"Pity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... trusting, so unsuspicious, that a feeling of pity came to the young hunter. The animal suggested his own little sister, for it was wandering through the unfriendly woods, with none to protect it ...
— The Daughter of the Chieftain - The Story of an Indian Girl • Edward S. Ellis
... natural that a nature so sweet and sympathetic should be awakened to pity for the one member of the gay household who seemed cut off from the rest, and who certainly at the time existed under a darker cloud ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... her about Isaac; he said he had been observing him and thought it a great pity that such a fine, intelligent boy should be allowed to grow up without learning his letters. She agreed that it was, but what could she do? The village school was kept by an old woman, and though she taught the children very little ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... triumphant foeman. And then in one sudden, awful moment he realized that the Indian was reaching for his knife. Another instant it gleamed aloft in the moonlight, and the poor lad shut his eyes against the swift and deadly blow. Curses changed to one wordless prayer to heaven for pity and help. He never saw the glittering blade go spinning through the air. Vaguely, faintly he heard a stern young voice ordering "Hold there!" then another, a silvery voice, crying something in a strange tongue, and was conscious that an unseen power had loosed ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... morning, others in the glare of noon, more in the evening, and the most important class of big, exquisitely lovely ones only at night. This explains why so many people never have seen them, and it is a great pity, for the nocturnal, non-feeding moths are birdlike in size, flower-like in rare and complicated colouring, and of downy, ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... train me to this woe! Deceitful arts that nourish discontent! Ill thrive the folly that bewitch'd me so! Vain thoughts, adieu! for now I will repent; And yet my wants persuade me to proceed, Since none take pity of a ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... story at which she had hinted. Take these, and the fact that in his madness Arsdale had actually made an attack upon the girl and upon himself, similar to those outside the house, and the chain was a strong one. The pity of it—coming now! ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... looked on with such a face as Iago might have worn had he felt the jealousy of Othello. For the first time he positively knew that the woman he loved was violently in love with another. He suffered so horribly that we should be bound to pity him, only that he suffered after the fashion of devils, his malignity equalling his agony. While he was in such pain that his heart ceased beating, his fingers curled like snakes around the handle of his revolver. Nothing ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... and stood for an instant looking at Olga. He showed that he, too, had suffered during the night. His face was white and drawn. When he saw Olga standing there, a mute statue of despair, he was filled with pity for her and self-abasement. He stepped quickly to her side, caught her hands ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... stood listening till the noise died away. Then she sank all limp in a chair and began to cry. There was wrath in her sobs, and bitter self-pity. She had made a fine tragedy scene, but the glory of it was short. She did not regret it, but an immense dreariness had followed on her heroics. Was there ever, she asked herself, ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... his brother in a request for the highest places in the new kingdom. This is only one of the evidences of John's humanness,—that he was of like passions with the rest of us. Jesus treated the brothers with gentle pity—"Ye know not what ye ask." Then he explained to them that the highest places must be reached through toil and sorrow, through the paths of service and suffering. Later in life John knew what the Master's words meant. He found his place nearest to Christ, ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... went on in the same semi-serious tone. "And then I ought to have it always ready to clasp in my dying hand, where Joseph would find it and wipe away a furtive tear as he buried me. It is a pity. I am afraid I inherited nothing from my ancestors ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... longer; so she gave in and I caught the first preacher that happened to be hanging around and he soon pronounced us one and the same kind—something of the same sort. Go right down that street and you'll see calico on my clothes line most any time. Say, it will be a pity if they hang that young fellow. And I'll tell you what I'll do. If they send anything off to any of the newspapers I'll spell his name wrong. Get even with them some way, won't we? Yonder comes my boy and I reckon there's a call for me at the office. They are rushing me now—seems ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... What is the true object of the drama? If, as has been asserted, the object of the drama be the exhibition of the human character,—if, agreeably to Aristotle, tragedy purifies the affections by terror and pity,—or if, according to a recent writer, it interests us through the moral and religious principles of our nature,—or even if, according to Dr. Johnson, it be the province of comedy to bring into view the customs, manners, vices, and the whole character of a people,—it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... as before, and thirty ambassadors came to Scipio from Carthage. These behaved in a manner even more calculated to excite compassion than the former, in proportion as their situation was more pressing; but from the recollection of their recent perfidy, they were heard with considerably less pity. In the council, though all were impelled by just resentment to demolish Carthage, yet, when they reflected upon the magnitude of the undertaking, and the length of time which would be consumed in the siege of so well fortified and strong a city, while Scipio ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... how I pity them husbands of her'n. Bet their graves felt good when they got into 'em, the hull seven graves. What with sneerin' at medicines and things a person eats, it must have been awful, not to mention stealin' of keys and a-lockin' ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... seconded this appeal, and the mothers who stood by wept with pity, their tears moving the people even more than the words ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... the Christian faith, the repetitions of its forms could seem but a mere idle mummery. He suffered, not for having outraged Heaven, but for having outraged his own conscience an agony of self-humiliation which must be to him a living death. Then again there awoke in Olive's heart a divine pity; and once more she dared to pray that this soul, in which was so much that was true and earnest, might not be cast out, but ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... minutes run, no amount of dieting, humoring or whipping affected her. She'd set out to shirk, and shirk she did—till he worked her off on a damned fool Dolores had fortunately introduced him to—only wives can't be handed on like mares—"Devil's the pity"—Sir Peter said to himself, as he fell off to sleep. "Works ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... she wished she deserved his commendation. But she was not one to do things by halves, and so, recklessly throwing aside her qualms, she said laughingly, "I don't think a gentleman of your inches at all an object of pity. You are big enough to take care ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... hast inough to doe, We pity thy enduring, 250 For they are there infected soe, That ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... the Associate Synod, then the secession of 1752 and the establishment of the Relief Synod, and finally the great secession of 1843 and the establishment of the Free Church. Only two years have elapsed since we saw, with mingled admiration and pity, a spectacle worthy of the best ages of the Church. Four hundred and seventy ministers resigned their stipends, quitted their manses, and went forth committing themselves, their wives, their children, to ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... he wrote, "some families of these unfortunate creatures. They are gradually approaching the villages from which prejudice has banished them. The side-doors by which they were formerly obliged to enter the churches are useless, and some degree of pity mingles at length with the contempt and aversion which they formerly inspired; yet I have been in some of their retreats where they still fear the insults of prejudice and await the visits of the compassionate. I have found among them the poorest beings perhaps that exist ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... Mackenzie. So tells her all their usage in his house, and that he slept with his doggs and sat with his hounds, wherat the Queen leugh mirrily (whatever her thoughts was of M'Kenzie) and said 'It were a pity of his poverty, ffor he is the best and honestest among them all.' The Queen thereafter having called all the gentry of Ross to hold their lands of the Crown in feu, Mackenzie got (by her favour and his pretended poverty) the easiest feu, and for his ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... imagination to-day in the service of Catholic ideas is certainly Paul Claudel. I pass by here the series of dramas, where a Catholic inspiration as fervent as Calderon's is enforced with Elizabethan technique and Elizabethan violence of terror, cruelty, and pity.[19] From the ferocious beauty of L'Otage turn rather to the intense spiritual hush before the altar of some great French church at noon, where the poet, not long after the first decisive check of the invaders ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... the march of great events, he is studying history in the making, and all he sees is of interest. Were it not of interest he would not have been sent to report it. He watches men acting under the stress of all the great emotions. He sees them inspired by noble courage, pity, the spirit of self-sacrifice, of loyalty, and pride ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... whole world, which no longer seemed to have any delight for me. I threw myself on the grave of my deceased love, and lay there without any kind of sustenance for two whole days. At last hunger, together with the persuasions of some people who took pity on me, prevailed with me to quit that situation, and refresh myself with food. They then persuaded me to return to my post, and abandon a place where almost every object I saw recalled ideas to my mind which, as they said, I should endeavor with my utmost force to expel ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... be firm only. Several of these magistrates have laid on too heavy a hand, because they were not acquainted with the people of Paris; a people of quick feeling, but not ferocious[2], whose motions are to be divined, and consequently easy to be led. Whoever should be void of pity in that post, would be ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... praise (Only of dearth and pestilence should be our fears;) And now behind us are the green, regretted days. The water in the desert is our tears. Then ye, who at the waters drink Of Freedom, oh with Pity think On us, who face the desert brink Your ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... have chosen a more imposing personage from the annals of crime. There have been deeds which required audacity, a sort of grandeur, a false heroism; there have been criminals who held in check all the regular and legitimate forces of society, and whom one regarded with a mixture of terror and pity. There is nothing of that in Derues, not even a trace of courage; nothing but a shameless cupidity, exercising itself at first in the theft of a few pence filched from the poor; nothing but the illicit gains and rascalities of a cheating shopkeeper and vile money-lender, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... ladies at the rectory. During the days of her persecution she had been silent and apparently hard;—but now she was again gentle, yielding, and soft. "I do like her manner, all the same," said Minnie. "Yes, my dear. It's a pity that it should be as it is to be, because she is very nice." Minnie loved her friend, but thought it to be a thing of horror that her friend should marry a tailor. It was almost as bad as the story of the Princess who ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... "She must and shall be mine!" or, if not making his exit, but remaining in centre of stage to assist in forming a picture, he exclaims, with fiendish glee, "Now, pretty one, you are in my power!" and so forth. 'Tis a great pity that such a penny-plain-and-two-pence-coloured scoundrel should have been allowed so strong a part among Mr. HARDY's excellent and unconventional dramatis personae. Even the very, very strong ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 27, 1892 • Various
... when JOHNNIE is concerned. Sir EDWARD CLARKE, as we learnt from the speeches made by himself, Mr. IRVING, and Mr. TOOLE, seems to have been at school with all the leading Actors; and it was a miracle that he escaped the attractions of the sock and buskin. Pity that the song, "When we were boys, Merry merry boys, When we were boys together," had not been arranged as a trio for them. JOHNNIE was in his best form; very detached, casual, and uncommonly funny. Lord ROSEBERY apologised ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... "Pity! Those people will make all they can out of it. The Baron told me at breakfast that Mrs. Rogers had asked him to join their party at the ...
— Under the Southern Cross • Elizabeth Robins
... afford your wonted solace to the widow and orphan; yet beware that your pity does not lead you to seek to set aside the laws even for these. Oh, most holy men, banish to the home of all other unclean spirits violence, avarice, hatred, rapine; and root out from among your people luxury, which is the depopulator of the human race. Let the Bishop teach, that the ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... I do freely and from the bottom of my soul, forgive all who have ever done me any wrong, and particularly those who, since my sorrowful imprisonment, have cruelly aspersed me, earnestly entreating all who in my life-time I may have offended, that they would also in pity to my deplorable state, remit those offences to me with a ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... The brig then made sail after us. Long before she came up to us, the Malay vessel, with her crew of savage desperadoes, had followed her consort to the bottom of the ocean. Dreadful as was their fate, they had, from their numerous atrocities, so richly deserved it, that no one could pity them. We next had to look-out for ourselves. The same sanguinary scene that we had witnessed at a distance was now to be enacted on board our vessel. As we kept right ahead of the brig, her bow chasers only could reach ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... struck more keenly than at first with the contrast between the utter limpness of his lower limbs and the bright activity of the rest of the boy. For an instant, her heart gave a quick thump, half of pity, half of loyalty and protecting affection. Then she laid her hands on the bar ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... catalogue of sins comes the tremendous sentence. Daniel speaks like an embodied conscience, or like an avenging angel, with no word of pity, and no effort to soften or dilute the awful truth. The day for wrapping up grim facts in muffled words was past. Now the only thing to be done was to bare the sword, and let its sharp edge cut. The inscription, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... gate) looked at Pink earnestly, and then gave him a guinea, saying at the time, "I know what it is to be in your situation. You are a schoolboy, and you have run away from your school. Well, I was once in your situation, and I pity you." The kind gownsman, who wore a velvet cap with a silk gown, and must, therefore, have been what in Oxford is called a gentleman commoner, gave him an address at some college or other, (Magdalen, he fancied, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... world appears When far each selfish care is driven; Soft Pity! dry not yet thy tears— They make dark ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 473., Saturday, January 29, 1831 • Various
... to keep Her Majesty in countenance. I wonder if your Majesty has read the speech the King has addressed to his people on the occasion of the Enthuellung and the Crown Prince's birthday. It cannot fail to excite the greatest pity that such things, however well meant, should be written. Has your Majesty also heard of the pamphlet that has been published here called Das Welfe—that name Welfe is quite an idee fixe of the King now, and he brings it in on every occasion, and this ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... deliberate but if we open our gates without conditions, and previous to the arrival of Alexander, Wellington and the Bourbons will make a jest of their promises, and oblige us to submit to the will of the conqueror without pity. Besides, why should we despair of the safety of France? Is the loss of a single battle, then, to decide the fate of a great nation? Have we not still immense resources, to oppose to the enemy? Have the federates, the national guard, and all true Frenchmen, ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... lived alone, industrious, and so economical as to excite the mirth or the pity of his rough neighbors. Some who heard that he had loaned $60,000 to a water company at 12 per cent. interest, regarded him contemptuously as a miser. How else explain his shabby clothes, his old rubber boots, that were out at the toes, his life of toil and self-denial? ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... the Veda in consequence of his repeated recitation of those scriptures. If censuring the duties of kings thou wouldst lead a life of idleness, then, O bull of Bharata's race, this destruction of the Dhartarashtras was perfectly uncalled for. Are forgiveness and compassion and pity and abstention from injury not to be found in anybody walking along the path of Kshatriya duties? If we knew that this was thy intention, we would then have never taken up arms and slain a single creature. We ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... whose fate afterwards extorted pity from the most prejudiced spectators of his fate, was educated in the principles of the Scottish Church. These, as the chaplain who attended Lord Kilmarnock in the last days of his existence observes, are far from ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... it seldom happens that their renown in life was unattended with reverses equally signal—that the popularity of to-day was not followed by the persecution of to-morrow: and in these vicissitudes, our justice is no less appealed to than our pity, and we are called upon to decide, as judges, a grave and solemn cause between the silence of a departed people, and ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... our world with conquests of romance; he has recut and reset a thousand ancient gems of Greece and Rome; he has roused our patriotism; he has stirred our pity; there is hardly a human passion but he has purged it and ennobled it, including "this of love." Truly, the Laureate remains the most various, the sweetest, the most exquisite, the most learned, the most Virgilian of all English poets, and we may pity the ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... purposes. I have found them quite invaluable—asking no questions, minding their own business, keen to obey my instructions to the letter. I have already instructed them about you, my child. I trust you will be careful not to provoke them; it'd be a pity ... you're rather ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... boat for reasons of our own. We wish to look it over at our leisure. Your sea anchor saved you, that and good seamanship. Miss Burrell, it is a pity you are not a man. You would be commanding a ship in a few years. I think we had better transfer you now. ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... O'Brien, however, was for some years thought, by those who could see only the outward man, to be happy; and it was not till the derangement of his affairs became public that the world began at once to pity and blame him. He had a lucrative place, but he was, or thought himself, obliged to live in a style suited to it; and he was not one shilling the richer for his place. He endeavoured to repair his shattered ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... side. The vessel drops down the harbor, and the family stand on the wharf straining their eyes to catch the last look from the departing maiden, who leans on the bulwark and answers the silent and sorrowful faces with a heavenly smile of love and pity. Even during the long and tedious voyage Elizabeth never wept. Her sense of duty controlled every other emotion of her soul, and she maintained her martyr-like cheerfulness and serenity ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... youth was gone! Cramped and diminished, Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon! "My dance is finished?" {40} No, that's the world's way; (keep the mountain-side, Make for the city!) He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride Over men's pity; Left play for work, and grappled with the world Bent on escaping: "What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled? Show me their shaping, Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage,— Give!"—So, he gowned him, ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... were striking eleven) came blinking in upon him he was muttering—"Let me go, let me go. I killed him, I tell you. I'm glad I killed him. . . . Oh! Let me alone! For pity's sake let me alone! I can't confess! Don't you see that I can't confess? There's Margaret. I must keep her—-afterwards when she knows me better ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... pounds fifteen.—Is that the lowest?"—"O, yesh: I don't gain five shillings by the whole deal."—"Well, then, do you take the case of my gold watch, and weigh it, and give me the produce of it."—"Let ush see: it's vary pretty, but not vary heavy; it's all fashion you see: indeed, it's a great pity to part, the vatch and the caish; watches are a drug now, or else I'd buy it; but just to oblige you, I'll see what I can give."—"Don't trouble yourself, Mosey; just do as you are bid: you take the outside case, and I'll keep ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - No. 291 - Supplement to Vol 10 • Various
... requested that the stage be ordered for the noon train. She said that she was sorry, but was ill, and feared lest she might be worse, and she felt that she must return home at once. She looked ill, and could not take even the toast and tea which Sophia had prepared for her. Sophia felt a certain pity for her, but it was largely mixed with indignation. She felt that she knew the true reason for the school-teacher's illness and sudden ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... shell was jerked into the town. Kenilworth was loudly barked at for an hour; and the correspondent of the London Times, while driving in the suburb, narrowly escaped being bitten. But no cattle were hit; that was the pity of it. We could have forgiven the Boers much had they only killed the oxen, and provided us with something rational to eat, in spite of ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... my departure upon this business, and the kind of presentiment which I have, that I may not see you again, has forced it from me. In a few days I leave you—be gentle with me for my involuntary offence—pity me while you condemn, and I will ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... soft star that in the azure East Trembles with pity o'er bright bleeding day Was his frail soul. [Footnote: A ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... came a light, and Josephine moving about quietly, and putting away the clothes that had been left on the floor. Kate was not afraid of her, but her caressing consolations and pity would have only added to the miserable sense of shame; so there was no sign, no symptom of being awake, though it was certain that before Josephine went away, the candle was held so as to cast a light over all that was visible of the face. Kate could not help ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... must not sound harshly in your ears, since it leaves my fate as well as yours entirely in your hands. To feel certain of my love, do you want to see me kneeling before you like a simpleton, crying and entreating you to take pity on me? No, madam, that would certainly displease you, and it would not help me. I am conscious of being worthy of your love, I therefore ask for that feeling and not for pity. Leave me, if I displease you, but let me go away; for if you are humane enough to wish that I should ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... be put to the score of that pity for Bobus, which Babie in her caprice had begun to dwell on, most inconsistently with her former gaiety; but her mother attributed it to an unconfessed reluctance to meet Lord Fordham again, and a sense that the light thoughtlessness to which she had clung ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Calthon. When quite young their father was murdered by Dunthalmo, who came against him by night, and killed him in his banquet hall; but moved by pity, he brought up the two boys in his own house. When grown to manhood, he thought he observed mischief in their looks, and therefore shut them up in two separate cells on the banks of the Tweed. Colmal the daughter of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... still coaxed Damaris' hand, calmly, soothingly. And she lay very still watching him; but with half-closed eyes, striving to prevent the tears which asked so persistently to be shed. For her heart went out to him in a new and over-flowing tenderness, in an exalted pity almost maternal. Never had she felt him more attractive, more, in a sense, royally lovable than in this hour of weariness, of ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... at you! You might be a heathen savage for all you got on your back—get into some duds this instant!" Cavendish was on his knees again beside Yancy, and Polly, by a determined effort, rid herself of the children. "Why, he's a grand-looking man, ain't he?" she cried. "La, what a pity!" ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... blessed rest and a surcease from this agony of life as had this Frenchman, who of all the naked wretches about me, was the only one with whom I had any sort of fellowship. He had died (as I say) with the dawn, so quietly that at first I thought he but fainted and pitied him, but, when I knew, pity ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... "I'm not a crank on children, seein' most o' them's muckers an' trouble from mornin' to night, but if it 'ad pleased the Lord as I should wed, I shouldn't 'a wished for a better specimen of a babe than Tom's kiddie. Pity ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... he overstepped the laws, I pity rather than condemn him. He may be compared to that Maeandrius of Samos, of whom Herodotus saith, in his Thalia, that, wishing to be of all men the most just, he was not able; for after the death of Polycrates he offered freedom to the people; and not till certain of them threatened to call him ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... not read them, because I have the key to them in my own heart, Claude: because conscience has taught me to feel for the Southerner as a brother, who is but what I might have been; and to sigh over his misdirected courage and energy, not with hatred, not with contempt: but with pity, all the more intense the more he scorns that pity; to long, not merely for the slaves' sake, but for the masters' sake, to see them—the once chivalrous gentlemen of the South—delivered from the meshes of a net ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... is more than a pity; it is a national shame." Is there not patriotism enough in our land to keep that shrine sacred ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... into Zu-Vendis. One day he asked me if we had any religion in our country, and I told him that so far as I could remember we had ninety-five different ones. You might have knocked him down with a feather, and really it is difficult not to pity a high priest of a well-established cult who is haunted by the possible approach of one or all ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... abdomen, and these were now masses of squirming worms. It was so much worse than the usual forms of suffering, that quite a little crowd of compassionate spectators gathered around and expressed their pity. The sufferer turned to one ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... to have overlooked some of these points altogether. You need not pity us for lack of water, as I have heard you doing, for we have an ample supply for many centuries to come; especially as we can purify water which has been used for general purposes, and store it up for ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... we find no record that the Duchess of Devonshire was amongst those who received his last sigh. His last words to Mrs. Fox and Lord Holland were, "God bless you, bless you, and you all! I die happy—I pity you!" ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... of being, in those dreadful words which he will live to repent of. She is wise enough to care for him, greatly, at bottom, and to feel her little heart filled with rage and shame that he does n't appear to care for her. If he would take her a little more seriously—it 's an immense pity he married her because she was silly!—she would be flattered by it, and she would try and deserve it. No, no, no! she does n't, in reality, care a straw for Captain Lovelock, I assure you, I promise ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... plantations which need the ditches cleared and new ones made to properly drain their farms. They could have given much work to these destitute people; but what have they done? Nothing. They say that it is a pity for the Negro to go away in such large numbers, and so it is, but that will not stop them. They have it in their power to stop them by making the Negro's ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards
... with an airy movement of feminine impertinence and mocking gayety. "I have often heard miserable little specimens of my sex regretting that they were women, wishing they were men; I have always regarded them with pity. If I had to choose, I should still elect to be a woman. A fine pleasure, indeed, to owe one's triumph to force, and to all those powers which you give yourselves by the laws you make! But to see you at our feet, saying and doing foolish things,—ah! it is an intoxicating ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... Noah, emboldened by Oliver's silence, and speaking in a jeering tone of affected pity: of all tones the most annoying: 'Yer know, Work'us, it can't be helped now; and of course yer couldn't help it then; and I am very sorry for it; and I'm sure we all are, and pity yer very much. But ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... off, and placed by ourselves under the shade of a rock, where several men were stationed as sentries over us. The officers with whom we had before been associating on friendly terms seemed to regard us with looks of pity, but they dared not speak to us. When the troops again marched we were guarded by two soldiers, who rode by our sides with drawn swords, while we were not allowed to address each other. The time occupied by that journey was the most miserable portion of my life. Hope had almost deserted me. All ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... with her children to her brother's house. But near the entrance his servants caught her and turned her out before she could eat anything. She went home sad and hungry and prayed to Shukra. Now the goddess had been pleased with her devotion and so took pity on her. She helped the poor woman's husband so that he rapidly acquired great wealth. When her husband had become very rich she asked her brother to dinner. But the brother remembered how he had treated her and was ashamed to accept. ...
— Deccan Nursery Tales - or, Fairy Tales from the South • Charles Augustus Kincaid
... then whatever befalls I shall have a clear conscience. Mejia is one of the bravest men I know. It is a pity he is so self-opinionated." ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... of it; and so we were bundled off to Scotland, coupled up like two pointers in a dog-cart, and—I can speak for one at least—with much the same uncordial feelings towards each other. I often, indeed, detected Francis looking at me with a singular expression, as of pity and anxiety, and once or twice he seemed disposed to enter on something respecting the situation in which we stood towards each other; but I felt no desire to encourage his confidence. Meantime, as we were called, by our father's directions, not brothers, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... hours. It was long enough to teach the lessons never to go on a military train in France without something to read, or to drink rashly from an aluminium cup containing hot liquid, or to rely on bully beef as a sole article of diet. Towards evening the Irishman in charge of the train had pity and took me along—we had stopped for the thirty-fifth time—to admire his Primus stove in full blast, and to share his excellent dinner. But (stove or no stove) the world is divided into those who can do that sort of thing and those who cannot; ...
— On the King's Service - Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms • Innes Logan
... that Ferdinand having repaid the money, borrowed by his father from Louis XI., to Charles VIII., the latter monarch returned it to Isabella, in consideration of the great expenses incurred by the Moorish war. It is a pity that this romantic piece of gallantry does not rest on any better foundation than the Curate of Los Palacios, who shows a degree of ignorance in the first part of his statement, that entitles him to little credit in the last. Indeed, the worthy curate, although much to be relied on for what ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... great self-emptying of our Lord's, such as the revelation in it to us of the very heart of God, and of the divinest thing in the divine nature, which is love, or such as the sympathy which is made possible thereby to Him, and which is not only the pity of a God, but the compassion of a Brother. Nor do I touch upon many other aspects which are full of strengthening and teaching. That grand thought that Jesus has shared our human poverty that we may share His divine riches is the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... worship. These were the times when she saw what at other moments she only repeated to herself—that all things are right, and that our personal trials derive their bitterness from our ignorance and spiritual inexperience. At these times she could not only pity all who suffered, but congratulate all who enjoyed, and could afford feelings of disinterested regard to Philip, and of complacency to Miss Bruce. She remembered that Miss Bruce was unconscious of having injured her—was possibly unaware even of her existence; and then she enjoyed the ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... fame, Though once they would have joyed my carnal sense: I shudder not to bear a hated name, Wanting all wealth, myself my sole defence. But give me, Lord, eyes to behold the truth; A seeing sense that knows the eternal right; A heart with pity filled, and gentlest ruth; A manly faith that makes all darkness light: Give me the power to labor for mankind; Make me the mouth of such as cannot speak; Eyes let me be to groping men, and blind; A conscience to the ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... and soul many times over. They had broken their allegiance, they had wantonly plundered and robbed castles and monasteries, and lastly, they had tried to cloak their dreadful sins with excuses from the Gospel. He therefore urged the government to put down the insurrection. "Have no pity on the poor folk; stab, ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... have it constantly upon my lips; above all, before taking an important step, when there are difficulties to be overcome, I will softly whisper the Invocation, which is the secret of all holy living! "JESUS, meek and humble of heart, have pity upon me." ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.
... expression. The whole episode of the fostering of Demophoon, in which over the body of the dying child human longing and regret are blent so subtly with the mysterious design of the goddess to make the child immortal, is an excellent example of the sentiment of pity in literature. Yet though it has reached the stage of conscious literary interpretation, much of its early mystical or cosmical character still lingers about the story, as it is here told. Later mythologists simply define the personal ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... through the narrow filthy street, out into the open country,—through a desert, and a forest; and it seemed as if poor Tiny would sing his very life away. For wherever those appeared who seemed to need the voice of human pity, or brotherly love, or any act of charity, the voice and Hand of Tiny were upraised. And every hour, whichever way he went, he found THE WORLD HAD ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... international affairs. And if illustration were wanted, let them remember the kind of triumphant satisfaction with which the failure of the Hague conferences to achieve any radical results was generally greeted, and the contemptuous and almost abhorring pity meted out to the people called "pacifists." Well, the war has come! We see now, not only guess, what it means. If that experience has not made a deep impression on every man and woman, if something like a conversion is not being generally operated, then, indeed, nothing ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson
... Norbert's wife. She opens her heart to Constance; tells her how she has yearned for love, and how she will repay it. Constance knows, as she never knew, what a mystery of pain and passion has been that outwardly frozen life; and in a sudden impulse of pity and compunction, she determines that if possible its new happiness shall be permanent—its ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... "It's a pity those murals couldn't have been tried out up there and then taken down and done over," said the architect. "But sometime they will find the place where they belong, perhaps in one of our San Francisco public buildings. They're too good not to have ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry
... I pity from the bottom of my heart any nation or body of people that is so unfortunate as to get entangled in the net of slavery. I have long since ceased to cherish any spirit of bitterness against the Southern white people on account of the enslavement of my race. No one section of our country ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington
... on the thin lips. Tchelkache was pleased with his success, with himself and with this lad, whom he had terrified into becoming his slave. He enjoyed in advance to-morrow's feast and now he rejoiced in his strength and the subjection of this young, untried boy. He saw him toil; he took pity on him and tried to ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... will give them kind treatment; and I shall do the same when men from Manila come to my country. This is in token of friendship, and if this is always observed, I shall be very glad, and likewise if you will have pity on the Burneys. I received two Burneys, whom the Spaniards had captured; they arrived at my court. And, inasmuch as your Lordship orders me, in your letter that I receive, to send any Sangleys that I might have here ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various
... knows what I have just confessed—not even Doctor Pool, though he suspects me in ways I never dreamed of. Money shall not stand in the way—I have a fortune of my own now—nothing shall stand in the way, if you will have pity on Mrs. Carew and myself and help us to preserve ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... princes as any Tartar would have done; and our military and naval expeditions to kill, burn, and destroy tribes and villages for knocking an Englishman on the head are so common a part of our Imperial routine that the last dozen of them has not called forth as much pity as can be counted on by any lady criminal. The judicial use of torture to extort confession is supposed to be a relic of darker ages; but whilst these pages are being written an English judge has sentenced ...
— Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion • George Bernard Shaw
... a pity, for there were times when Chrystie, caught in a contrite mood and questioned, would have told. Such times generally came when she was preparing for one of her walks. At these moments her adventure had a way of suddenly losing its glamour and appearing as ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... mother stopped to look; everybody stopped to look. On and on he ran till he came to the river, then he leaped into the deep water and was drowned. Was it not a pity? The pretty deer that Ernest had fed so often on Boston Common! He almost cried when he ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... was the mildest mannered man, That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat; With such true breeding of a gentleman, That you could ne'er discern his proper thought. Pity he loved an adventurous life's variety, He was so great a loss to ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... at him with sad eyes—reproachful, yet full of pity. She remembered his wild talk, semi-delirious some of it, all feverish and excited, during his illness, and how she had listened with aching heart to the ravings of one so near death, and so unfit to die. And ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... brown base—the latter much more common than the former; the one shining with a whitish, the other, with a yellowish lustre. The one is galena, a sulphuret of lead; the other, pyrites, a sulphuret of iron. These pyrites are very extensively diffused, and are said to be worth about L.2 a ton. Pity it is that even this trifle should be lost to the poor quarryman, who has only to lay them aside when wheeling away his rubbish till they accumulate to such a quantity as to be worth a purchaser's notice, but who does not know where ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... to the floor. "Here's Mrs. Bracken!" she cried in delight. "Isn't it a pity we didn't know she was coming? I could just as well have boiled another egg. But there's plenty of tea. It's like a party, isn't it? Except that we haven't any birthday candles. In Mifflin I always had candles on my birthday cake because ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... List, sweet maids, and you shall know: Understand this wilding was Once a bright and bonny lad [596] Who a sprightly springal loved, And to have it fully proved Up she got upon a wall Tempting to slide down withal: But the silken twist untied, So she fell: and, bruised, she died. Love, in pity of the deed, And such luckless eager speed, Turned her to this plant we call Now the 'Floweret of ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... might be called magnanimous and merciful. Of these wretches Hebert was perhaps the best representative. His favourite amusement was to torment and insult the miserable remains of that great family which, having ruled France during eight hundred years, had now become an object of pity to the humblest artisan or peasant. The influence of this man, and of men like him, induced the Committee of Public Safety to determine that Marie Antoinette should be sent to the scaffold. Barere ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Small pity for him!—He sailed away From a leaking ship, in Chaleur Bay,— Sailed away from a sinking wreck, With his own town's-people on her deck! "Lay by! lay by!" they called to him. Back he answered, "Sink or swim! Brag of your catch of fish again!" And off he sailed through the fog and ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... morn of passionate splendour, when So sweet the light, none but for bliss could weep, And then the strife, the toil; but we are men, Strong, brave to battle with the stormy deep; Then fear—and then renunciation—then Appeals unto the Infinite Pity—and sleep. ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... for the delightful little Journal {23b} which I had from you yesterday, and only wished to be a dozen times as long. The beautiful note at p. 73 speaks of much yet unprinted! It is a pity Mrs. Kemble had not read p. 79. I thought in the Night of 'the subdued Voice of Good Sense' and 'The Eye that invites you to look into it.' I doubt I can read, more or less attentively, most personal Memoirs: but I am equally ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... of Texas Press, Austin, 1935. Eloquent, liberating to the human mind; something rare for Texas scholarship. Pearce was professor of anthropology at the University of Texas, an emancipator from prejudices and ignorance. It is a pity that all the college students who are forced by the bureaucrats of Education—Education spelled with a capital E—"the unctuous elaboration of the obvious"—do not take anthropology instead. Collegians would then stand ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... friend with eye of sense or soul? * What! no one here? I cry to all: will none reply to me? The time is past that formed my life, my death term draweth nigh, * Will no man win the grace of God showing me clemency; And look with pity on my state, and clear my dark despair, * E'en with a draught of water dealt ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... afterwards he said, 'Lord Marchmont will call upon me, and then I shall call on Lord Marchmont.' Mrs. Thrale was uneasy at this unaccountable caprice: and told me, that if I did not take care to bring about a meeting between Lord Marchmont and him, it would never take place, which would be a great pity." ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... "God pity Elizabeth Prettyman!" ejaculated Lavendar to himself. "Might is Right still, apparently, at Stoke Revel!" Aloud he merely said, "A weak deference to public opinion was never a foible of yours, Mrs. ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... soldiers carrying Phillipson's best," he informed me, "I'll take a back seat and let young Jim Furman, who thinks I'm a has-been and he's the one white hope, begin to draw my pay. You can't beat those rifles. When the boys get to carrying them, old Francis Joseph's ghost'll weep. Pity, ain't it, we didn't get on board by noon?" he digressed sociably. "I could've found something to do ashore the four hours I've been twiddling my thumbs here, and I guess you could too. Hardest, though, on our friends the newspaper ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... flesh, he was likely to possess activity; and a haughty smile on his resolute face, which strongly contrasted with the solid heaviness of his enemy's, gave assurance to those who beheld it and united their hope to their pity; so that despite the disparity of their seeming strength, the cry of the multitude was nearly as loud for ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... to the lady he did not prefer. She refused him; and then future proceedings were determined by his friend's admiration of the letter he had got ready for Miss Milbanke. It was such a pretty letter, it would be a pity not to send it. So it ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... Cousin, in sheer delight. It is a pity there was no one there to see the shining of her eyes. She rested awhile among her pillows; but not long, for Dolly must have her table set for ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... of holy wedlock. Living in the same house is monotonous; but three removes, say the wise, are as bad as a fire. Locomotion is regarded as an evil by our Litany. The Litany, as usual, is right. 'Those who travel by land or sea' are to be objects of our pity and our prayers; and I do pity them. I delight in that same monotony. It saves curiosity, anxiety, excitement, disappointment, and a host of ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... woman has become a thorough prostitute. She has lost her refinement, and, it may be, has added drunkenness to her other sin, and has become full-mouthed and reckless. She has sunk too low to be fit for even such a place as this, and she is turned out without pity to take the next step in her ruin. Greene street, with its horrible bagnios, claims her next. She becomes the companion of thieves—perhaps a thief herself—and passes her days in misery. She is a slave to her employer, and is robbed of her wretched earnings. Disease and sickness are her lot, and ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... now too late; as I have no hope that Lord Powis will permit any more to be printed. There were indeed so very few, and but half of those for my share, that I have not it in my power to offer you a copy, having disposed of my part. It is really a pity that so singular a curiosity should not be public; but I must not complain, as Lord Powis has been so good as to indulge my request thus far. I am, Sir, Your much obliged humble servant, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... pity, O Lord, forgive, Let e'er repentant sinner live; Are not thy mercies large and free, May not a sinner trust ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... inhumanity of Rosen, but, being only second in command, could not venture to express publicly all that he thought. He however remonstrated strongly. Some Irish officers felt on this occasion as it was natural that brave men should feel, and declared, weeping with pity and indignation, that they should never cease to have in their ears the cries of the poor women and children who had been driven at the point of the pike to die of famine between the camp and the city. Rosen persisted during forty-eight hours. In that time many unhappy creatures perished: but ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... knight," Sir Launcelot called to his comrade who had not stirred. "It were pity that all this must be told to ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... in whose light I bloom'd And taken away the greenness of my life, The blossom and the fragrance. Who was cursed But I? who miserable but I? even Misery Forgot herself in that extreme distress, And with the overdoing of her part Did fall away into oblivion. The night in pity took away my day Because my grief as yet was newly born, Of too weak eyes to look upon the light, And with the hasty notice of the ear, Frail life was startled from the tender love Of him she brooded over. Would ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... arm thrown round her—were not very welcome to Lady Lucy. Her nature, imperious and jealously independent, under all her sweetness of manner, set itself against pity, especially from her juniors. She ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... didn't reach out for us with one of her long five-inch lads. But I see why pretty soon. In the clearing light a point of land shows up ahead of us, making out maybe a couple of miles to the windward of our course. We couldn't turn out, for here was the main shore and there was the gunboat. 'And a pity, too,' I says to Archie, 'with enough opium aboard to keep ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... to speak, I was greatly disappointed. He was tall, tall, oh, so tall, and so angular and awkward that I had for an instant a feeling of pity for so ungainly a man. He began in a low tone of voice, as if he were used to speaking out of doors and was afraid ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... looks upon the intents and motives of the heart, saw this poor, struggling soul trying to grope her way in the darkness, and determined to work out her own salvation, since she had no one to show her the true way. In His love and pity He had laid up a better inheritance for her, and in His own way, all unknown to her, He began to lay His plans for bringing her into contact with His children and the messengers of Peace. Slowly, but surely, all things worked together for her good, and for ...
— Everlasting Pearl - One of China's Women • Anna Magdalena Johannsen
... I see! You think because one woman's turned me down no one else will care to risk her happiness with me! Well, of course my value is considerably depreciated, no doubt; but after all, men are in the minority, and I daresay I'll be able to find some girl to take pity on me!" ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... that never-ceasing pity in her soul for Giles as a man whom she had wronged—a man who had been unfortunate in his worldly transactions; while, not without a touch of sublimity, he had, like Horatio, borne himself throughout ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... intelligence to make the best of it. She will look to the end of her every action and her every thought. Will brooding over her "rights," and the wrongs he has inflicted, mend them? Will it do anything but give her vanity—the satisfaction of self-pity? ...
— Three Things • Elinor Glyn |
