"Piteous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... what shall I do without you for seven whole weeks?' was Mollie's piteous lament one morning. Audrey was on her knees packing a huge travelling box, and Mollie, seated on the edge of a chair, was regarding her with round, melancholy eyes. It was the first day of the vacation, and Rutherford ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Truth, where wert thou then When all for thee they racked each piteous limb? Wert thou in heaven, and busy with thy hymn When those poor hands convulsed that held thy pen? Art thou a phantom that deceives! men To their undoing? or dost thou watch him Pale, cold, and silent in his dungeon dim? And wilt thou ever speak to him again? "It moves, it moves! Alas, ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... of it!" exclaimed Miss Smith, then broke off short, realizing that the shock of the girl's piteous admission had sent her own voice lifting and that now she had a second listener. The woman diagonally across from her was sitting bolt upright and a pair of small eyes were narrowing upon her in a squint ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... on her intent, For her good neighbour, Susan Gale, Old Susan, she who dwells alone, Is sick, and makes a piteous moan, As if ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... of my vision crumbled. Awake, I glared upon a page where the words ran crazily about like a disrupted colony of ants. I stammered at the thing, feeling my cheeks blaze, but no two words would stay still long enough to be related. I glanced a piteous appeal to authority, while old Leggett, still standing by, crumpled his shaven upper lip into a professional sneer that I did ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... there time. She looked again; she saw what was going to happen. Then with frenzy she began to beat against the window-sashes and to moan and try to stifle her own moans. And then shrill startled screams and piteous cries came up to her, and crazed now and no longer knowing what she did, she struck the window-panes in her agony until they were shattered and she thrust her arms out through them with a last blind instinct to wave to ...
— A Cathedral Singer • James Lane Allen
... Mrs. Palling. Notice the beehives. They are looking decidedly rakish adorned with black streamers in honour of the occasion. I have written to London to-day for a fresh supply of black ribbon, for the last was torn from my Sunday hat. I had no heart to refuse Mrs. Palling's piteous appeal, but the demand is becoming so constant that, as she does not seem inclined to keep a supply herself, I feel ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... cure my case: See ye not what befel me from your fell disdain? * Debased am I before the low and high no less. I hid my love of you but longing laid it bare, * And burns my heart wi' fire of passion's sorest stress: Ah! deign have pity on my piteous case, for I * Have kept our troth in secresy and patent place! Would Heaven I wot shall Time e'er deign us twain rejoin! * You are my heart's desire, my sprite's sole happiness: My vitals bear the Severance-wound: would Heaven that you ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... the rocking boat, and stretched out her arms,—calling his name, "Brian! Brian! Brian!" Then the impact of the boat against a larger wave of the rapids brought her to her knees, and she clung to the thwarts with piteous cries. ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... in themselves, living tragedies. Sergeant McGillicuddy, too, had a tragic aspect. In spite of all the Colonel could say, the Sergeant still accused himself of being the cause of Lawrence's desertion. McGillicuddy's bronzed face, like a hickory nut, grew so haggard, his self-reproaches so piteous, that Colonel Fortescue thought it well to give him a positive order to say nothing of the circumstances that led up to Lawrence's striking him. The Sergeant begged to be allowed to tell the chaplain about it; to this Colonel Fortescue consented, and ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... in alabaster and painted. There are seven monuments in all; one is immense, in marble, cherubim'd and seraphim'd, crusted with bas-reliefs and titles, for the first Duke of Bedford and his Duchess.(80) All these are in a chapel of the church at Cheneys, the seat of the first Earls. There are but piteous fragments of the house remaining, now a farm, built round three sides of a court. It is dropping down, in several places without a roof, but in half the windows are beautiful arms in painted glass. As these are so ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... piteous; absolutely mad with terror and pain, she was rushing about on the path, Max, yelling with sympathy, tearing after her. Lynn, at the first frantic moment when she saw her sister's high white socks turned ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... child's future shall shape out some darling purpose or plan, and fulfill some long unfulfilled expectation of the parent. And thus, though the wind of every generation sweeps its hopes and plans like forest-leaves, none are whirled and tossed with more piteous moans than those which come out green and fresh to shade the happy spring-time of the cradle. For the temperaments of children are often as oddly unsuited to parents as if capricious fairies had been filling ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... look at Michael with piteous violet eyes out of which all the defiance had gone. Her slender figure swayed a little, and ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... moments of weakness, even the most irreproachable Philistine among us; and as Bertram said those words in rather a piteous voice, it occurred to Philip Christy that the loan of a portmanteau would be a Christian act which might perhaps simplify matters for the handsome and engaging stranger. Besides, he was sure, after all—mystery ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... on her father. His childishness had increased upon him so much of late that he was in truth, at this moment, more like a boy under correction than a father in presence of his children. He buried his face in his hands, and Lettice heard a piteous groan. ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... that wonderful prince on the earth. And those men of wicked deeds sank in an unimaginable and awful hell. Seeing that son of his, obtained through the Rishi's boon thus slain, that great ascetic, viz., king Srinjaya, afflicted with deep sorrow, began to lament in piteous accents. Beholding the king afflicted with grief on account of his son, and thus weeping, the celestial Rishi Narada showed himself in his presence. Listen, O Yudhishthira, to what Narada said unto Srinjaya, having approached that king, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... occurred to me it would be in my dungeon! No such good fortune! They passed my door. At any rate, my chum should know where I was, so I proceeded to make a demonstration against my door and beseech, in the most piteous way, to be released. Of course, it was no use, but that did not matter; I never ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... leaves, when they were starved to death: Pooh, says George Graceless and Tom Tiger, what signifies talking such stuff as that, and down they pulled the poor Robin's eggs, nest and all, and left the pretty little bird making such piteous moans, as would have melted a heart of stone; but they turned a deaf ear to his tender cries, and went on destroying every nest they could find, without paying any distinction to the most innocent of the feathered race: at last they came to a turtle ...
— The History of Little King Pippin • Thomas Bewick
... scuttled out of the sweet fern and bounded away, displaying the piteous flag of truce, and Gordon smiled to himself when his perfectly trained dogs crossed the alluring trail without a tremor, swerving not an inch ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... it is of piteous distress, If, carrying a secret grief about, We wish to bury it in a recess, And find another there, who ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... house and gone some distance along the road in the direction of the Barradine Arms. Even if Norah had not said that he need not be there at the moment of departure, he would have been unable to remain. He could not stand by and see her piteous face, her slender figure, her forlorn gestures, while they carried her off—the poor little weak thing sent away from hearth and home, cast out among strangers because any spot on the earth, however bare or hard, had become a better shelter for her than ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... listen to this! At the time when I was behaving so badly to you, your terror, every time I approached you, was so piteous that it was always before my eyes and rang in my ears like a cry of agony from a wounded heart. It is true! It filled me with terror, too. Do you call that weakness, to feel things so intensely that another person is influenced by your feelings ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... after his arrival in the colony, our susceptible ensign first saw Joanna, a slave-girl of fifteen, at the house of an intimate friend. Her extreme beauty and modesty first fascinated him, and then her piteous narrative,—for she was the daughter of a planter, who had just gone mad and died in despair from the discovery that he could not legally emancipate his own children from slavery. Soon after, Stedman was dangerously ill, was neglected and alone; fruits and cordials were anonymously sent to him, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... her desire by sending her also to execution; and Plutarch, their contemporary, expressed the general feeling in Rome, when he adds: "In all the long reign of this Emperor there was no deed done so cruel, and so piteous to look upon; and he was afterwards punished for it, for in a brief time all ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... your doors a great multitude of men and women, flesh of your flesh, live lives that are one agony from birth to death? Listen! their dwellings are so near that if you hush your laughter you will hear their grievous voices, the piteous crying of the little ones that suckle poverty, the hoarse curses of men sodden in misery, turned half-way back to brutes, the chaffering of an army of women selling themselves for bread. With what have you stopped ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... gull has found her place on shore; The sun gone down again to rest; And all is still but ocean's roar; There stands the man unbless'd. But see, he moves—he turns, as asking where His mates? Why looks he with that piteous stare? ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... John's gave access by water to a point within eighteen miles of Outina's principal town. The two barges, crowded with soldiers, and bearing also the royal captive, rowed up this little stream. Indians awaited them at the landing, with gifts of bread, beans, and fish, and piteous prayers for their chief, upon whose liberation they promised an ample supply of corn. As they were deaf to all other terms, Laudonniere yielded, released the chief, and received in his place two hostages, who were fast bound in the boats. Ottigny ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... madden'd into flight; And steed and beast in plunging speed pursued The desperate struggle of the multitude, The faithful dogs yet knew their owners' face. And cringing follow'd with a fearful pace, Joining the piteous yell with panting breath, While blasting lightnings follow'd fast with death; Then, as Destruction stopt the vain retreat, They dropp'd, and dying lick'd ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... rest Jack picked out the weazened-up face of the old man. He would never so long as he lived forget that, there was such a world of apprehension, of piteous appeal in the look old Philip Adkins was bending upon him; as though all his remaining hopes of a little happiness in this world centered now upon the gallant boy who had undertaken to save ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... by Germany's piteous lamentations over the brutality of the blockade. In these appeals to America optimists detect signs of cracking. Cooler observers explain them as evidence of her ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... from above Tidings about my love; If that some envious wave Made his untimely grave, Or if, so softening half my wild regrets, Some coverlid of bluest violets Was softly put aside, What time he died! Nay, come not, piteous maids, Out of the murmurous shades; But keep your tresses crowned as you may With eglantine and daffodillies gay, And with the dews of myrtles wash your cheek, When flamy streaks, Uprunning the gray orient, tell of morn— While I, forlorn, Pour all my heart in tears and plaints, instead, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... He threw a piteous glance after Mamie, who was now, as he saw, through the open door, out upon the lawn and beyond easy hailing distance. When he turned again to look at Ariel he discovered that she had shifted the position of her chair slightly, and was gazing out of the window ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... twice, when a passer-by, muffled warmly from the bitter air, hurried past, the phantom shrank closer to the wall, till he was gone. Its vague, mournful face seemed to watch for some one. The twilight darkened, gradually; but it did not flit away. Patiently it kept its piteous look fixed in one direction—watching—watching; and, while the howling wind swept frantically through the chill air, it still seemed to shudder in the ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor
... is a cottage standing on the edge of the common. The most good-natured woman in the world lives here. She is our laundress—married to a stupid young fellow named Molly, and blessed with a plump baby as sweet-tempered at herself. Thinking it likely that the piteous voice which had disturbed me might be the voice of Mrs. Molly, I was astonished to hear her appealing to anybody (perhaps to me?) to "let her in." So I passed through the shrubbery, wondering whether the gate had ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... answer for the same piteous quivering of the chin, but her lips formed "Au revoir"; and then she turned Fatima and rode slowly under the leafy arch that led through a long tunnel ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... sure there is no hope for Don Carlos," said Myra provocatively; but Tony's look of piteous dismay caused her to relent almost instantly, and she ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... forward and a flush coming into her face. "I know that— that is what it is for. To pay back worthily— to give back a thousandfold what you have received. Those girls can't be idle, can they?" she added in a gentle, piteous ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... my cloak and hood, and had my hand on the bar of the back door, when a piteous mew from the bedroom reminded me of the existence of poor Pussy. I ran in, and huddled the creature up in my apron. Before I was out in the passage again, the first shock from the ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... for the Swedes? I hate them as I hate the pit of hell, And under Providence I trust right soon To chase them to their homes across their Baltic. My cares are only for the whole: I have A heart—it bleeds within me for the miseries And piteous groanings of my fellow-Germans. Ye are but common men, but yet ye think With minds not common; ye appear to me Worthy before all others, that I whisper thee A little word or two in confidence! See now! already for full fifteen years, The war-torch has continued burning, yet No rest, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... oath Detchard skipped back, and, before I knew what he was doing, had turned his sword against the King. He made one fierce cut at the King, and the King, with a piteous cry, dropped where he stood. The stout ruffian turned to face me again. But his own hand had prepared his destruction: for in turning he trod in the pool of blood that flowed from the dead physician. He slipped; ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... upon the mystery of life. I thought it must be a dream such as a man has lying in strange beds, for my spirit floated and cried upon that black and ugly air, lost and seeking as the soul of a man struggling under sleep. I had been there before, I felt, in just such piteous case among friends in the gable of a dwelling, yet all alone, waiting for visitors I had no welcome for. And then again ( I would think), is not all life a dream, the sun and night of it, the seasons, the faces of friends, the ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... affection that throbbed through her with every heart-beat. As she gazed upon the features, faintly suggestive of its father's, she felt that she could never part from this familiar and intimate link with the spontaneous and powerful passion of her girlhood. When she peered into those piteous, blighted eyes, mighty sobs of pity shook her, but she felt that she must be silent, and she forced back the tears. Outside, a spring bunting ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... Thrill when a maiden body shrinks, defiled, Shuddering like arctic light, from lips that sear Its nakedness ... the flesh in secret fear! Contagiously through my linked pair it flies Where innocence in either, struggling, dies, Wet with fond tears or some less piteous dew. Gay in the conquest of these fears, I grew So rash that I must needs the sheaf divide Of ruffled kisses heaven itself had tied. For as I leaned to stifle in the hair Of one my passionate laughter (taking care With a stretched finger, that her innocence Might ...
— The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems • Aldous Huxley
... about The Ring and the Book which must arise from the presence of some other fine compensating or equivalent quality. Perhaps one may say that this equivalent for grandeur is a certain simple touching of our sense of human kinship, of the large identity of the conditions of the human lot, of the piteous fatalities which bring the lives of the great multitude of men to be little more than "grains of sand to be blown by the wind." This old woe, the poet says, now in the fulness of the days ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... friend's heroic spirit the poor fellow did as he was bidden, but followed the brave resolve with a piteous look into the other's ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... song ceased, she turned her heavy eyes With such a piteous glance upon my face; It pierced my heart, and fast the gathering tears Blinded my sight. Alas! poor maniac; For thee no hope shall dawn—no tender thought Wake in thy blighted heart a thrill of joy. The immortal mind is levelled with the dust, Ere the tenacious cords of life give way. Hers ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... with the world, but with itself; a hopeless, miserable bearing-down; a sense of utter unworthiness and self-contempt. At times, when the inner life, the soul's lamp, burns dimly, there rises the piteous moan, 'Fool, fool! why strivest thou in vain? Thou hast deceived thyself: thou art no better than any brainless ass that plods through life.' And then the world grows so dull, and one's life seems so worthless, that one would fain ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... very piteous case of a poor woman in the last stage of consumption. The poor creature was worn to a skeleton lying on a most miserable looking bed with nothing to cover her but a ragged strip of black funereal-looking cloth. Although so very ill, she was able to answer the questions ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... shriek. The continuance of these shrieks proved that the stroke had not been instantly fatal. I waited to hear it repeated, but the sounds that now arose were like those produced by dragging somewhat along the ground. The shrieks, meanwhile, were incessant and piteous. My heart faltered, and I saw that mighty efforts must be made to preserve my joints and my nerves steadfast. All depended on the strenuous exertions and the ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... paid for what she had so freely given hurt Jane. Without realizing its coldness and emptiness, her life had been truly void of human warmth before the little, lonely girl stole in to fill it with her piteous, proud presence. A happier child, with more childish ways, might not so fully have compassed Jane's awakening; for this had been in proportion to the needs of the one who so forlornly made plea for entrance. Having once thrown wide the door of her heart, Jane had ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... 27th of July, and before the day had come, men and women had become so hardy in the combat that personal applications were made with unflinching importunity; and letters were written to Lady Glencora putting forward this claim and that claim with a piteous clamour. "No, that is too bad," Lady Glencora said to her particular friend, Mrs. Grey, when a letter came from Mrs. Bonteen, stating all that her husband had ever done towards supporting Mr. Palliser in Parliament,—and all that he ever would do. "She shan't have it, even though she ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... piteous, stricken face and eyes filled with a great despair. She knew him and she knew it was the end. Nothing would break his resolution. She looked at him with quivering lips through a mist of tears, looked at him with a desperate ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... Henrietta seized his hand and pressed it so warmly and looked at him with her lovely, piteous, imploring eyes—a very lunatic might have been healed by ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... has placed her piteous case in my hands. It is the Lady Eva Blackwell, the most beautiful debutante of last season. She is to be married in a fortnight to the Earl of Dovercourt. This fiend has several imprudent letters—imprudent, ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... drapery. Rowland thought with horror of the sinister compulsion to which the young girl was to be subjected. In this ethereal flight of hers there was a certain painful effort and tension of wing; but it was none the less piteous to imagine her being rudely jerked down to the base earth she was doing her adventurous utmost to spurn. She would need all her magnanimity for her own trial, and it seemed gross to make further demands upon it on ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... quickened by seclusion and fed by solitary books. She read with keen eyes the miserable secret of her father's strange guest in the poverty-stricken walls, in the mute evidences of menial handicraft performed in loneliness and privation, in this piteous adaptation of an accident to save the conscious shame of premeditated toil. She knew now why he had stammeringly refused to receive her father's offer to buy back the goods he had given him; she knew now how hardly gained was the pittance that paid his rent ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... still lives and does not name himself, Would I regard, to see if I may know him And make him piteous unto this burden. ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... "the spectacle of able, and we doubt not conscientious writers engaging in attempting the impossible,—painful and humiliating." He says, "they evidently do not breathe freely over their work; but shuffle and stumble over their difficulties in a piteous manner." (p. 250.) He asserts dogmatically that "the interpretation proposed by Buckland to be given to the Mosaic description, will not bear a moment's serious discussion:" (p. 230:) while Hugh Miller "proposes to give an entirely ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... to hurt a dog in like degree, the yelping of the animal would alarm the entire neighbourhood, and be almost certain to call forth a strong remonstrance from some lover of animals whose sympathy had been excited by hearing such piteous cries. People who are unacquainted with the inner life of stables, have no idea of the brutality which many grooms and strappers inflict on the animals in their charge. When we find a horse which is difficult to bridle, owing to the objection he has to allowing his muzzle or ears to be approached ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... her hands together, the fingers interlaced so tightly that the flesh was as white as her cheeks. "'Your rabble!' Stewart! Oh! Oh!" In spite of her thinly veiled threat of a few moments ago, there was piteous protest in her ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... another terrible bound against the massive stone forced it a few inches into the cave. For an hour he struggled, till the jaguar, itself tired, and not hearing the mewings of her cubs, retired with a piteous howl. ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... hand. 'Ashley, Ashley! You don't mean it—that I must lose my pretty darling—the only one I have?' She met his gaze with her piteous mouth and wet eyes so painfully strained, that he ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... stared at them in piteous dismay. Mr. Traill had believed him to be so ill that he "wouldna be oot the morn." It was a ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... suffered materially from defection in its ranks, and, discouraged by failures and worn out by hardships, had at the time of the surrender only 7,892 men under arms, and this little army was almost surrounded by one of 100,000. They might, the General said with an air piteous to behold, have cut their way out as they had done before, but, looking upon the struggle as hopeless, I was not surprised to hear him say that he thought it cruel to prolong it. In two other battles he named (Sharpsburg and Chancellorsville, I think he said), the Confederates ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... grieved that I am going away for one whole day?" he asked. But she looked so piteous and so startled that he waited for no reply. "I shall continue to see you," he resumed. "I could not let any day ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... his course through the windings of Little Britain and entered Duck-lane. He was now in a quarter fearfully assailed by the pestilence. Most of the houses had the fatal sign upon their doors—a red cross, of a foot long, with the piteous words above it, "Lord have mercy upon us," in characters so legible that they could be easily distinguished by the moonlight, while a watchman, with a halberd in his hand, kept ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... moss-grown boulder sitting, Watching the graceful swallows flitting, Hearing the cuckoo's note. Sheep on the hills around me feeding, While in their piteous accents pleading, The lambkins' bleatings float. —Oh, dear! a fly gone down ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... The half-piteous doubt and compunction had something childish, which made her smile as she answered: 'You had better have done as ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dairy are the subjects of a congenital antipathy. Montaigne says there are persons who dread the smell of apples more than they would dread being exposed to a fire of musketry. The readers of the charming story "A Week in a French Country-House" will remember poor Monsieur Jacque's piteous cry in the night: "Ursula, art thou asleep? Oh, Ursula, thou sleepest, but I cannot close my eyes. Dearest Ursula, there is such a dreadful smell! Oh, Ursula, it is such a smell! I do so wish thou couldst smell it! Good-night, my angel!——Dearest! I have found them! They are apples!" The ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... going, then, to try to assure ourselves of this fact, and you—you will also assure yourselves by an attentive examination of the patient." And, with a rapid movement, Dr. Griffon, throwing the bed-clothes back, almost entirely uncovered Jeanne. It is repugnant to our feelings to depict the piteous struggles of this poor creature, who wept bitterly from shame, imploring the doctor and his auditory ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... Lord and my God! I have trusted in Thee; O Jesus, my Saviour belov'd, set me free: In rigorous chains, in piteous pains, I am longing for Thee! In weakness appealing, in agony kneeling, I pray, I beseech Thee, O ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... accompanied by a half dozen prisoners; one was a slim, dark young man with a nervous, expressive look, and a great tangle of curling black hair. The face was haggard and drawn; the eyes were frightened; the whole manner of the man had a piteous appeal. ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... than they can possibly swallow, and are not satisfied with one victim at a time. One which was killed in my fowl-house had three half grown chickens compressed in its folds and held one in its jaws. A short time since I was roused in the middle of the night by the piteous cries of a young kangaroo dog, and on running out found it rolling on the ground in the coils of a large carpet snake. The dog was severely bitten in the loin, but in the morning was quite well, proving that the bite of this reptile ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... From the moment I leave my bed, men of power, the most illustrious in the city, await me at the bar of the tribunal; the moment I am seen from the greatest distance, they come forward to offer me a gentle hand,—that has pilfered the public funds; they entreat me, bowing right low and with a piteous voice, "Oh! father," they say, "pity me, I adjure you by the profit you were able to make in the public service or in the army, when dealing with the victuals." Why, the man who thus speaks would not know of my existence, had I not let ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... That's piteous—so much being done, (He'll think some day, your lover) so little to do! Such infinite days to wear out, once begun! Since the hand its glove holds, and the footsole its shoe— Overhead too there's always ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Mrs. Beale's agitation subsided. Some shocks stun, and some strengthen and steady us. The piteous appeal in Edith's eyes, the puzzle and the pain of her face as she made an effort to recall her words and understand them, had the ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... with a lace border appearing on their under garment: no stockings, and dirty white satin shoes, rather shorter than their small brown feet; gentlemen on horseback with their Mexican saddles and sarapes; lounging leperos, moving bundles of rags, coming to the windows and begging with a most piteous but false sounding whine, or lying under the arches and lazily inhaling the air and the sunshine, or sitting at the door for hours basking in the sun or under the shadow of the wall: Indian women, with their tight petticoat of dark stuff and tangled hair, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... a bed Of roses laid his weary head; Luckless urchin! not to see Within the leaves a slumbering bee. The bee awak'd—with anger wild The bee awak'd, and stung the child. Loud and piteous are his cries; To Venus quick he runs, he flies; "Oh mother! I am wounded through— "I die with pain—in sooth I do! "Stung by some little angry thing. "Some serpent on a tiny wing, "A bee it was—for once, I know, "I heard ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... almost to acknowledge the independence of the Rebel States. Thus far the Free States had waited with commendable patience for some symptom of vitality in the new Administration, something that should distinguish it from the piteous helplessness of its predecessor. But now their pride was too deeply outraged for endurance; indignant remonstrances were heard from all quarters, and the Government seemed for the first time fairly to comprehend ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... these artful customers, one occasionally comes across small colonies of lepers, who, being compelled to isolate themselves from their fellows, have taken up their abode in rude hovels or caves by the road-side, and sally forth in all their hideousness to beset the traveller with piteous cries for assistance. Some of these poor lepers are loathsome in appearance to the last degree; their scanty coverings of rags and tatters conceals nothing of the ravages of their dread disease; some sit at the entrance to their hovels, stretching out their hands and piteously appealing ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... the trial; Baard in his good clothes, Anders in his patched ones. Baard looked at his brother as he entered, and his eyes wore so piteous an expression of entreaty that Anders felt it in the inmost depths of his heart. "He does not want me to say anything," thought Anders, and when he was asked if he suspected his brother of the deed, he ...
— A Happy Boy • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... going abroad for the day, told her kid to keep at home, and not to open the door to strangers. She had not been gone long when up came a fox, with head bound from "headache," and foot bound from "gout," and carrying a ped of trinkets. The fox told the kid a most piteous tale, and showed her a little mirror. The kid, out of pity and vanity, opened the door; but while stooping over the ped to pick up a little bell, the fox clapped down the ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... eyes, sunken in his head, protruded and rolled in their orbit like two globes of fire, and threw such varied and continual light that they sufficed to light up our feast, while the wretched man stood immovable as a marble statue, saying in a piteous voice, 'My head furnishes fuel for the lamps of my eyes!' It was well that the poor man could not see the fire," said the buccaneer, bursting into laughter at this cruel jest. "And when the supply of oil in the lamp failed, the madame's husband went to join ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... eyes closed, their legs gave way and they seemed to suffocate. In vain did musical glasses and harmonicas resound, the piano and voices re-echo; these supposed aids only seemed to increase the patients' convulsive movements. Sardonic laughter, piteous moans and torrents of tears burst forth on all sides. The bodies were thrown back in spasmodic jerks, the respirations sounded like death rattles, the most terrifying symptoms were exhibited. Then suddenly the actors of this strange scene would frantically ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... heart they go! 390 Hark! the hymn is singing— The song for the dead below, Or the living who shortly shall be so! For a departed being's soul[rc] The death-hymn peals and the hollow bells knoll:[426] He is near his mortal goal; Kneeling at the Friar's knee, Sad to hear, and piteous to see— Kneeling on the bare cold ground. With the block before and the guards around; 400 And the headsman with his bare arm ready, That the blow may be both swift and steady, Feels if the axe be sharp and true ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... pretty Genevieve, his sister, with her husband, Crispin Eyre. And there were the comrades of his boyhood, and the prating monk, and the unhappy lady with her white face framed in rich velvets and furs, and her piteous beseeching hands that were never still. Those faces, in the glow of the fire and the shine of tall candles in their silver sconces, were to be with him often in the ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... proper that one should grieve over the misfortunes of Jamaica with a stronger grief because her savannahs are so lovely, her forests so rich, her mountains so green, and he rivers so rapid; but it is so. It is piteous that a land so beautiful should be one which fate has marked for misfortune. Had Guiana, with its flat, level, unlovely soil, become poverty-stricken, one would hardly sorrow over it as one does sorrow ...
— Miss Sarah Jack, of Spanish Town, Jamaica • Anthony Trollope
... at him with a rather piteous attempt to laugh. "I wonder I knew you at all," she said, "with that hideous embryo beard. I'm sure ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... at Commemoration—to which festival "lions" from all quarters of the earth resorted in vast droves—when one of this class was hard hit by the charms of some fair stranger, he never thought of expressing his admiration otherwise than by piteous looks, directed at her from an immense distance, out of shot for an opera-glass; when in her immediate vicinity his motto was that of the Breton baron—mourir muet. Claret-cup flowed and Champagne sparkled, powerless ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... to write and reduce in veritie Historiall, the great siege, cruel oppugnation, and piteous taking of the noble and renowmed citie of Rhodes, the key of Christendome, the hope of many poore Christian men, withholden in Turkie to saue and keepe them in their faith: the rest and yeerely solace of noble pilgrimes ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... and, seizing Roederer by the arm, he said: "On the 20th of June I was there," pointing with his finger to the terrace by the water, "behind the third linden. Through the open window I could see the poor king, with the red cap on his head. It was a piteous sight; I pitied him." ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... her hands like a child and laid them against his breast. She answered him with piteous entreaty in which passion ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... was remonstrating with his father, and trying to lead him on, but that the count would not move, and still cried out, "Come! come!" in a voice of piteous entreaty. ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... in her dreams. The mantel-piece held a row of shells, their delicate pink linings showing, and on either end china vases filled with sprays of plumy grass. Above was the marriage certificate, neatly framed. On the centre-table were sundry piteous ornaments, deeply rooted in her affections. The chairs and the single sofa, angular and sombre, were set about with proud precision. They had been the result of years of careful hoarding of egg-money, and were, to Elizabeth, the achievement ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... as I pulled the envelope through that the next moment might bring a piteous outcry from within, as if I had drawn upon the vital nerves of an organism. Yet none came; I found myself erect once more with the envelope in my hand, reading the writing on its face. It was scrawled in ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... pocket-handkerchief. Our labours were scarcely over when I heard Earnshaw's tread in the passage; my assistant tucked in his tail, and pressed to the wall; I stole into the nearest doorway. The dog's endeavour to avoid him was unsuccessful; as I guessed by a scutter down- stairs, and a prolonged, piteous yelping. I had better luck: he passed on, entered his chamber, and shut the door. Directly after Joseph came up with Hareton, to put him to bed. I had found shelter in Hareton's room, and the old man, on seeing me, said,—'They's ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... came. A wet and shivering body was pressed against mine, and I felt rather than heard a piteous whine in my ear. It was my companion in misery, a little outcast black-and-tan, afflicted with fits, that had shared the shelter of a friendly doorway with me one cold night and had clung to me ever since with a loyal affection that was the one bright ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... any one to speak for a moment or two; the sisters felt their own uprooted condition afresh, and their guests for the first time really comprehended the piteous contrast between that neat little village house, which now seemed a palace of comfort, and this cold, unpainted upper room in the remote Janes farmhouse. It was an unwelcome thought to Mrs. Trimble that the well-to-do town of Hampden ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... November an official belonging to the Duc d'Elbeuf's household came to my establishment to buy a wedding dress for his daughter. I was dazzled with her beauty. She chose a fine satin, and her pretty face lighted up when she heard her father say he did not think it was too much; but she looked quite piteous when she heard the clerk tell her father that he would have to buy the whole piece, as they could not cut it. I felt that I must give in, and to avoid making an exception in her favour I beat a hasty retreat ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... lecher with a fair woman nor a moneyless man with money nor fire with fuel.' Neither cloth it behove me to entrust myself to thee; and 'tis said, 'Enmity of kind, as the enemy himself groweth weaker groweth stronger.' " The Cat made answer in the faintest voice, as she were in most piteous case, saying, "What thou advancest of admonitory instances is the truth and I deny not my offenses against thee; but I beseech thee to pardon that which is past of the enmity of kind between me and thee, for 'tis said, 'Whoso forgiveth ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... habits of the Indians to think such a thing possible. Just at this moment Dash, who had followed them unnoticed during their ride, and who had been ranging about uneasily while they had been occupied by the search, set up a piteous howling. All started and looked round. The dog was standing by the edge of the ditch which had been dug outside the fence. His head was raised high in air, and he was giving vent to prolonged ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... child!" Mr. Leland began in piteous tones; but she had already sprung to her feet and was flying toward the house with the fleetness ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... expostulation, could inspire with courage to adventure the descent from his painful elevation, where, like an unskilful and obnoxious minister of state, unable to escape from the eminence to which he had presumptuously ascended, he continued to pour forth piteous prayers for mercy, which no one heard, and to skip to and fro, writhing his body into all possible antic shapes to avoid the balls which he conceived to be ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... a little shaking of mine arm And thrice his head thus waving up and down, He raised a sigh so piteous and profound As it did seem to shatter all his bulk And ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... son of Zeus Scored him with swift exchange of left and right, And checked the onrush of the sea-god's child Parlous albeit: till, reeling with his wounds, He stood, and from his lips spat crimson blood. Cheered yet again the princes, when they saw The lips and jowl all seamed with piteous scars, And the swoln visage and the half-closed eyes. Still the prince teased him, feinting here or there A thrust; and when he saw him helpless all, Let drive beneath his eyelids at his nose, And laid ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... Even the sailors, who are generally stolid enough, were deeply affected by the sight of him as he roamed bareheaded and dishevelled about the deck, searching with feverish anxiety the most impossible places, and returning to them again and again with a piteous pertinacity. The last time she was seen was about seven o'clock, when she took Doddy on to the poop to give him a breath of fresh air before putting him to bed. There was no one there at the time except the black seaman at the wheel, who denies having seen her at all. The whole ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... poor people? No more than I have to a sick friend who implores me to give him a glass of iced water which the physician has forbidden. No more than a humane collector in India has to those poor peasants who in a season of scarcity crowd round the granaries and beg with tears and piteous gestures that the doors may be opened and the rice distributed. I would not give the draught of water, because I know that it would be poison. I would not give up the keys of the granary, because I know that, by doing so, I should turn a scarcity ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... never admitted him to her conversation, nor suffered him to enter her house. She indeed often relieved him with such donations as spoke her generous disposition. But this was on the solicitation of friends, who frequently set his calamities before her in the most piteous light; and, from a principle of humanity, she became not a little instrumental in saving his life.—CIBBER'S ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... Andrew P. Hill, with her forty-five shares clutched in her resolute hand, and saying, "I demand to be heard; I demand to have a voice in this momentous matter; I demand a fair and even chance for my nephew-in-law-to-be." Once more, she was wringing her hands and asking Virgilia in tones of piteous protest, "Why, oh why, didn't you take Richard Morrell when you could have got him?—a fine, promising, pushing fellow, with his million or more already, and barely thirty-five, just the right age for you!" Yet again, she was saying to that ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... the young man, who had studied in the schools of philosophy; 'but, all the same, put the fish in that vessel full of water, and we will take it back to show my father that we have done what we could.' But when he drew near the fish it looked up at him with such piteous eyes that he could not make up his mind to condemn it to death. For he knew well that, though the doctors of his own country were ignorant of the secret of the ointment, they would do all in their power to extract something ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... much difficulty, arrived a few days later, to find a piteous Cecilia, white-faced, stunned and bewildered. She pleaded desperately against leaving France; amidst all the horror and chaos that had fallen upon her, it seemed unthinkable that she should put the sea between herself and Bob. But to remain was impossible. Aunt Margaret's ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... loosened her without looking at her, and she stood chafing her hands, hating his indifference, though she knew it was assumed, uncertain how to regain her supremacy. Then she let instinct guide her, and she looked a little piteous. ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... and her boy stood by the window while the doctor and his assistant, bending over the bedside, conversed together in a low tone. There was no danger of disturbing the patient. He appeared like one blind and deaf. Only his faint, piteous moans showed him to be a living man. Hans was talking earnestly, and in a low voice, for he did not wish his ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes, God saue the marke, here on his manly brest, A pitteous Coarse, a bloody piteous Coarse: Pale, pale as ashes, all bedawb'd in blood, All in gore blood I sounded at ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... the fragment above quoted the condition of the dead was truly piteous; they had no food but dust and mud; their dwelling is sometimes called bit-edi, the "house of solitude," because in the life of misery and privation they lead no one takes any thought for others, his only care is to relieve ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... and noble countenance as at the moment when having despatched my own portion of the task at full finger-speed, I hastened to him with my manuscript—that look of humourous despondency fixed on his almost blank sheet of paper, and then its silent mock-piteous admission of failure struggling with the sense of the exceeding ridiculousness of the whole scheme—which broke up in a laugh: and the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... twice over.[40] At these times he was so entirely absorbed in God, the eternal Wisdom, that he would not speak of it. Sometimes he would converse with God as with a friend, not with the mouth, but mentally; at other times he would utter piteous sighs to Him; at other times he would weep copiously, or smile silently. He often seemed to himself to be flying in the air, and swimming between time and eternity in the depth of the Divine wonders, which no ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... he had appointed, and they walked lovingly together till they came to the cave. It was now dark, and they saw the basket waiting below; the fox assisted the poor cat into it. "There is only room for one," said he, "you must go first!" Up rose the basket; the fox heard a piteous mew, and no more. ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... towards Caroline, as she came softly to his side, and looked at her with a piteous gaze. The stroke that had shattered the form had spared the face; and illness and compulsory abstinence from habitual stimulants had taken from the aspect much of the coarseness—whether of shape or colour—that of late years ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... contributed to it! No, Madam, (replyed he) my Friendship is now likely to be the only Cause of my greatest Misery; for To-morrow I must be guilty of an unpardonable Crime, in betraying the generous Confidence which your noble Father has plac'd in me: To-morrow (added he, with a piteous Sigh) I must deliver you into the Hands of one whom your Father hates even to Death, instead of doing myself the Honour of becoming his Son-in-law within a few Days more.—But—I will consider and remind myself, that I give you into the Hands ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... John in his loud cheery voice, and the horse made a step forward, while the children round cried "Hurrah!" and waved their hands. But suddenly there was a loud piteous cry which made John give the horse a sudden push back and drop his whip, and then, from where they sat, Milly and Tiza heard a sound of crying and screaming, while everybody in the field ran toward the hay-cart. They ran ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... coming from him embarrassed the girl. But when the blood began to return to her cheek, she heaved a sigh so piteous and profound as to move every spring of ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... the whole field, grooms and all, if they did you a great service, as that dear lady has," said Bella. The words were brave, but the accent piteous. ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... only voices—which they can distinguish as those of the house-Servants—male and female—all negroes or mulattoes. There are shrieks, intermingled with speeches, the last in accent of piteous appealing; there is moaning and groaning. But where are the shouts of the assailants? Where the Indian yell—the dread slogan of the savage? Not a stave of it is heard—nought that ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... awoke with hot cheeks and bloodshot eyes, moaning and restless, and would only be quiet when pillowed in the arms of his new-found friend. A physician who was called pronounced his ailment to be scarlet-fever. He soon became delirious, and his fretful moans for his "new grandma" were so piteous that Miss Ainslie could not make up her mind to leave him. She stayed by his bed-side all day, saying nothing of returning to Red Wing, until late in the afternoon a messenger came from there to inquire after her, having traced her by inquiry among several ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... that sentence in my brain. In the morning, I rose and dressed, dreaming. As I was turning the handle of my door to go down to breakfast, suddenly I swung round in a fit of tears. It was so piteous to think that he should have waited by her twenty years in a slow anguish, his heart burning out, without a reproach or a complaint. I saw him, I still ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... say, fifteen miles, without seeing a single shed: at last, one or two miserable cottages appeared, darkened by heath, and stuck in a sand-pit; from whence issued a half-starved generation, that pursued us a long while with their piteous wailings. The heavy roads and ugly prospects, together with the petulant clamours of my petitioners, made me quite uncharitable. I was in a dark, remorseless mood, which lasted me till we reached Bree, a shabby decayed town, encompassed by walls and ruined turrets. Having ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford |
