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Embitter   Listen
verb
Embitter  v. t.  To make bitter or sad. See Imbitter.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Embitter" Quotes from Famous Books



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Words linked to "Embitter" :   envenom, embitterment, resent



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