"Plight" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were adjusted, the body was raised higher until the weight swung clear. In this plight they became a fearful sight to look upon. The flesh, to support their bodies with the additional weights attached thereto, was raised some eight inches by the skewers, and their heads sinking forward ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... fecund element of our white population. If allowance be made for their natural increase from 1880 to 1890 the white race would show a decennial increase appreciably below that of the blacks. If the Negro, then, is threatened with extinction, the white race is in a still more pitiable plight. ...
— A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1 • Kelly Miller
... homes of England! their sweetness is melting into fable; only the new Spirit in its holiest power can restore to those homes their boasted security of "each man's castle," for Woman, the warder, is driven into the street, and has let fall the keys in her sad plight. Yet darkest hour of night is nearest dawn, and there seems ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... join his leader. The corner of the street by the canal, where Sir Andrew Ffoulkes would be waiting with the coal-cart; then there was the spinney on the road to St. Germain. Armand hoped that, with good luck, he might yet overtake his comrades, tell them of Jeanne's plight, and entreat them to ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... was in a miserable plight. My strength had been assailed by anguish, and fear, and watchfulness, by toil, and abstinence, and wounds. Still, however, some remnant was left; would it not enable me to reach my home by nightfall? I had delighted, from my ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... critical moment, as he came up, Sumner succeeded in grasping him and drawing him to the boat. By this time, they had drifted a long way down and saw another rapid approaching. By swimming desperately, they avoided being carried into this in their awkward plight, and, towing the boat after them, landed none too soon on a pile of driftwood on the bank. A gun, some barometers, and other articles that were in the open compartment, were lost, though one roll of blankets had been caught and ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... the kind people stood the Prince up and helped him to the palace, where the King was greatly shocked at his sad plight. Fiddlecumdoo was so broad that the only thing he could sit down on was the sofa, and he was so thin that when Princess Pattycake sneezed he was blown half way ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum
... men crouched there silent, realizing their desperate plight. They must escape, before the sun rose. ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... hastily,—"Indeed, my lord, there is a chaise upon the highway, and if we mistake not 'tis the King's." Cedric loosed himself from Constance and hurried from the room. She flew after him; but he had passed Sir Julian and flung himself upon a horse. Pomphrey saw her plight, and, whether from pity, gallantry, or intrigue, lifted her quickly—before she had time to withdraw from him—into a coach. Cedric remonstrated with him; but Julian was confident of his motive and started the coach at full speed. They flew along in the opposite direction ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... harder than before. As no trains were running at this hour, he walked in the direction where he would be likely to meet with an omnibus. But it was a long time before one passed which was any use to him. When he reached home he was in cheerless plight enough; to make things pleasanter, one of his boots had let ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... was giving us what we asked. But would she give us all we asked? Just as there might have been a renewed chance of getting an answer to this question, black men in a black boat hailed us. Sir Marcus had deigned at last to remember our plight. ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... down to the sea in ships," said he, "must needs learn a good deal if they would prosper. I have studied the heavens somewhat, because more than once it has been my lot to find myself at sea without a compass, and in a plight like that a knowledge of the stars and planets is a good thing for a man to have at his command. Now, if we do but set our faces to yonder constellation we shall keep in a straight line for Acapulco—and God send we may land ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... is a good woman at a small homestead not a mile away. She has kept us from starving, and, like many of the Hollanders, has a kind heart. I will do my best to get her to befriend you, Mistress, for I see you are in a sorry plight.' ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... visitor was Mr. Hamilton. He came to tell me of an accident case. A young labourer had fallen off a scaffolding, and a compound fracture of the right arm had been the result. He was also badly shaken and bruised, and was altogether in a miserable plight. ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... of being seen in such a plight, and had an instinctive dislike of showing her feelings to a stranger, for Marjory was an extremely ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... young Mary's plight: She took the cup, no word she spake, She had even wished that very night To sleep and never ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... terror at their plight. Catherine, more resolute, tried to encourage her companion; but as they jogged and jolted over the deserted road for what seemed hours, even her own ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... was suffering from both cold and hunger, and was in pitiable plight. Again he writes: "Lieutenant Daunt, Ninth Regiment, and another officer of some Sixtieth Regiment, were frozen to death last night, and two officers of the Ninety-Third Regiment were smothered by charcoal. The streets of Balaklava are a sight, with swell English cavalry ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... brought up in a home of severe simplicity, where gentleness and kindness were taught and practiced, pitied the woman and her children in their sad plight and loaned her the needed interest payment to stave off ejection from her home. Thereafter, he looked after her family until the oldest son was able to manage his ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... of doing this only for the fact that he knew Percy and his shadow, Sandy, were aware of the plight of the precious flier. And while Frank was inclined to partly believe that the Carberry boy might let up in his mischief-making ways for awhile at least, after all they had done for him up on Old Thundertop, Andy could not bring himself to trust the ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... had sent an embassy to the protecting State, to inform the senate of his brother's murder and his own evil plight. But, diffident as he was, he must have felt that a passive endurance of the outrages inflicted by Jugurtha dimmed his prestige and imperilled his position; he found himself at the head of the larger ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... nails, no iron to make either of. We made a detour of three miles to what was represented as a regular shop. The owner had secured the service of a colored blacksmith for a special job, and was, not inclined to accommodate us; he had no shoes, no nails. But the colored blacksmith, who appreciated the plight we were in, offered to make a shoe, and to crib four nails from those he had laid aside for a couple of mules; and after a good deal of delay, we were enabled to go on. The incident shows, as well as anything, the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... dungeon for no crime except that he was a foreigner, when a word from the President of the United States, of which he was a citizen, would have effected his release. Washington was aware of Paine's miserable plight, yet he forgot the obligations of friendship; and notwithstanding frequent letters from Munro, the American ambassador at Paris, he supinely suffered the man he had once delighted to honor to languish in wretchedness, filth, and disease. George Washington did much for American Independence, but ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote
... young girl, not more than fourteen years of age, was found concealed among the casks, where she had secreted herself in order to accompany the boatswain to sea: upon being brought on deck, she was in a most pitiable plight, for her dress and appearance were so filthy, from four days' close confinement in a dark hold, and from having been dreadfully seasick the whole time, that her acquaintances, of which she had many ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... and then there is always a muddle. And when Emer comes—," he checked his indiscreet utterance by pretending to have a difficulty in restraining the horses, and then added confusedly: "Besides, I'd rather be in your plight ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... and when they were seen, a great cry arose throughout the army, and men left their fires and their mending of arms and clothes, and ran out to meet him, a gaunt man in rusty armour, on a gaunt horse, followed by others in no better plight. His mantle was all stained with rain and mud, and was rent in many places, and his mail was brown, save where it had been chafed bright by his moving; his great Norman horse was rough with his winter coat and seemed all joints and bones, and Dunstan and Alric rode ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... covered with the napkin and did whatso her lord had bidden her; after which she tare her gear and bared her head and letting down her hair, went in to the Lady Zubaydah, crying out and weeping. When the Princess saw her in this state, she cried, "What plight is this? What is thy story and what maketh thee weep?" And Nuzhat al-Fuad answered, weeping and loud-wailing the while, "O my lady, may thy head live and mayst thou survive Abu al-Hasan al-Khali'a; for he is dead!" ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... reminiscence of that night—Dec. 27, 1836—is Pollard's graphic picture of the Devonport mail snowed up at Amesbury. Six horses could not move it, and Guard F. Feecham was in parlous plight. Pollard's companion picture of the Liverpool mail in the snow near St. Alban's on the same night is equally interesting. Guard James Burdett fared little better than his ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... our case was hopeless. It was equally apparent that all were ready to die at their guns rather than surrender; and such I believe to have been the determination of the crew, almost to a man." A crippled ship, armed with carronades, was indeed in a hopeless plight. At six minutes before four in the afternoon the attack began. The Essex riding to an anchor with a southerly wind, the Cherub took position on her starboard bow, or southwest from her; the Phoebe north, under her stern. Both British ships began fighting under sail, not being yet ready to ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... clanged the bell, caught Patrick by the waist-line, thrust him under her desk, fenced him in with a chair, and turned to Isaac who had only just realized the full horror of his plight. Isidore Belchatosky and Eva Gonorowsky had torn off the white tunic—thereby disclosing quantities of red flannel—and exhibited its desecrated back. And speech, English speech returned to the Prince of Hester Street. Haltingly at first, but with growing fluency he cursed ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... found that his allies deserted him at a critical {123} moment and left him to face the formidable army of the Cardinal. The Huguenots submitted to their fate in the summer of 1629, finding themselves in a worse plight than they had been when they surrendered La Rochelle, for Richelieu treated with them no longer as with a foreign power. He expected them to offer him the servile obedience of conquered rebels. Henceforth ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... but lost his seat. The Count's people stood firm round their Lord; but my Cid was in search of him, and when he saw where he was, he made up to him, clearing the way as he went, and gave him such a stroke with his lance that he felled him. When the Frenchmen saw their Lord in this plight they fled away and left him; and the pursuit lasted three leagues, and would have been continued farther if the conquerors had not had tired horses. Thus was Count Ramon Berenguer made prisoner, and my Cid won from him that day the good sword Colada, which was worth more than ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... hold of each other," he yelled, his mind intent on helping some of them into his boat. But as well talk to the wind. The boys who couldn't swim—and most of them were in that plight—were grabbing this way and that, to seize upon anything that would ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... sitting, and kept the House up till half-past three in order to do it. Dr. ADDISON had need of what the IRON DUKE called "two o'clock in the morning courage" to ward off attacks. Once, when Sir ARTHUR FELL was depicting the desperate plight of the landladies of Yarmouth, forbidden under a penalty of a hundred pounds to charge more than twenty-five per cent. in excess of their pre-war prices, it looked as if the Minister must give way; but with some difficulty he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 30th, 1920 • Various
... person in her position thus to treat overtures, friendly and courteous overtures, from one in his position. And never before—never—had a woman been thus unresponsive. Instead of feeling relief that she had disentangled him from the plight into which his impulsive offer had flung him, he was piqued—angered—and his curiosity was inflamed as never before about ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... seeing his plight, try to stop him. Since we are pretending that he makes everything he touches elastic, the instant you touch him you bounce helplessly ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... friend, ere we both go our ways, this it is. When we are free, and thou knowest all that I have done, I pray thee deem me not evil and wicked, and be not wroth with me for my deed; whereas thou wottest well that I am not in like plight with other women. I have heard tell that when the knight goeth to the war, and hath overcome his foes by the shearing of swords and guileful tricks, and hath come back home to his own folk, they praise him and bless him, and crown him with flowers, and boast of him before God in the minster ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... All in a honey madness hotly bound On blissful burglary. A cunning sound In that wing-music held me: down I lay In amber shades of many a golden spray, Where looping low with languid arms the Vine In wreaths of ravishment did overtwine Her kneeling Live-Oak, thousand-fold to plight Herself unto her own ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... home, some two hundred miles beyond Bangor, Me. As I looked at him I was perfectly astonished that we had a man among us who would think, for a moment, of sending away a dependent, human being, and sickly, too, in such a plight; a rather thin coat, vest and pants that might last him two or three days; no collar, cravat, mittens, overcoat, or boots, but brogans, and those not mates, one of which so pinched his foot that he was forced to remove it shortly after coming in. His person and clothes were filthy ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... before the full South-west breeze. When I say he forgot it, the fact was present enough to him, but it became an outward fact: he had ceased to feel it within him. It was not a portion of his being, hard as Mrs. Mel had struck to fix it. Consequently, though he was in a far worse plight than when he parted with Rose on board the Jocasta, he felt much less of an impostor now. This may have been partly because he had endured his struggle with the Demogorgon the Countess painted ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... grisly waves, these winds and whirlpools loud and dread: What reck they of our wretched plight who ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... it collapsed entirely, and precipitated the rider over the handle-bars. The lower part of the frame had broken short off, where it was previously cracked, and had bent the top bar almost double in the fall. In this sad plight, we were rejoiced to find in the "City under the Shade" the Scotch missionary, Mr. Laughton, who had founded here the most remote of the China Inland Missions. But even with his assistance, and that of the best native mechanic, our repairs were ineffective. At ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... to marry him?" Lena persisted, and half induced Anna to act a feeble part, composed of sobs and kisses and full confession of her plight. Anna broke from her in time to leave what she had stated of herself vague and self-justificatory, so that she kept her pride, and could forgive, as she was ready to do even so far as to ask forgiveness ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of Madra, with his wondrous skill and might, Faltering, on his knees descending, fell in sad inglorious plight, ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... low-lands bordering on the southern ocean, there are five regions of sacred water. They are delightful and eminently holy. Go ye thither without delay. That tiger among men, Dhananjaya, the son of Pandu of pure soul, will soon deliver you, without doubt, from this sad plight.' O hero, hearing the Rishi's words, all of us came hither. O sinless one, true it is that I have today been delivered by thee. But those four friends of mine are still within the other waters here. O hero, do a good deed by delivering ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... Weymouth.—The result was the upset of my ink, whereof you see the remains; and our last moments were spent in reparations and apologies. My two squires are in different plight from what they were ten weeks ago, racing up hills that it then half killed them to come down, and lingering wistfully on the top for last glimpses of our bay. I am overwhelmed with their courtesies, and though each is lugging about twenty pounds weight of stones, and Mab besides in Leonard's ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was he found by May, the most high-blooded and aristocratic of greyhounds; and from this plight did May rescue him;— invited him into her territory, the stable; resisted all attempts to turn him out; reinstated him there, in spite of maid, and boy, and mistress, and master; wore out every body's opposition, by the activity of her protection, and the pertinacity ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various
... near the rocks. He saw her clamber upon them and start toward him, springing from one to another, wading across submerged places, climbing around or over the higher points. And even there, in his desperate plight, as he watched her coming steadily toward him, her eyes fixed on the difficult path, and her skirt instinctively gathered a little in one hand, the sight of her fearless grace thrilled through him, and filled him ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... conscious she found herself in a small cabin, with many others in like pitiable plight. Her aunt was bending over her on one side and Gregory on the other, chafing her hands. At first she could not remember or understand, and stared ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... mosquito-plague had infected the great, busy, joyous metropolis of the south. Ignorant of the real processes of the infection, New Orleans had fought it blindly, frantically, in an agony of panic, and when at last the frost put an end to the helpless city's plight, she lay spent and prostrate. The yellow fever of 1905 came with a more formidable and unexpected suddenness than that of 1897. It sprang into life like a secret and armed uprising in the midst of the city, full-fledged and terrible. But there arose against it the trained fighting line of scientific ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane
... in all the world? Are you not a man yourself? Have you no pity for a woman in such plight as mine?" ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... and growth is possible. These two may be put very briefly: organisation and enthusiastic devotion. These are both important, but in very different degrees. Organisation without valour is in a worse plight than valour without organisation. The one is fundamental, the other secondary. The one is the true cause, so far as men are concerned, of victory, the other is but the instrument by which the cause works. There have been many victories won ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... was impossible that I should hesitate; I did not know, it is true, what might await me within, but it could not be worse and might well be better than my present plight. The door was open; I stepped in; and no sooner had I crossed the threshold than I was aware of an experience more extraordinary and delightful than it had ever been my lot to encounter. I had the ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... dropped their guns and took to the water, hoping to be able to swim to a neighbouring island. This was a counsel of despair, for wounded and exhausted as they were, the feat was impossible. When the Sioux rushed down to the shore, they realized the plight of the French, and did not even waste an arrow on them. One by one the swimmers sank beneath the waves. After watching their tragic fate, the savages returned to scalp those who had fallen at the camp. With characteristic ferocity they hacked and mutilated ...
— Pathfinders of the Great Plains - A Chronicle of La Verendrye and his Sons • Lawrence J. Burpee
... would rather have been hewn in pieces than agree. And now, of his own accord, he was going!... Twenty times he was on the point of turning back. He walked two or three times round the town, turning away just as he came near the Palace. He was not alone in his plight. His mother and brothers had also to be considered. Since his father had deserted them and betrayed them, it was his business as eldest son to take his place and come to their assistance. There was no room for hesitation or pride; he had to swallow down his shame. He entered the Palace. ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... chiefest, with thee bring Him that yon soars on golden wing, Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne, The cherub Contemplation; And the mute Silence hist along, 'Less Philomel will deign a song, In her sweetest saddest plight, Smoothing the rugged brow of Night, While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke Gently o'er the accustom'd oak. —Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly, Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among I woo, to hear thy even-song; And, missing ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... something like one aroused from a dream to the stern realities and terrors of life. By the end of next week, the inside of the house and part of the outside would be finished, and as far as he knew the firm had nothing else to do at present. Most of the other employers in the town were in the same plight, and it would be of no use to apply even to such of them as had something to do, for they were not likely to take on a fresh man while some of ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... simpering girl who was trying to buy idleness with her charm. And he was speaking ill of her. That she knew from Mr. Mactavish James's kindnesses, which brightened the moment but always made the estimate of her plight more dreary, since just so might a gaoler in a brigand's cave bring a prisoner scraps of sweeter food and drink when the talk of her death and the thought of her youth had made him feel tenderly. Only that morning he had padded up behind Ellen and set a white parcel by her typewriter. "Here's ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... chide any one, sinner as I am!" said I. "Nay, Margaret, I doubt not my thoughts have been far unholier than thine. Thou rememberest not, I am sure; but ere we were professed, I was troth-plight unto a young noble, and always that life that I have lost flitteth afore me, as a bird that held a jewel in his beak might lure me on from flower to flower, ever following, never grasping the sweet illusion. Margaret, sister, despise me not for my confession! ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... then, O excellent by strength! And speak wise words, not out of season. You see how, by his talking overmuch, The tortoise fell into this wretched plight!" ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... by these presents, in the name and in behalf of our respective constituents, fully and entirely ratify and confirm each and every of the said Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union, and all and singular the matters and things therein contained. And we do further solemnly plight and engage the faith of our respective constituents, that they shall abide by the determinations of the United States, in Congress assembled, on all questions which by the said Confederation are submitted to them; and that the Articles thereof shall be inviolably observed by the States we respectively ...
— Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition • J.A. James
... ran to their tents, laughing at the plight of their captain, as he issued, furious, from the ruins. Frank began to run too; but thinking that this would be considered an indication of guilt, he stopped. Atwater ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... in, and found a friendly clergyman, Dr. Hamilton by name, to whom they explained their plight. They answered his questions—yes, they were both of age, and they had told their parents. Also, with much stammering, Thyrsis explained that his worldly goods ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... struck her, for the wavering walk and bandaged head, with hand pressed to the forehead, did not suggest her brother. At the next instant the man lifted a white face, and Charlotte gave a startled cry as she saw that it was John Lansing himself, in a sorry plight. ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... that dark and narrow dell, As all the fiends from heaven that fell Had peal'd the banner-cry of Hell! Forth from the pass, in tumult driven, Like chaff before the wind of heaven, The archery appear; For life! for life! their plight they ply, And shriek, and shout, and battle-cry, And plaids and bonnets waving high, And broadswords flashing to the sky, Are maddening in the rear. Onward they drive, in dreadful race, Pursuers and pursued; Before ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... More than rich thoughts can dream, or mad lips speak; But how, or why, whether with soul or body, I will not know. Thou art mine.—Why question further? [Aside] Ay if I fall by loving, I will love, And be degraded!—how? by my own troth-plight? No, but my thinking that I fall.—'Tis written That whatsoe'er is not of faith is sin.— O Jesu Lord! Hast Thou not made me thus? Mercy! My brain will burst: I ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... sister. Will of course kept to himself the events of his last two days in London; he did not venture to hint at any knowledge of Rosamund's movements. A suspicion was growing in his mind that she might not have left England; in which case, was ever man's plight more ridiculous than his? It would mean that Rosamund had deliberately misled him; but could he think her capable of that? If it were so, and if her feelings toward him had undergone so abruptly violent a change simply because of the discovery she had made—why, ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... black as night, Oriana, Ere I rode into the fight, Oriana, While blissful tears blinded my sight By star-shine and by moonlight, Oriana, I to thee my troth did plight, Oriana. ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... and he saw a determination in them that he knew he could never shake, and, knowing his own weakness, he would have killed Phil rather than see him in the same plight. ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... head of the boat so much that the water leaked through upon them, until they were about as wet as the Dutchman. This was hard fare for Benjamin, who had been accustomed to a comfortable bed and regular sleep. It was impossible for him to rest in such a plight, and he had all the more time to think. He thought of home, and the friends he had left behind, of the comfortable quarters he had exchanged for his present wet and perilous berth, and he began to feel that he had paid too dear for ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... considered. Now, according to certain statements by Mr Belasco and by writers in and to The Referee, the Theatrical Syndicate does, in fact, control to a very great extent the drama in America, and there is no real doubt about the accuracy of the proposition that the drama in the States is in a worse plight than the drama in London. If, judging by the ordinary picked American productions over here, the evidence were otherwise insufficient, the tone of Mr Klaw's article ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... embraced me with affection, and wept bitterly; she distributed [the customary offerings to the poor] on the occasion of my safe arrival, such as oil, vegetables, and small coins, [102] and said to me, "Though my heart is greatly rejoiced at this meeting, yet, brother, in what sad plight do I see you?" I could make her no reply, but shedding tears, I remained silent. My sister sent me quickly to the bath, after having ordered a splendid dress to be sewn for me. I having bathed and washed, put on these clothes. She fixed on an elegant ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf? Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!" They heard, and were abashed, and up they sprung Upon the wing, as when men wont to watch On duty, sleeping found by whom they dread, Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake. Nor did they not perceive the evil plight In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel; Yet to their General's voice they soon obeyed Innumerable. As when the potent rod Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day, Waved round the coast, up-called ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... taken on board a steamer which immediately started down river. At three o'clock in the morning they were landed on the river bank about forty miles below St. Louis, at a spot where there was neither house, road, nor clearing. Before the marooned party had time to realize its plight the steamer ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... enlightened nations. Surely, if this childish practice is still a rule in polite society, it is one "more honoured in the breach than the observance." In no city on the Eastern side of the Alleghany Mountains did I meet a single drunken American in the street. The few whom I did detect in that plight were manifestly recent importations from ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... the usual story that is told, England had been engaged with a long and vain struggle with the demon of protection, and had been year after year sinking farther into the depths, until at a moment when she was in her distress and saddest plight, her manufacturing system broke down, "protection, having destroyed home trade by reducing," as Mr. Atkinson says, "the entire population to beggary, destitution, and want." Mr. Cobden and his friends providentially appeared, ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... captured wild animal which fears danger; and as he looked he caught sight of the footman gazing at him with a peculiar grin upon his countenance, which seemed to be quite friendly, and indicated that the man rather enjoyed the plight in which his young master ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... "let me rise and dress;" He tried—fell back; and then he must confess He could not labour for another week! Oh, wretched plight— For him, his work was life! Should he keep sick, 'twas death! All four sat mute; sudden a my of hope Beamed in the soul of Abel. He brushed the tear-drops from his ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... activity Simoun had displayed in urging Paulita's marriage, which had plunged Isagani into the fearful misanthropy that was worrying his uncle. He forgot all these things and thought only of the sick man's plight and his own obligations as a host, until his senses reeled. Where must he hide him to avoid his falling into the clutches of the authorities? But the person chiefly concerned was not worrying, ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... out, dripping to the very crowns of their heads, with their Sunday shirts and jackets in a horrible plight. The truth, slowly gathered from their mutual accusations, was this: they had resolved to have a boating excursion on Redley Creek, and had abstracted the tub that morning when nobody was in the kitchen. ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... my illusions. A friend of my own age had recently married an officer much younger than herself. At the end of a year's happiness he left her; and society, far from pitying her, laughed at her plight. ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... of the outlaw sounded so coarse and disagreeable as now when hope seemed gone. His villainous face lighted with evil triumph as he surveyed the plight ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... hawthorne house; With counsaile of the night, I will be here With wholesome viands; these impediments Will I file off; you shall have garments and Perfumes to kill the smell o'th prison; after, When you shall stretch your selfe and say but, 'Arcite, I am in plight,' there shall be at your choyce ...
— The Two Noble Kinsmen • William Shakespeare and John Fletcher [Apocrypha]
... shilling, with which I paid the bathing-man, and walked off undiscovered to my own machine. The fat old she-triton laughed till she cried. I dressed in my proper costume leisurely enough, and was amused to hear afterwards of the luckless plight in which a stout gentleman had found himself by the temporary loss of all his apparel whilst he was disporting in ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... year the resources of the Venetians had grown less and their plight more desperate. In 1668 they had received some assistance from French volunteers under the Duc de la Feuillade. This was followed by an application to Turenne for a general who would command their own troops ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... another everywhere was wickedness everywhere want. Her heart felt as if it would break. What was to reach these poor, miserable fellow creatures of hers? Who was to raise them out of their horrible plight? The coarse distortion and the narrow contraction of Christ's teaching which she had just heard, offered no remedy for this evil. Nor could she think that secularism would reach these. To understand secularism you meed a fair share of intellect what intellect would these ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... am in tolerable plight, and in my last letter told you what I had done in the way of all rhyme. I trust that you prosper, and that your authors are in good condition. I should suppose your stud has received some increase by what I hear. Bertram must be a good horse; does he run next meeting? I hope you ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... shed tears of a night over his poor family of soldiers. Only he and Frenchmen could have pulled themselves out of such a plight; but we did pull ourselves out, though, as I am telling you, it was with loss, ay, and heavy loss. The Allies had eaten up all our provisions; everybody began to betray him, just as the Red Man had foretold. The rattle-pates in Paris, ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... Helena.] who was left there eighteene moneths before by Abraham Kendall, who put in there with the Roiall marchant and left him there to refresh him on the Iland, being otherwise like to haue perished on shipboord: and at our comming wee found him as fresh in colour and in as good plight of body to our seeming as might be, but crazed in minde and halfe out of his wits, as afterwards wee perceiued: for whether he was put in fright of vs, not knowing at first what we were, whether friends or foes, or of sudden ioy when he vnderstand we were his olde consorts ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... now in an unfortunate plight, when I had the good luck to meet with the French valet of a certain noble lord whose name I will not mention. He was pleased to fall in with a person who could speak the language of la belle France, and on hearing that I was of gentle birth, ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... to remain in darkness all night. My saddle-bags were with the mule, and I did not even know now where the animal might be. I was soaking wet, shivering with ague, nothing to eat, plenty of cigarettes and matches, but unable to smoke or even make a light, so my disagreeable plight can to some extent be imagined. Moreover, there were about six inches of water all round me, so that I could not attempt to sleep. The cold was intense, and I can safely say that I never spent such a long, disagreeable, ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... believe, caused some of our fellows to think I was hit. Of course, after hurling a choice malediction after my horse, I was quickly on my feet and doubling after the rest of the "Boys of the Bulldog Breed." An officer of the Dorsets, Captain Kinderslie, seeing my plight, rode up amid the whistling bullets and insisted on my holding his hand and running by the side of his horse, till we came to Sergeant-Major Hunt, who had caught and was holding Bete Noire. Naturally, the reins were entangled in his forelegs, but I ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... appear, interrupted for a time the regular trade which, ever since the Saite kings of the XXVIth dynasty, had been carried on by the Greeks with the Oases, by way of Abydos. A stranger who ventured as far as the Thebaid would have found himself in the same plight as a European of the last century who undertook to reach the first cataract. Their point of departure—Memphis or Cairo—was very much the same; their destinations—Elephantine and Assuan—differed but ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... sericulture who joined in our conversation was not much concerned by the plight of the priests. "The causes of goodness in our people," he said, "are family tradition and home training. Candidly, we believe our morals are not so bad on the whole. We are now putting most stress on economic development. How to maintain their ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... present time given me neither remedy, aid, nor favor—which I expected from friends and vassals of a sovereign so related by kinship and blood with his majesty; and as I would have done for them, if I had found them in the plight in which they find me. It is no valid objection to say that I have had ships in which I could have left—such, for example, as the "Capitana" and the "San Juan," which went to Nueva Espana—for the "Capitana" carried about two hundred persons, and the patache "San Juan" seventy, which number ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... through which they were reading their way. On Sundays the congregation rarely numbered a dozen. It seemed that, as the end of the Vicar's task drew nearer, so the prospect of filling the church receded and became more shadowy. And if his was a queer plight, Jacky Pascoe's was queerer. The Bryanite continued to come by night and help, but at rarer intervals. He was discomforted in mind, as anyone could see, and at length he took Mr. Raymond aside and ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and to try to set them right. He had all the whips and instruments of torture that Egyptian rulers had used piled up outside the Palace and burned. In the gaol he found two hundred men, women, and children lying in chains and in the most dismal plight. Some were innocent, many were prisoners of war. Of many their gaolers could give no reason for their being there. One woman had been imprisoned for fifteen years for a crime committed when she was ...
— The Story of General Gordon • Jeanie Lang
... with less than three miles more to their credit, halted for cautious reconnaissance, with the ruined ranch still a long mile away, there came sound of feeble hail from a patch of willows down by the brookside, and presently, in fearful plight, they dragged forth Bennett's colored man-of-all-work, unharmed, but half dead with terror. Yes, Indians had suddenly come in the early evening. First warning was from the Maricopa boy who came running from the spring, saying ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... was in the same plight, as to a delayed decision, but he did not speak as though he were very hopeful ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... sitting-room on Monday the storm continued, snowing and blowing a gale from the southwest, which, though not disturbing us even slightly, we felt sure would be bad for those at sea and at Nome; our own experiences at that place giving us always a large sympathy for others in similar plight. Long afterwards we learned that in this storm the "Elk" had been blown ashore at Nome, and was pretty thoroughly disabled, if not entirely wrecked, and we wondered if poor cook Jim had "done been mighty busy, sah, gittin' tings fixed" ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... —Satan beheld their Plight, And to his Mates thus in Derision call'd. O Friends, why come not on those Victors proud? Ere-while they fierce were coming, and when we, To entertain them fair with open Front, And Breast, (what could we more?) ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... length dawned upon the British commander, he made a futile attempt at a diversion by sending Benedict Arnold to attack New London. It was as weak as the act of a drowning man who catches at a straw. Arnold's expedition, cruel and useless as it was, crowned his infamy. A sad plight for a man of his power! If he had only had more strength of character, he might now have been marching with his old friend Washington to victory. With this wretched affair at New London, the brilliant and wicked Benedict Arnold disappears from American ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... his father's plight, a haunting dread that Colonel Harrington might make him some trouble, and the uncertainty of continued work in the express service, all combined to depress his mind with anxiety and suspense, and he tried to dismiss the themes by whistling a quiet, soothing ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... in a worse plight than ever. There was no commissario to be had at that hour. I was in total darkness; not a door was open; nor was there an individual in the street; and, recollecting the reputation Rome had of late acquired for midnight assassinations, I began ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... disconsolate drooping creature is terrified from all enjoyments—prays without ceasing till his imagination is heated—fasts and mortifies and mopes till his body is in as bad a plight as his mind, is it a wonder that the mechanical disturbances and conflicts of an empty belly, interpreted by an empty head, should be mistaken for the workings of a different kind to what they are? or that in such a situation every commotion ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... have the gold, Hewlett," he muttered, apparently ignorant that I, too, was a prisoner and in hardly better plight. "You are the last of the four. I tried to ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... necessity more nearly than any friend's, those Bronte girls, and the pinch of poverty was for their own foot; therefore were they always considerate to any that fell into the same plight. During the Christmas holidays of 1837, old Tabby fell on the steep and slippery street and broke her leg. She was already nearly seventy, and could do little work; now her accident laid her completely aside, leaving Emily, Charlotte, and Anne to spend their Christmas holidays in doing the housework ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... Nevertheless, if the man had been stung, the free world would say—"job well done." For in a few weeks he would have ceased to be strictly human, becoming a dangerous threat to his fellows. And if the girl had been unable to escape from him before that time, she would have been subject to the same plight. Morgan decided that he would have done the same thing if given time ...
— Collectivum • Mike Lewis
... got out all right!" suddenly exclaimed Ross, half aloud, as the thought swept over him of the plight in which his chum ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... Krafft said. "We are civilized, after all. You can't expect us to fight a war—and you surely can't expect us to ignore the plight ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... the majority of the artists, he regretted to observe 'motives apparently limited to their own views and ambition to govern.' Again the negotiation was broken off, the project went to pieces, and now the hope of establishing a national academy in England seemed in its worst plight—hopeless—gone down to zero. ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... through two days, was too violent for raft or boat to live, and at so early a season native craft are never seen on these seas. Briefly, a week might have elapsed before our friends at El-Muwaylah, who were startled by the wildness of the wind, could have learned our plight, or could have taken ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... laughing. Perhaps, after all, her fears were exaggerated, but she dreaded Charles's helpless acquiescence in the plight to which he had been reduced by Mr Gillies's refusal to advance him a penny outside the ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... poor animal, handling her as gently as possible, for she was in a sad plight. It was plain he must not have her here any longer: worse to her at least was sure to follow. He went up, trembling himself now, to Mrs Merton. She told him she was just running to fetch him when he arrived: she had no idea how ill he was. But he felt all the better for the excitement, ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... stood and watched his face, waiting for him to lift his eyes. But he refused obstinately to lift them, and went on rearranging with aimless fingers the pens and papers on his writing-table. At length she plucked up her courage. "Husband," she said, "let us take counsel together. We are in a plight that wrath will not cure: but, be angry as you will, we cannot give Hetty ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the Johnstown flood when the horror of that disaster was still plainly written in their eyes, but destitute as they were of home and food and clothing, they were in better plight than those fever-stricken, starving pacificos, who have sinned in no way, who have given no aid to the rebels, and whose only crime is that they lived in the country instead of in the town. They are now to suffer because General Weyler, finding that he cannot hold the ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis
... have nothing to say to us; and that, unless we chose to become converts to the Romish Church, we might whistle for our acres, and light our pipes with the certificate. Our Yankee friends at Brazoria, however, laughed at our dilemma, and told us that we were only in the same plight as hundreds of our countrymen, who had come to Texas in total ignorance of this condition, but who had not the less taken possession of their land and settled there; that they themselves were amongst the number, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... if you can comprehend the loneliness, the hollow futility of our plight. Fifty thousand skilled workmen with nothing to do. Some of the less adaptable gave up, prostrating themselves upon the bare rocks until their joints froze from lack of use, and their works corroded. Others served the miners ...
— B-12's Moon Glow • Charles A. Stearns
... sad plight, Avenant exclaimed one day, "How have I offended his Majesty? He has no ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... El Dorado for the present less gilded plight of the Spanish: "Fifty thousand ducats! Holy Virgin! Are we Incas of Peru—Atahualpas who can fill a hall with gold? Now, ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... received a solemn warning that his scholarship was in some danger, though he was not actually deprived of it, and finally, instead of the good class his tutor had once expected, he took a low third, and left Cambridge in almost as bad a plight as ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... accentuated by a rumble of distant voices and gusts of vacant laughter, once or twice by a curious popping. For a long time he heard nothing else whatever. The effect was singularly disquieting and did its bit to quicken torpid senses to grasp his plight. ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... Gazette in 1867, and afterwards republished in Friendship's Garland. Arminius, the cultivated Prussian, accompanies his English friend to Petty Sessions in a country town, and is horrified by the degraded plight of an old peasant who is tried for poaching. The English friend (the imaginary Arnold) says that for his own part he is not so much concerned about the poacher as about his children. They are being allowed to grow up anyhow. Really he thinks the time has come when compulsion ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... called. Naturally, efforts were made early in the war to lessen the danger by armouring the body of the machine sufficiently to protect the aviator and his engine—for if the aviator escaped a shot which found the engine, his plight would be almost as bad as if the ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... voices tremble through the night; Within the sky the pallid King of Light Wraps silvered ermine round him while he may, And Heaven's harem greets its star array. One lone white cloud rests in the azure height— A veiled court lady in some sorrow's plight— Whom cruel love ...
— Sonnets from the Crimea • Adam Mickiewicz
... empty spaces of billowy sand; there were black spots marking hollows and nowhere his horse. But yet he went forward hopefully or at least striving to retain his hope. He had little liking for the plight that would be his were he set afoot here in the heart of the Bad Lands. But at the end of upwards of an hour of fruitless search he went back to the water-hole and his traps, seeing the folly of further seeking now. He would have ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... would get off with a year's imprisonment. The jailer held the lantern close to the tanned face of the reader and nodded encouragingly to Bousquier. The latter was mumbling the Lord's Prayer. Greatly agitated, and groping about for a way out of his plight, he said finally that everything was as he had first related, only the tobacco-dealer had paid him not with a gold-piece but a couple of silver coins. He repeated his confession before the magistrate, who had been summoned despite the lateness of ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... young and strong would have found it hard to brave such an uproar of the elements, how much harder was it for an old man, who, deeming himself stronger than he actually was, and buoyed up by sheer nerve and mental obstinacy, had, of his own choice, brought himself into this needless plight and danger. For now, in utter weariness of body and spirit, Helmsley began to reproach himself bitterly for his rashness. A mere caprice of the imagination,—a fancy that, perhaps, among the poor and lowly he might find a love or ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... how to hit to a hair's-breadth that moment of evening when the light and the darkness are so evenly balanced that the constraint of day and the suspense of night neutralize each other, leaving absolute mental liberty. It is then that the plight of being alive becomes attenuated to its least possible dimensions. She had no fear of the shadows; her sole idea seemed to be to shun mankind—or rather that cold accretion called the world, which, so terrible in the mass, is so unformidable, ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... refinements are above her station, is in pitiable plight: she is too fastidious to espouse the men who would marry her; the men she would marry she rarely meets. For, The only thing that, to love, is insupportable is ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... in the yellow night, The single-mooned eve!-on earth we plight Our faith to one love—and one moon adore— The birth-place of young Beauty had no more. As sprang that yellow star from downy hours, Up rose the maiden from her shrine of flowers, And bent o'er sheeny mountain and dim plain Her way—but left not ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... Duke of York's army, after remaining in a sorry plight near Ostend, it moved forward to Quesnoy to prolong Coburg's right; but the retreat of the main body involved his retirement towards Ostend, near which town he routed some detachments of French. For a time the Allies gained a few advantages and recovered lost ground. But the Republicans ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... been punished they soon learned the extent of the calamity they had inflicted upon the Spaniards. Through their spies they ascertained their diminished numbers, witnessed their miserable plight, and had the sagacity to perceive that they were very poorly prepared to withstand another attack. Thus they gradually regained confidence, marshalled their armies anew, and commenced an incessant series of assaults, avoiding any general action, and yet wearing out the Spaniards with the ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... so we left the poor horses standing in a forlorn little group, gazing with sad lack-luster eyes at the masters who had brought them to such a plight. Inyati took with him a canvas bag that had been used as a saddlecloth, and I wondered what he hoped to find to fill it, for there was no vestige of vegetation to be seen, except some tiny seeds just sprouting here and there in the hollows ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... take leave of the Intendant, and return at once to the city, but not in that plight!" added he, smiling, as Le Gardeur, oblivious of all but the pleasure of accompanying him, grasped his arm to leave the great hall. "Not in that garb, Le Gardeur! Bathe, purify, and clean yourself; I will ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... token do I know you." He took her hand, and added, "By the mystic spell that drew us to each other, I conjure you here to plight your troth to me ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... been my worst enemy and he came very near to ruining me. But I see no reason why hate should blind me in judging his case. I should be glad to have him plainly convicted and put to death. It would please me. But I am not pleased at his present plight. I am not convinced of his guilt. I don't believe any slave evidence given under torture. A tortured slave will say anything he thinks likely to relax his sufferings or please his questioners. And I see no proof of Calvaster's guilt in the other evidence. ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... your servants can give the necessary information," replied the urbane official. If I had lost an umbrella he could not have viewed my plight with more inhuman blandness! ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... which Liberal Ministers tried to persuade them would amply protect Ulster Protestants under a Dublin Parliament, giving a vivid picture of the plight they would be in under a Nationalist administration, which, he declared, meant "a tyranny to which we never can and never will submit"; and then, in a pregnant passage, he summarised ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... students, have so little in common, except a peevish rivalry—there is such an entire want of broad college sympathies and ordinary college friendships, that we fancy that no University in the kingdom is in so poor a plight. Our system is full of anomalies. A, who cut B whilst he was a shabby student, curries sedulously up to him and cudgels his memory for anecdotes about him when he becomes the great so-and-so. Let there be an end of this ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is a painful sight To see a nation great and good Reduced to such a sorry plight, And courtiers crawl where freemen stood, And king and priests combine to seize the spoil, While widows weep and beggar'd ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... a pitiful plight. I was weak from the effects of a fever, Gahra lame from the effects of an accident. My money was nearly all gone, my baggage had been lost by the upsetting of a canoe, and our worldly goods consisted of two sorry mules, our ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... cloud, Marked from his birth for happy fate, Whom signs auspicious decorate? Why does no henchman, young and fair, Precede thee, and delight to bear Entrusted to his reverent hold The burthen of thy throne of gold? Why, if the consecrating rite Be ready, why this mournful plight? Why do I see this sudden change, This altered mien so sad ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... baselessness of the positions themselves. What mankind did in the primitive state may not be a hopeless subject of inquiry, but of their motives for doing it it is impossible to know anything. These sketches of the plight of human beings in the first ages of the world are effected by first supposing mankind to be divested of a great part of the circumstances by which they are now surrounded, and by then assuming that, in the condition thus imagined, they would preserve the same ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... days—Queen Anne having died in the meantime—and the Tory Government being consequently dismissed in disgrace. Poor Gay, who had offended the Whigs by dedicating his "Shepherd's Week" to Bolingbroke, came home in a worse plight than before. He had left England in a state of poverty—he returned to it in a state of proscription—although he perhaps felt comforted by an epistle of welcome from Pope, which did not, it is likely, affect ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... I see you know, now. It was I whom you heard playing, that first day. It was I, touched by your plight in that forlorn and dusty barracks, who gave you some slight relief. It was easy enough for me to cut across to Geddes's house, reach in through his kitchen window, lift his tray, and escape through the ragged hedges while his ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... had been rebuilt by Ramses II. and decorated by the Rames-sides, was in a sorry plight when the XXIInd dynasty came into power. Sheshonq I. did little or nothing to it, but Osorkon I. entirely remodelled it, and Osorkon II. added several new halls, including, amongst others, one in which he celebrated, in the twenty-second ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... in the dirt and soiling her hands in that style! It was his impression that only Dutch women worked in a garden; and for all he knew of its products she might be setting out a potato plant. Quick Edith caught his expression, and while she crimsoned with vexation at her plight, felt a new and sudden sense of contempt for the semblance ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... boy—you have got more on your hands now than will suffice you: so off with you home, and take care that when we return we do not find the doves flown, Nero lost, or Reuben with black eye or bruised leg, and yourself in some unlucky plight, my boy. Now go home, and God bless and watch over you, my sons. We hope it will not be long before we return," and he waved his hand to bid good bye. Marten had run himself out of breath, so he was not able to answer his ...
— Brotherly Love - Shewing That As Merely Human It May Not Always Be Depended Upon • Mrs. Sherwood
... performs some very remarkable magic. The ten I have mentioned assembled, with the Scarecrow and Glinda, in Ozma's throne room, right after dinner that evening, and the Sorceress told them all she knew of the plight ...
— Glinda of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... smartest officer of the deck he had ever known. But in early middle life disease overtook him, and, though flat on his back, he had been borne on the active list because there was nothing else to do with him. In that plight he was even promoted. There was another who, as a midshipman, had lost a foot in the War of 1812, but had been carried on from grade to grade for forty years, until at the time I speak of he was a ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... have been frightened enough, for it was certainly in great danger, and the Shepherd knew what a terrible plight it must be in, wandering about tired and hungry, far away from the fold. For what do you think he did?" Grace continued, looking at Geordie; "he actually left all the other sheep—the ninety-nine, you know—in the wilderness, and went away to seek for ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... born, thou shalt not die, and no evil shall reach thee in the midst of Egypt." But Bithiah said, "Of what advantage is my security to me, when I see the king, my brother, and all his household, and his servants in this evil plight, and look upon their first-born perishing with all the first-born of Egypt?" And Moses returned, "Verily, thy brother and his household and the other Egyptians would not hearken to the words of the Lord, therefore did ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg |
