"Helplessness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Where, indeed, are any faithful, save in Israel? Shall He condemn us who only have held steadfast? Nay! He hath but permitted the oppression that we may have our fill of the glories of Egypt and be glad to turn our backs upon her. He will cure us of idols by showing forth their helplessness when they are cried unto; and when Israel is in its most grievous strait and therefore most prone to attach itself to whosoever helpeth it. He will prove Himself at last by His power. Aye, thou hast said. Israel can suffer ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... girl changed so quickly from independence to apparent helplessness, and yet her manner was so crude and overbearing, that it was doubtful how the maid would ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... amount of $25,000,000 was, indeed, cut off; but notwithstanding this loss, the total exports of England increased. "The embargo," says Henry Adams, "served only to lower the wages and the moral standard of the laboring classes throughout the British empire, and to prove their helplessness." ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... such thoughts passed through my mind that night. They come to torment us all at times. I say to torment, for, alas! thinking can only serve to measure out the helplessness of thought. What is the purpose of our feeble crying in the awful silences of space? Can our dim intelligence read the secrets of that star-strewn sky? Does any answer come out of it? Never any at all, nothing but echoes and ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... and later, he has insisted on the "helplessness"—the "humiliating impotence created by the fact that our neutrality can only be preserved by failure to help to ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... they think of it in connection with decrepitude, helplessness and the childish querulousness popularly associated with advancing years. This is not a natural old age; it is disease. Natural old age is sweet, tolerant and cheerful. There are few things in life more precious than ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... distressing intelligence. Mynheer Kloots followed Philip on deck; but he still suffered from his fail: his head was confused, and he reeled as he walked, as if he also had been making free with the liquor. When he had been on deck a few minutes, he sank down on one of the guns in a state of perfect helplessness; he had, in fact, received a severe concussion of the brain. Hillebrant was too severely injured to be able to move from his bed, and Philip was now aware of the helplessness of their situation. Daylight gradually disappeared, and as darkness came ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... apparently satisfied with the helplessness of the prisoners, he uttered a low, abrupt order, and his little train shouldered their spears and marched out, one of them carrying the empty basket, his companion shouldering the heavy ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... was finished; it was then begun a second time, and once more read through. After that Adams felt a chill feeling of helplessness steal over him, for Carteret could not be read over and over again like the Bible, and he could not quite see his way to reading the Church of England prayers by way of recreation. In his extremity he had recourse to Sally for advice. Indeed, ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... and his home made happy; and this gladness and happiness are due to the silent, unostentatious, unerring monitor that was the sailor's guide over the weltering waters. But if drifted too far northward, he finds the needle no longer true, but pointing elsewhere than to the north, what a feeling of helplessness falls upon the dismayed mariner, what utter loss of energy and courage! It is as if the great axioms of morality were to fail and be no longer true, leaving the human soul to drift helplessly, eyeless like Prometheus, at the mercy of the uncertain, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... utility' (i. 121). 'If my mother were in a house on fire, and I had a ladder outside with which I could save her, she would not, because she was my mother, have any greater claim than the other inmates on my exertions' (i. 83). 'But,' says an objector, 'your mother nourished you in the helplessness of infancy.' 'When she first subjected herself,' replies Godwin, 'to the necessity of these cares, she was probably influenced by no particular motives of benevolence to her future offspring. . . . It is the disposition of the mind . . . that entitles ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... Polk is claiming, we should do well enough—that is more than we deserve or could expect. With our army already at war on the Southwest, England, as we all know, is planning to take advantage of our helplessness in Oregon." ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... which prescribed a system of criminal laws for Indians living on their reservations, the Court rejected the government's argument which sought to base the act on the commerce clause. It sustained the act, however, on the following grounds: "From their very weakness and helplessness, so largely due to the course of dealing of the Federal Government with them and the treaties in which it has been promised, there arises the duty of protection, and with it the power. This has always been recognized ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... strain every nerve while the faintest ray of hope remained. He had faced many a furious storm, saved many a life that had been given up for lost by other men. But now he could do nothing, and he crouched there—an old and broken man—for the first time realising his helplessness. ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... ratt'ling in their ears, Creates within them heavy pangs, And still augments their fears. 30. Thus hopeless of all remedy, They dyingly do sink Into the jaws of misery, And seas of sorrow drink. 31. For being cop'd[12] on every side With helplessness and grief, Headlong into despair they slide Bereft of all relief. 32. Therefore this hell is called a pit, Prepared for those that die The second death, a term most fit To show their misery. 33. A pit that's bottomless is this, A gulf of grief and woe, A dungeon which they cannot miss, That ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... room whirled round and round furiously; the old soldier seemed to be regularly bobbing up and down before me like the piston of a steam-engine. I was half deafened by a violent singing in my ears; a feeling of utter bewilderment, helplessness, idiocy, overcame me. I rose from my chair, holding on by the table to keep my balance; and stammered out that I felt dreadfully unwell—so unwell that I did not know how I ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... first. Even a secret agent has eyes, dimensions, senses. I am a little abashed as if in the presence of phenomena. Your helplessness and innocence, your loyalty and unselfishness—you must be sure that I ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... vanished from the enchanted meadow. At that I began to suspect that in coming out of the forest I had somehow got into another and somewhat similar old field. I have never had a more confused or eerie sensation; not fear, but a sort of helplessness in which for an instant I actually began to doubt whether it was I myself, David Grayson, who stood there in the dark meadow, or whether I was the victim of a peculiarly bad dream. I suppose many other people have had these sensations ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... word more is needful, though this letter is long already. The peculiar ghastliness of this Swiss mode of festivity is in its utter failure of joy; the paralysis and helplessness of a vice in which there is neither pleasure, nor art. But we are not, throughout Europe, wholly thus. There is such a thing, yet, as rapturous song and dance among us, though not indicative, by any means, of joy over repentant sinners. You must come back to ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... crushed in greater helplessness than when she had included God in the scheme of injustice. As long as God was, there was always chance for a miracle, for some supernatural intervention, some rewarding with ineffable bliss. With God missing, the world was a trap. Life was a trap. She was like ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... with the thought that the best part of your life was fortunate and that the brief span that remains will be cheered by the fame of the departed. For it is only the love of honour that never grows old; and honour it is, not gain, as some would have it, that rejoices the heart of age and helplessness. ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... oft-repeated suggestion, "All these things are against me." But oh, how false the word! The cold, and even the hunger, the watchings and sleeplessness of nights of danger, and the feeling at times of utter isolation and helplessness, were well and wisely chosen, and tenderly and lovingly meted out. What circumstances could have rendered the Word of GOD more sweet, the presence of GOD more real, the help of GOD more precious? They ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... said her husband, after a glance at his son and daughter, a glance of unspeakable helplessness. He could not ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... God's providence in such circumstances, than in many cases where we think ourselves most secure. Still the thrill of this sensation is not without its pleasure, especially with such an image of almighty power and glory constantly before one's eyes as Mont Blanc. Our own littleness and helplessness, in view of these vast objects which surround us, give a strong and pathetic force to the words, "The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath thee are ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... so poor in the North, or so ignorant, or souseless, as not to be regarded as a Man, by religion, by civil law, and by public opinion. Selfishness and pride, avarice and cunning, anger or lust, may prey upon the heedlessness or helplessness of many. Society may be full of evils. But all these things are not sequences of northern doctrines, but violations of them. If sharks in great cities consume the too credulous emigrant; if usurers, like moths, cut ...
— Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories of Man and Society - Great Speech, Delivered in New York City • Henry Ward Beecher
... small under his coat, and all relaxed and appealing, her mouth like an unhappy child's, and her eyes big with unshed tears—his arms ached to enfold her; his brain reeled with the intensity of his desire to take her as she trembled to be taken. But her helplessness, which tortured him, nerved him to endure the torture. In the turmoil of his blood he could not think coherently; but he could repeat to himself, dully, over and over: "I must take care of her! I must ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... to the enemy. But before long she regained her moral balance, and saw that she had merely shifted the conflict to the ground on which it could best be fought out—since the prize fought for was the natural battlefield. The reaction brought with it a sense of helplessness, a realization that she had let the issue pass out of her hold; but since, in the last analysis, it had never lain there, since it was above all needful that the determining touch should be given by any hand but hers, she presently ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... confiscated all its vast wealth and hundreds of strong castles throughout France. He secured from his French Pope approval of the extermination of the entire order and the torture and execution of its chiefs. Whether the charges against them were true or not, their helplessness in the grip of the King shows clearly the low ebb to which knighthood had fallen, and the rising power of the monarchs. The ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... enemy of all small beasts, a despoiler of birds' nests, as it likes nothing better than a supper of fresh eggs, and a most heartless persecutor of the snug homes of rabbits and squirrels. Hares appear conscious of their entire helplessness in the presence of this dangerous foe, and although they are swifter of foot, the bright, glittering eye of the ermine paralyzes them with terror; and should they attempt to fly, the ermine well understands the art of riding on the back of its victim, its sharp teeth fastened in its ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... "Bellona" and "Russell," seventy-fours, grounded on the east side of the Middle Ground, where they remained fast. Although they could use their guns, and did use them against those southern ships which Nelson particularly wanted crushed, the disadvantages of distance, of position, and of general helplessness, detracted exceedingly from their usefulness. The valid British force was thus ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... would press to her cheek and mouth and kiss. Or she would hide it and go about thinking of it with silent devotion. Should she return and find it spoiled, well, in imagination she had eaten it over and over again. This was beyond Granny; her helplessness had made her greedy, and she could never get enough to eat; now it was she who put everything into ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... dauntless energy which passion inspires to sustain him in his trials. But alas! his bodily sufferings were as nothing in comparison with his mental anxiety. At night, while his men were asleep, he kept awake, his heart torn with anguish, now crushed under the thought of his helplessness, and now asking himself if rage would not deprive him ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... Even now, she could not suspect Berne; her only fear was that others, not understanding him as she did, might suspect him! Although she had broken with him, she still loved him. More than that: his illness and consequent helplessness increased her devotion for him, brought to the surface the maternal ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... at him. His lips trembled and with a deprecating gesture, he silently went out, feeling utterly overcome at his own helplessness. ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... childhood, until they had grown fainter under the influence of earthly ties and pleasures, returned to her now. God's immeasurable Infinite rose before her in glorious serenity. What was one brief lifetime to the ages of eternity? She felt it: she, in her weakness—her untaught childhood—her helplessness—felt that her poor deformed body enshrined a living soul. A soul that could look on Heaven, and on whom Heaven also looked—not like man, with scorn or loathing, but with a Divine tenderness that had power to lift the mortal into communion with ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... long. She treated him like a child of six, told him how to sit at table, how to hold his fork when he ate, how to address people who came to the house or to the station. The mother in her was aroused by Hugh's helplessness and, having no children of her own, she began to take the tall awkward boy to her heart. She was a small woman and when she stood in the house scolding the great stupid boy who stared down at her with his small perplexed eyes, the two made a picture that ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... in saying, "It is for me." But then I want you to fall down very low and say, "I can not seize it; I can not take it to myself." And how can you then get it? Praise God, if once He has brought you down in the consciousness of utter helplessness and self-despair, then comes the time that He can draw nigh and ask you, "Will you trust your God to work this in you?" Dearly beloved Christians, say in your heart: "I never, by any effort, can take hold of God, or seize this for myself; it is God must give it." ...
— The Master's Indwelling • Andrew Murray
... was almost stationary. Little figures could be seen swarming upon the landing-stage, ready to adjust the iron claws to clamp the hull. With a gesture of helplessness, Nat left the bridge and went down to the main deck where, in obedience to his orders, the crew ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... grave and resolute: husbands and fathers, with the memory of wives and children tugging at their heart-strings; homes left desolate behind them, and before them the grim certainty of danger, hardship, and perhaps the lifelong helplessness worse than death. Little of the glamour of romance about the war now: they saw it as it was, a long, hard task; and here were the men to do it well. Even the lookers-on were different now. Once all was wild enthusiasm and glad uproar; now men's lips were set, and women's ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... amuse her indolence. He was long, however, before he could prevail on himself to fulfil his promise to Morton, and rob himself of her presence. At length, however, wearied with Mrs. Boxer's lamentations at her ignorance, and alarmed himself at some evidences of helplessness, which made him dread to think what her future might be when left alone in life, he placed her at a day-school in the suburb. Here Fanny, for a considerable time, justified the harshest assertions of her stupidity. She could not ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... he spoke slowly, as if he were very tired. His face looked badly, too,—pale, and with black rings under his eyes away below his glasses. And there was something in the way he lay there—a limpness and helplessness—that somehow frightened me, and made me feel right away as if I ought to call nurse or somebody. But I know Fee likes to have people do as he tells them, so first I shut the door tight, then I came back and knelt down by him ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... as a lake in a summer eventide. At the very first dash of the oars the barge rose on a long, heavy swell that buoyed her up like a bubble, and as the water glided from under her again, it seemed as if she was about to sink into some cavern of the ocean. Few things give more vivid impressions of helplessness than boats thus tossed by the waters when not in their raging humours; for one is apt to expect better treatment than thus to be made the plaything of the element. All, however, who have ever floated on even the most quiet ocean, must have experienced more or less of this helpless ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... then be in answer to this prayer that He shuts me up, to strengthen me against the temptations which the praises of the world present, and so, by meditation on his dealings with me and reviewing the way in which He has led me, showing me my perfect helplessness without Him, He is preparing to bless me with stronger faith and ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... to do, Reny," the doctor faltered, and, choked with pity for her and her lover and the helplessness of mankind, he turned away, and she let him go. The ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... all round, and laugh it off, and there an end. But no; you see I was an unknown person, among a cruelly oppressed and suspicious people, a people always accustomed to having advantage taken of their helplessness, and never expecting just or kind treatment from any but their own families and very closest intimates. Appeal to me to be gentle, to be fair, to be generous? Of course, they wanted to, but ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... go to the landlord. It would be useless, we said. The helplessness of our position was becoming daily ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... asleep. The old man sat holding her, and loving her with a simple crystalline intensity which was fairly heavenly. He himself almost disregarded the heat, being raised above it by sheer exaltation of spirit. All the love which had lain latent in his heart leaped to life before the helplessness of this little child in his arms. He realized himself as much greater and of more importance upon the face of the earth than he had ever been before. He became paternity incarnate and superblessed. It was a long time before he carried the little child back to her room and laid her, still ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the Board, Principal Mountain retired from office in order to proceed to England. Now that the possession of the endowment fund was assured he believed that the College would soon be without difficulties and that its infant days of helplessness had passed. The Principalship was offered to the Rev. S. J. Lockhart, M.A. (Oxford), Chaplain and Secretary to the Bishop of Quebec. He seems to have accepted the post, but he never assumed the duties of his office. A ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... my slaves shall conduct you to the gate through which you entered, and suffer you to depart in peace. Should you, upon the other hand, accept the trust, you are to receive no reward therefor, except the gratitude of one who thus appeals to you in her helplessness." ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... be done," replied Tom, with gentle positiveness. "It wouldn't be in American nature to go away and leave a fellow creature to die of helplessness when a little care and nursing ought to put that man on his feet again. But I won't argue with you, for I see the excitement is bringing a deeper flush into your face. Senor, as you are a gentleman trust another gentleman to serve you loyally and not betray you. I am going to leave you for a little ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock
... hardest ordeal of my life to keep quiet while the fellow pressed his hateful suit, pushed it with the passionate ardor of the Slav, regardless of her tears, her despair, and her helplessness. ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... says, "Whatever may have been the reason, gratitude, ignorance, helplessness in practical matters, or wish to have a wife at once—whatever may have been the motive, he married, and sorely ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... me no reply, and sat there staring at the floor. She began to feel a sense of helplessness, like a creature caught in a net. It was more the man's personality than his words which made her feel as if he were pouring himself throughout her, taking possession of brain and every sense, as though he were a sort ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... instrument much used at the time in campaign rallies, swelled the joyful tumult. As I mounted the platform the crowd was singing "Vote for Betty and the Baby," and I took that song for my text, speaking of the helplessness of women and children in the face of intemperance, and telling the crowd the only hope of the Coatesville women lay in the vote cast by their men ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... was sitting by the big desk, clenching his fists and sweating; his whole posture telegraphed his controlled helplessness. Cheyney was bent over a seismograph, echo-sounding for the egg through the river bottom. If that even had a prayer of working, I knew, he'd have had the trains of the Hudson & Manhattan stopped; their rumbling course through their tubes would have ...
— One-Shot • James Benjamin Blish
... life, for everybody to look into. It is precisely the thing that is most wanted,—just as "Uncle Tom" was wanted, three years since, to show what negro slavery in your republic was like. It is plantation-life, particularly in the present case, that I mean. As for your exposure of the weakness and helplessness to the churches, I deeply honor you for the courage with which you have made the exposure; but I don't suppose that any amendment is to be looked for in that direction. You have unburdened your own soul in that matter, and if they had been corrigible, you would have helped a good ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... Harbor, back of Sitka, in latitude 59 degrees north. An armed party landed at a T'linkit village, deserted by all the inhabitants except one old man and two women, the latter seated at the feet of the former. The man was in great fear, turned his back and held up his hands as a sign of utter helplessness. (Extract from notes kindly furnished by Lieutenant-Commander WM. BAINBRIDGE HOFF, U.S.N., who was senior aid to Rear-Admiral Pennock, on the ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... forgive as she was forgiven, and then get properly into bed and refrained from speaking again, lest she spoilt the effect. At any rate, the first prayer that had ever sprung to her lips, with the suddenness of utter helplessness, came from them now, as she sat there, trying to think and battle with hasty conclusions that would ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... "I hope I don't keep you, Miss Schomberg, pray don't stay, you cannot help me," and here Miss Webster rose, but the agony of putting her foot to the ground was so great that she could not restrain a cry, and Emilie, who saw that the poor sufferer was like a child in helplessness, and like a child, moreover, in petulance, calmly but resolutely declared her intention of remaining until Lucy could ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... they found the body of Mrs. Grigsby and of her younger child, where they had recently been killed and scalped. The situation of this unfortunate woman (being near the hour of confinement,) and the entire helplessness of the child, were hindrances to a rapid retreat; and fearing pursuit, the Indians thus inhumanly rid themselves of those incumbrances to their flight and left them to accidental discovery, or to become food for ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... doctor had broken the news to the sorrowing family, almost the first thought of each was, How would she bear it? How would she, the little restless sprite, always flitting about here and there, endure perhaps a long life of crippled helplessness? And oh! how were they to tell her of the sad future, stretching far into the coming years? It was all very well to waive her questions in the meantime, but that could not be done much longer. Already the child seemed ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... the Empire, and little as they foresaw the restoration of the Bourbons, still less could they have anticipated the extraordinary follies which were to be perpetrated. In 1815 there was less excuse for their helplessness, and, overawed as they were by the mass of foes which was pouring on them to complete the disaster of Waterloo, still it is disappointing to find that there was no one to seize the helm of power, and, confronting the Allies, to stipulate proper terms for France, and ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... some other down-stepping: imagine one who had been made to believe in his own divinity finding all homage withdrawn, and himself unable to perform a miracle that would recall the homage and restore his own confidence. Something akin to this illusion and this helplessness had befallen the poor spoiled child, with the lovely lips and eyes and the majestic figure—which seemed now to have no magic ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... vague disillusionment, our impatience of foreigners, our suspicion of the idealisms of the Wilson brand. He would trace our discontent ruthlessly to its sources and hold up to our eyes the strange compound of sorrow and fatigue, impatience and disappointment, aspiration and helplessness which makes us what we are. 'The war-mood brought with it many and terrible symptoms such as have occurred and will always continue to occur, so long as human nature remains what it is; though in a severer ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... acute a sense of helplessness as to have a horse back with you, under the saddle or between shafts. The reins lie limp in your hands, as if detached from the animal; it is impossible to check him or force him forward; to turn him around is to confess yourself conquered; to descend and take him by the head is an act of pusillanimity. ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... word there was a profound hush. She spoke in deep tones, which, though not loud, reached every ear in the house, and even the throng at the doors and windows. To one man who had ridiculed the general helplessness of woman, her needing to be assisted into carriages and to be given the best place everywhere, she said, "Nobody eber helped me into carriages, or ober mud puddles, or gibs me any best place"; and raising herself to ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... getting confused. Until then the excitement had kept me from thinking. But you made me think. I began to wonder, to question ... But what could I do?" She signified her helplessness with a quick and dainty movement of her hands. "He is my father; and I'm not yet of age, ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... each new difficulty and invites it; the imperfectly trained pupil shrinks in half-terror and helplessness, feeling no hope of becoming master of these strange ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... said, eagerly; then remembering his helplessness, she added: "I will say over the letters of the alphabet, and when I reach the right one you must ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... to do with him?" she demanded, a-tremble with rage and a sense of impotent helplessness, as, avoiding her quick movement, Martin went into ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... about September or October that I began to think of making a raft. By that time my arm had healed, and both my hands were at my service again. At first, I found my helplessness appalling. I had never done any carpentry or such-like work in my life, and I spent day after day in experimental chopping and binding among the trees. I had no ropes, and could hit on nothing wherewith to make ropes; none of the abundant creepers seemed limber or ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... been styled the sublimest form of Selfishness. These, however, are not definitions but rather criticisms of certain phases of Patriotism, which is closely allied to Family Affection and, like that sentiment, originates in the helplessness and the egotism ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... it has produced has been taken from it in large measure, and no other organic matter has been given it in return. Its mineral store is left inert, and the moisture supply is left uncontrolled. Helplessness results. ...
— Crops and Methods for Soil Improvement • Alva Agee
... luxurious indolence, I was surrounded by friends who seemed to have no business in this world but to save me the trouble of thinking or acting for myself; and I was confirmed in the pride of helplessness by being continually reminded that I was the only son and heir of the Earl of Glenthorn. My mother died a few weeks after I was born; and I lost my father when I was very young. I was left to the care of a guardian, who, in hopes of winning my affection, never controlled my wishes ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... when arrested, and were consequently—released! Other towns held meetings to elect delegates to a county convention, and the governor was powerless to stop them. Although he had many more troops than the four regiments with which he first declared that he could do so much, he felt his helplessness, and, cursing the town meetings, waited for more soldiers. He summoned the remnant of his council to meet in Salem; but the members were afraid to come, and, departing from his orders, he allowed them to sit ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... abduction," was Corson's dry rejoinder. "Our helplessness in the hands of a usurper would win ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... face became troubled; indeed, it held an expression of childish helplessness, made so pathetic by a succeeding, shy glance at his awkward costume of homespun, that ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... faculties. "None of those around him," says Archbishop Corrigan, "ever heard the first syllable of complaint. It was again his service of the Lord, such as our Lord ordained it. To those who sympathized with him in his helplessness, the sweet answer would be made: 'It is God's will. Thy will, O Lord, be done on earth as it is in heaven.' Fulfilling God's will, he passed away, calmly and in peace, as the whole course of his life had been, and without a struggle; 'the last words he was ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... army would crush the men, women, and children whose touching fear and helplessness he had just beheld, as a man's foot tramples on an ant-bill, and again every instinct of his being urged him to pray, while from his oppressed heart the imploring cry rose through ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... haven’t it,” I snapped, full of anger at his tone of irreproachable respect, and at my own helplessness. I had not even seen the place by daylight, and the woodland behind me and the lake at my feet were things of shadow and mystery. In my rage ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... sense of satiety and disgust; the craving for what they would give him would come again in time, no doubt, but for the moment he was sick to the very soul of all they stood for. The feeling of complete helplessness, of desertion, of being alone in mid-ocean without a sail or a star in sight, mounted and swept over him. Susanna had been his sail, his star, although he had never fully realized it, and he had cut himself adrift ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the elision of the second syllable of the word music in the other line quoted above is equally faulty in another direction. But as we said when reviewing Mr. Bridges’s treatise on Milton’s prosody, nothing is more striking than the helplessness of most recent poets when confronted with ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... of my helplessness here has been rather bitter; I feel it wretched to see this dance of folly and injustice and unconscious rapacity go forward from day to day, and to be impotent. I was not consulted - or only by one man, ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... utter helplessness, and saw that they, their wives and children, were completely at the mercy of their implacable enemy. They fell prostrate before the pacha, and with all the fervour which the utmost terror could inspire, implored him to ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... on your excellent friendship, Judge Cheneworth, and I will rest me content in—'" Miss Herne answered in a most excellent imitation of the helplessness ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... should learn to depend upon itself. Then we come to a long period when the tyranny of the King brought out more and more strongly the usefulness of the Teacher, and when the Teacher was continually standing between the power of the tyrant and the helplessness of the people; when religion became a shield for the weak, a strong check for the violence of power. And we pass thus through all that long period of human history where the oppressed found their ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... the transformation from helplessness to aggression of bearing the man followed her and as she wheeled to face him with her left hand groping against the bark, he dropped down into the grass with insolent mockery in his face and sat cross-legged, ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... break of the poop. Their faces were set and expressionless; they seemed bored, more than anything else, by this mutiny of the crew. Captain Davenport glanced questioningly at his first mate, and that person merely shrugged his shoulders in token of his helplessness. ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... tyranny. "Uri's prison" he called this fortress, an insult to the people of Uri which roused their indignation. Perceiving their sullenness, Gessler resolved to give them a salutary lesson of his power and their helplessness. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... envy him who henceforth limps. So strange is the transforming power of patriotic ardor, that men shall almost covet disfigurement. Crowds will give way to hobbling cripples, and uncover in the presence of feebleness and helplessness. And buoyant children shall pause in their noisy games, and with loving rererence honor them whose hands can work no more, and whose feet are no longer able to march except upon that journey which brings good men to honor and immortality. ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... off before them now with the utmost indifference to her comfort. There was nothing to do but to follow, and resign herself to—the Lord alone knew what. The little roan mare, indeed, required no urging; she was tugging at the bit to be off. With one last look of helplessness at the station and Dave—who someway bore the hint of a fatherly air upon him—she charged her nerves with all possible resolution and rode on ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... kitchenmaids disport themselves on Sundays. A New Knowledge is abroad—and that New Knowledge is a fuller realisation that the new world is for all men and all women who work and do their duty, for all humanity, and not merely for the few who get rich upon the exploitation of poverty and helplessness of the masses. And this realisation carries with it the realisation that the governments of the future will be more really governments of the people for the people—and by people I do not mean merely ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... and went back to the parlor. Fear was knocking loudly at my heart, for our utter helplessness destroyed all hope of our being able to effect our escape. The girl sat upon the floor by the children, who, unconscious of the peril that hung over them, had both fallen asleep. She was silently weeping; while the boy who had caused the ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... been my feelings in prayer? What in reading God's word? What in meditation? Have I felt and acknowledged my dependence upon the Holy Spirit for every right exercise of heart? What discoveries have I had of my own guilt and helplessness, and my need of a Saviour? How has Jesus appeared to me? What communion have I enjoyed with God? How have I felt, in view of my sins, and of God's goodness to me? What have been my feelings, on coming anew to the ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... whipcords, but he had not expected to find her quite so sensitive to his cutting scorn. He remembered the gesture with which she had lifted her hand as if to screen herself from his insults. There was a whole life of futile compromise in just the manner of that gesture, a growing helplessness to give straightforward thrusts, a pitiful admission of defeat. But he knew that this surrender was temporary—a quick lifting of the mask under a relentless pressure. To-morrow, in an hour, in ten minutes, Lily Condor ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... parenthesis. We perceive the person who delivers them, to be perpetually labouring after a meaning, but never reaching it. He is like one flung over into the sea, unprovided with the skill that should enable him to contend with the tumultuous element. He flounders about in pitiable helplessness, without the chance of extricating himself by all his efforts. He is lost in unintelligible embarrassment. It is a delightful and a ravishing sight, to observe another man come after him, and tell, without complexity, and in the simplicity of ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... harsh methods, but there was no way to help it, the Reds were so cunning. They were secretly undermining the government, and was the government to lie down and admit its helplessness? The answer of 100% Americanism was thundered from every wood and templed hill in the country; also from every newspaper office. The answer was "No!" 100% Americanism would find a way to preserve itself from ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... cruel cut at all the fallen family, the father's incapacity, the sister's helplessness, and the brother's weak authority. Feemy did not feel it so, she felt nothing to be cruel that came from Ussher; but Thady felt it strongly, he was as indignant as if he had lived all his life among those who thought ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... recess. Not to cleave to a fatherland, be it even the most suffering and necessitous—it is even less difficult to detach one's heart from a victorious fatherland. Not to cleave to a sympathy, be it even for higher men, into whose peculiar torture and helplessness chance has given us an insight. Not to cleave to a science, though it tempt one with the most valuable discoveries, apparently specially reserved for us. Not to cleave to one's own liberation, to the voluptuous distance and remoteness of the bird, which always flies further aloft ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... from General Halleck represented in his department also a condition of check and helplessness. Lincoln noted upon it: "Exceedingly discouraging. As everywhere else, nothing can be done." Yet something must be done, for the game was not to be abandoned. Under this pressure, on this same day, he visited McClellan, but could not see him; nor could he get any definite ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... England and France in possession of fragments of her empire, and has twice within the lifetime of the present generation seen her capital in the hands of allied invaders, because she in very fact realizes the ideals of the persons who wish the United States to disarm, and then trust that our helplessness will secure us a contemptuous immunity ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... protecting the bicycle from the crush, and reasoning. with the mob; but the only satisfaction we obtain in reply to anything we say is " Bin bacalem." One or two pig-headed, obstreperous young men near us, emboldened by our apparent helplessness, persist in handling the bicycle. After being pushed away several times, one of them even assumes a menacing attitude toward me the last time I thrust his meddlesome hand away. Under such circumstances retributive justice, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... two people who like each other," he persisted, "I know of nothing more poignantly diverting than the bringing together of people who—who—" Mockingly across his daughter's unconscious head, malevolently through his mask of utter guilelessness and peace, he challenged Barton's staring helplessness. "So—taken all in all," he drawled still beamingly, "there's nothing in the world—at this particular moment, Mr. Barton—that could amuse me more than to have you join my daughter ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... the term "madam," which was undoubtedly misplaced, toward so youthful a person, is only to be explained by an idea he had of exaggerated respect, a kind of protection apparently to her loneliness and helplessness. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... "Snowshoe" on account of the size of its feet, which, already large, are in snow time made larger by fringes of stiff bristles that give the creature such a broad area of support that it can skip on the surface of soft snow while all its kinsmen sink in helplessness. ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... eyes yet rested on his; I could not draw them away. I could not free myself. Helplessness was growing agony. His voice broke the spell. He lifted his hunting-cap, and begged me to tell him the way to the next village. My self-possession returned, and the joy of its restoration drove from me any lingering embarrassment. I went forward, and without a faltering ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... speaking French and Italian, counted sober, wise, and no less subtle—had betrayed herself and her husband. The O'Neills, by this last manoeuvre, became supreme in Ulster. Deprived of their head, the O'Donels sank into helplessness. The whole force of the province, such as it was, with the more serious addition of several thousand Scotch marauders, was at Shane's disposal, and thus provided, he thought himself safe in defying England to do ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... little and tried to run away. Buck caught the dangling reins near the bit. Satan attempted to strike out with his forehoof. It was a movement as clumsy and slow as the blow of a child, and Buck easily avoided it. Realizing his helplessness Satan whinnied a heart-breaking appeal for help to his unfailing friend, Black Bart. The wail of the wolf ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... waiting for his wound to heal. He was therefore taken to the Lewises, suffering very much in his removal, and arriving in a condition which required the most assiduous care. For more than four months he remained with them, patient and gentle in his helplessness and suffering, and very thankful for the ministrations of kindness he received. He was nursed as tenderly as if his own sisters had attended him, instead of strangers, and was so carefully concealed that the nearest neighbors knew ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... arrival in their new home, Aunt Elsie was seized with an illness which lingered long, and left her a cripple when it went away; and her temper was not of the kind which suffering and helplessness are said sometimes to improve. It was a trying time ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... religion. And when once my mind had begun to awake to such matters, it was never permitted to sink again, for any length of time, into its former death-like slumber. And many things befel me that tended to make me feel, and feel most painfully at times, the helplessness and cheerlessness, the gloom and wretchedness, of the man who has lost his trust in God, and his hope of a blessed immortality. There is nothing in utter doubt and unbelief to satisfy a man with a heart. A man with a heart wants a Father in whose bosom he ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... world feels the pathos of helplessness hurt and wounded; but only some recognize how this applies to a great and noble nature attacked by unscrupulousness. In an encounter with dishonesty, nobility of soul may be, in its effect for the moment, utter weakness. Assailed by deceit or treachery the great heart has ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... graceful even then, notwithstanding her immatureness, and quaintly attractive, though her deep blue eyes were full of tears, and the white terror had not passed wholly from her face. It was those few moments of her complete and trustful helplessness which had transformed my life for me, those few moments in which the huge folly of these later days had been born. For her very coming seemed to have been at a chosen time—at one of those periods of weariness which a man must feel ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... performance of Tannhauser for my benefit. Unfortunately, the latter had been unable to secure the execution of his order owing to the opposition of his manager, Herr von Hulsen, who was hostile to me. As I had no other prospect for a long time to come but one of complete helplessness, I had no option but to leave the representation of my claim for compensation to the kindly care of my royal patroness. All these events had taken place within the short space of a month after the production of Tannhauser, and now, on the 15th April, I went for ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... in her present mood the boy felt a sudden helplessness. The world in this half-hour—for the first time since his escape—had grown unfriendly. His friends were leaving him, averting their faces, turning away to their own affairs. He stretched out ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... universe there was no spectacle more pitiable than that of a man who had left the world while his heart was still in it. What was he doing here? What had brought him? What business had such a one in such a place? And then his pitiful helplessness for all the uses of life and duty! Could it be right, could it be necessary, could it be God's wish ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... great interest. He was very minute, very helpless, and received more attention than the average baby. He had crossed the Atlantic in fear and trembling, and did not apparently enjoy the new world. His utter helplessness and the great care taken of him by his mistress, his ill-health and the unutterable woe of his countenance greatly excited my father's pity. After he went away, he often spoke of him, and referred to him, I find, in one of his letters. During this trip to America, Edward ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... own exertions. There was a pleasure in facing and overcoming the perils and difficulties which they encountered, which those, more delicately reared who now live here can never know. Their individual helplessness in the face of appalling obstacles to be met, but bound them closer together in mutual helpfulness. Accordingly we find that their social faculties were highly developed. It may well be doubted whether the sum total of ...
— The Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Settlement of the Town of New Milford, Conn. June 17th, 1907 • Daniel Davenport
... incapacity, and not attempting it, but having full confidence in one who can do it:' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, this is paltry. There is a middle course. Let a man give application; and depend upon it he will soon get above a despicable state of helplessness, and attain the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... To die in the pitiless hills like any penniless prospector! His check-book was as useless as a bent weapon in his hand, and his importance in the world counted for no more than that of the Chinaman, by his side. Mr. Sprudell lay down again, weak from an overwhelming sense of helplessness. ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... Roger was pretty fully awake to a knowledge of his great and pressing danger. Here he was, weak and dazed to the point of utter helplessness, on board a fast-sinking ship, with none to render him aid, and feeling quite unable to ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... revealed and demonstrated the fact that it is possible to generate almost unlimited power and has shown the way to do it; at the same time it has demonstrated the measureless potency of engineering and our utter helplessness without it. Technology is comparatively a new science; by some it is called a "semi-science" because it deals primarily with the application of science to practical issues. But when it became necessary "to do things," an engineer had to be called; the general staff ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... adherents fumed in their helplessness when they learned that he was coming—coming, too, under the safe-conduct of the empire, coming to have a hearing before the Diet!—he whom the infallible Vicar of Heaven had condemned and anathematized! Whither was the ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... are in all this—this?" she paused and raised her eyes to his with a hint of helplessness to ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... poor and literal mind cannot enjoy the opportunity for reverie and construction given by the stimulus of indeterminate objects; it lacks the requisite resources. It is nonplussed and annoyed, and turns away to simpler and more transparent things with a feeling of helplessness often turning into contempt. And, on the other hand, the artist who is not artist enough, who has too many irrepressible talents and too little technical skill, is sure to float in the region of the indeterminate. ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... upon the dead body of a horse he has killed. The smell of blood and the unmoving helplessness of the victim excite him to the highest pitch. He gores and tramples the carcass, and tosses it in the air with evident enjoyment, until diverted by some living tormentor. You will occasionally see a picador nervous and anxious about his personal safety. ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... on before like a sylph, rather leading the Abbot than receiving assistance—the Queen, her native spirit prevailing over female fear, and a thousand painful reflections, moved steadily forward, by the assistance of Henry Seyton—while the Lady Fleming, encumbered with her fears and her helplessness Roland Graeme, who followed in the rear, and who bore under the other arm a packet of necessaries belonging to the Queen. The door of the garden, which communicated with the shore of the islet, yielded to one of the keys of ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... equality, but the fact of their being associated with the enslaved Negro was accidental. No sooner had they assisted the runaway slave to freedom than they forgot him. He was left to make good in the autonomous, laissez faire atmosphere of a vigorous democracy. Soon, however, his economic helplessness and inefficiency, his ignorance of the tense northern life aroused the same men who had helped him to freedom to the realization that he was of an alien race, with characteristics that made his social assimilation ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... while he was still. In alarm the widow stooped over him: she feared that he had given up his last breath; but the candle-light showed him shaken by a sob, as it seemed to her, though she could scarce believe it of this manly fellow. Yet it proved true; she saw the very tears. He was crying at his helplessness. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... gripped at his hand, and a spasm of physical sympathy ran through him. He felt helpless and ashamed of his helplessness. ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... a cry of protest. The helplessness of his position exasperated him almost to madness. Two men were holding him tightly by his sinewy arms. With an Englishman's instinct for a fight, he would not only have tried, but also succeeded in knocking ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... constitutes one of the leading features of this narrative. But we will not anticipate. For the moment, the thing is to substitute for this inert larva a similar larva, but one not paralysed, one very much alive. To ensure that it shall not double up and crush the grub, I confine myself to reducing it to helplessness, leaving it otherwise just as I extracted it from its burrow. I must also be careful of its legs and mandibles, the least touch of which would rip open the nurseling. With a few turns of the finest wire I fix it ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... frightened glance over my shoulder showed the machine, like some monstrous vulture, bearing down on me. I could feel it gaining and gaining. The heavy drone of the engines seemed to fill the air with its noise. A pitiful sense of helplessness gripped me. I knew I was going to die like a rat in the jaws of a fox terrier. I screamed aloud in my terror and pitched headlong on the turf. With a roar, and a rush of wind that almost lifted me from the ground, the aeroplane passed over me, its wheels ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... principal relation to the proper world would be to have within two or three years a grand battle with it resulting in its taking her, should she let it have her at all, absolutely on her own terms: a picture which led our young man to ask himself with a helplessness that was not exempt, as he perfectly knew, from absurdity, what part he should find himself playing in such a contest and if it would be reserved to him to be the more ridiculous as a peacemaker ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... impulse was to tell her of my love, and then I thought of the helplessness of her position wherein I alone could lighten the burdens of her captivity, and protect her in my poor way against the thousands of hereditary enemies she must face upon our arrival at Thark. I could not chance causing her additional pain or sorrow by declaring a love which, in all ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... considerable indignation were visible among the dupes of Mr. Scott's inventive skill. The Lady of Fashion recalled with blushing fury her supposed escapade with the absurd Courier. The Bureaucrat re-lived his angry helplessness behind the iron grille. Before, however, anger could break out, the tension gave way to the irrepressible humour of Peter Brown. Suddenly he began to laugh, and each moment he laughed more loudly and more shamelessly. One by one the others joined, until by the healthy wind of merriment ...
— The Tale Of Mr. Peter Brown - Chelsea Justice - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • V. Sackville West
... on the causes that might hinder my summons from being obeyed. I figured to myself nothing but the helplessness of disease, or the insensibility of death. These images only urged me to persist in endeavouring to obtain admission. Without weighing the consequences of my act, I involuntarily lifted the latch. The door yielded to my hand, and I put my ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... his eyes. He was drawing deep, gasping breaths, the strong life in him wrestling still. But the helplessness, the ineffable surrender and defeat of man's last hour, ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... itself permanently embodied, it is called an institution. Thus government embodies the need of the general regulation of interests within the social community. Education is due to the individual's prolonged period of helplessness and dependence, and the need of assimilating him to the order of his time. Science is man's {148} knowledge of the ways of nature in detail, when this is recorded, organized, and preserved as a permanent utility ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... of the new year. Dangerous illness. Kindness of Arabs. Complete helplessness. Arrive at Tanganyika. The Doctor is conveyed in canoes. Kasanga Islet. Cochin-China fowls. Reaches Ujiji. Receives some stores. Plundering hands. Slow recovery. Writes despatches. Refusal of Arabs to take letters. Thani bin Suellim. A den of slavers. ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... bring them up from infancy, and thus the childhood of the world meant a state in which the child had little place, save as a small, fierce animal, whose development meant only a change from infancy and its helplessness to boyhood and ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... poor girl, in the extremity of her forlornness and distress, forgot all the little maidenly conventionalities and young-lady-like restraints of everyday life—and, in a burst of natural grief and honest confiding helplessness, hid her face on my bosom, and cried there as if she were a child again, and I was the mother to whom she had been used ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... the fall of this fortress came like a thunder-clap over Europe. It announced the reign of anarchy in France, and the helplessness of the King. On hearing of the fall of the Bastille, the King is said to have exclaimed to his courtiers, "It is a revolt, then." "Nay, sire," said the Duke of Liancourt, "it is a revolution." It was evident that even ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... burning with feverish energy, a maddening desire to do something—and there was nothing for him to do but wait. Moments would come when he felt that he could go out and conquer the world bare-handed but they quickly passed with a fresh realization of his helplessness, and he settled back ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... so that he was between them on the path. Turning his horse up the course of the stream, he soon came in sight of his brother on the ledge before him. With a suppressed scream of rage, he rode head-long at him, and ere he had time to make the least defence, hurled him over the precipice. The helplessness of the strong man was uttered in one single despairing cry as he shot into the abyss. Then all was still. The sound of his fall could not reach the edge of the gulf. Divining in a moment that the lady, whose name was Elsie, must have fled in the opposite direction, he reined ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... not emotion in the glance, no aversion or remonstrance. It was the glance she had for Esther, for Rhoda Knox. "Here I am," it said, "flat, but not at your mercy. You can't make me do anything I don't want to do. I am in the last citadel of apparent helplessness. You can't any of you drag me out of my bed. You can't even make me speak." And she would not speak. Esther, creeping out on the landing to listen, was confident grandmother never said a word. What spirit it was, what indomitable ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... republic, or alienation from republican institutions, among the young of the present day, as the condition of the civil service, the poor working of the post-office and the treasury or the courts, or the helplessness of legislators in dealing with the ordinary every- day problems. The largeness of the country, and the rapidity of its growth, and the comparatively low condition of foreign nations in respect to freedom, which roused people in Fourth-of-July orations forty years ago, have, like ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... spirits were sinking still more and more, until at length his face, in consequence of its ghastliness, and the involuntary hanging of his eyebrows, indicated scarcely any other expression than that of utter helplessness, or the feeble agony of a mind so miserably prostrated, as to be hardly conscious of the circumstances around him. This was clearly obvious when the verdict of "guilty" was uttered in the dead silence which prevailed through the court. No sooner were the words pronounced than he looked ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... desperate dive from the masthead into the blue unfathomable sea so many men have execrated and loved at the same time. And his vanity was immense. It had been touched to the quick by that muscular little feminist, Fyne. "I! I! Take advantage of her helplessness. I! Unfair to that creature—that wisp of mist, that white shadow homeless in an ugly dirty world. I could blow her away with a breath," he was saying to himself with horror. "Never!" All the supremely refined delicacy of tenderness, expressed in so many fine ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... head. The sense of paternal helplessness, felt more or less by all fathers of sons, was heavy upon him. He knew in a bewildered way, that he did not speak the boy's language. And yet he could not give up trying to communicate with him,—shouting at him, so to speak, as one shouts at a foreigner ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... both. Poor Mrs. Duveen possessed the personality of a chameleon, readily toning with any background; but intellectually she was never present. Why Michael Duveen had selected such a mate was a mystery which Flamby, who loved her mother the more dearly for her helplessness, could never solve. It was a mystery to which Duveen, in his darker moods, devoted himself cruelly, and many were the nights that Flamby had sobbed herself to sleep, striving to deafen her ears to the hateful insults and merciless taunts which Duveen ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... innocence; as we have already seen in many instances. What resistance can the infant make to the insidious serpents, which thus, as it, were, steal into its cradle, and infuse their poison into its soul? The guardians of its helplessness are heedless or unconscious of its danger, and, alas! it has not the fabled strength of the infant Hercules to crush its venomous assailants. Surely such a view of the frequent origin of crime must awaken our commiseration for its miserable victims, ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... over the forces of Parliamentarianism as represented by the Irish Party at the General Election. The country turned to it as its only avenue of salvation from a reign of corruption, incompetence and helplessness unparalleled in history. Mr O'Brien and his friends of the All-for-Ireland League, of their own volition, effaced themselves at the General Election. They had striven through fifteen long years, against overwhelming ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... never at any moment wished it. I felt too glad to be able to make any atonement for past disobedience; and, denied as I had been all endearments of relationship in my early days, my heart yearned towards a father, who, in his age and helplessness, had thrown himself entirely on me for comfort. My passion for Bianca gained daily more force from absence; by constant meditation it wore itself a deeper and deeper channel. I made no new friends nor acquaintances; sought none of the pleasures of Naples which ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... to face the problems of the day with a new sense of helplessness—the first confused sensation that hers was the stronger nature, the dominant personality—although he did not ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... fortune o' it," said Gabriel, in a distressed tone. "And it is because of that very helplessness that I feel bound to go. Good afternoon, ma'am" he concluded, in evident anxiety to get away, and at once went out of the churchyard by a path she could ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... house again, finally, and threw herself face down on her bed in an agony of dread, and helplessness, and shame. Shame because from Little Joe's brief remarks, she gathered that Hervey had already spread the news of her confession. But shame and fear were suddenly forgotten. She found herself sitting wide-eyed on the edge of the bed repeating over and over ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... in the midst of politics and wholly without influence. Thus they were led into the movement for the suffrage. It was only a few of the clear thinkers, the far seeing, who realized at the beginning that the principal cause of women's inferior position and helplessness lay in their disfranchisement and until they could be made to see it they were a dead weight on the movement. Men fully understood the power that the vote would place in the hands of women, with a lessening of their own, and in the mass they did ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... towards you; and there is an expression in the eyes—although they are very tender and gentle—as if the wildness of a momentary terror, or distraction, had been struggled with and overcome, that instant; and nothing but a celestial hope, and a beautiful sorrow, and a desolate earthly helplessness remained. Some stories say that Guido painted it, the night before her execution; some other stories, that he painted it from memory, after having seen her, on her way to the scaffold. I am willing to believe that, as ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... is measured by many thousands of Kalpas.[1371] Having passed many hundred thousands of years in that condition, Jiva then attains to the colour called Tawny (and becomes born as an intermediate creature). In that condition he dwells (for many long years), in perfect helplessness. At last when his sins are exhausted (in consequence of his having endured all the misery they are capable of bringing), his mind, casting off all attachments, cherishes Renunciation.[1372] When Jiva becomes endued with the quality of Sattwa, he then ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... a sign of helplessness) yet if they do itself, it wasn't my wish brought them or could send them away. OLD WOMAN — reprovingly. — If it wasn't, you'd do well to keep a check on her, and she turning a woman that was meant to be a queen. LAVARCHAM. Who'd check her like was meant to ...
— Deirdre of the Sorrows • J. M. Synge
... was not allowed to show her comfort in that way any longer. That she should run to him for help and yet love some one else, wounded his pride. What was the matter with him that he had failed to stir her passion? Why could he appeal only to her helplessness? ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... she not idle, either from despair or helplessness: she found her difficulties encreased, and she called forth more resolution to combat them: she animated herself by the promise she had made Delvile, and recovering from the sadness to which she had at first given way, ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... all, you know I have only to speak a word to reduce you to helplessness! All these men obey me blindly. At a sign from me, they will put a ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc |
