"Plight" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the older Republican States as no other presidential candidate had been since "Old Hickory" offered himself as against the seasoned statesmanship of John Quincy Adams. The gentry of the East were in a worse plight than were the Southern statesmen of 1828, for Lincoln was more of a ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... thee, and I love thee— More than rich thoughts can dream, or mad lips speak; But how, or why, whether with soul or body, I will not know. Thou art mine.—Why question further? [Aside] Ay if I fall by loving, I will love, And be degraded!—how? by my own troth-plight? No, but my thinking that I fall.—'Tis written That whatsoe'er is not of faith is sin.— O Jesu Lord! Hast Thou not made me thus? Mercy! My brain will burst: ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... glad I am you came!" she cried, low. "I knew you would not fail me if you but learned of my plight; but it's wonderful you should be here so soon. I prayed every minute of my ride that Juanita would ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... his knife broke in two, and the courage that had upheld him for so many years gave away. He opened his veins and lay down to die, when in his despair he heard the voice of Gefhardt, the friendly sentinel from the other prison. Hearing of Trenck's sad plight, he scaled the palisade, and, we are told expressly, bound up his wounds, though we are not told how he managed to enter the cell. Be that as it may, the next day, when the guards came to open the door, they found Trenck ready to meet them, armed with a brick in one ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... action, to soar in the storm of his own raising; and to make it more apparent that he had been as great a sufferer as the rest, he only threw a quilt over his shoulders and did not draw on his stockings. In this plight he scaled the stairs and joined the storming party, where the little man was leading the forlorn hope, with his candlestick in one hand and the remnant of his burnt stocking between the finger and thumb of ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... conventional as the remark surely was, Jimmy was certain of an undercurrent of mischief in it. He glanced up to protest, but two baby-blue eyes fixed upon him in apparent wonderment, made him certain that anything he could say would seem rude or ridiculous; so, as usual when in a plight, he looked to ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... is usually a very small matter, but with me it might mean a great deal. How far should I have to go? When could I find out? What would be the plight of my people when found? Or should I find them at all? Might they not pass by and be on the way down the Columbia River before I could reach the main immigrant trail? These and kindred questions weighed on my mind as ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... not that,' said Arthur; 'I never liked any one better than Hunt, and it is nine if not ten miles from the town. But, Violet, I find we are in worse plight than I thought. Here are bills that must be renewed, and one or two things I had forgotten, and while I owe the money and more too, I could hardly in honesty speculate with the price of ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sailed, the officers of the Ardent united in signing such a representation of her miserable plight as induced Admiral Graves to order her back to Port Royal, and the Jason, by not putting to sea with the convoy, from want of water, never joined him at all. The rest proceeded, and after those vessels that were bound for New York had separated, ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... (in Hedemarken) were compelled to seek relief from the Poor Fund when their families were large. The smaller farmers and the labourers are in the worst plight, since the falling off in the timber trade has made them feel the want of the usual steady demand for labour at high wages.' Further: 'it has become very difficult for the least affluent and for labourers to gain a livelihood ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... should be made so ludicrous on his eminence after death. He is bitter at the inertia of the men who set him up. Were he an ornament of the Church, not of the State that he served so conscientiously, how very different would be the treatment of his plight! If he were a Saint, occluded thus by the municipality, how many the prayers that would be muttered, the candles promised, for his release! There would be processions, too; and who knows but that there might even be a miracle vouchsafed, a rending of the veil? The ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... small to receive all her family, the Osmia is in the same plight as the Mason-bee in the presence of an old nest. She thereupon acts exactly as the Chalicodoma does. She breaks up her laying, divides it into series as short as the room at her disposal demands; and each series begins with ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... to the helpless lad with a practised eye, and groaned in despair. "They'll fall short by a dozen feet," he murmured hopelessly. "God forgive me, for bringing him to this plight." ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... one that hath his foot unentangled by sufferings, both to exhort and to admonish him that is in evil plight. But I knew all these things willingly, willingly I erred, I will not gainsay it; and in doing service to mortals I brought upon myself sufferings. Yet not at all did I imagine, that, in such a punishment ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... as Dona Anita emerged from the Alcalde's office. He was a friend of her husband—a gringo—but trusted by the Spanish Californians, many of whom he had befriended. To him Mrs. Windham turned half desperately, confessing in a rush of words her family's plight. "What is to become of us?" she questioned passionately. "Ah, that my Roberto were here! He would know how to deal with these desperadoes." She gestured angrily toward the sloop-of-war which rode at anchor in ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... was about two miles short of the original goal. They were forced to take advantage of the first kopje, as Boer scouts were all round them, and the day was ushered in with desultory firing. It was a sorry position which they had chosen, and the men were in a sorrier plight. All their reserve ammunition was gone, and though they had saved pieces of the screw-guns, they were not able with these pieces to patch ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... common to bear repetition. We can not pass through the streets, we can not enter a place of public assembly, or ramble in the fields, without the gloomy shadow of Ignorance sweeping over us. The rural population is indeed in a worse plight than the other classes. We quote—with the attestation of our own experience—the following passage from one of a series of articles which have recently appeared in a morning newspaper: "Taking the adult class of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... James and John, is labouring across the six or seven miles to the eastern side. Matthew describes the boat as it would appear from shore, as being 'covered' and lost to sight by the breaking waves. Mark, who is Peter's mouthpiece, describes the desperate plight as one on board knew it, and says the boat was 'filling.' It must have been a serious gale which frightened a crew who had spent all ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... blanket over her bare shoulders, and folded it round more like a coat. He feared she might collapse before they could accomplish their design. The plight of this girl ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... in few: "Bard! by that God, whom thou didst not adore, I do beseech thee (that this ill and worse I may escape) to lead me, where thou saidst, That I Saint Peter's gate may view, and those Who as thou tell'st, are in such dismal plight." ...
— The Vision of Hell, Part 1, Illustrated by Gustave Dore - The Inferno • Dante Alighieri, Translated By The Rev. H. F. Cary
... kept up their conversation for some time, and the more they talked the more they became convinced that their plight was more serious than they had at first supposed. It seemed very plain to them now that Lord Hastings must believe in their guilt and that he would not raise a finger in ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... and pulling at our trousers; and as soon as we could catch our horses, in spite of the lameness of mine, we started off. We could not travel fast at night, but immediately day broke we galloped on; and I am thankful indeed, my dear Maurice, to find you uninjured—but how did you get into this plight?" ...
— Adventures in Australia • W.H.G. Kingston
... Their plight was bad enough, but it might have been much worse. Percy shivered a bit as he looked at the wallowing dory and the ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... cold smile. Worse than that, the wife sees her husband tortured in gaol; the husband sees his wife a victim to some horrible disease, lands gone, houses destroyed by flood or fire, and everything in an unutterable plight—the reward ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... beginning of the fine lady into which Dolly finally blossomed, and when that day Frank went home to his dinner he noticed something in her manner which he could not understand until she told him of Mrs. Atherton's call, and the plight in which ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... knight was in a pitiful plight, and innocently confessed to the Lady that he experienced so much pleasure at this touch that the pains of his malady increased, and that death was preferable ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... somehow, that he comprehended her plight. Then, after a time, he put his left arm about her waist. She spread the great red wings out behind him, the right one passing over his shoulder; and in this fashion they went forward ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... standing in this war; theirs is the happy lot that might have fallen to Belgium had she not resisted; the war goes to and fro through Albania; and when the settlement comes, it is highly improbable that the slightest notice will be taken of Albania's plight in the region. In which case these particular Albanians will either be driven into exile to America or they will be goaded to revolt, which will be followed no doubt by the punitive procedure ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... that night had to be taken for rest and the morning found men and horses in a terrible plight. Not one drop of water had they left, and all they had been able to do for the horses and mules had been to sponge their parched mouths. They had camped near some trees and bushes, as usual, and it was just about daylight ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... sharply. Was one set of actions the same to Christa as another? and was she content to forget all their own shame and all her father's wretched plight if she could only have a few pleasures for herself? It was exactly the passive state that she had desired to evoke in Christa; but there are many spectres that come to our call and then appal us ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... hovered, wailing, delivered over to vague, unseen sorrow, and, though a tiny infant, it seemed to be Paul Quentin, too, in some dreadful plight, appealing to her in the name of their dead love to save him. She did not love him; she did not love the child; but her heart seemed ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... Major. And the friends of the slave are hereby invited to make that new constellation their cynosure, vowing by it, and anti-slavery lovers arranging their matrimonial engagements, if possible, so as to plight their troth only when it is in ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... tremble through the night; Within the sky the pallid King of Light Wraps silvered ermine round him while he may, And Heaven's harem greets its star array. One lone white cloud rests in the azure height— A veiled court lady in some sorrow's plight— Whom cruel love and day ...
— Sonnets from the Crimea • Adam Mickiewicz
... was impossible that I should hesitate; I did not know, it is true, what might await me within, but it could not be worse and might well be better than my present plight. The door was open; I stepped in; and no sooner had I crossed the threshold than I was aware of an experience more extraordinary and delightful than it had ever been my lot to encounter. I had the sensation of seeing ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... that the miserable citizens had turned to the tyrant Rome for rescue. They who had risen against Florus and had driven him out would have willingly accepted him again in place of Simon bar Gioras and John of Gischala, before two years had elapsed. Now, their plight was so desperate that they clambered daily upon the walls of their unhappy city to look for the first glimpse of the approaching enemy, Titus, whom they had learned to ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... the hospital at St. Omer, and was then transferred to Boulogne, together with a New Zealand sergeant who was in the same plight as myself, and whom I later had the pleasure of meeting under more favourable and happier conditions at dear old St. Dunstan's. At Boulogne, I was given a thorough examination, and the doctors concluded that an absolutely useless member ...
— Through St. Dunstan's to Light • James H. Rawlinson
... from both cold and hunger, and was in pitiable plight. Again he writes: "Lieutenant Daunt, Ninth Regiment, and another officer of some Sixtieth Regiment, were frozen to death last night, and two officers of the Ninety-Third Regiment were smothered by charcoal. The streets of Balaklava are a sight, with swell English cavalry and horse-artillery ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... sweetness is melting into fable; only the new Spirit in its holiest power can restore to those homes their boasted security of "each man's castle," for Woman, the warder, is driven into the street, and has let fall the keys in her sad plight. Yet darkest hour of night is nearest dawn, and there seems reason to ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... coffee, preserves, jams, jellies, and everything else, was taken. Not a pound of anything to eat was left on the place. All the best cupboard ware, and part of the bedding and my wife's clothing were taken. This was a sorry plight to find ourselves in when we returned from the funeral. The country was full of soldiers, and nothing was done towards recovering the property. Thus we started on a darker and rougher road for ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... others were laughing at the plight of the German, he made an effort to arise and the machine promptly slid down an incline and sparked and gyrated until Hans' hair fairly stood ...
— Boy Scouts on Motorcycles - With the Flying Squadron • G. Harvey Ralphson
... has just been brought to me from Captain Prowse, and it contains news which I am sure will be very welcome to you all. It is to the effect that our wireless operator has succeeded in getting into touch with the Bolivia and acquainting the captain of that vessel with our somewhat unfortunate plight. The Bolivia, as some of you are doubtless aware, is homeward bound, but upon learning the news of our accident, her captain has unhesitatingly interrupted his voyage and is at this moment heading for our position as rapidly as his powerful engines will drive him. He expects to arrive alongside ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... the shameful charge that he had falsely laid upon him. Having therefore issued a writ for libel against him, he pressed him so closely, that Rosso, not being able to clear himself or make any defence, felt himself to be in a sorry plight, perceiving that he had not only accused his friend falsely, but had also stained his own honour; and to eat his words, or to adopt any other shameful method, would likewise proclaim him a false and worthless man. Resolving, therefore, to kill himself by his own hand rather than be punished by others, ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... disgrace the Service by his Ignorance. Now, by Rashness they meant resenting Insults and Injuries done their Lady; and by Ignorance, not knowing how to buy and sell, and live by the Loss. So that, all Things considered, it were a Marvel her Affairs should be in better Plight than they are, or her Debts be paid ...
— The True Life of Betty Ireland • Anonymous
... Napoleon," p. 151. "The commonest officers were crazy with delight at having white linen and fine new boots. All were fond of music; many walked a league in the rain to secure a seat in the La Scala Theatre.... In the sad plight in which the army found itself before Castiglione and Arcole, everybody, except the knowing officers, was disposed to attempt the impossible so as not to quit Italy."—"Marmont," I., 296: "We were ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... further: in a year I will give thee full answer according as to how thou dost bear thyself between now and then, for this is no light gift thou askest; also that, if ye will it, you twain may now plight troth, for the blame shall be yours if it is broken, and not mine, and I give ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... my distressed plight! (If, as thou seem'st, thou art so mean a man,) And seek not to enrich thy followers By lawless rapine from a silly maid, Who, travelling [33] with these Median lords To Memphis, from my uncle's country ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... a stall did lie all night, In this most sad and wretched plight; Then thought it was high time to see ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... darkness of the cabin Jean led her back to the corner and his heart was full. Speech was difficult, because the very touch of Ann's hands had made him divine that the success of his venture in no wise changed the plight of ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... should haue laied mine old bones and ended my life in a free countrie. But I coulde neuer haue susteined, or suffred more miserie, then is nowe fallen vnto mee, nor neuer more dishonour, then to beholde thee in pitifull plight, a traytour to thy natife soile. And as I am the moste wretched wight of all mothers, so I trust I shal not long continue in that state. If thou procede in this enterprise, either sodaine death, or perpetuall shame bee thy rewarde." When his mother had ended these ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... rascal-cutthroats have had somebody to be fond of them, and if those monsters, why not ordinary mortals? And with whom shall a young lady fall in love but with the person she sees? She is not supposed to lose her heart in a dream, like a Princess in the Arabian Nights; or to plight her young affections to the portrait of a gentleman in the Exhibition, or a sketch in the Illustrated London News. You have an instinct within you which inclines you to attach yourself to some one: you meet Somebody: you hear Somebody ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of a less austere rule, were the bands of discharged soldiers, their occupation gone, who crowded every village. It was easy to show, as was indeed the case, that these discontented warriors owed their present plight to the hated English. For while one of the conditions of peace, after the First Sikh War, insisted on the disbandment of the greater portion of the formidable Sikh army, the enlightened expedient of enlisting our late enemies into ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... keep your ribs from hitting together." He cut off a couple of pounds of raw bacon and put it in my pocket together with a "bait" of Plowboy tobacco. And so I hit the road. When I came to the place where my pals were working, cutting willows along the levee, I told them of my plight. ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... intrenchment, but without success, and at nightfall Villiers proposed a parley. The French ammunition was running short, the men were fatigued by their marches, and drenched by the rain which had been falling the whole day. The English were in a still worse plight. Their powder was nearly spent, their guns were foul, and among them they ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... comfortable, restful sleep, we were awakened again, and were asked for plague passports—and hadn't any. I believe the third intruder may have called to give me one; at any rate, I had to hunt about on a platform crowded with natives and other poor Britishers in pyjamas, in the same plight as myself and looking mighty cross, and finally got two pieces of paper, each with all sorts of horrible instructions and threats thereon, and un-understandable orders to show ourselves somewhere for examination for the next ten ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... propound?" the good man responded:—"Nay indeed, doubt have I none of aught that I heard; but rather assured faith in the verity of all. One thing, however, I heard, which caused me to commiserate you and the rest of you friars very heartily, in regard of the evil plight in which you must find yourselves in the other world." "And what," said the inquisitor, "was the passage that so moved thee to commiserate us?" "Sir," rejoined the good man, "it was that passage in the Gospel which says:—"You shall receive an hundredfold." "You heard aright," said the ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... and his body cruelly cut in order to exorcise the powers of sorcery that were in him. When Mary went to him he was a bruised and bleeding heap of flesh lying unconscious by the post to which he was fastened. The women in the yard were sitting about indifferent to his plight. ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... Mayhew. "That sort of trick isn't played on folks in any decent resort on shore. I don't understand Mr. Benson's conduct. I remember his mishap at Dunhaven. I remember the plight he got into at Annapolis; and now he and Mr. Hastings are found in this questionable shape. I am very much afraid these young men do not conduct themselves, on shore, in the careful manner that must be expected of civilian instructors ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... Anna! to tell thee my plight, 'Tis old love unrequited that prostrates my might, In presence or absence, aye faithful, my smart Still racks, and still searches, and tugs at my heart— Broken that heart, yet why disappear From my country, without one embrace ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... were troth-plight; and William went forth on his career of labor and success, and I remained at home, loving him, living for him, striving to make my every act what he would have it. I went into company as he had bidden me; I studied and improved myself; I grew handsomer, too. All who saw ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... First, much of its physical plant—post offices and other buildings-is obsolete and inadequate. Many new buildings and the modernization of present ones are essential if we are to have improved mail service. The second problem is the Department's fiscal plight. It now faces an annual ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower
... the young lord come in with me, and heard that he was to lie there that night, seeing that as yet we had no more beds than we had bought for our own need from old Zabel Nehring the forest ranger his widow, at Uekeritze. Wherefore she took me aside: What was to be done? My bed was in an ill plight, her little god-child having lain on it that morning; and she could nowise put the young nobleman into hers, although she would willingly creep in by the maid herself. And when I asked her why not? she blushed scarlet and began to cry, and would not show herself again the whole evening, ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold
... and nails and sprigs of rosemary into their arms to make them bleed; and with horrible actions, partly by prayers, and partly with lunatic curses, they move or terrify the ignorant country folk into giving them alms. This poor fellow was such a one; and the king, seeing him in so wretched a plight, with nothing but a blanket about his loins to cover his nakedness, could not be persuaded but that the fellow was some father who had given all away to his daughters and brought himself to that pass; for ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... reached the king's apartment, he began to cry out, and call for justice in a lamentable tone. The king ordered him to be admitted; and asked who it was that had abused and put him into that miserable plight. "Sire," cried Saouy, "it is the favour of your majesty, and being admitted into your sacred councils, that has occasioned me to be so barbarously treated." "Say no more of that," replied the king, "only let me hear the whole story simply, and who ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... of Sundays? Better for you had you passed the night with your roistering friends at Kakiat, or started homeward earlier, for Sabbath-breaking is no sin now, and you, poor ghost, will find little sympathy for your plight. Grant that your month of Sundays, or your cycle of months of Sundays, be soon up, for it is sad to be reminded that we may be punished for offences many years forgotten. When the sun is high to-morrow a score of barges will vex the sea of Tappan, ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... should not be oppressed by thee. On the other hand, O bull of the Bharata race, fight with him with thy arms, putting forth as much strength only as thy antagonist hath now left!' Then that slayer of hostile heroes, the son of Pandu, thus addressed by Krishna, understood the plight of Jarasandha and forthwith resolved upon taking his life. And that foremost of all men endued with strength, that prince of the Kuru race, desirous of vanquishing the hitherto unvanquished Jarasandha, mustered all his ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... were in sore plight when we arrived at Rouen, but the duke saw that we were provided with clothes and with horses ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... loves you too, with such a holy fire, As will not, cannot, but with life expire: Our vowed affections both have often tried, Nor any love but yours could ours divide. Then, by my love's inviolable band, By my long suffering and my short command, If e'er you plight your vows when I am gone, Have pity on the faithful Palamon." This was his last; for Death came on amain, And exercised below his iron reign; Then upward to the seat of life he goes; Sense fled before him, what he touched he froze: Yet could ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... she promised to plight her faith to Compton the moment Lady Bassett should be restored to health; and so, with hopes and smiles, and the novelty of a daughter's love, she fought with death for Lady Bassett, and at last she won the ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... conscious of a strange sensation. It was partly due to his impetuosity he felt that Retto had been injured. Larry partly blamed himself for Mr. Potter's present plight, since through the reporter's instrumentality the millionaire's friend had not been able to keep in ...
— Larry Dexter's Great Search - or, The Hunt for the Missing Millionaire • Howard R. Garis
... were of the best he did very little sleeping that night. He was in a grave situation. Even if he had a fair field his plight would be serious enough. But he guessed that during the long hours of darkness Durand was busy weaving a net of false evidence from which he could scarcely disentangle himself. Unless Bromfield came forward at once as a witness for him, his case would be hopeless—and ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... Whig propositions of '41 will not be detrimental to that party, even if in the interval they be appropriated piecemeal, as will probably be the case, by their Conservative successors. But for the moment, and in the plight in which the Whig party found themselves, it was impossible to have devised measures more conducive to their precipitate fall. Great interests were menaced by a weak government. The consequence was inevitable. Tadpole and Taper saw it in a moment. They snuffed the factious ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... watched his receding sails with dreary foreboding, a foreboding which seemed but too just, when, on the next day, a storm, more violent than the Indians had ever known, howled through the forest and lashed the ocean into fury, Most forlorn was the plight of these exiles, left, it might be, the prey of a band of ferocious bigots more terrible than the fiercest hordes of the wilderness. And when night closed on the stormy river and the gloomy waste of pines, what dreams of terror may not have haunted the helpless women who ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... the first half of that night, while many other matters pressed on them, the minds of the three Courteneys turned to one theme. Ramsey's inquiries had called it up and the presence and plight of the immigrants, down below, kept it before them: the story of Hugh's grandmother, born and ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... muscle; and turning, tracked off towards the forest, dragging with it the helpless and paralyzed victim. Luckily the two men in the canoe had just paddled round the point, in sight of, and close to, camp. The man in the bow, seeing the plight of their comrade, seized his rifle and fired at the bear. The bullet went through the beast's lungs, and it forthwith dropped its prey, and running off some two hundred yards, lay down on its side and died. The rescued man recovered full health and strength, ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... obeyed, my lord," said Glendinning; and choosing those whose horses were in best plight to be his attendants, he went off as fast as the jaded state of their cavalry permitted. Hill and hollow vanished from under the feet of ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... mimic clock tower was capacious enough to hold a whole chorus of singers. The enormous pie in which twenty-eight musicians were discovered when the crust was cut may have been the original of that pasty whose opening revealed four-and-twenty blackbirds in a similar plight. Wild animals wandered gravely at a machinist's will through deep forests, but in the midst of the counterfeit brutes there was at least one live lion, for Gilles le Cat[5] received twenty shillings from the duke for the chain and locks he made to hold the ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... manifestoes at all, and if they had read them, would not have understood one word, for one reason because the authors of such literature write very obscurely in spite of the boldness of their style. But as the workmen really were in a difficult plight and the police to whom they appealed would not enter into their grievances, what could be more natural than their idea of going in a body to "the general himself" if possible, with the petition at their head, ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Mortimer laughing—"No, no, my boy—you have got more on your hands now than will suffice you: so off with you home, and take care that when we return we do not find the doves flown, Nero lost, or Reuben with black eye or bruised leg, and yourself in some unlucky plight, my boy. Now go home, and God bless and watch over you, my sons. We hope it will not be long before we return," and he waved his hand to bid good bye. Marten had run himself out of breath, so he was not able to answer his father, and he was not sorry to ...
— Brotherly Love - Shewing That As Merely Human It May Not Always Be Depended Upon • Mrs. Sherwood
... so disconcerting as to be prepared to overcome a resistance and then to find no resistance there; to be ready with convincing arguments, and then not have them called for. This, very naturally, was the plight ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... the home humor, in the summer, we do not mind how drenching the rain is, and we may even take delight in getting our own legs splashed as we glance at the "very touching stockings" and the "very gentle and sensitive legs" of other weaker ones in the same plight. But here was I in a gale on the bleakest tableland one can find in this part of Yuen-nan, and a sorry sight truly did I make as I trudged "two steps forward, one step back" in my bare feet, covered only with rough straw sandals, ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... York, 6 killed, 2 drowned, and 4 wounded, and 200 mules and 200,000 rations thrown into the sea, the expedition returned to New Orleans, whence, by reason of unseaworthiness of transports, part of it had not yet started. The transports came back in a sorry plight, the Cahawba on one wheel, the river steamboat Laurel Hill without her smokestacks, and all the others of her class with their frail sides stove. The Clifton and the Sachem, whose losses are but partially reported, ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... iron-moulded, blued until it is nearly black, rough-dried, starched in patches, with the fringe of red earth only more firmly fixed than before? Behold my favorite ivory cotton! My white gowns are even in a worse plight, for there are no two yards of them the same, and the grotesque mixture of extreme yellowness, extreme blueness and a pervading tinge of the red mud they have been washed in renders them a piteous example of misplaced confidence. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... lord awoke: the looking-glass above the fireplace soon intimated to him his plight: as you may imagine, I now live under threat and ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... introduction and of credit, and with no resources but a few coins which happened to be in his pockets. He knew nobody in Calcutta. He disliked very much to present himself to the persons to whom he had been commended by his friends in America in that sorry plight with the possibility that he might be suspected of being an impostor. Accordingly, he determined that he would take care of himself. He walked about the street to see what he could find to do. As he went along he saw the sign of the Oriental Quarterly Review. He went ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... the folks in your block, fellows; how many of them are in some sad plight which would make you shrink from exchanging places with them? They are being set upon; can you get in there and help in some way,—you with your good free strong arm, your big, sympathetic heart, your pocketbook, your resources of ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... the right, met with the same obstruction and lost many of its men and officers while waiting for the British artillery to smash a way through for them. This the artillery did when word had been carried back telling of the plight ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... But ere he departed he sware to her that he would return when he had achieved his quest; but he kept not his oath. Thus have I sought him in many a court. All this did my lady mother tell me, and also of the troth-plight. Little good hath it done me that he be my father, and that he sware to my mother, ere he departed, that for her honour, and for her profit, he would return to her without fail. Doth he live, God send him mocking (this ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... in my veins and the winy fragrance of antique woods and pastures. I laughed; I clapped my hands; I danced on the ice-rubbish, so that they thought me mad. But, for the other—the man—he was in a different plight. He was transfigured; his nervousness was gone in a flash. He cast himself down upon his knees, and gazed and gazed, his hands clasped, upon that sleek, mild progenitor of his, that pure image of gentle self-containment, whose very ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... signal reassured him. "I see, sir," said he, turning courteously to Vivaldi, "that you are in a bad plight, and I hope that I or my carriage may be of service to you." He ventured a second glance at Fulvia, but she had turned aside and was inspecting the wheel of the chaise with an air of the most ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... lay it upon your wife and self, that you may make a Sunday-appearance like MY tenants. Mean time, take this (putting his hand in his pocket, and giving him five guineas), to put yourselves in present plight; and let me see you next Sunday at church, hand in hand, like an honest and loving couple; and I bespeak you to ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... for a purpose, to demonstrate that he was a man equal to any man's struggle. He had signally failed in his purpose, for reasons that were still a little obscure to him. Failure had made him a little bitter, bred a pessimism it took the plight of his aunts to cure. Even if he had failed to achieve his heart's desire he had acquired power to make two lives content. Save that it ministered to his self-respect to know that he could win in that fierce struggle of the marketplace, money had lost its high value for him. Money ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... discussing the times and the utter lack of news from home, when the last tidings had been most alarming. Poor lady! I think it was a comfort to her, for she loved my mother; but we could not but grieve to see her in such a plight. As we went home we planned that we would carry a faggot in the carriage the next day, and that I would take it upstairs to her. And so I actually did, but the sentry insisted on knowing what I was carrying hidden in ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... say—"job well done." For in a few weeks he would have ceased to be strictly human, becoming a dangerous threat to his fellows. And if the girl had been unable to escape from him before that time, she would have been subject to the same plight. Morgan decided that he would have done the same thing if given time to weigh the ...
— Collectivum • Mike Lewis
... a much worse plight; for, whereas Mrs Major Negus had only swallowed a lot of sea-water and had been only nearly frightened to death, Mr Lathrope's sallow face was so unearthly pale that Mr Meldrum was certain he had received ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... leaving the country, was a sorry, and possibly might not be a very effectual one. Do what he would, his domestic sky was likely to be overcast to the end of the day. Thus he brooded, and his resentment gathered force. He craved a means of striking one blow back at the cause of his cheerless plight, while he was still on the scene of his discomfiture. For some minutes no method suggested itself, and then he ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... Eastman thought it would be well to go to New York for a few days until the storm blew over. Jeffries the book-keeper could attend to all that was needed. Mr. Lawrence would find Hope Mills in a bad plight, to be sure; but he would not be the first man who had come to ruin. Mr. Eastman put his desk in order,—he never kept any tell-tale papers,—walked leisurely out of Hope Mills with that serene, impassable face and high heart no misfortune ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... But one common topic to be employed will be indignation at his offence, and another will be the argument, that it is right to pity those who are in distress, owing to misfortune, and not those who are in such a plight through their own wickedness. ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... darling; because, you see, I hadn't any powder left; and I was coming through the woods—just as I told you—when the Yanks got sight of me." He smiled down at her bravely, striving to add a dash of comedy to his tragic plight. "And I tell you, Virgie, your old dad had to run like a turkey—wishing to the Lord he ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... no occupation, is in a sad plight: The man who lacks concentration of effort is worse off. In a recent test of the power of steel plates, designed for ship armor, one thousand cannon were fired at once against it, but without avail. A large cannon was then brought out. This cannon used but one-tenth as much powder as did ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... furtive. For the first time during the evening his jaded mind, that had instinctively sought the solace of contemplating trifles, reverted to its own tormented processes. "Am I not hiding?" he said to himself, in a sort of sarcastic pity of his plight. ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... in a similar plight the old-fashioned woman—or at least the ubiquitous woman of the special eternal type that fictionists call "old-fashioned"—would have been either a bleating, tremulous gazelle or a brazen siren. But Miss Webling ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... were then turned to Monsieur Du Bois, whose clothes were in the same miserable plight with those of Madame Duval; and who, wet, shivering, and disconsolate, had crept ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... playing on their instruments and singing and dancing; and the conjurors dance to such a pitch that at last one of them shall fall to the ground lifeless, like a dead man. And then the devil entereth into his body. And when his comrades see him in this plight they begin to put questions to him about the sick man's ailment. And he will reply: "Such or such a spirit hath been meddling with the man,[NOTE 9] for that he hath angered the spirit and done it some despite." ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... several kings or caciques. The one who lived near the Admiral's landing place had been extremely friendly to his strange visitors, and when in the morning he saw their sad plight, he sent all the people of the town out in large canoes to unload the ship. He himself came down to the shore and took every precaution that the goods should be brought safely to land and cared for. The next day, Wednesday, ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... place, then, men of Athens, we must not be downhearted at our present situation, however wretched it may seem to be. For in the worst feature of the past lies our best hope for the future-in the fact, that is, that we are in our present plight because you are not doing your duty in any respect; for if you were doing all that you should do, and we were still in this evil case, we could not then even hope for any improvement. {3} In the second place, you must bear in mind (what some ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... to meet them, and taking the waiting-maid for his bride, he lifted her down from her horse and led her upstairs to the royal chamber. In the meantime the real Princess was left standing below in the courtyard. The old King, who was looking out of his window, beheld her in this plight, and it struck him how sweet and gentle, even beautiful, she looked. He went at once to the royal chamber, and asked the bride who it was she had brought with her and had left thus standing in the court below. "Oh!" replied the bride, "I brought her with me to keep me company on the journey; ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... moment, only one, whose existence was comforting to remember. The hundreds of kind and good people, who were merely kind and good where popular sentiment expected or commended such conduct, gave no re-assurance; on the contrary, they proved the desperation of our plight, since wisdom and goodness themselves were busy at the ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... only one chance for deliverance, we must get the tidings of our dreadful plight to Fort Wallace, a hundred miles away. Jack Stillwell and another brave scout were chosen for the dangerous task. At midnight they left us, moving cautiously away into the black blank space toward the southwest, and making a wide detour from their ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... beginning of the war Alexeiev, then Ivanov's chief of staff, is said to have counselled a Russian retreat like those which lured Charles XII and Napoleon to their doom; but the temptations of Austrian weakness and German concentration on the West and the plight of France and Belgium led to the adoption of other advice and the premature invasion of Prussia, Galicia, and Hungary; and in August 1915 it was too late for a voluntary and innocuous retreat. The safety of the majority had to be bought ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... giving up in despair, there came a humming sound and a moment later the well-known signal of distress had been flashed out across the waves. Three times he repeated it. Three times in a few sharp words he told their general location and their plight. Then with wildly beating heart, he pressed the receivers to his ears and awaited ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... you for what you have given to Mr. Phelps. I don't call this billet part of the acknowledgment. All the world is dispersed: the ministers are at their several villas: one day in a week serves to take care of a nation, let it be in as bad a plight as it will! We have a sort of Jewish superstition, and would not come to town on a Saturday or Sunday though it were to defend the Holy of ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... The Texan's plight had applied any spur the pursuers might have needed. Confident they were now going to gather in at least two bushwhackers, the shouting behind took on a premature shrilling of triumph. There was a blast of shooting, ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... out with the honours of war, and were escorted by Messer Galeaz and the Marquis of Mantua to the French outposts. More than two thousand men had already died of sickness and starvation. Almost all their horses had been eaten, and the survivors were in a miserable plight. Many perished by the roadside, and Commines found fifty troopers in a fainting condition in a garden at Cameriano, and saved their lives by feeding them with soup. Even then one man died on the spot, and four others never reached the camp. Three hundred more died at Vercelli, some of ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... I have mercy when you have none?" he asked, quickly. "Let the prisoners die of grief; I am a prisoner too, and shall know also how to die. I shall not leave Innspruck unless you promise me that you will become my wife on my return, and plight me your faith before the altar of God. I swear by all that is sacred to me, I will not leave this city unless I take with me your solemn pledge that you will overcome your pride and ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... angry at his Irish assurance, tossed him against the rocks, brought him back in fierce eddies, and again and again threw him against a solid face of stone. When he was rescued he was a mass of bruises, but fortunately no bones were broken. It was some days before he could get out, and in his sorry plight, bandaged so his face was scarcely visible, Spencer found him. "Herbert, do you believe in the actuality of matter?" was John's ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... speak, but Annabel de Chaumont could talk faster than the four others combined, so they knew our plight before we learned that they were the Grignon and Tank families, who were going into the west to find settlement and had made the house their camp for one night. The Dutch maid, dark and round-eyed, and the flaxen little Grignon, had respect for their elders and held their tongues while Madame ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... story ages and ages old. The local correspondent did not plagiarize from the Chinaman: merely, the humorous bent of the two was identical. In the ancient Oriental tale, a man who wore the thief's collar as a punishment was questioned by an acquaintance concerning the cause of his plight. ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... I thought it could be in a woman; And if it can, I will presume in you, To feed for aye her lamp and flame of love, To keep her constancy in plight and youth, Out-living beauties outward, with a mind That doth renew swifter than blood decays. Or, that persuasion could but thus convince me, That my integrity and truth to you Might be affronted with the match and weight Of such a ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... would have been able to rush the machine guns and so gain a great victory was more problematical. Anyway, our advance at dawn was half heroic, half lamentable. The men were so beat that if they tripped and fell, they lay like dead things. The enemy were almost in worse plight and so we took prisoners, but as soon as we came up against nerveless, tireless machine guns we had to stagger back to ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... destruction of my race. I made no distinction between my own children and the children of Pandu. My own sons were prone to wilfulness and despised me because I am old. Blind as I am, because of my miserable plight and through paternal affection, I bore it all. I was foolish after the thoughtless Duryodhana ever growing in folly. Having been a spectator of the riches of the mighty sons of Pandu, my son was derided for his awkwardness while ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... Constance perceived in the clear light of the street, that not only was the person Mr. Pellew was carrying into the house—whom she could only identify otherwise as having snow-white hair—covered with dust and soiled, but that Gwen and Miss Grahame were in a like plight, the latter in addition being embarrassed by a rent skirt, which she was fain to hold together as she crossed the doorstep. Once in the house she made short work of it, finishing the rip, and acquiescing in the publicity of a petticoat. It added to Aunt Constance's ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... Unconsciously, her throat was arranged for a sudden shrill scream. High in the tree branches she could hear the voice of the wind, a melody of the night, low and sad, the plaint of an endless, incommunicable sorrow. Her own distress, the plight of the men in gray—these near matters as well as all she had known or imagined of grief—everything was expressed in this soft mourning of the wind in the trees. At first she felt like weeping. This sound told ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... Madeleine was almost a houseboat girl herself. Readers of the first houseboat story will recall how Madeleine's fiance, Judge Hilliard, rescued Madge and Phyllis from a serious situation and saved Madeleine from a far worse plight than that in which he found ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... any one, sinner as I am!" said I. "Nay, Margaret, I doubt not my thoughts have been far unholier than thine. Thou rememberest not, I am sure; but ere we were professed, I was troth-plight unto a young noble, and always that life that I have lost flitteth afore me, as a bird that held a jewel in his beak might lure me on from flower to flower, ever following, never grasping the sweet illusion. Margaret, sister, despise me not for my confession! ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... were directed towards the barred windows of a private house, through which nothing but insects and the hearts of moon-struck young men could obtain access. I felt very sorry for you both. I could see that your studies were being seriously interrupted, and that the plight of ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... to the table, only too delighted with the invitation. Their entertainer watched them as they attacked the food, and a thrill of pity ran through him as he beheld their sorry plight, dirty, ragged, arms gone, their sole attire a pair of red trousers and the capote, kept in place by bits of twine and so patched and pieced with shreds of vari-colored cloth that one would have taken them for men who had been looting some battle-field and were wearing ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... best the world can give—call it by what name thou wilt and prize it at its utmost worth—is nothing more than these: wind and smoke and a dream and a flower. But though all have fled from thee and left thee to die alone in grievous plight, this ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... venial crimes in Love's gay spring, Prompt the youthful Female's sigh; When her roses all take wing, And Matrons sage her plight descry; ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... scandalised, flustered, very sore, poor birds, and quite past recollecting that feathers grow again if the system is sound and the cuticle health. To Iglesias these purse-proud, self-righteous, middle-aged gentlemen presented a spectacle at once pathetic and humorous in their present sad plight. A calm head and clear judgment might do much to ameliorate their position, and a calm head and cool judgment he was confident of possessing. Only was he, after all, disposed to place these useful possessions at ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... extremely unfavorable circumstances;—almost an invalid, and arrayed in this slovenly dishabille. My dear Mr. Tickels," she added, "you must not look at me, for I am really ashamed of having been caught in this deplorable plight." ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... vague shape was gone, swallowed up in the night. He hurried after it over the ridge. The stars showed him empty spaces of billowy sand; there were black spots marking hollows and nowhere his horse. But yet he went forward hopefully or at least striving to retain his hope. He had little liking for the plight that would be his were he set afoot here in the heart of the Bad Lands. But at the end of upwards of an hour of fruitless search he went back to the water-hole and his traps, seeing the folly of further ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... and loud. "Of course he erred. You don't suppose that I would give the authorities my real name, do you? Why, man, I am a nephew! I have an aged uncle—a rich millionaire uncle—whose heart and will it would break were he to hear of my present plight. Both the heart and will are in my favor, hence my tender solicitude for him. I am innocent, of course—convicts always are, you know—but that wouldn't make any difference. He'd die of mortification just the same. It's one of our family traits, that. So I gave a false name to the authorities, and ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... the Deacon, and Miss Wingate could see that his distress at the plight of young Bud was as genuine as that of any of ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... from recollecting that he mentioned the circumstance to William Peirce, as he went to the Mineral Spring on Fast-day. Last Monday morning he told Colonel Putnam he could not fix the time. This witness stands in a much worse plight than either of the others. It is difficult to reconcile all he has said with any belief in the ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... lords," the king said to his knights as he sat in a little room in an inn at Zara, "that my plight is a bad one. I am surrounded by enemies, and, alas! I can no longer mount my steed and ride out as at Jaffa to do battle with them. My brother, John Lackland, is scheming to take my place upon the throne of England. Philip of France, whose mind is far better at such ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... father, only to be repelled anew by the expression, almost of fatuity, she discovered on his face as he bent over the letter once more. Suddenly she experienced an overwhelming realization of the desperation of Hannah's plight,—the destiny of spending one's days, without sympathy, toiling in the confinement of these rooms to supply their bodily needs. Never had a destiny seemed so appalling. And yet Janet resented that pity. The effect of it was to fetter ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of which I commanded) was the only one who did not complain of the food as unfit and horrible to eat, am seized with such a shuddering horror at the sight of a water-cress that I am forced to go away." One of his children was in the same plight as regards the inoffensive vegetable, cabbage. Scaliger also speaks of one of his kinsmen who fainted at the sight of a lily. Vaughheim, a great huntsman of Hanover, would faint at the sight of a roasted pig. Some individuals have been disgusted at the sight of eggs. There ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... the amputation of a limb, if it were kindly and courteously performed from a wish to help us out of our difficulty, and with the full consciousness on the part of the doctor that it was only by an accident of constitution that he was not in the like plight himself. So the Erewhonians take a flogging once a week, and a diet of bread and water for two or three months together, whenever their ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... in a worse plight than I am already, so I will take your advice.' And she ran back to the kitchen and filled her sieve with ashes. Then once more she dipped the sieve into the well, and, behold, this time not a drop of ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... cabals set on foot by rival opera-managers in London, who, by importing Italian singers, drew off the patronage of the nobility, and ultimately succeeded in reducing him to the condition of an insolvent debtor. While in this wretched plight an invitation came to him from the Duke of Devonshire, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, to visit Dublin. He eagerly accepted it, and in the correspondence which passed between them promised to contribute ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... Some One did not merely apprentice himself to a printer at fourteen (as city papers say it) and marry at twenty-one. But he that is now deceased was once full of hope and strength (at fourteen), and in the brave days of twenty-one did he, that is now struck down, plight his troth. So, doubtless, runs the thought in that intimate phrase so dear ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... not to be parted with for the loss of a victory or two; wherefore the wing of the tyrant was clipped again, as to boasting,—I mean in comparison of what he would have done, if the Diabolonians had put the town to the same plight to which he ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... she came limping into the room, with her dog Fanchon following in the same lame plight,—she laughing heartily at their similarity of gait, and holding up a letter ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... plight the knight travels on until Christmas-eve, and to Mary he makes his moan that she may direct him to some abode. On the morn he arrives at an immense forest, wondrously wild, surrounded by high hills on every ...
— Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight - An Alliterative Romance-Poem (c. 1360 A.D.) • Anonymous
... sure of a hearty welcome and a home among those connexions, whose wealth and virtues he had heard so often extolled by his grandfather, was a matter not easily settled. As good fortune would have it, he fell in with an Irishman as thoughtless as himself, and whose plight so exactly resembled his own, that, such is the sympathetic power of misfortune, they formed a mutual attachment almost as soon as they came in contact. Both were pedestrians bound to London, and both were equally destitute of money or friends; and one honest mode only remained for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 327, August 16, 1828 • Various
... she liked; to have a good time, and to be responsible to nobody. There was a mother-in-law in the case, of course, and, although the brand has become tiresome, this particular lady was necessary in order to emphasize Suzanne's apparently hapless plight. ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... statements by Mr Belasco and by writers in and to The Referee, the Theatrical Syndicate does, in fact, control to a very great extent the drama in America, and there is no real doubt about the accuracy of the proposition that the drama in the States is in a worse plight than the drama in London. If, judging by the ordinary picked American productions over here, the evidence were otherwise insufficient, the tone of Mr Klaw's article would ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... two of her least prized trinkets. Going out in all weathers to look for employment had not improved her clothes; her best pair of boots let in water; she was jaded, heartsick, dispirited. As with others in a like plight, she dared not look into the immediate future, this holding only terrifying probabilities of disaster; the present moment was all sufficient; little else mattered, and, although to-morrow promised ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... power to stir her,—and she told herself Jack had so failed, without asking herself why,—then some other man might easily accomplish that, to her unutterable grief. She had told herself many a time that no more terrible plight could overtake her than to love and be loved and sit with hands folded, foregoing it all. She shrank from so tragic an evolution. It meant only pain, the ache of unfulfilled, unattainable desires. If, she reflected cynically, this man beside her stood for such a motif in her life, he might better ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... this cave and perish with the smoke and the heat? Rather will we go forth and fight with our enemies, then we may have a chance of saving ourselves." They left the cave, going through openings at the side, and they attacked Issachar and Gad in front and behind. Dan and Naphtali saw the plight of their brothers and ran to their assistance. They laid about with their swords, hewing a way for themselves to Issachar and Gad, and, united with them, they, too, opposed ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... all, is a safer guide than either right or duty. For hard as it is to know what gives us pleasure, right and duty are often still harder to distinguish and, if we go wrong with them, will lead us into just as sorry a plight as a mistaken opinion concerning pleasure. When men burn their fingers through following after pleasure they find out their mistake and get to see where they have gone wrong more easily than when they have burnt them through ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... lips to her forehead. And he said he was glad that he had made her happy. But he did not tell her that he had forced himself to plight thus, tangibly, his troth to her that there might be no escape from the path of honor which he ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... absent, seeing that there was no knowing how indisposed she herself might be. There never is, with nerve cases, and she was a nerve case. So Sir Hamilton really must arrange to stay at home just this one afternoon, that Lady Ancester's visit should not be absolutely sterile. If the nerve case's plight and Sir Hamilton's isolation were communicated to her on her arrival, she could choose for herself whether to come in or go on to Poynders. She chose to come in and interview Sir Hamilton. So consider that the lady of the house is indisposed, and ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan |
