"Woeful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... musician on the street corner forces himself to play to the passing crowd, for the pennies that are dropped in his tin cup. Rather was he driven by the conviction of a great truth, and by the realization of its woeful need in the world, to such adequate expression as his mastery of the tools of his craft would permit He was not, now, the slave of his technical knowledge; striving to produce a something that should be merely technically good. ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... "And what luck! I always said that Peter would never marry, because he would insist on taking women seriously, and because at heart he was afraid of them to a woeful degree, and showed it in such a way, as simply to make women think he didn't like them individually. But Miss Luck wouldn't allow that. Oh, no! Miss Luck isn't content even that Peter shall take his chance of getting a wife, with ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... not been at all well. He is sitting up in his room, and his doctor has come to see him for the third time in three days. This means that the malady is not yet seriously regarded: once a day is still sufficient. Nevertheless, he is a woeful wreck to look at; and the doctor looks at him with the greatest respect, and listens to his querulous plaint patiently. For that great dome of silence, his brain, repository of so many state-secrets, is still ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... robes. At first I thought that he was dead, he sat so still; but at length he turned his head, and I saw that his eyes were white and sightless. He was blind, and his face was thin as the face of a dead man, and woeful with ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... and the "Song of the Way-Tamer," are among the most deeply poetical hymns of the Edda. They relate to the same great event—the death of Balder—and are full of mystery and fear. A strange trouble has fallen upon the gods, the oracles are silent, and a dark, woeful foreboding seizes on all things living. Odin mounts his steed, Sleipner, and descends to hell to consult the Vala there in her tomb, and to extort from her, by runic incantations, the fate of his son. This "Descent of Odin" ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... the principle of Example so far that he only retained his boozing dyspeptic brother Hippias at Raynham in order to exhibit to his son the woeful retribution nature wreaked upon a life of indulgence; poor Hippias having now become a walking complaint. This was unjust, but there is no doubt he made use of every illustration to disgust or encourage ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... night had shout of men and cry Of woeful women filled His way; Until that noon of sombre sky On Friday, clamour and display Smote Him; no solitude had He, ...
— A Father of Women - and other poems • Alice Meynell
... disastrous renewal of the contest; Hudibras and Ralph in the stocks; the lady's release and conditional acceptance of the unlucky knight; the latter's deliberations on the means of eluding his vow; the Skimmington; the visit to Sidrophel, the astrologer; the attempt to cajole the lady, with its woeful consequences; the consultation with the lawyer, and the immortal pair of letters to which this gives rise, complete the argument of the whole poem. But the story is as nothing; throughout we have little really kept before us but the sordid vices of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... of us beheld that cruel queen, Who with an equal horror struck our hearts: But very soon the priests surrounded us— They caused us to withdraw. Of all the rest I'm ignorant, and I returned to tell You of this woeful uproar. ...
— Athaliah • J. Donkersley
... by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove; Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn, Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... man at the window was as if some woeful spirit of the melancholy scene were calling him. With head bowed, and face turned a little to one side, he listened intently as one listens to voices that are muffled and indistinct. He pressed his face close to the glass, and with straining ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... son of the Diamond X owner. "They won't be much good for shipping to market until they get some fat back on their bones." Many of the cattle were in woeful shape, and all suffered from lack of water, since the rustlers had driven them so hard, endeavoring to get far away with them as soon as possible that they had ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker
... never saw my lady lay apart Her cornet black, in cold nor yet in heat, Sith first she knew my grief was grown so great; Which other fancies driveth from my heart, That to myself I do the thought reserve, The which unwares did wound my woeful breast. But on her face mine eyes mought never rest Yet, since she knew I did her love, and serve Her golden tresses clad alway with black, Her smiling looks that hid[es] thus evermore And that restrains which I desire so sore. So doth this ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... wrong-doing which does not carry along with it some downfall of blindly climbing hopes, some hard entail of suffering, some quickly satiated desire that survives, with the life in death of old paralytic vice, to see itself cursed by its woeful progeny—some tragic mark of kinship in the one brief life to the far-stretching life that went before, and to the life that is to come after, such as has raised the pity and terror of men ever since they began to discern between will and destiny. But these things are often ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... pleased that I could tell them of where their slave whom they called the 'Turk'—led the gold hunters searching for the Quivera of yellow metal and blue stones. They had much delight to hear of the woeful time of the white men. I could stay all my days at Ci-cu-ye and be precious to them, if I would talk of the trouble trail to Quivera, but when I had seen that the Padre was indeed gone to the Lost Others, my work was no more at Ci-cu-ye. ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... to our moist vows denied, Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old, Where the great vision of the guarded mount Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold; Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth: And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth. Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more, For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead, Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor. So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore Flames in the forehead of the morning sky: ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... Take heed, lest I that am younger than thou pursue thee to the field, and pelt thee with stones, for in might I am the better. If only I were so much mightier in strength of arm than all the wooers that are in the halls, soon would I send many an one forth on a woeful way from out our house, for they ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... all you wish of my letter, Miss Gussie, I beg you will return it to me," and he took it from her hand and thrust it into his breast-pocket; then turning a woeful face to the astonished guests, ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... from the acquisition of offering or wealth or kingdom! What happiness will not be his who, himself in affluence, will cast his eyes on Dhananjaya attired in barks and deer-skins? Let thy wife dressed in costly robes look at the woeful Krishna clad in barks and deer-skins, and enhance the latter's grief! Let the daughter of Drupada reproach herself and her life, divested as she is of wealth, for the sorrow that she will feel upon beholding thy wife decked in ornaments will be far greater than what ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... funeral, everybody in the parish was talking of the woeful cries which had been heard the night before near her grave. The inhabitants of the place, imbued with fantastic ideas that their rector had kept alive, were dupes of the artifice employed by some of their ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... on a city paper she knows that there are linotypes, presses and other machinery. Often she has seen them work; but her knowledge of "how" they work is generally vague. It was on my third day as city editor that I realized my woeful ignorance of the newspaper business from the mechanical viewpoint. I had just arrived at the office when the foreman came ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... to understand that such an imprisonment of a multitude of women of different ages would produce some woeful effects. Any reader of Manzoni's Promessi Sposi, with its wonderful portrayal of the feelings and doings of a noble lady kept in a convent against her will, may have some idea of the rage and despair which must have inspired such assemblages ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... me, colours that were my joy, Not in the woeful crimson of men slain, But shining as a garden; come with the streaming Banners of dawn ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... birched! there I was bred! There like a little Adam fed From Learning's woeful tree! The weary tasks I used to con!— The hopeless leaves I wept upon!— Most fruitful leaves ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... in their pain and woeful state, they told each other what had happened—Roger and Bob relating how they had been cut off and captured, and Jimmy telling of his leading the rescue party, only to be betrayed into going in the wrong direction, ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... the young woman, and then she hurried in, and left me standing at the gate. My shoes were by this time in a woeful condition, my hat was crushed and bent, my shirt and trousers stained and torn, my hair had known no comb or brush since I left London, my face, neck, and hands, from unaccustomed exposure, were burnt to a berry-brown. From head to foot I was powdered with dust. In this plight I waited to introduce ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... walked in the city, to Sym there came Sounds envenomed with fear and hate, Shouts of anger and words of shame, As Glug blamed Glug for his woeful state. "This blame?" said Sym, "Is it mortal's right To blame his fellow for aught he be?" But the father said, "Do we blame the night When darkness gathers and none ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... went to work To move the stubborn lid; And, presently, a mighty jerk The mighty mischief did; For all at once, ah! woeful case! The snuff came puffing in ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... sunshine, give him a wet hide and a wet floor to camp on, and he straightway becomes all penitence and prayer. His face, peering out dismally between the upturned collar of his weather-stained coat and the down-drawn brim of his battered hat, looks like a soiled sermon, and he is altogether woeful. ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... my sister, can it be that I shall find thee at last, after ten thousand miles, and thirty years of woeful wandering?" ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... old and faithful servant. At last, in his misery and despair, he thought he would go to his youngest daughter, who had become queen of France, and see if she would take pity on him. So he crossed over to France. When Cordelia heard of her father's woeful plight, and of her sisters' cruelty to him, she wept for sorrow, and at once sent him everything needful for his comfort. She and her husband then set out to meet him, surrounded by their soldiers and followers, and brought him in ...
— Fun And Frolic • Various
... the intellectual and religious fate of them among that people that have substituted, like the Brahman ritualist, form for spirit; like the Vedantist, ideas for ideals; like the sectary, emotion for morality. But greatest, if woeful, is the lesson taught by that phase of Buddhism, which has developed into Lamaism and its kindred cults. For here one learns how few are they that can endure to be wise, how inaccessible to the masses is the height on which sits ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... meal. After that the weather began to get bad, and continued getting bad for a long time. Then for some days, as sure as I went down below for a meal I did violence to the sentiment of the old proverb "wilful waste makes woeful want." However, in a few days I recovered sufficiently to withstand the noxious influences of the saloon long enough to satisfy my hunger. We had bad weather, more or less the whole way across to Belle Isle; not a gale exactly, except ...
— Canada for Gentlemen • James Seton Cockburn
... fancied that, besides the load of exuvial coats and breeches under which he staggers, there is another weight on him—an atrior cura at his tail—and while his unshorn lips and nose together are performing that mocking, boisterous, Jack-indifferent cry of "Clo', clo'!" who knows what woeful utterances are crying from the heart within? There he is, chaffering with the footman at No. 7 about an old dressing-gown: you think his whole soul is bent only on the contest about the garment. Psha! there is, perhaps, some faithless girl in Holywell Street who fills up his ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... from some room far away now came this verse of a well-known hymn, sung in a deep vibrating voice full of a woeful, contrite tremulousness: ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... her sister-in-law enjoying life, gave her attention to Garvington's affairs, and found them in a woeful mess. It really did appear as if she would have to save the Lambert family from ever-lasting disgrace, and from being entirely submerged, by keeping hold of her millions. But she did not lose heart, and worked on bravely in the hope that ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... crashing of breakers, Theseus hasting from sight with swiftest of fleets, Ariadne watches, her heart swelling with raging passion, nor scarce yet credits she sees what she sees, as, newly-awakened from her deceptive sleep, she perceives herself, deserted and woeful, on the lonely shore. But the heedless youth, flying away, beats the waves with his oars, leaving his perjured vows to the gusty gales. In the dim distance from amidst the sea-weed, the daughter of Minos ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... well-ordered offices, their vast factories, their sanely-conducted communications with all parts of the world, to which English genius, sense, and industry have brought the goods of England. The contrast between the Englishman at business and at politics is exasperating, woeful, tragic. ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... dread that it can never climb that height again, feels itself alone, with night approaching, and hears the howls of animals, so I now knew that she and I were separated by a universe. A wail arose within our souls like an echo of that woeful "Consummatum est" heard in the churches on Good Friday at the hour the Saviour died,—a dreadful scene which awes young souls whose first love is religion. All Henriette's illusions were killed at one blow; ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... few moments, when he was beginning to recover his breath, the sound of sobbing made him lift his head. The bulldog woman was in front of him and, grotesque and woeful, while warm tears fell from her eyes, she told him that she had lost her teeth in her flight. As she spoke she drew clay pipes from the pocket of her nurse's apron, breaking them and shoving pieces of the stems into the ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... had survived the wild beasts' hungry chase Died moaning, each upon the other's face In helpless agony gazing; round the City All night, the lean hyaenas their sad case 3925 Like starving infants wailed; a woeful ditty! And many a mother wept, pierced ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... contemptuously disregarding its virtues, its happiness, its knowledge, its great achievements, and its wisdom, and by stupidly or dishonestly magnifying its vices, its misery, its ignorance, its great slothfulness, and its folly; it is apt to be the way of the woeful, the unprosperous, the desperate—especially the way of such as find escape from the bore of routine life in the excitements of unrest, turbulence, and change; the past, they say, was all wrong, for it produced the present and the present ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... easier choice. If care of our descent perplex us most, Which must be born to certain woe, devoured By Death at last; and miserable it is To be to others cause of misery, Our own begotten, and of our loins to bring Into this cursed world a woeful race, That after wretched life must be at last Food for so foul a monster; in thy power It lies, yet ere conception to prevent The race unblest, to being yet unbegot. Childless thou art, childless remain: so Death Shall be deceived his glut, and with us two Be ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... definitely to end the controversy, till now—more than ninety years. The long periodic time has at last run out, and the star has again mounted into the heavens. What Ireland was doing for herself in 1795 we at length have done. The Roman Catholics have been emancipated—emancipated after a woeful disregard of solemn promises through twenty-nine years, emancipated slowly, sullenly, not from good will, but from abject terror, with all the fruits and consequences which will always follow that method of legislation. The second problem ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... silent, woeful gaze, Seeks the cruel boy to move; But, alas! in vain she prays— To the string he fits the groove. When from out the clefts, behold! Steps the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... her cheek for a moment to caress the hand; then suddenly all her strength went from her. She sank down on the floor at his feet, huddled together in a woeful heap, just as she had been on that first night when the ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... believe me or not as you like, but my heart's sore yet from the sight—an' I could see by the sheriff's face that he felt queer enough too. For why? Not a livin' word did we hear—they was doin' their work and holdin' their tongues. It was a solemn an' a woeful sight to see the poor starvin' creatures for once in a way ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... castaway and desolate. When my father and mother first went from me, I was at least among the places where they had been; June was with me still, and I knew not Miss Pinshon. The journey had had its excitements and its interest. Now I was alone; for June had decided, with tears and woeful looks, that she would not come to Magnolia; and Preston would be soon on his way back to college. I knew of only one comfort in the world; that wonderful, "Lo, I am with you." Does anybody know what that means, who has not made it the single ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... It was our aim to keep within the immediately practical and attainable and the plainly justifiable and reasonable. In the towns and in the country they had to live in hovels and mud-wall cabins which bred death and disease and all the woeful miseries of mankind. One would not kennel a dog or house any of the lower animals in the vile abominations called human dwellings in which tens of thousands of God's comfortless creatures were huddled together in indiscriminate wretchedness. Added to that, most of them had not ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... sad those words of one wedded but a year! How unlike the look that met his mother's woeful yet tender eyes, as she held his hand. She would aid him through that last passage as through all before, only a word of strong and tender love, as he again looked up to Julius and Anne, as if to put her in their keeping, and once more murmured ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dollars were lavished in prodigal waste To pamper the palate of epicures rich; Who drew from the wine cellar's cavernous niche "Excelsior" brands of the rarest champagnes To loosen their tongues—though it pilfered their brains— Oh, sad if a step in some woeful downfall Should ever be traced to ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... he said in a peremptory voice, and his eyes wandered up the path between the rails and the stable walls. 'You are a pretty piece, but I have no time to waste in woeful nonsense.' ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... drearier vision Passed before me, vague and cloud-like. I beheld our nations scattered, All forgetful of my counsels, Weakened, warring with each other; Saw the remnants of our people Sweeping westward, wild and woeful, Like the cloud-rack of a tempest, Like the ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... boundless sympathy. Unoccupied, as he might seem, with great matters, he is in immediate contact with what is real, especially in its caressing littleness, that littleness in which there is much of the whole woeful heart of things, and meets it more than half-way with a perfect understanding of it. What sudden, unexpected touches of pathos in him!—bearing witness how the sorrow of humanity, the Weltschmerz, the constant aching of its wounds, is ever present ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... the process of filling up his woeful gaps that Colonel Desmond had applied for Roy Sinclair, and so fulfilled the desire of his brother's heart: also, incidentally, Roy's craving to serve with Indian Cavalry. To that end, his knowledge of the language, his horsemanship, ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... changed. The inmost secrecy of his nature seemed evident until one almost lost sight of his lineaments. Rebecca stood close to her sofa, regarding him with woeful, fascinated eyes. Mrs. Brigham clutched Caroline's hand. They both stood in a corner out of his way. For a few moments he raged about the room like a caged wild animal. He moved every piece of furniture; when the moving of a piece did not affect the shadow, he flung it to the ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... up, and their bishops had been often obliged to remove them from one neighbourhood to another to prevent worse consequences. The infatuation was not to be stayed; the evil was engrafted on society, and many a long year, and woeful scene, and blighted life, and broken heart, was to signalize the perpetuation of secret ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... send on Thursday," repeated Dr. Carr, in a decided tone. Then, seeing that Elsie's lip was trembling, and her eyes were full of tears, he continued: "Don't look so woeful, Pussy. Alexander shall drive out for you; but if you want to stay longer, you may send him back with a note to say what day you would like to have him ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... of their comfortable journey would be destroyed at once. With woeful countenances they looked at each other. Their suspense lasted an hour or two. No one interfered to encourage or dissuade. Mrs. Norris was left to settle the matter by herself; and it ended, to the infinite joy of her nephew and niece, in the recollection that she could not possibly ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... week was once held in a district of professing Christians. When the week was over and the missionaries gone, the Khasis performed a ceremony in honour of their tribal deities. Their pastors regarded this as a woeful lapse from grace but no disbelief in Christianity or change of faith was implied. The Khasis had embraced Christianity in the same spirit that animated the ancient disciples of the Buddha: it was the higher law which spoke of a new life ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... prologue, and waited on the tale. It soon came. Oliphant, it appeared, was the purse-bearer of the household, and woeful straits that poor purse-bearer must have been often put to. I questioned him as to his master's revenues, but could get no clear answer. There were payments due next month in Florence which would solve the difficulties for ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... dead! Honor to the man who slew him!" So the Bergen farmers said as they crowded round to view him; For the wretch that lay there slain had with wickedness unbending To their roofs brought fiery rain, to their kinsfolk woeful ending. Not a mother but had prest, in a sudden pang of fearing, Sobbing darlings to her breast when his name had smote her hearing; Not a wife that did not feel terror when the words were uttered; Not ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... this day and night, it was known that the Youths had not slept, neither had they eaten, save once, as they who had the watch through the Great Spy-Glass did affirm. But they to hasten alway at a woeful speed towards the North, along that Great Dismal Road, so that presently they must cease, or slay themselves with ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... woeful life that Franz Hals led, it is amazing to think that he of all artists is the best painter of good humour. He puts a smile on the face of nearly every one of his "leading characters," whether it be a modest young girl, a hideous old woman, a strolling musician, or a riotous ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... indeed! Two corpses swung in the wind, like net bows on a drying-pole, going from side to side, making the woeful sough and clink of chains, and the dunt I had heard when the ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... anywhere, it was long and narrow and dirty, with deep ruts in the mud that lay in a thick covering over the road. It was intercepted, some distance down, by another street much worse to look at, and a little farther on, the woeful panorama became still more awful and repulsive. A little passage which seemed to have strayed away from all connection with human decency or sympathy ran to the left. It was so very narrow that though the surrounding ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... in no prouder garb than outcasts wear, Fed with no meals save what the charitable Give of their will, sheltered by no more pomp, Than the dim cave lends or the jungle-bush. This will I do because the woeful cry Of life and all flesh living cometh up Into my ears, and all my soul is full Of pity for the sickness of this world: Which I will heal, if healing may be found By ...
— The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons • H.S. Olcott
... ensued, in which Roland at first had the advantage, but the Duke, being reinforced, pressed him hotly, and in the end Roland was defeated and slain. Blancheflour received news of her lord's death immediately before the birth of her son, and, sore stricken by the woeful news, she named him Tristrem, or 'Child of Sorrow.' Then, recommending him to the care of Rohand, to whom she gave a ring which had belonged to King Mark, her brother, to prove Tristrem's relationship to that prince, she expired, to the intense grief of all her attendants. To secure ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... blessed our chief, That he gave her wounds repose; And the sounds of joy and grief From her people wildly rose, As death withdrew his shades from the day; While the sun looked smiling bright O'er a wide and woeful sight, Where the fires of ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... the Little Big-Horn, At the close of a woeful day, Custer and his Three Hundred In death and ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... A new set of commandments is being written in the sight of men,—commandments learned but slowly and often transgressed, even by those whose wills are pure and whose hearts are loving. Thou shalt sufficiently rest! How perpetually in these days is that commandment broken, and with what woeful penalty! The practical basis of all religion is the religion of the body. The body politic, too, the social organism, has its code of natural laws, intelligible, imperative. And every new discovery yields guidance ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... when it shall be digested, it will leave vital nourishment. This cry of thine shall do as the wind, which heaviest strikes the loftiest summits; and that will be no little argument of honor. Therefore to thee have been shown within these wheels, upon the mountain, and in the woeful valley, only the souls which are known of fame. For the mind of him who bears rests not, nor confirms its faith, through an example which has its root unknown and hidden, nor by other ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... out of doors without proper protection to the ears; or, it may be associated with a cold in the head, which is not detected until the mischief has already been done, while the resulting running ear tells the tale of woeful suffering. Earache must always be thought of as a possible cause when the cry of pain accompanies a cold in the head, and if medical aid is secured early, the abscess may be aborted and the deafness of later years entirely avoided. ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... It was not magnanimous behaviour to dethroned enemies; but one, at least, of the Societarians had groaned in the boots, and they had all seen their dear friends upon the scaffold. Again, at the "woeful Union," it was here that people crowded to escort their favourite from the last of Scottish parliaments: people flushed with nationality, as Boswell would have said, ready for riotous acts, and fresh from throwing ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... confidence therein by repairing to the Palais Royal rather than to a court of justice; and that the post he was in obliged him to express his surprise at such conduct. The Prince replied that the First President had no reason to wonder at his great precautions, since he (the Prince) knew by recent woeful experience what it was to live in a prison; and that it was notorious that the Cardinal ruled now in the Cabinet more absolutely than ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... This woeful deficiency in the means to carry on and enlarge our South American trade is but a part of the general decline and feebleness of the American merchant marine, which has reduced us from carrying over ninety per cent of our export trade in our own ships to the carriage ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... but none would work his will. He looked upon his lictors, but they trembled, and stood still. And, as Virginius through the press his way in silence cleft, Ever the mighty multitude fell back to right and left. And he hath passed in safety unto his woeful home, And there ta'en horse to tell the camp what deeds ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... struggle, we chanced to occupy in South-Eastern Europe. Every blunder into which petty municipal minds could fall when confronted with a wild revolutionary welter, marked the hesitant policy of the British Government. This aimless chaos of soul was the main cause of the woeful waste of our political advantages and enormous resources in the accomplishment of secondary ends which generally led nowhere. It was thus that they forfeited the active support of Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece, foolishly stood by applauding every step those nations took towards ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... Tommy's face presented a very woeful appearance. His cheek and lips were swelled and black, and the loss of his two front teeth made ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... thumb and finger went to work To move the stubborn lid; And presently a mighty jerk The mighty mischief did; For all at once, ah! woeful case, The snuff ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... seemed to be no way, only now and then I found some men and women's footsteps, which was some comfort to me in my sorrow; but whether they got out without being devoured by wild beasts, or whither I should go, I knew not. But in this woeful state I travelled from day to day, casting within myself what I had best to do;—whether utterly to despair in that condition, or whether I had best to seek some other town or city, to see if I could get some other guide. The first I saw to be desperate; I also despaired ...
— A Short History of a Long Travel from Babylon to Bethel • Stephen Crisp
... quickly from the blow, to say that the death had been the best thing which could happen to the family. To be rid of such a man, to have no more attaching to them the reproach of a father and husband in prison, removed half the woeful load of misfortune from the case. That the children were mostly of an age to earn their own livings, their mother still fairly young and strong, were facts also remembered. Then the word began to be passed about from mouth to mouth—spoken ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... his pall From the day; And the sun looked smiling bright On a wide and woeful sight Where the fires of funeral light ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... the cross in tears The woeful mother stood, Bent 'neath the weight of years, And viewed His flowing blood; Her mind with grief was torn, Her strength was ebbing fast, And through her heart forlorn The sword of ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... adventures. The first battle they fought was with two Saracens, and the Dwarf, who was very courageous, dealt one of the champions a most angry blow. It did the Saracen but very little injury, who lifting up his sword, fairly struck off the poor Dwarf's arm. He was now in a woeful plight; but the Giant coming to his assistance, in a short time left the two Saracens dead on the plain, and the Dwarf cut off the dead man's head out of spite. They then travelled on to another adventure. This was ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... they honored merely for what they did; they were the sort of men who command respect. To assist a rider in any way was deemed a high honor; to do aught to retard him was the limit of wrong-doing, a woeful offense. On the first trip west-bound, the rider between Folsom and Sacramento was thrown, receiving a broken leg. Shortly after the accident, a Wells Fargo stage happened along, and a special agent of that Company, who chanced to be a passenger, seeing the predicament, ...
— The Story of the Pony Express • Glenn D. Bradley
... seek; and the dreams of Saladin, of whose kin I am, to interweave my life with the bloody policies of Syria and the unending war between Cross and Crescent, that are, both of them, my heritage." Then, with a woeful gesture, Rosamund turned ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... the books she had read on ship-building, and she asked if she might borrow them. Polly made a woeful face at this. ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... agog with joy," interrupted old Lady Storms who heard. "She was a woeful disappointment to many a gossiping woman, and a lesson to all the shifty fools who sell themselves to a man, and then trick him out of the price ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... I'll tell you something that will cheer your woeful heart!" jeered Eleanor, impatiently. "I'm going to take that Red Man's up-trail, soon, and rediscover the mine, then I'll give it to Polly for a present for her loyalty to ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... the reason some so prize what others so despise, since they both stand in need of the same grace and mercy of God in Christ? Why, the one sees, and the other sees nothing, of this woeful miserable state. And thus have I showed you the necessity of a broken heart. 1. Man is dead, and must be quickened. 2. Man is a fool, and must be made wise. 3. Man is proud, and must be humbled. 4. Man is self-willed, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... rose I determined to try the effect of my personality on the beetles. I approached the one who seemed to be the leader and, putting on the most woeful expression I could muster, I looked at the floor. He did not understand me and I pretended that I was falling and grasped at him. This time he nodded and stepped to the instrument board. In a moment ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, In fair ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson
... the lips of that foreigner base, of Athens the bane and disgrace, There is shrieking, his kinsman by race, The garrulous swallow of Thrace; From that perch of exotic descent, Rejoicing her sorrow to vent, She pours to her spirit's content, a nightingale's woeful lament, That e'en though the voting be equal, his ruin will soon ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes
... were interrupted by the entrance of a woeful procession. Into the presence of the two brothers, eyeing each other with such lowering faces, Mrs Smith and her husband entered, carrying between them, with solemn looks, the unconscious Freddy, while his mother followed screaming, and his little brother and sister staring ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... faded buds already lie To deck my coffin when I die. Bring them here—'twill not be long, 'Tis the last word of the woeful song; And the final and dying words are sung To the discord of lute strings ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... Lord," he wrote in a letter, "I am very well, and much satisfied with my place and portion. O how sweet is the quiet of these parts, freed from the anxious and troublesome solicitations, hurries, and solicitations of woeful Europe!" ...
— William Penn • George Hodges
... to work and some one had touched on a woeful little servant-maid drama which had painfully disclosed itself in her household. A small, plain kitchen maid had "walked out" in triumphant ecstasy with a soldier who, a few weeks after bidding her good-bye, had been killed in Belgium. She had been ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... sewed him up in a canvas sack and we slung him to a tree; And the stars like needles stabbed our eyes, and woeful men were we. And on we went on our woeful way, wrapped in a daze of dream, And the Northern Lights in the crystal nights came forth with a mystic gleam. They danced and they danced the devil-dance over the naked snow; And soft they rolled like a tide upshoaled with a ceaseless ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... woeful night at his rooms. He did not know what to do, and on the following day May Lawton encountered him again, and proved by her demeanour that the episode of the previous afternoon had caused no estrangement. Lionel vacillated. The sway of the schoolmistress was almost restored, and it ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... she is a woman of good position, of intellectual quickness, of unusual sensitiveness of spirit; yet she has thought out this woeful question differently from the great majority of her sex. To her, thirsty for sympathy and love, bound to a man who gives her neither, grown feverish and delirious with the torment of an empty heart, it has seemed that the sanctity of ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... palace and threw herself on her knees before Angelo, saying, "I am a woeful suitor to your Honor, if it will please ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... beating against one another like a swarm of frightened birds. And in the dark background the low notes sang in measured, harmonious cadence like the waves of the sea exhausted by the storm. Some one cried out, a loud, agitated, woeful cry of rebellion, questioned and appealed in impotent anguish, and, losing hope, grew silent; and then again sang his rueful plaints, now resonant and clear, now subdued and dejected. In response to ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... over, and yet I was horror-struck at the misery and rags of these poor fellows. No wonder men deserted, and officers were resigning in scores, desperate under the appeals of helpless wife and family in far-away homes. It was no better on the upland beyond. Everywhere were rude huts in rows, woeful-looking men at drill, dejected sentries, gaunt, hungry, ill clothed, with here and there a better-dressed officer to make the ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... freedom swelled In his breast; clear was his mind and keen his eye; Quickly he surveyed the scene, beheld the squaws, Saw the warriors guarding Wahunsunakok, Closely watched by wily Opekankano, Last the death feast—well he knew the woeful sign— Sickened then his stomach at the sight of food, Yet hard pressed, he urged him to the hateful task, Made pretence of eating slow the while his brain Rapidly was planning to escape his doom. Weapons ...
— Pocahontas. - A Poem • Virginia Carter Castleman
... naturally gave to their work amidst surroundings by which they were at once stimulated and inspired. Even the practical defects of the ruinous theatre were turned into poetical advantages which made the tragic action still more real. The woeful entrance of Oedipus and the despairing retreat of Jocasta were rendered the more impressive by momentary pauses in the broken doorway—that emphasized by its wreck their own wrecked happiness; in "Antigone" a touching beauty was given to the entry ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... rumour had reached his ears? Could it be that he had come to set her free? It seemed scarce possible, and yet what besides could have brought him hither? And at least with help so near she could surely make her woeful ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... year, before harvest, the holy minster of St. Paul, the episcopal see in London, was completely burned, with many other minsters, and the greatest part, and the richest of the whole city. So also, about the same time, full nigh each head-port in all England was entirely burned. Alas! rueful and woeful was the fate of the year that brought forth so many misfortunes. In the same year also, before the Assumption of St. Mary, King William went from Normandy into France with an army, and made war upon his own lord Philip, the king, and slew many of his men, and burned the town of ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... exchanged a glance in which terror was visibly written. Master Grimston looked over his shoulder swiftly, and made as though to speak, yet only swallowed in his throat; but Henry said suddenly, in a loud and woeful voice: "It is an evil beast out of the sea." And then there followed a dreadful silence, while Father Thomas felt a sudden fear leap up in his heart, at the contagion of the fear that he saw written on the faces round him. But he said with all the cheerfulness he could muster, ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... father lives in England!—(Motherwell.) She, at least, might invoke 'Ye mariners, mariners, mariners!' (as in Scott's first fragment) not to carry her story. Now we ask whether, after the ringing tragedy of Miss Hamilton in Russia, in the year of grace 1719, contemporaries who heard the woeful tale could, between 1719 and 1820, call the heroine—(1) Hamilton; (2) Mild, Moil, Myle, Miles; (3) make her a daughter of the Duke of York, or of the Duke of Argyll, or of lords and of knights from all quarters of the compass, and sister-in-law ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... our portion, / let that straightway appear. Men hast thou yet so many / that, should they banish fear, Not one of us storm-weary / might keep his life secure. How long shall we here friendless / this woeful ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... sorrow, of my mother's woeful plight, If afar in wood and jungle pass we now the ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... of his splendid marriage—those two poor, weak little beings, whom the least breath from the sky threatened to kill like flies. Of the fortune he had married, all that remained to him was the constant grief of beholding those woeful children stricken by the final degeneracy of scrofula and phthisis. However, this big, egotistical fellow showed himself an admirable father. The only energy that remained to him consisted in a determination to make ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... to the landing with JEYES and parts from him at the top of the stairs. Then FARNCOMBE slowly returns, closes the door, and finds LILY sitting upon the settee in a woeful attitude. ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... the proceedings in the press-room were of a still more terrific description He now resembled the stag at bay; his strength became more than human. On attempting to tie his hands, five men were found insufficient for the woeful task. He yelled, and flung them aside like children, but made no attempt at escape, for, in truth, he knew not what he did. The sheriff, one of the most powerful and athletic men to be found in the province, was turned about ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... he had got the knife, he looked about, and had a mind to stab himself with it; and he had done it, had not his first cousin, Achiabus, prevented him, and held his hand, and cried out loudly. Whereupon a woeful lamentation echoed through the palace, and a great tumult was made, as if the king were dead. Upon which Antipater, who verily believed his father was deceased, grew bold in his discourse, as hoping to be immediately and entirely released from his bonds, and to take the kingdom into his hands ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... drew breath again; and on the gloomy edge of this gulf some soldiers even amused themselves by inciting Termite to speak of militarism and anti-militarism. I saw faces which laughed, through their black and woeful pattern of fatigue, around the little man who gesticulated in impotence. Then we had ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... Catholics. The burning of heretics was a public amusement, and the court ladies sat out the play. On the queen-mother and on her miserable son lay all the blood of the St. Bartholomew. The country was torn asunder; everywhere was battle, murder, pillage, and such woeful partings as Mr. Millais has represented in his incomparable picture. To the solitary humourous essayist this state of things was hateful. He was a good Catholic in his easy way; he attended divine service regularly; he crossed himself when he yawned. He conformed in ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... best of the woeful change. The deep, quiet love she had given to her son she transferred to Felicita, who, she well knew, had been his idol. She believed that the sorrows of these last few months had not sprung out of the ground, but had for some reason come down from God, the God of her fathers, in whom she put ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... the dogs just as fast as he can go," said Mr. Jaffrey, with a woeful face. "I can't do ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... had laid a red-hot iron on her palm, it would scarcely have been more scorching than the touch of his gold, and only the vision of a wan and woeful face in that far off cheerless attic room, restrained her impulse to ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... between ourselves, I do think I deserve something to eat after that," muttered the poor fellow. "Here, where did I put that there piece of cake? It must be lost amongst those leaves. Dropped it when I was feeling for the spear. What! plenty more in the basket? No, I won't. Wilful waste makes woeful want. Why, here it is in my trousers pocket all the time! So, now then, let's have another try; and I will treat myself to a banana afterwards. No, I won't; I'll have two." And hurrying to the basket, he helped ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... would agree; but after an embargo for ninety days had been declared on the 4th of April, he told the British Minister that it was not, could not be considered, a war measure. He still waited for Congress to shoulder the responsibility of declaring war. Why did he hesitate? Was he aware of the woeful state of unpreparedness everywhere apparent and was he therefore desirous of delay? Some color is given to this excuse by his efforts to persuade Congress to create two assistant secretaryships of war. Or was he conscious of his own inability ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... some time before tennis. I first collected ferns under a crag in a deep glen. Mere amassing soon gave way to discrimination, which led to picking out a favorite fern. This was chosen, I now realize, with a woeful lack of fine feeling. I called it "The Alligator" from its fancied resemblance to my brother's alligator-skin traveling-bag. But admiration of this fern brought a dawning consciousness that certain natural objects were ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... woeful, was seen on his face as he turned His eyes upon each of his children, like one who but faintly discerned His old self in an old mirror. Then gathering sense in his fist, He sounded it hard on his knee-cap. 'Your hand, Tom, the French ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Gen. Howe sent a request to Washington desiring three days cessation of arms to take care of the wounded and bury the dead, which was refused: what a woeful tendency war has to harden the human heart against the tender feelings of humanity. Well may it be called a horrid art thus to change the nature of man. I thought that even barbarous nations had a sort of ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... sun shall set in Heaven, Dark with the clouds of steaming blood, A ghastly, woeful, dying murmur Will ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... young friends and their ladies elect with a pleasant excursion, I invited them to accompany me in a visit to the Wye, including Piercefield and Tintern Abbey; objects new to us all. It so happened the day we were to set off was that immediately following the woeful disappointment! but here all was punctuality. It was calculated that the proposed objects might be accomplished in two days, so as not to interfere with the Friday evening's lecture, which Mr. Southey had now wisely ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... at Tyre, and was once more settled in the quiet possession of his throne, while his woeful queen, whom he thought dead, remained at Ephesus. Her little babe Marina, whom this hapless mother had never seen, was brought up by Cleon in a manner suitable to her high birth. He gave her the most careful ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... hopelessly a man of the world!—of that woeful outside one, I mean. It is now Sunday; half-past eleven in the morning. Everybody else is gone to church—and I am left alone with the cat, in the world ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... the sullen sea; the sky was an unbroken gray deadness shedding pin-point moisture that was now and then blown against the panes with a crepitation of despair. The lady looked out on the dim and chilling prospect with a woeful face. It was a bad day for a woman bereaved, alone and without a ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... around pretty much to his way of thinking. His recommendations to the department commander that were intended to reach the Secretary of War as well were in every sense a corroboration of Pike's complaints in so far as the woeful neglect of the Indians was concerned. Better proof that Hindman's conduct had been highly reprehensible could scarcely ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... the true speech of a lady, and the twist of the tongue on French, and the nice little things you've missed here among the sheep, Joan darlin', and that neither me nor your mother nor John Mackenzie—good lad that he is, though mistaken at times, woeful mistaken in his judgment ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... best to cheer her up, but the day was a woeful failure. Uncle Roddy and Bob were the only ones who understood her grief, and their own was so great that they could ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... and afflictions of the eyes; in the middle of the forties paralysis of the spinal cord began to manifest itself; and for the last ten years of his life he was a hopelessly stricken invalid, finally doomed for five years to that "mattress grave" which his fortitude no less than his woeful humor has pathetically glorified. His wife cared for him dutifully, he was visited by many distinguished men of letters, and in 1855 a ministering angel came to him in the person of Elise von Krinitz ("Camille Selden") whom he called "Die Mouche" ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... unsophisticated race, who could hardly endure the nominal yoke of regicides, and preserved the sanctuary of their domestic retreats unpolluted by the presence of spies and informers. From these, his occasional hosts, De Vallance learned many woeful particulars of the miseries of the prisoners taken at Worcester, "who were driven like cattle to London, many of them suffered to perish for want of food, or from pestilential diseases arising from crowded ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... bound, and broidered o'er, Her breviary book. In such a place, so lone, so grim, At dawning pale, or twilight dim, It fearful would have been To meet a form so richly dressed, With book in hand, and cross on breast, And such a woeful mien. Fitz-Eustace, loitering with his bow, To practise on the gull and crow, Saw her, at distance, gliding slow, And did by Mary swear - Some lovelorn fay she might have been, Or, in romance, some spell-bound ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott |
