"Wretchedly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... feeling wretchedly guilty about you," it began, "almost as much of a brute as if you were some innocent, helpless creature I'd killed, and buried under the leaves in the woods. No tea this afternoon, and you an English girl! When they say 'tea' here they mean the evening meal—the last ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... many of the rural districts general advancement had been retarded because of the holding of huge areas of fertile land by a comparatively few rich families, who did little to improve it and were content with small returns from the labor of throngs of unskilled native cultivators. Wretchedly paid and housed, and toiling long hours, the workers lived like the serfs of medieval days or as their own ancestors did in colonial times. Ignorant, poverty-stricken, liable at any moment to be dispossessed of the tiny patch of ground on which they raised a few hills of corn or beans, ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... breaking into a whispered fury. "Whilst I would have given worlds to touch your hand, you have let a rake come in without right or ceremony and—kiss you! Heaven's mercy—kiss you! ... Ah, a time of his life shall come when he will have to repent, and think wretchedly of the pain he has caused another man; and then may he ache, and wish, and curse, ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... the carriage approached. As it happened, the gig arrived first, and Hester had to give the relation. She spoke even cheerfully, declaring Mr Enderby's opinion, that the case was going on favourably, and that recovery was very possible. Mrs Grey, who had had a wretchedly anxious day by herself, not having enjoyed even the satisfaction of being useful, nothing having been sent for from the farmhouse, was truly cheered by seeing her family about ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... have gone. Your brother managed the case wretchedly. I wasn't allowed to say the most important ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... was simply this: he saw a world full of joy, and full too of suffering; sometimes one of his fellow-pilgrims would be stricken down with some incurable malady, and through slow gradations of pain, sink wretchedly to death; was this suffering remedial, educative, benevolent? He hoped it was, he believed that it was, in the sense, at least, that he could not bear to feel that it might not be; but however ardently and eagerly he might ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... personae of the boldest and most finished kind—and in fact every thing that can command the most marked and pointed attention of the reader or spectator. And all this notwithstanding the disadvantages of appearing in foreign dress; for it hardly need be stated how wretchedly many of the ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... itself was foundered. No words ever coined seemed strong enough to carry the weight of his desire to assure her. He could only look at her, imploring her to believe in him. In the end only two little words came; to him wretchedly inadequate; but it is doubtful if they ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... plume. We had not been acquainted more than a few hours, in fact, for he had been seasick throughout the voyage and this was the first day he had been up and about. But then I had seen him on the day of our sailing and subsequently, many times, as he wretchedly lay in his berth. He was literally in tatters. He clung to me like a lover, but we ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... In France they have grand roads everywhere. Their machines are made for such roads, and on such roads they can fairly fly. In this country we have a few fairly good roads, but the majority of our highways are wretchedly bad. The American makers have built machines adapted for such roads, and on these roads our better-made motor cars are superior to anything we can ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... the great treasures of the world possessed by people who welcome merchants but "hate to see soldiers"; being themselves "no soldiers at all, only accomplished traders and most skillful artisans." Here was the promised land for Europeans, wretchedly poor, but good soldiers enough. Here was Eldorado, symbol of all external and objective values which so fired the imagination in that age of discovery; presenting a concrete and visualized goal, a summum bonum, attainable, not by contemplation, ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... so difficult. He felt that he was expressing himself wretchedly; a clog was on his brain. It cost him an exertion of physical strength to conclude the letter. When it was done, he went out, purchased a stamp at a tobacconist's shop, and dropped the envelope into ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... there had been good pasture all the way; but the animal had been too long starved to recover quickly. In the Pachanga canon, where they had found refuge, the grass was burned up by the sun, and the few horses taken over there had suffered wretchedly; some had died. But Alessandro, even while his arms were around Ramona, had revolved in his mind a project he would not have dared to confide to her. If Baba, Ramona's own horse, was still in the ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... good-natured business-man, never given to imaginative thoughts or to greater extremes of mood than the heights and depths of rising and falling stocks. Yet his experience of the last two hours had shown him to himself as a creature wretchedly inadequate to face the problem that confronted him—the simple problem ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... remembrance came the almost certain conviction that it was also a forgery; I was tempted for a moment to produce it, and to explain the circumstance—would to God I had done so!—but shame at the idea of having been so wretchedly duped prevented me, and the opportunity was lost. I must confess that the agent of the bank behaved, upon the whole, in a very handsome manner; he said that as it was quite evident that I had disposed ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... Metz, the command of which had just been transferred from Luckner to Kellerman. There were only three fortresses which it was necessary for the allies to capture or mask—Sedan, Longwy, and Verdun. The defences and stores of these three were known to be wretchedly dismantled and insufficient; and when once these feeble barriers were overcome, and Chalons reached, a fertile and unprotected country seemed to invite the invaders to that "military promenade to Paris," which ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... and having no particular room to go to, I took a turn on the terrace, and thought it over in peace and quietness by myself. It doesn't much matter what my thoughts were. I felt wretchedly old, and worn out, and unfit for my place—and began to wonder, for the first time in my life, when it would please God to take me. With all this, I held firm, notwithstanding, to my belief in Miss Rachel. If Sergeant Cuff had been Solomon in all his glory, ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... as he stood there in the northern icy drizzle, with his eyes on the muddy river hurrying toward its freedom between jagged banks, he came very wretchedly to realise that there was only one way in which he could save himself, a way, albeit, which both his loyalty and honour forbade, by becoming ardent in the pursuit and effecting the capture of Spurling, that so he might ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... might, humanity would never be left absolutely void of the means of instruction, nor any worthy human achievement be absolutely lost or forgotten. The experience of these later years has demonstrated the value of such legacies even when unintentional, unselected, and wretchedly fragmentary. It has made clear also how a legacy deliberately ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... angry and discontented thoughts surged into the brains of the disappointed men as they leaned over their oars and tried not to hear the jubilant chatter of those insufferable Johnsonites. Why had Stroke set so wretchedly slow a stroke that defeat was certain? The members of the beaten crew were, for the most part, fresher far than the winning crew. Why had not Stroke given them the opportunity of rowing themselves right out instead ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... rifle—don't know whether it was a Krag or a Springfield. At any rate, he was most imposing, and, as he unrolled his petate on the dining-room floor, assured me in broken Spanish that he would protect me to the last. I bolted my door and went to bed. Slept wretchedly, being, it must be confessed, about as much afraid of the guard as ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... 15 miles travelled over to-day were good undulating forest country, timbered chiefly with box and applegum, and a few iron-barks, and intersected with numerous canal-like creeks, running north-west, but without water; the last three miles was wretchedly bad, being similar to the tea-tree country of the Staaten. The whole country between the Archer and Staaten is without water, save immediately after rain, sufficiently heavy to set the creeks running. The party camped on a small tea-tree ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... his custom, after breakfast to receive my instructions for the day. As I left the dining-room I happened to meet Rachel Howells, the maid. I have told you that she had only recently recovered from an illness, and was looking so wretchedly pale and wan that I remonstrated with ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... which calamity Heaven preserve them,) they will find reasons for it thick as the leaves of Vallumbrozer, or, to use a still more expressive comparison, as the combined heads of author and editor. The work is wretchedly got up.... We should like to know how much British gold was pocketed by this libeller of our ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... prejudice and error might occasionally fling a mist over the glorious vision before me—but I am not like you. If you knew my thoughts, the dreams that absorb me, and the fiery imagination that at times eats me up, and makes me feel society, as it is, wretchedly insipid, you would pity and I dare say despise me. But I know the treasures of the Bible; I love and adore them. I can see the Well of Life in all its clearness and brightness; but when I stoop down to drink of the ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... by rennet, as the fresh juice is stronger than the stale. An ignorant mother often complains that because, when her child is sick, the milk curdles, that it is a proof that it does not agree with him! If, at those times, it did not curdle, it would, indeed, prove that his stomach was in a wretchedly weak state; she would then have abundant cause to be anxious.]—solid food; it is the most important and valuable article of diet for a child in existence. It is a glorious food for the young, and must never, on any account ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... wretchedly upon the cane bottom of the carved mahogany bed which, with four chairs, a round table and a talking machine made up the furniture of the main room. Ledesma's son, a lad of eight, sat big-eyed and solemn near an open window, not fully understanding the blow that had ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... argument, surely, against the existence of God, that they who believe in him, believe in him so wretchedly! So many carry themselves to him like peevish children! Richard half believed in God, only to complain of him altogether! Were it not better to deny him altogether, saying that such things being, he cannot be, than to murmur and rebel as ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... quarrelled with him, but none the less he writes: 'If Mr. Bradshaw is yet alive, I here declare to the world and to him that I freely forgive him what he owes, both in money and books, if he will only be so kind as to make me a visit. But I am afraid the worthy gentleman is dead, for he was wretchedly overrun with melancholy, and the very blackness of it reigned in his countenance. He had certainly performed wonders with his pen, had not his poverty pursued him and almost laid the necessity ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... on the surplus population around them, and on the densely crowded state of all the avenues to cat's meat; not only is there a moral and politico- economical haggardness in them, traceable to these reflections; but they evince a physical deterioration. Their linen is not clean, and is wretchedly got up; their black turns rusty, like old mourning; they wear very indifferent fur; and take to the shabbiest cotton velvet, instead of silk velvet. I am on terms of recognition with several small streets of cats, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... said bruskly, addressing neither directly, "we needn't stop here. I have some explanations to make, and they might as well be made before everybody, once and for all..." He paused wretchedly, seeing no outlook, no possible escape. Something must be told—not a lie, but possibly not all the truth; that would rest with Fran. He was as much in her power as if she, herself, had been the effect ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... same tone as if he had been reading it from a book: "The aforesaid captain or governor of a fortress shall allow to enter when need shall arise, and on demand of the prisoner, a confessor affiliated to the order." He stopped. Baisemeaux was quite distressing to look at, being so wretchedly pale and trembling. "Is not that the text of the agreement?" ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... half when there came upon her a great fear. It had been a wretchedly bad season. Two failures. The rent on her two-room apartment in Fifty-sixth Street jumped from one hundred and twenty-five, which she could afford, to two hundred a month, which she couldn't. Mary—Irish Mary—her personal maid, ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... Gray, meanwhile, live in Gray's Inn Lane aforesaid, with a maid-servant and a nurse, whose hands are very full, and in a most provoking and unnatural state of happiness. They have never once thought of crying about their dinner, like the wretchedly puling and Snobbish womankind of my favourite Snob Aubrey, of 'Ten Thousand a Year;' but, on the contrary, accept such humble victuals as fate awards them with a most perfect and thankful good grace—nay, actually have a portion for a hungry ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... going out in a morning to their Board Schools without breakfast? But surely something ought to be done! How could people sit down and allow these things to be? How could her father himself, who wrote about such things, live in comfort, even (compared with the wretchedly poor) in modest luxury, without lifting a ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... "That would be useless. Zaila is sixty miles up the coast. We can beat the Arabs, and get there in time to prepare the town for defense. The garrison is wretchedly small, but they will have to hold out until assistance ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... central India must be traversed by rail. The route, however, lay through an extremely interesting region of country, where, notwithstanding it was still January, everything was green, and both planting and harvesting were in progress. The people appeared to be wretchedly poor, living in the most primitive mud cabins thatched with straw. Such squalor and poverty could be found nowhere else outside of Ireland, and yet we were passing through a famous agricultural district, which ought to support ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... to us. He had been caught, full-grown, two years before, and, in the hands of a skilful man, was fit for the chase in six months. It was a very beautiful animal, but, for the sake of the sport, kept wretchedly thin.[5] He seemed especially indifferent to the crowd and the music, but could not bear to see the woman whirling about in the dance with her red mantle floating in the breeze; and, whenever his head was turned towards her, he cropped his ears. She at last, in play, swept close by him, and with ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... he has only himself to blame. I do not like to think of his wife suffering, but it is the attribute of sins such as his that they involve the innocent with the guilty; and then she has shown herself so wretchedly weak. Try, however, to help her secretly if ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... aristocratic societies which are formed by some manufacturers in the midst of the immense democracy of our age, contain, like the great aristocratic societies of former ages, some men who are very opulent, and a multitude who are wretchedly poor. The poor have few means of escaping from their condition and becoming rich; but the rich are constantly becoming poor, or they give up business when they have realized a fortune. Thus the elements of which the class of the poor is composed are fixed; but the ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... then determined to use every exertion to change their joy into grief and their songs into tears and groans of misery. To effect this they were tied to stakes and burned alive; were broiled on wooden gridirons, and thousands were thus wretchedly destroyed. But as the number of Christians was not perceptibly lessened by these cruel punishments, they became tired of putting them to death, and attempts were then made to make the Christians abandon their faith by the infliction of the most dreadful torments which the most ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... Love: Nor think, my Dear, thou canst be truly blest With one that's Wedded to his Interest. Worldly Affairs does his Affections cloy, As that which shou'd preserve it, does destroy. 'Twixt two Extreams you wretchedly must Live, Or bad, or worse, as his Affairs do Thrive; Whose good or ill Success, must be the Rule, One makes ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous
... the earth beneath. Yet we could not linger, unique though the occasion, dearly bought our privilege; the miserable limitations of the flesh gave us continual warning to depart; we grew colder and still more wretchedly cold. The thermometer stood at 7 deg. in the full sunshine, and the north wind was keener than ever. My fingers were so cold that I would not venture to withdraw them from the mittens to change the ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... at Senna, which was found in a wretchedly ruinous condition. Here some of the Makololo accepted employment from Lieutenant Miranda to return to Tete with a load of goods. Eight accompanied the doctor, at ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... the India-rubber tree; and I have been hunting for it all over the island in vain, and using wretchedly inferior ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... ceaseless patter among the leaves outside ought to have had the same lulling effect as all other gentle perpetual sounds, such as mill-wheels and bubbling springs, have on the nerves of happy people. But two of us were not happy. I was sure enough of myself, for one. I was worse than sure,—I was wretchedly anxious about Phillis. Ever since that day of the thunderstorm there had been a new, sharp, discordant sound to me in her voice, a sort of jangle in her tone; and her restless eyes had no quietness in them; and her colour came and went without a cause that ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... full we could not get in; at last they discovered it was the Duke of York, and the company squeezed themselves into one another's pockets to make room for us. The house, which is borrowed, and to which the ghost has adjourned, is wretchedly small and miserable; when we opened the chamber, in which were fifty people, with no light but one tallow candle at the end, we tumbled over the bed of the child to whom the ghost comes, and whom they are murdering by inches in such insufferable ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... Battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861, won by the Confederate General Beauregard over General McDowell, against all expectation, to the dismay and indignation of the whole North,—the result of over-confidence on the part of the Union troops, and a wretchedly mismanaged affair,—the attention of the Federal government was mainly directed to the defence of Washington, which might have fallen into the hands of the enemy had the victors been confident and quick enough to pursue the advantage they had gained; for nothing ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... never been sufficiently drawn to one other characteristic of these plays, though it is touched upon both by Professor Dowden and Dr. Brandes—the singular carelessness with which great parts of them were obviously written. Could anything drag more wretchedly than the denouement of Cymbeline? And with what perversity is the great pastoral scene in The Winter's Tale interspersed with long-winded intrigues, and disguises, and homilies! For these blemishes ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... clearing of the wood, Was John's house, neither fair nor good. In a ragged plot his house anigh, Thin coleworts grew but wretchedly. Deus est ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... shewed to Denise the tyran, that a couetous man of the cite had hyd a great some of money in the grounde, and lyued moste wretchedly: wherfore he sente for the man, and commaunded him to go dyg vp the money, and so to deliuer it vnto him. The man obeyed, and delyuered vnto the tyran all the golde and treasure that he hadde, saue a small some, that he priuelye kept a syde: where with he wente in to an other ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... Storm-scenes in King Lear gain nothing and their very essence is destroyed. It is comparatively a small thing that the theatrical storm, not to drown the dialogue, must be silent whenever a human being wishes to speak, and is wretchedly inferior to many a storm we have witnessed. Nor is it simply that, as Lamb observed, the corporal presence of Lear, 'an old man tottering about the stage with a walking-stick,' disturbs and depresses that sense of the greatness of his mind which fills the imagination. ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... plan as the Dutch optician's: it was another mode of achieving the same end. He took an old small organ-pipe, jammed a suitably chosen spectacle glass into either end, one convex, the other concave, and, behold! he had the half of a wretchedly bad opera-glass capable of magnifying three times. It was better than the Dutchman's, however: it did ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... The boy whom she fancied she held in such subjection, such profound respect. Landry Court had dared, had dared to kiss her, to offer her this wretchedly commonplace and petty affront, degrading her to the level of a pretty waitress, ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... from the King of Hungary. He was Venetian in his artistic qualities. Many of his works are in his native Pardetowns near. All have suffered and some are now hidden by whitewash. His chief strength lay in fresco. His scenes from the Passion in the cathedral, Cremona, are greatly damaged and wretchedly restored, but they still reveal the painter as a great master. They have 'fine drawing, action, excellent colouring, grand management of light and shade, with freedom of hand and dignity of conception.' In the prophets and sibyls ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... impassionate Soul! of Mohammed the complicate story: Sing, unfearful of Man, groaning and ending in care. Short the Command and the Toil, but endlessly mighty the Glory! Standing aloof if it chance, vainly our enemy's scare: What tho' we wretchedly fare, wearily drawing the Breath—, Malice in wonder may stare; merrily move we ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... house, in an alley they call a court; stairs wretchedly narrow, even to the first-floor rooms: and into a den they led me, with broken walls, which had been papered, as I saw by a multitude of tacks, and some torn bits held on ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... were driven like a flock of birds into a narrow place outside and hung to a beam to die wretchedly. Melanthios also was brought down from the armory and cast among the dogs ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... to embarrass the negociation for peace. The Directory has fixed its ultimatum; but if that ultimatum be rejected, the obligation to adhere to it is discharged, and a new one may be assumed. So wretchedly has Pitt managed his opportunities" that every succeeding negociation has ended in terms more against him than the former. If the Directory had bribed him, he could not serve his interest better than he does. ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... 'You look wretchedly tired,' she said kindly. 'Won't you sit down? This is a very restful chair. Of course it is about this terrible business and your work as correspondent. Please ask me anything you think I can properly ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... by my labour, I am preventing a burden from falling upon my fellows. And, of course, the case is stronger when I include my family. We were all impressed the other day by the story of the poor boy who got some wretchedly small pittance by his work, spent a small portion of it upon his own needs, and devoted the chief part of it to trying to save his mother and her other children from starvation. Was he selfish? Was he selfish even in taking something for himself, as the only prop of his family? What ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... and the woman to whom his eyes so often turned. That which concerned him most in life was passing behind the veil of trees and bushes, and its sound filled his ears. He had no thought of anything else. It was widening its sweep, coming nearer to the house where he was tied so wretchedly by wounds; and he would see it—see who was winning—his own South ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... dirtier," he answered; "and I fancy worse in every way-hungrier, raggeder, more wretchedly housed. But that wasn't the period of life for us to notice it. Don't you remember, when we started to Niagara the last time, how everybody seemed middle-aged and commonplace; and when we got there there were no evident brides; nothing but elderly ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... at all on Thursday because of Henley, just as later more than one stayed away altogether because of Whistler. I was wretchedly nervous when they did come and brave a face-to-face meeting. Henley was not the sort of man to shirk a fight in the open. The principal reason for his unpopularity was just that habit of his of saying what he ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... rich in his low estate means to be no longer wretchedly poor—to have neither holes in his clothes, nor cold at his hearth, nor emptiness in his stomach. It is to eat when hungry and drink when thirsty. It is to have everything necessary, including a penny for a beggar. This indigent wealth, enough for liberty, was ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... curse the world, and scorn it, and be miserable, like my Lord Byron and other philosophers of his kidney; or else mount a step higher, and, with conceit still more monstrous, and mental vision still more wretchedly debauched and weak, begin suddenly to find yourself afflicted with a maudlin compassion for the human race, and a desire to set them right after your own fashion. There is the quarrelsome stage of drunkenness, when a man can as yet ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had, unless this fellow hath frightened it out of my head again; but I am afraid I shall play it wretchedly. ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... Feudatory States, who numbered about 9000 persons in 1911. They appear to be Pans or Gandas, who also bear the name of Pab, and this has been corrupted into Pabia, perhaps with a view to hiding their origin. They are wretchedly poor and ignorant. They say that they have never been to a Government dispensary, and would be afraid that medicine obtained from it would kill them. Their only remedies for diseases are branding the part affected or calling in a magician. They never send their children to school, as they ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... hills of no great height rose at the mouth of the Javari River, a southern tributary of the Solimoes River, forming there the boundary between Brazil and Peru. Dark green foliage perched high up on asparagus-like stems of trees formed a background to that wretchedly ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... to laugh; It was a miserable failure. "She's hardly spoken to me since," he went on, after a moment, wretchedly. "I've—oh, I've had a devil of a time these last two days, I can tell you. I can't get her to come out with me—she hardly leaves her room; she just cries and cries," he added with a sort of weariness. "Just keeps on saying she wants ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... Who dares to say 'all' when we are not there? We are an equal, a splendid, an inestimable part. Try us and you'll see—you will wonder how, without us, society has ever dragged itself even this distance—so wretchedly small compared with what it might have been—on its painful earthly pilgrimage. That is what I should like above all to pour into the ears of those who still hold out, who stiffen their necks and repeat ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... there ever such an unfortunate and incomprehensible speech made before? Of course it is scarcely necessary to explain to you poor Arthur's lack of tact, and that he meant nothing. But they! Can they be expected to understand? He will feel wretchedly about it when he realizes what he has done, but in the meantime? And M. Roux, of all men! When we were so fortunate as to get him, and he made himself so unreservedly agreeable, and I fancied that, in his way, Arthur quite admired him. ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... (eleven o'clock), and so afraid that, in the wear and tear of this strange life, I have written to Gad's Hill in the wrong order, and have not written to you, as I should, that I resolve to write this before going to bed. You will find it a wretchedly stupid letter; but you may imagine, my dearest girl, that ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... very glad," she answered. "Do you know that you made me wretchedly nervous? I was told just as I was going on that you had come to smash us all to ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... melted down the church-bells in this part of Burgundy and Vaud, to make cannon for the final effort which failed so fatally at Morat; and the old chroniclers relate—without any allusion to the sacrilege—that the artillery was wretchedly served on that cruel[54] day. It is some comfort to Englishmen to know that their ancestors under the Duke of Somerset displayed a marvellous courage on ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... free?" In their unbridled fanaticism they had forgotten the bondage of Egypt, the captivity of Babylon, and were oblivious of their existing state of vassalage to Rome. To say that Israel had never been in bondage was not only to convict themselves of falsehood but to stultify themselves wretchedly. ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... from him a promise not to be depressed, and not to do anything wrong. One might as well secure a promise not to have a rise of temperature. The gloom of despondency and the suicidal impulse are as powerful as they are unwelcome and unsought; and the wretchedly unhappy patient cannot alone ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... regard his work with that "wonder which is the natural product of ignorance!" If they were so in his case, why not in every other? All poets pledge themselves to be poetical, but too many of them are wretchedly prosaic—die and are buried, or what is worse, protract a miserable existence, in spite of their sentimental commonplaces, false ornaments, and a vicious style. But Thomson, in spite of all these, leapt at once into a glorious life, and a still more ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... he frowned from time to time. At noon, it was considered hopeless for him to attempt to escape by sea. The English had found out that he was at Rochefort; he must either give himself up to them, or cross the breadth of France again. We were wretchedly anxious; the minutes seemed like hours! On the one hand there were the Bourbons, who would have shot Napoleon if he had fallen into their clutches; and on the other, the English, a dishonored race: they covered themselves with shame by flinging a foe who asked ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... he appeared much reduced and extremely weak, insomuch that he had even expected death, and had procured a Franciscan habit to be buried in. He walked along with us into the town of Truxillo, and invited us all to sup with him; where we fared so wretchedly that I had not even my fill of bread or biscuit. After reading over the letters we had brought him relative to Hernandez, he promised to do every thing in his power to support him. The two vessels which I formerly mentioned as having brought horses from Hispaniola, only arrived three days ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... the number of a couple of hundred. They were very silent, eyeing us with an absorbed interest that embraced every article of our equipment. Men of the humblest peasant class, poorly—in many respects wretchedly—clad, they presented, in their ragged and shabby apparel, a sharp contrast to our Yeomanry soldiers, who seemed, by comparison, trim and well cared for. The Boers wore their ordinary clothes, which were relieved by only one military touch—the bandolier. This was generally of home manufacture, and ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... and to occasional meetings with Sidney Heron. Once and again a man at the office would ask me to dine with him (regarding me as a bachelor, of course), and always I felt bound to plead a prior engagement. One night, when Fanny had gone early to bed, feeling wretchedly ill, and sullenly angry because I would have no liquor of any sort on the premises, not even the lager beer which it had been my own habit for some time past to drink with meals, Heron sat with me in our living-room, smoking and staring into ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... enacted new laws, and put down lawful opposition. Nor do I blame anyone, in such circumstances, for working himself into supreme power, only I would not have it thought a sign of great goodness, to be head of a State so wretchedly discomposed. Lysander, being employed in the greatest commands and affairs of State, by a sober and well-governed city, may be said to have had repute as the best and most virtuous man, in the best and most virtuous commonwealth. And thus, often returning ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... Then after stumbling wretchedly through two lines of it, he suddenly forgot himself and Falbe, and the squealing unresponsive notes. He heard them no more, absorbed in the knowledge of what he meant by them, of the mood which they produced in him. His great, ungainly ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... it at the hotel. What trains were there leaving? Oh, there were numbers; there was one to Rouen and Havre and also to Dieppe about that time, to Bordeaux and San Sebastian, to all kinds of places. Bobby realized the utter hopelessness of attempting to trace her. Wretchedly the hours passed; in the middle of the afternoon he decided that whatever happened he would not stay another night in Paris. The thought of it sickened him. Paris, the hotel, and everything else had become hateful. No, he would spend ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... had to do, They said, if longing burned within him so. But at their words the older men must bow Their heads, and, smiling, somewhat thoughtful grow, Remembering well how fear in days gone by Had dealt with them, and poisoned wretchedly Good days, good deeds, and longings for all good: Yet on the evil times they would not brood, But sighing, strove to raise the weight of years, And no more memory of their hopes and fears They nourished, but such gentle thoughts ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... pretensions to the supernatural, it only means that we need a new embodiment for our ideals. If we find it in man—in God's creature—so much the better for man and so much the more glory to God, who has not then bungled so wretchedly as Christianity teaches." ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... Paris and back to London, where I began acting again with only half my heart. I did very well, they said, as Helen in "The Hunchback," the first part I played after my return; but I cared nothing about my success. I was feeling wretchedly ill, and angry too, because they insisted on putting my married name ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... "The whole apparatus for supplying pleasure is wretchedly inadequate and full of danger to whomsoever ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... proudly conscious of the correctness of his aims, the many, who judge solely by tangible results, imputed to him the disasters of the war and the collapse of the Coalition. Even Auckland exclaimed that the continental alliances had been wretchedly mismanaged, a remark which Malmesbury treated with quiet contempt. Grenville, who was about to move a vote of censure on the Ministry, burst into an agony of tears on hearing that Pitt was at death's door. His distress of mind probably arose from a belated perception ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... Mrs. Day, only half conscious of what was said, thinking of Bernard going wretchedly about his hated work with a "sharp watch" ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... the new girl was a sore embarrassment to the cow-puncher's wits. Poor Lin stood by the wheels of the wagon. He looked up at Miss Peck, he looked over at Tommy, his features assumed a rueful expression, and he wretchedly blurted, ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... sat so, closely embraced, without speech. Still Jenny's hands were free, as if they had been lifeless. Time seemed to stand still, and every noise to stop, during that long moment. And in her heart Jenny was saying over and over, utterly hopeless, "It's no good; it's no good; it's no good...." Wretchedly she attempted to press herself free, her elbow against Keith's breast. She could not get away; but each flying instant deepened ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... have a person managing his estates, in the best possible condition to serve him. His property, in fact, is not represented in the grand jury panel of the county. This is a great loss to him—a serious loss. In the first place, it is wretchedly, shamefully deficient in roads—both public and private. In the next place, there are many rents left unpaid, through the inability of the people, which we could get paid by the making of these roads, and other county arrangements, ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... She was wretchedly unhappy during all this time; would not set foot out of doors, and cried herself to sleep night after night. She detested the city. Already she was miserably homesick for the ranch. She remembered the days she had spent in the little dairy-house, happy ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... there is something which you take very hard, which torments you wretchedly, which in short makes life a misery to you. Your looks and your carriage betray this, even if you were silent. Where is your wonted and beloved cheerful countenance gone, your former beauty, your lively glance? Whence come these sorrowful downcast eyes, whence this perpetual silence, so unlike ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... resumed the Major, placidly, "in the little, old, unheard-of town Karnteel, County Tyrone, Province Ulster, Ireland, Tommy Stafford—in spite of the contrary opinion of his wretchedly poor parents—was fortunate enough to be born. And here, again, as I advised you the other day, you must be prepared for constant surprises in the study of ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... arising from the show-down was tinged with regret; he was still sorry for the innocent losers in Egypt. To employ two escaped convicts and a recreant prison guard in his efforts to prevail on Britt and secure the rights due an innocent man promised to involve him more wretchedly. ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... indicated a desire to appear well before the civilized world, and to rid the "land of the free" of the paradox of slavery. Representing such motives, the laws varied all the way from mere regulating acts to absolute prohibitions. On the whole, these acts were poorly conceived, loosely drawn, and wretchedly enforced. The systematic violation of the provisions of many of them led to a widespread belief that enforcement was, in the nature of the case, impossible; and thus, instead of marking ground already won, they were too often sources of distinct moral deterioration. Certainly the carnival of ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... this how wretchedly different from the savages! In this country, all the men esteem themselves equally men; and in man, what they most esteem is, the man. No distinction of birth; no prerogative attributed to rank, to the prejudice of the other free members of society; no pre-eminence annexed to merit that ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard
... fought. Our new acquaintance was a fair player and he played to win. Frances was learning to play and had a natural aptitude for the game. I played better than my usual form and I needed to, for Bayliss played wretchedly. He "dubbed" his approaches and missed easy putts. If he had kept his eye on the ball instead of on his opponents he might have done better, but that he would not do. He watched Heathcroft and Miss Morley continually, and the more ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... conveyancer, being concerned as one of the principals in a Chancery suit, Lord Thurlow advised him to submit the answer to the bill filed against him to the Attorney General. In due course the answer came under Scott's notice, when he found it so wretchedly drawn, that he advised Macnamara to have another answer drawn by some one who understood pleading. On the same day he was engaged at the bar of the House of Lords, when Lord Thurlow came to him, and said, "So I understand you don't think my friend Mac's answer ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... there, pondering wretchedly. The man who had been struck on the head was breathing stertorously. His companion soon dropped off to sleep, like the German, so that Dick was the only one awake. Through the window, presently, came the herald of the dawn, the slowly advancing light. ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske
... the only thing she should do? Sit down and "worry" over her "untidy house"; lament that "the stairs have not been swept since day before yesterday; that the parlor was not dusted this morning; the music-room looks simply awful," and cry that "if Mrs. Brown were to come in and see my wretchedly untidy house, I'm sure I should die of shame!" Would this help matters? Would one speck of dirt be removed as the result of the worry, the wailing, and the tears? Not a speck. Every particle would remain ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... sense of pleasant companionship. The child became a loved personality—the one human, close, vital thing in a world over which there seemed to hang a thick black fog through which Hamilton vaguely, wretchedly groped. He himself did not know why the child interested him so keenly, nor did he try to analyze the fact. He was merely grateful for it, and for the other fact that he cherished no sentimental feeling ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... to repair all damage, and again the vessels sought the open sea. When two days out, a strange sail was sighted. Jones crowded all sail on the "Richard," and set out in hot pursuit, but found, to his bitter disappointment, that his ship was a wretchedly slow sailer. Therefore, signalling to the swift-sailing "Cerf" to follow the stranger, he abandoned the chase to the smaller craft. All night long the cutter followed in the wake of the stranger, and when day broke the two vessels were near enough to ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... work one morning, let her step on a board with a nail sticking up in it. He pulled the nail out of her foot, said nothing to anybody, and drove her to the cultivator all day. Now she had been standing in her stall for weeks, patiently suffering, her body wretchedly thin, and her leg swollen until it looked like an elephant's. She would have to stand there, the veterinary said, until her hoof came off and she grew a new one, and she would always be stiff. Jerry had not been discharged, ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... which we have no evidence) since the great quadrupeds wandered over the surrounding plains; and the external features of the country must then have been very nearly the same as now. What, it may naturally be asked, was the character of the vegetation at that period; was the country as wretchedly sterile as it now is? As so many of the co-embedded shells are the same with those now living in the bay, I was at first inclined to think that the former vegetation was probably similar to the existing one; but this would have been an erroneous ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... Fortune looking like a walking pulpit in a thundercloud—I should say he'd make about four of me round the equator; and mind you, a chap stopped me in the street the other day and offered me a job as Beefeater outside a moving-picture show: yes, fact, I was wretchedly annoyed about it—and the man Twyning with a lean and hungry look like Cassius, or was it Judas Iscariot? Well, like Cassius out of a job or Judas Iscariot in the middle of one, anyway. That's Twyning's sort. Chap I never cottoned on to a bit. They'd precious little to say about Sabre. ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... women is always punished, I have said, and Lord Hermiston began to pay the penalty at once. His house in George Square was wretchedly ill-guided; nothing answerable to the expense of maintenance but the cellar, which was his own private care. When things went wrong at dinner, as they continually did, my lord would look up the table at his wife: "I think these broth would be better to sweem in than to sup." Or else ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... imperial swineherd, and as such he lived in a wretchedly small room near the pigsty; there he worked all day long, and when it was night he had made a pretty little pot. There were little bells round the rim, and when the water began to boil in it, the bells began to play ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... he said, as if to himself, while he looked at the peasant and his daughter. "Are you Randolphe? I had heard your name for so long and so often, among my people, that I had imagined you one of the principal of them. But you appear wretchedly poor, eh?" he continued, looking into the sallow, unshaven face before him. "I am afraid ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... fen, heath on both sides, marsh on both sides. In some of his maps the roads through enclosed country are marked by lines, and the roads through unenclosed country by dots. The proportion of unenclosed country, which, if cultivated, must have been wretchedly cultivated, seems to have been very great. From Abingdon to Gloucester, for example, a distance of forty or fifty miles, there was not a single enclosure, and scarcely one enclosure ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... little party safely embarked, but in the voyage encountered such heavy seas that the vessel very nearly foundered; a landing, however, being effected at a place called Roonish, in the Isle of Benbecula, a habitation had to be made out of a miserable hut. Two days being thus wretchedly spent, a move was made to the Island of Scalpa, where Charles was entertained for four days in the house of ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... he concluded, "how irritating they all are there. They are such wretchedly small, vain, egotistical, COMMONPLACE people! Would you believe it, they invited me there under the express condition that I should die quickly, and they are all as wild as possible with me for not having died yet, and for being, on ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... young man comes in, wretchedly, shabbily dressed, and in terror, the muscles of his face working, his eyes bright and restless; and in a broken voice, hardly above a whisper, he says: "I—by Christ's law—as a Christian—I cannot." "What is he muttering?" asks the president, frowning impatiently ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... first floor to the lady a fortnight since. The lady had paid a week's rent, and had given the name of Gray. She had been out from morning till night, for the first three days, and had come home again, on every occasion, with a wretchedly weary, disappointed look. The woman of the house had suspected that she was in hiding from her friends, under a false name; and that she had been vainly trying to raise money, or to get some employment, on the three days when ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... was stated to be in consequence of his departure from the country, the gossips would have been unable to discover the genuine motive if the news had not come from Antwerp that De Vlierbeck had resolved to pay his debts and was wretchedly poor. The cause of his misfortune—that is to say, his liability for his brother—was known, though all the circumstances were not ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... of removals and appointments under the new administration; but nothing, so far as I can judge, that promises much, in this way, of material benefit to Indian affairs. The department at head-quarters has been, so far as respects fiscal questions, wretchedly managed, and is over head and ears in debt, and the result of all this mal-administration is visited on the frontiers, in the bitter want of means for the agents, sub-agents, and mechanics, and interpreters, who are obliged to be either suspended, or put on short ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... youth! enchanting stage, profusely blest." Life is a fairy scene: almost all that deserves the name of enjoyment or pleasure is only a charming delusion; and in comes repining age, in all the gravity of hoary wisdom, and wretchedly chases away the bewitching phantom. When I think of life, I resolve to keep a strict look-out in the course of economy, for the sake of worldly convenience and independence of mind; to cultivate intimacy with ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... why does he do it?" she demanded impatiently. "How can a man be so weak, so wretchedly ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... wretchedly poor place. All are needy, from the Sarkee downwards, and when they get any property it all comes from the razzias. The system of living on rapine and man-stealing seems to bring its own ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... however, that the excellence limits itself to the ornament. The human figure is wretchedly incorrect—even barbarous. It may be asked why is this? How is it that while the decorative portion of an illuminated book is beautiful in the highest degree, both in line and colour, and yet occasionally ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... first bath, and duly installing the vice-M. D. and her charges, Dr. Spencer departed; and Ethel was launched on an unknown ocean, as pilot to an untried crew. She had been told to regard Leonard's bashfulness as a rare grace; but it was very inconvenient to have the boy wretchedly drooping, and owning nothing amiss, apparently unacquainted with any English words, except 'Thank you' and 'No, thank you.' Indeed, she doubted whether the shyness were genuine, for stories were afloat of behaviour at Stoneborough ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 'Eiconoclastes,' with MS. notes, supposed to be written by Milton, was bought by Waldron for 2s., who afterwards gave it to Dr. Farmer. Dr. Dibdin declares, that "never was a precious collection of English history and poetry so wretchedly detailed to the public in an auction-catalogue" as that of Mr. Wynne's library; and yet it will be seen that it must have realised a considerable sum of money. He mentions, that "a great number of the poetical tracts were disposed of, previous to the sale, ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... agent, avowing deep interest in our enterprise, had presented Hubbard with passes to Rigolet for his party. Hubbard accepted them gratefully, but upon boarding the steamer he was informed that the passes did not include meals. Now such were the prices charged for the wretchedly-cooked food served on the Virginia Lake that a moderately hungry man could scarcely have his appetite killed at a less expense than six dollars a day. So Hubbard returned the passes to the general passenger agent with thanks, and purchased tickets, which did ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... nurse returned in a state of most uncustomary excitement from an errand on which Agnes had sent her. Passing the door of a fashionable dentist, she had met Lord Montbarry himself just leaving the house. The good woman's report described him, with malicious pleasure, as looking wretchedly ill. 'His cheeks are getting hollow, my dear, and his beard is turning grey. I hope the ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... emphasis. All that part of his life seemed vague and far away as though he had dreamed it in some prehistoric period of his existence. It refused to take the hues and proportion of reality. Yes, that was nothing but a wild fantastic dream—the sort of dream from which one wakes with a wretchedly bad taste in the mouth. This rare girl, with the flower-like curves and colours, was the only reality. And yet, was she reality? Her dress, wreathed flame-like from warm white shoulders to satin shod ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... reduced the duties by an annual percentage for ten years. The nullifiers claimed this as a triumph, and formally repealed the ordinance of nullification, as if it had accomplished its object. But, in its real intent, it had failed wretchedly. It had asserted State sovereignty through the State's proper voice of a convention. When the time fixed for the execution of the ordinance arrived, Jackson's intention of taking the State's sovereignty by the throat had become so evident that an unofficial meeting of nullifiers ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... troubled sleep, Oscar awoke in the morning, feeling quite wretchedly. As soon as his mother entered the room, her quick eye detected the unfavorable change; but he did not seem inclined to complain much of his feelings, and appeared averse to conversing about them. ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... friend ate. But the coffee M. St.-Ange declared he could not touch: it was too wretchedly bad. At the French Market, near by, there was some noble coffee. This, however, would have to be bought, and Parson Jones ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... faltered; "but O Tom! it was so unnecessary; so wretchedly unnecessary! It's—it's more than two whole months since—since Vincent Farley broke the ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... furnished only with men's saddles, there was quite a commotion. 'The ladies will never be able to ride all that way in that fashion; only native women can ride so, not real ladies,' and so terrible did they make out the prospect of the road, that we were persuaded to take two wretchedly uncomfortable side-saddles with us as far as Thingvalla, which we never used, ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... them. It first investigated the ground it had been over, next where it had been lying, and finally where it should go. After this it began to wend its way slowly along, and acted just as though it had never fallen. The birch had become most wretchedly soiled, but now rose up and made itself tidy. Then they sped onward, faster and faster, upward and on either side, in sunshine and in rain. "What in the world can this be?" said the mountain, all glittering with dew, as the summer sun shone down on it. The birds sang, the wood-mouse ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... waked wretchedly, all night, and was very sick and bilious in consequence, and scarce able to hold up my head with pain. A walk, however, with my sons did me a great deal of good; indeed their society is the greatest support the world can afford me. Their ideas ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... to tell her, about the United States forts, troops, and ships of war, and she had stories to tell with excited vivacity that set forth sadly enough the wretchedly unsettled condition of her country, which she appeared to love so well, after all. Troubled as it was, it was her own land, and she ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... Barbot (iv. 9) tells us "the Gaboon blacks are barbarous, wild, bloody, and treacherous, very thievish and crafty, especially towards strangers. The women, on the contrary, are as civil and courteous to them, and will use all possible means to enjoy their company; but both sexes are the most wretchedly poor and miserable of any in Guinea, and yet so very haughty, that they are perfectly ridiculous ... They are all excessively fond of brandy and other strong liquors of Europe and America ... If they fancy one has got a ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... trench, Sliding and poising, groping with his boots; Sometimes he tripped and lurched against the walls With hands that pawed the sodden bags of chalk. He couldn't see the man who walked in front; Only he heard the drum and rattle of feet Stepping along the trench-boards,—often splashing Wretchedly where ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... ought to come in time. Thus far, unfortunately, it is too often conducted by teachers who are themselves without trained musical ability and who permit their pupils to shout rather than sing music of an inferior order to the accompaniment of a piano wretchedly out ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... gave no verbal answer. He merely looked at Soames and pointed with rigid forefinger to the door. Soames was wretchedly rising from his chair when, with a desperate quick gesture, I swept together two dinner-knives that were on the table, and laid their blades across each other. The Devil stepped sharp back against the table behind him, ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... when his wife and his son Vassily came to say good-bye to him, and when in the wasted, wretchedly dressed old woman he scarcely recognized his once fat and dignified Elizaveta Trofimovna, and when he saw his son wearing a short, shabby reefer-jacket and cotton trousers instead of the high-school uniform, he realized that his fate was decided, and that whatever new ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... feature of the whole concern. Two or three hundred men in the men's Shelter, or as many women in the women's Shelter, are collected together, most of them strange to each other, in a large room. They are all wretchedly poor—what are you to do with them? This is what we ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... necessary to tell the reader that the ruse was successful, and that Lefebvre, thus brought to the point, married Madame Sans Gene, and subsequently, through his own advancement, made her the Duchess of Dantzig. The anecdote suffices to show how wretchedly poor and yet how full of interest and useful to those about him Napoleon was ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... ponderous night-fiend upon every throb of his unresisting heart. His wretchedness seemed as deep as his original nature, if not identical with it. It was the misfortune of a second guest to cherish within his bosom a diseased heart, which had become so wretchedly sore that the continual and unavoidable rubs of the world, the blow of an enemy, the careless jostle of a stranger, and even the faithful and loving touch of a friend, alike made ulcers in it. As is ...
— The Christmas Banquet (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... their proud dwelling, the fair Rhine flowing by, There had they suit and service from haughtiest chivalry For broad lands and lordships, and glorious was their state, Till wretchedly they perish'd by two noble ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... would not wrong thee, nor exchange My lot with living being: I can bear— However wretchedly, 'tis still to bear— In life what others could not brook to dream, But perish ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... Albion plunged into heavy seas. The motion was much worse in her than on board the large vessel we had been so glad to leave, and all my previous sufferings seemed insignificant compared with what I endured in my small and wretchedly hard berth. I have a dim recollection of F—— helping me to dress, wrapping me up in various shawls, and half carrying me up the companion ladder; I crawled into a sunny corner among the boxes of oranges with which the deck was crowded, and there I lay helpless and utterly miserable. One ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... he, I thought it scarcely became me to take such insults patiently. I was, nevertheless, well aware that the devilish powers of his mother would finally prevail; and either the dread of this, or the inward consciousness of having wronged him, certainly unnerved my arm, for I fought wretchedly, and was soon wholly overcome. I was so sore defeated that I kneeled and was going to beg his pardon; but another thought struck me momentarily, and I threw myself on my face, and inwardly begged aid from heaven; at the same time I felt as if assured ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... left the newspaper, littered with curls, spread upon the hearthrug. At last her husband gathered it up and put it at the back of the fire. She went about her work with closed mouth and very quiet. Morel was subdued. He crept about wretchedly, and his meals were a misery that day. She spoke to him civilly, and never alluded to what he had done. But he felt something ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... clear ourselves of debt and begin anew. But, seemingly, this prosperity was not for us, for these years of plenty were almost invariably followed by one or two less fruitful ones that came and "swallowed up the whole," leaving us as forlorn and as wretchedly poor as we were before. This failure of the crops because of drouths unduly long, wet seasons, the ravages of worms, caterpillars, and other uncontrollable circumstances, not only meant that the whole of that year's labor was to ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... first he only had one color of ink—red—and if I sketched with him all day he would commence to look wretchedly anemic. He took two days to refill, normally. But I could use him again in only one day's time provided I didn't mind the top three-fourths of my pen laying on ...
— Droozle • Frank Banta
... however, live to see not only the germ of a nation emerge from chaos, but also the framework of an organization for governing it well or ill. The centralized bureaucracy which he succeeded in initiating was, of course, wretchedly imperfect both in constitution and equipment. But it promised to promote the end he had in view and no other, inasmuch as, being the only existent machine of government, it derived any effective power it had from ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... wondered about her that night at the restaurant, he remembered—wondered and forgotten. He had been unhappy that night, with the peculiar unhappiness of a naturally decisive man wretchedly in two minds, and she had given him a half ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... treated even thus by thee. All the Kauravas know what words were addressed in their assembly by Dussasana unto those chastisers of foes,—the sons of Kunti,—when they were about to set out for the woods. Who is there capable of behaving so wretchedly towards his own honest kinsmen, that are ever engaged in the practice of virtue, that are untainted by avarice, and that are always correct in their behaviour? Language such as becomes only those that are heartless and despicable, was frequently repeated ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... organization which eventually, under the leadership of Grant and Sherman, crushed the Rebellion and restored the Union. One of the regiments which came to Washington from New York, the Seventy-ninth Highlanders, becoming wretchedly disorganized, he detailed his brother, Colonel James Cameron, to command it. This settled all differences, the Scotchmen remembering the proverb that "The Camerons of Lochiel never proved false to a friend or a foe." In a few weeks, however, Colonel Cameron was killed ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... and avoiding a rich old gentleman who loved his game of piquet, and on whom Mike was used to rely in the old days for his Sunday dinner (he used to say the old gentleman gave the best dinners in London; they always ran into a tenner), he sat down at the whist-table. His partner played wretchedly, and though he had Longley and Lovegrove against him, he could not refrain from betting ten pounds on every rubber. He played till the club closed, he played till he had reduced his balance at the ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... about 80 years of age, who had forty grand-children, acknowledged, that not one of them had been taught to read. In this land of Christian benevolence, can we pronounce a certain proportion of its inhabitants to be wretchedly depraved, and even a wicked set of people; advertise them as rogues and vagabonds, and offer a reward for their apprehension, without devising any means of remedying the defects of their habits, or holding out encouragement to reformation, ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... the lesson his fate teaches. It is established now that in California no man is above the law; that no man can affect the even poise of justice by fear. Confiding in his own strength as superior to the law, David S. Terry fell wretchedly. ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... did not have a particularly pleasant home at Auxonne. They lived in a bare room in the regimental barracks, "Number 16," up one flight of stairs. It was wretchedly furnished. It contained an uncurtained bed, a table, two chairs, and an old wooden box, which the boys used, both as bureau and bookcase. Louis slept on a little cot-bed near his brother; and how they lived on sixty cents a ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... an officer, sir," said Allenby, wretchedly. "It's not right: think of the regiment. And Miss Norah. Won't you let me ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... Stanley Graff sullenly expressionless—as a parvenu before the bleak propriety of his butler. He hated to expose his back to their laughter, and in his effort to be casually merry he stammered and was raucously friendly and oozed wretchedly out ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... Plutarch. But in the majority of cases these sources provided him only with bare or even crude sketches, and perhaps nothing furnishes clearer proof of his genius than the way in which he has seen the human significance in stories baldly and wretchedly told, where the figures are merely wooden types, and by the power of imagination has transformed them into the greatest literary masterpieces, profound revelations of the underlying ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... confronted by her optimism, had never, since his time of trial began, felt so wretchedly dejected, "I can't go on waiting ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... be a wretchedly conceived scheme, I renounce it, and, to cause no further trouble, I write down the facts connected ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... properly aired then, or something. I have never seen you looking so wretchedly. I do wish you would be frank with me. Something must have worried you. People don't look like ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... considerable property, the greater part of which I squandered in my youth in dissipation; but I perceived my error, and reflected that riches were perishable, and quickly consumed by such ill managers as myself, I further considered, that by my irregular way of living I wretchedly misspent my time; which is, of all things, the most valuable. Struck with these reflections, I collected the remains of my fortune, and sold all my effects by public auction. I then entered into a contract ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... used to say. Duncan was very sorry as a small boy that he had left heaven and come to stay with us. He used to say with a sigh, 'You see, heaven's extra.' I don't know where he picked up the expression. But what I was going to say is that people are so wretchedly provoking. This morning I was really badly provoked. For one thing, I was very busy doing the accounts of the Girls' Club (you know I have no head for figures), and Mrs. Morton strolled in to see me, to cheer me up, she said. Cheer me up! She maddened me. I haven't been forty years a minister's wife ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... Shakespeare's equal)—would not have ventured to predict. The "Village Minstrel" was so named after the principal poem, which contains one hundred and nineteen Spenserian stanzas, and is to a considerable extent autobiographical. It was composed in 1819, at which time Clare was wretchedly poor, and this will no doubt account for the repining tone of a few of the verses. It abounds, however, in poetical beauties, of which the following stanzas ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry |
