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Arduous   Listen
adjective
Arduous  adj.  
1.
Steep and lofty, in a literal sense; hard to climb. "Those arduous paths they trod."
2.
Attended with great labor, like the ascending of acclivities; difficult; laborious; as, an arduous employment, task, or enterprise.
Synonyms: Difficult; trying; laborious; painful; exhausting. Arduous, Hard, Difficult. Hard is simpler, blunter, and more general in sense than difficult; as, a hard duty to perform, hard work, a hard task, one which requires much bodily effort and perseverance to do. Difficult commonly implies more skill and sagacity than hard, as when there is disproportion between the means and the end. A work may be hard but not difficult. We call a thing arduous when it requires strenuous and persevering exertion, like that of one who is climbing a precipice; as, an arduous task, an arduous duty. "It is often difficult to control our feelings; it is still harder to subdue our will; but it is an arduous undertaking to control the unruly and contending will of others."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Arduous" Quotes from Famous Books



... of spools of thread, indicates some long and arduous tasks, but which when completed will meet your most sanguine expectations. If they are empty, there will be disappointments ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... boyhood I was allowed no games, and in the greater part of my manhood I have been too busy. Of late years I have more leisure, and I often have sought here a little innocent amusement, something to take one's mind off one's own affairs, and yet not of such an arduous nature as would make one's ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane

... the Flamines and the Salian priests and the Vestal Virgins, and regulated all departments of our ecclesiastical policy with the most pious care. In the ordinance of sacrifices, he wished that the ceremonial should be very arduous and the expenditure very light. He thus appointed many observances, whose knowledge is extremely important, and whose expense far from burdensome. Thus in religious worship he added devotion and removed costliness. He was also the first to introduce ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... tharrein 'to be of good cheer'; as we say now, to regain their morale after bewildering defeats. The Cynic answer, afterwards corrected and humanized by the Stoics, was to look at life as a long and arduous campaign. The loyal soldier does not trouble about his comfort or his rewards or his pleasures. He obeys his commander's orders without fear or failing, whether they lead to easy victories or merely to wounds, captivity or death. Only Goodness is good, and for the soldier Goodness (arete) ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray

... was a simple affair—a few cut balsams, a light blanket, a small fire. Before he prepared his supper, the factor drew a number of copper wire snares from his small pack and spent half an hour in setting them in rabbit runways. This method of securing meat was far less arduous than carrying a gun in hot weather, and it was certain. Half a dozen snares were good for at least three rabbits, and one of these three was sure to be young and tender enough for the frying pan. After he had placed his snares McTaggart set a skillet ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood

... this tedious enterprise. But presently there came before them one who said that he had himself seen the rat which had bitten him, by the light of an old man's lanthorn. When the Town Watch heard this they were vexed, for they knew that if this were true they would now be forced to prosecute the arduous undertaking, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... little things should be observed, remembered, and made exactly to correspond. There is no human vigilance which multiplicity may not sometimes baffle, and minuteness sometimes elude. To most persons grammar seems a dry and difficult subject; but there is a disposition of mind, to which what is arduous, is for that very reason alluring. "Quo difficilius, hoc praeclarius," says Cicero; "The more difficult, the more 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 ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... met in Cincinnati. Though far from well and worn out after the usual strenuous year in his parish, Mr. Nelson gave up a large part of his vacation to assist in the arduous preparations always entailed by such affairs. At the opening service in the University Stadium he was selected by the Presiding Bishop to read one of the Lessons, the deserved recognition of his place in diocese ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick

... day, except during fierce gales. Often the discovery of a distant mine-field caused many ships to be concentrated on clearing it, and the number available for the "routine sweeps" was consequently reduced, but longer hours of this arduous and dangerous work made up the difference, and the work went on in summer fog and winter snow for ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife

... By means of such perseverance, he succeeded in bringing various mathematical, philosophical, and astronomical instruments to perfection. The large theodolite for terrestrial measurements, and the equal altitude instrument for astronomy, will always be monuments of his fertile, penetrating, arduous, superior genius! There cannot be a lover (especially of this more difficult part) of philosophy, in any quarter of the globe, but must admire the abilities, and respect the memory, of Jesse Ramsden—Practical Observations ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various

... estimating his value, having been secretary to one embassy, had, when great abilities were again wanted, the same office another time; and was, after so much experience of his own knowledge and dexterity, at last sent to transact a negotiation in the highest degree arduous and important, for which he was qualified, among other requisites, in the opinion of Bolingbroke, by his influence upon the French minister, and by skill in questions of ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson

... for lady Feng was, in fact, already a burden hard to bear, and when, moreover, the troubles of debts were superadded to his tasks, which were also during the whole day arduous, he, a young man of about twenty, as yet unmarried, and a prey to constant cravings for lady Feng, which were difficult to gratify, could not avoid giving way, to a great extent, to such evil habits as ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... King James I for his high-handed proceedings with protestation: "That the liberties, franchises, privileges, and jurisdictions of Parliament are the ancient and undoubted birthright and inheritance of the subjects of England, and that the arduous and urgent affairs of the king, state, and defense of the realm ... are proper subjects and matters of council and debate in Parliament." The king tore the page containing the resolution from the journal of Parliament; but this did not retard the struggle for the ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... often spoken of the unwillingness of some of our people to labor; but Captain Smith, who is not overly eager to find excuses for those who are indolent, has said that there was much reason why many of our men hugged their cabins, counting it a most arduous task to go even so far up the river as were the ...
— Richard of Jamestown - A Story of the Virginia Colony • James Otis

... the rights of the worker to a living wage, to reasonable hours of labor, to decent working and living conditions, to freedom of thought and speech and industrial representation,—in short, to a measure of industrial democracy and, in return for his arduous toil, to a worthy and decent life according to American standards. Still another thing these great business leaders did not see. They did not see that both their interests and the interests of the workers must be accommodated, and if ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... Department of Health, we extend our thanks for the efficient manner in which he carried out his duties as Secretary to the Committee, and also to Misses B. Frost and O. Clist who, as stenographers to the Committee, had a very arduous task, and whose excellent reports materially assisted the members of the Committee ...
— Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Various Aspects of the Problem of Abortion in New Zealand • David G. McMillan

... make us wish that Providence had acted upon European counsel rather than upon His Own! Moreover, we are very busy in these days, and can have small eye to the by-standers. We are busy, and are likely to be so long; for the peace that succeeds to such a war will be as dangerous and arduous as the war itself. We have as little time, therefore, to grieve as to brag or bluster; we must work. We neither solicit nor repel your sympathy; we must work,—work straight on, and let all that be as it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... of Briel may be dated the beginning of the long and arduous struggle which resulted in the building-up of the Dutch Republic of the United Provinces, and the ultimate prostration of the power of Spain. The hero of the struggle was William of Orange. The successor ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... the abuse of match-making, the reader must consider these maxims for its proper use to be thrown into the bargain gratis, and not therefore to be scrutinized severely. Some other day, if we can muster up courage enough for so delicate and arduous a task, we may perhaps attempt to show that, in the present state of society, the art of match-making deserves and requires cultivation, and how, in our humble opinion, this cultivation should be ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous

... of this arduous preparation found his force ready for active duty and about this time he became convinced that the Confederates intended to seize Paducah, an important position in Kentucky at the mouth of the Tennessee River, just beyond the limits of ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill

... of this powerful story go to Peru to look for the treasure which the Incas hid when the Spaniards invaded the country. Their task is both arduous and dangerous, but though they are often disappointed, their courage and perseverance ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty

... impossible to live in the house with him without being impressed by his extraordinary industry. The mere bulk of the literary work he did at Anaverna would make it a surprising product of fifteen long vacations, and there was not a page of it which had not involved an amount of arduous labour which most men would regard as the antithesis of holiday-making. This, however, as the present biography will have shown, was his normal habit, and these notes are designed to indicate that it did not prevent ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... words to express my satisfaction," says Lord Chatham in a letter of the 24th, "that the Congress has conducted this most arduous and delicate business with such manly Wisdom and calm resolution, as do the highest honour to their deliberations. Very few are the things contained in their resolves, that I could wish had been otherwise." Correspondence, vol. ii, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... I returned home my father came in, tired out by the arduous labours in which he had all night been engaged. On my telling him of the fears I entertained of what had happened at Egido, he, after some hesitation, gave me leave to ride out and ascertain ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston

... through four sides of closely-written, gilt-edged, hot-pressed, Bath post letter paper, that he responded to the call of his fellow-townsmen with feelings of heartfelt delight; that he accepted the arduous office which their confidence had imposed upon him; that they would never find him shrinking from the discharge of his duty; that he would endeavour to execute his functions with all that dignity which their magnitude and importance demanded; and a great deal more to the same effect. But even ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... entertaining. Cowperwood accompanied her, a very different person in so far as mood and self-poise were concerned. To himself his own future was always secure, and that of Aileen's if he wished to make it so. The arduous, upward-ascending rungs of the social ladder that were troubling her had ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... a scientific pugilist, and now and then took a brush with an oldster; and although overpowered, yet I displayed so much prowess, that my enemies became cautious how they renewed a struggle which they perceived became daily more arduous; till at last, like the lion's whelp, my play ceased to be a joke, and I was left to enjoy that tranquillity, which few found it safe or convenient to disturb. By degrees the balance of power was fairly established, and even Murphy ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... drive (October-December, 1917) swiftly undid the work of two years of most arduous endeavor. The Italians were forced back from Gorizia and compelled to surrender mountain positions which had been captured by them at enormous cost. Back across the boundary they retreated, losing heavily in men and material. The enemy advanced into the low country near Venice, and it ...
— A School History of the Great War • Albert E. McKinley, Charles A. Coulomb, and Armand J. Gerson

... express the task I have undertaken, show how arduous it is. But it would be a mistake to suppose that the difficulty of the case must lie in the insufficiency or obscurity of the grounds of reason on which my conviction rests. The difficulty is that which exists in all cases in which ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill

... settled, it became an object of great importance to determine what might be the best course that could be given to the voyage. All former navigators round the globe had returned to Europe by the Cape of Good Hope. But to Captain Cook the arduous task was now assigned, of attempting it by reaching the high northern latitudes between Asia and America; and the adoption of this resolution was, I believe, the result of his own reflections upon the subject. The usual plan, therefore, of discovery was reversed; ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... Christian spirit over the rapacity, the lust, the bloody violence of the natural man. They show what a superficial thing the professed religion of the ages of faith had been, how enormous a task remained, and how much the most arduous part of this task was to make Catholicism itself civilised and moral. For it is hardly denied that Christianity had done worse than merely fail to provide an effective curb on the cruel passions of men. The Spanish conquerors showed that it had nursed a still more ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... conquer and heal her; to bring her to faith, to sacrifice, to God. The mingled innocence and despotism of his nature were both concerned. And was there something else?—the eagerness of the soldier who retrieves disobedience by some special and arduous service? To be allowed to attempt it is a grace; to ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... at Bologna in 1774, of an extremely humble family. His father was a poor carpenter; and the eminence to which, by his own unassisted exertions, Mezzofanti, without once leaving his native city, attained in the exercise of the faculty of language—which is ordinarily cultivated only by the arduous and expensive process of visiting and travelling in the different countries in which each separate language is spoken—is not the least remarkable of the many examples of successful 'pursuit of knowledge under difficulties,' which literary history supplies. He was educated in one of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various

... Manuel. Tell 'em from me that I got a bad habit of wearing a six-gun, and that if they get to resenting too arduous it's likely to ventilate ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine

... In short, Lydd, being entirely out of the tracks of the world, cares little for what other towns may do, and has just built its houses where and how it pleased. Between Dungeness and Lydd there is an expanse of shingle which makes the transit an arduous undertaking, and one not to be accomplished easily without the aid of "backstays" (pronounced "backster"), a simple contrivance somewhat upon the principle of snowshoes. When the proneness to slip ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy

... in Jamrach's employ at the time and knew Barnum well. He said the thing began in this way. One morning Barnum and Jamrach were in Jamrach's little private snuggery back of the wilderness of caged monkeys and snakes and other commonplaces of Jamrach's stock in trade, refreshing themselves after an arduous stroke of business, Jamrach with something orthodox, Barnum with something heterodox—for Barnum was a teetotaler. The stroke of business was in the elephant line. Jamrach had contracted to deliver to Barnum in New York 18 elephants for $360,000 in time for the next ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... and who had been rewarded for his enterprise by promotion and a fast frigate at the early age of two and twenty. The Ringdove was under a master-commandant of the name of Lyon, who was just sixty years old, having worked his way up to his present rank by dint of long and arduous services, owing his last commission and his command to the accident of having been a first lieutenant at the battle of Cape St. Vincent. Both these gentlemen appeared simultaneously on the quarter-deck of the Proserpine, where they were duly received by the ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... a sensation of coming out (our good master with us) by that same door wherein we went; and I cannot as yet after arduous trial discover much profit in his table of feet—Paeons, Dochmiacs, Antispasts, Proceleusmatics and the rest—an Antispast being but an iamb followed by a trochee, and Proceleusmatic but two pyrrhics, or four consecutive ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... steadiness, and obeyed with cheerful alacrity when they were ordered to man the pumps. Towards daybreak the rudder was torn from its fastenings, and it was only the discovery that the water did not gain on the ship that sustained the drooping spirits of the seamen, exhausted as they were with their arduous exertions and long exposure to the biting cold and constant fall of sleet and snow. At half-past six the long-wished-for dawn appeared, when, to their dismay, they found themselves on a sand bank, ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly

... looked surprisingly fresh after having undergone such arduous labours; indeed, this little man's physical endurance and his mental power were to me ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson

... were the arduous labors of David George that he is enrolled among the pulpit pioneers, in Bill's history of Canadian Baptists. He was certainly first to plant a Baptist church at Shelburn, as well as a number of feeble beginnings elsewhere. But Canada was only a temporary ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... considerably reduced, and the morale of the enemy proportionately increased. This was pointed out by General Allenby, who, addressing the Battalion on parade on August 25th, said: "I have read with great pleasure and pride the report of the General commanding your Division, telling of the arduous work which you recently did in the neighbourhood of Hooge. By your boldness, tenacity, and gallantry, you did work of very great importance. Perhaps you do not know that not only did your action have an important bearing on that particular bit of line, but on the whole campaign, ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman

... am far from meanly availing myself of it in this narrative. I am well and gratefully aware that in this interview with Orlando my advantages were many and fortunate. For example, had he been bigger and older, or had he not been a gentleman, my task had been considerably more arduous, not to say dangerous. ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne

... a few weeks the soldiers rested after their arduous labours. The preparation for the next campaign began. All the sick and wounded, extra tents and baggage, in fact every one and everything which could be done without, was sent back to Tennessee. For the order had gone forth that the army was to travel light on this campaign. ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... cereals of an abundance and quality capable of competing with the corn imported from the provinces; but even on territories where crops could be reared productively, it was tempting to substitute for the arduous processes of sowing and reaping the cheaper and easier industry of the pasturage of flocks. We do not know the extent to which arable land in fair condition was deliberately turned into pasturage; but we can imagine many cases in which the land recently ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... considerable pleasure in Sam's companionship, who on his few holidays was only too glad to explore the grey river and its innumerable wharfs with Christopher. Sam was already a fair waterman; he at least spent all his scant leisure and scantier pennies in learning that arduous profession. ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant

... sentimental tones. Only she made the mistake of believing that the date of her marriage was the time appointed for payment. Instead of that spontaneous flow of inspiration, she had beneath her eyes a process of arduous work, which was not limited to a special portion of the day, like the work of a business man, and which, in the case of a man with Mallinson's temperament, inevitably produced an incessant fretfulness with his surroundings. Now, since this work was done not in an office but at ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason

... hundred men behind skilfully constructed fortifications may be worth six thousand in the open. It was very hard for the besiegers to find cover. The ground was hard rock, and cutting trenches was extremely arduous work, and the noise of the picks directed the fire of the forts by night upon the sappers. Nevertheless by July 5th four batteries were playing upon St. Michael from the heights of St. Margaret and Conradin, while the guns of Fort ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... and one having an organic rather than a social basis, is seen in the coyness of the female among animals. In many species of animals the female does not submit at once to the solicitations of the male, but only after the most arduous wooing. ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... personal assistance, and I preferred to relinquish a portion of the profits rather than continue to be a travelling showman. I had now been a straggler from home most of the time for thirteen years, and I cannot describe the feelings of gratitude with which I reflected that, having by the most arduous toil and deprivations succeeded in securing a satisfactory competence, I should henceforth spend my days in the bosom of ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... our honest friend only the public responsibility for the good or ill success of the career. The extremely imperfect development of his statesmanly qualities, at that period, may have justified such designs. But the President is teachable by events, and has now spent a year in a very arduous course of education; he has a flexible mind, capable of much expansion, and convertible towards far loftier studies and activities than those of his early life; and if he came to Washington a backwoods humorist, he has already ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... has subsided into a calm for some time past, is approaching its termination in the House of Commons, and as it gets near the period of a fresh campaign, and a more arduous though a shorter one, agitation is a little reviving. The 'Times' and other violent newspapers are moving heaven and earth to stir up the country and intimidate the Peers, many of whom are frightened enough ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... things down to cases. Enright is worried sick at it. But he's been thinkin' mighty arduous for quite a spell, an' when Boggs gets creased, he sees somethin' must be done, an' begins to line himse'f for ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis

... engagement, he stood upon a neighbouring hill; and was surprised to see Masinissa, then upwards of eighty years of age, mounted (agreeably to the custom of his country) on a horse without a saddle; flying from rank to rank like a young officer, and sustaining the most arduous toils. The fight was very obstinate, and continued from morning till night, but at last the Carthaginians gave way. Scipio used to say afterwards, that he had been present at many battles, but at none with so much pleasure as at this; having never before beheld so formidable an army engage, ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... strolling round the town, I ran into a couple of English correspondents. There were yet several hours before they need address themselves to the arduous task of describing fighting they had not seen, and they talked, with a good humor one sometimes misses in their correspondence, of German collectivism and similar things. One had spent a good ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl

... and completeness in all his undertakings. Nothing was left half done, or done in a hurried and slovenly manner. The habit of mind thus cultivated continued through life; so that however complicated his tasks and overwhelming his cares, in the arduous and hazardous situations in which he was often placed, he found time to do everything, and to do it well. He had acquired the magic of method, ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... bright eyes Soft glancing round, I mark a holy light, Pointing the arduous way that heavenward lies; And to my practised sight, From thence, where Love enthroned, asserts his might, Visibly, palpably, the soul beams forth. This is the beacon guides to deeds of worth, And urges me ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... best interests of the church are being jeopardized. There is the obvious necessity of altering the design of the roof of our beautiful building. You—whom I have always regarded as the essence of sanity, and my chief support in the arduous work which has been flung upon my shoulders, and which Mr. Unguin has been pleased to say I'm not incapable of carrying out—you would sacrifice those interests for a lot of old Indian fool talk. I never would have believed it. Never! Say," she turned to the others, and ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum

... and sufficient reward for a life of toil in leading one ignorant slave, one degraded outcast, or one vile heathen, to accept the offers of salvation. My observation in the field for thirteen years testifies to the fact, that no sympathy or enthusiasm will come down to the arduous details of missionary work, and persevere in it for years, that does not flow from such genuine and permanent love as our Saviour manifested when here upon earth. The more we become like Christ, the more shall we possess of the ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble

... still, he waived with firmness, Others still, he put behind him. In eighteen hundred eight and twenty He declined the nomination For the Governor of Kentucky; And the post of Secretary Of the State, he soon vacated, To pursue more arduous duties. Chief among rejected honors, Were, the governor's dominion Of Arkansas Territory, And the trust of foreign missions, At Peru and at Colombia; And a place among the jurists Of the land's Supreme ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... shall have a staff to aid you on one side and my arm on t'other, and shall attempt no great distance until you grow stronger." So having found and cut a staff to serve him, we set off together upon our long and arduous pilgrimage. ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol

... regularly would be able to go all over them in a few minutes, and no time would be wasted. As it is, at any aerodrome one sees a machine come down, the pilot and passenger (a fare or a pupil) climb out, the mechanics hang round and smoke cigarettes, unless they have to perform the arduous duties of filling up with petrol. In due course another passenger and a pilot climb in, a mechanic swings the propeller, and away they go quite happily. If anything casts loose they come down—and it is truly wonderful how many things can come loose or break in the air without anyone being ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton

... tempestuous history of the period. Still, the event of March 13, 1881, did affect him powerfully enough to produce the most beautiful of all requiem masses: one worthy of the martyrdom it commemorated. For the Liberator met the base reward of his long and arduous struggle to help his people as nobly as had his great American predecessor, who, sixteen years before, had also fallen by a traitor's hand. Yet it is said that none who had known him doubted, as they laid the shattered form ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... attain. But if he has failed to achieve a niche in the Temple of Fame, he has at least secured a permanent place in the respect of the legal profession, and in the esteem of his fellow-citizens. If the scope of his mind has been narrowed by the arduous and incessant labour devolved upon him by his official position, he has yet been enabled to lead a life of more than ordinary usefulness; and future generations will probably listen with wonder and admiration, when they hear of the ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans

... wandering, they did not get enough to make it a very arduous task, and now I find that they want weeding. If children read nothing but a multitude of stories rather beneath their capacity, they are likely never to exert themselves ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of a bawd and an erstwhile prostitute, looks into her eyes, holds herself servilely, like an old servant, like a foolish, doting nurse, like an old, faithful, mange-eaten poodle. It is long since time for her to retire to rest, because she has money, and because her occupation is both arduous and troublesome, and because her years are already venerable. But no and no; one more extra thousand is needed, and then more and more—everything for Birdie. And so Birdie has horses, Birdie has an English governess, Birdie is every year taken abroad, Birdie has diamonds worth forty ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... makes at the head of his Ironsides; and he lets appear, notwithstanding his self-denying style, a consciousness and a triumph in his own skill as a tactician. He is still the genuine Puritan; but the arduous life, the administrative duties of a soldier and a general, have also been busy in modifying his character, and calling forth and exercising that self-confidence, which he will by and by recognise as "faith" and the leading of Providence, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... Constant, another Genevese, was a kindred spirit, who shared with Madame de Stael a delightful and profitable intimacy. Dumont; (so highly eulogized by Lord Macaulay,) the friend of Mirabeau and of Jeremy Bentham, was also of Geneva. De Candolle and his son gave to science their arduous labors. De la Rive in Chemistry, Pictet in Electrology, and Merle d'Aubigne in History, Gaussen and Malan in Theology, and many others, not unknown to fame, might be mentioned as continuing the list of distinguished ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various

... the upper, that it was impossible for him to bring together the few fragments of teeth which still remained, or to speak a whole sentence in an intelligible voice. Eating and talking, occupations to which he was always much addicted, were becoming daily more arduous, in consequence of this original defect, which now seemed hardly human, but ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... now down, my lady fair, Light down, and hold my steed, While I and this discourteous knight Do try this arduous deed. ...
— The Book of Brave Old Ballads • Unknown

... home at Southampton, and to run down for a day to Gravesend, the scene of his philanthropic labours a few years before. Yet, with his extraordinary recuperative force, he hastened with fresh strength and spirit to take up a more arduous and more responsible task than that he had felt compelled to relinquish so short a period before. With almost boyish energy, tempered by a profound belief in the workings of the Divine will, he turned his face once more to that torrid region, where ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... the kingdom, and the open hostility of the Pope and of Philip the Second[1078] to any assembly that bore the least resemblance to a national council, Catharine and her principal adviser, the chancellor, had an arduous and well-nigh hopeless task. They strove to quiet the King of Spain and the Pope by the assurance that the prelates had only been assembled in order to prepare them to go in a body to attend the universal council soon to be convened. ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... not all. Hereditary statesmen have a foolish pretension: that of being initiated by long study into a certain science represented as arduous, which they call the science of public affairs and which they (like physicians with medical science) alone have the right to practise. They are not willing that an underling, a journalist for instance, or lower than that, an artist, ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... in advance of his age, and to his long and arduous researches—a basis built upon successively by Andrew Knight, Koehlreuter, Herbert, Darwin, Lubbock, Mueller, and others—we owe our ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson

... into the national treasury. Northerly and isolated as she is, her cities were burned, and her frontiers jealously watched by an alert and cruel enemy. Here, too, Arnold sowed his last seeds of virtue and patriotism, in his arduous march through the wilderness of Maine to the capital of the Canadas, an exploit which, considering the season, the poverty of numbers and resources, combined with the wild, unknown, and uncleared state of the country, may compete with the most heroic actions ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... time, for many bitter years, I was afraid to inquire, lest I should learn something injurious to a mother's name. Then there was the arduous and confined service of my profession, which kept me in distant seas: and the last journey and painful indisposition of my excellent benefactor, prevented even the wish to inquire after my own family. The offended pride of Mr. Powis, who was justly hurt at the cavalier manner in which ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... lower-form mistresses is less expensive, arduous, and lengthy. Students are required to give evidence of having received a good secondary education; they can then take their First Froebel Certificate after one year, and their Higher Froebel Certificate after about two years' training. The cost of ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley

... sitting posture. Michelangelo worked at the model in a hall called the Stanza del Pavaglione behind the Cathedral. Three experienced workmen were sent, at his request, from Florence, and he began at once upon the arduous labour. His domestic correspondence, which at this period becomes more copious and interesting, contains a good deal of information concerning his residence at Bologna. His mode of life, as usual, was miserable ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... drilled to perfection, they soon came to hold in the French service the esteem that later was given to Irish regiments in the service of England. King Louis welcomed them heartily and paid them a higher wage than his native soldiers. No duty was too arduous or too dangerous for the Irish Brigades. Seldom were they left to rust in idleness. Europe was a caldron of wars of ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... from the fulness of her heart at that that would have rewarded him amply for a more arduous and less amusing prospect than he was committed to. It was always touch and go whether this summer plunge into musical criticism wouldn't bore him frightfully. Pretentious solemnities of any kind were hard for him to tolerate and an opera season is, of course, stuffed with ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster

... been successfully endeavoring to bring about a union of the tribes who inhabited its valley. The Fort Wayne treaties gave a wider scope to his design, and he now originated his great scheme of a federation of the entire red race. In pursuance of this object, his exertions, hitherto very arduous, became almost superhuman. He made repeated journeys, and visited almost every tribe from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes, and even north of them, and far to the west of the Mississippi. ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... cause, it can be positively stated that the disfavor in which agriculture is held by the young men of Loudoun, who seek less arduous and more lucrative employment in the great cities of the East, is, in part, responsible, if not for the depletion, certainly for the stagnation of the ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head

... a veritable magician, who charmed with his genius hundreds and thousands of people. No arduous mental effort is necessary for the enjoyment of his verse, which is one reason why he is and will remain a popular poet. Browning can not be taken in just that way, any more than a man completely exhausted with the day's work can enjoy Siegfried or Hedda Gabler. ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... best possible speed. I realized that it was a case of judgment, as well as physical haste. We had dropped into that six-foot pit. Had we waited a few moments longer, the depth would have been a hundred feet, two hundred, a thousand! It would have involved hours of arduous descent—if we had lingered until we ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings

... On these arduous errands Machiavelli was frequently employed. He was sent to treat with the King of the Romans and with the Duke of Valentinois. He was twice ambassador of the Court of Rome, and thrice at that of France. In these missions, and in several others of inferior importance, he acquitted ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... attached to his return was by no means confined to his relations and friends—the public at large, whose sympathies had followed the traveller on his arduous way, were gratified to learn that he had again returned, after having made important discoveries, and tracked a considerable portion of the course of the Niger. Rumours were also current of his "hair-breadth 'scapes," and the lovers of novelty and adventure ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... adjective "little" whenever she asked a favor—it made the favor sound less arduous. But Anthony laughed again—whether she wanted a cake of ice or a marble of it, he must go down-stairs to the kitchen.... Her voice followed him through the hall: "And just a little cracker with just a little ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... exhibited such repeated demonstrations of their duty and affection, as must convince his majesty of their zeal in his service; nor could he want the knowledge of persons fit to be employed in all his secret and arduous affairs; finally, as the French king appeared to have violated the treaty of partition, they advised his majesty, in future negotiations with that prince, to proceed with such caution as might ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... what such a war would mean. When others thought of it as an adventure to be soon concluded, he recognized that there would be years of bitter conflict. He asked England to give up its cherished tradition of a volunteer army; to go through arduous military training; he saw the danger to the Empire, and he alone, perhaps, had the authority to inspire his countrymen with the will to sacrifice. But his work was done. The great British ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... only one who won praise and glory during that awful period. The companion of his toils was not idle. Her kindness to the prisoners—her arduous labors to do them good—her appeals to the government—her visits to the nobles—her ceaseless efforts—won for her undissembled gratitude and immortal renown. Nor are the acts of Mrs. Judson recorded alone on the records of Christian ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy

... seldom met any man so well versed in literature as Sir James Scarlett, or with a more refined taste for it; and when one reflects on the arduous duties of his profession—duties which he has ever fulfilled with such credit to himself and advantage to others—it seems little short of miraculous how he could have found time to have made himself so intimately acquainted, not only with ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner

... be it! For myself, my Canterbury Pilgrimage has done much; imprisonment on civil process, and want, will soon do more. I trust that the labour and hazard of an investigation—of which the smallest results have been slowly pieced together, in the pressure of arduous avocations, under grinding penurious apprehensions, at rise of morn, at dewy eve, in the shadows of night, under the watchful eye of one whom it were superfluous to call Demon—combined with the struggle of parental Poverty to turn it, when ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... thy soul doth show Her excellent double in the steadfast flow Of wishing love that through men's hearts doth go: At once thou shin'st above and shin'st below. E'en when thou strivest there within Art's sky (Each star must round an arduous orbit fly), Full calm thine image in our love doth lie, A Motion glassed in a Tranquillity. So triple-rayed, thou mov'st, yet stay'st, serene— Art's artist, Love's dear woman, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... forest. Too many of those composing this little army were deficient in soldier-like qualities. They had been recruited from the off- scourings of large towns and cities, enervated by idleness, debauchery, and every species of vice, which unfitted them for the arduous service of Indian warfare. Hence insubordination, and frequent desertion, were ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard

... did this arduous wooing continue. We are not accurately informed respecting Temple's movements during that time. But he seems to have led a rambling life, sometimes on the Continent, sometimes in Ireland, sometimes in London. He made himself master of the French and ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry

... following sermons were prepared for a country audience, and that they were the ordinary weekly production of a very young clergyman, struggling with bad health, and burdened with the performance of various other arduous duties. Many, I have no doubt, will think this apology for the author unnecessary. The facts now stated, however, when taken into consideration, must increase their admiration of Binning, his copiousness, his variety, both in regard to matter and style, the beauty of his imagery, the grandeur ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... assume the reins of empire, than his genius blazed forth with singular brilliancy, and the rapid development of his powers was a subject of universal wonder. Full of courage and energy, he found nothing too arduous for him to undertake; and he soon conceived the vast project of changing the whole system of his government, and reforming ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... great difficulty in acting at once with temper and firmness, so as to appear the benefactor rather than the tyrant. It is, indeed, an arduous and troublesome task; but I think I see a ray of ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel

... over, our work became very arduous, for we were to mount a rock, and in many places of the road, over natural stairs of stone. I submitted to this, which they told me was but a taste of the country, and to prepare me for worse things to come. However, worse things did not come that morning, for we dined ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... this occasion they chose a person named Vilumilla, a man of low rank, but who had acquired a high character with his countrymen for judgment, courage, and extensive views, entertaining no less an object than the entire expulsion of the Spaniards from Chili. To succeed in this arduous undertaking, he deemed it necessary to obtain the support and assistance of all the native Chilese, from the confines of Peru to the Biobio, and vast as was the extent of his plan, he conceived it might be easily executed. Having slain three or four ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... was watched and encouraged by the loving sympathy of Liszt, and when Wagner, overpowered by the grandeur and difficulties of his "Nibelungen" scheme, was on the point of laying down the pen, it was Liszt who urged him to continue in his arduous task, and to go on ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... dallying with his pets took up much of his time. Yet he often gave way to a fondness for composition, and there is in the family possession a sermon which he wrote before he was ten years of age, in which he showed the results of those arduous Sabbath days in the old Congregational meeting-house. And at one time, when yet very young, he was at the head of a flourishing boys' paper, while at another, fresh from the inspiration of a blood-curdling romance in a New York Weekly, he ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field

... properly speaking. In fact, when one had penetrated a few miles into the canyon passage was rendered arduous and difficult by a series of rocky terraces down which the stream tumbled. At many points the sheep trails winding along the slopes of the canyon walls formed ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter

... watch your actions with an interest at once detached and absorbed. But no one was more single-minded than Strickland. I never knew anyone who was less self-conscious. But it is unfortunate that I can give no description of the arduous steps by which he reached such mastery over his art as he ever acquired; for if I could show him undaunted by failure, by an unceasing effort of courage holding despair at bay, doggedly persistent in the face of self-doubt, which is the artist's bitterest ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham

... now a little known as her well-wisher. One of the two books I published was translated as a labour of love, as I shall never forget, by a Japanese public man whose leisure was so scant that he sat up two nights to get his manuscript finished. Before long I had involved myself in the arduous task of founding and of editing for two years a monthly review, The New East (Shin Toyo),[7] with for motto a sentence of my own which expresses what wisdom I have gained about the Orient, The real barrier between East and West ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... at the end of this term," he continued, in answer to Julian's inquiring look; "my health is so uncertain that I feel unequal any longer to these most arduous, most responsible duties. Perhaps, too," he added, "I may be a little disappointed in the result of my labours; but, at any rate, though as yet few are aware of it, this is my last month at Harton—so choose one of my books, Julian, ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... are in theory, they demand very arduous practice. Control of the breath by "opposed action" is hard and tiring muscular work, as the reader may easily convince himself by practising the above described exercise for ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor

... behalf. Not only did he trust in God that all the pecuniary aid which he needed would be furnished, but that, in answer to prayer, all needed wisdom would be given him in the conduct of his complicated and arduous undertakings. The result has met his most sanguine expectations. The institution has increased to a most magnificent charity, aside from its missionary, Bible, and tract operations; all its wants have been from time to time supplied; and it is at ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller



Words linked to "Arduous" :   operose, straining, difficult, arduousness, backbreaking, punishing, toilsome, effortful, laborious, strenuous



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