"Woefully" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... phases overlapped, that is, it was only for a moment—he was clean out before I had got well in. How far he had really at any moment dashed forward it is not for me now to attempt to say; what comes to me is that I at least hung inveterately and woefully back, and that this relation alike to our interests and to each other seemed proper and preappointed. I lose myself in wonder at the loose ways, the strange process of waste, through which nature and fortune may deal on occasion with those whose faculty for application ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... the dissolution would have carried everybody away," said Lord Montfort rather woefully. "I wish the Queen of Mesopotamia were a candidate for some borough; I think she ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... opinion of their religious content. Nobility of conception is very apt to tend toward nobility of phrase. The expression may be admired for its own apart from the substance; but to say that the Bible holds its throne as the Book of books simply because of the superiority of its artistic form is woefully aside from the mark. Lamentable as it may be, masses of men do not rank artistic literary skill as highly as they ought. While a lofty idea is not likely to make its full impression until wrought into lofty beauty by a master of style, ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell
... seeks in the expression signs of quick emotion, not to say passion; the French eye knows but one standard of taste in dress; that alone is natural to French feeling which is the product of self-control and consummate art. In all these respects the Austrian archduchess was woefully deficient. She was pious, and, as her letters declare, had spent much of the previous winter in praying that Providence would choose another consort for Napoleon. But with the resignation of her faith, which ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... no other sponsor in this plodding, whip-cracking, complaining caravan. So I lacked, woefully ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... start—and I was barred because I am past forty and because I have a bum heart and several other defects that a soldier isn't supposed to have. My wife and I have tried to do what little we can for the Cause, on this side of the ocean. But it has seemed woefully little, when we remember what others are doing. And we have no son ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... Pope. And as for your religion, well, I am in most ways of one mind with you, and I think these Protestants to be no better than heretics. Master Basil, whose learning is wonderful, did persuade me for the nonce that my duty lay along the path you are treading; but my mind misgives me woefully, and I cannot see that it is an honest thing to work in secret against the whole body ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... of our talk Admiral Allyn had admitted that the United States was woefully unprepared for conflict with a great power, ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... "As woefully and as neglected as she lived," his lordship answered. "She had given birth to another female infant, and 'twas plain the poor thing knew her last hour had come. She was alone with the one ignorant woman who was all she had ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... he responded, woefully eyeing the garment spread on her knees, "and I may as well admit right now that I made a mess of the whole thing. To think of my wasting the only decent suit I had on a Fletcher—after saving up a year to ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... more said, she scarcely made out what it was. Her brain refused to take in any more. She suffered herself to be kissed and blessed, and said good-night to, almost mechanically. And when the elder lady at last went away, Lucy sat where Lady Randolph had left her, she did not know how long, gazing woefully at the ruins of that crumbled world which had all fallen to pieces about her. All was to pieces now. What was she and what was the other? Why should she be here and not the other? Two, were there?—two with an equal claim upon him? Was everything false, even the law, even ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... the story of Burton's life, to delineate as vividly as possible his remarkable character—his magnetic personality, and to defend him alike from enemy and friend. In writing it my difficulties have been two. First, Burton himself was woefully inaccurate as an autobiographer, and we must also add regretfully that we have occasionally found him colouring history in order to suit his own ends. [13] He would have put his life to the touch rather than misrepresent if he thought ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... is woefully wanner, and drier, And his once dark beard has grown straggling and gray; Yet a blissful existence he seems to have led with his lyre, In a trance of his own, where no wearing or ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... often a terrible ordeal to a girl of eighteen, and Quenrede, though she had put on a few airs to impress the schoolgirls at the Rainbow League sale, was at bottom woefully bashful. She was still in the stage when her newly-turned-up hair looked as if it were unaccustomed to be coiled round her head; she had a painful habit of blushing, and had not yet acquired that general savoir faire ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... said Solomon; "and I do suppose, that since this desirable change took place in your heart, you must have been woefully beset." ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... contractor interrupted. "How are we going to do that under present conditions? The cry of the country is for economy in governmental affairs, so Congress prunes the already woefully inadequate appropriation for the Department of Labor and keeps our force of immigration inspectors down to the absolute minimum. These inspectors are always on the job; the few we have are splendid, loyal servants of the ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... extracts will make it obvious that Mr. Bulwer was at that time sore at the treatment he had received at the hands of certain of his critics, who were by no means unanimous in their estimation of his genius. He was very sensitive at all times of adverse comment upon his writings. Thackeray wounded him woefully when he made "Chawls Yellowplush" review him characteristically in Punch. These most amusing papers ought to have been included in Thackeray's published miscellaneous writings, but they were not, although Bulwer is humorously travestied in Punch's "Prize ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... years, twenty nations have gained political independence. Others are doing so each year. Most of them are woefully lacking in technical capacity and in investment capital; without Free World support in these matters they cannot effectively ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... church. The church was what the world's people call "a split" from another church—split because the people quarrelled about the Thirty-nine Articles, whatever they be, one party wanting thirty-eight or forty, and the other perhaps the original number. She knew that the minister was woefully in debt; that no one would trust him any further; that he had met and told her nothing at all of it; that he was duly polite to her, and mentioned none of his affairs at all. (O Barbara! how thee shielded him!) ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... crestfallen, but felt in duty bound to do as his little mistress bade. She brought her books, and had Gustus sit down beside her. Then she tried him with the alphabet. He proved woefully ignorant. After pointing out to him, A, B, and C, many, many ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... woefully sick and dejected, far too physically exhausted to run the risk of exposing himself to the scorn and laughter of the excavator, who was speaking to him in a manner which unconsciously betrayed to the hypersensitive ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... epistles to a tribe of nieces. I could see her marshalling a household in the family pew, or riding serenely in the family coach behind fat bay horses. But here, on an inn staircase, with a false name and a sad air of mystery, she was woefully out of place. I noted little wrinkles forming in the corners of her eyes, and the ravages of care beginning in the plump rosiness of her face. Be sure there was nothing appealing in her mien. She spoke with the air of a great lady, to whom the world is matter only ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... intuition, but a world of good intentions. Men blunder woefully in their relations with women, not because of innate boorishness in the sex, not because of willful brashness, but because of lack of understanding. They mean well, but their performance is deplorable.... In that moment Bonbright's most valuable possession was a certain intuition, a fineness, ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... the turbulent passions of an evil epoch have passed away, it will be remembered then for Englishmen that their greatest organ in the Press maintained a fine tradition of independence, and thus did much to redeem the good name of Britain when "the Black and Tans" were dragging it woefully ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... the head surgeon had intrusted the task of clearing away the dirt to certain men. A sorry job they made of it. For accumulated nastiness that waiting room was an Augean stable and the two soldiers who dawdled about in it with brooms lacked woefully in the qualities of Hercules. Putting a broom in a man's hands is the best argument in favor of woman's suffrage that I know of, anyhow. A third man who helped at chores in the transformed lunch ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... Gourock, Scotland, one of the members of the Court had stolen out to enjoy his pipe and the quiet of his own thoughts for a few minutes before engaging in the strife of debate, when he was accosted by a stranger, woefully dilapidated, who asked him with great earnestness if he would tell him where he could see Mr. Macrae, as he was most anxious to have some conversation with him. "Do you know, sir," said this poor, ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... at this expression of ridicule, "I know," said he, "what makes you laugh so woefully; you think it strange to zee my vorefathers booted and spurred, with huge three-tailed periwigs on their pates. The truth of the matter is this: I could not abide to zee the pictures of my vamily with a parcel of loose hair hanging about ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... If he makes all this