"Insupportable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... quitted it, and resided abroad for several years. In the retirement of voluntary exile she answered the numerous accusations against her; for she was maligned on every side, and generally disliked, since her arrogance had become insupportable, even to her daughters. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... lean against the wall, made me the most comfortable place for resting. There was a little rusty grate, but it was still summer-time, and there was no need of a fire. A fire indeed would have been insupportable, for the sultry, breathless atmosphere of August, with the fever-heat of its sun burning in the narrow streets and close yards, made the temperature as parching as an oven. I panted for the cool cliffs and sweet fresh air ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... when he is married to Louisa! I must call him something. It's impossible,' said Mrs. Gradgrind, with a mingled sense of politeness and injury, 'to be constantly addressing him and never giving him a name. I cannot call him Josiah, for the name is insupportable to me. You yourself wouldn't hear of Joe, you very well know. Am I to call my own son- in-law, Mister! Not, I believe, unless the time has arrived when, as an invalid, I am to be trampled upon by my relations. Then, what am I ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... recovering she heard with a ringing joy, which had its alloy of fear; for she knew that the day he felt himself to be in full possession of his powers he would attempt again to conquer Sunnysides. So from day to day her apprehension mounted until it became well-nigh insupportable. And her own helplessness maddened her. What could she do? Nothing! Nothing but wait, and pray God to protect him. Every night she prayed for him, and every morning, on her knees; and every hour the prayer was in her heart. She rode sometimes as far as the farther edge of the woods that crowned ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... the vanity, and pride, and luxury of the women, and of the young fops who admire them, that we owe this insupportable grievance, of bringing in the instruments of our ruin. There is annually brought over to this kingdom near ninety thousand pounds worth of silk, whereof the greater part is manufactured. Thirty thousand pounds more is expended in muslin, holland, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... with great people, and known as having distinguished talent. Now, all this would seem to me delightful if you had an income of fifty thousand francs; but, in your position, you must absolutely have an occupation which will enable you to live, and free you from the insupportable weight of dependence on others. From this day forward, my dear child, you must look to this end alone if you would find it possible to pursue honorably the career you have chosen. Otherwise constant embarrassments will so limit your genius, that ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... over the great commercial traffic soon to flow from west to east by way of the Isthmus of Darien; it is to build up our merchant marine; it is to furnish new markets for the products of our farms, shops, and manufactories; it is to make slavery insupportable in Cuba and Porto Rico at once, and ultimately so in Brazil; it is to settle the unhappy condition of Cuba and end an exterminating conflict; it is to provide honest means of paying our honest debts without overtaxing the people; it is to furnish our citizens with the necessaries of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant • Ulysses S. Grant
... enough to fly in the face of authority, and I frequently left the whist-table, or broke off in a song, to hurry over to the doctor's chambers and spout Homer and Hesiod. I suffered on in patience, till at last the bore became so insupportable that I told my sorrows to my friend, who listened to me out, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... one, and the heat from the fire, together with that from the sun, was almost insupportable; but, stripped of all clothing that could conveniently be cast aside, each one continued at his self-imposed task of averting the threatened destruction from ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... undulating and well wooded, and the country around studded with well-built and substantial houses, belonging to the European merchants and other officials in Singapore. No Europeans live in the town, as the heat there during the south-west and even north-east monsoon is insupportable. The Esplanade, which faces the sea, and near to which our hotel stood, is the fashionable drive, and where the inhabitants enjoy the sea-breezes when the heat of the day is over. The horses and ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... universal fraternization was spread by Freemasonry; numbers at first cherished a hope that the Revolution would preserve a pure moral character, and were not a little astonished on beholding the monstrous crimes to which it gave birth. Others merely rejoiced at the fall of the old and insupportable system, and numerous anonymous pamphlets in this spirit appeared in the Rhenish provinces. Fichte, the philosopher, also published an anonymous work in favor of the Revolution. Others again, as, for instance, Reichard, Girtanner, ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... entered into has failed, and every report sent home to government is useful only if it is assumed to be wrong in every particular; and yet the man is so puffed up with pride and arrogance that he is well-nigh insupportable. The Spaniards have fooled him to the top of his bent; it has paid them to do so. Through his representations the ministry at home have distributed millions among them. Arms enough have been sent to furnish nearly ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... accompanies it shows me station by station the course of the line between Tiflis and Baku. Not to know the direction taken by the engine, to be ignorant if the train is going northeast or southeast, would be insupportable to me, all the more as when night comes, I shall see nothing, for I cannot see in the dark as if I were an ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... How many things to excite the ambition of a schoolboy! Augustus was impatient for the moment when he might "be what he admired." The drudgery of Westminster, the confinement, the ignominious appellation of a boy, were all insupportable to this young man. He had obtained from his father a promise, that he should leave school in a few months; but these months appeared to him an age. It was rather a misfortune to Holloway that he was so far advanced in his Latin and Greek ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... Armantine was less prosperous. Cecile could not ride, nor could even walk a quarter of a mile without nearly dying of fatigue; nay, the jolting of the coach as we drove along the road would have been insupportable to her but for her longing to see her little one. We drove till it was impossible to get the coach any farther, and still the farm ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... thirty-six hours, and the anxiety of the king and queen was becoming insupportable; both loudly demanded their favorite. With a view of turning away the anger of the people from his head, Charles IV. issued an edict depriving Emanuel Godoy, Prince de la Paix, of all his offices and dignities, and authorizing him to choose for himself the place of his retreat. The favorite ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... until he has accumulated an insupportable load of ennui, and then he sallies forth to distribute ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... opened a new future for her—how had he passed these months, she wondered? To tell the truth, Claudius had been so desperately busy that the time had not seemed so long. If he had been labouring in any other cause than hers it would have been insupportable. But the constant feeling that all he did was for her, and to her advantage, and that at the same time she was ignorant of it all, gave him strength and courage. He had been obliged to think much, to travel far, and to act promptly; and for his own ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... in the fullness of imperial glory, when the will of one man was the supreme law of the empire. He also wrote of events when liberty had fled, and the yoke of despotism was nearly insupportable. He describes a period of great moral degradation, nor does he hesitate to lift the veil of hypocrisy in which his generation had wrapped itself. He fearlessly exposes the cruelties and iniquities of the early emperors, and writes ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... course, increased his zest for light and liberty, and in the first moment of freedom—a moment greatly accelerated by his own strenuous efforts in the shape of squalling, bawling, roaring, and stamping, unparalleled and insupportable, even in that mansion of din—in the very instant of freedom he was off again; he ran away from work; he ran away from school; certain to be immersed in his dismal dungeon as soon as he could be recaught; so that his whole ...
— Jesse Cliffe • Mary Russell Mitford
... precise annual sum cannot be known in advance; it doubtless will vary in different years. Still it is something to know that in the last year—a year of almost unparalleled pecuniary pressure—it amounted to more than forty thousand dollars. This annual income, in the midst of our almost insupportable difficulties, in the days of our severest necessity, our political opponents are furiously resolving to take and keep from us. And for what? Many silly reasons are given, as is usual in cases where a single good one is not to be found. One is that by giving us ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... with a strength of mind equal to the strength of his body. He was married to a wanton who rendered existence so insupportable that he committed suicide before he was forty years of age, ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... see you as your sister can be," Gerald put in. "If she has fidgetted, when you had only gone a week; you can imagine what I should have to bear, before the end of a month. I should have had to move into barracks. Life would have been insupportable, here." ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... especially by smoking, is any thing but kindness or the kindly expression of it, when it creates an atmosphere, which, whether it comes directly from the pipe, the cigar, or deeply imbued clothing, or worse than alligator breath, is absolutely insupportable to many, who do not use it, causing depression of strength, dizziness, headache, sickness at the stomach, and sometimes vomiting. By what rule of politeness, nay, on what principle of common justice may I poison the atmosphere my neighbor is compelled to breathe, or so ...
— An Essay on the Influence of Tobacco upon Life and Health • R. D. Mussey
... fear that certain private transactions of his own would not escape Hiram's observation. He felt magnetically that instead of bullying and domineering over the new-comer, Hiram's eyes were on him whatever he did. This was insupportable; but how could he help it? The more work he imposed on Hiram, the better the latter seemed to like it, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... at the time, who thought their disaster an insupportable disgrace, exclaimed that they ought to prevent the enemy from erecting a trophy, and endeavor to recover the dead, not by making a truce, but by fighting another battle. However, the polemarchs, seeing that of the Lacedaemonians in all ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... practice of the presence of GOD. For my part. I keep myself retired with Him in the fund or centre of my soul as much as I can; and while I am so with Him I fear nothing, but the least turning from Him is insupportable. ...
— The Practice of the Presence of God the Best Rule of a Holy Life • Herman Nicholas
... to estrangement, but rather to the instigation of his own sire, Sir Thomas—a gentleman of the "fine old school"—who, exasperated by the, to him, incomprehensible and insupportable turn of mind developed by his heir (whom he loved well enough, notwithstanding, in his own way), had hoped, in good utilitarian fashion, that a prolonged period of contact with the world, lubricated by a plentiful supply of money, might shake his "big sawney of a son" out of his ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... change of subject in passing from quisquam to haec ipsa, both which expressions will be nominatives to poterit, further, there will be the almost impossible ellipse of ars, scientia, or something of the kind after haec ipsa. On every ground the reading of Madv. is insupportable. Quid, haec ipsa: I have added quid to fill up the lacuna left by Halm, who supposes much more to have fallen out. [The technical philosophical terms contained in this section will be elucidated later. For the Epicurean ignorance of geometry see note on II. 123] Illi ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... do so, as the traders would inform against him, and he would be sent out of the country. At the same time, he gave him the articles which he wished. Key-way-no-wut found this a very convenient way of getting what he wanted, and followed up this sort of game, until, at last, it became insupportable. One day the Indian brought a very large otter skin, and said "I want to get for this ten pounds of sugar, and some flour and cloth," adding, "I am not like other Indians, I want to pay for what I get. Mr. ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... on—luncheon and dinner occupying a good deal of time, for, in spite of the heat, the midshipmen retained their appetites. The heat increased as the sun rose. If it was hot on deck it was hotter still in the cabin, which the stifling air and the cockroaches rendered almost insupportable. Towards evening they came in sight of the curious island of Saba, having the appearance of a high, barren, conical-shaped rock rising directly out of the ocean. As they got nearer, a few huts were seen at the base of the mountain, and in front a flight of steps hewn out of the solid rock ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... room above which we hung suspended was now all but insupportable, and the fumes threatened to stifle us. My head seemed to be bursting; my throat and lungs were ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... The thermometer stood at 10 degrees F. at 4 P.M., but the still air made it almost insupportable. By the time the load was hauled up out of the basin, we ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... sky of a number of small, detached bulbous-looking clouds of a dusky blue-gray. They had not drifted hither, for there was no wind. They had only appeared. They were absolutely motionless. But the heat and the suffocation in this atmosphere became almost insupportable. The men, with bare heads, and jerseys unbuttoned at the neck, were continually going to the cask of fresh water beside the windlass. Nor was there any change when the night came on. If anything, the night was ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... they eat not of the herbs that were touched or handled by man. These bulls were so wild, that they were never taken but by slight and crafty labour, and so impatient, that after they were taken they died from insupportable dolour. As soon as any man, invaded these bulls, they rushed with such, terrible press upon him that they struck him to the earth, taking no fear of hounds, sharp lances, or other most penetrative weapons."—Boetius, Chron. ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... Fathers conceal their affection from their children Fault not to discern how far a man's worth extends Fault will be theirs for having consulted me Fear and distrust invite and draw on offence Fear is more importunate and insupportable than death itself Fear of the fall more fevers me than the fall itself Fear to lose a thing, which being lost, cannot be lamented? Fear was not that I should do ill, but that I should do nothing Fear: begets a terrible ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... and the dying lay piled one upon another not merely in the public roads, but even in the temples, in spite of the understood defilement of the sacred building—that half-dead sufferers were seen lying round all the springs, from insupportable thirst—that the numerous corpses thus unburied and exposed were in such a condition that the dogs which meddled with them died in consequence, while no vultures or other birds of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... very powerful for exciting hatred may arise when an act of submission to our opponents is understood as a silent reproach of their insolence. Our willingness to yield must indeed show them to be insupportable and troublesome, and it commonly happens that they who have desire for railing, and are too free and hot in their invectives, do not imagine that the jealousy they create is of far greater prejudice to them than the ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... these his commands with a certain threat which he imagined might have some influence over her. And what threat does the reader imagine could possibly be devised to reach a mind so sunk, so desperate, so wretched as hers? Every thing seemed already lost but life, and life was only an insupportable burden. What interests, then, had she still remaining upon which a threat ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... back to his own family, more excited, but not worse than before; and finding in the family circle everything as he has left it, the urgency of Abel, who wishes to make him offer a sacrifice, becomes altogether insupportable. More say we not, excepting that the motivation of the scene in which Abel perishes is of the rarest excellence, and what follows is equally great and priceless. There now lies Abel! That now is Death—there was so much talk about it, ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... Garth was at the piano, thundering Beethoven's Funeral March on the Death of a Hero. The room was being rent asunder by mighty chords; and Simpson's smug face and side-whiskers appearing noiselessly in the doorway, were an insupportable anticlimax. Nurse Rosemary laid her finger on her lips; advanced with her firm noiseless tread, and took the telegram. She returned to her seat and waited until the hero's obsequies were over, and the last roll of the drums had died away. Then she opened the orange envelope. ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... Hardly is she entranced when she is metamorphosed; her face is no longer the same; her eyes, indeed, remain closed, but the acuteness of the other senses compensates for the loss of sight. She becomes gay, noisy, and restless to an insupportable degree; she continues good-natured, but she has acquired a singular tendency to irony and bitter jests.... In this state she does not recognise her identity with her waking self. 'That good woman is not I,' she says; 'she is ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... no more. He gnashed his teeth together, and held them tight, like a person struggling against some insupportable pain. His sister so ill? That was Hattie. He saw the name written farther back. "He says,"—"according to his account,"—who was it sending home such stories about him? He glanced up the page, until his eye fell upon ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... hapless wight having been star-gazing, and another, anxious for as many strokes as possible, mistaking that part for the bottom of his shuttlecock; while this would be followed by, "O, my leg," from the untoward movement of a stick or a barrow. In short, such scenes were insupportable; and what with the accidents that arose, and the tops without strings, and the strings without tops, the hoops without sticks, and the sticks without hoops, the seizure of the favourite toy by one, and the inability of another to get any ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... held up in the traffic," said Lawrence deliberately. Isabel turned scarlet. The truth would have been insupportable, but so was the lie. "Although it was no fault of mine, Laura, I'm more sorry than I can say. Will you let me telephone for my own car and motor you down? I could get you to Chilmark in the small hours—long before the ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... killed on fete days or dishes pilfered from the refectory. Swept only once a day, the place was always filthy, and was further rendered disagreeable by odours coming from the wash-house, dressing-room, pantries, etc. All this with the mud brought in from the outside playgrounds made the atmosphere insupportable. Moreover, the pupils' petty ailments and pains were almost entirely unheeded. In winter chaps and chilblains were Honore's unceasing lot. His woman's complexion, and especially the skin of his ears and lips, cracked under the ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... conversation; for he had retreated from the window, at its commencement, to avoid the possibility of hearing, what was not probably intended to reach the ears of a third person. "Would any but a favored lover," he thought, "be admitted to such an interview?" The idea was insupportable; he traversed his apartment with perturbed and hasty steps, and it was not till long after De Valette retired, that he sought the repose of his pillow, and even then, in a state of mind which completely ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... a certain slave named Androcles, who was so ill treated by his master that his life became insupportable. Finding no remedy from what he suffered, he at length said to himself:—'It is better to die than to continue to live in such hardships and misery as I am obliged to suffer. I am determined, therefore, to run away from my master; ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... advantageous ones. Such, too, was the foundation of my father's character, and in this respect never was couple better assorted. They were never happy out of their little household. And they have bequeathed me this secret sauvagerie, which has always rendered the [fashionable] world insupportable to me, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... had brought with him from India, and who was accustomed to beg by night for the bread which was to save his unhappy master from perishing by want the next day. Camoeens, when death at last put an end to a life which misfortune and neglect had rendered insupportable, was denied the solace of having his faithful Antonio to close his eyes. He was aged only fifty-five when he breathed his last in the hospital. This event occurred in 1579, but so little regard was paid to the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... which we were engaged. During several hours, its black and heavy masses accumulated and hung upon the whole army: from right to left, over a space of fifty leagues, it was completely threatened by its lightnings, and overwhelmed by its torrents: the roads and fields were inundated; the insupportable heat of the atmosphere was suddenly changed to a disagreeable chillness. Ten thousand horses perished on the march, and more especially in the bivouacs which followed. A large quantity of equipages remained abandoned on the sands; and great ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... opinions and feelings amongst a great people, than to manage all the speculations of productive industry. No sooner does a government attempt to go beyond its political sphere and to enter upon this new track, than it exercises, even unintentionally, an insupportable tyranny; for a government can only dictate strict rules, the opinions which it favors are rigidly enforced, and it is never easy to discriminate between its advice and its commands. Worse still ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... fall altogether upon the mother of the family, who is living in a flat, or, worse still, in a tenement house, where one stove and one set of utensils must be put to all sorts of uses, fit or unfit, making the living room of the family a horror in summer, and perfectly insupportable on rainy washing-days in winter. Such a woman, rather than the prosperous housekeeper, uses factory products, and thus no high standard of ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... prosecuted by both parties with equal fury. The laity made many complaints against the two frequent practice of land being left to the church without a licence from the state, which increased the power of the clergy, already too great, and rendered their insolence insupportable. In consequence of this, the state made several injunctions against lay-persons disposing their lands in that manner. Another cause of their quarrel was, that the Venetians had sent to Rome, several articles of complaint against two priests, the abbot of Nervesa, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... from the visit to New York, in the spring of 1825, in the so-called Allen House, on the eminence west of the fort, having purchased my furniture at Buffalo, and made it a pretty and attractive residence. But after the death of my son, the place became insupportable from the vivid associations which it presented with the scenes of his ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... echoed he, "'that beset our path!' Really, Ralph, life will become insupportable to me if you and Jack go on in this fashion. A man of nerve and sanguine temperament might stand it, but to one like me, of a naturally timid and leaning nature, with the addition of low spirits, ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... then they are charged with being superficial: "True knowledge and solid learning cannot but make woman as well as man more humble; ... and it must be owned that if a little superficial knowledge has rendered some of our sex vain, it equally renders some of theirs insupportable." With all the sex's frivolity, she adds, women have not been found to spend their lives on mere entia rationis splitting hairs and weighing motes like the Schoolmen. She concludes that men deprive women of education lest they should oust them "from those public offices which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... letters on this subject fell into the hands of the Spanish guerillas and were published by order of the Regency at Cadiz. Despised by the Spaniards, flouted by Napoleon, set at defiance by the French satraps, and reduced wellnigh to bankruptcy, the puppet King felt his position insupportable, and, hurrying to Paris, tendered his resignation of the crown (May, 1811). In his anxiety to huddle up the scandal, Napoleon appeased his brother, promised him one-fourth of the taxes levied by the French commanders, and coaxed or drove him to resume his thankless task at Madrid. But the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... give a snap whether he pays his debts or not. You simply don't want me to associate with him. No, it has not occurred to me that I am not showing you proper respect and neither is it true. Margaret, do you know what is the most absurd and insupportable tyranny that woman can put upon man? It is to choose a companion for ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... your nose a heap of rotten onions and you will still have but a faint idea of the insupportable odour which emanates from these trees and when its fruit is opened the ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... these little birds had one year inadvertently placed their nest on a naked bough, perhaps in a shady time, not being aware of the inconvenience that followed. But a hot sunny season coming on before the brood was half fledged, the reflection of the wall became insupportable, and must inevitably have destroyed the tender young, had not affection suggested an expedient, and prompted the parent birds to hover over the nest all the hotter hours, while with wings expanded, and mouths gaping for breath, they screened off ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... right choice? We must firmly believe that if offences are finite, punishment must be finite too; that it must be remedial and not mechanical. We must believe that if we deserve punishment, it will be because we can hope for restoration. Hell is a monstrous and insupportable fiction, and the idea of it is simply inconsistent with any belief in the goodness of God. It is easy to quote texts to support it, but we must not allow any text, any record in the world, however sacred, to shatter our belief in the Love and Justice ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... ordered him, for his pains, to march at the head of the troops. It was right. What else could he do? The general already had enough to fight against, with the whole revolution, with his conscience, with the natural pity in his heart of a brave man, and with the tears and insupportable moanings, at such a moment, of his daughter and his wife. Boris understood and obeyed him, but, after the death of the poor students, he behaved again like a woman in composing those verses on the heroes of the barricades; don't you think ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... him up short: I am willing to believe you, Sir. It would be insupportable but to suppose there were a necessity for such solemn declarations. [At this he seemed to collect himself, as I may say, into a little more circumspection.] If I thought there were, I would not sit with you here, in a public inn, I assure you, although cheated hither, as ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... translation to appear on the same day as the original work, so that the longing continental public may not be kept waiting an instant longer than their fellow-readers in the English metropolis, which would be as tantalizing and insupportable as a little girl being kept without her new frock, when her sister's is just come home, and is the talk and admiration of every one in the house? To be sure, there is something in the taste of the times; a modern work is expressly adapted to modern readers. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various
... them entire satisfaction: and when he saw them pleased with the facility of his concessions, he observed to them, that, since amity was now in effect restored between them, it were better on both sides to dismiss their forces, which otherwise would prove an insupportable burden to the country. The archbishop and the earl of Nottingham immediately gave directions to that purpose: their troops disbanded upon the field: but Westmoreland, who had secretly issued contrary orders to his army, seized the two rebels ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... such a conception ought not to surprise us. Long before this, Jesus had regarded his relation to God as that of a son to his father. That which in others would be an insupportable pride, ought not in him to ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... impatience! The abominable cooking, the dawdling progress,—how was one to endure them? Especially when we had turned homeward, and were sluggishly repeating the ground already traversed, did the delay become almost insupportable. At length, on the 24th of August, we fairly said good-bye to Labrador, and came sweeping southward with the matchless speed of which our schooner was capable when she got a chance. It wellnigh tore ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... heavy, sandy road. The horses are loaded so much beyond their strength, that they will stop to blow, every ten or fifteen minutes, while the man will sit upon their backs with perfect unconcern. Remonstrate with them in regard to the sufficient draught added to the insupportable weight upon their backs, and they will immediately commence demonstrating how he can draw easier when there is an immense weight upon his back. The husband generally exchanges his things for whiskey, rice, and tobacco, while the wife buys calico and knick-knacks. Sometimes they ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... a footstool, he tried to sleep, but the effort was vain. There was a want of air—a dreadful silence, as if he had been buried alive—no tinkling of water, or rustling of leaves, or roar of cataract. It was insupportable. He got up and tried to open the door, but the handle was a mystery which he could not unriddle. There was a window behind the dressing-table. He examined that, overturning and extinguishing the candle in the act. But ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... my father the master of this house?" she cried—"and was my mother once the mistress of this castle?" Here tears relieved her from a part of that burthen, which was before insupportable. ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... superb," said she. "You play the part of my very worthy husband to perfection. It is as if one saw and heard him. Ah, I would that he resembled you a little, as he would then be less insupportable, and it would be ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... surveyed Denis from head to foot with a smile, and from time to time emitted little noises like a bird or a mouse, which seemed to indicate a high degree of satisfaction. This state of matters became rapidly insupportable; and Denis, to put an end to it, remarked politely that the ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... battles. As this was an amusement which he could enjoy without any sort of exertion, he soon grew so fond of it, that every day he returned to the stable yard, and the horse block became his constant seat. Here he found some relief from the insupportable fatigue of doing nothing, and here, hour after hour, with his elbows on his knees, and his head on his hands, he sat, the spectator of wickedness. Gaming, cheating and lying soon became familiar to him; and, to complete his ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... insupportable place for women, if he had! But whatever the moral aspect of the matter is in general, circumstances arise which alter the point, and that is where the absurd ticketing system hampers suitable action. A thing is ticketed 'dishonourable.' Pah! it is sometimes, and it is not ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... resolution. She has determined to revenge herself. From that day, so far as regards you, her mask, like her heart, has turned to bronze. Formerly you were an object of indifference to her; you are becoming by degrees absolutely insupportable. The Civil War commences only at the moment in which, like the drop of water which makes the full glass overflow, some incident, whose more or less importance we find difficulty in determining, has rendered you odious. The lapse of time ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... marshy, notwithstanding the insupportable heat, disappears beneath an inextricable mass of creepers, ferns, and tufted reeds, of a freshness and vigor of vegetation almost incredible, reaching nearly to the top of the ajoupa, which lies hid like a nest ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... native of Brazil. You are not ignorant of the frightful slavery under which my country groans. This continually becomes more insupportable since the epoch of your glorious independence, for the cruel Portuguese omit nothing which can render our condition more wretched, from an apprehension that we may follow your example. The conviction, that these usurpers against the laws of nature and humanity only ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... in there, and told them a tale, and showed every sign of walkin' right out again without askin' them a thing. They couldn't even tell us to go to hell, because it looked like we didn't care what they said. It was insupportable, Willis! Characters that make trouble, Willis, do it to feel important. And we'd left them without a thing to tell us that was important enough to mention—unless they told us about the Cerberus. We had 'em baffled. They needed to say something, and that was the only thing ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... "As punctual as insupportable," rejoined M. Moriaz, casting a melancholy look at his pillow. "Now, candidly, is it the thing to seek the presence of the President of the Academy of Sciences between eleven o'clock and midnight, to pour such silly stuff into his ear? ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... they see some young and anxious novice first attempting to meet such responsibilities. To a woman of age and experience, these duties often involve a measure of trial and difficulty, at times deemed almost insupportable; how hard, then, must they press on the heart ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... certain proportions, and two purposes are thus served, namely, the preservation of that vast body of waters, which otherwise, from the innumerable objects of animal and vegetable life within it, would become an insupportable mass of corruption, and the supplying of a large proportion of the salt we require in our food, and for other purposes. The quantity of salt contained in the sea (according to the best authorities) amounts to four hundred thousand billion ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... had however no other effect, than depriving him of his share, which brought him in 1000 l. a year; though Mr. Cibber informs us, that this was only a pretence, and that the true reason of quitting the stage, was, his dislike to another of the managers, whose humour was become insupportable. This person we conjecture to have been Mr. Wilks, who, according to Cibber's account, was capricious in his temper, though he had otherwise great merit as a player, and was a good man, morally considered; some instances of the generosity and noble spirit of Wilks, are taken notice ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... Naples for the villa of his mother. The farewell of the two men was sad and touching, for a long time must elapse before they met again. Monte-Leone had resolved to leave Naples for some time. The proximity of Sorrento lacerated his heart, and to see her he loved the wife of another would to him be insupportable. Taddeo was aware of the reasons why the Count had determined to travel, and had he no mother he would also have been anxious to ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... cruelly. One single instance, however minute, that established the reverse, would vitiate the whole theory; and if so, then we are the sport of a power that is sometimes kind and sometimes malignant. An insupportable thought! ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... reply I, laconically, reddening, and, under the influence of that same insupportable doubt concerning my ankles, trying to tuck away my legs under me, a manoeuvre which all but ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... than youth was made to bear, As if a punishment of after-life Were fall'n upon man here, so new it is To flesh and blood, so strange, so insupportable." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... however, thought many sincere persons on both sides, and not less on the side of the Reformation than on that of the Roman Catholic Church. True, the claims of the papacy were insupportable, and the most flagrant abuses prevailed; but many of the reformers believed it quite within the bounds of possibility that the great body of the supporters of the church might be brought to recognize and renounce these abuses, and break the tyrannical ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... you mourn for him, then?" said Hugo, when the pause that followed Brian's speech had become insupportable to him. ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... when at school." "I was in New York when Garibaldi was a chandler, and I was always asking for his candles;" such and suchlike were the claims which would not be denied. At last the infliction became insupportable. Some nights of unusual pain and suffering required that every precaution against excitement should be taken, and measures were accordingly concerted how visitors should be totally excluded. There was this difficulty in the matter, that it might fall ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... hard at him, and shook his head and laughed in a way that would have been insupportable in a house, and told him, "I hev narra ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... concerning him, the host professed utter inability to give a precise answer, but said that he might arrive at any moment. As he did not appear, however, on the fourth day, Sir Jocelyn's patience got quite worn out, and his uneasiness respecting Aveline having become insupportable, he determined, at all hazards, on visiting her cottage. Without acquainting the host with his intention, or asking to have the door unfastened, he opened the window which looked into a garden at the back of the house, and sprang ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... dead stillness as the striking of distant clocks, causes it to appear the more intense and insupportable when the sound has ceased. He listened with strained attention in the hope that some clock, lagging behind its fellows, had yet to strike, - looking all the time into the profound darkness before him, until it seemed to weave itself into a black tissue, patterned with a hundred reflections ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... is dead, and gone to the world of spirits with that declaration in his mouth? Oh, unhappy man! Oh, insupportable hour! ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... not always. Sometimes the case varied thus far: that it greatly increased towards three or four o'clock in the morning; and, as the sound grew louder, and thereby seemed to draw nearer, poor Pink's ghostly panic grew insupportable; and he absolutely crept from his pavilion, and its luxurious comforts, to a point of rock—a promontory—about half a mile off, from which he could see the ship. The mere sight of a human abode, though ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... fountain of our misery? The full and ardent sentiment which animated my heart with the love of nature, overwhelming me with a torrent of delight, and which brought all paradise before me, has now become an insupportable torment, a demon which perpetually pursues and harasses me. When in bygone days I gazed from these rocks upon yonder mountains across the river, and upon the green, flowery valley before me, and saw all nature budding and bursting around; the hills clothed from foot ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... camp on a stream watering a valley twenty miles from the railroad. There were Indian tracks on the trails. But he had nothing to fear from Indians. That night, though all was starry and silent around him as he lay, he still held the insupportable feeling. ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... conflict of indetermination became altogether insupportable, he put it aside with the resolution which was the strong thread in the loosely twisted warp of his character and forced himself to think concretely toward a solution of the problem of flight. The possession ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... submission in England, and fled from their native country because it was demanded. Thus, however incredible it may appear, blind fanatics became public legislators, and those who were unable to endure tyranny in England, became the most insupportable ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... are not always thinking about the money. Perhaps the Kashmiris come next, though the Chinese run them very close. Some of the more expensive London women are bearable, but they are such harlots! The white women in the East are insupportable, and small wonder, for they consist of the dregs of the European and American markets. My list comprises English, French, German, Italian, Spanish-American, American, Bengali, Punjabi, Kashmiri, Kaffir, Singhalese, Tamil, Burmese, Malay, Japanese, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the scene. The grating of the murderous saw drove me into the open air, but in the second hospital which I visited, a wounded man had just expired, and I encountered his body at the threshold. Within, the sickening smell of mortality was almost insupportable, but by degrees I became accustomed to it. The lanterns hanging around the room streamed fitfully upon the red eyes, and half-naked figures. All were looking up, and saying, in pleading monotone: "Is that you, doctor?" ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... generous care and attention; our wounds were dressed, and the next day several of our sick began to recover; however, some of us had a great deal to suffer; for they were placed between decks, very near the kitchen, which augmented the almost insupportable heat of these countries; the want of room in a small vessel, was the cause of this inconvenience. The number of the shipwrecked was indeed too great. Those who did not belong to the marine, were laid upon cables, wrapped ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... "Let us pray that we may not be separated, for there will at least be a tender consolation in being permitted to share our misery in company. Should we be torn asunder, then indeed will the infliction be one of insupportable agony!" ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... old malady rose to an insupportable height. The pleasures of the table were all that seemed left to me in life. Most of the young men of any ton, either were, or pretended to be, connoisseurs in the science of good eating. Their talk was of sauces and of cooks, what dishes each cook was famous for; whether his forte lay ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... peculiar to the army. But this is not the general rule. The separation is most often accompanied by a sudden deterioration, with the result that if an army is the glory and honor of a nation, an assemblage of soldiers may be an insupportable calamity; and the towns that shed tears of joy and enthusiasm when they see a victorious battalion enter their precincts, groan with terror and tremble with apprehension when they see the same ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... and were sure of your love, Louise! The continual uncertainty in which you keep me is insupportable! You refuse to let me read ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... (could life last so long) great as the evil may be, than form a union with such an object. He should pity, and seek her reformation, if not beyond the bounds of possibility; but love her he should not! The penalty will be absolutely insupportable. ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... five times a day. I should suppose that he will not be very long lived, for the repeated doses of this mephitic vapour must surely accelerate his dissolution. The heat of the Thermae and steam of the sulphur is almost insupportable; but it has a most beneficial effect on maladies of the nerves ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... historic muse, to worship in secret. But these private devotions could not remove his disgust at "the inn, the wine, and the company" he was forced to endure, and latterly the militia became downright insupportable to him. But honourable motives kept him to his post. "From a service without danger I might have retired without disgrace; but as often as I hinted a wish of resigning, my fetters were riveted by the friendly intreaties of the colonel, the parental authority of the major, and ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... had she known how cheap life was held in the West, but she had only known it abstractly, and she had never let the fact remain before her consciousness. This cheerful young man spoke calmly of spilling blood in her behalf. The thought it roused was tragic—for bloodshed was insupportable to her—and then the thrills which followed were so new, strange, bold, and tingling that they were revolting. Helen grew conscious of unplumbed depths, of instincts at which she was amazed ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... the court had absolutely depended were seen moving towards the door. Among them was Charles Fox, Paymaster of the Forces, and son of Sir Stephen Fox, Clerk of the Green Cloth. The Paymaster had been induced by his friends to absent himself during part of the discussion. But his anxiety had become insupportable. He come down to the Speaker's chamber, heard part of the debate, withdrew, and, after hesitating for an hour or two between conscience and five thousand pounds a year, took a manly resolution and rushed into the House just in time to vote. Two officers of the army, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay |
