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Laborious   Listen
adjective
Laborious  adj.  
1.
Requiring labor, perseverance, or sacrifices; toilsome; tiresome. "Dost thou love watchings, abstinence, or toil, Laborious virtues all? Learn these from Cato."
2.
Devoted to labor; diligent; industrious; as, a laborious mechanic.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Laborious" Quotes from Famous Books



... hours of laborious ascent, the small party of four (Diregus had taken with them only one of the boatmen) came within plain sight of the rim of Crater Lake, half a mile ahead of them, and almost perpendicularly above, though nearly two miles away measured along the shortest route that travellers ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake

... alarmed a plain-living man; and, metaphorically, the same thing held good in every concern of our lives, until simplicity became non-existent among us, and was forgotten. There were men and women in that Sunday afternoon gathering at the Albert Hall whose very pleasures were a complicated and laborious art, whose pastimes were a strain upon the nervous system, whose leisure was quite ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... wherein sedulous and unremittent readiness for instant action, comprehended by few, received a startling demonstration which none could fail to understand. As Nelson was pursued by ignorant sneers before the Nile, so Hawke was burned in effigy by the populace, at the very moment when laborious effort was about to issue in supreme achievement. The victory in either case is less than the antecedent labor, as the crown, after all, is less than the work, the ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... larger craft than the Lily, measuring fully thirty tons. My father and Winter had given a great deal of care and attention to her design, and the result was a very pretty model, though her lines were by no means so fine as the cutter's. She was immensely strong, owing to the fact that it was less laborious to build in the timbers just as they were taken from the Amazon, or only with such alterations as were imperatively necessary to bring them to the required shape, than it would have been to reduce them with the imperfect tools in the possession of the builders. The ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood

... would be left unmolested by them during the siege. Having done this, a large army was collected at St. Roque, Algeziras, and the Campo near Gibraltar, and immediately after the declaration of war, this force began its laborious operations for the reduction of Gibraltar. But many events demand notice before the results of these operations are recorded, for not a gleam of success attended their operations ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... exists—his reckless gaiety, his wild frolics, his open disposition. That he is careless and dissipated we admit, but these attributes end with his pupilage; did they not do so spontaneously, the up-hill struggles and hardly-earned income of his laborious future career would, to use his own terms, "soon knock it all out of him;" although, in the after-waste of years, he looks back upon his student's revelries with an occasional return of old feelings, not unmixed, however, with a passing reflection upon the lamentable ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... of mankind, especially in the country, disease and mortality are not so frequent, either among adults or their children. Health and posterity are the portion of the poor—I mean the laborious. The want of superfluity confines them more within the limits of nature; hence they enjoy the blessings they feel not, and are ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott

... ye be slothful? 4. The day of death and judgment is at the door; and will ye be slothful? 5. The curse of God hangs over your heads; and will you be slothful? 6. Besides, the devils are earnest, laborious, and seek by all means every day, by every sin, to keep you out of heaven, and hinder you of salvation; and will you be slothful? 7. Also, your neighbors are diligent for things that will perish; and will you be slothful for things that will endure for ever? 8. Would you be willing ...
— The Heavenly Footman • John Bunyan

... as the boatman told us, might make his way at the foot of Ben Durinish, namely on that side of the loch on which we were; there was, however, not the least track to be seen, and it must be very difficult and laborious. ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth

... of the painter's art as of the poet's. Note first the exquisite painting of the vine leaves, and of these flowers in the foreground, as an instance of the "constant habit of the great masters to render every detail of their foreground with the most laborious botanical fidelity." "The foreground is occupied with the common blue iris, the aquilegia, and the wild rose (more correctly the Capparis Spinosa); every stamen of which latter is given, while the ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton

... evening, towards the middle of the month, a closely wrapped figure, with a crutch under one arm and a stick in his hand, crept out from Hintock House across the lawn to the shelter of the trees, taking thence a slow and laborious walk to the nearest point of the turnpike-road. The mysterious personage was so disguised that his own wife would hardly have known him. Felice Charmond was a practised hand at make-ups, as well she might be; and she had done her ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... already described as made of two crooked branches of a tree, with a sharp point at one end and a round ball at the other, which they force into the ground by means of their breast, protected by a sheeps skin during this rude operation of tillage. Laborious as this mode must be even in a free soil, it is rendered still more so in Chiloe by the myrtle roots which everywhere infest their cultivated land. The little corn they raise can never be left to ripen in the field, on account of the heavy and frequent rains. It must be cut before it ripens, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... be fixed in him with which they could not comply, he always left the character of an ingenious and conscientious person." His talents for business were as remarkable as his talents for debate. "He was," says Clarendon, "of an industry and vigilance not to be tired out or wearied by the most laborious, and of parts not to be imposed upon by the most subtle and sharp." Yet it was rather to his moral than to his intellectual qualities that he was indebted for the vast influence which he possessed. "When this parliament began"—we again quote Clarendon—"the eyes of all men were fixed upon ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... and Moses Block, the rubber importer. It is unnecessary to deal further with this feature of the situation. Suffice it to say, the transaction,—if it may be so denoted,—was managed with the utmost regularity and formality. Elderly men and women were chosen for the clerical work which this rather laborious undertaking entailed. ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... miles inland; in doing which the chief led the way, and inquired after the criminals of every person whom he saw. In this search he would have gone to the very extremity of the island, if our commander, who did not think the object worthy of so laborious a pursuit, had not refused to proceed any farther. Besides, as he intended to sail the next morning, and all manner of trade was stopped in consequence of the alarm of the natives, it became the more necessary for him to return, that he might restore things to their former state. ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... letter will find me glad and grateful. I am well, but somewhat tired out with overwork. I have only been home a fortnight this morning, and I have already written to the tune of forty-five Cornhill pages and upwards. The most of it was only very laborious re-casting and re-modelling, it is true; but it took it out of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... this attempt was made during the reign of a minor king, when the royal authority is usually weakest that it was patiently submitted to; and that it gave so little umbrage as scarcely to be taken notice of by any historian. The painful and laborious collector above cited, who never omits the most trivial matter, is the only person that has thought this memorable letter worthy ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume

... made its lasting mark on English theological thought; Mr. Keble's masterly exposition of the meaning of Tradition; and not least, the important collections which were documentary and historical evidence of the character of English theology, the so-called laborious Catenas. These were the real tasks of the hour, and they needed all that labour and industry could give. But the first of these inopportune Tracts was an elaborate essay, by Mr. Keble, on the ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church

... have begun to popularise the results of their laborious researches; although it cannot be said that they have taken the lead of the age, we may at least affirm that they have gone along with it. They have not lingered in the rear. They have adapted their instruction and language to homely understandings, and have increased rather than ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... laborious work, the translation of Homer in blank verse, was published in 1791. Its stately, Milton-like movement, and its better rendering of the Greek, make this translation far superior to Pope's artificial couplets. It is also better, in many respects, than ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... Hill has illustrated the condition of Oxford as a University in the last century.... His first chapter ... embodies, in a lively and entertaining form, a highly instructive picture of the University, the materials for which only laborious industry could have collected."—THE SPECTATOR, ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell

... settlers in the Barrio de Dayap, of Cainta Town (Morong district), are decidedly of a different stock to the ordinary native. The notable physical differences are the fine aquiline nose, bright expression, and regular features. They are Christians—far more laborious than the Philippine natives, and are a law-abiding people. I have known many of them personally for years. They were the only class who voluntarily presented themselves to pay the taxes to the Spaniards, and yet, on the ground that generations ago they were intruders ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... paths. But, without knowing why, Chook and Pinkey sat as far apart as if they had freshly studied a book on etiquette. For to Chook this frail girl with the bronze hair and shabby clothes was no longer a mere donah, but a laborious housewife and a potential mother of children; and to Pinkey this was a new Chook, who kept his hands to himself, and looked at her with eyes that made her forget she was ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone

... were not agreeable on a long march. They were heavy and irksome, and when the heels were worn a little one-sided, the wearer would find his ankle twisted nearly out of joint by every unevenness of the road. When thoroughly wet, it was a laborious undertaking to get them off, and worse to get them on in time to answer the morning roll-call. And so, good, strong brogues or brogans, with broad bottoms and big, flat heels, succeeded the boots, and were found much more comfortable and agreeable, easier put on and off, and ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy

... ventilators, are, from time to time, relieved by fresh detachments. If the interior of the hive will admit of inspection, in very hot weather, large numbers of these ventilators will be found in regular files, in various parts of the hive, all busily engaged in their laborious employment. If the entrance at any time is contracted, a speedy accession will be made to the numbers, both inside and outside; and if it is closed entirely, the heat of the hive will quickly increase, the whole colony ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... side, the unhappy traveller may be exposed to a thorough draught, without any way of escape, unless by closing the window at his side, if he is fortunate enough to have a seat which places it within his reach. Another serious objection is the noise, which is so great as to make conversation most laborious. They are painstaking in their care of the luggage, for besides pasting on labels, each article has a numbered check attached to it, a duplicate of which is given to the owner; time is saved in giving up the tickets, which is ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter

... proportion of high school teaching is in the hands of women. In Australia our male teachers have to spend so many years before they are fully equipped that they rarely leave the profession. The only check on the supply is that the course is so long and laborious that the youth prefers an easy clerkship. Women, in spite of the chance of marriage, enter the profession in the United States in greater numbers, and as the scale of salaries is by no means equal pay for equal work, except in New York, ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence

... on his knees hunting berries which he knew were good to eat. It was a laborious way to get breakfast, or more properly dinner, but he succeeded in finding enough to still somewhat the gnawing in his empty stomach, and suddenly as he lifted his head a road lay before him. With hope that was almost a tranquil certainty he crept to the roadside and sat down. An hour ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins

... of a laborious profession, rendered still more arduous by indifferent health—added to many sorrows, and leisure (if such it might be called,) which permitted only occasional attention to the subject—and was liable to frequent interruptions; will, he flatters himself, give him a claim to the candour and kindness ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman

... and smiled, and Easelmann entered. Mr. Holworthy was emphatically at home, for he was on all-fours, his three children riding cock-horse, with merry shouts, varied by harmless tumbles and laborious clamberings up. Mr. Holworthy rose with a flushed and happy face, and the children rushed at once to clasp the knees of their familiar ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... menis consciences befoir beattin with the worde, that thei had no respect to thare awin particulare proffeit, bot onlie to abolishe idolatrie, the places and monumentis thareof: in which thei wer so busye, and so laborious, that within two dayis, these three great places, monumentis of idolatrie, to witt, the Gray and Blak theves,[774] and Charter-housse monkis, (a buylding of a wonderouse coast and greatness,[775]) was so destroyed, that the ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox

... Talcott's ears. It would have been strange if he had not been too much elated by his sudden success in the practice of a profession in which so very few win a speedy renown. Forgetful how much of the praise he received was due to his partner's laborious researches and unobtrusive learning, he suffered his vanity to lead him astray; becoming discontented with his position, and secretly repining at the necessity by which he was compelled to remain in an obscure ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... because I was one of them — of propounding a new theory — that of an evenly advancing ice-slope from the Antarctic plateau. We saw ourselves in our mind's eye ascending gradually to the top, and thus avoiding a steep and laborious ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... almost midnight. After a number of years thus spent, the expiration of the farmer's lease occasioned her removal. Her family were now grown up; she could afford, in consequence, to have recourse to means of subsistence which, if more scanty, were less laborious than those which she had plied so long; and so, removing to a neighbouring village, she earned a livelihood for herself and her infirm mother by spinning carpet worsted at twopence a-day, the common wages for a woman at that period.' 'The cottage which she now occupied,' ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... able to control the stream at its source we are able to some extent to prevent the contamination of that stream by filth, and ensure that its muddy floods shall not sweep away the results of our laborious work on the banks. Our sense of social responsibility is developing into a sense of racial responsibility, and that development is expressed in the nature of the tasks of Social Hygiene which now ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... his camp before the temple, for on that side it might be besieged, and there it was that Pompey took the city. So he parted the work among the army, and demolished the suburbs, end raised three banks, and gave orders to have towers built upon those banks, and left the most laborious of his acquaintance at the works. But he went himself to Samaria, to take the daughter of Alexander, the son of Aristobulus, to wife, who had been betrothed to him before, as we have already said; and thus he accomplished this ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... we scour the plain, Together climb the rocky ways; Regardless he of wind and rain Who loved to "live laborious days." ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... Paganism in detail with its great rival would be, even if I possessed the necessary learning, a laborious and unsatisfactory task. But if a student with very imperfect knowledge may venture a personal opinion on this obscure subject, it seems to me that we often look at such problems from a wrong angle. Harnack somewhere, in discussing the comparative success or ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray

... may be play to Paganini, but destruction to less fortunate musicians, for he swallows up all that would otherwise be distributed among many. An English violinist must work many long laborious days and nights before he can scrape together six hundred and eighty-seven pounds sterling—the sum, it seems, which the lucky Italian gets by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 491, May 28, 1831 • Various

... laborious little studies of still life or nature, the public would have none. Even the two life-sized pictures, which had more than a little merit in them, remained unpurchased. Both were for sale now; for Joseph needed no portrait of what was his; and Prince G—— naturally ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... could be got of the people of the country at this cape, that it was excessively laborious to take in a full supply of water here, and that there was no convenience for careening the ships, or procuring provisions, the admiral went next day to another point of land which seemed to be the most westerly in the island, which he named Cabo del Arenal, and came here to anchor, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... lies so inviting around the corner. He has faced, in his day, almost every form of attack that a serious artist can conceivably encounter, and yet all of them together have scarcely budged him an inch. He still plods along in the laborious, cheerless way he first marked out for himself; he is quite as undaunted by baited praise as by bludgeoning, malignant abuse; his later novels are, if anything, more unyieldingly dreiserian than his earliest. As one who has long sought to entice him in this direction or that, fatuously presuming ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken

... found that the strangers were gone, the horses were away, and with them everything that had been brought, even to the dress the lady had worn upon her arrival. In great anxiety they approached the bed: the lady still appeared in a deep sleep; her breathing was heavy and laborious, every attempt to awaken her was in vain; her eyes were opened and closed unconsciously, and without a word ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton

... arrange the warp threads diagonally from beam to beam, but with continuous weft (that is in weaving so as to get selvedges) the weft has the tendency to slip up on one side and down on the other, hence the weaving is made laborious. With a separate weft for each pick, i.e., for every once the shed is opened, there is naturally not this tendency, but this alleged diagonally woven cloth frays just as easily as any other piece of cloth without selvedge, so in either case ...
— Ancient Egyptian and Greek Looms • H. Ling Roth

... carmen, but on his own cabalgaduras. Such a servant, perhaps, I might have sought for years without finding; chance, however, brought one to my hand at the very time I wanted him, without it being necessary for me to make any laborious perquisitions. I was one day mentioning the subject to Mr. Borrego, at whose establishment I had printed the New Testament, and inquiring whether he thought that such an individual was to be found in Madrid, adding ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... Eyes reddish, fixed, sparkling; the Colour of the Face was of a red sufficiently fresh, and sometimes inclining to livid; the Sickness at the Stomach was frequent, tho' much less than in those of the preceding Class; the Respiration was frequent, laborious, or great and rare, without Coughing or Pain; Loathings; Vomitings, bilious, greenish, blackish, bloody; the Courses of the Belly of the same Sort, but without any Tension or Pain; Ravings, or phrenetick Deliria; ...
— A Succinct Account of the Plague at Marseilles - Its Symptoms and the Methods and Medicines Used for Curing It • Francois Chicoyneau

... could be approached only by water, the sides of which were composed of logs closely wedged together, which were two feet thick in their thinnest parts, and which could be separated only by a deliberate and laborious use of human hands, or by the slow operation of time. The outer surface of the building was rude and uneven, the logs being of unequal sizes; but the squared surfaces within gave both the sides ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... plenty—Indian-corn, that is, or maize—that it was not worth the farmer's while to prepare it for market. When I was in Illinois, the second quality of Indian-corn, when shelled, was not worth more than from eight to ten cents a bushel. But the shelling and preparation is laborious, and in some instances it was found better to burn it for fuel than to sell it. Respecting the export of corn from the West, I must say a further word or two in the next chapter; but it seemed to be indispensable that I should point out here how great to the ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... but Del Canto was superior in numbers, and Robles was himself killed and his army dispersed. After this the other Balmacedist troops in the north gave up the struggle. Some were driven into Peru, others into Bolivia, and one column made a laborious retreat from Calama to Santiago, in the course of which it twice crossed the main chain ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... unlimited excellence and power—institutions that will perpetually embody and express the exalted human force that inspired them. That our Government has thus far failed to exhibit such completeness, only argues that it has heretofore been in a formative condition—a condition of laborious trial, tuition, and growth, fitting it to realize ultimately its fullness, wherein it will stand related to previous conditions as the grand, symmetric beauty of the ear of grain stands related to its various ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... life Offered me to the muses. Oh, cut off Untimely! when thy reason in its strength, Ripened by years of toil and studious search, And watch of Nature's silent lessons, taught Thy hand to practise best the lenient art To which thou gavest thy laborious days, And, last, thy life. And, therefore, when the earth Received thee, tears were in unyielding eyes And on hard cheeks, and they who deemed thy skill Delayed their death-hour, shuddered and turned pale When thou ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant

... troubled by the thought of what she must have borne for it was difficult to imagine Sylvia engaged in laborious domestic toil. It had never occurred to him that her delicate appearance ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss

... sight of laborious indigence so affecting and so respectable, that it renders dissipation peculiarly contemptible, and doubles the odium of extravagance: every time Cecilia saw this poor family, her aversion to the conduct and the principles of Mr Harrel encreased, while her delicacy ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney

... schooling, and a lengthy list of items: the arrival of Black Monday, or a cessation of holidays, brings depressed spirits, and she returns to her occupation, deploring her unlucky stars which placed her in so laborious a situation—envies her cousin Sarah, who has caught a minor in her net; nay even perhaps would be happy to exchange circumstances with the thoughtless Miss Skipwell, who has run away with her dancing-master, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... nevertheless?—or will you wait to have me without interruption after the 20th, or perhaps 18th? It is true that fiance and dike-captain are almost incompatible; but were I not the latter, I have not the slightest idea who would be. The revenues of the office are small, and the duties sometimes laborious; the gentlemen of the neighborhood, however, are deeply concerned, and yet without public spirit. And even if one should be discovered who would undertake it for the sake of the title, which is, strange to say, much desired in these parts, yet there is no one here (may God forgive me the offence) ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... observations, of both which he can viva voce satisfy you. He will communicate to you his business in Holland, and I am sure you will assist him to the utmost of your power. He can tell you what an anxious and laborious life I lead here; and, what adds to my misfortune, how impossible it is, in the present critical situation of affairs, for me to quit this post for a single day; much more it is as yet impossible for me to leave long enough ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various

... uses its highest faculties and outwits her, having no intention that civilization shall drop below the plane to which it has been raised through long laborious centuries of time. Life becomes more diverse, more complex. The middle classes work harder to live; they have little leisure for thoughts, for introspection. Punishment is dire....Those that have leisure and yet not enough ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... leaving it to be continued by Soult. Whether he was influenced by intelligence of fresh armaments on the Danube, or of dangerous plots in Paris, must remain uncertain, but it is highly probable that he saw little honour to be won in a laborious chase of a foe who might prove formidable if ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... of my Coleoptera, and many hundreds of my butterflies, have been already described by various eminent naturalists, British and foreign; but a much larger number remains undescribed. Among those to whom science is most indebted for this laborious work, I must name Mr. F. P. Pascoe, late President of the Entomological Society of London, who had almost completed the classification and description of my large collection of Longicorn beetles (now in his possession), comprising more than a thousand species, of which at least ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... counsels, Whispering false lies, or mining men with praises, Train'd their credulity with perjuries, Corrupted chastity, or am in love With mine own tender ease, but would not rather Prove the most rugged, and laborious course, That might redeem my present estimation, Let me here perish, in all ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson

... conflicte, and in maner of an honest envie who shall do beste, not oonlie in the ffrenche tongue (wherin Mr Vallence after a wonderesly compendious, facile, prompte, and redy waye, nott withoute painfull delegence and laborious industrie doth enstructe them) but also in writynge, playenge at weapons, and all other theire exercises, so that if continuance in this bihalf may take place, whereas the laste Diana, this shall (Itruste) be consecrated to Apollo and the Muses, ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various

... to a survey for several years, the census could neither be deferred, nor had the consuls leisure to discharge their duty, when wars impended from so many states. An observation was made by the senate, "that an office laborious in itself, and one little suited to the consular office, required a magistrate for itself, to whose authority should be submitted the duties of the several scribes, the custody and care of the records, ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... old house.[65] In such cases, or upon migration to a different river, the whole of the timbers for the house have to be procured from the jungle, and shaped, and erected; and the process of construction is extremely laborious. But once the timber has been brought together upon the chosen site, the building goes on rapidly, and the whole of a house some hundreds of yards in length may be substantially completed within a fortnight. The main supports of the ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... through the thick woods, and flashing out upon the levels of the fields where the farmers were riding their sulky-plows up and down the long furrows in the pleasant afternoon sun. There was something in this transformation of man's old-time laborious dependence into a lordly domination over the earth which strikes the westward journeyer as finally expressive of human destiny in the whole mighty region, and which penetrated even to Halleck's sore and jaded ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... was true, so I made a requisition on Colonel Alexander of the Tenth United States Infantry, stationed at Fort Ridgely, for troops, and he sent me Company "A," commanded by Captain Barnard E. Bee and Lieutenant Murray. I supplied guides and interpreters from my Indians, and after a most laborious and painful roundabout march of many days, we reached the scene of the troubles, only to find, as I fully expected, the Indians gone. The dead were buried, and the troops, after remaining for some time, returned to ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau

... their oppressors had enwound them. In their existence, made up of silent and contained rage, in their hearts envenomed by numberless wrongs, in their consciences encumbered by the dupings of the wisdom of the strong, in this dark and laborious life, all penetrated with the bitterness of humiliation, had resounded a ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various

... talking. I almost expected Jack to be jealous of such a rival, but I wronged him: nothing could exceed his fondness for "baby boy," or the zeal of his Irish devotion to the little gentleman. Knowing that in the event of my removal, Jack must earn his bread by some laborious or servile occupation, I had kept him humble. He ate in the same room with us, because I never suffered him to associate with servants; but at a side-table; and he was expected to do every little household work that befitted his age and strength. A kind shake of the hand, ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth

... plunge, and the man had him by the collar. He felt himself lifted by a strong arm and laid across Roger's saddle. With his failing strength and stiff limbs, it was no slight task to get into place; and the return, though less laborious to the horses, was equally dangerous, because Gilbert was scarcely able ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... home. My better nature returned strong upon me. Everything was in accordance with my state of feeling, and I experienced a glow of pleasure at finding that what of poetry and romance I ever had in me had not been entirely deadened by the laborious life, with its paltry, vulgar associations, which I had been leading. Nearly an hour did I sit, almost lost in the luxury of this entire new scene of the play in which I had been so long acting, when I was aroused by the distant shouts of my companions, and ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... commentary on the intelligence of the average farmer that but few attempts have been made to supply the farmhouse with running water, adequate to the needs of domestic use. The men of the farm long ago realized that carrying water for stock in pails was both laborious and time-consuming, and very few barnyards have not had running water leading into a trough to supply the needs of cattle. In many cases this supply has been extended into the barn, and in some cases into individual stalls, ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden

... the better, perhaps. But you must hear me. I make a profession—an occupation more exacting, more wearying, more laborious, than that of your meanest herdsman—of that which others make a dissipation of the senses. And yet, Jovita, there is not the meanest vaquero in this ranch, who, playing against me, winning or losing, is not held to be my superior. I have no ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte

... had space to tell you more of these old names, which nearly all preserve a little local history, when they have not been stupidly and unnecessarily changed. But you may take this as a type of what many another will suggest, and in the laborious pages of the excellent M. Periaux you may discover much more for yourself. The sale of herrings, which was always a large and an increasing business on the northern coasts, was organised in 1348, and by 1399 a barrel ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook

... bring on a haemorrhage), but he had ever-recurring intervals of weeks and months during which he was totally unfit for work; while even at the best of times he had to husband his strength most jealously. Add to all this that he was a slow and laborious writer, who would take more pains with a phrase than Scott with a chapter—then look at the stately shelf of his works, brimful of impulse, initiative, and the joy of life, and say whether it be an exaggeration to call ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp

... aboard. All have deserted; either for good, and are gone to the "diggings," or only for the night, to take part in the pleasures and dissipations of the town. Now and then a boat may be seen, putting off from, or returning to, the side of some vessel better manned—by its laborious movement, and the unmeasured stroke of oars, telling that even it lacks a ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... did, for in a moment more, she had crawled in just as the hunters came to the foot of the tree. They were foiled of their game, and after consulting for a moment whether it was best to cut or burn down the tree, they concluded to burn it, as the less laborious way to dislodge the old bear. Accordingly, they dispersed in search of fire, leaving half their number to guard the tree while away. I saw at once that we were caught in a trap, and that nothing but coolness and strategy could save us. The tree ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle

... laborious, is generally performed now by the men, while the women do only the actual cleaning of ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga

... impression which the manuscript has made on my mind will be made on the minds of all who read your book—that it is the production of an able, laborious, enthusiastic, scholarly man, who deserves the gratitude and admiration of all who labor to perpetuate an interest in the language, literature, ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose

... freshness of step that moved the wonder and envy of Roland, who knew that, like himself, Nathan had been without sleep for two nights in succession; besides, having employed the intervening days in the most laborious exertions. Such an example of untiring energy and zeal, and the reflection that they were displayed in his cause—in the cause of his hapless Edith—supported Roland's own flagging steps; and he followed without murmuring, until the close ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... history of Cecil and the surrounding counties is interwoven with that of our common country, and how valuable as data of the past are the materials which invited the lover of truth to their discovery. One can scarcely estimate the laborious research involved in the task of gathering the component parts of a history which stretched over a period of nearly two hundred and seventy-five years. Old volumes, musty records, masses of court documents, correspondence (official and otherwise), previous historical ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various

... ought to learn the dead languages, you can find nobody who knows them; and it is amusing enough that people who don't know them, should be so obstinately bent on demonstrating the vices of the methods employed by us who do know them.' He was one of those wise and laborious students who do not read without a pen in their hands. He never shrank from the useful toil of transcribing abundantly from all the books he read everything that could by any possibility eventually ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley

... presence of Reduan, and they had still a lingering hope that the heavy artillery of the Christians might be locked up in the impassable defiles of the mountains. This hope was soon at an end. The very next day they beheld long laborious lines of ordnance slowly moving into the Spanish camp—lombards, ribadoquines, catapults, and cars laden with munitions—while the escort, under the brave master of Alcantara, wheeled in great battalions into the camp to augment ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... Reverend Mr. William Warburton of Newark upon Trent. This Gentleman, from the Motives of his frank and communicative Disposition, voluntarily took a considerable Part of my Trouble off my Hands; not only read over the whole Author for me, with the exactest Care; but enter'd into a long and laborious Epistolary Correspondence; to which I owe no small Part of my best Criticisms upon ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... fond delusion, bred up as he had been upon the wildest sea-coast, exposed to the full sweep of the Atlantic storm! She set him off upon his own scenery, to the destruction of his laborious English, as he dwelt on the glories of his beloved rocks rent by fierce sea winds and waves into fantastic, grotesque, or lovely shapes, with fiords of exquisite blue sea between, the variety of which had been to him as the gentle foliage of tamer countries. ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... advantage to them only who have made this easy reflexion: that the sensible world is that which we perceive by our several senses; and that nothing is perceived by the senses beside ideas; and that no idea or archetype of an idea can exist otherwise than in a mind. You may now, without any laborious search into the sciences, without any subtlety of reason, or tedious length of discourse, oppose and baffle the most strenuous advocate for Atheism. Those miserable refuges, whether in an eternal succession of unthinking causes and effects, or in a fortuitous concourse ...
— Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists • George Berkeley

... had to sit down in a big chair and rest, though she did not feel like sitting down and hated resting—and look quietly on while Miss Weldon fished each separate dish from the hot suds and held it out playfully for Nolan to wipe. It made a long and laborious task of the dish washing for Eveley, and she was quite worn out ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston

... read the "want" advertisements carefully, and at length paused at a paragraph which seemed to suit his fancy perfectly. "Cabin stewards wanted—White Star Line—New York and Liverpool." He cut out the clipping, folded it and stored it away. Then he proceeded to pack up his belongings, not a very laborious affair. ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath

... nearly as possible the chemise of European ladies. These asses were the first beasts they had observed employed in carrying burdens, for hitherto, people of both sexes and of all ages, especially women and female children, had performed those laborious duties. ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... of music we read of what men have been willing to do for the love of their art. It is not that they have been willing to do when told; but that they have cheerfully done painful, laborious tasks of their own accord. The name of every master will recall great labor willingly given for music and equally great suffering willingly endured, nay, even sought out, that the music might be purer to them. Poor Palestrina went ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper

... it is of pleasures, would seem to you, nevertheless, extremely laborious. To begin with, my dear, you must know that Louise-Armande-Marie de Chaulieu does her own room. I could not bear that a hired menial, some woman or girl from the outside, should become initiated—literary touch again!—into the secrets of my bedroom. The veriest trifles connected with ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac

... that more of our country-clergy would follow this example; and, instead of wasting their spirits in laborious compositions of their own, would endeavour after a handsome elocution, and all those other talents that are proper to enforce what has been penned by greater masters. This would not only be more easy to themselves, but more edifying ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various

... desire to say something, where many could say nothing, and few could say much, or from some other impulse, (for which it were now unprofitable to search,) have adopted themes either insignificant in themselves, or repugnant to truth; subjects barren, or improbable, or laborious, or palpably absurd. Thus Homer has celebrated the battle of the Frogs and Mice; Virgil sung of Bees; Polycrates commended Tyranny; Phavorinus sets forth the praises of Injustice; and Cardan pronounced the eulogy of Nero. The Golden Ass of Apulcius ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... gold)." Then, as Raleigh well knows that the public is on its guard against his exaggerations, he adds, "It will be thought perchance, that I am the sport of a false and cheating delusion, but why should I have undertaken a voyage thus laborious, if I had not entertained the conviction that there is not a country upon earth which is richer in gold than Guiana? Whiddon and Milechappe, our surgeon, brought back several stones which resembled sapphires. I showed these stones to several inhabitants of Orinoco, who have ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... silver lattice fenced a garden that was full of the quiet of evening. Golden bees hummed through the air, and there was the sound of quiet waters. How wild and laborious was the world he had come from, Heracles thought! He felt that it would be hard for him to return ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum

... Mrs. Johnson descended into our kitchen, she conjured from the malicious disorder in which it had been left by the flitting Irish kobold a dinner that revealed the inspirations of genius, and was quite different from a dinner of mere routine and laborious talent. Something original and authentic mingled with the accustomed flavors; and, though vague reminiscences of canal-boat travel and woodland camps arose from the relish of certain of the dishes, there was yet the assurance ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells

... she treated you so badly?" said Miss Sallianna, gradually forgetting her bashfulness, and reassuming her languishing air and manner—"there must be some laborious ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke

... rise, so many fall, a motion returning into itself. Nature is a circle, but man a spiral. No wonder he is dissatisfied, with his longing to get on. Eating and hunger, labor and rest, gathering and spending, there is no gain. Life is consumed in getting a living. After laborious years our money is ready in bank, but the man who was to enjoy it is gone from enjoyment, shrivelled with care, every appetite dried up. So learning devastates the scholar, is another plague of wealth, and our goodness ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various

... found virgin, but, like most other metals, is generally mineralized with some other body, from which it is impossible to separate it in such quantities as will pay for the expense, but by a very laborious and tedious operation, which cannot well be carried on but in work-houses erected for the purpose, and, therefore, exposed to the inspection of the king's officers. Gold, on the contrary, is almost ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... conjecture run wild, then animals, our fellow brethren in pain, disease, death, suffering and famine—our slaves in the most laborious works, our companions in our amusements—they may partake [of?] our origin in one common ancestor—we ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... i. and ii., exhibits, in a remarkable degree, the general defects and the particular merits and promise of this curious and (it cannot be too often repeated) epoch-making book. In the latter respect more especially it shows the "laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere" fashion in which the endless and, it may sometimes seem, aimless episodes, and digressions, and insets are worked into the general theme. The defects will hardly startle, though they may still annoy, any one who has worked through the whole. But if another wickedly ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... Laggan—spent part of her childhood in our New York Albany, then a town almost wholly given to traffic with the aborigines. To her we owe a description of the setting out of the young American-Dutch trader to ascend the Mohawk in a canoe, by laborious paddling and toilsome carrying round rifts and falls, in order to penetrate to the dangerous region of the tribes beyond the Six Nations. The outfit of this young "bushloper," as such a man was called ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston

... action of his, sent soldiers to seize his papers. And while I imagine they found nothing treasonable among those papers, yet, in the process of rummaging through them, they destroyed all the materials which Harvey had spent a laborious life in accumulating; and hence it is that the man's work and labours are represented by so little ...
— William Harvey And The Discovery Of The Circulation Of The Blood • Thomas H. Huxley

... Owen. During that strenuous fortnight of Toni's laborious study, Owen was so fully occupied with the visions of his brain that he had little time to spare for the flesh and blood inmate of his home; and though he was always kind to Toni, he did not notice that the laughter was ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... who took pleasure in all beautiful things. Cinnia was enchanting, and it was Tintoretto's first duty to paint her picture, and make her the principal object in Paradise. But look you! the Last Judgment by Tintoretto was a large painting, so large that to count even the heads upon it is laborious. The heads in each corner are counted separately, and then added together, It required some years, of course, to paint such a picture; and by the time Tintoretto had completed Paradise and commenced the lower regions, many ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... a laborious one, slipped by not at all unpleasantly. Mother Lecorbeau soon had a roof to shelter her little brood of swarthy roisterers; a rough shed, built over a hillside spring in a group of willows, served as the dairy wherein she made the butter and ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts

... still, That in our proper motion we ascend Up to our native seat; descent and fall To us is adverse. Who but felt of late, When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear Insulting, and pursued us through the Deep, With what compulsion and laborious flight We sunk thus low? Th' ascent is easy, then; Th' event is feared! Should we again provoke Our stronger, some worse way his wrath may find To our destruction, if there be in Hell Fear to be worse destroyed! What can be worse Than to dwell here, driven out from bliss, ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... of the technics used in the work, arranged so luminously as to form an admirable guide to every medical student. The whole system is here displayed with a modesty of pretension, and a scrupulosity in statement, well calculated to bespeak candid investigation. This laborious work is indispensable to the students and practitioners of Homoeopathy, and highly interesting to medical and scientific men of all classes. Complete Symptomatology and Repertory, ...
— Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde

... pleasure to putting the whole of the Iliad into English. "And this I dare assure the world beforehand, that I have found, by trial, Homer a more pleasing task than Virgil, though I say not the translation will be less laborious; for the Grecian is more according to my genius than the Latin poet."[417] The insistence on the necessity for kinship between the author and the translator is the principal idea in Roscommon's Essay on Translated Verse. According ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos

... print his verses. He cannot be said to have claimed any of them but the Farewell to the Court. His authorship of some, now admitted to be by him, has been confidently questioned. A critic so judicious as Hallam, for reasons which he does not hint, and a student as laborious as Isaac D'Israeli, have doubted his title to The Lie, otherwise described as The Soul's Errand, which seems to demonstrate his authorship by its scornful and cynical haughtiness embodied in a wave of magnificent rhythm. Verses, ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... half through dinner; the worst of Quisante was uppermost, and the exhibition depressed the others. The brothers were apologetic, Mrs. Gellatly gallantly suave; her much-lined, still pretty face worked in laborious smiles at every loudness and every awkwardness. Morewood was so savage that an abrupt conclusion of the entertainment threatened to be necessary. May, who had previously decided that Mr. Quisante would be much better in company, was travelling to the conclusion ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope

... away from home in order to see something of the world, as well as to avoid being apprenticed to a laborious trade," was my reply, for I did not consider it at all necessary to let my ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson

... at a small hamlet ten li out. The place was deserted save for a small starving boy, whose chief attention was given to laborious endeavors to make his clothing meet in certain necessary areas. He evidently had never seen a foreigner. As he directed his optics towards me he winced visibly. He walked round me several times, fell over a grimy pail of soap-suds, stopped, gazed in enraptured ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... confidential communication which he made to the authorities at Paris in 1697, in which he boasted that the Protestants had now all been converted, and that there were 198,483 new converts in Languedoc. "Generally speaking," he said, "the new converts are much better off, being more laborious and industrious than the old Catholics of the province. The new converts must not be regarded as Catholics; they almost all preserve in their heart their attachment to their former religion. They may confess and communicate as much as you will, because ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... horridly rugged country, now ascending hills so steep that we could only scramble up their sides by holding on by the branches and underwood, the descent on the opposite side being equally difficult and laborious; now forcing our way through deep ravines overgrown with underwood, all but impervious; sinking to the ground at every step, and raising on our snow-shoes a load of half-melted snow, which strained the tendons of the legs and ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean

... God; preferring the interests of my country, and of the Christian world, to my own ease and safety. On purpose to render my discoveries useful to the public, I have carefully and briefly recorded every circumstance deserving of attention, that occurred during my long and laborious journey; as relative to the provinces, cities, and places through which I travelled, and the manners and customs of the different nations among whom I sojourned. In short, I have omitted nothing deserving of notice, that occurred during my three years journey, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... after that to re-write pages that did not satisfy me. Just to see the Academy meant an honest day's labour and in Paris there were two Salons, each immeasurably bigger, and innumerable smaller shows into the bargain. And yet, that laborious May week never seemed to me so much ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... which persists in not allowing certain visions, intuitions, or representations, to be lost. Such a will must be able to act with the utmost rapidity, and as it were instinctively, and also be capable of long and laborious deliberations. Thus and only thus does the practical activity enter into relations with the aesthetic, that is to say, in effecting the production of physical objects, which are aids to memory. Here it is not merely a concomitant, ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce

... An expedition to crush the Lombards was a laborious and an expensive business, and Pepin had much to occupy him ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton

... persons who should chance to be in a like position at any time," replied Li Keen. "So grasping and corrupt are those who control affairs in Peking that I have no doubt they would scarcely hesitate in debasing even one so immaculate as the exceptional Ling, and placing him in some laborious and ill-paid civil department should he not accede ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah

... and is the most vivacious-looking religion to be met with at present. 'Elle a trois cents ans dans le ventre,' counts M. Jouffroy; 'c'est pourquoi je la respecte!' The old Pope of Rome, finding it laborious to kneel so long while they cart him through the streets to bless the people on Corpus-Christi day, complains of rheumatism; whereupon his cardinals consult—construct him, after some study, a stuffed, cloaked figure, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... the ascent of the ridge of the Alleghany, that had for some days bounded their view. The mountainous character of the country, for some miles, before the highest elevations rose to sight, rendered the travelling laborious and slow. Several days were spent in this toilsome progress. Steep summits, impossible to ascend, impeded their advance, compelling them to turn aside, and attain the point above by a circuitous route. Again they were obliged to delay their journey for a day, in order to obtain ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint

... the velocity of impact. Latterly the electro-ballistic pendulum, which by means of electric currents is made to register with very great accuracy the time occupied by the projectile in passing over a measured space, has superseded it, as being more accurate, less cumbrous, and less laborious in its ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... who free from all desire of external recognition, finds a rich satisfaction in the delights of investigation; and he regarded every demand on him to give proof of his capacity, as a vexatious but unavoidable intrusion on his unassuming but laborious ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... books and manuscripts were destroyed at the beginning of hostilities, which resulted in the Revolutionary war. The library, when entire, was a rare monument to the energy and perseverance of Mr. Prince, who, through a long and laborious life, never lost sight of this cherished project of his youth. It has never been merged into any other collection, but remains entirely separate, in accordance with the will of the testator. It has a special catalogue, ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various

... forsaken. During his seclusion from society, he had cultivated and improved the powers of that never-dying mind which was destined to expatiate for ever amid the unveiled glories of creation, and to enjoy, after its probationary trials in this laborious world, a Sabbath of ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... will be the direction of the bars. The reader will understand at once, without any laborious proof, that a given area of glass, supported by its edges, is stronger in its resistance to violence when it is arranged in a long strip or band than in a square; and that, therefore, glass is generally to be arranged, especially in windows on a ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... De Foe was now the garrulous old man, and his spirit (to use the words of an ingenious biographer) "like a candle struggling in the socket, blazed and sunk, blazed and sunk, till it disappeared at length in total darkness." His laborious and unfortunate life was finished on the 26th of April, 1731, in the parish ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... gave Aldus no concern; if he could render international services to learning, if he could help to set up among the humbler scholars of other lands such a fine rivalry of competitive cooperation as already existed among such leaders as Erasmus and Sir Thomas More, he should be well content to live laborious days and to die poor. Both these he did; but he gathered around him such a company of friends and collaborators as few men have enjoyed; he must have breathed with a rare exhilaration, born of honest and richly productive ...
— Printing and the Renaissance - A paper read before the Fortnightly Club of Rochester, New York • John Rothwell Slater

... occasionally to feel ashamed of themselves. If you want to feel ashamed of yourself, if you are complaining and whining, just picture to yourself Abraham Lincoln in his father's little hut, with no windows and no flooring, crouching by the fire and developing his mind by laborious writing on the back ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane

... bread, strewed ashes and sand over it, rubbed all smooth, and was plunged in my copy of Montaigne when he entered. This time he went straight to the window, looked at it, tried the stanchions, and then, with an amused attempt at being cunning and hiding his own vigilance, he asked me, with laborious hypocrisy, if I had seen Captain Lancy pass the window. And so for weeks and weeks we ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Governor-General of India goes out knowing little or nothing of India. I know exactly what he does when he is appointed. He shuts himself up to study the first volumes of Mr. Mill's History of India, and he reads through this laborious work without nearly so much effect in making him a good Governor-General as a man might ignorantly suppose. He goes to India, a country of twenty nations, speaking twenty languages. He knows none of those nations, and he has not a glimmer of the grammar ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright

... had now no means of refreshing himself but by breaking off and eating some of the pieces of ice. This, however, relieved his thirst; an hour's repose recruited his hardy frame, and, with the indomitable spirit of avarice, he resumed his laborious journey. ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... emergency as the last Sudan War, when the army dragged a line of railway with it down toward Omdurman. Petrol-driven cars to replace the expensive steam locomotives, easy rapid transit instead of the laborious crawl through the stifling desert heat—a complete railway installation, swiftly and cheaply called into being, instead of ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... suggestive led him to regard her solely in that light. No strain of modern humanitarianism complicated Miriam's character. One had not to take into account a possible melancholy produced by the contrast between her life of ease in the South, and the squalor of laborious multitudes under a sky of mill-smoke and English fog. Of the new philanthropy she spoke, if at all, with angry scorn, holding it to be based on rationalism, radicalism, positivism, or whatsoever name ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... the writing of the German character that took up so much of your time, and therefore I advised you, by the frequent writing of that character, to make it easy and familiar to you: But, since it is only the propriety and purity of the German language which make your writing it so tedious and laborious, I will tell you I shall not be nice upon that article; and did not expect that you should yet be master of all the idioms, delicacies, and peculiarities of that difficult language. That can only come by use, especially frequent speaking; ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... visitor that the Sardinian Government had no option under the new institutions but to establish the equality of all citizens before the law, and in Austria they were laughing at the progressive monarchy in its laborious efforts to obtain reforms carried out in the despotic empire by Joseph II. The reason that Rome refused to treat was that she thought herself strong and Sardinia weak. Writers on this period have too readily assumed that the Church, ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... queer people. Those of the foreigners who sympathize with them are apt to call them realists, positivists, and calculants, but we Servians, knowing them, understand that such definitions applied to them are flattering euphemisms and nothing more. The Bulgarian people are really laborious and thrifty. Unfortunately the cultured members of Bulgarian society, who studied abroad, bear in their social and political life the fundamental characteristics ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times

... justice was at once terrible and amiable. Plutarch relates that he never wore a dress that cost more than thirty shillings; that his wine was no better than what was consumed by his slaves; and that by leading a laborious life, he meant to harden his constitution for the service of his country. He never ceased to condemn the luxury of the times. On this subject a remarkable apophthegm is recorded by Plutarch; It ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus

... head of Jove, and this great and beneficial change in the lot of mankind will at once become an accomplished fact. There will be no need for keeping in touch with human nature, no call for patience and all that laborious upbuilding stone by stone which is so apt to discourage mankind and imperil the fruition of great reforms. No, sir; you—you must be this League, and we will all work to the end that tomorrow at latest there may be perfected this crowning achievement ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... inwardly groan at the signs of other and worse tempests ready ever to burst forth in the Atlantic of that young sinner's future course; and when after many weeks of anxious thought, fatiguing travel, and laborious inquiry you find a home for the child, fold your hands, give thanks and say, "What an adventure! What a toil! But now at length it is finished!" And yet perhaps it ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe

... that from this point George and I should carry the canoe about two miles ahead, while Hubbard carried the packs to a convenient place beyond the swamps and there pitched camp. It was about dusk when George and I, after a laborious struggle among the boulders and brush, put the canoe down and turned back. As we approached the place that had been selected for a camp, we looked expectantly for the glow of the fire, but none was to be seen. At length we heard axe strokes, and ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace

... interesting German settlement, formed in the last twenty years. The settlers have, by the most laborious efforts, cut down the dense scrub with which this part of the country was covered. Their frugality, their patience under many privations, and their industry have been rewarded. They grow maize, sugar, tobacco, and vegetables, but their cattle seem ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey

... knowledge becomes a source of power, and it is safe to assume that the one fact is at least part explanation of the other. It is highly important, therefore, that the student become early reconciled to the fact that the real mastery of knowledge is a long and laborious process. ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry

... like a toad, without lifting himself. He enlivens his toil by exchanging remarks upon the weather as affecting the price of grain, the infirmity of my temper and other topics of personal interest, with an assistant, whom he persuaded me to engage by the day, pleading the laborious nature of this work of weeding. When two or three square yards have been cleared, they both go away, and return in half an hour with a very small basket, which one holds while the other fills it with the weeds. Then the assistant balances it on his head, and sets out ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA

... spent on one of those identical school-roofs under the electric lamps, a veritable fairyland of delight. The music and the song and laughter of three thousand happy children ring in my ears yet. It was a long, laborious journey up all the flights of stairs to that roof, for I am not as young as I was and sometimes scant of breath; but none sweeter did I ever take save the one under the wild-rose hedge I told of in "The Making ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... ardent, laborious youth, he faithfully shut himself up in libraries, attended public lectures, and gave himself a solid foundation of learning, which sometimes awakened surprise when discovered under the elegant frivolity of the gay turfman. But while arming himself for the battle of life, he lost, little ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet

... settled and serious occupation. The temptations to laziness which it offers are too great for any people luxurious or idle by temperament; and the demon of Luck is set upon the altar which should be dedicated to Industry. If one happy chance can bring a fortune, who will spend laborious days to gain a competence? The common classes in Rome are those who are most corrupted by the lottery; and when they can neither earn nor borrow baiocchi to play, they strive to obtain them by beggary, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various



Words linked to "Laborious" :   labor, laboriousness, backbreaking, hard, gruelling, operose, toilsome, arduous, grueling



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