noise, in a rhythm which in itself is full of joy, it is to mark the gladness of Easter morn, to celebrate the resurrection of Christ—and a little, too, no doubt, to distract the little ones, some of whom are woefully put out. But their mammas do not prolong the proof—a mere momentary visit to this venerable place, which is to bring them happiness, and they carry their babes away: and others are led in by the dark, narrow staircase, so low that one cannot stand upright in it. And thus ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... Dame Ysobel, that you allow this lad to make sport of serious things?" he asked austerely. "He is woefully light minded for so ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... the Good Intent made the Channel he was woefully undeceived. His first interview with the captain opened his eyes. Captain Barker was a small, thin, sandy man, with a large upper lip that met the lower in a straight line, a lean nose, and eyes perpetually bloodshot. His manner was that of a bully of the most brutal ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... exceptions the girls at the factory were woefully unclean about their persons. Susan did not blame them; she only wondered at Etta the more, and grew to admire her—and the father who held the whole family up to the mark. For, in spite of the difficulties of ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... keeping the undesirable apart we could go far towards ridding the world of the squalor and the misery that come through disease and weakness and vice. But before we can be prepared to act, except, perhaps, in the simplest cases, we must learn far more about them. At present we are woefully ignorant {185} of much, though we do know that full knowledge is largely a matter of time and means. One day we shall have it, and the day may be nearer than most suspect. Whether we make use of it will depend in great measure upon whether we are prepared to recognise facts, ...
— Mendelism - Third Edition • Reginald Crundall Punnett
... received this letter he walked through his zoo and considered his animals thoughtfully. The shop-worn brown bear would not do to fill cousin Mike's order; neither would the weather-worn red deer nor the family of variegated tame rabbits. The zoo of Idlewild Park at Franklin was woefully short of dongola goats—in fact, to any but the most imaginative and easily pleased child, it was lacking in nearly every thing that makes a zoo a congress of the world's most rare and thrilling creatures. After all, the nearest thing to a goat was a goat, and goats were plenty in Franklin. ...
— The Water Goats and Other Troubles • Ellis Parker Butler
... that it is now the universal vogue to criticize and condemn this stupendous work of Congress as wholly wanting in knowledge of human nature and as woefully deficient in wise statesmanship. I know also that hindsight is at all times attended with less embarrassment to him who uses it than is foresight; and I know, besides, that those historic actors who had not attained unto ...
— Modern Industrialism and the Negroes of the United States - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 12 • Archibald H. Grimke
... definite, symmetrical groups; and where departure is made from this practise the effect is one most carefully planned. The matter deserves earnest consideration, for, in what is known as the "rhythmical sense," Americans—as a people, in comparison with foreign nations—are still woefully deficient. As rhythm is the basic element in all music, there is nothing in which the listener should more definitely train his faculties than in intelligent cooperation with the ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... man and a clever man; but to see the kind of display he makes when he gets up to talk about the Turf is very saddening. He can give you an accurate statement concerning the evils of drink, but as soon as he touches racing his innocence becomes woefully apparent, and the biggest scoundrel that ever entered the Ring can afford to make game of the harmless, well-meaning critic. The subject is an intricate one, and you cannot settle it right off by talking ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... don't want to be in a Christian mood. When last week a foolish schoolmaster took advantage of his august position to advocate Christianity at the end of the war, we frightened the life out of him, and he had to say that he had been "woefully misunderstood." In spite of this, the nation, being cut off from direct communication with foreign autocracy and reaction, is in my view very likely to be less unwise than the Government at the supreme crisis. And even if it ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... children;—"like begets like." It is sad to reflect, that the innocent have to suffer, not only for the guilty, but for the thoughtless and inconsiderate. Disease and debility are thus propagated from one generation to another and the American race becomes woefully deteriorated. ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... energies. She turned pale; she lifted up her imploring hands and eyes to heaven in speechless agony, and then, bending down her head, wept with unrestrained and harrowing violence. The distracted Nicaeus sprung from his horse, endeavoured to console the almost insensible Iduna, and then woefully glancing at his fellow adventurer, wrung his hands in despair. His fellow adventurer seemed ...
— The Rise of Iskander • Benjamin Disraeli
... but his conviction was being woefully shaken. Saskia had said her enemy was a beautiful as a devil—he remembered the phrase, for he had thought it ridiculous. This man was magnificent, but there was nothing devilish ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... pressed more painfully upon him. When the wagons had left the range the fall before, Billy had estimated roughly that eight or nine thousand head of Double-Crank stock wandered at will in the open. But with the gathering and the calf-branding he knew that the number had shrunk woefully. Of the calves he had left with their mothers in the fall, scarce one remained; of the cows themselves he could find not half, and the calf-branding was becoming a grim joke among ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... of breakfast seemed woefully small to Bob, and he recalled with a start the wish Dent Freeman, the hired man, had expressed, that the boy who tormented him would have ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... ran away, and the saint, seizing a stick, pursued him. They ran through the halls, turning round the pillars, running up the staircases, galloping along the cornices, jumping from gargoyle to gargoyle. The poor devil, who was woefully ill, was running about madly and trying hard to escape. At last he found himself at the top of the last terrace, right at the top, from which could be seen the immense bay, with its distant towns, sands and pastures. He could no longer escape, and the saint came up behind him and ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... of a few places; but, as the color of an object is the same as that of the medium through which it is viewed, we can not help thinking that the glamour of romance, which the early Spanish writers threw around all their transactions in the New World, has woefully distorted these sketches. This same effect is to be noticed in all the descriptions of the ruins. Where one party sees the ruins of imperial cities, another can detect but the ruins of imposing pueblos, with ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... into harmony with this great principle; and in so doing he adopted the best means,—the only means to secure that which countless numbers seek and strive for directly, and every time so woefully fail in finding. ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... "Littlecote" proved an important local event, and threw the annual Church bazaar woefully into the shade. It lasted three summer days and enabled a substantial sum to be placed to the credit of Edward Shafto's widow. Unfortunately Edward Shafto's widow had considerable private debts and, when ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... as they ought to have done, so he kicked up his heels, and rolled over on his back, and looked up at the sky, as was his wont. Every now and then he could hear Pan whining woefully in his tub a long way off. Since the whipping the spaniel had been in disgrace, and no one would let him loose. Bevis, so delighted with his field to roam about in, quite forgot him, and left him to sorrow in his tub. Presently he heard a lark singing ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... some affirmative action be taken by our government to bring about the realization of the right of self-determination for Ireland, it seemed as if the American President, Woodrow Wilson, who first gave utterance to the ideal of self-determination for all the oppressed peoples of the world, was woefully unmindful of the age-long struggle that Irishmen had been making to free their own beloved land from British domination. But to those, like myself, who were on the inside of affairs, it was evident that in every proper ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... to bid the House wait and see? Was it not the very essence of good statesmanship to blurt out everything at once? Only a craven time-server would say wait and see. Waiting was a contemptuous proceeding wherever practised, and seeing required eyes, which Heaven knows the PREMIER woefully lacked. (Cheers.) What right had an incorrigible hoodwinker such as Mr. ASQUITH to advise anyone to see? It was monstrous. Let the people get rid of this impostor without a twinge of compunction, and the sooner the better. As ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 22, 1916 • Various
... unbeaten. He could not conceive that men who had just endured such a harassing experience as the seven days' continuous retreat could possibly be in a condition to turn and fight. Not for the first or last time in the War German psychology was woefully at fault. Whether General MAURICE'S theory is correct or not, it is most attractively set forth, and, thanks to the excellent; maps with which the volume is provided, can be easily followed even by the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 26, 1919 • Various
... newspaper in the most pacific fashion. He seemed surprised to see us as we passed with a salaam; we saw nothing of the beaters, and returned with whole bones, to the relief of the community at large. Only I remember one of our Band was woefully disappointed: "I thought, perhaps, we were going ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... three old cronies started for the door of the tent. Van followed, prepared to get a dinner under way, since his system was woefully empty. ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... adjudged with their titles. The writer is the author of Stories of Waterloo, from whom better things might have been expected. He has taken for his model, Mr. Lloyd's really excellent Field Sports of the North of Europe; but he has woefully missed his mark. The title of the work before us is equivocal: a reader might as reasonably expect the Sports of the Western World, as adventures in Ireland, such as make up the present volumes. What we principally complain of is the paucity of Sports among their contents. It is true that ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 574 - Vol. XX, No. 574. Saturday, November 3, 1832 • Various
... seeking cover in his rear, as well as for the very life of the army itself. Soon after the first fire the settling smoke and dense shrubbery made the woods almost as dark as night in our front, but the long line of fire flashing from the enemy's guns revealed their position. The men became woefully tangled and disorganized, and in some places losing the organizations entirely, but under all these difficulties they steadily pressed to the front. When near the outer edge of the thicket, we could see the enemy lying ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... kill me, Harold?" Mrs. Brookenham woefully interposed. But it was with the same remote melancholy that she asked in the next breath: "It wasn't ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... permitted to discuss the New York police; Woodrow Wilson to pass in review the several elements that made the Nation; Booker T. Washington to picture the awakening of the Negro; John Muir to enlighten Americans upon a national beauty and wealth of which they had been woefully ignorant, their forests; William Allen White to describe certain aspects of his favourite Kansas; E.L. Godkin to review the dangers and the hopes of American democracy; Jacob Rues to tell about the Battle with ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... halting, once woefully incorrect. The teacher in charge was about to reprove her for inattention; but the wide, sorrowful eyes made an unconscious appeal, and the blunder was suffered ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... meal, and seeing that the clouds had given place to a clear sky, the philosophers resumed their dressing gowns, woefully shrunken by the wetting and drying they had received, and having liberally paid their hostess, started on the homeward road; concluding that they had seen enough for one day. They were in the very poorest condition for a long walk, for their theories, so ...
— Funny Big Socks - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... when the day of departure came, between her two customs of laughing and crying, Miss Sedley was greatly puzzled how to act. She was glad to go home, and yet most woefully sad at leaving school. For three days before, little Laura Martin, the orphan, followed her about like a little dog. She had to make and receive at least fourteen presents—to make fourteen solemn promises of ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and sighed. Stoffel cast an arm round her to hold her up, and his heart bounded woefully when he felt how light she was. Her head came to his shoulder, as to a place where it belonged, and their ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... Indians most brutally killed and scalped my most unfortunate but too credulous friend, who might probably have saved his life had he not, in the kindness of his excellent heart, imagined that the savages would reciprocate his friendly advances. He was most woefully mistaken, and his life paid the forfeit of his ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... have intimated, my vision of a future literary career waxed and waned, but a belief that I was going to be Somebody rarely deserted me. If not a literary lion, what was that Somebody to be? Such an environment as mine was woefully lacking in heroic figures to satisfy the romantic soul. In view of the experience I have just related, it is not surprising that the notion of becoming a statesman did not appeal to me; nor is it to be wondered at, despite the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... at the safe, very much fatigued from the strain, their minds woefully confused. Hunger and thirst were beginning to thrust up their little reminders; and for the first time the terrors of their position, flung out into hyperspace on a small, barren piece of matter, ...
— The Einstein See-Saw • Miles John Breuer
... it is well known published at one period of his life Moral and Political Dialogues, with a woefully whiggish cast. Afterwards, his Lordship having thought better, came to see his errour, and republished the work with a more constitutional spirit. Johnson, however, was unwilling to allow him full credit for his political conversion. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... dismissed and the children had gone Anne dropped wearily into her chair. Her head ached and she felt woefully discouraged. There was no real reason for discouragement, since nothing very dreadful had occurred; but Anne was very tired and inclined to believe that she would never learn to like teaching. And how terrible it would be to be doing something you didn't like every day for . . . well, say forty ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... could be sure, in fact, of a tidy little income. The dentist's practice was fairly good, and they could count upon the interest of Trina's five thousand dollars. To McTeague's mind this interest seemed woefully small. He had had uncertain ideas about that five thousand dollars; had imagined that they would spend it in some lavish fashion; would buy a house, perhaps, or would furnish their new rooms with overwhelming luxury—luxury that ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... is denied so volubly and so frequently and with such positive conviction that the majority of unthinking people seem to assume that most human beings are not human and have no right to human treatment or human opportunity. All this goes to prove that human beings are, and must be, woefully ignorant of each other. It always startles us to find folks thinking like ourselves. We do not really associate with each other, we associate with our ideas of each other, and few people have either the ability or courage ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... declared that everybody was in love in plays of that sort, and that was why she liked them; but as for those people playing the trick, they were very simple if they thought Beatrice didn't know she loved Benedick. Claudio fell woefully in her esteem in other respects also, and when he agreed to spy on Hero she said he ought to ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... stories from members of our family, I deem Mary's far in excess of others though all, without exception, are woefully sad God knows. ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... say as little about Oliver as possible at present. The young champion was quite cowed by this unexpected reception. He did his best to fly in a rage and be defiant, but it was no use, and he retired woefully ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... a moaning sigh, her face contracted woefully, and she opened her eyes. The man looked into them as a curious child might look ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... already told you, Monsieur Fouquet," replied D'Artagnan, moved to the depths of his soul, "that you are woefully exaggerating. The king ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... tea with the Russian bishop who was in charge. He was a stout, sweet-mannered little man, who shook his head woefully over ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... which I may speak on first-hand knowledge are four rows of bosses, closely spaced, which when the animal has dragged its slow length along to the utmost limit diminish into mere wrinkles, and disappear altogether when it is slung across a stick, and the fluid contents, being precipitated, congest and woefully weight each end, sometimes to the bursting-point. The bosses of repose seem to indicate so much length in reserve. A dozen simple tentacles, sword-shaped, with frayed edges, and about an inch and a half long, indicate the head without decorating ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... most ignominious exhibition; thus the first delinquency is the commencement of a habit: there is much less distance from this to the hundredth, than from innocence to criminality: the man, however, who lends himself to a series of bad actions, under even the assurance of impunity, is most woefully deceived, because he cannot avoid castigating himself: moreover, he cannot know at what point of iniquity he shall stop. It has been shewn, that those punishments which society, for its own preservation, has the right to inflict on those who disturb its harmony, are more substantive, more efficacious, ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... gay-coloured ribbons or fox-tails are put upon it. Great pride is taken in turning out a train of dogs in good style. Beads, bells, and embroidery are freely used to bedizen the poor brutes, and a most comical effect is produced by the appearance of so much finery upon the woefully frightened dog, who, when he is first put into his harness, usually looks the picture of fear. The fact is patent that in hauling the dog is put to a work from which his whole nature revolts, that is to say the ordinary dog; with the beautiful dog of the Esquimaux breed the ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... conjointly or separately: "A perfect daub, possessing not one single quality necessary to create even the slightest interest—a disgrace to the Exhibition—who allowed such a wretched production to disgrace these walls?—woefully out of drawing, and as badly coloured," ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... unfavourable impression produced by the prevailing character of their physiognomy, is confirmed, if their phrenological conformation is taken into consideration; and certainly, if the principles of that science are admitted to be true, these savages are woefully deficient in all the qualities which contribute to man's moral supremacy. Let me, in justice, add, that while we found them ignorant and incurious to the last degree, they were generally suspicious rather than treacherous, and not ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... highest nerve tension. Not one was there who had not missed death a dozen times by the merest of escapes. They had for ten or eleven days been engaged in an offensive and what meagre rest had been theirs was woefully insufficient to counteract the heavy demands made upon ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... docility might prove it, might it not? I—it's a lover's heart that speaks to you, remember—a heart that loves mightily, a heart that yearns mightily. But is not docility on a maid's part a sign of love? Might it not be? It seems to me that if I were a maid and I'd fallen desperately and woefully in love, I'd be all for gentleness and quiet, I'd sew with my maids and dream of love, I'd give all of my time to my father from whom love was so soon to take me. That's what I should think a maid would do, and that is what ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... but splashed along through rain and sleet, through hospitable villages all painted over with scrollwork about beer, and coffee, and sugar-bakery, and all that "Restoration" which our poor drenched bodies and souls were lacking so woefully. For we had stalls at the Court Theatre of Munich, and it was the last, the very last, night of "The Magic Flute"! The Brocken journey on the diligence-top came to an end; the train at Garmisch was caught ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... the present corrupt system lasts. However," said the clergyman to me, "my young friend, do nothing hastily; but should you go into any of the yeomanry corps, with your zealous feeling and patriotic love of country, I fear you will be woefully disappointed if you expect to find any of your comrades acting under a corresponding impulse. Their main object appears to be to secure their corn ricks, and to keep up the price of their grain; and their landlords, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... lawn so woefully neglected that the big body sagging between us, though it cleared the ground by several inches, swept the dew from the rank growth until we got it propped up on some steps at the base of the tower, and Raffles ran up to open the door. More steps there were within, ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... says my Lady; "for Edmund is woefully smitten with her!" And Mary blushed, and I laughed, and we were all very happy: and sure enough there came from Richmond a letter to me, stating that I was appointed fourth clerk in the Tape and Sealing-wax Office, with a salary of 80l. ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and Colonel Bacon himself accompanied the expedition. They decided to steal silently up to the place in the early hours of the morning before dawn, drive in the sentries and "enter pell mell with them into the howse". But their plans miscarried woefully. "The Centrey had no sooner made the challenge ... who comes there? ... but the other answer with their Musquits (which seldom speakes the language of friends) and that in so loud a maner, that it alarmed those in the howse to a defence, and then to a posture to salley out." The attacking ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... All others by my song. Down through the world Of infinite mourning, and along the mount From whose fair height my lady's eyes did lift me, And after through this heav'n from light to light, Have I learnt that, which if I tell again, It may with many woefully disrelish; And, if I am a timid friend to truth, I fear my life may perish among those, To whom these days shall be of ancient date." The brightness, where enclos'd the treasure smil'd, Which I had found there, first shone glisteningly, Like to a golden ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... God—not of man, and I believe that Jesus Christ, my Lord, has come in the flesh to save His people from their sins. Many things have led me to this opinion, in regard to which I will not speak. I have thought and heard much for some years past, and woefully have I been staggered, as well as helped on, by the men who have been sent to Greenland with the Good News. Some have, by their conduct squaring with their profession, led me to believe. Others have, by ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... habits have concurred woefully to drain the old gentleman's purse; and as he prides himself on punctuality in money matters and wishes to maintain his credit in the neighborhood, they have caused him great perplexity in meeting his engagements. This, too, has been increased by the altercations and heart-burnings which ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... continued Mr. Wine Expert, "who are woefully deceived, and who are endeavoring to force their ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... feel any repulsion as he opened the warrior's deerskin shirt and took his totem from a place near his heart. It was a little deerskin bag containing a bunch of red feathers. This was his charm, his magic spell, his bringer of good luck, which had failed him so woefully this time. Henry, not without a touch of the forest belief, put it inside his own hunting shirt, wishing, although he laughed at himself, that if the red man's medicine had any potency it should be on ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... expected to surprise or delight his companion by this curt announcement he was woefully disappointed, for De Catinat approached him with a face which was full of sympathy and trouble, and laid his hand ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... right in their strategy which had not failed to properly estimate the Bolo strength and to properly measure the enormous labor and hardship of the cross-forest snows. Again the enthusiastic and fearless but woefully reckless Russian Colonel and English Colonel threw their men into death traps as they had done previously on other fronts. With success in defense the Reds gained their nerve back and again, as in December, January and February, began a drive ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... the idol of their thoughts and affections—a feline companion—may be seen carrying a precious morsel, safely skewered, in advance of them; this gentleness the artist has been careful to retain to eminent success. We are, nevertheless, woefully at a loss to divine what the allegory can possibly be (for as such we view it), what the analogy between a pretty poll and a pol-yanthus. We are unlearned in the language of flowers, or, perhaps, might probe the mystery by a little floral discussion. We are, however, compelled ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various
... "outports" they are called—are the small, scattered villages of the fishermen. The wooden frame houses have the look of the packing-case, and though they are bright and toy-like when their green or red or cinnamon paint is fresh, they are woefully drab when the weather of several years has had ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... Miss Maggie was speaking very gravely now. "They matter—woefully. I never say 'It doesn't matter' to war, or death, or sin, or evil. ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... arrival we have been "doing" New York, and are woefully disappointed in the size of the streets. Fifth Avenue I expected to find a Parisian Boulevard with trees lining the "side walks," instead of houses of all shapes and sizes, which are good inside, judging by one of the large ones we went ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... internally, and didn't speak of it, Sir," suggested Ned, whose own wound was troubling him woefully. "Then he may have become so weak that he fell in the trench somewhere ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... said, done, and gossiped in a country town for the last fifty years, than the best bluestocking of the age will be able to glean from that sort of learning which consists in an acquaintance with all the novels and satirical poems published in the same period. People in towns, indeed, are woefully deficient in a knowledge of character, which they see only in the bust, not as a whole-length. People in the country not only know all that has happened to a man, but trace his virtues or vices, as they do his features, in their descent through several ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... when they were arraigned for trial, and their comrades in the United States bitterly blamed Stephens and O'Mahony for the fiasco. Consequently the majority in America revolted, and seceded from the Stephens faction, claiming that he had woefully misrepresented the state of affairs that existed in Ireland, both as regarded preparations for a successful issue, and also the enthusiasm that was said to sufficiently dominate the people there to induce them to take up arms when the ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... a pretty fair knock-about time in the Channel, running down to Plymouth and back, having a 'sojer's wind,' one that was fair both ways, out and home again; and, though, from this fact, we necessarily made an easy passage of it, some of the boys were woefully seasick, many of them never ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... feel better now," stammered Billy. She tried to say more—other words that would have been a real comfort; but her tongue refused to speak them. She knew so well, so woefully well, how very wooden and mechanical the little music teacher's playing always had been. But that Marie should realize it herself like this—the tragedy of it made Billy's heart ache. At Marie's next words, however, Billy caught her breath ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... ordinarily have gone no farther than the district office, where it might have been acted on by the officers in charge to the great detriment of the Service. At that time the evil of sending out as inspectors men admirably trained in theory but woefully lacking in practice and the knowledge of Western humankind was one of the great menaces to effective personnel. Fortunately this particular report came into the hands of the Chief, who happened to be touring in the West. A fuller investigation ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... there the children to be educated. Obviously Charleston was fitted to be a British rallying center in the South; yet it had remained in American hands since the opening of the war. In 1776 Sir Henry Clinton, the British Commander, had woefully failed in his assault on Charleston. Now in December, 1779, he sailed from New York to make a renewed effort. With him were three of his best officer—Cornwallis, Simcoe, and Tarleton, the last two ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... ones, on the top, indictments will soon be moving their way. I think within the next month we will have indictments from the grand jury for at least four of the more-holier-than-thou sort. That is where the bomb is going to fall, unless my plans miscarry most woefully." ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow |
