"Pity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... me," Jim replied. "I tell you I shall be a regular sight wherever I go. I shall have fellows asking me what has happened to me. Now, had it been an arm, chaps would have been sorry for me; but who is going to pity a man for losing ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... aware of an emotion too complex to analyse. There was pity in it, but amusement too. The emotion, though she did not recognize it, was maternal. Mothers, listening to their children pleading with engaging absurdity for something wholly out of their power to bestow, feel that same wavering between tears ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... room that she had left, which was a kitchen, and laid her down on a settle. Two maids who were standing there uttered exclamations of surprise and pity as the girl was ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... stared him steadily in the face. Counsel for the Crown—Forbes-Ewing, Q.C.—was an old forensic enemy, who had fought many a hard battle against Gildersleeve, with scant interchange of courtesy, when both were members of the junior Bar together; but now Sir Gilbert's look moved even HIM to pity. "I think, my lord," the Q.C. suggested with a sympathetic simper, "your lordship's too ill to open the court to-day. Perhaps the proceedings had better be adjourned ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... quite obscures the point. Vergil says that a country life, with its absence of poverty, so commonly met with in a town, saves a man from the necessity of feeling a pang of pity for the poor. ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... pity? 'Tis virtue's essence,—'tis benevolence Itself;—'tis mercy, justice, charity; It is the rarest boon that man doth give to man; It is the first perfection of our nature; It is the brightest attribute of heav'n: Without it man should rank beneath the brute; And with it—he is little ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 376, Saturday, June 20, 1829. • Various
... hands tightly together as he looked at the doctor, and his lips worked and twitched convulsively. Then a wild beseeching look overspread his face. "For God's sake don't ask me!" he burst out. "I implore you as man to man to have pity on me. I cannot be here ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... before at public worship in the abovementioned Town of Muhlberg, and completely beaten by Kaiser Karl the Fifth and his Spaniards and Duke of Alba, did, on Monday 25th April, 1547, ride forth as Prisoner to meet the said Kaiser; and had the worst reception from him, poor man. "Take pity on me, O God! This is what it is come to?" the magnanimous beaten Kurfurst was heard murmuring as he rode. At sight of the Kaiser, he dismounted, pulled off his iron-plated gloves, knelt, and was: for humbly taking ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... cold one evening in coming out of the cathedral; the next day she was confined to her bed, and soon after became dangerously ill. The whole town rang with pity and false commiseration: "Mademoiselle Gamard's sensitive nature has not been able to bear the scandal of this lawsuit. In spite of the justice of her cause she was likely to die of grief. Birotteau has killed his benefactress." Such were the speeches ...
— The Vicar of Tours • Honore de Balzac
... not the practice of that prince to ruin his ministers and favorites by halves; and though the unhappy prisoner once wrote to him in so moving a strain as even to draw tears from his eyes, he hardened himself against all movements of pity, and refused his pardon. The conclusion of Cromwell's letter ran in these words: "I, a most woful prisoner, am ready to submit to death when it shall please God and your majesty; and yet the frail flesh incites me to call to your grace for mercy and pardon of mine offences. Written ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... You can feel no pity for the murderer, the thief, the prostitute. Such people may aptly be termed the wild beasts of society, and, like wild beasts, should be hunted down and killed, in order to secure the peace and comfort of the rest. Well, the law has been doing this for ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... coming—for trusting your trouble to me. A time comes to every one of us when we can't help ourselves, and then we must get others to help us. If people turn to me at such a time, I feel sure that I was put into the world for something—if nothing more than to give my pity, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... "I pity you, upon my soul! Indeed, I believe that it is too late, and that a doctor could do nothing. One must obey the laws of prudence and let her die. The mischief is done, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... said Blondine. "I entreat you to have pity upon me and lead me to some house before I perish with hunger, cold and ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... maintain the species, have been evolved in the males into means for exciting the female. And we can hardly doubt, that the females are most readily enticed to yield to the butterfly that sends out the strongest fragrance,—that is to say, that excites them to the highest degree. It is a pity that our organs of smell are not fine enough to examine the fragrance of male Lepidoptera in general, and to compare it with other perfumes which attract these insects.[43] As far as we can perceive them they resemble the fragrance of flowers, but there are Lepidoptera whose scent suggests ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... honest in thinking that New York is God's country. But out there in Texas also is, for it is just as God made it. Why, I'm going to start a cattle ranch as soon as I get there and go back to nature. Don't pity me. Rather let me pity you, who think, act, and look as if turned out of the same mill. Any social sacrifices which I make in leaving here will be repaid tenfold by the freedom and ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... suits and a belted coat and a little green hat, walking up Michigan Avenue of a bright winter's afternoon, trying to take the curb with a jaunty youthfulness against which every one of his fat-encased muscles rebelled, was a sight for mirth or pity, ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... a jug of brandy among his stores, and Gershom found it out. I blame no one; for Bourdon, who never abuses the gifts of Providence, had a right to his comforts at least; but it IS a pity that there was anything of the sort in ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... a word spoken, for Kate looked at the picture of the three, saw the pity in the eyes of Whistling Dan, saw the wonder in the eyes of Joan, saw the truth of all she had lost. She turned towards the entrance and went out, her head bowed, stumbling over ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... is a pity. But here in Brazil one need not drink water unless he wishes, and often it is better not to. Of the Mayorunas, senhor—you do not intend to go among them, seeking this wild man of the red bones? If you should do so it would be a ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... said to have given the money? Was it given because I was a man of tender heart, etc., etc.? ... What has all this to do with acts of free-will? If they are free, they must not be conditioned by antecedent circumstances of any sort, by the misery of the beggar, by the pity in the heart of the passer-by. They must be causeless, not determined. They must drop from a clear sky out of the void, for just in so far as they can be accounted for, they are not free.' [Footnote: Loc. cit., vol. ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... Lady Helena reappeared, her look was full of hope. Had she succeeded in extracting the secret, and awakening in that adamant heart a last faint touch of pity? ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... reverted to the frail atom of humanity nestling by her side, her brows contracted and her eyes filled with bitter tears, as she weakly reached out her trembling hand to adjust its coverings, faintly murmuring, with quivering lips and a bursting heart, some words of endearment and pity. And then—alarmed by the footsteps of some chance passerby, or by the closing of the door of a neighbouring house, and fearing that it was the sound she had been waiting for and dreading through all those weary hours, she would turn in ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... on the subject of gifts. Indeed, I shall tell you, O Bharata, how gifts should be made unto all the orders of men. From desire of merit, from desire of profit, from fear, from free choice, and from pity, gifts are made, O Bharata! Gifts, therefore, should be known to be of five kinds. Listen now to the reasons for which gifts are thus distributed in five classes. With mind freed from malice one should make gifts unto Brahmanas, for by making gifts unto the one acquires fame here ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... pincers : prenilo. pinch : pincxi. pine : pino; konsumigxi. "-apple," ananaso. pink : rozkolora; dianto. pioneer : pioniro. pipe : tubo, pipo; (mus.) sxalmo. pistol : pistol'o, -eto. piston : pisxto. pit : kavo, fosajxo, (well) puto; (theatre) partero. pitch : pecxo, bitumo; tono. pitcher : krucxo. pity : kompati. ("a-"), domagxo. pivot : pivoto, akso. placard : afisxo, place : loko; meti. plague : turmenti, inciteti; pesto. plait : plekti, har'ligo, -plektajxo, plan : plano, projekto, skizo. plane ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... said very quietly, "that if you see any danger in my unconventionalities, I don't care to discuss this, or any other matter, with you now or at any time." She paused, then added in a more friendly voice: "It would be rather a pity for us to quarrel ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... with shame: and Curio, the father, when he attempted to reply to me in a weighty and important cause which concerned the honour of his family, sat suddenly down, and complained that I had bewitched him out of his memory. As to moving the pity of my audience, it will be unnecessary to mention this. I have frequently attempted it with good success, and when several of us have pleaded on the same side, this part of the defence was always resigned to me; in which my supposed excellence was not owing ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... all-powerful, am accused of ambition! I am taxed with cruelty,—I who have but two deaths upon my conscience. Even to impartial minds I am still a problem. Do you believe that I was actuated by hatred, that vengeance and fury were the breath of my nostrils?' She smiled with pity. 'No,' she continued, 'I was cold and calm as reason itself. I condemned the Huguenots without pity, but without passion; they were the rotten fruit in my basket and I cast them out. Had I been Queen of England, I should have treated seditious ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... in, and Catherine told the story all in favour of the black sheep, and invited his pity for them, anathematized by their brother, and turned on the wide world by their father. But Giles's prejudices ran the other way; he heard her out, and told her bluntly the knaves had got off cheap; they deserved to be hanged ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... a pity that such correct information as that taken down in writing upon the spot should be lost (for all the other evidences, except Dr. Spaarman and Mr. Wadstrom, had spoken from their memory only), I made all the interest I could to procure a ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... companions, but the Malays in return signified that they must come and fetch it themselves. Pat Brady's delight on seeing me knew no bounds. Followed by the party, I quickly returned. We were none of us objects to excite fear. Malay pirates are not much addicted to feelings of pity. Such we believed to be the occupation of the gentry before us. Smith, I found, could speak a little Malay, and, putting him forward as interpreter, we explained more clearly to the Rajah what had happened, ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... "That's a pity. I'd have liked to see some of the old lot. Ever since we came to grief none of them has been near us except Harker. He called one day, like a brick, but he won't ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... be collecting stations for these tragic colonists, centres to which they must be herded in from surrounding districts: one at Osmanieh, let us say, one at Aleppo, one at Ras-el-Ain, one at Damascus. And since it would be a pity to let so many flowers of girlhood waste their sweetness on the desert air of Deir-el-Zor, slave markets must be established at these collecting stations. There would be plenty of girls, and prices would be low, but ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson
... a pity," says the dutiful husband. "Girls should not choose for themselves. You did not, my dear, and that is why our life ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... lairs which lie hidden behind the white beauty of Paris—yet he spoke with a terrible eloquence which kept me fascinated. I remember some of his words, though I cannot give them his white heat of passion, nor the infinite pathos of his self-pity. ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... be a perfectly eligible companion for her daughter as she grew up: her ladyship intended to part with the governess when Lady Augusta was fifteen; but from day to day, and from year to year, this was put off: sometimes Lady S—— thought it a pity to dismiss mademoiselle, because "she was the best creature in the world;" sometimes she rested content with the idea, that six months more or less could not signify; till at length family reasons obliged her to postpone mademoiselle's dismission: part ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... mon pere, alas, was not at home—mon pere had gone that day to Belpie. The very handsome face—how shall I say?—was upset by disappointment—teach me if I use the wrong word. I saw the sad regret and was grieved also. He looked in my eyes with a kind pity for the hurt boatman, and quickly I spoke. 'Monsieur, I, also, can use the instruments of mon pere, and wrap the bandages. Always I assist. Mon pere names me his aide. I will go and dress the hurt arm.' The young man did not say no, but his eyes were full of doubt, ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... pity Mark wasn't there—he didn't like acting without Mark. But matters were moving too quickly now to take any chances. There was no telephone at the ranch, or he could have called up long-distance, and a telegram, to be intelligible, would have to be too explicit. He would ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... "Oh, I crave no pity, madam," our dear girl answered, cheerily. "My father and brother are so good to me—just like a true father and brother—that if I but hinted a wish to visit the moon, they would at once set about to arrange the voyage. I do not always stay at home. Twice I have been on a visit to ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... His banter is nearly always ungainly, his wit blunt, as Johnson said, and often unseasonable. As is usual with a man who has not true humour, Burke is also without true pathos. The thought of wrong or misery moved him less to pity for the victim than to anger against the cause. Again, there are some gratuitous and unredeemed vulgarities; some images that make us shudder. But only a literary fop can be ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... is crowing shrill, Leave my little bed I will, And I'll rise to hear the Lark, For it is no longer dark; 'Twould be a pity there to stay, When 'tis light ...
— Aunt Kitty's Stories • Various
... His motive, his example, are every man's key to his own gifts and happiness. The ethical code he taught may no doubt be matched, here a piece and there a piece, out of other religions, other teachings and philosophies. Every thoughtful man born with a conscience must know a code of right and of pity to which he ought to conform; but without the motive of Christianity, without love, he may be the purest altruist and yet be as sad and as unsatisfied ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... their help in this matter. In the Preface to his Small Catechism we read: "Therefore I entreat you all for God's sake, my dear sirs and brethren, who are pastors or preachers, to devote yourselves heartily to your office, to have pity on the people who are entrusted to you, and to help us inculcate the Catechism upon the people, especially upon the young." (533, 6.) And as he earnestly admonished the pastors, so he also tenderly invited them to be faithful in this work. He was firmly ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... "What a pity," I remarked, pleasantly, "that you are so thin. Shall I come down and hold the boat still while you get out? Wet flannel has such a ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... and Jack the blue one, and both drank; after that they went out of the cellar and recommenced their combat. Jack having overpowered her seized her by the hair and beat Baba Yaga with her own pestle. She began to entreat Jack to take pity upon her, promised to live at peace with him, and that very moment to depart from the place. Jack with the Bear's Ear consented thereto, and ceased ...
— The Story of Yvashka with the Bear's Ear • Anonymous
... for my ears may not hearken, And my eyes are grown dim as the eyes of the dying. Is this the grey rack o'er the sun's face a-flying? Or is it your faces his brightness that darken? Comes a wind from the sea, or is it your sighing? —Pass by me, and hearken, and pity me not! ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... the abode of a great magician, was kept in such constant fear of a cat, that the magician, taking pity on it, turned it into a cat itself. Immediately it began to suffer from its fear of a dog, so the magician turned it into a dog. Then it began to suffer from fear of a tiger. The magician therefore turned it into a tiger. Then it began to suffer from fear of hunters, and the magician ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... pity then to take this from thee; Here, take it again, I know you'l use me ne're the worse for what I ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... pity to Fan to tear them up unread; for some were so long and so beautifully written, with pretty little crests at the top of the page; but Mary knew her own mind, and would not relent so far as even to look at one of these wasted specimens of calligraphic ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... all mortals may correct: For he abhorred that senseless tribe Who call it humour, when they gibe: He spared a hump or crooked nose Whose owners set not up for beaux. Some genuine dulness moved his pity Unless it offered to be witty. Those who their ignorance confessed He ne'er offended with a jest; But laughed to hear an idiot quote A verse of Horace, learned by drote. He knew a hundred pleasing stories With all the turns of Whigs and Tories; ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... soldiers, "with their heads bent earthwards," stood in silence. It was not that they would not follow him beyond the sunset; they could not. Their tears began to flow, sobs reached the ears of Alexander, his anger turned to pity, and he wept with ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... good, hard, miserable loving. Didn't you ever hear of a 'lean and hungry lover'? Your conduct is positively—have another muffin and this little slice of upper joint—I say positively, unwomanly inhuman. Are there no depths of pity in your breast? Is your bosom of adamant? When did you see David Kildare? He is in a most pitiable condition. He left here not an hour ago ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... pity," retorted the vicar. "Another point: I'm not by any means sure I approve of that fellow Hyde. I doubt if he's a religious man." Val brushed away a smile. "He comes to church with Laura pretty regularly, ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... no line between it and the smooth, straight edge of the paper above; also, nothing follows on the same line. Some one writes to Crockett—presuming it to be a letter addressed to him, as I do for other reasons—as Sammy. It is a pity that there is no more of the letter to be found than these pieces. I expect the person who tore it up put the rest in his pocket ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... do something that might help or comfort, a 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 joy. And it seemed ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... they rushed to execute his word, But hard and dangerous that emprise they found, For none of Raymond's men forsook their lord, But to their guide's defence they flocked round, Thence fury fights, hence pity draws the sword, Nor strive they for vile cause or on light ground, The life and freedom of that champion brave, Those spoil, these would preserve, ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... excommunicated and outlawed. After Edward had left Italy, the unhappy man ventured to meet the Pope at Florence in his shirt, with a halter round his neck, and implored that his sentence might be changed to imprisonment. The Pope had pity on him, and, after a confinement of eleven years, he was liberated, and returned to his wife's estates. He afterward was taken prisoner in the wars in Sicily, but his ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... assisting at the ceremony. Walking together afterwards in the little garden of the convent, Father Rumpler said to him: "Mr. McMaster, you begin well—setting fire to a priest." "Oh," answered he, "if I don't set fire to something more than that it will be a pity." These new friends of Isaac had applied to enter the Redemptorist novitiate and they had been accepted. This meant a voyage to Europe, for the congregation had not yet established a novitiate ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... the store-room of a theatre. Suddenly he observed a face glaring down on him and began to be very frightened; but looking more closely he found it was only a Mask such as actors use to put over their face. "Ah," said the Fox, "you look very fine; it is a pity you have not got ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... of esteem and pleasure; pity is composed of sorrow and contempt: the mind may for some time fluctuate between them, but it can never entertain both ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward
... was inclined to pity myself when he first began"—said Walden, laughing also—"But I must confess I was agreeably surprised. Some of his fancies ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... a strange coincidence, also met a most friendly Morris chair, which held out inviting arms. It seemed a pity to refuse such cordiality, so Marjorie sat down in it a minute to do that thinking they had spoken about. What was it they were to think of? Something about the moon? No, that wasn't it. Her new furs? Not ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... one, this determined advocate of his country's cause, and he alone knew the real menace of the impending tornado. "Your mother ought not to be here, Alec," he muttered. "A little more of this and she will faint. Look at her! Have you no pity in your heart? This is no place for a woman. Unlock the door and let her be ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... had proceeded rather out of their silence. She said to her visitor that whether or no the angels came down to her in glittering armour, she struck her as the only person she had yet encountered who had exactly the same tenderness, the same pity, for women that she herself had. Miss Birdseye had something of it, but Miss Birdseye wanted passion, wanted keenness, was capable of the weakest concessions. Mrs. Farrinder was not weak, of course, and she brought a great intellect to the matter; ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... Hal's pity for all suffering women became concentrated upon the girl beside him. He knew how tenderhearted she was. She had no man in the mine, but some day she would have, and she was suffering the pangs of that inexorable ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... been quick, Cecil," she said, cheerfully. "I thought I was going to help you, but there doesn't seem anything for me to do. Thanks very much for saddling Bobs." She led the pony out, and then stopped. "Oh, what a pity," she said. "You've got ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... I like not this vnnaturall dealing; when I desired their leaue that I might pity him, they tooke from me the vse of mine owne house, charg'd me on paine of perpetuall displeasure, neither to speake of him, entreat for him, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... 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
... have not the power, nor the will, to punish. A soldier's death to-day is what you can best pray for, that you may not live to think of this hereafter. She sent for you to forgive you, but died and you are unforgiven. Bad as you are, I pity you that you must go to battle haunted by the remembrance of this murder that ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... where the decayed son of chivalry has hung up his scutcheon for some 20s. a week, and where one or two old friends will look grave and whisper to each other, "Poor gentleman," "A well-meaning man," "Nobody's enemy but his own," "Thought his parts could never wear out," "Family poorly left," "Pity he took that foolish title"? Who ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... enunciation. And so in after years, as I returned repeatedly to England, after longer or shorter intervals of time, and always inhabited the same neighborhood in London, I still continued to hear, on dark drizzly evenings (and never without a thrill of poignant pain and pity) this angel's voice wandering in the muddy streets, its perfect, round, smooth edge becoming by degrees blunted and broken, its tones rough and coarse and harsh, some of the notes fading into feeble indistinctness—the fine, bold, true ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... misunderstanding which may have existed between us, I am disposed entirely to bury it in forgetfulness, as having arisen out of a series of mistakes which no mortal could have comprehended. And do not be offended, my dear Sir John, when I protest, on my knightly faith, that I pity the pain which I think this scroll is likely to give you, and that if my utmost efforts can be of the least service to you in unravelling this tangled skein, I will contribute them with as much earnestness as ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... roads from Ostia, Laurentum, and Ardea, those, namely, from which the pirates could most easily approach the city. It commanded also the water-way by the Tiber, and the towpaths on each of its banks. It is a great pity that no stone of this historical wall should be left standing. It saved the city from further invasions of the African pirates, as the agger of Servius Tullius had saved it, centuries before, from the attacks of the Carthaginians. I have examined the ground between S. ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... them all that they had—goods, lands, and houses—not for adultery, or theft, or treason, but for the profession of the Gospel?" "It pleased God," wrote Bishop Jewel, "here to cast them on land: the queen of her gracious pity hath granted them harbor. Is it become so heinous a thing to show mercy?" "They are our brethren," continued their noble-minded advocate, "they live not idly. If they have houses of us, they pay rent for them. They hold not our grounds ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because this villany had been committed by me; but I saw there was but one way with me, I must go to him and humble myself unto him, and beg that he, of his wonderful mercy, would show pity to me, and have mercy upon my wretched ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... what a pity that he had to bother her. Did she drink the egg-flip I had sent up to her? Mrs. Jenkins makes them ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... should she not call? She had had no open break with Peter, and on every occasion his aunt had begged her to take pity on an old woman's loneliness. Susan was always longing, in her secret heart, for that accident that should reopen the old friendship; knowing Peter, she knew that the merest chance would suddenly bring him to her side again; his whole life was spent in following the inclination of the moment. ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... City Hall. He taught only the cotillion and the three-step waltz and came to our school three times a week for this purpose. Much attention was given to poetry, and I still recall the first piece I committed to memory, "Pity the Sorrows of a Poor Old Man." My father thoroughly believed in memorizing verse, and he always liberally rewarded me for every piece I was able to recite. I may state, by the way, that Blair's Rhetoric was a textbook ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... Black, Robinson, and Sala are dead, and Wilson has sought the more august society of the Athenaeum. The luncheon table is still maintained, and we have found one or two recruits to fill the empty chairs; but I think it is with pity, rather than with envy, that we survivors of the original party are now ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... said the widow, with a spice of malice, seeing her own opportunity, "what a pity that you were older than your husband! Well, it will be fortunate for the child if she marries an old man, for beauty of her ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... the world has passed forever from the nightmare of pity for the dead: they have ceased from their labors and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... poor heathens using this language, it is our duty to pity them, for it is plain enough to any sober reasoner, that nothing is so vain as to talk of this glory being a real and substantial good; for there is no better reason for my being happy because my name is celebrated, than because any thing else is celebrated ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... spot—a convenient distance from the old town; and to the old town were now flocking the bruisers of England, men of tremendous renown. Let no one sneer at the bruisers of England—what were the gladiators of Rome, or the bull-fighters of Spain, in its palmiest days, compared to England's bruisers? Pity that ever corruption should have crept in amongst them—but of that I wish not to talk, let us still hope that a spark of the old religion, of which they were the priests still lingers in the breasts of Englishmen. There ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... sunshine and a cloudless sky. And my eyes were drawn to other hospital ships that were waiting at the docks. Motor ambulances came dashing up, one after the other, in what seemed to me to be an endless stream. The pity of that sight! It was as if I could peer through the intervening space and see the bandaged heads, the places where limbs had been, the steadfast gaze of the boys who were being carried up in stretchers. They had done their task, a great number of them; they ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... so that it is common for a number of them, that have got a glass in their heads, to go up into the belfry, and ring the bells for hours together for the sake of exercise. If they see a foreigner very well made, or particularly handsome, they will say, "It is a pity ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... Friday she also failed through weakness, and was compelled to lie down in the field. That night the overseer himself whipped her. On Saturday the wretched woman dragged herself once more to the cotton field. In the burning sun, and in a situation which would have called forth pity in the bosom of any one save a cotton-growing overseer, she struggled to finish her task. She failed—nature could do no more—and sick and despairing, she sought her cabin. There the overseer met her and inflicted fifty more lashes upon her already ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... possess neither the sympathy nor the understanding necessary to enable them to offer a high grade of service in the rural school. Not a few of them feel above the work of such a position, and look with contempt or pity upon the life of the farm. The successful rural teacher must be able to identify himself very completely with the interests and activities of the community; nor can this be done in any half-hearted, sentimental, or professional manner. It must be a spontaneous ...
— New Ideals in Rural Schools • George Herbert Betts
... broken short, Came up, and with his leash unbound In anger struck the noble hound. The Douglas had endured, that morn, The King's cold look, the nobles' scorn, And last, and worst to spirit proud, Had borne the pity of the crowd; But Lufra had been fondly bred, To share his board, to watch his bed, And oft would Ellen Lufra's neck In maiden glee with garlands deck; They were such playmates that with name Of Lufra Ellen's image came. His stifled wrath is brimming high, In darkened ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... "Pity you should have taken all that trouble!" said the sergeant, as he came panting up, followed by his men, "because we might want you to tell us all a bit about the value of them stones! Now then, up with you. Let him get up, Lancer! And see here, my lad, ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... m., persecutor. personnage, m., character (in a play); —s, dramatis personae. perte, f., loss, destruction. peu, little. peuple, m., nation, people, host. peupler, to people. peut-tre, may be, perhaps. pied, m., foot. pige, m., snare. pierre, f., stone. pit, f., Piety, Love of God. piti, f., pity. place, f., place, room, square. placer, to place, set. plaindre, to pity; se —, to complain. plainte, f., complaint. plaire (), to please; se — (), to enjoy. plaisir, m., pleasure. plein, full. pleurer, to weep, weep ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... yards of the stream and still grasping his toy sword, no longer a weapon but a companion, sobbed himself to sleep. The wood birds sang merrily above his head; the squirrels, whisking their bravery of tail, ran barking from tree to tree, unconscious of the pity of it, and somewhere far away was a strange, muffled thunder, as if the partridges were drumming in celebration of nature's victory over the son of her immemorial enslavers. And back at the little plantation, where white men and black were hastily searching ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... into his good-humored, chuckling laugh, and Tommy Dye grinned, but their faces sobered instantly. The pity of it touched and moved the priest through his sense of humor. The gambler was softened and ashamed, he hardly knew why. With one simultaneous impulse they sent their horses forward, and ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... Who would aver that more it might beseem If that, of Heaven so loved and eulogized, Should hold me not in its captivity. Leave, oh leave me, every other wish, Cease, fretting thoughts, and give me peace; Why draw me forth from looking at the sun, From looking at the sun that I so love. You ask in pity, wherefore lookest thou On that, on which to look is thy undoing? Wherefore so captivated by that light? And I will say, because to me this pain Is dearer than all other ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... the force of opinion. But so commanding was the energy, so powerful the earnestness, and so inexhaustible the resources of his nature that he was as terrible to his foes on the last day as on the first, passionless and pitiless, never distorted by cruelty, and never melted by pity, an iron ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... the coming of Christ, the great majority of men were looked upon as a higher development of the animal, as animated instruments which might be bought and sold, given away and pawned; which might be tormented, maltreated, or murdered; as beings, in a word, for whom the idea of right, duty, pity, mercy, and law had no existence. Who can read, without a feeling of intense horror, the accounts left us of the treatment of their slaves by the Romans? There was no law that could restrain in the least the wantonness, the cruelty, the licentious ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... of their sympathy would subside. Human nature viewed in its crude state as pictured amongst African savages is quite on a level with that of the brute, and not to be compared with the noble character of the dog. There is neither gratitude, pity, love, nor self-denial; no idea of duty; no religion; but covetousness, ingratitude, selfishness and cruelty. All are thieves, idle, envious, and ready to plunder and enslave ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... his wife seven years later, Mr. Gladstone says of this dispute, 'Mr. Arbuthnot told me to-day an observation of Sir George Lewis's when at the exchequer here. Speaking of my controversy with the Bank in 1854, he said, "It is a pity Gladstone puts so much heat, so much irritability into business. Now I am as cool as a fish."' The worst of being as cool as a fish is that you never get great things done, you effect no improvements, and you carry no reforms, against the lethargy or selfishness ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... persuasion which Chatham and Pericles in manhood had not. His unaffected lamentations when he lifts up his voice on high, or, more beautiful, the sobbing child,—the face all liquid grief, as he tries to swallow his vexation,—soften all hearts to pity, and to mirthful and clamorous compassion. The small despot asks so little that all reason and all nature are on his side. His ignorance is more charming than all knowledge, and his little sins more bewitching than any virtue. His flesh is angels' flesh, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... "Pity Letty Boynton missed this evenin'," said Mrs. Todd. "Her an' Dick allers had a fancy for each other, so I've heard, though I don't know how true. Clarissa Perry might jest as well have stayed with the twins as not, for her niece that spoke a piece forgot 'bout half of it an' Clarissa was ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Lion-hearted reigned over England. Robin Hood, with his merry men, leads an adventurous life in Sherwood Forest, engaging in feats of strength and hunting the king's tall deer. Bishops, sheriffs, and gamekeepers are his only enemies. For the common people he has the greatest pity, and robs the rich to endow the poor. Courtesy, generosity, and love of fair play are some of the characteristics which made him a popular hero. If King Arthur was the ideal knight, Robin Hood was ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... overmastered him, and he sat staring vacantly. But the horror was not against the woman who had called it up, and who lay prostrate before him. She could not have been personally abhorrent, for in a few minutes, with a start, he noticed her once more, and his face was overspread by an anguish of pity and sympathy. He raised her up, he led her to a couch, and made her sit down, and then sat in silence before her with his face buried in his hands. She reclined on the couch with her countenance turned toward him, trembling still, and panting for breath, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... her death went Alda fair. The king but deemed she fainted there. While dropped his tears of pity warm, He took her hands and raised her form. Upon his shoulder drooped her head, And Karl was ware that she was dead. When thus he saw that life was o'er, He summoned noble ladies four. Within a cloister was she borne; They watched beside her until morn; Beneath a shrine her limbs were ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... fulfilled, could concern itself about others only with a view to benefitting them. No merciful divinity would create a world so full, as ours is, of evils of all kind—birth, old age, death, hell, and so on;—if it created at all, pity would move it to create a world altogether happy. Brahman thus having no possible motive cannot be the cause of the world.—This prim facie view is disposed of ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... line and cut was hopelessly lost in the wearing. Who she was I did not know; but I soon learned, for one of the two young women in front of me said a low something to which the other gave back a swift retort, woefully audible: "His wife? That little dowdy thing in brown? Oh, what a pity! Such an ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... pity it is that Christian never met Mr. Common-Sense with his daughter, Good-Humour, and her affianced husband, Mr. Hate-Cant; but if he ever saw them in the distance he steered clear of them, probably as feeling that they would be more dangerous than Giant Despair, Vanity Fair and Apollyon ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... shall list the well-known ditty Sung by some Mountain-Girl, who tends her Goats, Some Village-Swain imploring amorous pity, Or Shepherd ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... will do all I can. We poor folks who have none of this world's goods, ought to be rich at least in sympathy and pity for each other's suffering, for it is about all we have to share. Don't you worry and fret, for I will see your ma has what she needs. I was mothered by the best woman God ever made, and since she died, every sick mother I see has a sort of claim on ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Van Brock gave the signal and the "executive committee" adjourned to the drawing-room. Here the talk, already so deeply channeled in the groove political, ran easily to forecastings and predictions for another electoral year; and when Penelope began to yawn behind her fan, Ormsby took pity on her and the ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde |
