"Misery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grandfather's death-bed scene. Was it as my father had said? Was it Trewinion's curse that rested upon him? I began to think of what the vicar, my schoolmaster, had told us only the day before—that every sin brought a curse, brought misery, brought remorse, and while sin or unforgiveness was cherished in our hearts we could not realise happiness or forgiveness. Was this the case with my grandfather, or was ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... disease; and the haughty conqueror trembled in the presence of a captive to whom he ascribed perhaps an imaginary power of prolonging or preserving his life. The Huns might be provoked to insult the misery of their slaves, over whom they exercised a despotic command; but their manners were not susceptible of a refined system of oppression; and the efforts of courage and diligence were often recompensed by the gift of freedom. The historian Priscus, whose embassy ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... takes place at this age, it is found that the disorder has passed beyond the curable stage, in which case, of course, nothing is left to the unfortunate stammerer but the prospects of a life of untold misery and torture, deprived of companionship, ostracized from society and debarred from participation in ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
... the night in a bleak bottom on the north bank of the river. But no one could sleep, for the wind swept over us with unobstructed fury, and the only fuel to be had was a few green bushes. As night fell a decided change of temperature added much to our misery, the mercury, which had risen when the "Norther" began, again falling to zero. It can be easily imagined that under such circumstances the condition of the men was one of extreme discomfort; in truth, they had to ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... work have we at Cartillon?" I cried aloud in my misery. Then one who could answer came running toward me from the castle, gashed, with snapped sword ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... But, whether he's dead or alive, it's death to Rose Andree. How are we to trace her? And what chance have we of finding the place—some inaccessible retreat—where the poor thing is dying of misery and starvation?" ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... uttering them you pronounce my doom—a doom more dreadful than death, which would be light in comparison with losing you. Plunge this sword to my heart," he exclaimed, plucking the shining weapon from his side, and presenting it to her. "Free me from my misery at once, but do not condemn ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... around at him in uncomprehending misery. There was just room for the two in the barrel. Smith seemed to put his mind to Madden's ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... rocking back and forth in misery's timeless attitude. "I can't help it, Jerry. I ... just ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... cannot cure an internal cancer with a plaster upon the little finger, and you will never stanch the world's wounds until you go to the Physician that has balm and bandage, even Jesus Christ, that takes away the sins of the world. I profoundly distrust all these remedies for the world's misery as in themselves inadequate, even whilst I would help them all, and regard them all as then blessed and powerful, when they are consequences and secondary results of the Gospel, the first task of which is to deal by forgiveness and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... subject of historical importance in the reign of George IV. was the perpetual agitation among the people growing out of their misery and discontent. There were no great insurrections to overturn the throne, as in Spain and Italy and France; but there was a fierce demand for the removal of evils which were intolerable; and this was manifested in monster petitions to Parliament, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... received the countenance of that house, the poor unfortunate African would have occasion doubly to curse his fate. He would not only curse the womb that brought him forth, but the British nation also, whose diabolical avarice had made his cup of misery still more bitter. He hoped that the members for Liverpool would urge no further opposition to the bill, but that they would join with the house in an effort to enlarge the empire of humanity; and that, while they were stretching ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... which all such as were able to come forth of their house, repayered to church, which was neatly trimmed with the wild flowers of the country, where our minister, Master Bucke, made a zealous and sorrowful prayer, finding all things so contrary to our expectations, and full of misery and misgovernment." This state of things had been brought about by the treacherous conduct of their neighbors, the savages, domestic feuds, fluctuations in the quantity and quality of their food, bad water, and severe climatic ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... the period at which Catherine confidently believed she could get possession of the regal power, was a moment of cruel disappointment, after the twenty-six years of misery she had lived through at the court of France. The Guises laid hands on power with incredible audacity. The Duc de Guise was placed in command of the army; the Connetable was dismissed; the cardinal took charge of the ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... for his People that he is absolute; but since in the common Run of Mankind, for one that is Wise and Good you find ten of a contrary Character, it is very dangerous for a Nation to stand to its Chance, or to have its publick Happiness or Misery depend on the Virtues or Vices of a single Person. Look into the [History [1]] I have mentioned, or into any Series of Absolute Princes, how many Tyrants must you read through, before you come to an Emperor that is supportable. But this is not all; ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... living thing? Grief and delusion rest upon a belief in diversity, which leads to competition and all forms of selfishness. With the realization of oneness, the sense of diversity vanishes and the cause of misery is removed. ...
— The Upanishads • Swami Paramananda
... dependancy upon relations I have disobliged. Save me from that fear if you love me. If you cannot, or think I ought not to expect it, be sincere and tell me so. 'Tis better I should not be yours at all, than, for a short happiness, involve myself in ages of misery. I hope there will never be occasion for this precaution; but, however, 'tis necessary to make it. I depend entirely on your honour, and I cannot suspect you of any way doing wrong. Do not imagine I shall be angry at anything you can tell me. Let it be sincere; ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... perishing."[861] And in another mood: "I begin to feel that, as the Italians say, revenge is a pleasure for the gods. My philosophy is worn out by suffering. I am no saint, and I will own that I should die content if only I could first inflict a part of the misery that I endure." ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... Turks drew him to the Pruth across deserts supplied with nothing; if he did not risk all, by a very unequal battle, he must perish. The Czar was at the head of sixty thousand men: he lost more than thirty thousand on the Pruth, the rest were dying of hunger and misery; and he, without any resources, could scarcely avoid surrendering himself and his forces to the Turks. In this pressing extremity, a common woman whom he had taken away from her husband, a drummer in the army, and whom he had publicly espoused after ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... it there stood, like figures of a monument erected to the local genius of misery and disorder, two burly figures of half-drunken men, threatening each other with loud curses and shaken fists under the chin of a policeman, perfectly impassive, with eyes dropped upon the fists which all but stirred ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... cannot retreat. I wear the mask of madness to conceal my careworn face. Your divine eyes could not be deceived. You have not mistaken the caricature for the true face. You have penetrated beneath the gay tatters, and have seen the misery which sought to ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... now aspire; though even this is a privilege reserved for the more fortunate children. But let us beware of so grave an error. The babe is a man. That which suffices for a plant cannot be sufficient for him. Consider the depth of misery into which a paralyzed man has sunk when we say of him: "He merely vegetates; as a man, he is dead," and lament that there is ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... aloud. "You would pity her, your reverence, if you seen the misery they are in this two months; and it is easily telling they saw better days in the ould country. It is easily knowing that, by the dacent, mannerly children she has ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... stream, or shiver'd in the grass? "Father of mercies! why from silent earth Didst thou awake, and curse me into birth? Tear me from quiet, ravish me from night, And make a thankless present of thy light? Push into being a reverse of thee, And animate a clod with misery? "The beasts are happy; they come forth, and keep Short watch on earth, and then lie down to sleep. Pain is for man; and oh! how vast a pain For crimes, which made the Godhead bleed in vain! Annull'd his groans, as far as in them lay, And flung his agonies, and death, away! As ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... and melancholy thing to see, and as it was a sight which I could not but look on from morning to night (for indeed there was nothing else of moment to be seen), it filled me with very serious thoughts of the misery that was coming upon the city, and the unhappy condition of those that would be left ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... he found his task to ameliorate the condition of the wretched inhabitants, we perceive from such an outburst as this, amongst many similar: "What a mystery, is it not? Why are they created? A life of fear and misery, night and day! One does not wonder at their not fearing death. No one can conceive the utter misery of these lands—heat and mosquitoes day and night all the year round. But I like the work, for I believe I can do a great deal to ameliorate ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... conqueror whose very existence had so long made peaceable pursuits unprofitable to mankind, the final outcome of that Revolution that, at the starting point, had boded so nobly for human welfare—he was at last laid low, and all the misery of the protracted struggle now belonged to ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... a sea change, no matter who suffers it; and one's first sea voyage is a revelation. The mystery of it is usually not unmixed with misery. Five and forty years ago it was a very serious undertaking to uproot one's self, say good-bye to all that was nearest and dearest, and go down beyond the horizon in an ill-smelling, overcrowded, ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... passions, how often has one restless spirit disturbed the repose of a prosperous nation, and spread desolation and misery over the fairest portions of the globe. Does God permit this—and is he righteous? Yes, short-sighted questioner of Omniscience, the Father of the universe is never more conspicuous in his paternal care, than ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... whereof the door is shut to most people, everything in short that human beings who are not actually royalty could desire or deserve. Indeed after my second glass of champagne I grew quite eloquent on these and kindred points, being moved thereto by memories of the misery that is in the world which formed so great a contrast to the lot of ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... strange gestures, which he could not understand, now assumed an extreme importance for him and established a connivance between them. Everything that had happened since his engagement, surged through his over-excited brain, in his misery, and he obstinately went through his five years of married life, trying to recollect every detail month by month, day by day, and every disquieting circumstance that he remembered stung him to the ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... got his men upon the land, they were too much exhausted by the sickness and misery they had endured upon the voyage to move on to meet Hannibal without some days for rest and refreshment. Cornelius, however, selected three hundred horsemen who were able to move, and sent them up the river on an exploring expedition, to learn the facts in respect ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... of the rich that have not believed in the Divine, and have cast out of their minds the things pertaining to heaven and the church, is the opposite of this. Such are in hell, where filth, misery, and want exist; and into these riches that are loved as an end are changed; and not only riches, but also their very uses, which are either a wish to live as they like and indulge in pleasures, and to have opportunity to give the mind more fully ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... down the town: The goddess stands i' the crossroads: sound the gongs. Turn, magic wheel, draw homeward him I love. Hushed are the voices of the winds and seas; But O not hushed the voice of my despair. He burns my being up, who left me here No wife, no maiden, in my misery. Turn, magic wheel, draw homeward him I love. Thrice I pour out; speak thrice, sweet mistress, thus: "What face soe'er hangs o'er him be forgot Clean as, in Dia, Theseus (legends say) Forgat his Ariadne's locks of love." Turn, magic, wheel, draw homeward ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... to his father for instance; he belonged to the old school, who considered it at once humanizing and educational to confine baboons and panthers, holding the view, no doubt, that in course of time they might induce these creatures not so unreasonably to die of misery and heart-sickness against the bars of their cages, and put the society to the expense of getting others! In his eyes, as in the eyes of all Forsytes, the pleasure of seeing these beautiful creatures in a state of captivity far outweighed the inconvenience ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... so much inside—very long ago and she a silly girl thinking stories about everything. Her guardian, to amuse her, had talked about finding a Jack to climb the Beanstalk and kill the monster. She smiled scornfully at the fancy—so futile in the face of the tremendous misery—and happiness—that Giant had the ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... frost. Cavalier, in his Memoirs, describes the straits to which his followers were reduced in that inclement season, being "destitute of houses or beds, victuals, bread, or money, and left to struggle with hunger, cold, snow, misery, and poverty." ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... that has given you pain?" Max went on, noting the traces of tears on her face and the misery in her eyes. ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... for a whole year in misery, till at last he came upon the desert place where Lettice had been banished and lived ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... couch at Speyer. His bodily sufferings were intense, but the agony of his mind was even greater; he had obtained the crown which now pressed so heavily on his head, by shameful treacherous means. The apparition of his father dying in misery appeared to him, and no words of the flatterers at his bed-side could still the voice of his conscience. At last death freed him from all his torments, and at the same hour the bells which were always rung when a poor sinner was led ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... duties that God had assigned to her upon earth; but she was lacking in romance, in those aerial materials from which saints are made. Saints are made in damp, cold prison-cells, where, in the midst of self-inflicted misery, they see visions, dream dreams, and perform cures upon crowds as ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... fundamental cause of social misery was human sin and depravity, and that it was vain to expect any great improvement in the social condition through mere improvements in social forms and institutions unless there was a corresponding moral improvement in men. Until that improvement took place it was ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... worst. Hunger and cold and fear and weariness all wrought their worst with me; yet I had to set an example to the men. My horse, as I have told, fell beside Ranjoor Singh; he dragged me to my feet, and I fell again, dizzy with misery and aching bones. Yet it was beginning to be dawn then, and we had to be up and off again. Our dead were buried; our wounded were bound up; the Kurds would be likely to begin on us again at any minute; ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... enjoying the picnic. The material comforts in the form of sandwiches, cakes and pies, gloriously culminating in lemonade and ice cream, while contributing a temporary pleasure, could not obliterate a sense of misery wrought in him by Miss Hazel's chilly indifference. That young lady, whose smiles so lavishly bestowed only yesterday had made for him a new heaven and a new earth, had to-day merely thrown him a passing glance and a careless "Hello," as she floated ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... hungry, and miserable, he wandered about the streets, attracting attention by the wretchedness of his clothing. How often was he tempted to throw himself under the feet of the horses that flashed by, drawing carriages shining with silver and varnish, thus to end his misery at once! Fortunately, he saw Capitan Tiago, accompanied by Aunt Isabel. He had known them since the days in San Diego, and in his joy believed that in them he saw almost fellow-townsfolk. He followed the carriage until he lost sight of ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... until the last moment, in order to give Eustis what poor respite she could. Only her great love for him had enabled her to do that much. And it had not helped. When she thought of the wreck that must come, she beat her hands together, softly, in sheer misery. It was like standing by and watching some splendid ship being pounded ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... near the strong Lyns of Campsie. May ill luck light upon the day." And the maiden answered, "It was on St. Bridget's morn, and twelve harvests before this time, that the fishermen of Campsie drew in their nets neither grilse nor salmon, but an infant half dead, who hath since lived in misery, and must die, unless she is now aided." And the Lady answered, "Blessed be Saint Bridget and her morn, for these are the dark eyes and the falcon look of my slain lord; and thine shall be the inheritance of his widow." And she called ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... aspect which things thus wore for ourselves was in one respect quite illusory. They may say that the idyllic contentment which we thus attributed to the cottagers was the very reverse of the truth, and that the thatch of their dwellings, however pleasing to the eye, really shrouded a misery to which history shows few parallels. Such an objection, even if correct, would, however, be here irrelevant; for I am dealing now not with things as they actually were, but merely with the impressions ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... Emotions:xviii.) is a pain, and therefore (IV:xli.) is in itself bad. The good effect which follows, namely, our endeavour to free the object of our pity from misery, is an action which we desire to do solely at the dictation of reason (IV:xxxvii.); only at the dictation of reason are we able to perform any action, which we know for certain to be good (IV:xxvii.); thus, in a man who ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... in any way to speak of myself; I have cares, regrets, and sorrows, as have most of us; but I have no cause of misery which ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... marchesa, rising, and with a burst of emotion, as if stung to the utmost, and breaking into revolt from the tyranny of years,—"hold! Gratitude! bounty! Brother, brother! what, indeed, do I owe to you? The shame and the misery of a life. While yet a child, you condemned me to marry against my will, against my heart, against my prayers,—and laughed at my tears when I knelt to you for mercy. I was pure then, Giulio,—pure and innocent as the flowers in my virgin ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... them was too great to be resisted." This determination is rightly characterised by Mr. Farrelly, the late legal adviser to the Government of the South African Republic, as the "fiendish project of wrecking the mines and plunging into hopeless misery for years tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children." But that is not all. He has put upon record[105] the sinister fact that the man entrusted with the execution of this infamous design ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... you do not think so ill of me! I would do every thing, and submit to every inconvenience, rather than involve the man I should marry in misery." ...
— The Boarding School • Unknown
... refreshed themselves therefrom, tortured the thirsty prisoners by holding the water-bottles up to their gaze, and then pouring the contents down their own throats. Gradually a low moan of pain and misery made itself heard in one of the trucks, which soon spread to the others as the miserable men became unable to bear their tortures any longer ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... was no need to speak. They both understood and felt the full misery of household changes that are not entirely happy ones; changes that bring unfaithfulness and ingratitude on one side, and resentful, wounded love on the other. And the worst of it all was, that it might have been ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... fearful sermons on his canvas; sermons which, however exaggerated they may seem to us in some of their painful details of human sin and human misery, are yet so real, that we never doubt that such things were, and are. No one can suspect Hogarth to have been tainted by the vices he exposed. In this he has the advantage of the novelists of his period: he gives ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... suffragists "have thrown to the wind every political, not to say every moral principle;" that "three-fourths of the agitators are in mutiny against Providence because it made them women;" and that "if the ballot were granted to women it would be a burden so crushing that life would be a misery." ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... privileged game to consume. Indeed, it was the license granted the nobles of free warren, especially for their swine, that kept up the iniquitous forest laws to so late a date, and covered so large a portion of the land with such immense tracts of wood and brake, to the injury of agriculture and the misery of the people. Some idea of the extent to which swine were grazed in the feudal times, may be formed by observing the number of pigs still fed in Epping Forest, the Forest of Dean, and the New Forest, in ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... Brennan disappointed him, which was seldom, P. Q. would berate him with the same caustic fervor that lashed a stupid, thick-headed reporter to a point of self-abnegation that gave him thoughts of suicide as the only way out of his misery. ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... Blanquette's story. Here was Blanquette eating her heart out for Paragot, who was killing his soul for Joanna, who was miserably unhappy on account of her husband, who was suffering some penalty for his scaly-headed vulturedom. It was a kind of House-that-Jack-built tale of misery, of which I seemed ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... slowly she met his eyes, and even he started back at her pallor and the drawn misery in her face. But she did not speak. Instead of that she simply reached out and laid her hand on Mr. Steele's arm, drooping almost to the ground as she did so. "Mercy!" she suddenly wailed, but this time to the man who had so ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... suffered as much as the rest of the crew on board the galleon in which he sailed. All were so absorbed by their own suffering and misery that none paid any attention to the idiot boy in their midst. He worked at such work as there was to do: assisted to haul on the ropes, to throw the dead overboard, and to do what could be done for the sick and wounded. Like all on board he was reduced ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... to tell you," he began. "You know I love you very dearly, and if I could—if it was possible, I would ask you to marry me. But I cannot. It is impossible. It would bring misery upon all, upon my father and mother, and upon you. How can I make you understand? My people are rich, all their friends are rich, ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... to himself and to himself alone, with that mute yet eloquent signal, and those despairing gestures. A strange pang shot through his heart—a pang sharp and unaccountable—something more than that which might be caused by any common scene of misery; it was a pang of deep pity and profound sympathy with this lonely sufferer, from whom the steamer's course was turned away, and whom the steersman had not regarded. He only had seen the sight, and the woman seemed to call to him out of ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... the world, it is received and reverenced as the sacred code, promulgated by the great Legislator of the Universe for the guidance of his creatures to happiness, guarded and enforced, as our own experience may inform us, by the penal sanctions of shame, of remorse, of infamy, and of misery; and still farther enforced by the reasonable expectation of yet more awful penalties in a future and more permanent state of existence. It is the contemplation of the law of nature under this ...
— A Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations • James Mackintosh
... The misery of war, the holocaust of all that was noblest, left her absolutely cold. It was certainly a pity that those darling young guardsmen she had danced with should have had to be killed, but there was never any use in crying over spilt milk—better look out for new ones coming on. She ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... I know I am a rogue and the son of a dog. Yet let me tell you, when I came here I had a week's misery and a fortnight's illness, and since then I have been more or less busy in being content. This is a kind of excuse for my laziness. I hope you will not excuse yourself. My plans are still very uncertain, and it is ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Somehow or other, I was always able to keep cheerful there because there was always so much real misery around, and one felt that one was doing good in the world. Here I seem to be such a useless person, no ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "and it is a good thing there isn't. There is enough sickness in the world without bringing any of your rus ideas in urbe. I've lived in the country, sir, and I assure you it is not what it is written up to be. Country life is misery, melancholy, and malaria." ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs
... hollow tube. Furious at being again outwitted, Zeus determined to be revenged first on mankind, and then on Prometheus. To punish the former he commanded Hephaestus (Vulcan) to mould a beautiful woman out of clay, and determined that through her instrumentality trouble and misery should be brought ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... must that last word comprehend, as long as there is misery and evil in this world, or in any other corner of the whole universe? Grace, to be perfect, must shew itself by graciously forgiving penitents. Pity, to be perfect, must shew itself by helping the miserable. Beneficence, to be perfect, must shew ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... have any other share in your determination but the silent satisfaction of having, by inward peace of mind, preserved the life of a good man, whom exterior shew was rapidly conducting to a state of splendid misery. ...
— The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts • Augustus William Iffland
... and when he took it she cried with joy at finding that there was one living thing that did not shun her. After this the robin came every day, and he sang so sweetly for her that she almost forgot her loneliness and misery. But once while the robin was with her the tyrant king's daughter, who was very beautiful, passed with her maids of honor, and, seeing Rosaleen, the ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... glory. The thrushes and the blackbirds were singing in the surrounding groves and thickets, and the larks were pouring forth their melody in the air. Yet all was dark and sorrowful within. I felt the misery of unbelief, yet felt myself unable to free myself from its horrible and tormenting power. I had a growing conviction that I was the slave of a vicious method of reasoning, and of an inveterate habit of unreasonable or excessive doubt, and that I had not the power to do God and Christianity ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... I mounted and made after him, but his horse was better than mine and he gained ground. We began to meet people, too, and I didn't dare to fire again. So I left him and rode here to tell you. Never employ me again, Constable, so long as you live," and the young man's face was twisted with misery and shame, as, forgetting the queen's presence, he ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... "For as our sire who tasted of that tree, And God's own word, by eating, disobeyed, Fell into sorrow from felicity, And was by misery evermore o'erlaid; The husband so, that all would know and see; Whatever by his wife is done and said; Passes from happiness to grief and pain, Nor ever ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... horrible mantle of respectability which has settled on the profession. Respectability in Art is a blight which undermines, and the moment any worker or profession of workers is accepted on equal terms by the non-workers of the community, misery invariably ensues. It is impossible for a non-worker to comprehend the life of a worker, or to make any margin for the work, which, if we judge by the example of their own lives, they evidently despise. The restrictions which all honest ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... to general happiness, concluded that if we were able to foretell the weather a reasonable time ahead, and if men would make it a rule to speak the truth as near as they can, these two conditions would remove nine-tenths of the misery in the world. The more carefully I meditate on this speculation, the better grounded it seems. The weather we are learning to know much more about than when the solitary Obermann penned his despondent dreams; but who shall predict the time when ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... I was reduced to the misery of having no further intelligence of my august and unfortunate mistress but through the medium of the newspapers or the National Guard, who ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... no satisfaction except in ruminating on my misery, and in a thousand-fold imaginary multiplication of it. My whole inventive faculty, my poetry and rhetoric, had pitched on this diseased spot, and threatened, precisely by means of this vitality, to involve body and soul into an incurable disorder. In this melancholy condition nothing more ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. The words came back to him in the hour of his greatest need. His soul was passing through deep waters. Filled with misery and shame, and terrified lest he should have sinned beyond the possibility of salvation, he crept into a disused sand-pit. He was engaged to fight another man that day, but he was in death-grips with a more terrible adversary. 'In ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... descended upon her since her miserable journey to Winchester, and her useless visit to Portland Place: for since that time she had shrunk away from people, wrapped in her own sorrow, separated from the commonplace world by the exceptional nature of her misery. It was something to this poor girl to hear thoughtful and considerate words; and the unbidden tears clouded ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... majority, and you are to be invited to attend the next meeting. But I want you to refuse—yes, I do, Betty; for you can't join—you know you can't. With that awful, awful lie on your conscience, you can't be a Speciality. I shall go wild with misery if you join. Betty, you must ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... to become wanderers as homish vagabonds; or, as banished men, to forsake the kingdom!" Again: "with bloody tears of heart, he, and his wife, their seven children, and their servant (seventeen of them in all), did that day make their petition unto their honours," &c. Can human misery be sharper than this—and to be the lot of a philosopher and bibliomaniac?! But ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... week was the sorest time Clementina had ever passed. But, like a true woman, she fought her own misery and sense of loss, as well as her annoyance and anxiety,—constantly saying to herself that, be the thing as it might, she could never cease to be glad that she ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... sea Unto an overhanging thick-leaved tree, Where in the green waves did the low bank dip Its fresh and green grass-covered daisied lip; But Ogier looking thence no more could see That sad abode of death and misery, Nor aught but wide and empty ocean, grey With gathering haze, for now it neared midday; Then from the golden cushions did he rise, And wondering still if this were Paradise He stepped ashore, but drew Courtain his sword And ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... cease to urge the dart; Nor on my soul her love to me impress! 10 For oh I mourn in anguish—and my heart Feels the keen pang, th' unutterable distress. Yet wherefore grieve I that her sorrows cease, For Life was misery, and the Grave ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... While he shows that population, if unchecked, will surely increase in a ratio far outstripping any possible increase in the means of subsistence, he also shows, by elaborate proofs, that it will inevitably be checked by vice and misery, whether or not they are aided by moral restraint. Later experience has done little to weaken his reasoning, but it has proved that "moral restraint" (in the most general sense) operates more widely than he ventured to expect, and that larger tracts of the ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... gloomily to bed, but I saw no apparitions that night except those of despair and misery which my wretched thoughts called up. The words I had uttered had sounded to Madeline like the basest insult. Of course there was only one interpretation ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... of it. What had been her misery and affliction compared to this? Her limbs refused her, though she knew not whether she would have fled or rushed into his arms. How long she stood thus, and he stood, may not be said, but at length he put down his foot and took the saw from ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... mantle of his satisfaction and content being suddenly rent into a thousand shreds by the knife edge of his intuition, he put both hands on her shoulders, looked down into the misery of her eyes, and very gently said ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... head, and naked feet, we toil, They pass their time in peace and happiness, Regardless of the misery ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... higher up. An agreeable temperature pervaded the room, making the lashing of the fierce rain on the window-panes sound almost pleasant as one basked in the light and warmth of the apartment and contrasted it with the state of cold and wet and misery which reigned supreme outside. A dozen opal-shaded gas- burners brilliantly lighted the room, and revealed the fact that it was handsomely and liberally furnished with luxurious divans, capacious easy-chairs, a piano, a table loaded with the papers and periodicals of the day, an enormous mirror ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... indeed!—and it was the last that was ever to close upon the unhappy Peters. The next morning was appointed for his execution. There are scenes of such consummate misery, that they cannot be portrayed without harrowing up the feelings of the reader,—and of these the climax may be found in a fond wife, lying at the feet of her husband during the last twelve hours of his mortal career. We ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... terms for himself. These, and many other effects of so pernicious a counsel, the King found through the whole course of his reign; which was entirely spent in sieges, revolts, surprises, and surrenders, with very few battles, but no decisive action: a period of much misery and confusion, which affords little that is memorable for events, or useful for ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... who unmoved looked in the eyes of life or death. In that land we led a free and hardy life, with horse and with rifle. We worked under the scorching midsummer sun, when the wide plains shimmered and wavered in the heat; and we knew the freezing misery of riding night guard round the cattle in the late fall round-up. In the soft springtime the stars were glorious in our eyes each night before we fell asleep; and in the winter we rode through blinding blizzards, when the driven snow-dust burnt our faces. ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... did not love the doctor, but the knowledge that he was to marry another added to her misery, while what he said of her decision was the climax of the whole. Had her sacrifice been for nothing? Would it have been better if she had not sent Guy away? It was anguish unspeakable to believe so, and the shadowy woods never echoed to so bitter a cry of pain as that with which ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... ill-sped voyage throughout the summer. In addition to that trouble, there came fever upon the expedition, and Orm died, and Halldis, his wife, and half the company. Then the sea waxed rougher, and they endured much toil and misery in many ways, and only reached Herjolfsnes, in Greenland, at the very beginning of winter. There dwelt at Herjolfsnes the man who was called Thorkell. He was a useful man and most worthy franklin. He received Thorbjorn and all his ...
— Eirik the Red's Saga • Anonymous
... characteristic one,—four or five old men and women towing a vessel into a dock. They bent beneath the rope that passed from shoulder to shoulder, and tugged away doggedly at it, the women apparently more than able to do their part. There is no equalizer of the sexes like poverty and misery, and then it very often happens that the gray mare proves the better horse. Throughout the agricultural regions, as we passed along, the men apparently all wore petticoats; at least, the petticoats were the most active ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... to that other valley and search for an outlet thence whereby we could get into an open way among the mountains, and so once more to our homes? And then, still denying us opportunity to answer, he went on to speak of the pain and misery and despairing sorrow that the threatened war would bring; and then, more gently, of the duty that pressed upon us of averting this calamity, that was also a crime, even though to do so we must sacrifice hopes and wishes very ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... those thirsty days to see the poor horses wandering about, mere walking skeletons, deserted by their owners, for strangers were both unable to give them water, and afraid to put them out of their misery lest damages should be claimed against them. How long our own supplies would last was eagerly discussed, as we gathered round the butcher's shop, the great meeting-place, to which, in the evenings, most of the camp would come to talk over the affairs ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... pulled forward an easel with a canvas already prepared, grasped his palette, and fixed his eyes on the daughter's pretty little face. If he had been acquainted with human nature, he might have read in it the dawning of a childish passion for balls, the dawning of sorrow and misery at the length of time before dinner and after dinner, the heavy traces of uninterested application to various arts, insisted upon by her mother for the elevation of her mind. But the artist saw only the tender little face, a seductive subject ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... chose to be silent, though nobody could conceive greater horror than I did for him at his trial. Having shot the steward at three in the afternoon, he persecuted him till one in the morning, threatening again to murder him, attempting to tear off his bandages, and terrifying him till in that misery he was glad to obtain leave to be removed to his own house; and when the earl heard the poor creature was dead, he said he gloried in having killed him. You cannot conceive the shock this evidence gave the court-many of the lords were standing to look at him-at once they turned from him with ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... language with which a critick exults over the misery of an irregular poet, and exults commonly without resistance or reply. It is time therefore to tell him, by the authority of Shakespeare, that he assumes, as an unquestionable principle, a position, which, while his breath is forming it into words, his understanding ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... misery, is born, Of his proud foe the envy, or the scorn; Wretched he is, or happy, in extreme; Base in himself, but great in Heaven's esteem; With love, of all created things the best; Without it, more pernicious than the rest; For greedy wolves unguarded sheep devour But while their hunger lasts, and ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... carefully; why,' he continued more earnestly,' you haven't even seen one of the most conspicuous features of the animal, which is as plainly before your eyes as the fish itself; look again, look again!' and he left me to my misery. ...
— Louis Agassiz as a Teacher • Lane Cooper
... and grown up to beauty, the man who was meant To sleep upon my breast, and dead before The sweet custom of love could be between us! To have but seen his face?—Is that enough To make me clear he is my man indeed? Why, sure there are tales bordering on my lot In misery?—Of hearts who have been stabbed By knowledge that their mates were in the earth, Yet never could come near enough to be healed; Of those who have gone longing all a life, Because a voice heard singing or a ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... horrible now than the day when I had been turned out of my benefactress' house. But the eight months I had just spent with the horrible woman had taught me anew how to bear misery, and had nerved up ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... though no one thought of it at the time, his nerves must have had a terrible and lasting shock at the accident and at the sight of my crushed and deathly condition, which occupied every one too much for them to think of soothing or shielding him. At any rate, fear was the misery of his life. Darkness was his horror. He would scream till he brought in some one, though he knew it would be only to scold or slap him. The housemaid's closet on the stairs was to him an abode of wolves. Mrs. Gatty's tale of The Tiger in the Coal-box is a transcript ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the man now reported dead. All were bareheaded. The arrival of the doctor, at the instant alighting from his car, prevented them from noticing Farrow's rapid approach. When Hilton Fenley saw the doctor he threw up his hands with the gesture of one who has plumbed the depths of misery. Farrow could, and did, fit in the accompanying words ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... in command of the militia, repeated the refusal; then Byron sent word that he was sorry for the misery he should inflict on the women and children ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... woe, Thy pity checked my sorrows in their flow: If some proud brother eyed me with disdain, Or scornful sister, with her sweeping train, Thy gentle accents softened all my pain. For thee I mourn; and mourn myself in thee, The wretched source of all this misery. The fate I caused forever I bemoan; Sad Helen has no friend, now thou art gone! Through Troy's wide streets abandoned shall I roam! In Troy deserted, as ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... lively-minded ingenuous youth hears all this, what will be his conclusion? "Will he," in the language of Pindar, "make justice his high tower, or fortify himself with crooked deceit?" Justice, he reflects, without the appearance of justice, is misery and ruin; injustice has the promise of a glorious life. Appearance is master of truth and lord of happiness. To appearance then I will turn,—I will put on the show of virtue and trail behind me the fox ...
— The Republic • Plato
... Aunt, my dear aunt, if I have long sickened at this scene of splendid misery, and sighed for your sister's calm cottage in Franconia, what must I now, when poor ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... is it the people cry? They ask for all equality. The poor no more shall be In slavish misery; The idle ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... Mademoiselle Hauterive, isn't it? This suicide of lovers to escape misery ought to inspire fine moral phrases from Prudhomme. As for me, I understand it. What they did is not American, but how Latin and antique it is! They were not ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... marrying her unfortunate husband; and at such times she even regained her courage and made a round of visits, dropping glazed and ancient cards, and retaining in her feebleness all the traditions of her majesty. But this epoch of her revived grandeur was set in painful contrast to poor Lenox's misery. He was commissioned to sell the scrip, which, for him, had no existence, and thus raise money to deck the family in transient brightness. I fancy that at such times, without any waste of rhetoric or balancing of expediencies, he was more in love with suicide ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... was discovered by a compassionate visitor dissolved in tears over her wash-tub. Such misery could not be permitted; and we transferred half the task at once to the ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... unavailing search, sat down in the dark on a bundle of rags, with the sensations of a ruined man. My world was withered up and gone. How the day passed, I cannot tell. How I got through my meals, I cannot even imagine. When I look back and attempt to recall the time, I see but a cloudy waste of misery crossed by the lightning-streaks of a sense of injury. All that was left me now was a cat-like watching for the chance of going to my grandmother. Into her ear I would pour the tale of my wrong. She who had been as a haunting discomfort ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... of careful modulations. "There is an error made, a false step taken; the family flee their past to begin life anew in another land; yet at the very threshold of their new life they meet the first cause of all their misfortune and misery." Belden sighed. ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... to see anything wasted, anything awry, anything going wrong; I hate to see water-power wasted, manure wasted, land wasted, muscle wasted, pluck wasted, brains wasted; I hate neglect, incapacity, idleness, ignorance, and all the disease and misery which spring out of that. There's my devil; and I can't help it for the life of me, going right at his throat, wheresoever I ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... talk over very important business, but we could not reach any result, and we parted. Misery often unites people, and happiness often separates them. I tore up the letter, and threw its bits into every corner (all corners) of the room. After this they separated for home. The road ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... literally the being of an evil mind, the ill-conditioned being. He was labouring perpetually to spoil the good work of Ormuzd alike in nature and in man. He was the cause of the fall of man, the tempter, the author of misery and death; he was eternal and uncreate as Ormuzd was. But that, perhaps, was a corruption of the purer and older Zoroastrian creed. With it, if Ahriman were eternal in the past, he would not be eternal in the future. Somehow, somewhen, somewhere, ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... proposes no mean ambition. He has said already that 'double will that Prince's glory be, who has founded a new realm and fortified it and adorned it with good laws, good arms, good friends, and good examples.' But there is more and better to be done. The great misery of men has ever made the great leaders of men. But was Israel in Egypt, were the Persians, the Athenians ever more enslaved, down-trodden, disunited, beaten, despoiled, mangled, overrun and desolate ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... sexual sense, fails us in the bitterest crisis of our days because love, or the person loved, is the chief cause of the misery. Scourged and lacerated by Aphrodite it is of little avail to flee to Eros. But friendship—of the noble, rare, absolute kind such as existed between Montaigne and his sweet Etienne—is the only antidote, the only healing ointment, the only anodyne, which can make it ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... officers who yet owned horses to form four companies of one hundred and fifty men each. Generals rated as captains, and colonels as under-officers"—when he read this passage, which told more of the misery of the grand army than all the rest, cries and groans arose on all sides; two or three women ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... how they would vote for the future. If they desired to continue seeking after the mine and awaiting riches, he intended to go so far from them that no news of their misery would ever reach him. If, on the other hand, they would give up thinking of the silver mine, he would remain among them. 'But however you choose,' repeated the minister, 'remember that no one will ever hear from me any ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various |
