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More "Embitter" Quotes from Famous Books



... Velasquez and his death in the gloomy dungeons of the Inquisition, the arrival of de la Gama as judge auditor and governor ad interim, and his subsequent marriage with Ponce's daughter Isabel, all these events but served to embitter the strife of parties. "The spirit of vengeance, ambition, and other passions had become so violent and deep-rooted among the Spaniards," says Abbad,[30] "that God ordained their chastisement ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk

... which ever comes to embitter human happiness, particularly in the French colonies, spread some reports in the island which gave Paul much uneasiness. The passengers in the vessel which brought Virginia's letter, asserted that she was upon ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... been on the watch to learn Ladislaw's movements, and had an instructed informant in Mr. Standish, who was necessarily in his confidence on this matter. That Ladislaw had stayed in Middlemarch nearly two months after he had declared that he was going immediately, was a fact to embitter Sir James's suspicions, or at least to justify his aversion to a "young fellow" whom he represented to himself as slight, volatile, and likely enough to show such recklessness as naturally went along with a position unriveted by family ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... meantime, Sigismund of Poland retained against the son the same sentiments of hostility which the father had provoked, and left no artifice untried to shake the allegiance of his subjects, to cool the ardour of his friends, and to embitter his enemies. Neither the great qualities of his rival, nor the repeated proofs of devotion which Sweden gave to her loved monarch, could extinguish in this infatuated prince the foolish hope of regaining his lost throne. All Gustavus's overtures were haughtily rejected. Unwillingly ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.

... imperial government, or even in an American Federal State, it cannot under our Federal system of government be safely or rightly agitated as a national question. Its agitation as such has done more to alienate and embitter the two sections of our Union—more to rouse the spirit of slavery aggression and extension, and to tighten the bonds and increase the burdens of the slave, than it has done to effect emancipation. Slavery is an evil permitted by Providence for ends that time will reveal. From ...
— The Relations of the Federal Government to Slavery - Delivered at Fort Wayne, Ind., October 30th 1860 • Joseph Ketchum Edgerton

... matter where she might go nor how blamelessly she might live, the fact that she had been sentenced to a woman's reformatory would crop up like the ugly memory of a horrid dream to embitter her existence. Was her life linked with Tunis Latham's, he must suffer ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper

... heaven [I heard] again speak to me and say, Go and take the little opened book in the hand of the angel who stands on the sea and on the land. [10:9]And I went to the angel, and said to him, Give me the little book. And he said to me, Take and eat it, and it will embitter your stomach, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey. [10:10]And I took the little book from the hand of the angel and eat it; and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey; and when I eat it, my stomach was ...
— The New Testament • Various

... world at his back! and what can any resistance of ours avail? We may gain a single victory—to that, genius and courage are equal, and we possess them in more than even Roman measure—but that very victory may be our undoing, or it will but embitter the temper of the enemy, call forth a new display of unexhausted and inexhaustible resources, while our very good success itself will have nearly annihilated our armies; and what can happen then but ruin, absolute and complete? ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... able to get work," said the Kingston magistrate to a man summoned for income-tax. This is the sort of thoughtless remark that tends to embitter the unemployed. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various

... insistent in his protestations of innocence) that there was nothing between them. But if so, it was due solely to Concha—she had plenty of admirers and, besides, her old time friendship would impel her not to embitter Josephina's life. Concha was the one who ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... 24, '89. DEAR HOWELLS,—I, too, was as sorry as I could be; yes, and desperately disappointed. I even did a heroic thing: shipped my book off to New York lest I should forget hospitality and embitter your visit with it. Not that I think you wouldn't like to read it, for I think you would; but not on a holiday that's not the time. I see how you were situated—another familiarity of Providence and wholly wanton intrusion—and of course we could ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... eldest sister, I have been forced to live estranged (and shall die so) from all my relations. My nearest relations, it is true, died years ago; the others are scattered over the world, and scarcely remember their relationship to me. Their ancestors, who have done their utmost to embitter my life, seem to have left it as a legacy to their children to forget me, and to trouble themselves as little about old Aunt Roselaer as if she had never existed. But man must think of his end. I am in my seventy-fifth year, and a recent attack of apoplexy has warned ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint

... but your married life lasted only a year, and your husband was much older than yourself. You were little more than a child at the time, and that one short year can't seem much more than a dream now. Surely that ought not to embitter ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter

... must he have had of it, with his quiet Disposition and nervous habits, penned up in this den of noise and vulgarity. How strange that while every sight and sound was sufficient to embitter the heart and fill it with misanthropy, his pen should be dropping the honey of Hybla. Yet it is more than probable that he drew many of his inimitable pictures of low life from the scenes which surrounded him in this abode. The circumstance ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... in the "Mem. Secretes de la Republique des Lettres." We may add also, that because Abelard, in the warmth of honest indignation, had reproved the monks of St. Denis, in France, and St. Gildas de Ruys, in Bretagne, for the horrid incontinence of their lives, they joined his enemies, and assisted to embitter the life of this ingenious scholar, who perhaps was guilty of no other crime than that of feeling too sensibly an attachment to one who not only possessed the enchanting attractions of the softer sex, but, what indeed is very unusual, a congeniality of disposition, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... exiled to Archangel. There he refused to take the oath of allegiance that was required of them and was condemned to be exiled to the Takoutsk Government, so that half his life since he reached manhood was passed in prison and exile. All these adventures did not embitter him nor weaken his energy, but rather stimulated it. He was a lively young fellow, with a splendid digestion, always active, gay and vigorous. He never repented of anything, never looked far ahead, and used all his powers, his cleverness, ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy

... the meeting will never be. Should possibilities be worse to bear than certainties? We do not shun our dying friends; the not having distinctly taken leave of one among them, whom we left in all kindness and affection, will often embitter the whole ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... against them we must set grave drawbacks; among those of a political kind the worst are the growth of nervousness and excitability, and the craving for sensation—qualities which undoubtedly tend to embitter national jealousies at all times, and in the last case to drive weak dynasties or Cabinets on to war. Certainly Bismarck's clever shifts to bring about a rupture in 1870 would have failed had not the atmosphere both at Paris and Berlin ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... explanation that once, to her great annoyance, she accidentally fainted into his arms, as if she had said it voluntarily long ago, before the circumstance occurred which forced it from her? Suppose that admirer you spoke of in connection with the tomb yonder should turn up, and bother me. It would embitter our lives, if I were then half in the dark, ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... to tyrannize with impunity. But there is a revolution in our affairs, which makes it prudent to be just. In our late awkward contest with Ireland about trade, had religion been thrown in, to ferment and embitter the mass of discontents, the consequences might have been truly dreadful. But, very happily, that cause of quarrel was previously quieted by the wisdom of the acts I ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... Chinese, they too would be all right in their place, no doubt. That place, if they find it, will be one in which they do not greatly intensify and so embitter the struggle for existence of the white man. The difficulty is that the Japanese is still less disposed than the Negro or the Chinese to submit to the regulations of a caste system and to stay in his place. The Japanese ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... liberty of saying that the king's service would gain by it, and we should no longer appear so disunited that even the British know all about it. I enclose a newspaper printed in New York which mentions it. False reports are made to you. Efforts are made to embitter you against me. I think you need not suspect my military conduct, when I am really doing all I can. After my three years of command under your orders what need is there for your secretary to tell me about the smallest trifles and give me petty ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood

... embase|; denaturalize, denature, leaven; deflower, debauch, defile, deprave, degrade; ulcerate; stain &c. (dirt) 653; discolor; alloy, adulterate, sophisticate, tamper with, prejudice. pervert, prostitute, demoralize, brutalize; render vicious &c. 945. embitter, acerbate, exacerbate, aggravate. injure, impair, labefy[obs3], damage, harm, hurt, shend|, scath|, scathe, spoil, mar, despoil, dilapidate, waste; overrun; ravage; pillage &c. 791. wound, stab, pierce, maim, lame, surbate|, cripple, hough[obs3], hamstring, hit between wind and water, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... and Theology, all of which, however, had first been submitted to the test of that anxious maternal Index Expurgatorius, lest some drop of infidelity or impurity should trickle in unawares, to darken or embitter the pure crystal waters of his soul. Ah, thou poor fond mother, so unreasoningly ignoring the fact that each of us must somehow eat ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... not what a hell sisters can make for one another, if they cherish such tempers. You know not how bitterness and harshness may grow among you to a dreadful habit; how you may become tormenting spirits to each other, and embitter each others' lives. And it could be so different! Sisters might be like good angels the one to the other, and make the paternal home like a heaven upon earth! I have seen both the one and the other in families: a greater contrast is not to be found on earth. ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... his own remark at the close of his booklet on others' allusion to himself in print! "Whoever will, let him freely slander and condemn my person and my life. It is already forgiven him. God has given me a glad and fearless spirit, which they shall not embitter for me, I trust, not ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther

... wish to have an explanation with them, and not to embitter matters, as is always the case when many persons are present; but, at the same time, I wish to clear everything with them, in order not to have to begin ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... world, gave themselves to service here. Did they find the charm? And was it sufficient, when found, to induce forgetfulness profound enough to shut out of mind the infinitely diverse things of life? those that sweeten and those that embitter? hopes hovering in the near future as well as sorrows born of the past? If the Grove were so good for them, why should it not be good for him? He was a Jew; could it be that the excellences were for all the world but children of Abraham? Forthwith he bent all his faculties to the task of discovery, ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... Emily & Richard's little Son. 'T is a Fine child, much Resembling my Brother. Emily turn'd her Face away, drawing down of her Widow's Weeds, & turn'd also the Babe's face aside. I felt Embitter'd." ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler

... agree to a conference, it could only lead to one of two results. Either it would embitter those disputes which threaten to embroil the nations in a fierce struggle, and bring France and Russia together in resistance to the same greedy foes, or it would end in the imposition of a lasting peace, which would mean that the Prussian and military fabric of the German State ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam

... should make a doubly pleasing impression, if we reflect how important it is in our days to preserve a mutual confidence and good-will between nations. When meddling persons make the perfidious attempt to embitter a friendly people by scoffing and abuse, there should be an end to forbearance, and it becomes a duty to strike in with soothing words. We must show the Swedes how such scribblings are appreciated in Germany, lest they should think we take a pleasure in ridiculing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... houses, swarming with yet more squalid children. On all the doorsteps Bat little girls, themselves only just out of infancy, nursing or neglecting bald, red-eyed, doughy-limbed abortions in every stage of babyhood, hapless spawn of diseased humanity, born to embitter and brutalise yet further the lot of those who unwillingly gave them life. With wide, pitiful eyes Jane looked at each group she passed. Three years ago she would have seen nothing but the ordinary and the inevitable in ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing

... religion of Ireland. Kate took a very different view of their condition. She clung, indeed, to the notion of their good blood; but as a thing that might assuage many of the pangs of adverse fortune, not increase or embitter them; and 'if we are ever to emerge,' thought she, 'from this poor state, we shall meet our class without any of the shame of a mushroom origin. It will be a restoration, and not a new elevation.' She was a fine, handsome, fearless girl, whom many said ought to have been ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... confident that in the partition of Turkey better terms could be obtained for Austria from Napoleon than from Alexander, was doing his utmost to embitter the relations of France and Russia. A strong Russian party in Vienna was in close touch with the numerous Poles in Warsaw who looked to Alexander for the restoration of their country's integrity. In both places there was much talk of the restoration of Poland, in Warsaw especially, and ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... silence was either neglect or want of duty; but, in reality, my situation is such that I have nothing to say but imprecations against the fatality of being born in such a detestable age." An unhappy and uncongenial marriage tended still more to embitter his existence; and if at last he yielded to frailties, which inevitably insure degradation, it must be remembered that his lot had been one to which few men have ever been exposed, and the magnitude of his sufferings may fairly be admitted as ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun

... you are writing to Isabel you will, I suppose, discuss the matter with her. She is not unlikely to side with you—not for your reason, however—but because of some silly nonsense about politics. If she does, I beg she will not write to me. It could only embitter matters." ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... little group known as the Banda islands. The lucrative spice-trade tempted both companies to establish themselves by building forts; and the names of Amboina and Pulo Rum were for many years to embitter the relations of the two peoples. Meanwhile the whole subject of those relations had been in 1619 discussed at London by a special embassy sent nominally to thank King James for the part he had taken in bringing the Synod of Dort to a successful termination of its labours, ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... up everything for life. A long life is everywhere considered as the highest blessing; and there is no one who is willing to die, no matter what his suffering may be. Riches also are desired by all, for poverty is the direst curse that can embitter life; and as to requited love, surely that is the sweetest, purest, and most divine joy that the ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille

... My mother—she and my father —they were not altogether companionable—in short, they were ill-mated, and, being wise enough to find it out, and having no desire to longer embitter each other's lives, they agreed to separate when I was only four. They parted without the slightest ill-feeling, and I remained with father. He was very fond of me, and would permit no one else to teach me. At seven I was drawing and painting under his guidance. At eight the violin was put into ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy

... legate, the last time in connection with the divorce between Henry VIII. and Catherine, with the effect of mortally offending the former and being of no real benefit to the latter, whom he would fain have befriended; his mission served only to embitter the relations of Henry with ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... few months: yet, unmoved by Pole's entreaties, the pope refused to permit him to resume his legatine functions, except so far as they were inherent in the archbishopric. The odious accusation of heresy was not withdrawn; and the torturing charge was left to embitter the peace of mind, and poison the last days of the most faithful servant of the ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude

... undertook the chief direction; and Mr. Nichols,[2] that he assisted Archibald Hamilton the printer. Whatever his part might be, the performance of it was enough to waste his strength with ignoble labour, to embitter his temper by useless altercation, and to draw on him contempt and insult from those who, however they surpassed him in learning, could scarcely be regarded as his superiors in native vigour and fertility of mind. ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... laudable, the servant's officiousness. I therefore flatter myself that the congress will receive with indulgence and lenity the opinion I shall offer. The scheme of simply disarming the tories seems to me totally ineffectual; it will only embitter their minds and add virus to their venom. They can, and will, always be supplied with fresh arms by the enemy. That of seizing the most dangerous will, I apprehend, from the vagueness of the instruction, be attended ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall

... anxious debate. They believed Priscilla to be silly, and the question was whether they should tell George so. The more they reflected on the affair the less they liked it; but it was agreed that they could do nothing, and that to dissuade their son would only embitter ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford

... my story, you will no longer ask me the reason of my melancholy, but permit me to brood upon it as I may. There is, surely, in the above narrative enough to embitter, though not to poison, the chalice which the fortune and fame you so often mention had prepared to regale my years ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... must take one's lot as it comes; bitter and sweet"are poured into every cup. To-morrow may be pleasanter than to-day. Nothing lasts of one colour. One must embrace the cloister, or take the chances of the world as they present themselves; and since uninterrupted happiness would but embitter the certainty that even that must end, rubs and crosses should be softened by the same consideration. I am not so busied, but I shall be very glad of a sight of your manuscript, and will return it carefully. I will thank you, too, for the print of Mr. Jenyns, which ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... he might point out; but he remembered that twenty years of expiation had failed to wash from his memory a murder of which he had been himself accused. Should he, then, after having passed the middle of his career, again embitter the remainder of his days by another deed of blood? On the other hand, so near the object of his ambition, was he to permit this barrier to stand in his way? or with a bold effort to rid himself of ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... mills, the bleachfield—and so on. The day was bright and beautiful, and the feeling of summer came over our bosoms: the flowers blossomed and the birds sang; and, as the sun looked from the blue sky, the quiet of nature banished from our thoughts all the poor and paltry cares that embitter life, and all the pitiful considerations which are but too apt to be the only concerns of the busy and bustling, from their awaking in the morning to their lying down on the pillow of evening rest. Peter and myself felt this forcibly; he, as he confessed to me, having entirely forgot the ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... be of consequence to him; for even after all hope was gone and the disorder increased rapidly, I felt that if by agitating him I should afterwards imagine I had shortened his life by one hour, that reflection would embitter my whole life. I have the satisfaction of knowing that I succeeded even better than I could have hoped; for toward the end of the week, when every symptom was bad, the surgeon (probably because I desisted from enquiring and did not appear agitated) doubtful what I thought, yet, judging it right ...
— A Week at Waterloo in 1815 • Magdalene De Lancey

... acknowledgment of his useful existence that contents him. I do not mean to say that there are not innumerable claims for acknowledgment of merit and service made by rampant vanity and egotism, which claims cannot be satisfied, ought not to be satisfied, and which, being unsatisfied, embitter people. But I think your word Vanity will not explain all the feelings we have ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps

... that has passed away since Addison wrote has seen the fall of many errors. Many fallacies and delusions have been crushed under the foot of Time since then; but this has been left unscathed, to frighten the weak-minded and embitter their existence. A belief in omens is not confined to the humble and uninformed. A general who led an army with credit has been known to feel alarmed at a winding-sheet in the candle; and learned men, who had honourably and ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... be enough for him,' the advocate answered. 'He will probably be shot. You see, signor, he has denied his nationality, and that of itself will embitter the national feeling ...
— The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray

... if I don't seem to sympathize, it's because the logical results would land you in a hole from which I'd feel a call by and by to try to pull you out. See?—As a promise to keep inside of your income would apparently embitter life to you, I won't ask for it, merely suggesting the fitness of trying to observe such a restriction. Even as regards your power to throw it away, there'll be a lot more of it to throw if you ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... his restoration if Charles would take an active part in the war. But the negotiations were suddenly cut short by the daring of the Dutch. In spite of the king's threats they attacked the Spanish fleet as it lay in English waters, and drove it broken to Ostend. Such an act of defiance could only embitter the enmity which Charles already felt towards France and its Dutch allies; and Richelieu grasped gladly at the Scotch revolt as a means of hindering England from joining in the war. His agents opened communications with the Scottish leaders; and applications for its aid were forwarded by ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green

... always. In some worldly respects, I was still a child: I cared little for its pomps, its small honors, its puny efforts, its tinselly displays. But I had vices of mind—vices of my own—sufficient to embitter the social world where all seems now so sweet—where all, in truth, WAS sweet, and pure, and worthy —and which might, under other circumstances, have been kept so to the last. I am now to ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... I will open thy eyes, and tell thee, from the very beginning, all that took place. And thou shalt learn how I stole her away from thee, in spite of thee, as presently I will come to rob thee also of thy life. And I will embitter thy life, and poison it, first: and then I ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain

... a state of wedlock as a couple courting. Some difference however must be made, between lovers who have never married, and lovers who, having made the experiment, find it possible that a drop of gall may now and then embitter the cup of honey. My aunt's first husband had been a man of an easy disposition, and readily swayed to good or ill. She had seldom suffered contradiction from him, or heard reproach. A kind of good humoured indolence had accustomed ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... to case ourselves in defiance, to wrestle against our softer self, and to indulge the darker passions which are so easily fermented by the sense of injustice. Sold early into slavery, sentenced to a sordid taskmaster, exchanging her situation, only yet more to embitter her lot—the kindlier feelings, naturally profuse in the breast of Nydia, were nipped and blighted. Her sense of right and wrong was confused by a passion to which she had so madly surrendered herself; and the same intense and tragic emotions ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... which might result from the adoption of the former course are obvious. It would be attended with immense expense, and would embitter the Mormons still more against the National Government; and it would also deter Gentiles from emigrating to a region where three thousand Federal bayonets would constitute the sole guaranty of the security of their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various

... as a mere boy, but over this you are more the man than I. You master me. I cannot do more than defend myself. Still, I think I am advising you rightly when I beg and pray of you to do nothing rash. Don't take any step, I say once more, that will embitter the Prince against you. I will go now. Stay here for a while till you grow calmer, and then come to my quarters. I feel that I only irritate you, and must seem weak and cowardly to you. You will be better alone. I, too, shall be better alone. I want ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn

... said unthinkingly; "but a man like Mr. Winthrop is foolish to let a woman like Mrs. Le Grande embitter his life." ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter

... are apt to embitter the most harmless persons. All the more so, since Capellmeisters and Musikdirectors are daily occupied at the theatres, and are bound to serve in a sphere in which they are absolutely helpless and impotent. And the causes of their impotence, with regard to the composition of an ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)

... unwound and flung from them with rage, as a rag that defiled them The imperial gains of the age which their forefathers piled them. They ran panting in haste to lay waste and embitter for ever The wellsprings of Wisdom and Strength which are Faith and Endeavour. They nosed out and digged up and dragged forth and exposed to derision All doctrine of purpose and worth and restraint and prevision: And it ...
— The Years Between • Rudyard Kipling

... visitor to Riversborough, except Phebe, who came down two or three times to see Mr. Clifford, whose favorite she was. But Phebe never spoke of the past to Jean Merle. Since they had determined what to do, it seemed wiser to her not to look back so as to embitter the present. Jean Merle was gradually gaining a footing in the town as Mr. Clifford's representative, and was in many ways filling a post very few could fill. Now and then, some of the elder townsmen, who had been contemporary with Roland Sefton, remarked ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

... all she loved most dearly, Itha consecrated herself body and soul to God for the rest of her earthly years. If she suffered as the wild children of nature suffer, she was free at least from the cares and sorrows with which men embitter each other's existence. Here she would willingly live so long as God willed; here she would gladly surrender her soul when He was pleased to ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton

... above the weakness of a heart like mine. You will not comprehend how an unrequited passion can ever give place to rage and revenge and how the merits of the object preferred to me should only embitter that revenge. ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown

... picture or architecture or sculpture to me: the despised postal card is better for that; and probably throughout these "trivial fond records" I shall be found shirking as much as I may the details of such sights, seen or unseen, as embitter the heart of travel with unavailing regret for the impossibility of remembering them. I must leave for some visit of the reader's own the large and little facts of the many chapels in the cathedral at Burgos, and I will try to overwhelm him with my sense of the whole ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... weakness, what instability of feeling, lay beneath. Ce que c'est que de nous! poor human nature; that at past forty I must adjust this hateful mask for the first time, and rejoice to find it effective; that the effort of maintaining an external smile should confuse and embitter a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... all things strive a medium to procure; Redundance never can success insure: This proverb will in all things be found true, That good itself, should have its limits due. Christian! avoid revenge and strife, For anger tends to embitter life: And he who readily forgives his foe, Ev'n here on earth true ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... openings for ignorant and unintentional injustice! How differently, again, will the several parties to any transaction construe the rights of the case! Discussion, without rules for guiding it, will but embitter the dispute. And in the absence of all guidance from the intellect, gradually weaving a common standard of international appeal, it is clear that nations must fight, and ought to fight. Not being convinced, it is base to ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... behind. Affection also might have jealously deterred Jane from giving Lola her father's infrequent letters. But affection cannot excuse what is unworthy; and Lola's thoughts ran vaguely with a distrust which did something to embitter the wholesome ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead

... Edgar has been for a long time deeply in love with this woman; you are merely indulging in a rural flirtation, a momentary caprice. In a little while, vain rivalry will make you blind, embitter your disposition, and deceive you as to the nature of your sentiments—believing yourself seriously in love you will be unable to withdraw. To-day your pride is not interested; wait not until to-morrow. Edgar is your friend, ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin

... Result of Material and Spiritual Causes—The Fact of Men Knowing the Requirements of the Higher View of Life, and yet Continuing to Preserve Inferior Organizations of Life, Leads to Contradictions and Sufferings which Embitter Existence and Must Result in its Transformation—The Contradictions of our Life— The Economic Contradiction and the Suffering Induced by it for Rich and Poor Alike—The Political Contradiction and the Sufferings Induced by Obedience to the Laws of the State—The International Contradiction ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... Committee that the President's Fourteen Points, which he had vowed to carry out, were not even discussed at the Conference. The outcome of this attitude—one cannot term it a policy—was to leave the best of the ideas which he stood for in solution, to embitter every ally except France and Britain, and to scatter explosives all over ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... the mournful consequences which his perfidy had produced upon the intellect of our unhappy Jane. His father, who in fact still entertained hopes of her ultimate sanity, now that his son was married, deemed it unnecessary to embitter his peace by a detail of the evils he had occasioned her. But when, like her brother William, he despaired of her recovery, he considered it only an act of justice towards her and her family to lay before Charles the hideousness ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... characters, the fitness we know to exist in them will lend them some added charm, or their unfitness will disquiet us, and haunt us like a conscientious qualm. The other interests of our lives here mingle with the purely aesthetic, to enrich or to embitter it. ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana

... garden grows hateful When love has abandoned the bowers; Bring me hemlock—since mine is ungrateful, That herb is more fragrant than flowers. The poison, when poured from the chalice, Will deeply embitter the bowl; But when drunk to escape from thy malice, The draught shall be sweet to my soul. Too cruel! in vain I implore thee My heart from these horrors to save: Will naught to my bosom restore thee? Then open the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... unfortunate, but not innately vicious; we may say so without danger to others. Neither the circumstances of her life or death hold out temptations to follow her example. She endured vexation and contumely enough, during the most brilliant period of her life, to embitter even a less sensitive spirit than hers. The deep and earnest love she bore the worthless king, must have been a sore scourge to her own heart. The very piety of her nature, overcome as it was by circumstances, and the lack of those virtues which, slow of growth, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... persecutors nor the infatuation of their victims had decreased. The dungeons were never empty; the streets of almost every village echoed daily with the lash; the life of a woman whose mild and Christian spirit no cruelty could embitter had been sacrificed, and more innocent blood was yet to pollute the hands that were so often raised in prayer. Early after the Restoration the English Quakers represented to Charles II. that a "vein of blood was open in his dominions," but, though the displeasure ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... its energies to forwarding these ends, by offering a sturdy opposition to the introduction of English emigrants and the use of the English language, whilst striving in every way to excite class prejudices and embitter the already strained relations between Englishman and Boer. In considering this question, it is as well not to lose sight of the fact that the Dutch are as a body, at heart hostile to our rule, chiefly because they cannot tolerate our lenient behaviour ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard

... believe, in the possibility of loyalty to the virtues which make men manliest in good women's eyes. If it is a feminine delusion, leave us to enjoy it while we may, for without it half the beauty and the romance of life is lost, and sorrowful forebodings would embitter all our hopes of the brave, tenderhearted little lads, who still love their mothers better than themselves and are not ashamed to ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... that was before us. Frank speaking, absolute candour, that would once have wounded, now only cheered and stimulated; the spirit of entire helpfulness drives out all morbid self-consciousness. Differences no longer embitter when courtesy and faith ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... to Jack Tosswill. Miss Pendarth had been right, after all. That sort of experience might well embitter the whole of the early life of such a priggish, self-centred youth; and while he was chewing the cud of these painful, troubling thoughts there came a woman's ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes

... agree," says Burns, "with the author of the Theory of Moral Sentiments, that Remorse is the most painful sentiment that can embitter the human bosom; an ordinary pitch of fortitude may bear up admirably well, under those calamities, in the procurement of which we ourselves have had no hand; but when our follies or crimes have made us wretched, to bear all with manly firmness, and at the same time have ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... you out of my room? My child! I was beside myself—I was mad with my troubles. Do you think I would behave harshly to you? Oh, my own love! when I came to tell you of your marriage, why did you ask me if you were in the way? My God! am I never to know a moment's pleasure again without something to embitter it? People say you take after your father, Minna. Are you as cold-blooded as he was? There! there! I don't mean it; I am a little hysterical, I think—don't notice me. Come and be a child again. Sit on my knee, and let ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins

... would a child; and when he saw by her struggles that she could not eat, he took her plate from her; gave her something else; and all with a care and watchfulness in his looks, as if he had been a tender-hearted boy, and she his darling bird, the loss of which would embitter all the joy ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald

... last page in her worldly life had been written. She had to turn her thoughts backward to that quiet retreat where there would at least be peace. She had promised her father that she would not return to the Convent while he wanted her at home. But was that promise to hold good if he were to embitter her life by urging her to a marriage that ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... be against me, and regard me as their enemy,—that people for whose welfare I had done it all,—still I would persevere, even though I might be destined to fall in the attempt. Though the wife of my bosom and the son of my loins should turn against me, and embitter my last moments by their enmity, still would I persevere. When they came to speak of the vices and the virtues of President Neverbend,—to tell of his weakness and his strength,—it should never be said of him that he had been deterred by fear of the people ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope

... which they had been kept out of by the prince the night before was not such as to embitter the sense of their wrong by its splendor. After all, the tastes of royalty must be simple, if the prince might have gone to the Schloss and had chosen rather to stay at this modest hotel; but perhaps the Schloss ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... stirred the fire into a blaze, and Charles Osmond sat watching the fair, childish face which looked lovelier than ever in the soft glow of the fire light. What would her future be, he wondered. She seemed too delicate and sensitive for the stormy atmosphere in which she lived. Would the hard life embitter her, or would she sink under it? But there was a certain curve of resoluteness about her well-formed chin which was sufficient answer to the second question, while he could not but think that the best safeguard against the danger of bitterness lay in her very ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... men, and were not long in involving themselves in trouble and were shunned by the better class of citizens. In a case against the younger of the two, Frank Mogan, a young lawyer, C. W. Barnes, was employed as opposite counsel. This seemed to embitter both men against Barnes and some threats were made against him. No attention was paid to the matter by Barnes, but he kept a watch on them when in ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson

... but in a good humour that the Duke's last jest could not embitter, I stood watching the scene. The play had begun now on a stage at the end of the hall, but nobody seemed to heed it. They walked to and fro, talking always, ogling, quarrelling, love-making, and intriguing. I caught sight here of great ladies, there of beauties whose faces were ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... no time was allowed me to seek another's counsel. What a trying moment was that for me; my temples throbbed, my heart beat almost audibly, and I stood afraid to speak; dreading on the one hand lest my compliance might involve me in an act to embitter my life forever, and fearful on the other, that my refusal might be reported as ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... delectable summer; and, having had it, it was ours forever. "The gods themselves cannot recall their gifts." They may rob us of our future and embitter our present, but our past they may not touch. With all its laughter and delight and glamour it ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... helplessness before the modern equipment of western nations and the necessity of learning the methods of the white man if they were ever to hold their own against him. But defeat, while always hard to bear, does not always embitter the conquered against the conqueror. On the contrary, there are evidences that the Chinese respect and like the Japanese far more since they were soundly whipped by them in 1894 and 1895. In considering, therefore, the effect upon the Chinese ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN

... Count Guido Novello and his German horse were driven out of the city by the burghers; and though in the January following a treaty of peace was made, and cemented by various marriages between members of the leading families on either side—an arrangement of which the chief result was to embitter party spirit among the Guelfs who had taken no share in it—anything like a lasting reconciliation was soon found to be out of the question. Charles of Anjou, moreover, fresh from his victory over Manfred, was by no means disposed to allow the beaten Ghibelines any ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler

... not go into the controversy: it is painful and useless. It only served to embitter the later years of two great men, and it continued long after Newton's death—long after both their deaths. It can hardly be called ancient history ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge

... and English, these same men allow thousands and thousands of avoidable deaths of English children close at hand to pass absolutely unnoticed. The fact that more than 21,000 little children died needlessly in Lancashire in that very same year means nothing to them at all. It cannot be used to embitter race against race, and to hamper that process of world unification which it is their pious ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... propensity to pay his debts, and she herself was not unaccustomed to answer the emissaries of Mr. Outerman and other greedy tradesmen who were similarly situated. To Mrs. Richards herself Charley was not in debt, and she had therefore nothing to embitter her own feelings against him. Indeed, she had all that fondness for him which a lodging-house keeper generally has for a handsome, dissipated, easy-tempered young man; and when she heard that he ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... corner of Europe, afford to tyrannize with impunity. But there is a revolution in our affairs, which makes it prudent to be just. In our late awkward contest with Ireland about trade, had religion been thrown in, to ferment and embitter the mass of discontents, the consequences might have been truly dreadful. But, very happily, that cause of quarrel was previously quieted by the wisdom of the acts ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... dregs; he was not spared the knowledge that he had murdered his children without a cause. His remorse threw him into a serious illness, in which his strong constitution wrestled long with death. While he lay at Jericho near his end he gave orders for the execution of Antipater also; and to embitter the joy of the Jews at his removal he caused their elders to be shut up together in the hippodrome at Jericho with the injunction to butcher them as soon as he breathed his last, that so there might be sorrow throughout the land. The latter order, ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... a ghastly specimen of doctrinaire dogmatism run mad, and though it was not the fault of the Government so much as of the arid doctrines of ill-understood economics which then prevailed in the schools, it did more than anything to embitter the relations between the Irish people and the Imperial Government. The death-rate from famine and famine-fever was appalling. The poor law system—then a new experiment in Ireland—broke down hopelessly, and agitators were not ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various

... soon. But now in the meantime, I will open thy eyes, and tell thee, from the very beginning, all that took place. And thou shalt learn how I stole her away from thee, in spite of thee, as presently I will come to rob thee also of thy life. And I will embitter thy life, and poison it, first: and then I will ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain

... that we so comport ourselves as not to embitter our present happiness with prospects too gloomy—but bring our minds to be cheerfully thankful for the present, wisely to enjoy that present as we go along—and at last, when all is to be wound up—lie down, and say, "Not mine, but Thy will ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... satisfied vengeance; no emotion that resembles remorse. On the contrary, his cold animal eyes continue to sparkle with jealous hate; while his hand has moved mechanically to the hilt of his knife, as though he meant to mutilate the form he has laid lifeless. Its beauty, even in death, seems to embitter his spirit! ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... granting such an indulgence, while all must admire the goodness of heart which dictates that sentiment." Would to God, thought I, that all workhouses were governed by matrons as capable of sympathizing with the feelings of the unfortunate inmates; and that all those who embitter poverty by directing the separation of parents from their children, and husbands from their wives, may themselves become the ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips

... indeed, and enough to harden and embitter the softest of hearts, but it was mild compared with the continuous suffering and torture imposed upon my mother during the years from ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger

... of this unfortunate rivalry and its bloody results, Forrest became morbid, and his domestic infelicities that followed served to still further embitter his life. In 1850 his wife instituted proceedings for divorce in the Superior Court of the City of New York, and the trial was protracted for two years. She was represented by the eminent jurist, Charles O'Conor, while Forrest employed "Prince" John Van Buren, son of the ex-President. ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... which so frequently afflict neighboring countries, not tied together by the same government, which their own rivalships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those over-grown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various

... aggravated by coming from such a man as Mr. Middleton. You have heard the audacious and insulting language he has held to them, his declining to correspond with them, and the mode of his doing it. There are, my Lords, things that embitter the bitterness of oppression itself: contumelious acts and language, coming from persons who the other day would have licked the dust under the feet of the lowest servants of these ladies, must have embittered their wrongs, and poisoned the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke

... Assembly, a club of married folk that met to dance in Masonic Hall, was to him the tamest, the dullest of organizations, and the fact that his brother-in-law Waterman, who waltzed like a tipsy barrel, enjoyed those harmless entertainments had done much to embitter Hastings's life. Hastings imagined himself in love frequently; the Dramatic Club afforded opportunities for the intense flirtations in which his nature delighted. The parents of several young women who had taken part in his amateur theatricals had been concerned for their daughters' safety. ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... accumulation! During that long period of infancy for law, how many must have been the openings for ignorant and unintentional injustice! How differently, again, will the several parties to any transaction construe the rights of the case! Discussion, without rules for guiding it, will but embitter the dispute. And in the absence of all guidance from the intellect, gradually weaving a common standard of international appeal, it is clear that nations must fight, and ought to fight. Not being convinced, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... time must he have had of it, with his quiet Disposition and nervous habits, penned up in this den of noise and vulgarity. How strange that while every sight and sound was sufficient to embitter the heart and fill it with misanthropy, his pen should be dropping the honey of Hybla. Yet it is more than probable that he drew many of his inimitable pictures of low life from the scenes which surrounded him in this abode. The circumstance of Mrs. Tibbs ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... at such close quarters as we had. We were chatting together every day, of course, and the uninitiated could not be deterred from leading the conversation round to the ugly difficulties that would embitter our lives and hinder our progress when rounding the Horn. It was likely enough that we should manage to bring the dogs safely through the tropics once, but whether we should succeed in doing so twice was more doubtful; and so on to infinity. It is easier to imagine than to describe ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... and sweet misery, Forgiveness sweet, sweet burden, and sweet ill; Sweet accents that mine ear so sweetly thrill, That sweetly bland, now sweetly fierce can be. Mourn not, my soul, but suffer silently; And those embitter'd sweets thy cup that fill With the sweet honour blend of loving still Her whom I told: "Thou only pleasest me." Hereafter, moved with envy, some may say: "For that high-boasted beauty of his day Enough the bard has borne!" then heave a sigh. Others: "Oh! why, most ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... attractive boughs. It was a very peaceful existence, and I shall often look back with pleasure to our hermitage by the walls of the old monastery, which afforded a moral haven from all the storms and troubles that embitter life. On Sundays we sent a messenger for the post to the military camp at Troodos, about five and a half miles distant, and the arrival of letters and newspapers restored us for a couple of days to the outer world: after which we relapsed ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... what may, hold fast to love. Though men should rend your heart, let them not embitter or harden it. We win by tenderness, we conquer by forgiveness. O, strive to enter into something of that large celestial charity which is meek, enduring, unretaliating, and which even the overbearing world cannot withstand forever! Learn the new commandment of the ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis

... increasing, but as he cannot expect to live many years, every moment is precious to him, and hopes that he may be allowed to be his own master and pass his time in his own way.[4] He continues: "I am fully determined not to have any more silly altercations that too often arise between us, and embitter his present moments exceedingly. If we cannot live comfortably together," he continues, "a wise and well-concerted separation would be preferable." He says he knows and admires her talents and many excellent qualities, but he is not blind to her defects,[5] and confesses to ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman

... possibility of loyalty to the virtues which make men manliest in good women's eyes. If it is a feminine delusion, leave us to enjoy it while we may, for without it half the beauty and the romance of life is lost, and sorrowful forebodings would embitter all our hopes of the brave, tenderhearted little lads, who still love their mothers better than themselves and are not ashamed ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... lose the present happiness in the pursuit of greater: I look forward with impatience to that moment which will make Emily mine; and the difficulties, which I see on every side arising, embitter hours which would ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke

... bad men, and were not long in involving themselves in trouble and were shunned by the better class of citizens. In a case against the younger of the two, Frank Mogan, a young lawyer, C. W. Barnes, was employed as opposite counsel. This seemed to embitter both men against Barnes and some threats were made against him. No attention was paid to the matter by Barnes, but he kept a watch on ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson

... laying down his pen, as M. Linders dictated these last words, "but you are about to recommend your child to your sister's care; of what use can it be to begin with words that can only embitter any ill-feeling there may have ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... inhabitants are more to be pitied than any less civilized society, being acquainted with a number of conveniences, comforts, and luxuries of life, which they formerly possessed, and of which the remembrance must embitter the loss."—G.P. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... drawing-room of the great house in Belgrave Square, but the Angel in the nursery upstairs knew nothing at all about that. She was eight years old, and was, at that critical moment when her father and mother were having words which might embitter all their lives, and perhaps sever them for ever, unconsciously and happily decorating herself ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade

... or it may embitter and narrow it. Wisdom may spring from it; indeed, who can be wise who has not ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... by the mercy of God, take place, what pangs would many passages of his present work cost him! Happy should we be, could we persuade him, in the bare anticipation of such a change, even now to contrive for his future happiness, by expunging sentiments that would then so much embitter it. Should he never change; yet, such an act would prove, that, at least, he meditated no cruel invasion upon the joys of others. Even Rousseau taught his child religion, as a delusion essential to happiness. The philosophic ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney

... the citizens, the people across the river had received their charter for the organization of Ohio City before that for the city of Cleveland came to hand, and Ohio City, therefore, took precedence on point of age. This tended to embitter the jealous rivalry between the two cities, and it was only after long years that this feeling between the dwellers on the two sides of the river ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... to prey on every part of the Empire finally tires Italy; quarrels over the division of spoils embitter friends; the immensity of the conquests, made in a few years of reckless enthusiasm, is alarming. Finally a new civil war breaks out, terrible and interminable, in which classes and families fall upon each other anew, ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero

... God's name, is all this pother about? For what cause do they embitter their own and other people's lives? That a man should publish three or thirty articles a year, that he should finish or not finish his great allegorical picture, are questions of little interest to the world. The ranks of life are ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson

... embitter the Emperor against Hus, they tried to show his teachings to be dangerous to the civil government. Finally d'Ailly advised Hus to submit to the Council. Hus again said he was open to conviction. He only asked ...
— John Hus - A brief story of the life of a martyr • William Dallmann

... drew nigh, and Otway dreaded its coming. It was the time of his burning torment, of imagination traitor to the worthier mind; it was the time of reverie that rapt him above everything ignoble, only to embitter by contrast the destiny he could not break. He rose now with the early sun; walked fast and far before the beginning of his day's work, with an aim he knew to be foolish, yet could not abandon. From Guildford Street, along the byways, he crossed ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... great mistake to suppose that it is sufficient not to become personal yourself. For by showing a man quite quietly that he is wrong, and that what he says and thinks is incorrect—a process which occurs in every dialectical victory—you embitter him more than if you used some rude or insulting expression. Why is this? Because, as Hobbes observes,[1] all mental pleasure consists in being able to compare oneself with others to one's own advantage. Nothing is of greater moment to a man than the gratification of his vanity, and no ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer

... allegiance that was required of them and was condemned to be exiled to the Takoutsk Government, so that half his life since he reached manhood was passed in prison and exile. All these adventures did not embitter him nor weaken his energy, but rather stimulated it. He was a lively young fellow, with a splendid digestion, always active, gay and vigorous. He never repented of anything, never looked far ahead, and used all his powers, his cleverness, his practical ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy

... become a better man, and not require to be deceitful nor untruthful, which will eventually benefit your moral character. Such is the impression you have made on my mind—for what avail even the most gentle reproofs? They merely serve to embitter you. But do not be uneasy; I shall continue to care for you as much as ever. What feelings were aroused in me when I again found a florin and 15 kreutzers charged in ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace

... to leave his child behind. Affection also might have jealously deterred Jane from giving Lola her father's infrequent letters. But affection cannot excuse what is unworthy; and Lola's thoughts ran vaguely with a distrust which did something to embitter the ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead

... he could only say to the Government: You are strong to-day; you hold these men's lives in your hands; but if you want to reconcile their country to you, if you want to win back Ireland, if you want to make her children love you—then do not embitter their hearts still more by taking the lives of these men. Temper your strength with mercy; do not use the sword of justice like one of vengeance, for the day may come when it shall be broken in your hands, and you yourselves brained by the hilt of the weapon you ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... were to be realized, as he saw the friends and patrons of literature,—Maximilian, Henry VIII, Francis I,—on the thrones of Europe, and a humanist pope, Leo X, at the head of the Church, a very different revolution from that which he had planned, had begun and was to embitter his ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... years. agir, to act; — sur, to work upon. agit, tossed; — de, disturbed, fretting over. agiter, to disturb. agneau, m., lamb. agreable, agreeable, sweet, acceptable. aider, to aid, assist. aeux, m. pl., ancestors, forefathers. aigrir, to sour, embitter. aile, f., wing. ailleurs, elsewhere. aimable, lovable, sweet, easy. aimer, to love. ainsi, thus; — quo, as well as; il en est — de, such is the case with. airain, m., brass. alarme, f., alarm, fear. alarm, alarmed, frightened. allegresse, f., joy. aller, ...
— Esther • Jean Racine

... him a principle of bitter hatred, which one day might embitter his whole existence. Perhaps he had cause for it; he thought he had, and cherished it with jealous care, lest it should be annihilated ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask

... was slow; the improved condition of their former fellows served only to embitter the discontent of those who still wore the fetters of servitude; and in many places the villeins formed associations for their mutual support, and availed themselves of every expedient in their power ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... which they are all composed and constructed, and the daily accidents and injuries to which they are all exposed—all this is the daily distress of all true and loving hearts. What a little thing will sometimes embitter and poison what promised to be a loyal and lifelong friendship! A passing misunderstanding about some matter that will soon be as dead to us both as the Resolutions and Protestations of Rutherford's day now are to all men; an accidental oversight; our simple ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte

... and there meet the dearest and best of wives.... I had expected this day to be the happiest of human beings, and now the event that would make me so appears as distant as ever." When he was at Naples, Mrs Maitland appears to have fallen under religious influences of the kind which often embitter family relations; and it is pathetic to read the expression of her husband's grief and anxiety lest the love which was the chief joy of his life should be estranged. "I fear much," he writes, "I shall have to regret the longest day I have to live, having left her in Scotland, instead of taking ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland

... Concha's enemy. Pshaw! She knew what women were. She even admitted (since he was so insistent in his protestations of innocence) that there was nothing between them. But if so, it was due solely to Concha—she had plenty of admirers and, besides, her old time friendship would impel her not to embitter Josephina's life. Concha was the one who ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... engaged," till a robust young fellow, his friend, appeared, and took it and kept it all the way out from Boston. The commission of such a tragical wrong, involving a violation of common usage as well as the infliction of a positive cruelty, would embitter the life of an ordinary man, if any ordinary man were capable of it; but let us trust that nature has provided fortitude of every kind for the offender, and that he is not wrung by keener remorse than most would feel for a petty larceny. I dare say he would be eager ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells

... glee you glide gaily down the river of life, going with the current, favored by the breeze of hope, charmed by varied and softly-changing scenes. But this time will soon have an end: sorrow will embitter your joys ere the frost of age shall have cooled the blood or chilled the imagination; very soon, in a few years, perhaps, it will knock at the door of your soul; and you will be obliged to give this inopportune visitor admittance, to remain with you, perhaps, for the rest ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi

... has never appeared to us to be desirable to join in agitations of a political kind on the subject. And the wisdom of this attitude has been shown, on both sides of the Atlantic, by the manner in which this question has been used to embitter party strife. But it was a puzzle at first to know by which course to steer. When a Licensing Bill was before the English House of ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton

... were needed to control and regulate the negro population now that the personal bond of the owner for the good behavior of his slaves was canceled. To the North, still excited and nervous in 1865, the laws appeared to embody an overt attempt to restore the essentials of slavery. They served to embitter Congress toward Johnson's plans, and to convince Republicans that the professed loyalty of former Confederates was hypocritical,—that these must not be permitted to return at once to ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... ill-humor upon me: she even reproached me with what I ate, and for the slightest fault I was unmercifully beaten. The neighbors, thinking to serve me, told my father of the treatment I experienced. He endeavored to protect me, but his interference only served to embitter ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere

... word, and that the meeting will never be. Should possibilities be worse to bear than certainties? We do not shun our dying friends; the not having distinctly taken leave of one among them, whom we left in all kindness and affection, will often embitter the whole remainder of ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... the Angevin noblesse must have done much towards the steady resolve with which they bridled feudalism in their island realm. The crowd of ecclesiastical foundations that ringed in their Angevin capital hardly failed to embitter, if not to suggest, their jealousy of ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green

... feelings of pity and of wrath, was not given to the others of whom he demanded a corresponding energy of just indignation and sympathy. The sense that he was left unaided to the task of bending his tough uncle, combined with his appreciation of the righteousness of the task to embitter him and set him on a pedestal, from which he descended at every sign of an opportunity for striking, and to which he retired continually ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... age is our view clearest, our eye truest? Surely in old age, before the infirmities come which weaken or embitter. The ancients were right. The old man who is at once sympathetic and disinterested, necessarily develops the spirit of contemplation, and it is given to the spirit of contemplation to see things most truly, because it alone perceives them in their relative ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... remained with them at the cottage—I had tried hard not to embitter the happiness of my return to THEM as it was embittered to ME. I had done all man could to rise after the shock, and accept my life resignedly—to let my great sorrow come in tenderness to my heart, and not in despair. It was useless and hopeless. No tears ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... a right to generalise this wonderful fact, and to declare its teaching to be—that the love of God is extended to us all, and cannot be made to turn away from us by any sins of ours? Sin is mighty; it can work endless evils on us; it can disturb and embitter all our relations with God; it can, as we shall presently have to point out, make it necessary for the tenderest 'grace of God to come disciplining'—to 'come with a rod,' just because it comes in 'the spirit of meekness.' But one thing it cannot do, and that is—make God cease to love us. I suppose ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... fate; if he would not watch for me, he would be sent away, and go hunting with some happier master: but he watches, and is wise, and faithful, and miserable; and his high animal intellect only gives him the wistful powers of wonder, and sorrow, and desire, and affection, which embitter his captivity. Yet of the two, would we rather ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin

... to rebel against God, he said to his wife when, fearing for him and all that he might be thinking, she spoke to him about it. It was a terrible trouble, but it did not embitter him as former trouble had done, and his enemy had fewer of his thoughts at this time than ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson

... have done more to embitter the two sections of America against each other than anything else. Therefore, Vincent, my advice to you is, be always kind to your slaves—not over-indulgent, because they are very like children and indulgence spoils them—but be at the same time firm and kind to them, ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty

... really," she declared. "All that doesn't make one. He'll find it out, too. Jimmy will be desperate, and I'm afraid he will drink harder. He told me they were getting frightfully strict about that at the Works. And there's that reorganization; it will embitter him if he isn't made superintendent. He has worked splendidly for it. That woman he—he went off with is a squash," she said vindictively. "She will be in bed when he goes away in the morning, and in crepe de Chine negligee when he gets back. Perhaps it won't ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... must become a ward of Chancery and take his chance. Only be careful that the iron chest is passed on to him by your will. Listen, Holly, don't refuse me. Believe me, this is to your advantage. You are not fit to mix with the world—it would only embitter you. In a few weeks you will become a Fellow of your College, and the income that you will derive from that combined with what I have left you will enable you to live a life of learned leisure, alternated with the sport ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard

... upon the broiled leg of a goose and a bit of brawn, with my printer. Did I tell you that I forbear printing what I have in hand, till the Court decides something about me? I will contract no more enemies, at least I will not embitter worse those I have already, till I have got under shelter; and the Ministers know my resolution, so that you may be disappointed in seeing this thing as soon as you expected. I hear Lord Treasurer is out of ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... provoked the massacre of the unresisting. A terrible butchery followed. The British gave no quarter. From that day, "Tarleton's Quarters", implying the merciless cutting down of the suppliant, grew into a proverbial phrase, which, in the hour of victory, seemed to embitter the hostility with which the American strove ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms

... situation is painful enough, let us not embitter it by words. In working out his modus vivendi, Monsieur Jenkins parts from you, but he does it with death in his heart, and the propositions I am instructed to make to you are a sufficient proof of his feeling for you. In the first place, as to furniture and clothes, I am authorized ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... of a disguise, and not only pardons all the conspirators, but rewards Vitellia with his hand. The opera was produced at Prague on the 6th of September, 1791, and the cold reception which it experienced did much to embitter the closing ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... without the deepest concern. Her own situation gained in the comparison; for while she could esteem Edward as much as ever, however they might be divided in future, her mind might be always supported. But every circumstance that could embitter such an evil seemed uniting to heighten the misery of Marianne in a final separation from Willoughby—in an immediate and irreconcilable ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... Popularity did not make him vain. The losing of his fame did not embitter him. He kept humble and sweet through it all. The secret was his unwavering loyalty to his own mission as the harbinger of the Messiah. "A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven," he said. The power over men which he had wielded ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... everlasting solitude, and excluded by an irreversible decree from all hopes of connubial felicity. I am pointed out by every mother, as a man whose visits cannot be admitted without reproach; who raises hopes only to embitter disappointment, and makes offers only to seduce girls into a waste of that part of life, in which they might gain advantageous matches, and become mistresses ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... the divorce between Henry VIII. and Catherine, with the effect of mortally offending the former and being of no real benefit to the latter, whom he would fain have befriended; his mission served only to embitter the relations of Henry with the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... happy we must forget the past, and think not of the future; and who that has a soul or mind can do this? No one; and this proves that those who have either know no happiness on this earth. Memory precludes happiness, whatever Rogers may say or write to the contrary, for it borrows from the past to embitter the present, bringing back to us all the grief that has most wounded, or the happiness ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... about all that, Walter. The life she has since led proves that. So you should not let it embitter you against all women." ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... Dorothea, had been on the watch to learn Ladislaw's movements, and had an instructed informant in Mr. Standish, who was necessarily in his confidence on this matter. That Ladislaw had stayed in Middlemarch nearly two months after he had declared that he was going immediately, was a fact to embitter Sir James's suspicions, or at least to justify his aversion to a "young fellow" whom he represented to himself as slight, volatile, and likely enough to show such recklessness as naturally went along with a position unriveted by family ties or a strict ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... last his health failed under his labors at the newspaper desk, beneath the midnight gas, when he should long have rested from such labors. I believe he was obliged to do them through one of those business fortuities which deform and embitter all our lives; but he was not the man to spare himself in any case. He was always attempting new things, and he never ceased endeavoring to make his scholarship reparation for the want of earlier opportunity and training. I remember that I met him once in a Cambridge street with ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... for their skill in attacking fortified places; but on this occasion they were unsuccessful, and the Spartans, whose evil conscience made them prone to suspicion, at once began to doubt the honesty of their intentions, and dismissed them with scant ceremony. This unfriendly act helped to embitter the relations between the two leading cities of Greece; and two years later, when the Messenians were expelled from Ithome, and driven into exile, the Athenians settled them with their families at Naupactus, an important strategic position ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell

... indeed, since I had left the hospital had been one of many disappointments and much privation. Unfulfilled desires and ambitions unrealised had combined with distaste for the daily drudgery that had fallen to my lot to embitter my poverty and cause me to look with gloomy distrust upon the unpromising future. But no sorrow that I had hitherto experienced could compare with the grief that I now felt in contemplating the irretrievable ruin of ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman

... a medium to procure; Redundance never can success insure: This proverb will in all things be found true, That good itself, should have its limits due. Christian! avoid revenge and strife, For anger tends to embitter life: And he who readily forgives his foe, Ev'n here on ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... poets; the strength of the phrase. She excelled in her sex, in epigram, almost as much as Voltaire in his. Pointed phrases like: "Martyrs by the pang without the palm"—or "Incense to sweeten a crime and myrrh to embitter a curse," these expressions, which are witty after the old fashion of the conceit, came quite freshly and spontaneously to her quite modern mind. But the first fact is this, that these epigrams of hers were never so true as when they turned ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton

... forget, sir, that Rose de Beaurepaire is my sister, when you tell me you have no tie to life." He added, with wonderful dignity and sobriety, "Allow me to write to my wife, sir; and, while I write, reflect that you can embitter an old comrade's last moments by persisting in your refusal to restore his sister the honor you ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade

... heartiness which should make a doubly pleasing impression, if we reflect how important it is in our days to preserve a mutual confidence and good-will between nations. When meddling persons make the perfidious attempt to embitter a friendly people by scoffing and abuse, there should be an end to forbearance, and it becomes a duty to strike in with soothing words. We must show the Swedes how such scribblings are appreciated in Germany, lest they should think we take a pleasure in ridiculing what ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... hope, Monsieur de Castelroux," I sighed, "and I will pin no faith to it lest I suffer a disappointment that will embitter my last moments, and perhaps rob me of some of the fortitude I ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini

... terrours on the mind. But fear, whether natural or acquired, when once it has full possession of the fancy, never fails to employ it upon visions of calamity, such as, if they are not dissipated by useful employment, will soon overcast it with horrours, and embitter life not only with those miseries by which all earthly beings are really more or less tormented, but with those which do not yet exist, and which can only be discerned by the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... London on 24th January 1792. Before reaching the capital they read in the English papers that they had arrived there, and had been very coldly received by Pitt—a specimen of the arts by which the French emigres in London sought to embitter the relations between the two lands. Talleyrand had the good fortune to occupy a seat in the Strangers' Gallery at the opening of Parliament close to two ardent royalists, Cazales and Lally-Tollendal. What must have been their feelings on hearing in the King's speech the statement of his friendly ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... Roswell, but you commit the, to me inexplicable, mistake of believing a part of a mystery, while you hesitate about believing all. Were you to deny the merits of the atonement altogether, your position would be much stronger than it is in believing what you do. But, Roswell, we will not embitter the moment of separation by talking more on this subject, now. I have other things to say to you, and but little time to say them in. The promise you have asked of me to remain single until your return, I most freely make. It costs ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... honour my parents was always my wish from my childhood, No one ever appear'd so prudent and wise as my parents, Who in the darker days of childhood carefully watch'd me. Much indeed it has been my lot to endure from my playmates, When with their knavish pranks they used to embitter my temper. Often I little suspected the tricks they were playing upon me: But if they happen'd to ridicule Father, whenever on Sundays Out of church he came with his slow deliberate footsteps, If they laugh'd ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe

... we took the third chance instance, it would be the same; the view that priests darken and embitter the world. I look at the world and simply discover that they don't. Those countries in Europe which are still influenced by priests, are exactly the countries where there is still singing and dancing and coloured dresses and art in the open-air. Catholic doctrine and ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton

... the camp, where no one could witness their grief. The old men joined in the crying and singing. To all appearances the most unmoved of all were the warriors, whose tears must be poured forth in the country of the enemy to embitter their vengeance. These sat silently within their lodges, and strove to conceal their feelings behind a stoical countenance; but they would probably have failed had not the soothing weed ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... as I do, dear Lucilla," continued Godolphin; "for experience in its affairs is bought at some little expense, which I pray that it may never cost you. In all countries, Lucilla, an unmarried female is exposed to dangers which, without any actual fault of her own, may embitter her future life. One of the greatest of these dangers lies in deviating from custom. With the woman who does this, every man thinks himself entitled to give his thoughts—his words—nay, even his actions, a license which you cannot but dread to incur. Your uncle and aunt, ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... thinks, "I might have had the hat for threepence," and he doubts whether, having given fourpence for it, he will ever get back his money. My good Shadrach, if you go through life passionately deploring the irrevocable, and allow yesterday's transactions to embitter the cheerfulness of to-day and to-morrow—as lief walk down to the Seine, souse in, hats, body, clothes-bag and all, and put an end to your sorrow and sordid cares. Before and since Mr. Franklin wrote his pretty apologue of the Whistle have we not all made bargains of which we repented, and coveted ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... police, disputes about the authority of Imperial legislation, disputes about the validity of Irish enactments, disputes about appeals to the Privy Council. To say that all these sources of irritation might embitter the relation between England and Victoria, and that, as they do not habitually do so, one may infer that they will not embitter the relation between England and Ireland, is to argue that institutions ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey

... the arrest of Velasquez and his death in the gloomy dungeons of the Inquisition, the arrival of de la Gama as judge auditor and governor ad interim, and his subsequent marriage with Ponce's daughter Isabel, all these events but served to embitter the strife of parties. "The spirit of vengeance, ambition, and other passions had become so violent and deep-rooted among the Spaniards," says Abbad,[30] "that God ordained ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk

... sufferings have been healthier than his; mine have been always a choice, where a man could be manly; his have been so too, if he knew it, but were not so upon the face; hence a morbid strain, which his wounded vanity has helped to embitter. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... scores in a speech full of fire and jubilation; Mr. Gladstone, on the other hand, was elaborately pacific. He earnestly deprecated the language of severity and exasperation, or anything that would tend to embitter party warfare. His illustrious leader Peel, he said, did indeed look for his revenge; but for what revenge did he look? Assuredly not for stinging speeches, assuredly not for motions made in favour of his policy, ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... extinguishing sympathy, and puffing up with pride, harden and debase the soul. In other instances, shame secretly clouds, and remorse begins to sting, and suspicion to corrode, and jealousy and envy to embitter. Disappointed hopes, unsuccessful competitions, and frustrated pursuits, sour and irritate the temper. A little personal experience of the selfishness of mankind, damps our generous warmth and kind ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... work of restoration, we were told, our women voters and legislators would play a leading part. What part are they in truth playing? Their main object apparently is still further to embitter the Drink question, although if they would only put a little more bitter into our national beverage they might help to lubricate matters. Is it not a significant fact that the slackness evidenced in every phase of industry manifests itself at a time when it becomes more and more difficult ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various

... give way, and endeavoured to keep up as long as it would be of consequence to him; for even after all hope was gone and the disorder increased rapidly, I felt that if by agitating him I should afterwards imagine I had shortened his life by one hour, that reflection would embitter my whole life. I have the satisfaction of knowing that I succeeded even better than I could have hoped; for toward the end of the week, when every symptom was bad, the surgeon (probably because I desisted from enquiring and did not appear agitated) doubtful what I thought, ...
— A Week at Waterloo in 1815 • Magdalene De Lancey

... this generosity is a high proof of an admirable nature. If he chances to speak to his mother about a bore, and he did not suffer bores gladly, he not only does not name the person, but gives no hint by which he might be identified. He had much to embitter him, for he had a keen consciousness of 'the something within him,' of the powers which never found full expression; and he saw others advancing and prospering while he seemed to be standing still, or losing ground in all ways. But no word of bitterness ever escapes ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray

... the worst aggressions upon the rights of the Colonies had been committed before he succeeded to power. But his readiness to follow in these rash footsteps, and to deepen every fatal impression which they had made;—his insulting reservation of the Tea Duty, by which he contrived to embitter the only measure of concession that was wrung from him;—the obsequiousness, with which he made himself the channel of the vindictive feelings of the Court, in that memorable declaration (rendered so truly mock-heroic ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... No one had ever told him that "Nathan der Weise" was thus afflicted. It was as soul that he had appealed to the imagination of the world; even vulgar gossip had been silent about his body. But how this deformity must embitter his success. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... in a good humour that the Duke's last jest could not embitter, I stood watching the scene. The play had begun now on a stage at the end of the hall, but nobody seemed to heed it. They walked to and fro, talking always, ogling, quarrelling, love-making, and intriguing. I ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... Riversborough, except Phebe, who came down two or three times to see Mr. Clifford, whose favorite she was. But Phebe never spoke of the past to Jean Merle. Since they had determined what to do, it seemed wiser to her not to look back so as to embitter the present. Jean Merle was gradually gaining a footing in the town as Mr. Clifford's representative, and was in many ways filling a post very few could fill. Now and then, some of the elder townsmen, who had been contemporary with Roland Sefton, remarked ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

... loveliest garden grows hateful When Love has abandoned the bowers; Bring me hemlock—since mine is ungrateful, That herb is more fragrant than flowers. The poison, when poured from the chalice, Will deeply embitter the bowl; But when drunk to escape from thy malice, The draught shall be sweet to my soul. Too cruel! in vain I implore thee My heart from these horrors to save: Will nought to my bosom restore thee? Then open the gates of ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... the state, arise out of its neglect and condemnation. Men seek to make good their claims for things which they think belong to them, they fight for them, gain them or lose them, fight again or are fought, and in consequence race hatred, class and industrial hatred embitter ...
— Studies in the Life of the Christian • Henry T. Sell

... and the other.' That is what she will be continually saying to herself; and by-and-by, when the affair results in failure, as it very likely will, there will remain a sense of disappointment which will last for a lifetime, and go far to embitter all the ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... & Richard's little Son. 'T is a Fine child, much Resembling my Brother. Emily turn'd her Face away, drawing down of her Widow's Weeds, & turn'd also the Babe's face aside. I felt Embitter'd." ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler

... utter heathen!' interjected the Countess. 'An infidel can be no friend. She is therefore the reverse. Her opinions embitter her mother's last days. But now you will consent to remain with me, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... mere complaisance, you abet their measures, you will share in the hatred of the public. It is true that you are above their contempt; but then their dread of you will be so great that it will grievously embitter the hatred they will then bear to you, and the contempt they have already for the others, so that what is at present only a serious wound in the State will perhaps become incurable and mortal. I am sensible you have grounds to be diffident of the behaviour ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... ever comes to embitter human happiness, particularly in the French colonies, spread some reports in the island which gave Paul much uneasiness. The passengers in the vessel which brought Virginia's letter, asserted that she was upon the point of being married, and named the nobleman ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... be without relief When Love Himself draws near; No cup can empty stand, no grief Embitter God's ...
— A Christmas Faggot • Alfred Gurney

... its details. No literary art has ever reported a sense of picture or architecture or sculpture to me: the despised postal card is better for that; and probably throughout these "trivial fond records" I shall be found shirking as much as I may the details of such sights, seen or unseen, as embitter the heart of travel with unavailing regret for the impossibility of remembering them. I must leave for some visit of the reader's own the large and little facts of the many chapels in the cathedral at ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... I am not unwell. I do not wish to have a scene. I will not, by useless words, embitter myself against you, or you against me. You know you do not love me. I know I do not love you. It is all a bitter, cursed mistake, and the sooner we say so and ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford

... intent Fairly to state the argument) 200 A man should want an eye or two, The remedy is sure, though new: The cure's at hand—no need of fear— For proof—behold the Chevalier![253]— As well prepared, beyond all doubt, To put eyes in, as put them out. But, argument apart, which tends To embitter foes and separate friends, (Nor, turn'd apostate from the Nine, Would I, though bred up a divine, 210 And foe, of course, to Reason's Weal, Widen that breach I cannot heal) By his own sense and feelings taught, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... yourself a living grave of suspicion and reserve; take heed that, having cast off all whom you might have bound to you, and tenderly, you do not become in your decay the instrument of such a man as this, and waken in another world to the knowledge of such wrong as would embitter Heaven itself, if wrong or you ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... perhaps fraternal rapture? Had I a sister? Could I doubt it at that ecstatic moment? How I would love her! The fatted calf was not only killed, but cooked, to welcome the long lost. Nor Latin, nor French, nor Greek, nor Mathematics, should embitter the passing moments. This young summer, that breathed such aromatic joy around me, had put on its best smile to welcome me to my paternal abode. "No doubt," said I to myself—"no doubt, but that some one of the strange stories that I told ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... however, had no other effect than to embitter the satisfaction she would otherwise have enjoyed during her stay among them;—the time of which began now to seem tedious, and she impatiently longed for the end of the campaign, which she expected would return ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... for instance, were to—to promise to be his wife, he would be sure that it was for himself she cared! She did not know that he was anything other than just Mr. Drake Vernon. No carking doubts of the truth and purity of her love would ever embitter his happiness. ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... the servants know. This is about the twentieth time I've had to scamper up those countless stairs to that painting-room of yours, all to no purpose, because your people thought you were at home. Such incidents embitter friendship." ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... Castle of Otranto," a departure in fiction beginning the modern romantic revival. In 1765 he visited Paris, where he went much into society, and when his celebrated friendship with Mme. du Deffand began. He helped to embitter Rousseau against Hume by the mock letter from Frederick the Great offering him an asylum in Germany. In 1789, nine years after Mme. du Deffand's death, he met the two sisters, Agnes and Mary Berry, who came to live near him at little Strawberry, ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue









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