"Toilsome" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Elijah? Well, in the first place, he was tired. He was utterly spent. He had just passed through a very trying and exacting ordeal. We can well imagine that the days just preceding the test upon Carmel were toilsome days and the nights were sleepless nights. Then came the great day of contest and victory. There was, of course, no rest that day. And, in the exhilaration of victory, you know how he ran before the chariot of Ahab from Carmel to Jezreel, ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... the gunners, and their breath issued painfully from their breasts. But they worked on courageously and untiringly, for the emperor stood at their side, lantern in hand, and lighted them during their toilsome task. ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... had informed us in brief, that, after ten years of patient and toilsome experiment, of disappointment, of perishing and reviving hope, he had at length achieved the grand object of his life. He had solved the problem of the navigation of the air. He had proved by actual results, that the great ocean of atmosphere above ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... take upon us to say, that in the strange measure he fell upon, there was not a touch of latent Insanity; whereof indeed the actual condition of these Documents in Capricornus and Aquarius is no bad emblem. His so unlimited Wanderings, toilsome enough, are without assigned or perhaps assignable aim; internal Unrest seems his sole guidance; he wanders, wanders, as if that curse of the Prophet had fallen on him, and he were 'made like unto a wheel.' ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... consumed in wasteful weariness at Dunkirk; and our passage, when at last we set sail, was equally, in its proportion, toilsome and tedious. Involved in a sickening calm, we could make no way, but lingered two days and two nights in this long-short passage. The second night, indeed, might have been spared me, as it was ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... days of which I am speaking the emigrant's journey from the city of Montreal to the townships was toilsome in the extreme; and the same journey, which is now accomplished in a few hours by railway, was then the work of several days; and the only mode of conveyance for themselves and their luggage, were the horse-carts hired for the occasion. But their fatiguing ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... greeting of "Well, folks—" his low gruff voice, his muscular frame, over six feet two, and the kindly calm assurance in his lean strong visage, gave to Bruce and Roger the feeling of safety they needed. For this kind of work was his life. He had specialized on women, and after over fifteen years of toilsome uphill labor he had become at thirty-seven one of the big gynecologists. He was taking his success with the quiet relish of a man who had had to work for it hard. And yet he had not been spoiled by success. He worked even harder than before—so hard, in fact, that ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... for action. Ten a.m. was the hour of starting again, the Royal Irish Fusiliers relieving the King's Royal Rifles as advance guard. A blazing sun beating upon the treeless downs, and a rumour of the enemy having been seen ahead, now made marching toilsome and slow. By 12.30 p.m., less than five miles having been covered, Yule decided to halt again, until darkness should arrive to lessen both the fatigue and the risk of discovery by the enemy. His situation was hazardous in the extreme. Behind him the Boers would be soon ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... life. We carry our fireside concerns to the theatre with us. We do not go thither like our ancestors, to escape from the pressure of reality, so much as to confirm our experience of it; to make assurance double, and take a bond of fate. We must live our toilsome lives twice over, as it was the mournful privilege of Ulysses to descend twice to the shades. All that neutral ground of character, which stood between vice and virtue; or which in fact was indifferent to neither, where neither properly ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... toilsome tho' renowned years 'T is thine to trace the Law's perplexing maze, Or win the SACRED SEALS, whose awful cares To high ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... smoother water within the reeds, and drove along rapidly under bare poles, out of sight of the Hattie, separated at nightfall by miles of raging sea. We rode before the wind to the foot of the lake, where we were confronted by the alternative of a toilsome and unsafe paddle around the coast against the storm's full force, or camping in mutual anxiety as to the fate of the unseen party—a by no means pleasant sedative for a night's rest upon wild and uninhabited shores. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... Inspir'd by us, they glory's heights ascend; Woman the source, the object, and the end. Though wealth, and pow'r, and glory, they receive, These are all trifles to what we can give. For us the statesman labours, hero fights, Bears toilsome days, and wakes long tedious nights; And, when blest peace has silenc'd war's alarms; Receives his full reward in ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... first glance, shows the traces of its author's life. It is the work of a wanderer. The very form in which it is cast is that of a journey, difficult, toilsome, perilous, and full of change. It is more than a working out of that touching phraseology of the Middle Ages in which "the way" was the technical theological expression for this mortal life; and "viator" meant man in his state ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... through his toilsome and complicated daily toilette, this faithful servant would calculate what he should do with the very articles with which he was decorating his master's person. He would make a present of the silver essence-bottles ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in those early years of Methodism were oftener parts of some kind member's home than a regular "parsonage" or "rectory." So when the weary itinerant would return and find that his family had not been entirely neglected in his absence he would take new courage to pursue his toilsome way. ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er
... men find this fascination hidden in labour, provided it only be undertaken at their own bidding, although few have the grace to find it when necessity compels to the task. Alec Trenholme found the new form of labour to which he had bidden himself toilsome and delightful; like a true son of Adam, he was more conscious of his toil than of his delight—still both were there; there was physical inspiration in the light of the snow, the keen still air, and the sweet smell of ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... we were by that kind people, we could not remain longer with them; so we continued our toilsome and solitary journey. The first day was extremely damp and foggy; a pack of sneaking wolves were howling about, within a few yards of us, but the sun came out about eight o'clock, dispersing the fog and also ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... deer-stalking. The deer, once so numerous among these solitary wastes, were now reduced to a very few herds, which, sheltering themselves in the most remote and inaccessible recesses, rendered the task of pursuing them equally toilsome and precarious. There were, however, found many youth of the country ardently attached to this sport, with all its dangers and fatigues. The sword had been sheathed upon the Borders for more than a hundred years, by the peaceful union of the crowns in the reign of James the ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... should saddle and bridle his strongest steed, and up the mountain he rode for many a toilsome hour, until he came to where the ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... who came down for luncheon and went away in the afternoon. He used conscientiously to represent to them the enormous distance of Down from London, and the labour it would be to come there, unconsciously taking for granted that they would find the journey as toilsome as he did himself. If, however, they were not deterred, he used to arrange their journeys for them, telling them when to come, and practically when to go. It was pleasant to see the way in which he shook hands with a guest who was being welcomed for the first time; his hand used to shoot out in ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... island, and indeed of Great Britain, that Irish missionaries and monks were soon found in the chief religious centres of Gaul, Germany, Switzerland, and North Italy, while foreigners found their toilsome way to Ireland to learn Greek! But less prominence has been given to the artistic side of this great reflex movement from West to East than to the other two. The simple facts attest that in the seventh ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... toilsome duties of a courier for two years, having been every where with orders and letters. I was tired of this troublesome and unbecoming business. I sent to the king petition after petition, asking for my discharge, and soliciting for a more honorable appointment. But I was repeatedly ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... this frolic. You are young, and can afford it. I trust you will experience nothing worse than a loss of time, which is, however, valuable. My duty will be, after all your sufferings, to send you forth on your adventures in good condition, and to provide you means for a less toilsome pilgrimage than has hitherto been your lot. Trust me, you will return to Bagdad to accept my offers. At present, the dews are descending, and we will return to our divan, and ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... land The toilsome and patient oxen stand, Lifting the yoke-encumbered[29] head, With their dilated nostrils spread, They silently inhale The clover-scented gale, And the vapors that arise From the well-watered and smoking soil For this rest in the furrow after toil, Their large and lustrous eyes Seem to ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... thought away. I thought of Death returning home on the eve of the great dawn, worn with his age-long work, pleased that at last it was over, and no more need of him: I kept that thought. Along the sky-line they held their slow way, toilsome through weakness, the rider with weary swing in the saddle, the horse with long gray neck hanging low to his hoofs, as if picking his path with purblind eyes. When his rider should collapse and fall from his ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... now going to march east, to effect a junction with a force under Duke Casimir. He is to bring us over six thousand horse, three thousand foot, and four cannon. The march will be toilsome; but the Admiral's skill will, I doubt not, enable us to elude the force with which the enemy will try to ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... himself without trouble to become a pupil in that School—no royal road to the learning which has to be acquired in it. At the present day, just as in the mists of antiquity, the man who wishes to attract their notice must enter upon the slow and toilsome path of self-development—must learn first of all to take himself in hand and make himself all that he ought to be. The steps of that path are no secret; I have given them in full detail in Invisible Helpers, so I need not repeat them here. But it is no easy ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... was springtime again, April 24, when they at last arrived. Their roundabout route had taken them down the Tennessee River, then up the Ohio, and lastly up the Cumberland. The Indians in ambush on the river banks had attacked them many times during their long and toilsome journey, and the boats were so slow and clumsy that it was impossible for them to escape the flights ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... point after point in the regions where they penetrated, and upon the routes leading thither. The western coasts of North America, being reached only by the long and perilous voyage around Cape Horn, or by a more toilsome and dangerous passage across the continent, remained among the last of the temperate productive seaboards of the earth to be possessed by white men. The United States were already a nation, in fact as well as in form, when ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... they mounted—sometimes the rock growing too steep and the ice appearing the easier path, then the reverse, till at last they stood well up on the surface of the frozen river and began its toilsome ascent. ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... the aspect of the country still continues the same, white and dusty, without tree, herbage, or even moss. At length the road seeks a lower level, and approaches the rocky border which bounds the Valley of the Jordan; when, after a toilsome journey of ten or twelve hours, the traveller sees stretching out before his eyes the Dead Sea and the line of the river. But the landscape, however grand, admits of no comparison to the scenery of Europe. No fields waving with corn,—no plains covered ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... and, having laden our boat with all our stores, we commenced our toilsome journey. Our purpose was to make the land, and then to travel along over the ice till we should arrive at some valley, or at the mouth of a river, where we might hope to find some clear water and ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... all things!" said Rienzi. "What a cool and delicious prelude, in these early hours, to the toilsome day." ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... embankments, which had occupied the Romans seventeen days in building, were destroyed; and with them the battering rams, and the greater part of their engines. The work of reconstruction would be far more difficult and toilsome than at first, for the country had been denuded of timber, for many miles off. Moreover, the soldiers were becoming greatly disheartened by the failure of all their ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... secret soul from nightly fears, From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!" —Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride Of the first Edward scatter'd wild dismay, As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side He wound with toilsome march his long array:— Stout Glo'ster stood aghast in speechless trance; "To arms!" cried Mortimer, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... going forward in strong force within the week. There were other officers within call, a dozen of them, who had done nowhere near the amount of field service performed by Dean. He, a troop commander just in from long and toilsome marches and from perilous duty, had practically been relieved from the command of his troop, told to take ten men and run the gauntlet through the swarming Sioux. The more Folsom thought the more he believed that he had grave reason ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... march fearlessly to the cannon's belching throat, and meet death or mutilation upon the field of battle for their Country's cause; not for themselves did they know fear or care for danger, but when the tidings came to them from home, when after toilsome marches, hunger and fatigue, or suffering from wounds received in desperate engagements, when resting a brief hour, and their eyes fell upon missives from home, from wives who bade them go and fight for freedom, and return not with shame upon their brows, when tender thoughts of home, of children ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... post on my intended "derouine,"[1] arrived at Fort Coulonge among the drift ice, and on the 1st December started, accompanied by the interpreter Primeau and another man, all of us with heavy burdens on our backs. This proved the most toilsome trip I had yet undertaken; the smaller lakes only were passable on the ice, and the rivers were nearly all open. The difficulties we thus encountered necessarily retarded our progress, and occupied so much more time ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... divide all into pious people and next to devils see in such a state of evil the natural tendency (as in all other monstrous evils—which this must be if an evil at all) to correction and redress. But now assume a man, sober, honourable, cheerful, healthy, active, occupied all day long in toilsome duties (or what he believes duties) for ends not selfish; this man has never had a thought of death, hell, etc., and looking abroad on those who dwell in such contemplations, he regards them sincerely, not unkindly or with contempt; ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... dawn I was some miles upon my sad journey to Darlington. I had no horse. The way was long and toilsome; and I had had neither time for rest nor appetite for food. I loved my amiable and excellent wife with all the warmth of a youthful husband united to the object of his affections. I am very fond of ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... those vague desires and aspirations which ordinarily sleep, and which can never be expressed because they have no names. Blake lived his shy, mystic, spiritual life in the crowded city, and his message is to the few who can understand. Burns lived his sad, toilsome, erring life in the open air, with the sun and the rain, and his songs touch all the world. The latter's poetry, so far as it has a philosophy, rests upon two principles which the classic school never understood,—that common people are at heart romantic and lovers of the ideal, and that simple ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... in a thing so unworthy as this groaning barbarian. He ran swiftly about from object to object, rapidly lecturing their inattention. "It is now time to go up into the tower," said he, and they gladly made that toilsome ascent, though it is doubtful if the ascent of towers is not too much like the ascent of mountains ever to be compensatory. From the top of Notre Dame is certainly to be had a prospect upon which, but for his fluttered nerves and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... where, despite the current, the dusky boatmen found no special trouble in driving the craft eastward; but, as they progressed, the labor became severer, for the stream narrowed and the velocity of its flow became greater. The portages were long and toilsome, and, as the party advanced, many places were met where these portages became necessary on account of the rapidity of the current alone. All, however, bent resolutely to work, Victor and George taxing their strength to the ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... on to communicate with Sherman. Word came that he was disabled by an accident when on his way back to us, and I was directed to lead the two divisions forward and report to Sherman. After a halt of an hour the men fell into ranks again, and pressing the toilsome march, reached the field at daybreak. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. pp. 303, 311, 320. The official Atlas is again inaccurate in making our line of advance from Sligh's Mill follow the Marietta road instead of that ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... there under the chestnut-trees, upon the river-bank, strong-hearted, high-hearted, a brave, generous woman. What if her days were toilsome? What if her peasant-dress was not the finest woven in the looms of Paris or of Meaux? Her prayers were brief, her toil was long, her sleep was sound,—her virtue firm as the everlasting mountains. Jacqueline, I have singled you from among hordes and tribes and legions upon legions of women, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... first of Men— Sole partner and sole part of all these joys, Dearer thy self than all;— But let us ever praise him, and extol His bounty, following our delightful Task, To prune these growing plants, and tend these flowrs; Which were it toilsome, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... carry away a gift with her. 'Ah, there is the poor old lady,' said the nobleman: 'walking is a great toil to her;' and before my mother understood what he meant, he had gone out of the room and run down the stairs, to save the old woman the toilsome walk, by carrying to her the gift she had come ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... wild and thorny region of the North a brave and toilsome peasantry have long been engaged in victorious conflict with the barren sleep to which nature seemed to have condemned the soil. They have stirred up the sterile depths and watered them with their sweat; they have summoned science ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... appropriated to your use. Your privacy will never be disturbed. Every arrangement shall be made for yourself and your bride, that either of you can suggest. Leisure for your own pursuits you will have, too, in abundance—there are others who will perform all that is toilsome in your office. In London, you will see around you the most eminent living men of all nations, and in all pursuits. If you contract, (which believe me is possible—it is a tempting game,) any inclination ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... splendid show Of Star and Ribbon that bedeck'd the Beau, "For shame, my Lord, she cried, your doubtings cease! With such a wish and such a power to please, As you possess—Oh think not of the strife And labours of the Politician's life! Let heavy Carlo feel the toilsome fate That doth on fruitless Opposition wait! Let clumsy NORTH, unenvied, still preside O'er Britain's welfare, and her Counsels guide! Let purblind GRANTHAM strive, in soothing strain, To calm the fury of revengeful SPAIN! Let gentle STORMONT threat intriguing FRANCE! You shine, ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe
... strayed in the faint blue of the summer dawn, through the fens to the shore, he might reach the wattled cabin of the two old fishermen in the twenty-first idyl. There is nothing in Wordsworth more real, more full of the incommunicable sense of nature, rounding and softening the toilsome days of the aged and the poor, than the Theocritean poem of the Fisherman's Dream. It is as true to nature as the statue of the naked fisherman in the Vatican. One cannot read these verses but the ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... sake, the healthy light returns into his; a hand seizes hers gratefully, and a slow convalescence begins, the happiest period in the wild mother's life. When he longed for flowers for the goddess, she went a toilsome journey to seek them, growing close, after long neglect, wholesome and firm on their tall stalks. The singing she had longed for so despairingly hovers gaily once more within the chapel and around ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... of the dogs announced the arrival of Grelet with several men. They had rowed all the way to Oia and had sailed back, arriving by chance in time to share the abundance of our feast. After the twelve-mile pull in the blazing sun and the toilsome journey back by night this feast was their reward, ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... worked easily by two men, and Zilda determined to work it alone. While she was coming back along the iron road on the top of the narrow embankment, Gilby could see her from where he sat—a stalwart young woman in homespun gown, stooping and rising with regular toilsome movement as she worked the rattling machine that ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... bowed down by time, Feel you the barren flattery of a rhyme? Can poets soothe you, when you pine for bread, By winding myrtles round your ruined shed? Can their light tales your weighty griefs o'erpower, Or glad with airy mirth the toilsome hour?' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... Sweet Water, a sandy plain, one hundred and twenty miles long, conducts, by a gradual and regular ascent, to the summit, about seven thousand feet above the sea; and the traveler, without being reminded of any change by toilsome ascents, suddenly finds himself on the waters which flow to the Pacific ocean. By the route we had traveled, the distance from Fort Laramie is three hundred and twenty miles, or nine hundred and fifty from the mouth ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... after them; and that it is by diligently digesting all the positive results of Shaksperian criticism that he has been enabled to advance the science. He has grasped the principles which Schlegel and Coleridge established, and applied them to the discovery of new truths. By the most patient and toilsome analysis he has fully brought out many things which they simply hinted, and distinctly set forth conclusions which lay dormant in their premises. And in the analysis of individual character, meaning ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... the curves of the summit was rather toilsome, for the snow, which was softened by the blazing sun, was from ten to twenty feet deep, but the view was one of the most impressively sublime I ever beheld. Snowy, ice-sculptured ranges bounded the horizon all around, while the great lake, eighty miles long and ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... of Gymir, Gerda's father, stood in the middle of Joetunheim, so it will not be difficult for you to imagine what a toilsome and wondrous journey Skirnir had. He was a brave hero, and he rode a brave horse; but, when they came to the barrier of murky flame that surrounds Joetunheim, a shudder ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... and joyous, but poesy alone we had not. But now we have the chief poet of the race of men to live with us, immortal among immortals, and the fair and cloudless life that we lead here shall be praised in verses as fair; even as thou, Oisin, did'st praise and adorn the short and toilsome and chequered life that men live in the world thou hast left forever. And Niam my daughter shall be thy bride, and thou shalt be in all things even as myself in the ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... lonely stretch of uphill road, upon whose yellow clay the midsummer sun beat vertically down, would have represented a toilsome climb to a grown and unencumbered man. To the boy staggering under the burden of a brimful carpet bag, it seemed fairly unscalable; wherefore he stopped at its base and looked up in dismay to ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... we passed some abandoned diggings, where little colonies of patient, toilsome Chinamen had established themselves, and were washing and sifting the earth discarded by previous miners; making, we were told, on the average, two or three cents to the pan. The Chinaman regularly pays, as a foreigner (and is almost the only foreigner who does so), his mining-license ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... friend of mine is very ill, I hear, I have not seen his face for many a weary year. Ah, many toilsome days we've spent with little train, And he was poor and weak, ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... of the Greenwoods, hill after hill we scaled, a toilsome length of stony steep ascents, almost precipitous, until we reached the back-bone of the mountain ridge—a rugged, bare, sharp edge of granite rock, without a particle of soil upon it, diving down at an angle not much less than forty-five ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... Accordingly we find several of the largest ecclesiastical edifices, the site and contour of which would otherwise entitle them to distinction, disfigured by some overpowering frontispizio, and presenting a complication of decorative details which distort the outline, and, in spite of toilsome and finished sculpture, mar the truth and elegance of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... followed aye The footsteps of our ever-righteous Lord, His teachings we performed; straightway he raised His baneful voice infect with wickedness:— 'Lo, ye are wretched more than all mankind; Ye go upon wide wanderings, and ye fare On many toilsome journeys; ye give ear Unto a stranger's teachings 'gainst our law; A prince without a portion ye proclaim; 680 Ye say, in sooth, that with the Son of God Ye daily converse hold! The rulers know From what beginning his high race is sprung. In this land he was nourished, and was born A child ...
— Andreas: The Legend of St. Andrew • Unknown
... a toilsome journey; for his thick black locks were tangled and his feet were covered with dust and dried clay. Yet he excited no suspicion; for his bearing was that of a self-reliant freeman, his messenger's pass was perfectly correct, and the letter he produced was ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and woods, my refuge from the toilsome world of business, receive me in your quiet sanctuaries and favour my Retreat and thoughtful Solitude. Ye verdant plains, how gladly I salute ye! Hail all ye blissful Mansions! Known Seats! Delightful Prospects! Majestick Beautys of this earth, and ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... in her youth, received the elements of a good English education. She could read with tolerable fluency, and had taught her children this important branch; but though, when a child, she had learned to write, want of practice and varied duties connected with her toilsome condition, had almost erased the power from memory; and it was with deep regret at her own neglect, that she found her children growing up as ignorant, as herself, of the power of communicating their thoughts through the medium of the pen. It ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... or more of rugged, blinding ice—the sky blue in every part, the sun shining warm, the wind blowing light and balmy from the south. What with the heat, the glare, the uneven, treacherous path—with many a pitfall to engulf us—'twas a toilsome way we travelled. The coast lay white and forsaken beyond—desolate, inhospitable, unfamiliar: an unkindly refuge for such castaways as we. But we came gratefully to the rocks, at last, and fell exhausted in the snow, there ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... walk, however, through the tangled, almost impassable, forest had been very slow and toilsome, and having been involved in its shadow from daybreak, they were, of course, quite unaware of the approach of the steamer or the landing of the ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... could not control herself sufficiently to enter the shop where Mildred stood, unconscious of the approaching shadow, and so the heavy task of breaking the news fell upon Roger. "If Belle, naturally so strong, was white and faint from the long, toilsome day, how wan and ghost-like poor Mildred will appear!" was his thought as he sprang to ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... facilities for settlement and civilization as favorable as any within their reach. The limits of this sketch will not permit details of the progress of this migration. The first difficulty it encountered was the toilsome way to the promised land. All roads, such as they were, crossed the Alleghany Mountains, or followed the longer route by the lakes. A voyage now easily made in a day then occupied sixty days on foot or on horseback, and ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... found that the Spanish bark, the old object of their hopes, had undergone a new metamorphosis: For those we had left onshore began to despair of our return, and conceiving that the lengthening the bark, as formerly proposed, was both a toilsome and unnecessary measure, considering the small number they consisted of, they had resolved to join her again, and to restore her to her first state; and in this scheme they had made some progress; for they had brought the two parts together, and would have soon completed her, had ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... luxury and wealth surrounded, The southern masters proudly dare, With thirst of gold and power unbounded, To mete and vend God's light and air! To mete and vend God's light and air; Like beasts of burden, slaves are loaded, Till life's poor toilsome day is o'er; While they in vain for right implore; And shall they longer still be goaded? Have pity on the slave; Take courage from God's word; Toil on, toil on, all hearts resolved these captives shall ...
— The Liberty Minstrel • George W. Clark
... untoward! Ever spleeny, ever froward! Why these bolts and massy chains, Squint suspicions, jealous pains? Why, thy toilsome journey o'er, Lay'st thou up an useless store? Hope, along with Time is flown; Nor canst thou reap the field thou'st sown. Hast thou a son? In time be wise; He views thy toil with other eyes. Needs must thy kind paternal care, Lock'd ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... welcome; and about two hours hence my father will rise, and you may then do as you please.' This was at one o'clock of the morning. Precisely at three, a little bell rang, announcing that the most laborious and profound lawyer whom England has ever produced, had begun the toilsome business of the day. It was his practice to go to bed at nine in the evening, and wake at three, and, in every other detail of his life, he pursued this with clock-work uniformity. When he saw the papers laid before him by the messenger, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... forced to appear in the Bois with a calm countenance, and gallop beside Marie's carriage in the leisurely style of a man devoid of cares and with no other duties than those of love. When in return for this toilsome and wholly ignored devotion all he won were a few sweet words, the prettiest assurances of eternal attachment, ardent pressures of the hand on the very few occasions when they found themselves alone, he began to feel he was rather duped by leaving his mistress in ignorance of the enormous ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... toilsome and monotonous part of the journey; but four hundred miles still intervened between us and Fort Laramie; and to reach that point cost us the travel of three additional weeks. During the whole of this time we were passing up the center ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... toilsome was his journey through the heavy land of heat, Egypt's blazing sun above him, blistering sand beneath ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... and conquerors of old had no canals for boats, no railways, and not many good roads. Consequently, their invasions and various public enterprises were carried forward in a slow and toilsome manner. Heavy wagons and chariots, the latter sometimes armed with scythes or long blades for battle, were ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... this defile, the travellers advanced with steadily increasing difficulty, the boulders with which their path was strewed growing ever larger and more numerous until at length the narrowing road became completely choked with them, and the only mode of progression was that of a slow, toilsome, dangerous scramble. Still the pair pushed resolutely on, every minute hoping that the difficulties of the journey would come to an end, and every minute less willing to turn back and again encounter the obstacles already surmounted. At length the path became so narrow that one enormous boulder ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... and for a week they toiled to put up a mast of steel, and hang from it a gridiron of copper wires two hundred feet by twelve. The theme of all that time was work, work continually, straining and toilsome work, and all the rest was grim hardship and evil chances, save for a certain wild splendour in the sunset and sunrise in the torrents and drifting weather, in the wilderness about them. They built and tended a ring of perpetual fires, gangs roamed for brushwood ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... him. He accordingly set to work on the first day of winter, and during the night let his horse draw stone for the building. The enormous size of the stones struck the AEsir with astonishment, and they saw clearly that the horse did one half more of the toilsome work than his master. Their bargain, however, had been concluded in the presence of witnesses, and confirmed by solemn oaths, for without these precautions a giant would not have thought himself safe among the AEsir, especially when Thor returned from an expedition he had then undertaken ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... them on their arrival, and settled them in different parts of Maryland and Pennsylvania; withdrawing a certain number of the ablest mechanics and laborers to proceed with him to the newly purchased land, where he and they spent a toilsome fall and winter in preparing habitations for the remainder; and on the 15th of February, 1805, these, and such as they could so early in the season gather with them, formally and solemnly organized themselves ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... house, and shone there in the sunlight like a blue precious stone. The boy gazed at it, leaning on his spade. Jerome always looked hard out of all his little open windows of life, and saw every precious thing outside his daily grind of hard, toilsome childhood which came within ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... cases. At present I know of but one stage in all England where a traveller, without regard to weight, is called upon to take four horses; and that is at Ambleside, in going by the direct road to Carlisle. The first stage to Patterdale lies over the mountain of Kirkstone, and the ascent is not only toilsome, (continuing for above three miles, with occasional intermissions,) but at times is carried over summits too steep for a road by all the rules of engineering, and yet too little frequented to offer any means of repaying the cost of smoothing ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... "Yes; the road lying through the valley of the Danube is level; the one that leads to Vienna by the Kahlenberg is steep and toilsome." ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... lies off yonder to the right, along the slope of the mountain, to the nearest point at which it will be possible for us to cross the ravine; and when we have accomplished that, there will still be a toilsome ride of some three hours before us, ere we can hope to emerge from the ravine on the other side. We shall be fortunate if we accomplish so much before we ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... in the course of a generation or two, die out. He was clear in his mind that slavery was an enormous evil for the whites as well as for the blacks, for the individual as for the nation. He had himself, as a young man, been brought up to do toilsome manual labour. He would not admit that there was anything in manual labour that ought to impair the respect of the community for the labourer or the worker's respect for himself. Not the least of the evils of slavery was, in ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... need to describe the toilsome journey, it was accomplished in due time, and once more Esperance was safe in his ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... of miles east of his destination he took the stage. It was rather a toilsome mode of traveling, but he obtained a good idea of the country through which ...
— Andy Grant's Pluck • Horatio Alger
... a formidable appearance. A toilsome march over these "Alps rising over Alps!" a voyage in "a sea without a shore!" has turned away most historians from their severer duties; those who have grasped at early celebrity have been satisfied to have given a new form to, rather than contributed ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... are now, there is a perpetual pressure by population on the sources of food. Vice and misery cut down the number of men when they grow beyond the food. The increase of men is rapid and easy; the increase of food is in comparison, slow, and toilsome. They are to each other as a geometrical increase to an arithmetical; in North America, the population double ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... not without a certain interest; for we take a species of pleasure in hearing or learning the technical terms of any art, trade, or pursuit whatsoever, and not often to American eyes comes the chance of becoming acquainted with the huntsman, the whipper-in, the ride to cover, and the eager, toilsome, dangerous chase. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... moment the men announced that everything was ready for our ascent, and when I had attended to Joshua with a heart made thankful by Higgs's news, we began that toilsome business, and, as I have already said, at length accomplished it safely. But even then our labours were not ended, since it was necessary to fill up the mouth of the shaft so as to make it impossible that it should be used by the Fung, who now knew ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... 22, at 8.30 a.m., the caravan moved off — eight men, seven sledges, and forty-two dogs — and the most toilsome part of our whole expedition began. As usual, we began well from Framheim. Lindstrom, who was to stay at home alone and look after things, did not stand and wave farewells to us. Beaming with joy, he made for the hut as soon as the last sledge was in motion. He was visibly relieved. ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... the mother is born again with her child. It is so with unperverted nature, as God meant it to be; and you shall hear from the lips of an Irish washer-woman a genuine poetry of maternal feeling, for the little one who comes to make her toil more toilsome, that is wholly withered away out of luxurious circles, where there is every thing to make life easy. Just as the Chinese have contrived fashionable monsters, where human beings are constrained to grow in the ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... by a native boy to carry a small portmanteau and to serve me as a guide. As, on my former journey, we travelled many miles through thick tangled forests, fatiguing beyond description. In the midst of our toilsome progress, night frequently overtook us; then, by means of my fowling-piece, I procured a light, the boy made a fire, and we passed the night in this vast wilderness, far from the habitation of any human ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... Ottawa was so slow, so toilsome, the days such a routine of labor and hardship, the scenes along the shore so similar, that I lost all conception of time. Except for the Jesuit I had scarcely a companion, and there were days, I am sure, when we did not so much as exchange ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... carrying a leathern travelling bag, worn and rusty, in her feeble hand. Along the highway, up to the gates of that noble park, she travelled with the slow, toilsome step of old age; but when she came to the gates they were closed, and her voice was so feeble that it failed to reach the lodge, from which she could see lights gleaming ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... last, Setting a watch upon my unwise heart, That thus would mix its sorrow with my art, I resolutely shut away the past, And made the toilsome present passing bright With dreams of what was hidden from my sight In the far distant future, when the soil Should yield me golden fruit for ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Saint Walpurga (an English nun, who came to Germany in the eighth century) became associated with this Witches' Sabbath, as the 1st of May was sacred to her. To this midnight orgy of the Walpurgisnacht Mephistopheles takes Faust.... They are lighted on their toilsome ascent of the Blocksberg by a will-o'-the-wisp. A vast multitude of witches and goblins are flocking to the summit; the midnight air resounds with their shrieks and jabberings; weird lights flash from ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... and to allegorize the life of a Christian, from his conversion to his death. His doubts are giants, his sins a pack, his Bible a chart, his minister, Evangelist, his conversion a flight from the City of Destruction, his struggle with besetting sins a fight with Apollyon, his death a toilsome passage over a deep stream, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... Each day is for me more difficult, and therefore, Ramses, Thou wilt begin to share the burden of rule with me. As a hen teaches her chicks to search out grains of corn and hide before the hawk, so I will teach thee that toilsome art of ruling a state and watching the devices of enemies. May Thou fall on them in time, like an ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... he, and blithely the gay bells sound, As glides his sleigh o'er the frozen ground; Hark! he has pass'd the dark pine wood, He crosses now the ice-bound flood, And hails the light at the open door That tells his toilsome journey's o'er. The merry sleigh-bells! My fond heart swells And throbs to hear the welcome bells; Ding-dong, ding-dong, o'er ice and snow, A voice ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... He came on with the eye of a tyrant, and the voice of a lion, urging his breathless and eager soldiers." Two sallies were on the instant executed by these troops, hot as they were from their long and toilsome march. The Allies were driven back for some space. Night set in, and the two armies remained in presence till the morning. Then, amidst a fierce storm of wind and rain, Napoleon renewed the battle. 200,000 men (such had ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... places from which he kept watch on the plains below? On hearing of her brother's escape, she felt convinced that it was to this hut that the pedlar would conduct him, and there, at night, she repaired alone—a toilsome and ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... favour man? Can they wrong man? The unapproachable skies? Though these gave strength to the strong man, And wisdom gave to the wise; When strength is turn'd to derision, And wisdom brought to dismay, Shall we wake from a troubled vision, Or rest from a toilsome day? ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... reason to believe that the wedded life of these two was thoroughly happy, save that Lassus was an indefatigable fiend of work. As his biographer Delmotte says, "His life indeed had been the most toilsome that one could think of, and his fecund imagination, always alert, had enfante a multitude of compositions so great that their very number astounds us (they exceeded two thousand), and forbids us almost to believe them the work of one man. This incessant tension ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... the principal features of what has been denominated "Southern Buddhism" amongst the Singhalese; as distinguished from "Northern Buddhism" in Nepal, Thibet, and China.[2] The latter has been largely illustrated by the labours of Mr. B.H. HODGSON and the toilsome researches of M. CSOMA of Koerroes in Transylvania; and the minutest details of the doctrines and ceremonies of the former have been unfolded in the elaborate and comprehensive collections of Mr. SPENCE HARDY.[3] ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... morning of the 11th of February, 1861, Lincoln left his home in Springfield for the scene where he was to spend the most anxious, toilsome, and painful years of his life. An elaborate programme had been prepared for his journey to Washington, which was to conduct him through the principal cities of Indiana, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... every nerve; spare no efforts, spare no pains; go all lengths; go through fire and water &c (resolution) 604; move heaven and earth, leave no stone unturned. Adj. laboring &c v.. laborious, operose^, elaborate; strained; toilsome, troublesome, wearisome; uphill; herculean, gymnastic, palestric^. hard-working, painstaking; strenuous, energetic. hard at work, on the stretch. Adv. laboriously &c adj.; lustily; pugnis et calcibus [Lat.]; with might and main, with all ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... through Selim's dominions, and on the sixth day entered the territory of King Gorkol. The frontier was marked by a range of hills, and the passage of so large a force over these was a toilsome and tedious operation. The Caliph and king had each a large tent for his own use, and a small army of officers and attendants to ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... exterior of the collegians, an accurate observer might pretty safely judge how long they had been inmates of those classic walls. The brown cheeks and the rustic dress of some would inform him that they had but recently left the plough to labor in a not less toilsome field; the grave look, and the intermingling of garments of a more classic cut, would distinguish those who had begun to acquire the polish of their new residence; and the air of superiority, the paler cheek, the less robust form, the spectacles of green, and the dress, in general ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... very lucubrations, perceive my initials, and recognize my name? How many pleasing associations will thus be awakened, and peradventure commendatory remarks expressed, concerning my powers? What a quid pro quo for wakeful nights, emendations of phrases, the choosing of words, and toilsome revision! The other day,' he continues, 'while reading the proof-sheet of my article in the last KNICKERBOCKER, I fell into a train of reflection upon the large amount of care and labor which must be entailed upon the publisher and editor of an original Magazine. Some ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... resting, preparations were made for marching, and with haversacks well filled with bread and meat, the troops started in good spirits. Terence procured the services of a peasant well acquainted with the mountains, and was led by paths used by shepherds across the hills, and after a twelve hours' toilsome journey came down into the defiles that the French were following. There he learned from peasants, that, with the exception of a small scouting party two days before, there were no signs of ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... parents are uncertain, and have to be long waited for. He who plants a vine in the spring equinox, gleans its vintage in the autumnal equinox; he who sows corn when the Pleiads set, reaps it when they rise; cattle and horses and birds have produce at once fit for use; whereas man's bringing up is toilsome, his growth slow; and as excellence flowers late, most fathers die before their sons attain to fame. Neocles lived not to see Themistocles' victory at Salamis, nor Miltiades Cimon's at the Eurymedon, nor did Xanthippus hear ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... sundered. It almost seems as if in the minds of Greek poets and philosophers there lingered some dim half-conscious remembrance that some of these gods at least actually came out of the ritual dance. Thus, Plato,[48] in treating of the importance of rhythm in education says: "The gods, pitying the toilsome race of men, have appointed the sequence of religious festivals to give them times of rest, and have given them the Muses and ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... grew thin; A solemn oath he sware That if he failed the prize to win His bones should molder there. Two toilsome months had worn away, Two hundred men were slain, His bold assaults were baffled still, And all ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... two girls were at home and undisturbed in the quiet farm house, the mountaineering party, headed by Sigurd, were well on their way towards the great Fall of Njedegorze. They had made a toilsome ascent of the hills by the side of the Alten river—they had climbed over craggy boulders and slippery rocks, sometimes wading knee-deep in the stream, or pausing to rest and watch the salmon leap and turn glittering somersaults in the air close above the diamond-clear water,—and ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli |
