"Plight" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Everyone knows the plight our War Office was in re the supply of small arms ammunition at the beginning of the South African War. Early in 1899 I received two orders, large in their way, totalling some five million rounds, for ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... in an awkward plight," said he. "Yesterday, that well known collector, Prince Crescenzi, came to my studio. One of my pictures took his fancy, and he ordered another from me, for which he would pay six ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... at self-control, Ned's muscles trembled and he found it difficult to walk steadily. Assuming that his chums were in like plight, the lad summoned all his courage and reached out a reassuring hand to the others. The contact with his friends seemed to restore the equilibrium that had been Ned's most valuable asset in times of stress and danger in ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... for a moment gone, They lay in ghastly plight; Their fiery steed From burden freed, Maintained his ...
— The Adventure of Two Dutch Dolls and a 'Golliwogg' • Bertha Upton
... the Crow, who had missed the Deer upon returning that evening, and had sought for him everywhere, discovered him; and seeing his sad plight, exclaimed— ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... married man having wife and mother to support, (I mention this in order to properly convey my plight) conditions here are not altogether good and living expenses growing while wages are small. My greatest desire is to leave for a better place but am ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... news of fire and riot, mixed with reports of the military being called out and firing on the people, numbers being killed, &c. Fortunately there was much exaggeration in these tales, and by degrees most of the Birmingham men found their way home, though many were in sad plight through the outrageous behaviour of themselves and the "victorious" crew who went off so gaily with them in the morning. The elections in after years may ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... the storm-clouds from the author's sky. But in the unhappy days but lately passed away, the poet's lot was most miserable. His work brings him no livelihood; his patron's liberality goes but a little way. The historian is in no less parlous plight. The advocate makes some show of wealth, but it is, as a rule, the merest show; only the man already wealthy succeeds at the bar; many a struggling lawyer goes bankrupt in the struggle to advertise himself and push his way. The teacher of rhetoric and the school-master receive but a miserable fee, ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... then no gentlemen in all the world? Are you not a man yourself? Have you no pity for a woman in such plight as mine?" ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... all, Revealed or unrevealed, in heaven or earth, In how sad plight our city is, thy mind, If not thy eye, discerns. Prophet, in thee Resides our sole hope of deliverance. Phoebus, if thou hast not the tidings heard, Has to our envoys answered, that the plague Will never leave this city till we find The murderers of the late King Laius, And slay them or expel ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... gushing springs. I am come to take you, sir, before the officers of the Company aboard this ship, when, if you have aught to say for yourself, you may say it. I need not tell you, who saw so clearly some time ago the danger in which you then stood, that your plight is now ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... thin and sickly and seemed poverty-stricken enough to disarm hostility. Obviously, he was down on his luck. Had it not been for that indefinable self-reliant look which drovers—the Ishmaels of the bush—always acquire, one might have taken him for a swagman. His horse was in much the same plight. It was a ragged, unkempt pony, pitifully poor and very footsore, at first sight, an absolute "moke"; but a second glance showed colossal round ribs, square hips, and a great length of rein, the rest hidden beneath a wealth of loose hair. ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... that God, whom thou didst not adore, I do beseech thee (that this ill and worse I may escape) to lead me, where thou saidst, That I Saint Peter's gate may view, and those Who as thou tell'st, are in such dismal plight." ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... to make peace. Under the direction of a clever leader they organize a conspiracy for this purpose throughout all Greece, and at the same time gain possession in Athens of the fortified Acropolis. The terrible plight the men are reduced to by this separation gives rise to the most laughable scenes; plenipotentiaries appear from the two hostile powers, and peace is speedily concluded under the management of the sage Lysistrata. Notwithstanding ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... him. As soon as he reached the king's apartment, he began to cry out, and call for justice in a lamentable tone. The king ordered him to be admitted; and asked who it was that had abused and put him into that miserable plight. "Sire," cried Saouy, "it is the favour of your majesty, and being admitted into your sacred councils, that has occasioned me to be so barbarously treated." "Say no more of that," replied the king, "only let me hear the whole story simply, and who the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... they brought up the prisoners, all of them bound in chains and some wounded. But Cyrus when he saw their plight ordered the chains to be struck off, and sent for surgeons to dress their wounds, and then he told them that he came neither to destroy them nor to war against them, but to make peace between them and the Armenians. "I know," he said, "before your pass was taken you did not wish for peace. ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... indeed had so far very little precise knowledge of what his companion's feeling might be toward his own critical plight. He would have liked to get at it; for there was something in this winning, reserved girl that made him desire her good opinion. And yet he shrank ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... several streams must be crossed, and these were held in great dread, for if swimming became necessary, the plight of the little company, with the thermometer striking steadily below freezing point, would be pitiful indeed. The ranchman was resolved to save his wife and child from such an affliction, by constructing some kind of a raft, ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... his rhymes, and is probably one of the instances where death has saved a man from damnation. You were the ruin of that poor fellow amongst you: had it not been for his patrons, he might now have been in very good plight, shoe-(not verse-) making: but you have made him immortal with a vengeance. I write this, supposing poetry, patronage, and strong waters, to have been the death of him. If you are in town in or about the beginning of July, you will find me at ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... penned it in as good French as I could muster, begging Monsieur Foscue to communicate at once with his Eminence, telling him how I had been captured, and that my Letter of Credit had been taken from me, and of the Sorry Plight I was now in. I was given to understand that from Six to Nine Months must pass by before I could expect an Answer; for that Safe Conducts to Christian Packets between Algiers and Marseilles were only granted thrice a year, and the last was but just departed. Whereupon I resigned ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... life, felt the touch of the merciful hand and heard the sound of the loving voice, leading them, calling them back to God, back to the "beauty ever ancient and ever new." Such souls as these, it is true, constitute one class of erring, but repenting sinners; but there is another class whose plight is far more pitiable. They are those long-delayed, but finally repentant sinners, men and women who have lived their lives away from the Church and its sacraments, who have grown old and gray in the ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... marking on the bag, and their merriment equaled his own, while Tony alternately glowered and grinned. He had begun to think that somebody had cast on him the "evil eye," so dreaded by his countrymen, and he was relieved to find that his plight was due to natural causes. Yet the thought of all that wasted ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... it were out of the sky. It sank like lead. Thanks to the lifebuoys Underhill and the men rose quickly to the surface. Two of them, who could not swim, cried out despairingly for help. Underhill seized one and held him up; the other was saved by the promptitude of young Smith. Seeing their plight, he caught up a rope which had been brought ashore, and flung it among the group of men struggling in the water. The drowning man clutched it, the others swam to it, and by its aid all were drawn ashore, gasping for breath, and sorely battered ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... household. The whole squadron amounted to seventeen vessels, three of them of one hundred tons' burden each. With this gallant navy, Columbus, dropping down the Guadalquivir, took his departure from the bay of Cadiz, on the 25th of September, 1493; presenting a striking contrast to the melancholy plight, in which, but the year previous, he sallied forth like some forlorn knight-errant, on a ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... necessaries of life. There was no inn and no tent. We had either to sleep in our filthy open boat, or take our tents and everything with us. Goa is not healthy enough to sleep out al fresco. Fortunately a kind-hearted man, who was the agent of the steamers, and his wife, seeing the plight we were in, conceded us a small room in their house with their only spare bed. Luckily we had one of those large straw Pondicherry reclining-chairs, which I just bought from the captain of the steamer, ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... amends for all. Just the same soft white dress of the afternoon—or was it one like it?—with no ornaments, no bridal veil. I have always pitied men who have to plight their troth to a moving mass of lace and tulle, weighed down with orange-blossoms massive as lead. This was my own little wife as she would walk by my side through life, dressed as she might be the ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... wander'd to the gate, Where stood Alceste in sad weary plight, Sore press'd with sentience of her hapless fate, Weeping, nigh hopeless, in the pale moonlight. Tarried he there in strange delicious strait, Lapt in the wonder of his dreaming sight; Then opening wide his arms in raptured prayer, Her gentle ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... a dark night, Burning with ecstasies wherein I fell, Oh happy plight, Unheard I left the house wherein I dwell, The ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... cost of labor," replied Bince. "The same holds true of everybody else. Every manufacturer in the country is in the same plight ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... carried the day. Hall now got another man in Thorolf's place in the boat, and went on fishing as before. Thorolf was ill-contented with his lot, for he felt he had come to shame in their dealings together; yet he remained in the islands with the determination to set straight the humble plight to which he had been made to bow against his will. [Sidenote: Hall's death] Hall, in the meantime, did not fear any danger, and thought that no one would dare to try to get even with him in his own country. So one fair-weather ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... near correct, then you are entitled to my most hearty apology. Fred is a peculiar and high-strung boy, but I believe his impulses are right in the main. I will add that I believe his account of how he came to be in this strange plight. He took the car early this morning. I am just returning from a spin in our larger automobile. I saw my runabout at the edge of the road and it occurred to me to stop and see if my son were here. Is there anything more to be said about my son's ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... the habit of writing—whether they be sermons to hurl across your pews, or sonnets in the Spring—doubtless you have moments when you sit at your desk bare of thoughts. Mother Hubbard's cupboard when she went to seek the bone was not more empty. In such plight you chew your pencil as though it were stuff to feed your brain. Or if you are of delicate taste, you fall upon your fingers. Or in the hope that exercise will stir your wits, you pace up and down the room ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... press me for further particulars of the Amalgamated subscriptions. We all know the story of the comedian informed in the midst of a performance of his beloved wife's death, who yet must laugh and antic to the end of the play. I appreciated the heavy-hearted actor's plight as I surveyed the little throng so vitally interested in their dollar affairs. I longed to mount a chair and tell them how they had been duped, but my role called for different lines. It was my part to feign satisfaction and my duty ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... stag's horns in his mouth. He had swallowed the stag, but could not get the horns down; so he had to wait in patience with that uncomfortable mouthful till his stomach digested the body, and then the horns would drop out. In this plight the Dutchman found him as he was going in his canoe up the river, and sent a ball ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... the picket fence into a clump of castor beans, and stood in the dusk, trying to cover himself with the leaves, like Adam in the garden, talking commonplaces to Enid through chattering teeth, afraid lest at any moment she might discover his plight. ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... in peril and plight the knight travels on until Christmas-eve, and to Mary he makes his moan that she may direct him to some abode. On the morn he arrives at an immense forest, wondrously wild, surrounded by high hills on every side, ...
— Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight - An Alliterative Romance-Poem (c. 1360 A.D.) • Anonymous
... evening of the murder. Afterwards he attempts to speak positively, from recollecting that he mentioned the circumstance to William Peirce, as he went to the Mineral Spring on Fast-day. Last Monday morning he told Colonel Putnam he could not fix the time. This witness stands in a much worse plight than either of the others. It is difficult to reconcile all he has said with any belief in the ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... for the owl, nor his gloomy plight! The owl hath his share of good— If a prisoner he be in the broad daylight, He is lord in the dark greenwood! Nor lonely the bird, nor his ghastly mate, They are each unto each a pride; Thrice fonder, perhaps, since a strange, dark fate Hath rent them ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... on Ullr." He felt a brief sadistic pleasure as he watched Keaveney's face sag in horror. "On this planet, there's not more than a three months' supply of any sort of food a human can eat. And the ships that'll be coming in until word of our plight can get to Terra won't bring enough to keep us going. We need the farms and livestock and the animal-tissue culture plant at Konkrook, and the farms at Krink and on the plateau back of Skilk, and we need peace and native labor ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper
... and Dennis looked around vainly for some additional covering. The thronging fugitives were all in a similar plight, and their only course was simply to endure till some path of ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... author better than the beings of his imagining; but I can not help a little surprise, and perhaps amusement, at some odd critical exceptions in the present instance, when I see several bards in very reputable plight, and quite exempted from all participation in the faults of their heroes, who nevertheless might be found with little more morality than the Giaour; and perhaps—but no—I must admit Childe Harold to be a very repulsive ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... streets of Paris. He read Edouard Drumont's anti-Semitic journal "La France Juive" and said, "I have to thank Drumont for much of the freedom of my present conception of the Jewish problem." While he was in Paris he was stirred as never before by the feeling that the plight of the Jews was a problem which would have to have the cooperation of enlightened statesmanship. What excited him in the strangest way was the unaccountable indifference of Jews themselves to what seemed to him the menace of the existing situation. He saw the Jews in every ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... seemingly as old as the rock out of which it grew, climbing a conical hill, to dominate all the wide, white reaches above which it stood, like an armoured sentinel on a watch-tower. As I gazed, struck with admiration, which for an instant made me forget our plight, he began to push. The car, surprised at his strength and determination, half decided to move, then changed her mind and refused to budge. In a second, before he could guess what I meant to do, I had flashed out of my seat into the snow, and was wading in his tracks ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... Wood of New York. Buchanan's Vacillation. Treason all about Him. Star of the West Fired on. Inaction of Congress. Crittenden's Compromise Lost. Washington Peace Congress. Vain. Earnestness of South. Lincoln Inaugurated. His Address. How Received. His Difficult Task. Plight of Army, Navy, Treasury. Sumter Fired on. Defended. Evacuated. Effect at North. War Spirit. 75,000 Volunteers. The Sixth Massachusetts in Baltimore. Washington in Danger. General Scott's Measures. March ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... who sent him into his fields to feed swine,—thus doth he designate the most coarse and loathsome sin. When, after much labour, he had come to the utmost misery, and might not even fill his belly with the husks that the swine did eat, at last he came to perceive his shameful plight, and, bemoaning himself, said, 'How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... buskined hero standing under the load of them, could have more effectually moved his spectators, by the most pathetic speech, than poor miserable Nokes did, by this silent eloquence, and piteous plight of his features? ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... efficient organization of the national army was the work of the Jacobins, and while the Mountain was discredited in Paris, it was not so in the provinces; moreover, the army which was on foot and in the field was in the main a Jacobin army. Royalty was so hated by most Frenchmen that the sad plight of the child dauphin, dying by inches in the Temple, awakened no compassion, and its next lineal representative was that hated thing, a voluntary exile; the nobility, who might have furnished the material for a French House of Lords, were traitors ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... in this plight. We have said, "Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anger shut up his tender mercies?" From our prison-cell we send up the appeal to our Brother in the glory: "Help us; for if Thou leavest us to our fate, we shall question if ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... of wind did not last long, and the rain soon settled down into a steady drizzle, but we were in a sad plight. It was after nine o'clock before we had put ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... "Conceive, then, my plight, dear lady," he concluded, "when, on reaching London, I found that the few coins which remained to me had been left in the clothes which I gave to this Droop, and I have come hither to implore the temporary aid of ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... He had seen his friends married, and felt soured thereat. Thenceforth her way is marked by tears, by utter weakness, by a woful self-surrender. Threatened by her only God, her son, heart-broken at finding herself in a plight so unnatural, she falls desperate. She tries to drown all her memories in sleep. At length comes an issue for which neither of them can fairly account, an issue such as nowadays will often happen in the poorer quarters of large towns, where ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... into the kettle. Then he removed the outer blanket and succeeded in rolling the unconscious form nearer to the fire. When he uncovered the face he saw that the man was an Indian—a young buck of twenty-five or thirty, and he wondered the more at his plight. Removing the kettle from the fire, he set it beside him and succeeded in propping the Indian's head upon his knees. With a tin cup, he dipped some scalding tea from the kettle and allowing it to cool a little, dropped a small quantity between the man's ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... house, half-way to the monastery, I thought to obtain bread, but as I approached it twelve large brown mastiffs rushed out and assailed me. I was in a pitiable plight, warding them off with my stick, and did not escape without bites. I called for help, and some one then whistled from a window and called the dogs back. I don't fear dogs, but these were powerful animals, and withal a tremendous surprise. I must have had a bad time ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... capsule, receptacle, quiver, chest; event, happening, instance, circumstances, condition, affair, plight, predicament, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... of any of our Barham folk to aid a shipwrecked automobile. You drive them so heedlessly, young gentleman. I confess," she continued, judiciously, "that I rather enjoy your plight." ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... never get him to come time enough to me, though I have spoke a hundred times; but he is very sluggish, and too negligent ever to do well at his trade I doubt), and having lately considered with my wife very much of the inconvenience of my going in no better plight, we did resolve of putting me into a better garb, and, among other things, to have a good velvet cloake; that is, of cloth lined with velvet and other things modish, and a perruque, and so I sent him and her out to buy me velvet, and I to ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... wrong with Auld Jock. It was the man who wore the air of a culprit. A Scotch laborer does not lightly confess to feeling "fair silly," nor sleep away the busy hours of daylight. The old man was puzzled and humiliated by this discreditable thing. A human friend would have understood his plight, led the fevered man out of that bleak and fetid cul-de-sac, tucked him into a warm bed, comforted him with a hot drink, and then gone swiftly for skilled help. Bobby knew only that his master had ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... actions, partly by prayers, and partly with lunatic curses, they move or terrify the ignorant country-folks into giving them alms. This poor fellow was such a one; and the king seeing him in so wretched a plight, with nothing but a blanket about his loins to cover his nakedness, could not be persuaded but that the fellow was some father who had given all away to his daughters, and brought himself to that pass: for nothing ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... Graves by the lonely forest, by the shore Of rivers and of ocean, by the ways Of the thronged city, have been hollowed out And filled, and closed. This day hath parted friends That ne'er before were parted; it hath knit New friendships; it hath seen the maiden plight Her faith, and trust her peace to him who long Had wooed; and it hath heard, from lips which late Were eloquent of love, the first harsh word, That told the wedded one her peace was flown. Farewell to the sweet sunshine! One glad day Is added now to Childhood's merry days, And ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... seamen who live upon the debris of the vessel, postponing in anguish the arrival of the last hour. The very servants who danced attendance upon him like slaves in dress suits, knew of his misfortune and discussed his shameful plight; but not even the slightest suggestion of insolence disturbed the colorless glance of their eyes, petrified by servitude. He was such a nobleman! He had scattered his money with such majesty!... Besides, he was a genuine member ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... will speak to no one, so she said to-day, until the Lady Barbara is recovered, until Lord Farquhart is free. It will be all that I can do to gain access to her to make my demand for the Lady Barbara's clothes. And she is—she says that she is sick of the whole world. Her cousin's plight, Lord Farquhart's danger, have sickened her of the whole world. It's for her sake that I would free Lord Farquhart. Until Lord Farquhart is released, Judith Ogilvie's mind cannot rest for a single second. So for her sake you must work to free him, for Judith's sake, for ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... my turn to explain," broke in Harriet. She did not tell him that Drayton had been actuated by gratitude toward her because she had assisted him in escaping from a similar plight at Yorktown. She did not wish her brother to know the part she had taken in that affair, so now she ignored his question, and began her explanation. "I gave up hope that day you and Peggy left me at the inn, my brother. I knew ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... territory. The steam-boat company is supported by a large annual grant, about 50,000 sterling, from the imperial government. Barra was formerly a pleasant place of residence, but it is now in a most wretched plight, suffering from a chronic scarcity of the most necessary articles of food. The attention of the settlers was formerly devoted almost entirely to the collection of the spontaneous produce of the forests and rivers; agriculture was ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... not a ray remains in the memory of evening. But this passion for romance, and this disappointment, show how much we need real elevations and pure poetry; that which shall show us, in morning and night, in stars and mountains, and in all the plight and circumstance of men, the analogons of our own thoughts, and a like impression made by a just book and by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... unshed tears Master Tommy came at her call for their big sister's word was law with the twins. And in a sad plight he was too after his misadventure. His little man-o'-war top and unmentionables were full of sand but Cissy was a past mistress in the art of smoothing over life's tiny troubles and very quickly not one speck of sand was to be seen on his ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... to give anything like an adequate idea of our plight for the next few days. The artillery scheme, including a six days' bombardment, began on the following day with wire cutting, causing a certain amount of retaliation, which added to our trouble. This got worse on the following days, doubtless ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... in a prison pen about the Camden jail. As he was without shelter and almost without food, the wounds refused to heal, and in his weak and half-starved condition he fell a victim to smallpox. His mother, hearing of her boy's wretched plight, secured his release and took him home. He was ill for months, and before he entirely recovered his mother died, leaving him quite alone in ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... way through the law, like some great engine forcing itself through turbid water, and dragged his useful friend in his wake, like a boat towed astern. As the boat so favoured is usually in a rough plight, and mostly under water, so, Sydney had a swamped life of it. But, easy and strong custom, unhappily so much easier and stronger in him than any stimulating sense of desert or disgrace, made it the life he was to lead; and he no more thought of emerging ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... the greatest rascal-cut-throats have had somebody to be fond of them, and if those monsters, why not ordinary mortals? And with whom shall a young lady fall in love but with the person she sees? She is not supposed to lose her heart in a dream, like a Princess in the Arabian Nights; or to plight her young affections to the portrait of a gentleman in the Exhibition, or a sketch in the Illustrated London News. You have an instinct within you which inclines you to attach yourself to some one: you meet Somebody: you hear Somebody ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... at this time in great trouble. They were hiding in dens and caves because of the Midianites, who had conquered them and overrun their country. When their corn was ripe these enemies came and destroyed it, so altogether they were in sad plight. One day Gideon was threshing wheat in a secluded place, so as to escape the notice of the Midianites, when an angel from God appeared to him, bidding him to go and save the Israelites from their foes. Gideon obeyed the command: but before commencing the battle ...
— Mother Stories from the Old Testament • Anonymous
... that already," Geck's peculiar little face, which had become so friendly to Hanlon through long association, broke out into a smile that was quickly shadowed by sorrow at thought of the plight of his people. "There is nine mines. Human masters make Guddu work in ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... the boat. Since we were outnumbered now eleven to six,—not counting the wounded man of course,—and since, compared with the others, we were virtually unarmed, we ought, I suppose, to have been thankful that we were not murdered in cold blood, as doubtless we should have been if our dangerous plight had not so delighted Kipping's cruel humor, and if both Falk and Kipping had not felt certain that they would never see or hear of us again. But we found little comfort in realizing that, as matters stood, although in our own minds we were ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... own, proceeded with great promptitude to make equally emphatic deliverances on the opposite side of the same political question.[354:1] But nice logical consistency and accurate working within the lines of a church theory were more than could reasonably be expected of a people in so pitiable a plight. The difference on the subject of the right function of the church continued to be held as the ground for continuing the separation from the General Assembly after the alleged ground in political geography had ceased to be valid; the working motive for it was more obvious in the unfraternal ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... man came to me from the prison to be sent home, some two hundred miles beyond Bangor, Me. As I looked at him I was perfectly astonished that we had a man among us who would think, for a moment, of sending away a dependent, human being, and sickly, too, in such a plight; a rather thin coat, vest and pants that might last him two or three days; no collar, cravat, mittens, overcoat, or boots, but brogans, and those not mates, one of which so pinched his foot that he was forced to remove it shortly after coming in. His person and clothes were filthy indeed, ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... see how the land lay round Oakland; while he was absent we talked over our plans, and looked over his cattle to find a remount for my guide. The roan's malady had not been exaggerated; he was indeed in a miserable plight, suffering, I thought, from acute internal inflammation. After dinner we had some very pretty rifle practice, at short distances, with a huge, clumsy weapon. I saw a boy of sixteen put five consecutive bullets into the circumference of a ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... learned that, the full depth of the man's guilt burst upon him like a thunderbolt. Richard Wharton understood now why Vivian Callingham had left him alone on those desert rocks, and sailed away in the ship without telling the captain of his fellow-castaway's plight. He saw the whole vile plot the man had concocted at once, and the steps he had taken ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... all right at home, but her habit of hanging on to his coat with both hands when danger threatened would be embarrassing in public, and he did not even dare to think what Danny would say if he saw him in such a disgraceful plight. And then he conceived the rest of the brilliant plan himself. They would not steal Nancy away this time, but they would go to the Birch Crick, and if Danny was there they would send a message by him to Nancy, asking her if she would ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... in the days of old that Sigurd, the young Volsung, the slayer of Fafni, came to the house of Giuki. He took the troth-plight of two brothers; the doughty heroes gave oaths one to another. They offered him the maid Gudrun, Giuki's daughter, and store of treasure; they drank and took counsel together many a day, Child Sigurd and the sons of Giuki; until they went to ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... "things strike us in a totally different light according as they are near at hand or far off. It is no time for you to despair. Such as I am, and brought to this sorry plight by the buffets of time and fortune, I yet make shift to endure a life wherein my pleasures are to translate Greek and dine sometimes with sundry very worthy friends. Look at me, mademoiselle, and say,—would you consent to live in ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... plight I bethought me of Jebal, and found means to send him a letter sealed with his ring. Nor did he forget his promise, for within twelve days Zobeide and I were galloping for Beirut on two horses so swift ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... Journal office, in New Street. It was a little room, about 10 ft. by 6 ft., and the approach was up three or four steps. Here he reigned supreme, concocted Radical leaders in bad taste and questionable English, and received advertisements and money. The whole thing was in wretched plight until about the year 1844, when—Mr. Michael Maher being editor—Mr. Feeney, who was connected with another paper in the town, went to London, saw Mr. Joseph Parkes, and arranged to purchase The Journal. ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... soul!" ejaculated Tricotrin; "am I mistaken, or—Look, look, Adolphe! I would bet ten to one in sonnets that it is Goujaud, the painter, whose plight I mentioned ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... present state proceeds from fortune's stings; By birth I boast of a descent from kings; Hence may you see from what a noble height I'm sunk by fortune to this abject plight. ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... turned to Monsieur Du Bois, whose clothes were in the same miserable plight with those of Madame Duval; and who, wet, shivering, and disconsolate, ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... seemed to hesitate, but then there came a steady grating under the bottom, which gradually traveled forward, and ceased as the ship, rolling heavily, slid gently into deep water.... Rarely, if ever, can a ship have appeared in such an uncomfortable plight as ours to find herself free and safe within the space of an hour.... To be in ten feet of water in a ship that draws fourteen feet cannot be a pleasant position—nor can there be a doubt [Page 194] that the shocks which the Discovery ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... book as they approached, and catching sight of his little girl's soiled dress, "Why, Elsie," he exclaimed, in a mortified tone, "can that be you? such a figure as you are! Where have you been, child, to get yourself in such a plight?" ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... day that sets me free From yon dread Ogre's prison! Oh, happy world, since 'tis for me Such rescuers have 'risen. But see, your Majesty! the plight Of Hero—he the Prince, my brother! Wilt thou his wrong not set aright? Another favour ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... and wide to become acquainted with different fashions and governments. So this prince journeyed in great state from land to land, until his purse was empty. He knew not what to do, for he would not discover his plight to the nobles of the land in which he happened to be; indeed, he did not care to let them know who he was. Now, he chanced to be in Padua, and he resolved to unbosom himself to the rabbi, tell him that he was a great noble of the Polish land, and borrow somewhat to relieve ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... classes in Russia, many of whom, upon the advance of the German and Austrian armies, were compelled to flee from their homes in a practically destitute condition. A graphic description of the pitiable plight of these unfortunate people is given in ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... to do that," declared one of the Twinkle Twins. "See you again, boys!" and with waves of their hands they set off to find the nearest telephone, that they might send word of their plight to ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... of the Whig propositions of '41 will not be detrimental to that party, even if in the interval they be appropriated piecemeal, as will probably be the case, by their Conservative successors. But for the moment, and in the plight in which the Whig party found themselves, it was impossible to have devised measures more conducive to their precipitate fall. Great interests were menaced by a weak government. The consequence was inevitable. Tadpole and Taper saw ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... ammunition, is partly surrounded by the enemy, is almost paralyzed by bombardment; when he is literally in the last ditch, with a strip of cold steel the only thing between him and death—then Tommy smiles, then he cracks a joke. Without a thought of himself, without a murmur, he faces any desperate plight. ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... Christ—John had bought and sold, Jesus Christ—John had eaten and drunk; To him, the Flesh meant silver and gold. (Salva reverentia.) Now it was, "Saviour, bountiful lamb, "I have roasted thee Turks, though men roast me! 50 "See thy servant, the plight wherein I am! "Art thou a saviour? Save ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... have my hand, Dear, to lie along in thine? As a little stone in a running stream, it seems to lie and pine. Now drop the poor pale hand, Dear, unfit to plight with thine. ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... mounted my horse and started home, and from that moment until the next day I knew nothing whatever that took place. From the way I was bruised and battered I judge that I must have struck almost every fence corner between McPhillipps' place and home. My legs were in a woful plight, and having turned black and blue, they were frightful to see. On arriving at the gate which led into the front yard at home, I fell off my horse and tumbled to the ground, a wretched heap of helpless clay. I remained ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... night, How sad was their plight! The sun it went down And the stars hid their light. They sobbed and they sighed and sadly they cried, Till the poor little things at last lay down ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... lady, whose tears were of the nerves, he made offer of his devotion in any shape; and she was again in the plight to which a desperado can push a woman of the gentle kind. She had the fear of provoking a collision if she reminded him, that despite her entreaties, he had compelled her, seconded by her aunt as he had been, to submit to his absurd protection on ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... leave a fellow-countrywoman, least of all could Salemina forsake a fellow-citizen, in such a hapless plight. ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... since the day before we sailed, a young girl, not more than fourteen years of age, was found concealed among the casks, where she had secreted herself in order to accompany the boatswain to sea. Upon being brought on deck she was in a pitiable plight . . . that her acquaintances, of which she had many on board, could scarcely recognise her. Upon being interrogated, she declared she had, unknown to all on board, concealed herself in the hold the day before the vessel sailed, and that her swain knew nothing of the step she had taken. ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... of the beautiful city and the pitiable plight of the survivors who escaped annihilation from quake and fire only to face death in the equally horrible forms of starvation and exposure touched the heartstrings of humanity. The response to the needs of ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... on a bed of dry leaves, raised himself so as to watch the troop as it rode forth again from the ruined gate. Whether she who sat hidden within the carriage had heard of his evil plight he knew not, and could not have brought himself to ask. The last of his own horsemen (some of whom had taken leave of him with tears) having vanished from sight, he fell back, and for a while knew nothing but the ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... the Johnstown flood when the horror of that disaster was still plainly written in their eyes, but destitute as they were of home and food and clothing, they were in better plight than those fever-stricken, starving pacificos, who have sinned in no way, who have given no aid to the rebels, and whose only crime is that they lived in the country instead of in the town. They are now ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis
... slumber Upon thy breast, Once again to-night, Whilst I must number Hours of sad unrest, And broken plight. Is it for this that I rebuke Young men, who dare at me to look? Whilst she, replete with arts and wiles, Dishonours you and ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... marooned on a desolate island with no adequate provisions for their needs. Pizarro, however, insisted and Almagro sailed with the other ship. Shortly afterward, Pizarro sent the remaining ship with the most obstinate of the mutineers to Panama. A letter revealing their sad plight, which was concealed in a ball of cotton sent as a present to the wife of the governor by one of the men on the island of Gallo, was smuggled ashore at Panama when Almagro's ship reached that point, despite his vigilant efforts to allow no such ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... his breast A moment, as it might be; 'Twill be my dog, he thought, and said, "My faith I plight to thee." ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... curled, and her eyes laughed satirically as she thought of the follies of those men—how they had let women lead them up and down in public places, drooling and sighing and seeming to enjoy their own pitiful plight. If that expression of satire had not disappeared so quickly, she might have got at the secret of her "miserable failure." For, it was her habit of facing men with only lightly veiled amusement, or often frank ridicule, in her eyes, in the curve of her lips, that ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... prison in London town,' was the strange reply. Doubtless this child (so I reasoned) was the daughter of some poor man who had suffered for conscience' sake; and, mayhap, some person who pitied his sad plight had taken the girl and thrown her on our charity, or, rather, mercy. 'Child,' said I, 'wilt come into the Manor with me, and have some chocolate and cake?' 'That will I, madam,' she answered softly. 'I came on purpose to stay with you.' The little one ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... am still here; indeed, I do not feel inclined to go abroad. Next month, however, I shall certainly go. Of course, only to follow my vocation and reason, which latter would be in a sorry plight if it were not strong enough to master every other thing in ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... imagine Booth would have agreed to this; for, though some love of gaming had been formerly amongst his faults, yet he was not so egregiously addicted to that vice as to be tempted by the shabby plight of Robinson, who had, if I may so express myself, no charms for a gamester. If he had, however, any such inclinations, he had no opportunity to follow them, for, before he could make any answer to Robinson's proposal, a strapping wench came up ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... in different plights, and according to their plight, kept in different places. The well bound were ranged in the sanctuary of Mr. Bronte's study; but the purchase of books was a necessary luxury to him, and as it was often a choice between binding an ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... half-contemptuous pity. "He had risked everything on the success of this, and the poor child would have been left in a sad plight. Marriage was ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... of the folks in your block, fellows; how many of them are in some sad plight which would make you shrink from exchanging places with them? They are being set upon; can you get in there and help in some way,—you with your good free strong arm, your big, sympathetic heart, your pocketbook, your ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... approached by a man on foot, without shoes or coat, and his head bandaged by a handkerchief. He announced himself as the Captain Duncan who had been captured by Wade Hampton in Fayetteville, but had escaped; and, on my inquiring how he happened to be in that plight, he explained that when he was a prisoner Wade Hampton's men had made him "get out of his coat, hat, and shoes," which they appropriated to themselves. He said Wade Hampton had seen them do it, and ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... gold ring she gave me Right royally dwarf-worked, To none will I pass it For prayer or for sword-stroke, Save to him who can claim it By love and by troth plight, Let that hero speak If ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... had been made unusually great to keep her stationary. She held fast with one hand and stretched downward with the other, but the book insolently flirted its leaves just out of reach. She took a survey of Warwick; he had not perceived her plight, and she felt an unwonted reluctance to call for help, because he did not look like one used to come and go at a woman's bidding. After several fruitless essays she decided to hazard an ungraceful descent; and, gathering herself up, was about to launch boldly out, when Warwick cried, "Stop!" ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... as if to ask who was calling her by name; then, deciding that the screams came from the direction of the granary, she hurried as fast as she could up the steps, and opened the door. Her amazement was only equalled by her distress at the girls' plight. ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... Madra, with his wondrous skill and might, Faltering, on his knees descending, fell in sad inglorious plight, ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... (in Hedemarken) were compelled to seek relief from the Poor Fund when their families were large. The smaller farmers and the labourers are in the worst plight, since the falling off in the timber trade has made them feel the want of the usual steady demand for labour at high wages.' Further: 'it has become very difficult for the least affluent and for labourers to gain a livelihood in the prevailing money ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... helping influence has been Mama and the warnings I have had from witnessing things that went wrong. I think the more one lives and the more one thinks, the simpler things get. The greatest of all dangers seems to me to fool oneself. Really this seems to me to be the only hopeless plight and there comes to a certain fascination in trying to say things plainly to oneself. Nothing is as strong as plain truth about a thing, and the moment one shirks it ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff
... stopped, the door opened and a stout woman climbed in, bearing a big basket, and followed by a young man with straw-coloured whiskers. Laura sat up like a dart and pulled her hat straight, crimson with mortification at being discovered in such a plight. She had instantly curbed her tears, but she could not disguise the fact that she had red eyes and a swollen nose—that she was in short what Sarah called "all bunged up". She made no reply to the newcomer's exclamations, but sat clutching her handkerchief and staring out of the window. The woman's ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... made, no word was spoke, Till noble Angus silence broke; And he a solemn sacred plight Did to St. Bryde of Douglas make, That he a pilgrimage would take To Melrose Abbey, for the sake Of Michael's restless sprite. Then each, to ease his troubled breast, To some blessed saint his prayers addressed- Some to St. ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... take their right, Well-a-day, well-a-day, We were in a sad plight, O' th' holy party! Such practise hath a scent Of kingly government, Against it we are ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... had released the prisoner at the inn, on which he gave us such a comical account of the dwarf's unhappy plight that we could ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... Grande Pointe. I have seen the wild flower taken from its cool haunt in the forest, and planted in the glare of a city garden. Alas! the plight of it, poor outshone, wilting, odorless thing! And then I have seen it again in the forest; and pleasanter than to fill the lap with roses and tulips of the conservatory's blood-royal it was to find it there, once more the simple queen ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... field; the sick had been gathered to hospitals nearer home; the musicians had reported to the surgeons, and the men were left, to the sharp notes of sixty rounds of ball cartridge carried in their boxes and knapsacks,—in the plight of the Massachusetts regiment that marched through the mobs of Baltimore, to the music of the cartridge-box, in the first April of ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... not that I am guilty," exclaimed I, "of having expressed any sort of affection for her. I know somebody who can best bear me witness in this respect." Emilia smiled, and rejoined, "I understand you; and, if we are not discreet and determined, we shall all find ourselves in a bad plight together. What will you say if I entreat you not to continue your lessons? You have, I believe, four tickets yet of the last month: and my father has already declared that he finds it inexcusable to take your money any longer, unless you wish to devote yourself to the art ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... I unloosed my braces. I acted with caution, notwithstanding my disagreeable plight. I took care not to drop them while knotting the two together; and I also took care to make the knot a firm one, as well as to waste only a very little of the precious length of the buckskin. I should need every inch ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... gentleman who had married into Hamilton's family. He determined on a bold stroke. He was sorely in need of powder, provisions, money, and especially of fresh mounts for his troopers, the long rapid marches, cold weather, and scanty forage having reduced his horses to a very sorry plight. In Perth he might lay hands on all these, and possibly on a few recruits into the bargain. He was in Blair when the messengers found him on May 10th. With his handful of sabres he swooped down on Dunkeld, ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... and she sees the plight; It will take her wits to set it right: That big bandana on Deb's black head, Ere Dick can jump, 'tis over him spread; Then two soft hands they hold him fast: The bright little ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... him, that he lifted up his paw and let him go. Some time after the Lion was caught in a trap, and the hunters, who desired to carry him alive to the King, tied him to a tree while they went in search of a wagon to carry him on. Just then the little Mouse happened to pass by, and seeing the sad plight in which the Lion was, went up to him and soon gnawed away the ropes that bound the King of the Beasts. "Was I not right?" ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... she heard the sweetness of his voice. Had I not better tell the truth of her at once? Oh, if she could only have been his again! What madness during these last six months had driven her to such a plight as this! The old love came back upon her. Nay; it had never gone. But that trust in his love returned to her,—that trust which told her that such love and such worth would have sufficed to make her happy. But this confidence in him was worthless now! Even though ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... committed it to a servant's care; and then I inquired what had urged her to escape from Wuthering Heights in such an unlikely plight, and where she meant to go, as she refused remaining ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... The plight of the whole army resembled that of a wounded animal which feels it is perishing and does not know what it is doing. To study the skillful tactics and aims of Napoleon and his army from the time it entered Moscow till it was destroyed is like studying the dying leaps and ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... down too fiercely on the top of his head, he carefully drew the bushy top of the poplar sapling into such a position that it gave him shade. As its roots were still aground, it showed no tendency to float off and forsake him in his plight. ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... were kindly and courteously performed from a wish to help us out of our difficulty, and with the full consciousness on the part of the doctor that it was only by an accident of constitution that he was not in the like plight himself. So the Erewhonians take a flogging once a week, and a diet of bread and water for two or three months together, whenever their straightener ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... Here was a pretty plight. I told him, in the suave manner which Mademoiselle W—— had recommended to me, that Mr. Washburn would have included this lady's name on my card had he foreseen that there would be any difficulty in allowing her to ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone |
