"Plight" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... see you know, now. It was I whom you heard playing, that first day. It was I, touched by your plight in that forlorn and dusty barracks, who gave you some slight relief. It was easy enough for me to cut across to Geddes's house, reach in through his kitchen window, lift his tray, and escape through the ragged hedges while his cook's broad back was turned. Achmet was willing enough to play the ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... have shown so much wisdom and have trained yourself in so much learning, had failed to prepare yourself for all human possibilities, so that if any unexpected accident should happen to you, it would not find you unfortified. Since, notwithstanding, you are in this plight, why I might benefit you by rehearsing what is good for you. Thus, just as men who put a hand to people's burdens relieve them, so I might lighten this misfortune of yours, and the more easily than they inasmuch as I shall take upon myself the smallest share of it. You ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... occasionally to be seen at the Rock; the former wearing a green necktie, and the latter as happy as the day is long. In the arms of both Kate and Martha are now two sweet prattlers—one christened, John O'Neill Barry, and the other, Martha Ridgeway Evans. Perhaps in after years they in turn may plight their vows on the banks of the Niagara, as Kate and Nicholas had done by those of the Shannon. Kate now and then visits her friends at their residence on the Canadian side of the lakes; but Nicholas is of the impression, that he is quite as well off in judiciously ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... coach couped in the Vennel, and his lordship was thrown head foremost into the mud. He swore like a trooper, and said he would get an act of parliament to put down the nuisance. His lordship came to the manse, and, being in a woeful plight, he got the loan of my best suit of clothes. This made him wonderful jocose both with Mrs. Balwhidder and me, for he was a portly man, and I but a thin body, and it was really droll to see his lordship clad in my garments. Out of this accident grew a sort of neighbourliness between ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... lounged about for several days, supporting themselves on fruits, which, however, they found some difficulty in eating with their long bills. They did not much care to eat frogs or lizards. Their one comfort in their sad plight was the power of flying, and accordingly they often flew over the roofs of Bagdad to see what was going ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... passed the time in sports and games, but at evening a cold storm of rain set in, continuing all night and the next day, to the great discomfort of all. Custer's cavalry returned at evening of the 1st of March, looking in a sorry plight from their long ride in the mud. Reveille sounded at five o'clock on the morning of March 2d, and at seven the corps turned toward the old camp, at which it arrived, after a severe march through the mud, at ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... that same good-breeding, which he put forward as a supreme guide of conduct, suddenly reminded him of his absurd plight, the marquis offered a finger for his friend's demonstrative grasp and passed hastily behind his curtain, while the other took his leave, in haste to continue his round ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... fresh horses, set out on our return, and arrived at the village of Santa Rosa at nine at night, where we slept; and next morning continuing on our journey, we got once more safely on board of the old Brig at twelve o'clock at noon, in a miserable plight, not having had our clothes off for three days. As for me I was used to roughing it, and in my humble equipment any disarrangement was not particularly discernible, but in poor Treenail. one of the nattiest fellows in the service, it ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... and Kays, distracted, with matted locks and bosom bare to the scorching sun, wanders forth into the desert in quest of her abode, causing the rocks to echo his voice, constantly calling upon her name. His friends, having found him in woeful plight, bring him home, and henceforth he is called Majnun—that is, one who is mad, or frantic, from love. Syd Omri, his father, finding that Majnun is deaf to good counsel—that nothing but the possession of Layla can restore him to his senses—assembles his followers and departs for the abode of Layla's ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... Such is the plight of honest John Bull at present, yet for all this the old fellow's spirit is as tall and as gallant as ever. If you drop the least expression of sympathy or concern, he takes fire in an instant; swears that ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... not know we had rowed so far, but just then the boat bumped up against the side of the lugger, and old Jonas rose, took the painter as he stepped into the bows, and handed it to Binnacle Bill, whose grim old face relaxed into a grin as he saw our plight. ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth." ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... Why, what I say is, that the wheel of the cart being broken, and the horse dead lame, and Charles there in that plight—(points to the sleeping peasant)—it is a folly to think of getting on further ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... o'clock. It was several days since they had visited this part of the park, and they had lit upon him by a fortunate chance. He had lain there in the haw-haw, unconscious all that day, while his poor little lady-love waited for him at the oak gate, and was now in a sorry plight indeed, as Arabella Clinker bent over him, awaiting anxiously the verdict of the doctors who had been fetched by motor from Upminster. Would he live ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... not pass through the streets, we can not enter a place of public assembly, or ramble in the fields, without the gloomy shadow of Ignorance sweeping over us. The rural population is indeed in a worse plight than the other classes. We quote—with the attestation of our own experience—the following passage from one of a series of articles which have recently appeared in a morning newspaper: "Taking the adult class ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... both have been drowned if the people on the bridge had not run to save them. The street and number of Paul's house were printed on Fido's collar: so they carried the two there. Paul's mother cried when she saw the sad plight her little boy was in; and he was quite sick for ...
— The Nursery, November 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 5 • Various
... in one of the sleeping closets hidden, feeble and thin, with shrunken body and wasted bones and indeed his colour was changed and his eyes sunken in his face for lack of food and drink and for much weeping, by reason of his love and longing for the young lady. When she saw him in this plight, she was confounded and lost her wits; but presently she questioned him of his case and what had befallen him, saying, "Tell me what aileth thee, O my brother, that I may contrive to do away thine affliction, and I will be thy ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... had been locked ever since the day before we sailed, a young girl, not more than fourteen years of age, was found concealed among the casks, where she had secreted herself in order to accompany the boatswain to sea: upon being brought on deck, she was in a most pitiable plight, for her dress and appearance were so filthy, from four days' close confinement in a dark hold, and from having been dreadfully seasick the whole time, that her acquaintances, of which she had many on board, could scarcely ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... sticke. Now Mariners do push with right good will the pike, The haileshot of the harquebush The naked slaue doth strike. Through targe and body right that downe he falleth dead His fellow then in heauie plight, doth swimme away afraid. To bathe in brutish bloud, then fleeth the graygoose wing. The halberders at hand be good, and hew that all doth ring. Yet gunner play thy part, make haileshot walke againe, And fellowes ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... agents who represented the crown wampum belts as a sign of treaty obligations. Treaties had been made with the king; the word of the red man had been given to the king. Promises made to them by the king's agents had always been performed. Why, therefore, should they now plight their faith to any other than their Great Father the King, who dwelt far over the waters? Besides, by recent actions of the colonists, the resentment of the Indians had been fanned to a fury. In 1774 some colonial land-hunters ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... heaven-sent shower, When the parched fields be craving for the rain; Then the great sky at last is overgloomed, And men see that fair sign of coming wind And imminent rain, and seeing, they are glad, Who for their corn-fields' plight sore sighed before; Even so the sons of Troy when they beheld There in their land Penthesileia dread Afire for battle, were exceeding glad; For when the heart is thrilled with hope of good, All smart of evils past is wiped away: So, after all his sighing and his pain, Gladdened ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... on heaven, her earnest eye, all dew, Seemed as it sought amid the lamps of night For him her soul addressed; but other view Far different—sudden from that pensive plight ...
— Zophiel - A Poem • Maria Gowen Brooks
... gave me Right royally dwarf-worked, To none will I pass it For prayer or for sword-stroke, Save to him who can claim it By love and by troth plight, Let that hero speak If ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... are you doing in Utrecht—in such a plight as this, too?" he asked, still keeping at a ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... to the city. There he sat him upon his throne and sending for the Chief Minister, the father of the two damsels who (Inshallah!) will presently be mentioned, he said, "I command thee to take my wife and smite her to death; for she hath broken her plight and her faith." So he carried her to the place of execution and did her die. Then King Shahryar took brand in hand and repairing to the Serraglio slew all the concubines and their Mamelukes.[FN20] He also sware himself by a binding oath that whatever wife he married he would abate her maidenhead ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... rebuilt by Ramses II. and decorated by the Rames-sides, was in a sorry plight when the XXIInd dynasty came into power. Sheshonq I. did little or nothing to it, but Osorkon I. entirely remodelled it, and Osorkon II. added several new halls, including, amongst others, one in which he celebrated, in the twenty-second year of his reign, the festival of his deification. A record ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... sickness there came a great fall of snow, piling up four or five feet on the level, and driving and drifting into the hollows, so that for several days the less frequented roads in that part of the country were impassible. And now, when Mrs. Marjoram, but for her own sad plight, would have thought of poor Aunt Hannah, there was no one enough interested to give her loneliness a moment's consideration, till, one morning, one street lad cried out suddenly to another that Aunt Hannah must ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... when the train reached Zarsko-Selo, the railway station for Pulkova, which is about five miles away. The station-master told me that no carriage from Pulkova was waiting for me, which tended to confirm the fear that the dispatch had not been received. After making known my plight, I took a seat in the station and awaited the course of events, in some doubt what to do. Only a few minutes had elapsed when a good-looking peasant, well wrapped in a fur overcoat, with a whip in his hand, looked in at the door, and pronounced very distinctly the words, "Observatorio ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... life in Cibber adds, that when his distresses were so pressing as to induce him to dispose of his shirt, he used to cut some white paper in slips, which he tied round his wrists, and in the same manner supplied his neck. In this plight he frequently appeared abroad, while his other apparel was scarcely sufficient for the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... salutation and your glances bright Deal death to him who greets you on your way; Love my assailant, heedless of my plight, Cares nought if what he ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... spite of the diabolical witlow; the witlow is so unromantic a wound that I shall leave it out of the narrative for the future. The next morning I was with General La Marmora at daylight and from him I went to the municipality. I found them in a sad plight, full of terror. The Syndic, or Mayor had been threatened in the night. Albertini, a leader of the revolt, one of the worst of ruffians I am told, entered his bedchamber at midnight with money orders and proclamations ready drawn out, and with a pistol to his head forced him to sign ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... ground, and fancied it had been made unusually great to keep her stationary. She held fast with one hand and stretched downward with the other, but the book insolently flirted its leaves just out of reach. She took a survey of Warwick; he had not perceived her plight, and she felt an unwonted reluctance to call for help, because he did not look like one used to come and go at a woman's bidding. After several fruitless essays she decided to hazard an ungraceful descent; and, gathering herself up, was about to launch ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... told us that," Edgar said. "Our plight speaks for itself. Call your wife, I pray you, or female servants; they will know what to do to bring the young maid to herself. But tell her to let the girl know as soon as she opens her eyes that her father is alive, and is, ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... grace thy brows With wreathes of fadeless asphodel, And let them yearly plight their vows Unto the bard they ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... BULLY, though he never swears, Nor kicks intruders down his entry stairs, Though meekness plants his backward-sloping hat, And non-resistance ties his white cravat, Though his black broadcloth glories to be seen In the same plight with Shylock's gaberdine, Hugs the same passion to his narrow breast That heaves the cuirass on the trooper's chest, Hears the same hell-hounds yelling in his rear That chase from port the maddened buccaneer, Feels the same comfort while his acrid words Turn the sweet milk of ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... again appeared, and a few minutes before dinner M. de Tourville made his entrance into the drawing-room, no longer in the plight of a shipwrecked mariner, but in gallant trim, wafting gales of momentary bliss as he went round the room paying his compliments to the ladies, bowing, smiling, apologizing,—the very pink of courtesy!—The gentlemen of the family, who had ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... ill-fated Spaniard, relaxed from constraint, showed some signs of regaining health with free-will; yet, agreeably to his own foreboding, shortly before arriving at Lima, he relapsed, finally becoming so reduced as to be carried ashore in arms. Hearing of his story and plight, one of the many religious institutions of the City of Kings opened an hospitable refuge to him, where both physician and priest were his nurses, and a member of the order volunteered to be his one special guardian and consoler, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... equal veracity, on reading being made to the respondent of the present interrogatory, Diderot "said that the answers contain the truth, persisted in them, and signed," as witness his hand. A sorrowful picture, indeed, of the plight of an apostle of a new doctrine. On the other hand, the apostle of the new doctrine was perhaps good enough for the preachers of the old. Two years before this, the priest of the church of Saint Medard had thought it worth while ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... gallows by the intercession of Colonel Moryson. Jones had fought with Charles I in the English civil wars, and now exhibited the wounds received in the service of the father as a plea for pardon for his rebellion against the son. Moryson was moved to pity at the plight of the old veteran and wrote to Madam Berkeley requesting her to intercede for him with the Governor.[764] "If I am at all acquainted with my heart," wrote the Lady in reply, "I should with more easinesse of mind have worne ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... fourteen (as city papers say it) and marry at twenty-one. But he that is now deceased was once full of hope and strength (at fourteen), and in the brave days of twenty-one did he, that is now struck down, plight his troth. So, doubtless, runs the thought in that intimate phrase so dear to ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... wend their way; Muezzin voices tremble through the night; Within the sky the pallid King of Light Wraps silvered ermine round him while he may, And Heaven's harem greets its star array. One lone white cloud rests in the azure height— A veiled court lady in some sorrow's plight— Whom cruel love and day ...
— Sonnets from the Crimea • Adam Mickiewicz
... better ways to, uh, adjust differences," Magnan said. "This killing won't help you, I'll personally see to it that your grievances are heard in the Corps Courts. I can assure you that the plight of the downtrodden workers will be alleviated. Equal rights ...
— Gambler's World • John Keith Laumer
... out; clouds rolled about him; night fell. The man in the moon laughed at him; the stars winked at each other as if delighted at the Woggle-Bug's plight, and a witch riding by on her broomstick yelled at him to keep on the right side of the road, and not run ...
— The Woggle-Bug Book • L. Frank Baum
... older and generally well, long smiled in a superior way at the grimaces of us who were more "Wormy." But shortly after our first Thanksgiving Day at the farm, he, too, fell ill and failed to come down to breakfast. On his absence being noted, Gram went up-stairs to inquire into his plight; and it was with a sense of exultation rather than proper pity, I fear, that Halse and I saw the old lady come down presently and get the Vermifuge Bottle. We heard Addison expostulating and arguing in rebuttal for some minutes, but he lost the case. Wealthy, who had stolen up-stairs ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... councils to fix the doctrine, proclaimed dogmas and rules. As they became powerful they, like the Brahmans, came to esteem themselves as above the rest of the faithful. "The layman," they said, "plight to support the religious and consider himself much honored that the holy man accepts his offering. It is more commendable to feed one religious than many thousands of laymen." In Thibet the religious, men and women together, constitute a fifth of the entire population, and ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... tyre, and all her garment blew, Close rownd about her tuckt with many a plight: Upon her fist ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... plight of the Russian army one must have some idea of the character of the Masurian Lake district. It was probably molded by the work of ice in the past. Great glaciers, in their progress toward the sea, have ground out hundreds of hollows, where are found small pools ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... in different plights, and according to their plight, kept in different places. The well bound were ranged in the sanctuary of Mr. Bronte's study; but the purchase of books was a necessary luxury to him, and as it was often a choice between binding an old one, or buying ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... the capital of the German Empire. The author expresses himself on the purpose of his work in these words: "My book deals mainly with the victims of the female sex and its steady depreciation, due to the unnatural plight of our social and civic state, through its own fault, through neglect of education, through the craving of luxury and the increasing light-headed supply in the market of life. It speaks of this sex's increasing surplus, which renders daily more hopeless the new-born ones, more prospectless those ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... passionate and her firmness of resolve so evident that every mere beholder fell back, letting the Callender-Valcour group, with Steve and the gentle detective, press closer. With none of them, nor yet with Hilary, was there anything to argue; their plight seemed to her hopeless. For them to marry, for her to default, and for him to fly, all in one mad hour—one whirlwind of incident—"It cannot be!" was all she could say, to sister, to stepmother, to Flora, to Hilary again: "We cannot ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... told her what she must do, namely, travel down to the Ogula and tell them of the plight of their chief, bidding them muster all their fighting men and when the swamps were dry enough, advance as near as they dared to the Asiki country and, if they could not attack it, wait till they ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... taken, he is fallen mad; and me beseemeth, said the dwarf, he resembleth much unto Sir Launcelot, for him I saw at the great tournament beside Lonazep. Jesu defend, said that knight, that ever that noble knight, Sir Launcelot, should be in such a plight; but whatsomever he be, said that knight, harm will I none do him: and this knight's name was Bliant. Then he said unto the dwarf: Go thou fast on horseback, unto my brother Sir Selivant, that is at the Castle Blank, and tell him of ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... there are around us everywhere, many known to my readers personally, and any number who may be known to them by a very short walk from their own dwellings, who are in this very plight! Their vicious habits and destitute circumstances make it certain that without some kind of extraordinary help, they must hunger and sin, and sin and hunger, until, having multiplied their kind, and filled up the measure of their miseries, the gaunt fingers of death will close upon then and ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... Vestall fire: Nothing here but should be thine, That thy heart can well desire: Where at large we will relate, From what cause our friendship grewe, And in that the varying Fate, Since we first each other knewe: 60 Of my heauie passed plight, As of many a future feare, Which except the silent night, None but onely thou shalt heare; My sad hurt it shall releeue, When my thoughts I shall disclose, For thou canst not chuse but greeue, When I shall recount my woes; There is nothing to that friend, To whose close vncranied ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... which threatened to engulf her, as they were breaking on board from every direction. The deck-houses were washed away and the decks were filled with water, which began to find an entrance to the 'tween-decks, where the poor soldiers were battened down. In this plight it was necessary to get the remnant of the topsail secure, and if possible get a new sail in its place, so as to steady the ship. The second officer was ordered to get the sailors and do this, but he soon reported that the sailors, many ...
— Notes by the Way in A Sailor's Life • Arthur E. Knights
... a bed of dry leaves, raised himself so as to watch the troop as it rode forth again from the ruined gate. Whether she who sat hidden within the carriage had heard of his evil plight he knew not, and could not have brought himself to ask. The last of his own horsemen (some of whom had taken leave of him with tears) having vanished from sight, he fell back, and for a while knew nothing but the burning torment ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... will hear as it were the tramp and hum of a great cavalcade of people away from the real line of road, and taking this to be their own company they will follow the sound; and when day breaks they find that a cheat has been put on them and that they are in an ill plight.[NOTE 2]] Even in the day-time one hears those spirits talking. And sometimes you shall hear the sound of a variety of musical instruments, and still more commonly the sound of drums. [Hence in making this journey 'tis customary for ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... them. He had schooled himself to the task, and he was now performing it. It was not only that he would have to move among men without being noticed, but that he must endure to pass the whole evening in the same plight. But he was resolved, and he was now doing it. He bowed to the Speaker with more than usual courtesy, raising his hat with more than usual care, and seated himself, as usual, on the third opposition-bench, but with more than his usual fling. He was a big man, who always endeavoured ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... give Uli her answer banishes sleep, and she rises before all the others, only to find Uli before her at the wash-trough, and there they plight their faith. The mistress broaches the subject of the lease to Joggeli, but he will not hear to it. Freneli, however, is not disturbed, but outlines the plan of action, which succeeds admirably. Now comes the son-in-law and makes a scene, but Freneli trumps his ace by getting ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... congratulated him, observing that I hoped he would never be short of money, but if that was his plight all he had to do was to coin it ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... discern through the ruins of the paretic's reaction that his false beliefs concerning the body are often not so false after all, and that his damaged brain of itself is not so apt to return false ideas about his somatic interior as about his worldly importance and plight. There then seems to be more reality about somatic than about personal delusions: the contents of somatic delusions are rather more apt to correspond with demonstrable realities than the contents of personal delusions. Accordingly our analysis of delusional contents ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... a miserable plight. My strength had been assailed by anguish, and fear, and watchfulness, by toil, and abstinence, and wounds. Still, however, some remnant was left; would it not enable me to reach my home by nightfall? I had delighted, from ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... under review, turning the white between his thumb and forefinger. Unfortunately he was on bad terms with some old friends who would once have taken pity on him in such a plight. He had lampooned them in verses; he had beaten and cheated them; and yet now, when he was in so close a pinch, he thought there was at least one who might perhaps relent. It was a chance. It was worth trying at least, and he ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... for aye to the wrong wife. Could it be else? A youth pursues A maid, whom chance, not he, did choose, Till to his strange arms hurries she In a despair of modesty. Then, simply and without pretence Of insight or experience, They plight their vows. The parents say 'We cannot speak them yea or nay; The thing proceedeth from the Lord!' And wisdom still approves their word; For God created so these two They match as well as others do That take more ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... at once for Handy Solomon, and was surprised to see him still alive, standing upright on a ledge the other side of the herd. His clothing was literally torn to shreds, and he was covered with blood. But in this plight he was not alone, for when I turned toward my companions they, too, were tattered, torn, and gory. We were a dreadful crew, standing there in the half-light, our chests heaving, our rags ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... a worse plight than ever; for he has long ago found that the sword utterly defies his skill: the steel will yield neither to his hammer nor to his furnace. Just then there walks into his cave a Wanderer, in a blue mantle, spear in hand, with one eye concealed ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... lasted precisely fifteen days—Queen Anne having died in the meantime—and the Tory Government being consequently dismissed in disgrace. Poor Gay, who had offended the Whigs by dedicating his "Shepherd's Week" to Bolingbroke, came home in a worse plight than before. He had left England in a state of poverty—he returned to it in a state of proscription—although he perhaps felt comforted by an epistle of welcome from Pope, which did not, it is likely, affect him as it does us with the notion ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... had just been laid in the middle bed, by far the most comfortable of the three tiers of berths in the ship's cabin in which the wounded were to be conveyed to New York. Still thrilling with the suffering of being carried from the field, and lifted to his place, he saw a comrade in even worse plight brought in, and thinking of the pain it must cost his fellow soldier to be raised to the bed above him, he surprised his kind lady nurses (daily scatterers of Golden Deeds) by saying, 'Put me up there, I reckon I'll bear ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... above was banged to. The mob of roisterers fled helter skelter, laughing and jeering. Not one amongst them offered to assist their wretched leader. They left him alone in his sorry plight to get out of it as best he might. They had not the smallest consideration for one even of their own number overtaken by misfortune. Roaring with laughter at the frightful picture he presented, they dispersed to their own homes, and the wretched Frederick was left alone in ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... review our situation now, and think of us spinning along on that defunct world we knew not whither, with no ray of light to illumine the darkness of our future or show us the least chance of escape from our desperate plight, it is astonishing to me that we did not give up all hope and lie down and die at once. It only shows what the human body can endure and of what stuff our minds are made. I think it would not be making a rash statement to say that no man ever found himself in a worse ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... carouse. The homes of England! their sweetness is melting into fable; only the new Spirit in its holiest power can restore to those homes their boasted security of "each man's castle," for Woman, the warder, is driven into the street, and has let fall the keys in her sad plight. Yet darkest hour of night is nearest dawn, and there seems ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... utter disregard of the real seriousness of their plight, and the naive way in which he accepted the coming of his friend as a matter of course, irritated the man, who listened in ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... the truth at last,—they had been deceived by a false hope, led by a false leader. Crying out against him who had brought them to such a plight, so far from home, they vanished one by one, until of the army that had entered the ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... if he would bring his companions home, he must avoid injuring the sacred cattle of the Sun, which pastured in the Isle of Thrinacia. If these were harmed, he would arrive in Ithaca alone, or in the words of the Cyclops's prayer, I in evil plight, with loss of all his company, on board the ship of strangers, to find sorrow in his house.' On returning to the Isle Aeaean, Odysseus was warned by Circe of the dangers he would encounter. He and his friends set forth, escaped the Sirens (a sort of mermaidens), evaded the Clashing Rocks, ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... easy, for any one that hath his foot unentangled by sufferings, both to exhort and to admonish him that is in evil plight. But I knew all these things willingly, willingly I erred, I will not gainsay it; and in doing service to mortals I brought upon myself sufferings. Yet not at all did I imagine, that, in such a punishment as this, I was to wither away upon lofty rocks, meeting with ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... property, he must first get rid himself of the influence of the liquor of self, and detach himself from sensual objects, gain control over his passion, restore peace and sincerity to his mind, and illumine his whole existence by his inborn divine light. Otherwise he has to remain in the same plight ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... the first day of mobilization, and developed into real tragedy as the days slipped by. For although at first there was something a little ludicrous in the plight of the well-to-do, brought down with a crash to the level of the masses and loaded with paper money which was as worthless as Turkish bonds, so that the millionaire was for the time being no richer than the beggar, pity ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... looked so rough and unpromising, made answer: "Stranger, I discern neither sloth nor folly in you, and yet I see that you are poor and wretched: from which I gather that neither wisdom nor industry can secure felicity; only Jove bestows it upon whomsoever he pleases. He perhaps has reduced you to this plight. However, since your wanderings have brought you so near to our city, it lies in our duty to supply your wants. Clothes and what else a human hand should give to one so suppliant, and so tamed with calamity, you shall not want. We will show you our city and tell you the name ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... was limited, or drove long distances in wagons over the sun-baked prairie. The heat was intense and the hot winds, blowing incessantly, seared everything they touched. After two years of drouth, the farmers were desperately poor, and Susan, concerned over their plight, wondered why Congress could not have appropriated the money for artesian wells to help these honest earnest people, instead of voting $40,000 for an ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... nations do letters. Plato tells us that the eldest son in their royal succession was thus brought up; after his birth he was delivered, not to women, but to eunuchs of the greatest authority about their kings for their virtue, whose charge it was to keep his body healthful and in good plight; and after he came to seven years of age, to teach him to ride and to go a-hunting. When he arrived at fourteen he was transferred into the hands of four, the wisest, the most just, the most temperate, and most valiant of the nation; of ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... there lying on the platforms; about a hundred of them, with their clothes torn, and covered with dust. They presented a sad picture. They were, it is true, only slightly wounded; but it cuts one to the heart to see soldiers in that plight, hauled out upon the ground without straw to lie upon or any doctor to attend to them. However, they had all had first-aid dressings. Below the bandages that bound their heads their feverish eyes gleamed in the light of the lanterns. Their bandaged arms were supported by pieces ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... plight the knight travels on until Christmas-eve, and to Mary he makes his moan that she may direct him to some abode. On the morn he arrives at an immense forest, wondrously wild, surrounded by high hills on every side, where he found hoary ...
— Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight - An Alliterative Romance-Poem (c. 1360 A.D.) • Anonymous
... mane, and remove a wisp of hair from beneath the headstall. It was hard to maintain her air of cold reserve with this soft-voiced, grave-eyed young stranger. She wondered whether a "desperate character" could love his horse, and felt a wild desire to tell him of her plight. But as her eyes rested upon the brown ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... the Dozen was the plight of the beloved giant, "Sawed-Off." There seemed to be no possible way of getting him to Kingston, much as they thought of his big muscles, and more us they thought of his big heart. His sworn pal, the tiny Jumbo, was well nigh distracted ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... comforting to remember. The hundreds of kind and good people, who were merely kind and good where popular sentiment expected or commended such conduct, gave no re-assurance; on the contrary, they proved the desperation of our plight, since wisdom and goodness themselves were busy at ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... its area of meaning on the one side, and "civilization" encroaching on the other, the word "barbarism," as popularly apprehended, is left in a vague and unsatisfactory plight. If we speak of Montezuma's people as barbarians one stage further advanced than Mohawks, we are liable to be charged with calling them "savages." Yet the term "barbarism" is a very useful one; indispensable, indeed, in the history of human progress. There is no other word ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... Alfred also, who hates his water life—[Greek text] he calls it—but hopes to be cured in March. Poor fellow, I trust he may. He is not in a happy plight, I doubt. I wish I lived in a pleasant country where he might like to come and stay with me—but this is one of the ugliest places in England—one of the dullest—it has not the merit of being bleak on a grand ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... well believe,' the maid replied, As her light skiff approached the side,— 'I well believe, that ne'er before Your foot has trod Loch Katrine's shore But yet, as far as yesternight, Old Allan-bane foretold your plight,— A gray-haired sire, whose eye intent Was on the visioned future bent. He saw your steed, a dappled gray, Lie dead beneath the birchen way; Painted exact your form and mien, Your hunting-suit of Lincoln green, That tasselled horn so gayly gilt, That falchion's crooked blade ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... Much bless'd the hypocrite their slumber, And hoped to drive away the flock, Could he the shepherd's voice but mock. He thought undoubtedly he could. He tried: the tone in which he spoke, Loud echoing from the wood, The plot and slumber broke; Sheep, dog, and man awoke. The wolf, in sorry plight, In hampering coat bedight, ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... fresh, her spirits flashed out like the sun himself, and in the joy of her heart she began to waltz, scattering and splashing the water about her. The crisp ruffles of the cambric lost all their starch, the pretty boots were quite spoiled, but Lota waltzed on, and in this plight Nursey, flying indignantly out from the kitchen door, found ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... to Hamby. He wants me to give it to you. Be careful, it's heavy." I deposited the box in his hands, and shut the door, and turned the lock again, and groped my way upstairs, chuckling to myself as I imagined the man's plight. He would not know what to make of this incident, and I had an idea he would not be able to find out, because he could not leave his post. Nor would he have much time to figure over the matter; for when I got back to the light, I looked ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... the bottom lands of the Arkansas River and were safe from fire, as the valley was very wide and covered with tall green grass which could not burn; and no sooner was the last wagon on safe ground than the fire gained the rim of the green bottomland. Our oxen were exhausted and in a bad plight, so we fortified and camped here for several days to recuperate before we forded the river. This took up several days, as the water was quite high and the river bottom a dangerous quicksand. To stop the wheels of a wagon for one moment meant the loss of the wagon and the lives of the cattle, ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... canal, where Sir Andrew Ffoulkes would be waiting with the coal-cart; then there was the spinney on the road to St. Germain. Armand hoped that, with good luck, he might yet overtake his comrades, tell them of Jeanne's plight, and entreat them to work ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... state, and girt with might, Monarch-like Jehovah reigns; He who earth's foundation pight— pitched. Pight at first, and yet sustains; He whose stable throne disdains Motion's shock and age's flight; He who endless one remains One, the same, in changeless plight. ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... guessed at some thing beneath the surface, and he felt uneasy in remaining until Young Matt came back to renew the conversation. And yet he feared to leave. At this stage of his dilemma, he was relieved from his plight in a ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... and towed her off; but he could get her no further than a shoal called Stubben, when she sunk, and soon after he had worked the NYEBORG up to the landing-place, that vessel also sunk to her gunwale. Never did any vessel come out of action in a more dreadful plight. The stump of her foremast was the only stick standing; her cabin had been stove in; every gun, except a single one, was dismounted; and her deck was covered with shattered limbs ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... weary of ever eating good bread, he fell in love with a farm tenant (2) of his own, and would oft-time leave Tours to visit the farm, where he always remained two or three days; and when he came back to Tours he was always in so sorry a plight that his wife had much ado to cure him, yet, as soon as he was whole again, he never failed to return to the place where pleasure caused him ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... stronger each day, and crosser, which is a good sign. At last I have told him of Sada San's plight; and he is for starting for Kioto to-morrow to "wipe the floor with Uncle Mura," as he elegantly expresses it. But of course he 's still too weak to even ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... that he no longer looked presentable, and feared that if he were now to approach the gentlemen-in-waiting in that plight he would not be admitted to the Emperor. But it was impossible to smarten oneself up or move to another place, because of the crowd. One of the generals who drove past was an acquaintance of the Rostovs', and ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... not thoughts exactly, but they flitted through Tom's consciousness as he struggled to keep his head clear of the tempestuous waters. And even in his own desperate plight he recalled that their last words had been words of discord, for he knew now (generous as he was) that he was to blame for this dreadful end of all their fine hopes—that Archer had been right—they ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... in the hour of danger. He felt the beatings of his heart, but they were due as much to excitement as to fear. In truth he was more excited than afraid; for he had absolutely nothing to lose save a suit of old clothes and his horse, and both of these were in sorry enough plight to be little tempting to those hardy ruffians, who were accustomed to have travellers to rob of a ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... All her emotions had lain fallow. If Jack Fyfe had no power to stir her,—and she told herself Jack had so failed, without asking herself why,—then some other man might easily accomplish that, to her unutterable grief. She had told herself many a time that no more terrible plight could overtake her than to love and be loved and sit with hands folded, foregoing it all. She shrank from so tragic an evolution. It meant only pain, the ache of unfulfilled, unattainable desires. If, she reflected cynically, this man beside her stood for such a motif in her life, he might ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... heel with a sudden impulse and walked away from Maiden Lane quickly. All that he thought now was that he would not have them see him in his plight. He felt the shabbiness of his clothes without looking at them. As he walked, a great sense of loneliness came ...
— The Tipster - 1901, From "Wall Street Stories" • Edwin Lefevre
... ben layde aside, And new fetis dayly ben contryvyde, Men[nys actes] can in no plight abyde, 444 They ben chaungeable and oft mevide, Thing some-tyme alowide is nowe reprevide, And aftir this shall thingis vppe aryse, That men sette nowe but [at] ...
— Caxton's Book of Curtesye • Frederick J. Furnivall
... nine men, all in scanty raiments, wrapped up in cloaks, and evidently guarded by the men-at-arms, who set up a joyous shout as they rode in. Monsieur de Merouville uttered an exclamation of astonishment, as he recognized the dreaded personages collected together in such a plight. ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... "Vie de Napoleon," p. 151. "The commonest officers were crazy with delight at having white linen and fine new boots. All were fond of music; many walked a league in the rain to secure a seat in the La Scala Theatre.... In the sad plight in which the army found itself before Castiglione and Arcole, everybody, except the knowing officers, was disposed to attempt the impossible so as not to quit Italy."—"Marmont," I., 296: "We were all of us very young,... all aglow with strength and health, and enthusiastic for glory.... ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... left the temple, he stretched forth his hand to the goddess and prayed that the Roman people might never be quit of slavery as a reward for their ingratitude and treachery.[734] This outburst of anger, a very natural consequence of his own humiliating plight, is said to have been kindled by the knowledge that the larger portion of the mob had already listened to a promise of amnesty and had joined the forces of Opimius. Unlike most imprecations, that of Gracchus was destined ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... I have mercy when you have none?" he asked, quickly. "Let the prisoners die of grief; I am a prisoner too, and shall know also how to die. I shall not leave Innspruck unless you promise me that you will become my wife on my return, and plight me your faith before the altar of God. I swear by all that is sacred to me, I will not leave this city unless I take with me your solemn pledge that you will overcome your pride and ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach |
