"Wretch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said decidedly, "I wouldn't like to fall into the hands of that man, the Ubique man I mean, not the failure. He must be a cold-blooded wretch, or he couldn't write such things. It ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... in the forest of Cassano, Benincasa was brought to Cosenza, and General Manhes ordered that both his hands be lopped off and that he be led, thus mutilated, to his home in San Giovanni, and there hanged; a cruel sentence, which the wretch received with a bitter smile. His right hand was first cut off and the stump bound, not out of compassion or regard for his life, but in order that all his blood might not flow out of the opened veins, seeing that he was reserved for a more miserable death. Not ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... of those miserable lick-spittles who frequent the lectures; but when he discovered me, the smile vanished, and his ice-cold stare seemed to write upon the wall over my head: 'Mene, mene! [Footnote: Dan. v. 25.] Wretch, I know thee not!' ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... thoughts of self-destruction as the only means of escape. A fortnight ago he was a happy man, having everything before him that a man ought to want; and now—now that he was the accepted son-in-law of an earl, and the confident expectant of high promotion—he was the most miserable, degraded wretch in the world! ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... by agitators: by major-generals: by a new kind of representatives from the three kingdoms: by the keepers of the liberties of England; with other schemes that have slipped out of my memory. Cromwell was dead; his son Richard, a weak, ignorant wretch, who gave up his monarchy much in the same manner with the two usurping kings of Brentford.[9] The people harassed with taxes and other oppressions; the King's party, then called the Cavaliers began to recover their spirits. The few nobility ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... that he appeared inconsolable. One of our fathers, talking to him in order to console him, found him like one demented, and he seemed to rave. Finally, when it was least expected in the ship, the poor wretch cast himself into the sea. It was noted with wonder that, although he made no movement with his body or tried to swim—which he could have done, as the weather was fair—he floated above water for half a legua. Later, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... or as that I didn't in some degree understand HIM. That he has done what he liked most isn't, among any of us, a matter the least in dispute. There's equally little question at this time of day of what it is he does like most. But I'm not talking," he reasonably explained, "of any mere wretch he may still pick up. I'm talking of some person who in his present situation may have held her own, may really ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... wretch!" she murmured vexedly, stimulated to renewed activity by her resentment; then she followed along the ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... he rejoined. 'You have been pitying poor Gilda for throwing herself away on a worthless wretch like me. Keep your pity, you will want it yourself perhaps! Do you understand now? I let you marry Mark, because I could think of no revenge ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... who did so too, and I know that so stout a Whig as Sir P. Francis was clearly of that opinion, and he knew Lord Chatham personally. I had every ground to believe that Horace Walpole, a vile, malignant, and unnatural wretch, though a very clever writer of Letters, was nine-tenths of the Holland House authority for the tale. I knew that a baser man in character, or a meaner in capacity than the first Lord Holland existed not, even in those days of job and mediocrity. Why, then, was I bound to take a ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... his family together, and, with such a disgraceful pledge of infamy in his bosom, venture to approach the throne of his Creator? It must be so; the book is bound after the manner of those dedicated to devotional subjects, and doubtless the wretch, in his intoxication, confounded the books he carried with him, as he did the days of the week.' Seized with the disgust with which the young and generous usually regard the vices of advanced life, Alan, having ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... the carriage easily enough, but poor old Alfani, who was unwieldly with fat, badly hurt, and half dead with fright, could not extricate himself without assistance. It took us a quarter of an hour to get him free. The poor wretch amused me by the blasphemies which he mingled with prayers to his patron saint, St. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... like a little golden-haired fairy, my dad says, and since he's something of an artist he ought to know when he sees one. Yep, you were right, Steve, the child is going after something at the store. I wonder now would that wretch have the nerve to stop Barbara, and try to get some information ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... That wretch had known, then! It was she who had been blackmailing her daughter. And the poor child had been afraid to confide in him, to ask him for money. No wonder her eyes had flashed at the prospect of a fortune ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... was at the place of execution. He saw the fleering rabble, the flinching wretch produced. He looked on for a while at a certain parody of devotion, which seemed to strip the wretch of his last claim to manhood. Then followed the brutal instant of extinction, and the paltry dangling of the remains like a broken jumping-jack. He had been prepared ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Gen-myo, a disciple of Do-gen. The carrier of the certificate was so pleased with the donation that he displayed it to all his brethren and produced it before the master, who severely reproached him saying: "O, shame on thee, wretch! Thou art -defiled by the desire of worldly riches even to thy inmost soul, just as noodle is stained with oil. Thou canst not be purified from it to all eternity. I am afraid thou wilt bring shame on the Right Law." On the spot Gen-myo was deprived of his holy robe ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... towards her, love her sincerely. She is affectionate to me beyond measure. Still, always I feel that if I were to vex her, the lower deep below the lowest deep would not be low enough for me. I always feel that. She would advertise me directly for a wretch proper. ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... the lieutenant at work with his secretary, Couste what he wanted was a glass of wine and water. In a moment Lachaussee brought it in. The lieutenant put the glass to his lips, but at the first sip pushed it away, crying, "What have you brought, you wretch? I believe you want to poison me." Then handing the glass to his secretary, he added, "Look at it, Couste: what is this stuff?" The secretary put a few drops into a coffee-spoon, lifting it to his nose and then to his mouth: the drink had ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... old wretch," he said. "I wish I had not to ask Willie Dodd every year, but business is business, and I'll trouble you to be civil to them. We will weed out the whole of this lot, gradually, now. The mater will go off to Bournemouth at ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... returned Audrey a little wickedly; and then, as though to atone for her joke, she suddenly knelt down before her sister and put her arms round her. 'Dear Gage, I do feel such a wretch for having upset you like this. No wonder Percival owes me a grudge. Now, do say something nice to me before I go—there's a darling!' and, of course, Geraldine melted ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... daughter! God preserve you from that sin!' added my interlocutor, apparently frightened. 'To love a man of the world, a sinner, a wretch, an unbeliever, an infidel! Why, you would go immediately to hell. The love of a priest is a sacred love, while that of a profane man is infamy; the faith of a priest emanates from that granted to the holy Church, while that of the profane is false,—false as the vanity of the world. The priest ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... conducted by horses, gaunt, shadowy skeletons, crawling heavily along, passed by, like hearses of the dead, sometimes a cry burst the silence in which they moved, and the traveller's steed started aside, as some wretch, on whom the disease had broke forth, was dropped from the vehicle by the selfish inhumanity of his comrades, and left to perish by the way. Hard by the gate a waggon paused, and a man with a mask threw out its contents in a green slimy ditch that bordered the road. These were garments ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... give a sketch Of each wo-begone wretch, Like Gilray, H. B., or old Damer, You should have the whole troop That lay stretched on the poop, As up by the mole ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... her: the mutual understanding; the rights once relinquished which might now be urged again; the memory of things past, were all suggested in this look. She thought of Ludlow, with his lofty ideals and his great gifts, and then she looked at this little grinning, leering wretch, and remembered how he had once put his arm round her and kissed her. It seemed impossible—too cruel and unjust to be. She was scarcely more than a child, then, and that foolish affair had been ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... suddenly a hero, like the first man wounded in a war. The town rallied to his support. Emma was a heartless wretch, who had insulted a faithful lover because he would not become as abject a toady to the hateful East as she was. Her new name became a byword. Her pronunciations were heard everywhere in the most ruthless parody. She was accused of things that she never had ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... of discredit. He looked pale and fagged, but what was more natural in the circumstances? A horrid experience it must have been, those present agreed, to behold a face and clutching hands fall away from a fourth-story window! And he was going to pay for a decent funeral for the abandoned wretch who might have murdered him! There was a gentleman ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... me. My God!" he cried, "I've been a drunken blackguard. I've gone down to the very depths. I have been in State's prison. I was, I am, a thief, but I never would have withheld a dying man's forgiveness from his son. I never would have kept a poor wretch who was crazy with shame and who drank himself into crime out of his share of ...
— A Little Book for Christmas • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... treated that noble man at his age, how rudely they addressed him, ... how they threatened him, and the threats they used to him!—only because he was a working man! That young officer, too, was no doubt just such an unprincipled, heartless wretch as I have known ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... outer side of the prison close. He would wait on, always holding himself discreetly aloof from the middle breadth of the picture, until the officiating clergyman had done with his sacred offices; would wait until the white-faced wretch on whose account the government was making all this pother and taking all this trouble, had mumbled his farewell words this side of eternity; would continue to wait, very patiently, indeed, until the warden nodded to him. Then, with his trussing harness ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... The wretch is lying on the ground near by, shaking with fear, in spite of the fastenings in which he is tightly held. He knows he is in dire danger, and has only so far escaped through having surrendered to a settler instead of to one of ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... dot the country: brown cottages, with clinging vines; villas, arial and cloud-tinted, with pointed roofs and capricious windows; huts, in which some poor wretch from his bed of straw looked out upon the wasteful luxury of his neighbor, and, loathing his bitter crust and turbid water, saw feasts spread in the open air, where tropic fruits and beaded wine mocked his feverish thirst; and palaces ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... and joy, if he could see how to find them, in favour of feverish evil and ceaseless suffering. If we believe that God is perfect love, it is inconceivable that He should make a creature capable of defying His utmost tenderness, unless He had said to Himself, "I will make a poor wretch who shall defy Me, and he shall suffer endlessly and mercilessly in consequence." The truth is that God's Omnipotence is limited by His Omnipotence; He could not, for instance, abolish Himself, nor create a power that should be greater than ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... comes straight from the heart's core of a man, as this curse comes from mine, Hal, how can it fail to operate by the mere force of will? The curse of a man who loved as I love upon the wretch who should violate a love-token so sacred as this—why, the disembodied spirits of all who have loved and suffered would combine to ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... secret services; for him In vain were prayer and promise; forth he went, Spoiled of the livery that till now had made him Enviable with the vulgar. And in vain He hoped another lord; the tender dames Were horror-struck at his atrocious crime, And loathed the author. The false wretch succumbed With all his squalid brood, and in the streets With his lean wife in tatters at his side Vainly lamented ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... would have been to cast from him, as far as possible, all that had held connection with his crime. He would not only have fled from the wharf, but he would not have permitted the boat to remain. Assuredly he would have cast it adrift. Let us pursue our fancies.—In the morning, the wretch is stricken with unutterable horror at finding that the boat has been picked up and detained at a locality which he is in the daily habit of frequenting —at a locality, perhaps, which his duty compels him to frequent. The next night, without ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... fitting my books, to have the number set upon each, in order to my having an alphabet of my whole, which will be of great ease to me. This day Captain Batters come from sea in his fireship and come to see me, poor man, as his patron, and a poor painful wretch he is as can be. ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... the wretch had lost was not a fifth part of his fortune, and he was in no more danger of coming to want than the sea was of being dried up. But he felt as though he had lost all; and if he had been stripped of everything, he could ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... the subject of your admiration, was only the work of magic and a magician; but your majesty would not pay the least attention to what I said." The sultan, who could not deny what the grand vizier had represented to him, flew into the greater passion: "Where is that impostor, that wicked wretch," said he, "that I may have his head taken off immediately?" "Sir," replied the grand vizier, "it is some days since he came to take his leave of your majesty, on pretence of hunting; he ought to be sent for, to know what ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... Hampton could distinguish the faint ticking of the watch in his pocket, the hiss of the breath between the giant's clinched teeth. Twice the fellow tried to utter something, his lips shaking as with the palsy, his ashen face the picture of terror. No wretch dragged shrieking to the scaffold could have formed a more pitiful sight, but there was no mercy in the eyes of the man ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... wretch made answer for himself, crying out piteously, and in a choking voice, for a priest to shrive him. At that moment Simon Fleix returned with our torch, which he had lighted at the nearest cross-streets, where there was a brazier, and we saw by this light that the man was coughing up blood, and might ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... Afy, nearly beside herself with emotion. "Whoever has been trying to put it off Richard Hare, and on to him, is a wicked, false-hearted wretch. It was Richard Hare, and nobody else, and I hope he'll ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... O wretch, O purpose fell! Thou for thy wedded lord The cleansing wave hast poured— A treacherous welcome! How the sequel tell? Too soon 'twill come, too soon, for now, even now, She ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... have told me your own story, Mr. Barry," said Mrs. Tracey excitedly, "let me tell you mine from the beginning, and show you how this heartless wretch has imposed upon you from the very first. The tale he has given you is a tissue of lies, interwoven with a thread ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... to stop at a little village; it blew a perfect hurricane and the rain began to soak through our garments. Here we stayed three hours among the wagoners who stopped on account of the weather. One miserable, drunken wretch, whom one would not wish to look at more than once, distinguished himself by insulting those around him, and devouring like a beast, large quantities of food. When the reckoning was given him, he declared ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... If this be granted: and all my former wrongs Were but beginnings to my miseries, But this the height of all: rather than part With my Ascanio, I'le deny my oath, Profess my self a Strumpet, and endure What punishment soe're the Court decrees Against a wretch that hath forsworn her self, Or ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... wretch, a wild-beast of a man, at whom I gazed with greater interest than at his fellows; although I know not that each one of them, in their semi-barbarous moral state, might not have been capable of the same savage impulse that had made this particular individual a horror ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... pray, madam, said I, be pleased to walk into the parlour, she shall wait on you presently. Accordingly I handed madam in, who took it very cordially. After some apology, I left her alone for a minute or two; while I, stupid wretch! ran up to my sister, and told her there was a gentlewoman below come to visit her. Dear brother, said she, don't leave her alone, go down and entertain her while I dress myself. Accordingly, down ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe
... (who was a mere girl) by his blandishments and supplications, combined with harshness and threats. The mother, who was an infernal old hag, he gained by offerings and bribes. But the good daughter after seven whole months of such infamous and continuous attack, would not yield; and finally that wretch, wearied by so long a siege and vanquished by the constancy of a weak girl, withdrew and left her in peace. Which is indeed a good deal when we consider the following: One woman for twelve long years resisted the tempter, fortified by holy confession and communion. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... Theresa, interrupting herself, "to such degradation I cannot stoop! It would be too base!" She threw down the letter, and frowning leaned her head upon her hand. "How," thought she, "could a virtuous woman write to that abandoned wretch who degrades the divine birthright of royalty by a dissolute life? How could Maria Theresa so humiliate herself as to ask succor ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... thin, "This man is a thraitor." But th' thrainin' iv a sojer makes wan cautious. I determined to fortify mesilf with ividince. I put spies on this man, this perfiejous wretch, an' discovered nawthin'. I was paralyzed. An officer iv th' Fr-rinch ar-rmy, an' nawthin' suspicyous about him! Damnable! I was with difficulty resthrained fr'm killin' him. But I desisted. [Cries iv 'Shame!'] I said to mesilf: "Th' honor iv Fr-rance is at stake. Th' whole ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... have lived in terror ever since Diego left Simiti. For myself I do not fear, for if ever I meet with the wretch I shall wring his neck with my naked hands! But—for the little Carmen—Dios! they might steal her at any time! There are men here who would do it for a few pesos! And how could I prevent it? ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... have occasion to speak to you, Rose Budd, in the same way," was the solemn answer. "I do not flatter myself that I ever was as comely as you, or that yonder poor dying wretch was a Harry Mulford in his youth; but we were young and happy, and respected once, and loved each other; yet you see what ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... nominally for stealing "a piece of paper, value one penny," being a check which he had abstracted; but it was understood that his defalcations were little short of ninety thousand pounds sterling. Watts was convicted, and sentenced to ten years' transportation. The poor wretch was not of the heroically villanous mould in which the dashing criminals who came after him, Robson and Redpath, were cast. He was troubled with a conscience. He had drunk himself into delirium tremens; and starting from his pallet one night in a remorseful frenzy, he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... "Only a wretch, an enemy of yours could have written it. Who can it have been?" Her eyes were ablaze and her voice ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... meaning of the words of Jesus was diametrically opposed to the accusation, and that there was nothing in them to warrant his condemnation, Pilate employed his final resource for prejudicing the trial, viz., the deposition of a purchased traitorous informer. This miserable wretch—who was, no doubt, Judas—accused Jesus formally, of having incited the people ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... forward with longing to the time when he could safely call Leah Einstein to his side. "She will be true as a dog to me, poor wretch! And I must get Irma out of the way. Perhaps in some Polish marsh; they would not find her bones. There's ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... here," said Mary, kneeling at his feet. "Here to bless and thank you for all your unremitted kindness to a wretch like me. Oh! I feared that I should be too late; that all would be over before my feeble limbs would bring me to the spot. I have been ill, Mr. Anthony, dreadfully ill; I couldn't speak to tell them that ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... shake off for ever, that I can trust myself to meet her soul to soul. She must believe me now, and I would tell her, Adrian, that my deceit was not premeditated, and that the man she once honoured with her love is not the base wretch she deems. I think it may comfort her. If she does mourn for me at all—she has so proud a spirit, my princess, as I used to call her—it may comfort her to know that I was not all unworthy of the love she once gave me, of the tears she may yet give ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... it is the evil side of Kundry, and at that last request of Parsifal's, proving the vanity of her effort, a great anger seizes her: "Never!" she cries, "never shall you find him! The fallen king, let him perish! The wretch whom I laughed and laughed and laughed at! Ha ha! Why—he was wounded with his own spear.... And against yourself," she follows this, "I will call to aid that weapon, if you give that sinner the honour of your pity!" But, at the sound of her own words, her ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... papa must have his way; and if it is to do the boy good, I can sacrifice a crab—I mean myself—not a crustacean. I am not going to be such a selfish wretch as ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... have you for the Church?" "Here it is," said she and handed him a gold trinket. "You must repent, and your penance will be to watch at my bedside to-night," he said with a leer. Hereupon four other shavelings entered, dragging before the confessor a poor wretch, who came about as willingly as he would to the gallows. "Here's for you a rogue," cried one of the four, "who must do penance for disclosing the secrets of the Catholic Church." "What!" exclaimed the confessor, looking towards a dark cell ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... insisted. "The fellow has the devil's own way with these women. Look at that little wretch I met on the stairs. A harmless, flirting little opera singer a year ago. Now she'd come here and murder a man against whom she hasn't the slightest grudge, for his sake. I tell you the fellow's got an unwholesome ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... as his friends stood about the king and protected him, he persevered still more in his reproaches, and called him a bloody man, and the author of all sorts of mischief. He bade him also go out of the land as an impure and accursed wretch; and he thanked God for depriving him of his kingdom, and causing him to be punished for what injuries he had done to his master [Saul], and this by the means of his own son. Now when they were all provoked ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... shouts of victory were heard, and shots were fired, in anticipation of the triumph that awaited them. Lofin, the head mover in all these disgraceful scenes, now drove off to the capital of the state; and—will it be believed?—this vile, low wretch, who could neither read nor write, succeeded in getting the loan of one thousand muskets out of the state arsenal to enable him to carry out his murderous and swindling scheme! A few days previous to this, Lofin got some few boards on his work set fire to, in order to have a ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... given her the preference. You think her your superior, no doubt, in every estimable and attractive quality, and therefore suspect her influence on a being so sensual and volatile as poor Hal. Were she really more lovely, the faithless and giddy wretch might possibly forget you; but Miss Secker is a woman whose mind and person are not only inferior to yours, but wholly unfitted to inspire love. If it were possible to smile in my present mood, I think I should indulge one smile at the thought of falling in love ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... I trembled; I was pale. He laughed at me, gently re-assured me, and returned to his work. By this time the woman was standing up, half-naked, her thick hair loosened and hanging down her back in glossy heaviness. It was no longer the poor wretch of a moment ago, but already almost a statue, notwithstanding her common and listless air. My heart died within me. However, I said nothing. All at once, I heard my husband cry: "The left leg; the left leg forward." And as the model ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but his watery ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... an' ladies, Once wor nowt noa moor to see, An' th' warst wretch at hung o'th' gallows, Once wor born as pure ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... leaning over the side, when (as I suppose) an unusually violent lurch of the vessel in his direction, combining with the rush of water across the deck, hurled him headlong into the sea. The poor wretch was not even naked, or he might have had a chance of swimming: it was all he could do to keep himself above water, and get out a cry for help. Euthydicus was lying in his berth undressed. He heard the cry, flung himself into the sea, and succeeded in overtaking the exhausted Damon; and ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... Highness,' he bawled. 'Indeed, I am a most unhappy clerk, your Honour, who has been driven into these courses by the tyranny of those above him. A more loyal man, your Grace, never wore neat's leather, but when the mayor says "Yes," can the clerk say "No"? Spare me, your lordship; spare a most penitent wretch, whose only prayer is that he may be allowed to serve King James to the last drop ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the skin that Crocylus gave me, the dappled one, when he sacrificed the she-goat to the nymphs; but thou, wretch, even then wert wasting with envy, and now, at last, thou hast stripped ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... future years One wretch should turn and fly, Let weeping Fame Blot out his name From Freedom's hallowed sky; Or should our sons e'er prove A coward, traitor race,— Just heaven! frown In thunder down, T' avenge ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... valueless. Then there came a division. The motion was lost by a large majority,—by any number you might choose to name, as Phineas had said to Lord Brentford; but in that there was no triumph to the poor wretch who had failed through fear, and who was now a coward in ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... scoffed at Jeremiah's warnings, and the blinding of Zedekiah, were all measures of precaution as well as of savagery. They diminished the danger of revolt; and a blind, childless prisoner, without counsellors or friends, was harmless. But to make the sight of his slaughtered sons the poor wretch's last sight, was a refinement of gratuitous delight in torturing. Thus singularly was Ezekiel's enigma solved and harmonised with its apparent contradictions in Jeremiah's prophecies: 'Yet shall he not see it, though he shall ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... an one killed and such an one wounded. Dodging the bullets, Fetuao flitted about with water for the parched fighters, passing the news and rolling cigarettes for such of the wounded as were not too far gone to care for them. Occasionally she ferreted out a trembling wretch in the rear and drove him to the front with taunts; or, if he were too panic-stricken to get up, she had no compunction in thrashing him with a stick until he did so. The little savage was beside herself as she danced and ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... patience. It seemed to him as if he was getting a sort of fellow-feeling and intense personal knowledge of his fellow-beings, which united him to them with ties stronger than those of love. He felt as if he more than loved this rebellious wretch beside him, as if he were one with him, only possessed of that patience which gave him a certain power to aid him. "I suppose men have the right to employ whom they choose," said Carroll. "If they prefer young men who don't know how to do ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... respectability in that part of the world is a count, at least. They look to me as if they had been on the stage, especially the one to whom you were talking. I will do him the justice to say he is a handsome wretch, but like all those foreign adventurers he has a dissipated air. As for the other, he is simply commonplace and vulgar, with ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... cowhide to her until she fell a victim to death in the road. He would see a husband take his dear wife, not unfrequently in a pregnant state and perhaps far advanced, and beat her for an unmerciful wretch, until her infant fell a lifeless lump at her feet. Moreover, "there have been, and are this day, in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, colored men who are in league with tyrants and who receive a great portion of their daily bread of the ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... of the words roused a motion of pity in Lily's breast. She too needed friends—she had tasted the pang of loneliness; and her resentment of Bertha Dorset's cruelty softened her heart to the poor wretch who was after all ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... word or two will render a man happy," said a French king, "he must be a wretch indeed who will not give them to him. Such a disposition is like lighting another man's candle by one's own, which loses none of its brilliancy by what the ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various
... of the material out of which he created his heroes. He had a dread, an acute physical dislike, of what is called "a scene."—Very well! (he thought); if it helped poor, dear little Jacqueline to remember him as a cowardly wretch, as the sort of ungentlemanly villain of the piece who made engagements to elope with young women and then broke them—very well, ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... him. He came with his broom to brush out the litter of the birds. His eyes fell upon the Venus, and in an instant he had rushed upon her and struck her two blows with his wooden besom. Then we fell upon him and dragged him away. But alas! alas! it was too late, for already the wretch had dashed off the ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... innocence saved my life. I may name him, for he is beyond the reach of the law now—it was Claperon, the jailor, who loved Claudine, and had himself killed Alphonse de Bellefonds from jealousy. An unfortunate wretch had been several years in the jail for a murder committed during the frenzy of a fit of insanity. Long confinement had reduced him to idiocy. To save my life Claperon substituted the senseless being for me, on the scaffold, and he was executed in my stead. He has quitted ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... when a tawdry thing from Birmingham, some Tallyho or Highflier, all flaunting with green and gold, came up alongside of us. What a contrast to our royal simplicity of form and color is this plebeian wretch! The single ornament on our dark ground of chocolate color was the mighty shield of the imperial arms, but emblazoned in proportions as modest as a signet-ring bears to a seal of office. Even this was displayed only on a single panel, whispering, rather than proclaiming, ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... helpless bark; while sacred Pity melts The general eye, or Terror's icy hand Smites their distorted limbs and horrent hair; While every mother closer to her breast 700 Catches her child, and pointing where the waves Foam through the shatter'd vessel, shrieks aloud As one poor wretch that spreads his piteous arms For succour, swallow'd by the roaring surge, As now another, dash'd against the rock, Drops lifeless down: Oh! deemest thou indeed No kind endearment here by Nature given To mutual ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... stiff as the poles of a scaffold, and the joints of his clasped fingers buried in the roots of the grass. The stone piers of the wooden bridge fell into the water with a rush, but he never heard it. The bridge floated past him bodily, but his back was towards it. Like a wretch in sanctuary, he dared not leave "the footstool of grace," or expose himself to the inroads of the visible world around him, by opening ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... the earldom of a certain recklessly wicked wretch, who not only robbed his poor neighbours, and even killed them when they opposed him, but went so far as to behave as wickedly on the Sabbath as on any other day of the week. Late one Saturday night, a company were seated in the castle, playing cards, and drinking; and all ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... happily remote, when folks, provided as for a picnic, laboriously travelled great distances in order to be present at the execution of some unhappy wretch; in the days when harmless old women, whose chief fault may probably have been that they were poor and friendless, and perhaps by age and privation rendered little better than half-witted, were baited, and dragged ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... your office. Cornelia, what on earth have you done with my riding whip? you mischievous little wretch! You lost it once before. Go find it; I am waiting for ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... I sot, and there wos a crowd o' about two hundred miners round a tree; and, jest as I come up, they wos puttin' the rope round the neck of a poor wretch of an old grey-haired red-skin, whose limbs trembled so that they wos scarce ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... very far from where your boat is now anchored. Many attempts have I made to inveigle others into the river, so that I might be free to leave the spot to which my miserable fate binds me until another unhappy wretch shall take ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... lesson for the earth-born worm, So deep engraven on the meagre platen Of human frailty, so debased in hue, That he who dares peruse it needs but blush For his own nature. The poor shrivell'd wretch, For whose lean carcass yawns this hideous pit, Had naught that he desired in earth or heaven— No God, no Saviour, but that sordid pelf, O'er which he starved and gloated. I have seen him On the exchange, or in the market-place When money was in plenteous circulation, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... straightway sent Michi no Omi no Mikoto to observe the signs of his opposition. Michi no Omi no Mikoto clearly ascertained his hostile intentions, and being greatly enraged, shouted at him in a blustering manner: "Wretch! thou shalt thyself dwell in the house which thou hast: made." So grasping his sword and drawing his bow, he urged him and drove him within it. Ukeshi the elder being guilty before heaven, and the matter not admitting ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... a voice far different from Helen's. The drooping head was quickly raised, the cap dashed from the head, and the cloak hurled from the shoulders. "Ungrateful wretch, as false as vile, do you ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... should attend you; but I apprehend, that all his motions, and mine own too, are watched by the execrable wretch: and indeed his are by an agent of mine; for I own, that I am so apprehensive of his plots and revenge, now I know that he has intercepted my vehement letters against him, that he is the subject of my dreams, as well as of ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... thought, as she sat muffled up in her cloak, a silent spectatress of his manoeuvres, "that such a mean, dishonest wretch as this, should be empowered to act the petty tyrant, and pass judgment on the integrity of others, who is so destitute of the ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... disappointment; it is a Cingalese Appo—a man—no, not a man—a something male in petticoats; a petty thief, a treacherous, cowardly villain, who would perpetrate the greatest rascality had he only the pluck to dare it. In fact, in this petticoated wretch you see a type of ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... strenuous old Colonel staying in the house; he had been with the yachting party, and they had had a very disagreeable day. That evening in the smoking-room, when we were recounting our adventures, the old wretch said to me: "Now I should like to give you a piece of advice. You said you would go with us, and shirked because you were afraid of a bit of wind. You must excuse an older man who knows something of the world saying straight ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... ages, in a bodkin's eye; Gums and pomatums shall his flight restrain, While clogged he beats his silken wings in vain; Or alum styptics, with contracting power, Shrink his thin essence like a rivelled flower; Or, as Ixion fixed, the wretch shall feel The giddy motion of the whirling mill, In fumes of burning chocolate shall glow, And tremble at the ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... to the promenade deck in silence. When Warrington found Craig the man was helplessly intoxicated. He lay sprawled upon his mattress, and the kick administered did not stir him. Warrington looked down at the sodden wretch moodily. ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... sexual appetite and no correlative masculine character. To make a man of him, his too eager aunts married him to a strong girl, who was anything but innocent. She attempted by all kinds of manipulations to cure the sexual blindness of her husband; but this was a waste of labor, as the unhappy wretch only regarded the performance as disgusting and filthy. He was violently ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... after the disappearance of Edward Jacobs, and in them the signs of morbid eccentricity were more apparent. The writer owned to having "put Jacobs out of the way," upbraided Dudley for interfering on behalf of such a wretch, and accused him of ingratitude in refusing to leave England with his father, who had done mankind in general and him in particular a service in killing a monster. The writer went on to accuse Dudley of siding with his father's enemies, of wishing to have ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... I was glad to hear the drums beat for soldiers, as if I had been a mere Swiss, that had not cared which side went up or down, so I had my pay. I went as eagerly and blindly about my business, as the meanest wretch that 'listed in the army; nor had I the least compassionate thought for the miseries of my native country, till after the fight at Edgehill. I had known as much, and perhaps more than most in the army, what it was to have an enemy ranging ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... took it home, and found a nurse for it, too, I dare say there were grim, brick-dust colored chamberlains, or some of the tough, old, meagre, yellow princesses at court, who never had children themselves, who cried out, "Faugh! the horrid little squalling wretch!" and knew he would never come to good; and said, "Didn't I tell you so?" when ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... persecutors from whom he had suffered so much, and expected the repetition of the torments from which he hoped that he had been delivered. He was lamenting the severity of his fate, when Bostama entered with a stick in her hand, a loaf and a pitcher of water. He trembled at the sight of this unmerciful wretch, and at the very thoughts of the sufferings he was to endure for another year, at the conclusion of which he was to die ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... body of cavalry was accustomed to enter the field apparently unarmed; besides the dagger, which the Oriental never lays aside, they had nothing but a long leathern thong. They used this, however, just as the lasso is used by the natives of Brazil, and the wretch at whom they aimed their deadly noose had small chance of escape. The Persians, like the Assyrians, usually avoided fighting during the winter, and marched out their armies against the enemy in early spring. With the great hosts which they ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... a tea-sipping milliner girl. Some excuse for him there might have been, had he been hurried away by imagination or passion. But with him indecency is a disease, and he speaks unclean things from perfect inanition. The very concubine of so impure a wretch as Leigh Hunt would be to be pitied, but alas! for the wife of such a husband! For him there is no charm in simple seduction; and he gloats over it only when accompanied with adultery ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... I turn? Wretch that I am! To what Place betake my self? Shall I go to the Capitol?—Alas! it is overflowed with my Brother's Blood. Or shall I retire to my House? Yet there I behold my Mother plung'd in Misery, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... slighted on all sides; she must not even write to Mrs. Little, nor take part in the pious falsehood they were concocting together, Raby and his Jael Dence, whom everybody loved best—everybody except this poor faithful ill-used wretch, Frederick Coventry; and him she hated for loving her better than the man ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... that little wretch again, tearing over to the other side, where he lashed and better lashed the surface; and then, getting tired of that exercise, he somewhat sullenly came sailing into mid-stream, where there was a smooth, dark current, bounded ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... with one of my most intensely preposterous and utterly indescribable colds. If you were to make a voyage from Cape Horn to Wellington Street, you would scarcely recognise in the bowed form, weeping eyes, rasped nose, and snivelling wretch whom you would encounter here, the once gay ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... purpose was so irresistibly demonstrated, that, though Robespierre, in the most sanguinary speech which, he had ever yet uttered, demanded that he should be brought to trial, not concealing his desire that it should end in his condemnation; and though Petion, and a wretch named Buzot, a warm admirer and intimate friend of Madame Roland, demanded his deposition and the proclamation of a republic, Barnave had no difficulty in carrying the Assembly with him in opposition to their violence; and it was finally resolved ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... trial was over, the procureur paid his hireling well, dismissed her, and drew forth his victim from her cell; substituted her for the wretch who had stood at the bar, and sent her to Siberia. Villainy, however, be it ever so cunning, seldom half does its work of deception. If Botwinko had had the whole sentence carried into effect, and poor Sophie knouted, he would not, perhaps, have been discovered by his colleague at Vitebsk; ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... were the sequel of the cloth on Ben-hadad's face. The secret of much enormous crime is the kind of relief from conscience which is found in committing a yet greater sin. The Furies drive with whips of scorpions, and the poor wretch goes plunging and kicking deeper and deeper in the mire, further and farther from the path. So you can never say: 'I will only ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... coast and across your path. For us that was a fortunate reef upon which you dashed. The gods must have made your helmsman blind, for he ran you into a destruction that gaped not for you. Why did every wretch that we hung next morning curse you ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... The schoolhouse was crowded with the saved and sanctified, robust men and women, trembling and quailing before the power of some mysterious psychic force. Here and there among this cowering, sweating multitude crouched some poor wretch who had felt the pangs of an awakened conscience, but had not yet experienced that complete divestment of reason, that frenzy born of a convulsion of the mind, which, in the parlance of the Free Gospellers, is termed "the Light." On the floor before the mourners' bench lay ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... to Union and Liberty is seen in his righteous indignation against an Oregonian who would not fight to save the country unless he could be shown that his own personal interests were involved. "For one wild moment," wrote King, "I longed to throttle the wretch and push him into the Columbia. I looked down, however, and saw that ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds
... twice; therein lies his sole achievement. But how did he perform his Partes? Misere et haesitanter absque methodo. Once when Praeses wished to distinguish inter rem et modum rei, he asked, Quid hoc est?—Wretch, you should have known that antequam in arenam descendis. Quid hoc est? Quae bruta! A fellow who ignores the distinctiones cardinales, and then wants ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... appearance, and ungracious demeanor!—Would to God, O raven of the desert! we were wide apart as the east is from the west:—The serenity of his peaceful day would change into the gloom of night, who on issuing forth in the morning might cross thy aspect. An ill-conditioned wretch like thyself should be thy companion; but where could we find ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... immediately, like a whale rising to the surface of the sea to blow, or like a stone triton spouting forth the water of a fountain, a violent upward rush of imprisoned breath discharged through every aperture of the suffocating wretch the ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... whence comest thou in the night, thou clad in shamelessness? Anon, methinks, thou wilt go forth at Apollo's hands with bonds about thy sides that may not be broken, sooner than be a robber in the glens. Go to, wretch, thy Father begat thee for a trouble to deathless Gods ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... But pray what are you, and on what account did you go to sea?" Upon which I very freely declared my whole story: at the end of which he made this exclamation: "Ye sacred powers: what had I committed, that such a wretch should enter into my ship to heap upon me such a deluge of miseries!" But soon recollecting his passion, "Young man" said he, "if you do not go back, depend upon it, wherever you go, you will meet with disasters and disappointments till your father's ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... would be eagerly used. The man was a villain possessed of a strange and dangerous power, and that power he would not hesitate to exert in every possible way. But I was not afraid; my faith in God had given me life, and so I would dare to defy the wretch. ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... so bewitched the old beau, that he really believed she was sinning for the first time for his sake, and that he had inspired such a passion as had led her to this breach of duty. She told him that the wretch Marneffe had neglected her after they had been three days married, and for the most odious reasons. Since then she had lived as innocently as a girl; marriage had seemed to her so horrible. This was the cause of her ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... have you seen in me, or what mistaken merit in your self, should make you so ridiculously vain, to think I'd give myself to such a Wretch, one fal'n even to the last degree of Poverty, whilst all the World is prostrate at my Feet, whence I might chuse the Brave, the Great, the Rich? [He stands spitefully gazing at her. —Still as he fires, I find my Pride augment, and when ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... Campbell of Inverawe {157} was on Cruachan hill side. He was startled by seeing a man coming towards him at full speed; a man ragged, bleeding, and evidently suffering agonies of terror. "The avengers of blood are on my track, Oh, save me!" the poor wretch managed to gasp out. Inverawe, filled with pity for the miserable man, swore "By the word of an Inverawe which never failed friend or foe yet" ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... immortal harmony about to gush, like a mountain torrent, from the teeming strings; when lo! to our unmitigated disgust, it glides noiselessly along its hitherto resounding path, for—ye gods and little fishes!—some murderous wretch, at the instigation of we know not what evil sprite, has greased the horsehair, for which we solemnly devote him to the "bowstring," the first time ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... May.—decidedly mad; I intend to better my condition if I can, and be a Catholic too. I am only conciliating this crusty old wretch, who has us both in his power; then, you know, we may bring him around after awhile," ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... one of the brutes had broken into a tent at Railhead Camp—whence we had heard the commotion during the night—and had made off with a poor wretch who was lying there asleep. After a night's rest, therefore, I took up my position in a suitable tree near this tent. I did not at all like the idea of walking the half-mile to the place after dark, but ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... flow in readily, but it was quite the thing for young ministers and theological students to spend a year, a summer or a winter at Sea and Land, and they did not study books: they worked on men and women at all hours. If some wretch got into trouble some one to whom he was assigned had not been vigilant enough. Before Hoover made a world reputation for himself, Denison studied food economics, and he proved it by having the group live on ...
— The Kirk on Rutgers Farm • Frederick Bruckbauer
... receding in the distance, when suddenly, as he turned on his hard couch, a shot rent the deep silence. A hollow groan rose on the calm air of night, there was a splashing in the water, the brief struggle of one who sinks to rise no more. It was some poor wretch who had attempted to escape by swimming the Meuse and had received ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... her face and broke into a laugh. "Why, you're guying me, you little wretch! You won't let me behave properly." He dropped his gloved hand lightly on her knee, took it away and let it hang between his own. "Do you know," he said confidentially, "I believe I'm more in earnest about all this than ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... mean? would he stand At the swing of my hand! For obscurity helps him, and blots The hole where he squats." So, I set my five wits on the stretch. To inveigle the wretch. All in vain! Gold and jewels I threw, Still he couched there perdue; I tempted his blood and his flesh, Hid in roses my mesh, 20 Choicest cates and the flagon's best spilth: Still he kept ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... you will hear me before we part to-night. I know my power, Mr. Carl Walraven, and I mean to use it. Do you think I need wear these rags? Do you think I need tramp the black, bad streets, night after night, a homeless, houseless wretch? No; not if I chose, not if I ordered—do you hear?—ordered my aristocratic friend, Mr. Walraven, of Fifth Avenue, to empty his plethoric purse in my dirty pocket. Ah, yes," with a shrill laugh, ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... his fancies, of artistic images of the past and sweet presentiments of happiness in the future, the poor wretch sank into silence, merely moving his lips as though whispering to himself. The vacant, blissful smile never left his lips. The constables were silent. They were pondering with bent heads. In the autumn stillness, when the cold, sullen mist that rises from the earth lies like a weight on ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... of his claim to live and love. They mock him atrociously, pretending to fall in love with him at first sight, and then slipping away and making game of him, heaping ridicule and disgust on the poor wretch until he is beside himself with mortification and rage. They forget him when the water begins to glitter in the sun, and the gold to reflect its glory. They break into ecstatic worship of their treasure; and though they know the ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... rest murder! It was, in fact, for this last that he was now in the Acordada—a cowardly murder, too—a case of poisoning. That he still lived was due to the proofs not being legally satisfactory, though no one doubted of his having perpetrated the crime. At first contact with this wretch the Texan had recoiled in horror, without knowing aught of his past. There was that in his face which spoke a history of dark deeds. But when this became known to the new denizens of the cell, the proximity of such a monster ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... and thou speak'st truly. This is the sharpest sorrow of my lot, That, like a plague-infected wretch, I bear Death and destruction hid within my breast; That, where I tread, e'en on the healthiest spot, Ere long the blooming faces round betray The anguish'd ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... when thou hast on foot the purblind hare, Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles 680 How he outruns the winds, and with what care He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles: The many musits through the which he goes Are like a labyrinth to ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... Shrewsbury and Oswestry, when a tawdry thing from Birmingham, some "Tallyho" or "Highflyer," all flaunting with green and gold, came up alongside of us. What a contrast to our royal simplicity of form and colour in this plebeian wretch! The single ornament on our dark ground of chocolate colour was the mighty shield of the imperial arms, but emblazoned in proportions as modest as a signet-ring bears to a seal of office. Even this was displayed only on a single panel, ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... created. He was not a scholar or even a reader; his custom was to brood over an incident of the past (often a grotesque incident, such as he found in Winthrop's old Journal), and from his brooding he produced an imaginary character, some heartless fanatic or dismal wretch who had nothing of the Puritan except the label. Of the real Puritan, who knew the joy and courtesy as well as the stern discipline of life, our novelist had only the haziest notion. In consequence his "Gentle Boy" and parts also of his Scarlet Letter leave an ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... William Colepepper that, after he had been ruined himself at the gaming table, his whole delight was to sit there and see others ruined. Hardened wretch—'Who though he plays no more, overlooks the cards'—with this ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... of those who despitefully use you, my Lord Archbishop," said Count Winneburg. "But no, no, I cannot accept such a sacrifice. The Emperor showed me plainly the enormity of my offence. In the presence of all I insulted you, wretch that I am, and in the presence of all shall I ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... hands of Brown, Widow McKay, providing herself with some refreshments that she thought might suit the taste of the British commander, went to Brown's headquarters, and begged that her son might be set free. The cruel wretch accepted the present she had brought him, but refused even to let her see her son, and caused the sentinels to put her out of the camp by force. Next day young McKay and four other prisoners were taken out of the rail pen in which they had ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... replied the wretch, 'and put his head at the main topgallant masthead—and we will put the first-mate's head at the mizzen, and the boatswain's at the fore. The other convicts who are not with us in the matter we shall put on shore at some island, and leave ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... 'The wretch; the apostate; the false, mean, odious villain; has before my very face proposed to Mercy!' was his eldest ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... exclaimed, "I didn't—couldn't—wouldn't—" and, unable to ejaculate further, she fairly ran out of the apartment into the entry, where she nearly fell over Charlie, who was enjoying the confusion his conduct had created. "Oh! you limb!—you little wretch!" said she. "You knew I was not ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... head to prevent his discovering him. Trophonius having disappeared that moment, it was given out that the earth had swallowed him on the same spot; and impious superstition went so far as to place this wicked wretch in the rank of the gods, and to consult his oracle with ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... cannot bear To see you waste that youth and excellent beauty, ('Tis now the golden time of the day with you,) In tending such a broken wretch as I am. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the princess, with a feverish excitement, "this is horrible! Monsieur de Manicamp! a hand shattered, do you say, and a bullet in his breast? And that coward! that wretch! that assassin, De ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... he may lie many feet deep in the snow. Having found him, they set to work and endeavour to scrape away the snow, uttering a deep bark that reverberates from rock to rock, and tells those who are watching in the convent that some poor wretch is in peril. Generally, a little flask of spirits is tied round the neck of the animal, by drinking which the benighted traveller may recruit his strength, until more effectual rescue arrive. The monks hasten in the direction of the sound, and often succeed in rekindling the vital spark before ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... widow, "that she, who has once erred, is irreclaimable. Do not believe it, Madam. It is not so. The poor wretch, driven by desperation to the commission of a crime which her soul abhors, is no more beyond the hope of reformation than she is without the pale of mercy. I have suffered—I have sinned—I have repented. And, though neither peace nor innocence can be restored to my bosom; ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... thought is how he can bring the hands and feet of his brethren, however harmless they may be, and different from the giants, to the "holy priests," who, if he manages to do so, never fail to praise him, saying to the miserable wretch, as the abbot said ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... struggles and tricks and paltry craftiness. He had known of women caught in traps of folly and passion and weakness and had learned how terror taught them to lie and shift and even show abnormal cleverness. Above all he knew exactly what the world would say if a poor wretch of a girl told a story like this of a youngster like Donal—when he was no longer ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... official newspaper in Beirut, contained a letter from Hums which illustrates this fact. A fanatical wretch from Hamath, one of the infamous Moslem saints, set up the claim that he had received the power to cast out devils by divine inspiration. He found credulous followers among the more ignorant, and went to Hums to practice his diabolical trade. ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... arrows, and for mere sport. Now that they have taken to guns, I suppose they combine instruction with amusement, as the books say. Carrambo! what cruel brutes they are! They have no more humanity than a grizzly bear. God help the poor wretch that falls into their clutches! Their captive women they treat with a barbarity unknown among other tribes. Even beauty, that would soften a savage of any other sort, is not regarded by these brutal Arapahoes. Only think of it! They were about to treat in this very fashion the ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... which kills whomsoever it strikes. I coaxed the wretch to let me have it last night when he was tipsy, for fear he should quarrel with the young stranger; and I have kept it from him ever since by one excuse or another; and now he has sent one of his ruffians in ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... open, the two made for the window, and tore at screws and catch with eager fingers. Furneaux, light and nimble-footed, scrambled through first, so it was he who found Siddle lying in the orchard beyond the wall of the yard. The unhappy wretch had swallowed nearly the whole remaining contents of the bottle of nicotine, or enough to poison a score of robust men. He presented a lamentable and distressing spectacle. Some of the more venturesome passers-by, who had crowded after the detectives and Peters, ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... is she? Oh, I see her—she comes, like riches, health, and liberty at once, to a despairing, starving, and abandoned wretch. ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... good journey to you! They will not see you again, poor wretch! How many others have followed the ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... unite Betrothed hearts and hands?" Then, cloaking hate with fiery zeal, Proud Lorn answered the appeal: "Thou comest, O holy man, True sons of blessed church to greet, But little deeming here to meet A wretch, beneath the ban Of pope and church, for murder done Even on the sacred altar-stone! Well may'st thou wonder we should know Such miscreant here, nor lay him low, Or dream of greeting, peace, or truce, With excommunicated Bruce! Yet will I grant, to end debate, ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot |
