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Unbearable   /ənbˈɛrəbəl/   Listen
Unbearable

adjective
1.
Incapable of being put up with.  Synonyms: intolerable, unendurable.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Unbearable" Quotes from Famous Books



... my mind, Louise. The more I think of it, the more disinclined I am to have you meddle in the matter. Besides, it will do no good. You will only add to the prejudice against you, and our life will become more unbearable ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green

... him with a mania. His temper, bad at all times, became worse. Ellen, the veriest slave through her devotion to him, found her life at the Stronghold almost unbearable. ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe

... could not last long. His face was blistering in the heat, his eyebrows and lashes were singed off, and the heat was becoming unbearable to his feet. With a flaming brand in each hand, he sprang to the edge of the fire. The wolves had been driven back. On every side, wherever the live coals had fallen, the snow was sizzling, and every little while a retiring wolf, with wild leap and snort and snarl, announced that one such ...
— White Fang • Jack London

... Twickenham and its neighbourhood who had a tent in a field hard by, and whose joy at morning, noon, and night, was beer. These savages had an accordion and a penny whistle and other instruments of music wherewith to make the night unbearable and the day a heavy burden. They were known as 'The Tribe of the Scorchers,' and were a happy and a genial people, but their presence was inimical to the rising hopes of the drama. Nevertheless, Barndale worked, and the comedy ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray

... Willoughby. Whatever his sentiment toward the woman-friend of his youth, he was tied and bound by the stress of a love of which the call was primitive. He might be over-abrupt; he might startle her; but at the worst he should escape from this unbearable state of inactivity. ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... for the Crusades, something else must have happened to relieve the unbearable tension. The world was longing for a great deed, a deed overstepping the border-line of metaphysics, and its enthusiasm was sufficient guarantee of achievement. In the case of the individual, vanity and boastfulness played no mean part. Thus the Austrian minnesinger, Ulrich ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka

... unbearable. The people in the khan at Mazarib were laughing at us because that wretched Bedawi, a chance adherent, ruled our party. We plotted desperately to get ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall

... are sure that you would hate to be caught by your correct friends with any such consomme in front of you as we had to-night. You have got an eye suddenly for all kinds of gilt. You are in the way of becoming a most unbearable person.—Oh, look! the little one and the proprietor are having it now.—You are in the way of becoming a most unbearable person. Presently many of your friends will not be fine enough.—In heaven's name, why don't they throw ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane

... daughter of a country gentleman finds herself unprovided for at her father's death, and for some time lives as a dependant upon the kinsman who has inherited the property. Life is kept from being entirely unbearable to her by her young cousin Geoffrey, who at length meets with a serious accident for which she is held responsible. She is then passed on to other relatives, who prove even more objectionable, and at length, in despair, ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty

... constraint and unhappiness in the home atmosphere. Even the "bit o' good eating," which was the squire's panacea, failed in his own case. Antony, indeed, sat and laughed and chatted with an easy indifference, which finally appeared to be unbearable to his father, for he left the table ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr

... been thinking about it," he said, rising and going toward the door. "Something father said makes it sure that I shall have to go away." He fumbled with the doorknob. In the room the silence became unbearable to the woman. She wanted to cry out with joy because of the words that had come from the lips of her son, but the expression of joy had become impossible to her. "I think you had better go out among the boys. You ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson

... giddy and strange, and the aching at the back of my head was almost unbearable; but I began to walk with Day holding my hand, and after a time—he guiding me, for I felt very stupid—I began to trot; and at last, with my head throbbing and whirring, I found myself standing by my clothes, and my companions helped ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn

... dear, to have you argue like that against your own convictions. It was all his fault,—one only has to know her to be sure of it. He made things unbearable for her." ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... down at the boy. Scotty's face was dark with anger. Store Thompson, who pretended to be his grandfather's friend, to publish his disgrace before these strangers! It was unbearable! "I'll not be English," he muttered. "I'll jist be Scotch, an' my name's MacDonald!" He clenched his fists and wagged his curly head threateningly. "He must be right," said the man ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith

... to Taffy to come and be happy, too; and when Jack the Giant-killer changed to Jack in the Beanstalk, and when in the Transformation Scene a real beanstalk grew and unfolded its leaves, and each leaf revealed a fairy seated, with the limelight flashing on star and jewelled wand, the longing became unbearable. The scene passed in a minute. The clown and pantaloon came on, and presently Sir Harry saw Taffy's shoulders shaking, and set it down to laughter at the harlequinade. He could not see the ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... said this more from perversity than intent, for he had begun to wish himself clear of the affair—only how was he to give in to this unbearable clown! ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

... he left Virginia that Becky was at Nantucket. He had found some consolation in the fact that she was not at Huntersfield. To have thought of her with Randy in the old garden, on Pavilion Hill, in the Bird Room, would have been unbearable. ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey

... find the owl endurable," said she, "but since the war I have found him unbearable. He hoots all night and makes me so depressed that I feel that I shall ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)

... maple tree beyond him, piped his few notes with unbearable intensity. Discordant chirps assailed his ears from the lattice where the climbing rose put forth its few last blooms. Swaying giddily in a crazy pattern upon the white floor of the veranda, was the shadow of the rose, the plaything of every passing ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... slowly nearer, and when he saw the roof and eaves of the low house among the evergreens the great pulse in his throat leaped so hard that it was almost unbearable. He reached the edge of the lawn that came down to the road, and hidden by the clipped cone of a pine he saw ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler

... state of public opinion in England, it was realised that the Government, if they chose, were in a position to disregard it; and in Ulster the tension was becoming almost unbearable. The leaders were apprehensive lest outbreaks of violence should occur, which they knew would gravely prejudice the movement; and there is no doubt that it was only the discipline which the rank and file had now gained, and the extraordinary ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill

... had again settled down to the ordinary routine, a new plague, body lice, said to have been left by the invaders, made life almost unbearable for both races. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration

... movement ceased. It was as if the whole upper section of the glass dome had opened outward. But the heat of the bars was becoming unbearable, and gusts of hot air seemed ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... goes back to rescue his wife, and, lowering another rope, he calls to her that he will draw her up; but he hauls a demon to the surface instead. The demon thanks the wood-cutter for rescuing him from a malicious woman "who some days ago descended, and has made my life unbearable ever since." As in the Cukasaptati story, the demon enters a princess and makes her insane, and the wood-cutter cures her and marries her. Then the demon enters another princess. The wood-cutter is summoned; he has to resort to the well-known trick ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... Irene were to take it into her head to—he could hardly frame the thought—to leave Soames? But he felt this thought so unbearable that he at once put it away; the shady visions it conjured up, the sound of family tongues buzzing in his ears, the horror of the conspicuous happening so close to him, to one of his own children! Luckily, she had no money—a beggarly fifty pound a year! And he thought of the deceased Heron, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... the Governor in broken French, "I am, as you see, a dying man. Pray, if you can, tell that examining judge as soon as possible that I crave as a favor what a criminal must most dread, namely, to be brought before him as soon as he arrives; for my sufferings are really unbearable, and as soon as I see him the ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... counted; the girls fell into step, all but Flibbertigibbet—the Asylum nickname for the "Little Patti"—who contrived to keep out just enough to tread solidly with hobnailed shoe on the toes of the long-suffering Freckles. It was unbearable, especially the last time when a heel was set squarely upon Freckles' ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller

... except Sallie, who is a human barometer when she has guests. She knows by instinct when they are or are not being entertained. Nor was her tact at fault in seating the people, for I was the only one laden with almost unbearable knowledge, and I fell asleep that night thinking that possibly the situation was not so unusual as it appeared to me. I dare say plenty of dinners are given with just as many ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell

... has been lunching here and has just gone, as I write, but will transfer himself later to our house, as it has now become unbearable for him at Mrs. Ellsworth's. I fancy that arrangement has been brought to an end! Your presence in the menage ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... wisdom and moderation. Eager to redress the wrongs they had suffered, they determined to undertake the reconstruction of society. An outraged populace, whose minds were filled with bitter and long-treasured memories of wrong, resolved to revolutionize the state of misery that had grown unbearable, and to revenge themselves upon those whom they regarded as the authors of their sufferings. The oppressed wrought out the lesson they had learned under tyranny, and became the oppressors of those ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... Queen, with pity mov'd, To Pallas thus her winged words address'd: "O Heav'n, brave child of aegis-bearing Jove, Can we, ev'n now, in this their sorest need, Refuse the Greeks our aid, by one subdued, One single man, of pride unbearable, Hector, the son of Priam, who e'en now, Hath caus'd them endless grief?" To whom again The blue-ey'd Goddess, Pallas, thus replied: "I too would fain behold him robb'd of life, In his own country slain by Grecian hands; But that my sire, by ill advice misled, Rages in wrath, still thwarting ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... the strike was declared, Carmen had lived among these hectored people. Daily her reports of the unbearable situation had gone to Hitt. And through them the editor had daily striven to awaken a nation's conscience. Ames read the articles, and through the columns of the Budget sought to modify them to the extent of shifting the responsibility to the ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... unfrequently happens that a waiter would do without it rather than accept a tip which assumes the form of an insult. We look upon it as a remuneration due to us, and, after trying to satisfy the client, we do not see why he should think it an unbearable nuisance, and treat the recipient with contempt. In many cases, after exacting the most constant attention, and heaping unmerited abuse on the irresponsible waiter, the client who has most likely spent on himself enough to keep a ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... Change after change in their programme and theory of the Russian Trades Unionists has been due to the pressure of life itself, to the urgency of struggling against the worsening of conditions already almost unbearable. It is perfectly natural that those Unions which hold back from adaptation and resent the changes are precisely those which, like that of the printers, are not intimately concerned in any productive process, are consequently outside the ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome

... wrong, and do it right; and Father says he knows he has a bad temper, but he does not mean to pull the house over our heads at present, unless he has to get bricks out to heave at Lady Catherine if she becomes quite unbearable. ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... war of the Second Coalition. Bonaparte's seizure of Malta and Egypt without a declaration of war, and the unbearable aggressions of the French in Switzerland, Italy, and on the Rhine, stirred to action States which the diplomatic efforts of Pitt and Grenville had left unmoved. For none of the wars of that period was France so largely responsible. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... supposition that he was in the civil-engineering way of life, if he had not sat staring straight over my head whenever he listened. He was a goggle-eyed gentleman of a perplexed aspect, and his demeanor became unbearable. ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... invidious, vexatious; troublesome, tiresome, irksome, wearisome; plaguing, plaguy[obs3]; awkward. importunate; teasing, pestering, bothering, harassing, worrying, tormenting, carking. intolerable, insufferable, insupportable; unbearable, unendurable; past bearing; not to be borne, not to be endured; more than flesh and blood can bear; enough to drive one mad, enough to provoke a saint, enough to make a parson swear, enough to gag a maggot. shocking, terrific, grim, appalling, crushing; dreadful, fearful, frightful; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... great hall, with a high, vaulted ceiling, through which figures flitted and vanished. For a while, there were vistas of deep forests, always set in the same background of mountains and always under the same blue cirrus-laced sky. There was an interval of flickering blue-white light, of unbearable intensity. Then the man at the desk was surrounded by the interior of vast industrial works. The moving figures around him slowed, and became more distinct. For an instant, the man in the chair grinned as he found himself looking into a big washroom, where a tall ...
— Police Operation • H. Beam Piper

... title of Augusta. The new emperor, however, survived his elevation to the throne but seven months and once more Placidia was a widow. Her life, never a happy one, if we except the few years in which she was the wife of Ataulfus, whom she seems really to have loved, became unbearable after the death of Constantius. At the mercy of her brother who was fast sinking, at the age of thirty-nine, into a vicious and idiotic senility, she, always a sincere Catholic in spite of her romantic marriage with the Arian Ataulfus, seems to have been forced into a horrible intimacy ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton

... a thousand feet below the level of the Mediterranean, that is, below what we speak of as "sea level." In this respect it is unique in the geography of the world. In winter time the climate is equable; in summer it is unbearable. In peace time, even the Bedouin forsake it in summer. The district is pestilential to a degree, and, in no sense of the word, a white man's country. It possesses a feature of considerable importance in the river Jordan itself, almost the only river in Palestine with a perennial flow. ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock

... for the young couple, who promised to remove the only obstacle to their union by growing old and wise as soon as possible. If he had not been so genuinely happy, the little lover's airs would have been unbearable, for he patronized all mankind in general, his brother and ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... from childhood; but gaining man's estate, he had kept it in subjection (fearing it was not in accord with the strictest propriety, especially after taking orders) until he came to California. Here he had found a life of such loneliness, that, as a refuge from almost unbearable ennui, he had gone back to his youthful feline love with more than youthful ardor. When he came to take charge of the Mission, San Buenaventura, three years before, he had brought with him, carefully watched over, four immense cats, which had long been his pets. These he still had, and ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter

... allusion roused me to indignant passion, little as I was entitled to such pride. How shall we account for it, that every reminder of what man recognizes as degrading in his love life is never more unbearable, never more painful than between ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... that he had been blind all his life until this moment and would be forever eyeless again, an unbearable forever, if he did not look through the ...
— They Twinkled Like Jewels • Philip Jose Farmer

... p. 11.—Dr. Wilson writes: I must say I enjoyed it all from beginning to end, and as one bunk became unbearable after another, owing to the wet, and the comments became more and more to the point as people searched out dry spots here and there to finish the night in oilskins and greatcoats on the cabin or ward-room seats, I thought things ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... "Unbearable fellow!" cried Ebbo, when he had latched the door of the room he shared with his brother. "First, holding up my inexperience to scorn! As though the Kaisar knew not better than he what befits me! Then trying to buy my silence and my mother's gratitude with his hateful advance ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... certain other worlds, such wide extremes of bodily formation and mental capacities, that a picture of them in word or art would only be unbearable and in some instances decidedly revolting, just because we are trained here to one set of standards and chained to one surface of world conditions. It will be different in the after-death life to those who are wise enough to be pure and ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris

... blunders you make it attend, it will remember it and turn you out when its time comes; it will show you that your power is short, and so on the instant weaken that power; it will make your present life in office unbearable and uncomfortable by the hundred modes in which a free people can, without ceasing, act upon the rulers which it elected yesterday, and will have to reject or re-elect to-morrow. In finance the most striking effect in America has, on the first view of it, certainly been good. It has enabled the ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot

... manner in which a Hudson Bay factor could show his displeasure toward the interloper was by ignoring his presence—a very real penalty in a land of loneliness, where, at the best, men can only hope to meet once or twice a year—and by rendering his existence as unbearable and silent as possible in every lawful and private way. In the art of ostracising, Robert Pilgrim, the factor at God's Voice, was a past master; during the two and a half years that Granger had been in Keewatin ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson

... indeed true. Cortez had found his position unbearable. He believed that the attack upon the Spaniards, on the coast, as well as the meditated treachery at Cholula, were the outcome of the emperor's orders. His native allies had heard rumors, in the ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty

... was passed; he wished to be back with his wife and children in Pomerania. He writes to his wife from Baden: "I wish that some intrigue would necessitate another Ministry, so that I might honourably turn my back on this basin of ink and live quietly in the country. The restlessness of this life is unbearable; for ten weeks I have been doing clerk's work at an inn—it is no life for ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam

... a sensible man these, and take all the rest the world goes round. Tyranny was a bugbear. Either the tyranny was bearable, or it was not. If it was bearable, it did not matter; and as soon as it became unbearable the mob cut off the tyrant's head, and wise men went home to their dinner. To views of this sort he gave emphatic utterance on the well-known occasion when he gave Sir Adam Ferguson a bit of his mind. Sir Adam had innocently ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... was unbearable, and Mr. Porter said so. Pleased with the tribute, the choir re-doubled its efforts, and Mr. Porter, vociferating orders for silence, saw only too clearly the base advantage his wife had taken of his affection for his children. He took some ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs

... thought this he was already on his way back to the sharp angle he had passed round, and as he reached it his horror and despair became almost unbearable. ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn

... was absolutely unbearable for the first week after the detective left. The reason had nothing to do with the stolen bonds, but was concerned entirely with Polly Mathers's behavior. She barely noticed Rad's existence, so occupied was she with the ecstatic ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster

... overpowered by mute comparison of this day with days that had been. And when they got home they went each their own way, and made no attempt at exchanging words. Sir William went miserably to his study, his heart aching with a rush of almost unbearable sorrow as he thought of the bright little room upstairs to which he had been wont to hurry for the welcome that always awaited him. What should he do with his life? How should he fill it? he asked himself in a burst of grief, as he shut himself in. And so much had ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell

... had entered the drawing-room with a face radiant with joy, felt wounded by the children's joyousness at his own cost. To be the subject of scorn or sarcasm was then, as it was afterward, entirely unbearable to him, and when he himself also tried to jest he knew not how to receive the jests directed at him. After having saluted M. and Madame de Permont, Napoleon turned to the eldest daughter Cecilia, who, a ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach

... the chief was no match for the Shawanoe, who saw that the tempestuous rage of Taggarak threatened to master him. Accustomed throughout his life to be feared and obeyed, it was unbearable thus to be flouted to his face by a stripling, whom he felt able to crush like a bird's egg. He drew his knife, whose blade was several inches longer than the ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... have you think I was a quitter, but if you want to suicide me just send me back to that horrible place. Children!" he says. "That's all; just children! Dozens of 'em! Running all over the place, into everything, under everything, climbing up on you, sticking their fingers into your eyes—making life unbearable for man and beast. You never once let on to me," he says reproachfully, ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... Gaelic, yet they are Irish in thought and feeling. They are a Catholic people, yet on excellent terms with their Protestant landlords. Outrages are unknown, for though the rents are high enough, they are not unbearable by a people so industrious and skilled ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... applications for divorce than there ever were for separation. Can this be accounted for solely by the fact that formerly it seemed hardly worth while to take steps to obtain the qualified freedom of separation? I think not. For when a yoke is unbearable, efforts to relax it would naturally be quite as strenuous and as unremitting as efforts to get rid of ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet

... hour before Don Carlos reappeared, and Myra found the time of waiting and the suspense almost unbearable. She started convulsively to her feet as Don Carlos entered, and her heart seemed to miss a beat when she saw ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage

... sweet breath of flowers in the night seemed like an emanation from the young girl herself, and was as fleeting and intangible as the remembrance of vanished happiness. Again and again did his morbid nature return to past events, and make his present position more unbearable. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... without much difficulty in making him believe that she had spoken thus merely to punish him, because he was getting unbearable. He became calmer. She then informed him that she was tired out, that she was dropping with sleep. At last he decided to go home. On the landing ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France

... between the Government of India and myself as to the best way of dealing with these proceedings as to Legislative Councils. I will enumerate the points very shortly, and though I am afraid it may be tedious, I hope your Lordships will not find the tedium unbearable, because, after all, what you are beginning to consider to-day, is the turning over of a fresh leaf in the history of British responsibility to India. There are only a handful of distinguished members of this House who understand the details of Indian Administration, but I will explain ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)

... they wouldn't have me if I was given away with a pound of tea. Told me to go home and not be an old silly. [A sense of unbearable wrong, till now only smouldering in him, bursts into flame.] Young Bill Knight, that I took with me, got two and sevenpence. I got nothing. Is it justice? This country is going to the dogs, if ...
— Augustus Does His Bit • George Bernard Shaw

... compliment you end your review with! You and Hooker seem determined to turn my head with conceit and vanity (if not already turned) and make me an unbearable wretch. ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... front. But ... there were the burghers on foot and those who had weak horses; and I had not the heart to make them march on foot for so long a time, yet the thought of allowing such trustworthy patriotic burghers to fall into the hands of the enemy was unbearable. I therefore decided on letting them take a cross road to the north, to the banks of the Orange River about five miles from our position. There, on the banks of the river, were many bushes amongst which ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet

... gradation, and there is undoubtedly an immense difference between the two. Still its origin is an illustration on the largest scale in history of the force of legislation being exerted to counteract an irregularity that had become unbearable.[178] ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... of silence than he had expected passed. The sun, flaming red, was moving on toward the zenith, and no sounds of battle came from either right or left. The suspense became acute, almost unbearable, and it was made all the more trying by the blindness of that terrible forest. Harry felt at times as if he would rather fight in the open fields; but he knew that his commander-in-chief was right when he drew Grant into the shades of ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... scowled. Sick, shaken, and weak as he was, the cool, imperturbable impudence of the man was fast growing unbearable. ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... the royal family was so unbearable during the months which immediately preceded the 10th of August that the Queen longed for the crisis, whatever might be its issue. She frequently said that a long confinement in a tower by the seaside would seem to her less intolerable than those feuds in which the weakness ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... I think I won't trespass on your forbearance to that extent. Some lessons are so hard to master that life would be unbearable if one had to learn them twice over." Christopher ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

... and my eyes were gradually becoming worse. I could not read for longer than a few minutes at a time, otherwise they would smart severely. I had to rest my eyes each evening to enable me to use them the next day; in fact gas-light was getting unbearable because of the pain, and I made home miserable. A dear brother told me about Christian Science, and said that if I would read Science and Health it would help me. He procured for me the loan of the book. The first night I read it, it so interested me I quite forgot all ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... every well-meaning German boy and girl to please the police. To be smiled at by a policeman makes it conceited. A German child that has been patted on the head by a policeman is not fit to live with; its self-importance is unbearable. ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome

... Maria but he thought she could wait, and besides, he was at first flattered by the widow's attentions and amused by the novelty of the situation; but he never cared for the widow, and soon his chains became unbearable. As Peppino said, "There don't be some word to tell the infernalness it is when you are loved by the woman you hate." He exercised his contrapuntal ingenuity by devising schemes for circumventing this ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones

... surprised them by returning unexpectedly, it followed that they must reconstruct their plans; they would have to make it impossible for him to comply with his father's wishes. They could easily do that, or thought they could, by making life at the ranch unbearable for him. That, he was convinced, was the reason that Betty had adopted her cold, severe, and contemptuous attitude toward him. She expected he would find her nagging and bossing intolerable, that he would leave in a rage and allow her ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer

... ready and fleet, With features indignantly red, A poor Clerk wrote of his linen in rags, And this is what he said:— "Stitch! Stitch! Stitch! Yet I can't keep a decent shirt! The thing has reached an unbearable pitch, So—as an appeal to the poor and the rich— I sing the new ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various

... Secretary, he led a miserable life. With the advent of the dreadful Schleswig-Holstein question—the most complex in the whole diplomatic history of Europe—his position, crushed between the upper and the nether mill-stones, grew positively unbearable. He became anxious above all things to get Palmerston out of the Foreign Office. But then—supposing Palmerston ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey

... back on me like a retreating wave, going and coming again, which was and is my grief—I never had but one brother who loved and comprehended me. And so there is just one thought which would be unbearable if I went into your neighbourhood; and you won't set it down, I am sure, as unpardonable weakness, much less as affectation, if I confess to you that I never could bear it. The past would be too strong for me. As to Hope ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... especially the homes of Raoul Nathan and of Esther Gobseck. During the summer the count, then mayor of Blangy, lived at Aigues. His unpopularity and the hatred of the Gaubertins, Rigous, Sibilets, Soudrys, Tonsards, and Fourchons rendered his sojourn there unbearable, and he decided to dispose of the estate. Montcornet, although of violent disposition and weak character, could not avoid being a subordinate in his own family. The monarchy of 1830 overwhelmed Montcornet, then lieutenant-general unattached, ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... Conrad'ine. The French invaded the island, put the last two monarchs to the sword, usurped the sovereignty, and made Charles d'Anjou king. The cruelty, licentiousness, and extortion of the French being quite unbearable, provoked a general rising of the Sicilians, and in one night (Sicilian Vespers, March 30, 1282), every Frenchman, Frenchwoman, and French child in the whole island was ruthlessly butchered. Proc[)i]da lost his only son Fernando, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... again at the open port. Swinburne had furnished the key. Life was ill, or, rather, it had become ill—an unbearable thing. "That dead men rise up never!" That line stirred him with a profound feeling of gratitude. It was the one beneficent thing in the universe. When life became an aching weariness, death was ready to soothe away to everlasting ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... the sisters were practically living away from the house (of which more anon), and the loneliness of the silent house was becoming unbearable. To lads used to an active life and plenty of exercise, the distemper itself seemed a less evil than this close confinement between four walls. The bridge houses did not even possess yards or strips of garden, and without venturing out into ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green

... of the unknown. He waited a moment, wondering what manner of animal it was that had arisen from under his foot and that now made no sound nor movement and that must be crouching and waiting just as tensely and expectantly as he. The strain became unbearable. Holding the night-stick before him, he pressed the button, saw, and screamed aloud in terror. He was prepared for anything, from a frightened calf or fawn to a belligerent lion, but he was not prepared ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London

... were entertaining a family group. The everlasting dowager kept to them unpleasantly; making things unbearable, and wearing out her welcome in no slight degree, if she had only been wise enough to see it. She had escaped scarlet-fever and other dreaded ills; and was alive still. For that matter, the little Lord Elster had come out of ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... out to the sound of the trumpet; and as the horses' hoofs echoed on the lowered bridge, and mingled with their snorting and the jingle of the accoutrements, Roy felt his heart burn within him, and the longing to be free grew almost unbearable. ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn

... that this acuteness of feeling soon becomes blunted. One quickly learns to regard such things as an inevitable aspect of one's everyday environment. Thank God for this; life in the trenches would otherwise be unbearable. ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison

... quite on the cards that Julius P. Hersheimmer had left for Constantinople at a moment's notice if he fancied that a clue to his cousin's disappearance was to be found there. The energetic young man had succeeded in making the lives of several Scotland Yard men unbearable to them, and the telephone girls at the Admiralty had learned to know and dread the familiar "Hullo!" He had spent three hours in Paris hustling the Prefecture, and had returned from there imbued with the idea, possibly inspired by a weary French official, that the true clue to the mystery ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie

... she appears in all her youthful charms. But alas, how quickly is the spell broken. This wonderful singer has fallen into the hands of an incompetent teacher and the beautiful voice has been damaged until the tremolo is unbearable and we listen with pity at the havoc made in a few months of force upon the beautiful voice by such teaching. There never was an age when so many singing pupils are being taught, and yet we have no singers. Pupils do not apply themselves seriously to the ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson

... that, and see the pride and worthlessness of this thing that men call 'high life,' it seemed to me no longer heedless folly, but dastardly and fiendish crime, so that one can only bury his face in his hands and sob to know of it. And William, the more I realized it, the more unbearable it seemed to me that this glorious girl with all her God-given beauty, should be plunging herself into a stream so foul. I felt as if it were cowardice of mine that I did not take her by the hand and try to make her see what madness she ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair

... forced into doing so. Cyrus had become wedded to the house as a man becomes wedded to a habit, and since the clinging to a habit was the only form of sentiment of which he was capable, he shrank more and more from what he felt to be the almost unbearable wrench of moving. A certain fidelity of purpose, the quality which had lifted him above the petty provincialism that crippled James, made the display of wealth as obnoxious to him as the possession of it was agreeable. As long as ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... with the British navy when Nelson was winning immortal glory by his victory at Trafalgar must convince the most sceptical that his seamen for the most part were little better than galley slaves. Life on board these frigates was well-nigh unbearable. The average life of a seaman, Nelson reckoned, was forty-five years. In this age before processes of refrigeration had been invented, food could not be kept edible on long voyages, even in merchantmen. Still worse was the fare on men-of-war. ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... equanimity. It was, perhaps, the first time in my life that I regretted that my artistic education had over-sharpened and overstrung my nervous system, when I saw how manfully and bravely that man bore what seemed to me almost unbearable. His whole machinery of thinking was not complicated and not for a moment did qualms of "Weltschmerz" or exaggerated altruism burden his conscience and interfere with his straight line of conduct which was wholly determined by ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler

... there are resources for them to work upon; they could easily maintain themselves in comfort and gladness if they set to work. Then why don't they set to work? Oh, Jonathan, the torment of this monotonous answer is unbearable—because no one can make a profit out of their labor they must be idle and starve, or drag out a miserable existence aided by the crumbs of ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo

... in London had the right to be bumptious and didactic, Henry had. And yet he remained simple, unaffected, and fundamentally kind. But he was very serious. His mother and aunt strained every nerve, in their idolatrous treatment of him, to turn him into a conceited and unbearable jackanapes—and their failure to do so was complete. They only made him more serious. His temper was, and always had been, ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett

... the question stage of her development. It is "what?" "why?" "when?" especially "why?" all day long, and as her intelligence grows her inquiries become more insistent. I remember how unbearable I used to find the inquisitiveness of my friends' children; but I know now that these questions indicate the child's growing interest in the cause of things. The "why?" is the DOOR THROUGH WHICH HE ENTERS THE WORLD OF REASON AND REFLECTION. "How does carpenter know to build house?" ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... come into the situation? A firm basis for success had been established by a considerable increase in submarines; poor harvests confronted England, France, and Italy, who would find their difficulties unbearable by an unrestricted submarine war; France and Italy also lacked coal, and the submarines would increase its dearth; England lacked ore and timber, her supplies of which would be diminished by the same means; and all the Entente Powers were suffering from a shrinkage in cargo space ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... through. What could he do? The fire was gaining with every second, the whirling blower was literally dragging the flames toward them through the dry wood pile. Already the heat was increasing, it would soon be unbearable; at this rate their hold on life was ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett

... the war would be over before he was called upon to fight, and meanwhile the suit would be won, and they could begin again, this time on a different basis. The first thing different would be that she would have a child. It was unbearable that she should ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... calm, almost any degree of cold is bearable, but the application of successive doses of it to the face by wind, becomes, occasionally, almost unbearable; indeed, I remember seeing the left cheek of nearly twenty of our soldiers simultaneously frost-bitten in marching about a hundred yards across a bleak open space, completely exposed to a strong and bitterly cold north-west wind that was ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... Mr. Hardie's conversation is. He interests one in topics that are unbearable generally; politics now. I thought I abhorred them, but I find it was only those little paltry Whig and Tory squabbles that wearied me. Mr. Hardie's views are neither Whig nor Tory; they are patriotic, and sober, and large-minded. He thinks of the country. I can take some interest in what ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... upon her, she had not taken any substantial food, and now she began to feel faint for the want of it. As noon drew near,—the time at which she was accustomed in her father's house to eat dinner,—the pangs of her hunger grew unbearable. ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson

... bore himself according to his wont, thinking to silence the evil tongues of the little world about him, and keep sweet and alive the dear name which they were waiting to befoul and destroy. By Tuesday morning the strain had become unbearable. On pretences of business, of pleasure, of God knows what folly and nonsense, he began to scour the island. He visited every parish on the north, passed through every village, climbed every glen, found his way into every out-of-the-way hut, and scraped ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... itself much more obstreperously than Olivier's. And as Jacqueline could not explain it, and never dreamed that Christophe had a much clearer knowledge of their love than she had herself, she thought him unbearable: she could not understand how Olivier could be so infatuated with such a vulgar, cumbersome friend. Christophe divined her thoughts, and took a malicious delight in infuriating her: then he would step aside, and say that he was too busy to accept the Langeais' ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... for North Carolina's interior inhabitants who flock thither to breathe in its life-giving ocean breezes when Summer's torrid air becomes unbearable, and lazy Lawrence dances bewilderingly before the eyes. The Winter climate is temperate, but not congenial to Northern tourists, who like swallows, only alight there for a brief rest, and to look around on their journeying to and from the far South: yet Wilmington is cosmopolitan; ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton

... will see, his only desire is to establish the fact that his daughter did not commit suicide. She was all he had in the world, and the thought that she could, for any reason, take her own life is unbearable to him. Indeed, he will not believe she did so, evidence or no evidence. May I ask if you agree with him? You have seen Miss Challoner, I believe. Do you think she was the woman to plunge a dagger in her heart in a place as public as a hotel ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green

... during this season, the preparations for the coming campaign, including the building of shanties, transporting of traps, etc., are generally made at this time, and unless some preventive is used, the persecutions of the mosquitoes and other winged vermin, become almost unbearable. ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson

... this new Mr. Maybold, though he mid be a very well- intending party in that respect, he's unbearable; for as to sifting your cinders, scrubbing your floors, or emptying your slops, why, you can't do it. I assure you I've not been able to empt them for several days, unless I throw 'em up the chimley or out of winder; for as sure as the ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy



Words linked to "Unbearable" :   tolerable, impossible, unsupportable, insufferable, intolerable, bitter, impermissible, unacceptable, unendurable, unsufferable



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