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More "Commiseration" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... other men of those times. It is to be found in the Chronicle, before referred to, of Azurara. The merciful chronicler is smitten to the heart at the sorrow he witnesses, but still believes it to be for good, and that he must not let his mere earthly commiseration get ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... as if Lisle deserves their commiseration more than I do," he answered with a smile which ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... seemed to direct the natives, that he would wait for the captain. Then the fleet of canoes turned, and headed for the shore, and the captive white woman gave the mate a despairing, agonised look that not only filled him with the deepest commiseration for her, but almost convinced him that poor Pendleton and the others ...
— The Adventure Of Elizabeth Morey, of New York - 1901 • Louis Becke
... the easiest way to fight the blues is by realizing that they are a deliberate, if unconscious, attempt to gain the pity of ourselves and others. There seems to be in undeveloped human nature something that really enjoys being pitied, and if we cannot get the commiseration of other people, we can, without much trouble, work up a case of self-pity. Most of us would have to acknowledge that we seldom find tears in our eyes except when our own woes are under consideration. "Whatever else the blues accomplish, they certainly afford us a chance to submerge ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... sat holding her hands to her fat shaking sides, and appearing likely to tumble off her chair. Titmouse was almost on the point of striking her! At length, however, the fit went off; and wiping her eyes, she expressed the greatest commiseration for him, and proposed to go down and fetch up some soft soap and flannel, and try what "a good hearty wash would do." Scarce sooner said than done—but, alas, in vain! Scrub, scrub—lather, lather, did they both; but, the instant ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... cause for the ending was of little importance. Sommers proceeded to make an examination, however; he would have to sign a certificate for the health officers. As he bent over the inert form, he had a feeling of commiseration rather than of relief. Worthless clay that the man was, it seemed petty now to have been so disturbed over his living on, for such satisfactions as his poor fragment of life gave him. Like the insignificant ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... gray eyes narrowed into slits, and the hump on his shoulders became more pronounced as his head drooped forward a little; but his smooth tones did not falter, and his uneasy hearer thought he found a note of friendly commiseration ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... mantua-makers? If a woman asks a dollar for her work, does not her female employer ask her if she will not take ninety cents? You say "only ten cents difference;" but that is sometimes the difference between heaven and hell. Women often have less commiseration for women than men. If a woman steps aside from the path of virtue, man may forgive,—woman never! Woman will never get justice done ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... expressed commiseration for mad Jane Ray, but I never could tell whether she really believed her insane or not. I was always inclined to think that she was willing to put up with some of her tricks, because they served to divert our minds from the painful and depressing circumstances ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... desire to "drop a donick" on the head of one of them that had spit at him, when Flo suddenly gasped, "Oh! there's——" and stopped short. Loungers and passers-by looked up and shrugged their Gallic shoulders and exchanged glances of commiseration at sight of a sixteen-year-old boy rushing yelling after a cab. But the boy was fleet, despite his recent flesh-wound, and presently reappeared, dragging a man by the arm, who bared his brown head and bowed low over ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... sublimely unconscious that her childhood is gone. And this gay paradox is less arresting than the asseveration that America is lacking in humour because she is lacking in self-knowledge. There is a certain grimly comic irony in this commiseration with us, on the part of our British critics, for our failure joyously to realize our old age, which they would have us believe is a sort of premature senescence and decay. The New World is pitied for her failure to know without illusion the futility of ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... Churchill would never get over it."—Even Mr. Weston shook his head, and looked solemn, and said, "Ah! poor woman, who would have thought it!" and resolved, that his mourning should be as handsome as possible; and his wife sat sighing and moralising over her broad hems with a commiseration and good sense, true and steady. How it would affect Frank was among the earliest thoughts of both. It was also a very early speculation with Emma. The character of Mrs. Churchill, the grief of her ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Sir Gervaise, after regarding his host a moment with commiseration and concern. "I hope he has not yet left ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... himself to attending upon them in their hospitals, where, having abundantly supplied them with alms, he made their beds, dressed their sores, and performed for them the most abject services; he often even kissed their hands and their faces with great feelings of commiseration. The words which our Saviour one day addressed to him while at prayer, stimulated him to continue this charitable exercise, notwithstanding his natural repugnance: "Francis, if thou desirest to know My will, thou must despise and hate all that thou hast loved ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... days and nights within the stingy cells, his great heart melted with pity. For the first moments, his disposition to jest passed away, and all his soul rose up in indignation. If profane words came to his lips, they came from genuine commiseration, and a sense of the outrage that had been committed upon those who had been stamped with the ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... Corps well-nigh lost his reputation for veracity, or sobriety, by coming back to the ship one day with a most amazing tale as to some fish he had seen promenading—promenading, forsooth!—on the beach. Everyone was hilariously skeptical. Some shook their heads with mock commiseration and hinted darkly that much learning had made him mad, while still others wondered audibly how any man, no matter how vinaceous his tendencies, could have seen fish walk so early in the day. Only one among us all believed him, and ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... a shabby book under one arm and a palm-leaf fan in his hand, he marched all the way down Clark Street, past the City Hall, to the office. Everywhere along the route he was greeted with jeers or pitying words, as his appearance excited the mirth or commiseration of the passers-by. When he reached the entrance to the Daily News office he was followed by a motley crowd of noisy urchins whom he dismissed with a grimace and the cabalistic gesture with which Nicholas ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... not know the names of any one of these men, so I cannot be accused of malice in holding up their conduct to the commiseration not to say contempt of the public. Though an intense prohibitionist I have never been able to appreciate the wisdom and nerve of some of our temperance people; yet, never before have I noticed anything that looked so like treachery ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith
... John Ruffin sprang from his chair with a briskness which made Hilary Vance himself jump, and cried in a tone of the liveliest commiseration and dismay: ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... some hideous rite in connection with their peculiar customs, and at which they were determined I should not be present. I descended from the pi-pi, and attended by Kory-Kory, who on this occasion did not show his usual commiseration for my lameness, but seemed only anxious to hurry me on, walked away from the place. As I passed through the noisy throng, which by this time completely environed the Ti, I looked with fearful curiosity at the three packages, which now were deposited upon the ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... prepare food, our host's wife, a large, benevolent-looking woman, upwards of forty, also sat down by us. In our soiled and travel-stained appearance, the good lady seemed to find abundant matter for commiseration; and all the while kept looking at us ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... most friendly to us, and the best informed—I receive commiseration because of the dishonourable attitude of our Government about the Panama Canal tolls. This, I confess, is hard to meet. We made a bargain—a solemn compact—and we have broken it. Whether it were a good bargain or a bad ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... Princess late in the evening, together with Baggs of the British office. His pride and confidence received a severe shock. She glanced at him with unaffected welcome, but the air of one who was looking upon his face for the first time. It was not until he had spent a full hour in doleful self-commiseration, that his sense of worldliness came to his relief. In a flash, he was joyously convincing himself that her pose during the presentation was artfully—and very properly—assumed. He saw through it very plainly! How simple he had been! ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... that the dear excellent lower classes receive an immense amount of consoling happiness from that ceremony of hat touching, and quite pity those who, unfortunately for themselves, know nothing about it. I would ask any such lady or gentleman whether he or she does not feel a certain amount of commiseration for the rudeness of the town-bred artisan who walks about with his hands in his pockets as though he recognized a superior in ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... back to Postel to submit a fresh doubt that had occurred to her, she said. She would like the opinion of such an experienced member of the Chamber of Commerce; she so managed that he escorted her home, and listened patiently to his commiseration. ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... this talk, and felt hideously ashamed that people should be pitying her. Vainly did she try to get some measure of comfort from her mother. Kapus Irma, irritated by the looks of commiseration which were being levelled at her daughter, dubbed the latter a fool for not having the sense to know how to keep her bridegroom ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... them!—what a waist!—what a killing sea-green shot-silk gown!—what a cameo, the size of a muffin! There were thirty-six young men of the University in love at one time with Emily Blades: and no words are sufficient to describe the pity, the sorrow, the deep, deep commiseration—the rage, fury, and uncharitableness, in other words—with which the Miss Trumps (daughter of Trumps, the Professor of Phlebotomy) regarded her, because she DIDN'T squint, and because she ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the prejudices of the country party; but it contributed nothing to their power and security: on the contrary, by exciting commiseration, it tended still further to increase the disbelief of the whole plot, which began now to prevail. The commons, therefore, not to lose the present opportunity, resolved to make both friends and enemies sensible of their power. They passed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... the costume of the Order of the Garter. On his right stands the King, with the crown on his head, and reflecting a goodly shadow on the wall. Between the King and his brother are some courtiers, who exclaim, in a tone of commiseration, "Lost, or stolen, a gentleman's shadow." At the bottom of the print is ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... one quality of the mind with which Lord Nick was less familiar than with all others, it was humbleness of spirit. He now abased his magnificent head, and resting his chin in the mighty palm of his hand, he stared with astonishment and commiseration into the face of Donnegan. He seemed to be learning new things every moment about ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... of commiseration is universal. Though the words of the speaker were evidently unintelligible to him for whose ears they were intended, their import was conveyed in the kindness of the accents. The eyes of the boy turned slowly from the view of the woods, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... introduced? But he did not want to be charged with the odium of the catastrophe. Every man cares something for the opinion of his fellows. And seeing that Feltram had been well liked, and that his death had excited a vehement commiseration, Sir Bale did not wish it to be said that he had made the house too hot to hold him, and had ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... in a tone of commiseration, though she had no idea whether it was twenty or forty miles he had driven ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... to escape, poor dear!" said Mrs. Sharpe in a tone of commiseration. "She's greatly to ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... ladies have to them; wherefore, while I weave these stories, I stray not so far from Mount Parnassus and the Muses as not a few perchance suppose. But what shall we say to those, in whom my hunger excites such commiseration that they bid me get me bread? Verily I know not, save this:— Suppose that in my need I were to beg bread of them, what would be their answer? I doubt not they would say:—"Go seek it among the fables." And in sooth the poets have found ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... wealthy fellow, who was so diseased with a mania for literature that I paid newspapers and reviews to publish my contributions, which no human being would have accepted gratuitously. As I left the cafe, one of my intimate friends ran up to me. His face expressed that mixture of cordial commiseration and desire to make a fuss about the matter which one's friends' faces always wear ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... all think at home. That's why I'm—I'm running away from them," she wailed, in a fresh access of self-commiseration. ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... climate of the Tropic of Cancer had made no impression, so delicately fair was its complexion. Ringlets of red-brown hair hung to her shoulders. Frankness looked out from her hazel eyes which were set wide; commiseration repressed now the mischievousness that normally inhabited her ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... for them. In a measure appreciable to himself she admired him, and admiration alone can make pity palatable to the proud. In her eyes his constancy under misfortune was as admirable as his misfortunes themselves were worthy of commiseration. In her eyes he was a gentleman, and one who had a right to hold his head high among the best. When he was poorest, he had felt himself to be in her eyes a hero. Are there many men who can resist the charm of the one woman who believes them to be heroic? Are not most men, too, really better ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... surrounds every power and dominion. Just then a violent fit of coughing seized him. Far from receiving one single word—indifferent, and meaningless, it is true, but still containing, among well-bred people brought together by chance, at least some pretence of civil commiseration—he now heard hostile ejaculations and muttered complaints. Society there assembled disdained any pantomime on his account, perhaps because he had gauged its real nature ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... applies to Turkish ladies as well as to any others, in their laudable determination not to be disappointed they have been patiently squatting among the gray tombstones since early dawn. The roadway is anything but smooth, nevertheless one could scarce be so dead to all feelings of commiseration as to remain unmoved by the sight of that patiently waiting crowd of shrouded females; accordingly I mount and pick my way along the street and out of town. Modest as is this performance, it is the most marvellous thing they have seen for many a day; not a sound escapes them as I wheel ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... reason. These are important functions, but they are not all. A human being is also provided with a heart, which is capable of feeling sympathy for other human beings—for all living things. This sympathetic feeling may cover a wide range—pity, commiseration, friendship, admiration, devotion, adoration. ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... turned hotly upon the Church, exclaiming: "What has Christianity done by direct effort for our slave population? Comparatively nothing. She has explored the isles of the ocean for objects of commiseration; but, amazing stupidity! she can gaze without emotion on a multitude of miserable beings at home, large enough to constitute a nation of freemen, whom tyranny has heathenized by law. In her public services they are seldom remembered, and in her private donations they are forgotten. ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... her poor father, now," the lady in taffeta announced with the dramatic commiseration of the self-invited auditor. "He thought an iced towel on her head might make her feel better. Is the dear little thing an orphan—I mean ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... participated in the division which has all the seeds of discord in itself that brought on the ruin of the Polish empire. That power has already felt the effect of example; and, though it may repine, it cannot complain, as it might otherwise have done; or if it does, it cannot expect equal commiseration. ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... "History of Loango" with the wise and memorable words: "Touching the Africans, these people have vices,—what people is exempt from vice? But, were they even more wicked and more vicious, they would be so much the more entitled to the commiseration and good offices of their fellow- men, and, should the missionary despair of making them Christians, men ought still to endeavour ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... the death-procession pass, were some, women particularly, who bewailed and lamented the fate to which Jesus was going. We read of no man who ventured to raise his voice in protest or pity; but on this dreadful occasion as at other times, women were not afraid to cry out in commiseration or praise. Jesus, who had been silent under the inquisition of the priests, silent under the humiliating mockery of the sensual Herod and his coarse underlings, silent when buffeted and beaten by the brutal legionaries of Pilate, turned to the women whose sympathizing ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... having been a pupil and friend of the writer, he perused their political obituary with much regret. However, office holding in the far East is not only an equivocal honor, but a precarious means of subsistence, which, as the aspirants fully understand, one can somewhat economize his commiseration. Why, they are used to it in that strange country. The last mail brings intelligence of the degradation of one hundred and ten office holders of all grades, from the proud minister of state down to the humble ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... pitch of indignation against the perpetrators of such a crime. The countenance, in the condition of repose which it assumed after death, appeared extremely beautiful, and seemed to address a mute but touching appeal to the commiseration of every beholder. It was necessary, therefore, to hurry it away. Besides, the soldiers themselves were impatient. They wished to get through with their horrid work ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... a chair, and, commanding the turnkey to retire, he opened the conversation, endeavouring to throw into his tone and countenance as much commiseration as they were capable of expressing, for the one was sharp and harsh, the ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... them. The little glimpse of domestic harmony which had been offered her, gave her no regret, no longing. It was not a condition of life which fitted her, and she could see in it but an appalling and hopeless ennui. She was moved by a kind of commiseration for Madame Ratignolle,—a pity for that colorless existence which never uplifted its possessor beyond the region of blind contentment, in which no moment of anguish ever visited her soul, in which she would never have the ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... then, after all!" she muttered, with mournful commiseration. "But, you know, he'll have to see you, this time. He ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... Necessity, however, added boldness to her measures, and she advanced with ten or twelve female attendants to Chisapani, a fortress commanding the entrance into Nepal. It was evident, however, that the commiseration of the people was daily gaining strength, and the timidity of the regent gave daily an increase of power to the princess. An additional company of Seapoys was sent to Chisapani, as if soldiers were the proper persons to stop the progress of a few helpless women. The officer commanding had ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... confidential interview with him, by the glimmer of a solitary candle, just serving to light up his severe face, which changed its expression several times as I narrated the calamity. It was too stupendous for rebuke, and I fancied his eyes softened with something like commiseration as he gazed upon us. After a short interval of deliberation, he announced his intention of accompanying us to the residence of the Secretary of State; and in a few minutes we were driving back again to the opposite extremity of London. It was not far off the hour for the morning delivery ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... uttered expecting to obtain commiseration: Caesar, however, made no answer to it. Fearing, however, that she might make away with herself he exhorted her again to be of good cheer, did not remove any of her attendants, and kept a careful watch upon ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... found mercy or commiseration," interposed Anna, with bitterness, "neither on earth nor in heaven. I was and remained deserted and solitary, and was compelled to marry this Prince Ulrich of Brunswick, for whom I felt nothing but a chilling, mortal indifference. ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... the navigation of convict vessels, changed the aspect of their fortune, and filled all classes with commiseration: such was the wreck of the Amphitrite, in 1833, which struck on the coast of Bologne. That vessel was in a position of great danger, and the French pilot, Heuret, endeavoured to warn, in time to save; but the risk of ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... her summer dress. Others looked on in wonder, too, and with a respect akin to awe. Among them were her sister and Henry Muir, Mr. Arnault, and Miss Wildmere—her feelings divided between envy and commiseration for the ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... that she had been compelled to give to Roger, his name had not passed her lips. He had been worse than dead to her, and she wondered if he were dead. She had never cherished any vindictive feelings toward him, and even now her eyes filled with tears of commiseration for his wronged and wretched life. Then by a conscious effort she turned her thoughts to the friend who had never failed her. "Dear Roger," she murmured, "he didn't appear well the last time I saw him. He is beginning to look worn and thin. ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... over his steel-rimmed spectacles with that same disturbing look of clairvoyance I have already mentioned as one of his characteristics. The grey eyes were quizzical, and yet seemed to express a little commiseration. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... scum from every stagnant pool and drink with a relish. Lazy swine were forced to leave their muddy beds to give place to the cup of the thirsty soldier. The Eighty-sixth Regiment in after times was wont to look back on this campaign—its first lesson in soldiering—with more commiseration and regret than any period of its subsequent career. It consumed thirty-eight days of the severest toils and privations, than which no other has surpassed, making a distance of over three hundred miles in pursuit of ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear
... brightened, and he blessed me, and muttered something about wishing that I had fallen into better hands; but he was afraid, apparently, of saying more, and casting another glance at me, I suspect of commiseration, he tottered off to his daily avocations. My chest, which was a very small one, was stowed away by one of the seamen under a bunk in the forecastle. I thought that I was to have a cabin under the poop, and to mess with the captain; but when I made inquiries, ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... whispered in my ear that he was one of the dreadful Lobishomens, a devoted race, held in mingled horror and commiseration, and never mentioned {383} without by the Portuguese peasantry. They believe that if a woman be delivered of seven male infants successively, the seventh, by an inexplicable fatality, becomes subject to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 208, October 22, 1853 • Various
... is more clear to me than that sunbeam is to you. Poor fellow! poor young man! And you tell me this magistrate expressed great sympathy and commiseration for you?" ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the reception to the Hohenwalds; and Carlton, entering the reading-room of the hotel on the same afternoon, found Miss Morris and her aunt there together taking tea. They both looked at him with expressions of such genuine commiseration that he stopped just as he was going to seat himself and ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis
... the log landin'. Be in at supper-time, so he said." The cook eyed the captive with curiosity not unmixed with commiseration. "Has he been takin' on much?" he inquired of one of ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... his account of it, and his mode of treatment, though brief, are every way worthy of the close, practical inquirer into nature, and the sound medical philosopher. His description is not unmixed with strong expressions of horror and commiseration at its ravages. He describes it in a manner so similar to that in which it now prevails, that no doubt can exist of the identity of the diseases. He acknowledges, however, "rubedo, calor, dolor," among its symptoms. Cochlearia, theriaca and similar articles, according ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... had troubles to face, but he and his supporters noticed that the indifference with which they had been regarded was giving place to sympathy. When Grant first visited the settlement after his misadventure, he was received with expressions of indignant commiseration, and he afterward told Flora dryly that he was astonished at the number of his friends. Mrs. Nelson and a few of the stalwarts pressed Hardie to make new and more vigorous efforts toward the expulsion of the offenders, but the clergyman refrained. ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... I was for ever sundered from this object of my commiseration; yet had my eyes only been as expressive as hers, all I have set down here might ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... fly off indignantly from any such proposal. If I ask them the meaning of some obscure passage, they answer that I am unprepared and unfitted for it, and that his mind is so far above mine, I cannot grasp it. I look up into the faces of these worthy men, who mingle so much commiseration with so much calmness, and wonder at seeing them look no less vacant ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... valet could swallow no more; but, assuming a look of commiseration and dignity, he drew back, and left the young tyro of the sea to enjoy his joke with a companion ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... Ned repaired to the kitchen, where Abijah, with much scolding and some commiseration, applied a wet cloth to his face, and fastened a handkerchief over it to keep it in its place. Then the boy went into the little room which his father called his study, where he used to read the papers, to follow the doings ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... fair sex never want means to support and spirit to defend them. May the tear of misery be dried by the hand of commiseration. ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... was Jane M'Crea, is the daughter of an American loyalist and a gallant field officer, now deceased, and the niece and namesake of the unfortunate Jane M'Crea, whose tragical fate in the American revolutionary war excited so much commiseration, and gave rise to a correspondence between the American general. Gates, and General Burgoyne. The former wrote: "Miss M'Crea, a young lady, lovely to the sight, of virtuous character and amiable disposition, engaged to an officer of your army, was, with other women and children, ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... solicitude of Her Majesty's Government on the subject of the Aborigines of New Holland. It is impossible to contemplate the condition and the prospects of that unfortunate race without the deepest commiseration. I am well aware of the many difficulties which oppose themselves to the effectual protection of these people, and especially of those which must originate from the exasperation of the settlers, on ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... in entering heedlessly upon so large an undertaking, and must pay dearly for that in discretion. He was strictly liable and bound to pay what he had acknowledged with his hand to be a lawful debt. There was no help for him. The young man was worthy of commiseration, and his creditors should show him mercy." This was the verdict of the commissioner, spoken in the ears of one who was a stranger to mercy, and who had vowed to show me none. Guilt, however, attached to my good name no longer, and I smiled at his malignity. It was too soon to smile. The secret ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... be rather graceless to say that after drinking the cocktail Fitzgerald resumed his aforetime rosal lenses. He was naturally at heart an optimist, as are all men of action. And so the admiral, who had begun to look upon him with puzzled commiseration, came to the conclusion that the young man's liver had resumed its normal functions. An old woman would have diagnosed the case as one of heart (as Mrs. Coldfield secretly and readily and happily did); but an old fellow like the admiral generally ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... outwent all shew of competence: spare, but discreet of speech, better conceiuing, then deliuering: equally stout, and kind, not vpon lightnesse of humour, but soundnesse of iudgement, inclined to commiseration, readie to relieue. Briefely, so accomplished in vertue, that those, who for many yeeres together wayted in neerest place about him, and, by his example, learned to hate vntruth, haue often deeply protested, how no curious obseruation ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... exhausted, she found herself entirely at the end of her resources. How thoroughly did the banished woman then realise the woes of exile—how hard it is to climb and descend the stranger's stair, experience the hollowness of his promise, and the arrogance of his commiseration. And, finally, as though fated to drain her cup of bitterness to the last drop, to learn that she, her long-loved bosom friend and royal mistress, who owed her, at the very least, a silent fidelity, had openly ranged herself on the side ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... the kindly looks of commiseration that followed my sister. All the servants in the house vied with one another who should he the most attentive. Coralie looked at me, with sweet, sisterly anxiety shining in ...
— Coralie • Charlotte M. Braeme
... reluctantly gave way before the approach of spring. The wind blew; the sun shone at intervals; the ice began to melt, and muddy rivulets formed in the streets. When the ground dried up a little, I began my afternoon walks, Fido limping cheerfully along beside me. One day my commiseration for his affliction almost vanished. We had strolled away out past the streets, and had been walking along a pike, when the refreshing green of a clover meadow on my left caused me to climb the fence and ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... himself from perishing of hunger and thirst. But there are other modes of chastisement too horrible and too abominable to be told, all of which were practised upon this unfortunate man—unfortunate in having no friend, for strange to say he received but little sympathy or commiseration from the rest of that wicked crew. Though a harmless creature enough, he was one of those unfortunates whose habits prevent them from ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... contemplated at a distance, and through the medium of a fancy delighting to be startled by the wonderful, or transported by sublimity. Now the calamity had entered my own doors, imaginary evils were supplanted by real, and my heart was the seat of commiseration and horror. ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... our undying sympathy and commiseration, dear friend," declared Mr. Travers. "Believe me, this has aged my wife and myself. Probably it would not be an exaggeration to say it has aged us all. That he should have come through Jutland, done worthy deeds, won honorable ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... discontented detachment of a search party, Silsbee and one of the hired men, and vociferation and blame. Blame always for himself, the elder, who might have "known better!" A little fear, perhaps, but he could not fancy either pity or commiseration. Perhaps the thought upheld his pride; under the prospect of sympathy he might have ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... sentimental type proper for fine ladies. One of his friends had an aversion for women with child. "What monstrous sentiment!" Diderot wrote; "for my part, that condition has always touched me. I cannot see a woman of the common people so, without a tender commiseration."[8] And Diderot had delicacy and respect in his pity. He tells a story in one of his letters of a poor woman who had suffered some wrong from a priest; she had not money enough to resort to law, until a friend of Diderot ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... hardship, or else a cold, calculating purpose not to take these risks, she would shrink from him in strong repulsion. She knew that the war had developed not a few constitutional cowards,—men to be pitied, it is true, but with a commiseration that, in her case, would be mingled with contempt. On the other hand, if he reasoned, "I will win her if I can; I will do all and more than she can ask, but I will not risk the loss of a lifetime's enjoyment of my wealth," she would quietly say ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... few days. But you soon get used to it. I felt just the same myself—losing faith in things and thinking ill of my friends, and so on. You'll be quite all right in a day or two, Miss Penny,"—with a touch of sympathetic commiseration in his voice. ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... the branch of a tree, so tense with the power of brusque flight into its true element that it is incomprehensible why it should sit still minute after minute. The sea is the sailor's true element, and Marlow, lingering on shore, was to me an object of incredulous commiseration like a bird, which, secretly, should have lost its faith in the high ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... of the window. It was a grey and silent morning. Only a big magnolia leaf tapped at the casement and dripped rain from its point. And overhead, in her chamber, Sabina was lying stricken and speechless. With infinite commiseration Mr. Churchouse considered what this must mean to her. It was as though Mrs. Dinnett's hysterical words had come true. Indeed, the tender-hearted man felt that death was in his house—death of fair hopes, death of a young ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... whose acts are done by Indra; He whose acts are great; He who has no acts undone; He who has composed all the Vedas and scriptures (DCCLXXXII—DCCLXXXIX); He whose birth is high; He that is exceedingly handsome; He whose heart is full of commiseration; He that has precious gems in His navel; He that has excellent knowledge for His eye; He that is worthy of worship by Brahman himself and other foremost ones in the universe; He that is giver of food; He that assumed horns at the time of the universal dissolution; ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... side of belief. She might as well have tried to float on the Dead Sea. Peace eluding her, she tried to resign herself to tumult. She drank deep at the well of self-pity, but found its waters brackish. People are apt to think that they may temper the penalties of misconduct by self-commiseration, just as they season the long aftertaste of beneficence by a little spice of self-applause. But the Power of Good is a more grateful master than the Devil. What bliss to gaze into the smooth gurgling wake of a good deed, while the comely bark ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... whom I have lately called the Blanks of Society, as being altogether unfurnish'd with Ideas, till the Business and Conversation of the Day has supplied them. I have often considered these poor Souls with an Eye of great Commiseration, when I have heard them asking the first Man they have met with, whether there was any News stirring? and by that Means gathering together Materials for thinking. These needy Persons do not know what to talk of, till about twelve a Clock in the Morning; ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... giving a low cry of commiseration. The sound must have been heard by those who were huddled around the miserable fire, for they scrambled to their knees. As the tiny blaze sprang up just then, it showed the scouts the four Stanhope boys looking pinched and wan, with their eyes staring ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... with health and good condition. By the side of his lustiness, she was almost ethereal—and yet I seemed to see in them something they had in common—something subtle, like the expression of eyes. It was the expression of their eyes. They looked at us with commiseration; one of them sweetly, the other with his owlish fixity. As we two, Seraphina and I, approached them together, I heard Williams' thick, sleepy voice asking, "And so he says he won't?" To which his wife, raising her tone with a shade of indignation, answered, "Of course not." No, ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... silence? How tell her of the great, the grievous mistake she had made? The task was one to try the courage of stouter souls than mine. But the thought of Dorothy nerved me; perhaps also my real friendship and commiseration for Sinclair. ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... love is a forbidden one. But the chevalier soon put an end to them by announcing that his visit was a visit of farewell, and by telling her the reason that obliged him to leave her. The marquise was like the woman who pitied the fatigue of the poor horses that tore Damien limb from limb; all her commiseration was for the chevalier, who on account of such a trifle was being forced to leave Avignon. At last the farewell had to be uttered, and as the chevalier, not knowing what to say at the fatal moment, complained that he ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... accede. Together the two Merucaans examined the injuries with words of commiseration. The "scratch" turned out to be three severe lacerations of the forearm. The gorilla's teeth had missed the radial artery only ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... testified by many resulting advantages to both nations and much damage to the common enemy—there fell out that miserable massacre of the People of the Valleys, whose cause, forsaken on all hands and sorely beset, we commended, with all ardour of heart and commiseration, to your pity and protection. Nor do we think that your Majesty, of yourself, was wanting in a duty so pious, nay so human, in as far as, by your authority or by the respect due to your person, you could prevail with the Duke of Savoy. We, certainly, and many other ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... her thoughts and aims with regard not only to her children but to her domestics, and indeed to all who came within her influence. To remove misery was her delight. No beggar went empty-handed from her door. The sorrows of any poor wretch were certain of her commiseration, and of a helping hand in their removal, so far as she had ability. The children of misfortune were sure of her pity, and the children of misconduct she pitied almost the more, because, for one reason, they were the cause of sorrow to those who had ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... very bad way. He must have been in a bad way, for Crockey, the extremely mean storekeeper at Bender, had given up his own bed to Twitchett, and when Crockey was moved with sympathy for any one, it was a sure sign that the object of his commiseration was going to soon stake a perpetual claim in a distant land, whose very streets, we are told, are of precious metal, and whose walls and gates are of rare ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... hard at work here, acting receiver general to these city worthies; and you do not pity me—cruel!" and she looked up with languishing eyes, that so begged for sympathy. He threw upon her one look of commiseration, reproachful. "Pity you, yes! But why will you do these things? and why did you bring me here to do this horrid sort of ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... commiseration of heartless friends and the triumphant glances of literary enemies, Hubert passed through the door leading on to the stage. Scene-shifters were brutally pushing away what remained of his play; and ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... the money, than a sudden placidity stole over his ruffled spirit:—nay, a certain benevolent commiseration for the fatigue and wants of the Traveller replaced at once, and as by a spell, the angry feelings that had ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... accomplished—how could he look upon death as otherwise than a loathsome thing—a thing not to be thought of in the heyday of youthful blood and jollity—a doleful spectre, in whose bony hands the roses of love must fall and wither! With a sense of deep commiseration in me, I spoke again with ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... great fund of a certain coarse energy, and, as her step-daughter now entered the parlor, she was fanning her flushed face with an open letter. Her expression was one of triumph only half-concealed by ill-assumed commiseration. ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... Tom Toole, with his back to the fire, and a look of concern thrown into his comic little mug, and his eyebrows raised, experienced a very pleasurable glow of commiseration. ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... and compassion there seems to be no difference, excepting perhaps that commiseration refers rather to an individual emotion and compassion to it as ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... approach or address him, he suddenly paused before Caroline, who was watching him in alarm and commiseration, and grasping her arm, with a pressure that pained her, he said, in a voice which blanched her cheek ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... into a momentary belief that hay-making was the principal end of human nature, and looked upon myself as a burden to society; and after I had recovered my locality, and ventured upon a sentence of gentle commiseration for her sufferings, Fleda went off into a eulogium upon the intelligence of hay-makers in general, and the strength of mind barbarians are universally known ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Tom, in a tone of commiseration. "I saw one of them Parleyvoos once, try to handle an axe, and I be darned, if he didn't come nigh cutting off the great toe of his right foot. If he hadn't been as weak as Taunton water—that, folks say, can't run down hill—as all them outlandish ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... the accompanist was an expression of cynical Celtic humour; in the smouldering gaze of the pianist was the patient, stubborn soul of the Slav. The look between these entertainers, one from Connacht the other from Poland, was a little act of mutual commiseration and a mutual expression of contempt for the noisy descendants of the Lost Tribes who made merry ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... to abstain from interfering,—giving up the right to all the man's plate and chairs and tables which it had acquired by the finding of the coroner's verdict,—not from tenderness to Madame Melmotte, for whom no great commiseration was felt, but on behalf of such creditors as poor Mr Longestaffe and his son. But Marie's money was quite distinct from this. She had been right in her own belief as to this property, and had been right, too, in refusing to sign those papers,—unless ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... the tale they told was beyond the power of his belief. He stood still in his place, with folded arms, debating what he should do to save her. One thing alone was clear. She loved him to distraction. Possibly, he thought, her story was but an invention to excuse her cruelty and to win his commiseration. It failed to do either at first, but yet he would not leave her to ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... I mind. But I convinced you of your error. Indeed, I look upon myself as an object for commiseration rather than blame; so you mustna look cross, and you mustna look too pitiful either, for I am going to prove to you and Fanny and all the rest that an old maid is, by no means, an object ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... stony corridor. The quadrangle filled the diamond panes of the latticed windows with green, and the divine walking to and fro was a spot of black. There were pictures along the walls of the corridor—pictures of upturned faces and clasped hands—and these drew words of commiseration for the artistic ignorance of the ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... Carlyle to The Turrets at the appointed hour. He brought to the situation a mind poised for any eventuality and a trenchant eye. As the time went on and the impenetrable Carrados made no illusion to the case, Carlyle's manner inclined to a waggish commiseration of his host's position. Actually, he said little, but the crisp precision of his voice when the path lay open to a remark of any significance left little to ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... purpose and had been specially commended by an old swaggie with one eye, who gave it to him for a four-bladed knife and a clay pipe. So great was the effect of these representations that before Dick and Ted had transferred the powder to their pockets they had become objects of envy rather than commiseration, and one or two of their mates would gladly have changed places with them ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... imprudence on his own part, and that a tendency to lend will show none on the part of the intended lender. It may be said that this mode fails oftener than any other. There is the piteous manner,—the plea for commiseration. "My dear fellow, unless you will see me through now, upon my word I shall be very badly off." And this manner may be divided again into two. There is the plea piteous with a lie, and the plea piteous with a truth. "You shall have it again in two months as sure as the sun rises." That is generally ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... that good and evil happen alike unto ALL MEN on this side the grave: and as the principal design of tragedy is to raise commiseration and terror in the minds of the audience, we shall defeat this great end, if we always make virtue and innocence ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... said we, briefly, almost surlily. "Dear me," said she; "you are highly flavored! It was only rich people and epicacs in living that had the gout in olden times." "Ah!" we growled, partly in response, and partly with an infernal twinge, "Poor soul!" she continued, with commiseration, like an anodyne, in the tones of her voice; "the best remedy I know for it is an embarkation of Roman wormwood and lobelia for the part infected, though some say a cranberry poultice is best; but I believe the cranberries is for erisipilis, and whether either of 'em is a rostrum for ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... fashion, who did, out of commiseration for the lad, endeavor to explain to him the nature of Emilie de Fontaine, merely wasted his words; the gloomy lights of misfortune and the twilight of a prison were ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... lady, with a big nose and gold glasses, treated the ladies of the noblest families with familiarity; but in spite of this intimacy there was apparent around the mother and daughter the gap of somewhat disdainful affection, in which commiseration bore no small part. They were poor. The father had been a diplomat of some distinction who, at his death, left his wife no other source of income than the widow's pension. Two sons were abroad as attaches of an embassy, struggling with the scantiness of their salary ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... perhaps, more strikingly illustrated as the third hearse, with sable plumes, came up bearing at either side the name of "Michael Larkin;" prayers for his soul's welfare were mingled with expressions of commiseration for his widow and children. At the entrance to Cornmarket, where the streetway narrows, the crushing became very great, but still the procession kept its onward course. On passing the shop of Hayburne, who, it will be remembered, was ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... designs.' Wooll's Warton 1. 219. Again, on Dec. 24, 1754:—'Poor dear Collins! Let me know whether you think it would give him pleasure if I should write to him. I have often been near his state, and therefore have it in great commiseration.' Ib. p. 229. Again, on April 15, 1756:—'That man is no common loss. The moralists all talk of the uncertainty of fortune, and the transitoriness of beauty: but it is yet more dreadful to consider that the powers of the mind are equally liable to ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... market-place at Westminster. After Stubbs had his right hand cut off, with his left he pulled off his hat, and cried with a loud voice, "God save the Queen!" the multitude standing deeply silent, either out of horror at this new and unwonted kind of punishment, or else out of commiseration of the undaunted man, whose character was unblemished. Camden, a witness to this transaction, has related it. The author, and the printer, and the publisher were condemned to this barbarous punishment, on an act of Philip and Mary, against the authors and publishers of seditious ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... all the old family feelings. Arabella's husband was an old man, and was very old for his age; but the whole thing was quite respectable, and there was, at any rate, no doubt about the money. Then Mr Greenow died; and the widow, having proved the will, came up to London and claimed the commiseration of her nieces. ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... curse; and bitter is the lot of him who is born with slaves on his hands. And now, instead of denouncing as inhuman and unmerciful monsters and tyrants, those who are thus unfortunate, I say, let the commiseration and pity of every good citizen and christian in the land be excited, and let fervent prayers be offered in their behalf, and that God would direct the whole American mind to the adoption of the most effectual measures for the accomplishment of the total abolition of slavery.'—[New-Haven ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... meeting may be more easily imagined than described. Their congratulations were warm, affectionate, touching. Clotilda kisses Franconia's hand again and again; Franconia, in turn, lays her hand upon Clotilda's shoulder, and, with a look of commiseration, sets her eyes intently upon her, as if she detects in her countenance those features she cannot disown. She requests to be left alone with Clotilda for a short time. Her friends withdraw. She discloses the difficulties into which the family have suddenly fallen, the plan of escape she ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... room were open. She sprang up to meet him, then paused. He looked desperately yet stealthily at her. The commiseration of the previous night was still in her face; but she was now quite sure of herself: she drew him to the sofa and made him sit down beside her. Then, however, for a few seconds, in which he waited with hammering pulses, she did not speak. The dull fear at his heart became a certainty; and, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... and of other men of those times. It is to be found in the Chronicle, before referred to, of Azurara. The merciful chronicler is smitten to the heart at the sorrow he witnesses, but still believes it to be for good, and that he must not let his mere earthly commiseration get ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... also, rulers here 310 In craggy Ithaca, my mother seek In marriage, and my household stores consume. But neither she those nuptial rites abhorr'd, Refuses absolute, nor yet consents To end them; they my patrimony waste Meantime, and will not long spare even me. To whom, with deep commiseration pang'd, Pallas replied. Alas! great need hast thou Of thy long absent father to avenge These num'rous wrongs; for could he now appear 320 There, at yon portal, arm'd with helmet, shield, And grasping his two spears, such as when first I saw him drinking joyous at our board, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... frowns upon youth and beauty," returned Belfield, "they may not irrationally excite commiseration; but where nature and chance unite their forces to bless the same object, what room there may be for alarm or lamentation ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... very queer because he enjoys a torrid height of the mercury in the drawing-room, he holds probably a similar view of her fondness in the dining-room for what he describes as burnt beef. A hopeless bachelor who prided himself upon what he defiantly called his freedom, used to say, with an air of commiseration and extreme caution, that he supposed his married friends were probably what they called happy. But he added that he never knew any of the happy pairs to agree upon the proper warmth of a room, or the ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... said the commander, in a tone of sincere commiseration, "I'll order you some provisions on ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... in Whitehall. He was condemned on his attainder for being out in 1745, {201} and his wife in vain besieged George II. and the Royal Family with petitions for his life. 'The Scots Magazine' of May 1753 contains a bold and manly plea for clemency. 'In an age in which commiseration and beneficence is so very conspicuous among all ranks, and on every occasion, we have reason to hope that pity resides in that place where it has the highest opportunity of imitating the divine goodness ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... no scandal, only commiseration, and both Countess Olga and Tamara were petted and spoilt—while, if there was a roguish note in Valonne's sympathetic condolences, none of ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... many we are Western semi-barbarians, without an overplus of manners, means, comforts, knowledge, or many, if any, of the means of Eastern and refined enjoyment. We have come hither to make our fortunes, or to care for those who have, and we are the fit objects of spiritual and temporal commiseration and missionary operations. That is the idea somewhat candidly expressed, isn't it? Oh, no! you don't think so poorly of us as that; but then we are a great ways off, in fact, in a new country, among strangers for the most part, and of course we cannot ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... want of quiet, proper food, and necessaries, with which she was but poorly supplied by the cold hand of chance charity. Our adventurer was exceedingly affected by the distress of this woman, whom he resolved to relieve; and in proportion as his commiseration was excited, his resentment rose against the miscreant, who seemed to have insinuated himself into the commission of the peace on purpose to harass and oppress ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... tears of real grief now, was for seeking the aid of grown-ups. I wasted precious breath in adjuring her as she loved me to keep silence. For my part death seemed imminent and certain. But I pictured Fred's grinning commiseration should our elders rescue me, and—I held on. By slow degrees I got one arm and shoulder back into the cabin, pausing there to rest. From that moment I was safe; but I was too cunning to let the fact appear. My reward ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... and commiseration, blended with comments on the pluck of the two youngsters, the ranchmen performed a surgical operation on the helpless Solomon, extracting the spear from his flesh. With much greater difficulty they freed him from the seine and got ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... Ida, and as she drew back with a shudder of horror and loathing, Isabel and his mother caught the wretched young man by the arm, and with cries of alarm and commiseration, ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... and paying, as it were, tribute, to the likeness which the ladies have to them; wherefore, while I weave these stories, I stray not so far from Mount Parnassus and the Muses as not a few perchance suppose. But what shall we say to those, in whom my hunger excites such commiseration that they bid me get me bread? Verily I know not, save this:— Suppose that in my need I were to beg bread of them, what would be their answer? I doubt not they would say:—"Go seek it among the fables." And in sooth the poets have found more bread among their fables than many rich men among their ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... over-ruling influence of a destiny which he has in vain attempted to resist, and to be only another proof of the unceasing persecution to which he is exposed; and though he no longer commands admiration, or deserves esteem, he becomes more than ever the object of the deepest commiseration. Talma appears to attach much importance to the impression which this passage may produce, as much of the view which he exhibits of the character of Orestes seems intended to assist its effect; and we certainly consider it as the greatest ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... manifestation of the feeling of sympathy. We may infer from the indistinct character of its outline that it is not a definite and active sympathy, such as would instantly translate itself from thought into deed; it marks rather such a general feeling of commiseration as might come over a man who read an account of a sad accident, or stood at the door of a hospital ward looking in upon ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant
... are great; He who has no acts undone; He who has composed all the Vedas and scriptures (DCCLXXXII—DCCLXXXIX); He whose birth is high; He that is exceedingly handsome; He whose heart is full of commiseration; He that has precious gems in His navel; He that has excellent knowledge for His eye; He that is worthy of worship by Brahman himself and other foremost ones in the universe; He that is giver of food; He that assumed horns at the time of the universal ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... dinner time when Nekhludoff retraced his steps through the wide corridor, and the cells were open. The prisoners, in light yellow coats, short, wide trousers and prison shoes, eyed him greedily. Nekhludoff experienced strange feelings and commiseration for the prisoners, and, for some reason, shame that he should so calmly ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... Box, was rendred incapable of following that Business any longer; and therefore posted himself at the Corner of one of the principal Avenues leading to Covent-Garden with his Limbs bound up to the most advantageous Manner to move the Passengers to Commiseration. He told his deplorable Case to all, but all passed without Pity; and the Man must have inevitably perish'd, had it not come into his head to shift the Scene and his Situation. The Transition was easy, he whipt on a Leathern-Apron, ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... general servant, or maid-of-all-work, is perhaps the only one of her class deserving of commiseration: her life is a solitary one, and in, some places, her work is never done. She is also subject to rougher treatment than either the house or kitchen-maid, especially in her earlier career: she starts in life, probably a girl of thirteen, with some small tradesman's ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... visit of farewell, and by telling her the reason that obliged him to leave her. The marquise was like the woman who pitied the fatigue of the poor horses that tore Damien limb from limb; all her commiseration was for the chevalier, who on account of such a trifle was being forced to leave Avignon. At last the farewell had to be uttered, and as the chevalier, not knowing what to say at the fatal moment, complained that he had no memento of her, the marquise took down the frame that contained a ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... creature; but the editor was unwilling to mutilate the book in the interests of such refined readers. A man or a woman who can find anything to shock his or her feelings in the description of Youwarkee's bridal night deserves the commiseration of sensible people. Very charming is the picture of the children sitting round the fire on the long winter evenings listening wide-eyed to the ever-fresh story of their father's marvellous adventures. The wholesome morality, the charitableness and homely piety apparent ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... special cause for the ending was of little importance. Sommers proceeded to make an examination, however; he would have to sign a certificate for the health officers. As he bent over the inert form, he had a feeling of commiseration rather than of relief. Worthless clay that the man was, it seemed petty now to have been so disturbed over his living on, for such satisfactions as his poor fragment of life gave him. Like the insignificant insect which preyed on its own petty world, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... arraigning, was counsel for it, so to speak, and Raven had got, in sheer decency of honor, to stand to his guns. But it was all worse than he thought. Dick's entrance was so quick, his onslaught so unstudied, his glance so full of alarmed commiseration, that Raven saw at once he had been shocked out of all manly proprieties. Dick caught at a chair, on the way to the table, brought it with him and, placing it at a near angle to Raven's, dropped ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... death? So long as we fear it, it is not here; when it arrives, we shall no longer fear it; then, why is it an evil?—But, during life itself, how about sufferings?—We greatly increase our sufferings by complaints and by self-commiseration. If we acted in the reverse way, if when we were tortured by them we recalled past pleasures and thought of pleasures to come, they would be infinitely mitigated.—But, of what pleasures can a man speak who makes happiness ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... back in his chair, nodding his head, and reiterating his commiseration for the lady of the feathers in a faint and recurring hiccough. Valentine got ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... here I leave them at their preparation For the imperial presence, wherein whether Gulbeyaz show'd them both commiseration, Or got rid of the parties altogether, Like other angry ladies of her nation,— Are things the turning of a hair or feather May settle; but far be 't from me to anticipate In what way ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... being still furnished with fresh supplies, and our artillery still playing vpon them with continuall volleys, it could not be but that much bloud should be shed in that place. [Sidenote: Exceeding humanity shewed to the enemy.] Whereupon our Generall moued with singular commiseration of their misery, sent them his owne chyrurgions, denying them no possible helpe or reliefe that he or any of his company could affoord them. Among the rest of those, whose state this chance had made very ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... them, I never imagined the strength of it, until the adversity which has sent so many of those who had previously loudly professed their devotion to them away, but which has increased the feelings of reverence towards them in this estimable couple, by mingling with it a sentiment of deep commiseration, that induces a still greater display of respect, now that so many others dispense with evincing it. The Duc is charged with the disposal of the property of the Dauphin; and, when this task is accomplished, he and his family will follow the ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... them, and under the most pitiable circumstances of bodily distress, to proscribe them as objects of terror and danger, instead of being as they actually are, helpless innocuous fellow creatures, calling loudly for our promptest succour and commiseration in their utmost need. They would go further to array man against his fellow man in all the cruel selfishness of panic terror, sever the dearest domestic ties, paralize commerce, suspend manufactures, and destroy the subsistance of thousands, and all for the gratification of ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... noticed that the indifference with which they had been regarded was giving place to sympathy. When Grant first visited the settlement after his misadventure, he was received with expressions of indignant commiseration, and he afterward told Flora dryly that he was astonished at the number of his friends. Mrs. Nelson and a few of the stalwarts pressed Hardie to make new and more vigorous efforts toward the expulsion of the offenders, but ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... of hunger and thirst. But there are other modes of chastisement too horrible and too abominable to be told, all of which were practised upon this unfortunate man—unfortunate in having no friend, for strange to say he received but little sympathy or commiseration from the rest of that wicked crew. Though a harmless creature enough, he was one of those unfortunates whose habits prevent them from making ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... The commiseration in the other's tone lent to the simple question such an obvious meaning that the doctor hardly knew whether to be amused ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... received a severe shock. She glanced at him with unaffected welcome, but the air of one who was looking upon his face for the first time. It was not until he had spent a full hour in doleful self-commiseration, that his sense of worldliness came to his relief. In a flash, he was joyously convincing himself that her pose during the presentation was artfully—and very properly—assumed. He saw through it very plainly! How simple he had been! ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... and the goddess had greatly favoured him. On the day of the coronation, therefore, no tumult was created in favour of the queen; she, in fact, on whom the populace, almost as one man, had, but a little time before, waited with addresses, assuring her of support and commiseration, was allowed to go from door to door of the abbey seeking admittance, and to be at every door rejected with contumely and scorn, with impunity. George IV. was crowned without interruption; and a ceremony ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... a quiet regard, but he scarcely saw it. He had a stupefied sense of disaster; a feeling of bitter self-commiseration that for the moment outweighed all other considerations. Almost at the moment of justification the good of life had crumbled in his fingers, the soil given beneath his feet, and with an absence of logic, a lack of justice unusual in him, he let resentment against Chilcote ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... native county of Devon: his arrival was the common topic of conversation, and he was the object of censure or of commiseration: but his person was not molested, till the fears of James became more ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... to his village led Mrs. Neuchatel to an inquiry as to the state of the poor about Hurstley, and she made the inquiry in a tone of commiseration. ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... too, Vona Harnden kept vigil, her door locked against her mother, whose fatuous commonplaces of commiseration were like files against the raw surface of the ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... generally the Crown had been induced to abstain from interfering,—giving up the right to all the man's plate and chairs and tables which it had acquired by the finding of the coroner's verdict,—not from tenderness to Madame Melmotte, for whom no great commiseration was felt, but on behalf of such creditors as poor Mr Longestaffe and his son. But Marie's money was quite distinct from this. She had been right in her own belief as to this property, and had been right, too, ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... or other to inquire after his health; and yesterday, about four in the afternoon, word was brought me that he was past hopes; upon which, I prevailed with myself to go and see him, partly out of commiseration, and I confess, partly out of curiosity. He knew me very well, seemed surprised at my condescension, and made me compliments upon it as well as he could in the condition he was. The people about him said he had been for some time delirious; but when I saw him, he had his understanding ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... he exerted in setting forth the authority of the church and of the priesthood, impressed them no less with an opinion of his sanctity. Even the common people, the severest critics of the conduct of their betters, had commiseration with the follies of Prior Aymer. He was generous; and charity, as it is well known, covereth a multitude of sins, in another sense than that in which it is said to do so in Scripture. The revenues of the monastery, of which a large part was at his disposal, while they ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... made an excuse for getting her outside the door to beseech her to be careful, dear Constance was so nervous and so dreadfully upset by all she had undergone. Lady Merrifield was not the least nervous of the two, and she felt additionally displeased with Constance for not having said one word of commiseration when her sister had inquired for Dolores. On returning to the drawing-room, Lady Merrifield found the young lady standing by the window, playing with the blind, and looking as if she wanted to make ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and he cannot proceed to any great lengths in profligate life. Enter him into the army, and he will endeavour to swear himself into consequence. Make the man of humanity an overseer of the poor, and he will quickly find the tender feelings of commiseration hardened. Make him a physician, and he will be the only person upon the premises, the heir excepted, unconcerned at the prospect of death. Make him a surgeon, and he will amputate a leg with the same indifference with which a cutler saws a piece of bone for a knife handle. You ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... lapse of seven years, when the subject was painfully forced upon public attention by the brutal cruelty of the mob at Pittenween. Two women were accused of having bewitched a strolling beggar who was subject to fits, or who pretended to be so, for the purpose of exciting commiseration. They were cast into prison, and tortured until they confessed. One of them, named Janet Cornfoot, contrived to escape, but was brought back to Pittenween next day by a party of soldiers. On her approach to the town she was unfortunately met by a furious ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... that the savages were about to celebrate some hideous rite in connection with their peculiar customs, and at which they were determined I should not be present. I descended from the pi-pi, and attended by Kory-Kory, who on this occasion did not show his usual commiseration for my lameness, but seemed only anxious to hurry me on, walked away from the place. As I passed through the noisy throng, which by this time completely environed the Ti, I looked with fearful curiosity at the three packages, which now were deposited ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... hurt?" he cried, with real commiseration, as he leaned over to look for me in the hollow at his feet. "Wait and I will drop down to you," he went on, swinging himself ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... lent his own gardens for the spectacle, and gave a chariot-race, mingling with the people in the costume of a charioteer, or driving among them in his chariot; by which conduct he raised a feeling of commiseration towards the sufferers, guilty though they were, and deserving of the extremest penalties, as though they were being exterminated, not for the public interests, but to gratify the ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... with the air of friendly commiseration which he felt that the occasion undoubtedly demanded, "I find I ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... no doing anything with or for these people. The fiat for their overthrow had evidently been issued. The fatuity which leads to self-destruction was fixed upon them; and, with a feeling rather of commiseration than anger, I prepared to leave the house. In this interview, I made a discovery, which tended still more to lessen the hostility I might otherwise have felt toward my uncle. I was constrained to perceive that ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... loose the forfeiture, But touch'd with humane gentlenesse and loue: Forgiue a moytie of the principall, Glancing an eye of pitty on his losses That haue of late so hudled on his backe, Enow to presse a royall Merchant downe; And plucke commiseration of his state From brassie bosomes, and rough hearts of flints, From stubborne Turkes and Tarters neuer traind To offices of tender curtesie, We all expect a gentle answer Iew? Iew. I haue possest your grace of what I purpose, And by our holy Sabbath haue I sworne To ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... might very probably have mustered courage enough to support the same character till they led him out to death. But de Lescure's tears affected him. He felt that he was pitied; and though his pride revolted against the commiseration of those whom he had injured, his heart was touched, and his voice faltered, as he again declared that he desired no mercy, and that he was ready ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... the North, only to think, that all those fine-looking people whom Hattie saw from the barouche, that Monday afternoon, were liable on Tuesday morning to have their kid gloves and finery taken from them, and to be marched off to the auction-block! Hence our commiseration. And it is a most ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... steadily, and by an effort seemed to subdue all unpleasant feelings, the calm dignity with which he read them completely effaced the disagreeable distrust. It was then John Effingham remembered that he had once believed Paul himself might be the fruits of the heartless indiscretion he condemned. Commiseration and sympathy instantly took the place of the first impression, and he was so much absorbed with these feelings that he had not taken up the letter which was to follow, when Paul laid down the paper he had last been required ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... evening in coming out of the cathedral; the next day she was confined to her bed, and soon after became dangerously ill. The whole town rang with pity and false commiseration: "Mademoiselle Gamard's sensitive nature has not been able to bear the scandal of this lawsuit. In spite of the justice of her cause she was likely to die of grief. Birotteau has killed his benefactress." Such were the speeches ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... the guilty, or to the human species in general? Even benevolence and friendship, if we judge right, will appear the effects of a constant pity, fixed upon a particular object: for to wish that a person may not suffer, what is it but to wish that he may be happy? Though it were true that commiseration is no more than a sentiment, which puts us in the place of him who suffers, a sentiment obscure but active in the savage, developed but dormant in civilized man, how could this notion affect the truth of what I advance, but to make it more evident. In fact, commiseration must be so much ...
— A Discourse Upon The Origin And The Foundation Of - The Inequality Among Mankind • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... Eve, in the Book we are now considering, are likewise drawn with such Sentiments as do not only interest the Reader in their Afflictions, but raise in him the most melting Passions of Humanity and Commiseration. When Adam sees the several Changes in Nature produced about him, he appears in a Disorder of Mind suitable to one who had forfeited both his Innocence and his Happiness; he is filled with Horrour, Remorse, Despair; in the Anguish of his Heart he expostulates ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... nettle Danger, much more of plucking it thence,—surely here, if anywhere, is an object of compassion. When such a one is a despot who has wrought his own destruction by obstinacy in a traditional evil policy, like Francis II. of Naples, our commiseration is outweighed by satisfaction that the ruin of the man is the safety of the state. But when the victim is a so-called statesman, who has malversated the highest trusts for selfish ends, who has abused ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... of insensibility, before the sad story of our end come abroad into the rest of the world. Consider these things in this manner, although our wickedness does now provoke thee with a just desire of punishing that wickedness, and forgive it for our father's sake; and let thy commiseration of him weigh more with thee than our wickedness. Have regard to the old age of our father, who, if we perish, will be very lonely while he lives, and will soon die himself also. Grant this boon to the name of fathers, for thereby thou ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... and nights within the stingy cells, his great heart melted with pity. For the first moments, his disposition to jest passed away, and all his soul rose up in indignation. If profane words came to his lips, they came from genuine commiseration, and a sense of the outrage that had been committed upon those who had been stamped with the image of ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... unfeeling, mim,' said Miggs, in a tone of commiseration, 'but such is not his intentions, I'm sure. After what he has seen of you this day, I never will believe but that he has a deal more affection in his heart than to speak unkind. Come in and sit yourself down by the ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... than an ignorant gipsy-wench, prone to coarse expressions and small larcenies, a creature knowing little difference between good and evil and caring less. But now, remembering her rough upbringing and the wild folk who had fostered her, my anger gave place to commiseration, for how could she, under such circumstances, be other than what she seemed? And yet—was she in herself good or evil? This doubt troubled me so much that I turned to stare towards that dark corner ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... categorically whether I had ever seen the spanker-boom jammed with the foretopsailyard, with the wind abeam. I replied meekly that I believed such a catastrophe had never occurred under my immediate observation, and as he turned to Bush with a smile of commiseration for my ignorance I ground my teeth and went below to inspect the pantry. Here I felt more at home. The long rows of canned provisions, beef stock, concentrated milk, pie fruits, and a small keg, bearing the quaint inscription, ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... at the man leaning upon the fence, and felt that he was going to speak in commiseration of his plight; but the next moment his hopes were dashed, ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... involuntarily, as the procession slowly proceeded, and the countess passed within three paces of his horse's head, he bent his lordly brow in silent homage; she saw it and returned it, more effected by the unfeigned commiseration on that warrior's face, than at aught which had occurred to shame ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... Great commiseration was felt for D'Esterre's family, but it was considered that he himself lost his life foolishly. It may be added that he was an officer in the navy, and an eccentric character. He at one time played off rather a serious joke ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... way I would receive her caresses, when she came to comb my hair while I was in bed; I would repulse her hands, and no longer return her kisses. One day, vexed at my answering her question as to the reason of my change towards her by stating that I had no cause for it, she, told me in a tone of commiseration that I was jealous of Cordiani. This reproach sounded to me like a debasing slander. I answered that Cordiani was, in my estimation, as worthy of her as she was worthy of him. She went away smiling, but, revolving in her mind the only way by which she could ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... always on the lookout for a chance to torment Leander; his monstrous self-conceit being intensely exasperating to him. A harder jolt than usual having made the unfortunate gallant groan aloud, Scapin immediately opened his attack, feigning to feel the liveliest commiseration ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... who partake of my fate, accept my sincere commiseration—I would have said protection; but the privilege ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... blood as myself, undergoing the righteous sentence of the law, in a manner so degrading to themselves, and so pitiful to all that beheld them. But, nevertheless, considering what they had done, they neither deserved, nor did they seem to care for commiseration, holding up their brazen faces as if they had been taking a pleasure walk for the benefit of their health, and the poukit hens, that dangled before them, ornaments of their bravery. The whole crowd, young and old, followed them from one end of the ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... of entrance or exit. In this perplexity he contrived thus: he hung up the body of the thief from the wall, and, having placed sentinels there, he ordered them to seize and bring before him whomsoever they should see weeping or expressing commiseration ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... returned he in tones of commiseration. "Thou art to be confined in the Brick Tower. Thy son ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... evergreens, through which his opening eye caught the gleams of widely-surrounding waters. A ministering angel, in the shape of the peerless daughter of the wilds, who had lately so much occupied his thoughts, was wistfully bending over him, with a countenance in which commiseration and woe had found an impersonation which no artist's ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... English law. But suppose that hereafter, when certain small animals have crossed what he calls "the impervious distance," and acquired the power of language, they were to say, "We have only stung you, and you have killed us," would they obtain much commiseration? ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... English and Tahitian. After giving some directions to an old man to prepare food, our host's wife, a large, benevolent-looking woman, upwards of forty, also sat down by us. In our soiled and travel-stained appearance, the good lady seemed to find abundant matter for commiseration; and all the while kept looking at us piteously, and ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... retained a vivid recollection of that drive home. Jeffreys was vaguely conscious of them calling on the way for the doctor, and taking him along in the carriage. He also heard Scarfe say something to Mr Rimbolt in tones of commiseration, in which something was added about the inconsiderateness and untrustworthiness of Jeffreys. But for the rest he reclined back in his seat, scarcely conscious of anything ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... indifference and quizzical good humour. The good humour was in the ascendant as she watched the kindly Belgians crowd round her fellow-passenger, envelop her in their arms, murmur tearful farewells, and kiss her soundly on either cheek. The finely marked eyebrows lifted themselves as if in commiseration for the victim, and as the door closed on the last farewell she heaved an involuntary sigh of relief. It was evident that the scene appealed to her entirely from the one standpoint; she saw nothing touching about it, nothing pathetic; she was simply amused, ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... hand to her, squeezed his way through the crowd with Hal, to be presented to Hope, there came over Blanche's young face such a mingled look of hatred and weariness and chagrin, that even her unobserving friends saw it, and asked with tender commiseration what ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... Abdul Said Bey exuded sympathy and commiseration. Scenting liberal backshish, he promised absolute secrecy for the affair, coupled with soothing assurances of private vengeance upon the surviving miscreants. Also, he bewailed the disgrace which had fallen upon the Empire by reason of such infamy. ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... the "assassin of the Duc d'Enghien." The inert policy of the Cabinet of Vienna prevented the manifestation of its displeasure by remonstrances, or by any outward act. At Berlin, in consequence of the neighbourhood of the French troops in Hanover, the commiseration for the death of the Due d'Enghien was also confined to the King's cabinet, and more particularly to the salons of the Queen of Prussia; but it is certain that that transaction almost everywhere changed the disposition ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the princess in irons; and it was hoped, I believe, that she would perish in the woods. Necessity, however, added boldness to her measures, and she advanced with ten or twelve female attendants to Chisapani, a fortress commanding the entrance into Nepal. It was evident, however, that the commiseration of the people was daily gaining strength, and the timidity of the regent gave daily an increase of power to the princess. An additional company of Seapoys was sent to Chisapani, as if soldiers were the proper ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... had fled so precipitately through fear that Nellie should say some word about Jervis, with possibly some commiseration for Mary, and that just now would be a thing too hard to bear. Wrapping herself from neck to heels in a mackintosh coat, with a cap of the same, Katherine got into her boat and pulled down river through the driving rain. She rowed as fast as she could, not so much from haste to be at the ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... sooner or later, to the end to which it did come, but she brought it to its issue at once. She told me, with assumed commiseration, that I had an unhappy temper. On this repetition of the old wicked injury, I withheld no longer, but exposed to her all I had known of her and seen in her, and all I had undergone within myself since I had occupied the ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... upon my shoul, now, gra, his complainings would mollify the marrow in your bones, and move the bowels of your commiseration! He veeps, and he dances, and he fistles, and he swears, and he laughs, and he stamps, and he sings; in conclusion, joy, he's afflicted a-la-Francaise, and a stranger would not know whider to cry or ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar
... Gatteschi, though Mrs. Shelley regretted that her son did not take to him. With all the impulse of a generous nature, she spared no pains to be of assistance to the Italian, and evidently must have written imprudently gushing letters at times to this object of her commiseration. Whilst Mary was poor Gatteschi must have approached sentimental gratitude; she says later, "He cannot now be wishing to marry me, or he would not insult me." In fact he had proposed to marry her ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... foreign ambassadors from being involved in the fate of French Protestants.[218] Yet the same men that were ready at any time to imbue their hands in the blood of an innocent Huguenot, were full of commiseration for a Roman Catholic felon. A shrewd murderer is said to have turned to his own advantage the religious feeling of the people who had flocked to see him executed. "Ah! my masters," he exclaimed when already ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... order and happiness in a bosom constantly heaving forth from its depths such "lava floods," is—now that big spirit has passed from among us—felt and acknowledged. In reviewing the circumstances of his marriage, a more even scale of justice is held; and while every tribute of sympathy and commiseration is accorded to her, who, unluckily for her own peace, became involved in such a destiny,—who, with virtues and attainments that would have made the home of a more ordinary man happy, undertook, in ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... with commiseration. In fact, there was blue under his eyes, his pupils were gleaming with fever, his unshaven beard indicated a dark strip on his firmly outlined jaws, his hair was in disorder, and he was really like a sick man. Iras and the golden-haired Eunice looked at him also with sympathy; ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... marked triste et tres doucement expressif. I shall call it the motive of Sorrow, for it seems like the comment of the music upon the transporting and utter sadness of the play's denouement. It voices a gentle and passive commiseration, rather than a ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... of his crevice, was surprised by the sudden descent of the stone Lyndall's foot had loosened, which, rolling against his little front paw, carried away a piece of white-skin. Doss stood on three legs, holding up the paw with an expression of extreme self-commiseration; he then proceeded to hop slowly ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... mass of chaff the few grains of sense that may, perchance deserve notice. Assuring the gentleman that the Negro in this country aims at a higher degree of intellect than that exhibited by him in this debate, I cheerfully commend him to the commiseration of all intelligent men the world over—black men as ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... conceal, by the apparent mishap, an emotion which was increasing and becoming inconvenient. At any rate, if that was her object it was perfectly accomplished, for the recitation was abruptly terminated, there was general commiseration over the shattered vase, and when the pieces were picked up. and order was restored, it ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... me!" gasped the other, looking into Wyn's steady, brown eyes and finding friendliness and commiseration there. "You—you see, you never knew the lack of anything good; you're ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... Perhaps it was hereditary. Perhaps her father had been a circus giant and her mother the strong woman of the troupe. And for the unrestraint of her manner defective training in early girlhood would account. He began to regard her with a quiet, kindly commiseration, which in its turn changed into a sort of brotherly affection. He discovered that he liked her. He liked her very much. She was so big and jolly and robust, and spoke in such a clear, full voice. He was glad that she was patting his hand. He was glad that he had asked ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... and watched the death-procession pass, were some, women particularly, who bewailed and lamented the fate to which Jesus was going. We read of no man who ventured to raise his voice in protest or pity; but on this dreadful occasion as at other times, women were not afraid to cry out in commiseration or praise. Jesus, who had been silent under the inquisition of the priests, silent under the humiliating mockery of the sensual Herod and his coarse underlings, silent when buffeted and beaten by the brutal legionaries of Pilate, ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... merely for the purpose of surrendering it. But, whatever may be the fate of men who had such a fortress to defend, and yet whose defence actually cost the assailants but seventeen killed! there can be but one feeling of commiseration for the unhappy inhabitants of Vera Cruz, on whom was rained, day and night, a shower of shot and shell amounting to more than seven thousand of those tremendous missiles. It is computed that the slaughter, and that slaughter chiefly of women and children, amounts to thousands. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... of him, and since the brief explanation that she had been compelled to give to Roger, his name had not passed her lips. He had been worse than dead to her, and she wondered if he were dead. She had never cherished any vindictive feelings toward him, and even now her eyes filled with tears of commiseration for his wronged and wretched life. Then by a conscious effort she turned her thoughts to the friend who had never failed her. "Dear Roger," she murmured, "he didn't appear well the last time I saw him. He is beginning to look worn and thin. I know he is studying too hard. ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... the French emigrants who sought an asylum in England on the breaking out of the Revolution, and whose numbers were continually increasing, excited universal commiseration. The attention of Government was earnestly directed to the means of providing for them, and measures were adopted for giving the utmost efficacy to the public sympathy. Amongst the persons who interested themselves actively on their behalf were ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... a sigh, and, meeting the look of horror-stricken commiseration in his captain's eye, returned it with one ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... gold glasses, treated the ladies of the noblest families with familiarity; but in spite of this intimacy there was apparent around the mother and daughter the gap of somewhat disdainful affection, in which commiseration bore no small part. They were poor. The father had been a diplomat of some distinction who, at his death, left his wife no other source of income than the widow's pension. Two sons were abroad as attaches ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... continue a squire of dames, and walked at her side, presently giving utterance to a sound of commiseration. 'Ah! well, poor Maria, I never thought to see her so altered. Why, she had the prettiest bloom—I dare say you remember—but, I beg your pardon, somehow I thought ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was joining in commiseration of old Stephen, towards whom she herself felt rather brutal, she was casting about for some means of coming at the truth. Irene was no good, however altruistic her motives might be for story-telling.... ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... have not been all sunshine, but Zulime has met all storms with a brave sweetness, which I cannot overpraise. If she has regrets, she does not permit me to know them. My poverty—which persists—has not embittered her or caused her, so far as I know, a single mood of self-commiseration. ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... But, touch'd with human gentleness and love, Forgive a moiety of the principal; Glancing an eye of pity on his losses, That have of late so huddled on his back, Enow to press a royal merchant down And pluck commiseration of his state From brassy bosoms and rough hearts of flint, From stubborn Turks and Tartars, never train'd To offices of tender courtesy. We all ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... the tomb, Yet cannot hope for peace before.' Such an unhappy frame of mind, I am sure, madam, must excite your commiseration. It is perhaps owing, in part at least, to the solitude in which I have lived, I may say, even in the midst of society; when I have mixed in it; as my infirmities entirely exclude me from that sweet intercourse of kindred spirits—that ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... a little rejoicing in the village of Weircombe when it was known he had returned from his brief wanderings, and there was also a good deal of commiseration expressed for him when it was known that he was somewhat weakened in physical health by his efforts to find more paying work. Many of the children with whom he was a favourite came up to see him, bringing little knots of flowers, or curious trophies of weed and shells ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... this, sent a messenger to Psammenitus to inquire what it meant. "He wishes to know," said the messenger, "how it happens that you could see your own daughter set at work as a slave, and your son led away to execution unmoved, and yet feel so much commiseration for the misfortunes of a stranger." We might suppose that any one possessing the ordinary susceptibilities of the human soul would have understood without an explanation the meaning of this, though ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the wisdom of the serpent, with the harmlessness of the dove. Though full of commiseration for the unhappy lot of the prisoners, nothing could betray him into the slightest expression of opinion regarding the war or those who were the authors of all this misery. In our impatience at our treatment, and hunger ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... interest and pity for the daughter of his friend, called once or twice after the funeral at the house; and commended, with promises and gifts, the desolate girl to the tenderness and commiseration of her relations. There is nothing an Italian will not promise, nothing he will not sell; and Godolphin thus purchased, in reality, a forbearance to Lucilla's strange temper (as it was considered) which otherwise, assuredly, ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... observe that Bessy and I had become much more intimate since the explanation which had taken place; and although it never entered my head that I should ever feel towards her more than as a brother to a sister, I was pleased and soothed with the touching proofs of kindness and commiseration which she took every ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... the generosity of your intentions, still I must confess that few things have ever affected me more painfully than to see from the 'Times' of to-day my private circumstances—the sacred domain of life—thrust as an object of commiseration upon public discussion,—a miserable subject of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... questioned him a little as to Miss Irene's habits and resources, and imagined the part withheld, from that rather reluctantly admitted. He understood that here kindred blood had not produced harmony, but a horrible discord, the more wearing in that every note had been muffled. The self-commiseration of the mother, and her weak love for her son that could only pity, but never encourage or brace to any vigorous effort; her total inability to comprehend any such character as her youngest daughter possessed; the wearisome platitudes ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... assented Beatrice, on a note of commiseration. And if the corners of her mouth betrayed a tendency to curve upwards, she immediately compelled them down. "But perhaps he does not speak ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... at a word or a look, to quarrel with somebody else. I presume the disposition of my mind was imprinted on my face; and when, a little after, I overtook, saluted and addressed the doctor, he looked on me with commiseration ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the penitent's cell of some monastery—"and subjected to all the severities of ecclesiastical discipline; for they would show no mercy to an old man," he groaned. He became almost hysterical, and the two ladies, full of commiseration, soothed him the best they could before they let him go back to his cottage. But, as a matter of fact, they had very few visitors. The neighbours—some of them old friends—began to keep away; a few from timidity, ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... with an arm round each little waist, and stepping with their own short steps, the father would stop short behind a clump of trees, out of sight of the house, and kiss them on their foreheads; his eyes, his lips, his whole countenance expressing the deepest commiseration. ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... which a child is born is to be taken away by any future application. Hence it is that good-nature in me is no merit; but having been so frequently overwhelmed with her tears before I knew the cause of any affliction, or could draw defences from my own judgment, I imbibed commiseration, remorse, and an unmanly gentleness of mind, which has since ensnared me into ten thousand calamities; and from whence I can reap no advantage, except it be that, in such a humour as I am now in, I can the better indulge myself in the ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... letter for you to-day, Peggy!" Her voice was full of commiseration as she spoke, but Peggy sat in silence, her face stiffened, her head thrown back with an assumption of calm indifference. "There must have been some delay in the mail. You will have two letters next week, dearie, ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... detective. It was he who pursued Russel and Dollar, the robbers of the Lake Port stage, and captured them the very morning after the exploit, while they were still sleeping in a hayfield. Russel, a drunken Scotch carpenter, was even an acquaintance of his own, and he expressed much grave commiseration for his fate. In all that he said and did, Rufe was grave. I never saw him hurried. When he spoke, he took out his pipe with ceremonial deliberation, looked east and west, and then, in quiet tones and few words, stated his business or told his story. His gait was to match; ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and cried over him, whispering broken words of comfort and compassion in his ear the while. She had saved a morsel for him to eat, also; but the boy's pains had swept away all appetite—at least for black and tasteless crusts. He was touched by her brave and costly defence of him, and by her commiseration; and he thanked her in very noble and princely words, and begged her to go to her sleep and try to forget her sorrows. And he added that the King his father would not let her loyal kindness and devotion go unrewarded. This return to his 'madness' broke her heart anew, and she strained him to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... upon him a look of so imploring a nature, that his temporary vexation yielded to a feeling of immense commiseration for that afflicted creature: and he gave her to understand, by another rapid glance, that ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... was distressed, he brought forth his mother, and his brethren, and set them upon the wall, and beat them with rods in every body's sight, and threatened, that unless he would go away immediately, he would throw them down headlong; at which sight Hyrcanus's commiseration and concern were too hard for his anger. But his mother was not dismayed, neither at the stripes she received, nor at the death with which she was threatened; but stretched out her hands, and prayed her son not to be moved ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... has fallen both upon himself and upon the object of his lamentations: yet for all he knows to the contrary (and here I appeal to Pluto and Persephone) the departed one, so far from being entitled to commiseration, may find himself in improved circumstances. The feelings of the bereaved party are in fact guided solely by custom and convention. The procedure in such cases—but no: let me first state the popular beliefs on the subject of death itself; we shall then understand the motives for the ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... in the court for fifteen years,' said my father, in a tone of commiseration, which seemed to acknowledge that this fact was enough to account for the poor man's condition both in ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... come into a consuming fever, with delirious imaginings of fresh fountains, of shapes drawn from the memory of childhood, and of the cool touch of kindred hands upon the brow. So near is exile to home, misery to divine commiseration—so near are pain and death, desolation and divestiture, to "a new creature," and to the kinship involved in all creation ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... domestic harmony which had been offered her, gave her no regret, no longing. It was not a condition of life which fitted her, and she could see in it but an appalling and hopeless ennui. She was moved by a kind of commiseration for Madame Ratignolle,—a pity for that colorless existence which never uplifted its possessor beyond the region of blind contentment, in which no moment of anguish ever visited her soul, in which she would never have ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... school bell started to ring, and both lads had to hurry to enter in time. Bob braced up and tried to assume his ordinary look. His pride came to the rescue, for no boy likes to find himself an object of commiseration among his mates. As for Jack, he had to put the entire matter from his mind just then, having other things to occupy ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... "When I go to the poll with ten thousand of the working men of this constituency behind me," and I chimed in with a cry of "When, doctor, when?" This time the orator fixed my flint, as the Americans used to say. He surveyed me from top to toe, and he said quietly, and in a tone of deep commiseration: "I pity that drunken blackguard." My first impulse was to spring upon the platform, and to throw the speaker from it; but it was so obvious that I could not clear myself of the imputation cast upon me in that way that I surrendered ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... conduct. To raise youth, however, to such a character requires knowledge, vigilance, affectionate severity, and prudent indulgence; and if few boys possess it, let us not complain of human nature. Will the husbandman who in spring has neglected his fields meet with commiseration when he complains that his harvest ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... proper for fine ladies. One of his friends had an aversion for women with child. "What monstrous sentiment!" Diderot wrote; "for my part, that condition has always touched me. I cannot see a woman of the common people so, without a tender commiseration."[8] And Diderot had delicacy and respect in his pity. He tells a story in one of his letters of a poor woman who had suffered some wrong from a priest; she had not money enough to resort to law, until a friend of Diderot took her part. The suit was ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... national rhetoric in every country, dependant on national manners; and those gesticulations of body, or depressions of voice, which produce pity and commiseration in one place, may, without censure of the orator or of his hearers, excite contempt and oscitancy in another. The sentiments of the preacher I heard were just and vigorous; and if that suffices not to content a foreign ear, woe be to me, who now live among those to whom I am myself a foreigner; ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... He brought to the situation a mind poised for any eventuality and a trenchant eye. As the time went on and the impenetrable Carrados made no illusion to the case, Carlyle's manner inclined to a waggish commiseration of his host's position. Actually, he said little, but the crisp precision of his voice when the path lay open to a remark of any significance ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... remov'd may light On me, sole cause to thee of all this woe, Mee mee onely just object of his ire. She ended weeping, and her lowlie plight, Immoveable till peace obtain'd from fault Acknowledg'd and deplor'd, in Adam wraught Commiseration; soon his heart relented 940 Towards her, his life so late and sole delight, Now at his feet submissive in distress, Creature so faire his reconcilement seeking, His counsel whom she had displeas'd, his aide; As ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... accepted. I must own, that I prepared to go to the Wightmans with some misgivings as to the pleasure I should receive. Almost every one of their old acquaintances, to whom I had addressed inquiries on the subject, spoke of them with commiseration, as "very poor." If Wightman could bear the change with philosophy, I hardly expected to find the same Christian resignation in his wife, whom I remembered as a gay, lively woman, fond of ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... dominion. Just then a violent fit of coughing seized him. Far from receiving one single word—indifferent, and meaningless, it is true, but still containing, among well-bred people brought together by chance, at least some pretence of civil commiseration—he now heard hostile ejaculations and muttered complaints. Society there assembled disdained any pantomime on his account, perhaps because he had gauged its real nature ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... of the Lacedaemonians, standing the while behind a block, as he is to lose his head if he does not succeed in convincing them. In this ticklish predicament, he calls on Euripides, to lend him the tattered garments in which that poet's heroes were in the habit of exciting commiseration. We must suppose the house of the tragic poet to occupy the ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... and sentiment. A work of sentiment, as it is called, is too often another name for a work of affectation. He that should imagine that the sentiments of this book are affected, would indeed be entitled to our profoundest commiseration. ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... sum in simple addition. I could not help a feeling of deep surprise and commiseration that one of Rebecca's age should have stumbled at it at all, but I essayed to examine it very closely and worked it out for her as slowly as possible. "Do you ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... Profound commiseration seems due to the Elizabethan playgoer, who was liable to have his faith in the tenderness and gentleness of Desdemona rudely shaken by the irruption on the stage of a brawny, broad-shouldered athlete, masquerading in her sweet name. Boys ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... exculpating by illusory comparisons or captious sophisms excesses which afflict humanity, and which prepare the way for violent convulsions. Do they think that they have acquired the right of putting down commiseration, by comparing* the condition of the negroes with that of the serfs of the middle ages, and with the state of oppression to which some classes are still subjected in the north and east of Europe? (* Such comparisons do not satisfy those secret ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... unquestionably be the index of that of the whole party, and thus the life or death of the king appeared to be suspended from his lips. It was known that the very evening before, while supping with a lady who expressed much commiseration for the captives in the Temple, he had declared that he would save the life of the king. The courage of Vergniaud was above suspicion, and his integrity above reproach. Difficult as it was to judge impartially, with the cannon and the pikes of the mob leveled at his breast, it was ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... lead you to hate and the latter to despise him; but fix your attention only upon his sufferings, his needs, his anxieties, his pains. Then you will always feel your kinship with him; you will sympathise with him; and instead of hatred or contempt you will experience the commiseration that alone is the peace to which the Gospel calls us. The way to keep down hatred and contempt is certainly not to look for a man's alleged "dignity," but, on the contrary, to regard him as an ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
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