"Pitiable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... poor suffering wretch. It now became intolerable to bear; she fell, screaming to me for help. After she fell, he beat her until I thought she would have died in his hands. She got up, however, went out and washed off the blood and came in before we rose from table, one of the most pitiable objects I ever saw till I came to the South. Her ears were almost as thick as my hand, her eyes awfully blood-shotten, her lips, nose, cheeks, chin, and whole head swollen so that no one would have known it was Etta—and for all this, she had to turn round as she ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... me, Dora!" moaned the wretched mother. "I shall always be fond of you for Dick's sake. Good-bye—and forgive me." Mrs. Swinton tottered from the room with arms extended, a pitiable figure; and Dora stood alone, crestfallen, and faced ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... from me the real state of his health, but he soon saw that it was hopeless. He sighed and pressed his hand to his eyes. Then he held his fingers a foot away from him, and looked at them as if he were trying to count them correctly. His state was pitiable, and I felt that at any cost I ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... weak, not good, but bad. It told me that I was not the daughter of my mother, whose gentle goodness seemed to fill the old home like a lingering aroma, nor of him who was so strong and so respected of all men, but the daughter of a pitiable woman of the tenements who had passed her days in singing and dancing for pennies thrown at her, and of a man who, having descended from a long line of exquisite savagery, self-indulgence, and weakness, ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... of the world doth the wealthy man seem Like the sun which doth warm everything with its beam; Whilst the poor needy wight with his pitiable case Resembles the moon which doth ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... perfectly right, ma'am," quoth the imperturbable Frank. "But as I was saying, this is a pitiable business, this about poor Archie; and you and I might do worse than put our heads together, like a couple of sensible people, and bring it to an end. Let me tell you, ma'am, that Archie is really quite a promising young man, and in my opinion he would do well at the Bar. As for his father, ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to be given to these orphan children, whose pitiable condition should appeal to you. And promise me on your honour as men that you will land them at Valparaiso, or some other civilised place, from where they may reach England. If you will not make this promise, you can shoot ...
— "Old Mary" - 1901 • Louis Becke
... of confidence. Magsie had no basis for her pretension. Magsie was young, and she had madly and blindly fallen in love. There was her single claim: she loved. Rachael could not doubt it after that hour in the sitting- room. But what pitiable folly! To love and to admit love for ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... say. He was not crying over it, but he looked pretty forlorn and white, and his blindness made it pitiable. I call it brutal; the man at least might have travelled up for company. A journey ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... only measure of the man, Solomon. If anybody can talk to me and be unaware that they are conversing with a gentleman, all I can say is their experience has been as pitiable as their intelligence is meager. But it hurts me when you intimate that I stand in the way ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... the "Golden Legend." Was not evil Satan himself? And had not she seen how, although he constantly reappeared, he was always overthrown? After every battle he remained crushed to earth, thoroughly conquered, and in a most pitiable state. ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... frightened that his master, fully believing that he was concealing something, ordered him to tell at once what remained unseen, and where it was hidden away. Face to face with discovery of his secret, the old man, in a pitiable state of concern, spoke out even more fully than Mr. ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... man there are fewer possibilities of caricature than in that of woman, yet, "the masterpieces of creation" frequently exaggerate in a laughable—and sometimes a pitiable—way, certain physical characteristics by ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley
... late afternoon heat, and fearful that the gathering would break up before she could say what she wanted to say, and entirely unable to control her gasping and puffing, was a sight at once funny and pitiable. As she sank into a comfortable chair she held up one fat hand to command attention, and with the other laid forcible hold upon Barry Valentine. Three or four of the younger women hurried to her with fans and tea, and in a moment or two she ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... it is French comedy of the best type. Don't you agree, sir, that the police would be an inartistic error?" He was perfectly calm and collected, whereas they were in a pitiable state. ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... his home of his own free will, leaving his affairs in a pitiable condition. Madame de la Chanterie is, even to this day, amazed at the catastrophe, which no human foresight could have prevented. The persons she prudently consulted before the marriage had assured her that the suitor's fortune was clear and ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... unfortunate who has broken away from a state voluntarily, deliberately, chosen and entered upon, and who struggles through life with a violated vow saddled upon him. But one does not associate the sacred and heroic character of the vow with such pitiable ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... were quite invisible, threw back her bonnet for the admission of fresh air to her heated brow; and in the act of saying faintly—'Less liquor!—Sairey Gamp—Bottle on the chimney-piece, and let me put my lips to it, when I am so dispoged!'—fell into one of the walking swoons; in which pitiable state she was conducted forth by Mr Sweedlepipe, who, between his two patients, the swooning Mrs Gamp and the revolving Bailey, had ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... and fireships in the little Bogaz, which separates the island from the main. At length the fleet sail for Mytilene. The troops at Scala Nova know not what to think, no provisions, no water, 25,000 die of famine, the rest in a most pitiable condition, receive orders to return to their homes, massacre, pillage, and plunder the whole way back. Nevertheless, the Turks contrived to lose two small frigates by the fireships of the Greeks. The conduct of the Pacha, and his disgraceful mode of entering ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... characters; in Phoebe, too, though in a different way, is the same truth, a life entirely real; and, on the smaller scale, Uncle Venner is also to be reckoned a character perfectly done. Clifford is necessarily faint, and does not interest one on his own account; he is pitiable, but his love of the beautiful is too much sentimentalized to engage sympathy in the special way that Hawthorne attempts, and one sees in him only the victim of life, the prisoner whom the law mistook and outraged and left ruined; and Holgrave ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... point, and like most people who have usually little to say, became very voluble, when once she passed into the humor of talking. Therese let her talk unchecked. It seemed to do her good to chatter about Belle and Lou, and Jack Dawson, and about her home life, of which she unknowingly made such a pitiable picture to her listener. ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... happiness and salvation, is a chained enemy, and a captive to Him who triumphed in his resurrection and ascension to glory, and under the control and permissive will of Him, whom they denominate Keetchee Manitou, or Great Spirit; and, consequently they are enslaved to all that is pitiable in ignorance and superstition. Acknowledging the being of a God, the uncultivated minds of these savages have led them to shrink from the thoughts of annihilation, and to look forward with hope to a future life. They have no idea however of intellectual ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... was in a pitiable state; and had begun even to question Jenny's loyalty. He had turned to the thought of her as a last resort for soothing and reassurance, and now, in the chilly dawn, even she ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... pitiable. Snatches of talk overheard in Paris and elsewhere warned her that Mrs. Leland would prove an unconquerable foe. She was miserably conscious that her own letter, posted overnight, would rise up in judgment against her, but already she had devised the plausible ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... Bob towered above them like a great avenging red angel. Then his anger left him as suddenly as it had come. Carey and the deputy presented such a pitiable sight, although ludicrous withal, that he was moved to shame to think that he had pitted his strength against such puny adversaries. He picked T. Morgan Carey out of the corner, set him on his feet, dusted him off, gave him his hat and restored to him his gold pince-nez. The deputy needed ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... don't mean—you can't—" Mrs. Fowler was really pitiable, for, after all, George was her son, and the ties of blood would not break so easily as the ties of marriage. In the depths of her humiliation she had almost convinced herself that she had never respected George, that she had never believed ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... window-curtains, and shreds of pictures, with which he had bedizened his tatters. His face, too, had lost its vacant and careless air, and the poor creature looked hollow-eyed, meagre, half-starved, and nervous to a pitiable degree.—After long hesitation, he at length approached Waverley with some confidence, stared him sadly in the face, and said, 'A' dead ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... for his musket, and wrested it from him; on which the thief let go the knapsack, and attempted to make off; but when he heard the soldier cock his piece, expecting to be instantly shot, he threw himself down on the road and roared out in the most pitiable manner. The soldier took a steady aim at him, but unfortunately his musket flashed in the pan, and the slave started up and ran in amongst ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... to release her from her misery; and I had gone some little distance on my road, when, on looking round, I found the poor creature hobbling after me, indicating, that it was her wish not to be left alone and abandoned in such a pitiable state. My heart bled for my faithful and noble beast, and I instantly attended to her apparent call upon my humanity. I took the rein, and she followed me home, nearly as fast as I could walk. When we[25] reached there, she was ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... he held dear upon earth? But he was fully satisfied that the glory of that Savior who loved him and gave Himself for him would be promoted by his going forth to preach to the heathen. He considered their pitiable and perilous condition; he thought on the value of their immortal souls; he remembered the last solemn injunction of his Lord, "Go teach all nations,"—an injunction never revoked, and commensurate with that most encouraging promise, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Actuated ...
— Life of Henry Martyn, Missionary to India and Persia, 1781 to 1812 • Sarah J. Rhea
... the English troops came forward to the attack. They were young, wore no decorations; they carried out with blind courage what their senile commanders ordered—and this in a period of mortars, machine guns and the telephone. Their behavior was splendid, but all the more pitiable was the breakdown of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... in native shrewdness or energy. He foresaw, not the pitiable bubble-burst which ensued, indeed, but the certain and inevitable end of the speculative era. Like every one else, he had bought chiefly with promises to pay, and his paper in the three banks aggregated a sum equal to a frugal ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... in an extremity of weakness that was pitiable to witness; and ever, as time went on, seemed sinking slowly from sheer inanition and exhaustion. After all there must be some strange mischief at work, he said; but Dr. Martin was of ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... strength in the effort to wrench herself free, even at the cost of tearing the dress and being obliged to travel with it unrepaired; but in vain; the material was too strong to give way, and she sank down on the step in a state of pitiable fright and despair. ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... respecting matters of fact. The assimilation, as it seems to us, throws a flood of light on both conceptions; on the physical one still more than the mathematical. We might extract many ideas of similar, though none perhaps of equal, suggestiveness. But mixed with these, what pitiable niaiseries! One of his great points is the importance of the "moral and intellectual properties of numbers." He cultivates a superstitious reverence for some of them. The first three are sacred, les nombres sacres: One being the type ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... had taken refuge in nodding, exhausting the significance of nods in reply to the various appeals that the other three addressed to him. If their meaning had been developed, his nods must have landed him in a pitiable mess of inconsistencies; he had tried to agree with everybody, to sympathize all round, to indorse universally. He had won momentary applause, and in the ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... me in the street one night. He was in the most pitiable plight, but I recognized the man, and I got him to tell me his history, or at least the outline of it. In brief, it amounted to this—he had ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... management of a drove of mules. In a fit of drunken madness, he committed the outrage which brought the young woman in question down to my old master's for protection. This young woman was the daughter of Milly, an own aunt of mine. The poor girl, on arriving at our house, presented a pitiable appearance. She had left in haste, and without preparation; and, probably, without the knowledge of Mr. Plummer. She had traveled twelve miles, bare-footed, bare-necked and bare-headed. Her neck and shoulders{64} were covered with scars, newly made; and ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... ground from sheer exhaustion, never to rise again. We lost many during the long and trying journey to the Arctic, and I shall always recall their deaths with a keen pang of remorse. For their gentle, docile nature made it the more pitiable to see them perish, as we looked helplessly on, unable to alleviate their agony, yet conscious that it was for our sake they had ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... abatements granted averaged over 30 per cent., and in some cases exceeded 50 per cent., were not perhaps all a sign of the landlord's iniquity, but also may be taken to show something of the tenant's indifference. Poverty is pitiable, truly, and it claims relief from all who believe in the interdependence of a community; but poverty which comes from idleness, unthrift, neglect, and which then falls on others to relieve—these others having to suffer for sins not their own—how about that as ...
— About Ireland • E. Lynn Linton
... pitiable company issued from its paradise, and each stumbled away, too far gone for leave-taking. Most of them passed Gibbie where he stood, but he took no heed; his father was always the last—and the least capable. But, often as he left her door, never did it close ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... a day and a night; drenched by rain; scorched by the sun; crippled by rocks and roots; frightened by rattle-snakes and panthers; blistered and swollen by poisonous insects; nearly starved; tired to death; and presenting the most pitiable appearance in the world, Mr. P. reached the encampment of Mr. MURRAY, proprietor ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 23, September 3, 1870 • Various
... since, fully occupied in collecting and packing together the more cherished articles of his property and without the semblance of a care or a thought for his unfortunate wife, whose condition, in spite of her ludicrous complaints, was truly pitiable. Miss Herbey, however, is unrelaxing in her attentions, and the unremitted diligence with which she fulfills her offices of duty, ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... disapprobation. While Elizabeth lived, indeed, this disapprobation, though deeply felt, was not loudly expressed. But a great change was at hand. The health of the Queen had long been decaying; and the operation of age and disease was now assisted by acute mental suffering. The pitiable melancholy of her last days has generally been ascribed to her fond regret for Essex. But we are disposed to attribute her dejection partly to physical causes, and partly to the conduct of her courtiers and ministers. They did all in ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Provided with two humps, it carries a natural saddle; and, clothed in long wool, yellow, brown or black, it looks in winter a lordly beast. Its fleece is never shorn, but is shed in summer. At that season the poor naked animal is the most pitiable of creatures. In the absence of railways and carriage roads, it fills the place of the ship of the desert and performs the heaviest tasks, such as the transporting of coals and salt. Most docile of slaves, at a word from its master it kneels down and quietly ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... authorities, out of the vast number of our men then held captive at Andersonville, the same whom General Stoneman had hoped to rescue at the time of his raid. Some of these prisoners had already escaped and got in, had described the pitiable condition of the remainder, and, although I felt a sympathy for their hardships and sufferings as deeply as any man could, yet as nearly all the prisoners who had been captured by us during the campaign had been sent, as fast as taken, to the usual depots North, they were ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... a pitiable state of superstitious indecision. It was popularly believed that Quetzalcoatl would some day return, and it was more than probable to the Aztec monarch and his counsellors that he might be reincarnated in the person ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... scrambled out. One ran one way, and another another; but the Khoja contrived to keep up with the cock, which he drove before him with his stick, the poor bird waddling hither and thither, and fluttering from side to side with distress and indecision pitiable to behold. ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... of physic, which forces an appetite for a while. But it is soon powerless against the effects of nervous exhaustion, and before the poor devil can obtain relief, he is sometimes reduced to the most pitiable condition. I have seen robust men in Holloway, by means of this plank bed and other superfluous tortures of our prison system, brought to the very verge of the grave; and I can scarcely control my indignation when I remember that Mr. Truelove, at the age of seventy, was subjected ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... she said, "there are women who have lost their hearts, and there are women who were born without any. The former case has the more suffering, yet methinks the latter is really the more pitiable." ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... while our youth lasted, and diarists still prattle charmingly concerning us. But nothing was expected of us save to be beautiful and to condescend to be made much of, and that is our tragedy. For very few things, my dear, are more pitiable than the middle-age of the pitiful butterfly woman, whose mind cannot—cannot, because of its very nature—reach to anything higher! Middle-age strips her of everything—the admiration, the flattery, the shallow merriment—all ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... same quarter, and so that he could, at need, take himself off at the slightest disquietude which should assail him, and in short, so that he might not again be caught unprovided as on the night when he had so miraculously escaped from Javert. These two apartments were very pitiable, poor in appearance, and in two quarters which were far remote from each other, the one in the Rue de l'Ouest, the other in the Rue de ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... produce from the natives and the few scattered white traders. At Arorai, the southernmost island of the group, we found the natives in a state of famine owing to a long and disastrous drought. The condition of these poor people was truly pitiable to see, and the tears came to my eyes when I saw them, scarcely able to stand, crawling over our bulwarks, and eagerly seizing the biscuits and dishes of boiled rice that Hayes gave them with an unstinting hand. ...
— Concerning "Bully" Hayes - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... times over, and for ten years at a stretch! As if it were not to die in one's own lifetime, and without even the sad immunities of death! As if it were not to die, and yet be the patient spectators of our own pitiable change! The Permanent Possibility is preserved, but the sensations carefully held at arm's length, as if one kept a photographic plate in a dark chamber. It is better to lose health like a spendthrift than to waste it like a miser. It ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... least, was a refuge: here was a man who loved you, and was ready to give you his home and his name, and show the world that he loved you in spite of all. Here was a chance for you, I thought, to show that you had not given your heart where it was not wanted; that you were not that pitiable object, a woman scorned. But you refused me. So then I took the law into my own hands. Was I so ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... children, and because of the mere suspicion that she was attempting to poison him, he cut off her nose and mutilated her ears. He sent her back to her father in Gaul thus despoiled of her natural charms. So the wretched girl presented a pitiable aspect ever after, and the cruelty which would stir even strangers still more surely incited her father to vengeance. Attila, therefore, in his efforts to bring about the wars 185 long ago instigated by the bribe of Gaiseric, sent ambassadors into Italy to the Emperor Valentinian to sow strife between ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes
... Ridgway. You have mistaken my purpose, seh. I had no intention of drawing," he stammered with a pitiable ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... 'A pitiable scandal, sir; and if he took my recommendation, he would find instant means of punishing the man who dares to threaten him. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Nieuport, from the terrible days of the Spanish invasion down to these days of even worse fate, has been pitiable. Its former sea trade after the Spanish invasion was never recovered, and its population, which was beginning to be thrifty and prosperous up to 1914, has now entirely disappeared. Nieuport is now in ashes and ruins. When I passed the day there in the summer ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... children of Manfred met with a pitiable fate. On learning of the sad death of her husband Helena sought safety in flight, with her daughter Beatrice and her three infant sons, Henry, Frederick, and Anselino; but she was betrayed to Charles, who threw her into a dungeon, in which she soon languished and died. Of ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... to fail. His pitiable existence had been sweetened by his brother's inventive tenderness and his own contented spirit, which, his antecedents considered, was truly remarkable, As for Gerard, the day never passed that he did not devote two hours to him; reading or singing to ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... wayside immense crowds of men, women, and children gathered. The railway stations were choked with struggling humanity. Their condition was pitiable. These scenes continued all day and throughout the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... looked over his spectacles at her. Even Mr. Aram glanced round at her surreptitiously; and Lucius turned his face upon his mother's, almost with an air of triumph. But she bore it all without flinching;—bore it all without flinching, though the state of her mind at that moment must have been pitiable. And Mrs. Orme, who held her hand all the while, knew that it was so. The hand which rested in hers was twitched as it were convulsively, but the culprit gave no outward sign ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... Law or no law, it was all over between him and that girl! All the circumstances where known: his unfortunate position was the talk of neighbours; often, as we have imagined, kindly souls of women, young and older, must have had their colloquies and whispers about his pitiable bachelorhood caused by the shameful desertion of his wife. Kindly talk was all very well: but was there any unmarried lady willing to take the place of the deserter, if asked to do so? This was really the question in Aldergate Street, and in all the round of Milton's acquaintances. Candidates ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... commends itself to the reverence of his flock, while he sees the softer partner of his guilt standing in the full glare of exposure and humbling herself to the misery of atonement—between this more wretched and pitiable culprit, to whom dishonour would come as a comfort and the pillory as a relief, and the older, keener, wiser man, who, to obtain satisfaction for the wrong he has suffered, devises the infernally ingenious plan of conjoining himself with his wronger, ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... from and about those of us left here, and that in a so much more satisfactory way than through letters, that it scarcely seems worth while to write just yet. But Mary left Kate's poor little baby in such a pitiable state, that I think it will be a relief to all to hear that its sufferings are ended. It died about ten o'clock the night that she left us, very quietly and without a struggle, and at sunset on Friday we laid it in its last resting-place. ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... continued Proserpine, 'I make it a rule to support the weaker side, and nothing will ever persuade me that Ixion is not a victim, and a pitiable one.' ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli
... twisted tobacco, and among the children we distributed a small handful of halfpence, which they received with great eagerness. Yet I have been since told, that the people of that valley are not indigent; and when we mentioned them afterwards as needy and pitiable, a Highland lady let us know, that we might spare our commiseration; for the dame whose milk we drank had probably more than a dozen milk-cows. She seemed unwilling to take any price, but being pressed to make a demand, at last named a shilling. Honesty is not greater ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... in a pitiable state of mind. A railway journey had always been to her a thing of horror. The reader may therefore form some conception of what it was to her to have been thus suddenly called away from quiet suburban life ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... now. He looked, indeed, a most pitiable object as he stood there, his lower jaw drooped and his ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... a class near the door, stared in horror. Amongst them was Curly. His companions declared afterwards that had it not been for the strength of the curl, his hair would have stood upright. For, following Bruce, led in fact by a string, came an awful apparition—Juno herself, a pitiable mass of caninity—looking like the resuscitated corpse of a dog that had been nine days buried, crowded with lumps, and speckled with cuts, going on three legs, and having her head and throat swollen to ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... no doubt true that 'Godliness is profitable for all things,' but there are a great many other things besides the godliness of the man that does them which determine whether a man's undertakings shall prosper in the world's sense or not. It would be a pitiable thing if the full revelation of God in Christ did not teach us Christians more about the meaning and the worth of outward success and inward prosperity than the Old Testament could teach. I hope ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... triumphantly from the Chateau de Bruyeres—and such a horse! a miserable, old, broken-down hack, whose ribs were so prominent that he looked as if he lived upon barrel-hoops instead of oats and hay; his lack-lustre eyes, drooping head, halting gait, and panting breath combined to make him a most pitiable object, and he plodded on at a snail's pace, looking as if he might drop down dead on the road at any moment. Only the three women were in the chariot—the men all walking, so as to relieve their poor, jaded beast as much as possible. The weather was bitterly cold, and they wrapped their cloaks ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... seized on a rat of this description, and of covering it suddenly with a glass shade, before it had time to swallow its prey. The serpent, appeared stunned by its own capture, and allowed the rat to escape from its jaws, which cowered at one side of the glass in the most pitiable state of trembling terror. The two were left alone for some moments, and on my return to them the snake was as before in the same attitude of sullen stupor. On setting them at liberty, the rat bounded ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... of Champlain's death until the arrival of the Marquis de Tracy, in 1665, Canada was often in a most dangerous and pitiable position. That period of thirty years was, however, also distinguished by the foundation of those great religious communities which have always exercised such an important influence upon the conditions of life throughout French Canada. In 1652 Montreal was founded ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... the dazed look of beings who feel themselves lost yet still are driven by the life within them to press on, the five fugitives—pitiable handful of the Legion—were plodding ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... by fashion, and because the hilt was convenient for the display of a jewel or two. Certainly 't was not for utility that it hung beside him, and no man had ever seen it drawn. Nature had made him the most pitiable coward begotten. Why then should he involve himself in an affair which promised bloodshed, and which must be attended by many a risk for him? There was in all this some mystery that I ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... in this practical world of dollars and cents, where other boys are men, and men forget that they ever were young! But this, you say, is all sentimental nonsense. Of course it is. I admit the full folly of such thoughts. It would be a pitiable spectacle indeed to see every body inspired by the vagabond spirit of Robinson Crusoe. No doubt, if you were sitting upon a rock on the Gulf of Finland, my respected Californian friend, you would be hammering ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... desire to see the old sovereign of Spain before him; the request of Charles IV. and his queen forestalled this proposal. The lieutenant-general had at last snatched away the Prince de la Paix from the hands which detained him. The favorite had taken refuge under the wing of Murat, in the most pitiable condition. "The Prince de la Paix arrives this evening," wrote Napoleon to Talleyrand on the 25th of April; "he has been for a month between life and death, always menaced with the latter. Would you believe it that, in this interval, he has never changed his shirt, and has a beard seven ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... herself, one day when she had not been able to avoid witnessing this pitiable spectacle of infirmity; 'I can't think why I am always fancying he is doing Humfrey and me some injustice, and that he knows it. He, who brought Humfrey home, and has praised him to Mervyn! It is very ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... room just at the time the buffalo hunters, as above described, entered the square of the fort. As he strode forward, with nothing on but his shirt and trousers, his eyes bloodshot, his hair matted and dishevelled, and his countenance haggard in the extreme, he was the most pitiable, and, at the same time, most terrible specimen of human degradation that the mind ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... his limbs, and he bears the brand of degradation on his forehead. What is it but the mere abuse of language to call him free, who is tyrannically deprived of all the motives to exertion which animate other men? The law, in truth, has left him in that most pitiable of all conditions—a masterless slave."—Hamilton's Men and Manners ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... were too thoroughly vanquished. Their plight was laughable, and yet pitiable. They were coated with mud from head to foot, and their pretty hats, with their polka-dot bands, were gone too far down the river to ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... mentioned, that, on the 23d, it was agreed the Dragon and Ascension were to be sent to the Moluccas, and the Hector and Susan to be loaded with pepper, and sent home. We busied ourselves to procure fresh victuals, vegetables, and fruits, for the recovery of our men, who were in a most pitiable case with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... sure that he has mourned; such lore is the alchemy of tears. Hence the insensible and almost universal confusion of idea which confounds melancholy with depth, and finds but hollow inanity in the symbol of a laugh. Pitiable error! Reflection first leads us to gloom, but its next stage is to brightness. The Laughing Philosopher had reached the goal of Wisdom; Heraclitus whimpered at the starting-post. But enough for Lucy to gain even ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not go now, Maurice?" said Crystal at last in pitiable pleading, "we only make each other hopelessly wretched, by lingering near ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... ability to stock it; the proprietor is forced to provide seed and cattle, and he and his tenant divide the produce; a miserable system that perpetuates poverty and prevents instruction. The same wretched country continues to La Loge; the fields are scenes of pitiable management, as the houses are full of misery. Heaven grant me patience while I see a country thus neglected, and forgive me the oaths I swear at the absence and ignorance of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... beaten the little fellow into a pitiable condition. He tied him to that porch column and flogged him with a quirt. While I cannot defend Okada's action in releasing Loustalot, nevertheless, Mr. Farrel—" Don Mike's black eyes burned like ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... Baileyville wished help, no matter how excellent its quality. Every night the report from the Harlings was the same—Louise could find nothing to do. Even Mrs. McGregor who was ordinarily able to straighten out every sort of tangle had no remedy for the present pitiable dilemma. The only employment it was in her power to secure for the girl was fine sewing and Louise, restricted by her factory training, could not sew. A week went by and still nothing presented itself. Mrs. Harling and the aged grandfather, from whom the calamity had ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... for the first time in her will also show this desolate heart the path to eternal love. And Parsifal had finally shown her, the pitiable one, the ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... of remote chances of danger either from beasts or men. Our sympathies are drawn out towards our humble hardy companions by a community of interests, and, it may be, of perils, which make us all friends. Nothing but the most pitiable puerility would lead any manly heart to make their inferiority a theme for self-exaltation; however, that is often done, as if with the vague idea that we can, by magnifying their deficiencies, demonstrate ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... they stumbled into camp, Harding ragged and exhausted, and Clarke limping after him in an even more pitiable state. The doctor had suffered badly from the hurried march; but his conductor would brook no delay, and the grim hints he had been given encouraged him to ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... true that the best and worst in humanity are only opposite faces of the same medal, we should be tempted to think mankind even more pitiable than we ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... condition of the Negritos, although not one of extreme misery, is indeed pitiable. Their life is a continual struggle for sufficient food, but their efforts to provide for themselves stop short at that; clothing and houses are of secondary importance. The average Negrito takes little pride in his dwelling place. A shelter sufficient to turn the beating rains is ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed
... opposite sentiments attached to a doctrine identically the same. In either case no improvement is possible, and the authority of human ideals is denied. To escape, to stanch natural wounds, to redeem society and the private soul, are then mistaken and pitiable ambitions, adding to their vanity a certain touch of impiety. One who really believes that the world's work is all providentially directed and that whatever happens, no matter how calamitous or shocking, happens by divine right, has a quietistic excuse for license; to check energy ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... covet to see, though but in shadow and the fables of theatres, the pomp of tragic representations of human fortune; 'tis not without compassion at what we hear, but we please ourselves in rousing our displeasure, by the rarity of these pitiable events. Nothing tickles that does not pinch. And good historians skip over, as stagnant water and dead sea, calm narrations, to return to seditions, to wars, to which they know that we ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... temple like a dog that has discovered his lost master and fawns affectionately at his feet. Criminal as he was, his joy in his abasement, his glory in his miserable isolation from humanity, was a doom of degradation pitiable ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... a pitiable one. By the paleness of her cheeks, it was evident that she suffered cruelly; while she spoke, her tears flowed ceaselessly, and it was easy to see that every word came from her heart, and that what she ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... humanity, and object. With very great reason, as I consider, if your hypothesis be correct. What right have you to hang any poor creature "for an example"? He can turn round upon you and say, "Why make an 'example' of me, a merely ill-situated, pitiable man? Have you no more respect for misfortune? Misfortune, I have been told, is sacred. And yet you hang me, now I am fallen into your hands; choke the life out of me, for an example! Again I ask, Why make an example of me, for your own convenience ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... against the strokes of fate. Still it may be urged that these men, in their leisure hours, laugh, sing, play, and live without care for the past as well as for the future. Will you then deny that they are happier than we? Man is such a pitiable and variable creature, and habits have such a potent sway over him, that in the most disastrous situations he always finds some posture that gives him ease, something that consoles him, and, by comparison with past ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... the prison, (consequently the night preceding the second public examination of Agnes,) I was attacked by ardent fever in such unmitigated fury, that before morning I had lost all command of my intellectual faculties. For some weeks I became a pitiable maniac, and in every sense the wreck of my former self; and seven entire weeks, together with the better half of an eighth week, had passed over my head whilst I lay unconscious of time and its dreadful freight of events, excepting in so far as my disordered brain, by ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... great men observed (for the very good reason that it had not appeared in their time), but which seems also to have escaped the notice of the writers of our own day, close observers as they are of any new development. I mean the class of Social Exiles, pitiable wanderers from home and country, who haunt the Continent, and are to be found (sad little colonies) in out-of- the-way corners of almost ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... honestly assert that she had danced with him oftener than with Morson, or a dozen others, but he had a pleasant feeling that even when she shook her head and said, "I cannot," her soft eyes added for her, "though I really wish to." There was something almost pitiable, he told himself in the complacency with which that self-satisfied ass Morson would come and take her from him. As if he hadn't sense enough to discover that it was merely because she was his hostess that she went with him at all. But some men would ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... the counted day Fruitlessly came and went; I made excuse for the delay, Pitiable confident. I knew to-morrow's light must bring The words ...
— Poems of West & East • Vita Sackville-West
... hour, these votes were immediately communicated to the king, who was in a pitiable condition, aged, nearly blind, half crazed, and stubborn even to insanity, in his determination to subjugate the Americans. The poor old man, in his rage, threatened to abandon England, to renounce the crown, and to cloister ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... our former journeys by diligence over broken railway routes; we recalled our cruel voyage from Genoa to Naples by sea; and in a state of pitiable dismay we ate five francs' worth at the restaurant of the Civita Vecchia station before we knew it, and long before we had made up our minds. Still we might have lingered and hesitated, and perhaps returned to Rome at last, but for the dramatic resolution of the old man who solicited ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... fellow at her side inspire such emotion? It was puzzling and baffling, but it roused Drew's sympathy, and held him captive. The rough faces of the men, the pitiable, worn faces of the women, the sprinkling of freckled, childish faces were blotted out for him. Like a star in blank space shone that one sweet, waiting face with its ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... in this state; and he gives a laughable account of their behaviour and strange grimaces. On the following morning they were very cross and dismal; they held their aching heads with both hands, and wore a most pitiable expression: when beer or wine was offered them, they turned away with disgust, but relished the juice of lemons. (7. Brehm, 'Thierleben,' B. i. 1864, s. 75, 86. On the Ateles, s. 105. For other analogous statements, see s. 25, 107.) An American monkey, an Ateles, after getting drunk on brandy, ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... It is pitiable that our proud Margaret should come to such a pass. Ah, the men that you have flouted and scorned and bedeviled and mocked at, Margaret—could they see you now, I think the basest of them could not but pity and worship you. This man ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... and the harsh and oppressive measures aforesaid being still continued, the Begum did, about the middle of October, 1782, cause to be represented to the said Middleton as follows. "That her situation was truly pitiable,—her estate sequestered, her treasury ransacked, her cojahs prisoners, and her servants deserting daily from want of subsistence. That she had solicited the loan of money, to satisfy the demands of the Company, from every person that she imagined ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... was one of the victims) the Antelope Valley. Every one who could leave it had done so, but there were many who could not, who had spent their all to get there. Some of these had wives and children, and their condition was of course most pitiable. There was naturally no work to be had there, and I heard that many of them were living on charity. The hotel-keeper in the valley, a most charitable man, and his good wife, did all in their power to mitigate the suffering, which was excessive. What became of the colony after ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... to throw him at will. Leaving him thus passive and apparently lifeless (save that the heart's action was distinctly perceptible), Father Paul busied himself over poor John, who was found to be in pitiable plight; for his wound had opened with the exertion of the long ride, and he had lost much blood before any one knew the state he was in. For some short time his case was somewhat critical, as the bleeding proved obstinate, and was checked with difficulty; and but for Father Paul's accurate knowledge ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... not speak at all, but stood motionless, staring in bewildered, pitiable, childlike fashion, and the color had ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... painted there by the hand of Time; his voice was cracked and broken, and his gait that of advanced age. I had formed the impression, beforehand, that Lemaitre was simply a tottering old wreck, a painful and pitiable sight; and I went to the theatre prepared to be saddened by the spectacle of a ruin. A ruin it was, perhaps, but what a grand and impressive one! The old man was magnificent! So far from exciting pity, he roused in me ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... procession came, the worse for wear it looked: the white-topped wagons (there were only a few) were torn and battered, the other vehicles were only make-shifts, cut down from the originals, the horses, mules and oxen were very thin, and the people themselves were gaunt and ragged and pitiable. As brown as any Arabs and as bearded as the ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... division of Nimes want clothes, equipment, and drilling, say you? What poor reasons you give me there, Augereau! I have destroyed 80,000 enemies with conscripts having nothing but knapsacks! The National Guards, say you, are pitiable; I have 4000 here in round hats, without knapsacks, in wooden shoes, but with good muskets, and I get a great deal out of them. There is no money, you continue; and where do you hope to draw money from! You ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... once more, the Brazilian came out of the dressing-closet, where he had been waiting, and he appeared with his eyes full of tears, in a really pitiable condition. Montes had ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... home he sobbed, and held his hands suspended from the wrists, a most pitiable object. "Ah! you old ruffian!" soliloquized the tearful pupil, "won't my father give it to ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... a deep sympathy, perhaps because her leading characteristic was a pitiable holding to her ideals. She painted her father as a good and loving man hiding his real tenderness beneath gruff mannerisms. When he denied her friendship with the man she secretly loved, she put upon that denial a high value. He could not bear to run the chance of losing ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... In order to prevent her from falling, he was literally obliged to throw them around her, and, to a certain extent, to press her—for the purpose of supporting her—against his heart, the pulsations of which were going at a tremendous speed. There was, in fact, something so soft, so pitiable, so beautiful, and at the same time so exquisitely pure and fragrant, in this lovely creature, as her head lay drooping on his shoulder, her pale cheek literally lying against his, that it is not at all to be wondered at that ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... and quite a little army of them marched out with drums beating and colors flying at the heels of Hamilton's Dragoons. But on the way to the town gates the temper of the volunteers changed, and by the time that the town gates were reached and passed the volunteers had dwindled to so pitiable a handful that they were dismissed, and Hamilton's Dragoons proceeded alone to join Cope's King's Dragoons ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... one." Thereupon, behold, one of the pages came after Gwalchmai, to speak to him. So he sent him to apprise Arthur that Geraint was there wounded, and that he would not go to visit him, and that it was pitiable to see the plight that he was in. And this he did without Geraint's knowledge, inasmuch as he spoke in a whisper to the page. "Entreat Arthur," said he, "to have his tent brought near to the road, for he will not meet him willingly, and it is not easy to compel him in the mood ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 2 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... in a pitiable state, for the Germans as they retired carried off everything—livestock, vehicles, all food, and most of the male population. The civilians that were left behind took refuge in the cellars during the fighting, coming out as soon as the Boche had gone, and bestowing ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... "I am wounded in three places." He crawled down to the shore of the pond, found an Indian canoe, and crept into it. The wind blew it out into the lake, and he was wafted to the southern shore. The sun went down, and the Indians stole away. Pitiable the condition of the settlers. Lovewell was dead, and also their beloved chaplain, Jonathan Frye, who with his dying breath prayed aloud for victory; Jacob Farrar was dying; Lieutenant Rollins and Robert Usher ...
— Harper's Young People, September 21, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... ridden, visible only to the eyes of Dante, by Dante's side that night, though the vision vanished at the time when the lances of the Dragon-flag rode out of the sheltering wood to welcome our coming. Well, now it seems that, when Dante was assailed by that very human, pitiable, and pardonable pain and frailty, he suddenly became aware again of the God of Love that was riding hard by him, but this time a little in front, and this time on a great black war-horse. It seemed to Dante that the wonderful youth turned a little in his saddle as he rode, and showed ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... they had uttered these statements, exasperating and pitiable in the recital, before persons alarmed for themselves, exciting greater indignation in the hearers than was felt by themselves, they affirmed "that there never would be any other limit to their occupying the lands, or to their butchering the commons by usury, ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... capable of dying of ennui at the politeness which people show us. We are lodged like princes. But what hosts, what conversations, what dinners! We laugh at them when we are by ourselves, but when we are before the enemy, what a pitiable figure we selves, make! I am no longer desirous to see you come; but I aspire to depart very quickly, and I understand why you do not wish to give concerts. It is not unlikely that Pauline Viardot may not ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks |
