"Insufferable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are brought, and who returns them to the owners, on giving the marks or description of their property; and this strict fidelity and honest dealing is universal over all this kingdom. In this country, from the passover to the beginning of the succeeding year, the sun shines with such insufferable heat, that the people remain shut up in their houses from the third hour of the day until evening; and then lamps are lighted up in all the streets and markets, and the people labour at their respective callings all night. In this country pepper grows on trees, planted ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... coxcomb is just now devoting himself, body and soul (such as they are!) to that insufferable little intriguante, Madame de Marignan. He is to be seen with her in every drawing-room and theatre throughout Paris. For my part, I am amazed that a woman of the world should suffer herself to ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... King got rid of that little she-dwarf, named Mexica, in whose insufferable talk and insufferable presence the Queen took delight. But the sly little wretch escaped during the journey, and managed to get back to the princess again, hidden in some box or basket. The Queen was highly delighted to ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... melons in the market" under the walls of Rome, while the Castel Sant' Angelo was tricked out like a Christmas tree with quartered corpses—a man who told the authorities, when they complained of the insufferable stench of the dead, that the smell of living iniquity was far worse. Such a man was wanted. Therefore, in 1810, Murat gave carte blanche to General Manhes, the greatest brigand-catcher of modern times, to extirpate the ruffians, root ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... would say; and it might happen that an insufferable guest (who never got asked again) would object that the hymn part was unusual ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... war if they molested his fellow-countrymen. He met atrocity with atrocity. He believed it to be his mission to avenge the burning of British seamen and the Spanish and Popish attempts on the life of his virgin sovereign. That he knew her to be an audacious flirt, an insufferable miser, and an incurable political intriguer whose tortuous moves had to be watched as vigilantly as Philip's assassins and English traitors, is apparent from reliable records. His mind was saturated with the belief in his own high destiny, as ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... day, and then you'll admit that if she possesses lovable qualities she doesn't wear them every day. They are so rich, so odiously rich, that you never can forget it. She doesn't allow you to. And Julia is about as insufferable.' ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... professor at the school, to show him what an ignoramus he is. I consider him neither more nor less than a rascal; and really, now that I come to think of it, what he said about Michelet awhile ago was quite insufferable, outrageous! To talk in that way about an old master replete with ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... themselves, and the English statesmen were determined not to continue the war. Yet, on the whole, these terms were not altogether unsatisfactory to the people of England. The war was becoming an insufferable burden. The National Debt was swollen to a size which alarmed at that time and almost horrified many persons, and there seemed no chance whatever of the expulsion of Philip, the French prince, ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... not render the north of Europe uninhabitable, so the mosquitos do not prevent men from dwelling in the countries where they abound, provided that, by their situation and government, they afford resources for agriculture and industry. The inhabitants pass their lives in complaining of the insufferable torment of the mosquitos, yet, notwithstanding these continual complaints, they seek, and even with a sort of predilection, the commercial towns of Mompox, Santa Marta, and Rio de la Hacha. Such is the ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... gone over on swift horses; but yet, when we reached the borders of the lake we were quite exhausted, and our hearts failed us. The heat of the smoke was insufferable, and sheets of blazing fire flew over us in ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... that which people called affection, regard. As for l'amour, that was the supreme egotism. The affections were simply a means to "make oneself paid." Affection! Bah! One did not offer it for nothing, bien sur! It was through this insufferable pretext that one arrived at governing others. "Comment? Your presence can give me happiness, and you will not remain always beside me? It is nothing to you how I suffer? To me whom you love you refuse this small demand?" Jouffroy opened his eyes, with a scornful glare. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... descended upon my father's face as he rose from the table, and drew me up beside him. 'Insufferable!' he muttered, as we left that curious place for the first and last time. I see it now with its long, narrow, uncovered tables, stretching between clammy iron stanchions, and supported by iron legs fitting ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... it is painful for me to discuss it, but if the money is not paid on the 14th, there certainly will be no marriage on the 18th." His insufferable smile was ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... more, eh?" he sneered, too mad to raise his voice to the more convenient bellow which seemed to soothe him as much as it distressed his listener. "Well, you've got a fool's mate in Sir George Covert, the insufferable dandy! And all you two need is a pair o' Panzas and a brace of windmills. Bah!" He grew angrier. "Bah, I say!" He broke out: "Damnation, sir! ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... in the library, Lilla felt that the time had come to "stop that nonsense." Her desire to learn Arabic now seemed to her an absurd caprice; and once more she had reason to wonder at her swift passage from one enthusiasm to another, her intense preoccupation with things that suddenly became insufferable. She entered the library dressed and hatted for the street, pulling on her gloves; and while occupied with her glove buttons said calmly, ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... wet blanket had awaited his return from Italia's classic shores. What an insufferable bore to be pledged, promised, all but tied to an unknown female whose only merit, he wilfully wagered, lay in ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... man to judge what difficulties presented to my view. I was away from my native country, at a distance prodigious, and the return to me unpassable. I lived very well, but in a circumstance insufferable in itself. If I had discovered myself to my mother, it might be difficult to convince her of the particulars, and I had no way to prove them. On the other hand, if she had questioned or doubted me, I had been undone, for the bare suggestion would have ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... rights, sooner or later, would have to be restored. We don't believe that three years would elapse after the close of the war before the keeping those States in a territorial condition would be abandoned as an insufferable anomaly in our system of government. State rights once restored, the people, maddened by the thrall that had been put upon them, would be very likely to vindicate these rights by rehabilitating slavery. Every incentive of high pride and every impulse of low spite would combine to urge this; and the ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... be careful,' I thought. The insane sniveling of this lodge brother distracted me. His arms came around me and he rested his head on me and wept. Insufferable ass! It was impossible to think. I remained with my eyes watching and repeating cautiously ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... house as I passed, but except for a black cat sunning herself on the top of the gatepost there was no sign of life about the place. My thoughts went back to Joyce, and I wondered how the dinner party at the Savoy had gone off. I could almost see George sitting at one side of the table with that insufferable air of gallantry and self-satisfaction that he always assumed in the presence of a pretty girl. Poor, brave little Joyce! If the pluck and loyalty of one's friends counted for anything, I was certainly as well off ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... insufferable. Go and talk outside. (He sits down again at the table, with his jaws in his hands, and his elbows propped on the map, poring over it with a ...
— The Man of Destiny • George Bernard Shaw
... indignant wife! While wanton carnage sweeps each crowded wood, And all the mountain torrents swell with blood! Lo! Where yon cliff projects its length of shade O'er fields of death, a wounded chief is laid! Around the desolated scene he throws A look, that speaks insufferable woes: Then starting from his trance of dumb despair, Thus vents his anguish to the fleeting air: "Dear native hills, amidst whose woodland maze, I pass'd the tranquil morning of my days, On whose green tops malignant planets scowl, Where hell ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... believe I have, Nan. I'm a spoiled child, I admit it. You and Dad spoil me, and all my friends do, too. I'm made to believe that the sun rises and sets in silly little Patty Fairfield, and it has made me a vain, conceited, selfish, insufferable Pig! That's what it ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... what sanction he had for that faith. He was a youngster at the time—I had just met him—when he went into a poker game at Wailuku. There was a big German in it, Schultz his name was, and he played a brutal, domineering game. He had had a run of luck as well, and he was quite insufferable, when Lyte Gregory dropped in and took a hand. The very first hand it was Schultz's blind. Lyte came in, as well as the others, and Schultz raised them out—all except Lyte. He did not like the German's tone, and ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... translated into English by an eminent scholar, it is therefore proper material to be worked into our services. As a matter of fact, a great deal of devotional language of which the Oriental liturgies is made up is prolix and tedious to a degree simply insufferable. Moreover in the case of prayers in themselves admirable in the original tongue in which they were composed, all is often lost through lack of a verbal felicity in the translation. If anyone questions this judgment, let him toil ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... learned and intelligent writers who quarrel with certain versifiers; I confess myself, like them, unwilling to be stunned by the Theseids of the hoarse Codri of the day. Bavius and Maevius undoubtedly are, as they ever were, insufferable persons. But it belongs to a philosophical critic to distinguish ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... This makes us insufferable to men of modesty and merit, and obliges us to herd with those of our own cast; and by this means we have no opportunities of seeing or conversing with any body who could or would show us what we are; and so we conclude that we ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... I'm there; if it's Sir Roger de Coverley, I'm there; I'll do anything to add to the general Schwaermerei. What the modern litterateur thinks it fine to write about Christmas being all sham sentiment is simply insufferable bosh. Christmas isn't in the least bit played out—though the magazinist may be, or may pretend to be. I think it's a grand thing to have a season for sending good wishes, for recollection of absent friends, for letting the young folk kick up their heels. I say, Linn, I hope there's going ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... person upon the stage takes any notice of them at all, or no: for if he supposes any one to be by,[C] when he talks to himself, it is monstrous and ridiculous to the last degree; nay not only in this case, but in any part of a play, if there is expressed any knowledge of an audience it is insufferable. But otherwise, when a man in a soliloquy reasons with himself, and pro's and con's, and weighs all his designs, we ought not to imagine that this man either talks to us, or to himself; he is only thinking, and thinking such ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... attorney known to memory—with the aid of his little book. He could lasso and throw any galloping criminal, however fierce, with a gracefully uncoiling rope of deadly adjectives. On all of which he properly prided himself until he became unendurable to his fellows and insufferable to Peckham, who would have cheerfully fired him months gone by had he had a reason or had there been any other legal esoteric to ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... indeed, a certain affection for Sir Charles Grandison. He is pompous and ceremonious to an insufferable degree; but there is really some truth in his sister's assertion, that his is the most delicate of human minds; through the cumbrous formalities of his century there shines a certain quickness and sensibility; he even condescends to be lively after a stately ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... previously, were all of them very coarse in their mode of expression, and the dramatists not very delicate in their plots, though in doing so they did but obey the dictates of fashion and the bad taste of the times. Even prolixity and circumlocution were countenanced, and the insufferable conceits we meet with in the poems of Donne, Cowley, and others, were highly relished in those days. Euphaeism (mentioned so often by Sir W. Scott in The Abbot,) was also then in vogue, and all these various peculiarities of style, language, &c. were indispensable ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... insufferable. If Bunthorne was an ass, he was at least clever, but this Wilkins—he was a whole drove of asses, and not a redeeming feature to the lot. He could no more account for his sudden popularity than we could, but he could not help realizing it after a week or two, and then, ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... "He was insufferable!" he declared stormily. "Great Scott! Does the man think I'm a child to be cuffed into obedience? I warned him for his own sake he'd better never lay a finger ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... many considerations that made him feel no injury at it. But the Cornal's utter indifference—that sent his eye roaming unrecognising into Gilian's and away again without a spark of recognition—was painful. It would have been an insufferable meal, even in his hunger, but for Miss Mary's presence. The little lady would be smiling to him across the table without any provocation whenever her brothers' eyes were averted, and the faint perfume of a silk shawl she had about ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... also must be silent on your insufferable share in the business. And for the other matter, the least arrogance or assumption I shall consider to absolve me at once from all obligation towards you of any sort. Such relationships ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... ever. "Here we are home again. Fancy me forgetting it was Sunday! Wasn't it funny? We met old MacTavish coming up from the station (not a single cab down to meet the train, of course!) and he looked so shocked. Really, this place grows more insufferable every day. It seems to agree with you, though, you're looking awfully well. Amy looks well, too. The new doctor must be something ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... did not leave me his money until my freshman days were far behind me, wherein lies the solace that he may have outgrown an opinion while I was going through the same process. At twenty-three I confessed that all freshmen were insufferable, and immediately afterward took my degree and went out into the world to convince it that seniors are by no means adolescent. Having successfully passed the age of reason, I too felt myself admirably qualified to look with scorn upon all creatures employed in the business ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... Pacific there would have been no "Credit-Mobilier" and its unsavory scandal, and it is safe to say that the road would not now be made to represent an expenditure of $106,000 per mile, and that Mr. Dillon and some others would not have so much money as to warrant them in putting on such insufferable airs. When it is remembered what use Oakes Ames and the Union Pacific crew made of issues of stock, it is not at all surprising that the president of the Union Pacific should think it an impertinence for a citizen to question the amount of capitalization or the use ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... I, quite sick of her, and my condition; you must do as you are instructed, I think. I can't help myself, and am a most miserable creature. She repeated her insufferable nonsense. Mighty miserable, indeed, to be so well beloved by one of the finest ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... the keeper of the gates of Mansoul. He therefore, with big and ruffling words, demanded of the trumpeter who he was, whence he came, and what was the cause of his making so hideous a noise at the gate, and speaking such insufferable words against ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... exception of the Dama Margherita, to whom Her Majesty is honey-sweet!" she added, as her glance rested on Eloisa; and growing hot as she dwelt upon the thought, she went on—"she hath a manner quite insufferable—she, who hath not more right than I to rule this court. If one were to put the question to our knights—'an Iblin or a de Montferrat?' would it make a pretty tourney ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... is insufferable! Extremely like Mrs. Martindale! Servants' gossip! How could I go and ask him? John has perfectly spoilt a good servant in him! But John spoils everybody. The notion of that girl sending him on her messages! John, who is treated like something sacred ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Nothing," was the reply. "Can we have beds?" "No," answered the master of the house. "Can we have some straw on which to lie?" "None, none," was the reply. On which Mr. Coleridge cried out, "Are the Hessians Christians?" To have their Christianity doubted, was an insufferable insult, and to prove their religion, one man in a rage, hurled a log of wood at Mr. C., which, if it had struck him, would have laid him prostrate! But more effectually to prove that they were Christians, "good and true," the men, in fierce ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... legislation and administration," says the Laybach Circular of May, 1821, "ought only to emanate from the free will and intelligent conviction of those whom God has rendered responsible for power; all that deviates from this line necessarily leads to disorder, commotions, and evils far more insufferable than those which they pretend to remedy." And his late Austrian Majesty, Francis the First, is reported to have declared, in an address to the Hungarian Diet, in 1820, that "the whole world had become foolish, and, leaving their ancient laws, were in ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... generally at 100 degrees to 106 degrees during the day, and I found it to be the case in all the northern States when the winter is most severe, as well as in the more southern. When on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, where the heat was most insufferable during the day, our navigation was almost every night suspended by the thick dank fogs, which covered not only the waters but the inland country, and which must be anything but healthy. In fact, in every portion ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... I had many talks on many subjects. He had found me a pretty good listener, for I had learned that the best way of getting at what was worth having from him was to wind him up with a question and let him run down all of himself. It is easy to turn a good talker into an insufferable bore by contradicting him, and putting questions for him to stumble over,—that is, if he is not a bore already, as "good talkers" are apt to be, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... worse thing. In a few cases it proceeds from modesty; in the majority from intolerable self-conceit. The man who keeps his eyes downcast in that affected manner fancies that everybody is looking at him; there is an insufferable self-consciousness about him; and he is much more keenly aware of the presence of other people than the man who does what is natural, and looks at the people to whom he is speaking. It is not natural nor rational to speak to one human being ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... think," I demanded, "that I will ever come here again, or advise any of my friends to come here? It is insufferable. I will write to the police—" But at this he began to shed tears and to wring his hands, saying ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... the gods and demons!" he cried, "I'm not going to stand for her going hunting with that man-net! If she catches any insufferable pup ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... all the company present, thus spoke, 'How shall I enough praise and admire the gentle Mignon for having put in my power to justice on this execrable wretch, and freeing you all from an insufferable slavery, and the whole country from their terror?' Then reaching the monster's own sword, which hung over his couch, his hand yet suspended over the impious tyrant, he thus said, 'Speak, wretch, if yet the power of speech ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... and sank forward upon its springs with a sigh of relief and the slow precipitation of the red dust which had hung in clouds around it. The whole coach, inside and out, was covered with this impalpable powder; it had poured into the windows that gaped widely in the insufferable heat; it lay thick upon the novel read by the passenger who had for the third or fourth time during the ascent made a gutter of the half-opened book and blown the dust away in a single puff, like the smoke from a pistol. It lay in folds and creases over the yellow ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... whispered, "I loved Ephraim, and it was because I left him that my heart closed up—because in insufferable pride and impatience I left him. Oh, my love, now I know that you loved me too." She rocked herself in a passionate desire for Ephraim's presence. The scene in the cold autumn wood at Fayette came back to her eyes and ears. She felt the very touch of his hand ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... me;—pardon me, but I will send that note: mustn't I chastise the fellow for this insufferable outrage?" ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... genial and complimentary. He, like Mackinnon, knew his business too well to let Savage Keith Rickman slip through his fingers. Like Mackinnon he was pleased with the idea of securing a deserter from the insufferable Jewdwine. But the Courier was full up with war news and entirely contented with its staff. Hanson was only ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... bearable. The company was chiefly composed of the tradesmen of the town, and the inhabitants of the neighbouring country; this was a sufficient reason for these refined young gentlemen to speak of them with the most insufferable contempt. Every circumstance of their dress and appearance was criticised with such a minuteness of attention, that Harry, who sat near, and very much against his inclination was witness to all that passed, began to imagine that his companions, instead ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... of the servants, however, had no parental string at which Mrs. Pilcher could tug, and the consequence was, that they decided that she was an insufferable bore. Old John, in particular, felt the ill effects of the heir of Applebite's appearance in the family, and to such a degree did they interfere with his old comforts, without increasing his pecuniary ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... and nearer still, until the pungent odour of the insufferable Eastern perfume of which the body is musk, suddenly struck the nostrils of the man for whom she danced, bringing a slight frown to his face, and causing him to thoughtlessly raise his right hand, which, as ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... Noyon and Soissons the architect, with a keen sense of interior form, had rounded the transept ends; but, though external needs might require a square transept, the unintelligence of the flat wall became insufferable at the east end. Neither did the square choir suit the church ceremonies and processions, or offer the same advantages of arrangement, as the French understood them. With one voice, the French architects seem to have rejected the Laon experiment, and ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... The insufferable monotony of the proposed recreation! Eleanor would not have watched the most brilliant performance at His Majesty's Theatre for a single evening under such uncomfortable circumstances, and to be asked to watch lesser whitethroats creeping up and down a nettle "almost ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... praying her to entertain his love, and requite it in like measure. The rector was advanced in years, but otherwise the veriest springald, being bold and of a high spirit, of a boundless conceit of himself, and of mien and manners most affected and in the worst taste, and withal so tiresome and insufferable that he was on bad terms with everybody, and, if with one person more than another, with this lady, who not only cared not a jot for him, but had liefer have had a headache than his company. Wherefore the lady discreetly made answer:—"I ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... in them are manifested the fulfillment of the wish implied in the erotic excitement in the company of the boy. The homosexual action of this wish fulfillment would have been insufferable to the dream censor; it must be intimated symbolically. And the remainder of the dream is accordingly nothing but a dextrous veiling of a ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... he was almost worn out, having spent the greater part of many nights reading instead of sleeping, in order to avoid the frightful visions, he happened to mention his insufferable condition to Osdeven. Far from ridiculing his rival, Osdeven, with great earnestness, encouraged him to relate everything that had happened to him in his sleep; and when Nielsen had done so, exclaimed, "I'll tell you what it is—these dreams you ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... like a mirage in the great glow of the valley; and a run due north through the well-tilled lands of the thrifty "saints," getting our best wayside meals at stations where buxom Mormon women served us heartily; still north and west, flying night and day out of the insufferable summer dust that makes ovens of those midland valleys. There was a rich, bracing air far north, and grand forests of spicy pine, and such a Columbia river-shore to follow as is worth a week's travel ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... offender in proper subjection without the severity of chains; but, after repeated promises of amendment on milder treatment, she had obliged the keeper to have recourse to this extreme by relapsing into the most flagrant and insufferable contempt of decency and order. Upon this information, HOWARD said mildly to the unhappy criminal, 'I wish to relieve you, but you put it out of my power; for I should lose all the little credit I have, if I exerted it for offenders so hardened and so turbulent.' 'I know,' ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley
... I was a baby I loved you, but that is long ago. Today, Tom, you're an insufferable cad and I—well, I'm too much like you to have two of us ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... she said quietly. "To insult and threaten a woman! You are nothing but an insufferable bully, and a cowardly murderer. You murdered a man on the Lotus whose little finger held more true manhood, bravery, and worth than the whole of your great, hulking carcass. You are only fit to strike from behind, or when your victim is unsuspecting, as you did Mr. Theriere ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... been written about the insufferable situation of the Russian Jews, these serfs of the twentieth century, chained to "the Pale of Settlement," somewhat like the Roman colons, "glebae adscripti." The tragic history of late years and the epoch through which we are living can disturb the inner composure of the most indifferent spectator ...
— The Shield • Various
... successes, the extremists in Kyoto induced the sovereign to issue an edict in which, after speaking of the "insufferable and contumelious behaviour of foreigners," of "the loss of prestige and of honour constantly menacing the country," and of the sovereign's "profound solicitude," his Majesty openly cited the shogun's engagement ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... these great congregations of the Edinburgh churches. As nearly as I can judge, it is intellectual rather than emotional; but it is not a tribute paid to eloquence alone, it is habitual and universal, and is yielded loyally to insufferable dullness ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... in the smile, an insufferable sneer in the compliment. Ethel had half extended a timid hand—Victor had wholly extended a pleading one. She took not the slightest notice of either. She lifted the white veil, and looked down at the ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... his endeavours, either to overthrow their government, or to bend it to his will. But the full experiment had now been made; and the result was a conviction not to be resisted, that moderation would only invite additional injuries, and that the present insufferable state of things could be terminated only by procuring the removal of the French minister, or by submitting to become, in his hands, the servile instrument of hostility against the enemies of his nation. Information was continually received from every ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... whole thing yesterday for the Mayo family, with what result you know, except that I haven't told you that the presumptuous dolt made love mawkishly to me all the evening. Yes, actually! Did you ever hear of such impertinence? Oh, the man is simply insufferable, Ruth. ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... in a very short time, BULMER might have rolled in money if he had felt disposed—as, to do him justice, he never did—to render himself ridiculous. Now what is there in the fact that BULMER has made a fortune in beer that should inflate him to so insufferable an extent? Can it be that there is some mysterious property in the liquid itself, some property which, having escaped even the careful investigation of the analytical chemists, has pervaded the being of BULMER, and has induced ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand
... gloried in the conception of Ajax, on his lonely rock, defying all the gods that be. But what is that compared with this? In the passage whose sublimities awoke the enthusiasm of Macaulay, and delivered him from insufferable boredom, Paul claims to have reached the limits of finality, and he hurls defiance at all ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... were humbled in the dust by the events of 1757 and 1758. Failure, due to the want of sufficent resources is severe, but how utterly insufferable when, with abundant means, incompetency to use them brings defeat. Still, we are under greater obligation to Lord Londown than we are wont to think. His imbecility helped rouse the British nation and recall William Pitt to power, whose vigor ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... insufferable. She could not endure that her fat, lazy husband should amuse himself at games while lying in his bed; and whenever she caught him beginning a game she pounced furiously on the dominoes, overturned the plank, and carried all away into the bar, declaring ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... The mass of books which he had once studied he had thrown into dim corners of his library shelves when he left the Fathers' school. "I should have left them in Paris," he told himself, as he turned out some books which were particularly insufferable: those of the Abbe Lamennais and that impervious sectarian so magisterially, so pompously dull and empty, the Comte Joseph ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... as a place of residence. 'I am sorry to hear it, my lord,' replied the Countess. 'And why sorry, madam?' 'Because the place will ill repay your trouble; and were it even a paradise, it would be insufferable at such a ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... his early education was defective; for on all occasions, when speaking with us, he says, 'Yes, Monsieur le Comte!' or 'Certainly, Madame la Comtesse!' as if he were a servant. Yet withal, he has a peculiar pride, or perhaps I should say insufferable vanity. But his great fault, in my eyes, is the scoffing tone he adopts, when the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... very foundation of all good conversation. Good speech consists as much in listening politely as in talking agreeably. Someone has said, very wisely, "A talker who monopolizes the conversation is by common consent insufferable, and a man who regulates his choice of topics by reference to what interests not his hearers but himself has yet to learn the alphabet of the art." To be agreeable in conversation, one must first learn the law ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... the Kurpfalz, for instance, the Jewish traveller had to pay the usual "white penny" for every mile, but also a heavy general fee for the whole journey. If he was found without his ticket of leave, he was at once arrested. But it was when he came to a bridge that the exactions grew insufferable. The regulations were somewhat tricky, for the Jew was specially taxed only on Sundays and the Festivals of the Church. But every other day was some Saint's Festival, and while, in Mannheim, even on those days the Christian traveller paid one kreuzer ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... will be a priest, I do hope you won't, without his experience, try to imitate Father Rowley too closely in his summary treatment of what I have already I hope made myself quite clear in believing to be in this case a most insufferable young man. Don't misunderstand this letter. I have such great hopes of you in the stormy days to come, and the stormy days are coming, that I should feel I was wrong if I didn't warn you of your attitude towards the merest trifles, for I shall always judge ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... half-past five o'clock in the evening, and, we having been previously warned by letter, the moment that they stepped in on deck we hove up our anchor, started our engine, and proceeded to sea, in order that we might avoid spending the night in the insufferable heat of the harbour. We kept the engine going until we had rounded Dondra Head and were heading north, with Adam's Peak square off our port beam, when we made sail, bound for Calcutta, where we arrived exactly a ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... he wouldn't!" Olga lay back in the hammock with the scarred hand between her own. "Dad is very just. He would have realized that you were quite insufferable." ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... painful to try to do so. In a word, I have a conscience as well as a fear of gaol. Yes, I know it by experience. How often have I tried to take holidays, to get away from myself, my own boring nature, my insufferable mental surroundings!" Mr. Scogan sighed. "But always without success," he added, "always without success. In my youth I was always striving—how hard!—to feel religiously and aesthetically. Here, said I to myself, are two tremendously important ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... he denied me his confidence in this matter, he told me much of this Corsica I had so childishly invaded, and a great deal to make me blush for my random ignorance; of the people, their untiring feud with Genoa, their insufferable wrongs, their succession of heroic leaders. He did not speak of their passion for liberty, as a man will not of what is holiest in his love. He had no need. It spoke for itself in the ring of his voice, in the glooms and lights of his eyes, as we lay on either side of our ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... the confidence of this Government, for its part, that equal appreciation would be shown for its own earnest and unselfish endeavors to fulfill a duty to humanity by ending a situation the indefinite prolongation of which had become insufferable. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... renovations of a fearful dream that has sunk in sleep, and risen again as the troubled fancy regained a portion of its activity. These indistinct shadows of consciousness, as they came in the wake of the physical power that felt the quickening influence of another draft of air, carried more insufferable sensations in their dark forms than had accompanied my more distinct perceptions. They were mere filmy traces, broken and unconnected—exhibiting to me sometimes only the darkness of the bell, sometimes ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... was surrounded by the Roman forces, which were a strong security to him, whose help would prevent his suffering any thing by a sudden onset, or by open force; but for him to kill them on the sudden, in order to gratify a passion that governed him, was a demonstration of insufferable impiety. He also was guilty of so great a crime in his older age; nor will the delays that he made, and the length of time in which the thing was done, plead at all for his excuse; for when a man is on a sudden ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... stone ballast beneath the bamboo deck there was yet another layer of humanity, whose condition can neither be described nor conceived. Without air, without light, without room to move, without hope; with insufferable stench, with hunger and thirst, with heat unbearable, with agony of body and soul, with dread anticipations of the future, and despairing memories of the past, they sat for days and nights together—fed with just enough of uncooked rice and water to ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... condemned at the synod of Dort. But this act was aimed against the Puritans, who, of all parties, were fond of preaching on what was called "the Five Points of Calvinism." But they paid dearly for their independence. James absolutely detested them, regarded them as a sect insufferable in a well-governed commonwealth, and punished them with the greatest severity. Their theological doctrines, their notions of church government, and, above all, their spirit of democratic liberty, were odious and repulsive. Archbishop Bancroft, ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... that exciting time, to the leaders of the party. It was quite a delight to me, as I listened, to recall my own dislike of his style of speaking, his fishy coldness, his uncongenial and unsympathetic politeness, and his insufferable though most gentlemanly artificiality. The shape of his head (I see it now) was misery to me, and weighed down ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... make peace. Those of the Senate who were sent were relations of Marcius, and expected to be warmly welcomed by a man who was their near relation and personal friend. Nothing of the kind, however, happened. They were conducted through the enemy's camp, and found him seated, and displaying insufferable pride and arrogance, with the chiefs of the Volscians standing round him. He bade the ambassadors deliver their message; and after they had, in a supplicatory fashion, pronounced a conciliatory oration, he answered them, dwelling with bitterness on his ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... been rejected by the army because of a trouble in his foot, which made his presence with them insufferable; and had been cast away by Odysseus ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was; but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... surrounded by admirers; it seemed to me then that it would have been insufferable conceit to have even asked myself if it could matter to her. It was only in the light of after events that the possibility of my having been mistaken occurred to me. And I don't even now see that I could have acted otherwise——" ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... out with: 'It's an infernal lie; you could no more paint that picture than you could fly.' 'I did paint it, jest the same,' pursued the stranger imperturbably, as Rosenheim, to make an end of the insufferable wag, snapped out sarcastically, 'Perhaps you painted its mate, then, the Bolton Corot.' 'The one that sold for three thousand dollars last week? Of course I painted it; it's the best nymph scene I ever done. Don't get mad, mister; I paint most of the ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... a thought to death, but ignored it, being concerned about its own affairs, While hoping to live on for ever, cost what it might; and another life, mysterious, indefinite, obscure, that, as a worm in an apple, secretly gnawed at the core of his former life, poisoning it, making it insufferable. ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef |
