"Woe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his face buried in his hands, apparently asleep. I thought I would crawl slyly up to him, and spring suddenly on him, and frighten him. I did so, but Jim was not asleep at all, but lifted up his head with such a look of unutterable woe that I was frightened myself, and said: 'Why, Jim, what is the matter?' Jim cried out: 'O, my boys! my boys! ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... now, farewell! 'Tis hard to give thee up, With death so like a gentle slumber on thee!— And thy dark sin!—oh! I could drink the cup If from this woe its bitterness had won thee. May God have called thee, like a wanderer, home, ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... has come to that fair girl, woe to the man or woman who has harmed her, that is all ...
— A Successful Shadow - A Detective's Successful Quest • Harlan Page Halsey
... some degree of woe We every bliss must gain; The heart can ne'er a transport know, That never feels ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... experience would show Just how (by Allah's grace) To make this world of sin and woe Into a better place; And, though we failed to cure at sight All ills that want allaying, At least (between the Acts) we ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 5, 1920 • Various
... he said, "we shall carry out your instructions to the letter. At three in the morning, failing your return or news of you, I set out with my ranch hands to find you. And woe betide those black devils if you have come to harm. By the way, what about ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... that every man has that in his heart, which, if known, would make all his fellow-creatures hate him. Was it this evil spirit which now struggled in Captain Rothesay's breast, and darkened his face with storms of passion, remorse, or woe? He gave no utterance to them in words. If any secret there were, he would not trust it even to the air. But, at times, his mute lips writhed; his cheeks burned, and grew ghastly. Sometimes, too, he wore a cowed and humble ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... whereas, in fact, the public, while it knows what it wants when it sees it, cannot clearly express its wants, and never wants the thing that it does ask for, although it thinks it does at the time. But woe to the editor and his periodical if ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... you like a cannon-ball, or a commander-in-chief's report? We chat and laugh; and this journalist, a bibliophobe when sober, expects me, forsooth, when he is drunk, to teach my tongue to move at the dull jogtrot of a printed book." (Here he affected to weep.) "Woe unto the French imagination when men fain would blunt the needle points of her pleasant humor! Dies iroe! Let us weep for Candide. Long live the Kritik of Pure Reason, La Symbolique, and the systems in five closely ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... my duty as a gentleman," said Louis; "and woe to him who may fail in his, in criticising his sovereign's conduct." In fact, at this moment a few eager and curious faces were seen in the walk, as if engaged in a search. Catching glimpses at last of the ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... for England? Who would not fling a life I' the ring, to meet a tyrant's gage, And glory in the strife? * * * * * Now, fair befall our England, On her proud and perilous road; And woe and wail to those who make Her footprints red with blood! Up with our red-cross banner—roll A thunder-peal of drums! Fight on there, every valiant soul, And, courage! England comes! Now, fair befall our England, On her proud and perilous ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... may be. Let us talk business. I reward my friends, but woe betide the fool who betrays my confidence!" ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... these regions of the World, If not disposer—lend them oft my aid, Oft my advice by presages and signs, And answers, oracles, portents, and dreams, Whereby they may direct their future life. Envy, they say, excites me, thus to gain Companions of my misery and woe! At first it may be; but, long since with woe Nearer acquainted, now I feel by proof 400 That fellowship in pain divides not smart, Nor lightens aught each man's peculiar load; Small consolation, then, were Man adjoined. This wounds me most (what can it less?) that Man, Man fallen, shall ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... against the wall in a state of stupefaction. At this moment, Solomon Eagle, the weird plague-prophet, with his burning brazier on his head, suddenly turned the corner of the street, and, stationing himself before the dead-cart, cried in a voice of thunder—'Woe to the libertine! Woe to the homicide! for he shall perish in everlasting fire! ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... beauty, like molten gold, Thrilled through him in burning rain. He was on fire, and she was cold, Cold as the waveless main; But his heart-well filled with woe, till it rolled A torrent that ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... Set the evil has smitten him, and it is hard, my people, that he perchance may be taken from us and we must bear such woe, because of the ill behaviour of a royal foreigner, for I cannot forget that it was ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... improvement; and after a few weeks every aspiration after better things had ceased; every bud of promised comfort was crushed. Again I grieved the spirit that had been striving with my spirit, and ere long became even more addicted to the use of the infernal draughts, which had already wrought me so much woe, than at any previous ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... "He heard that story at Rood's Knoll after I had gone. The next day he came to my house in town. I saw him. He wore a woe-begone expression and silently presented a clipping from a paper." She laughed again. "He looked like a virtuous undertaker presenting a bill, long overdue, for the interment of some lightly mourned relative. He asked me if the story were true. I said it was—and he went out ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... footsteps and reenacting her conduct. Her status is irrevocably fixed in the life of the child, nor can any philosophy or sophistry absolve her from the situation. She cannot abdicate her place in favor of another, nor can she win immunity from responsibility. She is the child's ideal for weal or woe, nor can men or angels change this big fact. Through all the hours of the day she hears the child saying, "Whither thou goest I will go," and there is ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... which, while it suggested the divine, was full of human truth and tenderness, for pain and passion seemed to have passed over it, and a humility half pathetic, a courage half heroic seemed to have been born from some great loss or woe. ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... for some time, went one day to the market to purchase another ass, and on entering the place where all the animals were fastened, he saw with astonishment his old ass offered for sale. Putting his mouth to its ear, he whispered, "Woe to thee, unlucky! Doubtless thou hast again been intoxicated; but, by Allah, ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... but the Inca, and the Coya or queen, might enter the consecrated precincts. The greatest attention was paid to their morals, and visitors were sent every year to inspect the institutions, and to report on the state of their discipline.41 Woe to the unhappy maiden who was detected in an intrigue! By the stern law of the Incas, she was to be buried alive, her lover was to be strangled, and the town or village to which he belonged was to be razed to ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... remind the reader that, from the long and weird catalogue of human miseries, I might have selected many individual instances more replete with essential suffering than any of these vast generalities of disaster. The true wretchedness, indeed—the ultimate woe——is particular, not diffuse. That the ghastly extremes of agony are endured by man the unit, and never by man the mass——for this let ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... intellectually and in its political action; to characterise its principal teachers; to show whence it sprung, and to what result it tended; to point out wherein lay the elements of its power and its wickedness; to show what it has contributed to human woe, or perchance indirectly ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... people we have played a large part in the world, and we are bent upon making our future even larger than the past. In particular, the events of the last four years have definitely decided that, for woe or for weal, our place must be great among the nations. We may either fall greatly or succeed greatly; but we can not avoid the endeavor from which either great failure or great success must come. Even if we would, we can not play a small part. If we should try, all that would follow would ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... of the Family, who without the least thoughts of Lycurgus, have made so good a choice and have gotten a Wife that is beautifull, rich, good natured, and vertuous; you learnt first to know her well, that you might the better woe her, and so be happy in marriage. Make this your example, O all you foolish and wandring Lovers, who are so desirous to tast of the Pleasures and sweetness of marriage; and are somtimes so disquieted and troubled till you cast your ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... apron at his waist, and his ruffles carefully turned back from his wrists, might be seen through the chinks of the shutters, any night of the year, ransacking his till, or poring over the dingy pages of his day-book. From the look of unutterable woe upon his face, it appeared to be his doom to spend eternity in a vain effort to make his ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... agrarian law. No description could be more likely to turn an individual into ridicule than this of his taking upon himself to represent in his own person the sorrows of the city. The picture of the man with the self-assumed garments of public woe, as though he were big enough to exhibit the grief of all Rome, could not but be effective. It has been supposed that Cicero was insulting the Tribune because he was dirty. Not so. He was ridiculing Rullus because Rullus had dared to go about in ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... whose robust forms, and copper-tinted countenances, formed a striking contrast to her own. A little beyond was an old officer or two, with cocked hats of the usually capacious dimensions. But the poor Abbess was cruelly afflicted; and in a gesture and tone of voice, of the most piteous woe, implored the steward of the vessel ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... stranger will ever trust them. They are as cowardly as cruel. Murder and robbery are the whole occupation of their existence, and woe to the traders or trappers whom they may meet with during their excursions, if they are not at least one-tenth of their own number. A proof of their cowardice is that once Roche, myself, and a young Parisian named Gabriel, ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... the majesty and compass of his commission. It is the extent of this commission that I wish you would specially notice, for it is neither tribal nor national in its limitations. He was ordained a prophet unto the nations. Hear the voice of his wailing (chapter xv. 10), "Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... and heard was nothing joyful, for from each group surrounding a scribe arose a cry of woe. Few and far between were those who had to tell of the rich booty that had fallen to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... alien ears Turned men's whole blood to tears, These, whose least sin remembered for pure shame Turned all those tears to flame, Even upon these, when breaks the extreme blow And all the world cries woe, When heaven reluctant rains long-suffering fire On these and their desire, When his wind shakes them and his waters whelm Who rent thy robe and realm, When they that poured thy dear blood forth as wine Pour forth their own for thine, On these, on ...
— Two Nations • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... noble and generous, I know, ever to forget the sacrifices which Felipe has made for you; but what further sacrifices will be left for him to make when he has, so to speak, served up himself at the first banquet? Woe to the man, as to the woman, who has left no desire unsatisfied! All is over then. To our shame or our glory—the point is too nice for me to decide—it is of love ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... disdained, even by such good workmen as Radish. In short breeches, and wasted, purple-looking legs, he used to go about the roofs, looking like a stork, and I used to hear him, as he plied his brush, breathing heavily and saying: "Woe, ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... a harp for harmony, But daggers only do I see; I search a heart for love and hope, But find a ghastly hangman's rope. Woe! Woe!" ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... accompanied their steps, granted all their wishes, filled their houses with wealth, made them happy in love and victorious in war. Such a spirit is Liberty. At times she takes the form of a hateful reptile. She grovels, she hisses, she stings. But woe to those who in disgust shall venture to crush her! And happy are those who, having dared to receive her in her degraded and frightful shape, shall at length be rewarded by her in the time of her beauty and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... as skies are blue, and fields are green, Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow, Month follow month with woe, and year wake ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... of man foreknow? Not knowing, we but share our part of woe: Now, we the fate of future ages bear, And, ere their birth, behold our ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... on that bridge so rustic, To be snapped by Uncle Joe, And we smiled and looked real pleasant, Yet one heart was filled with woe. ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... sparkling fytte Bedecked with jeux de mots, I fancied that the sight of it Might soothe my present woe, Reminding me how once I had Been quite a ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... in the emotion of his tones; and I saw in a clear flash what an involved and hideous tragedy was a disaster to an emigrant ship. If this whole parishful of people came no more to land, into how many houses would the newspaper carry woe, and what a great part of the web of our corporate human life would be rent ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... amidst the ruins of Carthage, my dear! What's the matter? Why have you got on that woe-begone face? This marriage is not broken off, is it? Though nothing would surprise me where ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... is capable of. Mr. Biggar, having in his early Parliamentary days defied the Chair and affronted the sensibilities of the House, alike in the matter of dress and deportment, developed into a portly gentleman of almost smug appearance, a terror to new members. Woe to any who in his ignorance passed between the Chair and the member addressing it; who walked in from a division with his hat on; or who stood an inch or two within the Bar whilst debate was going forward. Mr. Biggar's strident cry of "Order! Order!" ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... first blow. It is manifest that Mr. Wood hath done both, and therefore I should humbly propose to have him first hanged and his dross thrown into the sea; after which the Drapier will be ready to stand his trial. "It must needs be that offences come, but woe unto him by whom the offence cometh." If Mr. Wood had held his hand every body else would have held their tongues, and then there would have been little need of pamphlets, juries, or proclamations upon this occasion. The provocation must needs have been great, which could stir ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... was moored a string of barges; between them and the shore the reflected lamp-light made one unbroken breadth of radiance, blackening the mid-current. From that the eye rose to St. Thomas's Hospital, spreading block after block, its windows telling of the manifold woe within. Nearer was the Archbishop's Palace, dark, lifeless; the roofs were defined against a sky made lurid by the streets of Lambeth. On the pier below signalled ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... that many of its more eloquent agents are probably quite innocent instruments, there are some, even among Eugenists, who by this time know what they are doing. To them we shall not say, "What is Eugenics?" or "Where on earth are you going?" but only "Woe unto you, hypocrites, that devour widows' houses and for ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... dimple on his chin; but the charm of his face was in the soft benignant expression of his eyes; he looked as though he loved his fellow-creatures—he looked as though he could not hear, unmoved, a tale of woe or oppression—of injuries inflicted on the weak, or of unfair advantages assumed by the strong. It was this which had made him so much beloved; and it was not only the expression of his countenance, but of ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... scrubs, and caused as much trouble to look after him as all the others put together. He was nearly dead; water was of no use to him, and his hide might be useful in repairing some packbags, and we might save our stores for a time by eating him; so he was despatched from this scene of woe, but not without woeful cruelty; for Jimmy volunteered to shoot him, and walked down the creek a few yards to where the poor little creature stood. The possibility of any one not putting a bullet into the creature's forehead at once, never occurred to me; but immediately after we ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... until they drew near to the inn, when suddenly the silence of the Glen was broken by a strange, unaccustomed sound. What was it? Whence did it come? From some animal surely; some animal in pain or fear, piteously making known its needs! It could not be the moan of human woe! Yet even as she passionately denied the thought, Margot recognised in her heart that it was true, and darting quickly forward made her way into the inn parlour. The messenger still stood outside the door, waiting in stolid patience for instructions, and by his side was Mrs McNab, ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... door and heard her remark. She hoped the day would never come when she should have to carry woe to her young heart; but her life was so uncertain she knew not who would be the next whom she would have to envelop in clouds. She sighed, plucked a rose, and pressed it to her nostrils, as though it was the last sweetness she ...
— Allegories of Life • Mrs. J. S. Adams
... squatting on the deck planks, endeavoring to jest among themselves, and assuming a cheerfulness they were very far from feeling. The long hardships of the voyage had left indelible marks on the majority, and they were by now a woe-begone, miserable lot, who had ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... head towards her, whereupon Anne saw that in her face there was a look as if of horror which struggled with a grief, a woe, too monstrous ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... compliment of calling them together to deliberate upon it, and when their debates were over, he would quietly state his own opinion, which no one ever disputed. The consequences of thwarting his imperious will were too formidable to be encountered. Woe to those who incurred his displeasure! He would strike them or stab them on the spot; and this act, which, if attempted by any other chief, would instantly have cost him his life, the awe inspired by his name enabled him to repeat again and again with impunity. ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... sweeten and make whole Fevered breath and festered soul. It shall mightily restrain Over-busy hand and brain. It shall ease thy mortal strife 'Gainst the immortal woe of life, Till thyself restored shall prove By what ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... Leaves all true joy behind: He who the peace of others breaks, No peace himself shall find. Flowers above and thorns below, Little pleasure, lasting woe,— Such is the fate ...
