"Wretchedness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... exhorting, and teaching a nation suffering the pangs, and threatened with the spiritual stagnation, of exile; of proclaiming that the glories of the past prefigured a future of equal brilliancy, and that the very wretchedness of the present was part of the divine plan outlined in the Bible. If the simile is accurate that likens the Halacha to the ramparts about Israel's sanctuary, which every Jew was ready to defend with his last drop of blood, then the Haggada must seem "flowery mazes, ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... upon the profoundest problems of existence—the most momentous topics which can agitate the minds of men. Two great themes compose his argument: the miserable insignificance of all that is human—human reason, human knowledge, human ambition; and the transcendent glory of God. Never was the wretchedness of mankind painted with a more passionate power. The whole infinitude of the physical universe is invoked in his sweeping sentences to crush the presumption of man. Man's intellectual greatness itself he seizes upon to point the moral of an innate contradiction, an essential ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... horses winding up the hill toward us. There were seventeen altogether, and in the midst of them rode the cook clinging desperately with both hands to a diminutive mule, his long legs dangling and a look of utter wretchedness upon his face. Just before the caravan reached us it began to rain, and the cook laboriously pulled on a suit of yellow oilskins which we had purchased for him in Yuen-nan Fu. These, together with a huge ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... at nothing! What a hubbub of questions which waited for no reply, of replies which answered no question! The old woman herself shared in the wild merriment of the little ones! I have always been struck at the ease with which the poor forget their wretchedness. Being used to live only for the present, they make a gain of every pleasure as soon as it offers itself. But the surfeited rich are more difficult to satisfy: they require time and everything to suit before they ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... in the night. The weed-grown tile-roofs were still dripping, and from lofty brick and low adobe walls a rising steam responded to the summer sunlight. Up-street, and across the Rue du Canal, one could get glimpses of the gardens in Faubourg Ste.-Marie standing in silent wretchedness, so many tearful Lucretias, tattered victims of the storm. Short remnants of the wind now and then came down the narrow street in erratic puffs heavily laden with odors of broken boughs and torn flowers, skimmed the little pools of rain-water in the deep ruts of the unpaved street, ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... father harassed by creditors, trying one scheme after another, and failing in all; her mother and herself, half starved—with their very bedclothes sometimes at the pawnbrokers. I attended them in their illnesses, and though they hid their wretchedness from everybody else (proud as Lucifer, both of them!), they couldn't hide it from me. Fancy the change to this house! I don't say that living here in clover is enough for such a person as Regina; I only say it has its influence. She is one of those young women, sir, who delight ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... lime-washed towers, and the graceful minarets beyond, all dazzling white in the sun, contrasting with the dark blue waters of the Mediterranean. Such is the delusion of all these sea-coast Barbary towns; at a distance and without, beauty and brilliancy, but near and within, filth and wretchedness. ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... Trenck forgot me in his prosperity: well, then, sire, in his misfortune he has remembered me. In his misfortune he has forgotten the faithless, cold, and treacherous letter which I wrote to him, and which he received in the prison of Glatz. In his wretchedness, he has written to me, and called upon me for aid. It shall not, be said that I did not hear his voice—that I was not joyfully ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... crazy. I am crazy with disappointment and the bitterness of what I have lost. Add to that the wretchedness ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... to see in the blue eyes of her stepmother—eyes so soft and tender when they looked upon her hitherto—only a harsh, mistrustful glare, almost a look of hatred, was a punishment greater than she could bear. What had she done to deserve punishment? Of what was she accused? She spoke of her wretchedness to Fraulein Schult, who, perfidiously, day after day, drew from her something to report to Madame de Nailles. That lady was somewhat consoled, while suffering tortures of jealousy, to know that the girl to whom these sufferings were ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... gives the history of a Prostitute. The story commences with her arrival in London, where, initiated in the school of profligacy, she experiences the miseries consequent to her situation, and dies in the morning of life. Her variety of wretchedness, forms such a picture of the way in which vice rewards her votaries, as ought to warn the young and inexperienced from entering ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... now, during which I could count every throb of my heart, and throat, and temples—my whole frame was transfigured into an anvil, on which a thousand tiny hammers seemed to ring. Yet I could not move, nor speak, nor weep—no wretchedness was ever more supreme than this cataleptic seizure. Evelyn was the first to ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... thought himself a pattern of benevolence, was a sore check upon his self applause, and he formed many prudent resolutions to be more upon his guard in future. Some days after, in passing through his grounds, he was accosted by a man who exhibited an appearance of extreme wretchedness. His face was wan, and his features sunken. His dimmed eye seemed hardly able to discern the object on which it gazed; and his tottering limbs with difficulty supported his feeble frame. His moving lips appeared to be framing a prayer for compassion, but his hollow voice had not ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown
... would like to see the man who could make up his mind to come into the midst of such wretchedness ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... eel, continually moving aside to make way for generals, for officers of the guards and the hussars, or for ladies. At such minutes there used to be a convulsive twinge at my heart, and I used to feel hot all down my back at the mere thought of the wretchedness of my attire, of the wretchedness and abjectness of my little scurrying figure. This was a regular martyrdom, a continual, intolerable humiliation at the thought, which passed into an incessant and direct sensation, that I was a mere fly in the eyes of all ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... I led a life which nothing but having led a worse could make me think tolerable; for perfect solitude can never be reconciled to a social mind, like mine, but when it relieves you from the company of those you hate. What added to my wretchedness was the loss of my little infant: not that I pretend to have had for it that extravagant tenderness of which I believe I might have been capable under other circumstances; but I resolved, in every instance, to discharge the duty of the tenderest ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... plaster, bricks nor windows, nor any visible roofs. They don't give one the notion of human dwellings at all at first, but soon the eye gets used to the absence of all that constitutes a house in Europe, the impression of wretchedness wears off, and one sees how picturesque they are, with palm-trees and tall pigeon-houses, and here and there the dome over a saint's tomb. The men at work on the river-banks are exactly the same colour as the Nile mud, with just the warmer hue of the ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... him a good character. The man acknowledged his firm belief in the existence of a Supreme Being, which touched the governor's heart deeply. Does he not know that it has ever been the mission of the Supreme Being to serve as Impresario to Falsehood and Wretchedness? ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... comes back to the ocean, as the stars come with the night. She tried to smother it, but it would not be smothered. At last she resigned herself to the wretchedness of it—as one when, despairing of throwing off a mood, gives way to it and lets it ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... your foot on shore than you flounder about in it as if it were a mire; and it pursues you everywhere—in the country, in the streets, and in the houses. The Touaregs are impressed on you because, though you never see them, everything recalls them. The town is in ruins, but its wretchedness is overpowered by life and movement. The quays are astir with lively bustle, and encumbered with bales, jars, and sacks in the process of unloading. To travel from Kabara to Timbuctoo, only five miles distant, there is a daily convoy—medley ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... her nerveless fingers, while she sat staring vacantly before her, her brain almost turned by the heartless words she had just read, her heart broken with its weight of woe, while a feeling of utter wretchedness and desolation made her long for death to steep her senses ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... man were born large and strong, his size and strength would be useless to him until he had learned to use them. They would be prejudicial to him, by preventing others from thinking of assisting him; and left to himself he would die of wretchedness before he had known his own necessities. We pity the state of infancy; we do not perceive that the human race would have perished if man had not begun by ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... hanging, Which serv'd to keep her carcase from the cold: So there was nothing of a piece about her. Her lower weeds were all o'er coarsly patch'd With different-coloured rags, black, red, white, yellow, And seem'd to speak variety of wretchedness. ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... her patience completely worn out, she had told him not to come home any more. This was the last straw to Parrot's own wretchedness. He went to a chemist, purchased some oxalic acid, dropped it into a pint of beer and drank it; stumbling into the street, overcome by pain and gasping for breath, he fell to the ground. The police picked him up, took him to the hospital and his life was saved. When he had sufficiently ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... sorrowful are there; men are dying there, men are being born; men are praying,—on the other side of a brick partition, men are cursing; and around them all is the vast, void Night. The proud Grandee still lingers in his perfumed saloons, or reposes within damask curtains; Wretchedness cowers into buckle-beds, or shivers hunger-stricken into its lair of straw: in obscure cellars, Rouge-et-Noir languidly emits its voice-of-destiny to haggard hungry Villains; while Councillors of State sit plotting, and playing their high chess-game, whereof the pawns are Men. The ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... controlled her feelings with heroic firmness, but on the evening of that day, while waiting for her husband, the long, severe tension of her nerves utterly gave way, and when found in a paroxysm of tears and questioned by him, in her wretchedness and misery she had confessed the infidelity of her heart and pleaded for time to ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... mystery as was the first locomotive; yet they scarcely turn their uncovered heads to look; and my cheery greeting of "How," scarce elicits a grunt and a stare in reply. Long years of chronic hunger and wretchedness have well-nigh eradicated what little energy these Diggers ever possessed. The discovery of gold among their native mountains has been their bane; the only antidote the rude grave beneath the pine and ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... tyranny," he cried, "but negligence; it was not the intrusion of English authority, but the absence of all authority; it was that very leaving Ireland to herself which she demands so passionately that was the cause of her wretchedness." After that it was hopeless to expect that he would have an impartial hearing. Every Irishman understood that the lecturer was an enemy, and was prepared not to read for instruction, but to look out for mistakes. ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... nineteen. She did not blame Lady Russell, she did not blame herself for having been guided by her; but she felt that were any young person, in similar circumstances, to apply to her for counsel, they would never receive any of such certain immediate wretchedness, such uncertain future good. She was persuaded that under every disadvantage of disapprobation at home, and every anxiety attending his profession, all their probable fears, delays, and disappointments, she ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Neither men nor gods, death nor life, the winds nor the waves, were beyond their control. Like Old Men of the Sea, they have clung to the neck of their nations, throttling all attempts at progress, binding them to the thraldom of superstition and profligacy, dragging them down to wretchedness and death. Christianity and civilization meet in them their most determined, most implacable foes. But what is this but the story of priestcraft and intolerance everywhere, which Old Spain can repeat as well as New Spain, the white race as well as the red? Blind leaders of the blind, dupers ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... tell you all I know about it.—Some six weeks ago, I woke suddenly one morning, very early—I think about three o'clock—with an overpowering sense of blackness and misery. Everything I thought of seemed to have a core of wretchedness in it. I fought with the feeling as well as I could, and got to sleep again. But the effect of it did not leave me next day. I said to myself: 'They say "morning thoughts are true." What if this should be ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... homeless Belgians in England and Holland proclaimed and still proclaim their wretchedness broadcast. The future may bring redress, but the present story of Belgium belongs to the world. America, the greatest of the neutral countries, has a right to know now the suffering and misery of this patient, ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and absurdity, which makes infinite goodness the eternal source of infinite misery, there is wisdom in the Manichaean doctrine of two conflicting principles, holding a divided dominion over the universe, and contending, one for the production of the universal degradation and wretchedness, the other, for the purity and bliss of all intellectual ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... placed his ear to that—anything to know—anything. Yes, he recognized Ramsey's voice distinctly; he was there. On tiptoe he retraced his steps. Arrived at the entrance hall he flung himself into a chair, a prey to utter wretchedness. ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... which had been answered by assurances that Mr. Talbot was as good as the Bank of England. But it turned out that the assurances were forged, and that the letter of inquiry addressed to the London banker had been intercepted. In short, it was all ruin, roguery, and wretchedness. ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... knew not what words, but he knew that they had been straining at his lips—to wreck his self-respect for ever, and hopelessly defeat even the crazy purpose that had almost possessed him, by drowning her wretchedness in disgust, by babbling with the tongue of infatuation to a woman with a husband not yet buried, to a woman who ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... insolent luxuriousness, insulting to the wretchedness of the poor rentiers who expire with hunger in their garrets, no longer possessing the courage to crawl to the Treasury and get the wherewithal to prolong their misery ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... quadrupeds,—aided only by such wretched helots as misfortune had flung in the way of their common masters. The men, mostly idle,—ludicrously nonchalant,—reclining on their saddle-pads, or skins, inhaling the narcotic weed, apparently proud in the possession of that lordship of wretchedness ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... something like convulsive emotions. This strange figure was suddenly changed into his grandson! It was an apparition he knew not how to endure. To be claimed by such a wretched creature, to have been himself the author of his wretchedness, to have had an oath extorted from him, in direct violation of an opposite oath, to feel this universal shock to his pride and his prejudices was a complication of jarring sensations that confounded him. To resist was an effort beyond his strength. For a moment he lost his voice: at last he exclaimed, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... goes on, and many thousands of our women lose their fathers, their husbands, and their sons. With every victory (as they call it) peace, which should be nearer at hand, seems to retire further and further away, and only sorrow and wretchedness come close to us. And that is not all. Our food, like everything else we have to buy, is so dear that we women find it above all things difficult to provide ourselves with what we need for our daily ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 150, February 2, 1916 • Various
... said Mr. Everett. And what is their advice to us? That we should come down from the high place we have built for ourselves, and be even as they are. They screech at us from the low depths in which they are wallowing in their misery, and call on us to join them in their wretchedness. I am not quoting Mr. Everett's very words, for I have not them by me; but I am not making them stronger, nor so strong as he made them. As I thought of Mr. Everett's reputation, and of his years of study, of his long political ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... sadness, the peculiar melancholy, that pervades Jewish relations, then he attains to moral heights and lyric vigor unsurpassed. In his three volumes of poetry, by the side of numerous worthless pieces, we meet many gems of style and thought. The distressed cry of humanity against the wretchedness under which it staggers, the sorrowful protest man makes against the lack of compassion he encounters in his fellow, his obstinate refusal to understand the implacable cruelty of nature when she snatches his dearest ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... prevent you from hurrying us into wretchedness without any necessity," said Rosamond, the tears coming again from a softened feeling now that her husband had softened. "It is so very hard to be disgraced here among all the people we know, and to live in ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... the seventeenth of the present month, and reported that they had no news of the said almiranta. This has been a very great loss and one which has thrown this kingdom into almost incredible misery. The return of the flagship has added to its wretchedness, because the citizens have nothing from which to obtain money from Nueva Espana, since their goods have not arrived there. The documents which were sent in the flagship last year go in it again; and in this ship I send duplicates, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various
... was of Nassau, and consequently his surprise was great when he found himself looking out upon the wharves of a thriving, bustling little town. The slave-holders' rebellion, "which brought woe and wretchedness to so many of our States, was the wind that blew prosperity to Nassau." When President Lincoln's proclamation, announcing the blockade of all the Confederate ports was issued, Nassau took on an air of business and importance, and at once became the favorite resort of vessels engaged ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... nothing to the public. He must give pleasure to the public, and not explanations and excuses. But genius, goodness, many friends, no enemy, the consciousness of imparting enjoyment to multitudes, and to no man wretchedness, a heart alive with all that is tender and gentle, and strong to manful and noble purpose and achievement,—these are grand compensations,—compensations for even more ills than Hood was heir to; and with such ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... was to be kind,[70] To render with thy precepts less The sum of human wretchedness, And strengthen Man with his own mind; But baffled as thou wert from high, Still in thy patient energy, 40 In the endurance, and repulse Of thine impenetrable Spirit, Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse, A mighty lesson we inherit: Thou art a symbol and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... the dominion of any one or any number of native princes, all hope of mental improvement, or even of security for person or property, will at once vanish. Nothing could be then expected but scenes of rapine, plunder, bloodshed, and violence, till its inhabitants were sealed over to irremediable wretchedness, without the most distant ray of hope respecting the future. And were it severed from Britain in any other way, the reverse felt in India would be unspeakably great. At present all the learning, the intelligence, ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... insidious abominations of the factory and landlord system. To repeat, it was a system in which incredible numbers of working men, women and children were killed off by the perils of their trades, by disease superinduced and aggravated by the wretchedness of their work, and by the misery of their lot and habitations. Millions more died prematurely because of causes directly traceable to ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... mischiefs that this kind of existence included. Why should I insist upon such aggravations as hunger, beggary, and external wretchedness? These were an inevitable consequence. It was by the desertion of mankind that, in each successive instance, I was made acquainted with my fate. Delay in such a moment served but to increase the ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... have a memory of horrible fatigue, as the long night of despair wore away; of looking in this impossible place and that; of groping among moon-lit ruins and touching strange creatures in the black shadows; at last, of lying on the ground near the sphinx and weeping with absolute wretchedness. I had nothing left but misery. Then I slept, and when I woke again it was full day, and a couple of sparrows were hopping round me on the turf within reach ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... of 1910. "It is for waging implacable war against poverty and squalidness. I cannot help hoping and believing that before this generation has passed away we shall have advanced a great step toward the time when poverty, and the wretchedness and the human degradation which always follows in its camp, will be as remote from the people of this country as the wolves which once ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... doing you honor, of becoming a noble wife. But I gather from that futile hope the courage to return to a life of vice and infamy, that I may put an eternal barrier between us. I sacrifice both honor and fortune to you. The pride I take in that sacrifice will support me in my wretchedness,—fate may dispose of me as it will. I will never betray you. I shall return to Paris. There your name will be to me a part of myself, and the glory you win will console my grief. As for you, you are a man, and you will ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... me, the utterly accursed, while the darkness crept and gathered round us, till at length the dead and I were alone in the black silence. Oh, how tell the misery of that hour! Imagination cannot dream it, nor words paint it forth. Once more in my wretchedness I bethought me of death. A knife was at my girdle, with which I might cut the thread of sorrow and set my spirit free. Free? ay, free to fly and face the last vengeance of the Holy Gods! Alas! and alas! I did not dare to die. Better the earth with all its woes than the quick approach of those ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... Tarbert, on the Shannon, by the stage-coach, passing through several old, but uninteresting towns, and seeing a great deal of barrenness and wretchedness on our way. At Tarbert, we took a steamer, to ascend the river to Limerick, and as the weather that afternoon was clear and bright, we had one of the most delightful ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... name is a shame to speak; who counterfeits with a cold heart the transports of affection, and submits herself as the passive instrument of lust; who is scorned and insulted as the vilest of her sex, and doomed for the most part to disease and abject wretchedness and an early death, appears in every eye as the perpetual symbol of the degradation and sinfulness of man. Herself the supreme type of vice, she is ultimately the most efficient guardian of virtue. But for her the unchallenged ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... see. I shall have gone to my room before he comes. I'll not keep you long. It's enough that you've proved you cared to come. It's a crumb of comfort in my wretchedness." ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... me. I've been asking your sweet niece to take me for better, for worse; and she, like a good girl, informs me she cannot think of it without her uncle's and aunt's consent. So let me implore you not to condemn me to eternal wretchedness: if you favour my cause, I am safe; for Mr. Maxwell, I am certain, can ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... the father and mother of John, old Parker Clare and his wife. Poor as were their neighbours, they were poorer than the rest, being both weak and in ill health, and partly dependent upon charity. The very origin of Parker Clare's family was founded in misery and wretchedness. Some thirty years previous to the birth of John, there came into Helpston a big, swaggering fellow, of no particular home, and, as far as could be ascertained, of no particular name: a wanderer over the earth, passing himself off, ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... of all his misfortunes. Once in Manila, ragged and sick, he went from door to door offering his services. A boy from the provinces who knew not a single word of Spanish, and sickly besides! Discouraged, hungry, and miserable, he wandered about the streets, attracting attention by the wretchedness of his clothing. How often was he tempted to throw himself under the feet of the horses that flashed by, drawing carriages shining with silver and varnish, thus to end his misery at once! Fortunately, he saw Capitan Tiago, accompanied by ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... around him. A shudder ran through his body. The wall tottered ... and he was so high up, all alone, seen by nobody: such a small creature in that blue sky, in that endless space. In a clear vision he saw his own figure in all its lean wretchedness, cut out like a paper silhouette, standing out sharply against the sky, such a miserable little object: two thin legs, like laths, a little stomach, two little sticks of arms and that small, everyday, vulgar head. Was that he, that tiny atom of ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... not endure. Not seventy years have gone since that clutch was loosened, but the iron which entered into the souls of our fathers is no more remembered. How many old labourers, old operatives, or miners are now left to recall the wretchedness of that toiling and starving childhood before the corn-tax was removed? Few are remaining now, and they speak little and will soon be gone. The horror of it is scattered like the night, and we think no more of it, nor imagine ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... Such is the course we are beginning to run when born into the world; and were it not for the gospel promise, what a miserable event would the birth of children be! Who could take pleasure at the sight of such poor beings, unconscious as yet of their wretchedness, but containing in their hearts that fearful root of sin which is sure in the event of reigning and triumphing unto everlasting woe? But God has given us all, even the little children, a good promise through Christ; and our prospects are changed. And He has given not only ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... CHAPLAIN in the army, A chaplain in the prisons, An exhorter in Spoon River, Drunk with divinity, Spoon River— Yet bringing poor Eliza Johnson to shame, And myself to scorn and wretchedness. But why will you never see that love of women, And even love of wine, Are the stimulants by which the soul, hungering for divinity, Reaches the ecstatic vision And sees the celestial outposts? ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... delivered to vulgar pedants of every kind, to idleness and to ennui, the youth saw the foaming billows which they had prepared to meet, subside. All these gladiators glistening with oil felt in the bottom of their souls an insupportable wretchedness. The richest became libertines; those of moderate fortune followed some profession and resigned themselves to the sword or to the church. The poorest gave themselves up with cold enthusiasm to great ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... her folly with a life-time of wretchedness. She was to marry a man she did not love; and her friends were ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... it with your own hand and heart—in no other way. It comes to nothing just contributed to some thing. Ah!" he added, with sudden animation, "the tangles men can get themselves into, the snarls, the wretchedness! Troubles with women, with men whom they owe, with evil things they say and think, until they can't walk down the street any more without peeping about to see if they are followed. They can't look you in die face; can't walk a straight course, but have got ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... to do their own work, it was not necessary that it should be done before such an "audience." Such a social crisis is always short, but it is very severe. No doubt those who have gone through it look back upon it as one does upon the day after a fire, when the wretchedness of dirt and destruction seems hopeless, but, like other mundane things, soon passes away and is spoken of as all "part ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human effort will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of a brave resistance, or the most abject submission. ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... of the Masters, and his colleague in that great task, closely allied to him, of a noble Austrian family, known to us in later days as H.P.B. When those made their attempt to change the face of Europe, they failed, the time not being ripe; the misery and the wretchedness of the epoch, the degradation of the masses of the population, the horrible poverty, the shameful starvation, all these were the rocks on which split, and was broken up into foam, the spiritual wave ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... bring them, and lay them before the Spirit of Grace. O Almighty Spirit of Grace, May these Poor, blind, mad Sinners become objects for the Triumphs of Grace! O Almighty Spirit of God, and of Grace, cause these poor men to see their own Sinfulness and Wretchedness! Make them willing to be Saved from such Sinfulness and Wretchedness; Discover to them the only Saviour of their Souls. Oh! Dispose them, Oh! Assist them to give the Consent of their Souls unto ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... and lovely to be kind; But charity should not be blind; For as to wretchedness ingrate, You cannot raise it from ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... women? The thought roused me from my reverie of wretchedness. A gleam of joy shot suddenly across my mind. It was the wild huntress that had given origin to the thought. On her I had founded a new hope. She must be seen! No time should be lost in communicating with ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... melancholy day for everyone. And to fill the cup of wretchedness to overflowing, the rain, beginning with a drizzle, ended with a downpour. Consultations took place between men who had not spoken to one another for weeks. Fred offered to go on, at all events to Salt Lake City, if Nelson the Canadian and ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... you made me the plaything of your selfish and changing passions, you began a dangerous game. You thought me, perchance, a love-sick maiden, whose heart would break in silence and darkness, but you know me not. I will not suffer alone. If I sink into an abyss of wretchedness, it shall not be alone. I will drag down with me all who have part or lot in ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... me again: receive these then as the last words of mine that will ever reach you; and although I have forfeited your filial love, yet regard them I conjure you as a father's command. Resolutely shake of[f] the wretchedness that this first misfortune in early life must occasion you. Bear boldly up against the storm: continue wise and mild, but believe it, and indeed it is, your duty to be happy. You are very young; let not this check for more than a moment retard your ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... reach—first of all, to provide that the people should be able, if they would, to live decently. He had no notion of domestic inspection, or of offering prizes for cleanliness and order. He knew that misery and wretchedness are the right and best condition of those who live so that misery and wretchedness are the natural consequences of their life. But there ought always to be the possibility of emerging from these; and as things were, over the whole country, for many who would if they ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... removed his embarrassment. "It's always been a passion of mine—my house," she said quietly. "And now—more than ever. . . . It's a duty, even, though a pleasant one—— After all, whatever may go on outside, whatever wretchedness worries one—it's something to have a real sanctuary to come to. I want the children to feel that—so much. I want them to love the beautiful things in life," she went on passionately, "even though they live in these surroundings." She stared out of the window ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... fire, to turn our spinning-wheels—and,—ARE WE YET CLOTHED? Are not the streets of the capitals of Europe foul with sale of cast clouts and rotten rags? Is not the beauty of your sweet children left in wretchedness of disgrace, while, with better honour, nature clothes the brood of the bird in its nest, and the suckling of the wolf in her den? And does not every winter's snow robe what you have not robed, and shroud what ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... Guard, from whom he tore himself away amidst sobs and tears, and threw himself into his carriage. On the 19th of March 1815 he was back again in this palace from the island of Elba, wandering with almost infantine joy through the splendid apartments which had witnessed his glory and his wretchedness. ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... shed invariable tears over Werther, however often I read it; here I wade through Wilhelm Meister, and sit in amazement before the complications of the Wahlverwandschaften; here I am plunged in wonder and wretchedness by Faust; and here I sometimes walk up and down in the shade and apostrophise the tall firs at the bottom of the glade in the opening soliloquy of Iphigenia. Every now and then I leave the book on the seat and go and have a refreshing potter among my flower beds, from which I return greatly ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... dense. For so long had he considered Sidney as unattainable that now his masculine mind, a little weary with much wretchedness, refused to move ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... you how I passed yesterday. I never was so miserable in all my life. It went to my heart to see Kate so happy and busy with the dressmakers, giving orders about those wedding-garments she is never to wear. It was a day of unutterable wretchedness, and the evening was as dull and dreary as its predecessor. Father Francis came up for an hour, and his sharp eyes detected the trouble in my face. I would have told him if Kate had not been there; but it was impossible, and I had ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... much of him after her stolen glance in the morning, she longed to do that which he dreaded she would try to do—attempt his reformation. Not that she cared for him personally, or that she had grown sentimentally interested in his Byronic style of wretchedness. So far from it, her happy and healthful nature was repelled by his diseased and morbid one. She found him what girls call a "disagreeable man." But she yearned toward a sinning, suffering soul, found in ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... The absence of it, on the contrary, disfigures the finest scenes in the south of Italy, and causes Naples, the most delightful spot on earth, perhaps, for situation and climate, to dwell on the recollection like a whited sepulchre, a gilded lazar-house of helpless and incurable wretchedness. A Roman beggar, glaring at you from the arches of a ruined temple, like one of Salvator Rosa's Radicals, with a look at once abject and ferocious, may be, perhaps, a characteristic accompaniment ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... was not recalled from the banishment to which for unchastity her father Augustus had condemned her; nay, he even put her under lock and key till wretchedness and starvation caused ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... emperor continued his efforts as president to win the approval of the people by public works. He recognized the necessity of aiding the working classes as far as possible, and protecting them from poverty and wretchedness. During a dearth in 1853 a "baking fund" was organized in Paris, the city contributing funds to enable bread to be sold at a low price. Dams and embankments were built along the rivers to overcome the effects of floods. New streets were opened, bridges built, railways ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... the hour of high noon, the vast and terrible silence when all life seems suspended, a sudden glimpse into his own heart revealed shuddering abysses, inextinguishable desires, ineffaceable memories, accumulations of suffering and regret—all the wretchedness he had gone through, all the inevitable scars of his vices, all the results of his passions. He seemed to be witnessing the shipwreck of his whole life. A thousand voices cried to him for succour, imploring aid, cursing death—voices that he knew, that he had listened ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... what is now in the Church, ought therethrough to be the more moved in all their wits to able them to grace, and set lesser price by themselves: that they, without tarrying, forsake wilfully [voluntarily] and bodily all the wretchedness of this life; since they know not how soon, nor when, nor where, nor by whom GOD will teach them, and assay their patience. For, no doubt, who that ever will live piteously, that is charitably, in CHRIST JESU shall suffer now, here ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... new thrill of wretchedness to see that she wore by chance the very dress she had worn the day he had made the sketch—a pale, pure-looking gray, with a scarf of white lace loosely fastened at her throat. Next, he saw that there was a painful change in her, that she looked frail and ...
— Lodusky • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the American Colonies were not due to a political preference for a republic, but were the work of public opinion driven by misgovernment to protest. The difficulty in England was that the mass of people might be in great wretchedness, badly housed, ill-fed, and generally neglected, but they were not conscious of any desire for democracy. They were against the government, doubtless, and willing enough, in London, to shout for "Wilkes and Liberty," but the time had not yet come for ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... more at Almouth House. Beauclerk's consideration for me is almost more than I can bear. The rest is not borne. If it were not cowardly, I would go away alone, and brood at my leisure and yield to the appalling yet all but irresistible wretchedness which calls me, which I actually crave. An effort not to depress or discourage others may be right and my duty. I cannot be sure of this. Sometimes I feel as though it would be wiser to meet the dark hours and make acquaintance with them.... And what ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... straitened upon him, so that he left his people and family and went forth in distraction. He wandered on at random till he came to a high-walled and splendidly built city and entered it in a state of wretchedness and despair, gnawed with hunger and worn with the toil of his journey. As he passed through one of the streets, he saw a company of notables going along; so he followed them, till they entered a house like to a royal palace. He entered with them, and they stayed ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... less dense, and this terrible procession passed by—the street was once more unobstructed. The prince rushed onward regardless of the direction he was taking, crushed as he was by the disgrace and wretchedness brought upon Prussia. He was again suddenly in front of a large gathering. He looked about him wonderingly and in dismay. Without knowing it, he had gone down to the large square in front of the Brandenburg Gate, where was ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... Leopold Schefer, the German novelist, has composed an excellent sketch of Durer's married life. It is an admirably philosophic narrative of an intellectual man's wretchedness.] ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... that Montague could do save to sit and listen to this outburst of wretchedness. His attempts to soothe the old man only had the ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... hard disappointed bitter-minded woman—envious, at times, even of you—into your loving and devoted friend. You have changed me from a miserable creature into a contented and hopeful one. You have taught me to forget that my childhood and youth were one long night of wretchedness and degradation. You have taught me to forgive the father who suffered my life to be what it was, and made no one poor effort to lift me out of the slough of despond to which he had sunk. I can say no more, Charlotte. There are things that cannot ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... of the serpent into religious symbolism, with a time in the history of mankind when they first began to recognize the fact, that through the abuse of the reproductive functions, evil, or human wretchedness, had gained the ascendency over the higher forces. The Deity represented by a woman and a serpent involved the idea not alone of good, but of good and evil combined. Together they prefigured not only Wisdom ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... witnesses of their lament, As thus they passed away! And their neglected corpses, as they lay Upon that horrid sea of snow exposed, Were by the beasts consumed; The memories of the brave and good, And of the coward and the vile, Unto the same oblivion doomed! Dear souls, though infinite your wretchedness, Rest, rest in peace! And yet what peace is yours, Who can no comfort ever know While Time endures! Rest in the depths of your unmeasured woe, O ye, her children true, Whose fate alone with hers may ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... to deal with him. Besides, there might be nothing wrong. All might yet be explained, all might yet be set to rights, all—unless, unless Gertrude—Oh, why should there arise this new and terrible complication? Gertrude with her youth and beauty and enthusiasm—why must she be drawn into the wretchedness? ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... through the wood, thick and thin, and more or less wet, to the distance I should think of three miles. By this time my clothes were all thoroughly soaked through, and I felt once more a gloom and wretchedness; the recollection of which makes me shudder at this distant day. My young friends in this highly favoured Christian country, surrounded with all the comforts of home and parental care, visited by pastors and Sabbath-school teachers, ...
— The Fugitive Blacksmith - or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington • James W. C. Pennington
... nature, lies some hidden principle, the antagonist of Bliss. An intimate and anxious examination of his career, has taught me to understand that, in general, from the violation of a few simple laws of Humanity, arises the Wretchedness of mankind; that, as a species, we have in our possession the as yet unwrought elements of Content,—and that even now, in the present blindness and darkness of all idea on the great question of the Social Condition, it is not impossible ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... The wretchedness of his tone quite touched me. I forgot my anger and sense of resentment, and all the old affection and loyalty came back with a rush. How could I ever have imagined a fellow like Crofter was worthy to hold a candle ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... my life, but our lives, Amelie. We have crossed the threshold of this house together for the last time. We go no more out to look upon a world fair and beautiful to see, but so full of disappointment and wretchedness to have ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... was often little more than a track, he had great difficulty in keeping his way, and regretted that he had not hired a servant knowing the country before leaving the army. He generally, however, was able to obtain a guide from village to village. The loneliness of the way, the wretchedness of the people, the absence of the brightness and comfort so characteristic of English life, made the journey an oppressive one, and Harry was glad when, five days after leaving Dublin, he approached the end of his ride. Upon ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... pilgrim had saluted with a sign of the cross. Swayed once more by the habits of cultivated intellect, the young priest and his two companions forgot themselves together in the midst of their fellow-passengers, all those poor, suffering, simple-minded folk, whom wretchedness stupefied. Another hour went by, two more canticles had just been sung, and the stations of Toury and Les Aubrais had been left behind, when, at Beaugency, they at last ceased their chat, on hearing Sister Hyacinthe ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... women, spoke of her with something like devotion, and all said how kind and charitable she was, and as merry as a bird on a bright day; they said she pitied their wretchedness and their troubles, and was still the young girl in spite of her long dresses, and fearing nothing, while ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... he repeated the Lord's Prayer, but she did not join; and then he added a broken, hesitating intercession for the mourners, which caused her to bury her face deeper in her hands, but her dull wretchedness altered not. ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... of very considerable value, and the harness of whose carriage was studded with paste, in imitation of diamonds. This woman, however, lived to repent of her folly; and if she did not literally die in a poorhouse, she at least ended her days in wretchedness. ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... idleness following a long run of fever, a lost position, and consequent discouragement had brought poverty and wretchedness to Joe Bennett. ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... strength, and Death comes, not as the 'King of Terrors,' but a welcome messenger, for whose coming the weary woman has waited and longed, ever since hope died out, and she knew life held for her nothing but wretchedness and woe. ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... about six minutes' walk from City Road Wesleyan Chapel—one of the most wretched neighbourhoods in London. I never knew before what the ragged poor of London, in the lanes and alleys, were. I never witnessed such a sight of squalid wretchedness—the neighbourhood literally swarming with children—every window of the houses around full of heads—all indicating that lowest degradation, but many of the children had good features and bright eyes sparkling through ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... if wretchedness Can move most hearts to pity man's distress, I will not think that here A heart can be so cruel and severe As to repel a wretch from out the wave. Pity, for God's sake, ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... be remedied with a strong hand. These men seem not to know that rivalry may be good in buying palm-oil, but is the wrong thing in mining. Such a jealousy assisted in making the Spanish proverb 'A silver mine brings wretchedness; a gold mine brings ruin.' Even in England I have met with unwise directors who told me, 'Oh, you must not say that, or people will prefer such and such a mine.' But, speaking generally, employers are aware that unity of interest should produce solidarity of action. The local employes like ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere Humanity. And a brute beast —whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed—a brute beast to work out for me—for me a man, fashioned in the image of the High God—so much of insufferable wo! Alas! neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of Rest any more! During the former the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... at any time and to Julie, who had stared at the rows of slatternly kept backyards until she grew familiar with each battered garbage can, the sight was hateful. The rain had driven even the starved alley cats to cover, and with a sigh forlorn in its wretchedness, she turned from the window and contemplated her nicely furnished bedroom. The two days she had been there had passed on leaden feet. Captain Miller's money had secured her a haven of refuge—food and a roof over her head—but ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... in the abstract, are salutary and benevolent; but when we hear those influential gentlemen, who are advocating this cause, generalize by language directly calculated to increase that prejudice, which is already one grand reason of our wretchedness, we are moved by a spirit of reliance upon justice and humanity, to lift our positive and decided voice against their proceedings; and consider them as a stigma upon our morals as a people, as natives and citizens of ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... the only effectual remedy for the great mass of vice and wretchedness in our large towns, to which you are endeavouring to call public attention; and we must not be content with presenting that Cross in words alone, but must endeavour to show, by our personal efforts and example, how it may practically be applied so as to purify the lives ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker
... coach-office in less than ten minutes. Hot water was a luxury not to be procured: at that villanous hour not a human being in the house (nor, do I believe, in the universe entire), had risen—my unfortunate self, and my companion in wretchedness, poor Boots, excepted. The water in the jug was frozen; but, by dint of hammering upon it with the handle of the poker, I succeeded in enticing out about as much as would have filled a tea-cup. Two towels, which had been left wet in the room, were standing on a chair bolt upright, as stiff ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 471, Saturday, January 15, 1831 • Various
... little room was more than the human imagination had ever before conceived. Think only of six hundred persons linked together, trying to get rid of each other, crammed in a close vessel with every object that was nauseous and disgusting, diseased, and struggling with all the varieties of wretchedness. It seemed impossible to add any thing more to human misery. Yet shocking as this description must be felt to be by every man, the transportation had been described by several witnesses from Liverpool to be a comfortable conveyance. Mr. Norris had painted the accommodations ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... little fight for a long time, partly because I was very much affected by the sight of his wretchedness, and partly because I did not at first realize how necessary it was for him to find out just how far my self-control could be depended upon. As soon as this became clear to me I determined to seize the first favorable opportunity ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... vision in eternal night; Man cannot face nor seraph power display The mystic beams of such an awful day. Enough for thee, that thy delighted mind Should trace the temporal actions of thy kind; That time's descending veil should ope so far Beyond the reach of wretchedness and war, Till all the paths in nature's sapient plan Fair in thy presence lead the steps of man, And form at last, on earth's extended ball, Union of parts and happiness of all. To thy glad ken these rolling years have shown The boundless blessings thy vast labors crown, That, with the joys ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... families, no wonder that all his sympathies were with the Stuarts and their dissipated insolent party, and all his hatred directed against those who endeavoured to check them in their proceedings, and to raise the generality of mankind something above a state of vassalage that is wretchedness. Those who were born great, were, if he could have had his will, always to remain great, however worthless their characters. Those who were born low, were always to remain so, however great their talents—though ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... the revolt, and brought on the ruin of the angelic spirits, so it is not improbable, that it will be a principal instrument of misery in a future world, for the envious to compare their desperate condition with the happiness of the children of God; and to heighten their actual wretchedness by reflecting on what ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... were real, and from his own experience. The Tales of the Hall, referring chiefly to the higher classes of society, are more artificial, and not so good. His pen was most at home in describing smugglers, gipsies, and humble villagers, and in delineating poverty and wretchedness; and thus opening to the rich and titled, doors through which they might exercise their philanthropy and munificence. In this way Crabbe was a reformer, and did great good; although his scenes are sometimes revolting, and his pathos too exacting. ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... the sea; overwork of the imagination, of the perceptive faculty, and in the mere mechanical labour of putting on canvas what he imagines and what he perceives. In consequence of this overstrain and subsequent breakdown, he has become possessed by a fixed sea-idea, and traces all his wretchedness to this episode of the boy and the picture. You will say I did not succeed in curing him because I did not discover what this fixed idea was. How can that be, if the idea comes from the illness and ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... there, closed from the world, with an angel his companion, he might have forgotten Edward was lord in Scotland, had not that which was without his little paradise made a way to its gates, and showed him the slavery of the nobles and the wretchedness of the people. In these cases, his generous hand gave succor where it could not bring redress. Those whom the lawless plunderer had driven from their houses or stripped of their covering, found shelter, clothing, and food at the house of Sir ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... and oblivion in the same country where he had formerly been distinguished for his rank and magnificence. Having paid his debts, therefore, in the most honourable manner, he retreated with his daughter to the town of Lucerne, where he lived unknown and in wretchedness. My father loved Beaufort with the truest friendship and was deeply grieved by his retreat in these unfortunate circumstances. He bitterly deplored the false pride which led his friend to a conduct so ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... last he abandons himself to the guidance of a power which his firmer nature had long resisted, the impression of the spectator is, that his mind has yielded in the struggle, and that, in the desperate hope of obtaining relief from present wretchedness, he is about to commit the most horrible crimes, by obeying the suggestions of a spirit, which he more than suspects to be employed only to tempt him on to perdition. No description can possibly do justice to the manner in which this situation of Hamlet ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... London came to seem unreal save the poverty in its East End. During the following two years on the continent, while I was irresistibly drawn to the poorer quarters of each city, nothing among the beggars of South Italy nor among the salt miners of Austria carried with it the same conviction of human wretchedness which was conveyed by this momentary glimpse of an East London street. It was, of course, a most fragmentary and lurid view of the poverty of East London, and quite unfair. I should have been shown either less or more, for I went away with no notion of the hundreds of men and ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... won, and neglected—a yielding puppet, of whom, strange to say, he broke the heart and made the fortune. He lived at that time in the Roule addition, in a plain garret, where he was in the habit of receiving Zephirin Marcas. The wretchedness of his quarters did not keep La Palferine out of the best society, and he was the guest of Josepha Mirah at the first entertainment given in her house on rue de la Ville-l'Eveque. By a strange order of events, Comte Rusticoli ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... fear of the miscarriage of the first; (and both letters did miscarry, as the wife never received them.) Peter gave himself up as a lost man, his family lost or scattered, and nothing but death could end his detailed wretchedness. But still, as fortune would have it, he never again sought refuge from his sorrows in the poisoned chalice, the rum glass; not he. Peter toiled, saved his money, and at the end of four years found himself in the ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... Satan would have it. This was what for ages he had been working to secure. His policy is deception from first to last, and his steadfast purpose is to bring woe and wretchedness upon men, to deface and defile the workmanship of God, to mar the divine purposes of benevolence and love, and thus cause grief in heaven. Then by his deceptive arts he blinds the minds of men, and leads them to throw back the blame ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... seventy-eight. Poor little Jasper woke for an interval from the sense of present discomfort to hear it. He seemed to stiffen all over with the shock of horror, and then hung a dead weight on Stephen's arm. It would have dragged him down, but there was no room to fall, and the wretchedness of the lad against whom he staggered found vent in a surly imprecation, which was lost among the cries and the entreaties of some of the others. The London magistracy were some of them in tears, but the indictment for high treason removed ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge |
