"Distressing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... capacity to fill it. The wigwam of Massasoit is elegantly described by Mr. Arnold as "his seat at Mount Hope," (p. 23,)—and pungently, by Dr. Palfrey, as "his sty," in whose comfortless shelter, Winslow and Hopkins, of Plymouth, on their visit to the chief, had "a distressing experience of the poverty and filth of Indian hospitality." (pp. 183, 184.) Arnold tells us, the Indians "were ignorant of Revelation, yet here was Plato's great problem of the Immortality of the Soul solved in the American wilderness, and believed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... taken his motor-bicycle and gone for a trip into Italy," she said. "No, I do not think I should speak to him, even if he were here. He may come round in time, Francois. You can understand that it is terribly distressing; he hoped I would make a great marriage. You must allow ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... secret had been revealed to her, their relations had continued as before. She studiously kept up the fiction of his deafness by writing her orders. The question of allowing him to undertake his part as a spy had drifted into the background of her mind under the distressing and ever-present pressure of the crisis. He was to remain until there was war, and thought about anything that implied that war was coming was the more hideous to her ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... late, they say, Hath been in an uneasy way, Himself and colleagues not being let To climb into the Cabinet, To settle England's state affairs, Hath much, it seems, unsettled theirs; And chief to this stray Plenipo Hath been a most distressing blow. Already,-certain to receive a Well-paid mission to the Neva, And be the bearer of kind words To tyrant Nick from Tory Lords,- To fit himself for free discussion, His Lordship had been learning Russian; And all so natural to ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... to more ardent exertions by the distressing scene just witnessed, the pursuers pushed forward, with increased expectation of speedily overtaking and punishing, the authors of this bloody deed; leaving two of their party to perform the sepulture of the unfortunate mother, and her murdered infant. But before the whites were aware of their ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... pernicious is not only poison to those who, from any cause of corporal debility or mental affliction, are liable to the above diseases;—but it is also too frequently found to render the most healthy victims of these alarming complaints. And as nervous disorders are the most complicated in their distressing circumstances, the greater care should be taken to avoid such aliments as produce them, as well as to choose those which are the most proper for their relief and prevention. Those who are now suffering from the inconsiderate use of ...
— A Treatise on Foreign Teas - Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, - Entitled An Essay On the Nerves • Hugh Smith
... urgently distressing circumstances, sir. The fact is, that he inherited nothing from his father but a most scandalous list of debts, which he most honorably sold every farthing of his own little property to pay—relying for his subsistance upon the small stipend be was to receive from Mr. Thomas. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... an agonising pause, during which each member of the Club secretly deplored the distressing inefficiency of the others. Only Mrs. Roby went on placidly sipping her chartreuse. At last Mrs. Ballinger said, with an attempt at a high tone: "Well, really, you know, it was last year that we took psychology, and this winter we ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... which if he had done so even a single moment sooner, must inevitably have frightened the animal still more instead of checking its speed, although disastrous enough to himself as it was, and rendered more melancholy and distressing by reason of the presence of his wife's mother, who was there and saw the sad occurrence notwithstanding it is at least likely, though not necessarily so, that she should be reconnoitering in another direction ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... army that night was distressing in the highest degree. They were hungry, exhausted, dejected, and seventeen hundred dangerous wounds demanded immediate attention. There was but one surgeon of the expedition who survived, and he was a man ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... with an off-handed alacrity that was distressing to the responsibility burdened personality of the accredited representative ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... and consent, there could be no condition that would render it voidable at the election of either. Every law and precedent was in favor of the inviolability of the Putney marriage, and yet so powerful were the family influences and so distressing would have been the results of a finding in his favor, that the lower court preferred to disregard precedents and law rather than illegitimatize the innocent children of Jeremiah and Mary. The same view was taken by the higher court, which absolved Mary of "being fully acquainted with the legal ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... the least distressing—the least unsatisfactory idea," said he, in much agitation. "I thought Mr. Delrio an excellent young man; and she," indicating his companion, "tells me you know him ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... my part," I cried gladly. We shook hands. Jasper, Jr. slapped me on the back. "It's a most distressing, atavistic habit I'm getting into, knocking people ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... bigger fool than I looked or look a bigger fool than I was, and he pressed me quite earnestly to repeat some foolishness after him, about 'being a gold key,' when he said 'he was a gold lock,' I was very glad to get away from him, it was so distressing." ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... even changing her dress we were married—in the colonel's quarters, with every officer and every member of every officer's family on the reservation—even the children—standing by. And the women said, 'How distressing, Mr. Wickett, to have to leave in the morning!' and the men said, 'Tough luck, Dick'—and be sure I thought it was tough luck, and it would have been tough luck only by this time the entire post had got busy and got word to ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... Ling by the distressing nature of the oversight he had permitted that he could find no words with which to comfort Mian, who, after some ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... as a small province, lying in the estuary of a great South American river. It is wild and not beautiful, but the grass growing on its low plains seems to possess exceptionally nourishing and flavouring qualities. It resounds with the lowing of innumerable herds—a deep and distressing sound under the open sky, rising like a monstrous protest of prisoners condemned to death. On the mainland, across twenty miles of discoloured muddy water, there stands a city whose name, let us say, ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... the monstrous suggestion that capitalists fomented America's entrance into the war because they feared that otherwise the amounts loaned by them to the Allies might be jeopardized or lost, is a truly distressing manifestation of the willingness of some of our people—I trust not many—to believe evil of men simply because they have ...
— War Taxation - Some Comments and Letters • Otto H. Kahn
... to the great Earl, and the amount of estate to which her husband had become heir. There were those among them who could not understand Susan's genuine grief, and there were others whose consolations were no less distressing to one of her reserved character. She made brief answer that the squire was threescore and fifteen years old, his wife nigh about his age; that her husband was now their only child; that he was descended from a son of the great Earl John, killed at the Bridge of Chatillon, that ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... American army, was captured by Col. Harcourt of the British army. It was regarded as a very distressing event; and preparations were made to capture a British officer of the same rank, so an exchange could be effected. Col. Barton of the Rhode-Island militia, a brave and cautious officer, was charged with the capture of Major-Gen. Prescott, commanding the royal army at Newport. On the night ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... breathing-time during which their hopes were revived and their numbers recruited. It was observed, too, that the princes, of whose cruelty they had reason to complain, generally ended their career under very distressing circumstances. An ecclesiastical writer who is supposed to have flourished towards the commencement of the fourth century has discussed this subject in a special treatise, in which he has left behind him a very striking account of "The Deaths of the Persecutors." [308:1] ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... a rather disappointing affair since Beatrice had to remodel her wedding gown in order to wear it. That fact alone was distressing. And at the eleventh hour Steve was called out of town, which left Beatrice in the hands of her angel-duck brigade, who all felt it their duty to paint Steve in terms ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... of the army was equally distressing. Drastic drafting had long since taken into the army all the able-bodied men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five. Boys from fourteen to eighteen, and old men from forty-five to sixty, were also pressed into service as junior and senior reserves, the Confederacy ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... Polyansky, while he tried not to listen and wrote in his diary: "Where am I, my God? I am surrounded by vulgarity and vulgarity. Wearisome, insignificant people, pots of sour cream, jugs of milk, cockroaches, stupid women. . . . There is nothing more terrible, mortifying, and distressing than vulgarity. I must escape from here, I must escape today, or I shall go out of ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... blow was a heavy one. In the years following the war it added seriously to her financial embarrassment, and it has in many ways obstructed her prosperity. As a punitive measure, for the chastening of Virginia, it cannot be defended. Assuredly there was no ground for distressing Virginia by penal enactments that did not apply equally to every other State of the Confederacy. Common justice revolts at the selection of one man for punishment from eleven who have all been guilty of the same offense. ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... of prudence to serve you; but I must not exceed my ability, which is not very great; and I have several families on my hands who are by misfortune alone brought to want. I do assure you I cannot at present answer for such a sum as this without distressing ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... that I at once associated with distant musketry. All was then still, still as the grave, and, on glancing at the watch I wore strapped on my wrist, I saw it was two o'clock. A species of nervous dread now laid hold of me, and a thousand and one vague fancies, all the more distressing because of their vagueness, oppressed and disconcerted me. Moreover, I was impressed for the first time with the extraordinary solitude—solitude that seemed to belong to a period far other than the present, and, as I glanced ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... thought of returning empty-handed to his half-starved companions. The gray trees were not far away; he might reach them and make a mile or two on the back trail before dark, though he was weary and hunger had given him a distressing pain in ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... the gentleman under such distressing circumstances should be characterised by extreme delicacy and a chivalrous resolve to avoid occasioning any possible annoyance or uneasiness to the fair author of his pain. If, however, he should have reason to suppose that his rejection has resulted from mere indifference to his suit, he ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... told you my story. I conjured him to allow me to sit up with him and share any danger which might arise, but he implored me with irresistible earnestness not to add to his troubles by thwarting his arrangements. Seeing that I was really distressing him by my pertinacity, I at last allowed him to close the door and to turn the key upon the outside. I shall always reproach myself for my want of firmness. But what can you do when your own father ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of movement, and his mind was affected. The medical attendant called in said that he might linger thus for some time, but that, even if he recovered his intellect, which was more than doubtful, he would never be able to resume his profession. I could not leave Louise in circumstances so distressing,—I remained. The little money Duval had brought from Paris was now exhausted; and when the day on which he had been in the habit of receiving his quarter's pension came round, Louise was unable even to conjecture how it was to be applied for. It seems he had always gone for ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... election of bishops sometimes became a bitter party contest, with the unpleasant incidents of such competitions. In the midst of the controversy at home the publication of the Oxford Tracts added new asperity to it. A distressing episode of the controversy was the arraignment of no less than four of the twenty bishops on charges affecting their personal character. In the morbid condition of the body ecclesiastic every such hurt festered. The highest febrile temperature was reached when, at an ordination in 1843, two of ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... Headquarters and a sentry on duty and we silently filed up the long communication trench which was deep in dust as rain had not fallen for months. We passed fatigue parties coming down for rations and the dust was most distressing. The relief of trenches is usually a long and tedious process—handing over stores, getting receipts, pointing out anything of exceptional interest and generally getting settled down for ten or fourteen days. The Regimental Headquarters were about 200 yards behind the front line and connected ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... not forgotten Susan's behaviour in the past, and did not wish to have her for a friend. It was the more distressing because Susan had made a plan which she thought a very pleasant one, and was anxious to carry out. It was to ask her mother to allow her to have Sophia Jane on a visit in London. She would then be able to show her many things ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... and her father experienced that most distressing of motor experiences—waiting, while the afternoon that would have been so good for driving went by them. Every fifteen minutes they came in from sitting on a dry-goods box in front of the garage, and never did the repair appear to be any ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... it is simply a very distressing incident which I have been trying to forget ever since. It is all very well for you to laugh, but if you ever mention the subject again I'll leave you and go ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... One of the most distressing days we have seen was last Tuesday, when two hundred and fifty all broken down, stood and sat, three long hours, waiting and hoping that the Commissary would send bread or rations, but none came, and we could ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... This was in the drawing of the awful appearance of a "wopps" at a picnic (p. 76, Vol. XVII.), where the novelist appears as the handsome, but not very striking, youth attendant on the young lady who is overcome at the distressing situation. It must be admitted that ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... Speaker on that night was of the most distressing nature. A sincere and ardent enemy of the measure, he headed its opponents; he resisted with all the power of his mind, the resources of his experience, his influence, and his eloquence. It was, however, through his voice that it was to be proclaimed and ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... been removed from his soul Walter moved away. The whole world had suddenly become a different place. Although the calamity of Lola's disappearance was none the less distressing at least on his own particular horizon there no longer loomed the spectre of discharge and all the disgrace that accompanied it. He could have tossed his cap into the air for very joy and gratitude. In his relief ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... the pale-green shovel-hats I have designed must be more or less in the spirit. I must work in the dark and let my instincts guide me. The great love I bear to my people will certainly save me from distressing their noble spirit ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... face was distorted by an expression of pain, and she wondered if he, like some Europeans, found the barbarity of the desert music ugly and even distressing to the nerves. While she wondered a voice began to sing, always accompanied by the four instruments. It was a contralto voice, but sounded like ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... the Sheikh Burrachee alluded to was a relative whom he had seen at some time, and was to rejoin. For anything recalled to him by words he remembered at the time, though it passed from his brain the moment afterwards, neither pleasing him nor distressing him. His mind was like a lake, and ideas suggested in any way resembled clouds passing rapidly above it, reflected for a minute on the surface, and then gone. It was rather a curious thing that what Arabic he had picked up had not passed from him; ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... poetry; for, the instant a man has composed a verse in feet, and has woven a more delicate meaning into it by means of circumlocutions, he straightway concludes that he has scaled Helicon! Take those who are worn out by the distressing detail of the legal profession, for example: they often seek sanctuary in the tranquillity of poetry, as a more sheltered haven, believing themselves able more easily to compose a poem than a rebuttal charged with scintillating epigrams! ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... these people were most peculiarly and unpleasantly situated. Conscious in their own minds that the sentence of the law had been fulfilled upon them, it must have been truly distressing to their feelings to find that they could not be considered in any other light, or received into any other situation, than that in which alone they had been ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... own memory, too, when the victorious Sylla ordered Damasippus,[252] and others of similar character, who had risen by distressing their country, to be put to death, who did not commend the proceeding? All exclaimed that wicked and factious men, who had troubled the state with their seditious practices, had justly forfeited their lives. Yet this proceeding was the commencement of great bloodshed. For ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... massive a support for a creature so aerial. But mortal beauty must share human sorrows. The eyes of the beautiful being showed tokens of tears; her colour was heightened as she listened to her aged companion; and it was plain, from his melancholy yet displeased look, that the conversation was as distressing to himself as to her. When they sate down on the bench we have mentioned, the gentleman's discourse could be distinctly overheard by the eavesdropping soldier, but the answers of the young lady reached his ear ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... threaten him; but I told him the distressing truth, that I am very much afraid I shall fail if compelled to attempt a solo in public, for I know the audience at Mrs. Brompton's will be critical, and I ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... again tried to smother that tiresome little yawn, which seemed most distressing, when he desired to be most polite. Then he flicked off a grain of dust from his immaculate lace ruffle and buried his long, slender hands in the capacious pockets of his white satin breeches; finally he said with the most ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... said in a tone of great displeasure, "Truly, the return of a parent is a cause for grief; yet I hardly expected my presence to be quite so distressing to my only child. I had no idea that she had already learned to dislike ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... distressing event lately took place at Castellaz, a little commune of the Alpes-Maritimes, near Mentone. All the young people of the place being assembled in a dancing-room, one of the young men was seen to fall suddenly ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... an eternity he lay thinking, unable to come to any rational conclusion. The distressing effect of the light rays increased, rather than diminished, as his nerves became more and more unstrung. It seemed, even with, his eyes closed, that he could feel the weight of the cone of light upon his face. ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... not suspect. I thought there was no need of distressing her. I wanted to tell you while I was able, because—" Harry hesitated, then he continued: "Father wanted to tell you how sorry he was not to make any better provision for you," he said, pitifully. "He didn't want you to think it was because he cared any the less for you. ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Nickleby, crying bitterly, 'he is a brute, a monster; and the walls are very bare, and want painting too, and I have had this ceiling whitewashed at the expense of eighteen-pence, which is a very distressing thing, considering that it is so much gone into your uncle's pocket. I ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... of all his wishes without effort on his part, leaving nothing for his hopes, desires or struggles. The feeling that life is destitute of any motive or necessity for action, must be of all others the most distressing and insupportable to a rational being. The Marquis de Spinola asking Sir Horace Vere what his brother died of, Sir Horace replied, "He died, Sir, of having nothing to do." "Alas!" said Spinola, "that is enough to kill ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... height of thirty to forty feet. But the ground was covered with long, coarse grass, which was tinted a soft green in summer, but in winter was yellow and dry. At all seasons the haulms were so hard that the toes of one's boots wore out with distressing quickness. It was in winter that the grass ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... was very severe, and many soldiers were frozen at the outset. On January 29 the little band, five or six hundred French and Canadians, left Fort Saint-Louis, unfortunately without waiting for a party of Algonquins who should have acted as scouts. It was a distressing march. The soldiers had to walk through deep snow, and the unfamiliar use of snowshoes was a great trial to the Europeans. At night, no shelter! They had to sleep in the open air, under the canopy of the sky and the cold light ...
— The Great Intendant - A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada 1665-1672 • Thomas Chapais
... circumstances; but they complained of the men, who disliked and despised them. One soldier received thirty lashes for stealing fowls from them; and an order was issued forbidding soldiers or sailors, on pain of summary punishment, to leave their quarters without permission, "that an end may be put to distressing this distressed people." Two of the prisoners, however, while trying to escape, were shot by ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... distressing situation Don Gumersindo began to frequent the house of Pepita and her mother, and to pay attentions to the former with more ardor and persistence than he had shown in his attentions to other girls. Nevertheless, to ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... distressing groans and screams came forth. The surgeons, both Confederate and Federal, were busy, with coats off, sleeves rolled up, shirt-fronts and hands bloody. But ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... intelligent and learned priest. He was superior of a community, and he directed, here in Paris, the only review which ever was really mystical. He was a theologian much consulted, a recognized master of divine jurisprudence; then he had distressing quarrels with the papal Curia at Rome and with the Cardinal-Archbishop of Paris. His exorcisms and his battles against the incubi, especially in the female ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... to play one more very shameful, distressing, and final role in the free life of Liubka. She had already complained to Lichonin for a long time that the presence of Simanovsky was oppressive to her; but Lichonin paid no attention to womanish trifles: the vacuous, fictitious, wordy hypnosis of ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... After these distressing scenes, in which my own spirit exhausted itself in suffering and in painful contemplation of the past; after recovering from that frenzy, a strange access of love, an extreme exaltation, led me to treat my mistress like an idol, or a divinity. A quarter ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... he said, "my case is far different from yours. You had an honorable origin and an honorable past. Nor were any of your adventures discreditable to you, even if some situations you have been in were distressing then and are humiliating to remember. You have nothing to be ashamed of unless it be such a trifling peccadillo ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... holding escaped from them and rattled down to the floor with a sharpness that I hear at this hour. Lord Iffield had already seized her arm; with a violent jerk he brought her round toward him. Then it was that there met my eyes a quite distressing sight: this exquisite creature, blushing, glaring, exposed, with a pair of big black-rimmed eyeglasses, defacing her by their position, crookedly astride of her beautiful nose. She made a grab at them with her free hand ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... to Rome, and all that he suffered there, without declaring that much of his correspondence during his government, especially during the latter months of it, and the period of his journey home, is very distressing. I have told the story of his own doings, I think, honestly, and how he himself abstained, and compelled those belonging to him to do so; how he strove to ameliorate the condition of those under his rule; how he fully appreciated the duty ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... much you may suffer from that most distressing and inconvenient complaint, a speedy and effective release from your sufferings is now offered ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... very distressing to his wife; and one day as she was sitting picking the lice out of Kora's head, she began to cry and Kora felt her tears dropping on to his back; he turned round and asked his sister-in-law why she was crying. She said that she could not tell him, as it would only make him ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... delighted to see her mixing with other young people," he replied; "she has a dull time, poor child, as a rule, and has felt the disappointment about her uncle's property more than she cares to confess. Mrs. Courtenay's illness is very distressing. My wife was speaking to the doctor yesterday: he considers Sir William Garrett ought to be sent for at once; in a few weeks ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... when you took your walks abroad," she said, smiling. "No one else seems to have discovered so distressing a state of affairs ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... invocation of the saints by the helpless were drowned in the united yelling of half-starved troopers in their almost superhuman struggle for existence. Fortunately the best order possible, under such distressing circumstances, was maintained by the splendid officers supporting Monet. They were men personally known to many of us years before. Lieut.-Colonel Dujiols commanded the vanguard; the rearguard was under Major Roberto White; the ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... steward in him, though I can hardly say they were completely deweloped. I did look forward to the day when I could consign him to Mr. Leach as my own predecessor, when Captain Truck and I should retire, as I have no doubt we should have done on the same day, but for this distressing accident. I dewoutly pray that Toast is deceased, for I would rather any misfortune should befall him in the other world than that he should be compelled to associate with Arab niggers in this. Dead or alive, ladies, I am an advocate for a man's ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... we walked about in the plaza and listened to the band playing and mingled with the populace at its distressing and obnoxious pleasures. There were thirteen vehicles belonging to the upper classes, mostly rockaways and old-style barouches, such as the mayor rides in at the unveiling of the new poorhouse at Milledgeville, Alabama. Round and round the desiccated fountain in the middle ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... an orator's worth. When he praises, he praises with all his heart. When he raises the strain of moral indignation we can almost always beneath the orator's enthusiasm detect the rhetorician's art. We shall have occasion to notice in a future page the distressing loss of power which at a later period this affectation of moral sentiment involved. In Cicero it does not intrude upon the surface, it is only remotely present in the background, and to the Romans themselves ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... pay as well for masses, confessions, and all the rest of his own hocuspocus? There followed a social chat, well liquefied, after which we took our ceremonious leave. Once outside, I learned the distressing fact that the shape of the padre's bows had required crystals costing twelve cents, instead of ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... Susan Walker Morse. In the mean time the distressing news had come from Charleston of the sudden death of Dr. Finley, to whose kindly affection and influence Morse owed much of the pleasure and success of his several ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... he steadily watched her. At that moment something within her was struggling, like a little, anxious, active creature, striving fiercely, minute though it was, to escape out of a trap. It seemed to her that it was the introduction of Hamza into her life by Baroudi that was furtively distressing her. ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... Council of State. The violent hostility in which you have lately indulged, without the shadow of a pretext, against the King's government, has rendered this measure inevitable. You will readily understand how much it is personally distressing to myself. My friendly feelings towards you induce me to express a hope that you may reserve yourself for the future, and that you will not compromise by false steps the talents which may still advantageously serve the ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... G. Prevost. There he married (22d June 1842), and spent the remainder of his life devoting himself to the preparation of those devotional commentaries, which are still so well known. He suffered for the greatest part of his life from a distressing and disabling chronic asthma—from the time that he came back to Oxford as Fellow and Tutor—and he died in 1865. The old friends met once more shortly before Isaac Williams's death; Newman came to see him, and at his departure Williams accompanied ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... ruinous cost, for he was now in the position, fatal to a governor, of a party man. Even from this situation he might perhaps have been able to extricate himself: so great was the respect felt for his rare qualities of mind and character. But a distressing malady almost incapacitated him for the discharge of public business, and at length, in November 1845, forced him to resign. At this time there was some apprehension of difficulties with America, arising from the Oregon question, and, in view of the possibility ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... the night, had they aroused themselves, in expectation of the return of the fathers, or of a signal for action. But the night wore away, and the morning dawned, without bringing either the one or the other. But notwithstanding this distressing state of suspense, they had a confidence too undoubting in the firmness and prudence of their leader, to think of approaching the Indian camp until they should receive ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... which he relied to turn the tide of dollars in his direction was called "A Passion in a Suburb," and was described as "a psychological study of madness," by Algernon Boyesen. It was horror for the sake of horror, which is always distressing, and it was a failure. It was food neither for the elect nor for the mob. Both classes demand a plausible excuse for stage happenings. The picture of an insane husband strangling his wife and child might be ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... We cannot get him to attend our young men's class with all the baits and traps we can set for him. Where does he spend his Sabbath-day and week-day evenings? We cannot find out until we hear some distressing thing about him, that, ten to one, he would have escaped had he been a reader of good books, or a student with us, say, of Dante and Bunyan and Rutherford, and a companion of those young men and young women who talk about and follow such intellectual tastes and pursuits. Now, if you are such ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... game goes merrily on, with Sandy collecting steadily on his hunch and Cora Wales telling her husband the truth about himself every time one of these three numbers didn't win; she exposed some very distressing facts about his nature the time she put five apiece on the three numbers and the single-o come up. It was a mad life, that last hour, with a lot of other enraged ladies round the layout, some being mad because they hadn't had money to play ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... The most distressing surmises as to the cause of the disappearance of our companions, now began to suggest themselves. We were so astounded by this decisive evidence of the presence of strangers upon the island, that we scarcely knew what to do next, but at last concluded to ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... wonder that—with all this misery and death about him, and the sight of it distressing him—Noll should grow sick at heart? The gloom of the old stone house and the desolateness of his new home, when compared with the one which he had left, had, at first, been all that his fresh young spirits could bear; and, having grown to like his new abode in a measure, he found, even ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... views, the sight of the dreadful people that they brought about her. In reality, Olive was distinguished and discriminating, and Adeline was the dupe of confusions in which the worse was apt to be mistaken for the better. She talked to Ransom about the inferiority of republics, the distressing persons she had met abroad in the legations of the United States, the bad manners of servants and shopkeepers in that country, the hope she entertained that "the good old families" would make a stand; but he never suspected that she cultivated these topics (her treatment of them struck ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... one instant; yet it was frightful to conceive the extent of combined villany and power which he must have employed in the perpetration of his designs. Let me do myself justice in one respect. The evil of parting from Miss Vernon, however distressing it might in other respects and at another time have appeared to me, sunk into a subordinate consideration when I thought of the dangers impending over my father. I did not myself set a high estimation on wealth, and had ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... and also slept in that posture, his lower jaw dropped by its own weight, when the voluntary power of the muscles was suspended. The mucus of his mouth and throat became quite dry, and at length was succeeded with sloughs; this was a most distressing circumstance to him, and was in vain endeavoured to be relieved by supporting his jaw by slender steel springs fixed to his night-cap, and by springs of elastic gum. The sloughs spread and seemed to accelerate his death. See Class ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... him, because although at first he would have gone almost any length to detect the persons, on reflection he was pleased that there was not evidence to bring them into a court of justice, the publicity and annoyance of which would have been inconceivably distressing to me. ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... dear Connie," said Lady Marcia, with a preoccupied look. "We have just heard distressing news. The ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... their troops, after having been blocked up in their camp till from want they were obliged to submit to the most humiliating conditions, were inhumanly massacred by Gulus'sa, the son of the Numidian king. The Romans chose this distressing juncture to declare ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... teeth; they do not seem to be aware how much the comfort, appearance, and future health of the child depends upon it. Nor do they subsequently impress upon the minds of their children how necessary, on their part, is the observance of certain rules for the preservation of the teeth, and how distressing are the effects which result from their neglect. It is proposed, here, to say a few words for the information and guidance of the ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... manner of laughter, and the point at which laughter first occurred, you know where the most educated and the least educated people are. Schopenhauer says that the intelligent man finds everything funny, the logical man nothing; and according to Erdmann (in ber die Dummheit), the distressing or laughable characteristics of an object, shows not its nature, but the nature of the observer. It would seem that the criminalist might save himself much work by observing the laughter of his subjects. The embarrassed, foolish snickering of the badly observing witness; the ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... this power of realisation is acquired, the coldness is speedily dispelled. Nor can it be doubted that in the management of thought, the dream power often plays a most important part in alleviating human suffering; illuminating cheerless and gloomy lives, and breaking the chain of evil or distressing thoughts. ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... progress is confused and put on a wrong footing when the consciousness of happiness or unhappiness, is made the primary test. The happiness of the child is quite apart from that of the adult. Regardless of distressing circumstances, the child is able to laugh and play, and this because he is a child; a child in his ignorance of actual life, and in his inability to perceive the true conditions in which he lives. Not otherwise, I take ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... vicinity, to abstain from mutual hostilities, which was strictly observed during the war, to the mutual advantage of both parties; who were thereby delivered from the horrors of a predatory, murderous warfare, equally distressing ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher
... have maintained a constant geniality in their humor, even in the treatment of distressing themes. For example, Josh Billings made the announcement that one hornet, if it was feeling well, could break up a whole camp meeting. Bill Nye, Artemas Ward and many another American writer have given in profusion of amiable sillinesses to make the nation laugh. It ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... order that members might consult their constituents and sound the public feeling. During this recess it may be conceived that neither side was slack in its efforts. Franklin for his share contributed a pamphlet, entitled "Cool Thoughts on the Present Situation of our Public Affairs." "Mischievous and distressing," he said, as the frequent disputes "have been found to both proprietaries and people, it does not appear that there is any prospect of their being extinguished, till either the proprietary purse is unable to support them, or the spirit of the ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... on, fatiguing, distressing in its length and its happenings. Progress was necessarily slow, the perils of the road increasing as the little cavalcade wound deeper and deeper into the wilderness. There were times when the coach fairly crawled along the edge of a precipice, a proceeding so hazardous that Beverly ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... of patriotism in England during the last year or two is a serious and distressing matter. Only in consequence of such a decay could the current lust of territory be confounded with the ancient love of country. We may imagine that if there were no such thing as a pair of lovers left in the world, all ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... proletariat in Coriolanus; "it exceeds peace as far as day does night; it's spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible.... Ay, and it makes men hate one another." For this distressing result of peace, the reason is given that in times of peace men have less need of one another than in seasons of war, and the crude argument closes with the cry: "The wars for my money." There is irony in this suggestion of the mercantile ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... at Mrs. Wood solemnly for a minute, and then he said he would. Then he bade Mrs. Wood good-morning, bowed himself out and walked around to look for the widow. When the real widow heard the news, she was deeply affected, and she sobbed in a most distressing manner. Subsequently she went into mourning. The life insurance company paid her the money due upon the major's policy. The major's lodge passed resolutions of regret, his family divided up his property, and the community settled down comfortably in the ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... said Mr. Brown, following the good lady down stairs, "how distressing for me! and to say that he ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that the "whistle" which the animal makes, will be a secret unknown to any one except herself and the horse. In the large majority of cases, roaring is a disease which increases with time, and the accompanying noise is distressing to all lovers of horses who hear it. Kickers, even with red bows on their tails, should on no account be ridden; for they are a danger to man, woman, horse, and hound, and are the cause of many accidents every hunting season. It would appear ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... prescribed for spasmodic asthma, and undoubtedly with some success; and the manner in which it affords relief in this distressing disease has been pointed out, when speaking of the narcotic and antispasmodic effects of this drug. But suppose it capable of relieving the paroxysm, when administered to a person unaccustomed to its deadly stimulus, it will by no ...
— A Dissertation on the Medical Properties and Injurious Effects of the Habitual Use of Tobacco • A. McAllister
... had—but, by God's blessing, Have not been troubled with them lately. Now I have answer'd all your questions without pressing, And you an equal courtesy should show.' 'Alas!' said Juan, ''t were a tale distressing, And long besides.'—'Oh! if 't is really so, You 're right on both accounts to hold your tongue; A sad tale saddens ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... Madame Theophile Mineur; on the day of the wedding little Berenice—named after a particularly uncanny heroine of Poe's by his relentless French admirer—scratched the long features of her stepfather. The entire town accepted this as a distressing omen and it was not deceived; Berenice Cot grew up in the likeness of a determined young lady whose mother weakly endured her tyranny, whose ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... the mail,—papers, letters, packages. Here comes news from home, sweet, tender, tearful, hopeful, sad, distressing news; joyful news of victory and sad news of defeat; pictures of happy homes, or sad wailing over homes destroyed! But the mail has arrived and we cannot change the burden it has brought. We can only pity the man who goes empty away from the little group assembled ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... Sir Penthony. "Miss Amherst, if you wish to make me eternally grateful you will point them out to me. There is nothing so distressing as not to know. And once I was introduced to a beauty, and didn't discover my luck until it was too late. I never even asked her to dance! Could you fancy anything more humiliating? Give you my honor I spoke to her for ten minutes and never so much as paid her a compliment. It was too cruel,—and ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... the sound dictates of reason and experience, we, in peace, neglect our military establishment, we must, with a powerful and skilful enemy, be exposed to the most distressing calamities." ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... missionary expressed his surprise at finding the different classes so little affected by the prejudices of sect in their intercourse with members of the mission. The illness of Mr. Lanneau became at length so distressing, as to require his absence from the field for nearly two years. Before his return to the East, which was early in 1843, the Committee had expressed an opinion, that it was expedient to suspend further efforts at Jerusalem. Mr. Lanneau, however, resumed his abode there until the visit ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... whole year round, but most at the equinoxes, as shown in the table on the following page. The winds, though somewhat less steady, are still very determinable. With an easterly tending, they deflect north and south, following the sun. In the drier season they blow so cold that the sun's heat is not distressing; and in consequence of this, and the average altitude of the plateau, which is 3000 feet, the general temperature of the atmosphere is very pleasant, as I found from experience; for I walked every inch of the journey dressed in thick woollen clothes, ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke |
