"Wretchedly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 45-calibre revolver, and rifle—don't know whether it was a Krag or a Springfield. At any rate, he was most imposing, and, as he unrolled his petate on the dining-room floor, assured me in broken Spanish that he would protect me to the last. I bolted my door and went to bed. Slept wretchedly, being, it must be confessed, about as much afraid of the guard as of ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... this purpose, and recommended the old hag to poor Effie by a letter, in which I recollect that I endeavoured to support the character of Macheath under condemnation-a fine, gay, bold-faced ruffian, who is game to the last. Such, and so wretchedly poor, was my ambition! Yet I had resolved to forsake the courses I had been engaged in, should I be so fortunate as to escape the gibbet. My design was to marry your sister, and go over to the West Indies. I had still a considerable sum of money left, and I trusted to be able, in one way or other, ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... snake-like, or rather Bristol-men-like, declined to be seen openly supporting it. I own I did not rely much upon these promises, and it was fortunate that I did not, for, if I had, I should have been most wretchedly deceived. ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... and in her wake went Johnny and Arnold, two poor little disillusioned would-be knights of old romance in a wretchedly commonplace future, not far enough from their horizons ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... into a passionate flood of tears. She declared she was wretchedly miserable, and that she fully understood that Hubert had begun to regret that he had asked her to stay at Ashwood. Everything had been taken from her; every one was against her. Her sobs shook her frail little frame as ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... it was, dear, when you first asked me to marry you," she said, with infinite patience. "I told you that it wasn't fair to ask you to take mother, but that I couldn't possibly leave her alone in her old age. Jane's home is wretchedly unhappy—she can never tell when Charley is to be counted on—and it would kill mother to be dependent on Charley even if he were willing. I see your side, George, indeed, indeed, I do, but I can't—I simply can't act differently. I have always known it was my duty to look after mother—nothing ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... He felt a sudden, unaccountable sense of pleasant companionship. The child became a loved personality—the one human, close, vital thing in a world over which there seemed to hang a thick black fog through which Hamilton vaguely, wretchedly groped. He himself did not know why the child interested him so keenly, nor did he try to analyze the fact. He was merely grateful for it, and for the other fact that he cherished no sentimental ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... write more of a Matter that you can have but little Interest in, and that I am as well not thinking about. I came here partly to see his Widow, and so (as I hope) to avoid having to go to Bedford for the Present. She, though a wretchedly sickly woman, and within two months of her confinement when he died, has somehow weathered it all beyond Expectation. She has her children to attend to, and be her comfort in turn: and though having lost what most she loved yet ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... and weird melody. From all directions small boats are crossing river and bay to the little red school-house at Popham. Moved, we confess, more by curiosity than by any thirst for religious consolation, we joined the procession. Gathered within the cheerless room, unadorned, save here and there by wretchedly-executed prints of early patriots who would scarcely be recognized by their own friends, old and young alike presented a ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... pitifully waving his crayon amid the emotion of his artistic craving. Besides, he had not stirred, but remained crouching on his low chair, at a distance from the bed. At last she risked the ordeal, and uncovered her tranquillised face. What else could she do? She was at his mercy, and he looked so wretchedly unhappy. ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... current at this time in Angouleme and L'Houmeau. It was said that David Sechard was ruining the firm of Cointet Brothers. Experiments had eaten up twenty thousand francs; and the result, said gossip, was wretchedly bad paper. Other manufacturers took fright at this, hugged themselves on their old-fashioned methods, and, being jealous of the Cointets, spread rumors of the approaching fall of that ambitious house. As for the ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... aired then, or something. I have never seen you looking so wretchedly. I do wish you would be frank with me. Something must have worried you. People don't ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... words, or something like them, but without an idea that they would be carried round to her. He had thought her wretchedly altered, and in the first moment of appeal, had spoken as he felt. He had not forgiven Anne Elliot. She had used him ill, deserted and disappointed him; and worse, she had shewn a feebleness of character in doing so, which his own decided, confident temper could not ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... sleep, Oscar awoke in the morning, feeling quite wretchedly. As soon as his mother entered the room, her quick eye detected the unfavorable change; but he did not seem inclined to complain much of his feelings, and appeared averse to conversing about them. She ascertained, however, after awhile, that Oscar was ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... she felt so lonely, desolate and hopeless that she felt she must go out of herself. The future was taking on an aspect hard to face. Disposed to self-sacrifice, she was wretchedly conscious that there was nothing on which she could bestow a devotion which could sustain or inspire. There was no future to look forward to, no cause to be furthered, no goal to be reached by brave, patient effort. If she had lived at the time of the war she would have loved scarcely less than her ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... sitting on his coffin. I happened to be not far from the point where he passed through, and saw him plainly. For one so young, he displayed remarkable coolness and courage when in the immediate presence of death. The manner of his execution was wretchedly bungled, in some way, and the whole thing was to me indescribably repulsive. In the crisis of the affair there was a sudden clang of military arms and accouterments in the line not far from me, and looking ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... for the two bodies. While they were working the Boers gathered round us to the number of a couple of hundred. They were very silent, eyeing us with an absorbed interest that embraced every article of our equipment. Men of the humblest peasant class, poorly—in many respects wretchedly—clad, they presented, in their ragged and shabby apparel, a sharp contrast to our Yeomanry soldiers, who seemed, by comparison, trim and well cared for. The Boers wore their ordinary clothes, which were relieved by only one military touch—the bandolier. This was generally ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... entering Twickenham, we passed a lath-and-plaster castellated edifice, much time-worn, and with the plaster peeling off from the laths, which I fancied might be Horace Walpole's toy-castle. Not that it really could have been; but it was like the image, wretchedly mean and shabby, which one forms of such a place, in its decay. From Hampton Court to the Star and Garter, on Richmond Hill, is about six miles. After glancing cursorily at the prospect, which is famous, and doubtless ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... equal)—would not have ventured to predict. The "Village Minstrel" was so named after the principal poem, which contains one hundred and nineteen Spenserian stanzas, and is to a considerable extent autobiographical. It was composed in 1819, at which time Clare was wretchedly poor, and this will no doubt account for the repining tone of a few of the verses. It abounds, however, in poetical beauties, of which the following stanzas may ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... in the stage of thinking there is nothing the matter with me, which is a good sign; but I am wretchedly nervous. Anything like rudeness I am simply babyishly afraid of; and noises, and especially the sounds of certain voices, are the devil to me. A blind poet whom I found selling his immortal works in the streets of Sens, captivated me with the remarkable ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Well, they will hardly unseat me! I should not like to see Moy in my place, and it would be a sore thing for my mother; but," he continued, in the same strange, dreamy manner, "everything has turned out so wretchedly that I hardly know ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... pretty sick of your liberty, and yet unfit to return to restraint, curse the world, and scorn it, and be miserable, like my Lord Byron and other philosophers of his kidney; or else mount a step higher, and, with conceit still more monstrous, and mental vision still more wretchedly debauched and weak, begin suddenly to find yourself afflicted with a maudlin compassion for the human race, and a desire to set them right after your own fashion. There is the quarrelsome stage of drunkenness, when a man can as ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that, in the wear and tear of this strange life, I have written to Gad's Hill in the wrong order, and have not written to you, as I should, that I resolve to write this before going to bed. You will find it a wretchedly stupid letter; but you may imagine, my dearest girl, that I ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... end the wood is left longer at the top than at the bottom, so that there is a projection beyond the hollow part resembling the end of a plank; the sides are tolerably thin, but how the tree is felled and fashioned, we had no opportunity to learn. The only tools that we saw among them are an adze, wretchedly made of stone, some small pieces of the same substance in form of a wedge, a wooden mallet, and some shells and fragments of coral. For polishing their throwing-sticks, and the points of their lances, they use the leaves of a kind of wild fig-tree, which bites upon wood almost as keenly as the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... anyone except their own husbands and wives. The domestic doctrinaires are also the dull people. The impersonal relation of sex may be judicially reserved for one person; but any such reservation of friendship, affection, admiration, sympathy and so forth is only possible to a wretchedly narrow and jealous nature; and neither history nor contemporary society shews us a single amiable and respectable character capable of it. This has always been recognized in cultivated society: that is why poor people accuse cultivated society of profligacy, poor ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... the Mediterranean Sea, and formerly celebrated—one knight met in a wood another knight, who had the appearance of a Frenchman. Presumably, this Frenchman was by some chance stripped of everything, and was so wretchedly attired that but for his princely air he might have been taken for a blackguard. It was possible that his horse had died of hunger or fatigue, on disembarking from the foreign shore for which he came, on the faith of the good luck which happened to the French in Sicily, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... of the boldest and most finished kind—and in fact every thing that can command the most marked and pointed attention of the reader or spectator. And all this notwithstanding the disadvantages of appearing in foreign dress; for it hardly need be stated how wretchedly many of ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... who is wretchedly poor. He is extremely anxious that his surroundings and home comforts should be improved, yet all the time he shirks his work, and considers he is justified in trying to deceive his employer on the ground of the insufficiency of his wages. Such a man does not understand the simplest rudiments of ...
— As a Man Thinketh • James Allen
... times, the poor wretchedly and lazily depended upon the alms of the rich, which were especially bestowed at a funeral, to buy their prayers for the repose of the soul; and at wedding, for a blessing on the newly-married couple. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... might be speedy ruin, and yet returning to it from day to day in spite of his own conscience. But there was yet another trouble which culminated just at this time. One morning, not long after that Sunday night which had been so wretchedly spent at the Beargarden, he got into a cab in Piccadilly and had himself taken to a certain address in Islington. Here he knocked at a decent, modest door,— at such a house as men live in with two or three hundred a year,—and ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... a very great man, but you are a wretchedly poor liar. As Mr. Washington would say, your sincerity is one of the most valuable of your gifts, and without it you could not convince a child. As if this were not enough, only yesterday, on the boat, I overheard two of your intimate friends discussing this intrigue as a matter of course. ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... he can infuriate Isabel by laying siege to her. He's a—foolish person—" Rosa's cheeks were faintly flushed and her color deepened at the amusement in Esteban's eyes. "He makes love wretchedly." ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... were in so deep a stupor that, one after the other, the seven fell from their chairs to the floor, where they sprawled unconscious. When they awoke they left quietly and without trouble of any kind. They seemed a strangely subdued and chastened band; probably they were wretchedly ill after their debauch on the adulterated whisky ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... half conscious of what was said, thinking of Bernard going wretchedly about his hated work with a "sharp ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... determined to use every exertion to change their joy into grief and their songs into tears and groans of misery. To effect this they were tied to stakes and burned alive; were broiled on wooden gridirons, and thousands were thus wretchedly destroyed. But as the number of Christians was not perceptibly lessened by these cruel punishments, they became tired of putting them to death, and attempts were then made to make the Christians abandon their faith by the infliction of the most dreadful torments which the most diabolical ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... see me; she took hold of me by both hands. She said: "My dear child, you are improving. You were wretchedly thin when I saw you last. Now you are almost as well-developed as your sister. I think you are prettier than your sister." Mr. didn't agree to that. He and his wife began to dispute about me before my face. I do call that an aggravating ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... Soul! of Mohammed the complicate story: Sing, unfearful of Man, groaning and ending in care. Short the Command and the Toil, but endlessly mighty the Glory! Standing aloof if it chance, vainly our enemy's scare: What tho' we wretchedly fare, wearily drawing the Breath—, Malice in wonder may stare; merrily move ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... He tumbled wretchedly from his bed, swore at his injured ankle, hopped to the door, unlocked it, and hopped back with panic swiftness before his father's entrance. He sat in his crumpled pajamas amidst his crumpled, dingy bedclothes, his hair scattered ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... fever. He remained here all the winter, and it was not until the beginning of March, 1860, that he was well enough to return to Berlin. Leopold von Gerlach, who met him shortly afterwards, speaks of him as still looking wretchedly ill. This prolonged illness forms an epoch in his life. He never recovered the freshness and strength of his youth. It left a nervous irritation and restlessness which often greatly interfered with his political work and made ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... made them turn pale with fear; his miserable, deluded supplicants, who were obliged to sacrifice to him, anointed their bodies with oil, bathed in certain rivers, and after they had offered their cake of honey and received their destiny, became so dejected, so wretchedly forlorn, that to this day their descendants, when they behold a malencholy man, exclaim, "He has consulted the oracle of Trophonius." It was these invisible gods, which superstition always paints as furious tyrants, who were declared the arbiters of man's destiny; ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... he, as I saluted: but his voice was listless and I thought him looking wretchedly ill. "You're in Number 4 Company, are you not? ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... been a good day for the police, for four of them have helped to convey six shillings from the wretchedly poor to the coffers of the police-court receiver. But when the school holidays come round, that is the time for the dirty canal to tell its tale, and to give ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... himself to the amount of eight hundred and thirty talents, upon which Caesar was now at liberty to go to his province. In his journey, as he was crossing the Alps, and passing by a small village of the barbarians with but few inhabitants and those wretchedly poor, his companions asked the question among themselves by way of mockery, if there were any canvassing for offices there; any contention which should be uppermost, or feuds of great men one against another. To which Caesar made answer seriously, "For my part, I had rather be the ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... deserted—hemmed in on all sides, and pressed with hunger—rode here and rode there, and went to this castle, and went to that castle, endeavouring to obtain some provisions, but could find none. He rode wretchedly back to Conway, and there surrendered himself to the Earl of Northumberland, who came from Henry, in reality to take him prisoner, but in appearance to offer terms; and whose men were hidden not far off. By this earl he was conducted ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... caused me pain, a great deal of pain. Already! I passed a sorrowful evening, and slept wretchedly all night. I have reflected seriously upon our dispute; I have endeavoured to persuade myself that I was in the wrong: I have neither been able to succeed, nor to comprehend you. Ah! how your lack of confidence astonishes me! It is so easy to believe when one loves. Please write ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... was considered hopeless for him to attempt to escape by sea. The English had found out that he was at Rochefort; he must either give himself up to them, or cross the breadth of France again. We were wretchedly anxious; the minutes seemed like hours! On the one hand there were the Bourbons, who would have shot Napoleon if he had fallen into their clutches; and on the other, the English, a dishonored race: they covered themselves with shame by flinging a foe who asked for hospitality ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... Gillian was pleased to see the two large photographs of her father and mother which Captain White had so much valued as parting gifts. A few drawings reminded her of the School of Art at Belfast, and there was a vase of wild flowers and ferns prettily arranged, but otherwise everything was wretchedly faded and dreary. ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... necessarily also a service to others. If I keep myself by my labour, I am preventing a burden from falling upon my fellows. And, of course, the case is stronger when I include my family. We were all impressed the other day by the story of the poor boy who got some wretchedly small pittance by his work, spent a small portion of it upon his own needs, and devoted the chief part of it to trying to save his mother and her other children from starvation. Was he selfish? Was he selfish even in taking something for himself, as the only prop of his family? What ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... of his works are in his native Pardetowns near. All have suffered and some are now hidden by whitewash. His chief strength lay in fresco. His scenes from the Passion in the cathedral, Cremona, are greatly damaged and wretchedly restored, but they still reveal the painter as a great master. They have 'fine drawing, action, excellent colouring, grand management of light and shade, with freedom of hand and dignity of conception.' In the prophets and sibyls ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... separated their troops into two equal divisions: the first entrusted with supporting externally the interests of Poland, and the second employed in the interior to prevent the Poles from aiding the same cause. I do not believe that any country was ever more wretchedly governed than Gallicia was at that time, at least under political considerations; and it was apparently to conceal this spectacle from general observation that so many difficulties were made in allowing a stranger to reside in, or even to ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... my dear, till they leave. I haven't the heart. Edie, am I a wretchedly prejudiced old maid, or is there something not ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... having been lost thus wretchedly, when at length he had emerged from the marshes, he pitched his camp as soon as he could on dry ground. And here he received information, through the scouts sent in advance, that the Roman army was round the walls of Arretium. Next the plans and temper of the consul, ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... How wretchedly familiar it all was! The miry cow yard, with the hollow trampled out around the horse trough, the disconsolate hens standing under the wagons and sheds, a pig wallowing across its sty, and for atmosphere the desolate, falling rain. It was so familiar he felt a pang of the ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... Wretchedly Stephen settled back into his seat. He would rather have walked to Torrington, done almost anything rather than remain there in the quiet autumn stillness and listen to the accusations of his conscience. What a ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... the Dardanelles, one of the most brilliantly conducted defensive operations of the entire war, was primarily due to the courage and stubborn endurance of Turkey's Anatolian soldiery, ignorant, stolid, hardy, fearless peasants, who were taken straight from their farms in Asia Minor, put into wretchedly made, ill-fitting uniforms, hastily trained by German drillmasters, set down in the trenches on the Gallipoli ridge and told to hold them. No one who is familiar with the conditions under which these Turkish soldiers fought, who knows how wretched ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... wretched and poverty-struck nation, and hardly able to keep soul and body together, still, as no person in decent circumstances would put on his table confessedly bad wine, or bad meat, without being ashamed, so he need not have on his shelves ill-printed or loosely and wretchedly-stitched books; for though few can be rich, yet every man who honestly exerts himself may, I think, still provide, for himself and his family, good shoes, good gloves, strong harness for his cart or carriage horses, and stout leather ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... the first instance of incivility that I had met with in our journey through the island. The man was a Turk, and was not the proprietor, but only the agent for this wretchedly-neglected property. The unfortunate owner was sleeping with his fathers, or he would, I feel sure, have welcomed us with true Turkish politeness and hospitality but having departed this life, some legal difficulties had occasioned trouble, and the ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... walking pulpit in a thundercloud—I should say he'd make about four of me round the equator; and mind you, a chap stopped me in the street the other day and offered me a job as Beefeater outside a moving-picture show: yes, fact, I was wretchedly annoyed about it—and the man Twyning with a lean and hungry look like Cassius, or was it Judas Iscariot? Well, like Cassius out of a job or Judas Iscariot in the middle of one, anyway. That's Twyning's sort. Chap I never cottoned on to a bit. They'd precious little ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... or plays, Italian 'novels,' or the biographies of Plutarch. But in the majority of cases these sources provided him only with bare or even crude sketches, and perhaps nothing furnishes clearer proof of his genius than the way in which he has seen the human significance in stories baldly and wretchedly told, where the figures are merely wooden types, and by the power of imagination has transformed them into the greatest literary masterpieces, profound revelations of the ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... Lily was wretchedly unhappy. For one thing, she had begun to feel that Mademoiselle was exercising over her a sort of gentle espionage, and she thought her grandfather was behind it. Out of sheer rebellion she had gone again to the house on Cardew Way, to find Elinor out and Jim Doyle writing at his desk. He had ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... to tell a certain story, As old books us maken memory, Of hem that stood in great prosperity, And be fallen out of high degree, Into miserie, and ended wretchedly. ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... wall behind which at a little distance stood a wretched hovel. On coming up I stopped and looked at them; they were a boy and girl; the first about twelve, the latter a year or two younger; both wretchedly ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... lifeboats, and expended money liberally in constructing and supporting them. Before the close of 1863, Greathead had built 31 boats, 18 for England, 5 for Scotland, and 8 for foreign countries. This was so far well; but it was a wretchedly inadequate provision for the necessities of the case. Interest had indeed been awakened in the public, but the public cannot act as a united body; and the Trinity House seemed to fall back into the sleep from which it ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... words kept repeating themselves in Chester's mind long after he had gone to bed in the small room assigned to him by the host of the Travellers' Rest. He slept wretchedly, rose late the next morning, breakfasted, and after ordering his horse to be saddled at nine o'clock, walked to the wharf where lay the mail-boat ready to start down the Ohio. Among the few taking passage on the vessel was Captain Danvers, who had been ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... fifty miles when nightfall overtakes me in a little mountain-village. It is the first day's progress in China with which I have been really satisfied. Nevertheless, it has been a toilsome day, taken altogether, and when nothing but tea and rice confronts me at supper the reward seems so wretchedly inadequate that I ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... we must admit that Purcell used astonishingly the short time he was given. Much of his music is lost; more of it lies in manuscript at the British Museum and elsewhere. Some of it was issued last century, some early in this. Four expensive volumes have been wretchedly edited and issued by the Purcell Society, and those amongst us who live to the age of Methuselah will probably see all the accessible works printed by this body. Some half century ago Messrs. Novello published ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... regularly planted with vegetables and grain, vines and olives; and it was all hers, and yielded enormous rents which were wisely invested. She was very rich indeed, but to her it all seemed horribly sordid and grinding and mean—and the peasants looked prematurely old, labour-worn, filthy, wretchedly poor. If she had even had any satisfaction from so much wealth, it might have seemed different. She said so, in her heart. She was accustomed to tell her confessor that she was proud and uncharitable and unfeeling—not finding any real misdeeds to confess. She was willing to believe that she ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... "we live very wretchedly here in this nasty stinking ditch. Do go back, and tell the fish ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... mere, simple, sheer, stark, bare; near run. dull, petty, shallow, stolid, ungifted, unintelligent. Adv. to a small extent [in a small degree], on a small scale; a little bit, a wee bit; slightly &c adj.; imperceptibly; miserably, wretchedly; insufficiently &c 640; imperfectly; faintly &c 160; passably, pretty well, well enough. [in a certain or limited degree] partially, in part; in a certain degree, to a certain degree; to a certain extent; comparatively; some, rather in some ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... occasional meetings with Sidney Heron. Once and again a man at the office would ask me to dine with him (regarding me as a bachelor, of course), and always I felt bound to plead a prior engagement. One night, when Fanny had gone early to bed, feeling wretchedly ill, and sullenly angry because I would have no liquor of any sort on the premises, not even the lager beer which it had been my own habit for some time past to drink with meals, Heron sat with me in our living-room, smoking and ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... been told that the Prince meant to abolish Islam and promote incestuous marriages, and bidden to demand his immediate withdrawal. There were also the mass of refugees from Dibra and Gostivar. They had passed the winter wretchedly enough, and were told that if they would combine and drive out Wied the Serbs would restore to them their lost lands. In vain the American missionaries warned them not to believe this. Dibra was their ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... she ordered the car and went for a long and solitary excursion into the country. Of late she had not used the car, preferring to hang wretchedly about the house and garden, half-resenting the absorption of the two workers shut up in the library, not daring to interrupt their toil, yet longing, vaguely, for the courage to enter boldly and claim her ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... See!" He jingled the coins in his pocket. "That's money; money for you, sweet-heart. It will buy you food and medicine, it will make you well and strong again. Rosa, dear, I have looked for you so long, so long—" His voice broke wretchedly and he bowed his head. "I—I ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... execution of this sermon there is little to commend. As a system of duties for any body of clergy, it is wretchedly deficient:—and really, when we call to mind the rich, the full, the vigorous, eloquent, and impassioned manner in which these duties are recommended and inforced in the writings of our old divines, we are mortified beyond measure ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... that are called Christian! The history of Greece from the fall of the Byzantine Empire up to this hour is a tragedy, and the final deliverance in 1828 was more painfully sad and disappointing, more shamefully mismanaged and limited, more wretchedly hampered and hindered in every possible way, than is easily conceivable, considering the popular sentiment roused by such Philhellenes as Byron, Erskine, Gladstone, and the Genevan banker Eynard. Think of the massacre ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... answered Nasmyth deprecatingly. "You see, one has usually an axe and some matches, as well as a few other odds and ends, when one lives in the Bush. A man is a wretchedly helpless being when ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... the magnificent new hotels we traverse this busy street, and then suddenly plunge down the Rue de la Fontaine to what was once the bed of the castle fosse—where the houses are small and dirty, and the walls and slates barely hold together, so wretchedly old and tottering are they—where, instead of bustle and grandeur, there is only gloom and poverty, and in place of the enjoyment of the present, there is the longing for a lot a little less hard in the future; we feel as though we had gone back several centuries ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... more gentlemanly conduct from you. What am I to think of your standing quietly by and seeing me thus unhandsomely used? What am I to suppose by your permitting Tom, Dick, and Harry to strip me of my coffins, and my clothes, in this wretchedly cold climate? In what light (to come to the point) am I to regard your aiding and abetting that miserable little villain, Doctor Ponnonner, in pulling ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the human soul go to show the rigid bondage of sin, and to prove that sin has an element of servitude in it. For when these impulses, wishes, and aspirations are awakened, and the man discovers that he is unable to realize them in actual character and conduct, he is wretchedly and thoroughly conscious that "whosoever committeth sin is the slave of sin." The immortal, heaven-descended spirit, feeling the kindling touch of truth and of the Holy Ghost, thrills under it, and essays to soar. But sin hangs heavy upon it, and it cannot lift itself from ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... said, if longing burned within him so. But at their words the older men must bow Their heads, and, smiling, somewhat thoughtful grow, Remembering well how fear in days gone by Had dealt with them, and poisoned wretchedly Good days, good deeds, and longings for all good: Yet on the evil times they would not brood, But sighing, strove to raise the weight of years, And no more memory of their hopes and fears They nourished, but such gentle thoughts as fed The pensiveness ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... "Most wretchedly indeed, my lord," answered the General, in the same tone of solemnity;—"so miserably, that I would not run the risk of such a second night, not only for all the lands belonging to this castle, but for all the country which ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... a widower, and he might do as he pleased. The tyrant was gone, and he was free. The tyrant was gone, and the tyranny had doubtless been very oppressive. Who had suffered as he had done? But in thus being left without his tyrant he was wretchedly desolate. Might it not be that the tyranny had been good for him?—that the Lord had known best what wife was fit for him? Then he thought of a story which he had read,—and had well marked as he was ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... forcing him into office again, he wrote to Bridge: "It is rather singular that I should need an office: for nobody's scribblings seem to be more acceptable than mine." The explanation of this lies in the wretchedly dependent state of native authorship at that time. The law of copyright had not then attained to even the refined injustice which it has now reached. "I continue," he wrote, in 1844, "to scribble ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... be received in respectable society, I assure you, General! Came of a wretchedly degraded set, the lowest of the low, ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... others. A poor soldier, badly frozen, hastened to tell her his misery; the mattress was instantly given to him. A comrade hearing of his good fortune, presented himself for relief; the palliasse became his property, the comforters being bestowed on a third, who was as wretchedly lodged as the others. There was as yet no applicant for the pillow, which was a useless article of furniture to her, as she slept on the bare ground, or a plank, resting her head upon straw, notwithstanding ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... more so, that hers after all was a hard fate. It is the part of the tale which leaves a melancholy impression; Goldsmith has so determined it—and to his judgment we bow implicitly. Had any other author so wretchedly disposed of his heroine, in a work not professedly tragic, we should have been pert as critics usually are. Mrs Primrose is certainly here too young. We cannot keep our eyes off Olivia; and see, the scoundrel has slyly taken her innocent hand, and the other is put up to her neck in such modest ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... purchased men and arms, and fire and sword enacted new laws, and put down lawful opposition. Nor do I blame anyone, in such circumstances, for working himself into supreme power, only I would not have it thought a sign of great goodness, to be head of a State so wretchedly discomposed. Lysander, being employed in the greatest commands and affairs of State, by a sober and well-governed city, may be said to have had repute as the best and most virtuous man, in the best and most virtuous commonwealth. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... gowns," said he, speaking of the women; "but gowns which don't fit them, gowns which are sent them from Paris, and which, of course, they can't try on. It's just the same with their jewels; they still have diamonds and pearls, in particular, which are very fine, but they are so wretchedly, so heavily mounted that they look frightful. And if you only knew how ignorant and frivolous these women are, despite all their conceit! Everything is on the surface with them, even religion: there's ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... profited he not only did not defend, but tried to reform. Among the statesmen of his day he appears not only intellectually superior, but conventionally respectable,—a fact which would seem to be established by the bare statement, that he died wretchedly poor, while most of ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... Penniman craning around at his desk in the dark alcove, Stanley Graff sullenly expressionless—as a parvenu before the bleak propriety of his butler. He hated to expose his back to their laughter, and in his effort to be casually merry he stammered and was raucously friendly and oozed wretchedly out of ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... is really true—really, wretchedly, ridiculously, fine-ladically, nervous. I can neither read, write, nor amuse myself, or any one else. My days are listless, and ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... she faltered; "but O Tom! it was so unnecessary; so wretchedly unnecessary! It's—it's more than two whole months since—since Vincent Farley broke the ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... wonderful," Mr. Goodenough said, "that generations and generations of Europeans have been content to live and die in that wretchedly unhealthy place, when they might have established themselves on those lofty hills but a mile away. There they would be far above the malarious mists which rise from the low ground. The walk up and down to their warehouses and offices here would be good for them, and there ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... stumbling wretchedly through two lines of it, he suddenly forgot himself and Falbe, and the squealing unresponsive notes. He heard them no more, absorbed in the knowledge of what he meant by them, of the mood which they produced in him. His great, ungainly hands had all the gentleness and ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... rich widow, had never treated Ali Baba as a brother, but neglected him. Now, instead of being pleased, he was filled with a base envy. Early in the morning, after a sleepless night, he went to him and said, "Ali Baba, you pretend to be wretchedly poor, and yet you measure gold. My wife found this at the bottom of the measure ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... would be delighted to see me the next morning but that the sudden news of my appearance had prostrated him with palpitations for the rest of the evening. The wind howled dismally all night, and strange cracking and groaning noises sounded here, there, and everywhere in the empty house. I slept as wretchedly as possible, and got up in a mighty bad humour to breakfast by myself ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... cost of others, instead of trying to do everything for all. All, all? Who dares to say 'all' when we are not there? We are an equal, a splendid, an inestimable part. Try us and you'll see—you will wonder how, without us, society has ever dragged itself even this distance—so wretchedly small compared with what it might have been—on its painful earthly pilgrimage. That is what I should like above all to pour into the ears of those who still hold out, who stiffen their necks and repeat hard, empty formulas, which are as dry ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... then looks rather wretchedly at his girl, as if the interview had not done so much for him as he had hoped. She drops a little curtsey. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... become a soldier, father. I do not like the profession you have chosen for me, and I shall never learn to like it. If I have until now, bowed to your will, it has been with repugnance and secret hatred, for I have been wretchedly unhappy; but I have never dared until now, to tell ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... amidst their poverty and sufferings, I had been taking care of myself, and hence they hoped to destroy that confidence in me which officers and men had all along exhibited, notwithstanding their privations. As they had never before been so wretchedly destitute, this circumstance was considered favourable to the impression, that having secured all I could for myself, I was about ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... this question, I stared through the twilight into Tony's face, trying to read it even as he tried not to let it be read. He looked wretchedly uneasy, and rather obstinate. "I can't say I'm sure of that," he replied. "I'm sure some one came to him, and I'm sure March thought it was Vandyke's orderly. That's as ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... turn round those of the opposite party who remained influential, and whom they had hitherto despised; and especially to see with what embarrassment, what fear, what terror, they began to crawl before the young Princess, and wretchedly court the Duc de Bourgogne and his friends, and bend to them in ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... happiness and peace. Yet it gave me, and I could weep to admit it, a monstrous joy to know that Theresa thought she was leaving Allan of her own free intention, when it was I who was contriving, arranging, insisting.... And yet she wretchedly felt my presence near her; ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... in American women is the want of any general appreciation of art in its nobler phases. The number of those who visit the museums of art is wretchedly small, compared with the crowds in the temples of haberdashery. Even the love of art they have is tainted with 'Parisian fashions.' The painting which makes fortunes is not the worthy representation of worthy subjects; French boudoir paintings take the place of representations ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... It was all so quick, you see. It almost seemed as if it hadn't happened," repeated the boy wretchedly. ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... administer to it. Alas, thought the heart-stricken Henry, can it really be, that he whom I have cherished in my heart of hearts, with more than brother's love has thus fallen? Has Gerald, formerly as remarkable for sobriety, as for every honorable principle, acquired even during the months I have so wretchedly mourned his absence, the fearful propensities of the drunkard. The bare idea overpowered him, and with difficulty restraining his tears, he rose from his seat, and paced the room for some time, in a state of indescribable agitation. Then again he stopped, and when he looked in the sleeping face ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... did not take a vacation, and the summer was very hot, and when Flossy came home from Rye she found him wretchedly ill, and discovered that he had had a trained nurse for two weeks before he let her know anything about it. Then people pitied Flossy for having her summer interrupted, and Flossy felt that it was a shame; but she very willingly sat and fanned Bronson ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... were made to give our eyes delight; A female sloven is an odious sight. Fair Isabella is so fond of fame, That her dear self is her eternal theme; Through hopes of contradiction, oft she'll say, "Methinks I look so wretchedly to-day!" When most the world applauds you, most beware; 'Tis often less a blessing than a snare. Distrust mankind; with your own heart confer; And dread even there to find a flatterer. The breath of others raises our renown; Our own ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... also burst. Barclay fought the Detroit exceedingly well, her guns being most excellently aimed, though they actually had to be discharged by flashing pistols at the touchholes, so deficient was the ship's equipment. Meanwhile the Caledonia came down too, but the Niagara was wretchedly handled, Elliott keeping at a distance which prevented the use either of his carronades or of those of the Queen Charlotte, his antagonist; the latter, however, suffered greatly from the long guns of the opposing schooners, and ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... which he imagined to exist between the Ithaca of his time and that of the poet. But Strabo, who was an uncommonly accurate observer with respect to countries surveyed by himself, appears to have been wretchedly misled by his informers ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... others who collected and published Bunyan's works, excepting only the edition with Mason's notes, printed for A. Hogg about 1785. The other singular circumstance is, that although the separate treatises of Bunyan were all most wretchedly and inaccurately printed, the Water of Life has in this respect suffered more than any other of his works. A modern edition of this book, published at Derby by Thomas Richardson, is, without exception, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... wretchedly guilty about you," it began, "almost as much of a brute as if you were some innocent, helpless creature I'd killed, and buried under the leaves in the woods. No tea this afternoon, and you an English girl! When they say 'tea' here they mean ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... wretchedly shallow affair in places. Most of the Germans in it were dead—some of them had been lying there for days. The artillery in the meantime had lifted on to the German trenches farther back. Later they lifted to a farther position yet. The Australian infantry dashed ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... is this," he replied. "I know it is wretchedly inadequate, it doesn't touch the root of the matter. Oh! it's miserably inadequate—I should think I did know that! Only it might smooth the surface a bit, perhaps, and put a stop to one source of annoyance. Forgive me if I say what seems ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... Benares, over the plains of Middle India, some five hundred miles from Calcutta. The people on the route seem to be wretchedly poor, living in the most primitive mud cabins thatched with straw. Such squalor and visible poverty can be found nowhere else in any country outside of Ireland, and yet we are passing through a famous agricultural district which ought to support thrifty farmhouses ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... Duncan used to say. Duncan was very sorry as a small boy that he had left heaven and come to stay with us. He used to say with a sigh, 'You see, heaven's extra.' I don't know where he picked up the expression. But what I was going to say is that people are so wretchedly provoking. This morning I was really badly provoked. For one thing, I was very busy doing the accounts of the Girls' Club (you know I have no head for figures), and Mrs. Morton strolled in to see me, to cheer me up, ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... friends. Miss Williams and I live much as we did. Miss Cotterel still continues to cling to Mrs. Porter, and Charlotte is now big of the fourth child. Mr. Reynolds gets six thousands a year. Levet is lately married, not without much suspicion that he has been wretchedly cheated in his match. Mr. Chambers is gone this day, for the first time, the circuit with the Judges. Mr. Richardson is dead of an apoplexy, and his second daughter ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... that those two young people should have a chance to know each other. I have been convinced for three weeks that she is being forced into this New York match, and for the last week that she is wretchedly unhappy. You say you believe him a wronged and injured man, only you can't prove it, and you have said that nothing could be too good for him in this life as a reward for all his bravery and fortitude under fearful trials. Then Nellie Travers isn't too good for him, sweet as she is, and ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... of 1854-5 passed wretchedly; the physical condition of the party steadily deteriorated; failing fuel necessitated the burning of the upper woodwork of the brig; their food was reduced to ordinary marine stores, and game failed equally to the hunters of the Advance and the persistent efforts of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... lay on a wretched cot in a little bedroom. Ralph was amazed at the change in the magnate since he had last seen him. Farrington was thin, pale and weak. He was gasping painfully for breath, and groaned wretchedly as he ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
... consolidation of these lines was Vanderbilt's work. In 1853 certain millionaires and politicians had linked together the several separate lines extending from Albany to Buffalo, but they had managed the new road so wretchedly that the largest stockholders in 1867 begged Vanderbilt to take over the control. By 1873 the Commodore had acquired the Hudson River, extending from New York to Albany, the New York Central extending from Albany to Buffalo, and the Lake Shore which ran from Buffalo to Chicago. In a few years these ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... right, but he's such a wretchedly inefficient beast that he won't turn to and do it. I've no patience with that sort of dilly-dallying. I shall go down to-morrow and speak to ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... eloquently, most beautifully did he tell the story. No mortal could ever have guessed that he was an invalid, if they had only heard him speak. Just as I had here stopped writing my father came out of his room, looking wretchedly, but ordered the carriage, and said he would go to Longford to see Mr. Fallon about materials for William's bridge. He took with him his three sons, and "Maria to read Ormond"—great delight to me. He was much pleased, and this wonderful father of mine drove all the way to ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... That which concerned him most in life was passing behind the veil of trees and bushes, and its sound filled his ears. He had no thought of anything else. It was widening its sweep, coming nearer to the house where he was tied so wretchedly by wounds; and he would see it—see who was winning—his own South ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... not quite natural. A biting shame was harassing him, whose only alleviation was the possibility that nobody—or at least Dorothy—had noticed in the excitement of the part that he had played. He was saying to himself, wretchedly, that he had not known it of himself, that he could not have believed it of himself. How could he have done it—have had the impulse, even, to leap to safety and leave her behind? Had she seen—had she seen? Yet when, after a time, she leaned forward and spoke to him of her own accord, ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... pitifully few, only thirty of them, and wretchedly armed. Hilary disposed of them up the slope of the hill on either side, set them to loosening jutting boulders. He was in command on one ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner
... you shall not say that," Farnsworth responded. "I asked you to stop a moment that I might beg you to believe how wretchedly sorry I am for what I am doing. But you cannot understand me now. Are you really hurt, Miss Roussillon? I assure you that it was ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... do, rather than fall into the hands of their enemies. After this execution, we set out on our return with the rest of the prisoners, who kept singing as they went along, with no better hopes for the future than he had had who was so wretchedly treated. ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... for death, he wandered by chance to a spot, which, albeit 'twas within the city, had much of the aspect of a wilderness, and espying a spacious grotto, he took shelter there for the night; and worn out at last with grief, on the bare ground, wretchedly clad as ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... swiftly, 'I understand that—Ada tells me a stranger is here; giving orders, directions. Who is he? where is he? You bound yourself on your solemn promise not to stir till I returned. You... How can I, how can we get decently through this horrible business if you are so wretchedly indiscreet? You sent Ada to the chemist's. What ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... inexpressible joy at the prospect of a living or a dying martyrdom. At Rouen he was joined by De Nou, with a lay brother named Gilbert; and the three sailed together on the eighteenth of April, 1632. The sea treated them roughly; Le Jeune was wretchedly sea-sick; and the ship nearly foundered in a gale. At length they came in sight of "that miserable country," as the missionary calls the scene of his future labors. It was in the harbor of Tadoussac that he first encountered the objects of his apostolic cares; for, as he sat in the ship's cabin ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... simple, sheer, stark, bare; near run. dull, petty, shallow, stolid, ungifted, unintelligent. Adv. to a small extent[in a small degree], on a small scale; a little bit, a wee bit; slightly &c. adj.; imperceptibly; miserably, wretchedly; insufficiently &c. 640; imperfectly; faintly &c. 160; passably, pretty well, well enough. [in a certain or limited degree] partially, in part; in a certain degree, to a certain degree; to a certain extent; comparatively; some, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... up at him wretchedly. 'It all went wrong nearly from the first,' he said, 'so far as ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... are half starved; for their husbands will give them no food, and they—poor things—cannot fish or hunt, or shoot; they have nothing but the roots they dig up, and the grubs, and lizards, and snakes they find on the ground. Their looks show how wretchedly they fare; for while the men are often strong and tall, the women are generally thin, and bent, ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... frontispiece, boats attacking Sperm Whales, though no doubt calculated to excite the civil scepticism of some parlor men, is admirably correct and life-like in its general effect. Some of the Sperm Whale drawings in J. Ross Browne are pretty correct in contour; but they are wretchedly engraved. That is ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... on, and Kirk began to feel quite wretchedly sick, and thirstier than ever. He lay flat under the tarpaulin and tried to count minutes. Sixty, quite fast—that was one minute. Had he counted two minutes, now, or was it three? Then he found himself counting ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... little inconvenience: presently the elephant, fancying, it is supposed, that a thorn has stuck in his foot, stamps violently, and rubs the scratch till the sinew is fairly divided. The animal, thus disabled, is left to perish wretchedly of hunger and thirst: the tail, as amongst the Kafirs, is cut off to serve as trophy, and the ivories are removed when loosened by decomposition. In this part of Africa the ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... you, he guards your door; 'tis an excellent dog in every respect. Forgive him his larceny; he is wretchedly ignorant, he ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... It was all wretchedly unconstitutional—of this there is no doubt. Bismarck never made any pretenses on that score. After the Austrian war, an act of "immunity" was passed, ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... efforts, the Phoebus went under with the first volume, and the publishing business was a total wreck. Kleist's joy at the acceptance of The Broken Jug by Goethe for the Weimar theatre was turned to bitterness when, because of unintelligent acting and stage management, this brilliant comedy failed wretchedly; the disappointed author held Goethe responsible for this fiasco and foolishly attacked him in a series of spiteful epigrams. He longed to have his Arminius performed at Vienna, but the Austrian authorities were too timid to risk the production of a play that openly preached German ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... on slowly, wretchedly, shot for shot, Danton himself dragging up a bale of ammunition and serving it to the men. The maid, unaided, had overturned the canoe where it lay, and with quickened breath was pressing her needle through the tough bark. Danton lost the flint from his musket, and crept down the bank to set a ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... here are stupid enough. A most ignorant lot. They must be enlightened. They're wretchedly poor, but one can't make them understand the cause of ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... and would have gone straight into the old colonel's office even had that veteran not called him in. And when next Mr. Blake appeared upon the walk, the light had gone out of his face. He went slowly, reluctantly, wretchedly, back down the row. He could not bear to carry the news to Ray, yet he had promised, and in his hand was a copy of the charges and specifications preferred against his friend. So far from being a mere local matter the arrest was ordered from ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... that time the number has greatly increased. There were battle odes, hymns, calls to arms, paeans and dirges and prayers for peace—many of them good, few of them great; and the vast majority, alas! wretchedly poor. Any attempted notice of their authors in limits like this would be sheer failure; and where many did so well, it were invidious to discriminate. The names of John R. Thompson, James Randall, Henry Timrod, Paul Hayne, Barron Hope, Margaret ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... away back in the mountains of western North Carolina, far up on the mountainside, at the head of a cove, there lived a fifteen-year-old boy. He had sisters and brothers and parents, but they dwelt in a little tumble-down shack and were wretchedly poor. Jake was the oldest of the children, and he had to work hard in the little patch of corn on the steep mountainside, ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... own soul! And what an opportunity,—all the great treasures of the world possessed by people who welcome merchants but "hate to see soldiers"; being themselves "no soldiers at all, only accomplished traders and most skillful artisans." Here was the promised land for Europeans, wretchedly poor, but good soldiers enough. Here was Eldorado, symbol of all external and objective values which so fired the imagination in that age of discovery; presenting a concrete and visualized goal, a summum bonum, attainable, not by contemplation, but by active endeavor; ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... George was wretchedly nervous and sat in a cold sweat while the chairman explained that the great Mr. S—— deeply regretted that at the last moment he was unfortunately compelled to break so important an engagement, but that he had sent in his stead Mr. George Winterham, whose name ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... disinclination, and final reluctant yielding form the fashionable order of proceeding. The charm of it all is, that the original intention is the same as the ultimate action. Whence, then, this folly? Having been many times wretchedly bored by this sort of thing, I was now correspondingly gladdened ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... against him, and baleful passions, made Saul so wretchedly melancholy, that some of his attendants suggested to the monarch that he should try the soothing effect of music. The proposition was favorably received, and upon the recommendation of another friend, David, ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... victories, not by force of numbers, but by superior military discipline and valor. In the middle of the nineteenth century the capture of Christian children was abandoned. The land forces degenerated into a wretchedly organized army of less than three hundred thousand men, drafted from the lowest classes. Mothers put their children to death that they might be spared the pangs of seeing them torn away to pass their days in scenes ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the work of Douglas's friends,—and it is more than likely,—he had reason to pray to be delivered from them. At best the whole manoeuvre was clumsily planned and wretchedly executed; it probably did him irreparable harm. His strength was not sufficient to confront all his rivals; yet the almost inevitable consequence of the odious comparisons in the Review was combinations ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... to know, what was the fact, that this youngest daughter of Gurney's had one of the purest contralto voices in the States. She came home, grown, but just as shy; only tired, needing care: no one could look in Lizzy Gurney's face without wishing to comfort and help the child. The Gurneys were so wretchedly poor, that might be the cause of her look. She was a woman now. Well, and then? Why, nothing then. He was Uncle Dan still, of whom she was less afraid than of any other living creature; that was all. Thinking, as he stood with Paul Blecker, leaning over the gate, of how ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... at all on Thursday because of Henley, just as later more than one stayed away altogether because of Whistler. I was wretchedly nervous when they did come and brave a face-to-face meeting. Henley was not the sort of man to shirk a fight in the open. The principal reason for his unpopularity was just that habit of his of saying what he thought no matter where or when or to ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... newspapers, and supposing her to deign to ratify the engagement, what so reasonable on the part of a Cinque Port chieftain as to congratulate his liege mistress, her illustrious mother? These are thoughts and these are deeds >which give emotional warmth and colour to the ejecter members of a population wretchedly befogged. They are our sunlight, and our brighter theme of conversation. They are necessary to the climate and the Saxon mind; and it would be foolish to put them away, as it is foolish not to do our utmost to be intimate with terrestrial splendours while we have them—as it may be said ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the man from Turkey, and they were almost surprised that he should still look like other people. The young folks, to be sure, did not remember him, but the old could still recognize his features perfectly, wretchedly disfigured though ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... picture by Burgmair of the Virgin and Christ, in the manner of the Italian masters, which is a palpable failure. The infant is wretchedly drawn, although, in other respects, prettily and tenderly coloured. Burgmair was out of his element in subjects of dignity, or rather of repose. Where the workings of the mind were not to be depicted by strong demarcations of countenance, he was generally unsuccessful. Hence it is, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... vast pretentions of a singularly unromantic nature, he found her so much lovelier than before that where once he had shyly coveted he now desired with a fervour that swept him headlong into a panic of dread lest he had waited too long and that he had irretrievably lost her while engaged in the wretchedly mundane and commonplace pursuit of trifles. He was intensely amazed, therefore, to discover that she had loved him ever since she was a child in short frocks. He expected her to believe him when he said to her that she was the loveliest of all God's creatures, but ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... diatribes against its whole purpose, and especially against arbitration, was wont to insist that the whole thing was a scheme prepared by Pobedonostzeff to embarrass Germany; that, as Russia was always wretchedly unready with her army, The Hague Conference was simply a trick for gaining time against her rivals who kept up better military preparations. There may have been truth in part of this assertion; but the motive ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... governor of a fortress shall allow to enter when need shall arise, and on demand of the prisoner, a confessor affiliated to the order." He stopped. Baisemeaux was quite distressing to look at, being so wretchedly pale and trembling. "Is not that the text of the ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... that was normally his had deserted him, his very pride was gone; a sudden mistrust of himself was humbling him; he felt wretchedly out of place; he was even dimly conscious of his own baseness while he was for the moment blinded to the cruelty of her conduct. Under his breath he cursed himself. By his too great haste, by a too great frankness he had fooled away his ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... "At first he only had one color of ink—red—and if I sketched with him all day he would commence to look wretchedly anemic. He took two days to refill, normally. But I could use him again in only one day's time provided I didn't mind the top three-fourths of my ...
— Droozle • Frank Banta
... was lashing the trees on the lawn when he awoke with a start and found Margery bending over him to close the window. With every nerve a needle to prick him alive he dragged out his watch. It was a quarter-past two. Miserably, wretchedly he pulled himself together and stood up to face her, putting his hands on her shoulders to make ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... to Chorley, the only person I know to whom I can apply on the subject, to get me some means of publishing the few manuscript verses I have left in some magazine or other.... If I cannot succeed in this, I shall try if I can publish my "English Tragedy," and make a few pounds by it. It is a wretchedly uncomfortable position, but compared with all that has gone before it is ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... you were all right, you and he, when I saw you together here in the spring. So I suppose you were happy then. Jerrold looked wretchedly ill all the time he was at Taormina. So I suppose he was unhappy then because he was away from you. He looks wretchedly ill now. So do you. So I suppose ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... will be seen, had been brought back from the West, but the Confederates labored under an even more serious disadvantage than want of sufficient force. Lee's army, small as it was, was wretchedly supplied. Half the men were in rags, and, worse still, were but one-fourth fed. Against this suicidal policy, in reference to an army upon which depended the fate of the South, General Lee had protested in vain. Whether from fault in the authorities or from circumstances over which they could exercise ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... forget that you're an officer, sir," said Allenby, wretchedly. "It's not right: think of the regiment. And Miss Norah. Won't ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... of them was successful. Singularly enough it was not the same plan as the Dutch optician's: it was another mode of achieving the same end. He took an old small organ-pipe, jammed a suitably chosen spectacle glass into either end, one convex, the other concave, and, behold! he had the half of a wretchedly bad opera-glass capable of magnifying three times. It was better than the Dutchman's, however: it ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... the bottom of the stairs, or to the very gate: as if there were such rules set to these Leviathans as are to the sea, "Hitherto shalt thou go, and no further." Perditur haec inter misero Lux. Thus wretchedly ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... middle of his sentence and another of those uncomfortable little pauses ensued. Donnegan knew that their eyes were miserably upon each other; the man tongue-tied by his guilt; the girl wretchedly guessing at the things which lay ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand |
