas! I boasted—but I thought on him, Inheritor of all—all what? my wrongs - Follower of me—and whither? to the grave - Ah, no: it should have been so years far hence! Him at this moment I could pity most, But I most prided in him; now I know I loved a name, I doted on a shade. Sons! I approach the mansions of the just, And my arms clasp you in the same embrace, Where none shall sever you—and do I weep! And do they triumph o'er my tenderness! I had forgotten my inveterate foes Everywhere ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... next wake, all this derision Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision.' . . . 'Her dotage now I do begin to pity.' . . . 'And think no more of this night's accidents But as the fierce vexation of ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... house of the Lord God of their fathers, and served groves and idols, and wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for their trespass, yet He sent prophets to them to bring them again unto the Lord.' He sent with endless pity, with long-suffering patience. He would not be put away, and as they increased the distance between Him and them, He increased His energies to bring them back. But they lifted themselves up, Joash and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... denote, he says, feeling or emotion in God. They are ascribed to him because of his visible acts or effects in the world, which we judge on the analogy of our own acts. As a human being is prompted to remove the misery of a fellowman because he feels pity, we ascribe all instances of divine removal of misery from mankind to a similar feeling in God, and call him merciful. But this is only a figure of speech. God does remove misery, but the feeling of pity is foreign to him. We call therefore the attribute merciful and others like it actional, meaning ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... and directing its course towards the Rue d'Anjou. As the brilliant equipage disappeared from the scene, the crowd, of which we before have spoken, greatly increased about one of the large trees in the Champs-Elysees, and expressions of pity were heard here and there amongst the groups. A lounger approached a young man on the skirts of the crowd, and said to him: ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... already lay upon his cheeks, making them more ghastly as he struggled to speak. "O Stephen Lee, it's no time to be sitting by the fire, when old Asa Osborn is rolling in the waters. A man's drownded; and who's to get the body for the wife and the children—God pity them!—afore the ebb ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... the spoil of the Church; when he, the most bitter foe of the King's title and dignity, had so contrived that his own will was supreme in the business of the State, I became weary of the whole affair; and, being filled with pity for the young King, proved to be a better prophet on the score of my inborn common-sense, than through my skill in Astrology. I took my departure straightway, conscious of some evil hovering anigh, ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... to the neigh. The house remained silent and dark. It confirmed John's first belief that the horse belonged to some peasant who had fled with his family from the armies. He stroked the animal's neck, and felt real pity for him, as if he had been a ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Brand's face just then, she might have given way. It was a terrible face; hard, bitter, despairing; with lines of anguish about the mouth, and a lurid light in the deep-set, haggard-looking eyes. Janetta, in the pity of her heart, went up to her cousin, and took his clenched hand between ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... on earth were so happy as they. But at last Ceyx was wrecked; and before he could swim to the shore, the billows swallowed him up. And Halcyone saw him drowning and leapt into the sea to him; but in vain. Then the Immortals took pity on them both, and changed them into two fair sea-birds, and now they build a floating nest every year and sail up and down for ever upon the pleasant ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... back in his chair and folding his hands, "I dare say it is too much to require you young gentlemen to study when it is such fine weather for football. What a pity it is that lessons and play conflict, is ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... long time,' said Betsey Ann; 'but they was very deep, them two, and I couldn't be quite sure of it. There's no mistake about it now, more's the pity!' ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... from the human world below, and one felt that he had placed himself entirely in the hands of nature. This was her realm, where she acknowledged no laws but her own, and was incapable of sympathy, pity, or remorse. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... the sobs are all actual. They pierce my heart. The cross with its piteous burden is outlined against the real sky. The green hill beyond is Calvary. Doves flutter in and out, and butterflies dart across the shafts of sunlight. The expression of Christ's face is one of anguish, forgiveness, and pity unspeakable. Then his head drops forward on his breast. It grows dark. The weeping becomes lamentation, and as they approach to thrust the spear into His side, from which I have been told the blood and water really ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... shop where Masks were sold, laid his foot upon one of them, and considering it awhile attentively, at last broke out into this exclamation:—"Bless me!" says he, "what a handsome face this is! What a pity it is that ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... yersilf," cried O'Connor indignantly. "Ain't I payin' the good woman a compliment, when I say that she had pity on me bashfulness, and came to me help ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... say to myself: 'What is the present woe compared to that past?' My grief is indeed cruel! it is illegitimate, ridiculous, shameful: I should not dare to confess it, even to the most indulgent of mothers. Alas! there are some fearful sorrows, which yet rightly make men shrug their shoulders in pity or contempt. Alas! these are forbidden misfortunes. Agricola has asked me to go to-morrow, to see this young girl to whom he is so passionately attached, and whom he will marry, if the instinct of my heart ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... what all, but all destroyers. But as far as the old original Huns were concerned, Pan Chow settled their hash for them. Bag and baggage he dealt with them; and practically speaking, the land of their fathers knew them no more. Dry the starting tear! here your pity is misplaced. Think of no vine-covered cottages ruined; no homesteads burned; no fields laid waste. They lived mainly in the saddle; they were as much at home fleeing before the Chinese army as at another time. A shunt here; a good kick off there: so he dealt with them. It is in European veins ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris |
