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More "Helpless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... excellent nurse now. But it's Brian's nurse I must be. I saw that, in the first hour after the news was broken, and our two lives broken with it. I saw that, with me unable to earn a penny, and Brian's occupation gone with his sight, we were about as helpless as a pair of ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... only another of that type of woman who has blasted a life, one full of hope, by clinging to a man who was unworthy of one day of her life. It was a pathetic spectacle to see the faded wife standing helpless in the shadow of her husband's selfishness, having sacrificed youth, beauty and everything that woman holds dear. It did not matter to Palmer that she was once a school teacher, more than a fair musician, courted by numbers who could have made her useful to society and happy ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... the Altar to Love, Honor, and Listen. Still, it was trying to see the once-loved Adult cavorting on the verge of Dementia and know that she was helpless. ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... helpless old creature!' said another, who felt sorry for her. 'That poor old woman can do no harm to anyone. She ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... move, Split sat looking after him. Her father! This, then, was her father! She was dazed, helpless, too overwhelmed even to ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... could not intermeddle," and from which even his own hand could not lift the veil of sanctity. His letters were full of longing to see his little Julia; for by this name, which had been his mother's, he had desired her to be christened, saying, "My mother was mindful of me when I was a helpless, fatherless child, and I ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... been protected if only by my mother's tears, but here I was alone, and felt myself to be so little and helpless. But just as my lip was beginning to drop, at the thought of what my mother would suffer if she saw me in this position of infamy, and I was about to cry out to the schoolmistress: "Don't beat me! Oh! please don't beat me!" a strange ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... decree would have left Gordon helpless to do anything for the curtailment of the slave trade until the year 1889, and then only permitted to inflict a quite insufficient punishment on those who broke the law. General Gordon pointed out the contradiction between the Convention and the Decree, and the impossibility of carrying out ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... his plotting mind to shine through the windows of his face. As for the crowd at large, gleams of content passed over the bright red faces, illuminating them with looks of savage joy. Murmurs of approbation were heard, and Crowsfeather addressed the throng, there, where it stood, encircling the two helpless and as yet but half-alarmed victims of so fell ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... in this age is the thing immediately needed? Let her who has no child seek where she can help the burdened mother of many; how she can best reach with influence, and wisdom, and cherishing, the greatest number—or most efficiently a few—of these dear, helpless, terrible little souls, who are to make, in a few years, a new social condition; a better and higher, happier and safer, or a lower, worse, bitterer, more desperately complicated and ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... time Dyke recalled when old Granny Partlow sent word that she couldn't hold out against the Lord no longer. Granny was nearing eighty and for thirty of her years she had sat a helpless cripple in a chair. At the birth of her seventeenth child, paralysis had overtaken Deborah, wife of Obadiah Partlow, rendering her useless to her spouse and their numerous offspring. She had protested bitterly, saying right out that it wasn't fair ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... of steel traps, the making of large bags, the killing of game while swimming in water, or helpless in deep snow, and the unnecessary killing of females or young of any species of ruminant, shall be deemed offenses. Any member who shall commit such offenses may be suspended, or expelled from the Club by unanimous ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... interrupted him to call out "Bravo!" Yes, a woman always ought to know how to handle herself, but his wife had always been a helpless thing. It would be her fault if they died on the straw. Then he relapsed into his admiration for My-Boots. How awfully fine he looked! A regular landlord; with clean linen and swell shoes! They were no common stuff! His wife, at all events, knew how ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... throwed out a handful, but they didn't swallow 'em any more'n they would so many buckshot. But prices nor nothin' else will ever git right, if I am any judge, till we git free silver. I tell you, Alf, that man Bryant is the biggest gun, by all odds, that ever belched fire in the defence of a helpless nation, and when them dratted Yankees tricked 'im out of the Presidency they put the ball an' chain o' slavery on every citizen of this fair land. Bryant told 'em that sixteen to one would do the work, and what did they say? Huh, they said he was a fool and didn't know how to figure. I tell ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... business life. It is an association purely benevolent in its objects and action, managed by men who have no hope or desire of pecuniary benefit, with matured judgment and an abnegation of self that may well secure for it the utmost confidence—as it most happily has—of the laboring poor and the helpless, for whose benefit it ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... to flight as soon as their object was discovered. No sooner was one overtaken than their Wanyoro escort robbed her of bark, cloth, liquor, beads, spears, and everything on board, the poor owners being utterly helpless. Their Seedees, however, seeing the injustice of this, recovered the stolen property, and restored it ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... coupled to the president's car. He set the switch to the main line as he passed it, but there was no time to uncouple the engine from the private car, even if he had been willing to leave the woman he loved, and those with her, helpless in the midst of ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... populated region of the Hindus, and stopped at the hospital. The party alighted in a large court, surrounded by sheds, in which are a number of bullocks, some of them with their eyes bandaged, others lame, or otherwise in a helpless condition. They were all stretched out on clean straw. Some of the attendants were rubbing them; others were bringing food ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... carry this resolve into effect, he was smitten with a dire disease, and in a few days lay on the damp floor of his poor hut, as weak and helpless as a little child. ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne
... braces us to shudder, and we think that Art is a kind of emotional pill; we measure it quantitatively, and say that we "know what we like." And doubtless there is something piquant in the quivering produced, for example, by the sight of white innocence fluttering helpless in a grey shadow of lust. So long as the Bible remained a god that piquancy was found in a Massacre of the Innocents; in our own time we find it in a Faust and Gretchen, in the Dore Gallery, or in the Royal Academy. ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... feathers. With every limb weakened, and utterly confounded, Garuda was almost deprived of his senses. The winged offspring of Vinata then, thus confounded and almost deprived of his senses, and rendered utterly helpless, bowing unto Vishnu with bent bead, feebly addressed him, saying, "O illustrious Lord, the essence of that strength which sustains the universe dwelleth in this body of thine. What wonder, therefore, that I should be crushed down to the earth ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... lately the reaction has come. He has played with me just as he would sit and pull the legs out of a spider to watch its agony. I have been one of his favourite amusements. And even now, if he came into this room I think that I should be helpless. I should probably fall at his ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... they would now pay for the well-ventilated and well-equipped self-contained houses of the London County Council and building companies which provide accommodation for the industrial classes. Sir Charles saw the abject and helpless condition of the people of London, and resolved, when he succeeded to office, to try and remedy the evils under which they laboured. His enthusiasm in the cause of the poor caught on, and in a short time "slumming" became a fashionable craze. Committees were ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... Cashel. "How long will you stay down if I choose to have you up?" And, suiting the action to the word, he seized Teddy with his left hand, lifted him to his feet, threw him into a helpless position across his knee, and poised his right fist like a hammer over his upturned face. "Now," he said, "you're not down. What have you to say for yourself before I knock your face down ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... through the wide, sunny spaces of His Own Mind; and Bernard Shaw (all civilization trooping by), the eternal boy, on the eternal curbstone of the world, threw stones; and the Bishop of Birmingham preached a fine, helpless sermon.... ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... part of the hurry." They are comparatively few who struggle among these busy waves for a bare subsistence. There are others who are impelled by some of the deepest affections of the human heart, and who toil day after day with noble self-sacrifice for the comfort of dependent parents, and helpless children. While others still run on errands of mercy, and work in the harness of unrelaxing duty. But when we have taken all these influences into the account, and made the most of them, there remains a large quantity of activity which, as we trace it to its spring, we shall ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... soul! I don't know." The big man looked absolutely helpless. "Surely you must know such things yourselves. What do your mothers let you do at home? Oh, well, if you're uncertain, ask Mrs. Berry, she'll know. She's an all-round capable person, and she'll know all the unwritten laws about ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... Occult Initiate observes to what helpless conditions the practice of medicine has fallen, that, he would, if be could with any possibility of success, implore the angelic guardian of the human race to open the spiritual sight of men, that they might see, as he sees, the Divine relationship, and spiritual correspondence, of everything ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... the only legislative body in the world which cannot act when its majority is ready for action. A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great Government of the United States helpless ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... singular thing that Prince Metternich, from the very first, had an instinctive feeling that the unfortunate boy, who seemed the most hopeless and helpless of human creatures, would prove the evil genius of the Austrian power. He therefore set to work to deprive him of his eventual rights. He was confident of success, as fortune had arranged matters in a manner ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... so far. I don't know how long it will last, but I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship. Come home, dear, and I'll find your bootjack. I suppose that's what you are rummaging after among my things. Men are so helpless, Mother," said Amy, with a matronly air, which delighted ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... to pretend ye have not stirred my wrath, I were no honest man. But I will be just even in anger. Come to me with these words when y' are grown and come to man's estate, and I am no longer your guardian, and so helpless to resent them. Come to me then, and I will answer you as ye merit, with a buffet in the mouth. Till then ye have two courses: either swallow me down these insults, keep a silent tongue, and fight in the meanwhile for the man that fed and fought for your infancy; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... passes; so that one hundred and sixty escaped. Campbell having perpetrated this cruel massacre, ordered all the houses to be burned, made a prey of all the cattle and effects that were found in the valley, and left the helpless women and children, whose fathers and husbands he had murdered, naked and forlorn, without covering, food, or shelter, in the midst of the snow that covered the whole face of the country, at the distance of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... ventured to cry shame being himself assaulted for his display of humanity. Several others were similarly ill-treated; and not until the blood spouted out from the bruised and mangled bodies of the prostrate men, did the valiant Englishmen consider they had sufficiently tortured their helpless prisoners. Meanwhile, large reinforcements appeared on the spot; police and military were despatched in eager haste in pursuit of the fugitives; the telegraph was called into requisition, and a description of the liberated Fenians ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... not me with passion's wasting fire; When the swift message set my spirit free, Blind, helpless, lone, I left my gray-haired sire; My friends were many, ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... extorted by false accusation and oppression more than his due. The soldier confessed that his profession had often served as the cloak for terrorizing the poor and vamping up worthless accusations. The notoriously evil liver confessed that he had lain in wait for blood, and destroyed the innocent and helpless for gain or hate. The air was laden with the cries and sighs of the stricken multitudes, who beheld their sin for the first time in the light of eternity and of its inevitable doom. The lurid flames of "the wrath to come" ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... I'm only a helpless woman, and I'm sure I couldn't rise to the occasion. Perhaps I've been too precipitate. I've made you swallow the whole stuffed ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... out, and which had a strange pathos and pitifulness in it. It was a sort of due-bill, promising to pay a small sum for beer, which had been supplied to his Majesty, so soon as God should enable him, or the distracted circumstances of his kingdom make it possible,—or some touching and helpless expression of that kind. Prince Hal seemed to consider it an unworthy matter, that a great prince should think of "that poor creature, small beer," at all; but that a great prince should not be able to pay for ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... eyes can see the page the items that he jotted down in his diary on those last terrible days before he died. Here he is in the midst of the vast solitudes of the arctic wastes, struggling along with his two half-dead companions, his feet frozen, food gone, fuel gone, and a hurricane beating him helpless to the ground. He knows he cannot get through to his goal, he knows there is no living soul within hundreds of miles to bring him succor. On March 19th he speaks of their "forlorn hope"; on the 22nd he confesses that ...
— Heroes in Peace - The 6th William Penn Lecture, May 9, 1920 • John Haynes Holmes
... be presuming upon your kindness too much to ask you to remain with my wife?" he inquired. "I am perfectly helpless, like most men, when any one is ill and we know ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... mine stands; for I do not know what arguments are in reference to any expression of a thought. I delight in telling what I think; but if you ask me how I dare say so, or why it is so, I am the most helpless of mortal men. I do not even see that either of these questions admits of an answer. So that in the present droll posture of my affairs, when I see myself suddenly raised to the importance of a heretic, I am very uneasy when I advert to ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... eminently conspicuous ... namely, an old man leaning upon the arm of a young woman ... illustrative of the bounty and benevolence of the Duchess:—and intended to represent her liberality and kind-heartedness, equally in the protection of the old and feeble, as in that of the orphan and helpless young. The figures are united, as it were, by a youthful female, with a wreath of flowers; with which, indeed the ground is somewhat profusely strewn: so as, to an eye uninitiated in ancient costume, to give the subject rather ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... speaking of paganism reminds us, "Who of us can appreciate antique paganism? The Gods of Greece or Rome are for us hardly more than the mutilated statues of them in our own museums; pitiable, helpless objects before the scrutiny and comments of a passing crowd. Venus is an armless figure from the Louvre; Dionysos does not mean to us divine possession, the gift of tongues, or immortality; Attis brings no salvation. But to antiquity the 'pagan' cults were no mockery. They were as ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... whom the courts of Europe were known, and one of the most elegant young men in Paris, could not seem, what perhaps he was, an ordinary man, without moral force, timid, though brave in some ways, energetic perhaps in adversity, but helpless against the vexations and annoyances that hinder happiness. Would she, in after years, have sufficient tact and insight to distinguish Paul's noble qualities in the midst of his minor defects? Would she not magnify the latter and forget the former, after the manner of young wives who know nothing ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... helplessness and uselessness, a fear of becoming a burden when there was so much to bear already. And, worse than even this, there was the knowledge that there lay no bright future before him, as there might lie before the rest. He must always be a helpless cripple. He could have no hope beyond the weary round of suffering which fell to his lot day by day. What the others did with a will, with a sense of power and pleasure, was a weariness to him. There were times when he wished that death might come and end ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... you have lived with for the last two years, in whose proceedings you have borne a part, brought suddenly before you in such a state: a man in these situations thinks more in two hours than he does in the whole course of his natural life under ordinary circumstances. It proves what helpless beings we are; how little we can control our own actions: truly, "in the midst of life ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... be supported by the charity of the publick. The manufacturer, who by the use of spirituous liquors weakens his limbs or destroys his health, at once, takes from the community to which he belongs, a member by which the common stock was increased, and by leaving a helpless family behind him, increases the burden which the common stock must necessarily support. And the trader or husbandman is obliged to pay more towards the maintenance of the poor, by the same accident which diminishes his trade or his harvest, which takes away part of the assistance ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... stilled the storm in Galilee, Pity the homeless now, and the travelers by sea; Pity the little birds that have no nest, that are forlorn; Pity the butterfly, pity the honey bee; Pity the roses that are so helpless, and the unsheltered corn, And ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... his to Egypt. By what blandishments the transport officer had been induced to drag the thing out into the desert beyond the canal no one knew. Haddingly was one of those uncomplainingly meek men who never stand up for themselves. It is a curious fact, but it is a fact, that a really helpless person gets things done for him which the most aggressive and masterful men cannot accomplish. The success in life of women of the "clinging" kind is ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... property he coveted. By a treacherous scheme, he got possession of the town of Gabii. He waged war against the Volscians, a powerful people on the south of Latium. He adorned Rome with many buildings, and lived in pomp and extravagance, while the people were impoverished and helpless. The inspired Sibyl of Cumae offered him, through a messenger, nine books of prophecies. The price required excited his scorn, whereupon the woman who brought them destroyed three. She came back with the remaining six, which she offered at the same ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... you here," she continued, her full voice gathering passion, "because you are helpless and an outcast. And because I had taken you before, ignorantly, I feel bound to defend you as you never defended me. But I am not bound to do more, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... looked uncouth to her after that. It was this same old lady who told the writer that Lawyer Lincoln wore a new suit of clothes for the first time on the very day that he performed the oft-described feat of rescuing a helpless hog from a great deep hole in the road, and plastered his new clothes with mud to the great merriment of his legal friends. This well-known incident occurred not far from her ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... acute sufferers for the good of many. The question always is, has everything been done to make the sufferings of these exceptions as small as possible? Or, in the triumph of the crowded procession, have the helpless been trampled on, instead of being gently lifted aside out of the roadway of the conqueror, whom they have no power to accompany on ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... rigid, with such a look of helpless woe about the lines of his mouth that it touched Gilbert more deeply than the fiercest expression of anger could have done. Harry's misery seemed complete when he looked at his father's face in the dim light of the study lamp, and falling on his ...
— Hayslope Grange - A Tale of the Civil War • Emma Leslie
... any preference is given it is to the non-union man. While this may be true, it would seem, on the other hand, that an unmodified closed shop, with the conditions of membership in the control of the union, creates a distinct monopoly of labor leaving the employer helpless in any wage dispute and enabling the union to enforce its every demand regardless of the competitive conditions of the labor-market for that class ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... baby-faced, flirting Dona Rosita, crushed him by its unconscious but degrading obliteration of Joan and himself more than the most violent denunciation. Dazed and bewildered, yet with the instinct of a helpless man, he clung only to that part of Blandford's story which indicated that he had come there for Rosita, and not to separate him from Joan, and even turned to his former friend with a half-embarrassed gesture of ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... Aunties. She was a brute to hurt them. She still thought of them as Auntie Louie, Auntie Emmy, Auntie Edie. It seemed kinder; for thus she bestowed upon them a colour and vitality that, but for her and for her children, they would not have had. They were helpless, tiresome, utterly inefficient. In all their lives they had never done anything vigorous or memorable. They were doomed to go out before her children; when they were gone they would be gone altogether. Neither Auntie ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... disagreeable woman, upon whom the tenderness of Pope's heart in the desolation of his latter days was cast away, not knowing whither to turn, as he drew towards his premature old age, childless and lonely,—like the needle which, approaching within a certain distance of the pole, becomes helpless and useless, and ceasing to tremble, rusts. She seems to have been so totally unworthy of tenderness, that it is an additional proof of the kindness of Pope's heart to have been able to love such a being. But we must love ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... decoctions of any herb that was particularly nauseous were swallowed in the simple faith that virtue resided in them in proportion to their revolting taste, the gold-thread's bitter roots furnished a tea much valued as a spring tonic and as a cure for ulcerated throats and canker-sore mouths of helpless children. ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... The lad lifted his helpless left arm across his lap. "Oh I'm fine, thank you kindly, Doctor. Mother's fine too, and my garden's doing pretty good for me." He glanced about. "The early things are all gone, of course, but the others are doing well. Oh, we'll get along; I told ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... didn't they?" muttered the judge, looking at her over his spectacles. Such a helpless look met his—the look of hopeless innocence trying to deceive and knowing that it was not succeeding—that a sudden dimness came into his own eyes, and he was fain to take off his spectacles and wipe them, just as if he had been looking ...
— "Some Say" - Neighbours in Cyrus • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... flamed with anger. "Indeed!" he said. "What on earth shall I do, when she begins to whine and cry for you? Small children always do, and then I'll be helpless." ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri
... you prisoner, my man,' he said. 'In the first place, I don't wish to be troubled with looking after you; and in the second, you cannot be considered as a prisoner of war, for you were unarmed and helpless when we found you. Now, we are going to march all night. I am not going to tell where we are going; but I think it likely that we shall pass within sight of your camp-fires, and in that case I will leave you ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... she agreed to him with cordial expectation. He was gentle and had a smooth, still voice. His clothes smelled of Russia leather and lead pencils and at first of very nice smoke: not as if he had sat in a tight room all day and got cured in the smoke of other rank pipes like a helpless ham, but as if a pleasant acrid perfume ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... boy, as he saw that his uncle was at a loss to defend the policy of his government. "We have had regular foot races with them, and burned the huts of the helpless, and taken villages, and then didn't have troops to hold them, and when we went out of a village on one street, the niggers came in on another, and shot into our pants. We swim rivers and take towns with as brave work as ever was done, and become so exhausted we have to lay down in the mud and ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... peering around him in the darkness, saw something white. Taking it for the storks, he aimed at the spot with his gun, and did not miss his shot, for it pierced through the ribs of the elder of the two girls. The younger, helpless in her grief, bent over her sister's body. The father, not dreaming of what he was about, and astonished to find that his having shot one of the storks did not make the other fly away, discharged another shot at the remaining white figure. Lamentable to relate, he hit his second ...
— Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories • Mrs. M. Chaplin Ayrton
... here and there and now and then? We must concede it. Does it compensate for this? I am persuaded that it can make a plausible showing in that direction. For instance: when it lays its hand upon a soldier who has suffered thirty years of helpless torture and makes him whole in body and mind, what is the actual sum of that achievement? This, I think: that it has restored to life a subject who had essentially died ten deaths a year for thirty years, and each of them a long and painful one. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... he was saying. "... Lost! Every plane down and destroyed.... Blake is living but injured...." And then Blake remembered. And the tumbling, helpless planes came again before his eyes while he cursed silently at this freezing grip that would not let him cover his face with his hands to shut ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... hospitality. For his father, Benedetto, by adopting the cause of Piero de' Medici in Montepulciano, had exposed himself to bitter feuds and hatred of his fellow-citizens. To this animosity of party warfare he fell a victim a few years previously. We only know that he was murdered, and that he left a helpless widow with five children, of whom Angelo was the eldest. The Ambrogini or Cini were a family of some importance in Montepulciano; and their dwelling-house is a palace of considerable size. From its eastern windows ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... up a sure means of subsistence in her native land (she supported herself by cleaning lace and ladies' apparel), and had devoted her little savings to pay the expenses of her voyage, and all to find herself deserted and helpless ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... sick, some time in the night. I was in the bunk in the pantry; but far too helpless in my misery to rise, or to take an account of time. I lay half-conscious till the morning, when I fell into a deep sleep, which lasted, I may say, till the evening; for I did not feel sufficiently awake to get up until about half-past five. When I did get up, I felt so tottery ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... passed since the episode beside the stockade, and Bois DesCaut had said no word, of his property. In fact, the great dog was seemingly scarce worth a thought, much less a word. Helpless, bruised from tip to tip, one side flat under its broken ribs, he lay sullenly in the shade; of the cabin where McElroy had put him down, covered at night from the cool air by Francette's' own blanket of the gorgeous stripes, fed by her small ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... Was there no hope for her child? Must she stand helpless and see her drown? No, no, there must be some way of saving her. She would ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... still sat unmoved and helpless, so we waited. Presently she remarked that the influence wanted her to do something, she knew not what, only that she had to get up and go across the room, which she did with the feeble step of an old man. She crossed the room and took down ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... mind was not to do good: but persecuted the poor helpless man, that he might slay him that was ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... water to which little Jane had given celebrity over the county. The girl stood up to her shoulders when she slid off the bank and made the line for her brother to hold, he in the water as well. Altogether, Cuper's boys were justified in promoting a subscription, the mother being helpless. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the weapon before he used it. He had been reading the slow, cold thing for years,—had not got into its secret yet. But there was power there, and it was the power he wanted. Her history was simple enough: she was going into the mill to support a helpless father and mother; it was a common story; she had given up much for them;—other women did the same. He gave her scanty praise. Two years ago (he had keen, watchful eyes, this man) he had fancied that the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... rustling accompaniment to the music, which, when mixed with the moonlight on the river and the pretty girl by one's side, is calculated to make a romantic cocktail, sufficiently intoxicating to make any poor lonely Elk absolutely helpless. ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... sense that its sin is not mortal. It comes only after sin has been felt as a burden. Conscious of wrong-doing, man feels helpless and even accursed,—imagines or credits stories of a fall, of measureless guilt, and an endless hell. What gives poignancy to these ideas is the real sense of wrong-doing, which projects a monstrous ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... at Weimar, protested against a breach of the public peace, as tending to bring disgrace upon the gospel; and the Elector, in consequence, kept aloof from the enterprise. Philip, however, persisted, and carried it through with rapidity and success. Ferdinand, being helpless in the absence of the Emperor, consented, in the treaty of Cadan, to the restoration of Ulrich, who immediately set about a reformation of the Church in Wurtemberg. Luther recognised in this result the evident hand of God, in that, contrary to ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... many hands before it reaches the post. If, however, it ever does get despatched and you receive it, will you do me one last favor—a favor to an unfortunate girl who is friendless and helpless, and who will no longer trouble the world? It is this: Take this letter to London, and call upon Mr. Martin Woodroffe at 98 Cork Street, Piccadilly. Show him my letter, and tell him from me that through it all I have kept my promise, ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... said to me, 'Get up, go to them, and make them come to your place, and suffer not that Satan come near them, and afflict them. For they are now in great misery; and lie helpless from hunger.' ...
— First Book of Adam and Eve • Rutherford Platt
... insufficient. By way of testing it, he caught one fellow who lay across his path a violent kick in the side. The man grunted in his sleep, and stirred slightly, to relapse almost at once into his helpless attitude, and to resume his regular breathing, which the blow ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... the bright green turf toward the source of all this enchantment, leaving poor Mr. Hobbs braced against the wall, weak-kneed and helpless. If he heard the frantic, though subdued, whistles and the agonized "hi!" of the man from Cook's a minute or two later, he gave no heed to the warning. A glimpse behind might have shown him the error of his ways, reflected in the disappearance of Hobbs's head below the top of the wall. ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... a physiological study of woman's structure); and also, to deal with the highly probable, though unproved and perhaps unprovable, suggestion, that it was largely the necessity which woman was under of bearing her helpless young in her arms while procuring food for them and herself, and of carrying them when escaping from enemies, that led to the entirely erect position being forced ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... the Upper Gambia the disappearance of man is ever followed by a springing of bush and forest so portentous that a few hands are helpless and hopeless. Such is the case with the great wooded belt north of the Gold Coast, where even the second-growth becomes impenetrable without the matchet, and where the swamps and muds, bred and fed by torrential rains, bar the transit of travellers. The Whydah and Gaboon countries ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... house softly. By the light of the guttering candle and dying fire he saw that the door of the little room was open. He stepped toward it on tiptoe and looked in. The Old Man had fallen back in his chair, snoring, his helpless feet thrust out in a line with his collapsed shoulders, and his hat pulled over his eyes. Beside him, on a narrow wooden bedstead, lay Johnny, muffled tightly in a blanket that hid all save a strip of forehead and ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... may reap the Delight, and Posterity the Benefit of them. But whilst we are building this beautiful Edifice, let not the old Ruins remain in View to sully the Prospect: Whilst we are cultivating and improving this young hopeful Offspring, let not the ancient and helpless Creatures be shamefully neglected. The Crowds of Poor, or pretended Poor, in every Place, are a great Reproach to us, and eclipse the Glory of all other Charity. It is the utmost Reproach to Society, that there should be a poor Man unrelieved, or ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... reading in the dark eyes, beneath the felicity of the present, a hint and prophecy of woe, felt for her a pity so real and great that for the moment his heart ached as for some sorrow of his own. She was only a young girl, poor and helpless, born of poor and helpless parents dead long ago. There was in her veins no gentle blood; she had none of the world's goods; her gown was torn, her feet went bare. She had youth, but not its heritage of gladness: beauty, but none ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... swift and savage that Mr. Parmalee lay perfectly stunned and helpless, turning unpleasantly black in the face, his eyes ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... some swore "I'll be d—— d if he does not find his way home, if he gets anything with him"; and when the carpenter's chest was carrying away, "D—— n my eyes, he will have a vessel built in a month"; while others laughed at the helpless situation of the boat, being very deep, and so little room for those who were in her. As for Christian, he seemed as if meditating destruction on himself and every ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... absolute impunity. The state of the public mind became for a while apathetic. After numberless attempts to obtain justice, the public fell back with a shrug of the shoulders. The men of better feeling found themselves helpless. As each man's safety and ability to resent insult depended on his trigger finger, the newspapers of that time made interesting but scurrilous and scandalous reading. An appetite for personalities developed, and these derogatory ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... with a thousand voices, no one of which was unfamiliar to these ghosts in her mind. She had heard the expression "hell let loose" variously applied. Were those the souls of old and wicked mates tossed into the wild playground of the storm, helpless and furious shuttle-cocks, yelling their protests with furious energy? The idea that she too might have been wicked once thrilled Magdalena unexpectedly: she had had a few sudden brief lapses into primal impulse, accompanied ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... moment; he had drunk a third and a fourth glass, and there was nothing but a mere drain left in the bottle. Already his utterance was thick and incoherent, and his eyes were fast assuming that glassy brightness that is usually the forerunner of helpless intoxication. It was a sight Ephraim could not bear to see. Impelled by that natural, almost holy shame which prompted the son of Noah to cover the nakedness of his father, he motioned to his sister to leave. Then HE, too, softly walked out ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... and their answer was enough. I sat there helpless and still, the nervous tight clutching of her hands pinning my arms ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... bind me," said he, good-humouredly, to the guards. But they looked at one another in helpless inquiry who should undertake to manacle this large, strong man. When at length two had volunteered to essay the task, it appeared that there was no rope in readiness. "Go and get one," commanded the prisoner; ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... bunkum it is. Life's only got one meanin', doctor; seen plain, there's only one object in everything we do; and that's to keep a sound roof over our heads and a bite in our mouths—and in those of the helpless creatures who depend on us. The rest has no more sense or significance than a nigger's hammerin' on the tam-tam. The lucky one o' this world don't grasp it; but we others do; and after all p'raps, it's worth ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... wide archways giving on the untidy courts within, full of sun and shadow and gay with bright-coloured garments swaying in the wind! The ebon-haired young mother with teeth like pearls and with warm-tinted cheeks sits fondling the last helpless little addition to her growing family, whilst toddlers of any age from two to seven, unkempt but bright-eyed and engaging, play around the door-step, watched over by their grandmother, or may be ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... fastened to the spot, and he powerless. It was as though death, from staring him in the face, had suddenly gripped him hard. The panorama of his past life flashed through his mind. The thoughts of the drowning man, of the miner who hears the rumble of crumbling earth, of the prisoner helpless and hopeless who feels the first touch of flame,—common thought of all these were his; and in a space of time which, though seeming to him endless, was in reality ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... have been innocent." That it was his decree alone "that made all Adam's posterity sinners is the very essence of this doctrine." "And so Christians are guilty of holding what even heathen would blush at." That God "should pronounce a sentence by which myriads of infants, as blameless as helpless, were consigned over to blackness of darkness to be tormented with fire and brimstone forever, is not consistent with infinite goodness." "How dreadfully is God dishonored by such monstrous representations ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... written upon everything. The weathercocks on spires and housetops were mysterious with hints of stormy wind, and pointed, like so many ghostly fingers, out to dangerous seas, where fragments of great wrecks were drifting, perhaps, and helpless men were rocked upon them into a sleep as deep as the unfathomable waters. When Florence came into the City, and passed gentlemen who were talking together, she dreaded to hear them speaking of the ship, an'd saying it was lost. Pictures and prints of vessels fighting with the ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... a pedestal and I find you have feet of clay. You have blurred the image which I formed of you. I can never think of you again without picturing you as you stood in that saloon, stammering and helpless...." ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... "But this is all the wildest—" he made a helpless motion. "You oughtn't to think about it, sir, or you'll be going overboard, too. Reshipped!... This heat will get anybody in time.... The man who wrote that went and jumped overboard the next minute no doubt. Reshipped..... It ain't good for us to ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... nodded grimly, laying his withered hand on the shoulder of the miserable Toad. The rusty key creaked in the lock, the great door clanged behind them; and Toad was a helpless prisoner in the remotest dungeon of the best-guarded keep of the stoutest castle in all the length and breadth of ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... compelled the old woman and her daughter to use expressions which put their lives in the power of these malignant children, who had carried on the farce so long that they could not well escape from their own web of deceit but by the death of these helpless creatures. For example, the prisoner, Dame Samuel, was induced to say to the supposed spirit, "As I am a witch, and a causer of Lady Cromwell's death, I charge thee to come out of the maiden." The girl lay still; and this was accounted ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... to time he turned to the motionless recumbent shadow on the bed and listened to its slow and peaceful respiration. Apart from that undefinable attraction which all original natures have for each other, the thrice-blessed mystery of protection of the helpless, for the first time in his life, seemed to dawn upon ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... from ME. The only excuse you could have for this act of lawlessness would be orders from ME. And all that you have done this morning is only the assertion of MY legal right to this house. If I disavow your act, as I might, I leave you as helpless as any tramp that was ever kicked from a doorstep,—as any burglar that was ever collared on ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... to them because, though weaker, they refuse to pay them proper court, till at length they are persuaded to accept slavery rather than war against their betters. And in private life also, you will bear me out, the brave and powerful are known to reduce the helpless and cowardly to bondage, and to make no small profit out of ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... He moved with infinite care; but even so the strain upon the foot was inevitable. Jeanie gave a sharp cry, and sank helpless in ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... conditions no work can be done without money; and so we have the spectacle of a great army of people compelled to stand idle and starve by the side of the raw materials from which their labour could produce abundance of all the things they need—they are rendered helpless by the power of Money! Those who possess all the money say that the necessaries of life shall not be produced except ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... anything if he tried to move away." I added, "Of course in such extreme cases I try to find some way of keeping people from death, and usually send them to the rear in our empty wagon trains going back for supplies, but their helpless condition is ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... last, half dead from a burning thirst, seeking vainly for a water-hole, the vast stretch of sandy, sagebrush-studded wastes shimmered into a gorgeous ocean of sparkling blue waters. Then, as he collapsed on the scorching-hot sand, helpless, the cool water so near, ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... dark, and felt wet beads start from every pore in my body. Both of us were panting like fagged racers. One of us was fighting blindly, raining down aimless blows, I know not which, but I think it must have been Hamilton, for he presently sank in my arms, limp and helpless ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... hurried to the gates through which the weeping crowds were bearing, each one, what he valued most on earth. There were women, scarcely able to totter, whose dearest burdens were their own helpless children; there were men carrying sickly wives or decrepit mothers; there were others so loaded down with the few worldly goods that the odious Frenchman had left them, that their backs were almost bent in two, and they were scarcely able to drag themselves along! The nearer ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... Mademoiselle Stangerson was herself helpless in the hands of such a villain. She had tried to kill him when he had first threatened and then attacked her in The Yellow Room. She had, unfortunately, failed, and felt herself condemned to be for ever at the mercy of this unscrupulous wretch who was continually demanding her ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... Spaniards the day before, struck the shield of the Spaniard with such force as to cut it in two, at the same time severely wounding his arm. The blow was so violent and the wound so severe, that the soldier was rendered helpless. The savage then rushed upon another of the foot soldiers, and in the same ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... logs heaping above us; I felt the water washing over me; but I could see nothing. I knew the raft had doubled; it would fall and grind our bones: but I made no effort to save myself. And thinking how helpless I felt is the last I remember of the great windfall of June 3, 1810, the path of which may be seen now, fifty years after that memorable day, and I suppose it will be visible long after my bones have crumbled. I ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... come. The baby—Josiah's pet, the one bright thing in his life—had fallen into the copper and been boiled. Hannah's mother had been crushed in the mangle, and was now a helpless cripple, who had to be waited on day ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... boats were unknown, the concourse was like to break up with nothing accomplished when a daughter of the tribe arose and suggested breaking down the barrier which held back the water, thus putting the enemy on dry land, where he would be helpless. The plan was approved, and soon all were at work at the narrowest spot with trees torn from the hill sides and such rough tools as they could command, and now a small stream begins to work through which, ...
— The New York and Albany Post Road • Charles Gilbert Hine
... left in his agony to perish. No one knew what his fault had been; his master had simply taken a dislike to him. A guard was set that no one should relieve the miserable being. Felix's horror and indignation could not have been expressed, but he was totally helpless. ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... not hear the names of the stations. He only heard those guttural and inarticulate sounds which railway officials roar out upon the darkness of the night, to the bewilderment of helpless travellers. His inability to distinguish the names of the stations annoyed him. The delay attendant upon every fresh stoppage worried him, as if the pause had been the weary interval of an hour. He sat with his watch in his hand; for every now and then he was seized with a sudden ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... of uneasiness along the line, an ominous thing. And then the savage hosts broke from their cover, more than a thousand men, ready to take some loss in their hope that the whites were now more helpless. In other circumstances it must have been a stirring spectacle for any who had seen it. To these, cowering in the sand, ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... The troopers, helpless, gnashing their teeth, shook their long lances towards the sky, where the moon was breaking from the banked clouds, and the looming balloon hung black above the forest, drifting ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... apartment. Most of the comforts necessary in such an illness were wanting; and those around him, either unprepared for the danger, were, like Bruno, when it came, bewildered by it; or, like the kind-hearted Fletcher and Count Gamba, were by their feelings rendered no less helpless. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... solitary and helpless without Lizzie now, than I used to feel before I knew her.' (Tears were in her eyes as she ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... lifeless but beautiful eyes, the low, prominent brow, the aquiline nose, the livid pallor of the smooth skin, a certain tragic line near the delicate lips, and in the slightly sunken cheeks, something abrupt, and at the same time helpless in the movements, elegance without gracefulness... in Italy all this would not have struck me as exceptional, but in Moscow, near the Pretchistensky boulevard, it simply astonished me! I got up from my seat on her entrance; she flung me a swift, uneasy glance, ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... soft, lute-like strains of slender music. And when he has stung, angered, revolted my heart the most, suddenly he subsides into such pathetic gentleness, such tearful remorse, that I feel as if resentment to one so helpless, desertion of one who must fall without the support of a friendly hand, were a selfish cruelty. It seems to me as if I were dragged towards a precipice by a sickly ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the mournful trio were sitting together in a saloon, that opened with glass doors upon the lawn, bewailing the loss of their parents, and their own helpless state, there suddenly appeared before them a lady, whose countenance was fair and captivating; her figure graceful, and her dress light and flowing. They involuntarily rose at her entrance, though astonishment kept them silent. She approached them with a gracious ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown
... civilization. But these are points of light amidst the feudal darkness of the rural districts. In France, for example, the peasantry are cattle; in time of peace crushed with forced labour, feudal burdens, and imposts of all kinds; in time of war driven, in unwilling masses, half-armed and helpless, to the shambles. Aristocratic luxury, gambling, profligate wars—Jacques Bonhomme pays for them all. At Crecy and Poictiers, the lords are taken prisoners; have to provide heavy ransoms, which, being debts of honour, like gambling debts, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... I dare say!" After a pause: "Well, I am a poor, weak, helpless man, with no one to advise me or counsel me, and I have been cruelly deceived. How could you, Lucy, how could you? I can never get over this." He drops his ...
— The Parlor-Car • William D. Howells
... the stirring acts of heroism described above, are significant of greater things—self-sacrificing generosity, unswerving loyalty, and a compassionate desire to atone, in some practical and helpful way, for their share in the disaster brought on innocent and helpless womanhood. ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... same, not forgetting anchorites and vermin, he! he! The pope they found under the title of the grand lama, a sucking child surrounded by an immense number of priests. Our good brethren, some two hundred years ago, had a hearty laugh, which their successors have often re-echoed; they said that helpless suckling and its priests put them so much in mind of their own old man, surrounded by his cardinals, he! he! ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... disappear in the sand as if by magic. Small fish and crabs hide from you as best they can. Helpless jelly-fish and starfish sprawl on the wet sand. What are those thin ropes of sand coiled up into little mounds? They remind us of "worm-casts." They are thrown up by a sand-worm, called "lug-worm" by the fisherman. He brings a spade and ...
— On the Seashore • R. Cadwallader Smith
... played, and so they knew that he had not abandoned it. They did not know whether he had carried out his threat of overhauling it; and Maxwell chose to remain in ignorance of the fact till Godolphin himself should speak again. Unless he demanded the play back he was really helpless, and he was not ready to do that, for he hoped that when the actor brought it on to New York he could talk with him about it, and come to some understanding. He had not his wife's belief in the perfection of ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... dead faces, he was taken by surprise, and touched far beyond what he had reckoned on, by the piteous change there; even the skill of Galen having been not wholly successful in the process of embalming. It was as if a brother of his own were lying low before him, with that meek and helpless expression it would have been ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... a sharp report, and Lucian Davlin reeled for a moment, his right arm hanging helpless and bleeding. Only for a moment, for as the girl sprang past him, he wheeled about, seized her with his strong left arm, and holding her close to him in a vice-like clutch, hissed, while the ghastly paleness caused by the ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... his fat shoulders in helpless bad temper. I was laughing so much (at what, at what?) that I could hardly do my part in hustling him along. Wetter set a hot pace, and Struboff ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... looked at each other and shook their heads. She might have to wait longer than for the morning paper to have news of Mary Rose. They felt so helpless. They had followed every clew, they had the assistance of the entire police force, but they had discovered nothing. They knew no more about Mary Rose than they knew when they had first discovered that ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... itself, filled with alarming rumors as to the fact that slave-catchers, kidnappers, and Negro stealers were lying hidden and skulking about, awaiting some opportunity to get their bloody hands on some helpless creature, to drag him back,—or for the first time,—into ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... I did rejoice, But now I am a stone that falls and falls. A prisoner, cursing the blank prison walls, Helpless and dumb, with desperate eyes, that see The terrible beauty of those simple things My soul disdained when she was proud and free. And I can only pray: God pity me, God pity me and give me back my voice! God pity me and ...
— The Inn of Dreams • Olive Custance
... so long as Mahadeo remained present, Nandi dragged the plough peaceably and successfully. But as soon as the god disappeared, the bull became restive and refused to work any longer. The Kunbi being helpless, again complained to Mahadeo, when the god appeared, and in his wrath at the conduct of the bull, great drops of perspiration stood upon his brow. One of these fell to the ground, and immediately a coal-black man sprang up and stood ready to do Mahadeo's bidding. He was ordered to bring the bull ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... beyond its normal duration—by a process which I might call ductile equation. This chemical resource is common to all the hornets, whether their victims be grasshoppers, spiders, cicadae, or caterpillars. In a condition of helpless stupor they are lugged off to the respective dens provided for them, and then, hermetically sealed on storage, are preserved as fresh living food for the young hornet larva, which is left in charge of them, and has a place waiting for them all. The developments within my brush-handles ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... tables upon him so completely that he cursed himself in his chagrin. Here he was, headed for Dr. Hartmann's house, on the outskirts of the town. Once there, the latter's attendants could easily overpower him and carry him into the place helpless. There seemed no possible means of escape. He determined to brazen the matter out, and meet Hartmann on his own ground. Resistance would at this juncture be useless. He congratulated himself that Grace had, by her ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... since he went out of the house! The possibility was so agonizing that she rose blindly from her chair and turned from the window as if the quiet street, filled with the dreamy sunshine of October, had offered an appalling, an unbelievable sight to her eyes. If he had ceased to love her, she was helpless; and this sense of helplessness awoke a feeling of rage in her heart. If he did not come back, she could never go after him. She could only sit and wait until she grew as old and as ugly as Miss Amelia. While the minutes, which seemed hours, dragged away, she wept the ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... am. But the word of God is a strong tower against the assaults of the devil; here the righteous find a refuge and a hiding-place.—What a poor unprofitable creature I am! Lord, I cast myself upon Thee. Save a helpless soul, that feels no merit but in Jesu's ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... obviously unfair question. He was helpless. The vise squeezed his shoulder cruelly, and only pride prevented him exclaiming in pain. Squirming increased the pressure. His captor half led, half dragged him up to the bar, and there released him. Martin grunted with relief ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... about the future. The worst feature of sending them out was the personal affection which their lessons in contentment had kindled in us. How could this helpless family ever hope to keep the wolf from the door. A council of war was called the same evening, and some neighbours who well knew the dilemma in which we found ourselves asked to be allowed to attend. There was an old shack in the compound in which some ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... most important stand of the tour. In those days the printers who supplied the traveling companies with advertising matter were powers to be reckoned with. When the supply of printing was cut off the company was helpless. ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... state of Poland, where the helpless Michael Coribut Wiecnowicki bore but the empty title of king, precluded the possibility of even an attempt at resistance, and the grand marshal of the kingdom, the heroic John Sobieski, who, with only 6000 men, had held his ground against the Cossacks, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... haunches, with tongue hanging out, to see what his master would do. The dauntless gander bit furiously, and pounded with his one undamaged wing, and earned his adversary's unstinted commendation: but in a minute or two he found himself helpless, swathed like a cocoon in a stout, woollen hunting-coat, and his head ignominiously bagged in one of the sleeves. In this fashion, his heart bursting with fear and wrath, his broken wing one hot throb of ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... his affiliation with the Covenanters, and were quickly on his path; his life was ever in danger. One day they fired on him, but he escaped and reached his mossy den, carrying a bullet wound received from their fire. There he lay several days, suffering, bleeding, hungry, lonely, and helpless, yet full of peace and joy in the Lord. Often did he think of his father's house, and his mother's love; of the gentle hands that had in other days smoothed his bed and made his bread; yet his heart bloomed with thoughts of the love of Jesus Christ and His sweet promises. His religion had ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... and were going home to lunch, when they heard the clatter of the runaway far down the street. The Major could not see who was in the carriage, only that it appeared to be a child. He was too old a man, and with his one arm too helpless to attempt to stop it, but he remembered that Hero had once shared the training of some collies for police service, before it had been decided to use him as an ambulance dog. They were taught to spring at ...
— The Story of the Red Cross as told to The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... hand each to steady the other, and gone on together. It was then that Dorcas's mother had had her first paralytic stroke, and Dorcas had given up the district school to be at home. But she was poor, and when it became apparent that her mother might live in helpless misery, it was also evident that Dorcas must have something to do. At that time Newell, under the first cloud of disappointed love, had launched into market-gardening, and he gave Dorcas little tasks, here and there, picking fruit and vegetables, even weeding and hoeing, because that would ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... of the thigh bone (between the hip and knee), there is often great swelling about the break. The limb is helpless and useless. There is intense pain and abnormal position in the injured part, besides deformity produced by the swelling. The foot of the injured limb is turned over to one side or the other, owing to a rolling over of the portion of the ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... we had to dig out the sledges and ponies, and to move them all round to the other side of the walls which we had partly to rebuild. "Oh for the simple man-hauling life!" was our thought, and "poor helpless beasts—this is no country for live stock." By this time we could not see the neighbouring tents for the drift. The situation was not improved by the fact that our tent doors, the tents having been pitched for the strong ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... ever be able to express my admiration to others in motley imagery or quaint allusion, till the light of his genius shone into my soul, like the sun's rays glittering in the puddles of the road. I was at that time dumb, inarticulate, helpless, like a worm by the way-side, crushed, bleeding, lifeless; but now, bursting the deadly bands that ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... her battle with the world. Poor Emily A feeble, overgrown child, needing fresh air, which she could not get, needing food of a better kind, just as unattainable. Large-eyed, thin-checked Emily; she, too, already in the clutch of the great brute world, the helpless victim of a civilisation which makes its food of those the heart most pities. How well if her last sigh had been drawn in infancy, if she had lain with the little brother and sister in that gaunt, grimy cemetery, under the ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... which the lord is helpless fall'n, alas! Out of his angle into the darkest house; O Mars, O Atyzar, as in this case; O feeble Moon, unhappy is thy pace.* *progress Thou knittest thee where thou art not receiv'd, Where thou wert well, from thennes art ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... was lost in securing the two men who bad been so effectively rendered helpless by Koku's ready, if rough, measures. One of them was showing signs of returning consciousness now, and Tom, not willing to inflict needless pain, even on an enemy, told one of his men, summoned by the alarm, to bring water. Soon the two men opened their eyes, ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... rescue of women and children. Some of the girls, poor things, may be like Manu—that is—. Now, although I hate war, and do not approve of settling disputes by the sword, I feel that self-defence, or the defence of the helpless, justifies war,—ay, to the knife. Of course it does. Was I not thoroughly justified in fighting the robbers when Manu—. Well, then, let me think it out. A thing is not properly thought at all until it is thought out, ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... would shake off their obligations almost as soon as they found they were becoming heavy. Both men and women would pass from one temporary union to another, mutilating their better natures in the process. Thousands of women would be left in helpless loneliness. Tens of thousands of children would go uncared for and neglected. The picture becomes more horrible the more carefully you look into its details. And as you look you begin to see the real value of our ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... bitter and unavailing. 2. The anger of the righteous is weighty. 3. The air seemed deep and dark. 4. She had grown tall and queenly. 5. The peacemakers are blessed. 6. I came into the world helpless. 7. The untrodden snow lay bloodless. 8. The fall of that house was great. 9. The uproar became intolerable. ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... falls upon his neck. OSORIO leaps out from the nook with frantic wildness, and rushes towards ALBERT with his sword. MARIA gapes at him, as one helpless with terror, then leaves ALBERT, and flings herself upon OSORIO, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... an old and helpless man," I returned, bearing his searching glance without flinching, although I had an inward feeling that told me that we were standing in a suspicious attitude, and that one false move would wreck ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... her voice seemed to be taken at once as its prey by the silence. Even her thought seemed to be seized by it, and to be conveyed away from her like a living thing whose destiny it was to be slain. She felt paltry, helpless, unmeaning, in the midst of this arid breast of Nature, which was pale as the leper is pale. She felt chilled, even almost sexless, as if all her powers, all her passions and her desires, had been grasped by the silence, as if they were soon to be taken for ever from her. Never before had anything ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... not see her face, and by the time she jumped up and he did see it, there was nothing in it to betray the truth or the fact that she was acting a lie. First she began to dress Peter for the trail. Every instant gave her more courage. This helpless, sunken-cheeked man with the hair graying over his temples was Peter, her Peter, the Peter who had watched over her, and sheltered her, and fought for her ever since she had known him, and now had ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... said reflectively, and now looked with some pity at the helpless man. "Alcohol never did exhilarate Hopewell. It just dopes him. It does some folks. And it doesn't take much ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... speak, be pleased to take A helpless child beneath thy care, And condescend, for Jesus' sake, To listen ...
— Frank and Fanny • Mrs. Clara Moreton
... the millionaires of the last decade. Well, with changing times, changing methods of finance, he lost his grip, and about five years ago he died, heavily involved, leaving a widow and one young daughter, Marcia. Mrs. Oldham had been a Southern woman of the old regime, and was a pretty, absolutely helpless creature, and Marcia was ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... hand over his eyes. He stared about him with a touch of helpless bewilderment, but he could do nothing, even if there had been anything to do; it was she who had insisted that they should ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... every one did, that there was something very pathetic about the unfortunate man's position, so helpless to defend himself, if defence there was, against so much overwhelming evidence. That is why I think public sympathy remained with him. Still, it was terrible to think of his wife presumably knowing him to be guilty, and anxiously waiting whilst dreading ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... heart," said the father. "To think of her worse than motherless! That little bit of a helpless thing! And it's my fault that she's here ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... in Cornwall last year, and my brother was nearly carried out to sea by one. He declared it must have been the Gulf Stream; it was so tremendously strong, it whirled him along, and he felt quite helpless. All he could do was to float and to call, hoping somebody might hear him. No one did for a long time, and he had drifted ever so far from land, when at last a boat was passing, and some fishermen picked him up. They told him it was very ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... I am helpless, sir. But you must be satisfied that I have nothing on me. Can't you conclude your sport and let ...
— The Story of Nathan Hale • Henry Fisk Carlton
... pack is, to a certain extent, helpless on these narrow mountain trails. Old and experienced animals often manoeuvre their packs with a cleverness that is almost human: yet, whenever a mule runs accidentally against some projection, or its foot slips, the poor beast invariably loses its ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... remained in the hanging stirrup. The well-trained cavalry horse stood perfectly still, though trembling in a panic of terror, from which he might at any moment start to run, dragging the helpless ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... With helpless haste, which go In headlong furious flow Straight to the gulfing deeps of th' unfilled ocean, So to that flaming cave Those heroes great and brave Pour, in ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... far more puissant, famous, and wise than I, have formerly called him by that name, it is not in my power to give him a name anew. By him am I now truly enslaved; whatever be the cause of this, and whether it be the occasion of my happiness or misery, I am helpless. The strength wherewith I once opposed him has been vanquished and has abandoned me. Therefore either death or the youth for whom I languish can alone end my tortures. If thou art, then, as wise as I hold thee to be, bestow such counsel and help on me as may lighten my anguish, ...
— La Fiammetta • Giovanni Boccaccio
... which several females are collected around one male. Though a man does not brood like a pigeon, and though he has no milk to suckle the young, and must in this respect be classed with the quadrupeds, his children are feeble and helpless for so long a time, that mother and children could ill dispense with the father's affection, and the care which ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... company struggled through the high grass and invited me to land. Being seriously alarmed for my companion, who was lying helpless in his boat half a mile away, I quickly explained my situation, and was at once advised to ascend Spring Creek, on the east side of the point of marsh, to the swamp, where the orator said I would find his camp, and his partner in ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... the slim, black legs, was written utter weariness, abject fatigue. To each even to lower his bill and sip from the cool waters was a supreme effort. And in their exhaustion so complete was something humanly helpless and pathetic. ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... members of the civil and military authorities, massacred in cold blood. In other cities of France, too, we have seen anarchy and irreligion proclaimed—miscreants in arms against the property, and liberty, and lives of their fellow-citizens, often of the helpless and unprotected; and all this at a moment when the country was invaded, and a part of it occupied, by its enemies. The storm had been sown, and in very truth unfortunate France has reaped ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... eyes there was a mixture of curiosity and scorn, no more, however, than would be bestowed upon a mushroom or a spider. Inwardly he weighed, as it were, the slender, childlike form, wondered casually at the agitation of her gestures, her flashing eyes, the helpless twitching of her lips, wondered at the lace lying on the floor, and thought he was dreaming when he became aware that an imploring gesture of her hands ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... said my uncle, striking on alternate sides with his paddle, for I was helpless for the next quarter of an hour. "There will be no wound, ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... men who have dared demand their rights on Northern soil. You have invaded the borders of Southern States, burned their dwellings and murdered their people. You have proclaimed John Brown, the criminal maniac who sought to murder innocent and helpless men, women and children in Virginia, a hero and martyr and then denounced us in your popular meetings, your religious and legislative assemblies as habitual violators of the laws of God and the rights of ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... had a smooth, still voice. His clothes smelled of Russia leather and lead pencils and at first of very nice smoke: not as if he had sat in a tight room all day and got cured in the smoke of other rank pipes like a helpless ham, but as if a pleasant acrid perfume ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... Governments responsive to the needs and the rights of the Negro as laborer and citizen. But until they are made to respond to his claim for social justice and civil rights he will continue in the future as he is to-day the helpless victim of the peonage and convict lease systems, of the plantation lease and credit systems, of contract labor and "Jim Crow" laws, of lynching and the inequitable distribution of the public school funds between the ...
— The Ballotless Victim of One-Party Governments - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 16 • Archibald H. Grimke
... laughter in its heart rolled slowly off the plate on to the floor. And the dark young men both sought for it at once, and they met suddenly beneath the table, and soon they were speaking swift words to one another, and a horror and an impotence came over the Reason of each as she sat helpless at the back of the mind, and the heart of the orange laughed and the woman went on smiling; and Death, who was sitting at another table, tete-a-tete with an old man, rose and came over to ...
— Fifty-One Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... weather-beaten, stoop-shouldered, grizzled old man, in tattered raiment, and the other, even more battered, but with no "look of the sea" about him—stood on a sand-drift gloomily gazing at the group of shipwrecked people on the shore, and the helpless mass of timber and spars out there among ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... minister of Siam enjoys no exemption from that mocking law which condemns the hero strutting on the stage of the world to cut but a sorry figure at home. Toward these helpless slaves of his nod his deportment was studiously ungracious and mean. No smile of pleased surprise or approbation ever brightened his gloomy countenance. True, the fire of his native ardor burns there still, but through no ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... lodging by the way. The other passenger inside was an Englishman, who spoke very little French and no Italian, and another Englishman outside was in the same situation. We could not but feel ourselves a very helpless company when arriving at the inns, which were quite of an inferior class, and little or no French spoken. We did pretty well, however, till we got to Milan, where we rested some days; and our Englishmen were exchanged for an Italian priest ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... about something particular, your lawyer told me," said Paul, filled with pity at the sight of the perfectly helpless figure. "It may be that I can carry out some wish of yours. I should be glad to ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... sufficiently grievous to prevent him from dwelling much on the future. His first care was to find a place where his horses might be recruited; for without them he could no longer move anywhere—without them he would be helpless indeed. ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... her scolding. She lay, disheartened, watching Julia, and exacting everything from Julia, and the weary feet and weary heart of the girl almost sank under her burdens. Mrs. Anderson had suddenly fallen from her position of an exacting tyrant to that of an exacting and helpless infant. She followed Julia with her eyes in a broken-spirited fashion, as if fearing that she would leave her. Julia could read the fear in her mother's countenance; she understood what her mother meant when she said querulously, "You'll get married and leave ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... yet in the flesh. He finds the law thundering his guilt and condemning him to death. He cannot wash away the past, nor hide it; he cannot obey God's law with a carnal mind, and that is all the mind he has. He is lost, and helpless of himself, but longs for a way of escape. Paul's cry in the same position is the cry of the despairing heart that has not found the Saviour, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Rom. 7:24. Thank God, there is ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... took the place of carpet. Gauzy lace curtains hung at the windows. A canary in a gilt cage sung above an open window. Oh, plainly he was bewitched or the world was topsy-turvy! The look he turned on the girl was so helpless, so entreating that her face, which had begun to set coldly, softened instantly. The hand clasping the curtain fold fell to her side and she took a step ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... in low, tender tones, that God would look on his servant lying helpless at the feet of his mercy; that he would remember his long years of bondage in the flesh; that he would deal gently with the bruised reed. Thou hast visited the sins of the fathers upon this their child. Oh, turn away from him the penalties of his own transgressions! Thou ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... occupies a more dignified place in the scale of beings, whether moral or political, than a lazy lounger, valuing himself on his family, too proud to work, and drawing out a miserable existence, by eating on that surplus of other men's labor, which is the sacred fund of the helpless poor. A pitiful annuity will only prevent them from exerting that industry and those talents, which would soon lead ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... scrambled and re-scrambled communicator, "Majesty, I'm beginning to be less than despairing. If they expect our ships either to have been destroyed aground, or to be made helpless the instant combat begins, we may give them a shock. We hoped to smash them ship for ship. Finding out their tricks in advance may give us that! And if our missiles work as they've promised, we may ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... judgment tells him that it is right. If, therefore, he is in a situation where he must act in a totally different way from what is customary, as when a quiet, peace-loving man sees a ruffian assaulting a helpless person, a moral man does not hesitate to change his habitual modes ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... hope to those who watched, was a man; tall, but not heavy, smooth-cheeked as a boy of fourteen, soft-eyed, soft-handed, without the semblance of a weapon. One branded unmistakably a sleeper, a dreamer, one apparently helpless as a woman. Yet there that night, within the space of minutes, from the time there fell that last speaking silence, with this man the chief actor, there took place something, the report of which spread swifter than wildfire, from the river to the ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... assigned one with us. To all these changes she was not indifferent. She felt them keenly. But what could she do? Unfortunately for her, she had been so raised (as too many of our poor, proud, fashionable girls are now raised) as to be almost helpless when thrown upon her own resources. She was industrious, and saving; but understood nothing about getting a living. Therefore, she felt that endurance was her only present course. It was grievous to the heart to ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... what I owe him: he would never know it himself: there is something simple and innocent about such men: they do beautiful things unconsciously. You know him well: you are far nearer him than I am: but you can't know what the beauty is, for you have never been helpless and disgraced and desperate nor needed anyone to lift you up. No one can know as I do the angel ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... knows, and there is no remedy against extreme poverty so sure as education. The old adage says that knowledge is power. It is also wealth. A man with even an ordinary, common school education, can turn himself in a hundred ways, where a mere ignorant boor would be utterly helpless. The faculties are developed, ingenuity is quickened, the man's resources are enlarged. An educated man may be tempted to crime, but he is not driven into it, as hundreds are daily, by mere poverty, or by an intolerable hunger of the mind ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... matrimonial engagements, and by their thoughtlessness draw many a deserving woman into scenes of poverty and distress. A soldier has no business to think of a wife till his rank is such as to place him above the fear of bringing into the world a train of helpless innocents, heirs only to penury and affliction. If, indeed, a woman, whose fortune is sufficient to preserve you in that state of independence I would teach you to prize, should generously bestow herself on a young soldier, whose chief hope of future prosperity depended ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... India knows that Doctors are very helpless in typhoid. The battle must be fought out between Death and the Nurses minute by minute and degree by degree. Mrs. Shute almost boxed Dumoise's ears for what she called his "criminal delay," and went off at once to look after the poor girl. We had seven cases of typhoid ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... went out that dreadful day from Montidier—when the Germans almost broke through. They told me Captain Herrick was lying there helpless, out beyond our lines. So I went to him. I don't know how I got there, but—I found him. He was wounded in the thigh and a German beast was standing over him when I came up. He was going to run him through with a bayonet. And somehow, I—I don't know how I did it, but I caught up ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... gulfs of sorrow, When the helpless feet stretch out And find in the deeps of darkness No footing so solid as doubt, Then better one spar of Memory, One broken plank of the Past, That our human heart may cling to, Though ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... toes off'n yeh," he snarled, "— I'll hamstring yeh fur keeps!" — struggling to mutilate her while she flung her helpless and entangled body from side to side and bit at the hand ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... Graham, but God put such strength in him that day as I had never seen before, and with his naked hands he would have killed the brute if I had not unlocked them with my own. Before all his men Graham became a mass of helpless pulp, and from the ground, with the last of the breath that was in him, he cursed my father, and he cursed me. He said that all the days of his life he would follow us, until we paid a thousand times for what we had done. And then my ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... with gleaming eyes and bristling hair, they were mournful yet vicious; like helpless slaves they did not know what to do. Only one young wolf, a brother of the one their leader had recently killed, strutted about independently and gnashed his teeth, conscious of his strength and agility. In the pride of his youthful vigour he ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... recourse to the convenient master upon every occasion. The utmost that children in such circumstances can learn, is all the technical part of the art which the master can teach. When the master is at last dismissed, and her education completed, the pupil is left both fatigued and helpless. "Few have been taught to any purpose, who have not been their own teachers," says Sir Joshua Reynolds. This reflection upon the art of teaching, may, perhaps, be too general; but those persons who look back upon their education, ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... was quickly dressed and his hands tied behind him. As he opened his mouth to give expression to his protests, he found himself suddenly gagged by Brandt, who stood behind him. Then a strap was buckled about his feet, and he lay on the floor helpless and incapable of ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... bones. It was not the place for a fever patient; and Harding was getting anxious. He had led his comrade into the adventure, and he felt responsible for him; moreover, he had a strong affection for the helpless man. Blake was very ill, and something must be done to save him; but for a while Harding could not see how help could be obtained. Then an idea crept into his mind, and he got Benson to ask the Indian a few more questions ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... gentleman. Owen was not, as may be supposed, altogether satisfied, however. The men were hoisted on board and laid on the deck. Except for their breathing, they might have been so many corpses, so utterly helpless ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... what came from the sullen and intermitting gleams of the fire. But even this was sufficient to show him the dusky outline of two figures. With the foremost he grappled, and, raising him in his arms, threw him powerfully upon the floor, with a force that left him stunned and helpless. The other had endeavored to pinion his arms from behind; for the body-armor, which Maximilian had not laid aside for the night, under the many anticipations of service which their situation suggested, proved a sufficient protection against the blows of the assassin's poniard. Impatient ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... ought, and I suppose they wanted to; it didn't matter to me. I had sent for Doctor Norrey, as soon as the relapse came, and he was there with me. Of course there was the minister, conducting the services. He made a prayer full of helpless repetitions, which I helplessly noticed, and some scrambling remarks, mostly misdirected at me, affirming and reaffirming that the sister they had lost was only gone before, and that she was ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... "I have no recollection of the fact, Ralph, boy, and I don't think I should have forgotten so important a matter; but I do recollect saving his, by interceding when he was about to be shot for plundering some helpless people. There; let him and a couple of his men come in. The poor wretch is in a bad state, I suppose, and I will give him something to ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... have a firm basis or it may not. But whatever the case may be, he is not in a position to say much about it. He feels that he is right, but he cannot prove it. The man is, I think we must admit, rather blind as to the full significance of his position, and he is, in consequence, rather helpless. ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... female character. His heroines naturally conformed to his belief. They are usually spoken of as spotless beings. They are made up of retiring sweetness, artlessness, and simplicity. They are timid, shrinking, helpless. They shudder with terror on any decent pretext. But if they fail in higher qualities, they embody in themselves all conceivable combinations of the proprieties and minor morals. They always give utterance to ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... his body. The gallant creature had never winced nor weakened, but had gone while life was in him. One instant I was secure on the swiftest, most graceful horse in Massena's army. The next he lay upon his side, worth only the price of his hide, and I stood there that most helpless, most ungainly of creatures, a dismounted Hussar. What could I do with my boots, my spurs, my trailing sabre? I was far inside the enemy's lines. How could I hope to get back again? I am not ashamed to say that ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... worm they begin to squeal, and when they try to stick it on the hook, they generally, have a sort of fit. So I guess thee had better not try. Just let me do it for thee; I'll fix it just as my Uncle David used to for me when I was a little fellow, and helpless like a girl." Pepeeta laughed, and Steven laughed with her, although he did not know for what, and they took their poles and sat down by the side of the stream, the child intent on the sport and the woman ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... hard-driven by her sister in poverty, and driving her in turn, helpless both in their ignorance under the modern Juggernaut that is destroying them, pushed ever more cruelly by relentless competition, the last stronghold, the poor little home itself, goes down. The mother has no ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... from whose lips they came. But by no single gesture did he let any one see the dumb depths of his soul. If life had taught him nothing else, it had taught him never to express himself. Mute as any bullock led into the slaughtering-house, with something of a bullock's dulled and helpless fear in his eyes, he passed down and away between his jailers. And at once the professional noises rose, and the professional rhapsodists, hunching their gowns, swept that little lot of papers into their pink ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... woman loves but once," said Mr. Tristram to himself, in an attitude of attention, his fine eyes fixed decorously on a pillar in front of him. Some of us would be as helpless without a Bowdlerized generality or a platitude to sustain our minds as the invalid would ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... mention fraud. Accept anything. Then explain it your way. Anything that assimilates with one explanation, must have assimilable relations, to some degree, with all other explanations, if all explanations are somewhere continuous. Mormons are lugged in again, but the attempt is faint and helpless—"because general circumstances make it difficult to explain ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... a signal, and the boys were thrown to the floor, where they were held helpless, while ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... up the street, Pierre chafing inwardly, but helpless in his Mother's grasp, and at the next crossing the great spectacle burst upon them. A whole regiment of cavalry was passing, singing at the top of their lungs, "Lieb' Vaterland, macht ruhig sein." The sun glistened on their helmets, and the clanking of swords and the jingling of spurs ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... Mother Durga, are thy sons thus dispirited and their hearts crushed with injustice? The demons are in the ascendant, and constantly triumphing over godliness. Awake, Oh Mother, who tramplest on the demons! Thy helpless sons, lean for want of food, worn out in the struggle with the demons, are, struck with terror at the way in which they are being ruled. Famine and plague and disease are rife, and unrighteousness triumphs. Awake, Oh Goddess ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... I am—a damned wretch, A hardened, stubborn, unrepenting villain, Still my heart melts at human wretchedness; And with sincere but unavailing sighs I view the helpless children of distress: With tears indignant I behold the oppressor Rejoicing in the honest man's destruction, Whose unsubmitting heart was all his crime.— Ev'n you, ye hapless crew! I pity you; Ye, whom the seeming good think sin to pity; Ye poor, despised, abandoned vagabonds, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... tongue against my poor old mother. There are things a man can bear and some he ought not to bear, and I tell you, boy as I am, I will not have her spoken against. Your words may frighten her, and she may fancy that your curses may fall upon her head, but I tell you when uttered against a poor helpless widow, they will fall back on him who dares to speak them. There, Father O'Rourke, I have had my say, and I ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... with all His love and tenderness could not go. He could not save David from the consequences of his sin. His bloody and lustful deed became possessed of a power beyond his control. "Down!" he cries to it in helpless horror. But it will not down. "Then where are you going?" he asks, all a-tremble with dread. And the fiendish deed answers, "I am going to steal the purity of your daughter Tamar. I am going to make your son Ammon into a rapist. I am going to make ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... says in a letter, speaking of Mrs. Davis: "After several years absence in Europe she returned, a helpless invalid, unable to resume her labors. But her devotion in early years will long remain fresh in the memory of those associated with her, who were inspired by her self-sacrifice and enthusiasm." For farther ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... I've got my rights an I'll hev 'em. An' besides, there's baby—!" Her face softened and took on a love light; and immediately Michael was reminded of the madonna picture again. "I've got to think o' him!" Michael marvelled to see that the girl was revelling in her possession, of the little helpless burden who had been the cause ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... leniently with Mr. Kemp, who was merely a paid servant of ours, and in no other way actually responsible for the incriminated publication. Justice North listened with ill-concealed impatience. He was obviously anxious to flesh the sword of justice in his helpless victims. Directly Mr. Avory finished he began to pronounce the following sentence on me, and while he spoke there was deadly silence in ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... overwhelming a man at the age of fifty-five, might well crush out all life and hope and send him into helpless bankruptcy, with the poor consolation that, though legally responsible, he was not morally bound to pay other people's debts. But Scott's own sanguine carelessness had been partly to blame for the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... allowed some parley and Weatherford made a speech, ending thus:] "General Jackson, you are a brave man: I am another. I do not fear to die. But I rely on your generosity. You will exact no terms of a conquered and helpless people, but those to which they should accede. . . . You have told us what we may do and be safe. Yours is a good talk and my nation ought to listen to it. They shall listen to ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... German submarine warfare on merchant vessels, but while the interruption of the starvation plan adopted by England against the civil population is urged upon the latter it will continue. The starvation plan is primarily being waged against the weak and helpless, and is, therefore, responsible. It is also in violation of the spirit if not the letter of international law. If the President can force a demand for the cessation of the submarine warfare, he ought also to have the right to demand the lifting of the starvation ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... but lightly, swiftly, and eagerly he glided upon LeNoir. There was something terrifying in that swift, cat-like movement. In vain the Frenchman backed and dodged and tried to guard. Once, twice, Macdonald's fists fell. LeNoir's right arm hung limp by his side and he staggered back to the wall helpless. Without an instant's delay, Macdonald had him by the throat, and gripping him fiercely, began to slowly bend him backward over his knee. Then for the first ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... many a question next the accus'd was prov'd; Then, while the votes were given, awhile remov'd. But those brave warriors, when they weigh'd the plight And the fair promise of this hapless knight, His youth, for yet he reach'd not manhood's prime; His gallant mien, his life without a crime, His helpless state by kindred unsustain'd, In a strange court and in a foreign land, All cried aloud, were Lanval doom'd to die, It were a ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... could have any use of himself. He was most thoroughly secured to his chair, and his chair nailed fast to the floor by passing leather straps over the rounds in the side and nailing the ends to the floor. After it was shown to the sitters that he was utterly helpless, the curtain was drawn. The manager now placed an ordinary kitchen table in front of the door of the cabinet, so that it stood away from it about two feet. The table contained no drawer. On the table was laid ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... at a country funeral characteristic of the kindly as well as the weaker side of rustic men and women. There is much bustle and subdued cheerfulness mingled with awe; conversation is carried on in whispers. The chief mourners are permitted to be as helpless as they please; everything is done for them; they are treated as automatons. They are arranged in ranks next to the corpse according to consanguinity. Then come the neighbors and those persons who love to attend funerals. Children bring up the rear and in the hall and doorway ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... carriages passed through the densely populated region of the Hindus, and stopped at the hospital. The party alighted in a large court, surrounded by sheds, in which are a number of bullocks, some of them with their eyes bandaged, others lame, or otherwise in a helpless condition. They were all stretched out on clean straw. Some of the attendants were rubbing them; others were bringing food ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... unto death. Here are those good parents whose first care was to teach their children the knowledge and love of God. Here, too, are the good children who honored their parents, and cared for them with a tender charity, when age and infirmity had rendered them helpless. Here, too, are young men, and young women, who, though they had no call to consecrate their virginity to Jesus Christ, led the lives of angels amid the ...
— The Happiness of Heaven - By a Father of the Society of Jesus • F. J. Boudreaux
... the property of his master, those wicked laws would help the master by inflicting cruel punishments on the parent. Hence the poor slave fathers and mothers are forced to silently witness the cruel wrongs which their helpless children are made to suffer. Violence has been framed into a law, and the poor slave is trodden beneath the ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various
... the woods, where he could see houses and men once more. But instead of doing so the forest seemed to grow more dense, and nothing betokened his approach to the village. There was a great fear came into Toby's heart just then, and for a moment he halted in helpless perplexity. His lips began to quiver, his face grew white, and his hand trembled so that the old monkey took hold of one of his fingers and ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis
... wasn't. It was Steve, Steve on his back, with only his head and shoulders above the water, eyes closed in a dead-white face and his arms weakly moving now and then as though in an unconscious endeavour to keep the helpless body afloat. A great wave of relief and joy almost stopped Tom's heart for an instant. Then his hand went out and ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... cheerful, and very optimistic, and remarkably even-tempered. If irritated he quickly recovered, and soon forgot all about the annoyance, but he was always strongly indignant at any injustice to the weak or helpless. When worried by business difficulties or losses he very soon recovered his optimism, and seemed quite confident that all would come right (as indeed it generally did), and latterly he became convinced that all his past troubles were ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... rapidity, till about three hundred houses were in flames. Little or no time was given for the removal of persons or property—the consternation and confusion were extreme—the people striving to remove the sick and helpless before the fire should reach them—next struggling to save the most valuable of their effects—the cries of the women and children—the roaring of the affrighted cattle, hunted by the dogs of the shepherds amid ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... sight he began to swell immensely, and something urged me to rush at him. We had a struggle near the door. He got from me, through my not knowing where to strike, in the whirling round of the room, and the flashing of flames of fire between us. I dropped down. Lying helpless on the ground, I was turned over by a foot. I was dragged by the neck into a corner. I heard men speak together. I was turned over by other feet. I saw a figure like myself lying dressed in my clothes on a bed. What might have been, for anything I knew, a silence of days, weeks, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... don't drive me to desperation. You ought to come up and face the situation yourself. I can't fire a poet with eight helpless children, can I? And while I'm about it, let me inform you that every time you telegraph me it costs me five dollars for a carrier to bring the despatch over from the station; and every time I telegraph you I am obliged to walk five miles to send it and five miles back again. I'm mad all through, ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... cause. A wretched soul, bruised with adversity, We bid be quiet when we hear it cry; 35 But were we burden'd with like weight of pain, As much, or more, we should ourselves complain: So thou, that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee, With urging helpless patience wouldst relieve me; But, if thou live to see like right bereft, 40 This fool-begg'd patience in thee ...
— The Comedy of Errors - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... right.' Then does he brighten up. "How many have us catched?" he asks. The sight of him fishing in the stern-sheets re-assures me as to his future, about which I am sometimes fearful, just as some men are depressed by a helpless baby because they foresee, imaginatively, the poor little creature's life and all possible troubles before it. When I watch Jimmy in house, rather naughty perhaps, or when I hear Bessie, fresh from ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... Milord, shattered, sore and helpless, also heard a charming voice singing sweetly in his ear: "Thou art stretched full length upon the summit ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... so dastardly as to wreak vengeance on two young helpless maids,' cried Margaret. 'Oh! sir, help ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a sticky juice overspreading the world, a living, growing flypaper to catch and gum the wings of every human soul.... And the little helpless buzzings of honest, liberal, kindly people, aren't they like the thin little noise flies make ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... and the vulgar. However, I was curious to see what an author of that country could say upon such a subject. This writer went through all the usual topics of European moralists, showing "how diminutive, contemptible, and helpless an animal was man in his own nature; how unable to defend himself from inclemencies of the air, or the fury of wild beasts: how much he was excelled by one creature in strength, by another in speed, by a third in foresight, ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... spinal disease, withering up the form from infancy, had been accompanied with such long intervals of acute physical pain as to prevent all study beyond the commonest acquirements of her sex. It was not with her, as with some, that the intellect alone had proved sufficient to make out of a helpless body a noble and complete human existence; Elizabeth's mind was scarcely above the average order, or if it had been, suffering had stifled its powers. Her only ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... belted knights, riding on fine horses, and with their esquires by their side, and how they would tell the story of how they had been born and bred in this very mill, and of all they owed to those who had sheltered them in their helpless infancy. ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... again and crawled up on a raft where he stayed until one of the lifeboats came by and the men took him off. But the boat had gone but a short distance, when the guilty submarine pushed its nose up through the surface of the water near by. Its commander ordered the lifeboat to draw near and the helpless oarsmen had to obey. When asked the whereabouts of the captain of the vessel, the men in the lifeboat answered that, as far as any of them knew, he had gone down ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... remember now, in the seconds that followed, flash came fast after flash. There was a sudden illumination. The room was lighter than day. It grew alternately bright as noon and then dark as pitch again by contrast. And by the light of the flashes, I saw you, half-dazed with the chloroform, standing helpless there. ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... without children would face a hopeless future; a country without trees is almost as helpless; forests which are so used that they cannot renew themselves will soon vanish, and with them all their benefits. When you help to preserve our forests or plant new ones you are acting the part of ...
— The School Book of Forestry • Charles Lathrop Pack
... in June was ordered to Arizona, that dreaded and then unknown land, and the uncertain future was before me. I saw the other women packing china and their various belongings. I seemed to be helpless. Jack was busy with things outside. He had three large army chests, which were brought in and placed before me. "Now," he said, "all our things must go into those chests"—and I ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... fellahin colonels proceeded to relegate their Turkish and Circassian rivals to service at Khartum—an ingenious form of banishment. Against this and other despotic acts the representatives of Great Britain and France energetically protested, and, seeing that the Khedive was helpless, they brought up ships of war to make a demonstration against the de facto ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... the heroine of that story became in the problem of reviving the splendid mummy? She forgot everything in that, and could not think of marriage until the test was made and its sequel satisfactory. She was not faithless; she was simply helpless under an irresistible influence. I'm afraid, love"—and here the tears came into her eyes—"that I'm like that heroine. I care for you, but I can think only of the people in Mars. Help me. You are rich. You have ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... sessions with him; she was interested, but she confessed herself helpless in this compilation and diagnosis of so many facts and figures. Dick was prompt enough to report his stock transactions, and he was eager enough to discuss the probable fluctuation of this or that stock; but when asked to go over what Larry had done, ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
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