"Pity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The Confederate captain shook his head. "Pity he didn't have any more definite information for you." He glanced at Drew's set face. "But, Sergeant, the ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... over—that whatever right-hearted and right-headed Englishmen might have thought of the French revolution at the opening of the States-general in May, 1789, they ought not at the close of this year to have regarded it with any other sentiments than those of horror, disgust, and pity. But "rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft." Although it was as clear as the sun at noon-day, that the events which had taken place in France were but the precursors of some horrible catastrophe—that the French regenerators sought not wholesome and legitimate ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the officer's voice lost its belligerent tone. He spoke as man to man, with no hint of self-pity. Young Carmody was honestly sorry. Here was a man who, in the act of giving him a friendly warning, had been felled by a brutal and unexpected blow. A hot blush of shame reddened his cheeks. He was about to speak but was interrupted by the voice ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... little surprising is it that Mr. Froude's attachment to the kingly queen-killer should be increased by the course of the critics. That is the usual course. The biographer comes to love the man whom at first he had only endured. To endurance, according to the old notion, succeeds pity, and then comes the embrace. And that embrace is all the warmer because others have denounced the party to whom it is extended. It is fortunate that no man of talent has ever ventured to write the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... strong within it, and that it was my hand that had sent her to her watery grave, my agony grew so intense that I wonder it did not kill me, or drive me to some desperate act of madness. It did not; and pity for myself soon hardened my heart against the sufferings of others. I ceased to weep for Julia; she was dead indeed; but was not death a blessing compared to such a life as mine would be? My aunt had lost her ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... destroying them; violent, fierce, without principle and without scruple in the execution of his designs, he had egged the king on to incessant wars, treating with disdain the internal miseries of the kingdom as well as any idea of pity for the vanquished; he had desired to do everything, order everything, grasp everything, and he died at fifty-three, dreaded by all, hated by a great many, and leaving in the government of the country a void which the king felt, all the time that he was ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... to his ears. Then the man, being almost swallowed up in the earth, implored pardon of the saint, and promised that he would believe in Christ, and that he would obey his doctrine. And the saint, being moved with pity, prayed for him unto the Lord; and immediately the earth cast him forth, and raised him. And the unmerciful man, being mercifully saved, gave thanks unto the power that had saved him, and believed ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... put entirely out of countenance by Bismarck's tone, merely insisted that in pity to France there should be no question of subjecting her to the ignominy of being again made over to her deposed emperor. Before parting, Bismarck requested him to write down such conditions of ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... "'tis pity! I would hang Belvedere and make you captain in his room—he wearies me, and would kill me were he man enough—ah, Mother of Heaven, what a sea!" she cried, clinging to me as a great wave broke forward, filling the air with hissing spray. "Aid me ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... we have the energy, the clear-sightedness needed to judge it; from the depths of the most fearful injustice justice is best perceived. When the hour shall have come for settling accounts—and it will not long delay—we shall have forgotten much of what we have suffered and a blameworthy pity will creep over us and cloud our eyes. This is the moment, therefore, for us to frame our inexorable resolution. After the final victory, when the enemy is crushed—as crushed he will be—efforts will be made ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... supposed to have been derived from a certain Danish prince, murdered on the spot by a jealous Court retainer; and it is a fitting place for a murder, as in that lonely district there was no eye to pity, no ear to hear, no hand to save. Even to-day, as you look away from the train, there is little sign of life, save the sail of a distant wherry as it makes sluggishly for Norwich or Beccles, as it goes either into the Waveney or the Yare; or the gray wing of the heron as it flies heavily along ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... natural, living Phaedra that we were all strongly moved. How fine a part it is! As a youngster I used to learn verses from 'Phaedra' by heart. I am told that in France devotion to classical tradition is growing weaker, and that Moliere and Racine are more and more seldom played. What a pity! Our people, on the contrary, remain faithful to their great poets and enjoy their works. After school comes college, and after college—the theatre. It should elevate and expand the soul. The people do not need ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... murmur, 'It's almost a pity.' She turns to her Amy. 'At least, Amy, this makes you and me friends again.' We have never quite been able to understand what this meant, but Amy knows, for she puts Ginevra's hand ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie
... some were-wolf stories on good authority; it is a pity that the good authorities of Bodin were such liars, but that, by the way. He says that the Royal Procurator-General Bourdin had assured him that he had shot a wolf, and that the arrow had stuck in the beast's thigh. A few hours after, the arrow ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... A shuddering horror, a consuming pity, possessed me as often as dreadful groans from the operating-room reached my ears. No one could have convinced me then that I should ever get used to it, as ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... devotional loyalty to His supremacy. It was a wonderful phenomenon, which even cynical logicians might have found embarrassing to their iconoclastic notions could they have witnessed it. Here was an uncultured though magnificent-looking person passing through a sorrowful tribulation, exciting the pity and calling for the admiration of hundreds of his fellow creatures, because he was able to hold his head up and appeal to the only power he knew that was capable of giving him consolation and courage. "Oh, God, help me to bear the trial like a man!" That was the melancholy burden of his ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... held in July, Fryday 30, this present year, 1652. Before the Right Honourable, Peter Warburton.... Collected from the Observations of E. G. Gent, a learned person, present at their Conviction and Condemnation, and digested by H. F. Gent., London, 1652. It is a pity that the digesting was not omitted. The account, however, is trustworthy. Mention is made of this trial by Elias Ashmole in his Diary (London, 1717) and by The Faithful ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... head a little, with a tranquil smile. "M. de Bellegarde," he said, "your mother does better. She has done better all along, from the first of my knowing you. You're a mighty plucky woman, madam," he continued. "It's a great pity you have made me your enemy. I should have been ...
— The American • Henry James
... though, inasmuch as his path of duty was already marked out, these plans were but little more than a series of fond imaginings; in short, little more than day dreams. I have before hinted that Bobby was addicted to castle building, and I should pity the man or boy who was not—who had no bright dream of future achievements, of future usefulness. "As a man thinketh, so is he," the Psalmist tells us, and it was the pen of inspiration which wrote it. What a man pictures as his ideal of that which ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... vessel in which he had expected to embark, the gulf which had swallowed up the plank, the yawning abyss, of which the menace was its retrocession, the earth which refused him a shelter, the sky which refused him a star, solitude without pity, obscurity without notice, ocean, sky, all the violence of one infinite space, and all the mysterious enigmas of another; he who had neither trembled nor fainted before the mighty hostility of the unknown; he who, still so young, had held his own with night, as Hercules ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... task, with the result that I resigned my post and took my leave. A youth, with a disposition such as his, cannot assuredly either perpetuate intact the estate of his father and grandfather, or follow the injunctions of teacher or advice of friends. The pity is, however, that there are, in that family, several excellent female cousins, the like of all of whom it ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... real pity that sheriff feller hadn't got her when he hit Red Mask's trail," observed Arizona, while he watched Tresler gently pass his hands over each leg in turn. "Clean, eh?" ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... rhodomontade of Tamburlaine and the piled-up horror of The Jew are replaced by a mature self-restraint, and in the whole workmanship he approaches more nearly to Shakespeare than any one else has ever done. Speaking of it Lamb says, "The death scene of Marlowe's King moves pity and terror beyond any scene, ancient or modern, with which I am acquainted." M. is now almost certainly believed to have had a large share in the three parts of Henry VI., and perhaps also he may have collaborated ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... had by this time been disenchanted out of their sleep by Angelica, took up the English prince, and put him in the pavilion. But when he was stripped of his armour, he looked so handsome, that the lovely stranger secretly took pity on him, and bade them shew him all the courtesies that captivity allowed. He was permitted to walk outside by the fountain; and Angelica, from a dark corner, looked at him with admiration, as he walked up and down in ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... was only thinking it quare; and a pity more betoken, as I said before, to lose the ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... any at all, indeed. It does not thrill. It produces absolutely no vibrations . . . I have known several Jacks, and they all, without exception, were more than usually plain. Besides, Jack is a notorious domesticity for John! And I pity any woman who is married to a man called John. She would probably never be allowed to know the entrancing pleasure of a single moment's solitude. The only really safe ...
— The Importance of Being Earnest - A Trivial Comedy for Serious People • Oscar Wilde
... he. "I am Conn Crither, son of Bran, from Teamhair Luachra," said he. "If that is so," said Glas, "you are of the one blood with myself, for I am Glas, son of Bremen from Teamhair Luachra." "It is not right for you to come fighting against me from those foreigners, so," said Conn. "It is a pity indeed," said Glas; "and but for Finn and the Fianna driving me from them, I would not fight against you or against one of themselves for all the treasures of the whole world." "Do not say that," said Conn, "for I swear by my hand ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... acute perception of the slightest flaw in a document, or imperfection in evidence, always attracted notice in the courts he attended. Judges and lawyers often remarked to him, "Mr. Hopper, it is a great pity you were not educated for the legal profession. You have such a judicial mind." Mr. William Lewis, an eminent lawyer, offered him every facility for studying the profession. "Come to my office and use my library whenever you please," said he; "or I will obtain a clerkship in the courts ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... soul I pity a man or woman who bears about an irremediable bodily deformity, or the mark of the blood of a humiliated race. I pity any human being who carries around a body that he feels to be in any sense an unpleasant one to those whom ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... sonnet that follows, he accuses her of preventing pity of him in others, by such "killing mockery" as makes him wish for death ("la pieta, che 'l vostro ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... invited them to visit him in Rome. The painters returned to their work, where they met with a second rencontre of a very different nature; a gang of thieves robbed and stripped them of their clothes. They returned in their shirts to the city, and called on the cardinal, who took pity upon them, ordered them clothes, and afterwards employed them in several considerable works in ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... instincts or habits; and art; and language; aroused in maintenance of self; as driving power; difficulty of classifying; in morals; impedes reflection; James-Lange theory of; of dislike or hate; of fear; of pity; of love; physical indications of. Empirical morality. Enthusiasm; religious. Environment, control of by science; influence of on aesthetic appreciation; on individual differences; on racial differences; on instincts; maladjustment between individual ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... system of devotion, silence and faithfulness, which added a dignity to their relations. These virtues they took so seriously that we find the Chatelaine of Vergi dying because she believed her lover to have betrayed her trust. The mediaeval romancer contemplated such unions with joy and pity; but for all their virtues we must not deceive ourselves with words. Such honour was rooted in dishonour, and the measure of their guilt was that they debased the moral currency. Presently the greatest of all the poets of the Middle Ages would arise, to teach a different fashion of devotion. ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... virtually the parent of the monstrous litter to which it gives birth? And though according to the inflexible principles of justice, any violation of the property of another is not to be exculpated, humanity will always pity the distressed delinquent, and wish that she had the power of substituting the primary author of the crime in the place of the condemned criminal. How would the world be reformed, if the framers of the unjust and impolitic laws, which are every where ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... pointed to his misshapen extremities.—Lay your hand here!—and he laid his own on the region of his misplaced heart.—I have known nothing of the life of your race. When I first came to my consciousness, I found myself an object of pity, or a sight to show. The first strange child I ever remember hid its face and would not come near me. I was a broken-hearted as well as broken-bodied boy. I grew into the emotions of ripening youth, and all that I could have loved shrank from my presence. I became a man in years, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... the coolest player that I ever watched. Nothing worries him. If he loses two hundred francs tonight, I am sure he will win it and fifty in addition tomorrow. He accepts opponents without distinction—the stupid, the wily, the vain, the cautious, the desperate, the hopeless. He has not the slightest pity, not the least fear. In one of my numerous notebooks I have this perfectly ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... would furnish for the pen of a Byron! As I have before remarked, all the valuables and utensils of all sorts found here have been removed to Portici; it is a great pity that everything could not be left in Pompeii in the exact situation in which it was found on its first discovery at the excavation. What a light it would have thrown (which no description can give) on the melancholy catastrophe ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... a state of half childishness, is very credulous, but, like the savage, remains free from many of the prejudices acquired in society. In him the tender feelings are not deep; he appears susceptible neither of strong attachment nor of lively gratitude; pity moves him feebly; he has little emulation, few enjoyments, and few desires. This is what is commonly observed in the deaf and dumb; but the picture is far from being of universal application; some, more happily endowed, are remarkable for the great development of their intellectual and moral ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... secret with some in the profession. A limited number of workers have succeeded in bringing out good opals, and their modus operandi is kept from the many. Now this is a pity, when one considers the great charm attached to a good picture on opal, with pure whites and rich blacks, and in many localities the demand that might be created for them. Apart from their beauty, another charm attaches to opals—their absolute permanence; and this, it must ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... modification of Gusev's metaphor, Europe may be compared to a burning house and the Governments of Europe to fire brigades, each one engaged in trying to salve a wing or a room of the building. It seems a pity that these fire brigades should be fighting each other, and forgetting the fire in their resentment of the fact that some of them wear red uniforms and some wear blue. Any single room to which the fire gains complete control increases ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... Actions are every Way suitable to an Hero. One of us two, says he, must dye: I am an Earl as well as your self, so that you can have no Pretence for refusing the Combat: However, says he, 'tis Pity, and indeed would be a Sin, that so many innocent Men should perish for our sakes, rather let you and I end our Quarrel ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... if you know how many people you make happy in the course of a year, Peggy Stewart. I don't believe you have the least idea, but it's a pity a few of them couldn't lift up their voices and ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... been there, was, that there might be left behind, that blessed air of tranquillity which pervaded Minor Canon Corner, and that serenely romantic state of the mind—productive for the most part of pity and forbearance— which is engendered by a sorrowful story that is all told, or a pathetic play ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... and I are friends," interrupted Van, "and we want to keep on being friends no matter how our fathers feel toward one another. If they have quarreled it is a great pity, but at least we needn't. The only way to straighten out this tangle is to be honest with each other and get at the truth; then, and not until then shall we know where ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... boats being secured astern, a strict watch was set, lest the helpless Bates should attempt to rescue the vessel. During the evening—the excitement attendant upon the outbreak having passed away, and the magnitude of the task before them being more fully apparent to their minds—a feeling of pity for the unfortunate party on the mainland took possession of them. It was quite possible that the Osprey might be recaptured, in which case five useless murders would have been committed; and however callous in bloodshed were the majority of the ten, not one among them could contemplate ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... got a glass in their heads, to go up into the belfry, and ring the bells for hours together for the sake of exercise. If they see a foreigner very well made, or particularly handsome, they will say, "It is a pity he ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... refusal that I am ashamed. I am ashamed only that you should have seen me in my real shape,—for it was I who devoured the corpse and the offerings last night before your eyes... Know, reverend Sir, that I am a jikininki, [1]—an eater of human flesh. Have pity upon me, and suffer me to confess the secret fault by which I became reduced to ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... Illugi: "It is a great pity that a man so valiant as you should have committed such a folly as to cast in your lot with this outlaw and follow his evil ways, ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... great pleasure for me to face the work of the new year with you, and it is a source of congratulation that the Menorah is no longer an innovation but an established institution at Yale. It seems a pity that Jews do not inherit Hebrew as a birthright, but fortunately the study of Hebrew history and ideals can proceed without ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... the personal conscious fellowship of love with Himself, that prayer begins. It is in the knowledge of God's Fatherliness, revealed by the Holy Spirit, that the power of prayer will be found to root and grow. In the infinite tenderness and pity and patience of the infinite Father, in His loving readiness to hear and to help, the life of prayer has its joy. O let us take time, until the Spirit has made these words to us spirit and truth, filling heart ...
— Lord, Teach Us To Pray • Andrew Murray
... incident occurred that directly concerns these pages. We had gone down into the basement of the house to look for some papers the Doctor kept there in the safe, and in taking them out he picked up the manuscript of his autobiography. As we went upstairs I said to the Doctor, "What a pity that you have ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... do not lead you into a trap. They are not above anything, these men. I heard once of a Bulgarian in Vienna who was tortured—tortured almost to death—before he spoke. Then they thrust him into a lunatic asylum. Remember, dear, they have no consciences and no pity." ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... another. Just then I heard someone shouting at the top of his voice just ahead of me. I looked to see who it was and saw Jim Bridger, shaking his hat at me. I held up my horse so I could hear what he said. He cried, "For pity's sake, Will, don't kill any more Antelope, for we have more now than we ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... philosophical abstraction from such household details, had more than once said, rather in pity to Jackeymo, than with an eye to that respectability which the costume of the servant reflects on the dignity of the master—"Giacomo, thou wantest clothes, fit thyself ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... to move. So I sometimes dozed off into snatches of fitful sleep. Perhaps I moaned, or I was accidentally discovered. At all events, when I awoke a mammy was bending over me, her voice fully of pity. And—well, to make a long story short, I had blundered again, for the village was being occupied by the Federals, and the cotton the darkies had been taking away was going North. There is no need to add that I was well fed and well ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... explain; but the effort of putting her troubles into words seemed to bring them more home to her, and she suddenly blurred over and became inarticulate. Her daughter bent towards her, and kissed her with the prettiest little spasm of love and pity. ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... pretty parrot," cried the princess, "it is a pity you are not every day so diverting; ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... much upon this one thing, and each was troubled that the other should brood upon it. And then, in course of time, they grew to be a little morbid. It seemed to them as if by their friends who had children they were regarded with an ill-concealed, patronizing pity. They felt an unreasonable antipathy toward young parents who loved to discourse of the ailments and accomplishments of their babies, and they even avoided the houses of many acquaintances wherein, they knew from ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... a pretty talent for epithet, and no unnecessary tenderness. She bore Lali no malice. She was too decorous and high for that. In her mind the wife of the man she had discarded was a mere commonplace catastrophe, to be viewed without horror, maybe with pity. She had heard the alien spoken well of by some people; others had seemed indignant that the Armours should try to push "a red woman" into English society. Truth is, the Armours did not try at all to push her. For over three years they ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... dismissing his laborers, and from fear of this, the latter will practice deference, often amounting to servility. Such in time will become the established relation between the employer and the employed, the rich and the poor. If want be accompanied with sordidness and squalor, though it be pitied, the pity will be mixed with some degree of contempt. If it lead to misery, and misery to vice, there will be ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... a pity that the annalists, who tell us so many things we neither care to hear nor much believe in, should have left us no record of any assault of the Northmen against one of these redoubtable towers. Even at the present day they would, without ammunition, be remarkably difficult nuts to ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... women and pore little children, and none but a coward or a dog would do it. Of course when we white men do sich awful things, why these pore ignorant critters don't know no better than to foller suit. Pore things! Pore things! I've seen as much of 'em as any man livin', and I can't help but pity 'em, right or wrong! They once owned all this country, yes, Plains and Mountains, buffalo and everything, but now they own next door to nuthin, and ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... his fear, the Hermit was moved to pity, and washed the cut and bound it up; and as he did so he bethought him that perhaps his strange visitor had been sent to him not for his soul's undoing but for her own salvation. And from that hour he earnestly yearned ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... sighed, I glanced with tender meaning at the young lady. Her feminine heart, I hoped, would interpret and pity me. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... singing of birds suddenly become as a mockery to the ear? and the faces of friends, late so pleasant to see, have they grown strange and reproachful? and is life, before so full of hope, turned sour, and vapid, and bitter? O, my friend, I pity you; but the change, which you probably think is in the world, ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... countenance. The wind freshened, coming from the bay, and the boat was off like a startled deer. When I next saw him he had recovered his equanimity, and, with a smile upon his rugged features, was waving us a farewell. I looked at the beauty opposite me, and, with a sudden movement of pity for him, mateless, stood up and waved to him ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... ourselves a place apart Behind light words that tease and flout, But oh, the agitated heart Till someone find us really out. 'Tis pity if the case require (Or so we say) that in the end We speak the literal to inspire The understanding of a friend. But so with all, from babes that play At hide-and-seek to God afar, So all who hide too well away Must speak and tell us where ...
— A Boy's Will • Robert Frost
... rising from the hermit's cave, and was filled with astonishment that any one should have dared to establish a dwelling there without his permission. Going to the place, he found the hermit clothed in old rags and skins, and, inquiring about his case, Ralph's anger changed to pity. To show his compassion, he granted the hermit the ground where the hermitage stood, and also for his support the tithe of a mill not far away. The tradition further relates "that the old Enemy of the human ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... was believed to be endowed with high moral and medicinal properties, yet was supposed to prosper better in one's garden if stolen from that of a neighbour. But originally it was associated with sorrow and pity. The word rue is doubtless of the same root as 'ruth,' and to rue is to be sorry for, to have remorse. Ruth is the English equivalent of the Latin ruta, and in early English appeared as 'rude.' As regret is always ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... armies. He was in thorough sympathy with the Union cause, and emphatically said that every man in Prussia, from the king to his humblest subject, was on the side of the Union, and opposed to the Rebellion. What a pity, he said, it would have been if so great a country as the United States had been disrupted on account of slavery. I mentioned my visit to the international fair at Paris and my intention to return, and he said he ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... end to this business before worse happens, for the horse is worth siller if the man's regardless, and there's many a lass will greet herself to sleep till the fires of her youth are burnt out if harm comes to Dan McBride. Have ye no pity for your ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... himself at her feet, and she, apparently perceiving him, does not repel him but puts her slim hands in his wild hair, and they go through some tender motions to an exquisite melody upon the flute. Gradually with gestures of pity and love she invites him to go with her, and he hardly believing is about to be led away, when suddenly the oriental melody begins again. The dancer appears. She glances at GWYMPLANE with the hypnotized fascination ...
— Clair de Lune - A Play in Two Acts and Six Scenes • Michael Strange
... sublime to pass under our judgment; it is the province of the Word to judge us. The world, however, while unwilling to be judged and convicted by us, essays to judge and convict the Word of God. Here God steps in. It would be a pity for the worldly to see a godly Christian, so God blinds them and they miss his kingdom. As Isaiah says (ch. 26, 10): "In the land of uprightness will he deal wrongfully, and will not behold the majesty of Jehovah." For this reason, few ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... the pure motion of nature, anterior to all manner of reflection; such is the force of natural pity, which the most dissolute manners have as yet found it so difficult to extinguish, since we every day see, in our theatrical representation, those men sympathize with the unfortunate and weep at their sufferings, who, if in the tyrant's place, would aggravate the torments of their enemies. Mandeville ...
— A Discourse Upon The Origin And The Foundation Of - The Inequality Among Mankind • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... Well, it would be a pity to lose the nomination-day, and the show of hands; I should travel all night to be in time, but you ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... him, fascinated, one brown hand trembling on her heart. Her eyes shot a glance at the door behind him, and he was enraged anew with pity ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... he is bound to be well pleased. I don't know yet, though, if he has to go in or not. The Patent Office is bound to keep a record, in pictures or models, of the results of mens' brains, whether eccentric or otherwise, but not of the general appearance of their possessors. More's the pity, I think; for from what I have seen of the models in the Patent Office, they would furnish specimens for the phrenological study of mental imbecility for generations to come. I only had time just to run through ...
— Canada for Gentlemen • James Seton Cockburn
... pity in the heart of Tandakora. He was a savage and he could never be anything but a savage. He might admire the fortitude with which Tayoga would endure the torture, but he would have no thought of remitting it on that account. The bird sang again, or another like it, because it was exactly the same ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... smile on Prince Abdalla seems to say, You are not in your killing mood to day: Men brand, indeed, your sex with cruelty, But you are too good to see poor lovers die. This god-like pity in you I extol; And more, because, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... to his lip and found it bleeding. He showed her what she had done. She drew back, and regarded him with mingled pity ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... pity, Christ, on Thy poor folk, For now the fields are desolate And misery and famine wait On all, the chimneys give no smoke— Our men have marched ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... confusing that she must postpone their consideration. She must postpone everything but her own tumultuous passion, which had to be faced and mastered instantly. She was fighting with herself, with her own wild inward cries of protest, anger, jealousy, and self-pity, trying to distinguish each from the others and to silence it by appeal to her years of romantic folly, when suddenly Wayne spoke, in the cheery tone of a man who has unexpectedly passed ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... remained with me you would have grown to be the most beautiful as well as the wittiest woman in the world. You would have known everything that is hidden in nature—everything that has been stored between the lids of all the books. It is a great pity!' ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... and the palace of the Doge himself was polluted by the presence of the dungeons. The princely edifice had its summer and winter cells. The reader may be ready to believe that mercy had dictated some slight solace for the miserable in this arrangement. But this would be ascribing pity to a body which, to its latest moment, had no tie to subject it to the weakness of humanity. So far from consulting the sufferings of the captive, his winter cell was below the level of the canals, while his summers were to be ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... kind of contemptuous pity in their faces the strong men stooped and unbound him; then, without another word, they left him, tramping solemnly away single file to their horses, ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... paddle with their hands. Three canoes, the crews of which tried to rescue their unfortunate friends, filled and sank, and all on board were drowned. The heads in the water became gradually fewer, and only a few men were still struggling for life when Dugumbe took pity on them and allowed twenty-one to be saved. One brave woman refused to receive help, preferring the mercy of the crocodiles to that of the slave-king. The Arabs themselves ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... the rest of us," Chapdelaine continued, "not without fault, of course, but kindly and well-living. God and the Holy Virgin will have pity on him." ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... answering prayer in the time of need." For the seventh he said, "He who answered David and Solomon his son in Jerusalem, He will answer you, and will hear the voice of your cry this day. Blessed be Thou, Lord, who hast pity on ...
— Hebrew Literature
... into a frenzy of folly. If the people themselves had not been influenced by passion cunningly played on by the smaller politicians in both sections, poor old John Brown would not have been regarded as a murderer by the South nor as a martyr by the North. He would have been an object of pity to the ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... the war with the avowed purpose of liberating those who are situated at a distance from us. While liberating distant strangers, why then do we oppress those who live close by our side? We wage war against tyranny outside of Russia, and we allow oppression to reign within her. We pity everybody ...
— The Shield • Various
... than reason. There are some antipathies which are implanted in us for warnings. Remember what a happy life you led with my dear father—his goodness, his overflowing generosity, his noble heart. There is no man worthy to succeed him, to live in his house. Dear mother, for pity's sake——" ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... human affairs. It must not be permitted to occupy more than its legitimate place and power in society, nor to have the liberty to desecrate the poetry of life, to deaden our sensitiveness to ideals, bragging of its own coarseness as a sign of virility. The pity is that when in the centre of our activities we acknowledge, by some proud name, the supremacy of wanton destructiveness, or production not less wanton, we shut out all the lights of our souls, and in that darkness our conscience and our consciousness of shame are hidden, and our love of freedom ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... not lost your voice, I should say, at all events," implied Glenn, somewhat touched with pity at his man's unequivocal distress, though he could scarce restrain his laughter when he viewed his grotesque posture. "What has become of your musket and ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... afraid, and had to fly for his life. Little Charles, Prince of Wales, was twelve, and Elizabeth, the younger girl, was seven, and there was a younger boy, Henry, Duke of Gloucester, only four years old. Henry was far the nicest of the boys, and it was a pity he could not be King; but you shall hear more ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... farcical side. Its tragic side is well illustrated by the droves of helpless and inarticulate barbarians driven into the shambles daily (as at Verdun) for the sole purpose of covering up the blunders of their very "efficient" superiors. One could pity the wretches if there were not so considerable a leaven of wickedness in ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... as to be below his down-stretched arm. Each, with a surely furtive gesture, reaches out her right hand, and attains the swelling calf of her noble husband's leg. Plump are their little faces, but not bad-looking. One cannot pity the king. Nor does one pity them. For these were not "Les desenchantees," the restless, sad-hearted women of an Eastern world that knows too much. Their longings surely cannot have been very great. Their world was probably ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... fired For fair Alexis, his own master's joy: No room for hope had he, yet, none the less, The thick-leaved shadowy-soaring beech-tree grove Still would he haunt, and there alone, as thus, To woods and hills pour forth his artless strains. "Cruel Alexis, heed you naught my songs? Have you no pity? you'll drive me to my death. Now even the cattle court the cooling shade And the green lizard hides him in the thorn: Now for tired mowers, with the fierce heat spent, Pounds Thestilis her mess of savoury herbs, Wild thyme and garlic. I, with none beside, Save ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil
... from the wife, and the father torn from his only child. To console him for the fairest and largest empire that ambition ever lorded it over, he had, with the mock name of emperor, a petty isle, to which he was to retire, accompanied by the pity of such friends as dared express their feelings, the unrepressed execrations of many of his former subjects, who refused to regard his present humiliation as an amends for what he had made them suffer during his power, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... things! You are learning easily, Siddhartha, thus you should also learn this: love can be obtained by begging, buying, receiving it as a gift, finding it in the street, but it cannot be stolen. In this, you have come up with the wrong path. No, it would be a pity, if a pretty young man like you would want to tackle it in such ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... He grew lank and thin, and stuttered and limped more painfully than before, and was in the last stage of privation and distress; when the benevolent proprietor of Nigg, who resided half the year in a town-house in Cromarty, took pity upon him, and introduced him to his kitchen. And in a few days Jock was singing and limping errands with as much energy as ever. But the time at length came when his new benefactor had to quit his house in town for his seat in the country; ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... quite understand me—you do not quite read my motive in talking to you to-night. I am not here in any sense to reprove you. You are either guilty of this sin, or you are not guilty. In either case I pity you; it is very hard, very bitter, to be falsely accused—I pity you much if this is the case; but it is still harder, Annie, still more bitter, still more absolutely crushing to be accused of a sin which we are trying to conceal. In that terrible case God Himself hides ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... who read this will be generous enough to consider the peculiar state of the case, and mingle a little pity with their contempt. ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... terrified them that they perverted the law to suit the design of the Executive." If his Lordship believed this groundless calumny, his ignorance concerning the United States would be subject of pity. If his Lordship did not believe it, the just accusation against him is too serious to be stated in ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... looked behind those closed doors he could not have failed to have experienced a feeling of pity for the man; for if ever a human being went down into the valley of humiliation, Gerald Goddard sounded its uttermost depths, while he battled alone with all the powers of evil ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... or superior intellect. If this is not the case, the husband easily falls under the petticoat government, or indifference and antipathy may develop in the wife, at least if misfortune or illness in the husband does not excite her pity and transform her into ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... visitors. He declared to me that fifteen thousand people came to the island each summer, generally in large railway and steamboat excursions, which gives him an easily-acquired income sufficient for his needs. It is a pity that so famous a place is not a ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... Roman party in the Anglican Church and the Anglican party in the Roman Church," said Mark, "It seems a pity that some kind ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... matey, when all's said. But you're English, anyway; that seems a pity. Why don't yer run 'ome ter yer ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... might beseem If that, of Heaven so loved and eulogized, Should hold me not in its captivity. Leave, oh leave me, every other wish, Cease, fretting thoughts, and give me peace; Why draw me forth from looking at the sun, From looking at the sun that I so love. You ask in pity, wherefore lookest thou On that, on which to look is thy undoing? Wherefore so captivated by that light? And I will say, because to me this pain Is dearer than all other ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... word and on the whole his saddest. Yet the final effect of great art is never sad. The sense of greatness transcends all pain. In the preface of Samson Milton alludes to Aristotle's remark that it is the function of tragedy to effect through pity and fear a proper purgation of these emotions. Whatever be the precise meaning of that famous and disputed sentence, there is no doubt that Milton gives part of its general import truly enough when he paraphrases it "to temper and reduce them to just ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... of truth which must be spoken must ever regulate the manner in which it is spoken? Again, I bid you picture to yourselves a person entering a family whose members were rejoicing in the thought of a father's return, and announcing the intelligence of that father's death, with a smile of pity or a sneer of contempt at their ignorant happiness! Imagine such a one professing to be actuated by a mere love of truth! Oh! if the terrible duty has been laid upon any one with a human heart, of announcing to others intelligence which, if true, must leave a blank to ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... of God,—all that keeps, and is designed by God to keep our hearts up amid the labours and the faintings, the hopes and the fears of the spiritual life. All that keeps us at the least and the worst above famine and beggary. Now, the whole pity with Little-Faith was, that though he was not a bad man, yet he never, even at his best days, had much of those things that make a good and well-furnished pilgrim; and what little he had he had now clean lost. He had never been much ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... 2 Pity my languishing estate, And ease the sorrows that I feel; The wounds thine heavy hand hath made, O let thy ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... Still yelling bloody murder, he contrived a most audacious wink with the eye next to me, but he tumbled off slowly, and then I hastened to help the chevalier to his feet. He was a sorry spectacle, and I saw mademoiselle's look of suppressed amusement change to pity and concern. Blood was gushing from his nose all over his fine clothes, and his face was so begrimed and gory it would have been impossible to guess ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... the power of nature; when he endeavoured, like other tragick writers, to catch opportunities of amplification, and instead of inquiring what the occasion demanded, to shew how much his stores of knowledge could supply, he seldom escapes without the pity or ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... the row, from door to door, and from group to group. The first feeling was everywhere one of relief that it was not their turn this time; then there was a chorus of pity for the widow. "It will go hard with her," was the general verdict. Then the little groups broke up, and went back to their work of getting ready for the return of their husbands from the pit at two o'clock. One or two only, of those most intimate ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... When she left the house, he followed. When she bent over the ash-strewn fireplace, or washed the few plain dishes, he sought to share her employment; and, when gently, lovingly repulsed, sat dully, with his yearning eyes riveted upon her. Rosendo saw him, and forgot his own sorrow in pity for ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... arts of peace seems to have been coincident with an advance in sensualism; indecency in apparel was common, polygamy increased, woman lost her former degree of purity; cruelty and barbarism were more and more common in war; taxation bore heavily and without pity upon the lower orders, and the wretched fellahin were beaten by the severest of tyrants, the irresponsible tax-gatherer; women as well as men were stripped for the indignity and pain of the terrible bastinado; and even dead enemies were mutilated for the ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... I must say of JEFFREY as Sir ANDREW AGUECHEEK saith, "an I had known he was so cunning of fence, I had seen him damned ere I had fought him." What a pity it is that I shall be beyond the Bosphorus before the next number has passed the Tweed! But I yet hope to light my pipe with it ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... were asked who of all the Greeks had done them most harm. They answered in favour of Odysseus, who accordingly received the armour. Thereupon Ajax fell into a frenzy of rage, and slew himself. When Odysseus saw him, and marked his unforgiving mood, he was filled with remorse and pity, and strove to soften his resentment with gentle words. "Ah! son of Telamon," he said, "canst thou not forgive me, even here? Sorely the Argives mourned thee, and heavy was the loss brought on them by thy rash act. Thou wast a very tower of strength to the host, and we wept for thee as ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... eastern side, under his booth woven of boughs, watching, waiting, hoping (apparently) that the doom which he had announced would come, in spite of the people's repentance. God was more merciful than man. He had pity on the "great city," with its "six score thousand persons that could not discern between their right hand and their left," and, sparing the penitents, left their town to stand unharmed ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... is best that you should go, for that and no other is the price you must pay if you would win my daughter Elissa. Should you seek to do so by other means, I tell you that neither your high rank nor the power of my rule and friendship, nor pity for your youth and hers, can save you both from death, since to forgive you then would be to bring down the wrath of its outraged gods upon Zimboe. Oh! Prince, for your own sake and for the sake of her whom both you and I love thus dearly, linger no longer in temptation, but turn your back ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... he, "that the wild prairieman's rifle was a capital good one, as good a one as ever killed a bear, he tho't it a pity that it should fall into bad hands, so went to secure it himself, although the frontispiece of its dead owner warn't very invitin'. But when he stooped to take the gun, he got such a shove as knocked him backwards, and on getting up, he saw the prairieman openin' his jacket and examinin' ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... back, and alighted at a corner of Mrs. Alderling's mouth, making it look, oddly enough, rather rueful. "It didn't matter about me. I thought it a pity that Alderling's talent should ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... Risler a very entertaining companion; but that did not prevent the young woman from welcoming him kindly. She knew all that was said about Sidonie in the factory; and although she did not believe half of it, the sight of the poor man, whom his wife left alone so often, moved her heart to pity. Mutual compassion formed the basis of that placid friendship, and nothing could be more touching than these two deserted ones, one pitying the other and each trying ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... (bandeau glace) upon "their forehead, but hatred against Louis burns and "devours us. Judges reject severe opinions, but we "publish with pride the rigour of our judgments. "Judges mitigate the horror of a condemnation by "the expression of pity, but our aversion pursues "Louis even under the axe of the executioner. From "hence I conclude that we are not judges, and that "I cannot vote but for ...
— Historical Epochs of the French Revolution • H. Goudemetz
... anything livelier than a township cattle show, or a Sunday-school picnic, in her life. They don't pay visits in the country except at rare intervals, and their evening parties, when they have any, are something to strike you dead with pity. They used to clear away the corn-husks and pumpkins on the barn floor, and dance by the light of tin lanterns. At least, that's the traditional thing. The actual thing is sitting around four sides of the room, giggling, whispering, looking at photograph ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells |
