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More "Mortifying" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fascinated by the indirectness of your speech, the touches of humor and your very stern manner. John, you are a humbug, you have made that aloofness and high indifference a winning asset. I shan't give you away. Only you fill me with a mortifying envy. ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... by uncle Rutherford, fair progress with his studies, and showing a self-command and control over his temper which had not been expected from him after the fiery outburst of the first day, an incident occurred which would have afforded him an opportunity for mortifying Theodore, had he not been restrained by a motive which was stronger than his antagonism ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... no reply. This time there was no mistaking Mr. Sawyer's meaning. It was mortifying to have to give in to the 'mean little sneak,' as Carlo mentally called the new master; still, as next morning he happened to be in particularly good time he went round the proper way. The day after, however, he was late, decidedly late for once, and, throwing to the winds all ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... quickly upon him, and with a most mortifying neglect, said, "Aye, lieutenant, is that you? Well, never mind it — there is no harm done — ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... in Kansas. The two elements, free and slave, were arrayed against each other, and for several years friends from other States had to come over and help Kansas bury its dead. The condition of things for some time was exceedingly mortifying to the citizen who went out to milk after dark without ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... not, was outrageous. The dinner proceeded. Bateman was asked to eat sundry messes, raw fish and he knew not what, which only his civility induced him to swallow, but which he was amazed to find very good eating. Then an incident happened which to Bateman was the most mortifying experience of the evening. There was a little circlet of flowers in front of him, and for the sake of conversation he hazarded a ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... singular delight, until Mrs. Pickle, on pretence of consulting her ease, told her one day she would take that trouble on herself, and for the future assume the management of her own family. Nothing could be more mortifying to Mrs. Grizzle than such a declaration; to which, after a considerable pause, and strange distortion of look, she replied: "I shall never refuse or repine at any trouble that may conduce to my brother's advantage."—"Dear madam," answered the sister, "I am ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... them to deliver theirs up to my colored servant, who also cut from their coats every insignia of rank. Then, after there had been read to the command an order from army headquarters dismissing the four from the service, the scene was brought to a close by drumming the cowards out of camp. It was a mortifying spectacle, but from that day no officer in that division ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan
... cleverly appealing to things back, he had led her to fear that the duke had grown tired of her, and that a new conquest was the cause of his absence. She had not believed these insinuations, although his long silence would have justified the most mortifying suppositions, the most cruel doubts. At length the chevalier had grown bolder, and had declared his passion for her; whereupon she had risen and ordered him to leave her. Just at that moment the duke had entered, and had taken the natural agitation ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... dirty her; but I did not know that water would hurt her coat,—it never hurt mine; and she need not have borne malice for ever; I should have forgiven her long ago if she had dirtied me. But whenever she saw me she took the opportunity of saying something mortifying, as, "Out of the way; don't come nigh me with that great mop of yours!" or, "Get along with you! I wonder what Miss Lily can see to like in such a great lumbering brute." I kept out of her way as much as I could, and it ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... result of a well-matched struggle between her cook and her corset-maker. She talked a great deal of what was appropriate in dress and conduct, and seemed to regard Mrs. Newell as a final arbiter on both points. To do or to wear anything inappropriate would have been extremely mortifying to Mrs. Hubbard, and she was evidently resolved, at the price of eternal vigilance, to prove her familiarity with what she frequently referred to as "the right thing." Mr. Hubbard appeared to have no such preoccupations. Garnett, if called upon to describe him, would have done ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... to answer advertisements, but the state of his wardrobe forbade his applying for any but humble positions. Once or twice he presented himself personally at offices, but his reception was so mortifying that death by hunger seemed preferable to a continuance of such experiences. The injury to his pride made him savagely arrogant; for days after the last rejection he hid himself in his ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... rose up shrill and shriller, demanding what at all hijjis gazabo she'd got on her. Billy, her eldest brother, said: "Musha, she's put a pair of blinkers on her like an ould horse;" and Larry, his junior, remarked with terse candour, "Och, the fright." More mortifying still, Joe Tierney, her sweetheart, who had called to conclude arrangements about the morrow's holiday, said in a disgusted tone: "Tare and ages! I hope to goodness, Nelly, you're not intindin' to make that show of yourself at the circus to-morra. Bedad, I ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... tell the truth, when one has been expecting something to happen, of whatever description, and has been preparing one's courage, one's temper, one's fortitude, in anticipatory rehearsals—when one has placed one's self in the attitude of a martyr, and prepared to meet with fiery trials—it is mortifying, to say the least, when one finds all the necessities of the case disappear, and the mildest calm replace that tragical anticipation: the quiet falls blank upon the excited fancy. Of course Dr Rider was relieved; but it was with something mightily like disappointment ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... dare. I tried to ask Mr. Taggart, who, being college-bred, ought to know, but I was so afraid she was a wicked woman, that I began to blush before I'd so much as got out the first word. I wish I was pale and delicate like Prissy Glover. 'T is mortifying to be so healthy." ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... I," continued the speaker. "Is it just to me for you to hide away here in want that forces you and your wife—I beg your pardon, madam—into mortifying occupations, when one word to me—a trivial obligation, not worthy to be called an obligation, contracted with me—would remove that necessity, and tide you over ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... self from this mortifying Thought, I considered that it took its Rise from those narrow Conceptions, which we are apt to entertain of the Divine Nature. We our selves cannot attend to many different Objects at the same Time. If we are careful to inspect some Things, we must of Course neglect others. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the idea of alliance. The real opposition to it is not in England, but in America where Anglophobes abound. There are more haters of England in America than in the countries of Europe—more lovers also. Both are sensitive, and the game of mortifying one another ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... win," he said, "but it is not as bad as all that after all. It would have been more mortifying to lose because the Osprey was not fast enough, than to lose from an accident, when she had already proved herself to be the best in the race. You know that I never went in for being a racing yachtsman. I look upon racing as being a secondary part of yachting. ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... this illustration are far more important than they appear. How many lessons are here combined in one! How many mortifying effects does the first feeling of vanity bring upon us! Young teachers, watch carefully its first manifestation. If you can thus turn it into humiliation and disgrace, be assured that a second lesson will not ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... utterly mean and mortifying is her attitude toward us. John Bull looks across the highway of the world into his neighbor's house. 'D' ye see,' he mutters, 'that man chastising his son in his house yonder? Let's play that they are not related, and ask ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... mortifying to us to see the whole system of civil authority in the province, yielding to this most dangerous power; and at the very time when the interposition of the civil magistrate was of the most pressing necessity, to check the wanton and bloody career of the military, the Lieutenant-Governor ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... he was required, and assumed a very serious countenance. "'T is a bad business, sir—his wounds are mortifying already." ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... to say something which I had omitted in my last, and to add a word or two on the subject of an expression in your answer to it. I mean the phrase "plan of assistance." I do not suppose that you had the slightest intention of mortifying me by that phrase; but I should wish to impress upon you, that I did not consider my application to you as coming in the shape of what is ordinarily termed an application for assistance. Circumstances have certainly compelled me latterly to make requests, and resort to expedients, which, ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... this letter was extremely mortifying to me. I could not help feeling that if I lost the fine property which had been intended for me, I lost it chiefly by the deceit practised relative to my mother's supposed death, and that if I did lose the estate in consequence, ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... were the most mortifying sight I ever beheld, and the women more horrible than the men; besides the usual deformities in extreme old age, they acquired an additional ghastliness, in proportion to their number of years, which is not to be described; and among half a dozen, I soon distinguished which was the eldest, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the shape of a decision in the libel case of Redfield and Pringle, and an obligation to publish it in my own and the other journal of our supposed firm. I thought and still think this lecture needlessly cruel and mortifying. The plaintiffs, after using my columns to the extent of their needs or desires, stopped writing and called on me for the name of their assailant. I proffered it to them—a thoroughly responsible man. They refused to accept it unless ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... the balustrade, where Johnson's hand and foot must many a time have been, and ascending to the door, I knocked once, and again, and again, and got no admittance. Going round to the shop-entrance, I tried to open it, but found it as fast bolted as the gate of Paradise. It is mortifying to be so balked in one's little enthusiasms; but looking round in quest of somebody to make inquiries of, I was a good deal consoled by the sight of Dr. Johnson himself, who happened, just at that moment, to be sitting at his case nearly in the middle of St. Mary's Square, ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... possible. None of that exposure to the gaze and exultation of a victorious foe, such as we had seen pictured in our school-books, or as practised by conquering nations in all times. We had felt it as not improbable that, after an ordeal of mortifying exposure for the gratification of the military, we would be paraded through Northern cities for the benefit of jeering crowds. So, when we learned that we should be paroled, and go to our homes unmolested, the ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... valuable is left in his system but virtue and wisdom. What a libel is this upon mankind! What a convincing proof of misanthropy! What presumption and what malice prepense, to shew men what they are, and to teach them what they ought to be! What a mortifying stroke aimed at national glory, is that unlucky incident of Gulliver's wading across the channel and carrying off the whole fleet of Blefuscu! After that, we have only to consider which of the contending parties was in the right. What a shock to personal vanity is given in the ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... be supposed that these concealments sometimes occasion mortifying mistakes. On beholding a tall slender figure whose symmetrical contour is discernible even through the unwieldy saya, and a bright dark eye beaming beneath the folds of the manto, one may be induced to imagine that the charms of a Hebe are concealed beneath the disfiguring garb. But how ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... of September,—Friedrich's Letter is dated "Wesel, 2d" (and has the STRASBURD DOGGEREL enclosed in it),—the Brussels Postman delivers far other intelligence at one's door; very mortifying to Madame: "That his Majesty is fallen ill at Wesel; has an aguish fever hanging on him, and only hopes to come:" VOILA, Madame!—Next Letter, Wesel, Monday, 5th September, is to the effect: "Do still much hope to come; to-morrow is my trembling day; if that ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... a mistake, of a character similar to others made to him at the same time, did not comply; a decision which, under the circumstances of his fuller knowledge, must be considered proper as well as fortunate. The incident was mortifying at the time, and—considering by how little Escario arrived late—might have been disastrous; but it is one of those in which it is difficult to assign blame, though easy to draw a very obvious moral ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... substituted a blockade of Holland, France, and Italy for the order of November, 1807; yet weeks of smug satisfaction were enjoyed by the Administration before it was bewildered by the tidings that Canning had recalled Erskine and repudiated all his acts. Madison had to submit to "the mortifying necessity" of issuing another proclamation reviving the Non-Intercourse Act ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... contend, that a Bookseller has a relative honesty towards Authors, not like his honesty to the rest of the world. B[aldwin], who first engag'd me as Elia, has not paid me up yet (nor any of us without repeated mortifying applials), yet how the Knave fawned while I was of service to him! Yet I dare say the fellow is punctual in settling his milk-score, &c. Keep to your Bank, and the Bank will keep you. Trust not to the Public, you may hang, starve, drown yourself, for anything ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... say, he was the more desirous of this alliance, as there was a great probability, not only from Mr. Lovelace's descent, but from his fortunes, that his niece Clarissa might one day be a peeress of Great Britain:—and, upon that prospect [here was the mortifying stroke], he should, for his own part, think it not wrong to make such dispositions as should contribute to the better support ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... your own efforts with those of some great master, is indeed a severe and mortifying task, to which none will submit, but such as have great views, with fortitude sufficient to forego the gratifications of present vanity for future honour. When the student has succeeded in some measure to his own satisfaction, and has felicitated himself ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... great part of the coast of Ireland had "been for above a month under the unresisted dominion of a few petty 'fly-by-nights' from the blockaded ports of the United States—a grievance equally intolerable and disgraceful." The Annual Register thought it a mortifying reflection that, notwithstanding a navy of a thousand ships, "it was not safe for a vessel to sail without convoy from one part of the English or Irish ...
— The Mentor: The War of 1812 - Volume 4, Number 3, Serial Number 103; 15 March, 1916. • Albert Bushnell Hart
... it from me. If he had been pleased, but not so much; if he had not shown it; if he had begun affecting scruples and difficulties, as other people do when they take money, he might still endure to take it. But he was too genuinely delighted, and that was mortifying. Ah, Lise, he is a good and truthful man—that's the worst of the whole business. All the while he talked, his voice was so weak, so broken, he talked so fast, so fast, he kept laughing such a laugh, or perhaps he was crying—yes, ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... he was too honest to deny their overpowering sweetness—they seemed like the desecration of a most sacred thought. Vainly he reasoned, vainly he admitted the folly of such scruples. They remained. Asceticism is a faithful quality. It is won by slow and painful stages, with bitter distress and mortifying tears, but once really gained, the losing is even harder than the struggle for ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... result of this training the children have formed a habit of good behavior and are considered an acquisition to any gathering. They are not embarrassed by the awkward slips and breaks which are so mortifying to those who only wear their ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... her careless ways, ready opinions, gentle loving incapacity to become a machine, Maria was at discord with every principle of Cowan's Bridge. She incurred the bitter resentment of one of the teachers, who sought all means of humiliating and mortifying the sweet-natured, shiftless little creature. When, in September, bright, talkative Charlotte and baby Emily came to Cowan's Bridge, they found their idolised little mother, their Maria, the butt, laughingstock and scapegrace ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... her she had disappeared. Then was he tottering on the battlements of some old turret, when a storm arose, the maiden crept to his side, but in an instant, with a hideous crash, she was borne away by the rude grasp of the tempest. He awoke, with a mortifying discovery that the crash had been of a somewhat less equivocal nature. A cabinet of costly workmanship lay overturned at his feet, and a rich vase, breathing odours, strewed the floor in ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... wicked productions, can show the inefficacy and dangerous tendency of. I think often of our situation, and view it with concern. From the high ground we stood upon, from the plain path which invited our footsteps, to be so fallen! so lost! it is really mortifying.[1] ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... should be something wonderfully pleasing in the Possession of Fame, that, notwithstanding all these mortifying Considerations, can engage a Man in so desperate a Pursuit; and yet if we consider the little Happiness that attends a great Character, and the Multitude of Disquietudes to which the Desire of it subjects an ambitious ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... and thousands of the devout performed pilgrimages to his cell, which was situated on the sea-coast, about two miles from Ericeira. The frequency and severity of his penances gained him great celebrity, and at last it began to be rumoured abroad that the recluse was King Sebastian, who, by mortifying his own flesh, was atoning for the calamity he had brought upon his kingdom. At first he repudiated all claim to such distinction; but after a time his ambition seems to have been aroused; he ceased to protest against the homage of the ignorant, ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... but it is generally of white. In this country a widow's first mourning dresses are covered almost entirely with crape, a most costly and disagreeable material, easily ruined by the dampness and dust—a sort of penitential and self-mortifying dress, and very ugly and very expensive. There are now, however, other and more agreeable fabrics which also bear the dead black, lustreless look which is alone considered respectful to the dead, and which are not so costly as crape, or so disagreeable to wear. The Henrietta ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... The House was hasty in bringing the prosecution. The President was acquitted by a vote of 19 against and 35 for impeachment—one vote less than the two-thirds necessary to impeach. The Johnson-Congressional conflict proved one of the most mortifying ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... everything, only her times and thoughts would mix themselves up and interfere. Perhaps she was very weak-minded, and the only way for her would be to give it all up, and wear drab, or whatever else might be most unbecoming, and be fiercely severe, mortifying the flesh. She got over that—her young nature reacting—as they all walked up the street together, while the sun shone down smilingly upon the world in Sunday best, and the flowers were gay in the door-yards, and Miss Milliken's shop ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... been a panacea provided for all disease," he resumed, after a moment of deep thought. "But there is none to-day—at least materia medica has never found one, and that is a mortifying fact to be obliged to admit after over four thousand years of investigation and experiment. Poor Dorrie! I'd really like to make ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... the meanwhile it must be not a little mortifying to the Morning Chronicle in particular to see, that votes of thanks to Mr. Hunt have been passed at many of those meetings, in different parts of the kingdom, the proceedings at which meetings Mr. Perry has very highly and very justly ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... just after the battle of the Brandywine, when he was set to watch the enemy, he was surprised at night by the British general Grey, a redoubtable fighter, who attacked him with the bayonet, killed a number of his men, and forced him to fall back some distance from the field of action. This mortifying experience had no effect whatever on Wayne's courage or self-reliance, but it did give him a valuable lesson in caution. He showed what he had learned by the skill with which, many years later, he conducted the famous campaign in which he overthrew the Northwestern Indians at the Fight ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... any truth in this statement that the public was so slow to recognize so fine a genius, is a mortifying evidence of the worthlessness of a literary popularity. But it may be said of Hawthorne's fame that it has grown steadily, and that while many who have received the turbulent applause of the multitude since he began his career are forgotten, it has widened and brightened, until his ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... that Paul believed absolutely in the physical, literal, and material fact of Christ's bodily Resurrection. But he insists that, while accepting this fact, Paul lays far more stress upon the spiritual interpretation of it. For Paul, death is living after the flesh; life is mortifying the flesh by the spirit; "resurrection is the rising, within the sphere of our earthly existence, from death in this sense ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... whenever the slightest whisper of a draught came to it. The high-toned, exalted views of life and duty which had held possession of her during the past few weeks seemed suddenly to have deserted her. In short, her body had gained that mortifying ascendency over the soul which it will sometimes accomplish, and all her hopes, and aims, and enthusiasms seemed blotted out. Things in the kitchen were uncomfortable. Maggie had seized on this occasion for having the mumps, and acting upon the advice of her sympathizing mistress, had ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... goddess Freia, into heavy gold. Glantz congratulated Flacks very warmly; and observed with a smiling air, that possibly he had himself lent him a helping hand by his pathetic address. As to the others, the separation between them and Flacks was too palpable, in the mortifying distinction of wet and dry, to allow of any cordiality between them; and they stood aloof therefore: but they stayed to hear the rest of the will, which they now awaited in a ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... of his moccasin against the buck's antlers. It was plain that one of the prongs had been chipped off, as if by the impact of a glancing bullet. Fred could no longer deny the mortifying fact that his shot had no more to do with the death of the animal than if it had been a pebble tossed up the ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... her with great patience. There were certainly parts of her recital sufficiently cruel and mortifying; for the intention, at least, of the infidelity was so obvious, that she had not even taken the trouble to disguise it. She could never have imagined that G—— M—— meant to venerate her as a vestal. She must therefore clearly have made up her mind to pass at least ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... Indian burying-ground, Jenieve was so fiercely elated that she was afraid to confess it to the priest. Strange matches were made on the frontier, and Indian wives were commoner than any other kind; but through the whole mortifying existence of this Indian husband Jenieve avoided the sight of him, and called her mother steadily Mama Lalotte. The girl had remained with her grandmother, while Francois Iroquois carried off his wife ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... following articles, given as notable specimens, remind us somewhat of Addison's memoranda for the Spectator, which the waiter at the coffee-house picked up and read aloud for the amusement of the company.——No. 166. God's Manifestation by a Star to the Dutch. A mortifying Fast-Diet at Court. On the Birth Day of the first and oldest young Gentleman. All corrupt: none good; no, not one.——168. General Thumbissimo. The Spring reversed, or the Flanderkin's Opera and Dutch Pickle Herrings. The Creolean Fillip, or Royal Mishap. A Martial Telescope, &c. England's Passion ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Surrounded, therefore, with these difficulties, and that all his late humiliations might not be rendered as ineffectual as they were ignominious, he took the last step, and in the presence of a numerous assembly of his peers and prelates, who turned their eyes from this mortifying sight, formally resigned his crown to the Pope's legate, to whom at the same time he did homage and paid the first fruits of his tribute. Nothing could be added to the humiliation of the king upon this occasion, but the insolence ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... some story of sudden sickness to the tutor,—half fearful that the bloodshot, swollen eyes will betray you. It is very mortifying too to meet Dalton appearing so gay and lively after it all, while you wear such an air of being "used up." You envy him thoroughly the extraordinary capacity ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... had to accept his hand to get past a rude place; often both hands were needed to swing her over a watercourse or leap her down from a rock. She was agile and light of foot; she did what woman could; it was only by sheer necessity that she yielded the mortifying tacit confession to man's superior strength, and gave so often opportunity to a pair of good eyes to see what she was like near at hand. Wych Hazel's own eyes made few discoveries. She could feel every now and then that her conductor's ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... shall ever view as one of the most unfortunate events of my life having quitted the 'Enterprise' at the moment I did. Had I remained in her a fortnight longer, my name might have been classed with those who stand so high. I cannot but consider it a mortifying circumstance that I left her but a few days before she fell in with the only enemy upon this station with which she could have creditably contended. I confess I felt heartily glad when I received my order to take command of the 'Wasp,' conceiving that ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... scrutiny of the coastline. Those considerations are quite sufficient, when duly weighed, to account for the omissions. It certainly was a rash statement, after so imperfect an examination, that "however mortifying the conviction might be, it was then an ascertained fact that no river of importance intersected the east coast between the 24th and 39th degrees of south latitude." But it is equally certain that he could not have found these rivers with the means at his disposal. ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... come in, or are carried in, begrimed with powder, smoke, and dust; with broken limbs and gaping wounds, mortifying and almost unfit for inspection or handling until cleansed by the application of Lister's carbolic acid spray. Some of these have dragged themselves hither on foot from that awful Shipka Pass—a seven days' journey,— and are in such an abject ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... spot cleared, and the tomb exposed to view. To any one who was acquainted with the story of Petrarch, or who had perused his impassioned effusions, the dilapidation of this church, and the barbarous concealment of Laura's tomb, were most mortifying circumstances. But, neither the memory of Laura, nor of the brave Crillon, whose tomb is also here, had any effect in averting the progress of the revolutionary barbarians. The tomb of Crillon is now only to be distinguished by the vestiges of some warlike embellishments in the wall opposite ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... Square, who has the campanile before his eye continually, replied, however, when I asked him if the figure was fixed or movable, "Fixed." This double duty of the new campanile angel—to shine in golden glory over the city and also to tell the wind—must be a little mortifying to her celestial sister on the campanile of S. Giorgio, who is immovable. But no doubt she has philosophy enough to consider subjection to the caprices of ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... such lover-like relations, that he took the liberty of caning the gentleman on the spot. Great excitement followed. The young man resisted—Mrs. Dewey screamed in terror—people flocked to the place—and mortifying exposure followed. This story was in part corroborated by the following paragraph in ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... convent are familiar to all memories—their lodging of the gentlemen of a party in cells of their own monastic privilege, and giving to the ladies less sacred hospitalities, in a secular building of meaner and unconsecrated architecture. (So, oh, mortifying brotherhood, you shut off your only chance of entertaining ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... sensorium. It is not the dull of hearing whom it is hardest to get to hear; it is rather the man who is roaring out himself, and so who cannot attend to anything else. Now this is provoking. It is a mortifying indication of the little importance that is attached to what we are saying; and there is something of the irritation that is produced in the living being by contending with the passive resistance of inert matter. And there is something provoking even in the outward signs that the mind is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... as cautious in accusing Henry and Wolsey as they would be in accusing Queen Victoria and Lord Palmerston? What right, allow us to ask, has a grave constitutional historian to say that 'We cannot, indeed, doubt that the unshackled and despotic condition of his friend, Francis I., afforded a mortifying contrast to Henry? What document exists in which Henry is represented as regretting that he is the king of a free people?—for such Mr. Hallam confesses, just above, England was held to be, and was actually in comparison with France. If the ...
— Froude's History of England • Charles Kingsley
... must have been mortifying to Lord Palmerston, and he has consoled himself in a manner not very dignified by giving importance to the inflated addresses from some meetings in ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... Eddystone. Several times in the day I swept with my telescope from the garrison, as near as I could imagine, the line of the horizon, but it was so extremely black, fretful, and hazy, that nothing could be seen, and I was obliged to go to bed that night with a mortifying uncertainty. But the next morning early, I had great joy to see that the gilded ball had triumphed over the fury of the storm, and such an one as I had no conception of. I saw the whole so distinctly from the bottom ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton
... slightly defiant, almost defensive china blue orbs, there came a warmth, a tenderness, a friendly recognition... oh, it was very charming and very touching—and quite mortifying. It was the look of a mother to her son, of a sister to her brother. It implied trust; it implied the want of any necessity for barriers. By God, she looked at me as if I were an invalid—as any kind woman may look at a poor chap in a bath chair. ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... the gentleman, losing all patience at this mortifying spectacle, 'is this the entertainment you have prepared for me, with so many speeches and prefaces? Do you imagine that a person of my fortune can sup on such contemptible fare as would hardly satisfy the wretched peasants whom I saw at dinner in your hall?' 'Have ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... courage of his despair, but, as he says, few unpremeditated enterprises ever succeeded better than this one. "The question indeed was carried by a great majority, but those who were against it were almost entirely of those who till then had implicitly voted with the minister. This was not only mortifying to Mr. Pitt, but highly encouraging to Mr. ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... was pleased. The high-spirited girl was just beginning to fear that she was unequal to the task which she had chided Bream for being unable to perform and this was mortifying her. ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... discovery of a great number of revolvers, etc., all loaded and ready for use, and the rather unpleasant discovery that the Brigadier-General had actually employed a Government detective to go to his house and give instructions in making cartridges, were rather mortifying to the order, and when it appeared that the Chairman of the Vigilance Committee, whose province was to take the balance of the arms, which we learned were in Walsh's barn, and with all possible haste remove them to a place of safety, ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... did he carry this idea of mortifying the flesh through the eyes that he had tried to induce Kitty to wear sad-coloured dresses and poke bonnets; but in this attempt he failed lamentably, as Kitty flatly refused to make a guy of herself, and always wore dresses of the lightest and ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... probably, may have tortured more than one of the fair spectators; and mamma, perhaps, considered it extremely mortifying that an opportunity was not given to land the prize, as well as hook it; and that sailors, like jacks, were exceedingly difficult ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... ways. Ah, my Hippolito, the great are not always possessed of the most capacious minds. There are innumerable little slights and offences that shrink from description, but which are sufficient to keep alive the most mortifying sense of dependency, and to make a man of sensibility, and proud honour constantly unhappy. And must I, who had hoped to be the ornament and boast of my country, thus become a burden to my acquaintance, and a burden ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... on the table the night she comes. You'd better pick your asters and take 'em in for the parlor, then I'll cut the chrysanthemums for you in the middle of the week. The day she comes I'll happen in, and stay to dinner if you find it's going to be mortifying for you; but if everything is as I expect it will be, and the way Susanna always did have things, I'll make for home and leave you to yourselves. Susanna ain't one to nag and hector and triumph over a man when ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... trusted to the friendship and love of a man brought up in that sort of way, that you must forgive me if I could not bring my mind to think you had any concern for my happiness in the offer you made. I did indeed suppose it would be a mortifying circumstance to you, to see your cousin quite ruined by this infamous creature. I say, I did imagine you would be shocked at seeing your cousin sent to jail. That, you know, is a thing discreditable to a whole family, let it be of what sort ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... for the future took at times a less dismal but more mortifying turn. The free burghers had their pride as well as the nobles; and these two could not bear that any of their blood should go down in the burgh after ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... was able to get started before the carriage was quite out of sight. I rapidly overtook it, and then, keeping at a discreet distance of a hundred yards or so, I followed its lights until we were clear of the town. We had got well out on the country road when a somewhat mortifying incident occurred. The carriage stopped, the doctor alighted, walked swiftly back to where I had also halted, and told me in an excellent sardonic fashion that he feared the road was narrow, and that he hoped his carriage did not impede the passage ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... growing for him in the fields of poetic art and aspiration,—Sah-luma, the fortunate Sah-luma, had gathered and possessed them all! Taking everything into serious consideration, he came at last to the deeply mortifying conclusion that it must be himself who was the plagiarist,—the unconscious imitator of Sah-luma's ideas and methods, . . and the worst of it was that his ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... that of Gustavus Adolphus. But he was not permitted to die prematurely, as was his great ancestor. He lived long enough to become intoxicated with success, to make great political blunders, and to suffer the most fatal and mortifying misfortunes. ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... husband, I would learn resignation to my lot; I would enliven our frugal meal with good humour, and chase away misfortune from our cottage with a smile. At a father's command, I could almost submit to what every female heart knows to be the most mortifying, to marry a weak man, and blush at my husband's folly in every company I visited. But to marry a depraved wretch, whose only virtue is a polished exterior; [who is actuated by the unmanly ambition of conquering the defenceless; whose heart, insensible to the emotions ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler
... make him the second (and, now that Napoleon is gone, the first general) of the age, but which could not make him a tolerable Minister. Confident, presumptuous, and dictatorial, but frank, open, and good-humoured, he contrived to rule in the Cabinet without mortifying his colleagues, and he has brought it to ruin without forfeiting their regard. Choosing with a very slender stock of knowledge to take upon himself the sole direction of every department of Government, he completely sank under the burden. Originally imbued with the principles of Lord Castlereagh ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... what he says of me! In such a situation a boy in love will snatch at the most far-fetched reason rather than face the mortifying fact that the lady may ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... condemned with Essex; some like Suffolk, smarting under recent reprimands and the biting edge of Bacon's tongue; some like Coke, hating him from constitutional antipathies and the strong antagonism of professional doctrines, for a long course of rivalry and for mortifying defeats. But there is no appearance of preconcerted efforts among them to bring about his overthrow. He did not at the time seem to be identified with anything dangerous or odious. There was no doubt a good deal of dissatisfaction with ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... itself to both sides as the most feasible plan, and the forces of Nagamasa and Yoshikage were allowed to march away unmolested to Omi and Echizen, respectively. This result was intensely mortifying to Hideyoshi, who had devoted his whole energies to the destruction of these dangerous enemies. But the final issue was only postponed. By contrivances, which need not be related in detail, Nagamasa was again induced to take the field, and, in 1573, the Owari forces found themselves ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... give Ritchie a jog, when there is some stumbling-block that he sticks fast at. Don't you remember those sums, and those declensions? When he is so clear and sensible about practical matters too—anything but learning—I cannot think why—and it is very mortifying!" ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... can be more mortifying to a biographer, or an antiquary, than the perpetuation of an error which he has successfully laboured to correct. It is an evil, however, to which he is often subjected, and which your valuable publication will go far to remedy. In the ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.01 • Various
... Bartholomew by avowing the Catholic faith. When he escaped from the Catholic court and returned to his mother's Protestant court in Navarre, he espoused with new vigor the cause of his Protestant friends. These changes were of course more or less mortifying, and they certainly indicated a total want of religious conviction. He now promised carefully to look at the arguments on both sides of the question, and to choose deliberately that which should seem to him right. This arrangement, however, did not suit the more zealous of the Catholics, and, ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... until to-day! But this fore-noon, at the very hour we were at church witnessing the confirmation of the prince, whom you wish to be as a new tie between France and Prussia, this stipulation was violated in as incomprehensible as mortifying a manner. Four thousand men of Grenier's division have marched this morning from Brandenburg to Potsdam, and have tried forcibly—do you understand me, your excellency?—forcibly to occupy this city. The municipal ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... feelings toward the new republic, whose condition immediately after the peace was somewhat embarrassing, and not so flattering as it might have been to the advocates and promoters of the revolution, the situation of Adams was rather mortifying than agreeable. ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... Doth he take it in ill part that his humble friend did not comply with his courteous invitation? Let it suffice, I could not come. Are impossibilities nothing?—be they abstractions of the intellects, or not (rather) most sharp and mortifying realities? nuts in the Will's mouth too hard for her to crack? brick and stone walls in her way, which she can by no means eat through? sore lets, impedimenta viarum, no thoroughfares? racemi nimium alte pendentes?? Is the phrase classic? I allude to the grapes in Aesop, which cost the ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... paramount claims of the poor and the public?—From respect to any such right, ought so great a libel on our political economy to be suffered to exist, as a receptacle for the poor in the middle of an uncultivated and unappropriated waste? To dwell further on so mortifying a proof of the fallibility of human wisdom may, however, pique the pride of those who enjoy the power to organize a better system:—I ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... made in East Africa in 1914 can only be described as deplorable. Following a custom which to my mind is more honoured in the breach than in the observance, the mortifying results of the attempted maritime descent upon Tanga which ushered in the hostilities, were for a long time kept concealed from the public. That reverse constituted a grave set-back—a set-back on a small scale perhaps, but as decided a one ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... less than a peasant, only a child that had been picked up. That appeared to her monstrous and dishonorable. She thought that such a child had a lower place in society than a cat or a dog; she manifested these sentiments by the most disdainful looks, the most mortifying silence, and the most cruel insults. If Erik was invited with her to any little social gathering at the house of a friend, she would positively refuse to dance with him. At the table she would not answer anything he said, nor pay any attention to him. She tried on all occasions, ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... gathered around her were members of the literature class, which met on Wednesday and Saturday mornings at the Mahons'. As they considered themselves accomplished and highly cultivated for their years, it was mortifying to be accused of being so unenlightened as ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... way or other, this business does most certainly draw to a conclusion. I allow, by this proposal, one week more for them to take their resolution. If they delay it beyond that, it is in effect the most mortifying and the most insulting way of refusing it that they could have adopted; and as such I think you would do right to state it in your letter. But whichever way it terminates, I think we shall derive the greatest advantage from Townshend's having authorized ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... effects on different people. Some it puffs up with self-satisfaction. To others it is a source of mortifying regret. I belonged to the latter class. I was continually crying out, 'O God, how little I am, and how little I know! Give me a chance of acquiring information, and of learning how more successfully to conduct this all-important ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... was elated by this memorable victory; but their avarice was disappointed by the mortifying discovery, that the richest part of the Imperial spoil had been within the walls of Hadrianople. They hastened to possess the reward of their valor; but they were encountered by the remains of a vanquished army, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... Again and again he memorialized her, once with a letter vindicating himself from the accusation of practising sorcery. Her sole reply was to grant him finally the uncongenial post of warden of Manchester College, from which he retired after some mortifying experiences with the minor officials. Nor did he fare better at the hands of Elizabeth's successor. Steadily he sank lower in the scale of society, until at last he was forced to sell his books, one by one, to buy bread. And still, for all his poverty, he ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... against (by the capable Scot) than sinning; but had he steeped his hands in gore, he would still not deserve to be thus dragged at the chariot-wheels of a young man, to sit a captive in the halls of his own leather business, to be entertained with mortifying comments on his whole career—to have his costume examined, his collar pulled up, the presence of his mittens verified, and to be taken out and brought home in custody, like an infant with a nurse. At the thought of it his soul would swell with venom, and he would make ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... with that preferment which he merited. One day he waited on a nobleman whom he had often solicited in vain, but on whose friendship he had still some reliance. The reception he met with was cool and mortifying; the nobleman turned his back upon the necessitous veteran, and left him to find his way to the street through a suite of apartments magnificently furnished. He passed them lost in thought, till, casting his eyes on a sumptuous ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... Great Renunciation, Gautama spent six years mortifying the body and gradually reduced his food to one grain of rice a day. But this brought him neither light nor peace of mind. He thereupon abandoned further penance and devoted six years to meditation, sitting under the now famous bo-tree, near the ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... think you might have let me know," Ellen resumed with almost her usual poise. "It's rather mortifying not to know what's going on in your own family when the neighbors ask. Here was I without any knowledge of the arrival of my own niece and nephew! Had to ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... from this attack which he had not the sense to despise; and the vulgarity and impudence of Mr Briggs, which ought to have made his familiarity and boldness equally contemptible and ridiculous, served only with a man whose pride out-ran his understanding, to render them doubly mortifying and stinging. He could talk, therefore, of nothing the whole way that they went, but the extreme impropriety of which the Dean of had been guilty, in exposing him to scenes and situations so much beneath his rank, by leaguing him with a ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... than you suspect in this detailed illustration. How many lessons in one! How mortifying are the results of a first impulse towards vanity! Young tutor, watch this first impulse carefully. If you can use it to bring about shame and disgrace, you may be sure it will not recur for many a day. What a fuss you will say. Just so; and all to provide a compass ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... ever looked before; and perhaps he thought it was hardly a fit abode for a steamboat proprietor. When he saw the tall mast of the ferry-boat, with the sail flapping idly in the wind, he was reminded of the events which had occurred on board of her that afternoon. It was mortifying to think that his father had even been tempted to steal; but he was rejoiced to know that he had been induced to return the six thousand dollars ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... of old newspapers and reviews, pointing out a passage here in which the estimate of the writer pleased him, a passage there which showed how perfectly the critic had mistaken the scope of his poetic philosophy, and exclaiming, with the most perfect naivete, how mortifying it was for men of original and profound genius to be misconceived and misrepresented by ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... secretary to the Congress for foreign affairs. The incompetency of the articles of confederation for the management of the affairs of the Union at home and abroad was demonstrated to them by the painful and mortifying experience of every day. Washington, though in retirement, was brooding over the cruel injustice suffered by his associates in arms, the warriors of the Revolution; over the prostration of the public credit and the faith of the ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... for this state of things; to apportion the precise share of the mortifying result due to each one of several contributing causes; to show how much should be ascribed to division and subdivision of councils; how much to the unfitness of commanders, too often disqualified alike by nature and training, for the leadership of men in emergencies, or even for their temporary profession, ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... the motives of Inez, and a secret, lingering, hope that he should yet find her, had tempered his enquiries, without however causing him to abandon them entirely. But time was beginning to deprive him, even of the mortifying reflection that he was intentionally, though perhaps temporarily, deserted, and he was gradually yielding to the more painful conviction that she was dead, when his hopes were suddenly revived, in a new ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... ever-recurring wail in his poems and letters. In the very next entry in his commonplace book, after praising the old bards, and drawing a parallel between their sources of inspiration and his own, he shudders to think that his fate may be such as theirs. 'Oh mortifying to a bard's vanity, their very names are buried in the ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... is mortifying enough to write,—but I think thus much ought to be written,—concerning myself, as 'the author of Modern Painters.' In three months I shall be fifty years old: and I don't at this hour—ten o'clock in the morning of the two hundred and ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... was not likely to forget it, so long as nothing was allowed me save opportunities for mortifying mine. But one more word did ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... gain by such a course?" inquired his visitor. "Why uselessly expose yourself to disagreeable notoriety, which must, of course, place Mrs. Fitzgerald in a mortifying position?" ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... to the continued pressure of Mrs. Hamilton's body, broke, and out came the termagant, foaming with rage. She dared not molest Margaret, of whose physical powers she had just received such mortifying proof, so she aimed a box at the ears of Lenora. But the lithe little thing dodged it, and with one bound cleared the table which sat in the center of the room, landing safely on the other side; and then, shaking her short, black curls at her mother, she said, "You ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... wife, who, she said, was playing comedy, took place in a perfect bower where she played off her graces amid ravishing flowers, and rare plants of the costliest luxury. The science of nothings, the trifles of the day, she carried to excess. Fallen into a mortifying position through Conti's desertion, Beatrix was determined to have, at any rate, the fame which unprincipled conduct gives. The misfortune of the poor young wife, a rich and beautiful Grandlieu, should ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... shirts and trousers, and towels and sheets, woven from it. It was no laughing matter for the farm-boy to break in his shirt or trousers, those days. The hair shirts in which the old monks used to mortify the flesh could not have been much before them in this mortifying particular. But after the bits of shives and sticks were subdued, and the knots humbled by use and the washboard, they were good garments. If you lost your hold in a tree and your shirt caught on a knot or limb, it would ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... communication with the fleet, the army was transferred from McClellan to the command of General Pope; and the influence of McClellan on his troops can not be correctly estimated without some allusion to this officer, under whose command the Federal Army of the Potomac suffered such mortifying defeat. Of an effrontery while danger was remote equaled by helplessness when it was present, and mendacity after it had passed, the annals of despotism scarce afford an example of the elevation of such ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... that the Federal commander was unable to come to the mortifying resolution of recrossing the Rappahannock. The battle was fought on the 13th of December, and until the night of the 15th General Burnside continued to face Lee on the south bank of the river—his bands playing, his flags ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... the discovery to be mortifying; and after everyone had said that he, for one, had never given credit to the ghost, the subject was discreetly dropped. There was silence even at the inn, where for years it had been a fruitful source of much conversation ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... deigned to look at the presents, and they were carried away by the attendants, with real or seeming indifference. To be permitted to kiss the hand of the sable monarch could not rationally be expected, as an honour conferred upon them for the presents, which they had delivered, but it was mortifying to them not to receive a word of acknowledgement, not even the tithe of a gracious smile; they accordingly said not a word, but they had seen enough to convince them that all was not right. A reserve, the cause whereof they could not define, and a coldness towards them, for which they could in ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... the most private ways to the Tower. It had been rumored that a rescue would be attempted. At the Tower the Colonel delivered me to Major Gore, the residing Governor, who, as I was afterwards well informed, had previously concerted a plan for mortifying me. He ordered rooms for me in the most conspicuous part of the Tower (the parade). The people of the house, particularly the mistress, entreated the Governor not to burthen them with a prisoner. ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... in taking Belgium from France—he said it was now considered as so intimately united that the loss was very mortifying. Perhaps it would have been better, he said, to divide France—he considered one great advantage to ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... wrenched my hand out of his, grasped the arm supporting me, and, pushing myself free, fell plump into the sand and sat helpless. My hat had fallen off in the struggle, and my hair tumbled about my face and shoulders in the most mortifying way. ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... I had no anxiety on that score. But, unfortunately, on this occasion I had given her a bottle of wine for the pudding sauce and whipped cream, of which she imbibed too freely, and hence there were some glaring blunders in the menu that were exceedingly mortifying. As Mr. Smith and my husband were both good talkers, I told them they must cover all defects with their brilliant conversation, ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... truth in this statement that the public was so slow to recognize so fine a genius, is a mortifying evidence of the worthlessness of a literary popularity. But it may be said of Hawthorne's fame that it has grown steadily, and that while many who have received the turbulent applause of the multitude since he began his career are ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... Institution, though long in a declining state, protracted its existence for more than two years, till the departure from Bristol of Mr. D., and then by its failure, it established the useful negative fact, however mortifying, that medical science was not to be improved through the medium ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... sport, and who even when surrounded with every facility for its pursuit, would still be elated at finding some well-stocked stream near at hand. Anglers, as a rule, are unable to go far a-field in search of fresh-water fishing, and for six years past it was a continual thorn in my flesh, mortifying me considerably, that no information could be obtained of any good fishing that did not necessitate an absence ...
— Black Bass - Where to catch them in quantity within an hour's ride from New York • Charles Barker Bradford
... to the idea of alliance. The real opposition to it is not in England, but in America where Anglophobes abound. There are more haters of England in America than in the countries of Europe—more lovers also. Both are sensitive, and the game of mortifying one ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... it was hoped would be occupied soon after Halleck had occupied Corinth, remained in Southern hands for more than a year after that, notwithstanding the removal of Buell, to whom this disappointment and the mortifying invasion of Kentucky were at first attributed. This was rightly felt to be unsatisfactory, but the chief blame that can now be imputed falls upon the mistakes of Halleck while he was still commanding in the West. There is no reason to suppose that Buell had any exceptional amount of intuition ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... writer, which, taking into consideration the country in which it was written and its peculiar circumstances, was an encouragement to the Bible Society to proceed, although with secrecy and caution. Yet this article, sadly misunderstood in England, gave rise to communications from home highly mortifying to myself and ruinous ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... suffering acutely. I wrenched my hand out of his, grasped the arm supporting me, and, pushing myself free, fell plump into the sand and sat helpless. My hat had fallen off in the struggle, and my hair tumbled about my face and shoulders in the most mortifying way. ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... the ground, being propelled simply by the effort of the will? And who of us has had not experienced that dreadful—"falling through space" sensation, in dreams, with the sudden awakening just before we actually struck earth? And who has not had the mortifying dream experience of walking along the street, or in some public place, and being suddenly overcome by the consciousness that we were in our night-clothes, or perhaps without any clothing at all? All of these things are more or less ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... free from prejudice; remained gently indulgent to human weakness on the one hand, rigid in allegiance to his ideal pursuit of "la gloire" on the other. The noble movements of his mind were native, not acquired, and he had not been hardened or exasperated by the pressure of a mortifying theology. He does not take so exalted or so pitiless an attitude as the classic seventeenth-century moralist. Pascal scourges the mass of humanity down a steep place into the sea; Vauvenargues takes each wanderer by the hand, and leads ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... humble servant of God, that modest gentleman, Phillips Brooks. In a statue to him they have travestied the virtues he expounded, slain the ideal of the Christ he preached, theatricalized the least theatrical of men, and placed this piece of mortifying misunderstanding in bronze under the very eaves of the house that grew out of his simple eloquence. There is in Leipsic a similar misdemeanor in a statue of Beethoven. He sits, naked to the waist, ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... system but virtue and wisdom. What a libel is this upon mankind! What a convincing proof of misanthropy! What presumption and what malice prepense, to shew men what they are, and to teach them what they ought to be! What a mortifying stroke aimed at national glory, is that unlucky incident of Gulliver's wading across the channel and carrying off the whole fleet of Blefuscu! After that, we have only to consider which of the contending parties was in the right. What a shock to personal ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... seemed the result of a well-matched struggle between her cook and her corset-maker. She talked a great deal of what was appropriate in dress and conduct, and seemed to regard Mrs. Newell as a final arbiter on both points. To do or to wear anything inappropriate would have been extremely mortifying to Mrs. Hubbard, and she was evidently resolved, at the price of eternal vigilance, to prove her familiarity with what she frequently referred to as "the right thing." Mr. Hubbard appeared to have no such preoccupations. Garnett, if called upon to describe him, ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... much coveted. The disappointment, to one whose pleasures in life are so circumscribed as those of a real fashionable lady, was severe indeed. She did not sleep more than a few hours on the night after she received the mortifying intelligence. ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... she kept saying to herself, and waited for the rapture, which, even if belated, ought surely to come. But it did not. The words obstinately refused to convey any meaning, brought nothing to her but a mortifying sensation of being inadequate to a crisis. She heard David's voice exchanging a low good night with the old man, and she hearkened anxiously, still hopeful of the thrill. But again there was none, and she could only gaze at the blurred blot of light and whisper "I'm ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... of serious reflection. Far from following their example, I felt myself some degrees better than they were; and in the pride of my heart thanked God that I was not like these publicans. My pharisaical arrogance concealed from me the mortifying fact that I was much worse, and with very slight hopes of amendment. Humility had not yet entered my mind; but it was the only basis on which any religious improvement could be created—the only chance of being saved. I rather became ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... rank. Then, after there had been read to the command an order from army headquarters dismissing the four from the service, the scene was brought to a close by drumming the cowards out of camp. It was a mortifying spectacle, but from that day no officer in that division ever abandoned ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan
... a mortifying truth, that two men, in any rank of society, could hardly be found virtuous enough to give money, and to take it as a necessary gift, without injury to the moral entireness of one or both." Essay on Burns ...
— Teachers' Outlines for Studies in English - Based on the Requirements for Admission to College • Gilbert Sykes Blakely
... the left so much that I might come back to the river again. It grew more dusky, and rained more violently; but there was nothing alarming in the situation, since I knew exactly where I was. It was a little mortifying that I had miscalculated the distance: yet, so far was I from feeling any uneasiness about this that I quickened my pace again, and, before I knew it, was in a full run; that is, as full a run as a person can indulge in in the dusk, with so many trees in the way. No nervousness, but simply ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to set them right. Meantime nature is not slow to equip us in the prison-uniform of the party to which we adhere. We come to wear one cut of face and figure, and acquire by degrees the gentlest asinine expression. There is a mortifying experience in particular which does not fail to wreak itself also in the general history; I mean "the foolish face of praise," the forced smile which we put on in company where we do not feel at ease in answer to conversation which does not interest us. The muscles, ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Then was he tottering on the battlements of some old turret, when a storm arose, the maiden crept to his side, but in an instant, with a hideous crash, she was borne away by the rude grasp of the tempest. He awoke, with a mortifying discovery that the crash had been of a somewhat less equivocal nature. A cabinet of costly workmanship lay overturned at his feet, and a rich vase, breathing odours, strewed the floor in a ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... something else to confess about Claude; something mortifying in the extreme. For you see the poverty of all these explanations. Their very multitude makes them weak. "Many fires cannot quench love;" what was the real matter? ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... on the morrow, and revolving in my mind the events of the preceding day, I had occasional doubts, which had I suffered them to prevail, would have been exceedingly mortifying. The young lady was certainly a beautiful lady: was modest too, and well bred. I had seen nothing to impeach her virtue: on the contrary, it had been the principal topic of our discourse. 'Tis true I had, as became me, been too respectful ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... his campaign at Nice. It may be observed that M. Dumas cannot be accused, like the present minister of his country, of any partiality to the English; if the mortifying truth must be told, he has no love of us at all; to which humour, so long as he delivers himself of it with any wit or pleasantry, he is heartily welcome. Our first extract will be thought, perhaps, to taste of this humour; but we quote it for the absurd proof it affords ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... gleam of surprise and delight thrilled into the deep blue eyes of the minister. It was startling. It almost embarrassed him for a moment, it was so unexpected to have a soldier ask a question about God. It was almost mortifying that he had never thought it worth while to take the initiative on that question with the ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... generation after another of Englishmen passed away; their intelligence, conscience, humanity, and refinement, as quietly accommodated to it, as if one portion of the race had possessed an express warrant from Heaven to capture, buy, sell, and drive another. This is but one of many mortifying illustrations how much the constitution of our moral sentiments resembles a Manichaean creation, how much of them is formed in passive submission to the evil principle, acting through prevailing custom; which determines ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... story of sudden sickness to the tutor,—half fearful that the bloodshot, swollen eyes will betray you. It is very mortifying too to meet Dalton appearing so gay and lively after it all, while you wear such an air of being "used up." You envy him thoroughly the extraordinary ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... fifty cents toward the civic honour fund. It was found, on computation, that the total amount was one hundred nine dollars and fifty cents. Marshal Crow at once increased his contribution to one dollar, declaring it would be mortifying to offer a reward of less than one hundred and ten dollars to any decent, ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... the Fool; With mirth and laughter, let old wrinkles come; And let my liver rather heat with wine, Than my heart cool with mortifying groans. Why should a man whose blood is warm within, Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster? Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the jaundice, By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio,— I love thee, and it is my love that speaks; There are a sort of men, whose visages Do cream and ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... of Quality, which is in our gift], let her be Abbess there;"—and writes to the then extant Abbess to make Wilhelmina "Coadjutress," or Heir-Apparent to that Chief-Nunship! Nay what is still more mortifying, my Brother says, "On the whole, I had better, had not I?" The cruel Brother; but indeed the desperate!—for things are mounting to a ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... his reason. While the demon screamed homicidally, reason coldly reminded the young man that not to save his life could he assassinate, or even hurt, Mr. Pat, and that the net result of another endeavor to do so would be merely a second mortifying atmospheric journey. Was it not unreasonable for a man, in a hopeless attempt to gratify irrational passion, to take a step the sole and certain consequences of which would be a humiliating soaring ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... which he should make to his son, might have the powerful aid of England. This was Philip's chief reason in seeking the alliance; and in due time he called upon Mary for assistance against the French king. The result of England's participation in the war was her mortifying loss of Calais (see p. 487), which the French, by an unexpected attack, snatched out of the hands of its garrison (1558). The unfortunate queen did not live out the year that marked this calamity, ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... I do not ask this for my own sake, for we will understand each other in our mother tongue, but in your intercourse with the world you will not seldom find occasions when it will be disagreeable or even mortifying if you are unfamiliar with French. I do not know, indeed, to what degree this is true of you, but reading is in any case a way to keep what you have and to acquire more. If it pleases you, we shall find a way for you to become ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... pahdon!" she cried, blushing still more. From the twinkle in his eye she was sure that he had witnessed her mortifying encounter with the musical chair. But his first words made her forget her embarrassment. He spoke in the best of English, but with a slight accent that Lloyd thought very ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the seemingly careless candour so often mistaken for honesty; while, as there was nothing showy or brilliant in his abilities or oratory—nothing that aspired far above the pretensions of others, and aroused envy by mortifying self-love—he created but little jealousy even amongst the rivals before whom he obtained precedence. For some time, therefore, he went smoothly on, continuing to rise in the estimation of his party, and commanding ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book III • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... very quickly upon him, and with a most mortifying neglect, said, "Aye, lieutenant, is that you? Well, never mind it — there is no harm done — I never ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... large, that we had no place in the house to fix it. How we all came to disregard so material a point is inconceivable; but certain it is, we had been all greatly remiss. The picture, therefore, instead of gratifying our vanity, as we hoped, leaned, in a most mortifying manner, against the kitchen wall, where the canvas was stretched and painted, much too large to be got through any of the doors, and the jest of all our neighbours. One compared it to Robinson Crusoe's long-boat, too large ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... honourable." The merit of casting up a high-way in a rugged land, is proportionate not merely to the utility of the achievement, but to the magnitude of the obstacles to be overcome. The difficulties encountered in boyhood from the use of a miserable epitome and the deep impression of a few mortifying blunders made in public, first gave the author a fondness for grammar; circumstances having since favoured this turn of his genius, he has voluntarily pursued the study, with an assiduity which no man will ever imitate for the ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... time the formidable armament gone and going over, made every one here give up the Colonies as subdued. To have tried for a credit under such circumstances would have been worse than useless; it would have been mortifying, as a refusal must have been the consequence. Mr Delap generously offered to advance five or six thousand pounds, but when I considered it was already more than four months since you began to prepare for remitting, and that next to nothing was received, I really found myself ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... growing, and how much like himself Guy was becoming. Maddy had been less than a woman if the last intelligence had failed to affect her unpleasantly. She did not wish Guy to regret his decision; but to be forgotten so soon after so strong protestations of affection, was a little mortifying, and Maddy's heart throbbed painfully as she read the letter, half hoping it might prove the last she should receive from Lucy Atherstone. Guy had left no orders for any changes to be made at Aikenside; but Agnes, who was largely imbued with a love of bustle and repair, had insisted that at least ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... governments, and with the assistance of disciplined armies, have often triumphed over large states, or states of greater natural strength, which have been destitute of these advantages. Neither the pride nor the safety of the more important States or confederacies would permit them long to submit to this mortifying and adventitious superiority. They would quickly resort to means similar to those by which it had been effected, to reinstate themselves in their lost pre-eminence. Thus, we should, in a little time, see established in every part of this country the ...
— The Federalist Papers
... after employment of a more remunerative kind, with just a little of the feeling to which we owe one of the best-known elegiac poems in the language—the "Man was made to Mourn" of Burns. "There is nothing that gives me a more mortifying picture of human life," said the poet, "than a man seeking work." The required work, however, came direct in my way without solicitation, and exactly at the proper time. I was engaged to assist in hewing a Gothic gateway among the woods of my old haunt, ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... found out, I know from my own experience, must be painful and odious, and cruelly mortifying to the inward vanity. Suppose I am a poltroon, let us say. With fierce mustache, loud talk, plentiful oaths, and an immense stick, I keep up nevertheless a character for courage. I swear fearfully at cabmen and ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... private ways to the Tower. It had been rumored that a rescue would be attempted. At the Tower the Colonel delivered me to Major Gore, the residing Governor, who, as I was afterwards well informed, had previously concerted a plan for mortifying me. He ordered rooms for me in the most conspicuous part of the Tower (the parade). The people of the house, particularly the mistress, entreated the Governor not to burthen them with a prisoner. He ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... Vac assume to his mind's eye the person of the hated De Montfort, and it followed that De Vac was nearly surprised into an early and mortifying defeat by the King's sudden ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... not love to contemplate the fall of human greatness, I do not know a more mortifying spectacle, than to see the assembled majesty of the crowned heads of Europe waiting as patient suitors in the antechamber of regicide. They wait, it seems, until the sanguinary tyrant Carnot shall have snorted ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... addressed her in terms that would have melted the heart of almost any other Mary; but she continued to back, slowly and with a certain grace that could have come only of confirmed habit. Now Lynde had no desire to return to Rivermouth, above all to back into it in that mortifying fashion and make himself a spectacle for the townsfolk; but if this thing went on forty or fifty minutes longer, that would ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... case of psychological reaction. After listening to the Canongate experts I was immediately conscious of an overwhelming and mortifying sense of inadequacy, of amateurishness; hence I quit. Besides, of course, the chief is making rather a point of uplifting the ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... friend, after mature deliberation. The question is not at what door of fortune's palace shall we enter in, but what doors does she open for us. I was not likely to get anything to do. I got this without hanging-on, or mortifying solicitation; it is immediate bread, and though poor in comparison of the last eighteen months of my existence, 'tis (p. 085) luxury in comparison of ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... looked at Lucien while the Marquise was speaking. De Marsay, only a couple of paces away, put up an eyeglass and looked from Lucien to Mme. de Bargeton, and then again at Lucien, coupling them with some mocking thought, cruelly mortifying to both. He scrutinized them as if they had been a pair of strange animals, and then he smiled. The smile was like a stab to the distinguished provincial. Felix de Vandenesse assumed a charitable air. Montriveau ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... were nailed and tied to the patibulum or cross-piece without any sup pedaneum or foot-rest and left to suffer tortures from flies and sun, thirst and hunger. They often lived three days and died of the wounds mortifying and the nervous exhaustion brought on by cramps and convulsions. In many cases the corpses were left to feed the kites and crows; and this added horror to the death. Moslems care little for mere hanging. Whenever a fanatical atrocity is to be punished, the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... desire to facilitate whatever can promote the cause, when he undertakes a task of no less difficulty than the reconciling the mind of a young Prince to a supercession in his military command, and that too at the precise moment of moving forwards, after so mortifying a retreat. I am, however, not without hopes of his success; and, at all events, the moment was too critical to suffer any consideration to interfere with the only means of salvation ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... which is often weak to effeminacy, and capricious to childishness! while minds of a less delicate texture are not frayed and fretted by casual frictions; and plain sense with a coarser grain, is sufficient to keep down these aberrations of their feelings. How mortifying is ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... he would have struck the road to fortune; why Nancy should regard him with condescension, and make him feel at once that his suit was hopeless, puzzled him for many a day. He tried flattery, affecting to regard her as his superior in things of the intellect, but only with the mortifying result that Miss. Lord accepted his humility as quite natural. Then he held apart in dignified reserve, and found no difficulty in maintaining this attitude until after Mr. Lord's death. Of course he did not let his relatives know of the repulse he had suffered, but, when speaking to them of ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... forgot these mortifying failures. In the intervals of study and chemical experiment he came to her flushed and exhausted, but seemed invigorated by her presence, and spoke in glowing language of the resources of his art. He gave ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... patients, and the admirable ventilation and perfect cleanliness of the beds and wards, but the system adopted is one of the most antiquated quackery, and when I think of the unspeakably horrible state of the wounds, the mortifying limbs, and the gangrened feet ready to drop off, I almost question Governor Hennessey's wisdom in stamping the hospital with his approval ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... gained except the putting on record an implacability that was confessedly impotent. This was the very lunacy of malice. Mortifying it might certainly seem for the members of a supreme court, like the General Assembly, to be baffled by those of a subordinate court: but still, since each party must be regarded as representing far larger interests than any personal to themselves, trying on either side, not the energies of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... The excitement and anxiety of the journey had in a measure diverted her mind from the events which caused it; but now that she had gained the wished-for haven, her aunty's words brought the past before her vision; that mortifying humiliation—all she had enjoyed, all she had hoped for, and O, all she had lost!—rushed upon her recollection, and ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... of the Christian religion is an aggravation of these evils. It is not even until lately that mankind have admitted that happiness is the sole end of the science of ethics, as of all other sciences; and that the fanatical idea of mortifying the flesh for the love of God has been discarded. I have heard, indeed, an ignorant collegian adduce, in favour of Christianity, its hostility to every worldly feeling! (The first Christian emperor made a law by which seduction was punished with death; if the female pleaded her ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... Whistler. They were in the same class at school; but Whistler studied hard, and thus, though much younger than Oscar, he stood far before him as a scholar. This awakened some feeling of resentment in Oscar, and he never let slip any opportunity for annoying or mortifying his more industrious ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... city is strictly attended to, and is calculated to preserve great order and regularity; but it is attended with some mortifying and degrading circumstances, which Europeans find great difficulty and repugnance in complying with; however, the inhabitants and the company's servants must observe its rules with a scrupulous attention, not only to avoid paying the fines, but also to avoid ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... sublimity which a wide expanse always conveys to the mind, with that distinctness so desired by the eye; which cultivation alone can offer and fertility bestow. Every town that should adorn these lovely plains, however, exhibits, upon a nearer approach, misery; the more mortifying, as it is less expected by a spectator, who requires at least some days experience to convince him that the squallid scenes of wretchedness and dirt in which he is obliged to pass the night, will prove more than equivalent to the ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... am I," continued the speaker. "Is it just to me for you to hide away here in want that forces you and your wife—I beg your pardon, madam—into mortifying occupations, when one word to me—a trivial obligation, not worthy to be called an obligation, contracted with me—would remove that necessity, and tide you over the emergency ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... my gentleman came, I had not courage enough, or not ill nature enough, to treat him in the rude manner I had resolved to do, and it was very well I did not; for soon after, I had another letter from Amy, in which was the mortifying news, and indeed surprising to me, that my prince (as I, with a secret pleasure, had called him) was very much hurt by a bruise he had received in hunting and engaging with a wild boar, a cruel and desperate sport which the noblemen of Germany, ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... occasioned him a great deal of ill-will. To this publication he now refers with expressions of much regret, and with the calmness which has been produced by time. But it cannot be denied that he endured most mortifying and irritating provocations, which never could have taken place had Shelley lived. We are glad that he has had an opportunity of leaving a generous and forgiving record of this remarkable portion of his life; and certainly ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... his mother would have wished him to renew the intercourse, and therefore decided upon going, but it was too hot and sunny a day for Lance to walk, and Felix so entirely expected the visit to be wearisome and disagreeable, if not mortifying, that he could only resolve on it as a duty, and would not ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... must be very mortifying for him to talk to me in that way; but he was sincerely penitent, and I am sure he was a better Christian than ever before. He was a truer man than his brother in every respect, and I should have had a high ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... on with the birth of Nina, and from that day to her death she was a raving, disgusting maniac, as her mother and grandmother had been before her. This was exceedingly mortifying to the proud Bernards, negroes and all, and the utmost care was taken of Nina, who, nevertheless, was too much like her mother to hope for escape. There was the same peculiar look in the eye—the same ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... all was the mortifying consideration that, after they had suffered for the love of their country, more than sailors in active service, they might die in these horrible places, and be laid with their countrymen on the shores of Long Island, or some equally exposed spot, without the rites ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... Heroes act Tantalus better than ever Ovid describ'd him, condemn'd daily to see an Apparition of Meat, Food in Vision only. Faith, I had Bowels, was good-natur'd, and lent upon the publick Faith as far as 'twill go— But come, let's leave this mortifying Discourse, and tell me how ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... to mention a circumstance very mortifying to myself," she proceeded, with a sudden effort at self-control, which commanded the admiration even of the coroner. "My one adviser is dead," here her eyes flashed for a moment toward the silent form behind her. "If I make mistakes, if I seem ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... back upon my youth from so great a distance, now I understand that it was not only healthy, natural tenderness that drove him to such exaggerated care for me, but bitter, impassioned feelings of opposition and revenge born of mortifying and painful experience. Priests, women and philistines had been too mighty or too cunning for him; now he would at least keep me, his successor in the world, out of their hands. That was the one great satisfaction he still sought in life, more from grudge against his enemies than ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... It is very mortifying to me to have to confess that I have most awkwardly come to a standstill with the transcription of the Beethoven Quartets. After several attempts the result was either absolutely unplayable—or insipid stuff. Nevertheless I shall not give up my project, and shall ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... the present day. The Norman Conquest occupies, therefore, a very uncertain and equivocal position in English history, the various modern writers who look back to it now being hardly able to determine whether they are to regard it as a mortifying subjugation which their ancestors suffered, or a glorious victory ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... years has but deepened the feeling which I then experienced. The subject may perhaps be only unpleasant to people at home, but to me personally, who have seen the ruin and dismay brought upon the too credulous loyalists, the recollections it stirs up are more bitterly mortifying than ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... NOT GOT MONEY ENOUGH! (Begin to see where my chuckles come in?) However true this report may be, the fact remains that the youth has not been near the house for a month past, nor taken Mellicent anywhere. Of course, it shows him and his family up—for just what they are; but it has been mortifying for poor Mellicent. She's showing her pluck like a little trump, however, and goes serenely on her way with her head just enough in the ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... who has led his party into so many errors, looked after your affairs when his intrigues left him time. A lady loved me; the prince asked me to resign her to him; I refused, and he became my mortal enemy. From that hour he lost no opportunity of mortifying me. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... public?—From respect to any such right, ought so great a libel on our political economy to be suffered to exist, as a receptacle for the poor in the middle of an uncultivated and unappropriated waste? To dwell further on so mortifying a proof of the fallibility of human wisdom may, however, pique the pride of those who enjoy the power to organize a ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... and dignity, felt an oppression at her heart as she perceived from the tone and manner of the servant that some mortifying familiarity had grown up between her father and the companion ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... tugged hard at the lines to show his desire to enter. It was not so bad when Mrs. Adams and Polly were by themselves; but Mrs. Adams often invited some convalescing patient of the doctor to go for a quiet little drive, and it was mortifying to have Job, taking advantage of the moment when his mistress was deep in conversation, stalk solemnly under the arching gateway and bring his invalid passenger to a halt beside some new-made grave. There seemed to be no apology that could ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... regret extremely the position into which the President has been thrown. The unpopular cause of Anglomany is openly laying claim to him. His enemies, masking themselves under the popular cause of France, are playing off the most tremendous batteries on him.... It is mortifying to the real friends of the President that his fame and his influence should have anything to apprehend from the success of liberty in another country, since he owes his preeminence to the success of it in his own. ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... have been taking more care of your instep than you did of your leg in old times. Don't try mortifying the ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... has laid hands on himself. There's no sense in it, your honor, it's not right, and there's no making out what's the meaning of it, merciful Lord! Say your father was rich and you are poor; it is mortifying, there's no doubt about it, but there, you must make up your mind to it. I used to live in good style, too; I had two horses, your honor, three cows, I used to keep twenty head of sheep; but the time has come, ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... that you would not take it so much to heart," said her mother, comforting her. "But it is mortifying to think of being sent to school. What a pity we have let time go on till you are fifteen, and can neither speak a word of French nor play a note on ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... Hollingsworth suggested, my disorder was never so serious as, in my ignorance of such matters, I was inclined to consider it. After so much tragical preparation, it was positively rather mortifying to find ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... following comment on a subject which has thus far excited not a little wonder, and which, as the loyal reader may be disposed to add, should excite some degree of vigorous inquiry among the people at large. Like every other practical point involved in this struggle, it suggests the mortifying truth that with all our sacrifices, and all our patriotism, we are as yet in the conduct of the war far too amiable, and by ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... muses, Full of honey and of graces, Learned verses of good Pino; I embrace you, just Camenae, All day long I read you gladly In this mortifying season, Time of tears and time of penance, Harsh and troublesome, ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... effective costumes each time he visited the theatres; but, alas, his elegant toilet was wholly thrown away, and one of the most worthy representatives of Parisian fashion had to carry with him the mortifying reflection that he had nearly overrun Italy without ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... invulnerable against every species of poison. These bold assertions could not fail to excite very general attention. During his residence at Strasburg, while descanting, in a large and respectable company, on the virtues of his antidote, his pride met with a very mortifying check. A physician who was present, and who had taken part in the conversation, quitting the room privately, went to an apothecary's shop, and ordering two pills of equal size to be made, agreeably to his directions, suddenly appeared again ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... part (chaps. 5:13-6:18) is of a practical character. The apostle affectionately exhorts the Galatians to use their Christian liberty in a worthy manner, mortifying fleshly lusts, restoring fallen brethren in meekness, bearing one another's burdens, and being diligent in every good work. In bringing the epistle to a close he contrasts the vain-glory and hypocrisy of ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... fulsome flattery in the dedication. But you, I find, still continue your old humour, to date from the year of Hegira, the loss of Eton, or since orders were refused you. Whatever hangs out, either black or green colours is presently your prize: and you would, by your good will, be as mortifying a vexation to the whole tribe, as an unbegetting year, a concatenation of briefs, or a voracious visitor; so that I am of opinion, you had much better have written in ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... kind in you," began Bea when she found that they were quite alone on the porch. "I don't know what I should have done, and it was so terribly mortifying, but then—" and there she came to a pause, for looking up, she met his eyes, wearing an expression, such as chased all further words from her lips, and made her forget entirely what it was that she was going to ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... engage in such business as he should decide to follow. They then discussed, and soon mutually agreed on, the expediency of leaving the city, where, as they had once there enjoyed wealth and station, they must both ever be subjected to mortifying contrasts,—both constantly doomed ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... religion, nor morals, nor manners, nor colour in common; they feel that any convulsion which should overthrow the existing order of things would be ruinous to themselves. Particular acts of the Government—especially acts which are mortifying to the pride of caste naturally felt by an Englishman in India—are often angrily condemned by these persons. But every indigo-planter in Tirhoot, and every shopkeeper in Calcutta, is perfectly aware that the downfall ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... even less than a peasant, only a child that had been picked up. That appeared to her monstrous and dishonorable. She thought that such a child had a lower place in society than a cat or a dog; she manifested these sentiments by the most disdainful looks, the most mortifying silence, and the most cruel insults. If Erik was invited with her to any little social gathering at the house of a friend, she would positively refuse to dance with him. At the table she would not answer anything he said, nor pay any attention to him. ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... to the dockyards of Chatham and burnt or captured seven great ships of the line, besides numerous smaller craft, carried off the naval stores at Sheerness, and then for the next six weeks kept a blockade on the Thames and the eastern and southern coasts of England. This mortifying situation continued until the signing of the "Peace ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... the thousand dark accidents that love scatters in the path of life, light can only reach us by means of a friend. We ourselves are helpless; looking at others we are lynx-eyed, looking at ourselves we are almost blind. It is the optical nerve of the passions. It is mortifying to thus sacrifice the highest prerogatives of man at the feet of a woman, to feel compelled to yield to her caprices and submit to the inexorable exigencies of love. The artificial life I am leading is odious to me. Patience is a virtue that ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... insistently, "it's not only mortifying to the police but disappointing to the press, especially as few reporters believe in the No-thoroughfare business. They say, and we cannot but agree with them, that no such struggle could take place and no such repeated goings to and fro through the house without some vestige being left by which ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... Faustus! Let me now put in a word, and tell his reverence a few mortifying truths. Brother monk, thou hast formed in thy solitary cell a phantom of perfection, and wouldst fain thrust that into people's heads, which, when there, poisons the brain, as the gangrene corrupts all the ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... like the one we have quoted. What is the use of this kind of writing? It does not convey any meaning; there is no beauty in it; it increases the size and price of books; it corrupts the taste of the young, is offensive to persons of good sense, and mortifying to those who take pride in the literary reputation of their country. It is the bane of our literature. Many of our prose-writers constantly put language upon paper the use of which in ordinary life would be received by a court ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... of light and shade, and the unshackled spirit of the drama, this performance was never brought forward. Our critic has a great dislike to Gray, and a fondness for Thomson and Collins. It is mortifying to hear him speak of Pope and Dryden, whom, because they have been supposed to have all the possible excellences of poetry, he will allow to have none. Nothing, however, can be fairer, or more amusing, than the way in which he sometimes exposes the unmeaning verbiage ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... and at last the three deputies of the Lozere made their appearance. They looked drier and more cheery than could be expected, although to have shot the rapids of the Tarn in such weather was about as mortifying a circumstance as could befall ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... word directly from his son. He learned, indeed, by a letter from Mr. Crosbie, that the young counsellor had safely reached Dumfries, but had left that town upon some ulterior researches, the purpose of which he had not communicated. The old man, thus left to suspense, and to mortifying recollections, deprived also of the domestic society to which he had been habituated, began to suffer in body as well as in mind. He had formed the determination of setting out in person for Dumfriesshire, when, after having been ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... William Jones; I am sick to death of all the Jones',' interrupted Mrs Prothero, causing a diversion, and a suppressed laugh at her expense, instead of at young Rice Rice's, who had made the last sally upon Mr Jonathan, and a somewhat mortifying retreat. ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... circle. She was earning her living as book-keeper in a large five-cent store! She led the life of a drudge, and that was not the worst of it. She was a sensitive woman, and there was much that was mortifying in her position. All her Greek and Italian books were packed away. She knew no more of science than when she left school. At odd minutes she read good novels, and that was all she had to do with literature. Those who had expected much ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... never very large, had been shattered by early dissipation. Naturally of a proud and somewhat exacting temper, he actively felt the mortifying consequences of his poverty. The want of what he felt ought to have been his position and influence in the county in which he resided, fretted and galled him; and he cherished a resentful and bitter sense of every slight, imaginary or real, to which the same fruitful source of annoyance ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... showing a self-command and control over his temper which had not been expected from him after the fiery outburst of the first day, an incident occurred which would have afforded him an opportunity for mortifying Theodore, had he not been restrained by a motive which was stronger than ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... shift for themselves, some being supplied with guns and ammunition, others with nets, a lake of considerable extent having been lately discovered, which the natives reported to abound with fish. Early in the month of December my fishermen came in with the mortifying intelligence of the entire failure of the fishery; and soon after a messenger arrived from the hunting party to beg a supply of provisions, which my limited means, alas! compelled me to deny. Not ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... indeed, the sisters wore the same size, and Elizabeth being the better mistress of her wardrobe, 'tis to be feared she sought often for her own, to find them gadding abroad on Miss Maria's feet and herself left to luck. 'Twas mortifying, and her heavenly blush was as much owing to this circumstance as to the ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... eggs impregnated? Huber, by a long course of the most indefatigable observations, threw much light upon this subject. Before stating his discoveries, I must pay my humble tribute of gratitude and admiration, to this wonderful man. It is mortifying to every scientific naturalist, and I might add, to every honest man acquainted with the facts, to hear such a man as Huber abused by the veriest quacks and imposters; while others who have appropriated from his labors, nearly all that ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... which our separate selves are seen divided, the baser from the better, and I saw my silly egotism in contrast with a simple generous nature; whether it was an impalpable air of mystery which pervaded the whole enterprise and refused to be dissipated by its most mortifying and vulgarizing incidents—a mystery dimly connected with my companion's obvious consciousness of having misled me into joining him; whether it was only the stars and the cool air rousing atrophied instincts of youth and spirits; probably, indeed, it was all these influences, cemented ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... not such a flaming enthusiast in the cause of liberty, could not brook the doctor's reflections, which he thought savoured a little too much of indifference and deficiency in point of private friendship; and therefore seized the present opportunity of mortifying his pride, by observing, that the image was, without all doubt, very grand and magnificent; but that he had been obliged for the idea to Mr. Bayes in "The Rehearsal," who values himself upon the same figure, conveyed in these words, "But all these clouds, when by the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... On one mortifying occasion, however, I must own that Rose's anxiety for my always following in her steps was the cause of a serious injury to me. She remarked that I had got into a horrid way of kicking off my shoes while I was learning ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... that," says Penelope. "But you see, father (though Mr. Franklin isn't to blame), he's been mortifying and disappointing her for weeks and weeks past; and now this comes on the top of it all! She has no right, of course, to expect him to take any interest in her. It's quite monstrous that she should forget herself and her station in that way. But she seems to have lost ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... this esteem, when it is not well founded; it is then a ridiculous sentiment: it ought to be considered, it really is "vanity and vexation of spirit," it is not wisdom, but folly in the extreme; it ought to be censured when it displays itself in a mode that is mortifying to its neighbour, in a manner that is troublesome to others; it is then called ARROGANCE; it is called VANITY; but when it cannot be condemned, when it is known for legitimate when it is discovered to have a solid foundation, when it bottoms itself upon talents, when it rises upon great actions ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... are on the forward march, and things at the royal palace must not be permitted to fall in the rear. I am about to lay a foundation to a measure that will yet shed glory and luster on my reign. What is more mortifying, Ashpenaz, while endeavoring to entertain our own dignitaries, and the visiting nobles of other nations, than to witness the blundering ignorance of our attendants? In this I cast no blame on my worthy and noble officer—by ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones
... welfare? The knight, indifferent to a score of swords, is crushed by such unselfish devotion, and humbly accepts the Landgrave's clemency, which spares his life that he may join a younger band of pilgrims and seek absolution at Rome. He goes to the Holy City, mortifying his flesh at every step, and humbles himself in self-abasement and accusation before the Pope; but only to hear from the hard lips of the Keeper of the Keys that for such sin as his there is as little hope of deliverance as for the rebudding of ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... are correct, but I know it is hardly fair to force a confession from you that I shrink from making myself. It may be true that 'open confession is good for the soul,' but I find it is particularly mortifying to ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... he was the more desirous of this alliance, as there was a great probability, not only from Mr. Lovelace's descent, but from his fortunes, that his niece Clarissa might one day be a peeress of Great Britain:—and, upon that prospect [here was the mortifying stroke], he should, for his own part, think it not wrong to make such dispositions as should contribute to the ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... extensive. The husbandman, master of his own industry, and secure of reaping for himself the fruits of his labour, became farmer of the same field where he had formerly been compelled to toil for the benefit of another. The odious name of master and of slave, the most mortifying and depressing of all distinctions to human nature, were abolished. New prospects opened, and new incitements to ingenuity and enterprise presented themselves, to those who were emancipated. The expectation of bettering their fortune, as well as ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... in which she seemed to take singular delight, until Mrs. Pickle, on pretence of consulting her ease, told her one day she would take that trouble on herself, and for the future assume the management of her own family. Nothing could be more mortifying to Mrs. Grizzle than such a declaration; to which, after a considerable pause, and strange distortion of look, she replied: "I shall never refuse or repine at any trouble that may conduce to my brother's advantage."—"Dear madam," answered the sister, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... Clifford and her parents, made me more willing to adopt a measure, about which, at any other time, I should have been singularly slow and cautious. As a man of proud, reserved, and suspicious temper, I had little or no confidence in my own strength with the people; and defeat would be more mortifying than success grateful to a person of my pride. I fancied, however, that popular life would somewhat subdue the consuming passions which were rioting within my bosom; and I threw myself into the thick of the struggle with all the ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... great many killed, were n't there?" asked Basil, with sympathetic satisfaction in the disaster. The porter seemed humiliated; he confessed the mortifying truth that the loss of life was small, but he recovered a just self-respect in adding, "If the roof had fallen in five minutes sooner, it would have killed about three ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... It was very mortifying. Apparently she had been too much at her ease, and perhaps the empressement with which Sir Robert had rushed to open the door might exclude her from coming down for the future. Then she reflected, with a little pardonable spite, ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... for the Moderns. By pushing it now, they would be doing a service to the School. They would pose as the champions of honesty. They would be mortifying the Classics, even while they pretended to assist them; and, above all, they would wipe out scores with Rollitt himself, in a way he ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... allowed ultra courtesies of Italian acknowledgment. His compliments to most people are varied with astonishing grace and ingenuity; his accounts of his condition often sufficient to bring the tears into the manliest eyes; and his ceaseless and vain efforts to procure his liberation mortifying when we think of himself, and exasperating when we think of the petty despot who detained him in so long, so degrading, and so worse ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... It was mortifying that he had been forced to prepare such a phrase as that. He could not make out why she filled him ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... so moderate as well as firm, and had uttered his answer with so much dignity and correctness, that he felt himself rebuked. To be encountered by an unsophisticated boy, and foiled, though but for an instant—slightly estimated, though but by a youth, and him too, a mere rustic—was mortifying to the self-esteem that rather precipitately hurried to ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... great number of revolvers, etc., all loaded and ready for use, and the rather unpleasant discovery that the Brigadier-General had actually employed a Government detective to go to his house and give instructions in making cartridges, were rather mortifying to the order, and when it appeared that the Chairman of the Vigilance Committee, whose province was to take the balance of the arms, which we learned were in Walsh's barn, and with all possible ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... questions reluctantly but reasonably, and then said he wanted a bolster placed under him as he was uncomfortable and in great pain. The doctor and valet lifted the cloak with which he was covered and, making wry faces at the noisome smell of mortifying flesh that came from the wound, began examining that dreadful place. The doctor was very much displeased about something and made a change in the dressings, turning the wounded man over so that he groaned again ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... very ill; has been at the point of death several times from his legs mortifying. Canning's speech the night before last was most brilliant; much more cheered by the Opposition than by his own friends. He is thought to have been imprudent, and he gave offence to his colleagues by the concluding sentence of his reply, when he ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Exchequer, as to the proper fee. Fitzjames was only anxious now to get the thing definitively settled on any terms and put down in black and white. The Government might go out at any moment, and without some agreement he would be left in the lurch. It was 'excessively mortifying, ... and showed what a ramshackle concern our whole system' was. Definite instructions, however, to prepare the bill were soon afterwards given. On December 20 he writes that the English Evidence Bill is getting on famously. He hopes to ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... ridiculous and mortifying fact. I found myself haunted by this white face and these despairing eyes, yet for the life of me I could not reduce that face to a natural expression so as to learn what it might look like in common life. Should I know her again if I met ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... than sinning; but had he steeped his hands in gore, he would still not deserve to be thus dragged at the chariot-wheels of a young man, to sit a captive in the halls of his own leather business, to be entertained with mortifying comments on his whole career—to have his costume examined, his collar pulled up, the presence of his mittens verified, and to be taken out and brought home in custody, like an infant with a nurse. At the thought of it his soul would ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... dawn; The mason whistled, the hodman sang; Early and late the trowels rang; And Thin himself came day by day To push the work in every way. An artful builder, patent king Of all the local building ring, Who was there like him in the quarter For mortifying brick and mortar, Or pocketing the odd piastre By substituting lath and plaster? With plan and two-foot rule in hand, He by the foreman took his stand, With boisterous voice, with eagle glance To stamp upon extravagance. ...
— Moral Emblems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... subjects. The exercise and the change soon produced an exhaustion that caused them to remove him to his bed, where he lay for hours, evidently sensible of the change in his comforts, and exhibiting that mortifying picture of human nature, which too plainly shows that the propensities of the animal continue even after the nobler part of the creature appears to ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... think me so stupid as all that. It is a mortifying truth that I like you, and that you ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... godly consideration of predestination, and our election in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh and their earthly members, and drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things, as well because it doth greatly establish and confirm their faith of eternal salvation, to be enjoyed through Christ, as because ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... we may regret the waywardness of such a heart in the present instance, in that it rejected one so nobly qualified as was Mr. Buckminster to appreciate its genius and its love, while sympathizing with his own mortifying disappointment, (for this we must admit,) that she had in the secrets of her nature a preference for another, we cannot altogether know its results. So cautiously and discreetly did he, through a long and beautiful life, qualify both his lips and his pen, that little or nothing ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... forever,— there were no glory-laurels left growing for him in the fields of poetic art and aspiration,—Sah-luma, the fortunate Sah-luma, had gathered and possessed them all! Taking everything into serious consideration, he came at last to the deeply mortifying conclusion that it must be himself who was the plagiarist,—the unconscious imitator of Sah-luma's ideas and methods, . . and the worst of it was that his imitation ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... having long languished last month, the swellings in his legs breaking, and the flesh mortifying; he will die on the 11th instant. And, in three weeks' time, after a mighty contest, he will be succeeded by a Cardinal of the Imperial faction, but a native of Tuscany, who is now about 61 ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... eye, that the fellow was still standing where he had left him, regarding him with a most evil, malevolent countenance, so that he had the satisfaction of knowing that he had an enemy aboard for that voyage who was not very likely to forgive or forget what he must regard as so mortifying a slight as that which Barnaby had put ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... and lost the ground he had gained by saying impetuously: "I don't want anyone but you to stand by me, and I must be sure you won't desert me, else, while I'm mortifying soul and body to please you, some stranger will come and steal your heart away from me. I couldn't bear that, so I give you fair warning, in such a case I'll break the bargain, and ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
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