— False Friends, and The Sailor's Resolve • Unknown
... puree is to be in a very bad mess indeed. The prospect of abject pennilessness filled the damsel's eyes with woe. ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... not been to this village; when the moon comes again, it will be four." He said this with proper significance, and the flat face of the melancholy girl by his side puckered and creased miserably before she opened her large mouth to wail her woe. ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... "Woe, woe to us! The Reds have arrived. A horseman is galloping fast through the forest road. I called to him but he did not answer me. It was dark but I knew the horse was ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... Thy nights are banished from the realms of sleep, For thou art pillowed on a curse too deep; Yes! they may flatter thee, but thou shalt feel A hollow agony that will not heal. Thou hast sown in my sorrow, and must reap The bitter harvest in a woe as real. I have had many foes, but none like thee; For 'gainst the rest myself I could defend, And be avenged, or turn them into friend; But thou, in safe implacability, Hast naught to dread,—in thy own weakness shielded, And in my love, which ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the next world, if you have not withstood the evil spirit, and if you are found there without repentance and sorrow, you will be a mockery to all the devils and to yourself, and you will be eternally punished and tormented. And it will then be a greater woe to you, that you have followed the evil spirit, than all the external pains that you must endure eternally for ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... Launcelot, and speak we of his care and woe, and what pain he there endured; for cold, hunger, and thirst, he had plenty. And thus as these noble knights rode together, they by one assent departed, and then they rode by two, by three, and by four, and by five, ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... soared high; Like the nightingale I'd sing, And with the eagle fly. Soon my sad mistake I found; I warbling notes had none, And scarcely rose above the ground, Before my plumes were gone. Flatt'ry whispered soft and low, Of wisdom, fame, and lore; Woe is me! neglected now, The pleasant dream is o'er. Pity, then, my humble state, And if you can bestow Tears upon my hapless fate; Pray ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... their new Lord, the sway of a mysterious will over the human soul, which had become enslaved. They called it magnetism, hypnotism, suggestion ... what do I know? I have seen them amusing themselves like impudent children with this horrible power! Woe to us! Woe to man! He has come, the ... the ... what does he call himself ... the ... I fancy that he is shouting out his name to me and I do not hear him ... the ... yes ... he is shouting it out ... I am listening ... I cannot ... repeat ... it ... Horla ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... in heaven and great cunning and daring were necessary in order to obtain it. Prometheus stole this heavenly fire, for which act he was chained to the mountain and made to suffer. The Greeks mark this event as the beginning of human civilization. All arts are traced to Prometheus, and all earthly woe likewise. As past history is surveyed it appears natural to think of scientific men who have become martyrs to the quest of hidden secrets. They have made great sacrifices for the future benefit of civilization and not a few of them have endured persecution even ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... he one day, in speaking of Reyburn to Lilian as they looked at him through the open door of the drawing-room—"yes, we men may love Reyburn safely enough, as we ask for no devotion in return, but woe be to the woman who builds ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... swung into a hip lock, so swift that Woodhull left the ground. But his instinct gave him hold with one hand at his enemy's collar. He spread wide his feet and cast his weight aside, so that he came standing, after all. He well knew that a man must keep his feet. Woe to him who fell when it all was free! His own riposte was a snakelike glide close into his antagonist's arms, a swift thrust of his leg between the other's—the grapevine, which ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... than she slew her husband—a timid thing smaller than she—and ate him at one meal. You know the ants are a busy people. This road was probably a thoroughfare for their freight,—eggs and cattle and wild rice. I'll warrant she used to lie and wait for them; and woe to the little traveller if she caught him unawares, for she could nip him in two with a single thrust of her knives. Then she, would seize the egg he bore and make off with it. Now the ants are cunning. They found her ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... mine the seer-like power to show The secrets of the heart and mind; To drop the plummet-line below Our common world of joy and woe, A more intense despair or brighter ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... years the manses were closed, the Churches empty, the Pastors homeless, the people scattered; and the Bishop hurried from glen to glen, held services in the woods and gorges, sent letters to the parishes he could not visit, and pleaded the cause of his Brethren in woe in letter after letter to the King. As the storm of persecution raged, he found time to write a stirring treatise, entitled, "The Renewal of the Church," and thus by pen and by cheery word he revived ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... too, the little Child-heart must be glad— Being so young, nor knowing, as we know. The fact from fantasy, the good from bad, The joy from woe, the—all that hurts us so! What wonder then that thus It hides away from us?— So weak a ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... these that be of Arthur's court. And my lord that lieth here dead amounted upon his horse, and the strong knight and my lord encountered together, and there he smote my lord throughout with his spear, and thus he hath brought me in great woe and damage. That me repenteth, said Sir Tristram, of your great anger; an it please you tell me your husband's name. Sir, said she, his name was Galardoun, that would have proved a good knight. So departed Sir Tristram from that ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... mortal woe! one kiss, and then farewell. Irene. The gods have given to others to fare well. O! miserably ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... the knight looked up to the page's face, No smile the word had won; Had the knight looked up to the page's face, I ween he had never gone: Had the knight looked back to the page's geste, I ween he had turned anon,— For dread was the woe in the face so young, And wild was the silent geste that flung Casque, sword, to earth as the boy down-sprung, ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... was an appropriate center to so much ease and beauty. In deep black though she was, her still girlish figure stretched out in a low chair, her knees crossed, one foot held to the fire, she did not seem to express woe or the poignancy of regret. The delicate appointments of her dress, the freshness of her skin, her eyes, bright and unfatigued, suggested nothing less than a widow plunged in remorseful grief. Her eyes, indeed, were thoughtful, her lips, as she read her daughter's communication, ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... despotism with millions of deluded inhabitants who have been sacrificed by the Robespieres and the Bishops of that suffering nation. To that suffering nation turn your eyes and reflect that the mighty mass of woe under which they have groaned, was produced by an ambition, fierce, cruel and destructive as hell, and that an ambition alike terrible reigns ...
— Count The Cost • Jonathan Steadfast
... listened to my soul and I have found the pearl of great price, yes, a whole bed of them, so that I am now in position to substitute in my preaching a truth for every lie I used to preach, and thus save myself; but woe unto me unless I make the substitution by ringing out the lie ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... catholic priest in my house. I resolved to ask him concerning their faith. He was one of the saddest man I ever saw and it made my heart ache to see him. I knew so well what it was to have "a heart bowed down with grief and woe," and I saw in this poor creature desolation. I asked him if he should die, what sin he would have to repent of. He said: "I may have sinned in trying to fix up a home for poor priests who come into disfavor with the bishops." His words were: "There is no one so helpless as a catholic priest sent ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... the fathers of the church waxed fat upon his bounty; travelers went and came, with none to interfere; and whosoever would, might tarry in his halls in cordial welcome, and eat his bread and drink his wine, withal. But woe is me! some two and forty years agone the good count rode hence to fight for Holy Cross, and many a year hath flown since word or token have we had of him. Men say his bones lie bleaching ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... The woe of the world is of its own making. Sorrow purifies and deepens the soul, and the extremity of sorrow ...
— The Way of Peace • James Allen
... ever miserable! We every week hear of the good you do, and the charity you extend to the bodies of the miserable. Extend, I beseech you, good Madam, to the unhappy Jewkes, the mercy of your prayers, and tell me if you think I have not sinned beyond hope of pardon; for there is a woe denounced against ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... and rot among the toads? Then they disappear into the woods by twos, and threes, and sixes; and after the caravan has passed they return by the trail, some to reach Yambuya and upset the young officers with their tales of woe and war; some to fall sobbing under a spear-thrust; some to wander and stray in the dark mazes of the woods, hopelessly lost; and some to be carved for the cannibal feast. And those who remain compelled to it by fears of greater danger, mechanically march on, ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... chimney-heads. One would have naturally enough thought that our engine could have drowned out a fire of any kind whatsoever in half a second, scores of folks driving about with pitcherfuls of water, and scaling half of it on one another and the causey in their hurry; but, woe's me! it did not play puh on the red-het stones, that whizzed like iron in a smiddy trough; so, as soon as it was darkness and smoke in one place, it was fire and ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... an enthusiastic spectator of the work, and woe betide the platoon officer whose men gave reckless answers to the General's questions. The 'Platoon Test' was introduced.[3] Soldier's catechism did not yet reach the perfection it afterwards acquired, ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... shall do what thou biddest. Having said this, that best of monarchs began to cut off his own flesh and weigh it in a balance against the pigeon. Meanwhile, in the inner apartments of the palace, the spouses of king, adorned with jewels and gems, hearing what was taking place, uttered exclamations of woe and came out, stricken with grief. In consequence of those cries of the ladies, as also of the ministers and servants, a noise deep as the roar of the clouds arose in the palace. The sky that had been very clear became enveloped with thick ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... fierce in appearance as his wife was radiant. That was nothing unusual, by the way, for Monsieur Chebe was in a frenzy the whole year long. On this particular evening, however, he did not wear his customary woe-begone, lack-lustre expression, nor the full-skirted coat, with the pockets sticking out behind, filled to repletion with samples of oil, wine, truffles, or vinegar, according as he happened to be dealing ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... it, "are increasing like grasshoppers in town and in country year by year." Whenever they appeared, we are told, countless litigious disputes sprang up. He who had but the money in hand might readily defraud his poorer neighbour in the name of law and right. "Woe is me!" exclaims one author, "in my home there is but one procurator, and yet is the whole country round about brought into confusion by his wiles. What a misery will this horde bring upon us!" Everywhere was complaint and in many ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... necessary appeal to the cupidity of the individual. It is not possible for designing leaders, if such there were, to take even the first step in manipulation without discovery. It simply cannot be done. Woe betide the man who even exhibited such tendencies among his fellow Grain Growers! These organized farmers have learned how to do their own thinking and every rugged ounce of them is assertive. They are not ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... LUIS. A lasting woe, A misfortune, an abuse, A sharp pain, a fiend let loose From the infernal pit below. Let no one presume to go 'Twixt me and revenge. Reflect, Fury breathes immortal breath, Vengeance has no fear of death, Nor for any man respect. I my honour ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... to be permanent, the two parties to it must preserve the same relative positions. The boundaries of the two churches had been marked out with the sword; with the sword they must be preserved, or woe to that party which should be first disarmed! A sad and fearful prospect for the tranquillity of Germany, when peace itself bore so threatening ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... contralto, eternally the same air, over and over again, crooning, crooning, some melancholy tune of her own dreaming, just audible to me through the slow-travailing monotony of the engine; till I was drunken with so sweet a woe, my God, a woe that was sweet as life, and a dolour that lulled like nepenthe, and a grief that soothed like kisses, so sweet, so sweet, that all that world of wood and gloom lost locality and realness for me, and became nothing but a charmed and pensive Heaven for her to moan and lullaby in; ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... dwelt men so holy that the earth-fires dared not to assail it, and the ocean stood at bay. Lightly the warriors juggled with their great weapons of glittering bronze; and each told of his deeds in battle and in the chase; but woe to him who boasted or spoke falsely, magnifying his prowess, for then would his sword angrily turn of itself in its ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... personality. There is, indeed, only one way to help the actor of this class—a class numerous and highly popular in England and America—and that is by pointing out his faults. This, at first sight, seems a simple matter. His faults are generally multitudinous and glaring. But woe to the man who points the finger at them. He is merely qualifying for a species of martyrdom. The libel laws, reinforcing the instinct of self-preservation, forbid the critics doing it, and anybody else who tries is instantly regarded as a malignant private enemy of the criticised. ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... heavy day, a day of Grief and Woe, Which hast bereft me of my hopes for ay, Ah, Lard, ah what shall I ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... I am sent. The Holy Relic on the altar of the Troodista seemed to point me hither, with every Sacred Thorn. I could pray no prayers but for thee; I could hearken to no other tales of woe. My feet turned ever thither without my will: and thus I knew that ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... and seemed to bring bad tidings when they did, and at length they ceased to come at all, and footsore peasants slunk to the gate after sunset, and did their errand there, by stealth. Once, a vassal was dispatched in haste to the abbey at dead of night, and when morning came, there were sounds of woe and wailing in the sisters' house; and after this, a mournful silence fell upon it, and knight or lady, horse or armour, was seen ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... don't you see the fun of having Christmas under strange conditions?" she asked one evening, when she went to investigate a sound of woe from ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... Colonel, from Peter, and from Buckalew, and now and then a sorrowful, yet almost humorous, protest from Joe; and so she made out that the veteran swore his three comrades to friendship with Joseph Louden, to lend him their countenance in all matters, to stand by him in weal and woe, to speak only good of him and defend him in the town of Canaan. Thus did Eskew Arp on the verge of parting ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... heard?" And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: "I heard the water lapping on the crag, And the long ripple washing in the reeds." To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath: "Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue, Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me! Authority forgets a dying king, Laid widow'd of the power in his eye That bow'd the will. I see thee what thou art, For thou, the latest-left of all my knights, In whom should ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... they, I warrant," answered Winter. "And woe betide the city and all in it if aught of evil has been done to our Captain! We will find every man who has been in anywise responsible for that evil, and will hang him before his own door for all men to see how dangerous a thing it is for a Spaniard to lay ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... woe!" exclaimed Fouquet, striking his forehead. "Woe!" and without saying a single word more to the governor, he threw himself back in his carriage, despair in his heart, ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... status of mothers. When the Prophet of Exiles wishes to depict God as the Comforter of his people, he says "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you" (Is. lxvi. 13). When the Psalmist describes his utter woe, he laments, "As one mourning for his mother, I was bowed down ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... burden of anguish grows weightier than I can bear. For me, friends are murdered, defenders are distant, possessions are lost. The God of the Christian priests has abandoned us to danger and deserted us in woe. It is for me to end the struggle for us both. Our last refuge has been in this place—our sepulchre shall ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... household. Here were two chief members of one little family circle, afflicted by such incurable bodily calamity as it falls to the lot of but few human beings to suffer—yet here were no sighs, no tears, no vain repinings with each new morning, no gloomy thoughts to set woe and terror watching by the pillow at night. In this homely sphere, life, even in its frailest aspects, was still greater than its greatest trials; strong to conquer by virtue of its own innocence and purity, its simple unworldly ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... at this disappointment were unspeakable. He now saw demolished the last screen betwixt him and the extremity of indigence and woe; he beheld the mistress of his soul abandoned to the bleakest scenes of poverty and want; and he deeply resented the lofty strain of the letter, by which he conceived himself treated as a worthless spendthrift and importunate beggar. Though his purse was exhausted to the last shilling; ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... saw the police sergeant himself. The chauffeur had barely begun his tale of woe when the sergeant interrupted with the smile of one ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... road leading out of the little town, the wolf-dog had turned in an opposite direction. The rider turned in the saddle and sent a sharp whistle towards the animal, but he was answered by a short howl of woe that made him check Satan and swing around. Black Bart stood in the centre of the street facing in the opposite direction, and he looked back over his shoulder towards ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... great, she called for Greek wine and confections and let give Andreuccio to drink, after which he would have taken leave, for that it was supper-time; but she would on no wise suffer it and making a show of being sore vexed, embraced him and said, 'Ah, woe is me! I see but too clearly how little dear I am to thee! Who would believe that thou couldst be with a sister of thine, whom thou hast never yet seen and in whose house thou shouldst have lighted down, whenas thou earnest hither, and offer to leave ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... When the audience went out between acts to promenade in the corridors, he might go also and there might be a chance to pass near to him in the crowd. He watched him closely. Sometimes his fine old face saddened at the beautiful woe of the music, sometimes it looked enraptured, and it was always evident that every ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... hand in evil hour Forth-reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she eat. Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat, Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe That all ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... more as to the Shepherds, and then we have done with him. On the Sunday, Mr. Cope had an elder brother staying with them, who preached on the lesson for the day, the second chapter of the Prophet Habakkuk; and when he came to the text, 'Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house,' he brought in some of the like passages, the threats to those that 'grind the faces of the poor,' that 'oppress the hireling in his wages,' and that terrible saying of St. James, 'Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Hamlet, then The camp-drab's tears could not but flow. Then Romance lived and breathed and burned. She felt the frail queen-mother's woe, Thrilled for Ophelia, fond and blind, And Hamlet, cruel, yet so kind, And moaned, his proud words hurt ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay
... three hundred thousand Jewish soldiers are under arms in this district. Besides the inevitable loss by death of many of these and the distress caused by the removal of so many others for an indefinite period from breadwinning for their families, there must be ineffable woe caused by the fact that this district is the scene of strenuous conflicts, which lead to the wholesale destruction of the Jewish homes in a literal sense. When one reflects that one out of every six of the inhabitants of Russian, Prussian, ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... said he, and his face scowled darkly. "Woe to anybody who hurts my mother! I have no scruples then. I would crush that woman like a viper if I could!—What, does she attack my mother's life, my ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... view the empty pedestal! And melancholy fancies come and go Across my dream, whereon a day of woe Foreshadowed is—I know ...
— Poems of Paul Verlaine • Paul Verlaine
... behind it stepped into view an exceeding small boy, attired mainly in a gigantic pair of corduroys that reached to the armpits, and were secured with string around the shoulders. His face was a mask of woe, and he staunched his tears on a very grimy shirt-sleeve as he stood and gazed mutely ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and the words, "Will you write to me, and give relief to one whose thoughts will follow you?" hung tremblingly upon her lips. But just then I saw what a great soul she had within her, and how when moved she would tread upon that dangerous brink, from which so many launch into a world of woe. I pressed her hand in return, and bade her adieu; promising never to forget her, nor allow another to beguile my fancies, but to be unto her as I felt she would be unto ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... the same method with a like result. Lisette became as docile as a dog, and allowed me and my servant to approach her freely. She even became a little more tractable towards the stablemen of the staff, whom she saw every day, but woe to the strangers who passed near her! I could quote twenty instances of her ferocity, but I will confine myself to one. While Marshal Augereau was staying at the chateau of Bellevue, near Berlin, the servants of the staff, having observed that when they ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... Appin, and Mamore — If their tale you wish to learn Then to "Kidnapped" you must turn. Strange that one man's eager brain Can make those dead lands live again! From the deck we saw Glencoe, Where upon that night of woe William's men did such a deed [132] As even now we blush to read. Ben Nevis towered on our right, The clouds concealed it from our sight, But it was comforting to say That over there Ben Nevis lay'. Finally we made the land At Fort William's sloping strand, And in our car away we ...
— Songs Of The Road • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the grief, and alleviates while it magnifies it. But there is another sorrow of mothers who alone know what their child was really; who alone have received his smiles and observed the treasures of a life too soon cut short. That sorrow hides its woe, the blackness of which surpasses all other mourning; it cannot be described; happily there are but few women whose heart-strings are ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... generous a little bit.—'White girls in isolated districts exposed to lustful Negro brutes.' Colored girls in isolated districts exposed to lustful white brutes; what's the difference? Does the Negro's ruined home amount to nought? Can man sin against his neighbor without suffering its consequences? 'Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!' I'll throw a broadside at that old women, so ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... sinner, stop and think, Before you further go; Think upon the brink of death Of everlasting woe. Say, have you an arm like God, That you his will oppose? Fear you not that iron rod With which he ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... keys of the tomb into his conquering hand. She had already, alone as she was, accomplished some of these, and the work on which I found her employed, was her mother's shroud. My heart sickened at such detail of woe, which a female can endure, but which is more painful to the masculine spirit than deadliest struggle, or throes of unutterable but ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... bringing in their young wives until they felt brave enough to leave their mothers. Usually the female portion ruled the house, and were doubtless clannish enough about it. The stores were in common, but woe to the luckless husband or lover who was too shiftless to do his share of the providing. No matter how many children or whatever goods he might have in the house, he might at any time be ordered to pack up his blanket and budge, and ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... neatly and tidily they were always "excellent," or "quite slap-up" as he used to say. Even in those early days, he made a point of visiting every room in the house once each morning, and if a chair was out of its place, or a blind not quite straight, or a crumb left on the floor, woe betide the offender. ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... mystery of horror which had of late been strengthening its hold upon her imagination. The black cloud which lowered above the house had indeed its significance; the voices which wailed to her of sin and woe were the true expression of things amid which she had been moving unconsciously. That instinct which made her shrink from her mother's presence was not without its justification; the dark powers which circled her existence had ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... of woe, in which, instead of saying much himself, the poet informs us what the ancients would have said on ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... way With downcast heads and downcast hearts—but not to sport or play. For when at eve the lamps were lit, and supperless to bed Each child was sent, with tasks undone and lessons all unsaid, No man might know the awful woe that thrilled their youthful frames, As they dreamed of Angels Spelling Bee and ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... where—well, no human knows; Ye though my loved ones know what to answer, My pale face ye follow wherever it goes. My home's in the forest, my home's in the city, Wherever the terror of loneliness lies, And woe be to him who when out in the moonlight Catches the glance of my soul-piercing eyes. By day I am stone By night I have breath, And those whom I meet, know the ...
— A Napa Christchild; and Benicia's Letters • Charles A. Gunnison
... What shall be said of us who permit outworn laws and customs to persist in piling up the appalling sum of public expense, misery and spiritual degradation? The indictment against the large unwanted family is written in human woe. Who in the light of intelligent understanding shall have the brazenness to ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... he cast His arms round his son's neck, and wept aloud, And kiss'd him. And awe fell on both the hosts, When they saw Rustum's grief; and Ruksh, the horse, With his head bowing to the ground and mane Sweeping the dust, came near, and in mute woe First to the one then to the other moved His head, as if inquiring what their grief Might mean; and from his dark, compassionate eyes, The big warm tears roll'd down, and caked the sand, But Rustum chid him with stern voice, and said:— ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... had solved the problem of human woe; no theory convinced. And Brisson, searching leisurely the forgotten corridors of treasured lore, became interested to realise that in all the history of time only the deeds and example of one man had invested the human theory of divinity with any ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... and formulas would be of use to those not yet well versed in the labors of a fruit farm. Such rules, also, may be of service to the unfortunates who are dependent on the "hired man," since they can be copied and given to this minister of destiny whose hands work out our weal or woe so largely. There are two types of workmen that are incorrigible. The one slashes away with his haphazard hoe, while he looks and talks in another direction. His tongue, at least, is rarely idle, and his curiosity ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... dream? How wan and fearful and faded you do look! The glow is dead in your cheeks, the lightening quenched in your glances. Froh, it is still early morning! Donner, you are dropping your hammer! What ails Fricka? Is it chagrin to see the greyness of age creeping over Wotan?" Sounds of woe burst from all, save Wotan, who with his eyes on the ground still ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... ye whose hearts were rent with pain A few short weeks ago, Is it unkind to harp again Upon that tale of woe? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... even as a youth, he made the king's subjects fear him by his imperious manner. His appearance in the streets was the signal for everyone to run into his house, bar the doors, and peer nervously through the casements. He was a reckless rider, and woe betide the unfortunate persons who happened to be in his way. Sparing neither man, woman, nor child, he callously rode over them, or lashed out vindictively with the long whip he always carried, laughing ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... "I should like to know his history," said the amiable lady; "let us send for him in." To express a wish, and have it gratified, were the same thing to Mrs. D——, and in a few minutes the veteran tar stood before them. "Would you wish to hear a tale of woe?" cried the old man, in answer to her request. "Ah, no! why should your tender heart be wounded by another's griefs? I have been buffeted by the storms of affliction—I have struggled against the billows of adversity—every wave of sorrow has ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various |
