"Helpless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... knowledge, * * *" Whereas, accordingly, under the terms of the section previously upheld, the defendant could prove his citizenship without trouble, and the State, if forced to disprove his claim, could be relatively helpless, the background of the accused party being known probably only to himself and close relatives, the alleged Japanese defendant, in the last mentioned case, would have suffered hardship and injustice if compelled to prove non-Japanese origin, especially since ineligibility ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... carrying a babe of a few months in her arms, marched alone. Plainly dressed, her grey head bare, she walked proudly erect but with evident signs of weariness. The appearance of that lone, weary, grey-haired woman and her helpless babe struck hard upon the heart with its poignant appeal, choking men's throats and bringing hot tears to women's eyes. Following that lonely figure came one who was apparently the officer in command of the column. As he came opposite the gate, his eye fell upon the group ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... Cobden was the only woman conscientious enough to want to bring up somebody else's child, and a foreigner at that, when there were any quantity of babies up and down the shore that could be had for the asking. The little creature was, no doubt, helpless, and appealed to Miss Jane's sympathies, but why bring it home at all? Were there not places enough in France where it could be brought up? etc., etc. This sort of gossip went on for days after Jane's return, each dropper-in at tea-table ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... cart-shaft, with all sorts of old love-histories hinted in his clear skin and large eye, to the wizened labourer in his quaint-cut, frowzy clothes, bill-hook in hand, a symbol of the patient work of the world. So helpless a crowd, so patient in trouble, so bewildered as to the meaning of it all; and zigzagged all across it, in nations, in families, in individuals, the jagged lines of evil, so devastating, so horrible, so irremediable; and even ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... withstand that unexpected flood; men and horses were floated and washed away, struggling and helpless, ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... enmity with itself, a Church conformed to the image of this world. Her external policy proved helpless to right these evils. The return of the Popes from Avignon resulted neither in the pacification of Christendom nor in the reform of the Church. The Great Schism, of which she saw the beginning, undermined ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... filled with people: well-dressed men, ragged old women who stood talking in a slow, whining tone, yelling apprentices, over-dressed girls who whispered to each other, corner-loafers who stood as if rooted to the spot and cracked jokes, surprised drunkards and drunkards who quarreled, helpless policemen, and carriages that would go neither forwards nor backwards. Mogens forced his way through the multitude. Now he was at the corner; the sparks were slowly falling down upon him. Up the street; there were showers of sparks, the window-panes on both sides were ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen
... largely from her father, that headstrong, headlong creature whose mentality had driven him to every length in a wild endeavour to upset civilisation that he might witness the birth of a millennium in the ashes of a world saturated with the blood of countless, helpless creatures. So he checked the impulsive flow of the child's protest. He ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... hearts are fresh and simple, Who have faith in God and nature, Who believe that in all ages Every human heart is human, That in even savage bosoms There are longings, yearnings, strivings, For the good they comprehend not, That the feeble hands and helpless, Groping blindly in the darkness, Touch God's right hand in that darkness, And are lifted up and strengthened,— Listen to this simple story. Ye, who sometimes, in your rambles Through the green lanes of the country, Where the tangled barberry-bushes ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... feel pretty desperate at this, for I felt altogether helpless; and yet, by an odd train of circumstances, it was indeed through me that safety came. In the meantime, talk as we pleased, there were only seven out of the twenty-six on whom we knew we could rely, and out of these seven one ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to look upon himself, and consider what and where he is. In the imperious demand for a present support, he dares not venture on speculative attempts at ameliorating his state; he is doomed to be a helpless, isolated, spell-bound savage, or, if not isolated, the companion of other savages as care-worn as himself. Under such circumstances, however, if once the preliminary conditions and momentum of civilization be imparted to him, the very things which have hitherto tended ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... the dying embers of family affection. United to their parents by ties no stronger than those which use had created, there had been great danger, as Ishmael had foreseen, that the overloaded hive would swarm, and leave him saddled with the difficulties of a young and helpless brood, unsupported by the exertions of those, whom he had already brought to a state of maturity. The spirit of insubordination, which emanated from the unfortunate Asa, had spread among his juniors; and the squatter had been made painfully to remember the time when, in the wantonness of his ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... and vanity are fledge with, together with gain, pride, and ambition, call me forward more powerfully than a poor, regardless, and unprofitable sin of curiosity should be able to withhold me; whereby a man cuts himself off from all action, and becomes the most helpless, pusillanimous, and unweaponed creature in the world, the most unfit and unable to do that which all mortals most aspire to—either to be useful to his friends or to offend his enemies? Or, if it be to be thought a natural proneness, there is against that a much ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... degradation by its love of jest and of vulgar sensation. It is against this fatal tendency to vile play that we have chiefly to contend. It is the spirit of Milton's Comus; bestial itself, but having power to arrest and paralyze all who come within its influence, even pure creatures sitting helpless, mocked by it on their marble thrones. It is incompatible, not only with all greatness of character, but with all true gladness of heart, and it develops itself in nations in proportion to their degradation, connected with a peculiar ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... English prisoners, tried every means to save as many of our fellow creatures as lay in our power. Larger rafts were constructed, and the largest boat was got over the side. The first consideration was to lay the surviving wounded, the women and helpless men in the boat, but the idea of equality, so fatally promulgated among the French, destroyed all subordination, and nearly one hundred and twenty having jumped into the boat, in defiance of their officers, they sunk ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... was the Holy City a desolation on the return of the Jews, but the rich vineyards and olive-grounds and wheat-fields had run to waste, and there were but few to till and improve them. The few who returned felt their helpless condition, and were quiet and peaceable. Moreover, they had learned during their seventy years' exile to have an intense hatred of everything like idolatry,—a hatred amounting to fanatical fierceness, such as the Puritan ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... The helpless hopeless condition of small states in all such conflicts was actually pitiable. The poor little trembling King Charles dog in the cage of the lion, and who felt that he only lived on sufferance, was the type of them. I remember an incident which occurred some years ago at the Bagni ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... loathsome end of the Panama Company. In the United Kingdom the wheels of progress lurched along heavily after the year 1886, when Gladstone made his sudden strategic turn towards the following of Parnell. Thus it came about that the parties of progress found themselves almost helpless or even discredited; and the young giant of Democracy suddenly stooped and shrivelled as ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... it would not do to make the attempt till Ki Sing and his protector were both fast asleep. "All men are children when they are asleep," says an old proverb. That is, all men are as helpless as children when their senses are locked in slumber. It would be safer, therefore, to carry out his plan if he could manage to do so without awaking the ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger
... my sons, I die; and as for you, forget not ye the Lord, do good to the poor, pass not by the helpless, take not to yourselves wives ...
— Old Testament Legends - being stories out of some of the less-known apochryphal - books of the old testament • M. R. James
... veuf de mes lunettes! I think Mademoiselle Lucy will now confess that the cord and gallows are amply earned; she trembles in anticipation of her doom. Ah, traitress! traitress! You are resolved to have me quite blind and helpless in ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... letter, after exciting at first helpless bewilderment and then busy speculation, was at length delivered to the right person, Sir Humphry Davy, in his rooms at the Royal Institution on Albemarle ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... yet there could be no doubt of the truth, and his feelings changed on the instant. He felt himself the meanest of men to attempt to overcome an almost helpless foe. ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... what you would be marrying? The grocer's shop, the debts, the helpless mother, the disreputable private soldier of a brother (he enlisted, I am told, to save himself from prison, as the father killed himself for the same purpose). A charming family with which to ally ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... and helpless, in such dark times, are all theories of mere self-education; all proud attempts, like that of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, to hang self-poised in the centre of the abyss, and there organise for oneself a character by means of circumstances! Easy enough, and graceful enough does that dream ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... Christian from her employ for his conduct in the affair; but, feeling quite helpless and unable to do without him, told him afterwards that he might stay a little longer if he chose. Then she hastened off to Eustacia, moved by a much less promising emotion towards her daughter-in-law than she had felt half an hour earlier, when planning her journey. ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... supported by the charity of the publick. The manufacturer, who by the use of spirituous liquors weakens his limbs or destroys his health, at once, takes from the community to which he belongs, a member by which the common stock was increased, and by leaving a helpless family behind him, increases the burden which the common stock must necessarily support. And the trader or husbandman is obliged to pay more towards the maintenance of the poor, by the same accident which diminishes his trade or his harvest, which takes away part of the assistance which he received, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... number of students who make a practice of walking. Referring to the accident to Miss Langly. What restitution could you have made if her back had been permanently injured? There is nothing more pitiful than a helpless invalid. Remember that and see that you are not the one to cause lifelong unhappiness or death by an act of sheer lawlessness. Let this be the last offense of this kind ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... have a mass of rough memoranda, from which I could after some trouble reconstruct it, but this I should destroy. After that, unless I had free access to the bank, I should be helpless. And in six months, barring accidents, you will be able to set everything straight: you have left the ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... of Israel, and betraying their movements to the tyrant. Jael's act was treachery in retaliation for the treachery on the other side by her husband. This explains the exultation over her deed in Deborah's Song. (2) This treachery of Heber had upset the plans of Deborah and Barak: helpless against the iron chariots, their only hope had been to assemble secretly on the heights of Kedesh and attempt a surprise. But while the army of Sisera, warned by Heber, were awaiting them on the ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... on private life in the Middle Ages. It considerably modified custom, by bringing the stronger sex to respect and defend the weaker. These warriors, who were both simple and externally rough and coarse, required association and intercourse with women to soften them (Fig. 47). In taking women and helpless widows under their protection, they were necessarily more and more thrown in contact with them. A deep feeling of veneration for woman, inspired by Christianity, and, above all, by the worship of the Virgin Mary, ran throughout the songs of the troubadours, and produced a sort of ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... fame: Giving to the delicate handed crackers Of priceless safes, the spiritual slackers, The flash and thunder of front pages! And the gulled millions stare and fling their wages Where they are bidden, helpless and emasculate. And the unilluminate, Whose brows are brass, Who weep on every Sabbath day For Jesus riding on an ass, Scarce know the ass is they, Now ridden by his effigy, The publican with Jesus' painted mask, Along a way where fumes of odorless gas First ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... will be found high enough for shame. The success of three simple sentences lures us into a fatal parenthesis in the fourth, from whose shut brackets we may never disentangle the thread of our discourse. A momentary flush tempts us into a quotation; and we may be left helpless in the middle of one of Pope's couplets, a white film gathering before our eyes, and our kind friends charitably trying to cover our disgrace by a feeble round of applause. Amis lecteurs, this is a painful topic. It is possible that we too, we, the 'potent, grave, ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and my wife also to herself, I then spoke to my wife respecting myself, and indeed, having some thoughts how much better both for her and us it is than it might have been had she outlived my father and me or my happy present condition in the world, she being helpless, I was the sooner at ease in my mind, and then found it necessary to go abroad with my wife to look after the providing mourning to send into the country, some to-morrow, and more against Sunday, for my family, being resolved to put myself and wife, and Barker and Jane, W. Hewer ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... realized the peril of her situation, but particularly that of Bud, who had been left alone, bound and helpless, in that wilderness. ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... gentleman, after admiring the healthy yet retired situation of their residence, had suddenly been seized with an inspiration. The very place for an unfortunate young man of his acquaintance! he cried, and thereupon asked them if they could take charge of a blameless, helpless, harmless idiot. The stranger hinted that there were the best of reasons why the parents of this unfortunate wished him kept in the background. He had been boarded out previously, it appeared, but too near ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... populations of Phantasms, not God-Veracities but Devil-Falsities, down to the very lowest stratum,—which now, by such superincumbent weight of Unveracities, lies enchanted in St. Ives' Workhouses, broad enough, helpless enough! You will walk in no public thoroughfare or remotest byway of English Existence but you will meet a man, an interest of men, that has given up hope in the Everlasting, True, and placed its hope in the Temporary, half or wholly False. The Honourable Member complains unmusically ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... bully, and now it was seen that two of his front teeth were loose. He stared around in a helpless fashion. Paxton put some ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... succeed in being the first to mount some height untrod hitherto by any human foot, yet the next generation will climb on my shoulders and hurl me down into the abysm of oblivion. There I could lie, lonely and helpless, until the six boards are needed again to help me to my happiness. And so let me be content and wait until that thing in my breast which has began to beat so impudently, has ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... of the wasps "the grubs recognized as incurable are pitilessly torn from their place and dragged out of the nest. Woe to the sick! they are helpless ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... to me in this matter, and, as it were, nudged me when it was time to duck in the House of Rimmon. During their office hours they professed an unflinching belief in the blessed word 'Democracy,' which means any crowd on the move—that is to say, the helpless thing which breaks through floors and falls into cellars; overturns pleasure-boats by rushing from port to starboard; stamps men into pulp because it thinks it has lost sixpence, and jams and grills in ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... God was made up of just such little children—those who had died before they knew anything of the sin and wickedness of this world; or having known it, having grown old and gray beneath its heavy burden, had laid all at the feet of Jesus, and in spirit gone back to helpless, guileless ...
— Effie Maurice - Or What do I Love Best • Fanny Forester
... a little boy in Dundee was afflicted with a sore upon his right leg. Medical skill proved of no avail, and the parents began to fear the boy would be rendered helpless for life. One day, however, an old Irish woman saw the boy, and, on ascertaining the nature of his disease, declared that she could by means of the "gold-touch" heal the sore. She asked for and obtained the marriage ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... most delicate and high-born beauties of all Tuscany wending her way through the dark and deserted streets, attended by a single female as helpless as herself. She was doing this for the love she bore to Carlton; she was risking thus her character, and perhaps even her life, to be united to him she loved, the gallant Americano. On she sped, now half-running, and now retiring within the deep shade of some projecting angle of ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... notebook. As he opened his book to write he saw, struggling in the grass by his side, a golden carp. The fish had jumped too high when it tried to catch a fly, and had landed on the ground. The poor creature was helpless to get back into the water, and was gasping for breath; fish, you know, cannot live long out of water. Charming felt so sorry for the carp that he could not write until he had put it ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... all so sudden that I was speechless and stared blankly at the mother, who looked helpless and bewildered. The two grandmothers had taken no part nor interest in the scene. Their faces expressed nothing. To them the girl was as incomprehensible as any jungle savage. To me she was like some wild, free bird, caught in a net, ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... the South as Greek toward barbarian. But Douglas foresaw that the horrors of war must invade and desolate the homes of those whom he still held dear. There is no more lovable and admirable side of his personality than this tenderness for the helpless and innocent. Had he but lived to temper justice with mercy, what a power for good might he not have been in the days ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... Free Joe appeared to have clearer ideas concerning his peculiar condition. He realized the fact that though he was free he was more helpless than any slave. Having no owner, every man was his master. He knew that he was the object of suspicion, and therefore all his slender resources (ah! how pitifully slender they were!) were devoted to winning, not kindness and appreciation, ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... again, intently and carefully—at that waxen, fallen face, her helpless hands clasped across her breast with a string of beads interwoven within them; and even as he looked distrust once more surged within him, It was impossible, he told himself—in spite of what he had seen that day in spite of that score of leaping figures and ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... the gaiety I was master of to my aid, I appeared to participate in the joke, like many a modern roue, laughing in unison without comprehending the essence of the whim, merely because it was the fashion. What a helpless race, old father Etona, are thine (thought I), when first they assume the Oxford man; spite of thy fostering care and classic skill, thy offspring are here little better than cawkers{37} or wild Indians. ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... more atrocious massacres have been committed often by Indians; their savage nature modifies one's ideas, however, as to the inhumanity of their acts, but when such wholesale murder as this is done by whites, and the victims not only innocent, but helpless, no defense can be made for those who perpetrated the crime, if they claim to be civilized beings. It is true the people at the Cascades had suffered much, and that their wives and children had been murdered before ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the helpless state I was in, and the condition of affairs generally, engaged Mr. Reg. Uhr to take charge on my behalf, whilst he took me down to Burketown, distant 155 miles, in a cart, with two horses. The road was almost deserted, and the blacks were very bad. Carruthers ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... made for the men; the horses in the stables at Gramarye had been disposed of. He had only come, with Valerie's approval, out of sheer pity for helpless men and beasts. His unexpected interview with Andre Strongi'th'arm worried him sorely. He was convinced that between her and Anthony there had been a serious affair. Himself devoted to Valerie, this made him furious; remembering her devotion to Lyveden, it scared him. If, after ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... allow me to say one last word. I will not consent to present to you the professors of Art as a set of helpless babies, who are to be held up by the chin; I present them as an energetic and persevering class of men, whose incomes depend on their own faculties and personal exertions; and I also make so bold as to present them as men who in their vocation ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... have done what they did. Only trained woodsmen could have led the white advance into the vast forest-clad regions, out of which so many fair States have been hewn. The ordinary regular soldier was almost as helpless before the Indians in the woods as he would have been if blindfolded and opposed to an antagonist whose eyes were ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... and he found himself standing by the ashes of the fire in a state of amazement and stupid terror that left him the helpless prey of anything that chose to happen. Had a muskrat poked its pointed muzzle over a rock, or a squirrel scuttled in that instant down the bark of a tree, he would most likely have collapsed without more ado ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... enemy's guns, "spotting" the fall of shells for their own side from their suspended basket observation posts from early morning until they were drawn in by their gasoline engines with the coming of dusk. Clumsy and helpless they seemed; but in common with the rest of the army they had learned to reach their dugouts swiftly at the first sign of shell fire, and descended then with a ridiculous alacrity which suggested the possession of the ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... heavy seas which poured over the forecastle soon extinguished the flames, or they all must have perished; but the ship lay now helpless, and at the mercy of the waves beating violently against the wrecks of the masts which floated to leeward, but were still held fast to the vessel by their rigging. As soon as they could recover from the shock, Ready and the first mate hastened to the ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... at the tent store called up and asked where to send the tent. I then called a meeting in my Chamber, only to meet with bitter disapointment, as one Parent after another had refused to allow their grounds to be used. I felt sad—helpless, as our house has no grounds, except ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... save the rest. Brookes dissented, and the boy, to whom they referred, was not consulted. On that day Dudley and Stevens spoke of their having families, and of their lives being more valuable than that of the boy. The boy was lying in the bottom of the boat, quite helpless, extremely weak and unable to make any resistance; nor did he assent to be killed to save the others. Dudley, with the assent of Stevens, went to the boy and, telling him that his time had come, put a knife into his throat and killed him. They fed upon his flesh for four days. On ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... it showed the symmetry and fine outlines of the vessel's rig, resembling the effect of a group of statuary seen by torch-light,—and fearful, since the dark void beyond seemed to declare their isolated and helpless state. ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... missing his ball some six times, ultimately dashes off the head of his club against the ground. Nor is he less exuberant when his patron's ball is deep in a "bunker," or sand-pit, where the wretch stands digging at it with an iron, hot, helpless, and wrathful. And yet golf is a sport not learned in a day, and caddies might be more considerate. The object of the game is to strike a small gutta-percha ball into a hole about five inches wide, distant from the striker about three hundred ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... away, she left the little baby at its father's feet, thinking when he was alone with it, he would look upon it, and have pity on its helpless innocence. ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... she took a bit of husk from Antonia's store and made a cigarette. It was the first time she had smoked since her marriage. "He's not coming back," she said in a voice like that of a helpless old woman. She leaned her elbows on the table and smoked. Her attitude did not suggest grief, but ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... would suddenly hinder me and upset everything by some sudden whim, and so I was in haste and made an effort to attach no consequence to the fact that her lips were quivering, and that she was looking about her with a helpless and frightened air like a wild creature ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the terrible warfare of Denonville. In small bands they ranged the woods round about Quebec and the river settlements, darting to and fro like silent shadows, so that for months the French suffered daily the anguish of battle, murder, and sudden death. Disciplined soldiers were helpless against this stealthy warfare, and a man walked in danger of his ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... thousand demands, caprices, and fancies of her ailing and exigeant father. However, for five years she battled bravely with adversity, eking out their scanty means by her exertions—though, from her father's helpless condition, and the constant and unremitting attention he required, she was in a great measure debarred from applying her efforts advantageously. The poor, dying man, in his days of health, had contributed to the enjoyment of the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various
... together also those who are unequal. It joins the rich to the poor, the strong to the weak, the fortunate to the unfortunate, and thus defeats the calculations which otherwise would enter into matrimonial life. Without the blindness of passionate love the darts of Cupid would be sent in vain; and the helpless and neglected—as so many are—would stand but little chance for that happiness which is associated with the institution of marriage. The world would be filled with old bachelors and old maids, and population would hopelessly ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... month that brought us to Bloemfontein had used up a similar number. A cavalryman told me that out of 540 horses belonging to his regiment only 50 were left; and in that case the sausage-making machine was in no degree responsible for the diminished numbers. Yet a cavalryman without a horse is as helpless as a cripple without a crutch. It was therefore quite clear that most of our cavalry regiments would have to remain rooted to the spot till their ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... Iena, or the Wanderer, was in the habit of roaming about from place to place, forlorn, without relations, and almost helpless. He had often wished for a companion to share his solitude; but who would think of joining their fortunes with those of a poor wanderer, who had no shelter but such as his leather hunting-shirt provided, and no other household in the world than the bundle which he carried in his ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... saw these formidable preparations, and reflected on our own helpless condition, without any means of offence, beside our teeth and nails, we could not but despise our enemies; and we did not omit to increase their ridiculous alarm, by whispering together, pointing our fingers sometimes ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... parish of readers. The gist of the book is to show how possible it is for the best spirits of a community, through wise organization, to form themselves into a lever by means of which the whole tone of the social status may be elevated, and the good and highest happiness of the helpless many be attained through the self-denying exertions ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... "Quite as helpless. I was carried on board, and carried to a bed at an hotel when I reached England. From what I have heard of your case, and from what you say, I should judge the nature of your malady to be precisely ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... East collected all the clever people, but no one could guess. He was helpless and knew not what to do. Then his daughter went to her lover and said, "They are going to take me away," and she told him when ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... jumped up together. My Uncle, Francois, who had been drinking champagne, swore so furiously that he would murder it, whatever it might be, that my mother and my aunt threw themselves on him to prevent his going. My father, although very calm and a little helpless (he limped ever since he had broken his leg when thrown by a horse), declared, in turn, that he wished to find out what was the matter and that he was going. My brothers, aged eighteen and twenty, ran ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... helpless. She remembered now that when he had entered the room he had certainly seen her bending over a photograph. No wonder her statement that she did not know whose photograph it was seemed uniquely absurd. There was ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... has been found more difficult of elimination than a mere fact of history. Facts, it was once said, were stubborn things; but in our days we have changed all that; a fact, under the knife of a critic, splits in pieces, and is dissected out of belief with incredible readiness. The helpless thing lies under his hand like a foolish witness in a law court, when browbeaten by an unscrupulous advocate, and is turned about and twisted this way and that way, till in its distraction it contradicts itself, and bears witness against itself; and ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... only for her, and I dreamed of her as my little queen, who would one day possess with me the trees, the fields, the river, the dawn, all Nature, wonderful and fascinating, with whom, as with them, I have felt helpless and useless. ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... concerning the cruel treatment she had received at the hands of her mother's relative had fired Jack's blood. He detested a man who in order to accumulate money could treat a helpless woman and girl as Potzfeldt had those ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... recalled the moment when he had his first stroke and was being dragged along by his armpits through the garden at Bald Hills, muttering something with his helpless tongue, twitching his gray eyebrows and looking ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... and limb for the sake of others; to see a powerful swimmer breasting the billows with a fixed purpose to do or die. But it is terrible and spirit-crushing to see such a one tossed by the breakers as if he were a mere baby, and hurled back helpless on the sand. Twice did the young sailor dash in, and twice was he caught up like a cork and hurled back, while the people on shore, finding their remonstrances useless, began to talk of ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... came in here—after Berne's collapse. I felt so helpless! But he tried to persuade me my imagination had deceived me; he said they had had no such scene. You know how gruff and hard Judge Wilton can be at times. I shouldn't choose him for ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... by some fiction declaring him to have been in the minor orders, he clapped him into the bishop's prison, claiming to try him by ecclesiastical law. The story of renewed tortures inflicted on their helpless comrade, and their knowledge of the certain death that awaited him, stirred the blood of the patriots of Geneva. It was just the moment for the prior of St. Victor to show that the studies at Freiburg and Turin that had made him doctor utriusque juris had not been in vain. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... had stopped again. Surely two of them were stuck together, then three were fast on a shoal. Boats, like black bugs in the water, came and went between them and the others. After a long time the two that were together got apart and away. But the third stayed there, immovable, helpless. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... leave her sick and helpless, even freedom, shared with thee, Would be sadder far than bondage, lonely ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... back to the home whence her mother had been cruelly banished; that mother He had received into more beauteous mansions, but the child was left, to fulfill a noble and glorious mission among those who had hitherto deemed her as helpless in the grave! Strangers had proved better than those of her own household to the outcast and orphan, and had nurtured and cared for her while they were contenting themselves with the report that she had gone where no earthly care avails. Only the evening before ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... contained in this chapter are typical of the letters which come to me by the thousands. They tell their own story, simply—sometimes ungrammatically and illiterately, but nevertheless irresistibly. It is the story of slow murder of the helpless by a society that shields itself behind ancient, inhuman moral creeds—which dares to weigh those dead creeds against the agony of the living who pray for ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... slavery would be unworthy a people who possessed any gallantry. "You will," he declared, "do a cruel wrong to many fine ladies. They know nothing about working with their hands, and consider such knowledge disgraceful. If their slaves are taken from them, these ladies will be helpless." ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... the work in the house. At first this drudgery seemed very hard, but after a time she grew stronger, and her health improved. When her work was over she read, played on the harpsichord, or sang as she sat at her spinning-wheel. As to her two sisters, they were perfectly helpless, and a burden to themselves. They would rise at ten, and spend the live-long day fretting for the loss of their fine clothes and gay parties, and sneer at their sister for her low-born tastes, because she put up with ...
— Bo-Peep Story Books • Anonymous
... their first victim; who retained a terrible consciousness of the appearance of the dead man; he had no such feeling; he had only a grim contentment in the wiped-out inefficient life, and contempt for the limp and helpless body. He suddenly recalled his callousness as a boy when face to face with the victims of the Indian massacre, his sense of fastidious superciliousness in the discovery of the body of Susy's mother!—surely it was the cold blood of his father ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... playing your real part, the conqueror!" she thought gladly. "Your kind of peace is the ruin of another people; the peace of a helpless enemy. That is better"—better for her conscience. Unwittingly, she allowed her hands to remain in his. In the paralysis of despair she was unconscious that she had hands. She felt that she could endure anything to retrieve the error ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... had sucked her under twice already, when her helpless hands hit against some floating substance on the waves. She could not have grasped it by herself, for her strength was gone; but a hand gripped her in the darkness, and dragged her, almost insensible, to safety. For a long while she lay inert across ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... disgust filled up to the brim. I cared but little for his attempt to browbeat me; but when he treated a helpless soldier like this I could hardly keep my indignation from boiling over. The first words spoken to me after entering ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... to the intestinal canal has become clogged. The kidneys wear out trying to evacuate the bowels through their delicate tubular network, and the capillaries have become helpless through misuse in trying to do the work of others. So the tissues and muscles of the extremities are loaded with this cast off material, and we call it bloat. ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... While hovering near an altar, on which some villagers were sacrificing a goat, she suddenly seized a piece of flesh, and carried with it to her nest a burning cinder. A strong breeze soon fanned the spark into a flame, and the eaglets, as yet unfledged and helpless, were roasted in their nest and dropped down dead at the bottom of the tree. The Fox gobbled them up in ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop
... ounce or two of the blackest slime of a beaten footpath, on a rainy day, near a manufacturing town. That slime we shall find in most cases composed of clay (or brickdust, which is burnt clay), mixed with soot, a little sand and water. All these elements are at helpless war with each other, and destroy reciprocally each other's nature and power: competing and fighting for place at every tread of your foot; sand squeezing out clay, and clay squeezing out water, and soot meddling ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... up on board every ship, transport as well as man-of-war, for he intended to put to sea the instant that the last man was ashore. He had no desire to be caught where he was by the Japanese fleet, especially since he would then be seriously hampered in his movements by the helpless, unarmed transports. Anxious eyes were often turned seaward to where the torpedo-boats were still carrying out their patrol duty in the offing; and more than one brave man heaved a sigh of relief as hour after hour passed without one of ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... canoe overturned and they all found themselves in the water. This time Adolay managed to wriggle out of her position, but being unable to swim she could only cling helplessly to the kayak. Nootka, equally helpless, clung to the canoe. Fortunately Anteek could swim like a fish, and bravely set to work to push both crafts towards the shore. But they were a long way out; the weight of the two girls made them difficult to push, and, ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the grim and terrible humor of their situation—which he hoped she had not yet realized. Here they were, the hard-sought papers in their possession, yet they were helpless even to ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... seven hundred, rendered, by long confinement for debt, strangers and helpless in the country of their birth, and desirous of seeking an asylum in the wilds of America, were by ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... He simply scorned the whole lot of us. I went away as quickly as I could, but the others beat me to it. I left mother and Anne there all alone, just wandering around the room as if they were half-stunned. Never, never will I forget Anne's white, scared face, and I've never seen mother so helpless, either. Anne gripped, that big envelope so tight that it crumpled up into almost nothing. Mother took it away from her and opened it. Nobody was there but us three. I shan't tell you what was in the envelope. I'm not drunk ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... would consider it as something of a miracle. But it is not as spectacular as the catching of a criminal, and the only persons who call indirect attention to it are those who would have us believe that great, hulking policemen have batoned helpless men and women who were, of course, doing nothing, although broken bottles and stones may litter the thoroughfare where an affray has ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... Lying helpless on his bed, he had no desire for orgies at the Maison Doree; with parched lips thirsty for innocent tisane of lime-blossoms, the thought of absinthe was as odious to him as the liquid fire of Phlegethon. If ever sinner became ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... helpless until the Girl had to cling to him to prevent rolling from his nerveless arms. "Ruth, Ruth, will you feel ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... dwelling more secure against assault; so that the more timid and imaginative type would tend to survive longest and to multiply their stock. Man in his physical characteristics is a very weak, frail, and helpless animal, exposed to all kinds of dangers; his infancy is protracted and singularly defenceless; his pace is slow, his strength is insignificant; it is his imagination that has put him at the top of creation, and has enabled him both ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... hated him, but that the parish heard there was a Mrs. Whitlow; a small fragile woman, with a face sharp as a penknife, and lips that cut her words like scissors! and what a forlorn wretch was Whitlow with his head brought once a night to the pillow! poor creature! helpless, confused; a huge imbecility, a stranded whale! Mrs. Whitlow talked and talked; and there was not an apple-woman that in Whitlow's sufferings was not avenged: not a beggar that, thinking of the beadle at midnight, might not in his compassion have forgiven the beadle of the day. And ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... women hovering about to view the captive. The circle about him then broke, and men stood aside for a newcomer. Ross had believed that his original captors were physically imposing, but this one was their master. Lying on the ground at the chieftain's feet, Ross felt like a small and helpless child. ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... despairingly towards Aaron Thurnbrein. He thrust his hands into his pockets and exposed them with a little helpless gesture. The coins he produced were of copper. The official looked at them and around the place with a ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... we were shut in by the wooden apron, the man drove so fast that Flo was frightened, and told me to stop him, but he was up outside behind somewhere, and I couldn't get at him. He didn't hear me call, nor see me flap my parasol in front, and there we were, quite helpless, rattling away, and whirling around corners at a breakneck pace. At last, in my despair, I saw a little door in the roof, and on poking it open, a red eye appeared, and a ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... feel physically ill. He shuddered with cold as he dived into the water, and as he swam out he felt, for the first time in his life, a slight twinge of cramp. At another time he would have been somewhat alarmed, for the strongest swimmer is absolutely helpless under an attack of cramp, but this morning he was indifferent, and the thought struck him that it would be well for him if he flung up his arms and went down to the bottom of the lake on the shores of which he had experienced such exquisite joy, such unutterable misery. He ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... attempt to dispose of yourself instead of letting him dispose of you! Bah! I might have been my father's pet, if I had been a nonentity. As it was, he spared no pains to make me miserable; and as I was only a helpless little devil of a girl, he succeeded to his heart's content. Uncle Reginald will try to do exactly the same to-morrow, he will come and bully you, instead of apologizing as he ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... stomach he exclaimed to me, "Lee, by ——, I believe them —— Secesh wimmen have pizened us!" At the time I hardly knew what to think,—but relief came at last. I will omit the details. When able to navigate, we started back to camp, almost as weak and helpless as a brace of sick kittens. After that I steered clear of any sort of a combination ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... of different brand. Beginning with a contempt for ideals of liberty based on a confusion between liberty and competition, it proceeds to a measure of contempt for average humanity in general. It conceives mankind as in the mass a helpless and feeble race, which it is its duty to treat kindly. True kindness, of course, must be combined with firmness, and the life of the average man must be organized for his own good. He need not know that ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... and behave yourself, and don't bother me any more," said Mrs. Tretherick, remembering the object of her visit. "Stop—where are you going?" she added, as the child began to ascend the stairs, dragging the long doll after her by one helpless leg. ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... that the family could enjoy skating there, though the ponds in the neighborhood were still unsafe. It was Carmel's first experience of ice, and she struggled along, held up by her cousins, feeling very helpless at first, but gradually learning to make her strokes, and enjoying herself immensely. Then there was scouting in the woods, and there were various expeditions to hunt for fossils in road heaps and quarries, ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... with her knowing who she was. Oh, but, Alice, the misery, the sorrow of it all! You don't know. You weren't with Diana at the end. And I loved her. And I think her—her going so utterly wrong like that made me love her more. The pity of it! The hopeless, helpless sorrow of it! She did not want ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... he came to a place where were sitting some aged widows and some orphan children of the gold-diggers, who were helpless and destitute; they were weeping and bemoaning themselves, but stopped at the approach of a man whose appearance attracted the prince, for he had a very great bundle of gold on his back, and yet it did not bow ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... hilarious sounds which came down the road from his house, they had what they would call "a good time." I had seen Lunalilo in state at Honolulu, but it was much more interesting to see him here, and this royalty is interesting in itself, as a thing on sufferance, standing between this helpless nationality and its absorption by America. The king is a very fine-looking man of thirty-eight, tall, well formed, broad-chested, with his head well set on his shoulders, and his feet and hands small. His appearance is decidedly commanding ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... The choicest of the profession was there, but they were helpless. He remained unconscious, and died at half past one on Monday morning. The cause of death was double pneumonia with massive cerebral infection. Colonel Elder's letter concludes: "We packed his effects in a large box, everything that we thought should go ...
— In Flanders Fields and Other Poems - With an Essay in Character, by Sir Andrew Macphail • John McCrae
... you have the power to restrain them, Beatrice. You have no right to talk of being run away with, as if you were helpless." ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her wish was a selfish one. It seemed so natural a thing she asked; and her mind, poor lady, was all upon herself, there being no other soul to think for her. That the helpless life she longed for would be ushered into a dreary world, too dark for bright innocence to face, never occurred to her. Her outlook had grown strangely one-sided during the past long ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... Don Antonio was like a death-blow to the hopes of Monteblanco. Often did he regret the infirmities of age, which now prevented him from grasping his sword; but his arm was grown nerveless, and for the first time in his life the helpless cavalier felt bitterly the recollection that all his brave sons had sacrificed their lives in the defence of their country, not one now remaining to prop the honor of his falling house. Don Manuel was a man, and this transitory feeling of regret was natural to a father under his affliction, ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... reeking with the blood of his murdered parents, Tim would mix a screeching tumbler, and give Maria a glass from it. With lips black with the perjuries he had sworn in court respecting his grandmother's abstracted testament, or the murder of his poor brother Thady's helpless orphans, Mick would kiss his sister Julia's bonny cheek, and they would have a jolly night, and cry as they talked about old times, and the dear old Castle What-d'ye-call-'em, where they were born, and the fighting Onetyoneth being quarthered there, and the Major ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... case, will absolve the Government of the tycoon from the charge of complicity in the injurious treatment from which foreigners have suffered. It must be admitted that the Government were, as they protested, helpless in the matter. In almost every instance they failed to discover and punish the murderous assailants, who were screened by disaffected powerful daimios. They encountered obstacles, the same in character, but far greater in degree, in repressing the hostility toward foreigners which our authorities ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... called their own, or are pensioners on the bounty of those strangers by whom their fortunes have been overthrown. They who were noble and gentle for ages are now merged in the common mass of the people. All over those vast regions there are countless millions, helpless and defenceless, deprived of their natural leaders and their ancient chiefs, looking with only some small ray of hope to that omnipresent and irresistible Power by which they have been subjected. I appeal to you on behalf of that people. I have besought your mercy and your ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... he utters the word "wife" STRANGWAY seizes the outstretched fist, and with a jujitsu movement, draws him into his clutch, helpless. And as they sway and struggle in the open window, with the false strength of fury he forces JARLAND through. There is a crash of broken glass from outside. At the sound STRANGWAY comes to himself. A look ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... terror and anguish from Rose. Then a fainter cry, and the heavy helpless fall of ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... rage against Jacob, Esau vowed that he would not slay him with bow and arrow, but would bite him dead with his mouth, and suck his blood. But he was doomed to bitter disappointment, for Jacob's neck turned as hard as ivory, and in his helpless fury Esau could but gnash his teeth.[263] The two brothers were like the ram and the wolf. A wolf wanted to tear a ram in pieces, and the ram defended himself with his horns, striking them deep into the flesh of the wolf. Both began to howl, the ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... the Chaldean, Medean, Persian, and Greek Empires. The fourth beast with iron teeth that devoured and broke in pieces the rest was clearly the empire of Alexander, and the little horn that sprang up was the little horn which gored and mangled the helpless people of Jehovah. Opposed to the four beasts which represented the angels, or demons, the champions of each of the great heathen kingdoms, was Israel's patron angel Michael. It is this angel that is apparently referred to in 7:13 as coming from heaven, and ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... don't drive me to desperation. You ought to come up and face the situation yourself. I can't fire a poet with eight helpless children, can I? And while I'm about it, let me inform you that every time you telegraph me it costs me five dollars for a carrier to bring the despatch over from the station; and every time I telegraph you I am obliged to walk ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... her company and when she saw them clawing and biting at Tarzan, she raised her voice and cautioned them not to kill him. She saw that he was weakening and that soon the greater numbers would prevail over him, nor had she long to wait before the mighty jungle creature lay helpless and bound at ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... in its nest, helpless as a baby. See the care given by the mother and father to keep it warm till its down and feathers grow, to feed it till it is able to leave the nest. Watch the parents teaching it to fly by repeated short flights. Olive Thorn Miller in her Bird Ways gives a delightful ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... again, in the hope of meeting her mother on the canal, or, it might be, Gretel Brinker. Not one of them had she seen, and she must hurry back without even catching a glimpse of her mother's cottage, for the poor helpless grandmother, she knew, was by this time moaning for someone to turn her upon ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... said Maria Theresa, shaking her head, "but it is not just. You will never convince me that good can be born of evil. What you propose is neither more nor less than to smite the suppliant that lies helpless at your feet. I will have nothing in common with the Messalina who desecrates her sovereignty by the commission of every unwomanly crime; and as for Frederick of Prussia, I mistrust him. He has been my enemy for too many years for me ever to believe that he can be ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... gaffers, I reach the station, where I ask for a ticket for London where the king lives. Such a journey, mingled of provincial fascination and fear, did I successfully perform only a few days ago; and alone and helpless in the capital, found myself in the tangle of roads ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... obsession. And if he were to spend this money, be it much or little, this B-line would be bankrupt. I have tried to keep the news of this sale away from Grandaddy just to avoid this catastrophe. If it comes, I am helpless." ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... warriors, their joyful cries were exchanged for wails of lamentation, and they tore their hair, and expressed the most violent emotions of grief. They wept over the bleeding corpse of the victim, while they derided and buffeted the helpless prisoner. But the stout-hearted Wauchee moved onwards with a firm and erect gait, disturbed neither by the blows nor the menaces that were directed against him. He only exclaimed, "You have slain ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... old, the boy had found a place as newsboy on the Grand Trunk Line running to Detroit. In the intervals between his raids upon the helpless passengers with his newspapers, periodicals, novels, and candies, he kept up the habit of reading, and by practice acquired a remarkably clear and finished handwriting. His next step was to secure the sole right of selling newspapers on the train, and he soon had ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... further words passed. I do not chronicle them. Sir Peter was as firm as a rock—that I was helpless before him is a matter of course. I saw my sister handed into her carriage; I saw Sir Peter follow her—the carriage drive away. I was left alone, half mad with terror at the idea of her state, to go home ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... weighed them against the perpetual torture of the gravity, the fear-filled dreams it inspired, the automatic contempt of these people for any outsider. He quickly checked the growing tendency to feel sorry for himself. By Pyrran standards he was soft and helpless. If he wanted them to think any better of him, he would have to change a ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... am convinced that many teachers of literature may be efficient workers in the cause of the larger sex-education, supplementing the scientific teaching in the ethical lines where science is admittedly weak, if not helpless. It is to be hoped that numerous teachers will soon grasp this opportunity. If they will study the sex-education movement in order to get its general bearings and will teach the sex aspect of literature on a basis of high ideals ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... made and equipped the temporary boats, braced with ribs of willow. Some of these were towed by two or three women or men swimming in the water and some by ponies. It was not an easy matter to keep them right side up, with their helpless freight of little children and such goods ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... I none, Hangs my helpless soul on Thee; Leave, oh, leave me not alone, Still support and comfort me: All my trust on Thee is stayed, All my help from Thee I bring; Cover my defenceless head With the ...
— The Three Comrades • Kristina Roy
... made, however, one effort more. They seized the avenue of approach to the rivulet, and threw up a temporary intrenchment to secure it which intrenchment they protected with a guard; and then the army retired to rest, leaving their helpless victims to while away the hours of the night, tormented with thirst, and overwhelmed with anxiety and despair. This could not long be endured. They surrendered in the morning, and Caesar found himself in possession of over twenty ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... hope that with his last sigh Arthur would awake to a consciousness justifying his existence, let him be the creation of a living power or the helpless product of a senseless, formless Ens-non-ens, he would be content! For then they might one day meet again—somewhere—somewhen, somehow; together encounter afresh the troubles and dissatisfactions of life, and perhaps work out for themselves ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... it mattered not to him whither he was taken. In the cabin he sat the picture of a helpless man, and a bottle of brandy happening to stand on the table, he eyed it with something like the ferocity with which the hungry wolf may be supposed to gaze at the lamb ere ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... succeeding parties. His impertinence and audacity exceeded anything ever recorded of men of fashion,—as when he requested his royal master to ring the bell. Nothing is more pitiable than his miserable end, deserted by all his friends, a helpless idiot in a lunatic asylum, having exhausted all his means. Lord Yarmouth, afterward the Marquis of Hertford, infamous for his debaucheries and extravagance, was another of the prince's companions in folly and drunkenness. So was Lord Fife, who expended L80,000 on a dancer; and a host of others, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... archers hailed a storm of well aimed arrows on the French decks, which were densely crowded by the soldiers Eustace was taking over to conquer England. Then the English boarded, blinding the nearest French with lime, cutting their rigging to make their vessels helpless, and defeating the crews with great slaughter. Eustace, having lost the weather gage, with which he had started out that morning, could only bring his fleet into action bit by bit. Hubert's whole fleet fought together and won a ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... was coming in. The agony of unrest was on him. He thought how useless was money, after all; here he was with thousands at his command, yet he could not purchase help or safety for her whom his soul loved best. He was helpless, he could do nothing to assist her; he could ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... summer Toller's health began to decline. He was attacked by fierce paroxysms of internal pain, which left him weak and helpless. The distant forays had to be abandoned; there was no more slinging of stones; he had great difficulty in obtaining food. He craved most for milk, and this he procured at considerable risk of discovery by descending ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... Christian faith which tells us of a revelation from God and His plan and purpose for man we should be helpless, ever seeking for light in this universe which we could not find. Then again we might believe in a first great cause of all things, but without a revelation we could not know God as the Creator of all things and as our Father who cares supremely ...
— Studies in the Life of the Christian • Henry T. Sell
... of a wise counselor. The character of the mother is shown by the dying appeal of Pestalozzi's father to his servant Baebeli: "For God's sake and in the name of mercy do not forsake my wife. When I am dead she will be helpless, and my children will fall into ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... there are solitary couples whose hearts instinctively yearn for the possession of children. Providence having denied them offspring, they fill the void in their affections by taking to their bosoms the helpless, friendless, and abandoned waifs of others. Foundlings are preferred, because there is no chance of their reclamation; the mother never troubles herself to demand possession of her child; she may remember ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... perpetually listening, watching, waiting for something to happen: a word spoken suddenly, the sharp opening of a door, would make him start, turn crimson, and almost tremble; the mention of Lovelock brought a helpless look, half a convulsion, like that of a man overcome by great heat, into his face. And his wife, so far from taking any interest in his altered looks, went on irritating him more and more. Every time that the poor fellow gave one of those starts of his, or turned crimson at the ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... certain progress. Good and evil principles are widely at work: a crisis is evidently approaching; it may be dreadful, but I can have no doubts concerning the result. Black and ominous as the aspects may appear, I regard them without dismay. The common exclamation of the poor and helpless, when they feel themselves oppressed, conveys to my mind the sum of the surest and safest philosophy. I say with them, "God is above," and trust Him ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... humanity was a prominent trait in his character. He not only was never known to ill-treat or murder a prisoner, but indignantly denounced those who did, employing all his authority and eloquence in behalf of the helpless. In 1798, Tecumseh removed with his followers to the vicinity of White River, Indiana, among the Delawares, where he remained for a number of years. In 1805, through the influence of Laulewasikaw, the brother of Tecumseh, ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick, |
