"Thankless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... subject which is embodied here, and this turns out to be, as usual, the clearest scientific negative that could be invented. But in the design, and in all the labour of this piece,—in the steadfast purpose that is always working out that definition, with its so exquisite, but thankless, unowned, unrecognised toil, graving it and pointing it with its pen of diamond in the rock for ever, approving itself 'to the Workmaster' only,—in this incessant design,—in this veiled, mysterious authorship,—an ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... she sighed. "So touching when a father—no matter how selfish—is wrecked by love of a thankless son. I'm sorry, indeed I am. But I warned him six years ago. ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... having such a capital piece of Mansfield news as the certainty of the Grants going to Bath, occur at a time when she could make no advantage of it, and will admit that it must have been very mortifying to her to see it fall to the share of her thankless son, and treated as concisely as possible at the end of a long letter, instead of having it to spread over the largest part of a page of her own. For though Lady Bertram rather shone in the epistolary line, having early in her marriage, from the want of other ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... What are the man's real motives? Would it not be well to spare your eyes from your invention long enough to look into these matters a little? Pardon the suggestion. The office of a spy, and a secret accuser, is an unpleasant, and, perhaps, a thankless one. I should never have assumed it, but for the fact that your ardent devotion to science may render you the easy dupe—and your daughter the innocent victim—of a designing and heartless man of the world. I do not ask you to believe the writer of an anonymous note, and therefore ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... he exclaimed—"O thankless and disloyal people! What!—ye WILL see me now? ... ye WILL hear me? ... Aye! but who shall answer for your obedience to my words! Nay, is it possible that I, your country's chosen Chief Minstrel, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... I stripped and bathing me in this pool, found great solace and content, insomuch that (to my great wonder) I presently found myself whistling like any boy. At last I got me forth mightily refreshed, and that the wind and sun might dry me, strove to cleanse my garments, but finding it a thankless task I got dressed at last, but my chain-shirt I left folded beside the pool and I much ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... her, like one struck by a thunderbolt, Chamu said again: Thou owest me not abuse, but gratitude, O woodman: for see, I have brought her back to thee, all across the sand, where many in my place would have left her in the middle of the way, for it was a thankless task, and she was a cross-grained burden, that was very loath to come at all. So as thou seest, thou wert very wrong, to call even Atirupa robber: for here she is again. And the women are silly creatures, ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... was dark outside his reading-lamp. Love, and Nature, and Art (which is the expression of our praise and sense of the beautiful world of God) were shut out from him. And as he turned off his lonely lamp at night, he never thought but that he had spent the day profitably, and went to sleep alike thankless and remorseless. But he shuddered when he met his old companion Warrington on the stairs, and shunned him as one that ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... assumed the duty of replying to that very explicit statement. "There is none here," he said, "that is not grateful for the benevolence he has received at the hands of the Tokugawa. If there be such a thankless and disloyal person, and if he conceive treacherous designs, I, Masamune, will be the first to attack him and strike him down. The shogun need not move so much as one soldier." With this spirited reply all the assembled daimyo expressed their concurrence, and Iemitsu proceeded ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... become a clergyman, but his distaste for theology did not go unexpressed. So perverse and persistent were his inclinations that they preyed on the mind of his father, who quoted King Lear and said, "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!" ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... rough account of the actual work of diplomacy. It is not a full account. There are many wrong things done which deserve criticism, but which we have not had space to mention. There is also much self-sacrificing and thankless work done by diplomatists and consuls in distant parts of the world—much seeming drudgery which can hope for no reward—many honourable services rendered to the public of which the public never hears. But the above account will suffice to give a rough idea of the organisation ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... more than a year after we saw him in Ireland at his thankless work. It was our first year in London, and we were near enough to watch closely the progress of his fight. But it was a fight not to be won. The spring of 1882 saw his resignation—on May 2d—followed on May 6th by the Phoenix Park murders ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "Thankless creature! You hesitate—you are not sure! How shameful of you to deny the gods you have once worshiped! But that is the way with you men. If you cease to love, you will not admit that you ever had ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... least, was the hatred in the heart of Savonarola. He was making war against no trivial human sins, but against godless and thankless quiescence, against getting used to happiness, the mystic sin by which all creation fell. He was preaching that severity which is the sign-manual of youth and hope. He was preaching that alertness, that clean agility and vigilance, which is as ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... Fund, which has prevented many struggling authors from sharing his fate. Seventeen long years of labour, besides a handsome fortune, did Edmund Castell spend on his Lexicon Heptaglotton; but a thankless and ungrateful public refused to relieve him of the copies of this learned work, which ruined his health while it dissipated his fortune. These are only a few names which might be mentioned out of the many. What a ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... you to be very cautious, Miss Lind. Taking care of other people's happiness is thankless and dangerous. You dont know ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... little shavers, your mothers did for you more than any one else in the world would do. They did things that a father would do about once. Then he would be ready to give up his job. But your mothers went right on day after day, year after year, doing hard, thankless, disagreeable things. I bet you get this preached to you a lot, boys, but I want to say it to you, too. If you are away from them, write a letter, a real letter once each week. It is not much to do. Do it, boys! And don't forget the kisses. If you kiss your mother ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... afraid, Webster, it's a thankless task. There are plenty of Scotch names about here, but not the one we want. I'm heartily tired of going about from churchyard to churchyard, poking around like ghouls or medical students. We've been to all the graves in the neighborhood, and, interesting as such a pursuit may be to ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy
... of ice was drifting through the strait from the east, and, as there was a northerly breeze, we at once turned our course northward to get under the lee of the north shore, where the water was more open. I had the rather thankless task of acting as helmsman and engineer at one and the same time. The boat went on like a little hero and made about six knots. Everything looked bright. But, alas! good fortune seldom lasts long, especially when one has to do with petroleum launches. A defect in the circulation-pump soon stopped ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... of the different regiments were also fortunate in their selection of Adjutants. This is one of the most important and responsible offices in the regimental organization. The duties are manifold, and often thankless and unappreciated. He shares more dangers (having to go from point to point during battle to give orders) than most of the officers, still he is cut off, by army regulation, from promotion, the ambition and goal of all officers. ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... gray, Who struggle there through joyless lives To win the means of more display For thankless ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... thinking; that is for others, not for me: but to do right at the moment, not to neglect my duty, not to prejudice my honor,—that is my care. We have already had too many words; now go—and receive the thanks of the thankless, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... "because," said she, "I have asked him of the Lord." Sometimes, what has been sought with importunity, is received with coldness, or enjoyed with ingratitude. No sooner is the blessing bestowed, no sooner is the tear of agony dried up, than every pledge is forgotten, and the mind relapses into thankless indifference. The sun shines, and our impressions pass away with the storm. But Hannah adopted a measure well calculated to excite every member of the family, and his mother in particular, to a perpetual recurrence to the goodness of Providence. She was resolved upon an ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... to get fighting men to serve his warrants, and he could not always be particular about the social standing of his posses. He had a thankless and dangerous position as the "Murphy sheriff." Most of his posses were recruited from among the small ranchers and cow boys of the lower Pecos. Peppin was sheriff only a few months, and threw up ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... when he wanted a "perfect knight," to the rivale, Massimo d'Azeglio. Both men had the little private joke of calling one another by this name in their familiar letters, which shows how free they were from any real jealousy. D'Azeglio was ready to accept what had the prospect of being a most thankless office, but on one condition—that the Sardinian plenipotentiary should be received on an equality with the representatives of the great Powers. Cavour knew that this condition had been explicitly refused; to please Austria, France and England declared that Sardinia would only be invited to share ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... their own resources, to exercise forethought and economy in the conduct of life, to cherish self-respect and self-dependence, and to provide for their comfort and maintenance in old age, by the careful use of the products of their industry, instead of having to rely for aid upon the thankless dole of a ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... Duchesneau was not a strong character, but he possessed qualifications which might have enabled him in less stormy times to fill the office of intendant with tolerable credit. It was his misfortune that circumstances forced him into the thankless position of being a henchman to the bishop and a drag upon ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... neighborhood of the well-remembered villa. They rang the bell at the garden gate and were admitted by a robust young man who seemed to be lounging among the overgrown hedges in some official capacity. The mossy Triton was still prosecuting his thankless task in the midst of his marble basin; the long stairs to the terrace were yet as damp and slippery as of old, and the noseless Roman senator was still persevering in his majestic attitude, although a sprig of maiden-hair was supporting its slender existence in the recess of his countenance ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... first piece of work proved my incapacity, and my extremely short-sight made me equally helpless in waiting on the Duchess. I was astonished at the patience with which she bore my awkwardness, but my fellow-servants, with whom I was most unpopular, were less merciful. The hard and thankless existence, so different from anything which I had been accustomed, threw me into a profound depression, until I began to cherish the idea of taking leave ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... have hoped to have done this without burdensome Government regulations which are a nuisance to everyone—including those who have the thankless task of administering them? ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt
... a tract society, and was given as territory the towns on the east side of the Hudson River. Tract selling in this generation is probably the most thankless, profitless work that any human being could undertake. The poor old man was burdened with a heavy bundle of the worst literary trash of a religious kind ever put out of a publishing house. He was to get twenty-five per cent. on the ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... mind is oftener found In cobbler's parlour, than in critic's bower. The sorest work is what doth cross the grain; And better to this hour you had been plying The obsequious awl with well-waxed finger flying, Than ceaseless thus to till a thankless vein; Still teazing Muses, which are still denying; Making a ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... be!—Aeson, my elder son, My best beloved! See, thy mother calls! Come to her! Nay, no more will I be harsh, No more enangered with thee! Thou shalt be Most precious in mine eyes, the one thing left I call mine own! Hark to thy mother! Come!— He turns his face away, and will not! O Thou thankless child, thou image of thy sire, Like him in each false feature, in mine eyes Hateful, as he is! Stay, then, where thou art! I know thee not!—But thou, Absyrtus, child Of my sore travail, with the merry face ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... painful, as it too often is. But it does shock me, it does make me feel that the world is indeed out of joint, to see a child die. I believe it to be a priceless boon to the child to have lived for a week, or a day: but oh, what has God given to this thankless earth, and what has the earth thrown away; and in nine cases out of ten, from its own neglect and carelessness! What that boy might have been, what he might have done as an Englishman, if he could have ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... than you. I love you, and you would be thankless indeed if you ceased to love me. Let us love each other, but let us not endeavour to give one another proofs of our love. It might be fatal. That accursed widow! She is gone away, and in a fortnight we shall be going also to Bale, where we ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... of my labour That a loving fate bestowed, Falls the shadow of my neighbour, Crushed beneath a thankless load. ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... sought his advice and interposition; but he made the same answer to all—referring them at once to the established authority, and declining to use any influence, upon the most trifling occasions, which in his position he might have legitimately exercised. His magnanimity was thrown away upon a thankless soil. The situation he had filled with so much honour and advantage, was now occupied by a nobleman who could neither appreciate ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... of the helpless when the branding iron is laid to the flesh until slave pens smell like cook shops? Why do not the gods hear the cries of humankind fed on pods and roots and skins, beaten with clubs and hung on crosses, for no evil save honest toil for thankless masters? ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... at night in her chapel, alone with the vision of the horror she was praying to avert; bearing the fasting and the penance and the weakness, all alone, in the hope that God would be merciful; gathering up her failing strength so bravely for that thankless scene in the Senate. And he, her husband, who had never meant that his love should fail her, could have spared her all this pain by a little comprehension! Could she ever forgive him? And would she understand some day? Might he reason it all out lovingly ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... the contemporary German Protestant historian, Seckendorf, was much harder, for the Thirty Years War had, as he confesses, made many people doubt the benefits of the Reformation, distrust its principles, and reject its doctrines. He discharged the thankless labor of apology in a work of enormous erudition, still valuable to the special student for the documents ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... a thankless opera for the soprano, I always think,' he observed. 'The tenor has it all ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... people: he was the Stein of Austria. But now, on the eve of peace, he earnestly begged to be allowed to resign the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and the Emperor Francis thereupon summoned to that seemingly thankless office a young diplomatist, who was destined to play a foremost part in the mighty drama of Napoleon's overthrow, and thereafter to wield by his astute policy almost as great an influence in Central and Southern Europe as ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... delay and subterfuge, and Turkey soon came to look on Germany as its only strong, sincere, and disinterested friend in Europe. For the indefinite continuance of chaos and bloodshed in Macedonia, after the other powers had really braced themselves to the thankless task of putting the reforms into practice, Germany alone ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... and spread it temptingly out on the table, a thankless task, for, as before, Le could not be persuaded to choke himself by attempting to swallow a morsel of solid food; but he drank cup after cup full of strong coffee, as fast as the ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... never been, But still increas'd the senseless happy mass, Flow'd in the stream, or shiver'd in the grass? "Father of mercies! why from silent earth Didst thou awake, and curse me into birth? Tear me from quiet, ravish me from night, And make a thankless present of thy light? Push into being a reverse of thee, And animate a clod with misery? "The beasts are happy; they come forth, and keep Short watch on earth, and then lie down to sleep. Pain is for man; and oh! how vast a pain For crimes, which made the ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... borne away one member of the household, the "Last Carrier" from force of habit hastens to perform the same thankless service for the remainder;—thus ere summer sunshine streamed on the husband's grave, another yawned at its side, and a wreathed and fluted shaft shot up close to his mausoleum, to tell sympathizing friends and ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... discontent was breathed over the cornfield where the plants were growing and growing. They shuddered and murmured: "How thankless to complain! Are we not growing as fast as we can? If we were idle would we bear wheat-ears at all? How thankless ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... ruse succeeded; for, when Nebar found A helpless man in sorrow on the ground, He took him up, and on the noble steed Gave him a place; but what a thankless deed! For Daher shouted, laughed, and, giving rein, Said, "You will never see ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... isolation, as it does not dissolve the majority of the remaining constituents of the hop, especially the hop-resin, which they contain in considerable quantity. Still, the extraction of hop-bitter acid from hops is a troublesome and thankless job, the petroleum ether taking up certain substances which add greatly to the difficulty of purifying the crystals. On the other hand, we can readily and quickly attain our object, if we employ for our original material fresh lupuline from ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... of Africa. He had been traveling on some teaching errand, and had fallen sick and lain nearly a whole month at Kadona's village. Kadona had brought him many gifts milk and ground-nuts and honey. The sick man for his part had not been thankless. As for gifts, he had given a knife and salt and soap and matches, but he had also shown fellow-feeling, which meant much more. Their friendship, signed and sealed outwardly by what they gave, was underlain by affection of a promising sort. So Kadona went to this teacher's ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... at length thy labour ends, And thou shalt live, for Buckingham commends; Let crowds of critics now my verse assail, Let Dennis write, and nameless numbers rail, This more than pays whole years of thankless pain— Time, health, and fortune, are not lost in vain. Sheffield approves; consenting Phoebus bends, And I and Malice from ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... turn, began to converse in a very unrestrained manner, and, on leaving, bade Clare never to come to London without seeing him. Quitting the house in Albemarle Street, Clare ran right against Mr. Gifford, who was coming up the steps. Both apologised, and both felt somewhat confused concerning the thankless old business of giving ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... time no one can ever know. When, one bright sunshiny Saturday, I went down to see how he was getting on, I found him worn and haggard, too evidently paying the penalty of sleepless nights and thankless care. I was a little shocked to hear that Lawrence had been summoned, but when I was taken into the sick room I realised that they had done wisely to send ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... administration free from his overpowering presence, that it might learn to go alone; partly and chiefly, he wished to spend such time as might remain to him where he could do most service to his country. But he was growing weary of the thankless burden. He was heard often to say that he had lived long enough. Men of high nature do not find the task of governing their fellow-creatures ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... Perhaps he was not so capable of handling money and keeping it straight as the class had thought when they had elected him to his post of business manager. Paying bills and rigorously noting down every expenditure was no easy task. It was a thankless job, anyway—the least interesting of any of the positions on the paper, and one that entailed more work than most. To kick at Mel would be rank ingratitude. It was not likely he had made a mess of things wittingly. Therefore the only alternative, since neither Mel's pride nor his ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... "A thankless office, my dear. If you could make all the world wise, it would do, but fools are always angry with you ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... and accept the largest sort of change from the heretic. But I was obdurate. I knew from experience that for five kopeks, or less, I should receive thanks, reverences to the waist or even to the ground; but that the gift of more than five kopeks would result in a thankless, suspicious stare, which would make me feel guilty of some enormous undefined crime. This was Count Tolstoy's experience also. We devoted ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... gave lessons in order to be able to live; M. d'Indy gives them for the pleasure of instructing, and to serve his art and aid artists. He directs schools, and accepts and almost seeks out the most thankless, though the most necessary, kinds of teaching. Or he will apply himself devoutly to the study of the past and the resuscitation of some old master. And he seems to take so much pleasure in training young minds to appreciate music, or in repairing the injustices of history ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... the scanty cornfields. The people call this soil creta; but it seems to be less like a chalk than a marl, or marna. It is always washing away into ravines and gullies, exposing the roots of trees, and rendering the tillage of the land a thankless labour. One marvels how any vegetation has the faith to settle on its dreary waste, or how men have the patience, generation after generation, to renew the industry, still beginning, never ending, which reclaims such wildernesses. Comparing Monte Oliveto with similar districts of cretaceous ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... you thankless hussy, to say such a thing in the house where you've been clothed and fed and sheltered for so many years! You're the child of your father with a vengeance! ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... started to her feet, her face to the door, all her being quiveringly eager to be gone. She had asked that which she was bidden to ask, had gained that which she was bidden to gain; for the rest, it was far better that she should go. Better far for him to think her dull and thankless as ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... into membership since the object for which the society was formed seemed to be feasible, and, as a natural result, whatever of financial and honorary reward may be accorded the self-sacrificing women who performed the arduous and thankless labor of founding the institution, will be shared with the men who now ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... the room and his seat on the Board. It was a matter of doubt, for some moments, whether the noble Chairman would not go too, but, happily, he discovered enough signs of confidence among the proprietors present to encourage him to continue his thankless task. ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... Man's burden— Have done with childish days— The lightly proffered laurel The easy, ungrudged praise. Comes now, to search your manhood Through all the thankless years, Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom, ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... the century, on the hills which stand above the Ohio River, but in different States of the Union, were born two children, destined, to all appearance, to lives of narrow interests and thankless toil. They were the sons of poor parents, without influence or expectations; their native villages, deep in the solitudes of the West, and remote from the promise and possibilities of great cities, offered no road to fortune. In the days before the railway, escape from the ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... fresh, stupid house-maiden, but, sooner than take the trouble of teaching the new servant where everything was, and how to give out the stores if she was busy, she would go back to Worms. For, after all, housekeeping for a brother was thankless work; there was no satisfying men; and Heppenheim was but a poor ignorant village compared ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... "Mine is a thankless task, senora, but the general decided you are the best keeper of this," and he gave to her the scribbled page torn from a ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... the apprentice, "but for you I should not have been here. I undertook a thankless office, and have been rightly served for my folly. We have both found our way to the Fleet, but I much doubt if either of us will find his way out of it. As for me, I liked the appearance of the place, and the society it seems to furnish, ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... behalf; to slay me is to slay one who should rather be selected for commendation; a kindred spirit, a well-wisher, a man after your own heart, a promoter, if I may be bold to say it, of your pursuits. See to it that you catch not the tone of our latter-day philosophers, and be thankless, petulant and hard of heart, to him that deserves better ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... terrible to hear, praying that she might never have a child, or, if she had, that it might live to return that scorn and contempt upon her which she had shown to him; that she might feel how sharper than a serpent's tooth it was to have a thankless child. And Goneril's husband, the Duke of Albany, beginning to excuse himself for any share which Lear might suppose he had in the unkindness, Lear would not hear him out, but in a rage ordered his horses to be saddled and set out with his followers for the abode of Regan, his other daughter. ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... we are often thankless for Rich blessings when we sigh, To think some lucky neighbour has A "bigger ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... Sweden's most gifted women is Elfrida Andree. Born in 1841, she soon devoted herself to musical studies, and took up the career of organist, so often a thankless one. She plays at present in the cathedral at Gothenburg. Her works include many different forms, even the symphonic. Her organ symphony is especially noteworthy, and all her orchestral works show decided ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... to suffer you, who have caused me, when dead, to be restored from the shades to life— to leave me unrewarded? Oh, you deem me too thankless! But look— I see Bacchis standing before the door; she's waiting for me, I suppose; ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... clerge francaise en 1890" (by an anonymous ecclesiastic), p. 72. (On the smaller parishes.) "The task of the cure here is thankless if he is zealous, too easy if he has no zeal. In any event, he is an isolated man, with no resources whatever, tempted by all the demons of solitude and inactivity."—Ibid.,,92. "Our authority among the common classes as well as among thinking people ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... hypos like him; to be filled with the milk and meekness of the gospels. Yet, with deference, I deny that my old uncle Johnson really believed in the sentiment ascribed to him. Love a hater, indeed! Who smacks his lips over gall? Now hate is a thankless thing. So, let us only hate hatred; and once give love play, we will fall in love with a unicorn. Ah! the easiest way is the best; and to hate, a man must work hard. Love is a delight; but hate a torment. And haters are thumbscrews, Scotch boots, and Spanish inquisitions ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... were to help pay for the Expedition, and lastly, our leader, with Drake and Wyatt, the business manager, were to pay bills we had incurred by countless items of equipment, large and small, which went to fill up our lengthy stores lists. Thankless work enough—we in the ship were much better off with no cares now beyond the handling of our toy ship and her safe conduct to Lyttelton. Cecil Meares and Lieut. Bruce were on their way through Siberia collecting ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... intellect. I spent my time from 1891 to 1899 on the staff of Upper Canada College, an experience which has left me with a profound sympathy for the many gifted and brilliant men who are compelled to spend their lives in the most dreary, the most thankless, and the worst paid profession in the world. I have noted that of my pupils, those who seemed the laziest and the least enamoured of books are now rising to eminence at the bar, in business, and in public ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... recognisable and intact, I here found a heterogeneous building, which at first glance seemed but a rugged rock clothed in straggling brambles. Nothing was finished, only here and there could the slightest resemblance to an architectonic line be traced, so that I often felt tempted to relinquish the thankless task of trying to build from such materials. And yet I was enchained by a wondrous magic. The baldest legend spoke to me of its ancient home, and soon my whole imagination thrilled with images; long-lost forms for which I had sought so eagerly shaped themselves ever more and ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... said, 'Do not take what you cannot pay—not ever what you cannot pay—that is the way to walk with pure feet.' Perhaps I spoke ill, because they spoil me, and they say I am too swift to say my mind. But I am not thankless—not thankless, indeed—it is only I could not take what I cannot pay. That is all. You are angry ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... great mind's expected pain, Calphurnia, To labour for the thankless.—He who seeks Reward in ruling, makes ambition guilt; And living ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... not like to be disturbed when he was playing the flute. He was a man whose hair had turned gray already in the thankless task of tying up wounds on battlefields where others reaped ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... time or power to deliberate, I know not. My thoughts flowed with tumult and rapidity. To shut this spectacle from my view was the first impulse; but to desert this man, in a time of so much need, appeared a thankless and dastardly deportment. To remain where I was, to conform implicitly to his direction, required no effort. Some fear was connected with his presence, and with that of the dead; but, in the tremulous confusion of my present thoughts, ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... got, and read through all that seemed to concern me the first day. I have doubted whether it would be most considerate to return you thanks for it, making you pay for a letter: or to leave you thankless, with a shilling more in your pocket. You see I have taken the latter [? former], and God forgive me for it. The book is a good one, I think, as any book is, that notes down facts alone, especially about health. I wish we had diaries of the lives of half the unknown men that have lived. Like ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... Longuemare, his face paling, "this is a solemn moment. God help me! It is plain we shall die without spiritual aid. It must be that in other days I have received the sacraments lukewarmly and with a thankless heart, for Heaven to refuse me them to-day, when I have ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... she had slipped away from the merry party, and was by Joe's couch. Joe's heart was very full, full with the newly-awakened sense that he loved and that he was loved; full of earnest resolves to become less selfish, less thankless, less irritable. He knew his lot now, knew all that lay before him, the privations, the restrictions, the weakness, and the sufferings. He knew that he could never hope again to share in the many joys of boyhood and youth; that ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... more thankless task than the attempt to assure shying people that we love them, respect them, and are glad to continue their acquaintance. The instances in which old school-mates meet in the journey of life with a sickening coolness, in consequence of changed circumstances and ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... Curses light upon thy lips for having uttered that detested name! Thousands of miles have I flown to shun the hearing of it. Is the madman here? Have you set eyes upon him? Does he yet crawl upon the face of the earth? Unhappy? Unparalleled, unheard-of, thankless miscreant! Has he told his execrable falsehoods here? Has he dared to utter names so sacred as those ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... and sighed. "I tell you, Grace, it's a thankless job, rearing a family. Connie told me to-day that my collars should have straight edges now instead of turned-back corners. And Lark reminded me that I got my points mixed up in last Sunday's lesson. I'm getting ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... further the adventure on the marshes would be a task at once useless and thankless. In its actual and in its dramatic significance it concluded with our parting from Karamaneh. And in that parting I learned what Shakespeare ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... go. The great need is some work, light, respectable, and yet fairly remunerative, which our country lassies can carry on at home. School teaching is possible, but teaching country district schools is the most thankless of all drudgery, and, besides, a majority of our young women are not able to endure the worry and close confinement. If it can be made successful, sericulture offers by far the best opportunity to country girls to earn their own pin money, or even ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... the remnant which may be to come I am content; and for the past I feel Not thankless—for within the crowded sum Of struggles, happiness at times would steal, And for the present I would not benumb My feelings farther.—Nor shall I conceal, That with all this I still can look around, And worship Nature with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 - Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number • Various
... be obliged To one who loves me not; who, to herself, May call me thankless and ungrateful man:— ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... the doors of the other houses were closed. Even the forlorn Mrs. Starkey seemed to go back almost as happy as when she had issued forth in the evening with her newly found nephew. The sudden gleam of hope which his unlooked-for coming had let in upon a toilsome and thankless life—for we know more about her position in Mr. Manlius's household than we have been at liberty to disclose—had, indeed, gone out in darkness; but the Christmas merriment, and the kindness which for one evening had flowed around her, had so fertilized one little spot in her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... to plot, and others to be plotted against, and others to unravel plots, which is the highest gift of all. This last hath fallen to my share, and a very thankless gift it is, although a rare and choice one. Much of peril too attends it; daring courage and great coolness are as needful for the work as ready wit and spotless honour. Therefore His Majesty's advisers have chosen me for this high task, and they could not have ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... treasure lies, Hidden in chests from human eyes, A fire may come, and it may be Bury'd, my friend, as far from thee. Thy vessel that yon ocean stems, Loaded with golden dust and gems, Purchased with so much pains and cost, Yet in a tempest may be lost. Pimps, and a lot of others,—a thankless crew, Priests, pickpockets, and lawyers too, All help by several ways to drain, Thanking themselves for what they gain. The liberal are secure alone, For what we frankly ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... friend, but that I could not be faithless to the memory of my adored husband. I was very sorry; for he was very angry. He called me cold, silly and even ungrateful, so to reject his hand. I began to think that it was selfish and thankless in me to disappoint so good a friend, but I could not help it, loving the memory of my sainted husband as I did. I was grieved ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... is in no sense your business to dictate to others as to what they may or may not, should or should not, read, and if you attempt to assume such responsibility you will make unnumbered enemies, and take upon yourself a thankless and uncalled-for task. ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana
... later all his local and temporary symbols must be ground to powder, like the golden calf,—word-images as well as metal and wooden ones. Rough work, iconoclasm,—but the only way to get at truth. It is, indeed, as that quaint and rare old discourse, "A Summons for Sleepers," hath it, "no doubt a thankless office, and a verie unthriftie occupation; veritas odium parit, truth never goeth without a scratcht face; he that will be busie with voe vobis, let him looke shortly ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the Reverend Dr. John Strachan, Rector of York, member of the Executive Council, supreme director of the lay and ecclesiastical policy of the Church of England in Upper Canada, champion of the Clergy Reserves, and what not. It may seem a thankless task to write in strong depreciation of a man who, in his day and generation, was looked up to with reverence by a large and influential portion of the community, and whose memory is still warmly cherished by not a few. But truth ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... only leave All things to our Father! Would we only cease to grieve, Wait His mercy rather! Meek resigning childish choice, Graceless, thankless pressing— Listen for His gentle voice, 'Child, receive this blessing!' Faithless, foolish hearts! see you Seeds' earth-hidden growing? What our God for us will do, ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... best land round the cottage to the widow—just enough for her to manage—and she can keep a dairy. If she want capital, I'll lend her some in your name,—only don't tell Stirn; and as for the rent—we'll talk of that when we see how she gets on, thankless, obstinate jade that she is! You see," added the squire, as if he felt there was some apology due for this generosity to an object whom he professed to consider so ungrateful, "her husband was a faithful servant, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his eyes ceiling-ward and complained: "I can't understand why I should be chosen by Providence to act as peace-maker between jealous lovers, or quarrelsome husbands and wives. It is one of the most thankless ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... bitterly—"to bring up daughters, to love them, to toil and save and deny ourselves for them, and then to see some strange man, of whom we have no certain knowledge, carry them off captive to his destiny and his desires. 'Tis a thankless portion to be ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... hand, which he partially immerses: he remains steadfast and unmoved, and we all know that he must be drowned. The multitudes who daily perish in this manner to attest a philosophical truth, and whose bodies the unreasoning wave casts sullenly upon our thankless shores, have a truer claim to be called the martyrs of science than a Galileo or a Kepler. To use Kossuth's eloquent phrase, they are the unnamed ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll
... It may be making too light of criticism to say with Gray that "even a bad verse is as good a thing or better than the best observation that ever was made upon it;" but there are surely few tasks that appear more thankless and superfluous than that of following, as Criticism sometimes does, in the rear of victorious genius (like the commentators on a field of Blenheim or of Waterloo), and either labouring to point out to us why it has triumphed, or still more unprofitably contending that ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... toilers were negroes, most of them, but with here and there among the blacks and yellows a paler face so begrimed with sweat and dust as to be scarcely distinguishable from the majority. The sight moved Griswold, as thankless toil always did; and he fell to contrasting the hard lot of the laborers with that of the group of passengers looking on idly from the comfortable shade of the saloon-deck awning. Griswold's thought vocalized itself in ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... acceptance of the charter, but he had embittered them, by rigorously excluding all except his particular faction from Phips's council. To his deep chagrin, the elections of 1693 went in favor of many of these thankless men, and his discontent soon took the form of an intense longing to go abroad in some official position which would give him importance. The only possible opening seemed to be to get himself made agent to negotiate a charter ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... dared to hope. The evil consequences of his long months of pampering disappeared. Regret for what had been grew faint. He was glad of the present: he held out glad arms to the future—that future of labor, possibly thankless, which he was to dread no more. In fact, he was become a man, honest and clean and strong; and, for a time, he dwelt in peace with his best self, and believed his struggle ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... offence to the King of France, had she complied with Napoleon's repeated demands, to be styled and treated as Emperor—if these things be granted, we do not see how even the shadow of blame can attach to the much-abused ministers, on whom fortune threw one of the most delicate and thankless of all offices. His house was, save one (that of the governor), the best on the island: from the beginning it was signified that any alterations or additions, suggested by Napoleon, would be immediately attended to; and the framework ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... cultivated fruitful soil; two little families near by have thankless and rebellious fields; the two poor families have to serve the opulent family, or slaughter it: there is no difficulty in that. One of the two indigent families offers its arms to the rich family in order to have bread; the other goes to attack it and is beaten. The serving ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... their fate resigned The restless, thankless, rebel kind; Left to themselves, they went to work, First signed a treaty ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... servant, but a private secretary; and that you may be a master as well as a servant, I present you the estate Czernihon, near Rheinsberg. There you will be lord of your peasants and workmen, and learn if it is not a thankless office to rule. Are you satisfied, ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... of the night that the captain discovered the hopelessness of reclaiming the Latin-Grammar-Master. That thankless traitor was found out, as the two ships lay near each other, communicating with The Family by signals, and offering to give up Boldheart. He was hanged at the yard-arm the first thing in the morning, after having it impressively pointed out ...
— Captain Boldheart & the Latin-Grammar Master - A Holiday Romance from the Pen of Lieut-Col. Robin Redforth, aged 9 • Charles Dickens
... had done that in Parliament, he would have been expelled from the House. But of course in Parliament they wouldn't have those horrid things to roll down the aisles. Poor dear Humphrey! The career of a gentleman in politics is a thankless one in this country. I wonder ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Gordon. This was the main object the Khedive and his advisers had in view when they invited Gordon to accept the post of Governor of the Equatorial Provinces in succession to Sir Samuel Baker, who resigned what he found after many years' experience was a hopeless and thankless task. The post was in one sense peculiar. It was quite distinct from that of the Egyptian Governor-General at Khartoum, who retained his separate and really superior position in the administration of the Upper Nile region. ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... of strong temptation to everybody, but especially to Mrs. Kilfoyle, who had in her mind that vivid picture of her precious cloak receding from her along the wet road, recklessly wisped up in the grasp of as thankless a thievin' black-hearted slieveen as ever stepped, and not yet, perhaps, utterly out of reach, though every fleeting instant carried it nearer to that hopeless point. However, she and her neighbours stood the test unshaken. Mrs. Ryan rolled her eyes deliberatively, and said to Mrs. M'Gurk, ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... inexperience, bent herself to the task of reformation and improvement, and teaching Katty Maloney—who was old enough to be her mother—a great many desirable things which she herself did not very well understand. It was thankless work and resulted as such experiments usually do. Katty gave warning at the end of a week, affirming that she wasn't going to be hectored and driven round by a bit of a miss, who didn't well know what she wanted; and that the ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... A thankless creature was Barbro this evening. A new silver ring—she might at least have thanked him nicely for it. It must be that clerk with the town ways that had turned her head. Axel could not help saying: "I'd like to know what that fellow Eleseus keeps coming ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... with incessant care To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's trade And strictly meditate the thankless Muse? Were it not better done, as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair? Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... for the stage in his day was a thankless and almost degrading occupation. "Avowedly I will never write for the stage; if I do, 'call me horse.'" he said in a letter to Terry.[125] Again in a letter to Southey: "I do not think the character of the audience in London is ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... lounged about, visiting all the taverns and digesting his drink in the sunshine. Then, when he had fasted a whole day, he would once more take up his osier with a low growl and revile the wealthy who lived in idleness. The trade of a basket-maker, when followed in such a manner, is a thankless one. Antoine's work would not have sufficed to pay for his drinking bouts if he had not contrived a means of procuring his osier at low cost. He never bought any at Plassans, but used to say that he ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... We are thy thankless children, gracious Lord. The good thou dost afford Lightly do we employ, All careless of the one ...
— Laments • Jan Kochanowski
... placid temper, the Red Sea is favourable for dances and theatricals and, much against his will, Shafto was dragged into "the Neptune" company by Hoskins, a resolute, determined individual, who filled the thankless office of stage manager. Shafto was cast for the part of an old gentleman, the role being softened and alleviated by the fact that he was to undertake to play uncle to Miss Leigh. Although Bernhard had no part in the piece itself, being an authority, he superintended ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... stung with a sudden remorse, seeing her hunchback shape writhing with sobs. For Deborah was crying thankless tears, according to the fashion ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... childhood and early youth were consumed in a solitude of mind, and under a sense of contrariety between her genius and her fate, which had rendered them sad and full of bitterness; her maturer years were tried by cares, privations, and disappointments, and not seldom by unfeeling slights or thankless neglect. The irritability of her constitution, aggravated by inquietude of mind, had rendered her life one long disease. Old age, which she neither wished nor expected to attain, might have found her solitary and ill-provided: now she has taken the wings of the dove to flee away and ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... a thankless child has been, But never one like mine; Her meat was served on plates of gold, Her drink was rosy wine; But now she'll share the robin's food, And sup the common rill, Before her feet will turn again To meet her ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... Mrs. Livingstone and 'Lena. Instantly changing her manner, Mrs. Livingstone motioned her niece from the room, heaving a deep sigh as the door closed after her, and saying that "none but those who had tried it knew what a thankless job it was to rear the offspring ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... of the abusiveness of the class, but a simple and effective rule is to overpay them at once and be done with it. I have sometimes had one cast a sorrowing glance at the just fare pressed into his down-stretched palm, and drive off in thankless silence; but any excess of payment was met with eager gratitude. I preferred to buy the cabman's good-will, because I find this is a world in which I am constantly buying the good-will of people whom I do not care the least for, and I did not see why I should make an exception ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... will be a poet." Hereupon Artemisia and Serventius laughed, and informed me that the profession of a poet, if such it might be termed, was the most laborious, thankless, and ill requited of any, and that to be a poet, was in fact little better than being an honourable mendicant. The Church and the Bar were mentioned, but as I expressed a decided antipathy to them, Serventius named ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 530, January 21, 1832 • Various
... ignorant, the deformed, the blind, the evil, the honest, the mad, and the sane. Some in real professional beggars' style called down blessings on me; others were morose and glum, while some were impudent and thankless, and said to supply them with food was just what I should do, for the swagmen kept the squatters—as, had the squatters not monopolized the land, the swagmen would have had plenty. A moiety of the last-mentioned—dirty, besotted, ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... his body was spent, the force of his will bound him to exhausting toil. No religious zealot ever gave himself to his devotions with more absorbing abandonment than General Fremont to his hard, and, as it has proved, most thankless task. Time will verify the statement, that, whether as respects thoroughness or economy, his administration of affairs at the West will compare favorably with the transactions of any other department of the Government, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... Ulysses sought with slanderous tongue To daunt me, scattering in the people's ear Dark hints, and looked for partners of his wrong: Nor rested, till with Calchas' aid, the seer— But why the thankless story should ye hear? Why stay your hand? If Grecians in your sight Are all alike, ye know enough; take here Your vengeance. Dearly will my death delight Ulysses, well the deed ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... it is the circumstance that gives it value rather than the hero. You may also wish to trace out the action through a series of episodes with many figures. In the latter case you might have recourse to a bas-relief, which, although durable, is usually a thankless work; there is little in it that might not be conveyed in a drawing with distinctness. As some artists, like Michael Angelo, have carried the sculptor's spirit into painting, many more, when painting is the prevalent ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... softly. "Women are made like that. They say they are cats, but Peter there in your lap wouldn't come back and lick your hand if you kicked him. If—if you have to tell her the truth, be as gentle as you can, sir. She has been good to me—that's why I have played the spy here all summer. It's a thankless ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... hands alone employed; his feet were constantly at work with complicated pedaling; his body swayed to and fro; the perspiration poured down his face while he toiled to produce a great crescendo with the feeble means the thankless instrument placed at his command. He stamped, puffed, shouted; his fingers were as swift as the serpent's double tongue; and finally, at the last crash on the keys, he fell back in his chair, resting his head on the ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... one labor to prove that Christ changed the Sabbath? Whoever does this is performing a thankless task. The pope will not thank him; for if it is proved that Christ wrought this change, then the pope is robbed of his badge of authority and power. And no truly enlightened Protestant will thank him; for if he succeeds, he only shows that the papacy has not done the ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith
... respectable, but honorable, alike to the individual, and to the community in which he pursues it: yet, rather than teach a school for a livelihood, the large majority of the same men would "split rails" or cut cord-wood! And this is not because teaching is laborious—though it is laborious, and thankless, too, beyond all other occupations; but because a number and variety of causes, into which we need not inquire, have combined to throw ridicule upon him, who is derisively called the pedagogue—for most men would rather be shot at, than laughed at. Cause and ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... a little proud, insolent puppy. And Miss Evans said he was the most greedy child she ever saw, and so wasteful and thankless, and one of the worst-mannered boys she ever ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... with an air of delivering an unheeded and thankless warning, "it is not for ME to say. P'raps it's all His wisdom that some will keep to their own mind. It's well ez some hezn't narves, and kin luxuriate in terbacker in the night watches. But He says, ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... note in America. I am as sure of the high quality of A Suburban Pastoral as I am sure of anything; and have never found a critic who, after reading the tale, disagreed with me. In 1885 Professor Beers published a little volume of poems, The Thankless Muse; and in 1917 he collected in a thin book The Two Twilights, the best of his youthful and mature poetic production. The variety of expression is so great that no two poems are in the same mood. In Love, Death, ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... advice therefore was that the property should be left to my mother, and that she should have a joint executor. This executor ought to be the most honest of men and the dearest of friends, or he would never perform so very arduous and unprofitable a task with fidelity and effect: a task as thankless as it is laborious, and which nothing should prevail on him to undertake, but the desire to serve some very dear and much ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... claim satisfaction by natural right since they have sought my destruction. As for you Trevirans and all the rest that have the souls of slaves, what reward do you hope to gain for shedding your blood so often in the cause of Rome, except the thankless task of military service, endless taxation, and the rods and axes of these capricious tyrants? Look at me! I have only a single cohort under my command, and yet with the Canninefates and Batavi, a mere fraction of the Gallic ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... could mope in joyless plight, While youth and spring bedeck the scene, And scorn the profer'd gay delight, With thankless heart and frowning mien? See Joy with becks and smiles appear, While roses strew the devious way; The feast of life she bids us share, Where'er our pilgrim ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... have been the means of imposing upon Her Majesty's troops a laborious, ungracious, and apparently thankless duty; but my intentions and motives have been so fully, and I trust, satisfactorily discussed throughout Great Britain, that I dare hope that the officers and men will believe that I invited them to participate in a constitutional ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... pine to death; or if I deign to wound a few more hearts with these golden shafts that arrest my sway, I shall wound you all above in behalf of mortals, while I shall hurl against them blunted darts only that inspire hatred, and produce thankless and cruel rebels. What tyrannical law is this that would bind me to keep my shafts ever ready to serve you, and would have me make conquest upon conquest for you, while you forbid me to make ...
— Psyche • Moliere
... in all the dignity and solemnity of funeral state, awaiting burial. As Sir Bryan toiled at his thankless task he found himself becoming strangely impressed. There seemed to be a weird and awesome significance in the scene. He did not know why it was, but the beetling crags above him, the consciousness of the marvellous plains below, the rhythmic murmur of the wind in the pine trees ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... therefore on her thankless errand and Fisher flung himself down at the table with his face buried in his hands. In this room but a few short hours ago Charlie had faced and turned away his anger with all the courage and sweetness which, combined, had made of him the hero ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... energy displayed in a land where Nature is a godmother, what progress agriculture might make if capital would go into partnership with the soil, which is not so thankless in Champagne as it is in Scotland, where capital has done wonders. The day when agriculture will have conquered the unfertile portion of those departments, and industry has seconded capital on the Champagne chalk, the prosperity of that region will triple itself. Into that land, ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... credulity. When I question the peasants, our neighbours, they tell me that the effect of the egg-shell is as simple as can be: the Butterflies, attracted by the whiteness, come and lay their eggs upon it. Broiled by the sun and lacking all nourishment on that thankless support, the little caterpillars die; and that makes ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... and would need to be radically revised. So the luckless author, having no other recourse, returned to the village of Oggersheim, in the vicinity of Mannheim, and there, with the faithful Streicher to keep him company, he spent the next few weeks, partly upon the thankless revision of 'Fiesco' and partly upon 'Louise Miller', which interested him more. Having done his best with 'Fiesco' he sent it to Dalberg, who curtly refused it a second time. His theatrical hopes thus completely baffled, ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... the public that it is outrageous that we do not serve your Majesty by sending some gold from here; and that even to think of their sending money from there would be to argue that we do not know how to look for it as well as they do in Nueva Espana. It has been a thankless task to make this ruined land profitable, for he who has Indians, or some wealth, keeps it for himself; everyone else comes, with loud complaints, to ask the governor to give them enough to eat from the royal estate. Accordingly, when I came ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... a man won't take the trouble to defend his own honour, it isn't worth—that!" He snapped his fingers with a bitter gesture; then abruptly wheeled and came back to her. "I didn't come here to distress you," he said, looking down at her again. "I know your cup is full already. And it's a thankless task to persuade any woman that her husband is unworthy of her, besides being an impertinence. But what I must say to you is this. There is nothing left to wait for, and it would be sheer madness to ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... fortified? These are mysteries into which I shall not attempt to enter, speculations with which I have no concern; it is sufficient for us to know that all human effort had never seemed to her so barren and thankless as on that fatal afternoon. Her eyes rested on the boats she saw in the distance, and she wondered if in one of them Verena were floating to her fate; but so far from straining forward to beckon her home she almost wished ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James |
